Franchisee Spotlight: Scott Lay of Dairy Queen

Last year, Texas entrepreneur Scott Lay jumped from building Dairy Queens through his commercial construction business to owning them when he teamed up with a few DQ franchisees to start their own ownership group.

Since then, Lay and his team have taken over the Sulphur Springs location and opened new Dairy Queens in Mount Pleasant and Hallsville. This month, they’ll open the group’s fourth location, a second Sulphur Springs restaurant.

Eager to continue to expand the brand, the Hometown Restaurant Group will continue to grow Dairy Queen throughout Northeast Texas.

What were you doing before partnering with Dairy Queen?

I grew up here in Lindale, Texas and then went on to earn a bachelors of science in systems engineering and a bachelors degree in business marketing, both from the University of Texas at Tyler.

I’ve spent my career in the commercial construction and design business, and that’s how I was introduced to Dairy Queen. Fifteen years ago, my company built a ground up Dairy Queen restaurant for a franchisee in Tyler. Since then, we’ve had out hand in building, renovating and redesigning over 75 other DQ locations.

I still own Lay Construction and we’ve built everything from YUM! Brands restaurants to Dairy Queen units to Einstein Bagels and more.

How did you learn about Dairy Queen and what made you sign on with the brand?

After working on many Dairy Queen projects during the construction and development process, I got to know the people, brand, corporate strength and structure. I really trust the brand and it felt like a good fit to jump into ownership.

Last year I teamed up with a couple of existing Dairy Queen franchisees in Texas to found Hometown Restaurant Group in 2016, combining my experience in the construction and development side of things with their experience as franchisees.

Since then we took over an existing DQ in Sulphur Springs, opened new units in Mount Pleasant and Hallsville and now will open this second Sulphur Springs unit. We plan to continue to expand throughout Northeast Texas at a steady rate for the next 5-10 years. We anticipate to open a location in Marshall this year.

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