- 8 months ago
Will Newman, founder of Edley’s Bar-B-Que, turned years of regional BBQ exposure into a growing restaurant brand. As a former law student and restaurant operator, he focuses on thoughtful growth while honoring the legacy behind the name.
Watch now to learn how a law student recognized an opening, named a restaurant with purpose, and navigated the realities of growing a BBQ brand.
Sponsored by:
• TOAST - All-In-1 Restaurant POS: https://bit.ly/3vpeVsc
Watch now to learn how a law student recognized an opening, named a restaurant with purpose, and navigated the realities of growing a BBQ brand.
Sponsored by:
• TOAST - All-In-1 Restaurant POS: https://bit.ly/3vpeVsc
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NewsTranscript
00:00you know how we had like a record day yesterday on saturday we also had a record day of barbecue
00:03sauce he goes we got maybe enough barbecue sauce to get us to the next hour i rush over there i've
00:10got like drippings of you know stuff all over me and he's sitting there just total judgment
00:16boss man don't you think it'd be a lot easier if you just gave me that barbecue sauce recipe
00:30welcome to restaurant influencers presented by entrepreneur i'm your host sean walchup this is a
00:34cali bbq media production in life in the restaurant business and in the new creator economy we learn
00:42through lessons and stories today we've got an incredible story of a founder in nashville
00:49tennessee his name is will newman it's edley's barbecue i am a huge fan of the brand uh
00:55sarah finnegan she is on the toast customer advisory board she has been on this show
01:00um when she was on this show she told stories of will and about the brand and i said i can't wait
01:06until we have will on and here he is will welcome to the show hey sean it's great to be here uh that
01:12was neat when sarah got to do that that was she had a lot of fun she's phenomenal i can tell um by
01:18the people that you hire how much uh hospitality runs through the the ethos of your company and
01:24that's why i'm excited to have you on the show where in the world will is your favorite stadium
01:30stage or venue stadium stage or venue uh i'm a big uh tennessee vol fan so neyland stadium is my
01:42favorite stadium stadium okay how many how many fits how many fit in neyland stadium uh neyland uh
01:49it's a little it's like right 101 000 wow that's a big yeah in fact i mean i was just on a call
01:56right before this logistically getting a uh our transportation from nashville to knoxville for
02:03tennessee saturday game with oklahoma no way saturday night yeah so sweet my buddies and i go to one game
02:11a year we hire a driver and we have like a it's like a sprinter van that's been retrofitted and it's
02:18got a bathroom on it and um you know captain chairs coolers tvs and so we can have a big time
02:26and be home you know be somewhat around for the family on sunday i love it uh well let's go to
02:33neyland stadium i won't be for a football game but it'll be for a hospitality conference so we're
02:38gonna get uh all the crazy people that love this business this restaurant business no matter where you
02:44are in the world we're gonna fill the stadium i'm gonna put will middle 50 yard line give you the
02:50mic and say will i need a i need a story about your grandfather and why you're preserving his legacy
02:59through nashville barbecue yes i uh named edley's after my grandfather edley newman and uh i grew up in a
03:12town kind of on the border of middle tennessee and east tennessee so there's a little bit
03:16tennessee makes up it's got a state flag with three stars on it the three stars represent west tennessee
03:22middle tennessee and east tennessee and where i grew up was kind of like right on the line of
03:28east tennessee which has like a little bit of the hillbilly a little bit of a different um more of a
03:35you would maybe consider a country accent and the middle tennessee has kind of got maybe some more
03:40good like redneck roots southern roots but my grandfather grew up right on that line
03:45and um i didn't know him personally because he died when i was an infant but um growing up in a
03:53small town community rural community um i would go to fish fries or church events or high school
03:59basketball games or just anywhere in the community and these old timers would stop me
04:04and they'd be like you must be edley newman's grandson and i was able you know yes i am and
04:12apparently i was a spitting image of of him and and uh i i have the same um i've been blessed with the
04:20same haircut that he has uh as well at a later age so i look even more like him uh the older i get
04:26and and what was really cool was my grandfather um was not a he was just a hard-working you know
04:33middle-class man but made it just a really big impact on his neighbors in the community and they
04:38would share stories with me about the things that he did for them whether it was kicking off youth
