FSR May 2023

FEATURE

Church’s Chicken in a variety of execu tive-level roles for nearly eight years. But he cut his teeth in the restaurant world at Burger King, where he began as a senior attorney in 1995 and eventually worked his way up to vice president and general manager of Latin America by 2016. “I’m spent, wow, almost 30 years in franchising, and during those 30 years, I’ve learned a lot,” Moralejo says. “One of the things I’ve learned—and I call it one of the franchising truths, if you will—is that franchisors win when franchisees succeed. And when that shared enter prise works, the guest wins.” PRIORITIZING FRANCHISEE AND GUEST RELATIONSHIPS Since Applebee’s restaurants are 100-per cent franchisee owned, pricing menu items comes down to the decision of the operators in each market. Yet, Moralejo highlights that since the brand’s multi unit franchisees are highly experienced, the company has been “very fortunate.” “They're smart, they're measured, they're strategic, and they walk this tightrope, this in ationary type of tight rope, if you will, where they're balancing a ordability, and they're trying to pro tect their margins,” he tells FSR . “And they do a really, really great job of that.” Applebee’s franchisees took pricing just over 7 percent in 2022, Moralejo notes, but that's against a backdrop of an 18 percent increase in operators’ com modity basket. “And the pricing that our franchisees took was on par or less than any of our peers, and it was less than grocery store pricing,” Moralejo says. “I think that speaks really to our willing ness in our brand or category-leading position on a ordability. at’s really important to us, and that’s something that we don’t want to lose.” Since the start, operators have been the backbone of the casual-dining chain, and have always been encouraged to integrate themselves and their res taurants into their local communities. Applebee’s has just under 1,700 restau rants, yet only has 31 franchise owners. “It’s an optimized, more of a consoli dated franchise system, and they tend to

“One of the things I’ve learned—and I call it one of the franchising truths, if you will—is that franchisors win when franchisees succeed. And when that shared enterprise works, the guest wins.”

APPLEBEE’S MENU RANGES FROM BONELESS WINGS AND FRIES TO DOUBLE-GLAZED BABY BACK RIBS.

APPLEBEE'S

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FSRMAGAZINE.COM

MAY 2023