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SOUTH BEND -- Deciding his career path was really quite simple.
There was no choosing between careers, no starting one career and ending up in another.
Larry Putt has always been a restaurateur by trade and a cook at heart.
He doesn't remember wanting to pursue any other career. Nor does he anticipate doing so today.
Putt is the owner of 32 Subway stores in Indiana and Tennessee. Putt's exposure to the restaurant business began at age 15, when he helped build an Azar's Big Boy in Angola. When it was complete, Putt asked if he could work in the restaurant.
That was in 1963.
He has been working in a restaurant ever since.
It was almost as if the restaurant business was his calling. He started in it and plans to end in it.
"When I was young, I was always the one cooking," said the owner/partner of 32 Subway stores in Indiana and Tennessee.
Throughout college at Tri-State University in his hometown of Angola, Putt happily worked at that same Big Boy.
Upon graduation, however, Putt felt almost obligated to try his hand at something other than restaurants.
So, he interviewed with General Motors, IBM and several other large corporations and realized he would have to take a pay cut to develop a career he wasn't all that interested in.
"I decided to stay in the food business," Putt said.
At 24, Putt's career in the food industry started to take off when he became one of the youngest general managers at any Azar's in the state.
"I did very well. The franchise was doing very well," he said.
Unfortunately, the franchise owner passed away, leaving a successful Azar's up for grabs.
Although a tragedy, Putt acted on this chance, bought the...