Lisa Starnes never imagined she'd one day run a $10 million business. In the 1980s, she was 22 and working as a secretary at the then-parent company of Captain D's, a quick-service seafood restaurant (ranked #272 on the 2025 Franchise 500). In fact, back then, she knew more about what she didn't want to do than anything. "I had two things I wasn't going to do," she tells Entrepreneur with a laugh. "I wasn't going to be a teacher, and I wasn't going to be a secretary. And, of course, I went to work as a secretary."

In 1994, her husband purchased 10 Captain D's restaurants in the Dallas–Fort Worth area. The decision wasn't hers, she said, but she supported it while raising two young boys, one of whom was on the autism spectrum. "I was focused on my kids," Starnes says. "I didn't really think of it as my thing."

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"I've got this opportunity, and I need to make it work."

That changed the following year, when her husband suffered a heart attack........

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