City councils approve budgets, tax rates for fiscal year 2009-10

Courtesy Stockade Companies
Business Profile Stockade Companies Taylor
Stockade Companies CEO Tom Ford inside the Taylor Sirloin Stockade, 3607 N. Main St.
By Beth Wade
Tom Ford worked as a dishwasher in
the first Sirloin Stockade in Oklahoma
City. He eventually bought the restaurant,
and in 2004 he bought a majority share of
the restaurant’s management company,
Stockade Companies.
“[The company] has transformed and
been bought out by different people at different
times,” Vice President of Marketing
Pat Patterson said.
William Keele opened the first restaurant
in 1966, and after 33 years the
company has expanded to include Montana
Mike’s and Coyote Canyon. With
three other partners and 19 corporate
employees, Ford manages 89 restaurants
throughout eight states and Mexico.
Stockade Companies was headquartered
in Hutchinson, Kan., until 2008 when Ford
decided to move it closer to his home in
Thrall, where he owns a ranch.
“He didn’t want to interrupt [the company’s
operations],” Patterson said. “We
had people hired that lived in Hutchinson
or moved to Hutchinson, and it was
like, ‘Don’t screw it up.’ Over time they
decided that they would like to have the
company closer to home.”
Another factor for the move was that
Ford was in the process of building the newest
Montana Mike’s in Georgetown and had
just built a new Sirloin Stockade in Taylor.
“It made sense for us to be here, so if
we invited potential, new franchisees [we
could] showcase our newest restaurants
or those two new concepts, rather than
up in Kansas where we … had converted
old Mike’s [restaurants] and old Sirloins
that weren’t like what we are doing today,”
Patterson said.
Over several months in 2008 the company’s
employees began making the transition
to Taylor. While most work from the Taylor
office, some employees are still in Hutchinson
and others work from their homes
traveling to various restaurant locations.
Along with Stockade Companies, Ford,
and his son, Monte, own eight Sirloin
Stockades and seven Montana Mike’s
restaurants in Texas through T. Ford
Enterprises and Ford Tex Operating.
The original Stockade opened as a steak
house. Over time the salad bar concept
became popular, and what started as a
salad bar, Patterson said, led to the buffet
with entrées and sides. Each restaurant
varies what it offers, he said.
As the company grew to include other
franchised Sirloin Stockades, it passed
through different owners’ hands, and
in 1998 the company opened its first
Montana Mike’s. The vision of Montana
Mike’s was to take the company’s knowledge
of steak and create a full-service,
sit-down restaurant.
The idea to offer an all-inclusive buffet,
where the price includes all-you-can-eat
steak, drink and buffet, was later suggested,
and Coyote Canyon began in 1999 to test
the concept. The all-you-can-eat steak idea
worked and was incorporated into the
Stockade concept in various forms.
The company has continued to grow,
but Ford and his partners are not in a
hurry to do so, Patterson said.
“We are not trying to build 50 restaurants
in the next year,” he said. “We
would be incapable of supporting the
franchisees to do that. We don’t have
enough people here. We are not going to
do any more than three or four a year. If
we do, we would not be doing justice to
the franchisees. And that is important.”
Restaurant locations
Sirloin Stockade, Montana Mike’s and Coyote
Canyon restaurants are located in:
Illinois
Indiana
Iowa
*There are 26 Sirloin Stockade restaurants in Mexico
95
Kansas
Kentucky
Mexico*
Porter St.
4th St.
3rd St.
2nd St.
Stockade Companies
113 E. Third St.
352-5030
www.stockadecompanies.com
Missouri
Oklahoma
Texas
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