Latest / The Inspired Stories Podcast / Resilience, Adaptability, and Innovation: Lessons from Surf's Up Franchising Founder Eric Roy | Restaurants & Franchises Series

Transcript

Resilience, Adaptability, and Innovation: Lessons from Surf's Up Franchising Founder Eric Roy | Restaurants & Franchises Series · The Inspired Stories Podcast

• 0:04
  Welcome to another edition of Inspired Stories, where leaders
• 0:07
  share their experiences so we can learn from their successes,
• 0:10
  how they've overcome adversity, and explore current challenges
• 0:13
  they're facing. Welcome to another edition of
• 0:18
  the Inspired Stories podcast, where leaders share their
• 0:21
  experiences so we can learn from their successes and be inspired
• 0:24
  by how they've overcome adversity.
• 0:26
  My name is Anthony Cotispoti and today's guest is Eric Roy,
• 0:30
  founder and CEO of Surf's Up Franchising, a fast casual
• 0:35
  seafood restaurant with a relaxed atmosphere and delicious
• 0:38
  southern inspired recipes including fried green tomatoes,
• 0:42
  fried lobster, catfish and shrimp.
• 0:45
  Started in 2012, it has since grown to 8 locations.
• 0:49
  They provide catering services and accommodate private events
• 0:53
  and together we'll hear how he was able to first make the
• 0:55
  transition from the inner city of Chicago to a tax accountant
• 1:00
  and later to starting a chain of seafood restaurants.
• 1:04
  Before we get into the good stuff, today's episode is
• 1:06
  brought to you by my company, Add Back Benefits Agency, where
• 1:10
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• 1:13
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• 1:34
  Now back to our guest today, the CEO Surf's up franchising.
• 1:37
  Eric, I appreciate you making the time to Share your story
• 1:40
  today. Well, thank you for having me,
• 1:42
  Anthony. I appreciate it.
• 1:43
  So Eric, let's start at the beginning.
• 1:46
  I want to hear about maybe some of the challenging circumstances
• 1:50
  that you had to overcome living in the inner city of Chicago to
• 1:54
  going to college and becoming a tax accountant.
• 1:56
  Can you kind of paint a a picture of what that arc looked
• 1:59
  like? Yeah, so, so I was grew up in
• 2:02
  the Lawndale area of Chicago early on.
• 2:05
  I mean, it was, it was, you know, some it's funny because
• 2:08
  you know, now looking back that I've, you know, I've kind of
• 2:11
  like been away a little, a little bit for a while.
• 2:13
  I still have a lot of family on the West side of Chicago.
• 2:15
  I'm in the suburbs now, but looking back, I can see the
• 2:19
  difference. But when I was, when I was
• 2:20
  coming up and I really didn't know any difference.
• 2:22
  You know, I had a lot of love in my family.
• 2:24
  So, you know, I didn't, I didn't know if it was any different
• 2:26
  from, you know, me growing up there or me growing up, you
• 2:29
  know, in the White House or, or anything else that we had a big
• 2:32
  family, a lot of love on both sides.
• 2:35
  Our parents, they had me, my Mama was 16 to 17 when she had
• 2:39
  me and my father was probably like 18 to 19.
• 2:41
  So they were young, they were young.
• 2:43
  But my dad, he, you know, he loved his family.
• 2:47
  He so he worked and he worked his job.
• 2:49
  He worked at the United States Post Office.
• 2:51
  He started around then when I went after I was born and he
• 2:54
  stayed there until he retired. And then he helped put my mom
• 2:57
  through school. And you know, she always was
• 2:59
  really big on education. So she became a nurse.
• 3:02
  And you know, and as they did better, you know, we kind of
• 3:05
  like moved on to, to better apartments, then eventually
• 3:09
  moved out of the, the Mondale area until the suburbs, moved
• 3:13
  out to Oak Park, then eventually moved.
• 3:15
  They bought a house in Maywood. So, you know, I was able to kind
• 3:17
  of get away. One of my my biggest challenges
• 3:21
  was when I was, and this was this was I was a little older, I
• 3:26
  was paying me like 14 to 15 and I got, you know, I was actually
• 3:31
  in the library, a couple of my friends goofing off.
• 3:34
  Yeah, I got kicked out of the library, left was walking.
• 3:37
  But while we're in the library, there was a group of guys kind
• 3:40
  of like started hanging out and we were we were leaving the
• 3:43
  library on our way. I'm just going to the store.
• 3:46
  I was really just going to take a break for a minute and then
• 3:49
  come back to the library and pick up my friend.
• 3:51
  A group of guys followed me down to the store and and jumped on
• 3:55
  me. So, you know, I mean, they, you
• 3:57
  know, they kind of sparked something up with me, jumped on
• 4:00
  me. It's probably about eight or
• 4:01
  nine of them. They like hit me in the face
• 4:03
  with a brick. They broke my nose.
• 4:05
  They broke the bridge right over over my eye right here.
• 4:07
  So I had like stitches here. And but that was the turning
• 4:12
  point of my life because after that, you know, before that I
• 4:14
  was, you know, on the basketball team getting straight A's.
• 4:17
  I was still and I kind of maintained that I left the
• 4:19
  basketball team. But then after that, I started
• 4:22
  to spend more time back in the city with my cousins because,
• 4:25
  you know, this was after I moved from the city into the suburbs
• 4:28
  and kind of like was new on the block.
• 4:30
  That's kind of like, you know, I didn't know everybody.
• 4:32
  So that's kind of how it happened.
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  But then that drove, drove me back to the city.
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  And then maybe like almost a year later, I got my license.
• 4:38
  My parents got me a car. So I was constantly back in the
• 4:41
  city, you know, with my cousins. And, you know, my cousins, they
• 4:44
  kind of were raised a little differently and, you know, and
• 4:47
  that kind of like sent me in a different direction for a few
• 4:49
  years. So that was like a big challenge
• 4:52
  that I had to overcome. And and, you know, I got to the
• 4:55
  point where I was able to kind of really think about it and go
• 4:57
  back to that point and kind of, you know, try to try to switch
• 5:01
  it up, you know, so that I can get go, you know, going to a
• 5:03
  more positive direction. So you got, you were in the
• 5:07
  suburbs when you got jumped by that.
• 5:09
  Yeah, I was in the suburbs. Yeah, in the suburbs then.
• 5:12
  So you were in the place where you thought you were supposed to
• 5:14
  be safe. Yeah, I mean, yeah.
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  And it was, you know, and it was safe up until, you know, until
• 5:18
  that point, I guess I was like the new guy on the block, you
• 5:21
  know, it wasn't the people on my block that did.
• 5:23
  It was some guys, you know, a few blocks away that, you know,
• 5:26
  just just a group of so-called bad guys that, you know, that
• 5:29
  started hanging out and, you know, I guess that's what they
• 5:31
  were doing. And, but, you know, that kind of
• 5:33
  sent me in a situation where, you know, I wasn't so focused on
• 5:37
  school anymore, even though I still did well enough to, to
• 5:40
  graduate and eventually go to U of I.
• 5:43
  But, but I, I just wasn't focused like I was, you know, I
• 5:45
  was really mentally, you know, kind of like thinking about that
• 5:49
  a lot, you know what I mean? So I kind of changed instead of
• 5:51
  me, you know, focusing on school and the basketball team, I went
• 5:55
  over and started spending more time with my, with my cousins
• 5:57
  and everything, you know, my cousins, you know, these, these
• 6:00
  were some pretty tough guys, you know.
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  So I started spending time with them and meeting their friends
• 6:04
  and got started hanging out more back in the, you know, in the
• 6:07
  neighborhood. And so am I hearing you
• 6:10
  correctly that maybe that was a direction that wasn't entirely
• 6:13
  good or productive for you? You know, I learned a lot,
• 6:16
  right? You know, like the school of
• 6:18
  Hard Knocks. But, you know, I, you know, and
• 6:20
  that's what I did like when my son was coming up.
• 6:22
  So my son, right now, he's one of the VPS of product at JP
• 6:26
  Morgan. But that was one thing that I
• 6:28
  focused on. He's 31 now, but I focused on
• 6:30
  it, made sure that he didn't have to deal with the situation
• 6:34
  that I dealt with. I made sure that he was safe
• 6:36
  because I know when I, you know, all the time when I was safe, I
• 6:40
  was good. When I all of a sudden wasn't
• 6:42
  safe, you know, that kind of made me go back to, you know,
• 6:45
  now I want to be this tough guy, you know what I mean?
• 6:47
  Because I'm kind of like trying to save face.
• 6:50
  So you know that. And that's why I made sure that
• 6:51
  my son and my nephew didn't have to deal with that.
