After successfully opening a Paris Baguette in the Detroit area, two longtime IHOP franchisees are now developing the brand in Kansas.
Mike Issa and business partner Moe Touffaha started franchising with IHOP in 2005 and today operate 13 locations of the breakfast brand in Kansas, Missouri and New Mexico. Looking to diversify, they came across Paris Baguette a few years ago in New York.
“We walked in and liked it from our first impression,” Issa said. “We tried the product, and it became a sensation for us. Whenever we went to a place with Paris Baguette, we ended up going there, so we started thinking of franchising it and bringing it to the Midwest.”
After getting the green light, Issa and Touffaha went to work to open their first location in Michigan. The business partners invested roughly $650,000 to start the Michigan site, which has been open for about four months.
“It’s doing fantastic,” Issa said. “We’re very impressed with the outcome in terms of customer reaction and the way they like the product. It’s everything we expected.”
IHOP and Paris Baguette franchisee Mike Issa.
In addition to pastries and cakes, Paris Baguette offers sandwiches, as well as hot and cold drinks. Issa said the menu offerings are key to marketing the brand, and they’ll take the same food-forward approach to introduce the concept in Kansas.
“We’re building a 3,000 square-foot location with a patio and a fireplace,” Issa said. “Wichita is already talking about it coming, so it is generating a lot of energy already. When we do open, and people walk in, I think the décor, the product and the aroma will have guests falling in love.”
The first of the Kansas locations will open this month in Wichita with the next one planned for Overland Park in 2023. The latter is a suburb of Kansas City, where Issa said they have the development rights.
“We are in the process of building a strip center in the center of Kansas City,” Issa said. “When it’s finished, it will have an IHOP on one side and a Paris Baguette on the other.”
An international franchise, Paris Baguette has more than 4,000 locations but just under 100 in the U.S., where it began developing in 2005. The brand in 2019 announced a lofty goal of reaching 1,000 units by 2030. The average unit volume in 2021 was $2.2 million.
The cost to open a café is between $635,765 and $1.7 million, and franchisees must have a net worth of $1.5 million with $500,000 in liquid assets.