New juice, tea bar opens in downtown Macon. What’s on the menu?

Macon Made Nutrition, a health-conscious tea and juice bar that offers more than 250 varieties of drinks , held its grand opening Feb. 7 in downtown Macon.

The drinks offered are made with no sugar, owner Cheyenne Bennett said, as opposed to caffeinated alternatives like coffee that often contain sweeteners.

“I was so addicted to getting out and getting my morning drink, and it was full of sugar, so you have your afternoon crash and you’re just craving something else to carry you through the day,” Bennett said. “With how fast society moves and everybody’s just go, go, go constantly, that’s what people are really relying on is caffeine 24/7.”

Customers seeing the vast menu for the first time — a binder at the front counter has more than a dozen pages of drinks and the myriad flavors they contain — can ask for help as they narrow down their choices between tea or protein shake, sweet or sour options and how much caffeine or other add-ins they would like to include in their drink.

On one page, Southern symbols like the “Lucky Peach” and “Magnolia” are honored with their own teas. Loretta Lynn, a member of the country music hall of fame, is remembered with an eponymic drink flavored with strawberry, cotton candy and pina colada.

Next to a forest green countertop Bennett’s husband built specially for the location at 362 Second Street, a refrigerator holds jello shots stocked with dietary supplements like vitamin B-12, collagen and aloe.

The shots can be taken separately from the drinks, Bennett said, so their taste does not overpower the flavor of the fruity tea or protein shake, but there are non-flavored options of some of the supplements that can be included.

Customers can get a non-caffeinated tea in two sizes — 20 and 32 ounces — but they can increase the caffeine content of their 32-ounce drink from 75 to 275 milligrams. A cup of coffee falls just below 100 milligrams of caffeine while a serving of Coca-Cola contains a third of that.

And for customers looking for a quick bite, Macon Made Nutrition offers protein balls with up to 20 grams of protein and parfaits that can include toppings like graham crackers.

The shop opens at a time when “functional drinks” are booming in popularity across the country and products like coffee and candy bars are being protein-fortified to meet consumer demands for health-oriented beverages, multiple media outlets have reported.

“I really like to have a drink,” Bennett said. “Everybody has a drink nowadays.”

The store is supplied by HerbaLife, a nutrition supplement giant that contracts with a number of similar establishments across Middle Georgia. Macon Made Nutrition’s sister store, The Ville Nutrition, is located in Milledgeville and has been in the Georgia College and State University town for nearly two years, Bennett said.

Stepping inside, customers are greeted by a bright interior with track lighting illuminating Allman Brothers Band records and a chalkboard bearing the drink of the day.

The checkerboard-pattern floor on the inside mirrors the black and white tiles that lead into the shop that used to house Macon Clay, a pottery-making business that has since relocated to Savannah. Renovating the space took about three months, Bennett said, and the historic building had its fair share of surprises.

“Next door, there was a trick magic shop and I found some old ephemera under the floor,” she said. “I was crawling under there and I’m like, ‘Let me try to find something underneath.’”

Much of the decor found in the establishment comes from local estate sales, Bennett said, including a stack of Mercer University’s yearbook, The Cauldron, from the 1950s and 60s.

The shop employs Bennett’s daughter, Emma, who runs deliveries within an hour’s radius of downtown Macon, Bennett said. Personal deliveries are part of what sets Macon Made Nutrition apart, Bennett said, because even if the drink is not picked up in-store, the customer can still have a face-to-face interaction with a member of the juice bar.

Bennett said the store’s hours may change in the coming weeks as she determines when foot traffic peaks and ebbs, but for now, the store is open from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday to Friday and 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday.