Eric (6:14)

Allow me to introduce to you today's guest, founder of Weinbergers Deli, Dan Weinberger.

Dan Weinberger (6:21)

My man.

Eric (6:21)

Are you feeling unstoppable today?

Dan Weinberger (6:22)

I'm doing just great. Excited to be here with you.

Eric (6:25)

I've heard amazing things about you, my man, and I'm stoked to get into it. So I try to be as transparent as possible about how I find my guests. You were referred to me by Sir Bony Services and the folks that they've.

Podcast Host / Eric's Assistant (6:36)

Been sending my way.

Eric (6:37)

The, the quality of these individuals has been amazing. And I know you're going to be right there with them. And just listening to you talk to your team this morning and that you're. I can see your approach to leadership. Like you're. You're very much a mentor.

Podcast Host / Eric's Assistant (6:50)

I can see it.

Eric (6:51)

I can sense it. I know this is going to be great. But real quick, just what is Weinberger Italy. Give us the big picture.

Dan Weinberger (6:57)

Wine burgers is a sandwich up. We actually started out as a full fledged deli. My family has had delis since 1952 in Chicago. We had five in Chicago. This we or I decided to start back in 2002 right after 9 11. I had been a consultant for a long time. My wife was a consultant. And after the 911 event consultancies just kind of like went away. We were like, what do you want? How are we going to make money? And I've always wanted to open up deli, so. So we opened one here in Grapevine, Texas.

Eric (7:29)

Okay. So it's a counter service.

Dan Weinberger (7:31)

Counter service.

Eric (7:31)

How many seats?

Dan Weinberger (7:32)

36.

Eric (7:33)

How many locations?

Dan Weinberger (7:34)

1.

Eric (7:36)

What is your total revenue right now?

Dan Weinberger (7:39)

Well, last year was 2.75 million. Wow.

Eric (7:43)

And how of that 2.57 million. What is your percent prime cost?

Dan Weinberger (7:48)

Prime cost is actually not good. Okay, 73. But we have very low costs compared to a lot of restaurants out there, which makes up for it. Okay.

Eric (8:00)

And I'm assuming your labor must be pretty high then.

Dan Weinberger (8:02)

Yeah, my labor is very high. I actually believe in working wages for my employees. So I have a choice. I can pay the government or I can pay my employees. I'd rather pay them.

Eric (8:12)

Yeah. So how does that bounce out when you choose to pay your. Pay your employees? Is it balance? Is it like, are you paying more to your employees than you would be to the government if you chose to pay the government?

Dan Weinberger (8:21)

Yeah, very much.

Eric (8:22)

How much more?

Dan Weinberger (8:23)

That I couldn't tell You I would have, I'd have to refer to siboney.

Eric (8:26)

So you're. So what is your labor percentage?

Dan Weinberger (8:29)

43.

Eric (8:30)

43. And where does that leave you with your percent profit?

Dan Weinberger (8:34)

We're at 12%.

Eric (8:35)

12%. I mean we're still doing money.

Dan Weinberger (8:38)

Yeah, I mean we're working on increasing that by trying to drop our food costs.

Eric (8:42)

Okay.

Dan Weinberger (8:43)

We're so we're 1276 square feet. The store. When I designed the store originally, I expected to do a max of 750,000. Okay. You know, we've more than tripled that number. And we're totally under refrigerated. We're very fortunate that we have restaurant depots within a 17 mile radius of us. Two of them unrefrigerated.

Eric (9:07)

Did I hear that right?

Dan Weinberger (9:07)

Under refrigerated?

Eric (9:08)

Under refrigerator. I was like, how are you pulling that off? I think I see refrigerators behind you right now.

Dan Weinberger (9:12)

Well, we're buying more. I mean we're actually going to go through an expensive expansion in January where we're going to break into the space next to us as our dining room. Our problem is we're just such a small operation, but we've evolved, we've learned to deal with it.

Eric (9:28)

And I see that you have like how many sandwiches are on your menu?

Dan Weinberger (9:32)

On the board there's 84 different sandwiches and salads, including vegetarian options. Gluten free options.

Eric (9:38)

But you choose ten at a time. Did I read that right? Where you're kind of cycling, you have 10. I think I saw. Or maybe it was 20. I was reading your website and like you said there's over 100 options. But you're the, the, the community picks which ones are in every season. How did I read that?

Dan Weinberger (9:55)

Well, what we do is we run special sandwiches.

Eric (9:58)

Specials is what.

Dan Weinberger (9:59)

Okay. I'm pretty much a sandwich historian. I mean that's, that's my passion. When you, when you become a, a chef, you know, and you're in cooking school, you end up gravitating to certain areas. Some people are great grill cooks, some are better with seafoods. I just happen to be great with sandwiches. And I've created my own style, my own architecture of a sandwich. Combinations of flavors. I'm kind of like I was telling someone the other day, people have color wheels. I have a flavor wheel and a.

Eric (10:32)

Second generation sandwich maker.

Dan Weinberger (10:34)

Second and a half. Second and a half. My grandfather was in the food industry. He was a produce man. My great grandfather was a fisherman on the Mississippi River. My dad was a, a butcher, wholesale meat man and had Delis of his own.

Eric (10:51)

So your grandfather, you're talking great grandfather. I mean, Mississippi. It's crazy. You read some historical events of like the, the building of the West. It wasn't that long ago that we were heading west from the east coast. So he must have been a pioneer.

Dan Weinberger (11:05)

1905 is when he came to this country from Hungary.

Eric (11:08)

Yeah.

Dan Weinberger (11:09)

Or Romania. Somewhere around there. Austria, Hungary. And he lived in the East St. Louis area and was a fisherman on the Mississippi River.

Eric (11:19)

I love that. Okay, so I can't wait to dive more into your story, but before we get too far ahead of ourselves, I want get that motivational, inspirational ball rolling with a success quarter mantra.

Dan Weinberger (11:27)

What do you got for us as far as the success quote? I mean, it's just keep moving forward. You just cannot stop. It's like being a shark that hard.

Eric (11:35)

And that, that or that easy in that heart.

Dan Weinberger (11:37)

Right.

Eric (11:38)

To have the energy to keep going.

Dan Weinberger (11:40)

Yeah. This is not for the faint of heart when you want to do it, it's a passion. I mean, it's like they say, if you like what you're doing, you'll never be, you know, disappointed.

Narrator / Sponsor Announcer (11:49)

Yeah.

Eric (11:50)

There's truth to that. But it's choosing that, I think that's choosing the hard path sometimes too.

Dan Weinberger (11:54)

Yeah. Because. Yeah. I mean, this is, this is a hard industry to be in. But what you get from the joy of the people that enjoy your food makes it all worthwhile. I can sit there and I get reviews, and I'm very fortunate. We've got a lot of five star reviews. A lot. But when I get a one star from somebody, I'm like, where did I fail you? What did I do wrong?

Eric (12:22)

Yeah. I can relate to reviews on itunes sometimes or with the platforms where people can listen to podcasts. You can see the reviews. You take it personal.

Dan Weinberger (12:30)

Yeah.

Eric (12:31)

Like, it hurts, man. It stings. Why do you think people in the restaurant industry put so much value on being seen and like, appreciated for the work they do? Why do you think that is so important to us?

Dan Weinberger (12:44)

You know, it's. I don't look to be appreciated. What I, what I look to is I don't want to disappoint. I. I don't want somebody to come in here and say, well, I saw a review recently. Someone said, oh, they're overpriced. I'm like, don't think so. Yeah, I mean, it's like we put out a full meal with our, with our sandwiches, and we put out, you know, our sandwiches average $14. You know, we put chips and a Pickle along with it. So I look to put out a meal. Not just, you know, if you go into other sandwich shops out there, they'll sell the chips on the side, they'll sell salads on the side. And we try to make sure that somebody gets a meal out of what they're. They're purchasing.

Eric (13:23)

Yeah, I wonder sometimes, I don't know, I think if it's dopamine that we're addicted to, that, that I think we get a hit of dopamine when we are seen and loved and valued and appreciated. We'll make people eat our food, smile, and say, this is so good that that hit of like, maybe it's serotonin. It's the love.

Dan Weinberger (13:45)

To me, I mean, it's. It's actually interviews. When I get an opportunity, a situation like this where I get to talk about my shop and just preach to people out there about, you know, what I do. This is my rush. Yeah. Yeah.

Eric (14:00)

Cool.

Narrator / Sponsor Announcer (14:01)

So go back.

Eric (14:03)

You're starting to share the family story. One and a half generation sandwich maker. Your great grandfather came here, was a fisherman in the Mississippi. Your father ended up in Chicago, and that's where you're from.

Dan Weinberger (14:15)

My family's been in Chicago from the 1830s.

Eric (14:18)

Okay.

Dan Weinberger (14:19)

On my other. My mother's side. My dad, when he started his business, he actually started a chicken part store in Homewood, illinois in the 1950s. And a guy down the street from him did not like my dad. He owned a supermarket.

Eric (14:33)

Is there a story here?

Dan Weinberger (14:34)

Pardon?

Eric (14:34)

Is there a story as to why you didn't like him?

Dan Weinberger (14:36)

Yeah. No. I mean, my dad was like one of the most likable human beings.

Narrator / Sponsor Announcer (14:39)

Jealous.

Dan Weinberger (14:40)

And so he. This guy just didn't like my dad.

Eric (14:46)

Yeah, he was jealous.

Dan Weinberger (14:47)

And he sold chicken parts cheaper than my father could buy them. But fortunately, he was in this neighborhood and people said, tom, you need to bring in different things, you know, like corned beef and pastrami. And it was a heavily Jewish neighborhood. And even though I have the name Weinberger, which is. My grandfather was Jewish. He converted to Catholicism in the 1920s to marry my grandmother, who was Irish Catholic. My dad married another Irish Catholic. So I'm 80% Irish Catholic, 20% Ashkenazi Jewish. But my dad, when he opened his shop, he didn't know anything about corned beef and pastrami. He got a job working for the Seaway Deli in Chicago under a guy by the name of Ray Marcotte. And Ray was a very well known deli maven going back to the 1930s and he taught my dad everything he knew. Now, his son Mel, Mel Markin became a very successful restaurateur in Chicago and had many nightclubs and delis. My dad and Mel had a rivalry. Turned out Ray liked my dad better than he liked his. I hate to say it, but that's the story that was told to me. And so my dad started this, bringing these products in. He actually worked at the Seaway and his shop at the same time and developed this deli that went for 48 years.

Eric (16:08)

So up to five locations, right?

Dan Weinberger (16:10)

Yeah. We had five locations at Chicago in succession. He would. My dad was never satisfied with one thing. He would open another one and he would change just a little bit. This store that I have is actually based on his third model.

Eric (16:28)

So what was it like looking from the outside in on your dad's business? I mean, you were in the business, too?

Dan Weinberger (16:34)

We all.

Eric (16:35)

Yeah.

Dan Weinberger (16:35)

I mean, I have seven kids. Right. We all spent our time working for our father. It was. I mean, back in the 60s, I mean, it's like there were no labor.

Eric (16:43)

Laws to pay your kids. I mean, you should, but you don't have to.

Dan Weinberger (16:46)

That's right. We were there. We lugged. We, like boxes. I mean, I can remember washing dishes at five. It's like.

Eric (16:52)

Well, that was daycare. I mean, I grew up in the restaurant industry, too. And as soon as I was big enough to stand on a milk carton, a milk crate, and reach into a sink.

Dan Weinberger (17:01)

Yeah.

Eric (17:01)

I was making five bucks an hour.

Dan Weinberger (17:03)

Oh, yeah. I still remember pulling hot dogs apart. They would come in links, and they had. I think it was number five or number three was the red dye, which they eventually, you know, hot dog. That's why you get the term red hots. Okay. Right. But I. My job was to pull them apart. And I. I still remember coming home and having red fingers. And then they finally banned that dye because it would cause cancer.

Eric (17:29)

Oh, man. Good luck, man.

Dan Weinberger (17:30)

Yeah. So.

Narrator / Sponsor Announcer (17:33)

So you're working.

Eric (17:33)

You're growing up in the family business. You're. You're seeing this.

Dan Weinberger (17:38)

What were this?

Eric (17:38)

Do you. Your dad obviously was successful. He opened five locations. Did he have struggles? Did you learn anything from. From being a fly on the wall?

