Holyoke panel seeking new members to help boost local tourism
HOLYOKE — Aiming to boost local tourism and community engagement, the city of Holyoke is calling on residents to join its tourism panel.
Hotel owners, restaurant owners, and those with a strong background in the tourism or hospitality industry are encouraged to apply for a spot on the Tourism Advisory Committee.
The committee is particularly interested in a young person from Holyoke, under 21 years old, who wants to share information about events happening in the city. Priority will be given to candidates with experience in these areas.
The tourism committee is made up of experts and community members. Participants include members from the Wistariahurst Museum and the International Volleyball Hall of Fame.
The committee helps the city with everything related to tourism, such as planning events, finding sponsorships and promoting Holyoke. It also dispenses funds to local events and projects that make Holyoke a fun and friendly place to visit, the committee said on Monday.
For 2025, the committee funded 11 upcoming events.
These include the Holyoke Paper Festival on June 7, Holyoke Pride Festival on June 11 and The Great Holyoke Brick Race on Oct. 11.
Other funded events are:
Paper City Oaks semi-pro indoor lacrosse at Fitzpatrick Arena this summer
Holyoke Historical Society Garden Tour on July 12
fourth-ever Sideways Door: A Festival of Ecstasies and Escape Routes from Sept. 19 to 21.
Imagined Worlds Mural Project with the Holyoke Children's Museum
Lemonade and Laughter at the Merry-Go-Round in the fall
The Holyoke Canals and its Mills in the fall
Broadway Brings Joy's Spring Spectacular Showing: A free night of musical theater in the fall.
More information on the committee can be found online. Cover letters and resumes should be sent to the Office of Planning and Economic Development. More information can be found at Explore Holyoke.
Read the original article on MassLive.
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Forbes
an hour ago
- Forbes
The Unlikely Group Getting Rich Off Dave's Hot Chicken's $1 Billion Deal
'How late did you guys stay out last night?' jokes Dave's Hot Chicken CEO Bill Phelps. The 69-year-old, who joined the Los Angeles-based spicy chicken chain in 2019 after leading Blaze Pizza and Wetzel's Pretzels, is sitting next to his second in-command, Dave's president and COO Jim Bitticks, another Blaze alumnus, on one side of a large conference room table in Forbes' Jersey City office. On the other side are two of Dave's four cofounders, Arman Oganesyan, 33, and Dave Kopushyan, 34, who do indeed look like they're on their way to (or from) a big night out. Kopushyan, a cook who is the brand's namesake, is coolly dressed in a white T-shirt and blue-washed jeans covered in Black stars. Oganesyan, meanwhile, dons a bright pink and orange Versace silk shirt, matching pink sunglasses and a Hermes belt with shorts, his arms and legs exposed to show intricate tattoos. Though both claim no mischief the night prior, the duo have plenty to celebrate. Their visit to Forbes is the last stop on a whirlwind two-day press tour following the June 2 announcement that Dave's sold 70% of its business to Roark Capital – the private equity giant that owns Subway, Dunkin', Buffalo Wild Wings among other restaurant brands – at a $1 billion valuation. After the interview, they're hopping on a private jet from Teterboro Airport back to Los Angeles. Dave's was founded in 2017 by Oganesyan, Kopushyan, and brothers Tommy and Gary Rubenyan. All four were children of Armenian immigrants who grew up together in East Hollywood and high school dropouts. They started the business as a pop-up in a parking lot near where they grew up. Their cayenne-coated, Nashville-style chicken, which comes in six different spice levels (the hottest of which, 'The Reaper' requires buyers to sign a waiver), gained an immediate cult following. Continued social media hype around the brand, which says its brand organically generates millions of views a week on TikTok, along with a cadre of celebrity investors including rapper Drake helped turn Dave's into a $620 million (2024 systemwide sales) business with over 300 global locations — and a prime takeover target. The Dave's original pop-up was set up in the parking lot of a random apartment building in East Hollywood. Dave's Hot Chicken The four cofounders, who were at one time so broke they say they struggled to pool together the $900 needed to launch the first Dave's popup, are now richer than they ever imagined. Each owned roughly 10% of the business prior to the sale and is selling around 80% of their stakes, amounting to around $80 million (pre-tax). 'The money's in our accounts,' says Oganesyan, who admits he Googled whether Roark could request the money back. 'Wires are permanent. Even if you mistakenly wire money to somebody, you can't take it back.' (The day before announcing the Roark deal, Oganesyan, a former standup comedian who is Dave's chief business officer, posted a photo of himself sitting on the hood of an electric blue McLaren with the caption: 'Patiently waiting for all my relatives in Armenia to call and ask me for money.') It's quite a jump from the last time they cashed out. The founders previously sold half the business – Dave's had just one location at the time – for $2 million in 2018 to an investor group led by CEO Phelps and the Hollywood producer John Davis, son of billionaire oil and entertainment tycoon Marvin Davis (d. 2004) who is now a prominent food investor. (The pair had having previously worked together on Wetzels, which Phelps founded, and on Blaze Pizza.) 