John Orr - retired restauranteur, leader and community servant

This is Coffee with Cool People. I'm Chip Munn, and today I'm getting to spend some time with John Orr. John, thanks for having coffee with me.

Hello, Chip. I appreciate the invitation to come down here today.

Absolutely. So first question, because I'm always curious, who is John Orr?

Well, I am who I am. I am a retired KFC franchisee and an Arby's franchisee here in Florence. And I cooked chicken for 44 years. I came—

That's amazing.

I was in the Navy and I was a lieutenant in the submarine service stationed in Key West, Florida. And I was getting ready to get out of the Navy and ironically I thought I wanted to be a stockbroker. How about that? And I made several inquiries and my dad was in the restaurant business here on the old Holiday Inn. On Highway 301, which is where the Performing Arts Center sits now. And he called me up one day and said he needed some help, and I said, "Well, Dad, I really don't like what you do, but tell you what, I talked to my wife and—" He finally convinced me to come back. I said I'd come back and try it for a year. Well, I came back and running the Charcoal Hearth, and it was long hours. It was from 6 in the morning till 12 at night we were open, and a lot of business because it was 301, and I really didn't treat my wife fairly there. I spent too much time working because I had to to learn the business. And we got an opportunity to build the second KFC in Florence down on East Palmetto Street. That building is still there today. But I just— and then we got a chance to build restaurants up in Union, Lawrence, and Easley. Okay. We didn't know where Union, Lawrence, and Easley were. Well, we rode up there one day and went in a place in Lawrence and found a spot, found somebody that would rent to us and built the KFC store and came down to Florence and got a loan from Mr. Boone Aiken and we asked him to lend us $5,000 so we could buy a lot and get started. And he said, well, I will, but Jack, I want to tell you, chicken's a little too greasy for me. How about that? But we opened in Lawrence, and then we built Union, and later on we built Easley. And just got the book, and I told my dad, you know, I really like this business. So we stayed, I stayed in it and he asked me one day, he said, "I'd like for you to go fishing with me." And I said, "Well, Dad, I'd rather fish than work, I'd rather work than fish." And he said, "Well, that's good 'cause I'd rather fish than work." And so after about 3 years, he turned me loose and he moved on and It was good for me because it let me make mistakes and let me learn from my mistakes. And we just had, my dad and I had a good relationship.

Wow. Now, was your dad in KFC when you started or was he, he was?

That's a good story, Chip. My dad was in that restaurant business at the Holiday Inn. And Holiday Inn mandated a fried chicken dinner on Sunday. Served family style with chicken on a platter and gravy in a gravy boat and mashed potatoes and green beans and side items. And so he met Colonel Sanders at a restaurant show, and Colonel Sanders was selling something that was about as famous as Chip's Fried Chicken. And Colonel was a man that had been knocked around all his life. He worked on the railroad, he sold tires, he sold insurance. He never was successful, but at age 65, he went out on his own because he could sell, he could cook chicken. He had this secret recipe. He mixed 11 herbs and spices in his garage. He had 16-quart pressure cookers that he cooked it in. And he had a little cafe in Shelbyville, Kentucky. And he started peddling this on the road at age 65. Now, that's the age that we used to quit. Sure. And anyway, I met my dad at a restaurant show, and two very bad businessmen getting together. Dad said, Colonel, I'd like to sell you chicken in my restaurant. And the first bad businessman was the colonel. He said, well, Jack, why don't you take the states of North Carolina and South Carolina? Okay? That's the bad business. And my dad said, no, Colonel, I just want to put it in my restaurant. So, two bad businessmen. There you go. But had I gotten the states of North Carolina and South Carolina, I wouldn't have been any more happier than I am now. I don't need planes or yachts or anything like that. So life has been good.

