Sharon Cline: [00:00:07] Coming to you live from the Business RadioX Studio in Woodstock, Georgia. This is fearless formula with Sharon Cline.

Sharon Cline: [00:00:16] And welcome to Fearless Formula on Business Radio X, where we talk about the ups and downs of the business world and offer words of wisdom for business success. I am your host, Sharon Cline. And today on the show, we have the two marine veterans who have opened our restaurant here in Woodstock that has a really extraordinary theme. They are dedicated to the men and women who bravely protect our nation, including first responders. And that is what this restaurant does. Not only is it great food, but the atmosphere is amazing. Please welcome Ralph and Carrie Roeger, who are the owners of Semper Fi, which is now called Rally Point. Rally Point Grille with an E. Awesome. Thank you so much for coming to the show.

Carrie Roeger: [00:01:03] Thank you, thank you.

Carrie Roeger: [00:01:04] We’re excited to be here.

Sharon Cline: [00:01:05] Yay! Well, I’ve been wanting to speak to you because just recently you moved locations from where you were. I think it was in 2015 that you had kind of come up with the idea and concept for Semper Fi, and then just last month moved or the month before just moved to this new location across the street, which is a little bit bigger, a little bit better, you know, like location, more people are passing by. So I’m excited to talk about your journey from how you got started to where you are now. So feel free to let me know. How did you get started in the restaurant industry?

Ralph Roeger : [00:01:39] Well, it started in January of 2015. Uh, Kerry and I were out in Las Vegas, actually, for a builders, uh, what was it, Expo builder event? Yeah, builder event that she was involved with. And while we were out there, we visited a place called the Leatherneck, uh, Club of Vegas. And it too, is strictly a marine bar. And, uh, we walked in there. I think we’re only in there for, like, 15 minutes. And being two Marines, we were like kids in a candy store. And so after about 15 minutes, it just hit us and we looked at each other and went, why not us? How cool would it be if we did something like this back home? Because there was nothing like it. And um, so that was that was when we were inspired to do what we’re doing.

Sharon Cline: [00:02:33] Thank you so much for your service. I meant to say that initially, um, I admire people who do what you do, so thank you. Um, so you’re right. There’s nothing close to that here. So what a great idea to be able to honor not just people who are in Vegas on a big vacation or that’s kind of where they’re located. It’s nice to have something that’s honors just people locally. Your everyday people. You pass by and you don’t even know that that’s part of their story. Um, so 2015, then you went to look for a location for this restaurant, correct?

Carrie Roeger: [00:03:07] Well, we we had quite a journey from 2015 to today to, to include the speed bump of the pandemic. Oh of course. Right. So, you know, one of the things that I, that I just want to do a little shout out for our team was, you know, when the governor shut down the state of Georgia, we had decisions to make, um, shocking decisions to make, you know, and when we talk about challenges, you know, there are things that come from, from outside that we have no idea and we’re not prepared for. But one of the things that we did that was different with a lot than a lot of restaurants in the area, and the reason why we’re in a location where we are today is because that restaurant chose to shut their doors in the pandemic. We chose to continue on. And so we we had to lay off our almost our entire front of house. But we kept the entire back of house busy. And that was because the community rallied around and supported us. And people would call at 11:00 in the morning and say, I want to send $100, over $100 worth of chicken wings over to the police department, and we would take their credit card and run the chicken wings over there. And that pivot in one night was a decision we had to make, a decision what we were going to do. And Ralph and the team, he was running, running the front of house and running the restaurant at the time, and he, he and the team made the the decision that they wanted to make this pivot and stay open. And I mean, it’s it’s like a right angle in our story that we made that decision and that we went through that and survived and not only survived, but our thriving because of it. So, you know, it has been a journey full of ups and downs and ups and cliffs and things like that to get us to December of 2023, where we moved to the new location and actually doubled our footprint. So it’s been fun.

Sharon Cline: [00:04:41] Trying to think of, well, first of all, I just got chills when you were saying how someone asked, you know, can we please deliver these wings to you? Because that actually didn’t even enter my mind. So many people were thinking, you know, I just want to have something different. I just want to eat out like I normally do and I can’t. But to think someone was so thoughtful and kind to honor the people. Well, who didn’t have a lot of choices in that way, and it happened numerous times.

Carrie Roeger: [00:05:05] My gosh, we sent food to numerous medical locations as well. Ers, you know, anywhere the first responders were out working, people would call and ask us to send food to them.

Sharon Cline: [00:05:14] I love it because it’s a win win. It is fire.

Ralph Roeger : [00:05:16] Departments right next door.

Sharon Cline: [00:05:18] Just amazing. I mean, it’s so thoughtful and kind. And that just speaks to the kind of people who tend to support and are part of military and first responder communities, which is so, um, moving to me, you know, because it’s like, uh, trying to love on people in the midst of a very, very difficult period in our now history. Right. Um, so had you when you decided to open a restaurant, did you have any experience in the restaurant industry? No, we started laughing.

Ralph Roeger : [00:05:47] So that that visit in Vegas was in January and February. We were pinching ourselves, wondering, did we really think of doing something crazy like that because of our vast knowledge of the restaurant industry, which was zero. Um, and then February, February, uh, know March became how can we do it? Uh, April, we started putting the pieces together on June 19th, we took that building over, um, and on August 9th we opened our doors and never looked back.

Sharon Cline: [00:06:17] Did you initially have the memorabilia or was that that’s on your walls? Did that just come over time? Because one of the cool things about your restaurant is that it’s it’s like a museum. It is. And it’s it’s sacred to its histories of families. And I’ve been there. And so it’s just really amazing to walk in and, and feel just the honor that you all have given these people who have dedicated their lives to helping defend our country. What was that like collecting the different pieces that you had have?

Ralph Roeger : [00:06:52] It was amazing. I mean, people would just start bringing stuff and, you know, we of course they would ask. Of course we encouraged them. And, um, every everything that’s in that restaurant, with the exception of just a few of our personal items, was all donated by our local veterans and their families. And, um. So for them to to bring it in, you know, and, and when they’re bringing you in something and, and they’ve got that tear in their eye that, you know, this is my sibling or this was my, my dad or husband, whatever the case is. Um, it’s an honor for us to take whatever it is they want to donate and put it up on the wall so that future visits, you know, they bring friends and family in. They can, you know, resort back to that photograph and say that. Yeah, that was, you know, whoever. It’s so.

Sharon Cline: [00:07:47] Sweet. It’s local. It’s local people. It’s not everywhere. And like, flags and those photos, I mean, there’s nothing like seeing a photo of your family member right there in their uniforms. Um, I was thinking about how. What a what a wonderful space for someone who is has been in the military and can come and have camaraderie right around them. What what is that like for you to witness to?

Carrie Roeger: [00:08:15] You know, it is it’s it’s probably one of the most rewarding things that we see. Um, you know, I like to tell people that I’ve got the magic key. I know how to make grown men cry. Oh.

Sharon Cline: [00:08:25] Oh, geez. It’s.

