Food, Friends, and Franchising
Date: Wed, Dec 1st, 2010
By Breeana Bitz and Laura Littlechilds
The restaurant business has a way of getting into your blood. Even if you try other things, odds are you'll always get drawn back in.
That's certainly the way it was for us. Even though we initially pursued different career paths, as children of long-time restaurateurs and franchisees, carrying on the family tradition with our own RIcky's All Day Grill was a natural progression, even at the young age of 22.
LAURA
I was born in Meadow Lake, Sask., but only lived there for about a year before my family moved to Humboldt, about 400 km to the southeast. My father was employed as a conservation officer, while Mom primarily worked as a stay-at-home parent, eventually looking for something she wanted to pursue professionally. In time, she got a job at a local Smitty's Restaurant, working her way up the ranks, all the way to general manager. When the opportunity came up, she and Dad decided to enter the world of franchising by buying a Smitty's location in Moose Jaw, Sask.
Franchising was quite a big gamble for my parents. They didn't have a lot of money at the time, or any real experience running a business of their own. Even so, they decided it was an opportunity they didn't want to pass up. So, when I was about nine years old, we made the move, with my parents taking over a Smitty's on the Trans-Canada Highway.
A life in food service
I spent a lot of time in the restaurant growing up, especially in those early years, when my parents were spending so much of their time there. Of course, my brothers and I would also pitch in when needed. We'd all be in the back washing dishes or helping out wherever we could. My parents ran the Moose Jaw location successfully until about a year before I graduated from high school, when they decided to move up to Prince Albert, where they planned to build a brand new Smitty's.
The restaurant was being built during my last year of high school and was open by the time I graduated. Once again, my family all helped out; in fact, both of my brothers managed the restaurant at one time. I also made the move, living in Prince Albert during the summer before my first year of university. It was during that time that I met Breeana through a mutual group of friends.
BREEANA
I was born in Kindersley, Sask., a small town about two hours west of Saskatoon. My parents operated a restaurant in Kindersley, and eventually bought into the Humpty's Restaurant franchise; they later moved to Prince Albert where they built a new Humpty's Restaurant.
As young children, my older sister, older brother ad I spent a lot of time at the Kindersley restaurant. We would always be asking for things to do to help out. I would clean windows, sweet the carpets do dishes, help cut vegetables in the back – basically anything my parents said – to keep me busy while I was there. When we moved to Prince Albert, just as I was stating ninth grade and the new restaurant was opening, I began working as a server. I continued to work there all through my high school years.
Off to university
After graduating high school, I decided to stay in Prince Albert and begin my first year of university at an off-campus University of Saskatchewan site; in my second year; I moved to Saskatoon to continue my studies. During this time, I also worked sporadically at the restaurant. If I was coming home from Saskatoon for a weekend break or holiday I would pick up a shit or two. Eventually I graduated with a four-year bachelor of arts degree, with a major in psychology.
From there, the plan was to move back home, tae a year off from school and work for my parents, in order to earn some more money before heading back to school to get my master’s degree in speech pathology. I was even looking into schools in the U.S., with the eventual dream of opening up my own clinic.
LAURA
While Breeana was studying in Saskatoon, I was attending Mount Royal University in Calgary, to pursuing a degree in marketing and management. I liked the creative aspect of advertising, putting together campaigns and creating the actual ads. However, as I progressed through the program and started to look into jobs in the field, I realized there was a lot of standard Monday-to-Friday office work involved. There was a lot of phone calls and monotonous tasks; not exactly what I was looking for.
In the meantime, I just couldn’t seem to shake the hold the restaurant industry had on my family. I worked in a few different establishments and really enjoyed it, but still felt like I had to break out of that pattern and get a ‘real job’. The bottom line, though, was that I just wasn’t enjoying myself.
The Family business calls
Eventually, while living on my own in Calgary, I decided to quit my job in marketing and apply at an Earls Restaurant, which I knew offered many opportunities for advancement. I knew I had to start at the bottom, but I wanted to work my way up the ranks to a management position. I could see a career path laid out before me.
