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NWA Founders is a voice for Founders, Owners, and Builders driving growth in Northwest Arkansas, and is hosted by Cameron Clark and Nick Beyer.
'NWA Founders' is a voice for Founders, Owners, and Builders driving growth in Northwest Arkansas, and is hosted by Cameron Clark and Nick Beyer.
To recommend a guest or ask questions, reach out at nwafounders@gmail.com and follow us on YouTube and LinkedIn for video content.
Jordan Wright: [00:00:00] We do the barbecue competition. We cook everything, turn it in. They call the chicken winners, rib winners 10 through one, no calls. And I was sitting there just exhausted. What in the world have I just done this weekend? This is so stupid to think I had a shot at winning some of this stuff. And then they get to brisket 10, somebody else, nine, somebody else, Hey, somebody else.
And I was just like sitting there like depression was like setting in. Like maybe I'm just not good.
Cameron Clark: Good morning everybody. Um, we are sitting here at Wright's Barbecue in Johnson with, uh, Jordan Wright. You've got myself, Cameron Clark, and then Nick Byer here with NWA Founders, a voice for founders, builders and owners that are driving growth here and northwest Arkansas. Excited to sit down with a, a legend here in NWA.
Jordan. Tell us kinda before we dive into anything, just the [00:01:00] 32nd overview. What's right, barbecue? What's the style of barbecue? And for those who like aren't in the area, you know, where you at?
Jordan Wright: Yeah. So we started as a food truck eight years ago. I was at Tyson Foods and they'd been traveling all over the country with, with them doing sales and um, came across Texas barbecue and was like, man, we don't have anything on this level when it comes to brisket.
And you know, there's good barbecue places all over. And you know, really I think that anytime a barbecue place goes in, it's never a negative, it's just more people are thinking barbecue. And so, you know, we're a barbecue restaurant, family owned, we've got four locations and one Johnson, Rogers, Bentonville, and Little Rock.
And so we're just kind of. Cooking as much as we can and trying to keep the quality as best we can and keep service as great as we can. Mm-hmm. So, yeah. But yeah, we're more, when we're kind of a blend on barbecue, it's more of Texas brisket, [00:02:00] um, more like a Kansas City style rib. Yep. And, but like still, like, we're still cooking.
We cook a hundred percent indirect with wood fire every day. So we don't have any artificial smoke or propane or natural gas driving anything. So it's all, all wood all the time.
Cameron Clark: The slow way.
Jordan Wright: Yeah.
Cameron Clark: Well, excited to kind of dive in there, but you're from Little Rock, right? Yeah.
Jordan Wright: Grew up in West Little Rock and, um, went to CAC down there, played sports growing up, football, basketball, soccer, and, and then came up here in 2004, went to the university, was involved with student mobilization throughout that time, and then moved actually to India for a year.
Um, did some accent training and then. Um, came back, got married and then just started working. Was working various jobs in 2000 8, 0 9 10 during the whatever
Nick Beyer: was out of the
Jordan Wright: recession. Just was in sales and working at at and t [00:03:00] selling cell phones. And I, funny story on the cell phone deal. So I was working in an authorized dealer and they, they didn't have access to iPhones at the time and so it, you know, these guy would walk in and want an iPhone and you'd be like, you know, they're okay.
You heard Blackberry tell you about the LG view. It was wild times. But did that and then got into restaurants. I was doing food service sales, so back of house selling for a company called PFG and you know, kind of, that was probably the introduction. I'd always liked food, but it was never like. It was never like this, like, oh, I'm gonna be in restaurants.
But once I kind of got into the PFG world and I always liked eating, you know, I mean, I was, I was a bigger kid, um, post football. And so, but once I got kind of the behind the scenes of the restaurants looking at menus, understanding inventory and how these guys in the back of house were [00:04:00] ordering food and that was just a fascinating world.
And so it was funny when you, when you went into any restaurant, my wife would be like, stop looking, stop analyzing the menu. Stop making suggestions for how this restaurant could be better. And it was funny 'cause that's, that's, um, that's kind of a preamble to eventually thinking, Hey, you know what? I could probably do this.
Um, I don't think I ever thought we would get to where we are today. I mean, I just bought a food truck and at first it was just gonna be a little catering side job and. So, yeah, just kind of, it was more like opportunities kept opening up
Cameron Clark: and, and you didn't study anything to do, uh, with that university.
Didn't anything to do with anything. Yeah. Yeah. What, what, what did you
Jordan Wright: study? Um, I was a communications major. Yeah. So I mean, family communication, TV and violence. The greats, um, movie. Movie was, it was maybe movie history or whatever film, film history, whatever that class was. It was, you know, watching Charlie Chaplin.
I mean, what were we doing?
Nick Beyer: Got the
Jordan Wright: degree. [00:05:00] Yeah, that's right. So getting back to food, it's like working back of the house stuff. Um, there was like a chef training that we went through and its a bunch of sales guys who are getting into food. Being trained by chefs. I was never a chef, like a trained chef as a home cook.
You know, I always cooked dinner for my wife and yeah, she, she did other things and, but like cooking was kind of my responsibility. So, because you
Cameron Clark: enjoyed it?
Jordan Wright: Oh yeah. Yeah.
Cameron Clark: Um, yeah. So you never had, that was your first encounter with the, with the industry?
Jordan Wright: Yeah. So
Cameron Clark: like, I don't know like what the, what the barbecue standard is.
Did most of the people like kind of work their entire lives and I mean, like get in younger or what
Jordan Wright: like, you know, there's, there's a few different avenues. It's, it's changed the last 10 years since Franklin put Franklin barbecue just on the map as far as putting his stuff out on YouTube and showing his methods and, you know, kind of explaining.
Everything he [00:06:00] did and everyone's like, oh wow. All this stuff's on PBS and this is the best place apparently in the world. And they're just, he's just telling us how he cooks. And you know, the, the hard part is not how you cook. It's having the discipline to continue to do that year after year and continue to get better and buy the best product.
And so the secrets are not secrets. It's funny how. Protective people, specifically business owners in the restaurant world are on like, oh, that's my recipe, blah, blah, blah. It's like, man, if there's a better recipe, we're trying to find it. We're trying to create it, we're trying to look for it. If we taste something, we're like, oh man, we gotta implement that.
I mean, so I think there's just a, there's two different paths. There's the generational barbecue guy who's grown up in the business whose dad ran one whose grandpa opened it 80 years ago and
Nick Beyer: Yeah. Or
Jordan Wright: whatever, and they, they've just been passing it along down family lines. There's a lot of really great barbecue places across the country that have held that lineage.
Yeah. And that's an important lineage in the culture of barbecue as those, [00:07:00] those places that there are institutions that, that families have been eating there for. Yeah. You know, generation to generation. And it's like, this is the place like Big Bob Gibson's in Alabama, Sam Jones in North Carolina. You know, the, uh, salt Lake, there's a bunch of other legendary places, snows, and, you know, it just kind of, it kind of varies as far as how people, you know, whatever the different opportunities they have, you know, growing up and whether they've opened, inherited a barbecue deal or they were like, Hey, we're, we're into cooking.
We like barbecue. We're in our thirties. We're gonna go do barbecue competitions. Now we've gotten some money 'cause we've won Memphis in May. We've won the Jack Daniels. Yeah, let's go open a restaurant. Surely we can do this. And the trophy stuff, you know, there's, there's good places that are out there that have won barbecue [00:08:00] competitions and then they, they've been successful and, you know, is it my favorite?
No, but I'm not a big competition guy. I mean, I would, I did a few, won some and it's like. It's just a weekend away from your family.
Cameron Clark: Yeah. So at this
Jordan Wright: point, like I'm a long way away from being like, oh yeah, let's go do some competitions. It's like our trophies are everyday customers. That's what we value. So you'll never see like a, oh, we wanna, we wanna barbecue competition.
Look how, look at what we did in 1998. Yeah. Or 2016. It doesn't matter what you did eight years ago, seven years ago, five years ago. It matters what you do every day in the, in the morning to, I mean, honestly, today's cook is already well underway, I mean, for tomorrow. Mm-hmm. So we're already looking at tomorrow we're, we're looking at making sure the service is great today and everything meets standards.
So, but yeah, there's those, those are the two kind of routes. There's the generational, there's the barbecue [00:09:00] restaurant guy, and then what in the last 10 years has been a lot of high-end chefs being like, Hey, if I take my. Culinary expertise in my experience with flavors and go step into this live fire world, which has blown up.
I mean, even on a high end, upscale restaurant, live fire is king, and you can go take those, those abilities, apply 'em to traditional recipes and really elevate the cuisine. And so you see a lot of really cool stuff out there right now. So it's, it's a, it's an exciting time to be in barbecue. I mean, across the country, probably when I started there was maybe 25 places, 30 places that did it as good as we did.
And now there's well over a hundred, I mean, I've got a list to put it on Twitter, probably a year and a half ago. But just, there's places all over the country that are just [00:10:00] executing at a really high level. And, and the, the opportunity's endless when you do high quality food.
Cameron Clark: I think it's really like inspiring to me, like how much you care about the industry as a whole.
Back when I was at Be Unlimited and designing t-shirts, you came by and you were, let's do a t-shirt with all these other barbecue places on it. Mm-hmm. And it's like, in my head I'm like, why would you ever say that? Like, why would you, yeah. No, it's say great t-shirt idea. The
Jordan Wright: we should do, I should do that again.
I mean, I was a, it was a great idea and honestly I think it would probably raise some money for NIL too. Like I could probably get it, get it going as a good idea. 'cause that was, the idea was to just put all the, my like favorite barbecue places in the state of Arkansas. Mm-hmm. On a, on a barbecue trail map shirt for Arkansas.
And then get 'em all to sell it and then have 'em all order the shirt in and be like, that was the,
Nick Beyer: yeah.
Jordan Wright: You know, it kind of unofficially ran by me, but you know. Officially no one knew, oh, they just released this shirt and all these 10 guys received this box of [00:11:00] shirts and they're to sell it and, and go about it.
