Good Life Project - Restaurant of Hope: Doing Good, While Doing Well.

Episode Date: December 7, 2015

There's that old line. When you're thinking about opening a restaurant, the three most important things are location, location and location.Edward Barnett agrees, but the way he chose the location for his first restaurant in what is now becoming a chain goes against nearly every bit of conventional wisdom and advice.Edward was on a mission. Not just to do well, but to do good. So, along with his partner, Karim Webb, he opened their first Buffalo Wild Wings restaurant in one of the toughest neighborhoods in L.A., Crenshaw, a place where violence, crime and lack of opportunity was a way of life.They wanted to offer a dining experience that wasn't available in Crenshaw. But, they also wanted to create a place of opportunity, jobs and community. A place where kids and adults alike could get off the streets, learn a trade and build a career. A place not just to work, but where they knew someone cared about them.Where everyone cautioned them and said they'd fail, they've succeeded. It's still hard at times, but it's worth the effort. They've created a place where people not only come to eat, but come to gather. And for those who work there, they've also created a path to possibility and hope.In this week's episode, I sit down with Edward to explore both his life and the lessons he's learned, along with what it's been like trying to build a sustainable business and an engine of impact in a place that's known so little of both. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Apple Watch Series X is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you 8 hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X.

Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun. On January 24th.

Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot if we need him! Y'all need a pilot? Flight Risk. Name one person who loves you or cares about you.

And we went around and it was quiet for a while. Some kids couldn't think of anybody. I don't know. And so that's really telling where these kids don't feel like anybody loves them or cares about them. So if nobody loves or cares about me, why should I care about me? You may have heard that classic line about opening a retail location. What are the three most important things? Location, location, location. Well, when Ed Barnett decided that he wanted to open a restaurant, and in fact, a restaurant chain, he agreed. Location, location, location. But he had a really different definition about what made

the perfect location. In fact, he and his partners opened a restaurant, and now a number of restaurants in some of the toughest, most challenging, most economically beaten down neighborhoods in LA because they weren't looking to just open a restaurant or restaurant chain. They were looking to change the dynamic and bring something bigger into communities that were desperately in need of help. Really excited to dive into the story, the challenges, the revelations, and the elevations that have emerged from this really powerful experience. I'm Jonathan Fields. This is Good Life Project.

Really happy to be hanging out with you. I appreciate it. Your story sounds really inspiring, but actually what I'm really curious about is I know so little about you. So I want to take a step back in time a little bit with you and just kind of discover and explore your personal story a little bit. Right now you're living in L.A. You've got this powerhouse career and you're doing some amazing social projects.

But taking back to when you were a kid, where'd you come out of? I came out of the L.A. area. Probably about an hour east of LA is Inland Empire. Yeah. What's that like? Oh, it was great. It was great. My father got a job out that way. My family's all from LA. And for convenience, for commuting to and from work, we moved out that way. So it was a great experience out there. Yeah. Big family family small family uh kind of a um big extended family yeah i would say so yeah and then they're all you know la based so we're

all together and close yeah exactly that's nice so what type of a kid were you probably a curious kid yeah all right by this you guys can't see it but by the smile on your face, we need to go into that one. Kind of pushing the boundaries and just really curious just to learn, I think, and a competitive person. I think my father was a college athlete, using sports and business kind of mixed together, being competitive, playing to win, knowing how to work together well within a group to achieve a common goal. So the things that he was teaching me at that time, I didn't know that would help me on later in life. I go back when I look back now, it was one of those things where this was obviously before social media, we actually had a physical paper that you read and he would always make me read the business section before the sports or anything else. OK, how old do you remember? Probably maybe pre-teens to maybe 11, 12.

Yeah, because I would see on the weekend, he would sit down and eat breakfast and read the paper and I'd watch him and then read the paper. And he would always say, OK, read this part first. And a lot of times I didn't know exactly what I was reading, but just saying, here, read this, then you can read about the sports and whatever else you want to think. So now looking back on it, I think it was kind of almost like prioritizing. This is what I want. This is what's important in this order and understanding what really makes the world go round. So understanding business. Yeah. Which makes me really curious now, when you were doing that, were you actually interested in that or were you just kind of doing it because dad was like read this and then you can actually like go read the stuff

you want probably the first part just read it and then read the stuff you want but as I got older and then continue to read I became more interested because it was one of those things where in the paper it would show the daily quotes on the on the different stocks and going through and how business were doing just talking about business in general became interesting to me. So it wasn't like a goal. I'm not a goal, but a chore, I should say, that I have to do. It was almost like, yeah, this is interesting. I want to see what's going on in the world of business and what makes everything run. So what did your dad do? My dad was a controller for a publicly traded company. So he had an undergrad in accounting

and MBA, but especially in finance. And so he was always kind of numbers driven. And I think that's where I got that from, understanding how the numbers get to your end goal from a business standpoint. Yeah. So I'm really curious about this too, because is there a moment that you can remember where you sort of make the shift from, okay, I'm going to do, I'm going to kind of suck this up and do it because I want to go read the sports section. You know, and dad's telling me I got to do it. Right, right, right. To, this is actually becoming genuinely interesting.

