[00:00:00]
Michele: Hey, everyone. Welcome back to another exciting episode of cosmos and commerce. I’m Michelle.
Janis: And I’m Janice, and we’re thrilled to have you today with us. We’ve got a really tasty episode lined up.
Michele: That’s right. We’re diving into the delicious world of burritos and we’ve got a fantastic guest who knows all about it. I met Jay in the Goldman Sachs, 10,
Janis: Joining us today is Jay Bezac.
She is Hothead Burritos. If you’ve ever wondered what it takes to build a burrito empire, you’re in for a treat.
Michele: 000 small businesses class. And her journey is incredible from the challenges of starting up to the secrets behind those mouthwatering burritos. She’s got some great stories to share.
Janis: Yeah, and I met Jay when she joined the chamber and came into our Edge group, and I can’t wait to hear about Jay’s creative process, and how she keeps the menu fresh and [00:01:00] exciting. Plus, we’ve got some fun questions lined up.
Michele: So grab your favorite drink, get comfy, and let’s get ready to hear all about hotheads burritos. Jay, welcome to the show. So
Jay: Yes, I met. Well, Michelle knew about me before the Goldman Sachs class. And so did Janice because of my dad. , I hope he said all good things. , but yes, I met Michelle. It was funny in the, I was talking about hothead in our class and Michelle walked up to me on a break and said excuse me, do you happen to know Bob McCracken?
I’m like, yep, that’s my dad. So that’s how I met Michelle. We became really, really good friends and then met Janice in the Edge group. So they asked me to come on the podcast and I’m like, I never did one before, but sure. We’ll give it a try.
Janis: absolutely. So, so Jay, what inspired you to start Hot Head Burritos? And talk about how long it’s been too.
Jay: Okay. So, , I started thinking [00:02:00] about this back in 2012. I was working at Chase in, , mortgage property taxes and hated it. , so I wanted to do my own thing. So I started researching different franchises that are available and basically came across Hothead. It was a very small up and coming company based out of Kettering.
It was only five, five years old at that point. So it seemed very interesting, something that would do well in this market with Columbus being a big food town and a big test market for different things. There was only two so far in central Ohio. So, we opened in Pickerington. That was my first location back in December of 2013.
Janis: So you mentioned your dad, Jay, what was it like growing up with a successful business owner as your father? And did that inspire you in early on?
Jay: So busy and we moved a [00:03:00] lot. So I’ve lived in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Virginia, Ohio. So back to Ohio when I was 12 and he’s owned many bowling alleys across the city and growing up with him. I knew I wanted to have my own business one day. So it was just learning how to run a business.
That was my, my biggest thing, but he inspired me the entire way. So he’s the reason why, why I wanted to be a business owner.
Michele: sweet.
Janis: Yeah, it is.
Michele: And your
Jay: Hi, Dad.
Michele: your dad owns a bunch of bowling alleys throughout his career, right?
Jay: Yeah, so, in the beginning, when we moved back to Ohio, he him and his partners owned Rainbow Lanes, Holiday Lanes, and Gahanna Lanes, and they, uh, had sold, sold all of those, and he was supposed to retire. Well, that lasted all of like, [00:04:00] Six to nine months. And then he bought, bought Rule three in Pickerington and had that for 14 years maybe.
And he finally retired two months ago. He sold that. So he’s, he’s hitting retirement now, but my mom retired back in December, so she kind of pushed him to do it and said, Nope, we’re done. We’re gonna, you know, do things together now. So, but yeah, it was, it was very different growing up in the bowling alleys.
I knew that I, I don’t like bowling, so
Janis: so my mother always worked in bowling alleys and I grew up in a bowling alley too. She wasn’t the owner. She, you know, just, you know, was the assistant manager or whatever. Like I grew up in the bowling alley too.
Jay: yeah,
Michele: we,
Jay: fun. Like, you know, getting to learn things, but I just don’t like to bowl.
Michele: We grew up playing summer bowling leagues at Reynoldsburg lanes, and we became really good friends with the bowling alley owner of [00:05:00] Reynoldsburg lanes. She even got us, me and my sister a job later on doing something completely different when she changed careers. It’s funny.
