While it’s not uncommon for McDonald’s franchise owners to have multiple locations, not very many have a spread like Matthew and Lori Schulz.

At 36 locations (including all five in Traverse City and several others in northern Michigan) the East Grand Rapids couple own more restaurants than any other franchisees in the state. Add in 15 Metro Detroit restaurants separately owned by Matthew’s niece and nephew, and the Schulz name packs a punch in the McDonald’s world.

A family business

Matthew, 61, was born into McDonald's. His grandfather, Karl Oeser, was a close friend and associate of legendary McDonald’s corporate founder Ray Kroc.

“That’s where it all began,” said Matthew, a Port Huron native. “They were friends when they were younger.”

Matthew says Oeser was a partner with three other people in one of the first restaurants in Michigan (in Detroit) before eventually opening up his own restaurant in Port Huron in 1961. It was the 319th location; McDonald's now has more than 41,000.

Matthew’s father, Gunter Schulz, went on to partner with Oeser, and the pair at one point owned 22 restaurants from Port Huron down to the Detroit area.

“Dad was really the one who really grew the company,” Matthew said. “Grandad started with three or four, but dad helped grow it to 22.”

And as those restaurants opened, Kroc himself showed up sometimes, often staying with the Schulz family.

“He would actually come to the restaurant and do the ribbon cutting. We would all be lined up there, my brother, my sisters…we'd have five, six of us across, and Ray would be in the middle,” Matthew said. “It really was a family business – back in the day, everyone was really close.”

Naturally, Matthew and his siblings grew up in the restaurants. And while there was plenty of fun, games and food, there was also business to attend to. 

“When I was seven or eight years old, that’s when we started shopping the restaurants. Dad would have me go to the counter. (He would ask,) 'How was your visit? Did they say thank you? Did they greet you? Were they pleasurable? Is the food hot?'” Matthew said. “I'd sit down with my father and we would go over the meal and the experience. How did the restaurant look? Was it clean?”

Matthew purchased his first restaurant in Richmond in 1989, followed not long after by Marysville, just south of Port Huron.

“It was 26 years I owned the Richmond location, and 23 years for Marysville, and being a part of those communities, those small towns, it was just fantastic,” Matthew said. “Great places to build a business.”

Meanwhile, Grosse Pointe native Lori broke into the business without any ties. Starting as a teen she worked at a banquet hall in St. Clair Shores, learning each aspect of the business before going on to Northwood University (where Matthew also attended, though they did not know each other there).

After spending some time in other industries, she decided that restaurant work was in her blood. Fast food seemed more appealing than fine dining, so she went down that path. After exploring some options, she set her sights on the golden arches.

“McDonald's was by far the hardest to enter, but I put an application in,” she said. “They called me maybe eight months later, and I ended up going to Chicago several times for interviews.”

The process from applicant to owner was more than two years, Lori says. Aside from the obvious financial training, she learned every single aspect of running a McDonald’s restaurant – a corporate requirement designed to make owners and operators intimately familiar with operations.

“I know how long it takes to mop a floor, clean a bathroom, cook the food. I’ve been there and I’ve done it all,” Lori said. “Everything I could possibly tell somebody to do, I’ve already done myself.”

Matthew and Lori first met around 2002 when she was in the process of finally acquiring her first store, which happened to be owned by Matthew’s brother, Markus.

“We met through McDonald’s, but it wasn’t the happiest of meetings. He really wanted to buy M-59 and Gratiot (in Metro Detroit), but they really wanted me to buy it,” Lori said. “So, Matthew really didn’t care for me all that much at first.”

Matthew remembers it well.

“It was my brother's restaurant that my father said that he should sell to his brother. And somehow Lori ended up getting the restaurant,” Matthew said. “So she and I didn't talk for about 10 years. I was a little upset.”

Fast forward a decade later. After being at many of the same owner meetings and spending a lot of time together, the bad blood not only faded, but it slowly gave way to love. Even before they eventually married in 2015, McDonald’s corporate offices (which targets owners for expansion and success) talked to them about acquiring stores in the Grand Rapids area.

