Florida Motorcycle Dealers Association

LAKELANDDaniel Dorsch wants to turn around your perceptions of what a motor sports dealer is. "We want to revolutionize the industry," said Dorsch in his characteristically animated fashion. "The industry has moved from retail to a total customer experience." Indeed the new 60,000-square-foot Fun Bike Center now under construction on East Memorial Boulevard at Gary Road will have the same inventory of motorcycles, ATVs and watercraft as the current center next door at 1845 E. Memorial Blvd.

In addition, however, it will have a cell phone kiosk, men's and women's apparel store, a stage area for concerts, a community room with a wall-sized flat-screen TV and kitchen, a telemarketing center, a video arcade and a florist. All that means 100 new jobs in Lakeland.

"When you drive through and drop off your motorcycle or watercraft for service, we'll have a refrigerated case with roses and other flower arrangements. It's not just what you do with your bike - she deserves a prize, too," Dorsch said.

"She" refers to your wife, girlfriend or significant other - even mom - left at home while you're having fun on the local highways and waterways.

The service center will total 18,000 square feet, nearly 40 percent bigger than the entire existing Bike Center. The existing dealership will be torn down after the new Bike Center opens in November and replaced by restaurants, including Papa John's Pizza and Wing House.

Dorsch declined to discuss sales figures on his current dealership or the new center.

Turnaround Artist

Dorsch, 53, acquired a reputation as a "turnaround artist" - a CEO who comes into a failing or bankrupt company and turns it around to profitability - when he took over Tampa-based Checkers Drive-in Restaurants in December 1999. The company hinged on the brink of bankruptcy.

Checkers' losses continued into the next quarter, Dorsch said, but it has turned a profit in every quarter since. Investors recognized the turnaround by doubling Checkers' stock price in 2000.

Dorsch left the company in May 2003.

"He's a pretty astute businessman," said Joe MacGuire, the owner of Eurocycles of Tampa and president of the Florida Motorcycle Dealers Association.

The Checkers job was his first as CEO, but he came to it with nearly 30 years experience in the restaurant business, starting with management of Kentucky Fried Chicken franchises in his native San Diego, Calif.

Construction equipment and supplies fill the parking lot as work continues on the new Fun Bike Center on East Memorial Boulevard in Lakeland. (MICHAEL WILSON/Ledger Photos)

Dorsch came to Florida in 1989 to develop the Taco Bell restaurant chain in Florida, which eventually grew to 93 stores (including 14 in Polk County) before he sold them in 1993.

In 1994 he opened his first Papa John's Pizza restaurant in Lakeland. He now owns 24 Papa John's in Central Florida, including nine in Polk County.

Dorsch branched out of the restaurant business when he opened his first Fun Bike Center in Lakeland in 1993.

The move was a natural for his father, said Nicholas Dorsch, 22, the dealership's business manager for customer relations. Dan Dorsch and his brother, David, competed in motocross and supercross motorcyle racing when they were teens in their native San Diego.

David Dorsch has been Fun Bike Center's general manager since it opened 14 years ago. Dan's son, Elliott Dorsch, 24, is the dealership's financial and insurance manager.

Dan Dorsch said he chose Lakeland because it is the "center of the universe." The universe of Central Florida retail, that is, because of its strategic location between two of the state's biggest markets, Tampa and Orlando.

"It's where we expect to do business for the next 50 to 100 years," he said.

The existing facility is fronted by a large inventory both inside and outside. The new facility nearby will include a showroom and areas for expansion into new business capabilities.

The current Bike Center draws customers from Polk and neighboring counties, said Dorsch, who expects the new center will draw in more customers from those areas because it will market itself as a "one-stop shopping experience."

Dorsch said he also wants to develop the new Bike Center as a family-friendly business to draw in more customers beyond vehicle buyers.

"Many kudos to him for doing it," MacGuire said. "I'm all for it. This will be fun to watch."

Dorsch's vision is not new in the state, but neither is it typical, he said.

Daytona businessman Bruce Rossmeyer has built five motorcycle dealerships around the concept - even one with a hotel.

The fact that the Bike Center offers vehicles for people of all ages - from 50-cc ATVs for children to full-sized motorcycles for adults - can only help draw all members of the family, MacGuire said.

Other activities such as weekend music and comedy concerts and football parties in the community room also should draw in families, Dan Dorsch said.

"I think it will be great for Lakeland," said Susannah Wesley, the deputy director of the Tallahassee-based Florida dealers association and a Lakeland native. "It will bring in more people to motorcycling."

[ Kevin Bouffard can be reached at kevin.bouffard@theledger.com or at 863-802-7591. ]

Nick Dorsch, left, business and customers relations manager, helps customer Earl Werner, right, and his stepson Steven Locklear, 16, as Werner considers buying a 2008 Honda Goldwing motorcycle from the center's showroom.