So going back to when you work for chase, was there like a specific story or experience that happened that you were like triggered? Like I have got to get out of here and I’ve got to start a business. What was the defining moment,
Jay: I mean, it really wasn’t like one specific thing. When you work for several major companies like I did, and you never felt valued as an employee, you’re kind of like, I’ve got to go, I’ve got to get out of here, I got to do something that something that’s going to value me and figured I didn’t want to make other people money, I wanted to make myself money.
And I decided I just needed to work for myself. So, I figured that I went to my dad and I said, Hey, I’m, you know, what can you do? Can you help me start my own business? This is what I really want to do. So I , [00:06:00] he did and he supported me my entire journey. we’re going on what, 12 years almost.
And , it’s been a ride. It really has, but it’s, It’s something that I, I don’t know what I would be doing if I wasn’t doing this. Honestly. I have no idea. And I’ve, I’ve sat back and thought about it and I, I really have no clue. So,
Janis: Yeah. Yeah. So, did you have some challenges that you faced early on?
Jay: So in our original build out in Pickerington, well I had, I had at one time three locations. Pickerington was my first that was in 2013. And then in 2016 we. 2015 and 16, we built out the growth port location, which I, this is where I am today. This is my only last, this is my last location. And then also in 2016, we purchased an existing franchise up near Worthington.
So permitting and the build out were my biggest [00:07:00] issues. When we first started the Pickerington location, we got set back after set back after set back just because of permits. So that was one of the big, the big things that we were originally supposed to open like, I think August of 2013.
And we ended up not opening till December. So it was a lot of setbacks, but we made it. We thrived for a while did really, really well. And then there was just a couple of little things that got really sick. When I was pregnant with my daughter in 2016. So I kind of had to take a step back and became a part time employee in my business for a while.
Which, unfortunately that did cause, you know, some downfalls, but we were able to Jump back in and did well for a while and our lease was up in Pickerington and it was in the middle of the pandemic the economy was tanking and We didn’t really want to re sign a five year lease extension not knowing [00:08:00] what was gonna happen So we just went ahead and closed the Pickerington location high street location was also closed during the pandemic.
I lost my really, really good general manager up there and unfortunately didn’t wasn’t able to find anybody in a quick, quick enough amount of time to be able to take over operations. So, we just decided to walk away from that 1, which. Honestly, it was probably for the best for the business simply because.
It was 30 minutes away from where I live, just one way without traffic. So it was really difficult for me to get up there on a consistent basis. But yeah, we just have Groveport now, but we’re here and we’re doing amazing.
Janis: No, that’s
Michele: I’ve been hearing a lot of, uh, experts say that buying an existing business is much more lucrative than starting a business. And I think you just laid out why, because the permitting and everything can like really take a lot of time and [00:09:00] set you back.
Jay: Oh yeah. Yeah, for sure. Because I mean, sometimes if you get a good landlord they can draw up the lease to where you’re not making rent payments until a certain day date. So you could be in there at no charge doing a build out. But if you get set back and that timeline ends and you’ve got to start making payments, you have no income coming in because your doors aren’t open.
And so. You’re just paying, paying, paying, and you don’t have anything coming in. So,
Janis: Did you find one city was easier to work through to get permits and stuff than another, or do they all kind of have the same rules?
Jay: so I did a build out in the city of Pickerington and did a bit on the city of Columbus. So the. City of Columbus was a little bit easier to work with than the city of Pickerington because they didn’t have as many rules and regulations as far as like signage and different permits that were needed.
And also the [00:10:00] construction company that we use for both, they had already built in the city of Columbus. They had never built in the city of Pickerington. So they had extra things that they had to accomplish with the permitting. So it was a little bit simpler with the city of Columbus.
Janis: So did anything go much easier than expected?
Jay: So when I originally did my own training with hothead, I went to the other The other location in Hilliard and Westerville that were open to do my in store training. And then I also went down to the corporate office in Kettering and did like a classroom training. And the thing that I was most afraid of was not finding enough people to hire because they’re saying you need to hire 25, 30 people.
I’m like, Holy crap, that’s a lot of people. And, and, The initial hiring is what scared me the most in the training, but it went so smooth. As soon as I started [00:11:00] advertising, like new business, these employees, everybody started applying. I found some really, really good people. We were able to train at Westerville in the Hillyard location.
And so that was much easier than I had anticipated. So it went well.
Michele: Can you give us the lowdown on owning a franchise? How does that process work?
