Episode 114: George McLaughlin with Vicious Biscuit

Welcome to another episode of The Corner Booth, the official podcast of RestaurantOwner.com.

Today, the restaurant industry is changing faster than ever. Learn from successful independent restaurant operators and other industry leaders as they share best practices that will help you engage your team, delight your guests, and grow your business. And welcome, everyone, to another Corner Booth. I'm Chris Tripoli with RestaurantOwner.com. We've got a special one coming from us. Some of you have been waiting for this one. Can you say Vicious Biscuit?

Because we are in South Carolina, and what we've got is Vicious Biscuits coming at you. George McLaughlin, who is the co-founder and the CEO of Vicious Biscuit, is with us today. And I'm very, very excited you were able to take some time out. This is a fast moving, hot brand. And I can't wait for the listeners to learn a little bit more about it. George, thank you and welcome to Corner Booth. I appreciate it. It's an honor. I enjoy your podcast. It's very entertaining and very informative.

Well, great, great. Our listeners have fun. They tell us that they enjoy learning from one another.

And so in that vein, maybe we should start by, before we jump into all the details of your concept, why it's working, how well it's working, maybe you could just tell them a little bit about you, your background, how you got interested in hospitality. What was your first step? You know, it's really interesting. I grew up in manufacturing. My father was in manufacturing.

So my first summer out of college, I went back, got a job at a yacht club, waiting tables, and me fell in love with it because of the interaction with customers.

When you're working manufacturing you don't really get to interact with customers and then went back my second semester and in or second year at Ole Miss wanted to stay in Oxford so I applied to probably the hardest job you get at the time in Mississippi was at a deli called Checkers at the time it since changed its name to McAllister's Deli it was founded by Dr. Newcomb and his two sons Chris Newcomb and Neil Newcomb and so you know fell

in love with it immediately ended up working almost full-time while going to school full-time when I graduated in 95. I told Dr. Newcomb, you know, through my junior and senior year, missing out on football games and all the great fun of college, that I was like, if you ever think about franchising, I'd love to be a part of this. And so right when I graduated, he asked me, he said, look, we're going to open our fourth location and just outside of Jackson, Mississippi and create the

franchise company. I said, well, hey, I'm all in. So when I graduated, I'll never forget my mother at graduation asked me, are you preparing for graduate school? And I said, no, I'm actually going to take a job as a deli manager. And she was like, you know, she was totally puzzled by it. So we went to Jackson, helped the family start the franchise division. I quickly was running the general manager of their number one location,

helping them write what was called the UFOC back in the day. Now it's called the FDD. And training the first franchisees. Was there for about a year and a half and then became the first employee to become a franchisee. So jumped from Jackson, Mississippi, all the way over to Columbia, South Carolina. And here I am today and couldn't be more happy to be in South Carolina. That's fantastic. Right. For manufacturing. See, the neat thing is restaurants encompass all of that. I mean,

we are a company. It really do. We manage product. You know, we're obviously manufacturing something, but then we also roll it into the retail sales guest experience piece, too.

Good story. Yeah. So, yeah, I was a franchisee and sold out in 2007. 2007 got out of the restaurant business and then for 10 years you know the thing about the restaurant industry is once it's in your blood you can never get it out it's a curse and a blessing at the same time and so I looked at I don't know probably 100 different concepts while I was starting other companies and I got into the retail world got into the development business got into all these different businesses and then had

this opportunity when I was introduced to a guy who wanted to open his own biscuit restaurant their mutual friend who was his private wealth manager and he Looked at this concept and said, man, it's a great idea. Didn't really care for the name at the time. Tried to get a location that was here in Mount Pleasant, just outside of Charleston. Couldn't get a long-term lease at the time, so we kind of tabled the idea.

And then three months later, read an article, food critic here in Charleston, wrote this raving review about Michael Greely, who just started his Vicious Biscuit, you know, kind of catering company. And called him up. I said, listen, what do you want to do with it? He says, I just started and thinking about trying to get a food truck. I said, look, I build brands. I said, if your food is half as good as your name is, I want to meet you.

I said, Google my name, put Columbia Saucon behind it. You'll see I have restaurant experience. He called me back 30 minutes. He goes, can you meet me tomorrow morning in my house? I said, absolutely. So I went down there, had his food, blown away by it. It was better than I expected. And I said, look, I'm going to put you guys in a test kitchen for a year. We're going to build this out.

