Tom E. Dupree Jr.: family man fuels Apple South through balance, boldness

Nation's Restaurant News, Oct 6, 1997 by Jack Hayes

On one of his recent books, the well-known personal-growth author and speaker Steven Covey talks about the moral value of developing our talents to their fullest and "using them up" so to speak for the profit of all.

Paraphrasing the Irish dramatist, critic, and social reformer George Bernard Shaw, Covey bids his readers and his enthusiastic audiences to "hold high your torch" and, without squandering your light, "burn like a beacon while you're alive."

Tom E. DuPree Jr., the 45-year-old chairman and chief executive of Apple South Inc., also teaches that philosophy. But he didn't learn it by attending a crowded Covey seminar or by reading G.B. Shaw's biography. He says it came from his mother.

"I'm just a temporary holder of some talents God gave me. And when I turn my toes up in that wooden box, I won't be taking any of them with me, so their only value comes in unleashing them while I'm here," says the Bainbridge, Ga.-born operator whose $540 million casual-dining group aims to continue growing by roughly 100 restaurants a year through 1999.

Including 251 Applebee's Neighorhood Grill & Bar units, 85 Don Pablo's Mexican Kitchen, 22 Hops Grill & Bar locations, 16 McCormick & Schmick dinner houses, 13 Canyon Cafes and 10 Harrigan's Grill & Bar restaurants. DuPree's Apple South empire, in the 11 years since his first Applebee's opened near Greenville, S.C., has reached nearly 400 establishments coasts to coast.

And at a time when stiffened competition and weakened profits are making other casual-dining players leery of breakneck expansion, DuPree is keeping his foot on the throttle. Furthermore, Apple South's chief financial officer, Erich Booth, told analysts only a few weeks ago that the company likely would continue growing its brand portfolio next year by joint-venturing with, or investing in, one or more new promising concepts.

Completing no less than 10 merger-acquisitions in the last five years, Apple South closed on three significant deals -- Hops, McCormick & Schmick's and Canyon Cafe -- alone in 1997 to put 51 new restaurants on its menu.

"Current thinking is it's not wise to have multiple concepts, but Tom DuPree is hardly afraid of that," observes veteran analyst Craig Weichmann, who follows Apple South for Memphis, Tenn.-based Morgan Keegan & Co.

Booth, meanwhile, is projecting strong earnings growth for Apple South, fueled not only by continued unit expansion and merger and acquisition activity but also by the achievement of notable same-store sales momentum and heftier operating margins across the system.

"We have an insatiable appetite to build market share with our leading brands," DuPree declared at a shareholders' meeting in April. "The growth potential in the industry is excellent for those who know their customers and who know how to execute. Our mission is to be a multiconcept, multibillion and multinational restaurant company that is an industry leader."

"Tom has made a decision that, given what's going on in the industry, there's a huge opportunity if you're bold -- not reckless but bold," Weichmann adds. "He still wants to accomplish something big. And he's focused."

Yet for all of his achievements since 1978, when he left public accounting to become a Burger King franchisee with the launch of Blue Ridge Foods, Inc., DuPree always has refused to put career ahead of family or personal beliefs.

"I learned from my mother -- a divorced woman raising four young children while going to school herself -- that you're not going to finish it all in one day," recalls DuPree, who also was running a point-of-sale computer systems company and a commercial real-estate business when he founded Apple South in 1985.

Indeed, DuPree remembers taking his first job at age 12 and says he can count the times he dined out as a boy with his mother and three sisters -- on a rare occasion after church, always at the same restaurant and all ordering the very same meal they had had there the time before.

"My mother would say that when it's time to go to bed, just do it and get a good night's sleep -- and try again tomorrow. I'm not saying I follow that rule to the letter, but her advice has really helped me in this industry," he adds.

A man who rarely works on weekends and virtually never takes a telephone call at night, DuPree claims he cherishes family time and genuinely invites his employees to do likewise.

"That's how you find the time for things like coaching Little League and visiting the classroom," explains DuPree, who commits himself regularly to such family and community projects.

In fact, in his interviews DuPree makes a practice of probing the values of prospective Apple South team managers to find out if their systems represent any potential conflict.

"Work is important, but it's not higher than god or family," he says. "If that isn't part of your system, I tell a job candidate, `You are probably not going to be happy here.'"

It was a combination of this "balanced" value grounding plus the "thinking outside the box" corporate culture he saw co-existing in the organization that lured S. Kirk Kinsell away from Atlanta-based ITT Sheraton, where he'd been president of the rapidly expanding worldwide franchise division, to become Apple South's president and chief operating officer just eight moths ago.