Full transcript of Cracking Eggs in the Drive-Thru: Farmer Boys’ John Lucas — episode 348 of the Restaurant Technology Guys podcast, with John Lucas, franchise development at Farmer Boys. Speaker labels preserved; lightly edited for readability.
What this episode covers. John Lucas has spent nine and a half years at Farmer Boys and currently leads franchise development, after earlier stops at Boudin, Starbucks and Marriott. The hook of the brand is that they crack the egg while you are ordering it, at a drive-thru window, at close to fast-food prices. John covers the history of the brand, what scratch-made actually costs to operate at speed, what happens when large brands test breakfast, the franchise process, and philoxenia, the idea that underpins the culture.
- In this transcript:
- John Lucas and the Road to Farmer Boys
- The History of Farmer Boys
- Made When You Order It
- How Farmer Boys Cracks Eggs at the Drive-Thru
- Delivering Great Service at Speed
- What Happens When Big Brands Test Breakfast
- Franchise Growth and Finding the Right Operators
- Philoxenia: The Culture Behind the Brand
- How the Franchise Process Works
- What to Order at Farmer Boys
Jeremy Julian (0:01): Welcome back to the Restaurant Technology Guys podcast. I thank everyone out there for joining us. As I like to say each and every time, I know you guys have got lots of choices, so thank you guys for hanging out. Today, I am joined by a new friend who works for a brand that I love, and I’m a little bit disappointed because I moved away from it. It used to be one of my staples, but John, don’t you go introduce yourself a little bit to our listeners. Who is John Lucas? know you’ve been in the restaurant space for quite some time. You’ve worked for quite a few different brands, and then… uh we can jump into kind of where you’re at most recently.
John Lucas and the Road to Farmer Boys
John M Lucas (0:33): Yeah, yeah. Thank you so much for that. So I’ve been here at Fonboys for the last nine and a half years. Prior to that, I was with a couple different brands. One, Boudin, who’s folks have brought sourdough to America, an amazing brand and an amazing history. And prior to that, a bunch of years with Starbucks as a regional director overseeing their license store business in Las Vegas and California. And then really one other company besides that, really Marriott Hotels, a little over 20 years, uh came up through the ranks, fresh out of culinary school and uh started out as kitchen supervisor, left there as a food and beverage director and thoroughly enjoyed my time there. uh But had really kind of loved, you know, kind of the back half of my career uh in multi-unit management, very different than the hotel world. And it’s, know, for the last 20 years, it’s just been an amazing journey in that world of hospitality.
Jeremy Julian (1:35): I love it. In full transparency, I did do a little bit of sleuthing. I saw that you had gone to culinary school. So how does somebody go from culinary school to hotels, slinging coffee, and then now to Farmer Boys, and we’ll talk about that, Brian. But that’s kind of been fun to kind of go on that journey. Am I digging back too deep for you?
John M Lucas (1:53): Yes, it’s all good. It’s all good. It’s still very close to home. I still have a bunch of memorabilia on my bookcase behind me from the college. went through Johnson and Oils and Providence, Rhode Island. I was born and raised in Providence, Rhode Island. And uh there’s a little bit of buzz about my hometown because it’s featured in the Housewives of Rhode Island, which is kind of comical. But uh I was born and raised outside of Providence and worked uh at a restaurant, one of my very first jobs. One of the gentlemen that ran the restaurant was also a part-time chef at the culinary school. He saw that I had an inclination and a passion for working in the kitchen and all things food. Coming up in a big Italian family where it was always about food and getting together. And I taught it when I was a senior in high school and ended up going and spent my time there. And a little bit about Rhode Island and New England, it rains a lot, it snows a lot, and it’s cold. And I had dreams of uh escaping that and going to someplace warm. I got hired by Marriott many, many years ago, and they asked me, do you have a geographic preference? I pointed outside the window and I said, no, I have a climatic preference. I think that’s different than this. And I think it was like the end of April and it was still like 40 degrees and raining. And I thought, this is no, this is just not for me. And so they sent me, they were gonna send me to Florida. And I was excited because my roommate for many years in college had gone off to work for Disney and we were gonna be roommates and we’re still friends to this day. And I was excited at that. This is gonna be great, going to Florida. It doesn’t look like this and it’s gonna be amazing. And they called me two weeks before I was supposed to show up and they… They said they hired too many people and wanted to know if I wanted to go to LA. I’m like, weather’s there, the weather there is good too. So send me to LA. And I was off and running and I’ve been in and out of the Los Angeles area for almost 40 years now. met my wife here and raised my family here. And I lived down in Orange County, close to Luguna Beach. I just, I couldn’t have. I’m glad that we ended up here.
