Chris Gannon’s Bolay Journey: From Chief Osceola to Building a Gluten-Free Fast Casual Brand

Anthony Codispoti (00:00)
Welcome to another edition of the inspired stories podcast where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from their successes and be inspired by how they’ve overcome adversity. My name is Anthony Codaspodi and today’s guest is Chris Gannon. He is the founder and CEO of Bolle Fresh Bold Kitchen, a fast casual restaurant brand launched in 2016 and headquartered in the West Palm Beach area of Florida. They focus on 100 % gluten free bowls.

fresh ingredients and bold international flavors with a mission to fuel communities to live healthier lives. Now under Chris’s leadership, Belay has grown rapidly earning praise for its clean menu and hospitality first approach. Chris co-founded the company with his father, Tim Gannon, who was also a co-founder of Outback Steakhouse. He traveled extensively collaborating with top chefs to bring fresh ideas to Belay’s ever evolving menu.

Not only is Chris a seasoned entrepreneur, he’s also an accomplished athlete as well, having been the second youngest player ever to win the U.S. Polo Championship. His diverse background in restaurant innovation and healthy living has made Belay a standout choice for those seeking flavorful and nutritious meals. Now, before we get into all that good stuff, today’s episode is brought to you by my company, Adback Benefits Agency, where we offer very specific and unique employee benefits

that are both great for your team and fiscally optimized for your bottom line. Imagine being able to give your restaurant employees free access to doctors, therapists, and prescription medications. And here’s the fun part. The program actually puts more money into your employees’ pockets and the companies too. One recent client was able to increase net profits by $900 per employee per year. Results vary for each company and some organizations may not be eligible.

To find out if your company qualifies, contact us today at addbackbenefits.com. All right, back to our guest today, CEO and co-founder of Ballet, Chris Gannon. Thanks for making the time to share your story today.

Chris Gannon (02:09)
thank you very much, Anthony. Super excited to be here to share a story and inspire somebody because we’ve all been inspired along our journey to be where we’re at. So I think it’s important to pass that. Pay it back, pay it forward. Yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (02:24)
I like that.

So Chris, we covered in the intro there, your dad was a co-founder of Outback Steakhouse. So it sounds like this was probably the environment that you grew up in. Safe to say that the restaurant business was in your blood.

Chris Gannon (02:39)
It was, and I love every aspect and watching my father create greatness with his wonderful partners and take a brand and culture ⁓ and grow it. And he always said, Chris, don’t do this business. It’s the hardest business in the world. And I ran from it. was a marketing executive, tried the professional polo player route, but there’s something when this business is in your blood. You can run from it, but it pulls you back in and… ⁓

And I’m so blessed to be still part of it because what we’re able to do for our team and our guests is, it’s, know, hopefully it makes some money along the journey, but it’s very, it’s a very rewarding industry of what we’re able to accomplish. a lot of, there’s a lot of gratification.

Anthony Codispoti (03:21)
So you tried,

sorry there, yeah, so you tried to run away from it, but at some point you came back to it. Where did you first cut your teeth in the restaurant biz?

Chris Gannon (03:30)
I would

say Outback Steakhouse, right? I was a busser when I was very early on and learned, you know, they almost didn’t hire me in the early days, Anthony. They had to be three restaurants of experience where you could work at Outback. And I didn’t have that. I was young. I was just my father’s son and I never utilized that card. So I almost didn’t get hired, but I convinced the manager that I would work harder than everybody else. And we did a great job and learned a lot. And then I think where I really cut my teeth though, was when I asked to get back in the industry, but I didn’t want to work underneath my father because I don’t think

right at a gate, you should work for our families. ⁓ So I worked for an incredible restaurant group called True Luxe Steak and Seafood based in Austin, Texas, ⁓ underneath Stuart Sargent and David Tripley’s leadership. And there I learned, I went right into fine dining. So I truly learned, ladies and gentlemen, serving ladies and gentlemen, and the art of getting to the word yes, and all the fun that comes with fine dining service and execution.

Anthony Codispoti (04:30)
So you didn’t play that dad card when you got your first job at Outback. So they had no idea that your dad was one of the co-founders. You just used your good looks and charms to go in and say, I know I don’t have the requisite experience, but I’m going to outwork everybody. And they saw something in you, and they let it happen.

Chris Gannon (04:48)
Yeah,

well, they I think they knew ⁓ they kind of knew and I think obviously the last name in the early days was pretty dead giveaway. ⁓ But I was still convincing and I still have a great relationship with that proprietor these days. And and I think I did a good job because I know that, you know, when you’re the owner’s son and so on and so forth, you have a bullseye in your back. And I was telling my kids, you know, they’re only six and nine when they’re in the restaurant. They got to be 110 percent because you’re wearing a proud name that you have to set that bar high.

Anthony Codispoti (04:51)
Okay.

And then you mentioned something about ⁓ another job that you took. Good point that, you know, not great to come in and just start working right under the family, go out and get some outside work experience. ⁓ Sometimes as kids, we’re a little bit more receptive to teachings and lessons from people who aren’t our parents. Plus, I think there’s the added benefit of being able to bring in some outside ideas, some new and fresh concepts that.

weren’t there before. Is that kind of part of your thinking too?

Chris Gannon (05:47)
Yeah, thousand percent. I think one of the cool things that I didn’t realize now as I’m a CEO of company bringing in some powerful other leaders into our ecosystem is it brought my father into their world. So my father inadvertently was giving them some great advice on different desserts or how do you do this better, this and that, and just that inspirational thinking we all derive from, you never know where. But no, I’m a huge believer that you gotta cut your teeth. ⁓

outside, know, uncle always gives great advice versus dad, right?

Anthony Codispoti (06:19)
And what did you mean by you learned the art of getting to the yes?

