Factory Donuts Coffee’N Chicken, the once-flagging brand that was acquired in 2020 by Pennsylvania-based Phoenix Nexus, plans to open another 10 stores over the next three years and is currently in the midst of lease negotiations for two outposts in Bucks County, plus another three in New Jersey; including Somerdale, Glasboro, and Ewing.
“We are a start-up company from 2018, and we experienced some explosive growth right before covid,” Fang Suo, Phoenix Nexus’ VP of operations tells What Now Philadelphia. “Covid has stopped us a little bit, but we’re on the track to get going again after covid restrictions have lifted.”
Although Factory Donuts Coffee’N Chicken does have a franchise program, the next 10 locations will be corporate-owned and operated.
In an interview published Nov 30 with the Philadelphia Business Journal, Phoenix Nexus founder and COO, Nandish Patel said that the company “is hoping to close the deals by the end of this year or in early 2023,” with plans to open by mid to late 2023.
The news comes after Factory Donuts Coffee’N Chicken reopened its flagship location at 7114 Frankford Ave last Saturday, Dec 3. More than just a grand opening, however, the event doubled as an unveiling of the company’s rebrand and its expanded menu which includes chicken tenders, sandwiches – both chicken and breakfast – wings, and of course, donuts.
Factory Donuts was initially founded in 2017 by David and Heather Restituo. Unfortunately, after announcing plans to open five new locations including three out-of-state in 2019, the pair was ultimately done in by covid.
“The bottom line is, we just used the skeleton of the brand, we didn’t use anything else,” Patel told the Business Journal, adding, “We really believe that the fresh chicken concept sets us apart from other concepts.”
