ZAK Family Foods: A Recipe for Business Success

The Taco Bell and KFC “micro brand” known as ZAK Family Foods is successful for three important reasons: a concept of family, a passion for progress, and a dedication to social responsibility. These three elements have evolved organically from the brand’s very beginnings. In 1979, Jerry Zakaras, now CEO and Franchisee of ZAK Family Foods, began his journey to support his family as a Restaurant General Manager for a Pizza Hut in Plattsmouth, Nebraska. His cooperation with those working with him in the restaurant expressed itself in a way that was very familiar; it was the restaurant family. His value for family was what motivated him to explore the restaurant world, and it was what opened the doors to his business success.

Jerry found that business means more

than just sophisticated tools and systems, and it is more than just pay and promotion. Success in business requires faith in other people and commitment to individual development; it is these traits of Jerry Zakaras that have developed ZAK into what it is today. A restaurant family culture is one that is easy to recognize but difficult to produce. A business can develop into a family once it is understood that the group together is more powerful than any individual member. Members of a family are driven to improve not only themselves, but also the entire group. Members of the restaurant family should attempt to learn from each other, and they should do what they can to help one another achieve their goals. This is the daily operation model of ZAK, and it is firmly planted in every action that comes from the company.

Jerry continued to hone his skills, working hard to not only develop not only himself, but also the team around him. This “lift as we grow” mindset has carried Jerry from RGM to Area Coach to Director of Operations and ultimately the space where we are at today – ZAK Family Foods a network of high level restaurant operations driven by top local talent using highly sophisticated tools and routines. Zak Family Foods, the premier KFC and Taco Bell operations management company in the Midwest, is family led by father and son team Jerry and Jason Zakaras.

Each of the communities in which we serve is a home for our ZAK Family. Our mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, sons, daughters, nieces, and nephews reside in our towns. Our restaurant family is our family. We promise to continue improving the business family so that each day is a victory. Every day we strive to maintain a valuable position in the community. ZAK is heavily involved at the local level. The company feeds people in need through the YUM! Harvest Program, pays for children to be educated, and supports personal creative growth of the community’s youth through local charities. ZAK has a burning desire to make sure the success had at the business level is paralleled by the success of our restaurant family and the growth of our communities.

ZAK is a family of several hundred amazing individuals of all walks of life.

The diversity of this family provides us with a unique approach to business, creative ideas, and valuable community insight. Our family’s passion for progress is about training with a spirit of endeavor and leveraging the diversity of our teams to help each individual reach his or her highest potential. Both personal and professional development are emphasized at ZAK. It is with this dual focus of training that sets ZAK into a category of ONE. ZAK believes that to create progress a company must set its focus on developing and uplifting leaders. Everyone that joins our family will be challenged with the task to become a leader in their own space. Training not only on routines and standards but also personal development and character is the recipe for progress in ZAK.

The Zakarases live and breathe operations with an emphasis on family and the “ZAK Triangle of Success” as their North Star. The ZAK Triangle of Success has three main pillars for reaching high performance on every professional level. Z. A. K.- Zippy / Accuracy / Kindness. These three pillars make up the ZAK roadmap for both team and individual

development.

The base of this Triangle roadmap is kindness; this is an essential foundation for any family operation. Kindness is found not only in the interaction of our guests to achieve the ZAK Vision, “Every Guest Leaves Happy” but also the interactions with our peers in the field during each shift and distilled even further to a social kindness to our community partners we work with to donate time, money and food to uplift our families in the communities we serve.

On the left wall of the triangle of success is the word zippy. In our industry, speed is the key to achieving breakthrough results and something that we are proud to achieve every day. The intense, fast paced environment of the food industry demands a heightened sense of urgency. Speed is important not only in delivering orders, but also in making decisions and providing others with feedback. Our leaders pride themselves in being the industry best; to them, “zippy” describes the ability our employees have to think fast on their feet and provide positive, supportive feedback in a timely fashion to those around them.

The third and final element to the triangle of success is accuracy. To achieve this pillar is to really drive the critical features of running a successful business. Accuracy from how we order our food, prepare our ingredients, hire and onboard new talent to preparing and delivering the final product to our guest. Everyone in our ZAK family is responsible for delivering their part in accuracy to create a state of flow within the organization.

The ZAK Family Foods Triangle of Success is a roadmap for growth. It has been and will continue to be a strong foundation for this company. From team members to franchisee it is the single most important way of performing at a high level. The mission for ZAK is simple; we promise “to improve our restaurant family to win every day”, and we ensure that “Every Guest Leaves Happy.” Through the Triangle of Success, we are able to achieve our mission and further develop the family that this company has become.