04:44base organized youth baseball and uh in the county that i grew up in there's a baseball field named after
04:51him edley newman baseball field there's a year-end kind of trophy for uh like a hustle award in baseball
04:59in the community that's edley newman baseball award and and then also uh in tennessee we're kind of
05:06unique in how we do our electrical system we're part of tennessee valley authority uh one of the few
05:11kind of governmental agencies left over from the new deal days of fdr and so we get our power from tva
05:18and he ran a local rural electric co-op that brought power to farms back in the 40s 50s and 60s
05:28and even in the late 60s people told me about how my grandfather worked diligently to get electricity to
05:36their dairy farm and they didn't get electricity to this like holler back until like the mid to late 60s
05:42and so they were just really grateful for the impact he made um he did it with you know a gentleman spirit
05:49with southern hospitality um and just love of his neighborhood and community and he was just very
05:55rooted in his community and so with edley's and we were my wife katherine and i were working on um you
06:04know developing this idea this dream um you know a buddy of mine actually from college used to call
06:12so i'm william edley newman is my full name and uh oh my everybody calls me will but my buddy guy in
06:18college called me edley and when i was talking to him about it one day he was like you know i was like
06:24man i'm trying to think i've got this idea this crazy idea and trying to think of what to call it he's
06:29like edley you should totally call it edley's you know isn't it like her grandfather's name
06:34and then i came home and told my wife that story she's like oh my gosh that's so great and then we
06:41started you know pulling up more stories you know i started telling her more stories about him
06:46and you know what he did to the community and the stories i heard and and it just was just so obvious
06:52and it's been fantastic um to get to carry on his legacy of just um you know southern soul
07:00southern hospitality and just being rooted in your neighborhood and community what does southern
07:07soul and southern hospitality would describe those in more detail for me for those that don't know
07:12yeah i mean southern soul is is really is is how you treat people i mean so you know you hear of
07:18hospitality um you know service you know basic restaurant service we all know is like you know
07:24getting your food kind of somewhat fast you know somewhat hot there's like kind of just entry level
07:31points of you know the restaurant there's service and there's hospitality and the hospitality is like
07:37how you're making that guest or that person feel with the the things that you're doing the smile on your
07:42face and then southern hospitality is a level of warmth that kind of takes it to a whole different
07:48level um it's about feeling you know when someone feels that that you're receiving southern hospitality
07:54that there is a familial warmth um being exchanged between you know a guest and a restaurant or just two
08:04people that feels like you know you're you know you're kind of you're from here or you know you
08:09this is kind of who we are and we're just welcoming you into our our southern family um so it has a
08:14little bit i feel like a little bit more personal touch than just um you know true maybe traditional
08:21hospitality it's definitely not elegant it doesn't mean it doesn't it's not sophisticated it's a little
08:26bit more down home a little bit you know small town it's going to feel like kind of stepping back in
08:32time with southern hospitality um you know there may be like uh one of my favorite things in the south
08:39is when um is when like a server maybe like a waffle house you know calls me darlin uh when she's bringing
08:46uh you know bringing my food or you know if i need another you know topper on my coffee or something
08:51like that and um there's just a certain way that you know we kind of talk and treat each other that's
08:56just a little bit it's a little bit more warmth i think is probably the easiest way but again there's
09:01like a familial family piece to that you're kind of somehow welcoming them into your family family
09:08unit and family way of doing things did you know that toast powers over 140 000 restaurants across the
09:15united states canada and uk it's an incredible company i'm on the toast customer advisory board they
09:21are proud sponsors of this show restaurant influencers we couldn't do it without their support
09:26they power our barbecue restaurants in san diego if you have questions about toast if you're thinking
09:32about bringing toast on to be your primary technology partner at your restaurants please reach out to me
09:37i'm happy to get a local toast representative to take care of you you can reach me at sean p welchef
