The Greene Turtle Wins Restaurant Association of Maryland's Cornerstone Award

By: The Greene Turtle Sports Bar and Grille | 6 Shares 158 Reads

March 27, 2009 // Franchising.com // Edgewater, MD: The Greene Turtle Sports Bar and Grille recently announced that they had won Restaurant Association of Maryland's prestigious McCormick Cornerstone Award for 2009.

According to the Restaurant Association of Maryland's website, the Cornerstone Award recognizes a foodservice business that is living proof that the restaurant industry is the 'cornerstone' of the nation's economy, jobs, careers and community support and that the foodservice industry does more than offer jobs, it creates life-long, fulfilling and profitable careers, supports various organizations such as non-profit and keeps the economy thriving."

The award was presented earlier this week to The Greene Turtle at this year's Restaurant Association of Maryland Stars of the Industry Gala on March 23, 2009 at Martin's West in Baltimore.

The award was accepted on behalf of The Greene Turtle by The Greene Turtle Franchising Corporation's President and C.E.O., Michael Sanford.

"We were delighted to find out that we had been chosen as the recipient of this fine award," said Mr. Sanford. "Obviously none of this would be possible without the dedication of our staff in each of our units across this state."

The iconic Maryland-based restaurant brand is one of the fastest growing casual restaurant franchises in the Mid Atlantic region. Since 2005 The Greene Turtle has added 13 new restaurants including units at BWI, the Verizon Center in Washington D.C. and Aberdeen, MD earlier this month.

This growth has not gone unnoticed as the company was recently featured in Nation's Restaurant News. The Greene Turtle has also been ranked nationally in two separate publications tracking growth of the franchise restaurant business.

It was first ranked 8th in the United States and Canada by RestaurantChains.net in their April 2008 publication of fastest growing restaurant concepts with fewer than 50 units.

Then in July, Restaurant Business and MonkeyDish.com ranked The Greene Turtle 22nd in the Top-50 fastest growing restaurant franchises in the United States. The New York City based magazine company, compiled a list known as the "Future 50" which consisted of restaurants identified by Technomic, Inc. as the fastest growing chains with sales between $25 million and $50 million in 2007.

"We have carefully built The Greene Turtle brand here in our home state of Maryland over the last few years," says President / CEO Mike Sanford. "We also now have an investor which allows us to further build our support systems, and this will fuel our growth across the Mid- Atlantic region".

The Greene Turtle has been an area tradition since opening in Ocean City in 1976. Now with locations in Maryland, Delaware and D.C., the company continues plans on an aggressive but careful growth program throughout the Mid-Atlantic region.