Startup Story - Restaurants & Life (& Softball): Bill Hoopes Of Capital Tacos (Ep 164)
This was a fun one for me as we got to mix softball, life, and restaurants into an episode. Jaime Oikle of RunningRestaurants.com gets with Bill Hoopes from Capital Tacos and Florida PGF Softball for a wide-ranging conversation. Bill's story is inspirational in many ways, and I'm beyond sure that he's going to be successful in his new venture with the energy, passion, and leadership he brings to the table. I think you'll find many parts of this episode resonate with you.
Find out more at https://www.capitaltacos.com, https://www.playflpgf.com.
---
Watch the episode here
Listen to the podcast here
Startup Story - Restaurants & Life (& Softball): Bill Hoopes Of Capital Tacos
Introduction
We have a slightly different type of episode for you. I'm talking to a longtime contact from the softball world who is now in startup mode for a franchise called Capital Tacos. Bill Hoops, welcome. How are you?
I appreciate it. Thanks for having me. I'm doing pretty good. I’m excited. I do a podcast and videocast for softball. I've never been on someone else's show, so this is pretty exciting. It's an honor. I appreciate you bringing me on. I’m excited to talk about not only softball but also tacos, what brought us to this point, and the relationship we've built. My partner Pat and both of our families are working towards a common goal. Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here.
Softball Background
We're pretty unscripted. We know each other from the softball world. I want to have a wide-ranging conversation. We'll get into Capital Tacos and how you made that decision to go forward. Let's start with softball. You wear a lot of hats on the softball field. I see this guy doing everything, events, college recruiting and combines. Talk about it.
My softball journey started as a dad. I didn't play a lot of high school sports. I didn't play a lot of sports when I was a kid growing up. I'm a prodigy of a single mother, so I was working very early. I joined the Navy when I was younger at about 19 years old. I became a father when I was 23 to a beautiful daughter named Jessica. She is currently a junior at Florida Southern playing Division II softball.
The softball journey started when she was 10 or 11 years old. We were in Buffalo, New York. I was a recruiter out there for the Navy. She brought home a flyer from the Little League and said, “We're taking sign-ups.” I said, “We're getting ready to move. When we get to Florida, we'll get you signed up for softball.” She was a gymnast at the time but wasn't in love with it.
We got down to Florida. We got settled. I took over a recruiting station for the Navy in St. Petersburg. Another flyer from the elementary school said Clearwater Little League sign-up. At this point, we got her signed up for Little League, and she was playing. My wife and I were parents watching, and the coach got sick, and the team at Little League had no other volunteers, so we got into softball.
Fast forward a couple of seasons at Little League, then we were introduced to travel ball, started running a couple of travel ball teams, and continued to progress, 10-U, 12-U, 14-U. At 14-U, I brought the Firecrackers organization to Florida. Over a three-year period that I was working with it from 2015 to 2018, or 2019, we had at one point in time 18 or 19 teams running throughout the state.
Because of that, I got contacted by some representatives from PGF who said, “We're running a tournament in the area. We see that you have a pretty good social media group in softball. What do you think about helping us run the tournament?” The funny thing is, initially, I said, “No. I'm too busy.” I'm running eighteen softball teams. I'm a teacher. I just got out of the Navy. I was now teaching at a middle school, and my wife and I were super busy. We had no time for any more softball. We were traveling all over the country. It was crazy.
About six weeks later, those people contacted me again. We listened and we did it. We ran our first event in Gainesville in March of 2018. It was an eighteen-team tournament, one that you may be familiar with, called Gatorball. That was the first PGF tournament in March of 2018. It gained a lot of popularity and it's been a four-year ride since.
I think having ten years of travel ball experience coming into tournament directing gave me an advantage. I knew what I wanted to see as a coach. I knew what I wanted to see in the fields. I knew what I wanted to see in the officials. I wear my anchor on my chest every single day, being a chief petty officer in the Navy. I was in the Navy for seventeen years and made it all the way up to chief petty officer. They teach you about leadership and team building. Softball teaches you about all those things too.
Like any other coach, I did a bunch of crazy stuff and probably wasn't always the best coach, but we learn, we grow, and we get better. You figure out how to do the job. I took that into tournament directing. I am very fortunate to have lived in the state of Florida because, over the last couple of years, Florida has been open. We have been running tournaments. People from all over the country, because they were not open, came to Florida to play.
