Jamba Juice
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Jamba, formerly known as Jamba Juice, is an American quick-service restaurant and juice bar chain that sells blended fruit and vegetable juices, smoothies, and other food products. The first Jamba location, originally named Juice Club, opened in 1990 in
San Luis Obispo, California ; ; ; Chumashan languages, Chumash: ''tiłhini'') is a city and county seat of San Luis Obispo County, California, United States. Located on the Central Coast (California), Central Coast of California, San Luis Obispo is roughly halfway betwee ...
. Jamba is owned by GoTo Foods, an affiliate of private equity firm Roark Capital Group, which completed its acquisition in 2019. The company has more than 850 locations operating in 36 states in the United States, and also has locations in
Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...
,
Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...
, the
Philippines The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines, is an Archipelagic state, archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. Located in the western Pacific Ocean, it consists of List of islands of the Philippines, 7,641 islands, with a tot ...
,
Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia. The main geography of Taiwan, island of Taiwan, also known as ''Formosa'', lies between the East China Sea, East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocea ...
,
South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the southern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and borders North Korea along the Korean Demilitarized Zone, with the Yellow Sea to the west and t ...
,
Thailand Thailand, officially the Kingdom of Thailand and historically known as Siam (the official name until 1939), is a country in Southeast Asia on the Mainland Southeast Asia, Indochinese Peninsula. With a population of almost 66 million, it spa ...
, and
Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania, between the Indian Ocean, Indian and Pacific Ocean, Pacific oceans. Comprising over List of islands of Indonesia, 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, ...
.


History

Jamba Juice was opened by Kirk Perron at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. Perron, who worked as a supermarket manager and was also an avid cyclist and healthy-lifestyle advocate, opened the restaurant because he was dissatisfied with the quality of post-workout snacks, saying, “The marketplace was mostly filled with fat.” The first restaurant, named Juice Club, opened on March 31, 1990, in
San Luis Obispo, California ; ; ; Chumashan languages, Chumash: ''tiłhini'') is a city and county seat of San Luis Obispo County, California, United States. Located on the Central Coast (California), Central Coast of California, San Luis Obispo is roughly halfway betwee ...
. It was incorporated in 1990 as Juice Club, Inc. in San Luis Obispo. By 1991, Juice Club had expanded to 19 locations by
franchising Franchising is based on a marketing concept which can be adopted by an organization as a strategy for business expansion. Where implemented, a franchisor licenses some or all of its know-how, procedures, intellectual property, use of its busines ...
, but Perron later abandoned the franchise model in favor of company-owned stores. In 1995, the chain was renamed Jamba Juice, drawing from a
West Africa West Africa, also known as Western Africa, is the westernmost region of Africa. The United Nations geoscheme for Africa#Western Africa, United Nations defines Western Africa as the 16 countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Gha ...
n word for “celebration”. Jamba Juice acquired Zuka Juice, a rival juice bar, on March 24, 1999. On March 13, 2006, Jamba Juice was purchased by Services Acquisition Corp. International for $265 million. A
special-purpose acquisition company A special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC; ), also known as a blank check company or a blind-pool stock offering, is a shell corporation listed on a stock exchange with the purpose of acquiring (or merging with) a private company, thus taking ...
that was headed by Steven Berrard, the former CEO of Blockbuster Inc. Upon completion of the transaction, the publicly traded Services Acquisition changed its name to Jamba, Inc. In June 2006, Jamba, Inc. announced it had completed a $35 million convertible preferred stock transaction. The funding was led by a $19.55 million investment by
Mistral Equity Partners Trimaran Capital Partners is a middle-market private equity firm formerly affiliated with CIBC World Markets. Trimaran is headquartered in New York City and founded by former investment bankers from Drexel Burnham Lambert. Trimaran's predeces ...
, a private equity fund focused on consumer products and services companies. The remaining $15.45 million investment was made by a company controlled by the Serruya Family, a successful entrepreneurial Canadian-based family who founded the Yogen Früz frozen yogurt and smoothie chain. In June 2009, Jamba began to shift its focus from smoothies and began selling wraps, sandwiches, and flatbreads. In July 2009, Jamba Juice was criticized for running an advertising campaign, which was described as a “ripoff” of the work of cartoonist David Rees."Has Jamba Juice's Controversial Ad Just Pureed Its Billion-Dollar Dreams?", FastCompany
/ref> The ad campaign looked similar to Rees' " Get Your War On" series. Rees was informed of the Jamba Juice ads by a fan who sent in a letter. Rees stated that “Jamba Juice bit my style, with no credit, and it's kind of disrespectful.” In May 2016, Jamba Juice announced the move of its corporate headquarters from
Emeryville, California Emeryville is a city located in northwest Alameda County, California, in the United States. It lies in a corridor between the cities of Berkeley, California, Berkeley and Oakland, California, Oakland, with a border on the shore of San Francisc ...
to
Frisco, Texas Frisco is a city in the U.S. state of Texas, located in Collin County, Texas, Collin and Denton County, Texas, Denton counties. It is part of the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex (DFW) and about from both Dallas Love Field and Dallas/Fort Worth In ...
, indicating the high costs of living and conducting business in the
San Francisco Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a List of regions of California, region of California surrounding and including San Francisco Bay, and anchored by the cities of Oakland, San Francisco, and San Jose, California, S ...
. In 2019, Jamba Juice was acquired by
Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Georgia (U.S. state), most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia. It is the county seat, seat of Fulton County, Georg ...
-based Focus Brands, and the same year the chain changed its name to Jamba to reflect its expanded menu and negative health connotations around the word “juice”. On August 4, 2020, Jamba opened a location in Tokyo, its first in Japan.


