B (3:44)

Thanks for having me, Chip. I appreciate the time. And I always like doing this.

A (3:48)

Yeah, it's, it's the best part of my week where I get to. Where I get to have interesting conversations with people and bring those conversations to other people all around the world. We're in something like 65 countries at this point. Five years into the podcast, it's a very cool thing. Thank you for waking up early. I know you're on the left coast today, and so this is an early conversation. So we'll try to ease you in and go slowly for the listeners, give them some context about your trajectory. So how'd you get into this? What made you initially dive into restaurants and ultimately what led you to build a career here? Tell me what you're all about and what you're building.

B (4:30)

So, like most people, you fall into the restaurant industry by accident. And my story is no different. I completely messed up at school my freshman year. My mom and dad cut me off and I had to pay for school. And so when I went back my sophomore year, I worked all summer to get enough money to pay my tuition, which today, in today's times, would have been impossible. But back then, you could still actually work and pay for school at the same time. And when I got back to school, I needed a job. So I applied as a delivery driver and started my restaurant experience as a delivery driver and a houseboy for the sorority houses, which wasn't a bad job, but because I could, I couldn't afford food, the house moms were taking care of me and so they would leave meals out for me and stuff like that so I could eat. And that always touched me as a level of hospitality. Continue to work through school in the restaurant industry and then finally moved up with. Decided I was going to go into accounting. So of all things, you know, restaurant person going into accounting, got hired at Arthur Andersen, which thank God it did not take because it went belly up as a forensic tax accountant. And as they told me to take a semester off, a guy by the name of Jimmy John somehow got my resume. And out of the blue I got a phone call from him and he said, hey, I want you to, you know, be my intern for the summer. And I'm like, who are you? I had no clue what Jimmy John's was. Hadn't heard of it. And he goes, I'm Jimmy John. And I go, does nothing for me, man. And he goes, I have a sandwich company, I want you to come. I'm outside of Chicago. I want you to work for me for the summer. I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, whatever. And I called home and asked my parents if they had ever heard of Jimmy John's because I was down in Kentucky and there were absolutely none. And you know, there was only 20 some stores at that time. And my dad goes, I know the dad and small world. The dad gave my dad his. One of his first major contracts for his business for K40 radar detector. He goes, go ahead and talk to him. So we met and sort of hit it off and he hired me as a controller. About six weeks later, he offered me a full time job as controller. And then after that we went very, very fast, if you can believe it. I went from controller to CFO to CEO to CE, all within about 18 months.

A (7:04)

That's a quick trajectory.

B (7:06)

Yeah. The rest is sort of history. We hit it off and we had caught magic in a bottle and went from 30 restaurants to 300 and 700 sold by the time I left.

A (7:16)

It's crazy. So what was it about? So what was it about your resume that got it to the top of the list to get that initial phone call in the first place?

B (7:26)

I think he thought I could. He. I would be cheap.

A (7:30)

Okay.

B (7:31)

I mean, I mean, realistically, he was looking for someone to be an intern. His accounting and his department was a mess, and he needed someone to come in and do the grunt work during the summer. And it was the right place, right time, and we hit it off.

A (7:45)

Yeah.

B (7:47)

And what he always. We always joked about is that he always thought he was the hardest worker in the room. And I outworked everybody in his company from the day one. And I took charge by not leading by example, but not by being the smartest in the room. I wasn't. I was a kid. So I had to go and figure out how to do franchise audits and everything else, because they had nobody that really knew how to do it at that point.

A (8:13)

Yeah.

B (8:13)

And so I educated myself. I surrounded myself with people in the industry and picking up the phone and calling people and asking for, hey, have you ever done this before? Can you give me a little help? And they all thought I was crazy, but yet because I. They thought I was so nuts. And because I actually called them and asked for help, they all started mentoring me.

A (8:31)

Yeah.

B (8:32)

So I had this perfect storm of being this young kid with all these incredible old mentors that I just picked up the phone and said, screw it, I'm going to ask a question. And, you know, and they. Back in that day, it was hard to get ahold of people because you had to call their desk phones or you had to find their email. It wasn't like you get a cell phone or go online and look at social media. You actually had to work to get them right. And they all thought it was so impressive that I hunted them down to ask a question and the rest was sort of history. And then I continued to learn. Got into ops because his ops team quit and he was going away for a little bit. So I went down to Lafayette, which was our busiest store, and started learning how to run a restaurant. And, you know, that's my favorite part of my restaurant career was those two weeks that I spent in that store, because the manager was our manager of the year, would run the busiest store. So I would get down there and we would. He worked night shifts because that was when it was busy. And Jimmy John's closed at 3am and so he would get there at 4, I got there at 4. The next day I would get there at 3:30 to beat him. So I worked longer, and by the end of the two weeks, we were. I was going back to the hotel, showering, going back to my room, sleeping back to my car, slept in the parking lot so I could put the key in the Door and open the restaurant and work open to close to prove that I could run this company. And again, I got the buy in at that point of ops because who else is going to do that? Some kids actually doing it. And I walked out of there and that manager looked at me and said, I got your back, you can do this. And came back and sales started picking up and everything started going really, really well. And Jimmy said, keep going.

A (10:08)

Yeah, I want to go back a little bit. You sort of glazed some. Glazed over something that I think is probably worth touching back on. So you sort of honest and said, yeah, you know, you screwed up your freshman year, your parents cut you off and so you sort of had to figure it out on your own. You also said you sort of, you know, ended up in the restaurants by accident. And I think those two things are, I think one or both of those things are not foreign to a lot of the listeners here. I think a lot of people take the side door or the back door into restaurants. I think especially in this country, it ends up being something you sort of fall into, not something you aspire to do. Which I hope is changing generation by generation because I think it is a really good way to make a living. I think it's a really good way to spend a life having. Having spent the last 25 years doing this. Talk to me about you personally. What changed? Obviously a lot changed to get you from the place where making mistakes, not stepping up, et cetera, whatever happened there to the point where the guy you're just describing here being the first one in, last one out, going above and beyond. Talk to me personally, what happened there?

B (11:14)

So I mean like every kid, my parents were extremely strict. I was the oldest, I was expected to always be perfect. And so when I got to college I had a lot of fun. And as stupid as it may sound is that I did not read the syllabus my freshman year and I would go and take the test and do very well on the test and actually A's on the test and never show up to class. But I didn't read the fact, the fine print that if I didn't show up to class I lose 10% after so many misses every 10min this class. So all of a sudden I have my report card and I'm like, ah, no problem. I was so happy. I remember going up and my parents opening, I'm like, I did great. Showed them all the tests and all that and I failed everything except one class. And they're like, I'm like, no, I Here. And they go, what did you do? And I looked at the syllabus and oh, crap. And stupid me did it the second semester the same way. I didn't learn. And so when I got home that semester, my mom and dad looked at me and said, we're not paying for college. And I was the first one to go. So it was really, really important to me that I didn't let them down. And my parents built the work ethic in me from day one. Because my dad was not home when I was growing up. He was building his company. He would come home, eat dinner with us, and go back to work. I always saw him being gone and always working, and it just installed that work ethic in me that I let him down. And so when I went back to school, I did everything in my power to make sure that I would never let them down again. And that was sort of my motivation. And I wanted to prove to everybody I wasn't a complete screw up. Yeah, because everybody, you know, they were talking and I let them down. I embarrassed them. I remember going to dinner, you know, right after I got back in May, and his best friend goes, oh, your dad talks so proud of you. And then you screwed this up brutally. You, you know, and I'm like, oh, my God, I embarrassed him in front of everybody. And that was like the eye opening experience that my actions cause effect to everybody and that your parents are your biggest cheerleaders and, you know, when you hurt them, you hurt yourself. And I never wanted to do that again.

