Shelly Farrar with Riverstone Corner Bistro and J. Michael’s Prime

Sharon Cline: [00:00:05] Coming to you live from the Business RadioX studio in Woodstock, Georgia. This is fearless formula with Sharon Cline.

Sharon Cline: [00:00:19] Welcome to Fearless Formula on Business RadioX, where we talk about the ups and downs of the business world and offer words of wisdom for business success. And I’m your host, Sharon Cline. And today on the show, we have the co-owner of Riverstone Corner Bistro, also known as the Cheers of Canton. It’s a country style Southern Comfort American food great restaurant in Canton, Georgia. Welcome to the show. Shelly Farrar.

Shelly Farrar: [00:00:44] Hi.

Sharon Cline: [00:00:45] Hi.

Sharon Cline: [00:00:46] Thank you for coming.

Shelly Farrar: [00:00:47] Thanks for having me.

Sharon Cline: [00:00:48] You’re welcome. I was telling you right before the show that I kind of did a little bit of cyberstalking. I like to prepare, but I actually didn’t find much about you from before your restaurant, so I was wondering. It’s you and your husband, Mike. Correct. That owned the restaurant.

Shelly Farrar: [00:01:02] We actually have J. Michael’s prime as well.

Sharon Cline: [00:01:04] I saw that. I didn’t know that either.

Shelly Farrar: [00:01:06] Yeah. And then it’s my son and Michael and then my brother in law and my cousin just recently.

Shelly Farrar: [00:01:14] It’s added on through the years. Yes.

Sharon Cline: [00:01:16] Well, it’s worked, right? Yes.

Shelly Farrar: [00:01:18] It actually started as me and my son. Oh, wow. Yeah. So my husband had P.F. Chang’s. He was the market partner for the Southeast and was there and my son turned 19 and asked me to help him open up a restaurant.

Sharon Cline: [00:01:32] So how did you come up with the concept of this restaurant?

Shelly Farrar: [00:01:35] We opened the deli first in town. Lake and me and him had that. And then Dad came along. When we went over there to look at locations in Canton, and it was bigger than a deli that where we were. And we decided that we would kind of merge a concept that we were thinking of and do our lunch menu as the deli menu and then the dinner menu as our Southern Comfort menu.

Sharon Cline: [00:01:58] Did you have any restaurant experience before you got started in this?

Shelly Farrar: [00:02:01] Yeah, I started out at Taco Bell and then let’s go back when I was 16. My first job. Lovely brown polyester outfits.

Sharon Cline: [00:02:10] Oh, I was at Winn Dixie. Mine was light blue polyester, so it was amazing.

Shelly Farrar: [00:02:14] She looked better in blue than I looked in brown.

Sharon Cline: [00:02:16] No, I don’t think anyone looked good in those outfits, but.

Shelly Farrar: [00:02:19] And then I went from there from a small town Italian restaurant in my hometown in Ohio. Okay. And just was a hostess. And they liked to call me maitre d, but I was only 17.

Sharon Cline: [00:02:30] You were the maitre d? Yeah.

Shelly Farrar: [00:02:31] And then I moved to Florida when I was by myself. By myself when I was 19. Just, well, just turned 19. Just graduated and had a goal to get out of a small town in Ohio. And I started working at cheese and cheese. Yeah, that’s where I met my husband the very first day.

Sharon Cline: [00:02:50] Oh, that’s so cute.

Shelly Farrar: [00:02:51] He said it was love at first sight. That is true. I lost a bet and had to take him out, so.

Sharon Cline: [00:02:56] And the rest is history. Yeah. Wow. That’s actually really a sweet story.

Shelly Farrar: [00:03:00] Yeah. Yeah. We were young, and then. Then I went from cheese to chuckles to Chili’s, so lots of restaurant experience. My husband was with cheese, then Romano’s Macaroni Grill. Oh, yeah. And then P.F. Chang’s and I worked for Outback Corporate Office, actually in Tampa as well.

Sharon Cline: [00:03:18] So all restaurants, all all restaurants, all the time. So when your son approached you and said, Let’s do our own concept, you felt like you had the skills and enough background to really look into how to make this work.

Shelly Farrar: [00:03:29] I was shocked. He wanted Mom to go into business with him.

Sharon Cline: [00:03:32] Kind of sweet, if you think about it. He was like.

Shelly Farrar: [00:03:34] Very sweet. We had done a charity serving event because he worked for P.F. Chang’s for my husband, and we was during Katrina and me and him tag teamed and made the most money. And maybe that was his motivation. Not sure to like finally invite me into it, but he came up with a business plan. He came, he had a 50% down. He was we thought our both our kids would run from the restaurant world and they’re both in it.

Sharon Cline: [00:03:58] Oh, that’s so funny. Okay, so when you were looking at a location, you found a place in Canton, and but it was it was obviously a smaller restaurant at first. So how did you come up with the menu items? Like what was what was your concept exactly?

