Sully’s Steamers gets into the franchise business

Robert Sullivan was making his living trading stocks in the early 2010s, day-trading mostly, when he decided to find a career that was more stable and reliable.

So he got into the restaurant business.

“I wasn’t a restaurant guy at all, and that was … well, obviously, it made it very difficult when we first opened,” he said. “I had to figure everything out from scratch. I really just didn’t know any better.”

But Sullivan, who founded Sully’s Steamers, had a solid concept. By offering unique sandwiches served on steamed bagels and working hard enough at it, he could figure it out.

With three successful locations and two more on the way, it seems he was right.

Now Sullivan is franchising the concept for the first time, eight years after opening the first Sully’s Steamers location at 6 E. Washington St. in downtown Greenville. Someone who came with a background in the restaurant industry might have tried to start franchising earlier, Sullivan said, but he’s glad it took him as long as it did.

“I was really learning a lot as I went along, so it took some time getting to a point where I was ready to franchise, but now I realize that’s a good thing because I can see things from an inexperienced franchisee’s perspective,” Sullivan said.

Franchising a restaurant is not as simple as putting an “open for franchising” sign on your website.

First, a business owner has to lock down each and every system that goes into keeping the business running.

“There’s so many checklists that you need to create that are easy for people to follow,” Sullivan said. “The goal is that somebody you can train relatively quickly can come into your shop, follow the systems, and be able to run the store.”

The systems are numerous: prepping the food, inventory control, receiving shipments, when and how to continue prepping food throughout the day, training employees, fulfilling orders, preparing the sandwiches, implementing and utilizing a point of sale system and more.

Within each system are also sub-systems. Fulfilling an order, for example — is it for in-person dining, carryout or delivery? And if it is delivery, is it through DoorDash, GrubHub, UberEats or others? Is the delivery for now or scheduled for later? What kind of containers are used for what food item? If the order is for later, when should you start prepping? What’s the time window on the food courier’s arrival? And on and on.

“It all has to be there so that everybody is repeating the exact same thing and not doing their own version of that exercise, so yes, it is a little crazy,” Sullivan said.

The next step is to find a good franchise consultant or attorney that can guide you through the process of putting together your operations manual, legal documents and systems tests just to prove the concept.

“Not to mention the trademarking process, which can be extremely lengthy,” Sullivan said. “There are also 9 million other steps involved as well that I could go on for days about.”

Sullivan opted for a franchise consultant, someone who was more enmeshed in the nuts and bolts of franchising and who had a track record of taking concepts like his all the way through the process. He said he’s glad he did, even if he probably spent a little bit more money than he otherwise would have. Those interested in franchising can now do so at a link on sullyssteamers.com, although he said he’s already had to deny some requests due to sheer geography.

“I hate doing that, but we’re remaining very disciplined about our growth plans,” he said. “We want to be able to truly serve our franchisees and unfortunately I can’t do that if somebody is 10 hours away.”

Which brings up the final step in franchising — trusting someone else with your baby.

“I wouldn’t say it’s like dropping your kids off at school for the first time, but it is a process of backing away slowly,” he said. “And I’m not so great at that.”

But he said the benefits outweigh any hesitancy he might feel when it comes to letting go, benefits that are financial in nature, sure, but are mostly the sense of pride he feels as someone who’s been able to give others the opportunity to have their own business.

“The pride really comes from people believing in it so much more than anything and desperately wanting to bring it to other places,” Sullivan said. “And that’s just awesome.”