Rebecca Shannon was born to be a Hungry Howie’s franchisee. Now 27, she started working at her parents’ store in Milan, Michigan, at the tender age of three. In this first-person account, Shannon shares the story of how she went from folding boxes as a toddler to managing and then co-owning her own franchise operations.

I didn’t choose the pizza life; the pizza life chose me. Hungry Howie’s Store #88, in Milan, was opened in 1996, when my mother was six months pregnant with me, and most of my childhood was spent at this store. So, from a very young age, I had pizza running through my veins. In fact, my first word was “pizza.” At three years old, I took it upon myself to start folding boxes to help out around the store. At preschool graduation, I stood in front of the audience and announced that when I grow up, I want to be a pizza maker.

By fourth grade, I was answering phones and making pizzas for a starting wage of $1 per hour. From fourth grade until around 15 years old, I helped out nearly every day. At 15, I decided I wanted to branch out and started applying for other jobs to see what else could be out there. From 15 to 19, I held a variety of jobs, from barista to pharmacy tech, but finally made my way back home in the summer of 2016. This being said, coming back didn’t mean I was just easily thrown back into things. My parents have taught me from a very young age that anything I want I have to work for and that nothing is just handed out.

I started back at Hungry Howie’s on July 10, 2016, at store #1077 in Saline, Michigan, as an insider. Once I got my hands on pizza again and got back in the swing of things, I was promoted to shift leader. In October 2017, a GM position became available at a new store my father and his business partner were opening in Ypsilanti (#567), and I was offered the spot. Our first week open, we had a record week in sales for the company, and it continued rolling from there. I was a college student doing 18 credit hours and working 60 to 70 hours a week, and I was on top of the world; I loved it.

More: Rebecca Shannon shares what she has learned as a Hungry Howie’s franchisee.
 
Around the end of 2017, my father began talking to me about a new opportunity: to invest in a store that had just come up for sale in Adrian. This was something I had really never thought of until this point—I was going to school and just making pizzas to get through and pay my tuition. After a lot of thought, I pushed forward, not knowing when an opportunity like this would come along again, taking the risk and giving it my all. In February 2018, I opened my first store (in Adrian, #44) with my partners, Julie Thomas, Patrick Shannon and Carole Shannon (RCJ).
 
I continued working and building up store #567 while my wonderful partner Julie took care of building #44. In 2018, I graduated college with a bachelor’s degree in psychology. At this point, I was unsure of what I wanted to use my degree for and decided to continue pushing at Howie’s until I figured it out. I continued at #567 for three years, which brought us to everyone’s favorite year, 2020. This year brought a lot of challenges and changes, but nothing we couldn’t handle.

With increased sales came an increased need for more experienced workers in more stores, and with Julie ready to have her first baby, it was time for me to step up. I took over supervising #567, #529 (in Monroe), #88 and #1077 in February 2020. This included traveling from store to store, making sure all of the paperwork is inputted correctly, doing payroll, managing the store and customers, building a solid team in the midst of a pandemic, and doing it with a smile (behind a mask, of course). By December, I had someone trained to take over my position at #567, so I left there to focus on supervising the remaining three stores and giving them the attention they needed.

I continued supervising for two years. During this time, talks of more opportunities arose. Our team discussed potentially opening some new stores. We were always on the lookout for buildings for sale, but during this time we weren’t finding much that caught our eye. Then we found some plots of land and toyed with the idea of two new locations that we would build from the ground up in Tecumseh and Monroe (#3618). Although we found and purchased the land, the construction/city process was longer than any of us could have imagined, so when we heard about the Papa Johns in Dundee going up for sale, we jumped on it. This was a city we had wanted to be in for a very long time but could never find the appropriate building, and this one nearly fell into our hands.

In February 2022, we at RCJ Pizza opened our second store, #3619, and it was better than any of us could imagine. During this time, I was still supervising but mainly focusing my energy on getting the new store up and running. In the midst of this, Patrick got a call from Norm Fisher in Toledo, saying he was ready to retire and sell his store. This fit perfectly into our zone of stores, so again we jumped at the opportunity, and I started training someone to take over my supervisor position. In August of 2022, we opened store #801 in Toledo with all of our current partners, plus a new partner, Courtney Clark (who had been an employee of ours for around eight years at the time).

During our first week at this store, the entire previous crew walked out on us, leaving just the four of us and a few others that stuck around. Although it was a little bit stressful, we knew we could handle it, and what a learning experience it was! Courtney is an amazing partner, and we couldn’t do it without her. Our intentions for 2022 were to open two new stores, Tecumseh and Monroe—having these other stores pop up out of nowhere was definitely an experience like no other and not something any of us expected, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Now we have store #3618 on the cusp of opening, after years of setbacks. Our opening day was May 1. Our entire team patiently waited, trained and advertised for our grand opening, and I couldn’t wait to share the opening day and week with every single one of them.