Jeremy Julian (4:17): I it. I don’t know that I shared this with you, but I used to go back to Providence every year because our business partner actually used to partner with Johnson and Wales, the PosiTouch people. And so we used to get to see the culinary students at the hotel right there in Warwick. Every year there was a, you know, and the hotel was run by, I think it was a residence center or whatever, don’t know, whatever it was. This was a number of years ago. And so we used to constantly see the students and it was always fun.
John M Lucas (4:35): Yeah.
Jeremy Julian (4:46): because you could tell at semester change what was going on because none of them knew what they were doing. then, you know, the next time you’d visit, they’d all kind of had it figured out. John, um I’m familiar. A long time listeners know that I’m a Southern California guy. I moved away a few years ago. But for those not familiar with Farmer Boys, I know I use the phrase that, you know, when you and I were in Phoenix a couple of weeks back, just kind of talking about it reminds me of an uh upscaled Greek hamburger stand and around Los Angeles around around Southern California, get a lot of those where they’re kind of the hamburger stands. But for me, I’ve loved the Farmer Boys brand since I really got introduced to it in the Inland Empire many, many years ago. And so for those that are not familiar with Farmer Boys, why don’t you walk through what is the concept? Because it is somewhat unique and there’s not a lot of places that are chains, you know, that are chains, I guess, across the nation that can serve the breadth of cuisine that you guys do and the type of concept that you guys do. So I love I’d love for them to hear a little bit more about it.
The History of Farmer Boys
John M Lucas (5:47): Yeah, sure. I’ll start with the history. We just had our 40th, 50th anniversary. The brand was started by five brothers uh that were born and raised on uh a farm in Greece, and specifically on the island of Cyprus. And they came over here in the early 80s uh with the desire to get their education. And as things may happen when you’re young, they’re planning on getting an education and becoming engineers. turned into becoming restaurant owners. They started out with another brand in Torrance, California that the owner had sold to them. They fell in love with it, thought that there was something to be had there, but decided they wanted to do something more kind of specific to who they were. So they started the Farmer Boys brand in Paris, California in 1981. We’ve been growing since then. We have a presence in California, Arizona, Nevada. looking to kind of stretch our wings beyond that. Currently looking at different sites throughout the Southwest. But I think what’s unique about the brand, you know, we have a tagline that say breakfast burgers and more. And it really kind of kind of the essence of our menu where we serve breakfast all day and uh big bountiful omelets and uh you know, some amazing breakfast sandwiches and burritos that are like as big as a football. uh And an amazing line of burgers, but also amazing line of salads and you know, strangely enough our top selling items are cop salad. We have a cop salad that could easily feed two people. It’s just made with really high quality ingredients and also a lineup of really amazing sandwiches. And so I think it is a different brand. uh There’s a lot of brands out there that have one product or uh a uh small lineup of products. And that’s not really what looking for. We’re looking really to oh find a match for whatever you’re in the mood for. So if you want a burger, we got a great one. If you want breakfast at eight o’clock at night, we can do that too. And it kind of takes away that veto vote that you get, especially when you get a family to come out. uh Junior may want a burger, or mom wants a salad. Well, we have high quality of each in variety of different selections.
Jeremy Julian (7:59): Yep.
