You may have already seen the news that I have sold all of my shares in Saddleback BBQ, Slice By Saddleback, all of our properties, and the LLC’s to Co-Owner, Matt Gillett. It’s been a long process and I have a lot of mixed feelings about the sale that I’m still trying to process. On one hand, I’m super proud of what we have achieved and that the businesses are in a place where they can be fully handed off to Matt. On the other hand, I will miss regularly interacting with all of our customers and colleagues. Even though this process has been a long time in the making and it’s a very amicable separation, I still feel a bit of stress and anxiety about the transition. A lot of my identity was wrapped up in being the owner of a local small business that people cared about. I feel a bit like I did after the sale of Liquid Web. The business just keeps moving forward without me. Never missing a beat. I suppose that makes me feel a bit of joy and a bit of sadness. But the only thing constant in life is change and change is what stimulates growth. Change is a necessary part of improving and getting better. In the next few weeks, I’ll have a lot more to share about my experience owning profitable restaurants for 8+ years. But for now, here is my full letter announcing the sale to customers. Year Of The Opposite - Travis Stoliker's Substack is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. My Letter: Matt Gillett is now the sole owner of Saddleback & Slice! Hi from Travis, The only thing crazier than starting a restaurant may be investing in one. And my investment in Saddleback only happened because of incredible timing. Saddleback was my first investment after selling LiquidWeb. Because of that sale, I had a non-compete that somewhat limited my ability to work for a year. So with that time, I wanted to see if I could provide a little help to the local economy by investing in small businesses that traditionally had trouble getting financed. At this time I was also engaged to be married and my fiance Laken suggested that we hire our long time friend, Matt Gillett’s, new catering company for our wedding. It made perfect sense. As a part of that discussion with Matt, he mentioned that his dream was bigger than the catering company and that he wished to open a restaurant. Since I was looking for investments, the timing was incredible… But I told him a few things: * This is a bad idea. Restaurants are too hard and don’t make money. * I know nothing about food or restaurants and I never want to be in the food business. * I have 3 rules of investing: No restaurants, no bars, & nothing you don’t understand. So of course, we decided to break all the rules and make the investment. I explained my rationale for breaking all my investment rules to Matt. We are making this investment in YOU. We want to give you a little push of support to help you chase your dream. I made it clear: we have no interest in owning a restaurant longterm. Success for the Stoliker family was defined as: Matt Gillett being a successful entrepreneur with a growing and thriving business that provides for his family, provides for the growth of his employees, and positively serves the community. Matt Gillett has achieved all of those goals beyond my wildest dreams and that is why it is time for Matt to fully take the reins. Saddleback’s success wasn’t due to luck, or hope, or even my investment and help. No, Matt Gillett made his own luck. He willed the success to happen. Simply put, he worked harder than anyone. I got to see Matt work 12 hour days 14 days in a row. I saw him cover an overnight smoker shift when employees called in sick after he had already worked a 12 hour shift! I saw him drive across town in the middle of the night to bail employees out of jail. Seen him leave his own family on holidays to personally make and deliver holiday meals for other famil