EXPERIENCE 122 | Food & Service, Love & Family with Rayno Seaser, Founder of The Egg & I

Reno Caesar founded the Eggi in 1987 as a breakfast and lunch restaurant in what is now Midtown Fort Collins. Before long additional locations were added, and though a franchise was never the plan, the market demanded it. Reno grew the enterprise to around a dozen locations before selling 90% of the franchise company, and then watched the ag and I grow to over 100 locations before being acquired by first watch. Which was one of Reno's first restaurant industry contacts going back into the early eighties. Reno was my favorite advisory board member at the final stop in my banking career, and he shares in this podcast that I was also his favorite banker. The agonized story has many chapters, and in some ways started when his then girlfriend Patty loaned him$5,000, half the money he needed to buy into the restaurant he was managing in Veil. 50 years later, she's still by his side through many a chapter and project and helping to raise a still expanding family. It seems that Reno loves everyone he meets and he is lived a life centered in service. So I hope you enjoy, as I did my conversation with Reno Caesar. Welcome back to the Loco Experience podcast. I'm honored today to be joined by Renos Caesar, the founder of the Egg and I Restaurant Chain. Uh, now first watch and Jack of all trades, master of a few. And, uh, one of the most wonderful guys just to spend time around. So thanks Reno for being here. Glad to be here. Kurt. It's, uh, it was fun. We ran into each other at the Better Business Bureau, uh, torch Awards. The other week, I guess rec is how we got reconnected. Mm-hmm. Which you're on the board down there. I'm on the, I was on the board for several terms. Now I'm on the, uh, foundation advisory board. Okay, great. Yeah. And, uh, I think you introduced yourself to my associate Alicia as a, a professional volunteer board member or something like that. Uh, I'm, I'm proud to be, I'm proud to be a board member on quite a few community boards and, and, uh, other local boards. Well, it speaks well to your wisdom and your network. I know, uh, uh, Reno and I, well we can get into that story later, but, um, let's talk about what you're up to now. Like it's been quite a while. Uh, did you stop operating restaurants actively. When, or do you still, we, we, we sold the, we sold our franchise company in 2005. Yep. Um, at that time I was looking for a replacement to take over as CEO so I could go back in the restaurants where my heart was. Yeah. And that gentleman I was gonna hire ended up buying the company, the franchise company. Right, right. We kept restaurants. So, and you kept like two or three that you operated for many years, right? We did. Until when First Watch merged, then you exited or, yes. Yeah. In, uh, 2016. Okay. Yeah. Well, we'll tell that whole story, but, uh, so, so that's been seven years now since you were mm-hmm. Retired. Retired. I stayed active with them for a while and, uh, I still do some restaurant consulting and, um, we have a small family real estate business mm-hmm. That, uh, I help with. Okay. Um, my, uh, my two, my two sons are in the real estate world. Yeah. And, uh, my daughter's an audiologist here in town. Okay. I remember Andrew was, uh, in the appraisal world for a while. Yes. I don't know your other son. I forget. Kyle. Kyle, yeah. Yeah. He's, he's been in the development world working for a couple Denver developers. Mm-hmm. And, uh, they did a lot of fix and flips. And so when Kyle moved back to Fort Collins Oh, you've been doing some of that? Cause that was always your passion to Yes. To turn diamonds in the rough into real diamonds. Right. Well, when Drew graduated from college, he didn't know what he was gonna do. And so rather than giving him a fish, I taught him how to fish. Yeah. And we fished in the real estate pond. Yeah. Cool. And he's stayed ever since. Awesome. Well, we'll get into that whole journey, but yeah. To get back to the question of how you've been, so you've been doing still maybe some real estate projects and things like that? Yes. And then Better Business Bureau. Foundation Board, yes. And several CSU boards. Okay. I'm on the Strata board, which handles all the, um, intellectual property and real estate for the university. Mm-hmm. And on the board for the College of Health and Human Sciences, which has the Business School, school of Education, social work, and, uh, the hospitality program. Sure. That's, I was gonna ask. Yeah. They've got a great hospitality, which is close to my heart. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Okay. And more still or? Oh, uh, church boards, community, uh, my HOA boards. I, I'm, you're happier when you're busy. Yeah. I am happy when I'm busy and I like giving back. Yeah. I mean, God gave me a. A few gifts and, and, uh, I like to still keep opening them. Yeah. Well, you look great, by the way. Thanks for a guy that's been retired and you're pretty old already when you're retired for gosh sakes. Yeah. So, uh, you're doing great. Um, so like I tell my doctor, I'm a 24 year old and a 74 year old guy In my mind I'm, I'm very young, yet, while I feel the same, I just signed up to, uh, I actually haven't quite signed up, but I committed to be in the Wild West Relay again this summer, and that's the Relay race from Fort Collins to Steamboat. So I'm gonna be about 20 pounds later by the next time you see me. There you go. And fit and fit again. Yeah. I kind of let myself slowly chub out since Covid Nation and time to turn that around. So, um, I think what I would like to do is just kind of start from the beginning, because I don't even know where you're from. I know your, your story kind of picks up in veil according to what I remember. Mm-hmm. But I want to go back even 15 years or 20 years before that did Are you a Colorado guy or where'd you come from? No, um, I was born in Michigan, in Detroit. Oh yeah. And, uh, To go along with your question, my wife gave me a, a little plaque from my office. It says I wasn't born in Colorado, but I got here as fast as I could. I've said the same thing, and I'm so glad to be here. Yeah. Um, I had a great childhood in Detroit, uh, growing up, close knit families. So City of Detroit, um, we, yes, we, and then we moved into the suburbs. Okay. And, uh, as I've learned about real estate, I think what I learned was that we moved into one of the first, um, suburb planned developments in the city of Detroit. Oh, interesting. Out in St. Clair Shores. Yeah. And, uh, cookie cutter small houses that people could afford. Yeah. And, uh, I think there were, by the time everybody bought the houses on our block, there were almost 90 kids on our block. Wow. So you just had a full village right there in your neighborhood. It was a great village. Oh, I remember. Dad, the, all the dads got together and built a baseball field in the field at the end of the street. Right. In the wintertime, they, uh, they plowed the sides and built an ice rink for us. And so that's a real sense of community that, uh, yeah. Had to at least be part of your wiring in terms of just. The community building you've done? Yeah. You, well, you watch those, all those families get together and the, and the values. Mm-hmm. And, uh, I ended up going to a Catholic school. Okay. Um, walked a mile uphill to get to school and a mile downhill to get home and, uh, Rainer snow. Yeah. Mom, mom didn't have a car. Dad took the car to work, so, oh. And was Detroit. Still like pretty strong at that time. The kind of decline of Detroit hadn't really started yet, is that No, it was a, it was a vibrant, vibrant city. The, obviously the auto industry was the big driver of the economy. Yeah. But I remember the first mall that we got in Detroit, and as I said, I lived in the first Yeah. Kind of suburbia there. Division. Yep. And so it was great. We lived near the water and uh, it was a great place growing, growing up. Yeah. Lake Michigan is amazing. Yeah. Uh, all of the big lakes there. Yeah. What, uh, do you have siblings and, and what was your daughter to I have. I have two brothers. Okay. Um, I'm the oldest and, uh, I've learned a lot of things in life by being the oldest child. Kevin, Kevin Lehman, who's a great child psychologist, wrote a book, it's called The Birth Order Book. And I happened to read that after I had my first son. And, uh, all those things about where you are in that birth order really rang true for me and for our family. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm not, I've never read it, but I maybe will. I'm the first of four myself, Uhhuh, so, uh, and what was your dad up to? He, uh, my dad worked for the Ford Motor Company. Okay. Um, he was an account, he was in the accounting department and I'd watch him come home at night and this kind of probably also helped me on my career path. He would come home and he would have this eight inch thick book, and one, they didn't have computers back then, but he had a calculator with that least 150 buttons on it. And he'd open this book with fold out papers and he'd be hitting his, his calculator machine. And I'd go, what are you doing dad? And he goes, well, I'm trying to figure out that a Ford Motor Company changes this, um, door opening knob from metal to plastic, how much money it would save the company. Mm-hmm. And he poured over those things at home and at work. And I decided back then as a grade schooler that I didn't want to have anything to do with accounting. So, Well, you were a numbers. I mean not, I wouldn't say you were a numbers guy focused, but you were always, I. You had a natural instinct for business. I, I did for business, but not necessarily for numbers. Fair enough. Yeah. Fair enough. Somebody else had to figure out where to save money on the peanuts. Yeah. And that was a business decision that, uh, took me a long time to understand is in the restaurant business, I would keep all the figures to myself and, and, uh, my focus wasn't on profitability or anything like that, but there came a point in time in my career when I realized I needed to share this with our managers and our staff so that they knew what was going on. Yeah. And what really happens when I throw away 23 extra napkins. Exactly. And that kind of stuff. Right? Yeah. Well, and I came up with the analogy, I like to bowl and if you go bowling and there's a sheet in front of the pins and you roll the ball and you hear the noise of pins falling down, but you don't know how many pins fell down and where you need to throw the ball next. Bowling's not that much fun. Yeah. So I stopped blind bowling with our staff. Interesting staff. Oh, usually your early adopters are kind of that open books, kind of the management style. Yeah. So, um, so you, did you So I went to Catholic school Yeah. All the way through all the way taught, taught by the nuns? Yes. And, uh, a big school, little, um, it was a small school, parish school. Yeah. And, uh, there was a, a very good Catholic all boys school that was nearby to our grade school. And I enrolled there. It was called Notre Dame School, run by the Jesuits. And that summer after we, I got out eighth grade and was going to ninth grade, my parents decided that instead of my dad driving 35 miles across town to go to work, that they would move to Dearborn on the west side. Mm-hmm. Only a mile or so from work. And I was pretty. Distraught that I couldn't go to Notre Dame High School. Mm-hmm. My younger brother by one year was gonna finish eighth grade at the Catholic grade school. Mm-hmm. So my parents were pretty wise and I ended up staying with one set of grandparents close Wow. To school. Wow. And my brother stayed with the other set of grandparents. And I remember this, to this day, we'd take the bus to school, um, grandma would pick me up Yeah. And my brother. And then every Friday afternoon we'd meet in downtown Detroit and take the bus out to Dearborn. Hmm. And so, uh, that was kind of heady. Yeah. For, well, for a college freshman. College freshman or a high school freshman. High school freshman. Yeah. So you were just spreading your wings as a, as a man and as an adult. Right. Yeah. And kind of not having to do that right. Under your dad's watchful eye mm-hmm. Is a, you know, kind of a sensible thing. Yeah. And, and, and I'm not, and you gotta continue on. I'm a good grandpa today because of the lessons I learned from my grandparents. Yeah, yeah. And, uh, I went to Notre Dame thinking I was gonna go to the seminary. I wanted to be a priest. Oh, is that right? I was an altar boy. Oh, wow. And, um, and then after our freshman year, my dad says, you need to come back to Dearborn. There was a good Catholic school, six houses away from our house. Okay. And so I ended up going to Divine Child, which was a co-ed school, and I discovered girls, well, that'll chase you away from the seminary. So, so God had a plan for me. I just didn't know what it was at the time. And, uh, and high school was great. I, uh, we were so close. I walked two minutes and I was in school. Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, I, I, I started learning some other good life lessons. I, uh, I played sports. We had a very good sports team. Mm-hmm. In fact, bill McCartney was the high school football coach. Oh, wow. At our high school. My high school quarterback was Gary Danielson, who went on to play for the Detroit Lions. Okay. I had a very successful career, and now he's a sportscaster. And, uh, and so I was surrounded by talent and, and I learned from watching how the coaches coached these kids to the things that we, the lessons we learned in sports kind of carried over into life. Sure. Yeah. And, and I'm very fortunate that I had those experiences. Yeah. I think that that's one high school, I mean, there's still a lot of sports and stuff, but the, the commitment and the expense is a pretty extreme and a lot of kids just choose to play video games now instead. Mm-hmm. And there is none of that teammanship, none of that, you know, mentorship role of a coach and things like that. So. Well, and, and as an athlete you have to sacrifice. Right. And as a coach, you sacrifice your time to help other kids. Yeah. You if to be really good at video games, you sacrifice everything else too, I suppose. But it just seems less, uh, yeah. Yeah. So, um, were you a good student as well then? I was, I realized that, uh, my job was, um, to be a student and I always tried to do the best I could mm-hmm. In whatever I was doing. Yeah. And so in school, my goal was to get on the National Honor Society and get mostly A's, and I was fortunate enough to do that. Um, I also was very involved in school with, um, Um, helping the teachers as, as lab assistants when I could. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I was on, uh, were you a hall monitor? I was a hall monitor. Ooh, I'm gonna let that slide. I was, I was a crossing guard back in the day when you wore the white strap across your chest. You're very responsible. And, uh, and I was on the yearbook staff because I wanted to get my picture in the yearbook a lot. Done deal. So, um, I, I learned that the more you give, the more you get true. Yeah. So, um, I, this leads to scholarships or something, um, after that, or what was that after high school experience for you? Um, not scholarship. Um, I had some disappointments coming outta high school. I thought, here I am. I played sports. I was active in my school. I was in the National Honors Society. I applied to the University of Michigan. Mm-hmm. And I got turned down and that was quite a blow. Yeah. I wanted to be a doctor Oh, wow. At that time. And, um, Michigan had the best medical school, so I, I was, if you can't go to college, go to state. Is that, so I looked at, so there was another, uh, medical school right in town, right in downtown Detroit called Wayne State University. Okay. So I applied there and was accepted. And, uh, I ended up going to school there. Um, my first semester I had my eyes open going from an honor society Hmm. Kid in high school to being on probation for not getting good grades. Yeah. I had a 2.13 GPA after three semesters and got, uh, you're ahead of me. Yeah. And so I held it together, but barely. Yeah. Well, you remember that was a great lesson. Well, I was, I had accountability, you know, I couldn't skip classes mm-hmm. And go out drinking hard the night before and stuff like that in high school. But in college I could do whatever I wanted and I had always been so smart I could catch up if I fell behind. College wasn't an easy as easy. Yeah. Where'd you go to school? Uh, North Dakota State. Uhhuh. Yeah. The bison. Yep. So also a good place to be from. That's right. And come to Colorado. Yeah. Yeah. So, so you get slapped with probation. Yeah. And I, I, and I looked at myself and looked at what I wanted to do and thought, boy, if I'm gonna go to med school, I bet I gotta do a lot of work. Yeah. And so by the end of the year, I was off probation, barely. And went into my sophomore year and I was living at home and driving to school. It was a commuter university. Lot, lot 25,000 students, but the majority were commuters. And so Interesting. I joined a fraternity Yep. And, uh, to get some friends and have some a social Yeah. Community. Yeah. And, and community. And, and, uh, and girls. And girls. We had a great little sister's program at Delta Chi. And so anyway, I, uh, I, I used those same things as I did in high school. Um, I got involved as an officer. I lived in the house on campus. Yep. Um, I, and then you're accountable to more than just you for your grades. Yes. And stuff. Uhhuh too. You got people that care. Yeah. You know, and I'm sure your parents cared and checked in and stuff, but they did that first sniff of real freedom is, you know, it's a different kind of Yeah. Relationship after that. It was, well, I had some freedom being away from them and Sure. Freshman year of high school, but now it was like, I'm on my own and I had to pay for college. So I ended up getting in my first job and, and, uh, and learning all those things that, uh, I'd started out doing in high school, but it became a everyday reality in college. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So that study actually goes from there. What's the Well, I, I ended up, uh, I ended up realizing that to be a doctor you had to study and get good grades, and I was, for a long time I wasn't doing either, so I, I just, uh, I, I prayed and listened to the. Lord. And, and, uh, he had another path for me and I ended up getting a degree in psychology. Mm-hmm. And, uh, then one day in 1971 I was on the freeway in Detroit, and Detroit had grown quite a bit. Yeah. And, uh, I'm sitting there in gridlock in rush hour and I'm looking to the, I'm a friendly guy. I'm looking to the car next to me and they're staring straight ahead, gripping the steering wheel. The other car was doing that. I look up on the side of the highway through all the trash, and I see these old houses just all looking the same. And I went, you know, there's gotta be a better place than this. Hmm. And so I decided, I, I raised sailboats when I was in college with some of my fraternity brothers. Okay. We crewed for a doctor and we raced three days a week on the Detroit River in Lake St. Clair. And, and, uh, I had a real love of water. Yeah. And, um, so I thought, well, I'll move to Miami. Um, there's, there's a lot of sail boats there. Sunshine, there's a lot of boats. We had gone down there on spring break trips and rented sailboats and sailed across to The Bahamas. Oh, cool. And, uh, so I thought, well, I'll go down there. Well, I got a drive away, which, uh, which a concept back in the early seventies where you could take, you could drive a car for somebody else. Mm-hmm. And a lot of snowbirds Yeah. In the north would want their cars down south. They would fly or take the train and Yeah. Yeah. I drove their car down there for'em. Yeah. And so I got to Miami and, uh, stayed at a, a, a friend's mom's condo for a while. She wasn't there. And I realized, gosh, there's a lot of older people in Miami and they're not very friendly. I said, this isn't gonna work. So after six weeks I got another drive away and said, I'm gonna go to California. Okay. Southern California. Yeah. One of my best friends from high school that was married and living there. So got my drive away and drove out to California. Ended up, uh, sleeping on his couch for a month while I surveyed the scene in California. And it was great. The young people, the beaches, the water. Yeah. Lots of pretty girls for sure. But then I looked at the highway system and it was massive already and right. This is, this is 1971, right? And uh, one day Paul, my friend came up and he said, Reno, I gotta talk to you. And I said, what's up Paul? He goes, well, you're sleeping in my bed. He and his wife were having trouble and, uh, oh, they were sleeping and I ended up taking his bed. So I decided, well, I, I think I will leave Paul. And got another drive away this time going back to Detroit and, and ended up, uh, one of the guys I sailboats with had moved to Vail that year before we, we sailed together in the Mackinac race, which is the big race from Detroit to Mackinac Island League in the summer. Wife went there with her sister one time. Yeah. And so, um, I realized Randy was a changed person after one season in Vail, and I liked to ski, I learned how to ski in Michigan, and uh, I thought, well, I'll go back to Detroit and, uh, get my stuff and, and move out to Vail by the drive away to Vail. Yeah. Well, I had a car. Oh yeah, good point. You're gonna wonder by that, by that point in time my Ford Motor company did, came through for me and uh, and what was, what was your first car, by the way? Not to flash back, but you probably had one before this. The, you made, it was a 1956 Ford two door. Oh. And, uh, I learned about my dad. He was frugal. It had holes in the floor that he put a rubber mat over. And by the time I'd had the car for three months, I had to hold the door closed with a rope. Yeah. Well, kinda like the Dakotas, right? Yeah. Yeah. You do what you need to duct tape. And, and, uh, I said, dad, I really don't like this car. And he go and he goes, all right, I'll get you another one. So he came back home with a 1960 Mercury convertible. Oh. And it was a beast, and it was pink. And he and I found out, I said, dad, where are you getting these cars? I, I want a cool car like my friends. And I found out he was buying them off the B lot, which is where, where all the executives would come and turn the cars they didn't want. That's awesome. So did you drive that mercury for a while then? I, Dr. I didn't drive that for very long and I finally convinced my dad that I would make payments if, help him make payments if I could get a nice car, something a little nicer. So. So what did you bring out to Colorado then? I had a pinto. Oh, the lap of luxury. Yeah. Right. Everything barely fit in the back. So, um, so did you, this was Randy, is your friend Randy? Yep. And so you, like, this was 1971 in the fall, you rung him up and said, Hey, how was your couch space? If I, if I, if I come out, can I stay on the couch for a while? Yeah. So I, I went out to Vail in 71 and, uh, not knowing what I was gonna do, and I, mom says, well, call me when you get there and tell me what you're doing. So I'd gotten to Vail, looked in the Vail Trail newspaper and found a job. And I remember calling my mom and I said, mom, I'm here. I'm with Randy, it's beautiful. And she goes, well, what are you doing? I said, I'm a dishwasher. Right? There was dead air on the first side of the phone. I said, mom, it's really a good job. I get to ski all day and they feed me at night. Right. Yeah. And it was for the Lord Gore, which was the best restaurant in town. That was my first job in the hospitality industry, was a dishwasher too. How long did you stay in that role? Um, four. Most of the ski season. Okay. Yeah. I only was there a week. Then they said, you look, seems like you're smart enough to be a cook. Well, there you go. Yeah. You progressed much faster than I'm, well, you know, they had a desperate need. So you, so, so, and what I learned from that job though, is they gave me responsibility when they realized I knew I could, I was doing a good job. Again, do do the best at what you're doing. Yeah. Um, they would, they trusted me to lock up and, and they were the banquet place, so Oh yeah. They had banquets there. So there were some nights I'd stay till two in the morning by myself, just sing and washing dishes, dishes, cleaning up. But I realized that these, um, Austrian chefs had a passion for what they were doing, and, uh, they were the best restaurant. It was because of that passion that they had. Yeah. And that registered with me and, and, uh, what was the name of the place again? The Lord Gore. Is it still around? It's not there anymore. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I, I, gosh, that's 50 years ago now. Yeah. Can you believe it? Yeah. So, so I've been in the restaurant business since 1971. What was veil like? In 1971. Oh, it was, it was fabulous. Um, it was only nine years old. Okay. It started in 1962. The mountain itself, you mean? Yes. Or was there a town there before or the mountain kind of came first and the town grew up around it? Yeah. Pete se the founder. Okay. Um, and, uh, I think it's Bud Brown. Um, they were in the 10th Mountain Division training at, in Leadville on the other side of the mountains. And during their training they had gone over to Vail and realized that that was a pretty cool model. The better ski hill. Yeah. So when they were done, they put together a group of investors and, uh, I talked to my wife who's from Denver, her dad, um, he had a chance to be one of those early investors. Oh wow. For$25,000. You got a lifetime. Two lifetime ski passes. Okay. To Vail and a lot in Mill Creek Circle, which is right at the base of the mountain. I mean, those things were priceless now. Right. Well, she didn't, he didn't have the money back then. Yeah. So it goes 25,000 a year would be. Or, uh, for just the, just the membership would be the right price these days. Yeah, I would probably play that, but it was how many? So, almost, almost nobody, nobody, it was fun. Was there, was there other restaurants in town and like, what was, was there No, there, there were only a couple restaurants. Yeah. And, uh, and a, a lot of people that came to, to settle in Vail were business people from the Midwest in California who wanted to be part of this ski industry and was kind of a new thing. Aspen had been around for a while, but, um, this was new for Colorado and it was kind of fun. I mean, they were making the rules and, um, some of my best friends today are guys that I met. At what we called the Curbside Inn. There was one little shopping center in the center of Vail. There was a grocery store and the hardware store. And a liquor store. So we'd get our mail downstairs, the post office was in the basement of the hardware store. Yep. We'd get our mail. We'd go to the liquor store and buy a six pack and sit on the curb and open our mail and just meet people who are coming and going. How fun. To this day, three of those guys are my best friends. Oh, that's so fun. Yeah. Um, the Curbside Inn. The Curbside Inn, uh, will remember it fondly. Yeah. Also not there probably anymore. Um, so tell me about, like, did you work in restaurants for quite a while before you got in your order invention? Well, I, there was a, I don't know if I'm proud of this, but there was an ad in the newspaper. Um, I didn't wanna work there in the summertime, so, um, at the end of ski season, I found, cause it was dead, found an ad in the paper that said, uh, looking for a guy that likes hard work and pretty girls. And I went, that ad's for me. So I went and, uh, applied for the job and, uh, got hired and, uh, it was working for an interior decorator and, uh, all woman staff. Yeah. And, uh, I was the only guy. Yeah. And my job was to go to Denver in the van and pick up furniture and then put it in the condos. They were also developers and owned the little hotel, the Valhalla. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. That was, um, at the base of Golden Peak. Yeah. And so again, I'm, I'm learning life lessons here about, um, being a developer. Mm-hmm. Being in real estate. Yeah. Um, building big buildings. And, um, I ended up working there for a couple years. Mm. And, um, uh, worked the front desk of the hotel cuz I'd just be hanging out there at night. Yeah. And, uh, so I learned about the hospitality business there, interesting ing and, uh, I became a drapery installer. You're a l learn by doing more than learn by reading about guy. Yes. A lot. Yes, yes. I'm very hands-on, as you can tell by all the bandaids in my body. I, I need to put you in my backyard for a week or something. I probably would really benefit from that. Yeah. And so that was fun. And, uh, so I became a drapery installer. Mm-hmm. Um, w we, the, the Cunningham's, the family that I was working for, they were building, um, a lot of the big new condo buildings in Vail, which were some of the first ones in town. And, uh, so we'd bring in all the furniture and I'd put up all the drapes with the drapery installer from Denver. Mm-hmm. Pretty soon he said, Reno, you're good at this. I'll just send stuff up and you do it. Okay. Okay. And, uh, and then I thought, you know, I, I, I need to be with people. And so, um, I looked at the restaurant business again, and I was working at one of the condos and they were building a new restaurant, um, right across under the gondola. So I went in there and I said, Hey, what are you guys doing? And said, well, we're building an a restaurant here. And I found out that they were fraternity guys from Arizona and from your fraternity even. No, I wish. But, and, and they'd moved there and, uh, they were just having a blast. And so I said, okay, I'll come help. Yeah. And so I helped build the restaurant. Oh, wow. And, uh, then I stayed on as a waiter. And it was, it became the hotspot to go. And What kind of restaurant was it? It was a steak and seafood place with a salad bar, which was Yep. Deri back then Salad bar was all the rage. Yeah. You know, nothing like when we got to go to Bonanza when I was a kid. And so it was great because I got to, uh, ski all day Yeah. And, uh, work at night and I was making a lot of money. Right. As a weighter. Yeah. Well, and you got a lot of highly affluent people, you know. Yes. Spending more for the steak and lobster than normal, but Right. You know, we're on a trip Uhhuh and we're skiing. Yep. And the alcohol's hitting me pretty strong. Cause we're at 7,800 feet. That's it. So, so, and, and being the gregarious guy was for sure. Um, I, I love the guys I worked with. Uh, we had, we had live entertainment. We had pretty nice Oh, great entertainment. We had a stage and so I would get up on stage, um, with one of the fellow waiters and we would, we would do our Dear Abby skit. Oh really? And, uh, we would read, Tommy would read what Dear Abby said, and I would. Make up what Dear Abby should have said. That's awesome. In between sets. So we had fun, and one day I looked out when I was standing on stage and I saw this cute girl sitting at the bar. And so, um, what was her name? Patty? Her name was Patty. So I went up to her after work and, uh, she was still there. And, uh, I realized that she was smart and pretty and, um, I decided that I wanted to take her out. So we started going out. Uh, she would still come into Alfie's and I'd let her go through the salad bar for free. And she and her, she and her roommate would split a beef kebab, which was the cheapest thing on. Right. And anyway, she was working for the Vail Trail newspaper at the time. Okay. And, uh, she had a degree in journalism. And where did she come from? Like, everybody comes from somewhere to Vail, right? She was from, she was from Denver. Okay. Went to cu. University of Colorado. Yeah. Got her degree in journalism. Her dad owned an ad agency in Denver and was a very good writer, um, very active in politics. He was this, uh, state chairman for the Republican party. Okay. And, uh, was very instrumental in, in, uh, getting some of our good governors elected. Oh, cool. Um, he worked with the Rockefeller family. Oh wow. I'll try not to hold that against him, but just, anyway, I digress. And, uh, so Pat, but very interesting. The apple didn't fall far from the tree with Patty. Yeah, yeah. She was very smart, much smarter than I. And, uh, she was working for the newspaper and she'd come in the restaurant at night and here I am having fun and making three or four times the money. She was right. So one day she figured out what's wrong with this picture? So much to her dad's dismay. She quit her job at the newspaper and came to work at Alfie's. Interesting. And, and were you guys a thing already? Like did you become a thing right away? No, we didn't cuz I, I, I like girls too much and, and uh, it was very, we had a very frustrating relationship for a while. And, and the guys that I was living with at the time were not good influences on you. Terrible influences on me. And, and I kept throwing logs on that fire. I remember before I, um, start, literally had my second date with Jill. That I was, I told my roommates at the time, I was like, I don't know if I should go out. Cause I, I don't know if I'll ever get to go out with any other girls if I go out with Jill again. And, uh, and so it goes, we've walked that road together, I think. Yeah. Yeah. But it was, it was, for me at least a little bit of a sacrifice. Right. I don't, I've only been alive for so many years. I've only, you know, kissed very few girls Really at that point. So anyway, I digress. We had a long courtship. Yeah. And, uh, we, we ended up, and this is how I knew Patty loved me, because, uh, the guys from Arizona that started Alfie's decided they were gonna go back to Arizona. Oh. And uh, they decided they were gonna sell the restaurant. And by then I had progressed from waiter to bartender to manager, and they found a guy from Texas who was a trust funder who wanted to buy the restaurant from them. But he didn't wanna work, but he didn't know the business. Yeah. And so he came to me and he said, Reino, I wanna buy this restaurant, but I need you to help me run it. And I said, well, I'll help you Ted, but I need 10% ownership. Yeah. And he said, okay. And just like that he does, how much is that gonna be? And he says, well, I'll give it to you if you help me for$10,000. Well, I was a good saver and I had 5,000 saved up and Patty and I weren't married. And I remember I. Getting on the elevator to go from our floor down to the parking garage with Patty one night. And I said, Patty, I have this great opportunity to buy the restaurant, buy into the restaurant, but I only have 5,000 of 10. And she goes, I'll, I'll give you the other 5,000. And so we did that. Um, and that was our first restaurant ownership. And uh, and did she become an owner or she just gave you 5,000 so you could She just gave me 5,000 and just like, here you go. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's cool. So God had, that's a lot of trust. God had a plan. Yeah. And, and w we knew that. So, you know, it's not easy for ladies to pick good guys. Mm-hmm. Um, and so that. Showed that she'd done her homework a little bit already by that point, obviously and stuff. But, but that is a big, a big, uh, means a lot, I suspect, looking back. Yeah. Well that's faith and Yeah. Uh, and both Patty and I have very deep faith. Mm-hmm. I was a mountaintop minister for a while. Mm-hmm. My best friend was a lu, was the Lutheran. I helped the Lutheran pastor there. And so I would help him with his mountaintop services. And I still went to church when I could and Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, she was also from a Catholic background, she was from a, a Methodist background. Okay. But she had a, a deep faith and, and a great intellect. So we had that. And, you know, if you can build a house on a foundation, that's the foundation I would build though. Yeah. No, no doubt. Although I still, I know sometimes that. Like with the Catholic church, they're a little bit like, you should marry a good Catholic girl. Like was that a challenge or did she have to convert to get married or? Here's the challenge there. When we decided to get married, we decided to get married by a Catholic priest and there was, there was one um, Catholic pastor in midterm, which is a small town around the corner. Yeah, we're gonna midterm for barbecue when we're up there. And it was Father White and I remember going to see Father White for our pre-Cana meeting and uh, we we're sitting on the couch and, uh, father White's in the chair and, um, he asked me about my faith and where I went to church and those things, and he'd seen me in church on Sunday and he asked Patty and, uh, when he realized that this was 19, we got married in, uh, 1976. Okay. When. When he realized Patty wasn't Catholic, he, he visually turned in his chair, had a little poodle on his lap and, um, and would not look at her. And we walked out of that. We walked out of that first meeting and Patty walked out and he said, she said to me, there is no way that that man is gonna marry us. And she was right. He didn't wanna, and, uh, and so we found, um, Patty's brother was in the Air Force and the pastor at the Leadville church was a guy that was in his Air Force unit event. Okay. So Father, father Neil came over and married us. I mean, that was okay. Like the Catholics are good with that. You don't have to, cuz she didn't become a Catholic right. Or whatever. Not then, but she, she, she later did. She later did. Gotcha. Okay. Yeah, I just, I just, they were good back. The Catholics were good back then. Right. They didn't have quite the reputation. You know, I've known some of, some Catholic people or some of my favorite friends in the world and, uh, one of my good friends was raised Lutheran and his wife Catholic. And like late in life, in his early forties, he converted to Catholicism and uh, We just had, we had a lot of conversations about that and about his path toward that decision and stuff. So, well, interesting. Uh, my, my life has become just the opposite. I still go to Catholic church here. Mm-hmm. But, uh, we also, we go to Lutheran church Oh, in Loveland. Okay. Predominantly, yeah. Um, where our kids go and where they were, our grandkids were baptized. Yeah. And, uh, I remember I was a eucharistic minister for the Catholic Church, which meant I would go to the hospital and Mm mm-hmm. And, and bring union, read like final sacraments sometimes and stuff like that. Talk to the, talk to patients, Catholic patients about their faith. And when my granddaughter was born 20 years ago, I was, I had my Eucharistic minister tag on, and so I could get in the burning room special pass. Yeah. Where I shouldn't be as a grandpa. And, uh, anyway, I met the Lutheran pastor from, from their church and, uh, he's like a welder. And I just love that man, pastor Ed. And uh, so we got to talking about faith and uh, he ended up coming over to our house and uh, he said, and when we were deciding to go to Lutheran Church to his church, he said, Reno, you're gonna be fine. The Lutheran church is like Catholic light. Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. So that's where I come from is, uh, central North Dakota Where you're mostly Luthern or Catholic. Yes. Yeah. You know, we didn't really have too much of that, you know, evangelical stuff where I came from. Yep. So, uh, well we can expand more on, on that journey cuz I'm sure there was, there was some stuff there. Um, so back to back to bail. So yeah, so back to you. Come up with the 10 grand. So we, we ended up working for Ted for about a year and he decided that he didn't like the restaurant business. And so even though you did a good job Yeah, we, we decided to, um, sell the restaurant. Okay. Um, which we did. I made a little bit of money. Um, at that time Patty was working for a property management company and, uh, So, um, they were doing rentals and uh Sure. Yeah. Things like that. And she said, I said, well, what am I, I thought to myself, well, what am I gonna do right now? I said, let's, let's look at what we can do. Veil was still growing. Mm-hmm. And so, um, you knew there was opportunity there. Patty said, what's the opportunity? Why don't you come and, uh, do some, um, fix up work at some of these condos that we have? And so I said, okay, I'll do that. And she says, and, uh, we need somebody to wash windows. And so I thought, well, I can wash windows. Yeah. Had never done it. Right. So I ended up becoming the first professional window washer in Vail. Oh. And, uh, this was in probably So did you start a little business then? Or was 1973 You didn't start an LLC or anything those days? It wasn't Randy, my fraternity brother. Who I sir, went out there to live with the couch for. Yep. I said, Randy, come help me. I said, I got a lot of work. And he says, okay. And so we, we were washing windows, right. And, uh, I remember, um, were you charging right? Making a bunch of money and stuff? Oh, yeah. We charged by the foot. And I remember, I, I remember the story about how I knew I was doing a good job. They were building some big houses on the mountain and they called us to do cleanup and wash the windows. Sure. And so I had just finished washing the, um, sliding door and the painters were still there. And I heard this thud and I looked behind me and the painter had walked into the door with a smudge in his paintbrush, and he was German. He go, looked at me and says, you sunny boys do. Good job. That's awesome. That's awesome. About, uh, about two weeks into my first job here in Fort Collins, I was, I had a office with a, like a glass wall and then a door, and I was looking at a file, you know, and walked right into that window at full speed and bounced my head off of it Anyway. So I know the feeling. You get that? Yeah. Yeah. So then I, I, I realized, um, when I was doing some of the windows that, that there was a lot of building going on in veil. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And Randy was pretty talented back from Michigan. Mm-hmm. Um, and so he and I talked and said, well, why don't we start a little remodeling business? So we did go and get our contractor's license mm-hmm. From the town of Vail, and we became sunshine. Boys became Sunshine Builders. Okay. And we ended up, um, doing a lot of tenant finish for restaurants because I understood restaurants. Yep. And, uh, and for some of the new businesses that were coming to town. And so veil's just popping, right? Like Yep. 500. Yep. If some people a year moving, and this is probably, yeah. This is mid seventies. Yep. And, uh, so Patty got her real estate license and so we bought a couple lots from her and, okay. That too is a funny story. Um, we went to closing and, uh, uh, uh, we thought we had seen the lots and they were gonna work. We were gonna build a spec house. Okay. And, uh, so after closing the, the listing broker said to all of us, well, do you want to go look at the lots? I said, yeah, I'd really like to see where the lot lines are. So we're driving and, uh, um, I keep, I'm first and I keep going and I see the realtor stop behind us and I keep going up the road and he comes up and he said, I thought you wanted to look at the lots. And I said, well, yeah. Patty said they were right here. And he said, no, they're back here. And it was two filings filing. One in filing two lots, five and six. I thought we bought this five and six. Oh. But we ended up. We bought those five and six and Patty's feeling so embarrassed. And we're like, well, let's look at these. And we looked at'em and we thought it'll be fine. Close enough. Yeah. So I haven't always been good at real estate. Not as good ultimately, uh, but you know, it's like you do the best with what you have. Yeah. Yeah. And, and that philosophy served me well. So you were specking houses right away then? Well, we specked one house there. Okay. And, uh, we were still doing a lot of remodeling, but I also missed the restaurant business. Yeah. And Patty's bosses had started a, uh, they, they had built a building, um, in Lions Head at the end of Lions Head. