Patrick Terry, Owner and Co-founder of P.Terry’s Burger Stand, launched the brand’s first location on July 5th, 2005 in Austin, Texas. Inspired by classic burger stands like Mack Eplen’s in Abilene, P.Terry’s emphasizes fresh, all-natural ingredients — from its beef and chicken to fresh-cut fries devoid of trans fats. Beyond its signature burgers, the menu includes fresh-squeezed beverages, house-made veggie burgers, and baked goods. While P.Terry’s delivers modern quality standards, it retains the charm and hospitality reminiscent of ’50s and ’60s burger joints.
Here’s a Glimpse of What You’ll Hear:
- Patrick Terry shares what he and his wife had been doing prior to launching the first P.Terry’s in 2005
- Why the early days at the first location were miserable for Patrick
- What sets P.Terry’s products apart from the competition?
- Patrick talks about balancing a family-like culture and running a business
- What does Patrick hope for when a customer leaves P.Terry’s?
- Patrick explains how his brand has been able to replicate a high standard of product, service and employee treatment across 30 locations
- The pandemic’s impact on P.Terry’s
In this episode…
Most restaurants have high expectations for their food and service, but as they get busy with a multitude of customers, those standards can be easily forgotten. Is it possible to meet those standards and then replicate them across multiple busy locations?
What are the expectations for food and service at P.Terry’s Burger Stand? It starts with customers getting their healthy-yet-tasty food prepared correctly in a reasonable amount of time. It continues with each customer feeling seen and recognized, which co-founder Patrick Terry acknowledges is not easy for an employee at a busy restaurant. Regardless, he says that’s the goal — for the customer to drive away thinking, “I got personal service, I got a smile, and that really helped me through this day.” This is the standard at all 30 locations.
On this episode of the Top Business Leaders Show, Rise25’s Chad Franzen talks to Patrick Terry, Owner and Co-founder of P.Terry’s Burger Stand, about the joy and difficulty of executing his vision of a classic burger stand. Patrick discusses the pain associated with meeting his standards upon opening his first location, how he and his wife implemented a family-like culture, and the keys to replicating those high standards at multiple restaurants.
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Episode Transcript
Intro 0:04
Welcome to the Top Business Leaders Show powered by Rise25 media. We feature top founders, executives and business leaders from all over the world.
Chad Franzen 0:20
Chad Franzen here co host for the show where we feature top restaurant tours, investors and business leaders. This is part of our SpotOn series. SpotOn has the best in class payment platform for retail and they have a flagship solution called spot on restaurant, where they combined marketing software and payments all in one. They’ve served everyone from larger chains like Dairy Queen and subway to small mom and pop restaurants. To learn more, go to spoton.com This episode is brought to you by Rise25. We help b2b businesses to get ROI clients referrals and strategic partnerships through done for you podcasts. If you have a b2b business and want to build great relationships with clients referral partners and thought leaders in your space. There’s no better way to do it than through podcasts and content marketing. To learn more go to rise25.com or email us at support@rise25.com Patrick Terry co founded P.Terry’s burger stand in Austin, Texas with his wife Kathy in 2005. Now with 30 locations, P.Terry’s differentiates itself by using exceptional quality ingredients while offering a tremendous value. Additionally, P.Terry’s prides itself on taking care of their employees, and also the community. Patrick, thanks so much for joining me today. How are you?
Patrick Terry 1:30
Great. It’s my pleasure to be here.
Chad Franzen 1:32
Hey, as I mentioned you and your wife founded P.Terry’s in ‘05. What had you guys been doing prior to that?
