Burney Jennings is the CEO and president of Biscuitville. Burney took over the leadership reins from his father and founder of Biscuitville Maurice Jennings in 1996. Burney’s bold leadership, vision and keen sense of knowing what customers want has contributed to the company’s growth and success.
Headquartered in Greensboro, North Carolina, Biscuitville Fresh Southern is a family-owned company serving authentic Southern food made fresh daily from locally sourced ingredients. Known as the Home of the Biscuit Window Since 1966, Biscuitville serves scratch-made biscuits baked fresh every 15 minutes.
Biscuitville employs over 2,400 people and operates more than 70 restaurants in North Carolina, Virginia and South Carolina. In July 2023, Biscuitville was voted the nation’s Best Fast Food Breakfast & Best Regional Fast Food restaurant in the 2023 USA Today Readers’ Choice 10Best contest.
Burney’s father inherited his mother’s famous biscuit recipe after his ailing mother gave him a choice of his inheritance – the recipe or the farm. Burney’s father chose the recipe and the rest is history.
Biscuitville has stood out from the competition for not working with food delivery services like Uber Eats and GrubHub. According to Burney, the decision was based on several factors including the inability to accommodate to-go orders because the restaurant is so busy.
Biscuitville has made headlines with its “Life After 2” program in which each of its locations close at 2pm each day. The program allows employees to pursue other interests and spend more time with their families.
QUOTES
“(My grandmother) gave my dad – since he was the oldest – the choice: My biscuit recipe or the farm. He chose the biscuit recipe.” (Burney)
“The key to a good biscuit is love.” (Burney)
“Growing up, my dad was fascinated by chain restaurants. My dad told me, ‘We all know how to make a McDonald’s hamburger. We know the ingredients. It’s not about the burger, it’s how they do it. It’s the system they put in place. It’s the marketing, it’s the brand, it’s the people, it’s the execution.’” (Burney)
“We started closing at 2pm. Our food quality went up, our food costs went down and our employees are much happier. Now of course, you need to be a morning person. If you’re not a morning person, we’re not a good place for you.” (Burney)
“We really strive to work with local companies first, and if we can’t be local, we work with family businesses.” (Burney)
“We’ve been able to differentiate ourselves in the breakfast space because we close at 2pm. People know breakfast is our focus.” (Burney)
TRANSCRIPT
00:00.01
Burney Jennings
I can, this is not too close.
00:04.65
vigorbranding
No, ye you’re perfect.
00:05.35
Burney Jennings
No video? Okay.
00:06.54
vigorbranding
Yep. Okay. You ready to roll?
00:08.75
Burney Jennings
Now I’m ready to roll.
00:10.09
vigorbranding
All right. Welcome, Fork Tales fans. The best biscuits in the world are made in the South, of course. And the best place to buy those biscuits is a restaurant called Biscuitville. Today’s guest is the chairman of bisop but Biscuitville, Bernie Jennings, and we’re going to talk about biscuits, family, and a whole lot more. Bernie, thank you so much for joining us. Welcome, and we’re looking forward to hearing your story.
00:35.38
Burney Jennings
Thank you, Michael. I appreciate you inviting me to your podcast.
00:39.08
vigorbranding
Very cool. So, okay. We’ll start sort of in the beginning here. Your father founded Biscuitville in 1966 and you were raised to eventually take over the reins, which you did in 1996. You often joke that your birth date and your higher date are the same date. ah Talk about that a little bit. Talk about the start and how you got into the business and how you were raised basically in the business.
01:03.01
Burney Jennings
Sure, so I feel like I was born into the business watching my dad as an entrepreneur, um you know, try different things in the restaurant business. He started out with, you know, really a bread store um and he was selling day-old bread and um through his travels and he was also selling flour as not flowers as in roses but flour um by the train carload um and he saw pizza and he thought that was a pretty neat concept so he started a concept called pizza to go
01:28.83
vigorbranding
Wow.
01:35.86
Burney Jennings
I eventually added biscuits in the morning because it was of as in a slow day part to no day part. And to make a long story short, change the name to Pizzaville. The biscuits were doing really well. I said, but let me just see if I can make a go at a biscuit concept without the pizza. and opened up one in downtown Danville, Virginia called it Biscuitville and the story goes on from there. Eventually converted all the pizzavills over to Biscuitvilles and we’ve been growing ever since. But to answer your question, watching my dad go through that and I remember yeah he used to do his own training videos and
02:15.96
Burney Jennings
yeah middle of the night, yeah know I fell asleep at about 1130 and he woke me up at 630 in the morning when they were doing the videos and I just feel like I grew grew up in the business. um But you know how did I get into the business?
