Red hot: one of South Florida's favorite, and most successful, rib joints sets out to grow the business by staying true to its family restaurant roots and avoiding the lure of franchising

South Florida CEO, Dec, 2004 by Jeanne DeQuine

It's early one weekday afternoon at Shorty's Bar-B-Q restaurant on US 1, in Kendall, and the first thing you notice is the bustle of the joint. Patrons crowd the concrete floors and 30-foot long wooden picnic tables, carrying on noisy conversations in English and Spanish. The pace is brisk. Barn lanterns and wagon wheels hang every-where. Servers make their way through the throng, carrying platters of barbecue ribs, coleslaw, and corn. From high above, a stuffed boar's head looks on as bricklayers and bankers chow down.

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Welcome to Shorty's, a South Florida staple that plies on hot food and a log cabin style where no customer is a stranger. The folksy restaurant has been a hit with patrons and investors for nearly 54 years and is now faced with how to continue its growth while retaining the character its fans have come to love.

"We want people to sit down and feel like it is home," says Shorty's Inc. CEO Mark Vasturo.

Last year Shorty's four restaurants earned $13 million in revenues and are on track to earn a projected $13.65 million for 2004. The company's four owners--real estate investors Stewart Greenstein, Paul Skoric, Cliff MacBroom and Rick Wallace--say Shorty's has grown between five and 10 percent during four of the last five years (2001 was flat) though none would disclose specific figures.

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Management is looking to broaden the restaurant's customer base but, at least for now, has decided to buck the trend toward franchising. "Franchising versus expanding has been a conversation we have had since I started," the 42-year old Vasturo says.

The pressure to franchise, Vasturo says, arrives daily in emails and telephone calls from potential investors or franchisers. He says Shorty's steady growth means the company is on the right course and has no need to change. It owns and operates three restaurants in Miami-Dade County and one in Davie.

"We are going to put franchising on the table for the future," Vasturo says. The company is talking with one new potential investor and is considering opening another location. "I don't believe in following trends. If you are a leader of a company and you have a strong conviction, you should follow it no matter what other people say," he adds.

Run Family Style

Vasturo, a large man who towers six feet, four inches tall, took over as Shorty's CEO five years ago. With tousled hair and signature short sleeve shirt with Shorty's logo embroidered on it, anyone could mistake him for a nightclub bouncer rather than a CEO. Informality is all part of the Shorty's image.

Shorty's management mantra is keep things small and in the family. It comes from Vasturo's first, and only, job before Shorty's--at Rascal House, the landmark Sunny Isles Beach restaurant on Collins Avenue. He began as a Rascal House host while attending high school, then moved up to other jobs before he was asked to become general manager and take a stake in the company. "I knew the place inside out. That was when they made me a partner," Vasturo says. He was 24 years old at the time, and loved the hectic pace.

"I'm a 'Type A' personality. Every day was a challenge. I liked the action, the chance to meet different people," Vasturo says. But after Rascal House was sold, during the mid-1980s to California-based Jerry's Famous Deli, Vasturo left. "It became more corporate than a family-owned restaurant. It had a different outlook," he recalls.

He credits Shorty's 300 employees with the restaurant's growth and its friendly atmosphere.

"It's about the people on the front line talking to customers," Vasturo says. Many Shorty's employees have children and siblings who also work at the restaurant. Management insists that employees work no more than five days a week in order to leave time to spend with their families. Vasturo himself works only 50 hours, five days a week. "For someone in my position, that doesn't often happen."

Matthew Kearns, 35, took a job as a Shorty's busboy 15 years ago. After busing tables and working in food preparation, he moved up to be an assistant manager at the restaurant's Doral location. Managers and assistants receive between four and seven percent of their restaurant's profits.

"They brought me to where I am today," Kearns says. "They have always taken care of me. When I came in, I wasn't married. I took rides to work. Now one of my kids works at another Shorty's. It becomes a part of you, really."

Vasturo convinced Shorty's owners to establish a management profit sharing program because "that piece was critical in the company's success and stability. Everybody has to have a vested interest. Look at Jet Blue, Southwest Airlines. Their employees feel like part of the company."

Waitresses and other employees do not receive a share of the profits, but are asked for input and suggestions on how to operate the restaurants better. For example, the company added a Latin American dessert called flan to its Doral location menu after waitresses there reported that many customers were requesting it.