Matt Stanton With Mici Italian

Intro: [00:00:07] Welcome to Franchise Marketing Radio, brought to you by SeoSamba. Comprehensive, high performing marketing solutions for mature and emerging franchise brands to supercharge your franchise marketing. Go to seosamba.com. That’s seosamba.com.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:31] Lee Kantor here, another episode of Franchise Marketing Radio, and this is going to be a fun one today on the show, we have Matt Stanton with Mici Italian welcome Matt.

Matt Stanton: [00:00:42] Hi there, Lee.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:43] Well, I’m excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us a little bit about Mici. How are you serving, folks?

Matt Stanton: [00:00:48] Yes, Ameche is a fast, casual Italian concept. We serve basically a great Italian New York style pizza, pastas and salads. So pretty simple menu, but we try to do that very, very well. And we’ve actually been in business for 18 years serving customers.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:09] Now, did it start out as a franchise or did it start out kind of as a mom and pop the neighborhood place that just kind of grew? And then all of a sudden, it’s a franchise?

Matt Stanton: [00:01:19] Yeah, the latter. In fact, we only started franchising this last year, so it’s a family owned and operated company started by three siblings 18 years ago who were in the pizza business and decided to start their own brand here in Denver, Colorado. And the brand really evolved and grew out of their vision and kind of went from one unit to unit a small handful till we really locked in the four wall economics, the menu, the service model. All of that to where with that really good foundation, we decided to scale and start franchising this last year.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:04] So what were some of the kind of clues or breadcrumbs that led you to franchising as the growth path?

Matt Stanton: [00:02:14] Yeah, I mean, a few things, I mean, franchising, if you do it with the right franchise partners, is a great way to scale. They can add a lot of insight into the brand. Oftentimes they can run restaurants better than you can, and so you have to do it right. But with a brand like Mickey, that’s very, you know, let me back up a little. One unique thing about Mickey and especially being in the pizza space, is it’s actually very simple to operate the kitchen. Jeff are founder and president, is a very ingenious guy and has done a lot of things to take complexity out of the kitchen. So when you have a a restaurant model that’s very systematic, very ease of operations, it becomes very scalable via franchising. And so it was kind of all that wrapped up on that foundation and the ease of scalability that led us to pursue franchising as an option.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:15] Now how do you kind of keep the culture and that kind of family ambiance in a franchise like this?

Matt Stanton: [00:03:25] Yeah, you know, I mean, part of it is who we franchise with. They need to have those shared values. We treat our customers like our family. We have staff that’s been with us. Actually, our the first staff member ever hired 18 years ago is still with us. So, you know, part of it, it’s just good business to treat people right, whether it be the customer or the employee. So we certainly want franchisees who share those same values, and we think those shared values also lead to business results. And then part of it is if you look at our menu, our design, really everything about us, you know, our core customer is that young family who really values good quality food, but maybe is also in a time crunch as well. And that is our core customer. So just that fact means that all those come together to that brand culture that will that will then replicate throughout the U.S..

Lee Kantor: [00:04:27] And then when you took the plunge to start franchising, were you getting traction right away or was this something that took a while to kind of get the word out about the offering?

Matt Stanton: [00:04:38] Yeah, you know, we’ve had incredible success over these last six months that we’ve been franchising, and it’s it’s really, I wouldn’t say, surprised us because we knew we had something really powerful with this brand, but it’s just been very rewarding to see. We’ve secured large multi-unit deals with very experienced franchise teams who really outperform in the other brands they work with. And so we’re very honored that they chose Mitchie to to franchise with and lead the charge. We have a great franchise group down in Phenix with a couple of sites that are going under construction shortly. We have another franchise group with decades of experience and restaurants in Dallas, and then most recently we brought on a very experienced and high quality group up in Detroit. And so, you know, that’s just the kind of the tip of the spear, but those are the kind of quality groups that see something in Mitchie understand the value proposition to the customer as well as to the business owner and have decided to partner with us in this venture.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:48] Now was that intentional to go after kind of these complementary brands rather than kind of just put the word out and just get these onesies around the country?

