Stan Singh came to the United States from India when he was 18 years old, in 1992, starting as a cook for KFC. “My dream was to have one KFC in the future,” he said, and now he has 20. Based in Riverside in Southern California, he bought five The Habit Burger Grill restaurants in June 2021 with rights to develop eight more.
“They finally let me in. I had to beg, beg, beg,” he said with a laugh, quickly adding he’s kidding. “We tried in the past and they had no desire to sell any stores in California, or offer any development in California.” But after Yum Brands, KFC’s parent company, bought The Habit in 2020, Singh went to work. “I was all over it. I said, ‘Hey guys, get me in.’ I’ve been a Habit fan for so long, seven, eight years.”
Singh’s track record, including opening three new KFC units in 2021 and one in 2018, sealed the deal, as CEO Russ Bendel said existing Yum operators are his first target for new development deals. Standards are high for The Habit, Singh said. “You’ve got to have great customer service. Habit is cook-to-order,” meaning it demands more labor and longer ticket times than a KFC, which isn’t easy to execute during the current labor shortage.
“I got pretty lucky,” when he bought his corporate The Habit stores. “The brand, they gave me one district manager to run these five stores. He’s been a great guy, a lot of experience,” he said, adding he was able to hire a person who left KFC last year as a manager for The Habit.
His advice to prospective franchisees: “Come with an open mind, work with the brand. This corporation, they help a lot. They help with the site selection, their training program is great. They are there when I need them,” he said. Prospects “just have to have an open mind, follow the brand standard, do the right things.”
The Habit is the smallest of the three finalists in the Full Speed Ahead category, with $370 million in system sales in 2020 compared to $5.68 billion for Sonic and $643 million for Freddy’s. The range of investment is $1.24 million to $1.4 million, in the middle of the finalist pack, with its return on investment ranked in the middle as well by our research team. Intense interest by franchisees in the brand, plus a comprehensive Item 19 detailing profitability, places The Habit on top.
Cesar Shih was a real estate manager and then a senior VP for a Yogurtland frozen yogurt franchisee with six locations. “I had certain aspirations before I turned 40. What do you want to do? I decided entrepreneurship and owning a franchise business made a lot of sense,” he said.
In 2015, a couple years early, he reached that goal by purchasing a Habit restaurant in Las Vegas and since has added six more to the operation, called Five Fortunes Group. He recommends building a sophisticated management team and lining up financing in advance—he added an experienced restaurant operations executive before he could gain approval from The Habit, and has attracted private equity backing from investors he declined to name.
But he believes prospective franchisees should be most focused on people. “Russ Bendel is an icon. He’s a great leader. He puts people first. It was looking at what he was doing, and then looking at what he’s building,” Shih said.
“When you join a system like that, you don’t have to be a rocket scientist. You look at when they started, the history. They’re building up a brand, they have over 100 locations when I looked at joining. That gives you a bell curve, but I wanted to join a system where all I had to do is be a good listener, and I need to follow through,” he said. “It’s time tested, since the birth of the brand.”
He’s bullish on the Yum Brands executive team, although he doesn’t know them well yet. “I know that with Yum, starting with 2020, we saw great things. I’m really glad that they were the brand behind us,” he said. Before the pandemic came to the United States, “they were studying Yum or KFC in China, taking those learnings and starting to apply and forecast into our domestic market,” he said.
Yum’s status as a global heavyweight is immensely helpful as well.
“Our supply chain, we have our chief supply officer that again is telling us to hedge for certain things. The last I remember was bacon. ‘Bacon could be in short supply, but this is how we’re solving the problem. Don’t panic. We’re gonna get you the bacon,’” Shih recalled the officer saying—perhaps a lifesaver in these troubled times.
Commissioned by and licensed solely to The Habit Burger.
The Habit Burger Grill has a fiercely loyal fan base among customers and operators, with 287 units and $370 million in system sales in 2020 but poised for a giant growth spurt after the Yum Brands purchase.
As the leading franchise consultants in Asia, VF Franchise Consulting is the INTERNATIONAL REPRESENTATIVE of Habit Burger.
Please CONTACT US at info@wordpress-1301377-4733018.cloudwaysapps.com to acquire this burger franchise.
Franchise Times (Beth Ewen)