A double at seventh Avenue Burger. | Picture courtesy of seventh Avenue Burger.
It’s in all probability not a good suggestion to finance the opening of a brand new restaurant on a bank card. But it surely labored for Kevin Rezvani, the co-founder of seventh Avenue Burger in New York Metropolis.
It helped that seventh Avenue’s first location was tiny (about 280 sq. ft) and the hire was low cost (about $4,500 monthly). All in, it was about $70,000, he stated.
And, fortunately, that first unit of seventh Avenue (named for the road the place it made its debut) was a success.
Inside months of opening in Could 2021, the tiny outlet was churning out hundreds of burgers a day. Rezvani needed to disconnect the cellphone and on-line orders to deal with the amount.
Location No. 2 got here 10 months later. The following 12 months, eight extra eating places opened throughout New York Metropolis.
Quick ahead to at the moment: The burger chain is getting ready to open its twenty sixth restaurant (will probably be the chain’s second in Washington, D.C.). Items are coming to Boston, Philadelphia and Baltimore.
Rezvani expects to hit 30 open by the tip of 2025, and to succeed in 60 by the tip of subsequent 12 months, and 100 by 2027. (When interviewed for this column, Rezvani was exploring potential places in Los Angeles.)
For now, all are company-owned.
Final 12 months, Rezvani and companion Paras Jain took on private-equity funding from Left Lane Capital (additionally behind Clean Avenue Espresso and plenty of restaurant tech firms), which has helped construct seventh Avenue’s infrastructure to help that progress.
What makes seventh Avenue work is its quite simple menu of smashburgers with cheese and fries, which may also be loaded. There are not any rooster sandwiches. No shakes. Simply the fundamentals: a thinly smashed beef patty (a single or double) griddled with onions, with or with out cheese, and topped with pickles (and/or jalapenos) and home sauce on a buttered potato bun.
Others have known as seventh Avenue an East Coast model of In-N-Out Burger due to its easy menu and low pricing, however Rezvani disagrees.
“I wish to say we’re the Dunkin’ Donuts of burgers in New York, as a result of it’s simply inexpensive, grab-and-go. It’s simply very accessible.”
The burgers are priced at $6.50 for a single, and $4.50 for fries. Initially, Rezvani needed the burger and fries to be an excellent $10, so clients may simply hand over one invoice, no change required, for a straightforward and fast transaction.
However the rising price of beef compelled a menu value improve. Now the chain’s rising scale will assist hold pricing low, Rezvani stated.
Because the chain grows, items have gotten a bit larger, with a candy spot round 1,500- to 1,800-square ft with some indoor seating.
Rezvani is discovering that it’s a bit tougher to get eating places open outdoors the Northeast. In New York, opening has been “a really mild raise,” he stated. “I’ve opened shops as quick as in three weeks in New York Metropolis.”
However Rezvani has realized the lesson in regards to the significance of that outdated cliché (location, location, location). And he realized it the exhausting manner.
In 2014, years earlier than opening seventh Avenue on his bank card, he launched one other burger idea in New Jersey known as Diesel & Duke. That idea grew to 5 items earlier than it failed through the COVID shutdown.
“It didn’t achieve this nicely,” stated Rezvani. “We didn’t do the numbers we needed.”
The issue: Areas. That’s why Rezvani determined to do issues in another way with seventh Avenue.
“In my head, it was that we get a first-rate location. We didn’t want a giant area. If we may do 100 clients a day, we’ll break even. If we did 200 a day, we’d do fairly nicely,” he stated. “And for those who can’t do 200 clients a day in a ten million-person market, you then shouldn’t be in enterprise.”
Now, Rezvani and Jain are constructing a second model as a separate firm.
Final 12 months, the 2 partnered with Joey Scalabrino, who based Apollo Bagels, additionally in New York Metropolis. The sixth location is anticipated to open this week, with 4 extra within the works, Rezvani stated.
That’s one other model with a easy menu and inexpensive pricing. Now that seventh Avenue has the infrastructure in place to multiply, Rezvani stated he’s spending extra time with the smaller Apollo.
These early years of progress for a model, that’s his space of experience, he stated.
“In the event you informed me to open a model in New York and go from one to 10 to fifteen places, my companion and I can try this. It’s really easy for us,” he stated. “However taking a enterprise from 15 to 100, that I simply don’t know tips on how to do.”