Shelly Farrar: [00:04:14] We had we wanted to focus on some Southern comfort, even though we’re not from the South, but we fell in love with the food. We went around to Charleston and we went to New Orleans and a lot of places and experienced every shrimp and grits you could possibly have. And I’m not a grip person, but I like our shrimp and grits. And then just kind of, you know, family family recipes are a lot of our recipes. Like I said, the deli, a lot of our lunch items. From there, we created our own kind of ideas and R&D from just research and looking around and kind of trying to make it where it was different.

Sharon Cline: [00:04:52] Exactly right. To stand out. Yeah.

Shelly Farrar: [00:04:55] So and then it was hit or miss Some, some and then some were, believe it or not, even though we’re Southern Comfort restaurant, we did things like my husband’s Italian nanny did sausage peppers and onions and potatoes. And we still have that on our meal. That was her southern meal. Oh, wow. With his dad’s homemade spicy mustard sauce.

Sharon Cline: [00:05:14] But that’s so cool because it’s like a little bit of your family, you know, not just a. In you that you decided will be? Well, this is comfort food. This is fried green tomatoes and whatever. But you actually have your history.

Shelly Farrar: [00:05:25] Yeah. And we kind of like to evolve and change and be seasonal, more so now than ever. And yeah, we like food and who doesn’t?

Sharon Cline: [00:05:36] It’s a universal. Well, I was looking a little bit about what had happened during the pandemic because obviously that has hit so many business owners and that’s something we talk about on the show all the time. How did you manage the pandemic? And I saw that you had kept your drive-thru open, which is so smart. How did that work for you?

Shelly Farrar: [00:05:53] Well, we actually never used the drive thru until the pandemic that was locked off and we never used it. And then my son, the day that we realized things were going to change, he was like, Hey, I’m going to get a locksmith out here and see if we can open this drive thru. And then he also was like, you know, as we went through it and we got the drive thru open, we we didn’t really have a real system, but we had a lot of very great employees that had worked for Hooters and other places that said, Hey, we can put a clothesline up and use our clothes pins that we already had in the system, hang the tickets, you know, keep track of it that way. We kind of, you know, made it happen.

Sharon Cline: [00:06:33] And that’s amazing.

Shelly Farrar: [00:06:35] Yeah. So we we actually we had to lay off quite a bit of people in the very beginning, the first week or two. But by week two we brought almost everybody back that that wanted to come back. Some wanted to wait a little while, of course, but we were because we were so busy with the grocery sales, because we also started doing online groceries, because my son also I like to give him a lot of credit because he deserves it. He was like, Hey, I’m going to the grocery store and I can’t find chicken and I can’t find milk and I can’t find bread. But I’ve reached out to our vendors and they’re telling me I won’t have a problem getting these items. So we did a grocery list. There was a lot of people with health issues and things like that, certain dietary restrictions, and they couldn’t find these things. So we started doing groceries out of there as well.

Sharon Cline: [00:07:22] People must have loved you.

Shelly Farrar: [00:07:24] The community kept us alive for sure. We love them and they definitely showed they loved us back. We cried every day from their generosity.

Sharon Cline: [00:07:33] Oh, that’s so kind.

Shelly Farrar: [00:07:35] They were very kind.

Sharon Cline: [00:07:36] So, well, so many companies, so many restaurants didn’t survive. So how clever of you to come up with sort of a unique way and a unique approach in a niche, you know?

Shelly Farrar: [00:07:46] Well, like I mentioned, we were all in the family. We all part, we’re all partners. And it was our livelihood. And if we had to close down that restaurant, that meant four families were out of jobs and out of work. And not to mention all of our all of our employees, which some were pregnant and some some worked. Husbands and wives work with us and daughters and sons and their family. To you? Yeah, all families. So we felt a huge responsibility to just make make it happen. And we said, if we’re going to go down, we’re going to go down helping people. So we spent a lot of time in prayer and spent a lot of time just trying to think of better ways to do it and sold gallons and gallons of sangria and margarita mix that I’m not going to lie was probably our top sales.

Sharon Cline: [00:08:34] I think everyone needed some help during that time.

Shelly Farrar: [00:08:37] Yes, I pumped I had to squeeze a lot of lime juice. So my muscles, my legs, my legs, my arms never looked better.

Sharon Cline: [00:08:46] So. So how has it been to work with families? Some people find it a really huge challenge, but clearly you’ve been able to find a way to make this a success.

