CEOs You Should Know. Michael Adams, President of Port Of Subs Southern Nevada Advertising Co-op

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
All right, time for another CEO. You need to know. You've got

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Mojoe here and I'm chatting. Wellahead, and tell us who you are,
your title and the company name,Sir, My name is Mike Adams.
I am with Port of Subs,your neighborhood sandwich shop. I'm a
franchise field consultant and an owner ofa few locations here locally. And how
long has the Port of Subs beenhere in Southern Nevada and Southern Nevada.
We just celebrate our fiftieth anniversary lastyear or so, since nineteen seventy two,
we've been in Nevada strong. Wow, look at that. It's a

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long time to be rooted here inLas Vegas. When a lot of people,
you know, come in and outof this city frequently, there's a
lot of transplants, So that showsa long term commitment to the region.
Describe the Port of Subs and thecompany and its mission. Port of Subs
as loves the neighborhood and that's whythe neighborhood Sandwich shop, so within that
neighborhood, we want people to comein and get that slice fresh experience,
you know, you get that greatquality product. We're always gonna be there

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with a smile. So we prideourselves on great service as well, and
that's kind of our flagship at theend of the day. It's like that
cornerstone that kind of puts it alltogether, you know, we do.
Everybody can slice a great sandwich,but when you put that mail Mustard mix,
our signature sauce on there teaming upwith a good smile. And we
really do care about our customers becauseyou know, we live and work in
this community for for fifty years.That's the success of Porta Subs and through

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generations. I think we're on ourfourth generation now of customers, which is
pretty cool. Yeah, that's amazing. And that that signature sauce has a
reputation of its own, legendary,some legendary. That's why you can get
it in your fridge now. Yeah, that's right now, Mike, I
gotta ask favorite sub of Porta Subs. My favorite suba Porta Subs. Ooh.
At the end of the day,I just always gotta go back to
that number five. That number fiveis that smokey cheddar smoked ham in Turkey?
Oh yeah, I even you know, I like mine on the we

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have an lto bread. It's apeppuccini pepperjack. We also have a haulapeno
cheddar one. But either those breadsare great. You know, little manna's
a little barbecue sauce. I eventhrowing some bacon on mines just to make
that whole Western ea smokey flavor.And yeah, man, it's just some
you know, slice fresh lettuce andtomatoes and some vinegar oils just to add
that flavor of pop. And it'sgo. Time's hitting me right now that
I haven't had lunch yet, sowe're gonna move on. What would you

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say the company does to help drivethe local economy here in Las Vegas and
Southern Nevada. So I mean PortaSUPs the end of the day, we
give back to the economy in manydifferent ways. I think it starts with
our workforce, you know, thevery diverse workforce from many different backgrounds.
Um whether it's you know, pastchallenges or current challenges, physical situations they're
dealing with. We're there, umlove taking care of the veterans as well,
and we're deeply, deeply involved.From that standpoint. We don't like

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to go after these massive, largeorganizations, these nonprofits that have some really
solid sponsor already because they're all beingtaken care of and while they need some
love, we'd like to go afterthose smaller ones. So we've you know,
we've teamed up with you know,Devotic Childhood Cancer Foundation UM. One
of our flagship ones is FEATS Familiesfor Effective Autism Treatment, so we're very
deeply involved in there. We workdirectly with Salvation Army because it's a great

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organization. You know, at theend of the day, that money that
you put in goes back to thezip code that you put it in,
so it stays. The money fromVegas stays in Vegas, so that's important
for us. We have tons ofschools we're given back to. We've worked
a goody two shoes. But evenfrom a smaller standpoint, UM, little
you know, passionate PTOs come tous and say, hey, we really
really in PTA's really we need alittle bit of help here. Can you
give some gift? Shift gets leftand right all the time we're provide in

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food, providing labor and why doesthat work at Porto Subs because we have
you know, thirty three stories valuewide and so we're able to take something
small that doesn't have a voice,given a voice, and it really just
exponentially explodes overnight. And it's acool thing that happens. You know,
it's a residual effect that comes afterthat little promotion. We do it in
a little bit of love. That'sthat snowball effect. The philanthropic causes run

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deep with Porto subs safe to say, yeah, oh absolutely, that's you
know, we live here, webreathe here. A lot of us were
born here, a lot of people, so we're very passionate about, you
know, being Vegas strong for sure. And I love the thought about what
the money that comes from Vegas staysin Vegas and goes back into the community.
That's you know, yeah, becausethey get to earn it here and
they spend it here and it comesfull circle. You know, those customers
giving us money, it goes togreat things as well as an owner myself

