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Dickey’s Barbecue Pit is on a serious growth track with their humble beginnings in mind

Serious pitmasters know there’s no shortcut to true barbecue. And the very serious pitmasters at Dickey’s Barbecue Pit also know no there’s shortcut to real success. Since 1941, the Dickey family have combined their hankering for Legit. Texas. Barbecue.™ with business acumen and a love of giving back and have grown from a single rib shack by the railroad tracks to the largest barbecue chain in the world.

The trains are long gone now, replaced by Dallas’ Central Expressway, but the original Dickey’s remains. (While the company is largely a franchise organization, the family still owns and operates 10 sites.)

“Our headquarters is right across the freeway from our first location, and we get to see it every day,” said Roland Dickey Jr., Chief Executive Officer of Dickey’s Capital Group, the holding company of Dickey’s Barbecue Restaurants, Inc. Since taking on the role in 2016, he’s led the Dickey organization through years of fast growth and change.

The enterprise currently features over 550 locations across the U.S. and eight other countries. The company’s arrival on the retail scene has also been lucrative; in 2022 Dickey’s boasted their presence in 5,000 stores, and in the two years since they’ve nearly doubled that number.

The third-generation business is as dedicated to keeping the brand in their family as they are keeping Texas barbecue real. “Dickey's is the hub of our organization and everything else is the spoke, and it's always there with my business,” Roland said. “My grandfather built a business he loved, and we love that business, too.”

Laura Rea Dickey has been with the firm since 2009, serving first as CIO and in a number of marketing and technology leadership roles. In 2016, she became CEO of Dickey’s Barbecue Restaurant, Inc. “If we can't go out to the market and find exactly what we need as restaurateurs and as a family business, then we will create it ourselves.” she said.

That passion led the company to expand their manufacturing operations to include proteins as well as their sauces and dry spice rubs. “Some of our best ideas came out of our biggest challenges and that's what our manufacturing story has been,” she noted. When a supplier failed to meet their quality standards, they decided to make the products in-house. “We built the Wycliff Douglas Provisions plant from the ground up in Mesquite, Texas,” Roland said.

“We had such volume, such velocity that we weren't able to consistently find a supplier that could meet our need at a fair competitive price without sacrificing quality,” Laura added. “And it's our old family recipe, it's been around since 1941. We have to protect legacy and quality.”

The shift to producing proteins came as a result of the supply chain disruptions of 2020-21. Their large footprint would limit the number of suppliers who could meet their demand. “We needed to step in and make sure we had the right products,” she said. “It's time to do our own.”

Last year, Dickey’s and Wycliff Douglas Provisions earned the Innovative Supply Chain Improvements award from Franchise Update Media for the USDA-certified plant and its impressive capabilities.

Their passion for the craft is a boon to Dickey’s franchise operators. Producing their own products provides a consistent supply of high-quality provisions that are guaranteed to be competitively priced. The company hasn’t increased prices on their sauce or spice blends in the 15 years that they’ve been producing them.

The protein operation has been in full swing for roughly two years. “We started making sausage for restaurants and the quality and the consistency in pricing just improved overnight – 100% for our franchisees,” Laura said. “That was a huge improvement. Franchisees were happy, and that’s what we wanted: to help them make money and give them a great product. And we've been doing it ever since. We are also private label for other brands, too.”

Building up to grow

“We have vertically integrated, but everything that we do is synergistic with a simple but profitable restaurant model,” Roland said. “It’s always been a business for us, and it's always been something we love.” And that business is booming.

Construction is underway at the Mesquite plant to double capacity. The manufacturing operation is also expanding through acquisitions. “We’ve acquired two other processing companies. We’re looking at strategic acquisitions of smaller processing plants that have a sausage business or a legacy brand,” Roland said. “They’re family businesses too.”

They have purchased two plants in Louisiana, and a third purchase is underway. “We've been fortunate to find some investors that believe in us and have seen the returns that we could provide, so they're investing with us for future plants too,” Laura said.

In addition to Wycliff Douglas, the company also founded Spark Hospitality Technology, which enables restaurants to focus on their food and guests, not their point-of-sale business. “We are entrepreneurial and nimble, and always flexible. We are big enough to have a lot of opportunity, but small and scrappy enough to know we've just got to make it work,” she said. “That’s what we have done with tech, too.”

Dickey’s manages their technology in-house, from online ordering, a mobile app, point of sale to data management. “We didn't have the right integrated, completely flexible suite of technology to fully meet our operators’ needs. So, we applied our entrepreneurial skills to a different part of the business, restaurant technology, and it’s been a good value add.” It’s not surprising that Laura developed some of the tech herself.

Dickey’s is built on good values, embodied in the philanthropic work of The Dickey Foundation. The foundation is a passion project for Roland’s mom (and Laura’s mother-in-law). “Maurine has this wonderful, true spirit of giving back and it's something that's been part of the brand for all three generations,” Laura said.

“We try to take the original principles of keep it real simple, but keep it real high quality and then give back.” said Roland of grandfather and founder Travis Dickey. “He always gave back to the police officers, so we built a foundation that way.”

The foundation operates in every community where Dickey’s does business, giving back to first responders. “Every community has first responders. They're the backbone of that community so it's been incredible to be able to do that,” Laura said. “I have learned so much about the overwhelming needs from supporting police officers and firefighters and EMTs and emergency nurses not only individually, but also what their equipment needs are, and where their budget shortfalls are.”

Roland added: “We have tons and tons of law enforcement and firefighters in our restaurants. When we set up the Dickey Foundation it’s extrapolating that to just help in every way we can. We take every dollar that we can to help first responders and it stays consistent with our original mission.”

Laura concluded: “If I’m going to say anything about success and business, it's to find the best folks you can and really put everything you’ve got into being successful with them whether it's barbecue or any other kind of business. That’s the secret in the sauce, if you will.”

Another part of that recipe is becoming and staying flexible. Deep in the heart of Texas, the people of Dickey’s restaurants and affiliated companies have a mantra courtesy of Hannibal: You find a path, or you make one.