Homesick in Chicago in 2011, Danica Anderson went to eat at Chick-fil-A because it reminded her of growing up in the South.
While eating a breaded chicken sandwich on the restaurant’s patio, her husband, Thad, who had recently moved the family to the city so he could pursue a teaching job, suggested she fill out a job application.
“Two months later, I was the director of operations,” Anderson said, “I guess you could say it was an advantageous meal.”
Fast forward another two years, and Chick-fil-A’s corporate office was approaching Anderson about becoming a restaurant operator. Having grown up with a single mother who started her own residential cleaning company, Anderson, 26, loved the idea of being an entrepreneur.
On March 10, Anderson will open Wisconsin’s fourth standalone Chick-fil-A in Oak Creek’s Drexel Town Square. A Chick-fil-A in Mount Pleasant is also scheduled to open in March. Currently, there are standalone Chick-fil-A restaurants in Brookfield, Greendale and Madison.
Chick-fil-A is also planning stores on Highway 100 in West Allis and second locations in Brookfield and Madison.
“We’re not pros at the real estate market in Milwaukee, but we develop relationships with the brokers who are,” said Stephen Goins, a former Chick-fil-A operator who now helps new owners launch their restaurants. “Ultimately, the sweet spot is high residential, high business and high retail – if we hit two of the three, that’s a spot we want to be in.”
Goins said the company does not want to saturate the market, but hopes to open two Chick-fil-A restaurants in Wisconsin each year for the next 10 years.
“Two a year may sound slow, but there are a couple of dots on the map where we would still like to go,” Goins said. “We would like to expand to La Crosse, Oshkosh and Green Bay.”
While Anderson was still looking at those potential “dots on the map,” she and her husband spent the weekend in Milwaukee. After that trip, she contacted Chick-fil-A and said Oak Creek was her first choice for a restaurant.
Thad got a job with the HOPE Christian schools network in July, and Danica moved to Oak Creek in December – marking the first time in four years Danica has had a five minute commute and owned a car.
But becoming a member of the Chick-fil-A family wasn’t easy. Although Anderson was chosen after two years of service, it took another two years of interviews and training before she signed her operating agreement in September.
Part of the interview process is to make sure potential operators fit the Chick-fil-A mold. S. Truett Cathy, the company’s late founder, incorporated Christian values into his business, which included closing the entire chain on Sundays. Dan Cathy, the CEO of the company and S. Truett’s son, came under fire from gay rights supporters in 2012 for openly opposing same-sex marriage. Over the past several years, the company has made an effort to separate personal opinion from corporate policy.
Goins compared the process of hiring restaurant operators to a long courtship before marriage. Because of the work done on the front end, the turnover rate for store operators is in the low single digits, Goins said.
“Our founder felt like going into business with an operator was like becoming family members; usually before you marry someone, you date for a while,” Goins said. “It’s a slow process and some people get frustrated.”
Anderson said the process—which included six weeks of training at Chick-fil-A’s home office in Atlanta and another week of shadowing in Greenville, S.C., with a “support operator” who will continue to follow her progress over the next year with frequent visits to Oak Creek—was rigorous, but necessary.
“Chick-fil-A does a great job of protecting the brand and making sure both sides understand the agreement they are entering into,” she said.
There is also a significant amount of competition – about 18,000 people a year apply to be a Chick-fil-A restaurant operator and fewer than 90 are chosen, Goins said.
The restaurant chain is so popular from prospective franchisees because it is significantly less expensive to own a Chick-fil-A franchise than any other brand. Operators pay $10,000 in full when they sign their operator’s agreement. A new Chick-fil-A restaurant costs the company about $3 million to open, Goins said.
By comparison, a McDonald’s franchise fee is $45,000, plus the operator pays 40 percent of the total cost of the new restaurant, which ranges from $944,000 to $2.1 million, according to the McDonald’s website. There is also a monthly service fee of 4 percent of monthly sales.
On the flip side, McDonald’s operators own the building after 20 years. With Chick-fil-A, the $10,000 only buys the right to operate the restaurant – there is no ownership of the property.
Goins said the franchises were set up this way so money was not a barrier for people who wanted to become involved in the business.
“It’s a great partnership,” Anderson said. “When the business needs upgrades, they are there for you, so it feels like a partnership the whole time.”
At 26, Anderson knows she will not likely spend her entire career operating the Chick-fil-A in Oak Creek. When she’s ready to move on, she anticipates going the same route Goins did and moving over to the corporate side of the business.
Until then, Anderson is looking forward to serving her customers and being a strong leader for the 75 employees she will have in Oak Creek.
“I think my story can be a fun one for my team members, whether it is their first job or their career,” she said. “The restaurant industry is coming back around for young people to develop careers out of. This doesn’t have to be a long-term career, but it can be.”
Get the latest commercial real estate news delivered to your inbox every Wednesday. Sign up for BizTimes’ Real Estate Weekly newsletter at biztimes.com/subscribe.