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And they were looking for a restaurant tour Mm. To put a restaurant in there. And so Bob Patty's, um, boss, said, Rayna, why don't you do a restaurant right here? And I thought, I miss the restaurant business. I miss being with people. Yeah. And so we ended up doing another restaurant there, it was called Bagel Vale. Okay. And it was a, a what we call a true delicate test and didn't come close to what they were doing in New York. Sure. But, well, it was closer to a lot of these Easterners and Midwesterners mm-hmm. And stuff like that, that have been to real delis, you know? Yep. So, so we brought our bagels up from Boulder, from the Boulder Bakery. Sure. And, uh, we were quite successful with, with a little business's. Yeah. Was it mostly a like mornings and lunch thing, like David and I became Uhhuh. Yeah. By the time in the afternoon nobody's doing that anymore. You might as well close at two o'clock or whatever. Yeah. And one of the guys that was a carpenter, um, that worked for us when we were contracting ended up, um, when we kind of closed down Sunshine Builders. He leased the place next door to us and did a crepe shop, Doug's crepe shop. Mm-hmm. And, uh, that became one of the most successful businesses in Vail. And I think that to me was the inspiration for the egg and I Mm. Interesting. Come to think of it. So was Randy part of this then, or did he just go off back into the sunset and whatever? Sunshine he just, he kind of kept doing his, he was, he had bought some real estate and investment property and he kind of morphed that way. Yeah. And, uh, so this was you and Patty? This was Patty and I, yeah. I mean, were you together in that, or was it mostly you? We worked together and our, our oldest son, drew, um, oh. Came along the one Patty working in the deli when she was fully pregnant with Drew. And, uh, drew was born in, uh, 1980. Okay. And, uh, we real, and we realized that we probably didn't wanna raise our son unveil back then there was, there was a lot of drugs in Vail. Oh. A lot of partying. And, um, some of the married couples like us that had children, Um, kind of realized that, and being in the restaurant business, business was great in the wintertime, but back, right. Back then in the late seventies, early eighties, it was, yeah, there wasn't a summer crowd at all. Terrible summer, so it was a big rollercoaster. Mm-hmm. And, Mike Hendrix, the guy that was, um, the manager at Alfie Packers mm-hmm. Um, was from Arizona. One of the fraternity brothers. Yeah. And, uh, he taught me the restaurant business. He had moved when Alfie sold and went down to Phoenix and did restaurants. And he kept bugging me. He said, Reno, come down here. He said, business is going up and up and up and you don't have to deal with this. Yeah. Like cross season. And so Patty and I decided in 1981 that we'd moved to Phoenix Oh. And helped Mike with his restaurants. He had one restaurant at the time Okay. Called the Backstage. Offroad Backstage. And it was in the, this center of Scottsdale just cranking business. Yeah. And so Backstage is an interesting name. Is that like an Americana restaurant or was the theme Well, it was like a movie theme. Okay. That's what I wondered. Yeah. He was next to the Thin cinema. Okay. In the Scottsdale Mall. Yep. Yep. And, uh, so we went down and, uh, he had found a second restaurant that, um, a building in Tempe near the university, and we did the backstage off Broadway together. Yeah. Yeah. We ended up buying the building, which I wanted to buy real estate. Mm-hmm. So that was really probably my first foray into commercial real estate mm-hmm. With Mike. And, uh, we were pretty successful with that. It was fun building it, putting it all together and then running it. Yeah. And, uh, we did a second backstage, um, in downtown. Um, Phoenix, kind of on the central corridor. Mm-hmm. And a, another real estate lesson I learned, they had promised that they were gonna build this big high rise with a mall underneath it across the street mm-hmm. From where we were. Right. Building our restaurant if things come together like they want them to, it was in front of a motel Right. As part of the motel. It was a restaurant for the motel. Well, that development never happened, so we struggled in that restaurant. Yeah. And, uh, so, um, so it goes, I learned, I learned some hard lessons that way. Yeah. Yeah. But, um, one day, and, and here we are with three restaurants, um, two that I was a partner in, in Mike's other restaurant, and we'd had, uh, our daughter Abby was born, and, uh, our son Kyle was born. And, um, I realized, gosh, I'm working nights. I'd always said to myself, when I'm a grownup, I wanna, yeah. Spend time with my children. I'm getting there. Um, I, I want to spend time with my kids. I want to coach'em in sports. I want to be active in their schools. Yeah. I wasn't doing that. Yeah. So, Mike's brother one day came to us and said, Hey, I have a, I have a guy I went to high school with that, that just did a restaurant in California called First Watch, and this was 1983 and his name was John Sullivan. And Sully Sully came to us and said, why don't you guys do this? And so me being, uh, always eager for something new, tell me more. He said, yeah, let's do it. So Sully taught us the business. We gave him 10% for teaching us. And so in 1983 on Camelback, which was the main drag in Phoenix. Yeah. Yeah. Um, we, we opened our first Good Egg restaurant opened six to two. Okay. Uh, we were all good eggs. Yeah. So that's where the name came from. Yep. And, uh, I was able to be home with my kids by three o'clock in the afternoon. Yeah. We made people happy. We ended up making money. Yeah. Um, we ended up doing a, I have a hard time sitting on my hands if you could see this in person, you'd see me waving and moving around. But we ended up doing a second restaurant in Scottsdale, which was quite near our house. Yeah. And, uh, a third, um, good Egg in, uh, San Diego. Oh, wow. We had a man, one of our good managers wanted to move there, so we said, well, yeah, you can, you can leave, but you gotta do a restaurant. And then, um, in 1987, So we did that for, um, four years. Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, I promised Patty the Denver girl, that we'd only go to Phoenix for three years, and she got the calendar out one one day and said, what year is this? And I said, it's 19 86, 7. She goes, knew we here in 1981? And I wasn't very good at math, but I could figure that one out. Yeah. So, um, and I had several months prior to when she pulled out the calendar, I'd been held up at gunpoint Oh. At one of our restaurants. And, uh, the city life wasn't quite as attractive anymore. Our, our, our bar manager had been, um, at the backstage, at the backstage off Broadway had been, um, convicted of murdering our bartender. Oh. And our house had been broken into, um, in Scottsdale. And Patty said it's time to go. Yeah. So I wanted to ask, cuz you've had quite a few, like 10% ownership here and this and that, and like, how does that, like, first of all, it takes good books, right, to be able to make these transactions and stuff like that. Mm-hmm. And then like, how did you go about. These partnerships and things like that, was it always cuz you were good eggs and the handshake was most of the deal and you would figure out the details from there? Pretty much. I mean, I, I did it with, well with Ted, I didn't know Ted at Alfie's when I got that first 10% Sure. But then Mike, Mike was like a brother. Right. And, and I did things with his family and I would keep increasing that percentage ownership. Yeah. Every time we would be a new, do a new store, I would get more ownership and I was fine if I wasn't the majority owner. Yeah. And, uh, you just wanted to have skin in the game. Yeah. And why was that? Like, how did that come about? Um, the different percentage ownership? Yeah. Like, well, just wanting to be an owner right from the start, kind of. Well, I always liked to, I always liked to be in charge. Yeah. And so I felt like as an owner you could be in and I think, um, and you're okay with the responsibility that also comes with it. Yeah. It seems, yeah. I, I, I liked, uh, you know, keeping track of the books and, and my focus in the restaurant business and, and I've become better at this, but I never really cared about, cared about the money part. Yeah. I always cared about am I making Kurt bear happy by serving him breakfast? Yeah. And if you're happy, I'm happy. This is a question I've asked myself sometimes because I'm. I'm what I would call Fort Collins famous now, but like how many people, especially if they saw you at a first watch restaurant, have shaken your hand. Like how many thousands of people would recognize you and be like, Reno, it's so nice to see you. Not as many now as used to be. Yeah. Yeah. There has to be a day. Cause I've seen you work, not work, but be in the, the egg. And I, when I used to go there for Kiwanis club meetings or different things like that and you can't walk through there without shaking 14 hands. Yeah. Well that was fun. You used that for 20 years. That was the fun part of the restaurant business, right. Is I I wasn't in business. I was, I was serving my friends food every day. Right. And so many And you didn't even have to do the dishes. Yeah. We, we used to talk about the fact that we had a family of guests that would come in every day and we'd have a family of, of employees. Yeah. And what made me happy is tho that family of employees and that family of guests dovetailed so well together. Um, we had marriages from, from guests to employees. Our, our from employee to employee probably our, our, our staff would, would go to weddings and, and parties at guest house. It was, it was wonderful. And when I sold, I was really, really sad to give that up. Yeah, I bet. And I still grew that to today. Mm. Um, being the people person. Yeah. Yeah. How do you get enough people in your life Yeah. In your current environment. But God has given me grandchildren. So that's, that helps a lot. That helps fill the void. So, uh, to circle back to the Good Egg and Patty's saying it's about time we get out of this Uhhuh hot place. So we, we knew we were coming place, we knew we were coming back to Colorado and so, um, we, we looked at going back to Vail. Mm-hmm. We looked at Colorado Springs and we looked at Fort Collins. Okay. Patty's brother Steve was a realtor for the group here. So we had visited, um, Fort Collins, what's his name? Steve Tool. I remember him. Yeah. He's a super cool guy too. Yeah. Hey Steve, if you listen. Yeah, he, uh, he, he was a, he followed in his father's footsteps and became a house of representative member for Oh, is that right? A few terms. Oh, good for him. Yeah. Yeah. So in looking at those, it was kind of like Goldilocks and the porridge. We didn't want to go back to Vail, cuz we'd already done that. Yep. Colorado Springs and Boulder. Um, Colorado Springs was too big. Boulder was too weird. Excuse me. Boulder and, uh, and Fort Collins, like sticking your finger in the porridge was just right. Mm-hmm. And. I, I listened to God. He, he sent me here and I remember that story when I came, when we decided on Fort Collins, we went, um, I came up here to look for a house to buy and to look for a restaurant. Oh, space. Yeah. And, uh, On that, uh, on that exploration trip, uh, I found a house that we liked and, uh, I found a restaurant that we liked and it was freebies on South College where the first egg, and I was, it's not still the same kind of place or just No. And I remember, um, I looked all over town and that was the spot I thought would be the best for our First Egg and I restaurant. Yeah. And so I remember walking in that restaurant and I walked up to the cash register and there was a lady behind the register and she said, can I help you? And I remember looking her in the eye across the cash register and I said, yes, I wanna buy your restaurant. And her mouth just dropped. And she didn't say a word for like 30 seconds, kind of like my mom when I told her I was a dishwasher. And, uh, I had to wave my hand in front of her face. And I said, I'm serious. I wanna buy your restaurant. And she says, just a minute, I'll go get my husband who was in the back cooking. Yeah, yeah. And, uh, he came out and, uh, we introduced each other and, and we sat down and talked. And over that weekend, while I was in town putting a house under contract, I also worked out the framework of a, a verbal contract to buy this restaurant. Wow. And we agreed on a price. And when I got back to Phoenix, we kept talking. I went back to Phoenix to sell our house down there and, uh, pack up and, and come here. So, And we talked on the phone and I thought everything was fine. So we move into our new house in Fort Collins, kind of get settled. I told Patty, I'm gonna go up and see Bill at freebie's and see when we can take over. Well, I walked in and uh, and I saw Bill and he said, well, I got bad news for you. And I goes, well, what's the bad news? He goes, I decided not to sell the restaurant. And I'm like, what? I talked to you three weeks ago and everything was cool. He said, well, my wife and I are separated now. She moved away. I've got my two boys, um, and they're at St. Joe's and this is all I have. And I can understand that. Yeah. So Bill and I continued to talk probably every couple days I'd go see him. Did you change your mind? I'll give you 5,000 more dollars. Yeah. Do you wanna be a manager At my heim and, and just no movement. And I kept throwing thousands of more dollars onto the offer until I got to a place where I was getting a little bit uncomfortable. And, um, I. And so one day I came to talk to him and I had a really nice 1978 Corvette that I'd driven up from Phoenix. Okay. And, uh, the boys were walking across the parking lot from school and they'd been dropped off and they saw the car and they just came over and looked at it and were jumping up and down. And so I thought, Hmm. So I went in and I talked to Bill and I says, let me come to your house tonight and let's, let's hammer out a deal. And I, cuz I could tell that he was a little more interested. Yeah. So I took the Corvette, took the tee tops off, pulled up, and the boys came running out and I said, you guys wanna go for a ride? And uh, I asked, is there a backseat in the Corvette or you gotta put two side by side? No, we, we kind of scrunched in. Yeah. And seatbelts weren't really a thing in those days yet. Yeah. And, uh, so I took the boys for a ride. They had a great time. And, uh, so Bill and I were sitting at his kitchen table and this is, um, where St. Elizabeth Church is now in that little development. Oh, is that right? There was, it was just a little farmhouse that was there. Yeah, yeah. Uh, 1987. So, um, I could see the boys around the corner and theyre looking and listening to me, giving their dad the sales pitch. I ended up, I didn't give him any more money, but I said, bill, I said, here's what I'll do. Here's, here's how much I'll pay you and I'll throw in my Corvette. The boys came running around the corner. Dad do it. Dad do it. Dad. We shook hands. It was a done deal. That was the first egg. And I, so I wanted to, I was thinking to myself, uh, like, why didn't you become a Good Egg franchise? Potentially, or like, did you decide before you came to Colorado that you wanted to have your own thing or, well, this is part of that transition in business. We ended up selling, we ended up selling the backstage restaurants. Okay. When we did the, the Good Egg restaurants. Yep. Cause we didn't wanna operate nighttime restaurants because we have the daytime is where it's at. Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, so we ended up selling the Good Egg restaurants. Okay. So you just sold us steak when we moved? Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, we ended up selling them to somebody who expanded it to 13. Oh, nice. Good eggs. Yeah. Okay. And, uh, I've done some consulting and it's kind of interesting. There was a restaurant down there, um, that, uh, was just trying to get off the ground. It was called The Egg and I, and they were having a difficult time getting going. Okay. So I was a restaurant consultant, so I helped them get that store to profitability and open a second store. Okay. And this was all in that time as we were trying to exit? Yeah. Yeah. The Phoenix area. So did that become part of the egg i in the future or anything? Or did you have to buy that brand or? No, I tried to buy it. They didn't want to sell it. Yeah. And uh, so there it was dual concepts. I ended up trademarking the name. Right. They never did. Right. Right. And, uh, they ended up closing those two stores Sure. In, uh, Arizona. So, and uh, so we, we were very happy with our egg and I here, um, um, I'd get home from work and we had, uh, three kids Yeah. By then, so, and Patty was housebound. First one's about at the school, but yeah. So we decided to go on drives in the afternoon. So I remember we'd go, Greeley was a favorite drive. We'd go over there and get ice cream or Yeah. Have, have dinner and Yeah. It's nice right here cuz you're done with work at two. Yeah, yeah. Dishwasher goes home at three 30. Yeah. And, uh, so we were, uh, we found there was a place in Fort Collins called Cafe France. They had a place downtown where the Surfside six restaurant is now. Sure. Surfside seven. Yeah. And, uh, so, um, I got to know that owner. Okay. And because she was doing croissants and breakfast stuff. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And, uh, I wanted to know who else was doing what I did. Sure. Interesting story. Jay. Um, From Jay's Bistro. Yeah. Um, he and Jackie, I, I asked their permission before I did the egg and I Oh, is that right? Because they were the most Cafe Columbine, they were the most successful breakfast restaurant in town. Oh, yeah. And I, I felt social responsibility to them Yeah. That I wasn't gonna open up and kind of steal their business. And I, so, and Jay gave me his blessing. Oh, that's cool. And that helped me go forward. Yeah. Yeah. Well carry forward and. Do good, serve good breakfast, right? Yeah. Yeah. And probably a much different concept in a long way. And Jay years later came back to me and said, Reno, thank you so much for opening the egg. And I, and I said, why do you say that? I, you closed Cafe Columbine? He goes, I, I wanted to open Jay's Bistro and be a chef. That was my passion. Ah, so that's a different kind of thing. Yeah. So, so we ended up doing a store in Greeley. Okay. Yep. And, uh, so we had two stores and that was interesting. I, I'd been a multi-store operator, so I knew what I was doing with that. And, uh, then we had a lot of people on weekends coming up from Loveland to eat. Yeah. And I said, and I'd look back then people would write checks and I'd see their name and where they're from. Right. I said, why, why do so many people come here from love? Lovely Loveland must be under a restaurant. Yeah. Yeah. And I thought, well, cuz you're a good, we don't have any good breakfast restaurants in Loveland. So our third store was in Loveland. Yep. Again, I took the opportunity to buy the building mm-hmm. Down there. Mm-hmm. Yep. Um, that's what restaurants are good for is. Paying the mortgage on real estate. Yes. As far as businesses go, I've made a few good decisions and a lot of poor decisions along those lines. Right. So here's three restaurants. Yep. And, uh, and then we had an opportunity, again, a lot of people from Greeley would come down. Fort Collins was a hub back in the late eighties. Sure. Yeah. With the mall. And, and people would come from Greeley on the weekends to attend events and go shopping. Sure, yeah. Little lot far again. I see these checks and I got to befriend the head of the chamber in Greeley, I mean in, uh, Cheyenne. Oh, right. And uh, and he said, why don't you do one of these up here? So he would come down often and have breakfast and keep trying to push me to come up there. Well, one day we did. Yeah. Yeah. And so that was our fourth store and I was out of time and money at this time opening these restaurants every couple years. Yeah. Cause each one takes a chunk of change. Yeah. A new more and Right. Do you have bankers and stuff? Like one banker in this time that's like not as good a banker as you were, but, but we, we had a relationship with, uh, I think at that time was first interstate bank was Tom Bingington. Okay. Yeah, I know. Yeah. Later went as well. Family. Oh, sure. Yeah. Yeah. And so I had a hard time. I was, when I first came to Fort Collins, I went to three banks and got turned down. And here I am with, um, 16 years of experience in the restaurant business and a little bit of wealth. I'd been an, an owner. You broke. I had money because I'd sold my restaurants. Right. I got turned down by banks. Yeah. I kind of got disenchanted. That's part of why I went into banking. Did you know that story? No. My, my dad went to like seven bankers before he found a farm loan, you know, and, and ultimately the farm he founded back there when I was in grade school has become, you know, one of the largest in the counties. And so like I wanted to change that injustice. Like he shouldn't have had to go to seven first. Right. Yay. For you. Even, you know, one of my most popular episodes is Bob from Greenwright and. Capital West was like their fifth, sixth choice uhhuh, you know? But it matters. Yeah. Well, and I found that, you know, bankers are your partners in business. Yeah. And yeah, they should really want you to do well. Yeah. You know, you have to have a good partner and in order to do well. Yeah. And well, and that's where trust comes in. Yeah. You know, in a way, just like Patty gave you that first five grand, you know, those bankers that, that came in when you were on a high growth path and you didn't have your financials in for the end of whatever, 1992 yet, and you needed a de payment for the thing. So what was that path like from there? Like, so you got the fourth restaurant going in Cheyenne and Yeah. And, uh, just kind of just same duplicates or just finding good locations. Was your real estate background really significant to this or It helped, but not, I, I wouldn't say I was really good at that in the commercial world. I was probably better at residential, but I realized that in order to grow, um, I needed to have a good family. On the business side. And so when after we did the Greeley, after we did the Cheyenne restaurant, that was our fourth restaurant, I realized I was kind of spread, kind of thin, and you were trying to be the cider over all of these different operations and stuff. And Mike Moriarty was our kitchen manager at the Fort Collins store. And I'd always given, even with the first restaurant, I'd always given our managers the opportunity to buy into the restaurant. Mm-hmm. Because I realized that that's how I got to be a good family man and And on good financial footing. Yeah. So I always shared with our managers and E either gave them ownership or let them buy in, or a combination of both. Yeah. Well, with the Cheyenne store I thought, you know, I need to. Give this store to one of my managers as, as a his own restaurant. Interesting. So Mike Moriarty had been a cook for us for a long time, and so we ended up selling that restaurant to him. Oh, wow. And so it wasn't really a franchise. Well, yeah. Or like, yeah. Tell me about that. At that same time, next door to the Egg and I, and one of our best customers was Bill Tylee, and I don't know if you know the name Bill Tylee. It sure rings a bell. He was one of the, the Ty's were one of the early pioneers in, uh, Fort Collins. Okay. Um, and somebody told me this today, um, lame Avenue is named I think after May Tylee. Okay. And, and we can flesh this out sometime. Yeah, yeah. But anyway, um, he, he had, I think Aaron Everett has told me the same story in some fashion, but yeah. And, uh, so Bill said, Hey, Reno, I got this guy went to school with a Fort Collins High that's out in Vegas, and his girlfriend wants to do a restaurant. She wants to do a breakfast restaurant, and he doesn't know what to do. And would you consider helping him? And so being the always Say Yes guy said, sure, I'll help him. And so ended up doing our first franchise. Yeah. But it, it wasn't really formalized. I'm Right. Right. I'm a, I'm an old West Handshake guy. Right, right. Like you talked about. Yeah. Yeah. You know, and, uh, So I ended up going to Vegas and, uh, we called it the Agni. Yeah. And it was a licensing agreement more so than a franchise. Okay. Yep. So with that going and, but you had attorneys look at it and stuff a little bit. Oh yeah, I did. He paid you 5% off the top or something ish. Yeah, we, I, I think I had a 10% and plus you consulted stake in that. Yeah. Yeah. And, um, so, and then when Mike, when we decided to sell the Cheyenne store to Mike, I, I thought, well, I really need to do a real franchise here. So I kind of did it, like I do a lot of things by the seat of my pants. I just, I found a franchise manual and I just, Patty and I just created our own franchise. I had a great lawyer here named Bob Brandis. Yeah. Yeah. Who, as he said, Reno, I'll let you practice law with me. Um, he's like, it would've probably been cheaper for me to just write it than for me to edit yours, but Right. So we set up our franchise company. Okay. And, uh, and there we went. Yeah. Yeah. So you had this, basically the Vegas. Franchise and a Cheyenne franchise. Right. And yeah, here we go. And you didn't really want any more restaurants to manage actively? No. And then what we did, we ended up doing a store in Longmont. Mm-hmm. Um, the Pratt family down there was, is a prominent family. Sure. Longmont. And, uh, they had a, a, they had a new shopping center and they wanted a breakfast restaurant. So there we go. Yep. And then, uh, Patty and all the kids went to Boulder Sure. To college. So had to have a store down there so they could have a place to eat. And, uh, did a storm boulder. And, uh, that's when I realized, uh, I was too much of a businessman and not enough of as, as a restaurateur. Yeah. And that's when I started looking for, and go back a couple steps. Um, I. When we started franchising. Mm-hmm. Um, I had a guy that came from Texas whose mom lived here. He grew up here and, uh, went to college at csu, played football, and he kept calling me on the phone from Houston. Right. He's like, I wanna do agonize in Houston. I wanna do an agon. I here. And I said, no, that's too far from where the stone fell in the water. And Well, and plus you felt like you had to be personally directly involved. Yeah. I wanted with everything and whatever. Yeah. And so, honestly, Chris must have called me 20 times over a year period. I wanna do this, I want to do this. And one day we stopped talking about business and we started talking about our faith and our families. And I'd known hi about his family, but we started talking about our faith and God kind of dinged me on the head and said, you're standing in the way of God's of my will. Yeah. And Chris was such a, Chris is like, the reason I keep calling you is because Christian man, God's prodding me to call you and tell you negative. I don't. And so instead of standing in God's way, I decided to take that big leap in business. And it was a huge leap to do a store out outside of town in a new state. Yeah. New distributorships, the whole Sure. A whole departure from what we'd been doing for all these years. And so, but I felt it in my heart Yeah. And my soul that I needed to do this. That's cool. And. And God was right. Well it for you. Chris was a great Christian man. It wasn't for you, it was for Chris. Yeah. And I'm, I'm reminded and I'll Pat, uh, from the Elmont and Uhhuh. Pat Mcg. Mcg. Yeah. Yeah. He shared the story with me one time when I was thinking about getting a restaurateur touring about their adventures in, I think Austin, Texas, when they tried to open the first Uhhuh and how many dollars they, and because I think it was, you know, they were chasing their thing. Mm-hmm. Like they wanted to have a place in Texas where they came from. Yep. Mm-hmm. And, and God could have punished them by saying, here, how about you lose a bunch of money for a while and then you can shut it down? You know? But in this case, Chris was like, it was his uhhuh thing that you could just step out of the way of. Yeah. That's cool. Yeah. Anyway, I guess. And so we, we did that and that was a big business decision because we did, we had to change the whole way. We did business new distributorships. How am I gonna have the same quality in Houston, Texas that I do in Fortt Collins, Colorado, and make the people just as happy there as I did here. Yeah. And we were able to do that with God's help and a lot of elbow grease and giving them. A lot of our staff. Mm. We developed a really good opening team. Wow. And I sent one of our, our partners and manager's son down there. What a cool thing. I mean, that's a lot of trust, right. For a W2 employee to be like, yeah, yes. I'll move to Texas for six months. Reno. Yeah. That's, or four months or whatever, right? Yeah. Yeah. Well, and it's kinda like you do here at Loco is you're, you're launching businesses, you're launching people, you're bolstering them up to, and that's what, that's what we were doing back then. Yeah. We're giving people opportunities and giving them the tools in their toolbox to be successful. I love it. Yeah. I love it. Um, I want to take a quick break and then come back and hear that really high growth years and the, ultimately the partial exit from adi. Okay. All right. Let's do it. So when we left off Egg and I was just experiencing the really incredible growth and you had just pulled the trigger to move down to Texas and you know, your Loveland store has got a great market share in the breakfast division. Like, what was it, was it just new and fresh and different? Was it that, you know, the, the specific, that six to two model that. Became what people wanted to work there so you could really get good employees. Was it great food? Like what were the secret sauces? You, you've pretty much hit on all the secret sauces right there. Um, the hours were great for family life and mm-hmm. And being in involved in your community. Yeah. And, um, there was a good return on investment and we made people happy. Yeah. And, and there was a, there was a need for breakfast. Um, I, I kind of look back on that first, first watch restaurant in Monterey that Sully had and when we did the first one. And, and is that the same first watch that eventually acquired? Yeah. That's term relationship. That's an interesting story. We'll circle back to that as we come back to that. Yeah. But, um, you know, our competition back then in the breakfast business was Denny's and ihop. Right. And Pancake House and some. Local places like the Silver Grill or things like that. But right. There were a few moments, but from a franchise or from a, but from us National Time, when we looked at it, we wanted to give people the same experience for breakfast and lunch that we were giving them at the backstage. Right. And, and at the Lord Gore. Mm-hmm. You know, so that make it memorable. Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, it worked. It did, it did well and, and did all the agonized or a lot of the agonized have like a meeting room, like the ones I was first familiar with? We, in all of our stores we did that. Yeah. And, uh, because it's a community gathering place. Yeah. And you know, it's kind like the farm towns you grew up in. You know, you, you want to get together and have coffee and talk. The picnic cafe is where you can see everybody. Mm-hmm. Once in a while, you know? For sure. Yeah. I have a small town heart. Yeah, you sure do. For, for a Detroit guy. You sure have that notion. Well, and that's probably why I left Detroit. Yeah. One of my favorite podcast guests has been Ginger Graham, who mm-hmm. Runs the ginger and baker now. And my Rotary club meets upstairs Uhhuh. And so it's just like the magnification even of that, right. Because they can put a hundred people up there. Yes. You can put 30 people in a, in a egg eye. Uhhuh, Uhhuh. So, um, so tell me about like that journey, because now, like you get whatever, eight, 10% off of these franchisees and you've got three successful restaurants of Right. Your own and stuff. And so suddenly you're probably starting to become a high income earner. As well. Not really. I, it, it was all feeding back into the business, you know? It didn't feel like it, money was never, I, I never really cared about how much money I was making. I didn't even, I didn't even keep track of that, as I said. Yeah. Yeah. You know, that was a, that it took me a long time to get enlightened, to pay attention to the books and to share that with our staff. Yeah. Um, if I had enough money to, we had what I call the shoebox theory. Yeah. Yeah. And this goes back to the farm. Mm-hmm. And Patty's family were farmers and we have farmers back in, in our family in Michigan. Yeah. And you, you take the money you got from selling the pigs and, and selling the crops and put it in a shoebox and put that shoebox in the closet and pay all the bills at the end of the month. And if you had money left in the shoebox at the end of the month to start the new month, you were doing okay. Yeah. That was my theory about finances. Yeah. Yeah. If I paid all my bills at the end of the month and I had some money left over, I was doing a good job. Yeah. Well I think that's even ultimately that money left over is what we call profit Uhhuh, you know? And so you didn't have to have, like a really complex ratio is driven. Shoebox. Right. As long as there's something left at, at the end of every month, Uhhuh, that's really the best. Yeah. You know, that shows there's profitability that you can later then reinvest Yeah. And do other things. Well, my focus in business was if I'm making my guests happy, I'm doing a good job. Yeah. Um, so we're probably coming up into the early two thousands by now. Yeah. And so we started, um, we started doing, uh, more stores. Mm-hmm. We did, you know, we had the Windsor store Sure. A second Greeley store in Estes Park store, eventually ES Park. Yeah. We had, we had a cabin in Estess Park and we'd go up there a lot and I'd always, when I'm driving into town, I'd say, Ooh, I'd look at that place, Patty. That'd be a great egg. That good egg guy. Well, there happened to be a, uh, seven 11 store up there that had gone out of business and it was for lease. And so obviously I wrote the number down, came back home and called on the sign. We ended up engaging with that store owner and, uh, had a good lease developed, and, and I was about ready to sign and I, we had just done the, the love, the Longmont store and the Boulder store, and again, I was outta money, I was tired. Right. I didn't wanna open another store. And so that was one of our first franchises outside of our company without, with without somebody being employee that you weren't directly involved with. Yeah. Yeah. And. I, I tried, um, I was partners with Jeff Noac. Mm. Yep. You know Jeff? Yep. And, uh, he and I had been friends in Vail. His, his wife was my partner, Randy's roommate for a while. Small family all the time. Yeah. And, uh, I asked Jeff, I said, boy, do you, do you wanna do this? Do you know any of your friends that want to get in the restaurant business? We'd asked our managers, well, our grocery salesman from Yancy's Food Service, which was our main supplier Right. Overheard that conversation one day and he said, I think I might be interested. Wow. So Tim Pointer became our first Yeah. I'm remembering Tim, our first franchisee for that store. And that too was a little bit of a departure. Right. And, uh, Tim went to, ended up doing, uh, the, he ended up doing the Windsor store mm-hmm. With his brother-in-law. Mm. Yep. He did the steamboat store. He became what I called our resort specialist. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, his family up until recently ran, ran those stores. Is that right? Yeah. So, so, um, and then like sometime around now is when you're starting to think. Well, I'm sitting there, I'm creating a bigger job than I really want to have. I'm sitting at my desk doing all this paperwork and administration stuff. And with Patty, we had a, we had a little office. Mm-hmm. We, and, uh, Patty was instrumental in our success. In fact, I give her most of the credit for our success. She had all the great ideas. She did all the manuals and all those things. And I just listened to my wife and became successful. Yeah. Well, and listened to your employees and listen to your managers. I think that's one of your knacks as well as I, I've told people about you without you knowing. And I'm like, when almost anybody spends time with Reno, they think that they're special in the world, and that Reno thinks I'm special, so I must be, and I think you do that well with almost everybody you come across. Well, thanks for that. I'm just, I'm one of God's children and there's many of us. Yeah, fair enough. All of us. Yeah. Um, so yeah. So tell me about that. I'm so sitting on my desk. You're cranking away. And I, I, I talked to Patty and I said, you know, I wanna be in the restaurants. I don't wanna be doing this. Mm. So, um, I think this was probably around 2005. Okay. And I started looking for somebody to take my place, be the CEO of the company. I looked at our, the staff we had, and nobody was interested in doing it. Yep. And, uh, and so I thought, well, I'll start looking around. Well, I. Uh, through our franchisee in Denver. Rich Yoke. Great, great Egg. I mean, yeah. Yeah. Yep, for sure. Rich Yoke. He's who introduced, uh, the Gregory Yes. Uh, family to me. Jim Gregory. Yep. Yeah, so, um, and we tried to send all our business to you as our banker. Oh yeah. No, Jim was great. A great contact. Yeah. Love to hear from you again. So, um, I, I came across, um, the Don Lamb who was running, um, the, um, A, a restaurant group called Champs and they Okay. They were based outta, outta Minnesota. Yeah. But were, were tr were moving to Denver to open a store and I was gonna hire Don to take my place and Don had been talking to his partner, the CEO of Champs. Mm. Bill Bauer. And they kind of got together and said, Hey, we just like to buy your restaurant company. Right. And Bill Bauer was a big player in the restaurant business. He was CEO of FUD Rutgers restaurants. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. He was ceo, got mad respect to FUD Ruckers while we're here. Yeah. All the toppings. He was CEO of Planet Hollywood. He was Oh wow. He was a big frog. Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, so, you know, we talked and, uh, fast forward, I ended up selling the franchise company and two of our restaurants. I made him take two of our restaurants Because you didn't want that many anymore? No, because I wanted them to have training stores. Mm. So that they weren't just an office where you went to buy a business. Right, right. They had stores where they could bring people in, actually support franchisee and send people out and Yeah. Stuff like that, because I knew that worked for us. Yeah. Well, and what I was just thinking to myself is that, like you hinted toward it, but didn't really talk about the. J just the, the limitations of having enough capital to do the next door and the next door. Like you could have grown faster still if you had the dough, but like profits accrue over time and down payments are big right now. Yeah. Right. And so if you've got a, a larger organization like that, that can, hey, we've got an extra few million we can throw at this problem. Mm-hmm. Just really allowed the egg I to become that almost national brand eventually. Well and a lot and I don't ever ru that decision. I mean I could have done that. Yeah. I suppose grown it and kept off maybe probably myself, but I wanted to be in the restaurants. I wanted to spend time with my family. I mean my kids were now getting through high school and into college and Yeah. And well, and in my, one of the reasons I'm eager to have you honest cuz like in my own journey, like I, like you knew back then, I know right now that loco think tank should be everywhere. That there's. Uh, you know, high achieving business veterans that want to give back and be a part of their community. I know that every place that there's are businesses, there's people that are lonely trying to figure out the challenges of it by themselves. Yes. And, and I don't have any interest in like going to chamber meetings in Colorado Springs and trying to find the members of those first franchises. Mm-hmm. You know, and so, so I'd really like to become the Northern Colorado franchisee of local think tank and have enough horse ra radis that I can have an office at H HQ office that can provide the services to these other regions that mm-hmm. Don't want to do some of that annoying stuff. And the stuff that took us nine years to build, you know, they don't wanna have to do all that. I just want to run a few think tanks in Colorado Springs, in Parker, whatever, very parallel roads. Yeah. So, so interesting. Yeah. So, we'll, I'll buy you lunch after this podcast and we'll talk more about that. Okay. Good. So, so you do a transaction, I, I don't know how. Public that is. But you sold two restaurants, kept three sold the franchise or company? Well, we, we sold more. I think we had Oh, you already had it? Okay. We had three at the time. We had more than that. We, I think we had six or seven at the time. Okay. Sold them two. Uh, sold them three or four. We kept two. Yeah. Okay. Um, we kept Loveland and Oak Ridge. Yep. And, um, Because I want, that's what I wanna do. I wanted to get back in the restaurant. Fair enough. Oh, so the Midtown, Fort Collins, eg. And I was not part of your restaurant group, nec. I mean, it wasn't part of what you own still it? Well, actually it was. We kept that one too. Okay. Yeah. So, okay. I thought that was yours too. We kept those too, in Loveland. Yeah. Yeah. So we had three stores. Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, and all the franchises that they, they took over. Yeah. Which was, by that time a dozen or something. And I was wise enough to keep, again, that 10% comes up. I was wise enough to keep 10% of the franchise company. Well good. And be on their board of directors and, and help them to, um, grow in hometown ways. Well, they had sports bars. Oh yeah. They we had breakfast restaurants. Yeah. Breakfast and lunch restaurants. Well, and that was a, a big source of contention with Patty is being the FUD Rucker guys, they thought, you guys are stupid for not having hamburgers on your menu. We said, no, we're not. Well, they had the might, they pushed hamburgers onto the menu. Eventually they put hamburgers on the menu. And they tried that for probably a year. And they finally came back to me and said, boy, hamburgers, just start going. I put my hands up and I went, duh. I think I had a patty belt at the egg and I one time, and I must've hit that window when they kind of had at least half-assed hamburgers. Yeah. So it, Patty and I both smile at that decision. So was it, was it a pretty simple transaction? Like they were like, Hey, here we are. We think that you've got a lot of growth opportunity and things like that, Uhhuh, we're just gonna buy your whole thing. Yep. Here's the deal. And it kind of came out of the blue because there's a new franchise agreement to be made and stuff too, right? Like you No, they kept the same franchise. Okay. Same thing. Yeah. We were, it was, so all those operators and stuff, they were like, yeah, it's cool. You know, rental's still around. I think they probably changed it over time. Sure. But, um, because I stayed in and I kept some of the stores, I, I got to pay royalties. Right. I, I cut a good rate for myself and Good. And, uh, and well, but all those people that you recruited become Eggers. Knew that you were stuck around. Like, I think that was, even though you kept 10%, which probably on paper sounds like a chunk of change, uhhuh to these guys when they sold the first watch. Right. Probably they did at least 12% better because of your wisdom and just Oh, they did, yeah. Connection to the franchisees. Probably 30% or 40% better. Right? Yeah. Well, it gave those franchisees, um, more opportunities, more room for growth. Yeah. Cause I wasn't real growth conscious. Yeah, yeah. You know, I didn't want to go put a store here and here and here. Right. And, um, and, and yeah. You're like pumping the brakes and they're like, come on man, we wanna do more. Yeah. And, and they had, they had a different economy of scale and a different experience. Background where they're coming from a world of multiple restaurants in multiple