Students returning from the fall semester will likely notice something missing from the second floor of the Titan Shops Bookstore as this semester gets underway. The space that was once home to the Juice it Up! Frozen Yogurt is now caged off and vacant – its soft serve machines all empty.

Anibal Ortiz / Daily Titan

The yogurt shop, which opened in late 2010, officially closed its doors last December.

“Juice it Up! Frozen Yogurt was actually in a very bad location,” said Andrew Brown, 21, chair of the Food Advisory Committee on campus.

Brown cited poor sales due to a lack of foot traffic as the primary cause of the store closing.

“If you can imagine, the second floor is made up of books, and the demand for textbooks is at the beginning of each semester,” said Christian Urcia, 25, chair of the Titan Student Centers (TSC) Governing Board. “If there’s no demand, then students typically won’t go up there unless they really like frozen yogurt.”

Though the yogurt shop only remained open for a little over a year, its failure to find a consistent following was not without precedent.

“Even before Juice it Up! Frozen Yogurt opened, there was a coffee shop that ultimately closed down,” Brown said.

Both Brown and Urcia recanted the same reasons for the yogurt store’s departure. Poor sales due to lack of traffic were paralleled in the coffee shop that previously occupied the space.

“Trying to get students and the community up there has always proven to be a challenge,” Urcia said.

The closing comes at great expense. In Brown’s best estimation, the infrastructure for creating the frozen yogurt store, the purchasing of equipment and renovation of the space was somewhere in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

“The Juice it Up! people did all they could to try to keep this place open,” Brown said.  “Their product was good, their marketing was good; it was just their location that ultimately determined their fate.”

The Food Advisory Board is the only committee of the four that make up the TSC, whose decisions are non-binding. Even if a unanimous decision had been made to keep the yogurt shop, the decision to stay ultimately falls on the client.

The client, Balboa Brands Inc., and managers of the Juice it Up! brand decided it was time to close up shop.

“Poor sales coupled with the second-floor location meant it just didn’t make sense to continue business,” said Carol Skinner, director of marketing and business development for Balboa Brands. “It just comes down to economics.”

Despite the store’s closing, Skinner asserted Balboa’s enthusiasm with continuing business at Cal State Fullerton. Juice it Up! maintains an outlet in the Titan Student Union as well as a trailer on campus. Both have had better success with students.

No plans currently exist for filling the vacant space on the bookstore’s second floor, but for now, both Brown and Urcia agreed that it will likely not involve purveyors of food or drink.