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Rob Stolker  8:58  

Played for Washington long time. Yeah. So he founded a company when PAC technology’s amazing company Shawn is an amazing person his team is amazing. And I’m so proud to be partners with them but and his company and it comes from the two of us have a very similar passion and you know, being people always say or some people say nice people fitness last and that’s absolutely not true. It is you know, it’s we have similar passions and similar motivations and love our families and enjoy life and enjoy doing the right thing. And that’s what I know I’m doing with this headgear.

Chad Franzen  9:33  

Yeah. You mentioned that you’ve written a book. Can you tell me a little bit about that?

Rob Stolker  9:37  

Sure. It’s called It’s A No-Brainer. So one of the things that people like to do is give me quote unquote, advice and I always I talked to us have so many conversations and so whether it’s going on Shark Tank or something like that, and oh my god, that’s nice, but I’m not interested. One of the top thing was write a book, write a book, get all these girls stories. I met so many girls who one single ball to their head impacts them. her life. Some of the stories I tell in my book about how I met these girls, their families, what their families go through seven years later, I have one girl who has had eight medicated shots to the back of her neck. She was helicoptered often across from one stick to the head. And years and years later eat medicated shots to the back of her neck and none of her work. I grant evidence she’s doing great, but i She will talk about how much better she could and should be doing if it wasn’t for that one injury on the lacrosse field. So I put all those girls story science together, I was encouraged to put my personal story why it was me who went on this mission to create the first ever girls across idea and push it and get us across lacrosse to mandate. I know it was it was hard to do. But I also pulled some very personal stories, childhood stories, and I talked about this journey, which was not easy making this head year and pushing, you’re basically doing something that a lot of people inside that world did not like,

Chad Franzen  10:58  

Where can people find your book.

Rob Stolker  11:00  

So it’s on Amazon, it’s called It’s A No-Brainer, it’s $9.99 kept the price low. I the first 30 or 40 pages is my story I get a lot of feedback of, you know, I you know that I the way that I tell my story and what I went through, you know something and then I start to talk about making the headgear and the resistance and all the you know, girls stories and doctors and scientists and coaches who are all on board with the need to have us and across mandate. And

Chad Franzen  11:30  

so for those not familiar with Bubbakoo’s, tell us when a customer can expect when they go to your location.

Rob Stolker  11:36  

We love my partner Wayne joint and I love Bubbakoo’s Burritos. We loved it from the minute we we built it. My first experience was abaci steak. I just love it. It’s just quality of made well, you know, there’s so many proteins, chicken, shrimp, healthy options, brown rice, vegetables, everything is made fresh. You come in you order steak steak goes down on the grill right in front of you. It’s all made fresh. We just love it. We love the concept. We love the taste of the food, we love that it’s healthy. We also have priors, we have great desserts and stuff that’s good, not so healthy, but it tastes good. And you know who doesn’t love those things every once in a while. We just love the brand love the food and we’re so excited to be franchisees. And we have one open now and another one coming in a month and a third coming in about three months and more after that.

Chad Franzen  12:30  

Wow, good for you. So what attracted you to becoming a franchisee? It’s one thing to enjoy the food. It’s another thing to want to just own one.

Rob Stolker  12:39  

Yeah, I, you know, my patience level is very low. It’s one of the things I wrote about in my book, I have been with my wife since college and she’s the most patient person in the world. And I always say she has to be because she’s married to me, I am terribly terribly impatient. And other thing is I do have a thirst for learning. And I knew nothing about the franchise. Well, no different than I knew nothing about the helmet making world. But that’s what intrigues me the things is learning and and when it came to the franchise world, one of the things that we recognized quickly is that if we ask all the questions from the start the dumbest of the dumbest questions were which we did, and we start to learn we’re gonna get it, we’re gonna get it relatively quickly, we knew we would get in with a great brand, like we did with Bubbakoo’s Burritos. And now someone relatively quickly the doors are open, and we’re able to employ people, which we love to do, I’ve always loved employing people and you know, making a difference and installing our core values. Now, it’s very important to me always to instill core values. And in everybody, our employees and myself, I always, you know, every meeting we have starts with our core values. And we have a lot of employees now just for in one store. And already I can see the impact that we made and my team has made on a lot of lives.

