📈 Tips from growing underdogs

Happy September! We’re “Dancing in September,” ready to get our Fix on.

So, how do you really scale your restaurant business? Lean in close: Simplify & Standardize. We’ll get into it more below.

(You’re receiving this newsletter as a “thank you” for engaging with ResQ. If you’re not feeling it, simply unsubscribe here. No hard feelings.🙏)

What’s on tap in this issue:

• Scaling restaurants — look who’s growing!
• H&H Bagels’ secret to opening 50 locations
• In the growth game, quality trumps quantity

Want to meet in Nashville? We’ll be at Informa’s Create Event in October. Reply to this email if you want to grab some time while we’re in town. 👋

Industry news

What’s cookin’ in the industry?

These bites of restaurant industry news are just what you need to grow the right way. 💥

These Underdogs Are Moving All The Way Up

Nothing can stop me, I’m all the way up…

While some chains are scaling back, these 3 smaller chains are scaling up, up, and away (with new locations).

1) Angry Chickz, founded in 2018, is steadily scaling past 27 locations with its spicy chicken QSR.

• The 🔑: Focusing on the suburbs instead of large cities, dialed-in operations with a simple menu, and “slower” methodical franchising growth.

2) Tacombi, founded in 2006, is spreading the taste and vibe of Mexico through its 21 locations (and counting).

• The 🔑: After raising $27.5 million in funding in 2021, they plan to scale to 75+ locations over the next 5 years. The goal? Become the “Shake Shack of Mexican food.”

3) Pura Vida has grown to 20+ fast-casual locations across Florida since 2012. Now, they’re bringing their upscale Miami vibes to NYC by adding 10 new locations by 2026.

• The 🔑: A menu brimming with locally sourced, organic ingredients paired with premium aesthetics to support their customers’ vibrant, health-conscious lifestyles.

Yum Brands’ Insane Global Growth

KFC, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, and Habit Burger Grill restaurants have been popping up all over the globe at record speed.

Yum Brands isn’t messing around. They opened an average of 13 restaurants a day last year. Yeah, you read that right. 13 a day.

• Almost 25% of the total locations worldwide for the company’s brands have been built since 2021.
• KFC gets the trophy for biggest overall growth, operating close to 30,000 restaurants globally and adding close to 5,000 locations over the last 3 years.

What does this mean? No matter what’s going on in the world, growth is possible. Check out the tips below if you’re ready for more. 👇

Timely tips

We spoke with Ryan Klepper, Director of Operations at H&H Bagels, for his advice on scaling as they launch to 50 locations nationwide. Below are a few of his tips…

Standardization ➡️ Consistency ➡️ Scalable Customer Experience

Get comfy with SOPs. The more standardized your operations are, the easier it is to teach and guarantee consistency.

• This makes training a new franchisee a simpler, much shorter process.

🤝 Invest in partnerships: A scalable product requires reliable partners for anything from paper & plastic companies that do your cups and bags to food distributors that help you deliver the same ingredients nationwide.

• H&H’s partnership with ResQ offers new franchisees immediate access to their vendor network so they can find vetted vendors with best-in-class pricing to handle R&M.

🥇Choose quality over quantity: Consider a limited menu that’ll be easier to standardize so you can keep quality high as you open new locations.

• H&H knocks it out of the park with a simplified menu that's easy to duplicate.

🔝 Invest in premium equipment: Your equipment allows you to create SOPs to replicate a great product, regardless of the location.

• No matter which H&H you stroll into, you can bank on them using a griddle that cooks an egg in 20 seconds flat and toasters that can toast 600 bagel slices an hour. 💣

From the community

How H&H Bagels Took SOPs to a Whole New Level…of Awesome

H&H Bagels has been a NYC icon for over 50 years. They’ve been featured on Seinfeld, The Office, You’ve Got Mail, and the list goes on.

Ryan Klepper oversees all operations for both company-owned and franchise stores. Before ResQ, he spent his days juggling private repair quotes and regularly overpaying for repair just to get a piece of equipment fixed and running.

As H&H expands to new territories, Ryan can use ResQ-vetted vendors and know they’ll get the job done without worrying about quality or price gouging.

New franchise owners can rely on ResQ for preventative maintenance and repair. SOPs, including standardized R&M, will be key to those new H&H franchisees’ success.

Break time

Years of hard work: Forgotten. That one oopsie: Talked about for ages.

Turn errors into lessons that make you a stronger operator.

— ResQ team

Know someone who’d gobble this info up? Forward this email to a peer!

Like this email? Reply and let us know what you think!

Shameless plug

What does ResQ do?

ResQ is the ONLY facilities management platform that streamlines restaurant R&M operations and enhances oversight.

ResQ lets you standardize all R&M processes across multiple locations.

Operators can efficiently track assets, create work orders quickly, and choose from a network of quality vendors, which makes getting a new location up and running simple.

Love free samples? We do, too. Schedule a FREE demo to see how ResQ can help you kick R&M chaos to the curb.