Owner Reveals Location, Projected Opening For Orange Leaf

One of the owners of the much-anticipated has provided the answers to where the store will be located and when it projects to open.

Ken Mackey, a Tewksbury native, said the new business will be located at 345 Main St., in the Wamesit Place plaza. He and his partners hope to have the store open for business by mid-to-late July.

"We'd like to get that summertime business if we can," said Mackey.

Mackey owns the franchise, along with Don Coffin of Tewksbury and Jerry Goodwin of Andover. The trio are longtime business partners, having owned the U-Save Car Rental business in Lowell since 1997.

Orange Leaf is an Oklahoma-based business that started in 2008. It was bought up in 2010 and over the past two years has grown from 15 locations to 147 nationwide. Another 88 locations, including Tewksbury, will open in the coming year.

Presently, the only Massachusetts location is in Andover. But more than a dozen more are scheduled to open in 2012.

Mackey admits that he had never even heard of Orange Leaf Frozen Yogurt until his daughter began talking about it.

"My daughter is in high school and she kept telling us she was going over to Orange Leaf in Andover," he said. "And then Jerry (Goodwin) asked me if I heard about the place and said, 'no'. So my wife and I went over to check it out and I said, we have to find a way to get in on this.'"

Mackey and his partners flew to Oklahoma last month to meet with Orange Leaf executives and were impressed by the company's business plan.

"A week later we were signing the franchise papers," he said.

The Tewksbury Orange Leaf location will be in unit A1 of Wamesit Place, facing Main Street. The plaza, located at the gateway , still has several vacancies but recently added . The plaza is also home to and

Mackey is hopeful that with the addition of Harrow's and Orange Leaf, other businesses will be encouraged to locate in the plaza.

While the Orange Leaf franchises look very similar, there is one unique design piece.

"Every Orange Leaf store has mural painted on one of the walls inside the store with ties to the town it is in," said Mackey. "I would love to get some ideas from people on what they think should be included in our mural."