Culver’s Owner Pays Employees For Six Months While Rebuilding From Fire

Following a massive fire last November at a Wisconsin Culver's about 40 employees were left without a place to work. But would they be without jobs as well?

The 19-year owner of the Platteville restaurant, Bruce Kroll, made sure that wasn't going to happen. He decided to continue paying the 40 employees for six months while the restaurant was being rebuilt. While insurance took care of the payroll for 60 days, Kroll had to pay the remaining four months of paychecks.

That meant Kroll used almost $144,000 of his own money to make sure his employees were taken care of. But he did make one request -- he wanted them to volunteer their time to help the community:

Some team members served Christmas dinner at an area church for 150 people while others volunteered at Badger Camp. Cole Cooper and other employees decided to give back to the people who tried to save the restaurant from the fire.

“We actually set up a fundraiser in honor of the local Platteville fire department. We fundraised over $2,000 and 100 percent of the donations were actually given to the fire department,” Cooper said.

Now for a lesson in capitalism. Let's answer the question about how Kroll was able to afford to pay his employees with no revenue stream from his restaurant:

Kroll said he was able to continue to pay his 40 employees because he also owns a Culver's in Dubuque, Iowa and he used the profits from that restaurant to help the Platteville employees. He said helping those 40 employees and keeping them in the Culver's family was what mattered most.

In short, because the owner was ambitious enough to expand his business and increase his profits, he then was in a position to use that money to keep 40 employees on the payroll despite no revenue coming in from one of his locations.

In an odd conclusion to the story, the Platteville restaurant reopened on June 16, but was closed again less than 24 hours later. That's because a tornado came within 20 yards of the restaurant's door. No damage was done, thankfully, but it took a day to clean up the debris around the building.

Here's video from November 2013 on the restaurant burning down: