- Blimpie
Infobox_Company
company_name = Blimpie
company_
company_type = Private
foundation =1964
location =Scottsdale, Arizona
industry =Restaurants
revenue = profit $19 Million
products =Sandwich esSalad s
Other food products
homepage = http://www.blimpie.com/Blimpie is a
fast-food submarine sandwich chain headquartered inScottsdale, Arizona , and is the third largestsandwich chain in theUnited States , behind Subway and Quiznos. The company is owned by Kahala-Cold Stone Corp. Blimpie's first store opened inHoboken, New Jersey , in1964 . (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 theUnited Kingdom but later withdrew.Since August 2006, Blimpie opened five locations in
Ontario, Canada ; two inToronto , 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 areaFact|date=June 2008 but the blimpie name has since been removed from the chain of donut shops.History
Three friends from St. Peter's Prep High School in
Jersey City, New Jersey —Tony Conza, Peter DeCarlo and Angelo Baldassare—knew for a while they wanted to start a business together. After lunch at a sub shop inPoint Pleasant, New Jersey , they decided this is what they would do. They settled on Hoboken, New Jersey, 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). [ [http://www.blimpie.com/inside_blimpie/theblimpiestory.php The Blimpie Story] ]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
Hoagie s, 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. [ [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B0DE5D91F3FF930A25751C1A961948260 NY Times: Trying to Build a Bigger Blimpie, December 13, 1987] ]Food Safety
An outbreak of
norovirus inGrand Rapids ,Michigan sickened 125 people in May of 2005. A Blimpie restaurant was found to be the source, but health inspectors were unable to pinpoint a cause. [ [http://www.about-norwalk.com/norwalk_outbreaks/news/illness-outbreak-at-blimpie-restaurant-caused-by-norovirus/ Illness outbreak at Blimpie restaurant caused by Norovirus] ]External links
* [http://www.blimpie.com/ Official web site]
References
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.
