Hey there! There's been a lot going on in the development of my project that I haven't done a great job sharing so I figured I'd get everyone up to date. A lot of this is stuff I've already brought up in class but it never hurts to get it down on paper (or the electronic equivalent).
So, a quick recap: I want to find out everything I can from people who have made it for themselves. To do this I'm conducting a series of interviews with people that I assume know more about what I'm trying to do than I do. These are people that not only had ideas, but followed through on them. While I initially was going to focus solely on restaurateurs (since that's the direction I seem to be heading) I've decided to open things up just a little bit to include others that have made it for themselves. That being said the majority of people I'm interviewing are involved with food service on some level. The following is a list of people I have already or would like to interview(ed):
-Mike Nelson- Owner/founder of Hob Nob Farm Cafe/Tupelos World Cafe, Moonshine Cafe, Angelica's, and Coyote Kitchen. I've been working with Mike for nearly four years now and in a lot of ways he is living a life very similar to what I'm going for.
Don Cox- Owner/founder of Bald Guy Brew. Don is simply one of the nicest guys you'll ever meet and he's been doing a lot of neat things with his business.
Sam- Owner of Our Daily Bread. I've only met him a few times but he seems like a nice guy and he's been running a very successful food establishment for a while now.
Bill Norman- Co-Founder of Longhorn Steakhouse, current owner/founder of Norman's Landing. Bill has been a family friend for a while now and has been involved with more projects than I've listed here. He's an incredibly nice guy and knows just about all there is to know about running a restaurant.
Carl- Owner/founder of Wolfie's and the two ASU fan supply stores on king st. I've only met him a couple times but on top of being a friendly guy he seems to be in a unique position of owning businesses both in the food service industry as well as retail. I'm hoping he might have some interesting insights for me on how food service is unique.
Brandon Chavannes- Executive Chef at Five Ninth (NYC). Brandon has been my best friend for over ten years and is probably one of the few people I know that I can honestly say is more passionate about food than I am. He has come a long way in a short time and will undoubtedly have some wisdom to share from his experience.
Pony/Eya Morrell- Owners/founders of the Pasta Wench. I've been friends with them for nearly four years and have worked on and off with them in that time. On top of building a wildly successful business in a very short time, they have been involved with an assortment of other projects ranging from restaurants to hotels.
Angela (I think...)- Owner/operator of Proper. I have never met her but I'm fairly certain she's been a part of a couple other projects (i.e. Reed's Cafe) around town and might have some interesting insights.
Carson Coatney- Owner/operator of Stick Boy Bread/Melanie's. This is an interesting one because while Carson and his wife Mindy purchased Melanie's I'm not sure they actually play much of a role in the day to day operations. Regardless they certainly play a role at Stick Boy and as owners of more than one business they certainly have to know what they're doing... Rumor has it that a former IDS grad is currently running Melanie's so I'm hoping to get to sit down with him as well...
?????- Owners of Red Onion Cafe. I have never met them and don't know much about them. I've been to the restaurant before and honestly was very much underwhelmed. That being said they've been open and successful for longer than I've been alive so they must be doing something right....
These are the individuals I've selected that I think will provide the basis for my project. However, as I've mentioned in class, I do not expect to be able to get interviews with all these people. As business owners they are very busy, but if I can get at least five I'll be pretty happy. Before I get into what I aim to do with the interview material, let me share some of the questions I plan on asking:
-What drew you to the restaurant industry?/What made you want to run your own business?
-How did you get to where you are? What's your story?
-What have been some of the biggest challenges?
-What has surprised you the most?
-If you could do it all over again what would you do differently?
-*Redundancy Alert* Do you have any regrets?
-What do you love/hate about it?
-On that note, do you even like it that much?
-What advice would you give to someone that was interested in a similar career path?
-What was the best decision you ever made?
-What was the worst decision you ever made?
-Is there anyone else you think I should talk to?
Although I'm trying to be somewhat flexible with the interviews, I'll more than likely be asking most of these questions in one way or another. The whole idea is I want to learn as much as I can from other people's experience (mistakes, successes, and everything in between) before I embark on my own journey. This seems to be a good idea for anyone no matter what they're trying to do, but I feel for me it is particularly worthwhile since the industry I'm attempting to get into has one of the highest failure rates of any type of business.
All in all, I'd like my project to take the form of (I can't believe Derek tricked me into this....) a paper. I'd probably start with an introduction talking about how risky the restaurant industry is and outlining what I'm aiming to accomplish with the paper. I'll then give rough transcripts of the interviews followed by an analysis. I'm not sure whether I'll analyze each individual one and do a general analysis or if I'll just stick to a general analysis that draws from each interview. Either way the idea is that I'll have a platform to discuss what I've learned from each person as well as how what I learned from each individual might come together to help support some more universal ideas/principles.
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