A father-daughter team has opened Paris Baguette's seventh Ohio location, a bakery café at 5139 Raglan St. in Hilliard, marking another step in the global chain's aggressive North American franchise push. Franchisee Ravi Allipuram, a 26-year technology industry veteran, partnered with his daughter Svanika to launch the unit after her interest in entrepreneurship following college graduation converted a family vision into an operating business.
The Franchise Story
The Allipuram location illustrates a franchisee profile Paris Baguette has been actively cultivating: local entrepreneurs with deep community ties rather than multi-unit operators primarily motivated by scale. Ravi Allipuram cited the brand's in-café atmosphere and product craftsmanship as key decision factors. "From the welcoming atmosphere and smiling team members to the quality and craftsmanship behind every pastry, we were inspired by the experience," he said. "As a family-owned business, Svanika and I are committed to being hands-on and bringing the same warmth and consistency to every customer who walks through our doors."
For restaurant and foodservice operators tracking franchise growth in the bakery-café segment, the Allipuram opening is a useful data point. Paris Baguette operates more than 4,000 locations worldwide and more than 300 across North America. The brand has set a public target of 1,000 U.S. and Canadian units by 2030, meaning it needs to roughly triple its North American footprint in under five years — a pace that depends heavily on attracting qualified franchisees in suburban markets like Hilliard and Dublin, Ohio.
What Operators Should Watch
Chief Executive Officer Darren Tipton framed the expansion in community-positioning terms rather than purely unit-count language. "We're on a mission to re-establish the neighborhood bakery café as the heart of the community across the U.S.," Tipton said. That positioning targets a white space between fast-casual coffee chains and sit-down breakfast concepts — a segment that has seen increased foot traffic as consumers seek affordable, experience-oriented dining occasions.
The Hilliard market is part of the broader Columbus metropolitan area, a region that has attracted considerable bakery and beverage industry investment in recent years. For prospective franchisees evaluating the bakery-café category, Paris Baguette's dual revenue stream — artisan pastries and cakes alongside handcrafted coffee beverages — offers a hedge against single-daypart exposure that pure bakery or pure coffee concepts face. The brand's community-giving platform, which it calls "Love Baked In," also provides a local marketing framework operators can activate at the unit level, potentially lowering customer acquisition costs in new trade areas. Coverage of similar franchise-driven bakery-café expansions suggests that suburban Columbus continues to attract brands seeking lower occupancy costs relative to primary metros while still accessing a dense, college-educated consumer base.
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.
