After spending time in the league, the former Atlanta Falcons and Oakland Raiders player is an Angry Crab Shack franchisee, according to Nation’s Restaurant News.
The golden opportunity followed Kennedy’s initial attempt to break into the food business. While playing for the Atlanta Falcons in the ’90s, he purchased an Italian restaurant in the team’s city. Additionally, he previously owned Subway and Blimpie franchises.
In 2015 when Kennedy moved to Phoenix, AZ, and served as the chapter president of the retired NFL Players Association, he became in contact with fellow former NFL player and Angry Crab Shack founder Ron Lou, he recalled to the outlet. The meetings led to Kennedy learning about how he could officially step into the restaurant industry.
“Ron told us about wanting to expand his restaurant business, and he got a few of us together and I said, ‘let’s do this, let’s take a chance,’” Kennedy told the outlet. “And lo and behold, we realized after not too short of a time [of building Angry Crab Shack] that people in Arizona loved the type of seafood that we brought, so we grew very quickly.”
He added, “The franchising opportunity came around because Andy Diamond [president and CFO of Angry Crab Shack] and Ron had talked about how we didn’t know that it was going to blow up as well as much as it did. The next thing you knew, we were opening restaurants all over the country.”
Since then, Kennedy has become the owner of two Angry Crab Shack restaurants in Arizona and Nevada, according to the outlet. He credits the success at the Arizona location to providing locals access to fresh seafood.
“I love being a business owner because I love the reflection that it permits in the community. When people talk about our restaurants, I want them to smile. When they’re like, ‘Oh, you own an Angry Crab Shack. I love their food,’ that lights me up and that’s one of the reasons why I jumped to this franchise opportunity because I wanted to spread some of that enjoyment and euphoria around the city.”
In the near future, he aims for expansion in New Mexico and Texas. Plus, since Kennedy is already a radio broadcaster for the Las Vegas Raiders, he also wants to have Angry Crab Shack locations in cities where he often travels.
