Jason Smylie was riding his bicycle in a neighborhood on the east side of the Las Vegas Valley.
Smylie, who had recently moved with his family to Las Vegas from the Los Angeles area, bumped into a familiar face — a boy a little older than him who he knew from California.
That boy was Ashley Morris, who would quickly become Smylie’s best friend and his future business partner.
“It was just a coincidence that our families moved within a few blocks of each other,” Smylie said. “When I saw Ashley, I said, ‘Hey, I knew you in Los Angeles.’ We’ve basically been best friends ever since he was 10 and I was 8.”
Three decades later, the friends run one of the most loved and successful restaurant chains in Las Vegas, Capriotti’s.
While the Capriotti’s brand is headquartered in Las Vegas, where it has about 40 shops, it will have about 200 sandwich shops around the country by the end of the year. Morris said there could eventually be as many as 3,500 storefronts in the U.S. and beyond.
Smylie said people often don’t realize that Capriotti’s didn’t start in Las Vegas. It was born on the East Coast, founded in Delaware in the 1976. When Morris and Smylie bought the chain — a few years after they opened their first franchise location in Las Vegas — there were about 40 stores.
One signature of the Capriotti’s menu is the Bobbie, a trademarked turkey sandwich that’s basically a Thanksgiving dinner between two pieces of bread. It features healthy portions of roasted turkey, cranberry sauce and handmade stuffing, along with a slathering of mayonnaise.
It was added to the menu in the late 1980s in honor of the founder’s aunt — you guessed it, her name was Bobbie — who would always make sandwiches from leftovers the Friday after Thanksgiving.
As young men, Morris and Smylie lived together, and it was Smylie who convinced his friend to try the Bobbie for the first time. Morris laughed about the occasion recently inside a Capriotti’s store in Downtown Summerlin, a location where he said he eats at least twice per week.
“I did refuse to get the Bobbie at first,” Morris said. “Nobody likes cranberry and mayonnaise on a sandwich if they don’t already know how good it is.”
Along with the Capriotti’s cheesesteak sandwich and its “Capastrami,” the Bobbie is one of the chain’s top sellers.
Morris said a big reason why Capriotti’s is successful is because it uses quality meats for its menu items.
“Look, Capriotti’s works because it has a competitive advantage,” Morris said. “That’s how businesses shine most of the time. We’re the largest buyer of whole turkeys in America.”
The business partners — who each have families of their own now — said they’re proud to be a “Vegas business.”
“This brand might have started in Delaware, yes, but it’s definitely a Vegas brand,” Morris said. “Las Vegas has grown so much, it’s been amazing to watch. When my family moved here, we were close to Torrey Pines (Drive) and Sahara (Avenue). I would ride my bike to Sahara and Rainbow (Boulevard), and everything west of Rainbow was dirt. We used to go lizard hunting in the desert, which is something I know a lot of kids who grew up in Vegas can relate to.”
Because their growth plans depend partly on franchise partners, Morris and Smylie have to go out and find those partners, which can sometimes be challenging.
A franchise fee buy-in for a Capriotti’s location is $30,000, Morris said. With building space and other factors included, the total tab is usually somewhere between $500,000 and $550,000, he said.
“We built an organization that can support a franchise organization,” Morris said. “That said, the franchise partner of today is much different than 10 or 20 years ago. In many walks of life, people have experienced frustrations in past employment. They may have realized that they were building other people’s dreams. I believe, though, that this world is more entrepreneurial now than it’s ever been.”
Some of that change is because of the pandemic, but Morris said a large part of the population is more interested than ever in getting into business for themselves, if they swing it financially.
He said it’s important to support store owners so they are able to be successful in their business venture. When that happens, Morris said, everyone wins.
With so many years as friends and business partners, Morris and Smylie said they long ago developed a trust in each other that has remained strong. As Morris puts it, he’s the “mouth” while Smylie represents the “brains” of the operation. They also operate Wing Zone, a national chain with over 60 locations, including one on Craig Road in North Las Vegas.
“We’re like-minded in our thinking, but I think our strengths and weaknesses are very complimentary,” Smylie said. “I prefer to be in the background. All the stuff (Morris) promises we’re going to do, I’m there to help make sure we do it.”