Growth
Over more than a decade,
these two friends had built
a 32-unit franchise called
Eggs Up Grill, based in South
Carolina. They wanted their
restaurants to have small-town
charm, so they ran the com-
pany with a small-town ethos.
Everything was done with love
and gut instinct. They answered
the phones; they solved fran-
chisees’ problems. They insisted
that every franchisee also work
in their restaurant so custom-
ers could come and shake the
owner’s hand. And now Skodras
and Corn had gone and sold the
majority of their company to a
private equity group, the kind
of buyer that’s often demonized
for slash-and-burn, profit-at-all-
costs tactics.
Tears were understandable.
But so far, at least, Eggs Up is
not looking like a private equity
horror story. Instead, it’s look-
ing like something far less dra-
matic, but a lot more common
and instructive. It’s a tale of
what happens when a company
becomes too big for its found-
ers and more experienced oper-
ators come in to wrestle with
its full potential. The private
equity group that bought Eggs
Up Grill is called WJ Partners,
and it has some experience in
this game. It acquired Pure
Barre in 2012 and eventually
sold the fitness studio to bigger
investors; by the time WJ fully
exited in 2018, Pure Barre had
exploded from 96 to more than
500 locations.
So if you live in the Southeast
but haven’t heard of Eggs Up
Grill—well, you’re about to.
Shortly after the acquisition in
2018, the new owners installed
a team of franchise veterans
led by CEO Ricky Richardson,
the former president of TGI
Fridays. Eggs Up has already
scaled to 40 locations and
announced aggressive plans to
reach 100 by mid-2022.
As it grows, Eggs Up will face
a predictable question: How
much can this growing com-
pany retain its authenticity?
But that may not be the right
way to look at it. Here’s another
question that, in the end, might
really be more important: How
much of that authenticity was
holding the company back?
Because the thing is, some-
times too much charm can be
bad for business.REWIND A FEW decades, and
Eggs Up never looked like the
kind of company on a path to
private equity. Chris Skodrasopened the first one himself in
1986, in Rhode Island. More
than a decade later, he moved
to South Carolina and brought
his diner with him—reopening
Eggs Up in Pawleys Island, S.C.,
just south of Myrtle Beach. It
built a loyal following of fam-
ilies and beachgoers, and in
2005, Skodras decided to give
franchising a shot.
That’s how he got talking
to Skip Corn. The two men
attended the same Friday
morning Bible-study group,
and Corn brought his kids and
grandkids to Eggs Up every
Sunday after church. Corn had
just spent a career in manage-
ment for the PGA Tour and
was reinventing himself as a
business consultant. In 2005,
he signed a one-year contract
with Eggs Up.
The duo became fast pals,
and business thrived. “It wasa friendship made in heaven,
quite frankly,” says Corn. “He
knew I was gonna do my job,
and I knew he was gonna do
his.” In time, Corn’s yearlong
contract evolved into a 50-50
partnership. Skodras handled
day-to-day operations; Corn
took on accounting, marketing,
compliance, and franchise sales.
There’s a story Corn likes to
tell to illustrate Eggs Up’s fran-
chisee-acquisition process—
and, for that matter, the
business’s entire ethos. One
day, a guy named Michael
McNeal calls up. He’s a UPS
driver looking to start his
own business. He already has
approval for an SBA loan, so
Corn drives seven and a half
hours to meet McNeal near his
home in Albany, Ga.
“I said, ‘Michael, what do you
want to accomplish?’ ” Corn
recalls. Before he could answer,A
fter the papers had been
signed and the hands shaken,
Skip Corn turned to his part-
ner, Chris Skodras. “I don’t
want to go cry in front of my
wife,” Corn said in his distinct
Southern drawl. “But I can cry
in front of you.”
And he did. So did Skodras. “We cried
every day for six months,” says Corn, 68.
“To hand your baby off to somebody—
it’s a traumatic experience.”
72 / ENTREPRENEUR.COM / March 2020