Charles Apple

Just call him the Colonel.

Scott Griffin, design editor of the Republican-American in Waterbury, Conn., is opening a southern-style fried chicken stand in nearby Hamden, home of Quinnipiac University. He’ll be open for business on Aug. 1 — two weeks from this Saturday, in fact.

We’ve found folks leaving newspapers for things like public relations or administration but it’s rare we hear of anyone eager to go into the service industry. But Scott’s tickled pink about it. And it helps, perhaps, that he’s not leaving his newspaper job just yet.

He took a few minutes to answer some questions for us…

Q. Dude! Chicken? Southern-style fried chicken? In Connecticut? Will Yankees buy Southern-style fried chicken?

A. Well, it’s fried chicken tenders. Southern style? I’ll let the customers decide.

We aren’t outwardly pitching the place as a Southern restaurant but my partner and I are from the South — Fort Walton Beach, Fla., to be exact and if you say Florida isn’t Southern I’ll kick your grits. That’s the Redneck Riviera, baby!

We’ll also have red beans and rice, pulled pork, salads, chicken sandwiches, real sweet tea and Zapp’s chips.

Real sweet tea? That pretty much makes the place Southern by definition!

Back to our Q&A, though…

Q. So are you quitting your job at the Republican-American? Cutting back your hours? How will you balance your time?

A. Nothing will change at the Republican-American, I hope.

I’ll open the restaurant in the mornings and leave in the early afternoon when my soon-to-be first-grade daughter gets out of school. Then I’ll work at the newspaper at night, Sunday through Thursday.

Scott in his newsroom.
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Since my wife works days as a reporter at the Hartford Courant, the only difference will be I won’t be home alone all day long. I expect to be dog tired a lot but I’m trying to get a little healthier before it all kicks in.

Q. How long have you been planning this, dude? Have you always wanted to own a restaurant?

A. I’ve been planning this project since last November. It’s been one of the most complicated things I’ve ever done.

There is so much that goes into opening a restaurant. I read a lot of books (Opening a Small Business for Dummies, etc.) but there was a big piece of the puzzle missing in all of them. The books tell you what you need to do; they just don’t tell you how to do it. It seems I spent months trying to determine what the first step was.

I like to cook at home and I’ve had a few thoughts about opening a barbecue joint here but it’s not something I’ve always dreamed of doing. This is business.

Q. How many people will you be employing?

A. It’ll be me and my partner, Rick — an old friend from high school who left a good job in Tampa to help me run the place — plus a handful of part-timers.

Q. Can I apply?

A. Yes. Any experience in fast food? Considering the state of newspapers, a lot of co-workers have jokingly asked the same thing.

Q. The economy has really slammed the newspaper business. It’s been harsh for the hospitality industry, too — for example, I understand Applebee’s and Outback are hurting bad. Is now a good time to open a food joint?

A. “Be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful.” — Warren Buffett.

Amen, brother.

In the right market with the right menu, I think it’s a great time to open a restaurant. I think we’ve nailed both of those qualifiers.

The fast-food chains are making a killing with their value menus. The drive-through lines at Dunkin Donuts and Wendy’s wrap around the building. The last time I checked, Panera had big expansion plans. People may not be buying new American cars but they still eat.

Scott’s Hamden location, as it was when he signed his lease in May:

By June 26, drywall work was mostly complete:

Scott had cooking equipment installed on July 6:

By Monday, most of the painting was done:

And Thursday, they laid the tile for the kitchen floor:

He’s looking to open on Aug. 1.

Q. I’m told you’ll be very close to a college campus. Lucky break or smart planning on your part?

A. I originally looked in a more urban, commerical side of Hamden but a potential landlord rejected a restaurant. Then I found a spot in a more residential part of town, about a mile or so south of the Quinnipiac campus (enrollment around 5,000+).

Because zoning regulations prohibit drive-through windows in this part of town, there are none of the chain restaurants — they’re all on the other side of town. Other than a Subway and a couple pizza places, we don’t have much competition in the fast-food world.

I wasn’t crazy about this site at first, but the more I studied it, the more I liked it. And the lucky break: Quinnipiac is opening a new dorm in the fall that’s midway between the Chicken Shack and the campus.

