PrimoHoagies has appointed Glen Brandeburg as Chief Operating Officer, completing a four-executive leadership stack the Philadelphia-based Italian sandwich franchise has assembled over the past year to support national expansion. Brandeburg brings more than three decades of franchise operations experience, including a stint as Division Vice President overseeing roughly 800 Wendy's restaurants and a later role as president of a multi-brand franchisee organization running Wendy's, Papa John's, and a regional concept.
For franchise operators and prospective franchise partners evaluating QSR and fast-casual sandwich brands, the appointment signals that PrimoHoagies is no longer operating as a regional family brand coasting on legacy — it is actively building the institutional infrastructure that allows a system to scale without degrading unit-level execution.
The Leadership Stack
Brandeburg joins Senior Vice President of Development Angela Coppler, CFO Alex Chu, and VP of Marketing Madalyn Weintraub — all hired within the last twelve months. Each hire maps to a distinct growth lever: Coppler handles site selection and franchisee recruitment, Chu manages financial visibility and franchisee-level P&L discipline, Weintraub drives brand demand, and Brandeburg is now responsible for ensuring every restaurant can actually deliver on the brand promise at scale.
Noteworthy is the Brandeburg-Coppler pairing. The two spent more than fourteen years working together at Wendy's during a significant period of restaurant reinvestment and modernization. When operators and development move in separate silos, franchisee economics suffer and unit-level consistency erodes — a pattern that has plagued mid-size franchise systems attempting rapid expansion. Shared institutional history between a COO and SVP of Development is a structural advantage that most franchise systems do not have.
Nicholas Papanier Jr., Owner, President and CEO of PrimoHoagies, was direct about the integrated design: "Development brings us the right locations and the right franchisees. Finance strengthens profitability. Marketing builds customer demand. Operations ensures we consistently deliver on the promise our brand makes every day."
What Operators Should Watch
Brandeburg's three stated operational priorities — making great restaurants repeatable, simplifying operations for franchisees, and protecting the Primo Standard — are the same priorities any franchise system must solve before it can responsibly add units across new geographies. The language around "business intelligence, stronger reporting tools, and practical operating systems" points toward investment in tech-enabled field support rather than purely manual field coaching.
For vendors and operators in the hospitality tech and POS space, this is the kind of franchise inflection point worth tracking. A system with 88-plus franchised units building scalable playbooks and reporting infrastructure will be evaluating platforms for labor scheduling, food cost visibility, and multi-unit performance dashboards in the near term. Suppliers to the sandwich and deli category should also note that Brandeburg's mandate explicitly includes protecting ingredient and quality standards as volume grows — a procurement consideration that typically drives supplier consolidation and contract renegotiations at this stage of franchise development.
PrimoHoagies has been recognized by USA Today as "Best Sandwich Shop" for three consecutive years, which provides meaningful brand equity for franchisee recruitment in new markets. The harder test — one Brandeburg's hire directly addresses — is whether the operational backbone can support that reputation as the system moves beyond its Mid-Atlantic base into carefully selected national markets. Operators evaluating the franchise landscape for 2026 and beyond should watch how quickly PrimoHoagies converts this leadership investment into measurable unit-level performance improvements across its existing 88-restaurant base before the next wave of openings.
Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.
