Going to the opening?
You could get free gift cards! The Bob Evans' Rise & Shine team will hand out $12,000 worth of free prizes and Bob Evans gift cards — including $200 gift cards to the first 25 people in line that day.
XENIA — Bob Evans Farms Inc. will open a prototype store — a concept that includes new uniforms and curbside carryout — here at 6 am on Monday, Aug. 17.
The design of the 1981 Harner Drive eatery is based on the Evans’ family farm in Rio Grande, but also includes contemporary touches such as flat-screen televisions, wireless Internet, flexible dining spaces and a large farmhouse table for big gatherings, company officials said.
Plans call for the Columbus-based company to collect feedback from employees and customers of the Xenia restaurant over the next several months and use the information to fine tune the concept, said Chelsea Hamilton, a company spokeswoman.
The company shuttered its previous Xenia restaurant on Aug. 2 to make way for the new one, Hamilton said.
She said the company selected the Greene County community as the site for its prototype restaurant in part because of Bob Evans Farms’ history there, which includes operating a food-processing plant in Xenia since 1953 and a restaurant there since 1988.
General Manager Nicole Opfer in a statement said the Xenia restaurant will employ about 100.
According to its most recent 10-K annual report, the company has reined in any expansion of the Bob Evans nameplate over the last three years. It added 10 Bob Evans restaurants in 2007, two in fiscal 2008 and one in fiscal 2009, the 10-K states. Instead, the company has focused on replacing existing stores, as it did in Xenia, or renovating them, the company filing states.
The Columbus-based company operates Bob Evans and Mimi’s Cafe restaurants and also has a food-manufacturing division. According to its Website, the company has 570 Bob Evans restaurants, nearly 200 of them in Ohio, and 144 Mimi’s Cafe eateries, three of them in Ohio.
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