05/28/2026
Happy 1 Year Anniversary to us!! 🎉 🎊 🎈
Team Ten began as an unfiltered idea during the lockdown phase of the COVID-19 pandemic. Out of boredom, I began selling steak dinners to go out of my old gas station. I quickly realized I was selling more steaks than I had time or space to cook. 184 ribeyes cooked the first night we offered them, and I was overwhelmed, panicked, and stressed. Suddenly, I had a desire to eventually have a restaurant to fill a void I felt existed in our areas for laid back family owned casual dining that’s affordable and simple. The dream became a reality as life presented different opportunities.
After selling the gas station in 2023, I felt I owed it to our loyal customers who had continued asking for steaks and owed it to myself to follow through with this restaurant idea. Off I go looking for land, hiring an architect, and not having a freaking clue what I was doing. I’ve been very blessed to have an incredible mentor and best friend in my dad throughout my life. He began his construction on Lakeland Station simultaneously while I began on Team Ten. We bounced ideas off of each other and raced to finish dirt work or pour concrete or turn electricity on. Ultimately, he beat me and finished first lol.
My land search hit some snags initially but with the good fortune of a very dear friend willing to sell land in the exact location I wanted to be, I was able get land secured and head to the next step. I didn’t have a clue for a name so while on the phone with this friend, he said what are going to call it? Me: I don’t have a clue but I kinda wanna put a 10 in the name but I can’t come up with anything. Sid: how bout Team Ten. Me: yeah that works. I’ll go with that. It was simple, didn’t make a lick of sense but somehow the randomness fit my personality perfectly. The 10 encompassed my favorite childhood baseball player’s number (Chipper Jones) which became my baseball number, then my race car number, and just fit aspects of my personality. So with what I’d learned from my dad throughout life, and the mentorship of my great friend Sid Scarbrough, I had a name and was prepared for construction.
It’s May of 2023, and I’m thinking I’ve gotta get a logo done, get shirts made, and get everything in order because we’re opening in a few months. Yeah right!! 😂😂🤣🤣 After 5 months of architectural design, 5 months of site planning, a year later I was almost ready to begin construction. I had clearly missed the goal by a mile, and I’m way too cheap to redesign the logo and print new shirts so we just went with it.
I have to thank my extreme supportive family for enduring the construction process. I must thank awesome city leadership from the mayor, aldermen, water dept, community development, fire marshall, office, Chamber, and everyone for being reasonable and helpful throughout the entire process. The support and common sense approach supported the move I made and helped it all feel right! I have to thank a ton of contractors especially Brady’s Heating and Cooling and Link Construction as well as Williams Plumbing and Brooks Yates PlumTech, Apex Electric, Myrick Design Studio, Busby Digging and diet services, and so many more!
Construction took roughly 11 months. I spent every day here working with contractors. During the down time, I painted every inch, framed and sides small areas I could handle alone, cleaned, building a dumpster pad and fence (only to later rip it down with my trailer 😂😂). I spent night spit balling a menu in the couch, shopping eBay for quirky decor, and just steadily thinking about ideas to make the place unique. Maybe over a few beers, I came up with the most random ideas like the Friday the 13th themed Jason’s Steak Camp grill area. When I thought an idea might be a little extra, I had good people push me and say nope we’re doing it!
After close to a year, we were nearing opening day and running behind on construction. Totally unprepared and not even close to ready to open, but we had to. I completed our final inspection on a Tuesday at 6 p.m. Team Orientation was the next day and our first day of soft opening was the following day. We rolled into orientation quickly realizing we didn’t have time to orient because we had no food prepared for the following day, we hadn’t cooked a single menu item, we didn’t have a clue how our kitchen flowed, and I just didn’t have a damn clue what I was doing 🤷🏻♂️ We scrapped orientation, prepares food, and didn’t get to cook anything. We still didn’t have all of our equipment working and we were severely understaffed. Oh well, we soft opened the next day. The computers crashed at open, the order screen looked like a spinning price is right wheel because the orders came to the kitchen but moved all over the screen and you couldn’t keep eyes on the order to complete it and get it to the right table. We battled that issue for weeks. We missed orders, failed to get food out, learned how to cook the menu, and had a full meltdown for 3 days! Our grand opening was approaching in May 28, and we still didn’t have a clue lol.
We opened. We learned. We struggled. We fought. We’re so blessed with a community who has supported us. I’m beyond blessed to have a team who has become like family. We fight like family and love like family. This business is tough so some team members aren’t still here, but they’re like family and I’m thankful for them all! We have fun and work to improve every day. They say the first year is the hardest. I thought nah, but I was sure as **** wrong because it’s been way past hard. But we’re here to serve you and look forward to serving you for many years to come! Thank you!
The days of opening kept me here until 2-3:00 at night and back at 7:00 the next morning to try again. My family jumped in and worked all over the place! I just hope, pray, and look forward to the day my dad sits back a table to eat and runs back in the kitchen and starts helping wash dishes!
Special shout out to my guy Johnny Brady for always motivating me to push forward with this idea 😂
