What We Learned at ICSC@Red River

Scooter’s Coffee is moving into smaller markets now, stating they are looking at markets with populations as low as 3,900.

Burlington Stores has started looking at smaller footprints of around 20K– 25K square feet.

The Beall’s family of brands is transitioning its Burke’s Outlet stores to Beall’s Outlet stores.

Shipley Do-Nuts is looking heavily throughout the southeast, specifically Alabama, the Florida panhandle, and Louisiana.

Texas-based HTeaO is very interested in continuing to grow outside of Texas. They specifically cited Arkansas, Alabama, Florida, Kansas, and Oklahoma as targets for the immediate future.

Marco’s Pizza wants to double its current number of locations over the next five years. Their site criteria is a minimum of 30K population but they won’t choose a location with a population that small if there is a lot of competition.

Chuck E. Cheese is looking for smaller markets with its new concept, which will be 7,000 SF.

California-based Wienerschnitzel, the fast food chain serving up hot dogs, corn dogs, and more, has franchise agreements in place to expand in Arkansas, Idaho, Nebraska, and Texas this year.

Great Clips is beginning to look more seriously at areas with 30K – 50K populations within a 10-mile radius. They want locations in grocery or Walmart-anchored centers.

We are starting to see more franchisee and corporate movement into smaller secondary and tertiary markets.
For example, Golden Chick is slowly expanding around the OKC metro into slightly rural markets.