Dave Anderson, Founder of Famous Dave's

Guest: Dave Anderson, Founder, Famous Dave's Bar-B-Que

Host: Chris Hatch

Listen on Spotify

Summary

Chris Hatch sits down with "Famous" Dave Anderson, the founder behind Famous Dave's. Dave traces the brand from his mother's frybread stand at Native American powwows and Chicago's South Side rib joints to a rib shack in Hayward, Wisconsin, a town of 2,000 where he was serving 6,000 people a week without advertising. He shares how a printer's mistake gave the brand its name, how a "best of the best" list of 100 customer touch points (from the ribs to the bathrooms to the playlist) built a lifestyle brand of nearly 200 restaurants and thousands of retail outlets, and what going public, growing too fast and picking the wrong sites taught him.

Key Takeaways

• Think of your restaurant as a lifestyle brand. Famous Dave's retail line (sauces, rubs, pickles and cornbread mix) reached thousands of outlets and will outlast any single location.

• Write down the 100 things you want to be the best at and design every customer touch point around them. Even the bathrooms and the music's tempo were deliberate.

• Invest heavily in training. Dave's answer to "what if they leave?" was "What if I didn't train them and they stayed?"

• Growing too fast to hit quarterly earnings hurt the brand. Grow at the pace your people can support.

• Site selection lesson: moving into second- and third-generation failed restaurant spaces in new markets didn't work. You can't beat a good location.

• A great concept can grow the whole category. Minneapolis went from three well-known barbecue joints to about 70 after Famous Dave's arrived.

• Embrace adversity. Take full responsibility, keep learning, and never quit.

Transcript

Editor's note: Some names were spelled from the audio and should be confirmed, including Foley Schmidt.

[01:45] Chris Hatch: Welcome back to the Dirt Dog Pod. Today's distinguished guest is none other than Dave Anderson, who is the Dave behind Famous Dave's Barbecue. Welcome to the pod, Dave.

[01:56] Dave Anderson: Hey, I'm glad to be on and we are going to rock and roll. I'm hunky dory rocking and rolling. Got a piggy by the tail and if I felt any better, we'd all be eating some slow smoked tender juicy mouthwatering barbecued ribs.

[02:10] Chris Hatch: I love that. I love that. Well, we appreciate you joining us. You obviously have an amazing concept that you founded. I just thought, I mean, where is a better place to start than why barbecue? Did you just fall in love with the pit? Did you just decide this is my passion in life? This is my path? What was it?

[02:31] Dave Anderson: You know, I'm often asked, Dave, how did you ever get into the barbecue business? And I can honestly say that I really didn't get into it more than I was born to it. My dad's a full-blood Choctaw Indian from Idabel, Oklahoma. My mom is from the Lac Courte Oreilles reservation way up in the Northwoods of Hayward, Wisconsin, where I'm currently at right now. And the unfortunate part of this story is that both my parents got ripped from their families back in the 1920s and stuck in Indian boarding schools. And if there's any saving grace of that story is that they met. And so then my dad went and fought in the war in World War II.

And after the war, married my mom and they moved up to Chicago. And I can remember as early as 1959, eating rib tips on the South Side of Chicago with my dad. So I think the real story, though, about Famous Dave's is that I'm really the American dream come true story because of real humble beginnings. I learned how to cook in my mom's Indian fry bread stand way back in the 70s and actually starting in the 60s, I guess, where my mom would set up at Indian powwows and she would make venison roasted frybread sandwiches that my dad would take and sort of roast and smoke up some deer meat.

And then my mom would make Indian frybread along with her Indian wild rice soup that we'd serve. So the story of Famous Dave's is that it doesn't matter what you've been through, where you come from, is that in this great country that anything is possible because who would have ever thought that out of that frybread stand, which was nothing more than saplings tied together, covered with a blue tarp, that would evolve into one of America's greatest barbecue stories.

[04:37] Chris Hatch: It's amazing. So she'd go set up a food stand as people were getting together, Native American people are getting together and then sell kind of to them. That's like almost like fair style or something like that.

[04:50] Dave Anderson: Yeah, basically there'd be thousands of people at these Indian powwows. They're really colorful. Part of America's rich history of Native America. But from that the family always loved barbecue. My dad being from Idabel, Oklahoma. So that's where the Southern comes from, the love for barbecue. And I grew up knowing where every Black owned storefront barbecue joint was on the south side of Chicago. And even to this day, I still love some of that storefront barbecue.

[05:29] Chris Hatch: Yeah, well, what a great food town to grow up in too, right?

[05:32] Dave Anderson: Yeah, yeah, and then how I got started was I would be doing these backyard barbecue parties and people at some point would say, my God, Dave, you should be selling this stuff. And so way up in the Northwoods where my mom is from in the beautiful Northwoods of Hayward, Wisconsin, where I always tell people it's God's country because a phone call to God is just a local call. And I would be doing these backyard barbecue parties. And at some point, people would start saying, Dave, your barbecue is so good, so delicious. You should be selling this stuff. So I started building my first barbecue joint in Hayward, Wisconsin, a little town of only 2000.