Was there like any, do you, I mean, maybe not, but I'm always curious, like, was there like a particular moment or like, is there any memory that you have where you're like, huh, this is actually really cool on its own. And like, I'm now like, I want to go and read that myself. I don't know if it was that specific aha moment, but I think just over time it really cool on its own. And like, I'm now like, I want to go and read that myself. I don't know if it was that specific aha moment, but I think just over time it gradually occurred, but I can't pinpoint a specific moment when that happened. Yeah. And it sounds like your dad was actually pretty smart about behavior too. He's sort of like putting, you know, like the less enjoyable thing

in front of the reward. Right, right, right. Yeah. Which is kind of an interesting lesson on its own. Yeah, he taught me a lot of lessons during those times that maybe I didn't get at the time, but I get now, or maybe didn't particularly enjoy at the time, too. I mean, everything, and I look back on it, was a lesson to help me to be the person that I am.

Everything from, okay, if you want something, here's what we're going to do. You go do this work and this work is worth this much to me. And this is how I'll compensate with you. It was never just giving. So just teaching the lesson of hard work. Lesson, again, I remember a specific incident when I was young. I was playing baseball and I was upset because I didn't make the all-star team. And I thought it was because of some politics at that time and didn't want to play anymore. And my father was like, no, you're going to continue to play and you're going to do well after the season is over and you've completed it. If you don't want to play again, you don't have to. But you're not going to quit. I don't want to breathe quitting in you just because something doesn't go your way.

And then you go ahead and quit. That's not something we do in this family. So at those times, just taking those lessons and understanding now what he was teaching me was basically how do you deal with adversity? Are you going to fold up a tent and leave or are you going to fight through it and get to the end goal and achieve what you want to do? So again, just teaching a lot of valuable lessons, looking at situations that I had in my life, and then him showing me, okay, this is what you're going to do. And not necessarily telling me the why per se, but figuring out later on in life what the why is. Yeah. When it comes down to it, right, it's really, it's about character building. Correct. You know, it feels like there was a time, maybe in this country, where that was a huge

part of sort of, you know, like what we focused on. And maybe I'm wrong, but it feels like we've kind of lost that to a certain extent. Yeah, I agree. And I think we've lost kind of almost the work ethic a little bit. Everything. Everybody wants everything yesterday, but they don't necessarily want to put the work in to get to where their goal is. You know, that that's one of the things that I really see in the restaurant business now. You know, people will start in and they think, you know, three months later, I'll come in. They're not the general manager of the store?

Not understanding there's a lot that goes into getting you to where you're going to be, that there's steps. It sounds cliché, but there really is no shortcut to success. It's just hard work, perseverance, and learning from your mistakes and making yourself better. Yeah, no doubt. And I really, you brought this up, and it feels like the expectations just shifted to everything should be instant. Correct. And I don't know whether that's a function of social media, whether it's just sort of like everything happens so much faster these days. But I think that's huge because I wonder if that also just makes people think like, if this doesn't happen instantly, then it can't be right. So I'm going to give up and do something else. But then you just keep giving up and doing something else because the reality is, real world, nothing worth happening really happens that quickly.

I agree with you 100%. It's going back to that example from baseball with a kid, are you going to build a quitter's mentality or are you going to build a mentality where you're going to be able to deal with adversity and rejection and keep pushing through? Again, going to the restaurant, when we first started in 2006, when we got the franchise deal for Buffalo Wild Wings, at that time, the real estate market was in commercial and residential was booming. So land was kind of like a landlord's had to leverage. So they were offering deals that weren't necessarily advantageous to you.

And then so we and in some deals just didn't make sense. So we probably got turned down upwards of 20 times trying to find the right space one way or another for our first location. And if we had the mentality, we're like, okay, the first few didn't work. Maybe this wasn't meant to be. We would have closed up shop and never did it. But we didn't do that. We persevered, persevered. And then finally, in September of 2009, we opened our first unit. With that came a slow success because at that time, there wasn't, Buffalo Wings a national brand but in Southern California there were less than five of them now there's more than 40 plus Southern California to kind of put it in perspective there's national advertising you have a huge push

but when we got in the brand it wasn't like that so we had to kind of strap up our boots and do some grassroots marketing in order to get Pete to get the story about Buffalo Wild Wings, what it is and why you should come and make that work. And it was a struggle, and we continue to build on that. Yeah, and also, I mean, you weren't just telling that story. You were telling a bigger story because, you know, you didn't just decide to open in L.A. You decided to, you know, like start out in South Central, which is, and I want to circle back to that because there's a lot of conversation around that decision and then what you face doing that. But let's just fill in the story a little bit more so we kind of get to the place where you're there.

