While most restaurants are scrambling to add drive-thru and pickup lanes and shrink their footprint, Manasquan, N.J.-based sandwich chain Jersey Mike’s is confident in their longstanding format: 1,000-1,400-square-foot stores doing mostly pickup and takeout. But what has changed over the past year during the pandemic is Jersey Mike’s digital growth, which has grown 180% from last April to this March.
In the below video Jersey Mike’s CEO discusses their immense digital growth and success despite the challenges of the pandemic. The first quarter of 2021 saw same-store sales up 40%, which Cancro attributes to the investments they made just before the pandemic in relaunching their mobile app in 2019.
“You know, Starbucks and Domino's are known as digital, high-tech companies but so are we,” Cancro said.
Jersey Mike’s has also seen double digital annual growth over the last year, with stores opening mostly from within (store managers becoming franchisees). The chain is currently at more than 2,000 stores nationally with plans to have their 3,000th store open by 2024 or 2025.
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