We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Matt Jones. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Matt below.

Hi Matt, thanks for joining us today. Before we get into specifics, let’s talk about success more generally. What do you think it takes to be successful?

What I initially thought was that I would just serve really good food. What I ended up understanding was that I was looking to connect with the people that came in. It took a while to understand that. But I knew it intuitively. The food. The humor. The music. The service. It was just about connecting.

The other thing that took a while was finding a way to effectively advertise. I tried all sorts of things. Most didn’t work. I finally found something that did.

Certainly perseverance—just the idea that you’ll keep doing the right thing for the right reason even if when you’re not feeling it. And there were plenty of times when I was not feeling it.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I’ve always felt passionate about certain things. Music was probably the first thing that compelled me. Diving into the creative process of artists and how they created and phrased their music—it just seemed otherworldly. And I would dive way in.

I found the same passion in some small restaurants that I loved. There was something more than simply transactional about what they did. There was a feeling to it.

I went to college and then graduate school and ended up working for a commercial mortgage banking firm in downtown Los Angeles. I was reasonably successful, but after five years I knew that it wasn’t something I wanted to do for a career.

I had always known that I wanted to have a small restaurant centered around hot dogs. As an undergraduate and in graduate school I had created business plans about it. I wish I still had those. They would be really funny to look at because I had no idea what I was talking about. However, the passion was there. Once I knew I wasn’t going to continue doing the mortgage banking, the idea of starting the restaurant took on a more focused approach. My wife and I talked about it a lot. She is from Seattle and we began to think about going there and starting it.

We moved to Seattle in October of 1991. It was then that the reality of what I was doing began to set in. Up until then I used to say, regarding starting out on my own, “how hard can it be?” I found out pretty quickly that the answer to that question was “extremely”.

Finding a location was a journey. Trying to lease space was difficult when landlords realized that I had no experience. I began to search through the Sunday classifieds for businesses that were for sale. After 9 months (which felt like 10 years) I found the location that I am in now. It was a hot dog stand that had been operating for about 18 months. It was on its second owner and wasn’t doing much in terms of sales. What I was about to learn was a lesson that would teach me how hard it was to bring a new customer through the door. That lesson was seared into my memory and I have never lost the feeling of gratitude I experience when a new customer comes in.

It was a very slow build. Initially, I only sold hot dogs. I had a couple of sandwiches too, but those were never a big seller. No fries, just chips. I opened a second location in 1998. We were there for seven years, but the location was lost to a high rise in 2005. I tried opening some “licensed” stores, with individual owners about 12 years in, but I ended up spending a majority of my time trying to manage those and I found that I was not really enjoying what I was doing. One day, I was dealing with a problematic licensed store. As I was driving to the location I thought “I hate my job”. My next thought was, “You know, finding a job you don’t like is pretty easy. You don’t need to be in business for yourself to do that”. Shortly after, I began to shed the licensed stores. It had been a few years since I had been working daily in my original store. I decided I would work inside it for one month, just to see if I still had a passion for it. In November of 2007 I went back in. Within one week, I knew that I still loved it.

Returning to the store, I decided to make a couple of changes. I would put fries on the menu. I also decided to add hamburgers. It’s been 15 years since I returned to the store. I love my job.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

I think this question is answered in the previous section

Any fun sales or marketing stories?

John Hinterberger Within the first few years, I realized how hard it was to bring in new customers. What I needed was a review in the Seattle Times. John Hinterberger was the restaurant critic for the paper. He was who I needed. Being naïve and knowing I needed a review, I decided to call the paper. I asked for Hinterberger and surprisingly, they put me through. I can’t remember exactly what I said to him, and it makes me cringe when I think of it, but I essentially asked if he would review Matt’s. “So you think you just call me and I’m going to come out and review you!? Who do you think I am?” I knew before he finished his sentence that I was an idiot. I thought to myself, “well, that didn’t go so well”. Fast forward three and a half years. Hinterberger would have a section of a full color, Sunday insert in The Times where he would recap his favorite restaurants of the year. At the end of his article, he listed things he wished Seattle would have more of—and one of them was Hot Dog Stands. The next day, I made up business card sized notes that I put into every bag for customers. It read: “John Hinterberger recently said that he wished Seattle had more hot dog stands. If you feel so inclined, here’s his phone number*. I had been slowly building a loyal customer base. I think Hinterberger got about 40 phone calls. He came out and reviewed us—and gave us a positive review. The day after the review came out the line was out the door. After two or three weeks it calmed down. But sales increased about 30% overall because of that review. I basically did the same thing I had done before, asked for a review, but I went about it in a different way.      

Contact Info:

• Website: www.mattshotdogs.com
• Instagram: @mattshotdogs_
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mattshotdogs/

Image Credits
Emma Jones