Carrie Roeger: [00:08:27] I mean, it’s just so delightful. Is it? We’ll talk to family members. And, you know, he may have been in the service at some time, and I’ll take one of them off to the side and say, give me a picture of him in service. Just bring it in. One day we’ll put it up on the wall. We’ll let you know when it’s there, and then you can bring him back and surprise him. And just the delight, um, the emotion that you see, whether we do it that way or not. But that way is really fun when you get to see them kind of wandering through the restaurant and all of a sudden they stop and they stop and they look and they look twice, and all of a sudden they’re just overwhelmed with emotion as as we’re watching it and we’re watching their family have a place in a way to honor their service. It’s just a lot of fun.

Sharon Cline: [00:09:07] Have you noticed? Really? They’re really. There’s just nothing quite like that experience. There’s nothing I can think of in this town, even close to this town that has that same honor and reverence, um, that you provide for people.

Carrie Roeger: [00:09:19] Right? That’s what makes us special and important in this town. And that’s the entire concept that we’ve built as we move forward. We’re actually franchising. We have a franchise over in Evans, Georgia. I saw that which.

Sharon Cline: [00:09:31] Got two locations, which is.

Carrie Roeger: [00:09:33] Outside of Augusta, which is now Fort Eisenhower. Oh, wow. Changing names. Um, so that’s the magic in what we do. And that’s the importance that we understand that we’ve created to be able to now duplicate this and, and create places like this all across the country, because every town and every city and every community needs this.

Sharon Cline: [00:09:53] Can you even believe that you started this movement? Do you ever kind of take a moment and just go, wow, I had no idea what I was providing for. We’re still.

Ralph Roeger : [00:10:01] Pinching ourselves.

Carrie Roeger: [00:10:02] You know, I think for me, it really hit me right around the time of Covid, right when the governor opened the state back up again. I had actually been running a different company at the time that we were running the restaurant as well, so I wasn’t there a lot. Wow. But then all of that changed through Covid, and I happened to be there when we opened back up, even though it was only 50% capacity. And that’s when it really hit me. And I really understood what we did, because I stood there and I watched veterans walk in the door and I watched them physically change. Oh, wow. They stood up a little taller. They walked with their chin a little higher, and I just kept watching that. And I’m like, what? What is going on here? And you know, then in having conversations with them, we started to really be able to pinpoint the emotions that swirl around what we offer. And that was that was when it really hit me that I finally understood what we really created in this community. Um.

Sharon Cline: [00:10:55] It’s fascinating to me. Feel free.

Ralph Roeger : [00:10:58] Well, the, uh, just a couple of days ago, I think it was Friday. We had a group in, um, they were from one of the churches here locally, and the pastor of the church was with them, and he spent a lot of time talking with me, and and it was asking me certain things about, you know, how we change people’s lives and whatnot. And, um, and I told them a story of Patrick and Doc, and, um, I still get emotional when I, when I talk about that. And I told him, he says me, he goes, I can tell by the look in your eye how how passionate you are about what you do. He goes, this isn’t just a restaurant. He goes, this is a ministry.

Sharon Cline: [00:11:43] Oh my goodness gracious.

Carrie Roeger: [00:11:44] Yeah. We had we had a gal, um, talk to Ralph a couple weeks ago who admitted that she was alive today. Because we’re here. Yeah. And that’s always the most powerful ones. And, you know, after he was relaying the story to me, we kind of sat and thought through it and talked about it. In an eight year period of time, we can probably count about ten people who have come back and admitted to us that they are alive today because we’re here, and the thing that him and I look at is not just those ten, but how many more who just haven’t come and said anything, you know? So to have a place of refuge that really can rescue somebody just because we’re here and just because we’re glad to see you, and because we’ve put your pictures on the wall to give you a chance to have another, another fight for another day, it just it’s humbling. It’s really humbling. Um.

Sharon Cline: [00:12:37] I think it’s so fascinating how much. And please correct me if I’m wrong. I haven’t been in the military, but there’s so much of it. Seems like you just you, you do what you have to do and you don’t have. You can’t think about what you’re feeling. Right? But then what you are offering is people a place to process, to reflect, to share. I imagine walking in because I was there before you moved, and at the bar there were just. So many people sitting and just they never even knew each other, but they shared, they were sharing. And I was eavesdropping a little, but I thought, wow, that there are just only a select group of people that can really get what you’ve gone through.

Carrie Roeger: [00:13:19] Yeah, it’s important because a veteran is the only one who understands a veteran’s story. And I mean, for for us, we’re so excited now that the bar is four times the size it’s about it’s about four times.

Sharon Cline: [00:13:30] It was packed when I was there. It was like a Thursday. It was no special anything. But I was like, okay, we’ll wait. Right. It was amazing.

Carrie Roeger: [00:13:36] So we see a lot of those connections now in the new location as well. And, and, you know, the thing about it is, is like sometimes people don’t want to come into an environment and have an alcoholic drink. And so we’ve we’ve done a whole series of mocktails just to address that, because there are a lot of veterans who maybe have tangled with alcohol and don’t want to do it again, but they’re still looking for that place in that sense of community. They can come in, they can have a nonalcoholic, they look great. And you again, you feel like you fit in, you feel like you belong and just hang out and have those conversations with people at the bar or in a booth or whatever the case may be.

Sharon Cline: [00:14:11] Was that something you realized initially that that you would have an aspect that you, that traditional restaurants aren’t even thinking about.

Carrie Roeger: [00:14:18] Which is that.

Sharon Cline: [00:14:19] The, the non alcoholic, um, options because that’s so smart.

Carrie Roeger: [00:14:23] Um, I think that was something we did.

Ralph Roeger : [00:14:25] Over the past year or.

Carrie Roeger: [00:14:26] Two. Yeah. Sometime in the past year, year and a half somewhere. Is that that was kind of an aha moment, having a conversation with a couple veterans and you know, and with Ralph and I being out in town talking to people about why or why not, they haven’t come to visit. And that started coming up. And I was like, well, you know, if we do mocktails and we have nonalcoholic beer, some people just get tired of drinking a soda all the time or water all the time, or if they.

Sharon Cline: [00:14:46] Just want the environment, you know, they want the feeling, but they don’t want to have to drink every day. Absolutely. You know. Yeah. For sure.

Carrie Roeger: [00:14:53] Yeah. And you know, the mocktails, they look like great cocktails. So you don’t even have to feel left out.

Sharon Cline: [00:14:57] So in finding mocktails like this is this is what I’m thinking of because I have no restaurant industry experience at all. So how did you come up with the food menu? How did you come up with the mocktails menu? How did you how did you go about it when you don’t know and you don’t have this as part of your every day or you grew up with thought, well.

Carrie Roeger: [00:15:18] I’ll answer the mocktails. I’ll let you answer the food. Okay, I’ll do a shout out to our bar manager, who happens to have the same last name that we do.

Sharon Cline: [00:15:26] Oh, really? Yes. Not. Oh, I got you. Oh, yes. I had a little wink there. Yeah, it took me a second. Yeah.

