Having Words With: Mike KernHaving Words With: Mike Kern

Over the past year and a half, Long John Silver’s chief executive Mike Kern has taken the reins of a franchise brand that had been treading water for “two lost decades” and led the 1,300-unit chain to a 5-percent increase in same-store sales for 2012.

Kern is one of a group of franchisees in the LJS Partners consortium that purchased the brand from former parent Yum! Brands Inc. in 2011. He said he believed greater collaboration between operators and the franchisor would speed improvements in menu innovation and operations, eventually allowing for resumed store growth. As the chain drifted from owner to owner between 1989 and Yum’s recent divestiture, the brand and its menu had begun to show their age, he said.

But bringing “franchisee DNA...