Chad Franzen  14:04  

What were the what were the early days, like? Had you had restaurant experience before? I know you said you hadn’t had franchise experience any restaurant experience before.

Rob Stolker  14:11  

I had an plus restaurant experience. I love eating in restaurants, love it, love eating in restaurants, but on the other side of it I have zero. So I love restaurants. I love eating in restaurants. I love the dining experience. My family does I love picking my family out. And I you know I would have been a longtime that my partner and I were looking around getting a feel of what we’re interested in. Like I said we knew we wanted food we knew we wanted healthy food. You know, we knew we wanted a cool brand. And we we we know we got all

Chad Franzen  14:43  

over the world in the early days like for you then kind of getting getting bubbled up and running.

Rob Stolker  14:49  

Yeah, you know, it’s it’s challenging their channel, especially nowadays. There’s a lot of challenges. But like I said, I knew we had a great brand. I knew people We’re gonna call him I knew people love the food and love the atmosphere that we’ve created. And but there’s plenty of challenges opening a store and a million things that go into it. And, you know, the permit process. And there’s a lot to it, especially like I said, with there, there’s plenty of issues out there.

Chad Franzen  15:19  

Did you find yourself working a lot of hours?

Rob Stolker  15:22  

Absolutely, but, for me, I’ll always say this. And I know it’s a cliche. And for me, when I’m enjoying myself, it’s not where it’s not, it’s not at all work. So yeah, the first couple of weeks, we were in that store 16 hours a day, I would come home, I wouldn’t last 30 seconds in my house without falling somewhere. There’s a picture of me from our second day, just on the floor of our things sweeping and I just had a lot, I mean, my legs, I had no more in my legs. But like I said, when it comes back to impacting lives, and I know we’re doing good by a lot of people, and that, that makes it so much fun. All that tiredness. And

Chad Franzen  15:59  

so when you with that experience, now that you have you have plans to open, you know, a couple more, are you gonna have to do that again? Or do you do you have kind of that down, and you can figure you figured out a way to avoid that?

Rob Stolker  16:11  

Yeah, it’s not that I have to do it again, it’s that I can’t wait to do it. I mean, I can’t wait to do it again. And again, and again, and all over, I can’t wait, I can’t wait to go to our next door and annex territory and start from scratch and build up our team there. And you know, where we already are talking about, you know, obviously bring in some team members over phenomenon first, and giving them an opportunity to live out their dream, and that’s part of what we are doing here is, you know, creating a path for people to live out their dreams. And as a leader, that means everything.

Chad Franzen  16:48  

Good for you, hey, are there any major differences between opening a restaurant or, you know, a restaurant franchise, like Bubbakoo’ss, and maybe some of the other, you know, entrepreneurial endeavors you’ve started?

Rob Stolker  16:59  

Absolutely. So there’s a different, the challenges are different. And the way that I think in everything we’re doing is different. And that’s what I love is the the adaptability to doing something new. And like I said that figuring it out part, that’s the fun for me, that’s not the frustration, that’s that’s the fun is like we’re going to figure this out. But that path and that journey to figure it out. That’s, that’s what gets me going every day. That’s, that’s when I wake up and I just get right back into that mode of what I need to figure out that day. That’s, you know, that’s my personality, I, one of the things that I talked about is when I was a kid, my grandmother, when she would look at my report cards and tell me, you know, you’re very smart, you know, young boy, if you apply yourself and really apply yourself, you could be a doctor. And now even if you don’t do so great, you could be a lawyer and accountant. And I would always look at her and say I don’t want to be any of those things. And not there’s anything wrong with that. It’s great. But you know, I always love being an entrepreneur, I wanted to be an entrepreneur from a young age, and to be able to now speak to kids and go to schools and speak to kids about my journey and things that I’ve done in life as somebody who was not a good student, and just thinking differently, and, you know, I just, I My goal is always just impact as many lives as I can whether it’s taking the first step of girls across Hegyi or opening up doors for an awesome brand and store like Bubbakoo’s Burritos

Chad Franzen  18:40  

How has COVID affected operations at Bubbakoo’s? If it has?

