It’s around 11:30 a.m. on a Monday. It’s a little late for breakfast and not quite lunchtime at Biscuit Belly in NuLu, the East Market District adjacent to downtown Louisville, yet a line of customers waits to order. Those who have placed their orders have grabbed a table, claimed a booth, or bellied up to the counter to wait for their gourmet biscuit breakfast and maybe a mimosa or two.
The clientele is diverse: a young family with two toddlers in tow, a trio of runners meeting up after logging some miles, a couple on a blind date, and a veteran writer and her husband clandestinely conducting “research” for an upcoming magazine feature.
The orders also are diverse, given that there are more than a dozen variations of biscuit meals from which to choose, including a biscuit version of a Hot Brown complete with turkey, smoked gouda mornay, bacon and roasted tomatoes; the Belly Buster made with a fried chicken breast, sausage, bacon, brisket, cheddar cheese, mushroom gravy and an egg all sandwiched into a biscuit the size of a large human’s hand; and The Boomer, a vegetarian option of a massive biscuit smothered in mushroom gravy.
Inspired by the large homemade Southern biscuit sandwiches from their native Georgia, restaurateurs Lauren and Chad Coulter opened the NuLu location in May 2019.
Lauren said that her husband wanted to open a gourmet biscuit eatery but initially didn’t think their new home in Kentucky would support it.
“I thought, ‘He’s crazy. These people in Louisville are super posh. They’re never going to want these mega biscuits,’ and then, of course … I started seeing them pop up [around the country],” she said. “But we obviously saw the opportunity.”
Lauren said they wanted to put their own spin on the opportunity and tap into the highest growth areas in the United States food industry.
“We brought together the fast-casual space with fried chicken, which is continuing to boom, and brunch, and so bringing together those three areas of food … it intersects them all,” she said. “We have plenty of customers who come in for the speed of service … to get this massive, decadent biscuit sandwich quickly and sit down and enjoy it with their family and get out. We also have plenty of third-shift workers coming in for a drink after work and sitting for a couple of hours with their mimosas and their biscuit.”
Mimosas aren’t the only adult beverages Biscuit Belly has on the menu. On offer are Bloody Marys, tequila sunrises, bourbon-spiked coffee and a maple old fashioned. Lauren said the cocktails set them apart from the other gourmet biscuit restaurants.
“It’s a huge differentiator in this industry,” she said. “It just gives us another way to have a little something for everyone for breakfast.”
This unique approach to the biscuit brunch model appears to be working. The Coulters have opened eight locations in Kentucky and three other states (Alabama, Georgia and Indiana) with one in Chesapeake, Virginia, on the way. In Kentucky, Biscuit Belly has three locations in Louisville (NuLu, Middletown and St. Matthews) and one in Lexington.
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The Lexington restaurant was the Coulters’ first endeavor into a new business venture: They sold a Biscuit Belly franchise to Shoffner Family Foods, a family-owned franchise operation started more than 50 years ago by J. Roy Shoffner, one of the first Kentucky Fried Chicken franchisees. Today, second-generation Shoffners Jay and Kelly operate dozens of KFC and Long John Silver’s restaurants throughout Kentucky, Indiana and Tennessee.
It was Biscuit Belly that caught the eye of the third generation, sisters Madison Shoffner and Mallory Shoffner Quintero.
The two had frequented the Louisville Biscuit Belly locations “long before franchising became an option,” Madison said. “It’s our go-to on the weekends, so it was a no-brainer for our family when we got the opportunity to sign on.”
Lauren said she and Chad made a list of what they wanted in a franchise partner, and the Shoffner sisters checked all the boxes.
“I think the night they officially signed on with us, I just cried, and it was such an ‘Oh my gosh, is this happening?’ moment,” she said. “They are people who know restaurants, who are just so engaged in their community, and who are fun people who we could actually sit around and hang out with. It’s so important.”
Since it was the first Biscuit Belly franchise to open, Lauren said they still had a lot of work to do to make sure their brand was well represented and their trust in Shoffner Family Foods was well placed.
“We had built pretty good systems for our stores, but making it so that things are replicable and can be easily repeated is so crucial,” Lauren said. “When you sign on to be the first franchise partner, you are setting yourself up for a few years of constant change, and they have been amazing partners in this. That’s been a huge blessing for us. We can’t even articulate how much it has helped us overall.”
For the Shoffner sisters, the downtown Lexington location was their first entry into the family franchise enterprise, and it turned out to be a great market in which to get their feet wet.
“We have been so well received by the Lexington market,” Madison said. “We started off on Main Street, right as you’re going into downtown. We felt that was a great central location. We were big fans, and we knew it would be successful.”
So successful that the sisters are planning to “spread the love” with two more Lexington locations—one in the Leestown Road area slated to open by the end of the summer and another in the Ethington Shops on Harrodsburg Road targeted for the beginning of 2024.
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As for the expanding Biscuit Belly enterprise, more than 20 franchises are in development. An initial buy-in for a Biscuit Belly franchise is between $697,000 and $1.1 million.
Madison said it is well worth the investment. The Coulters “really, really believe in their product and their business,” she said. “They made it easy for us to get excited about it, and that’s truly what it has been from day one.
“It’s something that we’ve fully bought into and are totally excited about and talking to everyone about. We would never want to push something that we didn’t totally back one hundred percent, and Biscuit Belly was easy for us to get behind from the very beginning.”
Biscuit Belly has four Kentucky locations: Middletown, Nulu, St. Matthews, Lexington. For location or catering information, menu items and more, visit biscuitbelly.com.