For a 50-year-old brand, Lee’s Famous Recipe Chicken exhibits the traits of a spring chicken in adopting new technology and paring down its menu.
Parent company Famous Recipe Group LLC of Shalimar, Fla., saw systemwide sales and unit volume increase in 2015. As of the year ended in December 2015, Lee’s Famous Recipe booked $160.4 million in systemwide U.S. sales, rising 7.7 percent from the Preceding Year. The brand ended the Latest Year with 134 restaurants and estimated sales per unit of nearly $1.2 million, up 8.5 percent from the Preceding Year.
“We’re trying to think outside box … when the box is 50 years old,” Chuck Cooper, Famous Recipe Group president, told Nation’s Restaurant News.
“As a mature brand, we’re working on new potential franchisees that are interested in some non-traditional ways to bring our product to market,” Cooper said. “Those include college campuses. A slimmed-down menu, such as tenders only, would be a big change for the Lee’s brand.”
New technology, especially in more efficient and larger capacity fryers, has helped older restaurants, some built in the 1980s, increase volume, he said.
“We just completed our 26th consecutive quarter of same-store sales growth,” Cooper said. “And we had one store hit the $3 million mark this past year.”
But new technology hasn’t changed the process of food preparation.
Additionally, the brand has trimmed its menu.
“We’ve taken away some of the lower-selling items that weren’t consistent across the brand and focused on the products that are the middle of our target,” Cooper said. “About 20 percent of the products make up 80 percent of sales.”
Part of the menu paring was done in advance of upcoming food labeling requirements from the Food and Drug Administration, he said. A number of desserts were removed, and side items were reduced from 15 to 10 offerings.
“We’re a fried chicken concept, and desserts are less than 2 percent of what we do,” Cooper said. “You can argue that they are incremental sales; it just never moved the needle.”
About 50 percent of sales are at the drive-thru, and the brand has trained staff to make purchase suggestions.
Cooper said Lee’s has also improved messaging with younger customers through social media, particularly Twitter and Facebook. On July 6, National Chicken Day, Lee’s Famous Recipe aired on Facebook Live a video of Cooper being dunked into more than 80 gallons of the brand’s ranch dressing.
Lee’s Famous Recipe Chicken has 137 restaurants.
Keys to Success
Consistency: Even as new technologies are adopted, food prep on signature menu items has remained the same.
Trimmed-down menu: Less popular items, such as desserts, have been removed to keep the menu focused and profitable.
Marketing: The chain uses social media campaigns as well as local promotions and suggestive selling to boost sales and brand awareness.
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