So,
Cameron Clark: well, however you label the abundance mindset or what, you know, whatever, it just, it's inspiring. So you were, you were at Tyson first, right? How you left, why you left. And
Jordan Wright: prior to Tyson, I was doing the food service sales, then I would got into restaurant marketing restaurant.com. Don't go to the website.
It's terrible. But the deal was good. The deal was, you know, Groupon was out at the time. And Groupon, when you got Groupon deals, the restaurant got 25% of the sale, or they got 50% of the sale, but the sale was always half off. So they ended up taking home 25% of the total ticket. So if it was a hundred bucks in a Groupon, the operator got 25, Groupon got 25, and the customer got a $50 win.
So what ended up happening, they all had to go. In a timeframe to use the Groupon. This is pre, probably you guys didn't use many Groupons, um, but this, [00:12:00] you know, they, you'd go to the restaurant and you'd have a window time period to use the Groupon. Well, everyone would show up that last week. Then 90% of your tables were all getting Supreme, 75% discounts.
It would put tremendous inventory pressure on the restaurant. You're losing money at that. Mm-hmm. Because your total prime cost is 60% is a really good operating restaurant. So if I'm taking a 35% bath on every customer that comes in, even if I'm filling the door, I'm losing, even though I'm marketing and they're like, oh, you're marketing, they're gonna come back.
Most Groupon users are deal seekers. They're not coming back, and they're not the demographic you really want to appeal to. So restaurant.com offered. You bought a $25 gift card for $1. The restaurant got none of that dollar. But in order to use the 25, you had to spend over 35. So there was a minimum spend of 10 on that $35 ticket.
So that's 35%. So you're at least covering your food costs. It's a 10% premium to group on. And so you [00:13:00] could, you could talk that into existence of like, Hey, you did Groupon, you're doing advertising. This is just another lever. And there's not a time constraint. They'll, they'll trickle in more than, they'll all just like, show up with all these papers.
Well, I, you can ask Alan Bruit this and Sassy, um, you know, I was really good at selling and so I got, but you get good brands on it. Guess what? They all got? Oh, crap. We got, I had sassies, I had crabby, I mean, I had some good restaurants and so it was like, I was like the best guy in our whole little sales class.
I mean, it was funny, but I covered the whole state of Arkansas and just signing up random restaurants and I. Yeah, getting commission fun. So I did that. Then when the opportunity at Tyson opened up, it was an international sales job, so selling chicken led quarters, frozen commodity chicken to international customers, Caribbean, Kazakhstan, Africa.
Cameron Clark: Wow.
Jordan Wright: All over. So same group that [00:14:00] sells chicken paws to China and all the different Asian countries that we have business with that American poultry companies export to. It's a fin. It's a fascinating world. So doing that, but I loved my time in food service and sales. I was like, I loved, I loved restaurants.
Like I'd gotten to the point where it's like that point, like I loved restaurants and wanted to. Be in the food service realm, not the commodity realm. 'cause commodities are commodities. It's a frozen chicken in a box. There's tons of interesting things about the production of chickens and, and everything that happens.
Different businesses though, in this econo, in this realm. Yeah. Because there's a ton. Yeah. Um, but I wanted to be on the side that was in r and d, working on the next chicken tender, breading, working on the next marinade. Doing, you know, the fun. That's fun to me. Working on pepperonis and sausages for dominoes.
Like that's, that's, that's what kind of got me going. And like, I would, even when I was in commodities, I would sign up for [00:15:00] every single. Taste panel. Um, they did all these taste panels at Tyson where they'd, they'd bring, you'd sign up and, you know, they'd bring 50 people in. You know, it was just a free snack really.
But it was, you tasted it, you gave your feedback, your mouth feel, salt level, texture, you know, didn't all the, all the different kind of things that you're looking for, aroma. And so when you go through that, and then I would just be down in the r and d department probably too much. Um, but like I'd just walk around and got great relationships with those guys that were working on, you know, the plants.
And I finally got a opportunity to move over to industrial food service and kind of did like a little food service sales trainee. They, they, they ended up like building a sales trainee program off of like what I did. So I was in, when I was in the commodities, I did, uh, I. Basically an ops training because our, our vp, mark Kibr at the time wanted all his [00:16:00] salespeople to understand everything that had to do with the business and such a good leadership, uh, from him because not many of the sales groups were putting their new salespeople into the plants.
Hmm.
Jordan Wright: And that ability to walk into the plant understand all of the different numbers that senior level executives care about. I mean, I was, when I started at Tyson, it was 2012, so I was 26. You know, I mean, I had no clue back then. I, it's so it'ss. It's crazy to me that I thought that I knew so much. Um, yeah.
But like. I didn't know anything. And so it was great to just be guided under leadership that cared that I learned. So one of Mark's proteges and guys that had come up under Mark in the, in the business of Tyson, his name was Andy Lubert, and Andy was over in food service. And this opportunity opened up to kind of move over into a sales trainee role over there.
And so when I did that, kind of built it on a similar model of traveling with the salespeople in [00:17:00] different roles, whether it was Jack in the Box, dominoes, pizza Hut, little Caesar's, Chili's, like there's so many different customers that, you know, conferences and visits and meetings that are happening and RD projects that are going on with all these clients that you get gonna get that broad scope experience of sales.
And then with that you added on a bunch of experience inside the prepared plants. So all the plants that are doing fully cooked products mm-hmm. And doing further processed stuff and. Specifically pepperoni and sausage and that, that, that world was fascinating. I spent weeks and weeks in Jefferson, Wisconsin, had a bunch of pepperoni customers, so spent a lot of time just learning how pepperoni was made and how sausage got made.
And so all that stuff was great as far as building like this expertise of like base of knowledge. Yeah. Just kind of what, what, how does, how does everything really happen? Yeah. And then, you know, when I was in that [00:18:00] world, I was selling a bunch of pepperoni to industrial customers that were buying the pepperoni that we would, you know, we would slice or we were selling in stick for 'em, and they would throw it in there, frozen pizza, conveyor belts, and boom, that, and we were, you know, it's like the dough, the sauce hitting with the cheese, the 12 pepperoni slices were going through the sticks, boom, drop the to pepperoni slices and boom, and then moving on and then they're freezing them uhhuh.
So it was just a crazy world. And so when I was there. Uh, one of my clients was, uh, one of our customers was Texas Dairy Queen, which is an interesting, it's an interesting story of restaurants. So there's International Dairy Queen, which are the dairy queens that we have everywhere that you see all across the country.
Yep. And then Texas Dairy Queen is its own subset of Dairy Queen that's completely different. Like they have, they can put a chicken fried steak on the menu, like they have all this. Yeah, I mean, it's, it's their thing. It's Texas and there's tons of Texas Dairy Queen locations and [00:19:00] it's just completely different.
They have a different biscuit, they have a different breakfast sausage, so everything's different in Texas. And so when I went down to do a Texas Terry Queen convention, me and my boss Bob drying at the time were like, Hey, let's go get barbecue. 'cause I'd, I'd gotten a green egg and I was getting into cooking more barbecue.
And what, what year was this at, at the time? This is like 2014. Okay. Okay. So 13, 14. And so. Went down there, we got in line at Franklin. And Franklin only been open about four years at the time, and the line was historically long, longer than it's today. Even though they still have big lines, they're not as long as they had been.
There's just a ton of options, Austin. But we were there. I was standing in line, Bob was coming to meet me and then all of a sudden someone walked up to me and they're like, Hey, you're like 20 people back from who the last person's gonna be. And it's probably gonna be about two 30 and this is like at 1215.
And I was like, okay, well, and it didn't even feel like it was that long. Like [00:20:00] honestly, we freaking hum at Wrights bar, comparatively to some of the Texas places. And so, 'cause I was, you know, probably 75 people back and they're like, yeah, it's gonna be, you know, a couple hours. I'm like, okay, well crap. So.
Bob shows up, I'm like, Hey, I'm Googling. You know, I'd seen this place on Food Network that had the big fire pits and I was like, let's go to Salt Lake. So we drove about 40 minutes out and Bob's like, where are you taking me, Mexico? And I was like, no. I mean we're, no, we'll get there. And finally, as you pull down this road ticket to Dripping Springs and you pull in, you're about like a mile away from Salt Lake.
They're smoking so much barbecue. I mean like the, the air is just thick with post oak. And so it was like one of those etre experiences where you're like, this is awesome. This is what this experience should be and this is incredible. Um, and so we went there and then they had, like back then, this is crazy, it was like 1899 for all you can eat, sausage, ribs and brisket.
So they had these little spare [00:21:00] ribs and you know, they'd cut you up a little sauce and then pickles and onions and bread and they'd bring you beans. And coleslaw. And so, you know, that was it. And so we just sat there. I ate the sausage. Sausage was good. Ribs were okay. And, but the brisket, like, I got a little piece of fatty brisket and it was like, man, I'm never eaten tender succulent brisket like this anywhere.
And I've traveled at that point. I traveled all over and eaten a lot of barbecue and cooked a bunch, but I'd never dealt with Bri. Like I'd cooked a flat once and it just turned out really bad. It was like this, why would people eat brisket? Which is a lot of the perception that most people in Arkansas had prior to our rights arrival into the marketplace.
But so I ate that brisket and was like, wow, this is really good. Then I started kind of getting obsessed with, okay, how do I figure this out? Surely if they can do it there, and it's like, I can do it. So I just started cooking more brisket and eventually in 2015, went back down to Texas. We were going to Baton Rouge for the LSU [00:22:00] Arkansas game.
Mm-hmm. And which we won. And we flew into Houston, ate at a place called Killin's Barbecue in Pearland. Ronnie Killin is a legendary chef in Houston and he, he had started Killin's Barbecue kind of off this. There was just this trend happening in this marketplace in Texas that was like, Hey, all these places are popping up like a lot of them and they're all really good.
Like there was Lins, there was pit room, there was killings. There's um, back in 15, who else was there? And you had Franklin over there, truth barbecue kind of popped up in Brenham. Oh
yeah.
Jordan Wright: And so you had all these places kind of, it was just becoming this kind of cultural movement in Texas of high quality classic barbecue because they've had a barbecue tradition.
