Three Generations, 866 Locations: Laura Rea Dickey on Growing America’s Largest Barbecue Franchise | Restaurants & Franchises Series

Anthony Codispoti: 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 Codispoti and today’s guest is Laura Rea Dickey, Chief Executive Officer of Dickey’s Barbecue Restaurants. Founded in 1941, they have grown from a family venture in Dallas, Texas to the world’s largest barbecue franchise. Serving authentic, slow smoked barbecue across 866 locations worldwide, Laura joined the brand in 2009 bringing over 20 years of experience in marketing and information technology. She previously served as CIO and now leads the company’s expansion and digital innovation strategies. Under her leadership, Dickey’s has earned recognition for its forward thinking approach, including a spot on the nation’s restaurant news power list and several nods in fast casual magazines Top 25, Mover and Shakers. She is also CEO of Sparks Hospitality Technology, which is dedicated to helping hospitality brands harness the power of data and technology to drive operational success and elevate customer experiences. Laura has also been honored as a top woman in technology by the Dallas Business Journal. Her specialty is using data insights to drive brand and business solutions, which has helped push Dickey’s to new heights in both customer experience and sales performance. Now before we get into all this good stuff, today’s episode is brought to you by my company, Add Back 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. One recent client was able to add over $900 per employee per year in extra cash flow by implementing one of our innovative programs. Results vary for each company and some organizations may not be eligible.

To find out if your company qualifies, contact us today at addbackbenefitsagency.com. All right, back to our guest today, the CEO of Dickey’s barbecue pit, Laura. I appreciate you making the time to show your story today.

Laura Rea Dickey: Thank you for having me, Anthony. I appreciate it.

Anthony Codispoti: Okay, so you have been merging tech and marketing throughout your career. I’m kind of curious to hear how did that unique intersection first capture your attention?

Laura Rea Dickey: I really think like most good things completely by accident. It was not some grand design. I have always really loved marketing and communication and being in the kind of the people connection side of any part of a business challenge. But really when I got started out in marketing, I was one of the youngest folks on the team and using at the time when they were calling it new media and the internet was somewhat revolutionary for a lot of the folks that had a lot more experience. So I really was really just well timed and had such a really good mentor at one of my first jobs that really was almost in the sunset of her career. And she realized that I was just really in the very beginning of mine. And it was a wonderful partnership where she imparted a lot of her knowledge and her experience to me. But she also allowed me to pull in at that kind of age where we were just getting going with all of the things that social media and new media and digital media would become and really encouraged me to jump in early to continue in my education to really double down and learn. And so it was a lot about timing and definitely about having several very good mentors early on.

Anthony Codispoti: Is this when you were working with some iconic brands like W Hotels and Chick-fil-A or was it even before that?

Laura Rea Dickey: It was even a little bit before that. So I worked with some of those brands with the Richards group and that was because I was working at Fairfield Development and Rita Wilson was heading marketing at the time. And I was working with our portfolio of student housing across the country. And so it was really just a happy accident of being around some really great folks and at a really exciting time and being able to take advantage of that.

Anthony Codispoti: So give us an idea of how early you got started. Were you in the early stages of Google ads? Were early stages of Facebook ads which came a bit later?

Laura Rea Dickey: All of the above, yes. You know, we jumped, I jumped in at 2000, started in 01. And so really, really got there at that right pivotal time where people were just figuring it out. They were starting to dedicate budget to technology as a part of marketing and a lot of those digital pieces. And so that was really exciting.

Anthony Codispoti: So that was pre-Facebook if I’m remembering right, but that was early days of Google ads.

Laura Rea Dickey: And what was very interesting actually about Facebook is we were working with student housing at different universities, right? So private housing for large state universities. So Facebook was on the campuses, but wasn’t yet an advertising medium beyond beyond the university students themselves. So that was an interesting time to watch all of that develop.

Anthony Codispoti: So I don’t want to get too far into the weeds here, but I had a little background in some of that, you know, back in the early days too. And so I’m kind of curious, Google ads obviously was a big, big deal when it first came out. What was the next sort of big leap for you in that space?

Laura Rea Dickey: From the digital advertising space, it was really a lot of, at that time, the campus connection and a lot of those social early sites. And then we also started to do a lot of the web building. We was really into the right digital presence online. And folks were really looking at digital space and what websites could do that beginning of e-commerce and connection point for folks. And so that was really a lot of time I spent early on building out brands digitally, which now you think as you know, sometimes brands are just digital now, but you think of that as so natural, but it was really an intentional piece of the kind of branding portfolio at the time.

Anthony Codispoti: So how did you take that experience and that work and leverage it into some of the work that you then did with W and Chick-fil-A and others like that?

Laura Rea Dickey: Very interesting. It was that 360 branding, which is a very old term now, but it was really taking that and all of the traditional thinking around marketing that still applies, that still did apply and putting that digital presence, that digital space to that.

What does that look like for that brand? And then how do you start to connect those folks that are at the time, early adopters, or right where we were playing with some of those brands that the younger folks that were in university that were just coming out of school that were really going, okay, there’s a lot of opportunity here and you saw the launch of a lot of e-commerce or really the early launch and failure of a lot of e-commerce that led to the extension of e-commerce as a part of established brands. And so that was just a really interesting, exciting time. And it was really adding the digital footprint to a lot of those iconic brands or being a part of that. Chick-fil-A was interesting though, actually spent a lot of time early on in that brand actually with their community marketing program, quite the opposite of what I was doing on a technology piece with some of the other brands I was involved in. But that was a much more traditional approach still at the time.