So if you don't mind my asking, so it started out he was going to sell his chicken The Colonel's Chicken in his restaurant. In his restaurant. But it turned out as, I guess, the business model grew, which by the way is fantastic that the Colonel started at 65 when most people think whatever dream they have, you know, like you said, that's kind of for a lot of people, that's when they want to stop. But I find it awesome when 35-year-olds decide to reinvent themselves, much less 65-year-olds. I think it's fantastic. But it went from that. At some point, I guess he decided to be a franchisee, and I'm guessing it morphed into that.

Yes, it was a franchisee, and the Colonel called it one of my mantras is discouraged but not defeated.

Right. Amen. Well, there, he's a, you know, again, I've read that story before, not your dad's story, but the Colonel's story, and I think that it's, again, hopefully it's inspiring to people because I think there are plenty of people people who again at 30 or 35 or 50 think they're locked into something forever and he and a lot of other people are living proof that we're not. So you guys started, you got it, what was it like working with your dad?

Well, it was fun. I mean, he was a good mentor. I learned the restaurant business and of course I developed more management skills in the Navy than I did in college. So I was ready for that, and I got wet behind the ears. And as we went along and expanded, we had trouble getting good employees, especially management employees. And one day I said that, why don't I treat these people like I want to be treated? And so we set up a We said, why can't we make a career out of this business? Why do we hire somebody off the street and we lose them a year later or 6 months later? I said, if we treat them decently, we've got enough young people coming for us. It does not take a college degree. It just takes hard work. And that if we will treat them decently, we can keep them. So we said we'd never hire again off the street. That we had enough young people coming to work for us that if we could show them a career path, that we can keep them and it'd be a win-win. So we set up a profit-sharing plan. We paid their entire health insurance, gave them benefits, and I went to a Christmas dinner party for my management staff a few years ago, and we had about 30 people in the room, and there were the 3— we had about 5 people who'd been with us over 30 years. We had the 3 managers, been with us 15 years or less, uh, the rookie been there 5 years. So I think that the way we treated people paid off. For sure.

And that's such a high turnover business. So when you say you guys decided not to hire off the street anymore, I assume you mean, or if I understand you to mean, kind of for management, that in an ideal world, if somebody came and started, you wanted to be able to to grow them up.

They could start at the pot sink and work their way up, or start as a crew, or start as a cashier. And all of our managers did that. They all started at the bottom.

And did you notice, I mean, from before that decision to after, did you notice a change in, again, things like turnover or commitment? I mean, I would have to think that that changes it from, you know, again, I've never I never worked in food service, so I can't claim to know, but one of my boys did, and I would have to think it changes the mindset given that the owners feel that way. It makes it a lot easier to consider it a career and an opportunity versus a job where you're just kind of taking, again, kind of lowest common denominator. I just want—

You take somebody that say, hey, I've been in the restaurant business, I can run your business, and you didn't know whether whether they gonna steal from you or whether they gonna quit or what. But to take it to the next level, Chip ran into a consultant in one of our meetings in Atlanta who said, "I can improve your business." And so I said, "Well, come to Florence and show me." He said, "Well, it'll be $3,000." So he came up and he set up basically a plan where We would share the top-line sales and the store-level profits with our managers and assistant managers. And that was unheard of in our industry. We would tell them at the end of the month, say, "Hey, you did well," or, "You didn't do well, and here's what you need to work on." But once we set up a plan where We would share the store-level profits and the total sales with them. It just opened up new doors. They invested in the business, and we gave them a percentage of the top-line sales and a percentage of the bottom-line sales. And most of them were fireballs, and they grew their business. And if I went to Schofield's and charged a garden hose on their account, which I did, they would look at their P&L and say, hey, who bought this garden hose? Good. Yeah, give me credit for it. Sure. And so they paid attention and they blossomed. Now some of them just wanted a warm place to work. And I've always believed that you take a person and you find out their strengths and their weaknesses. Uh, you take advantage of their strengths and you help them with their weaknesses. And so that just took our business to the next level and then allowed us to give more back to them.

Yeah, well, it's obvious that, that that's an important thing for you. Did part of that come from— you mentioned learning more about management in the Navy than you did in college. Did part of that come from the military structure?

