“Back to Basics” with Rachael Nemeth
Back to Basics podcast cuts through the noise to focus on what matters in hospitality. Join Rachael Nemeth, CEO of Opus Training, as she talks with service industry leaders who are shaping today's workforce.
“Back to Basics” with Rachael Nemeth
EP6: Scaling a Franchise Through People Development and Purpose
In this episode, we sit down with Blake Buchanan, Founder and CEO of Bahama Buck’s—a 100+ unit Midwest-based franchise known for its tropical shaved ice and culture-first approach. Blake started the business as a college student in a 240-square-foot snow shack, and by store #2, he was already franchising—a bold move that sparked what’s now a 35+ year legacy.
Blake shares how Bahama Buck’s has sustained growth by investing in people development over product hype. From hiring in competitive cities like Austin and Phoenix to building a leadership pipeline from within, he walks us through the systems that keep their culture strong across every location.
This conversation is a rare deep dive into how a long-running family business has created lasting values, governance structures, and innovation without losing its identity. Blake opens up about everything from establishing transparent pay bands and offering family-first benefits to the unexpected leadership lesson he learned from his 13-year-old son.
Chapters
00:00
The Journey of Bahama Bucks
11:26
Core Principles and Values
15:13
Creating Mini Vacations for Guests
19:51
Innovation and Adaptation in Business
23:18
The Heartbreak of Flavor Rotation
24:24
Unlocking Leadership Potential
26:55
Empowering Others for Growth
28:22
Authenticity in Mission and Values
30:18
The Role of Feedback in Leadership
32:40
Learning from Family and Mentors
34:15
Navigating Family Dynamics in Business
37:25
The Importance of Family in Business
39:23
Lightning Round: Quickfire Questions
About Us
Opus is the hospitality training platform purpose-built for the frontline. Train 100% of your team in 101 languages on the job to quickly get them up the productivity curve. With full visibility across your workforce, you get the frontline business intelligence needed to drive your business.
Have an idea or experience you'd like to share? Keep the conversation going with us on LinkedIn!
Today on Back to Basics, we're diving into what it really takes to build and sustain a thriving franchise organization. I really couldn't think of a better person to guide us through this than Blake Buchanan, founder and CEO of Bahama Bucks. Blake started this business as a college student. He's grown it into a very successful franchise while keeping family at its core. I can really testify to that. And his wife Kippy is serving as COO. So he's known for creating a franchise culture that maintains this authentic set of values, even through this very significant expansion, which I want to talk about. Blake, I'm so, so excited that you're on Back to Basics with us today. Welcome.
Blake Buchanan:Well, thank you, Rachael, and you're very kind to host me today. So I'm thrilled to dive in and uh just excited to be part of your podcast.
Rachael Nemeth:I just want everybody to hear a bit more about you and kind of how you you didn't really did you stumble upon Bahama Bucks? Was it a dream one night and it came true? I'm curious what the real story is.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, it's funny because founders all have stories and they're they're usually colorful and different and you know, full of just wildness. And ours is a little different because you know, I started Bahama Bucks as a college student. So I'm a sophomore at Texas Tech and had this idea of man, wouldn't it be cool to do this snow shack in Lubbock, Texas? Now, prior to that, I've been mowing lawns since I was like in junior high and running businesses. So we, by the time we're in college, you know, my brother and I have a full-scale lawn business and we're running trucks and trailers and crews and all that. So it wasn't my first business. So I kind of knew the ins and outs of business, but I had no idea. This was going to be a summer fling, just a neat, fun job to get out of the heat, build this tiny snow shack, throw some flavors out there, and have a good time.
Rachael Nemeth:What was really the spark? What was the moment where you thought, well, this could be more than just a summer gig or a summer venture?
