Cover story
Is that also a feeling you get through McDonald’s work in the community? I’m very lucky that Leeds United are literally 40 metres away from us. We’ve collaborated with the Leeds United Foundation, where they provide football and coaches, and I provide funding and kit for about 45 children every Saturday to play football for free, which is great. Parents can drop their children off for a couple hours with Leeds United coaches. For the kids it’s an absolute buzz because they might have walked past Elland Road stadium their whole lives and maybe never been in there. We’re about to expand the programme to cover seven locations across Leeds, with the aim to reach 350 children every weekend, which is great. So that’s the most impactful thing we’ve delivered. Plus, we are a big employer in the
community we serve – we employ over 230 people across Leeds. It’s not an insignificant number to whom we provide secure and stable work. And I have to give credit to those people because obviously you can’t run a restaurant without a crew that cares.
Has your work-life balance improved since becoming a business owner? With the army I was traveling all the time. During the last four years I served, I spent three and a half of them overseas. I wanted to settle down and raise a family
20 | The Franchise Magazine 2026
and ultimately McDonald’s has made that possible. [Tom and fiancé Fleur are new parents]. My personal life has never been in a better place. And although I work plenty of hours, they are on my terms and they’re really flexible. It’s given me a fantastic family life that I’m really quite proud of. I never would have achieved that before. It’s definitely a family business; I run
almost every decision by Fleur, so I should give her a lot of the credit, by the way!
What’s been the highlight for you so far? We took on our second restaurant a couple of weeks ago, so that was fantastic. My fiancé had a baby at the same time, so luckily it wasn’t a brand-new one – restaurant that is! It felt very much a validation of 18 months of graft, that you’re doing things the right way, and confirms that McDonald’s do look after you when you do the right thing by the brand and the customers. There’s so much support. Plus, it’s a fantastic feeling to
immediately double the size of your business, right? We went from 120 to 240 employees overnight. And suddenly the scalability I spoke of earlier becomes a reality quite quickly. If we grow to another restaurant, we’ll be at 360 members of staff overall – and then actually we’re a decent-sized business! So, that’s probably the biggest standout moment to date! n
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