02:27.33
vigorbranding
That.
02:31.64
Burney Jennings
um I call myself a late bloomer. I didn’t know what I wanted to do when I was growing up. I didn’t know if I wanted to be in the restaurant business, in the real estate business, oh just didn’t know. So when I got out of college, I started working for my dad doing odds and end jobs and eventually worked my way into a restaurant we called, what we had called the cutting board, which was a steakhouse in Burlington. um From that started managing a Pizzaville restaurant. And you know from that went over to the Biscuitville side and really worked every department in the company.
03:08.55
Burney Jennings
um I didn’t run all the departments, but I got an exposure to that. And around 1996, my dad made me president of the company. But it wasn’t like I set out to the be in it.
03:17.62
vigorbranding
Wow.
03:22.29
Burney Jennings
But once I started getting a taste of it, I loved it.
03:25.85
vigorbranding
That’s awesome. So like I have a rule like for my daughters, ah not that they’re interested whatsoever in what I’m doing ever, but if they want to get into the business, my my rule was you have to work somewhere for two years and get one promotion. Did you guys have anything like that?
03:40.12
Burney Jennings
Right.
03:41.12
vigorbranding
Or is there any kind of rules that you set up that way or anything you know to that to that thing? Or is it just a coincidence? It just happened happened to work out.
03:48.73
Burney Jennings
It just happened to work out for me. However, I also learned that rule. having you know I have four kids. One of them does work in the company, my oldest son, Blake, and he had to do the same thing. He worked about five or six years outside of our business before he joined us. And his skillset is real estate development, did that in Washington, DC in Raleigh. But I think that’s really important, joining a family business to have that outside experience before joining.
04:12.40
vigorbranding
Mmhmm.
04:18.74
Burney Jennings
And I’m sure I would have benefited from it.
04:19.01
vigorbranding
Amen. Yeah, well, and you know, look, we I talked to a lot of folks that are part of family businesses and, you know, it’s it’s awesome, right? yeah And there’s there’s nothing more important than family, right?
04:29.60
Burney Jennings
Yeah.
04:30.37
vigorbranding
and but But family owned businesses, I mean, it can be it can be a difficult run. I mean, you know, there’s we we, you and I certainly know of a lot of of of of family businesses where there’s turmoil and problems. So ah to navigate that, I think it’s good to have those rules set up out front and And you gotta abide by them, right? I mean, it’s ah it’s an important thing.
04:49.95
Burney Jennings
Yeah.
04:51.07
vigorbranding
So now, is your son, is he going to be, I mean, what is his role right now?
04:56.05
Burney Jennings
He does a real estate development work, yeah repair which would include the construction repairs and maintenance site selection.
04:57.93
vigorbranding
Okay.
05:03.21
vigorbranding
Mm-hmm.
05:03.88
Burney Jennings
I mean, that’s that’s his job.
05:07.45
vigorbranding
Yeah, which is not nothing, because you have how many locations? Like 50 plus, right?
05:10.79
Burney Jennings
Yeah, we’re about 79 locations a day with four under construction.
05:13.16
vigorbranding
Wow. Okay. Wow. Jeez.
05:16.06
Burney Jennings
Yeah.
05:16.19
vigorbranding
That’s fantastic. So yeah I want to take it back to the beginning because I love, I always say there’s always these great stories, right? So I love this story. Your ailing grandmother called her grandsons to her bedside, which had been your father, asked them to choose their inheritance.
05:28.11
Burney Jennings
Right?
05:31.03
vigorbranding
So you want to tell that story?
05:33.05
Burney Jennings
Yeah, so he she gave my dad since he was the oldest on the choice between the biscuit recipe or the farm and he chose the biscuit recipe and my brother might hit my uncle which was his brother got the farm.
05:49.20
vigorbranding
So how did the farm work out? I mean, is was he happy with that trade?
05:51.52
Burney Jennings
You know, I say my dad, and and I think it’s just a great story. Interestingly enough, um my uncle used to ask me, where’s the farm? He was he he still was looking for the farm. um it’s eastern east and My grandparents lived in eastern Tennessee, in a great area.
06:09.33
vigorbranding
Okay.
06:11.84
Burney Jennings
In fact, there’s a Jennings Cemetery there, lots of Jennings there.
06:14.51
vigorbranding
Wow.
06:17.11
vigorbranding
Wow. So, so the farm does exist.
06:17.94
Burney Jennings
Yeah.
06:19.03
vigorbranding
Your uncle got the farm. Did he ever, was your uncle ever a part of the business?
06:20.61
Burney Jennings
Yeah. Um, so when we look at the business side, I mentioned early on that my dad was a flower salesman.