Patrick Terry 1:39
Well, I started in advertising when I got out of college, and I was in in Dallas at a large firm. And I missed Austin where I went to the University of Texas. And so I was trying to get back to Austin. And I became involved with to get back to Austin, I got I became involved with the state government. And we we we had 100 and 50th birthday, we call the Texas with Centennial Commission. And that I actually rank in that a long, long time ago, that got me to Austin. I met my wife. Later on. She was involved as a paralegal with a law firm. And I had done I was kind of that jack of all trades, master of none. saw myself as an entrepreneur of sorts, and I’ve done rental property around the city. I’ve done some consulting and marketing and advertising, which was my background. And I had always had my sights set on opening a burger stand for a long, long time. For some unexplainable reason. I wanted to sell burgers, fries and shakes. And so actually I say that, that it was a there’s no reason but there was I love the concept. I love the simplicity of selling something like that of all the things I you know, I got involved in in rental property, and I got absolutely no satisfaction out of it turned out it was a great investment. And I appreciate that. But on a day to day basis, there just wasn’t much satisfaction. My wife is extremely organized. And one time probably had a photographic memory just in those early days when you’re young and not that she’s old, but when you’re young and really knocking it out of the park. And so we kind of became this when we got married, we kind of became this team that allowed us to do this. It was she’ll tell you this was not her idea that opening up or stance was all mine. But But man, I couldn’t have done it without or, you know, the idea of getting involved in a business like this. And I had been in the restaurant business in previous lives. I’d had a little pizza place back in Dallas, and I liked the business. But you know, you there’s a reason you kind of get a lot of people get out of it, and then they get back in it. And it’s probably because they forgot how hard it was in the first place. So that’s kind of where we were when we when when I decided to pull up the plug in or take the leap and open up the burger stand.
Chad Franzen 4:25
So So you decided to do that you had some background in the restaurant industry. What tell me about the first location about opening the first location and what the early days there were like,
Patrick Terry 4:37
well, they were they were miserable. It’s it’s it’s extremely difficult and and I had I had set a standard. I was 45 ish at the time when I opened it and I so I done some stuff. I was kind of famous for sticking around on a project or For a business for three years, and then I started to get bored, and I’d either sell it or move on whatever it was. And I had determined that at my age, this was going to be my, this was it, I was going to do this, and I was going to finish out my career, selling hamburgers. And then when when the decision was made reluctantly, to call it P.Terry’s, because, you know, when you put your name on it, it does add a tremendous amount of pressure, if you give a damn about your reputation and how you’re perceived, and I do, so I knew that this was it. And I had standards in mind that were really hard to reach, you know, we were going to, we were going to serve a product that was unique, we were going to serve it at a price probably under the competition, which wasn’t selling the quality that we were selling. We were going to do it in an environment where, you know, fast food. And I know, it’s, it’s been changed now to quick service. But I’m old enough just to keep calling it fast food because I I know why they changed the name because it had a bad reputation. And and I was determined to bring the good reputation back to it. So So to answer your question, we had these these really high goals. And and so I wanted employees that that cared, I wanted, you know, I wanted a service that that that was back in the day, you know, that used to exist that I think is for the most part have fallen off. I wanted to serve a product that nobody else was serving, I wanted to consistent I wanted a lot of things and I wanted it you know, it happened to be in a 527 square foot building with a drive thru a walk up window, no real heat or no real air conditioning. And, and I wanted it done right every day. And so it was really difficult because I went through a lot of people. I just had a standard that we we weren’t going to bend to. And it really, really almost killed it was I you know, we worked in the restaurant, my wife and I worked in the restaurant, I ended up working longer than she did, because she got lucky. And we started having kids. And so but you know, the hours were incredibly long. It was you know, I would get in the I would get to the restaurant around seven in the morning and take the deposits from the night before I take him to the bank. And I work through the day. And I if I got home before 11 It was that was a good day. And it was seven days a week. And and we were creating things as we were going I didn’t have a lot of experience in I had some restaurant experience. But I didn’t