Connect. Serve. Repeat

How Everbowl is creating the Super Bowl of super bowl healthy food choices

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Connect. Serve. Repeat.

How Everbowl is creating the Super Bowl of super bowl healthy food choices

“Living actively, and eating stuff that’s been around forever.”

The tagline is the one Jeff Fenster staked the future of his company on. Everbowl, the San Diego-based restaurant he opened as an homage to superfood bowls and smoothies, is primed for bigger and more elaborate growth.

The former digital marketing agency owner decided to take direct aim at all those who have not embraced the healthy lifestyle eating thing. It is why the Everbowl menu focuses on things like customized parfaits, where customers can choose from one of four superfood bases—açaí, pitaya, graviola or acerola. Next, they can select something like almond milk or coconut water, and top it off an array of fruits. Everbowl also features grab and go salads, and smoothies. We sat down with founder and CEO Jeff Fenster to get an inside look at the Everbowl brand.

Give us a snapshot of your brand?

Everbowl is a craft food chain that specializes in exotic and delicious superfoods like açaí bowls, smoothies and coffee to fuel happier, healthier lives. Started in San Diego, the company now operates 50-plus franchise locations across the country. We use the term “Unevolve,” which means living an active lifestyle and eating stuff that’s been around forever—hence the name “Everbowl.”

What was the inspiration behind that concept?

Eating healthy is a personal passion of mine. I’m also a bit of a hypochondriac. So when I got access to the internet in the early 2000s, I was able to start researching disease and prevention and cures. It’s easier to prevent illness than cure it. When you look at America as a whole, 80% of heart disease, stroke, obesity, cancer, diabetes, hypertension and other diseases are preventable through lifestyle changes—i.e., move your body and eat real food. We know eating bad is bad for us, but why do we do it? As a businessman with this passion, I was able to bridge the two and identify a key problem in America that can be solved through a company that I could create and enjoy.

What type of consumer are you targeting?

We target everybody. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a fitness instructor and nutritionist, or if the healthiest thing you’ve eaten this week is the pickle on your cheeseburger. Everyone is on their own health journey, so we try to speak to all. We can’t be pretentious and alienate customers who don’t know anything about healthy eating or the latest buzzwords.

What are some of the adjustments you made with/to your business model surrounding the recent state of events?

COVID impacted everybody, and I think all businesses had to take a minute and reflect on the situation and decide what kind of pivot, if any, they needed to make to not only survive the storm, but thrive in it. Because

we operate restaurants, we shut everything down when the pandemic struck. We closed down the corporate stores we had at the time and temporarily laid off around 400 people. We had to figure out how and when it was safe and appropriate to reopen. And then we had to decide what we were going to look like in a post-COVID world. So we looked digital. When we reopened our stores in May we knew it was time to franchise. COVID made us realize that we can’t continue to expand and grow when you have travel restrictions. I think we have a stronger foundation having weathered the storm.

What kind of conversations are you having with your customers?

We are always looking for ways to better serve and connect with our communities. When the pandemic happened, we realized our customers were stuck at home. So we launched a product called LaterBowls. We sold those online and then went on QVC to begin selling nationally direct to consumers on televisions.

How does your design cater to what today’s consumers want?

We’re very natural in our restaurant design. Our Everbowls are made from stuff that has been around forever. So we’re trying to use more wood and natural products in the stores. The flow inside and the decor is meant to feel like you’re in nature. The fruit is the color. That’s the star of the show.

Our goal from the looks side was to maintain the feeling of nature and use products that are grown in nature. Scalability also is a key factor.

Is there a location that shows how the brand interacts with the community and customers? One of your favorites?

I love all my children. All our stores try to be part of the community. We like to hire from inside the community, from high schools and colleges, and we donate and give back to schools, sports teams, and local events. At our college campus locations, they are 100% school-driven with all the staff and patrons going to that school.

Take us through your construction and design strategy.

Our goal from the looks side was to maintain the feeling of nature and use products that are grown in nature. Scalability also is a key factor. We really try to build our

stores in a very thoughtful manner to understand that we are going to have to create different layouts and floor plans and designs in the future.

Give us a rundown of the market’s layout.

At Everbowl, you can help create your own “Whatever Bowl” by choosing from a base of fresh fruit and then adding unlimited, fun toppings. Team members are available to assist from the counter and help collaborate on building a beautiful bowl.

