Sad about the closing of Tai Chi Bubble Tea on Broad Street downtown? It’s about to become a location of Queen Tea, a small chain with locations in the Atlanta metro area. The new shop features a UGA theme, board games, teas, coffees, yogurt drinks and a variety of dim sum-ish snacks that include steamed dumplings, bao and rice bowls.
Drive-through coffee chains are the next bubble tea bubble, if recent activity in Athens is anything to go by. Caribou, Ellianos and multiple Dunkins having opened recently, with Biggby and 7 Brew on the horizon. Throwing its hat in the ring is Dutch Bros., which is looking to open on Atlanta Highway near Target. The original location of the franchise is in Oregon, and it calls its workers “broistas.” Its menu encompasses much more than coffee, with lots of rainbow-colored, often-caffeinated beverages.
Kiki’s Bakeshop, in Watkinsville, is looking to move to a larger space, just behind its current building.
Blenz Smoothie Bowls, a franchise started by two University of Alabama dudes that does the same kind of thing as Playa Bowls (thicker smoothies, served in a bowl), is opening in what was the Creamery, on the D.W. Brooks Mall on UGA’s campus. Focused on locations on college campuses, it offers sippable as well as spoonable smoothies, plus cold-brew coffee.
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