One afternoon, my father asked me to go to lunch and took me to our local Ricky’s in Prince Albert. I was surprised; we’d never been there before and the location wasn’t very popular at the time. When I asked why he brought me there, Dad said, “look around. What do you think?” I just kind of shrugged; I think my exact words were, “it’s OK.” Then, he asked what I thought about Bree and I possibly buying the restaurant. At first, I just laughed it off. “Don’t be silly,” I told him.
BREEANA
I was just finishing up a summer class and getting ready for my October convocation when Laura told me about her father’s suggestion that we buy a Ricky’s franchise in Prince Albert. Now, this wasn’t the first time she came to me with a pitch like this. We’d kept in close contact over the years, and Laura was always suggesting ways for us to work together. Some (like buying a Smitty’s franchise in Canmore, Alta.) were slightly more reasonable than others (like opening our own swimsuit shop, despite knowing nothing about swimsuits). It became a kind of a running joke between us.
A change of plans
I started thinking about my older sister, who, at the age of 24, had purchased my parents’ Humpty’s location in Kindersley when they decided to sell. She had also gone into it with her best friend and had a pretty successful run. After talking to Laura, I called my sister and discussed the prospect with her; she warned me that it would be a challenge, but also said working with her best friend was a wonderful experience.
Naturally, I also asked for advice from my parents, who were in the process of selling their Prince Albert restaurant. By this point, they’d been in the industry for about 40 years, 25 of which were spent running their own location, so I knew they could help us make an informed decision. At first, they were concerned; they wanted to make sure I knew what I was getting into. The food-service industry can be quite difficult at times, and they wanted me to keep that in mind. They were also concerned about the toll running the business might take on my friendship with Laura.
LAURA
When we found out more about the opportunity, it was almost too god to be true. The restaurant had fallen on hard times, but it had a lot of potential. The corporate franchisee that ran the restaurant was looking to sell off a lot of its assets at the time, so we were primed to get a good deal. Everything seemed to fit. How often are two young girls able to afford a restaurant franchise? We figured since the chance came along, it was worth taking. It just felt right.
We each took out loans and got the financing we needed to buy the franchise. The hardest part about the process was convincing the franchisor to give us a shot. They came in and had an interview with us and checked out the restaurant. We thought we knew it all; we were so confident, convinced we could turn this all around in time. It’s funny to think back on it now.
Handing over a troubled restaurant to two young girls might not have seemed like the best idea. When all was said and done, though, they didn’t have much to lose by giving us a shot. Taking on this restaurant was a high-risk proposition for anybody, so the fact we were so willing to tackle the challenge worked in our favour. Plus, our parents had reputations in established restaurateurs, which didn’t hurt.
Taking the leap
In October 2007, we left Prince Albert for Edmonton to do our franchisee training. We travelled between three different Ricky’s locations out there, learning the ropes of the kitchen and front of the house. Typically, this training lasts about three months; unfortunately, in our case, the company selling the franchise wanted to get out by December, meaning we had to cut our training down to just one month.
Given this whirlwind pace, we relied heavily on our franchisor for support in our early days. Head office representatives were always available to us, keeping their phones on at all hours to answer any questions we had – and trust me, we had many sometimes on a daily basis. To this day, we feel a special connection with our franchisor; as well as our fellow franchisees. People are always really interested in how we’re doing. It’s almost as if they want to take us – the relatively new, young franchisees – under their wings. Everybody is so invested in seeing us succeed.
BREEANA
Even with all of that support, our first year in business was the hardest of our lives. Our agreement included taking on every existing staff member, which meant they were taking us on, too. Here we were, two 22-year-olds, walking into ‘their’ restaurant and becoming the new authority figures.
