- For people who are passionate about food, or foodies as they're often called, there are published rankings of cities, based on their attractiveness, as foodie destinations.

Although Tampa Bay has a hard time, competing with New York or New Orleans, as a foodie destination, it was recently ranked number 13th, by website WalletHub.

If they were to rank cities, for inspiring popular restaurants, and specialty foods businesses, Tampa Bay would be at the top of the list.

You're about to meet three Tampa Bay entrepreneurs, who've been delighting millions of food lovers in the U S, and around the world.

One of them worked his way through colleges, of busboy, waiter, and bartender.

Fast-forward to today, and he's founder of a global restaurant chains, with over 1400 restaurants.

Another, who also worked his way through college, went on to fund a novel restaurant chain, that used flamboyant marketing, to leverage amazing growth.

Then there's the college football star, whose talents won him a brief shot at Pro Football.

A few years later, he turned his mom's homemade pie recipe, into a multi-million dollar national business success.

You'll meet these three exceptional entrepreneurs next, on the Suncoast Business Forum.

- [Announcer] Suncoast Business Forum brought to you by, the financial services firm of Raymond James, offering personalized wealth management advice, and banking, and capital markets expertise.

All with the commitment, to putting client's financial wellbeing first.

More information is available @raymondjames.com.

(upbeat music) - Running a restaurant is tough.

That's why more than half fail in their first year, and only two in 10, make it past four years.

Over the years, the Suncoast Business Forum, has shared plenty of stories, of those who beat the odds, and beat them big.

We've put together this retrospective, of three restaurant, and specialty food entrepreneurs we've profiled, who combined hard work, creativity, quality, and a touch of luck, in their recipes of success.

First meet Chris Sullivan, a founding partner of Outback Steakhouse, which evolved into a multi restaurant business, Bloomin' Brands.

We profile Chris in 2009.

Early on, he learned how to make the most, out of any situation.

- My dad was a post-World war II Marine, and the FBI was hiring officers, out of the military post-World War II.

And so he joined the FBI, and got transferred up to Indianapolis, had to go to Quantico.

So I started moving around.

But early, we ended up in Detroit for about 12 years, and he got promoted to go to Washington DC.

And I was there, at junior high, and up into my junior year in high school, and he came home from work, and he says, "I've been promoted, and we're going to Butte, Montana."

(laughs) And so, you know, and that was one of those life changing things for me, because I, you know, you grown up, with these group of people, and those amazing teenage years, where everything just went perfect, to all of a sudden you know, and I, to get to go to Montana, it was so different.

But it changed my life, because I probably would've gone, the university of Maryland, instead of university Kentucky.

My dad's a native Kentuckian.

- Now, your introduction to the restaurant business, came while you were in college.

I think you were planning to be a banker.

That's what you were studying, is that right?

- I thought I'd be a banker.

You know, I liked numbers, and I thought this would be pretty good deal, and I was down in Fort Lauderdale.

I was on the six year plan, because we had a large family, four of us in college at one time, and an FBI agent salary that gets a little tough.

So I took responsibility, to pay the last couple of years of my college.

And so I go down to Fort Lauderdale, and started out as a busboy in a restaurant, later being a waiter, made good money down there, and when I was getting ready to graduate from college, I happened to be down there and I thought okay, I think I'm going to live in Florida.

And I started interviewing in banking jobs, in the Fort Lauderdale market, where I was living.

And, I would leave those interviews go on, this is really not a very exciting career to me.

And I knew nothing about investment banking, which, and probably wasn't smart enough.

I was a solid C student at Kentucky.

- [Geoffrey] Now meet Ed Droste, founding partner of Hooter's restaurants.

His roots are in the Midwest.

He grew up in Iowa.

- I grew up Waverley, Iowa, born in 1951, to Ed and Phyllis Droste.

They were the Ozzie and Harriet Nelson.

Really I would say, the Ronald Reagan and Harriet Nelson.

My father has been a major force in my life, and much like in my mind, of a Ronald Reagan type of person.

I learned a character, we were brought up in a Christian family.

I went to Christian Day school, fought with my two sisters, Lyndon, Sally, most of my younger years, and still fight with them over politics, and the religion at times, but I went to Waverley Shaw Hawk high school, and graduated in 73, and then, try to get into college.

- Now you went to college at Iowa state university.

Am I right?

- Yes.

- Were you a good student, or did you work in college?