Dan Weinberger (17:46)

Yeah. My dad, one of his locations, he had a manager that stole so many. So much money from him that the guy who actually opened his own shop for the money he took. From my dad, I learned a lot of things. You know, it's like nothing goes to waste. This is not a job. It's not a business of dollars. It's A business of pennies. When I went to culinary school, I remember a chef that I had who actually grew up during World War II from Holland, and he was my pastry chef, and he took a pound of butter, opened it up, and he took a scraper, and he said, this is the most valuable tool in your kitchen. And he just ran that scraper across the wrapping of the butter and pulled a teaspoon out.

Eric (18:32)

Oh, wow.

Dan Weinberger (18:33)

And he said, in the war, he said, we made food with. Or bread with sawdust, you know. And so he really. It really hit me at that point about how this job. And to this day, I. I tell my guy, I have scrapers everywhere. Like, you know, I look it up. They're taking potato salad out of a jar and putting it into the table. I'm like, get the scraper.

Eric (18:57)

Yeah. You talk about the offset spatula, where it's like. Yeah, a little bit of, like, an angle, and you can kind of, like, get it into, like, a peanut butter jar and, like, perfectly clean it out.

Dan Weinberger (19:05)

Absolutely.

Eric (19:06)

I introduced that to my girlfriend, and she. She loves peanut butter butter, or I should say now cat. She likes cashew butter, and she loves. That is her new favorite tool, because there is no butter wasted. So you didn't want to be a restaurateur growing up. That wasn't on your radar. Siblings wanted to get out.

Dan Weinberger (19:25)

When. When I was. As soon as I realized I. I didn't want to work weekends, I went to college. I studied. I became a biologist. When I graduated from. With my degree, I worked on four different master's programs. Got bored with each one. At the time, I was married, and we threw a party. One of my friends said, your food sucks. It's terrible. And he said, you need to take a cooking class. And I did, and I really enjoyed it. So then I took another, and I took another, and then I went to culinary school to study to be chef. I didn't take. I didn't apply for the degree. I just took the cooking classes. So basically, when I graduated, I was a glorified cook.

Eric (20:11)

What year was this all going up?

Dan Weinberger (20:12)

This was 78 to 80.

Eric (20:15)

And you. Your profession was biologist?

Dan Weinberger (20:17)

Yeah.

Eric (20:18)

And you also had. You went for a couple MBAs, but that never materialized.

Dan Weinberger (20:23)

Right. I did one in. Was it political science? I did one in history, public administration, and hospital administration.

Eric (20:31)

Okay. And were you just, like. Was nothing just kind of like, you. You were trying things out? Nothing was resonating with you?

Dan Weinberger (20:37)

Just. It was more of a chore. And I just didn't see the. The value in it for me.

Eric (20:46)

Yeah. So when you got this new desire, this interest to learn about food because somebody did try your food and they didn't light up, what was going on? Like, what was the narrative? Did you just. That just feel so bad that you wanted to make it right?

Dan Weinberger (21:02)

Well, this is true story. I got a letter, and in the letter there was a cartoon in it. And on the cartoon there was a man and a woman standing by a Weber grill. And the man has got his spatula and his apron on and his chef's hat. And the woman is standing there just like this.

Eric (21:20)

And.

Dan Weinberger (21:20)

And the quote underneath it says, now how do I want my hamburger burnt, burnt to a crisp, or burnt beyond recognition? I've never forgot.

Narrator / Sponsor Announcer (21:28)

So.

Eric (21:29)

But now you're making some pretty good sandwiches and burgers and like. So you caught the bug, the food bug. This was just a hobby. Did you have dreams of opening a restaurant at this point?

Dan Weinberger (21:36)

No, Never.

Narrator / Sponsor Announcer (21:37)

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Dan Weinberger (24:46)

I actually, after I graduated, my father had developed a new business. He was selling portion controlled foods.

Eric (24:56)

Okay.

Dan Weinberger (24:56)

And kind of like Omaha Steaks, right?

Narrator / Sponsor Announcer (25:00)

Okay.

Dan Weinberger (25:01)

And so I went to work with my father and we, I did the marketing for him. And the one thing I remember, I so remember this. Don't sell the steak, sell the sizzle. And that has always been my, my, when you talk about mottos, mantras in here, that's never sell the steak, sell the sizzle.

Eric (25:22)

What's the sizzle?

Dan Weinberger (25:23)

The sizzle is actually the painting, the picture of the sandwich. Okay. When you open a restaurant, there's. You have five senses. Do you know it's the first sense you use when you walk into a restaurant.

Eric (25:34)

Sight, Sight.

Dan Weinberger (25:36)

Next.

Eric (25:36)

Scent.

Dan Weinberger (25:37)

Sound.

Eric (25:38)

Sound.

Dan Weinberger (25:38)

Okay. Then smell. Then touch, then taste. So you've got four senses before you even taste the product. If those four fail anywhere along the way, number five is going to give you a C, not an A. So I got to make sure it's got a visual presentation to it. When you bite into it, you know, you've got the touch, the taste, the smell. Almost simultaneously, you know the rest. Not the taste, but the. The touch.

Eric (26:05)

Everything leading into the taste.

Dan Weinberger (26:07)

Correct. And so when you finally get that bite of that product and you've got those other four that have just made you so excited to begin with, that fifth one just lights you up. Yeah. And one thing I really used to get a charge out of, because we're a counter service type operation. I can see my guests in the dining room when they sit there and they bite into the something and they go, yeah. Omg.

Eric (26:37)

I can't wait to take that bite.

Dan Weinberger (26:38)

Yeah. I mean, that just. That's the best. I mean, I mean, I've actually had people stand up in my shop and say, oh, my God, this sandwich is life changing. More than once.

Eric (26:51)

Oh, man, you're making me hungry.

Dan Weinberger (26:52)

Of course, I've also had fights in here. I've had people propose. I've had first dates. Yeah.

Eric (26:57)

Yeah. So when did you start thinking to yourself, I want to open my own restaurant? When did that come into your world?

Dan Weinberger (27:06)

Years ago. I was in Colorado, and I did do a transition. I. I left the food industry to become a sports consultant. Oh, interesting. And like a tout service. And worked for them for about nine years. But while I was there and living in Colorado, I really missed getting a really good sandwich. And I would sit there and I would plot out sandwiches in my head and design sandwiches. And somebody came up to me and they said that they wanted to open up a deli, and I helped them, and they became fairly successful. They actually ended up having, I think, 17 stores. They were franchising them, but I was one of the people who was instrumental in getting them started.

Eric (27:50)

Where did you best serve them in helping them get started?

Dan Weinberger (27:54)

Actually, it was how to create the sandwiches. I mean, because basically every deli has the same items. And there's Italian delis, there's Greek delis, there's Jewish delis. I kind of went with the Italian and Jewish combination. So, I mean, I was helping them with corned beef pastrami, and then also on the other side, working with mortadella genoslan. You know, you get the. The drift on it.

Eric (28:17)

Yep, yep, Got it. So is this where. This is where the bug starts? Like, why am I helping other people be successful if I could do this.

Dan Weinberger (28:24)

On my own, except for the fact that I'd have to work weekends? Yeah. I was like, no, no, no. Finally there is a place that did open up in Boulder, Colorado. It's called Salvagio's. Loved going there. I was very impressed with the sandwiches they had. In fact, I was blown away. I was like, wow, this is. These guys really know what they're doing. Yeah.

Eric (28:42)

So you're traveling around where, where are.

Dan Weinberger (28:44)

We on the timeline now as far as.

Eric (28:46)

What year was this?

Dan Weinberger (28:47)

Oh, that was 1987-19.

Eric (28:51)

So we're still 13 years away from you opening your own place.

Dan Weinberger (28:54)

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Eric (28:55)

So I don't want to skip over anything that's like important to, to your origin story. So is there anything from this time to when you open your first place?

Dan Weinberger (29:04)

It was a black hole. What's that?

Eric (29:07)

A black hole. What do you mean by that?

Dan Weinberger (29:09)

I became a house husband. My wife was a. Worked for kpmg.

Eric (29:14)

Okay.

Dan Weinberger (29:14)

And she had a pretty high powered, high paying job and somebody needed to be home to take care of every man, three kids. And it was funny because while I was home, it's like I never needed a planner in my life until I had to manage my three kids.

Eric (29:27)

It's a lot of work being a stay at home parent.

Dan Weinberger (29:29)

It was. Yeah.

Eric (29:30)

I don't think we. I think it's weird. We've kind of. That, that role of stay at home parent doesn't hold the same. I don't know if we don't see it as in the same light as we used to, but like, it seems like everyone feels like in order to be validated, you have to go out and get a job.

Dan Weinberger (29:45)

And it's just like, well, well, back then, back in the 90s, even a stay at home dad was like, that was unheard of. It was like, what are you, you know, you slug. What are you doing, you know, letting your wife, you know, pay, pay the bills. And it was like, I hated it. It was like play dates. You know, I'd be the only dad there. It'd be like 20 women. You know, it's like I didn't bring my apple pie recipe this week. Damn it.

Narrator / Sponsor Announcer (30:10)

So.

Eric (30:10)

So what, what changed in that 13 years were you. The kids grow up. Is that basically what happened?

Dan Weinberger (30:15)

Well, we were very fortunate because when. When I was working, my wife wasn't and when she was working, I wasn't. So. But then it came to the point where we both were not working.

Eric (30:26)

Okay.

Dan Weinberger (30:26)

And we had to come up with a solution.

Eric (30:28)

Why weren't either of you working at this point?

Dan Weinberger (30:30)

Right after 9, 11? We were both consultants. I mean, I did help people, you know, with restaurants and I did make money from that, my wife, again, she was a consultant and consultancies just went away after 9 11. Nobody was doing anything. And here we were living in Texas. We were brought out here because of my wife's job. We were living in Florida at the time, but came to Texas. It's like, okay, punt. What do we do? And I said, well, let's open up a deli. So we looked for locations. There's a town called South Lake Town Square, which is a very well known town square. It's one of the model for all the town squares that you see across the country right now. And so with three days before signing my lease, I happen to stumble across where we're sitting right now. The lease here was seven pages. The lease in Town Square was 42 pages.

Podcast Host / Eric's Assistant (31:30)

Oh, wow.

Dan Weinberger (31:31)

This was $7 a square foot, as opposed. I'm sorry, $26 a square foot, as opposed to $42 a square foot. So I opted for this location, signed a contract on the spot, was going home. And while I was driving home, it was. This is Grapevine, Right. So they have a festival every year called Grapefest. As I'm driving home, they have their banners out for grapefest, and the city crest is a bunch of grapes. And I was at a stoplight, and I went, oh, that's my family crest.

Eric (32:08)

Oh, cool.

Dan Weinberger (32:09)

Wine burger actually means vineyard.

Eric (32:11)

Oh.

Dan Weinberger (32:12)

So here I am in Grapevine, and my shop is actually built on what was a vineyard.

Eric (32:18)

Oh, that's cool.

Dan Weinberger (32:19)

Kismet. Yeah.

Eric (32:21)

What, in your world of consulting, like, was there. How would you market yourself as a consultant? Like, what was your area of expertise?

Dan Weinberger (32:27)

It was actually word of mouth. When I was in Chicago, I was very fortunate to meet a gentleman who was the regional food and beverage director for Holiday Inns.

Eric (32:37)

Okay.

Dan Weinberger (32:38)

And he would talk to other restaurateurs and say, you need to. You need to talk to this guy. He knows what he's doing. If you need help.

Eric (32:45)

What was he saying? He knows what he's doing. Relative to what aspect of the restaurant.

Dan Weinberger (32:49)

Every aspect of it. It was. It was kind of like over the years, for all the time that my father had a restaurant, for all the restaurants I went in. I. I apologize. Observed. I would. I mean, I'd look. I'd look at everything. I mean, it's like from the. The colors in the restaurant to the. The sound of the restaurant. Again, going back to the five senses when you walk in. I mean, when the colors in here are yellow and red, okay. It blends to an orange, which happens to be the color.

Eric (33:19)

Get out.

Dan Weinberger (33:19)

Color. No, the color platform, we'll get to that. But it's the color platform for consuming food. You know. If you had a seafood restaurant, what color do you think you would have?

Eric (33:28)

Seafood restaurant.

Dan Weinberger (33:29)

Yeah.

Eric (33:30)

White.

Dan Weinberger (33:30)

Nope. Green. Okay.

Eric (33:32)

Oh, yeah, I was thinking, I'm thinking.

Dan Weinberger (33:33)

Like white fish steakhouses. Yeah. Brown.

Eric (33:36)

Okay.

Dan Weinberger (33:36)

Yeah. So I mean, but to that eat and get out. When I designed this restaurant, my chair, the one that you're sitting in right now, is comfortable for about 15, 20 minutes.

