Following three consecutive years of comp sales growth and the successful launch of a new contemporary restaurant prototype, Huddle House announced plans today to open 135 new restaurants throughout the Southeast and Texas over the next five years. With nearly 400 restaurants in 21 states, executives with Atlanta-based Huddle House have specifically targeted San Antonio, Waco and Fort Worth for development with the goal of finding the right franchise partners to operate the restaurants.
Best known for its comfort food, warm atmosphere and value pricing, Huddle House projects to open four new diners in San Antonio, six in Waco and six in Fort Worth. Currently, Huddle House boasts 11 Texas-based franchise locations. Expansion plans are in place for 19 markets in total, including St. Louis, Oklahoma City and Nashville among others.
“It’s an exciting time to be a part of the Huddle House family, and the changes we’ve made internally are positioning us for both growth and sustained success,” said Jim Carr, director of franchising of Huddle House. “We’ve thoroughly examined the territories we’ve identified for development and found that the demand for our concept continues to grow. Consequently, we’re 100 percent committed to finding business savvy franchise partners who are eager to join our family.”
Although the restaurant franchise was founded in 1964, the projected new units won’t resemble your father’s Huddle House – or even your older brother’s for that matter. Each new restaurant will be built using the new Huddle House prototype, which includes a signature tower entrance, plush seating and contemporary color schemes. Huddle House restaurants that have converted to the ‘evolution’ prototype have already seen sales increases of 15 percent or more. Company executives anticipate for 80 percent of its units to be reimaged by 2017, thus building brand cohesiveness for consumers.
The Huddle House growth announcement comes on the heels of significant leadership changes. The company received a major boost in October 2012 after naming Michael Abt, an industry veteran with extensive experience building out brands, as its new CEO. Huddle House also recently appointed longtime Tim Horton’s executive Tyrone Counts as COO to build on the company’s growth momentum and improve overall sales and profitability.
Huddle House is getting into the spirit of the Texas expansion nationwide by offering the “Big Taste of Texas” limited-time menu, which features value-priced items like the Chicken Fried Chicken, Bacon’Que Sandwich, and Sausage and Gravy Scramble.
To learn more about franchising opportunities or the Evolution incentive, please visit www.huddlehouse.com.
Huddle House, Inc., a full-service family restaurant chain, is well-known for serving “Any Meal. Any Time.” in communities around the country. The Huddle House menu has a wide variety of comfort food items and features signature Big House breakfast and sandwich platters, as well as favorites such as country fried steak with green beans and marinated grilled chicken with sweet potato fries. The core values on which Huddle House was founded in 1964 – serving quality food in a warm, friendly environment that brings the community together – remain intact today. Typically open 24-hours, Huddle House serves breakfast, lunch and dinner all day. In 2011, Huddle House implemented a new and fresh design with flexible seating so even larger groups can come and enjoy ‘Our House’. The Atlanta-based, 400-unit franchise is located in 21 states, primarily in the Southeast, Central, Midwest and Southwest U.S. For more information, please call 1-800-868-5700 or visit www.huddlehouse.com.
