The Restaurant Technology Guys Podcast brought to you by Custom Business Solutions
The Restaurant Technology Guys Podcast brought to you by Custom Business Solutions
Franchising Growth: Insights from Casey Cooley of Pivotal Growth Partners
In this episode, the host welcomes Casey Cooley, President of Pivotal Growth Partners and Director of Franchising and Development for Jeremiah’s Italian Ice. Casey discusses his role in helping emerging restaurant franchises grow by focusing on recruiting the right franchisees and selecting the optimal locations. He emphasizes the importance of a phased vetting process to determine if a brand is franchisable and the need for a comprehensive support system. Casey also highlights how different franchising models, technology, and location strategies impact the success of franchise brands. Additionally, he shares success stories from Vicious Biscuit and Jeremiah’s Italian Ice, providing valuable insights for both potential franchisors and franchisees.
00:00 Introduction and Welcome
00:14 Meet Casey Cooley: Background and Role
01:24 Franchising Process and Vetting
03:31 Challenges and Mistakes in Franchising
06:29 Franchisee Accountability and Success
11:20 Technology and Location Strategy
18:01 Expanding Beyond Core Markets
25:31 Success Stories and Emerging Brands
33:09 Conclusion and Contact Information
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Jeremy:I thank everyone out there for joining us, as I say, each and every time I don't take your guys's time for granted. I know that there's lots of things that you guys could be doing out on the internet. So we appreciate you guys spending time with us each and every week. Today is going to be a really fun conversation. I'm going to let Casey dig into it here in just a second, but Casey, before we dig into kind of what you get to do for a living, why don't you give our listeners a little bit more about who is Casey, and then we'll jump into kind of what you get to do, and how you're helping restaurants just explode on the, in the space.
Casey Cooley:Thanks, guys. Awesome. Yeah, I appreciate it. Casey Cooley. I am the president of Pivotal Growth Partners, also director of franchising and development for Jeremiah's Italian Ice. As well as some of the other brands we have in place But a lot of my day to day is jeremiah's focus and also through that kind of the development of the franchise business, right? so that entails the recruitment and kind of the new franchisees coming to the process, but Really my focus is helping the franchisees new franchisees and existing franchisees find the right places at the right time, right? So we define franchising the right people in the right place at the right time and the biggest, part of that equation is location, right? And so being able to help our franchisees across all of our brands your time that up in the right way, in regards to taking a look at site and markets and everything. And it's certainly a critical component to growing an emerging franchise brand. and, it's just fun to play in that realm every day.
Jeremy:Yeah. and we've had lots of guests on the show that are, emerging franchise brands that are trying to figure out, What scale looks like I'm sure we'll dig into it, Casey, but talk to me a little bit about kind of the process because when you take on a new brand, I'm sure, different people do franchising differently. Some like to have a franchisee that's an owner operator, Chick fil a is famous for that, where you can only have one or two stores, whereas a subway, you can't really, you can have 50 locations. Talk to me about your guys's vetting process when you guys are going into a brand and they're looking to get into that. Growth stage before you even get into looking at locations, you've got to figure out what is the right partner for them. Are they people that already have multi unit brand in food service? some that don't talk to me about how you guys even investigate that as you guys are taking on new clients.
Casey Cooley:Yeah. We take, any kind of brand that's, interested in working with us and vice versa. We're taking a look at them. We take them through a phased approach and a phased process. Our phase one is initial due diligence and we vet the concept through a lens that we have of is this a growable emerging franchise brand from our perspective? at the end of the day, it's really um, is this franchisable? Because, there's some really good concepts out there that just shouldn't be franchised, right? it's just, it's maybe too complicated, assets may be too big, just maybe some sort of unique factor where it's this is going to be really hard to replicate, through a franchise model. but once we get like past that benchmark, we said this should be franchisable, then we look at it from our perspective as experts in the emerging franchise space and say, what are the levers and the buttons and the tools and the foundations we like to. have in place to be able to do the growth that we look for, right? And so we assess how much is there, how much is missing, and build a plan, not only from a growth and development perspective, but also from a supply chain market, marketing, operational training perspective to ensure the components of growth are in there. So when we add in the recruitment, we add And, Hey, we're franchising. talk to us. The rest of the pieces are in place to support that, interest of growth and to be able to grow it through a specific pathway and target that we're looking for. I love that, I love that filter that you guys go through. And if you wouldn't mind, Casey, I'd love to go down that path of, you've seen lots of different brands that think they're ready.