Carrie Roeger: [00:15:32] Our our daughter Sam is the bar manager. And so when I went to her and I said, you know, we need some mocktails and this is why we need mocktails. She created them. And so she’s done a fantastic job.

Sharon Cline: [00:15:41] Clever. I saw a picture of her on your, on your website. So yeah, it’s just awesome that you have family to, you know, it’s just the two of you. Yeah.

Ralph Roeger : [00:15:49] So it looks just like her dad.

Carrie Roeger: [00:15:56] But the food, honey.

Ralph Roeger : [00:15:57] Yeah. The food. Um, well, the food, you know, when we first started out, since we had no idea what we were doing, um, we hired a general manager that did know he had about 24 or 25 years experience in the industry. And so, with his help, we created the menu. Uh, we pulled together and came up with the names of, you know, the different burgers and whatnot. Um, but he came up with the recipes and what was, you know, what he knew was good. Um, and, and then we just tweaked it, as, you know, as each year went by. And, um, so we just recently added a couple new items. We did a menu revision before we moved and changed up some of the names a little bit. So it wasn’t just so marine oriented. Oh really? Yeah. Yeah. So I got.

Carrie Roeger: [00:16:56] You. Yeah. We, we uh, we now because we have a larger kitchen, we now are playing around with some daily specials and things like that. So that gives our kitchen crew an opportunity to kind of go off script, if you will, and be a little more innovative and kind of put some things out there and see what the customers like. So Sunday we have a pork shank coming out, and it’s a pork shank on a bed of mashed potatoes with a mushroom gravy. And it is to die for. Oh my gosh. And when we do those, we do those specials. We do those sort of things. They are limited. They’re well supplies last. But we like to we like to do that not only for our kitchen team, but also just to see how our guests respond and see what they like. Because with a restaurant, you’ve constantly got to be evolving, you’ve got to be improving and changing and things like that. And so there could be something that’s missing on our menu that, you know, our customers would actually love, and we wouldn’t find it unless we played around a little.

Sharon Cline: [00:17:43] Were you at all intimidated by the notion of being restaurant owners and having just everything, in terms of being business owners and being in the community and keeping track of what is a successful menu item and what isn’t what. Is there anything that just really surprised you, that you wish you sort of had known in the very beginning?

Speaker4: [00:18:03] Everything I know just about.

Sharon Cline: [00:18:06] Because learning the hard way is the worst, right? But, you know, is there something that you sort of wish someone had said, okay, you really got to worry about balancing your life or I don’t know, I imagine there are a million things, but.

Ralph Roeger : [00:18:17] Well, um. One of the biggest things I feel that, you know, surprised me is the support. The support from, you know, the the community mostly. I mean, it really came out when we moved because we just threw it an announcement out there that, hey, if you want to help us move, um, you know, be here at Sempra at 8:00 in the morning on Sunday, December 10th. And, um. At about ten after eight, truck after truck after truck started pulling into the parking lot with trailers. It was crazy. And, uh, most of them, I didn’t even know who they were. So who are you guys? You know, I appreciate the help, but, yeah, we’re like, hey, we’re just fans and we want to help. And, uh, so, um, we started moving at eight in the morning, and at 11:00 that morning, I locked the doors at Sempra. We were done. Oh, my.

Sharon Cline: [00:19:14] Gosh.

Ralph Roeger : [00:19:15] We moved that entire restaurant in three hours. It was.

Sharon Cline: [00:19:19] Unbelievable.

Ralph Roeger : [00:19:20] That was a surprise, you know, because we were thinking, it’s going to take us all day to get everything moved out of here and and whatnot, but everything was very well coordinated. Um, and we made it happen in three hours, so.

Carrie Roeger: [00:19:35] And then we opened five days later.

Ralph Roeger : [00:19:37] Yeah.

Sharon Cline: [00:19:37] Oh my gosh. Yeah. So okay. So how did you manage the stress level. What did you feel like you had enough support that it sort of dispersed the stress. Because moving in itself is just and starting a new place and unknowns.

Ralph Roeger : [00:19:54] Stress isn’t good for you. So we try not to stress. Uh, we just we just go on faith. And, uh, I think, you know, I think it always works.

Carrie Roeger: [00:20:04] I think that’s part of our marine training, too. You just. This is the mission, and you’re just going to do the mission, right? And so you just kind of put your head down and you go. But the flip side of that, especially in this, you know, five day window that we’re talking about, is we have an amazing team. And that is the only reason why we were in an open in five days. We had help from the community to get in, but then in five days time we got it all sorted out, set up, cleared through the health department and opened in five days. And we couldn’t have done that without that team. And that team is almost as passionate and committed to the mission about what we do as we are. And that’s where it really showed up. Um.

Sharon Cline: [00:20:40] When you’re talking about the restaurant, just the the energy around it is so different from the average. Do you know, I’ve done so many interviews right? And it’s fine. Everything’s fine with everyone else. But it’s just so interesting, the feeling behind what you do and why you do it and the energy that goes into it. I talk a lot to business owners about, you know, that. What do you think is the most important thing that helps you in your business life? And almost always someone mentions the the group of people that I have around me, the support, if you have good support, how invaluable that is. And it sounds like you have the same same.

Ralph Roeger : [00:21:21] Mhm. Yep.

Carrie Roeger: [00:21:22] Absolutely. Absolutely. Yep. And we couldn’t, we couldn’t do it without the people that we have. I mean the personal support that we have for each other and the community support, the team support. It’s I mean it’s it’s fantastic.

Sharon Cline: [00:21:35] Do you have a moment where maybe there were some stories that you overheard or someone told you that you just sort of thought, yeah, that’s why we’re here. Every day, every day, every day, all day, every.

Carrie Roeger: [00:21:45] Day after after.

Sharon Cline: [00:21:46] I probably cry every day at your restaurant. If I heard all these after eight.

Carrie Roeger: [00:21:50] And a half years, we could probably do 32 hours of podcast talking about stories. It’s just, I mean, it happens every single day, every every single day. And it happens even on days when we’re not there. Right. We’ll hear from managers something that happened that day, you know, and we we weren’t even there that day. And things happen. It’s it’s it’s overwhelming the stories that we hear and the amazing things that happen.

Sharon Cline: [00:22:12] So are there any things that are you consider maybe a setback or like a learning experience for yourself that you were like? If I had to give advice to someone who’s interested in starting a place, this is what I would say.

Ralph Roeger : [00:22:26] Is don’t give up. Don’t ever give up. Don’t give up on your dreams. The only one that can steal your dream is you. And, um, we, we had the inspiration to do this and became a dream of where can it go. And a lot of people didn’t think we were going to make it.

Sharon Cline: [00:22:46] Oh, you’re kidding me.

Ralph Roeger : [00:22:47] Yeah. Before we opened, uh, Semper. Eight years ago, uh, people would come to the door and go, yeah, we’ll see how long you stick around.

Sharon Cline: [00:22:54] Oh, my gosh.

