Essential Steps for Successfully Opening Juice Bar Business
Have you ever thought about opening up your own juice bar franchise? If so, you’re in the right place — here is the ultimate guide on all things to consider in the process of opening a juice bar franchise: from selecting your real estate, negotiating your lease with the landlord through the grand opening of your new juice bar franchise.
One of the most attractive elements of opening a juice bar franchise is the simplicity of this business model. If franchise ownership sounds like it might be the right fit for you, make sure to check out our juice bar franchise page overview and consider opening a Pure Green juice bar franchise!
Opening a juice bar franchise is an excellent option for anyone interested in becoming a small business owner. The health and wellness industry is growing exponentially and the demand for healthy products has never been higher. However, for those first-time entrepreneurs who are considering entering the juice bar franchise space, it’s essential to understand all of the moving parts.
Understanding the Juice Bar Franchise Model
While most franchises don’t require previous experience running a juice bar, it is essential that you have a passion for the products and services you will be selling within your store. It’s okay if you’ve never blended a smoothie before or if you’ve never done a cleanse before. The technical knowledge will come with training but the passion must be there to start with.
What’s even more important than technical knowledge is the role you will play as a franchisee. When you become a juice bar franchise owner, you are participating in a multi-faceted network that has been carefully developed to support a juice bar franchise brand you have engaged. Franchisees are expected to follow and adhere to the systems and processes set by the franchisor. These requirements are in place to ensure brand consistency across the entire franchise.
Put simply, when a guest walks into your Pure Green juice bar franchise store, they are expecting to receive the same product consistency and same experience they would have in any other Pure Green juice bar.
This may be an aspect that many first-time franchisees don’t fully realize before entering into a franchise agreement. They feel as if they need to put their personal touch on their business and want to do things their own way. Franchisors have proven systems and processes which is the major attraction for franchisees. Franchisees who want to put their own twist on their business are not the right fit for a franchise.
Cold Use Space for Best Juice Bar Franchises
Simple and Easy to Execute Recipes
Smoothies and acai bowls are typically blended which makes the execution of the recipes very easy. The main equipment required is only a blender and the process to make these recipes is under two minutes. Easy recipes with a limited number of ingredients are easier to replicate with greater accuracy. Keeping the recipes simple also helps to reduce your COGS (Cost of Goods Sold) which will allow you to have better control over your bottom line. For most juice bar franchisees, the goal for COGS is to be 28% or less by comparison to gross revenue.
The ingredients used in smoothies and acai bowls are typically frozen which helps to reduce waste. The protein powders and superfoods in these smoothies have a long shelf life that lasts a few years and high volume juice bars usually place new orders for these supplies weekly. Generally, the only waste from ingredients tends to be the fresh toppings used in acai bowls. Having low to no waste is a key element in reaching your target COGS.
Cold Pressed Juice Waste
Many juice bar franchises require their franchisees to manufacture cold-pressed juice on-site. The process is costly as it involves expensive equipment and each store must comply with a variety of HACCP regulations set forth by the FDA and state law. To make matters worse, cold-pressed juice has a shelf life of 3 days when bottled.
Every juice bar faces the challenge of inventory management. A competent PAR (Periodic Automatic Replacement) system that maintains the minimal, necessary level of juice ingredient inventory can yield roughly 25% waste from just cold-pressed juice.
One of the most attractive elements about a franchise like Pure Green is their Wholesale Division which directly supports Pure Green franchisees through the sale of pre-manufactured cold-pressed juice at preferred rates. This cold-pressed juice has a shelf life of more than sixty days due to a pressurization process called HPP which keeps the nutrients intact and helps to reduce and eliminate waste from cold-pressed juice
BUILDING OUT YOUR JUICE BAR FRANCHISE
Determine Potential Customer Traffic Patterns
The first thing to look for when selecting the perfect location for your juice bar franchise is foot traffic. Once you find a potential location for your juice bar, stand outside at different times of the day and count how many people walk by each hour. This is will tell you potential peak hours for your location. By clocking traffic on both weekdays and weekend days, you can gain valuable insights into whether you have a potential 5 day a week business or 7 day a week business. You can also determine if your store has the opportunity for strong morning traffic, lunch traffic, or evening traffic.
Street Level Frontage
The street-level frontage is the width of your storefront. The wider your storefront, the more opportunity you have to attract customers. Pure Green Franchise has a requirement that the minimum width of a store frontage is 14 feet. This allows for the placement of your “Line” to run vertically from the front of your space. Since the Line is your cashier and production area this makes it more appealing to customers.
Spaces that have less frontage and longer floor plans will force a juice bar to put the Line horizontally at the back of the space. This will force customers to walk further into your store to order from the menu. Location layouts that have more frontage and an easy-to-see Line make it much easier for the customers to see your team working from outside the store.