09:43on instagram once again thank you to toast for believing in the power of technology the power of storytelling
09:50back to the show so which which class at alabama law school did you decide that you were going to be
09:59in the restaurant business that's a good question uh so yeah so i have a i have a history degree from
10:07university of tennessee and then i'm a very unique person to have a degree from tennessee and a law degree
10:13from alabama but uh my my dear wife who went to auburn was writing checks for me to go to university
10:21of alabama and i was working i was at the law library one sunday in tuscaloosa so we lived in
10:30birmingham alabama and i commuted to tuscaloosa for three years wow um it was just a lot cheaper to go to
10:37alabama then there was a really good law school in birmingham called uh cumberland but um i was
10:42working i was studying on a sunday for a big exam and i was paying attention to this was 2007
10:50hey and you couldn't youtube stream or stuff like that but you could kind of keep up
10:55with what was going on um also i was paying attention to tennessee titans and i was well i think
11:01chris johnson was playing for them at the time and um i took like a break and i was kind of watching
11:07um the tennessee titans and then there was kind of a halftime but you could see like on you like
11:12on the yahoo yahoo sports is what i was watching and you could kind of see like as you know the
11:16score you could kind of see first down there was like some some very delayed updates on you know
11:23first downs and all this kind of stuff but it felt you know i felt connected it felt really good as
11:27rudimentary as it was that time it was really i felt connected to the titans when i was taking my
11:32great well it went to halftime and right around this time of year in the fall in in nashville
11:40um the nashville scene which is kind of the alt-weekly newspaper the tennessean is like the
11:46mainstream um public newspaper based in nashville they all come out with their best ofs around this
11:53time of year i mean literally like we just won best of and nashville and both i think maybe both of
11:59them in the last week or two so it was right around this time so it's halftime for the titans i'm taking
12:05a break trying to procrastinate from law studying for a law exam and i happen to see um who won best
12:12of again in nashville and it was just a brand that's really really just um
12:20it just wouldn't hold a candle in anywhere really yeah and what was really unique living in birmingham
12:29going to tuscaloosa like i'd go in tuscaloosa is where the original dreamland barbecue is
12:35and then birmingham has a ton of great barbecue but people don't really know it um really outside
12:42of that region because people don't really um tourists don't really visit birmingham and go
12:46back and evangelize like they might do memphis you know memphis has other things to bring you there
12:51like they've got graceland they've got the blues and they've got great barbecue but it's really
12:56birmingham does too they really do and so i'm surrounded by great barbecue i was in fact i was
13:01born in memphis tennessee and i'm sitting here um and i'm going golly this place is one like you know
13:09consecutive years and i was like if that is the if that is the bar to pass i can do this
13:18and that's literally the genesis of the journal um uh it was not in a class but it really happened
13:26where i was like if they can do this consecutively year after year be the best barbecue
13:32um there's opportunity here and it was just weird that at that point in time nashville did not have
13:40a strong barbecue scene mm-hmm so i was incredibly naive i mean i definitely had some entrepreneurial
13:46spirit i was very naive to think i could do it better um thankfully i wasn't going into like you
13:53know memphis which has a great barbecue scene that would be that would i would have wouldn't even dream
13:57to do that um what's cool now is nashville has a you know a great awesome barbecue scene it's it's
14:05changed a lot not not just edley's i mean there's so many really good brands here and it's fun to
14:10compete with them and and have people come and test all you know visit from out of town and go to
14:16martin's or peg leg and um they're just so it's been it's been an awesome journey from that moment
14:24to see where we are today at least and then kind of see where the broader nashville barbecue scene is
14:29it's it's really fundamentally different today bring me back to the beginning opening up the
14:36restaurant going through the recipes i mean as somebody that opened up a barbecue business in
14:41san diego i had many people laugh at me make fun of me um california knows nothing about barbecue and
14:47you know thankfully i had i had gene goikache who's my pit master that you know taught us
14:52the the secrets of of low and slow how to cook it right how to you know have the right smokers
