Service is a big part of Dan Crotts' life.

At Mama Lou's, the Robertsdale restaurant he has owned since 2005, he and his employees value customer service, and at Central Christian School, Crotts teaches student athletes it's more important to serve than to win.

“I don't think there's anything greater you can do in life than to be a servant leader,” Crotts said.

Crotts' career in the restaurant industry began at age 13, when he and his siblings owned a concessions stand that traveled around to fairs in the summer.

After studying and playing soccer at Cedarville University in Ohio, Crotts managed restaurants for McDonald's, Rally's and Wall Street Deli.

In 1999, he and his wife Renee bought a Dairy Queen in Gulf Shores and relocated to south Alabama from Ohio.

In 2004, the Dairy Queen was destroyed during Hurricane Ivan, and Crotts decided to look for an restaurant away from the water.

At that time, the original owners of Mama Lou's, Dale and Louise Polka, wanted to retire and were looking for someone to buy the popular restaurant. Crotts said he couldn't pass up the opportunity. He bought Mama Lou's in August of 2005.

“It's good ol' country, homecooked meals,” he said. Mama Lou's serves breakfast from a menu and offers a lunch buffet from 11 a.m. To 2 p.m. every day.

Mama Lou's is known for its fried chicken, and Crotts said the restaurant goes through about 90 to 120 pounds of chicken per day — and even more on Sundays.

“I think the biggest thing is people say it's the best fried chicken they've ever had,” Crotts said. “We get that a lot from people who travel and come through and try it out.”

And according to a 2010 Southern Living Magazine feature, Mama Lou's has the best fried chicken in Alabama.

Crotts said the regular customers and his committed employees make owning Mama Lou's a different experience than working in the fast food industry.

“I get to know my customers, where at the Dairy Queen, because a lot of it was mostly people on vacation, I didn't get to know them,” he said. “We have a lot of really awesome people here in Robertsdale, so that's pretty cool. I enjoy that a lot.”

Betty Taylor, 88, who is known as the mayor of Mama Lou's, eats at the restaurant at 11 a.m. every day except Saturday. She has a plaque on the wall next to her table, and if she doesn't show up, someone at Mama Lou's will drive to her house to make sure she's OK.

“It's a place to come and have fellowship,” Taylor said. “I thank them for being here and letting me come everyday.”

Several of the 11 employees at Mama Lou's have been with Crotts for four, five and six years, which is unusual in the restaurant industry, he said.

“That's kind of unheard of,” Crotts said. “Loyalty is a big thing to me. And if you're loyal to me, I'll have your back.”

Amanda Wilson, assistant to general manager Leslie Sawyer, has worked at Mama Lou's for six years.

“It's more of a family here,” she said. “We're not just a paycheck to him. We matter, and he cares about what's going on. He wants to be involved in solving problems and making the customers happy.”

Wilson got the job after Crotts coached her in softball at Central Christian.

For the past 14 years, Crotts has split his time between the restaurant business and coaching sports at Central Christian School.

He started coaching at Central Christian when his daughter Justine began school there in first grade. She is now a sophomore at the University of Mobile.

Crotts said he and his wife Renee chose Central Christian because they wanted their children to receive spiritual education in addition to studying academics.

“Having my kids actually take Bible five days a week, their knowledge of God's word is just so much greater than what they can get just from going to church,” Crotts said. “And they have godly teachers in their lives that love them.”

Crotts, who has always been interested in sports, became involved with coaching soon after his children began at Central Christian. He said he seeks to be a role model for other people's children, just like Central Christian's teachers have been for his kids.

“The biggest thing is to know it's not just about winning,” said Crotts, whose soccer team won the National Association of Christian Athletes' national championship in 2004. “I think effort means way more than winning, and giving it your absolute best. That's, to me, God-honoring. At the end of the day, somebody's going to lose, and sometimes it's us. We want to teach them to give everything they've got in practice, and then also at games, and hopefully we'll wind up winning, but there's more to it than that.”

Crotts said coaching at a school that values character over championships allows him to teach athletes about the importance of having good attitudes and being servant leaders.

“I think the secular point of view is coaches are fired if they don't win,” he said. “They're under an extreme amount of pressure to make sure they win. I don't have someone looking over my shoulder to the point that it's all about winning, because at Central, it's not all about winning. We honor God first. If we can't honor God and play sports, then I'd rather not have an athletic team.”

However, Crotts said although he values effort and integrity over a winning record, that doesn't mean his teams aren't competitive.

“It doesn't mean that everybody gets to play, and it doesn't mean everybody gets the same thing,” he said. “It's a varsity sport, and we play it as a varsity sport, and we do play to win.”