TICE Florida may not be a household name yet, but the franchising power that helped propel the brand to one of the top Popeyes franchisees was enough to bring Tom Stager out of retirement and into a new role as CEO.
Stager has been in the quick-service restaurant industry for more than 35 years. One highlight of his extensive experience was his role in helping to rejuvenate Arby’s during his almost two decades as the sandwich chain’s regional vice president. While working with RTM Restaurant Group, Stager helped oversee about 750 Arby’s restaurants, both corporate-owned and franchised.
“So after that,” he says, “I left — I kind of retired — took some time off, did some personal things for about four years.” After his children had all gone off to attend college and play softball and baseball at the collegiate level, Stager decided it was time for him too to get his head back in the game. He started his own sports performance and training academy, joined as a partner for Golden Child Holdings Group, and then became the CEO and president of Krystal Restaurants (which Golden Child had recently acquired). After three years at the helm of Krystal, Stager again retired.
Upon meeting with Fernando Amaro, founder and chairman of TICE, Stager was again drawn back into the QSR world from retirement. Stager says, “When [TICE] first asked me to reach out, I said, ‘No, I’m kind of retired, I’m good.’ So, when I met Fernando [for] the first time, [I thought] this guy is really interesting. I like what he’s thinking, I like where he’s going, and I like his plans.”
“I’m at the point in my life where it is about leaving a legacy. TICE is Fernando’s legacy,” Stager continues. “[Amaro] comes from Guatemala, where his family operates all the Domino’s out there. So they have a real good legacy with Domino’s. So when [he started] talking about his legacy and everything he wants to do… [he was] singing my tune!”
TICE is based in Florida and operates 46 Popeyes locations across the Sunshine State. The brand itself has two divisions—Stager is the CEO of all Florida operations, but TICE also has 16 restaurants in Alabama and Georgia, headed by Esteban Amaro. TICE was recently purchased by AIM Capital, a private equity group based out of Coconut Grove, Florida.
Throughout his experience in QSR, Stager says he’s focused on people, sales, profit, operations, and culture, which he refers to as his “five buckets.” Stager says, “It is people first and cultures last. I don’t mean cultures last overall, but they’re my bookends. If I have good people and a good culture, the other three things in the middle are easy. So I focus on my bookends.”
“My game plan is always focusing on people, making sure you’ve got the right people, you’ve got the right development because people don’t care about how much you know,” Stager says. “They just want to know that you care about them.” Following through on his promise to put first those who have dedicated their career and time to TICE, Stager notes that his first move as acting CEO was to give every general manager and district manager a raise.
Another tenet of teamwork, integrity, commitment, and excellence, is to “find a way.” “As for long as I’ve been doing this business, ‘find a way’ has always been Tom Stager’s model,” he says. “We’re going to find a way to win. Sometimes you don’t have enough capital, sometimes you don’t have enough research. We’re going to figure it out.”
The second thing he concentrated on was the guest experience. With more than 50 percent of customers choosing the drive-thru, Stager decided to reshape the experience.
TICE Florida has made a huge effort to step up its curb appeal. Most of its locations have been re-landscaped, with more lights added to the attached parking lot as well as additional music being played on outdoor speakers. Stager says, “We even put down fake grass, like Disney World grass. And when you’re [approaching] one of our buildings, you can hear the Popeyes’ music, which is really cool.”
Stager also helped install Easy to Run Kitchens in every unit. The setup, according to a press release, “provide[s] a streamlined workspace that enhances speed of service, improves order accuracy, and ensures that guests receive delicious food in a timely manner.” So far, Stager says the changes in the packaging line have allowed for the food items to hold better, leading to an uptick in product quality, and have simplified employees’ daily routines, resulting in an increased flow.
Multiple times a month, Stager says he makes time to visit the brand’s locations across the state. “Getting out to see the team and to see what’s going on out there is very impactful,” Stager says, not just for him and his staff, but also for creating a productive work environment shaped by the TICE principles that he has strived to implement.
While the TICE Florida team has done a lot to grow its numbers for 2024 and beyond, Stager also gives a hand to the culture that surrounds Popeyes. “I believe that they have the best chicken in the business. It’s battered in-house, it’s cooked in-house. It’s great,” he says. “[Popeye’s] wants to make sure that we continue to focus on having the best quality. That’s where the ETR [Kitchens] come in, and I think we were one of the first ones to take a leap into it, by [re]doing about 80 percent of our restaurants ourselves.”
For 2025, Stager makes it clear that the brand does not want to stay at 46 units. “We believe that Popeyes is the right brand for us, AIM Capital and TICE. We’d like to continue to grow, and to continue to grow. We have to make sure that we lead in a lot of categories,” Stager says.
