Second Generation Wendy’s Franchisee Ryan O’Malley on Breakfast Domination, DoorDash Strategy, and Smart Growth

Anthony Codispoti (00:01)
Welcome to another edition of the inspired stories podcast where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from their successes and be inspired by how they’ve overcome adversity. As you listen today, let one idea shape what you do next. My name is Anthony Codaspoti and today’s guest is Ryan O’Malley, a franchise owner with Wendy’s of Bowling Green, a premier Wendy’s partner that owns 133 restaurants and manages two more across Kentucky.

Tennessee, Indiana, West Virginia, and Alabama. The company’s mission is simple, serve fresh food fast while putting people first, whether they are guests or team members. Under this mission, Wendy’s of Bowling Green has quadrupled its store count in just six years, posted the nation’s top breakfast sales average for the brand, and raised more than $2 million for the Dave Thomas Foundation for adoption.

Ryan’s own journey at Wendy’s started as a GM in 2007. He moved up to district manager and director of operations before becoming a franchisee in 2021. Today, he sits on the board of directors for the Wendy’s Franchise Association, leads the Louisville Franchise Marketing Group, and speaks at industry events like QSR Evolution about culture and growth. Now, before we get into all that good stuff,

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Wendy’s franchisee of Wendy’s Bowling Green, Ryan O’Malley. Thanks for making the time to share your story today.

Ryan O’Malley (02:27)
Anthony, it’s great to be here. Thanks so much.

Anthony Codispoti (02:30)
So Ryan, I love your story. My very first job back in high school was opening Grill Men at our local Wendy’s in North Canton, Ohio. So to hear sort of the quick ascension that you’ve taken through the ranks is pretty fascinating. Take us through sort of step by step how you went from GM to owning 133 locations in less than 20 years. So graduated from Xavier University in 2006.

What led you from there into Wendy’s?

Ryan O’Malley (03:03)
So Anthony, know, my path with Wendy started out and I think I’d have to start off ⁓ through my father. So I’m a second generation franchisee. So my dad is probably close to 50 years in the Wendy system. And ⁓ that’s kind of how I got my start in the brand. ⁓ So this is not necessarily a rags to riches story where ⁓ just with…

you hard work, you come from a grill operator or a ⁓ general manager and you grow and own a whole bunch of Wendy’s. I think that maybe could happen, but that wasn’t necessarily my story. I think where I started out was is, Wendy’s has been around me and I’ve been within the Wendy’s system really my whole life. ⁓

So ⁓ really as I was in high school and in college, I knew what I wanted to do. And that be, I wanted to be in the winning system. I wanted to be in ownership and to get there, ⁓ I needed to have skills. So ⁓ I spent most of that, whether it was in college, learning about business and a lot of my projects in school were related to… ⁓

the restaurant or a QSR industry. And then I wanted to understand how the business works. So in each position that I had, know, the goal was to get to ownership, to be my own boss. So I wanted to excel and to understand what made a restaurant successful, what made Wendy’s successful, and obviously how are you able to influence ⁓ a team.

get results through that. that’s kind of really how I got my start within Wendy’s.

Anthony Codispoti (05:07)
So you grew up around Wendy’s. This is what your dad did. You got to, you know, kind of have a front row seat to everything. What was it that you saw as a child and then a young man that you were so drawn to it? Like, yeah, this is where I’m going. This is what I want to do with.

Ryan O’Malley (05:24)
Yes, I would say that at first, you know, as a kid, you’re like, well, what do you want to do? And then as you get closer into high school and approaching college, you’re like, well, geez, I need to decide what that is. I don’t think we ever necessarily had a rich life, but I think we had a really good life. And that was something that I wanted for myself. And I knew that Wendy’s took care of me, took care of…

My parents took care of my brother and I. Wendy’s has been good to my family. ⁓ And I thought that that was a brand and a company that I could help and service and be a part of. So that’s what brought interest to me.

Anthony Codispoti (06:13)
And what’s the typical path? know you went to college, you wanted the business skills because you had plans of owning your own franchise. Is it typical for a Wendy’s general or district manager to have college education or is that not necessarily a prerequisite?

Ryan O’Malley (06:31)
You know, that’s a great question. So the cool thing about Wendy’s, ⁓ a lot of people in the franchise community and in and ⁓ upper leadership do have college education. But the great thing about Wendy’s, that’s not really required. ⁓ A lot of the skills are developed and taught throughout the Wendy’s system. ⁓ Really, if people can perform well, ⁓ they can have success in the Wendy’s system. I think in a lot of QSR.

⁓ And you can grow up the ranks. A lot of the restaurant industry, I can’t remember some of the examples, but there’s a number of CEOs that were just crew members that started out, continued to progress, continued to get results, get noticed, they rose up the ranks. And we’ve got a number of leadership positions that were crew members, even within the Wendy system. They’re not maybe the CEO.

⁓ But they are vice presidents within, you know, the Wendy’s headquarters and etc.

Anthony Codispoti (07:38)
That’s really cool because there’s not a lot of industries where that can happen. A lot of industries, just to get your foot in the door, you have to have that college degree, know, something even beyond a bachelor’s, like a master’s sometimes. But it’s the nice thing about restaurants, QSR specifically, where you can come in at rather ground level. And if you’re working hard and you’re doing the right things, there’s opportunities there.

