From the back of a clothing store to grocery aisles, discover Mandy’s evolution
Falling under the niche category of health and wellness in the restaurant business, Mandy’s mission is to reimagine the salad experience within sensational spaces. At its heart, the company is all about promoting wellness while valuing social responsibility and giving back to its communities. By offering access to wholesome, fresh, and flavorful food, Mandy’s strives to spoil its guests through their five senses: sight, sound, taste, smell and topping it off with its personalized approach to guest experience. Vanessa Fracheboud, President, discusses the company’s inspiring success story.
“It all started in the back of a clothing store in 2004, when Mandy and Rebecca Wolfe, two sisters with a shared love for food and design, saw an opportunity. After a trip to New York where they came across beautiful, fresh food offerings, they identified a gap in the Montreal market, which lacked options for healthy, delicious salads on the go. Thus, they launched Mandy’s, and what began as a small creative side project quickly turned into a movement. From their beginnings at the back of the clothing store, Mandy and Rebecca opened another location at the back of a second clothing store. Eventually, they decided to take a leap of faith and open a real brick-and-mortar establishment. Once the restaurant opened, people lined up for a taste of their fresh and delicious salads.
“Fast forward 20 years, and we now have over 17 locations across the country, primarily in Montreal and Toronto. Mandy’s has grown into a beloved brand, and we are expanding across Canada. Yet, at our core, we remain true to our origins: obsessed with quality, driven by purpose, and focused on making our customers feel good and healthy. Our goal is to create something meaningful because, especially post-pandemic, people seem to need fewer material things but more meaningful connections. That is what we are striving to offer to our clientele,” she reveals.
Diversified product portfolio
To learn more about Mandy’s delightful food offerings, we hear from Chief Culinary Officer, Lachlan McGillivray, who highlights some of the company’s most popular dishes. “Although we are mainly known for our signature gourmet salads, we have diversified our menu to encompass smoothies, soups, grain bowls, and, more recently, breakfast. Nonetheless, the core menu remains our signature salads, which have been a staple for a long time. Some standout items we are known for include the Crunchy Sesame salad and the Protein Power grain bowl. These offerings have built our reputation and are synonymous with the Mandy’s brand; they are the favorites that people tend to return to. Additionally, we offer seasonal salads that showcase a variety of global cuisines, often themed around fun ingredients and collaborations with local companies. Beyond crafting delicious salads, we provide memorable dining experiences for our guests, thoughtfully design our spaces, offer both delivery and pickup options, and even run a thriving catering program. With this, our goal is to meet guests wherever they are, whether in our restaurants, at their events, or in their homes with our grocery products.”
Indeed, Mandy’s has made its way into homes all over Canada with the launch of its private label dressings and products, now available in grocery aisles. “The retail
side of our business goes hand in hand with our core operations. We want our guests to be able to take a piece of Mandy’s home with them and recreate our salads and dishes, experiencing them just as they would in one of our locations. To achieve this, we have selected some of the items that perform well in our restaurants and adapted them for retail. A significant focus has been our salad dressings, which have enjoyed considerable success in major stores across Canada, and we are looking to expand that presence. In particular, our Sweet Sesame dressing recently won an award, an achievement we are very excited about. By growing this side of the business, we strive to enhance the visibility of our brand. We aim to diversify our portfolio and retail offering not only by offering ingredients but also by providing pre-made grab-and-go salads. Moreover, we have great wholesale partners manufacturing our retail products for us, and there are many opportunities in the pipeline that we are working on to increase our brand visibility. Through these initiatives, our goal is to make it easier for our consumers to eat good food, they can simply purchase our products, go home, and make a Mandy salad, thereby saving them some time while building a brand around these key items,” Lachlan explains.
Early bird offering
Recently, Mandy’s made a bold strategic decision to expand its opening hours, serving breakfast starting at 8am instead of the traditional 11am. Vanessa sheds light on the motivation behind this change. “Offering breakfast was both a strategic and intuitive move, fueled by a shift in our guests’ habits post-pandemic. Before the pandemic, our focus was primarily on lunch and dining options, but now our guests seek more flexibility, as the curfew Canada had in place during the pandemic pushed everyone to change their daily habits. As a result, many people start their day earlier and favor healthy breakfast options. Expanding our breakfast offerings not only allows us to serve our guests better but also optimizes our existing infrastructure. In the morning, we have always had our team on-site to prep, so offering breakfast feels natural, given that we already have the labor in place. It also means that we did not have to make significant changes to our menu. For example, we already had smoothies available but only starting at 11am; now we can offer them for breakfast.
“At present, all our locations open at 8am, which increases our productivity. Moreover, because of this change, we are seeing young professionals come into our restaurant to grab a salad in the morning before heading to work. Being open for breakfast has not only created an additional revenue channel but has also led to an increase in our salad sales, because many professionals who do not have time to step away from their offices for lunch can grab a delicious Mandy’s salad in the morning,” she concludes.