And people would drive by and they'd say, Dave, what are you doing? And I tell them, well, I'm building a rib shack. Anytime you're doing something, there's always people who are going to laugh at you. And they did laugh because they said, Are you crazy? Hayward, Wisconsin, way up here in the Northwoods. You should be going to Memphis or Kansas City, Nashville, someplace where people really love barbecue. But up here in the Northwoods, there's only Swedes, Norwegians and American Indians, and they don't have the first clue about barbecue. And besides, there's only 2,000 people in town. Well, I never gave up on my dreams and I started building my first rib shack.

And by the end of that first summer, I was serving over 6,000 people a week in a town of only 2,000 and I never advertised.

[07:13] Chris Hatch: Wow. That's wild.

[07:18] Dave Anderson: Wild. You should have seen the place. I had cars parked on both sides of the highway a quarter of a mile in every direction.

[07:27] Chris Hatch: So clearly the word got out and people must have been coming in from a lot farther away than just Hayward, right?

[07:33] Dave Anderson: Yeah. You know, it always amazed me because I would be out in my restaurant, as they say, touching tables and visiting with the guests. And I can remember the first time that really struck me as, my God, what have I got here? Because I asked these folks, I said, and where are you folks from? You know, expecting them to say someplace close. They said, well, we're from Des Moines, Iowa, which is about 400 miles away. And I said, wow. Do you have a cabin up here? And they said, no. And then I said, well, are you visiting friends? And they said, no, we drove all the way up here just to eat at your restaurant and get some of your good tasting ribs that we heard so much about. And then we're driving back. So we literally had folks driving hundreds of miles just to come to the original Famous Dave's.

[08:21] Chris Hatch: Crazy. Did you call it Famous Dave's?

[08:30] Dave Anderson: You know, back in the beginning, no. It was actually called Diamond Dave's Barbecue. And then I got sued. You know, we were only open about a couple of weeks. And I guess there was some Diamond Dave's in Iowa. Had a Diamond Dave's Tacos or something like that. And I actually went down there. I was going to try and buy them out and get the name. And then I tasted his tacos and I said, why don't you keep your tacos And I'm going to go figure something else out. So interestingly, on the road to my barbecue joint, there was like Dave's guns, Dave's antiques, Dave's boats.

And so I was going to call myself Dave's Famous Barbecue Shack. And then when we got my business cards, the printer had screwed up and I was so hot, I was really mad. And it said, Famous Dave's Barbecue Shack.

[09:27] Chris Hatch: No way. That's how the name came to be? That's wild.

[09:30] Dave Anderson: Seriously, I was really hot under the collar. I was sort of p***ed that the printer would screw my name up. But my wife said, Dave, don't worry about it. We're about ready to open up. We'll just be Famous Dave's. Besides, we're way up here in the Northwoods. Nobody's ever going to know. Because I was concerned that there was like Famous Amos cookies. So I said, OK, we're up here in Northwoods. Nobody's ever going to know. And who knew that we would be one of the top nationally recognized barbecue companies in America, if not the world.

[10:07] Chris Hatch: You know, plenty of brands at some point face some kind of big challenge right out of the gate, right? But to have an attorney show up within the first 30 days and say, hey, this isn't going to work out. That name is not going to happen. There had to be a test of commitment and fortitude there.

[10:27] Dave Anderson: Well, I think you bring up something when you talk about adversities because, I'm often told, my God, Dave, everything you touch turns to gold. I would just love to be in your shoes. And I laugh and I say, you have no idea what you just said. First of all, you don't want to work like I work. You don't want to have the problems that I've had in life. But, I think that's the story because I often am asked to share my entrepreneurial story with community groups, schools, universities. And I used to run around the country and ask, how many of you have ever taken a course called Success 101?

Let me see you raise your hands. And usually I never see anybody raise their hands because they don't teach Success 101 in school. And today, though, I've kind of changed my question. And I often ask, well, how many of you listening to me today have ever taken a course called Failure 101? Because life is really, it isn't a happy camp. And often in high school and college, they have leadership retreats and the kids will go off and sing kumbaya around a campfire. But then the first time they get sucker punched by some adversity, they kind of melt. And really it's the problems of life that get you to where you are today.

And that's one of the things that I've learned that when things are going easy you better watch out. But it's in the depths of adversity that I believe that success is really forged. Because when you think the walls are caving in on you and the world is against you and you just think that there's no end in sight and you just really don't know how you're going to get out of this and why is this happening to me? You know, it's in that depth of adversity that if you don't look at it negatively in a negative way, but you realize that every time that you face those adversities, the good Lord is looking at you, looking up over your shoulder and saying, hey, I gave you this adversity so you can get better.

And if you don't quit on me, you're going to be wiser, you're going to be stronger. And it's in the depths of adversity that your mind churns and it churns. "I've got to figure my way out of this" is really where experience comes from. So success in life really isn't just eating a piece of cake and finding the pot of gold, but it's really taking the adversities that life throws at you that your success comes from.

[13:19] Chris Hatch: So you hit that success head on, the printer messes up your name, your wife tells you to breathe, you get branded as Famous Dave's, and the store's a booming success out of the gate. And then what happened next? Where'd you go from there?

