With an average meal price of $10 and a focus on produce sourced from local farms, the chain aims to make simple, high-quality food available at a relatively affordable price.
Now Dig Inn has raised an additional $30 million in a Series D funding round led by AVALT. Other contributors to the round (its largest to date) include Monogram Capital Partners and Bill Allen, former CEO of OSI Restaurant Partners (which manages Outback Steakhouse).
The company had previously raised $21.5 million in earlier rounds of funding.
Dig Inn will use the new investment to launch more restaurants, open a culinary training school that's free for employees, make key leadership hires, and build out its internal tech platform. The chain also plans to open 13 to 15 more locations in New York and Massachusetts by 2019, and expand to a third to-be-determined state in 2018, founder and CEO Adam Eskin tells Business Insider.
Here's what it's like to eat there.
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Dig Inn wasn't always known by its current name. In 2011, Eskin, a former private equity associate at Wexford Capital, officially started rebranding what was then called Pump Energy Food, a five-store eatery that catered to a bodybuilding crowd. Eskin changed the name to Dig Inn and completely revamped the menu to focus on fresh, locally sourced produce.
These days, Dig Inn is focused on becoming what Eskin calls a "fine-fast" chain that combines fast-casual and fine dining.
With the new funding, Dig Inn plans to launch 13 to 15 more locations in New York, Massachusetts, and a third state by 2019. "Dig Inn is creating a new standard for exceptional food that delivers on quality, value and convenience, and we're looking forward to helping expand the concept to additional markets," says Mark Verdi, a partner at AVALT.
See the rest of the story at Business Insider