Pump and Pantry brings Quiznos, Cinnabon and Scoops to town

May 30, 2024

Pump and Pantry District Manager Nick Warneke stands next to an employee at the Columbus location during the final stages of construction for the Quiznos concept in the convenience store.

The Cinnabon and Quiznos concepts flank the right side of the Pump and Pantry registers at the Columbus location, with Scoops Ice Cream on the left.

It's almost an industry standard for service stations to offer food of some sort -- from pizza and hot dogs to packaged sandwiches and pints of ice cream. Recently, Pump and Pantry decided to take that idea a step further and expand their Columbus location with three new "concepts" or partnerships in the former Off-Campus location at 3208 42nd St.

Brandon Beck, senior director of marketing and category management at Pump and Pantry's parent company, Bosselman Administrative Services, said this will be the first location in Nebraska to have all three concepts added in at the same time.

"Basically, this is our latest offering we're putting in all our new Pump and Pantry locations. Columbus is the first market with all three: the ice cream concept called Scoops, Quiznos and Cinnabon," Beck said.

Kyle Hamilton, senior director of franchise operation in the Northern United States for Quiznos, said that, after years of being dormant following the company's bankruptcy filing in 2014, it's trying to start things up again, and interest is growing. That's one big benefit of the partnership, Hamilton added.

"From the franchise perspective, it gives us the ability to grow and when we partner with a company like Pump and Pantry we're able to scale faster," Hamilton said. "That's the interesting thing is the buzz. I've talked to at least 15 people a day about it."

Beck said this is part of the toasted sandwich company's efforts to come back in Nebraska and the U.S. at large. A partnership with Pump and Pantry drives traffic to both locations and combines them in the one building.

"Quiznos is the same Quiznos you remember from the late '90s and early 2000s, the original toasted subs," Beck said. "I've met with corporate folks from the Rigo group in Denver, the private equity firm that bought them about a year ago, they're revitalizing the brand, they're in growth mode right now, very interested in partnering across locations in Nebraska."

Nick Warneke, district manager for Pump and Pantry, said that the Quiznos partnership started with a Pump and Pantry with a single Quiznos operating in it. When the company saw how Quiznos had stuck around at that location, lightbulbs went off in multiple heads about the companies working together.

"There was that Quiznos and that's kind of what kicked the conversation off. We have stores with chicken, whether it's Chester's or Krispy Krunchy Chicken, but this is a direction the company's really interested in," Warneke said.

Scoops, the hand-scooped ice cream concept, Beck said, aims to help establish Pump and Pantry as a destination, somewhere people seek out rather than just stopping on their way somewhere else. He and his family frequent the Scoops in the Pump and Pantry near them fairly often, he said.

"The location in Kearney does very well, people are travelling some distance and we're a convenience store," Beck said. "We really wanted to put in offerings that we knew were traffic drivers, things people were willing to go out of their way for, that was the strategy behind getting some of these concepts into the locations."

Warneke said that, with Scoops having 70 flavors in their repertoire, with 20 or so circulating in stores at a time, the hope is that people stop in seeking out their specialty flavors since hand-scooped ice cream is hard to find as it is.

"It makes us a destination instead of just a convenience store, people will come here because they want hand-scooped ice cream, they'll go out of their way to come here," Warneke said.

Cinnabon also joins the fray, making 13 locations at Pump and Pantries across Nebraska. Beck said that, while Columbus' Cinnabon is opening later in the fall, they hope it sees the same kind of traffic they expect for the other concepts. With the next closest Cinnabon being in Grand Island, the central location made Columbus a good place to set up shop.

Scoops opened on Aug. 7 with Quiznos shortly after. Scoops has a special promotion going on for the month of August for Pump and Pantry's Pumped Up Rewards members that for every eight scoops of ice cream, the ninth is free, Beck said.

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