Bojangles grows beyond its Southeast roots
Mark Hughes, Director of Real Estate Analysis at Bojangles, highlights how the company uses Kalibrate Location Intelligence to support national expansion, identify high-potential growth opportunities, and make more informed real estate decisions.
Supporting national expansion efforts
As Bojangles grows beyond its core Southeast markets, understanding where to open new locations, how many stores a market can support, and how to prioritize expansion opportunities has become critical.
Bojangles needed:
- A data-driven approach to evaluating new markets and trade areas for growth
- Greater confidence in site selection decisions across existing and emerging markets
- Better visibility into customer behavior, traffic patterns, and market potential to support long-term expansion
Kalibrate provided:
- Market analysis and trade area insights to identify high-potential expansion opportunities
- Traffic and daypart data to strengthen site selection and location planning
- Market planning tools that help determine optimal store density and prioritize future growth
- A single platform for making more informed, confident real estate decisions
Mark Hughes: Director of Real Estate Analysis
How is Bojangles approaching its national expansion strategy?
Bojangles has been a beloved Southeastern brand for more than 50 years, but over the last few years we've focused on expanding into new markets across the country. We're opening locations in places like Texas, New Jersey, Ohio, and Las Vegas, with additional markets in the pipeline. As we grow beyond our core footprint, it's critical that we understand where to go, where to grow, and how to build brand awareness in new markets.
How does location intelligence support your real estate strategy?
We start at the market level by understanding how many stores a market can support and which trade areas offer the greatest opportunity. From there, we evaluate how to sequence openings, identify high-value trade areas, and work with our real estate team to select the best sites. Taking that top-down approach helps us make smarter decisions throughout the entire expansion process.
How do you use Kalibrate in the site selection process?
Kalibrate helps us evaluate opportunities from the DMA level down to the individual site. We use the platform to identify high-value trade areas, analyze traffic patterns, and understand daypart behaviors. For example, breakfast represents a significant portion of our business, so understanding traffic flow and positioning ourselves to build that breakfast daypart is an important part of the site selection process.
What has your experience been like working with Kalibrate?
It's not about the data, it's about the people. The support team has been phenomenal. Whether I'm working through a Help Desk request, collaborating on ways to make our data more useful, or attending the monthly learning sessions, everyone is approachable and easy to work with. What stands out most is how forward-thinking the team is. Many times when I have an idea for a new capability, I find out it's already being considered or is on the roadmap. It's clear the platform is continually evolving to help customers work more effectively.