President and CEO James Flynn has helped Wingstop increase comps for 20 consecutive quarters.

Well, it really I think is a lot of hitting singles. We've really put emphasis in every area of the company. We do better screening now and I think get in better qualified candidates. We have a better training program than we did before to make people more competent out there. We have better real-estate selection. Our field operations people are clearly better than what we had early on, and they're trained better and have a better background. We've set up advertising co-ops in a lot of the cities, and we just do a better job of marketing overall.

And you've been growing all this time, too, right?

When we got here [in January 2003], there were about 88 stores and the annual systemwide sales was $35 million. We'll finish this year at about $280 million with a little over 400 stores open. But I think, importantly, we've sold enough development agreements moving forward that we're currently at about 620 stores.

Tell me more about your field training. What elements have gone into that?

For example, we do background checks now when we do reference checks. We bring in any potential candidate and have them spend a full day where we go through every function of the company. And then not only do they decide if they'd like to be a franchisee of ours, but we also decide if we want them to be a franchisee of ours.

Are you doing anything special or different to maintain that relationship?

The founder of this concept, Antonio Swad, the person that our investors bought it from, came up with the term “brand partner” as opposed to franchisee. We have quarterly telephone conferences where brand partners call in and our senior management talks about where we are with the company, what we're doing and then answers any questions. We've also recently started face-to-face meetings with brand partners.

Your menu is very tight. Have you been tempted to expand it?

When we bought the concept, it was a wing concept. That's what attracted everybody to it. But we have added to it. We added boneless wings probably about two or three years ago, and boneless wings now contribute about 15 percent of the sales. So we have expanded the product line, but that's about the only major expansion of the product line that we've had.

I was reading about how you can order online and then pick it up. Has there been good progress in that area?

No question about it. The online ordering has really continued to expand for us. And the interesting thing is, the average volume of an order online is about twice our normal order.

If you look back at the end of the year, what's going to tell you that it's been a successful year for you?

If comps continue to increase and improve the way that they have, I think that's important. The number of development agreements that we sell for the future is important. And right now we're ahead of budget. And then, again, the profitability of our brand partners, their ability to succeed. 

Podcast: Read, listen to or download an extended audio interview with James Flynn.