“Too many things got layered on and the company had really hit the skids in 2008, with the recession, probably moved too far off the brand by that time and went through a bankruptcy process in 2010. The company also owns a frozen pizza manufacturing company, and that had been basically in decline since 2013. The company was getting smaller and smaller and smaller. You literally had to say, "Folks, this line leads to oblivion unless we do something very, very different about it because hope isn't a strategy."

The idea of growing our casual dining restaurant base was probably out of the question. Meanwhile, we had this terrific product and the pandemic was fantastic for frozen pizza manufacturing because people, one way or another, are going to find their way to pizza. We had figured out before the pandemic hit, how to get profitable again. We really got our cost and our margin under control. We really got to think through if we're going to create value here. Let's make the incremental improvements on them now that we've got the right people and the right restaurants. Let's really focus our growth not on being a restaurant company or operated restaurants, but new franchise concept and revitalized manufacturing.” - Erik Frederick, CEO at UNO Restaurants