Who Owns Smoothie King?

Steve Kuhnau founded Smoothie King in Kenner, Louisiana, in 1973, blending fruit drinks to help manage his own food allergies and sensitivities. He and his wife Cindy opened the first retail outlet and are widely credited with inventing the word "smoothie" and popularizing the blended health drink format in America.

The company began franchising in the 1980s and grew steadily across the southern United States, building a menu organized around functional goals: slim down, get healthy, and build fitness. The brand predated and outlasted nearly every competitor in the smoothie category it helped create.

Wan Kim entered the story in 2003 as the first international franchisee, launching Smoothie King in South Korea and expanding to more than 130 locations there. In 2012 he bought the company outright from the Kuhnaus and began a brand rebuild: he relocated headquarters to Dallas, Texas, redesigned stores, rewrote the menu around "clean blends" with no artificial ingredients or high fructose corn syrup, and refocused the chain's positioning on health and fitness.

Growth under Kim has been consistent. The company reports system sales growing at a double-digit compound rate since 2012, with total sales up 64 percent over the last five years. In 2025 Smoothie King recorded corporate revenue of $66.16 million and net income of $14.84 million, while the franchise system generated $760.4 million in sales. The chain finished 2025 with 1,242 US locations plus international units.

Recent moves include the chain's first food menu in 2025, protein-packed chicken flatbreads in 2026 that drove the strongest same-store sales period of that year, a warmer store design announced in April 2026, more than 200 committed new locations, and novelty collaborations with Heinz on a ketchup smoothie and Grillo's Pickles on a pickle smoothie.