← Restaurant Unstoppable with Eric Cacciatore
Restaurant Unstoppable with Eric Cacciatore
1245: Eric Scheffer, Founder and CEO of The Scheffer Group
02:04:29
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A
A couple things before we get started today. First, thank you so much for showing up week after week making my vision for restaurants Unstoppable come true. Your downloads are allowing me to do this show the way I've always wanted to do it. Boots on the ground, word of mouth, leaders, referring leaders, giving the industry an uncensored, no BS platform to share their perspectives and truth. That's on you. Thank you so much. And we're just getting started. So if you're enjoying what we're doing here and you want to help us do it even better, please subscribe to this podcast on your platform of choice. And if you do that, I promise to do everything in my power to continue to improve the show. I'll deliver the restaurant tours you want to hear from and we'll continue to make everything you love about this show better. Thank you. Welcome to restaurant unstoppable. For 10 years and over 1,000 episodes, I've been traveling the country chasing word of mouth leads and having in person only long form discussions with the industry's finest owners and operators. Our mission is to inspire, empower and transform the restaurant industry by bridging the gap between this generation's leaders and the next. Listen to today's guest and so many others and get one step closer to becoming unstoppable. This episode is made possible by US Foods Running a successful restaurant takes more than just great food. With US Foods, you can expect more high quality products, advanced tools and flexible deliveries to grow your business. Their industry leading moxy platform also does more than just place your US Foods order. It uses AI to help you take control, save time and increase profitability. Visit usfoods.com expect more to learn how to become a US Foods customer one more time, that is usfoods.com expect more this episode is brought to you by Restaurant Technologies, the leader in automated cooking oil management. Their total oil management solution is an end to end closed loop automated system that delivers, monitors, filters, collects and recycles your cooking oil, eliminating one of the dirtiest jobs in the kitchen. Restaurant technologies services over 45,000 customers nationwide. Automate your oil and elevate your kitchen by visiting RTI Inc.com or call 8887 to get started. This episode is made possible by Serboni your all in one bookkeeping and financial solution. We're talking about reliable tax preparation, business incorporation, seamless payroll and compliance reports, Strategic CFO services that drive business growth detailed custom reporting for complete financial clarity Dedicated support for restaurants in multi location businesses. Did I mention bookkeeping late, Sir? Boney handled the numbers so you can focus on the vision. Call Sir Bony today at 281-882413 to schedule your free 30 minute consultation and discover House Bony can streamline your operations and boost your bottom line. Limited time offer an exclusive to restaurant Unstoppable listeners. Mention this Message and get 20 off your first month of services with excitement. Allow me to introduce you today's guest, founder and CEO of Sheffer Group, Eric Schaefer. My man, are you feeling unstoppable today?
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B
I am feeling unstoppable every day.
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A
This is actually our second recording. I just realized that we were. I don't know, sometimes you just, you catch things and you, you just ready, fire, aim. We just pulled the trigger one time. We're pulling it a second time. We're gonna hit a bullseye this time. The good news, we didn't get far into the recording. So I, I was saying the last time when we were talking, it was Catherine, your public Campbell. Yeah, Catherine Campbell reached out to me. I was in Texas in a week and a half, I was planning on driving through Asheville and she said, you know, you gotta get this client of mine on the show. And I looked into it, it was a no brainer. Like a whale landed in my lap. And in Asheville, Will Bradley was a. Somebody who I respect and admire. Founder of Schedule Fly Co founder of Schedule Fly. He said out of his 500 episodes, your top five. And I have a lot of respect in that. Yeah, he's a smart dude. And for him to say that I know this is going to be good. I can't wait to dive into who you are and how you got to where you are.
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B
Putting a lot of pressure.
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A
I know I'm really building it up, I'm selling it, but it's going to be good. Get, let's get that motivational inspirational ball rolling with a success quarter mantra. What do you got for us?
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B
One of the most important things that I think is one of my mantras is relentless generosity. Brings us closer together. And I'll expand on that, I guess. Yeah.
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A
What do you mean by relentless generosity? What does that look like?
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B
You know, I am the most blessed and lucky man to be in service of others. I really believe that. It's my daily motivation to know that I can do what I do for not only the people that work for me, but the people that walk through that door. And by giving of myself and having my staff give of themselves and be generous in how we do. So I know, know it's going to affect people's lives. It's going to. In some ways, it changes people's lives. And if I can. If I can push that generosity forward, you know, I believe you give to give, not give to get. And if I can continue to do that, I know I'm getting so much back. I always get so much back. I can prove it.
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A
You can't track it. You don't know. It's just one of those things. You just have to have faith. Hope. Not hope, just faith.
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B
Right.
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A
That when you give, give, give, give, there are returns, but you don't need.
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B
You can't.
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A
You can't expect the returns. They just come.
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B
They just come. And, you know, and when you become selfish, that's when. That's when bad things start to happen. I think that's when you start to become stale. That's when you start to let your ego get in the way. It just builds really bad things around you. And, you know, I'm a big believer in giving back to your community. We do a lot of work with our community here in Asheville.
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A
Needed help recently.
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B
Well, yeah, I'll tell you a little story about that. But, you know, this is my 25th year in Asheville doing this as a chef and restaurateur, and I have seen how I've been able to make a change. I mean, if I'm just going to walk this earth just to put some money in my pocket and, you know, that can't be what it's all about. It's got to be about how I can affect others around me and bring goodness and kindness to those in my community and those that work for me.
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A
Quite frankly, I can't wait to dive into how that's actually manifested in your career and what that looks like. So before we dive into your story and how you got to where you are today, like, what is your business today? How many total locations do you currently have?
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B
We currently have four locations. We have two Vinny's Neighborhood Italian restaurants. We have Jetty Ray's, Oyster House and Gan Shan, which is an Asian concept that we have called Neighborhood Asian. And I've had a total over the last 25 years, seven different concepts. I started out in the building you're sitting in right now where the original Vinny's is, with a restaurant called the Savoy. This is in 2000.
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A
So. And then that was your first restaurant. And then you had Bodega Gracia.
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B
Bodega Gratia actually was not a restaurant. That was a winery that I owned. Yeah, you know, so Savoy. When I first created the Savoy, it was actually was a restaurant called the Savoy that I bought. And that's a great story I'll tell you about.
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A
Yeah, we'll get into it.
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B
Wine was my passion. And having a very high end, upscale fine dining restaurant, I sort of went even deeper down the rabbit hole of wine and got to meet some amazing winemakers. And I was really fascinated with Argentinian wine because my wife is from Argentina. Oh, cool. And I was spending a lot of time down there, going back and forth, and I met a couple, Andrea Marchiori and Luis Barro, who are the famed winemakers of Vinhacobos.
