Dave Burton
| GenX Tavern | The Getaway | Tampa Bay Pizza Company | Holy Hogg BBQ |
For Dave Burton, owner of GenX Tavern, The Getaway, Tampa Bay Pizza Company, Holy Hogg BBQ and a few other notable local eateries, running a restaurant is like being at home.
“My dad worked in the hospitality business and I've always liked meeting new people and spending time with family and friends,” said Burton, who earned an MBA from USF in 2002. “There’s no better way to enjoy others’ company than sharing a meal.”
With a wide variety of established eateries, Burton said success is due to a number of factors, including location, food quality, good service and atmosphere.
To me, success lies with figuring a niche and recognizing you can't be everything to everybody,” he said. “After all, the riches are in the niches.”
One critical secret, he said, is building a team of managers and leaders who counter-balance an owner’s strengths and weaknesses. Self-evaluation and reflection are essential, he said, and if that’s something that sounds like it comes right out of business school, it does.
“In restaurants, we deal with very tight profit margins, so you always have to be looking at numbers and determining ways to not only improve revenue but decrease costs,” Burton said. “Leadership and management courses also teach the principles and foundations to help build a staff that reflects your own personal values and belief system which should always be centered on the guest experience.”
What sticks with him the most from his MBA courses?
“The best lesson I feel I've learned from my business education is that you have to ‘walk the four corners’ to get to know your people, your employees” he said. “The vast majority of the people who visit our places don't know or care who Dave Burton is.
“They just want to have a great experience,” he said. “The culture you build among your customer-facing employees makes that happen.”
Vincent Jackson
| Cask Social Kitchen | Ferg's Sports Bar & Grill in Tampa |
Most people know Vincent Jackson as the Pro Bowl wide receiver for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, but he’s now retired and a big part of the emerging Tampa Bay area restaurant scene. He’s a part owner of Cask Social Kitchen and has a part ownership interest in Ferg’s Sports Bar & Grill in Tampa.
“I grew up working in restaurants, started around the age of 14,” said Jackson, a successful entrepreneur who also runs a real estate development company. “I mostly worked in the back-of-house labor positions like dishwasher, line cook, etc. Later, I did some cashiering, serving, hosting in the front of house.
“I always enjoyed being in the service and hospitality industry, but I wanted to understand the executive/ownership level,” he said, “So I used my education in business to explore that side.”
Jackson planned for his transition from the gridiron to retirement long before he stopped catching passes. He earned his bachelor’s degree in business management from USF in 2016 while still playing for the Bucs.
“My business education helped me understand the factors involved in identifying the target market, creating an identity in design/aesthetics, menu and controlling measurables like product and labor costs,” he said. “Market changes, technological advances and consumer trends greatly impact the restaurant industry, so I have tools to be better equipped to adapt and sustain.”
He said to run a successful restaurant, you must employ a well-rounded approach.
“All the factors, including atmosphere, service, value and consistency, are key components of the algorithm,” he said. “If there was one focus above others, I'd say that would be having quality people on your team that have a passion for the service industry. Strong human capital is gold.”
The most important lesson learned from his classes at the Muma College of Business?
Chances are you won't have a success rate of 100 percent,” he said, “so structure your businesses in a manner that make them flexible, build in ancillary value and have sound exit strategies.”
Nick Vojnovic
| Little Greek |
Nick Vojnovic didn’t heed the advice his mother gave him when he was growing up. Neither did his brothers.
His mom worked in the restaurant industry in Belgrade, Serbia (then Yugoslavia), but lost the business when communists took control of the country after World War II. After immigrating to the United States, she cautioned her three sons against getting involved in the restaurant industry because of the constant headaches and long hours.
She told us two things: Never marry Catholic girls and never get into the restaurant business,” Vojnovic said. “We all married Catholic girls and got into the restaurant business.”
