If anyone had what it took to make a go of the Papa Romano’s franchise in the Cranbrook Village shopping center, Jim Wampler seemed to be the one. Now fifty-eight, he first started working for Papa Romano’s when owner Roger Romano opened his first store in Southfield in 1970, and by the time Romano eventually grew the chain to fifty stores Wampler owned twelve franchises. But he sold them all so he could move to Ann Arbor (he has family here) and decided to keep his hand in the business by opening the Cranbrook Papa Romano’s in mid-2007. But he never actually got around to moving to Ann Arbor, and the store never did as well as he’d hoped. So he finally decided to close in mid-January.

“We were doing good business, above the company average, but it just wasn’t enough,” Wampler says. But he has nothing but good things to say about his customers. “I’ve been in the business forty-two years, and I can honestly say the Ann Arbor customer is the best I’ve ever dealt with. If I have any regrets, I regret that I’m leaving them.”

Wampler says he’s still working, mostly helping out at other Papa Romano’s locations. His son Tony, thirty, who co-owned the Ann Arbor store with him, now manages a Papa Romano’s in Birmingham. Wampler’s not sure if he’ll ever open another store but says that if he does, “I’d come back to Ann Arbor just for the people who live in Ann Arbor.”