CUSTOMER STORY
How the Largest Jersey Mike’s Franchisee Cut Through Lease Admin Challenges
Managing nearly 100 leases with a one-person real estate team.
Background
Century Restaurants, Inc., the largest franchisee of Jersey Mike’s, has experienced significant growth and operational success over the past few years, growing from 30 locations to 82 today. A key element of their success has been their adoption of Leasecake, a lease management platform that helped them keep all the documents and dollars associated with their growing portfolio of locations organized, so they can focus on continuing to grow the business. With their plans to be over 100 locations very soon, it’s also one of the reasons “Century” is in their name!
With 82 locations, Century Restaurants, Inc. is the largest franchisee of Jersey Mike's.
With plans to expand to over 100 locations in the near future, Leasecake offers a lease management platform that effectively organizes all documents and financials related to their growing portfolio of locations. This streamlined approach allows them to concentrate on furthering their business growth!
Largest Jersey Mike's Operator
Units and Growing
Goal Portfolio Count
Challenges
Dave Murphy, CFO of Century Restaurants, understands that managing multiple locations as a franchisee presents unique challenges, particularly when it comes to lease management and lease accounting. With 82 stores, Murphy and his team needed a solution that offered visibility into their tenant obligations, helped manage risk, ensured ASC 842 compliance, and prepared them for audits. They knew that with an ever growing portfolio of locations, it was becoming increasingly likely that something would slip through the cracks without the right technology in place.
“Franchisee support is important for ‘smart’ franchisors, and the flip side of that is they have a lot of risk, because the market has changed where all franchisors need to manage risk better. Sometimes franchise systems lose track of franchisees who are out of a lease, or their franchise agreement dates weren’t in line. So there’s got to be a better way for them to track their risk, because if you don’t then you don’t have a location.”
Chris Brown, CEO of Century Restaurants, acts as a one-person real estate team with vast experience in negotiating and securing leases. He was also looking for modern technology to help their operations scale more efficiently.
"When you find a product that truly understands the daily challenges of the multi-unit franchisee business from an operating standpoint, it's really refreshing. For us, Leasecake was the perfect solution for what we needed."
Dave Murphy
CEO, Century Restaurants Inc.
Solution
After evaluating several options, Century Restaurants found that Leasecake was uniquely suited to helping them manage that risk of their real estate portfolio, as well as managing lease accounting and preparing them for audits.
“We looked at two other products our CPA suggested, but it was just bare bones to help with ASC 842 compliance for the journal entries to prepare for our audit,” said Dave Murphy. “And we thought, if we’re gonna go through the pain and effort of going through abstracting all these lease schedules, and option periods, we wanted to have an operational component to it.”
Leasecake stood out as the comprehensive solution they were looking for. “Leasecake was a modern approach that would help us run our business and let our CEO sleep at night, knowing that we’re not missing any expiration dates, notice dates, stuff like that. It would get all of our landlord information, property management contact information in one database. There really wasn’t a close second after we saw what Leasecake could do,” says Dave.
Results
1
Scaling Smarter with Leasecake
Leasecake enabled Century Restaurants to focus on growth by streamlining lease management, saving time, and ensuring no critical dates are missed. Now with 82 locations, they’re on track to hit their goal of 100+ stores.
2
From Management to Momentum
With Leasecake handling lease details and automated reminders, Century Restaurants has freed up time to focus on strategic expansion, evolving into a scalable, efficient multi-unit operator.
3
The Right Tool for Multi-Unit Growth
Century Restaurants found in Leasecake a solution tailored to franchise challenges, empowering them to consolidate operations, scale effectively, and seize growth opportunities.
Leasecake is a top rated solution
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Their Success Started Here.
Yours Can Too.
Let’s turn your lease headaches into automated solutions.
