University of Minnesota area restaurant patrons will have a new lunch option after Jersey Mike’s opens a Dinkytown location in late March or early April. The national franchise may also lease a space in Stadium Village.
The casual sub shop will fill a vacant retail space next to TargetExpress in the Marshall apartment building.
The franchise is one of several chains that have come to Dinkytown in the past year. Since TargetExpress’s opening in July, Starbucks, Great Clips, Pizza Studio and college-geared calzone franchise D.P Dough have also landed in the area.
Jersey Mike’s area director Jeff Berns said the company’s decision to move into Dinkytown made sense because of the area’s foot traffic and its proximity to the University.
“We figure the Dinkytown location is going to be great,” he said.The Dinkytown location’s owner and operator Bart Crockett already runs one Jersey Mike’s in Vadnais Heights and has the rights to place three more after the franchise in the Marshall opens.
The University area has been on the company’s radar for some time, Berns said.
“Once a site became available, that’s really when the process started,” he said.
Stadium Village will likely be home to another Jersey Mike’s franchise location in a matter of weeks, Crockett said. He said he plans to sign a lease in the area and open a location by August.
Education Realty, which developed the Marshall, had been searching for a shop to fill the open space since it began building the apartment complex, said Susan Jennings, vice president of the company’s corporate communications.
Jersey Mike’s put in a letter of intent for the spot in April, Crockett said.
The realty company was in talks with a number of companies before Jersey Mike’s “bubbled to the top” Jennings said, but couldn’t comment on the other businesses that courted the retail space.
“It’s something that local residents as well as college students would welcome,” she said. “It was a good fit for them; it was a good fit for us.”
Three sandwich shops, Potbelly, Jimmy John’s and Subway, reside within blocks of the new shop’s location, but Berns said he’s not concerned about outside competition.
“It’s funny, I think our competition is ourself,” he said. “It’s our ability to deliver on the high-quality product and the service that we have, and I think that is what has allowed us to separate from some of the others.”
Jersey Mike’s is well-known for its sandwich add-on known as “the juice” — a mixture of red wine vinegar and olive oil.
Crockett said the success of other sandwich shops in the area are a sign that the population can support another store.
Crockett, who briefly attended the University, said the area is ideal for his business because of his ties to the school.
“I wanted to be at the University of Minnesota,” he said. “If another franchisee didn’t have those locations, I wanted them, and they were both available.”