1231: Dan Carr, CEO and Co-Owner of Visconti's Hospitality Group

Summary

Restaurant Unstoppable Episode 1231: Dan Carr, CEO & Co-Owner of Visconti’s Hospitality Group

Date: October 29, 2025
Host: Eric Cacciatore
Guest: Dan Carr – CEO & Co-Owner, Visconti’s Hospitality Group

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Episode Overview

This episode features a wide-ranging, candid, and insightful conversation with Dan Carr, the driving force behind Visconti’s Hospitality Group in Washington State. The discussion dives deep into Dan’s journey from Midwest beginnings, through the successes and failures of entrepreneurship, to building a multi-concept legacy with a relentless commitment to values-driven leadership, operational excellence, and conscious capitalism in today’s restaurant industry.

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Main Themes

• The power of simplicity, consistency, and organic growth in building lasting restaurant success
• The lessons learned through failure, resilience, and evolving from hands-on operator to an empowering leader
• The critical importance of systems, vertical integration, and clarity in business models
• The unique challenge of scaling genuine hospitality and culture
• Transitioning leadership and legacy planning in a family business

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Success Is Built on Simplicity and Consistency

• Simplicity in Cooking and Operations
  • Dan embraces the Italian philosophy of “three ingredients make a fourth flavor” and applies it to both menu and business: “The simplicity is what kind of grasped me. The three-ingredient ideal... you have your basil, tomatoes, olive oil, but together you have this fourth beautiful flavor. That’s how I look at kitchens.” – Dan Carr (06:00)
• Consistency as Differentiator
  • “Don’t blow your customer away. Do everything just top service, perfect food every time. Leave something for next time… Consistency will blow them away subconsciously over time.” – (07:28)
  • Achieved through systems, a focus on repeatable excellence rather than one-off “wow” moments.

2. “Organic” Growth and Vertical Integration

• Evolution of Visconti’s Group

  • From a single Italian restaurant (opened 1985) to a multi-concept group:
    • 2 full-service Italian restaurants (Visconti’s Wenatchee & Leavenworth)
    • Fire & Ice (Neapolitan pizzeria & gelato)
    • Leavenworth Sausage Garden (high-margin, focused menu)
    • Miller Street Catering/Commissary (centralized production)
  • “It was almost organic… The sausage garden grew organically out of that [meat company]. The cured shop came out of the meat company. The pizzeria made all the meats… Everything grew out of something else.” – Dan (13:19)

• Vertical Integration: Pros & Challenges

  • Delivering farm-to-table authenticity, quality control, and unique selling points.
  • “The pro is controlling your product… that product never left the farm till it came into our place and hit your plate.” – (81:44)
  • Warning: Vertical integration brings complexity. Success requires expert partnerships and humility to recognize your limits.

  “If you are in fine dining and you want to go into cupcakes or you see this little fast food thing, don’t do it without professional, knowledgeable, but mostly experienced people in that genre. They don’t have to be around for long… but you have to have that help.” – Dan Carr (100:31 & 00:00)

3. The Power of Systems and Data

• Relentless Focus on Systems
  • Early adoption of inventory, cost-tracking, and budgeting systems: “I was always searching for that system put together for me.”
  • Transition from spreadsheets and manual systems to Restaurant Systems Pro: “Soup to nuts… gave us that forward thinking that a CPA works with history, a CFO works with the future.”
  • Takeaway: Systems give you visibility and allow for strategic planning—transforming gut-feeling operations into data-driven businesses.
• Key Metrics Shared
  • Full-service restaurants: ~12% profit, 61% prime cost
  • Fast-casual Sausage Garden: 20%+ profit, 40-42% prime cost
  • Group annual revenue: Over $10 million (12:30)

4. Growth Through Adversity & Learning from Failure

• Setbacks & Resilience
  • Dan candidly shares his struggles with overconfidence, bad investments, bankruptcy, and personal hardship: “I was unstoppable at being stupid… Had to declare bankruptcy.” (41:24)
  • Lessons: Separate personal expenses, owner’s pay, and profit. Don’t take short-term success for granted. “You learn hard that it goes faster than it comes in.” (43:17)
• Turning Points
  • Systems and accountability (consulting, goal setting)
  • Relentless pursuit of learning and adaptation
  • Humility to seek help in new, unfamiliar areas

5. The Non-Negotiables: Culture, Values, and Genuine Hospitality

• Hospitality Can't Be Fully Scaled or Automated

  • “Can you scale that person, that level of give-an-F about the relationship? No, you can’t.” (61:49)
  • The “Candy factor”—Dan’s partner—epitomizes what makes a restaurant irreplaceable: personal connection, local leadership, and culture.

• Investing in Four-Wall Marketing (Hospitality)

  • “We felt give them hospitality rather than print it. Spending on labor to free up Candy to host was our marketing.” (57:23)

• Core Values As Decision Drivers

  • Deep work with David Scott Peters to codify and align on core values: “Every decision… Was just there: Did it fit our core values?” (126:16)
  • Importance of unified communication—especially when working with family.

6. Wisdom for Aspiring Restaurateurs

• Set Goals, Get Organized, Write it Down
  • “Write it down. What do you want?… What are the two things that are stopping you? Then break those down… It’s a tree. You’ll build your objectives.” (21:34)
• Know What You Don’t Know
  • Don’t expand into unfamiliar territory without bringing in experienced help, even fractionally or short-term.
• Start Small, Grow Roots First
  • Growth is “organic.” Focus on depth (roots) before spread (branches). Put energy into your foundations: “You will attract growth if you put all the energy and resources into what you’re already doing better.” (72:30)
• Profit First Mindset
  • “You have to calculate your paycheck, the profit, the money being set aside. There’s more to just having enough money so you can do what you want.” (43:17)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

“Don’t blow your customer away. Do everything just top service, perfect food every time. Leave something for next time… Consistency will blow them away subconsciously over time.”
— Dan Carr [07:28]

“I got into something I didn’t know, and the only thing I would love anybody to get if they ever hear this podcast is… don’t do it without professional, knowledgeable, but mostly experienced people in that genre.”
— Dan Carr [00:00, 100:31]

“If you make it about helping people where they’re at and help them understand the process… the software is a stepping stone.”
— Eric Cacciatore [113:16]

“We just go to work… Now, all of a sudden, we have to take care of the papers… and make sure it’s the best for everybody.”
— Dan Carr on transitioning ownership [122:43]

“Give them hospitality rather than print it. Spending on labor to free up Candy to host was our marketing.”
— Dan Carr [57:23]

“We train our managers and key people to give that hospitality in our place… but as you scale, you dilute that original, special something.”
— Dan Carr [62:22]

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Timestamps of Important Segments

• Opening Advice: “Don’t do it alone…” (00:00)
• Dan’s Success Mantra—On Simple Consistency (04:55)
• Profit Margins & Operational Metrics (11:10 – 12:23)
• The Story of Organic Growth & Vertical Integration (13:19 – 15:47)
• Lessons from Bankruptcy & Recovery (41:24)
• Hospitality vs. Scalability (61:00 – 64:00)
• Switch to Wood-Fired Oven—Innovation & Differentiation (64:20 – 67:00)
• Building Systems—From Old Spreadsheets to Restaurant Systems Pro (103:21+)
• Succession Planning, Core Values & Legacy (124:04 – 129:19)
• Advice for Next Generation: Don’t Expand Without Help (100:31/00:00)
• Shoutouts & Influences: Danny Meyer, Gordon Ramsay, Cameron Mitchell (132:56)
• Closing Thoughts (134:17+)

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Additional Insights

• On Farm-to-Table & Conscious Capitalism:
  Dan is wary of “greenwashing” and stresses honesty in sourcing and marketing. Vertical integration, when possible, delivers better quality and transparency but must be approached humbly and with expertise.

• On Leadership Handover:
  Transitioning a business isn’t just about legal or financial transfer, but about a careful process of shared values, clear communication, and respect for the next generation’s unique strengths.

• On Community & Scaling Hospitality:
  Core relationships, employee empowerment, and front-of-house charisma are what define a restaurant’s place in its community. These qualities can’t be replaced by systems or scale alone.

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Closing

Dan’s story offers a blueprint for anyone who wants to build not just a successful restaurant, but a lasting, values-driven, community-rooted hospitality business. Through humility, systems, clarity, and uncompromising care for people—guests and staff alike—true legacy is made.

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Contact Dan Carr:
Email: [e-mail]

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Transcript

[Dan Carr]

I got into something I didn't know and the only thing I would love anybody to get if they ever hear this podcast is that if you are in fine dining and you want to go into cupcakes or you see this little fast food thing, don't do it without professional, knowledgeable, but mostly experienced people in that genre. You have to have that help. They don't have to be around for long. They can be, you know, it's like Ted, Ted gave us. We already had everything you all these, all you restaurateurs have already learned all of this. All it is is stepping back and allowing somebody to take all of your widgets you have on the table and make your restaurant and your systems work and rearrange them for you to see it in a different light.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Announcer]

Welcome to restaurant unstoppable. For 10 years and over 1000 episodes I've been traveling the country chasing word of mouth leads and having in person only long form discussions with the industry's finest owners and operators. Our mission is to inspire, empower and transform the restaurant industry by bridging the gap between this generation's leaders and the next. Listen to today's guests and so many others and get one step closer to becoming unstoppable. This episode is made possible by Sir Bony your all in one bookkeeping and financial solution. We're talking about reliable tax preparation, business incorporation, seamless payroll and compliance reports, Strategic CFO services that drive business growth, detailed custom reporting for complete financial clarity Dedicated support for restaurants in multi location businesses. Did I mention bookkeeping late? Sir Bony handled the numbers so you can focus on the vision. Call Sir Bony today at 281-888-2413 to schedule your free 30 minute consultation and discover how siboney can streamline your operations and boost your bottom line. Limited Time Offer an exclusive to Restaurant Stoppable listeners. Mention this Message and get 20 off.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

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[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Announcer]

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[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Guest partner at Visconti's Hospitality Group, Dan Carr.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Announcer]

My man.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Dan, are you feeling unstoppable today?

[Dan Carr]

Yes, I am.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Yeah, man, I know you're unstoppable. Your family's unstoppable, or, you know, your extended family is unstoppable. I've now met you at least 10 times, I want to say, over the years through Restaurant Systems Pro. You're a part of the Restaurant Systems Pro elite mastermind group. We're the best Restaurant Systems Pro operators come together to support each other. It's a truly beautiful thing what you guys do to help each other out. It's inspiring me to do the similar work in Restaurant Stoppable Network. And it's just an honor to be a part of all this and I can't wait to kind of share who you are, how you got to where you are today. Into. Man, you got so much wisdom and just talking to you the past couple days, I know this is going to be a great episode. I can't wait to dive into who you are and how you got to where you are today. But let's get that motivational inspirational ball rolling with a success quote or mantra.

[Dan Carr]

What do you got for us in the restaurants? As we were growing, the thing that came to me that I really struggled with, we were trying to be fine dining and we would go and put easiest way to say it is don't blow people away. You have a special guest come in and would have a chef or a server just want to just absolutely hit it out of the park. Well, what are you going to do tomorrow?

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Yeah, you're making me think of a post I saw recently from David Chang and it was like, like A really good looking burger, but it was very simple. It was on like grilled bread and it had like grilled onions and it was very delicious looking. Right. But it was simple and you blow people away with hospitality and the, the relationship behind the food.

[Dan Carr]

Right.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

What are you, what are you thinking as I'm saying this?

[Dan Carr]

I'm actually thinking about the cuisine that when I met Candy, I wasn't, you know, big into Italian and but I, over the first year that we were working together, I fell into, I'm a history buff and history in Italian cooking is just one and the same and started diving into it and the reading and the research and the simplicity is what, what kind of grasped me. And the, the three ingredient ideal of Italian cooking. Three ingredients and make a four, you know, make a fourth flavor with it. So you've got your basil, you have your tomatoes, you have your olive oil, but when they're combined together in that mouthful and stuff, you have this fourth beautiful flavor. And that was always been how I look at the kitchens and how as we are, we're in the northwest and taking Italian ingredients and only being Italian up here is next to impossible, of course. But. So we take northwest ingredients and. But the Italian way of cooking, the Italian, you know, mantra of, you know, simplicity.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Yeah. What happens when you blow people away.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Announcer]

Or you try.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

What happens when you try to blow people away?

[Dan Carr]

You, you can succeed every time if you want to, except when you're going to run out of. When you, when everybody's got a benchmark.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Is it sustainable?

[Dan Carr]

It's not sustainable.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Right.

[Dan Carr]

You know, doing, don't blow your customer away. Do everything just top service impact, you know, just perfect food every time. But always leave something there so next time they come in, they've got that next they it again.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Right. Consistency will blow them away subconsciously over time.

[Dan Carr]

Yes.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

You know, they won't even know they're blown away, but they just will be so dependent and just like they know that they're gonna have a good experience come to you. Blowing people away isn't sustainable with, you know, to your point, the creativity. How are you going to sustain that? It isn't sustainable with your cost of goods. You know, like, like what are, like how much money are you spending to put fancy things on the menu? It isn't sustainable with labor. How like, how are you going to get the people that can help you blow people away? They an expensive price tag, you know, like all these variables compound. So I think that's great, great advice, great way to get this thing started. I Mean, before we share your story and talk about how you got here and to really figure out who Dan Car is, help me understand where you are today. Five concepts. How many full service concepts do you have?

[Dan Carr]

We have two full service Italian restaurants. The original one, and then the one that we're sitting in here in Lenworth.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

And then you have three additional concepts.