A (13:32)

I bring all that up. And I appreciate you going a little bit deeper there because again, I think the story probably resonates with most people listening, if not everybody listening. The thing about the restaurant industry is that there's a very low barrier of entry. Right. Which I think we all know. But I found this with myself early on in my career. I did not come to New York City to pursue a career in hospitality. I fell into it and, you know, 10 years into my career, I looked back and I was like, whoa, look at the opportunities I've been given. If you present yourself as sort of hungry and capable and sort of passionate, you know, you'll be given opportunities. I was given opportunities in this industry that I would have never been given in other industries. And for a while I turned my back on that for other personal reasons and all of that. But at a certain point, I look back and I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Look at who I've been able to work with. Look at the restaurants that I'VE been able to open. Look at my. Look at my resume. I mean, I always joke around at this point in my career. I look back after 25 years in the industry, really, 20 years in operations in New York City. Like, I got a dozen Michelin stars. Like, I've worked with these James Beard Award winners. I've. I've been tapped to open Relay and Chateau Properties. Like. Like, that's not a. That's not a small thing. And it was because I presented myself as capable and willing to learn and all of that. And I think that's true for a lot of people coming up through this industry. Like, you can pretty much do anything in this industry if you want it. And the other thing I want to go back to is that you had sort of the pluck or the gumption to pick up the phone and call a bunch of people and ask questions, which I admire, because I didn't do that a lot early in my career. I felt like it was a fake it till you make it kind of thing, that I had to prove to people that I was. That I was worthy of being there even when I very much wasn't. And I had a. Just sort of learn as I went along, and I sort of made more mistakes than I probably had to. And it wasn't until I don't know, my fourth or fifth restaurant that I ended up working with, really, my first mentor, who taught me a lot of the things that I really needed to know. I mean, I wished that when I was younger, I had had the wherewithal to ask more questions and just be a sponge to the people that I was working under and that I was working with. So that's something that's worth highlighting here that I think, you know, with age comes wisdom, but you sort of had that wisdom earlier on in your career. And so I hope other people listening to that hear this, because I think. I think in this industry, people are only too willing, only too willing to share. Do you find that?

B (16:18)

Oh, I walk into every room thinking that I'm the dumbest person in the room. And I hold that because there's something I can learn from every interaction that I have every day. And it could be the smallest thing from learning from the dishwasher how to wash dishes a little faster or, hey, how to clean the grease trap. I mean, there's. You can learn from every level of every position that's in every industry, and I think people forget that. And you can glean something that can make your company better every time you go somewhere And I learned a long time ago from my dad again and from others that you have to listen to everybody. And they may not be right and you may end up helping them or, you know, help pushing them or give them advice, but you're going to get something out of that conversation that you can use to make yourself better. That's sort of the way that I focus day in and day out on where I go and why I surround myself. And I have the friends that I have in this industry because each and every one of them give me some sort of advice every time I talk to them to make my company better and make myself better, both as a person and as a leader. And you can never have enough people around you supporting you and being there for you. And that's the most important thing about. And what's so great about this industry is that everybody is willing to do that and the few that aren't, we all know who they are and, you know, it's. But everybody else in the majority of this industry will go over and bend over backwards to answer a question or give someone advice or to help them through something or at least steer them in the right direction. And that's sort of what is so cool about the restaurant industry, because in the manufacturing world, everything's a secret. And you can't talk or tell anybody how you're doing things and this and that, because you're all fighting for that next great product. In the restaurant industry, we all steal everybody's ideas anyways. They're not an original restaurant idea out there. Chicken tenders are not new, you know, but yet they're the hottest thing in the world. But they've been around for how long? I mean, since the 70s. But now they're the coolest thing in the world. But it's. We all steal from everybody here, and so we're not afraid to have those conversations or how you're marketing or how to do that. And those are the things that makes me very passionate about what we do every day.

A (18:41)

Yeah, for sure. You know, it's funny. One of the first consulting jobs, when I was moving out of operations into a consulting role, and I just thought, oh, I think I can help restaurants and sort of come in and be that outside objective. I, which largely I was the first, first contract I ever did, I saved this company almost quarter, quarter million dollars a year simply because I sat down and had conversations with the dishwashers and the porters to better understand their job, that this restaurant was open for 15 years, for 15, 16 years. And nobody had ever, everyone had just told them what to do. Nobody asked them what we think we could do to make it better. And it never dawned on them that these guys who were in the trenches, working 14 hours a day back in the dish pit might know more about their job and the efficiencies of the machines. But everybody had always said, you know, just told them, don't use so much soap, don't want so much more, don't make sure you put them here. Everybody was always telling them what they were doing wrong. You didn't stack the dishes right, you didn't, you use too much soap, you use too much water, et cetera. They were just. Everybody would always tell them what they could do to do it better. And nobody stopped and asked, hey, what do you think about your job? How could we help you do this better? What if I could? And largely, it's what we did. And we ended up coming up with a sort of a new way of scheduling and cross training, which helped us keep dishwashers for longer. Cause we gave them sort of, I always call it the path to citizenship. That there was a path then to go from porter to dishwasher, to prep cook, to line cook, to sous chef to CDC that were like, we gave them a path forward. And it was simply, it began by understanding what they did on a daily basis, on a minute to minute basis, and how we could help them do that more easily, more efficiently, and ultimately more effectively to use less labor hours and support the people who really wanted to be there and give then the people who came. I mean, literally it was, I mean, it was like an hour long conversation, you know, with two translators. I mean, it was an hour long conversation with two translators, I'm telling you, one in Creole, one in Spanish. And we learned more over that hour about their job and the machines and what drives them crazy and what they needed to be able to do it better. When their slow periods were. And when we looked at it, when we laid it all out, we realized, well, the slow periods here are the busy periods here, right, for the dishwashers and the porters. And what we ended up doing was merging these roles. And we merged dishwasher, porter, and prep cook for two of the positions. And so, like, we learned so much in an hour simply by walking into the room and saying, let's assume I'm not the expert here, let's assume I don't know anything about this. But by understanding these three departments, which were so interconnected, we were able to cut significant amount of labor and Cleaning supplies, and on and on and on. It was a really cool thing to see and a testament to exactly what you're talking about.

