Customers began lining up well before the doors opened Thursday morning as PrimoHoagies officially celebrated the grand opening of its new Pennington location.
By 10 a.m., the line stretched along the storefront at Pennington Center, with some customers having waited nearly an hour to be among the first inside the Philadelphia-area sandwich chain’s newest location.
The celebration transformed part of the shopping center parking lot into a community event. A DJ provided music while visitors spun a prize wheel for branded giveaways, entered prize drawings and gathered for a ribbon-cutting ceremony before ordering their first sandwiches.
For PrimoHoagies, opening in Pennington was the result of years of watching customers from the area travel to other locations.
“We love the Pennington community,” said Angela Coppler, PrimoHoagies’ senior vice president of development. “We felt that we had a lot of opportunity here. We see customers traveling to other markets to use our brand, so we felt like Pennington was a good place for us to be able to bring the brand.”
The Pennington shop is the latest location for the Pennsylvania-based sandwich company, which has built its reputation on made-to-order Italian-style hoagies prepared with fresh ingredients.
“We have the highest grade of meat that we are serving every day on our sandwiches, from our proprietary marinated recipe to our caramelized turkey,” Coppler said. “We have our seeded bread that we bake fresh in the restaurant all day.”
The menu includes traditional Italian hoagies alongside turkey, chicken and specialty sandwiches, with catering options also available.
While introducing the brand to new customers was one goal of Thursday’s celebration, Coppler said becoming part of the local community is equally important.
“Primo is very community-friendly,” she said. “We made a donation to Hopewell Valley Central High School today.”
Coppler said the company hopes the Pennington store becomes more than just another lunch stop.
“I hope that the community sees this as a staple for many years to come,” she said. “We want them to know that we have the highest quality product, that we can meet their needs and whether it’s a sandwich for lunch today or a catering tray for an event over the weekend, we’re here for them.”
