The Offer
Freddy's Frozen Custard & Steakburgers is leveraging National Frozen Custard Day as a digital-traffic driver, offering loyalty members three app-exclusive price points — mini frozen custard for $2, regular for $3, and large for $4 — valid Friday, August 7 through Sunday, August 9 at participating locations across its 580-plus-unit system.
All three offers drop simultaneously on August 7 for enrolled members in the Freddy's app. Each discount is redeemable once per device, per user, with a limit of one offer per order. The promotion covers dine-in, drive-thru, and app or web orders but excludes third-party delivery and catering — a deliberate channel guardrail that keeps the traffic and the ticket on the brand's own higher-margin order paths.
Loyalty as a Growth Lever
The tiered structure — pegged to cup size rather than a flat discount — is a textbook LTO mechanic for fast-casual operators looking to lift check without cannibalizing full-price transactions. By anchoring the deal inside the proprietary app, Freddy's collects first-party data on daypart behavior and custard category preference, intelligence that feeds future personalization and frequency campaigns. The exclusion of third-party aggregators also protects unit-level margin from the commission drag that typically runs 25–30% of the delivery ticket.
Freddy's competes in a fast-casual segment that has increasingly used limited-time offers and loyalty programs to defend traffic against value messaging from QSR giants. Chains including Shake Shack and Culver's have similarly invested in app-first promotions to deepen guest retention without broad discounting that erodes brand equity. For a 580-unit franchise system, app-driven events like National Frozen Custard Day also serve as low-cost, systemwide marketing that individual franchisees could not easily execute on their own — a clear benefit of the area development model.
Product Positioning
Freddy's positions its frozen custard as a premium alternative to standard soft-serve or ice cream, citing a fresh-churn process executed on-site multiple times daily that reduces ice crystals and excess air for a denser, richer product. That on-premise production story reinforces the fast-casual value proposition — made-fresh credentials at a price point between QSR and full-service — and gives franchisees a differentiated narrative when competing for the dessert and snack daypart.
With system unit count exceeding 580 locations in the U.S. and Canada and franchise development continuing via freddysfranchising.com, the brand is among the larger fast-casual burger-and-custard concepts in North America. Rankings from Technomic's Top 500 and Entrepreneur's Franchise 500 suggest the system has maintained growth momentum even as the broader fast-casual segment navigates a consumer value-seeking environment. Weekend promotional events tied to food holidays have become a reliable tool for driving incremental traffic without committing to permanent menu price rollbacks.
Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.
