After leaving a job in finance in New York City because he was tired of the city and didn't want to raise a family there, Pudalov moved to Colorado and decided he wanted to serve people and work directly with customers — something he didn't get to do while working for banks and financial institutions.
He wanted to open a restaurant, "but I didn't want to cook," Pudalov admits. He was worried about food spoilage, too, so the frozen fresh fruit idea appealed to him, and acai bowls were just becoming widely known in the U.S.
In 2016, Rush Bowls launched its franchising options, and the company has grown rapidly since. There are more than forty locations in 22 states. Soon, Colorado will have the largest number of outposts — nine are currently open in the state and another six are in the works, including the one in RiNo and another that will debut in Arvada by the end of the year.
The offerings at Rush Bowls have been developed with a lot of intention, Pudalov notes, adding that most of the concoctions are not as sweet as you'd expect (despite being chock-full of fruit), and there are no unnatural ingredients. The peanut butter is made in-house, and even the blue-hued High Tide gets its color from the nutrient-rich blue spirulina, an algae additive.
"We're very health-focused, but we're not preachy," Pudalov says. Nutrition information for each bowl is available online, and customers can add "boosts" like fiber, multivitamin and matcha to any order.
The recipes have changed over the years, and each bowl is designed not only with nutrition in mind, but mouthfeel. Pudalov emphasizes that these are not smoothies served in bowls. "I'm a texture person," he says, and each bowl is created with a balance of ingredients so the frozen portion is thicker than a smoothie and almost silky, with something crunchy as a topping.
Customers can create their own bowls, but the pre-set options are extensive, with sixteen bowls and eleven smoothies, plus peanut butter ball bites and bowls for kids and dogs. Beach is the most popular bowl (and not because it's Ken's job in the Barbie movie). It's a mix of acai, banana, mango and guava juice with crunchy granola, honey and an added topping of the customer's choice.
Rush Bowls occasionally offers specialty bowls, like this season's Pumpkin Spice Bowl, available through November.
Kristin Pazulski
Later this year, Rush Bowls will launch a new menu that will include some current favorites and some new additions, all of which will be frozen yogurt-free (though that ingredient will still be available as an add-on).
It's easy to think of these bowls as a dessert substitute, but Pudalov would rather you didn't. The size and contents of each item is intentionally designed to be hearty enough to replace a full meal, he says — particularly lunch.
Rush Bowls currently has locations in Denver at 1580 Blake Street and 1665 Central Street. For more information, visit rushbowls.com.