[Dan Carr]

Then we have the following one. Is the fire. Nice.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Okay.

[Dan Carr]

Which is down in Wenatchee. It's a Neapolitan pizzeria with a gelato shot in it. We'll be there this afternoon. And then we have. Up here in Leavenworth, we have the Leavenworth Sausage Garden, which is kind of my brainchild on how it was put together. And that's kind of. It's a very. It's a very special operation. It's kind of like a counter service. It's a counter service quick serve. It's high quality. We make our own 10 menu items. 10 menu items. 10 beers. But it's just. Was designed for it to be just simplicity, the best you can get in a simple way. And we've had a wonderful, wonderful, you know, basic 12 years of running this restaurant where we've been, you know, like 4.9. Yeah, we'll unpackage it. I can't wait to get to the details. Yeah, that's. That's my pride and joy.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Announcer]

Fire and ice.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Full service.

[Dan Carr]

Full is fast. Yes. It's counter. Casual. Full service.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Okay, Casual, full service. And then that's four. So what's the. Is the fifth concept your commissary is.

[Dan Carr]

Our commissary catering company, Miller Street Catering, where we were able to put a commissary together to handle all of our restaurants in all the sauces and the consistency. In fact, there was a couple of restaurateurs that were in town that I haven't seen for three or four years that have retired and left and they're back in town now. They were in last night before last. I was talking to them and they've been coming in a couple nights a week and stuff, and they just love it. And the thing they told me that we always had incredible food. It's our favorite restaurant, but now they say it's their more favorite because of the consistency of everything they're getting. You see, your kitchen has really came up a level.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

I love that.

[Dan Carr]

Which, you know, the food was always great, but now it's just the consistency matches. Got it.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

So we have three full service operations, a fast casual operation, and your catering slash commissary. With the two Visconti, your Italian concepts, what is your average, you know, percent profit on the.

[Dan Carr]

On those operations we're running. They're running a little bit higher prime costs than. Than the other operations and such, but we're right around the about 12%.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Okay, and what is your prime cost?

[Dan Carr]

Prime cost and stuff is about right at 6061.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Okay, and what about your fire and ice?

[Dan Carr]

Where with that Fire and ice? That's down in the, you know, in the 53 to 55% prime cost.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Percent profit.

[Dan Carr]

Yeah.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

What is your percent profit there?

[Dan Carr]

Percent profit there and stuff. Is there because of the rent and such there and stuff? It runs about the same.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Okay, and what about your fast casual.

[Dan Carr]

The beer garden or that one is a little bit, you know, a little bit better. Yeah. We opened in 20 and 11 and we've never had prime cost over 42 and a half. We've never had a prime cost below 40. Wow. It just. It's just.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

What are you doing with 3% profit there?

[Dan Carr]

About double the others.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

So you're in like the high in the pushing push 20s.

[Dan Carr]

Yes.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Okay, so all in with all of your operations. What would you say your total revenue is annual?

[Dan Carr]

We'll be doing about taking the commissary up because we're selling to ourselves and that does about $1 million a year in internal sales. Will probably be. We won't hit 11.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Okay.

[Dan Carr]

But we're over definitely. We were over 10 last year. We'll be there this year.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

You guys are doing good. And the other thing is this the legacy. You've been here for how long?

[Dan Carr]

We open. The original restaurant was opened by Candy in 1985 and 40 years.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

I know because I was born in 85. So I mean, I think that is a testament to success more than anything else. And I know there's a lot of cool things you guys are doing here, like vertical integration with some of your concepts. You had another concept that you recently sold, cure. And you know, there's more. Is there anything else that we shouldn't know of before we. We start sharing your story?

[Dan Carr]

Not those are the. The business, you know, side of things. We grew and it was almost organic because we had the first Italian restaurant then we bought. Were able to get into Leavenworth up here back in 99. Yeah. And in the building we were able. We because of the landlords decided they didn't want to be the people that talked. Talked us into coming into this Leavenworth didn't want to be landlords anymore. And they. We Were able to purchase the building from them and beautiful basement of it had a brewery in it. It was opened up and that became our meat company. We had a. Opened a meat shop cured by Visconti's, which is. We produced all of the Italian. I fell in love from going to Italy. Fell in love with salamis and prosciuttos and, you know, all things cured and became a very successful business. But that's. The sausage garden grew organically out of that. The cured shop came out of the meat company.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Dan Carr]

And then the fire and ice. Also the pizzeria where we made all of the meats for all of our restaurants up until we sold it this last February.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Yeah, I love this stuff. I love the vertical integration. I love the slow and steady growth. I think a lot of like, for example, this is your second Visconti's that we're sitting in. We're in Lemonsworth. Lemonworth right now.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Announcer]

If you have not been to this.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Part of the country, we're in Washington. Make it. Make a trip to Lemonworth. It's a beautiful town. We're going to go down. We're heading south today. Check out what's the Wenatchee. I haven't seen that town. I'm sure it's just as gorgeous. And the point trying to make here is how many seats are in this restaurant right here. The second with.

[Dan Carr]

With the patio, the summer patios and stuff. We're about. I think we maxed out at about 225.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Okay. I was going to guess about 200. I think people see restaurants like this Visconti in Lemonworth and they say, I'm going to open a restaurant and I want to open that. And they come out of the gates, brand new restaurant tours, millions of dollars invested, and they try to fill the seats on day one. And I don't think people realize that what you built, what you and Candy built and what Don is carrying on takes generations. It doesn't happen overnight. You start small and you do an amazing job and the opportunities come to you and you get a little bit bigger, a little bit bigger, a little bit bigger. And this isn't. This is a lifetime of what you built right here. And I think people try to go so big so soon out of the gates and they. And it's just you.

[Dan Carr]

You need.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

It takes time to build people and reputation, you know, So I just want to point that out.

[Dan Carr]

So.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Okay, let's go back, man. Where does it make sense to start sharing your story.

[Dan Carr]

With Visconti? I mean, I Myself, I'm a Midwest boy, born in, born and raised in Minnesota, North Dakota. I came out west shortly after I was in college. I graduated and went to work for a consulting company. One of my customers was Country Kitchens.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

What were you consulting?

[Dan Carr]

It was management by objectives. Okay. And, and, and I was working and I was, they, they had a, the manager training program for Country Kitchens was located in Fargo, North Dakota.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Okay.

[Dan Carr]

And that's where I was based. And I was training management by objectives, teaching goal setting. Back in the, back in the early 70s, that was something that was new. But I fell in love with working with these guys, trying to understand what they were doing. You know, I hung around, you know, the bar rest. They were 24 hour restaurants. And I just became fascinated and I quit a really good paying job. What was your degree in? Just retail management, actually.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

So you're, you're in your early 20s, you get hired to this consulting firm, you start becoming fascinated with the world of restaurants. When did you think that someday I might want to own a restaurant? When did that come onto your radar? Later?

[Dan Carr]

Well, the ownership part came later, but it was, it wasn't long after I did the switch and started working, you know, graveyard shift and cleaning bathrooms and washing dishes in the management training program. But I came across something. No matter how bad a day I was having, I could walk out onto that floor and walk up and ask, you know, a table. And this was when I was being taught how to be a server because I'd never done it before, you know, and these people just went off on how great everything was. And my bad day just went away. It was that gratification and stuff of these, you know, that was when I, that was kind of like, I'd love to know who that guy was because he was really super and he had his family with him. But that was, that was a spot in my life that just changed me.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Yeah, I don't think people realize that hospitality is a two way street. We think of hospitality, we think of us giving hospitality to guests, but I think at the core of hospitality, what is hospitality, it's seeing people and valuing people. But when you see in value people, there's an instant reciprocation and you're seen and valued in that moment. And that is also, I think, warmth, generation, generosity, conveniality, that is all hospitality. And I think that's what we thought that that's the dopamine hit that we get hooked on, right?

[Dan Carr]

Oh, it is.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Oh yeah. So this, this happened. So you were serving tables while you're consulting?

[Dan Carr]

No, this was after I just left consulting and I was into the restaurant program. You had to learn every position. You, you know, you had to go through all of the steps. And once you got that, then they started teaching you the management park.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Okay, so you were 27 when you opened your first restaurant.

[Dan Carr]

Right? That would have been, let's see, that would have been in January 1st of 1980.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Okay, so how long were you consulting before you left consulting to start working in restaurants?

[Dan Carr]

Oh, I was, let's see, that would have been in 74.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Okay.

[Dan Carr]

When I graduated from school, January of 74, I went to. So is October of 74.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Okay, when did you stop doing the consulting? October 74.

[Dan Carr]

Yes.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Okay, so I think there's, there's got to be lessons. I want to get a nugget or two out of you. Management by objectives. That's a huge lesson right there. I mean, that is eos, right? Identifying objectives and then creating a scorecard to manage your progress on those objectives and communicating to your team. We're all, these are our object. Like, get into the biggest lessons you've learned about how to manage by objectives.

[Dan Carr]

The biggest thing that I learned, and it was kind of funny because I was so into that when I went with the restaurants and stuff, it was almost like a burnout. Whereas, okay, I've heard about this too often, but immediately after I got out into the field and it changed how I was able to organize myself every day and when getting up, and not so much in a, in a classical, write it down, organized way, but it changed how I thought up until that time and stuff, you know, you get up, well, what are you going to do today? I don't know, but it's gonna find something fun to do. I was that type of a person and it was very methodical in getting. And I really feel that going through that and working with that consulting company for those six, nine months is what really made me move through the management program very fast. Okay. And I was able to. People look to me as that, okay, what are we doing next? Wait a minute. I'm training with you. Why are you asking me?

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Okay, so you learned how to, you know, the power of consistency, doing the hard things, the boring things, the repetitive things that gave you that, that discipline, working with this management company. So when you left, the management came easy to you because that's what you.

[Dan Carr]

Had been doing for four or five years. Yes.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

So, but, but that's how it shaped, informed you and influenced you as a professional. Can you give us any Nuggets on how to manage by objective, though. Like. Like, what did that look like? How were you helping your clients? Like, what were your clients struggling with and how did you help them?

[Dan Carr]

Well, you know, you have to set, you know, it's almost a little bit like, you know, just personal goal setting. Is that you. You want to. Is. We would teach and they were. I remember we would teach in the first steps is write it down. What do you want? What do you want out of life? Just write it down. I don't care how crazy it is visual. It's just think what would. If you were to. These are the things, the five things that you want done and stuff, you know, in the next five years and stuff. And crazy as they are, whether you think you can do them or not, that doesn't matter. What were the coolest things that you could do to make you really be happy for. Okay, now. All right, we've got that now to do that. What are the two things, the two biggest things that are stopping you from doing it? What are the two things that'd be the easiest for you to do? To go after each one of those? And then. All right, now then break those down and you just. It's. It's a tree.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Dan Carr]

And it's just. You've got the objective. Then you just start breaking it down in threes. And when you're done, then you go through and you will build a. When you get down to. You have 10 across the bottom. Those 10 are put on the list. And then you prioritize what you got to do first. Well, I got to do that. I can't do that until I do this. You got your priority list. You have your 10 goals. Now you finish those 10, the whole tree is done.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Dan Carr]

And. And in the restaurants when you're. We would set it up and I was showing them how to do a budget. Okay, you need to get your labor in line. And how do you do that? Okay, you. You got your kitchen and you got your. You got your back, your back of house. You got your front of house. Now you got your servers, you got your buses, you got your part time, you got your full time and going through. Okay. All right. You got these people, but they're not trained. That goes in pretty soon. You've got your 10 for front of house, you got your 10 goals for back a house for you and your restaurant. Now to get your labor in line and train your staff.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Right. Yeah. I think the core of this is you have to be on purpose as Rudy Nick Would say one of our restaurant network experts, restaurant stoppable industry experts. You got to get, you got to be on purpose. But to be on purpose, you have to take the time to set objectives, to set goals, to paint the picture of what your future, your ideal future looks like.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Announcer]

And then you start saying, what do.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

I have to do to make that happen? What are the behaviors, the, the routines, the rituals, the, the, the, what is the scorecard? The, the numbers associated to hit those goals so you can start tracking and knowing that you're moving in the right direction. Right.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Announcer]

But the, the, I think the first.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Thing, the, the number one thing is just write it down and come back to it. So that's your center line. That, that, so you, you're gonna drift, you're gonna get distracted, but you have to be able to say, no, that is not where I want to go. That is not what we said, who we are going to be in 10 years from now.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Announcer]

Right.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Those are huge lessons. So. Okay, so you, you, you're doing this, you get this amazing foundation right out of college of how to achieve things. Right. How to achieve objectives. And then you start saying, I want to work in restaurants. And you left management. That job probably had a brighter future for you. Many, many may have thought, right.

[Dan Carr]

It was four years before I made the money I was making coming out of college. That in the restaurants, it was four years before I started making the same money. But I left a 40 to 50 hour work week with a very good pay to 12 hours a day, six days a week training program, 72 hours a week was my schedule for the first four months with that, you know, in restaurants. And I wasn't, I was never as happy as I was when I went to the restaurants. I could never go back to the consulting.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Yeah. What was it that the restaurant, was it being seen, that instant gratification that did it for you?

[Dan Carr]

No, it was that. It was that instant gratification being able to talk to people when you had a good day, you know, you could just, you could just see it.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Dan Carr]

When your staff, when everything went right, you know, when you, when you're all your costs and stuff for the week, you made your labor goals, you know, you know, and you get, you know, the training manager to call, you know, call you out and you know, you get your high five in front of everybody else.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Dan Carr]

It was just. You could win. It was a little bit more doors off. They had a very, their trainers and stuff had a very coaching way of almost like being on a sports team.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Okay.

