The Double Dip

Friends of Branded!

Happy Saturday and I hope you had a great week.

In the category of too much information, Wednesday nights are reserved for date night with my wife every week.

Establishing a date night was the recommendation by one of my closest friends, who also happens to be my younger brother. With a decade of experience as a husband before I got married, he bestowed some sage advice on older brother and told me to select a night of the week and reserve it for a dinner date with my wife.

He shared that life (business or otherwise) would, of course, get in the way every now & then, and require us to adjust our plans, but that our date night would become part of our routine and protected from interference.

More often than not, our dinner dates are held at neighborhood joints, but occasionally, we travel outside our zip code. This past Wednesday night was such a night.

I was responsible for making this week’s plan and I came across Lola’s on West 28^th Street in New York City (look at me JB, I didn’t write simply “The City,” I’m growing).

When making my reservation, I was provided three dining options which were presented as the (i) dining room; (ii) kitchen counter; and (iii) bar seating.

The theme of this week’s H^2 was born from this experience. For avoidance of any doubt, the theme is not about my date night (and thank you for indulging me with the above) and I’m most certainly NOT shaming other couples that may not be interested or able to make such a weekly commitment (everyone needs to do what’s right for them).

The point we’re diving into is that the bar is the best seat in the house, and most restaurants treat it like an afterthought.

Don’t believe me? 

Walk into most restaurants and you’ll see it immediately. Hosts steering couple towards tables while the bar sits there, half full, but fully alive.

Restauranteurs treat bar seats like overflow, but they’re not. They’re front row!

Treating the bar seats as second class seating is a longstanding mispricing of experiential dining. Too many operators obsess over table mix, turn times, and “RevPASH” (revenue per available seat hour), but they ignore the most dynamic real estate in the room.

A two-top at a table is what I call “dinner.” Two seats at the bar? That’s what I call “dinner & a show.” As a dining guest at the bar, you get a live production featuring cocktails, plating, and problem-solving (all in real time). You get direct access to the talent (the bartender will play the role of the MC). You get built-in energy (the room’s heartbeat). And if you’re lucky (and seated near the service bar area), you may even get a real-life Bravo experience akin to something you’d see on Vanderpump Rules.

Despite this dinner & a show experience, most restaurants price these seats the same as table seating or worse, discount them via walk-in seating. That’s not just missed revenue, that’s misunderstood product.

Let’s talk about the hidden unit economics of bar seating. When the bar is treated as premium, three things happen:

Bar seating is less about a transaction and more about a relationship. Transactions are nice, but relationships are thrilling!

Our industry already knows the power of bar seating, but we’ve made it too selective. We’ve seen the playbook, chef’s counters; Omakase experiences; and cocktail tasting menus. These are all premium offerings, all reserved and all curated. That’s well and good, but these are really all the same concept or offering, that carry a different label. 

The question that needs to be asked is why does the everyday bar, which is arguably more scalable, get treated like standby seating?

Operators, friends, we need to reframe and rethink our seating and specifically stop asking our guests, “do you want table?” Instead, let’s start saying: “Bar is front-row seating, best experience in the house.”

Then we need to back it up with the reservable bar seats, bar-only menus, or moments (off-menu items, early pours, insider access), named bartenders (which is really bookable personalities), and sequenced experiences (3-course cocktail pairings, etc.). This isn’t a layout decision, it’s product strategy.

As Branded’s Finance Guy, here’s the investment angle. The bar represents high-yield square footage, labor-leveraged storytelling, and a built-in guest acquisition + retention engine. You don’t need additional seating in your joint; you need to reprice the ones you already have.

The bottom line is that our industry didn’t miss the bar, we just never marketed it. And in a business where margins are measured in turns and trust, we’ve been sitting on our best asset, treating it like a waiting room for the dining room, and calling it overflow.

The table is where you eat, while the bar is where you experience. And experience should never be priced like an afterthought.

I want to give shoutout and thank our bartender, Ley, from Lola for taking such good care of us at the bar on Wednesday night and to Chef Suzanne Cupps for coming out to say hello and bringing us an extra dessert (yes, Schatzy, I went off the wagon on Wednesday night and enjoyed two desserts). We loved hearing your story that led you to open Lola’s (which is the Filipino word for “grandmother”).

While there’s clearly a small plug or (well deserved) recommendation for those in the NYC area (or those visiting NYC) to checkout Lola’s, the real message this week is about bar seating.

Operators need to be intentional about this area and raise the bar (pun intended) on this most valuable real estate in the joint. And for guests, this premium seating is completely undervalued. My advice, take advantage of it and enjoy a meal at the bar.

You might never look at your dining out experiences the same way.

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There’s a difference between opening stores and building a system worth franchising and our friends and partners at Gregorys Coffee just crossed that line.

What started as a single NYC coffee bar in 2006 is now a 53-unit system generating about $45mm in revenue, with average unit volumes north of $1mm per store. That’s not a coffee story. That’s a unit economics story.

After nearly 20 years of corporate build-out, Gregorys is flipping the switch on franchising, targeting 50 to 75 units sold in year one alone.

But here’s the nuance most operators miss. This isn’t early-stage franchising to find product-market fit. This is late-stage franchising to weaponize it.

The Gregorys team waited until:

Only then did they bring in Craveworthy Brands, a franchise infrastructure platform, designed to pour gasoline on proven concepts.

Gregorys didn’t just decide to franchise. They outsourced the complexity of franchising by securing Craveworthy as its Managing Partner.

Craveworthy brings:

This is the modern playbook. Don’t build the machine, plug into one. We’re watching the rise of “Franchise-as-a-Service” platforms, and Gregorys is now a case study (Harvard Business School, feel free to call me so we can make this Gregorys + Craveworthy story one of your over 50,000 case studies to help teach critical decision-making and leadership skills). 😊

When Branded got involved in Gregorys, we were quickly told, coffee is a crowded space (what!?!? chicken, burgers, and pizza are underserved?!?). 

But Gregorys sits in the sweet spot:

Add in:

And suddenly this isn’t just a café, it’s a high-frequency, brand-led retail engine. Franchising doesn’t scale brands, it scales consistency risk.

The Gregorys bet: Can you replicate a New York-born, culture-driven coffee experience in Indiana, Arizona, and Florida, without losing the soul?

That’s where most concepts break. Which is why simplicity of operations matters, culture transfer matters more, and platform partners (like Craveworthy) become mission critical.

This is what you underwrite:

Translation: Higher return on invested capital + faster unit growth + lower capital intensity

That’s not coffee. That’s a scalable cash-flow model with brand upside.

Gregorys Coffee isn’t chasing franchising. They’ve earned the right to franchise and then partnered to do it faster and smarter than building it themselves. And that’s the signal. The next wave of restaurant growth won’t be founder-led scaling. It will be founder + platform partnerships unlocking national expansion.

The old model was about building stores until you run out of capital. The new model is about building a brand until you earn the right to distribute it. Gregorys just made that transition. Now the question isn’t “Can they grow?” It’s “How fast can the platform scale, and who’s next to plug in?”

To learn more about Franchise opportunities with Gregorys Coffee and opportunities to engage with us, please click here (or contact me directly).

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