Jenna Ridge in Rockingham is the youngest franchise owner of a Domino’s location in the US
Photo courtesy of Jenna Ridge
ROCKINGHAM — In a country where the average age of a franchise owner is 44, 23-year-old Jenna Ridge in Rockingham became Domino’s youngest franchise owner in the country last month.
After years of working her way up in the company since the age of 17, she assumed leadership of the store on April 3.
“So, my dad, he was the franchise owner of this store along with twelve other stores as well,” Ridge explained. “And so of course, as soon as we could start working, he was like ‘Yeah, you’re coming to work at Domino’s.’ And I just thoroughly enjoyed it, I was like, ‘I could see myself doing this.’”
Ridge returned to the store after studying at Wingate University, earning her degree in business management in three years using credits she earned in high school through courses offered by Richmond Community College.
“I started when I was 17, working in the store. That was in 2016,” Ridge began. “And I started working just as an insider, worked my way up through management ranks, then went to school, came back, and had to relearn all the management stuff.”
When she returned in 2020, the pandemic was in full swing. Although she was not fully ready to jump into such a position, between her years of in-store experience and the short-staffing caused by COVID, Ridge found herself the general manager of the incredibly busy Laurinburg location.
“I was the general manager of the Laurinburg store back in 2020. That was the first store I had ever been the general manager for, and of course, it happened to be right when COVID hit,” Ridge began explaining. “So, I was put in charge of it. But I definitely wasn’t at the level that I should have been. The store needed a general manager right then, and I was about to become a GM of a smaller store, and [Dominos] was like ‘We’ll just leave you here.’”
While working as the general manager, she set both the store record for sales for both most in a week and in a day.
“The record week was $44,000, and the record day was $10,000. Those were hectic days. New Years Eve 2020 was the record day,” Ridge said. “You know, we were experiencing short-staff, as a lot of people were at that time. So, that was tough, less people, more sales. It was a good learning experience.”
“I was not good at delegating,” she explained. “And that really taught me, okay, look, you have these people who did come to work, let them do that and you go do the stuff that you need to do.”
After a year of being general manager, Ridge moved up to district manager. She worked as the district manager for two years before beginning the process of becoming a franchisee.
“I worked with Domino’s from August to the beginning of April,” she began. “So, Domino’s has its own really long process of becoming a franchisee. I had to go up to Ann Arbor Michigan twice for classes and stuff.”
The process started with a four-to-five weeklong online course that covered the basics; How the store operates, how the store ratings work, and basic math.
“It tested stuff on like, your knowledge of operations and knowledge of, you know, the people who come around and give us a one-to-five-star rating and knowledge of everything that you need to do in order to get those five stars,” she said.
After the online course, she had to write a 30-page business plan covering where she saw her store in five years, what she planned to do with the store and how she would accomplish those goals, and how being the franchise owner would look and mean for her.
“So that took up a lot of time trying to meet those requirements. But I’m glad I did, because it allowed me to see, okay, yeah, this is exactly what’s going on in store and it really did help in terms of ‘what needs to be fixed,’ you know? It was I already knew what I was getting into exactly as far as numbers wise,” said Ridge.
Following the completion of the business plan and the turning in of a few other documents, Ridge’s next steps were two classes in Ann Arbor Michigan. One for classes, the other for general advice from other store owners.
“Then I had to go up to Ann Arbor Michigan, it was a three-day class. They taught us a couple things, we did have to take our little test at the end of that third day,” she began. “And so, now that you passed this class, you know, go ahead and start basically getting ready.”
This meant calling delivery trucks and setting up everything in the store, from bank accounts to the store itself, into her name, as well as setting herself up as a corporation in order to do business with Domino’s. After all of this was one more trip to Ann Arbor.
“Then I had to go back up to Michigan one more time. And that one was more just like, sitting down and listening to people,” said Ridge. “You know, give advice. We got to hear from quite a few GMs.”
After following all the steps in the long process, Ridge was able to open up her franchise and has been open for a month now.
Domino’s is currently looking for delivery drivers and can be reached at 910-997-4424 or at their store location on 1205 East Broad Avenue, Rockingham.