“We’re basically bursting at the seams with elevated talent after so many years of breaking records at that particular location,” he says. “It actually put a fire under our butt to open a new one because we would have lost some of these employees eventually. The talent of the team was getting too big for one location.”
Rockit Ranch found a nearly 8,000-sqaure-foot space that was formerly occupied by a Cantina Laredo in the ground level at the Icon in the Gulch condo tower.
The move is being executed in tandem with Nashville-based Fresh Hospitality, a group that owns more than 100 restaurants, including Biscuit Love and Martin’s Bar-B-Que.
The journey began in earnest around seven years ago when Dec asked his social media networks where to find the best barbecue in Nashville. The answer came from a partner of Fresh Hospitality, which at the time was just getting started. They became friends and Dec started to nurture an acquaintance with the city itself.
“It was out of home but close to home,” Dec says of Nashville. “…I will be there quite a bit just because I am such a huge fan of Nashville, which is weird because being born and raised on the streets of Chicago I never thought I would find myself there. … For being in the city my whole life I feel like it has a great mix of all kinds of awesome things, people, business, traffic. It’s just kind of the perfect nest for our first one.”