Lee’s Famous Recipe Chicken purchased 16 units from existing franchisees since being acquired in 2021.
Lee’s Famous Recipe Chicken acquired some franchisee-owned units this year. The move is part of a larger goal to create better alignment with its franchisees, CEO Ryan Weaver said.
Weaver and his business partners purchased the chicken franchise two years ago when the brand was 100 percent franchised.
“If we ever want to get out there and sell new franchises and get more folks to come into the brand, we probably need to be in this day-to-day ourselves and show that we’ve got skin in the game,” Weaver said.
Lee’s recently purchased four units in Fort Wayne, Indiana, from Tim and Carl Hagan, a pair of second-generation operators who are retiring. This acquisition brings the total to 16 corporate-owned stores, all acquired from franchisees. Seven are in the Miami Valley area of Ohio, purchased from Scoott and Kim Griffith in 2022; and two are in Ocala, Florida, purchased from John and Susie Stilwell.
“These were attractive financial opportunities that helped us scale up our business, and they were really good assets generating cash flow, and that just gives us more capital to redeploy into the business to support building out our infrastructure and keep making investments that are going to benefit the whole system,” Weaver said.
Lee’s Famous Recipe Chicken sells chicken sandwiches and more.
Lee Cummings and Harold Omer founded Lee’s in 1966 in Lima, Ohio, and has since grown to 130 stores in North America. Lee Cummings is a nephew of Colonel Sanders, of KFC fame. Nearly all of Lee’s restaurants are in six states: Ohio, Kentucky, Illinois, Michigan, Indiana and Missouri. But the brand has a few stores in the southeastern United States and in Canada.
Lee’s will continue to acquire franchised restaurants when the opportunities arise, Weaver said. The operators Lee’s buys from are seasoned, some in the system for three or four decades.
“Those were more of a natural exit point for those owners,” he said. “If there’s opportunities for us to continue to acquire assets … we’re certainly to look at that still.”
Now, Lee’s looks to expand in areas that already have locations, mostly in the Midwest. The brand also has a handful of stores in Alabama and Florida.
Lee’s signed its largest development deal for at least 12 new Detroit units, the first of which just opened in Livonia, Michigan in March.