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Wayback Burgers evokes nostalgia with a sense of humorWayback Burgers evokes nostalgia with a sense of humor

Clever limited-time offers and community involvement keeps the brand top-of-mind

Bret Thorn, Senior Food Editor

February 5, 2024

Wayback Burgers is an all-franchised limited-service concept based in Cheshire, Conn., with around 150 locations in the United States and another 27 overseas.

It was founded in 1991 in Newark, Del., as Jake’s Hamburgers, which president Patrick Conlin said was a sort of roadside burger shack.

“[The original location] has a bullet hole in the window, if you look closely,” said Conlin, who joined the brand around seven years ago at the invitation of CEO John Eucalitto. “We’ve evolved since then.”

Eucalitto has been leading the brand since 2008 and began franchising it under the name Jake’s Wayback Burgers. The “Jake’s” was dropped around 2018.

It competes in the “Better Burger” segment and also offers chicken sandwiches and tenders, cheesesteaks, hot dogs, milkshakes, and a slightly wider range of sides than usual with options such as fried pickles, mac & cheese bites, tots, and bacon cheese fries.

Average tickets run around $25 — slightly less from guests who order at the counter and a bit more if guests order from the kiosks that are currently being rolled out.

The chain also recently relaunched its ordering app.

Conlin said the chain isn’t looking to conquer the world and is instead looking to grow thoughtfully with franchisees of a similar mindset to Wayback’s management.

“We don’t need to be the biggest better burger franchise,” he said. “We want to have the right people. We also have to go to sleep at night … and it’s a lot better dealing with nice people than people who are going to give you headaches or be unhappy in what they’re doing.”

Nonetheless, the chain is expanding at a decent clip, having recently entered Utah and Arizona. It’s first Louisiana location is slated to open soon in New Orleans.

All told, management anticipates 30 new domestic locations opening this year and another 20 internationally.

The name is meant to evoke nostalgia, and the chain tends not to build locations from the ground up but instead renovate existing locations to its specs.

Franchisees can anticipate spending between $550,000 and $700,000 on each location, Conlin said.

Community involvement is a priority for the chain, which has a national partnership with Boys & Girls Club of America, and franchisees are expected to be involved with local schools’ sports teams and other charities, which Conklin said helps build goodwill and introduce the brand to potential new customers.

Another marketing aspect of the chain is some of its more cheeky limited-time offers, such as The Royal Silencer, which was launched shortly after the release of British Prince Harry’s tell-all about the Royal Family. It had three patties instead of the usual two, and the extra one was called a “spare,” which was also the name of the book.

At the time, Conlin said “We designed The Royal Silencer to fill mouths to capacity with every bite to discourage spilling sensitive family drama to the media and general public.”

And in the wake of Elon Musk renaming Twitter “X,” Wayback launched The “X” Burger, made with 10 patties (presumably because X is the Roman numeral for 10) and selling for $29.99 except for people named Elon, for whom it was free.

“Did we sell a lot of ‘X’ Burgers or Royal Silencers? No. But it got us mentioned in a lot of different places … and maybe it made you look at the menu and come into one of our restaurants,” he said.

More conventional LTOs are also introduced more-or-less quarterly, including the current Southwest Burger, pistachio shake, and chili cheese tots.

Contact Bret Thorn at [email protected] 

Be sure to vote for your favorite chain on our LinkedIn or Instagram pages. The winner will be announced the week of Feb. 19.

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About the Author

Bret Thorn

Senior Food Editor, Nation's Restaurant News

Senior Food & Beverage Editor

Bret Thorn is senior food & beverage editor of Nation’s Restaurant News and Restaurant Hospitality.

Hi is responsible for spotting and reporting on F&B trends across the country for both publications. 

He is the co-host of a podcast, Menu Talk with Pat and Bret, which features interviews with chefs, food & beverage authorities, and other experts in foodservice operations.

From 2005 to 2008 he also wrote the Kitchen Dish column for The New York Sun, covering restaurant openings and chefs’ career moves in New York City.

He joined Nation’s Restaurant News in 1999 after spending about five years in Thailand, where he wrote articles about business, banking and finance as well as restaurant reviews and food columns for Manager magazine and Asia Times newspaper. He joined Restaurant Hospitality’s staff in 2016 while retaining his position at NRN. 

A magna cum laude graduate of Tufts University in Medford, Mass., with a bachelor’s degree in history, and a member of Phi Beta Kappa, Thorn also studied traditional French cooking at Le Cordon Bleu Ecole de Cuisine in Paris. He spent his junior year of college in China, studying Chinese language, history and culture for a semester each at Nanjing University and Beijing University. While in Beijing, he also worked for ABC News during the protests and ultimate crackdown in and around Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Thorn’s monthly column in Nation’s Restaurant News won the 2006 Jesse H. Neal National Business Journalism Award for best staff-written editorial or opinion column.

He served as president of the International Foodservice Editorial Council, or IFEC, in 2005.

Thorn wrote the entry on comfort food in the Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, 2nd edition, published in 2012. He also wrote a history of plated desserts for the Oxford Companion to Sugar and Sweets, published in 2015.

He was inducted into the Disciples d’Escoffier in 2014.

A Colorado native originally from Denver, Thorn lives in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Bret Thorn’s areas of expertise include food and beverage trends in restaurants, French cuisine, the cuisines of Asia in general and Thailand in particular, restaurant operations and service trends. 

Bret Thorn’s Experience: 

Nation’s Restaurant News, food & beverage editor, 1999-Present
New York Sun, columnist, 2005-2008 
Asia Times, sub editor, 1995-1997
Manager magazine, senior editor and restaurant critic, 1992-1997
ABC News, runner, May-July, 1989

Education:
Tufts University, BA in history, 1990
Peking University, studied Chinese language, spring, 1989
Nanjing University, studied Chinese language and culture, fall, 1988 
Le Cordon Bleu Ecole de Cuisine, Cértificat Elémentaire, 1986

Email: [email protected]

Social Media:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bret-thorn-468b663/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bret.thorn.52
Twitter: @foodwriterdiary
Instagram: @foodwriterdiary

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