[Dan Carr]

Where they would, you know, where you got individuals were, you know, one. It wasn't just like you got to learn all this stuff and then we're going to throw you out of here. It was, he was. John was the gentleman's name. Was very good at just working with everybody. And it was. You felt like, you know, you were, you were identified in that training.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Yeah, that's super powerful. So how many years were you working in restaurants before you opened your first.

[Dan Carr]

I opened my first restaurant. I came out west with that restaurant group. That's how I found Washington State. I went back to North Dakota and I was there. I got there in November. I made it through a winter. I made it through the next summer. In the middle of the next winter. I looked at my wife at the time and I said, I can't do this again. I gotta, we gotta go back, you know, I can't live here in the Midwest. And it wasn't the winners, it was the humidity and the bugs in the summer. Because I found that when you out here, we don't have that.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Yeah. So dry.

[Dan Carr]

Yeah. And I just. There was a different. I love it back there. You know, it's a great place to grow up and everything, but just everything about Washington, there's just. It's a beautiful state, It's a beautiful area. And so when I got out here, I found a restaurant south of Spokane about an hour. And it was just a little place. It was 28 seats and just started on Shoehorn and it was a. Almost like a mini country kitchen.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Okay.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Announcer]

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[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

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[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Announcer]

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[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

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[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Announcer]

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[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

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[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Announcer]

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[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

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[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Announcer]

And boost your bottom line limited time offer. And this is exclusive to Restaurant Unstoppable listeners. Mention this message and get off your.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

First Month of services. Okay, so you, you go to Spokane. 28 seats. Where is that relative here? Is that nearby?

[Dan Carr]

No, in Spokane is about 2 1/2 hours east. Colfax is like 10 miles from the Idaho border.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Okay.

[Dan Carr]

Down right by Washington State University, Pullman. So Farmer's restaurant.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

So what year was this? 19.

[Dan Carr]

1980. January of 80.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

So 1980, you had a five year run?

[Dan Carr]

No, I was there for 11 years.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Oh, 11 years. Yeah. Okay, so. So 11 years. What were, what were the biggest challenges for you? Getting open?

[Dan Carr]

Well, getting open was. Yeah. Not to go into details, but the guy that sold it to us, we come to find out, and I had a partner for the first six months in that tiny little restaurant and we were working together in a big supper club up in Leavenworth or in Spokane. Excuse me. And Frank and I went down, we opened up, and we were there for two weeks. And we found out that we were the fourth people to buy this in five years.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

In January, after you bought, you bought it, you found out?

[Dan Carr]

Yes.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Dan Carr]

And everybody that was just like us, we borrowed money from friends and neighbors to come up with enough money.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

How much did you have to come up with?

[Dan Carr]

Oh, it was only about. Well, the whole total would have been about, you know, 10 grand to be able to have cash again. But he wouldn't have sold it to us. What he would do is he'd find somebody and stuff that could barely scrape up enough money to buy the receivables because it was a Farmer restaurant. The major business was the farmers and their, their hired hands. Okay. And they did receivables. And you collect your money at the beginning of each month for the last month. Month. And anyway, and then you inventory. And he let us in by. Tell you what, you buy the receivables and buy the inventory. You don't have to pay me the down payment for 60 days.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

So he's selling you the cost of goods. His, his goods.

[Dan Carr]

His goods. Got it. His receivable money on the goods. So he's got his receipt. Yeah, it was a hell of a deal.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

That is a hell of a, a deal.

[Dan Carr]

And it was every penny that we had to do that. I mean, we basically started with like $25 of cash between the two of us to open the till. The first day we got it up, we were going. And when we found this out, he had sold us because this was the slowest time of year.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Okay.

[Dan Carr]

It was like, you know, if the place did, you know, $1000 a week, then it would do, you know, $5000 a week in the summertime. I mean, it was. You were starving to death. Okay. And he set it up and stuff where you would go through those three really bad months. And at the end of those three months, on the 90th day, you had to have the full down payment. And none of these other people were able to do it. We, we did. We, we were able to starve through it and give him the down payment and that's. And then make it. But we were afraid that we had just been built.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Yeah. So was this the, the arrangement for a full 10 years?

[Dan Carr]

No. Once we got it, once we got to the six month, we realized and stuff, things were going good and okay, we're making a living, but we could see that this wasn't going to be sustainable. It's gonna, it's. During this busy summer months, both of us could have an income.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Right.

[Dan Carr]

But when winter come again, there's, you know, one of us is going to starve to death. So we went, we decided to. There was another building in town and stuff that. And Frank was. Frank Polito. He was, you know, Hispanic, you know, born in the States, but he decided it could use a Mexican restaurant here. We went to the bank and they couldn't borrow us the money because we were just new. We didn't have any asset. I mean, it was just. The bank couldn't do it. But he says, but I could borrow one of you. I could borrow Frank enough money or Dan enough money so that he could buy Frank, you out and you could take your money then, you know, on payments he'd be paying you, but that way we get enough for you to open up down here. And, you know, so the banker was the one that helped us. And so I bought Frank out and then continued on. The first full year of business in 1980 was $89,000 for the year. And in 1988 and 1989, the last two full years I was open, was did over a million a year.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Oh, wow.

[Dan Carr]

Yeah.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

And you went from 89,000 to over a million.

[Dan Carr]

Yes. Wow. And it was. There was a gas station, two bay.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Gas station, 28 seats.

[Dan Carr]

28 seat. Well, there's a gas station with two bays and, and a shop, kind of a shop behind it in the same building. We're in a triangle of a highway where you go to Spokane towards Seattle or to Pullman where wsu, Washington State University was. We're right in the triangle there. And I ended up coming up with a deal where I took over the gas station and then the Landlord. I made a deal to buy the property and that was in 85. My brother came in and became a partner with me at that time from. And we remodeled it.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Two years old, 33 years old at this point. Well, let's see, 27 when you started.

[Dan Carr]

I'm trying to think 85. I'd have been about 32. Yeah, yeah.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

And your brother comes in.

[Dan Carr]

My brother comes in. We shut the gas station down. You know, we keep pumping, but we close the bays. We go in and remodel. We made it into a 60 seat restaurant with a mini mart and self serve gas instead of full serve gas. And it allowed us to have a bigger kitchen. And we went 24 hours. Wow. And it ended up just. It took off.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Okay. And what would you say your biggest challenge was with this first restaurant? And you had it for five years.

[Dan Carr]

Or 10 years not having a clue. I worked for a restaurant chain. I worked for a big dinner, you know, a big restaurant was.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

What are you allowed to say what the chain was?

[Dan Carr]

Oh, yeah. The chain was Country Kitchens.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Okay.

[Dan Carr]

Country Kitchens of the Dakotas was the actual franchise group and they were very successful. And in fact, there's still a ton of them back in the Midwest.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Okay, so you came from that and you're doing this and you're saying your biggest challenge was what?

[Dan Carr]

I knew how to do what they taught us, but I didn't know, okay, how did doing the inventory and everything, that was easy and stuff. Okay, but how do you get back? I need to do it differently. This isn't working for me. And I came across menuing. Okay. I knew nothing about menuing on how to run that 32%. I could run a 32% because somebody says, okay, this designed for 32%. If you do these products, you're going, you know, and you run it efficiently, you're going to make it not a problem. Because somebody already put the system together. Yeah.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

No two restaurants are exactly the same. So that's what worked for Country Kitchen. Not necessarily for your concept and your unique.

[Dan Carr]

And this is where I learned what I eventually. When I eventually found, you know, Smart Systems Pro, the Apprentice or Restaurant Systems Pro is I had to have a system. And I was always searching for that one that was put together for me. And I came across a book. I cannot remember the author's name. He was Washington State University has an incredible hospitality program for hotel, motel and restaurants. Not a culinary program, but hospitality. And there was a gentleman there that wrote a book.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

What was it called? Do you know the name of the.

[Dan Carr]

Book, it was costing for restaurants. And it. This would have been published back in the late 70s, early 80s. You know, it's the first place I ever read where you can control your menu pricing and your food costs by putting things in different places on your menu. It's the first time I'd ever heard anything about. That was a fascinating place. But I was able to. And then he showed, you know, problems where you're. You were. It was. He taught me gross profit was more important than cost. What you sell it for and what your gross profit is way more important than what you paid for it. Because gross profit goes to the bank, cost goes out of your bank.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Right. So I think a lot of times when they're, when people are costing their menu the way they cost it is they say, what is the restaurant down the street. Yeah, selling it. And that's what they focus on is they want to be competitive on cost, but they don't. You got to reverse engineer it to make sure that that cost makes. Makes you profitable. You have to be profit without profit. What's the point?

[Dan Carr]

Yeah, and he's the one that showed me there. You set up what you need to make a living. You know, he did it, had a very, very good program in it. What do you need to make a living? He said you need back in those days, you know, $2,000 clear a month to pay your bills at home. Put that out there. Okay. Your volume, you set that in first. It's the very first thing you do. Then you go, look, here's the volume I'm doing, here's what my costs are. And you, you know, these are all my expensive and the two. Okay, how much volume are you missing? It was all about sales. It was about sales and gross profit.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Start with the end in mind. What's the. What's the objective? Yeah, back to what you're managing.

[Dan Carr]

So different than everything. Everything else was just cut your costs, send the people home, you know, just cheap. Buy a cheaper ham, buy a cheaper, you know, potatoes, whatever you could do. That's the way I was taught up until that time. And all of a sudden, and that's what things really started to change.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Yeah, he was teaching you profit first, which is what we teach at restaurant unstoppable. The profit first mindset. And I think the only difference between what I'm hearing from you is profit is shouldn't be what you take home to pay your bills. Profit should be home be what you take to put in the bank in a high yield savings account or what you Put to pay off debt. Debt, but you buy. You only buy assets or pay off debt with profit. You should also have owner's pay, you know.

[Dan Carr]

Exactly.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

And owners pay is what you use to cover your liabilities, your monthly liabilities. Right, right. So I think that's the. The main difference between what you just shared and what profit first says. It's a little bit more like secure. Right.

[Dan Carr]

Yeah. See, up till that time, I was taught how to run a restaurant and make it profitable for somebody else.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Right.

[Dan Carr]

I'm getting my paycheck and, you know, they're going to make. They're going to get their profit if I hit these numbers. But I didn't know how. There wasn't anything out there that taught you how to find those numbers that you needed to meet. And when I came on my own, it was kind of feeling lost.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Dan Carr]

And so anyway, it. It turned around. It started working well for me. I did exceptionally well all the way through the 80s. I, in fact, I did. I did too well for myself.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

What do you mean by that?

[Dan Carr]

I. It was. Things became so good that I was so smart. I found buddies. I found buddies that had investments and. Invest in this and invest in that and everything. And your money's going to make money for you. And I. Yeah, I'll do that. And I found out that I was unstoppable at being stupid. But it. I learned some valuable lessons there. And eventually and stuff, I ended up stepping away from the restaurant. And it also caused personal. I went through a divorce. That's how I ended up going to work for one of the big food companies and sold groceries for two years.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Would you say this is a low part of your life?

[Dan Carr]

Oh, it very much was. I had to declare bankruptcy.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Take me to your emotional state.

[Dan Carr]

The emotional state was. It wasn't like a lot of guys saying about how bad it was. You know, it was. It was a lot of dark days. You know, there was, you know, there was six months. Didn't have a place. I mean, I was basically staying with friends until I found, you know, found the job and moved over here. But my main concern was I. I have two wonderful daughters and making sure that they were taken care of and that my responsibilities and stuff. Yes, I'd gone through a divorce, but I still was responsible for. There was a house there and stuff that needed to be taken care of. You know, it was. I wasn't. I was just busy taking care of that. That was my. That time, that was my goal, was getting myself situated. So that way other people didn't have to suffer in their lives for my mistakes. And I'm not a. I'm not a martyr. Don't take me wrong. It's just that that was very important to me on. Because I made promises to them and those you, you know, business partners and everything. Business goes all right. Well, I did my best. But your family, you know, they believe in you. You got to give them what. What you told them that, you know, anyway. That's getting a little off the restaurant side.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Well, I mean, it's all connected.

[Dan Carr]

It's part of me.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

It's all connected. Behind every great restaurant's a great person. So it's your story. You know, the restaurants are. They aren't you. It's just the things you did Right. So if you could go back in time, the wise man you are today, and give one piece of advice to that younger version of yourself, what would that advice be?

[Dan Carr]

The advice that you were talking about when I was talking about profit and stuff, and you were saying, well, it's not just profit that you're against. Money. Money to take home. You make enough money to give you a paycheck is. You have to calculate your paycheck, and you have to calculate that profit. You have to calculate that money being set aside. Yes. You got mortgages to pay in your business. You know, all your bills are paid for the month. Okay. The rest of it comes home. No, it doesn't, because that's what I did. If I would have been a little more organized in controlling. Okay, this is my money that I'm. I'm giving this guy $20,000. I'm giving this guy $40,000. If I would have been looking at it from a standpoint of return on investment security in the future, I just thought everything was just going to keep blow. Blowing up and ballooning. And I learned very hard there that, you know, that it's. It goes faster than it comes in. Yeah, yeah. And you. But that security of. You have to. There's more to just. Just having enough money so you can do what you want to do.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Got it. So you go to work for Cisco.

[Dan Carr]

Yep.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

How long were you doing that?

[Dan Carr]

I was with them for about two years.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Okay, and what year did you start working with them?

