Famous Dave's: Dave Anderson (2020)

Growing up in 1960's Chicago, Dave Anderson didn't eat much deep dish. Instead, his dad took the family to the South Side for barbecue, and those memories—and aromas—stayed with him. For years, Dave tinkered with his own recipes for sauces and sides while working as a salesman and business advisor to Native American tribes. Finally in 1994, he opened his first barbecue shack in the last place you might expect to find one: the little town of Hayward, Wisconsin. The chain grew quickly—too quickly—and Dave developed a love-hate relationship with the brand he'd created, but never lost his passion for smoked ribs and brisket. Today, Famous Dave's has over 100 restaurants across the U. S., making it one of the largest barbecue chains in the country. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Guy Raz?

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• 1:32Guy Raz?

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• 4:23Guy Raz?

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• 5:07Guy Raz?

  Visit mobili fuels.com for details. Hello, everyone. So as a lot of you know, we produce 88 brand-new episodes of How I Built This a year, and it's a lot of work. So this week, we are taking a quick break to reset, and we're playing this one from our archives. It's an amazing episode. It's a story of Dave Anderson, who turned his childhood love of barbecue into a national chain called Famous Dave's. It's a barbecue chain that started in a tiny town in rural Wisconsin. And the story of Famous Dave's is really a story about everything good and everything bad that can happen when you go into the food business. We first ran it about two years ago.

• 5:50Guy Raz?

  It's an awesome story, and I hope you enjoy it.

• 5:57Guy Raz?

  Did you give it the name Famous Dave's as kind of a joke? Because you weren't get famous, right?

• 6:03Speaker 01

  Well, on the road out of town, there's like Dave's guns, Dave's antiques, Dave's boats. So I was going to name my place Dave's Famous Barbecue Shack. I get my business cards, and it said Famous Dave's Barbecue. I am mad. Can't believe the printer messed up my business cards. And my wife said, "Dave, calm down. Why don't you just leave it?" So Famous Dave's, the rest is history.

• 6:38Guy Raz?

  Welcome to How I Built This, a show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists, and the stories behind the movements they built.

• 6:50Guy Raz?

  I'm Guy Raz, and on the show today, how a passion for smoked ribs led Dave Anderson to open a barbecue shack in the middle of nowhere, and how it grew into Famous Dave's, one of the biggest barbecue chains in the country.

• 7:08Guy Raz?

  So, most of the biggest restaurant chains started in small places. McDonald's was born in San Bernardino, California. Domino's in Ypsilanti, Michigan. Sonic? Shawnee, Oklahoma. Arby's? Boardman, Ohio. There are a number of reasons why this is the case. There's usually less competition, the rent is lower, and if what you're offering is new or different, people will stand in line for it. As they did at the original Boardwalk Fries in Ocean City, Maryland, which is now a franchise company with more than 100 locations nationwide. They stood in line at Chicken Salad Chick in Auburn, Alabama, which now has 140 stores.

• 7:53Guy Raz?

  Same with Five Guys in Arlington, Virginia, an empire of more than 1,500 locations today. And as you will hear, in the mid-1990s, people came from far and wide for some of the best pit barbecue they ever had. And it wasn't in Texas hill country or eastern North Carolina, but rather in Hayward, Wisconsin, a town of 2,300 people in the northern reaches of the United States, where in January, it can get down to minus 17 degrees. This is where Dave Anderson, after years of trying out different business ideas, decided to open Famous Dave's Barbecue in 1994.

• 8:38Guy Raz?

  Today, Famous Dave's has about 125 locations nationwide, making it one of the largest barbecue chains in the country. But the story of Dave's is also a story of how a simple passion for serving smoked ribs, chicken, and brisket can grow too big and too fast, and how a founder can almost lose complete control of a good idea. Dave Anderson grew up in a working-class family in Chicago in the 1950s and 60s. Both his parents were Native Americans who grew up on reservations in different parts of the country.

• 9:18Speaker 01

  My dad's a full-blood Choctaw Indian from Idabel, Oklahoma. And if you were to look at a map of Oklahoma, you would see that Idabel is in the southeast corner of Oklahoma, which is way down south. And then my mom is from the Lakuterae Reservation, which is way up north. She's a member of the Lakuterae Lake Superior Band of Ojibwe.

• 9:42Guy Raz?

  So she grew up in Wisconsin. He grew up in Oklahoma. And how did they meet?

• 9:47Speaker 01

  Both of my parents, I think is the unfortunate part of my story, were taken by the Bureau of Indian Affairs away from their families and stuck in Indian boarding schools, basically making orphans out of them. Now fortunately for me, though, my parents met at Haskell Institute for Indians in Lawrence, Kansas.

• 10:08Guy Raz?

  So both, just to clarify, so both your parents grew up on Indian reservations. They met at a boarding school that I guess was where Indian kids from across the country were brought to, I don't know...

• 10:21Speaker 01

  Basically to mainstream them because

• 10:23Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 10:24Speaker 01

  My dad, when he was brought into a boarding school, didn't speak English. He was

• 10:29Guy Raz?

  Wow.

• 10:29Speaker 01

  Basically a Choctaw speaking Indian. And when he got put into these boarding schools, he can remember actually being beat and having his mouth washed out with soap until he would forget his language and only speak English. Didn't happen in Abraham Lincoln's day or George Washington's day, but this generation, my parents, I think that's a story that sometimes people in America never hear.

• 10:58Guy Raz?

  No, they don't. What did your dad do for a living when you were a kid?

• 11:02Speaker 01

  My dad was electrician and my mom was a secretary. She worked as a secretary. So I was like a lot of kids that lived in a working class neighborhood and we didn't have a lot, but we always had food on the table. I think growing up though, I always knew that my family was different. Because when all the other kids are going out for pizza and hot dogs, especially in Chicago, being a great pizza town and Chicago hot dogs, my dad would load us up into the family car and we were headed down to the South Side of Chicago for rib tips. And growing up, I knew every black owned barbecue joint in Chicago.

• 11:45Speaker 01

  And I can remember as early as 1959, eating rib tips at Lem's Barbecue on 59th and State Street.

• 11:53Guy Raz?

  Yeah, I mean, Chicago became obviously hugely important as a barbecue capital because of the great migration. So many African Americans who migrated out of the Jim Crow South, moved to Chicago and brought with them their culinary traditions.

• 12:10Speaker 01

  You know, they also brought blues. What a great combination. And so, Chicago throughout the years has always been known as a great blues town

• 12:18Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 12:19Speaker 01

  and also great barbecue.

• 12:21Guy Raz?

  Dave, as a kid, did your mom and dad instill strong Indian values in you? Did you have a strong Indian identity as a kid?

• 12:32Speaker 01

  You know, growing up in a Native American family, we were cognizant that we were America's first people. My dad was very proud of his Choctaw Nation. My mom was proud to be from the Lakutia Reserve. And for us, that got carried over in that we ate Indian foods. My dad was very insistent that he had his foods from the South. My mom, when she was growing up, she did a lot of fishing and she harvested wild rice. And so throughout the years, my dad would always, what I almost call, make pilgrimages down to the South

• 13:14Speaker 01

  so he could get his banaha, which is a corn type of bread, you know, almost like a tamale wrapped up in corn husks. And then my mom would always take us fishing up north and we would harvest wild rice. And but more importantly, to raise money for the family, my parents would have a Indian fry bread stand. And my dad would grill and smoke up venison. My mom would make Indian fry bread and also wild rice soup. But we would sell venison fry bread sandwiches along with bowls of wild rice soup. I think attending Indian powwows with my mom, where we would have this Indian fry bread stand,

• 13:56Speaker 01

  really taught me a lot about cooking, cooking outdoors, but also the appreciation for foods that are harvested naturally. Being able to harvest wild rice, fishing. And all of those are experiences that I think throughout the years have always carried over to me.