Benefits of Wider Street Level Frontage for Your Juice Bar Location
- Position of Line Orientation – Locations that have what we call a horizontal line along the back of the space typically do less revenue than stores that have a vertical line that runs along a sidewall of the space.
- Visibility To See People Work – This is the action factor. Have you noticed that many new restaurants have open kitchens? This is because customers like to see people working. It shows transparency that restaurants are not hiding anything. This is a strong reason why Pure Green franchises run their lines vertically.
Ceiling Height Matters
Maximize Square Footage To Generate Revenue
The most important space in your location is the area closest to your store entrance. It’s imperative that you maximize this space to generate revenue. Business owners with small locations can place bar seating at the window to allow for more open space inside the store. Bar seating at the window also highlights customers enjoying your product, enticing passersby to come in and purchase a smoothie of their own.
When building out your cashier station, use shelving to feature third-party products such as health bars, chips, and trail mixes to spur impulse buys from customers at the register. This can increase the total of each transaction and create additional ancillary revenue.
Restrooms
Each state has laws in place that govern the requirements for supplying a public restroom to customers. These laws are usually based on the number of seats in your location. For example, certain states require an available bathroom for any space that offers fifteen seats for customers. It’s important to understand the regulations of your state so that your location is in full compliance.
Dedicated Delivery Areas
Revenue from delivery platforms and on-demand services can represent a substantial portion of gross revenue for any juice bar franchise. Building out your location to efficiently accommodate a strong delivery business is critical. Dedicated delivery areas require space behind the line or back-of-house where the delivery orders can be properly managed.
When utilizing multiple delivery platforms, each delivery one typically requires its tablet to manage. Multiple tablets in view of the customer can be unsightly and damage the visual aesthetic of your location. Opt to employ one service that can better consolidate multiple delivery platforms in one easy-to-use interface. Third-party delivery platforms like Chowly can help to organize your delivery business and make it easier for you to add new delivery platforms when necessary.
Storage Space
Juice bars with a small square footage of around 500 to 900 square feet can pose a challenge for adequate storage space… Ideally, it is best to maximize as much of your space as possible to generate revenue for your location. However, you will still need dedicated storage space for refrigerated and frozen products and your dry goods.
The best storage place is a basement. However, not all spaces will have basements so this is when you need to get creative. One useful option for additional storage is to use the unoccupied space behind your store’s menu boards.
With the Pure Green model, storage space is built in this manner. Each menu board is installed with hydraulic hinges that allow for easy access to storage of all your operating essentials such as cups, bowls, straws, napkins, coffee sleeves, and bags.
Existing Site Conditions
The cost of getting your site up and running will depend on a variety of factors, starting with space itself. Ideally, you would like to find a space that was previously a juice bar and already has the necessary components in place. But these can be very tough to find.
If you are entering a raw space, with only concrete walls and no HVAC unit, electric panel box, or plumbing lines in place, this will be very expensive to build out compared to a space that already has these things in place. Make sure to find out if basement space is available for the location you want, and if so, you may want to try and negotiate including this space as part of the lease. Many landlords will charge you separately for retail space and any basement space below that area. But you can strike a deal to get a break on your costs if your landlord is willing to entertain such an offer.
Electrical Requirements
Signage
Maximizing signage in a brand-relevant way for your juice bar franchise is critically important. Illuminated signs, blade signs, lightboxes, and a display featuring hours of operation are all critical for success. Certain buildings have different signage requirements and you need to know what they are before you commit to any lease. Your landlord may have additional restrictions so it is important to carefully review the signage requirement documentation.
Some buildings have landmark status which comes with stringent requirements for signage and lengthy approval processes for making any changes to that building’s exterior facade. Landmark buildings usually require additional permit expeditors that can increase the cost of the build-out.
BUILDING OUT YOUR JUICE BAR FRANCHISE
The Term Sheet
Once you have fully vetted the space, your juice bar franchisor has approved that space, and you decide to make an offer, the next step is the term sheet. Typically, the real estate broker you are using will generate the term sheet which outlines the amount of money you would like to offer for space.
Most juice bar franchises will supply their franchise owners with a standard letter of intent or term sheet template that can be submitted by the real estate broker on your behalf.
If the landlord does not accept your initial offer, you can expect a counteroffer to be made and thus begins the negotiation process. A storefront in a popular location could become highly competitive with multiple parties submitting offers to take over that space.
Negotiating a lease for a juice bar franchise is often a balancing act that incorporates the following major factors:
Major Retail Lease Negotiating Points
Monthly Rent – One of the most important factors is your monthly rent. When looking at a space, the real estate community likes to look at the rent as a target price per square foot. For example, they will say they are looking for $50 per square foot. If the space you are looking at is 500 square feet, this means that the annual rent would be $25,000. Divided by 12 months, it comes out to $2,083.33 in rent per month.