Shelly Farrar: [00:08:56] I am surprised that we all still talk to each other, and believe it or not, we just bought a cabin together as another adventure. We actually go. We’re getting ready, go on vacation together. Like all 25 of us, all the families, I’m I feel very blessed and fortunate. We don’t get me wrong. We we have our fights. I mean, I work with my husband and my son and my brother in law. Frank’s pretty perfect. I don’t ever get mad at him. But, you know, we kind of, through the years realized what strengths and weaknesses we all have and kind of respect that, you know, we’ve kind of let go. We have a meeting and actually we have a meeting in the space, usually quarterly, kind of just as partners. Let’s talk let’s fight it out. Let’s figure out what we’re going to do, what we’re going to change, if we’re going to change anything. I like to throw a lot of things at them and try some nuts. I am a spur of the moment. Like I can think of my feet really fast and they are like they like list and they like, Really?

Sharon Cline: [00:09:56] Yeah.

Shelly Farrar: [00:09:56] But that’s drive them nuts.

Sharon Cline: [00:09:59] I’ve talked to so many business owners about what it’s like to have different personalities that can be very complimentary. There are some people who are such people, people, and I think it takes a village, really.

Shelly Farrar: [00:10:12] It really does. I mean, my husband was not really a people person when he started, but he is so now like I mean, I’ve known. For 35 years. And he was not a people person in the beginning, and now he’s probably a better people person than I am. And he’s, you know, very outgoing. He’s very touching with the employees. He I mean, we have a lot of sons and daughters, you know, and we’re getting ready to have our first grandbabies. Oh, my goodness.

Sharon Cline: [00:10:35] Congratulations.

Shelly Farrar: [00:10:36] I can’t even imagine what that’s going to be like.

Sharon Cline: [00:10:38] It’s wonderful. I have three. They’re the best.

Shelly Farrar: [00:10:40] Ever. Know that I’m excited about. I mean him. He’s a softy. We will probably be very broke.

Sharon Cline: [00:10:46] But in July 2021, I saw that you moved from your smaller location that had the drive through to a larger location. So can you tell me what that was like?

Shelly Farrar: [00:10:55] Yeah, actually, that might have been when the plan was to move, but because of the pandemic, we got slowed down a little bit. We moved over there last year, January of last year.

Sharon Cline: [00:11:07] Gotcha.

Shelly Farrar: [00:11:09] Well, that was a funny story in itself. My, my, we brought on a managing partner, Rebecca, that works for us. She was worked for my husband at P.F. Chang’s, and we knew her for years. And she’s a family friend. And we were all had all these plans of this big opening and the big opening party. And the week before we were slated to open and close it, we we closed our doors January 2nd. We opened January 11th. That meant training, moving everybody over, hiring three times more people. Wow. And my my husband and my brother in law and my son all got Covid.

Sharon Cline: [00:11:48] No. At the same time, the.

Shelly Farrar: [00:11:50] First time they ever had it happen to be that week. So actually, not my brother in law. I’m sorry. So it was me, my brother in law and Rebecca. They had to move the whole the restaurant over, close it off, clean it up, get it over there. But we made it happen because of just basically our employees jumped in. They did. They were like, we’re making this happen. They were more excited, I think, than we were to have a nice, clean, big building with a big bar and a real bar. Yeah, a real bar. Yeah. Our other bar was seven people. Yeah. Yeah, we. Yeah, it was like a little tight. Little. We made the best of it and we made it happen. But this was my son and husband designed the whole bar and kitchen and to kind of make it with our employees in mind for what they sacrifice working for us the last seven years before that.

Sharon Cline: [00:12:38] So did you have sort of a dream for your life that did not include a restaurant? And then when your son asked you, let’s do this together, like do you sort of look back at your life and go, I can’t even believe I own this restaurant? And it’s and our lives are like this?

Shelly Farrar: [00:12:51] Well, I had a lot of dreams. I’m a dreamer and I’ve been a real estate agent. I’m still a realtor. I get bored easily. So I do a lot of things, you know, entrepreneur wise on the side, just because I always I don’t sleep and I like to keep going. We joke about it. In fact, there’s a mural in our. There’s a lot of flying pigs in our restaurant. And people don’t understand why. And I get those as gifts. And we did a mural as it because I always said I’d open a restaurant with my family when pigs fly. And here we are.

Sharon Cline: [00:13:22] A bunch of pigs are flying as we speak so well.

Shelly Farrar: [00:13:26] But I’m grateful and thankful. And, you know, it just goes to show you don’t know your own dreams. You know, like they can evolve and change at any moment. And and people that come into your lives can impact it.

Sharon Cline: [00:13:38] Because think about how you’re talking about all of these people that you worked with in the past from your history are all part of your current life, which says a lot about the kind of people you are. A lot of people burn bridges when they move on or never speak to people again and you’re able to keep these relationships going and then have them in your current life.

