“If you are in this business you cannot be afraid of hard work. Obviously you have to manage your costs. But you have to bring a passion every day. You have to love serving people.”

This is Taylor Sparks of the Raleigh-Durham MO.com, where we feature  business owners and entrepreneurs to bring you, hints, tips, insights, and perspectives on what it takes to be successful. Joining us today is Kenny Moore, the Founder and President of Andys Burgers, Shakes & Fries. With over 100 franchised and company owned locations, Andy’s 2010 sales topped $50 million and new locations are expected in 2012.

MO:
Kenny, I understand that you decided to start your restaurant business after being fired from the defunct restaurant that burned down.  What gave you the confidence to believe that you could do better than they did?

Kenny:
Actually it wasn’t one that burned down it was a chain of about 30 and I was a district manager that worked for one of the franchise groups that had 5 stores and they went bankrupt. And when they did, the guys I worked with let me go as well, even though 3 of the 5 stores that I was overseeing at that time was in the top 5 company wide.  So that’s where, I guess, the confidence came from to start Andy’s.  I saw some closed locations out there and I had the confidence that I could run them well.  Also I had a great education on what not to do or what to not do is a better way to say it.  Because I was in the mix I saw some decisions that I thought were not the best thing to do and I could potentially do it better.

MO:
I know the economy was different in 1991, but how do you start a restaurant business with only $500?

Kenny:
Well it was actually insane and I probably shouldn’t have done it.  If I had ever sat down and looked at the pros and cons of opening up a restaurant with $500 in what was not a drastically different economy than what we are in this year.  Last year was really tough.  But this year was very similar to 1991 so there were a lot of reasons not to do it.  But what kind of turned the corner for me was 1. I didn’t have a job.  2. I remember the feeling I got when I was terminated and I never wanted to have that feeling again.  I just wanted to control my own destiny.  I felt like we had a great product, a great concept and I just wanted to control that from that point on and go from there.

MO:
In the beginning how many roles did you have to take on to get the business up and running?

Kenny:
Every role and all roles, which is kind of a neat thing now that we have gotten larger.  The folks that are with us today and the folks that are going to be coming on with us from other states in the future, I’ve done everything that we’re going to ask them to do. I literally cooked every burger for two years.  I worked from 10 in the morning until 10 at night and drove 30 minutes each way.  I did that for two years and struggled mightily for the first year.  I have cleaned toilets.  I have cleaned grease traps, which are much nastier than toilets. I’ve done it all.  I basically carried every role and then I got to go home and play CFO and pay the bills with a little bit of money.

MO:
How many times did you think of quitting?

Kenny:
Gosh. I don’t know if I ever truly thought of really quitting, as long as I could meet those obligations.  There was a time that I think I figured it out.  I was working for about $2.60 an hour with all the hours I was putting in.  But I never really thought about quitting.  We got better every month.  We increased our sales.  Our customer base grew and as long as I kept seeing that I kept hanging in there.  I knew it would turn.

MO:
Was there one thing that all of the other burger and fries companies were doing that you decided to do differently?

Kenny:
It’s not even so much that I thought we were doing anything drastically different.  But, I totally believed in our product.  We had a fresh cheeseburger, which at the time in 1991 wasn’t in vogue; most of the big players out there had frozen patties.  We didn’t have any heat lamps.  We cooked in front of you and cooked it the way you wanted it and still delivered it to you with in a four minute window. We also had full service.  Our folks, through our servant leadership model truly believed in taking care of the customer and meeting their needs and exceeding their wants and expectations.  By doing that I felt like we had a unique niche and felt like we could simply do it better than our competitors out there.  We kind of built a better mouse trap.

MO:
How long was it before you were profitable?