14:57right timing right meats right seasoning um bring me into the craft of uh sure of the mistakes in the
15:04beginning well i'll tell you a little bit of my like kind of my background on it and then the mistakes
15:09are we just don't have enough time in the in the podcast right now but yeah fair enough um so when i
15:17was in birmingham in tuscaloosa uh some friends of mine converted a uh in birmingham there was a
15:24place in lakeview in birmingham lakeview oyster house and it was one of my wife it was one of our
15:29favorite places to go eat and they converted it into a moe's original barbecue and moe's original
15:35barbecue started in vail colorado with some guys who um were kind of like the ski you know they went there
15:44for that one ski season and then they never left but they were from all from alabama and so they
15:49kind of started something out in vail that was kind of cool and these and they had a connection to the
15:53these group of guys in birmingham and then they they took what was a great restaurant neat fun
15:59restaurant and put it in barbecue and it was really really good and i enjoyed it enjoyed the people
16:05enjoyed the owners and so i ended up helping them while i was in tuscaloosa my third year of law school
16:10helped them open up a moe's in tuscaloosa okay and so by doing that i got to learn um a ton of like
16:17the tricks right because there's there's you know there's sean making a brisket or doing a smoke butt
16:25at home for his friends and then they're doing it for you don't know how many friends are showing up
16:30on a saturday night right that's just it's not even it's not even the same ballpark i mean it's the
16:35same there's wood and there's meat but there's the whole process is different correct and so i i got
16:41to learn a lot of tricks and i got to learn a lot of things and i do a lot of things different than
16:46they did but it opened my eyes to that process of thinking about how to you know do it for like
16:53you're guessing right it's just a you're hoping that this many people are going to show up and a lot
16:58of times you know you would sell out they would sell out and i thought that was kind of cool
17:02um so i helped them with that and there was talks about doing one of those in nashville and
17:07that never really worked out and and you know lucky for us um by this point we were kind of
17:14committed to getting back to nashville to to live out this dream and so you know fast forward to to
17:20the opening um one of the good things you know for for me is that i had a little bit of experience
17:26um but i didn't i never consider myself like a real chef or a foodie so i hired uh brett tuck
17:34he was a culinary trained chef and brett was with us for well over 10 years and now runs um
17:43in nashville he runs brown's diner he's the owner of brown's diner the cool thing about brown's diner
17:48is that in two years it'll be a hundred years old and it's the he's the third owner wow and so in
17:56fact i had lunch there today amazing it's awesome very so very authentic next time you're in nashville
18:02you need to check out brown's but um so brett he was a culinary trained chef he didn't have the
18:07barbecue background but he he was just he's just he's just very uh he's super creative he looks
18:13barbecue um he feels barbecue um so i was able to kind of teach him the the smoking piece of it and
18:20then he was able to kind of bring in some you know we wanted and the other thing that we really wanted
18:25to make be different that was real important to me and brett helped kind of bring this vision to life
18:30was a lot of places in tennessee especially nashville their sides um were just kind of an afterthought
18:38they'd just like you know they had to be on the menu they didn't feel like they wanted them to be on
18:43the menu and so we put as much energy and love you know you always hear about love when it comes
18:49to smoking and love with your meat well we took that same mentality and we did that with our mac and
18:53cheese right we have a we have a gouda roux based mac and cheese um like our baked beans have a little
19:02bit of a different kick to it um you know our green beans we use bone we make our own bone broth
19:08like those all those little things that we did our sides are you know arguably just as good as our
19:14meat and that that i really started day one um now the way we did everything was just stupid
19:22because um there's so much equipment i didn't even know about like i didn't know what a steam kettle was
19:29i didn't know what a you know even later life you know we got like a you know uh what was it i mean
19:35we've upgraded from uh oh my gosh i'm drawing upgraded from a steam kettle to a skillet uh tilt skillet
19:41um you know i didn't have a convection oven i didn't even know i mean i had like i had like a little
19:46budget i bought everything used um most everything bare the only thing i bought new then was like an old
19:55hickory pit um out of cape gerardo missouri we we used all hickory pits and uh i went to before i
