Aloha Hospitality’s Origin Story, Growth, and Servant Leadership

Tal Clark: Hello everyone and welcome to the Instant Payments Podcast. I’m your host, Tal Clark. I’m the CEO of Instant Financial, a fintech company that’s modernizing payments and payroll for hourly workers and their employers. I worked in the payments industry for 30 years, and I’m glad you’re tuning in today. If you like what you hear, please do us a favor and subscribe, leave a review, or suggest a future guest.

This podcast features payments and payroll leaders to discuss some of their challenges and what technologies they’ve used to improve their workplace and the lives of their workforce. Today’s guest is legendary wingman, Spencer Baumhower, president of Aloha Hospitality, a family-owned and operated full-service group of restaurants in Alabama.

Spencer started with Aloha in 2008 as a busser and worked his way through nearly every role in the restaurant from server and bartender to general manager, field training operations, COO, and now [00:01:00] president. Founded in 1981 by his father, Alabama football legend and All-Pro Miami Dolphin, Bob Baumhower, Aloha Hospitality has grown to 15 full-serve casual restaurants across five concepts and employing 1,000 people.

Aloha’s mission is to create great feelings and value for both guests and team members. Spencer is a passionate advocate for that mission with a particular focus on helping people succeed. He’s also a former collegiate athlete and lifelong sports and food enthusiast.

Welcome, Spencer. Where are you joining us from today?

Spencer Baumhower: Hey, good to see you, Tal. I’m actually in the, the great city of Montgomery, Alabama today. So, just wrapping up actually our, past couple of days we’ve had our general manager conferences, so brought everyone together statewide and been meeting in Montgomery.

Tal Clark: That’s cool. So you’re up a little bit north. You, so you and I both have the blessing of being able to live on the Gulf Coast. So. 

Spencer Baumhower: The Gulf Coast. Yeah. Yes, sir.

Tal Clark: Good stuff. So when are you back in Fairhope?

Spencer Baumhower: I’ll be back [00:02:00] tomorrow actually. We just opened a new store, so we’ve got 16 now in, in a town called Millbrook, Alabama, which is just north of Montgomery. I’ll be there today for a little bit popping in, but kind of Prattville, Millbrook area so we’re really excited about that.

So been going very well.

Tal Clark: That sounds good. Just as a little bit of an aside, we take, we started a lunch with our clients that we do, with all of our employees in Pensacola. So there’s about 10 employees over here, and we’ve gone to different, different of our clients, and we started that about three months ago, and we’re headed your way Friday.

So. 

Spencer Baumhower: I saw that.

Tal Clark: Yeah, you’re-

Spencer Baumhower: So hope, hopefully I’ll be back in time, meet you fully. 

Tal Clark: That will be great. So we’ll look forward to it. Well, look, as we dive in here a little bit, tell me what does “legendary wingman” mean to you?

Spencer Baumhower: Well, first of all, I had to one-up my dad, right? So, forever and ever, on his card, his [00:03:00] title was Head Fry Cook, right? And, obviously, my, my dad’s my hero. He’s been my best friend for forever, taught me everything I know. Very blessed to have really great parents that poured into me.

So, I had to one-up him though. So, came up with the wing station was my favorite station kinda as I was coming up. And so, someone, was like, your title should be Legendary Wingman. That, that sounds pretty good. And I was like, “You know what? It does sound good.” So I like the wingman part.

Tal Clark: Well, that’s great. Well, for people that don’t know a ton about Aloha Hospitality, just give us a little bit more background on it. Well, really, I, I’d love to talk a little bit about your dad’s story in founding the business a little bit. So let’s sort of start there and kind of walk us up to today.

Spencer Baumhower: Yeah. So, to kind of make a long story short, my dad played football for the University of Alabama for Coach Paul [00:04:00] “Bear” Bryant. Didn’t start playing until his junior year, so he was a little under-recruited. Actually almost signed with Vanderbilt and Coach Bryant was, it was after signing day and Coach Bryant was watching film on a lot of their signees and saw this defensive lineman whooping one of their top offensive lineman pro- signees and was like, “Well, where is this guy?” And, so he ended up signing with Alabama, got drafted by Miami, played for Don Shula, and was in Miami for 10 years. His rookie year was ’77, ’78.

