Adelaide couple’s food chain Mr Potato rakes in $5m

She hadn’t touched bread or potatoes in 10 years. But a joke from her boyfriend saw the couple dip their toes into the fast food world, resulting in huge success.

As a model, Jess Davis hadn’t touched a carb in 10 years but a joke from her professional basketball player boyfriend about opening up a fast food chain based around potatoes has turned into a $5 million empire for the couple.

While her boyfriend Tyson Hoffman‘s diet mostly consisted of baked potato and chicken, Davis had been on a carb-free diet for a decade, believing anything like bread or potatoes was “bad for you”.

But Hoffman’s joke about the potato chain got her thinking and a week later she had sent him a logo, mock menu and business plan to make the idea come to life.

Despite only being together for three months and with Hoffman playing basketball and working two jobs, while Davis was running her own business, the couple threw themselves into setting up their idea with $45,000.

Tyson Hoffmann, 27 years old, and Jess Davis, 31 years old, started a fast food restaurant in 2018 called Mr Potato. Picture: Supplied

They saved money by doing their own fit out for their first store in Adelaide and launched Mr Potato in December 2018.

“It was basically a storage room in the back of another restaurant down an alleyway, literally a hole in a wall, and not a huge frontage,” Davis told news.com.au.

“I didn’t want to spend a huge amount on a big exorbitant lease, When we opened the doors we thought we would be off to a slow start but on the first day we had 100 customers and sold out of absolutely everything.

“From there we had to hire a team of staff and it just gained momentum, which was crazy.”

The couple went on to open two more restaurants in South Australia and within the first 15 months made $1 million.

In 2020, they sold their first franchise on the Gold Coast with two more Queensland franchises expected to open in early 2022. It means Mr Potato is now a $5 million company.

While the concept is fairly simple, offering a base of baked potato or sweet potato which customers then load up with toppings either of their own choice or selected from options that have already been designed, Davis said there was a gap for healthy affordable takeaway.

Mr Potato’s menu is food allergy-friendly and the chains are 100 per cent gluten-free and have plenty of low-carb, high protein, low fat, low-sugar, vegan and vegetarian options on offer. Picture: Supplied

The most popular option from the menu is The Po-Taco which comes with beef taco mince, lettuce, corn, diced tomato, avocado, crushed corn chips and chipotle.

“Our main push was to be super healthy and everything is lean, but a person could get double bacon and double cheese and make it as unhealthy as they want and to their taste,” Hoffman added.

“We saw a gap in the market for something that caters to everyone.”

There are vegan, vegetarian and gluten-free options, while a regular sized meal costs $14.95, although the chain has also recently introduced a snack size option for $8.95.

“We have very filling meals to be honest and what we did notice is sometimes people were saying, ‘It’s too much for me to eat right now so we might skip out’,” Davis said.

“We also wanted kids to be able to have something small as well, so the snack size is something you can grab at three o’clock in the arvo when you’re not too hungry but it’s something to get you through to dinner.”

Jess Davis hadn’t eaten carbs in 10 years. Picture: Supplied

The launch of Mr Potato has completely changed Davis’ relationship with carbs too.

“When we opened the first store, I started eating the food every day and had twice the amount of energy and I was looking and feeling better than I had in the last 10 years and it changed my whole concept of potatoes,” she said.

“I did a lot of research into the health benefits of potatoes and I was blown away as they are packed with vitamins and minerals, contain half your daily vitamin C intake and more potassium than what a banana has.

“I thought what have I been doing with my life? I guess it is a bit different in the way that people prepare potatoes is normally in an unhealthy way, as they are usually fried or cooked with a lot of saturated fats or they are mashed using lots of butter.

“So Mr Potato’s main things are to make sure we had a really clean base for meals to start so we don’t fry any potatoes or use any oils.”

While 27-year-old Hoffman was “scared” that going into a business together would impact their relationship, both now can’t imagine it any other way.

Davis, 31, said they are “joined at the hip” and doing Mr Potato together has helped them form an unbreakable bond.

The food chain starts with a base of baked potato or sweet potato and then patrons can then choose a pre-loaded option of toppings or build their own. Picture: Supplied

When starting Mr Potato, Davis and Hoffmann founded the company from the little funding they had. Picture: Supplied

This year, the couple are focused on expanding their franchises with Sydney in particular in their sights.

They are in the process of looking at 60 applications from across Australia with the aim to quadruple the number of stores by the end of the year.

The Adelaide couple has also welcomed well-known businessman and investor, Jack Delosa, and former executives of Zambreros to their team.

There’s also a potato ice cream in the works and an overall mission for the pair.

“We want to change the face of fast food one potato at a time and we are one step closer to achieving it,” added Davis.

Originally published as Adelaide couple’s food chain Mr Potato rakes in $5m