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78 CommerCial ConstruCtion & renovation — January : February 2014 Founded in 1971 by a young college student with a big appetite and a little investment, Togo's still carries his vision of creating made-to-order sandwiches with generous portions. Commercial Kitchens sat down with Gioia to see where the chain is growing and how it continues to make its name in the widely growing sandwich category. What's the biggest item on your to-do list right now? We're growing. Our strategy is to grow west of the Rockies, including opening shops in Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon and Washington State. So, the biggest thing for me these days is to take care of our franchisees and to make sure they are successful. west coast cool 2.0 CommerCial kitChens Describe a typical day for you. As a CEO and owner, there isn't really a typical day. When I'm traveling, it's looking at real estate and meeting with franchi- sees, and talking with our crew members and guests. When I'm not traveling, I think about strategy and how to better position us for success. There isn't ever a typical day, but I do believe in balancing my time between being structured and leaving some time to be able to react to the things that need my attention. I like to work in the reality of the moment. What is driving your growth today? I think you have to start with the sandwich category. It's one of the fastest growing categories in the restaurant business right now. The category is experiencing some real strong tailwinds right now. Overall, the restaurant category in general is a little stag- nant in the number of seats that have been built nationally, but our world is growing. For us, we have a new format. Several years ago we redefned our format – made it more contemporary. We've been around for more than 40 years, so we thought it was import- ant to be fresh – our logo, our uniforms, our menu, our operating methodology and our store design, including new equipment. Our economics are pretty compelling, in terms of sales and cash-on-cash returns. We are an extremely franchisee friendly operation. Everybody that works with us has a real strong passion for franchising. In the franchisee world, it is really important to have a franchisor that is engaged. We are not perfect, but we are engaged and can react to any situation very quickly. We don't stand on ceremony and try to defend our position, we react right away. We have 245 restaurants right now, 230 or so in California. We have an addition- al 70 franchisees signed and under devel- opment. It's a nice pipeline. Most of these franchise agreements are between three and fve restaurants, some have 10 units. Talk about your refresh strategy. We have a remodel/refresh strategy that uses key elements from our new store for- mat. It typically cost $20,000 to $30,000 to remodel a store, which includes new signage and new graphics for the inside of In the franchisee world, it is really important to have a franchisor that is engaged. We are not perfect, but we are engaged and can react to any situation very quickly. CCR-JanFeb.14_48-.indd 78 2/7/14 2:26 PM