06:28.81
vigorbranding
Yep.
06:28.91
Burney Jennings
Um, that was with, that was something that his dad or my grandfather, this is my grandfather had. And that’s a business. My uncle, who was a younger brother took over when my dad got into restaurant business.
06:40.71
vigorbranding
Gotcha.
06:42.31
Burney Jennings
My uncle did the flower business.
06:45.72
vigorbranding
That’s funny.
06:46.46
Burney Jennings
Yeah.
06:46.48
vigorbranding
Does a farm in Tennessee still exist?
06:49.04
Burney Jennings
No, I mean, that yeah, it exists, but it’s not family owned anymore.
06:50.00
vigorbranding
Okay.
06:52.36
vigorbranding
Not in a family. That’s funny.
06:53.42
Burney Jennings
Yeah. Yeah.
06:55.24
vigorbranding
So I guess without giving away the secret recipe, the thing that that your father chose, what’s what’s the key to a good biscuit?
06:55.37
Burney Jennings
Yeah.
07:03.02
Burney Jennings
Yeah, so my dad was very, very practical. And I’ll answer the question, the key to the good bisits the key to a good biscuit is love. And what I mean by that is growing up, my um yeah my dad was fascinated with chain restaurants. And he he told me, look, we all know how to make a McDonald’s hamburger. We know the ingredients. It’s not about the McDonald’s hamburger. It’s how they do it. It’s the system they put in place. It’s the marketing. It’s the brand. It’s the it’s a people. It’s the execution. He said, so yeah when when we look at making a good biscuit,
07:44.93
Burney Jennings
It’s pretty simple ingredients. It’s self-rising flour, shortening, and buttermilk.
07:50.23
vigorbranding
Mm hmm.
07:50.31
Burney Jennings
It’s what do you do with it? How do you market it? How are, you know, it’s a friendliness. How do you make the people who are buying it feel special? So I call it love. It’s that’s how you make a good biscuit.
07:59.82
vigorbranding
Yep.
08:02.26
vigorbranding
Yeah. Well, you know, bra I’ve known you for a long time and you’re very engaging and you can it’s amazing because it’s I can tell you care. and And you know, people might be listening saying, okay, right, you make it with love.
08:10.06
Burney Jennings
Yeah.
08:12.71
vigorbranding
But like family, not just your family, your company, you see your company as a family. And I think that whole, that passion and that caring for people really, really comes through.
08:17.61
Burney Jennings
Right.
08:22.62
vigorbranding
And I think I commend you for that. And ah I mean, I just think that’s an ah it’s an amazing attribute to you and your company.
08:29.06
Burney Jennings
Well, thank you.
08:30.68
vigorbranding
So Biscuitville has made some great headlines in recent years for going against industry trends. And I’m i’m always impressed by things like this. It’s hard to stand by, I’ll say, you’re your your beliefs, if you will, and you know i mean from just being open for breakfast ah you know to to you know all the other things that you that you do and that you keep sacred, I guess. um So the one of the huge trends, obviously, especially since COVID was ah third party delivery services like Uber Eats, DoorDash, and Grubhub. um you You are not working with them, is that correct?
09:05.54
Burney Jennings
That is correct. Yeah, I can expand.
09:07.88
vigorbranding
what And the thinking there? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
09:09.57
Burney Jennings
Yeah,
09:10.23
vigorbranding
i’d like to yeah I want to hear a little bit about thinking there because i’ I’m intrigued.
09:14.03
Burney Jennings
yeah so it’s it’s several things. One, um we have worked on our packaging so our food can travel well. um An example in in in the restaurant business is french fries. How do you keep a french fry hot and fresh for 20 minutes while it’s going from your restaurant to to be delivered?
09:30.01
vigorbranding
Mm hmm.
09:35.33
Burney Jennings
So our biscuits are best eaten fresh. um When we look at our business, we’re opened basically eight and a half hours a day, 5.30 to 2 in the afternoon. And we do a lot of business in a short period of timeframe and getting to go order like an Uber Eats order on a 930 on a Saturday done workforce because we’re having trouble. you know, taking care of those guests that are in front of us. um yeah Chipotle, I think, has done a really good job in their restaurants of making a second makeup line just for to-go orders so that it doesn’t mess up their dining.
10:15.27
Burney Jennings
With us, we we we have the dining room and we have the drive-through. Drive-throughs went from pre-COVID around 63% of sales to now 75% of sales.
10:26.94
vigorbranding
Wow.
