Doubters Downed

REVIEW SUMMARY
Business. Five Guys Famous Burgers and Fries, Sarasota and Bradenton
Industry. Restaurants, hospitality
Key. John and Tricia Baylis, Five Guys franchisees, plan to double the number of stores they own in 2010.

John and Tricia Baylis were admittedly unprepared in many ways to run their own burger joint, running straight into a wave of negativity that dogged the couple in the early days.

Call it the doubters parade: A stream of people — colleagues and neighbors, friends and relatives — repeatedly told the couple, face-to-face in many cases, they were doomed to fail. And that was before the Baylises had even flipped their first burger.