B (21:47)

About. And I mean, again, always. You can always learn.

A (21:50)

Yep.

B (21:52)

So we have a rule in my company that we write our systems and we always look at it. Is it a system fail or a, you know, user error? Do we not follow the system? And if the system fails, we rewrite the system. And if it's, you know, if it's in a user error, we coach and get them to be better and find out what we can do to make that system work better.

A (22:12)

Yep.

B (22:13)

And then every month, we start our ops meetings with, okay, let's go through the systems. Which systems do you think are punch lists that we need to tweak to make sure that we're cleaning the bathrooms better, clean this better, or do this better. And our best ideas continually come from our employees because they're the ones using them every day. But if you don't have that sort of communication with them and tell them it's okay to get in and get dirty and tell you, no, this is written horrible. This doesn't work. It's not how we do it. They're going to continue to just not follow it and do it the way they think. Better anyways.

A (22:45)

Yep. It's so funny. I. So I run a mastermind program for independent restaurant owners. To date, we've got more than 100 members in the program, spread across three different groups. More than anything else, it ends up being executive coaching. We're helping these restaurant leaders be better leaders for their people. And one of the things we constantly come up with. And now my people know. Know what my answer is always going to be. But it always starts with something, you know, something along the lines of, you know, how do I get people to fill in the blank, show up on time, not use their phones, you know, do the SOP the way it's supposed to be, everything. And I said, we have to stop telling them what to do. And you've got to turn it around and ask them and say, hey, I wrote this thing, right? We wrote this thing because it would be the best, but, you know, but it seems like that's not working. So, so what should we do? And I always talk about system. You know, system only works if it's tethered to a goal, Right? We say, hey, this is what we're trying to accomplish. The system is just a repeatable set of actions. So we're going to do the following things to achieve this stated goal. So as long as everyone's clear on the goal, hey, we're trying to find the most efficient, most effective way to do this task. That's the goal. We came up with a system for it. But you tell me, is there a better way to get to that goal? As long as we're all focused on the goal, which is to keep labor down, to keep our ordering in check, to maintain pars, to put out the best food as quickly as possible, whatever it is, make sure we're tethered to the goal and then put it to your team. So rather than telling what to do, ask them, say, so what else should we be doing? What have we not thought of? How do we improve this system? And just simply by asking questions like that, it puts all the ownership and all the buy in on them. And you sort of understand who wants to be there and who doesn't either. Someone's going to say, oh, okay, great, I'm glad you asked. Well, actually doesn't make sense that we do this, we should do that, or you're going to get. People say, oh, I don't know, that's not my job. Just, just tell me. Right? Like you're going to learn. But most the time, our people really want to be a part of this and really want to help and really want to do a good job. I always say it's a great way to get management, you know, up, you know, rather than, you know, upper leadership pushing down to the management at the store level and management then pushing down to the line level employees, like, just present the question to them. So our goal is to get, you know, cut labor by three points. What do you think we can do? Come back with a bunch of ideas, and when they run back and, you know, when they run out and come up with some ideas and come back, well, then they're part of the process. Which ends up, again, it ends up changing the dynamic of, of any store.

B (25:23)

100%. Agreed. And when you give them goals to manage to, the good ones always find a way to get there.

A (25:29)

100%. It's one of the things that we always say, people are like, oh, how do I get my labor in line? I was like, well, first of all, you have to have a clear number of what the labor is. And it's all about education and empowerment, right? You tell someone what it needs to be, why it matters, why it needs to be that way. Here's how I think you can get that way. Here's some tools to do it. But ultimately, I empower you to make the decisions that you need to make to hit the number, to hit the goal that we need to hit. And they were like, yeah, but what if they can't do it? And that's where you come in and you say, if you need help with that, if you need, if you need guidance or, you know, two heads, you know, put our two heads together, fine. I said, but what I think you're going to find is most of the problems will solve themselves when you just give a very clear goal and you say, I trust you, I'm empowering you to make the decisions that need to be made to hit the stated goal. Our goal is labor at 29%. Great that this is a number. Here's the revenue we're projecting to do next month. Here's the number what 29% is. You figure out how to get there. I trust you. And, and it ends up, it ends up giving them better jobs and just having to sort of like, you know, turn the, turn the dial, press the lever, make the widget is that they get to make, you know, they get to bring creativity and all of themselves to the process, which again, just changes the dynamic of the store. Running a restaurant means juggling a lot. Staffing, inventory, customer service and finances. Sales tax has to be done. And while no one plans to miss a deadline or miscalculate a payment, mistakes happen. When those happen, they can lead to penalties, fines, and, yeah, added stress. That's why there's Davo by Avalara. Davo integrates with your point of sale system and automatically sets aside sales tax daily, giving you a clear view of your actual cash flow. Then when it's time to file, Davo files and pays your sales tax on time in full, guaranteed. No more last minute scrambles or costly mistakes. Just seamless automation. Thousands of restaurants trust Davo. And with a 4.9 star rating on G2, it's a proven solution. Your first monthly filing is free with zero commitment. Get started today@davosalestax.com RestaurantStrategy. I will add in here. This fits in perfectly with what we're about to talk about again. Davosalestax.com RestaurantStrategy and yes, that link is in the show notes.

B (28:01)

And the more you can get an employee or a group to buy in the store, in itself, the greater success you're going to have running any business. So when that all comes from the leadership and the owners have got to be instead of being raging lunatics because they didn't hit a number or, you know, throwing Pots and pans. Like, you hear some chef stories out there. If you can calmly teach where you want to go, people will follow, and they follow people that want to actually help them get better and people that motivate them by doing things the right way.

A (28:33)

Yep.

B (28:34)

And so many times in this industry, we have heard those horror stories. And why we don't get the best talent to come into restaurants, it's because it's not a glamorous job. But yet what's funny is that it can be an extremely glamorous job once you start building.

A (28:52)

I believe that it really can be. It can be cool, should be cool. I think it's cool.

B (29:00)

It's one of the best jobs because you. Every day you get a different interaction. And there's not many jobs out there where every day you get to touch somebody's lives in some which way or form. And I tell my team all the time, if you can walk into Disney World or you can walk into Disneyland, and that staff has always got a smile on their face. You know, how many times they've got a smile and wave and, you know, say stuff to employees. If they can build that type of culture in that environment, we can definitely be able to do the same type of thing in the restaurant industry. And you have an opportunity when they pick you to make life special, to make a memory form, because we're an experience.

