Franchise Update Magazine Issue II, 2011 | Page 18

Grow Market Lead

By John Carroll

CEO
profile: Southwest Seasoning
Paul Damico puts his mark on Moe’s Southwest Grill

I

n early 2008, Moe’s Southwest
Grill was still something of a newcomer in the Mexican fast-casual
segment. But in the eight years
since its founding, not much new work
had been done on either the restaurant
prototype or its menu. So when Focus
Brands acquired the franchisor in August 2007, then CEO Steve Romaniello reached out to Paul Damico to see
if he was interested in not just running
the brand, but freshening it up and reenergizing it.
Recession or not, Damico was determined to hit the ground running.
After gathering his executive team, he
not only uncorked an aggressive game
plan to grow the company at an unprecedented rate, he fine-tuned the brand’s
look and feel to ensure same-store sales
Name: Paul Damico
Title: President
Company: Moe’s Southwest Grill
Age: 46
Family: Wife, Laura and three
daughters: Taylor, 19, Samantha, 17, and
Rachele, 15
Years in franchising: 25
Years in current position: 3

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Franchiseupdate Iss u e II, 2 0 1 1

were on the way up.
“I spent 14 years with the Host Marriott organization working on travel
plazas and airport development,” says
Damico, who was formally trained as
a chef before he made the decision to
dive into the world of franchising. “I
cut my teeth on non-traditional. As we
developed new concepts, we looked at
productivity studies, volume, customer
flow, and more.”
Damico put that experience to
work upgrading the aesthetics of the
Moe’s experience, focusing on color,
lighting, materials, and furniture. “It
is certainly brighter, with more sustainable aspects around things like the
lighting,” Damico says about the new
look. “We’re known for our ‘Welcome
to Moe’s’ greeting, and we reiterate
that in graphics. The self-service,
all-you-can-eat salsa bar has its own
identity. And the furniture is cleaner,
with a more ergonomic feel.”
The new approach has paid off.
“When we have gone in and remodeled
existing restaurants with this prototype,
we see a 15 to 20 percent increase in
sales,” he says. The staff and guests have
been reenergized as well, offering an
additional payback on the $450,000
cost range for the design. “That’s still
a very attractive sales-to-investment
ratio,” says Damico.
Leadership
What is your role as president? Our
brand sits in the Mexican fast-casual
segment. Those are both very exciting
areas. Mexican food is one of the fastestgrowing sectors, and casual is growing fast
as well. I have the privilege of running
a team of 56 people, with 4 companyowned restaurants and 424 franchisee
restaurants in 32 states, Canada, and
Istanbul. We’re putting one restaurant
a week in the ground, with a significant
growth trajectory.

Leadership style? I believe in setting
the strategy with the team, setting the
vision and working together on the
goals, and then I stand back. I am the
opposite of a micro-manager. I believe
in putting the right people in the right
seats on the bus. Today, I have a highperformance team that excels in everything from franchise sales to culinary
innovation to memorable guest and
franchisee experiences.
What has inspired your leadership
style? I believe it’s a combination of

what I did at Host Marriott, where I
had bosses throughout the years who
believed in me. When I left Marriott
in ’99, we started a restaurant company.
Those behaviors became natural to me
and they worked for me. I focused my
time on the people in my group and
made sure they were the right people
for their role. I look for three things in
the people I hire: levels of intelligence,
levels of leadership abilities, and levels
of energy.
Biggest leadership challenge? The

biggest challenge I’ve had was during
the time I was trying to bring significant talent into the group. The economy
was down and comp stores had negative sales. It was really tough to recruit
great people when there’s not a lot of
excitement around a brand. But we came
out of this in 2009. Our comp stores
became positive in the third quarter of
2009 when a lot of other brands didn’t
stay positive.
How do you transmit your culture to
your front-line employees? We have

different goals and philosophies that we
make sure we communicate. They are in
the form of artwork in the office. Our
guiding values are pieces of art. Our goals
are pieces of art, a constant reminder to
everybody about what we’re trying to
achieve and why.