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dankusner · 4 months ago

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JOHN LENNON — 1980 CORRECTIONS & CLARIFICATIONS ■ In Sunday’s Business section, a story said On Deck Concepts CEO Brent Tipps encountered John Lennon in 1985, but Lennon was killed in 1980.

When asked about it, Tipps said he believed the person he encountered while working at an Addison bar was Lennon.

Rude awakening

In 1985, Tipps was an aimless 18-year-old junior college dropout living with his parents in Amarillo when his father unceremoniously marched into Brent’s bedroom after Brent had been out late partying.

“I remember him knocking on my door, opening the curtains and saying, ‘Guess what today is? It’s move-out day.’ I look outside, and there’s a U-Haul hooked up behind my pickup,” Tipps said with a laugh. “I’m dead serious.”

The only job he could get was as a day laborer on a construction site, handing sheets of plywood to a roofer.

At Steak & Ale in Dallas, Tipps worked his way up to the head broiler in the kitchen working six-day, 90-hour weeks.

“We had a blast, man,” Tipps said. “We had our hats on backwards with Aretha Franklin playing. I wore sunglasses. We had the fastest, best cook times the restaurant had ever had.”

Tipps tended bar along the Las Colinas canal during the days of easy money in a booming economy.

One night, this “hippie dippy dude with sunglasses” came walking down the stairs barefoot.

Tipps apologetically told him that there was some health department rule about having to wear shoes.

“He goes, ‘OK cool,’ and goes back up the stairs and across to the Omni [Hotel]. The phone rings a little later, and it’s the general manager of the Omni. He told my boss I’d just thrown John Lennon out of the restaurant.

“My boss called me an idiot.”

Cheryl, a journalism graduate of SMU, has covered business for more than 45 years and gets her phone calls returned. She's won numerous awards including several Katies from the Press Club of Dallas and a lifetime distinguished achievement award from the Society of American Business Editors and writers.

CHERYL HALL

He’s booming, Jack

Risk-taking restaurant/bar owner’s uncanny vision, devotion to employees help him thrive

Brent Tipps is about to plunk down a half-million bucks overhauling his original Sidecar Social that he opened in Addison five years ago.

He’s moving the live stage to front-and-center so that a 36-foot wall of TV screens acts as a backdrop.

He’s adding an upstairs bar, two lounge areas and two private rooms with glass walls, replacing booths and seating — and, yes, he’s improving the bathrooms.

The 58-year-old CEO and owner of On Deck Concepts LLC wants to have the re-energized, 16,000-square-foot eater-tainment venue ready for football season in August.

And the work has to be done in off hours.

It’s a quick turnaround, but Tipps is used to hustling.

This is a guy who lasted one semester in junior college, was a construction day laborer, worked the grills at Steak & Ale, became a CiCi’s Pizza franchise owner and launched a successful wings business in Casa Linda — all before he turned 36.

Twenty-two years later, Tipps owns the Sidecar Social in Addison’s Village on the Parkway and a second at The Star in Frisco that opened in September and cost $10.2 million to build.

With 24,000-plus square feet, Sidecar No. 2 features a 40-foot TV, three 20-footers and 85-inch screens scattered throughout.

Folks wanting more privacy can get a private cabana with a TV and firepit.

On Deck’s current lineup also includes 12 BoomerJack’s Grills — including one that opened in Houston four months ago — four District 21 Sports Kitche5D ns (previously Lone Star Wings) and Bedford Ice House, a live-music venue.

Additional BoomerJack’s are underway in Katy, Mansfield and Tomball with more sites in Houston and San Antonio being scouted.

Tipps expects to bring in $100 million in revenue in the next 12 months — more than enough to fuel growth and create opportunities for his management team, who need to see a path for upward mobility, he said.

“If you’re not growing, you’re dying,” he said,

Kindhearted daredevil

Tipps is a piece of work by anyone’s definition — and his own volition.

“Even when he was young, Brent thought of Mount Rushmore as small hurdles,” said Joe Croce, the co-founder of CiCi’s Pizza who hired Tipps in 1990. “He’s been an innovator at every turn.”

Those in his closest circle describe Tipps as adventurous, a high-octane risk taker, generous to a fault, irreverent but deeply spiritual, genuinely kind, devoted to his employees and addictively funny.