That moment when we were standing in his kitchen, we called the realtor back and said, you sure you can get us a long-term lease? And he goes, you know what? I can now. So it all happened all at once. And so we quickly built it out. Took us a little over a year to really develop the menu. You know, we took, we, great, you know, Mike and Joshua, great chefs. And so we kept it very simple. We used the KISS method, keep it simple, stupid. Yeah.

Not over ingredient our product and really kept operations very simple. And so, you know, we opened up December 22nd, 2018, three days before Christmas. You know, who does that? So out of the business for 10 years. Yeah, I was out of the business. And then you got back into a big time. Yeah, I mean, I helped some others, you know, because 2008 and 2009 was not too favorable for the restaurant industry or for the world in general.

And so, but I always wanted to get back into it because all the other industries I was involved in, you know, my wife asked me, you know, two years ago when she saw I was working long hours when we just launched a franchise company. And she said, you know, are you glad you're back in the restaurant business? And I said, absolutely. Couldn't be more happy that I'm back in this profession because, you know, you get to see the immediate gratification of your customer when you serve a product.

But also very young kids, you know, grow up and learn about business and learn how to deal with the public. And to this day, I mean, 30 years since I started my first franchise, I still run into some, you know, my employees that have grown up and say, you know, I learned everything about life and business working with you at Macalester's. And so it's very rewarding to me to be able to run in and see those people. And we keep in touch.

I mean, we just, we opened our seventh corporate location in Columbia, South Carolina, where I started the franchise, my first franchise as a franchisee. And I had all these employees that worked for me 30 years ago showing up to a grand opening. It was just a, it was a great reunion to see really what the restaurant business does for people in general. You know, that's a good point. It is. It is something to see. And I hope the listeners are making note of that, that this people business

is a two-sided coin. And you mentioned both. You know, we're driven by, of course, the people side, the service, the guest experience. But I love it when I hear people talk about the flip side, the enjoyment of seeing people grow, seeing staff enjoy their work, cross-train, gain some valuable life lessons. Obviously they did and they connected with you if they came years and years later, to congratulate you on this opening.

Yeah, it was great. I mean, we have a simple motto in our company, and it says employees first, customer second. You take care of your employees, they're going to take care of your customers. But we always remind them, we're not in the restaurant business, we're in the entertainment business. People still dine out for the entertainment. I mean, we are really a hospitality-driven brand.

We have third party, we do have a lot of takeout and catering and everything, but people really come to Vicious Biscuit for the pure entertainment of it. And really because the food's incredible. And, you know, I got to give all the accolades to Michael and his team for creating such a fantastic menu and experience. So, let's give a give us a picture of it now, because, I mean, the name is great. You're doing well. We follow you in the trades. But for people who are listening,

let's start at the beginning. How does Vicious Biscuits work? What kind of a day part? Who's the customer? Menu offerings? Sure. So the best part about us, we're open from seven to three, seven days a week. The best, like I said, the best part is our managers and our employees, they work one shift and their managers manage one shift and they're home by, you know, 3.30, 4 o'clock in the afternoon and have a way of life.

You know, there's a lot of people that still want to be in the hospitality industry, and this gives them even a better way of life with working with vicious. But, you know, we're typically, I mean, everything's built around the biscuit. We have some amazing stuff like, you know, the Fat Boy, which has our special seasoning fried chicken with, you know, pimento cheese and a hot honey sauce on it on a buttermilk biscuit. It's impressive. I mean, it's the size of a plate.

You know, we have a jam and butter bar. So a lot of people will take off the top of the biscuit and be able to go and sample our homemade jams and butters. And it's just, it's a great experience. But we also have what we call the not so vicious side, our lightly vicious side, which is, you know, very healthy items from egg white omelets to different types of omelets to, you know, a yogurt bowl to an oatmeal bowl.

And we're really into a keto bowl. So, because we always knew in this, you know, I've been in the business for 30 years and you always know there's always that fourth rider in the car, the veto vote of, you know, the person is always on the diet and kind of dictates where those four people go to lunch. And, you know, we wanted those options. And so it's been very, it's been very successful in that manner. Very high volume. We do counter service. I didn't want to get back into full

service. I've been in it. I wanted one person to represent the brand. So we really treat it like entertainment. You know, our stage is our front counter. Customer walks up, places the order. We give them the drinks. They sit down. We take care of the rest. We make sure they bust their tables. And so it really gives us about five touch points with that customer from both the caterer to the manager on the floor, to the food runner, to the busters.

I mean, it is really, it's really more, to me, it's even more than full service in what we do. And it allows the customer to be a part of the experience. And so it's just, it's been a very fun brand to get back into because our, you know, our employment base is, we don't have to hire trained chefs. We have a very simple systems and SOPs that we've put in place since day one.