And while they were just getting into a digital development, actually spent a lot of time in the community marketing aspect of that brand, which has definitely informed my career quite a bit. Give us one example. So they have a very, be my neighbor, inviting folks in to be my guest. So they had a really very, and I believe still do, grassroots community involvement, kind of iconic piece to the brand where they would go in and around every new store, they would invite folks in to be their guest. They would have be my guest cards.

They would go in. Everyone within a two, three, four, five mile radius of a new location was somehow personally invited in, whether they gave them a be my guest card, whether they did grassroots, they were just very involved in the community. And those type of touch points and building those relationships, you can really still see that today in this brand. And it’s definitely something that I brought to Dickies very intentionally.

Anthony Codispoti: Okay, let’s shift into Dickies now, because this brand’s got quite a story. Been around since 1941, I believe we’re the third generation of the family. Yeah, tell me more, how did it get started? And it’s unusual for even a successful company to stay within the same family group for second generation, then a third generation. So kind of walk me through how this is kind of absolutely.

Laura Rea Dickey: And I’m married in full disclosure. So it is my husband, who’s the third generation. And it was his grandfather started our original location in Dallas, Texas in 1941. In fact, I’m sitting in our corporate office here. And you can look right across 75 and see the original restaurant. It’s an old converted house.

You can walk into the dining room and you still see the brick fireplace that was originally there. So his grandfather had come back from just being a world war one veteran, actually, and worked at a coffee shop, owned a small coffee shop, and would walk home past this, this restaurant and really decided one day that he really wanted to own this restaurant. So he bought the space or as the story goes, they just pitched him the keys, because he was the best customer. And so he turned it into a barbecue restaurant called it Dickies barbecue named it after himself and ran that restaurant until he passed actually in the kitchen of that restaurant. And my, my father in law, really thought that he was going to go on and be an attorney. I think he had visions of being Colombo or something similar and was in school to do that.

But he was newly married, I think he was in his last year at SMU actually, and needed to make a living all of a sudden for himself and for his mom now. And so he took over the business and grew that from one location to truly was a barbecue joint. It was very small, but grew that from one location into a small family chain. And I think that’s where he thought that they would be he really put his heart and soul into the business expanded around Dallas, and the Dallas Metroplex, and into North Texas, and really put a lot into catering and building the business. And he was Mr. Dickie, he did a lot of the innovation of the menu. And when we first started the original menu in 1941 was brisket and ham, and just beer and milk at one of the first beer licenses in Dallas actually, I think we’re numbered as license number one. So that was that was really very simple menu and potato chips.

And so anything else on the menu from there has really been, my father in law and my husband that have added to that over time. And they just built that organically.

Anthony Codispoti: So at what point did the growth really start to explode?

Laura Rea Dickey: That’s really when my husband got involved in the business. So he went to school and we have what I think is a very good family rule that if he wanted to be involved in the family business, you had to go out and work for somebody else first. So he had to graduate school and work up to be a district manager and another restaurant change. So he did that here with a really good company, El Chico Brands. And he worked for several years in those restaurants up to being a district manager, and then was invited back to the family business and had to also work his way up.

So my father in law and actually his brother, so my husband’s uncle, they ran the family stores together. And so Roland Jr. was invited back in and he took the restaurant and opened a location in Albuquerque for us, for the family. And so he ran that location for a full year by himself to really prove that he wanted to be involved in the business and had the ability to do so. And then when he came back to the home office in Dallas, that’s really when they started expanding. And so they first franchise they sold actually to a guest, a long-term guest who’s still a franchisee today, the Smith family. But Frank Smith was one of our best customers as the story goes, and he used to come in and ask to buy a barbecue restaurant. He said, you know, this is a great way to make a living. I love this.

How much fun are y’all having every day? Please sell me one. And eventually wore my father-in-law down until he said, okay, Frank, if you’ll stop asking me, I’ll sell you a restaurant. And now his son Dale, second generation, has four restaurants around Dallas and has been with us for, you know, over 25 years as a franchisee.

Anthony Codispoti: So what’s the breakdown of corporate-owned versus franchises?

Laura Rea Dickey: Great question. We have eight family-owned restaurants and everything else is franchised.

Anthony Codispoti: Okay. And where are we talking about? Is this just across the U.S.? Do you have something Canada?

Laura Rea Dickey: We do. We have both. We are international as so we are in 41 states and Canada. And then we are in eight countries total, actually. Before we were in Canada, we were in Dubai and Abu Dhabi. And then we also have restaurants in Brazil, Japan, Singapore, and Canada.

Anthony Codispoti: And I’m guessing each of those opportunities just come about because a franchisee has approached you and said, hey, I like this. I want to bring some authentic American barbecue to our country.

Laura Rea Dickey: That’s exactly what’s happened. And that’s been, we have several family-owned airport locations. So that’s also been a very nice way to connect with international folks here in the DFW airport and Love Field. It gets a lot of brand exposure for us, which is really nice. But it is, I’ve been so amazed by the love of American brands internationally. There is just still this hunger for authentic American brands, especially Texas brands. So we are able to serve folks internationally that legit Texas barbecue.

Anthony Codispoti: And I’m sure when, you know, some of these international folks are looking for an opportunity, there are other barbecue restaurants that they could franchise. What is it that you think is drawing them to Dickies?