A (29:37)

Well, in this. That's that owner thing, right? That, like, when you have ownership over a place, you realize that you live and die by whether people decide to come in. Right. By how many covers you do and how much they choose to spend with you that night. And every owner that gets it, that I've ever talked to or worked with gets it right. And they say, like, I'm profoundly moved that given the dozens, hundreds, or thousands of choices in my market, this person decided to walk in here and trusted me with their anniversary, their birthday, or just their dinner on a Wednesday night, that they could have gone to the supermarket, they could have made food at home, they could have picked up takeout, they could have gone anywhere else, but they chose me. And I think that's a profound found. I'm profoundly moved by that, that somebody chooses with my group, whenever. Whenever somebody raises their hand and says, hey, I'm the expert in this place, but I need help in this area, and I think you can help me. I believe you. I trust you. I'm profoundly moved by the fact that somebody is putting their faith in me. And it's the same thing with every cover, every Single night. Everything they order, I always talk about, I talk, I always talk about transactions. So there's a, there's a talk I give, there's a keynote that I've given a couple of times. And they talk a lot about transactions, right? Transactions, value and price. And I say a transaction is more than meets the eye, right? We give you this well cooked piece of halibut in exchange for $32. But there's a lot more that's being traded, right on the merchant side, it's the chef's experience, their expertise, their taste, right? That the skills that go into not only like coming up with a recipe, but then actually shopping for it, prepping it, executing it, and guess what? Then we clean up afterwards for them, right? So there's, you just have to come in order, eat it and then go, right? There's a lot that goes into that halibut beyond just a well cooked piece of halibut. And then on the side of the consumer, right? This goes to, right, what we were talking about. Money is renewable. We can go back to work tomorrow and make more money. I'll replace that $32 that I spent on the fish. But time, attention and trust are the three most valuable resources we have. We have limited time on this world. I can't give my attention to too many places. If I give my attention to this place for dinner, I can't give it to the place across town. And then the last thing is trust. And I always say this when I give this keynote. I said, how many people here like hamburgers, right? And everybody raises their hand. I said, okay, I'm going to ruin hamburgers for you right now, I'm warning you. I said, how many people have ever ordered a hamburger and it arrives and you take the bun off and you start picking apart all, you know, you put your fingers through it and pick all the ground beef apart, right? I said, I don't think anybody, I've never done it. I've never seen anybody do it. And yet I think all of us in the room understand how easy it would be to put a bunch of broken glass into a hamburger. It would be too easy to do that, to throw broken glass in. And everybody in the restaurants, every guest sits down, orders with somebody that they don't know, they've never met and trusts that somebody somewhere else in the building that they've never met, don't know, can't see, will do exactly what they asked, right? That it's a burger, medium rare. You know, forget the fact that they might overcook it. We trust that they're going to cook it to temperature, but they could do really bad things. And again, I use the broken glass and hamburgers as an exaggerated version of. Because we all realize how easy it would be to do that. We trust people. We trust people to not put broken glass in our burger and we just put ketchup on it and start eating it. So I'm profoundly moved by the fact that people trust us to take care of them, to prepare something that they're going to put in their body. And I think it's a, again, goes back to this. I think we get to do a really special thing in this world that we get to take care of people. We get to feed people, give them things that nourish them, put them into their body, be the backdrop for celebrations and, and so much and so much more. We get to feed them as they're, as they're running late for work so they don't miss that meeting so that they don't lose their job. You know, we give them the bagel sandwich and the coffee, whatever it is. I think what we do is, is meaningful, more meaningful than I think we give ourselves credits for. I want to, I want to use this because you talked about your company and some of the philosophies in your company. Let's talk about. Right, so we talked about Jimmy John's, your Quick Rise. You were there for a while. You've now got this company, Craveworthy. So talk to me about what this company is. Talk to me about what made you start it and what makes it so special.

B (34:12)

So Craveworthy is a platform company where we're acquiring brands or developing our own brands and restaurants to grow on a national stage. So we created a team of restaurant experts that we put together so we could provide incredible talent to emerging brands that we've acquired or started then. Typically you don't get that type of talent when you're first starting in a restaurant company. So a four unit chain, for example, would never have a VP of Finance from McDonald's being your CFO would never have Greg Creed as an advisory board member to Crave Worthy and a partner would never have access to me and stuff like that. So I mean we built this so we could help these emerging brands scale and grow as fast as humanly possible and get to the stage to compete with the national players. And what I've seen over the last decade or so is that the emerging brands have struggled so much more because they lack power to go and actually negotiate with The Cisco's and all that of the world. And so we were at this huge disadvantage of trying to get from one restaurant to two restaurants to four restaurants. So when I find a incredible brand I want to partner with, we bring them in and provide them all that buying power and knowledge and training sources and tech that they need to compete against the raising canes and the big boys of the industry.

A (35:38)

Yeah.

B (35:39)

And that, that's really what the idea behind Crave Worthy was. And that knowing that if I bring in, you know, right now we have eight that are brick and mortar, 11 total brands in our portfolio, and Craver, the kitchen that rolls out later this week, which will be our virtual brands and our own, in our own restaurants. We, we provide a level that nobody else can. And now we're able to compete at a much bigger stage faster than what we would have been if we were just trying to grow one.

A (36:09)

Yeah.

B (36:09)

And we know that if I hit two or three of these, obviously the, I mean, we're laughing because most people get to hit one. And by having this sort of team in place, our odds of hitting two or three or four or five or God forbid I hit eight, you know, it's. The returns are just priceless.

A (36:31)

Yeah. So talk to me about what you look for with a, with a company, with a brand that's poised to grow, that's poised to explode, if that, if that's what you're looking for. As I'm sure a lot of people will be listening to this and saying, yeah, how do I know when I'm ready for that growth? What are you particularly looking for in a, in a brand? From concept wise, from operations, from some of the systems that are in place. How do you know they're ready for you?

B (36:58)

I mean, first thing that we always look at is food. And if the food is not awesome, then I don't want to be a part of it. Yes, I can fix food, I can go and do all that. But if your food isn't already, you know, on the upper echelon or something different, it's something that doesn't motivate me to get involved. You can't be passionate about what we do every day, then that is serving our guests a great product and you're out. So there's been a lot of people in the last year that have come up to me and wanted me to look at their brands and stuff like that. And their food is just food. Not bad, not great, you know, but just not earth shattering. So that's, that's the first segment and everybody thinks they have the best product in the world. And what I've learned, and I tell people is that if you had the best product in the world and you really are in that position, then you'd have lines out the doors from the time you open, the time you close. If you don't have that, there's always something that you can tweak to make something better. And you can't stop tweaking until you feel it's absolutely perfect and that you have those raving fans. And that's, that's my brand, that's my old brands. That's everything. You can never stop tweaking. You know, you got to continue to start, continue to evolve and make yourself better because there's already somebody out there trying to catch you. And so you got to continue to improve. The other one is, is that it's got to be a brand that has white space. So it has to be in a segment that there's either a giant that's already done the work and has sort of made this food what it should be, so you can go in and be the number two player and have this white space to grow and sort of compete, or you've got to be something so new and different that there's nobody else out there that you can become the dominant player right away. And those are the things that I look for in the brand. I can fix branding, I can fix marketing. Those are all easy, low hanging things, you know, but you've got to have that sort of feedback and deal that is different and it, you know it when you see it. So I came out to Portland to look at a brand and I had no desire to want to like this brand. None. I came out as a favor and I walked in and I was thoroughly impressed. And then I tried the food and I can't stop thinking about it. So all of a sudden they have something now that I was like, okay, I wasn't going to be looking for anything else, but this may be something that I want to go into and bring into the fold because it' unique, it's different. There's only a couple players in the segment and his food blows them away.

