Toastique is heading to Austin & Dr. Carrie Carretta is the newest Franchise Owner we’ve welcomed to help us make healthy food alternatives a reality in Texas!
From awarding dozens of new territories to launching our own cocktail menu, Toastique has had a year jam-packed with excitement and growth! However, our favorite moment of all is sitting down and getting to know each new Franchise Owner we bring on board, and our latest couple is no exception. Dr. Carrie Carretta is leaving her decades-long pharmaceutical career to join the health and wellness movement – and she’s bringing her husband along for the ride! Allow us to welcome Carrie as she introduces three of Toastique’s next healthy breakfast franchise locations to the Lone Star State!
Join Us In Welcoming Dr. Carrie Carretta to the Toastique Franchise!
From Real Estate to Psychiatry & Pharmaceuticals
While Dr. Carretta’s professional background began in the real estate industry with her acting as a broker, managing her own brokerage, and leading her own sales team, Carrie decided to sell her business and take a step in a new direction: her medical career. Building on her lifelong interest in health and wellness, she started her own psychiatry practice, where she worked with a wide variety of patients and became a published author in her field.
Carrie decided to leave her entrepreneurial journeys behind (for just a little while). With the successful sale of her psychiatry practice, she shifted to join the pharmaceutical industry, acting as an Executive Director and supervising clinical trials and development for a large pharma company over the past 25 years. However, she eventually found herself burnt out on the industry and realized it was time for a change that took her back to her entrepreneurial roots and time to shift to something more community-focused that utilized her people skills in a new, unique way.
Family, Moving Cross-Country & Her Personal Life
Together, Dr. Carrie Carretta and her husband, Rick Giambastini, are originally from New Jersey but recently relocated their main home to Austin, Texas, in order to be closer to their eldest of three children and their new grandchildren. While they still spend time in the Jersey area, the couple spends time indulging their foodie personalities by exploring new places and restaurants, in addition to designing and redesigning the interiors of their homes. Carrie enjoys interior design so much that she’s often convinced by friends and family to assist them in their own home decorating projects, too.
Learning About Toastique
Carrie’s journey to discovering the Toastique breakfast franchise started like many others: on Google. While sifting through franchise business opportunities, her goal was to find a health and wellness opportunity that allowed her to become more involved in her new Austin community. After connecting with a franchise broker who put her passions and interests first, Dr. Carretta discovered Toastique and made the time to visit the locations open around her in New Jersey.
“I actually registered on a couple of sites, and I ended up meeting a net[work connection] who is a broker, and she and I just instantly hit it off. So, she really introduced me to Toastique because I really hadn’t heard of it and [wasn’t] familiar with it before then. Most [other] things I just wasn’t either interested in, or I didn’t feel like [it] would be a fit.”
Dr. Carrie Meets the Toastique Team
As Rick and Carrie decided to seriously pursue franchising with Toastique Gourmet Toast & Juice Bar, they made their way down to D.C. from New Jersey for Approval Day. During their time there, the couple got to try all the additional healthy menu items they’d been waiting to experience, like juices and smoothies. However, the highlight of their visit was the time they spent with Toastique Founders Brianna and Kyle.
In just one day, Dr. Carretta recognized the energy and passion our team has for the franchise brand and their passion for bringing other like-minded people into the franchise. The more the couple tried and experienced, the more they felt reinforced in their decision that Toastique was perfect for both of them and their Austin neighborhood.
Making the Decision to Leave Her Career to Become a Franchisee
Dr. Carretta is one of the few Franchisees who came to Toastique with experience in opening and running her own businesses, so it wasn’t surprising to her that her next goal after leaving pharma was to begin again with another entrepreneurial venture. She had always been passionate about the hard work and trail-blazing involved, but her husband was not as gung-ho and showed more hesitancy about joining a franchise. While it took Carrie and Rick some time and a few tries at the research process to come to an agreement, the pair eventually signed up to bring Toastique to the hot Austin market.