Jeremy:talk to me about some of the biggest mistakes. If you were to be talking to a brand where they think they're ready to get to that franchise that you just don't see them thinking about, they're out of place. And again, I've been in the restaurant business for close to 30 years. So I've watched brands that have. Franchise and been extremely successful and I've watched brands that have franchised and have fallen on their face and it diluted their brand image and ultimately it caused them to fail sometimes completely altogether as a brand. And so talk to me about some of the things that you're talking with a founder, you're talking with the founding team and they're like, no, we've got six stores and we're doing it and we want to get to 200 across the nation. If I had a nickel for every time somebody said they were going to be at a hundred stores, I could have retired already. But talk to me a little about some of those things that you see. When you're talking to people that people don't really think about, you alluded to some of them, supply chain systems processes, but talk me through some of those.
Casey Cooley:Yeah, I think first it's just a understanding of just franchising in general, right? a stat we like to share is 250 brands start and stop franchising every year, right? So there's almost a 100 percent return rate just in franchising in general. That's everything. That includes service dues and not just Red Crop. But just thinking about it from that perspective, franchising, A brand is not easy. And it's, that kind of stat already tells you things are over franchised, right? And so just because you have a couple of people calling and saying, I want to franchise this doesn't mean it's necessarily the right step either to franchise it or you're ready to franchise. So I think it's one starting with that kind of in mind, like this is not necessarily an easy way to grow. It could be the right way and it could be a very, Financially valuable way for you as a founder to grow, as well as, franchisees building, long term equity wealth and the kind of work they're building on their side. but you really have to think through this to ensure this is really what you want to do, which kind of carried it to my next point is running a corporate business or running a franchise business are two completely separate businesses, right? So one of the things we start identifying within a company is, okay, like this so far, you've managed your company stores this way. How are we going to transition some of those people or do we need to bring in more people to be able to support this new organization? It was very much a replication of process, the process you may have achieved in your corporate units, but now you have a really interesting variable on the other side of the table, and it's a franchise owner, right? you can give them all the feedback, everything you want them to do to be successful, but they have to go execute that, right? So it's a little different in the hierarchy of kind of an operations perspective and just ensuring And training and coaching and making sure everyone's on the same page of, you've done this way up to this point, when you move into this world, it's completely different. And you're probably going to have to silo that part out and that's going to be corporate and everything else moving forward will be franchised. There's some opportunities, some kind of from shared service from that perspective, as you set up the growth, but it's really just understanding Hey, like you pivot from corporate to franchise. It is a much different path for it Could be a great path as long as you set it up for success the right way from the beginning
Jeremy:Yeah, and I think that you've got some competing priorities from time to time, too You know when you're talking franchise because now you've got an owner who's paying, you know Paying some form of franchise fees. They have a business of their own They, want support. They want to be successful. And when they stop being successful, oftentimes it turns into some finger pointing of, the brain's not supporting me. They're not getting the customers. They helped me pick the wrong location. we've seen it. I'm sure you've seen it in some of the brands that you've worked with over the last number of years. And then there's the opposite side of it, which is they're killing it. They're growing like mad and the franchisees are, super happy and there's not bumps in the road or there's little bumps in the road, but they're able to work through it because they resource that they know what the path looks like.
Casey Cooley:Yeah, I think we've always implemented a culture of accountability within organizations that we've created and worked for. And, I think that's a really good way to look through the franchisor, we have to be accountable to the franchisee's success. At the same time, a franchisee also has to be accountable to his or her success, right? So I think if both people are aligned or both parties are aligned from that perspective in regards to, hey, We know a really healthy franchise organization has existing franchise owners continuing to grow. And so that is the benchmark of success. So how do you create a system of development, a system of training and operations and marketing and supply chain, everything it takes to help that franchisee say, I got my first door open. I'm X amount of months away from that opening. I'm now ready to become a multi franchisee. that is truly the path we're trying to create. Especially an emerging brand, too, because that really kicks off that exponential growth. Everyone's looking for us when you have your current franchisees who, two years ago could open one store at a time. Now, all of a sudden they have this great system in place where they can open two or three stores at a time. That's the J curve I was looking for.
