Modern Market Eatery, a fast casual restaurant operator and franchisor focused on making nourishing food affordable, convenient and delicious, rolls out a strategy to become the franchise opportunity in the better-for-you marketplace. Poised as one of the only true health-conscious franchises in the fast casual space, Modern Market is set up for continued success with impressive sales that have surpassed expectations month-over-month in 2021. This coupled with concept innovation, proprietary technology, pricing strategies and labor efficiencies illustrate the value of investing in the Modern Market franchise for qualified prospects.
The brands within an industry are the ones that define it, but they’ve also had to navigate significant transitions this year and will continue to do so as the world steps back into normalcy post-pandemic. As an industry leader, Modern Market has kneaded innovation into all its strategies since inception, but also works to set the overall brand apart from its competitors. The pandemic brought forth a resurgence of fast casual and Modern Market was prepared for success as the perfect fusion of farm-to-table and fast food.
“We envision ourselves as the leader of next-generation players who are accelerating the inevitable,” says Rob McColgan, CEO of Modern Market. “Faster food can be better food – every day we look to revolutionize the fast casual restaurant industry and provide a ‘modern definition’ of fast food.”
This year to date, Modern Market has seen substantial profitability performance with even stronger momentum going into the remainder of 2021. The fast casual brand has seen meaningful improvements in prime costs along with double-digit SSS growth in the first half of the year, with recent periods achieving a 25+% increase versus 2019. The brand’s off-premise sales are up more than 80% while dine-in is also steadily increasing. As a share of sales over last year, on-premise sales are at +167% and slowly starting to reach 2019 levels. With this significant growth, Modern Market is actively seeking strong franchise partners to develop the brand in underserved metropolitan areas as well as smaller communities where its wholesome food fills a gap in the market.
“The pandemic is not the only reason consumers have and continue to seek out health-forward, sustainable food options,” says McColgan. “As people return to their busy lives and eat out more, they want nourishing food they can feel good about. We believe there are untapped markets for these exact food options – fortunately, they have long been signature items on our menu.”
In keeping a pulse on industry trends, Modern Market finds ways to incorporate creative strategies and embrace an omnichannel approach – another added value to potential franchise partners. The brand invests in the right technology to offer safe ordering systems for the modern diner as well as digitally-managed kitchens – but still presents a level of customer service that is unrivaled. They also launched a gourmet virtual pizza concept at the end of 2020 called Honest Pizza Company – an additional revenue stream that is able to utilize existing kitchen infrastructure. The virtual concept is now operating in 15% of restaurants with plans to roll out to all locations by the end of this year. Further development into non-traditional locations is also a top priority after the current partnership at Notre Dame University’s Student Center was extended five years due to the brand’s popular demand and sales of Modern Market’s longtime license partner at Denver International Airport have been on a positive trajectory post-pandemic.
“While proprietary integrations have been at the forefront of all our efforts, we also take pride in our unbeatable level of hospitality. It’s at the core of everything we do and instilled in each team member, license partner and franchise candidate,” shares McColgan. “Our brand is engineered to adapt to the ever-changing needs of our guests while offering delicious, nourishing food at a reasonable price.”
