Chad Franzen 13:21
So in that case, it’ll all be franchising in the Midwest.
Eric Slaymaker 13:25
We’re looking to franchise through there, and if the right opportunity comes along that it makes sense for company stores will. We’re certainly open to that. But you know, from having been a franchisee in the systems we talked about having been a franchisor, I’m still a real firm believer in the franchise system. I think number one is we’ve been a franchisor now for about 20 years, and it there’s a learning curve there. There’s a learning curve on how to be a good franchise, or how to be able to work with franchisees and get consistency among the stores. And at the same time, we’ve been on the other side of that equation, and we know what it takes to be a good franchisee, and that’s what that relationship looks like. And I’m still a firm believer that when you get great local franchisees, and you have local ownership, and there’s there’s still nothing like having that franchisee and owner who are regional, who were there and they they bring the right concept and brand to their to their area, and it’s a formula that I still think, you know, franchising has continued to grow and continue to build, and it’s not going away. And there’s a reason why.
Chad Franzen 15:00
What do you think makes a good franchisee? Like, what do you look for in a potential franchisee?
Eric Slaymaker 15:04
So the first one is, is really, it’s passion, it’s somebody who we are. You know. Who just brings that drive and passion, and it’s that entrepreneurial spirit and we certainly want somebody who’s had experience owning and running businesses. It’s not 100% necessary to us that the the franchise owner, the main franchise owner is has operated restaurants before, because a lot of times we’ve had a lot of great franchisees who’ve been real estate in the real estate business, for example, and they may not be running a store, but you know, we they brought in operating partners who really deal with the day to day operations and, and that’s been a real successful formula for us. And, and so at the same time, there’s probably three pieces to that puzzle. Number one is the geographic area ripe and it’s good for where do we like that for our brand? Number two is, do we want a franchise owner? Or a lot of times, it’s a franchise partnership group, you know, it might be a group of a couple owners, or two or three owners, are they capitalized well enough to be able to do that. It’s always, if you listen to franchisors a lot, one of the things is, is, you know, you don’t want to bring on franchisees who were who were not capitalized and can’t actually accomplish whatever their whatever their goals are, whatever their business plan is, and and we do like to have a one of the partners to have to be the operating partner, somebody who has the the full time job of operating that business, day to day, operating that business. And we usually like to have an operating partner who would have at least 20% equity or interest in the franchise partnership. And so we can certainly teach them the skills. We can teach them our way in the Wingers way and and through our training. But we do like to have that operating partner who is able to bring some type of restaurant experience.
Chad Franzen 17:33
What do you think with all of the you know, the franchise opportunities out there? What do you think Seth kind of sets away? Kind of sets Wingers apart as a franchise opportunity?
Eric Slaymaker 17:41
So the number one thing that Wingers does is we use one of our monitors. We like to call ourselves America’s small town Ale House. And what that means is we’ve built our brand with the thought is we, we love to be, to be able to target smaller markets and be very successful in in those markets, markets that a lot of our national competitors can’t make sense of, can’t look we have A really, we have a strong a UV or, you know, unit volume, but the same time, we’re able to make small markets, like places you probably maybe haven’t heard of, Elko, Nevada and Mountain Home, Idaho and Pocatello, Idaho, and Richfield, Utah, and Rock Springs Wyoming, and we’re kind of a big fish in a small pond. And for those franchisees, for those entrepreneurs, those developers, who you know, are looking for the right brand to be able to bring to a little smaller markets, that is really our bread and butter, and that’s our niche. Now, at the same time, sure, we are in some metropolitan areas and we do well there. But at the same time, you know, our typical AUV is about two and a half million to 2.9 million. And you know some of our larger national competitors. You take Texas Roadhouse or an olive garden or places like those you know they’re, they’re typically looking for four to 5 million in top line sales when they open a new unit, and they’re gonna have a hard time looking at smaller markets that we can make sense of. The other piece too is our typical size of our restaurants, about 4500 square feet. So it’s a little bit smaller than, you know, Buffalo Wild Wings is a big you know, you you’d have to call them a competitor too, because they’re in the they’re, they’re 800 pound gorilla sports bar and and so, but their typical units are, they’re going to be more 6,000-7,000 square feet. So ours are smaller. They’re actually scaled down a little bit for those smaller markets and that’s where we’ve tried. Keep ourselves and so that we can go into those smaller towns all across the Midwest and us and really make economic sense of those markets where and so, you know your question, and I bring that up, it really provides Wingers Alehouse for a unique positioning opportunity, and that is our bread and butter is really small town America.
Chad Franzen 20:42
What are some of the keys to a Well, you mentioned some of them to a successful, you know, location to one location. Is it the location itself? You know, is it near other restaurants? What are some other keys to a successful location, maybe even involved with marketing.
