The Proud to Serve Format

Gong cha, the bubble tea brand with nearly 2,200 locations across 33 international markets, has activated two new nontraditional points of distribution inside Ladle & Leaf foodservice locations at the University of California, San Francisco and UC Berkeley. The deployments mark the brand's first university-embedded sites under its Proud to Serve licensing model, which is designed to let existing operators layer a globally recognized beverage program onto their existing footprint with minimal added equipment.

Under the licensing structure, the host operator — in this case Ladle & Leaf, a scratch-made soups, salads, and sandwiches concept — integrates Gong cha's freshly brewed teas directly into their current service line. The format requires no standalone storefront buildout, making it attractive for operators managing constrained back-of-house square footage in campus dining halls, healthcare facilities, or institutional settings. The beverage line includes premium milk teas, fruit teas, matcha drinks, and the brand's signature milk foam teas, each prepared to order with customizable sweetness, ice level, and toppings.

Equipment and Operational Implications

For foodservice equipment specifiers and dealer-channel professionals, the Proud to Serve model is worth watching as a template for compact beverage station integration. Because the program slots into an operator's existing venue rather than requiring a purpose-built tea bar, the equipment package is intentionally lean — a critical consideration for university dining and healthcare foodservice directors evaluating add-on revenue programs without major capital expenditure or kitchen reconfiguration. Gong cha has not disclosed a specific equipment list, but the model's emphasis on "minimal equipment" and seamless integration into existing operations suggests the station footprint is designed for tight counter or service-line placement.

Michael Nedelkovich Jr., Vice President of U.S. Non-Traditional Franchise Development at Gong cha, framed the UC openings as a repeatable blueprint. "UCSF and UC Berkeley are the types of high-traffic, community-driven environments where Gong cha can become part of consumers' daily routines," he said, noting that the Ladle & Leaf partnership "creates a blueprint for expanding into more campuses, hospitals and other nontraditional destinations nationwide."

Broader Growth Context

The campus activations support Gong cha's stated goal of surpassing 500 locations across the Americas by 2028 — a target that spans both traditional franchise storefronts and nontraditional licensed venues. The brand currently operates more than 240 locations across 24 U.S. states, Washington D.C., and Puerto Rico.

Gong cha's broader operational platform — branded internally as Gong cha 2.0 — is engineered around higher throughput, digital ordering, automation, and optimized store design. Those infrastructure investments make it easier to maintain product consistency across distributed, non-standard service environments like campus dining, airports, and hospitals, where quality control without a dedicated franchise team on-site is a persistent challenge for beverage programs. Operators considering similar embedded ice-and-beverage or specialty tea stations in institutional settings will find the Proud to Serve licensing approach a useful reference point for evaluating minimal-footprint beverage integration.

Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.