20:03opened i went to barbecue camp at 17th street bar 17th street amazing yeah yeah yeah mike mills
20:10mike mills and amy mills we they were one of the first guests on the podcast no kidding so i know
20:15yeah i know amy but i went to you know mike mike mills you know um i learned from him um
20:24you know he he chopped you know he chops his he chops his uh pork right he puts it through a buffalo
20:29chopper and i was pulling it and then i thought you know i love the way it marries the fat and the bark
20:41and the you know the kind of the dense part of the middle of boston butt i love what the buffalo
20:45chopper does so we we do what they do amazing from that um from that barbecue camp and i went there
20:51probably like a month before i opened wow yeah and so i went two years in a row i think maybe three
20:57years in a row and i learned some catering stuff after the fact but uh yeah i mean i've got stories
21:04about um in fact at that barbecue camp there weren't many restaurant people there they were more
21:13competition people competition people yeah and so it's crazy enough to get it's crazy to be in
21:19competition it's totally even more crazy to actually open up a restaurant it's so yeah it's
21:24kind of delusional really it is i mean you're kind of like you know are you a mental patient or not
21:29you're like you're right on the line of you're right on the whether or not you should be committed
21:32because it and really in reality it's such a the odds are so stacked against you but i learned from
21:38well i learned i heard from so many old timers there who gave all were wanting to give me advice
21:43because i was you know i was actually going to open up a restaurant they probably just laughed but
21:47um you know all of them though were like whatever you do don't give up your barbecue sauce recipe
21:55keep it keep it locked and sealed yeah keep it to yourself don't give it to anyone because they'll
22:03steal it from you and um fast forward six months and um randomly we were on we went our first stores
22:16in 12 south and um i mean i was the gm uh my wife would work uh cashiers on the weekends from uh from
22:23her job but on sundays um when i was kind of telling her about this you know we were talking about the dream
22:29and doing all the stuff and she had like a real grown-up job that you know really paid the bills
22:34in case things went south um so we were very lucky in that sense very blessed but she's like you know
22:40after a few months i want you to promise me that you know we start going to church on sunday
22:45and you know at this point when i'm at what i'm asking for i was like she could have asked for
22:48anything and i would have promised it and so yeah of course yeah we should be able to go to church
22:52after three months no big deal and we're open on sundays of course um we were closed on tuesdays
22:59yeah um which is weird but so i get a phone call on a sunday um at church like repeatedly from ut
23:08and uh ut's still on our team he's uh working in 12 south pitmaster for us at 12 south and uh
23:15i finally like kind of step out maybe like after the sermon i was like he t hey everything okay he's
23:19like hey boss man uh you know about that barbecue sauce you know we uh i'm gonna need you to come
23:24over here and uh and make some i was like yeah okay yeah i was like yeah i'll be i can be there
23:30probably three or four o'clock you know when it slows down and katherine's supposed to go eat lunch and
23:35he's like you know how we had like a record day yesterday on saturday he's like well we always had
23:41a record day of barbecue sauce and uh he goes we got maybe enough barbecue sauce to get us to the next
23:47hour and so i rush over there and i'm wearing like you know khaki pants probably like a blue button down
23:57um and so i'll put on and i'm rushing in there i've got like you know my dress shoes on and all
24:02stuff i put an apron on and and the way i made barbecue sauce you know i got it done in time but
24:08i made roughly about it was roughly about 17 gallons but you know there was like 20 different ingredients
24:13and by the time i get done i've got like drippings of you know stuff all over me and ut's got this
24:21just very uh charismatic big pearly white tea smile and he's sitting there just total judgment with this
24:29you know smile going boss man i mean it'd be a lot easier if you just gave me that barbecue sauce recipe
24:36and uh sure enough next month the next day that next monday we got in there together and i taught
24:45them you know time how to make it and i don't think i ever made it i never made it since amazing
24:51that's amazing but back then we did a lot of things out of stupidity and fear
24:57which usually aren't two very good ingredients to be successful but thankfully we didn't step on any
25:04like just major um landmines can you share a little bit about operationalizing i mean you're talking