Kenny:
The first year I was about $30,000-$35,000 behind on my food bill.  Thank goodness for my food distributor because they were basically my bank. Because banks wouldn’t touch me that first year.  I in-house financed the early restaurants so that at the end of year one I had four restaurants. Three of them were losing money and the one I was running was starting to make a little. That still equated to loss. It was at that turning point in 1992 when I decided to make a change.  I’ll never forget it. I was riding home one night and the sky didn’t open or anything, but I had this distinct thought in my brain…you’re doing this all wrong. It’s all about you.  You and your food bills, you and your…you, you, you.  Let’s make it about them.  Let’s change the model here.  Let’s do everything in our power to make the other person successful.  Your operators of your stores, let’s do what we can about them.  Let’s try and make them successful. Then I made that mental shift and then, of course telling them verbally it was about them and that someday I would sell them their store when it was profitable.  I guess folks just believed me and by the end of year two with our four restaurants, we were profitable and I was able to in-house finance a store to my first operator and put them on their path to success.  It was kind of neat and that was the change.

MO:
How many employees did you have when the restaurant had its first profitable year?

Kenny:
With four stores we had about 80 employees or about 20 employees per location.

MO:
You currently have over 100 locations and more scheduled to open in the upcoming year. What must restaurant owners learn to do to be profitable and successful?

Kenny:
If you are in this business you cannot be afraid of hard work.  Obviously you have to manage your
costs. But you have to bring a passion every day.  You have to love serving people.  You certainly can’t
fret over hours worked because if you do that you’re going to fail.  This is not a business for the 40 hour a week Joe.  It’s a business for those that like to create and truly love to serve their neighbor.  If you do that and your feet don’t get sore and you manage your controllable cost then you have an opportunity to be successful in this business.  And you got to have great food!

MO:
Was there always a plan to franchise or was it at a certain point in the business that prompted that decision?

Kenny:
It was really that 1992 decision to make it about other people.  Up until this point we had always franchised in house.  I’m very proud to say that of our 30+ owners that we have with the company, probably 32 of them are former minimum wage employees.  They started out with us as fry cooks and servers and we in-house financed them. We set them up in business and made it so that they have the opportunity to own their own business.  I’ve watched some of these people grow from 16 year old fry cooks, to married dads with children and own two or three locations and it’s been an amazing ride to watch that happen.

MO:
You have a great love of people.  Where did you learn your leadership skills?

Kenny: I
t’s funny.  I wasn’t raised in an overly religious or spiritual family but I’ve always been a spiritual guy.  And I’ve always felt that if I can meet their needs before I meet my own. If I can help them reach their dreams, it’s kind of the old reap what you sow, that it will come back to me.  That’s where it stems from.  And I still try to do that today. Now that doesn’t mean that we don’t hold people accountable here.  It’s not just a love fest here.  Don’t get me wrong.  But if they are willing to work hard and share our values and in turn do it for somebody else as well then they have a real shot at being successful here.  One of the neatest things in the world, is when I had a lady come up to me in the Greenville mall.  I’ll never forget it, she came up to me and she tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Are you Kenny Moore?” I said, “Yes I am” and she started to cry.  I immediately started flashing back, what have I done? You immediately go into that mode and she said, “Thank you for giving me my son back”.  Now this was a guy who just worked in one of our restaurants. She said prior to him working there, he was lost, and he was going down the wrong path. Now he’s thinking about the future. He’s sweet again. He loves his mom again. Look, that’s success. When those kinds of things come back to you, you just realize you’re doing the right things and you want to teach others to do that.

MO:
How important was it for you to make sure that your managers and staff were able to pass along those same skills to others?

Kenny:
As it’s gotten bigger it’s gotten a little tougher.  But we still have monthly managers’ meetings where everybody literally converges on this office and there is always a segment on that.  There is always a segment on values and cultures and who we are and what we stand for but not just who we are and what we stand for but why we stand for these things.  I also have the ability to pick up the phone, and will after this interview, and do a ‘call them all’ and leave everybody a message.  Sometimes I just do that.  Sometimes it’s just a 45 second reminder of who we are.  It’s just communication. It’s funny, over the past two years we’ve been in this really tough economy, that’s not news for anybody.  It’s been tough in the hamburger business. Those that shared the values and culture of the company they are still here. Those that made it through the system and became owners and really didn’t share the values of the company, they’re gone.  It’s almost like these past few years has been a retrenching and reconfirmation.  Those values matter it’s not just about revenue and managing that revenue.

