JAX Burgers - My little review of someone's attempt at fastlane.

[Z5 FILMS]

Lately for whatever reason I have been craving these "trendy" burger franchises like 5 Guys Burgers and Smashburger. I kept hearing how good they are, but never really had the chance to try them because the locations are not close to me. They seem to be the new "Subway" and popping up everywhere.

Anyways, last week I got to try 5 Guys. Pretty good, fresh toppings and fresh cut homemade style fries which I like. The place was pretty packed. Then the other day I drove out of my way to try Smashburger. Thumbs down for Smashburger. It was very average, and the fries were obviously cheap frozen type. Tasted just like Sonic and Dairy Queen fries. Gross. I would never go there again. Not like all greasy burgers and fries are not, but some times you just have to live a little and sometimes they just hit the spot.

OK, so I got to try them and got that out of my system. But I was left wondering why none of these burger places had a location near my house. I live in a huge master planed community in Houston of just over 100,000. My area has everything. Huge mall, all the trendy shops and every store you can think of in my area. But no SmashBurger or 5 Guys or anything like it. I had to drive 20+ miles to odd parts of town to get find them. "Oh well" I thought. No biggie. Then today I was driving down a road in the back of my area 5 minutes from my house and saw a new place opened called JAX Burgers. "Ahhh" I thought. Someone has opened their own "trendy" burger joint or it's a new franchise. So I stopped in to try it so I could see what the scoop is.

I walk in and I can tell it's not a franchise. A new franchise would have everything brand spanking new, 20 more employees working than is needed behind the counter and a manager there to kiss my butt the minute I walked in. Not this place. I walk in, it's somewhat busy, there's nobody behind the counter and there's a 5 year old kid crawling on the counter next to the cash register. It's obviously a mom and pop operation. Being a new place, and they are somewhat busy and nobody to take my order I just took the time to look over the menu and take a picture of the kid crawling on the counter. So a lady eventually comes to take my order, she's looks to be in her late 40's and I'm guessing she must be the proprietor, and the kids crawling on the floor and the counter must be her kids. She takes my order and I sit down and notice a website URL on the wall so I check out the website on my iPhone. I notice that this is the 3rd location. Interesting. As I sit there waiting someone asks the lady how she came up with the name "JAX" She points to the two kids crawling on the floor and says it's named after her two sons "Jake" and "Max". Ah...so she is an owner. Interesting. So I thought it was cool that this lady is making an attempt to tap into the fastlane and start her own burger chain. Well done. She's doing a good job. The prices were similar to 5 Guys and Smashburger, her burgers and fries were just as good or better, and her costs were obviously WAY lower than what she would have paid if she bought some franchises. Her buildout was very simple and cheap but seemed to work. Very minimal. My only gripe was she did not replace the flooring. When I eat in a place I don't want to see dirty floors. She did not replace the flooring that was in place already. It was in bad shape and should have been replaced. It was pretty nasty.


Anyway, just my little semi-review and praise to someone trying to jump in the fastlane. Good for her. She has a good product and could do well with a few adjustments.

 

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[MJ DeMarco]

Great post -- definitely looks like a path to a Fastlane -- I see a brand, I see a concept, I see an effort at scale, and I see a good product. Will be watching this more!

 

[mottdog]

I'm sure she is planning on replacing the floors and many other items. Sometimes if you spend so much fixing everything up you'll never open, especially on a shoestring budget. A couple years ago I sunk a ton money into a website that I had to get perfect out of the gate and it never happened because I wasn't satisfied with certain details. This year I corrected that by starting with a basic layout and will update as time goes on. You have to start somewhere in order to begin the path to eventual correction.
My two cents.

 

[jassep]

Thanks for the review. Very interesting to see the faslane applied to a current trend. This is happening in my town now, too. In fact, my new favourite place to eat is a burger bar. They seem to be combining the burger bar concept and the wagamama concept a bit, which is cool. But they haven't yet concentrated on the training of the staff.

Last time I went to wagamama, I was so impressed with the staff member who was serving us, I asked him what his training was like. Very eye opening. They has a weekly session for major focus issues, and they all came to work earlier than opening for a 15 minute session to get their head in the game for the opening every shift they were on!

To me, for food sevice/human resource systems, this was like discovering one of the magic bullets! Not easy to implement, but a crap load better than 'hope for the best' that so many customer service businesses seem to rely on.

Jason

 

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[Boo Blizzi]

this was a very cool review...i had a burger idea swimming around in my head for a few years now (i don't eat beef though) and was thinking of modeling it after the 5 guys chain...i read up on them and i think it was started by a father and his 4 sons...they are a stickler for freshness...and fry their fries in peanut oil...this maybe a queue to revisit that idea...i like the contemporary/industrial look of the place and that alone could justify the price of a $5-6 burger

 

[JDub07]

I love the JAX Burgers out here in Pearland.

 

[Z5 FILMS]

I love the JAX Burgers out here in Pearland.

5 Guys Burger has since opened right around the corner from the JAX here in The Woodlands in this review. The 5 Guys does not look to me to be doing all that great. There's always people in there, but it's never crowded. JAX burgers are bigger and better, price is similar. It looks to me JAX does the same amount of business, and probably has lower overhead and had cheaper buildout costs. The JAX in The Woodlands usually only has 3 or 4 people working there. The owner, 1 or 2 on the grill and 1 or two servers. 5 guys has at least 6 people behind the counter.

I think JAX will do just fine against the 5 Guys.

 

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[Komelika]

What do you suppose it took to fund that startup for one location?

 

[yveskleinsky]

There is a sandwich shop in Houston (my favorite) called Anotone's Po'boys. IMO this is the perfect model for someone to franchise--they are a mom and pop place with no more than 5 locations, a unique product--and a HUGE fan base of people all over the world--but last I asked, they don't do anything online and they won't ship. The sandwiches are pre made in the morning, and there isn't a million options when it comes to variety. There are (if I remember) 4 different sandwiches they make. That's all. They don't make them to order. You get what you get--and what you get is delicious. (My dad and I meet up in Chicago a couple of times a year, and he always brings me a bag of Antone's--last trip out he told me that he felt the need to explain to the lady behind the counter that he was bringing his daughter these sandwiches--that they weren't all for him--and the lady behind him in line laughed and said she was doing the same thing for her son!) Anyhow--it's a really streamlined system they have going there. There is a person in back who makes the sandwiches and a cashier--that's all. People get their sandwiches out of the fridge and they're done. Keeps the line moving fast. This is such a great model for busy places--like Universities or places near a hospital. Hell, you could probably even put them in vending machines. This might be an opportunity for someone in the Houston area to either talk to them about franchising, or to see about getting them an online presence and handling their orders and such. ...I would be your first customer!