Shakey's buys big Northwest franchise
That conclusion was recently reached by Stone; former Shakey's president Donald I. Smith; and Scott Bergren, a president of Round Table Pizza, a competitor in many of the markets where Shakey's operates restaurants.Puts expansion on back burner; focuses on conceptAsked why he left Skipper's, Stone replied, "I was ready for a change. I said to myself, `I'm turning 50,' so I set out to find the ultimate company to buy."Explaining why he feels the chain needs so many company restaurants, Stone says, "How can you sell franchises when you can't convince someone that you know how to successfully operate the concept yourself?"At Longchamps, he says, he developed the prototype for a fast-food chain to be based on the Li'l Abner comic strip character. Plans to develop the chain fell through when finances ran low, he notes, so "I fired myself" and accepted a job as head of New England operations for the Lums Restaurant Corp."I spent about a year with Lums and then had the opportunity to move to Seattle and take over Skipper's Inc.," Stone recalls of 1971. "They [Skipper's] had 12 losing restaurants when I joined them, and we turned them around, grew the chain, and took it public in 1981."Stone, who guided the expansion of fried-fish specialist Skipper's from 12 units to more than 200 during his 17 years at the Bellevue, Wash.-based chain, was named president of Shakey's 217-unit domestic operations by the company's new owner, Inno-Pacific Holding of Singapore. He assumed the presidency from former company co-owner Gary Brown and says that "developing a concept for the '90s" will be among his first tasks.SEATTLE - Moving to revitalize the 36-year-old Shakey's Pizza system it bought last year, Inno-Pacific Holding of Singapore has acquired the chain's largest franchisee, Monarch Foods Inc., based here, for an undisclosed sum.Being named president of Shakey's resulted in a homecoming for Stone, who landed his first restaurant job with the then Sacramento-based chain while he was attending college in 1960. Stone was vice president of company-store operations and franchising when he left Shakey's in 1969 to join New York-based Longchamps.Though Shakey's Inc. recently moved its headquarters from Irving, Texas, to South San Francisco to share offices with Inno-Pacific's Shakey's International, Stone said he had several reasons for establishing a beachhead of company restaurants hundreds of miles away in the Northwest.Stone is proud of the fact that Skipper's had become the third-largest fish-and-chips chain in the country by the time he resigned in early 1988.For the first few years Stone indicated, much of the chain's "sensible" and "orderly" growth will come from the development of new company stores; there is now just one corporate restaurant."It has always bothered me that [Shakey's] hasn't done better than it has," said Stone, who left the pizza chain in 1969 after rising to the rank of vice president of franchising and company-store operations. "I like to say that Shakey's was the first name in Pizza and that I'd like it to be the last name in pizza.""I think you have to be prepared to deliver product and service wherever the people are. If that means pushing a cart in an airport corridor or opening in a 10,000-square-foot theme park, that's all part of the game, and you had better avail yourself of the opportunity [to make sales]," he says. "I'd rather have 20 small restaurants making a good return on investment than a handful of large-volume restaurants with a smaller bottom line."Predicted Stone: "We should have 25 or 30 company restaurants operating by the end of 1990."DALLAS -- New Shakey's Pizza Restaurants president Gene Stone must update that chain's concept before he can practice the expansion magic he worked at Skipper's Inc.Former Shakey's president Smith says "building company stores that are economical" should be one of Stone's first projects."The basic problem [at Shakey's] is that they have bad penetration in a lot of markets, they are in big stores, and they are doing buffet business. That is the opposite of where the market is going and clearly not a concept for the '90s," Bergren explains.The Monarch purchase gives Shakey's its first significant cluster of company restaurants in some time; a series of prior owners sold off or closed all of the chain's company-owned restaurants by the time Stone assumed the presidency last summer.Apker, who Stone said would remain in a management position at Monarch during a six-month transition period, indicated his duties "will include looking at some of these [regional acquisition targets]." Asked if Pietro's pizza of Lynnwood, Wash., which operates about 75 restaurants in Washington and Oregon, was an acquisition candidate, Apker replied, "I really can't comment on that."During his time at Skipper's, a company that is less than 20 years old, the average tenure of a senior executive was 15 years, Stone explains. The turnover rates for other employee categories, he adds, were also well below the national average.
PHOTO : A typical Shakey's Pizza restaurant unit.
Author: Alan Liddle
No comments:
Post a Comment