“McDonald's basically approached us and said, ‘You both are ready to grow. You've been waiting. So why don't you think about the west side of the state?”’ Lori said. “At that time there was just a lot more opportunity to grow over there.”

Lori bought eight restaurants in and around Grand Rapids and Matt bought seven (they sold their east-side restaurants in the process). Northward expansion continued through COVID, with Cadillac, Grayling, Houghton Lake, Gaylord and all five Traverse City locations acquired by 2021.

“When we got married, we really started taking off because we put our heads together, our efforts together. We grew from seven and eight to 36 today,” Matthew said. “We’re just mustard and ketchup and burgers and fries, and it’s fun to see how it’s grown.”

Steering the ship

The restaurants are run by a family office – the Schulz Organization – which is common for franchisees with many locations. They employ more than 2,000 people across their restaurants, all guided by a management structure that includes individual store managers, several district supervisors and three operations managers, along with various support staff.

“Really the only way you can run a well-oiled machine is with excellent upper management,” Lori said. “We have good people.”

Functionally speaking, much of the day-to-day is left to management. But Matthew and Lori are still involved in the business. They review numbers every day and regularly confer with management about strategy and direction.

“I look at all 36 restaurants, make sure everything's right. It's labor, overrides, refunds, that kind of stuff. Anything you can think of that pops up on a screen,” Matthew said. “I'm a data person, and I like all that information.”

They also like to get into their restaurants as much as they can, though that’s become a bit harder as they’ve expanded to so many locations.

“In our travels we stop in, sometimes expected, sometimes not,” Lori said. “We’re in all of our restaurants on a regular basis.”

As the state’s largest operators, they are active in various charitable organizations, both through McDonald’s and within the communities they serve. They are also heavily involved in internal leadership groups for McDonald’s owners.

“At this point in time, with as many restaurants as we own, McDonald's really wants to see Matthew and I sitting on board of directors, PR committees, subcommittees and other things we have internally that help the whole state make better decisions,” Lori said.

The Schulzes are proud of their charitable efforts. In addition to helping corporate offices direct charitable contributions, the Schulz organization itself also donates tens of thousands of dollars a year to various causes throughout their service area, and Matthew and Lori personally contribute to Ronald McDonald House charities.

They also invest heavily in their employees. They have given out more than $250,000 in tuition assistance to their workers over the years and have seen several employees rise within the organization.

“It's great to put your people on a plan. Watching them grow. Watching them start off as a crew person, becoming a general manager, making some great money, and watching their family grow,” Matthew said. “When you can have a couple thousand employees and you're watching people grow like that, it's a special feeling.”

They’re also happy to think about the broad-reaching impact of their operations. Corporate does the food buying and spends upwards of $150 million in Michigan alone each year.

“If you look at how many millions of pounds of agriculture is bought in the state of Michigan, it’s just incredible. It really is. Eggs, apples, you name it,” Matthew said. “There are many different products we buy in-state that keep jobs in Michigan.”

Dollars and cents

The McDonald’s business model, generally speaking, works like this: The corporation owns the building and real estate, while the franchisee owns the individual restaurant business. Ownership of each restaurant is usually structured around 20-year contracts, and to remain in good standing on those contracts, many conditions must be met.  

The most significant of these conditions are tied to yearly “graded visits” in which corporate makes sure everything is in order at each location.

“Every year they come in and they're looking at everything from top to bottom. Quality, service, cleanliness, shift leadership, health and safety, food safety,” said Peter Mooney, operations manager for the Traverse City restaurants and several others. “You have to go through this whole process and you have to meet the requirements and have certain numbers in order to pass a visit.”

The Schulzes enjoy a good relationship with McDonald’s corporate offices. There have been bumps in the road in years past, but they say they are feeling good synergy these days.