- What do you think?

(laughs) No, I was industrious.

You know, I just, that whole studying thing didn't really click for me, but I, I worked, I had again two jobs, out of the blocks.

I worked for a student supply store.

I started a waiter at a at a sorority house, to try it out house.

To became headwaiter out of the blocks.

And I went on a job tour to Florida, on spring break, and applied the U S Home Corporation.

Didn't do well in the interview.

So I wrote letters, and just kept hounding them basically to reconsider.

And I finally got the offer.

I think it helped that I offered to work for less, than what the job was offering.

And, got the job, and I started with U S Home Corporation.

Their port builders division, was the high rises that were being built, all along in the beaches here.

And I got to, a head up the management company, after they were completed and sold out, and became a young vice president of U S Home then, and it sounds glorious.

I had staff working for me, which was great, but I was really pretty much getting yelled at, by a lot of retirees, and people from up North, that didn't want their buildings to leak.

- [Geoffrey] Mike Martin, is founder and owner of Mike's Pies.

A multi-million dollar specialty food company.

Although he's a successful entrepreneur today, he struggled as a student when he was young.

- I was ADHD before they knew what that was.

So you can only imagine what kind of student I was.

I was all over the place.

- [Geoffrey] You struggled?

- I was.

- [Geoffrey] Yeah.

- And I found out as I got older in life, that I'm a visual learner, not an audio learner.

And I had very few teachers visually teaching me anything.

But when I played sports, I think that's why I excelled because, everything on the playing field is visual.

You know, run here.

You know, run over there, hit that guy.

And so that was real simple for me to comprehend.

And so, you know, I graduated, I wasn't a straight a student.

- So after college you got drafted by the NFL.

- I did, I was Chicago's fifth pick, in the 78 draft with Earl Campbell.

And I like to point out, that the second player taken in the draft, was our defensive end guy named Mart Still.

I, had a very frustrating, you know, two years in the league, I never got an opportunity to show what I could do.

You know Buddy Ryan was the defense coordinator, and linebacker coach.

And he's like, "Well relax just let the veterans play themselves, out of position."

I never got to play, and then they released me, and New England picked me up, 'cause they had a bunch of linebackers hurt.

And then the following year, they... You know, we show up for camp, and the number one draft pick, for New England that year, was a linebacker on a Notre Dame named Bob Golick, which, you know, if anybody is in the sports, they remember that name.

And plus all their other linebackers were back healthy.

So, I lived in Sarasota that time.

They told me when I come back Tampa want to talk to me, and that's when Tampa was, 0-28, I think it was, or 26.

And I was done.

- [Geoffrey] These entrepreneurs all learned, that they needed to jump right in, to start their own businesses.

Ed Droste, formed a partnership, with five friends and colleagues, to open their first Hooters restaurant, in Clearwater, Florida in 1983.

- We were clueless.

In fact, I had to call a buddy of mine, who owns some chick, a chick an unlimited stand, to show us how to light the fryers.

We just wanted to open a place, we couldn't get kicked out of.

We did the numbers, and figure out our own expense accounts, would probably get us to a break even point.

And I think, at looking back, probably what we didn't know protected us.

When we signed on this joint, there had been five different things that had failed.

And I swear two cockroaches co-signed on the note, because it was a dump when we first got it.

- [Geoffrey] Chris Sullivan learned the ropes, working two decades for restaurant companies.

Before starting Outback Steakhouse, he explored other options.

- I said you know what, yeah this would be an absolutely a blast.

I'm 30, you know, 39 years old.

You know, I think, I think I'll go look at something else.

And, I'm so smart I turned down Blockbuster Video.

I didn't think it was a very good idea in 1987.

Bob and I had a chance, to do something with the guys from Hooters, that didn't quite work out.

Looked at a couple other ideas of the end of the day, we thought casual steak was not being done very well.

Fortunately, Tim Gannon, who had worked with us in the steak in our business, had been very involved, with some restaurants down in Louisiana, was available.

We needed somebody to bring the food side to the business.

And then Trudy Cooper had been with us at Bennigan's, of wonderful, wonderful lady.

Tremendous with people and training.

She was available.

So, the team got together, and she had helped us (indistinct), and formed the team, and started building Outback.

- [Geoffrey] Mike Martin began making his favorite pies, when he wasn't able to get them from his mom.