Ralph Roeger : [00:22:56] I said, you’re absolutely right. You will, I said, because if there was one. If there’s one thing the Marine Corps taught us is failure is not an option.

Sharon Cline: [00:23:03] Why would anyone do that? That is just.

Carrie Roeger: [00:23:05] Rotten. It’s just.

Sharon Cline: [00:23:05] People. I don’t like people. You guys are all right. You’re all right in here. The three of us.

Speaker4: [00:23:10] Know there’s.

Ralph Roeger : [00:23:11] There’s some. There’s some cruel people out there. Yeah, not many, but there’s there’s a few. And, uh, they’ve only seemed to have one thing to do in life and that’s to be negative, so. Yeah.

Carrie Roeger: [00:23:26] You know, there was a lot of times and probably still will be times, let’s just be honest. Because, you know, in in business, no matter what it is, there are challenges. There are obstacles, there are setbacks, there are situations. There were plenty of times when something would go wrong or something would break or something would break, and then something else would break, and then something else would break and you’d be like, can we take a breather here where we would sit and we would talk about it and go, you know what? It is really tough. But we have the beauty of the mission to help us get our heads back on straight and not give up and deal with the frustration, probably faster because of the importance of the mission than anything else. Because, you know, the next morning you get up and you go, man, that was just a nasty day. And all of this and that and everything that happened. But I’m going back out there again today because there’s somebody who’s coming in today who needs this. We got to have the doors open today because somebody’s coming who needs this and that mission and that that drive to be there for the unknown person who’s walking in the door, had a real tendency to pick us up past every obstacle and every challenge and every circumstance that came our way.

Carrie Roeger: [00:24:38] That could have been frustrating. It could have been enough to make us second guess and think twice about moving forward. So. And the mission drives us. We are so mission driven. We’re so mission driven. And even moving to the new location was, you know, was a big decision about moving to the new location because the uniqueness of the place that we were in. But the truth of the matter is, is we were full, we were full, full. There was no more room for memorabilia. There was no more room for any customers to come in. And so making the move gave us an opportunity to serve a larger group of people now. And all of the decisions we make, they’re based on the next person who’s going to walk in the door, who needs for us to be there. And sometimes those people, when they walk in the door, they didn’t know they needed for us to be there, but we have to be there for them.

Speaker5: [00:25:25] Yeah.

Sharon Cline: [00:25:26] I love that you’re talking about the mission because it is so easy. Even me on my voiceover journey, I don’t consider it a mission as much as let me see what I can do today, you know? But when you talk about the mission and the goal, it feels so different than, well, I wonder if I’m going to feel like doing this today, or I wonder if like, enough setbacks happen. Well, I can do something else, you know? But when that passion for helping and service and sacredness to it comes into play, there is no option of no of I’m going to do something else. There is no option of quitting. No. I wonder, too, how many people, how many restaurants, how many businesses really don’t even have that focus like you do. You know that it’s it’s easy to get off track, but you talk we’re talking about a restaurant, but you’re talking about a mission. It’s totally different mentality, right?

Carrie Roeger: [00:26:22] It drives everything.

Ralph Roeger : [00:26:22] I’m sure other, you know, restaurants have their own mission, um, or any other business. Otherwise they wouldn’t still be in business. Um, ours is just a little bit more unique and stands for something special.

Sharon Cline: [00:26:39] So what do you think the average person doesn’t know about your place? Who hasn’t visited yet.

Ralph Roeger : [00:26:47] Um, well, one of the big misconceptions over the over the years was because of the name Semper Fi Bar and Grill. A lot of them thought they weren’t allowed in there unless they were Marines.

Sharon Cline: [00:26:59] Oh, interesting.

Ralph Roeger : [00:27:00] Yeah. And that was one of the reasons why we changed to Rally Point Grill, to make it more neutral amongst all the services and first responders who all use the same rally point. And, um, and to the civilians that have never been in the military before, it’s it’s easier for them to understand that. Okay. Rally point. Yeah. That’s a gathering place. And um, so that was that was the biggest misconception over the years. So even after being open for eight years, they some of them still didn’t think they were allowed to come in. Oh no kidding. Yeah.

Speaker4: [00:27:39] It’s so crazy.

Sharon Cline: [00:27:40] So it makes sense I guess when you if you if you just don’t know, you just you would assume. Yeah. You would assume. Right I get I get it.

Ralph Roeger : [00:27:46] It was two crazy Marines that, you know used a marine name.

Speaker4: [00:27:50] Yeah.

Ralph Roeger : [00:27:51] To open the restaurant with and, but with Rally Point Grill. Um, it’s it’s also a much better name for our franchise. The one in Evans started out as Rally Point Grill. And that’s the name of the franchise. I love your.

Sharon Cline: [00:28:07] Logos, too. Like, how cool did you get someone to design those for you? We did. You did it.

Carrie Roeger: [00:28:12] Oh yes. It’s it’s it is steeped with, um, shout outs to the military. Oh my goodness, a member of the military. When they look at our logo, we’ll see things that they connect with. Civilians may not pick up on it.

Sharon Cline: [00:28:25] I’m a civilian. What am I missing? Do you want to describe or do you want to leave it for the people who.

Ralph Roeger : [00:28:30] Yeah, the shape of it is in the shape of a military medal. With the bar across the top and in the the badge that hangs down. Um, we had to leave a little bit of a marine Corps in there, so we created the red stripe down the middle that represents the red stripe on the dress. Blue trousers. Um, we’ve got the six stars on there, one for each branch of service to include now Space Force.

Speaker4: [00:28:57] Um, wow, that’s so.

Sharon Cline: [00:28:58] Cool that you even included Space.

Speaker4: [00:29:00] Force.

Carrie Roeger: [00:29:01] Yeah. And one of the things about branch now. So and one of the things about the the shape is a military medal typically hangs the medal itself actually hangs on the bottom of the point. So this is the ribbon part of the medal. So each each location that we have will have a unit locator. Oh so our our unit locator is a piece left over from the original Semper Fi logo. So you may see you may see uh swag and things come out that has the two pieces to it where it’ll have the upper part and the bottom part. From a distance it looks just like a military medal, but each location that we open will have its own unit locator. So everybody will be able to make the shirts like that, that look like a real military medal.

Speaker4: [00:29:40] Wow, that’s so cool.

Sharon Cline: [00:29:42] Can people buy your shirts at your restaurant too?

Speaker4: [00:29:43] Absolutely.

Sharon Cline: [00:29:44] I bet people.

Speaker4: [00:29:45] Do.

Carrie Roeger: [00:29:46] People do. And we’ve we’ve got a lot of great military stuff. And so as as we’re building the the merch section expanded, of course, with everything else that expanded. And so we’re really building the merch section to be that place where if you’ve got a veteran in your life and you’re looking for a gift, you come to Rally Point Grill, because it’s not all just Rally Point Grill branded merchandise. We have we have merchandise now for all branches of the service. So if you have a veteran that you need something for, first stop should be Rally Point Grill. Just for that alone. You might as well have something to eat with.

