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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.
One thing that we made a very intentional decision on was creating a, what we call a brand card. It institutes the virtues. Be a virtue based business. You don't have to look the way I do, walk the way I do, talk the way I do, go to the same church, or no church at all. But these are all the values that we are consistent on.
For us, it's honesty, ownership, care, excellence, and positivity. Here are the specific things that we deem to be the script, that we want every guest to internalize and recognize. Those are things that we created very early on, and we're still using that. Today.
Hey everybody. We are here on the NWA Founders Podcast. You got myself, Cameron Clark, and then Nick Beyer here. Um, where we interview founders, builders, and owners in Northwest Arkansas that are driving, uh, growth in the area today. We have Sam Russell and Butter Biscuit. Hello, Sam.
Thank you so much for having me.
Privilege being here.
Thanks for being on. Will you give us a 30 second overview? What is Butter Biscuit? What is it for those who aren't familiar, who haven't been here, maybe you're listening from another market or something?
Sure. Yeah, Butter Biscuit is a made from scratch, local breakfast, brunch, and lunch concept.
We started with a vision to bring handcrafted cooking to Bentonville and just really meet the needs of our community. We know that this market uniquely has a kind of amalgamation of different individuals that come for corporate America. So you've heard certainly big names, if you've listened to this podcast before, of Walmart, J.
B. Hunt and Tyson, that is a very multicultural, diverse group. I, um, brief 30 seconds would be that, uh, I've worked in 11 years in corporate America, moved to seven different states all over the country, really lived the corporate gypsy life, um, in, in a major CPG company, ultimately landing here in Northwest Arkansas and realized that, A, there's no good breakfast.
B, there's no good breakfast, um, that makes things from scratch, but people are from all over. They're not just Southern. There certainly are a lot of Southern people here. And my wife really had a vision, uh, that was Holy Spirit inspired. My wife and I are both believers. And, um, it led to this vision of saying like, hey, let's serve the community by bringing great food.
And this was outside of our wheelhouse. I was CPG. She had done real estate investing and, uh, you know, insurance. So, both of us didn't have a background in hospitality. But God just opened the doors. And, um, You know, fast forward from the idea that, you know, from the time we had the idea to the time we actually closed on the building was about seven months from the time we closed on the building to when we opened our business was 40 days.
We spent 135, 000 initially investing into the, both the facilities, the equipment, and, um, you know, prior to open payroll, um, kind of soft cost, which is unheard of if you've ever launched a. Uh, brick and mortar business before to be so low on that. But really it's, it, it all is, always has been consistent just to serve the community a great handcrafted breakfast.
That's amazing. So you, you kind of tapped on it a little bit. Your background, where, where are you from? Tell us a little more about your background.
Yeah, so born in California. Uh, moved to Michigan when I was six. and really grew up outdoors, so a lot of hunting, fishing, biking, camping. Um, Michigan, for those who don't know, is an unbelievable state to get outside.
You're going to be, uh, super depressed in the winter months if you don't get out and enjoy it. So, skiing, um, skating, snow, you know, there's snow, snow hills that people call mountains, um, that are fun to get out on and, and just, you know, just have a blast. Uh, during the summer, it's an absolute unbelievable.
You know, a place that stays light until 11 o'clock at night. Like, it's, it's unreal and Michigan has a lot of that. That's why I grew up, you know, just really enjoying the outdoors, but also cut my chops in business. I knew that the way out of this kind of low middle class life that I was raised in, uh, was through some meeting needs.
And it started out very practically what I could do without a car. Everything from mowing yards, um, taking care of people's, pets to selling bread door to door, like just whatever I could fill needs with.
And when was this? When did all this start?
Man, I probably started with an ambition for entrepreneurship back eight or nine years old.
Um, I realized money, you know, didn't make life perfect, but it sure made life better. Um, it, it allowed for options to happen. And I think that's what allowed me to pursue corporate America. Um, and really. Uh, seek to be my best in delivering kind of value to the market, um, was just recognizing that business was something that I really was passionate about and leadership specifically.
Yeah. And so did your dad instill any of that? How did, does that just. It's always been inside you or,
you know, um, I grew up in a family of five, uh, five kids, uh, four boys and a girl. We were all homeschooled and it was, it was kind of a mentality of like, hey, let's go ahead and find ways that we can, you know, support each other, help, help the community.
And build relationships and really when you think about it, that's the exact thing that business does every day. Um, and I think that was, those were family values that were instilled in me, both my, my father and my mother. Um, my mother was really influential in helping me think through maybe how to interact with, uh, customers or clients that maybe weren't satisfied or happy.
Um, certainly the work ethic, uh, from my father, understanding that a lot of times work is not fun, but it's necessary, um. You know, again, going back to my biblical roots around the theology of work in Genesis 3, you know, where, where man was told to order and cultivate the earth, um, as a commandment in Genesis 2, but by Genesis 3, there was a curse placed on it that'd be turned into toil.
It doesn't mean that's not fulfilling or rewarding, but it's something that, uh, my parents really taught me the value of hard work, uh, diligence, uh, consistency. Not giving up when things got tough, which has certainly, um, really shaped me and helped me out when, uh, in, in the founder's world. And as an entrepreneur, like, because sometimes you're up there all alone and you got to just keep rolling.
There's going to be hard days. And so did you go to high school in Michigan and college? Where, where's that?
Yeah. So I graduated from Hillsdale College with a marketing, um, or a degree in marketing and management. Um, spent time really all throughout Michigan. through my high school, you know, uh, high school and college years.
And it wasn't until post college that I moved out of Michigan. That was one of my goals of getting into corporate America. It's like, get me out of the state, like, I want to have some fun. So I moved down to Florida. From Florida, I went to Maryland, to Virginia, to Ohio, to Michigan, and then back to Michigan.
And then ultimately got tapped on the shoulder to come in and, uh, helping engage in the Walmart team down here.
Okay. And so what, what, uh, it was all the same CPG company? It was. Yup.
Yup. Kellogg's. Okay. Uh, so commercial, you know, packaged foods. I've ranged across several different brands and kind of divisions within their company.
Um, everything from sales, corporate strategy, branding. Always with an eye on general management. I always knew that that was kind of an ambition of mine. I wanted to be an entrepreneur. So early on in my life started making decisions around, you know, again, don't come from money. Like how do you get out of the rat race of corporate or just a kind of a w two job is.
You got to have capital and you got to have capabilities. And, you know, listen to a really wise advisor, um, early on in my life, a mentor of mine, who was like, hey, you know, learn on somebody else's dime, go get a job at a good company that can teach you a lot of skills and then take the capital that you earn there, uh, make wise, solid investments.
I chose real estate and, um, and, uh, I actually had three rental properties while I was still being a renter myself and kind of hacked my way into, Buying a home and didn't buy a home until shoot 10, 11 years after graduating college. Um, but used those dollars that I was earning from corporate to kind of plow back into, you know, real estate, residential real estate.
And then, uh, and that actually provided the backbone to, to purchase the building that we're in now. And then ultimately leverage out the growth of how we would finance this project going forward with the Buttered Biscuit.
Yes, you kind of knew even going into corporate America, like, hey, I'm going to do my best.
I'm going to be excellent. But then. There's, I've got this entrepreneurial itch still. Like there's, I don't know. Yeah. You know, I
think I entered corporate America thinking three years and out. Yeah. And, uh, and, and they, they, they got, they got wise to me and realized that if they weren't going to promote me every two years, I'd leave.
And, uh, so I shoot, I probably, I got tapped on the shoulder every 18 months and I was into a new position and, you know, able to grow and felt a lot of, a lot of reward and, um, accomplishment through those different positions. Uh, that really kept me engaged and I think kudos to them for just being savvy, you know, people managers through that process, but I certainly learned a lot through it.
Um, I'm very grateful for that opportunity.
So if you're looking back, what would you tell yourself who's two years in or three years in, you know, thinking about there's a, obviously this journey isn't meant for everybody. You know, there's some, some people that, that. You know, that they're, they're meant to continue to climb that ladder and that's what life holds for them.
But would you tell yourself to do the same thing over again or how, what would you say?
You know, I think when you start talking about doing things over again, um, we're sitting in a privileged position, having a viewpoint of 2020. And I think a few, a few ways that that comes to life. One is. You get to react to the bad decisions afterwards.
But in the moment, you're just simply acting. And you have to make a decision. The worst thing is paralysis. So to not make a decision is worse than making a bad decision. So I'd say that, um, you know, two years in, three years in, thinking about where my career was at, to make a shift in that, uh, time would have been really risky.
And here's why. I don't know if I had developed the maturity, the skill set, or the capacity to actually be a leader in a, in a, uh, uh, a growth oriented company that I could truly say is our own and defend that position. I think when you're talking to creditors, financiers, they want to understand that they're making a, they're making a bet on somebody that they can believe in.
And I think, like, I mean, I would have been a 25 year old kid, like, I mean, realistically. Not to throw any shade at anyone but there's just a lot that you need to learn and a lot of life that you need to go through before you start settling to recognize like, okay, here are my core competencies, here's what I'm really good at, here's how I can define that and ultimately bring value.
