Wings War

Wings War

TRENDS by Dave Szymanski | Tampa Bay Editor

Ker's, Beef's and Hooters, three casual restaurant chains with Tampa Bay area roots, feel more heat from other chains that also market their signature menu item: chicken wings

Even the most visionary CEOs understand numbers. Here's one: A busy sports pub one Super Bowl Sunday sold 48 cases of chicken wings, or nearly a ton. A case weighs 40 pounds.

The location: Land O' Lakes, a northern bedroom community of Tampa. The restaurant: Beef O' Brady's.

You read that right. One ton. In one day. In Land O' Lakes.

It turns out that the entire Gulf Coast is wings happy. If you're laughing out loud, then so is Beef's. All the way to the bank.

"Florida has a heavy concentration of wing eaters," says Chuck Winship, CEO of Family Sports Concepts Inc., the Tampa-based parent company of Beef O' Brady's, which began in Brandon in 1985 and has ballooned to more than 200 restaurants.

That's why restaurants that serve chicken wings, also called Buffalo wings, are gearing up right now for a new round of battle on the Gulf Coast as the nation gets ready for high school, college and pro football, also known in the restaurant business as prime wing-eating season.

The ultimate question is whether the market is becoming over-saturated, or whether it is maturing as the sub sandwich market has done.

Here's the latest: Hurricane Wings, a Stuart-based chain with multiple Florida locations, including Fort Myers, announced this month that is looking at Lakeland and other Florida locations.

Its hook: Thirty different flavors of wings. Thirty.

Its strategy is to slice the wing-eating market another way, with smaller, family-oriented locations that are easier to open and operate and friendlier to women, families and older customers.

It's ambitious plan is to open 25 to 30 new locations this year, 50 in 2008, 71 in 2009 and 100 a year after that. Besides Florida, it plans to open five locations this year in Las Vegas.

And it's not stopping there.

"With our franchised locations, we want to be the nation's largest," says Hurricane CEO Michael Buscaino. The chain has 22 locations now in Florida and one in Atlanta.

Is that too fast? It depends on the talent of the franchisees, how the company trains them and its quality controls.

"It can be a lot of fun and a lot of hard work to protect the brand," Winship says. "It takes communication with customers and franchisees. It's a simple business, but not an easy business."

There's a key fact that may get lost in the wing basket. All of these chains sell more than wings. They just market wings because they are the most popular thing on their menus.

One chain's Web site features the number 1 million on the front page, but instead of six zeroes, there are different flavors of chicken wings side by side.

But look closer at what's on their tables. There's a variety of salads, fish sandwiches, big hamburgers and a number of other things to attract and retain customers.

So why the hook to chicken wings? Because of the food's widening popularity and diversity of flavors and styles. There's breaded. There's naked. There's fire-alarm or nuclear hot. There's mild. There's honey barbecue. There's garlic. There's teriyaki.

At Ker's, 55% of food sales are wings.

The lure of wings

Why the fascination with wings? Industry experts say they are a perfect food for a family or group to share.

"I think wings are sweeping the U.S. now," said Bob Mock, vice president of franchising for Ker's WingHouse. "They're cheap. They're available. They're a good finger food."

The companies then add their niches.

"With Hooters, girls are a big part of the brand. They still are," Buscaino says.

But Busciano says some customers may not be as fond of the girls and sports theme. Hooters has a full bar and its locations are twice the size of Hurricane Wings.

"They offer sports, sports and more sports," he says. "We're geared to families, with smaller stores. I hope our focus is on the quality of food. We're all about flavor."

Busciano lumps Ker's WingHouse in the same ring as Hooters. "They are very much about pretty girls, attracting 18- to 35-year-old males," he says.

Ker's suggests there is more. In fact, three company executives are shuffling off to Buffalo, N.Y., birthplace of the chicken wing craze, for the Buffalo Wing Festival, where the national competition is all about the taste of the wings. It hopes to bring back some hardware.

