‘World’s greatest hamburger’ chain pulls out of Maine
Seasonality, rising labor costs and the cost of doing business are the stated reasons why Fuddruckers closed its Ellsworth restaurant just three years after its opening.
Fuddruckers, a Texas-based cheeseburger restaurant chain that says it makes “the world’s greatest hamburger,” opened the franchise in 2015 at a new commercial development in Ellsworth, its first location in Maine. The Fuddruckers restaurant was part of a 9,500-square-foot building on Route 1A and includes a Tim Horton's restaurant and a Tradewinds convenience store and gas station.
Chuck Lawrence, co-owner of the Tradewinds company, told the Bangor Daily News at the time that Fuddruckers initially was skeptical when he proposed opening a franchise in Ellsworth. But Lawrence was soon able to convince them, noting the high volume of traffic that goes through Route 1A during the summer to destinations like Acadia National Park.
The closure was announced in postings on the Ellsworth restaurant’s Facebook page and on the front door of its restaurant, the Bangor Daily News reported on Tuesday.
In a letter signed “Fuddruckers management,” the posting said that after three years, “We have had a lot of regular customers, but we have not established enough consistent business to make the restaurant viable long term. Seasonal business, rising labor costs and overall costs of doing business have prevented us from covering our expenses.”
Sales decline in second quarter
According to a second-quarter fiscal 2018 earnings release on the website of Fuddruckers’s parent company, Luby’s Inc. of Houston, Texas, Fuddruckers sales at company-owned restaurants decreased $2.9 million versus the second quarter of fiscal year 2017, due to eight restaurant closings (seven permanent closings and one temporary closing which reopened during the second quarter) and a 6.4% decrease in same-store sales.
The 6.4% decrease in same-store sales was the result of a 11.8% decrease in guest traffic, partially offset by a 6.0% increase in average spend per guest.
Luby’s Inc. (NYSE: LUB) operated 160 restaurants nationally as of March 14, 2018: 86 Luby’s Cafeterias, 67 Fuddruckers, seven Cheeseburger in Paradise restaurants. In the Western Hemisphere, Luby's has 110 Fuddruckers franchise locations across the United States (including Puerto Rico), Canada, Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Panama and Colombia.
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