Multi-Unit Franchisee Magazine Issue II, 2016 | Page 19

MULTI

which are a little different.” That formula
has been a winning one for Collier, who
at one time had the world’s No. 1 Country Kitchen (he no longer has a franchise
with this brand) and No. 1 Golden Corral.
Collier and his brothers and sister grew
up on a farm “so poor that my father had
to sell it and go back into the military to
make ends meet,” he recalls. “He sold it
to a sand company and it became a sand
factory.” The family spent two years in
Germany while their father served in the
U.S. Army but came back to Sevierville
soon afterward.
“My father’s background was as a country peddler. He’d sell a skillet to a farmer
in trade for a gallon of milk and three
chickens. So we all grew up being able to
trade and barter,” Collier says. “When he
began doing real estate in Pigeon Forge,
he’d look at us and say, ‘We need a restaurant’ or ‘We need a motel here.’ Since we
had our contractor’s license, my brothers
and I would build it. In November, we’d go
into construction mode and have it open
by Memorial Day.”
As it continued to grow, the family
business had a unique way of sharing the
wealth. “We’d buy a piece of property in
the area and build that entity and then,
whoever had the least number of busi-

“My father’s
background was
as a country
peddler. He’d
sell a skillet to a
farmer in trade
for a gallon of
milk and three
chickens. We all
grew up being
able to trade
and barter.”
nesses got that one.” At one point, Collier
had two motels, a water slide, two restaurants (his first was the Smoky Mountain
Pancake House, built in 1976 and owned
by the family), and was in charge of the
carpenters in the construction crew.
All the businesses the family opened
were independent. “When they’d give me
restaurants, I’d study all the journals. That
was when ‘branding’ was the word—it was
all about branding,” he says. “I can recall
talking to my siblings and saying, ‘We need
to take these restaurants and brand them
instead of being independent.’”

BRAND

The family shared the combined stake
in their tourism businesses from 1968 until
1988, when they separated their operations
into divisions. His brother and sister oversaw
motels and wineries, while another brother
was in charge of campgrounds and motels.
Collier got what he wanted: the restaurants. “I wanted to be in all the food
categories, from fine dining to casual to
family to buffets to fast food to donuts,” he
says. His first franchise was with Country
Kitchen, and Golden Corral came soon
after in 1994. “It took me two or three
years to get our Golden Corral to No. 1
in the world. We knocked Orlando out as
No. 1. Then a couple of years later, Kennesaw, Georgia, knocked us out,” he says.
Next he looked for a major casual theme
restaurant franchise. That came in the form
of Corky’s Ribs & BBQ, which he located
next to his Golden Corral. “Corky’s was a
little bit different enough so we didn’t cannibalize ourselves,” says Collier. On the heels
of his tremendous success with Golden Corral, he built another, then TGI Fridays, The
Melting Pot, and Quaker Steak & Lube.
There was a method to his madness—
one that might not have worked in a different location, he says. “I tried to keep
things as diverse as possible, going into
brands that wouldn’t compete with the

PERSONAL
First job: Bus boy at Trotters Restaurant in Pigeon Forge at the age of 12.

Exercise/workout: Hiking, walking.

Formative influences/events: My father had a military background and so
I was influenced by that training, expectancy, and attention to time and task.

Best advice you ever got: Focus on what you are good at.

Key accomplishments: Owning the No. 1 Country Kitchen and the No. 1
Golden Corral in the world.
Biggest current challenge: Opening outside Tennessee.
Next big goal: Growing Old Chicago Pizza & Taproom, a new brand for us,
which we’ll open in the Myrtle Beach area. This will be our first restaurant outside
Tennessee.
First turning point in your career: Focusing my business on restaurants—
not hotels, campgrounds, water slides, or construction.
Best business decision: Signing up with Golden Corral in 1994.

What’s your passion in business? Being the best I can be and encouraging others to do that.
How do you balance life and work? I don’t—there’s too much work.
Guilty pleasure: Wine.
Favorite book: Anything by John Maxwell.
Favorite movie: “Jesse Stone.”
What do most people not know about you? I once owned the world’s
largest water slide. It was in Pigeon Forge and was three different tracks for over
a mile of sliding.

Hardest lesson learned: Not to build the restaurants too big. You have a
tendency in a seasonal market when you’re just at max capacity to want to build
bigger, but then the other four to six months you’re not at capacity. You have to
consider that.

Pet peeve: Slackers.

Work week: About 60 hours.

Person I’d most like to have lunch with: Warren Buffet.

What did you want to be when you grew up? Successful.
Last vacation: Biking and walking in Hilton Head, S.C.

MULTI-UNIT FRANCHISEE IS S U E II, 2016

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