For Sam Russell ’08 and his wife, Anna, opening their own breakfast restaurant was a family affair and a fulfillment of an entrepreneurial dream that had been ten years in the making. When The Buttered Biscuit opened its doors last April, Anna said she never imagined the success they have experienced in their first year open for business.
“The first week that we opened, the response from the community was overwhelming,” Anna said. “It was incredible the people that came out and supported us and have continued to support us. It’s been a wonderful success. I’m a firm believer that if you’re honestly meeting a need in the community, it doesn’t guarantee success, but it increases your chances of that business’s success.”
For the Russells, their restaurant’s food, made entirely from scratch, has been recognized for two awards: Best New Restaurant in Northwest Arkansas and Best Breakfast Restaurant.
“I think what really shocked us was the Best New Restaurant, because there’s such an explosion of a culinary scene in Northwest Arkansas that to be honored with that award is just incredible,” Sam said. “Both of those we felt very humbled to win, we were very thankful, and ultimately give the glory to God.”
Sam said the path to starting their restaurant was a marathon, not a sprint, and combined both his and Anna’s backgrounds in business — his in corporate marketing and sales, and hers in restaurant management and entrepreneurship.
Prior to the restaurant’s opening, Sam worked for Kellogg for nearly 10 years, starting as a summer sales intern while he was still a student at Hillsdale College. This set him toward a career in sales and brand management, and provided a lot of free food, Sam said.
“Back when I was an intern, one of the cool bonuses was that I got free Kellogg cereal sent to my dorm,” Sam said. “All of the sudden, I would have tons of cereal lined up in my dorm room, and I’d give away free cereal to the hall and pretty much everyone. I used to have at Tony the Tiger poster in my dorm room every year, and I would have 600-700 signatures of people who had visited my room, most of them to try the free cereal.”
Sam also served as the first president of Hillsdale’s chapter of Students in Free Enterprise, now known as Enactus. Sam said he credits his involvement with SIFE for fostering his passion for entrepreneurship and brand development. It also helped him land his first Kellogg internship.
“Sam was one of the really dynamic leaders at Hillsdale,” said Rich Rudolph ’85, who helped found Hillsdale’s Enactus chapter. “It’s been really exciting to see his career path and all the things that evolved out of his involvement with SIFE.”
Once he was hired full-time by Kellogg after graduation, Sam moved to several different positions involving sales and brand management, ultimately working as a senior brand growth manager. While working for Kellogg, he helped sell brands to Wal-Mart and also helped develop and improve different Kellogg brands such as Famous Amos cookies and Murray Sugar-Free cookies.
“At one point, my formal title was senior manager over commercial innovation, which is a fancy way of saying I brought new Cheez-its and Keebler cookies to the market,” Sam said.
Shortly after the Russells were married, they moved to Bentonville, Arkansas, for Sam’s work.
Anna said the idea to start a restaurant surfaced after they moved, when Anna was looking for business opportunities after leaving her family’s restaurant and real estate business where she had worked since high school.
“I really appreciated that my parents introduced me to business at an early age,” Anna said. “It’s part of my blood at this point. They gave me an amazing amount of experience in restaurant operations and menu design, and that whole industry.”
The couple said they realized there were not any local breakfast restaurants apart from some national chains, and began looking into options for starting a restaurant of their own in March 2016.
“Breakfast is the best part of the day,” Anna said. “It’s before anything good or bad has happened, and we get to make a great impression with a hot breakfast and serve it to our guests. I think it’s a really great platform to be able to offer Bentonville and the surrounding area.”
In the meantime, while they searched for a building and developed the branding concept for their restaurant, Sam continued working at Kellogg.
One day while scrolling through food pictures on Pinterest, Anna stumbled across the photo that would lead her to the restaurant’s name, The Buttered Biscuit.
“I wanted to embrace the fact that we’re here in the central South, but I also wanted it to explain what we are, and what better way to do that than to have a food image as a name,” Anna said. “It was just a really fitting name. It’s comforting and welcoming, and it clicked with me. I love to bake and cook, and we have a running joke in our family that how much butter we go through is ridiculous.”
It wasn’t until September that they found the site for their restaurant, but once they did, they made an offer on the building and immediately set to work transforming the building. Anna said Sam would come to the restaurant to help with preparations after finishing his workday at Kellogg. Sometimes they would be at the building past midnight, Anna said.
Only 40 days after closing on the building, The Buttered Biscuit opened on a Monday morning in April 2017.That Friday, Sam handed in his two weeks’ notice to Kellogg so he could focus on running the restaurant.
“We realized to make this work, we needed to be all in, and we had the traffic volume to do it,” Sam said.
Now, the Russells spend their time running their restaurant, raising their two young daughters 3-year-old Charlotte and 3-week-old Lydia, and staying active as volunteers in their community through Rotary Club.
“The commitment level of embarking on a new business venture in a new market in a new town, and also becoming new parents, it’s been a strong passion of mine,” Anna said. “It’s really been amazing how it’s come to fruition with a lot of hard work and sacrifice. It’s been a really incredible, rewarding journey.”