We were lucky to catch up with Juan Licon recently and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Juan, thanks for joining us today. Risk taking is something we’re really interested in and we’d love to hear the story of a risk you’ve taken.
Back in December of 2005 I graduated college with a Masters degree in Mechanical engineering with a specialization in aerodynamics and spacecraft propulsion. Soon after that, I started working for Raytheon Intelligence and Space located in McKinney TX. I was always financially responsible, so 10 years later in late 2015, I had managed to save enough money to do something big. My original plan was to use that money as a down payment for a big house, plan B was to take an unpaid year off from work and travel the world, I still wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with my life savings, but I wanted to do something great. My best friend Bart and I got to talking one night after a concert we went to here in Dallas and entertained the idea of maybe starting a small business together. We didn’t really take that idea too seriously at first since we felt it was more the drinks we had that night doing all the talking and honestly, we were both already very busy with our day jobs and our personal lives.
However, one day during lunch, he brought it up again and mentioned that there was a building in his hometown of Bonham TX that used to be a pizzeria available for lease, and he asked me if I wanted to go with him to take a look, we both knew it was crazy for us to get into the restaurant business since none of us had any experience in that industry, we didn’t have the time, and frankly the risk was too high. After looking at the building, talking to the landlord and doing the math, we started getting a little more curious, so after that day, we started meeting once a week to talk to financial advisors, restaurant and bar owners all over DFW, small business loan officers at almost every bank, lawyers, etc… At some point we got so excited that even though the idea was absolutely crazy and unrealistic, we both decided to put our entire life savings and even maxed out our personal credit cards to come up with the $300k that we needed to open our own restaurant/bar.
I know what you guys might be thinking… “WHAT A DUMB IDEA!” and you are not wrong, our friends and families thought we were both absolutely insane to sink our entire life savings into this venture, and not only that, but get into a 100k debt to start a business that we knew nothing about in an industry that is incredibly unstable and has a very high failure rate. But we both sat down before pulling the trigger and we said “We are both very smart guys, we trust one another, and in the end, we may regret never trying, we got this!” so we went for it!
I’ll tell you guys, it was quite an adventure, a financial and emotional rollercoaster, but I’ll finish this story by telling you guys that this year we will proud owners of a restaurant CHAIN. We are opening a third location this year, and we’re buying two more restaurants on top of that so we will have a total of 5 locations in north TX. We have gained a ton of experience, we have a great team running the entire operation and now we even provide counseling to new restaurant owners. BEST DECISION WE EVER MADE! Oh and yes I am still a rocket scientist, I never even had to quit my day job, and I even have extra time for an awesome hobby, I’m the lead singer of one of the biggest and most successful tribute bands in TX. This is my life now, and I love it!
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers
Well, I explained most of those details in the previous section, but I can tell you guys a little more about me here. I was born and raised in the city of Juarez Mexico located in the state of Chihuahua. My dad was a well-respected engineer, he’s retired now, my mom was a stay home mom, she took care of me, my two brothers, and my two sisters while my dad worked long hours to provide for the whole family and to give us all the best education possible.
Needless to say, my dad is my hero and the reason I became an engineer. Both of my parents taught me to always be responsible, conduct myself professionally and ethically and always treat others with respect. These tools allowed me to succeed in my career, which gave me the financial means to start my business as I described earlier.
Today I own LICORP, my own management and consulting firm that allows me to provide these services to new restaurant owners and allows me to better manage my own restaurants.
What I am most proud of is the hard work that went into making all of this happen. I knew it was not going to be easy, but both my business partner and I worked so hard on this and now we are thankful for trusting in each other and for never giving up.
What do I want from potential customers? Whenever they happen to be in North TX, stop by JUBA PIZZA BAR and say hi!
We’d love to hear about you met your business partner.
Bart is my best friend, and he used to be my neighbor before he got married. We met at a Halloween party back in 2010 and we bonded over our mutual passion for 80s rock. After that we started going to concerts together, back then we both had girlfriends so we would go on double dates, road trips, etc. Now things have changed a little because he’s now married, but we’re still best friends, we still meet every week to talk about our businesses and we still go to concerts every now and then.
Has your business ever had a near-death moment? Would you mind sharing the story?
2020 nearly killed both of my restaurants because of the covid shutdown. During that time, we were partially closed per the state and federal regulations, so we were only delivering to people’s homes. We lost close to 75% of our profit over several months. My business partner and I decided not to take any salary for that entire period so we could keep most of our staff employed. We slowly started to recover when we were allowed to open at 50% capacity, but thankfully we are back in business like nothing ever happened now that everything is back to normal. Our customers are very loyal, and they never stopped supporting us, that was a key factor for us not to lose faith.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.jubapizzabar.com
- Instagram: @jubapizzabar
- Facebook: @jubapizzabar