'I fell in love with the boys. There was something about them,' says Davis, who claims he knew from the beginning: 'This is a $1 billion company.' It was really Phelps and Davis who helped it grow so big so fast and, while the duo have worked on the other two restaurant concepts together, this one is the most successful concept to date in terms of the company's ultimate valuation. Phelps and Davis both made 250 times their initial investment. According to Davis, he and Phelps were the largest shareholders in the company at the time of the sale to Roark, with roughly equal stakes. (Davis declined to share his ownership stake but says he still kept some after the sale.) Phelps, who also declined to reveal his ownership stake, says he sold off half of his shares and adds that he and the rest of his investment group voted to give away a chunk of their earnings to create a bonus pool for Dave's executives and employees, around 20 of whom will become millionaires. 'The average bonus for the support people all the way down to assistant restaurant manager level was about $100,000,' adds COO Bitticks. A lot of things had to go right for Dave's to end up where it did. One important factor was the founders' timely bet on chicken. 'The two hottest new concepts in the restaurant world are coffee and chicken,' says John Gordon, a restaurant industry expert who is the founder of Pacific Management Consulting Group. In 2010, chicken overtook beef as the most popular meat in the U.S., according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. A seemingly insatiable appetite for the protein has helped chicken joints including Raising Cane's, Wingstop and Dave's rank among the fastest growing restaurant chains in America in recent years. Oganesyan says it was this burgeoning trend that prompted him to approach his friend Kopushyan, who he met in middle school, back in 2017. It was a tough sell at first. Kopushyan, who previously worked as a line cook at famed chef Thomas Keller's Bouchon restaurant in Los Angeles, was a vegetarian working at Elf Cafe, a veggie restaurant on Sunset Boulevard. But after a month of lobbying, Oganesyan managed to convince his friend, who developed a recipe he says is 98% the same as the one Dave's currently sells. The pair recruited Tommy Rubenyan and his older brother Gary, who would later help put up the money to open the first store. The operation was extremely scrappy. Though they initially floated the idea of selling out of a food truck, they decided to do the pop-up instead, borrowing tables and chairs from their families and using the $900 to buy a fryer and heat lamps. Dave's is known for its nuggets and sliders, which it sells with pickles, fries and Dave's signature sauce. Dave's Hot Chicken A rave review from local food blog Eater LA five days into business made Dave's an overnight sensation. Within a year, they opened their first restaurant in East Hollywood. Despite being in an area Phelps describes as a 'dump' – 'we would never approve that site today,' adds Bitticks – Dave's food went so viral that the founders claim the restaurant ended the year doing $5 million in sales. 'It was the cult following,' says Phelps. 'It was what they created through Instagram, the [Eater LA] article… It drew people to the restaurant like crazy and there would be two hour lines for that store.' The brand initially relied heavily on marketing its products through Instagram. But it's also become a big hit on TikTok, where it's trendy for people to post videos of themselves eating and reviewing Dave's' sliders, nuggets and fries. Not surprisingly, the founders say there was immediate interest from investors. They shrugged off most inquiries but one stood out: A post-it note left with the restaurant's manager. 'It just said 'founders call John Davis,' recalls Kopushyan. Davis is one of Hollywood's most prolific producers with more than 115 credits – including 'Predator' and 'Doctor Dolittle' – and $8 billion in box office earnings for the films he's backed. Over the past three decades, he's also made a name for himself as a successful early backer of early-stage fast-casual concepts. In 1997, Davis bought into Wetzel's Pretzels, an Auntie Annie's competitor founded by Phelps and Rick Wetzel (Davis and his investment group sold their stake in the business in 2008 at a valuation of $36 million). Davis and Phelps teamed up again in 2012 when they became two of the earliest investors in Blaze Pizza, another restaurant concept founded by Wetzel and his wife Elise. They sold their minority stake in the 380 restaurant chain for an estimated $250 million in 2017. Davis, who is also an investor in Pop-up Bagels, has a simple formula for building winning restaurant brands: bring on board his posse of trusted investors including Phelps, actor Samuel L. Jackson and celebrity investment advisor Paul Wachter ('we just go from deal to deal'), take the biggest ownership stake, install his own management team and install a celebrity to help rep the brand. Davis did exactly this with Dave's, convincing Phelps, who he'd worked with at both Wetzel's and Blaze, to run the brand instead of retiring. Immediately after the deal, Dave's began franchising with the help of a management team almost entirely carried over from Blaze. A recent text exchange between Dave's Hot Chicken investor John Davis and cofounder Arman Oganesyan, who kept the post-it note Davis left at the first restaurant in August 2018. John Davis Dave's second restaurant opened in 2019 and then six more the next year, according to data from the restaurant industry data collector Technomic. They targeted franchisors who