Milford, Ohio — Penn Station East Coast Subs is updating its 35-year-old brand with the rollout of PS 2020, which includes a restaurant redesign and certain menu changes and additions. The first restaurants with the new menu and design opened late last year, and all restaurants in the system now have the new menu. “We spent the better part of a year gathering data, interviewing guests and franchisees, and speaking with crew members about the new layout and our menu changes,” says Craig Dunaway, president. “From the data analysis, interviews …
restaurants
East Rutherford, N.J. — Mamoun’s Falafel, New York City’s oldest falafel restaurant and the fastest growing Middle Eastern restaurant chain in North America, has opened a new location in East Rutherford, N.J. It is the fourth of 25 Mamoun’s Falafel franchise locations coming to New Jersey as part of a deal with Prospect Capital Restaurants. Located in a 2,000-square-foot space at Rutherford Commons at 150 Route 17 in East Rutherford, the new restaurant joins Mamoun’s corporate locations in Hoboken and Princeton and three other locations run by franchisees, Prospect Capital …
Newport Beach, Calif. — Mountain Mike’s Pizza, a leading family-style pizza chain for over 40 years, has opened its Newport Beach/Mesa, Calif., location, the first to showcase the brand’s completely updated restaurant design and refreshed guest experience. Located on the border of Costa Mesa and Newport Beach, this new Mountain Mike’s is the first of two planned Orange County (OC) locations, with the second scheduled to open in Huntington Beach late summer. Newport-Mesa marks the second OC location with one currently operating in Lake Forest. The Newport-Mesa restaurant is located just a few …
Rosemont, Ill. — US Foods Holding Corp., a leading foodservice distributor, has launched US Foods Ghost Kitchens, a program designed to guide restaurant operators every step of the way when opening their own operation, helping them easily add a new revenue stream. With the addition of this program, US Foods customers now have access to exclusive resources developed to streamline the process of starting a ghost kitchen, including proprietary technology to help identify menu opportunities, a detailed playbook to guide decision-making, dedicated marketing support, webinars and one-on-one consultations with US …
— By Crystal Jacobs — Restaurant cybersecurity and cyber insurance are more relevant than ever as online orders boom amid COVID-19. As the Covid-19 viral pandemic continues to cause major disruptions throughout the global economy, countless restaurants across the United States have shifted to a delivery- or pickup-only business model in order to survive, often with a heavy reliance on online orders and digital payment. Criminal actors are taking advantage of this spike in online commerce: March 2020 saw a 600% increase in email phishing scams, whereby criminals send …
Minneapolis — Alissa Partee has joined Restaurant Technologies as chief people officer. Her role at Restaurant Technologies, the top provider of foodservice cooking oil and hood and flue management solutions, will be to lead human resources and expand upon the company’s exceptional and growing talent base. In addition, she will oversee learning and development, diversity and inclusion, HR technology and total rewards. Partee’s arrival follows the successful acquisitions of AutoMist and Grease Lock and an expanded employee base. The company now has 41 depots and more than 1,000 team members …
Longmont, Colo. — Ziggi’s Coffee, which was recently ranked on the Inc. 5000 list of fastest growing private companies, has signed an agreement with new franchisees David and Amber King to open the company’s first unit in the state of Texas. The couple will begin with this Katy, Texas, unit and plan to expand from there. “Once this one goes well and we’ve hit it out of the park, our long term plan is to expand and build as many as we can before we’re old and gray,” says David …
Frederick, Md. — The Plamondon Companies, operator of 49 Roy Rogers restaurants and 13 hotels in the Mid-Atlantic, announces the passing of Peter H. Plamondon, Sr. on August 16, 2020. He was 88. Pete Plamondon, Sr., started The Plamondon Companies 40 years ago, after spending 16 years as a corporate executive vice president for Marriott, overseeing its restaurant division. While at Marriott, he played an integral role in launching and overseeing Roy Rogers Restaurants. In following his entrepreneurial ambitions, he struck out on his own in 1979 and established Plamondon …
Dallas — Dickey’s Barbecue Pit is expanding its franchise opportunities to feature another non-traditional franchise model: virtual kitchens. The barbecue franchise has executed area development agreements to bring more of Dickey’s slow-smoked, Texas-style barbecue to Chicago, Houston and Orlando, as well as make its debut in Providence, R.I. All locations will serve guests via delivery through a virtual kitchen facility. The virtual kitchen model allows restaurants to maximize delivery coverage without the upfront investment that a traditional brick-and-mortar location requires. Because the facility includes a kitchen for restaurants to prepare …
Charlotte, N.C. — Clean Juice®, the first and most prolific USDA-certified organic juice bar franchise, has added nine new stores across the nation since July 1, 2020, continuing its rapid expansion despite the headwinds of the global COVID-19 pandemic. Clean Juice’s continued growth in a surging, health-conscious environment is attributed to the strength of its development system, its franchise support structure and the power of its brand, which is built on USDA-certified organic food and beverage offerings. Three of the newly awarded units were expansions by existing franchise partners in …