What Happened to Scotty's Brewhouse?

I like to take swings man I love when somebody tells me I can't do something so I'd have to do prep at home after I got home from work just so I could keep up with operations all those guys made fun of you and said you we'd never go anywhere and look where we are now Scott what is a Hidden Gem in Indiana from South bin to Evansville and everywhere in between this is get in the show focused on the hooer state and the incredible stories happening here today I'm Nate spangle founder of G Indiana and I will be your host for today's conversation before we get into it just a reminder this episode of get in is brought to you by cluster truck Indy's goto delivery kitchen if you haven't tried cluster truck yet you are missing out they have over a 100 menu items everything from hand strrretch Pizza tat tacos salads breakfast burritos and my personal favorite the pad tii ad chicken they've got something for everyone plus delivery is always free now here's the best part if you order right now by the time this podcast is over your cluster truck order will already be at your door it's that fast so whether you're catching the game or just too busy to cook head to clustertruck.

com order now and use code Indie i n Dy at checkout for 20% off orders of $25 or more trust me your stomach's going to thank you reminder that code is Indie i n d y now let's get into the episode today I'm joined by Scott Wise a renowned Indiana restaurant tour who uh brought us to beloved Scotty's brew house and who's now returning to his roots with a new Venture Roots Burger Bar after stepping back from Scotty's and navigating a whirlwind of challenges Scott's taking a Fresh Approach to what he loves most creating and inviting and community-driven dining experience I'm super pumped to get into this one we're going to talk about the roller coaster ride that was Scotty's brew house right like one of the I mean a fast fast growing Restaurant Group here in um in Indiana and that that's no longer around in the in the old way shape and form anymore and uh Scott and I were talking a little bit before this and and we're just going to get into that Journey over the last I mean how how long when was the first Scotty's opened oh God 96 is when we first opened 96 so this is going to be 25 5 years uh plus of uh of history and where was the first Scotty opened at Muny my hometown M you're uh what high school Muny Yorktown you're AER that's right look at you see I usually the people I talk to for months are Delta Eagles so that's my wife oh there we go uh we were talking about wrestling a little bit before uh the show got started in Delta during the the hey days of like the 80s I believe they were they were wild okay well well let's go back where didd you go to college I went to Ball State you were ball so you were a Mony guy so I was you know like if I rewind the uh I always say like if I'm laying on the couch and I'm I'm laying and talking to the psychologist I was always known as Jerry's son or Debbie's son everywhere I went in town and so you know when I look back I was always trying to break that mold and get away from that which is crazy and I realized that later in life but at the time so when I when I graduated high school I went to depal with a W depal and in Green Castle let's go Tigers my freshman year and I was a swimmer so I swam uh for depal and I was there and I'm like man I just I didn't jive with it too small of a school I was I was really burned out with swimming you know I could bore you and tell you I was also anorexic at the time so I had this issue an eating disorder uh so a lot of things compounded that brought me back to Ball State so again you know gradu and I also had this idea not not idea but my my drive was always to own my own business I knew from the day I was you know a tiny kid because my dad was an entrepreneur and my mom was and their grand my my grandparents and their parents so I knew that I wanted to own my own business I didn't know what but I just know I knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur so I thought I need to go back to Ball State cuz I just need a degree I don't I want to go to college and get the experience I didn't I wasn't going to be a lawyer and a doctor I didn't really need that part of the college so when I went back to Ball State I wanted to do it because I just wanted to be closer to home I wanted be in that environment but when I graduated Ball State I left and I went to Texas uh right out of college and and lived in Houston at a and worked for a marketing um I worked for a big sporting goods company in their marketing department but again I was running from my last name which was crazy because I kind of tell the story that you're kind everybody in life I think is gifted and blessed with some special ability you know certain things people can sing some people can dance some people can draw you can podcast I I'm decently okay at running restaurants I but I think one of the blessings that I was given was this lineage of of a great powerful last name in my own Community instead of running from it I should have embraced it and so when I went back to Muny I was working for my parents I was living at home home I still didn't know what I wanted to do but I really had this passion to to own a restaurant and run my own restaurant which is crazy because every probably 20 year old 21y old kind of has that dream cuz you go to a bar you go to a restaurant it looks fun right it's you you don't know how the sausage is made you're just on the outside kind of having fun having the drinks and stuff and so but I I truly loved it and I'd always worked in that industry I was always a bartender you know I started my freshman year at Ball State I was washing dishes for a guy that now works with me at Roots at actually so we've known each other for 35 years I watched this is for him and now we both work together at Roots but uh it was a full circle moment but you know I so I always lived within that industry and I loved it and so I embraced it and I embraced my last name and that was what I was able to use was my last name to say you know hey Dad I I really think I can make a restaurant work and he and he tells me if you write up a business plan and present it to me and and I think it would work then we'll go in and we'll go to the bank and we'll see if it'll work the the blessing was with my last name that it was my father co-signing a loan for $50,000 that got Scotty's Brew House off and running I feel like when you're young it's like you don't know what you don't know right you're like I want to go out and Forge R own path versus like pouring some jet fuel on the fire and like getting this thing rolling how long did you spend in Houston I was only there a year so a year down there which is like you go out you know you see that and then I I hear this a lot especially with like recent College grads it's like starting a life somewhere else and you're like dang Indiana was pretty cool you know you miss that the community the people the the adage that The Grass Is Always Greener can apply to so many things I see it a lot of times with people leaving jobs and going somewhere because they think it's going to be better or going to live somewhere else cuz they think it's going to be better and there are things that you know like Indiana doesn't have mountains and oceans and beaches right but there are a lot of other things that we we have in this community that can overcome some of those things I'd rather I can still travel to an ocean or to a beach but I've got a lot of I've got my family I've got my friends I've got a really great sense of living here I you know I I like our community there's a culture here that is a little bit different um but what I love is it's like the people that just like uh complain about Indiana but never leave I'm like if you really don't like it just like go try it and like see if you and when you come back I feel they always come back with like a a better perspective like you know I went out and did the thing and and then it makes them Miss home and appreciate what they have here so you go into the bank you get a loan coign with your dad 50 Grand we're going to build this like what was the original concept I mean he let me do it on my own it was just me so he I mean they were there kind of to support me and be my cheerleader but it was just me that went in and I did everything I went in there with a bunch of cleaning supplies and a bunch of paint and and it was a really old it was a bar that had been there forever and just I cleaned it up and worked hard and scrubbed and you know and Polished and went to uh HH Greg and bought a a freezer box that I could hold french fries in and and I was the only employee I was the cook and the bartender and i' I'd go home at night and I'd try to balance the books and we got you know every day got a little busier and so then at night I would and I was living at home at the time so I'd go home and I would where where was it at uh I was in M like on on boss on so you're an on you're a Onan show one show are you like what are your hours it was you know 11 11 to midnight it was well hours that the the restaurant was open 1100 to midnight yeah yeah and and I would go home at night you know exhausted and I would I couldn't keep up with the production of food during the day because it was just me so I would go home at night and I would cook a bunch of pasta and things that were on our menu and I would put them in a Igloo cooler and I would car you know get up in the morning and take it to work and i' so I'd have to do prep at home after I got home from work just so I could keep up with operations during the day and so you know so I got busier and I hired one employee and then two and then three and who's your first employee ever Eric champ who who worked with me from almost day one I'm pretty sure he was employee number one that came on board and uh was man he was so loyal and so great and again you know the whole getting to the end of the story when things kind of crumbled it was sad because he was a guy that I never wanted to let down because he had a lot a lot of friends remember we we kind of would joke about it especially during our Heyday when we were in our height of success we would always discuss back when he first started they would say why you know why are you working for Scott he's that that's not going to go anywhere you're you're you're just graduated college why don't you go get a real job and Eric would always tell them this is a real job I like what I do and I think you know Scott said that we're going to grow this thing and and I believe in what he said and we're going to I'm going to write it out and you know so then we get to store number 10 and 12 and 13 and 14 and he and I would a lot of times have a conversation saying hey remember when all those guys made fun of you and said you we'd never go anywhere and look where we are now so I do think there's a benefit especially when you're well you graduate college you're 22 23 years old it's like you join a startup it's like if it fails it fails and you have a good story to tell but like the upside potential is is great right so you're work in that one store you start to hire two three employees is this becoming like a staple what is this like the late 9s so this is yeah probably I mean it it grew rapidly successful almost too quickly like the story that I always told was the beauty of Youth