Paris Baguette has opened its first drive-thru location, a format milestone for the global bakery café brand that now operates more than 340 North American units. The new café, at 2120 Riverwalk Drive in Moore, Oklahoma, welcomed its first guests on November 3, becoming the brand's 62nd opening of 2026 and its second Oklahoma location.
The Franchise Team
The Moore unit is owned by franchisees Mike Issa and Moe Touffaha, multi-brand operators who built their Paris Baguette portfolio after encountering the concept at cafés in New York. The duo launched their first Paris Baguette in Wichita, Kansas, in 2022 and have since added locations in Kansas, Albuquerque, New Mexico, and now Oklahoma. Additional cafés in Lee's Summit, Missouri, and a second New Mexico location are both targeted for 2027.
"This opening is especially exciting because we're introducing a new drive-thru format for the brand, giving guests another way to enjoy the products they love," said Moe Touffaha, Paris Baguette franchise co-owner.
What the Format Shift Means
For bakery café operators watching format innovation, the Moore opening offers a meaningful data point. Drive-thru integration has long driven volume gains for coffee and quick-service concepts, and Paris Baguette's move suggests the brand sees similar traffic potential in its freshly baked pastry and beverage lineup. The company says the Moore location was designed with a service flow that preserves the in-café hospitality experience at the drive-thru window—a balance that franchise systems in the fast-casual and café segment have struggled to maintain as they bolt on off-premise formats.
Darren Tipton, CEO of Paris Baguette, framed the opening as a deliberate evolution of the brand's reach. "The drive-thru gives us an opportunity to bring the same freshly baked products, warm hospitality and everyday joy our guests expect from Paris Baguette to even more people," Tipton said.
Growth Pipeline
Paris Baguette's North American expansion remains aggressive. The brand entered U.S. franchising in 2015 and has scaled to more than 340 domestic locations, with 600 additional units reportedly in development. The Moore drive-thru format, if it performs, could accelerate site selection for markets where real estate economics favor a traditional drive-thru pad over an inline café footprint—a playbook already well-established in the coffee and bakery categories. Industry observers tracking beverage and bakery franchise growth will be watching whether the format becomes a standard option in the Paris Baguette development toolkit or remains a one-off pilot.
As covered previously by Food & Beverage Magazine, bakery café concepts have increasingly leaned into convenience formats to compete with entrenched coffee chains for morning and midday occasions.
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.
