2026 Dynamic Dozen No. 11: Big Whiskey’s Concepts LLC

SBJ: What has been key to your recent growth?
Paul Sundy: It’s head down, keep working. We’ve always forged forward putting great people around us and partnering with the right franchise partners. That has allowed us to expand at a steady pace. We’re never scared of change. Like a lot of people, we don’t want there to always be constant change. We would love that, but when change happens in our world, we have the ability to adapt very quickly.

SBJ: What are your top issues when it comes to managing growth?
Sundy: Labor is the big thing right now. Financing and construction costs are absolutely hard to adjust for. We did not expect things to grow as expensive. Five years ago, it was 35%-40% less to build one, and the sales of stores has not increased to the level that the construction price has. We’ve done some readjustments in our plan. We’ve readjusted how many bells and whistles we can afford to throw in a store.

SBJ: What has the company’s growth enabled you to do?
Sundy: It’s allowed us to build a stronger team. We have a financial infrastructure that allows us to keep putting bodies behind the scenes that allows us to be the most consistent franchise brand – that just has 22 stories – that I know of. We are a technology-first business. We use technology in every way that we can but it’s only to benefit the guest experience. Our expansion has allowed us to continue to embrace what technology is for our industry.

SBJ: Is your fast growth sustainable?
Sundy: It’s probably not, to be completely honest. It’s sustainable if we continue to invest in infrastructure. We’ve been franchising for 11 years. The first three years of franchising is just figuring it out. We didn’t sell a single store, we didn’t do anything, but we were in the franchising business. Then, it popped, and we had some great out-of-the-gate success.

SBJ: How did the pandemic change your business model?
Sundy: Before COVID, we did 2.5%-3.5% to-go food and now we’re 13%-15%. We treat it as an individual restaurant for the guest experience because whether they’re having those memories sitting at our table or whether they’re having those memories sitting at their table, they are eating our food.

SBJ: Is there such thing as growing too fast?
Sundy: Yes there is, We’ve had great franchise partners. We’ve had not so great franchise partners, we’ve had moments where we have had to readjust and look at how we’re doing our process. We haven’t gotten caught going too fast.

SBJ: Have your goals changed as business has taken off?
Sundy: The goals haven’t changed. They’ve stayed the same. We’re going to keep rocking and rolling as long as people want to see our brand out there and we have a lot of markets where they do. We’re being very fiduciarily responsible with our growth strategy. We’ll do one corporate store every year or two years and that is a fine, steady pace for us. Our big upside is these franchise stores.

SBJ: What is the best business advice you’ve received?
Sundy: If it’s not big, we’re not going for it.