It's just always been brisket, ribs, sausage. It's very, they, they were a lot of German and Czech immigrants that made a lot of great sausage. And so that, and they had the beef industry, but they, they [00:23:00] cooked a lot of shoulder clawed, all the meat markets kind of had this smoked beef program for all their cheap cuts.
And that's what kind of built barbecue Texas' barbecue identity and the lexicon of who's doing what. And Carolina with whole hog, and they're a hog farming culture in Texas is beef. And so that's where kind of, if you look at the farming and that's where their barbecue kind of influences come from. And then sauces kind of go off from that.
Right. But so we're down there and eating at killings, eat a beef rib for the first time, get cafeteria style service at killings for the first, and then, and my buddy Scott was like, man, a place like this would kill it in northwest Arkansas. And you know, kind of was like, yeah, I think it, I mean I think it would, you know, you're not wrong.
It's delicious.
Yeah.
Jordan Wright: And there was another place, I mean I think it was called Buck Naked Barbecue. It had opened back in like 2010. But they were a Texas style place that tried to open basically way too early in the market. In northwest Arkansas. Yeah. Yeah. It was over where? Uh, [00:24:00] blue, uh, is it engineering?
Yeah. A what are they engineers? New choice? Yeah. Yeah. Engineering engineers. Yeah. So Blue, like where that building was, there's old, it was like a, I think it was like a fire or some fire mountain something. It's almost like the size of an, of a, uh, you don't even remember these places. These are places that were s um, golden Corral type place.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was kind of the So big buffet style set up already. Huge kitchen. They had smokers that were like pits, not indirectly, they were direct wood fire pits. So they were cooking more like, um, you know, they're cook cooking fires underneath and the. The briskets were right on top and everything was right on top.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So we're, we're wood on the side. Meat, wood here, meat here, smokestack here. They were fire meat, vertical. Just vertical. Yeah. And so, so they had come in. Um, but after, [00:25:00] after going to Killin's and kind of just chewing on it, that was the fall of 15, I started kind of getting, looking at different smokers.
Okay. What kind of smokers are these guys using? Okay, they're using indirect cooking. There's, okay, there's reverse flow. There's pure indirect like we use, but reverse flow. You have fire box, a heat plate, and then the chimneys on the same side of the firebox. And the way it works is that's fire in the heat.
The heat moves under the heat plate, comes back around the heat plate, and then out the chimney. So that's, is that a green egg or that's, that's, no, that's a reverse flow. Okay. So it, it none of, uh, there's not a home reverse flow unless you buy a custom smoker that's built like that. So,
Cameron Clark: and so at the time, were people YouTubing this or was it Yeah, yeah, there was a lot on
Jordan Wright: YouTube.
I mean, Franklin's PBS series was on YouTube, so that had already started.
Cameron Clark: That had already started. That had already been going
Jordan Wright: on. Okay. So Franklin series is on YouTube, so it was just, you can kinda watch a YouTube video cook. And so I got in, I got in touch with this East Texas smoker company and started talking about [00:26:00] building a catering truck and just, it was just a one smoker and it was on a trailer.
It's like 7,500 bucks. And I'm, you know, Tyson, I'm ordering this deal, I'm about to turn 30, and Scott was like, Hey, you should come cook for my. Companies, construction companies like Barbecue Competition. It's called the Association of General Contractors Barbecue, Cookoff in Houston.
Cameron Clark: Okay.
Jordan Wright: And it's a big event.
They had 200, you know, team members show up and like, so I had to cook dinner for them and there's all these plans and then there's a barbecue competition the next day. So while we're doing that, so he like found a pit and it was really crappy and I was like, I did not want to cook on that. I had kind of done a few different small caterings for friends and churches and just been like, Hey, let me help out.
We're doing a deal. And new life was starting, we were doing a leaders meeting and so I was like, you know, I'll, I'll cook, let me cook so you don't have to, so we don't have to buy the barbecue, you just buy all the [00:27:00] ingredients. So kind of, you got to use that as like a test to be like, okay, what would this, what would this meal cost?
$15 a person. Okay, great. Y'all go buy the stuff and then I'll pick up, like, we'll go together, I'll just take all the ingredients, cook it, and then bring it and serve the food. So we did that and it was like, oh man, the financial side makes sense if you do it right. Like why, why do restaurants, food,
you know?
Jordan Wright: Um, and so did started doing that and kind of, my buddy was another friend while I was doing the catering ideas, like bringing this truck in to just cook and do tailgates and stuff. He was like, he goes, man, the farmer's market in Fayetteville sucks. He's like, y'all, y'all need to, I mean, the, the vegetables are great.
The farmer market, like the food offering stink. So he said, Hey, you know, why don't you just. Convert that to a food truck and get on, get on the farmer's market. I was like, man, I hadn't thought about that.
Cameron Clark: And was this before the competition or after the competition?
Jordan Wright: This is before the competition.
Cameron Clark: Okay.
[00:28:00] Okay.
Jordan Wright: So he was like, man, you should do that. 'cause I'd brought, you know, but I think I'd brought pork to company events and ribs and, and, and cooked. And everyone's like, man, your barbecue's so good. Like, and
Cameron Clark: this is just you.
Jordan Wright: This is just me. Yeah. There's no one else. And so, um, and, and Mark King is guy's name and you know Mark.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Mark's great. Yeah. And so Mark was like, man, you should just like try and get in the farmer's market or something, you know, we're just talking. Yeah. I was like, ah, you know? Yeah. That's not a bad idea. So anyways, the next day, like I called and emailed the farmer's market. People told 'em what I was interested in doing.
Like, yep, you give us the design of the food truck layout, it's gotta meet. And I was like, oh, health, health standards, huh. Okay. And what is that like Department of Health? I was like, okay, I guess I'll figure out how I need to design this. Yeah. So then we designed the first trailer, which is a little tiny little kitchen with a hand wash sink and.
And then it had electrical to hold a warmer. And then I had the smoker and I had a little propane fryer and a propane, um, range to cook sides on. Never. [00:29:00] Funny story. I've never used the fryer. There's an 8-year-old fryer that's perfectly able to weld off of that thing if somebody wants it.
Nick Beyer: And how much was that first truck, Jordan?
Uh,
Jordan Wright: so that was 17,000. Okay. Something like that. So I borrowed half of it from my dad and then borrowed the other half from my 401k. Wow. And then paid my dad back basically like six months in after doing the farmer's market events. But drive down, pick up my smoker, go hang out with a friend who's now been, you know, an eight year friend named Evan Laroi.
He runs Laroi and Lewis and Austin hung out with Austin for like eight hours in his, he was at Freedman's at the time. It's now closed, but he was at Freedman's and there he was making his own bread, making his own sauce. Trimming everything. And so I got to trim and I'd been practicing trimming, but I wasn't good.
Like I hadn't, I hadn't gotten really good at it. What is trimming? So like trimming briskets. Okay. Trimming ribs. Just doing all the prep work. Yeah. And so the Nikita and great operations is prep. Yeah. And preparing and, and having everything in set. So me in place, having, [00:30:00] having everything set for service.
Yeah. So you don't just sit there and say, oh, I gotta cook ribs this morning, let me get all the ribs trimmed. Yeah. And that's what I had been doing for, like, that's what I had been doing. And even when I was, you know, starting the food truck, I mean, there were times when I had no time to prep and I just had to prep.
As soon as I got the fire started, I started my prep, got the fire going, got everything on. So I spent some time with Evan, took the food truck, never been cooked on. I put one fire through it the night at the hotel, the night I picked it up the next day I cooked pork for like, we did like pork tacos and did kind of like a fiesta night.
And then the next day I've got this brand new pit and this guy behind us is like, you ain't winning with that thing? No. No one's ever went in anything with a pit that's never been cooked. And I was like, oh, okay. We ended up getting through that day and I was so tired. I had stayed up pretty much for 48 hours and this is in Houston for the, this is in Houston for this deal.
Yeah. So I'd stayed up the night before the dinner cooking, pulled pork, [00:31:00] and then that night the, that I stayed for the pulled Fortnite, a huge storm. I was trying, so I built this thing, I brought a cot because I was like, I'll just sleep on the, the weather's good. I'll just sleep in that little room. Well then the cot didn't fit in the little room, so I was like right next to the smoker and I lay down on the cot.
Literally like an hour later, this huge storm comes in and it's like. Insane. So I pulled up the cot, leave, get in the truck, go to the hotel. I've got all the pork on and I just had the fire. I put a couple more logs in the fire and then left. And um, so I went to the hotel where my buddy had a room and slept.
Woke up, come back. I was the first one back there 'cause no one was doing what I was doing. And there's these big canopy tents are just ripped up and flipped over and, 'cause there's so much wind and the storm was so bad. So I'm really glad, like I didn't get impaled 'cause it could have been bad. So I did that.
Struggling [00:32:00] on sleep the next day we do the barbecue competition, we cook everything, turn it in, and then while we're waiting on the results, they call the chicken winners. 10 through one, you know, and then they get to the, uh, rib winner, 10 through one, no calls. And I was sitting there just exhausted, flat out just like, what in the world have I just done this weekend?
This is so stupid. And to think I had a shot at winning some of this stuff, you know? 'cause it would've been nice. It would've been nice to get a win. And then they get to brisket 10, somebody else, nine, somebody else, eight, somebody else. And I was just like sitting there like, depression was like setting in.
Like maybe I'm just not
good
Jordan Wright: and like, I need to probably not do this because you're just exhausted. You don't even think and clear. And then they call number one. And I won, I won first place in the brisket. And so it was like, I mean there was no more like everyone was going nuts. I mean, we were having such a house.
And so then we drove back. A week later, we do the first, first Thursday [00:33:00] event. There was a massive line and, and man, just the way Instagram worked back then was just different than it is today. It's so much harder to get an organic following today than it is, than it was. And so I'd just kind of like been posting stuff.
And this on your personal account or ons? Barbecue. Okay. Yeah, so got a logo design that spring and this one, and then I started just posting, Hey, we're gonna be here, we're gonna do this. And then I was like, Hey, first Thursday, had a little buddy, make a little graphic. And man, you know the, that first day we were sold out in like an hour and a half.