Well, yes, and one of my mentors in Columbia was John R. Folsom, who was CEO of South Carolina Federal Bank. I was fortunate enough to get on their corporate board. And just, he was a mentor to me. And that led to South Carolina Federal being bought by First Union, being bought by Wells Fargo today. Sure. But I had a good experience with serving on those bank boards for a long time.

And you learn a lot.

You learn a lot being around people that people that are better than you. I've always tried to play golf with people that are better than I am and be around people that are smarter than I am, and I think most of the people I've been around have been smarter than I am.

Well, they say, number one, right, that you are the average of the 5 people you hang around the most. Yeah. And number two, two different people I'm sure are the ones who said it, but if you're the smartest person in the room, you're in the wrong room. That's right. And it certainly sounds like those kinds of philosophies have really paid off for you. How— I'm curious because you mentioned, um, Arby's.

So how did I get—

yeah, how do you go from fried chicken to roast beef?

Well, we had built these 3 restaurants in Union, Lawrence, and Easley. We also had the franchise for Clemson and Pickens and Seneca. Well, I sold those franchises. It was not in my contract that we couldn't sell franchises, but I went under the table and we worked it out. They paid me 5% of their sales for 2 years, and I said I would build your restaurants and teach your managers. Okay. And here again, that was a sacrifice on my family to do that, but it worked out well. And then I got tired of riding up and down the road to Greenville and dealing with— this was before my breakthrough moment on not hiring any outside help. Had trouble with management. I said, I'm gonna sell these. So I sold those and reinvested in Florence. Paul Benson at WJMX was a good friend of mine, and I'd spend time with him, and he said, "Hardy's wanting to buy the lot next to our KFC on I-90, on 76 Highway, Darlington Highway." And I said, "Well, sell it to me." So I said, "I'll put in a hamburger restaurant there." So my partner Earl and I, Earl Wilson, we found a chain called Judy Judy Judy's that was just coming out of the ground, started by Foster McKissick, who was in the movie theater business. And so we started building from the ground up. Earl went to Georgetown to train, and I went to Georgetown to train, and we found out that Judy's was being sued by Wendy's for being the exact copy. So we said we'd better get out of that. So I picked up a trade magazine and started going down the list of franchises, of top 10 franchises. Of course McDonald's was out, Burger King was out, but Wendy's was, might be available. We had a Wendy's in Florence. And the franchisee was also a KFC franchisee. So I finally talked him into selling his Wendy's so I could get the Wendy's franchise out on 52. Well, corporate Wendy's said, "Yes, Florence needs a second Wendy's, but it doesn't need it out there. It needs it in West Florence." So I went farther down the list and found Arby's, called them up. They had an Arby's on South Irby Street. This is a complicated story, but I talked to those folks in Atlanta and he said, "Well, if you, I'm having trouble running the one on Irby Street." Said, "If you will take that one over, I will sell you the, I'll give you the franchise for Florence." He said, "I've had some drug problems down there and I don't know whether I can overcome it." I said, "I don't want to buy it, but I'll run it for 2 years and try it." So he did that. Well, then we— that's why we built Arby's on— we got a franchise to build Arby's on 52. The one on Irby Street, I could not turn it around. Okay. And Jemana Swindler came down one day. She was working with the Florence Morning News. She did a nice write-up on the restaurant on South Irby Street, and she and I became good friends and later colleagues at McLeod Health, where I served on the board for 20 years. And we just couldn't make it work, so I walked away from that, but have become successful with Arby's. How about that?

Well, you mentioned a couple of times, you said, "I didn't treat my wife well on that." Or you mentioned, you know, "My family sacrificed early on at work." Tell me more about that, because you've mentioned it a couple of times, but I know you to be a very happy family man. How did that work out?

