We’re excited to share that Jefferson’s was recently spotlighted in FSR Magazine, where our unique approach to growth was highlighted. At Jefferson’s, we’re not just expanding our footprint—we’re intentionally bringing our small-town charm and sense of community to each new location. Our franchise model is built around maintaining the character and warmth that make our restaurants feel like home, no matter where we go.
This feature in FSR Magazine explores how we balance growth with authenticity, discussing the ways we empower our franchisees to foster a welcoming atmosphere while embracing the local culture. If you’re interested in learning more about our commitment to quality and community, we invite you to read the full article which can be found at https://www.fsrmagazine.com/feature/37-unit-jeffersons-balances-small-town-vibes-with-franchise-success/ and is also available below.
37-Unit Jefferson’s Balances Small-Town Vibes with Franchise Success
Jefferson’s has nearly doubled its footprint in the last five years while managing to preserve its local, neighborhood bar-and-grill feel.
Up in the early hours of the morning feeding his newborn triplet sons, Brandon Graham stumbled across an article announcing the foreclosure of a Jefferson’s restaurant in Lawrence, Kansas. What better way to balance raising three babies than pulling his beloved college-town restaurant franchise out of near-bankruptcy? He sent an email that night, and fast forward almost 15 years later, he now serves as president of Jefferson’s.
Known for its double-dipped wings, hand-pattied burgers, and fresh oysters, Jefferson’s isn’t a newcomer to the scene; it was founded in 1991 in Jacksonville, Alabama. After graduating from Jacksonville State University, Jeff Webb found himself adrift and decided to open a sports bar in the college town. The venture quickly became a hit, drawing in both students and local families. During this time, Webb met his future wife, Rachel, who was working as a server at Jefferson’s. While visiting her family in Kansas, the couple attended a basketball game at the University of Kansas, and, as Graham recounts, “I believe they signed the lease that same weekend.”
The second location of Jefferson’s opened in 2000 on the popular Massachusetts Avenue in Lawrence, where the concept is headquartered. They opened up a franchise in Rome, Georgia, a few years later. Since then, Jefferson’s has grown to 37 locations across the Mid-South region of the U.S. spanning from Lenexa, Kansas, to Brentwood, Tennessee.
While the brand has franchises in several college-centric towns, such as Oxford, Alabama, Jefferson’s is not designed for students on weekend benders; it aims to maintain its status as “a great, fun, family-friendly, budget-friendly brand and operation.”
The company’s key value of creating a family-oriented dining environment helps the restaurant chain to stand out from the competition in the sports bar realm. Being a wholesome sports-centered restaurant, says Graham, “has been a great thing for the fabric of our brand, business, and culture, and [is a thing that] people feel deeply.” In every unit, the lively and easygoing atmosphere helps to accentuate the feeling of a hometown restaurant for simple yet high-quality eats.
In larger chain restaurants, corporations may opt to reduce food quality to cut costs. However, Graham explains that Jefferson’s stands out from similar concepts because each franchise is locally owned and operated, allowing them to consistently meet high standards of service, maintain food quality, and offer a sophisticated dining experience that remains budget-friendly. Graham operated as a franchisee himself for 12 years and worked for the brand for six years before acquiring Jefferson’s Franchise Systems in 2018.
As the brand continues opening more locations, the careful attention given to Jefferson’s menu will play a key role in propelling the brand forward. “Our calling card for years has traditionally, and always been, wings and our secret sauce,” Graham says. “Our hand-patty burgers and hand-breaded chicken tenders, you don’t always see [that thought and quality] with larger chains and/or the mom-and-pops.” Rather, Jefferson’s exists in the “sweet spot,” as Graham puts it, between being a well-loved chain restaurant and a small-town hotspot.
Another important facet of curating the concept’s hometown-oriented vibe is the big game-day energy that stems from a combination of sports-led entertainment with an all-ages environment. Having sports playing in the bar is an “energy point that we really focus on,” Graham says, “whether it’s NFL season [or] basketball season, we always have a game on. Sports are involved with the entertainment factor of the restaurant.” Especially in their college-town bar and grill locations, customers of all ages provide spirit all year round as they engage with their home teams.
Nearly 65 percent of Jefferson’s locations are owned by former employees—a stat that stands out in the franchise space. The majority of internal growth has stemmed from employees and customers with “deep-seated feelings of love for the brand, what it’s about, and the fun that it is, and the teamwork environment that it creates and obviously the financial results of that when things go as planned,” Graham says.
Having business owners and franchisees who are deeply involved both in their local communities and within their restaurants is a crucial factor in Jefferson’s delivering a great customer experience. According to Graham, demonstrating genuine care for employees is essential to the success of each location. “We focus on community connection and giving back because, regardless of the dollar amount spent, that’s some of the best possible marketing that you can do, even if you have a billion-dollar ad budget. It resonates with the guest,” he says.
When striving for such a customer-centric dining experience, it’s equally important to engage and interact with customers especially by taking their feedback into account, whether it’s from internal surveys, Google or Yelp reviews, or comments from social media. Even the “word-of mouth factor,” says Graham, has migrated to the online sphere, “whether it is review-orientation or social commentary and interaction.” Being in-person and on-site, however, is still very near to the heart of Jefferson’s business model. Most locations have a long-term manager who has helped to nurture their own individual relationships with their guests.
Graham adds, “if we can make everyone feel like a regular, we are going to win every time.”
As Jefferson’s brand recognition and number of locations continue to grow, the trick is maintaining the concept’s core neighborhood eatery feel. “I think we have a leg up over the competition by being a little bit smaller, more nimble, and involved heavily with franchisees and the communities that we operate in,” says Graham. “I think that’s part of the magic elixir of the wins that we achieve.”
Within the next 10 or so years, Graham envisions scaling to more than 100 locations. He and his team plan to continue to “fill the bowl” of their current operating areas, plus expand to one new state, which should come to fruition in the near future. “It’s about finding the right real estate and continuing to build prospect funnels for existing franchisees to find the right locations that they want to expand in.”
“At the end of the day,” Graham says, “it may sound a little cheesy or corny, but we take very seriously the fact that we are selling [one of] the ‘American Dreams’ of business ownership, and we want to make certain that we do the best we can to have those dreams fulfilled and be successful financially and otherwise.”
As both a franchisee and franchisor himself, Graham believes in staying connected with his fellow Jefferson’s owners. “We strive towards being aligned with franchisees in a way that a lot of brands don’t have the ability to. [My management team and I] wake up trying to do the same thing that our franchisees do,” he adds; “to provide for their families, to pay their bills, and to live the life that they want and we support that to the absolute best of our ability. That’s our North Star. We all have jobs because of our franchisees.”
