BOSTON, Oct. 21, 2015 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Così, Inc. (NASDAQ:COSI), the fast casual restaurant company, today announced that its franchisee, Eurest Dining Services d/b/a Compass USA, opened their first Cosi® restaurant inside The Department of Homeland Security in Southeast Washington, D.C. This newest Così® restaurant, located in the United States Coast Guard Building, celebrated its grand opening on Tuesday, September 22, 2015.

“I am pleased to announce the opening of our newest franchise restaurant,” said R. J. Dourney, Cosi President and Chief Executive Officer. “We are excited about our franchise partnership with Eurest Dining Services,” stated Dourney. “Their appreciation for great food is perfectly aligned with Cosi’s fresh and edgy menu offerings. Additionally, we are confident that their focus on execution and service will provide a first class guest experience at this location,” Dourney went on to say.

“Cosi has been a great addition to our operation at the St. Elizabeth’s Homeland Security location. Customers love the selection and variety of offerings and we have seen a steady growth in customer participation,” said Mark Gleason, RVP Eurest Dining Services. “We received wonderful support from Cosi during our planning process and then again during our opening weeks. We look forward to expanding to other locations with them over time,” Gleason went on to say.

About Eurest

The globally recognized Eurest launched in 1996 in the US and provides dining services to local, regional and national companies within the Business & Industry markets, including employee dining centers, on-site catering, vending, executive dining rooms, and other managed services. Eurest is proud to serve the world’s most respected and successful corporations, including many of the Fortune 500. Eurest is a $1.4 billion food and vending organization with 1935 locations and more than 15,500 associates throughout the US. Eurest serves more than 705,000 customers daily and is a division of NC-based Compass Group North America.

About Così, Inc.

Così® (http://www.getcosi.com) is a national fast casual restaurant chain that has developed featured foods built around a secret, generations-old recipe for crackly crust flatbread. This artisan bread is freshly baked in front of customers throughout the day in open-flame stone-hearth ovens prominently located in each of the restaurants. Così’s warm and urbane atmosphere is geared towards its sophisticated, upscale, urban and suburban guests. There are currently 79 Company-owned and 30 franchise restaurants operating in fifteen states, the District of Columbia, Costa Rica and the United Arab Emirates. The Così vision is to become America’s favorite fast casual restaurant by providing customers authentic, innovative, savory food while remaining an affordable luxury.

The Così® menu features Così® sandwiches, freshly-tossed salads, bowls, breakfast wraps, melts, soups, Squagels®, flatbread pizzas, S’mores, snacks and other desserts, and a wide range of coffee and coffee-based drinks and other specialty beverages. Così® restaurants are designed to be welcoming and comfortable with an eclectic environment. Così’s sights, sounds, and spaces create a tasteful, relaxed ambience that provides a fresh and new dining experience.

“Così,” “(Sun & Moon Design)” and related marks are registered trademarks of Così, Inc. in the U.S.A. and certain other countries. Copyright © 2015 Così, Inc. All rights reserved.

“SAFE HARBOR” STATEMENT UNDER THE PRIVATE SECURITIES LITIGATION REFORM ACT OF 1995. This press release contains statements that constitute forward-looking statements under the federal securities laws. Forward-looking statements are statements about future events and expectations and not statements of historical fact. The words “believe,” “may,” “will,” “should,” “anticipate,” “estimate,” “expect,” “intend,” “objective,” “seek,” “plan,” “strive,” or similar words, or negatives of these words, identify forward- looking statements. We qualify any forward-looking statements entirely by these cautionary factors. Forward-looking statements are based on management’s beliefs, assumptions and expectations of our future economic performance, taking into account the information currently available to management. Forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that may cause our actual results, performance or financial condition to differ materially from the expectations of future results, performance or financial condition we express or imply in any forward-looking statements. Factors that could contribute to these differences include, but are not limited to: the results being reported in this release are unaudited and subject to change; the cost of our principal food products and supply and delivery shortages and interruptions; labor shortages or increased labor costs; changes in demographic trends and consumer tastes and preferences, including changes resulting from concerns over nutritional or safety aspects of beef, poultry, produce, or other foods or the effects of food-borne illnesses, such as E. coli, “mad cow disease” and avian influenza or “bird flu”; competition in our markets, both in our business and in locating suitable restaurant sites; our operation and execution in new and existing markets; expansion into new markets including foreign markets; our ability to attract and retain qualified franchisees and our franchisees’ ability to open restaurants on a timely basis; our ability to locate suitable restaurant sites in new and existing markets and negotiate acceptable lease terms; the rate of our internal growth and our ability to generate increased revenue from our existing restaurants; our ability to generate positive cash flow from existing and new restaurants; fluctuations in our quarterly results due to seasonality; increased government regulation and our ability to secure required government approvals and permits; our ability to create customer awareness of our restaurants in new markets; the reliability of our customer and market studies; cost effective and timely planning, design and build out of restaurants; our ability to recruit, train and retain qualified corporate and restaurant personnel and management; market saturation due to new restaurant openings; inadequate protection of our intellectual property; our ability to obtain additional capital and financing; adverse weather conditions which impact customer traffic at our restaurants; and adverse economic conditions. Further information regarding factors that could affect our results and the statements made herein are included in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Additional information is available on Così’s website at 
http://www.getcosi.com in the investor relations section.

CONTACT: CONTACT:
Miguel Rossy-Donovan
Chief Financial Officer
(857) 415-5020
[email protected]