Mattress Firm celebrates the opening of its 500th store. You keep building those strip centers, they’ll take care of the rest! [Houston Business Journal]
Read more about: Franchises, Furniture, Retail, Shopping Centers, Strip Centers
Isn’t this a big part of what makes Houston great? Anyone can move in here and . . . set up a chain of franchise sub shops! Coming soon to our city: 10 new Spicy Pickle sandwich stores. The local franchisee, Peter Forastiere, ran a related family business in Springfield, Massachusetts:
“I’ve always felt there were similarities between the restaurant business and the funeral home business,” Forastiere says. “People are very sensitive during a time of grief, and people are also very sensitive with what they put in their stomachs. The products may be different, but the customer service is very similar.”
Imagine how much better we could all have been eating here — if only SCI had realized this sooner.
Photo of Las Vegas Spicy Pickle: Flickr user purpletwinkie
Read more about: Fast Food, Franchises, Restaurants
The Lenny’s Sub Shops continue their Houston conquest. The franchise is now up to seventeen stores, with eleven opening soon, including one in this new shopping center about to begin construction on the Gulf Freeway feeder just north of Wayside. That’s almost a third of the way to the company’s goal!
The I-45 (northbound) and Wayside property developer is Bobby Orr, who complained to the Chronicle’s Nancy Sarnoff about the glut of suburban strip centers back in June: “We’re going urban,” he said. And really, the Orr Commercial properties are all over the map. But don’t be fooled by the side-of-the-freeway location and strip-center layout on this one: Luring hungry drivers out of inner-loop freeway traffic jams is an important part of Houston’s urban spirit.
Read more about: 77023, Commercial Real Estate, Development Strategy, East End, Fast Food, Franchises, New Construction, Retail, Shopping Centers, Strip Centers, Traffic
Sure, everybody’s excited about biodiesel because it’s new and rare. But just wait until smelly biodiesel production plants start littering the landscape like fast-food franchises.
If you’ve got $1.95 million, you can set one up too. A company out of Florida is selling “prepackaged,” turnkey biodiesel plants from a German factory. Let them come, and they will build it:
As part of its business-in-a-box plan, Xenerga promises long-term, exclusive deals to purchase waste cooking oil from a network of suppliers whose clients include McDonald’s Corp. and Chili’s Grill & Bar. Xenerga’s supply side also focuses on rendered animal fats like beef tallow, chicken grease and pig fat, all of which are plentiful in Texas.
Interest from this region has been strong, the company told the Houston Business Journal: a plant in west Houston is planned already.
Xenerga also promises to deliver customers willing to buy the estimated 5 million gallons of biodiesel per year that the plants produce.
Each Xenerga plant only takes up half an acre, requires two employees at a time, and can be sited almost anywhere from light industrial parks to rural farmland.
Photo: Biodiesel production plant in Carl’s Corner, Texas, by flickr user Nicola Matsukis
Read more about: Alternative Energy, Environmental, Franchises, Green Development, Odors
Three items from the world of Houston shopping-center development:
Retail developer Bobby Orr says the suburbs are overridden with unanchored strip centers, so his company is developing projects closer to the center of town . . .
Orr believes there are “only so many nail salons and dry cleaners” that can fill up suburban centers and that there’s pent-up demand in urban areas where housing density is increasing.
Staples officials are tight-lipped about the company’s plans for Houston, but local retail sources say they’ve seen Staples stores on as many as 11 different site plans for future retail developments ranging from Katy, to League City to Spring, as well as a close-in site at Post Oak and San Felipe.
Staples has already signed a lease for a new store at I-45 South and Almeda Genoa.
Read more about: 77022, 77027, 77034, Chain-Stores, Fast Food, Franchises, Shopping Centers
