Five decades ago, Peter Cancro was your average 14-year-old wrapping sandwiches after school at his local eatery, Mike’s Subs. Today, he’s the billionaire CEO of Jersey Mike’s Subs — but he still gets his hands dirty every now and then.
Cancro, 67, who entered into an agreement last week to sell a majority of his company to private equity firm Blackstone — valuing the company at roughly $8 billion — regularly visits Jersey Mike’s locations across the U.S., where he likes to work behind the counter and assist staff.
“We always have the Wall Street guys come down from New York down to the Jersey Shore and Bay Head, [New Jersey]. And they always say, ‘Peter, what are you doing? You’re making subs?’ I go, ‘Well yeah, I guess I am,'” Cancro said at the 2024 Restaurant Leadership Conference in April.
At age 17, the New Jersey native had worked at Mike’s Subs for a few years when he discovered the owner was looking to sell. He secured a $125,000 loan from his football coach, a local banker named Rod Smith, and became the shop’s new owner before receiving his high school diploma, he told “The Jedburgh Podcast” in 2021.
Since 1975, the chain has grown to almost 3,000 locations worldwide. Cancro’s net worth has ballooned to an estimated $7.5 billion, according to Bloomberg. He still slices deli meats and gets face-time with employees “every time I’m in a store,” he said at the conference.
Cancro described his leadership approach as amiable: At stores, he greets employees “right away,” helping with different tasks around the shop and encouraging his workers to see their jobs as opportunities to learn and grow within the company like he did. It’s “our motto” to uplift everyone, from customers to team members and franchisees, he added.
The ability to be personable is a green-flag trait that good bosses tend to share, workplace culture expert Bonnie Low-Kramen told CNBC Make It last year.
It’s not every day that the CEO of a giant company goes out of their way to do entry-level work or chat with employees about their careers, Low-Kramen noted. Showing up in that way tells workers that you care, and gives them a glimpse of “what you’re made of,” she said.
Workers have “four universal needs” when it comes to their bosses: trust, compassion, stability and hope, according to a 2020 Gallup survey. Even as a teen, Cancro felt like he mattered at work, and he now tries to connect with his employees in the same way, he told Inc. in 2018.
“This is the most critical thing preached to all owners and employees, that they must commit to their people and treat them with respect in order to establish the family culture that is critical to our growth,” said Cancro. “Once people feel they are truly part of something, they will always stay with you.”
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