- I think it's pretty weird, if I look back on, you know, I was 27 when I got tired, of waiting for mom to make cherry pie, which when we were kids we fought.

The five kids would physically fight.

Like I punched my older brother, I'm sorry, Paul.

But he wouldn't let me have cherry pie.

But so I got tired of waiting for them to make it.

And I went over one holiday, and she taught me how to make it.

So here I am, 27, living on the beach in Clearwater, single, you know, making pies.

But it was just the cherry pie.

That's all I wanted.

I didn't care about any other pie but, after Galen and I got married, we started giving pies away to the neighbors.

Plus I was learning how to make them for the family, like the apple pie, the pecan pie, the pumpkin pie.

Every time we gave a pie out, everybody's like, "Oh you should sell these."

And finally, you know, the light came on, and I'm like, hey, I can be the the maker and the seller of the pies.

And so that seemed like a good, a good idea.

So in 92, three weeks before our third child was born, I started to do business.

I envisioned opening up a bunch of little coffee, or pie stores all around the country.

I opened up on South MacDill on a 700 square foot facility, and after two days of nobody coming in, I'm like the heck with that, I'm going to go sell some.

So, I locked the door, and went out and started calling on restaurants.

- [Geoffrey] Turning a fledgling business, into an international success, requires tenacity, and a passionate desire to succeed.

In the early days, Ed Droste, realized their fledgling Hooter's restaurant, needed to stand out from the rest.

- So I started doing things like I rented a chicken costume, and did the thing out in the traffic, in LA getting the hit trying to drive traffic in.

A boat sunk off of a Courtney Campbell Causeway.

And I saw a big opportunity there, swam out with a orange paint, and put painted Hooters on the side of it, and the next morning all the newspapers have covered it.

And we got notoriety, and people starting well, "Where is this joint?"

That's Hooters, and the name really didn't have much of a connotation then.

And so we got some mileage out of that.

And then there was some controversy, that maybe we should pay, for pulling our boat out of the water.

We had to convince him it wasn't our boat.

And so that worked a little while.

And I swam in, on Clearwater Beach, at a Jose Cuervo bikini contest, and promised my partners, I would hire the girl that won it.

So I put my business cards in a plastic bag, went up looking just like some, you know, deviant person, to offer to this gorgeous young blonde girl, an offer to work in this yet to be open restaurant.

And, you know, a couple of weeks later she called me back, and said that she needed, she wanted to come and work, 'cause she is willing to be in the bikini contest, and needed time so- - [Geoffrey] And this person was?

- Lynn Austin.

- Right.

- And she has done just a, a theme of a restaurants, at the very beginning and still is.

And then it didn't hurt, that also a little bit before that, we'd done a big charity event.

The week before a Superbowl coming to town, the Redskins were playing the Raiders, and John Riggins, the star for the Redskins at that time, stumbled into our restaurant, and lived in it every day.

In fact, the Saturday before Superbowl, Howard Cosell was on the TV, announcing that he had skipped practice, and he was sitting there eating oysters, good oysters.

We wouldn't want it, bad ones.

And, and so we got all that notoriety, and then he brought the whole team in after the game, after the Superbowl game, and that got re well reported.

And the traction took off then.

We went from, you know, trickle business, to filling up, to two hour waits, in the parking lot to get in, pretty much every night.

But I think we're at about 438 units worldwide.

We're in 44 States and 28 countries.

Beijing, Johannesburg, South Africa, Australia, everywhere.

- [Geoffrey] Mike Martin, went full sprint, seeking his own piece of the pie.

He began to find success at every turn.

- I really didn't know what I was doing.

I mean, I, you know, everybody, you know, they're like, "Oh is this everything you imagined it would be?"

It's like, no, it's nothing.

Every day it's turns into something else I didn't imagine.

You know, I didn't imagine making 600,000 pies pies a year.

I just did the math while back, where we're somewhere in the course of our lifespan, we've sold, you know, close to $70 million worth of pies, and that is just staggering to me.

- But you got lucky, you had a break, you had somebody who kind of took you under the wing, and said, "Let me show you how to do this."

Business-wise - Yup, yup.

We got that break (indistinct).

I wanna say it was six years in, seven years in.

We were at a podium this guy was the president, of the Cisco Distributor in Bradenton.

And he was at the party too.

And he was, he took a liking to us, and we're still doing business with him.

Now, he's now the president, of one of the third largest distributor United States.