You come out of school, and then you're going to finance from. Right. So, yeah, so I ran track at UCLA, kind of following in my father's footsteps. He ran track at Long Beach State. And when I got out, I studied. Is that like a competitor? It's just one of those things that I played all the different sports when I was younger and track's the one that took me the furthest and I did the best in and was fortunate in that situation. It allowed me the opportunity to travel a lot of the United States that probably would

never see because they're not quote unquote vacation spots. Our team at that time was number two in the country. So we had an indoor and outdoor season. And so we went to being a kid from LA, you know, why would you go to Nebraska? Why would you go to Boise, Idaho? Why would you go to they're not these places that are typical vacation places, you know, people from those areas probably come to LA, not vice versa. But we had an indoor and outdoor season and a track meet. So we were able to see, you know, these different places and understand their culture and understand how they live, which is a little bit different from us. Also too,

in college, what the great experience was is because we were such a national powerhouse and track for a while, it attracted athletes from all over the country. So I had teammates from Trinidad. I had teammates from Sierra Leone, Chad, Jordan, Ghana, Canada. Yeah. So it was one it was almost like a cultural education. You know, my roommate when we were on the road, his name is Meb Kofleski. He's a marathon runner. He's a U.S. citizen now, but he's from Ethiopia, and he won medals in the Olympics. And just learning about different cultures, different food, and it makes you appreciate what you have when you hear somebody else's story and where they come from to get to where they are. Yeah.

You know, it's so interesting to me because when I think about college athletes and I think about the benefits that come along with it, that's not something that immediately pops into my head. I think about you learn about camaraderie and team and hard work and stuff like that, but the opportunity to really learn about different cultures as you travel. And also when you've got a powerhouse team that's attracting teammates from around the world, it's interesting because I haven't really thought about the benefits of that. Yeah.

What it does is it opens your mind to really saying this place is really bigger than the United States. This world is big. You just become more sensitive to different cultures. And you're more open-minded to things that are different from which your norm is, which I think is a great thing. That was one of the big things that I learned. Yeah. When you were sort of like first hanging out with this team from around the world, is there anything that really that you recall as being like, oh my God, like this, wow, this is different.

This is different. Listening to the stories from the teammates from Africa and listening to their stories of particularly war torn countries or civil wars or things that they had that they had to live through. And then their journey to get to Los Angeles to go to school versus a kid in the United States who hopped in a car and drove 50 minutes to go to school. It really made you appreciate, again, the things that you have. And then from a food standpoint, Otto Bolden was a teammate of mine, a good friend. He was from Trinidad and Tobago and took me to a place called The Treehouse in L.A., which I never knew existed, but it's authentic Trinidadian food. So I had chicken roti and things of that nature for the first time, which were like, wow, this stuff is great. It's like you had it and it was like, wow, this stuff was great. It's like you had it, and you're just like, this is good stuff.

Exactly, exactly. When you were talking with some of the people that came from different parts of Africa, and they were telling you about some of the struggles, are there any stories, or is there anything that sort of like stuck with you as like, wow, or was it just sort of like the totality of? The thing that really, how I put it into context. You hear it sometimes here where people in the United States say they come from the hood or they come from the ghetto or they come from a tough neighborhood. It's relative because when you look at that, it's like whether it's on the

East Coast, Midwest or West Coast, that tough neighborhood may be not the best place, but you have a house to go to or an apartment to go to. You have running water, you have heat, you have these type of things. So yeah, your situations may be rough, but when you put it into perspective and listen to what some of the teammates come from, there is no running water. There is no houses to come through there. There's really war torn areas. It's like, okay, it really helps put what is a rough upbringing into perspective. That's one of the things I thought. And again, it taught me to be grateful for what I have, because there's a lot of people in tougher situations. Yeah. I think that's one of the huge benefits also just of travel, you know, as you move through

life. It's kind of like get outside of the insular world you live in. Just when you see people who are moving through struggle, that's, you know, you kind of like we're pretty blessed in this country for the most part. You know, there's definitely struggle and there's trouble. But most of us wake up in the morning and, you know, there's a lot of good stuff in our lives. But we start to take it for granted, I think, when, you know, and we focus so much on what's not right rather than what is right. And I think when you have experiences like that, it's kind of a bit of a reset. I mean, even like something as simple as,

so we're hanging out right now and we're on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and the home studio, Good Life Project HQ. But we're a couple of blocks from Central Park also. And every year there's the New York Marathon here. And there's a team of competitors who all have physical limitations. And I remember standing in the park one year, and it's so exciting to just be there and watch everybody coming in. It's called the Achilles Club. And being in the final mile and seeing a guy coming up, and he's a guy who's missing one leg,

and he's on crutches, and he's clearly in excruciating pain. And there's a guy who's missing one leg and he's on crutches and he's clearly in excruciating pain, you know, and there's a guy about 20 feet behind him who is kind of slowly pushing a wheelchair behind him. He's like, he's been the whole time with him the first 25 miles. And so at any given moment, you know, the guy in the lead who was the amputee with the crutches could have chosen to sit in a wheelchair. But he's like, you could see it in his face. There isn't, that wheelchair might well have not existed for him. You know, and he's like, there is nothing that's going to stop me from crossing this finish line standing up.

