QSR Interview | By Fred Minnick
But what I can tell you is the boxy look, the ordering at the counter, and the drive thru is very much quick-service. The quality of the food, however, and the format inside (where you don’t wait at the counter for your food, there’s somebody bussing tables throughout the day), the food quality, customization, the from-scratch component would speak more to a fast-casual positioning. In my opinion, fast-casual is not a very clearly defined category. And clearly the average unit volumes are significantly higher than most in quick-service.
What are the average unit volumes at Schlotzsky’s? Our company stores do about $1.3 million to $1.4 million, and our franchise stores do less than that.
Any redesigns in the future? We’re redesigning the prototypes so that we can launch our growth effort. As part of that redesign, we wanted to reduce the costs of the actual build out.
We are going to a value-engineered prototype that’ll essentially take our 2,200- to 2,800-square-foot prototype and design it in such a way relative to the current design to save a meaningful amount of money without changing the engine or the guest contact forms. We think we’ll save as much as $100,000 or 20 percent per store.
We will then take that new box we’ve designed with the brand research and then develop new interior components. Those interior components will hopefully be tested sometime during late 2007 or early 2008 for a rollout to the system in late 2008. We hope to have everybody on the same look by 2010.
Speaking of Carvel and Cinnabon, how are those two brands fairing? We opened 199 stores last year. We’re adding people, too. We just had an all-employee meeting today and there were nine new people now. I don’t even know them. It’s starting to be at that point. So I told the team that as chaotic as it is, growth and adding people is a lot better than the alternative.
What kind of training do you provide franchisees when they first enter the system? We’re redoing the training program for Schlotzsky’s right now so we’ve assigned a committee of franchisees to work on that, and I frankly don’t know what they’ll come up with.
What we do [for Cinnabon and Carvel operators] is we fly them to Atlanta. We explain their resources and some basic elements about development to help them get their stores open, such as how to negotiate a lease.
As they get closer to opening, we provide support at FOCUS Brands University. We have Cinnabon training, which is called WOW University and the Carvel College of Ice Cream Knowledge. Those are training programs that are classroom environments.
We also go out to stores to train at store level. On top of that, we have new store openers and franchise business consultants who add training at the store level prior to and immediately after. We also have regional training summits, for lack of a better word, where a number of franchisees and/or operators will come together to train on specific launches and promotions.



