The San Bernardino County Sun has quite a feature about Albert Okura, owner of the Juan Pollo restaurant chain and owner/savior of the Route 66 hamlet of Amboy, Calif., and Roy’s.
This excerpt shows how driven he is:
Today there are three dozen Juan Pollo restaurants throughout Southern California. Okura fully intends to conquer all of America, then the world. His competitors are “doomed,” he says.
“My chicken is better, and the quality is consistent. When my friends and family come to my restaurant, they eat the same food that you do. I make sure that it’s the same for everybody.”
Most entrepreneurs have a five-year plan, but Okura has a 50-year plan.
“I hire young, I pay well, I weed out the ones who can’t get it done, and I find the ones who can. I train my people, then I give them franchises. I push them to train other people the same way I trained them. I have the potential to grow and grow. My goal is to become the biggest chicken restaurant in the world.”
Juan Pollo, he says, has two advantages over the competition. “We have our reputation, and we have time,” he says. “We have plenty of time. Remember, I have a 50-year plan.”
As for Amboy:
In 2005, when he learned that another Route 66 landmark, the desert outpost town of Amboy, was for sale, he bought that, too – for $400,000 cash. He’s now in the process of investing $1 million to bring it back to life. Amboy, midway between Barstow and Needles, has the “potential to be the greatest Route 66 attraction in the West,” he says.
Don’t count him out.