Flame Broiler

What makes your hospitality experience unique to guests?We offer something most restaurants don’t! We provide a clean environment to eat at along with friendly staff members. Most of our management team has been with the company over 8 years, and a few over 13 years! Having people work daily who care about the company and the product is something that makes Jacksonville Flame Broiler stand out over many other brands!

How do you maintain quality and consistency across locations?Having an experienced management team allows each location to follow franchise procedure. We hold team meetings and address customer concerns directly with the store leader and individual on a real time basis. We continually re-train on cooking and prep procedures to ensure each location is consistent with how things should be done.

What trends are changing the way people dine or travel?Third party delivery has been a huge change for the industry. People are looking for convenience over price. We’ve also opened a store with a double drive thru and no dining room to accommodate busy life styles, as we’ve noticed people don’t want to make time to sit inside a restaurant. On the catering side, we’ve seen more people back in offices regularly versus just one day, and going back to a family style meal versus individual bowls.

How are you addressing staffing and retention challenges?We’ve been blessed with great staff and haven’t experienced much retention issues. We are able to hire a few younger people at each location and watch them grow with us while maintaining our core group.

What role does customer feedback play in your operations?Customer feedback is a huge role in our operations. We love when they email us directly of an issue, complaint or even a compliment. We are able to address it real time with our staff and correct it. We feel it’s unfortunate when they go directly to a review page and leave a 1 star, because it doesn’t give us time to correct the issue. We care about our guest experience and want to fix anything wrong, along with help prevent it from happening again. We also use their experience from one store and let all locations know to help avoid it from happening at a different location.

Can you describe a memorable guest experience that stood out?Flame Broiler Jacksonville has so many amazing guests! We have a lot of repeat guests who have become friends with our staff members. We’ve seen guests give our staff member graduation and birthday gifts, along with tips just “because”! We’ve had organizations donate toys to our annual toy drive at Christmas, and our guests often participate in fundraisers we hold for local non-profits!

What innovations are shaping the future of hospitality?For Flame Broiler, we’ve recently introduced a loyalty program that is helping shape our future. 3PD has a huge shape on how sales and revenue look for restaurants along with consumer buying. AI is also something to consider with automated re-caps on reviews and potential robots in the kitchen!