TOGO’s Eateries got its start in 1971 , in downtown San Jose, in a shack big enough for only four people. Founder and San Jose State student Mike Colber was on a mission to feed his fellow college students. He built this simple concept into a small sandwich empire.
Although Colber sold the franchised business in 1998, he’s still the same affable, easy-going guy he’s always been, according to Glenn Lunde, who has been CEO of TOGO’s since 2017.
“Growing up in Palo Alto, we loved going to the TOGO’s in Mountain View,” says Lunde, who went to Gunn High School. “I never thought I’d end up working for them.”
Lunde’s food service background includes Einstein Bagels, Panda Express and Taco Bell, but when TOGO’s came calling, “I jumped at chance to engage with a brand I love and needed to contemporize,” he says. “Being a 50-year-old brand, we wanted to keep all the things that were great, but move forward into the future.”
When Lunde joined in 2017, the company began what is called “TOGO’s 3.0,” to better leverage online ordering. “TOGO’s was run like a delicatessen: You talked to a person and they took your order. But this changed when people were not in front of you, so we created a ‘speedline’ that allows customers to get in line based on when they order.”
Whether orders come in online, via kiosks or direct to an in-store cashier, they are all printed out on one printer, which kicks off the process. The person who starts the order puts the meats and bread on tray and hands it to the next person who does condiments, while another does the wrapping. The manager takes the wrapped item and delivers it appropriately, whether to the customer in the restaurant, to Doordash or to the pickup station.
“Before the pandemic, 4% of our sales were online,” says Lunde. “Now it’s 33%.”
Lunde is currently overseeing the remodel of all the existing stores in California, which is transforming them from the dark wooden décor of old to white and blue tile with orange accents and neon. Of the 160 existing stores, 50 have been remodeled to date.
“It’s not the same old TOGO’s, for sure,” says Lunde. “But the sandwiches you remember are still the same.” For him, that used to be the turkey and cheese, but these days he gravitates toward pastrami, cheesesteak and French dip.
TOGO’s currently has 59 stores in the Bay Area, with 15 in San Jose and 23 in Santa Clara. Two San Jose locations recently closed, both victims of the pandemic. When San Jose State went to virtual classes, that location was shuttered due to lack of foot traffic. Similarly, when the San Pedro Square streets were closed to vehicular traffic, that location closed. “It’s too difficult for delivery service drivers to collect orders if there is no parking,” says Lunde.
Stores in San Jose’s Camden, Bernal and Meridian neighborhoods have all been brightly refurbished. Lunde says the Los Gatos store will be remodeled next year, followed by the one in Campbell. Asked where all the artifacts from the original “shack” in downtown San Jose are kept, Lunde says they are displayed at the Campbell headquarters.
TOGO’s, for decades very California-centric, is expanding outward. There’s currently one store in Arizona, three in Nevada, three in Oregon and one in Washington. A new store in Las Vegas will open shortly, followed by one in Reno and one in Vancouver, WA. More are coming to Southern California.
Lunde says they have 90 franchises, some with two or three stores. “It’s an entrepreneurial group, just people living the American dream. They don’t own 50 Burger Kings.”
The recent heat spell proved a boon for TOGO’s. “We like hot weather because people want colder food,” says Lunde. “Sandwiches are just more popular when it’s hot; like when it rained, people ordered more pizza.”
In addition to TOGO’s daily special sandwiches—which include pastrami on Monday, ham and cheese on Tuesday, the Italian on Wednesday, roast beef on Thursday and albacore on Friday—they’ve recently introduced a revised Italian, and revived their famous barbecue beef, which now features a new sauce from Cattlemen’s Memphis BBQ.
TOGO’s sold about 8 million sandwiches last year.
“Hot sandwiches are trending right now,” says Lunde, who installed ovens in all the shops in 2019. “It’s hot and melty in our stores now. We have cheesesteaks, which we never had before, and a line of French dips, including the Triple Dip, with pastrami, roast beef and turkey. We also have chicken sandwiches, including white meat grilled chicken and a barbecue one with bacon and ranch, as well as one with avocado and bacon.”
TOGO’s uses Hormel bacon and only Hass avocadoes, of which they hand-mash 400,000 pounds per year. The bread is the same 2-inch loaf that Corbel originally sourced from a bakery in Napa, only now it’s baked at two facilities in Sonoma and one in Southern California.
“We haven’t changed the bread, as our customers love it,” says Lunde, “but we have added new flavors like sourdough, wheat and parmesan. For a hot sandwich like the spicy Italian, done in the oven, you want the parmesan.”