Eric Slaymaker 20:58
So the first one, the first one’s kind of a no brainer. Chad that you probably heard a successful restaurant is never any more successful than the general manager, and it always comes down with having a great GM and and a general manager can make or break a location. And so hiring and developing great GMs is absolutely critical. Now, getting beyond that, you know a formula that we love from a location. Formula is we love that smaller town sites that, for us would be a lot of times on a freeway exit in a smaller town that would have maybe three, maybe four, of hotel brands, some you know, particularly sometimes you know, some of the national brands that you’ll see next to us that’s that’s been a strategy that’s almost been a no Miss strategy for us in in a lot of ways, you think about it, we’re kind of employing the the Cracker Barrel strategy, but we’re bringing a little bit more of of a we’re not Quite that country theme. We’re a little more of a you would, you would look at a little more of a sports bar. L, how? You know, gastropub theme, but bringing it to smaller markets, but that has been a formula that is absolutely fantastic for us.
Chad Franzen 22:31
In what ways do you guys kind of support, maybe your franchisees and also ensure brain consistency.
Eric Slaymaker 22:39
Yeah, so great question. And again, I’ll, I’ll go back and refer to so we’ve been a franchisee, so we’ve been really lucky to be able to be involved in in a few different franchisor systems, and being able to see franchise support systems that were very effective and some that were maybe not as effective. And the one thing that I feel, I feel really proud about and really strong about, is I think that we have, we have really gone out of our way to build our franchise support team and our and in a way, quite frankly, we’ve really over invested the last few years in in our overall structure and GNA with, you know, we have, there’s, there’s really two pieces To our franchise support. The first one is when we have new franchisees. Is our manager training piece where new managers for a new store come out. We have, we have a 12 week training curriculum that we will bring franchisees out to or their management teams, excuse me out to training stores, and it’s a 12-week program that they go through and and so that’s the initial part, and then but the other part, and then, during opening, we have our full training teams we’ll send out To, you know, a training team of up to six people from our corporate training teams, and they’re there before opening. They stay after opening, and then we really have our team after that, who takes over for ongoing support, and that are in-market, in the stores working with that training team. You know, we, we almost provide what would be a divisional manager for every single store and that they’re working and working with that full team and ongoing, we try to, we look to provide ongoing training all the time, ongoing updates. And so I feel pretty proud, you know, like I said, as we’ve been able to base our franchise support and operations system off of some great franchisor experience. And so I feel really good about where we are as understanding that we’re we’re we’ve been doing this for a while. We’re not new to it. We feel like we know how to provide really good franchisor support, and we can continue to really support and build the brand and keep consistency among the brand as you, as you say, as we continue to grow.
Chad Franzen 25:39
Has your experience in advertising and media buying affected your approach to marketing Wingers?
Eric Slaymaker 25:48
Yeah, it has, although, you know, one of the things that’s that’s there, you know, everything’s changed. And there’s probably nothing that has changed more than marketing and advertising. I know I can think of when I was, you know, when I was back doing marketing, advertising, even media buying. I was doing media buying, and it was really at that point you kind of had, you kind of had so many options. You had the big you could do television if you had enough locations inside a market, or you could do radio and you do direct mail pieces back in the day. Now, with the onset of digital, over the last 10-15 years, things have so dramatically changed. And yeah, all of those, all of those other standard mediums are still out there, but you know the way now that you can target and just market and advertise around each individual location, you can target each location and just market within five miles of that location is, is such a change, and so dramatically different than than when I first started, and I was just a young kid back then, and now I’m an old guy. So, you know, the answer is yes, and yet the answer is, you know, there’s the mediums that change so dramatically. Now you go back at the end of the day, I think marketing always comes down. The message has to resonate, throw away, throw away the method you’re getting, you’re getting, you know, out there, whether it’s going out digitally, whether it’s going out through social media. The one thing is the message. People have to see that message, and it has to resonate in some form. And no matter you could, you could buy all of the digital or TV if you want. But if the message is not compelling, and it doesn’t, you know, it’s not resonating with people who are seeing it, it’s not going to be very effective. So you know, it has to start off with the message and the creative, and you have to be able to express, you know, and convey what that experience that the brand, that experience of the brand, you’ve got to be able to to message that quickly in marketing. And so that’s number one, if you’ve got a great message, and it really, it really exhibits what the experience is like when you would walk into a Wingers l house, I can almost guarantee that that you will have the will have an effective campaign, no matter what medium we put it on, so that you know it really is. Create a great message. Create one that resonates, create one that people are interested in. And you’re going to have a successful you’re going to be able to have a successful marketing campaign one way or the other.
Chad Franzen 29:01
Sure. Yeah, yeah. Very nice. So you mentioned your father was involved in Outback Steakhouses, Chi-Chi’s Mexican restaurants, and you said TGI Fridays.
Eric Slaymaker 29:11
I said, Sizzler Steakhouses.