and stupidity going hand inand is that you just don't know what you don't know like we just talked about and so and the other thing was you you you gain so much success so quickly at a young age that you feel like this sense of in in invincibility right like I felt like I was Superman like nothing could why why do people say restaurants are hard I'm crushing it unfortunately you don't want that you want you almost want to be knocked down a few punches so that you can learn like all right hey Scott it's not going to be that easy the time real quickly I got my first punch after I launched Scotties in '96 we had this Uber success so in '97 we knocked the building down and rebuilt it and built it about three times the size of what it was previously and it needed it it was a really old building and again after that success still came and so call it like 98 now 99 I decide I'm going to do another restaurant and I'm going to do a fine dining restaurant fine dining kind of fun casual California contemporary and I did it in Muny and it was was at a time in Muny where we had three other really fine dining restaurants and Muny could barely support one fine dining restaurant it didn't need four but I opened this restaurant every single thing I did I did wrong from from the get-go I I I didn't even know what a soft opening was is how silly I was as a as an entrepreneur as a restaurant tour so in our business you never announce when you're opening you kind of quietly you you cuz you got to work out the Kinks those first couple weeks there's always just going to be issues you're you're still kind of training your staff to be right well with this restaurant I just announced to the world hey we're going to open on this date and it's going to be exciting and be here and it's going to be great food and you know the advertising worked because we had a line around the building the problem was our kitchen was not prepared and we were it was it would take you two hours to get your meal so we've suffered you know I I I broke a lot of things I I I went through a lot of stress and uh my wife and I at the time we were gosh we were I remember getting up on Sunday mornings and we were driving around to church parking lots and putting Flyers under windshield wipers saying hey you know 10% off if you bring your church flyer in and I would get calls from pastors you're so Blasphemous but you know stay off our property and I'm like man I I think God will forgive me I'm just trying to I'm just trying to keep the doors open I'm trying to pay the bills so we went three years in that business and I lost about a million dollars um over those three years how old are you at this time oh gosh I was probably 24 25 like okay so I think we need to put this in perspective it's like you opened a restaurant that first one in Mons M you go from making you you quit your job wherever what you're doing was it was it Academy Sports called Ashman Sporting Goods Ashman Sporting Goods right I knew that Academy's big one down there Tim you quit your job move home you have 50 Grand like how much when you say rapid success how much success did you see year one I mean we were we were busy and we were profitable and we were making good money but it wasn't like I was sitting on a mountain of cash I was still you know I was just naive I was young and I still had the security blanket of my parents being there you know hey if if there was ever a problem I knew that they would help pick me up and and they kind of did that with that restaurant where I lost that million dollars I still had Scotty's running and it was running successfully but any nor and so this again where I talk about Youth and stupidity is any normal person that's not 25 with no kids no you know nothing else I I decided I'm just going to keep move I'm going to keep going forward most people would have said you know what put the brakes on this thing let's go back to the Scotties let's just focus on that let's make that thing our cash cow and we can make a good living at that but I didn't I thought you know what I'm not going to let all this equipment just go to waste and I'm not going to give it back to the bank so I decided I'm going to open Scotty's number two in Bloomington and I'm going to take every piece of equipment that I have here and I'm going to use it in my restaurant in Bloomington so it would not cost me as much money and I ripped when I say I took everything I took the water softener I took the bathroom counters that were cut a certain way they were like customized cut to to look kind of cool in this restaurant I took them out and I had to customize put them into a restroom in in Bloomington and then make the wall fit around this funky countertop just because I wanted to use every single item that I could and so I did it almost as a way to not let it be a complete failure correct and not only that but even in as I lost that million dollars what what's really crazy is when I look back at it we were every year we had lost money first year and then second year and I told myself you know I'm going to close this thing but I'm not going to close it until I make sure I know that I could make it break even that was my goal to prove to myself that I'm not such a loser that it did wasn't going to ever not make money but once I get it to break even then I'm shutting the doors down because I knew that I if once I got it to there then I told myself you're not a loser you got it back to where it needed to be and if you wanted to stick with it you could probably make it make money but why put all that effort into something that is not ever going to really make you a ton of money why not focus on the brand that has legs and use that as your vehicle to what was the second restaurant called Lucy Lucy it was my wife's middle name Lucy L oh that's a ro romantic you know what it's lucky we we we joke about the fact that we're we're now married 23 years and we're lucky we're still together because she was running that restaurant restaurant at the time and it was just a you don't want to run a restaurant with your wife usually I mean some people can probably make that work we it was very hard on us especially just strug with the daily struggles it just you're running a restaurant with your wife and it's named after her and it's not going well correct and there's and when you go home it's like we you still own this restaurant that's not going well so you take all this stuff down to Bloomington and open Scotty 2 I open Scotty 2 and this is at a time where you know a lot of kids today wouldn't even remember this they allowed smoking in restaurants and then they allowed non-smoking sections and smoking sections so you would when you go to the host you would say I want to sit in smoking or non-smoking which is crazy because you know if you think about people smoking smoke kind of filter it doesn't really stay in one side of a restaurant right when did that get maybe like ear mid 2000 like way later than You' think well I open that that Scotty's in Bloomington Let's see we opened in ' 01 and when I opened smoking was still allowed everywhere but Bloomington being as Progressive as it was was one of the first it was the first city in IND Indiana that said any new restaurant is going to be has to be smoke free any a current restaurant is can still have smoking but you have to get rid of it by I think I don't know 2003 or something and so people told me like hey don't go in there you're going to you're going to die like college kids like to smoke and have a beer and they're never going to come into your place and I thought you know what I think this is kind of a cool Niche like I think that I can go in here I don't I don't like I'm not a smoker I don't like being around smoke I think I could go in here and make it kind of cool because no one else is doing it and it's funny we did that and all of a sudden we became this incredible poster child for non-smoking restaurants and how successful they could be and I started speaking on behalf of they started having me kind of tour around the state for these groups that were trying to get smoking band out of restaurants and I would tell people I said listen I'm really not on the side of banning smoking I think that's a decision that an entrepreneur should make but it doesn't take a entreprene you know you only need two seconds to say if people are going to somewhere across the street and they're non-smoking and I have smoking in my restaurant and it's half full then maybe I should look at what the competition's doing and and mimic that or and try and change my policy I don't need the government to tell me how to run the business I I can look around and see that I'm making yeah making a bad decision but you know there obviously there's health things that were happening and there were not just that you're affecting yourself you're affecting other people crazy it's crazy to think about like I would like walk into like brt re and it's like oh yeah just like hazy smoke buil like I'm ordering the chicken tenders and it's like's like in the back like you got like the cook with like a cigarette coming out of their mouth like what the world you know in these days now you got Vape so it's not you know the Vape smoke goes away and it's not even an issue but anyway so we when we went in there and we did that I was told that I would never make it and it you know hey kid you're not this is going to be a failure and and you're coming off of a failure coming off of when people tell me I can't do something you know like any type A OCD entrepreneur that tells you you're going to fail that's not going to work I like to take swings man it's not always going to work I don't I don't always get them all right but I love when somebody tells me I can't do something because it's just a motivator to show them that it can if I if I truly believe it and I've got passion and I've got heart and work ethic and desire and drive then I'm going to make it work and so we went in there and we did we kicked ass and we we were nonsmoking and people just flocked to us and they loved it compare it to the first store even beyond the first store okay so then that one at Ball State still running like it's still humming along still huming along and then this one you you launch now i''s say number two Scotty number two so I'm on the road a bunch I'm living in Muny you know I have to drive to each one so my mother-in-law made the cakes and pies for us that was one of the things I loved is it our cakes and pies were homemade but she would never give me the recipe and I always joked that she wouldn't do it because she thought that if if I ever divor divorc her daughter that I would never give the recipe back I you know I I don't I don't know if that's a truth or not but she hung on to those recipes even after I opened my third one in Lafayette I was having to Lo every day I'd have to go to her house pick up 10 cakes and pies put them in the back of my car I would drive to Muny and then I drive to Bloomington then i' drive to yet every other day I would have to make deliveries everywhere and it was just I finally was like Nancy plea you got to give me give me give us the recipes I'm not I will not bastardize them I'll make sure that they stay in in the family's hands you know and so she finally let us after she figured out I'm tired of she was cooking in her house and my and her husband she he still jokes about it today he's like she would get up at like 6:00 a.