What’s the biggest issue today related to the construction side of the business?

The supply chain and the fact that it’s harder to get certain things. For example, some of our wood for building comes from Oregon, but the glue comes from China. So we can get wood, but not glue. It has been slow and arduous to get materials. That’s been the biggest challenge so far.

Talk about sustainability. What are you doing?

I am morally connected to sustainability. We all need to do our part and take care of this Earth. Sustainability is key for businesses, too. If you just take and take, you are going to run out. It’s just a matter of when. We do use plastic in our stores. It’s one of the knocks that we get, and unfortunately, there’s no good solution yet to it. What we try to do is get things made with renewable resources. We’re told the plastics that we’re using are being made by already recycled plastics. That’s how we are trying to bridge that gap until a better solution comes. It even goes back to our factories. We work with the local people in Brazil, where we source our açaí berries. Because açaí seeds usually go to waste, a handful of locals use the açaí byproducts to

make our Everseed jewelry that we turn around and buy from them so we can sell it to Americans in the stores. We want to give back in many ways instead of just taking.

What is today’s consumer looking for?

Many Americans are used to eating traditional fast food throughout the week instead of a healthier alternative. Why? Because they think eating healthy: > Costs too much > Doesn’t taste good > Won’t leave them satisfied > Is hard to find

Today’s consumers want food that’s affordable, filling, delicious, and accessible. That’s why we created Everbowl. Instead of killing consumers with unhealthy food, let’s make them better. What is your growth plan?

We’re not targeting a specific area for franchising. We are targeting specific people who are the right people to join our family. We want to find good partners who embody what we stand for. That has kind of been our growth strategy. It’s why we are pretty scattered all over. We’re not as concentrated in just one region. We look for operators and partners who are a good fit to join the Everbowl family and we will grow together. So we’re targeting good people to work with and from there we will find good locations.

What’s the biggest item on your to-do list?

The biggest item is to continue to push the Everbowl message every day in many different ways. The most important thing I can do is drive the brand forward on all fronts as best as I can each day. Describe a typical day.

I wake up really early, sometime between 4 a.m. and 5 a.m. I take care of emails and busy work. Then I have breakfast with my kids and exercise before I hit the day. I wear a different hat many days, from investor relations on the corporate side, to traveling to meet with a franchisee, to checking out construction fabrication, to podcasting and media. It’s one of those things pretty much every day.

Tell us what makes your brand so unique?

At Everbowl, we believe the key to life is motion—and the key to motion is food. We craft Super Food so we can “Unevolve,” which is our way of saying: to live and eat the way we were meant to do— living actively and eating stuff that’s been around forever. CK

One-on-One with… Everbowl’s Jeff Fenster

What’s the most rewarding part of your job? Serving customers. It’s incredible when I get to spend a day behind the counter at one of our locations and connect with the customer base. There’s a smile; there’s a sign of what we’re trying to do. At the end of the day, why eating good is so important is because when you eat good, you feel good. And when you feel good, you perform better and are happier with life.

Best advice you ever received? It’s as simple as doing your best every day. Working hard is not your best. Too many times people confuse productivity with activity. You can do a lot of activity that is just a waste of time. Doing your best is improving your craft on all fronts and learning what to focus on to get better.

Best thing a client ever said to you? We had a customer who came in every day. He was a pretty heavy set gentleman. He started incorporating Everbowl because he liked that it satisfied his big sweet tooth and he could eat a large one and it would fill him up. As part of his routine, he’d eat a salad in the afternoon and then a light dinner. He ended up losing around 140 pounds in a year and a half.

He said that having an Everbowl was such an important part of his journey because it was an outlet for him to eat healthy and not feel like he was deprived. The customer saying that makes you realize that we are impacting lives.

Name the three strongest traits any leader should have and why. The first is accountability. If you’re not accountable to yourself and hold everyone else accountable, then you can’t lead. You also need strategic thought. Leaders can’t paint by numbers. You’re a leader because you’re expected to develop a successful plan with the information in front of you. Finally, you must be able to make friends and have fun. You have to be able to find a happy medium between rigid and loose to inspire and lead others.

How do you like to spend your down time? Either hanging out with my family, or playing a sport like tennis, football or basketball.

What’s your favorite quote? “Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard.”