Taking A Ribbing

The day Famous Dave's (now based in Eden Prairie, Minnesota) opened its doors didn't just launch what is now a slew of restaurants across Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin and create more than 3,000 new jobs-it defined the moment Dave Anderson stopped being "an accumulator" and started being "a giver." To date, he's donated about $7.4 million to charities; for example, he helped create an endowment foundation for disadvantaged American Indian youth in April of last year with $1.4 million. At the moment, he's erecting the Lifeskills Bootcamp for Native American Youth in Hayward. Why? "Because if other people [like my family and bankers] hadn't given me second chances in life, I wouldn't be here today," he says.

Don't think that Anderson, "on a rampage of learning," listening to books on tape in his car ("My university on wheels," he says), reading four newspapers per day, a couple books per week and nearly 30 magazines per month, is free of problems just because he found God and knows himself a lot better. It was only three years ago that Famous Dave's opened too many restaurants at once and started losing money. Again, cockiness was to blame. Anderson says he had to close a few restaurants and lay off at least half his corporate staff. But after some "very painful" restructuring, Famous Dave's is in tip-top shape.

"We all have this really Pollyanna idea, that when we get out of school we'll get a job, work hard, get married, have kids and life will be happy," says Anderson. "Nobody ever said that every day of your life you're going to get whacked-maybe jackhammered-with problems." When he speaks at least twice a week to high schools, colleges, tribes, and Rotary and Lions clubs, he stresses not to run from problems, but to face them and solve them. Five years sober after his own alcohol problem, Anderson also offers this: "Don't worry about all the external stuff. Conquer yourself from within before you conquer the world out there." Amen.

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This article was originally published in the May 2000 print edition of Entrepreneur with the headline: Taking A Ribbing.