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Proper training quickly turns fast food unit into model store That was the last straw.
The Burger King employee at the drive thru window had forgotten the straw for my son's frozen cherry Coke. We already had driven off and were halfway home from soccer practice when we realized the error. That's it, I thought. I'll never go to that restaurant again, I vowed, even though it's the closest fast food restaurant to my house. They never could get my order right. Something would be missing, like cheese, or added incorrectly, like mustard. But as a working mother and a slave to convenience, I found myself last month back in the drive thru of that very same restaurant. My first clue that something had changed was the energetic, friendly voice coming out of the speaker in the drive thru lane. Then I was told to pull up to the first window. Now the restaurant has been at the corner of Quebec Street and Colfax Avenue in Denver for as long as I can remember, and there was never more than one window in the drive up. "Is this new?" I asked the employee. Yes, she said as I paid her. As I advanced to the second window, I realized she had smiled the entire time. I couldn't remember any smiling employees there before. The man who gave me my order was dressed like a manager in a polo shirt. He looked into my bag and described its contents before handing it to me. Smiling, he wished me a good day. Well, that explains it, I thought. It must be a new manager. A week later a press release came across my desk, announcing that three Burger King restaurants in Denver, recently purchased by a new franchisee, now were open 24 hours. The Quebec and Colfax store was one of them. I had to call. OceDon Cos. is a partnership between Ken Donahue and his father in law, Dr. Ramon Oceguera. The physician is a silent partner, while Donahue, who's worked in restaurants all of his life, is the managing partner. It was his experience with Jack in the Box that made him switch the stores to 24 hour operations. And it was his experience as a district manager with McDonald's Corp. that made him comfortable operating more than one store. And it was his first job grilling Whoppers as a teenager that made him want to own and operate BK restaurants. Donahue shopped the nation, looking for a franchisee to buy out. The three in Denver, all on busy street corners, seemed promising, and the owner was looking to retire. They struck a deal, and OceDon took over the restaurants in January. Donahue, who grew up in south Florida, moved to Colorado. They opened with a media and public relations blitz, inviting surrounding neighbors and businesses in for a free Whopper and a Coke. They've done live radio remotes, held Whopper eating contests and overseen fund raisers for local sports teams and schools. They displayed artwork from the Museo de las Americas, a Hispanic culture society, in one of the stores. They also have started offering English classes to Spanish speaking employees. The three stores had been seeing 1 percent to 3 percent increases in same store sales for the past couple of years. Since January combined same store sales are up 9 percent, Donahue said He was telling me all this, and finally I could keep silent no longer. I blurted out my previous bad drive thru experiences. Well, Donahue admitted, training has been a big focus, too. In fact, they've done so well at training that the Quebec and Colfax store is becoming a certified training store for new franchisees and unit managers. "Our goal is to have all of our restaurants aspire to perform at that level," he said. That sounds good to me. In fact, now that I'm through writing this column, I think I'll treat my family to dinner someplace close and convenient and friendly with plenty of straws. |