In the summer before she arrived at Wofford, Spartanburg native Caris Mitchell ’27 worked at a local smoothie shop, where she noticed many of her customers were Wofford students.
“I thought that was a market that wasn’t being tapped into on campus,” says Mitchell, an accounting major with a studio art minor. “When I got to Wofford, I really wanted to be the person to bring smoothies here.”
Enter Studio Smoothie.
Mitchell’s smoothie shop is open Mondays and Wednesdays from 7:30-10:30 a.m. in the Galleria in the Michael S. Brown Village Center.
Its menu has staple smoothies with Wofford ties, like the berry-flavored Burwell Blast and the Samhat Classic, a twist on the traditional strawberry-banana smoothie. She also plans to introduce new flavors on a rotating basis; her early special blends are the Pineapple Punch, the Tropical Terrier and the Boston Berry-ier. “I’ve been working on this since high school. I have about 50 recipes in my notebook that eventually I’m going to rotate through,” Mitchell says.
Mitchell, a Launch Scholar, pitched Studio Smoothie with Joe Cahill ’26 at the Terrier Startup Challenge in 2025 and secured $500 by winning the Audience Choice Award. The money went toward startup costs, including ingredients, utensils and blenders.
This summer, Mitchell worked with AVI Foodsystems, Wofford’s culinary services provider, to lay out Studio Smoothie’s requirements and responsibilities in using the Galleria space. She also trained with a food safe certified professional to learn proper food prep procedures.
Mitchell and her staff, which often includes her mom or her sister, rotate between taking orders, preparing and blending smoothies, and cleaning and organizing the space. Each shift is made easier by the work Mitchell does before the shop opens.
“I come in on the weekend to prep my fruit. The night before a shift, I’ll go in to set up my ice basin, where the ingredients stay chilled, and I, of course, make sure everything is clean. I’m here by 7 a.m. each shift to finish setting up and to let the fruit thaw,” she says.
That allows Mitchell the time to chat and connect with the Wofford community as she and her workers complete orders. Her hope is that Studio Smoothie provides a positive start each customer’s day.
"Studio Smoothie has become something I look forward to seeing every Monday and Wednesday,” says Sunni Owens ’26. “Having seen the effort it took for Caris to get this approved makes it even easier to support her. She’s a bright face to say good morning to on my way out, and every day I’ve started with a smoothie has been better than the rest.”
Studio Smoothie is an official limited liability company, and Mitchell credits her mom with pushing her to pursue an LLC and “do things the right way.”
“It is really cool to be like yes, I’m 20 years old and I have an LLC,” she says.
The Launch program at Wofford has also helped Mitchell deal with the logistics of running a business while she balances being a full-time student, a business owner and a leader in the Wofford community, including service on the Bellringer Leadership Team with the Office of Admission and as president of the college’s co-ed club soccer team.
Mitchell says she plans to go to graduate school for accounting and has a job lined up in the field, but starting her own business after graduation isn’t out of the question.
“Entrepreneurship is really where my passion lies. I feel so lucky and so grateful that Wofford is open to having me sell smoothies here and letting me pursue my dreams,” she says.