Sticks of Fire did not begin with a restaurant. It grew out of a lifetime of learning how food service, businesses, job sites, teams and operations work.
Founder · Sticks of Fire™
Andrew was introduced to food service and entrepreneurship early. At age 12 he was already working festivals as a food vendor — seeing firsthand what happens when a crowd arrives, a line forms, food has to move quickly and every minute matters. He later worked in a pizza shop, gaining another view of food service from inside the kitchen.
His career then expanded well beyond food. Andrew served as an officer in the United States Army, where leadership, planning, accountability, logistics and accomplishing the mission with limited resources became part of how he approached problems.
That operating mindset was reinforced through education and professional experience. Andrew earned degrees in Chemistry and Mathematics, completed coursework in entrepreneurship and project management, and worked in production and operations management. Those experiences shaped an analytical approach to business: understand the process, eliminate waste, standardize what works, measure the results and continuously improve.
Over the years, Andrew worked in and around large retail and home-service systems — including Lowe’s and as a Home Depot service provider — before building and operating businesses across construction, specialty flooring, chemical and coatings distribution, retail and service industries.
Sticks of Fire is heavily influenced by Andrew’s approach to Lean operations and continuous improvement.
That is why Sticks of Fire has been engineered alongside the food itself — from standardized recipes and proprietary sauces to truck layout, packaging, ordering systems, commissary production, event strategy and franchise-ready operating systems.
It was built from decades of experiences that eventually came together around one fire.
Early exposure to crowds, speed, service and event-based food sales.
Hands-on restaurant and kitchen experience, and customer service.
Analytical thinking, measurement, process and problem solving — supplemented by entrepreneurship and project-management coursework.
Leadership, accountability, planning, logistics and mission execution.
Process improvement, workflow, labor, production and Lean thinking.
Experience inside scaled retail and service systems, and customer-facing operations.
Construction, specialty flooring, coatings and chemical distribution, retail and service businesses.
Food truck, commissary, commercial sauce development, restaurant format and franchise system — built together from the beginning.
Heat is optional. Flavor is not.
The concept brought those experiences back together: early food-service exposure, a love of cooking over flame, years of building businesses, and an obsession with making operations simpler, faster and more repeatable. What started with skewers and sauces being tested with family, friends and neighbors quickly became something bigger. Recipes were refined. A commercial commissary was developed. A custom food truck was designed. Sauces moved into commercial production development. The brand was protected. And a franchise system began taking shape.
Sticks of Fire is proudly veteran owned, but the mission is bigger than one founder. The goal is to create opportunities for employees, franchise owners and the communities the brand serves.