A (39:22)

Yeah.

B (39:22)

And those are the things that I look for.

A (39:23)

Yeah, it's great. So maybe you can't talk about that one more specifically and name it, but can you give me some examples of. Because I love this idea that food's got to be great, but then there needs to be white space. Either there needs to be a huge player that's Already sort of created. Created the market, and you can be the second player or that there's all this white space, that there is no number one player. Can you give an example in each of those from somebody who's in your portfolio?

B (39:50)

Yep. So let's look at Genghis Grill for an example. In the Asian stir fry, there's a lot of Asian and Chinese restaurants out there. No doubt about it. What makes Genghis so special is that we cook all that food to order, and we have a create your own style, where if you want to pick and make your own meal, you can. But we also introduce these incredible chef bowls and these incredible curated bowls that we are able to still have that experience and cook it to you in under five minutes and get it out the door. There's no other competitor out there that's able to do that the way we do in that type of environment. So the white space on that is so huge that it excites me. Obviously, I like the curated bowls because I control food cost and the create your own, I don't. But I'm able to cook those meals in five minutes or less and make them something special. And so if you go into the competitors in that one, a lot of those sit in steam tables, and we don't do any of that. So that's the point there that I'm truly intrigued by. The other one now that has that Giant would be winging on. So winging on, I came into that brand and knowing that Wingstop and there's a couple other players out there in the wing segment. Why would you dare go into Wings? It's so hard. Well, very few brands, and actually none have ever won the best wing sauce in America two years in a row. So that gave us a avenue and something that food quality was significantly better than what else was out there that I was able to use. The fact that Matt and his team were so passionate about their sauces and their wing product, that gave me hope that we could be something different. And I knew then if we could put in the tech and the marketing and everything else, that we could quickly compete and scale because we had an incredible product.

A (41:34)

Yeah.

B (41:34)

So those would be the two sort of unique examples. And then just this past week, would have been dirty dough that we just acquired a significant stake in. But that was, again, because it. That was. Cookie wars is not something I ever wanted to be in. But because they own the production facility, which nobody else does, and they produces that product, it gave me an avenue into CPG and controlling my Cost and doing things differently than anybody else's that is out there can. And that's why we like that brand. It gave us something else that was so unique in this incredible product. And they stuffed their cookies and do something different, and their machines are different. But because they own their own production facility, it now gives me another avenue that made me very, very interested in what we can do and grow on different channels outside of just brick and mortar.

A (42:24)

Yeah. So talk to me now. You've mentioned tech a little bit, and I know this is something I definitely wanted to get to here because it's something that you. You think about, as I understand pretty deeply you talked about, hey, marketing is something I can fix. The tech stack is something we can apply to it to help it grow. Talk to me specifically how you think about technology and how technology can help accomplish all of your larger goals for a brand.

B (42:50)

So I think technology has to be seamless and it cannot be burdensome on the consumer. That's first and foremost. I do not believe in mass kiosks. I don't believe in taking away the hospitality component of what the restaurant industry is. So there's a difference between me being all in on tech and losing hospitality. If tech hurts hospitality, I don't want the tech in the industry because we're a hospitality industry. And so I had that sort of fight continually with my team because you can save labor by putting screens in and stuff like that, but you don't get that interaction and you don't get that memorable experience with the guests. So that's the first and foremost component of where we have to be with tech. It has to be seamless, it has to improve hospitality, and it has to give my consumers a ease of use. And so, with that being said, we look at ways that tech can help on the ordering experience, when you're outside of the dining room, when you're ordering to go, when you're looking at marketing tactics, when you're looking at how do you get to know who your customer is and what kind of data you can be driven from it, how you market to them. You know, who's coming in, how often are they coming in. Those tech ideas and those tech processes are the most important. It's not, as, to me, as important as having a robot pushing my fries into the fryer. Right. Is that a great way to use new technology? Absolutely. And it's behind the scenes where you can go ahead and use tech all you want because it's not changing hospitality, but. But it's important that we look at it in a way that makes life easier for your consumer. So when we look at installing a piece of tech and every, what happens in all these restaurants right now is that, oh, it's a new shiny thing, let's jump into it and use it. And all of a sudden you have your SAS fees and all of a sudden you're realizing you're spending almost $1,000 a month and all these different fees and you're not only using part of every system. You know, we look at it and we get the same thing. We get this new shiny thing, we try it, we see it, but we only use a third of what it does. Why have it? You know, let's go find something else. So make sure that when you look at tech that you're going to use all of the service and that you actually have a need for it and that your current stuff doesn't have the capabilities of doing it. What most of us forget is that most of these companies are expanding and fixing their products so fast that you can stay with one provider and do so many things. Yeah, so our loyalty provider is, our text provider, is, our email provider, is our, you know, customer database provider. It's all in one. Because we went with a certain loyalty program. Our POS is now the same POS across the board. And it's not a high end or expensive pos. It's an ease of entry and everybody can get it, but you can use it and get it seamlessly. Other pieces of tech that you need to have and those are the things that we look at, you know, and especially with geofencing and when food should be ready and how soon should food be ready? So it's sitting there hot when a customer walks in. Those are all incredible ways to use techs every day.

A (45:53)

Yeah. Talk to me about what are the, what are the non negotiables when it comes to tech? Because a lot of people now talk about their tech stack. Right. For, for you, as you've, as you've learned so much about this and as you've been really methodical about to your own point, right. Like we only use a third of this thing, so why are we paying for it? And you've obviously done a lot of this through, you know, two steps forward, three steps back kind of thing. What are your like non negotiables? This is what I need. I think in the current climate or moving forward, this is the kind of stuff we're gonna, we're gonna need. What's on that list for you has.

B (46:33)

To make the Experience easier on the consumer. That's the, that's the number one thing. If, if it does not provide that, then we don't, we can't move forward.

A (46:43)

Yep.

B (46:44)

The second one which is as big has to make my team's lives easier and it cannot be cumbersome to use that. They don't want to offer it or use the technology. So they're like one and two in the same sort of boat.

A (46:59)

Can you give me and I, I'm happy if you want to share sort of who you're, you know, what products you're using and things like that, or if you'd rather keep that hidden, that's up to you. But can you give me examples on each of those things? What's a piece of technology brought in that streamlined the user experience? And what's a piece of technology that you use that makes your staff's lives that much easier?

B (47:23)

So we can all talk about Tablet Hell. Every restaurant has been in that sort of position. So the introduction of going to and making all these brands use ologies for example, in being our partner so we can get rid of Tablet Hell, talk to our POS and get our order seamlessly, that would be the easiest one that most people can go and do. And there's other companies out there that can help you do that in Centivio and so on down the line. I mean there's a lot of them out there. We want OLO because it does the web, it does this and it provides so much more. And at our size we were able, we felt it was the best deal for us. But again Tablet Hell is the biggest and easiest one that every restaurant should go through and fight through. Because every manager, every employee hates looking and pinging that damn tablet that's pinging for an order.