[Dan Carr]

Let's see. That would have been in October of 91.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

October of 91. You're with them for two years? 1993. And this is how you discover your now partner?

[Dan Carr]

Yes, we. We met through that. One of my. In fact, they were my first actual customer that was signed up was. Was it was. And the Visconti's restaurant in Wenatchee, Washington.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Okay. So this is also around the time. So if, if let's, let's pay homage to Candy. They start Visconti's in 1985.

[Dan Carr]

Yep.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

So at this point, you know, you don't cross paths with her until 1990.

[Dan Carr]

Yeah.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

So they're seven years in business. So what was Visconti's in that seven years before you came on scene?

[Dan Carr]

They were, they were small, Mark and Candy, and Mark's her ex hard working restaurant people. They were working and running a small, you know, store and restaurant down in Crescent Bar, which is down on the Columbia river, about 30 minutes south of Wenatchee. And they were driving through Lebanon, through Wenatchee, and the Northwoods Inn had a sign up there that it was for sale. And it just hit them right on the right night. And they started looking and they figured out and they bought it. And a little bit like I did, when you talk to Candy, it's. She packed pears all day long and opened the. And worked in the restaurant at night. And Mark worked in the restaurant, you know, through the night. And then he would work that blue ribbon meets and stuff, you know, doing cleanup. They started from scratch and they built it from scratch. I love that. And I met Mark first and we did some golfing and, you know, and got along really well. And I, I've always considered him a friend. In fact, he even worked with us when Don came back in 13. He worked with us for a number of years, helping out in between the cruise ships that he was working on.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

So he was a chef.

[Dan Carr]

Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah. Marcus a chef.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Yeah, got it.

[Dan Carr]

And you know, very good chef.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

What was Candy's role in this?

[Dan Carr]

Candy was front house.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Got it.

[Dan Carr]

Operation. Two of them, you know, and I, I can't go into all huge amount of detail in about, you know, how things went for them, but they did, they were very successful. They brought, they, they brought Italian to town and to Wenatchee and 1985. Yeah, yeah. And when they went, when they went through their separation and everything and stuff, that's, you know, that's when I really met Candy was at that time and stuff because I was selling to the restaurant and Candy was the person that the courts had. Okay, you run the restaurant till we get this all settled out.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Okay.

[Dan Carr]

So.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

So you, you discovered Visconti's Mark and Candy in 1992. You are their Cisco sales rep.

[Dan Carr]

The restaurant. Candy was taking over the restaurant. I was working for Cisco and shortly Thereafter and stuff, I. Due to a few business situations and stuff, I left Cisco to go to work for another food company, SE Ryckoff, which, sad to say, a year later they went away. They were closing up all of their units. SE Rykoff was the best food company I, you know, ever bought from. But that's just a little history there and something I missed. They were one of the last great distributors while I was with SE Rykoff was Candy. And I started, you know, becoming, through our relationship of me working with her after the restaurant trade, you know, change. We came, became friends and, you know, I'll give this one to Candy and stuff as I got a phone call one night that, hey, you want to meet for a drink? And so Candy asked me out first.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

So at this point, Candy and her husband are no longer business partners and life partners. They had gone their own way. And you had established a friendship with her that became more.

[Dan Carr]

Yeah, yeah, it just. And the, the restaurant side that, you know, I was helping her just as a friend. I was. That was a problem with me in restaurant. I, I wasn't a fantastic volume salesman, but damn, my customers love me.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

I mean, because I took relationship lifetime.

[Dan Carr]

Value, I took every one of their problems home with me just like it was mine.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Dan Carr]

Yeah, yeah, it really was. I, I would say that I worked in a kitchen or in a bar for at least 30% of my customers while I was selling over those three years.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

You did it for 10 years. You could, you didn't just empathize, you, you sympathize.

[Dan Carr]

Oh, I. And so it was, you know, but it was good. And as I was getting into the Italian restaurant, Candy needed help in the kitchen, and that's was my strength that I'd always fall into. I love front of house, but the kitchen was where my fascination was learning. Because I grew up in North Dakota on a family farm where you didn't learn to cook. Any cooking you learned to do was your camp cooking when you guys were going out hunting or fishing and such. So learning to cooking was fascinating. Something I really didn't. It was just taken for granted. And with Italian cooking and with all the literature that was out there for, you know, during this time, this was been in the early, early 90s, it was just. I just, it just lit a fire in me. And, and then plus with the restaurant and Candy having enough faith to me when I first started helping out to, you know, give me that latitude to try new things, bring new menu items in, and it was just a great working relationship.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Got it. So you guys. So you start working, you start dating Candy. You also start working with Kenny. You're also at this time conveniently looking for work. So you joined Visconti's. What time, what year was that when you joined Visconti's?

[Dan Carr]

That had been in end of 93, if I remember right.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Okay. Around that time.

[Dan Carr]

Yeah.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

So I have a little timeline with me. In 1996, you, the Wenatchee location gets a wood fired oven. 1999, you open the Leavenworth location. In 2002, the. The Leavenworth location was remodeled after the brewery soldier. And I mean, these seem like key milestones. 2011, they can. You guys converted the small parking lot into a year round sausage garden. And in 2013, along with the opening of PI Bus Public Market, they. You launched fire and fire.

[Dan Carr]

Nice.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Yes. And those are the big timeline things I have in front of me right now. So we're 15 minutes into this thing. Man, we got a lot to unpack. And you know, this is like where the magic starts, you know, for you guys.

[Dan Carr]

Well, with. As you, as you're going through, there's a couple of additional things that we did was we opened in 99.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Okay.

[Dan Carr]

And it was really fantastic. We, we always pick crazy days and stuff to open. We opened up on, on a Friday night during a festival weekend. And 15 minutes after we opened, we found out we opened at that time. This seated 160 people. We opened without any salt and pepper shakers.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Oh, man.

[Dan Carr]

We found that out after we were open. Yeah. Just little things like those are the memories that you have of the. You know, but it was, it was.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

You dot every I, you cross every T. And there's always a period that you forget. There's one thing that at the very end that you're like, oh, crap. So, I mean, seven years, from 92, 93 basically to 99, around ballpark seven, six years. You guys are working together. You're scaling a Visconti original location. This is the second location that you guys open. How is your partnership, your business partnership growing and evolving at this time?

[Dan Carr]

Well, it starts back right when we first started working together. I mean, when Atchi and Steph was. Candy was fascinating. She was one of the hardest working people and the most gregarious in the front dining room. People in town love Candy. In fact, we just this last summer, last summer, they had a surprise event for Candy and stuff for her 45 years in the restaurant business. And it was all of her old regular customers. And it was, it was two hours of people getting up and telling the times of meeting Candy and working with Candy, and it was really special.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

That is special.

[Dan Carr]

Candy and I, we first started is. She was the front of the house, and she knew really, but she didn't have the skills. Mark was the back of the house, and I was able to come in. And as I was learning the. The culture of, you know, the Italian culinary and stuff, we were, you know, we had a good base menu to start with. There's some still. There's. I think every item that was on that menu now can be still served in any one of our restaurants by someone just coming in asking for a frizzled spinach, which is prosciutto spinach and spaghetti and an olive oil base. And it's one of the. But still one of the best dishes that we serve, even though it's not on the menu. As I was learning and Candy was learning, we were looking at ways we need volume because we went from just below $400,000 in her first year that I was working with her a year to the 10 plus that, you know, that we're doing now. It was. It was a growth, but we were looking, trying to figure out how to increase seating. We didn't have a budget money available for a budget for advertising. And we're trying to figure out how to do it. And we were looking, well, you know, how are you going to bring in more people and stuff? You know, you can't advertise. You know, everybody already eats at Biscon. He says, wait a minute, we seat 60 people. And this is when, you know, Candy and I, we seat 60 people. And there's 60,000 people in East Wenatchee and Wenatchee, let alone around us. Okay. That means what if you divide 60 into 60,000? Every thousand days, everybody eats here once. And we know we have a ton of people that eat here three, four, five times a week. So there's a lot of people out there that aren't coming to Visconti.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

80% of your revenue comes from 20% of your guests, right?

[Dan Carr]

Yes. And so it's okay now. So if we want. We're doing. We're averaging, you know, we were averaging about 60 customers a day, about one turn. Now if we could get 10% increase, that this is what the volume would dip. We realized that's only six people.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Dan Carr]

A day.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Announcer]

Wow.

[Dan Carr]

And when we put it back down to there, we kind of looked at each other and, well, that shouldn't be that hard to do.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Right.

[Dan Carr]

And. But we made a decision because Candy was The hostess there was one or maybe two servers on the weekends and one busser. And it was slam dining when we got filled up. And so what we, first thing that we did was we got Candy a hostess on the weekends so that Candy could be the host of the restaurant and someone else was doing the seating and then she could help the busers or a server if they were busy. And that, that was really eye opening for us. Then we, by the end of the first year that we were working together, Candy was seven days a week, there was two servers on and two bussers and a host every day. You know, and so that way. And it. The money that we spent on the additional labor, you know, we attributed to advertising because it was, we felt that, you know, give them hospitality rather than print it. Right.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

And really what that was is just freeing Candy up to be able to.

[Dan Carr]

See people what Candy was really great at. And this, that's where she shines.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Yeah. And I think we forget that this is what hospitality is all about. And you know, I.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Announcer]

It's weird.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

There's a balance right now. A lot of the narrative you hear in the publications that target the 10 to 30 unit operators, everyone wants to scale to 100 locations and we're losing that relationship. Yes, restaurant owners.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Announcer]

What if I told you there was a way to lower your prime cost by a thousand dollars month over month and get paid a thousand dollars? That sounds like a deal too good to be true. But that's exactly the deal that Restaurant Systems probably is offering 10 of my lucky listeners. So why are they doing this? Because they consistently help their clients get between 15 and 25% profit in their business. And when they approach new clients and say, I can do the same thing for you, they get met with a lot of resistance. And because it sounds too good to be true, most restaurants think if you do between 5 and 10%, you're doing good. So to hit 15 or 25%, like what do we have to sacrifice? What, what scam are you throwing at me, sir? No, thank you. But the truth is they really do help people hit these numbers. And the way they do it is by having all the most important systems that are tied to profitability fully integrated into an enterprise solution. I'm talking like counting, inventory, scheduling, checklists, training systems, general ledger, balance sheets, costing cards. So when you have all those systems dialed in, ironclad, tied, connected, fully integrated in an enterprise solution, you get data. And when you have data, you can make little tweaks here and there's. And those little tweaks you can see the fruits of your labor, the the effects of your efforts. And that's how you hit 15 and 25% profit. And on top of all this, they also have support, which is unheard of in today's age. So you get all these things compounded that help you hit that 15 to 25%. And if I have your attention, keep listening. Join the restaurant systems pro 30 day prime cost challenge. And if you successfully improve your prime cost by $1,000 or more compared to the same 30 day period last year, they will pay you $1,000. If you're listening on YouTube, iTunes, Spotify, find the show notes and we will have a link titled restaurant systems pro 30 day prime cost challenge. Click that link and get signed up today. Only 10 spots, guys. Do not wait. Get your spot, lower your prime cost by a thousand dollars and get paid that $1,000. They're actually calling this a reverse guarantee. Get on it. This episode is made possible by me's. Mies is a digital recipe platform that helps you stay creative, build profitable menus, and nail food execution at scale. Consistency builds trust with your guest and your staff. No more messy spreadsheets or scattered systems. Whether they want to admit it or not, your team loves systems because systems equals peace of mind, because we all want to know what the job done right looks like. And Meese paints the picture of of perfection and is the one source of truth for your entire team. By locking in recipes and training before service starts, ME makes sure every dish is consistent, every team member is aligned, and every location runs like clockwork. So when the report rolls in after the sale, they tell the story you're after. Higher profits, better margins, and repeat guests. It's time to take control of your profitability. Learn more at www.getmes.com un unstoppable. That's G-E-T M E E Z.com unstoppable.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

We forget that this industry was built on literally the third place. You know, the place between home and work where you go to be with people, to be a part of a community, to congregate, to talk, to feel seen and loved. And I think that we get so focused on scale and profit and, and selling to investors or, you know, going public or like, we lose sight of what matters. And I don't know if you're that far removed from the candies of the world, meaning if you, if what makes your restaurant, what made your original restaurant so special is that person who has the hospitality. Can you scale that person that level of give An F about the actual relationship with the people in that community. Community.

[Dan Carr]

Yes.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

I don't. Can you scale it?

[Dan Carr]

No. No, you can't. Candy and I have learned that and stuff. In fact, that was probably one of the biggest angst Candy and I have had as we've grown.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Dan Carr]

Is when you got a meat. You know, when we opened up cured the meat company. I got pulled out of the restaurants quite a bit more and you know, think, you know, Don was here and was able to step in and you know, take up, you know, a lot of. Not that she needed to cover for me and stuff, but she was able to, you know, we needed three people.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Dan Carr]

And she fit very well. But yeah, it was going into. Walking into the Wenatchee restaurant when you were only there maybe an afternoon, maybe two evenings a week and you're up here for three or four, but you're working 40 hours, you know, in the meat company where you're not out in the public outside of maybe doing sales, you start missing. I remember getting anxieties and stuff because people, regular customers that we would do like fruit brokers, which is a huge industry here for us. And they'd have people from all over the world coming in. And that's what we specialized was their family style meals in the Wenatchee restaurant. That's where a lot of business that we built around that. Well, well, I wasn't there making sure that they were getting the food the way they'd always gotten it. And I just. Just scared that. Hey, you know, and. But at the same times, that's what also taught us how to step away and get our. Train our p. Our managers and our people, you know, key people to be able to give that hospitality in our place.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Yeah. You can bring up other people who have that given f mindset and who have the. The inclination towards it that it doesn't all have to be one person. But as you scale, I think you dilute that original special something.

