The Wiggins Bet Puts Huddle House in Pembroke Anyway

Robert Wiggins Jr. now runs a Huddle House at 484 W. Bacon Street in Pembroke, Georgia, a city of 2,511 people. He and his son Trey bought three of the chain’s own restaurants in Douglas and Swainsboro, then built this one. The wager was that small-town Georgia still pays, even as Huddle House closed more stores than it opened.

Kayla Edidin, senior director of franchise development, called Wiggins the right partner to strengthen the brand across the state. The family’s existing diners already sat among the chain’s stronger volumes. Pembroke was the new box. The other three were company stores changing hands.

Three Corporate Stores and One New Box

On February 3, 2025, Huddle House said Wiggins had signed a multi-unit deal to add four Georgia restaurants to a portfolio that already included Hazlehurst, Baxley, Alma, Claxton, and Reidsville. The brand’s own note on the agreement put Pembroke’s opening in late 2025. Trey Wiggins, who is also leading the venture, said they were aiming for the end of summer if the build went well.

The four additions were not four new buildings. The Wiggins family took two formerly company-owned restaurants in Douglas and one in Swainsboro, then built Pembroke. After those purchases they operated eight Huddle House restaurants, plus five Hardee’s units, one Captain D’s, and hotels. Pembroke made nine Huddle Houses.

WHAT THE FAMILY ADDED

• Two Douglas stores: Former company restaurants, including the 24-hour diner at 1612 Peterson Ave. S., phone (912) 268-8008.
• One Swainsboro store: Another former company unit in Emanuel County.
• One Pembroke build: A new restaurant at 484 W. Bacon St., Pembroke, GA 31321, phone (912) 866-1043.

Huddle House, Inc.’s 2025 franchise disclosure document, issued September 30, 2025 and later amended, shows Georgia company stores falling from 14 to 12 in fiscal 2024, the year that ran May 1, 2024 through April 29, 2025, after three units were sold to franchisees. That sale lines up with the Douglas and Swainsboro handoff. Franchised Georgia outlets ended that year at 53, after five openings, one termination, and one other closure.

I chose to reinvest in Huddle House because it’s a perfect fit for smaller towns, offering an exceptional return on investment. Pembroke is poised for growth due to nearby electric vehicle plant developments, and the new Huddle House will meet the area’s demand for dine-in breakfast and home-style meals.

Robert Wiggins Jr., Huddle House franchisee, on the February 2025 deal

Peter Ortiz, chief development officer at Ascent Development, the development arm of parent Ascent Hospitality Management, said Wiggins had been a trusted partner for years and that franchisee reinvestment was driving expansion into new markets. Edidin said his operating record made him the partner to serve more Georgia communities. The company language was growth. The paperwork under it was a buy-and-build.

Pembroke’s Diner Opened on West Bacon Street

The Pembroke restaurant at 484 W. Bacon Street is listed on the brand’s location pages, on delivery apps, and on review sites updated through September 2026. Listed hours run from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. That is not a 24-hour house. The Douglas store on Peterson Avenue is.

Guest notes from August and September 2026 name servers, praise hash browns and waffles, and also leave a pile of one-star scores. Restaurantji’s compiled rating sits at 3.8 from 102 scores, with 64 percent fives and 20 percent ones. The food is the same all-day grill the brand has sold since 1964: eggs, bacon, grits, golden waffles, burgers, and the newer portable items Ascent rolled out in a 2025 remodel.

A delivery menu for the Bacon Street store prices the MVP Bacon Waffle Taco at $11.55 and the Smokehouse Platter at $20.55. Trey Wiggins has said he points guests to the Meat Lover’s Omelet and to the pancakes and crispy hash browns. Georgia diners still measure that ticket against Waffle House. A $17-class MVP plate sits next to an All-Star special that regulars still quote near $13, and Pembroke did not try to win the overnight trade the bigger chain owns.

Why These Towns, and Why the Hyundai Plant?

Pembroke is the seat of Bryan County. Hyundai Motor Group Metaplant America sits in Ellabell, in the same county, on a 2,900-acre site about 30 miles west of Savannah. Robert Wiggins tied the new diner to that plant. Trey Wiggins said Huddle House does well in small towns because sit-down options are thin and customers want them.

The plant’s public job promise is 8,500 hires by 2031, backed by about $2.1 billion in incentives. Progress reports reviewed in September 2026 counted 4,365 of those jobs as of June 2026, with 2,112 people at the main plant in August. A second shift is on. Annual output is targeted at 500,000 electric and hybrid vehicles, with talk of 800,000 by 2028 still unconfirmed by Hyundai Motor North America. The diner opened against that ramp, not against a finished factory town.

TOWNS IN THE WIGGINS HUDDLE HOUSE BET

Alma and Claxton complete the older five. Swainsboro’s 7,425 residents in the 2020 census make it the larger of the acquired towns; the Census Bureau’s July 1, 2024 estimate is 7,556. Douglas is the only city in the group above 10,000. Pembroke is smaller than Reidsville. The family did not follow rooftops. It followed towns that already knew the brand, plus one county seat next to a car plant that is still hiring.

Trey Wiggins Still Treats It Like a Deployment

Trey Wiggins is a former U.S. Navy pilot who flew P-3 turboprop patrol aircraft. He has said running restaurants reminds him of being in the military, “like being on deployment every day.” The line fits the work: early grills, late closes, and a handful of towns that cannot hide a bad shift.

In February 2025 he said the family’s average unit volumes sat just above the systemwide figure of $818,053, the 2023 average published for the brand. That is the local edge the parent wanted to copy. Multi-unit operators who already beat the average are the ones Ascent has been asking to reinvest, because new names have been slower to open than the signed deals imply.