So, anyways he had a teammate, said, “Hey, Bob, let’s go to lunch.” And there was a place down there called Wings & Things, and a guy named Eddie Hauk was, that was running it, who was from Buffalo, New York, and he kind of brought Buffalo Wings to South Florida. And, back in those days, Buffalo Wings didn’t really exist. It wasn’t really a thing yet. So Dad had no idea what he was getting into and [00:05:00] the way he tells it is, they get there and and a line was out the door, and first time he ever had a Buffalo Wing, right? And, obviously back then, you could buy 40 pounds of wings and you’d get 40 pounds free.

It was kind of the scrap of the bird, which is the total opposite of what’s going on the past 15, years. But, anyways, just fell in love with the product and saw all kinds of people there, blue collar, white collar, all, all different types of ethnicities and just had a crazy idea.

Said this would probably do really well on campus in Tuscaloosa back home in Alabama. And, so he befriended Eddie, and he was a huge Dolphins fan, and so, he kind of taught him the, the wing thing. And we ended up opening up our first restaurant on the strip while he was still playing for Miami.

Tal Clark: Oh, wow.

Spencer Baumhower: In Tuscaloosa in 1981. In Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

So we were the first company [00:06:00] to actually introduce Buffalo Wings to Alabama way back when, so still slinging them 45 years later. 

Tal Clark: That’s crazy. And, I think that may have been the first one. I went in of your guys’ restaurants. Before I knew you guys, my son was a swimmer, used to swim all over the country, and we went, we were in Tuscaloosa and ate there a bunch of times when we were in Tuscaloosa, ’cause the kids loved it, man.

It was great. So. 

Spencer Baumhower: Yeah 

Tal Clark: Well, you have other brands too that you operate under now. So what… Yeah, go into that a bit.

Spencer Baumhower: We’re multi… Yeah, so we’re multi-concept. Obviously, Baumhower’s is kind of the bell cow. but we have a fine dining concept called Dauphin’s. Actually just got voted best fine dining restaurant in Mobile, Baldwin County in south Alabama. it’s atop the Trustmark Building in downtown Mobile.

So, Dauphin’s is a great, really cool concept. A lot of fresh fish and feature a lot of things coming out [00:07:00] of our Gulf down here. And, you have Las Florditas. It’s a Cuban speakeasy. So, really cool place. We actually got to go to Cuba, and I can get into that story later. But, and then we have a new concept.

Kind of the new kid on the block for us is called Wing Fingers. So it’s a fast casual, drive-through concept but we’re 100% fresh, make all our dipping sauces, hand-bread all our chicken, hand cut all of our produce for our salads. So… and we’ve got the best breakfast in the world.

So we’ve got, Conecuh Sausage is really big here in Alabama. It’s kind of has a cult following. So, we, do some really good Conecuh, egg and cheese biscuits. We’re hand cracking all our eggs. Jimmy Dean sage sausage. So really good.

Tal Clark: Well, that’s great. So where is the Cuban Concept? I’m not familiar with that. Where are the locations? Is it close by here or up in Tuscaloosa?

Spencer Baumhower: Yes, down- downtown Mobile. sorry about that.

Tal Clark: No it’s fine.

Spencer Baumhower: Downtown Mobile and, it’s in the same building that [00:08:00] Dauphin’s is in and, so, and, kind of make another… To put a long story short, there’s a place called El Floridita in Havana, Cuba, and, that’s Hemingway kind of made it famous.

That was his hangout spot, and my dad’s a huge, when he was playing for Miami, he’s a huge, boating, fishing, Hemingway guy. And so El Floridita is the birthplace of the daiquiri, right? So, it’s been there for, I don’t know, 100, 150 years, something like that. And so we got to go down there.

They taught us how to make their daiquiri and so that’s what we’re doing at Las Floriditas.

