In this episode of "Eye on Franchising," join me as I interview Andy Howard, the president and CEO of Huey Magoo's Chicken Tenders. We celebrate their 50th store opening and dive into Andy's journey in the franchise industry. From Wendy's to Wingstop, his expertise shines through as he shares insights into the restaurant industry. Tune in to learn about the success of Huey Magoo's and valuable tips for aspiring franchisees. Don't miss this captivating episode on the thriving world of franchising.- Andy Howard's journey in franchising and his experience with Wingstop- Qualities and menu offerings of Huey Magoo's franchise- Development options and locations for Huey Magoo's franchise- Factors to consider when determining franchise suitability- Success formula and marketing strategies of Huey Magoo's franchise- Importance of thorough research and asking tough questions before joining a franchise --- Ready to watch these great conversations? Come check out a few videos have have and give me a follow! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwoAdrkPZmveJt5AQRDk8WA --- Lance Graulich Franchise Consulting Services from ION Franchising Eye On Franchising
In this episode of "Eye on Franchising," join me as I interview Andy Howard, the president and CEO of Huey Magoo's Chicken Tenders. We celebrate their 50th store opening and dive into Andy's journey in the franchise industry. From Wendy's to Wingstop, his expertise shines through as he shares insights into the restaurant industry.
Tune in to learn about the success of Huey Magoo's and valuable tips for aspiring franchisees. Don't miss this captivating episode on the thriving world of franchising.
- Andy Howard's journey in franchising and his experience with Wingstop
- Qualities and menu offerings of Huey Magoo's franchise
- Development options and locations for Huey Magoo's franchise
- Factors to consider when determining franchise suitability
- Success formula and marketing strategies of Huey Magoo's franchise
- Importance of thorough research and asking tough questions before joining a franchise
---
Ready to watch these great conversations? Come check out a few videos have have and give me a follow!
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwoAdrkPZmveJt5AQRDk8WA
---
Franchise Consulting Services from ION Franchising
Lance Graulich
00:00:06
Hello, everyone, and welcome back to another fabulous episode of Ion Franchising. And, I'm your host, as you already know, Lance Graulich. Today I have an old friend, an old, dear friend, and holy cow, his company is the filet mignon of chicken. If you haven't heard of this brand, this brand is coming to your city very soon. Welcome to the show. The president and CEO of Huey Magoo's Chicken Tenders, my good friend, Andy Howard. Welcome, Andy.
Andy Howard
00:00:37
Oh, so good to be here, Lance. Thanks for having me. Boy, we do go way back and it's been, a heck of a ride from where we first met, to where we are today.
Lance Graulich
00:00:48
Absolutely. You and I have been talking for a while about getting you on the show, and now is a perfect opportunity as you've crossed over the what is it? 50 store threshold or so.
Andy Howard
00:01:02
Well, in about two days will be the big, big celebration for our brand, where we will open up our 50th store.
Lance Graulich
00:01:10
Awesome.
Andy Howard
00:01:11
So you're in for a scoop here. I was guessing asheville, North Carolina, the 10th state where we operate and store number 50. A huge milestone for our brand.
Lance Graulich
00:01:24
I love it. So, let's go pretty far back, as far back as you need to. How did you get into Franchising? People always want to understand, how'd this guy get into Franchising? You're running one of the best brands that, quite frankly, a lot of people have never heard of, because you're very regionalized now, and, uh, a lot of people know you as the wingstop guy and the whole team as the wingstop guy. But take us way back how'd you get into franchising and bring us to Huey magoo's today.
