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Dick Reese and Don Ghareeb have worked together almost 30 years. As partners, they owned Jack's Family Restaurants from 1979 to 1990. Since 1990, they have been partners in Tacala, the largest Taco Bell franchisee in the nation.
Today they operate more than 130 restaurants in Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, North Carolina and Virginia.
The following Q & A was taken from a recent print ad for Burr & Forman.
View a PDF of the original ad (117 Kb)
Don: The QSR segment is the most competitive part of the food industry. It may be one of the most competitive segments in all of retail. The biggest factor in succeeding is choosing the right brand. When we divested ourselves of Jack's, we decided we had to work with a strong national brand. Taco Bell was by far the dominant brand in the Mexican category, and growing much faster than the burger segment.
Dick: QSRs are such a people business. You have to recruit people who care about other people. And then you train them and constantly motivate them.
Don: We want to be a good company to work for. That means we have to do all the basics well: compensation, benefits, all that. We offer attractive bonuses based on performance. But the most important thing is what you do every day to make people feel appreciated and valued. We call it 'walking the talk.' You have to do what you say you will do. That can be challenging at times.
Dick: I guess I love the chalupa most.
Don: I'm an old block and tackle guy. I like the hard shell taco best.
Don: Today there are a number of fads in dieting. The Atkins Diet gets a lot of press, but I'm guessing very few people are truly interested in following that plan faithfully. The demographic our restaurant attracts, for the most part, aren't worried about diet fads.
Dick: The key is not to build your business strategy, your marketing strategies around something that probably won't be around very long. It's important to understand the difference. If the whole industry is moving somewhere, then yes you better be there.
Personally, I think if you intend to be healthy then you should do everything in moderation. You wouldn't eat at Taco Bell every meal and you wouldn't always eat the most dietary challenging item either. But on our menu we have something for every diet need.
Dick: When hiring people, for any position, you always have in the back of your mind: will they fit? Are we a match?
Don: Depending on the position, we look for technical skill, but that is only 25 percent of our interview. We are largely a cash business; we have more than 3,000 employees so integrity is essential.
Dick: A large portion of our interview is finding out how the person manages relationships, professional and personal. We follow up pretty thoroughly to understand as best we can someone's character.
Dick: Our partnership has changed over the years. We met as co-workers; we became partners when we bought Jack's in 1979. I think we work well together for a number of reasons. Don is the operations person. Everyone in the company reports to him. My role has always been in finance and development: finding opportunities, negotiating acquisitions.
Don: But our relationship works because we respect each other. Our offices are literally side-by-side so we talk all through the day about everything.
Dick: Absolutely. We've never had a serious disagreement over a major issue because we both respect the other's opinion.
Don: I learned long ago that you can't be afraid of making a decision because your choice might not work out.
Dick: We also learned that things are never as good as you think they are. Nor are they as bad as you think.
Don: Good service starts with meeting expectations. People love to talk about exceeding customer expectations, but if you start studying what it means to exceed expectations you'll find most people come up a little short.
Dick: About two-thirds of our business happens at the drive-through. That means we have only a few seconds to meet our customers' expectations. It's critical everyone understand their role in meeting those expectations because customers have so many choices, in restaurants, in menu items.
