As with most people arriving at Ellis Island, Abraham Azar wanted a better life.
The Middle Eastern immigrant landed on American soil in 1899 at age 20. Hailing from a small town an hour north of Damascus in Syria, his destination was Bryan, Ohio. Azar had a cousin there who said he could get him a job.
Years later, Azar made good – his son Alex especially so.
Alex Azar, the 90-year-old co-founder of Azar Inc., opened a Big Boy restaurant franchise in 1954 with his brother, David, after they decided to branch out from their humble grocery store on Calhoun Street.
By the late 1980s, the business had grown to be worth more than $40 million, encompassing 50 restaurants in Indiana and Colorado, including exclusive Big Boy franchise rights in Colorado. Azar Inc. also owned Marriott hotels in Fort Wayne and Grand Rapids, Mich.
The company’s portfolio is under the radar today. It has switched from primarily a restaurant and hospitality operation to a real estate investment firm.
‘We’re still here’
Last summer, a sour economy contributed to the business losing control of what was the city’s first Marriott franchise.
Philadelphia-based GF Management is running the hotel at 305 E. Washington Center Road while Wells Fargo tries to find a buyer for the 219-room lodge. Alex Azar’s son George and members of his management team declined to comment at the time.
The bank filed foreclosure paperwork in May 2012 because Azar Inc. wasn’t able to repay a $14 million loan issued in 2005, according to court documents. George Azar was named as a defendant in documents in Allen Superior Court.
A company statement in August 2012 said the recession lingered and especially took a toll on the hotel industry, with Fort Wayne being no exception. Officials said they kept the Marriott going in hopes that things would turn around.
They didn’t.
“I can understand how people might think that the Marriott was the end, but it wasn’t the end of anything,” George Azar said. “The hotel was a great business, and we loved operating it, but things change.”
George Azar bought the family business in the early 1990s. By the time his uncle, David Azar, died in 2006, George had the reins of a more diverse company.
Azar Inc. still encompasses a Big Boy restaurant in Waynedale, the Back 40 Junction restaurant in Decatur and a 300-room Marriott in Huntsville, Ala.
A retail strip mall in Boulder, Colo., and other real estate holdings in Indiana and the Chicago area are assets unfamiliar to most.
In Fort Wayne, Azar owns several properties, including Aspen Dental, Ruby Tuesday and the Tire Barn – all in the Glenbrook Square corridor.
And while the company is no longer the largest Big Boy operator in Indiana, it still recorded $14 million to $15 million in sales last year – and that’s not counting revenue from real estate, properties or transactions, George Azar said.
“We may not be as visible with the restaurants, but we’re still here. Like I said, things change,” he said, adding that the company has 150 to 175 full-time employees.
“It became apparent as time went on that we needed to become less of an operations company and more of an investment company.”
Azar owns the property on Coliseum Boulevard where the former Hooters restaurant stood until a fire destroyed the 4,300-square-foot building in January. Azar swung a deal with Physicians Urgent Care, which opened a clinic at that site in September, replacing the restaurant.
Azar, however, is not on the marquee.
How does the company’s founder feel about its direction?
“I leave all of those decisions up to (George),” Alex Azar said. “He knows what he’s doing. Every now and then, they ask me what I think about something. If I have something to offer, I try to help, but it’s not like they need it.”
A look back
George Azar says his father is too modest. The elder Azar comes to work every morning for a few hours and is considered the company’s sage. George said that ever since Alex’s mother lent him $7,000 to get started in business, he has continued to play a vital role at the business.
George Azar is CEO and an attorney. He spends much of his time in New York and leaves the day-to-day operations to family friend and company president, Yogi Parikh – whom Alex calls “smart as a whip.”
Parikh credits Alex Azar with showing him the ropes of the industry.
“I have learned a lot from him,” Parikh said.
“He is very knowledgeable about the restaurant business. He is very detailed about food preparation and customer service.”
