Ashley interview

Ashley Sheridan, owner of Wingman, explains that Wingman is a food truck business with three fixed units in sports clubs. The idea started when Ashley, a pub owner, saw an opportunity to attract families to the club during COVID by setting up a food truck and beer garden. The business grew quickly and they opened two more locations. Managing all three was challenging at first, but they tightened up their procedures. The decision to open secondary locations was not scientific, but based on opportunities and convenience. So, hello there. This is Alexander Nolan, student number 22502156, and I'm here with Ashley Sheridan. How are you doing, Alex? I'm good, thank you, Ashley. How are you? Good. Ashley is the owner of Wingman. Ashley, if you wouldn't mind telling us a little bit about what Wingman is. Okay. So, Wingman is a food truck business. We have three fixed units in three set locations in sports clubs. We operate just at the weekend of the chef-led food operation, and it started around during COVID. And we also do catering from a central production kitchen. So, that's our business. So, Ashley, when you came up with the original idea for Wingman, how did it start, and how do you grow that into an actual operating business? So, it started because I'm a member of NABRO GAA Club, and I coached the 2009 boys, so they're now under 15. So, I'd actually have close connections with a lot of people in the hierarchy of the club. The lounge and bar area for the club has been in decline, and when they found out that I was a pub owner, they were handing me for help and assistance on how to grow the business. When COVID came, I realised that there could be a good opportunity in this, that if we set up a food truck and a beer garden, it might actually attract the family business back down to the club, that the families would arrive, they'd have a beer or a glass of wine, let the kids play in the pitches while they can relax. So, that was the idea. So, we started with one small food truck, only cost me like eight grand to set up, but it grew quite quickly, it became quite popular, and then within the first year, we realised there could be more to this. Were we onto something unique? Were we absolutely brilliant? Oh, we do that, we made it so busy because the first van had to be quickly replaced by something three times the size of it because of the volumes that we were doing. But we also knew, you know, don't pat yourself on the back too much, this is a COVID environment, it's really, really artificial, nobody has anything to do at night time, you know, so don't get carried away with your setup. So, we decided that we could at least do one more and mimic as much of the first setup as we could. So, we opened up a second one in Malhide movie club, and it was a post-COVID kind of operation there, and that was a bit of a reality check for us because we didn't have the customers queuing out the door, we had to work hard like a traditional business to get them. And then after about a year, we developed that into a kind of a good business, and we decided it was time to go again. And then we got our third one, and we opened that in Coolock. And that was another reality check because it was even more difficult yet again to drive sales for that one. But because they're mobile units, they have wheels, and I do have exit plazas and stuff, so I was able to move it to a different location, and it's settled there. So, that's how we've developed our three. So, actually, when, from opening up the first one to kind of constantly managing all three at the start, how did you find it, kind of managing all these three businesses in comparison, just managing the first one at the start? Yeah, it certainly became a bit more challenging managing the second ones, like going from one child to two. Our systems were left seriously wanting. We didn't have any good operational procedures in place. So, you'd be a typical Friday night. You'd be in one location, and you'd get a phone call from the other to say, oh, we've no burger boxes left. And she'd be like, oh, right. I'll leave here now with the case, and I'll drop it down to you. And then just as you're pulling in the case with the burger boxes, you get another phone call. Have you left yet? We've no burger buns. And you're like, oh my god, you're going back again. So, we're much tighter on that. But that was definitely a challenge. Operationally, we were a little all over the place, but we had to learn our lesson and tighten up our procedures and that. Perfect. And just finishing up here, actually, when you were coming up with the ideas for the secondary locations, did you spend much time trying to, how long did it take you to figure out, right, this is where you want to be? Well, we probably didn't spend a sufficient amount of time on it. We might have gone on impulse. We had been considering the idea of going into an industrial estate, as opposed to going into a sports club. And because we figured we didn't need to be, our model didn't need to be on High Street. We could operate a dark kitchen out of an industrial unit. But we had been approached by one club who had lost their caterers. The Malahide Ruby Club had lost their caterers. So, we were approached by them. And I liked the idea of going to Malahide Ruby Club because it meant I would get a massive kitchen where we would do all the banqueting and functions for the Malahide Ruby Club. I would also get a pitch for my second wingman location. But I would be able to use the big oversized kitchen as my central kitchen for making the sauces and standardising our recipes. So, it was easy enough to make the decision to go at Malahide because I kind of got that big kitchen thrown in almost for free. We had looked at other clubs too, but negotiations were tricky. One club we were interested in, we nearly went with. But there was a lady already using their kitchen on site for gluten-free cookies, and she used it for two mornings a week. And so, that meant we couldn't share the kitchen. So, I would have to spend about 40 grand building another kitchen on site, just because there was another lady there twice, two mornings a week. So, there's a few different reasons why we ended up in the second location. It was not very scientific. Okay. Well, Ashley, thank you very much at the end of the interview. And yeah, thank you very much. Okay, no problem. Jesus, that was short.