Shelly Farrar: [00:13:54] Yeah, funny thing is like my husband, you know, through the years because he was, you know, kind of harder than what he is now. He has several employees that come back and even though they were on to bigger and better things and they constantly say thank you, thank you for making me the person I am, and I wouldn’t be as successful as I was if it wasn’t for you. That is our greatest compliment. Like we understand people are going to go on, move, grow and go on to different things and we encourage it and, you know, embrace it. But even when we’ve had to fire people in, you know, and the worst. Yeah, it’s not fun and we still love them, you know, and that’s what we say to them like we love you. But strike three, you know, you got to you got to go for now. Yeah. Some have come back after that and have been incredible. But it really is I think I think if you’re fair and you’re consistent and you truly care, I think it comes back tenfold no matter what what you’re doing.

Sharon Cline: [00:14:51] And I feel it. They can feel the sincerity, too, I think. Yes. And what a compliment to have people think of him as being your husband, I mean, as being like a challenging personality. But they needed it, too, you know, and they benefited from it.

Shelly Farrar: [00:15:05] Well, we always believed in tough love is parenting. And I’m very proud of both my boys. My other son owns has a restaurant with his girlfriend in Cartersville. Oh, no way. And he’s a executive chef and she’s the owner. And what’s their. Okay. We’ll give it a shot. Table 20. It’s amazing. Yeah.

Sharon Cline: [00:15:22] Congratulations. Thank you. So I have to take a visit.

Shelly Farrar: [00:15:25] You will. He makes everything from scratch and really pushes everything to the limit. And they do a great job, and I’m very proud of him.

Sharon Cline: [00:15:33] I was looking at your menu and how you’ve got these really cool things, these adult milkshakes and cocktails in mason jars and seafood and homemade desserts and craft beers. I mean, you kind of cover so many really wonderful things that people love.

Shelly Farrar: [00:15:46] We try and they they like to tell us when we need to add more things. No, they really.

Sharon Cline: [00:15:51] Thank you for the.

Shelly Farrar: [00:15:52] Constructive and I do the same thing. But that’s why my family’s like, you know, Shelly, we only have so much fryer space or Shelly. We only have so much walk in space. Like, you know, what can we get rid of? And then when we try to get rid of things, people get mad too. So, you know, we’re like, we just try it. That’s why we’re trying to have a little fun with it. Seasonal and changing up things at least a little bit.

Sharon Cline: [00:16:11] So I saw that you have a vegetarian, lots of vegetarian options, but you also have a gluten free menu. Was that a challenge for you to develop?

Shelly Farrar: [00:16:17] It wasn’t a beginning because ten years ago we didn’t really know what that was or the products and the flowers and the breading and all that kind of stuff was totally different. It’s evolved obviously with the needs and everything, but it’s something we’re very proud of. We haven’t gotten as advanced in the vegan and the vegetarian as we’d like, especially the vegan. We’re working on it though, but we have a lot of friends and family that are, you know, vegan and vegetarian. So yeah, and we will create something like if it’s not on our menu, we, you know, just say, Hey, tell us your likes or dislikes and what you can have and not have because I’m, you know, not as knowledgeable as I should be in the vegan aspect. So I’m getting better, but we still need a little more work on that. But the gluten free thing, I mean, our menu, almost our whole menu can be gluten free.

Sharon Cline: [00:17:04] Wow, That’s awesome. So anyone could come in and be able to find something that is suitable for them?

Shelly Farrar: [00:17:10] I believe so. We have a huge menu.

Sharon Cline: [00:17:12] I noticed that I was there not long ago and I saw it on the rooftop and it was so nice. It was just beautiful.

Shelly Farrar: [00:17:17] Gordon Ramsay would be so mad at us. He would say, Cut this menu in half. But oh.

Sharon Cline: [00:17:22] I didn’t know that He does that. He likes, like, just a little bit. He only.

Shelly Farrar: [00:17:24] Yeah we’re Yeah. Any, any professional would probably say you guys have way too much on your menu but we can like I said we’re.

Sharon Cline: [00:17:31] He must hate Cheesecake Factory. I can’t decide anything.

Shelly Farrar: [00:17:34] I know. I only look at the first two pages of Cheesecake Factory and then I have to say I’ll limit it there.

Sharon Cline: [00:17:39] But so what has been something that’s been the most surprising to you as you’ve gone through this journey of opening this restaurant?

Shelly Farrar: [00:17:46] I think the community and the relationships, that is definitely the most rewarding. And also, I just never I mean, you’re always like, yes, you love hospitality and you want to take care of the people that walk through your doors and you hope and pray they like what you do. And and but I think the relationships between our teams, because they really are family and also the relationship between us and the community. I’ve met so many great friends and that are our regulars and I think I never really saw that coming. I never really thought, Oh, I’m going to, I’m going to work and I’m going to get to know these people and I’m going to get to know them on this personal level. And we’re going to hang out after work and do things or not really after work because I work late but go do things. And I it’s just such a huge extended family that I’m so grateful for.

Sharon Cline: [00:18:39] Would you say that you’ve learned like some a big lesson from maybe a mistake that you made or something that you wish you knew beforehand?