Eric (33:48)

We're gonna be here for about an hour and a half, my friend.

Dan Weinberger (33:50)

We don't have cushions on these seats, you know, and I have a cushion.

Eric (33:53)

In my camper if you want to me go get it for you.

Dan Weinberger (33:56)

And then the colors, I mean, the, the, you know, I have television going, I have music going. So it's, it's like, it's a very agitating atmosphere. So you can come in and enjoy your meal. But I want turnover. I don't want people to stay. I don't serve alcohol. Yeah, if you, if I had alcohol.

Eric (34:14)

Volume, throughput.

Narrator / Sponsor Announcer (34:15)

Right.

Dan Weinberger (34:15)

Pardon?

Eric (34:15)

So it's about volume and throughput, but finish your thought on alcohol.

Dan Weinberger (34:18)

Right? Yes. Well, I mean, it's like they're gonna sit and have five drinks and be an hour. Right. So for where we're located on Main street, there are Several great restaurants. 23 years I've been here, I just realized that I'm the only fast casual restaurant on Main Street. And it's like people, when you go into a restaurant, you spend 45 minutes to an hour and a half. When you go to a fast casual, you're there for 20 minutes to 45. So I have the turnover.

Eric (34:49)

Yeah, throughput, volume. So it's interesting because like through your story, you know, not really being passionate about food until later on, like the 70s, early 80s. Am I getting that timeline correct? But you were still consulting on restaurants around this time or was that that, was that before you were.

Dan Weinberger (35:07)

No, it was after. It was kind of like on and off in the 80s particular.

Eric (35:11)

So I feel like if I'm listening to you, you're very much. Are you more like an operations minded individual? Is it about system processes, big picture systems actually, or details or all details?

Dan Weinberger (35:24)

I mean, you just have to get into every aspect of it, the marketing of it, the product that you carry. I mean, I'm very, I was really blessed. You know, when you, when you're small, you develop your flavor profiles. Back in the 60s, my father had a meat route along, you know, along with his shops. And we would Go with him and his shop or his route would take him to neighborhoods Polish, Hispanic, or Asian. When I went and we would stop for lunch, I would have these amazing meals that. And I was very open to food. And so those flavor profiles got locked in my head. And I believe that there's a period between 8 and 15 where you actually develop your flavor profile for your entire life.

Eric (36:17)

Interesting.

Dan Weinberger (36:18)

Yeah. And then every seven years, your. Your body completely changes, so. So does your. Your tastes.

Eric (36:27)

Okay, so back to your timeline. You find this location. The. The rent is awesome. How's that rent changed in the past 26 years you've been here?

Dan Weinberger (36:39)

Actually, I was 23 years. Very fortunate. I mean, the. The plaza that I'm in. I mean, I do rent, obviously, and it's gone through several ownerships. Right now it is at. We're going 39 a square foot, 8:50 for a triple net.

Eric (36:55)

Where is that relative to your. Your revenue? So is that 7% or less?

Dan Weinberger (36:59)

Oh, it's minuscule.

Eric (37:03)

Is it 3%?

Dan Weinberger (37:04)

Yeah, 3% as well, in fact. Serboni. If I can just.

Eric (37:10)

Yeah.

Dan Weinberger (37:10)

Talk about these guys real quick. I Met Sir Boni 3 years ago @ the Texas Restaurant Show. And I was. I had an accountant, but these people specialize in restaurants. And I had an opportunity to meet Joshua and Maria. Maria. I mean, it's just like, great people. And they approached me and they told me what they would cost. And at the time, I was paying an accountant maybe $2,000 a year, and that was basically for taxes. These guys were going to be 2,000amonth. And I was like, oh, my God. But I had to do one of those juxtaposition.

Eric (37:56)

Cost or investment.

Dan Weinberger (37:58)

Yeah. And it's like, okay, that would be an employee. I'm hiring them as 25,000 a year less than an employee. All I could do is, you know, do that. Oh, my God. What they did for. For me, how they handled my books, my taxes. I pick up the phone, I call them. I get to talk to them direct. And they did my sales taxes. They did. I mean, everything that I no longer had to concern myself with. I don't concern myself with it. I just let them handle it because I know it's being done. Right.

Eric (38:34)

Yeah. What I asked you about your percentage rent, what that looked like against your total revenue. You said around 3%. Why did that trigger Cervone? Why did that. That.

Dan Weinberger (38:47)

Well, that was actually. Well, because I actually. They have a program where they quarterly, they'll. They'll go over my numbers, and they.

Eric (38:56)

The fractional CFO service.

Dan Weinberger (38:57)

Yeah, the cfo.

Eric (38:58)

Do you do that with Jody?

Dan Weinberger (38:59)

Yes, yes. And actually I have a meeting with him on Monday and they would explain everything to me in a way that I had never looked at it before. And so I know where I'm doing well. And for him to say things like, oh, restaurateurs would kill to have this percentage. You know, it's like my repairs, my cleaning supplies, all these things are so low. But again, we're a tiny shop doing, what was it, Aladdin, Robin Williams, Itty bitty, the living space. Unlimited power.

Eric (39:34)

When you think about, like the chemicals and stuff, like you're not doing dishes. Like, I mean, I'm sure you're doing dishes for your back of house stuff, but like, you're selling sandwiches. Like, all you need is wax paper to like, really. Unless.

Podcast Host / Eric's Assistant (39:46)

Are you.

Eric (39:47)

I'm making assumptions right now. I haven't really seen your operation.

Dan Weinberger (39:50)

Well, we do a lot of cooking. I mean, it's like we, you know, so we have lots of pots and pans in the back.

Eric (39:55)

Yeah.

Dan Weinberger (39:55)

For product that we actually make in house.

Eric (39:58)

But so back to that 3%, because, you know, if, if your target 7% or less, you know, you're leaving four points there. Right. So now if you take that four points and you say, okay, well, what was my labor? You know, 43. But now you're under 39.

Dan Weinberger (40:16)

39.

Eric (40:17)

So that's a little closer to what people do. Right. You say people could be saying, well, you could put that towards your profit and be at 16%. But do you think you could get the people you have on your team if you were paying them less money? Like, where, like, what kind of life do you want? What kind of service do you want to provide? What kind of world do you want to create?

Dan Weinberger (40:35)

Well, it's. I can be. I can be exceptionally creedy. I mean, I can make a lot of money for what I do and. But I keep reinvesting it into my employees, the loyalty that I get out of my employees and the extra. Give you an example, I bought a refrigerator the other day under counter refrigerator. And I brought it in and I was like, okay, at the end of day, we'll take this and we'll put it where it needs to go. Because it was kind of a project to get in. And they're like, oh, no, we'll do it now. And I was like, it was 3 o' clock in the afternoon, 3:15. They had it installed, but they had to take a table apart. And it was one of, in one of the Areas where we do a lot of work. But rather than taking the paninis off, the griddles off, they. They lifted the table up and slid the counter underneath it. I was amazed. I mean, but what other employees would do that for?

Eric (41:31)

Yeah, I mean, it matters, you know, and part of what I'm trying to do with this podcast is create awareness as to what has to change within our industry to be able to hit these kind of numbers so we can take care of our staff. It's getting harder and harder. And one of the issues, one of the glaring issues is cost of occupancy is skyrocketing right along with cost goods and labor. But labor should be going up because the cost of living is going up. Like we should be paying our people more. We always, part of my language, bitch and moan about how nobody wants to treat our industry seriously and work and come work in our industry. Well, we haven't been treating our employees seriously. We've been, you know, we take people like we were last resort employment and where we're responsible for that, you know.

Dan Weinberger (42:18)

And even today when I hire people, I first question that I ask them is like, are you looking for a career or are you just looking to pass time? Because I'm looking to invest my money into people who are looking for a career and want to develop something. You know, I think today the average sous chef makes $20 an hour in that range. 20, 22. I got sandwich makers that are making 37 and a half dollars an hour plus tips.

Eric (42:53)

Wow, that's like 80,000 a year, isn't it?

Dan Weinberger (42:55)

Yeah, yeah, 80. I got one guy makes 96. 92,000.

Eric (42:59)

Wow. And that. Is that just. And that's sandwich maker.

Dan Weinberger (43:02)

Sandwich maker.

Eric (43:02)

Do you have like, what is your.

Dan Weinberger (43:04)

Hierarchy here as far as.

Eric (43:06)

Or your organizational structure?

Dan Weinberger (43:07)

Well, I have two managers. Then I've got a lead. Two leads.

Eric (43:10)

So you're at the top two managers below.

Dan Weinberger (43:13)

Just call them managers, general managers, general manager, and assistant. Then I have lead sandwich makers.

Eric (43:20)

How many lead sandwich makers?

Dan Weinberger (43:21)

Three.

Eric (43:21)

Okay.

Dan Weinberger (43:22)

And so, and then underneath that I've got the sandwich makers. Then I've got our cashier, our expediters, and our. How many sandwich makers in total? I've got six.

Eric (43:33)

So we're up to 12. And then cashier. How many cashiers you have?

Dan Weinberger (43:36)

Three.

Eric (43:37)

15. And what were the last two busts? So we are 17 employees. Including yourself?

Dan Weinberger (43:42)

Yeah. No, no, without me.

Eric (43:44)

Well, you're at the very top.

Dan Weinberger (43:45)

Yeah, but I don't count me.

Eric (43:46)

Okay, well, so I am the king.

Dan Weinberger (43:50)

Good to be The King.

Eric (43:51)

Yeah. So do you pay yourself owner's pay, or do you pay yourself out of profit?

Dan Weinberger (43:57)

Owners pay. Okay.

Eric (44:01)

And you brought sir Bony on in last year.

Dan Weinberger (44:04)

Did I hear 23?

Narrator / Sponsor Announcer (44:06)

23.

Eric (44:06)

So you only. They. So it's been two, three years you've been working.

Dan Weinberger (44:09)

Oh, my God. To go back to them. I mean, they. They cleared up all my back taxes. They cleared up all kinds of stuff for me. I mean, it's just like, all I told them was like, I want to be legit. I don't want to have anything owed to anybody. You know, go out there, look around the world, see what I owe, who I owe it to, you know, what government agency, what state agency, whatever. Let's just get it paid.

Eric (44:34)

So did you have hard times?

Dan Weinberger (44:36)

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. When. When I started, I try to do it all. I try to do my bookkeeping, I tried to do my taxes. I tried to do everything. The first five years was a struggle because the 0207. Yes. I opened this shop as a full fledged deli. Nobody wanted. Grapevine did not know what a full fledged deli was. I mean, I had knishes and blintzes and lox and cream cheese, and I couldn't sell a lox and cream cheese on a bagel, not once.

Eric (45:05)

I should have eaten that sandwich before we got started. If you keep talking about lox and cream cheese, man.

Dan Weinberger (45:09)

Well, I don't carry it anymore. But I mean, at the time, in order to get rid of it, I had to change it to smoked salmon with cream cheese on country rye. Okay.

Eric (45:22)

So you gotta reposition it.

Dan Weinberger (45:23)

Yeah. And so that actually worked on something. I don't know if you. You can see this, but there's pictures on the wall of people. Yeah, I did notice with sandwiches. Okay. So when I opened, nobody knew who I was, but I knew people in the. In the community that were important. And so I would say I'd like to create a sandwich and name it after you and put it on my wall. And so Joe King. Joe King was the very first sandwich that I created for somebody. Basic sandwich. Pastrami. Well, he's from Boston. One of his favorite sandwiches was pastrami, yellow mustard, coleslaw, Swiss cheese, marble rye. I changed it to Russian dress on there instead of the yellow mustard and said, this is the Joe King. So we put it out there. Joe was so excited, he told everybody he knew. And so after the Joe King came the Don and Wanda's meatloaf. Then came a series of other sandwiches along the line. So These people went out and told everybody, you got to go to Weinberger's and have my sandwich. They were my marketing team.

Eric (46:29)

Yeah, that's, I mean that's immediately when you started saying I was this as a marketing strategy, how were you to treat, were you strategic in who you selected?

Dan Weinberger (46:36)

Yeah, I try to get something from every city. Politicians, school people, local celebrities, people that.

Eric (46:44)

Were meaning like the people who are most active in their community.

Dan Weinberger (46:47)

Yes, correct.

Eric (46:47)

Yeah, everyone. People that everyone knows, Teachers, school board, like, like keep going with that.

