by Debbie Blossom:
The chain will open restaurants in the Caribbean and Latin America. What started as a tiny beverage and sandwich kiosk in a southeast Tulsa mall is going international.
Camille’s Sidewalk Cafe has signed a franchise agreement to open a minimum of 40 of its fast-casual, fresh-food restaurants in parts of Florida, the entire continent of South America, Puerto Rico and the Caribbean Basin, which includes the Central America countries of Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama.
In reality, though, there will probably be several hundred cafes opening up, said Camille’s founder and CEO David Rutkauskas.
The first several restaurants likely will be ready for business in about 9 months. It’s projected that the agreement will create more than 5,000 jobs in Latin America. ‘We’re going to be covering the globe,’ said Rutkauskas, who expects that his company will log $100 million in revenue in 2008 and probably do $56 million this year.
The franchise agreement is between Camille’s Franchise System Inc., which has more than 900 cafes open or in development, and Camille’s Interamerica Development Inc., a San Juan, Puerto Rico-based company that once represented many well-known brands but is now a master franchiser of Camille’s and focusing solely on the Tulsa-based restaurant chain. Read more about the multimillion-dollar deal that has been in the works for several months.
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