Flying high: Busy Mountain Brook entrepreneur John Cassimus to headline chamber luncheon

Entrepreneurship is a hot topic in America these days.

Just ask John Cassimus, a Mountain Brook native who has been a serial entrepreneur for nearly 30 years, finding great success in the food industry and, more recently, in liquidation retail.

“It’s definitely a very hot, very exciting part of our lives, and I think people are obsessed with it, because anybody with the internet can go out and start their own business very easily, whether it be on Amazon or whatever the case may be,” Cassimus said. “People just get excited about it.”

He believes this interest began with Donald Trump and his TV show “The Apprentice” and the ABC-TV hit “Shark Tank.”

“I think people are just obsessed” with entrepreneurship, he said.

Those who share this obsession with starting an enterprise and taking control of one’s destiny can learn more from Cassimus when he serves as the keynote speaker at the Mountain Brook Chamber of Commerce luncheon from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. on May 6 at The Country Club of Birmingham.

Cassimus is perhaps best known in business circles nationally for taking a single Birmingham eatery, Zoe’s Kitchen, started by his mother Zoë and father Marcus, and building it into a successful chain of restaurants.

The entrepreneur said he is very much looking forward to speaking to the chamber audience for the first time.

“I grew up in Mountain Brook, and it’s basically my home, and I’m back living here now, and I’m super excited,” said Cassimus, who lives near Mountain Brook Village. “I’m hoping that I’ll see some people.”

This will be only the third chamber luncheon to be in person since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, chamber Executive Director Suzan Doidge said.

The events “are well attended because our members enjoy the opportunity to network,” Doidge said. “We work hard to make sure that we have interesting speakers.”

The luncheons are “an incredible opportunity to network in an interesting and exciting environment,” said Betsy Parker, chamber project manager. They “provide our business community a space to make personal connections with one another as well as city of Mountain Brook employees.”

Cassimus is also, as Parker puts it, “a man of many talents and interests.”

He is an airplane and helicopter pilot, as well as a cyclist, kiteboarder, snowboarder, writer and photographer.

Cassimus is also a chef with a love for cooking that started when he was a child.

“From that description alone, it’s impossible to not be excited about hearing his entrepreneurial story and guide to navigating the entrepreneurial process in 2022 and beyond,” Parker said.

Since about 2005, Cassimus has delivered hundreds of speeches to business schools, civic organizations and other groups.

“I started speaking to the MBA program at [the University of] Alabama, and it just really took off, and I used kind of like a tool when I was building Zoe’s Kitchens and I needed to hire great people,” Cassimus said.

However, Cassimus has continued to make these appearances because he enjoys speaking to audiences about entrepreneurship.

“I just really, first and foremost, feel that I have a responsibility to impact younger people and try to let them know there are other opportunities out there besides doing the typical thing that people expect of you,” he said.

Audiences also enjoy hearing inside stories from the business world, Cassimus said.

“I think people always like to hear an entrepreneurial story of how a business started,” he said.

From the outside, a business may look “so great and glamorous and sexy,” but the reality inside the business may be “very, very different,” Cassimus said.

“I think people love to hear that,” he said. “People are searching for information.”

Cassimus attended Brookwood Forest Elementary, Mountain Brook Junior High School and Mountain Brook High School, where he was a star on the Spartans football squad.

He said he has fond memories of growing up in Mountain Brook.

“I loved my neighborhood, I loved all my friends, I loved sports in high school,” Cassimus said. “I loved my high school. I loved the people I grew up with.”

He then played football for the University of Alabama Crimson Tide and earned a degree in finance from the university in 1990.

In 1993, he founded J Rag USA, a pre-printed apparel line, selling the company in 1996 after growing it into a national brand. In 1999, Cassimus then took on the challenge of growing Zoë’s Kitchen into a large, successful company.

Zoë’s Kitchen had been operating for three years when Cassimus saw an opportunity to build a larger enterprise.

In late 2007, Cassimus sold the majority of Zoë’s Kitchen to Brentwood Associates, a private equity firm in Los Angeles. He remained CEO of Zoë’s until 2008 and remained a partner until 2018.

