Long lines of hungry customers soon formed, attracted by mouth-watering soft pretzels that were hand-rolled, baked fresh and served hot from the oven.
It would exist as a larger footprint where instead of grabbing and on-the-go snack, it would be more of a destination.Armed with a vision and a tasty recipe for soft pretzel perfection, Bill Phelps and Rick Wetzel opened the first Wetzel's Pretzels bakery in Redondo Beach, Calif., in 1994.
The big idea is, ‘what if pretzels could be the same thing?’ The menu could expand out to gourmet loaded pretzel dogs, cheese-stuffed pretzel twists and full meals using the pretzel as a base. “Chipotle when it started was just about the burrito, right?” Schuler said. However, Wetzel’s also wants to try out longer menus catering toward guests with larger meal needs for standalone stores outside of malls and food trucks. “Now we know we’re able to think creatively on flexing the format in the future when we’re faced with other challenges like that configuration challenges.”įor these smaller formats, Schuler said, the company can experiment with smaller menus to make it easier for an on-the-go experience. “Now we have a blueprint for a specific that we can do at Macy's and other retailers,” Schuler said. Moving forward, Schuler said that she could see the company partnering with home improvement retail brands like Home Depot and Lowe’s and that announcements for those partnerships could be coming soon. This partnership with Macy’s required more maneuvering. This is not Wetzel’s first retail partnership-the company has also had a partnership with Walmart for several years - but the Wetzel’s kiosk will generally be located at the exit, where Walmart stores usually have retail space set aside for outside businesses.
Related: Wetzel’s Pretzels new CMO Kim Freer wants to take the pretzels out of the food court Nation’s Restaurant News previously reported on how “food court” brands like Wetzel’s Pretzels and Focus Brands-owned competitors, Auntie Anne’s and Jamba, are trying to expand their reach outside of malls and although this new location inside Macy’s is inside a mall, Schuler said that it still allows for a more flexible footprint, even within a retail atmosphere. The kiosk, therefore, does not need as much room to operate to entice shoppers walking by. The Wetzel’s Pretzels kiosk utilizes a small space within the store, while former storage space is being utilized for the kitchen area where pretzels are baked.
Related: Wetzel's Pretzels is cruisin' into 2022 with Rose Parade® debut “Traditionally, we've been in malls, but we've expanded to food trucks and convenience stores, and now this Macy's partnership, which we have been cultivating for years.” “We've had this internal mantra of ‘how do we bring pretzels to the people wherever the people are located?’” Jennifer Schuler, CEO of Wetzel’s Pretzels said in an interview with Nation’s Restaurant News. with the intent of expanding its retail footprint soon to other shopping experiences, like Lowe’s and Home Depot. The pretzel chain opened a kiosk inside the Macy’s located at the South Coast Plaza mall in Costa Mesa, Calif. Wetzel’s Pretzels - the 350-unit pretzel chain with locations mostly in California and Arizona - is expanding its store prototype horizons with a partnership with Macy’s.