Tal Clark: Well, that’s great. And a great story, man. Great story, and I’d love to… maybe we’ll get your dad on here again one day or get both of you guys and do this again one day and just talk through it more. But, super cool background and story. So, tell me a little bit about, we talked a little bit about, so that’s the background, the history, and kind of what you guys do from a brand perspective.[00:09:00] 

Tell me a little bit more about your journey through the organization. I did it at a high level, but, you’re now leading a thousand employees, and I think it’s obvious your dad has entrusted you with a ton of responsibility in making sure this business continues growing. So talk a little bit about your journey and, where you are today in getting things 

Spencer Baumhower: Yeah. Yes, sir. So, like you were saying, I kinda got started pretty young, obviously, helping wherever Dad wanted me. So, bussing tables and got into serving and as I got into college, graduated from the University of Alabama, and so still tried to keep learning the business, right?

Tal Clark: Yep.

Spencer Baumhower: So that’s kinda how I got started. Ended up graduating, and wasn’t quite like most college kids. Wasn’t 100% sure what I was wanting to do. I thought my dream job for a while would be kinda be front office or some type of [00:10:00] operations on a football team or sports team growing up around sports, right?

And, but I always loved the, the hospitality business and mainly the people aspect. And, like I was alluding to earlier, my dad’s always been my hero and he’s always… there’s a lot of sports folks that will get in a partnership, and they’ll put their name on a building, and it’ll be some type of sports bar and grill, right?

Right.

Just a name to kinda help with the branding. But, my dad’s an operator, and I mean he’s one of the, I mean, in my opinion, the best to ever do it, operations-wise and has taught me everything I know. And, he was the one, I remember as a kid, he’s driving to different restaurants, meeting with the general managers, meeting with the server, I mean temping grease on the wing station making sure it’s at it needs to be.

So, I always wanted to help him as well ’cause growing up watching him [00:11:00] work so hard, obviously the restaurant business is the toughest business in the world as far as I’m concerned. So when I graduated, he actually tried to keep me out of it. He tried to push me in other directions just because he knows what, what, kinda comes with the territory.

But I ended up getting into it and became an assistant manager at one of our concepts and quickly fell in love with it. And what I really fell in love with was the people aspect. And, the restaurant business there’s a lot of similarities, hospitality business, there’s a lot of similarities to being on a sports team or to being a part of a team, an athletic team from my background.

So it’s all about people and finding ways to recruit top talent and then do whatever you can do to help develop them, both as people and as professionals, for the team to be successful, [00:12:00] right? And so I quickly learned that was the only way to be successful in this, really any business, but especially the hospitality business.

And so, that’s kinda how I got into it. And just, from there as I became an assistant manager, I was running one of our, I was the cafe bar manager. Just quickly started moving up, trying to help and learn what I could learn to quickly impact what I could impact in a positive fashion.

Tal Clark: That’s good. That’s outstanding. It’s a great story, man. I love the story of you guys’ business. And, one thing as I introduced you there, I, don’t think I realized, you played collegiate sports as well. Did you play football at Alabama as well?

Spencer Baumhower: Yeah. Yes, sir. Played for Coach Saban for a couple years, so, really great. It was a really great experience. Learned a lot, so.

Tal Clark: Okay, what years were those?

Spencer Baumhower: 2013 to 2015. 

Tal Clark: Okay. Yeah, well that’s, that’s crazy. Was there a national, was there a national championship in those years somewhere?

Spencer Baumhower: [00:13:00] No, actually, I, I just missed it. You know, I, I graduated actually December of ’14 and they ended up winning the national championship in 2015, just missed it there unfortunately.

Tal Clark: Okay. Well, that’s good to know as well. So, you mentioned employees, and you guys in the restaurant space, everyone knows there’s a lot of turnover there, right?

And it’s difficult hiring and managing and training and the whole thing, right?

Spencer Baumhower: Yes, sir.

Tal Clark: What do you draw on from even athletic experience or just now your leadership experience that you developed? How do you, when you’re bringing a new employee in, what are some of the things you’re looking for and sharing with them, just trying to help them along the journey as well?

Spencer Baumhower: Yeah, no. So I was telling this story the other day, is ’cause I’ve… like I said, I’ve been very blessed to have a lot of really good leaders in my life, right, that I can draw from. Obviously my parents, different coaches [00:14:00] and whatnot.