Andy Howard
00:01:52
Yeah, thanks. Great to be on with you. My first stop in the crazy world of this restaurant, industry was, I was a franchisee of Wendy's. I was in the hamburger business for a while down in south Florida. We built about 25 stores and had a really exciting run. And then, an old friend of mine, John Y. Brown, may he rest in peace, passed away. Former governor of Kentucky. He was the owner of, Kentucky fried chicken, owned the Boston celtics. Anyway, he bought a chain called, Kenny Rogers roasters. And, it was a wood fire rotisserie chicken brand in fort Lauderdale and had an amazing run. Built it up to about 300 stores. So you're going to have to follow my chicken life because this is the first of, four different stops in the world of chicken. So, from Kenny Rogers roasters, I got another call from another pretty big chicken guru again, who has since passed away. George Nadav. George Nadav's claim to fame was that he, uh, wasn't the founder of Boston market, but he bought it from the original founders, built it up to a huge number, and he bought a little chicken chain in New York called Ranch One. Ranch One concentrated on the chicken breast. We did a lot of creative things with the breast. So if you're following me now, we go from the whole chicken to the chicken breast. And then when I met a couple of folks at Ranch One who went back to Texas, they said, Andy, we've got this little chain that we want to buy and we want you to come over with us. I said, what's that? And they said wingstop. I said wingstop. Sounds exciting, sounds interesting. I said, Obviously, they serve Wings, but what else do they serve? And the answer was, Nothing else. And I'm saying, Guys, there's no way you can make a brand out of just chicken wings. Well, Andy, you're in Fort Lauderdale. Why don't you get on a plane, fly over to Dallas, Texas and check us out? Sure enough, George Samaris and Bill Knight, I meet them, my partners and see the lines wrapped around the building, try every wing on the menu, fall in love with the brand, and traveling back and forth from Fort Lauderdale to Dallas, Texas for about ten years. When we bought the chain from the original founder, it was about 60 stores by the time we made the deal, I think we actually had 80 stores. We were on board till about 600 stores. We had a heck of a run. As you know, Lance, you were involved with me for a lot of that run. Just an amazing, exciting time. And, we kind of made the wing so popular that at some point our food
Andy Howard
00:04:42
costs were going through the roof. So I and some of us had what everybody thought was a bonehead idea, and that was to put in a boneless product. I, almost lost my job back in the day because they're saying, Andy, you're going to ruin this concept if you put a boneless product into a bone in wing. That's what made us famous. There's no way it'll be successful. Well, I said, Guys, we can't run a 42% cost of goods or 44 or whatever it was. We need to run 32, 33. So by putting in a boneless product, I don't know, Lance, if you'd say it was the savior of the brand, but it was a pretty big step to even success that they're having today. So that's how the boneless product got in my mind and certainly got on the menu at Wingstop. And that kind of segued into what I want to say. UI'm saving the best for last. So I go from follow the career again, the whole chicken, to the chicken breast, to the chicken wing, to the beautiful tenderloin, the filet mignon of chicken, the filet mignon of chicken. So I bought this is going back now about eight years. When I got together with the two co founders, matt Armstrong and Fat Hudgens. They thought I was coming in to buy a franchise. Little did they know I wanted to buy the chain. And after about a year of negotiating and making sure my friend and partner, Mike Sutter would come along with me to run operations and training and become a partner with me, we bought the chain with two stores. And like I just said, today we're going to be celebrating in a couple of days. Store number 50, we've got another 260 that are sold over the next several years. And talking to great people all the time to continue to bring more and more franchisees on board.
Lance Graulich
00:06:41
And what a story that is. So for those listening that don't know, I was a Wingstop, a multi unit Wingstop franchisee. I was president of the Franchise Advisory Council. So Andy and I spent an awful lot of time together in those years of, Wingstop going from bone in only to boneless and other things along the, you know, Huey Magoo's, I had the pleasure of going to multiple locations in South Florida. And it is honestly fantastic. It is truly my favorite chicken. And need more locations in Vegas where I am. I know there's one now. But let's talk to the audience about who are your franchisees today. Because the restaurant business we know Notoriously is incredibly popular in the franchising space. Everybody seems to know all of these burger franchises, chicken franchises, whatever, but not everybody's capable of being a restaurant franchisee. So let's talk about some of your outrageous success with these franchisees. Most of your franchisees have been multi unit restaurant operators, right?
Andy Howard
00:07:53
Yes, they have. We've got maybe a couple out of the 40 or so franchise partners that we have the various groups around the country. But yeah, most of them, um, come from other brands. Why do we like that? Listen, by being in the industry, a lot of the moving parts operations, you usually have a team in place. Real estate. We want people that know their local markets. Real estate is obviously a big key to, you know, with the back earned experience if they follow our program. And that's the key. Listen, sometimes franchisees think they want to do it their way when it's the Huey McGoo's way. We always say if your name's John Smith and you want to do, a John Smith Chicken Tenders, you can do anything you want. But if it's Huey McGoos, it's our way. With our systems, with our procedures, with our recipes, with our manuals, with our design, with our branding. And if you follow the program, we think chances are you're going to be very successful. So not only do they need the operations background, they really need the passion. Because we say to every person, and by the way, I'm the franchise sales guy. As you actually know, Lance, it's that important to me, not only being president and CEO, but I want to be the first person, ah, that they talk to to be able to vet somebody pretty quickly. Either they're going to meet our criteria or quickly we kind of know that they're not. So, the passion and the love of this brand is something that we look for. It is a life changing event for all the right reasons. And it's that important that they understand that for the next 20 years or more, we're going to be together, and we want them to fall in love with this brand just like I've done and all my team has done.
