Layne’s Chicken Fingers, the Soon to be Famous™ chicken finger franchise has built its reputation by following a simple principle: Identify what you’re good at and become great at it. By keeping its focus on providing great chicken fingers, Layne’s has stayed relevant with guests without overcomplicating the business model, and this positions franchisees to reach high volumes more easily.

Lucas Bergeson, one of the owners of Layne’s of Janesville, Wisconsin, said the model continues to perform, offering one of the easiest pathways to thousands of dollars in sales per day.

“I remember our soft opening. We had high hopes for our first day of sales, but they were still tempered by the fact that we’re in a small town,” he said. “After the dinner hour, I felt kind of bummed. I remember thinking, ‘I know we wanted to start slower, but this just felt really slow.’ Then I looked at our sales. I called our director of operations and said, ‘Alex, we’re at $8,000! That’s the easiest $8,000 I’ve ever seen!’”

The Bergeson family has been operating high-volume restaurants for a decade and have a good understanding of what an $8,000 day looks like in other models, but with Layne’s, Lucas said he continues to be surprised.

“We’ve done $8,000 a day in other concepts, and I just couldn’t believe it. We said the same thing with 10, 12, 14, 16 and 18 thousand dollars: ‘It shouldn’t be this easy,’” Lucas said. “It almost seemed like it was too good to be true, which often is the case, but this is one of those rare instances where it has not proven to be too good to be true.”

Now, with eight months of operations under their belts and more Layne’s locations on the way, the Bergesons continue to see great results, even noting further improvements in speed and efficiency.

“The operations, from the food prep to the day-to-day tasks, are really streamlined,” said Josh Bergeson, who co-owns the Janesville location with his brother, Lucas. “Making the food and serving the guests is so streamlined, it’s hard to believe it’s that easy. We usually expect some pitfalls with early restaurant openings. For example, during our first busy weekend with our first concept, we were running 25-minute ticket times. With Layne’s, we peaked at eight minutes during the first couple of days, and that was without sacrificing the speed of the drive-thru. Once we train everyone, it’s a breeze. It’s incredible.”

The Bergesons shared that one of the most important contributors to the ease of operating a Layne’s restaurant is the care and thought the leadership team has put into each aspect of the restaurant. For example, Chief Operating Officer Samir Wattar accounted for how many steps a team member would need to take throughout their shift when planning the layout of the back of house. 

“We’ve put deep thought into every aspect of the business,” Wattar said. “We know we’re great at chicken fingers, and our goal is to continue being great. We’re not going to overcomplicate it or chase a trend. Keeping the business lean allows us to further hone our model and processes and make it even more enjoyable for high-volume teams and operators.”

“The simplicity of the menu allows for all of the ingredients of every single meal to be located in one centralized location,” Lucas said. “Everyone is getting chicken fingers. And we can keep things like cheese, bacon and sauce in a small space.”

The menu’s simplicity goes even deeper, benefitting franchisees as they plan staffing for each day. 

“In every restaurant, you’ll have someone on the grill, someone on fries and someone on builds,” Josh said. “And that’s true with us, but instead of five or six proteins, we have chicken fingers. It’s either going to be regular chicken or spicy chicken. It’s so straightforward, and once we get it moving, it’s really easy to keep it moving and keep the food hot and fresh. It’s the best chicken you’ll ever have, but it’s really easy to train and cross train team members to make it.”

During high-volume times, everything comes together quite nicely. 

“We know what the guest is going to order, and we can predict pretty well how many tenders we’re going to need at a given time,” Lucas said. “Oftentimes, in our concepts, the busier a restaurant gets, the harder it is for the crew. With Layne’s, it gets easier; the crew finds a nice pace. We’ve actually found ourselves doing more paid marketing than ever before because we know that more guests will make the crew even happier. Rather than grinding through the rush hoping for a little bit of relief, Layne’s teams get excited for the rush.”

To find out more information on costs to buy this franchise, please visit https://1851franchise.com/layneschickenfingers.