[SpotOn Series] Franchising Done the Right Way With Seth Brink of Gyro Shack
Chad Franzen 10:13
Sure, sure. Hey, so tell me a little bit more about Gyro Shack. You started out with with two locations when you purchased it. And now you have eight, is that correct?
Seth Brink 10:22
That’s correct. So we have, we had two in the Treasure Valley. So Gus Zaharioudakis is the founder. Basically what happened in 2009, Gus was looking for a something for his son to do Cameron. And Cameron and Gus, they went on a family vacation back to Greece. And we’re visiting family on Crete. And they went to this just little walk up, Euro stand, and by arrows and gus said, hey, we could do this back home. So immediately came back home, found a small 125 square foot base to defunct coffee shop, and started selling gyros. And I can tell you, in the first few years, they played a lot of solitaire, looking at those sales, but you know, he stuck it out, you know, they they started really small with a hot plate and a vertical roaster and made gyros and then just making the traditional style gyros. And then what happened is the brand evolved and people were asking Gus for different taste combinations. And Gus is a chef at heart. So he’s very good at creating different flavor combinations. And you know, getting people’s input and just kind of diversifying the menu. So what happened is, he started with those first two, what I would call the original and deluxe and so the original is just going to be the traditional gyro right with Tiki gyro meat, onions and tomatoes. And then the Deluxe, you would add feta to that to you know really going out of the box and creating one called the spicy bacon avocado, right and the name kind of says it all you’re getting your Omi avocado, bacon, spicy sauce, onions and tomatoes. We’ve got a superhero that has about 10 toppings and ultimate that’s got 12 on it. And so what he did is he kind of built this out and diversified to make a gourmet gyro segment all of them still being able to be produced in 125 square foot coffee shop in under three to four minutes.
Chad Franzen 12:36
Wow. So are your your locate you have eight locations now are all are those still basically small coffee shop type situations.
Seth Brink 12:48
So we bought it from guests in 2015. And I I messed it up about every way you could. So you know how it goes with new ownership or executives at an existing company. Right, everybody’s got the next bright idea. And I definitely fell victim to that. So what we did is we came in, and we’re like, okay, we’re missing the boat here, we need to have seating. And so this was in 2015 2016. So we immediately opened a couple locations here in the valley treasure Boise Treasure Valley that had seating, and it definitely brought in segment but it wasn’t like you know, it didn’t increase overall sales. It just kind of traded people that were in the drive-thru for those dining customers. And so currently, we have three drive-thru only, we’ve got a big 1800 square foot location that was the original 125 So we went from 125 to 1800. And what we found is the economics of the kiosk are significantly better than that 1800 square foot building, just because you have lower rents less overhead, you know less all of your fixed costs are lower or your variable costs are lower. And so you know over the last four years we’ve kind of come full circle back to the double drive thru model and so currently, we are developing in Arizona a couple of corporate store locations and then we have a franchisee in Albuquerque and all of the future markets will be drive thru only. Okay, so that we can leverage those economics and and kind of build from that platform.
Chad Franzen 14:41
And you you you guys are offering franchising opportunities then with Gyro Shack?
Seth Brink 14:47
we are yes, absolutely.
Chad Franzen 14:49
What do you think are the kind of the what makes Gyro Shack and attractive franchise opportunity?
Seth Brink 14:57
So Gyro Shack is a small brand. Right, so anybody coming in on your check right now, will I so I grew up a franchisee, right? Yeah. And so I would tell you, I’ve been in their shoes. So, you know, with that level of experience in the franchise world, there’s not many franchises out there that can say that. So I would like to think that I’m a franchisee focus franchisor. And you’re looking at a completely untapped food segment. So if you go, or you’ve been to Europe, or the Middle East, you look and you see, gyros, you see shwarma, you see Donner kebab. And they’re all kind of everywhere, right? You go to Germany, and it’s every corner, you go to the Middle East, and it’s every corner. And the only real markets that aren’t tapped like that, for that segment of food are, you know, North and South America. And so we’re on an up and coming segment of high-quality, healthy foods that you know, in my mind is ready to take off in the US.
Chad Franzen 16:17
So what goes into opening a double drive thru location?