have any experience in french fries. And the burgers weren’t hard. But the French fries were very tough because we serve, we serve a fresh potato. And many of the chains serve what’s called Kennebunk. And that’s a desert potato, our friends in and out serve. And it’s a year round crop. And I chose the Idaho, Burbank, which is picked once a year. And is is difficult because once potato is picked, although they do their best to store it properly, there’s going to be a sugar to starch ratio, the changes. And so you have to deal with it year round. You probably learned more about this than you want to know. But it’s a nightmare. Because you’re you’re cooking a potato in April that was picked in September. And you have to adjust the amount of sugar that’s in the potato. And by doing that, you have to put it in a warm water bath. And you have to do it for a certain amount of time. And that time changes and the temperature of the water changes. And so it’s literally a daily routine on on, on how we’re going to serve our french fries. It’s a pain in the ass and most people won’t do it. And that’s why I’m so free to talk about it because I can tell you how to do it every day. And in the end, you’re going to look at me and go Yeah, I’m just not good. And so So we had these, you know, the standards that we were just set to do. And you know, the hardest thing for a business owner if I can, if I can speak in general terms is when you are small. You you you are fairly powerless. You don’t get a lot of respect from your supplier. tires. And frankly, they are figuring you’re going out of business soon. So they just siphon as much money as they can out of you until you you go away. And so what you’re trying to do is get bigger. And, and at least from a standpoint of survival. And so I was trying to get to three stores, because I figured it three stores, it’s harder to mess with. And I would have some, some people behind me that I now had a couple of managers, I wasn’t doing this all by myself, and I was getting maybe a better price on my goods, because now I’ve increased my inventory. And so the whole goal was, if I can get to three, I can bring. And, and, you know, in this business, the second store can kill you. If you fail with the second store, then you easily can go to zero, can you can bring that one down, so and I was well aware of that I’d seen that happen with other businesses. So my second store was only three miles away from my first store. And I was willing to cannibalize a little bit off the first store. But I felt like I was safe. And also, you know, it’s an interesting thing, when you work in your business every day, as you should, at least I believe, so at least at the beginning, you get to know your customers. And what I was seeing was my customers changed on the weekend. And on the weekend in Austin, Texas, where my location was, there’s a river between one you know, one part of the city and another and across the bridge is, you know, there’s a psychological thing. And so on the weekends, people were willing to cross the bridge, they had time, they it was a Saturdays, hopefully, weather was good. And so I was seeing people in a particular neighborhood coming over on Saturdays and Sundays that I didn’t see Monday through Friday. And I remember saying to my wife, you know, if we can get a store over closer to that neighborhood, then we’ll see those people two or three times a week. And that’ll be enough for us to get through and survived that second location, which is exactly what happened. We’re very lucky. And then the third location followed right
Chad Franzen 12:19
up was, was it more difficult to maintain the standard or establish that standard and have other people follow it or to get customers and suddenly customers are not weren’t a problem?
Patrick Terry 12:33
Yeah, the customers weren’t the problem, thank God. Because, you know, that’s, that’s the one thing that you know, that’s the hardest. But we were, we were able to establish it I had, we had in the first location had been open for three years. And I had people there that I can trust. And so so I was able to go to the second location. And I brought some of those people from the first over the second. And we were just down the street. So it was manageable. It wasn’t, it wasn’t easy. Because I I had obviously micromanage the first store. And I’m not able to be both locations at once, which is kind of the nightmare of all nightmares when you’re, you have the mentality I have. So that that worked out. But you were always worried on expansion. And I know you’ve heard this a thousand times, and it’s because it’s true, you’re always worried on expansion, that either the quality or the culture will suffer or vote by expanding. Now I’ve seen it a thousand times. And you know, my greatest nightmare is to have someone say to me, Oh, I remember when you used to be that good. Are you you know, and that’s the thing that we’ve done this now for 19 years. And that’s the one thing that keeps me awake at night.
Chad Franzen 14:02
So you talked about quality and also culture, let’s kind of dive into that. There are you know, there are a lot of burger places out there what kind of sets P.Terry’s apart in terms of the quality of the product?