“My personal quote is ‘lose respect for the status quo.’ You really have to forge your own trail and do things that you feel good about in the way that you think they should be done. So, entrepreneurship is something that I think you can do at any point in your life. It’s a commitment, obviously, and you have to be prepared. I used to tell patients that life is a bunch of hills and valleys. You’re never just always at the peak, and hopefully, you’re never just in the valley.”
As Carrie and Rick move forward with their new joint business, Carrie will act as the Owner-Operator and focus on the day-to-day operations of their Toastique breakfast franchise, while Rick will keep his full-time job and offer additional support and oversight where needed. While Dr. Carretta may have faced some initial obstacles with getting her husband on board with becoming Franchisees, this is a dream come true for the couple, and they can’t wait to find the perfect location for their first of their three Toastiques!
Dr. Carretta’s Thoughts on Bringing Toastique to Austin, TX!
As our newest pair of breakfast Franchise Owners dedicate their efforts to finding the perfect brick-and-mortar spot, our team is eagerly waiting for them to introduce our next location to the state of Texas. Join us in welcoming Carrie and Rick to Toastique and take a look at what Dr. Carretta had to say in her recent Q&A chat with our team!
“Why did you get that feeling that Toastique was the right fit for you?”
Dr. Carrie Carretta: “So, even through COVID and people struggling and being cooped up, food [was] something that people [could] do with others and gather and bond over. Moving toward that health and wellness concept is something that – when I was young, we were at McDonald’s and at fast food, and there wasn’t this push for that sort of healthy type of eating.
As I’ve gotten older, I realize that you are what you eat; you hear that in kids’ cartoons when you’re young, but as you age, you really start to feel the aches and pains and realize that if you eat like that your longevity isn’t going to be as great. So, I was interested in something that really thought about the health and wellness of it but also gave variety. [With Toastique], it wasn’t like just one offering where [they] specialized too much. I thought it was a really great mix, and I really liked the story behind what Brianna and Kyle did. I felt really good about all of it.”
“What do you think will make you successful with your Toastique healthy breakfast franchise location?”
Dr. C: “It’s really challenging in Austin. We had no idea; we knew it was a hot market. My eldest son, daughter-in-law, and granddaughter live here, and that’s one of the reasons we bought a house here and decided we would transfer our primary residence here. But it’s a super low vacancy in a really challenging market, so part of this is finding the right location. But I think one of the things that will make us successful is I’m super tenacious; I don’t give up.
If things aren’t moving as quickly as they need to, I’m happy to jump in and take [the] reins and say, ‘Look, I’ll take on some of this,’ or I’ll go pound the pavement and look for it, myself, in order to make sure that it happens. I think with any business, especially something you’re entrepreneurial [about] that’s brand new, that nobody here has ever heard of, it requires not only commitment and dedication but [the] tenacity to get the word out, spread the good news of what you’re doing with the community, and [be] able to participate as an integral part of that community to get people excited about it.”
“What are you looking forward to most about opening your Toastique?”
Dr. C: “Wow – everything! I’m looking forward to the grand opening [and] seeing what the response is from the community. I plan to personally pursue corporate business – because that’s my background – for catering. I feel like that [a great] revenue stream. [I’m excited to] be able to mentor younger people and give them opportunities to grow in a career where maybe they decided that college wasn’t for them or they didn’t want to be in a large corporation and they want to be in a smaller environment – giving people opportunities to make a career path if that’s what they’re looking for since we plan to open multiple locations.”
Could you see yourself joining Dr. Carretta in becoming the next Franchise Owner to bring healthy food alternatives to your community? By opening a Toastique Gourmet Toast & Juice Bar, you can bring an exciting, health and wellness-focused restaurant to your neighborhood that gives you the successful business investment opportunity that has changed the lives of dozens of others before you! Take our quick one-minute quiz to take the first step in becoming your own boss with Toastique Gourmet Toast & Juice Bar today.
