Daunted by approaching Thanksgiving, with its mandated menus and gratitude? Here's something easy to be thankful for: Jim Purcell's pizza and his foolish midlife itch.
Purcell must be a fool. In a recession, he's starting a restaurant chain. He has tripled down on his idea of an upscale pizza place called Tazinos, opening restaurants in Oak Creek, his home, and in Menomonee Falls and Kenosha. He's got big windows, fashionable colors, carpet on the floors (so you don't see staff mopping). He's got big TVs, so customers don't stay home to see games.
And he's got pizza, basic or suburban-mom kinds like chicken or pesto. It's all-you-can-eat, but he dreads the word "buffet." It suggests, says Purcell, "10 people scarfing over one pizza," and his unbleached-flour product really is a notch or three higher. It's a pizza and salad bistro, the sign says.
Purcell's got plans. The big one is to go national. He has started what he hopes is a national chain. "We have a ton of potential," he says.
So he's nuts, yes?
Restaurants have a dauntingly high failure rate, says Douglas Kennedy, who teaches the business at the University of Wisconsin-Stout. Starting a chain is a second expertise, in franchising. It takes a particular kind of entrepreneurial nerve, he says.
Purcell has it. He says he was soul-searching: "I'm 50 years old. What am I going to do now?" was his thinking. He'd owned a bakery and a pizzeria. He worked for years in the supply business, being grocer and equipment supplier to fast-food chains, eventually through his own company, which he sold. He figures he knows enough about the business side of restaurants, where dreams often falter, to make Tazinos work.
His oldest restaurant has been open a year. Purcell says he's in a "holding pattern" because banks are skittish, but he sees the recession as having cleared the field of competitors. Kennedy confirms there's something to that. "These times of weakness are times of opportunity for a player with a good idea," he said.
Such bright vistas are nice for Purcell. It's more than that, though. "This isn't about me. It's about all these guys," said Purcell of his staff. But in a way, he's wrong. It is about him and people like him who are fool enough to try starting a business. Such people are doing work that benefits us all.
They end up making jobs. Tazinos now employs about 100 people, and Purcell says it's a pleasure to walk into a restaurant and see people he's put to work: "I'm like, 'That guy loves his job.' "
Building one of the restaurants takes about 12 construction workers 90 days, so that's more work, and Purcell says Tazinos spends about 90% of its money, even including equipment, within 100 miles of Milwaukee. This is production that leads to consumption that permits recovery.
Purcell is doing it by betting there's an unfilled need - for a nicer pizza experience below $10 - and filling it. Other people do the actual filling, by mixing dough, managing staff and installing ovens, but none of their supply would ever meet customers' evident demand without someone like Purcell organizing it in the first place.
There are easier, safer ways to make money. "I really didn't want to go out and create my own brand," said Purcell, but other franchises didn't seem to fit. Then, he says, starting a chain could create chances for other people to open a restaurant and make opportunity. "I think I can really make a difference in people's lives," he said.
That sounds almost altruistic. Maybe Purcell means that. But suppose he's in it just for money. Here's a beautiful thing: We all still benefit. He only gets big if the customers stay happy. In getting big, he'll still end up employing many people in jobs that didn't exist before and, if the franchising thing works, creating opportunities for other entrepreneurs.
That's what a recovery looks like. Purcell gets rich by restarting a little bit of the economy. And the pizza's good, too. What a great country we live in.
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