Jay: So when you own a franchise, you have to sign what is called an FDD. It’s the franchise disclosure document. You have to, it basically, it’s the franchisor that tells you everything about the business and from top to bottom. And you have to sign that you have to unfortunately pay royalties every week on your sales.
It just depends on the company that you are franchising from what the percentage is going to be. You also can’t really sway too much from the menu. You have to offer mainly everything that corporate requires. You have to [00:12:00] use the approved vendors. The biggest thing though, that is really important.
My thing, we are able to set our own pricing which is good and we are able to do our own hiring. We just have, you know, procedures that you have to follow from the corporate standpoint, but it’s not too difficult once you, once you get everything down.
Janis: What sets hot head burritos apart from other burrito chains?
Jay: Oh, definitely our fresh ingredients and all of our sauces. If you ever walk into Hothead and never have been here before, we are always going to refer to it as a Mexican style Subway. How you walk into Subway and you have all those sauces to customize your sub and all of those fresh options. That’s what Hothead is, burrito form.
The founders of Hothead, what they were, Subway franchisees, so they kind of spun it Mexican But definitely if you’ve [00:13:00] never been in you have to try the hot head sauce if you like garlic and you like sour cream It is an amazing sauce. It’s our hot head signature sauce. And then we also have our sweet habanero sauce, which is Literally, I don’t know what we put in it.
I’m not gonna tell you the secret, but It’s like crack in a bottle like people think It’s crazy. Yes, exactly. So, if you’ve never been here before, Hot Head Sauce and Sweet Habanero, you gotta try them.
Michele: probably mayonnaise. It’s always mayonnaise.
Jay: Not in the Sweet Habanero, it’s not.
Michele: Just kidding. What are some of the unique features that make owning a restaurant over any other business?
Jay: So, Knowing how like people feel about food, like food makes people happy. And so I just liked being able to make their day. They come in, I’m hungry. What, you know, I’m like, I got you. We’re going to make a burrito. It’s going to be the best burrito you [00:14:00] ever had. And you’re going to walk away with a full belly.
You’re going to go take a nap. Unfortunately, sorry. You’re going to, you know, your lunch hour is going to run over because you got to take a little nap to get all those. Carbs out. But just being able to make somebody smile because you know how people have like a little dance when they’re eating the happy dance, happy smile.
That’s, that’s what makes owning a restaurant different from any other business.
Michele: Yeah, that’s a, that is a good perspective because I, when I was a waitress, I had the opposite perspective. I always said people got hangry. They were hungry. People are mean.
Janis: Oh
Jay: Yeah. Well, sometimes we do have some rude customers. I, I won’t lie. We just have some people who are coming here and there’s just downright rude. And I’m like, why you’re coming to get some food? Like, come on. Sure.
Janis: Some people are just unhappy in life, you know, I’ve got unhappy people coming in the shop, not very often, but there was, just the other day, this lady was in here and I’m like, [00:15:00] I greet everybody. Hey, how you doing? You know, she
goes, she goes fine. You know, and I was just like, girl, okay. I’m not talking to you.
, you know, not to talk to,
Jay: Yeah. Like why? We greet every customer that walks through that door and it’s like every single one of them were like, Hey, how you doing? Welcome to hothead. And some of them, , are cheerful and then you have those few that don’t even respond or walk up to the line and you know, hi, what can I do for you?
Can I get you a bowl of burrito? And they’ll just look at you like. Why are you speaking to me? I’m like got to make food. I got to talk to you
Janis: yeah.
Oh my
Michele: Good thing they get their food within minutes.
Jay: Yeah. Two minutes down the line out the door. Have a great day.
Janis: Yeah.
Michele: I know. I want to follow up with the, what makes a restaurant unique? I know That can you talk about like the food costs? Cause you talked about that a lot in our class and [00:16:00] I never had to think about that. So what goes into part of it?
Jay: So what food costs will basically make or break a restaurant. You have to be able, you have to understand the pricing and how much it costs to make a burrito. The, I will tell you right now we use the supplier that we use. If I go back four years and my invoices and look at the cost that I had for, we get two trucks a week.
If I go back four years and look at one week of business as far as sales, and then one week of truck orders, I am over double and how much it costs me to order products than it did four years ago. So like, for example, if I was spending 2, 000 a week, Four years ago, I’m spending four, if not more, to buy product and bring it in.