[Dan Carr]

You do. You do.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

And you know, this is you. You're talking.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Announcer]

This whole.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

This whole branch of our communication or this conversation today started with we needed to find ways to market. And what you said is we don't have to spend money on advertisement. We have to spend more time where it matters. And that's on relationships. That's four walls Market marketing.

[Dan Carr]

Exactly. And that's where in. We actually for a couple months put that labor into advertising. We didn't put it in the labor.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Exactly. Better experiences equals advertising. Like execution is word of mouth, right? Yeah.

[Dan Carr]

And. But when we were in wenatchee after, in 96 when you, you mentioned the, the wood fired oven. And that was one of the biggest revolutions for candy. And I, I would say because up to that point we were a pasta restaurant. We had no ovens, we had no second we had a six burners and a grill top and a french fryer.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Great, great margins in pasta restaurants.

[Dan Carr]

Oh really was. Yes they were. Yes they were. We were beer and wine. But we came across a wood fired oven. But it never became a pizza oven oven. We by the time we got the thing in and for any research and back in the early 90s there was no loads of books out there about wood fired ovens or cooking with wood fired.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Which is funny.

[Dan Carr]

Outside of cooking pizza. Yeah. And what I was able to find was a couple of books about from one of them was based on a guy's research in Apulia where blackening meat was the way it was stored and wrapped with you know, spices and everything and it'd be wrapped in oil skin linens and then hung in their co. In their cellars and you'd open it up and cut a piece off. But in to cook that you take it down to the local ovens and because people couldn't afford ovens and shared ovens and down there and stuff.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

And the community oven back. Yeah, the restaurant industry community, they had.

[Dan Carr]

Metal plates that were in the, in the wood fired ovens. They take that meat and it would, with those herbs that they had been preserved in would be blackened onto it and anyway it was just those, those are the type of history things that I found and was able to start gleaning. But I found a couple of books of a guy, how he grew up and how they use wood fired ovens in northern Italy and how they christened the ovens and everything. So when we opened opened up the week before we opened, we had three pallets of old produce from our food supplier. Each day they brought us a new pallet and we were burning anything, cabbage, carrots, everything that they're doing, just chopping it up, putting it with olive oil and throwing it in the wood fired oven. We were christening our oven.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Dan Carr]

Paper came down and it was, it was a fantastic kick up. But we were the first wood fired oven in central Washington. There was nothing outside of Seattle.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Yeah. That's a unique selling proposition.

[Dan Carr]

It was back in 96.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Yeah. So I really want to make sure we get to where we are today in your story.

[Dan Carr]

Right.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

And not that I'm not loving this conversation but like Thinking about where you are in the timeline. 1996 is where we are. When you got the wood fired oven, you're still at one location. Reflecting back in chronological order. And maybe if you just want to give me a list of talking points of the things that you think you needed to lay out that were like the most significant points of evolution, roadblocks in your growth that you had to overcome to get to where you are today or points of evolution of how you change the way you do things to be better. Like what were the. I like to think of like shifting through gears. Right now you guys are in like second gear, right? You're both seasoned restaurant tours, you figured a lot out. You know how to do menu engineering, you know how to be profitable, you know how to do costing. What was third gear, what was fourth gear? If you're in fifth gear now, what were, what were those points? The third or you know, in the fourth in the fifth to where you are now, like what were those big things?

[Dan Carr]

If you were to talk about, you know, first gear was we got up finding the wood fired oven and putting it in and, and teaching ourselves how to make racks for the oven where we'd pull the hot red coals over and put a steak on a red hot cast iron rack right in the wood fired oven. In cooking that gave us a whole new profile of food. Okay. And in very Italian, I mean very old world style of cooking. And we became, had a big write up the first year of. We're the only prime grade steakhouse between the mountains in the eastern border of Washington state. So it was. And none of this was planned. This was all just as. We just knew things that just, we just kept, kept. Candy and I would just kept growing, evolving, getting better. It was, it was a constant growth. And then Leavenworth wasn't a plan. Leavenworth was an opportunity brought to us.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Okay.

[Dan Carr]

We had some friends that were going to needed. We're going wanted to buy this building with and they were going to help Leavenworth Brewery come out of its bankruptcy by, you know, helping them out. But the only way they would do it and they were some of our best customers is they wanted. They came to us and they says were you we're going to, we want to buy the Leave North Brewery and the property up there and stuff. But the only way we're going to do it if you promise to come and take it, take the restaurant.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Okay. So at this point did you and Candy have the conversation of where do we want to be in 10 years where do we want to be in 30 years when we're ready to retire? Do you have that vision for yourself?

[Dan Carr]

No.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Okay.

[Dan Carr]

At this time and stuff, Candy and I were just. It was. Things were going good. We. You know, we're just like anybody else. We hadn't figured out the. We weren't running the prime cost we should or anything, but we were making money and we were growing. And then all of a sudden, this opportunity came along, and it was one that we could afford because they basically bought us to come. I mean, they helped us get into here. We did the remodel of the building. It became successful. I mean, it was. It was. We made a lot of mistakes. Yeah. And. And. But things were good. And along comes. Yeah, you mentioned the.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Pull that mic closer. We got a wine delivery coming in right now, which is fine. We're in a restaurant. But to see the base of that mic, pull it right to the edge of the. The table there.

[Dan Carr]

Okay. There we go.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Perfect.

[Dan Carr]

Okay, so let's see where we're. Oh, yeah. In O2, we bought the. We had the building in O2 and 01. They decided to sell the building to us because they decided being landlords wasn't something that they were good at. And the Leavenworth Brewery had become just. They made the beer and sold it to us. We were their brew pub, but they outgrew the facility in the basement. And, you know, they had to find bigger facilities. So they merged with the company over in Seattle and moved out of the building. We bought the building from, you know, from the group. Got it. And so that's how we start. That's was our start. But to do that where the brew place was when it just became legal for tasting rooms for wine in the state of Washington. And we had five new wineries within five miles of town that had no tasting room rooms. So we were able to bring their wines in, and we started a wine shop with tastings, you know, for. We became the tasting room for Leavenworth.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Is this where cured moved into eventually?

[Dan Carr]

No, it's where the sandwich shop is now.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Okay, got it, Got it. So a couple things I just want to point out. So I think a lot of times when people think about scale and growth, they think out. You think of a tree growing out. Right. Scale and growth doesn't come from going out. It comes from going in the growth. The roots grow much bigger before the tree grows. And that's because the Groot. The roots are bringing in nutrients. It's getting stronger. They're getting better. Right. And like, that's what you got to think about you and your restaurant. Like, you will attract on growth if you put all the energy and the resources into what you're already doing.

[Dan Carr]

Better.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

You get that foundation, your roots get strong relationships, systems, processes, clarity on who we are and what we do, what we say yes to, what we say no to.

[Dan Carr]

Well, the.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

The clarity brings growth. Growth comes to you.

[Dan Carr]

The. When you say clarity, that's the thing that once we put the wine in, which was something that we'd been growing, in fact, it was. I think it was 2002 when I was won the state award by the Washington Grape Growers association as the winemakers friend of the year. It's the person that's most influential to the Washington state wine industry, you know, in the restaurant. In the restaurant industry. That was kind of like the first state award that we ever won. But what it was is because with the wine shop, we were able to get out and we became instant friends with every damn winery in the state when there wasn't even 100 wineries in the state of Washington, you know, at that time. And we. Our wine list, wine program grew here. We had our own wine shop down there at that time. We had California, European. And after the second year of the wine shop, we made the decision that we were going to be Washington in Italian, and of course Oregon, you know, northwest wines, Italian wines. And that was it. And we sold everything off. No more California. And everybody thought we were crazy.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Yeah, Candy, sorry, go ahead.

[Dan Carr]

But the big thing that. That I knew would work was I can teach 20 servers all about Italian wines, but I can't teach them about French and Australian. Oh, yeah, it was. It was impossible.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Candy, Blaine and yourself were just talking about this last night where you have reps that come with this book that is an encyclopedia. And you're supposed to. You're supposed to thumb through all of that and pick. You know, it's. The same theory applies with your menu. You go out to eat and you sit at some of these restaurants, and there's literally 50 to 60 things to choose from. It's overwhelming. You need clarity. Like, what are our greatest hits?

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Announcer]

What is our focus?

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

What do we. What is the one thing we would want to be better than anybody else at and put all of our energy into doing that thing. Systems, processes, training. Everything gets streamlined, everything gets smoother. Clarity. And you think about adding things to a. Like, I don't know, like a bucket of water or a glass of water. If you start putting a bunch of stuff in there. It gets foggy. But if you just have one thing, you know, that you drop in there, it's clear there. Like it's, it's. That was maybe drop a line. A little bit of a reach of a analogy, but.

[Dan Carr]

Well, no, it is because what, what happened with the wine shop. And after two years of having the wine shop and every Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, one of those wineries would be featured each day. And then there's six winers and there was eight wineries, then there was 10 wineries. I mean they were just popping up. And all of a sudden there was a tasting room, another tasting room, another tasting room. And at the end of about two and a half years, we realized that, okay, this isn't sustainable. We have an Italian wine shop in a German town that sold local wines. Well, wait a minute, you can buy them everywhere now. And Italian wines, wait a minute, we're in a German town. And so it didn't, it. It just wasn't a good fit. And the other thing that we had found from going to Italy, every time we go there, it was just this incredible. Every day you eat and you have gelato, you have espresso and you have gelato. And so we felt that we removed in there again, that was a little bit kind of organic. We're Italian and this is something that we were missing. We put an Italian gelato. I went to school back in North Carolina and then over to Seattle for two weeks, weeks to learn how to make from scratch gelato. And it was fantastic.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Yeah. Again, another unique selling process.

[Dan Carr]

And it was. But there again, it was organic. It came from within of who we were. We were just. We just put out another branch. Then a couple years went by and I was making in the. This brewery was in this basement. The basements have got them is about 3,000 square feet, 18 foot deep and perfect 58 degrees with perfect humidity to, you know, hang up and experiment making salami and sausages. And that's how I cured came about, is I was making and learn. I learned over about a six year period of time how I taught myself how to make salami and how to make prosciutto hams. And it was all done with almost no. No proper equipment. And we made the decision too, because we knew that if we had a spot for the cured shop, which we didn't have, and one all of a sudden the shop right next to the gelato shop that we were leasing out to a gentleman, he came down, you know, with an illness and wanted to retire. And so we Just said, okay, we're gonna put a shop in, but we're gonna put a shop. We bought meat from Peterson's and all the big, you know, the cheese companies. We put the cheese and salami shop in. And we immediately realized that that's what's going to have to happen in the basement. Because we brought some of my stuff up, you know, which we shouldn't have, but. And people loved it. Yeah. And that's when you said, sure, because.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

You didn't have the proper sd.

[Dan Carr]

Well, yeah, there were. Yeah, there were. There was no USDA or no health department, but I mean, it was all great products. Product and such. And we'd been serving it in the restaurants. You know, the restaurant was. It was restaurant product. But, you know, we. Nobody knew it was there. It was. It was under the radar.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Okay, got it.

[Dan Carr]

And I knew the quality of it was enough that. That it would really work, especially in this town, the tourist town. And it was. So in 08, we opened the cured shop. In August of 08, and in February of 09, cured became USDA certified in the basement. And the following year. Now, so by the time end of nine, starting at 10, that was when the sausage garden idea came up at the parking lot. We were just going to put a cart out there and sell sausages because you could park. You could park six carts out your cars in that lot, and that was it. It was. And it's about 3,000 square foot of just prime real estate in downtown.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Park cars or park carts?

[Dan Carr]

Cars.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Okay.

[Dan Carr]

Yeah. And it was. There was a dumpster.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

It was all blocked off now, isn't it?

[Dan Carr]

Yeah. No. Well, you know, you can't park downtown. But our parking lot and stuff, that's where the whole footprint of it was a big dumpster area. And because it had slopes on it, so it was very unused. Ill properly used.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Got it.

[Dan Carr]

Well, we ended up putting the sausage garden there because Randy and I were working.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Grandma wasn't built in, oh, nine. That's new building.

[Dan Carr]

Oh, no. Yeah, that was built in. That was built in 11. Okay, I got it. So that was just a, you know, bad parking lot with a bad garden on it. So Randy, my chef, who came to work in O2, which was. He is probably the most fantastic flavor profile person I ever met. That guy had a palate that was just unbelievable. But he was the guy. Him and I did all the recipes for the meat and everything downstairs. He ended up leaving the kitchen up here and going downstairs and becoming, you know, the head of the cured.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Okay.

[Dan Carr]

So the Cured shop went off, but it wasn't enough to pay for. Randy and I, we couldn't afford to pay for help to come in and help. So we were doing all of it, and it was really wearing us out. And getting that sausage garden going in the. Out there would. We figured would okay, get a couple carts out there and just so we could get more business to help, pay for some help. And by the time we got through the hoops with the city and the legalities and everything, we had a whole business plan for the garden as it is. And we opened up that in 2011, in October. And that was again, it was organic. It came out of our cured shop shop. We needed cured shop couldn't be what it needed to be in the processing, couldn't process what it needed to be without adding another branch. We had to grow another branch to make it where it was profitable.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Got it. So I want to get into that. I think that that is your most profitable in terms of margins, right?

