Since 2016, Mammas has turned Foodtastic from a loose collection of Quebec restaurants with about $20 million in system sales into a fledgling empire poised to hit $1.2 billion in sales this year
Steve Gill first visited the headquarters of Foodtastic Inc., located by a drab stretch of highway in Saint-Laurent, Que., sometime last year. He was there to discuss selling the company he’d been running since 2004, Quesada Burritos & Tacos, which had around 180 locations across Canada. He’d had offers before but always turned them down.
And that’s the real challenge. Any entrepreneur can take advantage of a crisis to borrow money and buy some restaurants. It’s another thing to boost sales and bring in new customers.
His name has only become better known outside of Quebec in the past couple of years, but he’s spent most of his life in the restaurant business . His dad opened a seafood joint in Montreal after emigrating from Greece, and when it hit a rough patch, he recruited Mammas to pitch in. He was only 12 at the time, and he resented being pulled away from his regular hockey games to wash dishes. “I didn’t talk to my father for a couple of months,” he says.
So in 2016, Mammas incorporated Foodtastic, along with his brother and a friend, to bring together five brands, one of which was a Quebec chain called La Belle et La Boeuf. Branded with a similar sanitized sauciness as Jack Astor’s, the chain carries a few impractically large burgers. The “crise cardiaque” is an unholy mix of beef patties and beef hotdogs. Another is slathered with peanut butter and fried KitKat bars, along with brie, bacon and mushrooms.
Since that second round of funding in 2021, Foodtastic has made at least eight acquisitions, including Second Cup, Copper Branch, Milestones, Pita Pit, Quesada and Freshii. With that, Foodtastic became a national player. But what really hurt the company was the pandemic. “The only reason I think we were able to buy it was because of the destruction that COVID laid on the brand,” Mammas says. Many Second Cup locations are in downtown centres, he points out, and suffered from office closures. Foodtastic paid just $14 million for Second Cup in 2021, and Mammas is well aware the chain had lost some of its appeal with consumers. “My kids would go to Starbucks, and it would fucking drive me crazy,” he says.
Next on the agenda is improving the quality of food. “I can tell you the sandwiches 12 months from now are going to be a lot better than they are right now,” Mammas says. The company is experimenting with fresh-baked goods, allowing franchisees to better match quantities with customer demand, offer more customization for customers and cut costs.
In May 2022, Corrin stepped down as CEO to move into an executive chairman role, opening an opportunity for Mammas to try again. This time, Corrin took the offer to Freshii’s new CEO, Daniel Haroun, who brought it to the board. Freshii’s advisers tried to drum up other potential bidders, only one of which made an offer, according to regulatory filings. That forced Foodtastic to increase the price of its bid by 10%.
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