And what I’ve learned pretty early on, and, you know, there’s a saying, “Success leaves footsteps,” right? And whether it was the stuff my dad grew up coaching me on, or different coaches, hearing from Coach Saban or my coach at UAB, Coach Callaway. When it, when it comes down to it from what I was able to learn essentially is that you gotta find folks that genuinely care, right?

And especially our business, you gotta have born to serve folks, right? And your leadership teams, which is we… like I was, was telling you past two days we’ve been talking about leadership and, how do we, how are we able to take the next step, right, as, as an organization, as a people group, to try continue to grow.

And, and the only way we can grow is through [00:15:00] recruiting great folks that care and then being able to develop them. So, there’s all types of different leadership techniques or whatnot, but what we’re… what really comes down to it that we’re really big on is servant leadership.

And so, that’s a huge concept with us and genuinely caring for your people. My dad’s always said, “You gotta see your folks and they gotta know you care about them, and know that you’re vested, and know that you’re real.” You can’t just punch the clock. 

And so, there’s a lot of different concepts or things, but that would that’s really the type of leadership that we push with all our folks that, we want folks in our restaurants in leadership positions to know that leadership is influence.

That there’s a lot of our restaurants, we got 100, 120 folks, a lot of young folks working in there and the leadership team has the ability to impact their lives in a positive fashion. And when you’re able to make a connection with your people, and they [00:16:00] genuinely know you care and that you’re there for them, you know, uh, it’s a pretty motivating thing.

So most folks can get behind that, and they tend to hang around and wanna be a part of something special, and creating what we would call legendary guest experience, right? So, you know, I kinda said a lot there, but that’s a big part of what we push day in and day out, and it’s getting our folks to walk that talk, right?

Tal Clark: Yep.

Spencer Baumhower: The theme for our meeting, was walk the talk, so.

Tal Clark: Okay, that’s great. And I would anticipate that you guys are doing a better job of hiring and retention than some of the, some of the larger national brands that are in your space because of the things you just said, right?

You guys legitimately care for the people and train the people, and they know you, and you’re not going anywhere, right? So, I feel like you probably do have, do, uh, have a better record of, of hiring and retention than national brands.

Spencer Baumhower: Yeah, so and [00:17:00] actually turnover is something, that we, every general manager conference, we go through every store’s turnover and we talk about, what we got going on here and the whys and what we’re seeing. But, our average turnover that we just got done reviewing, it’s probably 50 to 65% in the majority of our stores, which for the hospitality business is actually really good.

Tal Clark: Yeah, no doubt. 

Spencer Baumhower: Think when you read different articles, I don’t know what it is now, but usually industry average is like 120, 125-ish.

Tal Clark: Yeah, no doubt. Yeah. Yeah, in the QSR space, I know we talked to QSR that has 300% turnover even in table service is 100 plus, right? So you guys are definitely better than average, I think.

Spencer Baumhower: So, we’re really blessed with that, and we’ve got a lot of really good leaders that work hard to run the plays and do them the right way. I don’t know what a lot of, you know, national chains are running right now, but, I know what we’re running and, we’ve got some good [00:18:00] folks that, like I said, genuinely care and working hard to be true leaders, right?

Not just managers. Folks that really care about their folks and that are vested in their communities and that want to have a positive impact beyond just frying chicken.

Tal Clark: Yeah, no doubt, no doubt. 

Spencer Baumhower: I, I don’t really know how to compare us to from different national chains, but I would say we stack up pretty well.

Tal Clark: Yeah. Yeah, I can, I can validate that you do based on what you’re saying. I think you guys have got probably a significant advantage there for sure.

So Spencer, this is a good place to pause. We’ll pick this up in part two, where we’ll dive deeper into the operations that have made Aloha a success. For our audience, you can find Spencer on LinkedIn.

We’ll link to his profile in the show notes. You can also check out alohahospitality.com to learn more about his company. You can follow along with new episodes at instant.co/podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. Please share the episode and leave a review. Thanks for [00:19:00] tuning in to the Instant Payments Podcast.