Explore More
Bobby Flay is on a burger-flipping road show.
The Food Network star and owner of Mesa Grill, Bar Americain and Bobby’s Burger Palaces is pitching the private equity community for funds to expand his 8-year-old, 19-location burger chain.
Owned 100 percent by Flay and his business partner, Laurence Kretchmer, the burger chain is being groomed for a minority partner, Flay told a group of investors and analysts at the ICR conference in Orlando, Fla., this week.
Over the past year, the celebrity chef has been tweaking the menu and marketing to make it clear to diners that he is the culinary talent behind the operation.
“Fifty percent of the people who come into our stores don’t know Bobby is me,” Flay told Philly.com earlier this year, conceding that he had halted the chain’s expansion while he revamped the menu and branding.
There was no cross-marketing of his star power, and he is trying to fix that, he told potential investors this week.
Flay, 53, who has parlayed his good looks and culinary talent into a successful TV career, has the chops to give his burger joint more sizzle. The native New Yorker opened his first restaurant, Mesa Grill, in the Big Apple in 1991.
The question, say industry experts, is whether the timing is right for a big push into the saturated burger sector.
“The better burger has so much competition,” said John Gordon, principal of Pacific Management Consulting Group. “Shake Shack continues to grow and is competing for the best sites.”
At the same time, some burger franchises, including Five Guys and Smashburger, have had to retreat from aggressive expansion moves.
Flay declined comment.
ncG1vNJzZmimqaW8tMCNnKamZ2Jlfnh7j2pmamtfl7yjrthmnaWZqWK5sLvKoqWgZaSkeqbEz5qlnWWSqr%2BosdFmp5qkkZiybq%2FHmqCnZw%3D%3D