There are now about 250 locations of Zoe’s Kitchen in the United States, according to the restaurant’s website.

About the time Cassimus ceased to be CEO of Zoë’s, he also founded two other food concepts, the fast-casual restaurant Maki Fresh and the upscale sushi brand Jinsei.

In 2018, Cassimus left the food business and founded a liquidation retail company, Last Word Liquidators, that operates a discount retail store called Mike’s Merchandise in Pelham.

In 2019, he launched a second liquidation retail business, Crazy Cazboy's.

An avid bowhunter, Cassimus also operates a hunting lodge and deer breeding facility called Sawtooth Plantation in Hurtsboro, Alabama, which he founded in 2007.

For Cassimus, being an entrepreneur is something that’s been with him for a lifetime.

“I always had that entrepreneurial drive,” he said.

“When I was old enough to take the lawn mower down the street when I needed money and go cut grass,” Cassimus said. “When I needed money, I would go hustle and I would go make it. That is kind of always been kind of who I am. I like controlling my own destiny. I wanted to work hard, and I didn’t want any limits, and I have kind of lived my life with no limits put on myself, and being an entrepreneur was totally aligned with that.”

I like controlling my own destiny. I wanted to work hard, and I didn’t want any limits, and I have kind of lived my life with no limits put on myself, and being an entrepreneur was totally aligned with that.

John Cassimus

Cassimus said he is an “extremely A-type personality” and a “really hard-charging person.”

“But I’m also very creative, and that is a very unusual mix for most entrepreneurs,” he said.

This character trait strongly influenced his career path.

“The reason I was never going to be satisfied in any other type of corporate structure was that I was just not able to be creative,” Cassimus said. “When I see a trend of seeing something, I want to have the ability to just do it without any repercussions from anybody else.”

An example of his ability to quickly seize an opportunity is his move into liquidation retail beginning in 2018.

It began when Cassimus visited the original location of Mike’s Merchandise in Guntersville, which opened in the 1980s.

“I walked into the back, and the truck was being unloaded, and I was immediately curious and wanted to go through it all, and then I started asking, ‘What do you pay for it, and what do you sell it for?’” he said.

Cassimus said he was “just immediately drawn” to the business.

“There was no denying it was very creative,” he said. “It changes all the time. It fit my personality. I just jumped right in and started buying merchandise and had to figure out how to sell it.”

He then opened the Pelham location of Mike’s Merchandise.

In 2019, Cassimus also began Crazy Cazboy’s, a liquidation retail operation offering deep discounts on a wide variety of merchandise.

There are now six locations in Alabama, Florida, South Carolina and Texas, according to the company’s website.

His retail operation has been successful, even given the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic that begin in early 2020, Cassimus said.

The stores have a strong online presence, as well, selling through their own websites, as well as eBay, Amazon and Walmart.

Cassimus said Crazy Cazboy’s is also selling products on a weekly basis on an auction site called biddingkings.com. The retailer auctions off up to 1,000 items a week, with each item beginning at $5, and the consumer response has been strong, he said.

“That thing has gone crazy,” Cassimus said. “You see some of the same people coming back week after week to buy.”

However, Cassimus — despite his many successes — does not sugar coat the reality of starting and running a business when speaking to audiences.

“I really want people to know is that opening a company is extremely difficult, and it’s a massive commitment, and I think that people sometimes don't fully understand what sacrifices are that you have to go through and the toll on not only yourself but what it takes on your family and life and relationships,” Cassimus said.

“Like one of my football coaches once said, it’s not for the faint of heart, that’s for sure,” he said.

Cassimus described what he calls “by far the most important” personal attribute a person should have if they wish to be a successful entrepreneur.

“First and foremost, they better have a big motor,” he said. “What I mean by that is they better have the ability to go and grind day in and day out. They can’t get tired. They can’t not want to work seven days a week.”

Admission to the chamber luncheon is $25 for members and $30 for non-members. Table sponsorships are $250.

For tickets and information, call 205-871-3779 or go to mtnbrookchamber.org.