Below is a summary of an article by Judy Mottl (originally posted by fastcasual.com)
Eggs Up Grill CEO Ricky Richardson was one of four franchise industry leaders who offered tips, insight and best practices for achieving success as a franchise and franchisee during the 2021 Restaurant Franchising and Innovation Summit.
Ricky shared how Eggs Up Grill was able to accelerate the growth of key revenue channels during 2020 and throughout 2021.
“First off we had no to little technology inside our restaurants [prior to COVID] and just a few franchisees even did third party delivery. We went from that to 25% of sales in the digital channel within a 120-day period and we’re really staying focused on the quality of execution in those channels.”
At Eggs Up Grill the new normal is very new as the brand had less than 5% of revenue outside of its four-wall stores before COVID-19. Now that figure is up to 20%.
“Strategically you can’t lose sight about what is it about your brand and about your experience whether inside the four walls or through these new channels. What is it that’s unique about your experience and it just can’t be price. We want to make sure at our early stage of growth not to forget who we are and forget what’s unique about us in the minds of our guests so that we don’t run for a short term benefit that ends up distracting us from the bigger opportunity we have.
Within Eggs Up Grill many franchisees are single unit owners with a small population of multi-unit operators and most have not come from the restaurant world. Richardson said the franchise starts with a common selling point and theme focused on the uniqueness of the brand, which is now 24 years old.
“We’ve only closed one store in its history. So, we sell the success of the brand and a clear understanding of what has made it successful. We really hang our hat on welcoming everyone into our restaurant and building our whole experience around that and our brand is very approachable. It’s a very down to earth concept and our level of affordability is also a very important part,” he said.
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