Their Brand, Your Business

The Bridgeton News:

South Jersey is sprinkled with franchises. But behind every McDonald’s, Hollywood Tans and Saladworks, is a face — someone who invested their savings to supply the masses with tools, tans and tacos.

At 24 years old, Mantua Township resident Nick Dibello is the face behind two Saladworks restaurants in Pennsylvania — the first in West Chester opened in January, and the other in West Grove in May.

“My dad owns his own business, so all of my life I wanted to own my own business and be my own boss,” he said.

Opening a franchise is more than picking a product you love and putting a neon “open” sign in the window. It takes capital, business sense and between 60 and 80 hours a week overseeing operations. But franchisees have brand recognition and the assistance of a corporation on their side.

“It’s very difficult making a wealth-building vehicle, working for someone else,” said Saladworks President Paul Steck. “To a large degree, small business is where it’s at … they have achieved results, both financial and personal, which they would never have achieved working for someone else.”

In his franchises’ infancy, Dibello said he spent between 80 and 90 hours a week managing the stores, and leveled out at 55 to 65 hours a week once they got going.

“It’s like giving birth,” said Steck. “The first six months of being a mother — it’s tough, but as they mature, it gets easier.”
Saladworks, a chain that began in 1986 as a small business in the Cherry Hill Mall, has 96 locations from Illinois to Florida, and as far west as California.

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