Um, you know, whether you're working for yourself but just, I can, I can confidently bet on myself and know that we're gonna win because the most, you know, risky bets yourself and you just eliminate that with more experience and time.
How do you know you're ready?
You know, I think it's a combination of, um, of, you know, Proverbs talks a lot about bringing wise mentors.
Like, there is victory in the presence of many counselors. And, you know, and you can, uh, and I would say, I would make a caveat, which is, counselors with proven success, right? Like, you can't just listen to anybody. You gotta listen to the right, you know, the right somebody. And, um, so when are you ready, I think it's, it's a combination of, um, of will and skill.
And I think you have to have a certain area of will, um, but then you really do have to have the right amount of skill to back it up. And then, um, you know, I think the other component of that is capital. Um, there has to be a component of, look, I have an ambition to go from A to B or, you know, B to C, but I have to have a plan.
Like hope isn't a strategy. I know these are cheesy, corny. platitudes for management, but hope isn't a strategy. You actually have to have a strategy to be a strategy. And I think my time in corporate America helped to mature that, um, that opinion. My wife, on the other hand, I don't, we wouldn't be here without her.
And, um, we met in 2013. Um, so after I'd already made my national tour with Kellogg's back in You know, corporate America got introduced, um, by mutual friends. She lived a life of entrepreneurship. Jump, ask questions later. And I think that it was her ambition to say, and her, her, um, boldness to step out and say, Hey, babe, this could actually work.
Here's the reasons why. That then allowed my over analytical mind to come in and say, like, all right, here, why do we need to make it work? How does it Yeah. What are the reasons why it couldn't work, like, might not work. Um, and I think that, that was a perfect combination exactly who God wanted me to be yoked with.
Um, because we still do that today. I mean, sometimes it's really good to have that, um, that, that, uh, that, that audacity to make a critical decision, uh, and live with the consequences. And it's, there's also a, there's a necessary component of building a company that's, uh, developing for scale. That is methodical, careful, and thought out.
That's amazing. Well, so I want to kind of talk about, all right, how you got here. So if you're ever, anyone who's listening right now, we're in store number one, site number one. Um, we've got some biscuits right here. Nick already ate his first one. Um, the, yeah, talk, talk about, so how long were you in Northwest Arkansas before it was like, hey, I think you said that God told, Um, okay.
That was it. You know, it was a breakfast concept. I mean, have you always been a breakfast person? It was
three months, a grand total of three months. Uh, we were here and then, uh, she was gardening and just, she's like, I don't, Sam, I know this sounds crazy. I don't think I've ever heard the verbal, like audible voice of God, but like, I really am confident that this is what we're supposed to do.
And you know, as a man, uh, somebody who, You know, loves to lead well and lead boldly. You know, I think I had a choice at that time to say, hey, babe, no, I've got a plan. I've got a way to do this. We're going to get somewhere. Or say, hey, God put this woman in my life. I need to be Um, honoring and respectful and listen, let's, let's really vet this out.
And as we started knocking on doors, doors flew open. And, um, you want to talk about the culture of entrepreneurship and founders here in Northwest Arkansas. Like this is a great example of that. Um, because everyone Ana reached out to from, you know, um, realtors to business brokers to bankers, um, they were supportive.
And in fact, continue to, you know, really address the. The, the problems through introductions to say, Hey, I don't know, but here's who does go that direction, go that direction. And it just kept transferring on down the line. And we just saw that be a really fertile, uh, environment.
It's interesting to hear you say that because I've heard that from multiple folks here now.
It's like, there's something unique here. It's like, I want you to win and like, you want me to win. There's a collective of like, Hey, let's, let's build this whole area together. And, uh, That's really cool, even in that, in the inception period, when, I mean, like you said, you had no food background at all. Nope, nope.
And, uh, but tell, so tell us about, like, how did you come up with this concept?
Sure. So, you know, I mentioned earlier about this being driven by the needs of the community. And, you know, we started by, you know, you want to take any good product person, they go out and start talking to the consumers. Um, depends on how good the company is, if they actually listen or not, and if they decide to value and then do whatever they want.
But, um, I saw a lot of, uh, I got exposed to that. But we just listened. We went out and talked and said, Hey, where's your favorite place to eat? What do you like to eat? What's your, um, what menu items aren't out there that you wish you could get from your home state or your region of the country? And we really just listened.
Um, to our, to our friends, our community, um, random people we'd meet and, uh, we started building this kind of mentality. Along with that, we had to come up with a name. We're not Southerners, make no, make no claim to be. We've certainly adopted Arkansas as our home, have four, four beautiful daughters, um. And, uh, they're all born here in Arkansas, so we have direct ties now.
Biscuits were a new thing for us, but buttered biscuit, the butter and the, the, the hospitality that comes with making a great flaky, not cakey biscuit, something that uses six simple homegrown ingredients, is something that is, um, it's just soul. Like it just, It just resonates with the purpose, but our menu goes well beyond that.
So the concept and the brand, the menu, um, all really came from the community. I would say that this was not what Ana and Sam wanted. You know, if, uh, um, if, if, if I had my ways, then a steak and eggs type of, uh, a place, um, with some really high end steak and, you know, and just knock it out of the park. But, um, yeah, but that's, that's really what this, That's where the brand started from and it really was had a whole purpose of like, let's meet the needs of the community.
So roughly three months from idea in the garden to like,
I'd say about, and so, um, seven months was when we had, she had kind of the, the mandate from God, let's put it that way. And it's, and this is something that she'll often refer to. It's pretty exciting to think about that. But about seven months we located real estate, really built out the strategy behind what a business would look like.
Um, Again, you know, you can have, um, you know, I love shooting sports. So like, there's a difference between firing a lot of bullets at one target and firing one bullet at the right spot on the target. And you know, your effectiveness goes up, your cost goes down, your, you know, and it's all about accuracy. So how do you demand accuracy out of limited shots.
Well, I understood where we were at from our financial position. I didn't have a lot of bullets. I only had one bullet, right? And we had to make that bullet hit the target. So we started eliminating and, you know, kind of mitigating risk. Well, as a, you know, real estate background, how do you eliminate risk?
Well, You make sure your lease deal's right, like the deal you're going into. So, business fails, you still have an asset. You still have dirt, you still have building, you can release this. Um, you know, that was one component. Another one is not looking at too big of a building, too small of a building. So, we did some cost analysis of what average ticket checks were going to be.
Um, really tried to back in kind of a strategic business picture of like, what does our menu need to be at? What, where do we price? What's our average pricing threshold? What do we think our throughputs are? I mean, the same calculations you do when you're building any business to say like, hey, is this a viable business option?
Um, and I think for us, it, it took, That whole process, finding the building, closing on the building, took about seven months. And then, uh, and then it was just hit the ground running. Um, we brought in a consultant for that first, uh, that first initial open. Never have had to bring one back since. We've opened all of our stores internally.
Um, And did the
consultant help you curate the menu?
You know, the menu was created overnight at the kitchen table. Uh, my wife and the consultant did sit down. We worked with a local food partner, um, and said, hey, here's our thoughts. Let's. Ideate is there anything else we need to consider but we're talking about probably within the span of about three days We came up with the menu Again, everything is incredibly truncated as far as the speed of execution, right?
so, I mean you could go on to chat GBT today and And and say like hey make me a breakfast menu that fits this brand and it can spit you out back You know rewind the clock eight nine years ago. You had Google. Yeah. And you had to do some more keyword searching, but you could figure out stuff pretty fast.
Um, and there's enough latent industry knowledge that's out there that, again, it's all about execution. Um, execution, care for the people, and the culture that you build is, is how you execute on a, uh, on a, on a, uh, food concept.
So seven months from the idea. to opening or the buying of the building?
Acquisition of the building. Okay, so then after acquisition of the building.
Yeah, we got the keys and literally 40 days later we opened the doors.
And that was the 135 figure you talked about. That's what y'all invested into the building to get, and y'all did all that in 40 days?
Yeah, that doesn't take into consideration down payment on the building.
But that would just be like the remodel costs. And we're sitting in a little room that was used once as an office. We knocked the wall out and put in French doors. We bought it. Home Depot and my brother in law painted and like, you know, we, there were things that we've done, um, since then that have significantly upgraded.
I remember back about six months in and we bought a 25, 000 oven, um, to maintain consistency and increase quality. Well, we actually had cash flow to do that with. Um, so, but initially we bought pretty budget equipment and, you know, it's, it's, it's worked out all right.
In buying a building, we've talked to a few, we've talked to a few restaurant operators now, I don't know that that's in the blueprint in opening a restaurant.
What was that? Was that strategic? Was it accidental? I mean, kind of walk us through. That's a pretty big decision, I'd say. So like, walk us through. What was going through your mind?
So the price point of the building was critical that we were looking at. And, um, we wanted to make sure that the, the, um, the projected rates of, of sales could generate a specifically found a key KPI that we were supposed to be at for, um, like cost of occupancy of like, what, what should a business perform at the performance that we were anticipating?