Chris Gannon (06:23)
You know, especially in Truelux, we had a mission and it was from the moment that you pulled up to that restaurant, the valet station, that the valets tried to make sure that every experience was possible, best in class. You got to the word, yes, yes, we can take care your car. Yes, we can do this. To the getting in, to the quoting of the times, to the service, to the last moment where you leave the restaurant and the… ⁓

Hostess is greeting you with a goodbye and have a great evening, right? Your last part of the experience and then the and then the valet as well is trained in that hospitality and that ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen So if you have that an entire journey from the moment you pull up Through your whole meal to the moment you leave That’s what we call that that when it all comes together like a perfect symphony and making that happen And as you know in this industry Anthony ⁓ Day in and day out is the hardest part people don’t realize and it dawned on me the other day of why the restaurant business is

so much more challenging than the other business. Because you have to be excellent and great.

on hours that are not normal to us as human beings. We are trained Monday through Friday, 8, 9 a.m., whatever, until 6, 7 p.m., and then you’re off the clock. In the restaurant business, no. Six o’clock at night, you’re just starting for round two of the day. The dinner p.m. service. Sunday morning, we have our leaders and our people are in walk-in coolers checking in produce and getting the shift ready for the day on a Sunday when other people are just going to church or enjoying their days. So you got to remember, we have to be

great in the non-normal hours. And that’s hard, not just manufacturing or loading buses and trucks and whatever may be and not knocking on any beautiful industry out there, but the restaurant business, we had to be on our A-game taking care of others ⁓ during those non-hours. And I thought about that the other day and it dawned on me why our industry is so much more challenging than others.

Anthony Codispoti (08:18)
What do you think that taught you those early days with Trulux? Having to be on your A game all the time at later hours.

Chris Gannon (08:27)
When you’re in our business, you just kind of get into it in a rhythm and a focus and it’s showtime. I always tell people our business is like putting on a show and those curtains go back and you start welcoming in people, guests into our buildings. You put your game face on and you know that’s what you do. I think it really starts with making sure like every business, it’s all about the human capital, the talent.

but making sure that we really select individuals to join our team, select talent that truly want to serve others. Because that’s what the restaurant business is. It’s the art, the act of serving other human beings. And if you don’t want to serve others, you’re not in the right business. Go get in tech or construction. Our world is all about service.

Anthony Codispoti (09:17)
Now you’re not in the fine dining space anymore and we’ll kind of get to where the whole idea to start Belay came from. But do you find that those same principles are things that you’re looking for in the people that you hire?

Chris Gannon (09:29)
100%. And I think that’s what sets us apart.

is we look for individuals that want to come in. We put our interview process, our new leaders can’t believe how challenging our interview process sometimes, because we do want to make it a challenge to get in our organization. We do want to make sure we’re finding the best of the best to go in. mean, that’s, you your professional football team, they got scouts out there putting you through the ringer to join the team. We’re trying to look at it the same way. Look at every aspect. Who are you outside of the organization? Who are you inside the organization?

And how do you talk to our team? How do you talk to our guests? ⁓ Because we have a sacred brand to protect. it was born on the back of a napkin in an airport with my closest friend and my wife, the name. And I never realized how important the brand becomes. had an idea. I didn’t understand until now the transformation of an idea on a napkin into what is now becoming a brand that is a sacred thing to protect.

Anthony Codispoti (10:34)
Tell us about that napkin. Where did this idea come from?

Chris Gannon (10:37)
Yeah, so we were running, I was managing a fast food restaurant, franchisees and my father, and I just kind of got tired of serving fried chicken and so on and so forth and felt that we could bring a healthier kind of fuel food to the industry, but it had to taste good. That was the biggest thing, Anthony, was we wanted to make sure that our cuisine not only fueled you so you didn’t have that after kind of lunch crash, right, as we all feel by eating food, they’re like, oh, I want to go take a nap. Ours, we want to energize you, inspire you.

But it has to, you know, from my New Orleans roots and great flavor and my father creating the Bloomin’ Onion, the flavors had to be great to where people talked about the food and what it tasted like. So they would come back and my father always taught me it’s the comeback flavor, making sure that our flavor has that comeback, that’s you want to come back again. We can’t just make you happy once, we got to make you happy over and over and over again. And so yeah, we…

created the name. If you want to try and create a business these days, and even 10 years ago when, you know, we’re almost rounding 10 years, it’s impossible. Every name is taken or it’s a slang word for something or it means something in different language. So we ⁓ created it and it came from the idea of, you know, the Bolle sunglasses and then bowl, because it’s going to be a bowl restaurant. And then I think someone said Olay to have fun. And we were kind of just spit balling over a beer. And I wish I still had that napkin.

picture of it of drawing that out of the word and then we circulated through friends and people started adding stuff above the Y and how it symmetrically the B and the L kind of flowed. mean it was just fun. I mean those were the magical days of the creation that you don’t have the capital for agencies and you know.

professionals, you just figured it out. so between, you know, good old fashioned Google and social media we had access to, we figured out a lot of stuff and it just, ⁓ it rhymes, bole and bole all day. So one of our things, sayings now is bole all day. So we say bole all day as our cheers and guests say it. ⁓ It’s really, it’s really just been a, I look back on it now 10 years and it’s gone by fast and it’s been a wonderful ride.

Anthony Codispoti (12:55)
So that’s an interesting story on how you chose the name. How did you actually choose what was going to be served inside the four walls? How did that come

Chris Gannon (13:03)
Yeah,

so that’s a great question. ironically, at the same time, we were like, are you going to create a concept? I’m not a chef. I can tell you what’s right, what’s wrong about a food. I can tell you the flavor profiles. I’ve dined at restaurants all over the world from being an international pole player and lived in nine countries.

and around my father and watching tastings and all that. ⁓ He just so happened to come across this wonderful chef in Aspen at a small little diner. His name is Martin Oswald and Chef Martin. And he was written about in the book Eat to Live by Joel Fuhrman. And my dad created a relationship with him. had this amazing 100 % gluten-free ⁓

⁓ What was it? Blueberry pie that he made with a graham, a crust that was from Wal-Mites. I believe I can’t remember exactly, but it was amazing. And so we had him come down and he created this menu that was just off the charts. Now it’s pivoted and been adulterated in here and there, tweaked, guess, for scalability in some aspects. But for the most part, ⁓ the original recipes still stand. mean, the coconut ⁓ infused black rice with the kefir lime leaf. I mean, we just, you

or lemon chicken, lemon chicken sauce, it’s just been, yeah.

amazing creation brought together.

