Clean Juice

CLEAN JUI CE landlord? What are the right conversations to have to be able to hold onto some of your cash? What is the PPP (Payroll Protection Program) and how does it work? It’s challenging when the banks and the government don’t really even know what it is. Working through that, step by step with our entire system, was how we were able to get all the stores reopened. It was a process, but our entire executive team here was focused on making sure that we were truly available for everyone in our system to make sure that they had the most up-to-date information.” BVM: What if the pandemic continues? Cuff: “Like everyone, we’re taken additional precautions, and gone through the process of being extra cautious from a safety and cleanliness standpoint: extra cleaning, wearing face shields or face masks, installing Plexiglas in front of the POS machine, marking off the floors, etc. Each state is a little bit different and we’ve worked through that on an individual basis with each franchise partner depending on the state that they’re in. We saw that in the northeast, they had some of the harder restrictions, but we also launched our 100th store in New Jersey, in the middle of the pandemic and we had record- breaking, grand-opening sales. So, the overall business model really makes sense in this environment. Will there come a day when we’ll have to revert to closing down more stores? I think that’s to be determined and we’ll take it one day and one state at a time.” BVM: What are your plans for the future? Cuff: “If you asked me this question a couple of years ago, my answer would have been to have 500 stores in five years. What I can say now, is that the overall number isn’t important. It’s great for making headlines and PR. What I’m truly focused on is growing with the right people in the right markets. Our growth has come from the level of involvement that we