m. and she was cooking cakes and pies like all day long for you because she loved it she loved that she was a part of the the company and and that's just like those early startup stage that fun cool you look back on it it's like my mother-in-law that's the stuff that makes it special you know like that's the stuff that a lot of people don't know and so it was great and and so we had Uber success with Bloomington and to me that's when I was like okay I'm I think I'm going to make this a college town bar it makes sense to go to all the college towns was was Brothers a thing then they were not around yet um like when did like the cuz they're from Wisconsin right like brothers there you can get food and stuff there but when I think of Brothers for my generation it's like bar standing room for the most part like you're there's like a dance floor at Alum yeah we were always known as the place that kind of pre- party so you'd come get food and fill up your belly and maybe have a few cocktails and drinks and then head off to killroy or brothers or Y so it's it's before that okay so then you opened number three in westof yeah so you're like college town bars yep so opened number three in 2004 had a great found a great location opened that one with great success again just right time right place met a guy that actually came into the bar in Bloomington kind of probably in I would say 2002 let's say and he sat down these prints on the bar and he was like Hey I'm open this place in Lafayette I'm going to build this building I'd love for you to I love this concept I'd love for you to come there and I said hey I'm not ready I'm just it's still too early but maybe someday and so he kind of walked away and we shook hands and I never thought thought I thought I would see him again in 2003 when I decided okay it's time to go to Lafayette I would I would always drive the market and figure out where I wanted to be I kind of did my own real estate and so when I went to Lafayette I drove and I saw this building and I was like this looks like a good place for a bar saw the number on it and I called it and the guy said do you remember who I am I said no and he said I'm the guy that sat in your bar two years ago and told you that this would be the place that you should come and let's get a deal done and eventually we did heck yeah okay brief pause in the action Y did when you were growing up did people call you Scotty no my grandfather did so that's where it came from a lot with the original Scotty when I opened it was really it had a lot of my influence from my grandfather he had passed away before ID opened but right behind the cash register I had a picture of him back in those days we were really like kind of our motto was Blues cigars and uh good stoies good food good people or something like that was kind of our motto and again back in the day of smoking so we we would actually we were kind of a cigar like I sold cigars behind the bar and I'd play blues and jazz and that was kind of an homage to him because he I always kind of remembered him growing up as playing as trumpet and always playing jazz and cold train and things like that that I really kind of Jed with and loved so it was kind of loosely based around my grandfather and that's where the Scotty came from so I never thought in a million years that eventually you know I still today get called Scotty by a lot of people and my my real my I say my real friends my friends that I that I grew up with when they hear people say say Scotty they look at me and they roll their eyes and they're like they must not really know who you are they don't know and it's an easy way to tell where it's like but you know what I I never offend people and I never turn them down well you know like I I go by both now like if somebody calls me Scotty I listen to it because it's still my name and if somebody calls me Scott then I listen to that too so it's not you know it's it's I'm not offended by it it's not anything you know whatever it's it's just a part of the story part of History I yeah I can definitely see that where it's like Scott and it's like oh no like if you call him Scotty like you W you weren't here from the beginning like you don't remember Scott right um okay well so it's 2003 y it's 2003 and you open up Lafayette how does that one go through the roof so what I did one of the things I tried to do or at that time is I paired with all of the sports properties for each College because I wanted to use their marks and their logos and the way to do that was you had to spend some money and advertise with them so I said I want to host all the coaches shows I want to be the place known as the place to host the coaches show so you know back in the Bloomington days this is back gosh the the year we opened there was when Mike Davis was there and he took really a Bobby Knight team to the final four and final game and so um when we went to Lafayette we had Katie and so it was just fun having these you know I was you got to think like back I was still like 26 27 years old I these were guys that I kind of looked up to and idolized in a small way like you're you're 26 years old you now have three restaurants in all college towns and like I can s imagine you're walking around like I'm the man you know that's that and that the funny part that's the part of the story that now being a 50-year-old I can look back at this and say gosh I think I was humble I was always taught to be practice humility but I wonder if I walked around with this air of Pomp and Circumstance like did I was I that guy that was a total ass and just people looked at me and like you know who's this young kid his dad must be providing all the funds to make this happen and so I hope that I never came across that way I'm sure probably naturally over time you you you know once you grow to where we were I'm sure there was probably some sense of arrogance that I had and I I hope I never stepped on anybody the wrong way cuz I think that that's the part of the story when I look back you know we all we all look back at things I could have done better things I could have fixed in life personally and professionally and if we're going to examine the Scotty's life I look back and I wish I would have slowed down you know like we we're saying like o it's so exciting it's three restaurants and you're only 26 27 years old and yeah that's great but even back then all I was doing was taking all my earning I mean every store was making good money but I was just taking all that cash and I was dumping into the next one cuz it wasn't cheap every time we opened a store it was a m you know 1.

5 was about what our out- of pocket expense was to do all the except for the first one the build out and the FF and and everything else so it's so you you make a million dollars you're like hey we have a million dollars in cash and you're like you know what let's go put it in the next one yeah and I did I mean it doesn't work exactly that way it doesn't like you don't all of a sudden have a million in your in your cash and you're just like you go burn it what we did we were making cash and so we were making enough money that we were having to go to the bank every time we wanted to open one we'd have to go just borrow a new go get more debt and so I you know I think when again when I look back and if I when I talk to kids these days about whether what whether whatever type of business they're running I'm always just like take a breath you know you don't have to be let's go let's go let's go let's do the next one and we got to be fast and I want to be a millionaire by da da da and I'll never my dad always told me like you know hey Scott I always wanted to be a millionaire by the time I was 30 and he goes and I hit 30 and I wasn't and I got kind of depressed and then I just started focusing it on the work and I kind of just put all my passion and effort into this he was a contractor and a developer and and he said and once I got into that and I started just just worrying about the work and being good at what I was doing all of a sudden the money came so sometimes we set our priorities incorrectly and I think that that is really true and and like I think some people hear that and they're like you mean the money just G and it's like if you are building whatever the business or the passion the thing that you have and you focus on making it like for me it's like I want to make the best podcast the best videos the best clips and it's like these days like all the advertisers like reach out to me for the most part for the most unless unless you're out there listening like I will be hitting you up but it's like it all comes because you make good like good content or you make a good restaurant concept and focus on that yes and then like all this stuff will come in time and you just got to be a little bit patient which when you're 24 it's hard to be hard to be patient and and nowadays with every the way how fast our world works and having everything in our fingertips with our phones it's just it's just a if there was any advice and the stuff that I always I've try to even teach my children is to just slow down you know like enjoy the moment I know it sounds so cliche and I think I probably got pissed when my parents said it or my grandparents said it to me like just enjoy the moment be here and you don't need to be on your phone you don't need you know I'm just like now I get it now I kind of I look back and I we would have been so much more more successful if I just would have slowed down a little bit Bobby Knight had this quote that I always liked and and they said you know how long does it take you or how long do you sit back and enjoy this do you go home and have a cigar and you know glass of whiskey and and enjoy the the fact that you just won and he said I'm already thinking about recruiting for next year and I think about that and I think man there was this day it gets me choked up because there was a day where I left my Bloomington restaurant and this this Eric Shan this guy that was working for me he was just busting ass the guy was there all day all the time and I and I'm a guy that I come in and I sometimes just don't recognize the good I'm like there's straw paper on the floor you got somebody back here that's not working hard enough this table's dirty you know where's the host I I I see all the things that need fixed and sometimes we need to recognize the positives and not always slam on the negatives