Our line was so long that first day, I had no idea what I was doing. I had this big cutting board, I had a whole pile of meat. I probably could have sold so much more barbecue if I would've actually known what I was doing on the cut, cut board. But that was a huge, I. Friends of mine, Ben Cashing and Matt Hartness helped me and they were just, they were just so nice and Amber was there and it was like they were just [00:34:00] volunteering just to like be around it.
They were so like intrigued that I was doing this and, you know, sold all, sold all the barbecue, no one other food trucks were busy. And then started farmer's markets doing the grind of doing breakfast burritos, tacos, and just cooking breakfast. Then I would do plates and started bringing mac and cheese and beans and added a couple people to like help serve so that I could then cook sides, bring them back.
Hmm. And some people that I could meet, you know, could drop off the truck too and like, they could kind of take over a little bit from there and then I could kind of do some other things, get, get things organized. So yeah, once we got to that point. End of no seven, end of 16, it was like, all right, we don't have a ton of catering business.
We've been trying to build it still at Tyson full time. So all this extra stuff was just on the weekends or on a first Thursday in the summer where I had a buddy of mine, John Greasy, who was a teacher. And so he was off. And so I would wake up early in the morning on Thursday, get everything on the [00:35:00] cooker, and John would show up at seven 30.
I would go to work and then he would then just run the fire. And then I'd come back at lunch, put on ribs, tell him what to do, and, and then by the time we got to dinner, by the time we got to the point where he would go drive it to first Thursday, everything would be done. Mm-hmm. And we'd just be, you know, we'd be there ready to serve.
Mm. And I'd leave work goes right to the first Thursday and go. So it was a, it was a lot of, a lot of hours outside of Tyson and I. Maybe some, but um, you know, just kind of working on that and trying to figure out how to actually launch. So, you know, you're reading a lot of books and learning a lot of, okay, what do founders do?
What do owners do? What do people do? It's like, oh, I need a SWOT analysis. It's like, ah. And so, you know, but wrote a vision plan. And it's funny, I mean, the vision plan from 16 has, we, we've beaten [00:36:00] everything. Every single thing I wrote or thought I could do in 2016, we did pretty much, I. Five years ahead of schedule.
So, wow. It's just been crazy. So since 2017, I'd had my third child, we had started doing more events. We started in the Johnson Yard over here in the spring of 17, just doing lunches on Fridays before Farmer's market open. 'cause I was like, man, I need, I need to get, I need to do stuff kind of more, I need more active.
Everything I was reading was like, do more activities. Do more activities, do more activities. Even if you don't wanna do 'em, do the activity.
Nick Beyer: Be out there. And at this point, does Amber think you're crazy? Um, I mean, or does it really feel like there's a business, there's momentum here?
Jordan Wright: You know, there was definitely a lot of business, a lot of momentum.
I mean, she didn't think I was crazy. I think really there was times where I was like, you know, I probably should just focus on the job. I was trying to get another job at Ty, like trying to get a promotion and, you know, those just didn't, those just kept. For whatever reason, you know, I feel like I was very qualified or [00:37:00] overqualified for a position.
Just didn't get it.
Yeah.
Jordan Wright: And it was like, okay, well that didn't work out. Oh, I have a great relationship with this VP and I'm perfectly qualified for this job, and nope, sorry, we're gonna go this direction. So anyways, kind of those stiff arms were kind of like, all right, well, you know, and I, and I was really doing a great job in my role.
It was just a, it was still industrial. Mm-hmm. And I wanted to get into food service and do the things I wanted to do. And so in about June of 17, I had gotten this big job, um, for Reynolds wraps like foil. And so I got in this big three day job at, um, whatever the place is, up on the Hill
Nick Beyer: C Catering job or, yeah.
Jordan Wright: Okay. Whatever. The Pratt Place. Pratt Place, yeah. Pratt Place. So, so we had this like three day event there. Yeah. And. I got the job, I bid on it like it was breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Wow.
Cameron Clark: Wow.
Jordan Wright: And so [00:38:00] three meals and like two snacks a day. So it was like this full deal. And I was like, I got this job. It was like $25,000 job.
So I had all this catering and I was like, you know what? I'm gonna have to take vacation to be able to execute that. So I turned in my two weeks notice, my boss was like, don't do that, please, we need you. Like you don't wanna do that. And I was like, okay, well then I, he goes, I'm just gonna ignore it for now.
And I was like, well, I need this time. He is like, take the time. So anyways, fast forward a little bit longer. We go to another first Thursday, we're set up for another first Thursday, you know, I'd probably spend 600 bucks and at this time Capital's limited. And so I'd probably spend 600 bucks and on all the food.
And I'm driving to, I'm driving to first Thursday and this huge storm just goes. Like in and out in like two minutes. Well, then they call and my guys were up there, set up and they're like, Hey, they canceled first Thursday. [00:39:00] It's like, why the storm's gone? They're like, yeah, they just, they shut it down. They said, you know, they're, they're not gonna do it.
So anyways, I've got my food truck there. Well, the other food truck guys start packing up and they leave. And I told my guys like, Hey, I can't pay you. Like, we don't have any business. And so, but I'm gonna sit here and see what, see who, see who still shows up to walk the square and just sell whatever I can.
And so I posted on Instagram, you know, story, and it was like, Hey, I'm here. And you know, selling barbecue, they cancel the event. But if you're out or if you need some barbecue, come, come on, I'll make you a deal. And people after person, after person, um, Kim Lenor showed up, um, just, uh, the billings showed up.
Mm-hmm. It's like all these great people. Mm-hmm. And then it was during the Walmart shareholders meeting. So all this, this whole group from Walmart, China shows up. Wow. And like 30 people show up and they're like, oh yes. And so they bought barbecue and I was just selling whatever. I was like making deals and just selling barbecue.
And I [00:40:00] ended up, you know, getting most of my money back, if not all of the deal. And it was just a positive, like, 'cause I ended up crying, like on the way to it. I was like crying, talking to my dad. I was like, this is so stupid. How could I risk quitting my job for this thing that could, like, based on weather, you have no money.
Mm-hmm. And so the next day I walk into Tyson and talk to my boss and I'm like, and he was in town from Chicago. And I was like, Hey, I'm gonna, I think I'm gonna stay. It's like, I wanna stay. And so he is like, great, that's awesome. So I'm like, okay, great. Awesome. I talked to my other vp, the Andy, the guy, and he was like, I was like, it's just too much of a risk.
He's like, I think that's wise. It's like, yeah, I, it probably is. It probably was. Um, and so that afternoon I was coming back to the office from lunch and I get a call from Chad and Chad's like, Hey, so, uh, about staying, um, we're about to go through a [00:41:00] reorg and because you'd already sent your two weeks notice, like Donnie, my VP and I love Donnie's Gun.
He's great friend. Still. Like, we already used that to be like, we're cutting this, like we don't have this position. Mm-hmm. So you don't have to worry about telling us to cut like we already have someone departing.
Hmm.
Jordan Wright: And so it's really not there. It's like. But we can think that what? I can help you. And I was like, like, you know what?
And then like, I was like, okay, well hung up. And I was like, well there's, there's kind of like the last kind of really threat of like, all right, well I gotta go all, you know, go all in. Mm-hmm. And just go do it. At that point, I had two food trucks. I was doing multiple, this
Nick Beyer: is seven late 17. This is mid 17.
Mid 17. Okay.
Jordan Wright: And so I had two mo two food trucks. So I was driving, I was drive, I was, I was cooking all at Joyce and Crossover. And then I was leaving a team there. And then I was meeting a team in Rogers with the truck and the other trailer out at, [00:42:00] um, miss Hunt's big building, the first big tower out there.
Um, and so I set out that parking lot and selling there, selling in Fayetteville. And I was doing that Thursday, Friday, Saturday. I. And then about that same time, this building, there's an antique company that went out and I took over. And even with, before I left Tyson, I, I had set, decided, you know, I was leaving and I needed cash, so I'd cashed in my 401k.
I had gone to the bank and gotten some money to get this thing leased. 'cause this is about all at the same time.
Nick Beyer: And you just saw this or did you have a buddy reach out and say, Hey, this, this spot's coming open.
Jordan Wright: Well I, so I had looked at it before it ever got leased by the antique people back in 16. But I was like, dude, I don't know how to run a restaurant.
And
Nick Beyer: why,
Jordan Wright: why Johnson?
Nick Beyer: I know you were doing the, the stuff stuff over here in the office. It was, I was close to
Jordan Wright: Tyson. Okay. And I was on the way and I mean, you know, I drove with Greg and turned right on main drive and left on Elmore to get to work every day. Yeah. And this little old building used to be more doors, pizza.
It used to be a bunch of different things, but it's just a [00:43:00] cute, it looks like a barbecue joint. And so, yeah, when, and so I first looked at it after it was Golden Kechi. And the Golden Kechi. The golden Kechi people. It was like yellow and red inside, but it looked cool. And my buddy from Texas is like, yeah, I like it, man.
It's great. You should do it. And I was like, yeah, but it's, you know, it's 900, it's 850 bucks a month. And that's a lot. I was like, man, that's, that's just, I don't know if it goes bad. I don't want to be on the hook for $850 a month for five more years. And it was just so funny. Um, you can't rent anything for 800 a month.
You can't rent an apartment. Rent, rent an apartment for 800 a month. And so, you know, I would say this to any entrepreneur, if you have an idea and someone says, Hey, you can rent this place for less than a thousand bucks a month to have a retail business in a retail environment that's approved, you do it because it's like you won't lose, you won't lose it's undefeated strategy.
And so. We got this building underway. Uh, Simmons Bank helped us on that deal [00:44:00] and we still bank with them and they've got a, we've got a great relationship. And so we started remodeling this. And then in the fall of 17, we opened Fall of 17. Yeah, October 17. Okay. So we just kept doing food trucks and then once we kind of started doing the remodel stuff here, kind of getting it all cleaned up and getting it painted, and we were running probably.
I think we were running like Wednesday to Saturday here, and then going to do the farmer's market and then coming back here. Okay. And we, with our second truck, we kind of just settled in and we still were doing the farmer's market that fall till it was over. So yeah, that's kind of how we got to Johnson.
