Oh, how sweet it is! Krispy Kreme moving into the neighborhood
A Wilkes-Barre-based food service company said it will open 10 Krispy Kreme Doughnuts stores in western Pennsylvania - with the first opening somewhere in Pittsburgh's North Hills by the end of summer.
Krispy Kreme, a Winston-Salem, N.C.-based company whose stock began trading on the New York Stock Exchange Thursday, moving from the Nasdaq market, lists Cranberry Township and Century III Mall in West Mifflin on its Internet site as places in Pennsylvania slated for new store openings.
Metz & Associates Ltd. of Wilkes-Barre, which provides contract dining services to Allegheny County's four John J. Kane Regional Centers nursing homes and the Gateway Center office complex in downtown Pittsburgh, was named the local franchisee last year.
Metz has tapped Patrick Gallagher, a former manager for Sodexho Marriott Services, as vice president of the Metz & Associates Krispy Kreme affiliate, Amazing Glazed LLC.
Gallagher is scouting potential locations for the franchises. Each store will employ about 140 people.
Krispy Kreme began in 1937 in Winston-Salem and has gained fame for its hot-from-the-fryer doughnuts with no hole. It opened six stores in the last quarter and now has 180, but has only one in Pennsylvania, near Scranton.
Sales of company-owned and franchised stores increased 36 percent to $140 million in the first quarter, compared with $103 million in the same period a year earlier. Sales increased by 19 percent at company stores to $61 million and 52 percent at franchised stores to nearly $80 million.
Krispy Kreme stock closed yesterday at $59.38, up $2.98 for the day.
Harold S. Leininger, president and chief operating officer of Metz & Associates, said Gallagher has worked for him virtually since he was a teen-ager, washing dishes when Leininger was general manger for the dining services of Carlow College in Oakland.
Gallagher since then has received an undergraduate economics degree from the University of Pittsburgh and an MBA in marketing and finance from its Katz Graduate School of Business.
'I've watched Pat develop excellent communication and leadership skills,' Leininger said. 'He was a natural choice for the development of our franchise.'
Lieninger said Metz's background in the food services industry and franchising through TGI Friday's made it a strong competitor for a Krispy Kreme franchise.
'The franchise rights (for Krispy Kreme) are very difficult to obtain in this state,' he said.
John Metz established Metz and Associates Ltd. in 1994, a year after acquiring franchise rights for five TGI Friday's restaurants in eastern Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Metz's primary business, however, is dining service contracts for hospitals, schools, corporations and universities. It has branched into corporate jet catering and facilities management.
Leininger said the company has about 30 business locations in western Pennsylvania, including dining contracts for Point Park College and the North Allegheny and Mt. Lebanon school districts.
