The tournament at Grand Park has lasted all day and you and your family are starving. The question is where to go to get some tasty grub? Right now, there are only seven restaurants close to the sports complex, but that number is about to increase. A long time Carmel favorite, Bub’s Burgers & Ice Cream, will soon venture into the fast-casual market in Westfield with their fifth location at Grand Park Shoppes located on Tournament Trail, just north of S.R. 32.
With its close proximity to Grand Park, owner Matt Frey hopes to serve the sports crowd as well as locals. Often families are pressed for time and don’t want to hit yet another drive-thru, chain restaurant for their meal. As an alternative, Bub’s Burgers will implement a simplified menu as well as an ordering counter to get customers in and out fast while still providing them with the food they have come to know, love and crave.
The new space will also allow Bub’s to offer outside seating as well as inside for those occasions when you have a bit more time to enjoy your meal. While customers will still have to go to Carmel to get their Big Ugly fix, the Westfield location will be serving up a mouth-watering menu including burgers, chicken, hot dogs, portabella sandwiches, fries and shakes.
We here at JRF Construction are beyond excited to be part of Bub’s newest venture as it joins Subway and Big Red Liquors in the 12,000 sf development. With spaces still available and the close proximity to our office, we are as excited as you are to see what else is coming!
We are a company that focuses on communities. We build around them and for the people in them. And over the last 13 years, we have been excited to be involved in our own community of Westfield. While it has been quickly growing, we wanted to share some of the places that have become our favorites.
Where to eat
- We like to get to work early, and start the day off right. But we won’t do it without a filling breakfast from Erika’s Place. From farmers omelets to the ever popular Joe’s Fryin’ Pan, you won’t ever leave hungry.
- When lunchtime hits, you will usually find some of the JRF team diving into a delectable sandwich at Rail Epicurean Market. Their constantly changing menu, filled with locally grown ingredients offers something for everyone.
- After a long day of working hard, there are few things more satisfying than a Buccaneer or Davey Jones at the popular Big Hoffa’s Smokehouse Bar-B-Que. Just thinking about their savory pulled pork, coleslaw, and mac & cheese, makes our mouths water.
Where to drink
- Every company has a favorite watering hole. One of our favorites is Grand Junction Brewery. From 1520 to Squirrel Stampede, you can’t go wrong with a brew at this local favorite.
- If beer isn’t exactly what we’re feeling, more times than not, you can find some of the JRF team tossing back a Jack and Coke with some fish n’ chips at The Mill Tavern. But don’t worry. They have beer too.
Where to hangout
- On our days off, like most people, we like relax and spend time with our families and friends. The Bridgewater Club is a great place in the community where you can do anything from salsa lessons to playing a round of golf.
- Grand Park is also a favorite weekend spot among our families. With 31 multi-purpose fields and 26 baseball/softball diamonds, we often find ourselves cheering on our kids and hanging out with our neighbors.
What the Future Holds
We’re excited to be a part of building a larger and stronger community. The completion of Grand Park will bring many more restaurants, shops, and hotels to the Westfield area, including a 12,000 square foot retail building that Team JRF is about to start. Hopefully you will stop into one of our favorite places and maybe discover a new favorite for yourself.
It’s not everyday you get the chance to hire and work with someone like Barry Stoots. When asked what has kept him here so long, he replies, “Loyalty.” Simple as that. This month marks his 14th year at JRF Construction, meaning he has been with us almost as long as we have been JRF Construction, and we couldn’t be happier.
Barry started at JRF as superintendent over some smaller jobs, and quickly felt he had more to offer. He told J.R., “Give me anything. I’ll get it done for you.”
J.R. put him on the Carmel Schwinn building, one of JRF’s biggest projects at the time, and Barry oversaw the project with the dedication and level of quality we’ve just come to expect from Barry.
