What is in this article?:
Current and retired athletes have stepped up their investment in the restaurant industry
Magic Johnson
Five-time NBA champion and three-time MVP Earvin "Magic" Johnson (pictured right) serves as a prototype not only for tall, physical point guards, but also for professional athletes looking to run multifaceted businesses after they are done playing sports.
His Magic Johnson Enterprises company began bringing businesses to underserved urban areas in the mid-1990s, mostly through high-end movie theaters at first. In 1998, he opened his first Starbucks franchise through a subsidiary called Urban Coffee Opportunities, or UCO, eventually growing that partnership to 100 Starbucks units in Los Angeles, New York, Seattle, Chicago, Denver, Detroit, Atlanta, San Diego, San Francisco and Washington, D.C.
Starbucks ended the joint venture in 2010 by acquiring all the UCO coffeehouse locations.
Johnson has also partnered with T.G.I. Friday's, Fatburger and Burger King, and in 2006 he partnered with on-site giant Sodexo to form SodexoMagic, which operated 16 on-site accounts by 2009.
