Shopping Centers Today is the news magazine of the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC)
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RET AILING TODA Y One layer at a time SANDWICH CHAIN TOGO'S IS ADDING 160 STORES IN THE WEST By Renée DeGross Valdés Within six years, Cobler's enterprise I 104 SCT / MAY 2012 began franchising. Just before the chain's 15th anniversary, it opened its 100th store. Togo's captured the attention of U.K.-based Allied Domecq, then owner of Dunkin' Donuts and Baskin-Robbins, which acquired Togo's in 1992. Cobler remained in the business as a franchisee. These days Togo's is blossoming un- T WAS 1971. AND THE LAST THING Mi- chael Cobler, then a struggling California college student on a tight bud- get, could be expected to have was a business plan. And yet he did have an idea for a venture, an idea he was so excited about that he blew off his final semester at San Jose State. Cobler launched Togo's sandwiches right there in San Jose, and he has since built the company up very much the way he has built the sandwiches: one layer at a time. College students loved it, so Togo's gathered a loyal following, including those who went on to work in what would become know as Silicon Valley. der its newest owners, Mainsail Partners, a private equity firm in San Francisco that acquired the chain in 2007 in part- nership with former Baskin-Robbins executive Tony Gioia, who is president and CEO. The company has revealed plans to expand the chain once more, after spending several years repositioning and rebranding. Before Mainsail came in, Togo's was operating at a peak 400 shops. The company has plans to add on nearly 160 shops by the end of 2015, says Todd Peterson, Togo's vice president of franchise sales. For now Togo's is content to stay in California, Nevada and Oregon and to expand into Arizona and Wash- ington. "We're not interested in jumping all over the country," Peterson said. "We want to build out those markets before moving beyond five Western states." When former Togo's owner Allied Domecq was acquired by French bever- age giant Pernod Ricard in 2005, Togo's was sold, along with Dunkin' Donuts and Baskin-Robbins, for $2.43 billion to a partnership that included Bain Capi- tal. Still, this is a lot of growth for a small regional player with less than 1 percent market share against the likes of Arby's, Jimmy John's, Quiznos and Subway, ac- cording to Ron Paul, president and CEO of restaurant research-consultancy firm Technomic, which estimates Togo's 2010