“Grumpy's looking for the right franchise partners” Featured On Jacksonville Business Journal.
By Stuart Korfhage – Digital Editor, Jacksonville Business Journal.
Jan 5, 2022, 3:08am EST
With the success of several new locations, Grumpy’s Restaurant is actively seeking new franchise partners in Northeast Florida.
But CEO Daniel DeLeon said he isn't looking to grow so quickly that the brand will lose touch with the things customers like best about the restaurant, like freshly made dishes and an expansive menu.
Grumpy's has its original location in Orange Park and has expanded to Middleburg and St. Johns, and a fourth diner is in development in Wildlight in Nassau County. There's also an agreement for a restaurant in World Golf Village.
The diner, which serves breakfast, lunch and brunch, is looking to expand to markets like Mandarin, Julington Creek, San Marco, Riverside, the Beaches and St. Augustine.
Including a franchise fee of $40,000, the initial investment necessary to open a single location ranges between $414,200 and $998,000. Each Grumpy’s Restaurant location will occupy approximately 2,800 square feet of real estate and will have approximately 110 seats.
DeLeon talked to the Business Journal about franchising and the restaurant business in general. This Q&A has been edited for length and clarity.
What does it take to make a great restaurant?
A place that can deliver on high-quality food, service and high-quality environment at the same time — consistently.
For us to be really successful in this business is to be really good at operations.
We're committed to traditional Americana-style diner food.
Most restaurants have come out of this (pandemic) with a lot smaller menus and a lot less prepped items in house. We're committed to making everything in house, everything the old school way.
We don't want to cheapen the product. We don't want to cheapen the experience in any way.
What are you looking for in franchisees?
We’re looking for people who are very strong in operations. We want to uphold that high standard all the time, and we're looking for people who are willing to commit to that.
We're not in the business of just gifting franchises to people. We really are strategic in the partners we have and think that's going to really benefit us long term. We could have had double the stores by now, but we wanted to be really strategic on the franchisee and the site to make sure it's perfect for us.
How many new franchisees are you planning to add?
We have two franchises that are slated to open next year. Those are both 100% done deals.
And then we're anticipating two to four a year. We feel really comfortable with that goal.
How does this region look to someone in the restaurant business and how do you pick locations?
You always want to be in a growing environment (like Northeast Florida).
Our business model is actually to go to neighborhood sites as opposed to downtown corridors or Main Street America.
We actually like to be in the working class neighborhoods. That's our customer. That's what we love. We feel we fit perfect there.
It's the perfect opportunity all over Northeast Florida and the state of Florida for those communities with that rapid growth, especially the rapid growth of planned communities. We feel we can do really well in a lot of those communities.
We all know about the labor shortage. How has Grumpy's dealt with that?
Our hiring woes have been much smaller than a lot of our friends in the industry. Because pre-pandemic and during the pandemic we actually did not let anyone go.
When they reopened dining rooms, we hit the ground running.
Also, we paid a competitive wage pre- and post-pandemic. Our staff was pretty much at that (the $15-per-hour level) — about $14.60 as back of the house employee already pre-pandemic. So we're over that now.
We have a performance-based pay structure, so we pay very competitively. We've always been kind of the leaders in that pay because we really want to keep great talent. And then we always have a lot of room for advancement.
Also, quality of life. We close at 2 p.m. everyday, which is huge. A lot of staff has transitioned from dinner restaurants.
For more information, visit: www.GrumpysRestaurantCo.com/Grumpys-Blog
Check out Grumpy’s Restaurant and the whole article at “Jacksonville Business Journal”.
#Grumpys #GrumpysRestaurant #Franchising #Restaurant #Franchise #Florida #Breakfast #Brunch #Lunch
See the page by clicking the button below:
