Now that he's had time to reflect, Kelly Christensen says he's grateful for the experiences he had at the helm of Frontier Pies, which saw its last restaurant shuttered last month.
Like many "learning experiences," Christensen said his years with the Utah family-style restaurant chain — first as an employee at age 18, then as its owner from 1996 until late 2002 — represent the full spectrum of emotions.
"There's not an experience I didn't have," he said. "From the tax man, to the vendors, to meeting customers, to maintaining the buildings. It was all there."
The last Frontier Pies, 735 W. North Temple, closed its doors in mid-December. By then, Christensen had deeded the restaurant to the on-site manager, folded the Frontier Pies corporation and moved on to another, separate venture, the Iceberg Drive Inn.
But Frontier Pies has left its mark on Christensen. He's writing a book about his journey with the company — an instructional tome about buying, operating and closing a business. It is a guide for aspiring entrepreneurs, Christensen said. But it is also, in part at least, a tribute to a Utah landmark.
"Frontier Pies was a great concept when it came out," he said. "It was a good family-style restaurant, where you got a lot of product for the price. It appealed to a wide spectrum of people. It was a tradition for a lot of Utahns. They'd come to Frontier Pies to celebrate birthdays, missionaries, families."
Frontier Pies' success began to turn in the late 1990s, when a glut of national chain restaurants found the Utah market.
"Chili's, Olive Garden, IHOP, they were all more funded, they were newer and brighter," he said. "Frontier Pies was outdated once these new chains came in."
Couple that with the national economic downturn, and Christensen said the company started losing money.
"We had to borrow money just to stay alive," he said. "We weren't able to refurbish or compete as the chains came in."
The terrorist attacks of 2001 turned what had been a downward trend into an out-and-out spiral, he said. Sales, which were already trending 15 percent lower in year-over comparisons, sank to 50 percent after September 2001.
"We were never able to recover," Christensen said. "We looked at raising capital and refurbishing, but it would have taken too much capital. At that point, we had zero in the bank and $2.5 million in debt."
Christensen and his two business partners — his mother, JoLynn Christensen, and friend Sherri Cropper — closed the Frontier Pies corporation in October 2002. Two restaurant managers, one in Provo and the other in downtown Salt Lake City, tried to keep their locations afloat. The Provo restaurant folded in May. Christensen said he heard about the Salt Lake closure a few weeks ago.
"It's sad that we had to close (Frontier Pies)," he said. "But it's a tough market out there."
The Utah Restaurant Association has stated that 30 percent of restaurants fail within the first year of business. Nearly 70 percent close within five years.
Christensen said that his new company, Iceberg Drive Inn Inc., is showing promising results. Iceberg — another restaurant with local renown, this one for its milkshakes and burgers — opened a new location in Sandy this year and has several new prospects: seven new locations in Utah, and interesting possibilities in Arizona and Nevada.
"I think Iceberg will be our future," he said. "I think the company has a bright future. It has a great product, and a great family tradition in Utah. There's interest in it."
In its 2004 forecast, the National Restaurant Association predicted that the restaurant industry will grow 4.4 percent in 2004 to a record $440.1 billion in annual sales. The number of restaurant locations in the United States will grow to 878,000, the NRA reported, and will employ 12 million people — making it the largest private-sector employer in the nation.
The Western states, including Utah, will lead the nation in growth, according to the national association. The region is expected to achieve a projected growth rate of 6.1 percent.
E-mail: jnii@desnews.com