Probably 30% of that has stuck, and it's a humbling experience. I don't take any of this for granted. I know every week, being a child of a single parent, my mom couldn't afford to do what we do every weekend. There was no way I could have been the best baseball, basketball, or wrestler in the world. There was no way she would have been able to afford it, working two jobs. I take value in that. I know every weekend, people take their time, and they're creating their memories with these kids on these fields.
I stay very humbled by that, and I try to work hard from sun-up to sundown to make these not just tournaments but events, give back to the community, and give back to the kids. It's been a great ten-year softball journey. I feel like it's only getting better. We have a lot more to do in the community and give back, but it's been a lot of fun.
As a travel ball coach, I put almost 80 to 100 kids with Pat Affrunti when we were coaching for the years, and even before that, almost 100 kids through college, through coaching travel ball, and then certainly through the exposure our PGA Tournaments offer. I know that's long-winded to how I got into softball, but I wake up every day wanting to see these kids and see them do well. It's been a lot of fun.
It reminds me of the meme or the story or whatever. You give a girl a softball, and then she wants a bat, then she wants a helmet, and then she wants a glove. You give them a coach and a tournament. Now it's across the country and across the spectrum running giant events with hundreds of teams, sponsors, and goodies.
Chime in from my side. The events are always well-run. You have goodies and you have sponsors. Now you're doing a lot of stuff after the event, awarding folks, and recognition. It's incredible. My story in softball is only a little bit similar in that. You start as a little volunteer, then you coach a little bit more, and you get brought in. It becomes a life and a lifestyle. You're rocking every weekend and traveling around.
Look, it's tattooed on me. It is my life. That's from when we won the 2019 3A state championship with Admiral Faraday. We won at the high school level too. I bleed yellow and red stripes.
Life-Changing Event
Let's transition a little bit, and not yet to the restaurant, but I want to get there. I think for you, a big turning point, and you can tell the story, but you had a significant car crash. That seemed to change your mindset, fitness, lifestyle, and work, whether it's upped your energy and your passion. Talk about that.
You're going to get me emotional on here. I am an emotional guy. I've always been a worker. I've always been motivated. I dropped out of high school when I was sixteen years old and got two jobs because mom said the rent was due and you had to go do what you had to do. At nineteen, I was lucky enough to meet a Navy recruiter who changed my life. I joined the Navy and kicked the door in. I got promoted seven times in twelve years, but I was never a happy person. I was never totally settled. I grew up in a very crazy environment. We were always moving and always on the go. It was a crazy lifestyle growing up. My mother did the best she could, but I was always unsettled.
Right before COVID hit in February 2020, I had started the 2020 high school season. It was opening day. I was still coaching high school at Admiral Thurgood. We had beat Osceola High School for the first time in many years on opening day. Coming off of the state championship, it was a great opening-day win. One of the girls on the Osceola team played on my travel ball team. I took a picture with her and said, “We'll see you in a couple of weeks,” and stopped at my mother's house on the way home. I'm driving home after that.
She lives in Pinellas County. I live north in Pasco. I'm doing 45 miles an hour down 66th Street underneath the Brian Dairy Exchange. Eyes on the road, straight as day. This guy pulls out in front of me. I don't see him. I don't have time to move. I don't have time to weave. I take him pretty much head-on. Every airbag in the car exploded. I got knocked out. I had a bad concussion and a minor laceration on my leg.
Overall, I’m not physically hurt, but over the next six months, I got pretty much awoken to what life I had now. It was a transition from where you came from, what you've done, and how you live. What are you going to do today? What is going to be good today? You have been given another opportunity to be here and make things different. One of the major parts of that was my wife. I love that woman. I say it every single day.
There's social truth out there. You give this guy a camera and he'll take a picture of his beautiful wife.
She is amazing. I can sit here and it's a whole other episode to talk about her. That woman and I at that point in time have been married for sixteen years and never even had a wedding. I could have passed away in that car accident. My wife would have spent sixteen years of her life with me and raised two almost adult children. Not a single wedding picture. We got married in our daughter's daycare center and went to KFC and had an all-you-can-eat buffet for the honeymoon after that. I told her, “We're married now. You can have the world.” She's from North Carolina. That's where we were at the time. We went to KFC.
Fast forward to shortly after that wreck. I was like, “We don't even have a single wedding picture. I was looking at my body. I was looking at my personal life. How I thought, how I acted towards the world. I wasn't some mean, nasty, crazy guy. He's a pretty nice guy for the most part. There are certain things you don't have to do. The choice of whether or not you do them and certain things that you should say to people every day, certain ways you should take care of yourself. That was one of the biggest things I had to learn. I spent every day from the time I was young. I'm telling you my whole story.
