Franchise Chefs Spill Their Secrets

Ready to meet the faces behind the food?

A recent article from Franchise Times shined a light on some of the chefs behind your favorite franchise menus. Unsurprisingly, each interviewee had a unique take on their establishment, as well as what it takes to differentiate their offerings from the competition.

Take Elliot Jablonsky, executive chef at Buffalo Wings & Rings, who refuses to let food fall by the wayside in favor of the chain’s other offerings.

“The wings places are driven by the sports dynamic, the screens and all that,” Jablonsky told Franchise Times. However, he also said it’s important to “establish yourself as a more interesting wings place,” which is why Jablonsky is constantly on the hunt for new flavors to entice guests.

Meanwhile, Angela Vega, director of culinary and food safety at Back Yard Burgers, must come up with delicious burger ideas that can be ready in approximately 3 minutes or less – 90 percent of the chain’s locations have drive-thrus, after all.

And, as her job title suggests, Vega has more to focus on than just crafting tasty burgers.

“[Our goal is] to make sure our guests get a fantastic product and a safe product,” Vega said. “We want to have higher standards than the health department. We want to have squeaky, squeaky clean restaurants.”

At the same time, it’s important for chefs to ensure items match their menu, including the pricing. This is a lesson Checkers and Rally’s’ Senior Director of Research and Development Ryan Joy learned firsthand when putting his sweet tooth to work.

When revamping the brand’s dessert menu, Joy realized items costing as much as $4 probably weren’t a good fit.

“For a burger chain to have a $4 dessert when we don’t have a $4 burger, seemed kind of weird,” he told Franchise Times.

So he updated and upgraded while lowering the price point.

Clearly there are a host of factors franchise chefs must keep front of mind when doing their jobs, but with the way customers keep coming back, it’s also clear they’re succeeding. And as customers, this is one situation where we all get to benefit from someone being good at their job.

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