What makes your brand stand out is the ability to customize burgers in a quick-service setting. How do you make that work? What’s really important about the toppings is how we spare no expense. We drive U.S. Foodservice crazy because some of the things we make them carry they don’t carry for anybody else. And some of them are difficult to get.

What kind of blend are you using in your burgers? A lot of people think it’s a big secret, but it’s really isn’t. It’s just 80/20. We’re just meticulous about the places that manufacturer it for us.

Do you do your own site visits to those places ? Oh yeah. And you can eat off the floor of those places. There are checks for metal every half hour to 45 minutes.

You have hourly workers churning out 250,000 burger combinations. How is that possible in a quick-service setting? We are fanatical about how our kitchens are designed for efficiency. It might not look like it, but every little thing in that kitchen has a reason for being there.

And those kids working behind that counter work really hard. I mean they’re hustling. That’s one of the reasons we have a hard time hiring older people. It’s busy back there. Sometimes when things get really, really busy, we’re cutting potatoes all day long. All the girls who work in our restaurants have muscles like Popeye.

You know, we bake our own bread, which is a real pain in the neck because we don’t have any preservatives in it. Now we’re shipping all over the East Coast. That was difficult for us. A lot of it we had to UPS overnight to some of our stores in Florida when they first opened until we got another bakery open in Atlanta. But we didn’t compromise on that. We just said, “This is the way it is. We’re going to bake our own bread because that’s the taste we like.”

You’re baking bread, cutting potatoes, and hand-forming patties. What time are your crews arriving to do all that prep? We open at 11. Most of the managers get there around nine with two or three people to start prepping.

Are the teen-friendly aspects of the concept a result of your sons’ influence? Yes, that’s exactly right. My kids built this business so they were able to relate to people like themselves. I tried to transfer that to my franchisees, make it a really fun place to work.

What about your retention numbers? I’ve got one franchisee who’s been open for a year and a half, and she’s never lost an employee. She just really treats her employees right.

We lose very few employees at our company-owned stores. I believe if you’re losing a lot of employees you’re probably doing something wrong.

How many franchisees do you currently have? Approximately 100 franchise groups.