An entrepreneur’s entrepreneur
Perhaps the only thing that preceded Cathy’s devotion to the church was his entrepreneurial spirit, which first showed itself in a few bottles of soda pop.
He started his business career during the Depression as an 8-year-old buying six-packs of Coca-Cola for 25 cents and reselling them for a nickel a bottle.
“When I sold out, I’d run back and get six more and six more and six more,” he says. “Finally, I accumulated the resources that permitted me to flag down the Coke truck and buy a full case of Coca-Cola — 24 cokes for 80 cents. When you sell 24 Cokes for five cents apiece — you made 40 cents. That, to me, was big business.”
Born in 1921, Cathy was deeply influenced by the Depression. Through those formative years, he learned the value of hard work, but whatever he may have expected from life, Cathy says, he has received so much more.
“We’re very grateful for the progress that we’ve been able to make at Chick-fil-A,” Cathy says. “We hope we’ve proven success has several meanings, materially as well as other things. It’s very important that we keep our priorities in proper order and consider what’s important.”
That is the approach Cathy adopted from the beginning, when he and his brother, Ben, opened their first restaurant, The Dwarf Grill, when the two returned to Atlanta following military duty after World War II.
“It was a very small place,” says Cathy, explaining the origin of the name. “It had 10 stools at the counter and four tables and chairs. Back in those days, we had to work very hard. I was brought up to think the harder you worked, the more successful you would be.
“Some people say, ‘The more successful you are, the luckier you are.’ I say, ‘Well, the harder you work, the more lucky you’ll be.’
The two pooled their financial resources and, with a $6,600 loan, invested $10,600 into that first operation. That money purchased the property, building and equipment. The restaurant was open 24 hours a day, six days a week. The brothers alternated 12-hour shifts.
Though the pair did have some experience managing restaurants, owning one was altogether more difficult.
“Everything I had and everything I expected to have was at stake,” Cathy says. “I didn’t mind paying a temporary price to achieve those things, sometimes later to enjoy. I was single at the time. I was married to that business. I oftentimes spent 36 hours at a stretch without even sitting down, to eat or anything else, because I had to work on a very slim budget there as far as help was concerned.”
In 1949, three years after they opened their restaurant, Ben was killed in a private airplane crash. Ben’s widow received his share of the operation, which Truett purchased a year later.
In 1951, he opened a second restaurant.
