Restaurant

Tampa, Fla. -- The power of Bass Pro Shops’ brand of retail was evident at the company’s newest store opening this week, in Brandon, Florida. The store is the company’s 10th in the Sunshine State and features 130,000 sq. ft. of outdoor gear, apparel, footwear and nature-themed gifts.

Shoppers were undeterred by a massive traffic jam and a lack of parking, which forced some grand opening attendees to walk nearly a mile for a look inside.

Carrollton, Texas -- TGI Fridays is looking for a new chief executive.

The company announced that Nick Shepherd recently informed the Fridays’ board of his decision to step down as president and CEO, citing that he believes the time is right to pass the torch to a new leader to steer the 50-year-old brand through its next chapter of growth.

Shepherd will continue to actively lead the business through mid-October, and will be working closely with Fridays chairman of the board, John Antioco.

Palm Coast, Fla. -- A transformation is underway. Branch Properties is in the midst of a $40.8 million redevelopment of the largest (and oldest) retail shopping center in Palm Coast, Florida.

Island Walk, once called Palm Harbor Shopping Center, is a 204,000-sq.-ft. center anchored by Publix Super Markets. Once completed in 2016, the upgraded retail destination will bring new and expanded tenants and amenities to the Palm Coast community in an effort to revitalize the city’s original core.  

Minneapolis – Dairy Queen restaurants thrive on providing customers treats, not exposing them to tricks from hackers and fraudsters.

To ensure the good times keep rolling, American Dairy Queen Corp. (ADQ) in the U.S. is deploying the cloud-based Netsurion managed firewall platform to strengthen network security and Payment Card Industry (PCI) compliance to protect customer data.

Milford, Conn. -- It’s getting harder and harder to keep track of all the activity in the mobile ordering and mobile payment space. The latest big announcement comes from Subway.

The fast-casual restaurant giant announced on Thursday new updates to its mobile app and website that include more mobile payment options, along with giving customers the ability to order on-the-go. Subway said it is adding PayPal as an option customers can use to pay for meals when they order remotely or pay in-store using the Subway app’s mobile payment feature.

North Bergen. N.J. - Vitamin Shoppe Inc. hired David M. Kastin as senior VP, general counsel and corporate secretary effective Aug. 17. Kastin will be responsible for overseeing all internal and external legal matters of the company and will serve as corporate secretary to Vitamin Shoppe's board of directors.  

Houston - Transwestern represented Mod Pizza in five leases totaling approximately 13,662 sq. ft. in the Houston market. Grant Walker, VP, and Chris Reyes, broker associate, who serve as exclusive advisors for Mod Pizza in the Houston market, represented the retailer in the transactions.

Mod will be operating more than 100 stores across the U.S. by the end of 2015 and has plans to open more than 30 additional locations in Houston within the next four to five years.

Mod Pizza’s newest Houston locations include:

Seattle - Starbucks Corp. is looking to increase its corporate ownership stake. The retailer has authorized the repurchase of an additional 50 million shares of the company's common stock under its ongoing share repurchase program.

This authorization has no expiration date and is in addition to the 11 million shares that remained available for repurchase as of June 28, 2015 under an existing authorization.