Multi-Unit Franchisee Magazine Issue II, 2013 | Page 44

M U L T I - B R A N D
who’d battled ADHD as a youth, got a
tip from a 9-year-old girl on a flight to
California. When he asked her father
about new restaurants in the LA area,
she piped up, “There’s that new place
in Melrose—Johnny Rockets. It’s a little
hamburger and malt shop.”
Sugarman liked the name so much
that he rented a car and drove to Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles, near West
Hollywood. “There were long lines
outside, including some familiar faces,
like Kiefer Sutherland, whom I ended

“There were long lines
outside, including
some familiar faces,
like Kiefer Sutherland,
whom I ended up
sitting next to at the
counter once.”

up sitting next to at the counter once
we got our chance at the 20 stools. I
ordered everything on the menu except
the egg salad—I don’t like egg salad. I
loved all the food and the place with its
red-and-chrome décor,” he says. “I was
off the charts with excitement.”
He learned from the duty manager
that Ronn Teitelbaum, an award-winning
clothier, conceptualized and opened the
Americana-type diner and asked for
Teitelbaum’s phone number. “She said,
‘I’m sorry I can’t give it to you. So many

PERSONAL
First job: I was an ADHD person before anybody understood what that
meant, so school was difficult for me. I started working at an early age, first at
a little roast beef place, Walt’s Roast Beef, and then at Sax’s Steak Sandwich,
a chain of 20 stores my father founded.
Formative influences/events: I was influenced by the work ethic and
entrepreneurial spirit of my father, who died when I was a kid. I’d been watching QSRs in operation for years, and also became fascinated by franchising
while watching the original Burger King franchisee in Rhode Island get started.
Key accomplishments: After having a hard time in school, those early
career successes gave me the confidence I needed to show that ADHD has
nothing to do with creativity and intelligence. At age 18, I got my real estate
broker’s license and started successfully selling houses in Mansfield, Mass. Then
I read in Rolling Stone about two kids silk screening rock’n’roll images on Tshirts. I contacted artist Charles White III, who’d actually designed album covers
for rock stars, and wound up, with his permission, putting his photos onto the
back of T-shirts through a process called sublimation (unique at the time). I had
the hottest T-shirt line in the country for a year, but when everybody else began
to produce shirts at lower prices, I used the money I’d made to buy an old car
wash that I turned into a successful car wash for vans and trucks—and this
was before we heard much about SUVs.
Biggest mistake: Probably when I sold my five Johnny Rockets California
stores—the five highest-volume stores in the company—to venture capitalists in 1995. I was so excited about growing Johnny Rockets and ultimately
going public and having stock in the company. The mistake I made was in
not understanding the influence on direction that a CEO would have when he
became involved in the company. There were a few great leaders that I learned
a lot from—like Johnny Rockets founder Ronn Teitelbaum and board member
Mickey Drexler—but there was a revolving door of CEOs that, in my opinion,
didn’t “get” Johnny Rockets. Because of that, we never achieved going public
while I was there.
Smartest mistake: In our business, we’re always taking risks and making a
lot of small mistakes along the way. I think more in terms of missed opportunities and life lessons, rather than in mistakes.
Decision I wish I could do over: Keeping my five Johnny Rockets stores
in 1995 as opposed to selling them back to the company, or at least keeping
some of them. That would have been better for me and my family. I still would
have had control over my destiny instead of being an employee. I redesigned

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Multi-Unit Franchisee Is s ue II, 2013

and reworked the Johnny Rockets