Dave Liniger’s investment portfolio is as varied as they come. “I’ve owned NASCAR race tracks, NASCAR race teams, we’ve bred over 3,000 Arabian horses … we’ve been in dozens of ventures,” said Liniger, the co-founder of global real estate franchise Re/Max who also counts Harley-Davidson dealerships and a golf course among his businesses.
Until last year, however, Liniger stayed out of the restaurant business, but a visit to Daddy’s Chicken Shack in Pasadena, California, changed that. “We were skeptical about a QSR or even a fast-casual concept,” said Liniger. “But we flew out and we sort of fell in love with them.”
“Them” were chef Pace Webb and her husband, Chris Georgalas, who opened Daddy’s in 2018 and attracted Liniger first as an investor and now as a regional developer. Liniger’s Area 15 Ventures purchased a 51 percent interest in the business and he established Area 15 Franchising to develop 20 Daddy’s Chicken Shack restaurants, split between Denver’s southern metro and Scottsdale, Arizona.
With Area 15 Ventures, which Liniger described as a private equity group “basically funded by me and my wife,” Re/Max co-founder Gail Liniger, he considered roughly 200 emerging franchisors for investment and “90 percent right off the bat we looked at and said no.” Webb, however, had already built a successful catering company, Taste of Pace, and by 2020 Daddy’s was doing $1 million-plus in sales out of a 700-square-foot restaurant with no indoor dining.
John Henning has almost 20 years in the Franchise Industry as a Franchise Developer, Franchise Owner & Franchise Sales Manager. You can reach John here: john@openafranchise.com