Hospitality

Chicago -- Englewood Construction’s restaurant and retail groups have recently broken ground on four projects, completed three projects and started work on one expansion project across the country.   In the Chicago area, Englewood’s restaurant group recently broke ground on an 11,265-square-foot, ground-up Cooper’s Hawk Winery and Restaurant in Oaklawn, Ill., and an expansion for the popular Purple Pig restaurant on Michigan Avenue in downtown Chicago. 

San Francisco -- Ben & Jerry’s has opened its largest flagship to date, a 3,000-sq.-ft., two-story location in São Paulo, Brazil.     Designed by Tesser, a San Francisco strategic branding and design firm, the property showcases the company's social mission along with its iconic ice cream treats.   

Los Angeles -- PizzaRev, a fast-casual build-your-own pizza concept, is adding five franchise groups to develop the brand throughout Denver, Washington D.C., Las Vegas, Long Island, New York and Columbus, Ohio. PizzaRev plans to open at least 40 franchise locations across the markets.   Beyond its 12 corporate locations in greater Los Angeles, PizzaRev currently operates franchise locations across four states.  

Seattle –- Starbucks Corp. topped off a generally successful fourth quarter of fiscal 2014 by swinging to net income of $587.9 million from net loss of $1.23 billion the fourth quarter of the prior fiscal year. The removal of a one-time arbitration charge of $2.8 billion helped bring Starbucks into the black.  

Denver -- Quiznos continues to expand its international development with growth into seven countries in Asia and the Middle East. This is the latest addition to an international development strategy to open more than 1,000 restaurants in more than 40 countries by 2020 and will widen the company footprint abroad through the help of international master franchisees.  

New York –- Online footwear retailer Zappos is ranked the simplest brand in the U.S. And that’s a good thing. According to the new Brand Simplicity Index ranking of U.S. brands from brand advisory firm Siegel & Gale, the top 10 list is dominated by retailers. The list includes Amazon.com at number two, Subway (#3), Pizza Hut (#4), Netflix (#5), Trader Joe’s (#6), Kroger (#7), McDonald’s (#8), Chipotle (#9) and Dunkin’ Donuts (#10).

Tampa, Fla. -- Outback Steakhouse is introducing Click Thru Seating. With Click Thru Seating, customers visit Outback.com from any connected device to view the current wait time at their local Outback restaurant and put their name on the waitlist for now or later.    Unlike a traditional reservation, late customers will not be dropped from the wait list or penalized. The service will also soon be available on the Outback mobile app.