Brian Hurowitz is the owner of Wings Over in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Brian is an avid entrepreneur and his versatile skill set includes experience in management and leadership positions in several big retail brands. He also had the opportunity to attend a culinary school in Switzerland through a program at the University of Massachusetts, further driving his passion for the culinary arts.
Here’s a Glimpse of What You’ll Hear:
- Brian Hurowitz shares his career path and his love of the culinary arts
- Important processes most people don’t know before becoming a franchisee
- Brian discusses some of the changes in the hospitality industry
- How to maintain quality levels in a multi-unit business
In this episode…
In this episode of the SpotOn Series, Chad Franzen welcomes Brian Hurowitz, owner of Wings Over in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. They discuss Brian’s career journey and his culinary influences from around the world, the importance of maintaining the quality of products and services when growing your business, and the way the hospitality industry has changed over the years. Brian also shares some of the lesser-known business processes for becoming a franchisee.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
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Episode Transcript
Intro 0:04
Welcome to the Top Business Leaders Show, powered by Rise 25 Media, we featured 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 SpotOn Restaurant, where they combined marketing software and payments all in one. They’ve saved 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 podcast. 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 rise25media.com or email us at support@rise25media.com Brian Hurowitz loves working with food he went to culinary school in Switzerland and worked as a chef in Australia for a year. Brian now lives in Pittsburgh where he owns and operates two Wings Over Pittsburgh franchises and is in the process of opening to PrimoHoagies locations. Hey, Brian, thanks for joining me today. How are you?
Brian Hurowitz 1:24
Hey, Chad, thanks so much for having me. I’m doing well how about yourself?
Chad Franzen 1:28
I’m doing well. Thank you so much. Hey, tell me about Wings Over Pittsburgh and what a customer can expect when they go there.
Brian Hurowitz 1:35
Absolutely. So Wings Over Pittsburgh is very very close personal favorite brands of my actually started at UMass where I went to to college. And that’s how I first found out about them and they just have the absolute best wings, best boneless tenders and extremely fast delivery. So as a as a college student that loved loved, that type of food. I would get it all the time. And so when you order it Wings Over, you can expect top quality chicken products. The best crispy is juice that juiciest bone and wings, nice big juicy tenders 25 different flavors to choose from, and different sides and drinks and everything else to complete the meal.
Chad Franzen 2:14
So you were a fan of that when you were in college. There’s a lot of franchise options out there though. What What attracted you specifically to becoming a Wings Over franchisee?
Brian Hurowitz 2:23
So for me, it’s about that close personal connection. I did train as a chef, I did work in a number of restaurants. And I think in a perfect world I would have loved to open you know, Brian’s restaurant with Brian’s menu. But in today’s landscape that opening a restaurant is extremely risky endeavor. And so I made the decision to go with franchising because I was starting a business and I had helped with the build out the design in the middle. So as a chef, I’m going to give up that right and the ability to create the menu and do those offerings. It had to be a best-in-class brand. There’s a ton of different franchises that people can work with. And you can do really well with them. But for me, it had to be best in class best in class best in class.
Chad Franzen 3:05
Yeah. Tell me a little bit about your background. In the restaurant industry prior to this. I know you have a lot of international experience.
Brian Hurowitz 3:12
Absolutely. So I have my first job in high school. But like many, many kids, I got a job at the local retirement home and I started off as a server. And then I got moved back into the kitchen and I learned everything from running the cafe to doing dish to setting up doing Expo. Once I have really realized how much I enjoyed that I started studying hospitality and tourism management at at UMass Amherst. I specifically chose that program because it was one of the best hospitality programs. And they also offered the one year abroad in Switzerland that I was able to do. So I met with my professor who was the liaison for the program my freshman year. And I said, Hey, I’m really interested in doing this my junior year, I figured I would you know reach out to introduce myself see what I need to do. He asked me, you know what my goals were? And I said, you know, I think I’m much more interested in food and restaurants than hotels. And he said, well, the school that you want to go to for your study abroad program is a world-class culinary school. And he actually took the initiative to renegotiate the terms of the study abroad program and allowed me to go to culinary school in Switzerland while still getting credits for my hotel management degree back here in the States. Once I did that, that really was the launching point for everything. I had six months of love school, from a chef in a small village. I then worked in a hotel as an intern in one of the ski areas for six months. I went back to UMass, I finished my bachelor’s degree. And because I’d already done their equivalent of four semesters worth of work in Switzerland. I only needed one more semester to graduate. So I went back and I finished that degree by doing the pastry program. What came back to the States. I lived with my parents for a few years to help pay off my college debt. And I got hired by a local restaurant called Masa and the family who ran Masa. They were are a Portuguese family who made pizza and started a restaurant. And so they had a lot of really cool Portuguese dishes. But then they had myself and a head chef who got to play around and work with the rest of the menu. After doing that, for a couple of years, I got the opportunity to go to Australia, they have a really cool program for anybody who doesn’t know called the it’s a 12 month visa, it’s called the Working Holiday. And if you’re under the age of 30, and you have a valid US passport, you can go online, you can apply it’s like a three or $400 fee, and they grant you a visa. So I got to go to Australia, and I got to travel for a few months. And I ended up working in an amazing efficiency food restaurant in Melbourne, which they’re very well known for that because they’re right on the coast. And that was just such an incredible experience overall.
