George McLaughlin had seen enough. Standing in South Carolina chef and caterer Michael Greeley’s kitchen, McLaughlin asked partner Josh Lambert to get the realtor back on the phone. An old, 1,900-square-foot venue that had once housed a Dairy Queen was available after months of not being so. But one key difference between then and now—McLaughlin had found a concept to put there. So he inked a 10-year lease with three- and five-year options.
And now, the frustrating part was about to begin.
McLaughlin was a restaurant lifer since college. A business management major at Ole Miss with an emphasis to try business law, he got a taste of hospitality and never shook it. McLaughlin recalls a conversation with his mother asking what’s next. Grad school? “I go, mom, I’m moving to Jackson, Mississippi,” McLaughlin says.
While in college, McLaughlin helped establish McAlister’s Deli Franchise Development Company, the arm that helped ignite part of the chain’s growth, which today is approaching $1 billion in annual sales. McLaughlin worked on site selection and development for north of 30 stores before becoming a franchisee. He developed about 20 units that included large retail developments before selling in 2008. McLaughlin then created Bottle, a wine, beer, and spirits retailer while also forming a real estate company.
The itch to get back into restaurants came in late 2016 or so. A mutual friend introduced McLaughlin to Lambert (who is no longer with the company). Lambert, a medical business professional, had aspirations of opening a biscuit restaurant.
McLaughlin’s research brought him to a local food critic article about Greeley’s biscuits from a catered event. The story mentioned a potential food truck.
McLaughlin knew two things: One, this idea should come to life in brick-and-mortar, not on the road, as his history at McAlister’s had taught him. And secondly, “Vicious Biscuit” was one heck of a name.
“I got on the phone and I said to Michael Greeley, ‘look, if your biscuits are half as good as your name is, then I have a pretty extensive background in creating new concepts,’” McLaughlin says.
That led to the gathering in Greeley’s kitchen where the chef served McLaughlin and Lambert three biscuits from his roving menu. It didn’t take much more convincing.
An idea bakes into reality
Back to the “frustrating” part. McLaughlin has been around restaurants long enough to know great food equals great concept is an equation with more holes than an old screen door. But in the room were two culinary vets and somebody with two-plus decades in quick service.
“It was time to go to the test kitchen,” McLaughlin says. “Let’s really figure this out and work on it. You’ve got a great foundation, let’s build it. That’s what we did.”
It took them about a year to get operations smoothed so Vicious Biscuit could work out of a fast-casual setting. McLaughlin took some pages from McAlister’s. He wanted customers to order at the counter and sit down, “and enjoy the rest, as we say,” McLaughlin explains.
In other terms, follow a model more akin to McAlister’s and Panera Bread than Chipotle’s assembly line. The result being Vicious Biscuit would feel almost like a full-service brand, but with even more checks than your average sit-down. McLaughlin says staff learn the restaurant is a group approach where customers exit the counter and are then waited on by “everybody.” You don’t bus your own table (brands that do that drive McLaughlin crazy). Staff refill drinks or ask if they can help.
“We’re not in the restaurant business—we’re in the entertainment business,” Greeley says, citing a line that’s become a motto of sorts for the brand. “That front counter is our stage. They get the wow, they get the energy, employees making drinks and coffees, our cashier, look right over and see the food coming out. They’re like hey, what’s that, what’s this? So that’s what I’ve always loved about a quick casual.”
And meanwhile, the model offers flexibility in how guests access Vicious Biscuit. If they want to get in and out, they can. But the brand also enables diners to keep a check open at the register so if they’re looking to relax and drink mimosas for two hours, the option is there. “You have more than one person taking care of you; you have everyone taking care of you,” says McLaughlin, who also has history in running The Original Italian Pie stores, a full-service brand founded in 1995. “That’s the big appeal to me for that segment.”
The response and runway
Cycling backward again, McLaughlin held a conversation with his then-15-year-old daughter on December 21, 2019. She was coming to work with her father the following morning.
She hadn’t worked in a restaurant before. McLaughlin hadn’t in 15 years. “So we’ll fake it until we make it,” he remembers saying.
They got to the old-Dairy Queen in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, now Vicious Biscuit, at 5:30 a.m. At 7, it opened softly without any grand opening. People started trickling in and then they flooded in. “Two weeks later, my daughter looks at me and says, ‘I never thought I’d be working with my dad,” McLaughlin says.
Vicious Biscuit
AUV: $2.5 million (2022)
Investment Range: $744,400 to $1,133,750
Franchise Fee: $35,000
Royalty: 5 percent
Marketing Fee: 1 percent national; 1 percent local
Multi-Unit Territories Available: Development fee equal to $35,000 (the initial franchise fee for the first restaurant) plus a $15,000 deposit toward the initial franchise fee (which is $30,000) due for each subsequent Vicious Biscuit restaurant you commit to develop
McLaughlin continued to refine Vicious Biscuit’s systems. He grew up in manufacturing and has set up more kitchens than his memory can fit at this point. Vicious Biscuit wanted efficiency out of its staff to be able to stay in a 4-foot box and produce 6- to 8-minute ticket times on fresh food made to order. Vicious Biscuit needed to serve plates that got phones out and pictures into the social universe. Then, ingredients and taste had to anchor those “wow moments.” One example being eggs. No matter the fluctuation in costs, Vicious Biscuit only uses a free range, cage-free product selected for rich, vibrant orange yolks. Recently, Vicious Biscuit secured a partnership with Gordon Foods to guard that approach.
During the pandemic, McLaughlin ordered the highest-grade flour he could get (as the brand always has) and stored it just so it wouldn’t run out if the supply chain couldn’t keep up with demand.