Patrick Terry 14:14
Well, it was all very intentional. I you know, I don’t I don’t believe in doing things just for the sake of doing things differently just for the sake of doing things differently. I think it’s a total waste of time, and a bad business decision. What I wanted to do was serve a product of a quality that very few restaurants were offering any kind of restaurant, frankly, and offer it at a price that was below what anyone else was serving. So obviously I’m working on tight margins, and I need a line to the street if it’s going to work. And so what we did and we got very good, we got very lucky. By the way, none of this happens without luck. Perhaps you make your own bread If you get it, you can argue how it came. But man, without good luck, it just doesn’t happen. So a friend of ours had just read a book called Fast Food Nation. Just before we opened, it’s by Eric Schlosser. And in it Schlosser talks about the pros and cons of the fast food industry in America. And when it’s done, mostly con, not all, but some pro and my wife are Edit and then threw to me. And she said, Well, if you’re going to do this, you should do it. Right. And that really changed things. And then we were talking to a supplier just before we open, and he said, Well, there’s a, an all natural beef that’s being offered on the California. It’s hormone free, antibiotic free and vegetarian fed. Well, in 2005, I didn’t know what the hell he’s talking about. I’ve never heard of such a thing. And by the way, Austin is the home of Whole Foods. And I’m pretty sure Whole Foods wasn’t even serving this at the time, just to show you how early on this was. And by the way, our our french fries are cooked in canola oil, which is intentional, because it’s non hydrogenated oil. And a few years after we started serving that, that became the law in New York state. So we were we were just way ahead of all of this. And, and so we’re offering this product. And we are in still to this day, we are our menu is cheaper than McDonald’s, our menu is cheaper than in and out. And we’re serving the same quality Shake Shack, which also serves a very high quality burger. We just happened to do it for a lower price. And so so we differentiated ourselves from the very beginning. And what I found was, I didn’t know how to sell it, I didn’t know how to explain it. And the minute you try and sell a hamburger by telling people it’s healthy, which which I don’t know is even fair. Man. I would watch people just you know, literally walk away, really. And so I ended up doing was put up a board up that’s it every P Terry’s to this day. Our look is retro. So it looks like an old TV screen. But it what it says is it literally says you are eating and then it explains what’s in our food. And I did that because I realized that not everyone cares. Obviously, none of this works if the food doesn’t taste good. But some people do care what’s in it and why it tastes good. And so I just put it up there. And you know, we’ve we’ve been so careful for 19 years, to be just for lack of a better term, just nonpolitical. This is what we serve, this is who we are. And if you like it great, if you don’t, it’s okay. And so we put that out there. And we were, you know, we were selling the, you know, we were literally when we opened, we were literally patting the burgers, hand Patty hand pressing them in the store, this 500 square foot store. And we were doing this because they were coming in five pound shops, it’s the only way we could get the California at the time, we just didn’t have the buying power. And we were literally hand padding and throwing them to the grill man as fast as we could. on a Saturday, I can remember thinking Oh, my God, when will this end? It was crazy. So that’s what that’s how we do it. We do it with that and fresh squeezed lemonade and those kinds of things, what we think are very good prices.
Chad Franzen 18:59
So let’s talk a little bit about the culture then how would you describe the culture at P.Terry’s?
Patrick Terry 19:06
Well, I think, you know, the term, one big family is used a lot. And I think it’s a misnomer. I don’t think it’s fair. I love these people have so many of them. But you’re also balancing a business. And so the culture has to be based on a two way street. Because I am running a business and so I’m not going to pretend that you know that I’m Mother Teresa, although I admire the hell out of her. What we do is we say to our employees, we will take care of you to the best of our ability. You know two years ago, frankly before anyone else we guaranteed a $15 minimum wage. Maybe two and a half years ago. You And obviously, we have insurance and all of those those things. We now are into paid vacations, we’re in a 401k. We give a bonus to everyone. And it’s based on how many years you’ve worked for us. So we’ve had people that have worked for us for 19 years. Well, in December, they, they have accumulated $10 a month for every month, they’ve worked for us. So, you know, last Christmas, and these are low level people, these aren’t the managers or anybody in the office, but these are guys at the counter. And at the grill, they’re getting several $1,000 amounts. If they’ve worked for us for that many years, I think we gave up gave away almost $200,000 in Christmas bonuses to these to our employees. Well, what we also do is we offer interest free loans to our employees, because the hardest thing for a guy who’s making 15 bucks an hour, he’s still not saving any money. I mean, let’s not pretend, especially in Austin, Texas, where the rent is, you know, we’re getting ridiculous, it’s just very expensive to live there. That they you can get in a bind very quickly. And it can change your life. And, and so, if you’re short on a deposit for an apartment, or your truck breaks