I love it. That's why we're here.
From the time I was young until that wreck fighting and working hard and doing for everyone else, ignoring myself. Bringing in 60 minutes a day for me. It is that part that has changed my life. I spent about an hour or sometimes two, working on myself. That's not always lifting weights and running, but sometimes it's looking at what I have, appreciating what I have, reading, writing, talking, being humbled and present in my life, being there for my kids, which I always was, but making sure they know. Long-winded answer, but that wreck changed my whole life. It changed my outlook on my life. That could happen again tomorrow, so I got to make sure every second I have here, I'm doing my best to make a difference. That's what I'm working on.
I appreciate you going there with us. I've seen your post. I think you’re #60ForMe. I've seen you talk about it and I've seen it inspire a number of other people to make changes in their lives and their fitness. They're thinking about it. You need to pull away. For me, it’s the same thing. I’m reading books and one of these books is Atomic Habits. Make it a habit. I've made a little fitness routine a habit for me every day for the last three months or so. It changes everything. It changes your outlook and gives you better energy and a little focus, but it's easy to skip it. I do mine in the morning. I can't skip it. If you skip it, the day goes and then it's hard getting to it later. The day rolls on. You need to make that time for yourself. I agree one hundred percent that it is important.
I do have that #60ForMe. What's crazy is I'm on Facebook a lot. I use it a lot for my business. I advertise a lot for my business. That part of my Facebook, I expect that to go out to the world. I want other people to be like, “Here's what he's advertising. Come do this and be part of the event.” The other part of Facebook that I think people forget about is that the memory button comes up every day. I look at my memories from years past. I got to see my kids when they were 4 and 5. For me, there's nobody that holds me accountable every day except for me. Every day, when those memories pop up, I see them and it reminds me of what I'm working on and where I'm going.
No one holds me accountable every day except for myself.
If that inspires other people because of that, that's truly a humbling experience. For me, it's a reminder every day of where I've gone, where I'm going, and where I want to go. Those Facebook memories, for me, serve their purposes. I look at them every day. That's a lot of why. If you go to that hashtag, it's the whole journey. If people put hashtags on Facebook, would you ever actually click on them? You never actually click on them. It shows the whole story of that label. It's pretty cool. I figured that out 4 or 5 months ago. That hashtag is the last two years of my life.
Transition To Restaurants
It's true. That's what they built those darn hashtags for. A lot of people have fun with them. My day is going great. Hashtag whatever. It's a tracking mechanism. That's why it's there. What's going to be interesting for you and powerful, I'm sure you're excited about it as you transition to the restaurants, is you do have a following, both a network of people, both social. You're going to probably bring that into your restaurant business. It’s pretty hard. I'm sure that's part of the planning. Let's go back a step. How do you take on the idea of a multi-unit restaurant franchise deal? What's going through the brain of a startup guy?
If you're putting your toe in the water to see how cold it is, chances are you're not going to jump in the pool. That's what it is. You have to make sure you can swim. For me, I don't know. That’s part of my journey, I dropped out of high school when I was sixteen years old. Shortly after that, my mother sent me to a program called Job Corps. It's run by the Department of Labor. It's for kids that necessarily don't know where they're going and what they're doing. It teaches them a trade.
If you're putting your toe in the water to see how cold it is, chances are you're not going to jump in the pool.
At sixteen years old, I got on a plane and I went to Morganfield, Kentucky, not knowing anywhere or any place or anybody. I entered Earl C. Clements Job Corps Center. In an eighteen-month program, I was only there for eleven months. I finished ahead of schedule. I got my GED and I got a technical certification in culinary arts.
I spent the next two and a half years of my life from about 17 to 19 before I joined the Navy working in the restaurant business. It was a Ruby Tuesdays off of US 19 and Gulf to Bay there. I think it's Cheddar's now. I don't even think it's open anymore. I worked there for two and a half years and fell in love with being able to have the opportunity to be able to provide a service to people.
Some people might get to do it every day. Some families might never cook at home and get to go out every day. We want to provide those people with a service. On the same side, you have some families like my mother who would work for months on end to be able to take us out one time. My mother and I sat down probably for a year and ate nothing but a salad and baked potato and school lunch because that's all she could afford.
