OPERATOR PROFILE
“With everything going on in the world we are very focused on providing a reasonably- priced meal for customers and fans of Frischs”
senior diners, Frisch’s has been seeing a growth at its restaurants during a time when inflation prices continue to rise. “With everything going on in the economy, we are very focused on providing a reasonably- priced meal for our customers and fans of Frisch’s,” Walker says. “I believe we have been very successful over the past year at finding ways to provide high-quality, fresh meals to our customers, but doing so at a price that allows them to come to us more often.”
THE FRISCH’S STORY
Te ninth of ten children, Dave Frisch worked full-time as a teenager at his father Samuel’s restaurant, Frisch’s Stag Lunch, which he took over after his father passed away. In the 1930s, Dave went out on his own, and by 1939, he opened the Mainliner restaurant, Cincinnati’s first year-round drive-in named after the first tri- motor passenger airplane. In 1946, at an industry
JAMES WALKER Chief executive officer, Frisch’s Big Boy
20
convention in California, Frisch met Bob Wian who introduced him to a double- decker hamburger called the ‘Big Boy.’ After securing permission to adopt the concept, Frisch personalized the signature burger by dressing it with a homemade tartar sauce and putting it on his menu at the Mainliner. Te burger became an instant hit – so much so that Frisch built an entire concept around it, opening the first Frisch’s Big Boy restaurant in 1947 in Cincinnati. Te downtown drive-in location had room for eight customers inside and sixty cars outside reflective
of the many car hops during that time. Over the
next three decades the Big Boy concept grew steadily throughout the Midwest and the South. Under Dave Frisch’s leadership, the company grew to 200 units. When he passed away in 1970, Dave Frisch’s $30m company passed to his son-in- law and grandson. In 2001, after many years
as a Big Boy franchisee, Frisch’s became the exclusive owner of the Big Boy trademark in Indiana, Kentucky, and most of Ohio and Tennessee and is not affiliated with Big Boy Restaurant Group. In 2015, the company was sold to NRD Capital, and equity fund. Te company currently operates 78 corporate locations and a little over two dozen franchised locations throughout the region, according to Walker.
DESIGN AND DÉCOR
With his striped overalls and reddish-blond hair, the Big Boy character, also known as the East Coast Big Boy, remains a constant at Frisch’s Big Boy restaurants. To this day, the friendly-faced statue continues to greet guests at the front entrance of Frisch’s with a huge smile while holding a Big Boy double-decker hamburger. “It’s not unusual to see guests taking their picture in front of the statue,” says Walker. Inside, Frisch’s restaurants
vary in size, give or take about 4,000-square-feet.
Te restaurant’s signature Breakfast Bar – a Frisch’s original since the 80s – serves as the
focal point of the dining room, set up with warming wells holding eggs, French toast,
pancakes, bacon, biscuits and more under heat lamps. Come lunch and dinnertime, that bar flips into a soup and salad bar. Te kitchen is divided
between a cookline and kitchen prep area with a battery of equipment that includes mostly grills, ranges and fryers as well as a prep sink, walk-in cooler and freezer, commercial dishwasher and dry storage. A core piece is the clamshell grill, “which provides a nice consistency and speed of service for the burgers,” says Walker.
COMMISSARY KITCHEN
Many of Frisch’s signature sauces, dressings and other products, however, are
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