Speaker4: [00:30:16] And have lunch while you’re at it.

Sharon Cline: [00:30:18] So, um, have you had people that are just coming through town and they stop and they’re just like, I don’t even want I want to come back. I wish we had this in our hometown. Is this what encourages you to to expand like you are?

Speaker4: [00:30:32] Absolutely.

Ralph Roeger : [00:30:33] We had, uh, a gentleman. He was down here, uh, um, six years ago, 2018, um, for the Marine Corps birthday. He came down from Michigan, and, um, so him and his family went down to Florida on vacation. On the way back up, he made a point to stop by and see us again. While on the way up, he’s texting a buddy of his, and his buddy goes, well, we’re going to head down to Florida next week. We’ll make a pit stop to rally, point to to check it out. And he’s a marine vet as well. And they just stopped in. What was it? Uh, 2 or 3 days ago? Yeah, Saturday I think.

Speaker4: [00:31:12] Oh my gosh.

Ralph Roeger : [00:31:13] Um, and they’re on their way down to Florida. So they stopped and they, they spent almost three hours with us and.

Speaker4: [00:31:20] Oh my gosh.

Ralph Roeger : [00:31:21] Had a great time.

Sharon Cline: [00:31:23] It’s crazy because it’s like national, you know.

Carrie Roeger: [00:31:26] Oh definitely. Definitely. We’ve got over 22,000 followers on social media and it’s all around the world now. And what’s really fun is, is we can see how it travels from, um, military base to military base.

Speaker4: [00:31:39] Oh, wow.

Carrie Roeger: [00:31:39] Jumped overseas to military bases and things like that. And it is it is definitely the word has spread. I mean, we get we get messages regularly from Michigan, Ohio, Texas, Wyoming. You need to come here. You need to come here, open a franchise here. And my answer to all of them is find me a veteran who wants to run a business, and we’ll open a franchise up by you.

Sharon Cline: [00:32:00] I love that you’re focusing on veterans.

Speaker4: [00:32:02] Of course. Of course.

Sharon Cline: [00:32:04] I’m sure anyone would want to be on this train, you know? But you are still your heart is still focusing on helping.

Speaker4: [00:32:12] Veterans, right?

Carrie Roeger: [00:32:13] You know, and honestly, we’re really nothing special. If we can do it, we definitely can teach other veterans how to do it. And, you know, I mean, we we took a long time cutting our teeth a lot of, a lot of expensive learning lessons that, you know, the next veteran coming along to open a franchise doesn’t have to learn those because we’ve learned those already. And so we just truly believe that, you know, we anybody can do it really if they just want to learn how.

Speaker4: [00:32:39] Mhm.

Sharon Cline: [00:32:40] Isn’t that encouraging. Because part of the point of having this show fearless formula, I ask a lot of people what makes you brave enough to follow your dream. So many people don’t. It takes a lot of faith and a lot of people the risk is too high or I don’t know anything about menus and I don’t know how to keep track of this. I don’t even know how to do social media. All of it’s overwhelming and it’s enough to shut down someone’s dream. And so one of the goals that I have is, is hearing about how you did it. How did you how were you so brave, you know, to be able to take a risk like this? It sounds like so much of it is your heart truth.

Ralph Roeger : [00:33:18] A buddy of mine, uh, we’ve been friends for a long, long time. And, uh, he stopped by the restaurant, uh, about a week ago, and he says to me, he goes. He said, Ralph, he goes. I’m so proud of what you guys did. Here he goes. That took an awful lot of guts to move from that location across the street to this location as big as it is. I said, well, it didn’t really take guts. It took faith. And you know, with the good Lord on our side, we don’t put him in a box, you know? Uh, we he inspires us and we move forward with it, and we just listen.

Speaker4: [00:34:04] I love that.

Sharon Cline: [00:34:04] I love that you said you don’t put him in a box.

Speaker4: [00:34:07] Never.

Sharon Cline: [00:34:09] Because you would still be where you were, you know, or you would just be like, we’ve done enough. Like, let’s not think beyond this. We’re lucky.

Ralph Roeger : [00:34:16] Right? And we wouldn’t have a franchise.

Sharon Cline: [00:34:19] So is the goal to to go as far as you can all over the country? What is the next step?

Carrie Roeger: [00:34:26] So there’s a couple exciting things coming along the way. I want to take a back step one second though, and then move forward. And just to say, you know, when it comes to starting your business, um, I don’t know about the rest of the world, but as Marines, we’re a little stubborn, a little hard headed.

Sharon Cline: [00:34:42] Um, and Ralph’s mouth is open. Right?

Carrie Roeger: [00:34:46] Asking for help is not usually in our verbiage. Right. So one of the things that I learned early on is I’m just going to shout out for an organization called the Small Business Development Center there at Kennesaw State University. They are an outreach from UGA, and they are an SBA coach and they’re free.

Speaker4: [00:35:06] Wow. Really? Did I say free?

Sharon Cline: [00:35:07] You did. Not many places are.

Carrie Roeger: [00:35:09] They are free. And so when we went to start the restaurant, I knew, I didn’t know. I knew there were things I didn’t know and I didn’t know what I didn’t know, but I knew, I didn’t know. And so I went and I found an Sbdc coach. Um, shout out to Andy. He was amazing. And and I still have a coach today, eight years in. He’s actually coming to the restaurant on Friday to see the new place. He had come and seen the old place. And so anybody who’s thinking about starting a business and doesn’t know where to step, that’s what this organization is for, is to help you start a business. They have formulas, they have checklists, they know people and they can make connections. And so I just want.

Speaker4: [00:35:47] To thank you so.

Sharon Cline: [00:35:48] Much for telling me that. I had no idea. And I’d love to be able to, um, point other business owners or people who are attempting to be business owners in that direction. Thank you.

Carrie Roeger: [00:35:57] Absolutely, absolutely. So the big the big goal, I mean, there’s a lot of a lot of exciting things happening. So right now our goal is to open franchises across the southeast at the major military installations. It only makes sense to do them at major military installations. You have a large contingency of veterans. You have a large contingency of active duty, which means you have enough people to support the operation. My goal is the franchise is to position somebody in a position to win. So we’re picking those locations throughout the southeast. Another thing that we have going on that this is this will be the first public opportunity I have to say this, this is this is breaking news. Breaking news. So when you come to the restaurant, you’ll see. Bursa sitting outside. That’s our family name for our new food truck.

Speaker4: [00:36:45] Wow.

Carrie Roeger: [00:36:46] So the purpose of why we brought Bertha on board is we’re creating what we call the veteran pathway to ownership. Because one of the things that I’ve discovered in working on, on working with prospects to set up franchises is in the military, the the comparison between military and civilian when it comes to your net worth, like if you’re going to retire after 20 years, civilians are oftentimes way ahead of the military. Military sacrifices, way more than most people understand. And financially they sacrifice as well. So we have a large group of candidates that are primed and ready to go, but they don’t have any funding. We also have candidates that are great but don’t have any experience in food. And so we’re working with an organization called Let’s Chow Out of Maryland, which is a non profit organization. And their purpose is to empower veterans to own food trucks.

