Meet Joe Schubert | Restaurateur/Firefighter

We had the good fortune of connecting with Joe Schubert and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Joe, what was your thought process behind starting your own business?
My thought process for starting my own business revolved around my love for food, my love to make people happy, and my desire to get out of the corporate world. Let’s start with the first part of this. I absolutely love making food. I love developing new recipes, and I love creating something from scratch. I’m passionate about it and it fuels my desire to learn more about cultures. I’m inspired by so many different types of food and want to include that inspiration to my dishes. Next, I love to make people happy. My ultimate goal is to make food people remember. There’s been many restaurants I’ve been to over the years that I remember being the best steak or fajitas or burger I’ve ever had. That’s what I want to do. I want people to come to our restaurant and remember it. Finally, stepping out of the corporate world was a major factor for me. At the end of the day these businesses you work for only care about making more money for their shareholders, CEO’s or owners. We work with these people and spend most of our day with our co-workers but they really don’t care about you when it comes down to it. If the company doesn’t do well and they think they could be more successful with another employee they will make a change. There’s no loyalty there. And it’s not really about loyalty, its about the amount of effort and dedication you put into your job but you’re just a widget.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
I’ve worked in many different industries over that last 25 years. I started in the hospitality industry as a hotel manager. Working in the hotel industry I was exposed to a lot of aspects of the business industry. From budgeting, marketing, sales, and customer service I oversaw the entire operations at the hotel. After leaving the hospitality industry I started working in sales. I was good at sales and made great money but I figured out that I’m not motivated by money. And finally most recently I jumped into our current restaurant business as well as became certified as a firefighter. It’s been in interesting journey but I’m finally doing 2 things I love and have wanted to do for years. I’m passionate about both and I think there is some correlation with wanting to help people and wanting to make people happy with food. As part of our mission we donate to local firehouses. We aren’t just a restaurant company we are a compassionate company. From paying living wages to donations we want to be more then just a restaurant. We want to be the types of employers that truly cares about our employees. As we’ve gone through this process we have foregone paying ourselves so we can pay our employees. Building that employee camaraderie is important to us.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
If my friend was visiting I’d love to take them to a concert at Red Rocks, or down to Castle Rock to enjoy all of the little breweries and non-chain restaurants like Castle Cafe, or Pegasus besides our restaurants of course. We would probably take a quick trip to the mountains and hit up Deli Belly in Frisco. Then we would hit up Vail for a fun summer market that they have. We used to take our daughter and her cousins up to Vail every summer and always had the best time. There isn’t a shortage of fun things to do in the colorado mountains. Finally our trip would end with a ATV ride outside of Divide CO.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
For this restaurant journey my business partner Taylor Lhuillier has been an integral part of this story. From the hours we put in to the dedication to the brand Taylor has worked hard to help us grow this passion. We started with a food truck (Wing Daddy’s) and now we have a small BBQ joint (BBQ Daddy’s) located in Crazy Mountain Brewery. Our goal is to grow the Daddy brand and build a loyal following. The people that know us knows how hard we work and how enthusiastic we are about both brands.

Also, we couldn’t have done this without my wife, Traci Schubert. From the design concept, to the website, to marketing, she’s been the driving force behind it.

Website: www.bbqdaddysco.com and www.wingdaddysco.com

Instagram: @bbqdaddysco, @wingdaddysco

Facebook: @bbqdaddysco, @wingdaddysco

Image Credits
Credit – Joe Schubert