Chad Franzen 5:48
Great. So where was your first Wings Over location here in the States? And what were the early days like there?
Brian Hurowitz 5:55
Absolutely So I first reached out to win the Wings Over team around 2018, about inquiring for franchising. And the reason I had done that, like I said about them being such a great company, but also they didn’t have any locations in the Philadelphia area. And that’s where I was born and raised. And so the original plan was going to be reached out to wings, build out a restaurant in the Philadelphia area and see if I can build a group from there. During my discovery with them, I found out that they had a location in Pittsburgh, and the prior franchisee was getting ready to retire. And so I had a decision to make, I can take over, I can move across the state I can take over an existing or I can pay all the money to start up a new one. And I said No, thanks. I’ll move. Absolutely. So in the summer of 2019, I moved out to Pittsburgh, to take over Wings Over Pittsburgh on Pittsburgh, Southside. And that was seven months before COVID hits. So to answer your question, it was an absolutely wild ride.
Chad Franzen 6:48
So yeah, tell me a little bit about it.
[Continue to Page 2]
Brian Hurowitz 6:51
So I came in, like I said, it was summer 2019, we shut down the restaurant for about two weeks, pulled everything out, you know, deep cleaned, organized, reset everything, set the standard with the employees, and really hit the ground running for that that fall of 2019, everything was going really well obviously super busy, steadily growing the sales, we’re seeing anywhere from like a five to 15% Lift throughout those first few months. And then we hit the Super Bowl in 2020. And we had record sales that day. And that gave us a lot of momentum heading into March. And so we were seeing our sales continue to increase. And then unfortunately, when the pandemic hit us transplant to take out and delivery, I got very fortunate that the restaurant I was working with was already doing about 80 to 90% of our business via takeout and delivery at about 75% of that was coming from the third parties like UberEATS, GrubHub and DoorDash. So when everybody was trying to get on the third parties and get those systems that have already had the infrastructure in place already had the brand recognition already had the specials going, and we were seeing sales increases as much as 50 or 60%, throughout the summer of 2020. And we were able to really carry those extra sales through that year. And that put me in a position to work with the Wings Over company to open up our second Wings Over Pittsburgh location in East liberty on the other side of town. And it also put me in a position to work with PrimoHoagies to start to two restaurants with them. Also here in Pittsburgh, how different was starting that second location compared to you know, buying that one that was already in existence. It’s a totally different experience. And I’m so glad to have had that now. Because when you take over an existing restaurant, you’re not there for the build out, you’re not there for the initial grand opening, you’re really, you know, coming into a place, it’s already in existence, and you’re making tweaks and changes and adjustments based off how things are going. But you get in there’s already sort of a status quo there. With the second location, I got to work with the Wings Over team for everything from drawing up the blueprints to selecting the contractor to going through the permit process, learning those different things. And every city is going to be different with that hiring a whole new staff and going through the actual motions of a grand opening. And now I’m getting the pleasure of going through the marketing and things like that. Okay. But I had the opportunity with multiple restaurants to just focus on growing the brand.
Chad Franzen 9:16
Was there anything that you I guess didn’t know that you didn’t know? Or, you know, like, I didn’t realize that
Brian Hurowitz 9:25
So much. And then I’m glad you said it that way. Because if people ask me about my list of the same thing, I’m like, I don’t know what I don’t know. And what I did not know was a lot of the permit process. And so, Pittsburgh has changed recently from sort of that old school, you know, contractor calls, calls the guy they know who does their inspections, and he’s like, Yeah, I’ll be in town tomorrow. I’ll stop by well, with technology and efficiency coming into play. Everything’s computerized now. So a lot of we’re all learning to adapt to that where it’s no longer just making that call. So you have Have everything by the computer, which actually caused about a four to six week backlog for us, because I had never been through that before. And so we had to work through the city to find okay, we accidentally ended up being selected for this inspection. We were supposed to be selected for that inspection. And the first inspection won’t happen because of that. And so it was a lot of stuff like that, that like I said, it’s just, it’s learning the ins and outs, and every town, every city has those things, and you just have to learn how to work through that.