Dan Weinberger (46:53)

So in that, that reference or in that perspective, it's a, it's a two way street. Right. So these people that I picked were so appreciative of what I did and they would come in here and they would bring their friends and they, hey, you know, we're having a school fundraiser, we're having this, we're having that. And it's like, could you donate or donate? And it was like, yeah, I'll donate. And that, you know, it's like when you open a business and you can pay for advertisement, you can have publicity or you can have sponsorship. Sponsorship is an immediate return on the dollar. Now whether that's a donation or whether it's a paid sponsorship, it's going to come back to you tenfold. Advertisement for me is the last on my list. I do very little advertising. I do a hell of a lot of publicity. I do a lot of stunts. Yeah. And that's, that's. I, I would venture to say I'm probably the most photographed read about person in Grapevine over the past 23 years.

Eric (48:02)

I mean, you're making me think of the advice I got from the founder of Taziki's and his name is escaping me right now. But this is out of Birmingham, Alabama. If you ever do a donation, if any, if anybody ever asks, asks you to donate, it's always in food. Never donate cash.

Dan Weinberger (48:18)

Right.

Eric (48:19)

Because that's a marketing expense. When you, because if food, food in mouth like that is. This is delicious. What is this place? I want to go back. Never donate cash. Always donate food. And if you look at it, if, if you do, do you put it on the line item? Is, is it a line item, item as marketing, is that how you account for it?

Dan Weinberger (48:38)

That's how I account for it.

Eric (48:39)

Yeah. Yeah, that's smart.

Dan Weinberger (48:40)

Or Serboni markets it for me.

Narrator / Sponsor Announcer (48:43)

Yeah.

Eric (48:44)

So this was in the first five years.

Narrator / Sponsor Announcer (48:48)

What.

Eric (48:48)

So you're. If you could identify what your biggest hurdle to get over was it just trying to figure out the market and figure out what the Market wanted.

Dan Weinberger (48:55)

Yeah, because when I first started, I had 10 sandwiches, and those 10 sandwiches became 20, became 40, and that just grew from there. And then we would do. So the sandwiches that I did here, actually, for different events, people would ask me to auction off the right to have a sandwich named after them. And eventually we did so many of them that I think the. The highest someone paid was $2,100.

Eric (49:25)

Oh, wow.

Dan Weinberger (49:26)

Just for me to create a sandwich for them. And the money went to charity, obviously.

Eric (49:30)

Yeah. That's fun. These are. These are fun gimmicks. Things to do to bring people in and to get involved and to bring. To make your community literally feel like they own it, like they're a part of it. How long were you in Grapevine or in Texas before you opened your. Your restaurant?

Dan Weinberger (49:46)

Two years.

Eric (49:46)

Okay, so you have some time to network and find out who's who?

Dan Weinberger (49:49)

Well, not really, because we did not live in this community.

Eric (49:52)

We lived. Right.

Dan Weinberger (49:53)

A separate community.

Eric (49:53)

That's right. So when people were coming in, were you just engaging them, talking to them?

Podcast Host / Eric's Assistant (49:59)

Like, who are you?

Eric (50:00)

What do you do? Like, and like.

Narrator / Sponsor Announcer (50:01)

Oh.

Dan Weinberger (50:01)

Oh, yeah. Okay. Again, getting to know them. So this is Grapevine. It's been here for 100 and what, 18, 34. I think that they started settling here.

Eric (50:14)

So really early in the life of Texas.

Dan Weinberger (50:17)

Yeah, very much. Yeah.

Eric (50:18)

Like, the first 20, 30 years.

Dan Weinberger (50:20)

Yeah. And then, so the families here literally are like fifth generation. To get them to accept me as a member of their community. Right. And now, you know, I'm like, I always joke about, you know, they always talk about Grapevine royalty, and people say, oh, you're Grapevine royalty. I'm like, well, thank you. I feel like I made it on the fast track pretty good for 23 years, 25 years.

Eric (50:45)

So once you. You know, I gotta point this out because I feel like a lot of the trend right now on menus post 2020, people are realizing, oh, like, if I want to keep my cost of goods down, I want to lower my options. I want to do a few things really well.

Dan Weinberger (51:01)

Right.

Eric (51:02)

You do a few things really well in the sense of your. Your focus is sandwiches. You're not trying to be sandwiches. Pasta, pizza, and all these other things. You do sandwiches, but you do have over 80 menu items now.

Dan Weinberger (51:16)

I've got more coming.

Eric (51:17)

You got more coming.

Dan Weinberger (51:18)

It's gonna be 130.

Eric (51:19)

So it seems to be collective knowledge that if you want a streamlined system, if you want to be efficient, you focus on doing a few things. A couple things. 10, 10 things. Maybe Max on your menu and just own that those few things. Why do you think the path you're taking works for you? Why is it.

Narrator / Sponsor Announcer (51:39)

How.

Eric (51:39)

How do you make the path of a lot of options?

Dan Weinberger (51:41)

That is the greatest question I've been asked, and this is my answer. Answer, smoke and mirrors.

Eric (51:47)

Okay.

Dan Weinberger (51:47)

Okay. So I have 130 sandwiches up there. Okay. 20 sell constantly. 110 don't. Okay, okay.

Eric (51:57)

But all the ingredients are probably. So you're not keeping a lot of cost of goods.

Dan Weinberger (52:01)

No, I mean, it comes down to every product I bring in here has to have three uses before I put it on my menu.

Eric (52:09)

Okay.

Dan Weinberger (52:09)

If I can't. When I was a kid, I remember going to a restaurant with my father, and it was a Greek restaurant in Chicago called Dan's. And I was looking at the menu, I was probably 16, 17 years old, and I was like, this guy had everything from chicken Kiev to egg roll patty melt to salmon. I was like. I asked my dad, I was like, how can he do this? I mean, how can he have all these different products? And he goes. He finds a way to use them in different dishes. So it's never just one item that's sitting by the wayside now. There's always the exception to the rule. There's always something that's going to be in here that's like a one off. Like, I have a lobster roll, which I do make with. It's a. I forgot what they call it when it's a. It's. It's one item that I have that I can't use in anything else. I just have a lobster roll. No, it's. It's a. A main. You know, with the main.

Eric (53:12)

Oh, just the lobster itself. It's a. You're trying to say what, what the word for that is?

Dan Weinberger (53:17)

Well, no, when you, when you. It's a priority or any. Let's just go.

Eric (53:24)

You're saying that. That one thing. Because your rule was three. Three.

Dan Weinberger (53:28)

Right.

Eric (53:28)

So this is outlier.

Dan Weinberger (53:29)

Yeah. But I mean, it's interesting because I will sell five a day. Okay. So it's like the Little Engine that could. I mean, it's like. It's not a big seller. It's not the worst sandwich, but I mean, it's like. It'll average out to 35 people. Your margins on that, not very good.

Eric (53:47)

Okay.

Dan Weinberger (53:48)

I mean, considering lobsters, like. Well, it's lobster bits, you know, so it's. It's when they take the shell and there's a little piece left on it. Yeah. So we make like a lobster salad out of it. Okay, So I charged 14 bucks for the sandwich and not $29.

Eric (54:01)

Right.

Dan Weinberger (54:02)

So I mean, probably 40, 42%. Okay. But I mean, I only sell five of those.

Eric (54:07)

I think the core that I'm getting is you have a lot of options. And you said smoke and mirrors.

Dan Weinberger (54:10)

Right?

Eric (54:11)

So what, what is the effect that you're creating?

Dan Weinberger (54:14)

You get food costs everywhere from 17% to 36% on the sandwiches. Right now we are going through a really rough time with beef. We have the smallest herd on record since the 1950s.

Eric (54:32)

Are you saying your collective food, Costco is anywhere from 17 to 30?

Dan Weinberger (54:36)

36.

Eric (54:37)

36. That, that is like for all of your, your PMIX, all your products. Well, for certain items for a average.

Dan Weinberger (54:46)

I mean we average out to 30 with the mix of business that we to. Okay, but the way that it works is they have. Yeah, like I said, pork, for example. Pork. There's a lot of money to be made in pork. Pork is still A$92, 220 a pound. But beef, which used to be 220 to 250, is now $5. Five, almost $6 a pound for the cuts of meat that we use. So my profit margin in beef has shrunk. When you look at my menu board, I did make one major mistake when I designed my board, okay. So people looking at it have an option to choose anything. Pork, crazy ass sandwiches, ham, vegetarian, deli, beef. All right, But I put deli right above the sandwich station. That is the most expensive cuts of meats I have. They run $9 to $12 a pound.

Eric (55:51)

Oh, deli's far left behind that.

Dan Weinberger (55:52)

So like a Reuben sandwich. I, you know, this is not, I try to keep my Reuben at a reasonable cost. I mean, there's a, there's a line that you're going to cross at some point and you're like, that's just too expensive for that particular sandwich. So. But people will default to that category because it's right above the sandwich station. If I move that down, I put Cubans over there. I'd sell more Cubans. Cubans you make a lot of money on. Because it's pork.

Eric (56:21)

Yeah, yeah. So I guess what I'm hearing is you put that deli option because in your mind that was front and center.

Dan Weinberger (56:29)

Right.

Eric (56:29)

So you're gonna put it first. But where your, your lines is where the.

Dan Weinberger (56:33)

Oh, no, no, no. It's. The line starts underneath the deli.

Eric (56:36)

So I guess I'm not understanding what the issue is. What is.

Dan Weinberger (56:38)

Well, what's the Fact that if I had to put pork up there, yeah, I'd be selling more pork. Because people is. They just, like, their brain gets overloaded. New people, their brain gets overloaded, and they just default to the very first category.

Eric (56:50)

Okay, so you would put the category with the best margins to the far left.

Dan Weinberger (56:54)

Right?

Eric (56:54)

Gotcha, Goodwin. Okay, so. So the smoke and mirrors is really. I still don't know if I'm connecting.

Dan Weinberger (57:03)

We have all these sandwiches up here, which it's actually. It encompasses everybody's flavor profile.

Eric (57:08)

Okay.

Dan Weinberger (57:08)

My. My. One of the things I tell every customer, if you get a sandwich in here and you don't like it, bring it back, we'll get you another one.

Eric (57:14)

Okay.

Dan Weinberger (57:14)

You don't like it, bring it back, we'll get you another. We will continue to do that till we find that sandwich. You're gonna go, oh, my God. That's the best thing I've ever seen.

Eric (57:21)

Do people do that?

Dan Weinberger (57:22)

That? Not very.

Eric (57:23)

Yeah.

Dan Weinberger (57:24)

I mean, I have. I have one sandwich. It's a medinoche, which is based on a sandwich out of Cuba. Have you ever heard of a medinoche? No. Midnight snack. Okay. Basically, it's just ham, pork, pickle, mustard, Swiss cheese on a sweet roll. Okay. That's the way they serve it in Cuba. My version is based on the Ybor City Cubans. I don't know if you know this, but there's a Miami and then there's the Ybor City, which has the influence from the Italians, the Germans, so. Yeah, well, little Cuba is actually Miami.

Eric (58:05)

Okay.

Dan Weinberger (58:05)

Ybor City is where, you know, they used to make cigars. They say that's actually the birthplace of the Cuban sandwich. But it's a jeno salami, roast pork, ham and Swiss provolone. People go back and forth on that. So basically, my medinoche has that combination of meats. We use a Swiss cheese. But then we developed a butter chipped jalapeno chow chow with a honey sriracha mustard. It goes on a pressed brioche, and it's a combination of sweet and hot and savory. But I created this sandwich in 2008.

Eric (58:38)

Okay, and did somebody order that? Is it not what they wanted?

Dan Weinberger (58:41)

No, I just made it it up. I mean, it was just like, one day I was like, I want to do a version of this sandwich. I take sandwiches and I wine burgerize them and put it that way. And they're my feeling of what people are going to enjoy. I mean, I do know I have a very good palette, and it's a very broad palette, 2008 created the sandwich, what, 15 years now, never once been returned. Wow. That's the one sandwich I can honestly say is. And it's.

Eric (59:11)

So is that what I'm getting today?

Dan Weinberger (59:12)

Yes, you are. You are getting one of those. Yeah.

Narrator / Sponsor Announcer (59:15)

So.

Eric (59:16)

So I think the big lesson is, is you have a lot of options, but very few ingredients. And with those ingredients, like, what is your P mix? How many ingredients do you have?

Dan Weinberger (59:26)

It depends. Well, you mean in the store in total?

Eric (59:28)

Yeah.

Dan Weinberger (59:28)

400.