Anthony Codispoti (14:19)
Why was 100 % gluten-free important to you?

Chris Gannon (14:22)
⁓

That’s the funny question. ⁓ At that time, I don’t know if it was because of seeing the success of it on the Tito’s vodka. Who would have ever thought gluten-free on a vodka, right? It just stuck out. It was different. It was unique. ⁓

So that just kind of connected. I didn’t have a gluten sensitivity. I didn’t know what gluten was. I didn’t know much about it. Right. And so ⁓ over time we’ve even analyzed, we need to be a hundred percent gluten free? Can we be gluten friendly and blah, blah, And we’ve, you know, even through COVID and we were trying to figure out everything, we, we leaned in and we kept with it. And it’s just been something that, as you know, the, the celiac and the gluten intolerance is now with our ⁓ very messed up food supply chain. ⁓

and

I’ve got so many great stories of kids coming to our restaurants and having allergies and being able to eat everything on our menu and looking up at mom and the mom saying that you would pick whatever you want. And they can’t do that other restaurants, right? They’re always siloed to different things. ⁓ How many people have come up to me and said that it’s helped with their children’s behavior at school when they eat better food and so on and so forth. And obviously we make our food taste great. So the kids love it. And for me to go into a restaurant and see ⁓

our youth eating broccoli and actually liking broccoli because we make it taste great is really powerful. That’s why I say the reward of what we’re accomplishing ⁓ by not only creating a business that’s got scalability, but also the give back to humanity and society by bringing something that’s actually better for you than something not better for

Anthony Codispoti (16:08)
More processed, yeah. So I’ve never had the opportunity to visit a Belize and I’m sure a lot of our listeners haven’t either. Can you explain what the customer experience is like? I walk in to one of your restaurants and what do I notice?

Chris Gannon (16:22)
Yeah.

So ⁓ we’re all over the state of Florida right now, trying to go nationwide at some point. ⁓ We only have guests. We do not look at our customers as customers. We look at them as guests. And that started from my fine dining and even my roots back in New Orleans have taken care of others. And it’s truly a big part of our experience. But when you walk in our restaurant, you’re going to get great smells from the chargrills to the high energy music, because we believe in human energy. We’ve got big fans that create energy.

and great colors and so on and so forth. And then you’re to go down the line and get to choose, you create your creation. We’ve got chef creations that are designed for those who don’t want to kind of be adventurous and choose. And then we have, ⁓ you have your bases that are many different options to choose. Then you have roasted vegetables, char-grilled proteins. We have oven roasted salmon. ⁓ We’ve got…

many different forms of chicken. We’ve got a beautiful steak ⁓ that we sear to perfection. And then we add a combination of toppings, whether it be an avocado topping or seasonings or ⁓ herb seasonings or cheeses. And then obviously we have some great in-house made sauces ⁓ that you just bring it all together. And that’s the beauty of bouleys. You can make so many different combinations to take you so many different directions from a cuisine perspective. So you don’t get bored coming to bouleys.

And we like that, right? So you can not eat the same thing. Just come in and try something new.

Anthony Codispoti (17:55)
And how many locations are you up to right now, Chris?

Chris Gannon (17:58)
We’re

blessed with 23 locations all over the state of Florida, all the way from Gainesville down to South Florida. Just go ahead and throw it in the old Google and it’ll bring you right to one of our locations if you’re in the state of Florida.

Anthony Codispoti (18:09)
And are these franchises or these all corporate owned?

Chris Gannon (18:12)
Yep,

all corporate owned at this time. We’ve been asked by many people to franchise this and we’ve politely declined that because it’s not in our DNA. ⁓ However, at this time we are open minded to finding great regional partners to help expand our brand into, for example, like the Northeast and the New Jersey or the Carolinas or Texas or so on and so forth. ⁓ So yeah, that’s kind of a little bit of a change in our mindset these days.

Anthony Codispoti (18:39)
why the declining of the franchise opportunities? You say it’s not in your DNA.

Chris Gannon (18:45)
You

know, our concept is because we’re so chef curated, if you will, all of our menus take so much. It’s not like you’re just pulling food out of a bag and putting it in the oven or something and serving it. Everything’s made from scratch every day. And that’s a challenge to do consistently. And so if you’re not like a restaurateur or from the restaurant industry, ⁓ we don’t know if people would be able to follow ⁓

because of that, right? mean, obviously you can put so many things in standard operating procedures, but there’s certain nuances to our world that you really have to have the years of experience, we believe, in the culinary and hospitality world.

Anthony Codispoti (19:28)
Am I right in thinking of this as fast casual? Okay.

Chris Gannon (19:30)
Yes, we consider ourselves polished

fast casual. So most guests, listeners don’t understand the journey of that. You know, you’ve got fast food, right? QSR. Then you’ve got ⁓ fast casual. Then you’ve got polished fast casual, which I like to consider ourselves.

Casual dining, which are your Outback’s, your Chili’s of the world, then you have your fine dining, and then have your Altra fine dining, which is the 17 course meals and so on and so forth. So there’s many different sectors, but to the broader audience, there’s probably only four.

Anthony Codispoti (20:03)
Okay. And I guess it surprises me that at a polished, fast, casual restaurant that the menu is so curated that you just don’t feel comfortable with it being replicated in a franchise model.

Chris Gannon (20:16)
At this time, probably not. Because I’ve also seen… ⁓

A few of our wonderful competitors have tried to do that. And I’ve also seen them fail. And I’ve gone in their restaurants and you’ll see the franchisees potentially wearing sandals and shorts by the line and immediately, yep, we don’t have to worry about these guys. Just because there is a certain dedication to excellence that needs to be done. And our business is all about consistency, delivering the same consistent product, cooked the same way.

day in and day out, and that’s a challenge, right? Because it’s, you know, broccoli. Broccoli doesn’t come in this perfect form every single time. It’s got its nuances of seasonality and ripeness and…

avocados, et cetera, plus all of our proteins and food safety. There’s a lot. There’s a lot that comes into executing day in and day out. And look, we are by no means experts at it. We are in the pursuit of excellence, but we can make mistakes just as much as a franchisee.