Chad Franzen 10:30
So what’s the difference between wanting, say, running one and two locations operationally for you?
Brian Hurowitz 10:37
Everything changes when you go to multi-unit. When I was running just Wings Over Pittsburgh on a single location, I was there all day, every day, I knew everything that was going on. I mean, I could write the order from home because I knew exactly how much product I had. I knew exactly what the schedule was. I was running service for the most part. Now that I have to and we’re about to open our third. It’s becoming a lot more about managing more of the high level and making sure I have a good GM in each location that I have an operations manager who can help with things like the hiring and the multi-unit oversight.
Chad Franzen 11:11
Yeah. Tell me a little bit about PrimoHoagies then what’s attractive to you about that?
Brian Hurowitz 11:15
Absolutely. So for me, like I mentioned before I was born and raised in the Philadelphia area, and that’s where PrimoHoagies started. So the majority of their locations are in the Philly, South Jersey area. And their hoagies are amazing. As far as chain franchises go, Primo is by far the best in class, their bread has won multiple awards. It’s a hard seated roll that’s baked off fresh throughout the day. It’s higher quality meat, everything is sliced to order. And so I said hey, if I’m not going to be living in Philly, like I thought I would. I love living in Pittsburgh, I might as well bring some parts of Philly here. And the other thing that really helped with it is even though Primodidn’t have any locations in Pittsburgh, because there’s so many Philadelphia area residents as well as shore destination travelers. For a company that had no locations in Pittsburgh, they had one of the best brand recognitions I’ve ever seen.
Chad Franzen 12:09
How will that be? How will those be different than maybe Wings Over Pittsburgh from an aberration standpoint? Is that basically the same thing?
Brian Hurowitz 12:17
They’re very similar. I think one of the reasons I went with this is diversifying the portfolio is important. I don’t want to stray too far from the past, right? Like my expertise is quick service restaurants like Wings Over. And so Primo is sort of the opposite within the same category Wings Over is comfort food. It’s deep fried, it’s crispy, it is going to be a late night it’s going to be partying, it’s going to be you know, and there’s a lot of bleed over football, then you have Primo, which is doing home using the Hokies and all of a sudden, it’s significantly more catering it’s significantly more daytime. So you have these two brands that can really really work so well together because Primo is huge in the day. With dinnertime being there incremental sales and wings is the opposite. The lunch times are incremental, that dinner time in the late night is really where we do the bulk of our business.
Chad Franzen 13:06
What will be the key to kind of maintaining a high standard at all at you know, four different locations?
Brian Hurowitz 13:14
A lot of time, a lot of effort and a lot of communication. And all of that boils down to a training, training training. And I’m really fortunate I have an operations manager, his name is Joe. And he is just absolutely phenomenal. He has over 30 years experience in retail and other types of leadership. I have my GMs are all amazing, really strong work ethics really strong leaders so I’m able to work with and let them be able to work with their teams in order to get that standard where it needs to be.
Chad Franzen 13:45
I have one more question for you. But first, how can people find out more about you know all the locations what you have going on?
Brian Hurowitz 13:52
Absolutely. So from Wings Over order.wingsover.com Or just wingsover.com will take you to the corporate landing page and you’ll be able to see all of the Wings Over locations so maybe you’re listening to this podcast and like hey, I’m not in Pittsburgh where do I get this but you can go on the website and you can see all the different locations you can order directly through the website we have delivery on there as well. If you prefer ordering through Uber DoorDash or GrubHub you can always find us there and then the same thing for Primo is going to be primohoagies.com Or even just Google PrimoHoagies. The company page will come up and same thing you can see all the locations see if there’s one near you you can find out more information about the company the the menu, the philosophy or the history things like that.
Chad Franzen 14:37
Last question given that you’re from Philadelphia, if you were to go to PrimoHoagies as a customer what would be your go to item?
Brian Hurowitz 14:44
So my my number one item that I grew up always the Italian the Italian is the classic I absolutely love it. Of course Italian sandwiches are going to have a little bit of a higher calorie count so if I’m if I’m thinking about that I might go with more of like a turkey Diablo but if If it’s like gun to your head, it’s the last one you’re going to eat. It’s going to be in Italian, Italian, Italian.
Chad Franzen 15:05
What about Wings Over?
Brian Hurowitz 15:06
Wings over my favorite my two favorite sauces were the honey mustard and the golden barbecue so I used to get the one pound attenders those two sauces, ranch dressing and fries. And that was that was like four nights a week in college easy.
Chad Franzen 15:18
Okay, very nice. Hey, Brian has been great to talk to you. I really appreciate your time today. Thank you so much.
Brian Hurowitz 15:22
Hey, Chad, thank you so much. I appreciate it.
Chad Franzen 15:24
So long, everybody.
Outro 15:25
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