Ryan O’Malley (08:02)
And the uniqueness to it is ⁓ within QSR in particular, Wendy’s, ⁓ it’s not just that there is some hyper-focused skill. You got to have mastery of finance. Maybe you’re not a CPA. You got to have expertise within marketing, within operations skills, HR, because you are running kind of a micro business. ⁓ So all of those things come into play.

So I think that there’s some benefits that as people grow, they develop all these different skill sets that maybe someone that was in a specialized industry would be really good in one aspect.

Anthony Codispoti (08:43)
So you grew up around the Wendy system, but looking in from the outside, even a front row seat like you had is different than working on the inside. Was there something that surprised you when you took that first GM job there?

Ryan O’Malley (08:46)
Mm-hmm.

was hard, there were long days. It’s a 10 hour shift ⁓ at the minimum. A lot of times it’s longer. ⁓ If you just let people get, you wanna be the nice guy and you let people get away with things, it doesn’t turn out very well. I think that as a new person, you’re like, I’m gonna be not necessarily the cool boss or whatever.

there are challenges, I think, that when you get in there. So, ⁓ yeah, I think it was a great experience learning. I think when I was doing it at the time, it wasn’t so fun. You you’re like, man, you knew where the end goal was, right? You’re like, I wanna be an owner. ⁓ But ⁓ you had, think to some extent, my dad with his start, he didn’t wanna have any signs of special treatment.

So I think really whatever I did was I needed to do more than what was expected. Sure, sure. So there wasn’t any free pass or, know, and I think my team would say that. They would say that any position, any job, any task cleaning, you know, I’m right there.

Anthony Codispoti (10:06)
You were under a microscope. Yeah.

Ryan O’Malley (10:26)
with the team to ⁓ help assist or that I’ve done that in the past.

Anthony Codispoti (10:31)
So I’m going to read between the lines a little bit. Sounds like when you first got started, ⁓ maybe folks were getting away with things with you around a little bit. ⁓ Was there maybe a particular story there where you were finally like, OK, I got to take a different approach here?

Ryan O’Malley (10:47)
Well, I think a lot of times, know, know, operating a restaurant, cleanliness is a big deal. So a lot of times if you ask someone to clean something, that’s not necessarily a desirable thing to do. But I think I quickly learned if I was going to uphold a high standard, you know, I needed to communicate what my expectation was. You can do it nicely. But at the end of the day, there’s a standard that needs to be upheld. And

And it’s my job to drive that result. So ⁓ I think it took a period of time. ⁓ You also have to learn how do I balance a team that in a sense you’ve inherited. Once you’ve taken a position, say you get promoted to general manager. And that was, I’ve always said still, I always wanted to be an owner, but the position I was most proud of.

because I started out as a crew member and I was assistant manager. The business I was most proud of. Sure, no, I started out, ironically, I started out as a grill operator as well. So my most proud moment was to be promoted to a general manager, to get my own store, my own team. You inherit that team because it’s already at an existing store.

Anthony Codispoti (11:50)
see, I thought you came as a GM. started out at it. Okay. Entry level.

Ryan O’Malley (12:13)
But now it’s yours. And now it’s the task of claiming this team, developing them, helping to teach and educate, but also be a steward of learning from what they have to share with you. ⁓ really, always go back to, you know, now I’m a franchise owner and really still my most prideful moment was being promoted to a general manager and having my own store.

Anthony Codispoti (12:38)
It’s interesting. You know, and I hear what you’re saying about the cleaning. You know, it’s been 30 some years since I worked at a Wendy’s. But when I first worked there, I remember everybody asking like they wanted the dirty secrets like, oh, what goes on behind the scenes? And I’m like, like everything is like top notch, like spick and span. Like, and if it’s like quiet in the restaurant, like we’re supposed to grab a rag and start wiping something down. Yeah, you’re nodding your head. So it’s still still that way.

Ryan O’Malley (12:57)
Yeah.

That’s right. If there’s time to lean,

there’s time to clean.

Anthony Codispoti (13:08)
Time to clean.

Yep. ⁓ So for somebody who hasn’t been in a Wendy’s recently, what’s the customer experience look like these days?

Ryan O’Malley (13:20)
Yeah, so at its basics, Wendy’s is known for fresh, never frozen North American beef, know, or square patties. ⁓ I think Wendy’s has tried to establish itself as a quality leader. ⁓ You know, I think Wendy’s has found itself on having great hospitality. You know, that doesn’t always necessarily translate to the customer. I think…

The effort is still there, but we fall short at times. Our task is to uphold the brand standards, the quality ingredients, the great customer experience. ⁓ But yeah, that would be our main thing. Wendy’s recently this past year has established a program called Project Fresh, which is to strengthen the brand.

on a number of things, whether it be, you know, right size and assets to ⁓ improving the food quality from where it exists currently ⁓ to enhancing the customer experience. So that’s something that the brand is currently working on. ⁓ Listen, I think we can always improve, you know, how we treat our customers. You know, when they come in, do they feel valued ⁓ that

They’re not just coming there for a sandwich, but that they truly feel appreciated that they’re a customer. So we talk to our employees about that, that I or others are not signing their check. You know, it’s the customer. So how we take care of them dictates not how successful the company is, but you know, I talk about that we have a fundamental responsibility.

