The History and Vision of ‘Wichcraft: An Interview With Tom Colicchio

When Tom Colicchio opened the first ‘Wichcraft sandwich shop in New York nearly two decades ago, he was not yet a household name. That would come a few years later, when “Top Chef” made him one of TV’s most recognizable celebrity chefs. But within the restaurant industry, he was already a marquee player in 2003.

Colicchio’s Craft restaurant, which had launched just two years earlier, was a sensation in the NYC dining scene, earning rave reviews and eventually two Michelin stars. And years before Craft opened, Colicchio had co-founded Gramercy Tavern, still one of the most celebrated restaurants in Manhattan more than 25 years after its opening. 

In 2003, any new venture from Colicchio would have made headlines, but ‘Wichcraft’s opening was particularly noteworthy. Unlike the fine-dining Craft and Gramercy Tavern, ‘Wichcraft was more of a fast-casual concept, a term Colicchio points out wasn’t even in common usage back before Chipotle and Panera became work-lunch staples.

In the 17 years since the first location opened, ‘Wichcraft first expanded, then scaled back, and most recently optimized the business for franchising, which Colicchio sees as the natural next step for his sandwich concept. 

We talked to Colicchio to learn how ‘Wichcraft helped carve out the fast-casual segment and why now is the right time to franchise.

1851 Franchise: As a fast-casual restaurant, ‘Wichcraft is a departure from the fine-dining concepts you built your name on. What attracted you to the segment?

Tom Colicchio: Keep in mind, we opened ‘Wichcraft more than 15 years ago, and fast-casual wasn’t even really a thing people were talking about, so it’s not like we were jumping on a bandwagon. It was a new thing, and it happened organically. 

After we opened Craft, there was an open space that became available next door, which we bought and turned into Craftbar. We wanted Craftbar to be a little more casual and a little less expensive than Craft, and we came up with three or four pressed sandwiches to serve. At the same time, before we’d decided to call it Craftbar, we were trying to come up with names, and my wife thought of ‘Wichcraft, which I loved, but it didn’t quite fit the concept, so I sort of put that in my back pocket.

A few years later, another space opened up nearby, and a friend of mine brought up the idea of making a restaurant focused on the types of sandwiches we were serving at Craftbar. I already had a great name ready to go, so we went for it.

1851: How did you come up with the core menu?

Colicchio: It was stuff that we liked. It was really that simple. Back then, we were doing things like soft-cooked eggs with white anchovies and salsa verde. It was one of those things that if you liked it, it was your favorite sandwich — it was mine — but not enough people liked it. But it was that easy. If we thought of a fun sandwich, we put it on the menu and saw what worked. 

These days, it’s more of a process to make a menu change. We’ve come to learn that what works for one location does not necessarily work for others, so we need to make sure we have a hit before introducing anything new. Typically we’ll change about one to three sandwiches seasonally.

1851: After 17 years of business, why is now the right time to start franchising ‘Wichcraft? 

Colicchio: When we first opened, we had a one-year lease, so we deliberately kept it very simple. It was not a big investment. But it was instantly an absolute hit. We had lines out the door every day, and we were getting asked to open additional locations. We were maybe a little naive, because we thought of it as just like any other restaurant — we thought we could open up new locations anywhere, but back then we didn’t fully understand quick-service and some of the geographic demands that come with that model. 

So we started opening up new stores, and soon we had about 15 locations. Then things started to implode. We hadn’t perfected a replicable model, and we started to lose money. So we took a step back and realized we’d have to start closing some stores. This was right around the time fast-casual was starting to take off, so we were able to get some experts who really knew the segment to come in and evaluate our operations and infrastructure. We essentially started from scratch. We scaled down to four stores, cleaned up bad practices, optimized management, got costs under control, perfected our supply chain, we even updated the store design to make it much faster and more efficient. Now, everything is working, and we find ourselves in a position to grow properly.

1851: From a franchisee’s perspective, what do you think makes ‘Wichcraft stand out from other fast-casual opportunities?

Colicchio: There’s a couple of things. The first thing that’s really going to stand out is the quality. The sandwich market keeps growing, and right now the biggest sandwich chain out there is Subway. I think that we can make a better sandwich than Subway, and I think people want a better sandwich. You are really starting to see a demand for something high-quality, chef-driven and farm-to-table. 

The other thing that sets us apart is our experience. If someone looks at the brand and says, OK, they’ve been around 15 years, so what? My response is that because we’ve been around, we’ve been through the early mistakes, we’ve made corrections and we’ve built a system that works really well. ‘Wichcraft was not something we ever went out and raised money for. We didn’t have that luxury that a lot of startups have where they can lose money at first. We had to make sure all of our stores were profitable. So we learned how to make every store work; we know how to open a profitable restaurant. 

1851: How are you ensuring that ‘Wichcraft’s standard of quality is being met under franchisee ownership?

Colicchio: So that’s the big question, right? And that was our primary focus when we were streamlining our supply chain. We moved away from the commissary model and switched to co-packers, and we had to go through a couple of co-packers before we found someone who really understood what we were doing and who we really trusted. If you know what you are doing, you can keep control of your quality standards when you expand or franchise, it just requires a mindset change. You go from producing everything yourself to finding someone you trust, telling them exactly how to do it, imparting your high standards and giving a lot of feedback. We have a co-packer now, and it’s going really well, but we’re still looking closely at everything they do and making sure it meets our standards. And that’s just the process. It really comes down to perfecting that supply chain.

1851: Why do you think the fast-casual segment has seen such growth recently?

Colicchio: Well, the trend toward convenience is not recent. You can go back to McDonald’s. People want to pull up, get something and be on their way. And as convenience becomes the new standard, people’s expectations grow, and they want something better — not just fast, but good. 

So I think the segment is going to continue to grow, and sandwiches are always going to be a part of that. Sandwiches are iconic. They are easy and portable. They check a lot of boxes.

1851: How big do you see the ‘Wichcraft franchise network becoming over the next decade? Are we going to see one on every corner?

Colicchio: No. If we can do 10 in our first year, we’ll be satisfied. Ideally, 20 the next year. We don’t need to grow fast, we just want to open great restaurants. 

I had a franchisee partner who was interested in opening up 200 locations, but that’s not something we want to do. I think that shortchanges whoever buys the locations. We’ve had this business for a long time, and we’ve had good times and bad times, and the bad times were most often when we were growing faster than we needed to. I don’t want to do that with my own stores, and I certainly don’t want to do it with someone else’s. We want to grow in a way that allows us to maintain quality and deliver a great product for both our customers and our franchisees.