Departments 
Don Lay owns or is partners in nearly every Jack In The Box restaurants from Phoenix to Albuquerque to Bullhead City, but makes his home in Lake Havasu City and Krystal Burge and her brother Mark Peterson own Desert de Oro Foods which has 70 restaurants and is based in Kingman.
Despite the economic downturn the businesses are remaining profitable.
“Like everybody else we're slow, but we’re holding our own,” Lay said. “They’ve been extremely good until this last little big of a recession, but I have no complaints.”
Lay also owns two Golden Corrals, including the one in Havasu. There was a rumor recently that the one in Havasu is financially troubled and may close down.
“That’s not true,” Lay said. “It’s fine. There was a rumor Shugrue’s was going to close, Maddogs, you name it. Every restaurant in town is going to close, but it’s just a rumor. I don’t know where these things get started.”
Not only are Lays restaurants holding their own, there is expansion in the works.
“We’re building four Jack stores in Albuquerque, New Mexico,” Lay said. “We’ve signed with Jack to build a number of stores in New Mexico. In a few years we’ll have at least 10 in the New Mexico market.”
Burge tells a similar tale of her string of restaurants that started with Taco Bells and now includes Pizza Huts, KFCs, Long John Silver’s, the Dambar in Kingman and a few casual dining restaurants.
“Along with the economy things are slowing down,” Burge said. “We’re looking at 2009 to see how that’s trending. We aren’t worried about the doors but we’re still watching them.”
The businesses are still stable, but Burge admits to concern about employees.
“The national economy affected our economy and our employees and customers. The housing bubble affected all of us,” Burge said.
But, it has not curbed growth.
“We continue to build restaurants,” Burge said. “We have projects that have been in the pipeline for years and they are going ahead.
“There’s still growth.”
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