Sticky Business

by Mary Ann Hester

The guy who originally said friends and business shouldn’t mix obviously never tasted the ribs (or the peach cobbler) at Sticky Fingers. Friends Todd Eischeid, Jeff Goldstein and Chad Walldorf have created a winning combination of friendship and good food, and countless South Carolina rib (and cobbler) lovers have never been happier.

Todd, Jeff and Chad became friends in the 7th grade at Baylor High School in Chattanooga, Tennessee. College took them in separate directions, but during breaks the three always got back together, pledging to open a business together one day. They meant to first establish separate careers and then use their various areas of expertise to come back together and start “whatever,” but fate intervened in their favor.

Jeff’s parents moved to Charleston, South Carolina, from Memphis, Tennessee, where they had owned The Public Eye, a legendary barbecue restaurant. Finding a severe lack of Memphis-style barbecue in Charleston, the Goldsteins told Jeff they would help him start a new barbecue restaurant. Jeff called Todd and Chad, who were busy skiing the slopes of Colorado. They came to Charleston, and the flavorful idea began to take shape.

The first Sticky Fingers opened in Mt. Pleasant in March of 1992. The guys’ lack of experience did not mean a lack of common sense. They knew that they wanted customers to be treated the way they wanted to be treated themselves, so customer service was, and still is, a top priority. At the beginning, Jeff was in the kitchen, since he had at least worked at his parents’ restaurant in Memphis, Todd was the front man and Chad did the accounting and helped out where he was needed. The Mt. Pleasant Sticky Fingers was a hit from the beginning. As Chad says of their first night, “one of our customers told us that none of the table got what they ordered, but they loved everything they got!” The restaurant was so successful that the catering arm of the business began a year later.

Success was not always smooth, as the partners regularly worked 90 hours a week and Jeff comments that “looking back to our first days in business and how little we knew, it is hard for me to believe how far we have come.” The togetherness could get on everyone’s nerves. A conversation about baked beans almost erupted into a fistfight. The solution? Open a second location and then a third in downtown Charleston so they could each have their own restaurant.

In 1997, an old friend from Chattanooga, Mike Monen, who was working at Sticky Fingers, asked his three buddies about opening a restaurant in their Tennessee hometown. Mike became the fourth partner and opened the first Sticky Fingers outside South Carolina. The Chattanooga location still continues to be one of the busiest in the company. There has been no looking back, as Sticky Fingers currently has sixteen restaurants in five states, a thriving catering and online ordering business and an exciting new venture in the pipeline.

But what about the name? The origin of the name Sticky Fingers is from the Warhol-designed album cover for the Rolling Stones, but as to which of the three guys suggested it, that credit goes to Jeff. There is a hilarious TV commercial on their website talking about the name. Bill Wyman of the Rolling Stones has a café in London called Sticky Fingers Café, so the guys’ attorney suggested they come up with another name. They were set on the name Sticky Fingers, and Bill Wyman let the U.S. trademark application lapse, so they were able to secure it. There was also some uncertainty about the website since the domain name was held by, let’s say, an unsavory industry. As luck would have it, the technology guru from Sticky Fingers found the individual who held the domain name and talked him out of it due to a mutual connection in Judaism.

What is the secret to their success? According to Chad Walldorf, there are three things that make their ribs such a best seller. First, they specify a special cut called St. Louis style, and by now they order a tractor trailer full every week for all their locations. Second, they cook their ribs slowly – at least four hours. And third, their sauces and rubs are built by recipes developed in Memphis and their own chefs “trying something new when they are bored.” Their faith in their sauces has been confirmed not only by diners, but by awards. Their mustard-based Carolina Classic won the 2005 Reserve Grand Champion in the National Barbecue Festival.

The guys are very innovative when it comes to programs and offshoots of the restaurants. In September 2005, they invited nearly 66,000 customers through an email to “Get Sticky. Get Gas.” For a limited time, customers could bring in a gas receipt and use it as a coupon for a lunch or dinner barbecue up to the price of a gallon of gas. “Some people are driving less or staying home...but when we heard that some folks were passing up a six-pack while watching a football game, we drew the line. You shouldn’t have to sacrifice beer or barbecue for gas,” said partner Jeff Goldstein.

They have also developed a thriving catering business, serving an estimated 350,000+ catered meals in their markets. They cater everything from a party of four to 5,000. During the December ice storm in Greenville, they supplied all the Duke Power workers with breakfast, lunch and dinner.

In 2004, Sticky Fingers was chosen by Ernst and Young as the Entrepreneurs of the Year for both South and North Carolina. This resulted in a meeting with other state winners in Palm Springs, where one of the guest speakers was Suzanne Sommers, who has made a fortune selling items on the Home Shopping Network. She invited everyone in the room to call the President of Home Shopping and tell him that “she said to call.” Instead of calling, the Sticky Fingers partners sent him a letter, went to see him in St. Petersburg and are by now probably outselling the Thigh Master.

To learn more about this South Carolina homegrown success story or order some ribs, check out their hard-won and enter-taining website at www.stickyfingers.com.