Page 13 - BusinessWest January 20, 2025

“We were doing great, and then the music just stopped. That was a scary time — we had an 80% drop in revenue from one week to the next. And that was before anyone was talking about PPP or a bailout. We were thinking ...dowehavea company.”
the Hot Table venture based in North Carolina, so that he can have a physical presence in Springfield.
Other examples of memorabilia include a framed copy of the blueprint, if you can call it that, for the first Hot Table restaurant at the Breckwood Shoppes, now hanging in the sitting area of the Hot Table’s suite of offices at Tower Square, affectionately dubbed ‘Club 23.’ It’s just one sheet of paper, compared to the dozens of pages for some of the latest standalone locations in Chicopee and Westfield. And also the glowing red ‘Hot Table’ ordering kiosk, which sits in another corner of the conference room.
Other examples of fun include the vintage arcade game installed in Club 23, a nod to the games the DeVoies played in the ’80s — and how they still like playing them — as well as their increasingly famous billboard featuring a cheese-steak panini and the words ‘Bite Me.’
These various items speak to a business, a brand, and an entre- preneurial gambit that continues to grow, evolve, and become
an ever-bigger part of the regional landscape, both literally and figuratively.
And one that has earned its founders BusinessWest’s coveted Top Entrepreneur award for 2024.
First presented in 1996, the award pays homage to this region’s strong tradition of entrepreneurship and those that are continuing that legacy. Recipients have ranged from vodka-label founder Paul Kozub to former Springfield Technical Community College Presi- dent Andrew Scibelli; from the Balise family of auto dealers to the D’Amour family still operating Big Y.
The story of the DeVoies and Hot Table echo some of the region’s better narratives of entrepreneurship, especially that of Curtis and Prestley Blake, founders of the Friendly’s chain of restaurants.
Not in size, certainly — Friendly’s grew to hundreds of loca- tions in its heyday — but in how two brothers took a chance and created both a concept and a following, overcoming some growing pains and extreme adversity, especially during the pandemic, in the process.
“We were doing great, and then the music just stopped. That
John (left) and Chris DeVoie with ‘Rich,’ some memorabilia from a closed seafood restaurant in Manchester, Conn. that became the latest location for Hot Table.
BUSINESS CATERING BY HOT TABLE
HOTTABLE.COM
Bring your next client meeting or office party to the next level with a Hot Table Panini Pak. Choose your favorite Hot Table panini combos, along with a selection of fresh salads, hearty soups, and all the sides and fixins.
Go to hottable.com/catering to start taking everybody’s order! FOLLOW US ONLINE
@HOTTABLE ON ALL PLATFORMS
TO SAVE $25 OFF YOUR CATERING ORDER*
OFFER DETAILS: Receive $25 off your first catering purchase over $100. One offer per person and/or office. To redeem, enter the promo code at checkout when ordering online or mention code when ordering via phone. Offer not valid with purchases from 3rd party platforms (EZCater, DoorDash, GrubHub, UberEats). Further restrictions may apply. Offer expires March 31, 2025.
BusinessWest << TOP ENTREPRENEUR 2024 >> JANUARY 20, 2025 13