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This week at B Works, we had the CEO of Craveworthy Brands, Gregg Majewski and the CEO of Big Chicken, Josh Halpern, at our office.
We also had the Managing Partner of Big Chicken, Gregg Majewski and the Chief Business Officer at Craveworthy, Josh Halpern, at our office.
Confused? Stay with me friends.
The coming together of these two companies and by that I specifically mean the investment by Craveworthy into Big Chicken and Gregg Majewski becoming the Managing Partner was announced back in Q1 2025. You can re-visit the announcement here: Craveworthy Brands + Big Chicken Announcement
Since that time, the collaboration and strategic work between two of the fastest growing emerging restaurant companies has been something amazing to have a front row seat at.
Maybe more importantly, the specific cooperation and strategic positioning between Mr. Majewski and Mr. Halpern has created more value in a short period of time than Branded, an investor and partner in both companies, could have imagined.
This week Gregg, Josh and I took over Branded’s podcast studio to host a fireside chat with about 100 registered participants. The primary topic was Craveworthy Brands and how this company, which including Big Chicken, is now an owner of 16 restaurant brands, has become Branded’s favorite intellectual property (“IP”) company and is a platform that will monetize brands using its almost 3-decade old tested and proven playbook to build, acquire, accelerate, and monetize brands.
On our fireside chat, we covered a great deal of ground on our just shy of a 60-minute discussion and doing these types of things is just one of the many reasons I love my job and this industry.
Needless to say, we talked about how Craveworthy, in 27 months, has gone from 0 brands, 0 units, and $0 sales to 16 brands, 240 units and over $300mm in system wide sales.
In effort to not bury the lead (although shouldn’t a statement like that come at the top of the section as opposed to the bottom?), we talked about Craveworthy’s North Star – and that’s our friends at Roark Capital. Imitation is a heightened form of flattery and while Gregg, Josh and I hold the team at Roark in high esteem, we also know that the white space between the work Roark and Craveworthy are doing is substantial.
For Branded, having a platform that can help emerging operators level-up and win is incredibly valuable to us, and I expect to a number of technology partners and the other many strategic relationships we feel so fortunate to work with who also want to see operators win.
We talked about scale chain dynamics and how Craveworthy is leveraging its corporate team and growing buying power to create immediate value for its portfolio of brands. We discussed how franchisees that need their own portfolio diversification are engaging and how they see Craveworthy as a valuable partner to scale and grow with.
We talked about the engagement Craveworthy is getting from elite business people and athletes such as Dr. Shaquille O’Neal, Ndamukong Suh, and a to be announced at the National Restaurant Association Show in a couple of weeks additional elite business professional and athlete that will be joining our band.
We had a fun debate about which brand that was brought into Craveworthy represented the “best-of-the-Craveworthy-model” (and we intentionally left out Big Chicken b/c of the obvious conflict of having Mr. Halpern in the studio with us). 😊 Both taim and Fresh Brothers were discussed in connection with this “best of” topic and let’s just call it a draw and say both are winners (whoops, that sounds a little bit like a participation trophy).
Craveworth’s mission is to build and revitalize emerging, established, and legacy brands. To transform them into high-growth, high-performing multi-unit franchisees that will be recognized nationwide for delivering unforgettable guest experiences through a commitment to a people-first culture and exceptional operational standards.
The Craveworthy platform is one that Branded is thrilled to be partnered with and I invite interested parties that would like to explore collaborating with Branded on this opportunity to contact me directly.
This is unique, this is exciting, and this is going to be fun.