Narrator / Sponsor Announcer (59:29)

400. So it's still.

Eric (59:30)

I mean, it's a lot of items. I mean, we're talking. I mean, that's probably including bread, chips. I see behind you, you have cookies.

Dan Weinberger (59:36)

Well, that's just. I mean, I don't include those. I mean, when I say 400, that's just for my sandwiches.

Eric (59:41)

Meats.

Dan Weinberger (59:42)

Yeah.

Eric (59:42)

Oh, wow.

Dan Weinberger (59:43)

Meats, cheeses, sauces.

Eric (59:44)

One thing I'm curious about, too, is how does. How do you handle consistency with that many options in your staff, in the training? Is that a challenge? You know, you're pulling it off, though, right? So, like, this is one. Like, how do you pull it off? Because I know you're. You're not choosing the easy path. Like, you're, like, in terms of. You're offering something really valuable, high quality, and that is the hard path, but it's also the right path. Well, in terms of, like, experience, it's.

Dan Weinberger (60:10)

A matter of consequences, too, because like I said, when I designed the store, I expected to do a certain volume. We're doing four times that volume. So we have very little refrigeration. So we shop daily for our product. Our vegetables come in every day, our, you know, different meats every other day. I mean, the deli case that you see behind me, that's going to be empty.

Eric (60:32)

Wow.

Dan Weinberger (60:32)

Sunday.

Eric (60:33)

It's full right now.

Dan Weinberger (60:33)

Yeah. I mean, we'll use all that product on Sunday.

Eric (60:36)

You'll see it on the camera. If you're not watching this on YouTube, go over to YouTube Restaurant Stoppable podcast. Subscribe, and you'll see a giant deli of a case of meat behind them. But anyway.

Dan Weinberger (60:46)

But I mean, we. We go through all that. I mean, and so we're always fresh, you know, for what we have in here. I mean, fortunately for me, like I said, I use Restaurant Depot for a lot of products. They are basically my refrigeration.

Eric (61:05)

So back on your timeline, 2003 to 2007, this. That first five years, you said you're really struggling. You're figuring it out. What changed around 2000 2007.

Dan Weinberger (61:18)

Well, where I was located was actually the end of Main street. And so we, we very rarely had people come down to our end. And there was a radio show at the time in Dallas. Pugs and Kelly were talk show hosts and they were from Chicago. Okay. And I loaded up a whole slew of sandwiches. I went down to the radio show.

Eric (61:39)

Your marketing chops.

Dan Weinberger (61:41)

Yeah, I went and fed their, their crew and them, they love the sandwiches. Found out I was from Chicago, they interviewed me and we became very good friends. I actually created a sandwich called them called the Pugs and Kelly's. Wicked. Totally wicked. So they would promote me, I would follow. If I saw a car television crew come to Main Street, I'd pack up two Reuben sandwiches, I'd find out where they're at and I'd say if ever you're going to do a story on.

Narrator / Sponsor Announcer (62:12)

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Eric (63:19)

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Narrator / Sponsor Announcer (63:21)

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Narrator / Sponsor Announcer (63:26)

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Eric (64:37)

You know what I'm starting to realize, and this is why I love the approach, approach I take because I could just, I just get to be curious and presence and let you talk and I start to see what is the magic behind this individual I'm talking to today. For you, Dan, I think it's, you're really, your, your magic is marketing. I think that you're a really talented marketer and you know, the power of guerrilla marketing and just putting food in people's mouths, establishing relationships with key players in your community and, and paying homage to these leaders and not just making it yours, but making it the community and like really just getting out there, boots on the ground and just grinding and getting, helping get the brand out.

Dan Weinberger (65:20)

Have you ever had a deep dish pizza?

Eric (65:22)

I have.

Dan Weinberger (65:23)

In Chicago.

Narrator / Sponsor Announcer (65:23)

I have.

Dan Weinberger (65:24)

Okay. Do you know the story behind that?

Eric (65:26)

I don't know the full story, but I know that it's basically, you know, the pizza got to, you know, the northeast, east. And as the further away it got from the northeast, the more of the, the more it kind of became its own thing relative to those different markets. By the time it got to Chicago, it wasn't a pizza anymore.

Dan Weinberger (65:43)

Well, it actually was created by a Texan.

Eric (65:46)

Oh, really?

Dan Weinberger (65:46)

Yeah.

Eric (65:48)

Exhul was. So he was in Texas and created it.

Dan Weinberger (65:51)

He was in Texas and he.

Eric (65:53)

What nationality was. He could have been Italian.

Dan Weinberger (65:57)

Not. Not Italian. No, no. He actually partnered with a guy who's Italian.

Eric (66:00)

Okay.

Dan Weinberger (66:00)

But it's actually based on a Italian tomato bread. The, the pizza. And so he started in Fort Worth, didn't work at all, ended up in Chicago, opened a place called Uno's. 1940s. Late, late 40s. And nobody wanted it. So what he did was he would make this pizza and he would stand outside his shop and give people free samples of it. And that's where. When you talk about guerrilla marketing, I mean, this guy was making people eat his pizza. And so that's where it started. The story that I was told was that there was Uno's and then they expanded to dues and one of their bartenders wanted to Buy into the business. They said no. The guy quit, opened up his own shop. That was Lou Malnati, very popular, you know, deep dish pizza in Chicago. One of his people, the same thing, didn't want anything to do with it. Opened up his own shop. That was Geno's East.

Eric (66:52)

Okay.

Dan Weinberger (66:52)

So, I mean, all deep dish pieces were born out of the same uno. Uno's right. So, I mean, when you talk about guerrilla marketing. Absolutely. You know, you. You gotta, like, again, you can pay for marketing or you can make publicity.

Eric (67:09)

Yeah.

Dan Weinberger (67:09)

And you can go around my shop and see the articles that are written about me. I mean, we were very fortunate. We had a lot of awards. You know, we've won best deli in Texas by Eat this, not that. For two consecutive years. We were D magazines, you know, 2024. Best deli in Texas.

Eric (67:33)

So in these circumstances, were you just going out and establishing relationships? Were you just taking the initiative to say, hey, this is me. This is my story, and you have to try my sandwiches?

Dan Weinberger (67:40)

I think it was the fact of getting in front of people, and I'm that confident in my product.

Narrator / Sponsor Announcer (67:45)

Yeah.

Dan Weinberger (67:46)

That I know that I do something that is unique. We do have a unique process. And again, I also have a unique way of building my sandwiches. You know, for example. Or not for example, but the fact that you see so many sandwiches up there, they're actually based on certain constructions of. You know, I have five basic models, and by switching.

Eric (68:06)

What are those models?

Dan Weinberger (68:07)

Well, you've got your basic sandwich, your double decker, your subs, your wraps. I always forget the fifth one. But the fact is that what you can do is you. Can you switch out your elements or grind. No, no, that subs.

Eric (68:21)

So, okay, sorry.

Dan Weinberger (68:22)

Keep going.

Eric (68:23)

Switch out different ingredients.

Dan Weinberger (68:26)

I mean, it's like there's a certain way of layering things. So we. You know, it's in the way that we do our brush. Quiznos was very interesting. Quiznos was so popular because they had toasted sandwiches. They would run them through that open toaster, grill whatever it was, and what it would do. It would cook the meat. But your bread, even though the outside was toasted, the inside was still just there. Yeah. And so you would fold it up. You'd get this crispy outside with a hot inside. So with us, we. We grill our breads. You know, we put an aioli on them, open face, put them on the panini, butter on top. So you've got both sides.

Narrator / Sponsor Announcer (69:08)

Yeah.

Eric (69:08)

It's a true unique selling proposition. You're different than anything else. You stand out it's for you. It's a. What they would call blue ocean. Plenty of places to get a sandwich in Texas, but not the way you do it.

Dan Weinberger (69:18)

Right? Yeah.

Eric (69:19)

So finding a way to stand out, to juxtaposize. Juxtaposition. Juxtap. I can always struggle with that. Juxtaposition and juxtapose. Is that what I'm trying to say?

Dan Weinberger (69:29)

That's good. Yeah.

Eric (69:30)

So you stand out, and you're creating your own kind of vertical, but you're also doing that while offering a lot of different options, too, which is. It's not easy to pull off, man.

Dan Weinberger (69:38)

Well, you know, it. What. One thing that I. I always make sure is that what I'm doing is legit. And the way I say that is I had back surgery about a year ago, and I was out of my shop for nine months. While I was home, I was on the Internet, and my algorithm just sent me stories of sandwiches all the time. And I would look at it, and it's like, that's. Wow. I didn't realize that kind of a sandwich existed. You know, it's like. We have a sandwich. It's a chivito. I think it's from Uruguay. Okay. Recently, we got a new pope, Pope Leo. I actually went to grade school with Leo. I grew up in Dalton.

Eric (70:23)

Was he a good guy back then?

Dan Weinberger (70:24)

I really didn't, but my brother was an altar boy with him, and we were three years apart, and so we created a sandwich called the Papalillo. And the Papalillo is actually based on a civito. So we have. I wanted to pay homage to the. To the Pope, you know, with something that would represent him. You know, he's Peru. He spent a lot of time in Peru. So Uruguay was as close as I could get to a sandwich. And so it's ham. And I mean, the one in Uruguay is roast beef and ham and egg on a sandwich. And I kind of stepped it up a bit with buffalo mozzarella. We used lamb instead for the Lamb of God and Sriracha, Blood of Christ. And it's like every element on the sandwich represents something from the Catholic Church.

Eric (71:14)

Okay, so you're sharing the story. You're. You said you're back, you're out because you're bad. Back surgery. You're looking. You're getting these ideas. Like, what was the. Yeah, like, bring it home.

Dan Weinberger (71:26)

I kind of got sidetracked.

Eric (71:27)

No, you love sandwiches.

Dan Weinberger (71:30)

The fact was, is that I was. Would look on the Internet, I would see these sandwiches, and they're legendary sandwiches. And So a patty melt. Do you have. Can you describe a patty melt for me? What you have.

Eric (71:41)

If I'm patty melt.

Dan Weinberger (71:43)

I mean, it's a pretty standard.

Eric (71:44)

Is that. We're talking like a chicken or tuna patty melt?

Dan Weinberger (71:46)

No, no, just a beef patty melt.

Eric (71:48)

Beef patty melt. Okay. So, I mean, it's a hamburger, basically.

Dan Weinberger (71:52)

Okay.

Eric (71:53)

I was going to say, I don't. I don't know what a pat. I mean, like, I think of a patty mouth, think of like a tuna pattern or like, I mean, I'm New England. We don't call it patty melts. I guess that's.

Dan Weinberger (72:02)

That's the thing. Yeah. Especially from where you are in the country.

Eric (72:04)

Yeah.

Dan Weinberger (72:04)

You'll know different. Like, it was created in California in the 1940s.

Eric (72:07)

Okay.

Dan Weinberger (72:08)

And basically it was just a hamburger with cheese and onions on rye bread. Okay.

Eric (72:12)

Okay, got it.

Dan Weinberger (72:13)

So I call it a burger. Yeah. So I mean.

Eric (72:16)

Well, actually, there's a cheeseburger.

Dan Weinberger (72:18)

Was it. There's a place out in. On the east coast that. It's a hamburger sandwich.

Eric (72:25)

So just using, like sandwich meat.

Dan Weinberger (72:27)

It's a hamburger on. On white bread. Okay. But it's called a hamburger sandwich.

Eric (72:32)

I don't think I know anybody who knows as much about sandwiches as you do. I think you're.

Dan Weinberger (72:36)

You're.

Eric (72:36)

You're like a sandwich encyclopedia.

Dan Weinberger (72:38)

I am. I'm a walking encyclopedia of sandwiches. It's crazy. Some of the things that you find out there, which are. I mean, and even when you go back into history, the things that were popular, you know, how our tastes have changed over the year. Yeah. Or where sandwiches originated. Club sandwich, you know, and potato chips.

Eric (72:53)

Where did the sandwich start? You must know the answer.

Dan Weinberger (72:55)

Well, we're going Back to the 4th Earl of the sandwich.

Narrator / Sponsor Announcer (72:59)

Do me a favor.

Eric (72:59)

Pull that mic just a little bit closer because it's going to start getting. You move that base and just pull it closer to the edge.

Dan Weinberger (73:04)

There you go. Okay, perfect. It's getting a little noisy in here. The. You talk about the. The. The earla Sandwich, the fourth Earl of Sandwich. He was 10 years old when he became the Earl. Right. And became a big gambler and just.

Eric (73:20)

Want to keep his hands clean.