And you just, I remember watching that and being in tears. And I'm like thinking to myself at the same time, like, you know, this morning I was sitting or hanging out and sort of like bitching and moaning about something about my life. And'm like i got it easy man you know when you just see people who are struggling with a challenge that you know is far greater than you in a variety of ways and just owning the truth of it and and making the absolute best of it it kind of makes you it's like that word you said perspective gives, gives you perspective, you know, and it kind of says, okay, let me be grateful for the things that are right rather than focus on everything like I wish was different. Most definitely. Most

definitely. It's kind of a unique, unique situation that we had. We have another location in Carson and in Los Angeles just recently, they had the Special Olympic World Games out of there. And we hosted about 100 of the Special Olympic athletes as far away. I mean, and there were kids from Mali all over the world. And you just sit down and talk to them and listen to their journey to come these miles and miles and to be able to compete. And you look at them and say all you can tell they were happy to be there. And they were born pretty much to a situation that wasn't fair, if you think about it, you know, to no fault of their own. They had some type of disability, but they overcame that.

And to become the best at their specific event in the world to compete, similar to the guy who was the amputee and said, you know what, I'm just going to have this dogged determination. I'm not going to let this limit me to achieve my goal. And it was the same thing that I saw with him. It was pretty special to be able to sit down and visit with those people and see. Yeah, it really is amazing. It's like a reset, I think, to a certain extent. So let's fill in the story here.

So you come out of school, but you don't go – I mean, right now you're building this really fascinating sort of restaurant empire with a much bigger social cause around it. But there's something else that you go into finance. Right. So what's that decision about? And I'm still in finance. Yeah. So the decision was, again, going back to reading the business paper and understanding how business work always had an interest in that. So I was blessed that a UCLA alumni brought me in to an investment firm and

pretty much started at the bottom, learning how to put together investment portfolios together for people and continue to do that and really understand how money works and how you work for money and how do you make money work for you at a certain point once you accumulate enough of it and how to, once you have this pool of money, how do you protect it and grow it conservatively? So that's what I did and continue to do. I did that for 10 years. I learned and worked my way up. And then in 2008, myself and a couple of partners, we started our own firm doing that and was still a partner at that firm. And that's kind of how the finance part

started and continues to go. And then how it shifted into the restaurant side is my business partner, Kareem Webb, we're childhood friends. I've known him since I was seven. And he comes from the restaurant operations background. He comes from a family of McDonald's franchisees. He's great on the operations side. I think I'm OK on the finance side. So I made a good partnership for us. So we always wanted to look and figure out how we could do business together. First of all, and we kind of figuring out how do we take our skill sets and put them together and create something special? And he had come to me and said, hey, there's this concept called Buffalo Wild Wings that is currently not too many in Southern California, none in Los Angeles,

and I think it'll work well. Let's sit down and talk, and this is something we should partner up and build. And this was back in 2006. At this point in time, I was like, well, what's a Buffalo Wild Wings? Because, again, I hadn't heard of it. It was really big in the Midwest, just coming out west. And he said, you got to check it out. And when I checked it out, it was like the light turned on. It was like, I totally get it. And then so started the path of educating myself on the financial aspects of the restaurant business. Then what we did is put together a business plan, went back to Minnesota, met with the executive team at Buffalo Wild Wings and got approved as a franchisee and started from there. But you didn't just say, okay, let me find, you know, like a wealthy neighborhood where like, you know, there's really good, strong demographics and proven history of successful businesses and, you know, and kind of like start there and take our piece of the pie.

It's almost like you went to a neighborhood that a lot of other people have totally written off as essentially it couldn't sustain that type of business. So talk me through this, the thought process there. Good question. Yeah. So I'll take a step back. So our first restaurant wasn't in South L.A. area. That was our second one. So our first one was a little bit outside of it, probably about 12 miles south of L.A. in Torrance. OK. And we got that. So the second one was in what they call is the South L.A. or the Crenshaw Corridor. And at that time, we were looking at I'll take it two steps.

I'll take it from a social standpoint and then from a business standpoint. So from the business standpoint, we looked at it and said, okay, the population is there. Demographics are there. The income is a little bit lower, but their options are nil. So we looked at it as if we come in this area and we do it right, we could be the only game in town for a while. And then people, instead of having to travel for miles around to get their food or entertainment, they can do it right in the neighborhood. So that was a thought from a business standpoint versus, for example, going to a more established neighborhood where you're one of many different options that you're competing for that same dollar

with many different other restaurant brands per se. So we looked at it from that standpoint. And then we looked at it, how do we become an active participant in the community? So one of the things in the underserved community is lack of jobs and lack of opportunity. So how do we do good and do well by this community by opening that? And so our thing was really working on hiring locally

and training, having the same high standards of any Buffalo Wild Wings, but taking chance on people that normally wouldn't get a shot. Yeah. So talk me through that a little bit also and describe the neighborhood. OK. Because we're kind of like, you know, being sort of like surface about it. Right. This is a neighborhood that scares a lot of people. Correct.