• 14:15Guy Raz?

  How were you as a student? And how was school difficult for you? Or were you a pretty good student?

• 14:22Speaker 01

  I was not a good student. I thought I was the dumbest kid in class. You know, I could remember my dad sitting me at the kitchen table. I would have a blank piece of paper in front of me and I would cry because I didn't know what to do. And it wasn't until years later that I found out that... I had attention deficit disorder, which explains a lot. You know, explains why I was bouncing around all the time. And, you know, back then, I don't think there was a name for attention deficit disorder.

• 14:53Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 14:53Speaker 01

  Other than you were a problematic kid. You know, if it wasn't for an art teacher telling me, he said, Dave, he said, I, I know you struggle in the rest of your classes. He said, but when I watch you, you may not be the best artist, but you see things that other people don't see. You know, I would have never heard that from an English teacher. I never would have heard that from a math teacher. And that really stuck with me all these years. I'm able to see things other people don't see. I'm able to visualize. I'm able to see where things can go.

• 15:28Guy Raz?

  You, so clearly, high school was not, school was not, did not come easy for you and was challenging for you. I mean, I guess when you were 18, you kind of had your first experience with entrepreneurship, something about selling fuel additives or some, what was that? Tell me about that.

• 15:46Speaker 01

  So, I was right out of high school. And that year, I had gotten a call from a friend who said, Dave, do you have a suit? I said, of course, I got a suit. He said, put your suit on, I'm picking you up. So I put my suit on, I have no clue what's happening. We drive to a beautiful hotel near O'Hare Airport, and he still wouldn't tell me what's going on. And then we, we go on to the lower level, we go into this beautiful room, and there's a lot of people in there. And he said, you are about to witness one of the most incredible things you'll ever see.

• 16:26Speaker 01

  And then all of a sudden, the most dynamic person comes out and starts telling all the people in this room, this incredible story, how it doesn't matter where they've been, what they've been through, or what they think of themselves, they can be successful. And this person was none other than Zig Ziglar.

• 16:48Guy Raz?

  The famous motivational speaker.

• 16:50Speaker 01

  Zig, yeah, I, I mean. Listening to Zig Ziglar share how I could become an entrepreneur selling oil additive and gas conditioner. And I never heard anybody so motivating, so inspiring, telling me that I could be successful. So I go home and my dad asked why I put on a suit and where did I go? I said, you know, I heard the most amazing thing that I could be successful. I could own my own business. And I said, Dad, you got to hear this guy. He's having another meeting tomorrow night. Would you please go with me? I begged him. So he goes with me the next night. And here, this guy sounded like my dad. This guy was

• 17:35Speaker 01

  from Yazu City, Mississippi. He spoke with a southern accent. He said, doesn't matter where you come from, doesn't matter what you've been through, anybody could succeed. And my dad was blown away, too. For the first time, he thought his son maybe could be a businessman, maybe, you know, and it's oil conditioners, it has to do with a car. And maybe my son can do that.

• 18:01Guy Raz?

  So you went to see Zig Ziglar speak. And by the way, we had Holly Thagard on, who founded Supergoop, who also was influenced by his tapes. How did you find this opportunity to get involved in selling a fuel additive? Was that connected to Zig Ziglar? Or was that completely separate?

• 18:20Speaker 01

  I think Zig Ziglar was the spokesperson for a multi-level company.

• 18:25Guy Raz?

  Got it.

• 18:26Speaker 01

  And it cost $2,500 to join. Now, $2,500 in 1971 was a lot of money.

• 18:34Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 18:35Speaker 01

  But my dad, for the first time, realized that his son, who wasn't the best student, who barely got through school, who had ADHD, maybe this was something that he could do. So my dad had some savings. And then he borrowed some money to give me this chance.

• 18:54Guy Raz?

  What, just out of curiosity, what was the product? Tell me what the product that you were trying to sell?

• 19:00Speaker 01

  It was called steed conditioners. There was a gas additive, which made your car run better. There was an oil conditioner.

• 19:11Guy Raz?

  Right. And did you have success selling it?

• 19:15Speaker 01

  I don't think I sold one case of this stuff. My dad had a garage full of steed, oil and gas conditioners, which never went away. I didn't sell anything, but here's the thing. Part of this opportunity was we had to go through a five day how to sell training program. That training program changed my life because part of the training program every day was they would tear down everything you thought about yourself and then they would build you up.

• 19:49Guy Raz?

  I read that you even, you would like stand in front of a mirror and practice shaking hands to gain confidence as a salesman. Would you do that?

• 19:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, because you know, growing up, I was really probably the shyest bashful kid in class and here I am trying to be a salesman. And so for years in my dad's basement, I stood in front of a $5 mirror that I got from Kmart and I had a candle and I would say A, B, C. And I tried to put that candle out with my voice and I would practice smiling in the mirror. Today, everybody thinks I'm photogenic. They think I've got a good smile. Well, I worked at that smile. In fact, I even would wink at myself, but these were the things that I did because I realized I had to change who I was.

• 20:40Speaker 01

  I had to go from being a shy bashful dumb kid into being somebody that could go into a room and be able to share a story, being able to tell somebody who you were.

• 20:52Guy Raz?

  Huh. But meanwhile, the, the gas conditioner business did not work out. And I guess you, you then got like another job working at a, at a new store location for Eddie Bauer?

• 21:04Speaker 01

  Right. And that was, that was a pretty important turning point in my life because I helped open up a brand new store, uh, start to finish, which would help me later on in life. But I, I went over there and the significant part of this is that, uh, not only did I meet my wife there who was selling, uh, menswear at Eddie Bauer, that's kind of how I get into selling terrariums.

• 21:31Guy Raz?

  Wait, terrariums?

• 21:33Speaker 01

  Yeah. There was a young lady there who was selling these little bubble balls at Christmas that had partridge berries and what they call princess pines wrapped in some moss. And I'd never seen anything so, so beautiful. Well, she had said that she just couldn't go out and sell them. I said, "Well, I can sell." And so on my own time, when I wasn't working at Eddie Bauer, I would go out and I would go to a flower store and show them these bubble balls and they liked them. Then I realized that I should be doing this for myself, so I started making my own line of terrariums and planted dish gardens.

• 22:16Guy Raz?

  And you would just make them yourselves? You would just make the little garden inside the balls?

• 22:21Speaker 01

  Yeah. I actually had a corner in my dad's basement where I would bring these huge bags of dirt and sand and other ingredients to make the right dirt for these terrariums. And then my dad, being an electrician, set up a whole line of grow lights in his basement. So I started bringing in hundreds and hundreds of plants.

• 22:48Guy Raz?

  How did you know what to do? You just kind of figured it out? How did you know how to make them look nice?

• 22:52Speaker 01

  Well, I think it goes back to my art teacher who said, "Dave, you see things other people don't see." So I think I had this ability that I could take these little plants and arrange them so that there was almost a sort of magical feeling to them. You know, they were alive, they had color, and I was able to arrange them so they really looked special. And I think that's what the florists, you know, saw when I would bring my samples. They saw something that was really special.

• 23:22Guy Raz?

  Hmm. So, so did you start to make some sales?

