November 26, 2004

Wall Street Plans Virgin Mary Sandwich Shop National Chain

Entrepreneur's Goal Is a Store Near Every Catholic Church

A Wall Street investment firm is putting the finishing touches on a new chain of sandwich stores that will cater to the appetites of the devout Roman Catholic parishioner.

The first Virgin Mary Sandwich Shoppe will open in January across the street from Saint Paul's Roman Catholic Church in a working class neighborhood of Eau Claire, Wisconsin. The firm's ambitious goal is to have a Virgin Mary Sandwich Shoppe near every Catholic church in the United States by the end of 2008.

The eatery's trademark menu item will be a grilled cheese sandwich that has the image of the Virgin Mary staring out from the surface of the bread. Krazy Kwizines, LLC, the investment firm, declined to reveal the process that will imprint the image on each sandwich.

The new eatery concept was inspired by the Virgin Mary sandwich recently auctioned off on Ebay for $28,000 to an online casino that wanted it for publicity purposes.

The Ebay sandwich was made a decade ago by Diana Duyser, 52, a jewelry designer in Miami. Duyser said that on that fateful day she took a bite out of the sandwich and then happened to glance down at it. There, staring back at her from the bread, was the face of the Virgin Mary, imprinted in the bread by the cooking.

Recognizing a miracle, Duyser put the sandwich in a plastic box and kept it on her night stand for the next decade. She decided to "share it with the wold" via an Ebay.

"We think the religious fast food market has enormous potential," said Roger Thorndike of Thorndike & Thorndike, the New York public relations agency that represents Krazy Kwizines. "Look at the enormous revenues generated annually by church bakes ales and potluck dinners. And that's without applying any professional MBA managerial skills or tapping marketing expertise."

Thorndike said that the sandwich stores would feature only one product with the image of the Virgin Mary -- the trademark grilled cheese sandwich. "You don't want to dilute the brand with too many Virgins," he said.

Plans call for 2,500 stores near Catholic churches in the midwest Rust Belt states during 2005, followed by another 5,000 stores in states with large Hispanic populations during 2006.

"We'll probably have 4,000 stores in California, Arizona, New Mexico, Florida, and Texas before we're finished," Thorndike said.

A spokesman for the National Conference of Catholic Bishops said the group was looking into whether the image of the Virgin Mary could be trademarked.

"If the Church can trademark the Virgin's image, then that would open the door to stopping this sacrilegious exploitation of the Virgin," said a spokesman for the bishops. "In any case, we denounce this mixing of religious freedom with crass commercialization."

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