Black Magic, The Start of an Enterprise

Black Magic

I got my start in fast food back in high school and into college. Like a lot of kids, I thought maybe one day I’d open a restaurant of my own. When I finished school, I went to work for Burger King. That’s where I really started learning the nuts and bolts of the business — opening new stores, setting up services, making sure everything ran the way it was supposed to.

It was through Burger King that I first caught a glimpse of the hood cleaning business. I could see there was a need, but at the time, I didn’t know much about it. One day I was flipping through Entrepreneur magazine, and I saw an ad for a company called Black Magic out of Stowe, Vermont. They were offering training on how to clean kitchen exhaust systems.

I called them up, got the information, and decided to give it a shot. I took my next-door neighbor with me, and the three of us drove up there to Vermont. Black Magic had a tidy little business going — they weren’t just cleaning hoods themselves, they were also teaching people how to do it. On top of that, they were selling machines and chemicals, trying to build a whole ecosystem.

We spent time in their class, learned the ins and outs, saw how they set things up, and got a feel for what it would take. When we came back home, I didn’t buy their equipment — I sourced my own locally — but the training gave me the confidence to jump in. That was the start.

Another key piece fell into place thanks to insurance. My coverage was provided by a gentleman named Joe Walters. Joe was a big part of the PW&A organization back then. He passed a couple of years ago, and I was at his memorial last year. He was a good man, and he helped a lot of us in the kitchen exhaust cleaning and power washing industry get the coverage we needed when nobody else would touch us.

So, that’s really where it all began for me — with a fast food background, a Burger King job, an ad in Entrepreneur, and a trip up to Black Magic in Vermont. They ran their program for a few years, then disappeared. About five years later, I found myself stepping into the training role they left behind.