Word: wienerwald
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Austrian-born Friedrich Jahn is Europe's answer to Howard Johnson, or maybe Colonel Sanders. Through his chicken-lickin' Wienerwald restaurants, which have spread across Europe and into the U.S., he works to satisfy a hungry middle class. The chain grossed $115 million last year and should do at least 10% better this year. Last month Jahn opened new outposts in Vienna and Nuremberg; he plans others in Scandinavia, Britain and South Africa. "I wouldn't be surprised," he says, "if one day there is a Wienerwald in Nigeria or Kenya...
...Jahn rules the roost as chairman, president and sole stockholder of his Zurich-based Wienerwald Share Corp. Estimates of his fortune start at $70 million. He is completely debt free. "I've always operated with my own means, independent of banks," he says. Jahn travels constantly, spending six days a month in the U.S. For short trips he favors one of his five chauffeur-driven Mercedes-Benz 300s. For longer hops he uses one of his three aircraft. Once aloft, the millionaire ex-headwaiter, often in shirtsleeves and with blue eyes gleaming, serves sandwiches and coffee to his executives...
...frothy Oktoberfest-would buy it every day if it were cheaper. To keep his own costs down, Jahn bicycled to the Munich poultry market every morning, haggled for bargains, pedaled back to the restaurant with a load of chicken. His specialty: half a roast chicken for 85?. The first Wienerwald restaurant was an overnight hit, and Jahn began expanding...
...three small factories to produce "Viennese interiors" and another to manufacture automatic spits. He also started a six-story chick hatchery in Bavaria. (But he still buys most of his birds from the U.S., which supplies Germany with $30 million worth of frozen chicken a year.) Jahn has opened Wienerwald restaurants in Belgium, Austria and The Netherlands, will soon branch into Switzerland...
Last year Jahn grossed $15 million and enjoyed a net of $375,000. Though his Wienerwald menu still consists mostly of chicken in ten different ways, he recently introduced an 85? beefsteak. "Man does not live by chicken alone," he says. Jahn himself, having seen so much of it all day long, eats chicken at home only once every few months...