Broward County has its first Paris Baguette, and it opened Wednesday at 3326 N. University Drive in Coral Springs under the ownership of Chris and Kim Shin, a husband-and-wife team who spent three years working to bring the South Korean bakery brand to their adopted hometown. The couple relocated to South Florida from California six years ago and left their corporate careers behind to run the shop themselves.
According to the Miami Herald, the Shins opened Broward's first Paris Baguette after leaving their corporate jobs in 2025, working alongside dozens of team members to get the café ready. As reported by Coral Springs Talk, the couple initiated the franchising process in 2023, meaning the Coral Springs location was three years in the making before Wednesday's opening. The outlet also reports that Friday's opening followed a Friends and Family Day held Tuesday, where the Shins were pictured inside the café ahead of the public debut.
From Biotech and Consulting to the Bakery Counter
Neither Chris nor Kim Shin came from a restaurant management background. Per Coral Springs Talk, the pair transitioned from corporate work in management consulting, e-commerce, and biotech startups, deliberately seeking out a community-oriented franchise rather than a traditional food service path. That same shift is detailed by 1851 Franchise, which notes the Shins wanted a business rooted in daily neighborhood interaction rather than the corporate environments they had left.
Paris Baguette's daily operation is a demanding one behind the scenes. Store crews typically include six to eight bakers who begin work at midnight to prepare roughly 100 fresh pastry, bread, and cake items before doors open at 7 a.m., according to the Jacksonville Daily Record. The chain offers daily made pastries, sandwiches, coffee, and signature cakes, part of the self-serve glass bakery case format the brand adopted before 2020.
Broward Joins a Fast-Growing Florida Footprint
The Coral Springs opening extends Paris Baguette's presence beyond its existing Florida outposts in Delray Beach, Orlando, and Tampa. The brand initially expanded in the U.S. starting in 2015 and has since opened hundreds of locations, operating in dozens of countries worldwide. Jacksonville added to that footprint last year when the city issued a permit for a 2,552-square-foot Paris Baguette at St. Johns Town Center, a buildout the Jacksonville Daily Record reported cost about $150,000 and replaced a former pizza eatery.
Just up the coast in Miami, Paris Baguette already has a location in Wynwood, which Hoodline first reported on back in June. That roughly 3,000-square-foot café inside the Strata Wynwood building at 2217 N. Miami Avenue seats about 40 people indoors with another 20 to 30 outdoor patio seats, under franchisee Cesar Paoli, who spent two years securing permits and constructing the shop, according to Business Debut.
A Global Bakery Chain Betting Big on the U.S.
Paris Baguette was founded in South Korea in 1988 and is owned by food and confectionery conglomerate SPC Group, which operates roughly 4,500 locations worldwide, including more than 3,700 in South Korea and over 670 across 15 other countries, per Restaurant Business Online. The brand has now surpassed 300 operating North American cafés across 29 states as of early 2026, and it is projecting a path to 1,000 U.S. stores by 2030, a target supported by average unit volumes exceeding $3 million, according to 1851 Franchise.
To support that growth, SPC Group broke ground in late 2025 on a $160 million to $200 million, 260,000-square-foot dough and bakery production facility in Burleson, Texas, according to Manufacturing Dive. The plant is slated to begin supplying stores across the Americas starting in 2027. Nation's Restaurant News reports the chain has also posted 19 consecutive quarters of positive same-store sales growth, a streak it attributes to the pre-2020 shift away from standard counter service toward self-serve glass bakery cases.
That momentum has translated into industry recognition as well. Paris Baguette ranked No. 29 on Entrepreneur's Franchise 500 list in January, capturing the No. 1 spot in the bakery-café category after rising from No. 42 overall the year before, according to PR Newswire. For Coral Springs, the arrival adds one more storefront to a franchise expansion that has already touched suburban plazas and shopping centers from Texas to California, but for the Shins, it marks the start of a new chapter built around fresh bread rather than boardrooms.
