Perseverance pays off
Cape Breton native acquires McDonald’s franchise
SYDNEY — A lifelong dream to become a McDonald's restaurant owner recently came true for Cape Breton native Darrell Doucet who is now the owner of three of the international franchises in Northern Ontario.
It's a dream more than 30 years in the making for the Cheticamp-born Doucet who moved to Sydney when he was in high school and then lived in Glace Bay after he met his future wife.
“I started off there as a crew person when I was in Grade 11 and I worked my way up doing everything from being a kitchen person, to maintenance, to manager to assistant manager, restaurant manager, and supervisor,” Doucet said during a phone interview from Ontario.
“The next step was owning my own franchises.”
Obtaining a franchise is not an easy process.
McDonald's has its own board that makes such approvals and usually after many interviews. For Doucet, his long-awaited approval came in 2017 and then an offer to buy a franchise followed in 2018. It was many months after that before he was actually able to acquire a standalone restaurant in New Liskeard, Ont. and another inside a Walmart in the same community. His third franchise is in nearby Kirkland Lake.
Perseverance paid off for the new franchisee after he first started working at the Sydney McDonald's for its then-owner Garfield Lewis in 1987. After several years of employment, he and his wife left for Ontario for three years where he cleaned chimneys.
A hunger to return home led him back to a McDonald's kitchen in 1997 and by that time Wayne Kennerknecht had become the owner of the restaurant franchises in Cape Breton.
Doucet also started a chip wagon in Glace Bay known as X-Fries, where he found success for some four years before shifting his focus entirely back to McDonald's.
“In 2001, Wayne said ‘sell your chip wagon and I'll make you a manager in one of my restaurants' so I did and working with Wayne was probably the greatest moments of my life to tell you the truth,” Doucet said. “He is a great mentor and a great friend and just an all-around great person. His wife Gail is the same way. She has been fantastic to me.”
Kennerknecht believes much of his success in Cape Breton has been due in no small part to longstanding employees such as Doucet and others, so whenever possible he likes to help or reward them.
“Becoming an owner-operator was his dream. He didn't have the financial capabilities to do it, so Gail and I made it happen,” said Kennerknecht. “We went through so many hurdles of ‘no, it is not going to happen' but I never gave up. Finally, I got the call saying ‘OK' Wayne, we are going to approve him.'”
As a franchisee, Doucet is leaning on the lessons he learned through his many years of work in Cape Breton, especially those taught to him by the Kennerknechts.
“Because of the last 25-26 years I worked with them, I realize how important it is to have good people around you and to take care of them,” he said. “That's the kind of thing I've been trying to do up here — take care of your people. It's what Wayne has done for me and what I want to do for the people working for me.”
Now that he has finally broken through as a McDonald's franchise owner, Doucet is devoting himself to the work that goes with it and hoping to explore many other opportunities with the restaurant in years to come.