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Wild Eggs
Louisville brunch restaurant Wild Eggs will open its first Lexington restaurant later this year.
Wild Eggs, which currently has four locations, three in Louisville and one in Denver, will open its first franchise-operated location in the Palomar Centre. The location will be the first of up to 30 restaurants to be operated by a subsidiary of the Lexington-based Traxx Companies which owns and operates 48 Shell gas stations, including 35 in central and south central Kentucky, according to Traxx President Jay Hall.
Wild Eggs, which Hall said is an “upscale breakfast” restaurant, features of a deep menu that is “fresh and from scratch” ranging from what their menu calls breakfast basics to waffles, assorted eggs Benedict dishes, omelets, crepes, waffles, pancakes, French toast, lunch options and more.
“We think that upscale breakfast is a niche that isn’t saturated at this point,” said Hall who expects the Palomar location to open by the end of the year. “The success of all of Lexington’s breakfast spots shows how much the Bluegrass folks love good breakfast food.”
Hall is counting on the popularity spreading beyond Lexington as he plans to open between five in eight in areas including Lexington, London and “some of the metropolitan areas in eastern Kentucky.” In Lexington alone, Hall said to expect three, possibly four.
Hall’s operation is the first foray into franchising for Wild Eggs, but the Louisville based company hopes to spread in a 200 mile radius around Louisville according to Rob Lekites, Wild Eggs’ director of franchising. The company is looking to have markets in Northern Kentucky, Cincinnati, Indianapolis and Nashville, with different franchisees in each market, he said. Though there may be a group that handles more than one market.
In addition, Lekites said the company will look to sign large-scale operators in Florida. Lekites said Hall’s Traxx company was chosen as the first franchisee because “we were sold on their ability to operate Wild Eggs and to not just be a single unit but these are people that can grow with us, not just in Kentucky but outside Kentucky.”
Hall said the lease on a storefront at Palomar has already been signed and contractors are being bid for fit-up. He expects three to five Wild Eggs to be operating in the region by 2015 and “30 or more in a five year period is our ultimate goal.”