Dive Brief:
- Fat Brands opened its first Great American Cookies, Marble Slab Creamery and Pretzelmaker tri-branded restaurant in Roanoke, Texas, the company announced Wednesday.
- The restaurant giant operates multiple co-branded Great American Cookie and Marble Slab Creamery locations, but hopes to capture growing diner interest in snacking occasions by growing the new tri-branded store model with Pretzelmaker.
- This concept launch comes after Fat made two development hires in 2024 to focus on growth in nontraditional locations as it targets a pipeline of 1,100 locations.
Dive Insight:
Fat Brands has paired concepts within its ever-growing stable of brands for hybrid locations since 2013 and continues to invest in expanding such units.
Last year, Fat signed a 40-unit development deal with California Burger to fold Fatburger into 40 Round Table Pizza locations over the next 10 years. The first of these hybrid restaurants was slated to open last year.
Co-branding, when managed well, can offer customers a varied menu and give operators the chance to raise extra revenue. As of last year, Fat had roughly 200 co-branded restaurants in its network. As of Q3 2024, Fat had roughly 160 co-branded Marble slab Creamery and Great American Cookies locations and over 100 Fatburgers/Buffalo’s Express units.
The company has only tri-branded locations since 2022 when it first opened a hybrid Fatburger, Buffalo’s Express and Hot Dog on a Stick restaurant. It opened its second unit with this brand mix in Los Angeles last year.
“Co-branding is a great model from both a menu and margin perspective and produces an incremental sales lift of 10% to 20%,” Wiederhorn said on an earnings call last spring.
