Atomic Tea - Calgarypuck Forums - The Unofficial Calgary Flames Fan Community

AMG_G · 03-04-2011, 01:03 PM

Anybody know what happened to Atomic Tea that use to be 1st? The doors are closed and the sign gone when I drove by this morning.

http://www.atomicexperience.com/

ynwa03 · 03-04-2011, 01:05 PM

Don't tell me it closed down? They were doing well from what i remember. Best bubble tea in town in my opinion.

socktape · 03-04-2011, 01:24 PM

I have heard they sold that location to a bakery and are still running their other new location on 1st and 14th.

kirant · 03-04-2011, 01:25 PM

I think it primarily moved to Edmonton.

WilsonFourTwo · 03-04-2011, 01:25 PM

nm

TylerSVT · 03-04-2011, 01:28 PM

Bubble Tea was a fad that has kind of died out, like Cupcakes will do in a year or 2.

Bill Bumface · 03-04-2011, 01:29 PM

I guess you never saw the line up out the door then, huh?

AMG_G · 03-04-2011, 01:33 PM

Hard to sell a location when it is leased. I think the fad is over.

Bubble tea was a huge Hong Kong/Taiwan thing that was driven by most Hong Kong immigrants. Since the immigrants from Hong Kong mostly dried up because the fear of the handover to China was over hyped there isn't much demand. Plus who wants a slushy cold drink when it's -20 outside anyways.

Quote:

Originally Posted by socktape

I have heard they sold that location to a bakery and are still running their other new location on 1st and 14th.

socktape · 03-04-2011, 02:02 PM

Well okay then, maybe they either broke/let the lease expire or transferred/sublet it to the Bakery.

I think that the other location was better for business... the foot traffic for where they were wasn't ideal, busy at lunch... not so much otherwise.

AMG_G · 03-04-2011, 02:16 PM

I think that the Subway took a huge piece of their business at the 2nd location. It is empty or near empty every day at noon. I think that is the location they pitched on Dragon's Den.

Quote:

Originally Posted by socktape

Well okay then, maybe they either broke/let the lease expire or transferred/sublet it to the Bakery.

I think that the other location was better for business... the foot traffic for where they were wasn't ideal, busy at lunch... not so much otherwise.

Daradon · 03-04-2011, 02:20 PM

I saw them on Dragon's Den 2 years ago I think it was. They wanted to franchise and finally won the Dragons over for funding to do that, and got all five of them in on it as to receive expertise too. Would have thought something would have happened with all that. Said they wanted to become the Tim Hortons of tea. Now that's obviously impossible, but shows that they did want to grow it big.

I know they did bubble tea, but I thought they had a lot of other stuff too. I stopped in once and had a regular cold tea of some sort. Always found bubble tea to be in asian shops, delis, and restaurants. In fact I first ran into it in Australia (as I have never been to asia). But Atomic seemed to be a bit different from that, even if they did offer some bubble teas.

socktape · 03-04-2011, 03:19 PM

Apparently even if you strike a deal with the Dragon's on the show it isn't necessarily a done deal. If you don't cash the cheque so to speak then obviously there isn't a deal to be had.

Sort of like those Saskatchewan kids that were on the show a little while ago that were turning old containers into field trailers. To me... while they had a great idea and got a decent "deal" from the dragons... I don't know that they really needed the money all that badly.... they were already a success story in the making. I imagine if they really wanted to grow fast then yes they could use the money... but I digress....

Bill Bumface · 03-04-2011, 03:25 PM

I talked to the female owner of Atomic about a year and a half ago, and they were the only ones that had gone through with the whole Dragon's Den process all the way up to that point.

AMG_G · 03-04-2011, 03:25 PM

I never understood why they sold 50% of Atomic for 100k. Look at Thai Thai, they started at about the same time now they have 4 locations with a 5th opening soon all done without investors.

http://www.thaitaisub.com/

HotHotHeat · 03-04-2011, 03:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TylerSVT

Bubble Tea was a fad that has kind of died out, like Cupcakes will do in a year or 2.

Sorry, did you just say Cupcakes are a fad?

REDVAN · 03-04-2011, 03:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HotHotHeat

Sorry, did you just say Cupcakes are a fad?

Apparently, his mother didn't love him as a child.

socktape · 03-04-2011, 03:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AMG_G

I never understood why they sold 50% of Atomic for 100k. Look at Thai Thai, they started at about the same time now they have 4 locations with a 5th opening soon all done without investors.

http://www.thaitaisub.com/

I could be wrong but I think that Thai Thai has a broader menu and a larger capital base to begin with. They were able to gain more customers quicker by their location selection and offerings. I would think it would be easier to market a full menu shop where your main food offering is the draw (subs) vs marketing a drink that might be seen more by customers as a novelty.

You look at Jugo and Booster Juice... they had more of a health connotation with their initial marketing and it served them really well. Atomic and bubble tea one would think would not be in that same category and by that time Jugo and Booster were already flooding the market.

yads · 03-04-2011, 03:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hulkrogan

I guess you never saw the line up out the door then, huh?

Wasn't that more because they were so damn slow?

Regardless they still have to location in the Hotel Arts annex.

TylerSVT · 03-04-2011, 03:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by socktape

Apparently even if you strike a deal with the Dragon's on the show it isn't necessarily a done deal. If you don't cash the cheque so to speak then obviously there isn't a deal to be had.

Sort of like those Saskatchewan kids that were on the show a little while ago that were turning old containers into field trailers. To me... while they had a great idea and got a decent "deal" from the dragons... I don't know that they really needed the money all that badly.... they were already a success story in the making. I imagine if they really wanted to grow fast then yes they could use the money... but I digress....

All the deals have to go through due diligence before they go through, often times i imagine the deals fall through because they were not pitched correctly.

In terms of cupcakes being a fad, i would say places like Crave and whatnot are defiantly a fad, will make way for the next fad, waffles or something else.

socktape · 03-04-2011, 03:53 PM

there we go... A CP waffle store! Who's in?