Wouldn’t that be in food safety and generating profit and all of that? I think that almost goes without saying. But for me, it’s managing a business that we are a profitable enterprise that makes payroll. I mean, that is kind of a fundamental thing. So the only way to do that is to provide a service to our customers such that they keep coming back.

Anthony Codispoti (15:46)
What are some of the most popular menu items today?

Ryan O’Malley (15:49)
Yeah, so ⁓ on our value side, we’ve got our junior bacon cheeseburger, our double stack. We’ve got our classic chili. ⁓ And then we’ve got other items like, which is probably my favorite, the spicy chicken sandwich number six combo. ⁓ I think we’ve been famous on our single doubles and triples. And of course, our Frosty, right?

Anthony Codispoti (16:15)
I remember the frosty machine. Well, yeah, it was a popular treat, especially in the summertime. ⁓ I want to hear a little bit more about project fresh. Can you give me one or two examples of some things that you guys have undertaken there?

Ryan O’Malley (16:18)
Yep.

Yeah, so Project Fresh, ⁓ one of which I would say is that the stores that are maybe older, ⁓ Wendy’s is allowing some of those to sunset. So Project Fresh is multifaceted. So there’s a bunch of different things that are going on within that. ⁓ So, you you assess your portfolio and see do you have any of those restaurants that meet those requirements. So you basically…

You’ve got a, you could have a restaurant or a store that is losing money. ⁓ Wendy’s is working out a plan such that you can ⁓ sunset that ⁓ restaurant so that you can conserve your cashflow towards other resources. So that strengthens the brand, that strengthens the franchise.

You know, and another piece would be is that there’s a big hospitality push. ⁓ And we’ve created on our own. This is outside of Project Fresh, but we got a hospitality pyramid ⁓ that we meet with our team about. ⁓ Some of the fundamentals basically are, you know, our interaction in the dining room with our customers. You know, are we doing table visits? Are we getting drink refills? ⁓

You know, one of the things that I’m excited about is we have a loyalty program for DoorDash. DoorDash being one of, it’s funny, it’s probably if there’s a single largest customer, DoorDash is our largest customer we have. So, you know, we want to give our DoorDashers free drinks. Like I said, we’ve got a loyalty card so that they get rewards on the frequency of them visiting Wendy’s and picking up an order. So.

⁓ Yeah, there’s a lot of really good things going on within Wendy’s.

Anthony Codispoti (18:28)
So I want to talk a little bit about DoorDash. That’s interesting to me. Why give free drinks to the folks that are coming in? It’s not like you want to keep them coming back because they’re your biggest customer, but it’s not ultimately them that’s placing the order, right?

Ryan O’Malley (18:32)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah, so I’ll be completely transparent. ⁓ This was a lot for me to noodle on at first. ⁓ These were my least favorite customer. DoorDash was. ⁓ One of the challenges is if there’s an error on ⁓ an order, ⁓ it just gets completely refunded. Whether it was an error,

or not, or it could be the Dasher forgot to pick up a drink. So therefore the whole thing got refunded. It was really frustrating. I think it came to point to me where I realized instead of me being an adversarial role between DoorDash, I looked upon it as, well, this is actually our largest customer. And how would you treat your largest customer? ⁓ You treat them with great respect and trying to claim them.

I’ll give you couple of examples. So some of the door dashers would cut the line in the drive-through. They wouldn’t wait and place the order. They would just drive right in front of somebody. Of course, that’s kind of rude and it’s not really a great experience. So what we tried to do is if we were their chosen place to visit, that they liked coming there, they would select orders more frequently from Wendy’s. ⁓ We would…

we tried to bring them inside. So the pickup location is now out of the drive-through and ready in the dining room. So they can grab a drink. ⁓ Obviously they can, you know, utilize our loyalty program where they can get ⁓ points on their card. And ⁓ basically we’re trying to find a way to break up this bad habit of some DoorDash drivers, not all. And quite frankly, it was probably…

a minority of drivers, but that created a lot of friction where that would frustrate our employees, the experience. And we felt that by giving to them those behavioral challenges improved or were eliminated and it became much more of a positive relationship.

Anthony Codispoti (21:00)
Have you actually seen it play out that way?

Ryan O’Malley (21:02)
Yeah, yeah. You know, I think a lot of times our frequency goes up with ⁓ drivers and redemption because at the end of the day, they don’t have to pick up a Wendy’s or McDonald’s or any of those orders. They have to choose to want to go. Like for instance, if you are a restaurant and you had a reputation to be in slow, well that affects their bottom.

where they may not ⁓ want to go to that. It could even be whether it’s the brand or a restaurant where it’s like, well, I don’t want to go there. Same thing as a customer, right? Whereas you’re like, I know I can go to this brand because they get my order right. It’s quality food. I’ve got a good experience. You’re naturally going to go there. Same thing as dashers. They’re not going to just select. ⁓

in order unless they feel that they can get in and out fast and that their experience was positive.

Anthony Codispoti (22:06)
What motivated you to sort of flip your thinking on that relationship from adversarial to how do we become friends?