Laura Rea Dickey: I think it’s our genuine authenticity. We are a family brand and we are about our food and we’re about our folks. We’re very simple. We’re not confused about actually doing rocket surgery or anything along those lines. We stick to the basics. But it’s really led by great barbecue. Everything is pit smoked on site. So you bring in all of those fresh proteins, they are smoked right there in every restaurant and every location with our original recipes, with our proprietary spice blends, with our secret sauce, with everything that my husband and my father-in-law have genuinely put, you know, spent their time and passion putting together from our legacy recipes. So it’s very, very, very great barbecue, very good food. But it’s also genuinely about family. We have a history you can look back on, you can see how we’ve grown, you can see the folks that have come through the restaurant. And so you just, we have that history and I think folks really look at that and go, gosh, that’s amazing. I’d like to be a part of that.

Anthony Codispoti: You use the phrase once or twice as the story goes. Are there some tall tales sort of woven through this brand? Yeah.

Laura Rea Dickey: Absolutely there are. Yes. If the wall is at Central Good Dock, that’s what we lovingly call our original flagship store. But we just have had such, it’s truly been a family experience. You know, as my father-in-law and his brother had built the brand, you know, they catered for celebrities, they catered high-profile events. In fact, you know, they catered a catering event for Ronald Reagan here in Dallas when he came through on his first campaign trail. Had a long-term customer and Ross Perot. And so we’ve had just a great way to be a part of just the Dallas history and the Texas brand here is just a very authentic experience.

Anthony Codispoti: You know, something you said, I thought was a really smart idea about how, you know, people who are in the family, if they want to work in the business, you got to go work somewhere else first. Get that, get that outside work experience.

And then if you decide that you want to come join the family business, you’ve got to work your way up. Not just going to hand you the keys, right? And I think that, you know, if you guys continue to employ that methodology, it’s going to ensure, you know, the future long-term success of the brand. You’re not just throwing the keys to somebody who’s not ready for it.

Laura Rea Dickey: Absolutely. Well, and I think that that’s, that’s a key strategy for us. When I say we’re about the food and the folks, it’s about really, really leaning into the barbecue legacy and also making sure that we’re doing business with the very best folks out there. Folks that share that passion, that really want to be a part of the business. You know, we only use the term franchisee because folks are familiar with it. For us, they’re owner operators. It is people that are passionate that want to own a barbecue restaurant. We don’t have equity partners.

We have true owner operators that are engaged and involved in the brand because our food is a little more complicated than a lot of folks might think of a restaurant or some other types of cuisine are. You come in and you’re doing a smoke 12 to 14 hours a day to get a brisket or a pork butt ready. You’ve got at least four hours on your ribs.

You’ve got to keep up with that protein. There’s an art and a science to it that you really have to make sure everything that you serve is smoked correctly. And that takes a passion. It takes wanting to be in there and smell like hickory smoke every day. And it is wonderful, but it’s a different level of engagement and involvement than some other types of cuisine might require from an owner operator.

Anthony Codispoti: So you mentioned that you married into the family and obviously we’ve already talked about some of your external work experience. What was behind the decision for you personally? Why did you want to come join the Dickey’s brand?

Laura Rea Dickey: I really thought when Roland asked me to get involved with the business that it would be a very short-term engagement. It was during the 2008-2009 recession and it was actually probably one of the top two or three most challenging times that we have had that I’ve certainly had in my career.

But Roland was at the point where he had come back, it’s my husband’s second, third generation at the time, but he had come back and was really running the business now. And we hit this point and we were about 80-85 locations at the time. And it was one of those moments where it’s like, wow, nobody quite knew what the economy was going to do and what the business landscape was going to shake out and look like.

And so we had a lot of offers at that time to sell. And he said, you know, what do you want to do? And I’m like, well, I support what you want to do, but I think this is what you’ve always wanted to be passionate about. I think we have to find a way to do this. And he said, that’s what I want. I need you to quit your job and come help me. And so again, I thought that would be…

Anthony Codispoti: Did you want to retract your answer at that point? I had to take a minute.

Laura Rea Dickey: It’s not exactly what I thought he would say, but absolutely it was what was required at the time. Because it was one of those throw everything in the kitchen sink that you had at it from a resource. This was one of those, if we’re going to make it go, we have to double down, triple down. You have to get there earlier. You have to stay later. You have to find a solution through those challenges. That was where I pulled in a lot of my community marketing experience that I had learned from Chick-fil-A. That was where we took what was looked like for the brand at the time, maybe what the Oregon Trail game looked like from a website and developed it from a very, very sad HTML dot matrix type of website into an actual e-commerce site. And so it required really rethinking everything we were doing.

So it took definitely both of us and looking at everything from the brand. So we made it through that challenging time. And instead of shrinking, we grew and we grew considerably and had folks that saw us do that through those challenging times going, hey, if y’all can really double down and not only make it, not only survive but thrive, I want to be a part of that. And so that was definitely a growth trajectory for us. And so we made that, we made that through. And then we also took a step back and said, okay, what would have made this easier? What could we have done going into 0809? Because you take every challenge as an opportunity, right? And you go, once you’ve made it through, what did I learn? How do I apply it?

How do I compound that interest? And we shrank the footprints of the restaurants. So from going from a much larger, you know, 3,000, 3,500 square foot restaurant, we shrank our footprint to 1,800 to 2,200 square feet, which was a considerable adjustment, but it raises the economics considerably, as you can imagine. It also made us a lot more nimble to go in and be able to serve communities that we had naturally and organically grown into here in Dallas and in Texas.

