Your Pie was featured in
Nation's Restaurant News in an article titled, "Your Pie eyes growth in Southeast." Founder, Drew French and partner at Georgia Oak, David Barr, were both interviewed discussing the growth plans throughout the Southeast and the plans to have a total of 100 restaurants in the next two years. The article shares the potential of the brand in the industry and the type of franchise partners that Your Pie is currently seeking out.
See the whole article online
here.
Your Pie eyes
growth in Southeast
After
investment, the fast-casual pizza chain aims to open 100 units in two years
Oct.
18, 2013
The chain
received an undisclosed investment from Atlanta-based private-equity firm
Georgia Oak Partners
Drew French
might have been among the first restaurateurs to start the burgeoning
fast-casual pizza segment when he opened Your Pie in Athens, Ga., in 2008 at
age 24. But long before that, he was developing the concept of customized
individual pizzas made quickly — mostly because he was not fond of sharing his
favorite anchovy-and-black-olive pizza as a kid.
Now, as the
sector heats up, with developing fast-casual pizza brands like Solos, Live
Basil and Pie Five, French is not as keen on sharing franchisees or customers
with fellow upstarts as he is with leading the category.
“Before there
was any other competition, the goal was to be a globally admired brand,” French
said.
“Everybody loves pizza, so it made sense to me that Your Pie would scale,
not just out of Athens but across the nation.”
In August, as
Your Pie opened its 18th location, one big admirer did come calling:
Atlanta-based private-equity firm Georgia Oak Partners. The firm’s undisclosed
investment in Your Pie Franchising was intended to bolster the brand’s
infrastructure and capital for growing to 100 units in two years.
French remains
involved in Your Pie as a franchisee of three restaurants, and the company’s
chief executive, Bucky Cook, also runs one location as a franchisee. The brand
also brought in Ken Caldwell as vice president of development to oversee the
new growth push.
“We realized
that if we really want to take it to the next level, we’ll need the capital to
do it, and our experience would only take us so far,” French said. “In the
first conversations I had with David [Barr, a director at Georgia Oak], we knew
it would be a good fit. I felt like it was time to invest in the company and
make a move to build our infrastructure and give us the ability to scale
faster.”
Georgia Oak was
not the first private-equity firm to do its due diligence on Your Pie, French
said, but the firm made the right partner because it understood that French
wanted to expand Your Pie meticulously outward from the Southeast.
“What drew us to
the segment was fast casual in a broad sense,” said Barr, who leads Georgia
Oak’s restaurant, retail and consumer division. “Consumers are reacting to
controlling their dining experience and customization. Then we looked at pizza,
and Your Pie intrigued us because they were the first, and they are the
largest. Other chains boast about how many units they have in the pipeline, but
Your Pie is the largest.”
Upon meeting
with French and Cook, Georgia Oak quickly was assured that the restaurant brand
and the investors
were aligned on how the system should continue to grow organically and
contiguously in the Southeast.
French
reiterated that Your Pie’s internal goal is to have 100 units open by the end
of 2015. The target markets are Atlanta; Charlotte, N.C.; Nashville, Tenn.;
Charleston, S.C.; Tampa, Fla.; and Birmingham, Ala.