• 6:54
  You know, we kind of like tried to make sure.
• 6:56
  And you know, my parents, you know them and my, my sister as
• 6:58
  well. We always really try to really
• 7:00
  make sure that the boys were safe because, you know, it's
• 7:03
  tough coming up in the inner city, you know, African
• 7:06
  American, you know, because, and even in our situation, we were
• 7:09
  living in the suburbs, but our whole family was in the city.
• 7:13
  So we still go back and forth, you know, And so once that
• 7:16
  happened, I really spent in it, you know, I, I was still
• 7:19
  sleeping at home at my parents house, but I spent 8090% of my
• 7:25
  daytime after school like in the city and you know, kind of like
• 7:28
  back in the city, you know, wanting to be a tough guy for a
• 7:31
  minute, you know. And So what was it that kind of
• 7:34
  got you back on a better track? Was it going to the University
• 7:37
  of Illinois? Well, that, that, that, yeah,
• 7:40
  that that was part of it. And then so I had my I had my
• 7:44
  son at 18. Then I had my, my the one that's
• 7:47
  at JP Morgan. Then I have my oldest daughter
• 7:50
  at 20, and that's the one that went to Ohio State.
• 7:53
  So I was AI was a young father, you know, just like my father
• 7:56
  was, you know, and so that that was part of it, you know, have
• 7:59
  have my children. And then I was able to get away
• 8:02
  and go to U of I and kind of like meet, meet some different
• 8:05
  friends. Also, you know, I kind of give
• 8:07
  myself a little space, but you know, U of I, you know, two
• 8:11
  hours from Chicago. So I found that that still
• 8:14
  wasn't enough space. So my son, because you know,
• 8:17
  everybody, you know, just, you know, you're, you're you advised
• 8:20
  champagne, but it's kind of like an extension of Chicago, you
• 8:23
  know, really good school. But it I mean, so, you know, so
• 8:28
  I still wasn't all the way because I would still come back
• 8:30
  home a lot, you know what I mean?
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  But just, you know, just growing up and maturing, you know what I
• 8:36
  mean? Had a couple, you know, near
• 8:39
  death type of type of incidents, you know what I mean?
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  I got got robbed and, you know, a couple things happened that
• 8:45
  really kind of like forced me to sit back and kind of like
• 8:48
  really, really think and and see, you know, can you know, how
• 8:51
  did I get to this point? You know, because everything
• 8:53
  was, you know, going perfectly wasn't doing too well in school
• 8:56
  and, and, and just through that reflecting and just maturing and
• 8:59
  having my children, I came back home to Chicago for a minute and
• 9:03
  left U of I and then ultimately was able to go back.
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  And instead of being in, because my mother, she was a nurse.
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  So she wanted me to be a doctor. So she always pushed me, you
• 9:13
  know, to be a doctor, be a doctor.
• 9:15
  And I, you know, I felt like it sounds cool.
• 9:17
  You know, I was good in math like science.
• 9:20
  So I, you know, I, so I originally went to U of I for
• 9:25
  chemistry and then, yeah, after I dropped out, I, when I went
• 9:28
  back, I had changed my whole major to accounting.
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  So I had to go like an additional, I'd already been
• 9:34
  there like 3 years. I had to go an additional three
• 9:37
  years to get the accounting degree.
• 9:39
  So, you know, you know, all of that just kind of like mixed up
• 9:42
  together. And I had to go back to when,
• 9:44
  when the incident happened to really understand, you know,
• 9:48
  where I need to go, you know, just to understand, you know,
• 9:50
  how, what, what, what set me on that tangent.
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  So it wasn't one near death experience, it was a couple of
• 9:57
  them and then sort of a slow evolution, a slow burn from
• 10:01
  there that kind of had you take stock of your life and how did,
• 10:05
  how did I get on this path and, and, and where do I want to be?
• 10:08
  Yeah, it was one was a car accident.
• 10:11
  We went to visit one of my friends at Lewis University and,
• 10:14
  you know, we were driving back, me and a couple of these same,
• 10:16
  you know, guys we're hanging with and, you know, we we're
• 10:19
  goofing off and everything. We're an expressive, one of the
• 10:21
  guys from the back seat jumped and grabbed the steering wheel
• 10:25
  and like just turned us into the median.
• 10:27
  So, you know, that was that was one thing.
• 10:29
  And then I then I got robbed at gunpoint and and that was
• 10:31
  another. So, you know, those, those,
• 10:33
  those two things really kind of like, you know, that, you know,
• 10:36
  you started to think about stuff, right?
• 10:37
  You got to sit down and, you know, kind of like, OK, this,
• 10:40
  this isn't working. It's time to do something new.
• 10:43
  And I was always smart enough to be able to step outside myself
• 10:46
  and kind of see what I was doing, you know what I mean?
• 10:48
  And you know, just so I can, I can change, you know.
• 10:52
  And so you went on to become a tax accountant, you graduated
• 10:55
  from school, became a tax accountant.
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  You kind of moved up the the ranks a couple different
• 10:59
  companies there as a tax accountant.
• 11:02
  What was the path, what was the bridge from being a tax
• 11:05
  accountant to now? I think I want to start a, a
• 11:08
  chain of seafood stores. Talk to me about that.
• 11:10
  Evolution. So so that's a long well, it's
• 11:12
  not a long story. So so I I left, I came a tax
• 11:17
  accountant. I was so my one of my first
• 11:19
  good, good jobs. I was a staff accountant for a
• 11:21
  couple years and then I eventually was hired as a
• 11:24
  corporate income tax auditor for the Florida Department of
• 11:27
  Revenue. So I worked at the Chicago
• 11:30
  Service Center. So what we did was we audited
• 11:33
  companies in the Midwest that did business in Florida.
• 11:36
  So I was there for about for about almost five years, but
• 11:40
  while I was while I while I was there, so it was there was a
• 11:43
  friend of mine who had a restaurant, a Chicago restaurant
• 11:47
  that used to be about 15 or 16 locations before he bought it.
• 11:52
  But at one point he bought it. So when he bought that, you
• 11:55
  know, and I was still keeping in contact with him.
• 11:57
  I was working for the Department of Revenue and he was doing
• 11:59
  really well. So I was always a serial
• 12:00
  entrepreneur. So I always had that in my mind,
• 12:03
  like, you know, maybe I'll bring that back to the West Side one
• 12:05
  day. But at the same time I was
• 12:08
  working for the Florida. So I would fly out to
• 12:10
  Tallahassee and do a lot of training and my wife, you know,
• 12:14
  I'd be out there for two weeks at a time.
• 12:15
  My wife would come with me. So while we were there, we, you
• 12:18
  know, we were both big foodies. So we would go to the different
• 12:21
  restaurants there and we liked how they were doing and they had
• 12:24
  like a different types of style, but they had like a few
• 12:27
  different seafoods. And then you can have it fried,
• 12:30
  you can have it grilled, you can have it blackened, you can have
• 12:33
  it steamed. And, and just to add to what we
• 12:36
  were saying earlier, like so, so we're, so one thing we do
• 12:38
  different is surf's up. We, we don't only fry
• 12:41
  everything. So a lot of our stuff can be
• 12:43
  grilled or blackened also, you know, so we, so, and we kind of
• 12:47
  like got that from, from them, you know what I mean?
• 12:50
  So my friend, he had a seafood restaurant.
• 12:52
  So originally I was going to bring his, I was going to
• 12:55
  license his store and bring it back to, to the West side
• 12:58
  because they had gone from like 1415 locations in the 80s down
• 13:02
  to one location when my friend bought it.
• 13:05
  So I was going to bring that back over, you know, back over
• 13:07
  to the area where I was from. And, you know, and halfway
• 13:10
  through the, the, the conversation, you, my friend,
• 13:12
  you know, we, we kind of kind of wasn't seeing eye to eye.
• 13:15
  So I just decided to, and I'd already leased a store, I bought
• 13:19
  equipment, talked to my wife about it.
• 13:22
  And then we both just decided, you know, let's, let's just do
• 13:24
  our own thing. And so go ahead, I'm sorry.
• 13:28
  So, so his his concept was sort of the inspiration for you, kind
• 13:32
  of gave you the, the idea, the the fuel for the fire.
• 13:35
  But to go from the idea to starting a restaurant on your
• 13:40
  own with, from what I'm understanding, no previous
• 13:43
  restaurant experience, that's a big bit of a leap.
• 13:45
  Yes, it is a huge leap and look at it.
