Potbelly Sandwich Shop is expanding its Springfield presence with a second location on the west side, and customers won’t even have to wait for construction to be complete.
Franchisee Rob Wilbern has signed a lease for 2,000 square feet of the new building under construction at 3061 Wabash Ave. Area developer Steve Zhao is constructing the strip center, which will also include 4,000 square feet for Izumi, a conveyor-belt style Asian restaurant.
“The best-case scenario (for opening) is April of next year,” said Wilbern. But in the meantime, he plans to park the Potbelly food truck on site beginning Oct. 16 through the end of November.
“The food truck has been out of service for the last month and half,” he said. “We’ve had setback after setback, most recently a mechanical failure. But we just got it back last Friday, so we’ve filed a permit with the city to have the food truck at the new location.”
Wilbern, a certified public accountant who also owns Robert’s Automotive and several other businesses in Springfield, signed a franchise agreement with the parent company for Potbelly in fall 2022 and announced plans to open five stores throughout central Illinois. However, he told SBJ that identifying appropriate locations has been a challenge.
Wilbern originally hoped to open a west-side Springfield location first, but ended up opening his first store in Champaign in January, followed by a location inside the Memorial Learning Center in March.
“About 90% of the traffic there is all based in the medical community, and that was the intent from the beginning,” Wilbern said. “The catering is going really well.”
Wilbern told SBJ when he opened his first Springfield location that he liked the proximity to downtown and planned to focus on the catering side of the business to serve the various state agencies nearby.
He noted that the expansion to the west side will also allow Potbelly to serve a larger area through Grubhub, DoorDash, and similar delivery services.
“This has been a long time coming,” Wilbern said.