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A
Okay.
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B
With Paul Hobbs in Mendoza. They actually sold their piece recently. But I had gone to them one day and I said, look, you know, I love what we're doing. I love your wines. I love wine in general. And I would love to like start to make wine and try this stuff. And long story short, so were you.
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A
Buying their grapes and having their grapes shipped up here or the juice?
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B
No, I went down there, we created our company and I was using grapes that were coming from Andrea's father's vineyard, the Maticiori Vineyards in Mendoza in Juan. And we were purchasing some other grapes. And then I bought a vineyard in the place called Raftako.
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A
Okay.
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B
Which is in a place called Chacras de Correa. Those out there that are looking at maps right now. It was an 80 year old vine, little piece of land. And so we used that and some grapes that Andre, you know, coming off of Andrea's Jack of all trades.
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A
Huh?
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B
It's been a, it's been an interesting life.
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A
And we're go back and start sharing what was going on before this, but for a little teaser.
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B
Yeah. So Bodega Grati was a winery and that led me to start a company called Victus World Imports.
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A
That was what I was thinking about.
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B
So I needed a company to import my wines.
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A
Got it.
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B
And then I, me and my partners got interested in wines in France and Spain and we were working with. Actually I spent a lot of time over there working with very small producers that were just making these amazing wines. And they weren't getting more than, you know, a couple hundred miles away from where they are. And their ability to market those wines were limited. And so I used my background, which we'll talk more about in the advertising, such to help them create labels and make wines that were, I hate to say it this way, but a little more Americanized with the palate. Yeah. You know, that would, that, that you.
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A
Gotta Meet your market, Right?
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B
Meet your market. Yeah, yeah. They were still great wines. And everything was. Was really spectacular. Champagnes and wines from Spain and such. And I just, I helped package them so they were understood better. You know, you get approachable a bottle of French wine and nobody knows what's on that bottle. Right, right. So just more approachable and more understandable.
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A
Plus you get these great restaurants that you get to sell wine that nobody else gets to sell, which is kind of fun too.
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B
Exactly.
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A
So two Vinnies, you got Jetty Ray. I'm not saying that right now. Jenny Ray, Jetty Ray's. Okay. And Vinnie's. On average, like, how many seats between those two restaurants? Like one. Like.
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B
Well, not between.
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A
Like what is the average amount of seats in those restaurants? The venue race.
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B
So the one we're sitting in right now is 134 seats. The second Vinnies on the south end of Asheville is about 165 seats. And Jetty Ray's sits at about 110.
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A
Okay.
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B
And then Janshan is. Is more of a counter service.
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A
Okay.
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B
Asian concept. So we have about 20 seats inside, about another 15, 20 on a patio outside.
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A
And you have to do your own Cielo.
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B
And then Cielo Catering was a catering company I had for about four or five years until the hurricane hit.
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A
Yeah, that probably changed a few things. So.
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B
And Cielo was. Was fantastic because it gave me an opportunity to, you know, as, first of all, as a restaurant owner, Endo. As a chef. But as a restaurant owner, you've got to keep on pulling yourself back and reminding yourself this is a business.
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A
Right, Right. Easier said than done. You gotta be fiscally responsible.
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B
It is so hard. And I'm very fortunate. I have a lot of people that still come to me and consult, asked me to consult with them. And it's, it's the, the thing I try to pound into their heads the most is that like, you know, this is great, but get the ego out of the way. It's about the PNLs. It's about what you can generate. It's about. It's a business.
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A
Right.
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B
So, you know, Cielo for me was a way for me to have some fun and play with something that is dear to my heart. And that's live fire cooking, which is really great. I was able to many, many, many years ago meet Francis Malmon and, and, and learn from him and others in Argentina.
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A
I thought that sounded familiar. I was gonna ask if that's who it was.
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B
Yeah. About fire and live fire and do.
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A
You know grills by DeMont over in Atlanta.
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B
I do.
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A
Oh, my gosh. What they're putting out. That product is beautiful.
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B
It's amazing.
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A
Yeah, really, really, really. Chris. Chris. Oh, her name's escaping me. Chris DeMotte and his wife. I'm so sorry for not remembering both names. They're great people. Living the American dream. I think they're Danish. They're from Denmark and they came here and it's really cool what they're, what they're doing.
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B
It's really cool.
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A
I've had them on the show. They. So you talked about the importance of numbers again, just to get some benchmarks out there. 130 seats and 160 seats. What kind of numbers are we hitting? What are your prime costs?
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B
Well, I'll give you. When you say prime cost, are you.
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A
Saying what is your cost of goods and your labor?
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B
Okay. Percentage wise?
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A
Yeah. Broken up.
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B
Okay. So it's different in all restaurants because Vinny's is a little more casual, old school New York Italian red sauce restaurant. So, you know, you know, we drive a much better margin, if you will.
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A
Flour and water.
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B
Flour and water. But, you know, margins there. But, but in general. And we make 90% of the products in Vinnies from scratch, so.
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A
So lots of labor.
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B
The labor is a little bit higher. So our labor probably runs, I'm going to say somewhere around 32%.
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A
Okay.
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B
And. But our food cost at Vinnie's runs around 24 to 26%.
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A
That's awesome. So you're right about 56, prime cost. So under sub. Sub 60. That's good.
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B
Yeah.
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A
This is what you want to hit. Where are you with your rent? Do you have rent?
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B
I own the building.
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A
Oh, so there's 7% going to the bottom line.
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B
Well, and there's another part of that that was a focus of mine that as I opened up restaurants, I wanted to own the dirt underneath the restaurants. There's two reasons for that. One is obviously the write offs and the financial impact on myself. I can control my environment and such. I also did it because I have a special needs daughter. So as I, as me, as an individual, build my little empire and such, it's about how that empire generationally can also benefit her.
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A
Yeah, yeah. And I know that she had a big influence. We will save the kind of stair. She kind of helped you reposition your, your perspective. Right. And we'll get into that very much so. So in with those, those numbers you shared, is that for both Vinny's 1 and 2, are you hitting the same numbers there?
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B
Yeah, actually I Would have to say that Vinnie, where we're sitting now, the OG Vinnies is the, is the machine okay? Vinny's South. We're pretty, it's pretty similar. I mean it's, it's, it's, it's off by maybe a point or two here, but.
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A
And are you comfortable sharing percent profit?
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B
Sure.
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A
I want make you share revenue, but I won't stop you too.