But we could be in an inline or an end cap with drive-through. You didn’t have to be in a very expensive, pre-standing location anymore. And we do still have some of those.

And they are great locations, but we really found ways to be flexible. So we reduced everything about the space. We re-engineered everything.

Roland and I actually took and built a restaurant and a warehouse and here and genuinely engineered every single piece of opening the kitchen, showing off the pit, just redoing everything. And that was a big part of it. But the other part was the technology.

The other part was we had such good folks with such good data, such good information, but there were disparate parts of data all over the company with their respective teams. And we didn’t have a nerve center. We didn’t have any sort of business intelligence platform. At that time, the term folks were just starting to use was big data. And big data in barbecue was not a thing at that time and certainly not for us.

So we started from the back of the house and moved forward and put that in place so that we could share our knowledge. We could really have a culture that was built around insights and data and making it actionable. And so that the operations team didn’t know something the marketing team didn’t. And so the marketing team shared all of their insights from guest feedback with the training team and with our owner operators. And so that really was that push for us into being data driven and having a culture that evolved in that way. And it all came from that challenge. And that’s really how and why I got involved in the brand and then thought that I would always eventually move back out into doing something independently. And I’ve missed a couple of the wrong meetings and been demoted eventually to CEO.

Anthony Codispoti: Okay, there’s some really good stuff there I want to unpeel. So one of the things that you did, you guys redid the website, right, was a little bit outdated. You turned it into something a little bit more modern, useful. You mentioned that you leaned on a lot of your community marketing experience that you know, you gathered from your days with Chick-fil-A. Say more about that. What did that look like in a practical sense?

Laura Rea Dickey: You know, that was such a strong brand. I was so lucky early on another absolutely fantastic mentor that I got to have early in life. I was Jerry Murray. I still work with him actually. He’s a brand consultant for us today. But he had Murray Brown branding and I interned for him in college.

And then I also worked with the Richards group and worked for Glenn Gill, who later in his career actually came back and worked with us here at Dickies. So having those two forces of just marketing and communication was really instrumental to me. And in particular with the Chick-fil-A brand, they really made an impression upon me about having a strong culture, about being very, very, very community minded, about giving back, that it is not just about doing well, it’s also about doing good. And you have to have that in your brand’s DNA.

And that’s very organic to Dickies. That’s very much how we have always been, but we were able to formalize it through a community marketing program where it was very intentional that every location goes out and gets involved with their local schools. Every location, every restaurant we have supports first responders.

We do that in partnership through the Dickie Foundation. But it’s very important to go out and be a good steward in the community in which you’re doing business. And then that’s also how you make genuinely organic and authentic connections. That’s how you have folks that want to come and do catering with you. That’s how you build those connections.

So it’s very symbiotic, but it’s very important. And so that definitely made an impression on me that you intentionally have to go out and invite folks every day to be your guest. And then remind them why you want to be involved in the community and show that commitment to where you’re doing business.

Anthony Codispoti: So walk me through what that looks like in practical steps. I want to be involved in the community. Does that mean if there’s like a little street fair, I’m setting up a booth there and I’m handing out free samples? Does it mean I’m going into the schools and doing pepper? Give me a sense of like what does this look like? It’s

Laura Rea Dickey: all of those things. It is really taking all those different type of touch points in a community. And I always say start with schools, start with first responders, and then start with your business community. How whether that is a convention and business bureau or whether that’s the small business association, whatever it is, in that particular community, get involved. Host meetings. Have folks that are engaged be a part of the business resources in the community.

Absolutely be a touch point. Have fundraisers for your schools. Sponsor little league teams. Sponsor anything to do with the local public schools. Be involved in raffles. Do things to support first responders. Do food donations to first responders. Do anything you possibly can. Anytime there is an opportunity to go out and be involved, whether that is a street fair or an artist market or whatever it might be, go and do that and be present in the community and get to know everybody.

Go for us. It’s taking our big yellow cups and it is putting be my guest card in there and a catering menu and a business card and it’s handing them out and we do that every day. And then we call on folks and invite them in to be potential catering guests. So it’s getting to know your business community and that sounds very, very traditional and very analog. But that’s so necessary to pair that with the right digital strategy.

One is not nearly as effective as when they’re both paired together. So I think having that kind of grassroots, that genuinely personalized community piece is very important still in branding today.

Anthony Codispoti: What does the digital piece of this look like today for Dickies?

Laura Rea Dickey: It is, gosh, it is, so for us it starts with our e-commerce and so it’s being, it’s built around our, our website, our online ordering and then that pulls folks into kind of our eco structure, if you will, that pulls them into loyalty, that pulls them into app, that allows us to connect with them and activate them so that we have a very robust loyalty program where we’re constantly thanking folks for being our guests, we’re constantly inviting them back to be our guest again, if for example they’ve lapsed for a little while or it’s knowing those guests on a personalized way because they’ve shared their data with us, how they order, when they order, why they order. So we can personalize offers for them so that we can have that kind of digital connection in a way that you might previously have gotten to know a guest because they came into the restaurant personally.

Well now you can see that in their data history when they’re willing to share that. So you can really create those customized programs and offers and it’s very, very, very important to the business.

Anthony Codispoti: Yeah, I want to hear more about the tech that you put in place, you know, the business intelligence, can you give us an example of the, like a piece of actionable data that you were able to surface once you kind of got these systems talking to each other?

