Bob Haney, Creator of Heavenly Waffles

Interview Transcript:

Alan Olsen

This is Alan Olsen, and welcome to American dreams. My guest today is Bob Haney. Actually, I should correct that the chef Bob Haney, he is the founder and the creator of Heavenly Waffles. Bob, welcome to today’s show.

Bob Haney

Alan, thanks so much for having me. I really appreciate it.

Alan Olsen

So Bob, you have a unique background. Can you tell the listeners your story of how you got started out in your career?

Bob Haney

Oh, my goodness. It goes back to when I was about four years old. I one of my earliest memories is standing on the steps, on the step stool next to the stove, helping my grandmother make Thanksgiving gravy. And that was kind of where my love for cooking, and, you know, my passion for creating interesting products and interesting things to make, I used to make so I’m a, I’m from Omaha, Nebraska. I’m a huge corn Husker fan, and I used to take, this is a long time ago, Triscuits. And this is like, keep in mind, I was four or five years old. I would take Chris, gets a little bit of cheese, put it in the oven with a pickle slice, pickle on top, and I would make little hors d’oeuvres from Nebraska Cornhusker game. So that’s kind of where it all started. So I um,Shorten with AIShorten with AIShorten with AIShorten with AIShorten with AIShorten with AIShorten with AIShorten with AI

Alan Olsen

going forward, let’s, let’s jump into the transition. You also did a little bit of fashion.

Bob Haney

I did, I so I modeled for 15 years all over the world. You live in Kansas City, basically, I kind of started my modeling career. I did a calendar in Arizona, and then I’m out like a month later, I moved to Kansas City, and I lived in Kansas City for 13 years, but I did Jones store. I did a bunch of things in like Denver and Dallas, and I modeled for about seven years, just regionally. And then I went, a buddy of mine was moving to Chicago, and he’s like, help me move to Chicago. And I’ll, you know, you can, you’ve always wanted to come, come here and get an agent. And I’m like, Alright, so I went, helped him move to Chicago. Went to like, seven different agencies, and none of them would represent me, because all of my all of my book, my portfolio, look, you know, like catalog stuff, and they want editorial things. And so Marie Anderson, Boyd, who um discovered Cindy Crawford, I her, her agency was called Aria, and she looked through my book, and she’s like, she’s like, you know, why don’t you go to Miami and test and, you know, build your book and then come back. And so I ended up going to Miami about a month later, ended up meeting Aegon Von Furstenberg, the prince of Italy, and wound up in Milan, oh, about maybe three weeks later, and I, I first, you know, I all of the things that, all of the things that I’ve been through in my life, have helped me to where I am now. And I’ll give you an example. So the first, first Kathy and I walk into in Milan i i walk in and sitting there as Elton John and Gianni Versace, and I’m looking around and thinking, Am I being punked just because I was like, Man, I am way out of my league. But it kind of prepared me for situations later in life, like walking into the Chick fil A headquarters and presenting my product. Were the only company in Chick fil A history to approach them that they then turned around and invited us into their test kitchen. So, but I got sober about 23 years ago. The modeling industry was a pretty fast paced life, and I did a lot of drugs, and it’s a but God miracle that I am alive today. And so, because I had, I had tried to quit drinking three times. I’d been through rehab three times. Tried to quit on my own, and I just couldn’t. One morning I came to and I was like, I’m going to end up in jail. I’m going to end up dying. I was either going to die, end up in jail. Neither of those things really at the where I was in life that didn’t that didn’t bother me because I didn’t love myself. And so the third one that came through my mind was I was going to hurt somebody in an accident set one way or another, and in a nano second, it was like, God put his hand on my shoulder and took that compulsion to drink away. And 23 years ago, here I am. And so, but it, but I, when I got sober, I was able to start and fulfill God’s plan for me, which was doing what I’m doing now. And so I moved back to Omaha, Nebraska. I had retired from modeling about two and a half years before. I and I modeled all over the world, Athens, Madrid and Barcelona, Vienna Milan, New York, Miami, Chicago, San Francisco and and so I ended up back in Omaha, and I started so I had my grandmother was like my rock and my foundation, I think I had mentioned to you in an email that I’m the product of 10 marriages and nine divorces between three parents and alcoholism and abuse, psychological and physical. And so my rock and my passion or foundation was my grandmother. And so that’s where the love of cooking and passion for cooking came from. But when I moved back to Omaha, I had I had cooked a pancake crepe recipe using some ingredients of a pancake recipe my grandma made, and some ingredients of a pancake recipe my mom made, and one of those ingredients was sour cream. But one day there wasn’t any sour cream in the refrigerator, but there was yogurt. And I’m like, Oh, that’ll work. And that’s how that, that original pancake freight recipe that is now morphed into Heavenly Waffles. That’s how it all all happened. And so it’s, it’s between God and my grandmother.Shorten with AIShorten with AIShorten with AIShorten with AIShorten with AIShorten with AIShorten with AIShorten with AI

Alan Olsen

How did you come up with the heavenly waffle name?

