Tacoma man works his way from barista to owner of popular chain Emerald City Smoothie

After starting as a smoothie barista years ago with Emerald City Smoothie, Tacoma local Chris Brown can now lay claim to the entire operation.

Brown, 43, recently purchased the company, with more than 40 stores across four states including Washington, for an undisclosed sum.

“I always joked around with the owners and said, ‘Yeah, when you guys going to let me buy this whole thing ... and I think I said that after my third or fourth year,” Brown told The News Tribune in a November interview.

Brown said among his plans is moving the company’s headquarters to Tacoma from Bellevue. The company has locations in Arizona, Connecticut, Oregon and Washington.

The Wilson High graduate’s path to ownership sprung from becoming store manager at the 6th Avenue-Pearl Street location to buying a Puyallup store 10 years ago, and as his sister, Heather, explained, “soon becoming the franchisee with the most locations in franchise history.”

Heather Brown has been with the company nearly three years. For her, it was an easy decision to come on board and work alongside her brother after helping with deposits and other odd jobs after her own work.

“He was looking for a bit more of an HR assistant. And that’s what I did at my previous job was HR work. ... I wasn’t really feeling like I was going anywhere there. And I knew that he was heading somewhere where he was going to need support. And it felt for me like, ‘Well, why not go work for him where I can be working for someone that I trust, and I love?’”

His favorite smoothie? The Zone Zinger, which includes strawberry, papaya, cranberry, lemon, whey protein, multi-vitamin and flax.

“I add peanut butter to it,” he said.

Heather Brown prefers the Just Peachy, made of peach, strawberry, papaya and whey protein.

“We make a great team,” she added, “because we have different thought processes. And we can kind of bounce those thoughts off each other and make the best solution when it needs to be made.”

As of 2019, Chris Brown owned five locations in the South Sound and became the company’s largest franchisee.

It was around that time when Brown was at a crossroads, whether to stay with the company or go in a different direction.

“Prior to the pandemic, I had a conversation with one of the owners, and I said, ‘I’m kind of not sure if I want to keep opening more stores,’” he recalled. “I’m either going to want to look into getting into a different line of investing, like, say, real estate, for example, you know, maybe start flipping homes or something.”

As the pandemic kicked in, the company instead sent him to open two new stores in Arizona — Phoenix and Tempe.

Eventually, it was Brown’s time to take ownership.

Julie Vance, one of the previous owners, recently confirmed the sale with The News Tribune.

The goal now, Chris Brown said, “is to have an Emerald City Smoothie in every state.”

“I strongly believe that it’s a great company already,” he said. “The changes that I will make is just creating better relationships with all of the other owners and having more of a daily basis open dialogue about the changes that they would like to see.”