10:27.69
Burney Jennings
It does seem to be coming off a little bit, but it’s holding holding in that number. um So we’re doing a tremendous amount of business in a short period of time and it’s part of a capacity issue of how do you fit those orders in. So it’s on our radar.
10:42.93
vigorbranding
Mmhmm.
10:45.08
Burney Jennings
I think we’ll end up solving the packaging and solving some of the back of house stuff but for right now it’s not it’s not top of mind for us.
10:53.42
vigorbranding
Well, and again, you know, going back to to like what I was saying earlier about you and the way you, ah your personality, everything, you know, you say you make these biscuits with love. Well, you’re not, you you refuse to sell them ah through a delivery service because it’s not about the delivery service, per se, it’s more about like the quality of the product that they’re going to get at the end of the day. And at the end of the day, that’s your brand, right? I mean, your Biscuitville and, you know, you don’t want to have, a you you don’t want to to have um anything happen to that product that diminishes the the experience, the consumer experience.
11:13.52
Burney Jennings
Yeah.
11:20.02
Burney Jennings
Right.
11:23.16
Burney Jennings
and I agree. And I like those delivery services. I use them my so my myself.
11:26.72
vigorbranding
Yep.
11:28.08
Burney Jennings
It is definitely not about the delivery service. They’re doing a great job in providing ah a good service.
11:33.84
vigorbranding
Yep. The other thing, and i’m I’m curious about this too, because again, I commend you for it. So I’m not, well, by no means am I questioning it, but 5.30 a.m. ah to closing at two, I mean, you know, again, most most restaurants out there be like, okay, well, that’s great for them.
11:41.49
Burney Jennings
Yeah.
11:47.45
vigorbranding
What are we gonna do for the the you know lunch? You know, we’re gonna make this, we’re gonna make that. What about dinner? We’re gonna make this, we’re gonna make that. I mean, everyone would try and open up as many day parts as he absolutely humanly could. And look at some of the different QSRs, like I’ll say, like McDonald’s. I mean, they’re they’re in the basic dessert business, they’re in the coffee business, they’re in the whatever the next trend du jour is.
12:05.27
Burney Jennings
Right.
12:08.55
vigorbranding
how How hard was it for you to stay sort of, ah for lack of a word, true to yourself and just do this this morning, 5.30 a.m. to closing it to?
12:17.24
Burney Jennings
Yeah, so we started out open till eight o’clock at night. We had bone-on chicken.
12:20.36
vigorbranding
Okay.
12:21.92
Burney Jennings
um We added vegetables. and We had a lot of different products. And to make a long story short, from about one o’clock in the afternoon till 5.30, it was pretty much dead.
12:33.71
vigorbranding
Mm hmm.
12:33.98
Burney Jennings
And when you’re in the quick service business, people want a great product that’s fresh. And you can imagine how it’s difficult it is to do that when you really don’t have much business between one and 530.
12:41.66
vigorbranding
Yep.
12:49.41
Burney Jennings
And this was before snacking, you know, the snacking concept and the coffee concepts and people, you know, going to a restaurant um in mid afternoon really existed.
12:53.51
vigorbranding
Mm hmm.
13:00.21
Burney Jennings
So we dropped that day part, started closing it too. um Our food quality went up, our food costs went down, and our employees were much happier.
13:11.53
vigorbranding
Mm
13:11.84
Burney Jennings
So now we call it when we’re hiring, it’s called life after two. So we use that as a selling point to hire people. Now of course you need to be a morning person. If you’re not a morning person, We’re not a good place. We’re not a good place for you. um You definitely need to be a morning person. um So that means I’d say the majority of our management team is geared towards closing it to being at home with their family, having worked out if they do have a family who’s going to take care of those kids in the morning so they can be there in the afternoon.
13:37.79
vigorbranding
hmm.
13:46.54
Burney Jennings
It’s a big decision staying open later and how many people are you going to lose because that’s not what they signed up for.
13:46.59
vigorbranding
Yeah.
13:53.07
vigorbranding
That’s right. And that’s very smart of you to look around the corner because let’s face it. I mean, I love that that life after two. I think that’s super smart. I mean, and again, I say this because knowing you for a while, I could tell that like company culture, you treat everything like family and that whole life after two plays right into that.
14:06.26
Burney Jennings
Yeah.
14:08.75
vigorbranding
So it’s not a It’s not another gimmick or it’s not a, well, we you know we got we got to worry about our employees. It’s something you’ve always done.
14:14.95
Burney Jennings
Yeah.
14:15.45
vigorbranding
and and Candidly, I think that’s reflected in the quality of the product. you say you The biscuits are made with love. I think that’s what you know people sign up for this life after two and they’re they’re’re they’re dedicated to you and your brand and the family. i think that’s ah I think that’s very commendable and something I think people try to build or create later, but you’ve always sort of had that incorporated, haven’t you?
