---
title: "Restaurant Finance Monitor: McAlister’s Leans on Shared Services, Off-Premise after 400-Unit Milestone"
url: https://burnaze.com/article/d36f0a0d-3eba-43f9-a37c-0e09edb00d1d
source: "1851 Franchise"
original_url: https://1851franchise.com/restaurant-finance-monitor-mcalisters-leans-on-shared-services-off-premise-after-400-unit-milestone-2703113
category: "Restaurants"
industry: "Restaurants"
published: 2017-07-03T13:08:02.000Z
modified: 2026-11-01T04:11:22.282Z
image: https://newimage.1851franchise.com/cdn-cgi/image/quality=85,format=webp,width=1280,height=720/story/featureImage/c744597685fc4c2bd02b60d2418c67641003.jpg
---

# Restaurant Finance Monitor: McAlister’s Leans on Shared Services, Off-Premise after 400-Unit Milestone

**TL;DR:** McAlister's Deli celebrated its 400-unit milestone and is pushing its new app to consumers for off-premise dining and greater efficiency. The brand is using the milestone to promote the app, offering a free club sandwich to entice downloads.

*originally published in 1851 Franchise on 2017-07-03. [Read the original](https://1851franchise.com/restaurant-finance-monitor-mcalisters-leans-on-shared-services-off-premise-after-400-unit-milestone-2703113).*

## Story

According to Restaurant Finance Monitor, McAlister's Deli celebrated the latest milestone of 400 locations they reached in April. Said President Paul Macaluso, “It’s a huge milestone for us, we’re really excited about it."

*To celebrate, he said the company is thanking its franchisees, but also using the 400-unit milestone to push the new app to consumers, enticing them to download with a free club sandwich. The new app is a part of the brand’s push for more off-premise dining and greater efficiency for those off-premise diners.*

*“The app is important for a couple reasons, it’s an investment for people to put an app on their phone so we want to make it worth while. And we know if we can get people to order from us once, and see how easy it works they’ll do it again in the future,” said Macaluso. “So we have a really aggressive offer to get them to put us on their phones.”*

*He said the push for off-premise efficiency has proven to be a revenue and margin benefit since there aren’t any refills or cleaning required. Above all it’s access, and customers have proven that they want it. Macaluso said he’s seen a slight shift to off-premise. And while they don’t need to change things yet, he and the management team are pondering smaller-format locations to cut overhead more in the future if off-premise continues growing.*

## Entities

- 1851 Franchise (publication)
- Restaurants (sector)
- unit expansion (topic)
- McAlister's Deli (company)
- Paul Macaluso (person)
- franchisee relations (topic)
- off-premise dining (topic)
- app development (topic)

---
Originally reported by 1851 Franchise (https://1851franchise.com/restaurant-finance-monitor-mcalisters-leans-on-shared-services-off-premise-after-400-unit-milestone-2703113). Summarized by Burnaze (https://burnaze.com/article/d36f0a0d-3eba-43f9-a37c-0e09edb00d1d).