Meet the Beatties! 2020 MVP Influencer Award for Husband-and-Wife Team

Name: Glenn and Tina Beattie

Title: CEO and VP

Company: Top Line Restaurants 

Units: 45 Denny’s, 3 Bahama Bucks

Age: Glenn 52, Tina 46

Family: Son Cameron 23, daughters Addison 12, Keaton 9

Years in franchising: 18

Years in current position: 18

Glenn and Tina Beattie are the 2020 Influencer for Husband-and-Wife Team Award MVPs (Most Valuable Performers).

The Beatties have more than three decades of experience with the Denny’s brand. Glenn spent his entire career with Denny’s, beginning as a restaurant assistant manager and working his way up to vice president of operations for a large franchise group. He would go on to become a franchisee with the brand in 2003. Tina, who was a Denny’s restaurant hostess when they met, worked her way up to director of real estate for the same franchise group.

Their company, Top Line Restaurants, is well thought of inside the Denny’s system and has been recognized with multiple awards over the years, including the inaugural President’s Guiding Principle Award in 2012 and Operator of the Year in 2010. They also have served on numerous committees and councils. Glenn has served as an elected member and secretary of the Denny’s Franchisee Association board since 2005. He also serves on the Operations Brand Advisory Council, Training Advisory Council, and is a member of the Grant Advisory Board for Denny’s. Tina previously served on the Marketing Brand Advisory Council and the Corporate Social Responsibility Council, and currently serves on the Training Advisory Council and Resource Retention Council.

The Beatties have a clear-cut business philosophy: “Pay as much attention or more to your top-line sales. The bottom line is much easier to manage if your top line is healthy.”

Both say they love their business, take care of their employees and guests, and have one fundamental rule they operate by: “‘Be Nice, Say Yes’ has been our company motto since we started.”

PERSONAL

Formative influences/events: Glenn: Both my parents were entrepreneurs. My dad started a tree business on the side when he was a police officer, and my mom owned her own real estate brokerage. Seeing their hard work and example planted the seed that I wanted to own my own business.

Key accomplishments: Winning the first President’s Guiding Principle Award at Denny’s. We deeply admire our CEO John Miller, and to have his recognition as leaders in the brand was incredibly meaningful. We also won Large Franchisee of the Year a few years ago. Our team is outstanding, so it was wonderful to see their work acknowledged.

Next big goal: Continue to support and develop our teams on the other side of an insanely hard year. 

Hardest lesson learned: When exploring a new brand, even if the food, aesthetic, etc. are great, it’s equally important to have a strong corporate partner who understands and honors the franchise model. 

Best advice you ever got: Don’t be afraid to ask. Throw your idea or need out there. The worst you can get is a no.

What are you reading/favorite business books? Tina: currently reading Steven Pinker’s Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress. Glenn: I am on so many business feeds right now. Technology has made the flow of information so fast, and there are so many great ideas and perspectives out there daily. 

What’s your passion in business? Tina: We are so fortunate to get to do what we do. Being in the service industry we get to be a part of people’s lives daily. Getting to work together makes it even better. Glenn: I love what I do. I always say vacation is work because I don’t feel the need to get away from what I do.

MANAGEMENT

Business philosophy: Pay as much attention or more to your top-line sales. The bottom line is much easier to manage if your top line is healthy. 

Management method or style: We believe we have smart, capable people working for us. You hire them to do a job and have to trust them to do it. Give them the tools, set them up for success, and don’t micromanage them.

Greatest challenge: Finding great talent is always an ongoing challenge, more so today than ever.

How close are you to operations? Obviously, travel has been compromised in the last year, but in a normal year there’s nowhere we’d rather be than in the units.

COVID-19

What have been the biggest impacts of Covid-19 on your business? Where to start? It’s never been harder to run a restaurant than it is right now, at least through my career. We are still feeling the effects in so many ways: staffing, supply chain, operations. Our teams have really been in the trenches between hiring and supply chain and ever-changing city, state, and federal recommendations.

MVP QUESTIONS

Why do you think you were recognized with this award? As far as husband-and-wife teams go, we really enjoy what we do and doing it together. We hope that comes through and that’s why we are being recognized.

How have you raised the bar in your own company? We have one united goal in our company, and that is to strive to be the “best in the brand.” We work hard to live up to that goal each and every day. 

What innovations have you created and used to build your company? We like to keep it simple. We have one rule: “Be Nice, Say Yes.” This has been our company motto since we started. No matter what technology or systems come into play, our main job, top to bottom, is to take care of our guests. 

What core values do you think helped you win this award? We do our best to conduct business in the way we’d like people to do business with us. This applies to employees, vendors, and our corporate partners. 

How important is community involvement to you and your company? Very. We love supporting our corporate partners’ initiatives with No Kid Hungry and St. Jude’s, and our company has been a passionate supporter of Cookies for Kids’ Cancer for many years. We feel it’s our responsibility to give back to the communities that support us locally.

What leadership qualities are most important to you and your team? Openness. Honesty. Directness. We endeavor to have a company where everyone can say what they truly think—and it is incumbent on all of us to listen for the best ideas from the team.

BOTTOM LINE

Annual revenue: $75 million to $80 million. 

2022 goals: Stabilize staffing and get all operations up to pre-pandemic hours and sales. 

Growth meter: How do you measure your growth? Have your top-line sales grown well enough to do all you need to do to enhance your staff and units and turn a healthy profit. 

Vision meter: Where do you want to be in 5 years? 10 years? Continue growing in both our brands. 

What are you doing to take care of your employees? Right now, retention bonuses, time off when needed, and managing business flow in a way that doesn’t create burnout. Our emphasis is on taking care of the people who have been with us and remained committed through this incredibly challenging time. 

What kind of exit strategy do you have in place? We love what we are doing and can’t conceive of retirement at this time!