In Buffalo, at Frank and Theresa's Anchor Bar, in the early 1980s, the business served baked chicken to customers and the leftover wings to its kitchen staff. Originally a throwaway item, after a few tries, the bar started selling the spicy wings, along with celery and blue cheese dressing, to customers as a test.

Things took off from there. Walk in now and you'll see license plates of visitors from all over the country. It also sells wing sauce.

Beef's market

While Hooters and Ker's have combined sports with sex appeal, Beef's has taken a page from their playbook and used the sports theme. It has attractive female servers, but they don't dress provocatively like the two other chains and the company doesn't sell calendars featuring its waitresses.

Instead, Beef's has stressed community involvement.

For example, not only does the Beef's in Land O' Lakes stay open a little later on Friday nights for the high school football crowd, the restaurant also donates sandwiches to the varsity team on Friday's when it has away games and gave a flat-screen television for a raffle prize for the fundraiser golf tournament for the football and basketball teams this year.

It's owner/franchisee, Steve Slowey, ballcap on head, visits with customers and sits and talks to them at length.

Near end of a Land O' Lakes football game, a ringing phone sound comes from the stadium speakers. The announcer says it's Slowey calling.

"Hold on. It's Steve from Beef O' Brady's," the announcer says. "He's keeping the place open a little later for us tonight."

The stadium is packed. Guess who's coming to dinner?

And that's just the tip of the iceberg. There are a list of little league soccer, baseball and softball teams and other high school teams the company helps. It's menu doesn't feature pictures of calendar girls. It has pictures of smiling children in sports uniforms. It also has pictures of local youth athletes on its walls.

Beefs now has 230 locations - about 105 in Florida. It is planning a more aggressive push in the Midwest, in Wisconsin and Ohio, as well as in Kentucky, Tennessee and the Carolinas. It has 20 locations in Atlanta.

Beefs added 51 new restaurants in 2006 and plans to add 45 to 47 this year and 55 in 2008.

Hurricane's market

Busciano says his company is finding that many women and people in their 50s and 60s like wings, too. So Hurricane's beach decor suits them the best. Folks in ties as well as shorts are equally comfortable, he says.

Connecticut native Chris Russo moved to Port St. Lucie and founded the chain. Buscaino is the businessman who has expanded it. He started with Florida and is now looking at Atlanta, Las Vegas and southern California. Potential franchisees have expressed interest in Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin, the Carolinas and New York. Franchises cost about $30,000 each. Russo continues to work with chefs in the production department.

"They are relative newcomers," Winship says. "I want to visit one of their stores. They are trying to go smaller, with 50 or 60 seats."

While the smaller locations allow Hurricane to possibly find more real estate options, they have a limit as well: Smaller kitchens. That can simplify things, but it can also limit menu offerings, Winship notes.

Ker's market

Ker's WingHouse snags some of Beef's community strategy and does some of that as well, especially for events, like the International Spearfishing Tournament in St. Petersburg. But like its football player founder, Ker's likes to focus on basic blocking and tackling - good food, a clean restaurant and great service.

Along with being a friend to the community, it knows that it can't keep people coming back if those three things are not there. And it adds another ingredient: A fun atmosphere, complete with attractive waitresses and sports on TV screens. It has even developed a phrase for it: "eatertainment."

"Their focus (at Hurricane) is on wings," Mock says. "Ours is sports casual. WingHouse guests get a little more than just wings."

Like Hooters, they can also get WingHouse gear, such as shirts and caps, and calendars with the WingHouse girls on them. The strategy: Enhance the brand image.

'A little theater'

"When I go to Chili's and Applebees I eat and that's it," Mock adds. "I'm used to going to a place with a little theater, like Hard Rock Cafe or Hooters or even Planet Hollywood."

Ker's needs to have a "sense of energy" for customers, with good-looking servers with good attitudes and serves above-average size portions, to give customers a sense of value.

"Managers are in the kitchen. Others used a higher-priced cook. Our manager makes sure the food is done right and gets out on time," Mock says. "We do what Mr. Crawford calls being, 'brilliant on the basics.'"