[Dan Carr]

Yeah. Is.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Is like, I. I do think that that that model is a model that should. Not necessarily sausage, but doing one thing really well, having a really small menu. Lots of things I like about this, the vertical integration. So you're. You are selling products to yourself, you know, what's that?

[Dan Carr]

Yep.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Yeah. I mean, what are the benefits of this approach? And I mean, what are the. What are the pros? What are the cons?

[Dan Carr]

Well, the. The pros of it is controlling your product. When you can buy pasture raised park, you know, from 50 miles away that was butchered by the farm's own, you know, USDA slaughter facility and have that made into sausage and into salamis and into prosciuttos for that matter, and be able to sell them in our stores and be able to say, yeah, you.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Know, this is a product of here.

[Dan Carr]

That product never left the farm till it came into our place. And it was made into the product it is. And put to your plate. That was always a huge selling point for us and. But it's beyond. It allowed us to try to tie ourselves closer to. I've always been a firm believer in farm to table, but Americans are still struggling on trying to get that right. Because farm to table means to be just that. Not something that this isn't knocking the food distributors, but a big corporate company saying these are. This was, you know, pasture raised beef. And it's. And it goes through all the.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

What's the definition of that? Like what?

[Dan Carr]

Exactly. Exactly.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

And screenwashing.

[Dan Carr]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

It's nothing wrong with the Distribute the distribution because the food needs to get from where it's grown to where it's fed.

[Dan Carr]

But don't try to make it something that it's not right. Words. Yeah, yeah. The marketing and stuff is. Yeah.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Announcer]

You know, it's weird.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Like I'm always saying. I, I think I used to say marketing is the bane of human existence. And my editor Jared says, no, marketing is the bane of your existence. But I do think marketing is the Achilles heel of, of like humanity. It's a weakness because we, in that gray area of marketing, we can do. It's, it's hard to live in a conscious world if the information that's coming out is inaccurate information or misleading information. And I just think we need to be more. When we think like the, the, the phrase conscious capitalism, I think a lot of the, the bad things that happen in society live in the realm of marketing and just pers. It's no longer persuading. It's mis. It's misleading.

[Dan Carr]

Yes.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

And that's not okay and that's in that gray area. But it's all done under the spirit of profitability. And we talked earlier today about the importance of profitability. But conscious capitalism says what is the thing that matters for you? Like the, the, the higher purpose things, the things that make society better. The, the, the values we have that serve as filters. Is your business adding value or retracting value from society? Like there needs to be that filter there. And that thing that profit makes that thing you stand for possible. And that's conscious capitalism. We need to be conscious. And I think we're losing some of that for the sake of profitability right now.

[Dan Carr]

Yeah. And it's, it's so easy because of a lot of the twisting of nutritional and how we look at it and how they'll take it and they'll pull different, you know, processing foods, super processing foods. That. It's really great taking carotene out of carrots. You need the carotene. But people don't realize that for carotene to really work, the rest of the carrot needs to be ingest. Your digestive System to get 85% of the use of that carotene. You're only going to get about a 5% of the use of the carotene way without the rest of that carrot in your digestive system. When you, when you do eat it or you take the pill for it. You know, that's a very raw way of stating that that's what processing does. Yeah. You're getting 200% of vitamin C. But only 4% of that 200% is actually going to be usable because your body can't process it because you took away the rest of what needs to be there in that orange, for instance. That's going to help you digest it.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Right? Yeah. We are very close to nature. We are animals.

[Dan Carr]

Yeah.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

And we don't fit into machines or hyper processed processes. Processed food. It has to be as close to the original form as possible to get the best out of it. And we, we sacrifice that quality for quantity and convenience. Yeah.

[Dan Carr]

And that was one of the biggest problems that we had with the cured meat company was in the beginning, as I was learning and Randy, we would try different things and it wouldn't work. Or it would work. We get the flavor profile there, but its color would never stay or so. And all the big boys are getting that very easily and stuff. But that's why you have those 25 letter words in the ingredient list is because of all of the additives and other things to it. But over time we learned how to do it with natural and, and you know, real products. Sometimes it would be, you know, like, you know, lime, you know, lime powder, you know, to be able to get that acid into there because it'll help preserve and stuff. But yeah, that's, that's, you know, getting a little off the subject stuff because it's.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Our mission statement is to inspire empowerment and transform. We inspire with the stories. You have an inspiring story. You were bankrupt at one time and now you're doing over 11. You're doing over 10 million a year in revenue with, you know, I think you said 12 or you're averaging like 12, 10. Just say, well, you're averaging 12% profit across all of your, your concepts. Right. That's huge. You know, and not only that.

[Dan Carr]

You'Re.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

You'Re empowering with the knowledge you're sharing and the best practices, but the, the thing that's really important that I pride myself is that where we tran. Transform with the values and community. Right. And these values you're sharing are you're making impressions on people to choose to do the hard thing because it's the right thing. And I think right now people are, are prioritizing to do the convenient thing because it's the more profitable thing. And I think that we need to talk about this stuff to create consciousness because if you're not talking about it, how can you be conscious of it? We need to be aware.

[Dan Carr]

Right.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

So I think it's, it's very on point of what the kind of stuff is I like to talk. So thank you for getting into it. But we do want to teach. People are listening because they want to be empowered. So let's get back into the empowerment of, like, teaching the how. So what other things? If you want to do things the hard way, because it will be the right way long term, how do you make that happen? What are the challenges and how do you overcome those challenges?

[Dan Carr]

What the. The biggest challenge, like, okay, I'm gonna just use making salami. How do you make salami? You know, some people think, well, you just do this, this and this. And yet it is. It's the simplest, hard thing I've ever done. But patience, that's time. Cured meat, it's nothing but patience and understanding that you have patience and little things. Checking on a prosciutto ham that's going to be hanging there for 18 months and put prosciutto hams in that cooler every two weeks on a new group that's going to be there for 18 months and keeping the paperwork. So that way you're checking on every one of those groups of hams every two weeks and that you don't miss any. It's. When you do it, it's easy. It sounds like it gets real clear. It. It doesn't. But when you're making and learning how to make salami, you know, and it's, it's the technique. And I can't tell you how. I can write it down, but until I met up, we don't own a grinder. We never have. Everything is cut with a bowl cutter, with knives. And so I have to teach you, stand there and teach you and have you see and take pictures to get that profile and making the temperatures and everything of that salami, or if you're doing sausage, the temperatures of the sausage when it's being bowl cut, what the minimum temperature is where you don't want to be colder than that because you know it's going to be frozen. Well, yeah, yeah. The fat, it changes. It gets warmer. On sausage, you can go up higher, but on salami, you got to be cold because you're not going to have sharp edges, you're not going to have flat sides which show you that somebody had cut this, and that gives you those beautiful profiles when you're looking at a piece of salami from the end. Well, when I find people that understand that kitchen people, oh, those guys are incredible in the kitchen, they just, they. It's, it's. And then there's others and stuff that don't See it, but they learn it. And those are the salami people. The other ones are great cooks and great, you know, they're great skilled, you know, people, and they can do a great job at it. But they don't get that last bit very seldom because they're. They want to create. And in making salami, you're creating, but you're duplicating too.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Right.

[Dan Carr]

It has to be the same every time. And those people and stuff, those are the ones and stuff that get it.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Dan Carr]

And you.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Is there an analogy here? That on business and we. There's that analogy of like that saying, okay, time to go make this the sausage, Right?

[Dan Carr]

Yep.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

And I think you're. There are a lot of parallels with making sausage and scaling and doing things the right way over time, like taking time, you know, you know, consistency, using the right tools, having the right variables in place with like, you know, the, the, you know, I don't know, like, I'm maybe.

[Dan Carr]

No, the consistency with part, I guess would be the award that would kind of lead into that is because standards.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Is another word that comes in mind.

[Dan Carr]

Standards on how you're doing it. But I learned by going with the small meat company. We scaled it up from 1600 square feet approximately downstairs of what we call our processing area to 11,000 I Wenatchee. Huge equipment setups, everything big. Our aging room, our main aging room is bigger than 1600 square feet. Just the one salami aging room in Covid hit four days after we opened. And we had a big retail and distribution plan and stuff with a couple of suppliers that we were going out. And we had over 75 customers lined up, you know, to get a retail brand going. Well, that all fell apart in the beginning of COVID And so it was a real struggle that I found that. And it made me remember why I always opened up restaurants organically where they kind of grew out of one. Like fire. Fire grew out of our meat company. And we already have. We knew wood fired ovens and we always wanted a wood fired oven pizzeria. And so it was something that we already knew how to do. It was, you know, pasta and pizza. What better could you do to be a, you know, part of Visconti? And the meat company taught me that I wasn't in the retail business. I was in the restaurant business. And going into that reset retail wholesale business was a whole new world. It was food, it was what I made. I mean, you know, we were international. We were running winning international gold battles for.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

For our products.

[Dan Carr]

But that doesn't make you great. All it does is. Yeah, you're making the great products. And they were working fantastic in our restaurants. But it was a whole new world. And it was. If I was to say that it was unsuccessful at any business. My life. It wasn't my restaurant in Colfax, where I. I went bankrupt. The restaurant. The restaurant never lost a nickel. That thing made money every year. It was my investments and not there. I got into something that I didn't know how to do.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Right.

[Dan Carr]

In doing what you do not know how to do, even though you think it's like we had the meat company here. We had. We were selling to ourselves, which was a good customer. We were selling to the cured shop, which was a huge customer. And when you get out that when now all of a sudden you're trying to do it out to the public. I wasn't in. I wasn't in a position to scale it the way I thought it would happen.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Right.

[Dan Carr]

It was a. It was a blow. Yeah.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

And this is 2010, right? 2010. 2015. Ish.

[Dan Carr]

Oh, no, no, no. This is right now when I'm talking about the cured meat. 2009, we opened the USDA and it grew. And then it became. We opened the sausage garden to give it more bit business. Then it grew. We had a. A conditional use permit to produce up to £100,000 a year out of the basement in the last year we were there, and which would have been 2019, we did 168,000 pounds. Way, way past our capacity. And it was. It was a nightmare. And that's why we're glad to get down to the big plant. But we're getting to the big plant with all of the expenses and everything. And thank God the commissary was there to help, you know, cover. And that was the reason why we moved the meat company and the commissary. We needed the commissary because our kitchens were too small. And we needed a bigger meat company. And one of them could not survive by itself. But doing both projects, our return on investment looked right. But the thing I didn't. And Candy will laugh when she ever hears this, you know, didn't calculate because I don't like to admit it is. I didn't understand the complexity of what I didn't know how to do.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

You don't know what you don't know?

[Dan Carr]

No. And I went into something that I thought, hey, I sell retail. I got real tale, you know, retail customers all over the place. I've got wholesale customers that have been buying this is going to be a, a piece of cake. But the logistics of it and the volumes of it and was just so new.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Dan Carr]

And you. They don't run like a restaurant.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Yeah. Back to what we discussed earlier. Clarity, not clarity, not just clarity in what you're doing for food and who you're serving and how you're serving them, but the business you're in. And I don't think that, that, you know, I, I am an advocate for vertical integration. And in vertical integration there are a lot of things that you need to learn. I mean, I'm thinking we're talking about vertically integrating farms. I had Dean and Peeler on the podcast earlier in the year, a beef producer out of. Just outside of San Antonio, Texas. And they, they control everything from, you know, selecting the sperm to the actual insemination to, you know, birthing the calf, growing the calf. They do their own feed, they produce their own feed, they have their own slaughter, they have their own production facility. So from sperm to production, they control the entire vertical. That's the entire chain, all of it. But Dean and Peeler aren't necessarily experts and all those things. In order to do vertical integration, it is necessary to have partners. You have to be in. It's. You have to orchestrate very intentional, long term strategic partnerships. And I think it is the way, it's also the hard way back to the hard way. But it's. I think it's the right way because in doing that is how you make the biggest impact.

[Dan Carr]

The. For, for me, the biggest thing out of this conversation we have that I think you, you know, just, just for me to clarify exactly where we went with the meat company, I, we struggled for three years. Now, as I said, I'm 72 and I wanted to retire. And because of what I was able to do, there's a gentleman named Ted LeBeau. Ted LeBeau has a company called Good Roots and he works with the people like the folks you're talking about with ranch. That's his specialty. His company there. He's.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

What's his name?

[Dan Carr]

Ted.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Announcer]

What?

[Dan Carr]

Ted LeBow.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

I'd love to talk to Ted and.

[Dan Carr]

I'd love to get you two together because you would love it. He is, he was our fractional. We hired him as a fractional CFO and he helped us put together not only our. Organize our, you know, rest the meat company, but reset it and get it. Get me to see the books in a different way.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Not a restaurant tour way, but a reseller way.

[Dan Carr]

That's the funny part about it. It Was it brought me back to realizing and stuff that accounting is accounting and it's just that, you know, in the manufacturing you have your. You don't have a prime cost. You have a cost of sales. We call prime cost. That's your labor and then it's your cost goods cost of goods. And in the production your cost of goods is all your materials, all your packaging materials and all your labor that has touched the product while it's being made. Administrative labor is your other labor. That's the stuff that you got to pay for whether you're busy or not. And separating us out. So it's just a little bit different. Instead of a prime cost, it's just got a cost of sales and. But he also helped us set up up, you know, the chart of accounts a little bit like in restaurants uniform system accounts for restaurants that restaurant owners.com and put out years and years ago, which we've always followed a different way of laying that out. And it. But it all came back to the same thing. It's the same basics that I just got lost in thinking there was a difference that it was different and really isn't. But you have to see the cost a little differently.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Yeah, but small nuances.

