From A to ZZQ

A look at what goes into crafting the blueprint for a restaurant as it transitions from pop-up to bricks-and-mortar

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UPDATE, Feb. 27, 2018: ZZQ's grand-opening weekend is set for March 3 and 4 at 3201 W. Moore St. in Richmond's Scott's Addition neighborhood.

When ZZQ Texas Craft Barbecue launches in Scott’s Addition, in February 2018, you can expect the inevitable spate of glowing stories in print and online about owners Chris Fultz and Alex Graf, romanticizing the path they took to restaurant ownership and framing them as cultural-culinary heroes. But no chef is an island, and no restaurant comes into being without an army of forces behind it. As Fultz and Graf freely acknowledge, the long and circuitous road from (illegal) backyard barbecues at Graf’s house in South Side to sit-down restaurant never would have been possible without the hands-on, down-and-dirty efforts of many players who operate in the shadows and behind the scenes — the people you never, ever hear about.

THE FINANCIAL ADVISOR

John Singh, a financial analyst in New York City, was perhaps an inevitable choice; he’s the brother of Fultz’s business partner, Amrit Singh, a principal in Fultz & Singh, their local architecture firm. After being wowed by the backyard barbecue that Fultz catered for his 2013 wedding, in Fairfax, he helped ZZQ to navigate its “critical path.” He urged Fultz to approach his pop-ups not simply as opportunities to extend his brand, but as laboratories to refine his methods and systems. Was it possible to attain greater precision in measuring and accounting? A 16-pound brisket, raw, ended up an 8-pound product, and that loss had to be factored into calculations. By “costing-out” the price of every ingredient, every aluminum pan, that went into the making of Fultz’s jalapeño mac ‘n’ cheese, for instance, it was possible to determine, to the penny, just how much he needed to bring in from sales. When the time came to raise capital for a brick-and-mortar venture, John Singh lead the effort: he was the one who told them how much they would need (so far, they have raised a little more than $812,000), worked with Fultz and Graf through multiple drafts of a 35-page proposal that went out to investors (“the whole idea of this was to de-risk the business”), ponied up a big chunk of his own change to set the project on its path, and negotiated a lease with a landlord.  

THE INVESTORS

Ten investors contributed money to the project that became ZZQ Texas Craft Barbecue, among them a woman named Elaine Chon-Baker (left), who operates an outfit called Mokja Ventures — an organization of investors who have invested in Chon-Baker. (Another big local investor: The Veil Brewing Co. — a great irony, given that ZZQ had been the barbecuer-in-residence at Ardent Craft Ales in 2014, and that the eventual restaurant ended up in Ardent’s backyard. The latter brewer worried, however, about tying up so much money in an investment, so it pulled out last spring.) A resident of Vienna, in Northern Virginia, Chon-Baker began her entrepreneurial career by investing in D.C. restaurants, but early last year, ZZQ drew her eye. The irresistible barbecue was a lure, but even more attractive was the fact that Fultz and Graf are architects attuned to process, systems and minding the details, all qualities that made the project, in her mind, a relatively safe bet. She also says she prioritizes entrepreneurs who have designs beyond the venture she’s investing in, an indication that this likely is not going to be the only iteration of ZZQ.

THE BROKER

If you’re a restaurateur in need of a space, you don’t just go and rustle up a real estate agent. You’ve got to hire a broker; it’s the broker who does the finding. In Richmond, two of the most high-profile brokers in the business are Wilson Flohr, of Porter Realty, and Nathan Hughes, of Sperity Real Estate Ventures. Between them, they have helped to install dozens of restaurants, including Perly’s, Spoonbread Bistro and Nota Bene. Fultz and Graf tapped Flohr to lead their search for a permanent home, kicking off a long and ultimately unsuccessful hunt. But Graf, who professes an abiding trust in process, insists it wasn’t a waste. What they learned, she says, was what they didn’t want, which helped them to understand the right thing when they stumbled upon it, later, on their own.  

