Snarf’s opening shops in Gunbarrel, south Boulder

DENVER — Already growing quickly, a Boulder original could see its store count increase by nearly 50 percent over the coming year.

Snarf’s sandwich shop chain announced this week that it will be adding two new stores in Boulder by early 2015, one in Gunbarrel and one at a to-be-determined site in south Boulder.

But that’s hardly all the chain has planned. Denver is slated to see its fifth Snarf’s open in the Highlands neighborhood around mid-November, and two new shops are expected to open in Chicago by the end of the year.

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Snarf’s founder Jim Seidel said Thursday that his company is working on possible locations at Denver International Airport and the Denver Tech Center, which could both open sometime next year.

“Business has been very good,” Seidel said.

Seidel started Snarf’s in 1996 in Boulder, and it has since grown to 16 locations. About a dozen of those, though, have opened in the last five or six years alone as the company’s growth curve has steepened.

The company, which now has its corporate headquarters in Denver, employs about 200 people. Seidel said it takes about 16 people to staff each new restaurant that opens.

Seidel declined to disclose revenue for the company, but said it’s roughly quadrupled over the last three years, largely due to the expansion.

Snarf’s has 10 shops open in Colorado now, including two in Boulder and two in Longmont. There are also two in Chicago (in addition to the two coming), three in St. Louis and one in Austin, Texas.

The new Gunbarrel store will be at 6560 Lookout Road on the north end of the King Soopers building. Seidel said he’s still negotiating a lease for the south Boulder location.

Seidel said the company will keep adding shops, though the growth likely will be limited to Colorado and the out-of-state markets Snarf’s already has entered. He didn’t, however, put a cap or a goal on the number of stores he’d like to open. Snarf’s owns all of its shops, and franchising isn’t something Seidel is looking at right now.

“As long as I’m having fun and enjoying the work, I’m going to continue doing what we’re doing now,” he said. “That’s my plan right now. As I’m able to find good stores, I would like to execute on those.”