Car wash exec aims to deliver good, clean fun

When Fred Smith was growing up in Salt Lake City, family members called him Fabulous Fred.

So it was easy to name his chain of seven car washes, oil and lube shops, gasoline stations and convenience stores. He called it Fabulous Freddy's.

His goal is living up to his name.

"We want you to have a fabulous experience," he said.

Smith looks for workers who like to have fun, work hard and treat customers well. He said his employees are key to his success.

Smith attributes his business acumen to the stories his father and mother told him while he was growing up. At night, the Smith family talked about groceries at Smith Food & Drug Stores, the chain established by his grandfather Dee Smith as Smith's Food King, as well as cars and houses.

Question: Tell me about your career with the family-owned supermarket chain.

Answer: I grew up in the grocery business. I learned all the nuts and bolts of retail business.

I basically started working when I was 12 years old in grocery stores. I kept going until our family sold Smith's in '96 (to Fred Meyer of Portland, Ore., who later sold to the Kroger Co. of Cincinnati).

I did produce, bagging groceries, checking, levels of management. I got up to assistant manager at one of the stores.

Question: What did you do after the sale of the supermarket chain?

Answer: The family moved down to Las Vegas. We just thought it would be fun to come down to Las Vegas. I dabbled in real estate a little bit. In 1998, I got the idea to get this thing going.

Question: How much did your grocery store experience help with running Fabulous Freddy's?

Answer: Tons. The grocery business is like the car wash business in that you are working with hundreds of people each day.

When I was growing up, we would talk about the grocery business or my dad's car (dealerships). My mom was in the real estate business. I would listen to her relate to whether a deal worked or it fell through. That taught me a lot, too.

Question: What is your business strategy?

Answer: When you come to our stores, we want you to have a fabulous experience. We pump your gasoline at self-service prices. We have a car wash that uses all of the best state-of-the-art equipment. We have oil changes. We have a convenience store. We've got kiosks for self-service computers. We've got wireless Internet service. We try to have magazines. We have big-screen televisions. We've got great restaurants, like Roberto's Taco Shops.

Question: Do a lot of customers know you?

Answer: Yes, I'm in the stores every day wiping cars, talking to customers, hanging out with employees, making oil changes, pumping gasoline. The more I'm in the stores, the happier I am. The more I'm involved with my people, the more they can teach me and show me how we can improve. They are the key to our company.

Question: How many people work for you?

Answer: We're about 500 people now.

Question: It appears that Fabulous Freddy's is a pleasant place to work. How do you achieve this?

Answer: We want everybody to have a fabulous experience. It starts with our employees. Our employees are No. 1, and I love every one of them. I love being in a place where we can offer them an opportunity to grow. The woman you just saw started with me as a cashier. Now, she is running one of our highest-volume stores.

Question: How many locations do you have?

Answer: Five in Las Vegas, two in St. George, Utah, and we're building one in Salt Lake City. We also have a mobile detailing unit.

One of our stores in Summerlin is right next to 24 Hour Fitness. People going to 24 Hour Fitness can drop off their cars at the club. We will come by and pick the cars up, fuel them, wash them and change their oil while the customers work out. We have stores where you can get your car washed in five minutes, or, if you want, you can spend 45 minutes or an hour getting it detailed.

Question: Do your customers have a wide variety of backgrounds and incomes?

Answer: Yes. It's everybody who's got a car. If you've got a car, we want to clean it. We're hopefully an everyday place where somebody can come in. (People say,) "Hey, let's meet over at Freddy's, have a doughnut, coffee and talk about this real estate deal."

Question: How do you promote Fabulous Freddy's?

Answer: We have events like luaus: We cook a pig right out front and have Hawaiian dancers. We have a major event called Kids' Day. We have a petting zoo. We have a rock-climbing wall. We have a coloring contest. We have cars where kids can practice doing oil changes.

Question: Do you cross-promote services and products?

Answer: Yes. If you get a car wash, you get 25 cents off a gallon of gasoline. Buy a bottle of water, and you get $5 off your next oil change. If you get an oil change, you get something inside our convenience store.

Question: How has Fabulous Freddy's adjusted to the recession?

Answer: We understand the economy is affecting a lot of people. So we want to be a place people can come and get pampered. We're losing hardly any customers, but the customers we have don't visit as often as they did.

Question: What are your plans for the future?

Answer: Just to grow. I love what I do, so it's really easy to come to work and live it and breathe it every day.

Contact reporter John G. Edwards at jedwards@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0420.