Pokemoto, Muscle Maker, Inc.’s expanding Hawaiian Poke Bowl restaurant concept, today announced the signing of a new lease for a corporate owned and operated location in the Wichita, Kansas market. The Wichita location is unique with three open-lunch major high schools as well as Wichita State University within its trade area. Wichita is a regional center of culture, media, and trade. It hosts several universities, large museums, theaters, parks, shopping centers, and entertainment venues with a metro area population of over 625,000. This new location marks the first entry for Pokemoto into the Kansas market.

Michael Roper, CEO of Pokemoto commented “We’re excited to bring Pokemoto to Kansas. We are now open or coming soon to 13 states – Connecticut, Massachusetts, Florida, Maryland, Virginia, Rhode Island, New York, Mississippi, Texas, Tennessee, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and now Kansas. While our growth strategy is focused on franchising, we also are building corporately owned and operated locations in key markets. These locations are considered “seed” stores to establish a presence in the market. These “seed” locations are used to help the franchise sales process as most franchise partners want to visit a location and taste the food prior to becoming a Pokemoto franchisee. Having a location in the area makes this process easier and can shorten the sales cycle. By seeding the Wichita, Kansas market with our first corporate location, we will be able to target this area more aggressively in franchise sales.”

Roper continued, “We previously announced 40 new Pokemoto franchise signings. Combine that with our corporate locations being built and it should be a busy second half of the year opening locations.”