John M Lucas (8:10): And I think what also sets the brand apart, it’s all scratch made order. We work directly with our vendors, with our farmers, with our juice maker, with our beef vendor, et cetera, uh and are very selective in the quality and the specifications of the food that we use in our restaurants. And so, you know, I think the beauty of that is the fact that, you you roll up on our drive through. And we are, we’re QSR, we have drive-thrus in almost all of our restaurants, small, a tiny handful literally that don’t have drive-thrus. You roll up and you order an omelet, you order Denver omelet. We’re literally cracking the eggs as you’re ordering. And by the time you get to the window, you have a freshly made omelet with hash browns and whatever your toast selection is. And it’s not a lot of brands do that. We don’t hold our products. ah
Jeremy Julian (8:51): Mm-hmm.
Made When You Order It
John M Lucas (9:06): it’s made when you order it and it’s made the way that you want it. And so that ability to really kind of order it the way you like it and compounded by the fact that it’s fresh picked, made to order product and it’s just not a lot of folks that are in that space. And so we believe, you kind of peer that with kind of the farm aspects. You see our restaurants and
Jeremy Julian (9:25): Mm-hmm.
John M Lucas (9:33): You know, we have these giant cutouts of tractors and farm scenes and it has really kind of a true to the brothers. It has very much kind of a farm kind of look to it. We think that kind of that all American aspect oh gives the brand a lot of white space, a lot of opportunity to continue to grow in a variety of different settings and a variety of different cities and states. And so we’re excited. We just opened back to back locations. We opened a uh two weeks ago we opened a location uh in Cathedral City, California. And then last Monday we opened another location in Visalia, California. And we have eight more locations that are coming up this year. So looking to kind of keep at that 10 % growth base. uh And we’re excited to partner with part franchisees, but also new franchisees that are looking to develop with a brand that’s a little bit different uh and uh could fit. uh I think a niche in lot of multi-unit portfolios out there that aren’t currently filled.
Jeremy Julian (10:40): Yeah, no, and I’m excited to talk a little bit about the franchising opportunity, But before we dig into that, guess ah I’ve been in the space for almost as long as you have. This is year 30 for me, full time in restaurant space. And I look at it and go, the one thing that I always found, there’s a couple of things that I love about the brand as a consumer of it. One, it is the No Veto vote. I told you the story last time we hung out of my wife being pregnant and she wanted to omelet at freaking eight o’clock at night. I didn’t cook at the time, so I found a farmer boys that could make me an omelet or whatever type it was. I just remember it was late and I’m like, I don’t know how I’m going to get any of this. I’m like, Hey, there’s a place that I know I can get her breakfast at these different times. But it’s just, it’s amazing to me because it’s, it is truly high quality enough food. And I guess I’d love to, to talk a little bit about how you guys ensure this. It is as good or better than a sit down restaurant in my opinion, but you guys do it in a fast, casual fast food type environment. where you can get it through the drive-through. And I guess I’d love to talk through both the challenges of that and why that’s so important to crack the eggs fresh. Because you know what, a lot of brands will cheapen it and say, know what, we’re gonna get pre-cracked eggs and it’s just gonna be faster so we can get more throughput. And it sounds like this is kind of part of the ethos of who you guys are. And I’d love for you to spend a few minutes kind of talking through that,
How Farmer Boys Cracks Eggs at the Drive-Thru
John M Lucas (11:55): Yeah, so let’s start with the how, right? So the how is that we work directly with our vendors and we have, you know, pretty specific, you know, specifications that we hold them to. And, you know, the beauty of working directly with your vendors is you form these long-term relationships, right? And so I think the mutual support and the relationships that you build are really kind of cornerstone to our success. variety of different vendors that we work with. The challenges, and I kind of experience this kind of the pros and cons of this as a chef for many years at Marriott, most organizations use a broad line where you work directly with a Cisco or US Foods or what have you. And you say, you know, I have a four ounce burger, have an eight ounce burger. And what I found as a chef particularly is If they didn’t have your eight ounce burger, was to your spec, so maybe your spec was Angus, but didn’t have Angus. so they sent you whatever they had and they checked the box for them because of a case of burgers that sent. For us, that was a really big challenge. And what I find in this brand is we’re able to maintain really a consistency in quality through working directly with vendors and then using uh US Foods as our distributor. So they take our orders and they store the product from the different vendors and they deliver it to us. So what’s the challenge with that? Well, it takes some resources to be able to orchestrate that here internally from balancing the relationships of 30 plus vendors that we work with on a regular basis. And also you’re also subject to, when you have pretty rigorous standards, you’re also subject to occasional challenges with supply, usually it’s issues that are impacted by weather. So whether it’s avocados or it’s lettuce, but it’s never like the basics of a brand, the eggs and the burgers and all that. But, know, a lot of our product is seasonal, right? And that’s the beauty of it. And we have to stay on top of that and make sure that we are ensuring that supply chain. stays whole and that we’re able to get our product to our folks, no matter what’s going on in the market. So that is a bit of a challenge. And again, I think that the proof is on the plate, right? I mean, when you serve a burger that tastes fresh and you have crispy lettuce and a fresh tomato, we’re very demanding about the products we use and for that specific reason, when you take that first bite, that should show up for you. right? And, you know, I think it makes all of the challenges to get there, all the resources you employ against it, I think it makes it worth it. And hopefully you kind of answered the question.