and so I when I left that day I remember getting all my phone and I left and there was a a line to get into the restaurant just to put their name on the list to to wait for a table and I and I got his voicemail because of course he was out humping you know trying to take care of the restaurant and I said hey Eric I just want to leave you a message and tell you man you're doing such a great job I'm sorry that I don't appreciate everything that we' do together so you know so I'm just taking a few seconds to tell you keep up the good work there's a line out the door things are awesome you're doing a great job don't ever let my comments about a dirty floor a dirty you know you need to work harder and get the tables cleaned up quicker and get people sat quicker so I I try to remember that Mantra a lot and I still have that probably that personality flaw where I'm always trying to even with my own kids like they might get an A and I'm look at their paper and I'm like how did you miss that one that was like it easy you could have got an A+ man don't be that Dad don't be you know like I know exactly how you feel like in all the things that where it's like you you're constantly looking to the next thing which is like it's a happy balance right cuz it's like you can't achieve great success if you're just like totally complacent with where you are corre but you if all you ever do is like more more more the next thing the next thing the next thing then you're going to get to be like a 90-year-old man and be like you didn't I never found anything that I liked like you won't find it like and I'm not 90 but I've talked to enough people where it's like it there's this balance of drive and also um the Gratitude where it's like you look around that and you're like you know there Earth some things that are wrong but like there's a line out the door and it's like is the person coming out the door like obviously you want a very clean and tidy restaurant all these things but it's like is that one straw paper you like probably you know if you blow up on somebody and you're like oh my God like it's still going well and there is this feeling when you have the momentum in your court that when you're young it's like like right now it's like I'm I'm growing a ton I'm kind of is very interesting cuz I'm in this like hyper growth phase it's like making me think and it's like I almost want to capture lightning in a bottle like why I'm like oh my gosh I have to go to South I go Evansville and South bendon and everywhere and like if I'm not at every event that's going on in the state of Indiana like they're going to think that I'm irrelevant like all this stuff it's 100 that's a that's it I I mean I hope that this story can you know shed light on whether it helps you or others just sometimes you just need to sit back and appreciate you know like that again stupid cliche but smell the like just smell the roses just take a minute to take a breath and appreciate how far you've come and what you've done you don't have to doesn't mean you have to let up on how great you are or how hard you work but there are times where you can sit back and just appreciate what you've accomplished and maybe take a breath and maybe you don't need to work to get to five events by you know whatever like I think like open your you know 10 restaurants a year or whatever it is right that's what and why I always compared that that Bobby Knight quote to me with restaurants because my in my head and this is one again another personality flaw was I felt like I wasn't truly a restaurant tour once I opened one to me it was just like I would I'm not a restaurant guy I'm not a restaurant tour until I get three and then I opened three and I thought you know what it's not three I I got to have one in Indie because Indie is the the the capital and I got a if I have a restaurant in Indie then I've made it and then I opened one in Indie which one where did you open one in Indie uh on on 96 street was our first one in Indie in 200 seven 96 then what cross street um right near Keystone at the Crossing so um CLA now has been knocked down so cla's not there anymore um there's a restaurant called so this was your your first non- col bar first non- col bar so yes so anyway my my story was that I kept putting these pressures on myself and and I really wasn't a true restaurant tour until I got to this number and I kept hitting that number and I kept pushing the the marker further down the road and I'm like geez Scott I mean what how many do you have to have I think even when I sold at like 22 restaurants I felt like the number was Now 50 like I needed to have 50 to be really the guy that was a true restaurant tour you don't have to have 50 you if you have one restaurant your restaurant tour and you're and you keep it open for a couple years you've done a pretty good job you've done more than most people I mean a lot of people in this industry can't make it that long so yeah so I when I opened an indie again it was it was the same old story someone told me well the banks told me you can't you're not going to make it here we're not going to we can't loan you money for this one you'll never it's never going to work in a in a town like this you got too much competition at the time when we first opened Scotties I was beer and wine only I kind of wanted to be known as a beer bar so we had no liquor even in the college towns and when I came to India I'm like all right I got to I'm going to have to have a liquor license to make this one work so and when I when I found my location and I decided on where I wanted to be at the time again a lot of people won't remember this but Champs was was a was kind of the diamond that was just cranked they had great food great service great atmosphere great bar scene always packed really big and it was really close to us it was right near it was probably 300 yard from where I was opening we opened that we opened doors and it was till the day that I sold the the company it was the Cash Cow it was the the one and I was told the story that I have this letter from the bank that said that you know we're denying your loan we don't think it's going to work and I kept that in I I would post that and I'd look at it every day as a kind of a motivator for me to say I've got to prove these guys wrong I got to show them that they are incorrect and I did I mean I didn't go ever go back to them and say like hey you know hey Denise remember when you denied this loan like by the way it makes the most so that was that was your one that was like the big big one yeah and so then I think that's when things I started again like growing too fast the next flaw that I I look back and I made was that I started grow I started making them too big the restaurants so that one was 10,000 square feet which was really really large for a restaurant and so my next one after that was downtown Indie I thought okay now I'm going to open in downtown because I want to really get that Pacers crowd and the and the Colts and you know there was so much going on at that time downtown with a huge patio huge patio that restaurant was 12,000 s sare ft inside and another 5,000 ft patio just way too big too too much square footage your rents are too high well let's just rewind the clock when I opened that restaurant was well let's just call it a month before the recession hit was the day that I you know I signed the lease and it was at that then it was it was just hang on for dear life you know like after I opened it was a recession no one had money it was 08 it was all of a sudden people were like we're not going to support restaurants we're just trying to keep our family alive yeah what was really interesting during those times the college town restaurants all of my college town restaurants kind of lived in a bubble because I don't want to say the college towns are Recession Proof they still feel it money's not real when you're in college yeah I mean kids are still going out and spending their parents money they're still going to drink and eat like you're not going to like oh we're going to recession like you might switch from Coors Light to Bush light you're still like you're like you're not cutting beer out right so we we held on for dear life uh had a lot of painful you know situations where we had to talk to our landlord and say hey can you help us and they're like no we got Bank debt to pay because they got they got to feed their family too you got to pay your rent so we figured it out we made it work um how much were the other restaurants helping keep downtown India alive yeah I'd say a lot there was a you know that that restaurant downtown was I mean I think our rent was like $35,000 a month I mean it was just insane 35,000 yeah wow so we uh that space is still empty isn't it it is yeah I mean the parking's brutal there like I just don't know if that is like a tough you know and this is pre you know now we can say you know Co kind of cleared out that whole area because of office kind of dying but back in the day I was really hyped on that area because there was talk that this new there was this new project where the old Market Square Arena was going to become this new building that was going to be built and the Pacers were doing all this good stuff well then all a sudden this is right when uh this is right after Ron AR test went up and got the did the whole Detroit thing so the Pacers sucked because because they got in all that trouble and no one was really coming to the any of the games they didn't do the Market Square project and then we hit you know the recession and they got moved over towards Georgia Street that's like where downtown ended up shifting I don't know kind of everything moved a little bit that way huge thank you to our friends at Greeks Pizzeria since 1968 Greeks have been serving up Delicious Pies all over Indiana from Fort Wayne to Crawfordsville down to Bloomington and everywhere in between Greeks Pizzeria is all over the state you need to go check out the video I posted of Mike Cole now Mike owns the Greeks and zville he ran the mill race marathon in Columbus and broke the World Record for fastest marathon while holding a pizza it was a spectacle it was super awesome the man crushed it he ran a 3-hour and 15minute Marathon while holding a pizza that's faster than I run my normal Marathon it was an insane feat to witness give yourself a break for making dinner tonight pull out your phone go to Greeks pizzeria.

