Latest / Success Story with Scott Clary / Lessons - Million-Dollar Secrets of Restaurant Empire Building | Mychel "Snoop" Dillard - Entrepreneur & Business Owner

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Lessons - Million-Dollar Secrets of Restaurant Empire Building | Mychel "Snoop" Dillard - Entrepreneur & Business Owner · Success Story with Scott Clary

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  Just head to cornbreadhamp.com slash success and use code success at checkout. That's cornbreadhamp.com
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  slash success code success for 30% off your first order of these amazing gummies. In this lessons
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  episode, discover the entrepreneurial journey of turning setbacks into success in the hospitality
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  industry. Learn how to create a winning formula for restaurants, build lasting partnerships,
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  and balance hands-on management with strategic growth. Explore the importance of vibe,
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  location, and systems in building a thriving business.
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  Now you're moving you're starting to move into nightlife and hospitality. So
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  you've jumped into like newspaper, you jumped into real estate, nothing newspapers. I don't even
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  know where I would start if I had to figure out like how to go to hospitality. So what are the
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  steps that you figured out that you could actually be successful at this?
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  Now why ended up getting into it? Scott is, remember I told you about that news that that
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  calendar that I did. And you know, like I said, as Juvenile as it may sound, you know, it was a calendar
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  where I featured 12 different women. Well, after that, I started a model management company.
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  You know, so for me, it was always how to get to the top and how to make the most money. All right,
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  so it was producing a calendar and selling a calendar. Then okay, well, I'm going to manage these
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  models and I'm going to get them other geeks and make other money from that. All right, then it's
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  like, okay, what's selling this calendar? How can I really get this calendar off? So I decided to have
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  the models host nights at various different restaurants and lounges and nightclubs and they would sell
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  the calendar to two different guys, you know, they would come out, you know, to these bars and
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  well, as I'm in here, as I'm in the lounges and clubs and restaurants watching this being Dylan,
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  you know, I'm seeing how busy, you know, these venues aren't. I'm like, hey, I want to be a bar owner.
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  I want to be a club owner. I want to be a restaurant owner. This is where the money is. I'm just
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  selling these little rinky dink calendars. Yeah, go ahead with a few hundred dollars. Man, I wonder
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  what this guy is making because it's 50 people in here. It's 100 people in here. So that is what
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  inspired me to want to open up my own spot. And I actually opened up my own spot at the age of 24
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  and that's so y'all, you know, yeah, no shit. It was a huge bus. I was relying on other people to
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  kind of teach me the game. They didn't. I didn't get the right permits when the head and opened
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  up anyway, grand opening, grand closing within two months lost my whole entire investment. Yep.
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  So, um, so when I moved to Atlanta, my thought was, man, I'm not getting back into that. That was
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  such a nightmare. Um, I did so terrible, but I always thought, but it was fun, you know, for the
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  foot of a few months that was open. But, um, man, I was terrible at this. I lost all this money.
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  Didn't know what I was doing. Um, but once I moved here and after I started that party bus
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  company, I, I got back into, I get into promoting. Um, and just, you know, throwing parties that,
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  you know, various lounges and things of that nature. And so then right again, I'm right back in
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  these, these lounges and these restaurants. And it's like making me curious. Yeah.
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  Would it would be like to be a owner? And so eventually said, you know what? I'm going to try
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  this again. You know, I was yelling. I did it wrong the first time. Um, I learned some lessons from
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  it. Let me try to, try to take what I learned, um, and turn that into something else. And so I ended
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  up opening my first spot here in Atlanta. It was called the hookahide away. And it was wildly successful.
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  Can I ask why though? Look, why was that one? Why was that one wildly successful? Like, why did,
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  why did there's so many damn restaurants and they're all, they're all probably tough and the margins
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  are tough. Like, what makes that one successful? What was the secret? Uh, that one. I think number one,
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  I mean, I gave that that spot my heart and soul. I was there every single day for the first two
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  years. You know, so I think when you have an owner that's dedicated like that, nobody is going to
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  run your business the way that you would want it. Um, so I think that that played a big part of
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  it to the location. It was just a really good location. Um, it was a super small spot. When I
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  tell you, Scott, this place was not even bigger than then then 1200 square feet. That's small.
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  But the big, the good thing about it is that it allowed everybody to get to know everybody. So
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  it was kind of like a cheers neighborhood bar. It would definitely put you in the mind of it. Like,
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  you didn't even have to know anybody to go there. You were going to meet tons of people. Um,
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  we were able to kind of create a patio. And I mean, literally in the summertime, this place was
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  just like a block party every single weekend. Um, we were able to stay open after hours. We weren't
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  necessarily supposed to, but we did. And we got away with it for five years. Um, but, um, and we
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  had some great food. You know, I brought some stuff from some concepts from Nashville as far as,
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  you know, Nashville has its hot chicken at the time. That had nine quarter one nationally,
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  like it has nail. And so we were someone hot chicken there. And that was a big hit.
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  Um, and I think also just, you know, the hands and one that I had with that location,
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  I hired every single person myself. Um, and, you know, you just can't beat that when you have
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  a owner that is running the spot themselves and willing to put in, you know, that grit in that
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  time. And I want to say, I think I was probably about 28 when I opened that spot up.
