How does a drive-thru iced tea franchise offer more than 400 franchises in 5 years, and make the No. 9 area on our Top New & Emerging Franchises list? We spoke to HTeaO’s primary advancement officer Andrew Hawes to find out why franchisees see the brand name as a sweet chance. How did HTeaO start? Our creator, Gary Hutchins, has actually owned a hamburger dining establishment in Amarillo, Texas, called Buns Over Texas, because the 80’s. He began offering iced tea there in the mid-2000’s. And around the time of the last economic crisis in 2008, he began discovering individuals were being available in and rather of costs 10 dollars on a hamburger, they were simply investing 2 or 3 dollars on an iced tea. In 2009 he included on 1,200 square feet to his hamburger dining establishment and released Texas Tea, providing 8 tastes of iced tea from a drive-thru. His kid Justin, who is now our CEO, joined him and his mama in 2012, which’s when they introduced the very first model of a freestanding Texas Tea. And as soon as we opened that, we recognized we may have something unique that we may be able to franchise. We invested 5 or 6 years constructing the franchise design and the assistance system and the facilities, and then released the franchise chance in 2018, at the exact same time that we rebranded Texas Tea to HTeaO. Related: Considering franchise ownership? Get going now and take this test to discover your tailored list of franchises that match your way of life, interests and spending plan. Do you believe this is an idea that can go across the country? I believe eventually it will, and we’ve even had some interest, wildly enough, from locations like North Dakota and Idaho. Right now our focus is the southeastern United States, what I would call “tea drinking nation.” The barrier to entry is much less since you do not need to describe what iced tea is somebody in Georgia. Our development technique, still being an emerging young brand name, is to develop our brand name and our awareness in the southern U.S., and then as soon as we have that direct exposure and have a thousand areas open, we can get into some of the more northern states that aren’t as familiar with iced tea. And among the primary factors we caused what we call our brewhouse offerings, which is our hot tea and coffee offerings, in addition to increasing our early morning traffic, was to ultimately enter into those markets where hot beverages are more popular. What are your objectives for the brand name for 2023 and beyond? We have 68 places open and functional today, and 93 under building and construction, so that need to bring our overall to about 160 shops open in the next 12 months. Beyond that, we’ve currently granted 430 franchises in overall, and we’re taking a look at granting 175 more this year. The strategy is to have 500 areas open by the end of 2026. To what do you associate that development? It’s a design constructed around the most lucrative part of a dining establishment. Any dining establishments owner will inform you drinks are where the cash is made. We removed all of the disappointment and devices that chooses cooking. And it does not take a rocket researcher to understand that water, tea, and ice are not too extremely pricey, so the margins can be really financially rewarding. I believe individuals can picture, Hey, this is something I can do. I do not require cooking experience or a background in dining establishment management. Related: How to Choose the very best Structure for Your Franchise Company What kinds of franchisees has HTeaO brought in? In the start, it was a great deal of 2nd profession type individuals– individuals who stated, “I ‘d like to develop a service for myself, however I require that assistance system of a franchise.” For the very first couple of years, our development was greatly weighted towards single-unit operators, and they’ve been wonderful. Now that we’ve developed some brand name awareness, we’re beginning to draw in multi-unit, multi-brand franchise partners, which is incredibly humbling. I still see us as an extremely young, unidentified brand name, so to have somebody with 20 or 30 years of experience in the franchise area take a leap of faith implies a lot to our group. We’re still going to invite single-unit franchisees, however inducing multi-unit partners who can do 5 to 20 shops over a much shorter duration due to the fact that they have the facilities currently in location is actually going to be crucial to our development moving forward.
Why HTeaO is among the Top 10 New & Emerging Franchises for 2023