Jeremy Julian (15:05): Well, it’s hard. It’s one of the things that I thought was so amazing about the brand is it did taste fresh. It did taste freshly made. And the fact that you guys historically have done it at such an affordable price that it not only is fresh, but it’s also oftentimes less expensive than some of those things. And again, I think that’s a testament to the philosophy as well as the fact that you guys work with your suppliers on that, I guess, to keep it in an affordable price point to be able to make sure that you can meet those families. There’s not a time that I went in to at least sit down, that there wasn’t two or three families sitting around having a meal. that part, again, is one of those things that I just loved about the brand when I would visit the store that was close to the house.
John M Lucas (15:45): Yeah, there’s not a lot of brands that kind of sit kind of between fast food and in QSR, right? In the QSR experience, it’s fairly transactional, very high volume, very fast, right? It’s fast. And we want to sit right in the middle. The owners originally, the founders, they had a term and it’s still in the founders office, in the office below me. They would call it a fastaron because they wanted to do a restaurant, right?
Jeremy Julian (15:57): Mm-hmm. Okay.
John M Lucas (16:14): and deliver great service, right? When somebody comes to your table and delivers your food and refills your coffee, but also want to do it quickly because they knew that there was a need for that. There was a need for speed and that’s why fast food restaurants are so popular. And so I think we deliver that nicely and I do, I think that there is a uniqueness, there’s kind of a uniform quality to that because there’s not a lot of restaurants out there that can say that. You have almost that full service experience in the dining room. And yet you’re getting it at close to fast food prices, right? There’s definitely a premium for that amazing quality, that freshness that you get, that higher level quality that you’re gonna get in your typical fast food restaurants, our competitors. But I think our guests look at it and say, I’m gonna pay a little more because I know I so much more out of the experience and out of the quality of the food.
Delivering Great Service at Speed
Jeremy Julian (16:50): 100%. Yep, I 100 % agree. um You talked about your Cobb salad being a number one seller. I’ve had many Cobb salad in your Kesa stores or one of your top sellers. I guess I’d love for you to talk real quick, John, before we talk a little bit about franchising is the whole idea of uh how do you guys look at LTOs and how do you guys release new things on the menu to keep the classics there? Because again, it was always fun for me to go in and see some of the new ways that you guys were distributing products. and coming up with different things. so executing at a high level to the level that you guys need to when it’s not coming out of a bag or coming out of a box is hard. ah You know, especially as you guys get larger, I guess I’d love for you to just kind of talk a little bit about how do you guys think about LTOs and, and you know, what does that look like within, within your brand? Because we’ve been around long enough to realize that brands get stale, they get tired, people don’t want to go because they want, they want something new. And then there’s others that are like, I just want the same burger. Give me the bacon burger. Cause I’ve had the bacon burger since I was, you know, 20 years old and I’m now 30 or whatever else. So I’d love for you to kind of talk through how do you guys balance that within the brand and still execute at the highest level possible.
