Restaurant Development & Design

May-June 2015

restaurant development + design is a user-driven resource for restaurant professionals charged with building new locations and remodeling existing units.

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M A Y / J U N E 2 0 1 5 • r e s t a u r a n t d e v e l o p m e n t + d e s i g n • 5 5 How To BY DAVID FARKAS, Contributing Editor Ensure Design, Construction Standards Compliance Which Wich HQ: Dallas Concept: Fast-casual sandwiches Units: 3 company-owned, 340 franchised 2015 development schedule: 83 new units Vice President of Development: Jeff Vickers rd+d: Your website says, "Which Wich takes a hands-on approach during the construction process." Explain how that works and how it relates to construction and design compliance. JV: First, let me say I have a team of just 5 people for 340-plus stores. That in- cludes real estate and franchise develop- ment. I deal with lots of franchisees who come from mature brands with thousands of units. I'm proud they continue to follow up with us. The feedback we get is: "Your processes are so detailed and so thorough." To that end, and to keep the franchisees moving in the right direction, we do a weekly call with everyone in the new-store opening process. We have an interactive system that's a simple checklist. Every week we give the new franchisees tasks they have to com- plete. There are maybe 400 tasks in all, but we break them down, unlocking only four tasks a week to keep it manageable. T o date, Which Wich CEO Jeff Sinelli has founded three franchised restaurant chains. At frst, he strictly followed his lawyer's advice for enforcing construction and design standards. Then, as he learned more about sell- ing franchises, he began to customize compliance standards to better satisfy franchisee expectations. "For the frst fve years, you're in your formative stages," Sinelli recalls. "You can scare people off, and you really don't know why." Some franchising experts say that fear could have a lot to do with franchise agreements that strongly favor the franchisor, and are so infexible on issues of compliance, that potential franchisees balk. Frank Steed, a franchise con- sultant and former president of Tony Roma's, is one such expert. He says he's examined nascent franchise agreements so stringent that only fools would sign them. "I've asked [fran- chisors], 'How serious are you about attracting franchisees? Because the kind of people you want to sign this agreement will toss it back in your face,'" he explains. Franchise attorney Richard Solomon takes it a step further. The franchise agreement, he says, is usually so heavily weighted toward franchisors that "it's a contract no one in his right mind would ever sign unless there's some incredible incentive to do so." Yet even Solomon, who repre- sents both franchisees and franchi- sors, concedes that compliance standards are vital to a franchise sys- tem — which means franchisors must monitor those standards to ensure quality and consistency, and also to avoid running afoul of the law. "Com- pliance is never an evil. It's necessary for any system to work," he says. "The evil is in the misuse of compliance. You can't keep a registered service mark without policing and enforcing how it's used. The failure to do so is a violation of the Lanham Act." To fnd out how growing franchi- sors accomplish that when it comes to overseeing construction and design standards, rd+d reached out to two veteran executives for insights on their best practices: Jeff Vickers, vice presi- dent of development at Dallas-based Which Wich, and Steve Dunn, senior vice president, global development, at Spartanburg, S.C.-based Denny's Corp. Which Wich helps to ensure compliance with build- ing and design standards by taking a very hands-on approach during the construction process and requiring franchisees to use approved architects and general contractors.

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