In 2006, Lonnie Atkinson was trying to heal some of her own health concerns after doctors came up empty. So, she tried a different tact. Hoping to fix her nutrition and pay more attention to her diet, she discovered a California, plant-based restaurant.
“It was the first time,” she says, “I had eaten at a restaurant and not felt terrible.”
Atkinson dined there so often she decided to take a part-time job at the spot, running the restaurant’s juice and smoothie bar.
During this time, Atkinson’s mother, a 40-year nurse, was diagnosed with Stage I cancer. Atkinson moved back to her home state of North Carolina and helped her parents adjust to a plant-based diet, complete with cold-pressed juices and smoothies. In 10 days, she says, her mom’s cholesterol dropped 100 points, and she lost 10 pounds.
When Atkinson posted on Facebook selling her own juices from a rented kitchen with the goal of helping others begin their own health journeys, her husband, Nathan, a career attorney, and Clyde Harris, a real estate agent and Nathan’s roommate at Wake Forest University, stepped in to help.
Atkinson offered cold-pressed juices at a local farmers’ market in Winston-Salem and opened a brick-and-mortar restaurant about a year later in 2016. Although none of the team had restaurant ownership experience, Village Juice & Kitchen took off.
In the new physical location, Lonnie began to serve nutritious small plates and snacks to pair with the juices. By 2018, Village Juice had opened locations at Wake Forest University and Elon and had purchased a commercial kitchen setup. Aramark Foodservice sought out Lonnie, urging her to open the collegiate locations because too many students were leaving campus to visit her shop. This, she says, was a wake-up call the brand had larger designs.
At three units, Harris signed on as a full-time director of finance. Lonnie says she struggled with the learning curve of increasing efficiency, going from brewing batches of 20 to 200 juices at a time.
Even today, all of Village Juice’s cold-pressed options, salad dressings, almond and coconut milks, and gluten-free and vegan desserts are made in the commissary kitchen and delivered to its now seven restaurants.
One location is franchised at present, an 800-square-foot unit in The Optimist Food Hall in Charlotte. There are currently a handful of franchise deals in the works, but also some company stores within North Carolina are slated for the future. Any prospective unit outside of the state, Lonnie says, will be franchised.
Recently, Village Juice brought in Tim Mann, whose resume included North Carolina area developer for Subway, and Matt Smith, former head of operations for Panera in the state’s Triangle area. Smith is now COO of Village Juice. “With those guys on our team, we want to keep North Carolina,” Harris says. “We feel like it’s in our wheelhouse to open stores here and run those.”
Now, Harris adds, the brand is working with an area developer model to assist expansion within the state. Using local knowledge from anticipated partners within specific regions or territories, Harris says Village Juice’s franchising growth will be heavily supported and assisted by experienced management.
To start, Village Juice will target major North Carlina markets with a typical average build of around 2,000 square feet.
More than 20 years after Lonnie first began her expedition to nourish guests, the health food market has changed extensively, she continues. “During COVID, people certainly became a lot more aware of keeping their bodies healthy,” Lonnie says. “With the whole RFK push on raising awareness on what’s in food, I think people are really starting to get it. Eating better for your body was just for looking good or feeling good or for a weight thing, now people are really starting to attribute it to causes of cancer and there’s a lot more research on how [food] can affect your body.”
Lonnie has tried juices all over the country and says that she has created a very broad menu on purpose to differentiate the brand and drive frequency among core guests. In her time living in California, New York, and Washington, D.C., she was unable to find an eatery that offered salads, smoothies, juices, and more all under the same roof.
“We have something for everyone, and it’s food you can trust and food you can eat every day,” she says. “Whether you’re hungry or just want a snack, or if you have food sensitivities, everything is customizable, if you’re gluten-free or vegan. It’s a more approachable approach to eating healthy.”
Serving up large portions of fresh, filling, and nutrient-dense bowls, the variety and quality of their menu items set Village Juice apart from similar concepts. With a recently opened unit in Raleigh, the brand is continuing to site-select for upcoming North Carolina, stores, including a unit at the UNC Health complex, with four future college campus locations on the horizon.
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