This has always been Joe Bisogno’s plan.

As CEO and founder of the chain of Mr. Goodcents Subs and Pasta shops, Bisogno currently is watching his DeSoto-based company grow at its fastest rate.

The chain of 125 restaurants is expected to have deals signed for 50 more stores by the end of this year. The company, which currently operates in 13 states, expects that number to grow to 18 by year’s end. Bisogno, who is the sole owner of the company, won’t reveal how much revenue the company generates, but he said the company is on track to top $50 million per year in 2002.

The results are what he’s had in mind since his late teen-age years in New Jersey when he opened Jolly Joe’s Ice Cream, a business that sold hand-scooped ice cream, sundaes and malts out of the back of a delivery van. By the time he was 22, Bisogno had owned a gas station, a Ryder truck rental business and two used car lots in the Las Vegas area.

And that’s when McDonald’s came calling. The world’s largest fast-food chain approached him about becoming an instructor in the company’s franchise program. Technically his job was to teach the company’s new franchise owners basic and advanced management skills. But today, Bisogno will tell you he was doing as much learning as anyone.

“I left McDonald’s because I realized I had gotten all the knowledge I could get about building my own corporation, and that’s what I was there for,” Bisogno said. “When I was making ice cream cones, I used to scoop out the largest dip I could because I loved seeing the kid smile as he walked down the street with it.

“But at McDonald’s I started learning about yields and realized I was giving my business away back then. At McDonald’s, I learned how to make money.”

It was all part of the plan.

“When I went to work for McDonald’s, I told them that I would stay a year and if I liked it, I would stay 10 more,” Bisogno said. “Eleven years later, I left.”

In 1989, he opened his first Mr. Goodcents in Lenexa. By 1991 he had started franchising the stores. Today, Bisogno is working on the part of the plan that calls for turning the still relatively small chain into a true nationwide restaurant company.

Saturday, for the second year in a row, he sponsored the Mr. Goodcents 300, the NASCAR Busch Series race at the Kansas Speedway.

“We feel like it is a good opportunity to show folks we’re a major player on the national level,” Bisogno said.

Growing in DeSoto

What many folks may not realize is that the company’s growth plans are formulated in a DeSoto business park. Bisogno moved the company from the Kansas City area to DeSoto approximately a year ago.

Located at 8997 Commerce Drive, the company is right next to Custom Foods Manufacturing, a company Bisogno co-owns and uses to produce all the frozen bread dough for the Mr. Goodcents chain.

Locating in DeSoto, a town of about 3,500 residents, wasn’t necessarily in Bisogno’s original plans but soon became an idea after the company struggled to find a location in Kansas City.

“We ended up in DeSoto because the land was available to grow our offices and training areas and our research and development space,” Bisogno said. “Prior to coming here, we had moved our offices eight times in 10 years.”

The company employs about 40 people at its DeSoto offices, with jobs ranging from accounting positions to actual chefs who develop new products for the company. The offices also serve as the company’s main training facility, which means every new Mr. Goodcents franchise operator spends up to a month in the DeSoto area.

Bisogno said he had plans to significantly increase the size of the DeSoto facility. He said he hoped to begin work by the end of October on a new 10,000- to 20,0000-square-foot building that would be built on part of the 40 acres the company owns in the business park.

He said he was currently working on a deal to lease the building to a separate advertising company that would handle Mr. Goodcents’ video and print advertising needs, in addition to those of other firms.

As the restaurant business expands, Bisogno said he anticipated building another facility to house the company’s office departments, freeing up the current building to be used entirely for research and development.

“We think it eventually will have a sort of corporate campus feel,” Bisogno said.

A time to grow

Bisogno said the company wasn’t concerned about trying to enact its growth plans during a slowing economy. In fact, he said he thought the downturn has helped the company’s efforts to recruit new franchise owners.

“We think it is the right time to grow,” Bisogno said. “With the cutbacks and layoffs in corporate America, we think there are a lot of people out there who want to take their futures into their own hands by buying and building their own business.”

Bisogno said most people found that starting a Mr. Goodcents is fairly affordable. He estimated the total cost to start a new store to be between $86,000 to $150,000. The company requires that the new franchise owner provide 28 percent to 32 percent of the cash up front, meaning people could get started for an initial investment of $25,000 in some cases.

“A lot of people have that much equity in their home, and with interest rates as low as they are, people find it is something they can do,” Bisogno said.

A size advantage

Bisogno said he was not worried about his company’s ability to compete with much larger chain restaurant companies. The company’s main competitor is none other than the country’s largest franchise restaurant company, Subway Corp.

With 16,500 restaurants and $5.1 billion in revenue, Subway dwarves Mr. Goodcents. But that’s fine with Bisogno.

“Our philosophy always has been to never worry about competition because in the food business it is always going to be there,” Bisogno said.

He said he thought Mr. Goodcents’ size currently is working to the company’s advantage. Within the past year, the company for the first time began offering franchise owners the opportunity to buy an entire franchise area.

For example, the company signed a deal giving Leawood businessman Dean Drennan the exclusive rights to open two additional stores in the Lawrence area within the next two years. Other deals have been signed to open 10 stores in Omaha, 20 in the Denver area and 10 in Daytona Beach, Fla.

Bisogno said it would be tough for individuals to find similar deals with a company like Subway because Subway already has stores in nearly every major market.

“We’re a real novelty in the business because we still have a lot of opportunities available,” Bisogno said. “We tell people that right now Mr. Goodcents is still a land of opportunities.”

But it may not always be that way. Bisogno makes it clear that he doesn’t plan on keeping the company small forever.

“With the way we’re developing new properties now, we should be a national corporation within the next 10 years,” Bisogno said. “Our plan is pretty clear. We’d like to be a national player and then an international player.”

Lawrence plans

Leawood businessman Dean Drennan said he still has plans to open two new Mr. Goodcents restaurants in Lawrence within the next two years. Drennan, who also owns the two existing Mr. Goodcents stores in Lawrence, said he’s still searching for locations for the stores. He said he expects the first new store to open during the first quarter of 2003.