The first New Mexico Jamba location comes to Winrock Center

For the Esquibels, the first New Mexico Jamba franchise is family business.

Father and son Joe and Chris Esquibel opened the well-known smoothie franchise in Winrock Center in early September and have signed up to open two more locations in Albuquerque. They have not secured locations for the additional Jambas, but are planning one on the West Side and another in Nob Hill or the Paseo, Wyoming area.

Chris Esquibel’s day job is as an engineer at Sandia Labs, while his dad Joe Esquibel built a career in sales.

"He’s good at staying on top of contractors and I’m better at just the numbers, paperwork side,” Chris Esquibel said.

His wife Anna has been handling the store’s marketing, while his brother is the general manager.

Chris Esquibel has always wanted to escape the 9 to 5, with a business of his own. When he and his wife tried Jamba at the Las Vegas airport, the business seemed like the right fit.

“We’d heard about it before, but we tried it there and were like, man this is really good. No artificial flavors, no artificial colors, no high fructose corn syrup, so it was like, this is a really good product,” Esquibel said.

The menu is more than just smoothies, with bowls, sandwiches, iced coffee and matcha. One of Esquibel’s favorites is the apple and greens, which is sweet from the apple but has health benefits from the kale, or the vanilla blue sky bowl, which includes vanilla blue sky smoothie, granola, banana, strawberry, blueberries and coconut flakes.

“My wife really likes the protein berry workout, because it’s sweet but we also both go to the gym all the time and so you get a little more protein in there. It’s pretty filling too so you can kind of supplement a meal too,” Esquibel said.

The store employs 15 staff members, many of whom are high school or college students.

The franchise took longer than expected to open. It took six months to find a location, eight months to get through permitting and another seven months for construction. Permitting was the most difficult part of the process, said Esquibel, although construction was also a challenge.

The resulting space is bright and light, and Esquibel plans to keep the shop a place where people can sit, relax and enjoy a smoothie.

“Jamba means to celebrate, and I feel like when I walk in here, it just has a good mood,” Esquibel said.