Restaurant

St. Louis – Panera Bread Co. has named Drew Madsen president, effective May 11. He will report to Ron Shaich, chairman and CEO, and oversee the core café business, while Shaich focuses on strategy, growth initiatives and innovation across the company.

Madsen served as president and COO of Darden Restaurants Inc. He also previously served as president of Darden's Olive Garden chain and was Olive Garden's executive VP of marketing prior to that.

Houston – Fuddruckers is going from “Howdy” to “Ayuh.” The casual-dining chain is opening its first location in Maine on May 11 through a partnership with franchisee B&B Burgers Inc. The 3,000-sq.-ft. restaurant in Ellsworth, Maine anchors a new Tradewinds convenience store complex.

New York – McDonald’s responds more slowly to Twitter commentary than other major fast-food hamburger chains, but tweets more often than Wendy’s or Burger King. According to social media analysis conducted by the Wall Street Journal using a tool from Unmetric, Starbucks has 7.7 million Twitter followers, almost triple the 2.8 million Twitter followers held by McDonald’s, the number two fast food chain on Twitter.

Other findings include:

San Francisco -- Americans modestly increased their spending in April, with growth across most major purchase categories, according to Visa’s Retail Spending Monitor (RSM), a quarterly report that tracks retail spending patterns based on real-time purchase data.  Retail spending in April was up 4.5% from the prior year, excluding automobile and gasoline purchases.

Ann Arbor, Mich. - Domino's Pizza has opened in its third new market so far in 2015, as the first Domino's store in the Republic of Georgia opened the capital city of Tbilisi. Domino's Pizza in Georgia is a joint venture between Turkven, Domino's master franchisee in Turkey, and Geo Pizza LLC, led by CEO Tea Shengelia.

Cleveland - L.L. Bean and The Capital Grille have executed leases at the 610,000-sq.-ft, mixed-use Legacy Village town center. The 16,000-sq.-ft. L.L. Bean store will feature an assortment of active and casual apparel and footwear, outdoor gear including hiking, fly-fishing, kayaking and camping products.

L.L. Bean will open in the space currently occupied by Talbots, which will be relocating to a new space within the shopping center. This will be L.L. Bean’s 23rd retail store outside of Maine.

Oak Brook, Ill. -- Retail Properties of America announced that it has closed on the off-market acquisition of a 38,000-sq.-ft. community center located in Tysons Corner, which is in the Washington, D.C./Baltimore corridor.

Recently renovated in 2012, the property is anchored by Golfsmith and shadow-anchored by Best Buy. It is also supported by national fast-causal restaurant offerings including Chipotle, Chick-fil-A and Roti. The property was purchased off-market for approximately $31.6 million.

Oak Brook, Ill. - McDonald's Corp. is trying to make fast-food even more convenient for New Yorkers. The retailer is launching a delivery test with Postmates, a direct-to-consumer delivery service, in the boroughs of Manhattan, Queens and Brooklyn.

Customers can go to Postmates.com or download the Postmates mobile app to order McDonald's food for delivery within an hour. The test involves 88 select McDonald's restaurants.