Jack in the Boxes to pop up

Joyzelle Davis, Rocky Mountain News

Published September 26, 2007 at midnight

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Jack is back.

Jack in the Box, the fast-food chain with the ping-pong ball-headed mascot, is returning to Colorado after an 11-year hiatus. The first restaurant is slated to open in Golden this November, followed early next year by a second in Arvada.

The reprised Jack in the Box won't be quite the same as many Coloradans remember. The San Diego-based restaurant chain now offers more upscale fare like Chipotle Chicken Ciabatta sandwiches and blackberry ice cream shakes alongside its staple two for 99 cent tacos and seasoned curly fries. The decor is also more polished, featuring ceramic tile, fireplaces and flat-screen TVs to create an atmosphere that encourages customers to linger.

"Jack in the Box has evolved so much" in recent years, said Eric Tunquist, the company's vice president of operations. "We're not like other fast-food restaurants anymore."

Jack in the Box had eight locations in the Denver area until 1996, when its local franchisee pulled up stakes. The new restaurants will all be company-owned stores, and this time Jack in the Box is drawing on the experience of subsidiary Qdoba Mexican Grill for insights into the Denver market. Jack in the Box purchased Denver-born Qdoba in 2003, and the fast casual chain is helping in matters like site selection, recruitment and marketing.

"We've learned a lot from Qdoba, not only about Denver," Tunquist said.

Jack in the Box for the past several years has been expanding beyond its onetime core audience of budget-conscious young men, reaching out to the office lunch crowd with upgraded salads and commuters with an extensive breakfast menu.

The effort is paying off, with Jack in the Box posting a 5.9 percent increase in same-store sales so far this year on top of a year-ago increase of 4 percent. Last year, Jack in the Box's sales surged 10 percent to $2.76 billion. The results spurred the company to move into new markets, including Denver, for the first time since 1999.

Jack in the Box joins McDonald's in reconfiguring its restaurants to resemble the cafe vibe of Starbucks or Panera Bread Co. The new restaurant in Golden is taking the redesign a step further, building the company's first open kitchen so customers can see their food prepared from inside the restaurant as well as through extra large windows along the drive-thru lane.

The cozier dining rooms encourage customers to visit the restaurants outside of traditional mealtimes and order more sodas, which are some of the most profitable items on the menu for restaurants, said Ron Paul, president of Chicago-based restaurant consulting firm Technomic.

"It gives them customers at 2 p.m., 3 p.m., 4 p.m. ? when typically they wouldn't be doing any business," Paul said.

The decor is part of Jack in the Box's effort to position itself as an alternative to sit down, casual dining chains like Applebee's and Ruby Tuesday as penny-pinching customers consider trading down in the face of higher gas prices and rising interest rates.

Jack in the Box is taking the biggest bite from sit-down rivals at lunch, Paul said.

Jack in the Box "has the advantage with lower prices," he said. "But they also have the fact that the consumer is much more in charge of the time they can spend there and aren't waiting for the waiter or for their bill."

Most Jack in the Box locations are open 24 hours, although the new Colorado locations won't start an overnight shift unless there's enough customer traffic, Tunquist said.

davisj@RockyMountainNews.com

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