— By Ted Stouch — The financial benefits of converting parking lot lighting to LED. Anyone who has been in any part of the facility business, for even a short amount of time, has read, talked about or spoken to someone on the benefits of converting their facilities’ lighting to LED. For those of us on the service and project side of LED retrofits, we talk about the same concepts over and over. Retrofitting to LEDs will save on energy consumption, save on maintenance, and your lighting performance will …
— By Megan Varano — Changing the game from reactive to proactive facility maintenance protocols. The last decade-plus has brought tremendous change in the FM industry. It’s been thrilling to be part of the evolution. Working on both the retail and the service sides has given me a unique perspective on both the challenges and the opportunities. I started out managing work requests on pieces of paper. The dispatcher would take a phone call or read an e-mail and then write out the dispatch to the field; the work request …
Orlando, Fla. — Another Broken Egg Cafe® has doubled in size over the past 5 years; recently it signed nine new deals from successful multi-unit franchisees and plans to operate 300 cafes by 2025. These franchise groups plan to open a combined total of over 30 cafes in Alabama, Arizona, California, Florida, Kansas, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Texas. The new deals were signed with experienced, multi-unit franchise groups who currently or historically operated Buffalo Wild Wings®, Church’s Chicken®, Five Guys® Burgers and Fries, and Jack in the Box® Hamburgers. Additionally, existing …
San Francisco — Gap Inc.’s Nancy Green, who currently leads the Athleta brand, will shift in early August to a newly created role as president and chief creative officer of Old Navy. In this new role, Nancy will lead Old Navy’s design, production, merchandising and marketing functions, and will report to Sonia Syngal, president and CEO of Old Navy. While a search is underway for Athleta’s next president, the brand’s well-established leadership team will report to Gap Inc. CEO Art Peck. “Nancy’s ability to drive growth is demonstrated by Athleta’s …
Jackson, Miss. — Newk’s Eatery plans an 18-restaurant expansion across Texas and Oklahoma over the next few years. Openings are slated for 10 Dallas area locations, as well as eight Oklahoma locations throughout Oklahoma City, Norman, Moore and Stillwater. “We’re thrilled to continue expansion throughout Texas and Oklahoma with this exciting new development agreement,” says Chris Cheek, chief development officer at Newk’s Eatery. “The response to our Dallas locations has been wonderful and we’re looking forward to further growing our footprint with Matthew Biggers and Cuyler Esposito.” Full Belly Holdings, …
Fort Worth, Texas — Pier 1 Imports, Inc. has appointed Douglas Diemoz — former CEO of Crate & Barrel — to the newly created role of president of Pier 1. Additionally, Robert Riesbeck has been named executive vice president and chief financial officer. Both positions are effective July 22, 2019. Riesbeck succeeds Deborah Rieger-Paganis, who has served as interim CFO since April 2019. Diemoz will be responsible for day-to-day operation and performance of Pier 1’s business. He joins Pier 1 with more than two decades of retail industry experience with …
Atlanta — Curry Up Now, a fast growing Indian fast-casual concept in the United States, will open its first franchise location on July 30, 2019 in Decatur, Ga. The new greater Atlanta area storefront is the brand’s first East Coast location and is part of a multi-unit franchise deal with experienced local franchise group Curry Up Now Atlanta. As part of this deal, four additional franchise locations are expected to open in greater Atlanta by the end of 2021, including in Madison Yards and The Interlock. “Curry Up Now has …
Oak Brook, Ill. — Let’s Pave, LLC, a leading national provider of specialized paving services and solutions, has hired veteran industry executive Jeff Lax to join the company as president and partner. Lax was most recently president and CEO of GemSeal Pavement Products, a leader in the production and distribution of high-quality pavement products. At Let’s Pave, Lax will work alongside C.B. Kuzlik, founder and CEO, to develop and execute the strategic plan for continued, aggressive growth of the company. Lax will also help lead the day-to-day activities of Let’s …
Parsippany, N.J., and San Francisco — Tru Kids Brands, the proud parent of the Toys“R”Us ® brand, and b8ta, the software-powered experiential retailer, have entered into a joint venture to bring Toys“R”Us stores back to the United States. The new store experience will be a highly immersive, smaller-format space. The first two new Toys“R”Us stores will open this holiday season, located in The Galleria in Houston, a Simon Mall, and in Westfield Garden State Plaza in Paramus, N.J. Brand partners and experiences will be announced in the coming weeks. “We …
Boston — CrunchTime! Information Systems, Inc., the restaurant industry’s leading back-of-house operations platform provider, has partnered with Romano’s Macaroni Grill to implement CrunchTime’s Restaurant Management Platform across all locations, and in doing so reduced its food cost variance to below 2%. In 3 months, Macaroni Grill deployed the CrunchTime Platform with full integration to the restaurant’s POS system, vendors and accounting, trained all of its managers and staff, and quickly began to streamline the brand’s operations. Macaroni Grill began a business transformation several years ago. To ensure the brand’s continued …