25:11about things for you to scale understanding the craft of barbecue you have the pit master at the
25:17original location bring us into going into the second location yeah that's a great question um i tell
25:25people and i and people always think i'm joking but um i i truly believe this i think almost anyone can
25:32open up a restaurant like anyone could open up a restaurant it's keeping it open 12 months that
25:38yeah most people can't do and um i was working just um just a tremendous amount that first year
25:47um and then you know had you know had some good people had some good team members you know i i didn't
25:53have any real operations we didn't have any real procedures it was all just kind of institutional
26:00knowledge um we were open for about um it was like 16 months before we opened up our second store
26:09and there was a lot of um cockiness um on our part um a lot of just ignorant still
26:19but the second store taught us more about running restaurants than the first store did interesting
26:24we did a good job getting it opened so let's say like the first three months it did pretty good
26:30and then kind of once you know maybe i kind of removed myself from the second store and i was kind of
26:36sort of over both stores you know in some sense um things started going
26:43you know haywire pretty quick and one of the things you know it's a cliche and but it's so true
26:50like i guess why it's a cliche is you get what you pay for and i was trying my intention my heart was
26:56in the right place um so i would i might have someone in my kitchen who was a hard worker um who
27:04was maybe really good at prep or really good at just you know working the pit master um who i would
27:11want i would want for them to have like opportunities in management and then i would want it really bad for
27:16you know this person and might put them in a role without real training on how to be a leader and
27:21how to how to really it's easy to lead when things are going right it's hard to lead when things are
27:27going wrong and things always go wrong on friday saturday night when you know the pos system goes
27:32down or electricity goes out or people call in sick and and so when those started happening i realized
27:39i really just didn't have the right people the right team and and slowly started like wow okay i've got to
27:45bring in like you know someone who's actually has managerial experience gm experience and that was a
27:51slow realization of like wow i've got to kind of start upgrading some people around us and um we did
27:58you know i'd say from month three to month nine on that second store we were really bad at operating
28:06and you know i'm grateful we pulled out of it um it was you know just i had to dive back in there and get
28:12to work and shoulder to shoulder and start really realizing what you know having things um actually
28:20having manuals actually having written things down everything was institutional knowledge everything
28:24was in everybody's head we had really good people we had really good people that loved our brand
28:30but we were not running like a professional kitchen we were not we were running very mom and pop-ish
28:36um and that and that and that works great with one store um but two stores the cracks especially if
28:44you have any type of volume and uh we were lucky when this was happening this would have been 2000
28:51the summer of 2013 in nashville and nashville wasn't you know nashville as it is today so we were able to
28:57kind of get away with some of our um operational deficiencies because nashville just wasn't kind of crazy
29:04you know if you entered the market today operating like we did then you would just crash and burn
29:10because the expectations are so much higher in the city today can you give us the current state of
29:15nashville i mean i've gone there for conferences i cannot believe the growth just in the last couple
29:22years um just from my visits um what's the current state of nashville you know i i'm not sure i'm even
29:29the right person to give it on because so much there's been such an evolution of the food scene
29:35and who's here um i can't even keep up and what i mean by that i sure as hell can't keep up going to
29:41all the new places um you know i've got a family i've got two boys we've got baseball games and football
29:47games and you know i need to spend time in my own restaurants and so trying to keep up with just the
29:53scene itself on just um i'm you know being in the business i mean you have to make it like an
29:59intentional you know job to keep up with all the new restaurants yeah all the new you know michelin
30:06star chefs james beard award winner chef or or or you know um finalists uh who've come to the city um
30:15and you know those names they get you the press but they don't guarantee success and so
30:20the state of it today is that a lot of it a lot of the new things that are opening are very dependent