Anthony Codispoti (21:22)
Chris, how would you define the culture there at Bolay and how are you interviewing to get the right people in to fit that culture?

Chris Gannon (21:34)
Great question. So I would say that number one defining part of aspects of our culture would be teamwork. I think there’s nobody on our team that’s not willing to jump in and help and do something. And I think our team knows that because I know ⁓ at the corporate.

restaurant support center, our support team. ⁓ We know that there’s no registers at the corporate office. Our registers where the cash is collected are in the restaurant. So we need to make sure that we do everything in our power to make sure that we are supporting and our restaurant operators, the general managers, ⁓ to be successful. And so I think the culture is they know that, that we’re there to help to get block and tackle, to help support them. But I would say teamwork, to land the plane

on

that. And so really going into the interview questions, we have a lot of our leaders do working interviews. So we have them, ⁓ you know, join the team for the afternoon. ⁓ And so they get to see behind the scenes and look, we want you to interview us just as much as we’re interviewing you. We want to make sure that you see that this is something that want to be part of versus, you know, just us altruistically looking at you. It’s a symbiotic relationship. So it’s got to work on both ends.

Anthony Codispoti (22:51)
Let’s take a sidestep for a second because a couple of interesting stories I want to pull out here that we touched on this earlier. You were once a professional polo player becoming the second youngest to ever win the U S open polo championship. How did you get into polo and, tell us what it’s like to play competitive.

Chris Gannon (23:11)
Yeah, great question. Polo is the oldest team sport, so you’re going be talking about teamwork, and the history of the world started in Persia as a war game, which is really interesting. ⁓

You can’t just be good. You have to be good, but you have to have all three of your other players be good. And that’s the same in our business. Everybody’s got to bring their A game to be successful. So I got into it because my father started playing once he ⁓ had a love for horses and passion. And so once upon a time, you know, he’s won the U.S. Open many times, played all over the world. And so I kind of grew up seeing that later on in life and got good at a younger age. ⁓ And I played the World Cup in Paris, which was exciting. I’ve played, you

while and try to be a professional athlete. That’s a long journey. It’s tough using your body. And my father always taught me that early on, work with your mind, not your back. And that kind of stuck with me. so, growing up around it, it’s exciting. It’s sexy. It’s fun. You travel the world. And I got good. I’m no longer the second youngest. I held that title for a while. There’s been a, I’m 42 now, so there’s a bunch of young studs that have come behind me.

and ⁓ toppled that title. I like to say I’m one of the youngest to have won the US Open, which is one the most prestigious title here in the United States in polo. And it was with played with the best player in the world as well. So that helped. yeah, and then realized that I really wanted to be in the restaurant business and go be a businessman because I was so excited. I’ll never forget it. ⁓

I was playing the Hamptons and these stockbrokers and guys in suits were coming to the field and hearing their stories. That to me was so much more exciting than the day in and day out of doing the same thing as an athlete, which is also great. But business is fun because it’s just a new set of opportunities. And I think business is a sport. I truly do. It’s just on a different type of field. But hey, we got to go every day to accomplish a mission as a team, the same way you do as a sport.

Anthony Codispoti (25:16)
And you see that competitive spirit carries over from the professional sport into your building of your restaurant franchise, not franchise empire. Let’s use that word.

Chris Gannon (25:24)
Yeah, Empire. Organization.

Yeah, I think you gotta wanna win.

at the end of day, if you want to be successful, you’ve got to have that winning spirit in you. And I’ve seen people that are winners or want to win more than the others. And I’ve seen people that want to win at all costs and overlook some things and their morals and ethics aren’t correct. So I think there’s a balance of that competitive spirit winning versus, and that’s that balance of winning, but also lifting others. And so I’ve always attributed that I want to win, but I also want

everybody to do well. I want the restaurant next door to us to do well. We just want to do a little bit better, but we want everybody to do great because I think when the community, your whole state, your whole country, you know, and then not down the bigger side when the world does better, you know, when the lake rises, all boats rise. So we don’t want to, you know, we want to make sure that the whole lake rises and all the boats rise. We just want us to rise a little bit bigger and faster.

Anthony Codispoti (26:29)
Yeah. And speaking about your whole state doing better, you guys are, know, right now, for now anyways, exclusively in Florida. And I understand that when you were going to college at Florida State University, you had a special privilege there. What was that?

Chris Gannon (26:46)
Yes,

I was selected by the incredible Seminole Indian tribe to portray ⁓ Chief Osceola, who was one of their ⁓ wonderful war heroes. And we were unconquered because he was captured under a flag of truce and never actually conquered in the Seminole tribe. Wonderful, wonderful group of people here that support us. And yeah, I got to portray ⁓ a wonderful living legend ⁓ and represent Florida State University.

at all the home games and a couple of the bowl games. So that was what a ride that was being no pun intended. ⁓ Getting to be out there on a horse with a flaming spear rearing up. No saddle. ⁓

and no shoes on the horse as well. So we were slipping and sliding all over the field, but we held together and gave the fans a great show and fired up the team. That was my job is we were considered the 12th man on the football team. So that was fun to, again, being part of team. It all comes back to being part of a great team.

Anthony Codispoti (27:50)
Tell us about that selection process and meeting with the tribe.

