California superfoods concept to open in King of Prussia

Source, Philadelphia Business Journal, Kenneth Hilario

The King of Prussia Town Center is nearing full occupancy, but there’s room for at least one more food-and-beverage tenant: a California-based superfoods café.

Fast-casual café company Vitality Bowls has signed a lease to occupy 1,097 square feet of space at the King of Prussia Town Center — off the Main Street and adjacent to LA Fitness. Slated to open in March this year, the San Ramon-based company is known for its organic acai bowls and smoothies, and made-to-order juices and paninis.

Vitality Bowls first began franchising in 2014, and has since grown to 40 cafés open or in development in the United States. The King of Prussia Town Center location is the company’s first café in Pennsylvania.

Vitality Bowls chose the Town Center for the tenant mix of food and beverage operators and retailers and residential apartments that created the “live-work-play” environment the company looked for in the market, according to Sam Kotler of MSC Retail, who represented Vitality Bowls in the Town Center transaction

“That was our main reasoning for picking this site. With our first entry into the market, we wanted to make sure we got off on the right foot,” said Kotler, who represents the franchisee in southeastern Pennsylvania during the California company’s expansion.

King of Prussia Town Center is the retail component of the Village at Valley Forge, a 122-acre master planned, mixed-use development that includes a 125,000-square-foot Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia building and, eventually, up to 2,500 residential units and upwards of 1.5 million square feet of office space.

The Town Center is near full occupancy, and it’s already recruited an impressive roster of tenants: retailers Nordstrom Rack, ULTA, among others; and restaurants Davio’s Northern Italian Steakhouse, Washington, D.C.’s District Taco and Chicago’s Naf Naf Grill, among others.

The Montgomery County destination has slowly become a dining center in King of Prussia, or a “downtown for Upper Merion,” and the King of Prussia Mall is located not too far, chock-full of other dining options.

A sushi concept was specifically mentioned for a potential future restaurant use at the Town Center, but Vitality Bowls is a sensible fit given the demographic of Upper Merion and the other health-focused tenants like healthy fast-casual restaurants b.good and honeygrow.

The group that will own the Town Center location has plans to expand the Vitality Bowls brand in the region, and want to become the “premier acai bowl place in southeastern Pennsylvania,” MSC Retail’s Kotler said.

A number of companies offer acai bowls in Philadelphia, including Stripp’d Juice and Animo Juice and Burrito Bar. Restaurants that offer acai bowls either use powdered acai or frozen acai fruit.

While some concepts may offer acai bowls as part of a larger menu, that is Vitality Bowl’s niche, said Kotler, who said “a lot of places will add ice, sweeteners and thicken it with mango. This is just raw acai; there’s no additive.