Nick Beyer: So inception 16, you're running a food truck, you, you kind of branch off, do a couple for food trucks, you leave your job full-time and you're all in. And that's kind of little mid to late 17. And then you open here. Yeah. Late 17. Yep. I mean, how long into, when you open, I know you said you could [00:45:00] feel the momentum with the food trucks, you could maybe even see the financial piece.
Okay. Like, this business is gonna work, but now you're on the hook for a building. You, you've had some ti or you, you've done some stuff in this building. How soon after you're in here, are you like, confident this business is gonna work?
Jordan Wright: Oh, I was confident before we took over the building. Okay. I mean, we were doing.
Three x what any other food truck was doing at any event we ever did. Okay. And so, you know, I was walking away with 3,500 bucks, you know, at a food truck event. And everybody else was barely scraping a thousand dollars in sales. And I was crushing. And then we were crushing here like when we, when we said as soon as you opened.
Well, I'm saying when we got the food truck set on ca on site, like we started seeing weekly increments of, hey Tuesday, the Wednesday number's bigger. Thursday number's bigger, cook more, cook more. We ordered a thousand gallon tank for the October launch and as soon as we opened, [00:46:00] we ordered another one that day.
Mm-hmm. And it came in the spring of 18, but it's like we were at a massive line, day one did a huge lunch and you know, it was like $2,600 lunch, which was, I. Yeah, that was like most of our full days, you know, at an event was 2,500, 3000.
Cameron Clark: I mean, it was a great day. Did anyone try to talk you out of this location?
Oh yeah. Just being a real estate guy, it's like,
Jordan Wright: well, I'll tell you what real estate guys are, right? They're not wrong. Like there's, there's certain things that make sense to operate retail restaurants. Yeah. I mean, I think daily traffic count doesn't matter. I think households matter. Um, more than anything, if I was gonna say, what's a driving factor and also other offerings when people are going into an area to seek a service.
This is, this is a service [00:47:00] area. The more people are coming in looking for food. Here are your 12 options and you've got a lot more chance to bring in people. Um, but like here, I mean, this was, this was a great value. And I mean, Tom Allen was the only real estate guy in the area that said, absolutely, without a doubt, don't hesitate.
Take that deal and don't go spend, you know, 15,000 a month on a new restaurant. Like you're just like, that is a barbecue joint. It is a great deal.
Mm-hmm.
Jordan Wright: Go, go do that. And so, yeah, everyone else is like, what the heck are you doing? Like, build over here, do this. Like, there's lots of better buildings out there.
And you know, we've always said it's not about the building, it's about what we do and what we put into it and how we make people feel. And the food will bring people. And then it did,
Nick Beyer: I first came to Wrights, it was senior year of college, [00:48:00] 2018. We used to come in the evenings. We'd, we'd miss, we'd miss the burn ends.
They were gone. Mm-hmm. But we'd get here at like seven and we'd get whatever's left. We'd, we'd hang out. I can't remember if this back room was here. It was here. It was here. We'd, we'd hang out. I mean, it's probably like 10 guys from the fraternity house. Yeah. We all lived in the fraternity house. We'd drive over and at the end of the night, on our way out, your staff would say, Hey, we've got these leftover sides.
Do you wanna take 'em? Take 'em with you? Yeah. Because you weren't using them the next day. And so yeah, the quality from the very get go. Everybody says they focus on quality, but then you look at stuff like that, I mean, that doesn't make sense financially. Why would you not reuse the sides from the day before?
For sure. So talk to us about the strategy there and, and maybe some things you put in place from the, from the onset that have made rights. Yeah. What it's today,
Jordan Wright: I mean, a lot of it, a lot of it is just what do you want, what do you want to eat? What do you, what would you do if you were me? You wouldn't wanna buy frozen food [00:49:00] and go or buy pre-cooked barbecue.
I mean, there's lots of options you could do to run a restaurant. And so you just, we just thought how would, what makes me, what makes me the happiest to be able to feel confident to serve people. And so, you know, it was never about getting, obviously it was like, I wanna pay for my family's bills. I want to not go broke.
And so. But it was like, I just felt like every great brand out there, they don't think about, you know, what they spend on certain things. It's like, charge what you need to charge to make it an incredible item.
Mm-hmm.
Jordan Wright: So like Rolls Royce, you know, doesn't think about the cost of manufacturing their product.
They're not trying to save their way to prosperity. Yeah. They'll could, they'll make a car and they'll sell it for a million dollars. Mm-hmm. And it's a [00:50:00] car. And so your, your identity as a brand is directly driven to what, what quality you're, you're bringing to the table and what experience you're bringing to the table.
So that's been, it. It's really creating an experience, creating a world class barbecue destination, which we've done. And that's been the goal since day one, which is, you know, be best in class. Um, be a place that people. Come to Arkansas and they think rights barbecue. Mm-hmm. So we didn't, our state didn't have a barbecue identity really.
I mean, we did. I mean we've got Delta, we've got a little Mexican city, but we're in a great spot to have a great barbecue identity. We've got, we've got Texas, we've got Kansas City, we've got Memphis. We're in the Bermuda Triangle Bar in Bar of Barbecue, in my opinion. And so that means we can do whatever we want.
If I wanted dry rub ribs, I would do it. And I don't like 'em. So I do the ribs I like and people like 'em. So [00:51:00] some people like dry rub ribs. I think those people live in Memphis so they don't live here. And yeah, some people are like, oh, I really love Memphis ribs. And then you're like, yeah, go eat 'em and then come back here and eat our ribs.
And you'll be like, oh yeah, they're right. These ribs are really good. So, you know, I think us doing what we did when we did it opened the pathway for a lot of places to. Get up and going and being like, Hey, this can be done in Arkansas. Um, Ridgewood Brothers in Russellville Night Fire and Searcy, you know, those are two, um, reeds in Booneville and they were open.
I don't know when Reeds opened, but they opened. Maybe similar timing, I feel like, but again, following those trends and like seeing that like there's now there's, there's better barbecue in the state of Arkansas than there ever has been. Ray's Russ Shack, Seth Simmons is a foreign pit master here. He's now in Jonesboro, outside Jonesboro area.
And like, to me, [00:52:00] the fact that we have six places that really could compete with anybody else in any other state, that's a lot of, that's a lot of great barbecue spots for the size of state we have. Mm-hmm. And so it's, it's been a really cool experience seeing that, you know, you can do something, but it, it's really no different, I feel like, than.
Outside of it being something cool like barbecue, but like when something, you know, back when we were kids and when I was a kid, you know, you go to New York, eat New York style pizza mm-hmm. And someone brings a New York style pizza place, or they go to, you know, Chicago and eat this place and they're like, let's bring this restaurant to our market.
And so, you know, that's how restaurants tell the food. Culture spreads. Somebody travels, somebody has an experience. How'd that make them feel? Let's bring it back to my community. Mm-hmm. Let's, oh hey, there's this great fajita place in Texas. I went to, now we have local lime, you know, it's like, or whatever.
And so it's, [00:53:00] you can, you can trace culinary, you know, pathways to just travel and experiences that you've had. It's like, yeah, you've had great restaurants. Like you'd love to have some of those restaurants here.
Nick Beyer: Oh yeah. A hundred percent. Yeah. So, so, so going back to the business now, you've, you've got this spot open in Johnson and at what point is it is expansion.
Conversation happening. Is that, is that a year in, is that two years in?
Jordan Wright: No, I mean, I, I mean my first, 'cause my first plan, like the first vision statement was, was within five years of buying the food truck, um, opened the first location.
Nick Beyer: Yeah.
Jordan Wright: So I was like, way ahead of schedule.
Nick Beyer: Yeah.
Jordan Wright: Lemme pull this up. Um, but it's this your old vision statement.
Yeah.
Nick Beyer: Oh, heck
Jordan Wright: yeah. Well, and it was gonna be called JW Smokehouse too. Okay. So, yeah, to provide northwest Arkansas with the, one of the best food experiences they can find, not only in the state, but in the country, we'll capitalize on the growing demand [00:54:00] for locally owned businesses. Our aim is to differentiate ourselves from typical Arkansas barbecue by remaining somewhat small seating area, operate lunch only until we are out of food, similar to Franklin.
We gave up on that real fast. 'cause that's dumb and people need to eat dinner. Um, and you need to have a staff. And so all that, it's like, unless you're Franklin or a place that can churn out a great lunch every day. So,
Nick Beyer: and you used to do breakfast, by the way? 'cause I can't, yeah. I had breakfast on Saturdays.
I used to, I don't know if it was a brisket biscuit or something. I, I, I'll never forget
Jordan Wright: it, but returning soon, hopefully. Okay. Okay. To a breakfast location, that'd be great. Um, but it's like our mission is to be best in class, both food quality and unrivaled customer service. Now it's a fast casual barbecue restaurant specializing in brisket, highly acclaim for our house made sausages.
The business is currently being run a mobile unit. I'm seeking financing for brick and mortar, um, competition, whole hog sassies, penguins. Dickies. That was the competition. Yeah. Yeah, it is. And so, I mean, it's so funny. Uh, market gaps, life changing meat [00:55:00] experiences, brisket quality, the customer service involved.
Ownership, uh, menu brisket, pork, Turkey, ribs, sausage, sandwiches, the pumba, uh, brisket sandwich, so sides, baked beans, potato salad, and Chipotle slaw, which I started with. Um, drinks. Food quality experience. These will be the foundation of our brand. Network of friends, family, coworkers, social media, reach, drive for success.
Categories trending upward in popularity. Weaknesses, lack of restaurant experience. Barbecue customers are traditionally loyal, traditionally loyal. Yeah. Opportunities. Arkansas has no risk of reputation. Most risk is not done well. There has been little innovation on the barbecue sandwich front. We'll capitalize on growing demand for fast casual handheld protein sandwiches.
There's also a need in this area for a lunch barbecue destination that causes people to have to try to get there. Threats, low barrier of entry to new competition. We must be first to market, and that was one of Amber's points whenever, um. Whenever I was thinking about staying at Tyson, she was like, you know, [00:56:00] if you wake up 10 years from now and it's almost 10 years, it's eight now.