Chad Franzen 29:12
Oh, Sizzler Steakhouse. Sorry. Sorry,
Eric Slaymaker 29:14
Yeah, that’s okay. Yeah, Chi-Chi’s, back in the 80s, TGI Fridays and Tony Roma’s and —
Chad Franzen 29:25
Tony Roma ribs, yeah. And then you guys started Wingers. What? What led you to kind of go down that route, as opposed to maybe recreating a Mexican restaurant or something like that?
Eric Slaymaker 29:35
Well, I, you know, I tell you, the biggest, one of the biggest motivations for me is when I watched the opening of being a franchisee at TGI Fridays. And this is back when, you know, TGI Fridays was really in, in the heyday. Fact, back in the 90s, where they, you know, were growing and doing well. They struggled a little bit lately, but the one thing TGI Fridays at the time, it was extremely large, complicated. They’re like, they’re like, mega ships trying to get open. Very expensive to get open, expensive buildings. And part of my motivation was the same, hey, I think, I think we can create something a little bit smaller package, and be able to do it without, without the, you know, a little bit smaller investment. You don’t need as many workers and employees, and really, so that was probably the main motivation, is to be able to create something that just wasn’t so massive, and just that whole experience from Fridays. And so that really was that drove wanting to do the first Wingers and open up that first Wingers. And so I know our stores are a little bit larger than they were in that first 2,900 square foot location now, but I still feel like from an operation standpoint, from a building, from an investment standpoint, it’s, it’s a little, it’s a little simpler, it’s a little easier. It’s not, it’s not as big and massive as some of our other national competitors. And that’s kind of the spot, that’s kind of the spot we wanted to be and wanted to stay right.
Chad Franzen 31:33
I have one more question for you. But first, how can people find out more about Wingers as a restaurant or Wingers as a franchise opportunity.
Eric Slaymaker 31:40
So then go to to wingersalehouse.com, it could also be directed through wingerbros.com, that’s our management company. And they could also go to wingersfranchising.com and any of those websites will direct them to and they can learn about the brand. They can learn about franchising opportunities, if, if they would like to, and we’d always love to talk to people about that.
Chad Franzen 32:10
Sounds good. Last question for you. So when you go to Wingers as a customer, what? What is your go-to item or combination of items?
Eric Slaymaker 32:24
That, boy, that is a good question, because one of my rules is I always try to order something different every single time. But the better answer for you is, because my wife goes and I can’t keep her from ordering a sticky finger salad. And a sticky finger salad is, it’s, it’s our number one selling salad. It’s, it has our custom sticky fingers, which are our diced chicken fingers, hand breaded chicken fingers, but they’re coated in our Wingers original sauce, which we, you know, one of the things that’s been consistent from day one we we had our original Wingers, original Wingers sauce from day one. And anybody who’s been to Wingers, the number one thing is, we have 18 different sauces or rubs, but everybody craves our original winger sauce. We’re, we’re famous for, we ship it all over the world. And but, you know, I can, it’s like, I try to get my wife to order something different and, and she won’t. She just has to have that every single time. And sometimes it drives me wild, because I wanted to, I have to force her to order something different. But that is, that is just a staple. You know? It is kind of funny, because our name is Wingers. We opened up with wings being a real staple of the menu. And a quick little story is we used to have, for the first 10 years of our existence, we had a chicken finger dinner on the menu, and it was in the entree section, and it never sold very well, and it was probably in the bottom third of our of our menu items, as far as the, you know, in our menu item detail, as far as what, how much it was ordered. And I remember it was about, it was after we’d probably been around for 12 years, when we said, you know, what we really ought to do is take our chicken fingers and sauce them like we do our wings in our original sauce and and just, we call them sticky fingers, just for it was a fun name. It was kind of an afterthought at the time. And we put those on the menu. We put them on the appetizer section. We put a sticky finger dinner, which is basically, you know, it’s just a dinner made of that. Long story short is we watched every single year for the next 10 years, sticky fingers kept growing in popularity. Our name is Wingers Alehouse, we serve more sticky fingers these days. We do wings, even though we sell a ton of wings, but Sticky Fingers are. It’s really our version of boneless wings. And but it’s, it’s, it’s shocked it, well, it shocked me that they would become so popular. And it has been kind of fun to sit in and watch and see. Yeah, we, we still, we sell more sticky fingers than we do wings, believe it or not, and so and so, yeah, and on an item that we just kind of, it was, it was kind of a last second thought, Yeah, throw those on the menu and let’s see how they do and so, yeah.
Chad Franzen 35:53
Funny how things work out, huh? Hey, Eric, it’s been great to talk to you. Thanks so much for all your time and sharing your journey through the restaurant industry and the history of Wingers and everything you’ve got you guys have going on now. Really appreciate it.
Eric Slaymaker 36:05
Thanks, Chad.
Chad Franzen 36:08
So long everybody.
Outro 36:09
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