Seth Brink 16:22
So currently, we’re partnering with a company in Arizona called RJ Russo. They’re building a modular building for us. And so the first location, excuse me, the second location that we build in Arizona will be that model, and then our franchisees and franchisee, and Albuquerque is actually working with them as well. So, you know, we recommend finding the best corner that you can, and plopping down a modular building on it, we all always recommend, you know, depending on the balance sheet of the franchisor, franchisee, if you can buy land by land, but if if you can get into a build to suit situation where the landlord is going to reduce your initial investment, you know, we we really think that that’s the way to go. You know, it’s a long term investment for the franchise, franchisee and for the landlord. So that’s our preferred method of development. So right now, what we’re really doing by going to Arizona is taking our money, right, our funds, resources, and proving portability, because the problem that we have right now is that we are a eight unit chain in Boise, Idaho. And that sells ethnic food. Right. And so, if you ask a lot of people in Boise, in my opinion, you know, they would tell you great, you can do it in Boise, but can like have you proven at anywhere else? And so that’s why we’re taking our resources and investing in Arizona to prove it out. So that then we can grow at a higher rate.
Chad Franzen 18:13
What steps are you taking to kind of, you know, spread the word and make it make it look make Gyro Shack, you know, an attractive place for people in Arizona, we’re in a place outside of Idaho.
Seth Brink 18:24
So Arizona specifically the reason that we went to we are going to Arizona is because of the demographics. So in Boise, Idaho ethnic food is not very popular. I spend probably 30 to 40% of my time in Boise, educating people on what gyros are, right? They just don’t know, euros, gyros jute, like every single name you could think of. And so we wanted to go to Arizona because you have all of the snowbirds, right? Coming from the Midwest, where gyros are a staple food. And so by going to Arizona, we can kind of capture that population, but it’s also a market that’s much more diverse than Western Idaho. So with you know, a lot of quite a few more foundational Euro brands, a lot of them being mom and pop right there are no quick service Euro brands in the US that and when I say quick service, you know there are other brands doing kind of what we do you’ve got NAF, NAF and a handful of other Greek brands but none of them are quick service in the the essence of like fast food. You know, we have a menu that’s got a number one through 12. You order by a number you can customize as you will, but it’s not the fast casual model where you’re standing in line and saying, Hey, yep, give me that. Yep, give me that. Yep, give me that. And the reason why we did that is to try and get Keep the speed, right? So if you’re customizing every single item, you it just takes too long. And you can’t get people turned around quickly enough and be cognizant of their most valuable resource in my mind, which is time, right? Because you can never get that back. And so what we’re doing is building out these locations, and really what as we get this new location and Tucson open the next 60 days, our focus is creating that big eblasts and just reaching out to the community and creating an event so that we can really see what what the brand can do in another market, creating that excitement once we can, you know, prove that that concept in Tucson, then Katie bar the doors as far as our marketing outreach, we’re still, you know, we reached recently partnered with a franchise lead source who’s giving us some leads here and there, but we’re picky. And, you know, we’re we’re taking the steps to make sure that we get the right people on our bus, because either the last thing that we need is franchisees that aren’t the right fit, right? So we firmly believe in, in getting people that want to one grow the brand, how we want to grow it, have restaurant experience, and love Greek food.
Chad Franzen 21:31
And I’m guessing your experience, you know, internationally trying to tap into other markets can only benefit you.
Seth Brink 21:39
Yeah, so, um, you know, every market has its nuances. The the thing that I know, and just being in numerous markets and trying to educate public and whether we’re talking about gyros or sheep’s milk, ice cream, or Papa Murphy’s pizza, it seems like I keep landing in these brands that need some education. But whether you need education or not, you know, if you’ve got the best burger in the world, the best way to market that is to get it into somebody’s mouth. You can tell them all day that it’s the best burger in the world. But if they can’t taste that, then it’s just the best burger in the world. So we really tried to go out and as we open new markets, and even today in Boise with, you know, 13 years under our belt, we give away free food, like it’s going out of style, especially when people haven’t eaten our product because, you know, the spoons, the food speaks for itself.
Chad Franzen 22:36
What about you mentioned sheep’s milk ice cream? I’m guessing you’re referring to Negranti Creamery or Negranti? Yeah, that. Yeah. So tell me about that.
