Bryan Johnson has been in the restaurant business most of his life, and he has come a long way from working as a dishwasher for Fish Nest Family Restaurant in Nashville.
Johnson, who owns Lost Creek Grill, located at 1834 Airport Road, said his intention was to retire to his farm after selling the last of his restaurants.
"I sold my last restaurant about six years ago before I bought this one, and to be quite honest with you, I actually bought this with the intention of helping a young man who worked for me since he was 15 years old," he said.
"I was wanting to help him get started.
"Me and my family were going to help him for a while, and we were gonna turn it over to him. It was more than he can handle by himself, so now we've got my son in here that's helping him. My youngest son is also helping him, and they're working together as a team."
Johnson said the reason behind the success of his restaurants is simple -- pride.
"One thing I tell my customer base is that most people think if they say something they're complaining, but in my world, it's not," he said.
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"I've realized that every complaint is not legit.
"Some things are just somebody's taste buds or preference or whatever it might be. But I also know that we're not perfect, and so we take very much pride in checking on every tabletop."
Lost Creek keeps a manager watching over the restaurant service to make certain it "meets our standards," Johnson said.
"What I will tell my customers is, 'Look, if something's wrong, you're not complaining. You're helping me run a better business,'" he said. "Because there's been many times in my career that a customer called me over and said, 'Hey, Bryan. This don't taste right to me,' and it'd be wrong. But they saved me from repeating that mistake over and over that night. We were able to fix it and get back on track."
While Lost Creek Grill is not the largest restaurant, Johnson said he does not have any plans to expand.
"I could add more tables," he said. "I have room to add more in here, but if I slow my ticket time down. For example, if you and your wife, spouse, friend, whoever comes in and sits down for a meal, if I can get that meal out to you in a timely manner, I can get this table emptied and turned quicker. If the tickets start to drag in that kitchen, everything just snowballs, and the next thing I know I have you waiting at a tabletop an hour on your dinner, instead of 20, 25 minutes."
Johnson owns a farm in Pearcy that helps provide some of the beef for the restaurant.
"We really play this thing together with our farm," he said. "We raise a lot of our beef and stuff that we serve on our special board, and so the two really play together and they work together. It really works well."
Q&A with Brian Johnson
The following are excerpts from the interview with Brian Johnson, presented in a question-and-answer format:
Q: Favorite restaurant?
A: I don't have favorite restaurants. I have favorite dishes. ... Hot Springs is blessed with a ton of really good independent restaurants. I'm not much of a chain guy. ... But in this town there's a lot of people who do a lot of things well.
Q: Go-to comfort food?
A: If you're talking about just good comfort food, I would say it's just hard to beat a homemade pot of chicken and dumplings or something like that. That really brings me back to my childhood.
Q: Favorite thing about the Hot Springs area?
A: The people. I love this area; I love the people. When I was a kid, I lived a lot of places. There's very few places you can come and just have genuine people like you do in this town. I mean, I've got a restaurant full of them every night that care about you, that care about your family, and it's genuine.
Q: Advice for someone getting started in the restaurant business?
A: Honestly, just know what you're doing. Get the experience before you jump in. The restaurant business has the highest fatality rate of any business you can get into. More independent restaurants go out of business within five years than any other business you can get into, and that's sadly a fact. There's a lot of people that can cook good food, but cooking good food for you and 10 or 15 other people is a lot different than cooking good food for 500 people a night and you need it in a timely manner and it's got to be fresh when it comes out.
The exterior of Lost Creek Grill is shown. - Photo by Lance Porter of The Sentinel-Record
A bowl of shrimp and grits is shown at Lost Creek Grill. - Photo by Lance Porter of The Sentinel-Record