Chris Gannon (27:53)
Yeah, so I, there’s a great family, Alan Durham, who runs the program. They’ve run it for many years and they hold it very coveted and very tight. And you have to be of upstanding moral character. You have to apply for the position. you know, it’s very coveted. So they kind of go and search out for people. So I got connected through a great friend of ours, Adam Corey, who connected us to the, to the family. And we went out and met and I remember Alan said, Hey Chris, now I need to actually see if you can

I

know you said you can being a polo player. He didn’t know much about polo. I said, okay. He pointed out a horse, you know, I said, hey, we’ll just pick one in the field. And we’re out there and most of time you don’t just go jump on a horse without a saddle or making sure that, you know, they don’t have the buck in them and so on and so forth. And I, you know, I was like, hey, choose a horse. I was younger, a lot more fear, fearless then. And I went out and jumped on a horse and took off and I held on and, and Alan comes to me, okay, you, got the writing part. So it was full scholarship, had to maintain

the higher GPA, all home games. I was in bed the night before. I mean, it was a serious, serious program. It was not just run around in a stuffed animal suit. And because of that, I learned a lot from the program, a lot from Alan Derm on…

Every day we were at 3 a.m. on game days washing the truck and trailer because if we went to that game, there wasn’t going to be a spot of dirt on that trailer when we pulled in. I don’t see the dirt. Chris, we’re getting every dirt off this vehicle. And I remember just his incredible dedication day in and day out to doing it the exact same way every time. And because of that, it’s been a flawless program. Knock on wood, right?

Anthony Codispoti (29:29)
Yeah.

Chris Gannon (29:41)
I’ve then transcended that into our business, following the playbook every day the same way, and you will get the same result with all things being considered to the best ability. So I was so honored looking back on that, and I haven’t talked about that in a while, so I appreciate you asking that question.

Anthony Codispoti (30:02)
Yeah, you know, and I hear you’re talking about making sure that there’s no dirt spots on the trailer. Hey, doesn’t matter if somebody can see it or not. There’s a standard of excellence to be met. And I’m assuming you, yeah, that’s the same kind of thing you carry over into your restaurants today.

Chris Gannon (30:12)
That’s right.

That’s

right. Now for sure.

Anthony Codispoti (30:20)
So I know that part of your mission there at Bel-A is to fuel communities to live healthier lives. Is there a specific story you can share that, where you saw that mission come to life for one of your guests?

Chris Gannon (30:33)
Yeah, so ⁓ there’s so many events that we partake in and we love being partaking in ⁓ 5K runs, triathlons, anything that has a community gathering together to get that heart rate up, if you will, right? Because we all need that. We’re all pretty sedentary in our worlds these days. So we want to support that and be there for those events. And many people have come to learn about our brand through trying our

our homemade chia seed pudding, right? Or one of our homemade juices ⁓ or our lemon chicken after a long race. If anybody’s ever done a race, you know the first thing you wanna do is put some food in you. And then we’ve had these stories that over the years, we served over 3.5 million guests last year. So in that, you’ve got a lot of wonderful stories and many people have come to us, my God, the one that resonates the most is just how much we’ve changed children’s

behavior from eating our food.

That one to me, if I would look back at any one of our stories, is just how parents have come and said that their child focuses better in school, less anxiety, less nervousness, whatever it may be, because they’ve eaten our food more often. And I hold that one near and dear my heart. I’ve got countless stories of people coming to us and saying how much they’ve lost weight off of eating our food. And we’ve never claimed to be a health food restaurant. That’s not what we’re trying to be. We want to be a better for you brand

serves incredible flavor and that’s just trusted that it’s not laced with all the wonderful new additives that our creative food scientists out there have decided to make food last longer. And so we try to always have food with integrity ⁓ as best as we possibly can. ⁓ You know, if I don’t put it in my own home, I won’t put it on our menu, quite frankly.

Anthony Codispoti (32:26)
Starting a restaurant from the ground up, Chris, is pretty tough. ⁓ You know, even with the prior experience that you’ve had, the experience that your fathers had and all the connections that you guys were able to kind of bring to the table, what was maybe the most surprising hurdle that you faced early on and how did you?

Chris Gannon (32:48)
think early on realizing how difficult it is to scale the magic of your early days with their early team.

that is everybody was all in on the mission, the passion, you know, then when you start growing a bigger company, how do you continue that magic into new areas, new regions, new territories, new people coming into your ecosystem, right, with the training systems and processes and culture, scaling your culture. ⁓ It is so difficult because cultures are different in regions, you know, what…

is something here in Palm Beach County is not the same in Miami or up out of the state. And so scaling that and I think to 10 years is a lot of meetings. A lot of people in our team asking if we should do this or change that or alter this or do this for simplicity. And not only that, but with the headwinds that we get…

COVID, the four horsemen of COVID after supply chain crisis and the great resignation. We barely could have anybody come to our restaurant or to work. ⁓ and then inflation, blah, blah, blah, and all the fun. Staying true to your brand, your training, your execution while evolving with times changing. And this is nothing that just our business. This is every business.

But I’ve learned a lot of wonderful lessons that I would love to pass on to people, just how important it is to figure out your brand early on. Keep it consistent. Pivot when needed. Constantly ⁓ look for opportunities to get better, but staying true to your brand and staying true to what made you great.

and never taking your eye off the ball on trainings, training and development of your people and standard operating procedures, systems and processes. think if I could pass that knowledge on to any entrepreneur is figure out your brand, lean into it, own it, and never take your eye off the ball on training and systems and process and development of people.

Anthony Codispoti (35:17)
So Chris, this is something I’ve run into as an entrepreneur, and I’ve seen it with a lot of my friends too. And you touched on it here. There’s sort of this questioning of when is it that you need to stay true to your original concept, your brand, the picture that you had painted from early days, and how do you decide when it’s time to let go of some of those ideas and pivot? Have you developed a rule of thumb for how to figure that out?

Chris Gannon (35:47)
Never been asked that question. So not a rule of thumb, not a specific thing that we can post on it. you know, I think the biggest thing as you ask that question, which is probably one of the most profound questions I’ve ever been asked is you’ve got your KPIs in your business. And when you see one of the KPIs coming off, whatever measure that is, right?

making sure that we ask why it’s changing, why it’s going up or down, and then ask why five more times, the rule of the five whys. And I think sometimes we even fall short of doing that, but it’s so important to really understand the root cause.

getting great information from your guest, customer, however people want to look at it, great information from your team, great data, and then learning on what you can do to improve, ⁓ to change that, but also making sure that you put it through a brand DNA exercise, or you’re not altering your brand that your customer’s guests have come to know and love you by.