had owned a Blaze, Wetzel's or another fast casual restaurant previously. Phelps also helped several executives, including Bitticks and Dave's CFO James McGehee, buy franchise locations (Bitticks owns three currently and has plans to open up two more). Dave's founders now own a combined seven locations. By 2022, a year after Dave's announced rapper Drake as its big celebrity backer (Drake is a client of Wachter's, who helped bring him into the deal, according to Davis), they'd opened nearly 100 locations, many of them in California. They've since more than tripled that number, expanding into 46 different states and seven countries. Dave's systemwide sales hit $617 million last year, up from $392 million in 2023, the Technomic data shows. In 2020, sales were just $22 million. It's not uncommon for trendy food restaurants to hit the gas too quickly on their brick and mortar growth, then suffer when they fall out of style. This is what happened with Subway, which was acquired by Roark last year for over $9 billion after shuttering nearly a quarter of its locations over the past decade. Blaze, Phelps and David' previous venture, shut 30 locations, or 10% of its total stores, last year, according to Kevin Schimpf, senior director of industry research at Technomic. Blaze's sales also dropped from $400 million in 2023 to $357 million in 2024. When asked whether their chain has any reservations about growing too quickly, Dave's leadership is dismissive. 'We understand this business really well,' says Bitticks of Dave's. 'We're going to go from opening 80 restaurants last year to roughly 155 this year, to almost 165 or 170 next year. That's the kind of growth we can maintain.' The company isn't worried about competitors. 'I went into a Popeye's and had their spicy chicken sandwich and said, 'We're going to be rich,' says Phelps. Even beloved brands like Chick-Fil-A and Raising Cane's don't rattle him, citing the eating patterns of his two young adult sons. 'They eat out twice a day,' he says. 'It's not like you only have one shot to eat out this week and it's either Dave's or Raising Cane's.' They're talking a big game but, at least for now, Dave's is still a small fry. According to Phelps, the average Dave's restaurant brings in around $3 million a year in sales (EBITDA margins are between 18% and 20%); data from Technomic suggests that number is closer to $2.5 million. This outpaces the likes of Popeyes, which recorded around $1.9 million in average sales at its more than 2,400 locations last year. But Dave's sales pale in comparison to some of its more ferocious competitors: Chick-Fil-A averaged $9.3 million at its free-standing and drive-thru restaurants last year, while Raising Cane's reportedly hit $6.2 million in average unit volume. Roark began circling Dave's five years ago when it had just 15 locations. The owners joked that the private equity firm was 'stalking' the brand as they were constantly being courted at conferences or, in Phelps' case, even one time on the golf course. Before Dave's Hot Chicken, Bill Phelps cofounded and ran Wetzel's Pretzels until 2019. Dave's Hot Chicken In the end, the owners were keen enough on the $1 billion offer and worried enough about Trump's tariffs and ensuing economic uncertainty that they rushed to close the deal through a 'truncated sales process' after agreeing to the deal initially in January, according to Bitticks. 'The [mergers & acquisitions market] has been very quiet,' echoes Gordon, the restaurant analyst. Plus, there's another good reason for Dave's to get the deal done now: 'Eating out is a form of entertainment,' says Gordon. 'You need to sell when the concept is hot.' What's trending one day may not be trending the next. And as a business deeply rooted in trends, Dave's may be particularly vulnerable to changing cultural tides. Davis, for his part, says it was largely his decision for Dave's owners to cash out when they did. 'We have to take care of our investors and give them the opportunity to get out what they want,' he says. 'What I recommended to all of them is when everything is perfect, that's the time to get out.' He adds that Roark's experience is going to 'open up' Dave's to foreign markets, which his team doesn't have as much expertise in. 'This concept is going to be really good in foreign countries.' Dave's has already sold the rights to open more than 1,000 franchise locations in the U.S., the U.K., the Middle East and Canada over the next five years. Despite the celebratory parade around the sale, Dave's founders and execs insist they are not walking away any time soon. None are contractually obligated to stay on now the Roark deal is done, but they all say they're planning to do so. Oganesyan remains Dave's chief brand officer, while Kopushyan is chief culinary officer. They highlight that they continue to hold a stake in the brand as well as multiple franchise locations. Plus, they say none of the now 55 employees at Dave's HQ have left the company since it was founded seven years ago. As for the customers who may be concerned about what will happen to Dave's in the hands of private equity: 'Our whole journey, when we were in the pop up, people were saying 'Oh when you guys get a store the quality is going to go down.' Then when we started franchising, people were like 'Oh my gosh, the franchising quality is going to go down,'' says Oganesyan. 'Every step of the way, people were always like that. And I think what I was always trying to get across to people is, as long as you have founders and people within the brand who care about the food, they care about the experience, the quality will never go down.'