“Over the years, you have your highs and lows. Today, it's great to see the three-legged stool (corporate, suppliers and franchisees) all working together, because that’s the only way you're going to succeed in today's market,” Matthew said. “Everybody understands one common goal, and that's to impress the guest and grow profitably together.”

Sales at an individual restaurant average $3.8 million nationwide and about $3.4 million in Michigan, Matthew said. The Schulzes declined to discuss their revenue per restaurant, but indicated that it varies considerably depending on several factors.

“They all have different sales volumes, different rent and service fees,” Lori said. “And they have different rewrites. One might be ready to tear down and rebuild in a couple years. And for one we might have paid a little bit more, but it was just rebuilt a couple years ago.”

All five Traverse City area locations are under the $3.4 million Michigan sales average, Mooney said, so there’s room for improvement. But included in the sale with the Traverse City locations was Gaylord, which has the highest sales volume of any standalone store in the state at around $6 million.

“You look at the whole package and make a good decision,” Lori said.

The northern Michigan market has been challenging to a degree, the couple said. They’re already dealing with significantly increased food costs across the board, but getting workers in and around Traverse City has been a real grind.

“I believe when we bought the restaurants up there, they were only paying $13, $14 an hour. And then we went up to $20 an hour,” Matthew said. “So your margins shrink. It's much harder to operate a profitable company when you're paying those wages…but it was very difficult to find help (in Traverse City). We just couldn’t get people.”

For the most part, franchisees can set their own prices (they vote on certain promotions that have to be adhered to, among other restrictions). Increased labor costs in the local market have led to higher prices here, even as prices downstate remain lower.

“You have to offset higher costs,” Matthew said. “In the end, you still have a bank note, and you still have the need for reinvestment.”

But pricing is always delicate, even at McDonald’s.

“We (raise prices) within reason, because as business owners, we know if we outprice the customers, we're going to be in trouble,” Lori said. “We have competition, including our other owner operator friends, all surrounding us. So, we try to stay reasonable with our other competitors.”

But as prices rise, the Schulz restaurants are doing their best to provide their own deals and push things like the app, which allows users to earn points and be eligible for special pricing.

“We're definitely trying to get more value to our guests,” Matthew said. “We always tell everybody to use the app. There’s an opportunity right there.”

They’ve also helped address their own labor shortage by hiring about 100 foreign visa workers to work in their restaurants.

“We have to serve our guests with a gold standard,” Matthew said. “We need people, and this helps us bridge that gap.”

Matthew and Lori bought several homes in and around Traverse City to house these visa workers, and have provided them with bikes, shuttles, group outings and other amenities.

“We want to make sure they’re comfortable, and we…want to show them what it's like being in America and what you have to offer in Traverse City,” Matthew said. “It's so beautiful. They think they're in God's country up there, which they are.”

What’s next?

The Schulzes say they are always looking to reinvest and expand, provided it makes financial sense.

“We'd always take a look (at more restaurants),” Matthew said. “If the company wants us to grow and they give us the opportunity, we'll definitely take it.”

While they’re aware of national trends and happenings with the corporation – including a recent experiment with artificial intelligence-powered drive throughs – they don’t have strong opinions on many of these issues. Their goal is to be the best franchisees and business operators they can be and let corporate sort out the big-picture stuff.

“At some point, it needs to evolve. Who knows where that's going to be. We don't make that decision,” Matthew said. “If a play gets handed down, we've got to run with it.”

For now, they’ll continue to take pride in what their family – including the extended family – has built. Matthew’s niece Erika Schulz-Rogers was the first fourth-generation owner in the company’s history, he said, and she was joined by brother Dieter Schulz in ownership. The pair have many of the restaurants that Matthew’s dad and grandpa owned.

“My father was very influential. He was the boss. And it’s really neat to see how he made my brother Markus and I into (who we are today). We’re so grateful he gave us the opportunity with McDonald's, and now we have the next generation,” Matthew said. “We know our gramps and our dad would be looking down saying, ‘You guys are doing great.'”