Restaurant

There are more than 20,000 Starbucks around the globe, but only one of those stores—specifically the one in the artsy Fremont section of Seattle— has a five-foot tall neon letter “f” inside it.  Read more   

San Jose, Calif. -- West Coast sandwich operator Togo's Eateries, Inc. has named Jim Peros as its new COO, charged with overseeing all operations and the expansion of the brand's restaurants throughout the West.   

New York -- Applied Predictive Technologies announced that Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen will license APT's Test & Learn software to test business initiatives such as menu strategies, pricing, and capital investments.  

Ann Arbor, Mich. –- Domino’s Pizza is launching its Tracker app, which allows customers to trace their order from the time it is taken, baked and out for delivery, will now be available on the Pebble smartwatch device. This marks the first time that Domino's Tracker has been available on any smartwatch device.    

Gift card sales are expected to reach record levels again this holiday season and new research from the National Retail Federation (NRF) offers insight into the increased popularity of stored value products.

More than half of shoppers polled by NRF’s Gift Card Spending Survey said they will buy gift cards this holiday season because the cards allow the recipient to select their own gift. More than 25% of shoppers said gift cards are easier and faster to buy, and 3.8% said the cards help them stick to their holiday budgets.

Jackson, Miss. –- Newk’s Eatery’s is launching a new online ordering platform. After the mid-November debut of Newk’s online ordering program, to be implemented nationwide by year’s end, online customers will be able to pick up orders at Newk’s “Grab N’ Go” takeout entrances.    

Houston -- Marcus & Millichap announced the sale of The Villagio at Cinco Ranch, an 111,963-sq.-ft. lifestyle shopping center in Katy, Texas. The asset had a list price of $31,290,000; however, the terms of the sale of were not released.   Derek Hargrove, senior associate, and Justin Miller, vice president investments, had the exclusive listing to market the property on behalf of the seller, The Marcel Group.    

Covington, La. -- Stirling Properties’ Beezie Landry, senior sales and leasing executive, closed on the sale of three investment properties, totaling over $15 million. In each of these transactions, Landry represented the Seller.   The CVS property on Greenwell Springs Road in Baton Rouge, Louisiana is a 13,824-sq.-ft. building purchased by a private New York- based investor for $4.75 million.