Smokey Bones is going all-in on off-premise, with plans to launch two more virtual brands and a new ecommerce site where customers can order from all five of its concepts at once.
The 61-unit Florida-based barbecue chain was one of the first to hit on the idea of virtual brands, launching the delivery-only Wing Experience and Burger Experience in the fall of 2019.
Three years later, it’s adding to its virtual roster with Tender Box and Bowl Market, a pair of “progressive comfort food” concepts that serve boneless fried chicken and bowls, respectively.
“Part of our research … has shown us that there’s still a market opportunity in comfort food,” Smokey Bones CEO James O’Reilly said in an interview Wednesday. The new brands will be available Oct. 10.
They were designed to be easy to execute, using existing ingredients and cooking processes. Tender Box adds a new quarter-pound chicken tender to the chain's inventory, while Bowl Market is composed of existing SKUs, O’Reilly said.
Image courtesy of Smokey Bones
“We’ve found a way from a culinary standpoint to operationalize virtual brands,” he said.
The next step was making them work for customers. As it planned to add more brands, Smokey Bones realized it would be impractical to create new websites and packaging for each one. So it came up with the idea of a single online storefront that would house them all. Called Bite Hall, the new site goes live next month.
Besides providing a digital hub for its five brands, Bite Hall has a function that will allow customers to order from all of Smokey Bones’ concepts in a single transaction.
“The most interesting part of this innovation was we thought, let’s build more of an Amazon-type experience here,” O’Reilly said. The flexibility should appeal to families and other groups who can’t agree on what to order, he said.
It’s a unique technology that has been used by some multibrand ghost kitchens and food halls, but never at an individual restaurant. Smokey Bones built the system entirely in-house, O’Reilly said.
Image courtesy of Smokey Bones
Bite Hall orders will be prepared in Smokey Bones’ brick-and-mortar locations and delivered in Bite Hall-branded packaging. As for the existing Wing Experience and Burger Experience ecommerce sites, O’Reilly said the company will monitor their traffic and could ultimately shut them down, consolidating its online business under Bite Hall.
It’s part of a larger push to grow off-premise sales at Smokey Bones, which has embraced delivery, curbside pickup and even drive-thrus and is designing new stores with to-go in mind. Dine-in still accounts for a majority of Smokey Bones’ sales, with off-premise making up “less than 50%,” O’Reilly said.
And even as it expands its online footprint, Smokey Bones is exploring brick-and-mortar options for Wing Experience, its most popular virtual brand.
O’Reilly said the concept’s strong volume and brand recognition could justify physical locations. Wing Experience serves jumbo wings in 50 flavors, which O’Reilly said is the widest variety of any U.S. wing brand.
“If I was to start opening Wing Experience restaurants in college towns or where there was other wing competition already established … I believe, based on what we’re seeing so far, that that’s a very attractive proposition for someone who already loves chicken wings.”