Blimpie

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Blimpie

Type	Private
Founded	Hoboken, New Jersey (1964)
Headquarters	Scottsdale, Arizona
Industry	Restaurants
Products	Sandwiches Salads Other food products
Revenue	▲ $19 Million
Website	http://www.blimpie.com/

Blimpie is a fast-food submarine sandwich chain headquartered in Scottsdale, Arizona, and is the third largest sandwich chain in the United States, behind Subway and Quiznos. The company is owned by Kahala-Cold Stone Corp. Blimpie's first store opened in Hoboken, New Jersey, in 1964. (The original store called "Blimpie Base" remained unchanged until about 1994 when it was remodeled). Blimpie currently has nearly 1,600 franchises in the U.S. They briefly had a presence in the United Kingdom but later withdrew.

Since August 2006, Blimpie opened five locations in Ontario, Canada; two in Toronto, one in Brampton, one in Vaughan, and one in Barrie. One location, built into a renovated Country Style storefront on Yonge Street in downtown Toronto, was previously a favorite for professionals working in the area^{[citation needed]} but the blimpie name has since been removed from the chain of donut shops.

[edit] History

Three friends from St. Peter's Prep High School in Jersey City, NJ—Tony Conza, Peter DeCarlo and Angelo Baldassare—knew for a while they wanted to start a business together. After lunch at a sub shop in Point Pleasant, NJ, they decided this is what they would do. They settled on Hoboken, NJ, as the place to open their shop. After arranging financing and everything else they needed to open the shop, they finally opened on April 4, 1964, and by the end of the day, had rung up $295 in sales (sandwich prices back then were between 35 and 95 cents).^[1]

The store's name came about because owner Tony Conza preferred not to call the sandwiches subs, which he felt sounded too much like a greasy spoon. Conza preferred the term Hoagies, but Hoboken residents weren't familiar with the popular Philadelphia term. So he flipped through a dictionary until he found "Blimp", a word that sounded to him most like a sandwich. ^[2]