Anthony Codispoti (37:09)
That’s really insightful. And I think maybe you, I’m kind of reading between the lines, maybe where you were going with this is ⁓ don’t compromise on the brand. Like you can make changes, you know, to suit customer needs or, you know, to make it fit into the employee’s workflow better. But, you know, there’s some core concepts. There are some core ⁓ values to the Bolle brand that you created that, you you don’t

ever want to compromise on, am I right?

Chris Gannon (37:40)
Yeah, and understanding why do people come to your brand? Why do people come to your product, your service? And really leaning in on that because there’s nothing more important than trying to solve. It’s not what we’re trying to do for ourselves. We’re trying to make sure that we’re solving someone else’s opportunity or their problem, right? And their problem is they don’t want to cook at home.

or they don’t want to be in this situation they’re in. They want to go to an experience and they want to have great food cooked for them and made for them and prepared for them. Because if not, they’d be doing it at home, on their own. Which as we all know, doing your own dishes is not fun. And the amount of food you have to buy and cook and waste at home, it’s so challenging. It’s so challenging. And that’s why I think our business serves such a wonderful need for society.

Anthony Codispoti (38:32)
So Chris, you guys are working on ⁓ your first drive-through concept in South Tampa. Is that open? What’s the timeline on that?

Chris Gannon (38:39)
Yeah. No,

we’ve had it open for a few years now and it’s actually performing quite well. ⁓ was a beta concept to see, for drive-through for speed. And really it’s for the working person who doesn’t have the time and you don’t realize how challenging it is for…

Anthony Codispoti (38:43)
Okay.

Chris Gannon (39:00)
a mom to get her kids out of a car, especially when they’re still in the car seats, unbuckle them, carry them in, deal with their little rugrats. And I know because I just kind of got out of that zone ⁓ and then get back in the car with the food. And so if you can just stay in the drive-through, drive-through, order your food and I hand it to you and go on your way ⁓ is there. know, and people…

And I think across the journey is those, there’s those lessons learned of over innovation can lead to distraction, taking your eye off the prize and of execution. So again, that’s the balance of innovation and execution.

Anthony Codispoti (40:11)
So Chris, let’s talk about growth. You mentioned earlier in the interview being open now to strategic regional partners. ⁓ Aside from that, how else do you think about growth here in the next couple of years?

Chris Gannon (40:25)
So we’ve got a real strong five-year vision, and it’s really to increase our…

our traffic in our restaurants, our current existing restaurants. We believe that we can do so much more in our current footprint and getting way more involved in our communities and taking that up. Then secondarily, we believe there’s so much more white space in the state of Florida to grow our brand and bring our beautiful food and bold flavors to new communities. While also looking for great partners.

that can help us expand the brand outside of this state that have, you know, regional operational excellence. They know that this corner is stronger in this corner. Because with our smaller team, we don’t have the resources right now to grow it out of state at this time. yeah, and I think we don’t care what the framework is. It’s the right person.

When you find the right person, the framework will fall into place and everybody will be successful because we have more guests choosing us than other restaurants and more so than cooking at home.

Anthony Codispoti (41:23)
Yeah.

Yeah, so obviously you know want somebody who has that operational experience in the industry, but aside from that what personality traits do you think you’re looking for?

Chris Gannon (41:45)
Hard work, oh man, hard work to understand that if you’re gonna be building a brand in a new community that you’re doing that, know, Bole is a household name brand here in some of these parts of Florida, but it’s not a household name in the United States, right? So we, you know, building that name in a regional area is going to be a fun journey, but it’s a journey. I think teamwork and collaboration.

realizing that, you’re going to give us some great new ideas and we’re going to put those into test and learn and get better from your ideas. But also listen to us because we’ve made a lot of mistakes along the journey and we know what works and what doesn’t work and always hope willing to try that said procedure again in a more controlled environment and see what works and what doesn’t work.

Anthony Codispoti (42:39)
⁓ Yeah, collaboration. That’s ⁓ Chris, let’s take a little bit of a turn here. I’d like to hear about a big serious challenge that you’ve overcome in your life. How you got through that, you leaned on and what you learned coming through it.

Chris Gannon (42:40)
Yeah.

man, there’s a lot. There’s a lot there. ⁓ I think, you know, when you, when you ask that question, the first one that comes into it is when I started the brand, my wife was six months pregnant and we, we decided to have a restaurant and a baby at the same time, which is anybody could ever know. And I think I have learned that the more you throw at me, ⁓ the, the better I do. I get, I get very bored with.

few problems. I like to have a lot of problems and I just step up and go to work. So I think my wife and I, you know, leaning in to take care of the kids and she’s a full-time working mom too. So that’s always been one of our challenges. Another time though, it was ironic, I was working in the restaurant industry out in

Texas and working 65 hours, I mean long long hours, right and making little little money and realizing that you know at that time I didn’t have a college degree because I thought it was being professional polo player. I didn’t need a college degree. So I left college and thought I could just do life without it in the United States and what I realized was how just what did I learn from college? I learned to get through college, right? I think I took a lot. I was a finance major and I learned a lot about

you know, the counting and numbers, but do I remember any of that stuff now? No. ⁓ I think it gave me the ability to dig deep and learn and collaborate and teamwork. I love some of the history lessons I learned, but where I’m landing the plane here is that I thought you could be successful in

in America without going to college and I really learned how many people ask you where you go to school and if you don’t really have that kind of check mark, that rite of passage, ⁓ it’s important. I think it’s important. ⁓

It didn’t matter where you go to college, think, and you know, I don’t think so. I think it’s just that, you got past that part of our society. And that’s, I don’t know how accurate or honest that is, but that’s what I felt and what I learned. so going back to college at 22 years old and classes with 19 year olds, you don’t realize that age gap, but there’s a big age gap there. ⁓ I didn’t go back to party at that time, which was cool. I went back to really, ⁓

become friends with professors, sit in the front row, go deep. I don’t know. don’t think every person is meant to go to college right after high school. I think for me, it was a beautiful journey. It my journey. It was different. I learned the importance of college versus just go to college. That’s the next chapter. You know, I went back because I wanted to go back. I wanted to be there and I wanted to learn.