30:27on tourism so there's a few things that i think that have opened up recently that have maybe
30:35resonated that have like repeat locals but i'd say 80 of the everything that's opened in the last three
30:41years is solely dependent on tourism and like convention business hotel business
30:50and they're and some that are i mean they're crushing it i mean some of the numbers are insane
30:55downtown what's crushing it well i mean downstairs downtown broadway i mean you know they're doing 15
31:0220 million dollars in sales wow that's crushing it you know some of the big steakhouses um you know the
31:11jeff ruby's bourbon steak i mean they're doing you know high they're you know 10 they're well over 10
31:17million wow um place in 12 south uh i don't know of it's doing close to a million a month wow so those
31:26are big numbers huge numbers tell us about yeah i'll say just how sustainable it is with the amount of
31:35things that are opening because it's not stopping it's i mean it's not slowing down like yeah um just
31:40just with like look at the next 12 months of restaurant openings of even the scale of like
31:45price points right these are high end these are high dollar price points um how the market can service
31:53all that i just have no idea how it works i'd be terrified coming in to the competition you know
32:01today in this city to try to make it it just the the amount of new restaurants i've opened up in the
32:07last four or five years tell us what a franchisee should expect for someone that's opening up a new
32:17edley's barbecue what are you looking for um i mean so what i would say is that you know we've learned a
32:24lot and um and the one thing that we have to be honest with ourselves when i say we
32:31edley's is that uh we're not for everybody when it comes to operation because we don't take shortcuts
32:39and so the franchisees that really want it you know want to kind of like a buttoned up
32:43you know uh jersey mics you know kind of turnkey type deal set it forget it uh that's just not who
32:50we are i mean just think about what we do in barbecue i mean what you know just i mean you're
32:55playing with you're literally playing with fire every night and there's nuance to it um
32:59um and so there's just i think our back of the house is a lot more complicated
33:06than we realized and so um it's not for everyone is what i would say so you know
33:13if we were to look at a new franchise it'd be someone who's definitely got some you know they've
33:18got some grit they've got some true multi-unit experience not just doing kind of like the basic
33:25franchise concepts yeah um so we're just doing it barbecue it's just there's no shortcuts like if
33:32you want to be good for long term you can't take shortcuts you just it's just it's a recipe for
33:37death by a thousand cuts so we believe deeply in storytelling uh obviously barbecue restaurant that
33:43built a media company i get to interview all the greatest hospitality thinkers in the space thanks to
33:49entrepreneur and um how do you guys view social media how do you get your story out there yeah i mean
33:57that's kind of what we're doing really is it's really um i mean there's two things there's branding and
34:02marketing yep and the branding is the story um is telling the story and we're having this conversation
34:09just recently about that is that sometimes you get you know we've got um for example we've got we do a
34:18big uh thanksgiving like really really big thanksgiving package and it's become really really big and we're
34:25closed on thanksgiving day so that wednesday you know we're we've we've developed a great program and
34:31a great reputation of entering people's homes and um you know bringing them edlies and taking
34:39that stress and that worry off their off their plate and and so sometimes we get caught up pushing you
34:48know doing too much marketing via social media and what i think we're trying to learn to do better
34:55is like how do we think about when we're doing something really special like thanksgiving and you
35:00know the the how honored we are to be in your home how can we tell our story uh our our story
35:08via social media you know and let you know about our thanksgiving package yeah um so we've got it
35:17yeah and and because we've been around now for almost 14 years you know we've told the story a lot but you
35:25know here's the deal is like you have to continue gotta continue to tell the story just because you've
35:30you've got the story out there you know you've done a really good job talking about it you've got
35:34new people you've got new eyeballs um you make assumptions because you're so into the weeds of
35:40it that everybody knows your story um and so it's about how to um in a fresh way you know talking about
35:48it um where people get it that you know here's our story we're family owned operated we're building this
35:55for a legacy brand we're building this to keep it we've got two boys george and beau 12 and 10.