What I thought was gonna be the big breakthrough, was once I got into distributors, they would sell, and my efforts will be multiplied.

And the reality how it is, you know, they have so much to sell.

They have book of thousands of items to sell.

And so, you know, our market strategy was, you know, treat the distributor, you know, with respect obviously, but treat them as a delivery service.

And we go out there and get the business, and anything they add to the pie, is gravy.

- How have you developed management skills, and how have you built a team?

- Well, that's the key to the whole super Mike's pies.

It's our management team.

I've got fella that works with me Courtney, he's been with me for, I want to say 22 out of 27 years.

And Mary who's been with me 21 out of 27 years.

And then my two kitchen managers, Chase and Tyrone, they've been with me for, well Tyrone he was like, you know, the second person I ever hired.

That to me is like the most important piece of the puzzle, because it's one thing to make a quality product, it's another thing to make it a quality consistent product.

- [Geoffrey] Chris Sullivan and his partners brainstormed, a new concept for a Steakhouse, and found instant success.

- Australia was hot, you know, crocodile Dundee the America's cup, getting ready to go on over there.

And, it's the number one place Americans wanna go, out of the country on vacation in 1988, when we did some work on it.

So we said, you know, this is going to be a fun connection.

We could make a casual, make it fun, and do a Steakhouse.

And so it was really as simple as that, it was easy to remember.

The name Outback was easy to remember.

And by Bob Ashton talks about conjuring up an image, and with the, you know, success of The Crocodile Dundee series, a lot of Americans now were, more than ever excited about looking at Australia, and it just worked.

It connected.

The consumer got it.

So it was fun.

- In developing these restaurants, you put together a unique managing partner concept, where the folks who are actually, running the individual restaurants, had an opportunity to be your partner in the business.

- Everybody that's ever in the restaurant business, wants to own their restaurant.

I mean, that's their dream.

I mean, that was my dream.

When I first got into it, I thought I'd learn how to run a restaurant, eventually get some capital together, and open up my own restaurant.

And we decided that we wanted people to act like owners, in these restaurants.

And in order to do that, you had to give them an opportunity to own a piece of it.

And nobody had ever really, asked somebody to put $25,000 down, to have an opportunity, to get 10% of the cashflow of the restaurant.

And for a lot of younger people who typically, that's who we were doing business with.

People in their early thirties, young families, to come up with $25,000, said something about their character, said something about their ability, to manage their own financial resources.

And so we put that down, made no exceptions.

And in order to be a partner in Outback Steakhouse, you had to come with $25,000, sign a five-year contract, which had never been done in the business.

And it really became a great recruiting tool for us, and people just really great people, came to us, who want to be our partners.

- I imagine it really had an influence, on who became a manager at Outback.

- We got really fortunate to get tremendous people, and it really built the business.

It allowed us to grow a lot faster, than I think we ever could have grown, because of the caliber of people we were able to attract.

- [Geoffrey] These entrepreneurs, found their secret sauce, was marketing and teamwork.

- We went out and got involved with radio stations, and promotions.

We sent Hooters girls to charity events, which they, in almost every case, they took them up a notch, because the energy level, and we were very tasteful in, if it was a more of a kid soccer thing, they were in the hostess outfits you know.

We weren't trying to shove our brand, on those neighborhoods, but we had radio shows of our own, before people did that.

We were in... We did charity auctions, and we really just got out there, and got our brand in for the public.

And a by-product of that was, we got really partnerships, with our communities, and they got basically invested, in the success of our product.

- You know, in the restaurant business, and in life, people hate can't and no.

And one of the messages we wanted to get, not only to our customers, but also to all the people working in the Outback system, is that no rules were met that, you know, getting to yes with people.

You know, absolutely if somebody asks you something, let's do everything we possibly can to make that right.

And so no rule is just right.

And when you think of Australia, and we're branding Outback with the Australia connection, that's kind of the attitude you get, when you think about the Aussies, and it's fabulous.

And you play a game, you kind of think of the Aussies playing games, with no rules.

And so we wanted that attitude.

- You know, at Mike's Pies, we're up to like 70 something employees.

And, and there there's no I.

You know, nobody is...

I don't say I, so nobody else is gonna say I at at Mike's pies, because it's a team format.

And everybody is part of the the one objective, is to get a quality product out the door, consistent quality product out the door.

