Freakin' Unbelievable Burgers, like any business, wants to get noticed. The crazy name is a good start, but the long-term business plan is to make a name for itself by serving high-quality beef and such different and unexpectedly tasty toppings--Boursin cheese, wasabi mayo, fried onions and cucumbers--that the Flint Township restaurant will one day sit at the same table as burger biz biggies Five Guys, Smashburger, and Fuddrucker's.
Founder Brent Skaggs hopes--and believes--his burger establishment will be pulling up the chair one day very soon, and when that day comes, now that expansion and franchising plans are rolling out, they will celebrate the success with a big hearty: "Freakin' Unbelievable!" in the best sense possible.
"I think we can compete with the nationals. We offer something different and we think better, not only our burgers but our atmosphere," says Skaggs, who lives in the East Lansing area and is president and founder of Freakin' Unbelievable Burgers and Spartan Pastabilities, the LLC that operates the Flint Township FUB, three separate restaurants in Saginaw and Bay City and another in Canton Township, a Detroit suburb.
Freakin' Unbelievable announced its franchise plan in July and is opening a second corporate location--in addition to the first in Flint--in metro Detroit in December. The future location in Farmington Hills is under renovation in a busy business district where FUB will go head to head with Five Guys and Smashburger, and many other local and chain eateries.
"We're excited to put our burgers up against anyone," says Skaggs. "We feel like Flint Township has been a great place to test our new concept. The people here have been very receptive and they feel like it's their own."
The first FUB opened in May 2012 on Corunna Road near I-75. It was seen as an ideal test site for a gourmet burger concept in part because of its location to heavy lunch traffic from nearby businesses, for the pull from Grand Blanc and for its access to I-75 travelers.
"It's been a great place to get this off the ground," says Skaggs, who has taste-tested his way to a 20-pound weight gain.
"I can't resist the things that our chef comes up with," he says, laughing.
When he opened FUB, a departure from his other restaurants, the plan was to cook up a new version of a specialty burger store in the fast casual concept--a restaurant that falls between a fast food drive-through and white tablecloth. The next year, BurgerBusiness.com placed FUB on its list of
Top New Burger Joints for 2012 and singled out the Fire Burger, a combo of Black Angus beef, pepper jack cheese, spicy mayo, Cholula hot sauce, jalapenos, onion straws, shredded lettuce and tomatoes on a brioche bun--the only bun you'll find served there.
The menu offers several other specialty burgers such as the Thai Burger, as well as Build Your Own burgers--beef, chicken, salmon, turkey or portobello mushroom--and customers can choose from 44 toppings, including sauces. The menu also includes chicken and salads.
"It kind of started when my wife and I were looking for somewhere to go for a great burger, but we didn't want to go to the national fast casual guys," Skaggs says, remembering the date nights that doubled as market research with his wife Sherry.
Later during their research and development days Sherry loved one test burger so much that she blurted out uncharacteristically, "That's a freakin' unbelievable burger!" The name stuck and the business plan to find a niche in the burger market emerged: a counter ordering system--no tipping--connected to a modern, more plush, yet comfy dining room compared to typical burger establishments.
"With the national fast casual places," Skaggs says, "the burgers were good but there was no atmosphere, no beer and wine, but we still wanted a place to go if we didn't have a whole lot of time. That's where we came up with the concept of specializing in really good burgers, and mostly we wanted to make it a little nicer. The big guys do a great job, but the restaurants are all tile, the chairs are hard. We really want a place that has atmosphere, televisions to watch a sporting event, nice materials and lighting to warm things up."
Skaggs has spent 30-plus years in the restaurant business. He comes from a family that ran German restaurants in Kentucky. He worked there, learned the business and all this time later is working with franchisees and eyeing college towns especially for expansion.
The 50-year-old father to three grown children--none who dare go into the restaurant business, he says--can't shake his dream of coming up with the next great restaurant concept. About 25 years ago when he married, he told his wife he would leave the business. That lasted six months.
Consider this rat-a-tat pattern of restaurants opening in just the last five years, and it's clear he can't get it out of his system.
Skaggs' first openings,
Harvey's Grill & Bar in Saginaw and Bay City, came in 2008 and 2009.
Hayden's Grill & Bar in Canton followed in 2010. He took 2011 off from new ventures. Harvey's and Hayden's are more upscale eateries serving steaks and seafood as well as burgers. The next FUB will open in 2013 or early 2014 and, he says, two more are coming in 2014.
In total his restaurant group is responsible for creating some 10 full-time positions and 25 part-time jobs. The new restaurant in Farmington Hills will create another 22 jobs.
FUB wants to set itself apart by using local ingredients as much as possible. The brioche buns come from a Detroit bakery. Toppings will be Michigan-grown when available and beef will come from ranches in Michigan and Ohio. Burger Business cited FUB's use of local and regional ingredients, its house-made goods and inclusion of craft beer and alcohol when it named it a best burger joint.
The pursuit of a gourmet burger chain is part of an overall plan to take a bite out the billion-plus-burger industry that feeds Americans an average of three burgers a week.
"Our mad scientist comes up with combinations you would never think of. He's just amazingly talented," says Skaggs about head chef Tim Zimmerman, who is head of research and development for all five restaurants. His background includes stints at Champp's, Cracker Barrel, and Dave & Buster's.
"Sometimes he comes with these recipes, things you think wouldn't work at all and somehow they taste great," Skaggs says. "He's in the restaurants every single day and always playing around with new items and new ingredients."
"Gone are the days of offering guests a cheeseburger, hamburger or bacon burger," Zimmerman says. "We wanted to offer our guests incredible gourmet burgers featuring toppings they can't get anywhere else or have never heard of…" Something that, if all goes as hoped, will make them say, "Freakin' Unbelievable."
Kim North Shine is a Detroit-area freelance writer and the Development News Editor for
Metromode.