Seth Brink 22:46
So Negranti Creamery is founded out of Paso Robles, California by Alexis Negranti. And she and her husband Wade, found this and basically what happened is Alexis was going to Cal Poly kind of didn’t know what she wanted to do, looking for a healthier solution to give her young children what kind of sweets right and so she with her ag experience and degree, she realized that sheep’s milk was significantly healthier than cow’s milk. And she decided that she was going to create this ice cream in order to kind of work through it and figure it out. So they legitimately went out and bought three sheep and started their own dairy. And from there, she took the milk and she pasteurize it and you know, firmly, you know, she wanted to make an egg free. So typically, ice cream is thickened with egg, right? So that’s the only way you can get that right consistency, but she didn’t want put eggs in it. So she used tapioca starch. And then she only used real ingredients. So there’s no guar gum. There’s no you know, sweetening agents beyond pure sugarcane. And so if you look at one of our ice cream labels, you know, the vanilla bean has five flavors, right? Or five ingredients, excuse me, vanilla bean, vanilla extract, tapioca, sheep’s milk, and sugar. And so, you know, creating that brand that she felt confident being able to give to her children. And so what happened is they they they were founded in Paso Robles and our majority partner, his name is Mark he, his son had a winery in an area of Passover. Robles called Tim city. And it just so happened that his son’s winery was two doors away from Negranti and Mark is a, an ice cream fiend for lack of a better term, he loves ice cream. And so he started eating at Negranti and his son was friends with Alexis and weighed, you know, kind of one thing led to another and we were looking for kind of during COVID, we were looking for another brand to bring on, and ended up chatting with Wade and Alexis, and licensed a location in Boise, so simply started out as a licensee, and got that location opened up and in last year, and kind of during that time of us signing our license agreement and getting open, Wade, and Alexis made some life decisions and decided they wanted to leave California and move to Tennessee. And so kind of during that process, you know, we previously talked to them about, hey, you know, we can definitely add to your team operationally, as far as operational skills, get skill set, we’ve got all the back office systems, and you know, all of those nuances. And, you know, if you take that, and you pair it with a Lexuses, creativity and marketing mind, we thought we would make a pretty good team. So we pitched it early on saying hey, if you ever want to sell let us know. And kind of after they moved to Tennessee, they they changed their focus. And you know, a few months later asked us if we would like to buy the brand. And so what happened is we ended up partnering with Alexa, she’s still on our team handles all of our marketing, product development and branding. And so May 2, we bought that brand on and now it’s you know, obviously a completely different supply chain, but we’re working to scale everything that we have, and, you know, go out and find new locations. And it’s interesting, because it’s just a significantly different brands and quick service food, right? Yeah, you’re talking about a high-end ice cream, as opposed to quick service. So I’ve learned a lot in the last couple of months. But it’s still I mean, it’s a fantastic brand with with great health benefits and things I never knew right, like, sheep’s milk is higher in protein, lower and sugar lower in fat lower in calories than cow’s milk. And it’s lactose intolerant, friendly. And so it still has lactose in it. But it’s got much lower levels of lactose than cow’s milk. And it carries different proteins that help to digest that lactose. So people that generally have issues eating cow’s milk, for the most part, don’t have issues eating our ice cream.
Chad Franzen 27:53
How’s the How’s the taste? You know, would you notice the taste? Is it is it? Is the texture different or is the is the taste different? No, the the ingredients are so straightforward. Does that work out for taste?
Seth Brink 28:05
It does. So the biggest challenge we have is people mistaking it for goat’s milk, right because there’s a lot of people in the US that get sheep and goats confused. Yeah, and goat’s milk definitely has a significant tangy flavor to it. sheep’s milk does not. So sheep’s milk is is much closer in taste from what I’ve been told to just like a natural mother’s milk. And so the the taste is not there’s no big taste difference. There’s a slight texture difference from traditional ice cream, it’s not quite as premium. And the best way to make the comparison is it’s much closer to homemade ice cream. So when you make ice cream at home, you only put whole natural ingredients in it. Right and so it’s got a little bit of an icier flavor to it. And that’s because we’re not adding those you know egg thickeners or any of those other Dom’s are additive to make it creamy.
Chad Franzen 29:14
Okay, what are what are some of your kind of your goals? Do you have any specific goals with Negranti moving forward?