Laura Rea Dickey: Sure, it was taking and connecting not just our sales data, not just our inventory and business data, but truly our guest data. So it was looking at when folks were ordering, why they were ordering, what channel they were ordering, if they were single channel guests or they were multi-channel guests. That was also a very big insight is who’s coming into the dining room, how are they different or how often do they engage with the brand in an online ordering sense. It’s really interesting to me that from our online ordering, we are split evenly on our digital guests almost perfectly between our carryout guests, those that will order online to pick up versus those that will order online for delivery. It’s really fascinating to me that I had thought naturally that folks would just be ordering online for delivery At a greater percentage than they are to pick up, but that’s not the case. They’re using So it seems their smartphone or wherever they are At usually the office or wherever they are before they are going home And they just want to jump the line and have that convenience But they’ll still go in and pick it up And so that was a really interesting insight to me when we were truly able to see how our guests were engaging with us So then we can create offers and products and packaging and Invitations that really cater to what they’re interested in not just what we hope they’re interested in or what we try and doesn’t work Because certainly, you know, that is a method of business building But I’d rather have them tell us upfront and so it led to insights of definitely in our packaging What different how folks were wanting to to cater for example We cater so significantly for groups of 15 to 25 people We cater that size group more than anything else. We do a lot larger.

We do a lot smaller But we had always had family packs in the store and what we realized is that where folks were coming in and buying two or three Family packs when what they wanted was an option that immediately went right to that to that the group size And so that led to the invention of our big yellow box That was an easy portable box to pick up and it was a no mess Guests really wanted that type of convenience. We have food. That’s really easy to cater.

It holds really well It’s a very high quality It has really good really good reception with guests for folks that that cater with us But they wanted the ease of coming in and having a to-go packaging That was very little setup very little take down and so that really was from the data insight and seeing how guests We’re ordering and what they wanted

Anthony Codispoti: And so that 15 to 25 group I’m guessing that’s probably like a small party on the weekends Or it’s like like an office like get together Lunch

Laura Rea Dickey: tailgate Those but definitely that that size small parties were there and so that’s it was interesting to me because again We have we had products on both sides of that But what not one that was geared directly to what we were seeing folks order the most So

Anthony Codispoti: I don’t know the exact stats but most franchises don’t get to five locations Let alone 85 that you guys got to you know back in 2008 2009 when you kind of you know you hit some headwinds there You get to that level of success. It’s kind of natural to think pretty smart. We’ve got a lot of things figured out, right? We’re pretty cool, but You guys had enough humility to say there’s a better way here We need to take a step back and we need to rethink some things in a big way And one of the things I love that you did is inside of a warehouse you built You know an exact replica so that you could move through the space and know, okay? We’re you know bringing in you know food from the truck, okay?

Now we’re taking it to the counter now. We’re giving it to the the customer so you knew the exact footprint that that you could Efficiently operate within and that opened up a lot of new opportunities for you. You were a lot more efficient You’re you’re able to recoup your investment a lot faster with a much smaller footprint and you opened up a lot of Additional real estate opportunities that couldn’t have existed for you before

Laura Rea Dickey: we have a mantra It’s evolve or fail and I absolutely so fundamentally believe in that you have to evolve or eventually you were you will fail You have to be humble enough to go. I’ve been successful and I’ve learned from that But I could and should always strive to do better to learn more and that exercise of retooling for us Was not changing our core. You know, we were still pit smoked on site legit Texas barbecue We still had our core menu, but we had business opportunities We had the ability to go in and scrub everything to make sure Absolutely everything that made it into our kitchen into our footprint into our equipment package into our dining room Into our decor into the branding was necessary and had a purpose and That was that mantra if it didn’t contribute to the success of the brand pull it out There was no sacred cow if you will about well, it’s always

Anthony Codispoti: but that’s hard Laura When you’re trying to I mean you’ve got this legacy brand It’s been in the family three generations and you’re trying to make changes to it But at the same time balance like staying true to your roots and who you were But that’s a balancing act like what can go what has to stay like how did you figure out what has to stay?

Laura Rea Dickey: You have to have a lot of good relationships internally to be able to fight about those things Which is rolling and I did and I really it all credit to his dad.

Mr. Dickey was one of my favorite people I always describe him that if I’m Winston Churchill and Rodney Dangerfield had a baby. That’s my father-in-law And Sense of humor and he

Anthony Codispoti: I’ve got to meet this

Laura Rea Dickey: guy But he really has such a sharp business mind he is he comes across as so folksy and down to earth and he is but he really him and My husband they they’re very very much understand Business and numbers and can see things in that way But we were able and we were given the space and the opportunity and the trust to do that actually I think That family saw that we were very committed that we were all in and that we were we were looking forward and going You know, we cannot stay the same and expect the same results in a landscape that’s changing Right, so that is that evolve or fail that was not three years down the road But it was gonna be 10 12 15 if we didn’t invest in digital We were going to be lapped if we didn’t reduce our overhead costs We were not going to be a good investment any longer if we didn’t go back and look at how do we? Make sure that we know why our guests love us not just think that we know why but deliver on that You know, they’re definitely coming for the brisket. They’re definitely coming for the ribs They’re definitely coming, you know for that true Texas smoked on site barbecue, but why are they coming back or why do they not come back?

