S T R O N G W O M E N O F U TA H
Lisa Forman of Legends Pub & Grill How one woman’s perseverance led to success
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he restaurant and bar industry is tough to break into and even tougher to make successful. Lisa Forman, owner of Legends Pub & Grill, tried her own strategy and it paid off. “I don’t really pay attention to anybody else. I’m not part of the industry and I just focus on what I’m doing,” she says. Forman first opened Legends after leaving her corporate job in sales at Automatic Data Processing (ADP). Her experience there helped her start Legends. She had made good contacts, and the sales techniques she learned
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helped her to sell herself and her business. In addition to being told constantly that her business would fail, a man in the industry told her that, “Our industry is cutthroat and it’s hard to thrive here if you don’t belong to our group.” She persevered anyway and proved him wrong. Lisa and her husband Dave started their business with their life savings rather than through loans or investors. She said they did have some help from family along the way. “[You make] a
PHOTO BY MIKE JONES
By Amiee Maxwell & Connie Lewis