A small idea can sometimes set an entrepreneur down an unexpected path. For Kendel Locke, a senior at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, what began as a casual summer project in 2023 has grown into a full-fledged business.
Locke, a marketing major with a collateral in entrepreneurship at UT’s Haslam College of Business, began weighing her options for the future earlier that year. Thanks to a dual enrollment program at her high school in Hannibal, Missouri, she’d entered the university in fall 2022 with 57 college credits under her belt, so she only needed two years at UT to finish her undergraduate degree. She didn’t have much work experience, so she had to discover a way to stand out in the job market or on graduate school applications.
Around that same time, she tasted her first acai smoothie bowl and got the idea to start a microbusiness around the popular snack. Nothing like it was available in her hometown. “I figured, if the coasts like it and college campuses like it, surely my small, rural hometown will too,” she says.
Locke created a business plan and prepared to launch her own smoothie bowl shop, Hula Bowls. With support from her family, she secured a 12-foot-by-20-foot shed and “borrowed” a piece of land and gravel lot her grandmother owned in Hannibal to set up a drive-through business with outdoor seating. She started Facebook and Instagram accounts for the business, drawing on what she’d learned in her marketing classes about tailoring outreach to different audiences on different channels.
Those efforts paid off. By the time Hula Bowls opened on May 20, 2023, it already had 2,000 social media followers. Locke started with three employees on opening day but quickly realized she needed more help. Her siblings and other family members pitched in, and the shop stayed open several hours longer than planned to keep up with demand. “My grandparents came to cut fruit,” she recalls. “We eventually had to physically block the entrance with cones to prevent more customers from coming in.”
Quality Products, Caring Relationships
With a menu featuring a wide variety of smoothie bowl blends and plant-based energy drinks, Hula Bowls takes pride in offering vegan, vegetarian, allergy-friendly, gluten-free and dairy-free items. Locke says, “People really enjoy having a healthy option. My customers tell me they feel better mentally and physically since having our bowls. Plus, they’re delicious. They taste like ice cream.”
Those factors bring people back to Hula Bowls time and time again, enabling Locke and her staff to build community with their customers. “I have great relationships with my regulars. They support me, and I try to give back by making donations to the causes they care about. It’s been very rewarding. I love my team, too. They care about making Hula Bowls successful just as much as I do.”
Although her original plan was to run Hula Bowls as a pop-up shop for the summer and close it when she returned to UT in August, the overwhelming customer response made her start to envision it as more than a pop-up. “They begged me to stay open longer,” she says. “I figured I had to either go all the way or not at all, so I decided to go all the way.”
She extended Hula Bowls’ season through October and began making plans for the future. Her top priority was to grow the shop. With no extra space in the tiny shed, she’d been using her bedroom for storage all summer, making supply runs between home and the shop several times a day. “I know a lot of my customers were bummed that we had to close for construction in October, but we had to build something bigger. I couldn’t keep driving back and forth all day every day.”
In the meantime, Locke also needed to finish her last year at UT. Throughout the 2023-2024 academic year, she “did as much schoolwork as possible Monday through Thursday morning,” then made the nine-hour drive from Knoxville to Hannibal to work on Hula Bowls business before driving back to Knoxville on Sunday.
“I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t a lot,” she says, “but I’ve had to figure it out. I know it’ll be worth it in the long run.”
Building on a Professional Calling
As the academic year draws to a close, the coming months will continue to be busy for Locke. She graduates from UT in May, the same month the newly remodeled Hula Bowls is scheduled to reopen. The original shed has been replaced with a 1,200-square-foot brick-and-mortar building with both indoor and outdoor seating as well as a drive-through. By popular demand, a second Hula Bowls location is under construction across the Mississippi River from Hannibal in Quincy, Illinois. That shop is slated to open in June 2024, and Locke already has her eye on a space for a third location.
As she looks ahead to her future, Locke no longer has immediate plans to apply for jobs or graduate school. With Hula Bowls now having indoor seating, she wants the business to become a year-round, full-time endeavor. Sourcing high-quality fruit in the off season may be difficult, she realizes, so she is thinking about ways to expand the shop’s menu while maintaining its commitment to healthy, allergy-friendly options.
Locke recognizes that the acai smoothie bowl trend is likely to fade, and Hula Bowls might not be her “forever career,” but it has ignited her passion for entrepreneurship and set her on a new path. “I have seriously enjoyed bringing something into my community, meeting the people, seeing how I’m helping and affecting them and building relationships,” she says. “I feel like I’ve found my calling.”
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CONTACT:
Stacy Estep, writer/publicist, sestep3@utk.edu