Ryan O’Malley (22:16)
You know, so I think I Think I was realizing how much money door dash had involvement within the brand and I could look at it two ways. I we could be enemies or we could be friends and And I think I decided I’m like, know what? This is too big of a role I wouldn’t say that’s probably the norm that others are doing this isn’t a Wendy’s

suggested ⁓ relationship with whether it’s loyalty or ⁓ free drinks, et cetera. And we just came up with this on our own. ⁓ But yeah, they’re a big player. And we need to show respect that way.

Anthony Codispoti (23:05)
Hmm. Something else that you mentioned a few minutes ago, Ryan, I want to go back to ⁓ table visits. So is this something that you’re encouraging the managers to do the crew members like go around and what is involved in the visit because this is quick service. I’m not accustomed to somebody coming to my table to check on me.

Ryan O’Malley (23:12)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Well, so Anthony, the good news is in the QSR industry, ⁓ the bar is set pretty low. ⁓ So if it’s not hard to exceed that expectation. So, you know, our customers are important. just talked about that they are the ones signing all of our paychecks and. ⁓ Table visit encompasses many different things, so and in fact, you know, I’ve got an interesting

vantage point with kiosk. A lot of times people think of a kiosk being this tool that cuts labor, ⁓ less of a customer interaction experience. ⁓ My take is that whether I punch in an order or you punch in an order, ⁓ the order gets placed. ⁓ I would rather spend my time facilitating, putting that order together or being out in the dining room.

serving you as opposed to just doing a manual task. I think of a kiosk, mean not kiosk, a table visit says we’re there to greet you when you walk in. We’re there to thank you when you leave or open the door. We want to check on your food and see one has, do you have everything? And you know, does it taste good? You know, I’d rather catch a problem.

by creating myself to be available, myself, my crew, or my managers to be available to help fix an issue if there is one. Other pieces are ⁓ getting refills. We got away from that one. So Wendy’s has a Coca-Cola freestyle machine. It’s got over a hundred different drink choices that you can get. And when we moved from the drink machine

from behind the counter to in the dining room, that behavior went away a little bit. know, getting refills for customers because you’re like, well, it’s right there. They can get it themselves. Well, if we get the refill, the conversation can continue at the table as opposed to people getting up. You know, you also feel much more appreciated if someone’s out there providing a service to you. Yeah, we’re…

We’re a quick service restaurant. We’re not a table ⁓ or a full service restaurant, but ⁓ I just think nice things being done for folks ⁓ show our appreciation, show our gratitude. We are in the hospitality industry and we don’t have to meet where our reputation starts. I think we can exceed.

Anthony Codispoti (26:17)
So Ryan, when you went into Wendy’s, you had this vision in mind, like you wanted to get to ownership. And to get there, did you have some sort of like a checklist of, OK, I need to be a crew member and then assistant manager and then GM and then district manager. Like, what was the ladder that you had in mind for yourself?

Ryan O’Malley (26:22)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, so obviously the goal was, and it started off a little slower than maybe I would have liked, but ⁓ the goal is to become a general manager. And then the next step after that would be is, you know, take on your own market, that being a district manager. So you’re running and helping to teach, coach, and provide, you know, the standards for a group of general managers. And then obviously, you know, operate in a market in a city.

⁓ at the DAO level. ⁓ then, so a DAO basically is ⁓ a manager that operates like a larger territory. So Director of Operations in a sense is what it stands for. ⁓ And they would, for instance, operate a city or

Anthony Codispoti (27:12)
What is DAO?

Ryan O’Malley (27:36)
It could be multiple cities. ⁓ So they have a larger territory. It could be, you know, say 30 to 50 restaurants, some franchises out there, they’re, some of them being larger could have an even larger territory, but it depends on kind of the geographic area and you kind of mileage between different restaurants. And then subsequently that, you know, I had an opportunity within my family ⁓ to get into the ownership.

And that was a lifelong dream.

Anthony Codispoti (28:10)
So how did that transition take place? What was the point where both you and your family said, okay, Ryan, now’s the time, let’s bring you in, walk us through that.

Ryan O’Malley (28:22)
Yeah, so I think part of that ⁓ was I in a position of leadership where I had the skills necessary ⁓ to help. ⁓

the leadership in the organization. And then the other part was, I think, you know, on the other side where, you know, my dad, was he ready for some of that transition? So there was a balance between the two where did I have the right personal skills? And was it right for the business and my father at the time too? So.

Anthony Codispoti (29:02)
Is your father still involved in the business?

Ryan O’Malley (29:04)
Yeah, is. think ⁓ over the years, I think he’s started to work a little bit back on some of that though, but he’s still passionate about Wendy’s and is still involved for sure.

Anthony Codispoti (29:16)
What does he order when he comes in?

Ryan O’Malley (29:19)
geez. ⁓ Probably one of the single hamburgers would be my guess. That would be probably my guess that he’d order. Yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (29:27)
Yeah,

good burgers. ⁓ Why have you guys been so successful with your breakfast sales? We called that out in the intro.

