For the first time in company history, McAlister’s surpassed $1 billion in sales in 2023, fulfilling a prediction the chain tracked for a few years now. It’s a big number, but chief brand officer Mike Freeman says the accomplishment boils down to a handful of key pillars.

The first is decision-making and leading with the guest experience. The second is legacy franchise ownership and brand leadership working harmoniously to drive the company forward. Another is having solutions on a national scale instead of regional, “get-by” scenarios. There’s also protecting unit-level economics, a practice that has attracted franchisees over the years and collectively grown revenue to the 10-figure number it is today. The company earned an AUV of more than $1.9 million at traditional locations.

It’s not a coincidence each mission deals directly with McAlister’s operating partners, which are the lifeblood of the brand. Roughly 95 percent of the sandwich chain’s 539-unit footprint is controlled by franchisees. It’s a mixture of older restaurateurs ramping up development and new franchisees eager to make an impact across the country. Some are from quick service, others have backgrounds in casual dining.

“We do lean into being a franchisor of choice and providing that resource and support,” Freeman says. “Our job is to coach franchisees up when they get in the door. If you show up with the passion, the heart, and the want to, I can’t coach that. So when we evaluate people, we do operational interviews. We determine infrastructure, we determine sophistication. What can we add? What can we offer? Just like a platform company saying, ‘I can acquire a brand. I can plug and play all these components that you wouldn’t have had before,’ I look at a franchisee and say, ‘Well, what’s your history like? What’s your context that you’re bringing to the table? Are you a thought leader? Are you someone who’s just seeking an investment and you want to be hands-off?’ We create a plan for all those people.”

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Because of these franchisees, McAlister’s is the growth engine of GoTo Foods (formerly Focus Brands), a restaurant platform also featuring Auntie Anne’s, Cinnabon, Schlotzsky’s, Carvel, Jamba, and Moe’s. As Freeman puts it, the strategy isn’t a “hope or something that works out.” Brand leadership and operators meet often to determine which markets need to be targeted. No one who operates in the Southeast is coming to him about opportunities in California.

McAlister’s has increased its appeal by becoming flexible with real estate and building orientation. In fact, the chain has two versions of its prototype with six images to choose from. Freeman thinks of the brand’s offering as a kit of parts rather than a “you must build this size box.” Franchisees now have the option to choose layouts with less seating capacity to take advantage of higher off-premises sales and lower build-out costs. They also have the ability to seek nontraditional growth in venues like airports and college campuses to increase brand awareness.

McAlister’s bread and butter is “small market USA,” but that doesn’t mean the brand isn’t providing sophisticated resources. The fast casual leans into technology and predictive software that can calculate the success rate of entering certain trade areas. It’s the type of innovation that removes anxiety from franchisees asking these questions.

“No franchisees come from the same cloth,” Freeman says. “Everyone has different needs and different use cases. So somebody may have a great, robust real estate team already on their team and they don’t need to order that option off the menu, so to speak. But if you don’t have that person, GoTo Foods can provide it through McAlister’s Deli for you to expedite those services and get you speed to market. That’s a game-changer. If I can sign a franchisee and have them open in the same calendar year versus taking two years-plus in some capacities, that’s a competitive advantage for us.”

A notable part of franchise sales growth has been McAlister’s strong equity in the catering channel. Last year, the chain innovated by adding new breakfast boxes and creating a more frictionless ordering process. Sales have tripled since the brand launched the upgrades in the summer. The success pushed McAlister’s to think of more opportunities, like the snacking and dinner dayparts.

The chain is also a leader when it comes to digital ordering capabilities. In recent years, McAlister’s—and its sister chains—have heavily dived into CLTV, or customer lifetime value. More specifically, the brand wants to better understand how to win new customers, keep core guests, and encourage frequency for everyone. In practice, this means sending out an offer that’s based on a consumer’s behavior and not a blanket message to all users. An every-now-and-then customer may want a BOGO offer while the most-loyal guest may just need a simple reminder. The impact is twofold—more satisfied guests and greater efficiency and profitability for franchisees.

“There are 11 revenue channels we’re managing now on a daily basis,” Freeman says. “Things have gotten complex. It’s not as easy as it used to be with, ‘I’m just gonna call in a phone order and make a sandwich and then you’re going to come pick it up.’ I gotta have end-to-end line of sight and transparency to understand what that looks like so that we can make sure that customer journey is always frictionless and seamless and it’s repeatable and replicable and scalable. So we do a lot of testing. We stay very disciplined to pass or fail rates. But once we’ve filled up that pipeline and now we know what we want to do and want to be really efficient with our marketing dollars, we can be very precise and surgical.”

The progress is a world of difference from where the chain was four years ago when COVID struck. Back then, operators worried about keeping the lights on and whether they were going to make it. The thought processes were day to day. But the concern faded and sales returned. McAlister’s actually grew by a net of 12 restaurants in 2020.

COVID was a springboard. The brand can afford to make decisions on what it wants to be five and 10 years down the road. To Freeman, that’s what separates the emerging concepts from the mature chains. The $1 billion ones, even.

“You can begin with the end in mind,” Freeman says. “And I have to chase everything on a daily basis and hope for the end. I can almost predict what it’s going to be. It allows us to write the news instead of reading it. And that’s a huge shift for us.”