With just eight stores open, Brooklyn Dumpling Shop is set to open 100 units across Canada after signing a master franchise deal for the country.
Sitewise Solutions Inc. has five corporate stores already in the works in Canada with plans to open a Canadian factory to supply to franchisees. Sitewise will open 30 to 40 stores on its own and sub-franchise the remaining 60 to 70.
“We knew that Canada would be a natural trend, a natural addition to our plan,” Founder Stratis Morfogen said.
Brooklyn Dumpling Shop is a smartphone-powered, automat-format shop that requires a small footprint and just three employees. The brand has more U.S. shops in the works in 15 states, Morfogen said. Guests can order their dumplings through their phone and collect them from the hot or cold lockers inside the restaurant. Morfogen called smartphones a cash register customers are always holding in their hands.
The brand works with FranSmart for its franchising initiative.
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Sitewise “saw a vision. And they wanted to basically be the franchisor of Canada,” Morfogen said. “And I was happy to give them the keys to the country.”
The franchise is prepared to open the dozens of stores in progress and beyond with the systems in place, Morfogen said. “We invested millions and millions of dollars in our infrastructure and systems,” he said.
“Basically, the restaurant has become plug and play,” Morfogen said.
Except for stadiums, airports and the like, all Brooklyn Dumpling Shop stores will have the same automat format as its initial stores.
Morfogen, an established restauranteur, thinks of dumplings as a “two-ounce sandwich,” and has created specialty flavors like bacon cheeseburger, Korean BBQ beef and chicken parmesan. There are traditional flavors too, like crispy pork and kung pao chicken, as well as vegan and gluten-free options.
“No one has ever approached a dumpling like that,” he said. “What’s really exciting is that every concept, from cookies to burgers to tacos to pizza, have pretty much been overexplained, where dumplings have never been explained. And then when you make them into sandwiches, we’re sitting in a lane by ourselves.”
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With just three employees, each Brooklyn Dumpling Shop can handle 300 to 400 customers a day.
“There’s a lot of value to franchisees knowing that they can run a restaurant with three employees per shift and have one manager oversee three to five shops, bringing the payroll about 10 points lower than industry average,” Morfogen said.
The brand just opened an Upper East Side store in New York City with a footprint of just 400 square feet—and it’s serving 500-plus customers a day.
Guests still get the customer service they’d receive from a traditional restaurant setting. “It’s just shifting from transactional, which is the cash register, to in-your-face greetings,” he said.
When ordering through a phone, customers pick a time to pick up their orders. Then, Morfogen says guests are in and out in 10 seconds, compared to the normal five minutes.
The initial investment required to open a Brooklyn Dumpling Shop franchise ranges from $293,000 to $649,500.