FOOD & DRINK

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Wow Wow Lemonade making a splash

BY KRISTINE CANNON Progress Staff Writer

Since Wow Wow Hawaiian Lemonade moved its headquarters from Maui, Hawaii, to Scottsdale in March 2019, the farmer’s market stand-turnedtrailer lemonade purveyor has quickly captured the taste buds of Phoenicians with its handcrafted mason jar lemonades, refreshing açaí bowls, healthy avocado toasts, and overnight oats.

One year later, Wow Wow has not only expanded its menu, adding new drinks, bowls and spritzers, but it’s also expanding throughout the state with 18 new locations scheduled to open over the next 18 months. Five will open by the end of this year, including Lake Pleasant, Surprise, Moon Valley, Gilbert and Peoria.

“We have to honor our amazing customers �irst and foremost,” said Tim Weiderhoft, chief executive of�icer at Wow Wow Hawaiian Lemonades. “We are very grateful for their patronage of our stands and the positive vibes we get on all of our social media channels.”

On March 16, Wow Wow will release three new menu items for a limited time:

Tim Weiderhoft is the chief executive offi cer at Wow Wow Hawaiian Lemonades. An existing Wow Wow franchisee and franchise industry veteran who most recently served as Vice President of Franchise Development at Arizona-based Massage Envy, Weiderhoft is charged with growing the brand throughout the state. (Chris Mortenson/Progress Staff Photographer)

the Passion Colada Smoothie, Passion Colada Lemonade and the Passion Colada Bowl. “We will be highlighting new recipes and seasonal offerings that are on trend with our core values of craft, raw, and delicious,” Weiderhoft said.

Wow Wow will also release its own line of spritzers this month, including Tropi

cal Fizz with strawberry, mango and mint �lavors; Kiwi Splash with kiwi, cucumber, strawberry and mint; and Blueberry Lemon Fizz with blueberry, lemon and basil. “We are committed to bringing additional new items and food categories in the coming months and have planned for quarterly releases in all of our stands,”

Weiderhoft said. “We are excited about our continual innovation with new beverage, bowl, and healthy bites options coming every few months.”

Charged with growing the brand throughout the state, Weiderhoft is currently seeking quali�ied franchise partners to open restaurants in Old Town/southern Scottsdale, Tempe, Chandler, Biltmore/ Arcadia, downtown Phoenix, Flagstaff and Tucson.

According to a press release, the new franchise locations will create approximately 200 new jobs.

“With its 350 days of sunshine a year, Arizona is the quintessential market for expansion for Wow Wow Hawaiian Lemonades,” Weiderhoft said. “Plus, just last year lemonade was named the Of�icial Drink of Arizona. We are proud to grow in our home state and offer Arizonans the opportunity to grow a business with unlimited potential.”

Outside the state, Wow Wow will open its Livermore, California, location by the end of April with its Albuquerque, New Mexico, location coming shortly after.

���WOW WOW ���� 37

Italian Fest: no regrets leaving Scottsdale

BY CHRISTINA FUOCO-KARASINSKI Progress Staff Writer

The Italian Festival of America is bringing its celebration of food, culture and entertainment to Downtown Phoenix next weekend after several years in Scottsdale.

Italophiliacs can experience la dolce vita with two stages of entertainment, including cooking demonstrations; musical entertainment featuring Italian �lag wavers and dancing; Peroni Nastro Assuro’s interactive displays; Classico Fine Wines & Spirits’ drinks and the Italian Auto d’Eleganza showcase of �ine Italian automobiles.

The festival, 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Saturday, March 14, and 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Sunday, March 15, is along East Jackson Street between 4th Street and 1st Street in downtown Phoenix, south of Talking Stick Resort Arena.

Portion of proceeds bene�its the nonpro�it Italian Association of Arizona and its mission to build an Italian Cultural Center. “We moved to Phoenix for a lot of reasons, the biggest being the crowds were getting bigger and we were running into space issues,” said Frank Guzzo, Italian Association of Arizona executive director.

“We don’t want to move it every year. We want to be in one location and build it from there. We started talking to the City of Phoenix and Downtown Phoenix Inc. and we all made the decision to move the festival to Downtown Phoenix.

“Downtown Phoenix is exploding. It’s become such a vibrant place, compared to 10 years ago. We do want to capture the same people who have been coming to our festi

val for the past six years, plus a whole new demographic.”

The organization also partnered with the Scottsdale Airpark’s R Entertainment to help with the event’s production.

“Everybody, though, comes here for the food,” Guzzo said. “I love the food, even though I’m running around like a chicken without a head. I don’t have time to eat, but that makes the festival. The food is quality Italian food. That’s what we pride ourselves on.”