John M Lucas (18:20): Yeah, that’s a great question. So and I think you captured a lot of it. uh We don’t aspire to be trendy. It’s just it’s not it’s not in our DNA, right? But we aspire to do is is kind of take take our different platforms, take a burger platform, our pancakes, our omelets, our sandwiches and in play around with that and do some to us and, uh you know, look at what’s going on in the market. What is the market telling us? What are our consumers? So, you know, we have a loyalty program with a few hundred thousand people on it and they give us a lot of feedback as well. And we also have different ways of kind of taking the temperature of how our guests are perceiving the brand and what their experience was like, you know, in our specific restaurants. And so I think looking at where’s the brand going and where’s the consumer going and how can we kind of match those up? And one of the things that we looked at is like dirty sodas a thing, right?
Jeremy Julian (19:18): Yeah.
What Happens When Big Brands Test Breakfast
John M Lucas (19:21): It’s showing up at Taco Bell, they’re doing a test, there’s a number of other brands. And we have a partnership, a long-term partnership with Pepsi, a long-term partnership with Dr. Pepper. What can we do with those platforms? Have some fun, do something that’s current and exciting, but not necessarily taking the brand to a place of where it feels uncomfortable, right? And so, there’s brands out there that I sit there and I scratch my head sometimes and think, cool, one product brand, unique, fun, blowing up, know, it seems to be on trend. Imitators are out there, and it’s like the most sincere form of flattery, right? All kinds of folks imitating them. Do you think 10 years from now, is that, they’re gonna be able to do this, right? And you like you think about like the pizza category, like 10 years ago, pizza, the,
Jeremy Julian (20:06): Mm-hmm. build your own pizza, you could not get enough of it. There was 40 different brands out there doing build your own pizza, right?
John M Lucas (20:22): Yeah, mean, they blew up. was like one on every corner, right? And they’re all slowly closing, right? And we’re looking at their sights. And so, you know, it’s all good. ah But how do you how do you remain kind of a brand with a history and a legacy, but still be able to kind of stay out there enough on the edge where you capture, you you capture the guests? And I think some of Some of it’s kind of on the higher end too. So some of it’s like, you want to make sure that you have good everyday value. And I think we’ve achieved that really nicely with our farm stand platform that provides amazing value starting at 9.99. But also, look at an innovation around our sandwiches where you can get a higher price point, but do stuff that’s unique and fun and interesting, but still feels like it should be part of the brand. We have, our new chef literally is on the other side of this wall. And he’s constantly bringing me down to uh one of the meeting rooms to taste different things and have some fun. the owner’s always, the founder’s always very involved and always has a lot of opinions on what they’re putting together. But it makes it fun, but I wouldn’t say we’ll ever be like Taco Bell. We’re never gonna be like an LTO machine. that’s out there just putting different product in front of you all the time. uh We want to make sure that what we do, we do well, we do better than anybody else and continue to kind of have fun and create some interesting products to keep our regulars coming back and captivate them with maybe some different things that they hadn’t seen before. And again, have some fun with it. And that’s why we’re all in hospitality. It’s an amazing business to be in.
Jeremy Julian (21:47): Mm-hmm. 100 % and I love that you guys kind of stay in your lane and know who you are, but we’ll make small tweaks to that. as a consumer, I’ve watched you guys do that over the years and it’s fun to see that. John, let’s dig in a little bit to franchising. How do you guys think about franchising? You talked about the fact that you guys put in Southwest California, Arizona, Nevada, um seen a lot of brands grown up in Southern California. I’ve seen a lot of brands kind of do exactly what you guys do. You might jump over to New Mexico, jump to Texas, kind of take the Sunbelt and then they kind of go up North. Is that kind of where you guys are at? Where does this brand fit and kind of what are you guys looking for in the franchise community? You know, we, think you and I talked to, is it a master franchise? buy the whole, you know, uh, city of St. Louis and all of its suburbs. And then I go develop them or is it, know, kind of where, where are you guys at? Uh, cause every different franchise group and then you get a Chick-fil-A who’s like, you’re only ever allowed to have one store or what, you know, whatnot. And I’d love to kind of hear how you guys think about franchising and, where do you guys see? Cause you are farm fresh and a lot of those things. So you got to grow. slow enough that you can make sure that the supply chain’s up to speed, but also there’s such a need for a brand like yours that can execute at the level that you guys do across the country. And so I’d love to see it continue to grow and tell me a little bit more about how you guys are thinking about that and where you guys are at in that journey.
