The Hobab family built Deli Delicious from a small sandwich shop to an ever-expanding franchise with 53 locations across California.

What is now 53 locations across California began as a small sandwich shop in Fresno by the name “Deli Delicious.”

Mohammed Hobab, an engineer and banker from Iran, came to Fresno in the 1980s and in 1995 bought the location at Blackstone and Bullard avenues and continued the name and its award-winning sandwiches, having received honors from the California Restaurant Association, the Fresno Bee as well as The Business Journal’s Best of the Central Valley. The Small Business Association this year gave Hobab its award for the Small Business Person of the Year.

Now, the Hobab family itself is being honored with the Institute for Family Business’ Rising Star Award.

In 2008, Hobab began franchising the name across the Central Valley and Central Coast, with eyes on Southern California, Washington and Utah, according to Ali Nekumanesh, vice president of Deli Delicious Franchising.

Part of the reason they’ve been able to expand as far as they have is the support they provide to franchisees.

This year, Deli Delicious won the Ronald E. Harrison award from the International Franchise Association for its diversity and inclusion of storeowners across the company.

“You have folks that are just graduating from college they have never initiated a business startup,” said Nekumanesh. “The franchise support office takes this person through all the steps of negotiations a lease, finding a site, finding contracts, building the restaurant and going through a 31-day extensive training.”

The office works very closely with all of the franchisees, from marketing to operations.

“The franchisee can just walk into the office and talk with anyone concerned,” said Nekumanesh. “At the bigger companies, this doesn’t happen.”

One of those franchisees was Azzi Chahal of Fowler, who opened his first store in Porterville in August 2017. Chahal came from a farming family and graduated from Fresno State with a degree in agricultural business.

“I decided I wanted to be my own boss,” Chahal said. “I always wanted to be an entrepreneur.”

Chahal had never owned a business before and was really nervous about starting one, but the franchising office worked very closely with him in terms of managing a staff.

“It takes a leap of faith, but with all of the training I got, I felt pretty confident,” Chahal said.

Nekumanesh attributes a lot of the success of the company to the ability to work with and find franchisees with potential like Chahal.

To do this, those at Deli Delicious work closely with Fresno State as well as other colleges helping future entrepreneurs.

They also work closely with the SBA’s SCORE program for retired executives to mentor other small businesses outside of Deli Delicious.

With stores from Sacramento to Bakersfield and into the Central Coast, those at Deli Delicious have eyes toward growth. A new store is opening in Corona and franchisees have registered in Washington and Utah.

Nate Gilbert, director of franchise development, said they get calls from around the country to open stores.

The success Deli Delicious has is driven by what Chahal said is a product “unlike any other.”