So, [00:17:00] when you go, like, just keep this in mind, anytime you go to a restaurant or you go to a small business, we don’t want to raise the prices. We have to raise the prices. If we don’t, we’re not going to be a business anymore. We can’t just give you a burrito for 7 and 25 cents. Like we did five years ago, because we would actually be, be paying you to, to eat because we would lose, we, we would lose everything we have.
Not only the cost of food has gone up, the cost of utilities has gone up, the cost of labor has gone up. Like owning a small business in this economy is crazy right now. Absolutely crazy. So
Janis: I think all three of us can attest to that, right?
Jay: like we’ve in trying to get people who don’t understand the ins and outs of owning a business to understand everything that it takes to go into it [00:18:00] is very difficult.
But I know we had a conversation and it was about raising prices. Do it because we don’t have a choice. We have to raise prices or we’re not going to, we’re not going to survive. I We brought that up at Edge the other day, and I said, and I didn’t even get the words out of my mouth yet, and you just said, do it. it.
do it because you’re not, there’s not going to be any, any purpose to owning a small business if you’re not raising your prices.
Janis: Yeah.
Jay: I mean, we’re not doing this for a hobby. We’re doing this for a living, so we That’s what my dad said to me more than once when I would express, like, challenges for the shop. He, and he said, it’s just a hobby for you at this point, you know, and I was like, oh. He’s kind of right. He, like, really made me think about that. Yeah. So, Jay, can you talk about any innovative strategies or technologies you’ve implemented to streamline your operations?[00:19:00]
So not me personally as a franchisee, but overall is from a corporate level. They’ve redone the whole entire digital ordering platform for us. I mean, this is, this is the world we live in now. Everything is digital. You like me personally, I would almost always rather order online or at a kiosk or for DoorDash.
So I don’t have to interact with people just because one, I can get it done quicker doing it myself. And two, customer service nowadays is. Pretty much not priority for some reason. Like with me, I strive and I bang this into my employees head. 150 percent customer service at all times. The customers are the reason why you have a job.
Whoa, I’m [00:20:00] shaking the table. The customers are the reason why you have a job.
Janis: He’s passionate about this. Yeah. Yeah.
Jay: Like this is the reason why I’m in food services because customer service is something that I love. I love knowing, like getting to know people. I love my regulars walking through the door. So, but that I think I’m off topic here, but I mean, digital ordering is, is the world we are in now.
So they revamped the whole, the whole digital ordering platform and and has made such a world of difference with our day to day operations being able to just somebody who places the order, a ticket prints, we grab it and make it and we’re done. So,
Michele: that’s awesome. What marketing strategies have been most effective and growing for you?
Jay: Definitely social media marketing. Everybody’s on Facebook. Everybody’s on TikTok. Everybody’s on Instagram. We’ve done some direct mailing which has done really well. And [00:21:00] also I’ve done guerrilla marketing myself where I’ll just take some food samples out with some menu flyers. Especially for the catering.
That was one of my big that was my growth My growth plan through the 10, 000 small businesses class was to get my catering up another level. So just taking some food samples and some catering flyers and just going around to area businesses and just dropping stuff off,
Janis: I love it.
Michele: How are you doing with the catering sales?
Jay: doing really well. Actually, we we’re getting, I think, I can’t remember off the top of my head right now what my percentage was that I wanted to do, but I think it’s about, I think we’re up about 15 percent on the catering. So it’s working. My plan.
Michele: Can you share a memorable customer story that has had an impact on you or the business? Oh,
Jay: not one in particular customer comes to mind when you ask that [00:22:00] question, it’s mostly an overall building a relationship with your regulars. I have so many people that have been with me since day one. And then a lot of people that when we closed, Pickerington started coming over here. Because they, they could have went over to the broad street location.
That’s not existing anymore, but that wasn’t mine. But they chose to come to Groveport because of my staff and because of the quality food that we put out. So we just have a lot of regulars that have followed us throughout our eight year journey. And that’s really shows me that I’m doing something right.
Michele: How often does someone have to come to make them a regular?
Jay: least once a week.
Michele: Okay.
Jay: At least once a week, but I do have some customers that are literally in here seven days a week,
every day. Yep.
Janis: you serve breakfast or just lunch and dinner?
Jay: Just lunch and dinner. We open at 11 a. m. and we close at [00:23:00] 10 p. m. every day.