• 23:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, the first time I have my own samples, I go to Richard Lang Florist and I got my first order from Mr. Ashner at Richard Lang Florist. And that Mother's Day, I went to his flower shop because I knew he was going to be busy. And you know, what a lot of people don't realize is that florists, unlike a retail store that can order toys three months in advance, florists have to work like days around the clock because it seems like everybody forgets they have a mother until Mother's Day, but all of these flower arrangements have to be fresh. So I went to him and I helped him. I busted down his boxes. I swept his floor. I even cleaned his

• 24:11Speaker 01

  bathroom for him. And then I helped him deliver flowers. And after that Mother's Day, everybody's exhausted. He comes up to me and he said, here, put this in your pocket. And he hands me a fistful of cash. And I said, Mr. Ashner, I can't, I can't accept this. I came here to help you because that's how grateful I am. You gave me my first opportunity. Mr. Ashner couldn't believe that I would work for nothing. And he went and told every one of his florists that he was good friends with. He said, you got to meet this kid. He's a hard worker. He's got beautiful stuff. Give him a chance. Give him an opportunity.

• 24:52Speaker 01

  So after that first summer, I had almost every major retail florist in the city of Chicago.

• 24:58Guy Raz?

  Wow. Buying your terrariums.

• 25:00Speaker 01

  Buying my terrariums, planted dish gardens, yeah.

• 25:03Guy Raz?

  So were you starting to feel pretty confident about the business?

• 25:07Speaker 01

  Well, you know, part of my story is that I'm Native American, just started out in business. My parents don't have money. I don't have money. My business is growing and I can't get a bank loan. I must have pounded the streets of Chicago. I went to bank after bank and always got turned down. You gotta have assets. You gotta have collateral. And I said, well, I'm starting out. I really don't. By the way, what's an asset? I mean, I would have stacks of orders and I would go into a bank and I wasn't able to get anywhere. But something else Mr. Ashner shared with me. One day, he said, you know,

• 25:50Speaker 01

  Dave, if you really want to get ahead, you've got to join the local Chamber of Commerce. So I dressed up and I went to a Chamber of Commerce meeting. And here, every mover and shaker in the community that was in business was there. And they always had a speaker. And so I liked that. I joined, you know, my local Chamber of Commerce and I was there religiously. In fact, I started helping set up. And one day, I was at a Chamber of Commerce meeting and one of the presidents of the bank grabs me after the meeting. His name was Gerhart Umlough. He was the president of the Bank of Chicago on Wilson Avenue. He

• 26:35Speaker 01

  said, Anderson, Jim Ashner speaks highly of you. He said, I'm having a promotion at my bank this Saturday. How would you like to set up in our lobby? I'm going to have somebody on the other side pass out hot dogs and balloons and popcorn and you can sell your dish gardens. So the next morning, I show up at the bank, I set up and I sell out.

• 26:59Guy Raz?

  Wow.

• 27:00Speaker 01

  I'm packing up my boxes and about ready to leave and the president of the bank, Gerhart Umlough, he says, Anderson, he said, I want to see you in my office. I am sweating bullets. I think I must have pissed off one of his customers. And I start to go back to his office and I have never seen a desk as big as this desk. And he says, pretty good job, Andy.

• 27:28Speaker 01

  I heard about your dish gardens and you really did a good job with my bank clientele here. He said, I also understand that you're looking for a loan. I said, yes, sir. He said, well, how much do you need? I said, $10,000. And he's looking at me. He says, well, what kind of assets do you have? I said, oh, my heart sunk. I knew I wasn't going to get my loan. I said, well, sir, I don't have assets. I figured I had a, you know, net worth of $400. And he didn't say anything for quite a while. He sat there looking at me. Finally, he reaches down into his desk drawer. He said, we don't usually do this, but I just

• 28:11Speaker 01

  watched you today sell out every one of your products. He said, I'm going to take a fly on this. And with that, he wrote out a check for $10,000 on my signature loan.

• 28:25Guy Raz?

  Wow. And obviously, I mean, you were really able to grow this business. I read that like, at a certain point, you were doing more than like $300,000 in revenue a year. And you'd hired a bunch of people, you know, you had employees, but I guess it ground to a halt, like it eventually like went under. What happened?

• 28:50Speaker 01

  Well, act of God. I don't know how to explain it other than the Chicago blizzard of 1979. Look it up. You will see snow that goes over the roof of cars. The mayor of city of Chicago could not clean city streets for three months. Because of that blizzard, that snowstorm that just created a gridlock in the city of Chicago, a lot of businesses went bankrupt. And in the flower business, I had a whole bunch of floors that could not pay me at all. And then for months, no orders.

• 29:26Guy Raz?

  At that time, you were in your twenties. Were you married?

• 29:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:30Guy Raz?

  Did you have kids at that point when you were, when you had the terrarium business?

• 29:33Speaker 01

  I, we just had one young son, James. And, you know, a lot of people don't realize

• 29:41Speaker 01

  When you can't pay bills, you know, back then I was digging through seat cushions to find change just so I could buy my kids' milk. It was tough. It was just so tough that because of the snowstorm, I ended up going bankrupt, lost everything because of that.

• 30:00Guy Raz?

  Yeah. So this is the early 1980s. And when that business collapsed, I guess you worked at a few other jobs in sales before you landed a consulting gig with a Native American tribe in Wisconsin. What kind of business did they have that they needed help with?

• 30:20Speaker 01

  Well, it was my mom's tribe, the Lake Superior Band of Lakutara Ojibwe. They had called me up and they said, Dave, we understand that you owned your own business in Chicago. We could really use your help. They had a cranberry marsh. They had a logging company. They had a construction company that was building houses for Indian people. They had a grocery store. They had a printing company. They had a gas station. And they had a bingo hall. But one of the things I noticed right away was every time I was in one of these businesses, we were failing. We were losing money like water flowing out of a sieve. Hundreds of thousands of dollars, easily a half a million dollars a year we were losing.

• 31:05Speaker 01

  And then I realized that the problem was is that with any of the people working within these businesses, they didn't think successfully. They didn't talk about achievement.

• 31:16Guy Raz?

  So they wanted you to help them kind of turn their businesses around. And you kind of realized that morale was actually the biggest problem. It wasn't mismanagement. It wasn't... But morale was the top challenge?

• 31:31Speaker 01

  Not just morale, just the basic understanding of thinking successfully.

• 31:36Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 31:37Speaker 01

  They didn't talk about profits. They didn't talk about achievement. That's when I called up Zig Ziglar. And I said, Zig, remember me? You met my dad. We're the Native Americans from Oklahoma. My dad's Choctaw. He said, I remember you, Dave. I said, I would like to bring 20 of my managers and my assistant managers down to Dallas, Texas to go through your born to win course. So I bring this group down there. I come back and boy, did I catch holy hell. The tribal leadership comes to me and he said, "We heard you took all of our managers down to happy camp. We could have used that money to have groceries for the poor. We could

• 32:18Speaker 01

  have built roofs over the elderly." I says, "Yeah, but you're failing in your businesses because nobody thinks about success."

• 32:27Guy Raz?

  And when they came back from the Zig Ziglar experience or sessions, like the team that you brought there, were they transformed?

• 32:35Speaker 01

  Very much so. We had a group of native business people who went from doing a job to becoming entrepreneurs in a way that really wanted to be successful in their businesses. And within three years, we turned around all the businesses. We're now making money. We now have accountability. And we got recognized by President Reagan's Commission on Indian Reservation Economies as being one of the top eight most progressive tribes in the country.

• 33:07Guy Raz?

  So I guess on the strength of this success, you decided to go and get more education. You decide to do a master's degree in the mid 80s. And by the way, just because we didn't talk about this much, you actually went to college back in the 70s. You went to Roosevelt University in Chicago, but you never finished. But still, you went and pursued a master's degree in public administration at Harvard. How did that happen?