It's the neighborhood that if you look on on the news it's known for gunshots it's you know what do you know about when you're talking about they call it south la now but south central what do you know about it's the riots rodney king um reginald denny getting beaten every everything getting burnt down there are all the you have racial tensions, you have socioeconomic tensions, you have frustrations, you have high gang participation, you know, homicide rates, all the negative things that you see on the news. This is what that area has. So it was a challenge. So to be frank with you, when we were telling people, hey, we're going to open up on Crenshaw, which is the corridor right there. We're pretty much here. They were like, are you crazy? I'm not coming over there. So people didn't think it was a great idea. I'll put it gently like that to say to open there. But we saw a vision and the vision that we saw was they laid out a blueprint of what the change was going to be. And obviously nothing was set in stone, but Kaiser Hospital bought a big chunk of land behind where we were going to go and they were going to

open up doctor's offices. The area was gentrifying a little bit because people were moving back into the city. They were building a train station that's going through their underground train station. So all these things at this time were plans. We didn't know if they were going to happen. So it's a calculated risk. We took a little bit of foresight and said, okay, we can be on the ground floor and the first ones here to be a part of this change with all the redevelopment going on there. So that's how we looked at it. It was a challenge at the beginning because people felt like over there, you're going to get less quality of service, less quality of food, less quality of drink. And so we had to fight and fight and say, this is going to be the same quality of service, the same experience as if you were on the west

side of LA or somewhere else that were more affluent area. So we had to battle to get people to put away their negative perceptions to get them to come in. And it was a battle and it was a long battle. And we finally won them over because once they were inside the four walls, they were amazed at like, you wouldn't know where we were. And now we can come in and the people of means didn't have to travel far outside. They can come in their own community and be able to have that same experience. So that was the first, put it in perspective, the first full service sit down restaurant of a national brand to come in that area in probably 20 to 25 years. So, and what about the people who actually lived in that neighborhood? What was,

were they hesitant also, or did they just embrace it? It was, no, it was. It's like you're outsiders. It's effectively coming in. It was met with what I'll call a lot of trepidation on their end. So what I had to do as part of my job is the partnership is I had to go out to the different prior to opening, go out to the different block clubs and communities. One, tell them who I was, tell them we're from this area to family here and what we're trying to do. And they're so used to people opening up places and they're not run to the level that other places would be ran. And it would be end up being either an eyesore,

a place for undesirables to hang out. And so they, and they were looking and saying, okay, this is going to be another one of these things. They're going to open up something, make some money, take money from community, not hire our kids, not help us out and move on to the next thing. So it was it was met with a lot of resistance and a lot of anger. I mean, it was it was some tough times in there. Felt like I was almost running for office every time. It was like I had to get these people to believe in the vision and get them to come in. And those big detractors over time have become some of our greatest supporters. We had to go down to City Hall to even get a permit because people fought us to be not wanting us to open that location there. So, I mean, how did you win them over?

Was there a moment or a conversation or was it just like over and over and over? Relentless, like just don't give up. It's like tapping on everything that your dad taught you, right? It's time. And I think also too is it's not words, it's actions. They saw all the actions when they came into the store. They said, okay, here's a place. And they looked around and saw the 50 TVs and they saw all the other things that they could get from any other Buffalo Wild Wings across the country. And then they saw people from their community actually working there. When they continue to see that and said,

okay, well, maybe these guys are about what they're saying. They're not just giving us lip service. And so what happened is it turned around and in us being actively engaged and involved in the community that we serve. So it turned around to a point where it was like, no, we're going to bring people into this business because we need you to be successful because we know that you're going to bring people into this business because we need you to be

successful because we know that you're going to look out for our kids, hire our kids, provide opportunities. So we can't have you fail. So it was almost like the community going from against us into bracing us and continue to push us forward. Yeah. So it kind of goes from like us against them to like, we're all in this together. Exactly. I got to imagine, yeah, there were some dark times. Right. So part of the mission now also really sounds like, so you got, you know, you work really hard to make that a successful venture and you prove to the community, we're not just here to pull money out of the community.

We're here to put money back into the community. Talk to me a little bit more about, you know, sort of like the social vision and what you're trying to create on an individual level or a family level. Are there any stories that sort of stand out to you about people who came in and through working with you guys, just it really made a difference in their lives? Yeah. A story I tell quite often is our latest store open is in Carson, California. So it's probably about maybe 15 miles south of LA. And there's a young African-American lady who's a general manager of that store. She started when we opened the store on Crenshaw with us at the beginning as a takeout host, had a restaurant

experience, hardworking, high integrity, but rough around the edges on how to effectively communicate and deal with people. Any other organization, they probably would have discarded her and said, this isn't going to work. But we saw something in her. And kind of how you talked about the beginning is like, you take the time and say, let me understand your story. Tell me your story. Where do you come from? And then when you really get to understand somebody's story, you understand why they do the things that they do, why they react to certain things that they do and understand how you can help them to fix that. And so what we did is really took time with her and she worked her way up from entry level. We opened the Crenshaw store

February of 2011. So we can put this in perspective. And then she worked her way up to the next level, which would be a server where you can get tips. And then after that, she had a desire to go into management. And then so we put her as a shift lead, went through that training. She was a rock star, worked hard. But again, managing people, she was a little rough around the edges and she could rub people the wrong way or understanding her. Why are you doing this? Why are you responding the way you are? It's like, I understand because of your upbringing. So here's how we're going to help you to fix this. So how you can get the best out of your team versus alienating your team and taking the time. And she put in the work as well. It was many hours. And then she worked her way up to assistant manager. And then when we opened the Carson store in 2014, she earned that spot.