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B
Well, we generally run about, I'm going to say anywhere between 13 and 16%.
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A
Awesome. That's hard to do right now in this market. If you're doing anything over 10, I think you're doing good. There's a lot of consultants and people saying like, I can get you 20. And I think that's possible. But it's also like, if you're not doing 20% profit, you're not like, don't kill yourself. If you're doing 10% or 15%, you're doing really.
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B
If you can squeeze out 10 like you said, to 15 or even 10 to 13, you're doing very well.
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A
Yeah, yeah.
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B
And then Jenny Ray's Oyster House. So it's different. So Jetty Ray's is a high end seafood restaurant. It's oysters. Right. We're bringing most of our stuff in from like Duxbury, Massachusetts and places up in Maine and Rhode Island. And you know, the product costs a lot of money.
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A
Right.
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B
We're bringing in whole fish, we're butchering our own fish. Everything is made from scratch there. So, you know, the, I'd have to say the labor cost there is probably running, I'd say about 32 to 34%.
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A
Okay.
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B
And our food costs sit at about, I'm going to say anywhere between, let's say 30 and 32%.
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A
So you're in the mid-60s.
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B
Mid-60s.
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A
Okay. But are you doing the revenue to make up for that? Because your profits. Do you own the building too there?
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B
That's the only building I don't own yet.
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A
What's your rent?
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B
The rent there currently, it's not bad. It's actually about 6,000amonth.
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A
What is that in terms of percentage?
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B
It's about, it's, I'm going to say it's about 8%.
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A
Okay, so where are you at with percent profit? Are you looking at like maybe 5 to 10% in that ballpark?
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B
There were more around 10%.
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A
Okay.
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B
Yeah.
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A
But still, you know, you're making money, you're, you're operating in the black and I'm sure you're probably doing revenue there with the, the bills are probably really high bills.
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B
The bills are high, but revenue is good as well. You know, like Vinnie's. A check average over there, like I said, is about 110 seats.
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A
110 check average. I interrupted you. I apologize.
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B
That's okay. No, the check average at Vinny's runs somewhere between like 37 and $42. And over Jetty Ray's, it's running somewhere between like 76 and 96 through high volume. Well, Vinny's is high volume. You know, Jetty Ray's is high dollars.
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A
Thank you. Yeah, yeah. Correct. And I guess the only thing gon.
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B
Shot Gonchon is great. It's, you know, it's just. And we'll get into more. I bought Gonchon for a strategic reason. Okay. Because of my next new concept I'm opening up.
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A
Cool.
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B
We'll talk about that towards the end, I guess. Go ahead. No, so Ganshan, you know, is. It's actually running a really good bottom line. We're trout. We're probably pushing about 12 to 14% there. Oh, awesome. Now understand, it's. It's counter service, right. So I don't have this ar me right walking around and it's. It cash flows nicely. It's actually, you know, if you look at all my restaurants, it's probably the most profitable per and the best margins out of all my restaurants. But it's also has been a great way for me to learn the counter service business because I truly believe, you know, you have to be diverse. I mean, I've got four restaurants, soon to be five. And I know in other cities it's probably the same, but here in Asheville, North Carolina, labor's tough and finding really good people and great chefs and people to work that show up and such is the hard thing in our business. I am again blessed and lucky. I've got 170 employees and I would say the vast majority of them are just these amazing people. I'd have to say that about 170 employees, at least 10% have been with me for five years or more. Some 20 years. So it's. It's with reason why I was. Long story short, while I was. Why I was experimenting with counter service was because I wanted to grow. I wanted to create more things. And I saw a real opportunity to use counter service as a model because I mean, you can just drive so much money, more money to the bottom line.
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A
Yeah, big lesson there. I mean, I think this is big lesson we're learning is doing a few things really well with Counter like it's the most profitable model out there, right?
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B
Absolutely.
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A
QSR fast, casual, focusing your attention, doing a few things really well. Only 15 things on this menu approximately, give or take a couple.
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B
About 18.
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A
About 18. Okay. Yeah, I just, I'm online looking real quick.
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B
Oh yeah. And I'll tell you, I mean I got something out of my system quick.
- [19:40]
A
This episode is made possible by US Foods. It takes more than great food to run a kitchen these days with US Foods more than means consistently high quality products, industry leading tools and flexible deliveries that let you grow your business on your schedule. Whatever your goals, US Foods helps you turn them into reality. As a US Foods customer, you'll gain access to their industry leading moxy platform which doesn't just make it easy to place your US Foods order, but it uses AI powered technology to help you take more control of your business and increase profitability. You can also explore the latest issues of Food Fanatics magazine from US Foods. In each issue you'll find real world success stories, bold culinary inspiration and practical profit boosting ideas you can put to work immediately. Visit usfoods.com/expect more to learn how to become a U.S. foods customer again. That's usfoods.com/ Expect more.
- [20:38]
B
So my first restaurant, Savoy, was a nationally known high end fine dining restaurant. You know, back in the 2000 check average was in the 90s to like 110. I had people flying private jets and to come have dinner with us, you know, really famous people. And it was great, you know, bottles of Lafitte and all this other crap until everything crashed in 2009. White tablecloth. And so I kind of, you know, I said earlier about ego. I kind of got some of my ego stuff out of the way because you know, I, when I took the restaurant over, it was called a Savoy, but it was this plastic tablecloth sort of Greek Italian thing. And I had a vision. I came from big cities, New York and Los Angeles, trying to bring a.
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A
Little bit of New York to North Carolina.
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B
Well, I saw what was happening here in Asheville because back in the early 2000s, people were starting to leave the cities and come here with big money. It's a huge retirement area. I mean, the heads of CEOs of major corporations and such and they were looking for places to dine. And at that time there was maybe five restaurants in Nashville.
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A
So a long way in the past.
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B
I saw this market, I saw this, I saw this opening. And so that's when I started using my life experiences and what I had experienced Traveling around the world and eating in fine dining restaurants and stuff my dad did for me and I said this is what I'd like to do here in Asheville. And everybody thought I was out of my mind. But it worked. It really worked really well. I mean we were just, we were always booked out.
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A
You know, that's one of the biggest lessons I've learned. I think that most of the opportunity right now isn't in the cities. Turn of the industrial age. You know when, when the, the industrial age kind of started to wind down, like the age of like you know, mills and big factories and those started to close and people went from all the mid sized cities in the country to all the big countries. That's when New York and Los Angeles and Chicago, Miami and Boston and like everybody went to the big cities. That's where the opportunity was. You had to go to the big cities to get the opportunity because they weren't in you know, the small mid market cities anymore. And like there's like all over like you look at like Ohio, you get like Dayton and like Cincinnati is another small like although those are all ghost towns for a while. But I think post like recently you're seeing everything start to swing away from the big cities to the smaller markets pretty much. Well, and that's where the opportunity is.
