Applebee's
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| Type | Wholly owned subsidiary |
|---|---|
| Industry | Restaurants |
| Founded | January 1, 1980 in Decatur, Georgia |
| Founder(s) | Bill and T. J. Palmer |
| Headquarters | Kansas City, Missouri, U.S. |
| Number of locations | 2,010 (2011) |
| Key people | Julia Stewart, CEO, DineEquity, Inc.[1] Mike Archer, President |
| Revenue |  $1.216 billion USD (2005) |
| Operating income | $157.637 million USD (2005) |
| Net income | $101.802 million USD (2005) |
| Employees | 32,260 (2006) |
| Parent | DineEquity, Inc. |
| Website | www.applebees.com |
Applebee’s International, Inc., is an American company which develops, franchises, and operates the Applebee's Neighborhood Grill and Bar restaurant chain. As of September 2011, there were 2,010 restaurants operating system-wide in the United States, one U.S. territory and 14 other countries.[2] The company is headquartered in Kansas City, Missouri after moving from Lenexa, Kansas in September 2011.[3]
The Applebee's concept focuses on casual dining with mainstream American dishes such as salads, shrimp, chicken, pasta, and "riblets" (which is considered Applebee's signature dish). All Applebee's restaurants feature a bar area and serve alcoholic beverages (except where prohibited by law).
In November 2007, IHOP (now DineEquity) announced that it had completed a $1.9 billion purchase of the Applebee's chain.[4]
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[edit] History
The Applebee's chain was started by Bill and T. J. Palmer who opened their first restaurant, T.J. Applebee’s Rx for Edibles & Elixirs, in Decatur, Georgia, on January 1, 1980. After opening their second restaurant the pair sold their company to W. R. Grace and Company in 1983. As part of the transaction, Bill Palmer was named president of the Applebee's Division, an indirect subsidiary of W. R. Grace and Company. In that capacity, Palmer guided the operation from its entrepreneurial beginnings to a full-fledged franchise system. He became an Applebee's franchisee in 1985 and today owns more than three dozen Applebee's restaurants.
In 1986, the name of the concept was changed to Applebee's Neighborhood Grill & Bar to reflect the Palmers' original concept of a place people could call their own. In 1988, Applebee's International, Inc., became the restaurant chain's franchiser when Kansas City franchisees Abe Gustin and John Hamra purchased the rights to the Applebee's concept from W. R. Grace.[5][6]
Today, with more than 1,900 restaurants, Applebee's is the world's largest casual dining restaurant chain.[7] From 1993 to 2005, Applebee's opened 100 or more new restaurants each year. The company estimates the development potential of the Applebee's concept in the United States to be at least 3,000 restaurants.
On July 16, 2007, IHOP Corp. announced that it agreed to buy Applebee's International for about $2.1 billion. Applebee's shareholders would receive $25.50 in cash per share, representing a 4.6% premium to the closing price on July 13, 2007. After the acquisition, IHOP Corp. changed its name to DineEquity, Inc. DineEquity, which franchises nearly all of its restaurants, said it hoped to employ that strategy with Applebee's. “We believe we have an opportunity to re-energize the brand and get franchisees, employees and guests all sort of thinking about the brand in a different way,” Julia Stewart, DineEquity's chairman and chief executive officer, said. “Obviously, we have opportunities to find points of differentiation – things that no one has but Applebee’s – and I think the future is very bright.”
As part of the company's new marketing campaign and slogan, Wanda Sykes was hired to voice the chain's new mascot, the Applebee's Apple.[8] The character appears in commercials touting Applebee's various specials and stating the new slogan, "Together is good." or saying, "Get it together, baby!" as the slogan appears at the bottom right of the screen. A new campaign started on February 25, 2008, without Sykes' character (the spokesapple) with its slogan, "It's a whole new neighborhood." The commercials used both the company's original and new logos.[citation needed]
In 2005, a five-year-old dining with his mother at a New York City Applebee's was served a Long Island Iced Tea, instead of apple juice, in a child's sippy cup. In June 2007, a similar incident occurred at an Applebee's in Antioch, California, where a two-year-old was served a margarita instead of apple juice. At that time, it was determined that the two beverages were stored in identical bottles. In April 2011, another toddler, a fifteen-month-old boy in Madison Heights, Michigan, was taken to the hospital after being served a margarita instead of apple juice.[9][10][11][12]
[edit] Company headquarters
Applebee’s Kansas City-area headquarters was at 3929 Broadway in Kansas City, Missouri in 1988. In 1993 it moved to Overland Park, Kansas. In January 2008 it moved to neighboring Lenexa, Kansas per an agreement made in 2005 before it was taken over by IHOP (now DineEquity) to a new 175,000-square-foot (16,300 m2) building designed by BNIM (lured by a 90 percent property tax reduction offer).[13] However DineEquity has since been downsizing the headquarters presence as it has begun a strategy of converting its company-owned restaurants to franchises with a goal of having 98 percent of its restaurants franchised by 2013. In July 2008 DineEquity sold the headquarters (officially called the Restaurant Support Center) for $39 million in a sale-leaseback arrangement. The company has now listed the headquarters for sale and is reported looking for new space after it was announced that its headquarters staff of 325 on January 30, 2009 did not meet Lenexa’s requirement that at least 497 be employed at the headquarters to receive the property tax abatement.[14] In 2011 it announced plans to move to 8140 Ward Parkway in Kansas City proper after receiving $12.65 million in incentives from Missouri.[3]
[edit] Controversies
[edit] Forced arbitration
According to a February 11, 2009, report in The Huffington Post about the Arbitration Fairness Act, Applebee's employees are barred from suing the company by a binding mandatory arbitration agreement, even if they repeatedly refuse to sign the agreement,[15] and instead repeatedly write on the agreement that they cannot sign it when pressured to do so.[16]
[edit] Side-work compensation
Since 2006, Applebee's and its servers have been engaged in a lawsuit over hourly wages. The servers, who receive a federal minimum wage of $2.13 per hour as tipped employees, allege that the company requires them to spend 20% of their time doing non-serving labor for which they should be paid the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour. The case has gone through several stages, including a judicially mandated binding arbitration session.[17][18]
[edit] References
- ^ Benner, Katie; Levenson, Eugenia; Arora, Rupali. "50 Most Powerful Women - Julia Stewart". CNN. http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2007/fortune/0709/gallery.women_mostpowerful.fortune/49.html. Retrieved 2008-01-01.