And this was a course of three years. And so now she runs a store. She's from Carson. She's from that area. An African-American female who's made it out. So she's a great example to other females, period, regardless of race or ethnicity, that, hey, if you do this and you work hard, here's the opportunity that you can get. And I don't think if she was in our organization, anybody else would have gave her that chance because they couldn't they wouldn't seem through the rough exterior to understand this is somebody that's hardworking, high integrity. They just need somebody to take the time that cares and show them how to get the best out of themselves so that that example and there's many of them, but that one really sticks because Again, she literally started at the bottom and made it to the top of the food chain of running her own store with 70 people under in a course of about

Three to four years was it kind of unheard of in the restaurant business and real proud of her another thing that we uh, Did is we on our own dime, we did a 16 week restaurant entrepreneurship program at the local high school. It's called Dorsey High School. And what we did is we took 30 seniors and Dorsey High School is an inner city school and has most of the issues of inner city school. They're underfunded. They don't have facilities. Some of the kids come from foster facilities. Some of the kids come from foster homes. Some of the kids come from backgrounds that aren't the best, but they're at their school trying to make it through. The program, what we wanted to do was create a program where these kids

could see people that look like them, that were from the community they are, that they can kind of touch and deal with on a weekend and week out basis and hopefully can inspire them to do better and to see that they can make it work. So it was a tough challenge from a commitment standpoint because it was two hours a week, once a week for 16 weeks. And what we did is we taught them restaurant finance, marketing, and operations. And what happened was it culminated with them running their own pop-up restaurant after the 16 weeks. And so they ran the restaurant and it was great because we

got local news coverage and it wasn't for somebody getting shot. They had that term, if it bleeds, it leaves on the news. But this one wasn't, they weren't coming in the inner city because somebody got shot or something negative happened. They were coming to cover a group of 30 inner city kids that ran their own pop-up restaurant that attracted 300 people to come and made some great money for them. Taught them entrepreneurs and gave them the ability to dream and see if they can achieve their dreams. So those are some of the two recent things that we've done. And in some of those kids, we've hired them into our actual restaurant management training program and they're working for us now. Oh, that's fantastic.

I mean, how great also to kind of be able to show them, if you're coming out of a tough school, tough neighborhood, there's got to be a huge amount of influence which just says the world is against you and the only way to make money is not by doing good stuff. Correct. So to be able to show them, instead of taking like the scared straight approach, you know,

it's almost like the, you know, inspired straight approach. Like, to be able to show them, like, there's actually, you know, it doesn't matter where you come from, but if you've got it inside you, you've got the intelligence, the skills, the ability, and we're going to give you the education to actually build something and contribute to the world in a different way. And then to show them that for you to be able to tap the example of people that have come up through your organization and say, don't believe us, but let me show you people. They've got your story, man, and they're doing okay. They're doing better than okay, but they're doing great. How does that make you feel?

It's great. It's one of those things. At the end of the 16-week restaurant program, I was telling the students, I probably got just as much out of this as you guys did for different reasons. And it's one of those things you can't put a dollar amount on it. But when you can give back to somebody, the goal is, when I look at giving back, it's not necessarily dollars or time per se, but opportunity. Giving giving somebody an opportunity to achieve something that they one didn't know was there or that they know they can do. And hopefully changing their view on life and what they want to do, because what I learned is these kids aren't bad kids. They just don't have any positive role models.

And a lot of times they're raising themselves. These kids have so much wherewithal because of what they had to go through in their struggle. It prepares them for business. Having adversity is nothing to these kids. They're like, this is a cakewalk to what I have to deal with day in and day out in my situation. And we find that these kids can deal with adversity. They can work hard. They're not quote unquote sheltered and they just need an opportunity and somebody shows their care. So yeah, so it's a telling question about some of the kids in the community. And it was a question I asked and it was like, name one person who loves you or cares about you. And then we went around and it was quiet for a while. Some kids couldn't think of anybody. I don't know.

And so that's really telling where these kids don't feel like anybody loves them or cares about them. So if nobody loves or cares about me, why should I care about me? When you show somebody that you care about them, you care about their well-being from a business standpoint, they'll run through a wall for you. And it's also a thing that gives them self-confidence, self-esteem and again, showing that they can do better, that somebody cares about me, is vested in my success and can do better. And those are the things that are also important as well that we need to do. And so it really fundamentally changed kind of the focus on what we do on a day in and day out basis. Yeah, you have to make money and you have percentage and you have to make this byline. But in the pursuit of making money, how do you make a difference in a positive impact on the lives that you come across on a day in and day out basis?

