Philly Express, others coming to Silver Lake Mall food court

There is both good and bad news coming from Silver Lake Mall in Coeur d' Alene. Both come from the shopping center's food court.

First for the bad news ( depending on how you see it ) , the mall's Taco Time restaurant has gone out of business. This leaves the food court with only one restaurant tenant, Flaming Wok. But Flaming Wok won't be alone in the court for very long as 3 businesses are coming soon.

And, that is the good news. Three food related businesses will be remodeling and moving into two food court spaces. They will take over the former Taco Time and the vacant space next door to it which was last an Orange Julius. Those businesses will be...

Aebleskivers ( http://www.aebleskivers.com/ or https://www.facebook.com/aebleskiverscda )

Aebleskivers is actually already a business at Silver Lake Mall but will be moving into this new space in the food court. Aebleskivers is located near the mall's center court where it is still open until the new location opens.

Aebleskivers is a small locally owned and operated business that is based the European food called Aebleskivers. The business sells these in many flavors. But as time has gone by Aebleskivers has grown by diversifying their offerings.

One thing Aeblskivers has added is Philly Cheesesteak sandwiches, which have been called " the best Philly anywhere " a claim I hope to check out for myself soon. These cheesesteaks have become so successful that Aebleskivers owners are branching of a new restaurant, which will be one of the other new tenants in the mall food court. That new restaurant is...

Philly Express ( https://www.facebook.com/pages/Philly-express/335055230015646 )

As the name implies Philly Express will focus on these Philly Cheesesteaks with several options. The sandwhiches that will be avalible at Philly Express are , in fact, already for sale at the current Aebleskivers location. Some phillys and other items may be added and will keep you posted on this.

Philly Express Philly's are made with provolone cheese and Amoroso Baking Company roll made in Philadelphia.

Watch for updates as we don't have the opening date for this new business.

Barbara's Homemade Fudge

Operating as a small kiosk in the Silver Lake Mall for some time. Barbara's sells a selection of home made fudge, With many flavors available.

Barbara's will join Philly Express and Aebleskivers in the food court spaces.

For more information on Silver Lake Mall, visit them at 200 W. Hanley Ave. or online at-

www.silverlakemall.com

or...

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Silver-Lake-Mall/226558826624 

Planet Fitness coming to Spokane Valley

Although the local location was recently removed from their official web site, it looks like Planet Fitness is coming to the Spokane area. The chain, for a time, posted a location in Spokane Valley with the news that pre-grand opening specials are coming soon.

 

This news does add up as the company has been rumored to be looking to open a location in our area.

 

This new Planet Fitness will be in Spokane Valley at 13112 E. Sprague Ave. . This is the same address as the former Value Village store, which relocated to the corner of E. Sprague and Pines a few months ago. Right now it appears this will be the only Planet Fitness location in Spokane area.

 

We will update this posting once we find out more about this new Spokane Planet Fitness location. So, keep watch for an opening date , how many employees and more.

 

Planet Fitness is a rapidly growing chain of fitness centers. The company is based in Newington,NH and as over 900 locations and recently expanded into Canada with a location in Toronto. The chain features a low cost business model with gym memberships available from as low as $10 per month.

 

For more information on Planet Fitness, visit their web site at-

 

www.planetfitness.com

Manufacturing incubator, Toolbox , opens nearby Downtown Spokane

I stand behind the statement that Spokane and the Inland Northwest are great places to start a business. And, The Lilac City is becoming even more friendly to these " start up " businesses all the time. In fact, today several new business incubators and co-working facilities are found here. But, until recently there was no manufacturing incubator space for start up manufacturing businesses to turn too.

Enter Toolbox, Spokane's newest manufacturing incubator and by my research Spokane's first.

 

Toolbox has set up shop at 840 E. Spokane Falls Blvd. Building #1 and provides start up's with space to grow their business idea into a booming company. The hope is this new space will create new jobs for the local area at the site and by growing company's .

 

The space Toolbox occupies is not huge with about 7,500 square feet but will provide many resources. They will also help with mentoring and provide an on site conference room. Some additional renovations are to be done to the space but already a select group of businesses are already using Toolbox.

 

Among the tenants already at Toolbox are...

 

Sport Scope ( http://www.sportscopevideo.com )

 

Vestis Systems (  http://www.vestissystems.com/ )

 

Inov8 Inc.

