B.good co-founders Jon Olinto and Anthony Ackil have aggressive growth plans for 2015.
Jon Chesto
Managing Editor, Print- Boston Business Journal
Greater Boston’s fastest growing burger chain isn’t really a burger chain at all — at least, not anymore.
B.good co-founder Jon Olinto tells me the Malden company’s shops, once known for its hamburger-and-fries menu, are enjoying a banner year because of the company’s shift into healthier fare. The burgers and shakes are still available, but they’ve been surpassed in popularity by kale-and-quinoa bowls and smoothies.
Olinto and childhood friend Anthony Ackil have been reorienting the company even as they push into a rapid expansion mode. Olinto and Ackil will close the year with at least 18 locations after b.good’s first Toronto shop opens next month — 19, if a shop on Newton’s Needham Street opens before New Year’s Day — compared to nine at the start of 2013.
Olinto says he expects the chain will add another 10 to 15 locations in 2015. There are leases in the works for the South Boston waterfront and for the Longwood Medical Area, as well as at least two more spots in Connecticut. The New Jersey market is another focal point for growth.
The two buddies launched the chain a decade ago in a Back Bay storefront. They always had big ambitions: to offer a healthier kind of fast food, through a platform that could be brought up to a national scale. In 2013, they first started selling franchises to expedite the company’s growth. However, Olinto says b.good is today focusing more on corporate stores than it initially expected. Of the six new stores that opened since January 2013, four are owned by franchisees. But Olinto says most of the new b.good shops that he plans to open next year will be corporate-owned.
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