Speaker4: [00:37:34] Amazing.

Carrie Roeger: [00:37:35] So we are working with Let’s Chow and we’ll be rolling out food trucks like Bertha to these places where we have veterans who want to get started in their franchise, but maybe are not ready for a brick and mortar store, so they’ll be able to jump into the into the food truck first. They’ll hone their skills in a business that’s easier to handle, it’s a little bit smaller. They’ll also build a good following in the community. So when they go to open their brick and mortar store, they’ll have customers already there. So we’re super excited about that rolling out. And then the other side of it too, is that because of this disparity in the finances, we’re raising capital. And one of the things that we’re doing is we’re raising capital with the local community. I think a lot of people don’t understand that. You don’t have to be a billionaire or millionaire, even to invest in small town America. In Main Street America, there are so many tools and so many ways of doing this nowadays, that people in our local community can actually invest in order to see a business in the local community grow. So we’re doing some fundraising through that opportunity to be able to raise enough money to actually be the bank, because. Banks aren’t real thrilled about lending to restaurants, and most of it still has to do with all of the rules and regulations they are under as a backlash from 2020. It has nothing to do with anything else. It’s the rules and regulations the banks have to follow as a backlash from 2020 because so many restaurants went under. So our goal is to get us enough money that we can help three of our prospects open up franchises.

Speaker4: [00:39:08] My goodness.

Carrie Roeger: [00:39:09] Once we open up three more franchises, we are now at five, which is a pivotal number. Once you go to five locations, then the rules change in corporate lending. And so that’s the goal is to raise enough money to get three franchises open. So we have a total of five. That kind of takes the cap off of the capital that we need to expand. So just yeah, a ton of things going on.

Speaker4: [00:39:29] That’s so.

Sharon Cline: [00:39:30] Exciting. Who knows whose lives are going to change, not just in providing a place for people to go, but giving them an opportunity for more financial security, right? A purpose like what you all experience. I can’t imagine how much that will mean to someone.

Speaker4: [00:39:47] You know, it’s.

Carrie Roeger: [00:39:47] It’s really for me because I run the franchise and Ralph runs more of the local restaurant and I run the franchise and and, you know, we talk about mission. And what’s really cool is I get up every day thinking that my job is to find someone to empower, to run a successful business who is a veteran like me. That’s my job. That’s what I get to do. It’s so.

Speaker4: [00:40:10] Inspiring.

Carrie Roeger: [00:40:11] It’s so inspiring to get up and do that. I don’t get up and think about having to get in the car and drive somewhere and do something that I’m not excited about doing. I get up every day knowing my purpose is to find the veteran that I can empower and help to run a successful business. That’s just cool.

Sharon Cline: [00:40:28] It’s amazing because it takes the focus off of all of the things that can get in the way of just joy, which is a million things. But when you have your focus of this is what I want to do, no, you’re not focusing on, you know, all of the negative things that can get in the way of taking that joy, even like traffic or just all of it just living, but like having that goal and know that your heart is part of it. It’s just sacred stuff, sacred.

Speaker4: [00:40:55] Work and, you know.

Carrie Roeger: [00:40:56] And all of that distraction out there really just becomes speed bumps, you know? And sometimes we can get hung up on a speed bump. Sometimes you can like a speed bump and be like, oh, that’s a really big one. But we tend to get hung up on speed bumps. And when the truth is, they’re really just speed bumps if your eyes are on the goal. And that’s the way we’ve built our business the whole time is the eyes were on the goal of what we’re trying to accomplish, and the speed bumps would come. And you know, the other thing that was fascinating, too, is that as we rose and became successful, the tomatoes came at us, too.

Speaker4: [00:41:25] What? Yeah.

Carrie Roeger: [00:41:26] You know, people throw tomatoes. You never seen that happen?

Sharon Cline: [00:41:28] Well, yes. But I mean, why?

Carrie Roeger: [00:41:31] Because people do what people do. So what.

Sharon Cline: [00:41:33] What is what is the what is the.

Speaker4: [00:41:34] Issue?

Carrie Roeger: [00:41:35] Well, depends on what side of the bed they got out of in the morning. I don’t know, but it’s just it’s been entertaining and fun. Uh, you know, I, I, I’ve explained to my daughter to the crabs in the bucket theory. Right. And when you have crabs that are in a bucket, there’s always crabs around the edge that are trying to climb out. And if you watch carefully, you’ll see that the rest of the crabs are just trying to pull them back down. And so breaking free and getting out of the bucket has been a really cool part of the journey. And not that we’ve arrived because there are still plenty of things, you know, that come at us, but just knowing that we’ve been able to persevere regardless of what anybody had to say about anything, even our own internal dialog, regardless what our internal dialog said, we’ve been able to persevere beyond that and really stick our head up.

Sharon Cline: [00:42:20] So it’s frustrating to me to imagine that because I think there’s room for everybody. There is room on this planet, in this universe, for everyone to try to live a life that they see for themselves. So and I think the same with the voiceover industry. It’s super competitive, but you’re unique. Another restaurant’s got its own bend slant. My voice doesn’t sound like anybody else’s. Exactly. Someone’s going to like it. Someone’s going to hate it. Right? But there’s room for everyone, you know there is. And so it’s just such a shame to me to imagine someone saying, you know, well, how satisfying is it to be able to say, now we’re at a second location, you know, now we’ve got a franchise. I mean, there must be just some like, you know, you say what you want, but the proof is.

Speaker4: [00:43:04] Exactly what.

Sharon Cline: [00:43:04] You see.

Ralph Roeger : [00:43:05] Yeah. We, um. Going back to before we opened the first location of the people that would come to the door and uh, and say, yeah, we’ll see how long you stick around. Two weeks after we moved and we were already open at the new location, and I went back to the old location just to go go into the building and go grab something that that was left over there. And I come outside and this guy pulls up, gets out of his truck, he comes walking over to me. He goes, I told you you wouldn’t make it.

Sharon Cline: [00:43:40] Are you serious?

Ralph Roeger : [00:43:41] And I just I turned around to see if he was talking to somebody else. I said, what? What on earth are you talking about? And he goes. Eight years ago, I was one of those guys that said, yeah, we’ll see how long you last, that you probably won’t make it. And here you are. You close, you close the place down. I said, yeah, you’re right. We closed the place down in order to move 300 yards that way into a building more than twice the size of this building. More. More than twice the size of seating capacity. And had to increase our employees by twice as much. You’re right. Yeah. We didn’t make it. You have a good day. And I just walked away. I couldn’t believe it. What are.

Speaker4: [00:44:25] The chances of that.

Sharon Cline: [00:44:26] Person being right?

Ralph Roeger : [00:44:27] Believe it.

Carrie Roeger: [00:44:28] Somebody just said in the past two days. And I won’t say who my revenge is. Success.

Ralph Roeger : [00:44:34] Yes.

Speaker4: [00:44:36] Right.

