The short answer is that the standard growth model isn’t appealing or inspiring to us at all. We’ve never had an interest in franchising, moving to big new locations or going after acquisitions.

We work by starting out with what our vision of success is far down the road. The Zingerman’s Community of Businesses was what we came up with. We laid it out in our 2009 vision, which we wrote in 1994; we’ve recently completed our 2020 vision. The underlying idea is for each business in our community of businesses to be an exciting leader in its field, which enhances the performance of the entire community of businesses. That’s what gets us inspired.