The Exchanges

Q This was to manage and run the, a restaurant and a hotel, right, in Watertown?

A Yeah. It was called the Village Inn. It was actually in, not even in Watertown. It was in a suburb of Watertown called Black River, New York. And during that year, one of the things they offered was they offered, um, they had a pizza. They made pizzas literally in the corner of the restaurant with a little four foot sandwich table. The guy used as a pizza make table and had a 30 cord Hobart mixer, which is everybody will tell you it's too small to make pizza dough. But they had, they had a guy there that was studying to be a motorcycle mechanic, motorcycle Mike, and he was the pizza guy, and I had, I worked seven days a week, and, um, man, I grew up a lot. I was there a year, and by that time, um, I used it as a laboratory for learning all about pizza, and how to make pizza, and I was able to save a 11,500 dollars by saving all my money, and, uh, there's always a woman involved too, and I had met a woman that eventually became my first, my first wife.

AI assessment note: “Yeah. It was called the Village Inn. It was actually in, not even in Watertown.”

Q And with 11,000 dollars, you, you had this idea to open, you were going to open a pizza place, and that was enough to do it? I mean, you could, you could make that happen? Like, get, get a lease and...

A Back in those days, you know, it's a lot different. You could literally go into the city hall with a, A drawing you made yourself on a piece of notebook paper and walk out of there with a building permit. I mean, a lot has changed. My friend Gene Perkins introduced me to a guy that had a bunch of Property around Dallas, and it was, it was not the best real estate, believe me, and I didn't know anything about this particular part of town, but I met, he introduced me to this guy, Victor Ballas, and he had a 750 square foot space in the southeast part of Dallas, and, uh, he, he agreed to rent me the space, but I was pretty nervous because I had a Finite amount of money and not a great credit history. And he said, I'm gonna need two things from you. And I'm like, oh man, what could these two things be? He said, I'm gonna need a check for the first month's rent, 500 dollars, 750 square feet. He said, and then a check for the security deposit, another 500 dollars. I said, those are the two things? He said, yeah, two checks. I gave him the two checks, and he, he put a key in my hand and said, I'll be back in 30 days, I collect the rent in person. Wow. He said, be sure you have your money ready.

AI assessment note: “I'm gonna need a check for the first month's rent, 500 dollars”

Q Alright, how did it go from you selling one or two pizzas a day to, you know, actually selling a lot of pizzas a day? Was it just because you changed the name?

A No. It was, it was a, it was a concept based on respecting the customer, like, and showing them respect like they never got. Most of these people were laborers, and they would come in after work, and they were the people that were coming down off the roofs, and a lot of construction people, a lot of, uh, They're working people, and they were able to order in, in Spanish. They got exactly the pizza that they wanted. It was an incredible value and high quality food, and they would, they told their neighbor, and the business grew organically that way. We didn't have any money to advertise, but they told their neighbor, and then you go from 50, 60 pizzas a night to 80, 90, and eventually 200 on a Friday night, or 300 on a Saturday night.

AI assessment note: “they told their neighbor, and the business grew organically that way.”

Q the other thing about this concept that I think is interesting is, it's almost like make your own meal, right? Because you get the wings, there's no, there's nothing on them except salt and pepper, but then you decide, like, how to dip them, and like, right, you could order a bunch of different sauces, is that right? And you dip them, or were they, like, rolled in the sauce?

A No, they were rolled, they were sauced, and this is important, this is an important part of making wings, you have to sauce them as soon as they come up out of the fryer, because I don't have any scientific evidence of this, but it seems like if you sauce the wings when they're at their hottest, the sauce is kind of drawn into the, into the meat a little more, and the wing, the entire wing is more flavorful that way. If, and, and that was, that's, that was part of our program. We would sauce them to order. Then we had a couple of side items. We had this pearl potato salad and bourbon baked beans and fries. And, and that was it. And in the, in the early stores too, I, I sold beer, but it was like three percent of the sales, but I put beer in the store to position the concept as an adult concept and not fast food. Because I wanted people to think of it as a place where it's okay to spend more money than you would spend in a typical fast food restaurant. We had music. I had the lights down low, but the majority of the sales were to go sales.

AI assessment note: “No, they were rolled, they were sauced, and this is important”

Q Ok, you opened the store in 1994 and, and it's a slow burn, but it's gonna grow. Meantime, you have four pizza restaurants. So, tell me how you were, cause it seems like your attention all of a sudden is really shifting to Wingstop, cause to, cause you see this as also a great franchise opportunity. So, how are you dividing your attention between Pizza Patron and this Wings concept?

A Anybody that achieves anything doesn't do it alone, and I certainly didn't do this alone. I had some key managers. They ran the stores. They ran the pizza stores, and I spent very little time in the pizza business. I was a hundred percent focused working at the wing stop, listening to customers, and so the pizza business was kind of on, I don't want to say autopilot, but it was for me because I had these key people that knew the Knew the business. They both were bilingual, um, and only, it was only four stores, you know, so we had a, we had a pretty, pretty tight little operation, and it kind of took care of itself during the early years of Wingstop.

AI assessment note: “I spent very little time in the pizza business. I was a hundred percent focused”

Q story, right? I mean, we didn't, we didn't get into this, but It went public in 2015, and it is a massive multi-billion dollar business. I think there are about 3000 locations around the world, uh, just a massive business, right? And, and I wonder what you think of that, like, what you make of it. Uh, I mean, it's, it's kind of mind-blowing to just see how it grew.

A I know. I mean, sitting on my couch watching an NFL game, and now they're buying national ads on, on Sunday football. I mean, it's, it's, it's amazing, and I'm, and I'm happy for them, and I, people ask me all the time, aren't you sorry you sold that company? Well, not, not completely, because I tell you, these guys, some very smart people were involved. They were able to grow it. They continue to grow it, and I'm, and I'm happy for them, but I'm not filled with regret. In any way, uh, I really don't think of it that way. I'm more living in the moment, and you know, I'm not, when you live in the moment, you kind of take responsibility for what are you doing today, not what I did years ago.

AI assessment note: “I mean, it's, it's, it's amazing, and I'm, and I'm happy for them”