How Big Dave’s Cheesesteaks Went from Gas Station Restaurant to Multi-Location Franchise | Derrick Hayes

When you throw a hook in the water, you can't see the fish at the bottom. You can't see what's in front of you in business. You just got to believe. It's the same scenario. Both of it worked for me. You just got to believe in what you're doing. And I fish every day, whether I'm fishing in business or I'm fishing in the water. I'm throwing my line out there with my bait on it every day and I'm trying to catch a fish. Whether it's a big one or a small one, I'm taking one step at a time. If you don't catch one fish, that's big enough. You can catch a lot of little ones that can add up to that big fish. That's the way business works. This is right about now with Ryan Alford, a Radcast Network production. We are the number one business show on the planet with over 1 million downloads a month. Taking the BS out of business for over six years and over 400 episodes. You ready to start snapping necks and caching checks? Well, it starts right about now. What's up guys? Welcome to right about now. We're always talking about how you get right in business, in life, and ultimately what's happening today. It don't matter what happened last year, but it matters five years from now. We've got to talk about how to make it happen now. That's why we're always talking to legendary people. It was legendary things. That's why we got the CEO and the founder of Big Dave's Cheesecake. It's Derek Hayes. What's up Derek? What's up man? Thank you for having me, Ryan. Hey man, my pleasure. I love seeing man getting after it, thriving in America, doing the hard things, well, and success. It looks good on you brother. Hey man, it's a lot of hard work. A lot of sleepless nights. But I want to change it for the world man, because it made me who I am right now and battling all these rollercoaster rides and getting it out the mud. You know man, I'm a big dude. I'm 65 to 60 on a good day. I like to eat brother. Oh man, I got it, sir. You know what I would give you? I would give you my 18 inch cheesecake. That's what I would give you. Okay, I might put that down man. 18 inch cheesecake, I'm gonna give you to 18 inch Dave's way. That got his peppers, three cheese, the loaded sandwich, and oh man, then I can fall on the floor and pass out or did I get it? Did you leave me out there? 18 inch for sure. I got a couch over here. If we get there, we're Derrick and I were talking pre-up, so they're opening one in Gevegas down the road in Greenville. We might have to do a follow up when he does it. He's gonna bring that in here. We're gonna have that on screen. Even if you're on that treadmill, which a lot of our listeners are, you don't want to hop off and run. Hey listen, listen, listen, run for the Dave's way. Talk to me man. Been building this business. I know you bootstrapped this thing. It came together because I wanted to honor my father. It passed away in front of my face through the cancer. And for me, it was calling, it was a purpose. When I moved to Atlanta, I tried to figure it out. I didn't know what I wanted to do. I'm going to do the thing that I told him I was going to do. I'm going to open a business. I started out selling Italian ice. Nobody in Atlanta knew what water ice was, so I couldn't get anybody walking the door at that point. I'm like, oh man, what am I doing? What year are we talking about, roughly? This is 2014. This is the early days. This is me as a young entrepreneur that I really don't know what the hell he's doing. He just wants to do something. I'm just going to find some ice. And then go out. I remember it was people who thought that I was selling just cups of ice. And it was like, what kind of concept is this? Shout out to my mother. She's like, it's time for you to put the kitchen in and do the cheese steak thing that you really want to do. I decided to change the name to big Dave cheese steaks. And that's where I all started. 2016, that year was like the year for me where I went from not having any customers to start transitioning to customers, start transitioning to a community start understanding. That is a good sandwich and don't worry, Georgia, which is still not in Atlanta. You still about 35 minutes from the city. It got to be damn good for somebody to drive that far out. But definitely don't worry. But after Eve came, she came in 2015. I started to get the hype built up, but 2016, I like to call it was my transition in the year letting people know who I am. 2018, I represented Georgia in a sandwich competition where I ranked number seven in the world in sandwiches. When I came home, it was almost like a kid won the scholarship in college. The community was proud, they were happy. I can remember that moment. And then we just started getting so big that the gas station wasn't working for us anymore because we couldn't get the orders out fast enough. I only had a three foot grill. When I broke in fire, and I mean, we don't 800 tickets to something in some days. It's just wow. Sometimes a thousand on the weekends. But I was able to now spread my wings and go downtown to 57 first-side street where I think the real magic happened for not just my life, but for my career in the community because this became a staple to the community of landmark. People would fly into Atlanta. The first thing they do is they go downtown to go get a cheese steak from Big Dave. So we started to have that. I'm flying to go get a cheese steak or I'm flying in town. Big Dave's there. I'm going to go get one. I'll see it on Instagram. It's a destination. Yeah, it's going to be a net. And then through over the years, we just started to grow. I was able to get food trucks. I was able to go into different arenas. Mercedes Ben Stadium. You name it, it goes on. So we was able to put more brick and waters in the city of Atlanta. And now over the last 10 years, almost we became this from the mud type of business to a national chain. And I think a lot of people they love it because they've never seen nothing like it before. They hear stories about how McDonald's was built or how Chick-fil-A was built. But now they ain't just hearing the story. How Big Dave's is built. They watching it. That's true. It's all out there, man. It's all out there. This was such a media. Exactly. How many stores do we have? I have 12 right now. I've read it. I got more in the works that I'm about to announce in them. I got a