They’d all rather Tipps stick to golf as a hobby than his daredevil Can-Am dune buggy racing over dangerous terrain.

Tipps listened to my intel and nodded.

“Risk taker and adventurous, for sure,” Tipps said. “I like to have fun. I do consider myself kind. I’ll do anything for anybody. It just rolls back to you. And I know I’m blessed. I probably shouldn’t be around on this earth with the way I race.

“God’s keeping me around for a reason.”

All of this begs the question: Is this guy for real?

“What you see is what you get,” said Steve Haskins, his closest friend who trained Tipps at the CiCi’s restaurant in Richardson 34 years ago.

“We all had to read the book Nuts by Southwest’s founder Herb Kelleher as part of our culture. Herb always had employees’ backs. That’s Brent,” said Haskins, who owns and operates the latest version of CiCis in Mansfield and runs four other units for another franchisee. “I joke that there were a lot of similarities between Herb and Brent, but Brent doesn’t smoke.”

Mike Cole, his longtime business mentor and co-founder who financially backed CiCi’s early on, said Tipps’ willingness to take on debt would give Cole anxiety attacks. “I’d be checking on the restaurants every day,” he said. “But Brent has great confidence in his team that he’s put together.

“The proof is in the pudding in how long he keeps employees.”

I got to know Tipps through The Dallas Morning News’ Top 100 Places to Work competition, in which employees anonymously rated their employers for leadership, management, benefits and culture.

BoomerJack’s placed No. 3 and No. 4 among our large employers in 2019 and 2020 — the highest rankings ever by a hospitality company.

In both years, BoomerJack’s also received special awards for management.

“I wasn’t always treated right,” Tipps said. “I never thought, ‘Well when I make it, I won’t do that.’ I didn’t have big philosophies. I just want to have fun, take care of people and serve the guests.”

Giveback nation

The company gives to many causes, but focuses on the Joan Katz Resource Center, the Texas Rangers Foundation and GRACE Grapevine Relief & Community Exchange.

His troops follow his lead by donating their time and money while having fun in the process.

BoomerJack’s holds an annual golf tournament for the Joan Katz center — “Tee Off Fore Tata’s — in a personal tribute to Tipps’ mother, Tanya Pakan, who is an 18-year breast cancer survivor. The 2023 event held at Bear Creek Golf Club in October raised $100,000. “That feels really, really good for a company our size,” he said.

It’s quite a turnaround from the first year in 2009, when Tipps made a $4,000 donation on his credit card and the tournament lost money.

“But hey, what was a few more thousand dollars when you’re broke,” Tipps said. “We’ve gotten much better. We take up two courses, and it sells out in a few days. It’s stupid popular.”

Rude awakening

The only job he could get was as a day laborer on a construction site, handing sheets of plywood to a roofer.

At Steak & Ale in Dallas, Tipps worked his way up to the head broiler in the kitchen working six-day, 90-hour weeks.

“We had a blast, man,” Tipps said. “We had our hats on backwards with Aretha Franklin playing. I wore sunglasses. We had the fastest, best cook times the restaurant had ever had.”

Tipps tended bar along the Las Colinas canal during the days of easy money in a booming economy.

One night, this “hippie dippy dude with sunglasses” came walking down the stairs barefoot.

Tipps apologetically told him that there was some health department rule about having to wear shoes.

“My boss called me an idiot.”

Preachers, teachers

Croce, originator of the CiCi’s all-you-can-eat pizza concept, initially refused to hire the 21-year-old with a cocky attitude. Undaunted, Tipps literally stalked Croce as he visited his four CiCi’s restaurants. There were approximately 420 CiCi’s in 2003, when Croce sold his interests to his management team for untold millions.

The company has been through several ownership transitions and is now named CiCis.

Tipps became Croce’s “Fix-It Guy” sent in to help CiCi’s franchisees in financial trouble.

He used advice given by a successful CiCi’s owner, who told Tipps that he needed to embrace preachers, teachers and coaches, because they ordered the most pizza or picked where their teams ate. “I’d spend all day long in my truck visiting every church and school in town finding out what we could do to win their business.”

In 1996, Croce finally gave Tipps his shot at being a franchisee after the owner of the CiCi’s in Hot Springs, Ark., locked the doors on Super Bowl Sunday and filed for bankruptcy.

