Early to Rise, Early to Retail
Fast-growing, breakfast-lunch restaurant chain extends the shopping day of its centers.
Susan Fishman

Rise & Dine’s location in Dublin, Ohio.

The Rise & Dine Restaurant chain brings shoppers out bright and early with its 6 a.m. opening time. The “friendly,” early-morning concept is starting to branch out across the country with commitments for 106 locations and plans to double its franchise units by April 2008.

Rise & Dine was inspired by a successful breakfast-lunch chain on Florida’s Gulf Coast.

“The breakfast-lunch category is one of the fastest growing segments in the restaurant industry, drawing Baby Boomers with disposable income and disposable time,” according to Gary Hoyle, president and CEO of Peach’s Franchise LLC, the company awarding Rise & Dine franchises.

Unlike Bob Evans and Cracker Barrel, you won’t find a Rise & Dine on the freeway. The restaurants, which average 2,800 to 3,200 square feet, are tucked into neighborhoods and attract the people who live there and businesses that operate there.

“The beauty of our brand is we are a destination location, so as a result, we can be in small 10,000- to 15,000-square-foot strip centers around the corner from a larger anchored center, feed off of their traffic and trade area and pay less rent,” notes Hoyle. “Unlike QSR and fine dining who are bidding up on land and space for the visibility, we don’t have that issue.”

Purely a “marketing and support and services company,” Rise & Dine began franchise sales in 2006. The Rise & Dine franchise initiative targets individual owner-operators and successful, multiple-unit franchisees who want to add the breakfast-lunch category to their mix. The chain is focused on maintaining a “people first” culture, including encouraging franchisees to be active in the community.

Rise & Dine’s location at the Arena District in downtown Columbus, Ohio.

“This is an opportunity for someone who’s passionate about restaurants or who might have been in the corporate world,” says Hoyle. It’s a great lifestyle move; you’re home by 3:30 or 4:00.”

Current franchise locations can be found in Ohio, Texas, Missouri and Florida. Recent Ohio openings took place in Grandview (Columbus) by PRD of Grandview and Kroger Marketplace in Dublin by Buckeye Peach’s LLC. Texas stores were opened at Plaza on Beltline in Addison by PRD of DFW Inc. and The Venue at Hometown in North Richland Hills by Leverett Investments Inc. In Missouri, Rise & Dine was recently opened at Dierbergs Wildwood Town Center in Wildwood by PRD of Missouri LLC, and in Florida, the chain has a location at The Landings Shopping Center, in Sarasota by CGS Ventures.

The company also recently moved its corporate office from Florida to the arena district in downtown Columbus.

“We were having difficulty getting quality management and franchise-restaurant folks to move down there because of issues like taxes, insurance and hurricanes,” explains Hoyle. “And Columbus has always been an incubator for start-up restaurant concepts.”

The Rise & Dine experience is “like going down to your mother’s or grandmother’s kitchen when you were a kid,” says Hoyle. The warm, inviting dining room has natural pine, tongue-and-groove wood all the way around the perimeter and canvas prints of beautiful sunrises in various settings.

“It’s a very engaging dining room — very friendly and neighborly,” adds Hoyle. “We also get involved in charities and fundraisers; it’s old-school.”

The food is back to the basics with a wide variety of breakfast and lunch fare, including signature dishes, such as French Toast Crunch, Steak & Eggs and Chicken Salad with Fresh Fruit, as well as specials, such as Stuffed Chicken, Mashed Potatoes with Gravy and Meatloaf, on the weekends. The restaurant also has introduced fruit-filled pastries called “Blossoms.”

“Since we open at six, we extend the shopping day of the center we’re in,” Hoyle notes. “You’ll find in almost every location we go in that the retailers around us may keep their standard hours for a bit and then all of a sudden, instead of opening at nine or ten, they’re opening at seven or eight. We’re almost a co-anchor because we’re an attraction, and we’re benefiting the other retailers in the center.”

Rise & Dine’s growth strategy has been “the old hub-and-spoke routine,” notes Hoyle. Now with area reps and partners in Ohio, Missouri and Texas, the company gives up a little of its revenue stream.

“I’m a firm believer that decentralization in terms of support and services will pay off not only in the short term but in the long term,” he says. “So we’ll just kind of spread out — the old hub and spoke. We’ll start in St. Louis, Texas and Ohio and meet somewhere in the middle. I think by the end of 2008, we’ll probably have 30 stores open and would venture to guess we’ll sell 500 deals in 2010.”