franchise. A new franchise. I'm announcing soon. Is it? We've already announced it, yeah. So you will be officially franchise? Yeah, I'm franchise now. 15 paper right now. And then a new deal I just signed. It's going pretty good. This is moving fast, brother. I mean, it moves slower than fast. That's how it happens right now. Well, that's the way it goes. I mean, think about it. I look at a business like this. When you meet someone, say if you're in high school and you're going to college and you meet your first love, you make highlighters say, hey, can I take you out? You take it out. Then you say, yeah, I want to date her. Start dating her. And then you realize it starts costing you, but you love it. Right? And after you figure it out, is this person for you, then they start helping you and you'll build this empire. And that's the way I look at business. I feel like you got to give you a business something and your business got to give you something back. Because either or you're going to drain out or the business is going to drain out. But I think if you all do it together, you win together. That's why the iron sharper, iron thing is so important. Your business is the other side of the knife. You could be a marriage counselor too, man. Ha ha ha ha ha. Hi, it was a knife. Thank you. Ha ha ha ha. What are you talking about? There are case. He is the founder of CEO of Big Dave's Chief Stakes. We got 12 and growing stores. These are, I guess, own stores by you and the, in the business, right? Yep. And now we're expanding. We're growing that franchise. He talked about it. You moved into the new location and that's when kind of that trigger went off of you were in a place where you had built up the demand. It sounded like you'd outgrown it. And then you could really take off. But did you know in the moment, like as you've gone through this, when it was happening, did you go, oh boy, rocket ship initiated? To be honest, I felt like I was working so hard and it was almost, I wasn't getting a recognition. I thought I deserved. Sometimes you could want to deserve something because you want to deserve it because you know how hard you're working. It takes time. Anything in life takes time. I fish a lot, right? And I think fishing helped me out with business because it's patients. Ha ha ha. Sometimes you get those time in the water and you never catch anything. Or you throw something in the water and you get a bite. And that's how business is. You might get some success to go, Ha, then it goes back. Ha, then it goes back. But if you willing to keep throwing that in the water, you're bait to go keep fishing. And I think that as you believe in yourself no matter if it's just a little bite or if a fish keep taking it off, keep taking it off and you keep losing. And nothing is coming out the water that teaches you the same thing in business. But the one day, you're going to catch a fish. Ha ha. When you catch that fish, don't I feel like it when I hit that rod and you rill it in? That's how it's successful when you just continually working on something. And I'm going to tell you why it's so similar because when you throw a hook in the water, you can't see the fish at the bottom. You can't see what's in front of you in business. You just got to believe. It's the same scenario. Both of it work for me. You just got to believe in what you're doing. And I fish every day, whether I'm fishing in business or I'm fishing in the water. I'm throwing my line out there with my bait on it every day and I'm trying to catch a fish, whether it's a big one or a small one. I'm taking one step at a time. If you don't catch one fish, that's big enough. You can catch a lot of little ones that can add up to that big fish. That's the way business works. Derek, where did you get your wisdom from, man? Because that's smart. I say all the time. This is why everybody's not successful. You have to keep going without proof of success. And that's the difference between people that make it and people that don't. A lot of people need proof all the time. And those people do okay, but they don't really ever get to the, let's call the pinnacle. And I'm not just saying money, but like even the bigger things in life because they need that validation. I need proof. I need proof. I need proof. And you nailed it. You said it. That hook at the bottom. There's fish all around it, but you don't necessarily know it. So you don't even know it. And sometimes you don't want that certain fish to bite it because you don't want it. That's right. You know, sometimes you could say that, oh, life is happening to me. I got this person to invest in me. I got this partner. But whatever is a bad fish. Yeah. Well, that's what you just got people to tell you. I don't know if you're religious or not. They'd say that's when God's working for you, you know? Hey, look, I'm very religious and I definitely believe that. And I also believe that God is not going to pitch you anything you can't handle even. That's true. Derek, where's your wisdom come from, man? I'm from the city of brotherly love, but it's a lot of hustle and grit there. You got to get or you want to make it out. Even at 38 years old, I've already lived the life of a 50, 60-year-old person because I've been around so much stuff but as a young age, I've seen things that the normal human being may not have saw. I've seen things that when you're young, you got a hustle to be able to make it, you know, yourself. When I was 12, 13 years old or a little younger, I was selling bean pies and newspapers and shoveling snow. I always been an entrepreneur. I always been a hustler, but I realized one thing, if you hustle with no knowledge, you just always going to hustle. Being a hustler is good, but if all you got is to keep hustling without being able to reciprocate the ROI of hustling, you just hustling the hustle. And that don't feel good because you look up 10, 20 years later and you like, yeah, man, I've been hustling for a long time. And then just like you said, where's the pinnacle? What do you have to show? Where did you get to in that career? And the only way you could do that is if you learn the business of anything you don't. When people say they're a hustler, you're not saying that's good, but are you learning your hustle? Did you master your craft? Did you come and expert in it? Because if you're dead, and you're just a hustler, that's a hobby. You're a hobby hustler. That's the