About Happiness in Business… Fortune 100 vs. Bill’s Burgers…
This is about Bill’s Burgers. And some about too many Fortune notables’ leaders…
Bill’s makes everybody’s list of “The Best Burgers in the United States.” Often on the top three! Has for decades. That fine establishment in the heart of industrial Van Nuys, California.
I am told that Bill of Bill’s Burgers, still goes to work there. I have actually spied him doing that a couple times! He always parks on the street, rather than in the parking lot. Neighboring business people witness him picking up trash along the street.
Starts the “kitchen” of his business that, estimating generously is about thirty-forty feet squared. As he has since 1965. His fans assert that the old-dude, with his perennial cowboy hat — perhaps an ode to modern business, last time I ventured there (for me that would be a traffic-challenged drive across the Santa Monica mountains to the “Valley”), he was wearing a baseball cap. The cap appeared closer to one hundred years old than ninety-five. As is Bill!
The line starts forming an hour before the rest of us contemplate lunch. Mostly laborers from all over the San Fernando Valley. And some of us who crave a, well, Bill’s.
I am told that Bill never expanded, diversified, franchised, merged with nor sold to anybody.
Don’t know anything about his personal life. Nor will I ask. I do not want to take what I just “know” is a minimal risk, that I may be troubled by his answer. In any event, do you want to make a wager with me that Bill does not now nor has ever had any use for shrinks? Nor ever stuck a needle in his arm?
Or spent time bemoaning his station in life? The size of his bank account? Time not spent with family?
Taking a big and likely unfair leap here, perhaps Bill does not know what debentures are. More importantly, does not care. Sorry, Bill, if mine are entirely uninformed speculations. You know the thing Robert Irwin wrote, Wonders Will Never Cease? Nope. I am not going to delve into the possible ancient history of that little dilly.
Back to the essence of this writing; forgive my digression with the inconsequential relating of the genesis of the “wonders” thing. Speaking of unicorns, well, I was thinking about them, after all, one of my friends, also named Bill, a celebrated chef his entire lifetime, most recently in a famous mountain ski resort, was also a world class astronomer and one of the better business brains I have known! And the only “starred” chef who turned down our offer to fund his latest restaurant. The latter thing about him — for real, a chef who turns downs big money to open a restaurant of his own ?? Kinda unicorn-like, right? Parenthetic to this, that Bill, did open his own restaurant, with his own money (yes, his own money) and hellacious labor.
And our help with a full set of analytics for the business and fateful and sustained follow-ups, bingo: a sold-out restaurant, for years. Due to his immense talent and us talking him up as one of the best chefs in the US. That we did, well, around the world! A fun aside, every evening during ski seasons, at least three tables were occupied by large parties from around the world, all using me as a reference. No, I never heard about 95% of those people from Europe, US, South America. But… fun, fun, fun.
Please listen/read my talk on Pillars of Success. Essay at Pimps Whores And Patrons Of Virtue . Please pay attention to what my definition is for MY my Success.
I wrote these thoughts while waiting for the crew at the wheel repair shop across the street from Bill’s to fix yet another crack in one of the wheels of my car. The super cool wheels on my slick European car just do not practice Khrushchevian peaceful co-existence with the potholes-ridden, disintegrating roads of Los Angeles.
Awesome! It is 11:00 AM and Bill just opened. I am going to cruise across the street for an early lunch.
On a goof, I might ask Bill if he is contemplating a mezzanine or first round financing. Likely he is five or six decades past his friends and family round.
I have the pleasure, challenge and dubious distinction to communicate with a bunch of C-Suite people, along with dreamers (business), struggling entrepreneurs, leaders of nascent businesses, and Fortune notables. And authors and worthy academics.
“Hamburger” Bill’s… Perhaps better and more ordinary happiness-making than empire building.
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