How Catering and Community Paid Off for Two Another Broken Egg Franchisees
Nate and Lianne Straathof own and operate two Another Broken Egg Cafe locations in Austin, Texas, with a third in development. The couple were recently named “Franchisees of the Year” at the growing chain’s bi-annual conference and continuously rank in the top 25 percent of cafes systemwide.
A key to their success, the Straathofs say, stems from their efforts growing catering sales (Lianne serves on Another Broken Egg’s catering commitment) as well as being active within their restaurants’ communities. They’re participants of Back On My Feet, a non-profit combating homelessness through the power of running, and volunteers with Clean Trail Club, a homegrown group dedicated to picking up littler from the trails and lakes in the Austin area.
They took some time to chat with FSR about their franchising careers, what’s driving growth, and how local involvement translates to better business.
Start by telling us your story. How did you get into the franchising business, and with Another Broken Egg in particular? What were you doing before?
Nate: I have always wanted to own my own business; though, I didn’t really know what that would look like for most of my life. I grew up on a dairy farm in Michigan watching my folks milk cows every day and then studied accounting in college. After college, I became a financial analyst for a large Wendy’s franchisee where I learned a lot about the financial side of the restaurant industry. At the time, I thought that owning a restaurant seemed incredibly hard and was dead set against it. Then, we discovered Another Broken Egg Cafe and the daytime-only segment. Lianne and I jumped on a plane to meet with the brand’s executive chef and fell in love with its product and vision. In speaking with the Another Broken Egg Cafe team, the financial models and work-life balance aspects of the business gave us the courage to start developing in the Austin, Texas, market.
Lianne: Before making the move to Austin to begin developing our first Another Broken Egg Cafe restaurant, I was working as a manager for a global consumer products company in Michigan. Nate came to me with the pamphlet for Another Broken Egg Cafe and we decided that I would continue to work full-time on the corporate side while we went through the process of opening our first cafe. Once in Austin, I worked as a principal product developer for Whole Foods Market where I combined my love of science with food until we were financially stable enough for me to join the business. I worked restaurant jobs in high school and managed the on-campus coffee shop during college, but I never imagined Nate and I would actually own and operate breakfast restaurants! It’s been a fun ride so far, and it’s crazy to think that we’re in the process of building our third location.
“Getting involved in the community not only drives business but also helps to build relationships with the people that support our cafes,” Nate says.
What’s it like operating the restaurants together?
Nate: It’s been pretty great! In the beginning, I worked almost every day in the cafe while Lianne kept working her corporate 9-to-5 job in the office and would help run expo or bus tables in the cafes on the weekend. Once our second cafe started to turn a profit, we were able to retire her from corporate life and dedicate more time to our business. It’s been great to have both of us focus on our growing family and business as a unit.
Lianne: It’s truly been a game-changer for us. We take some 1-2 weekdays off to spend time together as a family when the cafes are a bit quieter allowing us to be in the cafes Friday – Sunday when we do most of our business. I have also been able to take a few things off Nate’s plate, like payroll and some accounting work. With the third cafe on the way we’ll keep the same schedule but, we’re lucky to have a great support staff in the form of our general managers and kitchen managers, who we trust to help provide the excellent service and dining experience we’re known for as we won’t be able to be at all three cafes at once.
Give us the rundown of why community involvement is so important to your locations. How do you think this translates to a better business?
Nate: Getting involved in the community not only drives business but also helps to build relationships with the people that support our cafes. It’s incredibly rewarding to know that our cafes feel more like neighborhood establishments to our guests rather than copy-and-paste franchises. Our community outreach efforts have helped build ‘regulars’ into our weekday business and drive catering referrals.
Lianne: Every time we open a new cafe, we host a fundraiser for the Central Texas Food Bank to support those with food insecurity in Austin. Additionally, we are platinum sponsors of the Northwest Austin Civic Association, which creates programming for residents in the areas around our first cafe at 8012 Mesa Drive. These neighbors make up a lot of the regulars in our cafe and we love seeing them have a great dining experience whenever they come in. It’s also been important to us to support our local high school football team, and we host a special dinner for the athletes every year. Finally, we provide gift baskets to local organizations like churches, sports teams, schools and more to help raise funds and awareness for their causes.
How has catering really helped your stores grow and what advice can you give others hoping to elevate the channel?
Nate: Catering makes up a considerable portion of our weekday sales. Another Broken Egg Cafe utilizes ezCater to help manage catering orders, and they make it extremely easy for the guests to connect with us. We’ve loved working with our ezCater representatives as well—they take care of everything down to the delivery and are a great mediator between our general managers and the guests.
Lianne: To incentivize our team, we offer a commission on large catering orders to our kitchen managers. This ensures their buy-in and gets them excited to guarantee that everything goes seamlessly when an order is packaged. We also like to include a hand-written thank you card and an offer of free beignets with each order. What we find to be the most important part of catering is the preparation. I highly recommend setting up everything that you can the day prior (cutlery, serving utensils, trays, labels, etc.) to ensure the smooth execution of the order. It’s the first time that many people get to try our food, and we want them to love it so much that they keep coming back!
More generally, what advice would you give to somebody hoping to break into the franchising world? What are some lessons you’ve learned along the way?
Nate: In our opinion, you need to find a franchise with a product that you love and a franchisor that has a solid vision for growth. At the end of the day, you as a business owner will become a part of that brand and the face of the business in your local community. You also need to be ready to take a risk, because it’s scary to leave your career behind for something new. Lianne and I could never have done this by ourselves without the backing of Another Broken Egg Cafe, and we know that there is a lot of value in having an entire team behind us that is dialed in on things like new technologies and menu innovation so that we can focus on running our businesses.
Lianne: Nate did a great job of vetting Another Broken Egg Cafe before we decided to join its franchise system. We flew down to Florida to try the food and made sure to talk to other franchisees who were already a part of the business. They are the only ones who can truly give you a realistic impression of what a day is like as a franchisee of a given concept. We opened our first cafe in the depths of the pandemic, and it would have been so much harder without having the Another Broken Egg Cafe network as resources to turn to. I’d also recommend finding a market that you want to live in and see if there’s enough interest in your product to put down roots there. We love Austin and were thrilled to have the opportunity to move and grow Another Broken Egg Cafe here.
