As the Dallas Business Journal first reported this week, Smoothie King is moving its corporate headquarters from Metairie, known outside of Louisiana as “New Orleans,” to Irving, known outside of Texas as “Dallas.” This effectively makes North Texas the chain smoothie purveyor capital of the world, with Smoothie King joining Smoothie Factory and Jamba Juice, which jumped from California to Frisco a couple years ago. That’s something.
And reading some of the coverage of the relocation coming out of New Orleans, where the NBA’s Pelicans will continue to play in the Smoothie King Center and the company will maintain a modest corporate-level footprint, the news may also have some bearing on Dallas’ participation in the shameless pageant for Amazon’s second headquarters. Smoothie King, bringing something like 60 jobs to North Texas, is hardly comparable to a company promising to remake a city with 50,000 new jobs.
But it’s still worth noting, as we remain in the dark about how much the city is willing to give away to bring Amazon here, that Smoothie King apparently opted to come to North Texas without the lure of any incentives. From a column at NOLA.com:
(Smoothie King owner Wan) Kim told the Dallas Business Journal on Tuesday (April 24) that his company was attracted to Dallas for to its central location, talent pool and access to high-quality vendors and suppliers.
“Dallas offers the advantages of being a major food and beverage hub,” Kim said. “Smoothie King has a strong presence in the Dallas area with more than 50 locations, and the move will support our continued growth.”
No additional incentives required. Dallas just has to be Dallas…
Having a strong business climate, a talented employee pool and an airport with more direct flights apparently is incentive enough. That’s why Smoothie King is moving to Dallas.
“Dallas just has to be Dallas” sure has a nice ring to it. While Dallas just being Dallas is definitely not enough to convince Amazon, we can wistfully imagine a world where Dallas competes with other cities on its own merit, without the corporate honeypot of public money. Where the city invests in itself, and not a company worth $685 billion.