Dan Weinberger (73:21)

Right. Well, he was playing cards. You know, he never wanted to leave the table to go for a meal. So he just asked somebody to put meat between two pieces of bread.

Narrator / Sponsor Announcer (73:29)

Boom.

Dan Weinberger (73:30)

You know, and then it got to be really popular. And people would say, I'm going to have what the sandwich is having and eventually became a sandwich. But here's the little bit of history Very few people know. So his. He's the fourth Earl. So the first Earl had a choice of putting. He was the head of the Admiralty, the ships. And he had an option to put the ships in the Sandwich Bay or the Portsmouth Bay, and he chose sandwich.

Eric (74:00)

So it could have been the Portsmouth.

Dan Weinberger (74:01)

It could have been the sport. You could be eating Portsmouths for lunch.

Eric (74:04)

Yeah, that means something special to you. Because I'm from New Hampshire. The Portsmouth, New Hampshire, which isn't, you know, it's the new Portsmouth. But that would have been fun.

Dan Weinberger (74:11)

This was, this was in England.

Eric (74:12)

I think I did hear that fact, actually. I think it's because there's a Portsmouth close to us.

Dan Weinberger (74:15)

Okay.

Eric (74:16)

We're proud of that little fun fact. Okay, so back to your story. I really want to hone in on points of evolution. So 2007, you figure out the marketing, or you were always good at marketing, but you're really starting to catch traction. You're starting to figure out what the market wants.

Dan Weinberger (74:31)

You're. You're.

Eric (74:32)

You establish some really key relationships that amplify the brand to get it out into the public. Was there another point of evolution in terms of how you ran your business efficiencies? I like to think of, like, shifting gears, Right. It sounds like the first gear was getting open and figuring out what your market wanted. The second gear was really getting the. The brand out into the community and creating awareness. What was the third and fourth gear? If we're in fifth gear now, like, what were the other steps you took?

Dan Weinberger (75:01)

There were, there were. There were outside elements that did help. I mean, the city grew, and we went from being the end of Main street to three quarters of the end of Main Street. They started building beyond me.

Eric (75:17)

Okay, and you went from the outside to the middle?

Dan Weinberger (75:20)

Not. Not quite yet. I mean, we did eventually. We are now Geocenter to Main Street. It would be like Times Square is where I'm located. So. But as the city grew, people started coming down our way. They opened up a huge building across the street we talked about. That's actually the Visitors and Convention Bureau building. Okay. Which became a area where people would come to find out about the city. Well, eventually we got the light rail, which brought more people, and then the Hotel Vin and the train station which opened on the other side. All those had a huge impact on my business as far as bringing people to Downtown Grapevine. And so, you know, we have our festivals and events, and we just became one of those places where word of mouth caught traction. I think it's called the Tipping scale. Okay. In marketing where you get one point where you no longer have to do marketing. Yeah. Word of mouth kind has its own momentum and we're, we actually hit that. I'd say about 2015. Okay.

Eric (76:30)

Yeah. I mean, I also want to point out you guys open at 10am yeah. And this is a sandwich shop. You don't really think about a lot of people going out to eat for. They don't get lunch at 10am I don't get lunch at 10am at least I wait until like 1 o' clock before I eat anything. You haven't pretty consistently busy since opening at 10am we're about to roll up until 11 now. And this place is almost every seat full.

Dan Weinberger (76:53)

Yeah.

Eric (76:53)

By the time the people in line sit down, every seat's going to be full.

Dan Weinberger (76:56)

People tell me that they get here at 10 because they want to beat the crowds.

Eric (77:01)

Oh, that's smart. That's what I would do.

Dan Weinberger (77:03)

Yeah.

Eric (77:03)

Yeah. I think it's gonna get really loud in here soon.

Dan Weinberger (77:05)

Well, when we actually break through to the next side, we'll have 64 additional seats.

Eric (77:14)

Okay. So you're gonna be blowing out a wall. Yeah, so that's actually a good question. So 2015 is when you hit this tipping point, this breaking point where you no longer have to market, the brand has, you know, the word of mouth has taken over. Yeah, that was called that. Third gear. Well, we'll call Sir Boney where you are now.

Narrator / Sponsor Announcer (77:33)

Fifth gear.

Eric (77:35)

Right, right. Was there fourth gear? Was there a gear in between 2015 and 2023?

Dan Weinberger (77:40)

Pandemic.

Eric (77:41)

So how did that impact your business?

Dan Weinberger (77:46)

I remember I had 10 employees at the time and we went down to four because there was nothing to do. And people got tired of hamburgers and chicken and pizza. And all of a sudden my business started to take off.

Eric (78:02)

It's a very at home, takeout, friendly concept.

Dan Weinberger (78:05)

Yeah. And plus we had a variety. You didn't have to get the same sandwich every day.

Eric (78:11)

Yeah.

Dan Weinberger (78:11)

And our sandwiches are different. Like I said, they're. They're meals. I mean, so I brought in an online marketing system.

Eric (78:22)

And what was that?

Dan Weinberger (78:23)

Pop menu.

Eric (78:24)

Okay. Why pop menu?

Dan Weinberger (78:26)

I just happened to be it again at the Texas Restaurant show. And believe me, I am not a guy dealing with technology at all. I happened to stop at this one booth. The girl who was the representative engaged me in a conversation and I thought, okay, I'm going to embrace technology. And I brought it in and we were one of the first people to do these online ordering systems. I now do $70,000 a month in online ordering.

Eric (79:02)

Oh wow. So what is Pop Menu?

Dan Weinberger (79:04)

Pop Menu is. Hosts our website and you can go to our website and order a sandwich through the website. It comes to us and is printed out. The ticket, it's paid for. We just bag it. You come in, pick it up.

Eric (79:19)

I mean, so Pop Menu integrates with your positive pushes.

Dan Weinberger (79:21)

Correct.

Eric (79:22)

Okay. Is it two way syndication? I think that's our two way. I can't remember the expression. So the information comes into your system. Can you send the information back out of your system? Two way encryption I think is what it's called.

Dan Weinberger (79:34)

I don't know.

Eric (79:36)

So basically I know that this is like, it's this idea that when orders come in and maybe you're out of something, right?

Dan Weinberger (79:47)

Oh yeah.

Eric (79:47)

And you, you can't make the order, but you have no way of telling the customer that you can't make it. So you can amend the order. We'll call them and push it back out.

Dan Weinberger (79:56)

Yeah.

Eric (79:56)

And say like we don't have this item or like whatever the upsell is or so anyways, what you do is.

Dan Weinberger (80:02)

We can just take it off. I mean, it's easy enough for us to make corrections on our online system that you know, if we're out of a product or something. But if we, if somebody orders something and we don't have it, but we do contact them.

Eric (80:14)

Okay, so it's online ordering, it's your website, it's online ordering. What else is it?

Dan Weinberger (80:20)

Pretty much that's it. I mean, I mean we can do our social media on it. I mean it's a lot of things that Pop Menu has got capabilities. I mean, but now everybody is now doing the same thing now. But one thing that, which is really great is AI. AI is now helping out.

Eric (80:38)

Well, I was curious, how has Pop Menu started to incorporate AI into their.

Dan Weinberger (80:44)

Offering with our phone? Okay.

Eric (80:46)

Because I knew that. I knew that and I was. Yeah, because I know.

Dan Weinberger (80:49)

But then also with reviews. I mean when people come and give reviews, I respond to everything.

Eric (80:53)

Okay, okay. Do they help with the reviews? AI? It helps.

Dan Weinberger (80:57)

Yeah. I mean it helps me populate it, you know, and it gets to know you. So I mean it does your style and everything. And it's like you can approve it, you can change it, you can add to it, you can do. And so. But I mean rather than sitting there and doing 30 reviews a day, which we get on maybe Google or any. That's crazy different things I could before it would take me easily three and a half hours a day. That's Crazy to just handle reviews. But now it's, it's maybe 30 minutes.

Eric (81:24)

Yeah, you know, it's, it's crazy the, the world we live in now. When you opened your restaurant, you probably weren't expecting to be able to have to sit at a computer or spend so much time behind a computer engaging with technology. But the world of technology is just booming and it's engulfing the, the world we live in. Like you, there's no avoiding it today. You have to be able to interface with the digital world, like it or not. I'm one of those people that are on the notch side. I think that's okay. Because the thing is not everyone's meant to like that stuff. But you have to find the partners, whether they be a partner in your business or a partner that offers a solution like Pop Menu or services that make that, that process easier or create systems and you know, delegate to somebody on your team, but give them really clear system like standards of how to do the job. Right, but, or like it's like Serboni is another example. The world of like inventory and accounting and you know, just entering in all of your, your like your invoices, you know, accounts payable, accounts receivable, like all.

Narrator / Sponsor Announcer (82:36)

This stuff, all this, this digital work.

Eric (82:37)

We have to do to be able to track and to digitize, get the data, the touch points, snore, you know, like this is boring. Like I would like it, it makes me not want to be a part of the restaurant industry anymore because like, I just hate all that stuff. But you can't avoid it. But there are services out there like Sir Boni, like Pop Menu that will make it easier and systematize it so you can delegate it, you know, or.

Narrator / Sponsor Announcer (83:00)

Just take it over completely.

Eric (83:01)

Like Cerboni's case.

Dan Weinberger (83:03)

So back going back to say 2015-22, okay, everybody would come in, everybody's got a system and their system is the best system there is. And every six months somebody would add another component to it. Okay, so now it's gotten to the point where there is not much more that they can add to their platforms. So now what you look for are the companies that are going to be around the ones. There's a lot of companies that come and go. Third party vendors. For example, there is Postmates, Grubhub Chow. Now I mean they're not as big as Doordash, Uber. In fact, Doordash and Uber basically dominate the industry, right? And so they get absorbed into these bigger companies. So when you put these people on your platform and everybody's got their own price point. Some charge 20%, some charge 30%. You know, it's like you really have to, in order to have that opportunity to sell to those people, you really have to do your due diligence and your homework. Who's going to win the race is the way I look at it. I mean, I threw the dice with Pop Menu. Fortunately for me, Pop Menu was a winner. They were very good with what they did. Now I'm looking at different options. Who's, who's the AI champion going to be? That's what I'm into right now.

Eric (84:37)

Yeah, I hear you. And it's kind of scary too. I read this book and I wish I never read it because, like, you know, sometimes you learn things. You're like, yeah, I wish I didn't know that. It's called Power and Progress and it's written by a Harvard or, sorry, an MIT professor. He wrote wealth of nations or why Nations Fail Too. So he's like an economist and like, he knows how the world. Like, he's like, got a lot of popular opinions and he points out this, this, this whoever controls the technology controls everything. Yeah, controls the power. Whoever controls the technology, has the power. Controls the narrative, controls the agenda. And I worry sometimes that what you're saying is true and there is truth to like, there is. You gotta, you gotta gamble on the right pony. Right. But in a, there can, there can only be one in a market, meaning one clear leader. In a marketplace. For you, Grapevine, you're the clear leader. Sandwich joint. Right. I'm assuming you probably do at least twice as much revenue as the number two sandwich joint in Grapevine.

Dan Weinberger (85:40)

It depends. I mean, it's like, I mean, based on size, I mean, you know, we don't have liquor. I mean, you know, we are just food. And so, you know, people with liquor obviously do, you know, talking about like.

Eric (85:55)

Sandwich volume, I mean, right now I'm looking to get like over 2, 000 Google reviews of the 4.7. I mean, if we looked at the numbers, the amount of sheer volume of sandwich, like it's, it's just turned 11 o' clock and you have a line out the door right now and you're singing sandwiches.

Dan Weinberger (86:08)

And it'll be like that until 4:00 clock today.

Eric (86:10)

Yeah. So my point is, in any given marketplace, that can usually only be one. And then number two usually does half as much volume. Number three usually does. A third of the volume is number one. But we live in a global, in national markets now, where like, there can only be one pos. There can only be. If you look at it, TOAST probably does twice as much volume as number two and three times as much volume as number three. And I'm worried that with AI Guy, whoever wins that game is going to have a lot of power, you know, and it kind of scares me sometimes on that point.

Dan Weinberger (86:47)

I mean, it's like we've entertained Spoton as a option. Okay.

Eric (86:55)

Love Spot On.

Dan Weinberger (86:56)

And, well, I was going to say is that I started with a local system years ago and then switched to another one. I was actually, again, Texas Restaurant Association. I was on the board of directors. I was very fortunate to meet a lot of partners in the industry through the tra. Highly recommend. If anybody is not in the TRA in Texas, join.

