Jason Jones, a partner in the two Mellow Mushroom restaurants in Chattanooga, stands inside the future Moe's Original Bar B Que in downtown Chattanooga.Jason Jones
* Founding partner: Jason Jones. He grew up on Signal Mountain and moved to Atlanta, where he was studying finance at an Atlanta university and tending bar at a Mellow Mushroom and saw firsthand how well the owners of that business were doing.* Restaurants: Mellow Mushroom eateries in Chattanooga and planned Moe’s Original Bar B Que eatery downtown.* History: In 2001, he moved back to Chattanooga to open the Broad Street Mellow Mushroom. About five years ago, he opened the Mellow Mushroom in East Brainerd. Later in February, he plans to open Moe’s Original Bar B Que.* Keys to success: Jones says that putting time into the restaurants is a key to his success. Picking the right location also is important, he says.
Jason Jones says that when it comes to opening a restaurant, a lot of the eatery's success hinges on finding a good site.
"You've got to pick the right location," says the founding partner in the two Mellow Mushroom restaurants in Chattanooga, adding that he made a couple of correct site decisions for those venues.
Jones, 42, believes he recently made a third. He and his partners plan to open a Moe's Original Bar B Que at 221 Market Street, space that for years had held Rhythm & Brews.
He likes the future Moe's location for many of the same reasons he and his partners opened the downtown Mellow Mushroom just a block away on Broad Street in 2001.
The sites are near the people magnet called the Tennessee Aquarium, and they're close to one of the terminals for CARTA's downtown electric shuttle buses, which themselves carry nearly 1 million passengers annually.
"It seemed like a no-brainer," Jones says.
The Chattanooga man didn't start out wanting to be in the restaurant business and, in fact, almost wound up working on Wall Street. Jones, who grew up on Signal Mountain but later moved to Atlanta, was attending Georgia State University and studying finance. He was tending bar at a Mellow Mushroom in Atlanta and saw firsthand how well the owners of that business were doing.
So, in 2001, he moved back to Chattanooga to open the Broad Street version of the restaurant at a time when there was a lot less synergy on the downtown waterfront. Jones recalls that the building where Mellow Mushroom landed was an old Coca Cola bottling plant and later belonged to the Hamilton County Department of Education.
"When I got here it was a big pit of mud," he says about the former loading dock for the building. However, he adds, that "I got here at the right time. It was a good spot for tourists and locals."
Some five years ago, he and his partners opened another Mellow Mushroom in East Brainerd.
"It's been very good to me," he says.
In addition to location, Jones says he has found that the restaurant business can be time consuming. Putting in the hours is a key to his success, he says.
"It's time intensive. It's capital intensive," Jones says, joking that "only crazy people get in the restaurant business."
He says he choose a couple of franchised restaurants because there's less risk.
"They've got a system in place," Jones says. "A franchise is a short cut. It takes the element of risk out of the equation."
For example, when he started the initial Chattanooga Mellow Mushroom there were already 50 of the restaurant in place. Moe's now has about the same number of eateries, he says.
L.J. Knight, director of operations in the Mellow Mushrooms and a partner in the Moe's, says he'd been looking for the right new eatery in which to invest for the past two or three years. He traveled to a Moe's training location in Colorado recently and was impressed by the company.
"I like the simplicity of the operation," Knight says.
Moe's is slated to open in February and hold 115 seats in the 3,450-square-foot location, Jones says.
"We chose Moe's because it's a funky, renegade little company," Jones says about the business he co-owns with partners Knight and Travis Griffith. "Its culture is a lot like Mellow's."
The Vail, Colorado-based Moe's operates about 50 restaurants, including five open or planned in Tennessee, four in Georgia and 17 in Alabama.