VIRGINIA BEACH - For years - nearly 40, if anyone wants to know - different people have been asking the Pollard family about franchising its local chicken chain.
For most of those years, the answer has been no, said Johnny Pollard. But over the past 20 months, Pollard and his sister, Betty Ann Pollard Gravely, who co-owns the chain with her brother, have been working quietly to change that answer.
“I guess we felt like this was the right time,” Pollard said.
Expanding the chain has been challenging, Gravely said.”This will be a faster way to grow,” Gravely said.
Franchises could be ready for purchase in the next month or two, the pair said.
The first Pollard’s Chicken opened in 1967 on East Little Creek Road.
Elizabeth “Betty” Pollard needed more kitchen space, Pollard and Gravely said of their mother. The family bought the former Chicken Ranch on the site of the old Wilder’s Drive-In theater, opened it as a restaurant and watched the business take off.
Today, Pollard and Gravely operate six eateries throughout South Hampton Roads. Franchising will help them dramatically increase that number, they say.
“We do have a list,” Gravely said of interested franchisees.
“But we’ve got to make sure it’s a two-way street,” Pollard added. “We’ve got to feel as good about them as they do about us.”
Deciding to franchise a business is not something you rush into, said Steve Story, a Norfolk lawyer who leads the franchise team at Kaufman & Canoles.
“It is a very regulated business,” he said. “You’re also moving from serving customers to serving the people who serve the customers.”
The decision to sell a business model also can be an expensive one, said Phillip Decker, owner of D’egg in downtown Norfolk.
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