Eric (87:18)

They've been really good to me. They've helped me a lot over the years.

Dan Weinberger (87:20)

Well, I mean, they just provide such great assistance and information and networking. But I got Square came along. Now, to me, Square was that little thing you put on your phone and you took a credit card. I had no idea they developed a POS system.

Eric (87:37)

Well, now it's square for restaurants, too.

Dan Weinberger (87:39)

Yeah.

Eric (87:40)

And it's even more robust for more full service. I think Square could work for a concept like yours. Counter service. But the processing rates are really high.

Dan Weinberger (87:46)

They are. Yeah. And so, like I said, we're entertaining. Spot. Spot On. Spot on came and I. And. But they have for years. There's a friend of mine who's with Spoton, and I'd asked him, I said, should I switch? Because he's the one that turned me on to Square. And he's like, no, he says it won't work for you. Well, eventually they did develop a system which is just perfect for what I do.

Eric (88:10)

Why is it perfect?

Dan Weinberger (88:11)

Because it incorporates everything that I'm looking to do. Once we do a remodel, we're bringing in kiosks.

Narrator / Sponsor Announcer (88:19)

The.

Dan Weinberger (88:19)

This line that's behind us right now. Okay. The age groups that you get. Some people don't want to talk to a sandwich maker. Some of them just want to go and put their order in on a kiosk. Yeah. So in the next space that we're doing, we're putting two kiosks over there that they can punch in their order. Go sit down. We'll make it. It'll go through our system. We'll get the ticket, make the sandwich and call it out and then just come in.

Eric (88:46)

And that technology is going to be so cool that where, like, it will know who you are when you you can, like, hold your phone. You can use Near. Like, you know, what's it called? Near. Can't remember the acronym. You just hold your phone up to it and it'll be like, oh, hey, Eric, are. Do you want to get this again? And you just tap a button and it processes your payment. You go sit down. Yeah, yeah. I mean, there's a lot of people that just want that convenience.

Dan Weinberger (89:10)

Yeah. I mean, mean, it's. It's the different age groups that we're dealing with. I mean, I'm old, you know. No, no, no, no. No way around it. But, I mean, people my age, I. I hate using a kiosk.

Eric (89:21)

I'm with you, man. I still like talking to people. There's a reason why I travel all over the country so I can sit across the table from somebody. But. Yeah, I mean, Spot On. So Spot on is a company that if I'm opening a restaurant tomorrow, I'm going with Spot on because they're. I think they are going to give Toast and Square a run for their money. They already are. And I think the thing that really stands out for me, what I've heard through my testimonials, is the customer service is unmatched. And the thing is, I. I do think that restaurant owners undervalue customer service. I think we are as guilty as the consumer is at looking at prices on a menu and saying, I'm going to go with the most affordable thing because I'm in survival mode. And they forget that when you're trying to survive or when you're in survival mode. A hand up is really helpful.

Dan Weinberger (90:06)

Yeah.

Eric (90:06)

To be able to reach out and have somebody pull you up, and that's customer support. And if you have to pay an extra $50 a month to have somebody there to answer your call, it will be worth it every time.

Narrator / Sponsor Announcer (90:20)

And we don't value that at all.

Eric (90:22)

It's crazy.

Dan Weinberger (90:23)

Yeah, Well, I mean, it's like siboney getting back to siboney. Okay. And what I ended up paying them as a service for my restaurant has been absolutely invaluable.

Eric (90:34)

Yeah.

Dan Weinberger (90:34)

I mean, I. They could probably charge me twice. I hate to have this put it out there, but, I mean, it's like they would be worth every penny of it.

Eric (90:43)

What is sir boni to you? One word or one sentence?

Dan Weinberger (90:46)

Survival. Survival, Absolutely. You cannot maneuver a business today without having specialists in accounting, in law, in architecture, in equipment. I mean, just equipment alone. This is something else. What's new out there? What. What fits in your shop? I had no idea of the different types of equipment that were available. I mean, I. I look at refrigerators of a refrigerator, but under counter refrigerators. I never thought of putting under counter refrigerators in my shop. But I have the space for it, and it's necessary. It's something.

Narrator / Sponsor Announcer (91:30)

It's ergonomic.

Eric (91:31)

Yeah, yeah. It's those little details. So back to Sir Boni, before and after your life. What is your life like after Siboney? Like, what are the biggest impact they've.

Narrator / Sponsor Announcer (91:46)

Had on your business?

Dan Weinberger (91:47)

The fact that I can sleep at night. I mean, I mentioned earlier about the bear on Hulu.

Eric (91:55)

Yeah.

Dan Weinberger (91:55)

And the first season. I literally am a beef shop. I'm a chef. I'm just that character in there. And I've had the IRS put liens on me. I've had my bank account frozen. I had my electric cut off, my phone cut off. I bought bounce checks when I first started. When I did my taxes, I was always paying penalties because I would make mistakes. Cerboni straightened all that up. They tell me exactly if I owe, if I don't owe. Last year, I did not owe anything. Yeah. And, I mean, I paid a hundred thousand dollars, maybe the year before, but they took advantage of all the tax deductions that I was entitled to and actually got a refund. I never.

Narrator / Sponsor Announcer (92:43)

Wow.

Dan Weinberger (92:44)

In.

Eric (92:44)

How much of the refund did you get?

Dan Weinberger (92:46)

Well, it was 16,000.

Eric (92:47)

But I mean, it's like 16,000.

Dan Weinberger (92:49)

How much a month do you pay in taxes?

Eric (92:53)

No, for Serboni.

Dan Weinberger (92:54)

Oh, 2,500. Oh, yeah. Well, I went paying from. I went paying. I paid the IRS a hundred thousand the previous year.

Eric (93:01)

Wow. Yeah. I think when we see, like, I. There's a reason why I'm working with Cervoni, and I want to be clear. My new approach to restaurant Unstoppable is I'm being intentional with relationships. I've been very public lately that I've been turning away sponsors because I'm learning a lot. I'm seeing a lot of things. And the big companies with big money that have agendas. I don't want to work and spin their agendas, if I'm being honest.

Narrator / Sponsor Announcer (93:29)

Honest.

Eric (93:29)

Because I don't think their agendas are what's best for the restaurant industry. I think their agendas are what's best for their stakeholders. And I think we are so unaware of it. And we're so unaware of it because they have the budgeting, the marketing dollars to literally, if you control the top. The technology, you have the money, you control the. The narrative.

Narrator / Sponsor Announcer (93:47)

You can.

Eric (93:47)

You can Spin your story. And in the world of media today, like you can influence people to spin your narrative. And I want to expose a lot of the crazy things that are happening, you know, but there are companies out.

Narrator / Sponsor Announcer (94:00)

There that you should give your money.

Eric (94:01)

To because they know better and they can protect you. They can, they can tell you the truth and cut through the bullshit that the corporate America is trying to. They can protect you from the ulterior motives.

Dan Weinberger (94:13)

Yeah.

Eric (94:13)

You know, and that is Sir Boni. That is. I think the future of the restaurant industry is in fractional, fractional executives, fractional CFOs, fractional CMOs, fractional COOs. And for the record, you do get a C O O in the sense of like. I think Sir Boni operates much like a coo. They're a financial service. But all those technologies, like that tech stack, they're going to coach you on those systems too. They're going to say, here's a suite of tools. What Sir Bony does is manage a suite of, of technology tools. And those technology tools is what makes it possible for them to help a lot of people because they can streamline, process. You can't do all that as a restaurant owner. That's not why you got into this business, right?

Dan Weinberger (94:57)

Yeah, I can't. I came here to make food. I don't want to do books.

Eric (95:00)

And you have to use the technology. You have no choice to because you have to learn how to do more with less. And you can spend $2,000 a month to outsource it, or you can pay a general manager 80,000 a year and hope that they can figure it out. And God forbid that they turn over and go somewhere else with all that wisdom that you shared or, you know, now you got to go train somebody on a system that they didn't then onboard or integrate.

Narrator / Sponsor Announcer (95:27)

So they're not going to really be.

Eric (95:28)

Familiar with that learning curve to figure.

Narrator / Sponsor Announcer (95:30)

Out Restaurant365 or Restaurant Systems Pro.

Eric (95:33)

Like once you figure it out, it's a very powerful, those are very powerful tools.

Narrator / Sponsor Announcer (95:37)

But that learning curve isn't for the average schmuck off the street.

Dan Weinberger (95:40)

You know, I went to a seminar on 365 that Siboney sponsored and I sat through the entire two day seminar and was glazed over by what they were telling me, what this tool could do. Yeah, I got the big picture. But when it came to a lot of minutiae, the minutiae, and I was like, you know what, you guys handle this. Yeah, I'll make the sandwiches.

Eric (96:09)

My, my goal, going for it And I started with. This is like, I. I approached Sir Boni. I asked her bony to go on a date. You know, I discovered them through Jason Carrier from Mama Betty's. And he started sharing his numbers with me. And he went from a 71 prime cost to a 54 prime cost. He helped their quarterly CFO meet meetings, strategy meetings.

Dan Weinberger (96:29)

They.

Eric (96:29)

They save them $7,000 a quarter or a month. Is it a quarter or 7,000 a quarter? I think all these little things, if you. It will pay for itself. It's not. Yeah, it's not a cost. It's an investment.

Dan Weinberger (96:39)

It's an investment. And that's the best way to describe it. Yeah.

Eric (96:44)

And I want to be intentional with the organizations, the people that are being referred to me organically, and I want to find partners to go further together. And that's the same. The same way I feel about Restaurant Systems Pro.

Narrator / Sponsor Announcer (96:54)

Another.

Eric (96:55)

I don't know if you've heard of Restaurant Systems. It's another enterprise solution that I hope gives Restaurant365 a run for their money. You know, and I want to create awareness about these other options, too, because I think that if you have two or three options in every category, or one option in every category, those entities are going to control the market, and they're going to have the best AI and we're going to have no option but to go with them. And I don't like that. It's not good for the future of the industry.

Dan Weinberger (97:19)

Well, you know, when we were talking about technology and the fact that, you know, what was it they said in the last century? It was gold. And this century, it's knowledge. And so with AI being the way it is and with the different forms of. Gosh, I mean, just running a business today, if you are smart enough to understand and you cannot do everything, you will be successful. Right. When you think, I got this, you don't got this. Yeah, nobody's got it.

Eric (97:54)

I'm gonna use that as an opportunity. I 100 agree with that statement. And I'm trying to be better about this. I'm gonna use that statement as an opportunity to say, I need help.

Dan Weinberger (98:02)

Yeah.

Eric (98:02)

You're listening to this. I am doing. I'm wearing every hat of a media production company. And, like, with the exception of Jared, who I'm very lucky to have my corner, he does the editing, which is a huge load off my shoulders. But we. We want to grow a team here at Restaurant Unstoppable. And I want to be the guy who finds amazing people like you. Dan shares their Story makes an example of them boots on the ground, driving around the country, word of mouth, research. That's a full time job.

Dan Weinberger (98:29)

Yeah.

Eric (98:30)

And there's like four other full time jobs that I have out there and I think that we can do a lot of work. So if you are a fan of this podcast and you're into like management or technology, media, production, marketing, like I need an army, so I need help and I need, I need to build a team. So if you're listening to this, just a little seed being spread out there, reach out to me because I need to be, I need to be better about asking for help. So thanks for making that point. You can't do it alone.

Dan Weinberger (98:57)

Yeah. You never can.

Eric (98:58)

Yeah, we've talked about a lot today, man. What about tech? Tech stack.

Dan Weinberger (99:03)

What.

Eric (99:03)

What tech stack are you using with? Did they help influence that? We know you're using square, right? You're using Pop Menu. Pop Menu. What other technology are you using?

Dan Weinberger (99:14)

That's it at this point.

Eric (99:15)

Okay. Sir Boni, you work with Sir Boni. What about accounting? What tools are you using for accounting?

Dan Weinberger (99:23)

Accounting?

Eric (99:23)

Yeah. General ledger.

Dan Weinberger (99:25)

I don't do any of that.

Eric (99:26)

I think what they might have done, I think they use Restaurant 365.

Dan Weinberger (99:30)

They do.

Eric (99:30)

And then they created an account for you under their license.

Dan Weinberger (99:33)

So, so when I do my cfo, I mean it's like that's when I go through everything with them. And you know, it was interesting. They just pointed something out to me that in our last meeting that beverages, we were not making money on beverages, which I, you know, restaurants, that's, you know, that's easy money.

Narrator / Sponsor Announcer (99:52)

Right, right.