[Dan Carr]

But make small nuances. But there again like with what you were talking about, you know, with the beef again, Pure Country, a pork producer that we use, they raise and process about 400 plus heads of pigs a day. And they've got a large beef operation now and they do exactly the same. They have their own slaughter facility. They don't do further processing. And so we did a huge amount of that for them. We're in a business and cured by Carnegie via the company that has purchased my meat company now is still doing the same with them. Plus they have their own ranches and farms elsewhere that they're bringing product in. But getting back to what you were talking about is I got into something I didn't know and the only thing I would love anybody to get if they ever hear this podcast is that if you are in fine dining and you want to go into cupcakes or you see this little fast food thing, it's a don't do it without professional, knowledgeable, but mostly experienced people in that genre. You have to have that help. They don't have to be around for long. They can be, you know, it's like Ted, Ted gave us. We already had everything you, all these, all you restaurateurs have already learned all of this. All it is is stepping back and allowing somebody to Take all of your widgets you have on the table that make your restaurant in your systems work and rearrange them for you to see it in a different light. And that's what Ted did for us. Yeah but and it's. I'm now retired. Yeah, congrats. And I'm really happy about it. But I can't stay away from the meat company. I'm still going in there at least once, twice a week and self working with the guys teaching. So.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Yeah, and I want to talk about that now that you are retired, you've passed the baton to Candy's daughter Dawn, my stepdaughter.

[Dan Carr]

Yep.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

I was hoping, yeah I was hoping to get, I don't know, maybe there's still hope that we might be able to pull it off. I'm here for like another 24 hours. Yeah and she's very busy hosting the Restaurant Systems Pro Mastermind elite program right now. Speaking of which, you alluded to Restaurant Systems Pro earlier in the conversation about you know, you got this book on how to figure out prime cost and how to calculate profit and all that stuff and you know, costing your menu. Take me through the evolution of your systems and your technology and where you are today and when, when did you guys onboard Restaurant Systems Pro?

[Dan Carr]

The very first time we met. Well first on, on the books is I knew the book was the only thing that I'd ever come across and I use that just that was in the life. I mean that was in. No, that was actually in the 80s. I found that when I was in.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Colfax and that's how you were doing it. Up until, up until.

[Dan Carr]

Up until I never really had anything put together. I came across chef tech from a recipe program that I was working with a little bit before, you know, before I we came across and then at that time it was called the rest Smart Systems. With Smart Systems Pro I went to in fact Restaurant Owners.com in 2005 had a contest. You know, you sign up for their your email to get there, get their weekly stuff on there. You know from their email. You name got dropped into a deal for a free trip to. It wasn't a free trip but it was free entry to David Scott Peters and the soup to nuts for the with the restaurant experts. And it just had everything that kind of like what RSP is. But in those days it was in spreadsheets and it was a four day program in Las Vegas. Well I won and I truly thought that I was probably everybody one you know, they just trying to get people to Go. But my mom and dad lived in Vegas and Canyon. I thought, well, let's go down.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

And that everyone got out of the Midwest, huh?

[Dan Carr]

That. Yes. That was the thing that just. That started it for us.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

This is 2005. 2005 weren't a software at this point.

[Dan Carr]

No, this is. In fact we were one of the restaurants hounded them. We got to get this. You got this and this. And you got to take numbers out of here. Get together a small program and stuff just so the stuff could talk to each other, make it a little bit easier Flow.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

So restaurant systems or a restaurant. What was it originally he was called?

[Dan Carr]

Smart Systems.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Smart Systems Pro was a series of. What were they? Spreadsheets.

[Dan Carr]

Oh, yes, spreadsheets. And you had the program was. It was a restaurant operations from soup to nuts. And it was for four days. And you started out right from the very beginning. And they.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

What were the elements?

[Dan Carr]

If I remember right it. You went in. Right. Starting from the books. Starting from. They talked to you about.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

That microphone's giving you a challenge today, isn't it?

[Dan Carr]

My hands are.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

You're telling me.

[Dan Carr]

Well, not really, but you know, I'm a convert honorary. As the Pope will tell you, the best Catholics are a convert. Converts. So.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

So you. So bring it back to the soup, to the nuts. Like what in 2005, what were the. The different systems they were teaching you the whole like, wow. What was included in soup there?

[Dan Carr]

The first. The. The best one that came out of it was our purchase allotment. And which would tell you that you had it figured out. It was a spreadsheet. And you would enter your sales for the month, you know, by day, you know, use last year's forecast. And then there you say it was 25% for your food cost to me. Keep it easy. And your sales were a thousand dollars. Well, for that day you put over. And that would be your budget of what you're going to buy for that day.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

So it's purchase allotment, budget. What else they teach you then after.

[Dan Carr]

The budget and stuff. Once you had that and stuff, then it would. In the purchase allotment was my guys like at the Sausage Garden is the one thing that Steve learned and he was the first one to pick it up is that that told you what he could buy. And he followed that to the rule and still does today. Of all the things, he's probably the only person that uses the purchase allotment in RSP anymore. But it was. It was one of the things when we in 2005 that was before the Sausage Garden was even available then. But we. Steve was working here in the restaurants with Randy. And I'm trying to think each day, but you went over scheduling, they went over to the reverse labor and how it worked. And those are things that I'd never seen before. But the purchase allotment was really cool because as you went through the week and you put yesterday's sales in and replaced on the spreadsheet what you had guessed, you know, your estimate or your budget sales, and then what you really paid for invoices would be put in there also. And so it would give you a running. And then you was tied to three weeks before. And so you were, you had a food cost of. Of where you were at. Sit on my hands now and you're fine. And so it was things that it closed gaps on. Well, you know, you have this, but, you know, you. It was too hard to keep track of. But now all of a sudden you had spreadsheets that you could start tracking things in the reverse labor where it could tell you where you were. And it was Sunday night, the end of the week and you just finished your labor. You could put it on the seven days so you can look and see how you were. But it was giving you a quasi budget variance. Like we now have an rs, you know, in RSP that you're going to look at any day. But at the end of each week you can look at your prime cost, your labor. Everything is going to be within a half a percent of what it's really going to end up at the end of the month, the end of the year for that period of time that you're looking at. And that gave us that forward thinking that a CPA works with his history, a CMA or a CFO works with the future. And they use history projections as to do projections. And that is the biggest thing that came out of RSP for me in the beginning, back when it was Soup to nuts.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Got it. And also inventory too, right?

[Dan Carr]

Oh yeah, inventory. I was, I was always. I was an inventory guy from the book from wsu, you know, costing for restaurants. Yeah, that's the one that taught me because there he expounded weekly inventories.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Dan Carr]

And everybody thought I was nuts. That came to work for me because I did inventory every week.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

So this program, the soup to nuts, that was basically spreadsheets, individual spreadsheets, all spreadsheets that spit out numbers, but they didn't, they didn't push information to each other to like do not at all streamline process not at all. But that's where Restaurant Systems Pro is today. As a software, as a service.

[Dan Carr]

Right.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Or service as a software. I always get it backwards. I never which one is. But you know, I, I was talking to Fred, you know, Restaurant Systems Pro. Fred Langley, CEO of Restaurant Systems Pro. Repeat guests on the show talking about relationships. Right. I'm not good in the numbers. I'm not a numbers person. Never have been, never will be. I love the human side of things. Human nature, psychology, the history of us getting into figuring out how do we tick and what is optimal. And like that's the stuff that I love is how do we create the environment for people to thrive when it comes to numbers like my eyes cross and Fred in this partnership with Restaurant Systems Pro and within restaurant unstoppable network work, I'm leaning a lot on Fred to be my guy. Fred is the guy.

[Dan Carr]

Yeah.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

And I know, I know Fred doesn't like it when I tell this story, but I'm going to tell anyway because it's kind of funny. David Scott Peters was the pimp. He was the guy out there selling the systems. Fred was, Fred was the hoe. And these are David Scott Peters words. Fred was the guy that did the work and he's. He spent so much of his career going into these restaurants wants and helping them. I call him the P L whisperer. He's so good at it.

[Dan Carr]

Oh, he is.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

And he's among the best at it and being able to work with him and give access to him twice a week or sorry, twice a month for an hour. He will. We do a P L power hour where he. You just show up and you show your P L and he will go through and he will help you move the needle. He'll help you. He'll give you homework for the next two weeks. Did you do it? Yes or no?

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Announcer]

Why?

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Why not? We'll help you tackle those barriers. Those roadblocks are in your way.

[Dan Carr]

If I'm going to be candid. Since RSP one of the faults, not that's not a fault and one of the outcomes of all of the automated software is giving us the numbers. But it's taken that out of it to where it gives you the answers.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

But you don't know how it got there.

[Dan Carr]

A lot of people don't know how you know how it got there because you used to do it by hand. Yes, but your new people don't know they there again. They don't know what. They don't know. They don't know what the nuances of why that's important, how to get there there. Yes.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Yeah, I'm happy you said that because that leads into what I was going to share. So one of the things in talking with Fred in, in trying to figure out how do we partner back to this idea of partnerships and going further together and surrounding yourself with the right people. You're talking about, like if you're taking over a business, you need to have the person that does the thing there to teach you how to do the thing and to train and create the systems around it. Talking to Fred recently, it's like, Fred, what was Restaurant System Systems Pro before it was Restaurant Systems Pro and it was the restaurant or a Restaurant Expert Pro.

[Dan Carr]

Restaurant Restaurant Experts and it was Smart.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Systems, Smart Systems Pro. And Smart Systems Pro was the, the long hand, how to do it, Purchase allotment, budgeting, scheduling, reverse labor, food costing inventory. And this year, Fred and I are working on creating our own Soup to Nuts rendition where like he is going to teach me and give me us Restaurant stoppable all the assets to be able to do what Restaurant Systems Pro does without the software. Because we know that if you make it about helping people where they're at and helping them understand the process and getting them to the point where they're ready for the next step in their evolution. The software, it's, it's a stepping stone to get there because for a lot of people it's overwhelming because they don't understand how the numbers get there. The onboarding process is hard.

[Dan Carr]

I'm gonna, I've always been kind of a techie guy, you know, what's, what's new and what's like automated being able to come in and have my point of sale is downloaded into my bookkeeping. So it's already there. You know, all I gotta do is put my deposits in. I was always into that type of stuff. But in, in 2005, if I would have gone into Soup to Nuts and it was a software program, I would have not been interested because I already had chef tech and it already had recipes.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

But you need.

[Dan Carr]

Well, this doesn't have recipes, you know, I mean that, that was, you know, I already got Chef tech. I don't need all. I don't need. This bookkeeping stuff was kind of how Candy and I were when we first came went to it. But by the time we got done, it was like, you know, yeah, we got, we got the accountants, but wow, we could see our books before 30 to 45 days. After the month's over, you know, that would be kind of cool, even if it was just close. So it got us thinking. And so when we went home, we started using the spreadsheets. We started using all of. And oh, it was wonderful. In 2008. Came along in 2008 in Leavenworth in this restaurant. It was at. On the end of June. We hadn't really felt the economy crash yet. You know, we were late and we were up just over 20, just a tiny bit over 20% in this restaurant. And at the end of 2008, this restaurant was down for the year, the whole year, 22%. It hit us that hard. Now, in that time, as I was saying, we got into the wine industry and became very big in the wine industry. In that big old basement downstairs, had 5, 600 cases of wines of back wines that we've been buying and building our wine program for both the restaurants. We were getting our awards from the Wine Spectator and everything was going great. And the only thing we can say good about that, because we were making enough money for. Because of what we learned from David and Fred in the soup to nuts, was all of a sudden we weren't making money anymore and we were losing money in the way we made it through was we just happened to have an inventory of irreplaceable wines. About a third of our wines that we owned were last bottles out there. And so we went into. You could come into here and you could buy a bottle of Barolo at your table for everything you bought at your table. We had retail prices that you could. Because we had retail license take home. We had people coming in here and buying three bottles of wine for dinner so they could take three home for their collection. And that's. We sold off. We went from about 600 and just under 700 bottles of wine on the wine list down to 250. And I had a vow that I'm going to get that back up there after the economy straightens out out and everything. And we've never gone over 300. And nobody has ever asked us what happened to your big wine list. They still just say, wow, you got a big wine list. And so it's kind of when you get into something how you kind of just get going. And I just. That's just a little story to, you know, tell you how we were able to do that because with rsp and we didn't really, really. And of course, we didn't follow their thing. Well, you only need this much inventory you of alcohol.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Right. So we were able to do that because of RSP Specifically that being fill in the blank.

[Dan Carr]

Well because part of what we were was we were an Italian restaurant in a new, new Italian restaurant really for our marketplace. And we found that building the wine list and we had the dot com living in Seattle and coming over and buying homes here. And we became the wine restaurant, you know, of Leavenworth. And we were the place you could come and get that bottle of wine for a special occasion. And we built off of that.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

But you didn't necessarily need it. And your money was on the shelves.

[Dan Carr]

The money was on the shelves. And one thing about wine, it's not like beer, you know, the kegs go bad in six months. Now that wine that we were buying of step was also going into a 58 degree basement. It if it wasn't on the shelves up here. And that's refrigerated. Behind that wall is a refrigerated room.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Dan Carr]

Where all of the higher end ready to be served bottles are. And so for us it was, it was like a piggy bank, you know. And. But we never did it that way. We didn't do it on purpose. It just was there. And we were able to build our legacy in the wine industry by you know, quasi RSP made that possible by making us profitable.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Yeah, yeah.

