By Ben Montgomery
The North Jefferson News
GARDENDALE —
Mike Holmes is the owner and operator of the Chick-fil-A restaurants in Gardendale and Fultondale. Holmes organizes many community events in the North Jefferson area.
What motivated you to do community activism?
My previous work with Chick-fil-A was in Birmingham. While I was working there, my dream was to have a freestanding store. While I was dreaming, I was thinking of what I wanted to do with my future store; I’m a big family guy, so I decided I wanted to be part of a community. I wanted baseball, hot dogs and apple pie. I wanted to be a part of a community and to give back, and to have an emotional connection with the community.
How does your business give you the tools to work with your community?
The only reason we are successful as a business is because of repeat customers. Because we know our customers, it’s easy to give back. For instance, we just had a spirit rally for Brandon Cato, a student at Gardendale High School that suffered a paralyzing wrestling injury, and that was one of our busiest days in months.
Do you have a family?
I have a wife, Jan, who is also my marketing director. I have a daughter, Reagan, and a son, Zachary.
What’s it like working with your family?
My mother is also my administrative assistant, and my kids like to run the drive-through during the summer when it’s not too busy. I’m trying to instill some work ethic in them. Jan is more of the creative part of the business, and I’m more of the operator. You have to surround yourself with people who are good at what you’re bad at. The best part of working with my family is that we can dream up things when we’re together; we’ll have ideas while we’re driving in the car on vacation. We’re working together to build our business and the community we’re going to spend the rest of our lives in.