It is important to look at other comparable businesses along with the same size space. If the three businesses across the street are also 500 square feet and they are paying $35 per square foot, this will help you make a compelling case to the landlord that the asking rent is above market price.
When referring to the rent, most landlords look at the rent at Triple Rent which is the net rent without CAM (common area maintenance charges), real estate taxes, and other utilities. It is sometimes possible to negotiate a gross rent that includes all of these components.
Free Months – When negotiating the terms for your lease, it is common to include several free months so you are not paying rent while you are doing your build-out.
Tenant Improvement Allowance – Some landlords will give you money called Tenant Improvement Allowance or TI to help offset your costs in building out your space. By building out space, you are essentially increasing the asset value of the space and the building. This money is reimbursed by the landlord after reaching certain milestones in your construction process. It never hurts to ask for TI when negotiating the terms for your lease and this can significantly reduce your all-in capital expenditure.
Real Estate Taxes – Real estate taxes can vary and sometimes be negotiated. Have a real estate attorney help you to negotiate the most favorable terms for you.
Percentage Rent Increases – This is the annual rent percentage increase that escalates each year or following your lease guidelines. Landlords usually try to get 3% annual increases in rent each year. This can be negotiated before entering a rental agreement.
Lease Term – The lease term is how many years you are leasing the space. Many juice bar franchises have requirements as to the minimum or specific lease term you should take. A common lease is ten years.
Options – Option periods are in place so you may extend your lease when the initial term comes to an end.
Security Deposit – It is common for a security deposit to be held in escrow. The amount you put down can be negotiable.
Good Guy Guarantee – This is a limited guarantee that is commonly used in the real estate world which allows the tenant to break the lease by giving a certain amount of advance notice just as long as the lease is in good standing up until the end of the notice period. In some states, it is more common and can be advantageous for the franchisee to have a minimum guarantee.
Lease Commencement Date Versus Rent Commencement Date – The lease commencement date is the date that the lease is signed and the rent commencement date is the date that the rent starts. It can be highly advantageous to push the rent commencement date out as far as possible to give you time to complete the construction of your storefront.
Real Estate Broker Commission – If you are using a real estate broker, they will usually state their commission in the initial term sheet. This is usually paid out by the landlord.
Use a Real Estate Attorney
BUILD-OUT TO OPENING YOUR JUICE BAR FRANCHISE
Find The Right Contractor
Finding the right contractor can be difficult. It is important to get a minimum of three to five bids from different contractors. Depending on your space and the contractor you employ, third-party expeditors may be necessary to speed up the permit process so you are in full compliance with all local permitting laws.
It can be helpful to use general contractors that have previous experience building out similar same juice bar franchise stores. Make sure you get an itemized breakdown of the cost and labor and time of the entire construction process. Comparing these factors will help you select the right bid.
Make sure that you consult the corporate team for your juice bar franchise. The corporate team may be able to provide general contractors that have built other juice bar franchises and are already familiar with the build out. It can help helpful and offer some cost savings if the general contractor does the mill work in house.
There can be quite a range in the price when receiving bids from contractors. Once you have all your bids, it is strongly recommended that you review the bids with the corporate team of your juice bar franchise so they can help you make the right decision and narrow down the bids to help you identify the best general contractor.
Make sure you check when your general contract and start construction of your juice bar franchise. If you have already signed your lease and your architect has the full set of plans ready, you will be under pressure to start your build out right away. It is important that the general contractor that you select does not have other jobs going on at the same time and also has enough time to build out your juice bar franchise uninterrupted.
Use a Local Architect
Pre-Grand Opening Marketing
Community Support
Local Targeted Social Media
Find the Right Staff
Your employees are the lifeblood of your business. The quality and energy of your opening team are crucial. Hire people that are willing to embrace the mission of your company authentically. Warm, friendly, engaging hospitality is the key to making a great first impression for your new store.
Training Program
GRAND OPENING
Your grand opening day should be a celebration of your new store and all local key community members should be invited. There should be balloons and attractions going on outside your store and flyer team players should be positioned in key areas around your store to draw in guests.
Your juice bar franchise is about to open in your town. You’ve worked hard for months to get this business started, and now the juice bar grand opening you have been waiting for will finally happen. The juice bar grand opening can be hectic, but it’s important flawlessly execute marketing strategies leading up to your grand opening and for the initial two weeks following. Use these juice bar grand opening marketing strategies to make sure everyone hears about your new location!
Promotional Giveaways
People will be flocking to the juice bar grand opening because they want to try their new juice bar smoothies or juice cleanses. Use free promotional giveaways like t-shirts, juice bottles, and juice bar flyers to get people excited for your juice franchise. Having these items with your juice company name on them will remind people that you are the juice bar in town. This is important because it’s not just about getting customers through the door – it’s also about branding yourself as the juice bar so you stick in guests’ minds!
Have Prominent Grand Opening Signage
Promotional Flyers
Promotional Social Media Posts & E-mail Blasts
