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This article was originally published in Franchise Times on 6/19/24. Kevin King doesn’t officially take over as CEO of Donatos Pizza for another three months, but he’s already setting goals and priorities for himself and the Columbus, Ohio-based legacy brand.
“I want to see us improve our guest experience on the delivery and drive-thru side and I want us to improve our communications with our franchise partners,” said King, the president of Donatos. He’s set to replace Tom Krouse, who is retiring, as CEO of the 61-year-old pizza chain in October.
With Krouse at the helm the past 14 years, Donatos expanded to nearly 200 restaurants, along with more than 280 non-traditional locations through its partnership with Red Robin. It also grew its franchise system from 10 to 45 operators during his tenure.
Jim Grote founded Donatos in 1963 and his daughter, Jane Grote Abell, is executive chairwoman. The company is ranked No. 198 on the Franchise Times Top 400.
King admitted he’s “somewhat nervous” about taking on the first CEO role of his career and that he’s “got huge shoes to fill” following Krouse as the top executive of the $300 million company.
At the same time, he sounded confident that his two decades of restaurant experience, including lead franchise development roles at Donatos, Smoothie King, Papa Murphy’s, and Domino’s Pizza, have prepared him well for his new gig.
“Donatos is a great company that makes consistently outstanding pizza,” King said. “What we need to do now is elevate the customer experience outside our dining rooms and better systematize the operations around that.”
King said that while Donatos gets consistently high marks for its food from customers, he wants to see improvement in the company’s guest satisfaction scores on pickup and delivery services, which he said now make up 40-45 percent of companywide sales. He pointed to another successful brand in the quick-service space he would like Donatos to emulate when it comes to achieving and maintaining quality customer service.
“It’s super easy to look at what Chick-fil-A does and say they are someone I’m shooting for,” King said. “Yes, I would love to have a service system that equals theirs and, you know, that’s going to be hard. They do a fantastic job moving food and people through the drive-thru and pickup lines. But I think with some changes, some adjustments in our systems, we can improve our efficiencies and our satisfaction scores.”
King also wants to focus on better communications and engagement with franchisees, whose average unit sales increased 60 percent during Krouse’s time as CEO, hitting $1.24 million in 2023.
“We do well keeping our partners profitable and happy for the most part. Where we need to improve on is getting them more involved and engaged with how to improve our operating systems and efficiencies in making the pizzas and getting them out the door faster,” King said.
“As a company, we do a better job explaining how to do things than explaining why we need to change the way we do things. Operators needs to buy into the change to make change successful,” he continued.
King described his leadership style as “fact-based, meaning I like to develop a plan and then execute against it, using facts to move forward with the plan.” He also called himself a “lifelong learner” who has experienced the highs and lows of franchising with a number of restaurant brands.
He sees a lot of white space to grow Donatos, but at the same time is less excited to sign large multi-unit territory deals with big restaurant groups versus smaller development deals with experienced operators. He said he would prefer matching up new and existing franchisees with available territories to achieve consistent company unit growth and overall food quality.
“I don’t have a 10-store package anywhere to sell to anybody, anyway, so I’m more interested in signing strong restaurant partners who we know can build three to five stores,” King said.
King said the company still has three or four original franchisees in the system who are all “in a generational transformation,” passing control of their businesses to their children. As vice president of development for Donatos from 1990 to 2003, King said he signed some of the company’s first franchisees and he feels obligated to ensure the continuing success of all the company’s operators.
“I don’t think Donatos should revolutionize the pizza category as much as I hope Donatos helps evolve the pizza category. We can only achieve that with the support of our franchise partners,” King said.