THE LANDLORD

That right thing belonged to Frank Boehling, without whom Fultz and Graf might still be wandering the city in search of a space. The small parcel of land that ZZQ occupies, on the northern end of Scott’s Addition and all but abutting Ardent Craft Ales, had gone unused for years when Fultz returned to Boehling in January 2016 to return to a conversation they'd had about it. Boehling had intended the building that sits on it to be an auxiliary property in which to expand his mechanical contracting business. In the end, Fultz and Graf, with a forceful assist from John Singh, managed to lease the land for cheap — $12/square foot. And Boehling even agreed to do their plumbing and HVAC systems. If not for the working relationship Fultz and Boehling had established over the years, the unorthodox deal would have been unimaginable. Explains Boehling, “I’ve used him as an architect, as a caterer, he’s hired me as a contractor, we go back a ways.” In the end, the squat brick building didn’t quite work for ZZQ’s purposes, so Fultz decided to build onto it, capping the structure with a distinctive corrugated metal structure reminiscent of roadside ‘cue joints in Central Texas. 

THE SOUNDING BOARD

Fultz says that without his partner, Amrit Singh, ZZQ might never have moved past the pop-up stage. And not simply because Singh introduced him to his most lucrative source of capital, his younger brother John Singh. It was the older Singh who quelled his considerable “doubts” and took on the burdens of running their architectural firm.  

THE ADVISORY BOARD

Part of the pitch to investors, per John Singh, was that there would be an advisory board, a team of industry pros that Fultz and Graf knew, and that they could turn to for guidance, advice and help. The names are a veritable who’s who of the Richmond dining scene, including Nikki Price and Neil Smith, the owners of Proper Pie Co.; Kendra Feather, the owner of Laura Lee’s, The Roosevelt, Garnett’s Cafe and Ipanema; Derek Salerno, the drinks maven at Shagbark; John Lewis Sr. of Austin Smoke Works, who custom-built ZZQ’s three 1,000-gallon smokers; and Russell Cook, the erstwhile chef of Millie’s, who is taking a leave of absence from his post at the cooking school Culinard to serve the project, temporarily, as …  

THE CULINARY DIRECTOR

Fultz has created his own rubs and perfected the cooking process for his briskets, ribs, pork butts and sausages, while Graf fine-tuned their sides. So why would he need to bring in someone from outside to run his kitchen? Simple, he says: he’s never run an actual restaurant. Cook has. He’ll command the kitchen for Fultz and Graf for the first six months. His mandate? To set up systems in the kitchen, to manage the workflow and to course-correct in the moment if (or rather, when) problems arise.  

THE DESIGNER

ZZQ has achieved, in a relatively short time, not just a distinctive style, but a brand identity that is on its way to becoming a kind of cultural certifier — a way of signaling one’s status and relevance. Credit that to Christine Coffey of Kames/Coffey, a local branding and marketing firm. Coffey created ZZQ’s bold, swaggering font-based logo five years ago, before Fultz purchased the first of his custom smokers (known to insiders as Mabel); more recently, she worked on menus, signage, T-shirts and mugs. “They’re really about craft as a company, as people, as architects,” Coffey says, “so we thought they need something that was their own … something rustic as well as Modernist.” Fultz and Graf say the design helped to solidify their sense of the brand as they expanded and sought a bricks-and-mortar home, and it even helped to guide their sense of what that home should look and feel like. Incidentally, that font, Coffey says, is unique to ZZQ. The name? “Brisket Slab.”  

THE ARCHITECTS

The easiest, cheapest hire they made — de-risked, as John Singh might say. But definitely not de-stressed.

The Timeline

2011

The journey begins: at a Memorial Day party, Texas (Chris Fultz) gives a rib to Orange (Alex Graf).

2012

Chris Fultz designs Mabel, the first smoker. Right: Mabel completed

2013

Come & Brisket, a monthly cook-to-order for pickup, starts.

2014

First New Years Day party (right), a gathering of local friends and supporters, laden with barbecue.

2015

Pop-ups of ZZQ begin. Below: Alex rings the dinner bell signaling that ZZQ is ready to serve.

2016

Max debuts at The Veil's grand opening; later Max gets parked at the Ardent carport.

2017

ZZQ files for building permit; construction starts. Right: pieces of steel erected for the restaurant

2018

ZZQ brick-and-mortar restaurant scheduled to open