Flame Broiler, the Korean-inspired restaurant brand on a mission to simplify access to healthy, affordable food, announces the appointment of Christian Lee as Chief Operating Officer and Daniel Lee as Chief Marketing Officer and Chief Technology Officer. At Flame Broiler, the Lee siblings have extensive experience executing high-impact growth strategies including the launch of digital innovations, building a network of corporate locations, enhancing guest experience initiatives as well as pioneering new products and partnerships to reflect the brand’s Korean-American roots. Christian and Daniel Lee share a core vision with their father and Flame Broiler founder, Young Lee, to serve accessible, nutritious food to help people live the way they were designed. By joining their father, they are able to accomplish their mission as they lead with purpose and strategically move the company forward.
When Young founded the brand 28 years ago, his dream was to work alongside his sons, but never expected for that to become a reality. Both Christian and Daniel showed interest at an early age, starting as dishwashers and eventually mastering every position in the restaurant. The two became franchise operators of a Flame Broiler location and led the business for four years to gain valuable experience in running a successful restaurant. They have spent over a decade learning the intricacies of the business on every level, from on the ground operations, technology, marketing, to people and culture.
In the past several years, Christian and Daniel have played a significant role in leading the company through the pandemic, while particularly focusing on building a stronger restaurant support center. Throughout the challenges of the pandemic, the family made a decision to not lay off or furlough a single employee. Instead, they focused on strengthening the support center team – establishing a new Directors Team and achieving a 94% average employee retention rate. The youngest Lee brother, David Lee, has also recently joined his siblings. The brothers now have set goals to modernize and digitize the brand, as well as drive loyalty and leverage data for the brand moving forward.
“We believe Flame Broiler has endless potential and we've only scratched the surface on what we can do,” said Christian Lee, COO of Flame Broiler. “The heart of our mission is our belief in the power of food to impact the world in a positive way. We trust in 3 key pillars of the power of food: food is fuel, food is opportunity and food is community-building.”
In addition to the appointment, under the leadership of Christian and Daniel Lee, Flame Broiler is announcing the launch of its new Flame Broiler App as the latest step in its use of technology to create personalized experiences for their customers.
“We have almost three decades of history with an incredibly loyal base of customers,” stated Daniel Lee, CTO and CMO of Flame Broiler. “The launch of the Flame Broiler App is another powerful tool for our loyal fans to order wherever and whenever they want, and to share our healthy food with more people.”
Looking ahead, Christian and Daniel are charting a new path forward for the company alongside their father. They’re introducing the brand in new formats like drive-thrus and takeout only units, leveraging both corporate locations and franchisees. Franchising has been key to their expansion since the beginning of the company’s history and the Lee family has always been passionate about providing opportunities to people in the community to become business owners.
“We’re here to do whatever it takes to serve our franchisees, employees, and customers at a world-class level. To us, it’s extremely rewarding to be part of a company with so many amazing people all working towards a common purpose. Our dad has done an incredible job building the brand for the past 28 years, and we’re grateful we get to join him in our family’s mission-driven legacy,” said Christian Lee, COO of Flame Broiler.