Speaker 1:You know, I think two things. Number one, it started making a little bit of money. Okay, so you're a starving college student, and you're like, oh wow, it could work, right? Now I've lost plenty of money too, so I, you know, I don't want to give early indications of great success. But the other thing is I had graduated with a finance degree. Uh, I moved to Phoenix at that time. I'm a stock broker, and I still had Bahama Bucks going, but I'm smiling and dialing on the phone and trying to sell stocks and bonds and all that good stuff. And meanwhile, I'm in beautiful Phoenix in January, and the weather is fantastic. And I'm just sitting here thinking, oh my gosh, what if I did a Bahama Bucks out here? And part of it was I hated being a stockbroker. You know, you thought you worked your whole career to kind of try a Wall Street thing, and you just realized it's great, it's fun and neat job. But at that time it just wasn't for me. So I had this adventurous spirit to say, man, let me go out and open a second location. And that's really what started us on the journey. It'd only been in business two years, and we had this brilliant idea to franchise. You know, it's probably the absolute worst thing you can do as a 22-year-old because you just don't know what you're doing. So that was really the kickstart of Bahama Bucks at the time, it was just this innovative idea, get into a job I really didn't like. Bahama Bucks was uh showing signs of success, and I thought, man, I'll just try this for a little while. It was in no way ever meant to be this lifelong career.
Rachael Nemeth:It's so magical though when things like that come together, and here you are. I want to come back to what you were talking about where I didn't know this, where at location number two you were thinking about franchising. Maybe just for listeners, can you just describe basic business model here and then what percentage are franchised today? And then walk me through what was going on in your head when you thought, all right, two locations, let's make it, you know, 200 one day.
Speaker 1:Well, you know, what I always remind people about innovators, which I I tend to be and things like that, is you're you're always looking for the next, the next big idea. And that was really such a creative outlet for us. And part of the franchising, especially with Eric and myself and Kippy at that time, we didn't have anything to lose. I mean, you could fit everything I owned in the back of a pickup. In fact, we did. So you talk about taking risk, and oh, I put it all on the table, and we did that. We just didn't have anything to lose. So we thought, well, we think we're smart enough, you know, at the time, as young people do, and you're just thinking, man, this is so good, we should have other people do it with us. As we're doing this, kind of put a model together that other people could follow, and then put the franchise documents and all of those things together. And so that's really what we started. And I know, you know, I laugh at that because a year later we're gonna sell a franchise, uh, we're gonna get a guy open. They're still with us today. We have our original franchisee, they're on third generation. We've been doing this now for this, it'll be our 35th year. And so the the model would work, but we just we just didn't have support like we needed it. And so we we really are going to try great things, learn a lesson, try great things, learn a lesson, and that was our model. Instead of stopping, thinking, and then moving forward, we just dove headfirst into it. And that's really how we started, you know, it was just uh a little bit of innovation and a lot of creativity. And, you know, thankfully I partnered with people that are super hard workers. We we just don't mind doing the work. More grit and spit behind it than anything.
Rachael Nemeth:Well, isn't that how it usually ends up being, despite, you know, the best laid plans? You still end up having to iterate and learn as you go, even if you might have the best, most ironed-out plan. The the title of this show is is Back to Basics.
Speaker 1:Certainly.
Rachael Nemeth:I'm curious, especially since you're you said something earlier that really resonated with me that I don't think I've heard any business owner say before when they're talking about franchising, which is we wanted to do it with other people. We wanted to share it with other people. So you obviously have these like core principles, core values that resonate at Bahama Bucks. What other core principles, core operating principles, let's say, have you found yourself constantly returning to over the past 35 years?
