Greensboro, N.C.-based Biscuitville wants to become more of an all-day destination, and a collection of new menu items in test are designed todo just that.
“We thought we would just penetrate into lunch, but our demand continues early in the day and later in the afternoon, too,” said Jim McCurley, chief culinary officer for the 78-unit chain.
Fans come to the breakfast-centric fast casual for “its great Southern food married with a biscuit,” he added. Indeed, the restaurants serve scratch-made biscuits baked fresh every 15 minutes, from 5 a.m. to 2 p.m. daily. Now McCurley and his team want to “marry” those biscuits with more lunch-style ingredients and even present opportunities to grab a coffee and a snack.
Two new SKUs, six menu items
Working with local and family-owned suppliers, Biscuitville added pit-cooked pulled pork and mac and cheese to its inventory. Each is cross- utilized in six separate items which are in test in seven restaurant locations in Virginia. The lineup includes:
• Pulled Pork Biscuit
•Piggy Mac & Cheese Biscuit featuring the pulled pork, Cackalacky (a locally sourced barbecue sauce) and Mac & Cheese with cheese
• Piggy Mac & Cheese with Egg Biscuit, which adds an egg to the above
• Homemade Mac & Cheese, serves as a side
• Loaded Mac & Cheese Platter, featuring mac and cheese, shredded cheese, pulled pork, Cackalacky, ranch dressing and bacon bits
• Southern Comfort Platter with scrambled eggs, mac and cheese, fried chicken, sausage gravy and buttered biscuit
“We try to create a platform, with for example, the pulled pork, and run it on a sandwich, platter, as a component or side,” said McCurley. “Then we run through several iterations of the products before we put them in test.”
The pork comes in smoked and pulled from a local vendor, but Biscuitville creates its own flavor profiles in house, he said. Another local company produces the cheese sauce for the Mac & Cheese. Each restaurant fresh-cooks pasta, then combines it with seasonings and the sauce and batches the recipe.
Each location has a kitchen leader who can supervise the speed-scratch prep of the items.
All of these items were developed in Biscuitville’s R&D kitchen and went through several iterations and tasting panels with the innovation team before they were sent out to the Virginia test locations. “The benefits of running them in one market as opposed to running them in a consumer focus group is that we have many thousands of customers on the tasting panel instead of 100,” said McCurley, “It eliminates risk. Plus we include a very short survey on each receipt so we get quick feedback.”
So far, every new item they’ve tried in a test market in the last four years has rolled out systemwide. Last year, the Skinny Biscuit debuted in Virginia, and has since launched on every Biscuitville menu.
Carving out a new daypart
To expand on its bakery offerings, Biscuitville is also testing two cookies. “It’s the first venture into the cookie space, but we bake biscuits every 15 minutes, so now we buy the cookie dough and bake fresh cookies daily too,” McCurley said. The sweet treats—a Triple Chocolate Cookie and a Royale Cookie—are launching along with a new Dressed Caramel Iced Latte.
“We elevated our coffee to compete with the coffee chains,” he said, adding that the latte and cookies combine to create a secondary daypart. “Our average check is $10 to $12, but a customer can come in for coffee and cookies for as little as $4,” McCurley noted. “We want to offer things that customers can afford but still provide a profit. So far, we’re seeing great take on the cookies.”
Bite-size sausage balls made with sausage from a local producer are part of the catering platform.
Biscuitville is also ramping up catering, downsizing its famous biscuits into mini sizes. They can be ordered plain, so customers can add their own fillings, or purchased already filled with sausage, country ham, bacon, fried chicken, spicy chicken or turkey sausage. Also available are scratch-made sausage balls, prepared with local sausage, shredded cheddar, herbs and spices.
“We believe it’s the highest elevated catering program for a QSR,” said McCurley.