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B
I tell people all the time when I do interviews like this and such when I was in Los Angeles and we can get more into this but you know, I was in the entertainment business and you know, I was a really tiny fish in this huge pond and was. Couldn't ever make the impact on a community or the people around me or grow businesses like I've been able to do by coming to a small community like Asheville. Asheville has been just, I mean the things I've been able to do and be involved in and affect change and such. I could never have done that in a larger city. So it was, it was, it was really important.
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A
I think we have a pretty good grasp on what you got going on. So let's go back to where it makes sense. So when did you know you, when did you know you want to open a restaurant?
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B
Oh, probably when I was about 6.
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A
Okay, so this has always been a pipe dream because of the life you have with your seeing the world, eating across the world, getting this experience. And why did you go the route of media and advertising?
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B
So my dad was a fairly famous guy in the advertising business and my mom was a wardrobe stylist, my brother was a director, my sister was a Script supervisor. It was sort of like, you know, in my. Did, you know, it was in my veins. I was. I was a child actor. And so when I got out of high school, which I barely got out of, I didn't go, couldn't. I was too stupid to go to college. But I got in my car, literally, and drove cross country and went to California and started working at one of my dad's studios out there as a production assistant.
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A
Okay.
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B
And slowly made my way up the chain to become an assistant director and then a producer. And, you know, while doing that, I was having. I was very fortunate because I was on other people's credit cards and nickels and I was eating out and wining and dining folks. And I was. I was very aware of how I was being treated when I was in somebody's space, in somebody's restaurant and such. And it just. It made me feel so good. And I. I always. I always wanted to be that person. I wanted to be that person that was coming to the table, coming. You know, trying to bring joy or make somebody's experience that much better.
- [25:20]
A
What was the appeal?
- [25:23]
B
I love people, you know, and I love. I love seeing people smile. I love. I love being able to affect change. I know it's a very. Maybe that's ego talking about it, but, you know, it's very powerful thing. But I love being able to, like, you know, just create environments for people that took them away from anything else, that they were involved in their life at any one given moment, and just give them the space to be and let me bring them through an experience. And I experienced that myself, like I said, growing up as a kid, traveling my dad, mom, and in my own experiences, and was like, wow, wouldn't that be great to do that? And I also. I'll give you a funny story. So when I was a kid, my parents traveled a lot. And sometimes I would travel with them, and sometimes I didn't. When I got into my teens, right, wrong or indifferent, my parents used to leave me alone a lot and leave me with either a credit card or some cash. And I'd go and I'd buy groceries or something like that. And I used to love to watch Jacques Pepin, Julia Child, and especially Graham Kerr, who is this chef back in the days who just used to get hammered while he was cooking. And so I just sit there and try to follow this stuff and, you know, pretend I knew what I was doing. But it gave me this real inspiration to learn more about food and to understand food. And so I just Started cooking from a really young age. I was really never formally taught, but cooking, like I'd go to a two week school here, two week school there in between my gigs as a producer. But I knew that and having people in my home and when you bring a dish to the table and they're like, oh, wow, you know, this stuff's great and stuff like that. And I saw the joy I could bring to people. It was just like this thing I wanted to do, like for the rest of my life.
- [27:11]
A
Yeah. What do you think it is about people that we have this need to, to see and be seen? What do you think drives that?
- [27:19]
B
Well, I mean, we can go deep on that one, but I think, you know, part of it is I grew up as a very, very insecure kid. Yeah, my dad was great. He was this powerful man. But, you know, I, you know, if I put the coffee cup here, he made sure it was moved over there. Right. It's like, why'd you put it there? Put it over here. Right. So I think there was some compensation for me, you know, because I wanted to be seen. Right. I wanted also getting into the food business or the, or the restaurant business gave me an opportunity to leave the film business. Something that I was in, like I said, since I was a kid, you.
- [27:52]
A
Must have been good at it because you hadn't made a quite a career, right?
- [27:55]
B
I was very good at it.
- [27:56]
A
Yeah.
- [27:57]
B
But I knew my late 20s, early 30s, that if I stayed in this business I was gonna like kill myself.
- [28:06]
A
Oh, we'll get into that. But finish your train of thought about the need of being seen. And seen.
- [28:09]
B
Yeah. So, you know, I think I was a terribly insecure person. I had, I would say, some low self worth of myself. Even though I was very successful, great things, I wanted to do something that wasn't like connected, with all due respect to my dad or to my family, I wanted to stand on your own. I wanted to know that I could do something on my own without that behind me.
- [28:34]
A
Yeah. Is this sex? Is this success due to where I came from or can I do it?
- [28:39]
B
It. I always used to go, you know, to a job interview or something and they'd always say, oh, my dad's name was Manny. Oh, you're Manny's kid. It's like, fuck, can I just be me?
- [28:49]
A
The standalone individual? But do you think there's something going on there? So, like this was your desire to be seen, to be, to be valued. Never felt like you had that self worth, that ability to stand on your own and Be seen for who you are. But do you think there's something that cuts deeper with taking yourself out of the equation of just humans desire to be seen, but also to see why, like, you know, like, I have thoughts, but I want to see if I can't get into, like, this. If you have any thoughts on the psychology or the, even like the evolution psychology that goes into that.
- [29:20]
B
Well, I think, you know, when you're a chef, restaurateur and you know that you're kind of controlling the environment or you're the puppet master, or you're, you're able to either cook something or, or come to somebody's table or interact with somebody that, you know, you're really making an effect, you know, Creating change or making an effect. Yeah, I mean, you know, inside you feel like, like you're on top of the world. You know, you feel like, geez, I mean, I'm, I'm doing so, so, so much good here. You know, I'm bringing so much, you know, I'm affecting change or I'm affecting somebody's day or attitude. It's a very powerful thing, and you've got to be very careful about that.
- [30:10]
A
Yeah.
- [30:10]
B
You know, I think that's where a lot of chefs or restaurateurs let their egos get in the way. And they start to just think that they're, you know, bigger than anybody else or better than anybody else, and, you know, they start to get that star quality stuff going on. The ego. Right.
- [30:24]
A
Yeah. I, I, I love that, this topic of seeing and being seen, because I think that is at the root of what hospitality is.
- [30:30]
B
Oh, absolutely.