Speaker 1:It's really what you're walking out and living out. And being so young, we were setting a culture, an environment that we really didn't have words to yet. And that was kind of neat for us is we didn't say, hey, we're gonna operate with you know honor and integrity and all the we didn't put that path forward. We just saw, okay, when we do this, it didn't work. When when we try to do business this way, oh, that's terrible. We we need to set expectations, we need to manage people, we need to be clear and be kind and all these things that make you know brands a good brand. From the beginning, the first time I ever served a snow, and I love talking about it because when we finally, you know, we constructed the original location by hand in my father's backyard. We haul it to this spot, we set up this 240 square foot snow shack. But the first time somebody walked up, it was this Toyota pickup, a gentleman and his about seven-year-old son hop out. And I'll never forget it. They lay 75 cents on the counter, they order a grape snow, and I make this grape snow for these people. And, you know, it wasn't that I made this snow and the flavor on it was great and all that. It was when I gave it to the kid. When I gave it to the kid, he reaches up, he grabs the snow, and he just goes, and he just smiled. And I'm like, I've been mowing lawns all this time. I never get that reaction out of anybody. And from that moment, that was the hook for me. It was contagious. I love bringing these small moments of joy. We we now know that we call it a mini vacation, okay? We didn't have that language back then, but it's just that spurt of happiness, that just one little reprieve, that refreshing moment that we're able to provide for people. And when I get to extrapolate it all the way back, it was that single moment of serving a grape snow to a small kid who just happened to be delighted when we served him. So I think that's the core of who we are still. You know, we we say, because our vision is to bless our guests, right? Everybody, not everybody knows that, but that that's our vision. Bless our guests by creating the ultimate tropical dessert experience. But it was that single moment. Now, the other lesson I learned, because he laid 75 cents down on that countertop. I scooped it up, threw it in the register. I had no idea I was supposed to pay sales tax on that. So there was another lesson in there as well that I learned uh the state of great state of Texas, they want their cut as well as the office. So there were just a plethora of lessons from that small seven-year-old kid that ordered a grape snow. So back to the basics. That really was the origins and the heartbeat of who we are now.
Rachael Nemeth:And you can really feel that when you walk into a shop. I'm, you know, I I still remember, because unfortunately, we don't have Bahama Bucks in New York yet.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah. Yeah.
Rachael Nemeth:But um, I remember that feeling in Texas of someone being excited to see me and how excited I was to get the bomb pop and and try it for the first time. You know, that's the experience that you strive for, and that's the the core principle you strive for. Can you share a recent example when you had to remind your team about those basics where you saw a shift in the business or a shift in those core principles and you found yourself having to, you know, bring it back to the surface?
Speaker 1:I think, you know, franchise owners, managers, we we all fight that because we're selfish by nature. I mean, we we want to be the hero of the story. You walk in, hey, we're gonna quench your thirst. We're gonna put so you start thinking you're the hero of the surface or of the serve, and we're really not. We are the guide, we're the guests. We want to dive into your story, figure out what's going on in your life, whether you walk in in a baseball uniform or whatever, and walk it out with you so that we send you on your way and you're able to be the hero of your own story. So we just know we're guiding people through the moments, and it is so easy to forget that. I mean, we're coming into summer. So our full thing about this is don't be transactional. We're talking to our teams all the time. Because one of our core strategies this year is to elevate the guest experience. And one of the things, if you're not careful about it, and I have to remind myself, we have to remind it constantly, is when you're serving hundreds, if not thousands, of people, you become transactional in your served. And that's the last thing we want to be. We want to engage in their eye contact, we want to speak enthusiastically, we want to, you know, share the smile with them and all those things that keep us very grounded that we are here to serve them. And so the hardest thing I think we do in the hospitality world sometimes is see everybody as a human, see everybody as their own story and not let it come transactional. The real grassroots stuff is oh, I can't get crew to look at people in the eye, or they're they're not saying the greeting how we want them to be authentic and those type of things. So, yeah, we we have the same struggles as everybody else in the QSR industry.
Rachael Nemeth:You're finding ways to embed it into your culture, which I think is really commendable. I love the idea of a mini vacation. I hear small moments of joy all the time, but mini vacation is uh is much deeper.
