🠈  Cinnabon / Restaurants Unlimited  🠊

Cinnabon

Cinnabon is a chain offering freshly baked cinnamon rolls and related treats. The company has over 5000 locations. The locations generally are stand alone kiosks in malls. They are often embedded in truck stops, airport terminals, and gas stations. This is the store within a store concept.

Cinnabon was created by Restaurants Unlimited (RUI) of Seattle. RUI built a number of notable casual restaurants before Cinnabon. As Cinnabon required a different marketing strategy, RUI spun off the chain.

RUI continued to grow gradually after selling Cinnabon. Unfortunately, the sharp increase in minimum wage in the cities where RUI operated made the chain's labor intensive strategy untenable. RUI filed chapter 11 in 2019.

Directory Listings

Cinnabon has over 5000 locations. Many of the locations are kiosks in a mall. Some of the locations are little more than a counter at a gas station.

My Review

I had a Cinnabon cinamon roll back in 2000. It was tasty, but I am still trying to burn it off.

Corporate History

The company is involved in the merger chain of Popeye's and other brands. The brand was created by Restaurants Unlimited (RUI); So I will begin the merger chain there.

• 1969: Rich Komen opened a casual restaurant with fine food called Red Barron's in Seattle.
• Other restaurants in the chain include Stanley & Seafort’s, Palomino, and a huge restaurant called Magnolia and Kincaid’s Fish, Chop & Steak House
• 1985: RUI opened the first Cinnabon in the SeaTac mall in Federal Way, Wa.
• 1990: Eli Jacobs acquired majority stake in RUI.
• 1993: Eli Jacobs filed bankruptcy.
• 1995: Komen reacquired RUI.
• 1997: RUI spun off Cinnabon which had 317 restaurants in 37 states.²

  Continued History of Cinnabon

  • 1998: AFC Enterprises, Inc. (which owned Popeyes, Seattle's Best Coffee, Church's Chicken, etc.) acquired Cinnabon for $65 million.^1,4
  • 2004: FOCUS Brands division of Roark Capital Group acquired Cinnabon for $30.3 million. Roark moved the headquarters to Sandy Springs, Ga.¹
• 2007: Sun Capital Partners acquired RUI.³
• 2019: RUI declared bankruptcy and closed six restaurants citing dramatic minimum wage increases.⁶
• 2019: Landry's acquired 30 restaurants: 4 Kincaid's, 2 Henry Taverns, Skates on the Bay, Horatio’s, Stanley & Seafort’s, Scott’s, Palisade/Maggie Bluffs, Cutters Crabhouse, Clinkerdagger, Portland City Grill, Standford’s and Manzana.
• 2019: Ascend Hospitality Group acquired Stanford’s restaurants and Portland Seafood Company.⁸

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References:

1. Wikipedia - Cinnabon (Drawn 10/28/2019)
2. The Spokesman - Restaurants Unlimited to Split Up (Drawn 10/28/2019)
3. Seattle Times - Buyout Firm Purchase Restaurants Unlimited (Drawn 10/28/2019)
4. Bakery Online - AFC acquires Cinnabon (Drawn 10/28/2019)
5. Businesswire - Sun Capital Acquires Restaurants Unlimited (Drawn 10/28/2019)
6. Restaurant Business - RU Bankruptcy (Drawn 10/28/2019)
7. Nation's Restaurants News - RUI restaurants acquired by Landry's (Drawn 10/28/2019)
8. Nation's Restaurant News - Ascend Saves 5 RUIs (Drawn 10/28/2019)

Directory Listings:

• Phoenix Color - Bakeries and Delis: Cinnabon
• Pima County - Dining: Cinnabon / Restaurants Unlimited
• Denver Color - Bakeries: Cinnabon

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