• 33:37Speaker 01

  Well, kind of what happened for years, I mean, years, I would enroll every fall religiously. I would enroll in school. And I always dropped out. I mean, I think if you went back and looked at Roosevelt University's records, you'd laugh because you'd see enrolled, dropped out, enrolled, dropped out. I just could never make it. I think what made the difference for me at Harvard was I was able to take the courses that I wanted to take. And I took courses that I understood. Because once you get into any master's program in Harvard or any graduate program, you can basically go to any school there and take

• 34:22Speaker 01

  a course. So having worked for a tribe, I really flourished in a course that had to do with community development.

• 34:30Speaker 01

  And so I was able to design a course that really made sense to me and I was passionate about it and I did well. I mean, in fact, I did really well. So by then, I'm starting to understand that maybe I'm not as dumb as I thought.

• 34:48Guy Raz?

  So in 1986, you get your degree from Harvard, a master's degree, and you are then, I guess, recruited by another tribe in Minnesota to help them with their bingo operation. And this is like early days. I mean, sort of Indian casinos and Indian gaming was still in kind of its nascent phase at that point. So tell me what you, what you, I mean, you get there and they were, they had like bingo parlors there that, and that was how they were making some of their money?

• 35:21Speaker 01

  Right. And I didn't know a thing about bingo, but again, you know, one of my strengths is seeing things that other people don't see. So I'd watch this bingo game and I would see generally ladies and some guys, older guys, they'd come to bingo, you know, spend a few dollars and have a good time. And I got to thinking, you know, some of these gals really spend a lot of money playing bingo. So I asked this other guy who was kind of helping me, I said, Fred, I said, what do you think they spend here sometimes? He said, you know, they may spend anywhere from $20 to $50. I said, really? Well, this place can hold 400 people.

• 36:00Guy Raz?

  Where was it held?

• 36:02Speaker 01

  It was in a skating rink for kids. And I said, why don't we hold a big bingo game? Because back then, the bingo games generally had a jackpot of $1,000. But I was thinking, well, if I could fit 400 people in here and they spent $50, that's $20,000. So I said, Fred, why don't we offer a $20,000 jackpot? And he looked at me like I was crazy. I said, I think we can do it. I said, if you were to have $20,000 bingos, what do you think they would pay? He said, well, I think they'd spend $100. I said, great, let's charge $100 and see if we could sell it.

• 36:42Guy Raz?

  And did people, I mean, $20,000 jackpot, I'm assuming it attracted, attracted people to the bingo hall?

• 36:47Speaker 01

  Oh, my God, we, we not only sold out, we had people that were like banging on the door. We, we literally had to lock the doors and we had hundreds of people standing outside that wanted in. And that's what really kind of started my being known in Indian country. Because then I started like a consulting business that I would help other tribes figure out how to do big bingos. And I was doing some consulting for the Malax tribe. And the tribal chairman came up to me and he said, I foresee that casino gaming is going to be a big thing. Could you help get us started?

• 37:30Speaker 01

  And so we were able to put together a financing group. So I was one of the original founders of Grand Casinos.

• 37:38Guy Raz?

  And so all these casinos were on Indian tribal lands?

• 37:42Speaker 01

  We started out that way and then we got to be so successful. We actually took Grand Casinos public. So that's the first time I was part of a company that went public.

• 37:53Guy Raz?

  Wow.

• 37:54Speaker 01

  And we went on to build eight casinos all over the country.

• 37:58Guy Raz?

  Wow.

• 37:58Speaker 01

  In fact, also built Stratosphere.

• 38:01Guy Raz?

  Oh, Stratosphere, the hotel in Las Vegas?

• 38:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:05Guy Raz?

  So this is kind of a turning point. It sounds like a pretty significant turning point in your life because I'm assuming that really for the first time, you actually came into some significant personal wealth.

• 38:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, but we were also helping tribes become successful in emerging gaming markets. But I want to be careful when I say this because Not every tribe does really well with casino gaming.

• 38:33Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 38:33Speaker 01

  There's a lot of small tribes that have small gaming enterprises. But the one thing they're able to do is keep people employed. And there's probably only a handful of tribes that really have come into significant wealth. But a lot of these tribes also help other tribes because now there's access to capital.

• 38:54Guy Raz?

  But I guess kind of in the early 90s or maybe the mid 90s, you sort of decided to take yourself out of the gaming world. Why? What happened?

• 39:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, I can remember that the day that Stratosphere opened, my wife and I were in a limousine on the bottom watching this wonderful skyscraper casino that really changed forever the skyline of Las Vegas. And I said, I think I'm going to leave tomorrow.

• 39:24Guy Raz?

  Wow.

• 39:25Speaker 01

  I didn't want casino gaming to be what I was known for in life. I really was a Native American. I was an entrepreneur. I really don't want my kids to think that gaming was where Dad hung his hat in life.

• 39:40Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 39:40Speaker 01

  And that's when I made the decision to quit.

• 39:44Guy Raz?

  So I guess, I mean, as you were, you know, you're working for Grand Casinos, but in the back of your mind, this is in like the mid 90s, you started to come up with an idea for a barbecue restaurant. And I know you had been obviously a barbecue fan. And, you know, I know your dad was really into barbecue and would take you to places in the South Side of Chicago. But were you always kind of experimenting over the years with like building fires and smoking meat and grilling meat? Like people knew you as the guy who made great barbecue?

• 40:17Speaker 01

  Well, I can remember, it was still in grade school, but I had come home and my dad was home. And I can remember opening up the porch door and I was just overwhelmed by this aroma. And he had been to the south side of Chicago. He had gone to one of his favorite barbecue joints. And I see my dad pulling this rack of ribs out of his lunch bucket that was wrapped in newspapers. This was the real deal, real wood, real flames, real fire. And I tasted that rib. And even though I've been eating barbecue all these years, it was that day, that time, that rib.

• 41:01Speaker 01

  I said, I'm going to learn how to make barbecue.

• 41:04Guy Raz?

  Why did you want to open up a restaurant?

• 41:06Speaker 01

  Well, I don't think I started out that I wanted to open up a restaurant. I just wanted to make great barbecue. And so I started inviting friends over to my cabin and could say, hey, why don't you guys come over this Friday? And I'll cook you up some barbecue.

• 41:22Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 41:22Speaker 01

  They said, sure. So then they started showing up and they'd say, oh, my God, Dave, this stuff's phenomenal. You ought to open up your own rib shack. Well, the more that happened, finally, the dream started to come together. And so in the northwoods of Wisconsin, I started building this barbecue shack.

• 41:43Guy Raz?

  So wait, you, you decide, I'm going to open this up. I think you opened up in Hayward, right? In Hayward, Wisconsin, is that right?

• 41:50Speaker 01

  Hayward, Wisconsin, a little town of only 2,000 people.

• 41:53Guy Raz?

  I mean, let's just be honest, most people, when you say Wisconsin, don't think southern barbecue.

• 42:00Speaker 01

  No, Wisconsin's all about bratwurst and cheese.

• 42:03Guy Raz?

  Right, exactly, right? It's, it's bratwurst and cheese. And, and did anybody say to you, hey, you know, you make great barbecue, Dave, but there are 2,000 people in this town. How are you going to make this a sustainable business? I mean, did anybody say that?

• 42:19Speaker 01

  Um, as I was building my barbecue shack, people would drive by and they'd say, hey, Anderson, what are you doing? I said, I'm building a rib shack. And they literally would laugh at me and they would say, are you crazy? Hayward, Wisconsin, why don't you go down to Memphis or Kansas City, Nashville, someplace down south where people really know barbecue? They said, you gotta be nuts.

• 42:45Guy Raz?

