The Flying Biscuit Café has signed a single-unit franchise agreement that puts the Atlanta-born all-day breakfast and brunch brand in Virginia for the first time. Franchisee Nitant Patel will develop the Richmond café, marking the brand's entry into both the state and the metro market. Site selection is underway; the address, opening date and hiring details will be announced once a lease is signed.

Patel is joined by franchise partners Niraj Patel and Nimesh Patel. The three are family and have operated restaurant and retail businesses in Virginia and North Carolina, including convenience stores with delis — experience that put Nitant Patel behind a morning counter handling food service, hiring and customer service before he pursued a restaurant of his own. He holds a bachelor's degree in accounting.

He had not eaten at a Flying Biscuit before Niraj Patel brought the brand to him. The group evaluated the business model and the brand's three decades in operation before signing.

The demographic case for the market is concrete. The Richmond metropolitan statistical area grew from 1,186,501 residents in 2010 to 1,314,434 in the 2020 census, and the U.S. Census Bureau estimated it at 1,349,732 in 2023. Growth has concentrated in the surrounding counties — Chesterfield, Hanover and Goochland — where new rooftops have outpaced the area's sit-down breakfast and brunch options. That supply-demand gap is what a daytime-only brunch concept is positioned to capture.

"We're the first Flying Biscuit in this market, so we get to be a new face here," said Nitant Patel, franchise partner. "What we want is to leave a lasting impression and make a lot of friends out of it. Richmond has all kinds of people from all kinds of backgrounds, and every one of them should feel looked after when they walk in."

The operating model differs from a dinner house. Flying Biscuit serves breakfast, brunch and lunch, with cafés closing in the afternoon. The menu runs to Southern-inspired takes on brunch standards — stuffed French toast, the brand's shrimp and grits, hearty omelets, vegan scrambles, burgers and wraps. The Richmond café will include a full bar, serving the brand's brunch-forward cocktails alongside the breakfast and lunch menu, adding a beverage revenue stream to the daytime format.

"Virginia has been the logical next step north as our Carolina cafés have filled in, and Richmond is where we wanted to start," said Andrew Scherzer, partner and director of franchise development, Flying Biscuit Franchising. "The Patels have been running restaurant and retail businesses in Virginia and North Carolina for years. They know the market, and they understand a business that opens early and closes in the afternoon — that is a different operation from a dinner house, and they walked in already knowing the difference."

The Richmond deal covers one café only, but the partners have said they want to sign for a second café once the first is open, and hope to develop three to five over time.

The agreement extends a run of new-market activity for the franchisor. Flying Biscuit signed its first Missouri lease in the St. Louis metro in August and added franchise agreements in Nashville, the Tri-Cities in northeast Tennessee and Palm Beach County, Fla. Its newest café opened in downtown Knoxville on Sept. 12.

Prospective franchisees can review available markets and development requirements at flyingbiscuitfranchising.com. With the Richmond agreement signed and a development pipeline stretching from Florida to Missouri, the brand's next milestones will be a signed lease in Richmond — and, if the Patels follow through, a second agreement shortly after the first café opens.