And so, I think that teamwork thing, helps me as a manager because, you know, I had coaches yelling at me, that doesn't work.

But when, you know, they motivate you, and treat you with respect, I'll respond to that.

- [Geoffrey] And giving back is all part of the equation.

- Well, we believe, you need to get out of your communities and participate.

There's people out there doing wonderful things, volunteering their time.

And one of the things we can do, is help them do that.

Help them raise money, help them do something better.

And it's, we also feel a responsibility, to help young people understand what it's like to give, and get involved, in helping their communities.

And a lot of school systems get involved with that, and start that, we try to build up on that, and show them how this is how you become a good citizen.

And we all know the power of giving, is much stronger than receiving anything.

And so we, it's amazing how that's embraced, by the people in all our restaurants.

They love doing it.

- If you're gonna claim to be a neighborhood restaurant, like we did, you have to be involved in the neighborhood.

Out of the blocks, I think the first event we did, we raised money for multiple sclerosis, which then became the basis, of a huge tournament up in Jacksonville, that raised hundreds of thousands of dollars.

And we found that in that community give and take again, we were bonding with our neighborhood.

They were investing in our brand.

It was really a business building entity, as well as a giving back.

And that platform of our exposure, has allowed me, and my partners in the system, to do so much for communities, for juvenile diabetes, cancer nationwide.

I chair the Moffitt Cancer Foundation, which is so rewarding, in not only the research it's done, but neighbors and friends and loved ones.

My family, my own family that have been touched, or lives saved by that.

And the ultimate, in this charitable, is my partner in the charity stuff.

And that's my wife, Marsha, who is the blessing of my life.

Hooters brought her to me.

She was a star of our calendar, that I voted against two years in a row, before I knew her.

She was a trainer, and she she is my partner, in all of this philanthropy.

She's got a great heart, and she's just amazing person.

We explore our Christian faith together.

We explore our friendships together, and hopefully for eternity, but I have to say all of that emerged, from a great little brand, with a chicken wing.

- [Geoffrey] We asked all three entrepreneurs, about their secret of success.

- I think that perseverance, passion, and probably performance.

You know, we can't get in these all big organizations.

They can get political at times.

And I tell my counterparts, just stay performance trumps all that.

The guy who did GoDaddy said, "When you love something it you all of its secrets."

And whether you're in computers or whatever, if you love doing it, and it'll get you through.

That love of a brand and understanding of it, and knowing all those secrets, will get you all kinds of economics ups and downs.

- Don't listen to the naysayers.

And and two, surround yourself with a core.

You gotta, you can't do it all yourself.

And if you can't delegate, you're not gonna make it either.

And so, you know, the good fortune that I've received, you know, it's on our building, you know built.

Business Built By The Grace of God.

It sounds like a cliche, but it's a fact.

- Well, it takes passion, and hard hard work, and finding the right group of people, to offset the things you really are very good at.

And there's a lot of that in my book.

So I've been, you know, very fortunate to have a bunch of partners over the years, that have done a tremendous job for us.

You know, having a vision is very, very important, but getting people to share your vision, and be as passionate about it, as the group of us, were passionate about Outback Steakhouses, Johnny and Damian were about Carrabba's.

So that to me, and staying focused, on what you're trying to accomplish, and then be quick enough, to have to evolve or change, as conditions set forth, and be willing to take the risk.

I mean, playing a game, you gotta take some risks, right?

And we love that.

Don't put it to where, don't put the risk out so far, that it can cause you to collapse, which we almost did once.

And fortunately, we were able to reel it in, and that all worked out.

But I just, I think that the success of this country, is driven by people that make businesses successful.

And I think in the Tampa Bay community, we have a lot of very positive entrepreneurial efforts here, a lot of successes here.

And I think that's how it works.

And I, we're fortunate, that we are able to see that, so many times.

And that game's not over, that game will continue.

- That's right.

The game is not over.

Entrepreneurism, in Tampa Bay is on the rise.

In recent years, we've seen more resources dedicated, to growing the entrepreneurial ecosystem.

As Chris Sullivan, Ed Droste, and Mike Martin have proven, Tampa Bay is a vibrant business community, for determined entrepreneurs.

If you'd like to see this program again, or any of the profiles, in our Suncoast Business Forum archive, you can find them on the web, at wedu.org/sbf.

Thanks for joining us, for the Suncoast Business Forum.

(upbeat music)