Wendy’s new CEO Emil Brolick may have only been with the company a month, but he’s working hard to turn around the restaurant chain’s reputation. The chain is the third largest burger company in the country, but it has been struggling. Changes to the menu including natural cut fries and the new Hot N’ Juicy have shown small improvements.
Domino’s is seeing concrete returns as increased sales for their recent brutally honest ad campaign and improved pizza recipes. The chain’s stocks hit an all-time low in 2008. Despite the recession, the higher quality pizza now offered by the restaurants has proved popular with shares rising in value over 75% this year alone.
An Indianapolis restaurant is claiming that the 62% discount Groupon offered to over 2,500 diners isn’t the deal they agreed to. The Creation Cafe has had to turn away customers with the coupon. The website claimed to be willing to refund the diners, but so far has not contacted them. Most of the customers were understanding of the mistake.
The Pei Wei Asian Diner, a brand created and owned by the P.F. Chang’s company, will soon be under development in Latin America. Three restaurants are slated to be opened by Alsea, S.A.B. de C.V. in the next year and a half. Chang’s chose to work with Alsea again after the success of introducing P.F. Chang’s restaurants to Mexico.
Del Taco is testing out the new Coca-Cola Freestyle machine in 12 of their restaurants. The new machine will be installed in Southern California restaurants for customer testing. The machine offers hundreds of unique flavor options in one normal sized foundation drink machine.
Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen is eying Southern California for their next expansion campaign. The company has a hold of the chicken fast food market like they haven’t had in 10 years, and is planning to bank on their rising popularity. The chain is holding franchisee meetings this month in Los Angeles and surrounding areas.
Caribou Coffee plans to open a wave of new locations and renovate existing stores in the Chicago market. The new designs are tailored to the region and are part of a plan to appeal to locals with customized store plans. The chain hasn’t opened any new company owned stores in five years and these upcoming locations will be the first.
O’Charley’s has participated in a sales-leaseback of 50 locations to raise funds. About $105 million in gross profits was produced by the plan. The money is being used to pay off all of the senior subordinated notes that will come due in November 2013. STORE Capital purchased all 50 of the restaurants.
Krispy Kreme recently created a new partnership with Krispy Kreme UK to expand the brand in Britain. 35 more locations will open in the country over the next six years. The chain has about 45 locations currently in operation. Krispy Kreme has built a following in over 21 countries and is continuing their international expansion.
Guadalajara, Mexico is now home to three Johnny Rockets restaurants. The newest restaurant opened in the Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla International Airport this September. The location serves the full menu of American classics like milkshakes, hamburgers and fries. Demand for classic American cuisine is growing in Mexico.