Franchise Growth and Finding the Right Operators
John M Lucas (23:28): Yeah, I appreciate that. ah you know, because of the relative, you know, complexity in comparison to some of the other brands out there, uh we want to make sure that we are partnering with folks that have some level of expertise running a complicated operation. We’ve had a lot of success partnering with uh El Pollo Loco franchisees. And again, uh If you spend time in their kitchen, it’s deceptive, but you watch the operation, there’s a lot of complexity to what they do. And so, finding folks that have that experience, whether it’s at the single or the multi-unit level, the enterprise level, is really kind of the target. But we’ll talk to you in a number of different conversations uh with uh folks that would like to do a single unit. uh And the requirement is that they have an equity partner ah that has restaurant management experience that would run the day to day. ah And so again, if you can bring that, we’re happy to talk to you and we’d love to partner with you. But we are thinking more expansively around how we grow the brand and really looking at partnering with multi-unit operators. that aren’t necessarily in the breakfast or burger space, and finding ways to grow in markets that we don’t necessarily have representation in. so lots of opportunities up in Northern California, in Reno, Nevada, and beginning to look at a lot of opportunities in Texas, in the Dallas, Fort Worth market, and I think eventually in the Houston and San Antonio and Austin markets. uh But would love to oh partner with folks at the enterprise level will do the way they come in and they do a master franchise agreement where they become basically the franchisor. And we’re in some conversations with folks that are at that level. And so I think that to accelerate and keep at that 10 % growth rate that we have right now, it’s gonna take some of that. But I think that’s important too, right? It’s like, what’s your scope and scale and speed? And we’re not looking to blow up. We’re not looking to do 40 stores a year. We’re looking to grow at a pace ah that matches the abilities of our current franchisees, new franchisees, and our internal team. ah And we’ve all seen those examples of brands that just blew up, And they had the golden ticket, right? And so they were out there.
Jeremy Julian (26:11): Mm-hmm.
John M Lucas (26:18): sign the folks up. And I think that can lead to lot of things. That can lead to partnerships with franchisees that may or may not be qualified to be part of your brand. It can stretch the resources of the organization and it can dilute the brand, right? And we’re looking to really kind of keep the core and essence of the brand that we’ve developed here in the IE, no matter where we go. And I think as you travel around and you go to Phoenix, you go to Vegas, you go north, we’ve been successful in doing that. We’ve been successful in replicating that experience and keeping that level of consistency. And that’s really truly the most important thing for us. so partnering with the right people that are gonna be able to deliver that and be able to do it at a pace where ah you can do that successfully without… uh causing too much gray hair and too much uh indigestion. And so we’re also really, you know, we’re really diligent around who we partner with. uh
Jeremy Julian (27:28): I love that. Because it has to, you have to be aligned because to your point, we’ve seen too many of them that blow up and then they’re unhappy and then they start being a drag on the whole organization and it’s just a shame.
Philoxenia: The Culture Behind the Brand
John M Lucas (27:39): We have a saying here, we call it philexenia. And what it means in Greek is making friends from strangers. And that goes for our franchisee partnerships as well. We understand this is 20, likely a 40 year marriage. And we wanna make sure that uh the folks that we’re bringing on board are the right fit and gonna going to be supportive of the uh rest of the franchise community, because they have a very tight-knit franchise community that works very closely together with each other. They’re going to be a great part of that. They’re going be able to work well with us and be able to carry the brand forward in whatever neighborhood they operate in. So that’s super important to us. And think a lot of that’s going to ground on the fact that this isn’t an inline. We don’t build inline. We’re building a ground up or doing a renovation on a second gen location where you’re developing an asset that’s going to be yours and it’s going to help you create generational wealth. And once it’s paid off, could be a very lucrative endeavor. And we’ve seen people retire just on one unit and passing on either passing on to the kids or just retire from owning one unit. And there’s not a lot of brands can say that, a lot of brands, particularly the ones that go in inline spaces, you don’t want five, six, eight of them, you before you get to scale, you can support a lifestyle and start creating some generational wealth. We’re not that brand. You can do that literally in one. you know, yeah. So it’s something we said for that.
