Alaska franchises: top of the food chain: a handful of success stories.

• Author: Strieker, Julie
• Position: SPECIAL SECTION: Franchise & Business Opportunities

Tastee Freez-Rich Owens

Rich Owens figures that owning a Tastee Freez was always in the cards for him. He grew up in a small Montana town that had an A&W stand on one end and a Tastee Freez on the other. It just so happens that the Tastee Freez was on the way to the drive-in and was owned by a family friend, so Owens and his brothers stopped by often.

Forty years later, Owens discovered the owner of the Tastee Freez on Jewel Lake Road in Anchorage was a friend. They got to talking in the restaurant one Saturday morning and agreed to the sale terms the following Monday. The deal was closed two weeks later.

"Everything fell into place at the right time, he says. I had done some work up on the North Slope, just getting done with that contract and really didn't have anything else going. It was that little window that just happened to work."

That was twenty-one years ago. Since then, Owens has built the Jewel Lake Tastee Freez into one of the highest revenue-producing franchises in the company. Owens has been named Operator of the Year twice, most recently for 2014.

"Were like number one in the country for May, June, July, and August," Owens says. A Tastee Freez in South Carolina, that just happens to be located next to a 1,600-student high school, is number one the other months.

Owens says one of the reasons he is successful is because his Tastee Freez has a greatly expanded menu that includes salmon burgers, veggie burgers, and salads, as well as the core ice cream treats. When he took over the franchise, those regional variations were encouraged, but times have changed. Tastee Freez is now part of the Galardi Group, which owns Wienerschnitzel.

"In the process of purchasing Tastee Freez, they ended up with about sixty-five of us that are grandfathered," Owens says. "My franchise goes back to 1958. What happens is those of us that are grandfathered don't really fit the corporate model."

Executives from the Galardi Group traveled to Anchorage to talk to Owens about becoming a more traditional Tastee Freez but left impressed, and without changing his business model, when they saw the lines outside the door.

"We have one of the largest menus in the country, but that's what we need to survive, and the home office has been good about not bugging me about having things that aren't on the core menu," Owens says.

The Tastee Freez is in a residential area, which doesn't get the vehicle traffic it would get on a major road (there is no drive-thru, he notes) but gets steady traffic from the neighborhood and those traveling to and from Kincaid Park.

Until it was folded into Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in 2011, Kulis Air National Guard Base was also right next door. Over the years, Owens has been heavily involved with the 176th Wing and in 2005 he launched the Ice Cream Support Squadron. Owens is known informally as the commander of the squadron--which has its own patch--and is a member of the National Guard's Operation Santa Claus Committee.

Community service is just part of his business model. Owens' dad was a pharmacist in the family's mom and pop drugstore. The kids all worked at the store and watched their parents, who were active with the local library, chamber of...