A (48:10)

That's right.

B (48:11)

So if you don't take care of that order, you lose revenue. And if you don't acknowledge it right away, you don't take then service that you're going to lose potential. And so every restaurant faces that because no server or bartender wants to put in that damn order. So that's the easiest one. And then we took a gamble with another company and I'm not going to mention it because the technology is out, but we added another tablet to our process so it took an extra step for the team to click it every time when they start the order to start the process. And we thought it's great technology, it's geofencing and tells my customer that the kit orders in and all that. But it Wasn't seamless with our POS that we had to go and hit something else every step of the way or when it's done, to alert them that it was taking them and they were forgetting to go and do that again. Great idea, but did not work. Integrated with our current KDS system that it was another step that we had to go through it, communicated with it, but we couldn't bump out the KDS or acknowledge it that it just did not work. And those type of things were. I was all for that technology because I want my food to be so perfect and so hot and not be waiting and sitting in shelves and stuff like that. Having to remake it all the time. I wanted to fix all those things, but because it could not communicate with my POS and I had to take that extra step, we've killed that deal. And those are sort of the biggest, you know, obstacles that we go through. I mean, and then obviously you can go and you got to have a loyalty program. But when do you have a loyalty program? And I get that all the time from people that have one, two, three and four stores. And I need a loyalty program. You don't need a loyalty program when you have two or three stores. You need a email campaign. You need a text, that type of stuff. And you can build that with a loyalty provider. But loyalty is expensive. You know, it cost us, you know, 150 to 225. 250 in some brands a month. You know, for that monthly loyalty fee. You don't need all that yet. Build your systems on basic. Get email first. Well, nobody opens email now. They still do. You know, they may not open it. They still see it, you know, and that's what people forget is that open and seeing is two things. You can never measure the in bengo text. Then once you actually get going and you have multiple units and more than two, three or four, then you start looking at loyalty program. And there's chains out there that have 19, 20 stores that should not have loyalty yet because they're spread out. You know, loyalty is not the glove fit that everybody thinks. Now, when you have more than that, loyalty makes a lot of sense, you know, because you have use and everything else. But we jump today's restaurant and the smaller restaurant individuals jump into these things because they see the big boys doing it.

A (50:48)

Yeah.

B (50:49)

And they bury themselves with costs that they shouldn't have yet.

A (50:52)

Yeah. And, you know, it's. Let's talk about, you know, I say this a lot to clients. Let's go back to the very first loyalty card, right? Very first loyalty was the punch card at the car wash. Very first loyalty was the cut out the coupon on the top of the pizza box, collect 10, and you get a free, free cheese pizza. Like. Like, I'll tell you. So we just moved out of New York City out to the New Jersey suburbs last summer, and the previous owners of the house left us 30, you know, cutouts from the pizza box and the pizza place they love down the street. And it was in the drawer. Like, everybody. Every kitchen has a junk drawer. And so as we were moving in and we opened it, I was like, oh, look at this. And there's a little note, and it says, there's lots of great pizza in the area, but this is probably our favorite. And we decided to save these up and leave them for use. So now you get your first three pizzas free from this place. We were like, nice thing to do from, you know, from one owner to the other. But, like, also, like, that was loyalty. That was marketing. That was, you know, the company, the restaurant, helping them evangelize for something, you know, that these people already loved. And it didn't. It didn't take a lot. And guess where we order from, you know, nine out of ten times now. Like, we. It's the first place we tried, and we've tried other places, and we always just sort of go back, go back to that place. It's like, because we had three free pizzas, our first three orders were. Were. Were free. So, like, that kind of stuff. That kind of stuff's easy. That kind of stuff's easy. So it doesn't need to be. You know, I always say when. When people are thinking about a loyalty program, I said, what do you want it to do? They always go, well, I mean, we want it to bring people back. Of course. It's like, okay, so let's get laser focused. Let's make sure we understand we want to get customer retention. We want to increase frequency. So again, this is that systems and goals. If loyalty. If having a set loyalty program is the best or only way to make that thing happen, then we should do that. But let's make sure we exhaust all the other things we can do to increase frequency or to increase the retention. You know, the customer retention percentage in our thing, and we don't necessarily need loyalty for that. That if it's an easy plug and play thing and you just want to spend 150 bucks or whatever. Okay. But I'm not sure that at $150 is doing what you want it to be doing as well as maybe some other things like a punch card.

B (53:13)

Correct. And I mean, and restaurant people think the fix is always easy marketing or spending money on marketing. Most of the best ways to build a market or a restaurant is the old fashioned pounding the pavement and handing out samples and handing out menus and handing out, you know, come in and get this for if as you open, the greatest way to attract and the greatest way to build a store back is you got to let them try your product.

A (53:39)

Right.

B (53:40)

And how do you go and do that? And we have this conversation every day with my managers is that I expect them to hit X amount of restaurants, X amount of businesses and homes every day and drop off X amount of food drops every week. And we do that because we have to stay fresh in our markets day in and day out. And I believe my food is what's going to attract people to come in. And I believe the level of service that we provide, it's hard to be different in fast casual, you know, so we have to be good at service and we have to be great at service. But they don't remember great fast casual qsr service. They remember great food and you know, that it was on time, that it was made the way they want and that they can be, it can be reliable, dependent and consistent.

A (54:25)

100%.

B (54:26)

And those are the things that you've got to focus on. And if your food is king and you take care of that and you believe in it, then give it away. You know, when you're building a marketing campaign, don't, don't worry about, oh, you got to spend X to get this. If you're trying to build it, give something away and let them try it. You know, put your money where your mouth is and let get them in. Because people come for free. And if it's good when they come, they'll come back.

A (54:49)

100%. We always use. It's funny because I was just down in South Carolina doing marketing summit, hosting a live event for all of the Mastermind members and other people were there as well. And we basically got 100 restaurant owners in the room together. And we're really going deep on a lot of this stuff. And we gave two great examples. We said, what happens every time you go to Costco? You walk around the store and everyone's giving out food. Why do they give out food? They give out food because you, they're hoping you go, that's really good. Yeah, yeah, we'll get a bag of that. We'll get a box of that, right? They do it because it, because it, because it works, right? Now the other example I always use is like hellofresh, right? The, the, the, the delivery meal kits, right? They give away the first three weeks because they know you're going to fall in love with it over the course of those early recipes and you're gonna have fun and you're gonna enjoy it. And they know, they know that giving away three weeks worth of food works. And I did a case study when I was in business school, right. They know on average a new customer will stay for about 32 weeks, right? On average. So would they be willing to give away three weeks worth of boxes to get 32 weeks of business? And the answer is a resounding. Yeah, absolutely. We're going to, we're going to do that. Yeah. I mean there's, they've, their acquisition cost is somewhere around 170, $180. Actually, real cost is under $100 when they look at their, their actual plate cost. But would we spend $100 to generate roughly $2,000 in revenue? I think, I think we take that trade every day of the week non stop.