And I didn’t want to go just to be part of the party ⁓ and have that fun. I really wanted to go back and get that great degree. And I think, you know, that’s something for people to think about. Not everyone’s to go right out of college. It’s good to go do some trade, go work, and understand the why. I’m always about, you gotta tell me the why. If you don’t give me the why, I’m like, why are we doing this?

Anthony Codispoti (46:01)
Yeah, this is interesting because I’ve had a similar conversation with my wife. We both got college degrees. She has a master’s. She’s a speech therapist. But as I look back on that ⁓ college experience, yeah, I don’t really remember too much of what they actually taught us in the courses. ⁓ It did. You know, there was a lot of, you know, life management, ⁓ skill learning, you know, being on my own, having a job, you know,

learning to study, just kind of all that independence. But there’s a part of me that wonders, man, would I have just been better off in that time, like going and getting a job and just learning from the real world. Because there were parts of my college career where I sort of got stuck. I’m like, all I’m learning is how conceptually things work. I want to go get my fingers dirty. And I’m a parent to young kids. You’ve got to

two young kids, how do you think about it for them? Like I hear what you’re saying about like, it’s sort of the box that society intends you to check, but I don’t know, guys like us sometimes we zig when everybody else is zagging. So how do you think about it for your kids?

Chris Gannon (47:13)
You know, we’re going to have a lot of open conversations as long as they’re going forward, right? At the end of the day, happy and being contributing society and going forward and developing their brain, getting skills, constant teachings is important. ⁓

It’s a challenging question and a challenging environment, especially now with AI and good God, the speed at which life is changing right now. ⁓

I will say one of the most profound things that my father said to me, and I’ll never forget it, is when I went back to college, I wanted to get out so fast. I wanted to get in done because I was a little older. goes, Chris, here’s some advice I’m going to give you. You got the rest of your life to worry about mortgage payments, college, making money.

And you do, you only have a window of a little bit of that carefree, you know, where you do still have a spring break and a college break and summer off if you want. And everybody’s got different work ethics, but I will tell you, as you and I both know, that time away from work and pressures of life, that never stopped until you retire. And even then, I don’t know if I’ll ever retire. I’m not the retire type.

So really enjoying that, go study abroad. I will tell you, me living in all the countries I lived in through Polo and my study abroad when I was in college, I think to me those worldly experiences are probably more important.

than some of the stuff I learned in college. Now you still need to really learn, you know, we’re going way off topic here, but to develop your brain. That brain, I talk to my kids, that’s the most important thing is it’s the strongest muscle in your body. And you gotta work it and take care of it, feed it with great food, and keep challenging yourself too. I mean, even us in business, right? We all get caught in ruts doing the same thing. So I find myself, you know, I’m…

scratching the edge to be a, you know, get my POTS license. Something that’s just constantly forcing your brain to be uncomfortable because growth comes from being uncomfortable. I truly believe that.

Anthony Codispoti (49:28)
always pushing yourself. Yeah.

Yeah. What do you think your superpower is, Chris?

Chris Gannon (49:40)
Finding the fun in everything. I can sure find fun. You put me in any situation, I think I get that from my father. No matter what, if it’s sitting in a line in an airport, or I’ll find the fun. it’s at the restaurant doing line check, I’ll find a way to put a game in it and gamify it. I just think that I’m a serious person, but I like to, I don’t know, life’s short, enjoy it. Like have fun, because I think when you have fun,

Things just, you do better at it. I don’t know, you just excel when you’re enjoying it versus something you’re not enjoying.

Anthony Codispoti (50:18)
Okay, well, let me ask for a little parenting advice there. You’ve got, you know, kids are about the same age as mine, a little younger. And then I got so many things I want to teach them and so many ways I want to try to help them with their schoolwork. But I must be like the opposite of you because my kids look at me as like the king of anti fun. And so like, how do you approach kids? Because I think the way that you approach kids, and you think about we’re all just

big kids, right? And so if you can get to the core of how to make something fun for your kids, I think it’s a little easier to translate that into making it fun for the big kids that work with you.

Chris Gannon (50:57)
Well, I think a great question. think, you know, I take my, both my children, six and nine year old to Bolle and I say, Hey, what would y’all want to do when dad goes in there to, to, to celebrate our team and kind of check in on a restaurant? And they say, I want to work the cash register. I want to serve cookies to people. Awesome. So I, I don’t tell them what to do. I’m obviously kind of probing and I have fun with that. and I love that. I watched my daughter, ⁓ jump behind the register and the team member.

teachers teach them and I just said this is what it’s all about. That’s how I grew up in the business and they get to see hard work doesn’t just money just doesn’t come. It comes from being there and really taking care of our people. ⁓ I think you have to love teaching. I love to coach and teach. I love giving my kids lessons and taking that you you can do stuff with them and sometimes I find myself rushing through a project you know home improvement project but then I say what’s the point? whole point of me having my kids do this is not

you know, for free labor, because by all means they’re not easy, labor at that point. ⁓ It’s to teach them and teach them how to.

fixing air conditioning at your home or a pipe that’s busted. We love doing PVC out in our yard for irrigation and I don’t love doing that, but I love teaching my kids something new all the time. So constantly, and then when my son can repeat back to me or my daughter can repeat back to me how to do something that I taught them, that’s rewarding. Like to me, I don’t know. think that…

That’s that dopamine that you get. I just taught another human being, especially the most important human beings to me or my children. And when they get to like teach it back to me or tell me or teach someone else, I don’t know. Sometimes that’s 90 % of time for me, I know more about that than what’s in our bank account. I mean, that to me is rewarding, right?

Anthony Codispoti (52:51)
I love it. How about some daily practices, ⁓ habits, rituals for you? Get your day started, keep you going.