[13:37] Dave Anderson: Well, I think one of the things that I've learned the hard way is don't listen to attorneys because I had an attorney tell me to take Famous Dave's public. And I wish I had never taken Famous Dave's public. If my attorney was really looking out for me, he'd say, Dave, you really have something here. Let me figure out how to protect us and keep this in the family. But, we became a publicly traded company. And there's many lessons learned there. But I think the greater part of the story is that when I first started Famous Dave's is that I had this idea that I wanted to figure out how I could become top of mind awareness in everybody's home.

So right from the get go, I had a little retail corner in my first Famous Dave's and I was selling my barbecue sauces, my barbecue seasonings, my cookbooks. My t-shirts and caps. And I'm probably the only restaurant founder, not Emeril Lagasse, Gordon Ramsay or Guy Fieri, but this little native kid way up in the Northwoods of Wisconsin that ended up having most of his menu represented in every, almost every major grocery store in America, every big box retailer. There's no legendary landmark, iconic restaurant, whether it's New York City, Chicago, San Francisco, any major city that has landmark restaurants. There's no restaurant in America that has more of their menu represented in a retail store like Famous Dave's.

So today I'm in 3500 outlets with my barbecue sauces, my seasonings. My pickles revolutionized the whole pickle industry. Do you know there was no sweet spicy pickles before Famous Dave's? And then my cornbread muffin mix is probably one of the most eaten cornbread in America. You know, we just launched our barbecue meats and I think we have something like close to 40 SKUs in a grocery store. And then we're in Target, Costco, Sam's Club, Walmart. So, it goes to show you that a lot of hard work up front, because what a lot of people may not realize is that I spent 20 years working on my recipes and trying to be in the best of the best. You know, I just didn't want to be average at Famous Dave's. I wanted to be the best of the best.

[16:30] Chris Hatch: Yeah, sure. So let's kind of rewind the clock back, right? You've got the one store open and where you've gotten the brand is amazing, right? And I want to spend some more time talking about that. But before we do that, let's talk about that journey of going from one store to becoming a household name, right? To everybody knowing Famous Dave's by name. Where did you open store two?

[16:57] Dave Anderson: We opened the second store in Minneapolis because, interestingly, when I was in the first Famous Dave's, people literally would grab me by the shirt sleeve and poke their finger in my chest and say, Mister, you've got to open one of these rib joints in my town. So the closest major town to us was Minneapolis, 150 miles away. I found this little abandoned gas station, 2,900 square feet. I gutted it and at the most we had about 50 seats and by the end of the second month we had a line around the block and that's when I really knew we had something. Then I opened up Famous Dave's Barbecue and Blues.

We had one of the hottest blues clubs in America because there isn't anything better than to have butt-rockin' blues along with the barbecue drippin' down to your elbows.

[17:54] Chris Hatch: Yeah, for sure. Where was that unit? Where did that open? Minneapolis as well? Yeah.

[17:56] Dave Anderson: Yeah, that was in Minneapolis. And then from there, just, the story of Famous Dave's is really remarkable. We just kind of exploded. John Menard, who has Menard's Home Building Stores, actually had a cabin up here in Hayward, and he was the first one to want to put my barbecue sauces in his Menard's Home Building Stores. So I'll always be grateful to John Menard. And then I think one of the other interesting stories of Famous Dave's is I actually had Jimmy John's dad come and want to buy me out. And I really didn't want to sell at the time. But I spent a couple of days at the feet of Jimmy John's dad.

And he was sharing with me all of the business wisdom and lessons that he learned, that I guess he shared with his son, Jimmy John, who built one of the greatest sub restaurants in the world. And I learned a lot from him about how to build restaurants. And so I think the story of Famous Dave's and how we grew is that we just didn't want to be a restaurant. But I always looked at Famous Dave's as a lifestyle brand, because when you understand your business as a lifestyle brand, then you understand how to create something what I call an evergreen concept, something that will live on and on.

And God forbid if anything ever happened to the restaurants, all of the retail products will go on forever. And I think that's one of the stories about Famous Dave's is that I just didn't rest on opening up a restaurant, but to this day, I still study four to six hours a day trying to understand everything about building a brand. And so there's a lot of little things that I did with Famous Dave's in creating what I call customer touch points that are moments of truth that build the emotional connection between what I do and the people who come in the door. And my whole goal was I wanted people to be able to tell the story of Famous Dave's to other people.

And it wasn't just that we had great tasting ribs. So here's a little something you'll never hear from anybody else. When I started the original Famous Dave's, I took the idea, like people will often say if you were to write down your dreams, and then you were to benchmark your dreams, and then prioritize them, you will have a set of goals. Well, I sort of did something similar. Because when I was a kid growing up in Chicago, I always knew that one place had the best hot dogs, but I liked the french fries at this other place, and then I liked the fact that this other guy had really great milkshakes.

And I always thought that if I could just have everything that was the best of the best in one place, that would be the ultimate meal. So the first time I was able to drive, I went and got the milkshake first, because it would last the longest. And then I went and got the hot dog, then I went and got the french fries, and I had the best hot dog meal ever. So when I started Famous Dave's, I thought, well, I'm going to do the same thing. I don't want anybody to ever say, well, you've got pretty good coleslaw here, but I know in Anchorage, Alaska, they got better coleslaw.