com and find the store nearest you order a large pepperoni you're going to be a hero for your significant other your kids whoever they are they're going to love you there's a reason they' have been in business for 55 years they know what they're doing when it comes to Pizza go check out Greeks pizzeria. com so anyway I we held on but was what was crazy was I thought you know and this is where a lot of entrepreneur strike is when times are really low that's the time really where you can the people that are smart and have a lot of money and I not that I had a lot of money I just had entrepreneurial sense and I thought what if I went out right now and started trying to grow and and I changed the model and instead of me owning the restaurant I would say hey if you want to own a Scotty kind of like a franchise but you don't have to run it I will run it for you it's going to be your money you're going to keep all the profit and I'm just going to take a man we called it a management fee so we'll run it we take a fee for running it and you don't have to do a damn thing other than collect a profit check every every year and so we started that model and so by the time we sold I think we had five or six of our restaurants were management contracts and then the rest were company-owned so the management contracts were I mean people love the the group that bought us love those because it's it's just income coming in all you know you're constantly just bringing in in a check because you're you're managing that operation for somebody else and it's all their money all their money went into buying all the friers and the grills and the tables and the chairs and everything it was there it was that owner did that all themselves we made them sign all the contracts so anyway we continued to grow at that time and that's what were the next so after downtown Indie where do you end up at so after downtown we went out to G and we did that Scotty's lakeh house which was kind of a cool knock spin-off concept that we did was was fun and super popular it was also at a time where I said you know the whole goal the reason I got into this business back in 96 was I wanted to open a brewery I wanted to brew my own beer and in then '96 this was the first height of the Brewing industry and those that remember kind of the the beers back then it was like Red Hook and Seer Nevada and a lot of this West Coast stuff was kind of trickling our way and so I thought man I want to open a I want to I want to do a brewery and so I went down to Bloomington Brewing Company who I've I've been longtime friends with Jeff me down in Bloomington who also owns Lenny's who they've since sold all this stuff um and I talked to Jeff about it and he said Scott don't don't do it it's the it's a tough industry you got to spend a lot of money on the equipment then you got to hire a brewer unless you want to go to school and learn how to do it which I did not want to do he's like I I wouldn't do it so I thought the next best thing so back when I opened Scotty's our our Niche was we're going to carry 30 beers on tap and we were beer and wine right so nowadays that doesn't sound any doesn't sound cool like every seems like every bar in town has 10 plus Taps back in 96 that wasn't the case in fact it was kind of hard for me to even fill 30 taps with enough beer because most of it was like Miller Light Coors Light Bud Light Bush light you know like you're you're trying to and I was like I'm not carrying all the domestics I want cool stuff I want craft and unique and import so that was kind of always the goal was or what I always wanted to do was was open a brewery back in uh let's see when did I open the brewery I think it was like 0901 maybe 2010 I can fin now open a brewery at that time I think I had six or seven Scotties open now uh all AC all around uh the state and I said you know what I'm going to open a brewery right in the middle so that now I can deliver beer to all my own restaurants and you know maybe we can sell it to other places maybe somebody else will put it on tap at their restaurant and sell our beer and and so we did that so we opened so I opened the brew and and I also wanted to do like like a cool spin it was again I I borrowed from a concept up in Chicago called peace and it was just a great pizza brewery it's still there to this day I love it and I kind of mimicked my concept off of what they did and so we did these cool pizzas on these sheet cookie sheet trays that were kind of funky shapes that came out of the kitchen and and I brewed beer and I had a great brew master and I had a great team and he was awesome and we were we were a good team together because he was he actually knew what he was doing I did not and our the beauty was that I would kind of come up with these ideas and I'd say you know could we do this and he'd be like no that's not how it works you can't do that and I go but what if we did this and he's like maybe that'll work I never thought about about it that let me try it so it was kind of a cool relationship where I I didn't have the blinders on because i' never brew beer before so I kind of helped him figure out new ways to create cool new Styles and so it was it was a to me the ignorance of actually like how it's been done like helps you be more creative exactly yes 100% And so you know I named it the the brewery is called three wise men it was named after myself and my two boys um so we were the three wise men it was actually named after I tell that I tell them that today was actually named after my dad and my grandpa and I were three wise men because I didn't want to offend that the fact that I've got also girls in our F we got two girls and a wife and so I didn't want to really say there was three wise men and it was just all the boys of the family because I didn't think that would be fair so anyway we we I I opened it and I really felt like to me that was the when I opened that was the one over here in bradle yeah hard another hard location it was a hard location but it was we kicked ass man it was back yeah and this is prior to kind of all the bumps and bruises that broad Ripple's gone through over the several last couple years you know I always wanted to be in Broad Ripple because I always knew it as especially after I graduated college it's where all my buddies went it was always like hey let's go out to the Rock Lobster and the M shaft and let's go get do shots and and so it was just always I was like man it'd be cool one day if I had a restaurant there because I always remember loving loving going there with my friends so when I got to open it there it was just fun it was it was a cool experience I love I even all the the stuff that broad rup has gone through I do think it'll eventually get back to and I think it's on its way back with all the cleanup that's been been happening around it but when we opened that site it was we we did great you bumping what's that you were bumping we were bumping there we go the layout of the business was perfect because what we did is we started ordering Food and Liquor for all the restaurants to that one location because we were able to we' buy in bulk and we'd get major discounts and I would all ship it right there and then I hired a driver and I bought a truck and we were that guy would drive around and drop off kegs of our beer and bottles of vodka and Jin and whatever else and then we were also making a lot of you know at the time one of our popular items was Dill chips right fried dill pickles and so we and we did all those homemade and we were making I forget it was the number was crazy it was like 5 million Dill chips a year is what we were kind of processing and so we thought why not just make them all in one location and try to eliminate the labor out of all those restaurants and then ship all the food to those so so we did that so that's kind of the reason why I opened the brewery was multifaceted it was to help the restaurant and then it was also to to brew beer was the Stacked Pickle kind of like around this time too like those like competitors so there were like a lot of spin-offs after our successes of what we created there were you know I'm not going to Mike hunningham is a friend and I like him and he does a great job and I love his concept but Brew was not around until we came around Stack pickle was not around till we came around if you remember detour was a concept that a lot of these guys left my restaurant and went to open those things and at the time you know you originally I got pissed because I'm like they're stealing my concept they're stealing my ideas but then I started thinking like maybe it's kind of cool like I I try to relate it to you know the bill bellich tree of in football like all the different coaches that have worked underneath him that have now become great coaches themselves I think at some point you got to think all right if people are I mean the greatest form of flattery is imitation right so if someone's going to go out and try to do what I do they're never going to have my heart and soul and spirit behind it but they might be able to get a close knockoff to what we were doing things are going very well all things considered right you get to 22 restaurants and this is where things get interesting and and people that that know I mean look around now there's not a Scotties right so what year is this when you guys end up selling so my goal again I'll rewind back to the first day when I opened this concept the whole goal was to sell it I knew that I was going to my goal was to open about 20 restaurants because that's usually what they told you was where you needed to be when a private Equity Group would come in and offer money for you and so that was my goal was to get it up to 20 and then sell it and so I I wait you know I got up to 20 it took 20 years um had a great 20-year celebration in in what was that 2016 right around 2016 and so in in 2016 is when I decided I was going to sell the process of selling was just a nightmare and it wasn't just that I wanted to sell because it was time it was time personally I I I was really burn the candle had been burning on both ends the industry was tough you know I I saw kind of some writing on the walls this is back when delivery and door Dash was slowly starting to creep in and I I saw I saw all this stuff happening with like employees kind of were starting to become disengaged the culture wasn't what it used to be and it's and it was hard because you know as a what I found and how the restaurants that are great I think are the ones that are really small that because you can feel the heartbeat and the culture and the personality within them when they get too big you know like most corporate entities think of any you know well Fridays is now bankrupt Applebee's and all these different brands they're so watered down and they're so generic and they're consistent because that's what they're they're prided on that's what they're based on is their consistency of product I didn't want to be that and I all of a sudden I thought I became something I never liked and wanted to be for the sole purpose of trying to sell it to make money which was fine and I just was really burned out on man I felt like I was managing people and I was no longer managing the restaurant I wasn't having fun creating ideas I wasn't the marketing was gone it was just I was tired of like teaching kids how to tuck in their shirts and wear a belt to work and take take a shower and not chew gum and pull your hair like those are things that were to me were common sense and I'm still having to teach 22 year-olds