Zoë’s is a fast food restaurant that serves a wide variety of Mediterranean inspired food including items like chicken salad

Zoë’s is a fast food restaurant that serves a wide variety of Mediterranean inspired food including items like chicken salad, pasta salad, and pitas. Zoes also is on a mission to let people know that Mediterranean food doesn’t just come from Greece. (Kell, 2015) Zoë’s Kitchen was incorporated in 1995 by Marcus and Zoe Cassimus in Jefferson county Alabama. The first restaurant was opened in October 1995 in Homewood, Alabama with another store opening in Hoover in 1999, and a third restaurant in Birmingham. They continue to open several more stores in Alabama until the fall of 2001 when they opened a restaurant in Nashville, TN. By 2006 Zoë’s had 16 restaurants with 8 restaurants located out of Alabama. When the company was first founded the restaurants were not franchised and the Cassimus held a 51 percent ownership in all locations. However, in 2007 Cassimus sold the majority of the company to Brentwood Associates of Los Angeles but stayed on as the CEO until 2008. The sale of the company came with the potential to open 200 new franchise locations over the next 5 years. When Cassimus resigned in 2008 Greg Dollarhyde took his place as CEO, Dollarhyde was the previous CEO of Baja Fresh and later he announced they would expand the restaurant but keep two thirds of the stores as company owned and franchise out the other third. In 2011 Kevin Miles replaced Greg Dollarhyde as president of the organization. Zoë’s has since launched online ordering in 2011 and a loyalty app in 2013. In 2014 it was announced that the company would be publically traded and as a result the company moved their corporate headquarters from Birmingham, Alabama to Plano, Texas. There are now more than 200 Zoë’s restaurants and that number is continuing to increase.