Hot on the heels of news that Beehive-borne Training Table are planning a daring comeback, FOX13 yesterday teased a similar message about Jack In The Box. The TV piece appears to reference the JITB franchising page for Utah here which describes the Salt Lake City Metro as:
“a thriving city with college campuses, nearby recreation and tourist destination as well as one of the larger economic areas in the US. As a major business hub and education center, Salt Lake city is a great area to grow.”
News of Jack’s plans for Mountain-West expansion first bubbled up last year. QSR Magazine reported on the chain’s regional expansion strategies in August 2021, you can read that first story here. Want to own your own Jack? Franchising details from the chain reckon you’re gonna need an investment of around $1.7 – $2.7 million, so go check behind the sofa now; don’t dig too deep much mind you – in order to catch up with the peers such as Culver’s and Whataburger who have seen rapid growth of late – Jack In The Box are offering this sweet deal for would be newbie operators right now.
For those set to prattle on with their usual “oh god not another chain, for the love of beef” refrain, go simmer down and remember that the San Diego based brand founded in 1951, already have a trio of outposts in the state. St George, Cedar City and Washington already offer up fan favorite dishes like the pictured Tiny Tacos and Buttery Jack burgers. Fact fans will no doubt want to chime in at this point and remind us that Jack did indeed once have a much bigger footprint in Utah.
It goes without saying, any entrepreneur that decides to stump up the expansion cash will have a hit on their hands, at least for the initial launch interim. In recent years, brands to make seismic debuts in Utah include Raising Canes, Shake Shack and In-N-Out. Plenty of those locations still have eyebrow raising traffic lines. Moreover, the rapturous delight that greeted Training Table’s announcement (and have you seen that Eat A Burger food truck…) means you can probably add a little nostalgic fuel to the Utah chain fire.
For the time being, no official locations in Northern Utah have been confirmed as far as I know (yes, I see you social media posts, begging for info on the whereabouts). The Utah franchise page (which according to Archive.org, first launched in May 2021) seeks franchisees for the Provo-Orem area, Ogden-Clearfield metro, Logan as well as Utah’s capital. As ever, stay tuned, and we’ll bring you the launch news as soon as we have it.
Image credits, Jack In The Box.
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Hi, I’m Stuart, nice to meet you! I’m the founder, writer and wrangler at Gastronomic SLC. I’m a multiple-award winning journalist and have written in myopic detail about the Salt Lake City dining scene for the better part of seventeen years.
I’ve worked extensively with multiple local publications from Visit Salt Lake to Salt Lake Magazine, not least helped to consult on national TV. Pause those credits, yep, that’s me! I’m also a former restaurant critic of more than five years, working for the Salt Lake Tribune. I’m largely fueled by a critical obsession with rice, alliteration and the use of big words I don’t understand. What they’re saying about me: “Not inaccurate”, “I thought he was older”, “I don’t share his feelings”.
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