KNOXVILLE, Tenn. -- A partnership including Haslam family members and two other investors has purchased the Subway sandwich shops in Knox County, Tenn., and others in Oak Ridge and is looking to expand, said The Knoxville News Sentinel. Financial terms were not disclosed.
The total deal includes 38 restaurants; 35 of them were bought from an investor group in Fort Wayne, Ind., and three Oak Ridge restaurants were brought from individual franchise owners, the report said.
The Haslam family owns Knoxville, Tenn.-based Pilot Travel Centers, the largest operator of travel centers in [image-nocss] the United States, with more than 300 locations in 40 states. Other investors in the newly formed SubSouth LLC, which will manage the restaurants, are local developer W. Dwight Church and John Dell, a recent transplant from Nashville who has corporate experience with Johnson & Johnson, Eastman Kodak and Coca-Cola.
The company would not provide details on the percentage makeup of the partnership, but only said it included five Haslam family members, and Knoxville Mayor Bill Haslam was not among them.
"Pilot is the largest operator of Subways in the country, so I was very familiar with Subway," Jimmy Haslam, Pilot CEO and partner in SubSouth, told the newspaper. "We at Pilot always have been very impressed by the Subway brand and how they operate. When this local opportunity presented itself, we knew we wanted to put together a group to take advantage of it."
Les Winograd, a spokesperson for the Subway chain, told CSP Daily News, said, "The Pilot organization is one of our largest multi-unit franchisees. They own and operate 148 Subway restaurants inside Pilot travel centers and there are many more in the pipeline. Although we cannot provide specifics about the deal, it is gratifying to know that their experience and success with the Subway chain has made them view further expansion of their Subway operations as an attractive business proposition."The stores involved in this deal are a mix of freestanding, strip mall and non-Pilot convenience store locations, said the report.
The partners hope to expand Subway's local presence to 50 local stores through new construction and acquisition, added the News Sentinel.
Rob Winchester will manage day-to day-operations at SubSouth, the report said.
Dell said in a statement that the new partners intend for the stores to be active in the community. He said the Subway stores could participate in local events, fundraisers and school programs.
Subway, a privately held company headquartered in Milford, Conn., has 29,752 restaurants in 87 countries, all franchise operations. Many are located in nontraditional locations such as gas stations, c-stores and truckstops.Members help make our journalism possible. Become a CSP member today and unlock exclusive benefits, including unlimited access to all of our content. Sign up here.