Fox expects the Oakville, Ontario location to open to the public in October. Browns is currently in discussions to open another Ontario location region not yet disclosed in the near future. Entry into the Eastern Canadian market is also under consideration. For U. The company is currently in discussions to expand into two other, not yet disclosed states. Agriculture Automotive Communications Construction.
Associations and Unions Municipal Retail Services. George Media Inc. All rights reserved. Based on a smaller footprint between 2, and 3, sq.
Then he flashed back to a CNN interview with the founders of upscale U. Intrigued, Morison adopted the same approach — only to immediately inform his wife Elizabeth that he needed a do-over.
The first name he pointed to has long since faded from memory, although Morison jokes that it would have likely required his new restaurants to offer a terrific matzo-ball soup. More than a decade later, BRG means plenty to customers, employees and a growing list of would-be franchise partners all clamouring to be part of a success story that is still being written.
Browns Socialhouse has grown quickly — it now boasts 65 locations, primarily in Western Canada — while maintaining double-digit revenue growth and posting EBITDA typically more than double the industry average. It currently has one corporately owned restaurant in Oakville, with a new location slated for Ottawa.
Its continued business success is an undeniable factor in a terrific 12 months that have seen it overhaul the Browns Socialhouse menu, the ongoing development of two new chains — including a pizza-led concept called Liberty Kitchen — and continued corporate social-responsibility initiatives. Morison is content to leave the cold, hard business numbers to a seasoned senior-management team led by his two trusted lieutenants: president and COO Scott Ward and executive vice-president, Business Development Bruce Fox.
For me, the metrics are, are my franchisees and customers happy? In July, BRG announced it had secured a multi-product loan facility from CWB Franchise Finance that will be used to consolidate and refinance existing corporate debt as it looks to grow its Western-Canadian footprint and readies itself for a long-anticipated move into Eastern Canada.
Closer to home, a new team headed by culinary director Damon Campbell and culinary development chefs Michael Steh and Kristian Eligh, has retooled the Browns Socialhouse menu, introducing new items while retooling customer favourites such as pizza. They also started making the white sauce for pizzas in-house and have changed the dredge mixture for the Spicy Crispy Chicken sandwich and the tortilla shells used in the Crispy Chicken Taco and Baja Fish Taco.
From a business perspective, meanwhile, a carefully managed growth plan is very much front and centre. Browns Socialhouse recently opened its newest restaurant in Winnipeg, across from the MTS Centre, while the parent company is currently developing a new pizza-led concept, Liberty Kitchen, with the first location set to open in Surrey, B.
At the Browns Socialhouse in North Vancouver's Lynn Valley neighbourhood, the time-honoured restaurant layout has been rethought, if not reversed. To get to the front door, patrons first thread their way through a sprawling deck. Then, inside the door, the path to tables and booths is blocked by a big, centre-stage bar—while just a few steps left of the entry looms the kitchen, where cooks, bussers and even dishwashers are busy doing their thing.
Design is not the only aspect of the restaurant business that Morison is shaking up. Only a decade old, his Browns Socialhouse chain already numbers almost 40 locations, a total slated to hit 50 this year a handful under a different name and within four years, as Browns expands from its western base into Ontario and beyond.
Morison considers himself in the race to become the first Canadian full-service chain to hit a billion dollars in sales. To do that he'll need to open something approaching the Browns outlets he thinks Canada has room for, and he'll have to blow by competitors that include Earls and Cactus Club, which are also based in Vancouver and ply a similar upmarket trade, where burgers and steaks meet rice bowls and salads, and everything is washed down with plenty of better-quality beer, wine and cocktails.
The format evolved on Canada's West Coast, where liquor laws created an opening by crippling the development of a bar scene. But it is now spreading across the continent. Beating rivals like Earls and Cactus Club would be especially sweet, as Morison got his start at one of the early Earls locations and then co-founded Cactus Club, back in The split happened after no one else would buy into his vision for a new chain along Cactus Club lines but with smaller footprints and operated by franchisees, rather than corporate-owned.
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