Jeremy Julian (29:13): Mm-hmm. That’s amazing. I love that. Well, and it’s a testament to what you guys have built over the last 40 years or 45 years, I guess. So on the website, you guys have got the info on franchising. What’s that engagement look like, John? Do they get in touch with you? Is it somebody on your team? What’s the expectation? And I’d almost say weed some people out that you’re like, hey, you need liquid net worth of quarter of a million dollars, half a million dollars. And again, we’ve all kind of… I’ve had other brands that are on franchising and I’d rather save you the phone calls if people are out there going, hey, I really want a Farmer Boys. I moved to Dallas and I need one because it’s here. Tell me a little bit about what that looks like for you guys from your vetting process outside of the cultural side.
How the Franchise Process Works
John M Lucas (30:03): Yeah. Yeah, so the process starts by going on the website. We have an inquiry page that kind of spells it out, what different levels you join us at and what that would look like, both from a liquid capital and from a net worth standpoint. And they would be working directly with my development manager, Andrea Gonzalez. She joined us a few months ago and she’s off and running. You know, the process is basically, you know, we start by breaking bread. We start with a, you know, an introduction call where we have a conversation like this where I get to know you, you get to know me, you get to know a little bit about Andrea, you get to know a little bit about the company. ah We talk through some of those initial questions around your financial viability. And then we go from there to really having what we call a concept call where we walk you through all things. kind of swoop the nuts on the brand and get deep into operations. From there, we talk about your capabilities from a resource standpoint. What does it look like? You’re gonna have a partnership. Do uh you have an equity partner? What does it look like on your end? Particularly if they’re multi-unit operating, they come to us with a team and they may have… some amazing resources. We really want to explore that. We really want to understand what that’s going to look like as we work together in the future. then we go from that to an FDD call. We walk through the entire FDD. And in the meantime, you know, they’re doing due diligence. We give them a pretty broad list of franchisees to reach out to. And kind of on soup to nuts, we have single unit operators on this list, and we have some of our largest operators on the list. You know, I tell everybody it’s unfiltered, unscripted. it’s candid, ask them anything, they’re gonna be very honest and open with you and you can tell you what we do great and they’re gonna tell you things that we’re still working on. And from there, we bring them in for a discovery day, which is always a lot of fun. They get to meet the executive team and it’s really kind of a bit of a Q and A on both sides, just getting to know each other. And depending on how that goes, we get them in front of the board, the board which is comprised of. first and second generation from the founders’ families. And if they’re approved, we start working on real estate. We start finding them the right site, the right first site to build on, and we go from there. So it sounds like a lot of steps. Some of the steps are literally 20 minutes long. And so it’s actually pretty streamlined. And we can go from that first call to a ground up in somewhere between 18 and 24. It depends where, know, cities, different cities, different municipalities, uh or, you know, they kind of run the spectrum of oh how easy they are to work with. eh And, you know, with construction, it’s like building anything. You know, sometimes you have rain. We haven’t took too much snow. We’re mainly in areas that don’t get any snow. But, you know, you go through three, four weeks of rain, it’s never good for construction. And so things happen.
Jeremy Julian (33:09): Uh-huh.
John M Lucas (33:25): But we respond to them and we keep the franchisee closely looped into all that so they know exactly what to expect. And we work with them. Ten weeks out, we start the NRO process. We get their general manager trained. We work with them closely on uh enabling them to be able to train their teams. We have an NRO team that basically locks arms with their leadership and ensures that They have a smooth opening by working with them and training their team. And then we have post opening support where we do a grand opening and then engaging marketing really from the support end from there on in and also engaging their franchise business consultant will be their really operational liaison going forward. so I think, know, fairly similar to a lot of different brands. think that, ah you know, we really, you know, we’re five brothers that you know, they truly believe in Philoxenia. They want to get to know you. And they want to go into eyes wide open on both sides, understanding that we’re looking to be your business partner for a long time and we want this to work on both ends. And so, you know, so it does take a little bit of time to get to that point.