Ryan O’Malley (29:35)
Yeah, yeah. So I talked about my general manager position. ⁓ My first store was actually at a pilot gas station, Wendy’s. So my entire career from being a general manager to a DM, DAO was all involved with breakfast. So ⁓ Wendy’s at Bowling Green, which is our organization.

was involved in a breakfast test to learn and discover about the breakfast day part for the Windy system. So we had a lot of practice going on within ⁓ the breakfast day part. So I think some of the things that we’ve been successful on is, you know, we investment spend. We’ll have marketing, whether it’s through radio, our own billboards that we’ll purchase. We’ve got a lot of ⁓ graphics that

that we have ⁓ bought or created ⁓ at the store itself to communicate in this day part. And then I think a lot of it also has to do with ⁓ how we treat our customers in the morning. So breakfast is uniquely more than any other day part, ⁓ a very habitual situation for all of our customers. And to break someone’s habit takes work and repetition.

So I think if you just think, well, I’m just going to go in and even if you have the best product to get someone to try this new day part, this new sandwich or an offering, could be, ⁓ is difficult. Cause people are almost on autopilot. ⁓ Recently I was reading about Taco Bell when they were rolling out their breakfast and it was kind of just loud and energetic and… ⁓

and different and the situation is when I think all of us when you’re waking up, you don’t want loud and wild. You’re kind of just where’s my coffee yet? You know, I’m like, I’m just trying to get through the day and they learned from that and I also think that we learned ⁓ that.

Anthony Codispoti (31:42)
the

Ryan O’Malley (31:54)
You got to be fast also in the AM. People have places to go. They want their food. They want it good. And so hot, fresh, you know, they want it accurate. And we’ve had some success. think we tend to operate in the Southeast. So for some reason that has given us a lot of success. I don’t know why, whether the, you know, regionality plays in part, but we’ve been really fortunate. ⁓

Anthony Codispoti (32:25)
Yeah, you you mentioned, ⁓ you know, it’s one of those things that’s really driven by habit. ⁓ Have you found any things that sort of get somebody to break their old habit and come and give you guys a try for the first time?

Ryan O’Malley (32:38)
Yeah, so I think, you know, it’s a trial and that costs money. So that’s either giving product away, ⁓ you know, the hope being that you retain them from the visit. ⁓ You know, a lot of things that we would do is we would try and communicate a lot of it’s education too. ⁓ You can’t go to a brand if you don’t know that the brand is offering. ⁓

food at that day part. So we would try and educate our lunch and dinner customers to come and visit us at breakfast. So those are a lot of the things that we would do. And then obviously Wendy’s National Marketing is helped by some of their advertising efforts.

Anthony Codispoti (33:25)
Right. And I want to go back to that transition into ownership. was sort of this, you know, two part conversation was, was dad ready for, you know, you to come in and start, you know, taking over some duties? Were you ready? Did you have the skill sets? And so once those two points met, everybody’s like, okay, yeah, now is the time. This is what you’d been working towards for years. Was there something about that transition though, that surprised you wasn’t what you expected?

Ryan O’Malley (33:56)
Yeah. ⁓

I would say that…

everything comes down to, you know, running a profitable, healthy organization. You know, there’s a lot of things that are all at play, whether it’s through operations, you know, or team at the office. And… ⁓

All of us are counting on each other to perform such that we’re successful. So ⁓ we’re a legacy franchise. So a lot of the things were established. It wasn’t like I came in and I was building a franchise from the ground up that you’re like, wow, I learned from this or that. ⁓ So.

Those would be the things that I would probably say is that there’s a lot of folks counting on each other and at the end of the day ⁓ if you’re not a profitable organization you can get in trouble pretty quick.

Anthony Codispoti (35:04)
So you guys have grown pretty significantly. ⁓ Go back to my notes here. What was the growth that you guys saw in the last six years? Is that a doubling quadrupling?

Ryan O’Malley (35:14)
Um, yeah, so

in fact, we’re just under now 160 restaurants. We’re in the 150s now. Yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (35:22)
my gosh, from the time we researched,

just continuing to grow. And are you guys acquiring existing franchise operators? Are you opening some new from the ground up? Is it a combo?

Ryan O’Malley (35:37)
Yeah, so it’s been a mixture. I would say most of the growth has been acquisitions. We also will naturally build new unit development. we try and operate out of our ⁓ existing footprint. And the reason being for that is that we’ve got resources, whether it’s team.

⁓ skills, they know what our culture is and the more that we can grow in that territory ⁓ helps strengthen I think that new market.

Anthony Codispoti (36:23)
So you and I talked a little bit about this before we started the recording about how important people are to what you guys are doing very much like people first culture and with the kind of growth and the number of units that you guys have, it makes a ton of sense. You couldn’t do what you do without great team in place from, you know, top all the way down. What has been your approach to both attracting and retaining really good talent?

Ryan O’Malley (36:38)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, Anthony, I think a lot of it comes back to, you know, what’s your reputation? What’s your reputation in the community, you know, amongst your people? I think if you have a good reputation, people that work for you want to have their friends work there too. They’re going to help recruit on your behalf because they enjoy being there. ⁓ I think it’s about showing respect.

and giving praise to employees, at the end of the day, people can work anywhere. They’ll ultimately choose a company that treats them right and takes care of them. And I think ultimately it’s about, you know, claiming your team. So I think if you do a good job, you know, treating people right, doing the right thing, ⁓ you know, naturally, that’s a place where people will want to work.

