Ameen Walker has put together hundreds of businesses and consulted just as many or more. He’s also involved in 20 or so of his own—private investigations, music management, real estate, venture capital and so on.
But his latest ventures, Everything Philly and Everything Philly Ice Express, are all about bringing his Philadelphia roots to Baton Rouge, as Business Report details in its current Entrepreneur feature.
A Philadelphia transplant who moved to Baton Rouge after time as an Air Force intelligence officer, Walker and his wife routinely flew back to the City of Brotherly Love to visit family. Every time, they’d sample the local cuisine.
“It became more regular, and we just made the decision to go ahead and bring the food down here,” Walker says.
Since Everything Philly opened in April, Walker has only made one trip home. Blame it on the water ice, a tasty cold treat that sold 10,000 units in the first month.
The lease is signed for the first Philly Ice Express near Southern University. If everything goes according to plan, it will open by the end of August—joined by five more within a year. But even Walker’s best-laid plans are flexible, and he is also focused on meeting the restaurant’s expansion needs.
“You have to make decisions along the way and be good with your decisions,” he says.
Drive has never been an issue for Walker. One of six children, Walker saved enough money sweeping up for his locksmith father at 10 cents an hour to open an Amway franchise—by 7 years old. From 13 to 18, he focused on school and worked at the library. In college, he double majored, ran track and had 70-hour workweeks at a convenience store. Even while studying at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business, he worked full time at a bank and managed an IHOP.
“I’ve always wanted a challenge and to do a lot of things,” he says.
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