It's like if you wake 10 years, you wake up 10 years and you're still at Tyson, someone else will have opened what you wanna open and you're gonna sit there and say, man, that's, that's another idea I had and I didn't do it. And so it's one of those things I'd encourage any entrepreneur. It's like if you have the idea, there is absolutely nothing but yourself and your self-doubt and the fear that's holding you back from accomplishing something that you believe in.
Like, and if you don't believe in yourself, you deserve not to accomplish that thing. So you can never look back and say, oh, I could have done that. No, you couldn't have, 'cause you didn't. And so that's really the fact. It's like, oh, I could've made the major leagues if I would've only played baseball every day and hit curve balls.
It's like, well, yeah, but you didn't. Right? So like, I get that was your dream, but you did, you really have the commitment, the conviction to go follow that dream. 'cause a lot of those guys that make major leagues or [00:57:00] not the number one draft picks. Yeah. A lot of are journeymen that continue to work and make no money, but they love what they're doing and they, they put, put it in.
So, yeah, I mean that's, it's kind of, it's kind of wild.
Nick Beyer: So, going back to the business, how far in were you and the next location was, was it Bentonville?
Jordan Wright: No. So the, the next location was Bentonville, but that was during COVID. Okay. And so we really did that outta necessity. We were remodeling this. Okay. The Bentonville spot, the guy really wanted me to go in, it had a kitchen and we could get it.
Health Department approved quickly and I. So we got that up and going to cook sides for Johnson. Okay. And so it wasn't even open for a while. It was just a secondary kitchen. We were renting while we were constructing this kitchen. And then we borrowed a food truck from Brightwater to do some side prep here.
And then we ran our old food truck and then we bought an Airstream to do dishes in like, we had like this wild scenario during COVID. It is so crazy. Then we're running the drive through. So the kitchen was closed down, [00:58:00] smokehouse was running, and we were just walking everything into this room. This room had prep tables and a drive through window over there.
Mm-hmm. And we had a cut, a cut line here with tickets all on the wall. And we were just taking online orders and, and that was, that was 2020. It was crazy. Got built the drive through, opened Bentonville and like, you know what, let's do once, once seating kind of opened back up and then people were like back into restaurants walking around.
We decided to open Bentonville. Still kept no inside seating for a while. It was just pickup and to go. And so
Nick Beyer: ran that. And from a finance perspective, at that point, are you, are you feeling some of the tailwinds from the business or are you still Oh no, the economy
Jordan Wright: was awesome. Right?
Nick Beyer: Well, well, no, I'm just saying at one point you were borrowing from your 401k, so when did you really start to feel like you were probably like we were making money, whatever.
You were making money, you're putting it back into the business to, to open up Bentonville and,
Jordan Wright: um, not necessarily. I mean, Bentonville is more of a let's sign [00:59:00] a lease and so we can keep servicing the drive through and make, 'cause we were making money in the drive through a little bit. And, you know, we made money from day one here, first day we were open.
Mm-hmm. So like we've, we've had months that sucked. I mean, everybody has a January and July, you know, it's like, it, there's months that are slower. Um, but. It's like from the moment we opened, it's, it was impossible for me to consider an outcome of losing, of running a losing proposition. And so our financials were terrible back then, but they, you know, I had a part-time guy just doing it for, it's my brother-in-law, he is not my CFO, and it's like, but he was doing it.
He had another job, so he was just kind of keeping up with the generic expense lines. And it was like, you know, I'd be like, yeah, we have money. And then I'd be like, I'd pull out money and I'd be like, oh crap, we're doing money. And then I pull money back, you know? But we were able to save up and buy this place in 2019.
But you have an [01:00:00] $800 month monthly mortgage, and you're doing real restaurant numbers. It's easy to save. Yeah. So there's two options in, you know, restaurants and businesses in general. It's like, okay, how do you build equity? Right? You build equity by buying things or you build equity, buy. Operating under a competitive lease and built, you know, liquidity faster and you've got cash and so you've got two choices.
This was definitely an option where we didn't have the chance to buy it, the family didn't wanna sell it in 17 and I couldn't have bought it then, really. Right, right. Um, but, you know, we were able to stack cash because our occupancy number for rent cost was so low. Mm-hmm. And so then we just kind of kept following that, like, okay, if we can, okay.
Bentonville, Bentonville. S occupancy cost is really low to the, you know, relative to the sales we do. And so we can put more into our food. My food cost can be a little higher.
Mm-hmm.
Jordan Wright: Um. That's just what it's gonna be. So you can only [01:01:00] drive your food costs so low when you're buying premium ingredients.
Right. Um, so yeah, so then when we decided to open Bentonville, it was like, yeah, we, we could use a second store. It's nice to not, what we learned is it's nice to not be dependent on one stream. Mm-hmm. Right? If Johnson, something happens to Johnson, Johnson has to close down, the power goes out, there's a tornado.
Yeah. There's roads down. Yeah. There's construction today. The sails are down. Okay, well crap, having, having two open helps that, and so it was 2021 we were looking at going to Little Rock, weren't even thinking about really anything other than the two locations we had. Um, I'm pretty sure spring of 21 I got really sick.
I got COVID for like 13, 14 days bedridden. I had to get the plasma stuff. Um, and so. You know, felt like death for two weeks and came out of it. And when you come out of an experience like that, you [01:02:00] kind of are just like euphoric and like, oh, what's the world look like? What could, what we do, let's open juniors.
My breakfast concept. And so it's like, so I, I signed a lease across the street and that four years later, still not a juniors, but we're using as an office. And, uh, and so, but like, and then we decided to, okay, in 20, late 21, kinda after that was like, Hey, we're not gonna do that there. It makes no sense.
Let's, let's look. And a friend of mine, TJ Loeffler, had been like, Hey, we've got this spot. We're opening these apartments. Pinnacle Heights, I think. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. And so there was an opportunity there when we got the pricing back for this 1500 square foot spot, and it was half a million dollars to remodel it for something I don't own.
And I was like, yeah, I'm, yeah, we're out. And we'd already, like, we'd already signed the lease and, but it was like that we couldn't come to an agreement on like who was gonna bear the brunt of the cost. 'cause the con contractor had screwed up a few of the meps. Mm-hmm. [01:03:00] And it's mechanical, electrical, plumbing.
Yeah. For all those who dunno what MEPS for. So they had screwed up on a few things and during that time, Lars was going outta business. They were struggling and Tom connected me with Gus Blast, who was part of that ownership group. We sat down, he was like, we gotta get out of this space. And it used to be Pinnacle Barn and Grill.
Mm-hmm. We looked at going in there in 2020 or 20, it was like 20 early, late two 19, early 2020. Pre COVID Tom had showed us, um, or maybe it was, it was post COVID 'cause Scott had left, um, the guy who used to own Theos and PPG. Yeah. And so when they had closed down. Like we had looked at it, and that's a
Nick Beyer: big space for those who haven't been, it's not that big but bigger than, it's bigger than
Jordan Wright: here.
Nick Beyer: Yeah.
Jordan Wright: But it felt like it was massive whenever we were looking at it. We're like, oh, this is a massive, and the patio's big, but inside's really not that big. Yeah. Um, [01:04:00] but to us it was like, that's a big risk. We're going right next to Walk-Ons and Chewy's and Chick-fil-A and Torchy's and like, man, that's, if we go in and fail, then it's like, oh, we just failed big and now we owe and that could jeopardize our whole business.
Fast forward to whenever Lars went in and then they failed. It was like, well, they failed too. It's like, shoot. Like, I mean, and, but whenever that opportunity came back up, we were like, Hey, we were looking at doing this juniors here in Rogers, this we can open a rights for a good, good lease agreement with people we trust and know.
Mm-hmm. And. We got the ti, you know, they got all the stuff figured out and opened, and that business is crushing. And that's
Nick Beyer: 21?
Jordan Wright: That's
Nick Beyer: 22. 22, okay.
Jordan Wright: That, that it took, it took about, oh, we were looking at going to Little Rock. So we were in conversations about buying this, the spot we have in Little Rock during the [01:05:00] time in like early 22 that we ended up looking at it.
And then all of a sudden we're looking at Little Rock. We've, we're trying to make an offer. It's not like they're not budging on the price. And, and so, but then all of a sudden, like in the middle of trying to open Little Rock, they're like, we're like, oh, hey, here's Rogers. And then we opened up Rogers maybe like a month after we opened Rogers, we closed our, like we closed, or no, month before we closed our loan on, on Little Rock.
Somehow I had a, at a, it was crazy. It was like great rate. Well, there's really bad, really, really bad, um, quotes that we were getting from builders on the plans. So we were just trying to like get these prices down to where it made sense. And all in all, we [01:06:00] learned a lot of lessons. Um, but got that thing done at like, I think, I think four nine, so yeah.
Wow. Yeah. Yeah. That's great. Would not be a feasible deal. Oh yeah. A week after we closed, right? Yeah. Simmons did an unbelievable job for us. Um, and so yeah, I mean that business is not feasible at seven, eight, it's just not. And so we got that done and then spent the next year arguing with builders and changing plans and, and building out that spot.
And we opened that fall of last year.
Cameron Clark: Hmm.
Jordan Wright: Crushing.
Cameron Clark: And so it feels like, I mean, just outside looking in is, is Rogers the, the, the one most volume? Are you doing the most volume by Rogers? Yeah.
Jordan Wright: Rogers one in little Rock's two Right behind. Obviously those are the biggest spots. Um, but every business is making money.
Yeah. Yeah. And they're all different in their own way. We're about to remodel Johnson. We gotta do a parking lot. We're gonna expand dining. And I think that will help. I mean, [01:07:00] there's times where I know even my closest friends are like, if I know I can't sit inside, especially winter days, hot days in the summer, you're not gonna go wait in line to then go sit and sweat or go sit in freeze.
And so once we expand the dining here, and then we get the parking fixed, it's like a, there's gonna be more parking spaces and be like, oh, there's a space to park and when there's no space to park here, you don't come.
Yeah. I mean,
Jordan Wright: it's like, yeah. It's like trying to get anywhere. It's like, oh, there's nowhere to park.
