Cosi, Inc. Announces New Franchise Opening in Washington, D.C.
October 21 2015 - 6:30AM
Così, Inc. (NASDAQ:COSI), the fast casual restaurant company, today
announced that its franchisee, Eurest Dining Services d/b/a Compass
USA, opened their first Cosi® restaurant inside The Department of
Homeland Security in Southeast Washington, D.C. This newest Così®
restaurant, located in the United States Coast Guard Building,
celebrated its grand opening on Tuesday, September 22, 2015.
“I am pleased to announce the opening of our newest
franchise restaurant,” said R. J. Dourney, Cosi President and Chief
Executive Officer. “We are excited about our franchise partnership
with Eurest Dining Services,” stated Dourney. “Their appreciation
for great food is perfectly aligned with Cosi’s fresh and edgy menu
offerings. Additionally, we are confident that their focus on
execution and service will provide a first class guest experience
at this location,” Dourney went on to say.
“Cosi has been a great addition to our operation at
the St. Elizabeth's Homeland Security location. Customers love the
selection and variety of offerings and we have seen a steady growth
in customer participation,” said Mark Gleason, RVP Eurest Dining
Services. "We received wonderful support from Cosi during our
planning process and then again during our opening weeks. We look
forward to expanding to other locations with them over time,”
Gleason went on to say. About Eurest
The globally recognized Eurest launched in 1996 in
the US and provides dining services to local, regional and national
companies within the Business & Industry markets, including
employee dining centers, on-site catering, vending, executive
dining rooms, and other managed services. Eurest is proud to serve
the world’s most respected and successful corporations, including
many of the Fortune 500. Eurest is a $1.4 billion food and
vending organization with 1935 locations and more than 15,500
associates throughout the US. Eurest serves more than 705,000
customers daily and is a division of NC-based Compass Group North
America.
About Così, Inc.
Così® (http://www.getcosi.com) is a national fast
casual restaurant chain that has developed featured foods built
around a secret, generations-old recipe for crackly crust
flatbread. This artisan bread is freshly baked in front of
customers throughout the day in open-flame stone-hearth ovens
prominently located in each of the restaurants. Così's warm and
urbane atmosphere is geared towards its sophisticated, upscale,
urban and suburban guests. There are currently 79 Company-owned and
30 franchise restaurants operating in fifteen states, the District
of Columbia, Costa Rica and the United Arab Emirates. The Così
vision is to become America's favorite fast casual restaurant by
providing customers authentic, innovative, savory food while
remaining an affordable luxury.
The Così® menu features Così® sandwiches,
freshly-tossed salads, bowls, breakfast wraps, melts, soups,
Squagels®, flatbread pizzas, S'mores, snacks and other desserts,
and a wide range of coffee and coffee-based drinks and other
specialty beverages. Così® restaurants are designed to be welcoming
and comfortable with an eclectic environment. Così’s sights,
sounds, and spaces create a tasteful, relaxed ambience that
provides a fresh and new dining experience.
"Così," "(Sun & Moon Design)" and related marks
are registered trademarks of Così, Inc. in the U.S.A. and certain
other countries. Copyright © 2015 Così, Inc. All rights
reserved.
"SAFE HARBOR" STATEMENT UNDER THE PRIVATE
SECURITIES LITIGATION REFORM ACT OF 1995. This press release
contains statements that constitute forward-looking statements
under the federal securities laws. Forward-looking statements are
statements about future events and expectations and not statements
of historical fact. The words "believe," "may," "will," "should,"
"anticipate," "estimate," "expect," "intend," "objective," "seek,"
"plan," "strive," or similar words, or negatives of these words,
identify forward- looking statements. We qualify any
forward-looking statements entirely by these cautionary factors.
Forward-looking statements are based on management's beliefs,
assumptions and expectations of our future economic performance,
taking into account the information currently available to
management. Forward-looking statements involve risks and
uncertainties that may cause our actual results, performance or
financial condition to differ materially from the expectations of
future results, performance or financial condition we express or
imply in any forward-looking statements. Factors that could
contribute to these differences include, but are not limited to:
the results being reported in this release are unaudited and
subject to change; the cost of our principal food products and
supply and delivery shortages and interruptions; labor shortages or
increased labor costs; changes in demographic trends and consumer
tastes and preferences, including changes resulting from concerns
over nutritional or safety aspects of beef, poultry, produce, or
other foods or the effects of food-borne illnesses, such as E.
coli, "mad cow disease" and avian influenza or "bird flu";
competition in our markets, both in our business and in locating
suitable restaurant sites; our operation and execution in new and
existing markets; expansion into new markets including foreign
markets; our ability to attract and retain qualified franchisees
and our franchisees' ability to open restaurants on a timely basis;
our ability to locate suitable restaurant sites in new and existing
markets and negotiate acceptable lease terms; the rate of our
internal growth and our ability to generate increased revenue from
our existing restaurants; our ability to generate positive cash
flow from existing and new restaurants; fluctuations in our
quarterly results due to seasonality; increased government
regulation and our ability to secure required government approvals
and permits; our ability to create customer awareness of our
restaurants in new markets; the reliability of our customer and
market studies; cost effective and timely planning, design and
build out of restaurants; our ability to recruit, train and retain
qualified corporate and restaurant personnel and management; market
saturation due to new restaurant openings; inadequate protection of
our intellectual property; our ability to obtain additional capital
and financing; adverse weather conditions which impact customer
traffic at our restaurants; and adverse economic conditions.
Further information regarding factors that could affect our results
and the statements made herein are included in our filings with the
Securities and Exchange Commission.
Additional information is available on Così's
website at http://www.getcosi.com in the investor
relations section.
CONTACT:
Miguel Rossy-Donovan
Chief Financial Officer
(857) 415-5020
InvestorRelations@getcosi.com