And, you know, it's like I was saying earlier to, you know, my 15 year old daughter went to work with me the first day and two weeks she was practically running the restaurant and she has worked every single station from back of the house to front of the house. And what we do is we set it up to make sure, most importantly, that our back of the house is just as involved as our front of a house with our customer experience. And so, you know, we do a tip sheet of cross equally with them.

So there's no front of the house against the back of the house.

It's always on one mission, and that is to serve the best, highest quality food possible in, you know, eight to ten minutes and make it feel like a truly chef-driven, fully, you know, full service kind of restaurant. So these are really cool. I know they're oversized. They're fresh baked. And then these biscuits are in sandwiches, plates. I like it that you've got the lighter things. You've got the bowls. With the kitchen involvement, is this because it's also an open kitchen?

Do people see from behind the counter some kitchen activity? No, it's not an open kitchen. You know, they always joke with a funny developer I worked with when I was in development business. He always said, you don't want to see how the sausage is made. It's not an open kitchen simply because we keep everybody in kind of a four-foot box. So we really look for productivity and not having, I mean, you know, this is my manufacturing background. It's how fast can you move the widgets?

And that's really what it is to be able to do the high volume that we do. So that's why we have the food runners. We have, you know, the expediter, and then you have everybody. Everybody plays a role. We cross-train everybody in every position. That's great. I think that's key. And that, again, is something that we seem to hear repeatedly from people who are growing successfully, is that they have a very simple program for staff. Everybody buys in. Everybody learns every position.

So this way, everyone can help everyone. Do you find that people actually stay longer if they're more involved and can do more than one position? Absolutely. Like, we don't just hire a dishwasher, right? We hire back of the house or front of the house. And there's a lot of times where our front of the house wants to learn the back of the house. And that's why we cross-pring everybody.

We want to know, we really, the moment someone starts with us and when we onboard them as an employee, we teach them. We want to teach them every single thing about the business. As we're growing, any new manager I hire, I say, listen, you teach me that you can empower people, that you can work through people, not around them. You can teach every one of your employees everything about this business. You give me two great years and you come back to me and say, hey, I want to be a franchisee.

I'll find a way for you to be a franchisee. I want them to have the same opportunity I did when I was 24, when I opened my first location and built it up to 17 restaurants. You know, you got to start somewhere, but you got to learn the business. And so to run a successful business and not have, you know, your employees be stagnant or have high turnover, we want to teach them everything about the business. And we want them to rotate and work every station of the business.

Because, you know, when time gets tight, which it always does in the restaurant business, you know, it can get pretty hectic. We want to make sure the front of the house knows what the back of the house is going through and how they feel. So they work as a team. And if you don't, then you have back of the house against front of the house. And so that's why we cross train and all of our employees, they've worked almost every position.

How large are your stores and what kind of capacity, you know, are you able to seat? Yeah, so our first location was 1900 square feet. We sat 80 people inside, 40 on the patio. Typically right now we're about a 3000 square feet, 100 inside, you know, 30 to 40 on a patio. And it's just, it's about turning the table. So, I mean, from the time people are way in deep in our line all the way out to the street, they get in that line, they go through the line, order, sit down, eat, and leave.

It's anywhere between 45 to 48 minutes. So, our mission behind this was to make brunch fun again. I mean, we were the ones that kind of really brought into the mimosas and alcohol to this quick casual segment. And it's, I mean, look, our success has really been our customers. I mean, you can read all our Yelp reviews or, you know, Google reviews, and we have some of the funniest reviews ever that we actually have a customer quote board of.

And a lot of them we can't post because they're not PG, but they're unfunny. I got one yesterday. I wish I could tell you what it was. Maybe I'll tell you offline, but it was hilarious. And so we really have been building through our customers. Yeah. And word of mouth. Now, I know that that is one of the keys. And we've heard that through the industry. You have really built an extremely strong, loyal, very active base. So you can't share what they're saying, but maybe you can share a little bit

about the demographic. Is this really more large groups, families? Is it workers? Is it more female to male kind of a place? Well, we do have a little bit higher percentage of female, but I would say 18 to 45 is really kind of our sweet spot for the kind of the older demographic that is more on our not so vicious side of the menu. Yeah. But really it's.

What's crazy about this concept compared to the other two that I was involved in, our customer base is so, it's such a wide variety of customers from when you see them come in at 7 a.m. To who comes in at 9 a.m., who's coming in at 11 a.m. I mean, it just changes constantly. And I think that's the biggest comment we get when prospective franchisees come in and they go to our, you know, kind of our model training store and they go, wow, I was thinking it'd be a certain type of customer base.