• 13:48
  And at the time I didn't, I didn't realize how much of A
• 13:50
  leap it was right. So now, 12 years later, I see it
• 13:53
  was a huge leap because so, so, and, and how that happened was
• 13:58
  so, so I decided with no experience, I, I, I trained at,
• 14:01
  at his restaurant maybe a two or three days and then I went
• 14:04
  shopping with him once or twice. I mean, and that was it.
• 14:07
  So when it was time for us to open, so we decided to come up
• 14:10
  with a name and everything. When it was get close time for
• 14:12
  us to open, I knew that I had to hire someone that really was
• 14:16
  experienced and, you know, startups and things like that.
• 14:19
  So we posted a couple ads looking for employees.
• 14:22
  I found a guy, a Todd guy named Todd Jaguar, that, that wound up
• 14:27
  being like a godsend. I mean, you know, you're looking
• 14:30
  at you're interviewing people and you know, even before the
• 14:33
  interview, he basically sent me a menu.
• 14:36
  He sent me some sauces and, you know, a couple recipes.
• 14:40
  So he was really on, on, on on top of it.
• 14:42
  And now, so we wind up hiring him and, and then, and then we
• 14:46
  wound up in the crazy part. So we opened January 20th, 2012.
• 14:50
  He opened on a Friday. Crazy part is that it was a
• 14:55
  Blizzard. It wound up being a Blizzard.
• 14:57
  You know, we're in Chicago, so it literally wound up being a
• 14:59
  Blizzard. But we wound up doing really
• 15:02
  well. You know, this is our first
• 15:04
  grand opening. Wound up doing really well.
• 15:06
  Todd was doing really well. I had a couple people that I
• 15:09
  knew a couple of young guys that I was kind of like mentoring
• 15:12
  that I kind of brought brought in there.
• 15:13
  So I had, you know, I had them working.
• 15:15
  Of course, when you first start off, you know, you got you got
• 15:17
  everybody working. You know, this was something I
• 15:19
  didn't know the end, right? Then you look at your first
• 15:22
  couple payrolls like wow. So, yeah.
• 15:26
  So you know, so it started off and it took off really.
• 15:28
  I mean, it took off awesome. And it couldn't been better.
• 15:31
  And, and now the crazy part is so when you're first, you're
• 15:35
  going, you're new to the restaurant business, you're
• 15:37
  about to open. People aren't want to aren't
• 15:39
  going to want to rent you a space.
• 15:41
  You know, you're brand new. They know the restaurant
• 15:44
  business is risky. They're not going to want to
• 15:46
  take a chance on you. So the location that I that I
• 15:49
  found was on the side of a Menards.
• 15:51
  Menards is like a Home Depot, like a large Home Depot store.
• 15:55
  It was a little small place on the side of Menards.
• 15:58
  It used to be, I mean, it was a few things over the years, but
• 16:01
  it hadn't been used in over 10 years.
• 16:03
  So, you know, I had to come in there and clean it up and, you
• 16:07
  know, so that's, but let's see. What I didn't know is I was
• 16:09
  learning a lot about the process.
• 16:11
  This was my first store, but I was learning about the process
• 16:13
  and this was in the West suburb of Hillside.
• 16:17
  So it's a pretty strict suburb. So, you know, they were going to
• 16:19
  you were going to go by the laws.
• 16:21
  We had to eventually install fire alarm sprinkler systems.
• 16:26
  You know, we had to do a lot. So this is my first kind of like
• 16:28
  learn event. So I did all of this, right.
• 16:31
  My my wife helped me financially.
• 16:34
  I took out money from, you know, from me working at the
• 16:36
  Department of Revenue and my mother helped me.
• 16:38
  So we came up probably about 708080 grand open this location.
• 16:45
  It was crazy. January 20th, everything's going
• 16:48
  great. In September of the same year,
• 16:52
  Menards posted an ad in the local paper saying after 20
• 16:56
  years of business in this in this location, we're closing our
• 16:59
  doors. So, you know, I mean, and this
• 17:01
  place used to be like the Hillside Mall, but it had been
• 17:04
  broken down to Menards and this little small spot really was
• 17:08
  just an extension of Menards and and that's it.
• 17:11
  And there's like a CarMax like way down on another lot.
• 17:14
  So of course with with Menards leaving, you know, we're not
• 17:17
  going to survive. We have to leave.
• 17:19
  I mean, the parking lot was for like 2000 spaces, you know what
• 17:23
  I mean? So so that was.
• 17:25
  Like you got a lot of your, you got a lot of your foot traffic
• 17:27
  from Menards with them. Shutting that, that, that that
• 17:30
  as well. But not only that.
• 17:31
  When Menards left, it was a 2000 space parking lot.
• 17:34
  The whole place was dark, you know what I mean?
• 17:36
  And not only that, the, the landlord, the property taxes
• 17:40
  that they had to pay for the space was, you know, 10 times
• 17:43
  what our rent was. So there, you know, so there was
• 17:46
  nothing we can do. So originally they were going to
• 17:49
  give us a relocation money to relocate because they know that
• 17:52
  it wasn't, you know, nothing that we did.
• 17:54
  So they wanted us to item, itemize everything that we we
• 17:57
  spent and everything. So we did that.
• 17:59
  They wind up just playing a waiting game with us because
• 18:02
  they knew without Bernards being there and it's, you know, being
• 18:05
  dark and, you know, it kind of looks kind of desolate.
• 18:08
  You got one little small spot, you know, and so they knew.
• 18:11
  So we played the waiting game with them and we eventually they
• 18:14
  didn't give us any relocation money, but we eventually had to
• 18:17
  leave. So, you know, that's, that was
• 18:19
  my first like huge challenge, you know, in the restaurant
• 18:22
  business. And that was in the first year,
• 18:25
  several months after you've opened.
• 18:26
  Man, in the first year, so all the money that we have put into
• 18:29
  it, everything pretty much gone. So, so after that.
• 18:33
  So, you know, I was, I was a little down.
• 18:34
  You know, this is like November ish that, that that same year,
• 18:37
  2012 little down. So I'm like, OK, well, you know,
• 18:41
  I'm going back to the to the accountant game, right?
• 18:44
  So I applied to a few jobs. I get a few interviews, you
• 18:47
  know, over the next few months. Don't don't get any of the jobs,
• 18:51
  you know, but but so that same 2012, that Christmas, we're
• 18:55
  doing like a family gathering type deal.
• 18:57
  You know how everybody gets together for Christmas and you
• 19:00
  know, we're all hanging out with my cousins and everything.
• 19:02
  And one of my cousins, he was like, he's like Boo.
• 19:04
  You know, you got to keep going, don't you?
• 19:06
  And I was, you know, I didn't even know what he was talking
• 19:08
  about. I'm like, what do you mean?
• 19:09
  He was like, you know, that's that's how that type of thing
• 19:11
  go. He like, you know, you open up
• 19:12
  your first store, it might close and it might blow up.
• 19:16
  Then he said, then, you know, you, you regroup, open up
• 19:19
  another one. And then, you know, you say that
• 19:21
  one my clothes, you regroup, open up another one again.
• 19:24
  And he was like, and then after you do that for about six or
• 19:27
  seven years, people started to know you, you know, people
• 19:29
  started, you started to be known for it.
• 19:31
  And you know, and then I, you know, I thought about it.
• 19:33
  I'm like, you know, that made a lot of sense.
• 19:34
  So, so if I would have gotten a job during that little dark
• 19:38
  period from like November to March or April, I, you know, I
• 19:42
  probably wouldn't be sitting there talking to you about this
• 19:45
  restaurant business. But so I was still, I'm still
• 19:48
  looking for job. Didn't get the ones that I
• 19:49
  interviewed for my wife, you know, because she knows she,
• 19:53
  she, she runs the hair salon. So she's doing her thing, but
• 19:56
  I'm at home, you know, twiddling my thumbs.
• 19:58
  So she's constantly looking for places.
• 20:00
  So, and she's always been good at this man.
• 20:02
  She found a place which is really not too far from where we
• 20:05
  live on the West side of the city, just east of Oak Park, you
• 20:09
  know, pretty decent area and the landlords were really fair.
• 20:13
  So she found so. So and this and this was like a
• 20:16
  straight up godsend. So the landlord they wanted at
• 20:19
  the time this was 2013, they wanted 2500 a month for the
• 20:23
  rent. So they wanted two months
• 20:25
  security deposit and the first month rent.
• 20:28
  So that would have been $7500. Now, also, this was a location
• 20:33
  that had been abandoned by someone else six months before.
• 20:36
  So the the the two owners, they really wasn't in a restaurant
• 20:40
  business. They had tried a restaurant
• 20:41
  before when they bought the building, didn't want to have
• 20:43
  anything to do with it. They really was trying to sell
• 20:46
  us the building, but but we couldn't afford it at the time.