Speaker 1:You know, I I gotta tell you a side story on mini vacation. I didn't even know that term existed. I'd been in business for probably, gosh, nearly 15, 18 years before we coined that term. And we, wife and I, we've raised three sons, all great men, love these guys. But Zyler, who's our oldest, we sent him to a leadership camp one time. And he comes back and we're like, okay, we got to debrief this kid. What did you learn as a 13-year-old? And I'll never forget it. Zyler's a kind of a heavy thinker. He said, You ever thought about why people get so mad when you mess up their product or you mess up a snow or a smoothie or one of those things? You ever thought about when they get it so mad? And I'm like, Yes, because I messed up their product. And this 13-year-old kid looked at me and he's like, Dad, that's not why they get mad at you. He said, They get mad because you messed up their mini vacation. They've waited all day, they've saved, or whatever. They are coming to you for a mini vacation and you screwed it up. And so we started just using that terminology with our franchisees and our franchise family and everybody. We're like, hey, don't forget, people are coming to you for this mini vacation. It's a small reprieve. Guard it, hold it. They're giving you your trust, steward it well.
Rachael Nemeth:And it and it's learning in its purest form. It doesn't matter what the source is, you're just taking it in to make you know the business and people's lives better. Um I want to talk, I want to keep on this vein of the business, and then I want to dive into people development in a little bit. Every brand faces these pressures to evolve. You've been around for a long time. There's all we just talked about core principles, but can you talk about a specific innovation that you've implemented that maybe initially made you nervous about straying too far from your roots? How did it make you how did you make sure that it still felt authentically Bahama Bucks, but knew that you were taking a risk that you might be trying something new?
Speaker 1:You know, our list of failures is so long that, you know, that's kind of why some of these products are so good. It's because we didn't put the failures out there. But, you know, when I think about immediacy, you know, the past five years, you know, when we saw the Asahi bowl trend and some of those things, it really fits the island vibe. So we were able to jump on that. And it was one of those late innovations that you know we never saw in the these are early 2000s and all that. So this has been an emerging product that we're really super excited about, how we've partnered with and some of those things. More importantly, and probably more recently, as of yesterday, was our kind of a historic moment for us, is learning to go outside of the store. Okay, so how are we taking frozen products outside of that? Several years ago, we invented a product called Snow Blast. And it was essentially a scoopable snow product that you could freeze down and eat like you would ice cream, okay, and it would stay frozen. But it had to be shipped and served frozen. Now, when COVID came along, obviously we couldn't ship anymore. We couldn't get what they call a reefer truck, right? We couldn't ship it frozen. So we pivoted in some innovation where now we have an ambient product that stays at room temperature and it's packaged almost like a capri sun, right? It's called snow blast. But you freeze it down and you serve it. And it's a wonderful product. Now it's not, it's not the equal of getting fresh snow in our shops, but that's one of those things where we're like, okay, is this going to be a good move or a bad move? So last year we innovated, we started it as of yesterday, six months ago. We've had equipment made to bring it in-house. We're gonna do all the manufacturing in-house. Oh, yeah, we'll do smaller batches so that we can pivot on flavors and try wacky and wild, uh wild different flavors. And so that's one that's got me nervous just because of the size of the investment. Uh, but we really feel it's a neat step in a new uh direction because it's the only product our franchise family doesn't have to assemble. It's a package, grab it, go, serve it anywhere. And so the franchise family's super excited about it. We're super excited about it, and give us another month and uh you'll see it out on the street and ready to fall.
Rachael Nemeth:Early congrats, that's a big milestone, and what a great example of innovation, but also needing to pivot either because of the environment and you know, needing to make fast decisions or doing what's best for the brand. And I know that all of you are, for lack of a better term, sticklers about flavor. It has to be good, it has to taste great. I'm sure there's been certain people who in the past who thought, why did you get rid of that? But then there's something new that comes around. Yeah. Well, you know, we we've talked about the the core business. I want to talk about leadership. You know, you you brought up Zyler, and I I really want to talk more about how you spot potential leaders within. You know, you have this incredible bench that you've built and so many great voices and brains. I've had the privilege of meeting some of them. I'm curious what specific signals you look for in a future leader at Bahama Bucks.
