Today we’d like to introduce you to Ricky Williams.
Hi Ricky, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself
I have been an accountant for 14 years and decided that it was time for a change. I started catering weddings and business events and it took off. Well, we kept getting asked if we had a restaurant. I knew I wasn’t ready for a restaurant so I decided to open a food truck. Just so happens that around that time, Gainesville was finishing up the remodel on their new food truck park. So, the timing was perfect. So, I opened the food truck with a simple menu, I wanted to make sure that everything that came out of my truck was the best quality instead of having a ton of options. I wanted to bring food to Gainesville that isn’t readily available in a small town. I LOVE SoCal food; street tacos, California burritos, carne asada fries, etc… So that is what I decided to center my menu around. I made sure that everything that came out of my truck was the best that could be found ANYWHERE. Well, I knew I didn’t have a lot of money for marketing so I came up with a way to get the word out. I refused to accept any tips, which was hard for a lot of people to understand, but I just asked them all, instead of giving me a tip, please tell your friends about my truck and bring them back with them the next time they came to eat. So, we gained a great following by word of mouth, then combined with social media it was a success.
Two years into the food truck I realized that it was finally time to open a restaurant. I found a great little place in downtown Gainesville, that didn’t have a lot at the time but I just had a feeling its time was coming. So, with the savings we had managed to grow from the food truck, events, festivals, and weddings we were able to secure the spot we are in right now.
Well, I signed the lease for the space I am in, in Feb 2020… Yeah, OUCH! The next month they shut down all the dining rooms due to COVID. I refused to give up. So, I pivoted my menu to bring it parallel with something that people saw as delivery. Well, that is when I decided to do pizza. But again, I refused to be like everyone else… Dominos, Pizza hut, Rumpys… They all serve pizza but they are all the same style. One thing that Gainesville didn’t have, that I love, is NEW YORK Style pizza(pies). The HUGE 18-inch pies, with the slices so big you have to fold them a little to fit them in your mouth… all the while, the grease drips a little down your arm… But I was going to do it right… Everything you are served from my restaurant is from SCRATCH. Nothing comes into my kitchen premade or frozen… We make our pizza sauce from squeezed tomatoes; we simmer each batch for up to three hours before we allow it to cool and then prepare it to serve. Our Italian sausage, we buy the pork, we cut it, we grind it, we season it, we fry it… Absolutely everything is homemade.
So, we parked the food truck out behind the restaurant, we had two people manning the phones and through social media, we got our pizza pies into the hands of cooke county residents and they LOVED them! And all we ever said, was if you loved it, please tell your friends, please share our social media posts, etc… and through a lot of hard work and grassroots busting our butts, we were able to not only survive the COVID shutdown but we persevered enough to remodel the restaurant the way I wanted to and are coming up on being open two years.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
My family was not wealthy. Most of my family barely graduated high school. I was not only the first one to go to college but graduate with my accounting degrees. I say that I was born with a drive that most don’t have. I saw what I had growing up and while it was a good home, I knew I wanted to make my family proud and achieve more than they were able to. So, I worked my way through college, clawed my way up with the accounting firm I was at, then left as CFO.
Risk-taking is a topic that people have widely differing views on – we’d love to hear your thoughts.
I am a risk-taker… Which people always tend to portray that as reckless… But as long as you do your research, and work your butt off, you can help make the risk worth the gamble.
Contact Info:
- Email: thepatiorw@gmail.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thepatiodowntown/
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/thepatiodowntown
Image Credits
jennifer foreman photography