• 20:48
  So they was like, you know, all the equipment that's here
• 20:51
  because the last people abandoned, they say all the
• 20:53
  equipment that's here, you can have it do whatever you want to
• 20:56
  do with it, throw it away. So I still had some equipment
• 20:59
  from the hillside location. So 7500 was kind of steep.
• 21:03
  So I convinced them, the landlords let me give you the
• 21:06
  $5000 security deposit and let me get a month or two to clean
• 21:10
  the place up and get it right. And then I'll give you the the
• 21:14
  2500 first month rent on the first day when we open.
• 21:18
  And then, you know, and they was like, OK, cool.
• 21:20
  So, so I was able to scrap up five grand.
• 21:23
  My wife and I from family, you know, we was able to kind of
• 21:25
  like just scrap that up and got the five grand, signed the
• 21:28
  lease. Once we signed the lease and got
• 21:30
  the keys, we still had some equipment from the prior
• 21:34
  location. So we brought our stuff from the
• 21:36
  prior location. And then and what we didn't know
• 21:39
  in the beginning, we found out in the backyard of the new
• 21:42
  location there was a container like the back of a truck, like a
• 21:46
  container, you know, I think we had to keep.
• 21:48
  Like a shipping container. Exactly.
• 21:49
  We open that up and this thing is filled with restaurant
• 21:52
  equipment. I mean, like garbage equipment
• 21:55
  though. Like garbage stuff broken up,
• 21:57
  you know, I mean pretty much garbage.
• 21:59
  Equipment. Nothing usable.
• 22:00
  Well, it was maybe one or two things I was using, but we
• 22:02
  didn't need it anyway. But what we were able to do was
• 22:05
  take this equipment. Now, at the same time, I had a
• 22:07
  cousin and our cousin, he did a lot of recycling.
• 22:10
  You know, that's what it, what his job was.
• 22:12
  He had like a recycling company. So he would do like trash outs
• 22:15
  for the banks for foreclosed houses because, you know, the
• 22:18
  whole foreclosure thing was still going on.
• 22:20
  So he was able to take the, the, some of the restaurant equipment
• 22:25
  and everything and take it and scrap that.
• 22:28
  And then we sold some stuff, Scrap some stuff and, and we, so
• 22:31
  we wound up from that restaurant equipment and signed this lease.
• 22:33
  We wound up coming up with like close to 10,000.
• 22:37
  So we took this 10,000 and now we bought our, our signage and,
• 22:41
  and painted the place and started to, you know, and
• 22:44
  started to build it up. So that the more of the story is
• 22:46
  I was actually able to, I was able to make money by going into
• 22:50
  this location. I made it $5000 and I used all
• 22:53
  of that. So I, you know, because I, I, I
• 22:56
  toward the five from family signed the lease, was able to
• 22:58
  get 10 from selling all the, the scrap metal and everything and
• 23:02
  the scrap equipment and then was able to trade a couple things
• 23:05
  with a few restaurant equipment company and was able to find.
• 23:08
  So I wound up, I wound up on the top just really off of nothing.
• 23:10
  And then we opened this store in 2013 around Memorial Day and it
• 23:15
  kind of like went gangbuster from the start, You know, it's
• 23:18
  like everything's going great, you know, but still, still some
• 23:21
  challenges ahead. So, so we was there for about,
• 23:26
  we was there for, you know, for a four year, got you about a
• 23:28
  year and a half. And, and so, so the next, the
• 23:32
  following year, 2014, because just like I said, everything was
• 23:34
  going great. We had a friend that had already
• 23:37
  inquired about, you know, maybe opening up one of the same
• 23:40
  thing. And, and then at the same time,
• 23:42
  my sister's fiance, he, he was really interested in it, you
• 23:46
  know, because he, he has been at the one on hillside, you know,
• 23:48
  people just watching you, you know, sometimes people are
• 23:50
  watching, you don't even know it.
• 23:52
  And so they were both interested and so I'd already told my
• 23:56
  sister and her fiance, they decided to do 1.
• 23:59
  So now I'm on the West side of Chicago.
• 24:02
  Her fiance is from the South Shore area, which is on the
• 24:04
  South side. So they went.
• 24:06
  So, so basically in 2014 he opened one August 1st on the
• 24:11
  South side, my sister's fiance and then a good friend of ours,
• 24:15
  he opened one in Maywood, which is another W suburb.
• 24:18
  So now 2014, we had three locations.
• 24:22
  And were these franchises or were these like your?
• 24:24
  Partner well, they were like, they were kind of like, well,
• 24:26
  they were licensed licensees basically in the beginning
• 24:29
  because we hadn't registered to sell franchises.
• 24:31
  So my sister, you know, they said I was like a franchise
• 24:34
  because, you know, that was my sister and fiance.
• 24:36
  That's that's basically her. Spot that?
• 24:37
  Was her spot, so, you know, she wasn't giving me anything.
• 24:40
  But my friend, my other friend, he was actually giving me a, a
• 24:44
  basically, you know, like a little royalty fee.
• 24:47
  And so then we had the three stores so, and you know, I'm
• 24:50
  still running it, but you know now.
• 24:51
  So I still didn't know a whole lot about the restaurant
• 24:54
  business. I'm still learning.
• 24:55
  So you know, food costs like just a unit economics weren't
• 24:59
  all the way there. So I mean, anybody that's in the
• 25:01
  restaurant business know the margins are really small.
• 25:04
  So if you're running, I mean you could do $1,000,000 a year.
• 25:07
  And if you have those numbers off a little bit, I mean you'll
• 25:10
  be spending a million too, you know what I mean?
• 25:12
  So, but the more of this story is that so things were still a
• 25:16
  little tough, you know what I mean?
• 25:17
  For my wife and I with her doing her thing as a businesswoman
• 25:20
  with the, the beauty salon and then me doing my thing now at
• 25:23
  the restaurant. So the opportunity cost became
• 25:26
  too much. So and I and I, you know, and I
• 25:28
  like the license and things. So I was looking to eventually
• 25:31
  start franchising. So also in 2014, I applied for
• 25:35
  the trademark for Surf's Up with the USPTO because I wanted to do
• 25:40
  the franchising. But So what I wound up doing, I
• 25:43
  wound up the location that I was in, I wound up selling that
• 25:46
  location to another person that wanted to, you know, get
• 25:49
  involved in serfs up. So he came in, this person had
• 25:52
  more, you know, a lot more money than I did.
• 25:55
  So I sold it to him and I was going to go back to work as an
• 25:58
  accountant because the opportunity cost was too much.
• 26:01
  You know, I'm doing, you know, 90 grand as an accountant and,
• 26:04
  you know, and, but I'm just not really clearing 90 grand running
• 26:08
  the restaurant. So I sold the store to him, but
• 26:11
  he was supposed to be, it was supposed to be a surf surf
• 26:14
  franchise, but he remodeled it. And after he remodeled it, he
• 26:17
  decided to call it something else.
• 26:19
  Didn't really make me any difference, but I still have the
• 26:21
  other two stores. So that at that time, I went
• 26:23
  back to work as an accountant. Half about a year later, I got
• 26:28
  an office office action letter from the USPTO saying that I
• 26:32
  couldn't get the trademark. So I'm like, oh, wow.
• 26:35
  Because you know, because I really have my heart set on the
• 26:37
  franchise. And at the time my sister
• 26:39
  restaurant was going and our friends restaurant was going,
• 26:42
  but I was working as I was back and working as an accountant at
• 26:45
  USA and I and I was there for a while, you know, so, but they
• 26:48
  gave me some time to kind of recoup, build my credit back up,
• 26:52
  you know what I mean? Catch up on some bills.
• 26:54
  I was back, you know, doing that for about 3-3, almost four years
• 26:58
  and yeah, about four years. So they told me I couldn't get
• 27:02
  the the trademark. So, and I didn't have the money
• 27:04
  to really, you know, and I felt I was a smart guy.
• 27:06
  So I did my little research and that it was a company in it was
• 27:11
  a company in Virginia Beach that does shaved ice and their name
• 27:16
  was Surf's up. But I did my homework on the
• 27:18
  USPTOI, did my research and everything and I saw that they
• 27:22
  were class 35, which was shaved ice confectionery, and my class
• 27:27
  was class 43, which was restaurant services.
• 27:30
  So I, you know, I, I appealed to the USPTO and I've made that, I
• 27:34
  added that in there. And, you know, I'm just going
• 27:37
  about my business. You know, I would still help my
• 27:39
  friend and I would help my sister and I was very involved
• 27:42
  in their stores also. So we would have meetings and
• 27:44
  stuff. And I was staying on top of it.