Yeah. How much does that matter to you? It's extremely important. One is after you've achieved what I'll call is financial success and you've gotten the stuff or things that you have, then all the money is, is what it does is to me, it provides freedom of choice on what you can do now. And so now I can take this money and go do something, quote unquote, selfishly, or I can take this money and reinvest it in change somebody else's life. And so it's very important to me to really say, OK, what am I doing to help the people behind me, the next generation to help make their life better and their situation better and give them an opportunity to succeed. So that that's, I guess, if it's when it's all said and done, if I've done that, then I feel like I've done my job not to open up 50 Buffalo Wild Wings and make hundreds of millions of dollars. I mean, that's not a goal per se. I mean, it's a it's a

product of doing the work. But the goal is how many lives can you change possibly in the community? So where do you go from here? Do you have a vision for the future at this point? Yeah. Continuing in the short term, we have three more units. We have an area development agreement. We have three more units we're going to continue to build. From that standpoint, that allows us to get into hire more young people

in the community and go and the vision is is again to continue to keep doing the work because because it's like you can't save everyone but there's it's just the start i mean that was just one class of 30 people but there's another class behind them we need to start touching them there's people who didn't necessarily go to dorsey. There's great people that we can touch. We recently had a meeting at the office when we brought in different people, an organization that we may not necessarily see on a day in and day out basis. We're usually dealing with, you know, general managers and assistant managers. But you have people that will call us on the front line that we don't see. And so we brought them in. We like servers. Exactly. You know, kitchen people, people in the back. And we do this periodically because we want to check the pulse. And we like, you know, we just have

an open and honest dialogue. And, you know, we tell them, tell us what is great about our organization, not Buffalo Wild Wings per se, but the organization that you work in, which is PCF Restaurant Management, and tell us what you think we can improve on. And let's really talk about how do we make those improvements. And one of the stories that really struck me about what was great as a young guy, again, he lives in the area called the jungle. That's the rough part right behind the restaurant. I don't know if you ever saw the movie Training Day with Denzel Washington and you saw that area at the end. That's the jungle. That's really the jungle. That area was shot and that's right behind our restaurant. And so he's from there. And he said, you know, you guys are a godsend because one is

nobody would hire somebody like me except for you guys. And I have three little girls and I'm able to feed my daughters. I'm able to take care of them with this job. This job is a blessing. I love my job and I wouldn't do anything to jeopardize that job. And I want to continue to grow with this because you guys gave me a chance when nobody else did. And I'm going to show you guys and prove to you guys that that wasn't a mistake. And we hear these stories over and over again. Good people sometimes got in bad situations, and nobody else would give them a chance.

And that's kind of what it's about. How do we continue to create those stories and continue to grow the business as well? Yeah. How do you deal with this situation? Tell me this has been a situation come up, and it pops into my mind partly because of the neighborhood that we're talking about here, but also a couple years back

I had a chance to sit down with somebody who built an organization essentially teaching entrepreneurship to convicts. She kind of fought it, kicking and screaming in the beginning. It was dragged in by a friend, and then she realized really immediately,

she's like, wait, a lot of what you guys, what you were saying about people who just come up in tough neighborhoods work really hard you know they actually they understand and she was yesterday she was talking to a whole bunch of convicts who were in for drug offenses and they're there she's like wait a minute so they actually understand management structure hierarchy supply chain logistics it's just they're dealing in illegal substances. But they actually understand the structure of business phenomenally well. They understand sales and influence and finance because they've got to keep really strong

records. And they work really hard. They hustle. So she's like, let's teach them legit entrepreneurship. And she took a lot of heat for doing that, actually, because she's like, why would you give these people the benefit of your education where there are plenty of other people who haven't done the bad things?

But it's gotten me curious about how we as a society receive people who've made bad choices, done their time, and then come out. Is that something that you've been approached with or dealt with? Yeah, we dealt with it through a program out in L.A. where they have young young men who've been in the prison system. And you look at him in going back to the thing you can't save everybody. But to your point is these are entrepreneurs. One of the things that you did mention as part of that is they understand competition yeah they and you know they get rid of their competition a little

bit different than we'll call legit businesses would do it but everything that they do from a business standpoint are all the things that legit businesses would do they're just doing it from again an illegal activity so the thing that i think um that you also hit on, they're not lazy, they're hardworking and they understand business. It has to just be channeled in the right way. And that's the whole thing. So if we don't give those people chances, who? And if they don't get the chance, guess what they're going to be doing? Running up in your and my house because they're not going to have any other options. So how do you, you know, nobody's perfect and everybody makes mistakes. So how do you take the people who want to change their life and give

them an opportunity? And again, you're not going to have a hundred percent success rate. Some of them are going to fall back in their old habits and you have to be okay with that because you say, look, I'm going to give you the opportunity to succeed. I'm going to hold the standard just as high as anybody else. Now it's on you, whether you want to take this challenge or not. And if you don't, I'm at peace with we didn't just throw you out. It was one of those things where you chose not to take advantage of that. And it's the same thing with people who don't have a record. We're going to give you opportunity and some people will and some people won't make it it's just the reality of the situation but we still can't use that as an excuse to just take a broad brushstroke and say all these