 

Berg Development Company ( http://www.bergco.com/ )

 

Washington State University Integrated Design Lab ( http://sustainabledesign.wsu.edu/ )

 

Spokane Create! ( http://www.spokanecreate.org/ )

 

 

And more are likely to come. And one of those tenants mentioned above is exciting in it's own right ( not that they aren't all great company's ). That tenant is Spokane Create which is described as " Spokane's makerspace / hackerspace " . Spokane Create is actually a non profit organization and is open every Wednesday night.

 

Spokane Create allows a space for local students and other a space to get together and " build stuff". For more information on Spokane Create, visit them at - http://www.spokanecreate.org/

 

And for more information on Toolbox visit them at-

 

www.toolboxnw.com

 

Or on Facebook-

 

https://www.facebook.com/ToolboxNW

Panera Bread is coming to Spokane Valley ** UPDATED 04/21 **

Thanks to some amazing INBW readers, I can safely confirm that Panera Bread is going to open a restaurant in the Spokane area.

 

I have yet to hear from Panera's corporate staff, but after requesting if Panera was coming, many of my INBW readers responded. And have proven that Panera Bread opening soon here and will be located in Spokane Valley.

 

As I write this the bidding has gone out on the project to build the new restaurant, so one would think it would be opening in the Summer or Fall this year. We will re-update this post when we get all the info, we're still looking into opening date, how many employees, etc... . In the construction information the restaurant will take 5,100 square feet and be a stand alone structure.

 

As far as where in the Valley Panera Bread will be? No exact address is given but a few readers tell me it will be nearby Spokane Valley Mall. Watch the bottom of this post as time goes by for the exact address and more updates.

 

Panera Bread is a growing chain of fast service café / bakery style resturants. The chain is based in Kirkwood,MO and today operates almost 2,000 locations. This will be the company's first location in the Inland Northwest.

 

For more information on Panera Bread, visit-

 

www.panerabread.com

 

 

Update 04/16/2015 -

 

Panera Bread will be located at 15716 E. Indiana Ave. just east of Spokane Valley Mall.

 

 

Update 04/21/2015 -

I have finally heard from Panera Bread's corporate offices . The new Spokane Valley Panera Bread is planned to open for business on Aug 14th , 2015 .
 
It will employ about 65.



Work starts on new Ezell's Chicken location in Spokane

After being officially announced a few weeks ago we're starting to see action on the new Spokane location of Ezell's Famous Chicken. We're told the concrete floor will be poured in their unit soon ( if it hasn't already ) with the remaining construction also starting soon.

This new restaurant will be a tenant in the new Regal Plaza shopping center ( site of the new South Hill Target ).  Their address will be 4919 S. Regal .

For those who are unfamiliar with Ezell's Famous Chicken, they are a popular fast style fried chicken restaurant with 10 locations around the Seattle / Puget Sound area. This new location in Spokane will be the first to open east of the Cascades. The chain has even received a few awards including being named the most life changing fried chicken in America by Esquire Magazine.

More info on Ezell's, including a look at their menu, check them out at-

www.ezellschicken.com

In Spokane, Ezell's Famous Chicken will occupy about 1,700 square feet of space at Regal Plaza. The restaurant will employ plus or minus 15, depending on sales volume.

Their opening is currently set for sometime during April. For more on the opening of this new Spokane Ezell's visit their local Facebook page-

https://www.facebook.com/ezellschickenspokane

Urban Art Co-op opening in Spokane

Spokane's Art Scene is heating up, with a few recent new gallery openings. In addition to all the news coming from Terrain, who is in the process of setting up a new permanent home in SoDo Spokane ( search this site for more on this news item ) .

And now greatly adding to that scene is the new non profit, Urban Art Co-op which is coming soon. They plan to be open for business in April with an open house on a yet to be announced date in the Spring.

Urban Art Co-op will be located at 3017 N. Monroe St.

We will surely be learning more about Urban Art Co-op in the coming weeks and months. But what we do know about them is they will have on site classes and workshops. Judging by their web site the co-op will focus largely on pottery. In fact, the web site includes links to many pottery items already for sale and well worth checking out.

 

Their Facebook page also gives this info about them:

"Urban Art Co-op provides a place where artists of all levels can work, collaborate and share ideas."

 

For more information on Urban Art Co-op visit-

 

www.urbanartcoop.org

 

Or, find them on Facebook at-

 

https://www.facebook.com/Urbanartcoop

Is Panera Bread coming to Spokane? We need your help

Calling all Inland Northwest Business Watch readers!

