DEERFIELD Ill. BAB Inc., the franchisor of 87-unit Big Apple Bagels, announced Tuesday the debut of a rebranded concept, My Favorite Muffin, Your All Day Bakery Café. The first two locations of the muffin-focused prototype are now open in Littleton and Highlands Ranch, Colo.
BAB, which acquired the My Favorite Muffin brand in 1997, already had 20 locations of that concept in its system, but the Your All Day Bakery Café variant will be the franchise model that BAB hopes to grow.
The concept’s menu spans several dayparts, offering breakfast and lunch sandwiches, fruit smoothies, BAB’s proprietary Brewster’s Coffee, and bagels with a selection of sister brand Big Apple Bagels’ signature cream cheeses. The major point of differentiation will be its lineup of 20 “Jumbo” muffins and eight “Mini” muffins.
“Our muffins are truly something special,” said Michael Evans, president and chief executive of BAB Inc. “They set us apart from the competition because nobody has anything like them.”
My Favorite Muffin also will offer custom-decorated “Celebration Cupcakes,” which are meant to bolster special-event catering sales.
With bakery-cafe competitors and quick-service chains upgrading beverages to include specialty coffees and espresso-based drinks, BAB officials said they recognized the crucial role gourmet coffee plays.
“The ‘Your All Day Bakery Café’ stores are extremely coffee-focused,” said Leslie Walters, BAB’s director of marketing. “It’s an extremely large focus and definitely is part of the business.”
Darren Tristano, executive vice president of industry consulting firm Technomic Inc., said My Favorite Muffin’s coffee gives it a chance to succeed at the breakfast and snack dayparts, where franchise brands built around niche products, like Cinnabon and Flying Biscuit Café, have done fairly well. But the opportunity will have little margin for error, he added, and My Favorite Muffin faces several challenges.
“It’s a lot more difficult with a muffin focus to succeed in other dayparts, so they have to do well at breakfast,” Tristano said. “This type of narrowly focused concept will have a difficult time, given the growth of the bakery-cafe segment and all the competition going on in coffee.”
Tristano added that the market where the first two Your All Day Bakery Cafe locations went up is right in Lakewood, Colo.-based Einsten Bros. Bagels’ backyard.
Still, BAB said it plans to grow My Favorite Muffin, Your All Day Bakery Café nationwide through area development and individual franchise deals. Director of franchise relations Rosanne Angell said the markets targeted first include Colorado, Indianapolis, the Twin Cities and Texas.
The company wants to build one more unit this year of the new variant and five next year.
Angell said growth prospects for a franchise company in this recession still are mixed, but BAB is encouraged by recent developments.
“There was quite a slow period, as people were fearful and the economy was such an unknown,” Angell said. “We are excited because we’ve seen in the last couple of months a steady increase in the lead flow for new franchises. That’s extremely encouraging.”
She added, “We’re still a little uncertain on financing and its availability to franchisees. It remains to be seen how quickly that will loosen up, but at least the picture is better than it had been.”
Deerfield-based BAB operates, franchises or licenses Big Apple Bagels, My Favorite Muffin, Jacobs Bros. Bagels and Brewster’s Coffee.
Contact Mark Brandau at [email protected].