Small wonder that Kirk Robison was selected last month as the first-ever \u201centrepreneur in residence\u201d at the University of Texas at El Paso\u2019s College of Business Administration.<\/p>\n
Robison will draw on 30 years of experience as a remarkably successful fast-food franchisee in El Paso and throughout Texas when he speaks to business-school students about what it takes to make it as an entrepreneur.<\/p>\n
\u201cStudents need to hear things that are not filtered or compromised. They need a real-world point of view that has practical application,\u201d Robison said.<\/p>\n
Robison grew up in an entrepreneurial atmosphere; his father owned a small grocery store in Southern California. Robison chose to follow the entrepreneurial life in 1973, when he acquired four \u201cold, beat-up, low-volume and unprofitable\u201d Wienerschnitzel hot-dog franchises as a package deal \u2013 three stores in El Paso and one in Las Cruces.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe owner of the company said if you\u2019ll move to El Paso, I\u2019ll sell you those stores for no money down on an $80,000 note. That was the start,\u201d Robison remembers.<\/p>\n
He turned the stores around, built five more and, in 1982, expanded his horizons by acquiring a Peter Piper Pizza franchise. In no time, he discovered that margins on pizza beat the margins on hot dogs.<\/p>\n
So, in 1985, he sold the Wienerschnitzel stores to an employee and used the proceeds to finance an aggressive expansion of Peter Piper restaurants into New Mexico and throughout the state of Texas. He also picked up a few Burger Kings and, within the past year, opened two Del Taco restaurants.<\/p>\n
Robison today owns and operates 66 restaurants. The lion\u2019s share \u2013 47 to be exact \u2013 is Peter Piper Pizza, which accounts for 75 percent of his revenue. He also owns 17 Burger Kings and the two Del Tacos.<\/p>\n
Of the 66 restaurants, 18 are in El Paso.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe do business in 15 cities in Texas, from McAllen to Brownsville to Laredo to Corpus Christi to San Antonio to Harlingen,\u201d Robison said.<\/p>\n
And the empire continues to grow. Within the next few weeks, Robison will reopen three Burger Kings in Albuquerque; he acquired them from an operator who went bankrupt.<\/p>\n
In addition, he has a \u201cfranchise development agreement\u201d under which he can open four more Del Tacos in El Paso and Las Cruces.<\/p>\n
The entire operation is run out of the Pizza Properties office at 4445 N. Mesa, where Robison employs 40. He employs 200 store managers and 2,000 employees, most part-timers, in the restaurants. His annual payroll hits $20 million.<\/p>\n
Q: It takes business expertise to amass more than 65 restaurants. You think that\u2019s why UTEP selected you as its first \u201centrepreneur in residence\u201d?<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t think my story is that unique. In a medium-sized market like El Paso, when you say you own 50, 60, 70 restaurants, it sounds pretty impressive. I know that. But all I did was take someone else\u2019s idea \u2013 i.e. Peter Piper, Burger King and Del Taco \u2013 and put people, management and money behind it. I\u2019m not being modest. I\u2019m being realistic.<\/p>\n
I have done things that other franchisees were not able to do. But I don\u2019t think it\u2019s something that should be viewed as extraordinary. I can point to guys in our industry who\u2019ve created brands that became huge. Noel Brinker, who started Steak and Ale and built Chili\u2019s. Guys like that. Those are the real Henry Fords of our industry.<\/p>\n
Q. Even so, your experience as a franchisee can be drawn upon to benefit UTEP business students.<\/p>\n
Young people starting in business don\u2019t have enough exposure to successful business owners. They can\u2019t ask real businessmen real questions and get real answers. They may be really bright young guys and girls who are receiving a fine academic background at school. But they don\u2019t have the exposure to the real world.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve already had a tremendous reception from the UTEP professors who want me to talk to their students. But the \u201centrepreneur in residence\u201d is going to be more than Kirk Robison. If having one businessperson on campus is a good idea, then having more than one is an even better one. I\u2019m compiling a list of people I know in the community who I want to ask to help me with these students: Cecilia Levine, Adair Margo, Bob Wingo, Jack Cardwell and Jerry Rubin. There are others.<\/p>\n
Q. Why did you become an entrepreneur?<\/p>\n
I was always more interested in running my own business \u2013 even if it was small \u2013 than working in a bigger enterprise where I wasn\u2019t in charge. I never aspired to be running up the corporate ladder. I was more interested in running something that was mine, so I could be responsible for the outcome.<\/p>\n
When I started, I\u2019d put on the apron, put on the paper cap and run the drive-through window. It might have looked like drudgery from the outside, but I had a great time. The fondest memories of most entrepreneurs I know are of the early years. Everything was simple and new. You hadn\u2019t figured out very much of anything. And you were very emotional and energetic to get the thing going.<\/p>\n
Q. What one attribute led to your success?<\/p>\n
Part of it is being opportunistic. A business owner must seize opportunities as opposed to simply operating under a strategic plan. You can have a strategic plan, but you also have to react to opportunities that may or may not fit exactly in the strategic plan.<\/p>\n
There was a competitive chain called Pistol Pete\u2019s \u2013 they still operate a couple of stores here in El Paso. We bought a number of their stores in Texas when they were having their own financial troubles and converted them to Peter Piper. They were bigger than the Peter Piper restaurants; physically bigger stores. We were a little concerned. But those turned into real homerun stores for us. Those turned out to be tremendous investments.<\/p>\n
Q: How do you decide on a location to help ensure success for a fast food place?<\/p>\n
The success of our restaurants is very heavily related to the site. Every chain has extremely high-volume stores and low-volume stores. They\u2019re basically doing the same thing. Same kind of building. Same food. Same operation. But the results you get at each site will be different.<\/p>\n
