“ It was a tactical move on my part because I saw so many franchise chains that have trouble pulling owners along. I don’t by having us pay for it. We did the entire system in a year and a half. You see royalties rise. Everyone is extremely happy and all-in. We’ll get a payback, the accounting people say, in five, five and a half years. But I see it in three and a half.”

Peter Cancro, Jersey Mike’s CEO, on the company’s decision to spend $175 million to upgrade all of its franchisees’ restaurants

“If you look at the top 500 limited service chains, they were only down 1% last year. A lot of consumers didn’t walk away from foodservice. They just went to different venues. We didn’t get growth. But it was a lot better than expected.”

—Joe Pawlak, Technomic