Shelly Farrar: [00:18:48] I’ve made a lot of mistakes.

Sharon Cline: [00:18:50] Oh, me too, girl. We could be here all.

Shelly Farrar: [00:18:51] Day and I continue to make mistakes. But I do try to learn and grow from them. I think in the beginning, Oh, gosh, you know, those Yelp reviews and those different things, I would take it so personally. And it’s hard, though.

Sharon Cline: [00:19:05] It’s your.

Shelly Farrar: [00:19:06] Heart. I would go home. I literally would cry. I would throw up, Oh, my husband would like to wake me up reading them in bed. Oh, it’s like I finally said, Please stop reading them to me. I can’t take it anymore. Because especially in the beginning. Oh man, did we get a lot of bad reviews? Oh, wow. A lot of good reviews too, but a lot of bad reviews. And you know, it’s funny how you want to give some somehow don’t give credit enough to your good reviews. And you you know, you let the bad reviews suck you in or change you or it’s always that way though.

Sharon Cline: [00:19:33] The criticism is like what I remember most about things. Not someone who liked what I did.

Shelly Farrar: [00:19:37] Yeah, I didn’t really have thick. I thought I did because I had three brothers and I’m all around guys, but I guess I didn’t have a thick skin when it came to attacking. I guess you personally, you know.

Sharon Cline: [00:19:49] Too, right? Because it’s like you’re protective of what your son is doing too. It’s probably very complex.

Shelly Farrar: [00:19:54] Yeah, it was interesting. But also I think I had to step back and look at myself, take a look at myself and work on myself because why was that getting me so upset if I felt confident about what I’m doing, if I did the best I was, if I could do and it’s never going to be perfect, but if I could learn from it and learn from them, not everybody delivers criticisms the same way. And. I also had, you know, I’m a people pleaser. So to hear I didn’t please somebody, you know, was so devastating to me. But I think now I can listen to people and I can also kind of especially the ones I know now, you know, some of the worst critics are my favorite people now. I just you know, I had to get yelled at by him a couple times. And and I probably I didn’t yell back, but I probably got a little snippy. So.

Sharon Cline: [00:20:46] Well, they did. Tough love with you, then.

Shelly Farrar: [00:20:48] Definitely. Definitely. Some of the toughest love I’ve ever had.

Sharon Cline: [00:20:53] I like that you’re still together with your husband, even though he was reading, like, Yelp reviews. It wasn’t a deal breaker. That’s awesome. So how did you also have your sister restaurant, Jay Michael Prime? How did that come about?

Shelly Farrar: [00:21:08] Well, we used to go to it was a beautiful building that we loved to go to. We went to Winchester’s back in the day, remember? And that was our date night. We lived right down the road from there. I always loved the building. Never dreamed we could have the building, you know? Never. Did that ever come to mind, ever in play. But we were driving by and my son’s always looking for new restaurants for sale and, you know, sites. And he was like, Mom, that’s available. This is how much they want. And besides that restaurant, many other ones. And I was like, we don’t need another restaurant. You know, I, you know, I can’t spread myself any thinner. But then I was driving by one day and I was like, I told my husband, I think God wants us to have this building. He’s like, It’s too big. It’s down a hill. It’s never going to work. It didn’t work, you know? And I was like, okay, you know, and a little while later, six months later or so, because I think I think we need to have that building. And long story short, we put an offer in. They said, no, we put another offer in. They said no. A year later, they came to us and said, If you still want the building, we’ll take your your last offer. Meanwhile, the bank had come to us and said, If you want the money, we want to give you the money all within like 48 hours of each other. And so, yeah, so now we finally have it. And, you know, I still love the building. I still love it’s still down the hill and still doesn’t have enough parking.

Sharon Cline: [00:22:32] Well, I’ve been by there where it’s just been very busy and people have talked about it as being like a really incredible steak place. Can you describe what this restaurant, sort of the ambiance and the menu is like?

Shelly Farrar: [00:22:44] Well, the name came after J. Michael’s came from Mike’s brothers, John and and then Mike, my husband Michael, when they were little, they wanted to open a steak and seafood place. And they actually wrote that name down. Like I think in a I think we still have the notepad when they were like probably they’re four years apart. So I think Mike was 11 and John was seven.

Sharon Cline: [00:23:06] They wrote the name J.

Shelly Farrar: [00:23:07] Michael Prime, not Prime, but J.

Sharon Cline: [00:23:09] Michael J.

Shelly Farrar: [00:23:09] Michael’s. Yeah. And so when we’re trying to figure out a name, we’re like, Well, our son’s name is Michael and he’s a partner and John and you know that. So it just made sense to go with that name. And then Prime just sounded fancy, so we went with that. You know.

Sharon Cline: [00:23:24] It’s so true, though, but it works. It’s obviously it works. It’s successful. And so how is it running two places or at least being involved in two places?