Vojnovic, former president of Beef O’ Brady’s, now owns Little Greek Fresh Grill, a Tampa-based enterprise that he has grown into some 40 locations, including more than two dozen in Florida and the rest scattered in Texas, Kentucky, Ohio and Arkansas. He earned an MBA from the USF Muma College of Business in 2012 and now admits his mother may have been right all along, at least about the restaurant business.
“I once took two days off in a row,” he said, “and when I came back, my employees asked, ‘How was your vacation?’”
Vojnovic began working in an eatery owned by a neighbor when he was 12. In college, at Cornell University, he decided he wanted to get involved in something that combined business with people and his ambitions solidified.
Still, he said, “I learned more in a six-week program at Chili’s than I did at college. His career led to the top spot at Beefs, which at the time had 270 stores grossing nearly $250 million, and when the company was sold, he received a severance pay that allowed him to return to school for an MBA at USF. He found that the experience refreshed him. It taught him what he needed to know from the faculty and afforded him the opportunity to network with classmates.
“Certainly, USF was a huge opportunity to me,” he said. “It gave me a chance to connect personally with the university and to become part of the USF family.”
Greg Sausaman
| Topper's Craft Creamery |
Greg Sausaman is a firm believer in value, hard work and perseverance. That accounts for his success in the food service industry, carrying him through delivering pizzas for Domino’s, to being the owner of eight Domino’s franchises. Now, he’s the co-founder of Toppers Craft Creamery, a business that distributes specialty brands of soft-serve ice cream to various food venues.
He’s the author of “Inside the Box: The Power of Complementary Branding,” that discusses ways to add high-margin sales to offset increasing expenses. While the book focuses on the business side of food, Sausaman is well versed in the food side of the business.
I started as a delivery guy for Domino’s Pizza to pay off student debt,” he said. “It was a part-time job I got after graduating with my bachelor’s in marketing from USF.”
“I love the food business and have stayed with it,” said Sausaman, who graduated from USF with a marketing degree in 1984 and a master’s degree in leadership and organizational effectiveness in 2002. “It’s horrible though if you want a normal Monday-through-Friday, 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. job, but those who do well can do really well. Hard work, smart work, perseverance, research, culture … They all factor into the formula.”
Knowing the business side of things is just as important as creating a gourmet meal.
“Understanding the dynamics of each piece of the puzzle is so important,” he said, “including accounting, managing your numbers and squeezing everything out of what you have; and finance, understanding the process to fund, decisions on capital expenditures, and the overall financial overview of your current and future business plans.”
The most important lesson he learned in his business education at USF: “Perseverance is critical. Everybody gets knocked down. The ones who succeed are the ones that don’t go down for good.”
Khalilah McDuffie
| 7th + Grove |
Khalilah McDuffie got into the restaurant business knowing there is no easy path to succeed. She is making her own way as co-owner of 7th + Grove, an upscale eatery in the heart of Ybor City, Tampa’s historic, party district full of competing bars and restaurants.
“I personally don’t think it’s a simple formula to follow to be successful in business,” said the 2006 USF communications graduate. “Success depends on the drive of the person. As a business owner, you are going to do whatever it takes to sustain your business especially if you want any kind of longevity.
We recognize the unique brand proposition that we hold in the market,” she said, “and we have been able to carefully curate our formula based on those standards.”
She said there were many classroom lessons that helped her along the way and contributed to her strategic planning to decision making.
“No school or class can teach you everything to expect in entrepreneurship,” she said. “There is a lot you have to figure out on your own. The best lesson comes from trial and error, getting out there and doing it, walking on your own faith.”
She follows a course that reflects what customers want.
At her previous business, a South Tampa lounge, “Customers would always say, ‘I wish you provided food here,’ so it was a no-brainer. My next location would feature food. I have a strong love and passion for food. I love cooking and creating my own dishes at home for my family and friends. I love feeding people.”
With that passion in place, the next move was to find a suitable location. It took two years before she and her partners found the ideal spot in Ybor City.
“We wanted something that was centrally located, with heavy foot traffic, in a place where art, culture and food would be greatly appreciated,” McDuffie said, “but also still be a part of the new wave that’s happening across Tampa Bay.”