“I started meeting preachers, teachers and coaches and serving pizza made with fresh ingredients,” Tipps said. “I took it from doing like $250,000 annualized to a million three.”

Birth of BoomerJack’s

Tipps used the proceeds from the sale of the Hot Springs store to open one in Coppell.

On Tipps’ way home, he’d stop at the Wingstop for 10 wings and fries.

When Wingstop wouldn’t return Tipps’ calls about buying a franchise, he went dumpster diving to find out what products it used.

He opened his first Lone Star Wings in Casa Linda in 2002.

After CiCi’s laid down the hammer about not owning other types of franchises, Tipps chose wings, chicken tenders and catfish, which were bringing in more revenue than pizzas.

In 2007, Tipps wanted to open a Lone Star Wings in Montgomery Plaza, Fort Worth’s up-and-coming development of converted warehouses on West 7th Street just west of downtown.

But the landlord wanted casual dining, not counter service, in his mixed-use venture.

Not to worry, he had another concept ready to launch — even though he didn’t.

The landlord wanted to see the menu.

Tipps got his design guy to copy and paste from a Chili’s menu with burgers, salads and wings and slapped on a logo. “I faxed it over to [the landlord], and he said, ‘Oh, this is exactly what we’re looking for.’”

Tipps named it BoomerJack’s, and it was an instant success.

So what’s with the names?

Sidecar Social, BoomerJack’s Grill and District 21 (formerly Lone Star Wings) have three things in common: They’re catchy, trademarkable and don’t mean anything.

He recently dropped “bar” from BoomerJack’s name so that moms wouldn’t exercise their “veto power” in deciding where the family was going to eat. “Who wants to take their kids to a bar?” he said.

Tipps is a mega fan of Major League Baseball, hence the name On Deck Concepts.

No repeat offenders

Tipps has spent two years reshaping On Deck, renaming and merging concepts, hunting for prime real estate and turning over daily decision-making to his executive team.

“I’m gone a lot, but I’m in touch with these guys 24/7,” Tipps said. Tipps gives employees the freedom to fail — just don’t be a repeat offender. “I tell them, ‘It’s OK to make a mistake, but if you make the same mistake twice, you’ve got to go. It just means you’re dumb, and you didn’t learn.’”

Michael Currie, manager of the original BoomerJack’s in Fort Worth when it opened 17 years ago, is now director of human resources.

“We’re more of a close-knit, accountable team than a family where no matter what you do, you’re always part of the family,” Currie said. “If you do something illegal, immoral or something that’s going to diminish our brand, there’s going to be consequences.”

Tipps, who’s been broke but never broken, knows he can let spending get out of hand. He depends on his CFO, Bruce Hvidsten, to keep him in check.

“I’m the gas. He’s the brakes,” Tipps said.

Hvidsten (the “h” is silent) says that pretty well sums up their relationship.

“Brent is a visionary who can see around corners. It’s a blast to work with him,” said Hvidsten, 55, who joined On Deck seven years ago.

“We’ve positioned the company over the past several years to see what options are out there. We’re blessed to have that.”

Private equity “tire kickers” have been showing up — but so far Tipps has not been interested in any of them, he said. “When it’s the right time and the right people, I’ll know.”

Personal bucket list

Tipps and his first wife divorced in 2017. He remains close with his son, Graydon, 23, who works with a restaurant group in Oklahoma City, and his daughter, Berkley, a 19-year-old sophomore at Baylor University in Waco.

Brent married Kimberly, 38, six years ago. They live in Keller, have a “chill-out home” in laid-back San José del Cabo, Mexico, and enjoy whirlwind traveling. They’ve just checked off a trip to Alaska from their bucket list.

Kimberly has taught Brent the value of a savings account — something he’d never had before — while she’s learning to be slightly less cautious.

“At heart, I’m definitely not a risk taker,” Kimberly said. “But I’m becoming more of a risk taker given Brent’s track record of his risks turning out really, really well.”

What about his Can-Am dune-buggy racing, which can be extremely dangerous?

“That’s the risk-taking that I find scary, terrifying actually,” she said. “But I support his bad habit.”

Joe Croce is amazed but not surprised by his former employee’s accomplishments.

“The things we tried to rein him in on are the reasons he’s been so successful,” Croce said. “There’s a Tom Brady quote, ‘If you really want to be successful you have to get uncomfortable because that’s where great things happen.’ Brent’s comfortable being uncomfortable.”