Lance Graulich
00:09:44
Yeah. No, I love it. So talk about the investment. obviously, for those listening that don't know, this is chicken tenders, and this is also a grilled chicken tender. So there's a healthy option. I call know it's a wonderful grilled option, as opposed to fried and not battered, and there's salads and there's sauces and homemade ranch and things like that. Anything I missed, Andy?
Andy Howard
00:10:12
Well, again, it's all based. The only protein we bring in is the tender. As we say in our advertising, we are the filet mignon of chicken. There's only two tenders in every chicken. And that's, all we use, we say. And it is only 3% of the entire bird. That's the only thing we do. But we are very creative. To your point. Hand breaded, grilled sauce and tossed salads, sandwich wraps, family meals, catering opportunities. A beautiful sandwich that, we put up our sandwich against anybody in the industry. So it's a, creative menu, but from an operations point of view, it's still fairly simplistic and focused because all we do is the tender.
Lance Graulich
00:10:55
Love it. And Andy, so let's talk about what is the footprint. I know you've had a transition. You've grown. It's kind of like wingstop. In the old days, they were really small, and then you started building bigger locations. What is the footprint of a Huey Magoo's location?
Andy Howard
00:11:15
So let me go back to your point. When I bought the chain, I was really looking for a wingstop, business model, if you will, except with the world's greatest chicken tender. And what I meant by that was, if everybody knows Wingstop, it's an inline strip center location. And that's what the first couple of stores were that I bought Huey Magoos at In Line about 2000. We were doing great opening a lot of stores that way. But then way before COVID looking at the landscape of our competitors, whether it's raising canes or slim chickens or, Zaxby's, if you will, all freestanding drive throughs. So our team got together and said, boy, we need to try one of these because we think it'll be successful. Look what the competitors are doing. And sure enough, a great franchisee of ours in Loganville, Georgia, raised his hand and said, I'll be the guinea pig and converted an old Pizza Hut. And we tripled our sales by the first freestanding drive through. And from then, we've allowed franchisees, though we haven't really dictated that you must do a drive through. We've got probably five different ways you can develop a human good. We still allow the original, inline, non drive through that are doing phenomenally well. Those are costing about, give or take a million dollars or so. Then I guess in the order of investment, you can step up to an end cap of a strip center with a drive through. That's probably a million too. Then second gens. Like I said, the Pizza Hut or arby's or steak and shakes. We've converted a dozen or more second gens. Those are probably a million three to a million four. And then the most expensive. And some franchisees want to buy land or lease land and they build our prototype building. That's probably 2 million 2,000,001 2,000,002 to build a prototype from the ground up. Plus we also have what we call our express unit, which is now in Lance's hometown in downtown Las Vegas in Boyd Gaming and their hotel casino there. We're also in the uh, student union in Orlando, university of Central Florida and the big college there. we're close to signing a deal in Sarasota Airport. So these express units are another vehicle in addition to all the other ways to develop a human magoos. And like I said, we allow the franchisees to pick and choose. We've got some that said, andy, if you didn't perfect, u a drive through, we wouldn't even be talking to you today. And others on the flip side have said andy, we like the smaller, inline, non drive thru. It's a lower
Andy Howard
00:13:57
investment. We can find real estate a little bit easier. So we've got sort of a mixed bag and that's fine. Since they're all working. We allow franchisees to develop any which way they want.
Lance Graulich
00:14:13
Yeah, a lot of flexibility. It's always good to have different options at some point you'll have somebody that says, andy, I want a food truck.
Andy Howard
00:14:20
Yeah, well we thought about it, we haven't done it yet. But.
Lance Graulich
00:14:25
Yeah, you'll have the filet mignon of chicken food truck. So when you look at your most successful franchisees, this is a question for so much of the audience that doesn't know whether a ah, franchise is necessarily right for them. Whether Huey Magoos obviously preferably have to have restaurant experience and some good net worth. But how do you know if a franchise is right for you? Share your wisdom all these years in the business. So it's a twofold question. How do you know if a franchise is right for you? And when you look at your most successful franchisees, what do they really all have in common? What's the magic there?
Andy Howard
00:15:07
Yeah, well I would say the I lost my train of thought. Hold on right there.
Lance Graulich
00:15:17
That's all right. Hold on, hold on 1 second.
Andy Howard
00:15:19
Yeah.