Well, if that was really truly the case, my butt would be on a jet plane. I'd be flying to Alaska. And by the end of tomorrow, I would have stolen that recipe because I got to have the best coleslaw. So when I started Famous Dave's, I wrote down 100 things that I wanted to be the absolute best at. Like I had the best ribs, the best brisket, the best honey buttered cornbread, the best country roasted chicken. Of course, I had to have all that. But I also wanted to have the best bathrooms. And so I literally had the coolest, and I kind of coined it bathroom marketing, but I had the coolest ladies bathroom in the world.

My ladies bathroom had hand painted rose basins imported from Italy, set in marble. I had 24 karat gold plated waterfall faucets. I had angel hands coming out of the walls, holding the wall sconces, and then iron filigree around the mirror. And I had the most beautiful, they were naked ladies, the art, but they were like beautifully done, like water nymphs and mermaids on the walls. And you could just tell, I always had like 50 ladies standing in line to my ladies' bathroom. And you could always tell the ones that had never been in before, because they'd come running out, they'd run into the restaurant, they'd grab one of their friends and they'd say, "Martha, you've got to check out this bathroom."

[23:08] Chris Hatch: You know, it's funny because bathrooms in the last, I feel like five or six years have almost become like the Instagram hotspot, right? That's where everybody wants to take a picture now. But you were an early pioneer into that world, for sure.

[23:25] Dave Anderson: I was, I think I coined the word bathroom marketing. You know, the other thing was, is that like on the drive into the first Famous Dave's, I had hanging baskets on every tree. Now, a lot of people driving in may think, well, that's a beautiful thing. It makes the property look really nice. But that to me was a moment of truth. That was a customer touch point where I wanted the women to feel welcome, that they weren't just going to some barbecue man cave. And then the other thing I did, like I had an American flag, and I didn't do that just because I am patriotic, which I am, but subliminally, I wanted people to think that they were going to the all American, America's all American barbecue joint.

And back then I had a big chainsaw carved bear that was standing out in front. And every family had to stop and take a picture with that bear. So even before social media even existed, I had people taking pictures of my rib joint, showing everybody that this was the coolest place in town. So there was a lot of things that I thought of that were on that best of the best list. Like I wanted to be the restaurant where everybody took their first date or where they proposed. And you wouldn't believe how many people propose or guys proposed to their girlfriends to get married and then they wanted to have their wedding party at Famous Dave's We have a list of all our awards on the Famous Dave's website, and I think there's no other restaurant in America that has close to 800 best-in-class awards: everything from best family restaurant, best menu, best takeout menu, to the best place for a business dinner.

These things were all part of my best-of-the-best list of 100 things, including I wanted to have the best music. And so I curated every single song, blues, every song had a certain beats per minute, 108 to 117 beats per minute.

[25:51] Chris Hatch: Why was that the sweet spot?

[25:54] Dave Anderson: Well, we have a resting heartbeat of 70. And subliminally, if I could get you sitting in your chair going like this, then I knew you were feeling good. And so I picked out all of these songs. There were four songs to a playlist, two sets to a rotation. Three songs were 108 to 117 beats per minute. The fourth song came down to a 108 to 112 beats per minute. You never had two instrumentals back to back. And then I curated every song, A, B, C, D, and I had like honky tonk blues, Chicago jump blues, boogie blues. And I really had a cool playlist because when you were in Famous Dave's, my whole goal was I wanted you to feel like you had the best time of your life.

[26:54] Chris Hatch: Amazing. At what point in time in your store growth did you guys decide to bring on franchisee operators?

[27:04] Dave Anderson: Almost from the beginning, we had a lot of people who were visiting Famous Dave's because everybody was talking about it. Interestingly, the first franchisee was Willy Theisen, who was the original founder of Godfather's Pizza. And he came, said, Dave, I got to have one of these. This is the greatest concept. Barbecue is America's food. Barbecue is how we celebrate. This is a great concept. And so I think at the height, we had close to 200 Famous Dave's around the country. And there's a few other concepts. I think Dickey's actually has more. But we sell more tonnage of ribs than any other concept. In fact, at the height, I was buying something like 18 million pounds of ribs.

To the point that Hormel actually built me my own rib cutting plant. Because I had the highest standards in the industry. Nobody had the highest standards for having the best ribs. In fact, when I was first going around to different meat packers and I would tell them how I wanted my ribs cut, a lot of them actually kicked me out the door. They said, hey, we don't need your business. Go down the road. Nobody has ribs like that. Pigs don't grow that way. And it was only Hormel that said, Dave, we want to work with you. And they asked me, in fact, they'll tell you, for the first time in history, they actually packed up two Greyhound buses with union butchers, brought them up to Minneapolis so I could teach their union butchers how to cut ribs.

