Buzzworthy Brands

How Rise Southern Biscuits and Righteous Chicken is back in growth mode and is now seeing profits increase at both company-owned and franchised stores after its founder and CEO Tom Ferguson realized the concept’s complexity was setting franchisees up for failure. 

Restaurant Business Editor-at-Large Peter Romeo joins the Buzzworthy Brands podcast to discuss promising recent signs for on-premise brands, and how these concepts will be forever changed by the pandemic. 

Bluestone Lane, the 50-unit coffee shop-cafe concept with Australian roots, was hit hard by the pandemic. But founder and CEO Nicholas Stone said the brand is moving from survival mode to a renewed focus on growth. New York City-based Bluestone Lane opened its first store in 2013. Until the coronavirus crisis, it had been on a fast growth clip, opening 44 stores over 42 months. Today, the chain is working on reopening stores temporarily closed during the pandemic, with plans to open 15 new locations this year and debut in new markets in 2022. Bluestone operates two different concept types – a small footprint coffeeshop and a larger cafe, geared more toward on-premise dining.

Roots Chicken Shak has two units, in Plano and Austin, Texas, right now. The restaurants themselves are tiny, but Chef Tiffany Derry and her business partner, Tom Foley, have grand plans to change the franchising landscape for entrepreneurs from underrepresented groups.

Derry and Foley are working to create a business model that is easy to step into for hard-working people who may not have the capital to get involved with a traditional restaurant franchise.

After deciding a career in law was not for him, Gregory Zamfotis started Gregorys Coffee in 2006 in Manhattan.

Since then, Gregorys Coffee has grown to about 30 locations around New York, New Jersey and Washington D.C. The chain roasts its own beans and makes the bulk of its food offerings at a central commissary.

Knead Hospitality & Design is a multi-concept restaurant group based in Washington, D.C. The group not only runs its restaurants, but it designs them as well.

Listen to the conversation with Knead Hospitality & Design’s Founder and Principal Jason Berry.

Twelve-unit fast casual Viva Chicken specializes in Peruvian style marinated chicken cooked over a charcoal-fire rotisserie. The brand started in 2013 in Charlotte N.C. and grew, thanks to funding from a group led by restaurateur Dennis Thompson. Thompson founded Firebirds WoodFired Grill, among other concepts.

Gerald Pulsinelli joined Viva Chicken in 2019, after working with Thompson for nearly two decades at Firebirds. That year, Viva made a number of tech upgrades that would serve the concept well during the pandemic.

Please listen to this Buzzworthy Brands interview with Pulsinelli to hear about those upgrades and what the growing chain has planned for the future.

R.J. Melman grew up working in his family’s restaurants, starting as a busser and moving up to a prep cook and restaurant manager. Since 2017, he has served as president of Chicago-based multi-concept group Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises (LEYE), after taking over day-to-day operations from his father and company founder, Rich Melman.

Melman joins the Buzzworthy Brands podcast to talk about how his company comes up with new concepts, the difficulties of creating virtual brands and what he has learned from restaurant failures over the years.

Despite the pandemic, growth brands have reasons to be hopeful, Restaurant Business Editor-in-Chief Jonathan Maze says on the latest episode of the Buzzworthy Brands podcast.

Casual dining chain Sixty Vines started in Plano, Texas about four years ago. It now has four units in Texas and Florida, with a couple more planned for 2021. The concept focuses on wine in kegs, which are billed as being good for the environment, having a longer shelf life and always being served at the proper temperature.