The constant whirr of machinery, the slushing of ice, and the scent of a freshly opened shop. With each sip, a pop in the mouth. Boba, short for bubble tea, is growing in popularity, and this sweet drink struck a chord with then 16 year-old, now 17-year old Ariana Storms near the end of her junior year. Previously residing in an RV in Palmdale, CA, she took note of the bubble tea shops scattered around her city. With the scarcity of them in Aledo, she had the idea of bringing the city life to her small town.
At a young age, her creativity led her on the path to becoming a game developer. However, since she has the utilities to do this at home, she chose a different way to allocate her college funds.
“A lot of my aspirations don’t really need a degree,” Storms said. “They’re an online thing you can learn. So instead of having my parents pay for my tuition — which I knew they were always going to — I wanted to use it for something that creates money instead.”
The process behind creating the name and design for her shop came with the help of video games she played as a kid.
“It’s name is based off of my Roblox username that I had in first grade,” Storms said. “It was Ari Bob Joe Jr, and we just changed the bob for boba and Joe stands for coffee. I created the interior design in The Sims 4. I had completely laid it out, and I sent it out to the interior designer for her to work off that.”
Not only did her parents support her economically, but her now manager Micheal helps her in more ways than she hoped for.
“I’m so grateful to have Micheal, he’s such an incredible person and he’s worked so hard for me and what I wanted,” Storms said. “My mom didn’t really know what was going on, so I’m just happy he was here the whole time. We wouldn’t have been able to get here without him.”
Even before the shop opened, many people in the community were interested in their coming up, creating a vast pool of employees to choose from.
“My mom and I conducted most of the interviews and hired people already interested,” Storms said. “For training, we just called everybody in and split them into groups, and they went through it all. It doesn’t take a lot of memorization, and all of the recipes are there for people to use.”
When it came to deciding menu items, Storms used a lot of the typical boba drinks from other places that people seemed to enjoy but wanted to add her own little spin to each of the drinks.
On opening day, there was a line out of the door.
“It was nothing short of chaotic,” Storms said. “We weren’t actively prepared for it to be that busy. What we did is a soft opening, where you don’t tell anyone you’re opening, and you just turn on google saying open. Everyone came rushing in.”
Storms hopes that once she graduates high school, she can put more energy into her shop. She has yet to do a grand opening but plans to once everything is officially finalized; only time will tell when that will happen.