B (56:21)

And I mean, it's sort of what we're doing with the grand opening campaign that we just did. We had a great offer for the grand opening and then the next three weeks the offers get better, you know, but it's a free sandwich, it's a free this, it's a free that to drive that traffic. I'm so confident in what my food is that I will give it away to get people to try it. And yes, I'm throwing out money and people will say, oh, you're just defeating the masses. And they're going to come in 100%. They are. You know, I'm going to give, have people that come in just for that free product and may never come back, but I'm going to collect 10 or 12 of them that are going to become loyal customers. And as we did the grand opening event, to sit there and have people come up to us and tell us, oh my God, the food was so good, I could not realize.

A (57:02)

Yeah.

B (57:03)

That a chicken sandwich should be this good. You make those connections and you get them, they're going to remember that. And then when they get the next one, they're going to be like, oh, yeah, that was great. Let me go and try that again. And hopefully by that fourth time, you've now created a raving fan that they're going to come in continually.

A (57:19)

Yeah.

B (57:19)

And then it's how you keep them and what you do, how you keep them after that. But marketing and getting people in your restaurant is hard. 100 got to be. It's a, it's a long process. And just like you said with the boxes, it is a three or four time experience that you get to get people in to try your restaurant before they become regulars.

A (57:37)

We know the data is really clear. I always talk about. So whenever I talk about marketing restaurants, I always say there's only three things we got to do. We got to get him in, that's customer acquisition, we got to get him back, that's customer retention. And then the last piece is we got to get him talking, which really has to do with evangelism, which is word of mouth. So if we can get him in, we got to get a plan for getting him back. And then we need a plan for getting them to talk about us. It sounds simple, but there is something really simple about it. And I always say we work it in reverse order. Right. So let's make sure that everybody who comes in is going to rave about us and is going to come back so that we can then when we spend our acquisition dollars, we know that, man, everybody who comes in, we know X percent are going to talk about us. X percent, Y percent are going to come back. Because acquisition is the hardest to do, the most time consuming, the most expensive. So before we go to that effort, let's make sure we got a plan in place to get them back and to get them talking. When you, when you think of it in terms of that. Because it's all cyclical, Right. When you think in terms that allows you to be much more again, it's the systems and goals thing. Right. What do I want to accomplish? I want to get new people in the front door. Well, what if I gave away a lot of food for the first three days? Well, that would get a lot of people in the door. Okay, then when we get a lot of people in the door for our free food, what are we going to do to get them back? What are we going to shove in their hands? In order to get free food, you have to sign up for our email list and we send them another offer later that gives them a discount. Hey, anytime. What's the thing that gets them to do the next action, which we want, which is we want you to come back and pay for it now. Like it's all very, very simple enough and we don't spend enough time, pay.

B (59:05)

For it over and over again.

A (59:07)

Yeah. And we don't and we don't spend enough time thinking about. I always say, like, marketing simple. It's not easy, but it's simple. Like, you just have to boil it down to what you want to happen. I want people to try us who have never tried us, okay? That's a very specific thing. We got to figure out who hasn't tried us yet, and we have to figure out what would make them come try us. So letting everybody know we got free food for three days when we do a grand opening or for the first day or whatever, that's a pretty good way. And then we say, okay, well, then how are we going to get these people back? I want everyone here to come back sometime in the next 30 days. That's a very specific thing. And then we say, well, what could we do? Or what should we be doing to make that thing happen? There's a thousand ways we can answer that, but it begins by answering the only important question on the table.

B (59:53)

100% agree.

A (59:55)

So I want to talk. I got five questions I always ask everybody. But before we do that, I want to talk a little bit about the future, because you started talking about technology and sort of your barometer for how you put technology in. Number one, it needs to make a better experience for the guests. Number two, it needs to be better for your staff, and it can't take away the hospitality if those are sort of the three metrics that you laid out. As I look to the future, I see a future that has more technology, and I see a fork in the road, and I see a lot of people are going to be using technology to replace, and I actually don't see it as a replacement tool. I don't see it as a way to cut labor. I see it as a way to use labor better, more intelligently. I see a space in between, let's say, fast casual and full service casual. I see something coming. It's that bar taco model, something like that. Where. And we've seen it in all kinds of other industries, other areas of the world. I'm not afraid of technology because I think technology is largely better, right? Like, it's better to just pump our own gas. We can figure that out. That's a kiosk, right? I grew up outside of Philadelphia, so I've been using the Wawa kiosks for more than 30 years. It was the first place I ever knew of that had a kiosk. But I get to build my sandwich exactly the way I want it, and I don't have to talk to Anybody and, and I don't have to fear that somebody didn't hear me, right. Like, I put exactly what I want on the damn sandwich. Like that's a better experience, I think, of checking into the, you know, going to the atm, I think checking in at the airline, all of these uses of kiosks. I think there is a way to use kiosks and have it be a better experience than talking. A lot of people will argue with me on this, but I think the experience at McDonald's, using the McDonald's kiosks, I think is better than going and talking to someone at the register.

B (61:49)

I think there's a need for both because there's a generation that wants to have the kiosk and not talk to people. I think the hospitality component of that interaction and saying thank you and, you know, goodbye to a customer when they're leaving is so important. And you don't get, you're just a transaction if you don't have any interaction. And that's my biggest fear in the industry right now, is that I share the fear too. When you can't just be a transaction. So you never have an interaction. You never know that you're. The restaurant is thankful, the staff's thankful that you chose to eat with them. You never get to say thank you never forget to say hello. You never get to greet them or, you know, tell them goodbye. And our generation and the restaurant industry's job to me is to teach our younger generation how to interact with consumers and people just in their day, in, day out life. And the restaurant industry has always been that sort of, hey, the stepping stone for high school kids and all that, their first jobs and that first experience, they're all shy and they're all bottled up. And especially in the world today with them all communicating just through cell phones and not even calling their friends, but just texting and stuff like that, we need to provide them the level of social ability that they are able to interact with whoever comes to them. And that's a lost art in the younger generation. So in my eyes, it's so important to install that confidence in them that having less kiosks and still employing that sort of interaction is important to me. I look at my own kids and see that they don't have the communication skills that, you know, my, you know, kids 15, 20 years older than them do. And Covid did a number on them, it made it even worse, you know, and that they don't look at people in the eyes and stuff like that. So to me, I Want to be the beacon on how to have that there? Yes. Have kiosks, have the ordering process be very, very true, but also teach them how to interact with that. If you're going to do kiosks, you got to have someone stationed back there to sort of say, hello, hey, do you need any help? And make it still a function of the need. So you still have some of that.