Sharon Cline: [00:44:37] Let’s just say eight years. You did great. And this person had the audacity to. I’m sorry, but I’m just, like, so angry, right?

Ralph Roeger : [00:44:46] Obviously living under a rock.

Sharon Cline: [00:44:48] Well. And waiting for you to come by so that they could say. I mean, what are the chances, right?

Speaker4: [00:44:52] Yeah.

Ralph Roeger : [00:44:53] It was just unbelievable.

Carrie Roeger: [00:44:54] Well, you know, in the, in the food service industry, in the hospitality industry, especially when you’re a server in front of house, you are constantly dealing with people. And we continually to work to encourage our front of house staff to remember that people who are hurt are the ones who hurt people. And it’s not about you, and you just have to be able to disconnect and realize that there are people out there like that. You’re not going to change them, but you can’t let them impact you. You just have to understand. And and oftentimes I’m just like, wow, I feel really bad that you are hurt that bad. And I’m so sorry at whatever happened to you. But, you know, yeah, hurting people often hurt people. And we just need to remember that, um.

Sharon Cline: [00:45:38] That’s a life lesson for anyone who’s in any kind of service industry, any kind of business. I mean, even in the voiceover world, I had no idea that. There could be. Successful. Obviously their voices are beautiful people who are horrible to work with, and it’s like the why? The joy is just so gone. And it’s yes, you may be successful, but you cannot possibly feel good about who you are as a human. You know? At least I would believe that anyway. All right, last question. Social media. Who handles the social media aspect of what you do?

Carrie Roeger: [00:46:14] It’s mostly me.

Sharon Cline: [00:46:15] Because I love your YouTube channel. I love that you have such great videos on there. I was watching you interview people who are part of the restaurant and come, which I think is such a great place to give them, a place to tell their story and have it on record. But you also have your wing competition that you do, which I think is amazing because people love that. So how did your sort of like incentives to come and create events? How did that come about?

Carrie Roeger: [00:46:43] Uh, we have an incredible team.

Speaker4: [00:46:45] Oh.

Sharon Cline: [00:46:46] You always go back to that. It’s true. How did your team come up with that? You and your incredible team?

Carrie Roeger: [00:46:50] Absolutely. So we’ve been working with a local company here called Advaxis. We’ve been working with them for over a year, and they actually manage all of our social media. And they have a very creative team, and we have a very creative team as well. And we’re constantly communicating with each other, bouncing ideas off of each other and and saying, hey, let’s do this. And, you know, I don’t even know who came up with Live fire, but live fire got thrown on the table and we kind of started talking about it and how to make it our very own and how to make it something that was really special. And the Addax Team gets us.

Sharon Cline: [00:47:21] This is John Cloonan, correct?

Speaker4: [00:47:23] Yes it is. Yes.

Carrie Roeger: [00:47:24] They get us and they they have just been such an integral part of our team. And now what’s really phenomenal is our franchisee, Tiffany, out in Evan’s amazing creative marketing ideas. So we have paired her up with our assistant manager who also is very creative. And we’re looking to them now to kind of start leading even more cool things that we’re doing because they just they seem to really play well off each other and are just a great team in terms of creativity. So I actually am now I’m finding myself in a position where I kind of have to rein them back in a little bit because the ideas are the ideas are great, and it’s just sometimes it can just be too much, too fast. But yeah, I mean, the team as a whole, it’s it’s always about the team. I can’t ever claim that I did anything. I mean, okay, so the first two years I think I ran the social media myself and I don’t think I did a bad job.

Sharon Cline: [00:48:14] No, I mean, if you don’t have sort of a degree in this way, I mean, and have a natural inclination to be taking pictures of pretty much everything that you’re doing, I don’t I should be tiktoking this right now. Right. Um, that is it’s like a skill you have to develop. So. And if that’s not your natural, then it’s definitely can be intimidating. But it seems like you’ve done so well. Yeah.

Carrie Roeger: [00:48:36] It’s been it’s been the people that we’ve hired. I’ve, I’ve had a lot of support in the social media and marketing area. My girlfriend is brilliant in marketing as well and she was really important. First till 2020 was right around 2020 when she moved off of that and we hired our first marketing consultant. As a matter of fact, it was as the pandemic was hitting because one of my interview questions is, how are you going to handle the pandemic? Oh, wow. When I was interviewing marketing people, that’s what was happening. And I was like, how are you going to handle it? What what’s your thoughts? And that’s, you know, how I chose people. And so we’ve just progressively grown in our sales and marketing from there and our social media and things like that. But the engagement that we have on social media is so much fun. And like when Ralph is in and he’s talking to somebody, he captures their story, puts a picture of them up on social media so that we not only are sharing their stories in-house, but we’re sharing them out to the rest of the world. And we’ve had some great fun. We’ve had we had one World War Two veteran, John.

Speaker4: [00:49:33] Oh my.

Carrie Roeger: [00:49:33] Goodness. We have a couple of World War Two veterans. But we had one in particular who on the day of the Marine Corps birthday, he was at the party and he was a World War Two veteran, and he was singing the Marine Corps hymn, and it went viral. It was really fun, like millions of hits.

Speaker4: [00:49:45] Oh my God, yeah. It was it was incredible.

Ralph Roeger : [00:49:48] 90. Well, when he passed away, he was 97, so he was.

Carrie Roeger: [00:49:52] Probably 96 at that.

Ralph Roeger : [00:49:53] Time, 96 during that time. And he’s just. You know, he always was kind of hunched over. But when that Marine Corps hymn was playing, he would sit straight up and be singing that song. He knew every every word.

Carrie Roeger: [00:50:06] It was. Yeah, it was so, so. Social media has been really fun. It’s been really fun just to share with the rest of the world the stories that we have.

Sharon Cline: [00:50:13] I love that you are making a record for people who maybe, like I say, you don’t have an opportunity for people to really hear what it’s about. Now, I always think one of the things I love about the show that I do is giving everybody an opportunity to be heard, because it just, you know, if I had seen you on the street, I would never know, you know, the back story. And even if I went to the restaurant to visit with you all, you’re busy. But to have just a few minutes of just tell me your story. And what do you want people to know about what it’s like to be you? I think everyone really feels for a moment. Anyway, I hope I provide that, um, of of having been heard and valued. And that’s really I think what we’re all here to do is like, that’s what you’re providing for your people that come to your restaurant is to be heard and understood.

Ralph Roeger : [00:51:02] Yeah. And it’s so important to to know your customers and to get around the tables and talk with them. And, um, the stories are just amazing that that people tell, you know, like, right now, um, we’ve got a World War Two vet that comes in. He’s there every Thursday. He has his ribbon and his Coors Light and.

Sharon Cline: [00:51:27] You know, his order.

Speaker4: [00:51:28] And he.

Carrie Roeger: [00:51:28] He flirts with the.

Speaker4: [00:51:29] Lady. Does he? Yes, he’s a.

Ralph Roeger : [00:51:30] Big.

Speaker4: [00:51:31] Big boy.

