Bryant Keil, left, and his son Hampden are developing Potbelly Sandwich Shops in Maryland and Virginia.
When Franchise Times last caught up with Bryant Keil and his son Hampden, they were busy growing their Potbelly Sandwich Shop portfolio in Maryland with a 27-shop agreement.
The Keils are still growing their restaurant business. They extended their development agreement with the Chicago-based sandwich chain to expand their operations to Northern Virginia with plans to add eight new Potbelly locations.
Their development area for the Keil Group includes the Washington, D.C. DMA and the counties of Montgomery, Prince George, Frederick, Charles, Calvert, St. Mary and Washington in Maryland and the Washington, D.C. DMA in the site development areas of Leesburg, Falls Church and Arlington, Virginia.
“My dad is originally from Maryland and he still has lots of friends in the Virginia area,” said Hampden Keil, who runs operations for their restaurant business with his father overseeing real estate and construction. “What’s really nice about D.C., Maryland and Virginia is that they are all kind of one area and it made sense for us to move into that market.”
Bryant Keil’s longstanding partnership with Potbelly is a unique story. He first purchased Potbelly in 1996 from Peter Hastings, the owner, when it was a single antique shop selling sandwiches on the side in the Lincoln Park neighborhood of Chicago. When he retired as the brand’s CEO in 2008, the company had grown from a single location in the Windy City to 250 nationwide.
Today, Potbelly has over 420 mostly corporate-owned locations. With 79 franchise units in 2023, the company generated nearly $650 million in sales.
Related: Potbelly Angles for Powerhouse Status With New Menu, Franchise Push
Bryant Keil returned to Potbelly in 2023 in a new capacity, partnering with his son to become owners of 27 restaurants. The pair took over 12 existing units that were refranchised and signed an agreement to open 15 stores. So far, they’ve acquired 12 stores and built one restaurant in Maryland with other locations in difference phases of development.
Keil said that they are targeting high-traffic, densely populated areas for development in both Maryland and Virginia. Strip malls and shopping centers that have a Starbucks are usually their first choices to open a new Potbelly, he said, although they are open to all opportunities that they think can support their restaurants.
“From a real estate perspective, it’s been challenging finding the right locations for our restaurants and negotiating leases, but we’re getting there. We’re looking at several potential locations now and we’re close to signing agreements,” Hampden Keil said. “The hope is we can open our first restaurant in Virginia within a year.”
Although he wouldn’t provide exact numbers, Keil said their stores are performing at the systemwide average unit volume of about $1.3 million. He said 35 to 40 percent of their sales comes from digital orders. He also shared that their new stores in Maryland and Virginia will be built using the company’s smaller prototype design which are 1,800 square feet and seat just 32 customers, given the brand’s digital order growth.
Hampden Keil, 26, has been in the restaurant business for a significant portion of his young life. As a teen, he operated cash registers and made milkshakes for the Potbelly in Highland Park in Illinois and while at the University of Illinois in Champaign he ran a local bar. He was managing restaurants for Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises, one of Chicago’s largest restaurant groups, when his father asked him if he wanted to help him run his Potbelly stores.
Actually, it was more like an order, he recalled.
“He asked me ‘What do you think about doing this together?’ and I was like probably not, I like what I’m doing. He said that it wasn’t even a question. He basically said you’re doing this with me and I said, well, it’s Potbelly, so why not,” said Hampden, still laughing about that exchange.
Both father and son insisted their business partnership has not hurt their personal relationship.
“A lot people say don’t ever go into business with your family, but we work well together,” said Hampden Keil, who makes it point to visit their stores in Maryland a couple of times a month. He said they are all within a three-and-a-half-hour drive of each other. “We’ve had a great time. He does what he does best, working the real estate side of the business which is his bread and butter, while I focus on overall operations and making sure our restaurants are running well.”
