Standing in a lunch line at a Pita Pit franchise
in Portland,Ore. a couple of years back,
Paul Dunham entertained himself by mentally
calculating the finances of the restaurant.
Impressed, he did his homework and
bought the rights to franchise the pita chain in
northern Nevada.
Not long after Dunham opened a Pita Pit
location at 6633 S.Virginia St. in late 2005, his
accountant, Jerry Jones,was sufficiently
impressed by the numbers to help Dunham
put together an investor group that's going
gangbusters.
Pita Management Group LLC, the company
established by Dunham and Jones,will open a
store in Carson City this month. A third location
at the Sparks Crossing shopping center is
set for early summer.And the group hopes to
nail down locations in downtown Reno, northwest
Reno, the Vista area of Sparks and
Fernley.
That sort of growth,Dunham says, is
unusual for a company whose 120 franchisees
are mostly mom-and-pop owners who work
the stores themselves.
The 25-year-old Dunham has no inclination
to spend his days behind the counter,
serving up pitas.
"I work to live,"he says. "I don't live to
work."
To pull that off, he spent a year developing
the tools that store managers need to run their
own operations without his presence.
Some of the steps were simple the purchase
of plastic cups to help workers measure
out the right portions of meats and vegetables
to stuff pitas, for instance.
Elaborate chore sheets, meanwhile, lay out
detailed instructions for cleaning of the store.
At the same time,Dunham makes certain
his managers know they have the authority to
manage. He hangs around the south Reno
store only a few hours a week.
"They don't have me breathing down their
neck. They know what to do," he says.
The parent company of Pita Pit watches
Dunham's nontraditional approach multiple
locations,modified store layouts, training
regimens with some caution.
Christina Hatfield, director of marketing
for the company based in Couer d'Alene,
Idaho, says the company is willing to consider
some tweaking of its concept but emphasizes
uniformity among store locations.
"We are guided by the principal that maintaining
the continuity of our operating system
has been the key to our success," she says.
Dunham,meanwhile, says he looks to
blend his careful management approach with
the folksy atmosphere found in many Pita Pit
franchises.
"We still have to give it that mom-and-pop
vibe,"he says. "We want it to be a very well run
mom-and-pop."
