Franchise Focus

How a Mooyah franchisee moved into chicken with Layne's Chicken Fingers

After tapping out the Madison, Wisconsin area with a burger concept, Lucas Bergeson, along with his family and a partner, brought Layne's Chicken Fingers to the area.

Lucas Bergeson works in the kitchen of one of his Layne's Chicken Fingers franchises. Photo: Layne's Chicken Fingers

December 12, 2025 by Mandy Wolf Detwiler — Editor, Networld Media Group

There's a lot to be said about being a third-generation restaurateur. For Layne's Chicken Fingers franchisee Lucan Bergeson, that means his grandparents had restaurants his dad, Randy, worked in and Bergeson himself worked in his dad's restaurants with his brother, Josh. Now as a franchisee himself, Bergeson is learning how challenging it can be to run his own shops.

"I kind of caught the bug from a very early age," Bergeson told QSRweb.com in a phone interview. "I think the rule was that when my brother and I were tall enough to reach the back line of the make table, we were making sandwiches."

He wanted to join the family business right out of high school, but Bergeson's mother, a school teacher, felt her son needed a degree to fall back on. She told Bergeson she wouldn't sign off on him working with his dad unless he got that degree, which he did in 2014 from the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse.

Bergeson initially joined his dad who opened a Mooyah Burgers, Fries and Shakes in 2015. Their first franchise was located in Fitchburg, Wisconsin. His brother, Josh, who swore he'd never become involved the restaurant business, joined the venture and today they have five Mooyah restaurants, all in the Madison, Wisconsin market.

Photo: Layne's Chicken Fingers

Choosing chicken

After tapping out the Madison market with Mooyah, the family considered diversifying and sought a universally loved product, landing on fried chicken. They were close to signing with another brand when they were contacted by Samir Wattar, the chief operating officer at Layne's Chicken Fingers. Wattar had previously worked at Mooyah and was familiar with the Bergeson family.

The Bergesons flew to visit Layne's in Texas and they conducted a taste test with "every chicken brand you can think of," Bergeson said, "and we tried everybody's chicken versus Layne's blind taste tests. There's four of us owners involved: my dad, my brother and I, and then a longtime employee. His name is Yodani that we brought into ownership on this venture. Layne's won unanimously every time in a blind taste test on every metric. We were blown away there."

At the time, Layne's Chicken Fingers had about a dozen restaurants open. Initially, the Bergesons thought Texas was too far to open a franchise in Wisconsin, but Wattar and his team ensured the family they could handle the supply chain.

The Bergeson's first Layne's Chicken Fingers location opened in Janesville, Wisconsin in April 2024, with a second this past July in Appleton, Wisconsin, both in the Madison area.

"We wanted to get into another brand with a drive-thru, especially," Bergeson said. "We didn't want to put in the kind of money and time you need to put in to open a new restaurant unless we thought we could do some serious, really good volume. Janesville and Appleton just happened to have locations that kind of fit our criteria. We had people ready in the wings waiting to take over and run restaurants for us that were working for us at a lower level and wanting an opportunity to run a restaurant. And those were two markets that we found that had a lot of opportunity to gain market share."

Some would say the chicken market is oversaturated. Bergeson said the same could be said about burgers and they successfully brought Mooyah to the Madison area.

"No matter what segment you go into, there's going to be competition," Bergeson said. "It just it comes down to how bad do you want it? How hard do you want to work? The foundation has to be, do you have a product that is easy to duplicate and replicate across multiple locations, across multiple day parts? And do you have a product that is craveable and something that can be eaten regularly and not get tired of it? Layne's nails that on every front. It's easy to duplicate, easy to replicate and it's craveable."

The products are simple — there are sauces made in-house, they use a spicy and original breading for the chicken tenders, and the Texas Toast is popular — but the products the brand uses are high quality.

Labor

Bergeson said 2021 and 2022 was the work labor shortage the family had experienced. In that time, they had four Mooyah restaurants and in the span of nine months they had to go into every single one of their restaurants and clean house because "we had people who were taking advantage of the labor market, not doing things the right way, not holding standards, or they were treating our employees poorly," he said.

The family went in and learned how to run their stores as managers because they didn't want to be in a position where a manager left the company and the Bergesons didn't know how to execute their own businesses.

They also realized around that time that they were putting too much on their managers' plates. They like to promote from within. And although Wisconsin's minimum wage is $7.25 an hour, Layne's Chicken Fingers pays in the $15 to $18 starting wage and has added tip share into that.

They've also launched a new program where 100% of their employees have access to free on-demand virtual healthcare with concierge service to help employees find affordable treatment options and prescriptions. That goes for everyone in their immediate household as well. It's convenient and employees don't have to miss a shift to take their kids to the doctor's office. The program also includes 10 free mental health sessions with a licensed therapist.

Advice

Bergeson said he would tell future franchisees to be ready to be the expert and put in the work.

"Very few people can invest in a franchise without being an expert in, not just the business itself, but the actual nitty-gritty, nuts-and-bolts, running the day-to-day because that allows you to be able to walk into your operation, whether it's a restaurant or another type of franchise, and know what right looks like and know whether or not things are running smoothly and properly," Bergeson said.

He recommends getting a list of franchisees to call, and not just those that have been cherry-picked by a brand.

"What are your costs, what is your EBITDA and what's your ROI?" Bergeson said. "Then you can project out how quickly you can grow based on the cash flow that's coming in from those units if you hit those marks."

About Mandy Wolf Detwiler

Mandy Wolf Detwiler is the managing editor at Networld Media Group and the site editor for PizzaMarketplace.com and QSRweb.com. She has more than 20 years’ experience covering food, people and places.

An award-winning print journalist, Mandy brings more than 20 years’ experience to Networld Media Group. She has spent nearly two decades covering the pizza industry, from independent pizzerias to multi-unit chains and every size business in between. Mandy has been featured on the Food Network and has won numerous awards for her coverage of the restaurant industry. She has an insatiable appetite for learning, and can tell you where to find the best slices in the country after spending 15 years traveling and eating pizza for a living.

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