- [30:30]
A
And I, I, I, the word hospitality just gets thrown around like, oh, the hospitality industry, restaurants, hotels. But I really do think hospitality, seeing and being seen, this dance that we do of gratitude and generosity, and that is at the core of our human nature, our behavioral science of like, we literally need, like, need to be seen and we need to show people that we see like that dance. It's like, it's like we're surrounded by this need and like air. We're not even aware of how we need it.
- [31:10]
B
Sure. You know, but, you know, I, I, I always espouse to my staff when I give these, these talks I do every couple of months. You know, the one thing that we've all been given equally, and I don't care if you're rich or poor or black or white, is choice.
- [31:23]
A
Yeah, I was gonna say something else, but choice, important.
- [31:26]
B
And the fact that on any given day there's, I don't know, let's take Vinnie's 200 some odd people that choose, they make a choice to come here every single day and bring their wallets and spend money so all the people that are working for me can afford their rent and their insurance and the new cars on their tires. That interaction of humanity to me is.
- [31:53]
A
Brilliant actually, that capitalism. Right. It's to see with money.
- [31:59]
B
Exactly.
- [31:59]
A
Yeah. And that be.
- [32:02]
B
Well, it's to see with money. But also, and I believe this, my restaurants, it's also to. They're coming for an experience. The money is kind of the byproduct. Right, Right. They're coming for the party that happens at Vinny's every night or they're coming for the elegant service they have at Jetty Ray's Oyster House.
- [32:21]
A
But they're choosing you. And that to be selected. Feels so good.
- [32:25]
B
No, it does. But what I'm trying to say, it's not just about the transactional. The financial tracks, that transactional thing. I think it's about the emotional connection. 100% as a transaction.
- [32:35]
A
Yeah. But I think money is just the. The liquid thing that we use to show people that we choose them. You're our choice.
- [32:44]
B
Yeah.
- [32:45]
A
You're who I choose to go to, to get my hair cut. You're who I chose to get my oil change, new tires. But you're still at the end of day choosing that service.
- [32:54]
B
Right, Right. But I think in something you just said. Excuse me. Something you just said, which is important. Hospitality is so different because I think you can choose a place to go get your tires changed or go get a cup of coffee, but when you come into a dining establishment, a restaurant, if you will, there is something else going on there.
- [33:12]
A
Right.
- [33:13]
B
You know, you're looking for that human connection. You're looking for that. For that. You know, I always like to say that, you know, food. And one of the reasons why I love what I do is because food and drink, the two things that sustain us as human beings in our core and in our DNA. You're seeking out the place to do that and also to. I hope and I think it is true, to find the experience that gives you what you need at any one given time.
- [33:40]
A
It's that third place.
- [33:41]
B
It's that third place.
- [33:42]
A
Yeah. I think, you know, it's the. It's the community oven. It's the fight. It's literally the fireplace.
- [33:47]
B
That's right.
- [33:48]
A
We would, if you look at like the evolution of us, there would be hunter gatherers or we would have our job, what we contribute to the tribe. The thing we're good at, maybe it's making traps, maybe it's jumping on the back of a giant mammoth, maybe it's identifying certain mushrooms. You know, whatever that is. That that's your work. That. And then you have your home where you would sleep like you're like your hut or whatever. But there's got to be that third place where you come together with the other tribe members.
- [34:13]
B
Exactly.
- [34:14]
A
And that was usually like, you know, the camp site where the. Or like the. The. Like there would be like a. A place where. A meeting place where you tell stories and you get your news and you get your entertainment. We need that. It's a part of our DNA and we kind of in the modern world, it kind of. Where do you go to get that? Right? And it manifested in public houses. But.
- [34:35]
B
But, you know, it's interesting you say about you need that. I teach my staff that some of the most important people that walk through our doors are the lone diners. The. I'm coming in as one person. I'm sitting at a table by myself. I'm sitting at a bar by myself. And I encourage my servers and my staff to really pay a little bit more attention to those folks because you don't know if they're lonely. You don't know, maybe. And this has happened to me many, many times in this restaurant. Somebody will come in and say, I just lost my husband or my wife or my husband's in the hospital with cancer, or my son. So, you know, take the opportunity to open up your heart, you know, while we're nourishing somebody, especially if they're a lone diner, and give them a little extra love because, you know, they're generally. There's a reason why they're dining alone.
- [35:29]
A
See why this podcast is two hours long. So we're kind of diving into your psychology of why you love the industry of being seen and seeing. You always wanted to be that person who got to see others. That was what really pulled you in. When. So when. How old were you? When you started to pivot away from the world of media and advertisement and consider. It was. The year was 2000. 1999 is when you moved to Asheville.
- [35:56]
B
No, I actually moved to Asheville, 1995.
- [35:58]
A
Oh, okay. Sorry.
- [35:59]
B
Yeah, no, no worries.
- [36:00]
A
So I'll tell you, was 99 when your daughter was born?
- [36:03]
B
Correct.
- [36:03]
A
Okay. That's what.
- [36:05]
B
In 90. I had met the woman who's now my wife in 1992 in Argentina. She was an Argentinian model and actress, and I was A producer. And we happened to meet on a job.
- [36:17]
A
It sounds awful.
- [36:21]
B
So she came to Los Angeles to live with me. And within the first year and a half, I got attempted carjacked. I was working on a film and some guys tried to take my car. But being from Brooklyn, I didn't let that happen.
- [36:33]
A
Wrong guy, buddy.
- [36:33]
B
Wrong guy. She got mugged. And then the 1994 earthquake hit in Los Angeles. And she looked at me in her broken English, because she didn't speak good English back then, was like, I'm moving back to Buenos Aires and see you later. And I'm like, you know, maybe this is a sign. Maybe this is the thing we've been talking about. Because we had both been talking about, like, going and starting over again, doing something else. And I had a friend of mine who subsequently became my partner for a short time here. When I first opened up the Savoy, who had just moved to Asheville, he called me up. I had a nickname back then, my nickname was Hollywood. And he called me up, said, Hollywood. He said, I hear all this crap that's been happening to you in la. Why don't you come to this town I just moved to called Asheville in the mountains of North Carolina? Full disclosure, I'm Jewish. So I said to him, I said, are you out of your mind? A Jew in the mountains of North Carolina, you know, Right. I said, are there any Jews around? He said, no, actually, there's like two synagogues and there's a jcc and there's, you know, it's very comfortable around here, very progressive, you know, all this stuff.
- [37:39]
A
So he was Jewish too, if you knew this.