Anthony Codispoti (37:47)
Let’s talk about some of the philanthropic work that you’ve done over $2 million raised for the Dave Thomas Foundation for adoption, people who know Dave Thomas, who’s adopted this was a big, you know, cause for him throughout his life. Why did you latch on to this clause and how did cause and how did you guys raise so much money?

Ryan O’Malley (38:10)
Yeah, so I think we’ve been really fortunate in the past. This all goes back to our team. ⁓ Each year, I think the past two years, we’ve raised a million dollars each. I think over the past three years, we’ve raised over $3 million. ⁓

You know, so DTFA, Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption, it was created by Dave Thomas because, as you mentioned, when he was a kid, he was adopted himself. And I talked earlier that Wendy’s has done a lot for my family and a lot for all of our employees. What better way to give back to the brand than to work hard to claim its signature charity, the Dave Thomas Foundation.

⁓ The only reason we were able to raise this type of money is due to our people. They’re the ones facilitating this. ⁓ There are a couple different promotions that Wendy’s has is we got key tags and those are when you purchase a key tag, you get a free Junior Frosty with a purchase for the entire year.

which is really kind of an amazing deal. We get no money for it and we give out Frosties for every time you visit us ⁓ for the entire calendar year. It’s $3 and in fact, I think it’s gotta be one of the greatest charity deals out there. ⁓ In fact, when we first rolled it out, it was just a dollar and almost the Frosty was almost at that price. So it was really a great promotion. The other thing is during Halloween time,

And that is our boo books. And those are also free frosty coupons. And that’s a dollar. And all of those go 100 % to the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption. how do we raise the money? I think you sell the mission of what…

that Dave Thomas Foundation is, know, more than, you know, 140,000 kids are currently in foster care. ⁓ It’s not just adoption, but Wendy’s highlights the kids that are deemed harder to adopt or been labeled unadoptable. They’ve either families, disabilities, other challenges that would be, they’re older.

Maybe I’m 16 years old, I have a disability and how do you adopt, you know, one of those child, children as opposed to a newborn? Those are, it’s a whole lot easier. And then the most challenging piece is these kids ageing out of foster care. ⁓ They don’t have a family, they’re out on their own at 18.

I know myself and likely you as well. It would be really difficult to be on your own at 18. So, you when you hear all of that, ⁓ the Dave Thomas Foundation has facilitated over 16,000 adoptions over the years. And at its basics, everybody deserves a home. So with all of that said, it gets easy when you communicate.

what the mission is, what are the benefits on raising money. And those are the two things that we mainly raise the most amount of money is to sell in key tags or boo books. And all that money goes towards hiring recruiters that match them with future parents. So it’s a really great program and a great cause.

Anthony Codispoti (42:05)
I love that. If somebody is not near one of your stores and they want to give to the cause, just probably a website that they can find, right?

Ryan O’Malley (42:13)
Yeah, so you can buy them on the Wendy’s app. And in fact, ⁓ they’re sold. We just started selling like a week or two ago for the key tags for this calendar year. So every Wendy’s in America should be selling key tags right now. Yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (42:27)
Okay.

so this is nationwide. that’s fun. I love it. ⁓ Great cause. So I want to talk about ⁓ some of the networking that you do, right? You participate in events like ⁓ QSR evolution. You lead some different ⁓ industry discussion. And that really puts you kind of at the forefront and interacting and mingling with a lot of your peers and franchise leadership. And I’m a big fan of anytime you can connect with

Ryan O’Malley (42:37)
Sure.

Sure.

Anthony Codispoti (42:56)
you know, professional peers, it’s a great way to learn from and support each other. As you think back to some of your ongoing interaction, maybe can you pull out just one or two specific things that you’ve learned from other folks in the business that has really helped your business grow?

Ryan O’Malley (43:17)
Yeah, you know, I would say it’s more of an overall piece. And I think that we’re all here to serve others, you know, to serve our customers, community, our teams. It’s a people business. And ultimately, all of these folks, whether they’re at this conference or not, they’re all passionate about food. So, you know,

Most of these things come back to, ⁓ know, where a hamburger brand, they could be selling tacos, but at the end of the day, we’re in the people business. So that’s probably where I would say most of my experience. When you get in a room with a bunch of restaurant operators, it either talks about food,

and what we’re doing about the new innovations or quality, those type of things, or it’s all about people. Those are probably the two categories that get talked about the most.

Anthony Codispoti (44:24)
⁓ Innovations. What kinds of ⁓ restaurant innovations have there been recently?

Ryan O’Malley (44:31)
Yeah, so a lot of it’s flavoring. know, ⁓ beverage is a big one currently in the QSR industry. You’ve probably heard of brands like ⁓ Seven Brew or Dutch Brothers, you know, coming into the east of the United States. ⁓ So coffee and flavorings of beverages are a big thing. You know,

Spice is another thing that’s popular. The younger generation like spicy food. So that is ⁓ a big thing. In fact, McDonald’s right now is rolling out a hot honey program. ⁓ So there’s a lot of spice. All of our new sauces are featuring a little bit hotter. So if you don’t like heat, and then they’re not too hot, but that’s kind of how the industry is going where there’s a lot more.

lot more spice to it and then obviously you’ve got these flavored sweet ⁓ drinks that are a lot more popular now.

