After 50 years, we have learned every aspect of the business. We grew up in Michigan, where three of the top 10 chains nationally are located in the Detroit area, so we’ve learned how to be competitive for decades. Now, we’re at a point where we’ve rebuilt our brand. We have a national image and a leadership team with over 200 years of combined experience, and we are ready to develop across the United States.

When we started franchising, it was exciting to be able to put people in business and teach them how to be successful. That has been an extremely rewarding part of my job—watching people become incredibly successful. We’ve continued to develop our training program for over 40 years, and it’s something that never stops. It’s a living, breathing part of our business.

Over the last couple of years, Steve Jackson has done a great job building a leadership team that is truly focused on the franchisees and, more importantly, growing this brand. We have a ton of experience to help our franchisees be successful when they develop stores in new markets. At the end of the day, it’s about tangible results at the local level. Those results will make the difference for this brand and help our franchisees accomplish their dreams and goals.

It’s one of the best feelings you can have—helping others succeed. Our franchisees feel the same way about their employees. We’re just one big family, and to see the success we’re having, we want to share it with everybody. Pizza is one of the number one foods in America. In any city you go to in the United States, you’ll find pizza somewhere. But it’s not Hungry Howie’s pizza. It’s not Hungry Howie’s flavored crust pizza.

We believe multi-unit operators can create exceptional success in any market if they execute our brand the way we’ve built it over the past 50 years. Hungry Howie’s gives you every tool you need—from development to training, to marketing, to day-to-day operations. Plus, if you have a question, we’re just a phone call away.

You absolutely don’t need pizza experience to join this brand. We’re more than happy to teach you that part of the business. What we typically look for is business experience. Are you currently operating multi-unit locations? Do you have restaurant experience? Are you capitalized to grow as quickly as our development plan requires? Those are the key factors we consider when bringing a new franchisee into our system.

For me, Hungry Howie’s is a choice. It’s a great brand, and I’ve been very happy as a franchisee for the last 40 years. It’s just pizza—it’s easy, you have fun doing it, and it’s the atmosphere we’ve created that I think not only brought me back but continues to bring back all our employees.

We believe we’ve laid the groundwork in recent years to compete with anyone. There are multi-unit operators out there in many other brands, and those are the individuals we want to expose our successful concept to. These are people who can expand the brand in areas where they already have local contacts and experience in operating other brands. We think that’s a great opportunity to grow Hungry Howie’s brand.

The biggest reason I do this job is to see people be successful and fulfill their dreams of business ownership. Quite frankly, there’s no better feeling than seeing someone who’s gone through our process, invested their money in the brand, and become successful. When they come back and tell me, ‘This is the best thing I’ve ever done,’ that’s when I know we’ve made a difference. For me personally, there’s just no better feeling.”