ENTER THE MINI BRAND
Restaurants are testing out concepts during pandemic to stay afloat and to grow
While the coronavirus pandemic has forced restaurants to find ways to stay alive, few would have guessed that developing new concepts would be a smart business lifeline. But mini brands — fledgling food concepts quickly developed within existing restaurant structures — are proving to be potentially lucrative ways to stay in the game.
Goode Bird, a new Southern fried-chicken concept from Goode Company Restaurants, is only a month old but already such a hit with consumers that CEO Levi Goode decided to take it on the road for a two-day pop-up in The Woodlands last weekend. Both days were sold out for pre-orders the week before the pop-up started.
Operated out of Goode’s temporarily closed Armadillo Palace, the chicken-to-go concept has proved to be both a job-salvaging innovation and a compelling new offering for Goode loyalists and fried-chicken fans.
“If folks are not coming into restaurants, this is the time to be innovative and try new things,” Goode said. “It’s been a bright spot in a gray cloud at this time.”
Chef Ryan Lachaine found that same bright spot when he launched Louie’s, a new takeaway and delivery sandwich concept within his Riel restaurant at 1927 Fairview. With little to no advance publicity, he opened the sandwiches-to-go operation on Aug. 13 and was struck by the reception.
“There was a parade of cars down Fairview,” he said. “We got smoked.”
Open Monday through Saturday from noon to 5 p.m., Louie’s produces its lineup of hefty sandwiches (BLT, turkey club, Italian sub,
chicken Parmesan and fried fish to name a few) from the kitchen at Riel, which is only open for dinner.
Lachaine said he’s been thinking about doing something with sandwiches for more than a year, so when the pandemic hit and restaurant operations were reduced, Louie’s — named, like Riel, for Louis Riel who founded the Canadian province of Manitoba where Lachaine was born and raised — became one of those no-time-like-the-present propositions.
“We had the time to do it and execute it properly,” he said. “It wasn’t something just thrown together. A lot of time and thought went into it.”
That kind of effort, at a time when restaurant resources are precious, is what makes the mini brand both risky and worthwhile. Introducing new concepts are among the creative ways restaurants have pivoted during the pandemic in an effort to retain workers, create new revenue streams and test ideas for future endeavors. New projects have included establishing marketplaces within restaurants (Local Foods created then expanded green grocer stores within its Tanglewood and Rice Village locations); launching pop-up restaurants (Rosie Cannonball created a completely new concept called Spritz Patio using the space at sister property Goodnight Charlie’s while it’s been idle during pandemic); and joining the virtual kitchen bandwagon.
The latter pivot is gaining steam, with more restaurants branching out within the “ghost kitchen” realm — shared commissary spaces for to-go and delivery menus. It’s the route that Shannen Tune, owner of Craft Burger in Finn Hall, took to launch his new Thick Chick chicken sandwich concept; ditto for Alex Au-Yeung, owner of Phat Eatery in Katy, who joined the same Third Ward ghost kitchen to launch his upcoming Phat Kitchen to bring his Malaysian street food to Inner Loopers and test drive new concepts Yelo and Pig + Duck.
While operating one concept is hard enough, the mini brand makes sense for some restaurateurs, said Jonathan Horowitz, founder and CEO of Convive Hospitality Consulting, a Houston restaurant marketing and consulting firm.
The benefits can be significant, he added: They create new marketing opportunities, excitement within the restaurant landscape, a way to test ideas for upcoming projects and a potential new cash flow.
Excitement is what Leslie Nguyen was counting on when she recently launched Miss Mini Donuts at BCK, the Heights sister restaurant to Bosscat Kitchen & Libations in River Oaks, where she is co-owner. Already established in Newport Beach, Calif., the mini-doughnut enterprise is a favorite of celebrities, including Kim Kardashian, with flavors such as cotton candy, animal crackers, Fruity Pebbles and Kit Kat.
Nguyen is using BCK restaurant as a testing ground for the business she hopes will eventually secure its own permanent home in Houston.
She joins the ranks of operators big and small looking for ways to remain relevant during the pandemic while also serving existing customers and shopping for new ones.
That’s what drove hospitality giant Landry’s Inc. to recently create Landry’s Kitchen, a new home delivery service for the same steaks and seafood used at Landry’s brands, including Del
Frisco’s, Morton’s, The Palm Restaurant, Mastro’s Steakhouse and Oceanaire Seafood Room.
Goode Company Grocers is a local example of that same idea. Launched during the pandemic, the grocery store concept offers fresh produce, dry goods, pantry staples, meats, family meals, desserts, breads and meal kits. Like the Houston restaurants that have created to-go meals for local H-E-B and Kroger stores, it’s a way to keep working and keep the brand alive.
“The demand is not gone, it’s displaced,” said Goode. “With the pandemic, everything is upside down, which forces us to reshuffle the deck.”
For those whose reshuffling resulted in mini brands, the new concepts may contribute to operators finding themselves “in a better position than others after we get past the pandemic,” Horowitz said.
While the mini brand may not be immediately lucrative, it has the potential for bigger payoffs down the road.
For example, Daddy’s Burger launched in May at The Dunlavy (it later moved to Clark Cooper’s Punk’s Simple Southern Foods in Rice Village), offering an all-American menu of grass-fed burgers, fried onion rings and milkshakes. It was also a way for the hospitality group that owns Brasserie 19 to gauge the public’s interest in a small-box, fast-casual concept.
Though Clark Cooper closed it two weeks ago, Daddy’s Burgers did what it was intended to: prove that Houston would support another burger concept of its ilk.
“We were close to making money, but it was money well spent,” said partner Grant Cooper. “We had a huge, positive feedback.”
Now the company is looking for a location with a drive-thru for a permanent Daddy’s Burgers, which could open within the next six months, Cooper said.
“It’s not a good time to open a business in our industry right now, but it was a good time to test it,” he said. “Now it’s ready to go, and fully baked.”