Seth Brink 29:22
Yeah, so just continuing to grow right we’ve we’ve got the four locations now. So, you know, when we partnered with Wade Alexis, they had the they had one location in Paso Robles. They opened another one and then a location and Atascadero California. We’ve opened the Boise location we’ve got another location and in Eagle, Idaho that’s going to be opening early next spring. My focus right now before we start to grow to massively is just getting supply chain under wraps, right there’s some efficiencies that we need to fix. But once we do that, we’ll definitely be looking at We won’t franchise just because the we really believe that this brand is more conducive to licensing. You know, some will license out the ice cream. And if our partners want we will 1,000% help them design and build their locations but if they want to design their own ice cream shop and sell Negranti Creamery, Negranti Creamery ice cream, we are 100% okay with that, too. And so, you know, once we can bring the production to scale, we will definitely start looking more at the the excuse me, sorry, looking at the location building, right, yeah. Additionally, being based in Boise, Albertsons is a big company here. And so we currently have distribution in pretty heavy distribution in the Bay Area. So Paso Robles is in the Central Valley, if you’re familiar, probably two hours west of Fresno. And so we have distributors going to grocery stores, in both Orange County and in the Bay Area. So we, you know, we’ve got that avenue that we’re growing as well, you know, we were in the Seattle market, kind of came out of the Seattle market over the last six months, looking to get back into the Seattle market and just growing that retail side of things working on. So the way that ice cream works, generally speaking, you’ve got the all of the big grocery stores do a reset every year. And you can when they do that reset. So, like right now, they’re looking for ice cream for next summer, right? Because right now we’re in peak ice cream season. And so all of the chain grocery stores will do a reset, and then they’ll allow you to present in the September, October November range and kind of help them convince them why they need to put you on the shelf. And then that would be for, you know, beginning March, April May timeframe for next year.
Chad Franzen 32:06
Okay, so there’s a there’s a brick and mortar location in Boise in Boise. Right.
Seth Brink 32:11
There is Yep, there’s downtown Boise.
Chad Franzen 32:15
What’s kind of the, like, the vibe there? You know, like, when people walk in? What does it feel like? Is it an exclusive place? This is a, you know, a party place? What What, what’s kind of the vibe there.
Seth Brink 32:26
So I will tell you it is inclusive, right. So definitely, it is a crisp, clean environment. And it mimics what Wayne Alexis did in California, perfectly, you know, you come in and there is a lot of whites. Right. And, you know, we mixing golds and blacks so that it’s not sterile, right? Because you can, you can definitely get to white at times. But you come in music, lots of sampling, as always with ice cream, but even more important with us. So you’ve got people trying our flavors, strawberry basil, blueberry, lavender, you know, cookies and cream, of course, you’ve got your vanilla bean, you’ve got black coffee chip, you know, and all of those knowing, you know, all of our flavors as you look at those so I say strawberry basil. And when we make the ice cream, we’re making it with fresh basil. You know, I talked about we’ve got a flavor called Thai tea and we actually steep the cream and Thai tea overnight before we make the ice cream. So you know all of our specialty flavors we’re taking in, you know that extra step to make sure that it’s an authentic flavor and taste. And so you look at our mint chip, for example, and it’s not green, less because we don’t add green food coloring. And so we use, you know, real mint, so you’ll see specks of mint in it, but you’re not gonna see it as a green mint color. And so you know, you’re you’re coming into an ice cream shop and you’ve got a friendly face that’s looking to educate you right on sheep’s milk ice cream, but at the same time if you are you know, and you can try the chips, not everything. Of course you can you can taste us. And if you decide it’s not for you, we also do carry four flavors of cow’s milk ice cream, which we make in house as well.
Chad Franzen 34:27
Okay, sounds great. Hey, how can people find out more about both Gyro Shack and the Negranti?
Seth Brink 34:34
So you’re Shaq, you would go to gyroshack.com That’s gyroshack.com you know, all of our contact information is there. They wanted to reach out to me at seth.brink@gyroshack.com and Negranti Creamery is going to be just that negranticreamery.com n e g r a n t i creamery.com And then just set that negranticreamery.com
Chad Franzen 35:00
Okay, great. Hey, final question for you when you go to either one of those places What are kind of your go to items of choice when you go to Gyro Shack or Negranti?
Seth Brink 35:11
Gyro Shack, my so I’ve got when we when we bought Gyro Shack my children were 11 nine and seven and we all have the same go to a Gyro Shack and it’s the spicy bacon avocado with green spicy and that’s a housemaid green spicy avocado and serrano pays, excuse me serrano pepper base. And then at Negranti, I am a peanut butter guy, so it’s always gonna be peanut butter chip.
Chad Franzen 35:42
Alright, sounds great. Well, peanut butter chips. Sounds good. Hey, Seth, it’s been great talking to you. I really appreciate you sharing all your stories and your thoughts and your insights. Thank you so much for your time.
Seth Brink 35:52
Absolutely, thanks, Chad. I appreciate you.
Chad Franzen 35:54
So long, everybody.
Outro 35:55
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