I'm like, no, we cast a very wide net because of the food that we serve and how good it is and our price points. So it's, you know, you can't say, well, we fit this segment. No, we, like I said, it's a very wide net. We cut us out there. Again, that's another really key foundational step that we see in successful concepts that are growing today is they've got that multi-market demographic, that little bit of everything. Wide age group, small parties, large parties, that kind of thing.

So there's a couple of things I'd like to revisit with you. And one is they're in, they're out fairly quick. It's like a 45-minute experience. They're fairly regular, you know, coming off. And that's another really good trait. How are your guests with things like car side pickup, third-party delivery? Do you have a lot of that? Or is most of it in- Yeah, I mean, our third party is growing tremendously. The great part about it, it's not replacement sales, it's incremental sales.

So it's really helped. You know, they see the long line and then they, you know, they get on the third party. We're actually have in the process of developing our own app to become a first party type of pickup. We do a lot of takeout. Probably 20% now of ours is there. But again, we are truly a hospitality driven brand, an experience driven brand.

So people come to us for entertainment. And like I said, when we wanted to make brunch fun again, you know, I used to take my family to brunch all the time. Now they're off to college. So, you know, it's me and my wife. We can sneak in and go up to a bar. But the problem now in brunch is on full service. It's, you know, it's an hour and a half, two hour hours. Right. Eventually. We knew that people want to get in with their family and their young kids and they get in and get out.

And during the weekday, that really helps them as well, that they know they can get in and get out pretty quickly and still have the highest quality, you know, experience with our food. And you mentioned earlier that a lot of this is also because of the price point. What's the range of PPE that you seem to get?

We have everywhere from a $7 biscuit all the way up to a $17, you know, large plate where it's our crab cake that's, you know, kind of really a Charleston style crab cake with honey, you know, hollandaise sauce. It was featured on just one of the, one of the influencers that just went crazy one day. And so, you know, typically average check you're, you're looking at anywhere 15 to 16, that's including a, you know, a drink or coffee. And then, you know, we sell a lot of crafts and mimosas.

And especially to the, it's crazy, as our biggest customers on Tuesday and Wednesday are the nurses that get off of that night shift and come in and they get a gravy train or they get a vicious and they get a craft of mimosas and then go home, go to sleep and go back to work. So- On Tuesday and Wednesday is a craft- Tuesday and Wednesday, you'll see a lot of medical staff. I like it. It's quite unique. It brings good confidence to our healthcare system,

don't you think? It really does. They're also willing to come hang and put some alcohol through their system. Yeah. What is the percentage of sales? I know sometimes people are stunned by seeing counter service, but also has some limited alcohol. I see it sort of as a growing trend, especially in the breakfast-lunch segment. Does it account for a larger percentage of sales than one might estimate? It doesn't. During the weekday, you're anywhere, depending on your market,

four to six percent. And then on the weekends, higher, you're anywhere from six to eight percent. That's not really what drives our brand, even though we have some really unique cocktails and our ramosas and Bloody Marys are amazing. But it's really, you know, we're driven by the quality of our food. And so, you know, the majority of our locations have bar seating, even though you order at the counter.

There are a lot of people that, you know, single eaters that will come in, meeting by themselves, like to sit at the bar and be a part of the atmosphere. It's like my wife and I, when we go out to eat, we like to sit up at the bar to be a part of the experience. And, you know, you get really better one-on-one time with more than one bartender and learn about the business and interact. So that's, you know, again, we're in the entertainment business.

Well, I think we got a pretty good picture. The size, the flow, the price range, the type of customer, the menu. I mean, obviously, we're hungry. Yes. Okay, so let's switch a little bit to the structure. You got this started. You opened one just a few days before Christmas, but that was back in 2018. Now you have how many locations? We have seven corporate locations. We have two franchise locations that just, well, have been open for, one's been eight months, one's been about five months.

And then we're about to have two, well, actually, we have four other franchise groups opening up this year. And then we'll continue to develop corporate locations from, you know, South Carolina, North Carolina market. We have 13 franchise groups right now. We launched franchising really in November of 2022. That's when we finished our FDD. We launched it in February of 23, right when we flipped the switch on FranConnect.

Because what I did was, from my experience of being part of a franchisor the first time, really learned the do's and don'ts of how to structure it. So I really reversed and engineered it. I wanted to grow, you know, at least no less than six corporate locations before we started franchising to really figure out who we are, you know, and we opened up in all different markets to really figure out who our customer is.