Ker's has 22 locations and is getting ready to open its 23rd restaurant, on 14th Street West in Bradenton, in about a week. It has four locations in Texas, and unlike Hurricane's double-digit new location plans, Ker's expansion is more measured: about two or three corporate locations and three to six franchise locations in 2008.

Part of the reason for Ker's slower growth is because the company needs much larger locations than Hurricane and seeks remodeled space in some cases instead of new build-out space in newer suburbs and newer shopping centers, to control costs.

"We will do slow, controlled growth," Mock says.

Still, it would like to sell all of its Florida franchise territories next year. It is also getting emails from people interested in opening Ker's locations in New Jersey, New York, New Hampshire, Ohio and Indiana.

"It's a support and training issue," Mock says. "We want to give franchises what they need to succeed."

The cost of war

All of this has come with a cost. Because of spiking demand, the price of wings is rising faster than inflation, putting pressure on restaurants to raise prices, cut costs and increase sales.

The cost of wings is about $1.40 a pound, an all-time high. The price peaked around the Super Bowl earlier this year and hasn't really come down. A basket of 10 wings that used to cost around $4 to $5 is now about $8 to $9.

"The prices are going up," Winship says. "It's no longer a value item like it used to be."

All of this expansion also begs the question: Is the segment getting too crowded?

Maybe. But as long as the companies are making money, they will continue to expand. Ker's is not opposed to opening near a competitor. But it views Hooters and the Ale House chain as its closest competitors, not necessarily Hurricane Wings.

"Are we saturated? I don't think so," Buscaino says. "It's like what happened in the submarine sandwich market. You had Subway, alone. Then came Blimpie. In wings, it was just Hooters. Others formed their own models. Then the segment began to mature a little bit."

"It's kind of become a mainstay for appetizers," he says. "Some companies focus on them. The danger is trying to specialize in it. Over time, with this getting so big, it's become commoditized."

Different approaches

The wings battles come with different approaches. It is partially a young guy thing to scarf down a basket of spicy wings and fries and a few beers while watching a college football game on a big screen with your buddies. But women and older couples and businesspeople having lunch like them, too.

So there are different approaches. Here are some of the competitors:

• Hooters: The original opened in Clearwater, featuring sexy young waitresses in tight orange shorts, televisions with sports on, wings, beer and other menu items. The founders sold the franchise rights to a group in Atlanta, which formed Hooters of America and expanded the chain to nearly 500 locations throughout the country.

• Ker's WingHouse Bar & Grill: Founded in 1994 by former pro football lineman Crawford Ker, the Largo-based chain is similar to Hooters in that it features attractive young female servers, a sports theme, beer and wings. It has recently enhanced its marketing staff with more industry veterans. It's locations range from 5,000 to 10,000 square feet.

• Beef O' Brady's: Family Sports Concepts, the Tampa-based parent of Beef's, took the sports bar concept, but fashioned it for families, not primarily men. It has the multiple TV sets with sports on, it has the wing baskets, but the waitresses aren't dressed as they are in Hooters and Ker's. It prides itself on community involvement, especially in youth sports.

• Hurricane Wings: The first restaurant opened in 1995 in Fort Pierce. In 2005, Stuart-based Hurricane Brand Holdings began. The company uses smaller, 1,800-square-foot strip center locations and 30 wing flavors to attract families. Although family oriented, it does serve beer and wine.

• Wing Stop: The Dallas-based chain is primarily a take-out phenomenon, with smaller locations that are easier to develop.

• Buffalo Wild Wings: Based in Minneapolis, the chain uses a sports theme, is strong in the Midwest and has locations in Brandon and Riverview.

Then there's many independent restaurants and other national chains, such as Pizza Hut, Chili's, Applebees and Dominos, that also sell wings, but not as prominently, as a featured item. Even supermarkets sell prepared wings in their deli cases.

REVIEW SUMMARY

Industry: Casual restaurant chains centered on Buffalo wings

Key: Focus on food quality, customer service, a fun atmosphere and in some cases, getting involved in the community