Bob Haney

It’s because my grandmother is in heaven. And I would say, when I I would say, if there is a heaven, they serve these there. And so that’s and my wife and I looked at each other, and we were like, Heavenly Waffles.

Alan Olsen

So now, are you simply just about waffles, or do you have other products

Bob Haney

So we’re working on pre made, frozen and then we eventually will have a line of drizzles I make like a chai spice, honey, butter, a black raspberry puree, a sea salt caramel, a salted fudge, a Bananas Foster drizzle, a peanut butter whip. I do all, I mean, I I do all kinds of things. I do a fennel sausage gravy that I’d love to be able to market and sell one day, um, pre made frozen like heavenly waffle ice cream sandwiches, all kinds of different things.

Alan Olsen

Oh my gosh. Which product do you or dish do you enjoy most creating? Well,

Bob Haney

I I’ll give you an example. So the other day, I just, I, it’s, you know what the the ones that I love most about creating are the ones I haven’t thought of yet. So the other day, the other day, I made the other day I made this bread pudding using six month old frozen Heavenly Waffles, and I took them out of the freezer, I made a grand Monet simple syrup with orange zest, and then I sauteed, simmered the cranberries in them, cooked those off, added diced up bananas, tossed that together and put it In and made a heavenly waffle cranberry bread pudding, and it’s so good. And I had never, you know, I’d never made that one before, but the creations that I’ve yet to make, those are my favorite ones.Shorten with AIShorten with AIShorten with AIShorten with AIShorten with AIShorten with AIShorten with AIShorten with AI

Alan Olsen

Now I understand you have a connection here with the National Diabetes Association. Are these waffles diabetic friendly.

Bob Haney

They are so my our CEO, his nine year old son, I think he might be 10. Now, is a type one diabetic. And so I had never, you know, I’m not a diabetic, and I had never had any diabetic or like, tell me that they were diabetes friendly, until about a year ago, when we literally kind of leaned into it because his son, Gabe would eat Heavenly Waffles and had no, you know, or or nominal spike in his sugars. And then we, we work with a company called 93.7 the ticket. It’s a radio station down in Lincoln, Nebraska, um, shout out to Derek Pearson, um, and, and so one day, we were doing an event there, and a guy came up to me, and he handed me, you know, showed me his phone, and I and it was a number, and I, I didn’t understand at all what it was. And he goes, my sugars only went up seven points after eating your Heavenly Waffles. So at that point, we kind of started trying to, I guess, gather numbers and information and lean into that. And so we partner with childhood diabetes foundation out of Denver, and the Barbara Davis Center out of BoulderShorten with AIShorten with AIShorten with AIShorten with AIShorten with AIShorten with AIShorten with AIShorten with AI

Alan Olsen

Bob. What can people find out more about Heavenly Waffles you have a lot of things going on.

Bob Haney

We do have a lot of things going on. So we we have our mix and restaurant. All over the world. The New York Jets just started serving Heavenly Waffles to all of their players and coaches. The University of Tennessee, serving all their athletes, the University of South Florida. And then we also have them in coffee shops and restaurants. The grand Fallon down on the on the plaza in Kansas City, for instance, there the chicken and waffles that they serve, and the waffles they serve on their Saturday and Sunday morning brunches are Heavenly Waffles. And then we’re launching into Costco. We launched into retail about five months ago so, and we started a Costco road show about a month and a half ago. So we will be in Kansas City. Then we’ll be in Lincoln. And then we’re doing a Northwest Regional tour in Seattle, Boise billings, Portland and Salt Lake City in January, February and March. So look out for Heavenly Waffles in Costco. And then we’re launching into, also into, you know, mainstream retailers like Whole Foods. We’re hoping to get soon, sprouts, those are kind of our target markets to start. And then we’ll do like Wegmans and, I guess Kroger and more things like that. Eventually we’ll our goal is to have them in every retailer in the world.Shorten with AIShorten with AIShorten with AIShorten with AIShorten with AIShorten with AIShorten with AIShorten with AI

Alan Olsen

Bob, we have a lot of our followers that are on Facebook, Instagram, social media. Do you have social media channels that they can connect into for more information?

Bob Haney

We definitely, yeah. We definitely do. We have a Heavenly Waffles, Instagram, Heavenly Waffles, Facebook page, Heavenly Waffles, tick, tock. And then we also have a YouTube channel. So go check us out there. There’s a lot of inspiration on my Instagram page, well and Facebook page, but, you know, Instagram is more about visual but it’s so many different things. If there’s a recipe that you might want, send me a direct message, and I’ll send it out to him.

Alan Olsen

Well, it’s so fun watching you scale and build this, build the community out So Bob, I appreciate you being with us here on American dreams today.