Burger Wisconsin's new 'brand dude' believes his experience setting up Mexicali Fresh can add vibrancy to the burger brand. Photo / Dean Purcell.
Burger Wisconsin's new 'brand dude' believes his experience setting up Mexicali Fresh can add vibrancy to the burger brand. Photo / Dean Purcell.
Burger Wisconsin's newly appointed 'brand dude' believes his experience establishing the successful Mexicali Fresh chain can be applied to the faltering burger franchise.
Mariposa Restaurant Holdings (MRH), the owner of Mexicali Fresh, yesterday announced it had bought New Zealand's oldest gourmet burger franchise chain for an undisclosed sum.
Mexicali Freshco-founder and MRH 'brand dude', Conor Kerlin, said the 22 Burger Wisconsin stores would continue to operate as normal, and as yet there were no plans to convert struggling stores to Mexicali Fresh outfits.
"We really like the Burger Wisconsin chain, we see it as something complementary to Mexicali," he said.
"We just really feel like it's something that we think we can bring some energy and expertise to and help add some energy and vibrancy to the brand a little bit more."
"I think they have been perceived as maybe falling behind a little bit with all of these new burger chains, but what's always stayed really good was the quality of the food.
Burger franchise Burger Wisconsin has been sold to the owners of Mexicali fresh. Photo / Hawkes Bay Today.
"With a little bit more knowledge and a little bit more explanation through marketing, people will find out that it actually is quite current and up to date, but I think that it just needs a bit of a push and a little bit more energy."
Mexicali has 11 stores in the Auckland region and sites in Mount Maunganui, Wellington and Christchurch were slated to open later this year.
Of the 22 Burger Wisconsin stores, all were owned by franchisees aside from one in Havelock North owned by MRH, Kerlin said.
The franchisees were currently subject to existing contracts so no changes could be effected until they rolled around, he said.
"We just want to really look at these people and franchisees and just communicate with them and not be adversarial at all, but supportive and helping and maybe find ways [to revitalise them].
"We really know how to do it. My father has 40 years of restaurant experience and now [I have] 10 years' experience here at Mexicali.
"We know how to look at labour costs and food costs and really tighten it and be really diligent with those things to maximise the dollar on sales and reduce wastage.
"There's little tricks of the trade like that which can really make you profitable in a business.
"A lot of the time with restaurants, people don't really get that, and they can see $5000 to $10,000 out the door just by maybe not having a streamlined system."
Licensing Burger Wisconsin stores to allow alcohol sales, as the Mexicali Fresh were, was also an option, he said.
"Everything's on the table."
BurgerFuel, arguably Burger Wisconsin's biggest competition, this week opened its 70th store with the opening of a third Queensland restaurant.
The company's chief executive Josef Roberts said there had always been competition in the gourmet burger market and "we do always keep an eye on what's going on in the category around us".
BurgerFuel also has stores in United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Kuwait.
