WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – Krispy Kreme Doughnuts Inc. is betting that smaller will be better with its new, 2,400-square-foot prototype store, Nation’s Restaurant News reports. The donut chain thinks the smaller units will give a much-needed boost to corporate and franchise growth. Last quarter, the company’s revenue and U.S. same-stores sales jumped more than 10%.

Last month, Krispy Kreme debuted a few of the smaller footprint stores in Florida and North Carolina. Thus far, the company has five of those sized freestanding restaurants. Up to five more are expected to open before 2014. Krispy Kreme officials said they would keep the rate of small store openings at a sustainable pace, expanding from 243 U.S. locations now to 400 within four years.

“With the new model, you’ll see current franchisees who have not expanded in a long time being able to expand,” said James Morgan, Krispy Kreme CEO. “So part of that 400 number is going to come from current franchisees, part of it’s going to come from company stores and our acceleration in those, and then the third part would be from new franchisees.”

Krispy Kreme has been edging towards more growth slowly, after closing units and fighting lawsuits relating to allegations of managing earnings in the 2000s. “We cleaned up the balance sheet, paid off the debt and authorized the share repurchase,” said Morgan. “We’re now saying we are committed to this new model, and we think we are now poised, globally, to take this new and more efficient model forward. We’ve begun the new domestic franchise development. … We feel pretty doggone good about it.”