Dan Weinberger (99:53)

And, and so I realized that I was 39 cents cheaper on drinks than anybody else in the Dallas market. And so we raised our price 39 cents and that which will put us in line. But it's little things like that. I mean to point out one item like that. I mean, I mean I deal with Pepsi, I call the Pepsi rep in. We sat down, we had a discussion over what we were selling, what items can we purchase from you that we can increase our profit margin and what prices should we be charging. We looked at our cups, the size of the cup, the fact that we do a 20 ounce bottomless drink. And. And so we were able to change a few things. And now I'm looking forward to Monday to see how, how that has changed.

Eric (100:55)

Yeah. So we started this conversation. You shared your numbers. Thank you for being open and honest and vulnerable, sharing those numbers. I know it's weird to do that. And I'm trying to. The reason why I ask these questions is I think we need to be better about sharing benchmarks and letting people. So, you know, I can come in and say you are a QSR counter service, 30 something seat restaurant and you're doing this volume and this profit and here are your prime costs. Because I think we need benchmarks to understand what can I do with my similar business model. Right. Sir. Bona came along, you said two years ago.

Dan Weinberger (101:27)

Three.

Eric (101:28)

Three years ago. Do you, when they entered your information and started giving you access to really accurate numbers, do you know what your, your prime costs were when they came on?

Dan Weinberger (101:42)

Not really. No.

Eric (101:42)

You know what your percent profit was?

Dan Weinberger (101:45)

I was 8. 8%.

Eric (101:48)

8%. So you went from 8% to what was it, 12%?

Dan Weinberger (101:52)

Well, we're actually 12. 16. It depends on the season, the way our business works. I mean it's January, February. The first quarter is not very good. Yeah. Very poor because of the traffic in town. Yeah. So January, February. But March comes along. March is like we'll do is a lot in March. Then the second quarter pretty stable. Third quarter is more. Fourth quarter is huge.

Eric (102:20)

Right. So your, your total revenue, what was it again?

Dan Weinberger (102:23)

2.75 million.

Eric (102:30)

$2,750,000.

Dan Weinberger (102:32)

So now that's, that's gross. Okay. If you want to do the net 2.1, 2.112, 3.

Eric (102:42)

I'm doing, I'm using a calculator right.

Dan Weinberger (102:44)

Now between 220 and $300,000 net profit at the end of the year.

Eric (102:52)

So they help you save. So that's, that's $840,000 that you put towards profit by having somebody manage your, your back office and make it and have a strategic partner, a cfo, to say here's what you can do here, where your numbers are, here's where you should give your attention to see if you can move the needle, gain points. Like having that strategic partner to like put a strategy together to move the needle. 840, 45th, you know, 140.

Dan Weinberger (103:21)

You know what's so sad about that thousand dollars? That was like money that I owed to government that I had to pay.

Eric (103:26)

And that's just profit.

Dan Weinberger (103:27)

Yeah. But I mean it was like thanks to them I was able to pay those back taxes and everything off.

Eric (103:33)

Right? Yeah. So like, I think, I really do think that this is the future. And I know this isn't.

Narrator / Sponsor Announcer (103:40)

It isn't meant to sound like a.

Eric (103:41)

Sales pitch because the truth is I wanted to sell them from day one because I believed in what they Were doing. And I want to be able to work with and partner with companies I think are doing. I think that's just a testament. $840,000 a year.

Dan Weinberger (103:54)

There's. There's not a day that goes by that I'm not grateful that I'm dealing with these people. Yeah.

Eric (103:59)

We can pivot to a different conversation. I, I just. Because I don't want to sound like, you know, I just believe, you know.

Dan Weinberger (104:06)

Before we leave this, I just want to say when I do get a email from him, it's like being called into the principal's office.

Eric (104:11)

Oh, man, what did I do?

Dan Weinberger (104:14)

Yeah.

Eric (104:15)

The thing is, you were a restaurant, you were a consultant.

Dan Weinberger (104:17)

Yeah.

Eric (104:18)

So, like, nobody's too good for this.

Dan Weinberger (104:20)

Right, Right.

Eric (104:21)

And put your ego aside. Like, you can't do it alone.

Dan Weinberger (104:24)

Yeah.

Eric (104:25)

So.

Dan Weinberger (104:26)

Well, this is. Restaurants today are not what they were back when I was consulting. Yeah. I mean, it's like back then you can get away with a lot of stuff. Today you can't get away with anything. Yeah, Health department, building departments, fire, fire marshals. I mean, stuff like that. I mean, you have to toe the line on so much today. That was not that way. When I built the store, I. I built it. Nobody said anything, just built it. My remodel. I have to go through the building department. I have to go through inspectors. I have to go through.

Eric (104:57)

A lot's changed.

Dan Weinberger (104:58)

A lot's changed.

Eric (104:59)

Yeah. What's the future looking like? What's the vision for you?

Dan Weinberger (105:04)

Hopefully, once we do this expansion, how.

Eric (105:06)

Many more square feet are you going to pick up?

Dan Weinberger (105:08)

Yeah, we'll double our size. We'll be 2500 square feet.

Eric (105:11)

2500 square feet. Is that all going to go to dining space or are you going to dining space?

Dan Weinberger (105:16)

We, we are going to increase our.

Eric (105:18)

Beverage dispenser, maybe get some refrigerators, actually.

Dan Weinberger (105:21)

Yes. So you're going to be.

Eric (105:23)

You're going to have higher throughput because you're going to have. Be able to have a bigger kitchen. Kitchen where you can do more and you're going to have a bigger, bigger footprint.

Dan Weinberger (105:30)

Well, actually, I mean, the kitchen is actually going to stay the same size we are. We're just going to utilize it better. We're going to offer a breakfast menu and the kiosk.

Eric (105:39)

So you're going to be able to go through the line faster.

Dan Weinberger (105:40)

Yeah, go through the line faster. I mean, arc To Go's. We're going to, you know, again, promote our To Go products. I mean, hopefully we'll pick up another 20,000 online. You know, a month.

Eric (105:52)

Oh, yeah. So that's. That's huge. Anything we haven't discussed today? Actually, one question I want to start asking before we say goodbye. I'm trying to get into better habit of asking this question. What is one thing that you've adopted in the past year that's really moved the needle? A new practice, a marketing tactic, a way to drive revenue?

Dan Weinberger (106:15)

Good question. I mean, I always am passionate about reaching out to news media for growth. I have this belief that restaurants every five years have to reinvent themselves. And so my menu board that you see behind me, like I said, I'm changing and I'm changing it to the point where will you go digital? No, that's one thing that it just. To me, it just cheapens the. The experience for. For what we are. I mean, I'm low tech. I am not trying to be a. You know, I can't even quite describe it, but I mean, it's like I see restaurants going way too clinical. I guess I'm trying to keep that hands on that. That touch that feels not so much nostalgic as the fact that restaurants are communities, places where people get together. I mean, for centuries. I mean, restaurants really only existed in the mid-1700s. Before that it was just ale houses and stuff like that, pubs. But restaurants where communities would get together and discuss things, where people here will sit at tables and we'll look over at the other table and say what you get. And they strike up conversations and it's like we get people from all around the country in my shop. All around the world. I've been very fortunate. I've been in papers in. I was in the London Post. I was in papers in South Africa, Australia. A magazine wrote a story about me. China. I've been all over the Internet in China. So the fact that I have this world community that comes into my shop, very humbling. Right across the street is Warhammer. I don't know. Are you familiar with Warhammer? Dungeons and Dragons on an epic scale.

Eric (108:25)

Okay, okay.

Dan Weinberger (108:26)

It is.

Eric (108:26)

Is it a gaming cafe?

Dan Weinberger (108:27)

Is a gay. It's a. Yes, it's. It's a. It's a worldwide phenomenon.

Eric (108:32)

Do you know somebody over there?

Dan Weinberger (108:34)

Yeah. The world headquarters is right here. Right down the street.

Eric (108:37)

Wait, so is it a cafe that does Dungeon Dragons?

Dan Weinberger (108:39)

It's not a cafe, but it's you. You. I. You just have to go in there and see.

Eric (108:43)

I know somebody who has a gaming cafe and they want me to get gaming cafe owners on.

Dan Weinberger (108:47)

I just want. Just watching, walk in there, just meet These people and talk to them. They have, they have a, you know, coffee shop in there and stuff. But it's gamers and these gamers travel around the world and there's. When you come to Dallas, there's a good eight hour layover and we, we're fortunate enough to get these people to come in here. I mean, they carry their game pieces with them all the time, but they'll come in here and have lunch and. But, but the fact being is that these people are actually have spread the story of me around the world.

Eric (109:21)

That's cool.

Dan Weinberger (109:22)

Yeah. Yeah.

Eric (109:23)

Dan, this has been a lot of fun, man. Thank you so much for, for taking time to sit with me to share your story, to share your knowledge, your perspectives. I like to wrap up every conversation by having my current guest help me connect with my future guest. Who do you respect and admire? People who are making money like you, doing good, but also making an impact and doing it right and empowering the future. Who are those people or who's that person that comes to mind?

Dan Weinberger (109:55)

Oh, that. That's a tough question. Only because there's so many people in so many different aspects of it.

Eric (110:00)

Can't narrow it down to one. Give me your top, top couple.

Dan Weinberger (110:04)

Gosh, Jim, he's in the Woodlands in Houston. This is a guy who is. He was in the technology and decided to open up a bar and now he owns like four restaurants. And I'm just like fascinated by the fact that he is that capable of opening.

Eric (110:28)

Do you know the name of his restaurants?

Dan Weinberger (110:30)

I do.

Eric (110:32)

That's all right.

Dan Weinberger (110:32)

But I'm on the spot.

Eric (110:33)

I'm there. I'm in your shoes all the time.

Narrator / Sponsor Announcer (110:35)

This is the scene.

Dan Weinberger (110:36)

This is a senior moment for me.

Eric (110:37)

You're fine. So anybody else that comes to mind. It was hard for you to think.

Dan Weinberger (110:42)

I don't need to push. But if you've ever known the Ifrtelli brothers, Dave Cole, he's a huge. I'm a huge fan of his. I mean, IFR tells is way. I mean, they've been around longer than me and they're in the community out here. It's okay. A bunch of brothers. Beautiful.

Eric (111:03)

Well, Jim and Dave, look out. I'm coming out. David Cole, I'm coming after you. I'd love to get you guys on the show. And how can we connect with you if we really enjoy today's conversation? Social handles email. Some people like to leave their phone number. No pressure there, but whatever you want.

Dan Weinberger (111:18)

Weinbergers Deli@aol.com is my email. Weinbergers Deli.com is our. Our what they call the US.

Eric (111:27)

Your address, your website.

Dan Weinberger (111:30)

You know, we're right in Main Street Grapevine. All you got to do is when you get to Grapevine and say, where's the sandwich shop? Yep.

Eric (111:35)

And that's W e I n b e r g e r correct. Deli wein Burgers Deli. And we'll have those links in the show notes. If you're listening to this on Spotify or itunes or wherever you listen, just look at the notes. We'll link to those right there for you to make it easy. Also subscribe if you guys haven't yet. There's links to our YouTube channel. We're trying to build that up. And this is where I say, man, thank you so much for taking the time. Again, there is no questioning. You are unstoppable.

Dan Weinberger (112:03)

That's awesome.

Eric (112:04)

Cheers, man.

Dan Weinberger (112:05)

Thank you so much.

Podcast Host / Eric's Assistant (112:06)

There's another episode wrapped up here at Restaurant Unstoppable. If you enjoyed today's conversation with Dan Weinberger, then be sure to hang out with us on December 1st at 11am for coffee with Eric. This is something I'm going to be very diligent about, is trying to get my guests to choose a coffee with Eric date in the future right around a month after their episode goes live to let you, my audience, connect with and to engage and to ask the questions you wish I did. And this is really kind of how I think I can best serve the industry. I think we find hope in people. And the best way I can serve you is to help you connect with restaurant tours, leading restaurateurs across the country. And honestly, my true hope, if you join Restaurant Unstoppable network is to get inspiration to do what we're doing with restaurateurs across the country in your own community. That's where the real magic is. Get out of your four walls, knock on doors, connect with restaurateurs in your community and support each other.

Eric (113:12)

We'll show you how to do it.

Podcast Host / Eric's Assistant (113:13)

Head over to restaurantunstoppable.com CWE for coffee with Eric. If you want this first one to be on us or just join the community@restaurantunstoppable.com live.

Narrator / Sponsor Announcer (113:23)

We'll see you there.