Nathan’s Serves Up a $450M Sale

Author

Andy Moore
January 23, 2026

Hello!

This week we’re talking:

  • Nathan’s big sale

  • Panera’s loyalty program switchup

  • And Salad and Go’s founders going to battle against… Salad and Go

Read on…

3 Numbers

$450 million

Amount paid by Smithfield Foods for the retail and foodservice operations of hot dog stalwart Nathan’s Famous. Best known as the annual sponsor of Joey Chestnut’s feats of heroics, Nathan’s also has a sizable CPG business and operates roughly 150 restaurants worldwide, including a fairly recent — and successful — expansion into Ukraine. The Nathan’s–Smithfield relationship was already tight: since 2014, Smithfield has held the exclusive rights to produce and sell Nathan’s products in the U.S. and Canada.

14

Number of products included on the new Starbucks winter menu. Protein and pistachio appear to be the two major trends, with options including the very of-the-moment Caramel Protein Matcha. Also on the menu: a new drink inspired by Mr Beast’s Prime show, Beast Games, called the Cannon Ball Drink.

$500 million

Amount Steak n Shake owner Biglari Holdings aims to raise in a stock sale. Biglari — which owns an array of interests ranging from petroleum companies to Maxim Magazine — has seen its stock double over the past year thanks in part to Steak n Shake’s revitalization. The chain’s same-store-sales rose 15.6% in Q3 partly due to social media buzz surrounding its tallow-cooked fries and ability to accept Bitcoin payments.

2 Big Stories

  1. This is a pretty wild one — five years after selling Salad and Go, founders Tony and Roushan Christofellis published a long Facebook post listing all the reasons why they believe the brand went in the wrong direction:

In 2017, we partnered with a private equity group. They believed in our craziness and our mission and even supported our mission to lower prices! Who does that?! With the additional funding, we were not only able to open new locations and set up a central distribution center, but we were also able to make some investments to help with efficiency, like using our own trucks to go direct to the romaine farms. We were hammering away at all the efficiencies needed to make the model work with complete vertical integration, buying direct, keeping costs low without corporate offices, using low cost marketing, and etc.

Then COVID hit in 2020. We were very fortunate to have a business model that was unintentionally designed to survive a pandemic. We allowed people to get great tasting, healthy food with minimal contact and offered low prices in a time of uncertainty. We were grateful to be in this position and used it as an opportunity to give back. Each day we offered free salads to a different group of the community, from first responders, to nurses and doctors, to warehouse workers, to restaurant employees and so on. Meanwhile during this time, our private equity partners felt the urgency to grow the business super fast and expand to a new market like Dallas, more quickly than we thought was right. We felt we still had more work to do here in Phoenix, strengthening our vertical integration and operational efficiencies to make the model work, without making sacrifices in the name of growth. Ultimately, we did not see eye to eye with the private equity investors on business and growth strategy and we stepped down, exiting completely from Salad and Go by 2021.

…

We couldn’t help but observe, now as an outsider, what was happening to Salad and Go. All the things we feared would happen, were happening.

The quality and integrity of the product declined, they removed all organics, they outsourced all of their proteins and are now cooked weeks before being served. They increased the shelf life of centrally prepped ingredients. They added preservatives and additives to their dressings. They coated their romaine with a preservative to make it last longer. They raised their prices of their salads from $5.74 to $7.75. They increased the price of their drinks from $1 to $1.75. With all of these changes making what we loved to eat every day now unrecognizable to us, we saw a big void open once again. Almost, like it was before we started Salad and Go. To us, Salad and Go no longer existed.

That “void,” the Christofellises believe, is now being filled by their new brand, Angie’s, which among other things is adopting the vertical integration model to sell lobster rolls for the wildly low price of $9.99. Here’s what they told Restaurant Business about their new concept:

Tony Christofellis then, in an interview with Restaurant Business, offered more detail. He predicted that Salad and Go would eventually fail, and that the new brand his family now operates, Angie’s Food Concepts, will likely take over the 70 Salad and Go locations in Arizona and Nevada that will remain after the closures.

“There’s no way we both co-exist in the same market,” he said. “Either we go out of business, or they [do]. And I just don’t think we’re going to go out of business because we have something that is better for the consumer, and for our team members and for the world.”

  1. As somewhat of a digital OG in the restaurant space, any changes that Panera makes to its tech stack should warrant attention. This week, it said it’s testing a sizable overhaul of its loyalty program, via Nation’s Restaurant News:

Panera Bread is testing an update to its MyPanera rewards program, transitioning from a surprise-and-delight model to a points-based system. The loyalty refresh will also introduce a new MyPanera+ tier, available exclusively to Unlimited Sip Club subscribers or customers who spend $300 or more annually at Panera.

“This upgrade reflects Panera’s commitment to giving guests the control, transparency, and meaningful rewards they’ve asked for, ultimately strengthening engagement and driving more visits back to cafés,” a Panera spokesperson told Nation’s Restaurant News.

Previously, MyPanera customers could redeem a selection of limited rewards based on visits and spending. Under the new program, guests will earn 10 points for every dollar spent, receive more personalized offers, and choose from a broader range of rewards, including a free bagel, an extra side, or a full sandwich or salad.

“We have been listening to our guests and MyPanera members, and they have been asking for more transparency, more choice, more control, and better value over their rewards,” the company spokesperson said. “The new pilot program provides all of this along with opportunities to earn rewards faster.”

While this switch would affect many people (Panera has 25 million active loyalty members), it’s difficult to say whether the Panera approach is a one-size-fits-all solution for chains thinking about their loyalty program strategy: The same week Panera announced it’s leaning toward scrapping its surprise-and-delight program, Portillo’s shared excellent results from its… surprise-and-delight loyalty program.

Other Headlines

Name That Chain!

You’ve got three guesses to name this week’s mystery chain:

  • Founded in the 1930s after a truck broke down

  • Later helped popularize soft-serve in the U.S. and built a cult following around character-shaped cakes

  • For those who grew up in the Northeast, is basically a core memory

Find the answer at the bottom of the email…

#Content Recs

Power Moves

Here are some notable C-suite moves from the past week:

What’s New at FS Supply

We’re channeling Willie Nelson to start the year — the road took us to Georgia this week and we’ll be in Florida next week to present at a franchisee conference. (Which should be fun.)

This trip was a reminder that in-person conversations are still pretty much unmatched for learning things and moving projects forward. (Sorry, Zuck, but the Metaverse was never going to beat a few million years of human behavior.)

At some point in a future newsletter, I may collect my thoughts and share a broad overview of the themes we’re hearing, but to quickly highlight one: we heard this week that operators are pushing to simplify what have become, in some cases, incredibly complex operations, whether that’s by streamlining menus, reducing SKU counts, or redesigning workflows to handle stronger traffic peaks.

Over the past few months, we’ve completed projects to help with chains’ simplification efforts — including, but not limited to, designing cup lines that only require one lid and consolidating different bag sizes. We’re planning on doubling down on similar efforts this year.

Thanks for reading! I’ll see you next week.

NAME THAT CHAIN ANSWER: Carvel

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