____________________________________________________________________________________________________ Fry the Coop
“ The challenge was that I had no restaurant experience,” he continues.“ Before opening, I spent years reading books, taking classes, watching YouTube videos, and learning everything I could about the business. Even then, getting started was tough. A funding deal collapsed at the last minute, so I opened the first location on a shoestring budget: about $ 63,000 total.
“ When we opened, we had no sign, no marketing budget, and barely any customers. But we focused on making every sandwich count and treating every guest like gold. Things changed after we hired a publicist and landed local TV coverage. Suddenly we had lines out the door and demand we could barely keep up with. It was chaotic, but we kept improving, hired more staff, and reinvested everything back into the business. Within a year, we opened our second location, and the brand really took off.”
As Fry the Coop continued to grow, it scaled carefully and deliberately, reinvesting profits into expansion and evolving into a multi-million-dollar operation with ambitions beyond Chicago.
“ We kept using the same formula as we grew,” Joe shares.“ Within about eight years, we grew to ten locations, all company-owned. Today the business does around $ 15 million a year in revenue, which is something I’ m incredibly proud of. I found out that only about one percent of small businesses worldwide ever exceeds $ 10 million in annual revenue, and we’ ve been over that mark for four straight years now.”
The next big step for the business is building a 10,000-square-foot commissary headquarters, which will include a restaurant, a large production kitchen, and office space.
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