By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
A local juice venture has sprouted in downtown Bowling Green.
Little Roots is an off shoot of Local Roots, of Perrysburg. The new shop is located in the rear of Eden Fashion Boutique, 186 S. Main St.
Appropriately for the shop the sells juices full of garden goodness, it faces the Greenery space behind the store.
A fair amount of serendipity was involved in Little Roots coming to Bowling Green.
The founder of Local Roots Ashley Balester was looking to open a pop-up operation in Bowling Green. She felt there was untapped potential for her organic juices and snacks in the college town. “The younger crowd does appreciate a genuine clean organic product. … Something that’s quick and genuinely healthy.”
She talked to her friend Kati Thompson, BG’s economic development director, and asked her to let her know if she heard of any open places.
Thompson informed her that she and her husband, Dave, had purchased the building that Eden was in, and there was space in the back facing the Greenery, a project they had spearheaded.
Little Roots carries bottled fruit and vegetable juices that are blended at the Local Roots in Perrysburg. In addition to the juice, it sells snacks, such as raspberry chia bits and overnight oats as well as local honey. For now the shop will be open 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. weekdays, but Balester foresees expanding that to seven days a week.
The mother shop offers a larger line of products including toast and smoothies.
“We have a very large commercial cold-press juicer, and we juice every day in our Perrysburg location,” Balester said. They use fresh organic produce.
“A cold press drink is not just something you drink when you’re thirsty. There’s a lot more than that. There’s value in every bottle, a lot of labor goes in, a lot of flavor.”
Little Roots opened about two weeks ago, just in time to serve a rejuvenating juice to folks who may have indulged the weekend before at the Black Swamp Arts Festival.
Balester quipped that maybe a Sunday morning drink would do well with college students.
It’s all in keeping with what employee Hannah Davis said was the company’s guiding principle, “healthy is happy.”
“We create the recipe to balance flavor nutrition, and also price to make it affordable,” Balester said. “It’s really something you want to search for when you want to give your body a lot of nutrients. It boosts your immune system and really kind of resets if you had a weekend of not-so-healthy eating. It’s a great way to reset.”
Opening Local Roots in 2017 amounted her resetting her life.
Balester’s husband, Collin Balester, was a professional baseball player, mostly in the Washington Nationals system, but also with the Tigers, Reds and in Japan.
As the wife of a professional athlete, she said, “our work is in the shadows.”
“We keep together the whole glue of the family, the children, where we’re living, and all the details as he lives out his dream of playing professional sports.
“People would ask me ‘what are you going to do?’” She’d replied: “I’ll have my turn to do something.”
The 2005 graduate of Perrysburg High is the daughter of an entrepreneur. Her father Gail Sterling owned a jewelry store, which her brother Christian Sterling still operates in Levis Commons as C Sterling Jewelers.
She attended Owens Community College and received a degree in communications from Ohio State.
In the summer of 2017 when her husband’s career as a pitcher was winding down, the pull of entrepreneurship “kicked in.”
The venture combines her love of nutrition, cooking and plant life. “It combines all my talents that I’m still developing.”
As the family traveled around the country, she loved to find small juice shops. Now she wanted to start one in her hometown of Perrysburg.
The value of her product was confirmed when earlier that year her mother, Becky Sterling, had “a cancer scare.”
“I’m very much into the natural healing world,” she said. In her research she found people who reversed and healed their illness with the benefits of carrot and other vegetable juices.
“That really piqued my interest,” she said. “So we took a huge leap of faith, and said ‘let’s go.’”
The “stars aligned” and a former barbershop became available.
All this transpired while her husband was in California playing ball, and she was in Perrysburg with their three daughters.
“I went to bank meetings with babies on my hip,” Balester said. “I had contractors meeting in my home while the kids napped, and I did my restaurant training online at night. It was a really hard working summer, but a necessary one to help transition from my husband’s income as a professional athlete. We needed something.”
She added: “By the grace of God, the community has supported us. It’s been an awesome thing for us. … I just knew God pointed me in the right direction.”
Just as the shop was getting established she learned she was pregnant for the couple’s fourth child. She knew the shop had to be working smoothly enough to do without her “because I value being home with my children.”
She now employs 12 part-time workers. “I respect them a lot.” They tend to stay with her.
Balester said the business flourished during the pandemic. Most of the product is grab and go. “We were one of those businesses that dug our heels in and did what we could to keep going.”
The Little Roots shop in Bowling Green is a cautious step toward expansion.
Because of state regulations, she cannot wholesale the fresh cold-pressed juice. It can only be sold in a shop owned by Local Roots.
Some people have suggested she franchise the business. She’s not interested.
“There’s a lot of value in keeping things small and manageable,” Balester said. “So much can be lost in trying to get too big too quickly.”
She does envision a larger shop in BG, one that offers the full range of products found in Perrysburg. But she’s in no rush. “I’m learning to be patient and let God dictate what’s right for our family and business.”