new one. You're a hobby hustler. That's what that is. And I was going to be that. I wanted to grow. I wanted to be respected. And I want to be respected in rooms that don't look like me. I want to be respected in rooms that shock them when they hear this come out my mouth because they can't believe it. Because you know why? That's going to allow them to see a broader eyesight on generations of kids around the world that have good ideas, that have businesses. And they look broader at it as a whole. I got 40-something tattoos on my body. I don't look like the every CEO and fast casual. I come from a very dangerous place, but I'm dangerous here, you know? So me knowing that, knowing that I can sit with anybody and make it work, create a partnership. That's powerful, though, because they say if you want to really get somebody, they need to not anticipate that you're coming. And I think you probably can walk into places now and be real dangerous. You probably always have been, but now with both the knowledge. I mean, you know, sometimes I'm sitting around, honestly, humbly speaking. And I could be in certain rooms and those conversations and fast casual or anything. And I'd be like, they just don't know. I'm about to be the face of fast casual. This is about to be my world. Hey, we need to know what I have. I am creating something that's bigger than food, that's never existed. And as an African-American, where we own less than 8% of franchises, now I can actually show the world that you don't have to have a college degree. You don't have to have these certain certifications that they say you have to have. You got to be smart enough to use this and people around you that's smarter than you to be able to scout a brand. You're in the early phase of scale, but you clearly are going to them one to 12 and now franchises. And that thing's about to take off like firecracker. So what's the biggest thing you've learned that if you're in the early stages, you seem to have the vision for it. What's been the learning lesson to help you scale? Being humble and being smart enough to know that you can't do it alone, you got to create a team. And that's the most important thing because as you grow, you have to learn. And you have to get challenged. If you're not getting challenged, it's like working out, right? If I'm sitting there and I'm lifting weights, that's not really tiring me out. Then I'm not getting stronger. But if I put the right team around me, that's gonna challenge me to be a better me. Challenge me to the decisions I want to make, challenge me to the scale I want to get to. Then I requires pure dignity and education and soaking it all up and knowing that you just don't know it all. And you got to be okay with that. Because here's the thing. A lot of people say, oh, I got a mentor. This person helps me out. But for me, I could look at anybody on Instagram that intrigues me, that works hard, that keeps my engine going. And no matter what field it is, but when I'm looking at the expertise of my business, I'm leaning on my advisors. I'm leaning on my team. Because it's like this. A bike sickle is a kickstand that can't stand up on his own, but it can keep going with somebody pedaling. I can pedal my bike, but if I wanted to sit there, I need a kickstand. So that's the way I look at life. I need somebody now until when I'm tired or I want to stop my bike, I need somebody to lean on. And those are the kickstands you need to run you for life. And that's your advisors, that's your team. And that's people you trust in believing. A lot of people have family. They get involved in business. They use cheesecake. It's huge. Eric Hayes has done this. Have you learned anything about working or not working with family when building this? Respectfully, it can be difficult at times when you bring somebody in that you have to pay more than now becomes their boss. And as always, hey, I'm cuss or I'm brother or whatever the situation you'd be, that is the most difficult thing in business. Not just for me as a whole for people to hire family members. When you open up a fast casual in a market, you really do have community impact. You have it where it's obvious which is another great place to eat best if it's reputable and good like yours. But then it's your hiring. You're supporting the community. You're buying in the community. You're selling in the community. There's so many things that go into it. Talk to me about that. I invest in the communities that we build big devs and we like to hire within because when you bring a multi-million dollar business in a growing community, it can help the community significantly. We help in people gain employment. You happen people gain careers. It could be a young kid that was maybe going down the wrong road. What I'll do is we have something called a blue apron program inside of Big Dave Chistakes. And if you learn to work all the stations, you can graduate. And what that does is that give them some insight on the business and make some feel good. I come in there and I graduate them just like they graduate and get a certificate of a master's degree or undergrad, whatever. Hey brother, I love that. I can't wait to have you in Greenville and write down the road from us and we'll have a follow-up. We'll see how things are going. Where can you make keep up with Big Dave's and Derek Hayes? Big Dave Chistakes is my Instagram. My personal page is official of the Hayes. I'm always uplifting. I'm always teaching. I'm even always learning. So let's connect. Let's build. And if you're around Atlanta, if you're around South Carolina, North Carolina, Florida, get you a Big Dave Chistake. I love it brother. Thank you so much for coming on. All right. Thank you. Hey guys, you know to find us, Ryan isright.com. We're always bringing you what's right, man. What's more right in this brother? Getting it happen. He is the new face. A fast casual. We need some new faces. I'm telling you what. I'm tired of the same old thing. I know, man. I'm tired of it, man. I'm ready for a damn Chistake. I'm tired of the same old same old like that. There's never been a better time for something different. So I love it. And you'll find all the highlight clips to full episode and all the links to Big Dave's and the Hayes. We'll see you next time on Right About Now. This has been Right About Now with Ryan Alford, a Radcast Network production. 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