14:36.98
Burney Jennings
Right.
14:38.19
vigorbranding
So, okay, three quarters of your sales come from drive-through customers. That’s in line with most of the fast food industry, which is around 70.
14:41.54
Burney Jennings
Yes.
14:45.17
vigorbranding
Last year you opened your first drive-through only location. Do you see a lot of potential for more drive-throughs? Is that like maybe the future? ah Or is it still in the test and learn phase?
14:56.76
Burney Jennings
Yes, in the test and learn phase, um we opened up eight restaurants last year. All of them had a dining room, except for that one. That is a test location. And then the next eight, we were planning on the the dining room. We found the dining room does add to our return on investment. And we got 25% of our guests coming in into the dining room. Now, about 10% of them are taking it to go, but another 15 are staying in the dining room. So we see it as something here to say, here to stay.
15:24.63
vigorbranding
Mm hmm.
15:27.23
vigorbranding
Okay. Good. Good. So what do you think? What’s the best thing on your menu? Other than the biscuit? I think that’d be the obvious answer.
15:33.01
Burney Jennings
ah my my favorite is so My favorite is sausage, egg, and cheese with sc with scrambled egg.
15:34.25
vigorbranding
What do you think?
15:37.33
vigorbranding
Oh, there you go. ah Perfect.
15:39.76
Burney Jennings
You know, our our sausage is made by Swaggerty. It’s a third, and I think getting ready to go on a fourth generation family business out of Servirville, Tennessee, which is right by Dollywood.
15:46.88
vigorbranding
Wow.
15:50.29
vigorbranding
Uh huh.
15:50.62
Burney Jennings
um And, you know, I didn’t mention it early on, but we really strive to go with local companies first. And if we can’t be local, We want them to be family business doesn’t always work out that way, but you know a fourth generation family business for our sausage, a third or fourth generation for baking bacon coming out of um Ohio. um yeah Our helm is made locally you know in Wiltsboro. Um, yeah, it’s that, that local or family is really important.
16:21.46
Burney Jennings
Oh, and we decided community coffee about three years ago and they’re in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
16:25.31
vigorbranding
Very cool. Yep.
16:28.26
Burney Jennings
Great, great family business.
16:30.10
vigorbranding
That’s awesome. Very cool.
16:31.05
Burney Jennings
Yeah.
16:31.56
vigorbranding
Well, you know, it’s like, you you know, some of the things are like the shift to drive-throughs and then, you know, take out.
16:38.39
Burney Jennings
Yeah.
16:38.47
vigorbranding
And, you know, I mean, that, that happened. COVID really, you know, moved a lot of that along fast. You know, like we see things like Pizza Hut’s practically eliminating dine in, but it really feels like the Biscuitville brand and just sort of the way you feel about family and the folks. It feels like the dine-in is here to stay as far as Biscuitville, right? i mean that’s like It feels like that’s a it’s a really integral part of your brand and and your your brand promise and the the love, the fresh and all that kind of thing.
16:58.74
Burney Jennings
Yeah.
17:05.66
Burney Jennings
No, it is. Yeah. Have no, no, no plans on changing it. And even it you when we look at this drive through only um test, that’s a concept that we would put on a smaller site where we couldn’t fit a restaurant with a dining room, but we want, we definitely wanted to be in that market.
17:27.96
vigorbranding
Yeah, that makes total sense.
17:28.74
Burney Jennings
So we we to to us, that’s an add-on, not a replacement.
17:29.00
vigorbranding
and Yeah, absolutely.
17:32.16
Burney Jennings
but Yes.
17:33.48
vigorbranding
So you’ve got more than 70 locations, as you mentioned, in the Carolinas and Virginia, which is ah a lot of restaurants in a, I’ll say not a small area, but a tight, tight, tight footprint.
17:41.34
Burney Jennings
Right.
17:43.47
vigorbranding
All of your locations are company owned, no franchisees. ah That gives you a lot of control of the brand, the product. and But does does that does that limit growth for you as well? And talk about the the idea of not franchising versus franchising and the benefits.
17:57.73
Burney Jennings
Sure, let’s go with the first one, the growth. ah We just moved into South Carolina two years ago and that’s a big part of our growth.
18:04.29
vigorbranding
Nice.
18:07.28
Burney Jennings
um are Three years ago, all of our restaurants were within the two-hour drive of Greensboro, North Carolina, which is our headquarters. Now we’re in about a three and a half hour drive. So we just opened up in Columbia, South Carolina, in Florence, in Harpsville, and one in Neuber, North Carolina. um The growth rate is limited. I mean, the being company owned limits your growth rate.
