The restaurant base has grown from 21 restaurants in seven states in 2008 to 179 company-owned restaurants and three franchise restaurants as of May 31, 2016. The company has reaffirmed its goal to open 34 to 36 company-owned restaurants in 2016, and expects to double its restaurant base in the next five years. In the long-term, Zoe’s sees the potential for more than 1,600 restaurant locations in the U.S.Investment in a new restaurant model would be about $750k, net of tenant allowances. From these new restaurants, Zoe's targets Average Unit Volumes or AUVs of $1.3 million and cash-on-cash returns exceeding 30% by the end of the third full-year of operation. However, the company says that new restaurants opened since the beginning of 2009, on average have exceeded these targets within the third year of operations.