Rib City claims a winning recipe, and not just for baby backs.
The 20-year-old Fort Myers-based barbecue chain is poised to add both franchisee- and company-owned locations next year, and expects to close out 2009 with an estimated $30 million in gross sales, up from $28 million in 2008. Only a handful of its franchise outlets have closed during the regional and national recessions.
Financial performance at the Florida restaurants – all company-owned – “are flat or up over last year,” said company President Craig Peden.
Peden credits Rib City’s ability to survive and thrive to “a culmination of a lot of things: the service, the quality of food, the atmosphere, the staff. These separate a restaurant from being just OK, to being better.”
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