Right out of high school, William LaFlower was winging up and down the Eastern Seaboard opening up restaurants.

“I think I worked for Chipotle for less than two weeks before they asked me to go around the country and open up stores,” said the Bronx native who has “strong roots” in New York and New Hampshire.

Ten years ago, he came to Savannah bringing Chipotle to town with him, not in a brown paper bag but as a franchise for the rest of us. Opening the branch on Victory Drive in 2014, LaFlower was the first general manager for the nationwide chain in this region.

From 2012 to 2015, he opened locations in the northeast and down the east coast, including several in Manhattan, before leaving the Empire State for the Coastal Empire.

What directly followed was a long and happy tenure that followed with the Zunzi’s family of eateries. Arcing from fast-casual Mexican to “Shit Yeah!” sandwiches, LaFlower’s restaurant career found him ready to launch his label, and fittingly, the next restaurant he opens will be his own.

FOOD FOUNDATION

While he was in high school in Merrimack, NH, LaFlower worked at Wendy’s and helped prep The Homestead Restaurant & Tavern’s launch.

“When I was sixteen years old, they hired me to paint tables and the bar for a restaurant that was opening up,” he recalled. “That was my start in the restaurant business, just being a hand.”

He moved from painting to dishwashing to working at the front of house before Chipotle gave him “a really awesome opportunity” upon graduation “that set [him] out on the right path.”

“I used to say that I was the LeBron James of Burritos,” LaFlower said with a laugh: a kid straight out of high school, going from hotel to hotel, thrown into the big-time Restaurant Show. “I feel like I got a college tuition’s worth of restaurant background because people believed in me.”

In Savannah, LaFlower grassrooted his whole team of Chipotle staffers from restaurants around town and “subsequently stole” a bunch of employees from Five Guys before Chris Smith, who owned seven locations between Hilton Head and Brunswick until 2017, asked LaFlower to join him.

OUT WITH BURRITOS, IN WITH BURGERS

LaFlower finalized the Habersham Village deal at the end of October and has been working since to ready the longtime home of Barberito’s for his signature spin on familiar fare.

“I reached out to them, and then it was just a matter of them liking the concept, liking the idea, knowing that we were the right fit,” he said, praising the Habersham Village ownership. “They really believe in me and what I’ve done in the restaurant industry and what we’re going to continue to do,” he added.

What has been an incredibly quick turnaround, under two months, has primarily comprised servicing appliances, cleaning, painting, and permitting. Luckily for LaFlower, no re-plumbing or new HVAC or major layout renovations were necessary.



Photo courtesy of William LaFlower

“We made the whole ceiling a bunch of bandanas,” LaFlower said of one artistic touch. “Just made it a little more colorful.”

“The brand can go anywhere,” he said, touting one of Bandana Burger’s mottos: ‘Good in Every Hood’. “We can operate out of any space. We just have to put our little spin on it.”

PAISLEY-ING IT FORWARD

A burger served in a bandana seems like a stretch, but it is the literal fabric of the brand’s outreach effort: the Paisley Pillow Project.

“If you don’t want the bandana, don’t throw it away,” LaFlower requested. “Put it in the receptacle.”

When that is filled, the bandanas will be cleaned, and LaFlower himself will sew two together and stuff them to make pillows which will then be dropped off at area hospitals and missions.

Already, franchising opportunities have been made available online, and LaFlower’s “ultimate goal” is to give others a chance.

“I’m going to go after folks that might not think they can do it,” he said. “My wife and I want to help people start their own [franchise] and help it grow.”

“My opportunity with Zunzi’s was miraculous,” said a clearly thankful LaFlower, “but starting my own business and being able to give other people that same opportunity is what I want to do.”

Dec. 2 marked the LaFlowers’ second wedding anniversary, and he credited A’Nia for her total belief in and support of his Bandana Burger dream. When she is not also in the kitchen at their new restaurant, she might be drumming up business just outside with her flow artist routine.

And when you walk inside their restaurant, LaFlower will be behind the counter and ask you, “How do you wear your bandana?”