The Winning Franchisee | Globetrotting Family Man Brings BIGGBY® COFFEE Franchise to Lake Erie’s Ottawa County

Dennis Felton is a world traveler and a seasoned businessman in Ottawa County. He hopes to bring that knowledge to the world of coffee with the opening of his BIGGBY® COFFEE Ottawa County location. BIGGBY® COFFEE is a 250-unit coffee franchise with core values centered on loving unconditionally and supporting others.

After traveling the world with his wife and tasting lots of coffee, Felton knew he wanted to get into the business of beans as an add-on to his other ventures on his Lake Erie property.

As someone familiar with the area’s tourist crowd and boating traffic, he knew that BIGGBY® COFFEE would be the perfect supplement to his lakefront one-stop-shop destination that includes a restaurant, a bar, a fueling station and a convenience store.

Looking at the future and the “goldmine” that BIGGBY® COFFEE’s business model will bring to his complex, Felton is eager to share his success with his teacher, daughter and 15-year-old granddaughter as they join the family business. 

1851 Franchise: Tell me your story – what did you do before franchising?

Dennis Felton: I grew up in New Jersey, across from New York City. I’m a CPA by trade, but I’ve owned my property on Lake Erie, which will house BIGGBY® COFFEE, for the last 16 years. Since then, I’ve grown the property to include a marina, a fueling station, my Wild Wings Restaurant, a convenience store and a Marathon gas station off the property. Since running the businesses for 12 years, I’ve sold a lot of food and coffee to boaters and passersby traveling on their way to the nearby tourist destination of Cedar Point. I love to travel, and I’ve been all over the world. When my wife was diagnosed with Huntington’s disease, we started to really ramp up traveling and went to South America every year, Antarctica, Russia  — you name it. The last cruise started in England, then to Finland (I’m Finnish), Denmark, Germany and finally St. Petersburg. I learned that people are nice and friendly, and as long as you talk to people respectably, they will be nice in return. After she passed away and I returned to work on my business, I thought that BIGGBY® COFFEE would be an excellent add-on to my businesses on the property and also a great way to get my daughter and granddaughter involved in my business as well.

1851: How did you initially find out about franchising, and what was your perception of franchising before becoming a franchise owner?

Felton: I had a friend who was somehow involved in BIGGBY® COFFEE, so that’s what made me remember the brand. I knew I liked the coffee, and I went online and completed the online program with the owner and interviewer talking about franchising. I connected with them, checked out the franchise agreement and sent it in.

1851: How did you decide you wanted to be a franchisee?

Felton: From all my previous experience in business and owning property, I realized with franchising that I don’t mind paying the fee if I see their advertising billboards. With franchising, you don’t need a rocket scientist to run it. Everything is there. Just follow the procedure, and everything will go well. I knew that BIGGBY® COFFEE would be easier to get help from young people looking to get a decent wage and a tip with not a huge deal of product selection.

1851: How did you perform your research?

Felton: I pretty much knew I wanted to do something with coffee. I was familiar with BIGGBY® COFFEE since there was one located near my bank in Port Clinton. I initially looked into Starbucks, and the price was something ridiculous for what you’d get, and I decided it wasn’t for me. BIGGBY® COFFEE, I knew, was going well for the midwest. I have friends with 12-13 BIGGBY® COFFEE franchises. Not to mention, I know the market was already built-in as there’s a condo project right on the lake with 1,500 people living there, along with the summer bus traffic from Michigan.

1851: Why did you pick BIGGBY® COFFEE? What excited you most about the potential?

Felton: Coffee is like ice cream, and if you do a good job, you’re going to get the business. The whole thing is price presentation and how you’re marketing it. Some of the best coffee I’ve ever had was cajun coffee in Louisiana and, of course, Chile and Costa Rica throughout my travels. The main thing is preparation and doing it right. Plus, I usually go through about two pots of Kona coffee every day. A lot of people aren’t making just coffee and are really about the freezes as well. I’m also excited for my daughter to help me run the business. She’s a fifth-grade teacher, and so she gets off at 2:00 pm and then, of course, will be off in the summer. I’m getting really excited about getting my daughter and granddaughter involved, especially helping me in the hiring process and finding young people to work there. Plus, the summer brings a big party atmosphere, and I call the islands “Little New Orleans.” And with that amount of fun and partying, they will definitely need their coffee the next day! 

1851: What are your dreams with the business? What does the future look like?

Felton: There’s nobody around, and I’ll get a lot of Michigan drive-thru traffic with BIGGBY® COFFEE billboards. Plus, the front-side location model is going to be a great traffic pattern. My property is paid for, so it’s an add-on business for me. As a CPA, I know that investing a little here and there makes the pie a whole lot bigger. It’s gonna be a great location, and I hope one day to get my kids another location, maybe at my Marathon gas station. It’s a nice turnkey. I may copy the one like a trailer that comes to the site, and I’m really looking forward to doing it and making some money.

1851: What advice would you have for others looking at buying a franchise?

Felton: One, I’d say you gotta know a little bit about the business, and you want to go with something that’s growing and do the proper training and find a great location.

1851: What do you do in your personal time (hobbies, family, sports, etc.)?

Felton: I play a lot of golf a couple of times a week with a gentleman who used to play on the PGA Tour, so he can show me lots of tips and things like that. I’m a family man, and I’m incredibly close to my granddaughter and my oldest daughter, who lives near Atlanta, Georgia, with her husband and son. I look forward to their visits coming home, and I try to visit them as much as possible. She can really do anything she sets her mind to and does. She’s an all-star freshman swimmer, and she’s into painting and writing. She even had a teacher tell her to enter a writing competition in New York! I also love spending time with my grandson and my son-in-law, who is a football coach and also a teacher. I love football and am a lifetime Alabama football fan. Roll Tide!