Kevin Bazner, CEO of A&W Restaurants: America’s Oldest Food Franchise

Kevin Bazner , CEO of A&W Restaurants , first met franchising in 1988. Bazner had been in A&W company operations previously until he discovered that the brand had an international division. He expressed interest in wanting to go overseas and, six months later, was presented with an opportunity to travel to Southeast Asia. Therefore, Bazner's first ever franchising experience was with multi-unit franchisees in areas such as Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines, Japan and China, where he remained for seven years.

Returning to the U.S., he oversaw the international business for another three years. Then, Yum Brands acquired the business and held A&W for about nine years until Bazner was contacted by the chairman of the U.S. franchise association and the largest international franchise partner for A&W, asking for assistance in acquiring the business back. In 2011, they were successful in doing so.

Since then and over the last ten years, A&W has managed to grow average unit buy-ins and same-store sales by 60%.

“In 2022, we will see the largest and most robust pipeline of new development that we’ve had since we’ve acquired the business, and I would suggest probably in the last 20 years,” says Bazner.