It could be said that the Wahlbergs are famous enough and rich enough on their own to not need anything else, but that might be missing the point. Wahlburgers was a name that the guys had to license as their own for their restaurant as they had to speak to Tom Wahls, another famous chain of burger joints. Once the guys had the name however things just started happening. It does help that Mark and Donnie were part of the group that was making this happen, and that their brother Paul was already a great chef and was fully on board with making their own restaurant. While the show depicts the brothers getting into arguments now and again and Paul doing most if not all of the cooking along with their mother, it does show that the family seems to value their time together and manages to make that time count. In doing so they’ve created a chain that has been adding dozens of new restaurants since 2014 and doesn’t seem to be slowing down any time soon.
Paul Wahlberg was already working in Alma Nove, the family restaurant.
Paul is the chef, the guy that you don’t see much except on the show. Donnie and Mark are obviously the big actors in the family though Paul has apparently acted a bit as well. The plan was to keep the restaurant in Boston to start with, in their own yard so to speak, but the idea went far beyond that. In 2014 Wahlburger’s opened not too far from Alma Nove, allowing Paul to work at the new restaurant and, for a while at least, keep an eye on the Alma Nove until it came time that he needed help, which would have been quite soon to be honest. Running one restaurant is hard enough, but having to run more than one or two would be a headache that many people would easily decline. It almost seems as though Donnie and Mark were reluctant to get in on it but they agree, likely because their mother had a plan and wanted the family to be in on it.
From 2016 to 2018 several more restaurants have been opened and there are plans for many more.
Locations include South Carolina, North Carolina, Florida, New York, Minnesota, and Illinois with several restaurants coming to a few locations and only one or two coming to others. That’s highly ambitious even for the Wahlbergs, who are stars for the most part thanks to this and are backed by the two most famous members of their family. That still seems like a lot of capital to be throwing around, but since it’s a family thing you can imagine that they all have some stock in it and either help out or at least help to promote the restaurants in some way. Their mother Alma is a big believer in family and enjoys the fact that this chain has brought her boys a little closer together, even if that’s not always a peaceful situation as has been shown on a few episodes. Mark and Donnie are the bigshots in the family and let their brother Paul know about it now and then in a good-natured, brotherly fashion that many siblings would recognize as the kind of bond that many brothers have. It’s not always perfect but it’s there and it’s what keeps a family together.
Paul is in charge of the kitchen
There’s no question of who the chef is even if Donnie and Mark give their brother a hard time about it. Paul is the first and last word when it comes to the kitchen and aside from the menu items and a few other things about the restaurant his words is the one that goes, so long as his mother agrees with it. The guys are very deferential to their mother since she is essentially the boss when it comes to family matters and they don’t seem willing to challenge that any time soon. Of course you’re going to listen to your mother, it’s something that’s ingrained in your psyche from the moment you begin to understand what they’re telling you. Some people find a way to block it out and ignore them, but the Wahlberg’s seem to know better as they tend to listen to their mother even if what she’s telling them doesn’t always seem to make that much sense.
It sounds like an interesting business and even more they have plans to work with local supermarkets and retail stores to sell their products in as many ways and places as possible. They might seem highly ambitious but at the very least the Wahlbergs seem to have good business sense when it comes to making money.
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