  Coming up after the break, why Hayward, Wisconsin turned out to be just the launchpad that Dave needed to become famous, and how that first restaurant fueled an aggressive expansion that nearly broke the business. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz and you're listening to How I Built This.

• 43:10Guy Raz?

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• 46:46Guy Raz?

  Hey, welcome back to How I Built This. I'm Guy Raz. So it's 1994, and Dave Anderson has decided to open up a barbecue shack in the little town of Hayward, Wisconsin. And he's set himself a pretty high bar.

• 47:02Speaker 01

  Before I even opened the doors, I had already determined that I was gonna have the best ribs, I was gonna have the best honey buttered cornbread, the best barbecue baked beans. I had this list, and you know, I started out with my dad's recipes, but I visited every barbecue joint every time I was going anywhere. I always look at who had barbecue joints in town. And I learned things. I liked how somebody did their cornbread, or I liked maybe how they had one type of sauce, or how they were doing their briskets. And Guy, I know you've been all around this country, and if you were to tell me that you know for a fact they had better coleslaw in Anchorage, Alaska, I will be on a plane

• 47:46Speaker 01

  today, I will be flying up to Anchorage, Alaska, and by tomorrow night, I will have stolen that recipe.

• 47:51Guy Raz?

  But, I mean, you, I mean, you knew, like, you had recipes, because you were, you were making barbecue, like, from the time you were a kid, right?

• 48:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, I can remember, even back then, we were the first family on our block that had a charcoal grill. And so I started learning how to grill foods, and then I wanted to smoke things, and we didn't have a smoker. So I took an old trash can, I cut a hole in the bottom, I took rebar, put it across so I could put my ribs on top of that. And so by the time I opened Famous Dave's, I actually had been working on my recipes for 20 years. Because, you know, the ingredients that you use to create the sauces, the seasonings,

• 48:40Speaker 01

  barbecue is not easy, it's hard. Because to make a good barbecue sauce, you know, it's almost like Chinese cooking. There's a lot of flavors involved in making a good barbecue sauce. It's sour, it's got a robust spiciness to it, it's sweet. And then...

• 48:58Speaker 01

  There's different forms of sweetness to it. You've got your brown sugars. You have your honeys. You've got your fruit sauces. There's a lot of nuances to making great tasting barbecue sauce. And I think especially when you're creating robust flavors, that heat is very important. A lot of people may not realize this, but every menu item at Famous Dave's is hot. My coleslaw has a bite. My beans have jalapenos in them.

• 49:25Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 49:26Speaker 01

  That heat opens up the taste buds and that's when you really can enjoy the full flavor of my cooking.

• 49:33Guy Raz?

  And did you give it the name Famous Dave's as kind of a joke? Because you weren't get famous, right?

• 49:39Speaker 01

  Well, the road to Famous Dave's, and not only are we in a small town, but I was also eight miles out of town. And on the road out of town, there's like Dave's guns, Dave's antiques, Dave's boats. So I was going to name my place Dave's Famous Barbecue Shack. We're getting ready to open. I get my business cards and it said Famous Dave's Barbecue. I am mad. I can't believe the printer messed up my business cards. And my wife, in all her wisdom, said, Dave, calm down. Why don't you just leave it? You know, we're about ready to get open. Just leave it. So Famous Dave's, the rest is history.

• 50:20Guy Raz?

  Wow. I read that, like, you were obsessed with all kinds of things. Like when you, when you set out to make the restaurant, you, you wrote down a hundred things that you wanted to be the best at, not just like the best ribs and the best brisket and the best coleslaw, but like the best bathrooms? Like, is that, is that right? Like you wanted to put a lot of attention into the bathrooms in the restaurant?

• 50:43Speaker 01

  I believe that, I'm the first one that coined the term bathroom marketing. I think that's one of the things that people talked about was, was my bathrooms. My ladies bathroom had imported rose painted basins and 24 karat gold faucets on a marble base. I had wrought iron around the mirror. I had crown molding. I mean, who puts crown molding in a bathroom? But I can remember when we first opened, I got a call within the first week. Some lady said, Anderson, write me down for 8:30 on Thursday, your women's restaurant. I said, what? She said, you heard me. 8:30. I want your women's bathroom. She said, I'm gonna hold my next cocktail

• 51:28Speaker 01

  party in there.

• 51:29Guy Raz?

  Wow. So it was really just about, you know, there was all kinds of details. It wasn't just great food, but you wanted people to talk about the bathrooms.

• 51:37Speaker 01

  Well, it wasn't just the bathrooms. I think it goes back to my best of the best list. For instance, my music. I personally inventoried every blues song that was played in a Famous Dave's. I had something like 6,000 blues CDs back then. I knew the difference between jump blues, push beat blues. I didn't want any old blues. I wanted all the sort of Chicago jump blues. So when people were sitting in a Famous Dave's, I almost wanted it to be subliminally, they had to start getting in this groove and they felt good and they were bopping around. And so that was all of the experience. I wanted to touch all five senses from the

• 52:19Speaker 01

  smell of the wonderful wood aromas of meat smoking in my pit to them feeling good because of the music. And then the visuals, I put a lot of antiques in my Famous Dave's. So everything about Famous Dave's was really sensory overload.

• 52:39Guy Raz?

  I'm looking at Hayward on the map and it is, I mean, it's up there. It's in northern Wisconsin. It is far from everything. It's like, gotta be what? Two hours from Minneapolis?

• 52:49Speaker 01

  Three hours.

• 52:50Guy Raz?

  Three hours.

• 52:51Speaker 01

  Seriously, we're out in the middle of nowhere. And even though I never advertised, it wasn't but months that the word quickly has spread throughout Wisconsin and even as far away as Iowa. I mean, we're serving 6,000 people a week. And as I'd be walking through the restaurant, people would grab me and they'd say, Dave, you gotta open up one of these in my town. I said, well, where are you from? Well, we're from Des Moines, Iowa. We drove all the way up here. We heard about your barbecue. We just came all the way up here just to eat. People actually demanded us to have Famous Dave's. And so the first Famous Dave's Outside of Hayward was in Minneapolis. I found an abandoned gas station.

• 53:35Speaker 01

  It was only 2,900 square feet. We only had 50 seats. And we opened up, again, without any advertising, but within weeks, I've got a line around the block.

• 53:46Guy Raz?

  Wow.

• 53:47Speaker 01

  We're doing phenomenal numbers. I can't even keep food in stock. I had to get a refrigerator truck to park next to my little restaurant, just so we had food to cook.

• 53:56Guy Raz?

  What was the, I mean, what was it that you were, that you were doing that was it, I mean, obviously, your food was good, but you got to put the word out. How were people finding out about it? Was this just word of mouth?

• 54:08Speaker 01

  You know, it was like word of mouth on steroids. I, you know, I have no idea, but people were telling friends and friends telling friends, you got to try the barbecue. But, you know, I, I think that's what speaks to Famous Dave's, is that I went through all of the, the things it took to make great barbecue. I slow smoked our ribs until they were tender. I flame charred them, so we were able to caramelize the sauce on them. But more than anything, Guy, it's America's food. Barbecue is how America celebrates. You know, if you, if you want to have a good time, you tell your friends, come on over, we'll have a backyard barbecue.

• 54:48Guy Raz?

  Yeah. Um, you know, I know that while you were starting to get Famous Dave's up and running, you were also kind of struggling in your personal life. You were drinking heavily at the time, and you would later recognize that as alcoholism. Can you, can you tell me about that, about what was going on in your life?

• 55:10Speaker 01

  Well, I'm pretty open that my life has had some very dramatic transformations. I, I do think sometimes that our Native American Folks struggle with alcoholism. I know my mom's side, it was in the family. I know on my dad's side, it was the family. But, you know, you didn't talk about those things. And so, I wasn't really aware that was something I needed to watch out for. And, you know, over the years, it just kind of built up where, you know, I couldn't wait till Friday so I could party and couldn't wait till Saturday so I could party after work.

