Irvine-based Wienerschnitzel is partnering with GoMart Inc., an operator of travel plazas and convenience stores based in West Virginia, as a new franchisee to develop more non-traditional restaurants over the next five years.
GoMart, which operates 123 stores across West Virginia, Ohio and Virginia, will start by developing two Wienerschnitzel/Tastee-Freez drive-thru restaurants from the ground-up in West Virginia’s Kanawha City and Ghent.
Additional locations with GoMart are in the works as Wienerschnitzel aims to add different restaurant formats to its footprint, opening recently at Walmart stores and a U.S. military base.
“As we continue expanding beyond the traditional restaurant model, partnerships like this allow us to pair the flexibility of our concept with operators that already understand how to serve consumers in high-traffic, convenience-driven environments, and we see significant potential to build on these two restaurants in the future,” Chief Development Officer David Winter said in a statement.
Wienerschnitzel currently counts 340 franchised restaurants across 13 states. It is the ninth largest restaurant chain in Orange County with systemwide sales of $359 million, according to data from Technomic Inc.