With Famous Dave's ribs, we actually got to a point where we knew who packed that box of ribs. There was a certain spec that had to be followed. That was one of the hallmarks of Famous Dave's is that we had the highest standards. My seasonings had to be freshly ground. And we had a certain company that ground our seasonings fresh for us. And even the company that made our barbecue sauce had no idea of what was in the seasoning mix that went into the barbecue sauce. I had another company make these seasoning packs that went to the sauce company because some of the things that I was doing had never existed.

And to this day, I am the only barbecue sauce in grocery stores that is represented by a restaurant company nationally. Of course, there's a lot of mom and pops and local grocery stores that will be represented, but not nationally like Famous Dave's.

[30:05] Chris Hatch: Sure. So the moment you bring on those franchise operators, you're clearly a founder that's got a lot of passion for what you did and are doing. And you are carrying the message out, right, emphatically. And how did you translate that? How did you get your franchisees on board to do it with the same kind of passion you have? For me, most of my Famous Dave's dining experiences were either in my home state of Utah or maybe one of the Western states, right? Somewhere close to home. But I can feel a lot of these things as you're talking through them and what my customer experience was. How do you get your franchisees on board to carry the vision forth that you've got?

[30:53] Dave Anderson: Well, one of the things that I really feel is important is training. And I probably spent more money per manager in training than any other company. And I think at the time, the number was as high as almost $30,000 per manager in training. And a lot of what we did was not just train people in the business itself, the technical disciplines, but we also focused on building the person because you really can't build a successful business if the people in the business don't believe that they can be successful themselves. So we had this training. We had Hog Heaven University. We had Leadership from the Heart.

We had about four different pit masters. There were a number of different training programs and we put a lot of effort into building the framework so that everybody within the restaurant was well trained. In fact, a lot of the restaurants had their certificates. We had trained the trainer and the restaurants that had the most people trained and skilled to be able to open restaurants, they were really proud of this. And you could go in some kitchens and see 20 or 30 of these train the trainer certificates on the walls. And they were really proud of that. And a lot of people on the outside would say, Dave, you're spending a lot of money training your people.

And we all know that there's turnover in the restaurant industry. What happens if you spend all this money training your people and they leave? And I'd laugh and look at them and say, well, let me ask you a question. What if I didn't invest in my people and train them and they stayed?

[32:57] Chris Hatch: Yeah, no kidding.

[32:57] Dave Anderson: One of the things that we found out is that we had the lowest turnover of any national company. At one time, we had something like a 40% retention rate. And even today, I was just in Colorado Springs where almost every key person in that restaurant has been there since the inception. 20 plus years they have been with this one Famous Dave's. And today, a lot of the leadership within Famous Dave's has been there 20 almost 30 years, 28 years, 30 years. And one of the things I come to understand is that when you invest in your people, that there are things that they learn, they get the passion it's like they drank the Kool-Aid.

And so many of our Famous Dave's employees have Rich & Sassy in their veins. They eat, drink, and sleep Famous Dave's. But more than that, we encourage them to keep learning, read good books, keep developing their people skills. And the things that they've learned, they often come back and say, Dave, what I learned here at Famous Dave's really made a difference in my family's life, because my kids today have done some amazing things. Today I'm going to take a proud moment right now and tell you that my grandson, Cooper Anderson, is all over the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune for being a player of the year.

He just led the Edina lacrosse team to the state championship just two days ago, and I'm really proud of that. My grandson, Cooper Anderson, look him up, Star Tribune. Star Tribune out today, player of the year.

[34:56] Chris Hatch: That's amazing. Good for him. That's got to be ending the high school season on a high note there.

[35:02] Dave Anderson: Oh, great kid. My son actually does our Leadership from the Heart training. Over 5,000 people have been through it. One of the things that we learned is that everybody, no matter where you come from, what you've been through, everybody has a dream within them that could change the course of mankind. And all they need to do is unleash it. And that's one of the things that we do. We spend a lot of time developing people so that they can realize their own dreams. Just like I was the dumbest kid in class. I had a 1.98 grade average in high school. I never thought I could succeed, but I had an opportunity to meet Zig Ziglar, one of America's premier personal development trainers.

I started reading his books. I read Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. Og Mandino's The Greatest Salesman in the World. And today, even though I thought I was the dumbest kid in class, today I am on a rampage of learning. I eat books for breakfast. I read two or three books a week. I never looked at my car as transportation. I look at my car as my university on wheels. So before I turn on the tunes, I'm listening to an audio book. I'm listening to something inspiring and putting the pure, the clean, the powerful, and the positive in my head. And I think because of that, even though I thought I would never succeed in life, that I have accomplished some amazing things.

You know, I've had a presidential appointment. I've been an Olympic torch carrier. I'm in the Entrepreneurs Hall of Fame, the Junior Achievement Hall of Fame... I forget all of them... the Minnesota Blues Music Hall of Fame, the National Native American Hall of Fame, the National Barbecue Hall of Fame, I can't forget that one. And who'd ever thought some dumb Indian kid growing up in the streets of Chicago.

