Panera Bread Company is an American chain store of bakery-café fast casual restaurants with over 2,000 locations, all of which are in the United States and Canada. Its headquarters are in Sunset Hills, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis. The company operates as Saint Louis Bread Company in the Greater St. Louis area, where it has over 100 locations. Offerings include bakery items, pasta, salads, sandwiches, soups, and specialty drinks. As of 2020, the menu also includes flatbread pizzas.
Logan's Roadhouse is a chain of casual dining restaurants based in Houston, Texas, United States, founded in 1991 in Lexington, Kentucky, U.S. There are 135 Logan's Roadhouse locations throughout twenty-two states.
California Pizza Kitchen (CPK) is an American casual dining restaurant chain that specializes in California-style pizza. The restaurant was started in 1985 by attorneys Rick Rosenfield and Larry Flax in Beverly Hills, California, United States.
Papa Murphy's is a take-and-bake pizza company based in Vancouver, Washington. It began in 1995 as the merger of two local take-and-bake pizza companies: Papa Aldo's Pizza and Murphy's Pizza. The company and its franchisees operate more than 1,300 outlets in the United States and Canada. Papa Murphy's is the fifth-largest pizza chain in the United States. In April 2019, it was announced that the company would be acquired by MTY Food Group for $190 million.
Au Bon Pain is an American fast casual restaurant, bakery, and café chain headquartered in Richardson, Texas and operates 175 locations in the United States, and Thailand. The company is currently owned by Ampex Brands.
Golden Gate Capital is an American private equity firm based in San Francisco. The firm makes investments in a number of select industries, including technology, financial services, retail and industrial, through leveraged buyout transactions, as well as significant minority purchases and growth capital investments. As of April 2018, it had over $15 billion in assets under management.
Luke Oliver Johnson, is a British entrepreneur. He is a former chairman of the Pizza Express chain, the Royal Society of Arts and Channel 4. Johnson calls himself a "projector", in line with the 17th century term for a man involved in many different businesses. He is the part owner and chairman of Gail's Artisan Bakery and Feng Sushi among other businesses. He is a former owner of The Ivy, Le Caprice and J Sheekey restaurants and a former part owner of Giraffe Restaurants.
Lion Capital LLP is a British private equity firm specialising in investments in the consumer sector. Previous and current consumer brands owned by Lion have included Weetabix, Jimmy Choo, Wagamama, Kettle Foods and AllSaints.
Il Fornaio is a chain of twenty Italian-themed fine dining restaurants operating primarily in California in the United States.
Castle Harlan is a private equity firm based in New York City. The company focuses on buyouts and growth capital investments in middle-market companies across a range of industries. Founded in 1987, Castle Harlan invests in controlling interests in middle-market companies in North America and Europe, Australia and Southeast Asia through Castle Harlan Australian Mezzanine Partners.
Brentwood Associates is one of the oldest private equity firms in the US with groups focusing on both leveraged buyout and venture capital investments.
Irving Place Capital, formerly known as Bear Stearns Merchant Banking (BSMB), is an American private equity firm focused on leveraged buyout and growth capital investments in middle-market companies in the industrial, packaging, consumer and retail industries. Based in New York City, it has total committed capital across its funds of $5.9 billion.
Roark Capital Group is an American private equity firm with over $33 billion in assets under management. The firm is focused on leveraged buyout investments in middle-market companies, primarily in the franchise/multi-location, restaurant and food, health and wellness, and business services sectors. It is named for Howard Roark, the protagonist in Ayn Rand's novel The Fountainhead. The firm claims that its name is not meant to connote any particular political philosophy but instead signify the firm's admiration for the iconoclastic qualities of independence and self-assurance embodied by the central figure in The Fountainhead.
M.H. Alshaya Co. is a multinational retail franchise operator headquartered in Kuwait. It operates 90 consumer retail brands across the Middle East and North Africa, Russia, Turkey and Europe. In addition to its retail operations, the Alshaya group has holdings in real estate, construction, hotels, automotive and general trading, largely centred in the Middle East.
Alfred Lin is an American venture capitalist at Sequoia Capital. Lin was the COO, CFO, and Chairman of Zappos.com until 2010.
Newk's Eatery is an American chain of fast casual cafés which operates over 100 restaurants in 13 states.
&pizza is an American fast casual pizza restaurant chain, with 36 locations in Washington, D.C., Maryland, Virginia, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Florida, and Massachusetts. The restaurant sells personal and customizable oblong-shaped pizzas. They tailor each location to its neighborhood, with local artists designing the interiors. Some locations serve beer, wine, and cocktails.
A ghost kitchen is a professional food preparation and cooking facility set up for the preparation of delivery-only meals. Some ghost kitchens have allowed takeout meals or included drive-throughs. They do not include a storefront or indoor seating for customers. A ghost kitchen differs from a virtual restaurant in that a ghost kitchen is not a restaurant brand in itself and may contain kitchen space and facilities for more than one restaurant brand. Ghost kitchens can work within brick-and-mortar restaurants or function as standalone facilities.
