Meet Ooh La Lemonade: Fresh Squeezed Favorites and a Menu Made for a Little Fun

Aug 24

Lauren Sisemore has spent 16 years caring for people as a nurse. With Ooh La Lemonade, she found another way to serve people, this time with fresh squeezed lemonade, creative drinks, sweet treats and a growing fleet of mobile trailers.

By Sara Turney

There are dozens of flavors you could add to a fresh squeezed lemonade at Ooh La Lemonade, but two of Lauren Sisemore’s creations have a habit of stopping people in their tracks.

Tomato.

Pickle.

Yes, both are lemonades.

Lauren knows exactly what happens when customers see them.

“They usually raise a few eyebrows at first,” she says, “but once people try them, they’re pleasantly surprised by how refreshing and flavorful they are.”

That willingness to have a little fun with the menu is a good introduction to Ooh La Lemonade, a family owned mobile drink business that has grown from a tent setup into multiple trailers serving events across North Georgia and Tennessee. A third trailer is now on the way.

Fresh squeezed lemonade remains the heart of the business, but Lauren has never been particularly interested in stopping there. The menu has expanded to include limeades, Lotus energy drinks, dirty sodas, specialty coffees, boba drinks and shaved ice, along with hot dogs, loaded popcorn and fresh baked treats.

She is constantly thinking about what to add next.

Considering that Lauren also works full time as a nurse, raises a family and has spent 16 years in healthcare, it is fair to wonder when she finds the time.

Apparently, somewhere between the late nights and weekends, she is also thinking up tomato lemonade.

It started with fresh squeezed lemonade

Ooh La Lemonade began with Lauren wanting to build something of her own without walking away from a career she already cared deeply about.

“I’ve always loved serving people, and I wanted to create a fun business that brought families together and gave our community something unique,” she says.

The first version was simple. Lauren started with fresh squeezed lemonade and a tent, taking the business to events one at a time.

The setup may have been modest, but the idea behind it was already taking shape.

Lauren did not want to simply hand someone a drink and move on to the next transaction. She wanted Ooh La Lemonade to feel like an experience, with customers welcomed back, regulars remembered and enough creativity on the menu to give people something new to discover.

“My goal is simple,” she says. “To create an experience, not just serve a drink.”

Customers responded.

The tent grew into a mobile trailer. Then the business expanded again. With a third trailer now on the way, Ooh La Lemonade is preparing to take on more festivals, private events and catering opportunities.

Lauren still remembers where it began.

That is why, despite everything else now available at the window, fresh squeezed lemonade remains the signature.

If you only order one thing

Lauren does not hesitate when asked what a first time customer should try.

Get the lemonade.

Each one is squeezed fresh and made to order, and customers can customize their drink from dozens of available flavors. That combination of a simple base and almost endless possibilities has allowed the original product to grow right alongside the business.

“Our fresh squeezed lemonade best represents our business because it’s where our journey began,” Lauren says. “It’s handcrafted, made with quality ingredients, and completely customizable, just like the experience we want every customer to have.”

The flavored lemonades remain the bestsellers, but the rest of the menu gives regulars plenty of reasons to explore.

There are limeades and boba drinks, specialty coffee and Lotus energy drinks, dirty sodas and shaved ice. Customers looking for something to eat can find hot dogs, loaded popcorn and baked treats.

Then there are those tomato and pickle lemonades.

They have become conversation starters precisely because people do not expect them. In a lineup full of familiar fruit flavors, seeing “pickle” attached to lemonade is enough to make someone stop and ask a question.

For Lauren, that is part of the fun.

She likes creating new recipes and coming up with menu ideas even when she is technically away from the business. Some of those experiments become the kind of drinks customers talk about after the event is over.

A menu that changes with the season

Ooh La Lemonade does not pack up its personality when summer ends.

Lauren creates seasonal menus throughout the year, shifting toward hot coffee, hot chocolate and hot apple cider during fall and winter. Holidays and special events bring limited time flavors and specialty drinks, giving customers something different to look for as the seasons change.

That approach suits a mobile business built around festivals and community events.

The setting is always changing, so the menu can have a little freedom to change with it.

A cold lemonade makes sense on a hot afternoon surrounded by festival crowds. A cup of hot cider can feel completely different when the temperature drops and the same kind of event is filled with sweaters and fall decorations.

Ooh La Lemonade gets to live in both worlds.

The constants are the care Lauren puts into the drinks and the customers on the other side of the window.

From patients to customers, serving people is still the common thread

Most customers meeting Lauren through Ooh La Lemonade would have no reason to know that the business is only one part of her working life.

She is still a full time nurse.

“Most people are surprised to learn that I still work full-time as a nurse while running Ooh La Lemonade on nights and weekends,” she says. “It’s a lot of hard work, but I’m passionate about both careers.”

The two worlds are obviously different, but Lauren sees a connection between them.

She has spent 16 years caring for people as a nurse. When she began imagining a business of her own, she wanted that same instinct for serving others to be part of it.

At Ooh La Lemonade, it takes a much lighter form.

Sometimes it looks like a colorful drink handed to an excited child. Sometimes it is recognizing a regular who has found the trailer again. Sometimes it is watching a family make stopping at Ooh La Lemonade part of what they do together at an event.

Those moments matter to Lauren.

“I love seeing the joy our business brings to people,” she says. “Whether it’s watching kids get excited over a colorful lemonade or seeing families make us part of their traditions, those moments make all the hard work worthwhile.”

Growing one event at a time

Lauren is proud of how quickly Ooh La Lemonade has grown, but she gives much of the credit to the people who keep coming back.

Building a loyal customer base has been one of the business’s greatest successes.

Customers return at event after event. They recommend Ooh La Lemonade to friends. They book the trailers for private parties. The business has become part of weddings, corporate events, schools and community celebrations in addition to festivals and markets.

For a mobile business, loyalty looks a little different because customers cannot always return to the same address.

They have to find you again.

Ooh La Lemonade shares its weekly locations and pop ups through Facebook, giving regulars a way to follow the trailers from one event to another.

Lauren also values the community on the vendor side of those events. She enjoys catching up with other food truck operators and credits event organizers with creating opportunities that allow small businesses like hers to meet new customers.

The festival may last only a day or a weekend, but the relationships can continue long after everyone packs up.

Building something her children can be proud of

Balancing a nursing career, family and a growing business is the hardest part of what Lauren does.

There are early mornings, late nights and weekends devoted to Ooh La Lemonade, often around the demands of everything else in her life.

Her family is also the reason she keeps doing it.

“My dream has always been to build something meaningful that my children can one day be proud of or even choose to carry on,” she says.

That makes the arrival of a third trailer particularly meaningful.

What began beneath a tent has become a growing mobile operation with more opportunities to serve festivals, private events and catering clients. New menu items and seasonal drinks are already in the works, and Lauren continues to look for ways to improve what customers experience when they walk up to the window.

Her advice to someone else with an idea is appropriately uncomplicated.

“Just start.”

Do not wait until everything feels perfect, she says. Work hard, learn from mistakes, stay consistent and do not allow fear or other people’s opinions to decide whether the idea gets a chance.

Lauren followed that advice herself.

She kept her nursing career. She raised her family. She put up a tent and started squeezing lemons.

Now there are multiple trailers, another on the way and a menu that has grown from the drink that started everything into something colorful, creative and unmistakably Ooh La Lemonade.

When you find them at a festival, start with the fresh squeezed lemonade. It is still Lauren’s recommendation and still the drink at the center of the business.

After that, you can decide how adventurous you are feeling.

Pickle lemonade is waiting.

Sara Turney