And how do we how do we fix that? So that was in making sure that we expanded some of our sides that we had different sandwiches that you know We have a one meat plate and a two meat plate and a three meat plate And that’s those are you know meats with sides, but we had a whole sandwich opportunity We’ve expanded in the past couple of years since the pandemic into having Some southern more southern inspired menu expansion in crispy chicken and a crispy fried Che crispy fried steak and mashed potatoes with gravy And we’ve added those in we have always had this wonderful kibasa solid sausage That is actually my father-in-law’s recipe and then my husband added Jalapeno cheddar to it and that was one of our most successful product launches was that expansion and so we have this craft sausage business And we have also then expanded that into the Dickey dog and offering it on A hot dog bun in the restaurant and it was doing some of those things to make sure that we stayed relevant to younger folks We wanted to make sure that we continued to evolve and attract with how folks Especially younger folks that may have gone to the brand with their parents or the grandparents But they themselves wanted to come on their own and so it was doing those type of menu innovations or adding smoked wings We have phenomenal pit smoked wings and they’re very popular But that was an intentional addition to the menu to bring in younger guests I can always tell in general the average age of a guest by what they’re ordering and our younger guests order chicken Far and away. They order more chicken our older guests order more brisket And while that’s a generalization I can always tell When that’s happening And so you see those patterns and you just want to make sure that you stay up with that I think it’s very important to always be humble aware of where your success is but also aware of where you can Lose that success if you don’t continue to evolve and keep up with it

Anthony Codispoti: COVID was another really difficult time in the hospitality industry. Yeah during that time you guys launched Virtual concepts new menu items. Can you kind of walk us through the brainstorming process that went on behind the scenes?

Laura Rea Dickey: Absolutely, that’s probably hands down the second second hardest time of my career And and it was certainly that deeply unexpected situation for everybody. That was one of those times where We were all so thankful. We had the Proprietary technology that we had so we had our digital infrastructure So that we could be incredibly nimble it allowed us to keep serving Continuously throughout the pandemic in almost all of our locations And if we hadn’t had our own online ordering our own app our own loyalty if we hadn’t been able to be incredibly nimble and responsive to each different communities Requirements and rules and needs at the time we really would not have been able to do is as well as we did And it was very challenging at first, but we were able to pivot and be flexible And so we leaned in to e-commerce and then we were able to keep our To go ordering so folks could come in for pick up So we were able to serve folks We were one of the first brands that did a doorstep delivery So you had no contact delivery But we were able to do that because we controlled our own digital assets And so we weren’t dependent on someone else having to come up with that We could just immediately be responsive and do those those types of things. In fact, I will never forget we had Sixth we have a line extension of sauces On the way to every location as our marketing promotion at the time And it was going to be self-serve sauces so that they could customize From our original barbecue sauce and our spicy and our sweet to three other sauces And that sounds wonderful until you’re sitting in the middle of a pandemic where nobody is wanting to share or touch anything anymore And so that was definitely one of those situations where we had to be deeply responsive And make those adjustments. We went from a lettuce from a self-serve to a let us get that for you culture We adjusted our packaging yet again. We also had to take a look at all of our suppliers We have some absolutely wonderful legacy relationships Legacy suppliers that are very important, but in particular for example with our sausage We just could not get product consistently during that time So we ended up having to build a USDA License facility in our manufacturing that ourselves now and that came out of the pandemic because we had such a need And such and growth which was good But but in order to sustain those things you have to have consistency and quality and consistency and availability And you just have to have that so we really worked through a lot of product shortages and challenges But also because we had our own digital assets We were able to communicate with guests about what was in stock what wasn’t what was changing So that was also something that our guests really appreciated And so that that just really kind of built a lot of of trust and Connection with the brand because we were able to be there for folks Especially in those early days that were needing to supplement the grocery store because the grocery stores alone couldn’t keep up You definitely saw that it that it takes both restaurants and grocery retail to get folks through and so that you know There was a lot of challenge but a lot of good that came out of that for the brand and some of those innovations where where we had to self-solve and set us on the path where we had Been making our own sauce and spice in Texas for a long time for the brand and then I used that manufacturing knowledge to build out the protein production facilities

Anthony Codispoti: So you still maintain and own your own facility where you’re preparing all the proteins and then you are Distributing them to the franchisees worldwide

Laura Rea Dickey: and not all of our proteins in particular our sausages and Some of our brisket prep and ribs so not all of the proteins, but our very core proprietary sausages we do

Anthony Codispoti: What was the most challenging aspect of transitioning from CIO to CEO

Laura Rea Dickey: I’m Making sure that I always have The big picture in mind, you know, we lead with the food and the folks so it’s always been mindful of our owner operators It’s always been mindful of our guests, but for several years my focus was The digital piece of the brand it was the e-commerce.

It was all the data. It’s all the connection points It’s our training platform online and it was making sure that I was Equally aware of all the other pieces of the brand and not just defaulting back to where I was very comfortable for the past two years So I think making sure that that I was very aware of The other parts of the brand that while I had been involved didn’t have my direct attention in that way for several years

Anthony Codispoti: Tell us about sparks the hospitality technology company What is

