Boba Shop Brings Flavors from Across the World to Santa Barbara

New Boba Shop Opens on State Street

Jared Squire and his wife Patricia Squire at the soft launch opening of Sweet Reef. | Credit: Courtesy

With their colorful nature and playful reputation as coffee shops’ better-looking sister, it is no surprise that boba tea shops have begun to rise in popularity within the last decade and are expected to embody a $4.3 billion market by 2027, growing an impressive $2 billion since 2019.

On that note, with Jared Squire’s prodigious success in opening his first boba shop in Morro Bay in 2021, it is also no surprise that he wanted to grow his business ventures — right here in Santa Barbara.

Sweet Reef’s “Morro Bay Sunrise,” a jasmine green tea with fresh mango and strawberry puree. | Credit: Courtesy

With a recent soft opening on State Street, Squire’s second location of Sweet Reef Boba not only brings a diverse array of Asian-inspired cuisine to Santa Barbara, with Squire noting, “We are excited to bring Sweet Reef to Santa Barbara because it has a tremendous sense of community and a diverse cultural sphere” — but it also embodies one individual’s culmination of passed-down family recipes, background as a geologist, and world travels into a boba shop.