When I did that and lived that way and then went to culinary school, I didn't do anything with cooking or anything in the Navy, but I've always had a passion for it. For some reason, I've always been driven. For a long time., I thought about a food truck. It's beautiful. It's mobile, but it comes with its own set of advantages and disadvantages.
I bought a house in 2012 in Newport Richey. It was the first house that I ever bought in my life. My wife and I made an investment for that, which was a huge struggle at the time for us transitioning out of the Navy, but we took a chance. That investment paid off for us ten years later in this crazy housing market where we were given an opportunity to be able to take on another venture. My brain kept going back to food. We started looking at franchising. I started Florida PGF, but I had PGF as a resource. I had my regional manager. I had the headquarters to be able to help me on the business side of that.
That led me to think about franchises. We did that and we were looking at several. This past January, we saw that Capital Tacos started franchising. I went online like everyone else and filled out the form. They got back to us in an amazingly timely manner and answered all our questions and all of our conversations. Through the process, I started thinking, “Do I want to go into this by myself? Do I want to have a partner or what do I want to do there?”
My buddy Patrick Affronti has been a good friend of mine for the last ten years. I've coached a couple of travel ball teams with him and won a couple of national championships with him. He also runs a major softball organization in the state with NSA. We have something in common there. We've been great friends for the last decade. I asked him to jump on board with what I was doing. Thankfully, he agreed.
Pat and I are doing this Capital Taco venture together, which I can't be more excited about. He's a guy who also approaches things a little bit differently than me. He's not doing webinars and doing all this crazy stuff, but he still provides a good product for great kids. We coach differently. He's going to be the guy where you're not going to know that he's calling a squeeze bum and I'm going to be the guy throwing my arms up in the air and hyping it. We have different approaches.
The partnership here might be like you and your other coach. You guys probably have different approaches as well. Coming into the restaurant business with him was a natural ask for me. Every time we're on the road, the only place this guy ever wants to go eat is a Mexican restaurant. It’s a natural fit for me to say, “This is my passion. This is what I want to do. What do you feel?” It's been a five-month process talking with Capital Tacos and doing all of that.
We are super excited. They have a great team. They have great people. They have great ownership. I have a great partner in Pat and within myself, I have great motivation. I'm treating it like everything else that I've done. I want it to be like, “Bob, how are you doing? It's Wednesday. You want the usual?” We're going to have our people that want to come in, get their food and go. We're going to have our Uber orders and all of our online stuff, but I still want there to be a sense of community.
I want a wall where the Vipers come in and they have a jersey on the wall. I want the local high school to when they win the big game, this is where we're going. I want that sense of community just like we relay into our tournaments. Even though everybody plays in a bunch of different places, when you come here, it's a little bit of a different feel, at least for me and from what I hear from the people there.
Capital Tacos
I'm going to try to pull up their website. We'll spend a second out there and you can tell me maybe about the brand a little bit. Does this look right? Are we in the right place?
That is the right place. They're in big catering order for Cinco de Mayo. Great, fast, casual Mexican food. Great for catering. Great for stopping in on the go. That’s part of the reason why we wanted to get with the brand. Great catering options. Think about that. You had mentioned already the crowds that we already serve. Being able to bring some of this, there are some parks that we run at that don't have concessions, things like that, and then there's a new complex opening up in the Starkey Ranch. There's a Ford Field complex opening in the Trinity Starkey Ranch area, which is only going to be a few miles from the hopeful location that we're working on.
Let me hit the location buttons now. Where are they now? How many locations?
Right now, they have five corporate locations. The first one is in Land O’ Lakes. You have Wesley Chapel. You have Port Richey. In the Tampa area, you have Brandon and you have an Express Out in the Riverview area.
Are you undertaking a couple of locations?
We have been given the primary location of Trinity, Tarpon Springs, and Palm Harbor. South of the Western portion of Pasco County with Holiday and Trinity included in the North of Pasco County with Tarpon Springs and the Oldsmar Palm Harbor area. The goal is to get the first one open with a couple more after that. We’re certainly focused on getting the first one open right now.
The first one will be the hardest for you, and then you'll figure out a lot of them. You do a great job. They do great photography. It looks fantastic.
