When millions of restaurant workers were furloughed out of an income last March, many of their employers tried to soften the wallop by offering free meals to the displaced staff members. Dallas-based FB Society decided not to stop with the 91% of its own workforce that was displaced. Instead of mothballing a catering kitchen, co-founder Randy DeWitt decided to use the facility to produce 1,000 meal kits a day. The boxes of ingredients were offered on a first-come-first-served basis to any Dallas hospitality worker who’d lost a job. Calling the facility Furlough Kitchen, he then offered to provide the business model to any operator who was interested, at no charge—essentially a franchise without a fee.
Randy DeWitt
Chairman, FB Society