What started as a single smoothie shop in New York City has quietly turned into one of the fastest-growing wellness franchises in the country.
That growth did not come from celebrity hype, massive venture funding, or trendy marketing campaigns. It came from operational discipline, community relationships, and a founder obsessed with making healthy food both accessible and scalable.
That founder is Ross Franklin.
Speaking with Shawn Walchef live from the Restaurant Leadership Conference, Franklin shared how Pure Green Franchise scaled from a single location into a national brand focused on health, hospitality, and operational simplicity.
Before building Pure Green, Franklin worked in fitness and became fascinated with the connection between nutrition and performance. The realization was simple: exercise mattered, but nutrition was doing most of the heavy lifting.
“When you look at optimal health, nutrition accounts for 80% of getting results,” Franklin explained. That idea became the foundation for Pure Green.
The First Store
The first location opened in New York City in 2014, but Franklin did not exactly launch with deep pockets or institutional backing. Instead, he leveraged his consulting experience into an unconventional startup deal. A developer opening multiple food halls wanted Franklin’s help building restaurants. Franklin agreed, but with one condition.
“I’ll consult for you… but you gotta give me the seed money to start Pure Green,” he said.
The bet worked. What began as a single location evolved into a rapidly growing franchise system with more than 85 open stores, roughly 60 more in development, and locations across 25 states.
But the growth strategy was never just about opening more smoothie shops.
Franklin realized early that many juice concepts were structurally difficult to scale. Large footprints, expensive labor models, and in-house production created operational complexity that slowed growth and squeezed margins.
Pure Green Took A Different Path
The company built national distribution capabilities while keeping store footprints smaller and operational systems simpler. The model became especially attractive for franchisees passionate about health and wellness, even if they had never worked in restaurants before.
“Most of them have never worked in a restaurant before,” Franklin explained. “They have the passion. We teach them the mechanics of the business.”
Learning Through Mistakes
The interesting part of Franklin’s story is that many of the company’s biggest breakthroughs came directly from painful mistakes. One of the hardest lessons came during the launch of Pure Green’s wholesale division.
At first, Franklin tried handling distribution internally, purchasing trucks and attempting to manage deliveries himself throughout Manhattan.
“It was a nightmare,” he admitted. “We were losing our shirt back then.” The problem was not demand. It was infrastructure.
Once the company partnered with outside distributors, operations became dramatically more efficient and growth accelerated. The experience reinforced a lesson many restaurant operators eventually learn: trying to control every layer of the business can actually slow growth instead of protecting it.
That operational mindset now extends into how Franklin approaches technology, hospitality, and even AI.
Franklin consistently returns to hospitality as the real differentiator.
Inside Pure Green stores, employees are trained to refer to customers as guests because Franklin believes language shapes culture.
“It’s all about creating a warm, friendly, and engaging guest experience,” he said.
That philosophy matters because frequency matters. According to Franklin, the average Pure Green guest visits three times per week. For a wellness brand operating in an increasingly crowded category, that level of repeat engagement says something important.
The real product may not just be smoothies or acai bowls.
It may be consistency, community, and creating an experience healthy guests want to build into their daily routine.