how to tr to do that to work in my restaurant and I was really just I was tired of it I was it became I felt like I became an HR company and and not a restaurant anymore and I thought all right it's time when you know your passion is kind of burned out don't keep driving it in or you're just going to drive it into the ground and people will see that quickly there were that was there were several reasons why I wanted to sell and that was that was really the main reason other than I was also just ready I was ready to kind of pivot and do something new and so I did went through the process I found a buyer and the for me the important there were two important parts of selling it was one that they kept the polic I created this policy of hiring people with with I call them special abilities some people call them disabilities so whether you had ADHD or you had some form of autism somewhere on the Spectrum or you had Down syndrome I wanted that to be just a cool thing that we did to try to help people that didn't get an opportunity I thought and we did it and I thought I found so much love from not just the kids we were hiring but even our staff kind of around them started embracing them and it just it almost became this really neat glue that made the restaurant even more special and so my goal was to have 10% of our entire Workforce have some kind of special ability and so when I went to sell I said you know you've got to keep this in in in place and number two I want a 5-year Employment contract I want to stay on board because I want to watch this thing grow and I want to be a part of it I want to see what happens when we grow out of state all the way to California and and so we talked to Big groups certon and all these groups you know all across the country that I just never fell in love with and some of them didn't want some of them wanted to offer me money and they wanted me to go away which is looking back is what what I should have done I sold to a group that said I would stay on board and again I say said that you know the long story of the process is they they milked the sale process purposely to Tire me out to get us to a point where we were what they call it pregnant with the deal so that means that we were so vested because we had spent 9 months with them coming in looking at our books walking around all the restaurants with me taking them to look at inventory uh after nine months youve spent so much money in legal and accounting that you're you're the again they call it pregnant with a deal where you almost have to do the deal but at that point you've given the leverage to the other side so what they did released information to the ibj the ibj calls me the day that we're really getting ready to sell this thing and they say hey we're going to run a story we've got we know that you're going to be selling the company and we've got all the the metrics someone sent us the information I said who sent it to you and they said we can't let you know that and I said please don't sell don't don't run that story you know with you're you're you're supposed to promote small business in Indiana and you're going to kill something that is been something that's been really special for the last 20 years and they said well we talked to our editor and they said we want to R we're going to run it so do you have a quote and I said I have no quote so I fly to Scottdale is where the group was that was by buying it and I tell them hey they're going to be running a story and they said how did this happen and they said that knowingly that they were the ones that released the information they they did it on purpose and here's why they told me at that time then hey we can't buy your company now and I said why and they said because now that information is going to be public we have a public company that also from Japan that has invested with us that's going to now there are stock issues that hit the market because this becomes public and now it it's going to blow blow up the deal but if you're willing to sell at a lesser price we'll go ahead and still do the deal H so now I have to then make a decision again being pregnant in the deal saying all right I've spent so much money that I at this point I almost have to take whatever they say because I need to get the if I don't do this then I don't know how I'm going to go back and run the company because we we flushed all of our cash into this one deal that we thought was going to happen they did exactly what they knew they were going to do and unfortunately I I had to kind of give in their what what they and again I'm none of this can be really you know you'd have to get a real uh forensic accountant and a bunch of people to really prove all of it but when I look back at the whole story this is what makes the most sense of how it all went down yeah and this is your yeah and so and so I had to so at that point I have I have to accept kind of what they've put together and like give us a rough percentage maybe of like what you originally thought versus what you're going to end up taking Chang the deal to what's called an earnout so the earn instead of us making all the profit we were we were going to have to earn it out over the next 5 years to me I thought well okay I'm going to still be running the company I know that we made $50 million gross the year before you know we we Ned a profit of about $5 million so technically we're going to get we should be able to get all of our money in about two years to me and it's not just me I was also worried about a lot of investors that were with me at the time and I had to get their approval I mean they had to all kind of sign off on this too and I had tell them listen guys really we're kind of in a situation where it's no win like we almost have to take their deal but if they if we can keep running the company like it is then it really shouldn't be an issue because we're going to make all this we're going to make up the money in the next two years and everybody will get paid off and we'll be fine unfortunately a month into the deal after we sold so I sell the I sell the company they take over like do you get a check on the day you sign this thing like you like work for 20 years you sell your first company no and you don't get a check in nothing they pay they basically pay off all the debt and not even all of it there were a couple loans that they didn't pay that still had my name on them there there were there there were so many things that happened within this deal that I look back and I'm just I get so upset about but you know my name was still on a few leases they were supposed to take all my names off the leases and put their name on them they said don't we'll get that done it'll get done next month we just we got you know we got to go through this process you know like I'm too sometimes it's not good to be the guy that's so naive or so believing in other people I I I try to keep an open heart and always believe the best in other but there's just bad people in the world and unfortunately they take advantage of those situations and so they took advantage of a guy like myself that believed what they said and said okay you you'll get my name off the lease I believe you we'll do it we sign the deal all the debt gets paid off I get no money whatsoever and a month into it I'm up doing a speaking engagement for Cooper's Hawk at their corporate office trying to Mo motivate them and tell them about how great our company is and we just got bought and and they and that get a call from the owner and he says hey uh we got your team in the boardroom back in Indianapolis I was up in Chicago and they said we want to have a call with everybody and I said okay what's going on he said well we're going to announce that my son is now going to be the president and we're going to move you into a new role it's going to be called the founders role and so I'm not going to make any decisions anymore and I'm not running the company and he said no you're not you're going to sit over here and when we open a new restaurant you're going to go cut the ribbon and you know be the face and I thought this is ugly this is not going at all like it was supposed to do you not realize my name is on the is on the door buddy like what and so they they quickly like all the they started ordering things like frozen burgers and they stopped making the ranch homemade and I mean it was it's private Equity right it's like you they're just trying to milk it for as much profit as they can get you know they could have done a lot of things to still make more you know there was what we call low hanging fruit they probably could have came in and made more money we're already making good money don't go tip the Apple C you don't need to come in and make every change that's going to truly like customers are going to come in and notice when something isn't what it used to be for when the loaded waffle fries aren't the same I remember I remember so you know and I and I kept getting calls from Friends they're like hey we're going in and we're getting crappy service and what's going on with the products and what why is this all changed and I said you know I was like I'm sorry I don't own it anymore it's not my decision it's they're they're saying they know what's best and I'm trying to I'm trying to listen and just do what they tell me to do and so pretty quickly I learned I kind of saw the writing on the wall that this was the Titanic and it was going down and I I'm I'm saying like within six months I knew that it was I could tell it was ugly and so I said hey I want to sever my I want to sever my employment agreement and they said well if you do that you're not going to get your you know your a certain earn out and and I said I don't care you know at that time I kind of felt like this thing is going to crash and burn I just want to get out while I could obviously with that like like how much do you like like six months into this you didn't get any money from selling the business that you worked for 20 years for and you and like but the potential was like Hey 2 years whatever you can get this earn out millions of dollars I'm assuming yeah and you're like no it's like it's never going to happen yeah and it wasn't really it wasn't I mean I sure I personally would have loved to reap some benefit from all of our hard work but I felt it was all the people that got behind me all my you know I had like several investors F friends and family Eric shamp the guy I talked about and my cousin and people that were with me from day one that put some some of their life savings into this thing that weren't going to see that money come back to them and that hurt me man because it was me me letting everybody down even to this day like if I if I dwell on it you know I've gone through all my kind of the cycles of depression and anger and blame and you know like all the cycles of just that what you go through with depression and and and I'm in a good space now if I think about it too long I do get frustrated and and depressed because there were so many things I could have done differently and I could have made it work if I would have done this if I would have done you know like we all always have that gosh if I would have you know if I would have kicked the ball this way I could have won the game for you know like there was just so many things I could have done better I guess that's the stuff you have to learn I just don't I hate letting other people down I don't mind taking the bruises myself and the punches but I don't like letting other the people that believed in me I don't like them feeling