It’s About Wow: Keeping The Customers Coming Back Requires Constant Change

Franchising.com:

I love the action of the restaurants and the strategy of the real estate. This is the jackpot business for me,” says Mike Scanlon, president and CEO of Thomas and King in Lexington, Ky., where he opened his first Applebee’s in 1988.

Scanlon has been involved in real estate and restaurants since he left college. He worked for Wendy’s and MCL Cafeteria as a restaurant manager, as well as for Denny’s and Sambo’s. He later spent five years in site selection and real estate for Tom DuPree, a Burger King multi-unit owner who formed Apple South Inc. in 1985 and became one of the earliest, and later the largest, Applebee’s franchisee. Before starting to sell them off in 1996, DuPree had amassed 264 Applebee’s. Scanlon, who today has 90 Applebee’s of his own, knows a little something about the brand—and real estate.

Today Scanlon owns a little over half of the real estate his restaurants sit on, but it wasn’t always that way. When he became an Applebee’s franchisee 20 years ago, he leased the land.
“When you start out younger, you do the deals you can,” he says.

Scanlon attributes his success to two things: passion and focus. “What we do we do with passion,” he says.

Read more.