Hmm. I guess I'll drive on to lame and, and so credit to Johnson, the city. I, I mean as far as credit to these other lin that have opened up in Johnson, it's been really fun watching them. I wouldn't say piggyback off of us, but like it's really, I guess, trampoline off of us. Yeah. Like of like, oh hey, you know, look what Wrights was able to do.
Hey, this is really North Fayetteville.
Cameron Clark: Yeah. So, but it wasn't when you came in though, it was like, oh,
Jordan Wright: [01:08:00] not at all. It was like this separate thing.
Cameron Clark: What really blows my mind is like, you know, there's people that, I mean Yeah. You call it piggyback and or those people like that bring the culture, bring the vibe.
Mm-hmm. And it was like put the stake in the ground. Yeah. And that's what you did. Yeah. It was just like playing the flag.
Jordan Wright: Yeah. We definitely improved that. You can. Be in business
Cameron Clark: here. I mean, for really, for like you're saying barbecue in Arkansas.
Jordan Wright: Absolutely. Yeah. I had a dream that whenever we opened our Little Rock store, and this is back when Game of Thrones was big of, of doing a Game of Thrones, like,
and then like the Johnson building coming outta that
and then like the little rock building growing outta the ground. It's so funny. Like taking over these Kingdom territories and it was gonna be an epic, and then like now it's like I could probably do it through AI for pretty cheap, but like it wouldn't hit as much as it would've hit like eight years ago.
Yeah,
yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jordan Wright: But I always thought Little Rock was gonna be our second location. [01:09:00] That was my hometown and I always wanted to go back there and I'm so thankful that it wasn't our second, because by the time we got to four. Like getting those other two off the ground and getting more leadership, getting a better business built.
It's, we probably would've failed if like after two years we'd been like, let's go open in Little Rock. I had no infrastructure to do that. Hmm. And so it's probably another business thing. I'd tell 'em, anybody is like, don't, don't go so fast that you don't build a great company. And what the reason we're successful today is we have the best company.
Mm-hmm. I mean, hands down, we have great leadership, we have great people, and we have operational plans and training. And I mean, look at Little Rock as an example. We walked into Little Rock Week one, we're doing, you know, a hundred thousand dollars weeks.
Mm-hmm.
Jordan Wright: [01:10:00] $90,000 weeks. And it's like, those are massive weeks for five days a week.
So, you know, but we were able to succeed because we had great infrastructure, great oversight, great, you know, great culture, and we've got great people. And so we, we do a really good job hiring people. They're cool, that like to hang out, that love to work and work with food and care about people. Mm-hmm.
And everyone always asks, like, they're like, man, why, uh, you know, what makes it ride so special? What makes it you and Chick-fil-A? You know, what makes it, what, what, what, what do you think it is? You're like, well, you know the answer. I mean, the answer is we don't settle on bad people.
Mm-hmm.
Jordan Wright: Yeah. And I can't say anything other than that.
It's like, if you're not good, you're not good with people, you're not gonna survive. Mm-hmm. You don't hold up the standard. So [01:11:00] that's the biggest key we have is we set a standard, we have a culture. Those values are important to us. So good. If you don't match those, there's just other places for you to pursue excellence.
Yeah. Yeah. Like RGM here, I mean, he was in the sheriff's department. He was a military guy in the army, and then he was at Mercedes doing sales, and he started here at 12 bucks an hour. And like one of the guys didn't want, wanna hire him. And he'll tell you today, he is like, oh, that was a mistake. I, I was wrong.
Because he's a, he's an incredible guy. He loves people, he loves food and you know, he's been a great leader for us, but he had no restaurant experience. Mm-hmm. But it just shows you, I mean, you just have to be able to pick really good people in any of the books you read. I mean, they're gonna tell you the same things that you already know.
I mean, that's my dad. I always tell my dad like, oh, I need, maybe I need a consultant. He's like, all you're really doing is paying someone to tell you what you already know you should do. [01:12:00] You just want someone to tell you. Mm-hmm. And so sometimes that makes sense. And sometimes you don't know what to do and you really do need to hire somebody to consult.
And that would be a good consultant. But like operat, the accountability. Yeah. Just like someone saying, Hey, someone's saying, dude, I'm telling you to do all this. Here you go. Do it.
Nick Beyer: Do it. And you're paying me to tell.
Jordan Wright: Exactly. You better do it. And you already knew all these suggestions were the things you need to do because you're not an idiot.
So I just think it's funny, like you've gotta always be analyzing your business like. Like you're trying to consult it and help it grow and help your people, and help your people get, building a structure of leadership is important because it helps people see a future. Yeah. It helps them see a career. A career.
Yeah. Um, we've got long term employees here that are awesome and yeah. I remember
Nick Beyer: when y'all opened the Roger store faces that I saw in 2018 here. Yep. Were, were up there and I think up there now. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. How, how many employees do you have now?
Jordan Wright: That's a great question. It's like 140. [01:13:00] Okay.
Nick Beyer: Yeah.
Jordan Wright: Something like that.
Nick Beyer: And then just from a scale, we, we always talk about the economics of the business. Sounds like from, from onset you're making money and you're kind of growing as each location grows. Obviously it sounds like Rogers was a, was a massive hit. And so from a revenue perspective, where, where have y'all been?
Where are y'all at? Sounds like employees 120 and maybe just some growth rates of like, you've been open. Actual retail store since 2018. I assume those growth rates, we talk about hyper businesses here in northwest Arkansas. You're at the top of the list.
Jordan Wright: Yeah.
Nick Beyer: Any, any figures there? Um,
Jordan Wright: yeah. Lemme do some math 2016.
So how would I do that math? Um,
Cameron Clark: if you're listening the calculator's out.
Jordan Wright: Yeah. Calculator's out. Um, so we liked four XD from 2016 to 2017. We liked 10 XD [01:14:00] 2018 to 2017. And then we'll just go from year, I'll just keep doing from year one. Mm-hmm. So we're like 44 x by week by 2019. 50 x by 2020 and 2021. Yeah.
'cause that was coming after COVID. Yep. So yeah, that was that. So we're 67 X by 2021 from our first year. Unbelievable. And then 2022, we were Business stadium here, stadium Bentonville. And then opened Rogers in the fall of 2022. Almost a hundred x in 2022 from day one. Wow. Last year. Let's just go with what we're gonna finish this year.
283. It's unbelievable.
Cameron Clark: And what, uh, without giving exact Yeah, no, no, no. Don't. But it's, you're in [01:15:00] retail now. You're in Walmart. Yep. Are you in any other, any other, we're in
Jordan Wright: harps. Okay. Um, we're in harps and then we're selling online. I mean, we're trying, I mean, retail's hard. Retail's super hard. Do you have a
Cameron Clark: retail team here now or what's
Jordan Wright: that look like?
We've got a broker. Okay. Yeah. Okay. And they're doing great. Um, but it's just, it's just hard to drive retail sales like without, I don't know, ex incredible resources. I mean, you're going against massive brands. Yeah. I mean, that's all they, McCormick, McCormick, sweet baby Rays. You're just, you're just in a big old ocean of how do you become relevant on a retail scale.
So,
Nick Beyer: and so that's an ancillary part of your, for sure. That's not something, we're not waking up sitting here focusing, not cashing
Jordan Wright: any checks in retail business, that's for sure.
Nick Beyer: Okay. No, that's great. And then the other segment that we kind of hit on that I'd love to, to hear, and I think the, I think the most impressive thing for me about Wrights is every location I've [01:16:00] eaten at, including the Razorback games, the quality is unbelievable.
Jordan Wright: Yeah.
Nick Beyer: And I don't think people. I, maybe you do get enough credit for it, but, but I want to give you credit for it because we go, you go to a wedding for 300 people. I've never left a wedding and said, man, I had an amazing meal. You're going to a Razorback game with 80,000 fans in the stadium, and you're getting, you're getting a sandwich and you're like, this taste Exactly like the sandwich Yes.
That I got in Johnson. Love it. And so I, I don't know. I'm just, I'm, I'm kind of blown away by that. Appreciate that. I don't know how you do it,
Jordan Wright: man. I'll tell you what, God has blessed our business beyond measure, well, like I said, with the people. Mm-hmm. That he's brought in to our business, the relationships we've built with our team.
And you know, for us, we're a servant leader driven model. And so we're always going to treat you better than. [01:17:00] We, you know, it's like I try to tell people, it's like, I kind of used to say like, treat, treat pe, treat people better than you treat yourself, you know, and I really do mean that because a lot of people treat themselves poorly.
Hmm. So you've gotta be able to talk to yourself as a person and an entrepreneur. You've gotta be able to talk to yourself the way God sees you. And you've gotta be able to not talk to yourself. Like, why, why am I treating you like Jesus treats others? And I don't treat myself like Jesus treats me or treats others.
And so it's like you've gotta really work on that of treating yourself better. But it, it starts with coming from a healthy place of if, if, if I'm okay and I'm good, I want others to feel that and I want others to feel great experiences and to be served. And so, yeah, just all stems from that service model of how do we make people feel great mm-hmm.
To come here and how do we, how do we do it? And so everyone's just totally aligned on [01:18:00] making sure people's experiences are what they should be. So whether that's the stadium, and that's the thing about the stadium, and we, you could easily get away with buying prepared smoked brisket that you don't have to trim, you don't have to deal with all the waste.
You don't have to cook it, you don't have to transport it. You could just, I mean, there's a product out there that Bucky's uses that one of the sales guys is trying to get us to buy for stadium. And I'm like, yeah, no. Like why, why would I not serve prime brisket at the stadium? I, I select and chop it up and people are like, oh, you know, stadium sandwiches, but then my stadium sandwich sales would suck.
Yeah. So it's like, it's all, it's all a matter of what is your purpose? Your purpose is to serve great food. Don't go try to serve bad food,
Cameron Clark: and people catch on, you know, whether it's like, you know, a month from then or two years from then, you know, and whether there's that extra margin there for a little bit.
Mm-hmm. It's like people, people catch on. What do you tell people when say, when someone says it rights is too expensive?
Jordan Wright: Um, okay. Go somewhere else. [01:19:00] Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I'd say when you're, it's all value proposition, so you buy what you value. Yeah. So I think if you value great food, you're gonna think it's appropriately priced for the volume you get.
