Rachel Cope: The City Nobody Wanted

**Josh Kopel** (0:00)
What are you doing this month to make sure your business grows? Do you mind if I make a suggestion? This month's free Restaurant Marketing Master Class is about one thing, using AI to create an unfair advantage. And not by replacing what makes your restaurant special, but by helping you move faster on the work that actually drives growth. I'm taking my proven tactics, tools and strategies and showing you how to use AI to sharpen your marketing, speed up execution and turn good ideas into action without getting buried in the details. You'll be working with me personally to build these strategies into your business in real time. And because of that, space is limited. But you can sign up for free today by going to restaurantbusinessschool.com Again, you can sign up for free today just by going to restaurantbusinessschool.com I'll see you there.
Now here we go.

**Rachel Cope** (0:53)
I said, it's win or lose, okay? And she said, what if it was win or learn?
And I was like, okay, touche. What if you took time to coach your team and then they go and put out the fires? It actually even better. What if they're so proactive because you've taught them how to look? Because you never have a fire.

**Josh Kopel** (1:13)
Welcome to FULL COMP, a show offering insight into the hospitality industry, featuring restauranteurs, thought leaders, and innovators. Served up on the house.
What if the city everyone dismissed as a chain mecca was actually the smartest place to build a restaurant empire? Rachel Cope didn't wait for permission to prove Oklahoma City wrong. As the founder and CEO of 84 Hospitality Group, she built a multi-concept portfolio by doing what most of us won't, saying no to the wrong opportunities, coaching our team instead of managing them, and treating a secondary market as a competitive advantage rather than a ceiling. In today's conversation, we get into how Rachel identifies the line between opportunity and distraction, why you can't grow to the next thing until your current operation runs without you, and how an athlete's win-or-learn mindset changes the way you build culture. If you're operating in a market people underestimate, including yourself, this one's for you.

**Rachel Cope** (2:22)
The quick summary of my restaurant life, how it got started, was being an athlete my whole life and just being extremely competitive to a fault at times.
And waiting tables in the summers, started working for a local restaurant group here in Oklahoma City. When I got out of college, instead of going to law school or whatever that path I thought was going to be for me, climbed the ladder within that company and realized that there were so many things about the industry that I loved. Entered a contest in 2012 for an old laundry mat space here in Oklahoma City, which was a very interesting story in itself. But lost and then came back with another idea when they couldn't come to terms with the person who won on a lease. And Empire Slice House was born in 2013 here in Oklahoma City.

**Josh Kopel** (3:08)
That's, I mean, 2013 God, doesn't that just seem like a completely different era?

**Rachel Cope** (3:14)
We're so old.

**Josh Kopel** (3:15)
Oh, my God, for sure. I opened my first place in 2010 I mean, just a different world entirely, predating social media and all of these things.
You built in Oklahoma City, right? And I was born and raised in Baton Rouge. So I understand like small to mid-sized metros. But I chose to open in Los Angeles, California.

**Rachel Cope** (3:37)
Yes, brave man.

**Josh Kopel** (3:39)
Right. Well, but also I would say less brave, right? Because there's a larger total addressable market. And I thought that there was a higher likelihood of success. I also didn't worry about exhausting the market with multiple concepts.
I don't think that people think Oklahoma City and they go, that is a place where I can absolutely crush it and build a restaurant empire. What did you see that you think other people don't?

**Rachel Cope** (4:03)
This is something that I speak to people about now when I travel. It hurts me, it pains me when people ask where I'm from when I'm in LA or Chicago or New York. And I say Oklahoma City and I say it with pride. And they're like, man, that's a, how is it there? And the truth is, is that it's amazing. It's a great place to do business.
A lot of those things I see when I travel to those cities, I'm able to take inspiration from and look at maybe what the gaps are here where I live and try to apply that, make it approachable, make it work for our market and manipulate those ideas a little bit so that they fit the people that we're serving here, but also people that are moving here. The cost of doing business here is low. The city continues to grow. And we have the Oklahoma City Thunder. So what else do we need?