All Erik Johnson wanted to do 35 years ago when he opened his first Erik’s Deli was serve people sandwiches that made them feel good.
“If you go into business to make money, you’ll go broke,†Johnson says.
Today, Erik’s has 25 locations, with four more on the way, generating $17.5 million in revenue last year and on track to do $20 million this year.
The “secret goo†to his success, Johnson says, has been sticking to his values of consistency, quality, service and integrity and instilling those values with the franchise owners.
“I’m a control freak,†he says.
The growth certainly did not happen overnight. Johnson has been busy setting the wheels in motion for some time so that the formula can be replicated beyond the Bay Area.
Over the past five years, he outsourced all the food preparation, worked out specifications on every element of the décor so that it can be easily reproduced at each new site and hired a chief operating officer.
Johnson opened the first Erik’s Deli in Scotts Valley in 1973 with $429 that he borrowed from his father, Ray Johnson. His father also made all of the soups, and his mother made potato salad in their kitchen, and Johnson would drive back and forth between Monterey and Scotts Valley every day.