Anthony Codispoti (45:38)
What’s the future of your operations look like? It sounds like you guys continue to grow at a pretty rapid pace. Is that continuing to be the plan?

Ryan O’Malley (45:49)
Yeah, think that our goal is smart growth. think you got the balance of ⁓ real estate prices have gone as an industry. They’re higher, outpacing ⁓ what revenues can bring. So that’s a really difficult ⁓ challenge for new unit growth. You also have inflation, the challenges with that.

in the macro economy. So customers are saying things are expensive. So all of that leads into a customer that’s like, want to try and frequent less. Real estate is expensive and there’s a lot of fluctuation within the economy of the United States. So… ⁓

Our goal would be is, listen, we’re always interested in opportunities, but I think that, you our main focus is we want to focus on what we have currently right now.

Anthony Codispoti (46:55)
Hmm. You know, lot of franchise operators that I talked to, they’re involved with multiple different franchise brands. You guys are 100 % Wendy’s. Is the plan to stay that way?

Ryan O’Malley (47:04)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, so I think that we’re always interested in opportunities. ⁓ We started as a franchise ⁓ and company with Wendy’s and had been. In fact, this is our 50th anniversary as Wendy’s of Bowling Green this year. So that’s what we know and what we’re good at. I think there’s always an option to look at other brands out there.

A lot of work hasn’t gone into that. ⁓ We’ve really kind of grown within our footprint of the Wendy system, but you never know. You never know. There’s not a secretive brand that we’re about to roll out anytime soon though.

Anthony Codispoti (47:55)
Yep, presently focused on Wendy’s and the units that you guys have just how do you continue to make them better? Let’s shift gears and talk about a big challenge that you’ve overcome in your life, Ryan, personal or professional because a lot of growth can happen from going through something really difficult.

Ryan O’Malley (47:58)
That’s right.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah, I would say really I pick in the business and that being COVID. ⁓

You know, I think all of us were kind of scared when that took place. ⁓ You know, our CFO actually had a burn rate calendar for cash when you would run out and there was a date due to all the fluctuation within the industry. Incidentally, personally, I had bought a house a couple of months before. So as you’re driving to work and back, you’re like, wow.

Am I going to lose my house? What does my future have? You’ve got the concerns about your family. So I’m thinking about my parents being older. So you’ve got all of those challenges that are kind of scary. Your employees are scared. ⁓ I remember where someone thought that they had COVID and…

We went in to clean the restaurant, ⁓ myself and another district manager, and you didn’t have any personal protective equipment. You’re like, am I going in and going to infect myself and then my family? So you had all of these ⁓ concerns. ⁓ Now, I guess the good news would be is that… ⁓

We modified how we operated. There was a lot of different things. We closed the dining room and operated efficiently through the drive-through. ⁓ You put up like the plexiglass and whether that was effective or not, that was what you did at the time. You tried to come up with how could I continue to operate. In fact, my wife was involved and we tried to call grocery stores.

and bundled large meals for them. You know, were, this was a street fight. It wasn’t that, well, the circumstances weren’t great and let me just lie down. We were going to find sales wherever we could. Grocery stores were wildly busy. They were part of the essential employee program. So one of the ways for them to give back was buying meals for their employees.

So we would contact grocery stores all over the area, whether it was from Home Depot or a grocery store, and we would bundle big meals for them. Now you look back in the past now, you know, due to the lockdown, we had some of our all time record sales. You didn’t know that going in.

Anthony Codispoti (51:11)
Really?

Ryan O’Malley (51:13)
but it was probably one of our most healthy. You you think the dining room’s not closed, you’re operating on a really lean labor model, and people are cooped up in the house, and they can’t really go out and socialize. So what could they do? They could go to the grocery store, they could go to a restaurant. ⁓ Same thing as I’m sure Amazon had, some of their all-time highs where people were just buying.

buying things. ⁓ yeah, at one point it was wildly scary that, you know, the brand that I had known my whole life and the franchise I had known for most of my life could suddenly, ⁓ some external reason, be eliminated, you know, ⁓ at no fault to our own. So it was really scary and… ⁓

To some extent, through the perseverance from our team and the hard work that they did, we turned out to be on a net positive overall.

Anthony Codispoti (52:25)
how long did it take to go from the super scary part to numbers actually look better?

Ryan O’Malley (52:32)
Yeah, well, probably it was super scary for months. In fact, I think I worked every day of the week for, I think it three or four weeks. Because I wasn’t going to just be like, well, I’m just going to take a day off and relax. wasn’t time to take a day off.

you felt like you were in the fight of your life for your business, for, know, it wasn’t just my business. Like we talked earlier, employees are relying on you having a healthy organization such that they can pay their rent. So, ⁓ yeah, I would say it was a month or two and of it being really scary. And then it was trying to manage, well, how do we…

make all of these changes, whether it was labor or structures on how we operate ⁓ that we did. Cause a lot of it was remote, but there is no remote when you’re in the operations business. So.

Anthony Codispoti (53:46)
You know, it’s interesting to me because ⁓ different people are wired differently. Sometimes when there’s crisis, some people kind of turtle up, you know, they sort of retreat into a shell, they don’t know what to do, they’re scared. And they don’t, they don’t take action. It’s sort of, you know, taking that day off sitting on their couch kind of a thing, right. And then other people, you know, scared as heck anyways, but

Ryan O’Malley (54:08)
Sure.

