CICERO — Originally involved in the banking industry, local entrepreneur Roger Wagner has never looked back since making the switch to fast food and fast casual restaurant franchising 30 years ago.
From his main office off Carrier Circle, the resident of Cicero oversees 20 Burger Kings mainly stretching from the Canadian border down to Elmira, a dozen Moe’s Southwest Grills scattered across New York State, and now a handful of Tropical Smoothie Cafe locations.
Wagner wouldn’t have racked up such a diversified portfolio, however, without first being hired in by Taco Bell as an assistant manager in the Detroit metro area.
Coming in response to the resume he sent along while still a dissatisfied employee at Comerica Bank in 1992, the job offer was what ultimately set him up for success in his view.
“At that time, it was a great opportunity that really allowed me to go through the restaurant school of hard knocks,” Wagner said.
Quickly thereafter he was promoted to a general manager role for the Mexican-inspired fast food chain, and eventually he took over a project manager position that he fulfilled from a corporate office in Chicago.
After an in-between stop in Washington D.C., during which he worked for the sandwich shop and cafe Au Bon Pain, Wagner returned to Chicago to run 20-plus Taco Bells. He would later serve as the company’s territory manager responsible for franchise and licensing activity in Minnesota, Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota and central Missouri.
When one of those franchisees obtained development rights to Panera Bread, Wagner moved to Las Vegas to work by his side as an operating partner, going on to build up the first of those franchises west of the Mississippi River.
Noticing that the economics in the Nevadan city weren’t progressing as anticipated, though, Wagner was bought out and given the chance to run 42 multi-brand, base KFC establishments in and around Kansas City.
From there, he relocated to Syracuse to work on Burger King’s corporate side as a franchise business leader. With that change of scenery, he helped to regionally grow the quick-service hamburger joint’s footprint to its limits, even paving the way for spillover into small towns of Pennsylvania, at which point he and his colleagues sought out Moe’s as another brand they could control and operate.
According to Wagner, he has cornered the Rochester market for Moe’s since then and extended its operation to as many spots in New York as possible without taking risks in relation to potential customer activity.
Amidst the pandemic, the complement to Burger King and Moe’s that Wagner was searching for ended up being brought to his attention by chance and off the clock.
While attending a lacrosse tournament that his daughters were participating in out of town, Wagner had the thought of stepping away during some downtime so they could get a bite to eat.
Just past the parking lot was a Tropical Smoothie Cafe that his daughters insisted upon for lunch—a collective request that he reluctantly agreed to, not realizing the promising business platform that lied within.
Inside, he took in the appropriately equatorial-type atmosphere, which he called “uplifting and bright like a day on the beach.” He also gave recognition to the “clean” kitchen environment free of deep fryers and range hoods as well as the aquatic artwork on the walls.
As he surveyed the eatery’s approximate investment cost, Wagner further observed that quesadillas and wraps met with long-lasting, fully fruit-blended smoothies unburdened by ice crystals to give the menu its revenue-generating balance of “tasty” food items and “sweet but healthy” drink choices.
“You put one of these smoothies in someone’s hand on the way to the office and it’s gonna sit on their desk for 45 minutes to an hour and still be a great-tasting product,” Wagner said. “With all the protein and supplements, it’s almost like a meal in a cup too.”
Absorbed by that one spur-of-the-moment experience, the Syracuse area businessman decided to go all in.
To solidify the brand as the foundation for future comparisons in certain parts of the state, he made sure to get ahead of other smoothie-based concepts by swiftly penetrating the market with three Tropical Smoothies—one in the town of Victor, one in New Hartford and one in western New York, where another two are set to go by some point next year.
“Given the times that we’re going through, these smoothie restaurants become an oasis for guests and a getaway from the rest of the world,” Wagner said. “When you have a nice, inviting, tropic-like environment where people are treating you kindly and you have a great experience with great food, it takes that one little segment of your day that might not be going so well and makes it fantastic.”
In addition to his focus on brand identity, Wagner also seeks to create leadership opportunities for his companies’ most loyal employees. That includes carving paths within the infrastructure for a dedicated assistant manager when their similarly dedicated head manager has no intention of leaving their job and upward mobility is unlikely.
In such an instance, that assistant manager could hop from Moe’s to one of the newly built and opened Tropical Smoothies, he said.
As it stands, Wagner foresees the entry of the smoothie brand into the towns of Cicero and DeWitt, a prospect he remains “excited” for due to his confidence that the Syracuse area will be his home from here on out.