Alex Azar said his Syrian roots have helped him to appreciate others from various backgrounds.
“When we visited Syria, it was the first time I was in a place where everybody looked like me,” Azar said. “They had the same facial features, everything. When I was growing up, people had a hard time saying my name.”
Not Dave Hunt.
In the 1980s, Hunt was vice president of franchise operations for Big Boy restaurants worldwide. When he visited Fort Wayne, he knew all about Azar’s success and was hesitant to offer the veteran businessman any advice.
Hunt said he felt like a young whippersnapper trying to tell a grown-up what to do.
“He never treated me like that, though,” said Hunt, who owns four Big Boys in Michigan. “What comes to my mind is how much of a gentleman he was. Alex was very gracious. He’s a true people person with a big heart.”
George Azar says that’s why so many young professionals don’t shy away from seeking his father’s advice.
“There are a lot of them out there,” he said. “I’m one of them.”
But don’t think for one minute that Alex Azar is an old softy. There have been times when he’s had to sever ties with workers who couldn’t cut it.
“That’s always difficult,” Azar said. For a moment, the Indiana University alum’s eyes drop to the floor and his already olive complexion darkens.
“Some good people have really tried but had a difficult time, and you have to let them go for your good as well as their own,” he said.
But in the case of former employee David L. Moser, it was more than a case of a worker not being competent. Moser was responsible for supervising and training corporate and hotel accounting departments and for generating financial reports.
Moser stole more than $300,000 from the company between November 2003 and August 2008.
Officials said a gambling addiction played a role in his 2009 sentencing in Allen Superior Court to two years on home detention and two years of probation on a felony theft charge.
Moser, now a new-car sales manager in Fort Wayne, declined to comment. Although Azar had been retired as president of the company bearing his name for nearly 30 years, he said the experience at the time was no less painful.
“He was such a hard worker. I’ve never been so … so disappointed,” Azar said, pausing before finishing his thought. “You just have to move on.”
A look ahead
One way Azar Inc. moves forward is by seeking new business ventures, while keeping in mind the principles the family operation was founded on, George Azar said.
“Over the years, investment properties have proved to be a better fit for where we want to take the company,” he said. “Dad comes in every day, and he is still very much a part of the company. We wouldn’t be here without him.”
But for a couple of months during the spring, they had to be there without him. Alex Azar fell inside his home in May, hitting his head on a table and injuring his pelvis. Three months later, doctors discovered a blood clot on his brain.
Surgery and a couple of months of physical therapy took care of the issues.
Now, Alex Azar is back to his routine of daily breakfasts with old friends at Mannie’s Place on South Calhoun.
“He used to walk 2 to 3 miles every day before the fall, but he’s determined to get back to that treadmill,” George Azar said.
Alex Azar’s resolve is no revelation to Al Zacher, a longtime business associate and real estate veteran.
“He’s in the office every day. He may be a little slower, but aren’t we all these days?” said Zacher, 85, who assisted Azar in the Marriott franchise deal in 1967. “His mind is as sharp as ever. He could probably start a company today if he wanted to.”
But that’s not on Azar’s bucket list.
“No, things have changed so much from when I started out,” he said. “I leave the business stuff to my son now.”
Besides, Azar isn’t all about commerce. As the civil war rages in Syria, Azar said he often recalls his father’s move to America and what it eventually enabled his family to do.
“I’m a Christian, I’m not Muslim,” he said. “But there are good people in that part of the world. You just hate to see what is happening over there now.”
Like himself, Azar said his father came from a family of six children. His parents once hired Abraham out as a houseboy to an American physician because that meant one less mouth to feed, Azar said.
The doctor saw that Abraham Azar was a bright lad and told him he’d have a better future in the States.
“He took his advice, and as soon as he was old enough, he left Syria,” Azar said, adding that his father eventually became a developer of residential homes.
“Twenty years ago, we got a chance to visit that little place he came from. All I can say is that after three days there, I knew my dad made a wise decision to leave.”