Speaker 1:You know, I think the biggest leadership lesson that I've learned and that we consistently teach today is this idea that I'm the problem. As a leader, I'm always the problem, but I'm the solution. So we're gonna own it. And I think what unlocks leadership for a lot of people is when they realize their potential to either own the problem and really own it, it unlocks the potential to solve the problem too. And so I think when you look at our bench, it's filled with people that, yeah, they're gritty and they're creative and they have all these different talents. But if you look at the bench we have, it's so eclectic. They all have different skills and talents, but they're all professional problem solvers. You know, that's just one thing in leadership that never goes away. They have to be able to make great decisions and solve problems. And the bigger decisions you can make, the bigger problems you can solve, usually the higher you're gonna move up, really in any company. But leadership, you know, it's so funny, and I learned this, and founders, you know, that puts me in a category, and CEO puts me in a category. But founders specifically, we have to know when to get out of the way. We have to get out of the way. And we've got to let go of things to be able to grow in other areas. And I could give you example after example of example of where I thought I was the best at something, and I absolutely was not, you know, and once I yielded that, once I gave that power and just empowered somebody else to do it, you really allow other people to grow. And I think that's the success. If I look at anything of our company, how we've been able to maintain some loyalty, how we've been able to grow people from Avalanche crew all the way to a director position and beyond, is because we're gonna yield some authority, but we're gonna empower them well, equip them well, and encourage them well.
Rachael Nemeth:The letting go is the hardest part. You know, we um we came up with our company values similarly to you, where we thought, well, let's just let it the company grow and evolve and let our people speak to what those values are. So one of our our values is be an owner. But when we finally sat down and we said, okay, here's the A minus version of the values we want to get. I was so nervous to talk to everybody about be an owner. That was the one value where I thought, not everybody wants to be an owner. But it was so inspiring to hear everyone, no matter what their position or anything, everyone feels a sense of ownership about the work that they do or the company they belong to. And so I can really relate to that feeling of A, being nervous to let go, but also kind of indoctrinating that principle into your people and saying, but I expect you to really feel ownership over this business and our customers as much as I do. When do you think that companies, maybe specifically QSRs, get it wrong, you know, with the the mission, vision values? What's the secret to authenticity? Because not everybody can have the same backstory, right?
Speaker 1:Usually authenticity really, you know, it comes from a someone who cares, right? You care, but you're also accountable. And I think if there's one thing about a leadership style that is attractive to some people, not everybody, but is when you do have a servant leader or someone who's going to walk in empathy or humility and they understand the guest. And I think because I still own stores and because I still work in stores some and I and I talk to the guests and I love feedback, it keeps you humble because you realize, oh my gosh, we can do so much better. There's always that humility factor because you're like, okay, we we can still grow here or whatever. So I think there's an accountability piece that helps with your authenticity, and that makes you a really either approachable CEO, approachable founder, or approachable brand is when you know, okay, you can come to me, we're gonna own it, like you said as well. You know, I'm the problem, all right, but I'm the solution. I'm gonna own it, but we're gonna fix it. But the the feedback is so important to our culture, at least, because it does keep us authentic and it does really raise the accountability that we're gonna listen to the guests. And by the way, that's where we get half our innovation is somebody telling us, hey, here's a better way to do it, or I like this product, or this product, or this isn't working, is just being able to really dial in and listen.
Rachael Nemeth:Yeah, it's the the I'm hearing authenticity or or accountability and also just it's like a willingness to make mistakes, a willingness to fail. Sure. Knowing that it's not all gonna crumble to the ground. If anything, you're gonna rise up even bigger and bolder than you did before.
Speaker 1:Right.
Rachael Nemeth:So I want to talk about you for a minute.
Speaker 1:Oh no.
Rachael Nemeth:Yeah, you so you said you sent Zilard to leadership camp. Um but what's the leadership advice that or or mentor who who really shaped how you develop your people? Who was your inspiration or or what moment was your inspiration?