Here's what we think we can afford to look at. Well, this was back in 2017. Rates are still really low. Um, there was, uh, you know, this area in northwest Arkansas hadn't seen the expansion that it even has today. And this building was a blighted building. Um, so we found a business, this is our, this is the third business that's in the business building.
There was a car lot, then another restaurant, and then us. At the time, I don't think we were, wise to the fact that that often a predictor of failure, um, and, and now we've, we've, we understand how unbelievably rare this is, um, to have that work. Um, and you know, and of course this was before Walmart announced their new campus, literally less than a hundred yards from our front door, um, which is also just total God thing.
You know, Buying the building for us wasn't as big of a risk as, uh, me quitting my corporate job seven days after opening. Um, I think my bosses, they still don't understand, but, you know, they certainly see the results. Um, because I'd done real estate. You have to remember that my, my path into entrepreneurship was buying really, You know, well thought out real estate and guys, I had a tenant, it was my wife, like she was going to be renting from me and, and, uh, we knew, we believed that the business volume could pay for the building note plus, you know, plus incidentals.
That's good. So it's like you, you were, you were using the knowledge you'd already, I mean, you'd already three rental properties by that seven doors. Yeah. So you, you're kind of rolling. It's a combination of
cash flow and, um, you know, and, uh, and tenant, right? So quality of tenant and cash flow, you know, can, how can you manage the note?
And, um, this isn't a new game. This is a game that people have played for decades to leverage and build income. I think there've been some, I've learned a lot through this process. Um, but. Yeah, it worked out really well. We were able tole and uh, and then reappraise the building and that allowed us a working capital to can continue to grow.
So, yeah, it was good.
So why Bentonville? Do you live in Bentonville? What was the We knew we wanted here. Yeah. We live in
Bentonville. I think it goes back to the need of the community. So we wanted to create a breakfast restaurant that was for the community, by the community we lived in Bentonville. Um, we were pretty, you know, we didn't realize, we didn't know where in the town we wanted to be.
We knew Fayetteville had some great breakfast options at the time. We knew that Springdale had some old school breakfast options and Rogers even had some. But Bentonville really didn't have any. Yeah. Our, our target audience is really, you know, um, we want to provide breakfast to really the working class.
Um, not. the low end to where people don't, you know, but they, we want people to feel comfortable here. Like this is for the people of this city. Um, this isn't just for the one percenters that only want to go to, you know, um, you know, certain restaurants and never frequent anything else. But this also isn't Denny's, Waffle House, Cracker Barrel, or IHOP, because we make everything from scratch.
Um, you know, so yeah, I think it's Bentonville is definitely was the right spot. Um, we were passionate about this city. It wasn't, uh, even 10 years ago when we opened, it wasn't what it is today, um, but, uh, uh, certainly compelled with a vision of what it was even at that point.
And there was, there was still some growth happening in Bentonville in 2017, obviously not to the extent that there is now, but, so tailwinds from, from that perspective.
Sure. Talk us through, so it sounds like y'all are kind of tag teaming everything at this point, you and Ana, when you open. What are your roles? Do those kind of shift and change or is it just still all hands on deck trying to figure out how to operate a restaurant? I mean, what does that look like?
You know, I think, um, initially my role was going to be kind of strategic oversight and, like, help with the construction and really help bring my wife's dream to reality.
She's 51 percent owner of the company and still is today. Um, It was, uh, I have a lot of, like, I have a lot of mechanical and construction background being a hustler as a, uh, you know, yard boy, uh, growing up in Michigan, um, so I was willing to help out wherever it was needed. The ambition was really, she'd run the restaurant and I'd stay pursuing my corporate, you know, kind of trajectory and path, um.
Within the first five days of opening, though, we realized that the volume numbers that we had, the demand from the community was so exceptional that, um, it really lent itself to full time engagement. Um, and the beast that we had birthed, uh, was bigger than just what my wife could handle, not from a capacity standpoint, but there's just a lot more opportunity on the table than I think we even realized as a latent demand in this, this market.
Um, And I think that was something we wanted to capture. And again, being an aspiring entrepreneur my entire life, it's saying like, Hey, here's the risk. We go out and do something doesn't work. I could throw a rock and both with the relationships, the friendships and my skills could probably get another job in CPG world somewhere in the greater Northwest Arkansas market.
I mean, this is a great market for taking a risk. Um, because of the other employers that are out there, not in a cocky way, but just in a humble saying like, Hey, I think I could add value. And, you know, a lot of different areas. Um, and, you know, quite frankly, I think Kellogg would have wanted me back as well.
Um, it was a pretty, you know, again, it was a safer bet. And I think some people say, Oh man, Probably pretty nervous. It's like, there was a, um, call it we were too naive to be nervous, but I think there was a lot of just, Holy Spirit was just really giving us a lot of courage, um, that we needed to take these bold moves.
It's really good. So early on, was there anything, obviously buying the building, you can look back and you're like, wow, that was a really wise decision. Was there anything else y'all did early on that you're like? If you're a, if you're a young entrepreneur listening, you're like, Hey, here's some things I did really well.
We're proud of. And then maybe on the flip side of that, Hey, here's some mistakes we made early on that I wish we would have a do over.
Yeah. So, you know, there's some things that I think we did with our, our limited skill and ability that we're like, yeah, we knew we had to make a decision. We made the right decision and it worked out really well.
There are other things we completely locked into and I don't think we've realized how good of a decision we made until. Sometimes years later, so one thing that we made a very intentional decision on was creating a what we call our brand card. And I would encourage any low, any, any business, whether it be a cleaning company or whether it be, uh, you know, a single entrepreneur who starts a franchise location to create your own identity through a brand card.
And what it does is it, it institutes the corporate brand ideals, the virtues, be a virtue based business. What virtue based businesses allow for is consistency of hiring. You can set the standards, say, here's what we stand for. You don't have to look the way I do, walk the way I do, talk the way I do, go to the same church, or no church at all.
But these are all the values that we are consistent on. For us, it's honesty, ownership, care, excellence, and positivity. We have definitions under each one of these components, but really what this gets to is like, You either fit with the culture or you don't and it's going to be based on these. So I'd highly encourage any entrepreneur to think about creating a value based, value driven company.
That's something that's significant to them. Second thing is the actual why and how to. On the flip side of that card, um, you know, uh, actually pulling from your uncle, uh, he was a very big on saying like, Hey, here are. You know, kind of corporate high level thinking around the mission and vision. Uh, but ultimately here are the specific things that we deem to be descript, that we want every guest to internalize and, and, and recognize.
That's, those are things that we created very early on. And we're still using that today. It's the middle of our wheel. Um, it's the hub. The other thing we did was called, uh, this is nothing new. Yeah, go ahead and just
touch, touch on that again. So that's, So is that like a core statement that all the employees know and my uncle Scott Clark who was at Chick fil a here, so another food service business obviously, but so this is like a, do you talk to the employees about that on a regular basis?
How does that get instilled? Everything comes
back to it. Pretty much every conversation that we have somewhere comes back into that brand card and it's everything from our core values to what we call our Four Pillars, which is atmosphere, service, culture, and food, or safety. Um, to how great guests should be greeted, how the food should be prepared.
Everything comes back to that core value. So, whether it be cleanliness of the environment, whether it be the way that people are talked to and addressed, How constructive feedback is given to employees. It all revolves around that as a primary central mission. Um, so that was something that we did very early on that was influenced by outside mentors that really said like, Hey, this is something that is really significant.
The other thing, and there's two more, I'll go quickly. One is, um, I would say is nothing more than a brand strategy. And for any entrepreneur, you must define Your target your competition and your purpose like you have to if you don't I will not invest you should not invest Like it is not worth it. If you don't know who you're competing against what's your fundamental problem?
You're trying to solve and who else's and and and how you're gonna take this to market because Ultimately what that does is it shows me the size of prize and it shows me how I'm going to do it differently than my competitors. I know exactly how I do this differently than Homegrown, First Watch, Toasted Yolk, Prelude, Arcega's, Onyx, Uh, and everybody else that is either currently in business or will be in business.
Because we have defendable space and that was And we were able to be strategic in that one bullet, shoot it, hit the target that came out of our brand strategy. And that was something we did very early on. Actually, before we even have a name, we had our brand strategy put together. And that is critical for any entrepreneur who's trying to get in.
Um, one thing that happened very well that was shocking was buying the building, had no idea that it would turn out as well as it did. Um, there's a lot of risk involved with buying buildings, but ultimately this situation turned out very well.
Did you have advisors on that as well, too? You
know, we worked with a great broker, um, and uh, certainly helped to get the deal done, but it wasn't, we actually had to leapfrog and take from another concept that was interested in it.
I do think that, um, From knowing the numbers and being confident with the numbers really did come from, you know, kind of internal both my wife and I's background and just being in real estate and understanding kind of our comfort level with what we thought our projected numbers of sales would be versus what they actually turned out to be.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah. Both of those seem like slam dunks from the outside looking in the buildings, obvious, like you said, when you're looking back. It's like, it's obvious at that time it was much more risky and much more uncertain. And then the brand card and we'll obviously get to your business scaling as much as y'all have and as operationally complex as, as a restaurant is times five, six locations.
