Wingstop: Antonio Swad. A Brilliant Idea — And a Nail-Biting Exit
npr.org
This is what was read here when it was published. npr.org no longer carries it in what it publishes now.
A lot of founders spend their lives chasing one big idea.Antonio Swad had two.The first? Migrating chicken wings from the Happy Hour buffet to the center of the plate.The second? Building a pizza business that catered to a very specific demographic: Latinos.That first idea became Wingstop, a deep-fried wing concept that grew to 3,000 stores.The second became Pizza Patron, a franchise that rewarded customers for ordering in Spanish, and let them pay in pesos.This is the story of how Antonio got there.He was a kid from Columbus, Ohio, working at a steakhouse straight out of high school…who…