A retailer molded in the Sam Walton image is expanding in the Springfield area, and its founder projects more than 20 locations companywide in five years.
Pineville-based Macadoodles, an Irish-themed alcohol retail franchise, has opened new locations in Springfield and Branson since May, and President Roger Gildehaus said the company is working to reopen a two-year-old store that closed in Republic in May.
Gildehaus, a former Wal-Mart Stores Inc. officer, founded Macadoodles in 1997 in the Missouri-Arkansas border town of Pineville, just across from the dry county home to Wal-Mart headquarters in Bentonville, Ark.
Gildehaus said the brand is based on product diversity and volume, something engrained in him through years working with the founder of Wal-Mart. He started in 1973 and worked for Walton and company for 26 years, as it was growing into an international retail heavyweight.
“I worked in the corporate office for 19 of those years and had the pleasure to work with Sam Walton quite a bit,” Gildehaus said. “My philosophy is the same thing I learned from Sam Walton: Provide the customers with a great assortment of products; provide it to them at the best prices you can get; and give the customer absolutely fantastic service.”
The company’s latest development – a 10,300-square-foot Branson Macadoodles at 483 Branson Landing Blvd. – reunites Gildehaus with a former Wal-Mart colleague.
Macadoodles franchisees Bob and Cathy Blankenship opened the store off Branson Landing on Aug. 1. Bob Blankenship worked for Wal-Mart for more than 24 years, 12 of those years under Walton. He worked first in domestic and then in international distribution alongside Gildehaus, and noted Gildehaus’ early success in Pineville. Once the store was open in Pineville, Blankenship said he’d drive across the border on occasion to take advantage of the wide assortment of alcohol.
Blankenship said his Wal-Mart career, which started in 1980 as a store manager, has influenced his approach to running Macadoodles.
“I was one of the fortunate people who got to work at Wal-Mart when Mr. Sam was there, and a lot of the principles that we employ today are the principles that we were taught by Sam Walton in the early days – that’s price, assortment and customer service,” Blankenship said.
Gildehaus’ Wal-Mart career finished in the international division, where he worked until the late 1990s. “It got to the point where there was so much travel that I was gone every three out of four days,” Gildehaus said.
About a year before he left, he decided to open a 6,000-square-foot liquor store just across the Missouri line. But it wasn’t until he had been retired for a couple of months that he decided to invest in growing the operations. Two years after the original store opened, Gildehaus added on a 4,500-square-foot wine cellar.
Gildehaus said he turned to a franchise model to grow the company because he didn’t want to commit to spending too much time on the road.
In addition to its corporate store in Pineville, Macadoodles now operates with four franchisess in four cities: Springfield, Branson, Joplin and Springdale, Ark.
Gildehaus declined to disclose current franchise fees, though he noted there is an application fee – $1,000, according to
Macadoodles.com – and an initial franchise fee plus royalties.
The franchise model has come with its own issues, however. Gildehaus said he has yet to figure out what to do with the $700,000 Republic store that franchisee Greg Samuelson shut down in May. Samuelson – who paid $51,000 in franchise costs to open, according to Springfield Business Journal archives – could not be reached for comment.
“We’re not 100 percent sure what we are going to do. We’re working with another company to reopen the store as kind of a hybrid, so there’d be a Macadoodles with a couple of other companies in the building,” Gildehaus said, declining to disclose either the partner or the estimated opening date.
Gildehaus expects Macadoodles will open three or four franchise stores in the next year, and he projects up to 30 locations within five years. According to Springfield Business Journal archives, total startup costs for the Republic and Springfield stores were $2.5 million, including land, construction and inventory.
Brett and Kim Lorenzen, co-owners of the Macadoodles that opened in May at 1455 E. Independence Road, bought the rights to the immediate Springfield area after getting familiar with the original Pineville site en route to Fayetteville, Ark., where they run an Oreck vacuum franchise. Kim Lorenzen said she noticed the customer service and lively atmosphere at Macadoodles. “One of the things I hear the most is it starts in the parking lot,” Lorenzen said.
Gildehaus said he has a habit of dropping by stores, much like Walton, and the No. 1 thing he’s checking is the customer experience. Gildehaus said the stores offer daily wine and liquor tastings and attendants are well-versed in meal pairings or the best options for a party of 20. Macadoodles stores typically stock 4,000 varieties of wines and 600 craft and imported beers.
Under the Gildehaus model, the Lorenzens keep a gas attendant on hand to wipe windows, pump gas or assist with general customer needs. “It’s funny. The first time people pull up to the gas pumps outside and all of a sudden here’s this friendly guy washing their windows and offering to fill their car up for them, people get a little freaked out,” she said. “That’s a lost art these days.”[[In-content Ad]]
