We recently connected with Les Maginley and have shared our conversation below.

Les, appreciate you joining us today. Often outsiders look at a successful business and think it became a success overnight. Even media and especially movies love to gloss over nitty, gritty details that went into that middle phase of your business – after you started but before you got to where you are today. In our experience, overnight success is usually the result of years of hard work laying the foundation for success, but unfortunately, it’s exactly this part of the story that most of the media ignores. Can you talk to us about your scaling up story – what are some of the nitty, gritty details folks should know about?

We wanted to grow very strategically. We did not want to grow fast. We said from the beginning that we wanted to provide quality stores versus quantity of stores. In other words, we would rather have 25 stores that are all great stores than 100 stores that are all average stores.

Our first store was owned by one of the partners but then we quickly realized the best way to scale up was to begin the process of franchising. we understood that owning hundreds of stores one day wouldn’t be the best business model for us and we would rather teach people to fish so they could own and operate their own Krustaceans franchise with corporate support.

Les, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I spent 25 years in Corporate America as a Vice-President in several different healthcare organizations. I wanted to create a seafood restaurant that offered amazing food, excellent customer service and a welcoming atmosphere. Our menu options and the taste of our food set us apart from others. I’m most proud of our google reviews that average 4.6 stars out of 5 with 3 of our locations having 4.8 stars or better. Our motto is “Taste the Experience” which encompasses everything that we set out to achieve which is amazing food with a 5-star experience.

We’d love to hear about how you met your business partner.

My co-founder is actually my cousin. His mother and my mother were sisters. He’s always been an amazing cook and always had the ability to taste something and be able to tell you exactly what ingredients were in the dish. We have been more like brothers growing up so I thought it would be great for us to partner together to create a brand that we could be proud of.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

We opened our first two locations three months after COVID started. The planning of these restaurants began about a year prior to the COVID outbreak so we had no idea what to expect once we opened. It was very challenging without having dine in at that time. We had to create pickup stations in the parking lots, make sure everyone had on their appropriate PPE and we had to change our staffing model to accommodate the new normal. These were scary times but we made it through and continued to thrive!!!

We now have 5 locations in 5 different states and are adding two to three locations yearly.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.krustaceans.com

Image Credits
Les Maginley