With a mission to inform, empower, celebrate and advocate for British Columbia's current and aspiring business leaders, BCBusiness go behind the headlines and bring readers face to face with the key issues and people driving business in B.C.
Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/1173482
E N T R E P R E N E U R O F T H E Y E A R 2 0 1 9 / F O O D + B E V E R A G E n For a company that was founded on shots of Jägermeister, the Ware- house Group is doing pretty well. In 2003, Dan Wilson walked into the Moose, a downtown Vancouver watering hole, and was introduced to the owner, Kyle Tweter, through a mutual friend. As the story goes, the two started chatting. And drinking. After a few repeats of the equation, Wilson followed up on their talks about putting in the work to start something together. Six months later, they began building what is now a 20-restaurant empire that spans B.C., Alberta, Ontario and Quebec. Of course, there have been some hiccups along the way. One was the pair's first Whistler location, which they took money from friends to start. "We were pretty inexperienced at the time, didn't even have a lawyer to look into what it was we were agreeing to," remem- bers Tweter. It took five years to pay back their friends, but they got there eventually—in large part thanks to an epiphany triggered by an in-flight magazine. "There was a story about this place called the Texas Tavern in Roanoke, West Virginia," Tweter says. "And there was a pic- ture of a whitewashed old building. Painted on the front, it said, 'Hamburgers $2.95, hot dogs $1.95.' So I got up out of my seat and slammed the magazine down in front of Dan and was like, 'We need to do this.'" Wilson balked at first, but eventually… "I went, 'How cheap could we do it for?' And he said, '$4.95?' And I went, 'OK, sold!'" The more financially inclined Wilson still wishes he'd held out for a tad higher—Warehouse Group W I N N E R S Dan Wilson + Kyle Tweter C E O + P R E S I D E N T , W A R E H O U S E G R O U P WHAT DID YOUR SUMMER JOBS TEACH YOU ABOUT BUSINESS? Money management. I learned how hard money was to make and how easy it is to spend –Kyle Tweter 38 BCBUSINESS OCTOBER 2019 Kyle Tweter (left) and Dan Wilson