What sparked your passion for starting Rollin’ n Bowlin?
Our passion for cooking, healthy living, and incredible real food is what sparked us to start RnB. Both of us owners have been exposed to family cooking and different types of food - French, Italian, Middle Eastern cuisine our entire lives and have coupled that love with our personal love for living an overall healthy active lifestyle. It is absolutely possible to eat healthy without limiting yourself. It does not have to be expensive, tasteless, or leaving you still feeling hungry. We wanted to bring this knowledge to Fort Worth and start spreading healthy vibes through delicious whole-some food and a positive, fun atmosphere.
What has been the biggest and most surprising obstacle you’ve had to overcome as an entrepreneur?
I would say the biggest ongoing obstacle we deal with is staff management and learning how to create the best possible company culture we can for everyone that works with us. We grew from a handful of employees to almost 30 in about a few weeks and have about 40 employees now so we face new challenges every day with managing our 2 teams. Creating a positive, healthy, happy environment while fostering entrepreneurship within our stores and spreading that to our customers is something that is really important to us and that we are learning to create now so it can spread with us as we expand. It is so important to solidify big aspects of business like this when your company is still small!
What does a typical day at RnB Fresh Foods look like for you?
Currently, we are working on finding the next spot where we will open our 3rd location. We have been doing a lot of interviews for interns that can help us with logistics for our current 2 stores so we are able to take the time and attend meetings together in order to continue growing. Our first full-time supervisor will be starting soon so we are able to spend more time “on” the business rather than “in” the business. I wouldn’t say we really have a “typical day” because we are doing something different every single day. Life as an entrepreneur is so incredibly unpredictable! We really have to just take everything head on as it comes up and try to plan as much as we can.
Why did you choose to start and grow your business in Texas?
We started our business while we were attending TCU and really started it because there were not any options that were healthy, accessible, and delicious all combined in Fort Worth let alone close to campus! And more specifically there was not one acai bowl focused establishment in Fort Worth yet, so that was the main reason we opened here. We also love the close knit community vibe in Fort Worth even though it really is a big city. We are so supported by so many people in this community and that is one thing that definitely drove us to stay here and create our roots here.
What do you like best about being part of the RTI FORT cohort?
The mentorship for sure! We have learned so much about running a business in general that we would have most likely learned the hard way if our mentors didn’t introduce it to us when they did. They are giving their valuable time to do nothing but help us grow our businesses strategically which we are so thankful for. Through the cohort, we have also created many valuable connections that have helped us in so many ways. We have learned it is so important to have experienced outside parties consult and give you business advice because there are often times when we are so immersed in something that it is hard for us to back up and see the big picture.