Well, it worked out fine. My wife met good friends here and she adjusted and we were married for 50 years. And I'm fortunate now to be on my second marriage and God brought us together and we both— she was chaplain at the Methodist Manor. Now called The Manor. And this Ann, she was Ann Ayers. She ran a florist shop right around the corner where the print shop and King Hippie is now. And she's had an interesting career. She graduated from the University of South Carolina with a, with a major in art. And she taught, she couldn't keep a job. She taught, she was a sales rep for Blaney and Smith Crayola Crayons. She lived in Chicago for 10 years doing that, traveling in the Midwest. Then she came back to Florence and got married to Billy Ayers, and they lived in Lake City for a while, and she taught down there. Then she moved to Florence, and she was— she had a hobby of doing floral arrangements in her garage, and somebody squealed on her that she did not have a business license, so she rented the old Dick Haines store around there and had a floral shop called Annie's Originals. Yeah. And she did that for 15 years, and She had the most successful florist shop in town. She was riding home from— she'd gone to a meeting at Central Methodist Church where we both attended. I mean, we've known each other all our lives. And Tom Pietler mentioned one night that the manor needed a new chaplain, a full-time chaplain. And on the way home, she prayed and asked God and said, "Would that be a job for me?" And God said, "Yes." And so this was in January. She went home, told her husband Billy, said, "I'm gonna be chaplain at the manor." And Billy said, "What, are you crazy?" But she did it. And she'd ordered 6,000 roses for Valentine's. That was the hardest day of the year for her, and she canceled that order. Wow. This was in January. She canceled about 2 weeks before they were to come in. And she became chaplain of the Manor. She went out there and interviewed, and I don't know if you remember Mary Alice Ingram. Oh, absolutely. I knew Miss Ingram.

My grandmother was— so my paternal grandmother was at the manor for 22 years and was— Miss Ingram was one— she and Miss Ingram, I think, outlived 3 sets of friends. But yeah, she and Miss Ingram was her best friend out there.

Well, she interviewed with the management and she also had to interview with Mary Alice Ingram because she, she was one of the ones that got that place started. And Mary Alice's only comment was, was, "Do you have a room and a dress?" They want you to have a room and a dress. And my wife became chaplain for 17 years and very compassionate person and very kind person. And her portrait is hanging out there in the Mary Alice Ingram Chapel now for being there 17 years. How about that? And then when my wife went in the manor with some serious problems and I got divorced and my minister told me that I went to see him one day because the Bible says that you should not get divorced. And he said, "John, your wife left you a long time ago." So I got a divorce and talked Ann into marrying me. And the Lord brought us together. You know, God works in mysterious ways, Chip. Yes, he does. He does. And you may not worship the same God I do, but if you believe in a higher being, then you have faith. No question.

No question. And it is— and it's always amazing to me how he works. You know, I'm constantly reminded. I don't know that life would verse is the right way, but it is Jeremiah 29:11. Yeah, "I know the plans I have for you," says the Lord. And I remind myself often that while I like the idea of planning, and it's what I do, you know, to some extent for my day job, when things don't go the way I think they are, I remind myself that I'm not on my plan. So, you know, no, I absolutely agree. It's interesting to me, you've mentioned, you know, of course I know that you're active with the Manor and a long time with McLeod. You've got a pretty rich history of giving back. What does that mean to you? Why has that been important?

Well, I think there's a verse, and I don't know where it is, but it says, "To whom much is given, much is expected." Amen. And I see so many people that pursue stuff, and they would get a lot more pleasure if their heart's in the right place to help other people. And my wife and I have tried to help other people as best we can.

Well, and have done a lot of it. So one of the things that you mentioned to me kind of before we came on air was, if you don't get greedy, I think it was you and your partner, if you don't get greedy, there's enough to go around.

Enough to go around.

And I think that you're obviously a great example of that. Again, so many things to unpack. I really just, I think a lot of you, again, we've not spent a ton of time together in person, but I've known of you in both business and charitable circles for a long time. And it's, uh, it's really neat to get to hear some of the stories of how things have come together. We may have to do another, another time, um, just to press down and get a little deeper on some things. I'm curious, kind of in wrapping up, one of the questions I normally like to ask is if you could pick a fictional character, it could be a superhero or a movie theater, a movie character, or somebody in a book, or if you could pick a fictional character that you think best represents John Orr, who would it be and why?

