A Breakfast Restaurant Serves Up a Fresh Expansion Trick
Retail centers have a lot of food options they can add. Most of them are lunch and dinner. But what about breakfast or brunch?
Orlando, Florida-based Another Broken Egg Café is adding locations in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Alabama, Arizona, California, Florida, Kansas or Texas.
The franchise has signed 10 new franchise agreements for 31 locations spread across those states. Pushing out from it's southern roots, the latest deals mark the first major wave of growth since the franchise was acquired in November 2017 by New York-private equity firm The Beekman Group. Pennsylvania, Arizona and Kansas are new markets while the others will see additional locations.
Just this week, the franchise opened two new locations – Auburn, Alabama, and Sugar Land, Texas – that feature the brand’s “first new store design in years,” said Clay Carson, vice president of franchise sales and real estate.
For a breakfast and brunch place, the bar area has become more prominent. Locations tend to be in tourist areas and near universities.
“You’d be surprised how much we do in bar business,” Carson said. “It’s about 11% of our business.”
Total investment in a single location ranges from $510,600 to nearly $1.2 million. Each new franchisee has to be able to open three locations.
When searching for locations, the goal is to find premium spots, even if it makes taking over space emptied by a failed restaurant. The company looks for 3,500 to 4,200 square feet, preferably space at the end of a shopping center that has a patio area.
“We are not afraid to maximize the occupancy costs” to get prime real estate, Carson said. “We can drive business by taking ‘A’ properties.”
