Why a restaurant… and why now? (Part 1)

It’s always hard to write when it will be public forever. Especially when it’s about something that I’ve wrestled with for a long time now. Hands down, the number one question that we have received over the last 11.5 years has been… "Where is your restaurant?"

My answer has always been: Well… we love what we do and have been so busy we simply don’t have time for a restaurant and for the headaches that I’ve heard come along with owning one. However, If I’m being totally honest…it’s because I was simply afraid that it would fail. It’s a little confusing as I would consider myself a risk-taker and have had a ton of failures over the last decade.

In fairness, we’ve had a great thing going with our Lane’s seasoning/sauce line, Co-packing business, and the BBQ catering. We continue to grow year over year, we are able to control the majority of the controllables, and we’ve got a team of rockstars who love people so unbelievably well. However, the negative voices in my head can often be louder than the positive ones. It’s also been said that the failure rate for restaurants is way higher than I would like it to be. I’ve seen everything from 20%-60% failure rates in the first year alone. There is no telling which of those numbers is correct, but I’d still prefer the 0% failure rate.

I read something a while back that made so much sense to how I have been feeling about a restaurant (and small business) over the past few years. I can’t seem to remember where it came from, so I’m not 100% sure I’ve got it right but it goes like this:

"Sometimes I feel like I have jumped into the deep end of the pool… but I never learned how to swim and now I’m drowning and everyone is going to find out that I have zero idea about what I’m doing."

Well… it’s time to conquer those fears and focus on what God is going to do with this BBQ & Biscuits spot in little ole Bethlehem, GA.

Our family loves this community so much and my heart is so full every time we get the opportunity to serve BBQ to y’all. It’s really all about the smiles for us!! In fact, it’s remembering those smiles that is going to get us through the next 5-6 months of planning, permits, design, and construction. We can’t thank y’all enough for all the love and support over the last 11.5 years and we are going to need more of that awesome support in this next season.

We are working to create a place for you to not just get an amazing meal, but a place you can feel loved and known. However, we would love to ask a favor of you. We want to invite y’all along for the ride and would love if you would begin praying for all those involved in the process.

In part 2, I’ll fill in more details about the restaurant (Days, hours, menu, opportunities)

By the way… Lane’s BBQ & Biscuits is going to be located in the old Jittery Joe’s location right off 316 (a few doors down from Top Dawg).