Shelly Farrar: [00:23:33] And, you know, always in the beginning, it’s always harder than later when you open up a new place. So J. Michael’s is you know, we opened that and we spent a lot of time over there for the first year and Sub was kind of already running itself, thankfully. And then then we moved into a new building and that was like starting over again with RCB. But like I said, we have such a great family dynamic that we we always said if we’re going to own restaurants, we have to be in the building. At least some one owner has to be in the building at all times. So whether it’s Frank and we consider Chef Elliot you know and owner as well my John me. And then we have Uncle Tom who is our bonus, you know, partner. So we just always try to make a commitment to be one place or the other at all times. And then now it’s just we just like I said, we’ve grown into this amazing team of 140 employees. And would you ever.

Sharon Cline: [00:24:32] Have thought would you ever have.

Shelly Farrar: [00:24:33] Thought? No. When we opened the RCB, we had ten employees. So it has grown a.

Sharon Cline: [00:24:39] Lot to manage that many people.

Shelly Farrar: [00:24:41] Um, you know, it’s, it can be challenging, but we really do just have people want to complain about young people all the time, about how they don’t have work ethic and how they’re lazy and how they’re, we just don’t have that. And maybe the lazy ones don’t come to get a job. But the ones we have, I mean, some of these young people coming up, like we always get more and more impressed with the young people of today.

Sharon Cline: [00:25:03] And I need to hear this. This is good because I hear a lot of the opposite.

Shelly Farrar: [00:25:07] No, Nice to hear. Yeah. The groups we had like we’ve just had ten graduates at RCB and I think eight at J Michael’s. I mean, people started with us when they’re fifth. Team. And we’ve had we have several we just you know, we rewarded them for their year in anniversaries and we have quite a few ten year employees. We have a lot of five year employees and seven and above. And even people that go on to have babies and get married, they come back and pick up shifts and they do things or college. I mean, I have one other girl who just got accepted in UGA graduate school. She’s here for the summer for a little bit, take her week and get her. I always tell everybody I was like, I don’t care if you want to work one day a week, one day a month, if you’re if you come in, you do your job and, you know, smile, then you’re welcome here however many shifts you want. And but I mean, you know, there’s don’t get it wrong. There’s some employees that come in and you’re like, they’ve never been told they did anything wrong.

Sharon Cline: [00:26:04] Interesting. Really? How does it go when you tell them that?

Shelly Farrar: [00:26:08] Sometimes they cry, sometimes they quit, Sometimes they go home and tell mom, but then they come back and then it’s like they all of a sudden have this new challenge and they excel. And it’s amazing. Like we have people running our window right now, 17, 18 year old kids. And my husband even said, I’m not going to lie. They pushed me aside and they actually do really well because they might be better than me now, which he would never admit ever.

Sharon Cline: [00:26:32] So But how interesting that the effect that you’re having, like the legacy that you’re leaving to for these people who are new and never really had experience like what you’re teaching them and what that will mean for their lives? It’s it’s major.

Shelly Farrar: [00:26:46] We hope so. But we learn from them, too. Like they’ll come in and go, Well, what if we did this? I was like, Well, try it. Let’s see what happens.

Sharon Cline: [00:26:52] And do they do they encourage you to use social media more like, I know that’s such a big deal regarding marketing and having you stand out and how does social media play into your restaurants?

Shelly Farrar: [00:27:04] They are more into, I think it’s tiktoks and Instagrams, which I’m still not abreast with yet. I did have to teach myself the Facebook thing back in the day, and I do I do all the all of our social media right now with bartenders and things like that. I do get them involved with when they create a drink and they want to post it and then I share it like we do it through that. That’s great. I don’t want people to know, per se, their first and last names because of safety. I’m very, I guess, protective of that situation, so I’d rather have it posted through our social media as a page, not as them personally.

Sharon Cline: [00:27:43] Got you. Got you. So that makes sense because what you’re trying to do is promote the restaurant. And even though you have an employee, you’re not trying to put them in a any kind of risk, which these days it is.

Shelly Farrar: [00:27:54] Yeah. I mean, I don’t want them people to fail to find their first and last name. Now they might, I will say, come see Kelsey or come see, you know, Bell or, you know, whatever. But and they can do it on their own stuff, you know, because I’m all about, you know, building, having them build their own regulars and, you know, and building repeat customers. But I still try to there’s some times I’ve had to also coach and teach and preach and have a shoulder on people that, you know, got a little too too naive with some customers and wondered, you know, why it went sour.

Sharon Cline: [00:28:28] Interesting. Well, you’ve got to manage all these different personalities. I can’t imagine.

Shelly Farrar: [00:28:32] Yeah. And they’re like I said, there are kids. So and we always tell them, we don’t expect you to be perfect. You know, we just, you know, hope you’ll learn from your mistakes.