You have to do your homework on sites. And the problem is it\u2019s a very subjective business. There is no automatic model that plugs in visibility, traffic, size and access, and then comes up with a number that says you\u2019ll do so much volume. Some companies do site modeling to predict sales at a given location. But I think it\u2019s more of an art than a science.<\/p>\n
We have a store in Houston that I thought had the most potential of any store we\u2019ve built. It hasn\u2019t turned out that way. It\u2019s because we\u2019re in a huge metro market. Competition is severe.<\/p>\n
Q. Last summer, you entered an agreement with Del Taco, a new Mexican quick serve chain, to open six restaurants in El Paso and Las Cruces. Why get involved with a franchise that new?<\/p>\n
One reason was to create opportunities for our people. If we have another brand, we can create more positions. I also liked it because Taco Bell is the national leader in Mexican fast food. Everyone else is way, way behind them in size. I felt there was a niche in the marketplace for a second player in Mexican fast food. Of those players in second position, Del Taco is the best of the group. We were going to go into that segment. I looked at some Taco Bell opportunities. But I decided to go Del Taco.<\/p>\n
We\u2019ve only opened two. We\u2019re going to evaluate the results of those two and gradually develop additional restaurants if it\u2019s warranted.<\/p>\n
Q. You\u2019re in a business \u2013 the fast-food industry \u2013 that has come under heavy criticism for providing the kinds of food that make people fat. How do you reply to that kind of criticism?<\/p>\n
Well, it\u2019s almost laughable. They threw out the lawsuit against McDonald\u2019s filed by consumers who said they were fat because they ate too many Value Meals. People were fat long before there were ever McDonald\u2019s or Burger Kings. People have to be responsible for their own eating habits. If they want to abuse the way they eat, they\u2019ll have a bad result. The culprit is not the fast-food industry.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s nothing wrong with the food at Burger King, Peter Piper or Del Taco. Any food can be a problem if you abuse it.<\/p>\n
Q. You\u2019ve played an active role in the community and last year distributed 13,000 dictionaries to third-graders throughout El Paso County. How did you get involved in that?<\/p>\n
It\u2019s our proudest achievement. I read in the Wall Street Journal last spring about a lady in South Carolina who wanted to give dictionaries to poor children in her state. She had to go out and raise money, buy the dictionaries, put them in the trunk of her car and deliver them to all these kids. I was taken by the story.<\/p>\n
During the summer, I told Judy, my wife, I want to do this in El Paso. We contacted companies that publish dictionaries, told them what we wanted to do. We had a huge advantage over the woman in South Carolina because we didn\u2019t have to go out and raise the money. We could afford it.<\/p>\n
We contacted the nine school districts in El Paso County and said we want to give every third-grader in your district a dictionary. Some of them thought there was a catch. There wasn\u2019t. We ended up distributing 13,000. And we\u2019re going to do it next year, and hopefully every year thereafter.<\/p>\n
We heard from administrators and teachers that the third-grade is the right grade for students to have their own dictionaries. They\u2019re starting to learn about words, sentence structure, spelling, synonyms, antonyms, and all those things they didn\u2019t think about in the first- and second grades. We\u2019re glad to do it.<\/p>\n
Q. And you also dabble in horse racing?<\/p>\n
We\u2019ve got 15 horses we run in California, Sunland Park and a little bit at Lone Star Park in Grand Prairie. Typically, we buy yearlings in Kentucky. Then they\u2019re broken in California or Laredo. Then they go to the racetrack.<\/p>\n
When I was about 10 years old, my dad took me to the racetrack in Santa Anita, Calif. From the first day I went to the track, I loved it. I said, one day, when I can afford to lose all my money on horses, I\u2019m going to buy horses. It\u2019s a high-risk venture every day. Not many people make money at it. You really have to be in the position financially to recognize that and realize that. It\u2019s great fun.<\/p>\n
Q. And what about the future in community service. Do you ever think of entering politics?<\/p>\n
When I do, it usually lasts about three minutes.<\/p>\n
I like politics. I was in Austin (two weeks ago) lobbying our legislators about tort reform. It was a statewide turnout of business people and others who went to Austin to lobby for a bill that is coming before the Legislature very quickly. We need tort reform.<\/p>\n
The idea of runaway juries in Texas is very adverse to the interests of business in Texas. It\u2019s adverse to job creation. It\u2019s adverse to employment. It\u2019s adverse to consumers. When business people face unrealistic risks of litigation, the state\u2019s got to fix it. The Legislature is looking at ways to fix some of those issues so there\u2019s more of a level playing field between a plaintiff and defendant.<\/p>\n
This story was published March 23-29, 2003. Today, Kirk Robison owns more than 40 Peter Piper Pizza restaurants. He and his wife, Judy, were recently honored with Innovation Awards by the Pioneers 21 business incubator in Downtown El Paso.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Small wonder that Kirk Robison was selected last month as the first-ever \u201centrepreneur in residence\u201d at the University…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":80491,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[64341,64342,138,140,139,4498,64344,6895,49500,27,64343],"class_list":{"0":"post-156228","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-el-paso","8":"tag-burger-king","9":"tag-del-taco","10":"tag-el-paso","11":"tag-el-paso-headlines","12":"tag-el-paso-news","13":"tag-fast-food","14":"tag-fast-food-restaurant","15":"tag-franchising","16":"tag-taco","17":"tag-texas","18":"tag-wienerschnitzel"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156228","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=156228"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156228\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=156228"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=156228"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=156228"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}