If founders, chefs, and other creatives are the beating heart of the restaurant industry, then franchisees are the veins delivering their ideas to all corners of the globe. Franchising is critical to the success of the industry, allowing brands to quickly scale their big ideas using other people’s capital. And whether it’s a mom-and-pop restaurant owner with one or two franchised restaurants or a seasoned veteran whose influence in the industry is well-known, franchisees — with all their individual attributes, styles and personalities — make a huge impact on the success of a business.

In this week’s installment of Franchisee Spotlight, we spoke with Mr. Gatti’s Pizza franchisee Dana Brown, who began her career with the company in 2000, and climbed the ladder of success from party coordinator to manager, and then finally seized ownership of a struggling location in Morehead, Ky. and turned the business around.

We spoke about Brown’s background, how she turned around her business, and the lessons she learned along the way.

Store count: One store in Morehead, Kentucky

Career beginnings

I started in the year 2000. A gentleman I knew offered me a job at the new Mr. Gatti’s that was going in in downtown Ashland. So, I interviewed, and I got hired as their party coordinator. I did that for a while and then moved into a shift supervisor role where they were letting me close up at night. Around 2006, I left for a little while, decided to use my actual degree, which is in health and recreation. About a year after that, the owner called me and wanted me to be his general manager at a store. So, then I began general managing that store. I did that for about five more years.

Becoming a franchisee

In 2008 he offered [to sell a store to me]. He also owned another location here in Morehead, Kentucky, a smaller store. It wasn’t doing very well, and he just wanted to sell it, and he decided to sell it to me. I worked under him for a few years, and then applied to get the franchise transferred to me, and they approved that in 2017. All in all, I’ve been with Mr. Gatti’s for 25 years. It’s been a wild ride.

Making the transition

It has been eye-opening. As I said, I left for a little while to use my actual degree, but as it turns out, I’m really a restaurant person. I didn’t know that until I came back to be their general manager. I was good at it, so I found my calling. I learned a lot about myself in those years. I wasn’t the most confident person in the world. I had self-esteem, but it was like, “Oh, I’m a girl. I can’t do that kind of thing,” because typically you only see men run businesses. So when he asked me to buy this store from him and become the franchisee, I was like, “I don’t think I can do that.” He said, “Yes, you can. I wouldn’t have asked you to take the store if I didn’t think you could do it.” So that boosted my confidence so much that I was like, “Okay, I’ll give this a try.” Of course, I made a few mistakes along the way, but nothing I didn’t learn from.

Turning around her business

When I first agreed to [take over the business], I went in and did a mystery shop just to check things out, and I noticed a few things wrong. The management there were not very attentive. It wasn’t probably the cleanest. The food wasn’t all that great. I started with a basic cleanup, and making sure everything was neat and tidy. I won’t say I wasn’t called a few names at first by the staff that I inherited. That’s when you have to grow a backbone. One lesson I have learned is you can be friendly with your staff, but you cannot be friends. They have to respect you, but I also respect them. When I got there, I worked it from morning till night. I rarely left. I had heard that previous managers were not so friendly to some of the some of the customers.

So now, everybody is greeted when they come in, and when they leave, we tell them goodbye. I make all of my employees do that, even the bus boys. I tried my best to get rid of “bad eggs.” I invested all my money back into the business, whether it was painting the walls, upgrading the air conditioning, or buying new games for the game room. We started seeing an increase in business. When I first got there I was like, “I don’t know if we’re gonna make it, but a few months in, I was all right. I’m not a millionaire, but I’m able to keep things running.”

Biggest lessons

The biggest lesson I learned was to trust my gut– if I felt something was off, it probably was. If something was too good to be true, it probably was. I learned to be proactive, not reactive. You try to take care of as many problems as you can before they come up. I learned a whole different side of the business. Being a general manager is different from owning, because you don’t deal with all the financial and legal decisions. I won’t say I’ve had it easy. There have been weeks when I’ve gone home every day crying and for years, I worked from 8:30 in the morning until 10:00 at night.

Why Mr. Gatti’s Pizza

I’m originally from Indiana. There are no Mr. Gatti’s there at all. It’s a fun atmosphere, and once I got into the franchise part of it, I realized they are very family- and community-oriented. We have about 72 franchisees right now, and I guarantee I could call any one of those owners at any time if I had any kind of problem, and they would either help me themselves or find someone who could. It’s like one big family. And that’s how I treat all of my customers. That restaurant is my home, so anyone who comes in is my guest. They’re not just customers, they are guests, and we treat them as such.