Bruegger’s, La Madeleine, Brioche Dorée plan growth

Le Duff America Inc. is planning to expand three of its brands after agreeing in January to acquire the Mimi’s Café chain.

Dallas-based Le Duff America — the North American subsidiary of Paris, France-based Groupe Le Duff — aims to grow its Bruegger’s Bagels, La Madeleine and Brioche Dorée brands.

Paul Carolan, who joined Le Duff America as chief development officer in October, told Nation’s Restaurant News, “Each one of the brands plays a special role for us. They aren’t competing against each other.”

Recently, 60-unit La Madeleine has launched a franchise strategy for the first time and is looking at more airport locations. Brioche Dorée, with 27 units in the United States, nine locations in Canada and nearly 600 restaurants globally, is launching a new street-side prototype in North America and seeking growth in medical centers, hotels and other nontraditional venues. And 297-unit Bruegger's Bagels has opened in several new markets and plans to increase its unit count by 6 percent this year.

Carolan discussed the latest developments at Le Duff — beyond Mimi's Café — with Nation’s Restaurant News.

How many openings are planned?

This coming year we’re going to open up about 33 locations across the country. They are spread between La Madeleine, Brioche and Bruegger’s.

And how many openings for each brand?

Bruegger’s will have about 19 store openings, and we anticipate about nine of them to be company stores, nine franchised and one nontraditional. And then La Madeleine is looking to grow with nontraditional and franchised, with seven company stores, one new franchisee that we signed up in Lubbock, [Texas,] and that will open this year in the third or fourth quarter. And we’ll open a nontraditional [location] in the Atlanta airport, where we’ll have a kiosk and a full store, and another location in Love Field [in Dallas]. We opened our first airport location in Phoenix last year. We also have one planned for DFW airport in 2014.

And for Brioche Dorée?

We’re looking at two phases there. We’re looking at a brand new prototype. The brand is 600-plus deep in Europe. We brought over a new prototype. It’s opening on Kings Street in Toronto. We’re looking at securing locations in Washington, D.C., to start street business. It’s that fast-paced Parisian sandwich, soups and salads. We’re also heading into two hospitals and another airport. Airports and health care are difficult to penetrate in nontraditional, but our food’s freshness cues give us credibility.