USA Today
a day ago
- USA Today
At two-year anniversary of PGA Tour, LIV Golf 'framework,' two sides are further than ever
At two-year anniversary of PGA Tour, LIV Golf 'framework,' two sides are further than ever So much has happened since the PGA Tour and LIV Golf entered a historic "framework agreement" two years ago, June 6. One thing that has not happened: A deal uniting the two leagues. Not only have the sides failed to end the sport's longest-running civil war, they now appear further apart than ever. The PGA Tour and Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, which owns LIV Golf, have had no reported meetings since late February. The sides met twice in February at the White House with Donald Trump, the man who, after being elected president in November, boasted it would take him "the better part of 15 minutes" to bring the two sides together once he's in office. Five months since the inauguration and the wedge appears deeper. "If you want to figure out what's going to happen in the game of golf, go to the other tour and ask those guys," world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler said in May about LIV. "I'm still here playing the PGA Tour. We had a tour where we all played together and the guys that left, it's their responsibility, I think, to bring the tours back together. Go see where they're playing this week and ask them." Scheffler's shot at LIV was clear. While the league certainly made an impact on the Tour early by poaching some of its top players along with forcing the Tour to make more money available to its players through signature events and the Player Impact Program, that has diminished. Lynch: Prepare for posturing on anniversary of Framework Agreement that already achieved its goal LIV's momentum stalled since signing Jon Rahm LIV had all the momentum after signing Jon Rahm 18 months ago. That is gone. Tyrrell Hatton followed Rahm, but, since then, the league has not attracted any marquee names. The latest addition, former Arizona State standout Josele Ballester, is No. 5 in the World Amateur Golf Ranking. Meanwhile, the top-ranked amateur, Luke Clanton from Florida State, is making his professional debut at the PGA Tour's Canadian Open. "I want to play the PGA Tour, pretty simple," Clanton said when asked whether he considered joining LIV. "I want to play against the best, I want to compete in majors, and that's it. Simple." The PGA Tour is now in a position of strength as LIV stands firm on its demands to remain under its current format, despite a flawed business model. While the PIF's investment in LIV Golf is in the billions, the return on investment is far less. LIV lost $394 million in 2023, excluding its U.S. events, according to Money In Sport, which published LIV's financials from LIV Golf's UK arm. Although PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan said in March he can see a future where the leagues are aligned with room to "integrate important aspects of LIV Golf into the PGA Tour platform," he added that "hurdles" remain. "We will not do so in a way that diminishes the strength of our platform or the very real momentum we have with our fans and our partners," said Monahan, who has headed the negotiations with the PIF's Yasir Al-Rumayyan. Monahan's comment came a few weeks after negotiations appeared to have broken down during the late February meeting. The biggest hint came from Rory McIlroy, who said following the meeting it takes "two to tango," before adding, "I don't think the PGA Tour needs a deal." Then Scott O'Neil, who replaced Greg Norman in January as LIV's CEO, told a group of media members in April at Trump National Doral, where LIV held its first U.S.-based event of the season, LIV, too, does not need a deal. "Have to do a deal? No," O'Neil said. "Nice to do a deal? So long as we're all focused on the same thing, which is growing the game of golf. I think we're all kind of up for that." The most recent known offer was in March when the British daily Guardian was the first to report that the PIF was willing to make a $1.5 billion investment into the for-profit PGA Tour Enterprises in exchange for LIV Golf continuing its current format and schedule, and Al-Rumayyan becoming a co-chairman of PGA Tour Enterprises. That was quickly turned down by the Tour. LIV Golf still being crushed by PGA Tour in TV ratings The ratings boost LIV was counting on to help its cause after signing a multi-year deal with Fox Sports has not