- ^ "Form 10-Q". DineEquity, Inc. 3 November 2011. pp. 11–12. http://investors.dineequity.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=104384&p=irol-SECText&TEXT=aHR0cDovL2lyLmludC53ZXN0bGF3YnVzaW5lc3MuY29tL2RvY3VtZW50L3YxLzAwMDE0NDUzMDUtMTEtMDAzMjE3L3htbC9zdWJkb2N1bWVudC8xL3BhZ2UvMTI%3d. Retrieved 21 November 2011.
- ^ a b http://economy.kansascity.com/?q=node/10936
- ^ "Pancake house operator IHOP completes acquisition of Applebee's restaurant chain". Associated Press. 2007-11-29. http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/11/29/business/NA-FIN-COM-US-IHOP-Applebees.php. Retrieved 2008-02-14.
- ^ "Applebee's International, Inc. 2006 Annual Report & Form 10-K". Applebee's (online via Thomson Reuters Investor Relations Solutions). March 2007. http://media.corporate-ir.net/media_files/irol/10/104384/2006ApplebeesAnnualReport&10-K.pdf. Retrieved 2009-01-05.
- ^ "Hoover's - Company Locations and Addresses: Applebee's International, Inc". http://ab.hoovers.com/12395831-1.html?hid=11606243&serv=GGLCHQ2231011760&t=30&num=8662819168&cm_ven=PAID&cm_cat=GGL&cm_pla=CHQ&cm_ite=applebee%27s_headquarters. Retrieved 2009-01-05.
- ^ "IHOP News Release". http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=104384&p=irol-newsArticle_Print&ID=1082773. Retrieved 2008-01-01.
- ^ Quenqua, Douglas (2007-10-25). "Polishing Up the Apple in Applebee's". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/25/business/media/25adco.html. Retrieved 2008-02-14.
- ^ "No juice: Toddler served margarita in sippy cup", msnbc.com, Associated Press, June 15, 2007, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19252488/ns/health-health_care/t/no-juice-toddler-served-margarita-sippy-cup/, retrieved June 16, 2011
- ^ Marco, Meg (June 18, 2007), "Applebees Serves Toddler Margarita In A Sippy Cup", The Consumerist, Yonkers, NY: Consumer Media LLC, http://consumerist.com/2007/06/applebees-serves-toddler-margarita-in-a-sippy-cup.html, retrieved June 16, 2011
- ^ Graff, Amy (April 11, 2011), "Applebee's serves margarita instead of apple juice to toddler", San Francisco Chronicle, http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfmoms/detail?entry_id=86801&tsp=, retrieved June 16, 2011
- ^ Swaine, Jon (April 11, 2011), "Applebee's 'serves toddler margarita instead of apple juice'", The Daily Telegraph (London), http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/foodanddrinknews/8443478/Applebees-serves-toddler-margarita-instead-of-apple-juice.html, retrieved June 16, 2011
- ^ "Applebee's Celebrates Grand Opening of Its New Headquarters in Lenexa". Easyir.com. http://www.easyir.com/easyir/prssrel.do?easyirid=CCC105A779BBE8DA&version=live&prid=347255&releasejsp=release_93. Retrieved 2010-03-16.
- ^ Applebee’s job, salary levels come up short for abatement on HQ - Kansas City Business Journal - February 9, 2009
- ^ Millhiser, Ian (2009-02-13). "By Trap or By Trick: How Corporations Break the Law and Get Away With It". The Huffington Post. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ian-millhiser/by-trap-or-by-trick-how-c_b_166219.html. Retrieved 2010-03-16.
- ^ Testimony of Cathy Ventrell-Monsees On Behalf of the National Employment Lawyers Association (October 25, 2007)
- ^ "Judge orders mediation in Applebee's lawsuit". Kansas City Business Journal. 2007-10-12. http://kansascity.bizjournals.com/kansascity/stories/2007/10/08/daily42.html. Retrieved 2009-09-29.
- ^ Prewitt, Milford (2007-10-22). "Applebee's wages fight over nontipped duties: suit alleges workers were shorted for side work". Nation's Restaurant News. Findarticles.com. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m3190/is_42_41/ai_n27423976/. Retrieved 2009-09-29.
