Brand stewards: Balancing nostalgia and innovation at Big Boy
Tamer Afr, CEO of Big Boy, on the menu innovation, supply chain strategy and commitment to operational excellence taking place at the iconic American restaurant brand.
As the first restaurant to embrace the farmto-table concept in the US, and the home of the original double-decker burger, iconic American eatery Big Boy is no stranger to innovation.
he company was established in 1936 by Bob Wian in Glendale, California. The original Big Boy was a hamburger stand named Bob’s Pantry, but the company has grown and evolved significantly since then.
Today, Big Boy is one of America’s most iconic brands, with a rich history and cultural legacy, boasting appearances in several films, a comic series written by Stan Lee and even celebrating a national Big Boy Day.
When working with such a wellestablished brand, making significant changes can be a challenging task – which is why CEO Tamer Afr views himself as a steward, rather than a boss.
“We’re stewards for this brand, to protect it for the next generation,” says Tamer. “This company has so much history, and people have so much love for it. When we acquired the brand in 2018, we knew we wanted to take
Tamer Afr, CEO of Big Boy
the company to a new level, while retaining the elements that people love. There are so many incredible things about this brand, and we want to bring the love people have for Big Boy and share it on a national and international scale.”
As Tamer and his senior leadership team began the process of guiding this historic brand to even greater heights, the first thing they looked at was menu innovation.
“When we came on board, we immediately hired R&D chefs,” says Tamer. “We wanted to develop the menu and take it into today’s taste profile, but without losing the nostalgia of our signature items. Over the past five and a half years, we’ve gradually eliminated items and highlighted new options that fit the flavour profile of today’s generation.”
However, these innovations would not be possible, Tamer points out, without the implementation of new technologies.
“We were recently at the National Restaurant Association (NRA) show in Chicago,” says Tamer. “They were showcasing new AI applications for back of house – from flipping burgers and cooking French fries to running the kitchen, managing orders and analysing inventory. These are the exciting new industry trends we have to stay aware of if we want to continue to expand, especially in the wake of current labour shortages. We’re always looking at ways to be global ambassadors of innovation. Whether
that’s developing new technologies testing AI or implementing robotics.
“This Big Boy brand is incredibly precious to us, and these new technologies give us the opportunity to test new concepts. As a brand of significant size, we have a 130,000 square foot facility where we produce a lot of our own food, and the innovations we’re doing here wouldn’t be possible without the new technologies we’ve implemented.
“It’s a whole new world out there on what you can do with food, and as we continue to grow and become a more global brand, we want to protect our farm-to-table business model that’s been in place for over eightyfive years. And the way to protect this model is by aligning ourselves with new technologies.”
Implementing these new innovations and concepts has been a long time coming for Tamer and his team. Shortly after acquiring the company, the COVID-19 pandemic began, grinding any developments to a stop. However, Tamer credits this challenging time as helping him shape his relationship with key vendors.
“We learned a lot during the COVID-19 pandemic,” reflects Tamer. “For a restaurant brand, it was particularly challenging. It shut down nearly all of our restaurants, but we still had running costs. We had only acquired the company a year and a half previously, so while it was a huge shock to all of our plans, I believe it
“Becharas Brothers has been our coffee supplier for five decades”
made us stronger, nimbler, and made us work harder to find methods of promoting the brand’s growth.
“A big challenge was a shortage of supplies. Since then, we’ve invested heavily in our purchasing department, opened up new lines working with vendors and tightened our relationship with our core vendors.”
Two of these core vendors are Becharas Brothers Coffee Company (Becharas Brothers) and Metropolitan Baking Company.
“Becharas Brothers has been our coffee supplier for five decades,” says Tamer. “People who have been coming to Big Boy for years swear by our coffee and, by building this long-term partnership, we’re now in a position where we can look into a way to get Big Boy coffee into grocery stores. By having signature products like this we’re able to add value to our customers and develop our brand even further.
“Obviously, we make a lot of burgers and sandwiches, so our bread
“We pride ourselves on the quality of every individual ingredient available to our customers in our menu items, so our longstanding partnership with Metropolitan Baking Company is vitally important to us”
and rolls are a core component of our menu,” adds Tamer. “We pride ourselves on the quality of every individual ingredient available to our customers in our menu items, so our longstanding partnership with Metropolitan Baking Company is vitally important to us. We don’t just want to source products for the sake of sourcing products – we want to ensure that we are meeting the high-quality standards we set for ourselves, and our customers have for us.
“To meet these ambitions, it’s essential to have strong partners that not only understand the quality metrics you’re trying to achieve but can also deliver that quality reliably.”
As the company emerges from the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s now turning its focus to employing the use of new automation technology to nurture its operational strategy.
“We’re always striving to improve operational excellence,” says Tamer. “We’re using technology wherever we can, and AI is helping us make significant improvements. So many things in the business can be automated now – the cleanliness of our
restaurants, the heat levels and an AI solution for the cook times with our burgers.
“The aim of deploying these technologies is to make it simpler for people to do their job and turn out a quality product. Our next phase is considering how we can utilise emerging technologies to improve the guest experience.
“We’ve always been a family brand, so one of our main concerns is making the experience better for children. In our restaurants, we will be offering a digital comic to kids, and they can download colouring books – which is obviously more sustainable than printing them out.”
