Franchise Times: Famous Dave’s Climbs Back From the Brink With Off-Premises Focus

It’s a story that’s familiar to anyone keeping an eye on the franchise industry recently: after a rough patch that threatened to derail the entire business, the brand is back on track and ready to grow. Except Famous Dave’s* hard times didn’t arrive with the coronavirus, but years earlier. In fact, it was during the pandemic that the BBQ franchise found its footing and began to reap the benefits of a new off-premise model that has made the brand uniquely well positioned for growth.

On Tuesday, Franchise Times explored how Famous Dave’s managed to come back from “the verge of a breakdown” and find a new path toward growth. The article points to 2019 as a turning point for the franchise. That’s when Famous Dave’s launched BBQ Holdings, a new parent company that purchased casual beer-and-food brand Granite City. 

Granite City isn’t just a complementary sister brand to Famous Dave’s; it also offers distinct operational benefits, most notably, supplying beer for Famous Dave’s locations. And that may just be the beginning.

that acquisition could be just the first big move. Others on the table include creating an entirely new Southern-style concept, launching a drive-thru-focused brand, buying additional restaurants and driving the flagship Famous Dave’s brand down Interstate 35 into the Great Plains and southern states where it’s eager to compete against national chains and one-off mom-and-pop barbecue pits alike.

This year, Famous Dave’s appointed Al Hank as senior vice president of the franchise. Hank, who started with the brand as an hourly employee back in 2005, brings to the role a background in operations “and a lot of experience with catering and off-premises channels.” That experience would prove crucial only weeks later, when the coronavirus crisis forced dining rooms to close across the country.

In addition to a handful of new Famous Dave’s designs being rolled out at corporate- and franchisee-owned locations, [CEO Jeff] Crivello said the company is going to test a drive-thru concept that’ll be more of a QSR-meets-barbecue format designed to expand its already impressive expertise in off-premises sales, including catering.

Now, the franchise is hoping to leverage their recent string of good decisions for large scale growth, and Hank says the brand is keeping a close eye on consumer preferences to guide their strategy.

“More often than not, the consumer is going to tell us what they want, and we’re going to build it,” he said. “It’s going to be really important for us to get these four or five or six restaurants stood up in this new box, because we believe this is the future of our brand, to be able to scale and grow quickly.”

Read the full article at franchisetimes.com.