I think I'd like to be Dr. Seuss. Okay. Because he entertained so many children. Teaches them so many good lessons, and they're good lessons for adults in those books too.

Amen. Yeah, for sure. One of my favorite books to give away is Oh, the Places You'll Go. Yeah, especially to young people. So I think that's a great one to be, you know. I just— John, again, I just appreciate your outlook on life. You're a great example for a lot of people. I appreciate you spending some time with me.

Well, thank you, Chip. This has been fun doing this, and I'd like to come back one day and tell the story of the Methodist Manor. Okay, I would love that. That is a true, true miracle. We have a great product out there. We're providing homes for lots of people, and it's just special. We've grown over the years, and And the story of the Manor is a true miracle, started by Bob Faulkner and Mary Alice Ingram, and it just took a team of people. The late Hugh Miley was involved in it, and Lawrence McIntosh was involved, is involved in it from day one, and I have been involved in it. The dream started in 19— in the mid-1980s. And if we can't do it today—

No, tell me.

We're here. Tell me about it. Got a few minutes? Yeah, sure. It's gonna take a while. Sure. I'm a member of Central Methodist Church. They had a group of ladies called the Ice Cream Gang that met on Sunday night after church. And one of them was moving away to Laurinburg to go to a retirement home. Well, Mary Alice Ingram went by Bob Faulkner's office on Monday and said, "We need a retirement home in Florence. Here's a check for $100,000. Let's get started." Edward Nostine came in the next week and did the same thing. Bob was a Methodist minister of a large church. He said, Why me, Lord? Why me? But he accepted the challenge. He got Hugh Miley, who was a civil engineer, and Lawrence McIntosh, who is a lawyer, together, and they started figuring out how they could do it. They got an architect in Sumter to draw up some plans, and Mary Alice wanted a plantation-type home with white columns and bricks and oak trees leading up to the front door. And they drew up plans and they got the word out and people started sending them deposits, $1,000 deposits. The architect got a model that he drew up and Mayor Ellis gave him an old beat-up station wagon and he put it in the back of there and he travel around the churches and show them the model. Bob and I played golf about twice a week, and he was always telling me about his problems, about the resistance he was running into. And then he asked me after a year or so to join them, so we had 4 of us. And we worked and we worked and we worked, and we couldn't get it. And Bob got so discouraged that he lost his voice one time. The stress got to him. He told me that he was putting Maalox on his cornflakes in the morning. And we had a groundbreaking ceremony and they got more publicity. And the Hamer family lived out on on Twin Church Road. It was Penile Road at the time. Absolutely. And they had no descendants, so they offered us 77 acres out there and their houses on the property, and now it sits on the other side of Twin Church Road. So Bob got discouraged and he went in the Ingram Chapel at Central one day and asked the Lord for a sign. He said, "Lord, should I give up or keep going? I'm gonna pray and ask you for a sign." Well, he prayed about should he give up or go on, and he opened the Bible randomly, and I get choked up when I tell this story, but he put his hand on the 2nd chapter of Habakkuk. One of the shortest books in the Bible, 3 chapters. In the end of the— at the end of that second verse, it says, "If it seems slow, wait for it. It will surely come. It will not delay." Well, Bob left that refreshed and said, you know, we're not going to give up. And about 6 weeks later, we had been through every bank in town. We'd even applied to HUD, and they turned us down. Well, 6 weeks later, he found a new firm out of Greenville called Banyan, which is a tree that spreads its roots from the top. It was formed by a retired Presbyterian minister and retired Daniel Construction Company executive who wanted to start not-for-profit retirement homes. And so they came down and looked at our plans and said, folks, you have Cadillac plans and a Chevrolet budget. Said if we re-engineer these, we can make it work. And so they said, we will work with no pay until we get your doors open. So about a year and a half later, uh, December 1991, we opened up. December the 6th, we cut the ribbon. And, uh, we were supposed to open in August, but we opened in December. We didn't even have enough money to put lights in the parking lot. We had to rent some floodlights because it got dark early, but after the dedication, I walked in the dining room that night and we had two little ladies sitting there having dinner. And I thought, you know, we owe $13 million and we have two customers. But Mary Alice moved in in January The place grew. We added assisted living later. We've had tremendous growth since then. We've added memory care. We've added skilled nursing. We've added a chapel. We've added, we've got a miniature golf course out there now, a putting green. We got a, we had a retention pond in the back that humilely said held water, which was unusual. And we've now built a park out there, about a, I don't know, 8 to 10 acre park around that pond. And Eric Healy did the work and Scott Brokaw helped us and it's a beautiful place. You can walk around. Eric's got all kind of floral plants out there that there's something blooming year-round. In fact, I think today they're putting up two magnolia trees out there. Oh wow. Chris Johnson's built an incredible pavilion out there for us with a fireplace, gas fireplace. We just turned the second floor into a lifestyle center with a nail salon, a spa services. We got an art studio out there. We give art lessons. We got a display for art out there. It's just an incredible place.