• 27:46
  And in 2017, like toward mid to late 2017, I found out that I
• 27:53
  was going to get awarded the trademark, you know that, you
• 27:56
  know, I found out they were going to published me in the
• 27:58
  Official Gazette. And if there was no objection in
• 28:01
  30 days, then I would, I would get the trademark registered.
• 28:04
  So when that happened, that kind of like burned the fire up under
• 28:07
  me and, and that you know, that so I'm like now, OK, I'm about
• 28:10
  to get this trademark. I can get my franchise, I can do
• 28:13
  get back to what I was doing. And so, you know, me and my
• 28:16
  wife, we back, we're back on top of it the next year.
• 28:19
  My wife does, like I said, she was good at this, found another
• 28:22
  location which was right by a house in Oak Park.
• 28:24
  So we live in Oak Park, which is the first W suburb off of the
• 28:28
  city. So it's a walking distance to
• 28:30
  city limits. So we opened.
• 28:33
  So this was going to be our pilot location.
• 28:35
  We're going to use it to sell franchises and everything.
• 28:37
  So April, April 20th, 2018, we opened the store in Oak Park.
• 28:43
  So now and, and this place, I mean, the, the, the grand
• 28:46
  opening just went crazy. I mean, we had to decorate it.
• 28:49
  We, we were able to get it looking, looking really nice
• 28:51
  before it was open. So I mean, it just went crazy.
• 28:54
  I mean, it straight, straight from the beginning went, went,
• 28:58
  went really well. So now I had the three stores.
• 29:01
  And so Fast forward to 2018, we're just doing our thing.
• 29:05
  Towards the end of 2018, we were, we were featured on ATV
• 29:11
  show in Chicago on WGN called Chicago's Best.
• 29:14
  SO Chicago's Best was really, really popular show.
• 29:17
  The end, it's not out anymore, but they had like a 10 year run,
• 29:19
  but it was really popular. Then they featured his own
• 29:22
  Chicago's Best. So things were just getting
• 29:23
  better and better. So 2008, 2000, 2019, we licensed
• 29:29
  two more locations, one in Romeoville and one in
• 29:32
  Bronzeville. You're still doing licenses at
• 29:35
  this point? Right, still doing license.
• 29:37
  So this is 2019. So when we license license these
• 29:41
  two plus we had the other three. Now we were able to because I
• 29:44
  left my by this time I left my job at US Sailor, but now we
• 29:47
  were able to because, you know, franchising cost a lot of money,
• 29:50
  right? So I mean like FD, DS, franchise
• 29:54
  agreements, registrations, operations manual.
• 29:57
  I mean, this stuff is 100 grand easily.
• 30:00
  So you know, so that's why we were pretty much licensing
• 30:02
  because we really couldn't afford 100 grand to put towards
• 30:06
  franchise. So by this time, 2019, we had
• 30:10
  made the money to, you know, through franchise, I mean
• 30:13
  license fees and things like that.
• 30:15
  We had enough money and I've been working at US Cellular.
• 30:18
  The new restaurant was going well.
• 30:19
  We had enough money to start the process.
• 30:21
  So you know, we started to process piece by piece.
• 30:24
  We did, you know, we did the OPS manual, we were working on that.
• 30:27
  We had to do the FD DS franchise agreement dinner registrations.
• 30:31
  So the end of 2019, we sold an additional 7 stores.
• 30:36
  Wow, that that happened fast. Yeah.
• 30:39
  And this was just my wife and I, you know, we didn't have any
• 30:41
  sales organization, anything. So.
• 30:43
  But see, during 2019 when we did these grand openings, we were,
• 30:46
  you know, Internet social media was getting kind of popular.
• 30:50
  So we were putting this stuff on social media, I mean, and
• 30:53
  everybody was seeing it. Everybody wanted to be involved.
• 30:55
  So we did two stores in 2019. We sold 7, seven additional
• 31:00
  stores other than the two to be open.
• 31:01
  So we had five. Then 2020, we know the pandemic
• 31:05
  hit. So it's time to pandemic hit.
• 31:08
  Yeah. I mean, it was crazy because,
• 31:09
  you know, I had to. Well, we, we, we, we, I
• 31:11
  basically made exactly the decision we were going to
• 31:13
  continue to stay open. We went from having the dying in
• 31:16
  to no dying in. We actually wound up really
• 31:20
  excelling in that in that sense. But we had seven stores that
• 31:24
  were under development that we hadn't opened yet, hadn't find
• 31:28
  found locations or anything. So, so that proved to be good
• 31:31
  for some of our new people because they were able to get
• 31:34
  favorable lease deals. You know, like one of our
• 31:38
  highest grossing store is our Aurora store.
• 31:41
  They did 1.3 million last year. But I mean, they're, they're,
• 31:44
  you know, they're, they have a, a really, really favorable lease
• 31:47
  because they signed it in like April of 2020.
• 31:51
  But nobody wanted these leases, right?
• 31:53
  Exactly because people, they really didn't know what was
• 31:55
  going to happen. So, so but but one, the one
• 31:58
  thing that hurt us with it so well, I guess it kind of hurt
• 32:01
  us, but we learned from it. So we weren't able to do the
• 32:03
  grand openings anymore. You know, you got to be 6 feet
• 32:06
  apart. So that's when we started doing
• 32:09
  kind of soft openings. We started doing soft openings
• 32:12
  that kind of like gradually open.
• 32:13
  So we gradually open all those seven stores.
• 32:17
  I mean, and it took time, right? So I put an end to the franchise
• 32:20
  because I was trying to get those stores open and also going
• 32:23
  to support mode for just our whole group of stores that we
• 32:27
  had. I felt like I didn't, I couldn't
• 32:29
  add any more on to that at the time.
• 32:31
  So I focused on that and we did that for a few years.
• 32:35
  So, you know, and then a lot of stuff started coming from the
• 32:38
  pandemic, you know, started getting the third party apps and
• 32:42
  stuff started getting real big. And then the then the
• 32:45
  technologies came in and now it's, it's a big AI thing.
• 32:50
  So they started throwing curve balls at me all, all type of
• 32:53
  way. So I'm, you know, I'm constantly
• 32:54
  trying to adapt and even up to this day, you know, we're, we're
• 32:57
  still adapted, but as a result of some of the, and I was still
• 33:01
  learning myself as well, right. So a couple of locations we got
• 33:04
  wasn't the best location. You know, a couple of them wind
• 33:07
  up being great locations, just like the one that did the 1.3
• 33:09
  million. But like, like for instance, one
• 33:13
  of the my guy that had the original one location that
• 33:16
  wasn't my sister, he had already been in business a while, so he
• 33:20
  talked to a shopping mall. They were giving him favorable
• 33:23
  rent, tenant improvement and everything.
• 33:25
  But the person that owned that shopping mall owned three other
• 33:28
  shopping malls. So you know, he was, he was felt
• 33:31
  like he can do all three of those and they were going to
• 33:33
  give him tenant improvement for all of them.
• 33:35
  But to make a Long story short, we ultimately had to close those
• 33:38
  stores. We had to close doors and then
• 33:41
  we had two ghost kitchens, 2 ghost kitchens that cloud
• 33:45
  kitchen that we had, one in the South South Loop area and one in
• 33:50
  Avondale area in the city. Can explain what a cloud kitchen
• 33:53
  is for people who don't know Eric.
• 33:55
  OK, so a cloud kitchen is like a like a huge warehouse where they
• 33:58
  have like 30 to 4200 to 400 square feet kitchens and and
• 34:04
  they all operate off. So the, the, the, The thing is
• 34:07
  you pay them one fee and then you pay like a well, at that
• 34:11
  time you paid a fee for the runners to come and get the food
• 34:14
  and bring it to the front. And then other than that, they
• 34:16
  wouldn't handle the garbage. You know, they had refrigeration
• 34:19
  space, they had freezer space, they would have the towel
• 34:21
  service the aprons, but you paid them, you know, maybe four or
• 34:25
  five grand a month and that was it.
• 34:27
  So you didn't have the utilities and none of other stuff that
• 34:29
  comes with a restaurant. But the down part, the downside
• 34:32
  to that is that it was all third party apps, all third party
• 34:36
  party delivery apps. So if you don't really know how
• 34:38
  to navigate those third party delivery apps correctly, I mean
• 34:41
  that can really get you in a in a funny situation because
• 34:45
  although it looks attractive, but you know, if you're paying
• 34:47
  30% here and you know, so you know, so it wasn't as attractive
• 34:51
  eventually that we found and know that it wasn't as good as
• 34:55
  we thought it was. So we end up closing those three
• 34:58
  and the three mall stores and the two cloud kitchens, which
• 35:02
  brought us back-to-back to the seven stores.