Laura Rea Dickey: this and that’s that was really as a result of that oh eight oh nine and needing better data and Needing to control our own assets, you know, we’re one of those brands that it’s if we always go through a builder buy program with everything We do can we buy it or can we build it better for our needs? And that’s really what we found with our technology is there’s an ocean of great tech out there for restaurants But very specifically what we need and continue to need is flexibility that is catered so Directly to us. We’re a high protein. We can have high food cost if it’s not very tightly managed and so we need Just that additional customization in our tech and so that’s what we built and we built that for the brand and we rolled that out And again started with data and then kind of worked from the back of the house all the way to the front of the house from our what we literally called technology in a box our TIB program is that we had you know legacy restaurants that were out there that if they could still have used an abacus or a I Calculator they would have Because they had been able to function that way so it was convincing folks that make that change is good and that Again that evolves so we don’t fail peace and so it was getting everybody in that kind of Ocean of disparate technology that was out in the brand to be consistent to see value in it to go through the painful part Process of training on it, you know a lot of folks are in the restaurant business because they don’t want to be in the technology business Or a traditional office space and so coming in with technology going. Hey guys. I know we’re barbecue, but Was definitely a hard sell early on and then and then folks have definitely started to see the value and now it’s just so part and Pulse part and of the cult of the culture really that they couldn’t imagine doing business without you know pulling up their smokestack Dashboard and seeing all their metrics and seeing all their numbers and having all that served and you know that very much wasn’t wasn’t the case 1517 years ago. It was just that evolution

Anthony Codispoti: So this is tech just for the dickies bring label.

Laura Rea Dickey: We do that as well.

Anthony Codispoti: Okay So other folks can access this and if folks are listening and they want access to this What’s the website

Laura Rea Dickey: where they can definitely go to spark has hospitality technology calm?

Anthony Codispoti: Okay Laura I’d like to hear about a serious challenge that you’ve overcome. We’ve already talked about a couple of them, right? We’ve talked about COVID we talked about 2008 2009. Maybe this one is another professional one Maybe it’s a personal one or you know somehow the two of them coming together. What was that like?

Laura Rea Dickey: I can tell you my least favorite day ever at the office was when I had just taken over as CIO actually and It’s one of those things where you you can see the challenge coming even though you know that it’s there But if I had only seen it in literally a few days before Probably wouldn’t have had such a challenging day But it was the day I had to explain to my husband and my father-in-law what the crypto locker virus was and Why we had it and why we had to adjust protocols for folks bringing data in so we had Had a team member That was a great team member doing their job. They brought in an outside USB. It had the virus on it So we we lost a considerable amount of data there

Anthony Codispoti: Real quick for folks who weren’t familiar with the virus.

Laura Rea Dickey: What’s it? So that’s it’s basically like a Trojan horse virus that comes in downloads and then Freezes access to your data at your files Unless you want to to pay them to release it which we did not that is not our culture to do that so Thankfully where the virus was was in a lot of our marketing assets and not the other part of our system But we still did spend almost two years Rebuilding a lot of our creative assets that we just lost access to But it was one of those things that was such a learning lesson to me about constantly talking to folks about the opportunity and the potential challenges with technology and why you have to be so vigilant about education and so understanding of folks that they might not have The same visibility into those type of threats. So you constantly have to do security Training you constantly have to do all of your antivirus you constantly have to do all of that because we’re you know, we’re in a people business and the opportunity for For someone to unknowingly bring in Something into your digital environment is just so right there. So you constantly have to educate on that piece and That was not my favorite day as CIO but Valuable learning one and it definitely has led to our continued development and informed a lot of how we house our data And a lot of how we use micro services on the back end and how we separate everything and how we Really engage that not only on the front end. We hope that never happens But if it does it’s a very limited scope of a situation or anything like that

Anthony Codispoti: You say it’s not your favorite day But it wasn’t just a day like as I just heard you say it was a couple of years that you spent rebuilding some of

Laura Rea Dickey: these assets one particular conversation where I had to explain that and that’s one of those were you know when you’re You’re married to your business partner and you go home for dinner. That’s definitely take in work home that

Anthony Codispoti: day Were there any I don’t know people outside the business that you were able to lean on As a resource during this time people that kind of talk you through give you some suggestions give you a pep talk

Laura Rea Dickey: Absolutely, that is definitely reaching back to my mentor J. Murray of all time He has just been one of the greatest resources of my career. I count him as a personal friend I love that he is still involved in the brand I literally went to work for Jerry when I was 19 and now at you know almost 46 and still working with him and He is there for us and helps guide everything And I don’t think I’ve ever had a professional challenge where I wasn’t able to go back to him Who gave me my first as I would call it adult paycheck job when I was in college as an intern and Was getting to send out press releases for him by mail And and do those sorts of things that I haven’t sought his counsel and his advice and he’s a Such a good mentor, but he really also very early on Helped shape and inform my business values and that no matter what at the end of the day if we don’t remember We’re in a people business. We’re not going to be in business for long

Anthony Codispoti: And it’s so great to have access to mentors and peer groups that can help support you and guide you offer that advice How about a favorite book or podcast that you’d recommend?

Laura Rea Dickey: Oh my gosh? We I am such a reader and love reading I I Read Usually at least I try to do a book a week Some there’s my favorite book. It’s so hard to narrow that down I Love radical candor if I were to recommend a business book for someone I think we’re at radical candor by Kim Scott’s fantastic I’m podcast series actually my husband Roland does a Series where he’s always talking about his business Podcasts that he listens to so we do a lot of of business podcasts and a what’s the name of that? Well, he did he does barbecue books and business is his podcast and and then that’s pulling from a lot of the Founders podcasts that are fantastic. Love that series I actually love the franchise in one of one series is really good to Listen to that if I’m also just going to take a break and step outside of business I love the true prop the true crime podcasts I will will really enjoy those or anything history. We do a lot of history podcasts a lot of history reading And enjoy that quite a bit

Anthony Codispoti: How about daily practices that help get you started and keep you on

Laura Rea Dickey: track I But it’s seriously I read or listen to something every day outside of what I’m required to do for functioning in business And I think that’s it. I think having a curious mind is the most important thing Whether it’s on the way to work whether it’s you know after work But it’s an intentional time that I spend at least an hour of day reading And if I can then I’ll squeeze in at least another 30 minutes of some sort of podcast from learning some So I think that’s really important How are you finding the?

