Inside a Supplement King retail store. Image: Submitted.
About 15-years ago, then 20-year-old Roger King won the jackpot — he won a 50/50 draw at the Saint John Flames hockey game.
“I was a young guy working in Saint John, working a part-time job and attending UNBSJ,” remembers King. “Back when the Saint John Flames were a team in Saint John, I won a new car at the 50/50 draw at the last game of the year.”
Preferring to have money over the new wheels, King decided to sell the new car back to the dealer for some cash. This allowed him to move to Halifax and attend St. Mary’s University.
While in Halifax, King discovered he wasn’t much of an academic but working in the city’s downtown, he discovered the world of entrepreneurship.
“In doing so, I took some part-time jobs in bars and restaurants downtown and started to really notice the prosperity of the entrepreneurs in the city. I knew deep down I wasn’t academic,” says King.
“I was very interested in health and fitness. I got lots of motivation and I’m an extroverted person, so I thought I would open a campus business selling nutritional supplements.”
That was the beginning of Supplement King. A business that started by selling nutritional supplements out of the back of a trunk in 2006 is now a national franchise specializing in supplements and other products to help customers achieve their fitness goals. Supplement King has 65 stores in nine provinces and employing nearly 400 people.
On Friday, King opened the 66th store in his hometown of Saint John.
King says Saint John is Supplement King’s last centre for expansion in the region.
“This is our entry to the hometown which is really exciting for me,” he says.
He says it took this long to open in Saint John because they needed to find a suitable location.
“A key part of our business model is to try to locate as close as possible to the high-volume fitness centres in any city,” says King. “We have worked to try to get over on the McAllister [mall] side close to that major Goodlife.”
Supplement King has secured an exterior retail space just across the street at Parkway Mall on the corner of Westmorland Road and McAllister Drive. The new location officially opened on Friday, July 2 at 5 p.m. with a grand opening event Saturday, July 3 starting at 9:30 a.m.
King says he’s excited to finally have a location in his hometown.
“We’ve been trying to time Saint John right – since it’s a hometown for me, we wanted to make sure we nailed it with an A+ location,” he said. “Everything else economically in Saint John seems to be trending upward. I just think it’s a great time to come back to the city.”
Cherise Letson is the associate editor of Huddle, an Acadia Broadcasting content partner.