Lance Graulich
00:15:23
So Andy, let me ask you kind of a twofold type question. Number one, so many people in the audience are wondering if a franchise is right for them, whether it's Huey Magoo's or not. So answer that one first. How do people know if a franchise might be right for them versus maybe doing something on their own?
Andy Howard
00:15:44
Yeah, I mean, there's a few responses to that. One is, we get so many franchise requests from people that start out being customers. They just walk in. They absolutely fall in love with the product and the look and the feel. And yeah, they know sort of, kind of about chicken tenders and they know about the competition. But we're different. We think we're better. And our look, our feel. So right away, it intrigues a lot of people. Plus, like I said, a lot of folks in the restaurant industry that are pretty sophisticated with big brands, a lot of times they're maxed out. They have built out their territory. They've got an organization in place. All the young folks that are managing and directing their brand, they want growth. What's the next step? If they don't see growth internally, they may leave and go somewhere else. So they're constantly looking for another brand, of which we now become the second brand to a lot of these franchisees and we always tell franchisees, it's their timeline, not mine. You take as much due diligence as you need. You talk to other franchisees around the country. You do whatever due diligence you've got to do to be absolutely convinced this is the right deal for you. Because, again, like I said earlier, we're around for 20 years, so you're never going to hear from me. If I don't hear from M you next week, the deal is off. It's always your timeline. Take as much time. As long as you show you're interested and we keep moving forward, then hopefully, we get together. We have our discovery day. We send them to Orlando to meet all of our leadership team. We spend a full day of telling, them everything they ever wanted to know about Huey Magoo's, and feed them everything on the menu. And by that time, hopefully, they're pretty convinced that they want to come on board.
Lance Graulich
00:17:31
I love it. I was kind of laughing as you were talking about all that because I had a gentleman yesterday just tell me that he had a brand that he felt was really rushing him through the process. And obviously, he was smart enough to understand that's a tremendous red flag. It's like, wait a second, what's the rush here? This is a serious relationship I'm getting into that hopefully is going to last a lifetime. Right?
Andy Howard
00:17:58
Exactly.
Lance Graulich
00:18:00
So follow up question was regarding your top franchisees. People want to know if they're capable, do they have the traits? Uh, to be a successful franchisee, you don't need a master's degree in your case, in your brand. A lot of people have experience. But what else, andy, what else? You've seen it at wingstop, you're seeing it at huey magoo's. What do the most successful franchisees have that some others don't?
Andy Howard
00:18:28
Yeah, another great question. So it goes without saying, monetarily. Financially, you've got to have the wherewithal to be able to handle that. That goes without saying, the type of person you are, the passion, the love for the brand. But, we look for, and I would say the number one thing, and we use this term all the time, who's the guy or gal in the Greece? And what we mean by in the greece running the restaurant, there is absolutely nothing more important than that person in the greece, the head operations equity partner that is responsible for running the restaurant. You could have all the money in the world, and we've had people that come to us and, oh, Andy, I'm worth $50 million. And when we ask who's going to run the restaurant, ah, don't worry, I'll find somebody. wrong answer. If you don't have a great talented in the grease person, you're not going to get past the next question. So that's number one. That's most important.
Lance Graulich
00:19:27
Just like football, who's the coach? It's all about the coach, right? Starts with that.
Andy Howard
00:19:32
Yeah. Nothing more. Yeah.
Lance Graulich
00:19:34
Let's talk about, well, let's talk about training. You have the right person. What is the training? Describe the training process. I know, you mentioned mike sutterall, earlier. Hello, mike sutter, I know you're listening. Sutter and I go way back, of course, from wingstop. So tell us what the training looks like.
Andy Howard
00:19:54
So, yeah, mike and his team have developed an enormous, training program. First of all, it's all done in Orlando. Travis dodge is our training director. It's a three week training program, hands on in the restaurant, in the classroom, lots of online testing, and going through anything and everything you'd ever want to know about q and mcgooz. We require at least three people to go through training, or four if it's a drive through store. And, if you get certified and pass our training, that's a big deal. Then, of course, if you are ready to open your restaurant, we'll send a team or five or more people for a couple of weeks to help you open that store, to open it successfully with our key people in the training area. So it's, a non stop, if you will. We're doing the training in Orlando, and then, of course, we're doing the training at your specific site to help you open very successfully.
Lance Graulich
00:20:55
Love it. And talk a little bit about marketing. I know your marketing. I mean, look, you're having some huge openings. I know the volumes at some of your openings, and they're absolutely incredible. well, really, how much marketing do you have to do? I know marketing is always an important part, but it just seems like the reputation that you're getting is just tremendous that people are lining up.