36:01you know if that's something they want to be a part of one day that's the dream
36:05it's not it's not a must um like that story we just have to keep telling it in a way that
36:12is true and authentic and so you know mainly it's social media um
36:17um and it's been you know social media has been really good to us it's a obviously very powerful
36:24tool i think the thing we probably could do better is doing more um probably more like youtube like
36:31long form you know like a lot more conversations i think some of the ideas is to make sure we're doing
36:36a good job of giving giving value and you know to our guests with you know here's i mean we've done
36:43this before we just give them our recipes and like hey y'all make this for thanksgiving here's our grits
36:48casserole yeah um you know doing a better job of doing telling our story that way too so um yeah
36:54obviously social media is incredibly powerful um but the other way we do it um is that we're super
37:03involved in the local community and that probably is how we're able to tell it more in a way that
37:10resonates with the legacy of my grandfather so he i think i mentioned he was very involved with um
37:18getting youth baseball kicked off in our community cool back in the i think 50s and um so we at least
37:29we try very hard to like partner with all the little youth baseball leagues in our community so
37:35when i say nashville we're in middle tennessee and so you know from gallatin to franklin
37:41um and all over i i can't even off the top of my head think of how many little baseball leagues we're
37:46part of and really my heart like sponsorships sponsorships whether it's um you know help you
37:52know we're we've got our signs out in the outfield or we're sponsoring a little league team
37:58um in fact i was at one of our restaurants um this past spring and there was a little baseball league
38:05right near us and uh this little like seven year old eight year old team came in and i didn't know
38:12anyone on the team but you know they had they had all their edly's barbecue patches in and then after
38:16the game they were coming in to eat at edly's and those are the type of things that i just like warms my
38:21heart like being a part of you know the child baseball team at that age and planting those seeds then
38:28like when we think of legacy we think about you know what should we be doing today to make sure that
38:34the kids that are growing up in nashville want to take their kids to at least 20 25 years from now
38:41and it's kind of doing those telling that story of um giving back to community by
38:46you know actions speak louder than words by really investing in your local community and
38:51and trying to do neat things besides just assign i think we've done some trophies for
38:55like mvps we have a good like kind of local marketing team that thinks about how to make it
39:02fun for the kids um so yes they got something cool but you know hey maybe one day they tell a story
39:09about edly's barbecue that's awesome i love it uh if you guys are watching this uh you want to reach
39:16out to me i'm weirdly available at sean p walchef we're always looking for restaurant influencers
39:21whether they're restaurant owners whether they're content creators um people that are really moving
39:26the needle uh people like will uh at least barbecue this has been awesome shout out to hannah schneider
39:32from brand house uh she's the pr firm located in nashville they do incredible work she got will
39:39on the show for me she used to work at cali barbecue back in the day that's right that's right
39:44she's been doing some phenomenal work helping uh brands with storytelling so i'm grateful for her
39:50will is there any quote or mantra that you live by if if i asked the team or if i asked your sons
39:57what's something dad says all the time well before i say that so yes um yeah one thing that i don't know
40:05if i talked about that's kind of cool that's happening with at least is we are we're hoping not
40:12hoping we're working diligently to make nashville have a distinct style of barbecue nashville style barbecue
40:18i love it and that's you know kind of marrying the essence of hot chicken with pork so smoky smoky
40:24spicy sweet and it's really cool we don't want to own it we just want to be a thing in nashville
40:30you know we want people to be talking about nashville style barbecue versus memphis style
40:33barbecue i love it or kansas-y style barbecue that's that's the next dream that's something
40:37we're working on brand house is helping us with that so kudos to them yeah um one of my favorite quotes is
40:43um that would tell my team um you don't rise to the level of expectations you fall to the level of
40:56your training and too often we we expect so much of our teams to execute and do certain things but we
41:05fail to deliver on the training and that's not on them that's on us that's phenomenal well will thank
41:12you so much i will put links to uh edley's all the socials into the show notes um i can't wait to
41:19come and eat at an edley's the next time i'm in uh in nashville if you ever make it to san diego uh
41:25please come try some california barbecue on the old hickory pits we'll uh we'll we'll give you some tri
41:30tip let you try it out i know uh we we always love to break bread and we appreciate you uh for listening
41:36we appreciate you guys for for watching um will thank you for being a phenomenal guest thanks a lot of fun
41:42we appreciate you as always guys stay curious get involved and don't be afraid to ask for help
41:47we'll catch you next episode thank you for watching thank you for listening if you've made it this long
41:54you are part of the community you're part of the tribe we can't do this alone we started no one was
41:59listening now we have a community of digital hospitality leaders all over the globe please
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42:22hopefully you guys like that content if you want to work with us go to the show.media we show up all
42:28over the united states some international countries we would love to work with you and your growing brand
42:33on digital storytelling you can reach out to me anytime at sean p welchef on instagram i'm weirdly
42:38available stay curious get involved don't be afraid to ask for help we'll catch you next episode
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