If founders, chefs and other creatives are the beating heart of the restaurant industry, then franchisees are the veins delivering their ideas to all corners of the globe. Franchising is critical to the success of the industry, allowing brands to quickly scale their big ideas using other people’s capital. And whether it’s a mom-and-pop restaurant owner with one or two franchised restaurants or a seasoned veteran whose influence in the industry is well-known, franchisees — with all their individual attributes, styles and personalities — make a huge impact on the success of a business.
In this week’s installment of Franchisee Spotlight, we spoke with Little Caesars and Houston TX Hot Chicken franchisee Chad Curtis about what it’s like being a dual franchisee in partnership with his son and another father-son and how he feels about helping to expand the emerging hot chicken concept.
Store breakdown
Eight Little Caesars locations in Kansas City, Missouri, eight in Tulsa, Oklahoma. One Houston TX Hot Chicken in Utah that opened in February, with more on the way
From Little Caesar’s to Houston TX Hot Chicken
We've been in business for 18 years. The [Little Caesars] brand is obviously very strong and doing well…. My son reached out to me, said [about HTHC] ‘hey, we should go check this place out.’ We flew down, met with him in Vegas and loved the food. That’s what sold us. I believe that anybody can open a restaurant and be successful, but you have to have a quality product…I just knew people were gonna love it. So we signed on the dotted line to open. We're gonna start with eight stores in Utah and see where it goes from there.
Two brands; big differences
We've been able to take our knowledge with Little Caesars and implement some of those ideas and bring them over to Houston. But at the same time, Houston has their own way of doing things. For example, Little Caesars doesn’t have a lobby, whereas Houston obviously does. I have spent a lot of time working in our lobby talking with customers and in fact, that's how we're going to get our second location. I was working our lobby on a Saturday afternoon and a landlord came in that was secret shopping our concept and he was impressed that we're in the store working. [All four owners] are in the store working front and back of house to make the brand the best we can.
A family business
I had a business partner named Dan Walker. We were soccer coaches together with our two sons. At the time, we had discovered the Little Caesars brand, saw how fast it was taking off, and wanted to be a part of that. So, we started talking and decided to be partners with Little Caesars. We started with one restaurant in Tulsa and then, five years ago, we had the opportunity to go into the Kansas City, Missouri market. From there, we asked our two sons if they want to come in to the Little Caesars business with us and both of them did. It’s been a great experience. One of the things you always worry about is bringing family in.
Dan’s son Taylor handles more of our construction side, and then my son Carson was the district manager in the Kansas City market, and now has turned that over to Taylor. Carson has moved out back to Utah and is overseeing the growth and daily operations of Houston's. We have our 18 years of experience, and they’ve got their youth at 28 years old. They’re on top of the technology, they understand it and love it. It’s been a great combination of experience.
No staffing issues
We were a little bit overwhelmed with how strong the response was in the market to our brand. We have lines continuously out the door, so that obviously put a lot of pressure on a crew that had never worked together before. But with the ownership group in the store basically working open to close, we were able to create a culture that has not driven people away. To this day, we still have a lot of our opening staff with us. For the most part, we've had very little turnover, and everybody's trained there. One of our biggest compliments that we get from people is the culture of when you walk into our store, and how the employees treat every person that comes in. … I feel like maybe we, as the ownership set the culture and try to keep it fun and positive.
Crisis mode
If there's a crisis, sometimes that's where we get pulled a lot. Last weekend, tornadoes went through Tulsa and wreaked havoc on the city. A lot of our stores were without power, so we’re trying not to lose food. So that's where my attention goes when something like that happened, but luckily, we have great management in every operation. Our managers have been with us for over 15 years. We trust people to make the right decisions. So, when there is a crisis, we stand by them, we try and communicate that if something happens, and they have to make a decision, we go with it.