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‘Better breakfast’ chain adds Winston-Salem location, looks toward Greensboro

February 8, 2017

Written by: John Brasier

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The Famous Toastery “better breakfast” chain, which has expanded from a single restaurant in Huntersville to 17 restaurants in four states in only four years, is doubling down on Winston-Salem with more locations planned in Greensboro.

Franchisee Bill Bingham said he expects his second Winston-Salem location, next to Cheddars in the Shoppes on Little Creek off Hanes Mall Boulevard, to open in May. He said the all that remains is the “outfitting” of the 3,400-square-foot restaurant, which he plans will seat at least 96 inside and another 26-28 on its patio.

“The sooner, the better,” said Bingham, who lives in Davidson and has another Famous Toastery in the Ballantyne area of Charlotte.

Robert Maynard, one of two founding partners of the chain, told Triad Business Journal that another franchisee, Dean Kessel, is “in the process” of buying land for an initial Greensboro location. Maynard said he expected the Triad to have “five to seven” franchises in the next “four or five years.” Kessel owns a franchise in Cary.

Maynard said his second Toastery would cost in the “$414,500 to $768,000 range” the chain’s website promotes to prospective franchisees, who pay a $35,000 franchise fee and royalties of five percent of gross revenue.

Bingham said he expects the Hanes Mall Boulevard location to attract the same type of demographic clientele of business people and local residents, but more walk-in customers than his downtown location, which has a thriving catering and business meeting business.

He said women typically make up 60 percent of the chain’s customers.

“I think we’ll have higher volume than downtown,” Bingham said. “it’s a different venue.”

Featuring fresh and organic ingredients sourced locally, Toastery offers breakfast and lunch items from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. It also has a gluten-free menu.

The menu — standard at all locations — includes breakfast favorites such as avocado omelets, portobella mushroom benedict and lobster rolls. Most entrees are around $10 or $11. Traditional items such as flapjacks, breakfast and a variety of lunch sandwiches, burgers and salads are also on the menu. Items such as avocado and lobster are “fresh.” Turkey, roast beef and other meat is sourced locally.

Toastery restaurants serve alcohol, including beer. Bingham said Bloody Marys, mimosas and wine produce most of the sales.

Maynard describes the interior decor as “farm chic.”

“We are at the highest level of affordable breakfast,” Maynard said. “The best way to describe is that we’re the antithesis of the greasy spoon.”

At the downtown restaurant, which opened at 770 W. Liberty View Court in the arts district in October 2015, Maynard said meatloaf omelets and the New Yorker, which includes scrambled eggs, smoked salmon with onions with a choice of hash browns, grits or fruit and toast, are among the local favorites.

The downtown restaurant has about 5,000 square feet total on three levels. The rooftop and the basement are adaptable for meetings or special events.

Each Toastery offers daily specials — the meatloaf omelet is an example — as well.

Toastery has nine metro Charlotte locations, including restaurants across the South Carolina border in Tega Cay and Indian Land. Other N.C. restaurants in operation are in Wilmington, Southern Pines and Cary. Other S.C. locations are in Myrtle Beach and Columbia. The others are in Ashburn, Va., and Jacksonville Beach, Fla.

Maynard said Toastery is in the process of opening 30 more restaurants. He said the first Philadelphia restaurant would open in about a month, and restaurants in Colorado and New York would open in the next six months.