MO:
Your love of community and people has expanded into the Andy’s Foundation.  What made you decide to start the foundation and who benefits from it?

Kenny:
The foundation started about 10 years ago as I decided to do a golf tournament for the Make-A -Wish foundation.  It has now grown into one of the largest most sought after golf tournaments in Eastern North Carolina. People start signing up in June for the September T-time. We raise over $100,000 for the foundation. We’ve now expanded it beyond Make-A-Wish and it also includes the Miracle League but it’s generally children’s causes. The vast majority of the money is raised in the restaurants over a 90 day campaign.  We will have wait staff bake cookies and go out into the restaurant and sell them for about $0.50 each. What it does is that it tells me that if I have 100 stores out there and each store is asked to raise $1,000, it lets me know where the heart of that store is.  If a store only raises $100 in 90 days, I have to really look at that operator and wonder where their values are and where their hearts are. Those that raise $10,000, and believe it or not we have some of those that do, they are just phenomenal.  I know I don’t have to worry, their entire staff gets it.  We have a wonderful golf tournament in September and we give to multiple children’s causes and most of them are local and we try to spread it around and take care of the least fortunate little people on the planet. I’m not good enough to go down to Disney World with the Make-A-Wish foundation. I’m too much of a softie; I’d be a mess the entire time.  But I can certainly help fund it.

MO:
You’d be crying on Goofys’ shoulder?

Kenny:
Absolutely!  They would have to take care of me.  I’d be the worse guy in the world.  But I can certainly help those heroes that are out there that do that!

The Final Five!  (Five semi-random questions)

MO:
Proudest personal achievement?

Kenny:
I’ve been married 25 years to my wife who has done most of the work. We’ve raised four wonderful children.  Our son Andy who is the name sake of the company is a rising senior at Duke. Our 18 year old daughter is going to St. Andrews in Scotland this year. We have an 11 year old and an 8 year old and they are all wonderful kids.  That is my most proud achievements, the people that they are turning into.

MO:
Title of last book read?

Kenny:
I’m a constant reader and I have a library in my office that I allow my operators to check out books.  The last one that I read was Delivery Happiness by the Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh.  It was a very good book and they (Zappos) get it.

MO:
Three non-family members you admire?

Kenny:
Thomas Jefferson.  I think he was our first renaissance man. I love that he was such a deep thinker on multiple levels. Jesus Christ.  I think that we can all learn the values of servant leadership through him. I think that regardless of where you may stand on religion or anything else, just on a pragmatic point of view he preached for two years and 2 billion people call themselves Christians today.  He washes the feet of his disciples the night before he knows he’s going to be crucified and that could have been the night he asked, hey boys how about scrubbing up these puppies, but he didn’t do that. He served them first and I think that in order to be the leader you must first be the servant and I’m a firm believer in that.

Mr. Sam Walton.  He got it as well.  He realized the importance of taking care of people and having a wonderful culture.

MO:
Dream vacation destination?

Kenny:
I guess because I’m an entrepreneur, anywhere with my family.  Anywhere that my family and friends can converge is a dream vacation for me.  Good food, a glass of wine and having my family around me, that’s all I need.  And a nice golf course close by always helps.

MO:
If you weren’t in the restaurant business, what career would you have?

Kenny:
I would probably be a head baseball coach somewhere.  I was a baseball player in college. Either on the high school or the collegiate level and having the opportunity to guide young men is probably what I would be doing if I wasn’t doing what I do.

MO:
Kenny, thank you so much for your time today! Thanks for all that you’ve given to your people, your customers and for what you’ve given me today.

Kenny:
Thank you so much for doing this interview.