Frank Carney

Pizza Hut Founder, NASCAR Owner

It’s safe to say that Frank Carney was the “Pizza Guy” in the franchising world. In 1958, Frank and his brother Dan borrowed $600 dollars from their mother to open their first pizza shop on the campus of Wichita State. After realizing instant success, the two brothers decided to launch a franchise, opening the first ever Pizza Hut a year later in Kansas. The chain grew to over 18,000 restaurants worldwide, making it the world’s largest pizza chain.

“When you are starting a business that’s going to pay your way through college, you don’t even think about what the economy is doing. We didn’t care about who was in the White House or what the unemployment rate was. The entrepreneur, all he thinks about is: Is there a market for the product? Can I sell it?” Carney said in a speech to Wichita State in 1992.

Carney was a former Chairman of the IFA, which is how he met Ed Kushell, another former chairman. The two men bonded over selling their franchise businesses in the same year, having brothers as business partners, and NASCAR racing. Carney owned a racing team and would often compare similarities in constructing a winning race car team to building a successful franchise. Later in life, he used all his franchising experience to pursue growing a competitor to Pizza Hut. He proceeded to scale 130 Papa John’s, with his public statement of the event being “Sorry guys, I found a better pizza.”