Product expansion

In December 2007, it was announced that Jamba would partner with
Nestlé Nestlé S.A. ( ) is a Swiss multinational food and drink processing conglomerate corporation headquartered in Vevey, Switzerland. It has been the largest publicly held food company in the world, measured by revenue and other metrics, since 20 ...
to lend its name to a line of healthy, pre-prepared beverages under the Jamba brand. On December 19, 2008, a press release from Nestle USA and Jamba Juice announced the suspension of Jamba pre-prepared products due to "...challenges ... with manufacturing on a consistent basis, resulting in inventory and out-of-stock issues." In 2014 Jamba Juice expanded its Fresh Juice menu, and began making juice blends to order with fresh ingredients such as
kale Kale (), also called leaf cabbage, belongs to a group of cabbage (''Brassica oleracea'') cultivars primarily grown for their Leaf vegetable, edible leaves; it has also been used as an ornamental plant. Its multiple different cultivars vary quite ...
, beets and
ginger Ginger (''Zingiber officinale'') is a flowering plant whose rhizome, ginger root or ginger, is widely used as a spice and a folk medicine. It is an herbaceous perennial that grows annual pseudostems (false stems made of the rolled bases of l ...
.


Innovation Bar

In July 2016, Jamba opened a concept store, the Jamba Juice Innovation Bar'','' Located in Old Pasadena. The Innovation Bar replaced their nineteenth store with one that was roughly double the size of a typical Jamba Juice store. Along with smoothies, the location also sold many other foods, including
quinoa Quinoa (''Chenopodium quinoa''; , from Quechuan languages, Quechua ' or ') is a flowering plant in the Amaranthaceae, amaranth family. It is a herbaceous annual plant grown as a crop primarily for its edible seeds; the seeds are high in prote ...
bowls, artisan hummus toast with vegetables, homemade potato chips, and various vegan foods. It was also the first location with a larger Wi-Fi dining area. Matt Kafka, the senior director of operations at Jamba, described it as a "cool and hip place in Southern California". The store was also adorned with mirrored wall art and photographs of various fruits, and a set of television screens that showed various video greetings. On January 3, 2017, the Innovation Bar shut down and became a standard Jamba location.


See also

* Booster Juice *
Milkshake A milkshake (sometimes simply called a shake) is a sweet beverage made by blending milk, ice cream, and flavorings or sweeteners such as butterscotch, caramel sauce, chocolate syrup, or fruit syrup into a thick, sweet, cold mixture. It may ...
* Orange Julius *
Robeks Robeks is a smoothie franchise chain headquartered in Los Angeles, California. The company was founded in 1996 by David Robertson, a former investment banker. As of July 2024, the company has over 100 franchise locations. Background Peter Bick ...
* Smoothie * Talbott Teas


References


External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Jamba Juice 1990 establishments in California 2005 initial public offerings 2018 mergers and acquisitions American companies established in 1990 Companies based in Frisco, Texas Companies based in Sandy Springs, Georgia Companies formerly listed on the Nasdaq Fast-food chains of the United States Fast-food franchises Juice bars Restaurants established in 1990 Smoothie chains in the United States