Famous Toastery CEO Robert Maynard Featured on Food on Demand

Robert Maynard, CEO and co-founder of Famous Toastery, a 26-location breakfast, brunch and lunch brand, spoke with Tom Kaiser of Food on Demand regarding how the company has overcome the perils of the pandemic and how the corporate team has used it as a chance to make changes to how Famous Toastery franchises the concept. As a result of the pandemic, Famous Toastery started testing self-delivery and rolled out online ordering in just four days.

“When we keep giving all of our power to [third-party delivery services], when is the time to start doing this ourselves? We have almost 10 cars that are wrapped with Famous Toastery stuff and now we’re testing doing [delivery] ourselves,” said Maynard. “We know it’s going to cost some money. We would love to be able to do that and own the process. At some point you have a fiduciary responsibility to your franchisees and yourself to give it a shot.”

Maynard also mentioned the optimism he has for 2021 and the company’s success going into the new year.

“More than half of our stores are up from last year, and we’re at 50% capacity at most of our restaurants,” said Maynard. “Here’s the biggest thing that is exciting: 56% of people haven’t been to a restaurant since COVID-19 started and if you can do this good with 56% of people not coming to restaurants, I think we’re going to have an amazing 2021.”