• 35:05
  And then we recently got a store that we just opened in Forest
• 35:08
  Park that, you know, that's kind of like with the bar and
• 35:11
  everything that we're working on now.
• 35:12
  And that kind of like brought us to to this point now.
• 35:16
  So thanks for sharing that story, Eric, because it there's
• 35:20
  so many twists and turns that I think really highlights your
• 35:25
  resiliency, how adaptive you are, the scrappiness.
• 35:29
  And, and I really appreciate you sharing a lot of those ups and
• 35:32
  downs because I think people who would just come and see you now
• 35:35
  and see Eric Roy, he's got, you know, eight locations.
• 35:38
  Like, you know, well, this guy knows what he's doing.
• 35:41
  He's got it figured out. Like he was probably just Born
• 35:43
  This Way. He was born to lead, born to do
• 35:45
  this. And they, you know, a lot of
• 35:48
  people wouldn't have known this challenging path that you took
• 35:51
  to get here. You know, all of the, all of the
• 35:54
  pivots that you had to make along the way.
• 35:56
  The, you know, the number of times that you either gave up or
• 35:59
  were close to giving up, thought you were walking away, went back
• 36:03
  to work in, in another industry, you know, had to sell scrap
• 36:06
  metal out of the, the back of the, the trailer, you know, so
• 36:09
  you could, so you could fund the, the, the renovation.
• 36:13
  You know, it's, it's a, it's a really impressive story.
• 36:16
  So yeah, it was serious. So, so here's where we are now.
• 36:19
  You've got eight locations. You've got the franchise
• 36:22
  documents in place. The franchise opportunity is,
• 36:25
  is, is available to folks. What, what does the franchise
• 36:28
  opportunity look like? What?
• 36:29
  What geographies are you looking for?
• 36:31
  OK, talk to us about. OK.
• 36:32
  So the only geography that we're, we're not looking for is
• 36:35
  the, the Chicago area, you know, because I feel like we have 8
• 36:39
  locations here. And anything that we do here is
• 36:41
  probably going to be myself and my family.
• 36:43
  I'm working on a couple things with the airports, trying to get
• 36:47
  into O'Hare Airport and also working on some of the arenas in
• 36:51
  Chicago, trying to get to like United Center, Soldier Field,
• 36:54
  things of that nature. So all territories are
• 36:56
  available. Of course we're, we're we're,
• 36:59
  we're looking at well, Georgia, North Carolina, Florida, Texas,
• 37:05
  California, because we're trying to we're looking at where we
• 37:09
  might have something going on in Wilmington, DE.
• 37:12
  It's like a beach type area over there because you know, of
• 37:15
  course by the name being surfs up.
• 37:17
  We're trying to, of course, hit the surf, the places where
• 37:19
  you're on the coast. We're trying to be about a
• 37:21
  water. Even though it's funny how I
• 37:23
  started here in Chicago where, you know, we got the lake here,
• 37:25
  but not a whole lot of surfing, although some people do surf
• 37:29
  now. I've seen people would like the
• 37:30
  big boards, like I think they like boogie boards or something
• 37:33
  like you know, you know, I don't know, but.
• 37:35
  Big paddle boards. Yeah, but they, you know, they
• 37:37
  look like big surfboards. So, you know, we they have
• 37:40
  people that so they're doing and you have some people that surf
• 37:42
  out here in the winter time. You know, I don't know how they
• 37:45
  managed to do it, but you know, but but you have some people
• 37:47
  that get in in a wetsuit and actually do it.
• 37:50
  But we're going to so that's what we're looking for.
• 37:51
  We're looking for really trying to focus on multi unit
• 37:55
  restaurant operators. You know what I mean?
• 37:57
  But you know, of course a great candidate, you know, we're going
• 38:00
  to, you know, kind of like really do our due diligence and
• 38:03
  try to get really good people to work with.
• 38:06
  But we're focusing on multi unit operators.
• 38:09
  I think we're looking for a liquid 250,000, a net worth of
• 38:13
  about 750,000. I'm trying to think what else?
• 38:19
  What about the the personality type?
• 38:20
  What what kind of a person are you looking to work with?
• 38:23
  It's a franchise. So hopefully looking for leader
• 38:27
  leaders, I'm looking for people that has restaurant business
• 38:30
  experience, hopefully, if not definitely have business
• 38:33
  experience. And I'm looking for people that
• 38:34
  sure, sure themselves, you know what I mean?
• 38:36
  I don't really want anybody, you know, I don't want to convince a
• 38:39
  person to buy a franchise that's on the fence, you know what I
• 38:42
  mean? I want him to because if he's on
• 38:44
  the fence, then that's a indication that he may not do so
• 38:48
  well, you know, and I want somebody that that understands
• 38:52
  that this this is a franchise and and there's a way of doing
• 38:55
  things, you know what I mean? You can't just go and just, you
• 38:58
  know, switch up and just change the menu or do this, you know,
• 39:01
  understand it is, it's a, it's a, it's a group, it's a group
• 39:03
  team and it's a group effort. Somebody that understands the
• 39:06
  whole thing. Like, you know, you, you go far,
• 39:09
  you go, you go together, you go alone, you go, you go, you go.
• 39:12
  But he said you go fast, you go alone, you want to go far, you
• 39:15
  go together. Somebody that kind of
• 39:17
  understands that concept. I want to be a part of a
• 39:19
  franchise. You know, I, and, you know, in
• 39:21
  the past we've, we've had people that come on and, and during
• 39:24
  the, the, what they call like the honeymoon period, it's like,
• 39:27
  Oh yeah, we're going to do everything correct, man.
• 39:29
  I because they see us doing well, like I see you guys doing,
• 39:31
  man, we want to do everything exact.
• 39:33
  And then they open and then, and then right after that, you know,
• 39:37
  they say, you know, they like their, their mother's greens
• 39:40
  better than the recipe of greens that we have.
• 39:42
  You know, things, things like, things like that, you know what
• 39:45
  I mean? Things that you have to work
• 39:47
  through. But you know, us, us doing this
• 39:49
  for a while and we've been able to kind of really learn from,
• 39:53
  you know, just from, you know, there were times that we didn't
• 39:55
  get the, like I was telling you earlier that we didn't get the
• 39:57
  best real estate. It was times that we really
• 39:59
  didn't get the best franchise. It was times that we brought
• 40:03
  people into the business that really didn't have enough
• 40:06
  capital to successfully do it. You know what I mean?
• 40:09
  Now we've had hit or misses with that also because the the the
• 40:13
  downside to it is I was kind of teaching people.
• 40:16
  To do it the way I did it. And you, you know, and you heard
• 40:19
  my story. So, you know, I bootstrapped it
• 40:21
  and I was showing people how to do it, people that otherwise
• 40:23
  would have never had an opportunity to open a
• 40:25
  restaurant, you know what I mean?
• 40:27
  It seems like this big giant that's unattainable.
• 40:29
  But you know, I learned that there's more than one way to
• 40:32
  skin a cat. You know, I mean, I've seen
• 40:34
  places that that wasn't doing well and you know, you can go in
• 40:37
  there, you know what I mean? And talk to him and be like,
• 40:39
  man, let you know, let me come in and, and, and, and partner
• 40:42
  with you or let me take over the operations and switch the name
• 40:45
  and everything. So, you know, there's more than
• 40:46
  one way to skin a cat. And, you know, and just going
• 40:48
  into these second generation spaces, you know, where is it
• 40:51
  not going to cost you, you know, a whole lot of money.
• 40:54
  But, but sometimes those second generation spaces are second
• 40:57
  generation just because of that, because they didn't bring in
• 41:00
  enough revenue, you know, to to keep going, you know,
• 41:04
  successfully. So generally when somebody is
• 41:09
  considering a new franchise that they want to purchase, they're
• 41:12
  looking at multiple opportunities.
• 41:14
  What's the, what's the, the benefit of Surf's up?
• 41:17
  What do what do they get with Surf's Up that they may not be
• 41:20
  getting somewhere else? OK.
• 41:21
  So, so one of the things I think you get a benefit when you get
• 41:24
  with Surf's up is that so you, you heard my story, so you
• 41:27
  heard, know the story of resilience.
• 41:29
  And you know, I'm not the most established franchise out there,
• 41:32
  right? Because, you know, just like you
• 41:33
  said, you have a lot of options. So, so for one thing, we can do
• 41:36
  it for less money. You know, the obvious, we can do
• 41:39
  it for less money, but we've been in the game for 12 years,
• 41:43
  which, which is really good. But also, so this is what I, I
• 41:47
  had mentioned in the last few years, I've, you know, last few
• 41:50
  years I started to go a lot of conferences, really starting to
• 41:53
  hone my skills and do a lot of networking.