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  And that's the first time you ever were successful in in hospitality basically. So like now you're
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  now you're realizing your dreams. So where does it go from there? So now you have one you found like
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  this like community place like this like little hole in the wall, but it's like it's you did a
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  couple things that were obviously very good. You brought in good food. You created a vibe like
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  I feel like where a lot of people miss the mark on hospitality is they feel like they can copy
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  and paste that but then the copy and paste version is shit and then it's about the same and it's
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  a different crowd different but you've done it like repeatedly now. So what's what's the formula
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  you used to open the next one and the next one after that? You know what it's you know you say
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  something that's so important of by you know creating a bit by you know good music good decor.
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  You know people love spots with patios you know making sure that the food is good the food has
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  to be good the customer service has to be good and you know first and foremost you've got to have
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  a good location you know because you can have all of those things but if you've got a shitty location
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  that's hard to find or hard to get to or doesn't have any walk up traffic or it's got terrible
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  parking you know because I've made those mistakes before even after that you know in open
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  and locations and and picking a bad location or just being so excited to do something and just
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  picking a location that you know did not have those things so that's really a big thing and
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  they you know having those systems in place you know hiring good people treating those people
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  right pan and whale and making sure that you stay on top of them and so now for me because of
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  what I did learn working with Jeff with that newspaper you know I just never turn over any of my
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  businesses and put them in someone's hands there's always something that has to go through me you
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  know and I never really just totally take my hands off of everything I'm always looking at every
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  single thing all the numbers all the bank accounts and the more businesses I have the more time
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  consume and it is and you know but I've learned now the difference in now of of me in that first
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  restaurant and being there every single day at that point I was working in the business now I've
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  learned to heavily work on the business versus working in the business they're just smart but
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  then how do you find those people you can trust to work in the business for you you know what
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  um with trust you know that's something that's built and earned and you know I don't think anybody
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  has the formula to be able to find people that you trust you know you just hire people
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  and you know you give them the opportunity to to cut their own next you know what I'm saying and
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  when they do that you get a move on you've got to believe people when they show you who they are
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  yeah no I think the one thing that I've seen like that sort of a common thread like you know
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  you've been screwed multiple times because it's never fun but I think that the fact that you were
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  screwed earlier on and you were like stolen from earlier on that's probably what led to your success
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  because then when you if you had one success and now the the the risk is much bigger right the money
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  you can lose is not just in the the tens of thousands and the hundred thousands and the millions when
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  people can screw you over yeah virtually now they're here you know what I mean like you you're
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  looking at people different it's smart though it's it's smart so now so what I've always what I
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  actually found very interesting is you do so many different things so like you're in hospitality
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  but you also and tell me if you're still working on these things well so you have like a DHG
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  university credit repair at one point in your life you built an app I think it's only 15 you built
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  an app called girl talk yeah you have an impact foundation you have a spa like you do everything
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  when all these things are like quite successful so you like you're like you have like an entrepreneurial
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  lie and you go into something and it works but I think a lot of it is like divide it's like the
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  it's a unique experience that you create so as you're building out these things um talk to me even
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  like it's interesting you work with two chains on on members only why work with two chains when
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  you're already successful why do you need the star power what's the what's the play there is that
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  something that you think would be useful or is that you see that a lot with brands but I've never
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  seen it with like a restaurant I actually met two chains um about uh maybe about seven years ago
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  now at this point and I met him when I had the hookahide away and so as I was telling you the hookahide
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  away was this super little small spot 12 to 1300 1300 square feet nobody would even have guessed the
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  amount of money that I was making a hookahide away because it was so small and that's a difference
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  too you know when you are not already rich you know when you're like the underdog everybody wants
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  you to be successful you know everybody wants to support you know once you're already on top it's
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  just like people are trying to knock you down you know and take you off of that throne but um
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  anyways long story short after the hookahide away or while doing the hookahide away I was probably
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  in like the third year and it was like hey okay I've got this formula down this is working well
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  let's duplicate this and I want to do another location and and looking for another location
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  I ended up meeting two chains and we decided to do escobar together um escobar has by far um
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  been my most successful business um to date and um that just ended up being a great partnership
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  because um I had the hospitality experience um and you know was willing to operate and run the sick
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  the stressful ass restaurants um while he's you know was able to you know go out there and be two
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  chains etc but um the notoriety that he had on a national worldwide scale um also attracted
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  you know um uh some clientele for us you know um and some publicity you know for us that I would
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  not have been able to get on my own um so I ended up just being a good partnership in that aspect
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  you know we've gone on to actually open four restaurants together you know we currently have so
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  we've got two escobar locations um we do have members only that we're actually um members only
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  as currently closed and under renovation we're actually renovating that and turning that into
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  escop pizza um and then we have a concept caught escosi food um and so um we have you know been
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  able to open up four restaurants you know over the past six years um and we recently just franchise
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  uh we just franchise um escobar as well so um and working with somebody like to change you know
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  it just was a no brainer because he could bring something to the table that I could not at the time
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  and it was that star power thanks for tuning in if you found this valuable don't forget to hit that
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