Today we’d like to introduce you to Blake Ballinger.
Hi Blake, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
My Father opened up the first BB’s Grill in Spring Hill, KS in May 2011 as an upscale Bar and Grill concept. All of our recipes are made from scratch in our kitchen. All of our meat and proteins arrive fresh, never frozen, and all of the food that requires breading is hand-breaded to order. You will not find anything frozen in a bag that is already breaded and ready to drop in a fryer. This is the backbone of our concept, and we pair that with a bar concept that you will see in any other kind of bar and grill. My Father, Barrett, was the Executive Chef for KC Hopps for 10+ years during its growth period (2000 – 2010). He would go and open each new restaurant KC Hopps was opening at that time. He created the menu, the recipes that feed into the menu, hired the staff, train them, get the restaurant on its feet, and then moved to the next restaurant they were opening. He did this for about 10-12 of their restaurants.
I myself helped open the Spring Hill Location when it first opened while I was finishing up my associate’s degree at Johnson County Community College. I left in August 2011 to finish my Bachelor’s Degree at Emporia State in Business Education to become a Highschool Business Teacher. In 2015 I finished my master’s degree in Business Education and took a job with Goodcents Deli Fresh Subs (Kansas City based sub sandwich shop that operates in 6 other states) as the Director of Training and Development. My thumbprint on Goodcents was taking their paper & pencil training and transforming it into a video based digital platform that could be accessed, consumed, and tracked from the convenience of your phone, tablet, or computer. In June of 2018, we came across an opportunity to take over a restaurant that had a great location but a poor operator. In September of 2018, we opened our second BB’s Grill in Olathe, KS off K-7 Highway and Santa Fe St. (West Olathe). I kept my job with Goodcents to hedge the risk of opening a new restaurant, but in September of 2019, left Goodcents to focus my full-time effort on the growth of our Olathe BB’s location and haven’t looked back since. we have went from doing $1.2 Million annual sales in 2019 to pushing the envelope on $2.0 Million in sales for the year of 2021
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
In terms of Olathe, we had struggles right out of the gate. We bootstrapped Olathe to the fullest. We knew the location was dynamite but had to pinch pennies on every line item to make it happen. I’d say 80% of everything we purchased was used. Tables, Chairs, Kitchen equipment. Not something to be proud of, especially when trying to make a good first impression with a new client base. We also played the money transfer game — not having enough money in our payroll account on payday (Friday) and having to float money until the following Monday when the sales from the weekend dropped. We were playing behind like this for a solid 2-4 months — it was extremely stressful. Although that was definitely a time I was not proud of, because we all like to be the best operators — it was either we move in, or a national brand comes in and takes our opportunity. Looking back, we feel that we have made the right choice. Since opening our restaurant, Brands like Chipotle, First Watch, Starbucks, Tropical Smoothie Cafe, and Wing Stop have all moved in somewhere along this K-7 & Santa Fe Intersection, so we are fortunate to be where we are. I’d like to report that we have been able to replace and change everything that was “janky” during our struggling times, and all of our profits continue to go back into the restaurant to show our guests where their money is going.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
To me currently, there are three things that separate us from others. (Staff, Food, Ambiance) but I’d like to just speak about the first one — our staff. Our employees are the single most important asset that we in our restaurant. We give them the autonomy to do their jobs to the fullest — and boy do they! Our philosophy is to never micro-manage — nobody likes to be micro-managed, they want to be empowered and have the autonomy to do their jobs with the vision they create of what it is to be. We have a laid-back approach and wait for patterns of behavior rather than jumping on someone when a single mistake is made or a single incident occurs. I’ve worked in places where I just wanted management to stay off my back, felt like they were always looking over my shoulder. We take these non-examples of management and use them to make sure we don’t make the same mistakes in our own restaurant. I feel like I’ve never been around a more loyal, hardworking, committed staff at this restaurant. I know our guests appreciate our team just as much as I do. Our team is what makes up the majority of our “identity” as a restaurant. They are the single most reason we have not had the “staffing shortages” that you see so many other restaurants having right now. Everyone here has been here for a long time and doesn’t want to leave, and for that I owe them as much as I can give them on a daily basis to support them and make their job as easy as possible.
Do you have any advice for those just starting out?
The best advice that I can give is that how you treat/support your team members will be the single biggest indicator of your long-term success. Imagine as an operator having to spend a lot of your week constantly looking for new hires, training those new hires, and then seeing them leave shortly after because you’re breeding an ecosystem in which people don’t want to work for you? You have no time to focus on growing your business and moving it closer to where you envisioned it. Take care of your team members, don’t sweat the small stuff, let things slide, and pay them more (adjust your pricing if you cannot currently afford to do so). The people that are in your business that already know how to do their job and like showing up to work are your most important asset. The time, energy, and money spent when you get into a situation where you have a revolving door of job openings and job replacement is (A) Hard to get out of once you find yourself in that situation, and (B) is going to drive you absolutely nuts and will take your eyes off of what you want to actually accomplish as an operator. Your team is literally an extension of yourself and you have to take care of them.
Contact Info:
- Email: blake@bbsgrill.bar
- Website: www.bbsgrill.bar
- Instagram: @bbsgrillandbar
- Facebook: @bbsgrillolathe
Image Credits:
Roxanne Rankin — Picture Perfect Design Studio
