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One of the iconic franchise’s leaders shares his thoughts on how the brand has stayed relevant for over a century and why its growth prospects now are stronger than ever.
The 500-plus-unit franchise brand A&W Restaurants is a force to be reckoned with in the franchise world. The brand, now more than a century old, continues to grow both domestically and internationally, and it currently aims to award 25–30 new franchise agreements and open 10 to 12 new restaurants in 2022.
Paul Martino, A&W’s chief operating officer, sat down with 1851 Franchise to discuss the brand’s continued growth prospects and why the brand remains one of the hottest investments in its category.
Paul Martino: I worked for a number of very large companies before joining A&W, in both private equity firms and publicly traded companies. When I came to A&W, it was like becoming part of a big, happy family. The brand is more than 100 years old, and it’s great to be with a company that has been established for so long and has such a familial sense of community. I’ve gotten to know many of the franchise partners, some of whom are second- and third-generation franchise partners, and that’s been great.
Martino: I think the biggest thing we’re doing well right now is managing our supply chain. In the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, when supply issues were one of the industry’s biggest obstacles, we were able to maintain our supplies for our franchise partners.
Another thing that our brand is doing well right now is communication. Whether it’s among our leadership team or with our franchise partners, we offer webinars and field teams that provide one-on-one meetings with franchise partners every day. Improving our communication across the brand has helped to prevent a lot of problems.
Martino: Our pipeline for growth here at A&W has never been stronger than it is today. We currently have about 25 projects in our pipeline and hope to issue 25–30 new awards in 2022, with 10–12 new store openings by the end of the year.
Martino: Throughout 2020 and 2021, we took the time to really focus on the basics: ensuring that food is served or delivered to customers to the same high standards we’ve always maintained in our stores. That means hot burgers and ice-cold root beer. No compromises.
During the pandemic, we also took steps to ensure that we were taking care of our team of franchise partners, because when you take care of your team, they’re better able to take care of guests, and then those guests become loyal customers of the brand.
We also took a hard look at our menu. We found that both customers and franchisees could benefit from menu optimization. That is an ongoing project, and the goal is to streamline our menu to offer only the best, most crowd-pleasing items while making operations easier for owners and managers.
Martino: My vision for the brand is to continue to grow our average unit volume. We have successfully achieved that every year for the last 10 years, and we want to keep that trajectory going. These last two years for A&W have been the largest periods of growth we’ve seen in the last decade.
I also envision us growing the brand’s restaurant count, adding more points of distribution and continuing to nurture relationships with our franchise partners.
Martino: Our ideal franchise partner thinks of themselves as a partner to the brand and as a member of our family. We want franchise partners to strive to represent the brand the best they can day in and day out. We spend a lot of time listening to our franchise partners and we want them to communicate with us regularly. That’s part of why our franchise advisory committee plays such a critical role in our operations. At these meetings, we discuss menu and product development, as well as the brand’s marketing strategy. From there, we align our values and goals with the group before we make a decision for A&W. Then, we get out there and execute it. It’s worked well, and we plan to keep that going.
The total investment necessary to begin operation, not including rent or land costs, is $871,000 to $1,469,554 for a Freestanding Restaurant; $401,000 to $1,051,088 for an Inline Restaurant; and $276,000 to $704,000 for a Captive Restaurant, including a $15,000-$30,000 franchise fee.
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