Sharon Cline: [00:28:41] Yeah, well, that’s the.

Shelly Farrar: [00:28:42] Goal, right? Yeah.

Sharon Cline: [00:28:43] Well, okay, so you’ve really accomplished a tremendous amount, right? In ten years or so. So how did you manage what I think is sort of a natural fear of failure or fear of the unknown because that stops so many people in the business world.

Shelly Farrar: [00:29:00] Well, like I said, when Mike Mike was making very, very good money in the corporate world and he just gotten to a point where he’s like, you know, I think I’m going to have a heart attack if I stay with this company any longer, any company. He goes, I’m just I think I need to step away and do something else. And of course, we didn’t want to have a heart attack, but we were we were kind of like, we’re not. And we had worked very hard at becoming debt free and having some money and we didn’t want to have to get investors or have to, because I think that just puts more and more pressure on you. It’s stressful. And so we thought we’d start out small. You know, this was an existing restaurant, it was already furnished, it already had equipment. All we really had to do was some cleanup and inventory. My husband being the number guy, also understands you got to have, you know, some money to last you a year because it’s going to take a good year to get a restaurant off the building. You get the reputation and get it up and going. But we also didn’t want to put any more money than what we had. And we just kind of went in it with like, if we’re going to do it, we better do it now. We’re not getting any younger. As far as him moving away and stepping out in faith, we spent a lot of time in prayer and we were just like, you know, there’s no time like the present. And I, you know, I said, I go, We’re. Homeless were homeless, but at least we tried it. And I think people just need to get out there and do it. And what’s the worst that can happen? You have to go get a job. You have to go, you know, go back to what you were doing. But if you don’t try it, I think that’s going to be your biggest regret.

Sharon Cline: [00:30:34] I think that’s the biggest lesson that I’ve been learning lately is that when I don’t take a chance and time goes by, it’s another holiday, it’s another year, another birthday. And I haven’t done what I believed I would. It’s there’s a pain there that you feel. And I think that regret is almost worse than the fear of actually trying.

Shelly Farrar: [00:30:54] I definitely think that. I mean, I even like I don’t know, it’s kind of funny now because we’re like, okay, why not? You know, it’s like, guess we’ll just see what happens next.

Sharon Cline: [00:31:05] Is there anything you’re not afraid of it then any more? Because you really did handle the pandemic in a way that was so unique and helpful and and has gave you that sort of like bridge to when the pandemic ended.

Shelly Farrar: [00:31:17] I think everybody has their thing. My thing is, even though like, I don’t go to church every Sunday, but faith is something that and I’ve I’ve failed it a lot of things. A lot of times I’m not really afraid of failing because I’m really good at it. So I’m like, That should.

Sharon Cline: [00:31:36] Be a country song. That’s hilarious.

Shelly Farrar: [00:31:38] So I think it’s like, what’s the worst going to happen? Like I said, I’m homeless or, you know, I have to start over or, you know, I’ve got to try something else or I got to go another avenue.

Sharon Cline: [00:31:47] So you don’t have that perfection sort of thought process. Like it has to be perfect. I can’t fail because then I have I lose faith face in front of people. Do you know what I mean? Yeah.

Shelly Farrar: [00:31:55] I’m so not that person.

Sharon Cline: [00:31:57] So your personality lends well to this then? Like, you.

Shelly Farrar: [00:32:00] Know, thank God. I mean, my. My husband and my son, they’re. They’re my family. They’re all OCD, and I’m so not. But I’m also, I guess, you know, my husband’s always like, you’re not afraid of anything. You’re not afraid to try anything. You’re not And I’m not It doesn’t mean I try a lot of things that don’t work. But I like to learn new things all the time. And I also like to challenge myself. And yeah, it’s like it’s not like I. But I guess I’m not really into material things, so it doesn’t matter to me if I have to lose some material things. So maybe that’s part of the like, it’s okay.

Sharon Cline: [00:32:36] Well, clearly it works for you because in 2022, you were the traveler. You won a Travelers Choice award and then 2023, currently you’ve got the Diners Choice Award for Open Table. What what are those awards like? It must be so affirming.

Shelly Farrar: [00:32:50] They mean a lot because they come from the customers. You know, that’s really that’s how we evaluate our success is what the customers think. Like we don’t really we don’t do print, we don’t write articles. And even doing something like this is very like I said, this is only the second time I’ve done this and you’re.

Sharon Cline: [00:33:08] Doing so great. We’re almost done. You’re doing so.

Shelly Farrar: [00:33:10] Great. I don’t really like to talk about ourselves, so we like to like kind of talk about the community and what what can we do for the community, What can we do to make this place a better place to live in for our for our guests, for our employees, you know, and for our families.

Sharon Cline: [00:33:26] You also offer catering, I saw.

