Triangle Company Tapped to Grow Dickey's Barbecue in NC

Triangle Business Journal

GMW Carolina Inc., which owns Dickey’s Barbecue Pit restaurants in Cary and Durham, has signed an exclusive deal to grow the Dallas, Texas-based chain in North Carolina.

Gregory Woloszczuk, head of GMW Carolina, says this is the first time Dickey’s Barbecue Restaurants Inc. has entered into a statewide development deal with a franchisee. Dickey’s usually deals with franchisees directly. In this case, however, Dickey’s will rely on GMW to sign and support franchisees in the Tar Heel State.

By leveraging local expertise, Dickey’s believes it will be able to open locations faster and reduce expenses, Woloszczuk says.

GMW Carolina has signed up three franchisees to develop restaurants in the Triad, the Sandhills and the New Bern area. GMW also is looking for Raleigh real estate to add its third Dickey’s location, Woloszczuk says.

Woloszczuk expects each of his three franchisees to open at least one restaurant before the end of the year, saying that all three currently are in lease negotiations. He hopes to have his third Triangle location locked up before 2011.

In the meantime, Woloszczuk will be looking to sign up franchisees in the Charlotte, Fayetteville and Asheville areas over the next six months.

Woloszczuk and his wife, Maureen Woloszczuk, founded GMW Carolina in 2006. They opened the Cary Dickey’s location in September 2007 and the Durham restaurant in April 2008.

GMW has 25 employees. Each Dickey’s has about a dozen workers.

Dickey’s, which was founded in Dallas in 1941, features hickory-smoke barbecue in a variety of plates and sandwiches.

Raleigh-Cary Tops Nation In Growth

Originally Posted to The News & Observer

The metropolitan area is home to more than 1 million people after growing by more than 4 percent from 2007 to 2008. But that is slower than in previous years.

As the national economy lost steam last year, the Raleigh area continued to attract residents, becoming the fastest-growing metropolitan area in the country.

According to census numbers released today, the Raleigh-Cary metropolitan area, which includes Wake, Johnston and Franklin counties, grew by 4.3 percent from July 2007 to July 2008, and is now home to close to 1.1 million people. It well outpaced its closest rival, the Austin, Texas, area, which grew by 3.8 percent.

The national average was just under 1 percent.

The Triangle has been near the top of the nation's growth chart for more than a decade, as newcomers poured into the area to take jobs in technology, tourism and academia. The resulting building boom, and the jobs that came with it, drew hundreds of thousands of new residents.

Much changed in recent months as the economy fell into a deep recession. While the downturn took longer to arrive in North Carolina, the state's unemployment rate of 9.7 percent is now well above the national average of 8.1 percent.

Next year's figures may show a darker picture for the Triangle.

Even this year marks a slowdown for the area, despite its place at the top of the list. The growth rate was nearly half a point lower than the two previous years, when it was 4.7 percent.

The Durham-Chapel Hill metropolitan area, which includes Durham, Orange, Chatham and Person counties, didn't make the Top 10, but its population continued to swell at a steady 2.5 percent, up slightly from the year before. Just fewer than 490,000 people live in that area.