A north Baton Rouge native and a Baker High School alumnus, Douglas Secrest jumped into the workforce as soon as he graduated from high school—he had a young daughter to raise. He returned to school in 2009 and graduated from LSU in 2013 with a 4.0 GPA and a degree in accounting.
As Business Report details in its new Entrepreneur feature, Secrest then entered the corporate world, all the while hoping to create something of his own.
“I was severely unhappy,” he recalls. “The pay was decent, but it is just the idea of 9 to 5 and in the back of your mind you are always just thinking that all of your efforts are going to make someone else rich.”
He began scouting for entrepreneurial opportunities and started doing some financial consulting for a friend’s health food business in west Baton Rouge. He was eventually offered an equity stake in the business, ultimately taking control of the operations to create Spotter’s Fast-Fit-Food.
With prime downtown real estate located adjacent to the YMCA, Spotter’s capitalizes on lunch traffic and markets the business at every opportunity by sponsoring community and fitness events, which allows him to promote the brand. Doing so is critical: Secrest acknowledges that the influx of restaurants downtown in recent years has intensified competition for the lunch crowd.
“There are only so many stomachs you are going to fill in this geographical area,” he says.
In an effort to maximize idle labor during slow points in the day and diversify revenue, Secrest introduced a new brand to the Spotter’s portfolio in 2015 called Hope Prep, a meal service providing customers with a week’s worth of healthy, frozen meals at Spotter’s locations or at Anytime Fitness in Gonzales.
Spotter’s, which also has locations in Denham Springs, Addis and Hammond, generated revenues of $1.3 million in 2015. Secrest says he’s also eyeing new markets in which to expand via franchising.
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