It was a tough transition, especially since we were still learning the ins and outs of the system. We didn’t have the chance to train in our own location, so we had to rely on our employees to help us learn how to do pretty much everything in our restaurant. In fact, we actually rotated through more than 100 employees during that first year.
Some days, people just wouldn’t show up for their shifts, leaving us to fill those spots. There were days during which both of us would be there all day long, dong whatever needed to be done to keep things up and running. If a cook didn’t show, we were manning the kitchen – two girls whose cooking experience was limited to basics like instant macaroni and cheese. It was quite the scene!
We knew from watching our parents that owners have to be physically in their restaurants in order to make them succeed. That’s the only way to inspire trust and loyalty from your staff. That said, there were days where we’d be drying in the office, asking what we’d done to ourselves. We felt so busy, almost out of control. However, as time went by and we worked at it, we started to feel more comfortable.
Learning from experience
We’re still perfecting things, but the business is now far more stable overall. There are always issues to deal with – staff turnover, slow sales and that sort of thing – but over time, you build trust with key employees and develop a flow that works for you. Now, we have a team we can rely on and we know when to jump in and help in the kitchen or spot issues before they get out of hand. Our problem solving skills are so much better now than they were then. We’ve become plumbers, nurses, accountants – whatever ti takes to get things done.
The community has been really supportive, too; we feel like we have a bunch of surrogate parents out there, all rooting for us to do well and offering feedback on how e might improve. Plus, we have our actual parents, who have been great about lending a hand when we need it. That said, they’ve never given in to the urge to take over. They let us do our own thing, make our mistakes and enjoy our own victories.
LAURA
Each month is different. Life is never dull. Every single day you can be faced with a new problem or issue, but that variety also makes the job more fun. If we’re feeling particularly social, we’ll go out on the floor and interact with people; if now, we have an office day to handle any paperwork. Other days, we might feel like cracking a few eggs in the kitchen; sometimes we have that flexibility. We still have to deal with people who judge us based solely on our age, but we realized its just part of doing business. We know we have to prove ourselves before some people take us seriously, but we’re up to the challenge.
These days, we split up our time a bit more, but one of us is always there over the lunch and supper rush. Our hours have also been a little nicer. We’ll get a day or two off, or half a day here and there.
Franchising on the brain
That said, the restaurant is never far from our minds. Even if we’re not there, we’re taking calls from staff or thinking about ways to improve the business. It’s very difficult to shut off from the business completely. We have managed to take a week or two at a time to disconnect from the restaurant (our mothers will typically go in and ‘babysit their grandchild’ as we call it). We take a vacation where we can’t receive calls or e-mails. It gives us the chance to refresh ourselves. Then, we come back and tackle everything’s that waiting for us. It helps to have that time to ourselves.
We’re growing, adding more roles as we go along. Currently, we’re looking for supervisors and management types, to form a good hierarchy that would allow us a little more flexibility. As we get set to turn 25, we’re getting to the points in our lives when a lot of different things could start happening in our personal lives – marriage or children, for example – and we want to keep that in mind as we plan for the future.
BREEANA
When we first started signing all of our agreements, our parents advised us to pick a time frame (in our case, two years) at which point we’d re-evaluate everything and see if we wanted to continue as franchisees. When our second anniversary rolled around this past year, we decided to give ourselves another year before re-evaluating. Some days, we want to put a for sale sign in the window and be done with everything, but most days we can’t picture ourselves doing anything else. Even if we have bad days, when we ask ourselves what we would be doing instead, we can’t think of a good answer. That has to mean we’re on the right track.
A great team
Some might wonder what effect the business has had on our relationship. When we first took over, we were pending 12 hours a day together; even when we left the restaurant, we left together. We even contemplated moving in together (something our parents talked us out of). We were side by side, all the time.
That said, we’ve had no issues at all. In fact, we’re perfect partners. I don’t think we’ve ever had a fight. Our personalities complement each other well and we can tell when to push the other person and when to leave something alone. Frankly, we couldn’t have done this if we didn’t have each other; we never even would have tried.
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