[37:18] Chris Hatch: Well, I think that maybe one of the most inspiring parts of doing these podcasts for me is talking with entrepreneurs like yourself. Some of those that have started more recently also started their concepts more or less in a parking lot, right? We had the Dave's Hot Chicken head of real estate on a few months ago. And we've had Hangry Joe's on here. We've had Layne's. It's so amazing to me. A lot of these concepts that have come from very humble beginnings. They grow just into wildly successful operations and it's amazing. I think it's an unfair advantage for me to spend an hour with someone like you and I leave here and I'm on top of the world. And I feel like I could go do anything after talking to someone like you.

[38:07] Dave Anderson: Well, we can, and I think that's why I do these podcasts. I think my high school teachers would be rolling in their grave because I had a 1.98 grade average, which I shared. I have ADHD, I'm a mess. Fortunately, I have a wonderful wife who's never judged me. She's always been supportive of me. But it just goes to show that anybody, like I said earlier, it doesn't matter where you come from. Doesn't matter what you've been through, is that if you never ever give up, that we live in such a great country that anything is possible. And adversities, all adversities are opportunities. And one of my mottos is that I do what others will not do.

Go after the adversities, go after the problems, because that's where the real opportunities are in life. Instead, a lot of people, they run away from life's problems. And you'll hear them say things like, well, don't talk to me. That's Joe's problem. When really somebody should be raising their hand and say, hey, I understand. I understand you're having a tough time. Let me have that problem. You know, I'll handle it for you. That's what we need today. Instead, everybody wants to point fingers. You know, they want to say, well, if I had married somebody differently or if I had a different job, if we had a different president.

But what they don't do is say, hey, let me take that problem, let me figure it out, because that's where all of life's opportunities are. It's being able to take on the problems of other people, the adversities, and turn them around into life's greatest opportunities.

[39:53] Chris Hatch: What do you think was the single greatest challenge that you faced as you started opening, especially kind of in that heavier store count growth phase, call it from 50 up to 200 or whatever? What were some of the challenges that you were hitting at that point as you were scaling quickly?

[40:11] Dave Anderson: Well, I think just what you said, scaling too quickly. Like I said earlier, I wish I'd never taken the company public because one of the things they do is they bring on what they call Wall Street savvy board of directors. And these Wall Street savvy guys start running the business by the quarterly earnings statement, rather than taking your time and growing the business and letting people get their Famous Dave's legs underneath them. So I would say growing too fast was a problem because we were trying to always exceed the quarterly earnings statements because in a publicly traded company, if you miss the quarterly earnings statement by just a half a cent, they could tank the whole stock.

And really, I don't run a business by the stock. I run it by our guests. And the good time that they're having, the great food that they're enjoying, those are more important than anything else. So I think growing too fast, you have to grow at a rate where the people who make your business... I've always said that the people who are more important in any business are the ones who are belly to belly with the guest, not the people who are in the corporate office, but the people who are out there in the restaurants meeting and greeting people. Those are the most important people in any business.

So I would say grow your people, grow appropriately, and you will have tough times. I think one of the hardest things was we opened a restaurant up where it shouldn't have been opened and we had to close it. And boy, that just tore my heart apart. We had to let people go. I couldn't believe that I failed. But we learned a lot from that. And today I'm a lot smarter in how we open restaurants. I have a farm, pizza and winery up in Hayward. My son has Old Southern BBQ, which is doing phenomenal. They are now, Old Southern is in US Bank Stadium. The Minnesota Vikings wanted his barbecue so much. that they wanted them for the Vikings games at the US Bank Stadium. So I think some of the lessons that I've learned are really great lessons that have helped me succeed in other areas.

[42:53] Chris Hatch: So you've probably eaten every piece of barbecue under the sun many times. It was just Father's Day. What's your go-to? If you're walking into a Famous Dave's or if you're making something at home in your smoker, what are you doing right now?

[43:12] Dave Anderson: Do you have kids, Chris? Which is your favorite kid?

[43:14] Chris Hatch: High five. Gosh. Yeah, there you go. Good point. That's a great response.

[43:22] Dave Anderson: You know, Chris, as you well know, one of them is better one day, and on another day you love the other one. That's the same way with me because I'm often asked that same question. Well, what's your favorite barbecue? Is it ribs? Is it chicken? Is it pork? What is it? You know, it depends on the day. You know, I think the critical thing though is that everything I do, I really try to be really good at it. And I would just say this, is that I have been in thousands, literally, I started visiting barbecue restaurants when I was a teenager. I'm 72, so I figured one time I had been in somewhere between 2,500 and 3,000 barbecue restaurants because I literally would fly into a city, I'd hit 10 restaurants a night, order everything off the menu.

I'd take pictures. I'd steal a menu. And, I'm very open that God changed my life. I know at some point I'll be up at the pearly gates. And I think St. Peter's going to call me over and say, Anderson, we want to talk to you. You know, by all rights, you should just kind of skip right into heaven. But we want to talk to you about all those menus you stole. You know, the one thing that I'll say is that I've had people say, well, how can you eat somebody else's barbecue? It's because barbecue is America's food. And there are so many people that have their own interpretation of what good barbecue is.

