There will be 33 winners in total. 20+13!

It’s running from 31st Dec 2012 to 3rd January 2013 with the winners being drawn at random thereafter.

The prizes:
20 prizes of a free smoothie
13 prizes of  lunch and a drink for two people

How to enter:
Check out our menu and tell us your favourite thing on it! You can tell us via twitter, facebook or by emailing us via hello@hulajuicebar.co.uk

The rules:
One entry per person per contact method
Entries accepted via
a. twitter, including @hulajuicebar and #hulamanay on your tweet
b. facebook.com/hulajuicebar
c. susan@hulajuicebar.co.uk
You can abbreviate your entry if you’re using Twitter
Usual Twitter house rules apply
The vouchers will have an expiry date of 30 June 2013
Prize detail: 20 x smoothie prizes at a value of £3.45 each | 13 x lunch prizes at a value of approx £20 each

So go on, have a look at our menu page and tell us your favourite thing on there.

That’s all you have to do!

Good luck everyone and thank you for being there with us through 2012.

Love Susan and all at Hula x

You can imagine my delight when Avalanche Records, the fine record shop in the Grassmarket got in touch with an idea to make a video about this very topic. Use ‘em or lose ‘em is more than a catchy saying. It’s an absolute truth. We are committed to staying independent, and preserving our tiny corner of this World Heritage Site as a chain free zone. Every single shop and outlet in this area is an independent, positive and passionate, with a real sense of place. Support us, please. You can do that just by watching this great little video Shop Independent at the Grassmarket and sharing with your friends if you can.

Thank you!

Susan

Shop Independent at the Grassmarket

Every week I receive a range of interesting emails, tweets and personal appearances requesting Hula to support or get involved in ventures and events. What a joy to hear from The Edinburgh Sketcher!

Last week it also included a local school’s raffle, which we have done over the past 5 years and are happy to continue to support; Providing catering for an amateur film project, which fizzled out before it came to anything; Handing over the cafe for a film set for a major feature film (they went with another place in the end – sad faces) and, finally, stocking The Edinburgh Sketcher’s charity Christmas cards. (In aid of the Sick Kids charity.)

This one, I am very happy to say, I said yes to immediately.

Local people are familiar with the Edinburgh Sketcher’s blog and his regular #wherearti quizzes, the amusing and often frustrating location-based challenges played out on Twitter. We regularly incorrectly guess the answer!

The Christmas cards are instore and they are beautiful. £5 for 6 cards, with £1 going to the Sick Kids charity. Thanks to some favourable mentions on Facebook by Edinburgh Spotlight and tweets by lots of other locals, we have had quite a few sales and it feels real good as this is entirely a goodwill project for us.

Jennie and Marie made lovely displays for them, and we ‘clothes-line’ displayed them on the gallery wall of our wee juice café for a long weekend. Although we have now hung our December exhibition on that wall, the cards are still available instore and will be right up until Christmas.

On Saturday I met with The Edinburgh Sketcher himself at Hula for a coffee and to put up some large framed prints of the cards, lovely man, nice to finally meet the face behind #wherearti

Susan

Yelp Edinburgh, an organisation we like, one which quietly promotes fairness and ethics in terms of online reviewing, has put together a line up of 15 of the most interesting independent food and drinks producers in Edinburgh to supply their wares to over 200 locals.

Similar to the Springtime Spectacular event which we participated in last April, but his time with a wintry theme. You can read about the April event and see the photos here: http://communityblog.yelp.com/2012/05/yelp-edinburghs-springtime-spectacular.html

Hula is proud to be invited along as part of the line up which includes MacSweens, The Chocolate Tree and our Victoria Street neighbours, Oink. Within this context, we thought carefully about what to provide, how we would present Hula’s fayre to compliment the selection. Our focus on coffee is immense as some of you will know, our juices and smoothies represent us as a brand, our bagels and soups are to die for and are always well reviewed on Yelp and other sites and blogs. In the end we decided on a juice and cake combination, and are putting plans together for our very special Hula stall at this exclusive event.

Of course this won’t be just any old cake and juice stall… this is Hula after all. In our suitcase we’re packing blenders, juicers, and all the usual, but also a tea urn, a soup kettle and enough fresh ginger to rival Boots’ entire supply of the flu jab. You’ll have to swing by on the day to find out what it is all about!

And as for the cake, oh the cake! We’ve placed a huge order with both of our fantastic gluten-free wheat-free bakers (Love Pure Cakes and Mrs C’s cakes) for a range of exceptional loafs, bakes and bites to make available at the event. There will be no guilt at all when tucking into the Hula stall, with many dairy free samples in the mix as well.

Our props and decorations will all be real, fresh, fragrant and edible, sourced from our local fruit and veg suppliers. We’ll stop short at wearing a pineapple on our heads (but you know we considered it.)

Exciting, isn’t it? See you there Edinburgh.

http://www.yelp.co.uk/events/edinburgh-yelps-winterfall-wonderland

Expect to read about often humorous events from the past, take nostalgic trips into the history of the building and the area, read about nutrition and flavour, plus upcoming exhibitions as well as recollections of past ones.

So the first blog post. Is this how everyone feels when they start?

Let’s pick a story, any story.

Let’s see…

Ok, picture this scene, imagining you were standing in the sidelines watching and overhearing the whole thing unfold, as I was:

You’re from New Zealand. You’ve come over to Scotland to make a new life and you know hardly anyone yet but you like this Edinburgh town. You think you might stay and look for a nice place that will appreciate your barista and management skils. You apply to Hula, the quirky wee smoothie cafe. You like them, they like you, you get the job. You start. Everyone’s nice, the foods healthy, the music’s pretty eclectic, the customers are becoming friends. It’s ok. You miss home. A lot. One fine day three guys walk in the door and ask you what juice they should have. You’re qualified to answer that now, you start to talk to them about vitamins and flavour. They love the fact there’s a juice called ‘Rarotonga’ on the Hula menu (hardly anyone gets that and this tickles you as you’re one of the people who does.) You’ve been to the island too. In that second your mind blows. You’ve just realized you’re talking one of your favourite bands and they’re as far from home as you are. They’re from New Zealand and they’re HUGE. They played New York city, last night. They are The Black Seeds. You don’t know it yet but after you make them their juice they’re going to hand you a ticket to their show tonight. And you will be stoked.

This is the kind of thing that happens.