Schwartz wasn't thinking of his business as just a Harley dealership anymore. It would be a tourist destination, like Hershey's Chocolate World or Legoland. "In the retail world, the big shift in the '90s was from selling a product to selling an experience," says Mike Rubin, president of MRA International, a Philadelphia consulting firm that helps clients develop leisure, sports, and retail projects. "Mike needed to create a draw so that people were motivated to get off the highway. It had to feel like a place that a motorcycle caravan might pull up to but that was still family-friendly."
So Schwartz decided to add a restaurant and a museum. "If I was pitching to families," he asks, "was a Harley place an acceptable place to stop? Maybe. If it also had a restaurant, would that make it better? Probably. And if there was also a museum? There's no way you'd associate a museum with someplace dangerous."
Schwartz was prepared for the restaurant to be a loss leader--an attraction that might not be profitable on its own but that might beckon travelers off the highway for a snack and ultimately lead them into the dealership. "I went to the rest stop five miles down the road and I also counted the cars that stopped at Cracker Barrel," he recalls. "These people might wait an hour for a seat on Sunday--for ordinary food and to buy a trinket." Schwartz figured that if he could snag .5% of those customers, sell each one of them $6 worth of food, and entice 10% of them to buy a T-shirt, he'd have a sustainable business.
Schwartz was making the dealership work. By getting basic management and financial systems in place, and in general behaving like a guy who really wanted to sell his product, he kicked sales up to $3.8 million in 1995, his first full year in business. But to really reinvent the business, Schwartz needed a new location, and he quickly set his heart on the most heavily traveled road in Delaware: I-95. Directly to the south, roadside restaurants are few and far between; to the north lies two hours of New Jersey Turnpike rest stops. Schwartz thought he could offer weary travelers an attractive alternative. In February 1996, nearly a year after he started looking, Schwartz's dream location became available. Just south of the Delaware Memorial Bridge, on I-295 but right off I-95, there was a 5.8-acre tract of land that had been home to one of the first Howard Johnson Motor Lodges. The ramshackle buildings, including the original orange-roofed HoJo's reception hut, were highly visible from I-95.
With traditional financing from a local bank, plus cash from his growing dealership, Schwartz signed an option to buy the abandoned site for $1.36 million.
"We really didn't know how to sell motorcycles"
Schwartz knew what he knew, but he was also keenly aware of what he didn't know. And he wasn't shy about asking for help. He hired a prominent land-use attorney; signed on a former New Castle County economic development director to help him with the land use and development process; retained consultant Rubin for guidance on the overall concept and the mixed-use elements of the dealership; and hired Jack Rouse Associates, a Cincinnati designer of themed entertainment attractions.
Schwartz continued to run the dealership out of its original location--he had built the business to just about $8 million in revenue and $700,000 in profit--and by the fall of 1997, he had nailed down all the proper permits, had presented his plan to Harley, and not only secured the company's approval but also a commitment for a $6 million loan from its financing division. He had also spoken to local community groups, conducted noise studies in the neighborhood, and agreed to put his repair shop on the side of the building that faced the road, not the residents. In November 1997, the wrecking ball came down on the old HoJo's. A few weeks later, a construction trailer was hauled to the site. "Mike sat in that trailer," says his wife, Debbie, "and watched every brick go up." At night, she says, they reviewed the blueprints, studying and tweaking the architects' drawings.
Along with the restaurant, Schwartz also came up with a plan for the Museum of the American Road. He decided to feature motorcycle legend Dave Barr, who had earned a place in the Guinness World Records by riding a Harley WideGlide from the coast of France through Northern Europe and across Russia (in the winter) to the Pacific Ocean. It was the ultimate motorcycle adventure, made even more impressive by Barr's disability: He has two prosthetic legs. "I get approached by dealers all the time," says Barr, who is now a public speaker, "and I get a lot of offers and a lot of it is just rubbish. But Mike was the guy." Barr agreed to send Schwartz the bike he'd ridden to the Guinness record. He also pledged to hand over medals, pictures, and other memorabilia that Schwartz would use to create an interactive exhibit. In return, Schwartz would give Barr a modified Sportster (with a Mike's logo on the fuel tank) to ride on his 2002 "Southern Cross" journey, a 45-day trip hitting the four extreme geographical corners of Australia.
It was December 18, 1998, when Schwartz opened the doors to his new dealership, and he decided to keep it low key; he would save the real fanfare for the spring, when his potential customers were more likely to be dreaming of the open road. Then again, low key is a relative thing. For the many months it took to build his new facility, Schwartz kept hundreds of thousands of passing motorists up to speed on his plans. Mike's Famous billboards weren't as thick on I-95 as they are now, but they were hard to miss. One billboard during the construction started with a picture of a baby and one syllable: "Ba." Then another Ba was added, then another. By the time the new Mike's Famous was open, the sign said, "Ba-Ba-Ba-Bad to the Bone," and the baby wore a bandanna. The dealership was packed on opening day. "We did more business in one day than in any single week at our old place," Schwartz recalls. The building itself seemed to generate as much buzz as the motorcycles. From the road, the 40,000-square-foot complex was reminiscent of Harley's early red-brick manufacturing plants, while its back entrance mimicked a post-World War II service station. Inside, the theme was an eclectic combination of Route 66, art deco, and turn-of-the-century warehouse. Mike's Warehouse Grill was designed to resemble a manufacturing plant cafeteria, with steel conveyors, cogs, and wheels on the walls.