down, we will loan you, five $600, whatever that number is, and then you pay us back through us withdrawing it or taking it out of your salary, your paycheck at a level you tell us to because you don’t need to get right back in the hole. And so we’ve been doing this since the very beginning. And I go back very quickly. Well, I’ll tell you one other. So the other thing we do is, and I know it sounds like a small thing, but everybody gets a birthday cake on their birthday. And we have the three employees that all they do is make birthday cakes. And our only company car is the driver of delivering birthday cakes. Nobody else has a company card. And she drives a new Subaru every three years, which I don’t recommend anyone buying because she smokes like a bandit, as she’s driving, and I can’t even imagine what the car is like. But that’s who we are. And, and you we show up with it. And the reason we do this is that we worked in reverse. And so, you know, my wife was working one Saturday, and an employee was leaving, and another employee wished her happy birthday. Her name was Rosario. And it was almost 20 years ago, 19 years ago. And my wife Turner said, I’ve been working with you all day long. And I didn’t know what your birthday, I’m sorry. And the next day she brought her cake. And that’s how they started. You don’t start those things necessarily, unless you’re there. The non interest load started with an employee named Vinnie, who still works for us. And and Vinny couldn’t come to work because his truck broke down, which meant I was going to have to work fries that night. And I didn’t want to work fries, because I already worked all day. And so I said, what’s it going to take? And he said, Well, I you know, the truck repairs $150. And I said, we’ll get a cab, I’ll pay the cab come work. And I’ll give you the money when you get here and which is what I did. And so I just started loaning money to the employees when things happened. And to the point where somebody said you need probably ought to write this stuff down. And then we started write it down on a piece of paper and someone said, Well, maybe we should get a little bit more official or a little more professional and how we’re doing this. So we have, but But you know, there is a in before anyone Pat’s me on the back really fast and says, Oh, what a great guy you are, let me tell you, if you bail out an employee, they tend to stay with you. Because they’re not so sure the next employer is going to do the same. And so it has worked well for us. But none of this works if they don’t give back if they and what I asked them is just to take care of the customer is to take care of the business. If it’s not a two way street, it doesn’t work. If they’re taking care of me and I’m not taking care of them. They split and if the reverses, you know, the same is true. If if I’m taking care of them, they’re not taking care of me that they’re gonna leave one way or another so, so that’s really what the culture is based on. And and the hardest thing is training people who come from different restaurants or different businesses to under stand that that’s what we’re about.
Chad Franzen 25:02
So what would you say? It sounds like you have extraordinarily high expectations for your product. And you take care of your I mean, at least relative to fast food, the fast food industry, you take care of your employees extraordinarily extraordinarily well. Yeah. And you said, you know that that’s only doable. If they take care of the customer, how would you describe the vibe then? At a P.Terry’s from, from a customer standpoint?
Patrick Terry 25:28
Well, what I hope and I’m not going to kid you, we have 30 locations and 1200 employees. So, you know, it isn’t always going to be so I’m hoping for is that the customer drives away, whether they’ve eaten in the restaurant or gone through the drive thru, that they drive away, wanting to come back. And, and how I want them to come back is that they got their food in a reasonable time. And it’s prepared correctly, those are the basics. But I want them to feel like that we recognize them, you know, that we saw them. And, and you know, it’s hard for a busy restaurant. For an employee who’s just trying to get the get it right, get the order, right hand in hand, the correct order out, make the, you know, transaction, knowing there’s a line and still make you feel like you’re special, or that you’re that we’re we appreciate you coming. Excuse me, that’s our goal. And, and then you drive away thinking I got personal service, I got a smile. And, and I really, that really helped me through this day. You know, there are times when we’ve done amazing things, where I’ve gotten a letter or email from a customer that said, your employees sense that there was something wrong and asked me, I talked to them about that it was the anniversary of my wife’s death, she came over and gave me a hug. We have those great moments, we also had moments where, you know, we didn’t make eye contact. So you know, that’s what you’re always looking for. And I have to tell you, having worked in the restaurant and the lines, the street, thank God, you know, a lot of it is I just gotta get the damn food out, I just kind of get the damn food out there, like there’s a car behind me. And so I’m not trying to be rude, but I just gotta get food out. And so that’s what that’s the balance that we’re trying to achieve. And, and we don’t always get it, but that’s what we’re trying to do.
Chad Franzen 27:50
So just a few more questions for you. You’ve had obviously, you know, we talked about the first three locations, now you’ve loomed to 30, I believe, how have you been able to replicate these kinds of high expectations in customer service and employee treatment and in quality of product among all of these locations?
