Village Juice & Kitchen has adopted a unique growth strategy. Instead of adding brick-and-mortar consumer locations, the health food company is targeting universities and hospitals.
The Winston-Salem-based startup has locations at Wake Forest University, Elon University, UNC Chapel Hill and the University of South Carolina through a licensing agreement with food service company Aramark (NYSE: ARMK).
“With universities, students these days have a different dining expectation,” said Nathan Atkinson, who helped co-found Village Juice & Kitchen with his wife, Lonnie. “They’re a lot healthier, they drink less alcohol and they are much more into health and fitness.”
Village Juice & Kitchen is also in Novant Health’s Forsyth Medical Center and Atkinson said that the company is contracting with UNC Health to add locations in its hospitals.
Village Juice & Kitchen
Industry: restaurants and wholesale foods
Founded: 2015
Top exec(s): Lonnie Atkinson, co-founder and creative director, and Nathan Atkinson, co-founder and business director
Address: 205 S. Stratford Road, Winston-Salem 27101
Phone: 336-986-9402
Website: villagejuicecompany.com
“It appalls me to go to a hospital where you’re supposed to be receiving high-level medical care and yet there’s nothing healthy to eat,” Atkinson added. “We saw that as an opportunity to provide employees, staff and guests of the hospital an alternative option for healthy, nutritious meals.”
Licensing is what is driving Village Juice’s current growth. The company announced it would be adding locations at High Point University and Towson University in Maryland. Atkinson told TBJ that the company is in the process of finalizing about five to seven additional locations. Village Juice also has two franchised locations – one in Charlotte’s Optimist Hall and another in Harrisonburg, Virginia.
Even since its beginnings in 2015, Village Juice has quickly expanded.
Operations began in Atkinson’s kitchen, with his wife Lonnie making cold-pressed juices for friends. Lonnie, the company’s creative director, was inspired by time she spent working in California restaurants and found that there wasn't anything like it in the South.
By 2016, they had moved to a commercial kitchen and sold the juices at farmers markets before acquiring a food truck and a brick-and-mortar restaurant in 2017. In 2018, Village Juice bought and built out a facility on Northwest Boulevard where it still produces its juices, salad dressings and desserts.
A family business, Village Juice employs approximately 40 people, not including licensed or franchise employees.
To support what Atkinson described as a “capital-intensive” growth strategy, Village Juice received an undisclosed amount of funding from the Winston-Salem Partners Roundtable Fund last year. Atkinson said that the company has received other funding but would not disclose amounts.
Atkinson said that Village Juice is finalizing an initiative with a historically Black university in which the company will not only add a licensed location but also partner with the HBCU to create an entrepreneurial learning program.
And Atkinson doesn’t plan to end Village Juice’s licensing strategy with universities and hospitals – he believes there is a prime opportunity for a similar idea at airports.
“One of the pillars of our company is to make this type of dining experience as accessible and least threatening as possible,” he said. “We want everyone to enjoy it.”
