Zachary Sogoloff and Seth Marks recently went to the grand opening of the health-conscious restaurant, Clean Eatz, which is now open in Heisley Pointe Shopping Center, located at the intersection of Mentor Avenue and Heisley Road in Mentor, Ohio.

Americans spent more money dining out than in grocery stores for the first time ever in 2015. Since then, restaurants have made changes to accommodate today’s consumer. These changes can be a huge payoff for investors looking to contribute to an already successful, established corporation such Starbucks, Chick-fil-A, and Chipotle. But why should investors, more now than ever, choose to invest in restaurants such as these? Customers want quality, convenience, and a unique experience while dining and because these companies have capitalized on these trends, they offer a unique and stable opportunity for investors

Larger and more established restaurant chains aren’t necessarily looking for constant expansion opportunities. This allows the companies to pay out more of their profits to shareholders, instead of investing in new business. For example, Starbucks generated $23.1 billion in net income from 2008-2017 while paying owners $5.2 billion and reinvesting $17.9 billion back into the company. With this, companies like Starbucks can dabble in craft markets such as health-focused and high end experiences without much risk. Starbucks has already seen success in its luxury reserve roasteries that offer higher-priced menu items in a unique store layout.

Our Senior Vice President/Principal, Richard Edelman, recently had the opportunity to visit the site of the first Chipotle Store in Denver, Colorado.

This location opened in 1993 and at that time only served burritos. Currently, the location is a hot spot for University of Denver students and Chipotle history buffs alike.

Richard has been working with Chipotle since 2000 and has successfully negotiated 70 transactions, including the milestone 500^th location in Fairview Park, OH. Seeing where it all began for one of Goodman Real Estate Services early clients, who have helped build our company into what it is today, was a homecoming and an exciting encounter!

Recent work for a franchisee of WingStop (a Top-50 national chain in the quick-serve restaurant industry) proves that local broker knowledge can be indispensable, even when the chain itself has strict guidelines.

The issue was demographics, where the head office in Dallas instructs its operators to pursue only certain neighborhoods with an “ideal” mix of incomes, density and ethnicity.

When following the guidelines, one unit here in northeast Ohio turned in a less than stellar performance, even though it hit every requirement of a typical WingStop.

In acquiring the next site, we were able to convince the franchisor to get behind a different sort of ethnic and income mix, that provided steady traffic at all hours of the day (especially from 6:00 pm to midnight, when most wings and fries are sold) due to road patterns, other quick-serve food players in the vicinity, and demand generators like hotels or a cinema.  Because the name WingStop is not generally known here yet and customers may think it’s a mom-and-pop (they recently exceeded 1,000 stores), the sales started slowly but have been steadily building, to the point where year two performance was 30% over year one and continues to grow.

Thanks to our Senior Vice President, Steve Altemare, Wisconsin’s well-known Culver’s is headed to Northeast Ohio soon. The chain, represented exclusively by Altemare in Northeast Ohio for all of its transactions, features buttery cheeseburgers and smooth custard with enough variety to make dairy lovers swoon. But there’s more to this family-owned business than just cheese curds and fries. Click "Continue Reading" to learn 10 interesting facts about Culver's that will have you jonesing for your very own ButterBurger.