Anthony Codispoti: Resources that you want to read And I asked this from a personal perspective too with everything going on I prefer to not spend a lot of time doom-scrolling through news But I’m you know similarly wired to you and where I want to take in some new information Some new ideas and so maybe give some suggestions. Where can we find that kind of stuff?

Laura Rea Dickey: I think where I have found that is the ability to do that on social media in different book groups So I’ll do that on Instagram. I’ll do it on Facebook and I’ll do it on good reads So I’m looking at suggestions from folks that have the same reading interests that I do And then also I love the suggestions that actually just naturally come up on Amazon and on my Kindle for me and on audible A lot of really their algorithm is as outstanding They know exactly what I’m consuming and so they’re they’re serving up Like authors like like subjects. So it’s it that definitely is where I find a lot of that material And then actually just Roland is he’s always if there’s something history-based that he can find We will end up listening to it or watching a documentary on it or I will end up getting a book about it For Christmas or something along those lines.

Anthony Codispoti: I Think maybe that’s where I need to change my strategy I’m looking for I’ve been looking for more short form and I think if I go to long form Books ebooks audio books I’m gonna find a lot more choices there that are probably gonna suit what I’m looking for in terms of the

Laura Rea Dickey: I think so and then when you when you find that then the algorithm adjusts and then kind of filters back And so that’s that’s where then you can go and I can find this in in summary or I can find this in a cliff notes version Or or what?

Anthony Codispoti: Something similar hmm Laura I’ve just got one more question for you But before I ask it I want to do two things first of all I’m gonna invite everyone to hit the follow or subscribe button on their favorite podcast app This has been a wonderful interview today with Laura. She’s been a fantastic guest There will be more to come and I want to make sure that everybody gets their hands on that I also want to let people know the best way either to get in touch with you personally or To continue to follow your story or the brand story. Where would you like to point dickies calm?

Laura Rea Dickey: so absolutely the very best place is dickies calm and then and the Second place would be dickies franchise calm those two places you can connect with me directly You can connect with the brand Also on social media on Instagram barbecue books and business is the the other way to get a hold of Roland and I and and we love to share that

Anthony Codispoti: Barbecue books and business and dickies for everybody listening that doesn’t have access to the visual of the show now dickies is spelled DICK EY. Make sure you get the correct spelling. Yeah And so okay last question for you Laura as you look to the future You guys have already seen so much incredible growth that you know that period of 2008 2009 when you were at I Think bring a roughly 85 locations now you’ve 10x’d that You know, what are we 17 years later? What has you most excited about the future and future growth as you look forward?

Laura Rea Dickey: Where is this brand going to continue to grow and I think that that’s what I’m most excited about is that we have seen and are seeing That recovery so post pandemic for two years.

I think the restaurant industry a lot of folks were able to recover during the pandemic But the prolonged kind of economic Challenges that everyone has faced and seen high inflation high wages all of those sorts of things have just left folks less Comfortable with spending money Going out to eat on everything in general But in particular where they may have spent most of their money during the pandemic because that’s all they could spend it on They definitely took a step back from spending it as much going out to eat in restaurants And we are definitely now seeing the swing back to kind of more normalized Dining more normalized frequency all of those things are moving in in the right direction We’re just seeing a lot of those economic indicators And at the other types of recovery points that we’ve seen some very very excited about that I’m always more comfortable when our guests are more comfortable spending more money, right? And so that’s good, but also the interest that we have in new markets not in our international growth We are absolutely exploding in Canada in a wonderful way. So I love that they have a palette for Texas barbecue. That’s wonderful But also our domestic expansion. So we’re still very much growing here in the States and then also just our additional brands that we’re able to do with our Trailer birds brand. I’m very excited about people see a lot of growth with that brand as well What is trailer? That’s one of our virtual brands that we had that we’re actually now taking that into brick and mortar Because it has done so well from a virtual brand standpoint. And so we’re excited about that

Anthony Codispoti: But what is it and how can people find it and what does it mean to be a virtual brand?

Laura Rea Dickey: It is a brand that’s either in a ghost kitchen or that operates outside of the kitchen of another restaurant So when it doesn’t have You can find that direct delivery or you can find it through a third party vendor And so it exists as a brand and that really came over from being very popular in Asia and Singapore and a lot a lot of those countries have a lot of virtual brands that don’t have a traditional Dining room type of a setting so we were able to adopt that during the pandemic And so that’s where we’re now seeing that kind of continued growth with that brand And we’re very excited to open up in the coming years some true brick and mortar locations for that So it’s been a wonderful.

Anthony Codispoti: So this is a hot Nashville style chicken. Is that what it is? Okay All right, and are there actual locations physical locations available now today or that’s still in

Laura Rea Dickey: Dallas as we’ve opened our first here in Dallas And then we have an expansion path for there. So I’m very excited about that and then I’m excited about Dickies where we we have this extension in our menu in our core menu there Where we’ve been able to add in the crispy chicken and some of those new menu items and seeing that bring in new folks to the brand Is always wonderful That’s terrific.

Anthony Codispoti: Well, Laura, I want to be the first one to thank you for sharing both your time and your story with us today I really appreciate it for having me anthony.

Laura Rea Dickey: I appreciate it Folks, that’s a wrap on another episode of the inspired stories podcast. Thanks for learning with us today