Zoe’s Kitchen Files for IPO

Jefferies, Piper Jaffray and Baird are the lead underwriters. Co-managers were listed as William Blair, Stephens Inc. and Stifel in the filing.

Zoes Kitchen was founded in 1995 by Zoe and Marcus Cassimus in Birmingham, Alabama. The company has grown from 21 restaurants across seven states (including five franchised locations) in 2008 to 111 restaurants across 15 states (including six franchised locations) as of February 24, 2014. The filing said:

Our Company-owned restaurants have generated 16 consecutive fiscal quarters of positive comparable restaurant sales growth, due primarily to increases in customer traffic, which we believe demonstrates our growing brand equity. We have grown our Company-owned restaurant AUVs from approximately $1.1 million in 2009 to approximately $1.5 million in 2013, representing an increase of 32.9% over that time period. From 2009 to 2013, our total revenue increased from $20.8 million to $116.4 million and Adjusted EBITDA increased from $0.9 million to $10.9 million. We generated a net loss of $2.8 million and $3.7 million in 2009 and 2013, respectively.

24/7 Wall St. did not name Zoe’s Kitchen as one of its top 10 IPOs to watch in 2014, but it is still one we will watch. This may have some hallmarks similar to the Potbelly IPO, which investors bid up through the roof. It has over 300 shops.