happened. According to the seven Sundays this year in which both tours have held an event, the PGA Tour is averaging 3.1 million viewers on CBS and NBC, while LIV is averaging 175,000 on FOX, FS1 and FS2. About 18 times more. LIV, though, held its first four events in Saudi Arabia, Australia, Hong Kong and Singapore; and has since played in South Korea. Those tournaments are being aired at all hours of the day in the U.S. The best comparison came in early April when LIV had one of its highest-profile events of the year, if not the highest, at Doral; and the PGA Tour stop was the Valero Open in San Antonio, a lower-tier event that lacked several stars. Valero drew 1.746 million viewers for its final round compared with 484,000 for LIV. LIV's best ratings were below the average for TGL, the indoor, tech-infused golf league created by Tiger Woods and McIlroy. TGL, in its inaugural season, averaged 500,000 viewers; 650,000 for the 10 prime-time matches on ESPN (nine were carried by ESPN2). LIV's initial attempt to lure PGA Tour players was impressive with Brooks Koepka, Dustin Johnson, Bryson DeChambeau and Phil Mickelson among those who made the jump. They were later joined by Cam Smith and Rahm. While Rahm and DeChambeau continue to play at a high level – as do others such as Joaquin Niemann and Patrick Reed – several have regressed since joining LIV. Koepka, Johnson and Smith, who have combined to win eight major championships and were signed to contracts worth at least $100 million to defect from the PGA Tour, according to reports, missed the cut at the year's first two majors – Masters and PGA Championship. LIV Golf not going away … deal or no deal Still, LIV Golf continues to operate as if it will be around … deal or no deal. While the league has not added a golfer of note in the past 18 months, it continues to secure sponsorship deals and attract high-level officials. And O'Neil has restarted discussions with the Official World Golf Ranking for LIV golfers to earn points. The PGA Tour clearly does not need LIV. And with PIF, valued at more than $900 billion, willing and able to support LIV despite it losing hundreds of millions of dollars annually, LIV doesn't need the PGA Tour. That leaves many to wonder whether a deal ever will be made that unites golf's rival leagues. Tom D'Angelo is a senior sports columnist and reporter for The Palm Beach Post. He can be reached at tdangelo@
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Yahoo
Rockies hilariously slam Scottie Scheffler, troll themselves after winning first series of the season
The Colorado Rockies are finally better than Scottie Scheffler. After a brutal month where the top-ranked golfer in the world somehow managed to keep up with a professional baseball team, the Rockies are back on top — and they're laughing at themselves perfectly. The Rockies, amid a historically awful start, swept the Miami Marlins this week . Their win on Tuesday night officially gave them their first series win of the season, which snapped a league-worst 22-series losing streak dating back to last fall, and Wednesday's win gave them their longest winning streak of the year. Advertisement While they are still objectively terrible — they sit at just 12-50, which is by far the worst record in Major League Baseball — the Rockies are now beating Scheffler. That wasn't the case in May. Scheffler has been on a dominant run on the PGA Tour. He flew ahead to a massive win at The CJ Cup Byron Nelson early in May, and then won the PGA Championship in his next start to claim his third career major championship. Then, after a T4 finish at the Charles Schwab Challenge, Scheffler won the Memorial Tournament on Sunday. Over that span, the Rockies also won just three times. The key difference is that Scheffler made just four starts on Tour. The Rockies played 26 games. Advertisement While that led to plenty of jokes for the Rockies, they weren't the only target. The Tour even trolled the Carolina Panthers briefly, though they deleted the posts, after Scheffler picked up his 15th career win since 2022. Though the Rockies are flying high on their win streak, there's one important thing to note here. Scheffler has yet to tee it up since they started winning. If they can't bank a few more wins before the U.S. Open starts next week, and Scheffler's run continues, the Rockies may find themselves back in the same position later this month. Hey, at least they're laughing with the rest of us.
