How Sunny Street Café® Provides a Scalable Path to Business Ownership

Mike Stasko, Sunny Street Café® Vice President of Brand Strategy, has been building Sunny Street Café, the Columbus, Ohio-based breakfast and lunch concept with over 23 corporate and franchised restaurants throughout the nation, into an ideal franchise for entrepreneurs seeking a scalable business opportunity since 2007.  

Now, potential franchisees are starting to recognize everything that the concept offers, including solid support for entrepreneurs, quality products and services to keep customers coming back and the flexibility in both site location and working hours that franchisees need to reach success. All of these factors help franchisees achieve the revenue that is needed to reinvest to continue scaling their business. 

Support From Day One Sets Franchisees Up For Growth

Sunny Street Café offers unmatched franchisee support with resources that are not guaranteed from all corporate teams in the franchise space.

The corporate team supports franchisees through real estate, construction, marketing, the grand opening process, training and staffing, and any other challenge a new owner might encounter along the way. New owner-operators and general managers go through an eight week training program to ensure they are fully prepared for the work ahead of them. 

“We're very cognizant about decisions we make at the corporate level and how they impact the restaurants,” explained Stasko. “Our new store opening support is above and beyond what you might typically receive from a brand. We bring everybody to the table, and we are fully invested in the success of an opening and each location’s ongoing success.”

This makes owning a Sunny Street Café incredibly accessible, while the focus on prolonged success leads to scalability. 

“We have franchisees that don't have a restaurant background, and they’ve still achieved a ton of success,” said Stasko. “This is a clear indicator of the effectiveness of the training and implementation system we offer. We can bring in folks that have an entrepreneurial spirit and that have a passion to get into the restaurant business. They don't know what they don't know, and we are here to help with that.”

This was the case for Megan Ada, one of Sunny Street Café’s successful franchisees. With little prior experience, she walked into a Sunny Street Café and joined Stasko for breakfast. 

“I inquired about what steps I needed to take to become a franchisee,” recalled Ada. “He actually sat down and talked with me. He was very friendly and took me very seriously, which was a great feeling since I was only 24 at the time.” 

Stasko advised Ada to work in a restaurant for a year and learn as much as she could about the franchise, so that is exactly what she did. Now, she has found success with her own Sunny Street Café franchise in Westerville, Ohio and has had great success and tremendous sales growth. The success and additional revenue Ada has achieved has given her the resources she needs to continually reinvest in the location and her employees, along with the confidence to ensure the smooth operation of her business. 

Quality Service and Products Lead to Customer Retention and Profitability

Ada particularly enjoys contributing to Sunny Street Café’s standard of a high level of service. While this is not required of franchisees, Ada enjoys being a part of “an environment where people are working hard and enjoying their jobs.” 

She has been very hands-on in her business, some days bussing tables, serving food and working in the kitchen among her staff.

“Everyone has a good time, and it truly is an environment where people notice that we actually really enjoy our jobs,” said Ada. “I’ve created this environment and the guests that come in are always complimenting me on how hard our servers work and how happy they are to be working together.” 

The atmosphere of teamwork among servers that Ada has created fits in perfectly with Sunny Street Café’s ethos of prioritizing its customers’ experience. Stasko explained that, because the brand continues to provide exceptional service and great tasting food, the restaurants don’t close. 

“As we are a family owned company and we own restaurants ourselves, we have skin in the game,” said Stasko. “We’re making decisions with consideration of ourselves and our franchisees. We pride ourselves not only on providing exceptional food and service for our guests but also an outstanding business opportunity for our franchisees.”

Franchisees have corporate support and consistency throughout the network, so that all Sunny Street Café’s offer the same great customer experience; when a Sunny Street Café customer sees the name, they recognize the brand and know what they can expect. This is great news for franchisees as it helps ensure their success as a business and gives them the potential to scale in the long term. 

In addition to a great restaurant experience, Sunny Street Café has a robust catering program which extends the reach of the brand and can add significantly to top line revenue. 

Stasko explained how Sunny Street Café has worked extensively to create quality food that can be delivered to homes and businesses. He explained that the brand has spent years perfecting the packaging and menu offerings to ensure the food still tastes just as great when it arrives to the customer as it would have tasted straight out of the kitchen. 

“Our catering menu is designed to travel well,” said Stasko. “We want to make sure that our catering customers enjoy the same great tasting food that our restaurants are known for.”

Attractive Operating Hours and A Flexible Business Model

While all involved in the Sunny Street Café franchise work hard and take pride in their efforts, this breakfast/lunch business has attractive operating hours of 6:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. and flexible lifestyle benefits. Ada feels that these hours make this franchise opportunity feel approachable for new business owners and that the lack of evening hours makes the opportunity feel much less intimidating compared to other food service concepts. 

Sunny Street Café provides flexibility in site selection, as well. Stasko explained that while some franchises require you to have a 3,500 square foot building that meets a long list of specific criteria to become a restaurant, Sunny Street Café is much more flexible. The brand checks that you have the capacity for the right number of seats and a plausible kitchen layout. The fact that Sunny Street offers in house floorplan layout and design guidance makes the process quicker and more cost effective.

“Real estate is always a challenge when I'm talking to franchisees,” said Stasko. “When I ask them when they would like to open for business, they often tell me it depends on when they find the right location for their restaurant. Not only can we help them find the right location, we also offer support through the lease negotiation process, which can be very intimidating. This coupled with a flexible and creative approach to restaurant design really helps move this process along and not only gets the restaurant open as quickly as possible, but also sets them up for success.”

A Scalable Franchise Opportunity 

This breakfast and lunch restaurant chain equips franchisees with everything they need to start and then successfully scale their business. The brand will provide the support, training and flexibility new franchisees need to get started, along with quality products and services and ongoing support to ensure they acquire the revenue they need to continue to grow, making it a very scalable franchise opportunity.

As the franchisor is also a franchisee, the business model and operating systems were built by someone who had to use them, so the pathway to success and growth is backed by personal knowledge and experience.

Currently, Sunny Street Café is seeking franchisees in the southern U.S. markets such as Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina. While franchisees do not need restaurant experience, the ideal franchisee will be passionate about the brand, willing to learn and keen to find success with this family-friendly restaurant chain. 

The total investment necessary to start a Sunny Street Café franchise comes in at $464,545-$1,307,514, with a franchise fee of $35,000. For more information, visit: https://www.sunnystreetcafé.com/franchise/