Now, um, you have to have something that's central that you point back to. And I don't know if that was the exact intention at the time. It sounds like there was a lot of strategy behind that. Um, but yeah, talk us through maybe some mistakes too. Cause one of the things that, You know, in this entrepreneurial space, a lot of people love to talk about the success that they've had, and not very many people like to talk about, hey, here's some things we screwed up on or could have done better, and so we'd love to hear those from you.
Yeah. So, one of them started out, and never having run a restaurant before, always being a part of large corporations, there are certain policies and procedures. that a large corporation has, you just don't think about like why are they there, they're just there. And very quickly we realized as we were spending hours trying to like make all these little decisions, that's like, we really need a strong policy manual.
And so we wish that we would have instituted a really strong policy manual earlier on. It becomes a lot easier to manage employees when you basically say, hey, it's not me, that's our policy. Like, and you get to manage to the policy. It drives consistency. Um, there's some early examples of like how we did tip payout and we started every day at the end of shift, any server who'd earned credit card tips, we'd pay him cash for it.
And then we'd get the credit card bill at the end and you know, and it would clear a couple of days later, created unbelievable complexity in our operations. Um, that was a mistake early on. We should have just started out with, Hey. You get your tip, you know, your credit card tips two weeks later when you get your paycheck like and that's what most companies do.
Uh, we were kind of at the time really not knowing what to do differently. That was one thing. You know, there's been some business missteps that we've made. Um, we actually launched a food truck in back in 2021. Uh, Built it out. Beautiful food truck. Um, tried to operate it for about 10 months. Realized this really isn't our sweet spot.
Took a lot of operational efficiency to just management, just time and the dollars. You know, we went backwards. Um, we just lost money on the bus, lost, or lost money on the operations, lost money on the manager. It is just all across the board, and there was no path to getting to become profitable the way we were doing the bus, and I think our ambition and really the bigger prize for us was multiple unit, multi state scale, and we really needed, you know, regardless of the very expensive haircut we took, Um, it was worth it to just cut our losses and move on and, uh, and, and kind of close that chapter of the book.
Um, you know, I think when you look at other things that we've adapted or grown from over time, I wouldn't necessarily call them mistakes. I would call them, You know, and I'm thinking like we used to outsource manufacturing of our biscuits to a local women owned baker here in town. She did a phenomenal work.
Um, but that's our signature asset. Like, that's our thing. Initially, I think it took load off of our shoulders so it allowed us to focus on the other things. Now, Biscuits have become really the hero product, as they should be, and um, I think it gave us time to grow as an operator that then was able to bring it in house.
Um, you know, I think that, uh, those have been, those have been some areas where we've had just an unbelievable opportunity to learn from our people, our staff and our guests and our communities to how do we continually improve and grow in our business.
That's good. Before we move on to scaling, because I think there's a lot of questions and I feel like you have a ton of knowledge, even just from the inception, that was part of.
It sounds like your strategy, but walk us through those early days. You said first five days, you knew y'all had a successful business on your hands. I think you, the benchmark was maybe seven days after you quit your job. So walk us through those kind of first, maybe the first month of opening, what that looked like, what the hours looked like, what your roles look like.
Uh, all of that.
So a few things kind of characterize the first couple of weeks and then cut for several months. One was, um, again, You know, being a corporate strategy, I think that, um, hope isn't a strategy, a strategy is a strategy. So it's like, we had a very clear picture of how many guests we had to serve at a very specific dollar price point.
And within the first week, we realized that we were 3x those numbers. Um, the, the interest of the community was way larger than what we had originally anticipated. When people would wait two hours to get a seat, they'd wait an hour for food because we weren't able to produce very quickly. And they'd still leave and say they'd be back.
They weren't mad. And I think, like, Grace and, and, you know, the, the community deserves a W here because they were the ones who put up with really long service, really hard to access. And we, we made a name for ourselves at a local, uh, police in neighborhoods because we drove the neighbors nuts. Um, because people were lining our local community streets here trying to get in.
And, and I think like they deserve the W they, they're, they're the ones who brought this business into life because they were willing to put up with our challenges, overlook our shortcomings and say, Hey, we're gonna, we're gonna all hold hands and do this together. Um, and I just think it really demonstrated that demand that was here, but it also demonstrated that we really did meet a need in the community that was.
Not, not being fulfilled by anybody else. So, that was one key metric. Um, that was two key metrics. One was sales and, and traffic. One was just the reception from the community. Um, third, we made some pretty big decisions. We actually, our first menu, we had a breakfast side and a lunch side. And, uh, day two, We took a permanent marker and X ed out the lunch side.
And we realized, like, look, there's other lunch businesses in this town. There's no breakfast. We want to be known for breakfast. And, you know, and that's been something that's been our motion, our, our initiative going forward. It's like, we are breakfast, brunch, and lunch. We will do lunch. But ultimately it's one menu and there's lunch items.
You can get fried chicken and unbelievable sandwiches here. Um, but ultimately, like when you think of breakfast, I want you to think buttered biscuit, like this is a place you're, you're going to, this is where relationships are built and communities are established around the table in our restaurants. So, you know, I think looking at those factors, Nick really helped to give us confidence, um, to then, and then also recognizing like.
You know, if this doesn't work, we've got options. Like, you know, I'd say let's, let's really go at this hard and see if we can't win.
So you quit your job, you're all in. You and An are all in.
Yep.
Are y'all here all the time, first couple months? I mean,
all the time and more. Uh, so I remember, you know, classic, um, working the shift and being on the phone on tech support for our POS system for hours.
Um, I remember being taught how to roll silverware by our, our, our service staff. They won because I never rolled silverware. I remember walking in day one and like, I came in to give her a high five and way to go. Congratulations, your store open. I'm out. And I was dressed in my corporate attire. So wingtip shoes and the whole.
You know, the whole look and uh, I ended up staying all day and calling my boss and saying like, Hey, I, I, I'm not coming in today. Like this is where snowed. Um, and you know, I think it just, it just goes to show you the, um, uh, the willingness to just go all in and adapt to the demands that are being required and then figure out like just problem solve.
And, and there were so many small problems that came up, everything from, Coffee grinder's not working, to um, long ticket times, to nobody even knew how to cook this stuff, to, like, dishwasher's not working. I mean, we had drain backups. Within the first two weeks, we had, You know, all the drains in the building backed up because the grease trap from the prior restaurant hadn't been tied into the parking lot properly.
So we had the whole parking lot torn up. I mean, these are things that's like you look back on and I almost have PTSD on it because it's like, Oh my word. But you just, you know, um, it's like. We, my wife and I, we have four, four daughters. We often talk about birthing restaurants almost like a, like a labor and delivery and you guys are both fathers.
Um, you know, it's painful. It's insanely painful. It's not a fun process. Pregnancies are difficult. They're not fun for either partner, but certainly for the wives. But then what you get out of it is this joy of a child and the satisfaction of raising the next generation. But there's a lot of training that goes into this.
There's a lot of time and energy and consistency and love that needs to get poured back into this child. Businesses are no different. They're painful to, they're painful to open, they're painful to run. They maintain, you know, you're dealing with people, um, which is both the best and the worst part of the, the equation.
Um, and you know, and that's been, uh, that's definitely been something we've, you know, continued to just focus on is development and coaching and, and adapting to whatever problems thrown at us. So.
So good. And so y'all have chosen to do that five, maybe six times now. So let's kind of move to that piece.
You first restaurant here, Bentonville, I mean, y'all are, like you said, three X the numbers that you needed to do to make the project work early on. Assume some, some cashflow starting to come out of it. Obviously the building was a slam dunk, so you've got some working capital there. When, I mean, how, how, how far are you in, how far are you and Anna into this location before you're like, Hey, I think we need to open another one.
Yeah, so we opened this location in April of 2017 and we probably were looking at real estate in Fayetteville actually by end of 2017 Realizing like hey, we want to open up another store Nothing really became available like we couldn't get deals done down in Fayetteville and we you know It was not for a lack of effort.
It was not for it was just you know now looking back I really see the Providence hand of God In this whole process. But you know, at the same component, the number one complaint was parking in this location and we actually attempted to purchase an adjacent lot. Um, the landlord or the owner of the other lot was, uh, just, you know, had a pretty strong opinion on what the value was.
And, um, every time I'd offer him a number, he'd, you know, he'd give me a number. I'd go to the bank. I'd get the number. He'd then raise it by a hundred grand. And by the time he did this a third time, I'm like, Dude, we're done. Yeah. Like, I'm not playing this game with you. Yeah. Because then you turn around and tell the next person, Oh, I just had somebody offer me this.
And they're just driving the price up. He has no intention of selling this thing. And, um, so, you know, right about that same period, uh, one of my friends who ran a pizza restaurant on the west side of town was like, Hey, I want out of my lease. That's not going well. And, you know, we really were recognized that a lot of our demand was 10, Cave Springs area.