pain because I made a stupid mistake and I and I think that's the story that like especially if people aren't like truly business people don't understand where it's like just because there's 22 restaurants like your first investor like it's not like you can just like take that money out it's like yes on paper you own 5% of 22 restaurants but like it's not just like oh it's printing off cat like and you go back to the beginning you're young naive you're winning early 20 years of success the the Midwest the Indiana it's like we trust people like there why would someone want to ruin this thing so great right and then you realize that like some people just suck here in the heart of Indiana something unique is growing for Generations Sports have not just captivated us they've United ideas and fueled Global Innovation and today we are riding the next chapter on the future of sports where technology is unlocking new insights on every play to the training ground where tomorrow's Champions are leveraging Advanced analytics to refine their Competitive Edge in Indiana we know that winners and losers are separated by just inches now we are pushing the limits of performance to new heights mastering the smallest details that define success the brightest minds are here pushing the world's best athletes forward and driving Innovation with unrivaled resources at sports Tech HQ we're turning Whata if into what's next and I learned you know I did research on the group that bought it and I and I and I had I had seen their records where they had they done the same thing with another group like they had bought um Blimpy and a bunch of I call them B brand so Blimpy Coldstone Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf Coldstone creamy like there were five or six different brands that they had packaged together sold to a group in Canada for $600 million $700 million and they the promise was we're going to do the same thing with you guys but we're going to do with casual dining so we're we're buying you and we're we're buying this Indian restaurant out of San Francisco and I'm like all right cool not only am I going to make money on the first sale but I was going to make money on the second sale so where does it where does it wind up so you six months into it six I I get out I mean it takes a while to nego neate that to get out of there but they still don't take my name off the lease and I have no leverage right so now I'm seeing them I'm hearing that they're getting being laid on rent payments and I'm getting calls from landlords I'm like guys I not only do I not work for them anymore I sold that company back in 16 and now this is 17 and now we're getting into 18 and I'm like and so you personally are on the line for this PE firm's brand but it's like but and I'm sure the landlord's like yeah well it says Scotty and your name is Scotty like so in 18 they declare bankruptcy the company does you would think that's going to be the end of the story and know great at least that's you can wipe it off and you can move on well of course no you can't not only did I get hit with a big tax so I got hit with a big tax debt because a tax burden because when I sold the company I didn't even I didn't have a good accountant that told me like hey be ready you're going to owe you know a big portion of this money because you're selling a company that I didn't make any money from so not only do I not make any money I owe money to the government because I sold my my company you owe money to the government for a company that you sold that you didn't get any dollars from it's like great business move I mean it's clearly I should have stuck to flipping burgers and not being a you know a CFO but so anyway I I that all happens they declare bankruptcy and when they do that then all the all the so again my name's still on those leases after two years they never took them off even though they told me they would and even though I had a lawyer constantly telling them we got to get this done and they're you know they're always given an excuse so now I've got landlords coming after me and saying hey you need to pay all the rents that are due here that because this company just defaulted on their on their lease and I'm like that's not me though I wasn't and they said well your name's still here and so you're going to be the one that has to take care of it so all that bad juju just kind of kept following me and so I I had to make a decision and declare a personal bankruptcy around myself to protect myself and my family from all these creditors coming after us and that was in that was also right around 2018 and it was and it's been you know it's been a tough you know several years from when from the time that I had to do that learned a lot about the whole bankruptcy code you know because I it wasn't that I didn't have money but I definitely didn't you know I had to protect myself I had to make sure that all these groups were not going to come in and start taking things from us and take our house and our cars and and it's like you you talk about I'm so glad you came on and like tell the story CU like from the outside looking in you're not even in the part of the restaurant anymore and they don't take your name off these and you said one of the leases like downtown Indie I'm not sure if that was one but like that's 35 G's a month like you do the math on that like yeah no I don't want to pay like oh my gosh so you know so I'm selling a restaurant I make no money I owe taxes and now I got to claim personal bankruptcy you know it's just and it's and and of course being because I was the lightning rod and because I I clearly sold a lot of papers for the ibj it was front page fodder again you know I got to be on the front page of Scott and Amy Wiis are declaring personal bankruptcy right you know that's not not right away that was after first the Scotty's br breous story came out and Scotty's Brew House declares personal or declares bankruptcy and then you know several months later then Scott wat Scott Namy wise and so you know I again like I just I feel bad for my now my wife is being drugg into this crap that I've created my kids are now going to have to live around it and people you know I didn't want them to be bullied at school and and hey what's your dad doing why is he I thought you guys were d d du and so I had to have a good conversation with them and I I tried to flip it and I've still to this day do with them money can be made and lost several times over a lifetime I know it's embarrassing and and it's embarrassing for me as well but it doesn't mean Jack man I go kids what I want you to learn is that I've done this once before I'll do it again it'll take me it'll take me a minute to brush off the dust but I can either sit and cry about this and just wallow in pain and oh wo was me and then what what does that get me I it's just going to that's going to continue to pile or I can make a move and a decision to say all right I made some bad choices I made some bad decisions I whatever I did I I I've got to correct I've got to learn from my history and I've got to be better for it in the future and I'm going to show you kids that if you work hard and you and you learn those lessons that you can put yourself you can get yourself back into a good position and so that's gosh for the last what five years I mean that's kind of what I've been trying to teach them is that every day they see me getting up and grinding early and I'm doing commercial real estate as my day job and then I went back and I bought uh you know funny story is and I don't know it's not none of this is really funny to me but the group that declared bankruptcy I went back and bought one of the the original restaurant in Muny out of their bankruptcy because I didn't want it was a restaurant you know it was my it was my baby it was the one that I started in '96 and I didn't want somebody else to come grab it and so I bought it for pretty cheap and I had again a couple partners that came in with me because now again because I've gone through personal bankruptcy I don't have a lot of money was that was that hard you know you go to a couple part when they they actually came to me and they said we think you should go back and do something again because we believe in you and it was uh you know I'll never forget taking that call because it was man I needed it I needed because you you know you even though I've got a pretty good head on my shoulders and I can compartmentalize a lot of stuff and I can push stuff down I've got the ability like most men that can not show our emotion although I cry all the time but I I almost needed them to say that at that time because I needed to know that I wasn't just such a piece of that didn't know what he was doing that I wasn't this failure that you know the ivj was telling the world that you know Scott neir filing B you know like and probably a lot of it I was putting on myself I think most people that truly and I you know for the for the first couple years right out of our bankruptcy I would go to the gym and I would see people and I was embarrassed man because I it felt like there was a big neon sign above my head pointing down like loser bankrupt guy right here because you know everybody knew the story when when it ends up on the front page right and you're like everybody knows it and no one knows this story and I couldn't tell everybody the story and you can't CU then you spend every single day walking around say well no like listen to this thing and they're like okay crazy like and it's like and I really appreciate you coming on and like getting getting vulnerable about this cuz I think it it's a story of like a brand that your name your name was on the you know above the door like and it was awesome and it was a piece of my childhood yes and that's what and then people knew it as that and so I would see people in the gym and they would say hey we know what they're saying not all what's true we believe in you you're a good dude felt good to have a lot of people kind of give you that pat on the back now when I'd walk away I never knew if they roll in their eyes or they would say something else you know like oh he's a whatever I I truly believe I think there were the people that knew me and my friends knew that the story was not no one knew the full story yeah well I think this is the thing of high Achievers right like high it's like you had all this success and you've been winning and like and you start to like believe you think you said it earlier on the show it's like oh just you only hit winners right it's like you're just winning win winning and then when you like do experience that like tough time you have such a high standard for yourself that it's hard like and it's like do you think like you're in the gym it's like maybe coule like some people know but not everyone knows you know it's like you have this like different view of how you view yourself so I mean things happen to unfortunately to people and and to even to good people and so you I try to take it all as kind of a live it learn from it be better for it and so when those when the back to the story when those when those guys called me and they said we want to get behind you tears came out at that point as well and I said all right I'll do it but I'm I tell you right now I'm not growing another one I'm not I'll do it one or two maybe three but I'm not doing what we you know as long as you believe you don't think that I'm going to be running an Empire I'll I'll I'll I'll do something and they say we let's do it let's do it so we so I kind of call it Scotty 2.

