Date of lunch:
Sunday, November 14, 2010
The company:
Daryl is one of the owners of Lou Dawg’s Southern Sandwiches at King and Portland. The restaurant is about a year and a half old and Daryl, along with Chef Sean Smith, are learning all about running a restaurant along the way. A lifelong entrepreneur, I thought I could learn not only about owning a restaurant but also about starting a new business and all that it entails. Besides Lou Dawg’s, Daryl also works full time for an IT consulting firm specializing in eHealth and often lectures and sometimes teaches classes on entrepreneurship and business at Ryerson.
The food:
We ate at Lou Dawg’s and split a pulled pork po’boy sandwich and the vegetarian chili cheese fries. The chili cheese fries are a new menu addition and they are delicious – not too heavy and full of flavour. The sandwich was great and the coleslaw is a great addition. We both drank water and then each ended the meal with a Caesar. Daryl graciously treated me to lunch but if you were to order it, the total would be about $30 with tax.
The lunch lesson:
Daryl discussed some of his future plans for Lou Dawg’s, including conversations with investors about expansion into food courts and other counter service options. And that got me wondering – how does one find investors? Daryl told me about a Dragon’s Den type presentation series at Ryerson called Angel Investors. The network brings together a bunch of investors and then young entrepreneurs present their business plans. I had no idea anything like this existed. Daryl and Sean presented there, with food samples of course, and not only met investors in the audience but made connections that led to new connections and to the team of investors that they are speaking with now.
The lunch:
Daryl’s mind is always working – always looking for ways to grow and expand the business and always on the search for new opportunities. It was pretty interesting to listen to his plans for the future of Lou Dawg’s and how the plan has evolved based on what has worked and not worked up until this point. It seems quite obvious that any entrepreneur needs to be extremely flexible and be able to handle change, quick decisions and risk.
Having known Daryl and Sean for many years, I remember when Sean was learning about southern US style BBQ. He traveled down south and brought back the techniques and flavours that he found. Then Sean would cook up huge batches of pork at his house and treat all of us friends to late night pulled pork sandwiches. And Daryl, always the businessman, ate these delicious sandwiches and knew that there was a business in it. And Lou Dawg’s was born.
Although I was in total agreement that Sean’s sandwiches were amazing, I am a risk averse person and would not likely have thought to embark on such a risky business venture like restaurant ownership. This is one of the reasons I really admire Sean and Daryl. Now that they are well past their one year anniversary and the restaurant has really found its footing, it seems that the risk has definitely paid off and seeing their success has been a great reminder to me that I should probably be a bit more open to taking risks and not be such a chicken.
And special guest Lou Dawg’s co-owner and chef Sean Smith
Sean’s Lunch Lesson
I am always curious about the weirdest things, so I wanted to know how much meat Lou Dawg’s actually goes through considering a large portion of their menu is meat based. So I got the scoop – they go through around 300 pounds of pork, about half that of beef brisket and 48 chickens a week, not including wings. And this conversation led to my wondering how chicken wings are always so much bigger when you order wings compared to the wings you get when you buy a full chicken. Turns out, the wings are from chickens that are a bit older – and older in chicken time so only a couple of weeks older. You learn something new every day.
Lunch with Mary 
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