[Dan Carr]

And.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

But after we take that profit and invest it in assets. But that's, that's the goal is.

[Dan Carr]

Yeah. Early 09 though, in May of 09, that was not there anymore.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Lifesaver.

[Dan Carr]

And I called David Scott Peters and I, because I'd seen a ad for Soup tonight and I talked to him about seeing if I could come down again. And even the, I think it was $700 for, for the two seats, I mean that really wasn't in the market for that, you know, because it got to fly down any cost.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

But hotel.

[Dan Carr]

He goes, well, tell you what, we got this group called the Winner Circle, you know, you know the elite group. And then the Winner Circle was the smaller group group, kind of like you get into them, then you get into Elite. And it was a hundred dollars. I think it was a hundred dollars a month. You know, it was 600 a year. But we could pay a hundred dollars a month and I could afford that. And the thing was if you were a member of the Winner Circle, you had to guarantee six, six months as a member. Yes. You got, you got into winner circles and Elite got into soup to nuts for free.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Dan Carr]

So that's how we went.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Dan Carr]

That got me back in and in.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Full transparency, you know, it's, you know Fred wanted to pursue the world of software, and David Scott Pierce wanted to exactly do the world of public speaking and coaching because that's what he loves. And they went their own way. And, you know, I'm leaning on Fred to.

[Dan Carr]

To be incredible. They're both, both still incredible at what they do.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Dan Carr]

Yeah. And David Scott Peters is probably one of the most inspirational restaurant coaches speaker that I've ever talked to.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

He has his own podcast. Check it out.

[Dan Carr]

Yep. Oh, I do. I. I listen to them all. In fact, I. I speak to him three, four times a year. I love that. And I really love the guy. And. But Restaurant Systems Pro is what I was. I mean, we were a guinea pig for a lot of it. We, you know, hey, we need to test this, we need to test that. And don't tell you, of all the days she was stressed out because Dan agreed to do this. But it was, but it was all such a good learning curve and it really helped us grow as a business.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Yeah. And if, if you want to be a part. To your point, point, we're doing something similar with Restaurant Unstoppable Network. Are you Live? Specifically, when you sign up for Restaurant Unstoppable Live, you get access to all these live events and the archive of the content, the. The resources that I'm building with Fred. So. And you're supporting this podcast and my mission, to be able to share stories of people like you in person. And there's no way I could do what we're doing right now over zoom. It's just not the same magic man. So head over to restaurants.com live live selfish plug right here. We need your support and thank you very much. It's $47 a month. It's unheard of. And that's my mission, to get this access available to anybody, regardless of where you are. What your privilege is this information. I think if it's information, if it's knowledge, it should be accessible. You know. So you just mentioned Don. I think I just want to talk about Don real quick. And the you, like you mentioned, you are now retired. Don is. What's her title? The president?

[Dan Carr]

No, she's Chief Operating Officer of the Scottish Hospitality Group.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Dan Carr]

And you know, she'll. I'm sure that she's. We're talking a step of her beginning to take over ownership. And that's all things that we're, you know, it's a lot harder when you've always just. We. We just go to work.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Dan Carr]

Now all of a sudden, we have to take care of. Of you know, the papers and making sure that it's going to be the best for everybody and that, you know, that it's fair. And that's where we got to get to now. Because when she came back in 2013, she, you know, I had a, you know, she's got a hell of a, you know, resume. Yeah. Restaurants and restaurateurs that she's worked for and worked at.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Tom Colicchio.

[Dan Carr]

She never worked for Tom, but she became a friend of Tom's through, you know, through the Babo Babo and, you know, the Bastianiches, Mario Batali. And those are the people that she was working for.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

She was in Las Vegas for a little Las Vegas.

[Dan Carr]

And she was also in Miami was where she got her first time out of Seattle, the El Gaucho group. And then she worked Columbia Tower, Asagios Tulio's, the fine hotel there. Or places different, you know, places that she worked in. We. We never were never hard alcohol. And that's how we drug her home, is that she says, well, if you put a bar in Wenatchee, I'll come home. So we did, and here she is.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

And we're hoping to talk to her. I don't know if we're gonna be able to make it happen on this trip, but I would love to hear her story. But I mean, in terms of passing the baton and you're going through that now. Any advice or. This is your car. This is like going into sixth gear now where you're at. You're about to get into sixth gear retirement.

[Dan Carr]

And you want to.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

You want to, you know, continue the legacy. What do we need to know about that?

[Dan Carr]

Part of it is, is that I'm finding in stuff that I can't turn the baton over to. Dawn. Candy and I together have to turn it over, I think is what's going to be the. Not the easiest, but the smartest way.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

So what's the difference between you turning it over and Candy and you turn.

[Dan Carr]

Well, so that way we're always on the same page so that I see things. Candy and I, when we did our core values, Fred and David were sitting right here. I would almost talked about it last night. Right where Fred was sitting was where he was sitting when we were doing this. And we spent a full day. David had a. A project thing of just list of words and with questions and there was words underneath. We select the word and Candy and I would do it. And if you can't, you do it. And it was. It took us a full day to get it all done. And what it was, was just narrowing down how we thought and what we were looking for to build our core values. And we each wrote our core values and then David went through it. You know what the problem was? Our core values were just identical, but we never could agree on them because we're using different language. Language, yes. And that was one of the. That was one of the. Our core values are exactly what they were on what was written that day. And that would have been, gosh, 2009, 10, 11. Oh, probably I think 12, right around there. A couple years before we had our. We sponsored the restaurant group, though, the first time in 2015. But that was. And that was the thing that gave Candy and I the ground when we could sit there. And we even had one manager, Melanie, that would. Her answer would she be going through and someone says, why this place is dabbed, why don't we close? And she goes, read the core values and come back and talk to me about it. I mean, that was her response for almost any thing. When they questioned how Candy and I, every decision, it was just there. Did it fit?

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

What was the core value that would prevent you from closing?

[Dan Carr]

The hospitality and the reliability of our customers being able to find. We've never had anywhere in our marketing or in our websites. We don't close, we stop service. We stop seating. Yeah, it's. We stopped Seeding was at 10 o'. Clock. We stopped. Stopped seating at 10 o'. Clock and. And the unwritten one in. In the restaurants was we really stopped seating when that last meal that got in at before 10, when that was coming out of the kitchen, because the kitchen was still set up. If somebody came in during that cooking, it got cooked too. Yeah, it was just, it was just, just. It was in. In the beginning we needed that and stuff just to. And it really helped us build our trade, but got it. That has changed a lot in this industry now because when we opened up here, we were open till one in the morning and then after, we were no longer part of the, you know, the pub anymore for the brewery. And we're just the Italian restaurant. Then we started closing at, you know, midnight and then 11. And now, man, it's hard to push it past 10 o'. Clock. People are in your open. Are you.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

You open later or you like. You don't open till 3. Whereas it used to be for lunch too.

[Dan Carr]

Right? We were open for lunch. And in fact, it's. Yeah, we're. We're doing more volume now from three to close.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Dan Carr]

Then we Were, you know, annual volume than we were with the, you know, the lunch.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Announcer]

Yeah.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

So back to this idea of working with Candy to pass the.

[Dan Carr]

The potential. It's so that way with. With the. Yes. Sorry for getting off on that. No, I love tangents with the core values is I want to make sure that we see everything eye to eye. Because what David taught us. David, you know, when we're doing the core values is that we speak differently and we say the same thing but with different language. Language. A lot of times in just making sure that what my. What I'm saying is exactly how she correlates it to just making sure that I don't tell Don. This is what we're going to do without Candy. This is what I'm telling Don we're going to do.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Dan Carr]

Is I want to try to be there because, you know, and we've learned that. No, we've. We've stubbed our toes on that, you know, now and again. And it's over the last year, it's really gotten really well, especially since I started stepping back. I see something happen. It's no longer Don saying, well, wait a minute, I got this. You know, don't worry about it. It's. We're able to say, hey, you know, Don, I'm seeing this. And she knows. I'm not questioning what she's doing is she goes, well, you think I could do it another way? And so there's this camaraderie of this change over.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Yeah. I did an episode on secession plans. The name of the individual is escaping me right now. But do you have a secession plan? Are you working with anybody?

[Dan Carr]

We're working on it right now with. We've all the time. We've always. Finances have always been us, and we're now to the point and stuff in our lives where we're. We're not servicing debt. Everything is. Everything's on a growth spurt. We own all of our properties. There's no payments. And we, you know, the Miller street property, we've got good tenants there. Things are working well for us. And so now we're starting to put together secessions. We're redoing wills. I mean, it's, It's. It's a whole lot.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Yeah. I think your staff is trying to tell us something. We've been. We've been working. Recording too long. No, it's a joke. I think no music yet.

[Dan Carr]

But we're.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

We're about ready to wrap it up. I think you just. You just got your. Your last thought out There.

[Dan Carr]

Yeah. So the, you know, the session plan and stuff is. And it's been hard for us to get to it, and because it's something that Candy and I are just now realizing and stuff, that we're not stepping away from these restaurants. A couple years ago and stuff, I wanted to just package them all up and let's sell them and put our nest egg away and just take care of everything and let go. And this is working differently, but it's so much better this way. And dawn will be able to decide what she wants to do and how she wants to do it and do it in a way that that's not going to encumber her. And so that way there. I don't ever want to see a hardship for the restaurants or for her owning the restaurants, you know, as she chooses to move into it. We want to make it a. That absolutes. We don't want the public to even, you know, have to see this.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Right, right. Is there anything we haven't discussed today, Dan, that you were hoping would come out of today's conversation?

[Dan Carr]

No. For me, being able to, you know, you know, retirement doesn't mean I'm stopping working. Retirement means I'm not on a schedule. I'm not writing checks. I'm not scheduling any. I'm not hiring or firing. I'm just being the owner of the business, you know, along with Candy and just working with, helping Don in every way we can. We're doing a remodel of fire and ice. Over this next year, we're going to be doing, for the first time only, we're going to do a change in the sausage garden, get take away the pellet grill that we use for our sausage, and going to a different, you know, style of cooking method that you can't tell the difference, but it's a little more efficient for the building. And we're going to possibly put French fries, which is something that we've always wanted to do, but with this new equipment, it's gonna fit.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Oh, awesome.

[Dan Carr]

Yeah.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

So one thing I like to get out of my guests before we wrap up is who do you respect and admire? Somebody a restaurateur. You already mentioned one name, Ted LeBeau. Yeah, I'd love to connect with him, but in terms of restaurant owners and operators, people doing amazing work, people that deserve to be made an example of that, things to share to make the industry a better place, whether that be inspired or empowered. Who was that? Who comes to mind, as I say that?

[Dan Carr]

Well, back in the days when he was really Involved before he shake shacks got going at Danny Myers. Yeah. Because of his just unlimited hospitality. Even though he's, you know, a TV personality and such. But the passion for the food was Gordon Ramsay and he's not anybody I've ever met or anything. I love his restaurants and such and. But there's how he sees things and not in his blusterous TV Persona.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Yeah. I think his publicist came down on a and said it's time to change the tone. I don't think America likes the, the angry Chef anymore.

[Dan Carr]

Yeah, a little soft. Well, he's, you know, those are ones and stuff with the hospitality. And I'm trying to think of the guy's name, Mitchell, out of Ohio. He. Yes, I've had Cameron on the show. Yes.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Yeah, Cameron Mitchell. I've had him on the show.

[Dan Carr]

Oh, I love that. Yeah.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Yeah, I would love to get the reconnect with him. All right. Danny Myers, Gordon Ramsay and Cameron Mitchell setting the bar real high for me. Look out, guys. I'd love to get you on the show. And how can we connect with you? If we really enjoyed your story today, maybe we want to come work for you.

[Dan Carr]

Dan [e-mail] Dan, thank you so much.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Man, for taking the time out of this busy week. You know, we had the Restaurant Elite program going on right at the Restaurant Assistance Pro Elite program going on right now. You, you carved out time to sit with me for over two hours to share your story and to empower our listeners. And I can't do what I do without people like you being willing to do that. So thank you so much. And there is no question you are unstoppable.

[Dan Carr]

Thank you.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Cheers.

[Dan Carr]

And I love your show.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Thank you.

[Dan Carr]

Thank you.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Interviewer]

Cheers.

[Host - Restaurant Unstoppable Announcer]

If today's episode stirred something in you, if you're feeling a little unstoppable, you're not alone. Join us at Restaurant Unstoppable Network where we are guiding restaurant owners to proven experts, tools and services based on real world success stories. You'll get access to my network of restaurant owning mentors, hand picked industry experts and organically referred vendors. You'll get access to these individuals through workshops, power hours, mentoring sessions and product demonstrations. Multiple events, live events every week. You'll get access to me twice a month where I'll answer any of your questions. And you get access to all the recordings through RU Network podcast, early access ad free bonus content, all pushed directly to your phone. Plus the Unstoppable, our closed source AI tool fed with over 2, 400 hours of transcripts from the best in the biz. And all future conversations that we have, whether that be bonus content or episodes, all all fed to the AI. Daily access to our private Facebook group. And I think this is the coolest part, the ability to influence future content. Here at Restaurant Unstoppable, your problems are my priority. Look, you don't have to do it alone. As a matter of fact, you will go further if you go together and you are the average of those you surround yourself with. And at Restaurant Unstoppable Network, you're surrounding yourself with the best. Head over to restaurantunstoppable.com live if you want all of this, including the live events, and if all this sounds appealing, but you don't really want access to join us live, then just head over to restaurantstoppable.com R U library.