- [37:43]
B
So we came, took a flight, came for Thanksgiving in 1994. We were here for like three days. And we both looked at each other and said, this is it. This is. I mean, we just felt this. A lot of people tell you that, but it's. It's not bullshit. It's true. I mean, we felt this was where we wanted to be. And I went back and I was booked to do another movie and a couple other jobs, and I told people, you know, take me, I want to get on my contracts. And I started telling my friends. And I was a still am, but I was a pretty big jokester back then. And they're all like, ah, you know, Hollywood's just joking around. He's not going anywhere. And literally the day we got back, my wife started, like, packing up the house and we left, like, maybe, I don't know, five months later, six months later, and just drove cross country And I just gave it all up. Yeah.
- [38:30]
A
So you're done with the world of advertising. I was working remote from.
- [38:34]
B
Well, there's a small piece to this. So when I got here, I needed to work, right. And an old friend called me up. He had just moved to Charleston. He was a director in Los Angeles. And he said, hey, Hollywood. He said, I just moved to Charleston. He said, I'm getting all this work from Latin America, a lot of, like, beer commercials and such. And I don't know the culture well, but I know you do. Would you help me? And that turns into us together having a company called Kingfisher. And it was a advertising agency, slash production company based in Charleston. I did that until my daughter was born in 1999. And my wife turned to me and she said, you told me you were going to get out of the film business.
- [39:19]
A
Yeah, well, let's get into that. What was going on in your world where the. The film. Because you've alluded to this a few times, that there was. Why get out of the film business? What was going on?
- [39:29]
B
Well, it was the piece that you and I talked about, which was, I wanted my own identity. There was the other piece that in my early 20s, I was a raging alcoholic and drug addict. And, you know, I just knew that that environment was.
- [39:43]
A
So the restaurant industry is a safer environment.
- [39:45]
B
Well, I found out not when I first got into it, but. But I reminded myself why I did it. And I worked very hard at not following that path.
- [39:59]
A
Well, good for you. I mean, that was a lot of temptation.
- [40:01]
B
There was a lot of temptation. And I had just had this beautiful little daughter that had. Sorry. A lot of challenges in her life. She was born as a premature baby at 23 weeks old. She was a pound. She's blind. Smartest kid you'll ever meet. I mean, off the charts smart, but has issues. She's got autism. And, you know, I know that now, but I didn't know that then, but I knew there was a. There was a. There was a. There was a journey ahead of me as a family with my wife and her, and just as a dad and as an individual that I had to get my shit together and stay really focused and provide. Provide a future.
- [40:42]
A
And he did you.
- [40:42]
B
Yeah, they needed me.
- [40:43]
A
Yeah. You couldn't do what you were doing. And it's amazing. I sometimes I. I'm 40 years old, I don't have any kids, and I sometimes wonder, like, if I had kids, what would I do differently? Because there was like this, like, they. People, they. A lot of entrepreneurs talk about this like, you work hard, and then you find a different level of working hard when you now are responsible for the.
- [41:08]
B
Life of somebody, pretty much. So, you know, it's. I have a lot of people that have worked for me over the years that, you know, get pregnant and have kids, and I always sit them down and have a conversation and let them know that the moment that little something, you know, becomes reality, gets birthed, everything will change. Because it's all about that little person from there on out. And all your, you know, all the things you let your ego control and all the things that you thought were, like, more important because they were satisfying what you wanted or needed, anyone, given time, how to kind of take a back seat, right. To whatever that little person's needs were, you know. And with Jordan, she spent the first six months of her life in a hospital, and it was just. It was hard. It was. It was. It was. You know, I tell people that when I do consulting, you know, if you're going to open up a restaurant, be prepared to crawl through glass through the next three years of your life, at least. And if you make it that far, then you have a chance.
- [42:12]
A
Right.
- [42:13]
B
So I was preparing myself, or I was crawling through the glass at the same time, you know, going back and forth to a hospital and supporting my wife and doing everything. But when I opened up the Savoy, we were only open. Well, we were open for lunch and dinner in the beginning, but for four years straight. Four years. So anybody out there thinking about opening up a restaurant? Listen to this. For four years straight, I lived here. I mean, I was here at 7 in the morning, and I closed a restaurant at night, and I'd sleep on the floor in that other room over there in between shifts. And I did that for four years until my wife came to me and said, jordan. And my daughter was probably like, well, she was five. Asked me why you don't live with us, and that broke my heart.
- [43:04]
A
Yeah.
- [43:05]
B
So I had to start to make the balance. I had to start to figure out how to. How to. You know, I thought I was doing the right thing. Right.
- [43:12]
A
I'm being a provider.
- [43:13]
B
I'm working as hard as I can and stuff, but I wasn't there for her the way I should be. So it's hard. I mean, you know, the restaurant business is not for the. For the. For the weak at heart. It's not for most people.
- [43:26]
A
Yeah. I have a question. I want to get into where you just left off, but I have a question about, like, one of my fears with having kids is that I will resent them because I can't do what I love. I can't live in a truck, camper and drive and find people like you and share their stories. Why am. Why is that the wrong. Do you think that's the wrong mindset?
- [43:47]
B
Absolutely.
- [43:47]
A
Why is that wrong?
- [43:50]
B
Now that I have a kid, I'm so immensely grateful that she chose me to be her dad. And I mean that. The lessons I've learned, the growth I've had as a man and as a person, the inspiration that I have every single day to wake up still today, to do everything I can to provide for this. This human being, for this, for my blood, for my. For my child, is like nothing else. It's like nothing else. And you could do it, you know, if you found the right woman, you could do it traveling around the world or in a camper or anything like that. Yeah, you got to make some sacrifices, but. But what it gives back to you is that there's nothing else like it in the world. Yeah, nothing.
- [44:41]
A
I think you're right. I'm not getting any younger. Who knows what will happen? So this. This. This moment happens where your. Your wife says to you, your. Your daughter wants to know why you're not living, why you don't live with us. And that kind of wakes, that shakes things in you. How did things start to change at.
- [45:02]
B
That point on I. I learned that as an adult, I had to create balance, that I. The only way I could be successful for myself and for those who worked for me and those that I was mentoring and training was by setting a good example of what life, work, life, balance was by figuring it out so I could reach others, teach others, and also find a place, you know, we all need at times a little place to rejuvenate, to get that space, recharge, recharge. And it's so important. I mean, in my life right now. I'm. I'm the. I'm the. Excuse, my French. The old fuck. The old fuck in the. In the group around Asheville. I am the. I think I'm the oldest chef still standing here in Asheville. I'm 66 years old, but, you know, I can still run circles around almost every single person that works for me. But because I take care of myself, because I learned how to honor myself and my body. And I don't want this to be cliche, but. But I do. I mean, I do yoga and I meditate and I work and I. So I find that balance because when I found That I was. When I find a balance going too far in the. In the side of the restaurant, sucking me in. I wasn't being a nice guy. I wasn't being a good person. I wasn't giving the best of myself to others. And it's just not fair. Just not fair.
