Ruby Jean’s Kitchen & Juicery, named after the late grandmother of founder Chris Goode, was created with a dedication for health and longevity in mind.

Chris Goode was a freshman in high school on the football team when his grandmother Ruby Jean passed away from complications related to Type II diabetes, an illness he attributes largely to her growing up on a diet focused on ‘soul food’. The experience of watching his grandmother and other members of his family suffer from preventable disease was the spark for a passionate run towards health food later in life.

 

For years, Chris was a “Traveling Catastrophe Adjuster” - a fancy term for someone who travels to disaster sites in order to assess damages done for insurance claims. Consequently, he traveled constantly for work, and found himself seeking juicing to stay healthy on the road. One day, he woke up in a hotel room and couldn’t even remember what city he was in - that was the breaking point. He decided he was going to get out of the rat race somehow and started saving up every penny he could. And then it hit him what he would do:  

"When I was traveling, in every city, I would go to juice bars. Anytime I traveled I would get menus and take pictures, I was doing market research but didn’t even know it - it was just what I liked. And then in Chicago one day, I had my juicer and had a cup of desk on the juice and I’m sitting there praying, looking at my tattoos, looking at my juicer and I thought - I really love juicing and I really love grandma, I love being healthy, what can I do with that? And it was like God reached through the clouds and was like: 'Dude, open a juice bar and dedicate it to your grandma!'"

~Chris Goode

While he first dedicated “every game and every play” as a college football player to the memory of his grandmother and his aunt, he now dedicates his passion for bringing healthy, nutritious whole foods to communities in the Midwest with Ruby Jean Juicery - and it’s working. His vision for providing healthy nutrition continues to expand, with 6 new locations including a juice truck on his plate right now.  

"It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever imagined doing, but the most rewarding at the same time - the feeling of freedom is like you couldn’t even compare it. Money isn’t the finish line and I know my heart is in the right place."

~Chris Goode

We were super thrilled to begin working with him on his new juicery and cafe on Troost, and look forward to everything that’s ahead for his vision.

"I like to do business with good people, local is really important for me, but beyond local, I’m looking to work with genuine good people. There’s a synergy with what Messenger is doing, and I [especially] like the quality and the scale of what you’ve built … I want people to walk in here and have really good coffee from a really good local brand."

~Chris Goode