Jeremy:Yeah, and I, there's a lot of different paths that I want to take this conversation down Casey, as we're talking through this, because we've seen, again, as we look at out at the space, we've seen franchisees that have accountability and there's a culture of accountability and they know what the expectations are. And then we've seen franchisees that open up a sandwich brand and start selling tacos and they're not supposed to be selling tacos. And, they decide that they're just going to go, they own the business and they own the building and they, we'll create some different, different items. Talk me through even how you guys think about that, because I've philosophically have talked to different franchise brands on the show and just in life, Oh, we want somebody that's Greenfield. They don't know anything about restaurants. We're going to teach them everything. And all we want somebody that understands how to run multi units, but then they come in with their own ideas. They might have their own tech partners. They might have their own supply chain and they may want to rock the boat a little bit. Talk me through a little bit of that as you, as you go along. As you got into the immersion brands, cause I'm sure it goes back to that.
Casey Cooley:Those phases that we go, that take a brand through. And as we get to pass phase one, which says we think this was growable. We think this is franchisable. Let's put it into phase two. It's, what is that franchisee? What's the ideal franchisee for this brand? And it's going to be very different for different brands, right? for example, you may have a 3000 square foot breakfast concept that has a, A complicated back of house from the perspective of a green franchisee, which is a much different situation than if you go and get the formal general manager of a Chili's that really understands the back of house, the front of house, the kitchen manager, and could understand that world and how that should be replicated within that model. and so I, when you take a look at that, I think it's really who is our ideal franchisee and how do we train them to optimize. The success within that brand, right? and so I think that is like a very like famous quote. It's we want more multi unit franchisees or experienced unit franchisees or experienced operators. it's okay, are you your brain set up to be that, right? are you set up to be a bolt onto the organization that has 500, Taco Bells, Or, are you set up to be the franchisor for the great VP of sales. it was also the PTA mom that wants to own her business, right? And so I think if you use that from that perspective and you're able to assess the brand, that allows you to say how much left or right you're willing to leave, and balance that, portfolio of owners from that perspective as a brand.
Jeremy:Yeah, and I think again, I've talked about on the show, even just today, how many different ways I've seen people do it successfully. And I think you can do all of them successfully. It's really defining. Who are you? What is your concept? And what are you looking to do? Because not every brain is created equal. For some reason, everybody thinks they can run a restaurant, they can cook food in their backyard for a backyard barbecue. And so everybody thinks they can open up a food service venue. Don't quite understand why that's the case, but it is the case. and again, I laugh about it because not everybody is suited for that. They want to be an absentee owner or they want to be a person that's in the store every day. in volume makes a difference. One of the other things, Casey, that I find to be a failing, especially specifically in our world, but I guess across the board is the standards. So particularly as it relates to restaurant technology, Making sure that restaurant technology seamlessly talks to each other from supply chain to the back of the house, to the front of the house, to the online ordering, to the loyalty, to the gift cards, if that's not defined and the franchisees understand what the expectations are upfront, it's a really difficult thing to scale because picking the wrong technology provider and, or not having those standards in place. You get, lumpiness in the system, to, to use that adjective because this one's using this point of sale and I'm not able to get my reports. This one's using this loyalty provider and they've got different experiences when it comes to those different brands. Talk me through how you guys consider that and why that should be a critical part of making sure that the franchise or that you're considering as a franchisee knows that is something that they've already figured out. And now a word from one of our sponsors. Every restaurant operator understands the chaos of a Restaurant kitchen during the meal rush restaurant technologies, oil, total oil management solutions, and end to end automated oil management system that delivers filters, monitors, and recycles your cooking oil, taking the dirtiest jobs out of your kitchen and letting your employees focus on more important tasks. Control the kitchen chaos with restaurant technologies and make your kitchen safer. No upfront costs to learn more, check out rti inc. com or call 888 796 4997.
