Smoothie King Franchises, Inc.

Who owns Smoothie King Franchises, Inc.?
The company is majority-owned by chairman and CEO Wan Kim, who bought it in 2012. Private equity firm Main Post Partners acquired a minority stake in 2025.

Is Smoothie King Franchises publicly traded?
No. It is a privately held company. Financial information is available only through franchise disclosure documents and company announcements.

When was Smoothie King founded?
Steve and Cindy Kuhnau founded Smoothie King in 1973 in Kenner, Louisiana. The company began franchising in the 1980s.

How much revenue does Smoothie King make?
The franchisor reported 2025 corporate revenue of $66.16 million and net income of $14.84 million. The broader franchise system generated $760.4 million in sales in 2025.

How many Smoothie King stores are there?
The system had 1,245 locations at the end of 2025: 1,242 in the United States across 33 states plus three international units in South Korea, the Cayman Islands, and Trinidad and Tobago.

Where is Smoothie King headquartered?
Smoothie King Franchises, Inc. is headquartered in Dallas, Texas. The company moved there from its founding city in the New Orleans area after Wan Kim's 2012 acquisition.

Steve Kuhnau opened the first Smoothie King in Kenner, Louisiana, in 1973, blending fruit drinks to manage his chronic food allergies. He and his wife Cindy built the concept into a retail business and are credited with inventing the term "smoothie" and establishing the blended health drink category in America.

The company began franchising in the 1980s and expanded through the South and Midwest, selling smoothies organized around functional benefits decades before "functional beverage" became an industry term. Growth was steady but modest, and by the early 2000s the brand had a few hundred mostly US locations.

Wan Kim changed the trajectory. He signed on as Smoothie King's first international franchisee in 2003 and grew the brand past 130 stores in South Korea. In 2012 he approached the Kuhnaus and bought the entire company, moving headquarters to Dallas, Texas, and launching a top-down brand transformation.

Kim's rebuild included a cleaner menu with no artificial ingredients or high fructose corn syrup, a "Clean Blends" health positioning, redesigned stores, and tighter franchise standards. System sales grew at a double-digit compound rate from 2012 onward, up 64 percent over the last five years alone, while unit count climbed about 23 percent over the same period.

In 2025, two developments marked the company's next phase: it took on its first institutional investor, selling a minority stake to Main Post Partners, and it launched its first food menu. In 2026, protein-packed chicken flatbreads drove the strongest same-store sales period in company history, April brought a new warmer store design, and July same-store sales rose 9 percent.