So then we could do an AAU study with Technomics, which is an attitude awareness usage study. Surveyed. 30 plus thousand of our customers to figure out, hey, what do they love about the brand? What do they not like about the brand? What makes us tick? Why do they come to us? And what was amazing about that study was there was nothing negative about our brand. They were just, they would rave about our food. They rave about our service.

The only negative thing that we would get is we weren't close enough to them. And so it allowed us to really develop kind of our real estate model before we started franchising. So now when our franchisees come on board, we're able to use a very, I call it the rifle approach, not the shotgun approach to real estate. Yes, yes. Caratories.

And we, listen, we have people call us, I mean, when we launched franchising, the day I flipped the switch, we had 136 applications, we only chose five franchisees out of that first tranche. Since then, we probably had over a thousand requests for interest in franchising. And we have 13 already signed and we're about to sign five more this year. We really want to take a methodical approach in how we build franchisees because we don't consider them franchisees.

We consider them partners because it's very important to me to protect the brand. I was part, you know, the Macaos, when we first launched, we were, you know, Dr. Newcomb, he would, we were selling to anybody and everybody who could write a check. And that we quickly learned that was not the right approach. You had to find a great person to represent the brand. And that is so key to us. I mean, we go through a very in-depth process when choosing a franchisee.

It's about a two to three month process to make sure they know how to empower the employees, but more importantly, protect the brand and be passionate about the brand because you want brand ambassadors out there. That's how you protect your franchisees and their investment, because you don't want somebody in Auburn, Alabama, drive through over to South Carolina and not stop at a vicious because they had a bad experience somewhere there.

What we did when I was saying about kind of really reverse engineering our franchise system, we wanted to build out the tech stack to have first in class technology, data, and really understand everything about the brand and really develop the SOPs. And the only way you can do that as a franchisor is you got to take the risk. You got to go out there and make the investment and open not just two locations.

We open seven locations before we open our first franchisee because you're going to learn as you go. No matter how long I've been in this business and how many restaurants I've opened in my life, you learn something new every day.

And we just want to make sure that we give the best path to success for our franchisees and to our managers when we open corporate locations to make it easier on their life. You know what? This is a real, real important part. And I'd like to maybe go back and have you kind of amplify some of the steps.

And it's because today, maybe more so than before, I see and I hear from a lot of our smaller independent restaurant companies, people beginning to grow on their own, talking more about wanting to grow through the method of franchising. There's also more people than I can remember before that are wanting to enter our business, coming from other industries, and are mentioning wanting to find maybe a unique franchise to purchase rather than, say, start something from scratch on their own.

So knowing that we've got these two trends, I'd really like to kind of underline some of the real important keys that you mentioned. You know, one being making certain that you really, really know your business. I think you said that no matter how many years you've been in the business, you still learn. So you don't want to quickly franchise.

Did I hear you correctly? You want to make sure that you're really ready and you feel like you understand everything about your business so that you can better prepare a franchisee. Yeah. I mean, there's, there's an old saying, you know, you build a plane when you're in the air. Well, I have my pilot's license. I would never build an airplane while I'm in the air. I build it before I take off.

And the thing that I always say, cause I get asked all the time, cause I mean, Charleston is a huge foodie market. There's some great, unbelievable concepts here. And I get asked all the time to meet with them and talk to them. And I always say, look, first off, don't be afraid of failure. Learn from your mistakes. I make a mistake every single day. All I want to do is make sure I learn from it. So you've got to really test your brand to make sure you understand it.

And you have very detailed and simple operations. If it's very complicated and complex and you have to rely on one person to execute a certain task, then it's not a franchisable market or a franchisable concept. I wanted to keep the system down to where anybody can run it no matter their skill level. And that was very, very important to me. And then it's really understanding return on investment. You know, as a franchisor, we go out and we test all different types of equipment.

I tell our franchisees, I say, listen, I'll never tell you to go and buy a certain piece of equipment unless we test it in at least seven of our locations and we can truly prove to you the return on investment. But going back to your original question is, anybody with a new brand, if you only have one location, you need to go out into a completely different market and test it and see who your customer is.

We chose literally seven completely different markets to test Vicious before we launched franchising. So we knew who our customer was, where we're going to be the most successful, because we want our franchisees to be successful. We don't want, I don't want 100 franchisees in 100 locations. I'd rather have 20 franchisees in 200 locations because I know they're going to be really the brand ambassadors. They're really going to, they're going to have staff that's excited about their own growth.

And that's what's, that's what makes a very successful franchise, individual franchises. And that was the second point that I noted. You know, when you were just kind of rolling through how you made it work so well, after, of course, the knowledge of the business, open more stores. keep things simple. Then you talked about how special these franchisees are because you refer to them more as partners.