Janis: Okay. So you talked about like your customer service. Is there anything else that you do or that you’re doing or any actions that you’re taking to build a loyal customer base?
Jay: So it’s pretty much just providing the best customer service that we possibly can at all times. Remembering people, remembering their orders, remembering that you know, when they walked through the door that their kid had a dance recital last week, asking him how that went or, oh, you guys just got back from vacation.
Tell me all about it. So, you know, That’s really pretty much how we build, build the customer base is just getting to know them and making them feel like they are a person to us and not just a dollar sign when they walk through the door.
Janis: Yeah, that’s good. What values are most important to you as a leader and how do you instill those values in your team?
Jay: I I’ve said this this whole entire broadcast customer service. [00:24:00]
Janis: Yeah. I
Jay: value quality customer service 100 percent quality food. I I will say that over and over and over again because I myself if I get terrible customer service or I don’t feel valued as a customer when I go somewhere. Guess where I’m not spending my money anymore.
at that place because I don’t feel that they want my money or I feel that they want my money. They don’t care about me as a customer. So, yeah, that’s, I mean, those are the values all the time. Quality customer service, quality food all the time.
Janis: So how do you foster a positive and inclusive work culture at Hot Head Burritos?
Jay: Always leading by example making sure that all of the lines of communication stay open back and forth. You can talk to me at all times. I want to make sure that I am supportive, that I’m flexible. I’ve had a lot of people come in, this is their first job ever. And I [00:25:00] know I had a kid, he came, worked for me, first job.
In high school, then he went off to college. He was still working part time shift manager and he worked his entire way through college and just being flexible with your staff.
Janis: Yeah. Yeah. So can you share some of the ways you support and develop your employees?
Jay: Corporate has put out a, like a really good training program that we follow. And so everybody learns the same way. It just makes it easier for my trainers and also for my employees that everybody learns how to do everything the proper way the first time so that we’re not having to break a habit, a bad habit, I should say, because it’s 10 times harder to break somebody’s bad habit that they were trained in properly than it is to teach them the right way the first time.
Janis: Right, right. That makes total sense.
Michele: How does hotheads give back to the community?
Jay: So [00:26:00] we sponsor I know Pickerington has, you guys know Pickerington, football cards that they have, like the discount stuff on. We do that for the for the Groveport High School different sports teams. We also hold fundraisers for local non profits the PTOs or different sports programs or different charity events we have.
We do fundraisers for them in the, in the store. So being able to give back to them by just having people come in here and get food.
Janis: Yeah. So what are your short term and long term goals for hot head burritos?
Jay: So the short term goal is to continue to boost the catering side of the business. Just keep working on that growth plan. My long term goal is to possibly get a hothead food truck. There hotheads around the city anymore. A lot of them have closed in the past several years. [00:27:00] Two of them being mine.
And so there’s a lot of places where there’s not a hothead that we could take the food truck to. Especially like in the downtown area or even back out to Pickerington or the Reynoldsburg area up to Dublin, up to Worthington. There’s, those are kind of like dead zones for hotheads. So if I had the food truck, I’d be able to go to those different areas, do some events Could have helped out at Michelle’s grand opening event, you
Janis: Yeah, totally.
Jay: the food truck flaked on her, but just being able to, being able to get in to different places where we as a brick and mortar can’t get to.
Janis: Yeah. So how do you envision the future of the food industry and how are you preparing for that with hot head burritos?
Jay: So it’s definitely going to continue to digitalize. It’s going to automate. There’s already like robots serving food and [00:28:00] different. in different restaurants right now. So that’s one thing people are looking, are just looking for convenience, basically. So trying to figure out how to make things more convenient for the consumer to want to place an order for food.
There’s also going to be the need for alternative options, like all these different diets that are out, these different fads just basically continuing to do research and development to be able to Keep up with all of that and provide new and fresh options for the consumer. Right now we have throughout the summer a chicken bacon ranch burrito with our new avocado lime sauce.
Check that out. It’s amazing.
Janis: Does that have cilantro in it too?
Jay: The sauce does, yes. And the we do What we did a couple of months ago, maybe it’s been a little longer than a couple of months. We took cilantro out of our rice. We offer it as a topping on the line so that people can add it if they want it. [00:29:00] But we did take cilantro out of the rice that we serve simply because there were so many people who asked for rice without cilantro.
