News

Moe's Southwest Grill heads to Big Apple

June 6, 2012

Moe’s Southwest Grill opened its newest location at the Angola Travel Plaza in New York on June 1. The move to offer travelers along the New York Thruway marks a cohesive strategy by Moe’s parent company FOCUS Brands to target non-traditional sites for growth.

Joining Moe’s in a revamped 65,000-square-foot space in the Angola Travel Plaza food court are other FOCUS Brands concepts Cinnabon, Auntie Anne’s Pretzels and Carvel. The locations will all be owned and operated by existing franchise partner Kevin DiPirro, who also has three Moe’s locations in the greater Buffalo, N.Y., area.

“Non-traditional locations allow us to leverage the power of the FOCUS Brands portfolio, creating high levels of scalability and efficiency for the developer,” said Moe’s president Paul Damico. “The Angola Travel Plaza deal was a homerun for all parties involved because we were able to transform a food court quickly with four complementary concepts under a single operator.”

FOCUS Brands, which operates more than 3,300 stores under the brand names of Carvel, Cinnabon, Schlotzsky’s, Moe’s Southwest Grill and Auntie Anne's Pretzels, projects it will close 80 to 90 non-traditional deals by the end of the year. The company is specifically targeting train stations, travel plazas, entertainment venues, convenience stores, higher education facilities, airports, casinos and military bases.

The new Angola location is part of Moe’s strategic growth plan to double its existing presence to a total of 800 locations nationwide by the end of 2015.