Toastique features a variety of gourmet toast options, like those pictured here.
Toastique Founder Brianna Keefe designed her gourmet toast and smoothie franchise with herself in mind. “I always say I’m our target market,” Keefe said. “The most common thing across all our customers, I think, is people care about what they’re eating.”
Toastique offers a variety of gourmet toasts, as the name implies, in addition to juice, smoothies and smoothie bowls. Keefe founded the brand in 2017 when she was 24 and has since grown Toastique to 14 locations in Washington, D.C., Colorado, Utah, New Jersey and Florida. The brand has deals signed for another 66 units.
Keefe, now 29, is a former college cheerleader. She initially planned to be a dietitian, but changed her major to hospitality management. She later combined her passion for nutrition and her hospitality background to create Toastique.
“I love bread,” Keefe said. “I love the concept of toasts, just having a nice, delicious piece of bread with all the healthy toppings, proteins, good fats and everything like that. So, that’s really what I wanted to focus on for Toastique.”
Toastique cold presses its juices every 24 hours. The brand serves fruit-forward juices, like its orange-based Defender, as well as its unique Metabolize flavor, with cucumber, jalapeno and pineapple. It has an array of smoothies, too, like a coffee-based flavor and a dark purple, blueberry-centric drink.
Brianna Keefe founded Toastique in 2014, when she was 24 years old.
The company is similar to other juice bar concepts, but for Keefe, the key differentiator is the toast and its quick service.
“With the toast aspect, you’re creating a whole different environment and experience,” she said. “People are coming to brunch and hang out with their friends or family or coworkers or whatever. But it’s still on a quick and casual basis.”
Toastique has eight different toast options, all made to order, including Keefe’s favorite, the avocado mash, with avocado, tomatoes, radish, micro greens and chili oil. The signature toast is the brand’s No. 1 seller across the board, Keefe said. Toastique has sweeter options as well, like the PB crunch, with honey-roasted peanut butter, bananas, strawberries and granola.
Other juice concepts include Clean Juice, the Tim Tebow-endorsed juice bar franchise founded in 2014. The brand’s sales topped $58.7 million across is 119 units in 2021. There’s also Jamba, the Focus Brands subsidiary that made more than half a billion dollars in 2021. Robeks is fairly similar to Toastique in regards to its menu, which features different toasts, smoothies and fresh juice. Robeks made nearly $50 million in 2021 systemwide.
The investment required to open a Toastique store ranges from $367,570 to $695,975. In 2022, its New Jersey seasonal franchised location grossed $558,424, about 11.2 percent less than in 2021. Corporate stores’ gross sales ranged from $706,794 to $1.1 million in 2022.
Being a young founder had its hinderances, Keefe said. It was challenging to get folks to take her seriously as a young woman trying to start a business, she said.
“Now, I think it’s a huge advantage for my business,” she said. “I’m the target market, I’m very relatable to customers.”
She said she aims to inspire other young entrepreneurs: “Take that risk,” Keefe said. “I always think that it’s better to do it sooner rather than later, because once you get comfortable in a stable job or you start to have a family or things like that, it gets harder to take that risk and do something on your own.”
Keefe wants to grow Toastique in a sustainable manner, so she never has to sacrifice the brand’s commitment to high-quality menu items. She doesn’t have a set number of stores she’s trying to open, either.
“If I say 100, and they’re all just average, that’s not gonna make me feel satisfied, or truly happy or proud,” Keefe said.
Toastique isn’t seeking out specific markets. For Keefe, it’s all about finding the right partners to franchise with. When it comes to opening the additional 60-plus stores, Keefe said she feels like her team is ready, because she’s very particular about who she brings on.
“They have to be a fan of Toastique. You can’t train passion,” Keefe said. With a growing company, everyone is learning together, she said. “We just have to be able to roll with the punches and take initiative and trust our team to do what they think is best. It really takes a special type of person to do that.”