Mighty Quinn’s Targets D.C. for Expansion

Five years after The New York Times included Mighty Quinn’s Barbeque on its “10 Best Restaurants” list, the brand that helped kick off the New York barbeque craze is expanding outside of its core markets, where it’s already established 10 thriving corporate-owned locations.

For the BBQ brand’s newest locations, Mighty Quinn’s is turning to franchising, and it has its eyes set on Washington D.C. for its first new batch of U.S.-based partners.

According to Mighty Quinn’s co-founder Micha Magid, Washington D.C. offers a number of advantages for new franchise locations, not the least of which is the district’s close proximity to New York.

“This is a concept we believe can work just about anywhere, but it’s important to us that each new location has the best possible support,” Magid said. “By focusing first on D.C., we can make sure our new owners have access to all the people and resources that our New York restaurants benefit from.”

Magid says D.C. also bears a strong resemblance to New York City in a number of important ways.

“New York and D.C. are both foodie towns, and they both have a lot of professionals who are looking for high-quality food served quickly,” he said. “That’s not always easy to find, and it’s exactly what we offer.”

Magid is confident those similarities will allow Mighty Quinn’s to replicate its initial success in a new market. Crucially, the brand has already proven successful both as a franchise model and as a concept with consumer appeal across disparate territories. Though D.C. may be home to Mighty Quinn’s first franchise locations in the U.S., the brand has already established five franchise locations in Taiwan, the Philippines and Dubai, all of which have enjoyed the same high consumer demand that has kept the brand a hot property in New York for half a decade.

“The success of our international stores shows us two important things,” Gourmos said. “The first is that the franchising model works. We’ve been able to package the operation and support owners in markets far away from New York. The second thing is that the concept has universal appeal. Those international locations are not places people associate with barbeque, but each restaurant quickly found a strong customer base.”

New franchise partners in Washington D.C. will also benefit from a uniquely flexible build-out model that will allow them to start small or corner an entire territory right away. Each Mighty Quinn’s restaurant gets its meat from a local kitchen location, which also serves customers. Franchisees can open à la carte satellite locations in the same market as an existing flagship restaurant. Magid says that model will allow Mighty Quinn’s to attract the best investors with a wide range of financing power.

Magid says he has little doubt Mighty Quinn’s will have any trouble finding strong franchise partners in D.C.

“We’ve done our homework on the market,” he said. “Not only are the demographics right in our wheelhouse for consumers, there is a great pool of potential franchisee candidates as well. You don’t need to know everything there is to know about barbeque, because that’s all packaged in the model. We’re looking for folks who can follow that model to a T and run a rock-solid operation. We want people who have seen what we’ve done in New York and abroad and are excited to bring that to D.C. We expect to find those people quickly, and we’re excited to get started.”