Larsen Baker plans to redevelop a building at 2749 N. Campbell Ave. into a standalone restaurant building with a pick-up lane for Original ChopShop’s first Tucson location.

 Courtesy of Larsen Baker LLC

Tucson is getting an outpost of the Phoenix-born Original ChopShop late next summer.

The fresh fast-casual chain with an emphasis on healthy — it serves protein bowls, acai bowls, fresh-squeezed juices, protein shakes, sandwiches and salads — will settle into a 2,400-square-foot building at 2749 N. Campbell Ave. that Tucson’s Larsen Baker is developing.

Original ChopShop has eight Arizona locations, with a ninth set to open Nov. 2 in Mesa and a 10th to open in central Phoenix in late 2023.

It will be the first of possibly several Original ChopShop restaurants opening in Tucson as the company makes a push to expand the brand, said Marketing Vice President Brooke Perry.

Larsen Baker closed escrow on the $950,000 property earlier this week through its affiliate Campbell Avenue Developers LLC. The existing multi-tenant plaza, which is home to a nail salon, insurance office and other small businesses, will be torn down, said Isaac Figueroa, Larsen Baker’s director of leasing and sales.

“We thought that (the location) was an underutilized lot along Campbell and it would be great to put something there that would be great for the community,” said Figueroa, crediting Larsen Baker President Melissa Lal with being the visionary behind a string of recent projects that have landed emerging chains in Tucson. “While we were in escrow with it, the broker for ChopShop reached out to us.”

This building at 2749 N. Campbell Ave. will be torn down and redeveloped into an Original ChopShop restaurant.

Construction on the new building will begin early next year, Figueroa said, and the restaurant is expected to open by late summer 2023, Perry said.

“We’re thrilled. We are excited to introduce the brand to the great community of Tucson,” Perry said, describing the concept as “different than your average fresh casual” restaurant with a menu that in addition to lunch and dinner protein bowl includes breakfast bowls and wraps and an array of snacks and protein shakes.

Original ChopShop serves protein bowls, acai bowls, fresh-squeezed juices, protein shakes, sandwiches and salads.

Ryan and Caitlin Jocque opened the flagship Original ChopShop in Old Town Scottsdale in 2013 and followed up five months later with a second location near ASU in Tempe. In 2016, the couple sold controlling interest in the company to a group of Texas-based investors that envisioned expanding the brand beyond Arizona. The Jocques are still active in the company, Perry said.

Original ChopShop, which is headquartered in Plano, Texas, but considers its home base to be Phoenix, has eight Arizona locations, with a ninth set to open Nov. 2 in Mesa and a 10th coming to central Phoenix in late 2023.

It also has nine restaurants in Texas with three more opening in the next few months and will make inroads into Georgia, opening its first location there in Atlanta on Nov. 9. Two more Georgia locations are set to open by early 2023.

“I think we know this works,” Perry said of the restaurant’s popularity in its existing markets. “We do have 10 letters of intent (to lease) out for existing markets, and we are actively and quickly expanding. … We see white space in the Tucson area outside of the location we have announced at this point. There is definitely room for additional growth there.”

Original ChopShop is the latest in a string of national chains that Larsen Baker has brought to Tucson. In early 2020, in the infancy of the COVID-19 pandemic, Postino Wine Cafe opened in a Larsen Baker project at 2500 E. Grant Road that also includes the breakfast hotspot Snooze AM, which opened in summer 2020.

Figueroa said chains like Postino and Snooze usually end up “going to Phoenix first as their proof of concept in Arizona” before tip-toeing into Tucson.

“The reason why we always end up getting these really cool and unique and sexy concepts in our developments is that we strive to make these really nice sexy developments,” he said. “We’re not afraid to take the risk to build something really nice because we think Tucson deserves to have really nice buildings. And if we are the ones brave enough to start and build really nice things, other people will follow suit.”

Snooze hails from Denver and has outposts in California, Arizona, Kansas, Missouri, Nevada, North Carolina, Tennessee and Texas. Postino was founded in Phoenix and now has 20 locations in Georgia, Denver, California, Texas and Arizona with seven more locations opening soon.

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Contact reporter Cathalena E. Burch at cburch@tucson.com. On Twitter @Starburch