And if you're a little cheaper on what you like to spend. You're gonna always think you're shorted in everything in life. And so you probably think the Big Mac meal is a, is a good deal at $10 just because it's less than everywhere else. Even though it's like, okay, they're serving two ounces of finished meat and I'm serving you eight ounces of finished cooked meat yielded out loss on that.
It's crazy. I mean, we lose 50% of our brisket. Wow. Just in moisture loss in trim. So I can't charge you less.
Yeah. I
Jordan Wright: mean, that's the reality. If I charge you less, we'd just be a nonprofit. So there is no point in business [01:20:00] if there is no profit to be had and no profit to share and no profit to reinvest in your business so that your team has great equipment and your team.
Believes that you care about their restaurant and the business that you run. If you run crappy restaurants and you know, this is an awesome old place and the nostalgia's great, but it's time for a reload. Yeah. And to update it. And so it needs it. And so, but that shows we care. We're not just, you know, it'd be really easy to just ride this bucket for another 15 years and extract as much as we could as it continues to, you know, and it's growing.
The great thing is Johnson's growing, the Johnson's number's growing, which is awesome for a seven year mature business to continue to achieve growth without the. Price increases. The only thing we've raised is brisket price a dollar. We made some price increases about two years ago in 2022. Um, but since Roger's opened, I mean, that's really the only thing we raised was priced brisket, which is, which is actually crazy '
Cameron Clark: cause that all the other price phrases that every [01:21:00] everybody's doing.
I mean, the fact, like, that's crazy. Well, and a lot
Jordan Wright: of them are raising prices and then shrinking portions. Mm-hmm. So they're double hitting you. And so we've not changed portions, we've increased portions actually in each of our groupings. And, and, and, and that's some of the adjustments we made. Pricing wise, we're not, okay, we're not taking, we're gonna make it better, give you more.
So we're not, it kind of ease up, it'll ease our operations a little bit to be able to just, okay, we may charge a little more, but we're gonna give more. So we're aligning that to make sure that the value's there. So, yeah. So you talked about the
Cameron Clark: remodel here. What's next?
Jordan Wright: I mean, there's a lot and it's probably like my least favorite question.
Just because the options are almost mind numbingly high. Um, you know, it's probably the biggest pain point I deal with on a day-to-day basis is pondering that question and, and thinking, [01:22:00] you know, what is the next 20 years? It's what is the next five? And so we really have to get a, we're we're, we're really aligned on looking for the right deals, um, to grow.
We don't have any outside investors. I'm a hundred percent owner and so I can do what I want. Mm-hmm. Um, I don't ask, I don't answer to anybody but my wife and the Lord. So it's like, you know, if I wanted to go take on investors and get to a hundred locations, like most definitely could pursue that path.
It's like, do I want that? What's the cost to my family? What's the cost of my life and my freedom to. To go enjoy a round of golf if I, if I want to, or go on a vacation and, you know, take a, take, take time to or coach my kids' sports. Like, I mean, I've got a limited time with my family. And so, you know, I think, I think it's, it's one of those things that like, we'll [01:23:00] continue to pursue opportunities that make financial sense and if we have the leadership structure in place like we do, and we have identified future leaders that can go launch and we've got a lot of people interested in that want to go launch and would, if we, we've really been, we pushed it a little on Twitter last year.
And is it time to end? Is that our five minute warning? Well, here, here. So yeah. But next is Walmart next year. And then, um, we're going into Walmart headquarters and then yeah, we're just gonna kind of rock and roll.
Cameron Clark: That's awesome. I know, I know a lot of people are gonna be excited about that. The two wrap up questions here, number one, how do you define success?
Jordan Wright: Man, I define success as, um. Becoming more like Christ every day, putting that visual of what is success and yeah, you can look at these different people of achievers. I've watched the guy talk about visualizing, manifesting your own success. And it was like, man, you know, none of that crap matters if we're not [01:24:00] daily pursuing a relationship with the Lord and, and putting the image of Christ in front of us and saying, okay, this is who success is.
This is what a successful life is. These are leaders in my life that have have lived that way. Hebrews 13, seven says, um, look to those who who've shared the gospel with you, shared the good news of the Lord. Consider the outcome of their life and Im imitate their faith. And it's like when you can live a life that does that, and when we all make mistakes, we all have pasts and we all have things that.
That, that are in our shadow, that people would be like, oh, you know? Yeah. It's like, no, man, that, that stuff doesn't matter. 'cause God's forgiven us. You know, if we have faith in Christ, like we've got to be the hands and feet of Jesus into our communities and into the, into the business places. And that's success to me is, and like raising a family that's healthy, [01:25:00] that, that has a healthy relationship with the Lord and, and each other.
I. Without a distorted view of the church and without a distorted view of the planet, it's like I want people to see good, and I want our family to see good in others and, and to treat others better than they deserve to be treated and, and put others first. And so if we can love God and love others, then that's success.
And I mean, the business side and stuff, it's just, I could go work at Dollar General and it'd be fine. Like I'd just work a job. But I'm doing it with excellence because this is what I've seen great men of faith do is just put, put God first, put others right before you and and live like that. So that's success to me.
Cameron Clark: And then kind of lastly here, you know, we're Northwest Arkansas focused podcast like this is NWA founders. So I think you've kind of answered, okay, this is your Northwest Arkansas story. Yeah. But what's your, what's your vision for Northwest Arkansas from your perspective? What's your vision for the area?
Jordan Wright: Um, we need more. Everything. We need [01:26:00] more restaurants, we need more people, we need more infrastructure. We need I 49 to get expanded and we need more internal city infrastructure, better roads, continue to invest in schools, and you've gotta be thinking 50 years, you know, down the road and or it's gonna stay where it is.
And I think Rogers is doing a great job. I think Fayetteville needs to step it up when it comes to attracting businesses and, and being a business friendly environment. Um, yeah, Springdale is doing a great job. Um, Bentonville is doing obviously incredible. I think Fayetteville with the opportunities in the university and the brand power that they have, we gotta step it up on the business and economy front.
I mean, we have to be getting more offices down here, which obviously the attraction is up there, but it's like, what can we offer some of these businesses to be like, Hey, invest in Fayetteville. Mm-hmm. Because Fayetteville has its uniqueness. But like, man, there's so much opportunity to [01:27:00] adjust and, and kind of influence how the economic growth of Fayetteville happens and it's gonna go west, but you gotta really strengthen the middle of the city.
Uh, college needs to be redone. Um, we gotta get, you know, gotta get strip clubs off 71 business. Yeah. I mean, stuff like that, that just like, you don't see that in Bentonville, Springdale. It's like as you're driving, you got a church across the street and you got a strip club across the street, and it's like, what are we doing?
Like who's, who's planning this? And so it's like you really need to work with business leaders in, in real estate to be like, Hey, let's really, let's develop these zones where we have retail and restaurants and we're attracting these places instead of just putting, oh, we've got. I got Fayetteville Tacos and Tamali tucked away in this tiny corner, and it's, I'm sure it's doing okay, but it's like, man, it's not what Bentonville taco or what Bentonville Tacos is doing.
It's not doing what local lime's doing. Rogers. I know that. So, you know, there's [01:28:00] just some, there's some big opportunities for Fayetteville to increase its economic prowess.
Nick Beyer: Thanks for the time, Jordan. I think at the end we'd love to just share what we learned from you. And I think one of the biggest things that stuck out that you said is our trophy is our customer.
Yeah. And I think that's an awesome quote. We're gonna put your name behind it. Yeah. I love it. Uh, anytime I've come here, anytime we've come here, we get asked a and you, you get asked a question at other restaurants, how is the food? But typically it's, before you even take a bite of it, it's like, it's like, it's like a, something that a server goes through and training, like how's your food?
And when people ask here. They actually want to know your answer to the question. Yeah. And so you've instilled that in your people now, your leadership team's instilling that in people. And I think that quote is really when, when people say what makes rights special, that's it is you really care about the customer experience.
Sure. And that goes into the second thing, which it's just your persistence. Cameron kind of talked about it a little bit, but you, you planted your flag in barbecue and you also planted your flag in Johnson. [01:29:00] Before those two things were, were commonplace in Arkansas. And so that took a level of persistence working through multiple food trucks.
You, you know, weather impacting different types of, of events and stuff like that. You just kept going and you kept going. And that's what we've seen through, through some of the founders that almost all the founders that we met have this high level of persistence. And so, um, no doubt that, that you have that.
And I think the last piece is just. Quality is what you care about in everything, and you just heard it in the way that you define success. There's a quality aspect there. The way that you want to lead your family. There's a high quality that you want to do that with, um, the way that you're growing your business and you're picking great people.
And, and Cameron asked the question of, Hey, rights is expensive. It's expensive because you're trying to hire really good people and serve really good food. Right? And so the quality, I mean, you're, you're obsessed. You're a product [01:30:00] guy. You're obsessed with the product. And that product is an outcome of the people for sure.
And, and the wood, we've watched three trucks of wood get delivered this morning. Um. So just really awesome to spend time with you and so encouraged by the growth of this business. But then also one thing we didn't talk about is what you've done in the community and the food that you've served out of your generosity.
My appreciate, thank you. My wife's grandpa passed away a couple years ago and, and you catered the funeral and you did it out of pocket and, uh, and so we're just, the way that you're investing in the community, I think those are the businesses that we, selfishly, we, we want to. We wanna highlight. Yeah, for sure.
What you're doing, because we talk about Northwest Arkansas, you guys, you business owners, you guys and ladies, y'all are what are making our area a special place to live, so thank you for that. Appreciate it. Thank you. Um, Jordan Wright, thanks for being here today. How, how can people find you or get in touch with you?
Jordan Wright: Reds barbecue.com. There we go. Red barbecue on Instagram. Awesome. You heard it
Cameron Clark: [01:31:00] here. Well, thanks Jordan. Appreciate it guys. Thanks guys. Thank you for listening to this episode of NWA Founders, where we sit down with founders, owners and builders driving growth here in northwest Arkansas. For recommendations are to connect with us, reach out at nwa, founders@gmail.com.
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