Buying and Exiting a Business Videos

STEVE: We sat down and we had decided that we can make this grow, we can open more restaurants. And I had told Wing one day, "You must leave Laguna Beach." He was running Laguna Beach essentially and I was there with him and supporting him and all that. "Get out of the restaurant, go to Bristol, go and do your next thing." And Wing kind of believe that, he can't do that. "If I do that, my customers are not going to come back, I'm going to lose my customers, they are coming in there for me." I said, "Granted, they are coming in there for you, but we can do that with other people so that we can move on." So I said, "Give me a chance to work this place, you move on for a little while, and we will see what happens." We went to work really hard, I mean it was the days when we used to use post-its and write people's names in there and what they looked like so we can get to know our customers. The couples, you know the lady had curly blond hair and the guy was bald and he had a gray mustache.

HATTIE: You worked that hard?

STEVE: Oh, absolutely! Absolutely! I had a panel in the back of the bar there and I had post-its, I just wanted to get to know these customers. It was a new product, new idea, a new concept, everybody was looking for the lard and the oozing Mexican food...

HATTIE: the cheese...

STEVE: and they were finding something else. But, we needed to explain the concept.

HATTIE: I loved the black beans, rice and tacos prepared the Wahoo's way. No lard, steamed tortillas rather than fried and fresh ingredients including cilantro in the salsa.

HATTIE: How did it happen that the baby became the president?

MINGO: It probably had something to do with family dynamics. I think we went with everybody's strengths. And I think responsibility... detail oriented. My older brothers, they have their gifts; they contribute absolutely to the growth of the company. But, I think the overall operation and managing the whole enchilada if you will, there is a lot of details and a lot of deadlines to be met. Again, we are a bunch of laid back surfers at heart. But some of us can overcome that to meet deadlines, the other ones need a little prodding. So, we formulated a system by where the guy who can hit deadlines can help everybody to get there. And I think that is probably the key to our success is taking everybody's natural abilities and talents and inclinations and then keeping them on track.

STEVE: What I have in my head is that the dishwasher and CEO are the same. That's what I have in my head. Because one cannot function without the other... period.