Beef brisket and other smoked meats at Dick’s are served with sauce on the side.
Richard Allen’s entrepreneurial beginnings were not unlike many fledgling business owners.
Tired of what he called “empty promises” from management at the automotive and specialty battery wholesaler where he worked, Allen in 1999 quit his route sales job and opened a small catering business. For extra income, he took on a part-time job as a before- and afterschool program director at a local YMCA branch.
In March 2001, he took his catering services another step, and Dick’s Bodacious Bar-B-Q was born.
Allen and his mother-in-law began serving smoked, Texas-style meat to customers from a mobile wagon in the parking lot of the Ritter’s Frozen Custard shop in Noblesville.
Beef brisket and other smoked meats at Dick’s are served with sauce on the side.
That November, Allen opened the first Dick’s restaurant, at 579 Westfield Road in Noblesville.
Amid the glut of hamburger chains, sub shops and pizzerias, the restaurant proved popular. It served the type of food Allen grew up on in Texas, where he lived until moving to Indiana in 1996.
And the concept caught the attention of other entrepreneurs looking to bring the tender, smoked meat to the state’s culinary mainstream.
Allen, his brother, David Allen, and friend Mike DeWeese formed D2 Inc. to franchise the Dick’s Bodacious Bar-B-Q concept. Since April 2003, franchise restaurants have been opened in Avon, Broad Ripple, Carmel, Fishers and Greenwood.
Shops are slated to open in the coming months in Anderson, Muncie and Southport. Rights also have been sold for northern Marion and southern Hamilton County locations, Allen said. Franchisees also have expressed interest in setting up shop in Lafayette, Bloomington, Madison and Columbus.
The standard franchise fee is $30,000. The total cost to furnish and launch a restaurant is about $400,000 said Allen, who added that D2 is profitable, but declined to disclose profit or revenue figures.
“Many people who came into the original store assumed we were a Texas franchise,” Allen said. “They asked, ‘How can I buy one?’ and I knew that we had something that may be worth expanding.”
Although the explosion of Dick’s Bodacious Bar-B-Q onto the local restaurant scene has happened in short order, Allen said he is intent on managing the growth so the integrity of the original product isn’t damaged and consistency is achieved among franchise locations.
“A lot of [friends and acquaintances] have criticized me for franchising too fast,” Allen said. “But [attention to detail] has been so important that I try to get to each location at least once a week and do training myself. It is fairly easy to duplicate the barbecue. The tough part is duplicating the Southern hospitality that people look for when they walk into a barbecue restaurant.”
Brian Graham, who opened the 12-employee Avon restaurant in January and owns the rights to a Plainfield location, said Allen has been as particular as a proud papa when it comes to details.
Allen “trained us how to do things the right way, and has been very accommodating,” said Graham, 32, who had a background in restaurant management and sales before purchasing Dick’s franchise rights. “He has even offered to come in and work for us if we need people. This [brand] is very important to him, and he’s going to do all he can to make sure these stores are a success.”
Allen’s strategy is in line with the message preached by the not-for-profit Washington, D.C.-based trade group International Franchise Association.
“Franchising is ultimately about the brand and maintaining the integrity of the brand,” IFA President Don DeBolt said. “When you’re the hot concept and everyone is clamoring to get aboard, it is important that the franchisor measure how many franchises it opens vs. how much support it gives to the franchisee. Finding the right balance will help ensure the consistency of the experience and reputation of the brand.”
Creating an experience made famous by Texans has helped draw many patrons to Dick’s Bodacious Bar-B-Q, but developing Hoosier palates has been more of a challenge, Allen and Graham said.
“One of the biggest obstacles we had [with the first store] was people not understanding what our meat was all about,” Allen said. “What we serve is slowsmoked meat. What we don’t do is drown it in sauce because we want people to appreciate the integrity of that slowsmoked meat. Occasionally, we get someone in who is disappointed because what we serve isn’t the type of barbecue they envision. I used to take those cases personally, but now I understand it’s just a case of educating people on what we’re all about.”
Although barbecue is popular in Kansas City, Memphis and Chicago, it hasn’t exactly been a staple in many Midwestern diets, said Carolyn Walkup, Midwest bureau chief for trade publication Nation’s Restaurant News.
“Barbecue tends to be a regional taste,” Walkup said. “That can be a challenge for a newer chain, but a lot of [chains] have become popular within a region” if they create a concept that appeals to patrons.
Walkup pointed to the Eden Prairie, Minn.-based Famous Dave’s Inc. chain, which has drawn a solid following among barbecue connoisseurs and casual diners alike because it offers a variety of sauces for its meats.
According to the company’s Web site, famousdaves.com, its only Indiana location is in Mishawaka. Its sauces are available in several local stores.
“If [Dick’s] can create a following like that, they would have the potential to have the same kind of success,” Walkup said.
If the Dick’s leadership wants to go head-to-head and remain competitive with chains such as Famous Dave’s or Darden Corp.-owned Smokey Bones Barbecue and Grill, which in recent years has become a player on the Indianapolis barbecue scene, they need to be aggressive with their marketing in addition to putting a quality product on the table, Walkup said.
Aside from the word-of-mouth the company has relied on heavily to this point, franchisees are beginning to pool funds to form an advertising cooperative, Graham said.
“We’ve also built some name recognition through sponsorship of the [Indianapolis] Indians and Colts,” Allen said. “Even though we haven’t been around that long, more and more people are starting to think of us first when they think about barbecue.”
If all goes as planned, D2 will begin taking the Dick’s concept beyond Indiana, Allen said. The group received inquiries from entrepreneurs in Illinois, Kentucky, Ohio, Virginia and Georgia, and is in serious negotiations with a franchisee to open a location in Detroit.
“Our goal is to have 50 locations in the Midwest in the next five years,” Allen said. “The way we’re going now, we may double that.”
Dick Allen hopes to sell rights to at least 50 franchises in the next five years.