Chris Gannon (52:58)
Yeah, and they’re hard to stay on top all the time, but I have found that when I don’t do these rituals, my day doesn’t go well. So I can directly correlate if I didn’t do that, that’s where my day didn’t start off with success, right? You always hear that incredible general talk about making your bed in the morning. I think, you know, my wife and I went for a run this morning. It doesn’t have to be 15 mile run.

I’m a triathlete, so I do a lot of that fun stuff. But even if you just get out there and get a one mile run in, you know, you get that heart rate going. And I was talking to my wife this morning when I run and I just said, man, what would it be like if we didn’t get to see this part of the day and, you know, seeing the sun come up or smell that air and get that day started? ⁓ think making sure that.

We always say we love each other when we leave the house and never leave the house in a fight with your significant other. That’s important. ⁓ And I am very big on reminders.

you know, because we get so busy. So one of my secret, secret successes, I have a lot of reoccurring reminders and the using technology to help us. ⁓ cause I think we’re get so much going on that I just have these pop up reminders on my phone. Hey, remind you to do this on Mondays or think about this top three things that you can do to move the needle, send inspirational messages to the team. ⁓ things that come naturally, if a of things pop up in the way. So it’s good to just have those, those little

using technology to not do our work but to remind us to do work.

Anthony Codispoti (54:35)
So you mentioned technology, AI is, you know, here we are at the tail end of 2025, top of everybody’s mind. How are you guys using it and how do you plan to use it going forward?

Chris Gannon (54:42)
yeah.

We are constantly with our fingers on the pulse on it to the best of our abilities. Remember, we’re in the restaurant business. We’re not tech. And I constantly am using it to help us do what we’re doing faster. Write said procedure faster, analyze this faster. ⁓

being part of it to where we’re not missing it, but also not being so bleeding edge where we just focus on that. Because I think if you just focus too much on the AI aspect of it, ⁓ you become, I don’t know, again, it’s an innovation versus execution. Where is that balance? So I think that kind of ⁓ constantly looking how we can make, I want to utilize it in our business to do things that…

is pointless for our people to do. If it’s not moving the needle for a human being to be doing it, then we should be using AI to do it. And I think that’s a big part of what we do.

Anthony Codispoti (55:53)
⁓ What’s something fun that you like to do outside of work, Chris?

Chris Gannon (55:58)
I think, ⁓ everything outside, I’m an outdoors person. So we, we love being in the outdoors, mountain biking, hiking, do triathlons, riding horses. think anything we’re, we’re, we don’t sit very often. My wife and I always talk about, you know, Mondays while we’re tired, well, it’s cause our weekends were just as intense as our weeks. So we, we, we go pretty hard in our family.

Anthony Codispoti (56:24)
What’s one thing you wish more people knew about your industry?

Chris Gannon (56:29)
⁓

how much goes into it behind the scenes to get that food made right every single day. And I understand that people don’t need to care because we are asking for their hard-earned money, and we respect that. But I also know that if people knew that what it takes for broccoli to end from the field, getting picked by somebody and planted by an incredible farmer,

that journey to getting it into our restaurant, unboxed, quality, checked, cooked, served, and then also with a smile. ⁓ There’s a long journey there.

And I think people sometimes take for granted of our food supply chain and how fragile and beautiful and hard it is to get it right. mean, our farmers and what they do to produce our food and make the world go around is important. Cause I don’t know about you, but I don’t, they don’t have a pill yet to do all that. So it’s still someone’s hard work out there doing it. But again, this is what we do. We’re humbled and honored that we get to serve so many people with our hard work.

Anthony Codispoti (57:45)
That’s really cool. Chris, I’ve just got one more question for you today. But before I ask it, I want to do three things. First of all, anybody who wants to get in touch with Chris directly, the best way to reach him is on Instagram at Chief Chris Gannon underscore belay. What’s the chief part of it for? Is that chief executive officer?

Chris Gannon (58:04)
No,

I was Chief Osceola at Florida State. I got to represent Osceola in an amazing pageantry. And so I’ve always kind of just held onto that chief word. So it’s kind of fun.

Anthony Codispoti (58:08)
Okay.

I love it. And we’ll have a link to that in the show notes. Also, you can email them at info at belay.com and any relevant messages his team will forward directly to Chris. Also as a reminder to listeners, if you want to get more employees access to benefits that won’t hurt them financially and carries a financial upside for the company, reach out to us at addbackbenefits.com. And finally, if you’ll take just a moment to leave us a comment or review on your favorite podcast app.

You will hold a special place in my heart forever. Thank you very much. Last question for you, Chris. A year from now, you and I reconnect and you are celebrating something big. What’s that big thing you hope to be celebrating one year from today?

Chris Gannon (59:04)
Sounds simple, but Chargrills completely rolled out at all our restaurants. So we were doing oven, now we’re going back to Chargrills, and it’s a daunting task to re-put those back in our company, our culture. And I think ⁓ along with that, ⁓ the growth mechanism of building restaurants again in a very controlled approach, I would love that.

Anthony Codispoti (59:27)
Explain to me the different effect of oven versus char grilled and why the switch.

Chris Gannon (59:32)
It’s

a deep conversation, but really the flavor enhancement when you’re when you’re giving that mylar reaction Which is the charring effect on a protein get it? Just right it just you know as you know Put a piece of chicken in an oven put a piece of chicken on the char grill and you taste them side by side And when you get it right on the char grill, it’s infinitely better ⁓

You know, it just puts that beautiful smell of barbecue-ish, you know, that kind of char smells in the restaurant, not barbecue, barbecue, but just ⁓ that great searing smell in our dining rooms. And it gets us back to not push button people, really set it for, you know, chefs with culinary ⁓ passion. And ⁓ it’s a big initiative within our brand right now.

Anthony Codispoti (1:00:25)
really cool. Chris Gannon, CEO and co-founder of Belay. I want to be the first to thank you for sharing both your time and your story with us today. I really appreciate it.

Chris Gannon (1:00:35)
honored to be here. Thank you.

Anthony Codispoti (1:00:37)
Folks, that’s a wrap on another episode of the Inspired Stories podcast. Thanks for learning with us today.