Casey Cooley:Yeah, I think one of the things we assess is. can the technology help the franchisee be successful? I say that with a little bit of caveat that there should be a little bit of, benchmarking slash profiling to the franchisor. That's how the system's working. But I think most technology has that kind of set up to it, right? But at the end of the day, from our perspective is this technology at the end of the day is an investment to the franchisees organization on behalf of the franchisor or the franchisees paying a technology fee. They'll drive their business as a pastor through the franchise work. So at the end of the day is these pieces of technology, are they actually driving the business of the franchisee? So that's the PLS file and it's the loyalty app, whether that's, X, Y, Z, doesn't matter the music system, different things that are all part of that experience. That the franchisee is delivering to the customers. Like it is an ROI to that. And that's really what we look for from our perspective. And then is it all working together? back to the assessment of the brand, there's different brands, these different levels of technology, right? it's like we have some brands on a restaurant, 365, some brands that are not because they just, it's not that, they need that power or they don't. So I think there's just different ways to look at it from that perspective. But again, it's like from a franchisees. Profitability and the amount that can increase or decrease what they're seeing is the tech stack the right one, right? And what do we do in phase two of our process to add it to it, take it away, streamline it, know in the next 24 months we're going to have to add X, Y, and Z to the brand once it gets to a number of units to be able to continue the tech that's happening in the, in that brand. but at the end of the day, it's really about, is this going to drive results for the franchisee.
Jeremy:Yeah. and I think that, the, this is two huge mistakes I've seen is not having high enough standards and accountability. Second is letting them do whatever they want with tech stack. And then the third, which we took, you alluded to on the introduction is kind of location and picking the right location that you know, is going to be successful. Talk me through how you guys consider that. Because again, at this point, you know that it's the right brand for you guys to help scale. They've got the systems and processes in place. they're putting technology in place to help them accelerate that. But now they got to, now they got to go find sites. I got to go find franchisees and then I got to go find sites. We were talking pre show about a friend that's trying to open up a property and he's been two years that he's owned the franchise rates, but he can't find the right property. That's going to meet his needs. So you're oftentimes are stunting your growth trajectory if you can't find the right locations. And so talk me through how you guys evaluate that and even coach the franchise or as to thinking, even reconsidering the way that they may be doing their business, that maybe not even the traditional way, non traditional locations, theme parks, those kinds of things, I'm sure that you guys have gone lots of different paths on that. So talk me through how you guys consider locations, licensees and such.
Casey Cooley:Yeah, I think from a perspective of us it's always about real estate as points of distribution So within that you're going to have tradition. You always have traditional non traditional assets to that model, right? traditional is you know, this goes back to what's the brand in phase two. Is it A 3000 square foot in cab patio restaurant. Is it a 1500 standalone drive thru? Is it a 900 square foot inline space? what is the actual set up and definition of the brand now into the future? And there could be a couple of those, right? You may say we could do a hub and spoke model, right? That's points of distribution. So maybe you want a flagship store that has a lot of space in the middle, and then you have supporting smaller stores around, right? So there's different ways to play the real estate game. Okay. But I think there's always some sort of perception and plan in place of there's a non traditional and traditional asset of growth to us. And that's all about points of distribution, right? And being able to get the brand and the product within the customer's hands. to elaborate on that, I think once you get past that point, there's art and science to real estate, right? Yes. The art is experience in the market, working with local brokers, just having experience with restaurants, real estate in general. the negotiation of an LOI and a lease, because that is definitely an art. it's very much it's just you know what's reasonable, what's not. having a friend, Jay Z, come in and say, You know, I want them to put 300, 000 towards my build out when it's, 20 bucks worth of rent, like you're just not going to have, right. So there's definitely an art to that. but most importantly, what comes in after that is the science, right? And so being able to look at the data, the demographics, the trade patterns, traffic counts, visit counts. Even potentially like the spending of different users across the area you're looking at and just really being able to Do marry up the art and the science of the deal right from a real estate perspective And I always like to say I always like to start with the art first So let me look at everything in person see everything in person feel it look at the users around it You know go seeker shop some competitors go seeker shop some like minded users of us And then get a perception and then go look at the data and see if it supports what i'm seeing, right? Sometimes if you start with the data first you can Almost get a preconceived notion and then, if it says an A plus site, you go in there and you're like, yeah, that's an A plus site when it really, maybe it wasn't, you just want to believe the data. It's always start with the art first and then hope that the data backs it up. And if it doesn't, you try to figure out what the gap is. why is my assumptions or my experience based off of. How I know everything is looking and doing in the market. what, why is the data not supporting that? Or why is it data telling me something that I'm not hearing or seeing in the marketplace?