Anthony Codispoti (54:13)
they get up and they do something and they’re not sure what’s going to work and they’re not sure what they’re going to do. Have you ever thought about this? Like, I’m curious, like, what causes some people to go one way and some people to go the other way?

Ryan O’Malley (54:26)
Yeah, I know that your question is not necessarily specific to our previous example, but it was one of those things where like, I guess you could say fight or flight. I mean, to me, I’m like, I’m gonna go down trying, you know, if ⁓ it was a matter, I didn’t have any other options. And I think sometimes, not always, but that’s kind of the best scenario is that those of which that don’t have a lot of options,

can be the most dangerous. So, you know, we were gonna get in there and success was the only option and we would find a way to achieve that. ⁓ So I know other brands and other companies had a tremendous success during that time too. ⁓ But all I know is what our experience and story was during that time.

Anthony Codispoti (55:22)
What did you learn either about yourself or about general human behavior going through the scariest parts of that?

Ryan O’Malley (55:31)
⁓ I think you need to be honest. think if you were sick, we needed to be there for people. ⁓ And I think that you had a team that would support you, which was awesome. That anything we needed to do, they were there. And it was scary, health-wise, not necessarily financially. ⁓ In a situation where

it was probably more common sense to stay away. People leaned in. So…

Yeah, I think that those would be some of the main things that I would say. ⁓

Anthony Codispoti (56:16)
Yeah, now that’s helpful. ⁓ Let’s shift gears into something more positive. What’s your superpower, Ryan O’Malley?

Ryan O’Malley (56:25)
Geez, I don’t know if I have a superpower, but you know, I would probably say I’d like to think I’m nice. And then I have a good connection with people that I can be relatable and due to my personality, I can influence folks to do things. So.

Anthony Codispoti (56:51)
Give us an example.

Ryan O’Malley (56:54)
Yeah, I think a lot of it’s relationships. ⁓

I think people are inclined to ⁓ be in service. in the restaurant industry, ⁓ we can accomplish more goals as a result of people, you know, working ⁓ for someone ⁓ and that someone being me, they’re more inclined to work hard and to show dedication, I think because

They know that they’re going to be treated with respect and their work is appreciated.

Anthony Codispoti (57:37)
Favorite thing to do outside of work? Hobby, special interests?

Ryan O’Malley (57:41)
Yeah, two things I would say probably would be is I like fishing ⁓ or boating and golf. ⁓ Probably not good at either of them, but those are probably my two favorite things.

Anthony Codispoti (57:54)
Okay.

How about recommendations for our guests on a book, a podcast, some sort of a resource that’s been helpful for you?

Ryan O’Malley (58:00)
Sure.

I got a couple of books, ⁓ Five Levels of Leadership by John Maxwell, a holistic approach to leadership from the beginning to the pinnacle. ⁓ For the restaurant industry, ⁓ this is maybe my number one recommendation is Setting the Table by Danny Meyer. Danny Meyer is the creator of Union Square Hospitality. ⁓ Maybe some would know better through Shake Shack.

but as some of the number one ranked over the years ⁓ restaurants in New York City for Gramercy Tavern to name one. And then, you know, I would also say another book being Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, ⁓ Stephen Covey. yeah, yeah. And then of course, you know, the podcast ⁓ Inspired Stories podcast, I think would be a great option.

Anthony Codispoti (58:53)
Classic. Yeah.

Ryan O’Malley (59:02)
And then another piece, if you’re trying to work hard in your industry is I always have Google Alert set up on whatever I’m wanting to follow. For me, I follow Wendy’s or other QSR industry. But any business that you’re in, it keeps you updated every day of what’s going on in the field.

Anthony Codispoti (59:23)
Nice. Ryan, I’ve just got one more question for you today. But before I ask it, I want to do three quick things. First of all, anybody that wants to get in touch with Ryan, we’ve got his email address here, romalley at wenbg.com. romalley at wenbg.com and O’Malley is O-M-A-L-L-E-Y. romalley at wenbg.com and we’ll have that in the show notes for folks.

Also, if you’re enjoying the show today, please take a moment to subscribe wherever you’re listening. It sends a signal that helps others discover our podcast. So thank you for taking a quick moment to do that right now. And as a reminder, you can get your restaurant employees access to therapists, doctors, and prescription meds that, as paradoxical as it seems, actually increases your company’s net profits, real gains that can change how a business is valued. So contact us today at addbackbenefits.com.

Last question for you, Ryan. A year from now, what is one very specific thing that you hope to be celebrated?

Ryan O’Malley (1:00:28)
Geez, I hope it’s probably record sales and record profits. And I say that because that means that we’re taking care of our customers and our employees. So that’s probably what I would close with.

Anthony Codispoti (1:00:44)
Love it. Ryan O’Malley from Wendy’s. I want to be the first to thank you for sharing both your time and your story with us today. I really appreciate you being here.

Ryan O’Malley (1:00:53)
Anthony, thanks so much. I appreciate being here as well.

Anthony Codispoti (1:00:56)
Folks, that’s a wrap on another episode of the Inspired Stories podcast. Thanks for learning with us. And if one thing stood out, put it into action today.