How does a drive-thru iced tea franchise promote greater than 400 franchises in 5 years, and earn the No. 9 spot on our High New & Rising Franchises checklist? We spoke with HTeaO’s chief improvement officer Andrew Hawes to study why franchisees see the model as a candy alternative.
How did HTeaO get began?
Our founder, Gary Hutchins, has owned a hamburger restaurant in Amarillo, Texas, known as Buns Over Texas, because the 80’s. He began promoting iced tea there within the mid-2000’s. And across the time of the final recession in 2008, he began noticing individuals had been coming in and as an alternative of spending 10 bucks on a hamburger, they had been simply spending two or three bucks on an iced tea. So in 2009 he added on 1,200 sq. ft to his hamburger restaurant and launched Texas Tea, providing eight flavors of iced tea from a drive-thru.
His son Justin, who’s now our CEO, joined him and his mother in 2012, and that is once they launched the primary prototype of a freestanding Texas Tea. And as soon as we opened that, we realized we’d have one thing particular that we’d be capable of franchise. So we spent 5 – 6 years constructing the franchise mannequin and the assist system and the infrastructure, after which launched the franchise alternative in 2018, on the similar time that we rebranded Texas Tea to HTeaO.
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Do you assume it is a idea that may go nationwide?
I feel sooner or later it should, and we have even had some curiosity, crazily sufficient, from locations like North Dakota and Idaho. However proper now our focus is the southeastern United States, what I might name “tea ingesting nation.” The barrier to entry is far much less as a result of you do not have to clarify what iced tea is somebody in Georgia. So our development technique, nonetheless being an rising younger model, is to construct our model and our consciousness within the southern U.S., after which as soon as we’ve that publicity and have a thousand areas open, we will get into among the extra northern states that are not as acquainted with iced tea but. And one of many principal causes we introduced on what we name our brewhouse choices, which is our sizzling tea and low choices, together with growing our morning visitors, was to finally go into these markets the place sizzling drinks are extra common.
What are your objectives for the model for 2023 and past?
We’ve 68 areas open and operational at present, and 93 below building, so that ought to deliver our whole to about 160 shops open within the subsequent 12 months. Past that, we have already awarded 430 franchises in whole, and we’re taking a look at awarding 175 extra this 12 months. The plan is to have 500 areas open by the top of 2026.
To what do you attribute that development?
It is a mannequin constructed across the most worthwhile a part of a restaurant. Any eating places proprietor will let you know drinks are the place the cash is made. We eradicated all the frustration and gear that goes with meals preparation. And it would not take a rocket scientist to comprehend that water, tea, and ice usually are not too terribly costly, so the margins could be very profitable. I feel individuals can visualize, Hey, that is one thing I can do. I do not want culinary expertise or a background in restaurant administration.
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What varieties of franchisees has HTeaO attracted?
To start with, it was a number of second profession sort individuals — individuals who mentioned, “I might like to construct a enterprise for myself, however I would like that assist mechanism of a franchise.” So for the primary few years, our development was closely weighted towards single-unit operators, they usually’ve been implausible. Now that we have constructed some model consciousness, we’re beginning to appeal to multi-unit, multi-brand franchise companions, which is extraordinarily humbling. I nonetheless view us as a really younger, unknown model, so to have somebody with 20 or 30 years of expertise within the franchise area take a leap of religion means rather a lot to our group. We’re nonetheless going to welcome single-unit franchisees, however bringing on multi-unit companions who can do 5 to twenty shops over a shorter interval as a result of they’ve the infrastructure already in place is basically going to be key to our development going ahead.