Ray Goff was eating out a lot in those days. He was on his own, newly single, not coaching football anymore, and he didn’t cook. So he found himself frequenting this new place in nearby Watkinsville, Ga. He liked the indoor décor. He really liked the chicken. So it inspired him to make a phone call.
Advertisement
At that time, the late ‘90s, Zaxby’s was a very small chain of restaurants, almost all in Georgia. The corporate headquarters was in a small building on Milledge Ave. in Athens, where Goff still lived in the years after being let go as Georgia’s head football coach.
He had never run or owned a business. He didn’t really know much about it. He just knew he really liked the chicken.
“You know look, my name is Ray Goff,” the ex-coach remembered telling someone over the phone. “And I want to talk to somebody about Zaxby’s.”
Tony Townley, a co-founder of the company along with Georgia graduate Zach McLeroy, got on the phone.
Goff: “Tony, I want to look into buying a store.”
Townley: “Well, we’d love to talk to you. When can you meet?”
Goff: “Right now. I’ll be there in five minutes.”
And Goff drove over, struck a deal, and two decades later he’s the largest franchise-owner in one of the fastest-growing restaurant chains in the country.
As of last December, Zaxby’s ranked No. 25 in the nation — right after Jimmy John’s and in front of Carl’s Jr. — for sales among restaurant chains, per visualcapitalist.com. Zaxby’s has around 900 locations nationwide, and Goff has ownership or part-ownership in 42 of them in four different states.
Goff, now 64, will always be more widely known as the man who replaced Vince Dooley as Georgia head football coach. He should also go down in school lore for his playing days: Goff was the SEC Player of the Year in 1976, when he quarterbacked Georgia to an SEC title. Later an assistant at South Carolina and then Georgia, he was the Bulldogs’ head coach from 1989-95, going 46-34-1.
But since being let go, Goff has shied away from his alma mater. He’s never been back to a Georgia practice, even though he still lives in Athens. He does run into the current head coach, Kirby Smart, who Goff recruited to Georgia. But otherwise, Goff lives his own life quietly.
Advertisement
And that means Zaxby’s, which has proven to be a quite unexpected, and successful, second act in Goff’s life.
“I decided to take a risk,” Goff said. “Anything at that point in time is a risk. So I took a chance, and got my brother involved, my family. They’ve been happy with it.”
Indeed. Goff was pulling in $120,000 annually in his final year at Georgia, before the explosion of coaches salaries. Now over two decades with a growing restaurant chain …
“I’m not going to give you any numbers. But I’m going to tell you that people in the South love fried chicken,” said Mary Harrison, who is Goff’s partner in business and life. She runs the books, and they’ve been dating since 2007.
Goff isn’t a figurehead in the business. He doesn’t appear in commercials. He’ll gladly talk about his work with the company, such as for this story, but also doesn’t try to turn it into a big deal.
“I don’t really call it a second act,” Goff said. “I’ve had some other good things, too. I’ve been able to spend more time with my children. I’ve also got five grandchildren. I just enjoy being around them. I don’t have to go answer to anybody.”
But sometimes his two post-career endeavors have conveniently overlapped: When his daughter enrolled at Auburn, Goff built a couple Zaxby’s stores there so he had an excuse to visit her more often.
McLeroy and Townley opened the first Zaxby’s in March 1990, in Statesboro, Ga. McLeroy is an Athens native and Georgia graduate, and still the chief executive officer of the company. (The headquarters are also still in Athens.) The vision for the restaurant, according to the company web site, was “an upbeat, fun, relaxing place that served terrific chicken.”
Goff was taken in with the concept as he dined regularly at the location in Watkinsville, which at that point was one of only about 30 in the humble chain.
Advertisement
“I didn’t know anything about the food business,” Goff said. “I didn’t know how to cook. I don’t cook. I just felt like it was a good thing. The more I ate there the better it got. I just finally said, ‘Shoot, I want to build one.’”
At first, Goff asked to build a location in his hometown of Moultrie, Ga., but the company instead suggested Tifton, Ga., which was well-located off I-75, where many a traveler would stop in between Macon and Valdosta or on much longer trips down the eastern seaboard. That would be among the first 50 Zaxby’s locations. When Goff opened another one in Tifton in 2010, it became the company’s 500th.
Now, Goff runs 13 locations, plus another 29 — in Georgia, Tennessee, Mississippi and Arkansas — that are part of a consortium that he helped form.
“One of Ray’s many talents is he’s very good with people, and he’s very good with putting people together,” Harrison said.
Goff is a businessman now, as everyone puts it. He left football and coaching behind. When he meets fellow Zaxby’s franchise owners and employees at conventions his football past rarely comes up.
“There’s some people that know because they’re Georgia graduates and they live in Athens, stuff of that nature,” Goff said. “But all that we do is talk about selling chicken.”
(Photo: Doug Pensinger / ALLSPORT via Getty Images)
ncG1vNJzZmismJqutbTLnquim16YvK57kHFwbmxoZXxzfJFpZmluX2eGcLPEqKmgoZFis7C705uYpaRdmLyir8dmqZqxXZy8p7KMs5ixmqmoeqS0yJyinqZdnru3sdKtpqtn