Jeremy Julian (34:30): Mm-hmm. but I love that you guys know who you are and who you wanna be when you grow up. mean, you’re already grown up, but it’s nice to hear a brand that’s not just trying to sell as many franchisees as they can. um Last question I have for you, John, what is the go-to if I’m a new consumer? And then what is John’s go-to after nine years? What does John go eat at Barber Boys when he’s there? Because anytime you talk to a restaurant person, they’re in the brand way too often, so they always make up some wacky stuff that might be on the menu.
John M Lucas (35:05): Yes.
What to Order at Farmer Boys
Jeremy Julian (35:16): What is the go-to for somebody that’s new to the brand or what do you guys take people to on on discovery day? What are the one or two things that you say? You know what? If you go on a farmer boys, this is this is what you should get to to get the best of kind of who we are day one.
John M Lucas (35:29): So I gave you three. So the California omelet, I think is amazing. It’s got bacon, it’s got avocado. I always order with pico de gallo, cheddar cheese. It’s a, I guess a little bit indulgent, but I think it’s just an amazing breakfast. And so that’s my favorite breakfast. The Cobb salad is, like I said, it’s the biggest seller. It comes out and it’s just, it looks amazing. It’s colorful.
Jeremy Julian (35:52): Yes.
John M Lucas (35:59): just a generous portion and people love it. And we serve that with our ranch dressing that we make here in-house that people literally order. They want to buy a gallon of the stuff. mean, it’s very, very popular. Yeah. And I think from a, just, an item to share, your friends or family at the table, the zucchini sticks are amazing. They come out, they’re literally 10 inches long. They’re a quarter of zucchini.
Jeremy Julian (36:13): Pretty darn good, not gonna lie.
John M Lucas (36:29): And so. oh
Jeremy Julian (36:29): Yeah, yeah, I was going to say the zucchini is always the go-to. Like that’s one of those things with the cider ranch. Oh yeah, so good.
John M Lucas (36:36): Yeah, it’s just delicious, you know. But my favorite is the sourdough chicken avocado. Just because you have so much going on and just so much complexity of flavors and textures. So between the avocado and the cheese and the bacon, the grilled chicken, uh the garlic, the garlic sourdough, that garlic bread sourdough that’s served on ah it is by far my go-to. And so, yeah.
Jeremy Julian (37:06): That was my daughter’s, my son was always pancakes. My wife was often an omelet, I was a burger. So it’s funny, I can go through. But I also did the drive through for the breakfast burrito, because that thing was pretty darn good as well.
John M Lucas (37:06): In here. Yeah. The burger, know, the farmer burger is kind of our brand on a bun. It’s two four ounce patties, so a lot of meat and avocado, bacon, three pieces of bacon. So we go a little nuts there. Sifted on lettuce, tomato, and pickle on a brioche bun. And it literally comes out. mean, it’s just this big, generous uh burger. And, you know, if you’re driving,
Jeremy Julian (37:39): It’s enormous.
John M Lucas (37:45): Right, well, John, I often, know, I spend a lot of time on the road. If you want something you can eat as you’re driving, our breakfast burrito is amazing. And we sell, it’s our top catering item we sell. Just an insane amount of it.
Jeremy Julian (37:55): Yes. I love it. Well, John, thank you for taking time. um Thank you for taking time to kind of share about the brand. To our listeners, guys, you guys got to hear about their story, got to hear a little bit about John’s career. um check them out. I would love to see a Farmer Boys here locally in Dallas, Texas, because selfishly I miss it. It is uh a stop for me when I go back to SoCal. So to our listeners, thank you guys again for showing up and make it a great day.
John M Lucas (38:28): Thanks again Jeremy. Have a good day.
