Todd Family Business: 'Jeff’s Shoes Are Just as Big'

Jim Todd, the late Jeff Todd’s older brother, sits at his Roy Rogers in Belle View, and tirelessly provides a personal glimpse into the family business and the life of his brother and business partner, who was killed in a car wreck early Sunday morning.

The Todds have been in business in the area since 1986 and have built a prosperous and popular family enterprise that employs 75, averages 14,000 transactions (single and family or group purchases combined) a week and welcomes more than 600 tour bus visits a year. The brothers grew up with the business and both joined right out of school.

“We had to earn our stripes; that’s just the way Dad was. It took a few years for us to become managers and then general managers,” Jim said.

Jim helped open the Belle View restaurant in 1988, two years after his Dad began the business purchasing Roy Rogers franchises in Woodlawn and Hybla Valley. The Manchester restaurant, which Jeff helped open in 1991, made four establishments in all. “We sold the one in Hybla Valley when Wachovia wanted to build in that location and was willing to pay us well to move, even though we had years to go on our lease. It was Dad’s last big deal; he retired happy soon thereafter,” Jim recalls. The elder Jim Todd passed away in August of last year.

At the Belle View location this week, an elderly couple walked by carrying full trays, and as Jim waved at them, each seemed to mouth “God Bless” to him on the way to their table.

“They say God only fills your plate with what you can handle,” Jim said. “I’m sure he knows mine’s full.”

The brothers were close and the perfect business tandem, Jim said. “We were the type of brothers who hug and say ‘I love you’ to one another.”  

Jeff, who took over the helm of the business three years ago, lived in the area and was more involved with the day-to-day operations, was the gifted "people person," always knowing staff and customers by name at each store and participating in civic and charity events.

Jim, who lives farther away from the restaurants, has always been the bottom-line conscious side of the business. 

“You know, people used to say Jeff looked up to me, just like I looked up to Dad. That was probably true. But what folks don’t know, is that for the past 15 years, it was me who looked up to my little brother,” Jim said. 

The Todd business is doing well, and growth would seem to be in the cards. The Manchester store is the flagship of the business, with a prime location for more than 20 years near the intersection of Manchester Lakes Boulevard and Beulah Road.

“We do a pretty steady business all three meal shifts,” said Scott Benson, the long-time general manager.

The original Woodlawn restaurant is poised today to reap the benefits of the Base Realignment and Closure expansion at Fort Belvoir. The restaurant, located near the intersection of Old Mill Road and Richmond Highway, and the big Roy Rogers at Belle View has done so much repeat business at its own long-term location that “I sometimes greet the sons and daughters of the sons and daughters of customers who knew me when,” Jim said.

So much has happened in such a short period of time for the Todd family. “On Friday, I told Jeff he deserved a good vacation as we hugged goodbye," Jim said. "You know, Jeff showed me how to fill Dad’s shoes when he passed last year. I just hope I learned, because Jeff’s shoes are just as big.”