"Frank's Place" Owner Denise Collins Works to Improve Downtown
Denise Collins at last summer's Black Sheep Festival.
In light of the recommendations from Retail Market analyst Robert Gibbs published last week, it appears that the Manchester Downtown Development Authority (DDA) and downtown businesses have some major changes to consider for the improvement of the village's retail outlook.
One of the changes the DDA recently made is to welcome a fresh face to its ranks--Denise Collins, one of the co-owners of Frank's Place at 104 E. Main St.
Frank's has been a Main Street fixture for close to 30 years, but many of its current patrons know only Denise, her husband Jim, son Jimi and now daughter Jessica Bushaw as the faces of this venerable business. But once upon a time, there really was a Frank--Frank Furnari, who originally owned the business--who trained Jimi in pizza making starting when he was 16. Frank and his wife, Tina, spent more than 20 years in Manchester, building the restaurant that still bears his name, and using original Sicilian recipes from Frank's mother.
"In 2007, Jimi was asked if he was interested in buying Frank's Place," Denise explains. "Jimi approached us about this opportunity. My husband, Jim, had just retired from GM Powertrain at Willow Run and I was still working at St. Joseph Hospital as a Vascular Technologist."
Denise describes the purchase as "a very hard decision."
"I did a lot of research," she says. "Michigan was in a recession and it was not the best time to buy a business. But we decided to take a chance and bought it. We also bought the building, which includes 3 one-bedroom apartments as well as the restaurant."
They closed the deal on March 1, 2008.
"Owning a business is not for the faint of heart," Denise adds. "It’s hard, non-stop work. One of us is at the restaurant 7 days a week."
Despite Michigan's recent hard times and the odds of successful restaurant ownership usually against the newcomer, this hard-working family has not only survived but thrived in the business over the past nearly seven years.
Denise credits a great group of employees and wonderful customers who are like extended family for their success, but that's not all there is to it. The Collinses are also committed to doing the job right, and that has made a huge difference in their story.
Pizza, of course, is Frank's biggest seller. Jimi, as co-owner, manages the restaurant and trains every pizza cook. The restaurant does not have conveyor-belt pizza ovens, but rather uses traditional brick ovens set at 550 degrees.
"There is an art to doing pizzas in brick ovens and our pizza cooks are always learning," Denise says. "You have to always be watching the ovens and moving the pizzas to different areas on the brick to bake the pizzas to perfection. Our pizzas are also larger than the standard pizzas. Our medium pizzas are the size of large pizzas at other pizza places."
When Denise and Jim bought the restaurant, they also bought the recipes, but along the way they have added their own recipes as well. And they believe in having as much homemade product as possible.
"All our soups, meatballs, sauces, pizza dough, and breads are made in house," she says. "In addition, we buy locally. We carry burger from Knights Market in Ann Arbor, that is ground for us fresh every Monday and Friday. In the summer we buy our vegetables from Fusiliers Farms and the (Manchester) Farmers Market."
To further the business, Frank's recently started serving donuts--again, home-made.
"Our daughter Jessica has entered our family business," Denise explains. "Jessica is the baker of the family and was trained in cake decorating while working at Kroger’s in Ann Arbor. We saw a need and the response we have received from our customers makes us think this was a good decision. Within the year, we will be adding more baked goods."
As busy as she is--after retiring from St. Joe last year, she started waitressing on the day shift at the restaurant--Denise took her commitment a step further. She got involved in the Chamber of Commerce, including stepping up to coordinate the Christmas in the Village parade this year. During her chats with customers at the restaurant, she discovered a few things.
"Our day time (volume) was increasing and the customers were not just from Manchester," she says. "Many customers had never been to our restaurant, let alone to our town before and came because of word of mouth, or they were driving through town and decided to stop.
"Now, many of these new customers have become regulars at Frank’s Place."
And she realized that as the town was finally coming out of the recession, people were starting to seek out Manchester. As a business owner, she knew it was important for the village to capitalize on this trend and she was determined to figure out how to do so.
"I love this town," Denise says. "Jim and I have raised our children here. Two of our children have homes in Manchester and now our grandchildren are growing up here. I joined the Chamber of Commerce and now the DDA because I believe strongly that we can turn our town around for the better. After becoming involved with these groups, I've met some amazing people who care as much as I do about our town and how to better it."
As a small business owner, her main concern is how to get more businesses to open downtown and also to encourage existing businesses to stay open past 5:00 p.m., as Gibbs' study recommended.
"If you have a thriving downtown, it brings more people into the community," she says. "Besides spending money here, people will walk around check out our town, our parks and think, 'hey, this might be a good place to buy a house and raise a family.' This in turn brings families with children that will go to school here. So it’s a win-win situation for the town and the schools."
Adding Denise Collins' business experience and people skills to the DDA should make her venture into local government a win-win situation for the entire community. Welcome!
Even in the middle of the afternoon, customers enjoy the relaxed atmosphere at Frank's Place.
Frank's Place, a Manchester institution, is owned by the Collins family.
Pizza is Frank's top seller, and is made in brick ovens rather than on a conveyor.
Some customers believe that this is "Frank," but there was a real Frank for whom the restaurant was originally named. The Collinses have retained the name and many of the original Sicilian recipes from Frank Furnari's mother.
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