Restaurateurs focus on branding to build their chain to three
DURHAM - Husband-and-wife team Billy Maupin and Alissa Maupin didn't start out to create a great restaurant. Rather, they built the brand first and then structured the restaurant around it.
Not surprising, given that both have a background in marketing.
Don't be mistaken: Food is the key element when customers walk through the doors of the Maupins' two Green Tango restaurants in Durham. But they had a grand plan well before the day in 2003 when they opened the first eatery.
"I wanted to be like Apple or Sony or Disney with that brand recognition," says Maupin, who worked for several years with Mammoth Records in that company's New York marketing group until Mammoth was bought by Disney.
Disney absorbed Mammoth's marketing needs, leaving Billy and Alissa with a decision. Triangle natives who met while studying at Appalachian State University, they decided to move back to North Carolina, where they kicked around a number of business ideas before settling on a salad restaurant concept.
While Alissa took a job in marketing, Billy picked the brains of small business owners such as the Cat's Cradle's Frank Heath, the Lantern restaurant's Andrea Reusing, Brand Fuel co-owner Danny Rosin and Manning Fulton lawyer Ritchie Taylor, who subsequently was hired as Green Tango's corporate and franchise attorney.
"We worked our contacts and took something from each of them," says Billy, who spent about a year developing Green Tango's business plan, monitoring traffic patterns at potential sites and raising startup money from a mix of his savings, private investors, friends and family.
Green Tango opened its first location in the SouthCourt building on Shannon Road in Durham in November 2003. A second location opened in the food court of Northgate Mall in Durham in 2005. A third location is slated to open in September at the Pavilion East mixed-use building on Erwin Road.
Green Tango had revenue of about $800,000 in 2007, and Maupin estimates the company will bring in about $1.4 million after the Pavilion East location opens.
With its third location, Maupin also hopes to launch a franchise business by offering the Pavilion East location to a buyer. "A lot of people can see themselves making the salads, working behind the counter ... but they are not as comfortable with permitting and construction," he says. "This is another avenue if someone is ready to go in three months."
Taylor says the Maupins have become regulars at the quarterly International Franchise Association's networking meetings. "It's a sort of boot camp for franchisors," Taylor says. "They knew it was going to take time to get the units out there, and you want to spend time to take care of those folks."
The Maupins, for now, want to keep Green Tango within the Triangle region to avoid the risk of overstretching their service capability.
As for the restaurants, the Maupins are making it easy for their customers to get their food by offering fax, call-in, online and even text message ordering. They've also had to deal with the realities of rising food costs by hiking prices by 5 percent. Meal prices range from $6.79 to $9.49.
Maupin says the typical Green Tango customer is college-educated, and about 60 percent are women. "It's someone concerned about their health, but they want to choose what healthy is to them," he says.
Brand Fuel's Rosin says the Green Tango owners from day one have focused on branding their business with a consistent design on menus, logos and in the store touting the freshness of their salad, soup and wrap products.
Rosin says his company recently pitched a local company for business and called on Green Tango to cater the session. "Our take was on 'fresh ideas,' and (Green Tango) made us look great," he says.
Cppyright 2008, Triangle Business Journal
