“The bite” may not have launched Burger King’s comeback this year, but it certainly didn’t hurt.
The fast-food chain’s same-store sales rose 8.5% in the U.S. in the second quarter, parent company Restaurant Brands International said on Thursday. That was the company’s best performance in three years.
But last quarter’s performance in many respects was one of the brand’s most impressive in years. It came during a period in which a lot of chains are struggling with a consumer that simply isn’t dining out at fast-food chains as often as they had been.
Burger King’s 8.5% was a more than 900-basis-point outperformance compared with other fast-food burger chains. It beat McDonald’s by 770 basis points. That was the first time in more than a decade that Burger King outperformed McDonald’s by that much.
The contrast between the Chicago-based fast-food giant replacing its U.S. president while the Miami-based Burger King took a victory lap was difficult to ignore.
So, too, was that bite, when Burger King President Tom Curtis went viral for taking a big bite out of the Whopper after McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinski was roundly criticized on social media for taking too small a bite out of the Big Arch. That took place in March, not long before the second quarter started.
“We did not produce that video for the purposes of being put in juxtaposition, if you will, to somebody else trying their product,” Curtis said. “The Internet did that for us.”
“It’s part of the story,” he added. “But it really speaks to who we are, the authenticity of what we’re doing. This is a story of us quietly doing that work because it’s the right thing to do, and improving our Whopper because we love it and we want it to be the best it can be.”
The second quarter did everything that Burger King executives wanted. The company sold about 20% more Whoppers during the period. It also sold a lot more kids meals, thanks to the chain’s collaboration with the Disney movie The Mandalorian and Grogu.
The latter was particularly crucial for a brand that has long wanted families but frequently reverted to marketing to young guys and people who needed a discount to dine out.
Curtis credited the company’s work on operations in recent years for making its restaurants more attractive to families. “We’re earning the business of the kids today, and we will keep that business,” he said. “When you bring your kids to a restaurant, if they get treated well and better at a Burger King than at any competitor, you’re coming back to that restaurant.
“You don’t want to take your family to an old, tired, dirty restaurant. And I think part of the kids’ meal improvement is the improvement in the restaurants.”
Burger King’s quarter came after heavy investment over the years in remodels, marketing, and a new franchising strategy favoring smaller-scale operators. The company under Curtis, a former Domino’s executive who is an operations expert, has worked hard to improve the way its restaurants are run.
Earlier this year, he began taking calls from customers and estimates that the company has taken more than 100,000 incoming calls.
Those calls helped Curtis understand the impact the operations efforts and Whopper improvements are having. “I remember one [voicemail] in particular,” he said before quoting it. “’I could not believe that the Whopper looked exactly like it was on TV.’ I cannot tell you how many times I read a version of that story, and that’s what tells you this thing has legs.”
It’s worth remembering that Burger King is just a few years removed from large-scale bankruptcies and mass closures. It has closed more locations than it has opened in each of the past five years. And its average-unit volumes (about $1.7 million) remain less than half that of McDonald’s ($4 million).
Burger King executives believe they have plenty of work to do. And that should provide tailwinds for the coming quarters and years.
For instance, the company is bringing in franchisees to buy stores once owned by the giant operator Carrols. It has more product improvements coming in the next few months. It just shifted the focus of managers to customer experience. And it has operations improvements to make.
Curtis has said that the chain may be only about 20% done. And all those calls showed him where the chain has improving to do.
“I go out every week and I see restaurants that need a lot of work, and they are not representations of the brand that would make me proud, and we know that exists out there,” Curtis said. “And this $400 million that we had put in several years ago that has been backed by billions of dollars from the franchise community to really reinvigorate the asset of the brand. I still say that’s in the early stages.”
Members help make our journalism possible. Become a Restaurant Business member today and unlock exclusive benefits, including unlimited access to all of our content. Sign up here.