Former New York Jets cornerback Ray Mickens is growing his franchise portfolio with the addition of Smoothie King, opening his first unit at the Dallas Fort Worth International Airport.
It’s fitting that Ray Mickens, who spent the majority of his NFL career with the New York Jets, is now focused on airports to grow his restaurant business.
The former cornerback, who played eight of his first 10 NFL seasons with the Jets, operates three units each of Einstein Bros. Bagels, Chick-fil-A and Pinkberry, along with a Smoothie King and a Qdoba location in Dallas Fort Worth International Airport.
As the co-owner of Fort Worth-based M2 Concepts, Mickens runs a multimillion-dollar food, beverage and retailing company that also has licensing and franchise agreements with Starbucks, Dunkin’ and Panda Express. It provides concessions sold at Hudson News stores in several major travel hubs, including those serving Nashville, Tennessee, Washington, D.C., Minneapolis, Orlando, Florida, Denver and San Antonio.
In total, Mickens runs restaurant businesses in nine airports around the country with 16 different food and beverage concepts. That includes nine non-franchised restaurants, sports bars and breweries he either owns or has partnerships with.
“Doing business in airports may not sound sexy. It’s certainly not easy when you factor in how difficult it is to get in airports. But looking at it with an entrepreneur lens, it just makes a lot of sense for us to be in airports,” said Mickens. “It’s where the people are and where the foot traffic is. It’s a much more controlled environment than being streetside.”
Mickens, who in his early 50s still looks as though he can run with NFL receivers, has a long history of doing business in airports. While playing for the Jets from 1996 to 2004, he partnered with his uncle and invested $15,000 in opening a Famous Famiglia Pizza location in Philadelphia’s airport. He said the success of the pizza stand provided him and his brother, Leonard Mickens, the incentive to go into business together and launch their own company.
“We saw the opportunity that airports provided early on and we made that our primary business goal. It’s just kind of snowballed from there as we continue to look for new opportunities to grow in those spaces, despite all the issues of doing business in airports,” said Mickens, who listed high construction and labor costs and the long and arduous bidding process as the biggest challenges.
Although he wouldn’t provide financial details, Mickens said his franchise locations are all performing at or above their respective systemwide averages. He said he’s especially pleased with the early returns from his first Smoothie King, which opened in DFW Airport’s Terminal A in July. M2 Concepts is doubling its initial projections, he noted, and wants to add another location in Terminal C.
“The airport loves it and you can see that by how many airport employees are in lines to place orders. It’s more than anywhere else in that part of the terminal for sure,” said Mickens, who runs the food, beverage and lounge businesses for M2 Concepts. Brother Leonard oversees its retail operation while Mickens’ daughter, Kami, leads their Chick-fil-A business.
Mickens said he wanted to bring Smoothie King to his company’s main travel hub to provide travelers a healthy meal option. “You go into airports and all you see is McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Burger Kings. What everyone is talking about now and looking for is healthy food options,” he said. “I want to crack the code here in this category because I know every airport wants it.”
With business and accounting degrees from Texas A&M, where he ran track and earned All-American honors as one of the top coverage cornerbacks in the country, Mickens carried over his competitive sports drive to his second career as a successful entrepreneur and restaurateur. He said he taps into his football years playing one of the most challenging positions in the secondary to run his many businesses.
Playing for coaches Bill Parcells and Bill Belichick “helped me immensely and have made an enormous impact on my life,” said Mickens. “They taught me that when
putting together great teams that everyone has to put aside their egos and that the team is always going to be bigger than any one individual. It has to be a common goal, and that’s how we run our company, with everyone knowing they have an important role on the team.”