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Show Fast food takes new twist LAYTON - The transformation of two franchised fast-food stores to new Hobo Jo's Restaurants represents rep-resents a dramatic shift in the food-service food-service industry, according to an owner who feels that franchise success suc-cess is "topping off' after a lengthy leng-thy run. "Franchises were good for the industry and for the public in general," gen-eral," admits Hersh Ipaktchian, the veteran restauranteur who created cre-ated Hobo Jo's to replace his Arctic Arc-tic Circle locations in Layton and Kaysville. "But with the franchise movement comes a bland similarity similar-ity with everyone jumping on the bandwagon and playing 'follow the leader' with a similar product and a similar atmosphere. It's a scenario in which a local independent can better meet the needs of the local community." Hersh was part of the early growth in the franchise movement. Purchasing an Arctic Circle in the mid-1960's, he saw store sales skyrocket. sky-rocket. From 1970-85 the sales of franchised restaurants grew an astronomical 1,000 percent, aided by national advertising campaigns and a consistency in product. Franchise Fran-chise logos and characters became household names with Ronald McDonald rivaling Mickey Mouse in surveys for name recognition. "Franchising added professionalism profession-alism to the industry," says Hersh, "and, even today, it's a good avenue ave-nue for those just getting started in food service, those who want to minimize their risk. The difficulty, however, is that as a person learns the business and becomes entrepreneurial, entrep-reneurial, he is unable to control his business and make necessary changes. If you wish to add a menu item or alter a recipe, the franchise company may well turn you down, regardless of the logic. With the great interest in seafood, for instance, inst-ance, Hobo Jo's offers a krab sandwich sand-wich and a variety seafood platter. If I were still connected to a franchise, franch-ise, I couldn't offer them." As an independent owner, Hersh is "bucking" the chain tradition by frying all foods in a 100 percent pure vegetable shortening. "Most chains limit the operator to using a high cholesterol animal fat shortening," shorten-ing," he says, "and it will take a long time for them to change despite de-spite the growing reports of animal fat health hazards. There are many fast-food operators oper-ators who would like to change to vegetable shortening-but they can't. In a similar vein, the Hobo Jo's managers can offer new items for a local environment. Right now we are offering sweet and sour chicken nuggets and a club sandwich. sand-wich. If the public likes them, we'll keep them; if not, we will yank them off the menu. In a franchise situation, you lose that ability to act quickly to local conditons." While franchise restaurants outpaced out-paced independents nationally in 1985, strong independents have outperformed franchised stores in Utah, he said. "The most successful success-ful hamburger concept in Salt Lake has been Crown Burgers," he noted. "They've done it with no advertising and no fancy jingles. Some of the franchises can learn a lesson from that company." Another benefit for the independent indepen-dent rests in economics, he says. Instead of paying a three-four percent per-cent of sales franchise fee, the money can be used to increase portions por-tions and quality. The first sandwich sand-wich at Hobo Jo's, for instance, contains 30 percent more fish than the fish sandwich he offered at Arctic Arc-tic Circle. Ironically, the change from the previous franchise has led to questions ques-tions about the Hobo Jo's "franchise." "fran-chise." Hersh laughs and says, "That shows you the power of the franchising fran-chising movement when people automatically think a new fast-food restaurant is part of a national c6m-pany. c6m-pany. Hobo Jo's is a name selected by me with products and design created by myself and my management manage-ment team. We have no connection with any other company. The same thing happened when I built the Peppercorn Restaurant in Layton. Many customers thought they had seen the name somewhere else and automatically thought we had bought a franchise, it's somewhat flattering." The Hobo Jo's Layton unit is managed by Brian Mortenson, the former Arctic Circle manager. The Kaysville store is managed by Rich Ipaktchian, Hersh's oldest son who graduated this spring from the University of Utah. Hersh says franchises will con- tinue to attract a healthy portion of the nation's fast-food dollar due to their massive advertising. Currently Current-ly about 26 percent of all foodser-vice foodser-vice sales occur at a franchise with McDonald's leading its closest competitor. |
