GRANDY’S PARTNERS STILL ROLLING IN THE DOUGH

It’s been over a year since Walter “Ed” Johnson and Rex Sanders sold their 65 Grandy’s fast-food restaurants for $66 million to Saga Corp. in exchange for common stock. And believe it or not, they’re still smiling.

From their homey, secluded offices in Lewisville, the two friends agree that it’s unusual for a small business-or any business, for that matter-to sell out to a larger corporation and expect to keep the purpose and structure of the business anywhere near the original concept. But Sanders and Johnson say that other than a tremendous increase in growth, Grandy’s is what it has always been: an upscale fast-food restaurant featuring fried chicken and all the home-style trimmings, including cinnamon rolls, cream gravy and baked beans.

“Since the day we signed all the papers, we have never had any regrets,” Johnson says. “It has worked out beautifully, and it allows us to expand a whole lot more rapidly than we’ve ever expanded before because we’ve got the necessary funds behind us.” Grandy’s now has 99 restaurants in 13 states, and its sales average $1 million a year per store.

Johnson and Sanders have been friends since they worked together as teen-age busboys in an Oak Cliff restaurant. In the early Sixties, they opened a fried chicken stand on East Grand Avenue, and their business grew and multiplied. In 1969, Host International purchased the 14 outlets to use for their expansion of Jim Dandy Fried Chicken. Balking at the changes, Johnson and Sanders waited until a noncompetition clause expired before opening the first Gran-dy’s in 1977.

The two men were honored in June as Outstanding Restaurateurs by the Dallas Chapter of the Texas Restaurant Association. Their offices are joined by a conference room, and their homes sit on the same 20 acres of land in Lewisville. They vacation together and wear identical watches. Sanders handles the nuts and bolts of running the food operation, and Johnson concerns himself with the business aspects, such as finding new locations for restaurants.

They insist that the money they’re making now hasn’t changed them. “I tell people all the time that we really came from the trenches,” says Sanders, the more talkative of the two. “Working in the kitchens and training employees is what has helped our company grow. We consider the management people and the hourly employees in our restaurants before we make decisions, since we have been there to open the doors at 5 a.m. and to close them at midnight. We’re not easily fooled, and we still have compassion for our employees.”