How To Grow To 100 Units: Rising to the Occasion
Rising Roll tightens the menu and operations to keep franchisee profitability top of mind.
By Maya Norris, Managing Editor -- Chain Leader, 7/1/2007
WEB EXCLUSIVE: Is your concept ready for franchising? Check out franchising consultant Richard Sharoff’s advice.  Rising Roll’s 50-item menu includes the Chicken & Apples sandwich, chicken salad topped with blue-cheese dressing, smoked bacon and Granny Smith apples; and the Tucson Wrap, grilled chicken breast tossed with bacon, cheddar cheese, lettuce, tomato, almonds and ranch dressing in a sun-dried-tomato tortilla.
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When Rising Roll Gourmet decided to franchise in 2003, the fast-casual, lunch-only concept had two units ringing up $2 million in systemwide sales and positive reviews for its gourmet sandwiches from the local media in Atlanta as well as the Zagat guide. But founders Jeff and Bob Weiss knew that it would take more than great sandwiches to successfully duplicate Rising Roll.
That’s when the father-and-son team brought in Mike Lassiter, CE0 of Atlanta-based Franchising Concepts. Lassiter spent four months preparing Rising Roll for franchising by analyzing and improving its menu, labor costs and prototype.
"When we looked at this, we said, ‘OK, franchisee profitability has to be our No. 1 goal," says Lassiter, who now serves as president of Rising Roll. "So if we focused on the franchisee, we truly felt our concept had the legs and the long-term viability to be very successful."
Less Is More
Rising Roll honed its extensive menu of nearly 80 items to decrease food and labor costs. It began purchasing ready-made items such as boiled eggs and guacamole to reduce labor. It also removed 27 slow-selling items that were expensive and labor intensive to produce. For example, Rising Roll got rid of the shrimp salad sandwich because it only sold well in the summer and had a short shelf life. It also removed the labor-intensive quesadilla. Employees had to come in early to prepare the ingredients and build the quesadillas. Those not sold were discarded.
By streamlining the menu to 50 items, Rising Roll removed 22 inventory items, reduced food costs by 6 percent and shaved off about eight hours of labor a week, according to Lassiter.
It also helped with franchisee training: "Bottom line, it’s just a heck of a lot easier to learn 50 recipes than 80," he says.
Room for Improvement
Rising Roll streamlined the store design to reduce rental costs, better market the products and maximize throughput after seeing inefficiencies in one of its two company stores, a 4,000-square-foot unit in Alpharetta, Ga. The company created a 2,400-square-foot prototype where customers see the menu board and deli cases from the entrance. The prototype maximizes seating by using two tops instead of four tops to accommodate its primarily business customers, who usually come in alone or in a party of two.
Rising Roll also hired a real-estate broker to help with site selection and negotiation, and set up franchisee advisory committees.
Since Rising Roll began franchising in 2003, 11 units have opened in Arizona, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas. It doesn’t plan to open more company units. Instead it will help franchisees open 60 to 70 units in the West and Southwest over the next five years.
"Right now our total focus is franchisee profitability. So we’re not looking at corporate stores," Lassiter says. "We don’t want to lose focus on that franchisee profitability."
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