Jeremy:Yeah, and one of the things that I'd love to have, ask you about Casey is brands travel and some brands travel really well outside of their core. And some brands are awful outside of their core. And again, I've watched franchise wars fail because they get outside of their core market. And they grow too fast out to their core market. And now they've got a boat anchor. they may have five stores on the East coast. It's West coast brand, but they put five stores in South Carolina and they, the consumers don't know the brand. They've got five locations or they've got one location and now they've got supply chain problems. They've got awareness problems. They've got a marketing problem. They've got, an accountability problem. Talk to me about really even the organic growth outside of the core markets. How do you guys consider that? Do you guys just shotgun it across the country or do you guys, Look to grow organically from where kind of the home base is where you see those things because back to your art and science If the data doesn't match and the art doesn't match It doesn't matter how much you think it's going to go if consumers aren't coming in. It doesn't matter
Casey Cooley:Yeah, I think i'll have a couple answers for you I think so as a company we've grown over 4 000 branches locations across the country in our collective experience, you know over the last 40 years and so we just, we've done a lot of different brands and different markets. So we just know how the markets have been were, 20 years ago, how they were 10 years ago, five years ago, our assumptions of today. So we just have a general idea from that perspective, which kind of helps us say, yeah, we want to grow. So let's just say like it's a Atlanta based brand, for example, like we want to grow in a four to six hour radius around that from support and supply chain and stuff. But we also really know, Phoenix is a really hot market or Indianapolis is a really hot market or, Dallas is a really hot market, based on our experience in other places. And so we, it's usually a balance of. We know we got to own our backyard, but also we know based on our experience, based on our relationship with franchisees and other brands. Yeah, this brand is going to do really well at Phoenix. And if we have the right person. Are the right couple of people that can get us to scale pretty quickly. And maybe we can get the five to seven brands, seven locations over 36 months. Maybe it does make sense to take the leap out there. I think that's the biggest thing is if you're going to grow out there, you've got to get to scale fairly quickly. you can't just do, one store in Indy, one store in Denver, one store in Dallas, one store in Houston. I think you're going to have success, right? There's gotta be a plan of scale against that too.
Jeremy:Yeah, unless you're a brand like, Yardhouse or Cheesecake Factory, where you're just doing crazy volume and you're a destination type location, I'm not trying to downplay what you're saying, some brands have been okay because they'll just put this, they'll put this huge, the Hard Rock Cafe, like they put this huge property into a new city and they're known nationally as that brand that everybody goes to and they do okay, but on the, really the franchise brands, which are mostly, smaller brands that need penetration and need that word of mouth around town and whatnot.
Casey Cooley:Yeah, that's a good question. I think or a good comment. I think you know, you've seen that Portillo's for example I lived in Chicago for six years and like they are doing out great going to new market But they're a nationally known brand like a lot of people know what Portillo's is, right? Or they just have them out the cloud to where you can figure out pretty quickly what they are. You just, it's pretty cool to see what they're doing and these new markets are doing. I think the difference is from our perspective is when you get into the emerging franchise space, because we've always focused on that, is you're likely going into a market where the people really have no idea what this thing is, right? That comes into the real estate play also comes into the franchisee play, you know as a franchisee of an emerging brand We always look for brand ambassadors So who's someone who can wear the logo be the face of the brand? We always like to say that the mayor of their miles shaking hands kissing babies like that is just as important to an emerging franchise concept as the location because You can have a great location great visibility great logo but if people Aren't connected to you to come try it or want to be a part of what's happening and have that relationship with the brand. I think it's a struggle, no matter what type of location you have.