Um, and so that was where our location number two came in. This was in the same timeframe, 2019, where we were looking at opening a location in Springdale. Um, and you know, looking at Springdale, Fayetteville and Bentonville is kind of the three pillars in this market. Um, looking at this real estate, we could get a, you know, make, make accessible and get into.
So, uh, open both of those stores, one in November of 19, one in January of 2020. We all know what happened in 2020, about six weeks later, uh, five weeks later, um, punch in the gut, certainly. But I think that, uh, again, the community came out and supported, uh, we ended the year of 2020 with a 2 percent profit margin without any federal subsidies or federal money, which obviously we were eligible for.
We went after every dollar that we could. Um, and, but it was just really shocking to see the amount of community support as we shifted to, did everything that we were supposed to. Everything from dropping, you know, it was ridiculous. Um, and I think that, you know, being willing to be adaptive in those times, I mean, nimble, was a really key component of how it helped us come out the other side stronger.
So Centerdim was 2019? Centerdim
was November 19. Springdale was Spring of 2020. Yeah, January 2020.
And how far between COVID was, was
Shoot, we opened January 20th and when did the lockdowns happen? Like March 5th.
Okay, so we're operating We're
legitimately five weeks after grand opening. Yeah. We had lockdown orders.
Okay. Ha, ha, ha. Yeah, so You want to talk about PTSD. Yeah. You know, you're like, Hey, you know, we just hired 70 staff members and now we're laying you all off except for the two salaried managers. Like It's just not great.
So you've had a couple of years of business under your belt at this location before you scale.
So like talk about was that necessary and then how did that help the operations run smoothly. And I, and I feel like you're, you're going to have a very strategic answer to this because it seems like that's what you and Ana have done from the get go. So talk about like, how are your restaurants made up?
You just mentioned managers. I think we've talked before about district managers. Kind of walk us through, um, some of that and how that allowed you to be successful and to scale successfully.
Um, I would say that the, in the restaurant world, there's really, you know, there's really three things that have to come into play.
One is. Your, your guests have to be taken care of, your food has to be made, and your staff has to be happy.
Like,
and they all are symbiotic with each other. Um, you know, of those three things, what I feel like is there have been times where, um, my focus has been more on one or another. That ultimately has gotten different results.
Um, 2019, 20, 2019 was very much of a growth year. Spending a lot of time in developing, building, constructing. 2020 was all about crisis management. Like, it really was crisis management. 21, we opened up our, we opened up our fourth location in November of 21. Okay, so now you go from Fayetteville, it was open November 21.
That's a year after. The hard year COVID, and guess what? COVID still was going on. We were still getting, there were still government lockdown orders as of Q3 of 2021. Okay, so we opened our fourth location in November of 2021. By the time we opened our fourth location, we had experimented with different management styles.
General managers, regional managers. We had a district manager for a little while. Like, then we scaled back. And it really depended on the needs of the business. I ultimately understood that to grow this business, which is where we wanted to go. You can't work in the business, you gotta work on the business.
But to work on the business, you have to get in the business working properly. You can't, this is where you have to hire competent people, train them, set accountabilities, and hold them accountable to actually get the job done. Like, the biscuits have to get made. People have to unlock the doors. You gotta close the buildings.
You gotta touch the tables. Take the tickets, like. It all has to happen, um, and, you know, so through that process, there have been different focuses of our, of our journey, which kind of brings us to that 2022 time window where we had a decision to make of do we, you know, really 2022, um, was operations. It was, we had a very profitable year in 2022 with four stores running, there's a lot of positive, um, things going on.
Come on to 2023. The question was, do we grow? Do we scale? How do we scale that? We just kind of keep going opportunistic real estate locations. I can't say I've been thrilled with our real estate picks here in Northwest Arkansas. There's better real estate that's out there. Um, as a brick and mortar restaurant, I think I have a lot of thoughts around how other brick and mortar should be thinking about the real estate, but we got what we could get at the time.
And I. Don't want to say I'm not happy. We did it because of the scale that we were able to get to, and you have to have a critical mass of units to be able to actually have the management in place and the PNL overhead and, you know, a big component of this guys is. You know, we wanted to self fund this development.
We did not want to take on outside capital partners that had different agendas. We've been pitched multiple times from, you know, larger groups. Um, and we keep turning them down because it comes back to culture. It comes back to people. It comes back to why we do what we do, feeling compelled to bring this brand to the market.
And their ambition for growth and profit supersedes the culture that we want to build here.
And I assume that's why you said no to franchising, correct? Absolutely. There are no franchises.
Not at all.
Um, and, and because of that reason? Yes.
I think to grow, you know, uh, our ambition is to be at 100 units in 10 years.
Um, we want to be at 15 units in the next three. Um, I think we have a very clear plan. In 2022, we made a decision to use a commercial, um, Architect and construction management team out of North Carolina, um, build a relationship with a consultant out of Dallas who really helps to take restaurants out of home markets and build them into super regionals, um, and, you know, really put together the right development team.
Uh, along with that, we started building a prototype model, really changing up our real estate selection criteria of what we wanted to look for. For as we expand and grow and you know, and what we saw in the store, we opened up in May is everything came true. Like I pick better real estate, build nicer buildings.
We get, you know, better execution, better consistency. Better profit like a better everything is is is better as long as we can execute with excellence
to be clear May was your first little rock store,
correct? That's our first prototype store and and so we did make a brand pivot back in I think we launched the brand the rebrand in 2000 I guess it'd be 13 late 13 So it took us about 18 months to develop the prototype and then in about February of 24 We started construction opened in May Of 24, um, and now we're fixing to open up our second location here by the end of the year in Little Rock, which is our second prototype store.
And so, I mean, I think it kind of goes back to too, when you, you were talking earlier so much about the team and, and I mean, someone teaching you how to roll silverware, you know, like, but, uh, you're building out a whole nother team on the real estate side of just, just different jobs. It's just different.
And I'm sure in the same side on the management side of. Or you think you're building out a whole different team there. There's just different expectations and different, um, yeah, it's, you're thinking about the future though.
You know, entrepreneurship is a, it's, it's a, um, it's, it's chapters and the leader, you know, a company's only going to grow as high as the leader's developed.
And people talk about seven different layers of entrepreneurship or seven different, you know, basically phases. And if an entrepreneur is willing to grow and develop their own capabilities, the team is going to continue to grow underneath them. But ultimately, a lot of people have a hard time scaling because they don't understand what got them to this point is not going to get them to the next point.
And, you know, and, and onward. Um, so the behaviors of me, you know, it's a funny conversation. I love to fix things and I look at it and I'm like, oh man, it's going to cost 250 to have somebody come in here, tighten some screws and adjust this. I can do that. I have a toolbox in the back of my truck. So, you know, one of the things my consultant, love the guy, he's like, Sam, I want you to take your toolbox out of your truck.
Just do it. Just call. And he's like, put it in the dumpster. You're so confident. Most operators are not, like, when they get to this level, they don't know how to do these things. Because they've invested into a group or I mean, shoot, like look around this room specifically and I can tell you exactly what I've done here in this very room to bring this room to life and everything from like the molding to the light fixtures to the speakers, the ceiling tiles, the HVAC units that are above here to mounting the TV to the DVR.
Like, I mean, I know this whole room, like this whole thing. Yeah. Now going forward, you know, we have this new store opening next week. We'll have our final health inspection and bring our first food truck in on Monday. Um, so we'll be literally selling biscuits by Christmas. I visited that store four times and one was pre construction, one was mid construction, one was Almost end of construction was last week.
Wow. And
I'll be there one more time Friday. That's it. And now, obviously, during training and development in January, I'll be there a lot more to make sure the team gets trained properly, because, again, it all comes down to people, which is all about execution. Um, but from a construction standpoint, I've really taken a hands off approach now.
So you got to transfer and transition.
And so do you have an office for, call it a corporate or executives, whatever, whatever your management team here, is everyone working out at stores still?
You know, we're co sharing or co working, um, over at the Ledger. Uh, we have, you know, our kind of operations manager.
She offices out of the Ledger and I've got a community marketing manager who works out of the Ledger as well. Um, and that's it, me. Um, so we have a very lean team, uh, we use a lot of kind of a, um, you know, I love sourcing our financial accountants, our third party, our payroll's third party, our software's third party.
Like, I love leveraging the strengths of other businesses and, cause I find I can actually get higher level experience at a lower cost versus no, trying to bring it all in house. And again, this is, this is a strategic decision to say like. I want to own as much equity as we can between my wife and I and still hit the growth targets we need to hit.
So it sounds like a pivot recently has been the strategy around real estate, whether it's the building, the location, the product, all of the above. When you were, as I'm kind of rolling through these, Bentonville, you know, Centerton 2019, Springdale. Do you own all of those different buildings or are you leasing some of them?
Okay.
No, so we own, we own two of the six locations that we are in. Um, and I think that, you know, real estate is first love. I mean, you're never gonna, never gonna leave it, but I think that ultimately we want to make this brand an investor grade brand. Um, we care about the people, uh, that, that are doing this.