Rob Stolker  18:45  

Yeah, so, you know, for us, we opened our first words a month ago. So now and we’re in New Jersey, and you know, I don’t really get involved in the COVID talk anymore, but what I see is a ton of happy people coming in our store dining in the restaurant, people are living their lives, I see kids back out living their lives. One of the things that I always say about COVID is I have four young adult daughters years when I knew they wanted to get out and live their lives and for me I’ve had people ask me what was the most painful parts that has nothing to do with business it’s my kids was watching my kids college high school age not you know living to me the life that they you know that you all know hope they live so they now see it in my restaurant. See these kids coming in and all sitting together and enjoying the great food together. That’s that’s the fun fun.

Chad Franzen  19:41  

So you mentioned you have some goals with Bubbakoo’s tell me more about those and maybe other future entrepreneurial goals if you’ve if any have crossed your mind.

Rob Stolker  19:49  

Yeah, so I you know, I have two main goals at this point. And one is like I said for USA lacrosse to mandate head year that day is kind I mean when that day comes I my biggest fears as an entrepreneur is what is what that next day looks like. And so Bubbakoo’s Burritos is here and I love the brand like I said I love the food I love everything I love their their team that they have in place and I would love nothing more than for USA lacrosse to mandate head gear ASAP and for my great friend Wayne Jordan and I to spend however many years we have building Bubbakoo’s Burritos impacting lives hiring people and you know really feeling fulfilled in so many different ways.

Chad Franzen  20:40  

Great, great. Hey, how can people find out more information about everything that you have going on specifically but because

Rob Stolker  20:46  

yeah, so Bubbakoo’s Burritos is a great site bubbakoosburritos.com They have a great app to use if you want to order where our first store is in Hazlet New Jersey our second one will be in avenel New Jersey and I think this might be the first time that we’re announcing it but we signed the lease within the last 24 hours for location in Troy New York and an area that I know very well and have a lot of really good friends in and so we’re just starting out here we want to open up a lot of stores and like I said hire out of people promote a lot of people from within let people watch people live out their dreams and the other thing I always say is for me I almost feel selfish in saying all that because it does make me feel good to impact lives and to to lead people to living out their dreams.

Chad Franzen  21:37  

What about anything else like Hummingbird can people find it? Where can people find out more about

Rob Stolker  21:41  

sports.com But more importantly, there’s a brain safety Alliance www dot brain safety alliance.com that has all the science girl stories go to go to those girls stories watch Sofia’s two minute video under my concussion stories what she’s been through what her family has been through watching her go through from one accidental stick to the head. And then my website is www dot Rob’s Volker or OB s t o l k er.com And you’ll see right on the cover a picture of me holding mag gear and they say My mission is to get USA lacrosse to mandate hedging. I don’t shy away from that. If you Google my name and you know the press has been amazing in that way. But that’s my mission and once they mandate as far as I’m concerned that mission is done and it’ll be back to building these Bubbakoo’s Burritos and who knows what from

Chad Franzen  22:32  

what’s your go to item at Bubbakoo’s?

Rob Stolker  22:35  

So yeah, the hamachi steak is is great. I do like that but mine is I love chicken, chicken and rice and there’s so many different sauces that great Nashville hot sauce depends when I’m in the mood for great buffalo sauce. There’s quality Parmesan sauce that I like great shredded chicken, shredded pork, there’s just so many different options to choose from. And that’s really what I love about it. Is that it whatever. In a minute, I’m ready to eat and I Yes, I people asked me I do eat there four times a day, five times a day. Because I just love the food. But whenever I’m in the mood for it for that second sometimes sometimes it’s spicy, sometimes it’s deserting, sometimes healthy, sometimes not so healthy. So it’s that’s the great thing about it. Lots of choices and lots of great options.

Chad Franzen  23:22  

Sounds great. Hey, Rob, it’s been great talking to you today. Thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it.

Rob Stolker  23:26  

You too. Thank you for having me on chat. You’re great away though. It’s, it’s, it’s fun to watch. I’ve watched your videos and I keep doing what you do.

Chad Franzen  23:35  

Thank you. Thank you so much for the great talking to you. So well everybody.

Outro  23:38  

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