MOOYAH Burgers, Fries & Shakes Announces 10% Restaurant Increase With 20% of New Openings from Existing Franchise Owners

While 2020 was a tough year for the restaurant industry in general, the 86-unit better burger franchise MOOYAH Burgers, Fries & Shakes bucked the trend: It grew its system by 10% last year.

And of those new restaurants, 20% were opened by the people that know it best, the brand’s existing Franchise Owners. These owners believe that MOOYAH is stronger than ever and want to keep growing with it. 

For instance, Jordan Barrow has been a Franchise Owner with the brand for 12 years and owns three stores in the Birmingham, Alabama area with his family. The third location opened last year because Barrow wanted to capitalize on his existing success in the area.

“The first two were doing very well, and we’re establishing the brand here, so we opened the third store.” The location was perfect, sitting next to a popular sports stadium for the Southeast Conference Baseball, plus other high-traffic sporting events during the year.  

But then COVID-19 hit, which shut down most regular sporting activities in the Birmingham area, a blow to his customer base.

So while Barrow won’t tell you the last year’s been all sunshine and rainbows, he remains bullish on the brand. In fact, his long-term plan is to open up to five stores, though he’s waiting for the shakeout from the pandemic to happen.  

Why? He’s got a proven product that people respond to, he said. 

“We just have faith in the market,” he said. “And our customer base has to have the confidence to come out to eat again,” he said. He said he’s seeing it happen already. 

“The vaccines are slowly creeping out, but I think it's getting there. We’ve got to get people back out doing things, and when that happens, our sales will come back and we'll be fine.”

He’s not the only Franchise Owner who’s still investing in MOOYAH. Josh Bergeson, who along with his brother and father, started with the brand in 2015 in the Madison, Wisconsin area, just opened his fourth store there in 2020. 

He believes that despite the turbulent times of the pandemic, his stores have the momentum to succeed and grow with the brand. “In the last couple of years, we really started moving in a positive direction,” he said. 

“The people who are guiding the ship are on the same path,” he said. “We’ve seen focus on streamlining the brand without compromising quality and speed of service. We’ve really got the wind at our back.”

In fact, while the COVID-19 crisis has been tough on some locations, others posted sales numbers higher year-over-year numbers in 2020. 

Bergeson points to innovations like the improved MOOYAH rewards app as one example of ways that the company has been able to continue to keep pace and move the brand forward. 

And while he doesn’t want to get out over his skis, he believes he can continue to grow with at least one more store in his area while also focusing on increasing overall profitability for his existing stores.

“We have some amazing people that work here, from general managers to line cooks, and ultimately, that’s why we want to grow. It’s not just to create opportunities for ourselves, but for all the people that work here.”