Meet Your Merchant: A little East Coast flavor

Joe and Sue Joyner lead busy lives.

That might be an understatement for the co-owners of Sierra Joe's Burgers-N-Such in Carson City and Dayton. Besides running their two restaurants, the Joyners both have other careers as well as two of their five children still attending school in Dayton.

But it's a dream both wanted to pursue after moving west from New Jersey 16 years ago.

Joe and Sue Joyner met in the restaurant business about 30 years ago while working for a Roy Rogers in New Jersey. After they married 23 years ago, Joe started looking for more stable work outside of the restaurant business. He eventually landed a job with the U.S. Department of Interior and Sue started her career as a childcare provider.

Meanwhile, Joe Joyner had long dreamed of moving west to live near mountains, whereas in New Jersey, "the only view you have is the car in front of you."

So in 1994, Joe accepted a federal job in Carson City as a hydrologic technician and moved the family to Dayton. The family continued to grow and by 2001, Sue Joyner had opened three Dayton Valley Learning Centers, two of which still are operating.

By 2006, Joe wanted to try the restaurant business again and jumped at the opportunity to buy the former location of Lefty's Burgers and Such in Carson City. Four years later, the Joyners have two restaurants after buying the former Beefy's Hamburgers and Tacos in Dayton last year.

And being from the East Coast, the Joyners' specialty is their Philly cheesesteak sandwich, which is made with thin-sliced top round steak - local and never frozen, Joe notes - and topped with white American cheese (provolone is OK, too), peppers and onions. One of their prized possessions is a photo of them taken with Joey Vento of Philadelphia's Geno's Steaks, considered to be one of the birthplaces of the Philly cheesesteak.

"The reason he brought the Philly cheesesteak here was because we missed it, desperately," Sue Joyner said. "The only time we'd get a good Philly cheesesteak was when we'd go home to the family."

They also offer burgers, sandwiches, such as their pulled pork, and homemade potato chips. They're starting to offer entire meals for $5, too.

Of course, the down economy has hurt the business, especially state worker furloughs and the limp construction market.

"And then when Hollywood (Video) closed down," Joe said. "We never realized how many people actually came to us, they'd come in and order their food and then they'd go rent their movie ... so we made some real tough decisions. We went from a well-known supplier to purchasing the food ourselves to save money."

It has meant more work for the Joyners because of the struggling economy, but they're also starting a catering business to drum up more sales (they supplied Philly cheesesteaks to the Dayton Valley varsity football team Wednesday night, for example).

They also want to try to brand one of their secret recipes: Joe's potato salad.

"We do want to eventually mass produce our potato salad," Joe said.

"Our potato salad is pretty famous," Sue adds.

They've learned lessons from their four-year-old venture, too.

"You have to be hands on," Joe said. "You can hire people to work for you and you pay them, but you can't pay them to care."