Smaller companies facing off against big-chain interlopers

Nation's Restaurant News, April 22, 1996 by Suzanne Kapner

While Robinson concedes that the unit's annual sales are below the company average, and brand recognition in the community is lower than usual, he says the project has worked fairly well.

"We wanted to do something positive for the neighborhood," he says.

The bagel segment is an increasingly competitive arena, perhaps more so on the East Coast than in other parts of the country because bagels were introduced to America by Eastern European Jewish immigrants, many of whom settled in cities like Boston, New York and Washington.

Regional players include 26-unit Moorestown, N.J.-based Bagel Builders; 173-unit Eatontown, N.J.-based Manhattan Bagel Co.; and 18-unit Fairfield, N.J.-based All American Food Group, which started two years ago by purchasing the 50-year-old Goldberg's Original Old World Bagels. The company added Sammy's New York Bagels to its roster recently and will merge the two, offering a Goldberg's Bagel and Deli and a Goldberg's Kosher line.

The company signed Joseph Conti, former president of Old Country Buffet, as an area developer in Arizona and former Baltimore Colt Bubba Smith as a Maryland franchisee.

All American chief executive Andrew Thorburn is hoping Goldberg's half-century reputation and the kosher line will give him an edge.

"If the market is very competitive, we can go in with a kosher store and it's perceived by the non-Jewish population as more authentic," Thorburn says.

Another regional competitor, 21-unit Buffalo, N.Y-based Bagel Bros., is hoping its jazz theme will set it apart. The company currently is expanding into Chicago. The company's director of operations, Merrill Becht, says the concept's more extensive menu, upscale aesthetics marked by dark wood and brass, and piped-in jazz music should help the company carve a niche in the Windy City.