So there's got to be a certain selection process that you develop along the ways of certain traits that you wind up having to decide that you're looking for so that they connect, you know, with the culture so that they, you know, you feel like they will obviously go represent and protect the brand. How do you, you know, select your franchisees and qualify them so that you've got, you know, that sort of family member feeling. Well, the first thing we do is when we receive an application,

we use Frame Connect and they enter into our system. We get the information. We'll do a quick screening call, which I do as the founder. I mean, they're shocked. The first call they're getting is from the founder. And I sit there and I talk to them. The first thing I look for is, are they a people person? Are they going to empower their employees, empower their people to be successful? That's the number one thing I look for. If I get on a call and they're saying,

hey, look, I just want a good return on investment. I just want to open one of these things up. I said, you know what? Thank you very much. Might want to look into a different franchise. That's not us. We're an experience-based brand. We have developed such a great culture that that's what fuels our growth and fuels our ability to grow with great employees. But if I don't get that from the franchisee or the prospective franchisee right on that call, and it's typically an hour-long call.

I mean, I've had calls at all of 10 minutes. And I said, you know what? Really appreciate it. This is not a fit for you. restaurant business is maybe not a fit for you because you know that's it's it's so essential to make sure they really understand we're in the people business not the restaurant business and if they don't have that mentality at first then they're not going to be a right fit for us.

Boy boy oh boy is that so important okay and i bet you have had some of that since you're such a popular very attractive brand it doesn't surprise me that you've had some of those calls you probably had to say, time out. This isn't a numbers game. Please call somebody else. Yes. I mean, we've had some very experienced franchisees with, I mean, we had a franchisee with 60 units of another concept and they come in and they've had it through the process very well.

And we'll go out and we'll secret shop their restaurants to make sure their operations are good. But more importantly, we interview their managers and see how they like working with them. Do they communicate? Do they encouraged? Do they empower you? Do they teach you? If I don't hear that, we don't accept them. But the cool thing that we've gotten through all the discovery days we've done with some very big operators is they always come to me at the end of it, which is about a day and a half.

And we do an immersion day with our operator to see how they are as a, you know, get to work in the restaurant, see how they interact with our employees and our customers. And from that, we've got the biggest compliment we get is they come back at the end of that discovery day and And they look at us and they, they mean, you mean to tell me you have all this technology, you're this far advanced for such an emerging brand.

And I was like, look, guys, this is my first rodeo, I said, I'm years old, I've had a great life. My daughter wants to come back into this business. I don't have to do this, but I'm so passionate about Vicious. And so is my daughter and my son who want to come back in the business. I want to grill, build a great brand for them. So I got to protect them by making sure I got the right franchisees and the right partners coming into the system.

That's excellent. I like the immersion day. That kind of gets us right into the next step. After people are properly selected, they're fired up. How do you work the education, the training, indoctrination, ongoing support? What are the tools that are used? How long does it take? Yeah. So when we go through this, so we tell any prospective franchisee, you should interview us just as much as we're going to interview you.

And once we get through that process, which is about a two to three month process, we accept them. We honor them a franchise. And typically we do no less than three units. They will then come on and we go, what we start is our onboarding process. So we work with them both through site selection. Then we have our standard LOI that we use to send out to landlords. Then we work with them on making sure that their lease is tailored to their liking and what they should be doing.

And then we go through and we work with their contractor. We have an architectural firm we use that will then go out and design their location. We hand that off to a contractor they want to use unless they want to use one that we've used before. And then we'll value engineer their restaurant to them to make sure that we're getting the best bang for the buck for them, that their pricing is right. Because I've built over 50 restaurants. I should know it by now. I do learn something every day.

Believe me, I just got off a call from one of our franchisees down in Mississippi that, you know, something new always happens. And then from that, we do kind of reverse engineer on an onboarding process where we work with a contractor and say, okay, at this date, you think you're going to get a CO? Then we reverse engineer the timeline. And so every week for 30 minutes, we have a Zoom call with them and say, okay, have you done this, this, and this?

We literally hold their hand all the way through the process until they get their CO. And in that process, we even actually start their kind of their marketing plan where we build up to a, you know, a silent opening. And then we do a grand opening four weeks later. So we really make sure that sales continue to grow. You don't have a huge honeymoon period and drop off. Now, the training process is a four-week training process.

