McDonald’s is buying out Caspers Company, one of its oldest franchisees and the largest in the state of Florida. Blake Casper and his family are planning to retire as a third-generation McDonald’s owners on October 1, 2022, and have agreed to sell their 60 locations in Tampa and Jacksonville to the franchisor.
In addition to being a large multi-unit franchisee, Casper also helped form the independent McDonald’s National Owners Association in 2018 and served as chairman of the advocacy group, which was the first franchisee association in McDonald’s history.
Neither the details of the deal nor future plans for the 60 stores were disclosed.
Casper and his sister, Allison Casper Adams, and her husband, Robby Adams, joined the family business in 1996 and served as restaurant shift and salary managers and area supervisors before being approved in the McDonald’s Registered Applicant Program in 1999. Robby Adams bought and built five restaurants, and in 2000, Casper bought all the restaurants in the Tallahassee market and built it to 27 locations, plus doubled sales before returning to Tampa, according to a message from a McDonald’s field office obtained by Franchise Times.
The Casper family began their McDonald’s journey 64 years ago when Ray Kroc and Fritz Casper bonded over their “love for great clothes, a winning optimism and a keen eye toward the customer,” according to the message. Casper opened the team’s first McDonald’s in Florida in 1958 and began expanding throughout Tampa. His son, Joe Casper, took over in 1970 and grew the organization from five to 44 McDonald’s restaurants.
Blake Casper regularly sent notes to the members of the NOA, and on August 11, 2019, sent one particularly heartfelt and inspirational note following the two mass shootings at a Walmart store in El Paso, Texas, and a bar in Dayton, Ohio.
“Our country continues to struggle with mass shootings that make no sense, that test our faith. We operate in an environment charged with division, anger, and despair. Where there is little common ground, where understanding and compassion are in short supply,” Casper wrote, which also seems relevant in 2022.
“It’s a charged environment out there and we must keep our teams safe. Our people are our most precious asset. They can and do make a difference in a different world. We can’t shrink from that world, we can’t pull back. We must lean forward. We must find the courage to carry on.”
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Majority of NOA members vote ‘no confidence’ on CEO
It seems unlikely that Casper’s retirement and concurrent sale of his family business can be attributed to the recent changes in McDonald’s ownership rules announced last month, which increased renewal standards for franchise agreements.
The NOA surveyed more than 600 McDonald’s operators and released the results on Monday, which found 87 percent of respondents supported calling a vote of “no confidence” on CEO Chris Kempczinski and the company’s U.S. president, Joe Erlinger.
In all, 95 percent of respondents also said the franchisor’s senior management does not have the best interest of owners in its approach to franchising, according to CNBC, and 83 percent said the new rules were a “veiled attempt to raise rents.”
The sale of Caspers Company comes as McDonald’s continues to buy up franchised stores and flips them over to new franchisees. A record 400 owners exited the system last year, which totaled about 1,750 restaurants changing hands—from retiring owners and operators wishing to cash in on high valuations to disgruntled franchisees who don’t see themselves aligning with the franchise giant’s future direction.
Many of Caspers Company’s restaurants earned some of the highest average sales, guest counts and cash flows in their business unit, according to the message obtained by Franchise Times.
“His work collaborating with the McDonald’s Government Relations Team over the past two decades has helped owner/operators systemwide build relationships with key government officials, tell the McDonald’s story and advocate for fair treatment of our business,” the message said. “We owe Blake much gratitude for his tireless efforts at the federal and Florida level for his work in helping shape public policy influenced by the voice of McDonald’s small-business owners.”
Same-store sales at McDonald’s restaurants in the U.S. increased 3.5 percent in the first quarter of 2022, fueled by price hikes. The company reported a net income of $1.1 billion in the first quarter at more than 40,000 locations in more than 100 countries.