MOSTLY LUCK.

I've always said I've been lucky.

Not in a fake humble way. Just… if I'm being honest, a lot of things broke the right way at the right time.

Dot-com era—I was there. Not because I saw the future. I just showed up and didn't leave.

Sold a house at the top of the market. Not strategy. Timing.

Built a career that, objectively, worked out.

Right place. Right moment. Over and over.

People like to clean that up later and call it planning.

It wasn't.

So now when I tell people I'm opening a BBQ restaurant, I can see the assumption.

Something went sideways. Burned out. Reinventing myself after watching too much Top Chef.

That's not it.

I'm not burned out.

I'm not out of options either.

If anything, I've just been paying attention.

Restaurants have always been there.

While I was building a career that had nothing to do with food, I kept working in them. Nights, weekends, whatever made sense.

Not for the money.

Because I liked it.

It's simple. You either get it right or you don't. No hiding.

About five years ago, it shifted.

No big moment.

I finished building my house in Chicago—an old Packard showroom I turned into a loft, with a woodshop that made absolutely no financial sense.

I did most of it myself.

Because I wanted to understand how it worked.

That's when it clicked.

G&C BBQ Company stopped being “someday” and became “I'm doing this.”

Named after my parents.

My mom fed people. A lot of them.

My dad worked and made sure things got done right.

Different approaches. Same standard.

So yeah—maybe this is luck too.

The fact that I get to choose this isn't lost on me.

But luck doesn't do much on its own.

It just puts something in front of you.

This isn't a reset.

It's just the thing that's been there the whole time, finally getting my full attention.

Six years out.

Plenty of time to get it right.

Or just enough time to get it wrong in interesting ways.

Either way, I'll keep track.

For now, this is where I'll do that.

This won't be polished or linear. It'll be whatever I'm working through as I try to build this the right way.

One day it's menu design.

Another day it's whether silver skin actually matters on ribs.

At some point I'll explain why a BLT goes wrong more often than it should.

And eventually, we'll get to whether tater tots deserve respect.

They probably do.

It's not a short list.

That's the point.

And somewhere along the way, through all of this, we're going to open this restaurant together.