Dog Haus has actually grown to about 90 areas in its 13-year history, and it has actually done so with an extremely varied portfolio of standard dining establishments, biergartens, digital-only ghost cooking areas, virtual brand names, and location areas such as Live Nation Amphitheaters and the Rose Bowl.
According to Datassential’s 2022 Top 500, the California-based hot dog/sausage/burger principle grew its footprint by almost 7.5% from 2021 to 2022, while sales leapt by over 36%. Cofounder André Vener said the business is opening about 2 shops a month, with 15 more anticipated by the end of this year and an objective of being “in the hundreds” by the end of next year.
“We have a lot of franchise interest, and we still say no more than we say yes,” Vener said throughout a recent interview. “It’s a true partnership; if they’re successful, we’re successful. If they grow, we get more royalties. If they’re happy, they’ll open more stores.”
Dog Haus’ technique to picking franchisees might be thought about a bit uncommon. Prospects are welcomed to the business’s head office in Pasadena so the Dog Haus group can learn more about them.
“We’ll go out for a drink and usually in 15-to-20 minutes, we’ll know if it’s somebody we want to partner with,” he said.
There likewise aren’t conclusive credentials, and Vener kept in mind that 8 out of the leading 10 Dog Haus shops are run by franchisees who have actually never ever prior to operated in a restaurant.
“We have a franchisee who runs five stores in the DC area who works at Microsoft full-time and he’s crushing it. We just want to like the people and if the person has some skillset, whether it’s marketing or finance, we can teach them the food part,” he said.
Dog Haus’ sweet area is that five-to-10-store franchisee, though there have actually been 20-and-30-unit deals signed. Notably, “we don’t really want to be thrown in with a bunch of other brands,” Vener said.
The present franchise interest is driven by a number of elements. In addition to varied format opportunities, Dog Haus has actually maintained a considerable portion of its off-premises business from the pandemic; shipment alone represents over 50% of the sales mix, for instance.
“What’s happened is we’ve always been ahead of the game on delivery. We started testing out ghost kitchens in 2018 and had the packaging and technology to get it ready and off the ground. Then we started virtual brands in 2019, that’s obviously an important part of delivery. Then in the pandemic, we went flying and were ahead on same-store sales because of our virtual brands,” Vener said. “We thought it was going to crash after the pandemic, but it’s completely steady.”
On the virtual side, the company’s Bad-Ass Breakfast Burritos concept has actually far exceeded expectations and could surpass the signature Dog Haus business within the next few years. Dog Haus also remains bullish on the ghost kitchen model, using them to prime and test a market before considering brick and mortar options. Vener said they’re also a good base to try out new menu items.
Of course, to maintain such a robust off-premises presence, the business needs to have sufficient labor. Vener said it’s still hard to find people, but the labor pool has actually improved “significantly” over the past two years, while turnover rates have likewise enhanced.
“We treat everyone right and have things like tip sharing with back-of-house and front-of-house employees and profit sharing with managers, letting them see the P&L so they can start managing labor the right way,” Vener said. “We’ve also gotten really good at cross training so we can promote people from within. Upward growth is a good thing and as our company grows, we can bring them along.”
Contact Alicia Kelso at [email protected]