um people with records are bad and they're can't do anything with them yeah i mean i think so much just has to do with the fact that um yeah you don't get to choose who you're born to. And sometimes you're born to a middle-class neighborhood with a lot of opportunity and different value set and different educational opportunities. And sometimes you're born into a neighborhood where it's just fear, struggle, and violence. You don't choose that. And it's like pop psychology likes to say,

well, but you choose how to respond to it. And to a certain extent, I believe that that's true. But, you know, the reality on the ground, it's not always, I can't imagine it's always that easy. You know, it's a lot more complicated with a lot more influences and pressure coming from all different sides. Which brings up actually one other thing that I wanted to talk with you about. And that's gang life. And, you know, because the neighborhood, you know, this one particular location, especially like you said before, it was also notoriously for a lot of years. And I don't know if it still is, but it's a real hub of just like everyone belongs to something.

There are sides. Have you run into that in sort of growing? Yes, we have. And how we've addressed that, our head of security is very active in those areas in the community. And so we have been blessed to not have any issues with it. Have there been gang members that come into the restaurant? Of course. But what happens is they see the good work that we're doing and they almost make it where this place is off limits. We don't we don't want any drama happening here because, again, they hired my little cousin or they hired my little brother.

They're over there. They're working hard. They're doing the right thing. And in our security, when there is any issues, he's able to kind of squash that real quick. So we haven't had any issues. And from gang activity or rival gangs fighting or anything, You have the regular restaurant issues. I mean, we have a full bar, so sometimes people get rowdy or that, but it isn't anything that's out of the normal. That wouldn't happen to any rowdy bar that was in a, quote-unquote, more affluent area. Right. Yeah. What's interesting, too, is that you start out by saying, or ahead of security.

Not every restaurant has a head of security or feels the need to have a head of security. Right. Yeah, you can't go into that situation being naive. Yeah. So you have to look and say, OK, we have to when you put together your budget saying, OK, you know, we need that. And then we have to make sure that it's done correctly, where people don't feel like they're being singled out. We're going to have this high standard, but we are going to treat people fairly. And I think that's what we do. So I'd rather err on the side of caution. And when people come in, again, they feel safe. They feel like they can bring their kids in. They feel like they're in

an environment that would be anywhere versus not doing that. And they look around and say, no, I don't feel safe here. Yeah. So what's been the biggest surprise through this whole experience? The biggest surprise is, I would say, is that there's a lot of young people that are just looking for an opportunity and looking for a way out where before coming into it, you know, you get caught up in your everyday, day, your own life, your own every day going. And then sometimes you don't stop and say, OK, you know. Let's not just discard these these other kids and just say that they're no good. And so bigger surprises. These are great kids. Again, they're just raising their self.

You know, you always have exceptions to the rule where, you know, you have some kids that come up in a rough environment, but they're able to achieve and go to the Harvard's or the Princeton's of the world. But again, that's the exception, not the rule. A lot of these kids, and it's, I know it sounds cliche, but they're just a product of their environment. This is all they saw day in and day out. And so the biggest surprise is to me is when you get down to really, they're not bad kids. They just are a product of their environment. They need to see positive role models and show that somebody really cares about them and then they'll do well and they can become productive citizens of our society versus being a drain on our tax base, basically by being in the prison system. So that, that was that light that ticked off with me is we really got to take the time to work with these kids before where you may have just looked at it from a standpoint of, OK, hiring them, getting this result and then going through from that standpoint.

But now it's like, OK, it's bigger than that. And that's one of the biggest surprises. Yeah. Is your dad still around? Yes. Do you talk to him about sort of how this is grown into something that you really never imagined? Talk to him all the time about it. Yeah. And I get to see it. It's great. I mean, he's proud of the work that we do, understands it. And it's great. He just tells us to continue to keep pushing forward because you guys tell you guys are making a difference and you you got to continue to keep doing that it's it's it's almost like it's you have an obligation to do that and so that's

so he's very proud yeah how's that make you feel good again it's one of those things you can't really put a dollar amount on it but it makes you feel great to know that you can make a difference in people's lives so the name name of this is Good Life Project. So if I offer that phrase out to you, to live a good life, what does it mean to you? To live a good life is to be able to take care of your family, to be able to enjoy the things that you want to do in life, and to also be able to make a difference in the lives of people that most society throws away.

So that's the good life is at the end of the day, doing those positive things, but also having a positive impact on the community that you serve. Thanks. Thank you. Yeah, my pleasure. Hey, thanks so much for listening to today's episode. If you found something valuable, entertaining, engaging, or just plain fun, I'd be so appreciative if you take a couple extra seconds and share it.

Maybe you want to email it to a friend. Maybe you want to share it around social media. Or even be awesome if you'd head over to iTunes and just give us a rating. Every little bit helps get the word out and it helps more people get in touch with the message. I'm Jonathan Fields, signing off for Good Life Project. We'll be right back. here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X, available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations,

iPhone Xs are later required. Charge time and actual results will vary.