Cinnabon opens its first German store in Essen this month
Cinnabon Germany's first store opens at Essen's Limbecker Platz mall, run by newly formed franchise operator CB Germany, with more locations planned city by city.
Cinnabon Germany's first store opens this month at Limbecker Platz in Essen, the cinnamon roll chain's entry into a market it has never directly operated in before.
The store is run by CB Germany GmbH, a franchise operator registered in April 2026 with €25,000 in share capital and Benedikt Josef Löcken as managing director. CB Germany signed with GoTo Foods International, Cinnabon's parent group, to develop the brand across the country rather than open a single test site.
Staff due to run the Essen counter trained for roughly two weeks at an existing Cinnabon location in Rotterdam, the nearest market where the chain already operates, before returning to open the German store. The menu keeps Cinnabon's core format: the Classic Roll, smaller MiniBon rolls, bite-sized BonBites, alongside coffee and lemonades.
CB Germany plans to add stores location by location rather than on a fixed schedule.
A mall chain built roll by roll
Cinnabon operates more than 1,300 locations across over 60 countries, a footprint built mostly through franchise partners rather than company-owned stores, and a profile raised well beyond bakery circles by its recurring cameo in the TV series Better Call Saul. CB Germany has said it plans to add stores "location by location" rather than on a fixed schedule, with city centres, shopping centres, train stations and airports named as likely sites.
The franchise structure mirrors how Taco Bell entered the German market through Cologne, another US chain testing demand in a single city before signing on further operators elsewhere.
Betting on a German sweet tooth
Germany's bakery counters already carry their own sugar-heavy staples, from Franzbrötchen to Schnecken, the cinnamon-swirled pastries Cinnabon's format most directly competes against. Whether Essen shoppers choose an American import over a bakery favourite they already know will shape how fast CB Germany moves to its next site. The company has not named a second German city, saying only that it is watching how the Essen store performs before signing further leases, a cautious pace compared with rivals that have opened five or six German sites in their first year.