- [46:31]
A
I am curious, I'm assuming because of the story you. The lifestyle you grew up with and the work you were doing. You were making money. You had good money.
- [46:38]
B
I had very good money.
- [46:39]
A
Did you need to go out and raise money to open your first restaurant?
- [46:43]
B
Well, that's interesting. So right after Jordan was born, six months in the hospital, 1112 operations later, that good money I had went away pretty quickly, I bet.
- [46:57]
A
And how sad is that, by the way, that this great American country can't. We can't do more. Like. I think I heard a stat that financial, you know, your, like health bills, like medical bills are the number one cause of, I guess, bankruptcy, I think is the expression. Maybe that's what I heard. It's what's wild.
- [47:18]
B
It's nuts. And. And. And, you know, I'm today fortunate enough I can pay my insurance. But I. Yeah, you know, back then, yeah, I. I came here with money. Jordan was born. We spent a lot of money. You know, she was travel, traveling. I wasn't traveling. She was medical jets and helicopters and such and rushing her to places. Cleveland, Atlanta. So I got pretty wiped out. Yeah, I bet. So I had my last $40,000. And this gentleman who I was talking about, who I knew, I knew him out in Los Angeles, he was a chef. He moved to New York, moved to Asheville. He and I for years were talking about, let's open a restaurant. Let's open a restaurant. So when I got here, I was like poking at him, let's do this restaurant. Let's do this restaurant. Let's do this restaurant. And it took until Jordan was born. And I sat down with him with a bottle of gin, and I said, look, let's figure something else. Let's do this. I mean, you're a chef. You know, I want to do this. I know I can talk to people. I can run the front of the house and, you know, you know, I can get on the line and start working in the kitchen and stuff like that. And we did it. We opened up Savoy. And so there was a guy. There's a great story. There's a guy, his name is Alan Labson, who owned. I owe everything to him. He owned the Savoy at the time, and he was probably in his late 60s and stuff. And he was ready to get out of the restaurant business. And I went to see him and I knew him through the Jewish community.
- [48:43]
A
So it was a turnkey. It was already. You wouldn't. Okay.
- [48:45]
B
This was huge. That was my first restaurant was a turnkey. Everything else I. I've done from the ground up.
- [48:50]
A
Okay. How long was it in business before you took over?
- [48:54]
B
About five, six years.
- [48:56]
A
Okay.
- [48:57]
B
So I went to him and I. Cup of coffee, came into the restaurant, sat down, I said, I hear you want to get out of the business. You're done. He goes, well, yeah, kind of. I said, well, here's my story. And I told him my story about Jordan, about, you know, my life and how I got here and so on and so forth. And I said, I need an opportunity. And I said, I would love to buy your restaurant. And he thought about it for a second and he said, how much you willing to pay me? I said, how much you want? And he literally.
- [49:24]
A
The dance? Yeah.
- [49:25]
B
And he took a napkin and he wrote a number and he put it in front of me and I looked at it and I said, can you come down by like $25,000? And he did.
- [49:35]
A
Are you willing to share what that first number was?
- [49:37]
B
Sure. Well, it was 275 and he came down to 250. Okay, how's that?
- [49:42]
A
2,000. 2,000.
- [49:43]
B
In 2000, everything.
- [49:45]
A
Brand, equipment, everything. Yeah.
- [49:47]
B
Now understand, before he bought it, it was a Greek diner for like 25 years. So.
- [49:52]
A
And the property, too?
- [49:54]
B
I. The property was still owned by the Greek family that owned the diner.
- [49:59]
A
Okay.
- [49:59]
B
I wasn't able to convince them to sell it to me till about five years ago.
- [50:03]
A
Got it.
- [50:03]
B
So. And he said, how are you going to finance this? I said, well, I was hoping you would do that. He looked at me and he goes, well, if I did that, how much money are you going to get me? I said, I tell you What, I got $47,000 sitting in my bank account right now. I'll give you 40. And he looked at me and he shook my hands and he says, okay. And that was the beginning of my 25 year career in the, in the restaurant business.
- [50:35]
A
So did that $40,000 go? Was that your first payment towards the 250?
- [50:40]
B
Yes.
- [50:40]
A
Okay, and then how did you set it up thereafter?
- [50:43]
B
He owner financed it and I was paying him a, you know, monthly amount until I was able to show that I could be profitable. And I went to a local bank and I said, here's what I've done over the last year and a half, you know, would you get behind me and so I can buy him out? And. And that's how it all started.
- [51:01]
A
So for that first year, was. Was the restaurant profitable when you. When you purchased it in the first place? No. So they were operating in the red. They weren't making money.
- [51:10]
B
Correct.
- [51:12]
A
Were you giving him a percent of profit or what was it a percent of total, like how.
- [51:16]
B
It was just a number. It was just like. Yeah, we came up with. I. I think back in the day, I was giving him like 7% on the money he was essentially loaning me.
- [51:26]
A
Okay, so 7% of whatever you. The debt was is what you paid.
- [51:30]
B
Exactly.
- [51:31]
A
What is 7% of? 250. It would have been 210, right?
- [51:37]
B
Correct. So I think it was like 220 years. I don't know. I think I was giving him like, you know, about. He's pulling out his calculator thing.
- [51:45]
A
Yeah, I totally am. Math is not my surrounding. Even when I use a calculator, I screw up sometimes. It's embarrassing. So 2, 10, 0 times 07. So $14,700.
- [52:00]
B
Okay. But that $14,000, I was able to get down lower. I think I was paying him about $6,000 a month because I amortized it over, like, 25 years. I said to him, I said, would you amortize this for me?
- [52:12]
A
What does that mean, to amortize?
- [52:13]
B
To amortize, basically, is the period of time that you have to pay something off. So if I went to him and I said, okay, I owe you, let's call it 200,000 to make an even number. If you would amortize it for me over 25 years, my payments get lower. But what I'll do for what you just did for me is in five years, there'll be a balloon payment and I'll have to pay you off. So it gave me an opportunity for that five years to have a much lower amount of money I was paying him and to show better profit and to put more money in the bank. So I go to. So I can go to a bank and say, look, right, you got to.
- [52:49]
A
Show that you're profitable. But if you're taking all the. If all the profits going to pay him, you're screwed. But then he can cash out in five years. He can get a lot.