We care about the communities we're impacting. We know that it's food and people that drive the business. The real estate for us is, um, was critical in the early and now this. But what we've been able to demonstrate is proven cash flow and, you know, kind of consistency of business that allows us to be, you know, bankable and, uh, and really that's what you need for expansion, um, to be that, that kind of asset driven kind of brand.
Um, and we have had a great partnership with, with our bank, um, that has really helped to support us in that process.
And so is this new model, a ground up model, or is this a. Are you going, are you still taking existing locations or remodeling them? Yeah, we're open to both.
Um, I think it's all about location of parking visibility and access.
Um, I think the two locations that are going in dirt now, uh, or that are open. So, uh, what we call Promenade and Chenal, West Little Rock, and then the Heights in Little Rock, both of these were existing buildings. One was a hundred year old building that has, uh, Just unbelievable story behind it. Um, it went from being a hometown grocer, kind of a local grocery market, now to, you know, us.
Um, and a bunch of things in between. Um, and the other location is a, is a great lifestyle center, kind of outdoor mall model. Um, some of our neighbors are like, Let's see, Gearhead Outfitters, another great Arkansas brand, um, you know, Lululemon, Sephora. I mean, um, you've got local Lime is in there. It's just a really great center that really attracts our clientele and we want to be a part of those, those conversations.
Yeah. So we're open to ground up, but we also love second gen spaces, um, if they're in the right traffic location.
Yeah. I just know construction costs right now is the biggest challenge for everybody. And just, uh. Um, yeah, in the franchise world, but, um, that's, that's interesting.
So we talked some of the, the early on mistakes.
I imagine there are some, the mistakes as, as you scale, the dollar sign gets bigger. As you're kind of going through, I mean, you're at your five, six locations now about to open, open up your six. What are some of those kind of big pivot areas or ways you, y'all have tripped up in, in kind of expansion?
You know, I think, um, this hasn't been a recent one.
I think our current, our current. Last two years of sharpening our brand, developing our prototype, launching our prototype, have all been very successful. Um, and that's what gives us confidence to continue to grow. I think our, one of our early mistakes, and I didn't touch on this, but it does revolve around real estate.
We listen to broker, that really played both sides of the table and they were pretty unethical in my perspective. Um, they, you know, I, I've actually had a conversation with a junior broker who worked with me since then and he actually straight up apologized for the way they handled this. Certainly not something we're going to pursue litigation on, but it was pretty dishonest how they handled the situation, misrepresenting the property, the space, um, lock, you know, kind of.
Working through the naivety of somebody who hadn't, didn't have this background of, um, kind of commercial real estate to defend themselves and how to write leases. Yeah. And I would just encourage, like, anybody who's looking at writing a lease, don't just go with your local attorney. Like, really get somebody who understands retail leasing because there's a lot of ways you can get screwed.
And I think this specific property, um, our CAM fees are. They're probably about 110 percent more than our rent right now. And there's nothing we can do about it. So like if rent just to use round numbers is 5, 000 or camp six, like it's pretty disgusting.
So, and to be clear, cam is common area, common area
maintenance.
It'd be things like, you know, they claim it's, they claim it's, um, water and landscaping and insurance on the building and. But there's a lot of other stuff that gets wrapped into those numbers and unethical landlords. And
if it's not, I mean, back to the having a true real estate attorney, it's like a true real estate attorney is going to scratch that out all day.
And it's like, yeah, it's, I mean, you can call it, call it with any, you know, whether it be an attorney or broker or whoever there, there's specialization is what is, what does someone actually do? Uh, you know, are they, yeah,
sorry. And, you know, and what ended up happening is this same operator ended up. Or the same broker ended up flipping the building.
He was our representative on the lease. Two years later, he was the listing agent on the building selling it. And he's just like, alright, so you really were just trying to back us into a number to drive your cap rate on that center being sold? And it just, again, I think our early lesson was a very costly one, um, is both like get the deal, you know, get the wise counsel that's specifically specializing in retail law, but also recognize like, you know, your demographics that you're putting a brick and mortar store in your stock, like for a decade, five to 10 years, you're going to be investing anywhere between 500 on the low end to a million five on a high end.
And that's a debt that is carried by that business owner. Whether it be through private, you know, um, you know, kind of a personal guarantee or straight up capital, yeah, just collateral. I think it's, uh, that was a valuable lesson. We're certainly, uh, we're doing fine from a top line standpoint, but it's just like, it just hurts.
It's like, come on guys. It stinks. It stinks.
It's not going away either. It's like, oh
man, like this is a bum deal. And you know, I'll tell you what, I'll never work with that broker ever again. Anything I see on that, I'm like, I know the character of these people. And this is a bit good business lessons.
Don't do business with people who are, you know, you just don't, um, you just don't appreciate their character. Like character is everything. Trust that people, you know, be trustworthy. You want to be a man of your word and you also want people to, um, you know, have a, uh, um, you know, just tell it how it is.
It's cool to hear about just you building that team and kind of looking into what's, what's next and how do we, you know, figure out what's next, the next sites. Have you, as far as other markets go, How do you, how are you looking at seeing, okay, this market checks our box. This one does not. Um, is it, is this people led who you've got to, you know, locally over here?
Or is this more, is it more real estate led? What are you, what's driving that for you?
Um, you know, we were really excited to expand the Little Rock. This is an Arkansas based company. We understand that we're from Arkansas, for Arkansas, and if we're going to grow, we have to understand that Arkansas needs to get served.
Um, we're looking at every market that we feel like has that critical volume, uh, that would be able to sustain a Buttered Biscuit, even in some markets that might get overlooked by national players. Um, because quite frankly, we want to serve the needs of the local community. Um, our decision to expand is geographic but it's also people driven.
So, we're the people that need the restaurant, that have that opportunity to say like, hey, we want something like Buttered Biscuit in our community that, you know, is a value driven company that focuses on the quality of the food and the character of the people. Um, you know, we want to operate with honesty, ownership, care, excellence and positivity and we want to be in communities that also support that.
So, we're looking regionally. I think we're open to more, um kind of broader expansion and it certainly have to, to hit our targets. Uh, we think that, you know, we want to be in 30 to 35 markets in the next 10 years. And, uh, we'll probably need to take on a key age, you know, key partner, um, to help get us there.
But what we're pumped to see is that the caliber of people were developing in house and the training teams that we're starting to build and the capabilities is really exciting. So. Gone are the, like, you know, we want to leverage the knowledge of our team and, you know, move from a tribal to a systems based learning.
We're integrating kind of a digital training platform now. Like, there's so many cool things that we're bringing into place that, uh, that, you know, we're really building with 100 in mind. Um, we're not building with 10, we're building with 100 in mind. So every, every decision we're making is saying, like, Is this good now?
Can it be good then? Is it good now? Will it be good then? Like, if we're hiring, are we just hiring for today's need, or are we hiring for tomorrow's growth?
Yeah, which is easier said than done. I mean, in my head you're just thinking about all the, the brands that are coming to a decision of, do we, do we take the franchise money and, and that's a big growth pop there and you can, it's very visual to everyone across the country.
And then you've got the, the Chick fil A, the Canes, the In and out, like just the ones that have chose to like, kind of, you know, stay slower more, but like, Hey, we're going to, you know, there's some values, whether call them values or just, you know, personal beliefs, whatever, whatever, however you define them.
But, uh, the direct the ship, um, it's, it's cool to hear that story from. I
think, you know, the decision between, um, franchising versus kind of corporate owned, I think it's a decision that's unique to every founder. And I don't think it's one to be taken lightly. We talked earlier about our core values as a company.
It's important to remain true to who you are and what your core identity and, and, and purposes of being like, what is your. Reason why to believe and like pursue that with bigger and purpose. Um, you know, franchising from my perspective is not about just simply adding more units. It's, it's being able to do it well.
I don't want to do anything if I can't do it well. So how can I tell you how to run a. group of restaurants in another town if I don't even know what I'm doing in my town and I could fake it. I could try to put up a facade, but eventually that facade is going to fall and there needs to be something sub substantive and real that has a level of confidence.
So if we're going to build this strength and the support system, the support network, our support center ourselves for our own corporate growth. Or if we would need to do that for a, you know, for a franchise locations, why not just do it for ourselves? And, um, you know, I'm not saying franchising is never on the table.
I just, we need to grow before we consider franchising.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
So you said one of the kind of key tenets everyone should know is their competition. A hundred locations in ten years is a lofty goal. Is there anybody, who's your competition in that? In that, whether we're talking growth keggers or hyper growth or who's there right now in the breakfast space in your world.
Yeah, so, uh, First Watch is a 3, 000 store chain out of Sarasota, Florida. They're the behemoth in this category. Um, they're very good at what they do. They know what they're doing. They know what they don't do. Um, you know, we, we, we watch closely how they do it, but we also ultimately understand that we have very different offerings.
Um. You know, our, our tenants is, you know, ultimately in biscuit dough. We make everything from scratch. Our gravy is a true southern roux gravy. We make our jams and butters, um, you know, in house. Like, this is honey that is sourced locally from Arkansas. This, uh, strawberry jam is a, is a strawberry that we puree and, and turn into jam here on site.