However, because I was saying earlier, we have a very first-in-class tech background in this business. We do, we use ExpandShare to be able to train or really educate their managers before they ever come to training. Because when they come to training, we don't want this to be the first time they've ever seen Vicious. They literally know the menu, know the recipes. And we're going to training. They can pick up this in three weeks. And in the last week, they're managing our restaurants.

Right. And you get to go through the full morning back office side of it because you got to teach them if they don't have that restaurant experience, we always require them to have a experienced operator, be a part, be vested in the business. And then from there, a week doing back office. Good. Yeah, that makes great sense. No, I love it too that they got to get into it first so that when they get into training, it isn't totally new. They've already developed a little bit of appreciation.

They've seen things from the customer side. Then they go through the training. A couple of other key points there that I think are so important is how not only do you help with the site that they're finding, review of the design, key purveyors that they use, But I really like the timeline assistance, where once you know when they anticipate that certificate of occupancy, you go backwards with the timeline so we know when we have to do things and they overlap.

We don't really hear that as much as we'd like. And I think that's one reason why so many restaurants wind up either stumbling, opening up maybe a little bit later than they should. They wind up dipping into the working capital because, you know, it's longer than they thought. And it was just because that timeline wasn't reverse scheduled tight enough.

So it's good that you do that for them. Yeah, I mean, since we've implemented that process, the last five restaurants have opened within a week of the targeted time of 100 days out. And so we literally work within a week. And if there's a delay in an inspection or if there's a problem with the delivery, we can adjust it to make sure. I mean, the most valuable asset you have is time. We can never make up time. If you lose time, you lose more money. And it costs you far more money,

much more to open a restaurant. And so we really can tell them, here's when you need to start looking and recruiting a general manager. You know, typically if they're not an experienced operator, that they already have an operator hired and working with them. And then we know exactly when to put them in training. So when they get out, they're two weeks away from their silent opening. So there's threat coming right out of training, going right into it. And then we send five of our members out.

Two-week period of time where we send one person out four days before they open to make sure everything's set up. Then two more come out to do training classes. And then we roll right into a soft opening to where we do a lot of local store marketing. In our soft opening, we're bringing in people from around the community while we're opening to make sure we slowly ramp this up and really develop our skills before four weeks later we do a grand opening.

And that kind of rolls right into the next thing I was hoping you would comment on.

And you just mentioned that. Not just the pre-opening, all of the training, now we're opening, but that guest interaction starts with a really well-planned marketing approach. How do you guys find the best way to announce to the community, involve the community, attract the guests that you attract? Really, we want to be seen as local, right? And so our local store marketing really starts well before we open the restaurant. We get out in the community, talk about the business.

We do have kind of a digital approach to where we can slowly, quietly send out kind of that teasers, that what we are bit by bit before we have a silent opening. But we really build it up for the grand opening. We don't want us to get swamped the first day we open. Sometimes it's inevitable because they see the sign go up. They see the name. They start seeing people at the door. And it never fails. We'll open on Monday. And by that Saturday,

we're slammed. But we usually have, you know, we have five or more people there to help and support that franchisee or even our corporate locations when we do the opening. But it's really, it's really boots on the ground that local store marketing, getting out there and really get to know your community. We'll have, you know, a military appreciation day. We'll have, you know, first responders day. We'll have the medical responders, the educational side.

We bring them in the first week after opening, and we invite them in with special discounts and giveaways for a full week leading up to that grand opening to really kind of, you know, be able to test your team and stress your team a little bit, gradually, but controlled. Mm-hmm. Right. Great, great, great. Well, so much is going so well, and you've got so much on your plate.

I'd love to hear your comments on the challenges that I think a lot of people are sort of nervously watching with anticipations of cost increases, the idea of rents for good spaces and finding right locations. That's always something that growing concepts seem to have to develop a way around. And so how do you see the challenges that, you know, might be stumbling blocks and how are you going to be clearing them? Yeah, I mean, I think since 2023 and 24 was probably the most challenging times

in the franchise world and in the restaurant world. I mean, it's from from 0-9-10.

I mean, I was talking to our franchise attorney who's been in this for 40 years and I was asking him the first week in December, I said, hey, recap 2024 for me, what you experience with all the brands you're in he's like this has already been one of the most challenging years and from on the franchise side of it we we give 18 months for our franchisee to open their first location a lot of them are just 12 months right but real estate has been very difficult.

Because of ppp money you know from 2020 to 2022 kept a lot of bad concepts alive and that really actually backlogged the real estate market because there was also not a lot of new real estate being built. And it was kind of cost prohibitive to build new locations. Now that you're seeing these new locations come on board, they're very expensive. Like I look at some of them and just shake my head and say, how is anybody going to make it in that market?

