Rick Lampton is doing what he loves. For 25 years he’s managed restaurants whose mission is providing families an enjoyable meal experience in comfortable settings. As the managing partner in a group that includes six stores in Duluth, Superior and Grand Rapids (with a seventh store ready to open in May), Rick has a good regional perspective about the economy.
“Our business is structured with five partner groups who own and manage 27 operations in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa and North Dakota,” Rick explained. “Our store brand names throughout that region are Boulder Tap House, 7 West Taphouse and Grizzly’s Grill.
“In my partner group, we operate Boulder Taphouses that sell burgers, wings and beer, while the Grizzly’s stores offer a broader range of homemade menu items.
“I’ve been doing this work since 1995,” said Rick, “and I enjoy it. The pandemic challenge is just one more for us to manage, and so far, we’re weathering the storm pretty well.”
Rick grew up in Chisholm. After studying business at Northwest Technical College, he was hired to manage a Ponderosa Steak House in Duluth. The person who bought that restaurant is now the majority partner of the business group of which Rick is part, and he was apparently impressed with Rick’s work in Duluth.
“Each partner group is responsible for advertising, daily operations, and menu development for the stores within their region,” explained Rick. “We work with our other partner groups to leverage our purchasing power to obtain favorable pricing from food and beer suppliers.”
The Grand Rapids Boulder Taphouse was opened in August 2019, and Rick is very appreciative of the service that Jared Pink, Grand Rapids State Bank’s business banker, provided.
“Jared took all of our concerns to heart and went above and beyond what we expected from a banker,” Rick added. “During projects like this you always run across things we didn’t anticipate, and we had a couple of things occur during our construction that resulted in some overages. Jared worked with us to move things along quickly.
“We were so appreciative of the service that we’ve worked with Grand Rapids State Bank to finance our purchase of the Grand Rapids property as well as finance our Superior property and the new Duluth store, the Blue Rock Coffee and Wine Cafe. That opening has been delayed slightly due to the pandemic, but we’ll move forward soon because we’ll offer a take-out service that people want now.”
Rick noted that, like everyone else, coping with the current lockdown conditions has changed communications with his operations team. “The first day of the lockdown, I received more than 500 text messages. Things have settled now, so I work from home part of the day, and then get out and about to visit our sites in the area.
“We were really looking forward to our first summer at the Grand Rapids store, and we still are, but it will be different than what we had hoped for. However, we’ve been very pleased with how well the community has received us, and we anticipate that we’ll be just fine.”