Jamba Juice
 

What is everyone's impression of it?

I went to Keystone this summer for a conference and my wife made me stop at a Whole Foods on the way in Denver. She told me I had to try this Jamba Juice stuff (there was a store next door). I'm not a fruit smoothie person, but I had some mango business that was awesome. I don't really have a point of comparison, but apparently it's healthy-ish and tasted awesome.

Jamba Juice are corporate juice pimps.

Fantastic.

It's like Starbucks with smoothies. Tastes great, but I'm not sure it's worth it when compared to alternatives.

I'm a big fan of the "light" Mango Mantra. It's about 200 calories, less sugar and has that non-dairy base. If you're going there for a healthy drink, just be careful of what you're getting because with some of them you'd probably be better off eating a sandwich.

Despite me liking it, I also agree with MBBF. I can go outside right now and get a smoothie made by a cart guy, it'll be cheaper and probably fresher (the guy cuts the pineapple off the rind in front of you). In fact, I'm going to do just that in a couple hours.

I love me some Jamba Juice. They make this peach thing that I love. I've watched them carefully though, and now know how to make it at home using a fuzzy navel frozen mixer and orange sherbert as bases. A LOT cheaper this way.

I can't say it appeals to me, but the lady in my life is a big fan.

Reason I ask is because I run a Jamba Juice. Two things I'd like to correct you on. The LoCal base isn't dairy free, but it's "sugar free" in the sense that it's made with Splenda. The second thing is everything is "fresh" except the juices. Everything is IQF fruit so it retains its freshness, though it still is kept frozen.

Good call on it not being dairy-free. I thought I remembered reading it on the menu, clearly I was wrong.

And I didn't mean to imply that the fruit used wasn't fresh. More of a psychological impact I guess of seeing the fruit being cut in front of me by the dude in his cart. Of course that doesn't mean anything for it's potential freshness.

Just curious, you say you run the store...do you manage it or own it?

Manage it; Jamba Juice doesn't franchise their stores except to places like Whole Foods and Pavilions. But I think they also think it was a mistake to do that even.

Yeah, as a losing investor about a year back, I'm aware of the structure :).

I was just wondering about the profitability of individual stores. I know the company itself has been hurting, but at least in NYC they are constantly packed and cranking the register. How are you guys doing? What's your location like?

I run the last store in Beverly Hills. They've closed three stores in the area but that was more due to high rent more then losing money. You can only charge so much for a smoothie, but that might not be enough to cover the bills at that store. We are doing well across the board but one thing that hurts is we can't switch to a "hot smoothie" in the winter time like Starbucks can focus on hot or cold coffee depending on the season.

I used to love Jamba juice, but it became an unnecessary expense.

Has that changed? I remember interviewing the owner of several Jamba Juices in the Oklahoma City area, but this would have been 7-8 years ago.

Strawberry Surf Rider ftw

That might have been the case a few years back