Applebee's plans to hire 100-plus By AARON CLAVERIE, Staff Writer
Tuesday, June 3, 2003 4:09 PM PDT
CALEXICO Managers of the new Applebee's Neighborhood Grill and Bar going up near the Calexico 10 theater will hire more than 100 people before the doors swing open in September.
Abe Sakak of Apple Core Industries, the North Dakota-based franchisee building the restaurant here, said most of the rank-and-file employees will be hired from Calexico's job-voracious labor pool.
Five managers, among 100 local applicants for the job, will be hired and trained.
Mayor Frank Montoya expects those managers and employees will be busy. He said the restaurant should do well here because of its reputation for good food and the large base of potential customers, which includes movie-goers, Wal-Mart customers, snowbirds and Mexicali residents already familiar with the Applebee's brand.
Apple Core Enterprises of Minot, N.D., owns 14 Applebee's, including the Yuma, Cathedral City and Rancho Mirage locations. The Mexicali location is owned by a different franchisee.
Sakak said his corporation studied the Calexico market for years before closing a deal with Raul Estrada, owner of large parcels of land surrounding Calexico.
Sakak, echoing Montoya's optimism, expects the Calexico location to do as well as the Yuma restaurant, which has been quite successful.
Before brokering the deal with Applebee's, Estrada cut a deal with the city of Calexico. The city will build two streets that will be used by patrons of the restaurant instead of getting sued by Estrada for paving a piece of Estrada's property behind the Calexico 10 theater before it was deeded to the city.
As for when those streets will be built, that's the half-million dollar question.
The half-million dollar bid for the project hasn't been awarded yet because of concerns from certain City Council members, who think the project could be done for less money, according to a City Hall source.
During a ground-breaking ceremony for the Applebee's on Monday, Sakak made mention of the City Hall holding pattern when he said, "Hopefully we'll have the roads done."
Sakak is understandably hopeful because the roads, extensions to Fiesta Road and Robinson Boulevard, need to be built before customers can get to the restaurant.
Since 1989, when only 89 Applebee's restaurants served Tequila Lime Chicken to the masses, more than 1,400 locations have opened.
A Web site set up by the Kansas-based Applebee's headquarters says the country could support roughly 800 more locations, a total of 2,300 Applebee's.
Sakak said his corporation is looking at the El Centro area and other locales in the Desert Southwest for expansion.
The Applebee's system is about 76 percent franchised and 24 percent company-owned. There are 51 domestic Applebee's franchisees, according to the Web site.
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