Shelly Farrar: [00:33:28] Yes. Yeah, we do a lot of catering. We do a lot of deliveries and catering. We’ll do full service, catering and just, you know, platters and things like that.

Sharon Cline: [00:33:39] So do you ever take time off like, I know you just said you had a cabin or you’re about to go on vacation. What is it like to leave?

Shelly Farrar: [00:33:45] This is the first year that we’ve actually taken well, not I wouldn’t say we take time off because when you’re when you have things, you’re never off. Like I’m doing all the social media and we’re doing my husband’s always on the computer and as because we’ve built so many relationships with regulars, I like to tell us when we’re doing things right and wrong. And they’ll privately message me and phone phone me. And and they the big joke is, you know, they’ll go people will go in the restaurant and they’re like, oh, well, they said Kelly said.

Sharon Cline: [00:34:14] Oh, gosh.

Shelly Farrar: [00:34:15] I’ve gotten to a point where I just tell them. I go, Just say. Kelly said. They love that, you know, And my whole thing is I say, if anybody comes in as mean to you, they’re not my friends. So if they say they’re Kelly’s friends, if they’re mean to you, I promise you they’re not my friends because my friends would never be mean. They would secretly, you know, they would tell me behind the scenes like, hey, just because I care about you, it wasn’t on par. But interesting. Yeah.

Sharon Cline: [00:34:40] So what would you like to see happen in the next 5 or 10 years? Would you like to have another restaurant or would you just like to continue to grow this one or both of them?

Shelly Farrar: [00:34:49] If you asked me and you asked my partners, there’s totally different things. I’m just saying I my my husband and son and I think they’re always looking for the next next adventure, next venture. I think I would like to kind of transition myself into behind the scenes. And we’re looking into bottling some things, and I really like the mixology side of the the bar creating new, new things and. And doing things like online that we want to do some of our sources and our that’s really my husband’s son’s dream. But I’m okay with like helping to market that kind of thing. And really, I don’t know, like I do, I say my kids, my son and my husband want to do that. But I love an idea of a wine and dessert bar and a venue. I do. I love doing special events, so maybe something like that.

Sharon Cline: [00:35:44] So the future is bright. Maybe I’ll be in or.

Shelly Farrar: [00:35:48] I’ll mentor someone else to do it. Yeah. Really?

Sharon Cline: [00:35:51] No. I was thinking I’ll be in Publix and see some of your sauces or wines or whatever, you know? I mean, you never know. It’s. So what’s cool is that you really just let life unfold for you and not try to control it. You just do the best you can in the moment. And then what’s meant to happen is actually happening.

Shelly Farrar: [00:36:05] Yeah, well, my husband has more of an agenda, but yes, they do better. They’re better at that. But we also don’t get stressed about it. It’s like the timing is trusting in the timing. You know, what’s what, what doors are going to open next and not be closed minded about it. And that’s why when you ask me that, I was like, I can say that. But now we just we just bought a cabin for an Airbnb and we bought another property to build one. And so there’s, there’s things that and that’s still part of hospitality because we want to take that to a whole new level when people come to stay there.

Sharon Cline: [00:36:38] So well, you never know.

Shelly Farrar: [00:36:40] Never know. Who knows well how I could just move in there. I’ll be okay.

Sharon Cline: [00:36:44] Where.

Shelly Farrar: [00:36:46] I am there a lot. I’ve been decorating.

Sharon Cline: [00:36:48] But it’s so fun. And I think that’s really huge because the energy that you have about it is fun is like joy and fun and helping the community, not just thinking about yourself and what we can get out of it, but actually having a place that creates an atmosphere, that creates memories for people that you’re affecting, not just someone’s experience having dinner, but the employees that you have and what that can mean for their lives. It’s like so fun.

Shelly Farrar: [00:37:11] Yeah, I don’t think I would do anything that wasn’t fun, you know, because I think it’s important that you have fun doing what you do no matter what it is, you know? But I think you’ve got to have a light spirit about it and go with the flow and know that everything’s not going to be perfect, really? Ever.

Sharon Cline: [00:37:30] Well, you’ve made this really fun. I’ve really appreciated you coming and chit chatting with me about your history, and I have an appreciation for your restaurant that I hadn’t before. And so I hope everyone who’s listening has the same experience too.

Shelly Farrar: [00:37:40] Well, thank you. I appreciate you having me here and honored that you would even think of me. Oh, thank you.

Sharon Cline: [00:37:44] Oh, it’s my pleasure. How can people get in touch with you or what would you say is the best way for them to find out more information?

Shelly Farrar: [00:37:49] They can go onto our website. So Jay Michaels prime.com or Lee Kantor. Com.

Sharon Cline: [00:37:54] Got you. All right. Well, thank you so much, everyone for listening to Fearless Formula. I’m Business RadioX. And again, this is Sharon Klein reminding you that with knowledge and understanding, we can all have our own fearless formula. Have a great day.