The menu is amazing. There's a variety. It's called Capital Tacos, but quesadillas. If you look at those fries, I'm telling you, you're coming in after a game. That is tacos on some of the best hand-seasoned fries that you can imagine out there. Imagine nachos to the right. Fries are built the same way to the left. For a guy who has been trying to workout for the last two years, it's tough to say no. It’s made with the best ingredients. It's not going to kill you on the backside. I feel comfortable busting out two tacos. I like the Catawampus and the Ace High right there. Those are my two favorites.
I got to turn it off. We're getting hungry here.
It started here in Pasco County as a mom-and-pop brand. The two gentlemen who own it now have traveled the country tasting tacos all over the country and felt so strongly about this brand. I was introduced to Capital Tacos as a teacher. The first one opened in Land O’ Lakes. If you're familiar with the Pasco County school system, all of their headquarters and their administrative buildings are right there by Land O’ Lakes High School.
When you have to go there and you're on training, you say, “Where do you go for lunch?” All of the teachers and everybody that works there, “You go to Capital Taco.” We did. That's a small location. It's in and out. Each one of them has their own unique flair. No location looks the same. You walk into some other places and you’ll probably know where you're at, but each one of these has its own little pizazz. It’s uniquely different but done right. The food is what keeps you coming back.
Parting Thoughts
We'll check back in with you. We got to see a local guy who is doing the journey and who is opening up as a first-time operator. What you're going to struggle with right now. There's a whole shit load of stuff that's tough with the restaurant business, people, food costs, gases up, everything, inflation, etc. You're going to hit those things hard. You have to find good people. You got to do the training. We'll have to do another session in a couple of months when you're getting through some of those things and check back in. We were out there at CapitalTacos.com. Anywhere else to send them? Anything else you want to share or parting thoughts? What do you think?
We appreciate you having us on here and being able to talk a little bit about myself, and both of the business ventures that we're getting into. Getting into any business is tough. Rewind back two years ago, I was running a hundred percent outdoor business where we had no idea what was going to happen in the country and no idea what was going to happen in the world. We forged through that and we grew exponentially throughout that period.
That has very little to do with me and a whole lot to do with the team that we have together, our UIC, our staff, the officials that work for us every day, and the field crew that puts these fields together. I get to be the conductor, but all of these amazing people are the ones who every day make sure that these kids get to go out and play.
We want to take that same thought process to our franchising Capital Taco business. We want to build teams. We want people to want to wake up and come to work. I don't care if it's a quick-serve restaurant or somebody that's running down the beach. We want to treat people fairly. We want to build teams. We want to let them know their worth and their value. When you do that, I think inherently, people want to be a part of what you're doing. Same business here. Why I wanted to jump on here and be a part of what you're doing. When good people do good things, it comes back to them. I'm humbled by the experience and the fact that people do make a choice to play with us and hopefully, share a meal with us. It's been a lot of fun.
I think everything you said echoes. I interviewed a great guy, Michelle Falcon, up in Toronto. He's got a brand that's expanding as well. When that comes out, I'll get you a copy of it. Very good learnings. He’s taking his culture and he ingrains his story into who works for him. He’s got zero turnover. You are very much the same way. The story that you told us right now, feel free to put this on your recurring page, talking about your background.
When you put your story into the DNA of the restaurant, you’re going to naturally recruit people who have the same belief system, not the slackers looking for part-time jobs. You’re going to find those people that resonate with your story and work ethic. Those people are going to grow, and some people are going to move on or whatnot. They’re going to resonate and stick. If you make that a big part of your recurring and your brand inside Capital Tacos, I know you’re going to be successful because of what you bring to the equation, but that mentality of bringing that culture in will be more powerful. I’ll make sure I forward that to you.
Sometimes, people find themselves with nothing and lacking direction. If you give them a chance, they'll kick the door, but a lot of people get overlooked for that chance.
I appreciate that. I have one more thing to add. It’s that people need a chance. Sometimes people have nothing and no direction. If you give them a chance, they kick the door in. There are a lot of people looking for that chance, so when you build teams for people who are looking to excel, it’s a win-win for everyone. I just want to add that. I appreciate you for having us on. I’m excited for what’s to come and positive for the future for sure.
Wrap-Up
It’s been great to chat. I appreciate you. Folks, this is Bill Hoopes of Capital Tacos and Florida PGF Softball. We’ll see him out on the field. You can check out Capital Tacos at CapitalTacos.com and PlayFLPGF.com. For more great restaurant marketing, operations, service, people, and tech tips, stay tuned to us here at RunningRestaurants.com. We’ll see you next time. Thanks, Bill.
I appreciate it. Have a good day.
You too.
Important Links