On her 40th birthday, Laura Leigh Drake went to Moe’s Southwest Grill with a friend. The owner of a small apparel shop in a tennis center in Birmingham, Ala., Drake was interested in fresh food and healthful eating, and that trip to Moe’s was a revelation.
“I thought that burrito was the freshest, best-tasting thing I’d eaten in my life,” she says. “When my husband, Kealon, came home from work the next night, that’s where I took him.”
In 2004, after inheriting some money, the Drakes decided to invest in a franchise. At the top of the list was that same Moe’s location in Birmingham, which was up for sale. Laura Leigh took the helm of the restaurant, while Kealon, a CPA, did the books. By 2005, they’d acquired three more locations in the area. Read full story.