states. Right, right. So, and really systematizing, I'm sure they helped the egg and I, in a lot of ways. Mm-hmm. I'm sure they took something away. Like it always happens. Oh. When that happens. But yeah. Um, so they, they've scaled rapidly really, right. From like, well, we had six to, I think in, in oh five. I think we had, I, I'm gonna guess. We had five restaurants and probably eight franchises, either open or, or going to be open Nearly. Yeah. And especially with the Houston market, um, they brought in a guy who was a former professional football player and a car dealer down in Houston. Okay. And he signed a deal for 25 restaurants Oh shoot. With, with the new guys. Right. And so all of a sudden we've gone from 13 restaurants to 40 to 40 to 70. And it's unfortunate that in 2013, bill Bauer, who was the CEO and the lead of that group that purchased us, he had an unfortunate accident, fell down the stairs at his vacation home and broke his neck. Oh shoot. And so, um, his wife didn't want the company anymore, so Right. We ended up selling, and guess who was right there to buy us? First watch. First watch. Was it that long already? Yeah, 2013. Wow. So I find it very interesting. Did you get a, did you get a deal on that? Yes. A broker's deal or anything? No, I didn't. You should have got like a 3% commission on that 1983 John Sullivan with the first first watch. Got us going and here we are in 2013 in first watch. Yeah. We're all back together again. Yeah. Well they do a good job. I've been to first watch a handful of times. Uh, I don't go south of Prospect that much, so it's hard, but, but they did. I mean it's kind of, it was a good marriage. Uhhuh, I would say. Cuz it a lot of alignment in terms of type. Yes, yes. Yeah, they, the first watch people and, and I've known their, uh, their former ceo Ken Pendry since Phoenix. Wow. He was, he was good friends with Ron Hendricks, my partner's brother and our partner in the first Good Egg. That's wild. And so it's, it's like a little family. Well, and what's funny about this conversation right now, and I think maybe in six months or a year maybe I'll have you come back for phase two and we'll talk just about Northern Colorado because just like you've talked about the restaurant industries in Vail and the Egg and I growing and things like that, you've been, you know, having dinner with Doug do since. You guys were both 30 years old with young kids and different things like that, right? Like you've just been around here really connecting with the people that built the, it's kind of the next level, the next stage, you know? Right. The, the Everetts and some of those Right. The uh, gosh, some of those families that you were talking about before. Well, I just, a lot of things I just, I look at it like a race and, and we're handing off the baton. I've already handed my baton. Yeah. I was in first place. Right. And uh, and, and now we're all starting to hand that baton off to the next generation, the Curt Bears of, of Northern coast. Oh, I'm almost ready to hand my baton. You know, I wanna find that operator that's gonna take loco think tank to the next level. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, and I think I can find somebody that's got more of the right kinds of ingredients to, to take it into. Cuz I love Fort Collins too much to really wanna wander away from here and grow it all over. Well business changes too. And yeah. And I thank God when I look back to 2013, you know, when it was time to sell and, um, I thought, wow, you know, I'm not gonna be in the restaurant business anymore. And then you look at the restaurant business today and all the challenges with supply chain, so much tougher chain and rising commodity costs and not being able to find anybody. Well and yeah. Plus they locked everybody at home and made'em learn how to cook. Right. During Covid Nation. Well, I think that's how GrubHub and Right. I guess they didn't learn how to cook and Uber Eats came. No. They just found how to give somebody else. 17% of your revenues or whatever. Yeah. Um, so is there, I wanna kind of recap, not recap, but kind of button up the business journey segment. Is there anything kind of significant along that journey or in this kind of merge with, you weren't, you were somewhat along, you were still a significant shareholder, but along for the ride, ultimately with that first watch transaction. Did you feel good about that the whole time? I did because they, I knew first watch. Right. And, and I knew what they were gonna do. Yeah. And I had, I had been in their restaurants across the country when I traveled and, um, they were a, they were a good student. They were the right kind of, yeah. Yeah. Seemed like the right kind of thing. They care about their people like we do. Yeah. If somebody's in the restaurant industry right now listening to this and, and you had one piece of advice. For them. God bless you. Stay strong. It'll get better. Yeah. Either that or get the heck out. I don't know. It's a changing world. Um, I, I, I, I stay involved a little bit through, through a little bit of consulting and all the friendships Sure. I've made over the years with, with people who are running restaurants in four. Where do you spend your restaurant dollars in Fort Collins? Um, at mostly locally owned restaurants. Yeah. Okay. Um, you didn't wanna name names cuz you'd leave people out? No. Yeah. I couldn't name all my favorites. Yeah, fair enough. And, uh, and there are a lot of'em, but Yeah. Um, and I go to company stores, you know, from national franchise stores. Yeah. But I see the difference. My dad's a Buffalo Wild Wings guy, Uhhuh, like wherever he goes, he knows there's a Buffalo Wild Wings and it will be above average. And he knows what to expect. Well, he knows what to expect. Yeah. Right. Yeah. I don't really like wings that much, so I don't ever, and I, plus I love local businesses. Mm-hmm. So, yes. Um, so as you know, we always, uh, once we've told the journey a little bit, we jump into the faith, family and politics. Mm-hmm. Uh, do you have a preference of those categories you'd like to start with and, uh, faith, faith and family? We've talked about faith and family quite a bit already. Yeah. That's the central part of my life. That's the core of my life. Yeah. Is first my faith. Um, I'm active with, um, With my church. Yeah. Uh, as we talked about, I go to Lutheran Church now and yeah. And, uh, uh, I'm, uh, do you have to officially change teams or if you go, you're called good. No, you could still go to the Catholic church. They don't like, it's like an all-star team. They, they look at you properly when you go to the Catholic church. Right. They don't like, oh, that's that guy where you've been right now going to Lutheran church, but, so that's obviously important to you. Uhhuh? Uh, when, when I was just a youngster, I actually rejected God for quite a while and part of it was because how the Lutherans and the Catholics and at that time Northern Ireland was fire bombing and stuff. And I was like, well, if Christians hate each other, then this is a stupid religion. Um, and so like, talk to me about your faith journey. Were you like kind of in it from the beginning? Didn't really have those seasons of doubts. Um, I really didn't. When I was at, in Catholic grade school, I was an altar boy and that led me to want to be a priest I'm named at. So you had the positive al alter boy experience, I guess. Yeah, I'm the positive. Yeah. I got to drink the wine after, when I was in seventh grade. Um, my uncle, um, who I'm named after, Raymond Kelly was, um, in the seminary before World War II and, and ended up giving up the seminary and God took him to heaven as a Yeah. Casualty of that war. But, um, so I think it's ingrained in our family and we've had that faith. Growing up and I kept it through college. I went to church during college, even though I had to go to confession for a long, long time. Every week. If you're a Catholic, you'll understand that. Right. And, um, and, and now my faith walk in the Lutheran church and, and being able to go to, to church with my kids and, and yeah. My in-laws and, and, and my grandkids. And has that been generational for you? Mm-hmm. Have all your children kind of continued on and of faith? Yes. Yep. Perspective, different faith walks. Yeah. Um, you know, um, our son Kyle helped plan a church here in Fort Collins. Oh, they're right. Um, Abby's an evangelical, as we mentioned early on on Sure. And, uh, drew the Lutheran. Yep. And so I'm, uh, I'm, I'm a, I'm the proudest as a dad that my kids have a strong, active practicing faith. Yeah. Fair above everything else. Yeah. Well, I think it was probably the most valuable thing most people could have, frankly, especially during the, the, the lockdown times. Mm-hmm. And just all the drama around stuff is to have a grounding that says, this isn't the most important thing in my life right now. Yeah. Well, and that's the thing I like about Fort Collins. Um, we're a, we're a very faithful community. There's so many churches and Yeah. And, uh, I, I remember Dairy Northrop was one of our regular customers Yeah. Who founded Timberline Church. Yeah. Yeah. And his mantra was, If not Timberline, there's a church for you somewhere in Fort Collins. Yeah. Yeah. And that's true. Should be. Yeah. And, and, and I think that's one of the things that makes Fort Collins such a great community is the, the undercurrent of faith that, that is here. I would agree. People care about each other. Well, I think the part of why Fort Collins has continued to be like, people can make fun of the dry town until the late sixties or early seventies stuff and whatever, but I think that's been a lot of our competitive advantage against other regions, is that we had that kind of momentum of faith and that it's, it's not died away, you know, it's definitely less than it was. Mm-hmm. Um, one question I have on the faith topic is, you know, when I think about Catholics and Lutherans, whatever, like there's that whole, the priest thing, right? Like mm-hmm. If you're a Lutheran, you can just talk to Jesus or pray to God or whatever. And if you're a Catholic, you gotta talk to the priest and he'll send your message upstairs. Like, does that feel strange to you or do you, you know, I don't, not necessarily follow that belief. Okay. I, I believe that my relationship is directly with God. Okay. Whether I'm a Catholic or a Lutheran or Fair enough Evangelical. Even before you Yeah. Started entertaining Lutheranism, that was still, already kind of your opinion. Yeah. Yeah. Fair enough. Um, if there's somebody that's like, I've met a lot of people that are like their, their foundation of God as dumb has been shaken. I. So now they're wondering what faith would be like in comparison. Like maybe you don't even really have, cuz you've kind of spent your whole life in that tent. Mm-hmm. Like what would you say to that person nonetheless? Like, I don't know. Well, I, I, I think in a sea of turmoil that you, you need to find a rock to stand on. Yeah. Or a, or a beach to be on and something that's more significant than you. Yeah. Yeah. And that, those turmoils are made. I, I heard early on as I come from a auto town where the auto industry was both Right. It takes tremendous fire to make steel to make a car. Mm. Yeah. And yeah. And we go through that fire a lot during life and Yeah. If, if, you know you're gonna be steel on the other end of that fire. Yeah. I just heard a quote the door recently, uh, and I can't remember quite who it was, but it's basically we get, we get strong in, in the weak places, like the places where we suffer, we get stronger there in a way. Mm-hmm. Um, Let's talk about your family more. How many grandkids do you have now? I love my family. Um, I have five grandkids. Okay. My oldest granddaughter, Hayden, is 20. Okay. She just graduated from front range community college. Awesome. I I love the community college program. Yeah, that's great. She's going to UNC in the fall and I have a one year old, uh, granddaughter, so, uh, a big disparity of ages. Right. That's awesome. Well, I was 10 years older than my youngest brother. So one thing we do here is I usually do a one word description of people's kids. Mm-hmm. You've got three kids, or you could do a one word description of your five grandchildren. Which would you prefer? I will go with my kids. Okay. Let's hear about'em. Uh, Drew's the oldest. Yeah. Drew's the oldest, um, real estate. Um, great dad. Um, loving husband. Yeah. Um, he, he, he had to go through that fire early on in their relationship. He and Jen met at the egg and I Wow. Worked together. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, that's a funny story in itself. Um, but, um, and then Abby, uh, is such, uh, what's drew his one word. Oh, one word for Drew. Yeah. Solid. Solid. I like that. Yeah. That's very honoring. Uhhuh. Uh, Abby, I, I probably spent the most time interacting with Abby. Yes. Over the years. She's the city. Abby's a audiologist, went away to Kansas to college, got her doctorate at Northeastern in Boston, and, uh, came back to Denver. Worked for, um, a big medical company as an audiologist and, and came back here to Fort Collins to practice. Oh. And, uh, independently now? Or was that She's with sound relief, Dr. Julie, who you see on tv. If you look all the way to the right. Abby's second from the right in that lineup of audio. I'd like it. I'll watch for that. Yeah. And um, she's a great mom. Yeah. Um, has a great faith. Um, and she's got a great personality, by the way. Yeah. Uh, no offense to Drew and Kyle. Right. But she was my favorite Among your kids. Yeah. And Kyle. Kyle was actually, I don't know, maybe Kyle might be my favorite. Yeah. He was just a youngster when, when we first met. Yeah. Uh, what's Kyle up to? Um, he is, uh, we had a small family real estate business that Kyle was in charge of. Yep. And he decided he didn't want to do that anymore, so he's after. Gosh, probably 15 years in the real estate business. He's looking for something else to do. Oh, okay. Yeah. Interesting. So if you're listening and need a good project manager, Kyle's available. Okay. I would use that word for Kyle available. Is he, uh, attached Any grandkids on that? Yeah, he's the one that has the dad of the one year old. Okay. He married Courtney, um, who is, uh, just a great life partner for him. Yeah. Awesome. Yeah. Yeah. So when you think about family, I, I'm, I see you earlier, we were thinking about your dad and your fa your parents and stuff like that. Like what are those generational kind of family things that you feel like you've maybe your dad even captured from his dad and you've captured and taken, passed down mm-hmm. And, and will be passed down to those. I learned an awful lot from my grandparents. Yeah. From both my grandpa Caesar, my grandpa Kelly. I was lucky to, yeah. To grow up around them. We had a cottage cabin in the woods mm-hmm. In Michigan that Grandpa Kelly had. Yeah. And I would follow him around as he petered around the house Yeah. So to speak, at the cabin. And I learned so many lessons. And then Grandpa Caesar was a foreman at the Dodge Plant, not a very educated man, like Grandpa Kelly went to college. Yeah. Um, and I learned a lot from Grandpa Caesar about just being nice and, and being in the moment. Yeah. I like that. So I, I'm lucky I'm, I was lucky too. I'm trying, I spent a lot of time with my grandparents as well. Yeah. That, that's, that's something that I don't think happens as much as we have. No, yeah. Such a mobile society that moves away from home. Right. Well, and the most common person I meet anymore in Fort Collins region is a grandparent that's moved here because their kids are definitely not moving back home to Nebraska, Texas, Alabama, New York, Michigan, Tennessee. Yeah. Whatever. Right. Yeah. And, and so they're like, well, I guess I'm coming here. You know, I'm 60. I've got a lot of life ahead of me, but I'd wanna spend a lot of that time with my grandkids. Yeah. And I applaud that a hundred percent. Oh, Patty, I think Patty and i's best roles in life as being grandparents. We've been active grandparents to Drew's kids when they were growing up. Yeah. And we're, we're very a, we were very active with Ethan and Charlie Abby's kids. Yeah. We pick them up from school three days a week. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah. We have him until Abby's off of work and. And little Claire's at our house two days a week as a one year old. What a beautiful thing and what an awesome responsibility. Yeah. To be a grandpa and to teach my grandkids. Yeah. All the lessons that you and I have talked about today of life. Well, and that team of you and Pat can make it a super light lift for either of you, because if you want to go off and do a podcast, or Patty wants to go out and be a part of a church, ladies group, uhhuh, you're there for the kids. Right. You know? And so you're still got that team mentality going on where you can cover what comes in. Yeah. So I think that's super cool. Yeah. Um, we're still learning even at Yeah, for sure. Well, and every role is new, right? Yeah. Like if you're doing life right, you're changing throughout the time. Mm-hmm. What are, what would you say, like, I'm a 48 year old man right now, be 49 this summer. What would you say to that 50 year old-ish as a 70 plus ish person that were the most important thing you learned in that span? Like, I feel like I was dumb when I was 20 or 30. Right. Looking back at it as a 40, 50 year old, take all the things you've learned to heart and continue to fill your heart with the things that you are going to learn. Hmm. That's good advice. That's good advice. That's, uh, in some weird ways that's like we, we, we'll talk about it another day, but this, the local facilitator role that I create is like such a beautiful way for people to, to share of their experience and not have that be like the only thing you know. Mm-hmm. And so anyway. Well, you, you, like I, and I, I have the benefit of knowing you for a long time Yeah. And knowing your background growing up on a farm and the fact that we're always learning whether it's how to plant Milo, right. Or how to, what kind of fertilizer to use, how to reap that harvest. I mean, we're, we're all farmers. Yeah. Oh yeah. We are totally. We're planting seeds every year. This young lady at her Alma is a great, you know, I hope that 10 or 15 years from now or whatever, whenever she's not in local think tank anymore, she's like, man, that guy cur, he really helped me put my life on a different tangent than it would've been otherwise. Yeah. So we have an awesome responsibility as 48 year olds and 70 year olds Yeah. To teach the people that are coming behind us to, to do the right thing. That's what thing looks like. Yeah. For sure. Yeah. I appreciate that so much. Um, we always talk about the loco experience. Oh, wait, no, we didn't talk about politics yet. I prefer I I suspect you would prefer not to, but I do. It'll be fun. Yeah. It'll be fun anyway. Yeah. Cause we've had a, well, I have Apol, I have a political family. Yeah. You were talking about it. You know, Patty's dad was a, um, state Republic chairman. Yeah. Steve was a House of Representatives. Yep. Um, member for many years. And, you know, our, our, our family was steeped in politics. Well, and I would say almost in conservative politics. Mm-hmm. And like the way that you've lived your life. And arguably the way I've lived my life is like on the fairly progressive end of that. Right. Like, we wanted to have our key managers involved with ownerships of the restaurant so they could advance themselves. We want like, people to flourish. I suspect we've kind of come in a similar place that sometimes the harder government works to make things happen. The more they more they try to fix it, the more they fuck it up. Right? Yep. I just replaced the I with the U in that fix phrase. Fix things up. Yeah. Yeah. They, yeah. They fuck it up. And so talk to me about politics just a little bit, I guess, and what, how you think that Well, I've al I've always felt that it's important to be involved as you, as you know. Yeah. You can see that pattern. And, and I think that belongs in government too. Um, you need to be involved with your city government. Mm-hmm. You need to be involved with your state government. Yeah. Um, I think on the, the board work that I do with csu, I mean, we're a public entity Sure. And we're government funded, um, on some of the development projects that I've done. Sure. I've worked hand in hand with the city of Fort Collins and different members. And, um, I, I think we need to go in and ask their advice and give them our advice and, and grow together instead of an adversarial role, which I see so much these days. I, uh, I've been learning and teaching this thing called Hallows Relational Intelligence, and part of how I describe it is we each have kind of a two essential types that contend against each other to make us a stronger person. Mm-hmm. And. For me, I'm a, I'm a white type, which is an idea person and a green type, which is a people person. And those two things like create local, think tank and other things. Mm-hmm. I feel like our government, if it was working well, would be that way where the, the conservatives and the progressives would actually like, try to knock off the dumb edges from each other. Mm-hmm. But that doesn't seem like how it's working anymore. I, I wonder even in the con CSU forum, do you feel like kind of a lonely, conservative voice sometimes in a increasingly liberal like academic environment and things like that? Uh, is that something you can talk about properly? I think that's a little too elevated for my level of thinking. Yeah. I'm a, I'm a dishwasher. Do you want to splash more wine? We've got tiny bit left. Sure. So yeah. Talk to me about that. Generally though, um, I, I think you need to be aware of what's going on in government, uh, especially in local government. And I, I think you need to share your thoughts and not just be angry about things or Yeah. Not do anything if you think something's wrong. So if you're gonna be mad, do something. Yeah. Yeah. Seems reasonable. Yeah. Um, Uh, what else would you like, like to share publicly from a political sphere? Have you ever thought about being in that space? Oh, I have. Yeah. But, um, family to me is a little more important. Yeah, I had, uh, oh gosh, I can't remember his name. I'm spacing it. But he said, you know, if you're gonna get into politics, either your business or your family or you know, your position in politics is gonna suffer. You can't do all three. And I was like, well, I'm okay with actually having my business do good and my family do good and being a half-ass politician. Is that what you're looking for? Because that's really all I got to give. You know, I don't really have another curt to add into that sphere cuz I, I would kinda have to pretend I care about other people as much as I care about me and that I'm almost there uhhuh. But ultimately I still have to care about my family and my people first. I applaud you for that thought. Well, and who, but who should be our leaders then? You know, who should be those civic servants? Are they, should we have these career? You know, I, I learned just cause I thought about running for city council a couple years ago when I saw the direction things were going and stuff and I was like, man, they're not gonna have any conservatives left maybe. And then I was like, dude, that doesn't pay nothing. And I've got a, like a company to try to build and so I didn't. Now they pay pretty good. Like they pay. City Council pays more than I've ever made since I quit banking now. Like talk to me about that. Oh, I, I just, I have a heart that, like we just talked about, I wish I had that extra block of time to be able to Yeah. Be involved. But I would just, you set your fences kind of stand. You have to keep your priorities and I applaud all the people that spend that amount of time to help our government no matter what level it's on. We've had some great politicians from Fort Collins. Sure. Um, I think of Bob Schaeffer comes to mind and Sure. Yeah. And Wade Troxel has become, uh, a friend Yes. In recent years. Yes. Uh, and definitely a servant hearted, not a power hungry Uhhuh. Yeah. And, and they've given their times and talent it to politics and, and I hope good people find that spark in their hearts to continue to help us. Yeah. Fair enough. Um, I'm gonna move on to your loco experience. That's the, uh, the craziest experience that you'd care to share with our listeners from this whole journey, this whole time we've covered, you've got any crazy stories that nobody knows, not even your. Brother. Well, I, I have some crazy stories, but none that you're gonna share right now. I'm, I'm looking out through the door and seeing the back half of a dog going through the pillar. Kind of reminds me of the time the horse went through the front doors of the restaurant in Loveland. Oh, tell me more. We had, uh, it was April Fool's Day. We had just closed the restaurant and I'd gone home and was having dinner and finished dinner, and I get a call from Roger, our manager, and he says, Reno, Roger was very low key Reno horse. There's a horse in the restaurant in Loveland. I said, sure, Roger is on April Fools. April Fools. He goes, no Reno, really. And so I said, all right, I'll be right down. So I get down there and they, there was a boarding stable across the street from the Loveland egg and I back in those days. Okay. And, uh, some, he was tied to the railing of a picnic to the seat of a picnic table. Something spooked him and he broke the, the, the two by six ward bought board and it k and it kept hitting him in the back legs. So he thought someone was spurring him on. Somehow that horse made it across four lanes of traffic. On 2 87, he got in front of the agon. I, and I think what happened in the early afternoon is he saw his reflection in the front doors, right. And thought, oh, there's another horse. I'm gonna go in there and I'll be safe. He burst through two sets of double doors, got in there, knocked over the cash register, knocked over the hostess station, knocked through tables, and I love it, benches. And I got down there and that poor horse was laying in the parking lot. Somebody had let it out. Oh. And uh, and unfortunately had to put the horse down. Oh. And as you might tell, I have a good sense of humor. So we got the, the next morning we got the doors fixed and, and two days later I put a little sign up on the door with a galloping horse and the universal no symbol over'em. Oh, no. And we had some Kentucky Derby specials for a while. Oh gosh. Until I realized I was being very insensitive. You know, you didn't invite the horse in, but Yes. That's probably fair. Yeah. Um, did you Yeah, I, uh, I'm just feeling sad about that poor horse. I know. I was too. I love horses. I love animals. Have you ever been around a farm, like with animals and stuff like that in a fair bit? Oh yeah. I spend a lot of time pheasant hunting in Kansas. Okay. And, and we have some good friends who are farmers and I like it. I think that's why my heart Yeah. Is in sync with your heart on that front. Yeah. I, I wish that a lot of times that I would've been able to be a farmer. Yeah. I had that opportunity. It's a different kind of time and, and I definitely see the heart of a farmer in you Yeah. And growing things as part of your passion. Yeah. Um, and we didn't circle back to it, but, uh, barely. We, you know, Reno and I really got acquainted when I was banking at Capital West National Bank. Reno was a board member there and had. I guess you took a little bit of the, the change you made from selling that franchise and invested in the bank. Mm-hmm. Is that kind of, that progression there? That was, yes. I was, Tim Borden, um, Elsie as I call him from the Borden milk Comp family. Yep, yep. Um, was the chairman and founder of the bank and he and I had a bit in common. So, yeah. You, one thing that you've, uh, traveled over the course of your career is that you've connected with a lot of these, like long time old time families. Like we, people think about business a lot of times is, you know, mark Zuckerberg and Facebook at 27 years old and different things like that. But you're talking about like the bor and milk families and the Smucker's families and kind of these generational wealthy families that keep doing and building and growing things still. Well, I, I think that goes back to when I was learning about business. I have a degree in psychology. Right. Um, which really prepared me for nothing and yet prepared me for everything. Yeah. And mine was economics, so basically the same. Yeah. And, and I look at that. I tried to read a lot of books. I, I, I wish. And I encourage college students today to take business classes and accounting classes. Um, I had to learn by the seat of my pants. So I like reading books about Henry Ford, who, and obviously we know what he founded, and Dave Thomas who founded Wendy's and, and Schultz who founded Starbucks and what their thought process was and what they did. And yeah. And I think the thing that I got out of reading all those stories and more was that you just take one step at a time. Yeah. And, and keep, keep focused on faith and family and friends. Awesome. And you're gonna be successful. Yeah. I like it. Reno, this has been a pleasure. Thanks Kurt. I'm about four minutes over our time already and, uh, wanna get you home to those grandchildren? They're home at my house, so they're probably out back fishing. Thank you. And let's, uh, we'll look forward to spending some more time together soon. Thanks. You're a good man. Godspeed. Thank you.