18:31.08
vigorbranding
Mhm.
18:31.28
Burney Jennings
We don’t have an unlimited supply of cash and equity to grow. So you can only grow as fast as the money that you’re borrow able to borrow or the money you’re able to put into it.
18:36.86
vigorbranding
Right.
18:44.16
vigorbranding
Right.
18:44.52
Burney Jennings
um You could certainly grow faster having private equity come in and buy a big stake, but just not interested in going down that path.
18:48.70
vigorbranding
Mhm.
18:53.37
Burney Jennings
another growth Another way to grow faster is the franchising model, something I have zero experience with. We may do that one day, but right now um where we want to own it and control it, and you mentioned it earlier, we feel like it gives us a lot more control over um the operations piece.
19:16.52
vigorbranding
I think it does and I think that, and um look, we have a lot of brands that are franchised and it’s great and they’re smart business models, but but just again, going back to like how you feel about it. And you know, you said your biscuits, I love it. In the be beginning, they’re made with love. Well, there has to be an extreme amount of control there. So you’re not willing to just ship them out and into through a delivery service for quality sake.
19:35.75
Burney Jennings
right
19:40.16
vigorbranding
You’re not willing to just sell your your your brand to other people and put it in their hands you know with the fear that maybe it won’t be up to the to your standards. I think there’s a whole lot of ah things that you’re doing or you’re choosing not to do that are actually making you successful. I think that’s really commendable.
19:55.96
Burney Jennings
yeah but Thank you.
19:55.98
vigorbranding
I think it’s very difficult to do because you know business is business, right? And like you know it’s about it’s about revenue and growth and all that. So I commend you for kind of sticking to your guns, if you will, and and doing things the way you do it. um So yeah last year Biscuit Fills voted best fast food breakfast in the u and in a USA Today readers poll. that’s That’s huge and congratulations on that.
20:16.39
Burney Jennings
right Thank you.
20:17.83
vigorbranding
So we’re seeing a lot of the fast food breakfast wars and and they’ve been raging for a long time. Everyone’s kind of getting into it ah and the that’s a huge win for you. do you what What do you attribute that to that win? So you’re up against all this competition. You guys are voted number one.
20:32.80
Burney Jennings
Yeah, for us, um in fact, every now and then I’m talking to somebody and they get us confused with Chick-fil-A. And by the way, we’re not Chick-fil-A. It’s a different concept, but they go they think we’re closing on Sundays.
20:46.25
vigorbranding
Mm hmm.
20:46.27
Burney Jennings
it’s yeah we are we’ve put us We have worked hard to put us into a premium QSR category.
20:54.35
vigorbranding
Mm hmm.
20:55.03
Burney Jennings
So when we look at how we compare ourselves, certainly we’re comparing, um we do competitionensation competition shopping with Chick-fil-A, Bojangles, McDonald’s, and Hardee’s.
21:07.89
vigorbranding
Mm hmm.
21:07.96
Burney Jennings
And those are really the core ones in our market. But when we look at our pricing and the quality of the ingredients we’re using, We want to make sure we’re using better ingredients than they are. Now, granted, an egg is an egg is an egg. you can’t yeah You can’t do anything different there, but you can do something different with your bacon, with your sausage, with the, you know, using a center cut ham. um yeah the The chicken, like our chicken, is the Springer Mountain Farms label, which is what you see in high-end restaurants.
21:36.08
vigorbranding
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
21:42.29
Burney Jennings
It costs us more money, but that’s important to us because we think it’s a better product. And when you yeah when you have what we think, really which we know is a better product, you gotta charge a premium price for that. So when we look at our pricing, it’s not gonna be the same. You put our pricing up against any of the people we competition shop with, I tell our folks, it better be higher. It better be more expensive because we’re spending more money than they are putting that product in front of the guests.
22:04.64
vigorbranding
Right.
22:10.85
vigorbranding
Absolutely. so we’re like ah There’s obviously a consistent thread here as far as quality. ah Working with family-owned businesses.
22:18.86
Burney Jennings
Yes.
22:19.09
vigorbranding
ah you know i’ll say so I’ll say smaller types of companies. how Where did that come from? i mean like Is that all you? i mean Was that something instilled by your father? Where did that sort of dedication to, I’ll say family, quality of life for your employees, and and and and clean ingredients and and and and the like, where did that all come from?
