Paris Baguette's Rapid Growth Led by a Real Estate Heavy Hitter

Paris Baguette, the global bakery café franchise brand with more than 4,000 locations around the world, is targeting the United States for major growth in the next 10 years.

While it already has 90 locations with a majority on the East and West coasts, French café-inspired Paris Baguette is ready to expand to the rest of the country. So far in 2021, Paris Baguette has awarded more than 70 franchise agreements. Its goal is to sell 100 franchises by the end of the year and open 1,000 U.S. locations by the end of the decade.

With so many new franchisees joining the brand, how does the brand manage to find the perfect locations?

The answer: Joseph AmecAngelo, the exclusive master franchise broker for heavy-hitting commercial real estate brokerage CBRE.

“The typical brand wants to do 1,000 locations in a decade, but most of them are not equipped to scale at that pace,” AmecAngelo said. “Paris Baguette, however, will meet their growth goals because they have a good franchise development and construction team. They know how to open stores. They’re already off to an impressive start.”

CBRE’s AmecAngelo is part of that start. With a network of 400 on-the-ground brokers in 100 offices across the United States and Canada, AmecAngelo helps new franchisees with the site selection process no matter where they are. 

AmecAngelo has been working with Paris Baguette for about nine months; however, he plans to make them the sole client for his practice because they’ve kept him so busy. Right now, he said CBRE is actively looking for real estate for 30 Paris Baguette assignments with a dozen in lease negotiation.

Turns out that Paris Baguette is a good match for AmecAngelo’s style of business. Both believe in the power of building relationships as the heart of every successful business. So while AmecAngelo knows all Paris Baguette must-haves in a site — a prominent location with approximately 2,000 to 3,200 sq. ft. and at least 30-feet of frontage — it would be physically impossible for him to see each location across the country.

Instead, he is able to rely on a vast local network, pinpoint the locations that best match that description and  work with the local franchisee to find a place that fits their needs.

“Paris Baguette only wants A+ real estate locations for its franchisees,” said AmecAngelo. “That is why we work with 400 local, on-the-ground agents nationwide. We’re able to investigate the ins and outs of every specific address. These experts are familiar with how the traffic flows, the busiest shopping centers, the most popular lunch spots — all the places Paris Baguette wants to be.”

“Working with our local CBRE representatives took a lot of stress out of the real estate situation for us,” said Jun Han, a franchisee who is opening a Paris Baguette in Aurora, Colorado. “It’s one of the most important decisions we can make as a new franchise, so we were glad that there was someone who understood what we were after and listened to our concerns as well.”

“At the end of the day, it’s about me being able to pick up the phone and call these markets and have a relationship with all people,” said AmecAngelo.  “We treat our franchisees the same way. They’re the client. We want to create relationships with them.”

The total investment to franchise with Paris Baguette ranges from $528,270 and $1,638,554, including a $50,000 franchise fee. For more information, please visit: https://parisbaguette.com/franchising/.