Wow. We've invested. A significant amount of money, um, in creating a whole hot prep line in every single one of our concept stores because that's such a critical component of who we are. That's just not something that our competitors can say. Um, you know, there, there's elements that they bring to the table that are from scratch, but most of it's all kind of commissary driven, uh, or a large part of it.
And we just feel like real authentic, you know, this is the hard way, but the right way to do things. Uh, certainly have a lot of respect. First watch snooze am eateries. Another major hatch, uh, toasted yolk, another broken egg. Um, one that, um, you know, one player that came out of Wichita, Kansas, that's now locally here in Northwest Arkansas is called homegrown.
Their parent company is the largest Applebee's owner in the country called thrive hospitality. So you start looking at what Applebee's is. Applebee's is a local restaurant to Homegrown. It's as local of a restaurant as Applebee's is because that's all they do. They go into Wichita, they brand it local to Wichita.
They go into, you know, St. Louis, they brand it local to St. Louis. They come to Northwest Arkansas and they just brand it to their local market. And, but yet you look at their recipes, you look at their procedures, they're a professional run company, high respect for them. Um, certainly have, you know, a lot on, A lot going, um, for what they know to do, but yeah, competition is a critical component of knowing who's in the marketplace.
I do think there's opportunity because, and here's where I'd say, I think that, you know, our handcrafted food culture that we're bringing to the table, um, the environment of our designs of the restaurants, um, are something that communities haven't seen before. Um, you know, we're really looking at premium ingredients, which drive premium experience, which drive the premium, you know, um.
Uh, materials, building materials, and really it all comes together to create that southern hospitality that people really desire to experience. Um, and that's something that we really want to bring to these communities across the South.
So good. I just feel like you have a unique perspective of anyone we've interviewed so far.
You're, you're scaling, I mean, we've, we've talked to a lot of hyper growth founders here, but you're scaling a brick and mortar experience and a capital is, is huge to that. Is there, you talked about maybe. Y'all have done everything yourself so far, but at what point I mean, do you have a number in your head of like I think once we get past 20 locations, we will have to bring in outside capital.
What is that? How does that decision making
don't really have a number. I do think that it's a lot is going to be determined on, um, who the partner is, what their ambitions are. I think we're open to entertain, you know, offers, uh, or, you know, kind of a key partner that wants to come in and really, um, you know, add fuel to the fire at the right time.
I, we don't have a number though. I think we're really excited about where the growth is. And, you know, you talk about hyperscaling and earlier before we started taping, you brought up a few businesses that you guys have interviewed on this podcast before. And, you know, people are often looking, they think hyperscale and unicorn and venture capital, right?
So you're talking about your quintessential. Kind of laugh or curve style growth rates and we have some of those businesses here in Northwest, Arkansas But guess what? We also have the you know, a brick and mortar hospitality company Ran and started by a great gentleman named Tom Gordon named slim chickens And you know their story is 25 years and chopping to get to where they are today guys What does that look like and how do you scale that company out of brick and mortar in Northwest, Arkansas to carve out a piece of the?
Fried chicken business, which is not an easy segment to go into and watch what they've done. It's methodical It's careful and it's focusing on the fundamentals of what they're doing. We have another Hospitality food chain that started here very different concept called seven brew. They also launched with a goal, but ultimately got turbocharged with outside capital when they hit kind of this, this inflection point.
Um, and I think there's reason to believe that Buttered Biscuit can be another brand that is, is growing quickly for the segment that we're in. Um, you know, that, uh, that deserves to win because we're truly meeting a need in the communities.
Okay, so walk us through where the business is at currently. You've got your fifth store opened in May, you've got a sixth store opening end of this year. Just from a revenue perspective or a total number of employees, just kind of walk us through the scale for someone who maybe is unfamiliar about how big your business is.
Yeah, so, you know, business is, um, you know, you define success in all different ways and I would say in a brick and mortar stores, you have to define success by the regions in which are located from an employee standpoint. We're well over 200 employees. Um, I think we're actually gonna be like 270 when we finish staffing out this newest location, which is a huge.
opportunity to impact the lives of almost 300 families. And, you know, again, going back to the values driven company, like, we define success differently in the perspective of, the money has to be there. You have to run a profitable business. Or won't be in business very long, but ultimately it comes back to the health and strength of the people that we have.
Are they developing? What are their benchmarks of success? Where do they want to go? Like these are 300 families that we have influence over simply because we're trying to create a An environment that is both welcoming but also one that is, um, developing and, and building their capabilities and skills.
They've chosen to come to us. There's a lot of other competition out there they could choose to go to. And so success for me looks like how long have our employees been with us? What is our retention rate? Um, are they getting to be Are they going to where they want to go in their careers? Who's developing and coaching them?
Um, how are we as a company able to use our leverage, uh, resources and influence? To get them the introductions, I, nothing makes me happier than watching somebody start as a cook, move to an assistant manager, go to a general manager, and leave our company for a bigger and better role. I would love for them to stay with our story for a long period of time, but we often talk about like, You know, we're part of your story, you're the hero, I'm not the hero of your story, I'm the hero of my story, but I need to be a part of your story, and we're gonna be a part hopefully for a long time, but it's gonna be a developing time, and even when we, you know, hopefully we can cheer your success, but even if we have to have hard conversations, it's still part of your development that helps you get to ultimately where you wanna go.
So, um, yeah, employees, we're really grateful, we offer full health care, and you know, we have, uh, it's pretty great to be able to. You know, say that and have that be a component of our compensation package. Um, the culture we have is unified, you know, uh, team oriented and constructive. And as far as the numbers go, I think that, um, every concept has different, uh, KPIs that they're looking at.
And every industry or every, um, day part has different KPIs that they're looking at. And we've certainly been able to see, you know, over time, um, You know, expansion of our certain KPIs, but right now we're in a period where we're choosing to invest into labor because we love the people we want to get great people in this this chain and we've seen that compressor numbers.
We haven't taken price on our menu in the last 18 months because. Quite frankly, we feel like the market, um, is really feeling it from, from inflation. And we don't want to be contributing to that. We would love to actually just kind of compress our margin, find the right people to go in. Um, and, and it's been difficult to watch kind of the erosion of, uh, of that.
But, you know, what's, what's really confirming is like, guys, we're on a mission. We're being compelled to grow and we're growing at the right people, at the right speed, at the right time. And we feel like this bet is more than just dollars and cents. This is about investing into these people's lives who are going to choose to do their careers with us, even if it doesn't make, you know, I.
Certainly we pay our bills. There's no insolvency in the future, but it's like, all right guys, what are we really going after? And like, what is a real mission of why we exist? And to keep that really in crystalline view is, is really powerful for us. So, um, yeah, so let's see here. Yeah, that's probably what I'd probably summarize that, um, is and is
Bentonville, is this the most, uh, like highest producing store right now?
No, no,
no. Our new stores are Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Our prototype stores are, which as they should be. Like, we've designed those. Yeah. You designed 'em to be able to higher volume and
like
Absolutely.
I mean, back to the, yeah. You kind of seen what's ingress and egress parking, all the, what works, what doesn't themselves, all the fundamentals.
Yeah. Yeah.
Uh, the blocking and tackling, just kind of thinking through 270 employees. Six locations your team now is you and what is Anna's role like where where y'all's roles at now in the business, right? We kind of talked about it early on.
She has the most important role of all. She is raising our four daughters She's homeschooling them She's being a full time supporter of me.
I I need all the support I can get but You know when we talk about the significance of life and before again, we start recording we're talking about like what is fundamentally important Like all this is good guys. I mean, I'm not saying there's this is we're bringing value. We're feeding people. We're creating connections People have parties and they have dates and they have reconciliation conversations and life happens around the table.
It's beautiful. If we shut our doors today, if we never grew, if we never baked another biscuit, y'all would find somewhere else to eat. You would. And, you know, if my employees, as amazing as they are, they could go get a job anywhere, in any city that we work in. Why? Because they are the 1 percent of hospitality workers in this industry.
So any employer would be thrilled to have Buttered Biscuit employees. But with my children, there's no one else that can raise our children but us. They would have a gap in their life if my wife and I were so focused on growing Buttered Biscuit that we forgot them. So I have my number one employee, my number one partner doing the number one job, which is raising our daughters.
And And it's a full time job, baby. It is a 24 hour, thankless position of laundry and food and discipline and consistency and love and laundry and food and consistency and discipline and love. And like, it is monotonous, it is trial inducing, there's Parts of deep joy and deep fulfillment and deep grief and, um, but I think like, you know, she's been promoted in a way to, um, really lead our house.
Um, she's still chairman of the board, holds the majority shareholder. She'll, you know, be present in marketing conversations, certainly helping with the kind of the high level strategic guidance, but very low engagement on the daily operations. Um, I'm currently operating, wearing a bunch of hats of. Chief real estate, chief operating, chief ex, you know, executive officer.