Jeremy:Yeah. and, funny, you bring up Portillo's I live in Dallas. They put that one in the colony, the very first one in Dallas. And I went there within the first month of it opening. And I waited an hour in line in the rain for, I, and I've had Portillo's. I was in Southern California before that. When they put the first one there and I would drive 40 minutes to go to stupid Portillo's. Like I say, stupid Portillo's. I've talked to the team. They're fantastic humans. They've got great food, but like I used to drive 40 minutes. Anytime I was in that part of town, I was like, Oh, we're going to Portillo's because you couldn't get it. Now I've got one that's going to be open. And I'm in between the one in the colony and the one in Fort Worth. And they're opening one about 10 minutes down the road. And I have a feeling. I'm going to be, putting, putting new pants on my, on my shopping list, cause I'm going to be eating there too often. But, yeah, but it's funny you say that. Cause I think some brands travel really well and some brands struggle and they struggle not only because they don't get outside of their core demographic, but then they don't even execute back to what you said earlier. Cause. Portillo's wouldn't be growing the way they are if they didn't execute once they got into those locations Chick fil a. I remember Chick fil a 15 years ago I was in Denver You know when it was there It was one of their markets outside of Atlanta and I was it was one of the very first chick fil a's i'd ever gone to and I'm like these guys kill it you know what you come back whether you're you know The mayor of the mile or not if you're not getting a good experience when you go in there It's not going to matter. You can have the best brand recognition in the world But if you don't execute on what the brand promise is none of it matters
Casey Cooley:100 percent grades. We always looked at like operations, the marketing, like at the four walls as they're running correctly, like they'll go market. Yeah. Let's just get the box ready. And then you can start talking about it to everyone else that's outside.
Jeremy:Yeah. one more franchising question. Then I'm going to ask you Casey to talk about some success stories you guys have had. Some brands have gone to the hub and spoke where it's everything is at corporate and it goes out and there's single franchisees. Others have sold master franchise groups in territories and they might sell South Florida to somebody and they're now responsible for going and marketing and going and finding franchisors. Talk me through philosophically why a brand might do one versus the other.
Casey Cooley:Great question. we've had tremendous success both doing both ways. I think it goes back to the assessment of the brand and what's the best thing for the brand and the growth you want to see from the brand. I like both models for different ways. The nice thing about what we call the area representative model is you're able to get Really good local resources in place fairly quickly. The caveat to the other side of that, if you wanted to replicate that as a franchisor, you'd be hiring, let's just say five restaurant business consultants in five different markets on day one to support five different franchisees versus looking at the area model here. you already have the five and they already opened their first door and then they're already being able to help the other franchisees so Again, it's back to the growth targets and the growth trajectory and how you're willing to set up the business But we've certainly seen success on both sides and it really is about again How do we drive the franchisee profitability? And if it's an AR model that gets really good local talent in place to be the arms and legs of the franchise or almost per se and helping the franchisees go through tax selection, real estate, construction, grant opening, ongoing marketing and operations, and just being able to be that local support, that's That may be the right move, right? And we've certainly had success with that model.
Jeremy:I love that. Cause again, I've watched them be successful. I've watched them fail. I've watched both sides of it. And so I love your insights just because you live in that world. we got introduced talking about Jeremiah's, and that was your intro. So talk to me for those that are less familiar with that emerging brand. Talk to me a little bit about what it is. I've had the privilege of, Consuming more of it than I probably should. but it's fantastic. And so why don't you talk me through a little bit about what that brand is and where you guys are at and that kind of growth curve and what does it look like, in the future and how have you guys made it successful?
Casey Cooley:Yeah, great question. So it's, a founder, founded by Jeremy Litwack and the first store opened in 1996. Jeremy was, classically trained in kind of the water ice of Philadelphia, as a kid. he used to, have carts on the side of the road and used to serve ice and eventually started making his own ice and kind of evolved into a truck during college and just loved the business so much he decided to, his vision and mission was always to make Italian ice kind of a natural thing. he was up there in the northeast where kind of readers was and he decided to go down in his way to florida, I was able to open the first jeremiah's location there in 1996 from 1996 to 2019. It was a corporate store model. we got involved with jeremy and his team in 2019 I was able to help them just set the foundation of the franchising like we talked about and turn on the franchise growth model in between now and then we've You We've opened well over 150 stores across the country, by the end of this year we'll probably get 175 locations open, and have a pretty good setup, pretty good plan from operations, marketing, supply chain, just support to open somewhere between 35 and 45 stores a year as we said today.
