Cooking Up a Comeback
The Culinary Edge Helped a Beloved Brand Rediscover What Made It Special—and Bring Fans Back to the Table
How We Did It
Since 1995, Noodles & Company has been a fast-casual pioneer offering globally inspired noodle dishes. With 450+ locations, the brand grew a loyal fan base thanks to its uniquely fresh take on affordable dining. Fully optimized for simple operations, margins grew at a healthy pace for decades.
Enter a global pandemic—and the price increases that came with it. By 2022, value perception became a serious challenge, leading to a 4.2% drop in same-store sales.
Knowing a simple price decrease was not possible, Noodles & Company reached out to The Culinary Edge (TCE), a division of CORE Foodservice, known for its expertise in restaurant creation, product and menu development, brand identity and operational design.
The big discovery? We didn’t need to drop prices to fix the value perception problem. The original value proposition that made Noodles & Company great for so long was not showing up on the plate in the same way. Shrinking portions of sauce and vegetables, the removal of fresh garnishes, and the use of low-cost packaging meant the brand was no longer delivering on its original promise.
So, we rebuilt the culinary pillars and re-engineered the value offering that first set Noodles & Company apart:
A focused menu – Rigid categories were replaced with a simple, easy-to-navigate structure.
Comfort, perfected – We fine-tuned and reformulated classic noodles like Basil Pesto Cavatappi, Mac & Cheese, and Crispy Chicken Bacon Alfredo—maximizing quality and guest satisfaction.
Elevated experiences – Improvements in presentation, packaging, portioning, ingredient quality, and digital touchpoints helped rebalance the value equation.
Within weeks of launch, the return to bold flavors, better ingredients, and a guest experience that felt worth the price led to 3% higher sales year-over-year, a 9- to 15-point lift in taste scores, and a 5.6% rise in digital orders.
“TCE helped us rethink how we wanted to position our menu in a way that is clear for guests to understand and more compelling in terms of what they’re looking for.”
The Noodles & Company and TCE collaboration wasn’t about starting over—it was about building on a strong foundation to deliver a more focused, satisfying brand experience. The work has had an immediate impact on guest sentiment and financial performance.
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