WNBA players starting to invest in food industry
— Whether it’s to plan for their future once basketball is done, promote healthy living or just to have some fun, WNBA players such as Sue Bird and Maya Moore are getting involved in the food industry.
The key is to do it with people they trust.
Bird has invested in restaurants in the Northeast for over a decade, getting started when UConn coach Geno Auriemma presented the opportunity for his former players to buy into his place at the Mohegan Sun.
“Coach Auriemma’s restaurant is a well-oiled machine,” Bird said. “He has great people working for him and it seemed like a natural fit.”
His Mohegan Sun restaurant has photos of UConn players all over the place, with sandwiches and meals named after those former Huskies greats.
From there, Bird branched out when a family friend, Dylan Welsh, was looking for co-investors for a few restaurants in the Boston area — Welsh’s Five Horse Taverns.
“My dad and I got involved as we totally trusted Dylan,” Bird said. “If we didn’t know him as well as we did having lived across the street from him for so many years, we probably wouldn’t have gotten involved.”
The Seattle Storm guard tries to stop by the restaurants when she’s in town, although she admits for now she’s mostly a silent investor.
“When I get older and I’m done playing, who knows?” Bird said of getting more involved when she retires. “For right now, it’s a nice check, definitely.”
Alana Beard and Marissa Coleman are taking a more hands-on approach than Bird. The pair bought into their first food franchise last year, a Mellow Mushroom pizza restaurant in Virginia. Ever since Coleman was a rookie with the Washington Mystics, the duo spoke about life after basketball. Coleman had a teammate at Maryland whose father owned several Domino’s franchises in the area. So when Beard and Coleman were ready, he brought them in to the Mellow Mushroom franchise.
“We are all part-owners and are using this as an apprenticeship to learn every aspect of the company to open our own in the next three years,” Beard said. “He’s been such a valuable resource for us helping us through this process.”
Beard spent a lot of time, after helping Los Angeles win the WNBA championship this past fall, learning the ins and outs of the business, even learning how to make the pizzas.
Having a mentor has really helped.
“I don’t like to make mistakes, but when this opportunity came, I jumped on it because it was the perfect situation,” Beard said. “Mr. Waller has 30 years of business experience and is someone who has gone through it. It takes the risk factor down tremendously and we can learn at our own pace and feel comfortable to open up our own.
Beard got a firsthand look at franchising in 2010 when she spent three months as an intern at Jamba Juice’s executive development program.
“It’s funny, I always dreamed that I wanted to own a smoothie place and when I was at Duke I thought it would be Smoothie King,” Beard recalled. “That time I spent at Jamba Juice was huge. Maybe down the road I’ll own one of those, too.”