Big Boy’s focus on sustainability is something the company is prioritising as part of an ongoing commitment to community involvement and mindful decision-making. This effort has involved working with environmentally conscious vendors, reducing food waste and increasing the use of recyclable packaging.
“We want to ensure that we’re being a good partner to the world around us,”
BUILDING REWARDING RELATIONSHIPS AND DELIVERING QUALITY SINCE 1945
Since 1945, Metropolitan Baking has crafted premium bread products for some of the finest restaurants, schools, institutions and retail establishments in Michigan and the surrounding states.
Our products include sandwich breads, variety breads, rolls, buns and much more. We service venues from family-style and fast-food eateries to upscale elegant restaurants, and offer competitive pricing and efficient reliable services to satisfy all of your bread product needs.
We are dedicated to providing high-quality baking products to our customers, meeting their expectations of flavour, texture, weight, appearance and food safety. Our goal is to provide our customers with the best tasting, highest quality, safest, authentic and legal products and services – all while delivering exceptional value along the way.
Our production processes consider all technical, commercial, safety and environmental requirements. We achieve this through a strong customer focus, striving for continuous improvement, a commitment to teamwork, training for all our employees and the implementation of procedures that are part of our quality system. Our commitment to food safety and security is built into this entire programme.
Metropolitan Baking is committed to continual improvements in every facet of our business. We believe that our people are critical to our company and are a critical component to our ability to satisfy our customers. To that end every employee is trained to fully understand requirements of their position and to perform their job to the best of their ability. Our focus is on offering customers a rewarding relationship through the ability to be true to our promise.
Our competitive pricing, premium product line and efficient services ensure that all of your bread, bun and roll product needs are met.
says Tamer. “And to do that, we always try to give back. We’ve started giving away food bags to make sure our food doesn’t go to waste, we’ve established our own foundation to help local communities and we’re aiming to bring in these practices throughout all areas of the business.”
However, this focus on ethical practice isn’t the only thing Big Boy is in the process of implementing. Looking ahead, the company is hoping to champion increased brand awareness and a period of sustained growth – on a national and global scale.
“We’re currently in discussions regarding a few acquisitions,” says Tamer. “These would not only expand our national footprint, but our discussions with international partners could bring the brand overseas. We’re currently overseeing growth in Southeast Asia, with the goal of opening 1,000 stores in the region, and we opened a store in Thailand last year as part of this endeavour.
“In the Americas, we want to continue developing the drive-thru concept within our brand. We’ve got four locations currently under development, and we’re hoping to deploy it across the business.
“But I think for us, our biggest focus is diversification. Big Boy is an iconic brand. A friend of mine messaged me recently when he was out for dinner with a friend and his sixteen-yearold daughter, and she was wearing a vintage Big Boy t-shirt. It shows the
power of the Big Boy brand and how far-reaching it is. The legacy literally spans generations.
“We have a dedicated following, and the younger generation knows our iconography but doesn’t always realise who we are. So we’re focusing on developing that nostalgia element, while simultaneously engaging younger customers, to get our brand out there.
“I have four children, with a fifth on the way. In my head, I like to hang onto the fact that my seven year old thinks Big Boy is the best restaurant in the world. And if I can just get a bunch of seven year olds thinking the same thing, then I think we’ll be okay.
“From a merchandising standpoint, you’re going to be seeing a lot more of us in movies, TV shows and even a prominent video game. We’re also
prioritising getting our product in grocery stores to push the brand out there. I get emails all the time about people asking when our signature items will be available in stores, which is absolutely our biggest push at the moment.
“We’ve also expanded our commissary production into pizza. We do pizza production for restaurants, and Michigan is a great place to be for this because it’s a hub of restaurants –Domino’s and Little Caesars® to name but two.
“So many Michigan brands are exploding and growing right now, but they don’t have production capabilities. So we thought: why not help them out? We’re building manufacturing rooms in our facility as we speak, and we’re so excited for this next step.”
Learn more about Big Boy here.
ADDED VALUE
Connect with Tamer
A family-based company
Tamer celebrates everything his father, Dr. Mostafa Afr, has built.
“I recently lost my father,” says Tamer. “He was the chairman of our board, but he was my partner too. I couldn’t have learned anything, or gotten anywhere in life if it wasn't for him.
“He loved this brand. He would have loved the fact that we just celebrated the 88th birthday of the company and that we have a National Big Boy Day. What he loved most was giving back to the community, as well as nurturing the community we built internally.
“He treated the employees as a family, and our team has shown loyalty to this brand through a global pandemic – because they don’t work for me, we all work for the brand. We like to make sure everyone has a voice, and this approach was instilled by my Dad, which has carried through even after his passing.
“He always wanted to do the right thing, making sure customers had a positive guest experience, but also focusing on the employees and what’s important to them. As we progress into our next phase of operations, we want to do it in his honour, including launching a Big Boy University, with full training programmes for employees.
“Being able to work side by side with him and seeing him push our operational team to the excellence they’ve demonstrated has been an honour. He’s touched so many hearts, and his actions resonated with so many, and I think a huge part of our employees’ loyalty stems from him. I’ll always be so proud to be a family-based company, and to have taken this journey with my Dad.”
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