Jeremy:That's awesome. you brought up a couple other brands when we're talking pre show. Is there anybody that anybody else that you'd like to talk about their success story and how you've, how you guys have been able to pull that together? Because I could pick two or three brands that you talked about and that we're in our cut sheet, but I'd rather have you talk about the brands that you that are top of mind and as maybe even a unique success story that you might not have known that it was really going to go, but you guys have been able to really kill it for them.
Casey Cooley:Yeah, I think one of the cool things is, one of our latest brands is called Vicious Biscuit. it's, part of that whole breakfast kind of industry you're seeing really get a lot of legs. First Watch is certainly the leader of that. You're seeing a lot of people come behind them from that perspective. But what's been so it's an interesting and cool experience from my perspective with Vicious Biscuit, we started growing them in 2023, we're double store count this year, we'll go from five units to 10 units total, opening the first franchisees this year, is the one day part, I think in the restaurant world, restaurant operators have been a two or three, or maybe even more now with this late night menu, a lot of people are doing like you just have this full day of operations. And what's been such a cool, unique, almost a fresh up right there from a Richmont perspective is we have a business where as a franchisee you're like getting in there around 8 30 or 9. And you're leaving at two to three, like you're able to go pick up your kids from school, go to baseball practice, go to football games on Friday nights. the change of the day to day Through a restaurant lens of that type of model is such a cool thing And that's a lot of the feedback we're getting from franchisees coming through our discovery process as well Like I didn't even know this was possible that you could actually have be a really cool restaurateur and have a cool brand but also have More balanced to your life. And so it's been really cool to see that connection and perception, from experienced operators coming in and seeing that brand and, and being able to utilize that as their next portfolio ad is they help us grow that across the country as well.
Jeremy:Yeah, and I think it's I mean it's funny We do business with the biscuit field group out of north carolina And it's like when we started doing business with them like you'd call the office three o'clock and nobody's there Because they're done for the day and i'm like what is this? You know because we're used to dealing with brands that you know that are open You know for dinner and sometimes up until midnight one o'clock in the morning two o'clock in the morning and you know opens early but similar to these guys, but It's such a different brand experience when you've got this place that's, breakfast and lunch, both for the owner and for really even the consumer. and it's, I guess I'd love your opinion Casey, just cause I've been intrigued. And since you're in the space, why do you think breakfast has taken off post COVID so much more, whether you got first watch, you've got biscuit belly, you've got biscuit. all of these brands that it feels like this, What I call better breakfast, but just breakfast in general, breakfast centric concepts feel like they've just taken off. And not only the innovation of different ones, but also even the consumers, demand for them.
Casey Cooley:I don't have any data to back this up. I'm sure there's some out there and maybe my perception and belief was. Me reading some data now it's my belief, but I think during COVID people were looking for ways to get out of the house and experience things, depending on where you were state and city and the time of year, I think breakfast became a part of that, at least I think like from my perception, we had a newborn kid right in the middle of COVID and my wife and I were just like, 45 minutes? So it's breakfast was really easy to do that. and so I think that was some of it. Just people looking for experiences to get out of, what they're having to do during the week. everyone was working from home and they were grinding them all. The kids were doing school from home. And now here comes Saturday and Sunday. It's Let's go to Bronx, let's have let's go have a cool experience. it's definitely more cost effective for a family to go to Bronx versus, a dinner. and I just think that was somewhat part of that trend,
Jeremy:Um, and I think they've also brands have upped. The anti though, I would say as well, because the consumer is expecting in the world of Instagram and Google reviews and Yelp, everybody's expecting, again, we do business with hash house and go they've got this big monster sage fried chicken and waffle dish. That's just, it's fantastic. It's going to be your day's worth of calories on a plate, but. People are looking for that experience that, that is craveable and goes out and that's a little bit of my opinion, they're no longer going, not that I hopper Denny's or any of those guys are bad, but like when you go to first watch, there's a different breakfast experience than the diner that all of us grew up in, years ago, it's a little bit up, the ante is upped on the food quality and what you can get. It's very unique, experiences. Growing your business can mean big time logistical questions like, how am I going to keep up with all these local deliveries? Let UberDirect offer you a helping hand. With UberDirect, you can take orders on your website, via app, or by phone. Then drivers who are part of the Uber courier network will pick them up from your store and deliver them to your customer's doorsteps. Sounds simple, right? Delivery just got better with UberDirect. Check out uberdirect. com to learn more.
