Chad Franzen 16:21
How would you describe the culture at Shuckin’ Shack? And how much? How much does that come from the top I guess.
Jonathan Weathington 16:32
So I would describe the culture as authentic culture is not created by people sitting in boardrooms, at tables and an office chairs and things like that. Culture is a sum of parts. And so our culture is determined by the people that we have in our restaurants, both the people that are our customers, and of course, their employees as well. So when we hire people, we are essentially hiring, hiring to contribute to our culture. And we personally, internally at our two company locations, and then also in the corporate office, I tell people this, we are for personality, like when we go to when we get on the interview portion, I tell every single candidate that comes to this, you know, for this past interview, I may have had 100 applicants, I narrowed it down to 10, I interviewed five and I tell every single one of those five that comes in Look, I know you can do the job, okay. Also the other four people that are interviewing for this position, they can also do the job. However, what we’re looking for is someone who fits well, within our office environment, someone we believe that will be here, maybe not long term, but at least long enough to make a positive impact and push the company forward. And so that’s kind of the attitude that we take, we’re an authentic company. We believe that we do what we say we’re going to do. And we look for people who are exactly that.
Chad Franzen 17:54
I know Shuckin’ Shack has done a lot, a lot of things kind of, outside of the business, the business area, you know, to help the community things like that. Tell me about some of those and tell me about why you feel that’s important for your brand.
Jonathan Weathington 18:09
Sure, I think one of the things well, the thing that we’re most proud of is our annual contribution to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. This past year, for instance, we raised over $80,000 for LLS and for a company our size, that’s a lot of money. And so we’re most proud of that, because one of our co-founders, Matt has leukemia, it’s the kind that’s controllable. And so he takes a pill every day and leads a fairly normal life. But not just leukemia and lymphoma and the associated blood cancers. But everyone in some way, shape or form is affected by cancer. Everyone knows someone I lost my father to cancer. And so cancer is very near and dear to all of us here. We have cancer survivors in our office. And so for us, it’s something that when when all of this kind of transpired several years ago, when Matt was diagnosed, we said what is one thing that we can do that everyone can connect to? And that was it. And so we do local fundraisers for LLS then we do annually, we just finished our second music tour called the fresh enrol tour. We do that every year, we hire to Nashville up and coming musicians, and then they essentially tour our entire restaurant footprint. We’re the only people in the country doing this, and they go and we set up weekend dates at every single one of our locations. And all of the money that we raise on those days goes straight to LLS. And so that’s the thing that we’re definitely most proud of. Because we know that, you know, quite frankly, we don’t make any money off of it. We make no money off of it. It’s a gigantic expenditure on our part, but we’re doing it because just like I said before, we do what we believe in, and that’s something that we believe in.
Chad Franzen 19:50
Wow, that’s awesome. Hey, I have one more question for you. But first, how can people find out more about Shuckin’ Shack whether as a potential customer or a potential franchisee?
Jonathan Weathington 20:02
Sure, the easiest thing is our website www.shuckinshack.com. That’s, that’s as easy as it gets.
Chad Franzen 20:08
Last question, when you go to shuck and check as a customer, what’s your kind of like go-to meal or drink or everything of choice.
Jonathan Weathington 20:18
So I’m walking distance from our downtown Wilmington location and when I’m in town, I eat lunch there almost every day. And we have a sit at the bar at the tables and during the lunch we have basically three ladies who always serve me and they always know what I want, but their question is the usual so the usual quote unquote for me is ahi tuna appetizer blackened rare, meaning just touch it on either side right that’s that’s what I’m looking for. side salad no cucumber slice tomato that’s that’s my go to if I really want seafood if I’m after seafood, low country boil is almost always the answer.
Chad Franzen 21:00
Okay, sounds fantastic. Hey, Jonathan, it’s been great to talk to you. Thanks so much for joining me today. Really appreciate it.
Jonathan Weathington 21:06
Yeah, thanks, Chad.
Chad Franzen 21:07
So long everybody.
Outro 21:08
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