Prefer to read it? The full transcript of episode 351 is available, with speaker labels and section headings.
Surcheros has close to 50 restaurants across the Southeast, and almost none of them are where the playbook says they should be.
Not inside the perimeter in Atlanta. Not in the dense urban corridors every fast casual chases. Douglas, Georgia. Waycross. Tifton. Dublin. Towns that most brands drive past on the way to somewhere with a better daytime population number.
That turned out to be the whole strategy for this Tex-Mex franchise, even though it did not start as one. I got to sit down with Luke Christian, the founder and CEO, and Jake Philpotts, their VP of Business Development, and I have been looking forward to this conversation for a while. We have been working alongside these guys on some tech projects for about a year now, and what I keep noticing is not the food, though we will get to the food. It is how they treat people. That sounds soft until you see what it has actually built.
“I Was Trying to Create a Job for Myself”
I asked Luke the question I ask every founder: why did the world need another fresh Tex-Mex concept? His answer was refreshingly free of mission-statement language.
“Transparently, I was trying to create a job for myself,” he said. “Didn’t know at the time we needed another concept.” He wanted to be a business owner and his own boss. The differentiators that now justify Surcheros existing came later, out of listening to guests at other restaurants he had worked in.
I floated my theory that entrepreneurs become unemployable once they have built something of their own. Luke would not fully take the bait — he figures he could still fit in somewhere — but he did admit the hours as an owner are “uncontrollable and unlimited and never end.”
Where he got animated was people. He traced it straight back to his faith: he is there to serve, and his guests and his team are all people he is serving. Then he said something that has stuck with me since. When he started franchising, he wanted to be the guy who did not require a certain wallet size — just passion and some experience, and he would help you get started. That did not always work, and he is candid that he may have started it too quickly.
But he still sees the gap on both sides. There are people who would make fantastic restaurant owners and have no financial backing. There are people with money who want to own a restaurant they love and have zero operational desire. His long-term vision is to marry those two groups. It ties back to the company’s mission, which he can recite without breathing: bring prosperity to each guest, each other, and each community we serve.
Why the Burrito Goes Back on the Grill
Jake came at it from a different direction. He cut his teeth at Chick-fil-A out of college, which he credits as his foundation for understanding how excellence actually gets achieved in a restaurant. He is quick to say Chick-fil-A has its challenges like anyone and the halo around them is not entirely earned, but the culture and the product are real.
Then he stepped away from restaurants entirely and figured he was done. He got his MBA at Clemson, specialized in entrepreneurship, and did not think of himself as an entrepreneur. What pulled him back was not a concept. It was a person. “Follow the leaders, don’t follow companies,” he told me. He found a leader he wanted to follow, then went and ate the food and thought: this is a superior product.
So what makes it superior? Luke walked me through it, and it is more specific than I expected.
Start with the basics — burritos, tacos, nachos, quesadillas, salads, with bowls having risen to the top the way they have across the whole category. Rice, beans, meat, and all the fixings. Standard so far.
Here is the part he actually thought about. Build a normal burrito and you warm the tortilla to make it pliable, add three hot items, then start layering cheese, pico, lettuce, sour cream. Cold items. By the time you wrap it, you think you are holding a hot burrito and you are holding a lukewarm one. So Surcheros grills every burrito after it is rolled. They also sauté vegetables to order, which adds heat again and opens up the flavor combinations considerably. And they lean hard on sauces you can sauté in.
Luke says he cannot tell you his go-to because he orders something different every time. That is the point of the build.
He named a fourth differentiator and then immediately admitted they have not perfected it: hospitality. The going-the-extra-mile level of service. He sees a real need for it in the space, and he thinks the day they can deliver it consistently across every restaurant is the day the brand gets very large.
Worth noting on the food: no freezers, everything from scratch, salsas chopped in-house every morning. In an underserved market, that alone is the differentiator. Farmer Boys makes the same scratch-made argument at drive-thru speed in Cracking Eggs in the Drive-Thru: Farmer Boys’ John Lucas.
The Towns Everyone Else Skipped
I wanted to know whether the small-market strategy was intentional or accidental. Luke was honest: mostly it was just where he was.
He started in Douglas, in South Georgia. Then 45 minutes one way to Waycross. Then 45 minutes the other way to Tifton. Then about an hour and fifteen north to Dublin. The map grew outward from home. And there was a second, less flattering reason he owned up to — they did not yet have the confidence they have now, so they were dodging the big competitors.
Then the competitors showed up anyway. And what happened next is the interesting part.
“At first you’re worried, you’re like, oh no, this big guy’s coming in,” Luke said. “But then you see, wow, we may have gotten busier.” The national brand walks in, spends the marketing money, introduces the category to a town that did not have it — and some meaningful share of those people try Surcheros and stay. The big guys figured out these markets too, and moving into them has become part of their strategy. It has also become part of Surcheros’ growth.
Luke frames it as filling a need rather than finding a loophole. These towns often have a good mom-and-pop diner, a mom-and-pop burger place, and a row of the usual QSRs. Fresh, scratch-made, no-freezer food is genuinely absent. Their most recent example is Greensboro, Georgia, out by Lake Oconee, and he says the numbers bear it out.
The Two Decisions That Decide Everything
Jake put it about as plainly as anyone has on this show. When he talks to a prospective franchisee, he tells them there are two decisions that determine whether a restaurant succeeds or fails: the operator running it day in and day out, and the real estate. And, as he said, “it’s very hard to undo bad real estate selection.”
