Paris Baguette has opened the first drive-thru in its North American system, putting a convenience format around a brand that has historically sold the experience of walking into a bakery case.
The café opened November 3 at 2120 Riverwalk Drive in Moore, Oklahoma. Paris Baguette identified it as the chain’s 346th North American café and its 62nd opening of 2026. It is also the brand’s second Oklahoma location.
The drive-thru is the material change. Paris Baguette did not call the Moore café a prototype, publish a lane configuration, disclose the share of sales expected from the window or say that future cafés will copy the format. The opening establishes a live operating test, not a systemwide rollout.
That distinction matters for restaurant operators. Bakery-cafés have to balance speed with product display, customization and attachment sales. A guest who enters the café can see cakes, breads and pastries that may not have been part of the planned order. A drive-thru can add reach and convenience, but it can also compress the discovery process that helps build a larger check.
The company release does not explain how Paris Baguette solved that merchandising question in Moore. It does not describe the drive-thru menu, ordering technology, service-time targets, staffing model or whether every café product is available at the window. Those are the operating details that will determine whether the concept is a repeatable format or simply a useful option for one site.
The location is owned by Mike Issa and Moe Touffaha. Paris Baguette said their restaurant portfolio includes IHOP operations and existing Paris Baguette cafés in Kansas and Albuquerque, New Mexico. The partners also expect a Lee’s Summit, Missouri, café and another Albuquerque café in 2027.
Experienced multi-unit operators are a logical group to test a new format because they can compare labor deployment, peak-period flow and off-premise demand across locations. But the release provides no Moore sales or labor data and no comparison with the partners’ conventional cafés. Braisepoint is not treating the owners’ broader pipeline as evidence that the drive-thru itself has succeeded.
The opening also lands inside a fast development year. Paris Baguette said it has more than 340 North American cafés and more than 600 units in development. The 600 figure is a pipeline claim, not an open-unit count, and the company did not provide an opening calendar for those projects.
For franchise growth, the most important question is whether a drive-thru expands the site universe. A format that works on end caps, pads or vehicle-oriented parcels could give franchisees more real-estate options than a walk-in café model alone. It could also require different kitchen staging, menu engineering and capital investment. Paris Baguette has not disclosed those economics.
The Moore café therefore deserves attention for what it is: the first time this chain has put its bakery-café offer behind a drive-thru window. The verified milestone is significant, and the owners bring multi-unit operating experience. What remains unproven is transferability.
The next useful disclosures would be the percentage of Moore sales coming through the lane, peak service times, incremental labor, menu availability and whether the company approves additional drive-thru development. Until then, one café has changed the format conversation without establishing the answer.
