Long John Silver’s Restaurants, Inc., which will be exhibiting in the Florida Petroleum Show in Orlando, August 6-7 2000, is experiencing increasing popularity among Hispanic Americans as well as success with gas and convenience stores.
“Our seafood menu is extremely popular with Hispanic Americans,” offered John Campbell, LJS vice president franchise development. “Part of the popularity can be traced to the tradition of Hispanic Catholics eating seafood on Fridays and during Lent. We have restaurants in markets such as Hialeah, Florida that smash all sales records during the Spring Lenten season.”
LJS will be exhibiting in Booth No. 322 at the Florida Petroleum Show designed to introduce franchise partnering opportunities to Florida gas and convenience store owners.
Gas and convenience store operators are experiencing shrinking margins with petroleum sales, Campbell said. “A quick service restaurant operation such as Long John Silver’s is a win-win for the gas and C-store operator and ourselves. It’s no secret consumers are pressed for time. We can offer them an opportunity to pick up a quality meal when they stop to fill up their gas tanks. On top of that, our customer demographics closely align with those of C-stores.”
According to Campbell, LJS recently rolled out another convenience store LJS restaurant concept, this one for Midway Petroleum in Hardinsburg, KY with a population of 10,000 and the success of that operation has been outstanding.
Founded in 1969, Long John Silver’s is the world’s largest seafood chain restaurant with more than 1,200 units in 35 U.S. States and one foreign country.
LJS features a core menu of batter-dipped fish, shrimp, clams and chicken, french fries, hushpuppies, fresh-made cole slaw and soft drinks.
Last Fall, LJS was acquired by Yorkshire Global Restaurants, also the owners of A&W Restaurants, this country’s oldest franchise restaurant chain. The combined operation represents 2,200 restaurants with annual sales of $1.3- billion making it the 14th largest quick service restaurant operation.
