Sleepy Business

Bob did.

Bob loved business. He owned a little gravel business in Smithers, a small town in northwestern BC. Business was ok … the real value in owning the gravel business was that it helped him be competitive in his other construction businesses and led him to think about vertical integration, that is owning different businesses that help each other.

One day Bob realized there was another opportunity to start a new business in Smithers .. one that would leverage his existing companies experience. Bob wanted to build a hotel. Now the only problem was that he had no real hospitality experience. But that didn’t stop Bob.

Borrowing $5,000 from his father and using his own construction team, Bob built a sleepy 36 room motel. Things went so well that he built another the next year in nearby town and then another the year after that. Pretty soon Bob had a chain of hotels right across Western Canada … which is when he realized that owning restaurants that could feed the hotel guests would also be a good idea. So he started owning and an acquiring them.

Today, Bob is a billionaire whose company owns over 60 Moxies Restaurants, 12 Shark Clubs and 37 Dennys restaurants right across Canada ... with many attached to or located near his company’s 40 or so “sleepy” hotels … Sandman Inn and Suites.

Sandman is a great idea sometimes one business success can lead to another business success and another.