So, We just decided as you know, as an entire corporation, we’ll just take it out because we already offer it online. People can get it if they want and they don’t have to have it if they don’t want it. So,
Janis: I personally am a cilantro lover. I love it. Yeah.
Jay: like three handfuls of cilantro on their burrito. And then some people are like, can you take that cilantro out of the burrito? I can’t eat it. And there’s I don’t know, there’s some people, there’s a genetic. faxer and some people that make cilantro taste like soap.
Janis: I have heard that. I have heard that.
Jay: So it’s either you love it or you hate it. There’s like literally no in between.
Janis: Correct. Yeah. I’m glad I’m a lover.
Michele: Yeah, that would suck. Can you share a personal habit or a routine that [00:30:00] contributes to your success?
Jay: Just keeping like, keep reading, learning new things. To keep my brain fresh as We get older and I have two kids. I’m like, my brain is just like going to mush sometimes. So I guess keeping, keeping myself up to date with everything and learning new things definitely is contributes to my success because it keeps my brain fresh.
Janis: Are you a perpetual student like Michelle is? Michelle’s
Jay: as much as Michelle, but I do like to learn new things when I have time.
Janis: Yeah, every time I talk to Michelle, I was doing a new class.
Jay: Yeah, she is.
Michele: You’re not growing, you’re dying. What advice would you give to aspiring restauranteurs looking to start their own business?
Jay: Just do it. Just do it. Because if you don’t do it, you’re never going to know if you’re going to succeed. And if you do, [00:31:00] if you fail, guess what? Try again.
Janis: It’s a fail is first attempt in learning.
Jay: exactly.
Janis: I L.
Jay: You’re never going to know if you’re going to succeed if you don’t pull the trigger and just do it. So, it’s not all glitter and rainbows at all.
Like sometimes it is, but most of the time it’s not. But when it is, it’s awesome and you feel so accomplished, but just work your butt off and just do it.
Janis: Yeah,
Jay: you’ll eventually get there.
Janis: cool.
Okay, so Jay, it’s time, we went through those questions really quick. It’s time for our quick fire round. We’ll ask you some quick questions and then you tell us the very first thing that comes to your mind.
Jay: oh,
okay.
Janis: Okay. What is the book that you’ve most given as a gift or the book that has made the greatest difference for you?
Jay: My dad gave me seven habits of [00:32:00] highly effective people a long, long time ago. That was pretty, I think that was the first book that he gave to me and I read it and taught me time management. be responsible for your actions and overall invest in yourself. And that’s the biggest thing.
Janis: We’ll love it.
Michele: Your dad is a lot like my dad was when I was, uh, like eight, he came into my bedroom and he was like, I’m going to teach you about goals.
Jay: Hey, that’s how I, that’s how I learned. I mean, he taught me, I, nothing was handed to me. Like I had to work for everything. I worked, I worked, uh, at his bowling alleys with him. When I was like 13 years old, I was running the front desk or running the snack bar. So
Michele: That’s awesome. Okay. What purchase of 100 or less has most positively impacted your life?
Jay: 100 or less. Aye yai [00:33:00] yai. I can tell, tell you a purchase of 100 less. That made my life much easier. It was my air fryer.
Michele: Oh yeah. I love you.
Jay: Yeah.
that made my life so much easier. Because I just tossed something in there for dinner if it’s a late night and there we go. We’re done.
Michele: I bet I knew what you put in there every day.
Jay: What?
Janis: A burrito.
Michele: Wings.
Jay: We have a toaster. We toast our burritos.
Janis: Oh,
Jay: is different than our competitors.
Michele: your, your Parmesan wings.
Jay: Oh yes, my garlic perm wings, my favorite.
Janis: so what’s an unusual habit or an absurd thing that you’d love? Buddy
Jay: Garlic perm wings. No, I’m just kidding. No, I’m serious though. Michelle hates garlic perm wings and when I told her those are the absolute favorite wings ever, she just looked at me like, in absolute disgust. Like, I only eat barbecue wings.
Michele: What is your proudest [00:34:00] accomplishment?
Jay: Pretty much seeing, seeing how my business has grown over the past 12 years. That’s my biggest accomplishment aside from my girls, because this is something that I built from the ground up. So seeing where I am now versus where I was then.
Janis: So what’s your current passion project?