A (63:59)

I agree. It's funny whenever I talk about McDonald's, because I think the McDonald's case study is so compelling with what they did when they rolled out all their kiosks. But one piece that really gets lost in the shuffle is when we talk about how the reason that McDonald's rolled them out is because they thought they were going to be able to cut labor. And in major markets where labor was going up, like in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, places like that, over in London, for example, it was becoming unbearable that they originally did it to cut labor. And ultimately, what the case study has shown is that it's. That really didn't cut labor at all. Because what they did is they repositioned, at least in the beginning. They took their cashiers and they put them out by the kiosks and they had them as greeters. And they said, hey, how you doing? Welcome to McDonald's. Have you used the kiosk before? It's so easy. Let me show you how to do it. And they showed people. They were there to show people how fun it could be. They were there to answer questions. They were there to get people there to get people unstuck that ultimately that was. And they did that for about a year, year and a half, and then that slowly slipped away. Maybe that was always the goal, that once people became more comfortable with it. But I really see the opportunity in a full service capacity, right, for asking people to order on their phones or on tablets that what I hope happens is that we're freeing the servers up from the very menial task of having to listen to what people tell us and write it down, and then to go regurgitate that into a computer. That if we just take those two tasks away from them, then I go, great, now what can they be doing? If they're not doing that, then what better high impact task can they be doing? Can they greet more tables? Can they spend more time explaining the menu, answering questions, guiding them through upselling, be there for table maintenance, you know, being attentive to what they need and when they need that. Ultimately, the best restaurants that have done this and the ones that I'VE worked with is that we just take that task out of their hands and we basically Change their figure 8. Since you no longer have to do this, what are the other things you can do to actually make a better guest experience? Drive more revenue and make more money for the place. Make more money for you. Make a better experience for the people who are sitting in the restaurant. But I do see that fork in the road, which is how I started this conversation, which I see a bunch of places that are going to try to do it as a replacement piece because labor has become so unwieldy. And I think the only way to move forward is to use it as a, as a, as a way of allowing our people to be more human. And that's really, which is really where I think we're saying the same thing. Like, like taking an order and typing it into a computer is really boring sort of robotic work. And after an eight hour shift, you sort of like you're not human anymore. Right? And I mean, at a register at lunch hour, it's like, what do you want? You type it in, you get the payment, you move on. What do you want? You type it in, you get the payment, you move on. And I think if we can free them of that and give them more human things to do, I think ultimately that's better. Greg, I want to be really respectful of your time. I got five questions. Are you cool to answer my five questions?

B (67:02)

Go for it.

A (67:03)

Great. These are super easy. Tell me the last great meal you had.

B (67:06)

So it would be actually last night at a restaurant called Conn's in Portland. I was extremely surprised by how good it was.

A (67:15)

Awesome. Love it. Talk to me about one of the last great hospitality touches you've had. So something that went above and beyond, something that made you go, whoa. Something. Whatever it is, what's the last one that comes to mind?

B (67:29)

It would have been a trip. I was flying to Dallas and my flight was delayed and the flight attendants were all off and they were all complaining and stuff like that. And the pilot came over with probably 20 cups of coffee and handed the flight crew that was stationed there, like that was waiting the flight attendants and all the other pilots and, you know, the jump seats, gave them all coffee and sort of, you know, tried to make their day a little bit better. And I asked him, I go, did you? He goes, nope. I just know that we're grumpy and, you know, but they all had smiles on. And then they all took the very, very pleasant. He goes, but I do it all the time and he goes, and I win them over. And that when they get on a flight with me, they're always going to have that level of hospitality. And I just thought it was a unique way for him to respond because that's not typical in that industry.

A (68:17)

So easy, right? So easy to do. We know humans. We know when they get grumpy, when. We know when they start to flag. Anyone who's got kids knows when it's coming. They know when it's coming.

B (68:27)

Yep.

A (68:27)

All right, my third question. If a genie came down, could grant you one wish as it relates to our industry? What are you wishing for?

B (68:35)

Better economy on a consistent basis and the ups and downs of the outside forces that affect our industry. Industry disappear.

A (68:43)

Yep. My fourth question. What would you tell someone who's about to open their first restaurant?

B (68:51)

Be patient, follow your game plan and continue to ask advice from others.

A (68:57)

I love it. All right, last question. I want you to tell me about the future of restaurants. And we've sort of dug into this a little bit, but I want you to look five years down the line and tell me something. What's coming that other people may not see coming coming?

B (69:11)

I think you're going to see a step back into the simplicity of restaurants. You see the menus right now slowly shrinking. I think that trend is going to continue and you're going to see a higher end focus on being good at only doing what you're great at and not trying to be everything for everyone. And I think that trend is going to come down the line from the big boys all the way down to the mom pods, because that's what our consumers want.

A (69:39)

Yeah, I love it. Greg, I really appreciate your time. Where can people go to learn more about you, the, the company you're building, what you guys are up to, where, where should we send them?

B (69:49)

Oh, Obviously, go to craveworthybrands.com you can find all the information there. You can follow me on LinkedIn. Just type in Greg Majewski and obviously if you need any advice or any help, go. That's the best way to get a hold of me and my email is very, very simple. Greg, double G at the end@craveworthybrands.com and I'll answer any question for anyone anytime.

A (70:08)

Perfect. We'll include all of those links in the email in the show notes. So if you're listening here, don't feel like you got to scribble it down. You will find all that in the show notes. Greg, I appreciate your time, your insights. Thank you so much. Any Last words of wisdom before I let you out of here.

B (70:23)

Nope. I mean, the biggest one is continue to have fun. What are you doing? This is an incredible industry and treat people the way you want to be treated and you always win.

A (70:32)

I think it's a really special thing that we get to do. Again, it's that time, attention and trust. I think the fact that people trust us with their biggest moments. Right. Like I always say, like we go out to dinner for our birthdays. We don't have to like culturally, like whoever started that, that's amazing for us that for our birthday or an anniversary or graduation, what we think of is sharing a meal. We could just easily go to a movie. We could easily go for a hike. We could, culturally, that could be different. 200 years ago, we could have done something different. And people choose. They say, nope. Of all the things that we can do to mark this occasion, I want to go have other people create really great food for me. And I think that's a really special thing. And you can extrapolate that out into any place you see. I think we're very fortunate to be able to do what we do. Greg, thank you so much. I appreciate your time. Have a great day.

B (71:21)

Thank you.

A (71:23)

So once again, I want to thank Greg for taking time out of his day to sit and chat with me again. All of the links are in the show notes, notes. So don't feel like you got to scribble stuff down. Just go and grab the links there. One final request from all of you out there. If you've been listening to the show for a little while, if you get any sort of value from this show, I want to make a big ask of you, please go and leave us a rating and a review on podcast. All those five star ratings and reviews just help us grow this community, bring more people in to see what we are doing. That more than anything else is how we grow our small business. You don't have to say anything you don't believe. Just tell people what you've gotten out of the show. Again. Apple podcast, go leave us a five star rating and review. I would be insanely grateful. I appreciate all you guys being here. I will see you next time.