The French-inspired bakery café franchise opened six new bakery cafés and awarded another 25 in the first quarter alone, making more remarkable progress in its North and now Central American development.
Moonachie, NJ (RestaurantNews.com) Paris Baguette, the global bakery café franchise with over 160 units in the U.S., has continued its impressive growth through the first quarter of 2024. As it works to revive the neighborhood bakery café experience in markets across the country, the company is making significant progress throughout North America. In the first three months of 2024 alone, Paris Baguette has awarded 27 new franchises, opened six new bakery cafés, secured 13 more leases in prime real estate locations, another 70 in construction and launched development in Mexico, Puerto Rico and Guam.
“Our continued growth in North America is something the entire team is so proud of,” said Eric Lavinder, chief development officer. “The versatility of the Paris Baguette model and demand for our product and experience is what has made us so successful. We know the brand is performing well in Canada, we’ve already signed agreements with franchisees in Puerto Rico and Guam, and our search for a Master Partner in Mexico is the start of expansion throughout Central America. All of these successes just continue to solidify our growth potential.”
Paris Baguette made meaningful progress in 2023: CEO Darren Tipton filled out the C-Suite through several internal promotions to support the growing system with even stronger infrastructure, laying the groundwork for continued momentum this year.
“2023 was an incredible year for Paris Baguette, and with another big year ahead of us, it was only fitting to both celebrate the successes and prepare for those to come by recognizing the team members who have played crucial roles all along,” Tipton said. “As we close out the first quarter, we’ve already seen the impact that these team members’ passion and expertise have had on reestablishing the neighborhood bakery café as the heart of the community across North America and now, soon to be, Central America.”
This year, Paris Baguette has opened six new bakery cafés in Texas, New Jersey, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois and New York. The new Hawaii location broke records for opening performance within the Paris Baguette North America system.
Paris Baguette leadership also strengthened its in-house real estate, construction and onboarding teams to build their capacity to increase the level of support provided for new franchisees. The company has maintained an emphasis on securing the absolute best real estate possible to deliver the warm, welcoming bakery café experience the brand is known for, and with the help of these teams, successfully signed 13 leases for prime sites. With another 70 bakery cafés under construction and another 100 looking for prime real estate nationwide, the pipeline for upcoming openings remains full.
“We continue to work to open in new markets and backfill markets that have a clear need for Paris Baguette,” said Lavinder.