Potbelly Sandwich Works

The article briefly introduce Potbelly Sandwich Works,a fast casual sandwich restaurant focused on healthy food. The restaurant was founded in 1996 at Chicago. Under leadership by CEO Bryant Keil, the restaurant was rapidly expanding to 102 locations in 2005.According to Keil "Anyone can sell a sandwich. You need to sell an experience." Potbelly Sandwich Works not only focus on serving high quality food, but also build a friendly and homey environment for customers. Beyond most popular toasted sandwich, homemade desert, milk shake, Potbelly Sandwich Works also provides live music, antique fixtures and real books. Potbelly stores are mostly located at urban or suburban area and majority customers are young professionals under 35. Potbelly Sandwich Works doesn't have an ad budget. Promotions were offered at key event such as store openings and National Sandwich Day. Potbelly is pretty active at community service. Sometimes Potbelly offers free sandwich for donations. Potbelly's price is very attractive to their customers. All sandwiches are sell for $3.79 which offer customer free range to choose what they want. Checks average about $6.5 according to the article. Combine product, place, promotion and price, Potbelly Sandwich Works become a great threaten to their competitors.
In term of present product and new product, I think Potbelly Sandwich Works is more focused on present product. The menu includes made-to-order toasted sandwiches, soups, homemade desserts, malts, shakes and yogurt smoothies. According to the article, toasting is part of makes Portbelly's sandwiches distinctive. Also Portbelly's product srtategy is pretty advanced. When Portbelly's competitors focus on lower their budget, Portbelly look at the environment created for customers. Food quality plus atmosphere makes Portbelly become a threaten to   their competitors. Base on their price strategy which all sandwiches are offered at $3.79, Portbelly's ability to develop new product is limited by...