• 41:55
  So I've basically, while doing that, I've gained a network of
• 42:00
  advisors and mentors of like real industry veterans that are
• 42:04
  supporting me 100%. You know, that, that have done
• 42:07
  it before, you know what I mean? And that's really been like
• 42:10
  really been crucial in our growth from from going to where
• 42:13
  we were before the pandemic when we, you know, just was
• 42:16
  franchising, just doing our own thing to actually going to these
• 42:19
  conferences, learning from others, meeting with others,
• 42:21
  networking with others. So that really brings, you know,
• 42:25
  and, and it brings credibility for one, but also, you know, it
• 42:29
  takes a village to actually do this and to do this correctly.
• 42:32
  And you know, I, I borrowed that from one of my somewhat mentors,
• 42:36
  but he helps me a lot. Advisor Sam Stanovich, he's one
• 42:40
  of the senior VP's up at Big Chicken at Shacks Brand.
• 42:44
  So I borrowed that little tag from him.
• 42:45
  But it really does take a village man.
• 42:47
  And and you know, I did this thing about seven years kind of
• 42:50
  like just bumping my head. My wife and I just own our own.
• 42:53
  And then at that point, I once I saw how, how it really had legs
• 42:57
  and it could really grow as far as, you know, you could do 500
• 43:00
  stores one day. I knew I needed to get some
• 43:03
  help. So I started to do a lot of
• 43:04
  networking and everything. And then also I'm, I'm, I'm
• 43:07
  just, I'm a genuine person and, and I'm a genuine person.
• 43:11
  That's one. And what I think is really
• 43:14
  important is that there's not a lot of big guys when it comes to
• 43:18
  seafood. You see what's happening in the
• 43:20
  Red Lobster. Something similar has happened.
• 43:22
  In Long John Silver. Something similar has happened
• 43:25
  with Long John Silver. I don't know about bankrupt or
• 43:27
  anything, but I know they've closed like, you know, hundreds
• 43:29
  of stores. I know Captain, Captain D's.
• 43:32
  They're not in Chicago. They're like SE SE, but they're
• 43:35
  doing, I think they're doing pretty good.
• 43:37
  But there's really, there's a lot of room, you know what I
• 43:39
  mean? It's a lot of room for someone
• 43:41
  to come in and kind of like sneak in and one minute you, you
• 43:44
  know, one minute you don't see me and you know, now minute now
• 43:47
  you see me everywhere, you know, you know, and I think it's a
• 43:50
  huge opportunity. And you know, we're, we're doing
• 43:52
  it a little different than, than how it's been done.
• 43:55
  You know, no disrespect to Long John Silver, I love them.
• 43:58
  But one of the things we did different, we have 3 proprietary
• 44:03
  seasoning blends, one for our shellfish and this is for the
• 44:06
  fried stuff, one for our shellfish, one for the wings,
• 44:09
  and then we have one for our regular fish.
• 44:12
  And the reason we did that, we have three different distinct
• 44:14
  tastes. That's like I said, no
• 44:16
  disrespect to Long John Silver. I used to love Long John Silver.
• 44:19
  But then, you know, as you get older, you realize everything
• 44:21
  tastes the same. You know, the shrimp, the the
• 44:24
  cod, you know, whatever you got, it all tastes the same because
• 44:27
  it's all like the same batter. And I didn't want that for
• 44:30
  service up. So and then I wanted to make
• 44:31
  sure we had proprietary blends. So we have a flavor that you
• 44:35
  can't, you know, I'm sure somebody can recreate it at some
• 44:38
  point, but it's not like a typical flavor.
• 44:40
  We're not just going to, you know, the grocery store and
• 44:43
  buying a bag of seasoned flour and throwing it on there.
• 44:45
  You know, when we first started, just to show you the, our, our
• 44:51
  evolution, we first started, we were doing all of our sauces in
• 44:54
  house. We were making like all of our,
• 44:55
  we have a rimmelage sauce, hot and spicy honey, garlic,
• 44:59
  pineapple, soy, our tartar sauce, our cocktail sauce,
• 45:03
  because we thought to be authentic and make all the stuff
• 45:05
  in house, it was going to be better.
• 45:07
  And, and it was. And I mean, the flavor was great
• 45:09
  everything. But as we started to scale and
• 45:11
  started to add additional stores, I saw that it was
• 45:14
  becoming like overwhelming to, to when we were trained in some
• 45:18
  of these new franchisees because, you know, they're
• 45:20
  making all these sauces. And then we so we know we
• 45:23
  started, OK, so cocktail and tartar, we can buy that, you
• 45:26
  know what I mean? So we started to kind of make it
• 45:28
  easier for our new operators and also for our new operator staff.
• 45:34
  You know, we started off with, with manual deep fryers or you
• 45:38
  got to, and you know, if you know anything about the, if
• 45:40
  anybody in the audience knows anything about the manual deep
• 45:43
  fryers, you have to filter those fryers maybe once, sometimes
• 45:47
  even twice a day and change the oil.
• 45:49
  That's a dangerous job and it's a labor intensive job.
• 45:52
  So as we grew and, and evolved, we started getting the, the
• 45:56
  Henny penny fryers that you know, that, that filter
• 45:59
  themselves, that you know, that that kind of like takes a lot of
• 46:02
  the, the stress off the employees back, you know, try to
• 46:05
  make it easier. And we, we took a couple things
• 46:08
  off the menu, things like we would have shrimp and grits,
• 46:11
  they would be great at the corporate store, but then at the
• 46:13
  other store they wasn't tasting exactly the same.
• 46:16
  So, you know, just really making it as simple and scalable as
• 46:19
  possible so that, you know, basically anybody in there can
• 46:22
  almost run any position in there.
• 46:25
  You guys have experimented with a lot of different things.
• 46:27
  You've found what's worked. You've moved away from things
• 46:29
  that were too labor intensive, too challenging, too difficult,
• 46:32
  and you found smoother, easier, faster, more efficient ways to
• 46:36
  do them right. Eric, you mentioned some of the
• 46:39
  unique flavours that you guys have developed and that's a big
• 46:42
  differentiator from some of the other seafood experiences out
• 46:45
  there. When?
• 46:47
  Let's talk a little bit more about the customer experience.
• 46:49
  What are some other things that a customer notices when they
• 46:52
  come into a search up establishment?
• 46:55
  What's what's their ambiance? What's their experience like?
• 46:58
  So I, I think what, what and this and I say it, one thing
• 47:01
  that, and I'm really big on this man, is that we're really
• 47:04
  inclusive. You know what I mean, to, to
• 47:06
  everyone. I mean, we have, you know, we
• 47:08
  have every now and then we'll have like a karaoke at one of
• 47:11
  the stores. I mean, if you look at the
• 47:13
  audience, I mean, you have people from all backgrounds, but
• 47:16
  everybody, you know, feeling good, good, you know, good,
• 47:19
  good, good spirited, good mood people.
• 47:22
  I mean, it's, it's a place of inclusion.
• 47:23
  So you know, you're going to feel comfortable no matter who
• 47:25
  you are. And, you know, and we really try
• 47:27
  to pick people that as far as our staff, especially like the
• 47:31
  front of the house people that is really customer facing.
• 47:34
  We really try to pick people that's going to do exactly that.
• 47:37
  And we're and we're serious about that.
• 47:38
  I mean, if you look at our our reviews, you know, on Google,
• 47:41
  Yelp, that's going to reflect that.
• 47:44
  It's going to reflect that. I mean, and that's that's one
• 47:46
  thing. And then you're going to then
• 47:48
  you're going to smell the aroma when you come in there.
• 47:50
  I mean, you're going to you're going to you're going to smell
• 47:52
  the food. It's going to make you hungry
• 47:53
  when you come, even when you're out on the outside sometimes you
• 47:56
  got the hood blowing and everything.
• 47:58
  You're going to smell it. So you know, you're going to
• 47:59
  smell the food. You're going to have some, some
• 48:02
  good music, not crazy. Wow.
• 48:05
  You know, no, no, nothing offensive.
• 48:07
  You know, you're going to have some good music, not soupy, not
• 48:10
  loud like that, and a nice, nice tone.
• 48:13
  People are going to be having conversations.
• 48:15
  You're going to have some community activists.
• 48:17
  You know, you're going to have people from all walks of life.
• 48:19
  You're going to have a guy in a suit sitting there on his
• 48:21
  laptop. You know, and it's, I mean, it's
• 48:23
  just a really, really, really good experience.
• 48:25
  I mean, I've, I've sat there with what one of the guys, he
• 48:29
  was Barack Obama's doctor and and another politician.