Speaker 1:You know, I'm I'm a big reader, so I'm always reading, you know, I I love the John Maxwell's and Pat Lincionis and you know, all the books that are out there, the new, the old, the classic stuff. But I'll tell you where I probably caught most of my stuff was probably just watching my father. He he was an entrepreneur as well, and kind of in his own right, and seeing how he navigated certain things. And I was young enough to have when when my father Tom came on with us, he was one of the partners as well. He wasn't an active hands-on guy, he was the guy behind the scenes. So if we had a legal issue, he was that guy, or you had a banking issue. And you could see early on in those years, Eric and I both being mentoring until we could almost take the reins and then start growing. And he was a great wingman, you know, just almost like uh this guy who says, Well, don't take that path, man. Been there, done that. Here's what we want to do here. You know, we're gonna hold the line here or we're not. And I think so. I give a lot of credit to uh my father because you know, he was guiding us, and and we were so young. I mean, we're early 20s starting a business, and you're bringing in people that are much wiser and older as franchisees that have more experience than you. So you've got to learn to adapt pretty quickly. And so I would say the core of that was there. And then just modeling after certain businesses or certain books or things that we've picked up along the way, but not modeling to the extent that you're becoming them, but that you're taking portions of it and making it your own that that fits your culture. And I think just being that flexibility, having that flexibility, but but knowing, okay, core values are here. We're not we're not gonna waver on some of these core values. But being flexible enough in our strategies, like, okay, this makes it our own.
Rachael Nemeth:So but being and why not, you know, we uh in the training world, you know, training leaders are so tight-knit, there's not many of them.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Rachael Nemeth:And and there's always this term around generously stealing from one another.
Speaker 1:Sure.
Rachael Nemeth:Uh especially when it comes to to content and creation. Like you you don't have to reinvent the wheel every time. And so being willing and excited to take inspiration from other brands, but also having somebody kind of like a guardian angel who's sitting there putting up the guardrails and saying, Hey, I'm just not gonna let you venture so far. Exactly. Well said you make mistakes.
Speaker 1:Well said, exactly.
Rachael Nemeth:What are those things on in bowling bumpers?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. And and they're so important, and even today they're important, whether you have a board of directors or you have a spouse or someone speaking into you, or you know, just a good friend or a mentor. Um not just in business, but in life. I mean, it just it works the same way. And just finding those people that walk the path and having them just speak a little wisdom into you goes a long way. It really does.
Rachael Nemeth:Family has been so threaded in this conversation. I know it's it's so essential to to how you run and think about the business, how you think about your guests. I think there there's a question that I've always been wanting to ask you, which is some as somebody who also grew up in a family business, but was on the other side, was on the kids' side, right? Oh yeah. You know, your business has really thrived with with your family at its core. What specific boundaries or practices have you established to really help family members grow professionally while still preserving your relationship?
Speaker 1:But there is a bit of family governance, you know. And part of that is just knowing what it means if you have the last name Buchanan or you've married into our family. And the the thing I always tease about is we do have a fair amount of family here, but we also, there's a lot of family that doesn't work here, right? And that's a blessing too, right? They've got their own path, they've got their own career, you know, and things like that. But one of the things that I've done with my immediate family, especially and extended, so from my father down, I've I've got some, you know, uh a brother that works here, a couple, or actually two brothers work here, and a brother-in-law. Um, one of the things that I started doing, and I found it kind of really uh healthy, I think would be the best word, is twice a year I would host a family business meeting. And we'd just go to dinner. They wouldn't be these all-day sessions or anything. They ended up lasting two to three hours, but I would rent a room somewhere, we would have a nice dinner or whatever. But we just went through the expectations. I'd give a State of the Union, here's where we are, here's some things you need to know. But because they work in different capacities, they're not all, you know, directors or leaders or things. They work in all capacities, and we invited them all in with their spouses. And we would say, here's what it means to be a family business, and here's what it means to be part of this business, here are the expectations, and here's what we're striving to do. And I think bringing them in, setting the expectations, and having them hear from me what my future plans are, where we're taking the company, what my exit strategy may be one day, what my ultimate goals are, and what I see for each of them, and things like that. And then their spouses can voice and talk about it. Probably one of the healthiest things we've done is establish a bit of family governance because it establishes the expectations. We're gonna talk about these things. Blake's not gonna shy away from it. We're gonna ask hard questions, we're gonna get true answers, and we're gonna be transparent along the way. A healthier business family makes a healthier brand. And so I'm I'm I want to be intentional about stewarding those relationships that they don't get out of whack, that people aren't abusive in power, or they just because you have this last name, you can do that. And we put in a lot of guardrails for that.