I mean, you get in this business to make money so you can grow. You don't get in this business so your landlord makes all the money. So we're very methodical on how we choose locations.

Really, the data that we've aggregated through all the restaurants through the nine that we have open now allows us like i said earlier take a rightful approach not a shotgun approach to a market and we really study those markets ever before if we have a franchisee calls from a certain market and we look at it and it doesn't score favorably for us we tell say look sorry i know you love your hometown it's not quite fit for us if you want to move somewhere else which we've had two franchisees do.

You know, we wanted to ensure the best success we can possibly give them with the knowledge that we have. But it's not just on data. Once we choose a market, we're still boots on the ground looking at locations and so forth. The cool part about it is once we have a franchisee come on board, we'll do a PR and announce they're bringing Vicious Biscuit to their town. That's when the landlords start calling them. And that's how you feel great. You find great locations.

Locations that are advertised right now they're they're unwanted right so the locations we always find are the pocket listings or a restaurant is is is going out. And those landlords call us. I mean, I get real estate calls every day and from markets all over the United States. And I say, look, we don't have a franchisee in that market yet. I appreciate it. They're like, we love your brand. Do you want to do it? I'm like, no, we stay concentric as a corporate.

But with our franchisees, because of the simplicity of our concept, we're able to really handle distribution very well. Because that's, you know, probably the biggest challenge for concepts that are starting. Yes. Too many SKUs. They got too much, you know, specialty items and all that. We've really pared it down and kept it very simple.

Like I said, when franchisees come in, respective franchisees come in, they look at it and they go, they look at our dry stack and go, well, where's all your stuff? And we're like, that's it. We make everything with that. And so it's very shocking to them. And does that help with the next challenge? People are concerned with, you know, cost of goods and issues that we've been having with productivity, availability.

But because of your limited menu and approach, does it help you or are you still kind of concerned with particular product availability? It tremendously helps us because of the simplicity of our menus and the little amount of SKUs that we really have. You know, look, I just saw an advertisement for Waffle House. It's a 50 cent surcharge now on eggs because of egg prices. Well, like I said, I've been in the franchise world for 30 years.

We already had contract pricing where we buy the highest quality egg known, I mean, that's out there. I mean, if you look at the yolk on the, how rich the color, the deep yellow, almost an orange rich flavor to our yolk, that's, that's truly, that's essential to me. We are not going to be cheap on the products we use. And because of that, we have the availability for it. And for that, we're able to buy, because of our volume, we're able to have some really good locked in contract pricing.

I mean, we, we've locked in with our eggs now for the next eight months. We'll get through it. I mean, I mean, bird flu is not new. It's been around. I've had it for 30 years. And so it just seems that there's like always something. I mean, it's eggs, bird flu, or it's bad freeze. Juice is going to go crazy because Florida gets smacked. It's lettuce from California. It's, it could be right now. People are concerned with terrorists from other countries. Watch out.

Avocados could be a guacamole excise tax. You know, there's all kinds of concerns, but it's really good to hear that you've got prime vendor agreements, contract pricing, so that you're buying ahead. That's right. You have to in this industry. You got to be very forward thinking.

Well, we've got so much going right. This is fantastic. Thank you so much. I can't believe the time is gone already, but this has been really, really good. I've enjoyed every little kernel of truth you've thrown out, every step that you've learned that you've shared with our listeners. I appreciate it.

Could you give people how to get in contact with you? If someone would like to learn more, obviously I want everyone to go to the Fish and Spiscuits website because not everyone is as fortunate as some to be in Carolina or Ohio, Louisiana, Florida, where you have locations. So for all of you out there who are not in those areas, go to the website and just let your mouth drool. Somebody will be coming your way soon. Right. I mean, it's Vicious Biscuit, V-I-C-I-O-U-S-B-I-S-C-U-I-T.com.

And, you know, if you're interested in franchising, there's a little franchise tab over there. But really check out the menu and then come see us. I say that to anybody that calls us. I said, have you visited one of our restaurants yet? And they're like, nope. I'm like, all right, let's have that call after you visited us. George, thank you. Thank you very much. Appreciate it, Chris. Thank you, everybody. Remember, Vicious Biscuits, if they're not in your area, it sounds like they're

coming pretty soon. So thank you very much for joining us today, George. Thank you for having me. And thank you, everyone. And I hope I can look forward to seeing you soon at another Corner Booth. Thank you for joining us on the Corner Booth. We'll be back next Tuesday with more inspiration, insights, and industry best practices to help you engage your team. delight your guests, and grow your business.