Jay: So this is something that I keep thinking about because of Michelle and a couple other people in our 10 KSB class trying to figure out how to become an accountability coach. So, that’s one of the things that’s on my list of things to do and research. Everybody thinks that I’d be amazing at it.
So. With all my free time, that’s what I’ve been
Janis: I was just thinking that.
Jay: Free time is very, very few and far between with,
you know, my kids.
Janis: Yeah.
Michele: I thought you were going to say how to run a CBD shop or a head shop. I
Jay: Well, that too, I’ve been researching that too, but I didn’t know if you wanted to discuss that [00:35:00] on here or not.
Janis: That’s okay. Oh,
Michele: every day.
Janis: yeah.
Michele: Okay. What is one skill you would like to master?
Jay: Learning how to speak Spanish.
Michele: Oh
Jay: I took French in high school because my aunt and uncle went to France all the time, and I’m like, oh, I’d be able to talk to them. I don’t remember a lick of French at all because I don’t use it, but I should’ve went, I should’ve took Spanish, but if I could, you know, master something, it would be the Spanish language so that I could fluently speak to people because there’s so many people that come in that don’t speak English that come in to order food.
So I know how to speak like what we have, what we serve. I was, I taught myself that so that I could. figure out what they would like, but to be fluent in it is something that I’d like to master.[00:36:00]
Janis: Yeah. I think I know the answer to this, but what was your first job?
Jay: Rainbow lanes.
Janis: I knew it was at a bowling alley.
Jay: Yep. Rainbow lanes down on South High Street.
The, uh, front desk.
Janis: Yeah.
Michele: where do you see yourself in five years?
Jay: Hopefully with a food truck. That’s one of my goals. One of my five year goals.
Janis: So what’s the song? Do you have a pump up song that you listen to, to get yourself going?
Jay: I don’t like all types of music, but something that would pump me up. Maybe Roar by Katy Perry.
Janis: No. Yeah. Okay. That’s a good one.
Michele: Now I know you’re sober, but this can be non alcoholic too since we are called cosmos and commerce, what’s your drink of choice?
Jay: Either my [00:37:00] Yeti full of coffee, or I love sparkling water. Like the flavored,
just the flavored sparkling water, like I love it.
Janis: Yeah.
Michele: All right. Here’s the best question yet Would you rather have unlimited access to the freshest ingredients from around the world for your burritos? Or be able to open a Hot Head Burritos location in any city of your choice instantly.
Jay: Cool. That’s tough. I have to pick.
Michele: Yes,
Jay: one. Would I have to go through permitting or would the location be automatically open?
Michele: it’s instant. Instant.
Jay: location instantly. So I don’t have to go through 10 months of, uh, 10 months of permitting. I can find the freshest ingredients after that.
Janis: Yeah. Where would that be?
Jay: Probably in South Carolina.
Janis: [00:38:00] Okay.
Michele: So your dad got back from vacation a couple, uh, last, last week. I just got back from vacation. So yeah, down there, down there around Murrells Inlet.
Janis: So Jay, where can our listeners find you?
Jay: Ooh, over in Groveport. So we’re at 3793 South Hamilton Road. We are right in the Giant Eagle Shopping Center. We are right behind get go. 33 and Hamilton Road is going to be the way to get there from Pickerington or up Winchester Pike. www. hotheadburritos. com
Janis: Do people ever call in orders like, Hey, could I order this?
Jay: No, we don’t do call in orders. All we do is online orders or we do offer delivery with DoorDash, Uber Eats, and Grubhub. And you are more than welcome to come in and place an order. We are open 11 10 p. m [00:39:00] seven days a week.
Janis: Yeah. Yep. Do you have a drive through?
Jay: We do not. We are in line so we do not have a drive through. I wish we did because that would be so convenient.
But hopefully in the, you know, a couple years we’ll have a food truck.
Michele: Thank you so much for being on our show, Jay.
I Oh, thank you for having me.
Yes, I can’t wait to see what the future holds for you.
Jay: Hopefully good things.
Michele: Yeah, I know it will.
Janis: You got a good head for business on your shoulders. I’ve really, really enjoyed talking with you. So you guys don’t forget to subscribe and check out our past episodes on cosmos and commerce. com.
Michele: Have a great day.
Jay: Bye!
Janis: Bye.
[00:40:00]