Rachael Nemeth:Man, you're you're the only thing that's running through my brain right now, just because it was so familiar to me growing up, is it's almost like, and I'm not even speaking about Opus at this point, it's like where did family go in business? Oh, it's true. Yeah. What happened to, you know, take your daughter or son to work day? Something as simple as that, but also something as as it is, you know, getting to know your colleagues' spouses and partners and and families, you know, it just seems to have kind of disappeared a lot from from today's work.
Speaker 1:You know, it's interesting. I heard a gentleman speak uh at a conference, he's from Cornell, and he showed a study that says 73% of all small businesses are run by families. At least two to three members are running. And you can see why. The minute you start something, you're like, hey dad, I need a hand, or hey, brother, I need a hand, or wife, spouse, whatever. And it was, and that was not just in the US, that was global. The study that they did done, it was one of these massive studies where you're just blown away. Where, you know, almost two-thirds of all businesses do have a family element into it. And his point was the same thing. Healthier families make healthier businesses, healthy businesses create healthy families. You demise one or the other, it's hard on each. But at the end of the day, if if somebody's part of this brand, you know, whether they have the last name that we have or not, I mean, we still call everybody around here part of our franchise family or our support center family. And to me, I've worked with a lot of people so long they are my family. So I love that aspect of it. But we still got to do it well.
Rachael Nemeth:All right. Blake, I'm always so inspired, and uh talking to you just makes me wanna, you know, buy 18 snow cones, no not snow cones, noes.
Speaker 1:There you go. There you go.
Rachael Nemeth:And fly out to Texas. Love your brand, love what you're doing. Um, thank you so much for being here. We're gonna end with the ever-famous lightning round.
Speaker 1:Oh no.
Rachael Nemeth:Yeah. Uh get ready. So I think well, I had five questions that you can only answer with one word. I had five, but I think I know the answer to the first one. The first one is what was your first job?
Speaker 1:Oh wow, yeah. Ron here.
Rachael Nemeth:Okay, that's what I thought. Uh all right. Second, what's your go-to comfort food?
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh. Hands down, salty popcorn. I am a popcorn guy. I mean, like every night. I eat popcorn all the time. That is my favorite food.
Rachael Nemeth:So it's pretty healthy. It's alright.
Speaker 1:Is it? Maybe the way you make it, but the way I like it, maybe not so much. But yeah, I love popcorn.
Rachael Nemeth:I know you like to read. What's the last book that you read?
Speaker 1:There's a book out there that I'll just walk through, and it's it's called The Way to Win, but uh fantastic book. Fantastic book on all fronts. And it's written towards, I think it's written toward really towards men and all of that, but it was all aspects, you know, body, mind, spirit, all of it.
Rachael Nemeth:What food trend are you completely over?
Speaker 1:This is gonna sound terrible, but juicing. Oh my god. Kippy had me juicing everything, and we were juicing, juicing, juicing, and uh, there's just a point where okay, I'm done. I'm done, I can't do any more juices.
Rachael Nemeth:This might be my favorite question ever. That the food trend. Every every CEO has a good answer for it. Last question What is the skill that you are working on?
Speaker 1:Right now, I think one of my biggest skills is succession, in that I'm trying to put in a leadership team that goes beyond me. Um, this is my 35th year, but succession for sure is the skill that I don't know as much about that I should, and I'm trying to develop it.
Rachael Nemeth:Wow. Yeah, that's powerful. Um all right, Blake, thank you so much. I'm so appreciative of you. Thanks for joining us to here today on Back to Basics and uh we'll see you soon.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. Thanks, Rachel.
Rachael Nemeth:All right. Thanks, Blake.
Speaker 1:You bet. Bye-bye.
