PrimoHoagies Chief Financial Officer Alex Chu Sharpens Brand’s Focus on Franchisee Profitability

PrimoHoagies is highlighting the early impact of Chief Financial Officer Alex Chu, who joined the brand’s leadership team in October 2025.

Financial Infrastructure

Since stepping into the CFO role, Chu has focused on strengthening the financial infrastructure behind PrimoHoagies’ franchise system while keeping franchisee profitability at the center of the brand’s growth strategy. Rather than measuring progress through a single financial snapshot, Chu’s work has centered on three practical priorities designed to help operators better understand, manage and grow their businesses: building clearer visibility into restaurant performance, reducing controllable cost pressures, and supporting disciplined growth that protects long-term franchisee returns.

Chu brings experience across franchisor, franchisee, finance, operations, M&A, and development to PrimoHoagies. He grew up in the restaurant business, working in his grandmother’s restaurant after she immigrated from Hong Kong, and later built a career across brands and franchise systems including Arby’s, Orangetheory Fitness, Wingstop, Church’s Texas Chicken, and a 50-unit Arby’s franchisee organization he led as president.

“At the heart of franchising is helping people become better business owners,” said Chu. “That is what drew me to PrimoHoagies: an amazing product, compelling unit economics, and a leadership team committed to protecting franchisee returns. My role is to help cut through the noise, identify what truly impacts profitability and give operators the tools, benchmarks, and support they need to run stronger restaurants.”

Key Areas Focus

Chu’s early work at PrimoHoagies has been organized around three key areas of focus:

• Creating clearer visibility into franchisee performance. PrimoHoagies has been working to streamline how franchisees share and review profit-and-loss information, with the goal of helping both single-unit and multi-unit operators better understand where dollars are being spent across their restaurants. By improving access to comparable data, the brand can identify best-in-class practices, recognize opportunities for improvement, and provide more targeted support to operators who may need additional guidance.

• Strengthening controllable cost discipline. Chu has emphasized practical tools that help restaurants manage the pressures operators feel most directly, including food, waste, labor, and supplier-related costs. That work includes identifying high-impact areas of controllable waste, reducing overpreparation, developing more useful labor models and staffing guides, and helping operators make more informed decisions as costs continue to fluctuate.

• Supporting profitable sales and sustainable growth. Beyond cost control, Chu’s approach also focuses on helping franchisees build healthier businesses by growing transactions, encouraging stronger use of owned ordering channels, and ensuring development decisions are grounded in sound unit economics.

“Alex has brought tremendous financial discipline and operator empathy to PrimoHoagies at a pivotal stage in our growth,” said Angela Coppler, Senior Vice President of Development for PrimoHoagies.

Chu’s franchisee-first perspective aligns with PrimoHoagies’ broader strategy, which prioritizes financially healthy growth over unit count. The brand operates approximately 125 restaurants across 11 states.

“Alex’s impact has been felt quickly across the organization,” said Nicholas Papanier Jr., Owner and CEO of PrimoHoagies. “He brings the financial expertise of a CFO, the development mindset of a growth leader, and the real-world perspective of a franchise operator. That combination is exactly what PrimoHoagies needs as we continue building a stronger, more sophisticated franchise system. We are focused on growing the right way.”

As restaurant brands continue navigating pressure from labor, food, occupancy and capital costs, PrimoHoagies is focused on helping franchisees mitigate rising expenses while growing profitable sales. Chu’s leadership will remain central to strengthening the financial infrastructure behind the system’s growth while preserving the entrepreneurial agility and family-owned values that have defined PrimoHoagies for more than three decades.