Patrick Sugrue new Saladworks leader
Since 2002, Paul Steck had run Conshohocken-based Saladworks under two outsize personalities, founder John Scardapane and investor Vernon Hill. Steck guided the 100-store chain through last year's bankruptcy reorganization - the only way the company's advisers could see to end the fiscal impasse that had prevented the chain from growing - and its sale to Centre Lane Partners, a New York buyout firm.
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Since 2002, Paul Steck had run Conshohocken-based Saladworks under two outsize personalities, founder John Scardapane and investor Vernon Hill.
Steck guided the 100-store chain through last year's bankruptcy reorganization - the only way the company's advisers could see to end the fiscal impasse that had prevented the chain from growing - and its sale to Centre Lane Partners, a New York buyout firm.
The battling bosses gone, he kept his title long enough to roll out the new prototype Saladworks store in Newtown Township, Bucks County, over the winter.
But the chain's owners last week retired Steck and replaced him with Patrick Sugrue, a career food executive with a record of rapid growth.
Centre Square wants to justify its $17 million investment, and convince more franchisees to bet on a bigger future for Saladworks, which has had several abortive national and international expansions over the years.
Sugrue met with Steck for drinks at the Marriott near Saladworks headquarters last week. "Paul had really been like the chief operating officer, while John and Vernon were the architects of Saladworks strategy," Sugrue told me later.
"The people at Centre liked that I'd doubled my last business in 18 months," though he's not promising to repeat that feat, Sugrue said.
He hopes Steck will consider running a Saladworks franchise. Steck didn't return a call to his home.
Sugrue has national experience. After his early career at Coca-Cola and winemaker E&J Gallo, he was chief operating officer at HoneyBaked Ham during that family-owned chain's national expansion.
In 2010, he took a job running the pork division of Maple Leaf Foods for its new owner, Florida buyout firm Sun Capital Partners. "We sold everything but the squeal," found new customers in Japan and China, doubled sales in 18 months, and sold to Canada-based Sofina at a profit, Sugrue says.
He also joined the board of Imvescor, a Canadian company that operates chains of Italian, pizza, barbecue and chicken-and-salad-themed casual-service restaurants.
His new job, as Sugrue sees it, is to get Saladworks franchisees to buy into the new "refreshed" store model, with a setting more in line with its new menu items such as baby kale and quinoa pitched at younger customers.
"My daughter is a banker, but you'd think she was a dietitian," he told me. "Young people are much more focused on what they put in their bodies.
"Half our system could use a refresh," he added. "Our franchisees have been very gracious. They have a lot of energy. They have been looking for a vision." The Newtown store, he reports, has already shown "double-digit growth."
He enumerates the changes: "open [industrial-look] ceiling; nice bright colors; earthy tone; musical vibe; seating more conducive to millennials; WiFi lounge area."
Last summer, Steck told me it had been tough to watch investors pour millions into new salad chains while the potential "gorilla" of the salad industry was unable to expand during its reorganization and sale period.
"It's a big footrace, to see who can be the national brand," Steck told me after Centre Lane bought in.
Conscious of Saladworks' history of promising growth that doesn't quite arrive, Sugrue won't say how many stores he hopes to have in a year.
Franchisees want "certainty" - solid sales, such as at the Newtown store, he told me. If that continues, "returns on investment will rise," and store updates will accelerate.
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@PhillyJoeD