Maxwell Fulton, of Fulton Holdings, owns 15 Jimmy John’s stores in Maryland and Pennsylvania.
This article is part of “Where Are They Now?”—an ongoing series in which Franchise Times reporters Megan Glenn and Emilee Wentland catch up with emerging brands.
Maxwell Fulton keeps his Jimmy John’s stores within driving distance, which for him is about two hours away.
“We’ll continuously look at acquisition opportunities when they fall within that area, and in the markets we plan on expanding in,” said Fulton, the owner and namesake of Fulton Holdings.
The Maryland franchisee more than doubled his unit count from seven to 15 in about a year, when Franchise Times last interviewed the 25-year-old.
“The thing that strikes me the most about our growth is being able to essentially collectively achieve it with our existing teams and talent and creating a culture of internal advancement while not losing touch of the existing operation,” Fulton said. “None of this would have been possible without having a solid team to back me up.”
In the last year, Fulton acquired restaurants in Annapolis, Hanover, Crofton, Timonium and Severna Park, Maryland. He opened new stores in Eldersburg, Maryland, and Lancaster, Pennsylvania. He signed a five-unit deal with Jimmy John’s for the Baltimore market last year.
“Now that we’ve acquired six franchisees in total, the focus is mainly shifting to additional new builds and building out key markets,” Fulton said.
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Maxwell Fulton
Fulton commenced his franchising journey with a seven-unit acquisition in Maryland in November 2022 from three franchisees.
Fulton has been working in the restaurant industry since he started washing dishes at age 15 and, by 18, had moved up to a general manager position.
Fulton later worked for Burger King corporate for over a year as a franchise operations partner in the southeastern United States, where he found an interest in owning his own franchise. He chose Jimmy John’s for its simple business model and the brand’s focus on a positive customer experience and a high quality of food.
His industry connections helped him raise some of the funds to buy the seven Jimmy John’s stores.
Now, in the northeastern United States, Fulton sees opportunity to meet his expansion goals. He owns 13 stores in the Baltimore area, with plans for another five new builds, and two in Pennsylvania.
“For Pennsylvania, it’s a wide-open slate,” he said. “We’re really excited about our growth plans up there.”
Fulton and his team have a commitment to providing “a consistent, positive guest experience” across his stores. His restaurants come from “distressed” franchisees that he bought with the intent to turn them around.
He declined to share his average unit volume. “We’re operating at three times the profitability of the franchises we acquired,” he said.
The AUV for franchised Jimmy John’s locations was $977,885 in 2023.
Fulton prides himself on paying his employees above-average wages and helping them maintain a work-life balance. Those wages may have Fulton Holdings spending more on labor, but when profitability triples, he’s not that concerned.
“Even though we’ve been increasing wages, there hasn’t been a [negative] impact on profitability,” he said.
His employees stick around longer than the industry average, too, which helps him save on labor costs by not needing to train new hires over and over again.
To increase wages 10 percent, Fulton said menu prices need to increase just 2.5 percent to make up the costs.
The company, Fulton said, is focusing on the “quantity of what we sell, increasing traffic and repeat guests.”