⛫ How Wingstop Became an Empire

The release of the latest Empires episode, which is the 2nd of my narrative format series, this time exploring one of the top franchises ever: Wingstop.

> We keep it very simple. Very efficient. It creates great returns for our franchisees, and they continue to keep growing the business with us.**-Charlie Morrison, June 2015

Wingstop was founded in 1994 by Antonio Swad, with 1 location in the greater Dallas metro area. The first franchise would open 4 years later.

Since then, the brand has been a rocket ship that’s gone through 3 big transactions:

🚀 2003: Swad sold to private equity (Gemini Investors + Hartz Restaurant Group) at ~100 locations open

🚀 2010: Gemini/Hartz sold to Roark Capital at ~440 locations open

🚀 2015: Roark took Wingstop public at ~700 locations open

Today, Wingstop has over 3,000 locations globally, built around one of the most scalable franchise models of all time.

Something I’ve learned by studying brands, and speaking to different franchisees and franchisors, is that success like this is not an accident.

While luck can play a role, there are reasons certain brands win, and others don’t.

When it comes to Wingstop, there are so many interesting factors that led to their success. The top 3 being:

The brand is in it’s 32nd year of existence, and they’ve really only had ~4 true CEO’s this whole time. The leaders that have been chosen have done a great job, and have been given time to implement their playbook.

The model has barely changed since it’s founding in 1994.

The menu has had few additions, stores have always been built as in-line locations (a major scalability X-factor), and most interestingly…it’s always been take-out first.

Locations as early as 2000 were doing 70% of sales via takeout. Given they launched in the heyday of casual dining, that was very against the norm!

Franchisees have always had fantastic cash-on-cash returns, with the current 10K citing a targeted two-year, unlevered cash-on-cash return of about 70%.

This is the foundation of nearly every great franchise, and Wingstop is no different.

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