Restaurant Owners Uncorked

Tom started his pizzaria in 1983, and thirty-five years late it's still thriving in the small town of Ravenna, OH. His passion for his business is contagious, and you'll learn how his single-location restaurant has withstood the test of time. Enjoy...

Parker started his dream Italian restaurant in downtown Raleigh, NC in 1996 when there weren't many restaurants downtown. Twenty-two years later, Caffe Luna is an institution in a town now full of successful independent restaurants. Parker has owned and operated his single location all of these years, and as you'll here in this conversation, he hasn't lost an ounce of the enthusiasm and pride for...

This conversation was so much fun! Chick and I got into all sorts of topics from Chick living in Chicago while Maxie's is hundreds of miles away in Ithica, NY, to restaurant technology, to meditation. We spoke for over and hour and I could have talked to him twice that long. Enjoy...

Jon owns The Local Icon (www.thelocalicon.com) a very successful hospitality in Raleigh, N.C. Since 2012 he and his team have opened six concepts, and all of them are very popular and admired. This is a long and GREAT interview. We talk about very wide range of topics, and I would have asked more questions but I wanted to respect his time. We may even need to do a part II for this interviews! You'...

Paul left Georgetown University in the early 2000's with degrees in marketing and international business and a different plan than his friends who were heading to NYC to get into investment banking. He started bar tending and that led to a successful career in the restaurant business that has spanned 15 years, including the last 12 as owner. Paul co-owns both Town Hall and Sixth Engine, successful...

Andrew co-owns B2 Bistro + Bar in Red Bank, NJ (http://www.b2bistro.com). He grew up around the restaurant business and started working in it when he was fourteen. After attending the Culinary Institute of America and running restaurants for nine years, he had an opportunity to join his partner Cesare "Chez" De Chellis and start his own restaurant. Andrew shares what he loves about the business, l...

Charlie started washing dishes at age 14 in Buffalo, NY and soon fell in love with the hustle and bustle of the restaurant world. After leaving Buffalo for what he thought was for good many years ago and finding success in the highly competitive Chicago restaurant and bar scene, he returned home in 2013 and owns to successful restaurants with more on the way. Charlie talks about loyalty, hard work...

Aaron Soward tells the story of going from a school to a chain to co-founding Provision Concepts with his long-time friend and colleague, Jeff Dixon. Today they own three very successful concepts in Oklahoma City, each with one location and two of them with a second location coming soon. As always, this is a great story from a bold entrepreneur in the independent restaurant world. Enjoy...

Kiersten Traina is co-owns the very popular and successful Liberty Market in Gilbert, AZ. Started at the height of recession in 2008, Liberty Market was built on the guiding principles of having a passion for the food and serving with a servant's heart. Kiersten shares how those unchanging principles, along with the willingness to hold nothing else sacred, has helped her and her team building a si...

Michael and Daniel Holzman started The Meatball shop in NYC in 2010 and it quickly grew to six locations and gained national attention. Now he's back at it with Seamore's in Brooklyn, and he was kind enough to take some time to share his story. Michael is a passionate, hard working guy who absolutely loves the restaurant business. Find out why...

Shawn owns Leroy Fox, Mortimer's, and Cowbell in Charlotte, N.C. He is one of the most respected and successful restaurant owners in the city, and he is a genuinely great guy. He shares his story of a life in the restart business and what philosophies and and his team operate with to ensure success for their restaurants. Enjoy...

Lisa and her husband Julian started The Riverside Market & Cafe in 2010 with no restaurant experience. They ignored conventional wisdom, and trusted their instincts, doing things such as implementing a honor system bottled beer and having no TVs in a place you would expect to have TVs. Riverside quickly became one of the most popular and highly rated restaurants in Fort Lauderdale, precisely b...

Steve started working in a restaurant when he was 13 and has been at at for almost 35 years. Today he owns The Indigo Road Restaurant Group in Charleston, S.C. with seven concepts and 13 locations. Here's his story...

