Several Triangle restaurants plan to add locations this spring and summer, some preparing to double their number of stores.

Some chains with plans to expand in the area in 2005:

* Cold Stone Creamery, an Arizona chain of ice cream shops, will sprinkle the area with five or six more stores in the next two years. Stores in Fayetteville and Apex and a second Durham store will join the current ones in Raleigh, Durham, Cary, Chapel Hill and Garner.

* Quiznos Subs will open four stores in the Triangle in the next two months.

New locations will include 169 Franklin St. in Chapel Hill, Six Forks Road at Celebration in Raleigh, Irwin Terrace in Durham and the main dining area on Duke's East Campus.

* Qdoba Mexican Grill out of Denver has stores under construction in Chapel Hill at Franklin and Columbia streets and in Apex at Beaver Creek. Both are due to open in March.

* At North Hills, Q-Shack and McAlister's Deli opened this week, and there are plans for a Nestle Toll House Cafe as well.

Consumers should expect independent restaurateurs to be in the expansion game this year, too.

* Carolina Ale House, with locations in Cary, Raleigh and North Raleigh, is expanding to 3911 Chapel Hill Blvd. in Durham next month.

A fifth location is slated to open in Brier Creek in June, and owner Lou Moshakos said sites in Apex near Beaver Creek, in Wake Forest off U.S. 1, and on College Road in Wilmington are also being discussed.

* Brothers Richard and Rodolfo De Martino, owners of Cafe Tiramisu in the North Ridge Shopping Center, are expanding into the neighboring space and opening a second restaurant called the North Ridge Pub. Expected to open at the end of March, the two eateries will share a kitchen but be completely separate restaurants.

The former Gateway Store in Cary that closed in April as part of a companywide shutdown has now become a Vitamin Shoppe. The store at 2121 Walnut St. is open and is the second Vitamin Shoppe in the Triangle.

The building under way at the corner of Thornton Road and Capital Boulevard in Raleigh won't be an average convenience store. Sheetz is a 10,000-square-foot neon castle that's more restaurant than convenience store.

Sheetz serves a broad menu including subs, pizza, bagels and wraps and touts a touch-screen ordering system both inside and at the drive-through.

Hammett's Learning World at 1720 Guess Road in Durham will close at the end of this month as part of a companywide closure.

The school-supply chain has 52 locations in 17 states. Five employees at the Durham location will be laid off.