Will Harrington’s Macon restaurant, opened in October 2024 at 4900 Ocmulgee E Blvd., is the other recent Georgia build that sits in the same pipeline. The Wiggins deal is different because most of the “expansion” was the company selling its own Georgia boxes. When the family announced the February 2025 expansion agreement, the press copy still called Huddle House a fast-growing all-day breakfast franchise with more than 300 locations open or in development. The filing that followed told a tighter story.

The System Lost Dozens of Restaurants Anyway

Huddle House, Inc.’s Item 20 tables count 269 restaurants at fiscal 2024’s close, 212 of them franchised and 57 company-owned. The system started fiscal 2022 with 304 outlets. That is a net loss of 35 restaurants across three fiscal years, including a net drop of three in fiscal 2024. Franchised stores fell from 253 to 212 in that span. Company stores rose from 51 to 57.

HUDDLE HOUSE OUTLETS IN THE 2025 FDD

• System total: 304 at the start of fiscal 2022, 269 at the end of fiscal 2024, a net loss of 35.
• Franchised share: 212 stores, 78.8 percent of the system (212 of 269).
• Georgia mix: 53 franchised and 12 company restaurants, 65 in the founding state.
• Georgia company sales: Three company units sold to franchisees in fiscal 2024, the Wiggins-sized transfer.

The same disclosure sets the cash needed for a new mainline restaurant, when leasing the land and building and buying equipment and signs, at $555,375 to $1,715,275, including $89,000 to $119,000 paid to the franchisor or affiliates. An Express box is listed at $394,830 to $1,251,775. A market development deal charges $35,000 for the first franchise and $17,500 for each additional one. Ongoing royalty is 4.75 percent of net sales.

The FDD also flags a special risk some states require: the franchisor’s financial statements “call into question the Franchisor’s financial ability to provided services and support to you.” That sentence sits in the same packet as the growth pitch franchisees heard in 2025. John Sparks opened the first Huddle House in Decatur, Georgia, in 1964. Sixty-two years later the brand is still a Georgia company, now at 5901-B Peachtree Dunwoody Road, Suite 450, in Sandy Springs, and most of its remaining density is still in the Southeast.

First-Year Royalties Drop to Zero

Ascent Hospitality Management said in September 2026 that new Huddle House restaurants will pay no royalties for the first year, with an extra three months waived if a store opens at least three months ahead of its contracted date. The company is also talking to cities in Georgia and Tennessee about local partnerships, after similar work in Illinois and South Carolina. Bob Campbell became brand president in January 2026, reporting to Ascent chief executive Paul Damico, who took over in October 2025 from James O’Reilly.

Those moves are the parent catching up to what Wiggins already did without a royalty holiday. The family bought cash-flowing Georgia stores, kept volumes above the 2023 average, and opened a diner in a county that is filling factory jobs on a 2031 clock. The prototype still includes a small-town mainline room; newer Express and non-traditional boxes, 500 to 1,200 square feet with drive-thru or walk-up windows, are the formats Ascent wants for airports, campuses, and travel plazas. Pembroke is the old format in the old kind of town.

The grill on Bacon Street is the proof the family will get for now. Shift workers from Ellabell can find eggs and coffee from 6 a.m. The Douglas houses can still run all night. The chain around them is smaller than it was when fiscal 2022 opened, and the parent is paying a year of royalties to get the next operator to try the same bet.

Frequently Asked Questions

How Much Does a Huddle House Franchise Cost to Open?

A new mainline Huddle House, leasing the land and building and buying equipment and signs, is listed at $555,375 to $1,715,275 in the 2025 franchise disclosure document, of which $89,000 to $119,000 is paid to the franchisor or affiliates. A non-traditional unit is listed at $380,880 to $1,310,775. The standard initial franchise fee is $35,000, with a $25,000 Express fee and a $15,000 non-traditional fee in the same filing, and the agreement term is 15 years.

Who Are Robert Wiggins Jr. and Trey Wiggins?

Robert Wiggins Jr. is a longtime Huddle House operator based in southeast Georgia. His son Trey Wiggins, a former U.S. Navy P-3 pilot, co-leads the restaurants and has also worked the family’s Hardee’s and Captain D’s units. They held five Huddle House restaurants before the 2025 deal and nine after Pembroke opened.

When and Where Did Huddle House Start?

Huddle House opened in April 1964 in Decatur, Georgia, and began franchising in 1966. Ascent Hospitality Management, created by Elysium Management after the 2018 sale, now owns the brand and sister chain Perkins American Food Co. from the Sandy Springs headquarters.

Where Is the Pembroke Huddle House and What Are Its Hours?

The restaurant is at 484 W. Bacon Street, Pembroke, GA 31321, phone (912) 866-1043, with listed hours of 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. It is a dine-in and takeout all-day breakfast house, not a 24-hour location, unlike the Wiggins Douglas store at 1612 Peterson Avenue South.

Disclaimer: This article is news reporting and analysis of a restaurant franchise deal and related company filings. It is informational only and is not franchise, investment, legal, or tax advice, and it is not an offer to sell or a solicitation to buy any franchise. Anyone considering a Huddle House franchise or any other restaurant investment should read the current franchise disclosure document, review the franchise agreement with a qualified franchise attorney, and consult a certified public accountant before signing or paying any fee. Unit counts, fees, hours, job figures, and restaurant statuses are taken from the cited company filings, location pages, and public reports as of the dates on those documents and can change.