Restaurant Operator Podcast

How Juice It Up leads the modern beverage boom

In this podcast episode, Juice It Up CEO Susan Taylor discusses how the brand has maintained its leadership in the booming beverage franchise market by evolving to meet the sophisticated, nutrition-focused demands of Gen Z and millennial consumers.

March 24, 2026

Beverages have become big business as boba, dirty sodas, coffee and kombucha take center stage on the franchising market. Juice It Up, which has been selling cold and raw-pressed juices, smoothies, açaí bowls. toasts and bagels for more than 30 years, has been an industry leader.

In this episode of the Restaurant Operator Podcast, host Mandy Detwiler, editor of QSRweb and Pizza Marketplace, talks to Susan Taylor, president and CEO of Juice It Up, based in Southern California, about how the brand has been leading the beverage market. Juice It Up recently opened its 100th unit in Gardnerville, Nevada.

Taylor said the definition of a meal replacement has changed since the launch of the juice brand, and smoothies and juices are no longer sweet treats after a workout. Instead, they're nutritious and fill the needs of those looking for more protein, living vegan lifestyles or needing fuel for the day.

"It's interesting the way that the segment has grown," Taylor said in the podcast. "Beverages as a complete segment (includes) everything from coffee to smoothies and juice bars. I think that consumers today are much more sophisticated and really looking for different things to be able to fuel their lifestyle that has kind of expanded the category.

"Depending on where you are in your health and wellness lifestyle journey, you can come in and you can do a fresh-made order juice using beets, celery, carrots, ginger, turmeric, anything that you want to be able to have in that, or you can build your own. And there's a pretty dedicated core of customers that really look for that."

Gen Z and millennial consumers have been shaping beverage trends as of late.

The generations that are coming up now look at beverages in a totally different way from just want something right now," Taylor added. "There's an experience. They're just they're thinking about what it provides to them from a nutritional standpoint to just how they feel like they're treating themselves as well, too."

To learn more about how Juice It Up is innovating the beverage industry, listen to the podcast in its entirety.

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