Marilyn Schlossbach owns restaurants in Asbury Park, NJ. She is a self-taught chef, a passionate woman who devotes herself fully to her family, her business, and her community, and a creative person who works hard and inspires everybody around her. Here's her story. Don't miss this one...

Travis Todd's grandparents started a small crab factory in 1947 to produce some of the finest Blue Crab meet on the eastern shore. Nearly 70 years later, the business has evolved into a beloved destination restaurant run by third generation family members. Travis Todd grew up around the family business and has been a part of it for most of his life. My opinion from listening to Travis talk about a...

Jess Killeen and her husband Ed own Grassburger, with locations in Durango, CO, and Albuquerque, NM. What started as a transition to grass fed beef for they family of five led to the the couple opening the first restaurant they had ever opened. This is an inspiring story about opening a restaurant with no experience in the business, as well as a very educational discussion of the health benefits o...

Scott owns Hog & Rocks, a highly successful restaurant in San Francisco. He's also opening Loma Brewing Company in Los Gatos, CA in just a few weeks. He took time to speak with us about his nearly 20 years in the business, and discussed everything from culinary school, to raising money for a restaurant, to business partners, to finding and keeping good talent, to staying focused on the things...

Angela Salamanca came to the U.S. from Colombia, South America in 1993 as a 17-year-old rent high school graduate. She went to work for her uncle, who owned a popular Mexican restaurant in Raleigh, N.C. By 2007, she was planning the opening of a new restaurant with that same uncle, when he suddenly left the country to get married. He told Angela, who had a young child and a baby on the way, "You d...

Meherwan Irani got an MBA and spent 15 years in corporate America, working for other people. He was not unhappy, but never jumped out of bed in the morning excited to head to work. So in 2009 as the economy was collapsing, he and his wife Molly took a leap of faith and decided to start a restaurant. Meherwan was a self-taught chef with a 150-page business plan and in need of $70,000 to get started...

Cris Eddings co-owns Chuck's Fish (two locations) and Five Restaurant (five locations). He and his team follow their own compasses and don't pay attention to conventional wisdom when it doesn't align with what they believe. So they do things like raising the minimum wage for non-tipped employees to $10.25/hour well before the idea became a national topic, opening a concept (Five) with only five of...

Mic Heynekamp of Eddyline Brewery was in our book, Restaurant Owners Uncorked, and told me one of the most interesting stories I've ever heard about opening a restaurant. He and his wife, Molley, drew up a $1,000,000 business plan to open their first restaurant. It included new equipment, a build-out, and everything conventional wisdom says you need to do to get started. After getting declined for...

Kimberly Shingledecker started Pies & Pints along with partner David Bailey in Fayetteville, WV in 2003 in the basement of a house. By 2005 they had two-hour waits and needed to buy a building with more space. The growth hasn't slowed down much since, and today there are eight locations with a ninth opening soon. Kimberly and I talked about consistency being critical, never closing earlier tha...

Rob Ward and his three business partners started Cantina 76 in Columbia, S.C. in November, 2009. They had no experience owning restaurants, and not much experience in the restaurant business at all. They now have two locations and recently opened Za's Brickoven Pizza. Their restaurants are successful and well-liked in Columbia, and it was fun learning how Rob approached owning and running restaura...

Dave Query started Big Red F Restaurant Group in 1993 and has turned it into a highly successful business with five concepts and soon-to-be thirteen total locations. In the five years I've been interviewing restaurant owners, Dave has always been one of my favorites. He's transparent, honest, wise, and able to articulate his beliefs and philosophies as well as anybody I've come across in the busin...

Rayme Rossello is a very positive and inspiring person, who first co-owned a restaurant in 1999. That restaurant was very successful and grew to 5 locations, but Rayme sold her share of the business to her partner to try something different. After an unsuccessful partnership in a french bistro, she questioned herself and what was next, even considering going back to waiting tables. Tune in to hear...