Mike Busley is counting on top-quality pie to build his bakery café operation, and the good news is Busley appears to be well on his way.

In 1996, Busley and his wife, Denise, opened Grand Traverse Pie Co., a gourmet pie shop in Traverse City, Mich. The Busleys, both Michigan natives, figured Traverse City would be a good location. The city, which bills itself as the Cherry Capital of the World, is home to the National Cherry Festival; each year it attracts more than 500,000 visitors. The marketing and sales potential of pie, cherries and hundreds of thousands of publicists was alluring.

Aligning with the festival and participating in local civic and charitable events, the Busleys transformed the shop into a bakery café and built the Grand Traverse Pie brand, recognized by area residents and seasonal tourists. Pie sales rose steadily, currently reaching as many as 500 a day sold during the summer and dropping to 100 daily in early November, the store's slowest sales period.

Within eight years of opening, Grand Traverse Pie grew to a point where the Busleys took on two partners and formed GTPie Franchising LLC. In 2005, the first Grand Traverse Pie franchise opened.

Since then, the business has been on a fast track, having grown to 13 franchised stores and three company-owned locations in Michigan and Indiana. Another franchise is scheduled to open in April in suburban Indianapolis

Initially, the Busleys thought they would operate a mom-and-pop business with one or two stores. “Yet, we wanted to build a business that would become engaged in the community,” Mike Busley says. “We could do this by hiring more people. Or, we could pursue franchising.”

He mined books for franchising information and attended franchising seminars. He hired a consultant in 2003 to conduct a franchise feasibility study. The results were positive, and Busley hired an attorney to help form the structure. He partnered with Tim Rice, who has more than 20 years' experience in restaurant franchising and retail food marketing and shares Busley's belief that Grand Traverse Pie franchises should become active members of their communities.

“We wanted to be the anti-franchise franchise,” he says.

Signature cherry pies

With pie as their focus, Grand Traverse Pie shops list 31 varieties of fruit pie and seven cream pie flavors in 9-in. deep-dish and 6-in. mini sizes as well as slices. Franchisees are required to display at least 15 varieties.

True to its mission to tap the popularity of Michigan cherries, the Busleys created signature cherry pies made with tart Montmorency cherries, grown in neighboring counties. Varieties include traditional double-crusted Old Mission Cherry; Long Lake Berry Cherry, which includes raspberries; Cherry Peach Crumb and Grand Traverse Cherry Crumb, the top-seller of all varieties.

To achieve its bakery café concept, Grand Traverse Pie relies on a unique selling proposition to offer high-quality, on premise-made pies, supported by a wide variety of freshly made bakery and non-bakery food products provided in a comfortable environment.

Though pies identify Grand Traverse Pie, customers begin to understand “that we're more than pies after they walk into our stores,” Busley says. Expanding the product line began with products that complement or derive directly from pie components, such as the crust in pot pies and quiches. Chicken pot pie has become the single largest-selling product in terms of units sold.

The company rounded out its bakery product list and foodservice menu to fill all day parts. Morning fare includes bakery foods (muffins, croissants, cinnamon rolls, bagels, turnovers), quiche and breakfast sandwiches; lunch items include gourmet sandwiches and wraps, pot pies (chicken, prime rib) soups and salads; additional sweets include cheesecakes, carrot cake, brownies, chocolate cake, dessert bars and cookies (chocolate chunk with pecans, cherry oatmeal, peanut butter, white chocolate with dried cherries and macadamia nuts).

Stores serve brewed coffee and espresso-based beverages in ceramic cups emblazoned with three images in a row: a heart, a peace sign and a pie for “I'd love a piece of pie.” (The peace sign is not meant as a political statement, Busley says, but rather a fun play on words.) Food is presented on ceramic plates with stainless steel dinner ware. “We didn't want our guests to eat from paper plates with plastic utensils and drink hot beverages from paper cups,” he explains.

The Traverse City store sells more pies, as compared with other locations, because the store is a tourist destination where customers come for lunch or purchase whole pies to go or to ship. Newer stores are gathering spots for lunch and slices of pie with meals or a beverage.

All stores can pursue catering. “We encourage catering among our franchisees because it drives our brand and builds retail sales,” Busley says. “We still struggle somewhat with the perception that Grand Traverse Pie is only about pie. Catering helps to dispel this. We place coupons in the boxes to encourage consumers to come.”

The company plans to move central pie dough production this spring into a larger, 4,000-sq.-ft. facility. Currently, a production facility near Traverse City supplies raw panned pie dough to all stores. “This is the one thing that the stores don't make,” Busley says. “Our first four stores made their own dough. That allowed for product inconsistency.”