Chapter 1: What challenges did Burger King face before Tom Curtis took over?
Recently, Burger King posted a clip on social media of one of their executives taking a big bite of their signature Whopper.
Not bad, right? Only one thing missing. A napkin.
The clip went viral because the exec seemed to really enjoy his burger. Last week, I sat down to talk to him. So glad to have you on. Thank you again for taking the time.
Hi, Jess. Great to be here.
Just for the record, could we start by just having you introduce yourself, please?
Okay. I'm Tom Curtis. I'm the president of Burger King in the United States and Canada.
Tom joined Burger King in 2021, and he knew coming in that there were problems that needed fixing.
I don't think that we're an exceptional brand yet. I don't think that we're the absolute best that we can be. And I think that people catch that and see that every single day. I don't want consumers to think that we're standing up and saying, we're perfect, we're fixed, we get it all right every day, because it's simply not true.
Why aren't you the best? It's usually pretty hard to admit when you're not hitting up to par, right? How are you failing?
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Chapter 2: How is Tom Curtis modernizing Burger King's restaurants?
When I got here, they said... Hey, listen, we know how to analyze the business. We've done everything else wrong. So come in and help us do that right or find the right way. And it hasn't been easy and it hasn't been done by me alone at all. We've been on this journey together and we've learned together what's going to make this brand great again.
There are almost 7,000 Burger King restaurants in the U.S., many of them franchisees. And over the last few years, the average profitability per U.S. restaurant has fallen. And so when Tom joined, he started by putting together a team that would actually go visit some of these franchisees in person.
The first early steps that don't really get talked about too much was we fortified the field team. We added more support in the restaurants and we had them visiting restaurants more often, not cooking up spreadsheets from their homes and sending the spreadsheets to the franchisees with checklists of things to do. A larger field team being in the restaurants.
And then with my operations team, we started to eliminate some differences in the way that you build products. For example, we had one double burger where you would put burger, cheese, burger, cheese. And then we added another double burger where you would go burger, burger, cheese, cheese. So can we just do it one way? So now we do it one way for all the burgers.
It's just the simplest things like that to make it easier for restaurants to execute. Probably another one more big move I think we made that was indicative of a lot of things we were doing was we had a hand-breaded chicken that we had launched, which had 21 steps. And I don't know if... 21 steps. And I don't know if you've heard, but we're actually a burger brand. And so...
You know, the restaurants were executing poorly on our flagship Whopper because they were so distracted trying to do a complex hand-breaded chicken that took 21 steps. And let me tell you, when that chicken sandwich was done correctly, it was spectacular. But the bottom line was we couldn't do that and make the world's best burger.
So Tom wanted to simplify the menu. He also wanted to upgrade its restaurants across the country. Originally, Burger King had a goal of modernizing 85% of its restaurants by 2028. But they've had to pull back from that target because of slowing business and rising costs. One of the biggest reasons? Beef. In an earnings call, Burger King said its U.S. beef prices rose more than 20% in 2025.
Those costs are expected to stay high this year. Are you considering raising prices?
So, you know, I saw this in my former life. You know, franchisees and us are very disciplined about prices when costs go up. It really puts a squeeze on people who are negative growth or haven't been growing. So we just we have to hold serve here on price.
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Chapter 3: What strategies is Burger King using to compete with rising beef prices?
And here's my number. I'd love to hear from as many of you as possible. So give me a call, shoot me a text, or leave me a voicemail.
So far, Burger King has gotten 41,000 calls on that phone line. And Tom himself has responded to about 1,500 people.
I want everybody to get a genuine personal connection with somebody who has a big influence on this brand. I got one last week where a customer said, hey, I drive into my town. It was Meadow, Georgia. I'll give away the name of the town. And then when I get off the exit, the first thing I see is the Burger King. But the Burger King sign has been broken for two years.
And it makes me feel bad about my town. Man, getting that feedback and then immediately getting on the phone with the field and the franchisee, that thing's being addressed immediately and quickly. And being able to make a difference like that is really important.
What were the most common complaints that you did hear? Like top three.
Top three. Let's see. I would go with fix your fries. And how about the fries? Got to fix the fries, man.
And I don't know if it's the oil y'all are using.
I would say the second one, and maybe this one just as elevated in my mind, but more hospitality and more friendliness are something that people ask for. If we can make quantum leaps in the guest experience, just a smile, hello, I'll be right with you. That's all it takes. If you say those things and do those things, you'll make the experience magical.
So I think that's one of the biggest opportunities in our business.
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Chapter 4: How does Burger King plan to simplify its menu?
And I think a brand does come from... You know, and what a brand is doing comes from the leader and the leader needs to be where the buck stops. We need to take accountability for where we make mistakes and the things that we've done wrong. And we also need to proudly point in the direction that we're going. And if you listen intently to the American public, there's no way you get that wrong.
Well, Tom, thank you so much for your time here.
All right. Well, thank you. Love talking about this stuff and could do it all day. So appreciate that you guys had me on.
That's all for today, Friday, April 10th. The Journal is a co-production of Spotify and The Wall Street Journal.
The show is made by Laura Benchoff, Catherine Brewer, Pia Gadkari, Max Green, Isabella Japal, Sophie Codner, Ryan Knutson, Matt Kwong, Colin McNulty, Annie Minoff, Laura Morris, Enrique Perez de la Rosa, Sarah Platt, Alan Rodriguez-Espinosa, Heather Rogers, Piers Singhi, Jeeva Kaverma, Katherine Whalen, Tatiana Zamise, and me, Jessica Mendoza.
Our engineers are Griffin Tanner, Nathan Singapak, and Peter Leonard. Our theme music is by So Wiley. Additional music this week from Peter Leonard, Bobby Lord, Nathan Singapak, Griffin Tanner, So Wiley, and Blue Dot Sessions. Fact-checking this week by Kate Gallagher and Mary Mathis. Thanks for listening. See you on Monday.
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