---
title: "East Coast Wings + Grill Sustainability Speaks to the Strength of Casual Dining"
url: https://burnaze.com/article/919798af-9247-4d51-936d-c399adff3ba0
source: "Franchising.com"
original_url: https://www.franchising.com/news/20210218_east_coast_wings__grill_sustainability_speaks_to_the_strength_of_casual_din.html
category: "Chicken"
industry: "Restaurants"
segment: "Chicken"
published: 2021-02-18T12:00:00.000Z
modified: 2026-11-01T02:30:26.934Z
image: https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1555396273-367ea4eb4db5?w=1600&q=80&auto=format&fit=crop
---

# East Coast Wings + Grill Sustainability Speaks to the Strength of Casual Dining

**TL;DR:** East Coast Wings + Grill (ECW+G) saw significant returns during the pandemic, with same-store sales and operational efficiency improvements. The franchise's strategic on-ramping process and leadership team's efforts led to strong performance, including a 13.9% year-over-year increase in January same-store sales.

*originally published in Franchising.com on 2021-02-18. [Read the original](https://www.franchising.com/news/20210218_east_coast_wings__grill_sustainability_speaks_to_the_strength_of_casual_din.html).*

## Story

Predominantly based in the southeast region of the United States, ECW+G has seen a notable uptick in same-stores sales since June - positive momentum that continues to carry the franchise business into February 2021. In fact, 32 percent of the franchise system saw record-breaking months despite capacity limitations.

These promising returns are the result of a strategic on-ramping process, which began in February of last year for ECW+G, to best handle the repercussions of the pandemic.

The leadership team, led by CEO Sam Ballas, devoted a number of resources to maximizing operational efficiency at the unit-level to ensure franchisees remained as profitable as possible - even at 50 percent occupancy. Additionally, the franchise reassessed and optimized its supply chain and remained zoned in on making purposeful adjustments to positively drive unit-level data.

Because of its unique on-ramping efforts and response in 2020, ECW+G is experiencing strong performance:

- January same-store sales are +13.9% year-over-year

- 2020 check averages were up 14 percent year-over-year

- 2020 average unit-level earnings were at 17.36 percent (EBIT)

- Substantial side door and take out sales at a 94% increase

Altogether, these numbers validate the importance of and relationship ECW+G has with its franchisees.

“As a franchisor, our commitment is to the franchise owners and ensuring they have everything they need to run a profitable business,” said Ballas. “Franchisees trust you with their livelihood, and we understand that better than anyone. We deployed everything we could to help them weather this unprecedented storm - from updating operational processes to being even more visible as a franchisor resource and delivering practical solutions to sustain the positive guest experience we’re known for.

We were able to move swiftly because of franchisees trust and they know our data-driven decisions are designed to enhance and guide in boosting potential earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT), no matter what they are up against.”

“Our team has developed an ‘off-ramping’ plan months ago and part of this plan is to move back into a scaling mode again. We simply wanted to be prudent, we needed 2020 and a couple of months in 2021 to validate our strategy,” said Ballas.

## Entities

- Franchising.com (publication)
- Restaurants (sector)
- pandemic response (topic)
- operational efficiency (topic)
- casual dining (topic)
- franchise performance (topic)
- East Coast Wings + Grill (company)
- Sam Ballas (person)

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Originally reported by Franchising.com (https://www.franchising.com/news/20210218_east_coast_wings__grill_sustainability_speaks_to_the_strength_of_casual_din.html). Summarized by Burnaze (https://burnaze.com/article/919798af-9247-4d51-936d-c399adff3ba0).