Right after the local daily ran an article about the new restaurant, Scott showed up one day to find this note taped to the front door:

It says:

Hey “Chicken Man;” Hurry up and open will you. I hope you are going to deliver at least across the street at the elderly handicap place. If not we are all going to come over and protest, in our wheel chairs and walkers unless you will deliver to us. A lot of people are real excited about you opening up at the old Pepperidge Farms store. I wish you all the luck in the world in opening a new business in the area.

Scott posted on his restaurant’s Facebook page that he’ll do whatever it takes to deliver to the facility across the street.

Q. Do you have any clever ways planned of reaching out to that student crowd this fall?

A. We’ll do some flyers and try to hack into the school’s e-mail system (joking, maybe). The students use a QCard, which is a student ID that doubles as a debit card. The company that runs it helps with marketing when students arrive for classes.

Q. You’ve already set up a Facebook fan page and you’ve been tweeting the lease and construction of your restaurant. What other media-type ideas are you cooking up?

A. I’ve used Twitter a lot, searching and following anyone who uses certain phrases like Quinnipiac, Hamden or New Haven. Twitter got me in touch with next year’s editor of the student paper. I’ll likely buy some ads. I’m open to other suggestions.

Q. The logo is terrific! In particular, I love the Hawaiian shirt, of course; an inspired touch. Who drew the artwork?

A. The logo was drawn by Billy Steers, a local children’s author who I met a couple of years ago at a fair where he was selling his Tractor Mac books:

A few months later I got him to create a Christmas story that we ran in the Rep-Am over a week. He’s done that two years now and his work is fantastic.

I asked him to draw me a cool chicken, kind of like if Johnny Cash and Elvis had a baby, and the baby was adopted by Foghorn Leghorn and then lost at sea during a storm and found by Jimmy Buffett.

How does Elvis Poultry sound for the chicken’s name?

Q. Will you be selling T-shirts featuring the logo?

A. We’ll have shirts. I’ll also look into hats, stickers and tattoos for the kids.

Q. Will you be selling the Republican-American inside the restaurant?

A. I might. Hamden is actually one town outside the Rep-Am circulation area but there is at least store in town that sells it. I might also look into selling the New Haven Register, too, and incorporate newspapers into the decor somehow. Gotta support the industry.

Q. There are gobs of us out here that have no clue what we could do outside of journalism. As a budding entrepreneur, what advice do you have for us?

A. Once you come up with an idea, read everything you can. And talk to everyone, from the teller at the bank to the volunteers who help out small businesses (check your local SBA for a group like SCORE).

Be patient. For someone accustomed to facing a deadline and completing a job every night, it’s been hell working on a project this long.

Be persistent. There were times early on that I got frustrated with all the red tape and almost said screw it.

Be stubborn. I’ve been told over and over how it’s a bad time to open a business and how restaurants always fail.

Be a little nuts, but be very realistic and cautious at the same time. I know I’m putting a lot on the line but I’ve tried to study every angle possible.

Get somebody in your corner. My wife has been cynical in a tremendously helpful way. I figured if I couldn’t convince her something would work, then it was a bad idea.

Oh, and hook up with your local chamber of commerce. Hamden’s chamber is organizing a ribbon-cutting for us on Aug. 3 with a photographer and possibly the mayor, plus some other marketing assistance.

Find Griff’s Chicken Shack on Facebook and Twitter. Follow the construction progress on Scott’s TwitPic page.

The restaurant itself, we might add, is at 3000 Whitney Avenue in Hamden:

View Griff’s Chicken Shack in a larger map

Scott has worked at the Waterbury Republican-American for 15 years, as a designer, copy editor and now design director. A 1989 graduate of the University of Tennessee-Martin, Scott spent four-and-a-half years as a sportswriter, copy editor and designer for the Northwest Florida Daily-News in Fort Walton, Fla. before moving to Connecticut in 1994. Scott earned a master’s degree in journalism from Quinnipiac in 2001 and taught newswriting and editing as an adjunct there in 2002 and 2003.

A few samples of his work (as usual, click for a larger view):

Find more on his personal web page.

This entry was posted on Friday, July 17th, 2009 at 12:01 pm and is filed under Getting a life, Innovative ideas, Job changes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.