Matt Stanton: [00:06:00] You know, certainly I think most restaurant brands out there love to franchise with the the multi-unit franchisees. However, we wanted we wanted folks that were going to be focused on niches. So we’re not exclusively looking for that. We certainly want to look at somebody’s background, we want to look at how they’re going to be involved in the brand. So just because someone has multiple units and an operating structure doesn’t mean they’re a good fit for Mitchie. And likewise, just because somebody hasn’t necessarily done restaurants before, it doesn’t mean they they, you know, they could be a good fit as well. So it really depends on the franchisee there, their background and really how focus they’re going to be on the brand we want. We want people who really sees this as their next big opportunity, not just something to kind of dabble in on the side.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:58] So now what has been the most rewarding part of the journey so far for you?

Matt Stanton: [00:07:04] You know, so far is seeing the growth of this small brand, right, securing franchise interest so early and seeing a brand that, like I said with 18 years of operating history, there’s a lot of stuff worked out. I think some brands grow before they’re ready. Nietzsche certainly has taken the opposite approach of generating a really strong foundation to grow off of. And when we decided to launch that growth, it’s just very rewarding to see that other people see what we see in the brand.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:36] Now, any advice for folks running at an emerging franchise brand like yours to kind of smooth out their learning curve, like if if you could do some things over again? What are some of those things and how would you kind of help them launch faster and more successfully?

Matt Stanton: [00:07:54] Yeah. I mean, I think one thing that I think we did right, that I would suggest others to do as well is don’t try to jump into high growth before you’re ready. You know, we we brought in our CEO about four years ago and really didn’t hit the gas pedal. There were still things to be worked out with the brand, from simplicity and scalability of operations, fine tuning, the menu and supply chain. So probably the best thing we’ve done that I’d suggest to others is really get that foundation right and make sure you’re growing off a strong foundation because once you start growing, it’s very hard to pivot. Whether it be the technology you use, whether it be your operational processes, it can be very hard to adjust that the bigger you get. And so I think Nietzsche did it smart in waiting on that growth and being patient until we had a lot of things worked out at the same time. Nothing’s ever going to be fully perfect, right? And so there is a time you have to say, Hey, we have enough pieces in place. We have something really special here and we want to share it with the rest of the country. So let’s hit the gas on growth now. So I think we’ve done it at the right time.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:09] You mentioned a couple of times the importance of simplifying operations. Is there any advice in that area you would recommend? Like, how do you know when the process is ready, you know, to be replicated that it’s simple enough?

Matt Stanton: [00:09:25] Yeah. I mean, if you look at especially with franchising and especially in today’s difficult labor environment, we were really looking at, do we have to have incredibly skilled people in the kitchen who maybe have been either pizza chefs for years and years or even with Micky for years and years or months and months even to be effective? And so part of it was taking the complexity out. So if we are bringing on someone new, how fast can they be effective in the kitchen? Basically, how fast can you learn to be successful in the kitchen and serve the customer as well? And with with what we’ve done with our kitchen operations, we can take someone. We have 17 year old high schoolers who are some of our pizza chefs. We’ve taken some of the complexity out of making pizza. We’ve taken put in the right processes. So again, we can be very busy, but it’s very smooth in there and that’s what you want. You don’t want to get high average unit volumes by sheer power of will, and it’s exhausting. Each time you run high revenue hours, you want it where you’re moving along and the operations are smooth. Your team’s winning the restaurant, those great volume. And yet it’s not a chaotic or stressful environment. And so, you know, we look for that. And once you hit that and you can train people into that environment very quickly, then I think you have simple enough operations to really start scaling, especially via franchising.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:03] And if somebody wants to learn more about the opportunity, what’s the best way to do that?

Matt Stanton: [00:11:08] Yeah, go to our website. Meet you, Italian. You can learn all about our brand. Obviously, go to our franchising page as well where you learn a little bit more about the business opportunity, and that’s linked on our main website. But I’d say learn both about the brand from a consumer perspective as best you can, as well as from a business owner perspective to get the right sense of what the brand is and what we have to offer.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:33] Good stuff, Matt. And that website is Mitchie Italian. That’s Mike see-I Italian Italia. And that’s one see in Mitchie. Matt, thank you so much for sharing your story today or doing important work, and we appreciate you.

Matt Stanton: [00:11:48] Thank you very much. It was a pleasure being on with you.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:51] All right, this is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you next time on Franchise Marketing Radio.