FSR June 2023

FIREBIRDS

GROWTH LIGHTS UP In late March, Firebirds announced a sale to Garnett Station Partners, a 2013-founded firm that manages roughly $2 billion in assets. Other F&B invest ments include Authentic Restaurant Brands (Primanti Bros., Mambo Seafood, and P.J. Whelihan's), Kona Ice, and the world's largest Burger King franchisee, Carrols Restaurant Group. It marked the second time in four years Firebirds came under new ownership. J.H. Whitney Cap ital Partners revealed in early 2019 it acquired a majority interest in Firebirds.

What’s intriguing as well is how spread out Firebirds is. You don’t often see chains dot the map like darts. More commonly, concentric circles feed them selves until brand awareness drives out of-market expansion. Firebirds’ home base of North Carolina has eight loca tions and Pennsylvania and Virginia six apiece. Tennessee and Ohio each have five. Otherwise, every market has four or fewer restaurants. Texas, South Car olina, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Iowa, Indi ana, and Delaware each have one. Kislow says every state has a reason Firebirds opened there, from a founder

seeking A-plus real estate—it prefers centers with Targets—and designing builds that aren’t just visible; they’re memorable, too. A recent opening fea tured a new sign package that show cased “Wood Fired Grill” over the top of an expanded patio roof line. “We felt that was important because, what is Firebirds if you don’t know,” Kislow says, “and you’re in a DMA like Dallas Fort Worth that has so many other great polished casual brands. We wanted to really highlight the wood-fired grill so people know what it is that differenti ates us specifically.”

SIGNATURE COCKTAILS RAISE THE FIREBIRDS’ EXPERIENCE UP ANOTHER NOTCH.

FIREBIRDS

At the time, the brand had 48 restaurants. J.H. Whitney bought the company from Angelo, Gordon & Co., who owned Fire birds since 2011 when it had 18 stores in eight states. This most recent chapter arrives as Firebirds boasts 56 locations in 20 states. One of the goals of the strategic capi tal, naturally, will be to lift that number. Kislow says, at sub-60 stores, there’s visible whitespace for Firebirds to tackle. It plans to focus on Northern Virginia, the Carolinas, Texas, and Florida, where he sees 10–12 “opportunities across the state at this point that we haven’t lever aged yet.”

living nearby to other points. But the important note is, “we’ve been success ful” in every one of them, Kislow says. “So now,” he continues, “frankly, it’s much easier for us because we can go and backfill all those markets.” For exam ple, there are only four restaurants in the Charlotte trade. Firebirds isn’t guessing with site selection the way some peers might. It doesn’t need to seed markets to test demand as much as build more units to fulfill what’s already there. That, Kislow says, is an ideal spot to catapult the brand from. As Firebirds grows, though, it’s work ing to better share and tell its story. It’s

An upcoming Plano, Texas, location will feature that same package, but also what Corporate Chef Steve Sturm dubs “the beacon.” There are two bookends out front. Instead of doing a fire feature inside, Firebirds flipped so people driv ing by would see a restaurant called Fire birds and then notice two tubes of fire that spin throughout and sit 8 feet high. The restaurants themselves morphed alongside an industry movement. There are two sizes Firebirds builds presently, both smaller than original layouts. The brand’s first 20 or so averaged in the ballpark of 7,000–7,200 square feet. The larger store today is closer to 6,300

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