We recently connected with Morgan Walsh and have shared our conversation below.
Morgan, we’re thrilled to have you on our platform and we think there is so much folks can learn from you and your story. Something that matters deeply to us is living a life and leading a career filled with purpose and so let’s start by chatting about how you found your purpose.
We inherited our family business, Cupid’s Hot Dogs, when our dad passed away suddenly in 2009. We hadn’t planned on taking over the business, we didn’t know anything about running the stores, and were both on very different career paths. For years we were one foot in and one foot out. Having been around since 1946, the stores meant a lot to our community so we didn’t have the heart to sell or close them down, but it also felt more like a burden than a passion initially.
Every day we hear stories from customers about how eating here brings back fond memories of first dates, cruising Van Nuys Blvd. in the 70s, and family lunches after little league practice. The hot dogs are great of course but more than that we are a relic to the early days of the San Fernando Valley. We have regular customers who are now in their 90’s and have been coming since we opened. Many hot dogs have been eaten on the anniversary of a parent’s death to commemorate them as this was their favorite spot to eat. So there was no way we could let the stores close down knowing how much they meant to people. But I was in college and my sister worked in interior design. We didn’t know anything about the restaurant business and hot dogs weren’t exactly our passion.
It was hard in the beginning but over time though we learned how to inject our own personalities into the business and run them in a way that made them feel like our own without sacrificing the integrity of our grandparents original vision. We started hosting classic car shows, doing roller skating carhops, hired local artists to paint murals in the parking lot, and had a lot of fun designing merchandise. This not only made the business thrive but we are having way more fun. Now we love what we do and feel blessed to keep a third generation business going.
Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
Our next roller skating car hop will be on Black Friday! Come grab a hot dog and watch us skate your food out to your car. It will be at our Winnetka location 20030 Vanowen St. Winnetka CA
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
The best advice I have for people is to ask for help. When we get stuck and don’t know how to handle a situation we reach out to people in our field and ask for advice. We have good relationships with the restaurants next to us and ask them for advice all the time. We are constantly taking to other restaurant owners so we can learn from them. That also means we don’t view our neighbors as competition. We love shouting out our neighboring restaurants on social media and telling our customers to check them out. If we work together we can all be more successful.
One of our goals is to help like-minded folks with similar goals connect and so before we go we want to ask if you are looking to partner or collab with others – and if so, what would make the ideal collaborator or partner?
We may be a hot dog shop, but we have a secret love for fashion. Our old school building, roller skating car hops and car shows are a perfect backdrop to showcase other brands. We’d love to work with more fashion companies and create content for them.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.cupidshotdogs.info
- Instagram: cupids_hotdogs
Image Credits
Maria Jose Govea