What I find genuinely different about Surcheros is the flexibility on the second one. I have been to their store in St. Simons and the one next to their corporate office. Same look, same feel, same food, same execution — completely different boxes. They will go inline, endcap, or build freestanding on a piece of dirt if that is where the town needs them to be. Anywhere from about 2,000 to 3,200 square feet.
Jake likes that they are not locked into one footprint, and says franchisees coming from bigger, more cookie-cutter brands like it too. The tradeoff is real and he names it: construction gets harder, layouts diverge, and getting general contractors and franchisees to build quickly is more work. They are trying to get more unified where they can without giving up the ability to go where they want to go. Michael Montagano described a similar flexibility tradeoff in How Dog Haus Redefined the Franchise Model — Michael Montagano.
Luke added a wrinkle I had not considered. That flexibility lets a franchisee build a portfolio. Start with a good inline or endcap if you cannot buy real estate on day one, then later find the corner you actually want to own and build there.
Who Gets to Own a Tex-Mex Franchise Here
Jake looks for four things. Well-capitalized, because these are expensive restaurants and the financial side deserves serious consideration. Restaurant experience, which helps but is not a do-or-die — they have several franchisees who came in with none and have been very successful. Local presence, which is closer to a requirement: they want franchisees living in or near the communities they serve. Where you go to school, where you go to church, whether you are in the chamber. Jake says that integration has taken mediocre real estate to high-volume restaurants. Scott Taylor covered what franchisors should screen for in Franchise Potential: Lessons From Scott Taylor.
The fourth is cultural fit, and it is the one he spent the most time on. His read on the franchise-sales world is that everyone is being sold to. Marketing dollars, conventions, materials, all of it. What has actually pushed people toward Surcheros is sitting down over a meal and getting to know each other as people.
“We’re also real people,” he said. “We do some things really well. There’s other things that we can get better at.” The people they attract are the ones who would rather join a group still figuring some things out but clearly onto something. His summary of the pitch: “Authenticity wins. Genuine people being genuine with one another wins.” And rather than pretend to be a national brand, they lean into being a fast-growing regional one that needs people who care about what they are building.
Burritos Travel Better
Off-prem is close to the hottest topic I discuss with operators — everybody has maxed the four walls and wants to know where the next dollar comes from. Surcheros has an unusual advantage here, and it is partly an accident of Luke’s history. He has been catering since the beginning, and he learned it from a mentor who had done an enormous amount of it. Catering economics came up in depth in Catering: The Untapped Revenue Channel for Restaurants.
The product cooperates. Their party burrito actually improves with a little time as the flavors meld — kept safe and under four hours, but an hour of transport and setup makes it better, not worse. Hence the slogan they use: burritos travel better.
The proof point that stuck with me came from their partner conference last month. One of their Florida franchisees has a standing catering order with a major university football program. He starts his day with roughly $1,500 in sales before he unlocks the front door. That is a different business than waiting for the lunch rush, and most concepts simply cannot deliver a product that holds up well enough to do it.
They have also let big accounts push them. The University of Georgia has asked for proteins and additions they did not have, and accommodating those requests taught them things. They have even made bite-sized taco hors d’oeuvres, which Luke called one of the most fun things they have ever built.
What to Order, and How to Reach Them
Both of them said sautéed veggies are non-negotiable. Spinach, mushrooms, red onion, bell pepper, fresh jalapeño — build it out. Luke decides by channel: dining in, he leans nachos or quesadillas, because those do not travel as well; taking it to go, a bowl or burrito carries better. Jake pushes people toward a burrito or quesadilla for the crisp the grill puts on it, and he is loyal to the Sriracha sauce, on the side, for dipping everything including the chips. There are flavored tortillas beyond plain flour, too.
My own contribution: do not sleep on the queso. I am a queso person and theirs is genuinely very good.
If you are interested in franchising, Jake made it easy. Surcheros.com has a franchising tab, but he would rather you email him directly at Jake@surcheros.com. “You email me, I will email you back. I will call you.” He says it is the most fun part of his role.
Takeaways for Operators
- The market everyone skips may be the market that works. Surcheros grew by serving towns with no fresh, scratch-made option. When national competitors finally arrived, they grew the category and Surcheros got busier. Being early somewhere unglamorous beats being fifth somewhere obvious.
- Fix the thing your guests notice but never mention. Nobody complains that a burrito is lukewarm; they just do not come back as often. Grilling after the roll is a small operational cost against a defect most of the category has accepted.
- Name the two decisions that actually matter. Operator and real estate. Everything else is recoverable; bad real estate mostly is not. Say that out loud to anyone signing up.
- Footprint flexibility is a growth lever, not a compromise. Being able to take inline, endcap, or freestanding from 2,000 to 3,200 square feet lets you go where the town needs you. Just budget for the construction complexity it creates.
- Build the product that travels. A menu item that gets better in the first hour turns catering from a chore into guaranteed pre-open revenue. Ask which of your items actually improves in transit — most operators have never tested it.
- Hire and franchise for the community, not just the balance sheet. Requiring franchisees to live where they operate has turned average sites into high-volume restaurants. That is a real estate strategy disguised as a people strategy.
Luke, Jake — thank you both for the time and for letting me fanboy a little. It has been genuinely fun to watch you build this.
And to our listeners, go check out Surcheros.com and see whether it belongs in your community. Thanks for spending part of your week with us. Make it a great day.
