Photo: Wetzel’s
Will Wetzel’s Twisted Concept Stand Alone Among Food Competitors?
Those shoppers used to treating themselves to a Wetzel’s pretzel at the mall will find a lot more variety at the company’s new off-mall store concept, Twisted by Wetzel’s, which aims to inject creativity and excitement into the product line and add a catchier look and feel to the experience.
Ice cream served in sugar-coated pretzel cones, hot dogs served in pretzel buns and savory or sweet loaded pretzel fries topped with options like bacon or s’mores are a few of the menu items that will appear at Twisted by Wetzel’s, according to Business Insider.
The chain’s mainline stores are primarily shopping mall fixtures (40 percent of them in California) and store-within-a-store locations inside select retailers.
The new store concept is planned for standalone locations in college towns and outdoor “power center” shopping areas frequented by Gen Zers and Millennials.
Wetzel’s plans to open 40 new stores by the end of 2023. Three of those will be Twisted locations, with the first to open in May. The new stores will have open kitchens so visitors can see their food being prepared. The confections and décor pictured in the Insider article have an “Instagrammable” quality.
Single-product restaurants or “one-dish wonders” have appeared over the years in a number of different forms. A blog by Sapaad points to Dunkin’ and Krispy Kreme as two examples of successful restaurant chains mostly focused on selling a single product (that being doughnuts) with limited menu options.
The more creative and experimental element of the Twisted by Wetzel’s concept also recalls some single-product theme restaurants in markets like New York City, such as the rice pudding-only restaurant Rice to Riches.
Wetzel’s opening of three standalone concept stores represents a relatively small foray into off-mall retail. It does, however, follow moves of other mall-based businesses including Macy’s, Gap, Journey’s, Foot Locker, Sephora and Victoria’s Secret that have all recently emphasized off-mall expansions.
Discussion Questions
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS: How likely is Twisted by Wetzel’s to become a standalone success in college towns and outdoor shopping areas? What are the keys to Wetzel’s scaling the concept?
Poll
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100 percent yes. Just look at concepts from Crumbl to Jeni’s to others opening near you. Wetzel’s can use its food trucks to test markets before building, too. Plus, they’ll never run out of novel ways to create new pretzel-based indulgences. Just look at the new pepperoni pizza sauce pretzel from–okay, I made that up, but you get the idea. Wetzel’s will be a hit wherever it goes. It will need to figure out how to scale and use analytics to map out its migration path. But that path will eventually be a golden one.
Close Ken- I have seen a pepperoni pizza with a Pretzel crust. Count me in on this format.