Nice N Easy Focuses on Food

The New York c-store chain is adding hot meals to its menu and chefs to its staff to boost its foodservice offer.

June 27, 2011

SYRACUSE - Nice N Easy Grocery Shoppes is doing a lot of things right, including its focus on foodservice.

"Once the bastion of overpriced potato chips, pretzels and soggy hot dogs, convenience stores have looked at everything from menus to presentation, all while growing the footprint of each store and the number of stores in their posse," writes Syracuse.com, referencing not just Nice N Easy but also Wawa, Quick Chek and Sheetz.

Nice N Easy, based in Canastota, New York, has "a lot going on." Fran Duskiewicz, senior vice president of the c-store chain, told the news source that the company has expanded its proprietary line of merchandise, such as chips and other snack foods. And under the leadership of John MacDougall, founder and president, the company has put together "a creative team with extensive food-industry backgrounds," including Jack Cushman as executive vice president of foodservice operations.

Three chefs have also joined the company to help grow the foodservice program:
  • Doug Walters, former executive chef, is now the foodservice creative director overseeing Nice N Easy??s bistro offerings.
  • Andrew Franco, former chef will help create new take-home dinners.
  • David Haynes, former restaurant owner, is running Nice N Easy??s Easy Street Diner. "He is also a first-rate pastry chef, which could open even more doors for us," Duskiewicz told the news source, adding, "Will we expand from our current diner to something more ambitious? Full-blown restaurants, maybe? Who knows?"

Foodservice, according to MacDougall, "has been Nice N Easy's salvation the past five years or so, as traditional sources of c-store income from cigarettes and fuel have faded badly,'' he told the news source, adding, "But like anything else in our business, if we don't continue to grow and evolve in foodservice, we'll get stale and predictable and we can't afford to let that happen. Our new foodservice creative team is designed to keep us fresh, interesting and continually moving forward."

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