Locally owned and operated restaurant Cafe Yumm! announced its plans to go national at a press conference Thursday. The company hopes to open 50 restaurants in the next five years, spreading first on the West Coast and then nationally. Each franchise should cost between $300,000 to $350,000.
Cafe Yumm! owner Mark Beauchamp said his restaurant prides itself on its “deeply nourishing, soul-satisfying food.”
The restaurant serves up wraps, salads and rice and bean bowls and is best known for the signature Yumm! Bowl, which combines rice, beans and special Yumm! sauce.
Owner Mary Ann Beauchamp first developed the concept for the rice, beans and sauce dish in her own kitchen as way to get her daughter to eat healthy, tasty food. From there, she and her husband Mark opened a restaurant in hopes that others would enjoy the healthy creations as much as they did.
“We don’t like the term health food. We just want to serve delicious food that’s also healthy,” Mary Ann Beauchamp said.
The restaurant, which will celebrate its 10th anniversary this year, has consistently done better business every year since it opened; Vice President of Franchise Development John Shickich said sales this January were up 40 percent.
“We have enough market presence to take this to the next level,” he said. “You only have a hot food concept once every 10 to 15 years and this is a hot food concept.”
Mark Beauchamp said that Cafe Yumm! prides itself on promoting what he calls a “triple bottom line,” which is to be environmentally, socially and economically conscious and successful. The restaurant uses many organic ingredients and recycled materials. They also donate food to local food banks like FOOD for Lane County.
“We try to take a lifestyle and have our business reflect that,” Mark Beauchamp said.
Mark Beauchamp also said that a loyal and broad customer base has helped the restaurant succeed. He said that for many people their food is a “daily addiction.”
Cafe Yumm! currently has two Eugene locations at 18th and Willamette and in the Oakway Center off Coburg road. A new restaurant in the Delta Oaks shopping center, located off of Delta Highway, will open in late April. The newest franchises are slated to open in the fall in Portland, Corvallis and Bend.
“When we travel we can’t find a good place to eat. People who eat like us, people who want good, wholesome food, can only find that one little place in town. We hope to bring this to more people,” Mark Beauchamp said.
Yumm! spreading throughout region
Daily Emerald
February 11, 2007
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