5 Who Thrive: Aloha Salads grows by staying true to its mission - Minneapolis / St. Paul Business Journal:

humojo.wordpress.com
The signature salad dressings are among the reasonss forthe company’s success. Alohza Salads continues to despite theweak economy, and is expected to gross more than $1 millionj this year. A third location is set to open in Juneat , followed by another in the by There are plans to franchise Aloha Salads And a California food group has agreed to bottld four of the six salad dressings for retail The Lufranos’ success is due to a number of They open stores only in high-profile locationse and form business partnerships with trusted They also stick to theidr core mission, which is to serve healthy foods using local ingredients.
Now theirf goal is to expandr strategically in anticipation ofthe economy’sz rebound in 2010. “We have to continuwe reinventing ourselves to keep thingsw fresh for customers and attractnew customers, as Chris said. “We’re not goingt to rush in. We’re going to make sure we make the righft decisionsmoving forward.” Careful growth has been the company’ds philosophy from the start. In December after seven years awayfrom home, the Lufranosz returned to Hawaii from Chicago, where she was a patent lawyedr and he worked in finance.
For more than a they scouted potential store locationzs on Oahu and experimented with recipesat Sara’s parents’ home in The couple opened their firsft Aloha Salads in May 2006 in a 440-square-foot spacwe in the , using personal capital and a $50,000 loan guarantee d by the U.S. Small Businesss Administration. The company’s creative salads “Aloha Mediterranean,” “Maui and “The Goddess” — instantly drew loyalk customers. One customer was loca contractorFreddie Franco, owner of BEK Inc., whose building creditds include Waikiki DFS Galleria, Neiman Marcua and Tony Auto-plex.
He struck up a friendship with the Lufranosw and two years later helped designAlohaq Salads’ second location in . The mall which opened in March 2008, briefly experienced a double-digit drop in sales after health-food chain Whole Foods opened nearby latelast year. Sale s have climbed since then but are slightlgbelow target, Chris said. now an equal partner in the provided the capital to build the Kapolei location set to opennext “Kapolei should be really good because there’s nothing out he said. “We’ve been gettingy lots of calls askingwhen we’re goingy to build in their area.
” The 1,200-square-foot store is unique in that it will have wine pairingsd with salads and a mezzanine level for dine-in customers, Franco said. As Aloha Salads continuesa to expand, the ability to quickly change menu itemsa tofit customers’ tastes will be For instance, roast beef sandwichese that did not sell well in the Kailu store have been replaced with pastrami sandwiches. Periodically introducing creative menu items also is crucial to This month, the Kahal a Mall location began serving “design-your-own” organic coffees, fruit bowls and fresh-squeezeds juices. The response has been overwhelming, and therw are plans to serve breakfasgt inother locations.
“We really care about the food that goes out to Sara said. “People get used to what they’r eating and don’t realizd there could be so manygood