Shopping Centers Today is the news magazine of the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC)
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J U N E 2 0 1 7 / S C T 51 After three years of legal work, she began looking toward what seemed to her to be greener pastures within the firm. "I noticed that the deal makers on the phones were having a heck of a lot more fun than me," said Messen- ger. "So I talked to our general counsel and asked him what he thought about my switching over to the business side, and I was so fortunate that they let me do it." She transferred to Chi- cago and joined the Payless lease-re- newal program. "I learned to do deals and never looked back." Messenger spent the next 10 years at Payless before moving to mall gam- ing chain EB Games. "What was cool was I got to roll out almost the entire country from Pennsylvania to Califor- nia, and we would do deals at just a breakneck speed. Believe it or not, one year I did, like, 120 deals." GameStop purchased EB Games in 2005, and Messenger moved on to Chipotle shortly before it was spun off from McDonald's as an indepen- dent public entity. "That was a very exciting time, sales were just through the roof, and of course it gave me the opportunity to learn to do food deals, which is a whole new ballgame," said Messenger. Her career next took her to Broom- field, Colo.–based Noodles & Company, where she was Western director of real estate for eight years, averaging 20 deals per year. Noodles eliminated its real estate department in August 2016, so Messenger moved on to Denver, Colo.–based Smashburger. Manage- ment changes there very soon put an end to that role, but Messenger never- theless managed to make something of her exceedingly brief, three-month tenure, because it had involved a fast and furious pace of work. "I got a huge refresher course in the East Coast," said Messenger. "I had about 20 deals teed up before everything kind of crashed." Messenger is now putting all of that diversified experience to work at Rave, where she reports directly to CEO Scott Crane. "I've got the entire country, and I'm trying to help our franchisees to repeat the wins that I've had and to not do the bad ones," Messenger said. "I'm really privileged to expand my hori- zons and take what I've learned in the past and try to apply that here." The task before her is enormous. "I'm trying to meet all the franchisees that I can, because they've got a bunch of deals they want to do," she said. "They need somebody to see them and provide input and either get them approved or not. At the same time, I'm driving around Dallas at our existing sites and our existing markets and try- ing to get a handle on what is work- ing, what for sure doesn't work, that sort of thing." Rave is also looking to prune several underperforming stores. "Scott is com- ing in and just trying to basically get all the bad stuff over with so we can grow and do it correctly," said Messenger. "He's about done with that, and we're working on a lot of testing and some very interesting tweaks." Messenger notes that a new drive- through store in suburban Oklahoma City is open and testing well. "We're looking at a lot of things, and my job is to be prepared with helping figure out the best places for the franchisees to grow, and then when we get ready to start doing corporate deals again, I'm helping to develop new market plans." Messenger says it will take time, but the results will be long term. "As fast as we're working, and with some of the results we're getting in, I think we're going to see a nice turn for the better by the fall. Everybody is very excited, and we think we can come out of the woodwork and surprise a lot of people and have some great things happening by the second half of the year." n I'm trying to meet all the franchisees that I can, because they've got a bunch of deals they want to do. They need some- body to see them and provide input and either get them approved or not" " Rave owns Pie Five Pizza Co., shown here, and Pizza Inn