And I enjoy what other people do. I never diss another barbecue restaurant. I'll never talk bad about them because everybody has their own interpretation of what tastes good. And there's a lot of people that love what they do. And I'm always learning. And I appreciate what other people do, because barbecue is fun. You know, it isn't just a way of cooking, but it really is a lifestyle. It's really the camaraderie that we have with friends and family around a roaring fire, and there's meat on it. Because I often say that I think there's something about barbecue that brings out the primal instincts. It brings out your inner caveman because there's something primal about chewing smoky charred meat off a bone. Yeah, yeah.

[45:56] Chris Hatch: And cooking over a fire, I would add too, right? Yeah. Especially... good night. So many of these municipalities that we work with these days have made us go to electric equipment in all these buildings. There's just something nice about cooking something over a fire, isn't there?

[46:14] Dave Anderson: You know, like I said, I think that's your primal instincts that's going back to the cavemen, sitting around a fire and they got some mastodon or T-Rex over the fire. But, it's how we have a good time. If you want to have good time with family and friends, you always say, hey, why don't you come over to my place and this Friday we'll have a backyard barbecue. So, I think in different parts of the country, out east they have mutton. If you go down to Texas, you have the big mesquite pits and they can really do some amazing stuff with briskets. You go up into the northwest, you got smoked salmon and, they're using different types of berries to make barbecue sauces.

In the Midwest, you got a lot of your brown sugar and molasses type barbecue sauces and the Carolinas, you might have a vinegar-based barbecue sauce. Down towards Florida, you start getting into mustard based sauces and everybody can do some really cool stuff that's really mouthwatering, tasty. So I enjoy what other people do when it comes to barbecue.

[47:39] Chris Hatch: So with 200 stores at the peak open, you've obviously been a guy that's stood on site evaluating a new potential restaurant a handful of times, a couple hundred times, right? How do you decide if this location at intersection A or shopping center B is going to be better? What goes into that decision-making process for you?

[48:03] Dave Anderson: Well, today it's gotten pretty scientific. We have all sorts of access to data on demographics. It's amazing what they can figure out. Before even AI existed, they could pretty much tell you who lives in the area, what they're going to buy. Just because of where they shop, how they shop. So that's really important. And at one time, because Famous Dave's did start off in a rural area, I was almost believing that we could put Famous Dave's anywhere and people would find us. Well, we learned the hard way that you can't beat being on Main and Main, being in a good location. So, I think today you always want to be in the hottest spot.

They always say location, location, location. There's a lot of truth to that. But we have pretty sophisticated ways today of knowing exactly where we should go. And we made all the mistakes back in the early days. You know, back in the day, one of our CEOs had a chance to buy out some, I think it was the Red River Grills in the Washington DC area. And they were really dying and we took them over. And almost immediately we jumped and we were doing phenomenal business. So this CEO thought that he found the Holy Grail to opening up Famous Dave's in failed restaurants. So we went to Dallas, Atlanta and Chicago, and we opened up a whole bunch of restaurants in second- and third-generation failed restaurants.

And he thought the more they had failed, the better for us. Well, we ended up closing all the restaurants in Atlanta and Dallas. And we probably should have closed all the restaurants in Chicago. So we had our learning lessons. We learned the hard way that you just can't beat being in a good location.

[50:23] Chris Hatch: You know, that's interesting too. If you think about barbecue, there's usually not as many barbecue restaurants in any city you go to in America. I mean, there's just usually not as many. I mean, there's usually multiple burger options, multiple steak houses, et cetera, but not usually a whole bunch of barbecue joints. And so it's interesting to hear you say that because a lot of the time I think that they're not at Main and Main. So just back to those fundamentals, putting it in the right spot.

[50:51] Dave Anderson: Well, and I think that the landscape has changed too because when we started in 1994, almost the next year we went to Minneapolis and opened number two. And when people found out that we were going to Minneapolis, they would say there's three really well-known barbecue joints, three, mind you, three. And it was Market Barbecue, Rudolph's, and Ted Cook's, a Black-owned storefront barbecue joint. And the others were a little bit more fancier, casual dining, barbecue joints with really good followings. And they said, Dave, if you go into Minneapolis, you're going to put those people out of business. And I said, I hope not, because I enjoy going to them.

And one of them has since closed, not because of Famous Dave's, just because the owner had passed on and they never really carried on the legacy of the owner. But today, I think Famous Dave's, the success of Famous Dave's all over America has opened many doors for a lot of mom and pops to develop their own barbecue concepts. Because in Minneapolis today, I would say there's close to 70 barbecue joints in Minneapolis compared to the three. So I always say that we don't put anybody out of business. Instead, as they say, a rising tide lifts all ships. So we've helped expand the whole industry. I think we've opened the door for many what I call barbecue warriors who have their own take on what good barbecue should be. And it's been really fun. Today it's America's food. It really is.

[52:45] Chris Hatch: Yeah, love that. We have a lot of younger people that are newer to the business that listen to these podcasts. If you were sitting there and you were giving some instructions to 20- to 30-year-old Dave, what would you say to him right now?

[53:02] Dave Anderson: I would say first of all, don't give up on your dreams, go after it. A lot of times people say, well, this person failed. You know, don't be afraid of that because it's in the depths of adversity that your mind churns and it churns and that's how you figure things out. So you're going to have tough times. Embrace it. Embrace your tough times. Don't blame others. Take 100% responsibility for everything that goes wrong in your life. And just know this, that when you accept responsibility for what's happening, that's when you learn. And it's that experience that will help you become successful in life, because you can't become successful without the adversities.

