Hardworking Delivery Driver Becomes an Owner

At 24, Ann Vanover was making good money as a waitress while working for miserable people, so she left to become a pizza delivery driver for Papa Johns.

"You make more money doing that than just a regular minimum wage job because you got tipped," said Vanover, who lives in Catlettsburg, Kentucky.

She wasn't thinking long term at first, but the new job opened up a world of opportunity. She eventually took a pay cut to move up the managerial ladder. She missed the tips but continued to grow as a shift manager and a general manager.

A self-described driven person, Vanover understands the value of hard work. "I think it's just like the work ethic I got from my parents. They were workers," she said. "My father never missed a day of work in his life no matter how sick or whatever was going on."

She started that pizza delivery job 22 years ago. Now, she owns three Penn Station East Coast Subs locations. The Kentucky restaurants are in Ashland and Morehead, and a third unit is in Huntington, West Virginia. A fourth sandwich shop is slated to open in Ashland in early November.

"I don't really wear the owner hat a lot," she said. "I put myself in my team's shoes, so I know what people are going through when it's busy, when they're shorthanded, and when they're struggling. I go in there. I'm in a store every day, wearing an apron and making sandwiches right there with them."

Sometimes, she tells her team members about her pathway to ownership and how hard work can provide unexpected opportunities.

"One day, I got a phone call from a gentleman I didn't know, never heard of, and never met," she said. "He said, 'Hey, I hear that you're the person I want to go into business with me to open a sub shop,' and I'm like, 'What is this guy talking about?'"

His name was Tom Wright, and he'd been looking for a go-getter to help him operate a Penn Station East Coast Subs location. She found out that he'd gotten her name from an area manager at Papa Johns who respected her work ethic.

"He wanted me to do it with him," she said. "He wasn't talking about offering me a job. He was talking about building wealth."

Wright had found a managing partner to oversee his venture in Ohio. His search for one in Kentucky had been fruitless until he found Vanover.

And that's how she went from a pizza delivery driver to an owner of three stores with a fourth on the way.

"I don't tell the story often, but I have told it to some employees over the years," she said. "I just kind of use it as an example. If you go to work every day and you do the right things, good things will happen for you. It might not be from the people you currently work for, but somewhere down the line, it pays off."