Jimmy John’s opens restaurant in Fairfield

FAIRFIELD — Fairfield residents looking for a place to eat have a new option at the west edge of town.

The sandwich chain Jimmy John’s opened a restaurant in a brand-new building at 2603 W. Burlington Ave. The restaurant, which has a drive-thru on one side and a mobile pickup lane, opened on Sept. 13.

Jimmy John’s Chief Operating Officer Matt Haberman said this new location in Fairfield is the company’s 26th in Iowa. The company, founded in Charleston, Illinois, in 1983, has focused on opening restaurants in smaller cities in recent years such as Newton and Boone.

“Jimmy John’s tend to do well there, and we like to be engaged with our communities, which is easier when you’re a small community and you recognize your customers,” Haberman said.

Fairfield’s Jimmy John’s does not have indoor seating to go with its drive-thru and walk-up window, but it does have outdoor seating. Haberman said that online ordering and drive-thru have become a bigger part of the business since the pandemic, so the company has focused on serving that need.

“We have 12 seats outdoors, and we’ll keep them out there as long as the weather allows,” Haberman said.

Haberman said the company employs about 20 people in Fairfield, which includes servers and delivery drivers. He said the company chose to build a new building in the lot between Walmart and Community 1st Credit Union because of the high visibility with being next to Walmart, and because the lot was very deep, which accommodated the business’s desire for a large drive-thru and mobile pickup lanes.

“It’s a good design with a good traffic flow,” Haberman said. “It can accommodate a lot of cars, and it gives us lots of parking as well.”

Haberman said there are now about 3,000 Jimmy John’s restaurants, all of them in the United States. In 2019, the company was purchased by Inspire Brands, which also owns Arby’s, Dunkin, Sonic, Buffalo Wild Wings and Baskin Robbins.

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Call Andy Hallman at 641-575-0135 or email him at andy.hallman@southeastiowaunion.com