A
fruit smoothie joint predominantly found in the
Southwest USA. Zuka Juice was started by a group of
BYU students who correctly figured they could make great fruit smoothies by using
real fruit and only
real fruit in the their drinks and make a lot of
money. Although more
expensive than
coffee or
soda at around $3.50 per 16-oz
smoothie, they were so
tasty I couldn't resist (especially in the
summer) and I probably wound up spending a small
fortune there.
Most of their beverages were based on orange juice, which they squeezed fresh with a very interesting juicing machine (the only one I've ever seen, at least), and contained various berries, sherbets, or bananas. They sold a drink called "The Cold Warrior", which contained 2000% of your daily requirement of Vitamin C (it was based on peaches, bananas, orange juice, and echinacea), which I always thought was cool, plus several drinks that were not fruit-based. The whole place had a herbalist-health-food-kick kind of atmosphere. They sold some other health foods like weird sea salt potato chips, nutrition bars, wheatgrass juice, and a number of souvenir items like mugs and glass jugs.
Sadly, Zuka Juice was bought in late 1999 by Jamba Juice, an inferior chain, and the quality has not been the same since.