And for those who last, the opportunities will come to you. One of the things I share to every group of people that I have the opportunity to talk to, I always say that there's three things that I've learned the hard way in life. That number one, life is about change. Life is about lifelong learning and life is problems. So when it comes to life is about change, understand this, that a lot of people think that change happens out there. That my life would be different if we had a different president or I married somebody else or if I had a different job. No, the only change that ever happens that's transformative and that really means something is when change happens here.

And so if change happens here, you have to be about change yourself. You have to have a mindset that every day you're going to learn something new and you're going to be better at something. And if you're not learning every day... we live in an accelerated marketplace where change is happening so fast. And Chris, you say you have five kids. More change is happening in one day of their life than in 10 years of your life. So this is where we are today. So if you're not learning something new every day, this world is going to pass you by and leave you in the dust.

So every day, you've got to be figuring out something new. You have to be learning something new. But you have to be willing to accept change, and accept that it isn't out there that change happens, but it's got to be happening within your own life. And then again, like I've always, this whole podcast really has been, how do you deal with the adversities of life? Which is interesting because I did a podcast with Guy Raz on NPR's How I Built This. I was all set to be talking about exciting things. And all he did was he kept digging about the dirt in my life. And I got really mad at him.

I'm like, why are you trying to trash me? Why do you want to know about all this negative stuff? And then when I actually heard the podcast, it was really enlightening to even me that a lot of the lessons I have aren't about the really neat things that I figured out. But how I dealt with the adversities. And those are the learning lessons that I really want our young people, budding entrepreneurs to understand is that there will be times when you think the world is caving in on you and the walls are just crushing you and it looks like there's no way out. It's during those times that you just can't ever quit.

Hang in there because you will figure it out. And if you do fail, don't let it defeat you. You know, it's just like a pole vaulter. They don't always make the next height. You know, they got to keep after it. And at some point, you will get over that higher mark. But you always got to be pushing yourself to a higher mark. Because if you're not, there's going to be some young up and comer that will pass you by. Bury you. Leave you in the dust.

[57:23] Chris Hatch: Dave, you've created an amazing chain. You've fed America. You've got some unbelievable products that are available in thousands of outlets. Where are you headed from here?

[57:35] Dave Anderson: You know, we're working on some really cool stuff. We're about ready to launch more of our barbecue meats and in all the grocery stores and big box retailers for Famous Dave's. There's helping my son with his enterprise. That's the amazing thing. You know, when you embrace failure and the negative things of life, you will find the world beating a path to you. Just understand this, the world of opportunity is incredible. It's like, so many people think that there's not enough. So they live in a world where there's not enough. And I call that the cake and the candle theory. If somebody's got a cake, if I have a cake and you want some of my cake, you may hit me over the head and take my cake, or I may give you some of that cake.

Either way, there's less cake left. And that's not how opportunity is. Opportunity is like a vast ocean. And it's like you going to that vast ocean with a teaspoon and taking a piece of that and thinking that's all, you know. My point being is it is unlimited the amount of opportunity that is out there. And if you live every day in a positive mindset and you live to make others... I live obsessively devoted to the happiness of other people. I don't work for money. If all I did was make other people happy, what I found out is they become addicted to you. They can't have enough of you. And they will do everything in their power to help you succeed.

[59:21] Chris Hatch: I feel like it's like magnets. Happy people, positive people, they attract other happy and positive people.

[59:28] Dave Anderson: Well, I think that's God's great universe is that when you're living every day to make the world a better place, that you live your life to be a positive difference in the lives of other people, that God's great universe will bring other people who are like you, that think like you. And there's like a magnet, you're right. There's something magnetic about it because the people with resources, the people who see you struggling and they see you never giving up. They want to come alongside you and they want to help you through those difficult times. And I do that with other people. I see somebody struggling.

I'll go help them out. But if you're whining and complaining how bad the world is, everybody's going to avoid you. So no matter how bad you think you are, don't blame others. Don't be negative. Be positive. And when that happens, there's like an aura that just goes out into the universe and the good things in life will be attracted your way.

[1:00:32] Chris Hatch: I was going to say there was a person in between you and I that put us together, [Foley Schmidt], and he's one of those people too.

[1:00:39] Dave Anderson: Yeah, yeah he is. Just an incredible young man. He's got the world by the tail, I'll tell you that.

[1:00:46] Chris Hatch: Fun. Well, Dave, thank you for joining us. Thanks for telling us your story. Everybody get out there, go enjoy some Famous Dave's barbecue as soon as you hear this.

[1:00:55] Dave Anderson: Hey, and may you always be surrounded by good friends, great tasting barbecue. We live in a great country. Just know I'm there with you in spirit. Have a great day. I'm so happy to have met you, Chris, and good luck to you and your family. And one of these days we'll break some bread and we will have the best slow smoked, tender, juicy, mouthwatering barbecued ribs.

[1:01:19] Chris Hatch: I love it. Thank you, Dave.