The menu offers options like The Fat Boy (buttermilk biscuit, fried chicken breast, pimento cheese, Vicious spicy honey drizzle), The Flame Thrower (cheddar and jalapeño biscuit, fried chicken breast tossed in Frank’s Red Hot, with white Cheddar, spicy remoulade, Vicious candied bacon, and house cowboy candy), and The Vicious (Cheddar and jalapeno biscuit, fried chicken breast, maple sausage gravy, house cowboy candy, and maple syrup drizzle) alongside Southern options such as Sweet Puppies, Beignets, Shrimp and Grits (the stone ground hominy grits are soaked for 24 hours and made every day), and signature jams and house-made butter.
Vicious Biscuit ended up on the TV show “Food Paradise,” and over the years, has lent itself naturally to platforms like Instagram and TikTok thanks to the brand’s 5-ounce biscuits that need to be eaten with silverware.
McLaughlin says the chain has received a torrent of requests to open across the U.S. There were even inquires to take it to New Zealand, England, Canada, and Japan.
Vicious Biscuit launched Store No. 2 in July 2020 during the thick of COVID-19, when restaurants could only seat half of their dining rooms. McLaughlin recalls stacking tables in the corner and watching customers grab them and go outside. “It was cool to watch, but it was really a good testament to how good our food is,” he says.
It was, in some respects, Vicious Biscuit’s proof of concept. Could it go into a lifestyle center? “It’s been gangbusters ever since,” McLaughlin says. Vicious Biscuit today has six corporate units (two in South Carolina, three in North Carolina, and one in Florida), with No. 7 slated to open soon in Columbia, South Carolina.
That fact brings McLaughlin to what’s next. It was always going to make sense for Vicious Biscuit to explore franchising. McLaughlin’s roots run deep there, and it was on his mind throughout. McLaughlin wanted to open corporate stores first so if the moment did arrive, Vicious Biscuit would have the support needed to help operators.
Each unit was kept simple. Stores don’t need chefs or sous chefs. Employees can execute a streamlined menu, from the kitchen to the prep line, with systems and SOPs in place that have been there since day one. “What was the responsibility for the cash register to the food runner to the busser?” McLaughlin’s says. “The food runner and the busser are the same people. Our managers get to do different things. They don’t just sit there with a coat and tie and are dressed up and watching things happen. We teach them to work through our employees, not around them. So they touch tables and they’re never stagnant, always working.”
Opening in three markets was a deliberate approach, too. “We’re able to show that each restaurant that we open up as a corporate location, we treat it like a franchise location,” McLaughlin adds. “The GM and the manager there, we say, ‘this is your restaurant. Put your little touch to it. But here are the systems that we have in place so you’re successful.’”
McLaughlin called an old McAlister’s colleague who served as the in-house counsel helping sell franchisees. They had kept in touch over the years through Facebook.
Was he familiar with Vicious Biscuit and the work McLaughlin had been doing? Yes. Do you think the concept could work as a franchise?
“He said, ‘absolutely,’” McLaughlin says. “It helps you build the brand. But be methodical about it.”
McLaughlin took the approach of finding partners over selling as many stores as he could. Vicious Biscuit flipped to franchising in February 2023. McLaughlin enlisted help from another past McAlister’s connection to write the FDD, which was easier than it might be in some comparable stories since Vicious Biscuit had drawn out its polices and procedures over the years as though it was already franchising.
And once it went out to the public, McLaughlin watched his inbox fill with 136 applications from all over America. “I was like, oh my goodness,” he says.
What McLaughlin wanted to know most was how much staff liked working for these candidates if they were restaurant operators. So the team secret-shopped locations and observed employee engagement. “We’ve always kept this employee first, customer second,” he says. “Take care of your employees. Let them take care of your customers.”
Vicious Biscuit whittled down the group to sign seven deals that totaled nearly 40 locations. The agreements will carry the brand first to Montrose, Ohio, a community about a 15-minute drive down I-77 N from Akron. Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Utah, will then join in. The broader goal, McLaughlin says, will be to open 75 Vicious Biscuits over the next five years, and the brand recently partnered with emerging accelerator, Pivotal Growth Partners, to support the path. That’s a partnership that began organically three or so years ago when Pivotal cofounder Cameron Cummins noticed Vicious Biscuit during a prospecting trip to view another concept. He saw the lines wrapped around the door just like everybody else. Cummins and McLaughlin stayed in touch until timing aligned.
“Some people might see that as a lofty goal,” McLaughlin says of 75 units. “But our operations are very simple and executable, so I have all the faith in the world that as long as we choose the right franchise partners, we’re going to get there.”
This initial swath of operators, McLaughlin continues, are critical. They’re the group that’s going to establish the consistency and national appeal of Vicious Biscuit, since they’re breaking it into markets where there’s no awareness. “I tell everyone of them, ‘y’all are my partners, you’re not just a franchisee,” he says. “You’re here as a partner to help build a brand.” McLaughlin will ask interested parties to go out and prospect other breakfast chains and see if they’re still in love with Vicious Biscuit. They always are, McLaughlin says.
A few months ago, his wife noticed him coming home at 7 or 8 in the evenings despite the restaurant closing at 3. “I thought you were going to slow down?” she asked him.
“I said, ‘I couldn’t be happier,” McLaughlin says. “I’m in the retail business. I’m in the development business. I’m in all that. There’s nothing more gratifying than when that plate hits the table and that customers’ eyes light up and pure excitement and immediate gratification we get when our customers enjoy what we’re serving them. … We’re going to do a lot more of that.”