Ralph Roeger : [00:51:33] But you know what? He earned the right to do that. He’s 104 years old.

Speaker4: [00:51:38] Is he really? Yeah.

Ralph Roeger : [00:51:39] On May 27th, he’ll turn 105 and we’re going to have a big birthday party.

Speaker4: [00:51:43] Oh my gosh.

Sharon Cline: [00:51:45] How special is that?

Speaker4: [00:51:46] Yeah. Yep.

Carrie Roeger: [00:51:47] Treasures. You know, these are these are the treasures that we’re losing. And so we treasure. We treasure him for sure.

Ralph Roeger : [00:51:53] Every time he comes in, you know, you know, we we treat him like gold because he deserves it. He’s a World War two veteran. He was in the Army Corps of Engineers over in Europe building bridges during the war. And, uh.

Speaker4: [00:52:07] I can’t imagine the.

Sharon Cline: [00:52:08] Stories he.

Speaker4: [00:52:09] Tells.

Ralph Roeger : [00:52:09] And the the thing is, he’ll be the first one to tell you. He’s probably the only one he knows that has never lived outside of a 30 mile radius.

Speaker4: [00:52:20] Really?

Ralph Roeger : [00:52:21] He’s always lived here in Cobb County or Cherokee County.

Speaker4: [00:52:24] His whole life.

Ralph Roeger : [00:52:25] His whole life. 105 years.

Speaker4: [00:52:29] Wow.

Ralph Roeger : [00:52:29] With the exception of the small time he was over in Europe.

Sharon Cline: [00:52:32] Well, I imagine you’ll have a lot of locals who will come to his birthday party then.

Ralph Roeger : [00:52:36] I would imagine. I would imagine we did when he turned 103 and 104.

Sharon Cline: [00:52:41] So every year. Yeah. That’s amazing.

Ralph Roeger : [00:52:45] His daughter asked him, you know, dad, where do you want to have your 105th? He goes, there is only one place. Oh, so he’s he’s coming back so.

Speaker4: [00:52:54] Well, thank.

Sharon Cline: [00:52:54] Just thank you so much for providing such a beautiful message for everyone to hear, which is we are here to to serve you. You served us. Let us serve you and let us give you a space where you belong, where you feel like you belong.

Speaker4: [00:53:10] Right? Thank you.

Sharon Cline: [00:53:12] Thank you so much for what you do. If anyone wanted to get in touch with you, what is the best way?

Carrie Roeger: [00:53:16] Stop in and see us.

Sharon Cline: [00:53:18] And have a Reuben.

Speaker4: [00:53:19] And have a Reuben and a.

Carrie Roeger: [00:53:20] Coors Light while you’re there?

Speaker4: [00:53:22] Um, you.

Carrie Roeger: [00:53:23] Can you can find us. Your website is Rallypoint grill. Dot com grill has an E on the end of it. Yeah. Um, the best way to find us on Facebook right now is still with the Semper Fi name. Okay, um, Instagram is also Semper Fi, and we are dipping our toes in TikTok.

Sharon Cline: [00:53:37] Look at you guys.

Carrie Roeger: [00:53:39] Yes. And so TikTok is actually Rally Point Grill.

Speaker4: [00:53:41] Okay. Got you.

Carrie Roeger: [00:53:42] So you can you can find us out there or just stop in and see if we’re there. And if not, leave your information with the bartender. And they’re pretty good about getting information back to us.

Ralph Roeger : [00:53:50] And if you can’t find a parking spot, feel free to go down toward Sam’s and park down there and walk.

Sharon Cline: [00:53:56] Plenty of parking, plenty of parking. That’s the best part, right? Like you’ve got you’ve got space for everyone. And it’s nice too, because I feel like I could go and just have a great time. And it doesn’t matter if I don’t have like a military background. You’re providing space for everyone. Correct? Which is great. I mean, it’s best for the community, you know. Um.

Speaker4: [00:54:13] Do you have.

Ralph Roeger : [00:54:14] 60s?

Speaker4: [00:54:15] I do.

Ralph Roeger : [00:54:16] I’ll tell you the best story at Rally Point Grill. Um, which happened about seven years ago. Uh, we had two Vietnam veterans come in for Friday night fish fry with their wives. They did not know each other, but they sat in booths right next to each other, and they recognized each other’s hat that has a Vietnam ribbon. And naturally, the first thing veterans do is tell each other, welcome home. Uh, because they didn’t get that coming home from Vietnam. And after they got done eating, these two guys turn around and start comparing notes about Vietnam. And one of them says, well, I’m a recon marine. And the other one said, well, I was a Navy corpsman attached to a recon unit in Vietnam. And, um, so, uh, Patrick, uh, starts asking doc, we just call him doc. Um, you know, leading questions about his, you know, about his time in Vietnam and just about everything he asked. Doc knew exactly what he was talking about. And, um, finally, uh, Patrick gets up from his booth and asks doc to stand up, and he’s looking him up and down because they don’t look like they did when they were 18 years old. Um, but he was looking him up and down and said, you’re the Navy corpsman. That saved my life.

Speaker6: [00:55:42] Yeah.

Sharon Cline: [00:55:44] Are you kidding me?

Carrie Roeger: [00:55:45] Totally serious.

Ralph Roeger : [00:55:47] Patrick took a AK 47 bayonet to the stomach, and if doc wasn’t there, he would have bled out.

Carrie Roeger: [00:55:54] And they’re living in the same town together. 50 years later.

Speaker4: [00:55:57] 50 years.

Carrie Roeger: [00:55:58] Later, it took them that long to find each other. And here they live in the same town.

Speaker4: [00:56:01] At a random restaurant.

Sharon Cline: [00:56:03] You know, like a restaurant.

Speaker4: [00:56:04] Not random though. Not random, but like sitting.

Sharon Cline: [00:56:06] Next to each other at in booths. They could have sat anywhere.

Ralph Roeger : [00:56:09] That’s what we call, uh, one of our God stories. Because we could have never orchestrated that. So. Holy cow, it was amazing.

Speaker4: [00:56:20] Holy cow, I’m so blown away.

Ralph Roeger : [00:56:22] Needless to say, they’re best friends now.

Carrie Roeger: [00:56:24] So that’s what we do. Draws out the stories in each other. Right. And if we hadn’t created a space where they felt comfortable testing each other’s stories, they may have come in, eaten and left and not even really talked to each other. But the environment opens, opens them up. It’s a safe space. It’s a.

Speaker4: [00:56:46] Safe space. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sharon Cline: [00:56:49] Well, goodness gracious, I’ve had tears in my eyes about four times. That’s just amazing what you’re doing and what you’ve provided for people. And thank you so much for not just your service, but for for what you do for giving people their safe space.

Speaker4: [00:57:03] It’s our pleasure. Thank you. Appreciate it.

Sharon Cline: [00:57:06] I’m so moved. Um. Oh, thank you again for listening to Fearless Formula on Business RadioX. And again, this is Sharon Cline reminding you that with knowledge and understanding, we can all have our own fearless formula. Have a great day.