When Art Davis Jr. moved to Spring Hill, he and his wife had no idea what to expect. A native of Brooklyn, New York, Davis’ wife found herself being relocated with her company to Franklin.
“We came down here sight unseen. We’d never heard of Franklin or even been to Tennessee. That first night, we knew this was going to be home,” he said. “I never thought I’d live in the South. Now, I’d never move back to the North.”
Davis was working for Dell as a salesperson when he was laid off by the company a little more than two years.
“When I got here, I was in sales and would’ve stayed in sales if not for a fluke,” he said. “I was working for Dell, and they laid off about 250 people. I’d just had my third rotator cuff surgery and had no idea what I was going to do. Some of my friends convinced me to drive for Uber. I did that for about three months, and I could tell that was not going to be a vehicle for retirement.”
That realization brought him to thinking about his Brooklyn roots. At the time, very few companies had ride share drivers this far south, and the idea hit him.
“I thought about Brooklyn and the suburbs of New York where car services are prominent,” he said.
Concierge Ride TN was born in April 2016 with just one car and Davis as the driver. Since that time, his company has grown to six drivers and multiple cars.
“Initially, I would often get the question, ‘What is a car service?’ Now, we have well over 200 steady clients, and that number continues to grow as more people understand the concept of a car service,” he said.
The difference between Concierge Ride TN and that of Uber or Lyft is simple to Davis — treating clients like a VIP. From opening doors for the client to having an umbrella on hand for rain, Davis spares no expense for the VIP experience.