0 so I the restaurant is called Roots Burger Bar Named because I went back to my roots um went back to my home Town my alma moer kind of went back to when the restaurant was fun when I first opened Scotty even the food kind of plays off that same Mantra where the food you know it's it's you there paper towels at the table and stuff is supposed to come out messy and the food is served in baskets with a a liner in it so I again even with the New Concept I took things that I learned from the past like I didn't have to put my logo on every glass that I made and I didn't have to put gas lanterns in the restaurant I didn't have to put brick walls in the walls and I didn't have to you know I custom logoed plates and each plate that you saw at Scotty's each one of those plates cost $22 I didn't need to do that that was stupid and so when I was doing Roots I thought you know what I'm going to do I'm gonna fix all the stupid that I did that didn't make me money and I'm going to make this restaurant make money yeah and and knock on wood we for the last two three years we made we've made a really well heck of a I will say heck of a tenderloin at the roots here in Indie uh so that's where we first kind of got intro was I did I went and did the Hamilton County tender loine tour that was you I I stopped I did four tenderloins in one day and I ended it at roots and I was like if this one comes out like if it's one of these like five foot tenderloins I'm going to be so and it was just like a very nice party like like tender one I was like thank goodness cuz this was number four and I I thought I was going to throw up well I mean we come to the end and we've heard the story and the journey and and Roots is going well and is there a plan you have two currently I've got two two currently I've been T there are a couple people that have asked me to do a couple of them I I look for like if I don't look for anything but if somebody brings me an interesting opportunity I'm always going to look at it I'm not going to do like if somebody says hey go to Fisher District it's new it's hot it's you know it's Ikea and it's Top Golf and it's or come up to Westfield we got all this stuff I agree those are great markets but I'm not I don't want to do that I did get approached to do like a cool one on a golf course and I entertained that for a minute because I thought oh this could be fun like the clubhouse restaurant and they were going to put golf Bays that were kind of almost like a top golf theme and we would do the food for it so I would entertain something fun like that um I'll Never Say Never I didn't think I would get back into this at all and my wife probably K kills me every time she sees me having to deal with like restaurant stuff but I'm an entrepreneur at heart so I'm always going to you I've got another idea that I'm working on right now with group not not really Restaurant related but still Hospitality you know I think nowadays what I look for I try to look at what's going on in the world and the economy and it's just a tough Market to hire people and to get people to work for you especially young kids and so what I look for now is something that takes less you know bodies some can you do some some kind of business model that you can run either independently or with with very few people that you don't have to go hire minimum wage people and and deal with all the crap that comes with that so oh yeah because even for a restaurant now it's like $15 an hour to get someone to come right so I'm doing that and then I and then my again I work for CB in their commercial in our commercial real estate division and and I love that I I I tell people all the time I joke and I said man if I would have known how much fun this is to do cuz I you know I'm a kind of a deal junkie so once you do a deal you can kind of walk away and I don't have to manage it and I can move to the next one and so I love what I do and I also like telling the clients that I work with especially local groups I try to use all the bruises and things that I went through and I said listen I'm your best broker man I'm I'm a commercial broker that lives and breathes it still to this day but I did not so many things right I mean I did a lot of things right but I also did a lot of things wrong and what I did is I learned from that and what I want to do is help you become successful I can't I mean I can't run your business for you but I can at least set you up for Success because there were times where I was doing a lot of my own real estate deals naively and I was doing things wrong I wasn't you know I wasn't signing the right documents I wasn't I wasn't calculating things correctly and now I think that it helps by I I I don't know I think I I take it personally that I can help somebody maybe be more successful than I was by avoiding mistakes I made yeah man I just appreciated the story we're coming down to the end I know you got to leave go pick up um a kiddo uh I have a few fun rapid fire questions here so the first one's our younger year segment this question is brought to you by friends at or Fellowship they're a great organization here in Indiana helping develop young Business Leaders across the state Scott what advice would you give to your 22-year-old self well I I I think I told it to you earlier I I wish I would have slowed down I wish I would have just taken a breath and I think things would have turned out a little differently if you know if I had five restaurants and I would have just maybe for two years didn't open anything instead of being the guy that was like all right I got this one open let's start looking for the next I I would tell my 22-year-old self and I'll probably tell my 22-year-old son and my 22-year-old daughter when they are that age that take a breath man you don't need success overnight thing let things kind of percolate and come and enjoy every day for what it's worth because I think because I was so Geared for that quick success I missed a lot I I missed a lot of things and I think by missing things then it started screwing up me up later in life because when I I remember when I became 30 and 35 and I'm like man all my buddies were out at Broad Ripple having drinks and I was Friday and Saturday night working in the restaurant slinging burgers and beers across the bar if you take time just take time for yourself and I think enjoy enjoy the ride a little bit and not feel like you need to be on this path for Uber world domination you're going to enjoy your life a lot more I love that I think that's good advice if we had we could do a full Joey Rogan episode today if we had time uh we're going have to do a 2.

0 so we have three questions to we in every show with uh what's something the world needs to know about Indiana you know the Indiana's especially Indianapolis in general has done a really good job of selling our city and state for I think it's hoer hospitality I think what we're kind of known for and I think that rings so true most people naively just don't know how great the population is in the middle of the country that aren't so hardened on the coasts by just the hard life you have to live the the cost of living being higher the so many people you're you know you got Subway systems and you just get agitated with people and you're aggressively upset and I think there's there's so much room and space for us here I mean as you can see our our city continues to grow North and and kind of you get these big plots of land and I think most people now are getting it maybe still there are a lot of people outside of the state that maybe hasn't been here for a Super Bowl or for a Taylor Swift concert or whatever great job the city of Indianapolis has done to bring in these great events I think people are slowly recognizing it and heck I mean I tell you what I hate global warming but I I love it for Indiana cuz I've never I've never gone through a full month of October and November with very little rain and 70° temperature and I know that we've got mudslides and hurricanes and things that are affecting other parts of the country which it's it's you know very sad for those people that are having to deal with it but the state of Indiana's weatherwise is uh has been it's been pretty nice hey man Scott what is a Hidden Gem in Indiana bungies in Perkinsville have you ever been to buies I have heard of bungies but I haven't been you got to go you got to go okay so give me the it's like you tailgate this restaurant you tailgate I mean he T so Tony the chef that bought it that who I was friends with he had bought it and then he has now since sold it to I forget the guy that now runs it and I think he still has kept true to the the the real essence of what bungies is but it's it's just a small restaurant I mean if you don't get that I think now you have to get reservations before you would go there and if you weren't there by like six o'clock you weren't going to eat because they they serve up to like nine or 10 and if you don't make it in then sorry you're going have to come back next time because they only they only have a certain amount of seats menus on the chalkboard there's only like eight different items they always have the Perkinsville pork which is I always want to try something new but it is so good that I always go back to it the food is incredible the atmosphere is awesome and the tail I mean you you're playing cornhole and you're drinking in the parking lot like you're going to a football game but you're get you're just tailgating before dinner I love so it's just a it's a really where's Perkinsville at I think it's Northwest of Noblesville I think if you took 37 then you would you kind of run into Perkinsville oh yeah it's up there like south of lwood north of Noblesville it's wild you you when you're driving down the street you're it's a residential street and there are houses houses houses and then all a sudden you see like these multicolored Christmas lights on the outside of a building at the end of the street and it says bungies Tavern bungies Tavern that is a great one that is a true Hidden Gem awesome uh I love it final question of the night who's aoer we need to keep on our radar the next Michael Jordan and Caitlyn Clark I mean you gota that that woman I'm just so happy that she is in our State playing for our team because it's not not just about how awesome she is and as a person God I love it for the women of the world especially those of us that have small girls in our families that are looking up to her and I can do that I can do the same thing boys are doing I can make the same amount of money I can compete I can look at how great she is and I think that kind of spirit is just awesome so I I think you know again most people know she's already a hoer to watch out for but heck yeah she she'd be mine this might be my favorite episode I've ever recorded like I just appreciate you giving us The Raw Story being emotional like and sharing like the journey like this is entrepreneurship like as someone who's like kind of getting start in the world of Entrepreneurship it's like man you you put your heart and your soul into brand for 20 years rode this roller coaster and and now on to this the next stop with roots I mean I appreciate this was just a hell of a story well I I wear my emotions on my sleeve it's not just I mean hell if we were talking about something else I'd probably be crying about my best friend getting married or you know whatever I I I I keep every my I always joke that my mom cursed me with having her emotions because I I can cry at the drop of a hat I'm real it's not like try to bring up those things they just sometimes happen and I'm I'm glad to tell it's not that I came here to badmouth anybody or I mean heck it's been a long enough time the first couple years I wanted to get out there and I really wanted to wish I could have told my side of the story because there were so many people that God I had to quit reading comments I I had to like not watch look at Facebook I couldn't look at you know even the ivj I was always so addicted to seeing like what are people saying about this and then I'd start reading and I'm like God those people don't even know me and they're saying those kind of hurtful things I mean the whole the keyboard Warriors the keyboard Warriors are real I see them I stop like musle you know like it's you would not if you wouldn't say that to my face then don't say it on online amen that's the that's the right there that's the mic drop I appreciate you it's been awesome um and have a have a great weekend man I appreciate it man thank you for listening to this episode of get in if you liked what you heard make sure you leave us a review wherever you listen to podcast this show was made possible by our friends up at Sweetwater which whether you're trying to start your own podcast or looking to take your show to the next level make sure you check out sweetwater.

com for all your creator needs if you want exclusive behind the scenes content on all things Indiana make sure you follow me on Instagram and Tik Tok @ Nate spangle thank you for being part of what makes the hooer state so amazing we'll see you next week here on get in