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Show Three traits mean success NORTH SALT LAKE - With his ever-present gentlemanly tone, Mel Melcomian' says that the accumulation of money is not the major object of his business. But with the same sincerity, he also notes that the American Dream can produce money. "Satisfying the customer is the most important goal of a good businessman," busi-nessman," he says. "If you succeed suc-ceed in that and combine it with hard work and a love for your business, busi-ness, then you can also show a profit." Mel has indeed shown a profit at his popular Casa Melinda Mexican Restaurant. And customers know that he loves his business. The soft-spoken soft-spoken owner is usually to be found greeting customers in what he calls a personal sales job. "I don't give them a phony handshake. hand-shake. Customers want sincerity and they want to know that someone some-one cares about their patronage. I'm selling myself at the foyer-and by selling myself, I'm also selling my restaurant." Mel has been selling Mexican food since the late 1960's, but it wasn't his initial career goal. An industrial technology graduate of Utah State University, Mel worked work-ed at Ajax Presses and Litton Industries In-dustries before being asked to transfer to Litton's Los Angeles office. The transfer got him thinking think-ing about a previous summer he had spent in Chicago working at fast-food restaurants. "I had enjoyed the work that summer and figured that was the kind of thing 1 wanted to do. I had enjoyed the people contact and had thought then that one day I'd own my own restaurant. Faced with the transfer, I decided it was time to strike out and pursue it." His first pursuit captured the Tampico Restaurant franchise for Bountiful, but Mel was somewhat independent of the company's established recipes. Eight years la- MEL MELCOMIAN ter, he sold the Tampico and opened Casa Melinda. It boomed. ..In fact, it boomed too much. "We opened very strong--too strong," he recalls. "We had so much business, we didn't handle it as well as we should have. Huge volume is a double-edged sword. It's great to have a packed house, but no matter how crowded, the individual customer still expects to be treated in an excellent manner. It's short-sighted to fill a business with customers and not provide them with the service they expect." ex-pect." Casa Melinda still attracts crowds, many or them loyalists who drive from as far south as Murray Mur-ray to indulge in spicy Mexican combination platters. When they arrive they usually see Mel who offers them a friendly handshake and calls them by name. It's an environment which has caused Mel to scratch plans for expansion. "If you open second or third units, un-its, then you lose the focus on the original store," he says. "1 can only be in one place at one time and I want to make sure the restaurant is operating correctly. I'm satisfied with one Casa Melinda. ..It's mine." |