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and the day, it's very goodmotivation to kind of when I'm in those
shops and serving customers. It feelsgood to know that where the money is
going. And then in the valuesthat we have and what we believe in
um is through and through. It'snow we we just don't talk about it.
We live it every day, soit's pretty sweet. What else would
you want people to know about Portasub as a company or your employees?
Is there anything you want them thatwe haven't covered already to know about Porto
subs? Portosups is family owned.UM A lot of these operators have been

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around for over thirty years. Andthe funny story is one of the stores
that I used to go into asa child and get a sandwich. The
lady who owns that portus up stillowns one today. So you talk about
full circle moments, but there Idon't think there's ever enough effort and we
you know, we're still always tryingto do a better job of putting out
there just how much we do forthe community and are willing and able to

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do and have done in the past. So from all fronts, very community
focused. Where where can people getmore information about the company? Let's say
they have a philanthropic cause or anonprofit and they're looking for some support,
or they just want to know aboutopening a store or more about the company
itself. You have a website,is or a phone number? What's the
best way to reach out to youguys? Oh, we keep it simple.
He's go to portosps dot com slashcommunity type and you know, put

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as much notes as you can inthere, sure, and that'll get sent
over to the individual districts. Whetheryou're listening from Vegas or somewhere else,
that'll go to the right hands.We're all West coast base right now,
but stay tuned because that's changing realfast. All right, portasubs dot com.
And number five is the one Mikehimself recommends number five absolutely. I
think a lot of people would agreewith me on that. So normally people

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would say, oh, it's likepicking my favorite kid. I don't know
if I can do that, Butyou jumped right to oh, number five
all day. Yeah, it's funny. That's actually how the number sixteen was
born. Number sixteen change. That'sone of the only sandwiches that has ever
changed, and it was like fouror five years ago. It's the Pepperjack
Pepperjack Pepperonian slice chicken, and thatwas an employee favor. They just popped
out of nowhere and everybody when itcame time it was like, hey,
this is the one we should puton there, and we adopted it.

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So so do employees typically have asay in creating new menu items in that
way, everybody has to say,We're always listening whether we take it or
not. You know, but samething portasubs dot com, portasubs dot com.
That's right. Yeah, we haveour own internal review site. But
yeah, awesome. Well, Miketell us about the franchise model for Portasubs.
Franchise model for porta Subs is,you know, very diverse all aspects.
But like I was saying earlier,we have franchise either been around for

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a few months and then I thinkour longest franchise is franchise e right now
is going on over forty years theone individual owner. But that's the very
cool part about the group that Iget to work with here in Southern Nevada
is all ages, all ranges,all different backgrounds, but the collaborative effort
and the passion projects really come fullswing. You know. These are people

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that really love to serve a customer, and they're not just there to make
the money. You know, theseare people that are very passionate about what
they do. These are very localizedsmall business owners, you know. So
all these are crazy national decisions thatcome by that really affects us all.
But the way the owners and allthese teams were able to react during covidum
and through all these different community situationsthat happen. You know, the big
one for us, and you knowbeing in Vegas Strong is October one,

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and how every one of us bandedtogether to react. Every store was making
sandwiches, passing them out to thepolice stations and the hospitals, and within
twenty four hours we had activations hundredsof them across the community. So,
you know, and then even throughCOVID we are giving back to food banks
and people that you know, wedon't even have to like really ask,
they can just say, hey,you know the answers yes, what's the
question, um? And that's thekind of we get to work with every

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day. That's the beautiful thing ofPorta Sums. It seems like for Porto
Subs really embodies the mission of whatVegas Strong was all about and the community
outreach and all that so true.It could have been more it could have
been more fitting. And that's whatwe were talking about after it all happened,
is you know, your neighborhood sandwichshop has got to be a place
where the neighborhood is all taken careof and you know, we celebrate those
highs and we're there to cover helpyou out those lows. And you know,

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it was a time where that missionwas tested and one hundred percent believe
along with I think a lot ofpeople that we succeeded, you know,
even beyond our own expectations, whichis a beautiful thing. It sounds like
an emphasis on the word neighbor whenyou talk about the neighborhood sandwich. Yes,
yeah, I mean I wish morepeople knew the neighbors. So I
mean there's maybe there's the challenge tothe listeners. Hey do you know your
neighbors the one to your left,the one to your right, and the

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one across. Maybe it's time togo bring my porta sub sandwich. Yeah,
there you go, or your neighboris a porta sub shop going and
say hi, there you go.Mike Addens from Porto Slobs, thank you
so much for sharing your story andabout the company, and we appreciate you
making time for us today. Sucha pleasure to see you too, and
thanks for all you done for thecommunity to Mojo. I appreciate you