Patrick Terry 28:12
The the main, the main reason is that we have taken the people that have been with this the longest, and we’ve we’ve created what we call a green tea. And the green team goes in for all store openings. And it sticks around for a couple of weeks. And what they’re trying to achieve is setting a standard in that restaurant before they leave. And and the person that heads up, the green team has been with us about 14 years, and has worked to you know, open several of those locations on his own when he was managing. And so it’s always just pushing those people in there. And then and then the goal is to have them come back, make sure that it’s being done. And we are constantly, you know, we put a lot of pressure on area managers, which oversee about a half a dozen stores. And there’s a constant pressure on them. That man, if they’re not able to preach what we’re about, then then no one can. And we’re in trouble. Because the area manager is you know, they’re the ones out day to day in those stores. Checking on the managers, you can get, you know, six, five or six area managers in a room quite easily. It’s a lot harder to get 30 managers in. So a lot of the pressure is on the area managers to focus on that culture and what we’re trying to achieve.
Chad Franzen 29:47
How did the did the pandemic have much of an effect on on you guys?
Patrick Terry 29:52
We were we’re really lucky. We because we had dragsters Yeah, but I gotta tell you It’s easy to forget what it was like it was very scary. Our employees, you know, at one point early on, and for good reason feared for their life, they really did not know what was going to happen to them. And I didn’t either. We, we were the first restaurant restaurant in Austin restaurants in Austin to shut their dining room down. So I think it was Monday, March 14, or whatever it was, but all the rest of all our dining rooms were closed, we kept the drive throughs open, but we shut everything else down. And, and we’re, you know, we’re arguing back and forth about facemask, because, you know, so was the, you know, CDC on that. And so, you know, the first couple of weeks were, we didn’t know if we were going to have a business, we really didn’t. And then after that, we saw that we were probably in a good position because of the drive throughs. And then something crazy happened. Because you’ve been around me long enough, it’s, it’s almost the norm. We decided in May of that year that we would launch a new product. We have, we insist on only five items on the menu, and hamburger cheeseburger, a double cheeseburger, a chicken burger and veggie burger. And we decided that number four, the chicken burger, which was a grilled chicken burger, we would add crispy chicken burger. And so in the middle of this pandemic, we we introduced the crispy chicken burger that had our largest sale days, sales that day. And in three years have sold 2.4 million of the crispy chicken burgers. So so crazy things happened in the middle of a pandemic, I guess.
Chad Franzen 31:55
Did you feel it necessary to maybe you already happened? Did you feel it necessary to incorporate delivery? Or is the drive thru part of the experience?
Patrick Terry 32:04
Well, we do we don’t deliver ourselves we use you know, DoorDash. And when you do that, and we do have an app that allows you to, you know, to order on online, and then we’ll we will have it delivered through one of those sorts of services. I never wanted to deliver the product ourselves because the product is not the same delivered, especially a burger and fries. And I didn’t want to be responsible for you know, P.Terry’s delivering this this item. So that’s on DoorDash
Chad Franzen 32:38
I have one more question for you. But how can people find out more about P.Terry’s?
Patrick Terry 32:43
Oh, you’re nice to ask. Well, you know, pterrys.com We have a website that really talks about our culture and our locations and kind of the history of it all. I think it explains everything. And you know, I think it’s a it’s a different story. It’s not always perfect, but I think we’re unique.
Chad Franzen 33:03
When the final question for you, when you go to P.Terry’s, you, as you mentioned, your menu is not overly expansive. What is your kind of go to meal of choice?
Patrick Terry 33:12
So it’s gotten this is, this is crazy because I I’m a burger you’re and after 1819 years, I’ve actually I actually eat our veggie burger. We have a we have a car. By the way, if you’ve got just a minute, we have a commissary and our kitchen creates our veggie burger every day with its it runs 24 hours a day, seven days a week. We make our own veggie burgers with brown rice cremini mushrooms, fresh parsley, you know cheese it’s it’s a it’s a great product and we bake our own cookies in the commissary we grind our own chicken for chicken burgers. And and that’s just become my go to I guess I feel like I’ve eaten enough meat in the last 18 years that that I’ll go to the veggie burger. But yeah, that’s my go to right now.
Chad Franzen 34:11
Very nice. Hey, Patrick, it’s been great to talk to you very interesting stuff. You haven’t you guys have a great story and I wish you the best of luck in the future. Thanks so much for joining me today. It’s been my pleasure. So long, everybody.
Outro 34:24
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