Casey Cooley:Yeah. I think the cool thing about breakfast is you can, I think from perspective, we. There's some cool culinary elements to it. it's, biscuits, but better, it's we like a daring perspective of flavor profiles and combinations and cool things, big plates. And so I think you have a little bit of, allowance from consumers to play in that world for breakfast, where if you're going to a sit down dinner, like my fillet better be a fillet and I have better have great sides, right? And I got a nice glass of wine with that breakfast. I think you get, the ability with consumers to be a little more playful with it, and I think that kind of rolls into the experiential part of what people are looking for. It's Oh, that's really cool. I didn't think of that. Holy crap. This plate's massive and great food. I'm just full experience. so I think that's part of it, too. I think break breakfast. Can be a little bit more fun and playful and more of a, even sometimes a party, if you want to have a craft mimosas and just have a fun time with your friends. So I think that kind of provides some of that element to it too. It's just, you're able to have that flexibility and increase some cool experiences through the black breakfast platform.
Jeremy:thank you for that. and again, not data backed, but I do think it's interesting'cause it definitely has been one of those areas where we've seen, a lot of innovation in a lot of white space where people are doing some really cool stuff and, and fortunately in the breakfast space, a lot of the margins are pretty good too. So with the margins being good, it ends up being, being that franchisees can make some money. Casey, how would people, so I've now. 30 minutes in, 35 minutes into listening to this, I wanna learn more about how to franchise or how to be a franchisee. Like I, I'm a franchisor and I'm like, you know what? I got 12 units. They're all corporate and I wanna figure it out. Or the opposite. I'm now, running some restaurants and I want to go jump into the franchisee world. How would they get in touch with you and what would that look like to engage with you and your team?
Casey Cooley:Yeah, that's a great question. the best thing to start would be to go to our website at PivotalGrowthPartners. com. We'll be able to see some information about us, directly get in contact with us. whether you're a franchisee or a prospective franchisor, we can take you through two different, pathways. Pathways we have of information and conversation that we can have with you to see if this is a mutual fit conversation. regardless of whether it's a fit or not We love talking with people in both spaces we love, you know talking with the restaurant guys and creators and founders to at least we have a 45 minute conversation It may not be the right thing But if we give them a couple nuggets of advice and great same thing with the franchisee, you know If you're a prospective franchisee You know, we have a pretty detailed process. We take all of our franchise candidates through no matter what brand we have. And, be able to at least share our, from our perspective, what franchising is through our brands and help them make a conscious decision of this is the right thing for them or not. That's a big component we've been in our discovery days or confirmation days that we bring our kids to is. Hey, like this, we want to make sure that this is right for you, right? This isn't a sales thing. Like we've presented all the data you've talked to other franchisees, you've experienced a brand. Like we want to make sure this is right for you. And we want to make sure you're right for us. Because we always see that as a longterm relationship. And again, whether you're a franchise or a franchisee, you starting at our website, it's the best path and we'll,
Jeremy:and I think, if people have gotten to this long into the show, they've learned a ton from you on what you guys have found to be successful. Cause I was, selfishly, my goal on this show is always to educate our listeners, whether they decide to partner with you guys and decide to engage. I want them to walk away with one or two nuggets. So thank you so much for giving me and the audience and insight on what you guys have found to be successful. And what are those things that, that work really well, for the partners that you guys are already working with.
Casey Cooley:Yeah, I appreciate the time and the platform and again Hopefully I was able to help some people listening out there and look forward to hopefully joining you guys again in the near future
Jeremy:Awesome, to our listeners guys Like I said, we appreciate you guys each and every time you guys listen if you haven't already subscribed to the show whether you're listening on audio only or you guys are listening on youtube We did launch youtube in late 2023. Go check us out. Give us a subscribe there casey, thank you so much for your time and to our listeners. Make it a great day
Thanks for listening to the Restaurant Technology Guys podcast. Visit www. RestaurantTechnologyGuys. com for tips, industry insights, and more to help you run your restaurant better.