• 55:52Speaker 01

  And, you know, what I didn't realize was that, pretty soon, I was partying on Sunday and it wasn't too long after that, I was partying on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. I was partying all the time. And, one morning, my wife came to the bedroom. She said, "Dave, you got some friends downstairs. You better go down and see them." I said, "Well, I didn't remember inviting anybody over." She said, "Well, they're here and they say you're friends of yours." I'm all confused. I have no idea what's going on. So, I go downstairs and sure enough, there was people that I knew and it didn't take me too long to figure out what was going on. They were doing an intervention on me. And that was a tough thing.

• 56:37Speaker 01

  You know, nobody wants to admit that they struggle with alcoholism. Nobody wants to admit that they need help. But, here I was, listening to my wife, my son, and some really close friends tell me how much my drinking was taking a toll on the family. And, when they said, "Dave, you got a choice here. What are you gonna do?" And I said, "You know, I, I, let's do this thing."

• 57:04Guy Raz?

  How were you able to, um, did you go to treatment?

• 57:07Speaker 01

  Yes. I, uh, you know, treatment sounds like a tough thing. And I think it's one of the reasons why people who are struggling kind of don't want to have anything to do with it. Because it sounds like something people do to you. But today, I am so grateful, 25 years this April, I've been sober, that I, today, I look at treatment as really recovery. And recovery is a gift.

• 57:35Guy Raz?

  And meantime, things were moving fast with Famous Dave's. Like, you opened that first location in 94 and then a second one in 95 in Minneapolis. And then by 96, you've got four restaurants, I think all of them in that region. But then with just four restaurants, you decide that year to take the company public.

• 58:00Speaker 01

  Well, you know, I'm very open about it. I think that was one of the worst mistakes of my life, going public. Because I didn't realize that when you go public, you don't own it anymore. But we went public and we actually oversold. We were supposed to open up at $6. We ended up opening at 11.

• 58:20Guy Raz?

  Wow. So Famous Dave's goes public in 1996. And a new CEO is named Douglas Lanham. Did you bring Douglas on because you were now a public company? And you thought it was better that he kind of run the operation?

• 58:38Speaker 01

  Well, one of the things I was told by the Wall Street guys was that I was just a barbecue guy and that I needed to hire Wall Street savvy casual dining executives.

• 58:50Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 58:51Speaker 01

  The one thing was is that they tried to run Famous Dave's as a casual dining company when really, we were a barbecue company. We sort of lost our heritage of being just barbecue. And people were trying to turn it into something else.

• 59:08Guy Raz?

  So you were basically the chairman of the board. Douglas Lanham lasted like a year or so before he stepped down because the stock price was falling. And I guess around 2000, Famous Dave's kind of shifted or pivoted into a franchise model. Did you support that idea?

• 59:25Speaker 01

  I think I was always supportive. Looking back, though, I wish we had kept it within the family. But, you know, we had some good franchise partners. But I think one of the problems early on was they tried to get rid of the lines that we had around the block. And so they thought that the way to alleviate that was to build bigger boxes.

• 59:47Guy Raz?

  So they were giant, they were just giant restaurants, too big.

• 59:51Speaker 01

  Too big. And today, there's a lot of 6,500 square foot boxes that probably should have never been built.

• 59:58Guy Raz?

  But, but to me, the franchise model was going to be tough for Famous Dave's because it was your recipe, it was, there was a whole technique, and you're kind of handing that off to franchisees and you, you risk giving up the quality, right, when you, when you turn to a franchise model?

• 1:00:15Speaker 01

  Well, I think that's one of the things that's hallmark about Famous Dave's is that we never really lost the quality of our food. My original menu was actually inspired by Jimmy John's dad, James Leitout, who, he said, Dave, he said, first of all, you want to keep everything simple. And the second thing, you always want to do everything in threes. And he said, there's something magic about threes, whether it's the Holy Trinity, it's the Three Little Pigs, the Three Amigos, on your mark, get set, go, ready, aim, fire. People remember things in threes. So the original Famous Dave's menu was really pork,

• 1:00:55Speaker 01

  beef and chicken, coffee, milk and pop, co-slaw beans and potato salad, you know, it was all in threes. And even how we trained people, we would season, smoke and serve. Now, there might be several steps underneath, but everything was done in threes. And I think that speaks to going back to that 100 best of the best things that I wanted to accomplish was I wanted to have the best training program in America. So I, in the early days, I spent about $2 million developing my training programs. And I created this Leadership from the Heart Training Program. That actually focused on building up the people.

• 1:01:39Speaker 01

  The second thing I did was I created Hog Heaven University. I wanted to create certified pitmasters. And then I also created a train the trainer program. And so we spent a lot of money on training. In fact, people would look at Famous Dave's and they say, wow, you guys spent a lot of money training people. What happens when you spend all this money training and they leave? All I had to do was look at them and say, wow, what if I didn't train them with the best training I could do and they stayed?

• 1:02:14Guy Raz?

  After the company went public and you kind of found an outside CEO and then, you know, there were other kind of corporate folks who were brought in to run the company, did you feel like you were losing control over the business that this idea that you had was kind of slipping away from you?

• 1:02:32Speaker 01

  I think for the most part, the only thing I regretted was the company building these bigger boxes. And, you know, barbecue is a type of thing that grows slow. And it's slow smoking. I think that tried to grow too fast, I think that was one of the problems of being a publicly traded company. Now it seemed like we were being run by the quarterly earnings report. And if we were to miss earnings statement by one penny, my God, the stock got slaughtered. And as a Native American, I didn't have a lot of people around me that could counsel me.

• 1:03:14Speaker 01

  You know, I was sort of at the mercy of people that knew how to run publicly traded companies on Wall Street that, you know, that's what I think I didn't feel comfortable with.

• 1:03:28Guy Raz?

  So when you had ideas, would they listen to you? When you said, hey, let's do this, let's do that? Or would they say, well, Dave, we got this. We know what we should do?

• 1:03:40Speaker 01

  You know, I think that's the struggle with any growing businesses. I think they thought of me, even though I was the founder and I was the creator of all this, they sort of thought of me as the entrepreneur.

• 1:03:54Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:54Speaker 01

  And they thought that, you know, the corporate people needed to take over and that the entrepreneur just sort of messed things up. And today, I wish I had fought harder and I had trusted my gut more because I would have stayed to the smaller footprints and I would have stayed to a smaller core menu.

• 1:04:17Guy Raz?

  Hmm. 2003, you stepped down to become an assistant secretary at the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Washington DC. Must have been an exciting opportunity for you. So you just kind of, at that point, just left Famous Dave's entirely. Like, you walked out and said, "Look, I'm gonna go do this job and maybe I'll be back and sue in a couple of years."

• 1:04:40Speaker 01

  Well, the reason why I left is I had to. When you accept a job with, as an assistant secretary or any high-level government job, you basically have to sign away all of your rights to any of your business interests. And so, as much as I wanted to stay involved, I couldn't. I had to. If I was gonna do this job for the president and serve the White House, I had to sign away all my business interests. Looking back, I wish I'd never did that.

• 1:05:12Guy Raz?

  Because why?

