FLEMING

Larry D. Fleming’s first time in Wichita was the day in 1975 when he moved here to open the city’s first Wendy’s Old Fashioned Hamburgers restaurant. Rock Road was just two lanes but already showing potential for its starring role in east Wichita’s development: a new mall, Towne East Square, was being built across the street from his newly constructed fast food restaurant.

Fleming had heard about the new concept from his cousin, a doctor in Ohio, where founder Dave Thomas opened the first Wendy’s in 1969. The franchise was at 40 locations and growing when the cousins met Thomas and signed their franchisee contract. Wichita was the closest geographic territory they could get for Fleming, a Tulsa, Oklahoma, native.

“People came to try us, and they liked it,” said Fleming, adding that while McDonald’s and Burger King were already in the market, their Wendy’s was the first fast food restaurant to bring the concept of a pickup window to Wichita. “We were blessed with good business from day one, fortunately, because I was down to my last few dollars when we opened the doors.”

The cousins had split the $30,000 franchise fee; Fleming, then 30, had invested all he had to open what was then the 200th Wendy’s in the nation (there are 6,500 Wendy’s worldwide today).

“That was the first of three times that I can remember that I was putting it all in to get to the next level,” Fleming said. “I got to know the word leverage early on and I lived with that word for a good long while.”

His Wendy’s locations grew to six in Wichita before he branched out within Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas to own as many as 43 restaurants. As the company was growing, Fleming’s cousin died in a car accident and Fleming purchased the other half of the operation from his estate.

Fleming also established a program that funded adoption professionals dedicated to finding permanent families for children in foster care who are most often overlooked; it was the model for what has become Wendy’s Wonderful Kids, the signature program of the national, nonprofit Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption.

Fleming’s second all in move came just two years after he opened his first Wendy’s. He and a partner purchased a Coors beer distributorship in Muskogee, Oklahoma, when the previous owner died.

“In the 1976-77 timeframe a Coors distributorship was a hot commodity in this part of the country, and the opportunities to own one were few and far between,” said Fleming, who bought out that partner in 2000.

It was the first of several distributorships he would acquire in Kansas (including Wichita) and Oklahoma, culminating with that third—and the largest—all-in move. In 2002, he accepted an offer from Coors Brewing Company (now Molson Coors Company) to purchase the Tulsa distributorships for Coors and Miller.

“I didn’t hesitate, probably because I was too stupid to hesitate,” Fleming said. “I often tell people the biggest thing I had going for me when I went into business for myself was ignorance.”

To support his growing enterprise, Fleming formed The LDF Companies in 1983, with a division to operate the restaurants, another for the wholesale beverage distribution operations and one to manage Fleming’s privately held entities.

Wendy’s inducted Fleming into its international hall of fame in 1998—the chain’s highest honor recognizing a lifetime of achievement to the brand. Fleming aimed for integrity, honesty and exceptional service across all of his businesses, supporting and encouraging employee involvement in every community where they do business.

At their height, the companies employed more than 1,500 people; Fleming sold the restaurants in 2017 and today the LDF entities employ about 400 in Oklahoma and Kansas. There is a corporate headquarters and distribution center in northeast Wichita as well as a distribution center in Tulsa.

In 2021, Fleming moved away from day-to-day oversight of the company; he splits time between Wichita, Tulsa and Carlsbad, California. His son David Fleming is now CEO while Larry remains owner and chairman of The LDF Companies. His daughter Erin is the company’s social media and creative manager. Another daughter, Rebecca, and granddaughter Kirra live in Wichita.

Reflecting back on his career in light of the Junior Achievement honor, Fleming said he always wanted to be in business for himself. After earning degrees in accounting and business administration from Northeastern State University in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, he worked for a national accounting firm and then finance departments at American Airlines and PepsiCo. He was preparing to go all in when the right opportunity came along.

“As soon as we opened the first Wendy’s, it was no longer work,” he said. “It was more than a livelihood, it was a passion to grow my own business.”