NBA Corridor-of-Famer Shaquille O’Neal is sending his Large Rooster franchise to South Florida, with a blitz of fast-casual eating places set to open throughout the tricounty in 2022 and 2023.
All instructed, the fried-chicken franchise based by the basketball icon in 2018 inked a deal for 45 franchises in Florida, with Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Seaside slated to open first. New storefront leases are “days away” from being signed with future outposts destined for Miami, Tampa, Orlando and Fort Myers. No addresses have been introduced but.
An ode to the favourite flavors of the previous Miami Warmth participant’s childhood — mac and cheese and hen wings — Large Rooster slings fried-chicken sandwiches with many toppings. There’s the Large & Sloppy with mac and cheese, fried onions; the Large Aristotle (muenster cheese, fried onions, Memphis-style barbecue sauce); and the Shaq Assault (pepper jack, jalapeño slaw, spicy chipotle barbecue sauce).
The menu additionally options tenders, sliders and milkshakes. Sides embrace Cheez-It-crusted mac-n’-cheese, jalapeño slaw and candy potato French fries.
Fred Burgess, whose Davie-based hospitality group DMD Ventures partnered with O’Neal on the franchises, tells the South Florida Solar Sentinel that he felt an on the spot kinship with the NBA legend, particularly after assembly him in individual final week at a Las Vegas restaurant.
Sitting in a restaurant sales space throughout from Shaq might be intimidating — the expertise, for Burgess, not in contrast to rubbing shoulders with an enormous. When the assembly completed, O’Neal and Burgess stood up and shook fingers, and “my hand felt like a bit ping-pong ball in his hand,” he recollects.
“This isn’t the standard case the place a celeb endorses a hen place. That is really a model he created by himself and is impressed by him,” Burgess says. “He discovered these veteran companions and desires to scale up quick.”
O’Neal’s enterprise acumen struck him as spectacular, says Burgess, whose DMD Ventures additionally operates native Papa Johns franchises and several other South Florida areas of Twin Peaks, a sports activities “breastaurant.”
Finally, it was Shaq’s ego that offered Burgess and his DMD Ventures associate, Jack Flechner. Calling his eating places “Rooster Shaq” — or another on-the-nose, celebrity-driven title — would have been cringeworthy, he says, and Burgess revered O’Neal extra for sidestepping the plain.
“He might have referred to as this Shaq’s Large Rooster,” Burgess says. “However the model isn’t targeted on him. Whenever you enter a retailer, you’re not surrounded by Shaq. They stayed away from that. It’s unbelievable to maintain your ego out of it.”
Based in Las Vegas, Large Rooster at present has 200 new franchises within the pipeline, with a handful already open in two states, inside sports activities arenas and even aboard Carnival Cruise ships.
Large Rooster plans to open areas in Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Seaside in late 2022 and early 2023. Go to BigChicken.com.
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