• 1:05:13Speaker 01

  Well, I think what happened when I went to Washington DC, all of my entrepreneurial spirit got lost in the politics of being in government. And I should have listened to people who counseled me and said, "Dave, you don't want to go to Washington DC." And I said, "But I really believe that I can make a difference. I wanted to encourage entrepreneurship within the tribes. I really had some great ideas." But when I got there, boy, did I get an awakening that, you know, change doesn't happen in Washington DC like people think. And as an entrepreneur who's used to getting things done, I was stifled here. And I was

• 1:05:55Speaker 01

  really frustrated and, you know, it just seemed like every turn of the road, everything was gridlocked.

• 1:06:02Guy Raz?

  So you stepped down in 2005, clearly frustrated with your job in Washington. And I guess you tried to come back to the board of Famous Dave's, but the board refused to give you a seat. Is that right?

• 1:06:18Speaker 01

  Yes, that's one of the unfortunate things of publicly traded companies. They felt they didn't need me.

• 1:06:25Guy Raz?

  Wow, you were still a shareholder.

• 1:06:27Speaker 01

  I was still a major shareholder, yeah.

• 1:06:29Guy Raz?

  But you had no other influence over the company at that point?

• 1:06:33Speaker 01

  No, none.

• 1:06:34Guy Raz?

  Wow.

• 1:06:34Speaker 01

  They felt they didn't need me anymore.

• 1:06:36Guy Raz?

  Wow. How did you take that? I mean, were you bad? Were you hurt? Were you... How did you respond to that?

• 1:06:43Speaker 01

  I was devastated. I was devastated. Everything that I worked hard for all my life, my ambitions, was just shattered. It was like, this was my dream. I had worked hard all these years in my kitchen, working on seasonings, working on recipes, working on my barbecue sauces. And I look back and I think, how can they do that?

• 1:07:09Guy Raz?

  When we come back in just a moment, why Dave Anderson decides to walk away entirely from the business and the surprise phone call that eventually brings him back. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz and you're listening to How I Built This.

• 1:07:36Guy Raz?

  Hey, welcome back to How I Built This. I'm Guy Raz. So after losing a seat on the board of Famous Dave's, Dave Anderson continued to do publicity work and consulting for the company, but had much less of a say in how it was being run day to day. Famous Dave's was going through a lot of management shakeups. And in 2014, the job of CEO went to a former CEO from McDonald's named Ed Rensie.

• 1:08:05Speaker 01

  He tried to turn Famous Dave's into a McRib. Got rid of a lot of the history of Famous Dave's. There was a lot of fun antiques that were part of the decor. He started pulling the stuff off the walls. He started getting rid of, you know, our honey buttered cornbread. He thought it would be easier to take the honey butter off the top of the cornbread and just put it in the cornbread. But there's, you know, one of the most interesting stories of Famous Dave's was in the beginning, I didn't have money enough to have a smoker. I used a garbage can lid. And so our All-American Barbecue Feast is served on a garbage can lid.

• 1:08:46Speaker 01

  Well, Ed Renzi got rid of the garbage can lids and tried to put it on some type of stainless steel platter. And I can remember people just coming up to me and saying, "Dave, my family just absolutely loves the garbage can lid with all your barbecue on it. Where'd the garbage can lid go?" There's a lot of things that just was being, the heart and soul of Famous Dave's was being ripped out.

• 1:09:11Guy Raz?

  I guess you were so angry that you, I read that you severed ties with the company in 2014. What happened?

• 1:09:21Speaker 01

  Well, I wasn't going to listen to some guy who ran McDonald's tell me how to be a barbecue pit master. I had barbecue sauce running through my veins. I wasn't going to stand for it. And I just said, "Look, if the board at the time wanted to have somebody like Ed Renzi, if this is what you're going to do, I'm not going to be part of it." And so I basically emotionally, legally, financially was separated out of Famous Dave's.

• 1:09:55Guy Raz?

  Wow. Financially, too?

• 1:09:57Speaker 01

  Everything.

• 1:09:58Guy Raz?

  You divested.

• 1:09:59Speaker 01

  It's all gone.

• 1:10:00Guy Raz?

  Sold all your stocks?

• 1:10:01Speaker 01

  Well, I didn't have much stock left. You know, what a lot of people don't realize is they may think I had a lot of stock. Well, over the years, in the beginning, you know, like any business, you have your highs and you have your lows. Well, there were times when Famous Dave's had its lows where I put up my stock as collateral and there were margin calls. And by the time things were where they were, there wasn't much left.

• 1:10:30Guy Raz?

  I mean, your name was still on all these storefronts all over the country.

• 1:10:36Speaker 01

  Well, you know, one of the things I didn't realize is that when the company went public is you don't own your name anymore.

• 1:10:43Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:44Speaker 01

  So consequently, I lost something that I had worked all my life for. And, you know, I wish I had attorneys that had given me better counsel in the early days because, you know, I'm a Native American. I don't have a community of people around me that could give me good counsel. And if the attorneys really cared for me, what they should have said was, Dave, you shouldn't go public. You really have something special. You should really keep this in your family.

• 1:11:20Guy Raz?

  So you step away and the brand is not doing well at this point. There are a number of management shakeups and I guess in 2016, you get a call, they want you back, they want you to come help them rebrand and return to their roots. What's the story?

• 1:11:41Speaker 01

  So I'm kind of out of Famous Daves and one day I get a call from Mike Wright, who was running the Famous Products retail line. And really, Mike was a good friend and he called me up. He said, Dave, he said, I'm in the area. Do you mind if I stop over? So Mike shows up at my house and he said, Dave, he said, there's some things we got to talk about. He said, the company misses you. All the franchise owners miss you. Your customers, they miss you. People who love Famous Daves are missing you. You've got to come back. And I said, well, I don't think the leadership wants me. He said, that's not true. He said, people want you. They want you. You're involved.

• 1:12:26Speaker 01

  And I said, well, I am out of Famous Daves. I'm not going back. And he really laid a guilt trip on me. He said, Dave, if there was ever a time, and there may never be another time, if there was ever a time that you come back, you got to come back now because Ed Renzi's not going to be around. The company really needs you. There's new leadership. We need you back.

• 1:12:49Guy Raz?

  Huh. That must have felt pretty validating.

• 1:12:53Speaker 01

  I was in tears.

• 1:12:54Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:55Speaker 01

  I thought I would never hear that again. I, um, after Mike left, my wife and I talked and it was really, you know, a tough conversation of what do we do? Famous Dave's has really been such a love-hate relationship where I loved the food I created. I loved being with our guests. And the reason why I came back was my wife and I came to an understanding that it was really the people that we cared about. It was the franchise owners. It was the people who came to Famous Dave's who loved the food. And I think it was for that is I knew I had to come back.

• 1:13:36Guy Raz?

  Hmm. So you, you start to, I guess essentially consult with, with a company to, to help them like do a rebrand. And one of the things I guess you kind of suggested was to, to just kind of bring back the, the classics, right? The, the Cajun chicken sandwich and the brisket burgers and other things. But also, um, I guess at that time, this is 2016, and even to this day, Famous Dave's started to buy back some of its franchises in order to kind of retake control, I guess, of the business?

• 1:14:10Speaker 01

  Yeah. One of the things I think the company realized is that there was some franchise owners who probably had enough. There was a number of management changes over the years and, and they kind of got disenfranchised with the, you know, not having the passion they once had. So one of the things the company realized is that the only way they could right the ship was they probably had to buy back some of the franchise, reinvest in them, get back the training programs that we used to have and just kind of reinvent ourselves and bring back the basics, getting back to what made us famous in the beginning. We needed to be devoted to making people happy.

• 1:14:54Guy Raz?

  A new CEO came in in 2018, Jeff Cravelo. And I guess, I mean, did he started to ask, you know, kind of bring back some of those things like the trash can and the history? I mean, you go on the website now and that your story is right there, it's front and center.

