February 4, 2015 at 4:35 p.m.
Owners of Rhinelander Culver's expanding to Ashland, adding another Florida franchise
Owners of Rhinelander Culver's expanding to Ashland, adding another Florida franchise
Josh Clark, owner of the Rhinelander Culver's located on Kemp Street, recently announced he will be opening two new Culver's restaurants in the near future - one in Ashland and another in Port Charlotte, Fla., the second Clark-owned Culver's in the city.
The Ashland Culver's is expected to open Feb. 16, while the plan is to break ground on the Florida location sometime in early March.
The Rhinelander Culver's was the first for Clark. It was purchased on the first day of 2013.
The Port Charlotte restaurant followed shortly thereafter in May. Not only was it Clark's second Culver's, it was Florida's second as well.
"Florida, we always vacation to, so we just decided if they ever opened the territory, we'd look at going down there with a Culver's," Clark said.
"We were actually the second Culver's that was opened in Florida."
Now, two years later, numbers three and four are coming. While he had knowledge of Rhinelander and Port Charlotte before breaking ground, Ashland was a mystery to Clark until a chance meeting on an airplane.
"We actually first heard about Ashland sitting next to a lady on a plane. She said she had a cabin there, and I had never been up there, but she said it was beautiful," Clark said.
"We took a drive up there and it was absolutely gorgeous, and it's on Lake Superior which kind of drew us to it as well, so we started researching it and found a lot (or property) was available on Lake Superior so we'll actually be the first Culver's that's a lakefront property. It's pretty cool."
Being able to dock at a restaurant is a big draw in the Northwoods. Clark said visitors won't be able to bring the boat right up to Culver's immediately, but it is something he's looking into for the future.
"Hopefully by the fall we'll have a remote patio that's built right on the water," he said.
"We can actually get a dock permit (so people can drive boats right up to the restaurant), but I don't know that we'll have it this year. We might look at it next year."
With such a whirlwind of activity in the last two years, outsiders would be hard-pressed to think Clark didn't have a plan when he first opened the Rhinelander burger joint. But, in reality, everything has just fallen into place for him.
"I think it was something that just kind of happened," Clark said.
"After we opened the Rhinelander Culver's, ... we learned the product and the brand and we really liked the brand so we just expanded from there."
That doesn't mean a lot of hard work hasn't gone into the expansion, however. It's been a lot of fun, Clark said, but it has also required a lot of time and energy.
"It's been really good. Obviously, it's a lot of work and there's a lot of stress involved, and as we grow there's all kinds of things that weigh on you. We'll have around 140 employees once we get the fourth one opened, so you have a lot more people that you're providing for," he said.
"There are all kinds of things that adds a little bit of adversity here and there, but overall it's a lot of fun."
Once the two new Culver's are opened, Clark said he'll take a moment to sit back for a second before looking at possible future expansions.
"I think we'll just kind of see how it goes," he said. "Obviously, going from two to four is a huge change infrastructure-wise, so we'll get number three open and rolling and then we'll get number four and, if everything's going smoothly, we might look into other things."
"Florida is really a wide open state right now. I think there are like 12 or 14 (Culver's) open right now, but there's 20 million people in the state of Florida and most of them are Midwesterners," he added.
Also of note, Clark isn't forgetting about the Rhinelander Culver's during the two expansions. He said he's just finished remodeling the bathrooms there, and is planning more work in the near future.
"We just finished remodeling the bathrooms in Rhinelander and we're hoping, probably next fall, to remodel the entire dining room of the Rhinelander restaurant," he said.
Marcus Nesemann may be reached at [email protected].
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