Wild Eggs to become a national chain?

According to some information provided in this article: http://insiderlouisville.com/news/2012/09/19/is-junior-bridgeman-backing-wild-eggs-and-will-palombinos-upcoming-honky-tonk-be-like/ it appears may be the case. Involvement of a major player in the national restaurant scene would certainly make you think that anyway. It's certainly a concept that doesn't have a lot of competition compared to many others.

So, if WIld Eggs becomes a national chain, does this mean we have to start hating them?

So, if WIld Eggs becomes a national chain, does this mean we have to start hating them?

I won't unless they start changing the good things they do now! I'm sure some others on here will have a different opinion however. It's sort of like BoomBazz they certainly started locally but now are becoming a chain (they just announced another one downtown).

[Robin Garr]

<tapping foot in frustration>

It depends. If they remain driven by quality with the understanding that an excellent product served well creates its own profit, then we'll love them as we do. Examples: Boombozz, J Gumbo, Heine Bros. And even, arguably, Bonefish Grill and Carrabba's.

If they succumb to the bean-counter mentality and place responsibility to the stockholders above that to the consumer, start cutting corners and letting quality slide, then we might not actively hate them, but we'll be sorely disappointed. Examples: Tumbleweed, KFC, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut ...

In my experience, the expansion of restaurants into a chain (even a small chain) have always resulted in a decline of quality. It's practically a law of physics.

While that happens frequently, it doesn't have to.
McCormick & Schmick and St. Louis Bread ( currenlly known as Panera ) come to mind.
Deb

[Robin Garr]

While that happens frequently, it doesn't have to.
McCormick & Schmick and St. Louis Bread ( currenlly known as Panera ) come to mind.

I'm not a huge fan of Panera.

You have to be so careful. The first thing we learned, and our first major mistake, is that you have to keep the focus on what got you started down this road in the first place. For us, knowing nothing about multiple unit concepts, we put our initial energy into opening and running more stores and we put our food quality into someone else's hands. The result was horrible. (go back 5 years and look at the threads here regarding us) Horrible, I tell you. So we went back to the drawing board, took back complete control of the cooking, returned to the exact recipes and methods that we started with, and made that our single priority.

We still get stuff wrong all of the time, but the food is right, 100% right. I know because I cook a LOT of it. Now we spend our time ironing out the complexities of being a franchisor and learning what exactly that means. It was great food that got us started and it is great food that we will live or die by. You have to be able to identify what your lifeblood is and keep it as pure as you can through the process of expansion. Easy to type, hard as hell to live.

Wild Eggs is a great concept and they execute at a very high level consistently. They certainly have the potential to launch into a multi-unit operation, but from my experience, the key will be staying true to what makes them great today.

You have to be so careful. The first thing we learned, and our first major mistake, is that you have to keep the focus on what got you started down this road in the first place. For us, knowing nothing about multiple unit concepts, we put our initial energy into opening and running more stores and we put our food quality into someone else's hands. The result was horrible. (go back 5 years and look at the threads here regarding us) Horrible, I tell you. So we went back to the drawing board, took back complete control of the cooking, returned to the exact recipes and methods that we started with, and made that our single priority.

We still get stuff wrong all of the time, but the food is right, 100% right. I know because I cook a LOT of it. Now we spend our time ironing out the complexities of being a franchisor and learning what exactly that means. It was great food that got us started and it is great food that we will live or die by. You have to be able to identify what your lifeblood is and keep it as pure as you can through the process of expansion. Easy to type, hard as hell to live.

Wild Eggs is a great concept and they execute at a very high level consistently. They certainly have the potential to launch into a multi-unit operation, but from my experience, the key will be staying true to what makes them great today.

I am rooting for Wild Eggs but I hope they start small. Oh, and I enjoyed my drunken chicken friday night from the poplar level store. Good stuff!