Long John Silver’s gears up for Lent

Long John Silver's
Feb 18, 2016
1 min read

The Super Bowl is on Sunday. But for Long John Silver’s, the big day comes three days later, on Ash Wednesday.

That’s when many of the nation’s 69.5 million Catholics give up meat and eat lots of seafood. Sales typically increase 75 percent at the Louisville-based chain on Ash Wednesday.

The company expects to sell as much as a half-million Hush Puppies that day, and it expects to sell 22 million pieces of fish throughout the season.

“Lent is our Super Bowl,” James O’Reilly, Long John Silver’s CEO, told Nation’s Restaurant News. “For our franchisees and company operators, it is our most important season.”

And this year is particularly important. O’Reilly took the helm at the quick-service chain in March and the company has since overhauled its management team, adding a new chief operating officer in Brian Unger and a new vice president of culinary innovation in Peter Czizek.

How important? “We’ve been preparing this for nine months,” said O’Reilly, the former chief brand officer with Sonic Drive-Ins. “We’re excited for Lent. We expect to continue our momentum in 2016.”

O’Reilly said that sales at the chain picked up in the second half of 2015, and hopes that a strong Lenten season can keep the winning streak going. Though he didn’t provide numbers, he said it was the chain’s best stretch since 2012.