22:39.35
Burney Jennings
Yeah, I’ll give a, it’s a two-part answer. One, on the you know ingredient side, we did some research about 10 years ago, and it was internal and external. And it what we found, and it was just by chance, being a smaller chain and local chain, We had, by chance, been dealing with family-owned businesses and local businesses, and many of our customers knew that, but we didn’t play on it. ah like We didn’t point it out, and we said, wait a minute.
23:16.79
Burney Jennings
This is something if our customers know about it and care about it, there’s probably some who don’t know about it but do care about it. So we we made that part of our strategy on a go-forward basis to really focus on local businesses first and family owned businesses second. And then the second um is is the how we treat our people. I think that’s what you were asking in how we operate in our business.
23:42.88
vigorbranding
Mm hmm.
23:47.78
Burney Jennings
Part of that is being a family businesses. I truly believe family businesses approach business and how they treat people different than public companies and different than private equity. So in part of it was my upbringing from my parents on how you treat people and treating people with respect and treating people how you want to be treated. So my team kind of knows this if there’s ever a dilemma when it comes to the people. but be yeah so How do you, if this was you how do you, how would you like to see the answer?
24:19.95
vigorbranding
right
24:20.20
Burney Jennings
And sometimes it’s financially, I mean, it hurts us financially, but it I think we benefit in the long run. So, you know, I try not to be penny wise and pound foolish in making those financial decisions.
24:31.67
vigorbranding
yeah
24:34.34
vigorbranding
I have a strong constitution when it comes to that. I think I really commend you on it.
24:37.00
Burney Jennings
Yeah.
24:37.76
vigorbranding
I think that’s wonderful. um You know, so you’re also voted best regional fast food chain. ah There’s a lot of Southern fast food chains that wanted to win that.
24:46.13
Burney Jennings
Yes.
24:47.59
vigorbranding
Can you talk a little bit about that? Who the competition might have been and you know, why, why, why do you think that you you guys were picked?
24:54.29
Burney Jennings
um you know There were several big operators who the competition might have been, um and I think they’re really good operators, and I’ve already you know i’ve already mentioned them.
25:02.52
vigorbranding
Mm hmm.
25:07.43
Burney Jennings
um They got some great franchisees, McDonald’s, Bojangles, Hardee’s, Chick-fil-A.
25:07.67
vigorbranding
Yep.
25:13.23
Burney Jennings
They’re all really, really good competitors and operators. um You know, for us, I think we are able to different differentiate ourselves in the breakfast space because we close it too. And we’ve already talked about that, but people know breakfast is our focus. And I think when you have that type of focus, it does put you ah in a better position to compete in that space.
25:40.12
vigorbranding
amen and you know I’ll say on that focus, and I you know i know that i think you kind of answered this in a different way earlier, but I can’t help as ah as a marketer and an entrepreneur. i mean you know I have one marketing firm that does restaurant marketing, and I have another another marketing firm that does CPG, food and beverage, right two different companies. and you know you think well they are In my mind, they are very different because you know a restaurant is a retail business that just happens to sell food and beverage. and I don’t mean that to take that lightly, but CPG is you know is what it is.
26:06.40
Burney Jennings
Right.
26:10.39
vigorbranding
it’s ah It’s branded food that is sold at at retail, usually at a gro obviously grocery store. so ah Different businesses, different business models, they just happen to both be food and beverage.
26:16.09
Burney Jennings
Right.
26:20.65
vigorbranding
I’ve been seeing over the years a lot of crossover and you you know we have mutual friends that have restaurants on one side, but then they’ve taken their they’re they’ their primary item and they’ve moved it into the grocery chain. And I got to think with with the with the brand that you have at Biscuitville and the reputation, that if if you could figure out a way to package up those biscuits and get them in a grocer’s freezer, I gotta think that’s a home run.
26:44.98
Burney Jennings
Yeah.
26:47.04
vigorbranding
But can you talk a little bit about that? I have a feeling it goes back to, like you were saying, fresh, fresh, fresh, fresh. So can you talk a little bit about that? Have you thought about that? Or is that maybe something on the horizon?
26:57.12
Burney Jennings
If it’s not on the horizon, we have put very little thought into it. It does go back to yeah know the freshness of the product and how it would reflect on the brand. We may do that one day and you know it may be, um you know doing we have we have party biscuits.
27:11.41
vigorbranding
Hm.
27:15.09
Burney Jennings
yeah We used to call them silver dollar. They’re just small biscuits that you’d see third on a platter or passed around around at a party. Something like that would be really good in my opinion, for yeah a freezer section in a grocery store.
27:29.85
vigorbranding
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you see like ah some of the guys that, the you know, some of the folks have done parbake. So ah instead of it being like, for lack of but a better word, just a frozen ingredient built product, they’ll they’ll they’ll go so far as to, you know, partially bake it and then freeze it.
