'Razor-sharp' entrepreneur finds success in franchising

PHILADELPHIA – At 15, Amol Kohli began working as a server at his neighborhood Friendly's restaurant in suburban Philadelphia. While in high school, he scooped ice cream, washed dishes, and was a host, a cook, and eventually a shift supervisor before heading to college.

Twelve years later, Kohli owns 10 franchises of the restaurant chain in southern New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

He also owns a Tilted Kilt Pub & Eatery franchise and plans to open a second Tilted Kilt in the New York City area in June.

Kohli, 27, is the youngest Friendly's franchisee among 27 owners and 259 Friendly's restaurants, primarily in the Northeast and mid-Atlantic, said David Ulgenalp, Friendly's chief development officer.

"While he may be young, his business acumen is probably the equivalent of franchisees who are 15 to 20 years older, if not more," Ulgenalp said. "He's a very sharp guy."

Kohli oversees 700 full- and part-time employees and a $3.1 million annual payroll. Total revenue for all his restaurants is projected to exceed $15 million in 2016, he said.

He did not always expect to be in the restaurant business. When he headed to Drexel University, where he majored in finance and marketing, his required co-op internship was supposed to be at an options-trading firm. But it fell through, and he said, "I scrambled to find a job very quickly."

After graduating from Drexel in 2011, Kohli considered applying for investment banking and financial analyst jobs on Wall Street, but decided instead to become a Friendly's franchisee.

He needed more than $500,000 to acquire and finance five restaurants from Friendly's corporate office and four from a private franchisee in south New Jersey.

He said his parents lent him $50,000, and he put in $75,000 of his own savings. He raised the rest from private investors, "people who I knew over the years that had some wealth or were in business," he said.

In 2014, the young entrepreneur was named among the top "40 under 40" alumni by Drexel Magazine.

Graham R. Laub, who heads the mergers and acquisitions and securities practice groups at law firm Dilworth Paxson in Philadelphia, has represented Kohli in many of his restaurant transactions.

"The other thing is, he's got a great work ethic," Laub said. "He's a hustler and he's very driven. That's what you need to be successful."

Kohli said his parents were immigrants who came to the United States from India in the 1980s. "My mom always tells me they had no money in their pockets," he said.

His father, Rakesh, is a research scientist and director of the Mass Spectrometry Laboratory at the University of Pennsylvania. His mother, Nila, is a physical therapist, and his older sister, Nidhi, is an endocrinologist.