We need your help, as thanks in part to an alert reader I think we may be close to proving a long running new business rumor as true!

That rumor is that Panera Bread is coming to Spokane, a while back we checked up on this rumor and at that time it seemed to not be happening. But now I've been alerted to a job posting for restaurant managers locally for Panera on indeed.com .

We've also tracked down this ad-

 

So, here is the problem. I can't seem to locate where this new Panera Bread location will be? Or when it will open? I've contact Panera Bread twice but only got vague form responses back. Could this be one of those new restaurants going into Northtown Mall? South Hill?

 

We are dying to know! If you can confirm that Panera Bread is coming to Spokane and/ or provide info on this new location please contact me asap at-

 

inlandbusiness@yahoo.com

 

Or, share about it on our Facebook page-

 

www.facebook.com/inlandnorthwestbusinesswatch

 

You can remain anonymous, or if your a real estate agent, etc... I can credit you on your sale / lease.

 

 

Update: Turns out Panera Bread is coming to Spokane Valley... here are the details -

 

http://www.inlandnwbusiness.com/2015/02/panera-bread-is-coming-to-spokane-valley.html

 

 

 



Argonne Rd. Safeway confirmed to be closing

Thanks to a great INBW reader, the Safeway grocery store on Argonne Rd. , just south of I-90 in Spokane Valley has been confirmed to be closing it's doors soon.

We mentioned this as a strong rumor back in late Jan. and hoped the news was not true. But unfortunately it has been confirmed by Safeway employees. Their current last day of business will be March 4th.

The closure is due to the lease expiring on the building / low sales / heavy competition in the area. What we had heard, but not confirmed is that some employees of the Argonne Rd. store will be able to transfer into other open positions at other Spokane area stores.

The Argonne Rd. Safeway is located 1441 N. Argonne Rd. in Spokane Valley. In addition the Liberty Lake Safeway location on Liberty Lake Road will also be leaving the Safeway chain but will stay open for business.

The Liberty Lake Safeway is one of several locations converting to the Haggen Northwest Fresh grocery store chain. For more on that locations news check out this link-

http://www.inlandnwbusiness.com/2014/12/liberty-lake-safeway-to-become-haggen.html

Massage Envy adding locations in the Inland Northwest

A franchise based national chain of massage therapy clinics is adding to it's number of locations in the Spokane / Coeur d' Alene area by adding two new stores soon. This coming only a couple of years or so after the chain even entered the local market area.

Massage Envy Spa is that chain and they will be opening in the following locations soon:

South Hill -  Spokane
2300 E. 29th Ave in the Grapetree Village Shopping Center

The South Hill Massage Envy will open in next few weeks as the location is listed as opening in the Spring. They will take over 3,800 square feet of space near the Applebee's Restaurant in the plaza.

Ironwood Square - Coeur d' Alene
212 Ironwood Dr. Suite E

This location will open towards to end of February. It will be located in the section of the plaza in between Albertson's and Rite Aid.


Also, Massage Envy will continue operations at the chain's first Spokane location. That location is in the Spokane Pavilion Shopping Center by the North Spokane Winco grocery store. That location's address is 920 E. Hoerner Suite 100.

In addition to massage, Massage Envy also includes some spa services including facials and scrubs. Massage Envy is based in Arizona and has over 1,000 locations in business with many more coming.

For more information on Massage Envy, visit their web site at-

www.massageenvy.com

Brain Freeze Creamery opening second location on South Hill

Locally produced ice cream, in a ever changing variety of flavors is what Spokane based Brain Freeze Creamery is all about. The business has been a part of Spokane for some time and about a year or so ago they opened a permanent retail shop in Kendall Yards.

That shop will continue to be open and continue on it's success along W. Summit Pkwy across the street from The Inlander's office building. But now, they will add to that retail offering with a new retail location, this time on the South Hill.

The new South Hill Brain Freeze Creamery will be located in about 800 square feet of space 3103 S. Grand Ave. nearby the corner of S. Grand and E. 29th ..This new location is currently scheduled to open sometime around April with an exact date coming sometime before then.

The South Hill location will be similar to the Kendall Yards with local ice cream, coffee , other sweet items. Also lighter fare food items like sandwiches ,etc... will be included with the exact menu being worked on now.

16 flavors of ice creams will be served at the new location with milkshakes also included in the menu.

For more information, visit them at-

http://www.brainfreeze.bz/

Or, on Facebook at-

https://www.facebook.com/brainfreezecreamery