1December 2020

OFUnionNeighborsAn exclusive magazine proudly serving the residents of Triple Crown, Cool Springs, Heritage Trails, Lassing Green, Red Stone Village, Hempsteade and Hampshire

DECEMBER 2020

Jay and Savannah BachmannBUILDING A LEGACY OF GIVING

Cover photo by Nicole Grosser

Neighbors of Union8

By Dana Skulan Content Coordinator | Photos by Nicole Grosser

Jay and Savannah BachmannBUILDING A LEGACY OF GIVING

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Neighbors of Union8

After Savannah and Jay Bachmann went on their first date, they knew they were meant to be together. Savannah (Allen) Bachmann was a junior at Ryle High School at the time and Jay, being four years older, had already graduated from Cooper High. They continued to date while Jay began working and looking for the career that was as much in his head as it was in his heart. “Jay is such a hard worker,” Savannah shared, “and a natural-born leader. He possesses the most entrepreneurial spirit I think I have ever seen.” They moved to Florida briefly to enjoy the ocean life, but the call to be with family, in the place they had always known as home, was just too strong. They came back to Boone County after only a year and set about creating what they hoped would be the dream of owning their own business.

“I was looking into craft beers and getting into that market. But I noticed that all the local craft beer makers didn’t provide their own food, they contracted it out to other people. That led me to look at pizza. There is always a market for good pizza, and I thought I could add craft beers later,” Jay explained. Jay took the time to do lots of research on both small business ownership and pizza business ownership as well. Despite lots of naysayers warning people about the

failure of most restaurants, Jay couldn’t shake the feeling that this was something he knew he could do and be successful. Savannah proudly shared, “I was in dental hygiene school, working at Skyline, with a six-month-old baby. Jay came home and said,’ I’m just going to do it.’ He took our savings and literally it took him 3 months to open up the store. He did every single thing. He worked 16-18 hours a day, every day until he got it opened.” They opened the Florence location of Poseidon’s Pizza in May of 2019. The name ‘Poseidon’ was a nod to their love of all things aquatic life and Savannah admitted jokingly that Jay thought the trident logo would look good on a t-shirt. Savannah smiled, “We got married on a Saturday in KY, flew to Las Vegas the next morning for a short honeymoon and came home and opened our business on that Wednesday.”

It’s been a wild ride since then, especially considering they were open less than a year before the quarantine hit. While the lock-down has become an unfortunate circumstance for some businesses in our area, Jay and Savannah took a different approach and chose to make their business a blessing for others. Rather than slowing down, their delivered pizzas became highly desirable and they found themselves able to serve hundreds of people, employ many people that

9December 2020

really needed the work, and donate more food than what they ever thought possible.

Savannah explained, “During COVID, we offered free lunches to any student in NKY who couldn’t get a hot meal. We served over 8,000 small pizzas to children during this time. We wanted people to know we were there for them. A lot of small businesses in this area had to close during this time. We were so fortunate to be open.” She added, “We did fundraisers for these businesses to help cover the cost of the bills they still had to pay while they had a mandatory close. We raised over $20,000 dollars to give back to them to help during the shutdown. We couldn’t have done it without all of the truly amazing customers who came out and supported these businesses and Poseidon’s as well.”

“It started off more like a typical business, but I didn’t know how much I liked to give and help people out, until that started to happen,” Jay shared humbly. “I didn’t know about giving, it didn’t register until we started Poseidon’s and then there were so many opportunities to give. Now it’s kind of switched. Instead of our goal being to run a pizza place, now our goal is to help out our community and this is the means to do that.”

9December 2020

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Neighbors of Union10

In addition to supporting over 15 different schools in NKY, Poseidon does regular fundraisers at the stores and gives the profit back to help their teams, bands, or clubs. They give a 10% discount to nurses, senior citizens, teachers, Police, Fire, or EMS, and military & veterans. They even have a pizza called the IGY6 where they donate 10% of the profits every quarter to the Wounded Warrior Project.

Jay explained, “We started to partner with GoPantry and I was trying to think of ways we could do more. At first, in 2019 we put GoPanty bins in all our locations and can drives began to fill up. And Savannah added, “and last year over Christmas break we were able to put coupons for free pizzas in all the GoBags and then we did that again for Covid. Now it’s an on-going thing.”

As busy as they were with one location, Jay and Savannah kept going and opened a Hebron location in May of 2020 and a Crescent Spring location in October where they hope to have dine-in service soon. The support they were receiving from the community was driving them to build more locations and really to build a legacy of generosity for their young family. “I have never seen anybody support a small business as much as they do us,” Savannah said. “People have been terrific.” Their second son Nash was born this summer and now this family and its business are growing fast. Leo is two years old and Nash is 4 months. Leo is taking to pizza life well. Savannah laughed, “Leo loves to be here. He puts his little gloves on and wants to just stand there and watch people making dough. We even have pizzas named after them. We hope when they grow-up they actually like them.”

When it comes to managing a business and raising two small boys, Savannah is grateful for the support she has from family. By opening the stores after 4 pm she is able to get help watching the kids from both her mother and mother-in-law. This way she and Jay can work in the evenings to run the business. “He builds out the stores and I do a lot of the backroom things like the accounting, payroll and

10 Neighbors of Union

The State Championship ring.

Above: Savannah and NashBelow: Jay and Leo

11December 2020 11December 2020

situations they may have found themselves in. If we can do things to try to turn their path around, that’s the best.”

Jay and Savannah have put down their roots here and are planning to build a business they can be proud of and that makes a difference in people’s lives. They have personally felt so much encouragement from this community and for their young business. “I just want to say thank you,” Jay shared. “There are so many other places that you can choose to eat.” Savannah knows this is home too and the business is an extension of their love for this area. After a recent move to the Hearthstone subdivision, the Bachmann’s are set to be here a long time. “There is literally nowhere more perfect than Kentucky, right where we’re at. I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else but here,” Savannah laughed, “We don’t even want to live anywhere other than Florence.”

Jay knows that what they are doing is bigger than pizza, it’s a bigger mission than just building a business, it’s building a legacy of giving. “I totally want to lead by example, Jay said, “and I hope other businesses will also want to be more generous. They don’t know who I am now, but I hope that when we grow, we’ll set the standard for giving.”

To learn more about Poseidon Pizza or to contact Jay or Savannah Bachmann, go to:

poseidonspizzacompany.com

...now our goal is to help out our community and this

is the means to do that.- Jay Bachmann

Poseidon Trident

customer service,” she said. “We work really well as a team because we balance each other. We do such different things and we never fight.” Jay chimed in, “It’s true, we don’t. And we’re both passionate about what we do.”

Jay and Savannah feel just as compelled to be a blessing to their employees as they are to their community. “I was trying to find a business that I wanted to do. And people would always say, ‘Do what you love and the money will come,” Jay said. “But it took me until this business started that I realized that what I love is owning my own business, that’s what I love. Because now I can have a direct impact on my employees.”

Jay remembered that when he was younger, some people didn’t take him very seriously. He once told Savannah’s Dad that if someday he were to have employees, he would treat his employees fairly and help them find their best path. “I love being able to be that person that can help,” Jay smiled. “Everyone has a story and I’m not going to write off anybody.” And Savannah added, “We want to help people with the difficult