Made From Scratch
The location had seen three businesses come and fail. The restaurateurs were inexperienced fledglings. How then did Just Fresh grow into a $4 million chain?
Getting a commercial landlord to take a chance on their
carefully conceived bakery-cafe concept wasn't easy. After all,
among Whitney Montgomery, 34, and his four partners, only one had
any restaurant experience. And that wasn't the only strike
against them. With their eye on a location in the downtown business
district of Charlotte, North Carolina, the team would also have to
break the curse of a doomed property: No less than three other
businesses had failed in the seemingly perfect space in recent
years.
After all, national statistics culled by Cornell and Michigan
State universities reveal that more than 50 percent of restaurants
fail in the first year. But stepping up to the plate, Just Fresh
took a swing, and today the lunch crowds--and breakfast early
birds--are cheering. First-year sales of $300,000 in 1994 have
mushroomed to nearly $4 million in 1998.
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