To mark the Mr. Bigg’s 30th anniversary, the UAC Restaurant has launched an in-store promotion in conjunction with Coca-Cola to celebrate with and reward its teeming customers nationwide. The promo is tagged Mr. Bigg’s Shout-out.
The promo that was launched at the Mr. Bigg’s first franchisee’s outlet on Marina was witnessed by some key franchisees drawn across Nigeria and they are Pastor Mrs. Titilayo Adeojo, Mr Bigg’s first franchisee, Mr. Bigg’s Ikeja City Mall and Orgun outlets owner, Mrs. Funmilayo Olukogbon, and Mrs Pauline Nwana, Mr. Bigg’s Assba franchisee. Others critical stakeholders were also in attendance.
UAC Resturant (UACR); Marketing Manager, Mrs. Eustesia Ogunnusi, “To mark this milestone, we have launched an in-store promo to celebrate with and reward our customers, adding that our partner, Coca Cola has also provided branded 50cl PET drinks with the inscription ‘’Mr Biggs @ 30’’ to celebrate the brand and excite our customers.” Ogunusi urged customers to take advantage of this gesture from the brand and share in Mr. Bigg’s joy.
Speaking at the event, Mr. Bola Olatinwo, Human Resources Manager, UACR said Mr. Biggs evolved from reactions to the growing demand for greater variety in fast food offerings for freshly baked, hot snacks and meals.
At its opening of business to the general public, Mr Bigg’s shocked business with its possibilities. The customers count easily hit the roof, thus making Mr Biggs one of the top ten fast foods restaurants in the world in terms of customer counts.
The pioneer restaurant had 12 cash points with seats for 108 customers at the same time.
Olatinwo reminisced, “Mr Bigg’s opened the first restaurant at 51 Marina Street, Lagos in 1986 and at that time only a limited menu of pastries; beef, chicken and apple pies, sausage rolls, doughnuts and beef burgers was available, a far cry from the extensive menu on offer today.”
He said the second Mr Bigg’s restaurant opened two years later, in 1988, and thereafter one restaurant was opened in Lagos every two years. By 1995, Mr Bigg’s had opened five restaurants in Lagos, and moved to Port Harcourt.
Mr Biggs has been the pioneer quick service restaurant business to open in most states of the country. It was the first to start franchising with the first restaurant in Abuja and with the opening of the first branch in Ghana in 2005 Mr Bigg’s became the first indigenous QSR to open a restaurant in a West African country. Mr Biggs restaurant chain grew steadily expanding across key cities in the country until it had developed a network of over 125 restaurants
In October 2010 in response to the yearnings of our customers, we officially launched our “All New Look” Mr. Bigg’s. This involved a total re-engineering in terms of product offering, packaging, logo and the restaurants look and feel. It was also at this period that the current pay off ‘’Always good’’ was enacted and the menu offering was expanded to include meals that appeals to the Nigerian local palate like veggie rice, white rice with stewed chicken, assorted beef and others too numerous to mention. At Mr Biggs, we offer our customers’ local Nigerian meals in addition to pastries and confectionaries which is our flagship product line.
Highlighting the brand impact in the society, the Human Resources Manger said that the QSR brand has affected lives in various ways amongst which are the franchising model of business operation – a platform that creates opportunity for entrepreneurs to put their skills to use in owning and running a Mr Biggs restaurant; provision of direct employment to thousands of Nigerians through its network of restaurants spread across the country, as well as indirect employment for suppliers, contractors and other business partners. The brand is also versed at creating the right connections, bond and affinity with her target market through various corporate social responsibility programmes and events.
