Out of the shop, onto the streets

When Jim and Sue Riordan bought the Nevada rights to the Mr. Pickle's sandwich shop franchise, they could have opened one to 100 stores in the state.

But now she says, "We're happy with one."

Initially, she says, "We thought we'd do a couple. But we decided to stay at one and do it right."

The Sparks location, opened in 2003, took some elbow grease in the form of social lubricant to get going.

The Riordans thought they had picked a great location, with lots of traffic flow at the corner of East McCarran and Baring Boulevard in Sparks.

"You think people will find you, but they don't," she says.

She adds that they saw the ATM machine in their parking lot and thought people stopping for cash would stop to eat.

"But they don't stop."

So she got out of the sandwich shop and onto the streets. These days, she hosts a booth at just about every outdoor festival the City of Sparks hosts. She's in a booth at Star Spangled Sparks at the marina. At all the summer festivals on Victorian Avenue. There, she sells sandwiches, hands out menus, and sends kids off wearing green pickle tattoos on their pink cheeks.

And, she went out to recruit business from organizations.

"I'm pretty aggressive when it comes to going after accounts," she says.

Now, Mr. Pickle's feeds the sponsors for Hot August Nights as well as

the Hot August Nights performers at the Hilton. To get the Hot August Nights business, she says, "I just went knocking on their door, saying, 'How do I get to be a part of you?'"

Mr. Pickle's also feeds the University of Nevada, Reno, football team: "That's 120 young men who are very hungry." The restaurant even loads chartered air flights with meal bags for away games. And, she recently fed the Wolf Pack basketball team as well.

"We are a big part of the community," she adds. "So many people approach you on a daily basis, wanting donations. We had to choose; we just do special-needs kids. The football players served them lunch when the Alf Sorenson community center donated the premises."

Mr. Pickle's in Sparks employs 14 part time workers, mostly students. It's open six days a week for lunch and dinner.

But what about the statewide franchise the Riordan's bought?

"Customers approach us weekly asking to buy a franchise," says Riordan.

So, in 2005, they went back to Frank Fagundes of California, who opened the original Mr. Pickle's, and asked for the right to sell franchises in Nevada.(The company has 27 locations in northern California.)

The company hopes to sell two or three franchises in Reno, she says. One is already open in Winnemucca, they are working with a franchisee scouting a location in Carson City, and are looking for a buyer for the

Spanish Springs area.

They are working with a Colliers International representative to find good locations, but the franchisees choose and the franchisor approves.

How do they choose franchises? "We look for someone who will work as hard as we do," Riordan says. "They have to be social people and want to interact with their customers."

There is no Pickle University to train Mr. Pickle's franchisees in Nevada. Instead, the Riordans offer one-on-one help.

"We want to be different," she says. "We don't want to be a corporate franchise. We want to be a team. We learned by doing. We made mistakes like spending money on ideas that didn't work."

The Riordans were initially attracted to the franchise after the equipment rental business they had operated for 30 years in California fell victim to eminent domain.

What sets the chain apart from other food franchises, she says, is the quality of the food and the variety of the menu, which includes 24 sandwiches, plus soups, salads and smoothies.

And, she adds, "It was a great name."