Pretty much every other hat you can imagine. Um, fortunately I'm not a biscuit baker. We've got some amazing cooks and servers and managers. Not, I'm, I rarely, not never, rarely. It still is in my truck. Batteries are always charged. But, uh, no, we're really thankful for the team that we've got. Um, you know, I think Ana and I just really, you know, we want to see, we want to demonstrate the values that we want our staff to live as well.
And when we talk about family being significant, we want to demonstrate what that looks like. How do we balance it? How does this look? And, um, you know, this is an all in job. You don't, you don't go halfway.
Yeah.
Well, we, uh, we're kind of coming towards the end here, just thinking through kind of We started about sort of what's next here.
Are there any kind of more target markets for you kind of out the gate here? Like, Hey, we'd, we'd love to, you know, be here, here and here.
I mean, um, you know, I'd love to, love to kind of reveal stuff here today. I don't have anything I can necessarily say like, Hey, we're gonna. You know, big, do the big reveal, but I will say that we have an interest in expanding into our, you know, kind of regional demographics or geographies.
I think there are some towns that are underserved right now by their local breakfast establishments and they need more breakfast. Um, and I think that's what we're interested in. Certainly Central Arkansas, we've created a beachhead and I think there's more expansion there that's opportunities. Um, I think Northwest Arkansas has more potential.
Um, I think there's, there's markets all up and down the 49 corridor that could, you know, handle Butter Biscuits. I think East and West, I think, you know, uh, Missouri and Oklahoma and Tennessee and Northern Texas, like, all have, you know, all viable markets for restaurants, um, because there's people who, Value quality food that's made from scratch and community that ultimately creates connectivity and accessibility.
So, and that's what we can provide.
That's amazing. Um, so you, and you kind of touched on this already, but we want to ask every guest this. What is your personal definition of success? Um, you know, just, you kind of said it a little bit with the people, but like, how do you define success? Could be life and business.
How do you define success?
Yeah, so we have a part of our mission statement is be a faithful steward of all that he has entrusted us You know we look at deeply about saying like God has gifted each one of us with unique talents and abilities And if we're not using those to the fullest capability, then we're not achieving success success isn't a dollar value It's not a number.
It's not a It is simply saying like, hey, am I using the skill set that God's gifted me with to the highest potential that I can be? And my goal is to develop others to do the same. And this is where we use the term underestimated individuals. Hospitality often overlooks people and it is a natural starting point, restarting point for people who have been underestimated in their life.
Who am I referring to? It's minorities. It's people who feel disenfranchised with this current environment. It's single parents. It's undereducated. Um, it is people who really haven't felt like they've been given a fair shot, and therefore they, maybe parents, never believed in them. Maybe they came from an abusive background.
Well, you know, in our perspective as believers, we say, hey, all have been made in the image of God. Therefore, Everybody believe, you know, everybody deserves an opportunity to be looked at as an individual, as people. And, and with this divine, um, ability to be the best that they can be. So we actually, my wife and I started a foundation charitable organization this last year called Project Biscuit.
It's corny, I know, but, um, it's really helps to serve The and give money, raise money and give money to organizations that focus on the underestimated. It's to help elevate them into the joy and dignity of work because there is something really valuable about and satisfying about work and about doing it well.
Um, in underestimated, what we find is people start realizing like, Hey, I could do this. Like this is. I can not only provide for myself, but I can provide for my family and I can change the pipeline, the trajectory of my entire, my entire, uh, clan, so to speak, my entire group of, you know, my family unit, because I now believe in myself, I'm doing the work.
I can now encourage other people to do the same thing. It's been beautiful. We've worked with, um, Ignite. Uh, we just made a large donation of Circles NWA, which is a poverty kind of education. Um, really love everything they do. We've been a, you know, had a strategic partnership with UA Pulaski Tech, um, uh, down in Little Rock.
They do a lot of education. So like, you know, kind of career services and. You know, kind of, uh, um, tactical education for people who have been overlooked as a trade based school. Like, um, and to us, like, this is the very ethos of who we are as a restaurant is to help bring people in who maybe have been overlooked, underestimated, and, and say like, you are worth something.
You are significant. You are valued. You are loved. You're cared for. Let's show you how, give you the practical skills, and then, you know, let you just Really give you the encouragement to go and be all that you're supposed to be. So success for us really looks, you know, it's all about maximize, it's all about optimizing our kind of, um, the talents that God's gifted us with.
And so thanks for that. And so it's kind of like processing all that you said there, you really, I think through all this, one thing that's been, uh, encouraging to me is you really know who you and Ana are and where your identity comes from and where the, and how that spills into the business. Everything.
Um, and then last question here for you. Um, we are the NWA founders podcast, Northwest Arkansas focused. Uh, but what's your vision for Northwest Arkansas, uh, over call it the next five years, 10 years, 20 years.
Yeah. You know, I think, um, A lot of what I, we were the beneficiaries of early on, we try to give back, uh, fostering a kind of collaborative mentality of, um, of, of entrepreneurship, of, um, creation, of starting.
I think we're huge advocates to people that take a risk, go out and do something, but do it in an intelligent way. Don't just jump without a plan, build a strategy. I know Nick, you and I've talked about this, like sometimes the right time to jump is not yet. It's not never. It's just not yet. And other times it's right now.
Get the heck going. Um, Yeah. And, you know, there's different answers for everyone that, that, that, um, impacts life differently. But I, I think, I would hope that Northwest Arkansas never loses that ethos. Um, I'd hope that it'd be continued to be an incubator for kind of like rallying the troops around the, uh, The common mission of doing good and solving the needs of the marketplace.
Um, you know, we really enjoy the family values. Certainly, you know, the people that have gone before me, we want to continue to advance the values of decency and courtesy to those that are around us. Um, we see we've we've seen our impact in a positive way in so many people's lives here. That we just want to continue to, um, uh, just be a, you know, catalyst for those conversations.
And we think, and this is one reason why hospitality has such a special spot in our heart, is we get to have, um, equality around the table. Like, it's just having a conversation to say, like, You know, let's, uh, let's understand our differences and recognize that our differences don't define us. They actually can be a superpower of, you know, making this place special.
So, you know, I hope we don't become over corporatized. Um, you know, I think that, um, I want this to be the biggest small town you've ever met. Um, versus being the, you know, kind of just say, you know, I want to retain the soul that I think it has. And, um, I think it's, it's going to be hard to lose, but.
Without intention, it certainly could be.
Yeah, it's true. So good. Well, I think as we kind of, as we wrap up, one of the things we always love to do is to, we'll call it, summarize the things that really stuck out in the conversation. And every, every guest is different. And we've learned a ton from you today, Sam.
And so I think the first thing that's super clear, and Cameron kind of already hit on it, but like purpose, you're very purpose driven. You and Honor are both very purpose driven. And that was from Inception, um, brand card, identity, missions, values. Those were all from the inception and so when you start with that, it's really hard to lose it and so just awesome, awesome job to you and the staff and your team and Ana, um, to just keep bringing those values into your employees every day and, and really just caring about them.
I think, uh, the, the next piece is strategic, um, some of the things that, that kind of stuck out was like, and we've talked about this before, but meeting a need. I think. A lot of people have business ideas and love to talk about ideas that aren't actually meeting a need. And I think one of the most inspiring things, while it's simplest, is when y'all were coming up with the idea of Butter Biscuit, it was all around a need.
It wasn't, hey, we love, we love breakfast food, we just want, you know, and those are great businesses, but I think When you really look at core successful businesses, you're meeting the needs of consumers. And it, and it feels like again, that was, that was inception. And then you just have kept doing it. Hey, kept doing it.
Keep meeting the need, the way you're forming the menu, the way that y'all are, um. Just things y'all have done, it's really, uh, it's really cool. And then I think the last piece and, um, Cameron and I growing up here, I think this is the piece that's the most fueling talking to business owners. You truly care about the development of your staff.
And that was shown when we asked you kind of size of the company and even just more, you weaved it in throughout the entire conversation. Your staff is really what Get you up, get you excited to come to work every day. You're not excited, you know, all the growth in the world is nothing if Your staff isn't taken care of, I think was really captured, um, through our conversation.
So thank you from us for that, because we live in Northwest Arkansas. We've grown up here and we just like you want this place to, to keep its soul. And we need business owners who. Don't just care about the business, they care about the employees who work in their business. And so thank you for that. Sam Russell.
Super honored to have you. Uh, how can people reach out or, or learn more about Butter Biscuits?
Yeah, so the butter biscuits.com, uh, website, soon to be a new one. We're launching it hopefully by the end of the year. It's gonna be beautiful and have all of our new branding on it. But yeah, butter biscuits.com um, is, um, is probably the best way.
We have some kind of resources you can reach out to. Please follow us on Instagram, um, at the Butter Biscuit. Um. And we, we post a lot of content on their updates around social media or, um, seasonal items, specials, uh, just story of the brand. Um, and that's been a really fun way to stay in tune with us. Um, those are probably be the two biggest ways to be able to reach out to us.
Well, thanks for coming on.
Guys, thank you so much for having
me. Yeah.
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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