Made From Scratch

The Just Fresh concept evolved once again when Presbyterian Hospital called. It was looking for a replacement for the traditional coffee shop that had once occupied space on its grounds. "They wanted something quick, so we put all the baked goods in a combination of self-serve and made-to-order formats," says Montgomery.

Not wasting an ounce of momentum, Just Fresh also waged and won a protracted zoning battle to place a second suburban unit in a freestanding former bank. It was worth the hassle for the competitive entrepreneurs. "We thought this was a great place to experiment further with our suburban model," says Montgomery.

"One of the major obstacles we've faced as a start-up restaurant company in a town growing as fast as Charlotte is that it's now attracting national players like Starbucks," Montgomery says. "The competition is for the best retail sites."

But Montgomery and his partners don't see this as an insurmountable obstacle: Just Fresh can respond to different opportunities, go into a smaller or a larger space, stay open for fewer or more hours--find a way to make it work. "The chains don't have that flexibility. I think we've created a competitive edge that way," Montgomery says.

Indeed, there's no longer any question of whether Just Fresh can overcome a doomed location--or anything else, for that matter. The question is, just how far and how fast can they grow? According to Montgomery, "The fun is about to really begin."

This article was originally published in the February 1999 print edition of Entrepreneur with the headline: Made From Scratch.