Franchise Now In The Brixx Mix

(Saturday, January 12, 2008) - Ever since Brixx Wood Fired Pizza opened its first restaurant in 1998, customers and real estate developers have been bugging the owners to launch a franchise.

At the time, Eric Horsley, Jeff Van Dyke and Barbara Morgan had a fairly unique concept: high-end pizza and spirits in a casual dining atmosphere. But they didn't have experience with a franchise, and Charlotte still had a lot of room for growth.

Now, with 10 Charlotte locations and a field full of competitors, the founders are finally doing it. The Charlotte-based pizza chain will launch its first franchised restaurants in Wilmington, Winston-Salem, Columbia and Knoxville, Tenn.

The trio talked with MoneyWise about the company's expansion plans. Their comments have been edited for brevity and clarity.

Q. How did you come up with the concept of Brixx?

Horsley: We had a background in the restaurant business here in Charlotte, and we'd worked together for 25 years. We wanted to do something that was a little less labor-intensive and fun. We had seen a pizza concept in Colorado that we thought was interesting. We were in the fine dining business, and we wanted to get into something that was fun, more casual and less labor intensive from a chef standpoint.

Van Dyke: And lower startup costs, too. Besides, we all like pizza, and there weren't that many wood-fire pizza places in Charlotte.

Q. What are some of the challenges you face?

Horsley: There is more competition, and real estate is often a limiting factor when we're looking to expand.

Morgan: Our restaurants are typically about 3,000 square feet with a patio, and we find that a lot of times the only spaces available are much larger. It's hard to find something that small.

Q. What's your growth strategy?

Horsley: First we wanted to grow internally, but we found that it's somewhat harder to expand in other markets that aren't close to here. We've had a lot of interest from customers and others in the industry to grow the concept through franchising.

Van Dyke: You can grow faster through franchising because you don't have to find every store, too. We didn't have experience with franchising, though, so that's why we hired Neil Newcomb, who co-founded McAlister's Deli.

Horsley: We've sold five franchises already, and the first opens in Columbia in May. We're also considering locations in Nashville and Asheville.

Q. What do you look for when deciding whether to open a new location?

Horsley: When it comes to corporate and franchise locations, we look for places outside the Charlotte area that are similar to Charlotte in population and demographics.

Q. In your business, employees are in constant contact with the customer. How do you recruit and retain good employees?

Horsley: A lot of it is referral through people we already have. They find us a lot of good people.

Morgan: We also try to offer good benefits. For example, we only require 30 hours a week for employees to be eligible for vacation.

Van Dyke: We also offer a good quality of life to our managers. They work five days a week for a total of 40 hours. A lot of restaurants require their managers to work 60-plus hours a week.

Q. What are the upcoming trends in the pizza world?

Van Dyke: Well, one great thing about pizza is that it's not really trendy. People have liked it for years, and they're going to continue to like it. But one trend we're seeing is toward more fresh, organic ingredients. We just rolled out a totally vegan cheese option, and that's important to a growing number of people.

Horsley: Our restaurants are also nonsmoking before 10 p.m. You'll probably see more restaurants restricting smoking because consumers are more concerned about secondhand smoke.

Van Dyke: There's also a nationwide trend toward drinking higher quality beer and wine. The fact that we offer wine by the glass is appealing because at a lot of places, you have a wonderful wine list, but you have to order a whole bottle.

Q. What happens to the pizza business when the economy gets rough?

Van Dyke: Things stay steady or get better, actually. Pizza is an affordable option when eating out, so you'll have a lot of high-income people eating pizza instead of going to a steakhouse.

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