Creating Habitual Customers Through High-End Offerings

The franchise concept has made a name for itself with premium food, much of it breakfast-based. So it begs the question: What’s so premium about scrambled eggs?

“Anybody can cook an egg. In fact, it’s probably the easiest thing to cook,” said Robert Maynard, co-founder and chief executive of Famous Toastery. “But no one cooks them right. When you cook an omelet, it should be absolutely colorless, just the yellow, or if an egg white omelet, just bright white. One of the first things you learn in French culinary school is how to cook an egg – the egg should not be brown or have yellow in it. You can cook an egg 19 different ways – but almost all diners burn it or undercook it.”

It may seem like a simple thing, but it’s one Famous Toastery knows makes a difference. It’s what separates them from your average greasy spoon.

“We train hours upon hours to serve hundreds of people a perfect egg each time,” Maynard said. “Of course we make mistakes from time to time, but on average, whatever you order will be exactly what you wanted and how you wanted it, which is very hard for a regular line cook to do.”

What a chef is cooking can be just as vital as how he or she cooks it in the first place. That’s why Famous Toastery is dedicated to using only the freshest, most high-quality ingredients. Flying in lobsters from Maine may not be the cheapest option, but it creates something special customers can taste.

“It’s much easier to open a can of salad dressing and serve it, but we go through the pains of making it ourselves,” Maynard said. “ You’re not getting anything that is precooked – we make everything fresh every day.”

But why go to such lengths? Can people tell the difference? According to Maynard, the answer is yes.

“People are going to want to eat at Famous Toastery because they know they’re getting a better prepared meal, a meal that matters,” he said. “Patrons are much more educated these days; they demand more, and so we work to make sure we’re ahead of the curve.”

Famous Toastery doesn’t want to be in line with other “better breakfast” concepts, it wants to be the leader. And thanks to its commitment to high-end offerings, it’s accomplishing just that.

“It might be cheaper to do it another way, but we have so many people coming in the door because of how we do it that we make that money back and then some,” Maynard said.

In short, quality doesn’t have to mean foregoing quantity, at least where customers are concerned.