• 48:34
  I sat there and talked to them and they just, I mean, they just
• 48:36
  really love it. They love it.
• 48:37
  They love the, the, the vibe that's there.
• 48:40
  But you know, you, you, you know, you got people from, from,
• 48:42
  from all, you know, all walks of life that come in and we treat
• 48:45
  everybody equally. We treat everybody fairly, you
• 48:48
  know. I like that.
• 48:50
  Eric, are there specific mentors or books that have been
• 48:54
  particularly helpful to you and your career path?
• 48:57
  Yeah, so, so one, one book my mother, she always keep makes me
• 49:01
  read because, you know, because it's it's tough being an
• 49:04
  entrepreneur and and sticking to it is The Tipping Point by
• 49:08
  Malcolm Glidwell. I love that book.
• 49:11
  Yeah, so she always because, you know, and that talks about how
• 49:13
  like the Hush puppies and you know, how how everything thinks
• 49:16
  can you can struggle until all of a sudden it tips, you know,
• 49:19
  like, you know, now it's like going viral or something.
• 49:22
  So that's that's always and then, you know, talks about how,
• 49:24
  you know, when things aren't at worst, that's when you should
• 49:26
  really start to, you know, get anxious and start to celebrate
• 49:29
  because you know, something is coming and, you know, just
• 49:31
  showing how, you know, you can be a week away from, you know, a
• 49:34
  phone call to change your life, you know, so you got to keep
• 49:36
  going. That is, I say, as far as books,
• 49:40
  Rich Bad Dad Porter, that kind of influenced me younger as in
• 49:44
  my younger times because that, you know, kind of just showing
• 49:47
  how rather than being an accountant.
• 49:49
  And just because, you know, I saw a long time ago, you know, I
• 49:52
  could have kept my first accounting job and, and stayed
• 49:55
  there and worked there 30-40 years and had a great life, you
• 49:59
  know, had a great life. But what I couldn't do there is
• 50:02
  really create generational wealth where I would be able to,
• 50:06
  you know, eventually bring my family in and kind of like, and
• 50:10
  I couldn't be an example of something for a lot of these
• 50:12
  people in the community that only don't have those positive
• 50:15
  role models. You know, they, you know, they
• 50:17
  see police, firemen, lawyers and doctors, you know what I mean?
• 50:21
  That, you know, in the hood, that's that's all you really see
• 50:23
  as far As for the most part, as far as powerful things are
• 50:27
  changing a lot now. But back in the day, that's,
• 50:29
  that's kind of, you know, those were that was it.
• 50:32
  So, you know, if you want to try to be one of those things
• 50:35
  lawyers, you're going to see the lawyers because somebody in your
• 50:38
  family more than likely has has gone to prison.
• 50:41
  So, you know something about that doctors, you know, you go
• 50:44
  to the doctor as a child. So that's when you kind of like
• 50:47
  getting out of your comfort zone, you going to the doctor
• 50:49
  and then police and firemen, you know, which is, you know, all
• 50:53
  those are great professions. But, you know, I was, you know,
• 50:55
  to able to someone to be able to say, you know, I want to be a
• 50:58
  businessman, you know, I want to be a restaurant owner, you know,
• 51:01
  and to be able to see someone that looks like you, that did
• 51:04
  it. And even to go farther and say,
• 51:05
  OK, this guy grew up where I grew up, you know, and that did
• 51:08
  it. And then of course, I still got
• 51:10
  family in the area and I still go back.
• 51:12
  But for them to see that, you know, I think that was that's,
• 51:15
  you know, that I'm really proud of that.
• 51:17
  I think you should be story is a powerful example of resiliency.
• 51:20
  Thanks. Terrific.
• 51:23
  Eric, I just have one more question for you.
• 51:25
  But before I do it, I want to ask, I want to do 2 things.
• 51:27
  You know, if you're listening today and you like today's
• 51:30
  content, please hit the subscribe, like or share button
• 51:32
  on your favorite podcast app. Eric, I also want to tell people
• 51:36
  what's the best way to get in touch with you?
• 51:38
  They're listening to you. They like your story.
• 51:39
  Maybe they're interested in a franchise.
• 51:41
  How do they? Connect.
• 51:41
  Yeah, you can connect with me via e-mail at ERICROYJR at Surfs
• 51:48
  Up franchising.com. So that's Eric Roy Junior at
• 51:51
  Surfs Up franchising.com. You can go to our website
• 51:55
  www.surfsupdivein.com and we have a a franchise page on there
• 52:02
  that you can kind of like link there and you can also contact.
• 52:05
  We just did a lunch call with the franchise consulting company
• 52:09
  actually yesterday because we just relaunched our franchise
• 52:11
  program after going through the the few years when I stopped.
• 52:15
  We just relaunched this year and got updated FDDS and everything.
• 52:19
  So we're ready to go. We just launched with the
• 52:21
  franchise consultant company. So you can also reach out to my
• 52:24
  consultant there, Richard Morgan, calling Rick Morgan, and
• 52:28
  he's a consultant at the franchise consultant company and
• 52:30
  he's going to be working with us with our franchise development
• 52:33
  and everything. That's terrific.
• 52:35
  OK. Eric, last question for you.
• 52:37
  I'm curious what how do you see your business evolving in the
• 52:40
  next five years? What do you think some of the
• 52:41
  biggest changes that are coming are?
• 52:44
  Well, so the, well, you know, now they got the, the whole AI
• 52:47
  thing right. And there's so much technology
• 52:50
  out there. And you know what I mean?
• 52:51
  You got to kind of like learn how to kind of wiggle your way
• 52:54
  through the technology. So, so as far as my, as my
• 52:56
  business, as far as like the micro side, you know, surfs up,
• 52:59
  I see us growing in the next five years to 100 locations.
• 53:04
  You know what I mean? Minimum, I see it's expanding
• 53:06
  into different markets in the United States and possibly
• 53:09
  overseas as well. I've been talking to, I've
• 53:11
  talked to a guy out in Australia not too long ago, you know, so
• 53:15
  and Canada. So I see us expanding into other
• 53:17
  markets, 100 stores minimum in the next five years.
• 53:21
  But as far as the industry as a whole, I, I still like, I feel
• 53:23
  like the industry is still trying to recover from the
• 53:26
  pandemic. So I feel like it's kind of like
• 53:28
  kind of going to draw back because, you know, people have
• 53:30
  been kind of complaining about the, the pricing because of the
• 53:33
  inflation, prices shot up. They're talking about, you know,
• 53:36
  fast food, you know, is, is, is higher than casual dining now,
• 53:40
  you know, and you got people like Applebee's Chili's that,
• 53:44
  you know, you can actually go get a $10 meal deal at
• 53:46
  Applebee's and sit down and eat. And you know, a Big Mac meal
• 53:50
  cost $15.00, you know, so, you know, so I think it's going to
• 53:53
  be some, some correction in the industry.
• 53:57
  You know, I think things went kind of crazy and still going
• 53:59
  kind of crazy. A lot of stores closed, a lot of
• 54:02
  big restaurant, a lot of household names closing,
• 54:05
  especially in Chicago. But I see, you know, I see, I
• 54:07
  see a correction in the industry, you know, so I, I got
• 54:10
  a man, I swear I have, I'm really optimistic about the
• 54:13
  future of the food and beverage industry and the restaurant
• 54:16
  industry. I think it's going to be some
• 54:17
  great things happening, great expansion, great deals, things
• 54:21
  going to be some some newcomers that are going to take the spots
• 54:25
  of like Red Lobster and Long John Silver and you know, some
• 54:29
  of the, some of the, some of the big guys.
• 54:30
  So I'm I, I got a pretty optimistic outlook.
• 54:34
  That's terrific. Hey, Eric, I want to be the
• 54:36
  first one to thank you for sharing your story with us
• 54:38
  today. I really appreciate.
• 54:39
  It thanks thanks man thanks for bringing me on Anthony.
• 54:42
  You know, it helps me also, man, to kind of like get the story
• 54:45
  out and, you know, just to think about it and just to discuss it.
• 54:48
  You know, you'd be surprised, you know, the, the, the amount
• 54:52
  of satisfaction you get from from talking about your story
• 54:56
  and you know, kind of putting it to perspective.
• 54:59
  Well, good. It was a two.
• 55:00
  You're you're welcome. It was a two way street.
• 55:02
  I'm glad you enjoyed telling the story because I I enjoyed
• 55:05
  bringing it out of you. So it was mutually beneficial.
• 55:09
  Well, folks, that's a wrap on another episode of the Inspired
• 55:12
  Stories podcast. Thanks for learning with us
• 55:14
  today.