The king of comedy: he reigns over the biggest U.S. chain of comedy clubs, but for Brian Heffron, business isn't a laughing matter.

• Author: Archer, Katherine
• Position: FEATURE

This place was built for laughs. The lights are dim, the rows of seats rise toward the rear, and the acoustics are so good that audience members never have to strain to hear a punch line. In the back, there's a kitchen-and-bar designed for quick service. During evening shows, 14 waiters are on the floor. Bartenders must audition because many can't handle the volume of drinks ordered. Running through the menu, Brian Heffron points to the food and libations available and ticks off the numbers. "I have 2,000 people in here a week and have time to get one more drink out of them, that's $5 a head. That's $10,000 a week, half a million a year." One of the first things he did upon moving into this location two years ago was call the phone company to request that the last four digits of the club's number be 4242--"HAHA." The Charlotte Comedy Zone is the culmination of years of consulting on new clubs around the nation. People wanted Heffron's opinion, and they paid for it.

A young man stands at the center of the venue and tells a joke about gun control. Just a few months earlier, a shooter had killed children at an elementary school in Connecticut. The roughly 10 people in the middle of the 400-seat room cringe. They are part of a stand-up class Heffron, 45, teaches at Comedy Zone--they want his opinion, too. He shakes his head. "Relatability makes people laugh. When you make a connection and get the feeling of, 'That is so true." Dozens of headshots line the walls: Rosie O'Donnell, Chris Rock, Pauly Shore, Bob Saget--comics who have had the kind of success his students aspire to.

Heffron walks to his desk, where paperwork awaits. "Yeah, I've met them all," he says, nodding at the photos. There are 62 Comedy Zone clubs in the U.S., almost all franchises of Charlotte-based Heffron Talent International, which licenses the name and handles their bookings. "He's the man behind the curtain," says Julie Scoggins, a comedian who attended one of Heffron's classes and now regularly performs at Comedy Zone clubs in the Southeast. "The Great and Powerful Oz of comedy."

"I found that comedy is the voice I wanted to hear in terms of the way the world works," Heffron says. "There's a sense of reflection on society that few other mediums can get across. It's so dangerous and fly-without-a-net up there." He may be an idealist, but he's not a fly-without-a-net kind of businessman. He coaches franchisees to comply with his standards, from the arrangement of tables...