That's amazing. And again, I think I said my grandmother, I'm going to say 90, she was there, I think, if I'm getting the, from '92, '93 to 2014. So I mean, again, she wasn't, She wasn't the first, but she was early, and she was there a long time. Who was? My grandmother, Hannah Munn. Oh yeah. And so she was there for a long time, and then she passed away, and then my maternal grandmother, after my granddad died, moved into the memory care unit. By then you got— and this was, you know, 5 years ago or so— moved into the memory care unit and lived out her days to til 2020 in the COVID era, but was in the memory care unit out there. So I've had my grandmother, my— again, my grandmother Hannah progressed through the levels as she was out there early, but then as you guys added services, it was usually before, you know, she needed them. And so it's been a great I have a lot of family experience with the Manor and how it has grown to serve those individuals that were there, again, like Miss Mary Alice, kind of at the beginning, and how it evolved in step with how the original people evolved. It's an amazing place. I agree with you.

I got involved with Bob Faulkner for two reasons. Number one, he was my best golfing partner. Buddy. And number 2, I said my parents would need it. Well, here I am out there living there now. We have 36 patio homes and we also have a clubhouse that Chris Johnson built for us. And it is the clubhouse for the, uh, patio home residents primarily, but we allow civic groups and church groups to use it on a first-come, first-served basis. Okay. And it's right off of— it's corner of Twin Church Road and Hamer Circle. And it is a beautiful facility. The craftsmanship is unbelievable. I mean, you cannot believe the craftsmanship. But it's available for just about anybody to use. That's neat. Except fraternities.

Understand. Well, I don't think that that is the, uh, yeah, it wouldn't be the ideal partnership. I don't think. I remember talking about fraternities. My grandmother was— let's don't go there. No, I understand. My grandmother was, uh, was because she was at the Methodist Manor. Yeah, the Methodist Manor. And I remember when they added Alcohol sales, and it was a thing for her, and it's kind of like, anyway, fraternity made me think of that for some reason. I don't know why I would equate fraternities and alcohol. I don't know how that goes, but it is a neat resource. And again, what I hear is what a resource it is above and beyond just for the residents, but for the community.

We changed the name after our last expansion from Methodist Manor to The Manor to be more inclusive because we never did restrict your creed out there. That was never our purpose, but to be more inclusive and to reach out and try to reach as many people as you can.

Yeah, well, again, it's been awesome for Florence and for my family, so grateful that you got involved.

Well, it's been a blessing to me and Mary, my wife, who was chaplain for 17 years, and we live— we've had a patio home out there, and it's just a blessing with so many people.

Well, now I'm gonna have to Next time, instead of talking more about it, I'm gonna get you to give me a tour. I'd love to. All right. John, thank you. Thank you, Chip.

All right. It's a pleasure to be here.

Same here.