• 1:15:09Speaker 01

  Well, I think one of the things that makes Jeff so special is that he grew up eating Famous Dave's in Chicago. He loved Famous Dave's. He was the first CEO who actually called me up on a regular basis. I mean, Jeff and I talk all hours of the night. He'll call me up at 11 o'clock and we'll talk till 1:00 in the morning. This is how passionate this guy is. Jeff reaches out to the franchise partners. You'll see Jeff in a restaurant actually pushing a broom. When we were doing a remodel on one of the restaurants, Jeff was there with a paintbrush. I had never seen any prior CEOs actually get in a restaurant and want to work.

• 1:15:53Guy Raz?

  And, and I mean, your role really in the company in a sense, and this is not, I hope this is, it sounds complimentary. I mean, you really are, you're like Colonel Sanders. I mean, you really are the kind of the ambassador, the brand ambassador of the company. Do you feel like you are listened to more now than you, than you were in the past?

• 1:16:12Speaker 01

  Today, there's without a doubt, Jeff listens to me. Jeff is the first CEO that actually brought me back to the board and said, you know, the board needs to hear your ideas, Dave. Because after all, you know, I, I'm one of the few barbecue restaurant owners that was actually inducted into the National Barbecue Hall of Fame.

• 1:16:34Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:35Speaker 01

  I'm a celebrity judge at all of the big barbecue events. I live in this world of barbecue.

• 1:16:41Guy Raz?

  Yeah. By the way, is the company still publicly traded?

• 1:16:45Speaker 01

  Today?

• 1:16:45Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:46Speaker 01

  Yes, the company's still publicly traded. I think our stock is around three bucks.

• 1:16:50Guy Raz?

  Right.

• 1:16:50Speaker 01

  So, you know, the only place you can go is up.

• 1:16:54Guy Raz?

  Do you think that, I mean, we're in the midst of this pandemic, right? And many states in which Famous Dave's is operating have certain restrictions and there's a lot of delivery. And as you know, the restaurant industry's really been hit hard. Do you know, I mean, how is Famous Dave's doing in the midst of this crisis?

• 1:17:15Speaker 01

  You know, Famous Dave's really is built on what's basically picnic food. Barbecue travels and it travels really well. When you look at our menu, when you're serving barbecued ribs, pulled pork sandwiches, beans, coleslaw, that's the type of food that travels. The Famous Dave's restaurants are built for takeout. We have our own dedicated takeout doors. And that's why I think Famous Dave's, for the first time in a long, long time, is on the road to recovery. So, we're actually able to thrive, unlike a lot of restaurants who are struggling.

• 1:17:55Guy Raz?

  You know, given all the ups and downs of your career, and a lot of incredible ups and a lot of just incredible triumphs and successes, but also some really tough, tough breaks. I mean, you know, even with Famous Dave's, you know, kind of taking it public and then, you know, losing the business for a while and the brand, and of course, now you're back and involved with it. But, I mean, when you kind of look back on the different decisions you made, would you have done things differently? Or do you think that you kind of had to make the mistakes you made in order to, in order to learn how to do things right?

• 1:18:35Speaker 01

  You know, Guy, I struggle, I think, every day, sometimes thinking that I wish I could do things differently. But, you know, the reality is, I really have overcome a lot of adversities in my life. I have done things in my life that I wish I hadn't done. I should have been dead three times. I've been broke three times. But every time, I've always come back stronger. You know? I often tell people that life is not always on top of the mountain. It's the valleys and it's the struggles down there that you you have to come back from where you learn things. I think that's how you grow.

• 1:19:18Speaker 01

  And so if you're not out there on the edge making things happen, how do you know what's possible? But one of the things I I go back to is that the food of Famous Dave's, my original recipes are still holding the test of time. And as much as we shoot ourselves in the foot, as much as we've made our mistakes in growing, is that people have always resonated with my food. And so, yes, we've had our tough times at Famous Dave's, but but look at what we've also accomplished. Our barbecue products are in big box retailers like Target, Sam's Club, Costco. We are all over America.

• 1:19:58Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:59Speaker 01

  It could not have happened if things were easy. So, you know, I think my story of my struggles and overcoming the my ADHD, overcoming my alcoholism, overcoming the tough times in my life is no different than the story of Famous Dave's.

• 1:20:19Guy Raz?

  Yeah, I mean, that's the thing, Dave. You know, you, your legacy will continue to live on after you're gone, because at some point, we're all gone, right, obviously? And this brand will continue. And is that more important to you, that legacy, than than than than wealth? Or are they both equally important?

• 1:20:38Speaker 01

  Well, first of all, I don't think I've ever worked to to get a paycheck more than I've worked to be a positive difference in the lives of other people. I've worked really hard to be good at what I do. But more than that, Guy, I think if anything people remember about me, I've been able to build something and give jobs to families and create opportunity where there was none. And a lot of people sometimes say, God, would I wish I was in your shoes. I have to laugh, and I said, I don't think so. But the one thing I can share is that I am grateful. I live a life of gratefulness. I live a life of sobriety.

• 1:21:23Speaker 01

  And I live a life that I am so fortunate to be living in this country because The things that I have done, it doesn't make sense. There's, there's no rhyme or reason that I was able to get a bank loan on my signature loan, much less having a 1.98 grade average in high school, no undergrad, and getting into Harvard University. Who would ever known that from some Indian kid growing up on the west side of Chicago?

• 1:21:53Guy Raz?

  Yeah. When you think about your story and, and everything you accomplished, do you, do you think that what happened to you happened because of your skill and, and hard work and perseverance? Or do you think a lot of it had to do with luck?

• 1:22:10Speaker 01

  Well, I don't know about luck. I, I wish I had been lucky. You know, you know, I think luck is created when you have a dream, you're willing to work for that dream, you're willing to work hard. You know, I, I think luck is a byproduct of you just being a hundred percent devoted to never ever giving up.

• 1:22:37Guy Raz?

  That's Dave Anderson, the founder of Famous Dave's. Earlier this year, the restaurant's parent company was bought by a Canadian franchiser in a deal worth $200 million. And last year, Dave was inducted into the National Native American Hall of Fame. And by the way, some of you may remember that several years ago, Dave competed in a Food Network barbecue challenge called Best in Smoke. And he made it all the way to the finals until...

• 1:23:07Speaker 01

  Till right at the very end, they pull a surprise. You've got 20 minutes to cook something out of tofu.

• 1:23:13Guy Raz?

  Oh.

• 1:23:14Speaker 01

  I said, what's tofu? In all my years of cooking, I had no clue what tofu was. And today, I know there's like a firm tofu and there's like a silky smooth tofu.

• 1:23:24Guy Raz?

  Medium.

• 1:23:25Speaker 01

  Well, they gave us the silky smooth and I lost $50,000 because I could not cook tofu.

• 1:23:31Guy Raz?

  Cannot grill silky tofu.

• 1:23:32Speaker 01

  I tried. It, it, it fell through the grill grates.

• 1:23:39Guy Raz?

  Hey, thanks so much for listening to the show this week. If you enjoyed it, please help us spread the word. Tell someone about How I Built This or post about it on social media. And thank you. If you want to contact the team, our email address is [email protected]. If you want to follow us on Twitter, our account is at How I Built This and mine is at Guy Raz. This episode was produced by J.C. Howard with music composed by Ramtin Arablouei. It was edited by Neva Grant with research help from Dereth Gales. Our production staff also includes Casey Herman, Elaine Coats, John Isabella, Liz Metzger, Catherine Seifer, Carrie Thompson, Alex Chung, Chris Messini, Sam Paulson, and Carla Estevez. Our intern is Susannah Brown.

• 1:24:24Guy Raz?

  I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening to How I Built This.