Accuracy matters and The News wants it right

Errors hurt credibility, but our journalists have a system in place

Ann D’Amico and husband Dennis devour The Dallas Morning News every day, wading through news stories, comics, the Opinion section.

Ann spends up to 45 minutes with the paper; Dennis gives it at least an hour.

The retired advertising professionals and Dallas residents are longtime subscribers who years ago both majored in journalism.

They know, as Dennis says, that “Reporting is a difficult job.”

Yet the energetic, plainspoken couple have no patience for grammatical errors, typos and factual mistakes, including missing information.

Ann points to a story in late May about a homicide victim, part of a yearlong series that is chronicling the life of every person slain in Dallas in 2024.

It was, she says, “lacking in facts, and that really bothered me.”

Among her questions:

Exactly where did the killing happen? If he died as a part of a shootout, as the story said, did the victim have a gun, too?

Who else was shooting, and why?

Based on my inbox, I’d say accuracy is one of the most important issues for readers.

They are baffled when we get our facts wrong or leave out relevant material. To them, it all adds up to inaccuracy.

“Grant Moise [publisher of The News ] says that the paper strives to give the reader high-quality content that allows them to make informed decisions,” Ann says. “Well, you can only make informed decisions if you have facts.”

Like those who accuse us of deliberate bias, the angriest of those readers choose the worst narrative — that our journalists are indifferent to the truth, animated by a casual disdain for our audience.

I don’t buy that.

But they are right to see this as a challenge that strikes at the heart of our credibility.

In late May, a Metro piece included both a misspelled name and an incorrect date.

In other stories in recent weeks, we used “diffuse” when we meant “defuse,”

“lay” when we should have used “lie,” and

“alright” instead of “all right.”

The headline on a front-page story last month incorrectly referred to mifepristone as an anti-abortion drug.

Another Page 1A story in June contained a missing word and a grammatical error.

Late last month, a headline said that Kevin Costner spent $100,000 on his latest film project. The correct figure: $100 million.

The News keeps a database of its errors.

It includes mistakes by everyone from photojournalists to reporters to top editors.

No one is exempt.

From October 2022 to late May 2024, our staff compiled 471 errors.

Our journalists churn out at least 2,400 pieces of content every month, and so judging by published corrections, it appears that they are accurate most of the time.

We also deserve credit for tracking and publishing corrections, as many media outlets do neither.

Still, we are laboring to build, and rebuild, trust with readers, and mistakes make that task harder.

This is not lost on Executive Editor Katrice Hardy.

“We talk about it a lot,” Hardy says. “We want to really make sure that we’re accurate. We understand that we’re going to make mistakes; we’re human. But the point is that we make as few as possible.”

That means editors are asking reporters, “Where’d you get the information from? Is it a reliable source?” Hardy adds. “Are you checking, going over the names, the dates, even looking at the quotes that you’re using? Is there another place where you could check this information?”

On a typical day, Assistant Managing Editor for News Steve Bruss says, we publish 80 to 100 pieces of content on dallasnews .com.

In this highly competitive media market, immediacy and accuracy often collide, and sometimes accuracy loses. Bruss says many errors are routine — misspelled names, mislabeled neighborhoods, misused words.

He is not minimizing these mistakes.

In fact, just the opposite: He points out that, over time, small errors still blunt readers’ trust.

For example, after spotting a grammatical mistake in the opening paragraph of a Metro story on July 2, Ann D’Amico thought, “ ‘This person doesn’t know what they’re talking about.’ That’s not fair, but it’s my first instinct.”

Our editors have taken a series of steps to improve accuracy.

The corrections database is one.

The news department is also tweaking processes to allow for more stories to be read by copy editors before they go up on our website.

A couple of reporters teach a fact-checking course once a quarter. Newsroom leaders plan to bulk up the onboarding process for newcomers, with an emphasis on giving them more information about the area.

And editors keep telling reporters to slow down.

The stakes could not be higher.

In our Wild West media ecosystem, getting the facts right is one of the few advantages we hold over competitors. It is the quickest, most reliable way to distinguish ourselves from those who traffic in conspiracy theories, unfounded rumors and lies.

Accuracy is one way to perhaps win back readers who’ve abandoned mainstream media. And it is a sure path to keeping readers like the D’Amicos happy.

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