Anthony MacFarlane (Macca), co-founder of Wings and Tins, joined us for a brief chat at the Sydney Franchising & Business Opportunities Expo, August 2022.

We covered some of the key aspects of the Wings and Tins franchise business including the type of people that are best suited, any common misconceptions about the brand or industry, as well as what he loves about what he does and more…

What is your business?

“Our business is called Wings and Tins, and we focus on two really simple offerings chicken wings and craft beer. 

Where are you located?

Our first and key venue is in Darlinghurst. That was our first venue that we opened. That's where we run our office out of in Darlinghurst, in Sydney. 

We've opened a second venue in Dee Why and our first franchise just opened at the start of the year in Newcastle. 

What do you love about the business and what you do?

The thing I love most about our business is that it's a genuinely fun business to work and operate in. 

It's a bar, it's a restaurant. Our offering is very, very simple. It's chicken wings, and beer.  Very, very few people that don't like either one of those two things. 

We've even got vegan and vegetarian chicken wings. I know that sounds weird, but there's a soy based one and there's deep fried broccoli, which kind of like a wing once you fry it and put sauce all over it. 

So it's just a really fun offering. Our social media runs all of our marketing and it's a fun place to interact with our customers. 

We’re tongue in cheek, we can be a bit naughty with our language. We can talk back to customers. It's an environment where there's lots of young people and there's no table service. 

So it's loud music. It's just a great lifestyle business to be a part of with young and dynamic customers and staff. And it's a fun business and it's a simple business to run. 

So and because the overheads are low compared to a lot of hospitality businesses, the numbers work out really well as well. So there's not a lot I don't like about working in it and growing it. 

What do you look for in the right-fit person to be a franchise owner, can you describe them?

I think the right fit for a franchisee for our business would have to be someone who is willing to get their hands dirty a bit. I think there are probably plenty of franchise opportunities where you can plug in the systems and do a bit of the typing and find that kind of business is going to work at a bit of a faraway touch. Ours needs to be someone who is ready to be in a night time business. 

Someone who's possibly… age doesn't matter, but people who are younger tend to be cool with staying up late at night and looking after our customers and we might up until midnight, someone who likes to drink beer, someone who likes chicken wings. 

So I think we need to find like minded people who genuinely enjoy the offering, because if you don't like those kinds of things, it's hard for you to talk about and to find the staff to be in it. 

So someone who's dynamic and full of energy and ready to stay up late and wants to be a part of a business that is a lifestyle choice as well. I think those are all pretty important things for the right franchisee. 

What’s a common misconception you believe people have about your brand or niche?

But I think the idea of a restaurant and of hospitality is that your overheads are very, very high and that your staff turnover is very high, which is very true of hospitality. You get young students and they stick around for a few months and off they go, and you've got to find new staff. 

And that's a huge problem in hospitality, is always finding new staff, and training, having skilled chefs in order to develop the food and the recipes that you have. 

So I think the reason our business avoids some of those things is because it's an extremely simple offering. It's chicken wings and beer. 

We make all the sauces and you just stick them on the wings and toss them and send them out. So that it's very easy to find unskilled staff and so that it's not hard to find staff members because you don't need to find those trained ones. 

And it's a really, really fun place to work. The music's loud, and if you find students and young people who like the business, most of our staff stick around for well over eighteen months. Some have been with us for five years. So the turnover is not very high because it's a great place to work and it's a simple place to work and people don't get stressed working in the environment. 

So we've overcome a few of those typical hospitality sort of things that people avoid. 

What would your advice or guidance be to people looking to get into their own business?

I think our success has been in finding a niche that is very specific and trying to be, and I think being best in class in that very, very niche thing. I think that's the number one thing for any business. 

A lot of times saying ‘guys put a burger on your menu’ or, you know, ‘do some salads because you might get someone in who wants those salads’. And sticking to your guns and saying, I might do that, but I'll do a bad job at it or I'll confuse my offering is the number one thing.  

It's like it's very easy for us to add some things to our menu because it's so simple. But, making sure we stick to that one thing means we have the best wings in town. They're always the biggest, always the tastiest, always the freshest. And more so, we’re thought of that thought leader in that space. 

We're craft beer leaders. If you want a craft beer, we're one of the one places you can come to and choose from any one of 70 breweries around Sydney. 

And so making sure we own that niche and stick wholly within that niche, and don't say, ‘oh, and now we do cocktails’ has been an integral part of our success. 

So my advice would be always stick to what you do well. 

What is your key focus for the next 12-18 months?

Our key focus, we've only launched one franchise, so we are we are still at a chance within the market that we are the leaders and the biggest and the first. And so, that's not going to last forever. 

You know, in order for us to stay ahead, we need to find like minded partners quickly and grow quickly. 

So, our venues now run themselves really beautifully. We've set up some great systems so we don't have to be there. And that's the whole point of a franchise, that a good manager can run it or a good business partner. 

So my focus as the owner is now wholly within finding those business partners and helping them grow and succeed. And that's what I'm focusing on for the next eighteen months.”