Risk and Reward

The real estate bubble was about to burst, and soon, the Great Recession would be underway. It was a heckuva time to start a business, but Brad Buckenheimer and David Raney were undeterred.

They opened Canopy Road Café in 2007.

“There’s a risk aversion switch in everyone’s brain, but if you want to be an entrepreneur, you just really have to turn it off,” Buckenheimer said. “At least I had somebody to go in the trenches with me. I’m not alone.”

Today, Buckenheimer and Raney’s breakfast and lunch joint has locations including Tallahassee, Jacksonville, South Walton and Tampa. It’s a thriving business today, but in its early days, it was just two college friends fighting off a quarter-life crisis with fried eggs and French toast.

Canopy Road’s menu is expansive. Savor something hearty like eggs, hash browns and toast. Or, induce a sugar rush by ordering one of the cafe’s infamous stacks of pancakes. Photo Courtesy of Canopy Road Café

They got to know each other at FSU where they resided in the same dorm, frequented the same dining hall and worked together at Jenny’s Lunchbox, a small Tallahassee eatery off Magnolia Drive. (It is now known as The Lunchbox.)

After graduation, the friends parted ways for a time. Buckenheimer departed Florida, but when family matters brought him back to the state, his old buddy gave him a call.

“David called me out of the blue one day and said, ‘Dude, guess what, I just bought The Lunchbox,’” Buckenheimer said. “I was like, ‘Are you kidding me? What about medical school?’”

Both Buckenheimer and Raney, as it turned out, had become disillusioned with their original career paths. They had always loved restaurant energy and decided that a business partnership just might be the perfect challenge for a left-brain, right-brain duo like theirs.

Raney’s early success with The Lunchbox inspired the new partners to set out on their own and create a new concept inspired by the city where they met and the customers they adored.

“A lot of people knew us and wanted to support us,” Buckenheimer said. “I was living at David’s house, and we were taking turns serving and cooking and running it pretty much just the two of us.”

Beyond friendly service and delicious eats, Buckenheimer and Raney wanted Canopy Road to feel local to the core, incorporate local ingredients and display the work of local artists. They resolved to get to know the faces, names and favorite dishes of everyone who walked through the door.

As the cafe grew in popularity, Buckenheimer and Raney lived frugally and funneled profits back into the business.

“I think there’s a stigma with hospitality, where it’s not considered a real job,” Buckenheimer said. “That’s something that we try really hard to break. I’ve got people that do very well working for me. We’ve notoriously overpaid because we value our people, and I don’t want them going anywhere else. It’s a two-way street. If they feel valued, then they’re going to stick around, do a good job and hopefully ask for more responsibilities and ways that they can better their life.”

Within eight years, Canopy Road had expanded to four Tallahassee locations, and the partners began setting their sights on expansion beyond the Capital City.

Exterior of the Persimmon Hill location, the newest Tallahassee cafe. It’s one of 13 Canopy Road locations throughout the state, but owners Brad Buckenheimer and David Raney hope it’ll one day be part of more. Photo by Dave Barfield

“We went to Jacksonville first, and it was crazy, man,” Buckenheimer said. “Jacksonville is like a giant Tallahassee. The people are awesome. They were incredibly supportive. We were super nervous because that’s the home of Metro Diner and Maple Street. They’re all based in Jacksonville, so we kind of jumped in the line.”

Thankfully, the talent that Buckenheimer and Raney fostered in their Tallahassee staff paid off, and before long, they franchised the Jacksonville market to a former Canopy Road intern and his brother.

Today, it seems a new Canopy Road Café pops up every few months. Thirteen locations are scattered across the state, but Buckenheimer has a goal of 15.

“I love Tallahassee,” Buckenheimer said. “We would never be where we are today if it were not for the support we received in good times and bad. I always had this personal goal that I would never be satisfied to be like a big fish in a small pond. I wanted to see the ocean.”

Canopy Road Café

Monroe St.
1913 N. Monroe St. | (850) 668-6600

Capital Circle
2202 Capital Circle NW | (850) 893-0466

The Parkway
1779 Apalachee Parkway | (850) 329-6750

Southwood
3196 Merchants Row Blvd.
(850) 329-2827