That quality and dedication means being the first onsite and the last to leave everyday. “I get in, open things up, turn on the power, and make sure everything’s ready,” he says. “If you make a clear path for everyone, projects move at a smoother, faster pace. And you have that time in the morning to think about what issues might come up that day, and what can be done to prevent them, or be prepared for them.”
Which is important when a client comes to you asking to squeeze a 72-day build schedule into 30 days—in the dead of the winter. “We told them it was impossible,” Barry said. But the client was in a jam. It had to be done or risk investment.
Barry still gets choked up talking about it.
“J.R. came to me and he said, ‘We have to try. Whatever happens, happens, but we have to try. It’s that important.’ So we gave it our shot, and somehow, I don’t know how, but somehow, we did it. It almost killed us, but we did it. To this day, we call it The Christmas Miracle.”
And that’s Barry. He does what it takes for the project and for the team to succeed. During the drought of 2012, he even once performed a rain dance in full Native American costume because the water company wouldn’t let us install a water main due to the imposed water restrictions. And you know what, it rained that day. We still hardly believe it ourselves.
Around here, we say that Barry “bleeds JRF red.” The man puts his blood, sweat, and tears into every project he oversees – literally and figuratively. And clients love him for it. We love him for it. So thank you, Barry, for all you have done and all you do. It’s been an incredible 14 years, and we look forward to 14 more.
It’s an exciting time at JRF right now. With numerous new projects starting around the Midwest, we’re looking for a few great people to join the JRF team. We’re growing and looking for people interested in growing with us.
We need motivated individuals with an eye for detail and the desire to work hard. We work with many clients, so we need organized, adaptable people who are willing to do whatever is necessary to help the JRF team throughout the construction process.
Specifically, we’re looking for experienced Superintendents, Carpenters, and a Carpenter Foreman. More details below.
If that sounds familiar, you can submit your resume here. Or if it sounds like someone you know, feel free to send them our way. We’d love to hear from them.
Superintendent
Candidate must be able to schedule and coordinate the day-to-day activities of a jobsite, understand blueprints and design drawings, and communicate progress and potential issues to the other members of the construction team (both electronically and verbally).
Five years previous experience is preferred with restaurant experience a bonus. Excellent benefits package is offered to all employees.
Skilled Carpenters & Carpenter Foreman
This position may need to travel periodically depending on the current project load. Salary will be determined by experience and expertise. Excellent benefits package is offered to all employees.
This week marks 15 years since we set the first plumb line as JRF Construction. And what a fifteen years it’s been—breaking ground, putting up buildings, and growing the JRF family.
There’s something incredibly rewarding about being in construction, to be able to drive around our communities and see the buildings we’ve built, to know the people they were built for. It can also be challenging, and it takes no small amount of grit to succeed. So we take a certain pride in being able to say after 15 years, “We’re still here, we’re still building, and we’re stronger than ever.”
Over the years, we’ve overseen 100s of building projects across a variety of industries—hospitality, retail, commercial offices. We’ve built for all kinds of people in all kinds of places, from rural Michigan to bustling urban neighborhoods in Indianapolis and Nashville. And that has afforded us the experiences and the opportunities to realize who we want to be as a company.
Built Around You
You might have noticed our logo got a bit of an update recently. The past few months, we’ve had a lot of conversations among ourselves and with our customers about who we are and why we care so much about putting up good, strong buildings.
What we came to is the people we build for—not only our customers, but their customers. Every person, every business, and every community is different. Likewise, every project should be built around what makes them unique.
That’s where our new mission comes from. It seems simple, really. It’s something we’ve always known and have always tried to achieve. But now, we’re making it a point to put it front and center as something to strive for, something to hold ourselves accountable to.
And so we want to thank you for the past 15 years. We hope and believe that we made them the best they could be, not only for ourselves, but for the people and the communities we have built for.
We hope you will take some time to explore our new site and learn more about who we are, who we build for, and check out some of our recent projects. Because after all, JRF is built around you.