Information: italianfestivalaz.com

SCOTTSDALE PROGRESS | WWW.SCOTTSDALE.ORG | MARCH 8, 2020 WOW WOW ���� ���� 36 “Our development focus is based on concentrating in the southwest, including Arizona, California, New Mexico, Nevada, and Hawaii. We have a ton of interest coming from Texas and we plan to open in that market soon as well,” Weiderhoft said.

Founded in Hawaii in 2012, Wow Wow opened its �irst brick and mortar store in 2014 and opened its �irst licensed store on the mainland two years later.

Following the launch of its franchise in 2017, Wow Wow now has six lemonade stands domestically and two internationally in Japan.

Weiderhoft, a Desert Ridge community resident, was an existing Wow Wow franchisee and franchise industry veteran who most recently served as vice president of franchise development at Arizona-based Massage Envy. He was appointed CEO in Wow Wow last year.

“I started consulting for a little while and as I started doing more and more consulting and understanding the business more, I went, ‘This is pretty cool. I love what this person’s about. I love the culture of this,’” Weiderhoft said, adding that he met Wow Wow founder Todd Casselberry by chance. “We opened our own location on March 15 of 2019 after around 10 months of planning and preparing. We have absolutely loved being stand owners and when the opportunity to purchase the entire company arose, my partners at C&G Franchise Development jumped at the opportunity and saw �it to place me as the CEO,” Weiderhoft added.

“It’s been an amazing ride so far,” he added.

What sets Wow Wow apart is its dedication to serving raw, fresh products and offering only organic pure cane sugar in its sweetened drinks.

“We take pride in serving real fresh food, not a chemical version of something,” he said, adding:

As an example, we only use real fruits and plants for our lemonades including all the different color variations we have. We also use fresh basil, mint leaves, butter�ly pea �lower, and lavender, to name a few, to give �loral coloring, �lavor, and essence to our products instead of fake chemical based coloring and other unhealthy practices.” Sustainability is also important to Wow Wow.

It has its Mason Jar Re�ill Program, where guests can order their lemonades

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or smoothies in a re-usable Mason jar and receive a discount on their next purchase if they bring the Mason jar back to reuse. And they also use recyclable materials in its serving containers.

Wow Wow’s Coconut Bowl Reuse Program will launch sometime this summer. “As we looked at our trends with customer buying habits it became clear that our açaí bowls are just as important as our lemonades to our regular customers. With the opportunity to take a large category and decrease the waste even further by replicating what has been successful with lemonade only made sense to us,” Weider

37 FOOD & DRINK hoft said.

“There is a responsibility that all of us have to do as much as possible for our communities and our families and we believe that by being as sustainable as possible, we are helping both,” he added.

If you go

Wow Wow Hawaiian Lemonade Where: 6501 E. Greenway Pkwy., #152 Call: 480-508-6036 Website: wowwowhawaiianlemonade. com

Clear Title Agency bringing new technology to real estate closings PAID ADVERTISMENT

By Christina Fuoco-Karasinski

Clear Title Agency of Arizona has introduced a tech-savvy solution for depositing earnest funds during a real estate transaction.

The Arizona-based company has teamed up with the application provider Zoccam to bring customers enhanced options that utilize technology to improve the real estate closing process.

This new technology being offered by Clear Title, allows earnest money to be deposited via mobile app using a photo of the check. The earnest money deposit is a key step to officially opening escrow during a real estate transaction.

Clear Title Agency Executive Vice President Mike Winters says his company saw the need in the marketplace and took the initiative to find a solution. “We open thousands of real estate transactions each year and we listen to feedback from those customers,” Winters says. “This type of thing has been around in consumer banking but not been available when accepting deposits for earnest funds during a real estate transaction. It’s new and unique to our industry. As a locally owned and operated company we are proud to be leading on this and bringing new technology to the market.” The mobile app is easy, he adds. Customers can download the free app from the App store for Apple users, or Google Play for Android devices. Once they download the app, they create an account and take a photo of their check to deposit earnest money needed to start the escrow process. “Prior to this technology, title companies needed to be in possession of the physical check to receipt in earnest money.

With this new technology, the process is expedited saving everyone valuable time.

Let’s meet up at

The mobile app is being quickly adopted and has already been used by customers in every single Clear Title branch location.

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Locally owned and operated, Clear Title Agency of Arizona provides full-service residential and commercial title and escrow services with multiple locations across the Valley and in Flagstaff. The company has been recognized by Inc. 5000 Fastest Growing Companies and Phoenix Business Journal’s Best Places to Work numerous times and ranks in the top 1% of all First American agents nationally.