Business

New Business Sells Filtered Water, Touts Health Benefits

The Molecule Project sells filtered and supplement-infused water.

 By Janiece Montas

Staff writer

What the Molecule Project doesn’t do is sell flavored water. Co-owner Adam Ruhr makes that point clear off the top. In fact, the minerals and vitamins he dumps into the water he sells from a new East Village store does not taste so great.

Drinking it, though, Ruhr said, benefits skin, hair, nails and the body’s immune system and boosts energy levels. That’s how Ruhr and co-owner Alexander Venet are pitching their new product to potential customers of the East Tenth Street store that opened on July 19.

“The idea started with my visiting a water store slightly similar to this one on the West Coast,” Ruhr said. “The genesis of the idea originated in California, and then I elaborated on it.”

For $2.50, a customer walks away from Molecule with a 16-ounce glass bottle of what the partners said is filter-tapped water. The supplements that muddy the water cost extra.

Aubrey Levitt, 29, paid $4 for her specially ordered blend. While Ruhr got the idea in California, Los Angeles native Levitt said she’d never ventured inside such a place. She learned about the East Village store through an article in The Wall Street Journal. I don’t know of “anything similar to Molecule,” she said.

Though this reporter met only one customer during one-hour waits over three separate days, the owners said that, for them, traffic is pretty good far.

“It takes a certain amount of education to understand water quality issues and the impact on health and wellness,” Ruhr said.

On Twitter @JanieceMontas.