Fred Smith knows his beef.
Aside from being a former cattleman, the Republican gubernatorial candidate once had a stake in Prime Only, a downtown Raleigh steakhouse and sushi bar.
Smith said he got involved with the restaurant after meeting the owner, James Soules. But about a year ago, Smith said he sold his interest in the restaurant.
"I was an investor for a short period of time," Smith said. "But after seeing the risk and the reward, I decided that's not where I needed to be."
Soules also owns a separate Prime Only in north Raleigh, which Smith did not have a stake in.
According to Smith's autobiography, "A Little Extra Effort," he and his brother, Irvin, started Smith Brothers Cattle Company in the 1970s.
More after the jump.
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Irvin ran the day-to-day operations, and Fred dealt with the banks and financed the company with his income from the law firm, Smith Debnam Hibbert & Pahl, he worked with at the time.
They sold the company in 1983 or 1984, according to the autobiography:
"Despite years of backbreaking hard work on the farm, Irvin and I hit the wall as well. Irvin made an extraordinary effort, but it couldn't change the fact that our cattle were worth less than we orginally paid for them, and our crops were not turning a profit. We coudn't pay the bills at both the Warrenton and Archer Lodge farms. It pained me, but we sold our cattle, our tobacco allotment and our land in Warrenton."
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