28 Business View - November 2015
long as the sales volumes are strong enough, the return
on investment is greater. We’ve got a franchisee building
one that should be open by the end of the year. So, we’re
in a growth mode. The strategy that we’re pursuing at this
point is to grow primarily through franchising. We’re still
going to open corporate restaurants, but the focus is go-
ing to be on franchising, more so than opening company
restaurants.”
Plamondon says that his company is very choosy about
who might be the object of that focus. In other words, be-
ing awarded a Roy Rogers franchise is not a slam dunk.
“The percentage of those that we approve is very small
because we have very high standards,” he says. “We are
looking for people who are experienced operators, pref-
erably with multi-unit experience. They have to have the
operational experience; they have to have the financial ca-
pability; and the third equally important attribute is they
have to share our values – they have to fit with our culture.
We focus a lot on recruiting the right people. You have to
wade through several hundred to get one. We’re privately
owned, so we don’t have to grow at any particular rate. We
can be discriminating in terms of who we want to partner
with and make sure we’re finding the right franchisees.
We don’t have to make quarterly numbers for Wall Street,
or anyone else, or make deals that don’t make sense. So,
we can pass on people that other brands might not.”
How can the renovated Roy Rogers chain thrive, or even
survive, in a market that is dominated by some of the
country’s largest corporations? Plamondon is not unaware
of the competition’s advantages but believes that his com-
pany has a few silver bullets of its own in the chamber:
“There are 15,000 McDonalds in North America. I have
50. So, you have to be different from them. I can’t compete
with McDonalds, or Burger King, or Wendy’s. I can’t com-
pete with them on price and I can’t compete with them on
TV or radio and the like, so that’s why we focus on quality.”
Pete Plamondon, Sr. and Jim Plamondon
FRANCHISE