27:41.28
Burney Jennings
Yeah.
27:46.77
vigorbranding
And I think that makes one heck of a ah lot better, fresher product. And so
27:50.44
Burney Jennings
yeah
27:50.83
vigorbranding
there there might That might be ah an opportunity for you. And hey, look, far bring it for me to tell you how to make biscuits. That’s the last thing I’m going to do. But from a marketing standpoint, I mean, boy, I got to tell you, I think you have such a great brand. And it comes down to just because of the fortitude and and really focusing on a ah breakfast segment, the biscuit, a time frame, fresh and making it with love that I think is
28:06.90
Burney Jennings
Yeah. Right.
28:12.43
vigorbranding
Well, that’s what makes great brands. So I think I think that’s awesome.
28:14.41
Burney Jennings
Yeah.
28:15.70
vigorbranding
So I mean, you know, before we go here, like what’s what’s next for Biscuitville? What else? What else? you you For lack of a better word, cooking up. Is there new locations? Are you moving into any new areas? What would what excites you? what’s What’s going on at Biscuitville?
28:29.14
Burney Jennings
You know, it’s the growth. We were a very slow growth company. I wouldn’t call us a fast growths growth company, but the new markets is where we’re focused. You know, South Carolina ah moving into Greenville next year, you know, just expanding in that South Carolina market is really important to us.
28:38.95
vigorbranding
Awesome.
28:48.30
vigorbranding
Yeah that’s excellent and you know I’m a big trends guy I mean you know at Quench we do the food and beverage trends and the restaurant trends I’ve been doing it for I think it’s like 17 years now and I will say I mean you know that that focus
28:48.35
Burney Jennings
Hope to get to Georgia one day, but that’s a good five or six years down the road. Yeah.
29:09.19
vigorbranding
on a product and a focus on a day part. And if just the overall, again, the Constitution you have and the focus that you have and the fortitude you have is what makes brilliant and great brands. So I commend you for it. You check a lot of boxes. I’ll tell you as far as what’s on trend, what consumers want. And I think that’s that’s ah very, very admirable. So I guess keep up keep up the great work.
29:29.37
Burney Jennings
Thank you.
29:31.24
vigorbranding
so So now I have to have a good
29:31.64
Burney Jennings
Thank you, Michael. But you know, hell ah you know, um I do read your material and Quench does a really good job at the market research. I love the presentations you do. They’re exciting, they’re engaging, and they are full of a lot of tidbits of information that I can walk away with. So you guys do a great job with that.
29:51.36
vigorbranding
I appreciate you saying that. That’s very kind. Now before I let you go here, I have one last question. I’m going to, you know, you can’t say one of your biscuits. So it’s got, you got it. I’m going to steer you off your biscuits, right? You don’t have to mention any other brands, but if you had one final meal, What would you eat and why?
30:05.37
Burney Jennings
Hmm One final meal my wife makes the best pepperoni pizza And I’ve had a lot of pepperoni pizza, especially since you know growing up we had a pizza pizza pizza restaurant um That’s I would say that that’s it
30:07.21
vigorbranding
And maybe even where, if it’s a special restaurant or a special place or whatever else.
30:13.51
vigorbranding
Yeah.
30:22.52
vigorbranding
like ah Pizzaville. Yeah.
30:30.62
vigorbranding
Well, maybe one day.
30:31.37
Burney Jennings
its It’s very simple, pepperoni, cheese, sauce, and a great crust.
30:33.12
vigorbranding
yeah
30:36.69
vigorbranding
We know history repeats itself. So maybe one day there’ll be this thing where, I mean, your grandmother, ah you know, gifted your father the biscuit recipe.
30:45.38
Burney Jennings
Right.
30:46.74
vigorbranding
Maybe one day you’re your wife gifts the pepperoni ah recipe to one of your your your kids and maybe maybe it all comes back around, you know?
30:54.79
Burney Jennings
You never know.
30:56.77
vigorbranding
Pizzaville reborn with with your with your wife’s recipe.
30:57.78
Burney Jennings
That’s right.
30:59.55
vigorbranding
I love it.
31:00.15
Burney Jennings
Right.
31:00.19
vigorbranding
That’s awesome. Well, Bernie, you are fantastic as always. I really appreciate your time and thank you so much. And again, congratulations on such a great brand. And again, brands are built on promises. And I mean, your promises of of ah fresh and and love and and all that just really comes through and everything. And that’s that’s it’s very admirable.
31:21.02
Burney Jennings
hi Thank you. Been a pleasure.
31:25.08
vigorbranding
Cool. All right. i think