Andy Howard
00:21:23
Well, yeah, it's pretty exciting that we actually are doing higher volumes outside of our home state of Florida than we are in Florida. Not that we're doing poorly in Know. It never fails. Every time we sign a new franchisee in a new state, oh my goodness, Andy, how is anybody going to know about us? What are you going to do special for me? And the answer is, we're not going to do anything special for you if you do the same as what we've done now in ten different states. And what is that, Andy? Pick great real estate, hire the right operations people, go through our training, follow our program, open your doors and you're going to be enormously successful. And that formula has worked every time. We have what we call a soft opening, meaning we don't do any marketing. But uh, even these soft openings take us to sales levels that we only could have dreamt of years ago. As people are driving by over three or four months during construction, it creates this excitement of what is thing called Huey Magoo's? I never heard of them. And oh yeah, it's vendors and when are you going to open? And it just builds up this enormous anticipation. And almost right from day one we've got the lines around the block and then yeah, if we need to, we come back with heavy, heavy marketing, which we've got plenty of the filet mignon of chicken. Of course, we promote all over the store and the country and do a lot of public relations. And our PR lady, Eileen Lieber, does a phenomenal job. And Innovision marketing is our national marketing company. Marie Schultz is our director of marketing. So we've got a really great team of people that are pushing this brand forward. and it's working.
Lance Graulich
00:23:11
Yeah. Andy, honestly, I was always impressed with Huey Magoos. And anybody should be lucky, truly lucky to get awarded a franchise with Huey Magoos. Correct me if I'm wrong, your smallest franchisee has five stores.
Andy Howard
00:23:28
Three stores. We have a minimum of three.
Lance Graulich
00:23:31
Minimum of three. And your largest franchisee has a huge area. Right.
Andy Howard
00:23:37
Wholesale. Yeah. The entire state of Mississippi, one group has and large territories. We just signed a twelve store deal in Phoenix, Arizona, just this past week. So that'll be state number 13. And we're talking to people all the time. I would say we average about six to eight stores per franchise group. But there's really no limit as long as you have the wherewithal financially and operationally to open many, many stores. And of course, that's over x number of years, depending on how many stores you sign up for. But we don't want just a single unit operator. We want somebody to commit to at least three stores. And then again, no maximum on the higher amount.
Lance Graulich
00:24:20
Yeah. So I can say this because I'm not bound by a disclosure document. Andy, Chick fil A has set the bar pretty high for chicken breads. And everybody seems to talk about Chick fil A, but you are close on their heels, in my opinion. Is that fair to say? What say you about that subject?
Andy Howard
00:24:40
Listen, we feel our tender will stand up, to anybody. We respect the heck out of Chick fil A. They obviously are an amazing brand. But we like our menu, we like our franchisees, we like our systems, our model, our look, our recipes are phenomenal. We'll put our brand up against anybody. And we're standing tall so far. So, um, yeah, the sky's the limit. There's plenty of room for all of us, pick great franchisees, pick great real estate, operate the heck out of it every day. And that's the it.
Lance Graulich
00:25:13
I love it. Well, you've given a lot of information, a lot of great stuff for people to think about. Final, thoughts, final tips for people looking at getting into a franchise, whether it's potentially Hugh Magoo's or anything else. Share your wisdom.
Andy Howard
00:25:29
Yeah, listen, we love the chicken category. Chicken is outselling beef by a mile. And we'll continue to it's got the healthy connotation. It's a reasonably priced product, great value. And what we do with, of course, with our secret recipe is phenomenal. Do your homework again. Don't let anybody push you into anything you don't want to do. speak to a lot of franchisees. Ask them all the questions, the hard questions. Why do you get involved? What's the good, what's the bad? Is there a little bit of ugly? Hopefully not too much ugly with us, but there's always, a little bit. So, yeah, ask the hard questions, not only to your franchise or but to the franchisees that are there. And, pick a brand like Huey Magoos. We'd love to talk to anybody that's interested, by the way.
Lance Graulich
00:26:14
absolutely. And for those of you that don't remember, I'm a franchise broker. I can show you brands that certainly fit you. But, Andy, you're awesome. Thanks for being here with me. Congrats on number 50. And, I could see 500 coming soon. So, congrats to you and the team.
Andy Howard
00:26:34
Thanks very much. A pleasure to be with you. And you know what? We take them one at a time. What's the most important thing in my mind is store 51 coming up after 50. Love, thanks. Love to be here.
Lance Graulich
00:26:46
Thanks, Sandy.