- [52:57]
B
He knew. And if I didn't, you know, God forbid I couldn't. He just takes the restaurant back.
- [53:01]
A
Yeah. So I love having these conversations because I don't think people know how to approach people and have the Conversation.
- [53:07]
B
I got to tell you, it is amazing to me. Amazing to me how many young people come to me for advice and they're just afraid to ask the question. Somebody else, like, hey, I only have this amount of money, or, hey, you know, would you do this for me? Or, you know, would you sell me the bill? They're afraid to go ask. And it's like, what's going to happen? All I can say is no.
- [53:29]
A
Yeah, get out of here, kid.
- [53:30]
B
Right?
- [53:30]
A
Yeah. But we also don't know. We don't have the language. You know, we don't. I don't think we, we don't know what's fair, what's reasonable. Like, we don't have benchmarks. Which is exactly why I like to have these conversations so you can hear.
- [53:43]
B
Like, oh, well, you know what's interesting? So back in 2003, myself and another gentleman here in town, Michelle Bauduin, another restaurateur, started the Asheville Independent Restaurant Association.
- [53:53]
A
I love that.
- [53:54]
B
We've been. I think they're going on there, 20 something, 22nd year, 23rd year. You know why we started it? Because he and I would sit down and have coffee almost. No, it was every Tuesday. We'd have coffee twice a week maybe, but. But every Tuesday we'd have coffee and we'd have these conversations with each other.
- [54:13]
A
And it's always the people that are willing to have these conversations that rise to the top, go further together.
- [54:18]
B
You know what's amazing? All the restaurateurs, all the restaurateurs that we would say, hey, come have coffee with us. No, I'm not going to tell you what my numbers are. No, I'm not going to tell you what, what I'm paying, paying for, you know, that box of whatever. They're not here anymore. He and I are still in business. And once we started getting the other restaurateurs that joined us in this, in creating this organization to sit together and, and share this information, we all rose to the top. We all, we. Well, you know, we all helped each other cream. Rise to the top, you know, and, and I'd be able to. He just did it recently. He. He texted me something about credit card percentages and such. Like, what do you do? You know, it's like by texting them back, you have, you start to, you know, here's the deal. If you want to, if you want to, if you want to isolate yourself and you want to, if you will think that you're smarter than anybody else and keep the information to yourself, well, one day it's going to come bite you in the ass, I promise you. And you don't have to completely open up to Kimono and tell them what you got in the bank and everything, but the general questions that we all face and that we all have to answer and that, you know, there's no real secret about them, but maybe I know more than you do. You know more than I do. Share that information.
- [55:29]
A
Yeah, you're strong in this vertical. I'm strong in this world. Together, we're stronger.
- [55:33]
B
You know, I hate also, I hated when people used to come to me because it was another Italian restaurant no longer in business, somebody who wouldn't talk to us in town. They'd come to me and say, eric, what do you think about your competition? And I'd say, there is no competition. This is a restaurant community. We're here together.
- [55:49]
A
Right.
- [55:49]
B
We're here to help each other. If I do what I'm doing and, you know. Right. And I'm doing the right food and I got the right environment and, you know, providing everything somebody wants, and they're going to come meet with me, and if he does the same thing, then they're going to come eat with him. And you can't eat in the same restaurant every single night. So, you know, it gets all passed around.
- [56:06]
A
Yeah.
- [56:07]
B
But once you start becoming that, you know, you know, he's my competition or, you know, this guy, and I won't mention his name, used to drive past my restaurant every single night because I was so busy to, like, see the business I was doing or, like, you know, count the cars in the parking lot. It's like, what a waste of time. Yeah.
- [56:25]
A
And it's also so unhealthy.
- [56:26]
B
It is.
- [56:26]
A
That's like the equivalent of going on to Instagram and looking at all your competition and seeing it is so unhealthy. Yeah. Just focus on you, who you were yesterday and be a better version of that today.
- [56:35]
B
Exactly.
- [56:36]
A
Yeah.
- [56:36]
B
I still do that today.
- [56:37]
A
Yeah. And, you know, it's. It's interesting, and I don't think this is going to be a popular statement, and I hate to alienate myself with my political connections, but I look at the future. I'm so proud of the restaurant industry right now. When I started this thing 13 years ago, I was terrified to go sit and talk to restaurant owners and be like, hey, can you share some information with me and can I record that and can I publish it to every restaurant owner ever. Like, not ever, but, like, that's alive right now. And I was like, they're gonna think I'm crazy. Like, like nobody shares information like this. But it was me listening to podcasts of other industries, like the tech world and like entrepreneurs and like computer, like that space, you know, SAS companies and stuff like that. Just like sharing this information. This is how I made millions of dollars. I'm like, why don't we do this in the restaurant industry? I couldn't find that podcast. That's why I started the show. And I think even when I look back 13 years ago, when I started to where we are today, there are, I think we've done a 180. Like people share information. There are so many, there are so many entities out there today, groups, organizations, independent, independent restaurant coalitions that are in podcasts and like the information is there. The goal was always to decentralize and democratize knowledge. Like that is happening right now. And I'm so proud of this.
- [57:58]
B
Absolutely.
- [57:59]
A
So the thing I'm worried about saying is I don't see a very hopeful future for restaurant consultants.
- [58:04]
B
Why?
- [58:06]
A
Because of the rates they charge to be able to get access. Like I think that there's going to be consultants, but charging fifty, a hundred thousand dollars. And here's the reason why. It's not that they're not valuable, they are valuable. I don't think that there's no value in consultants. But that information with AI, like the ability to get that information is a literal question away.
- [58:29]
B
Yeah.
- [58:30]
A
And then it will start prompting you to be like, you also want this? Do you also want this? And I know it's not just the information, it's also community and support.
- [58:37]
B
The thing for me though is.
- [58:38]
A
And that's the one thing they got going.
- [58:39]
B
The thing for me though is, you know, AIs left the train station. I get that.
- [58:45]
A
I just want to say there's a follow up thought, but finish what you're going to say.
- [58:48]
B
Go ahead.
- [58:48]
A
No. You sure? I don't want to. Okay, let me just get this out. I think AI combined with the new values and culture of society that's on the rise of sharing information and coming together and being supportive of what you did, I think that's all we really need if we have access to information and we're only getting more abundant access to information because there's resources, like people are sharing this information and then all we need is really relationships and community of other people to talk to.
- [59:14]
B
So you.
- [59:15]
A
We're getting that right.
- [59:16]
B
You hit.
- [59:17]
A
That's why I think consultants have a very. If you're paying thousands of dollars for information and advice. Just go start talking to people. This episode is brought to you by Restaurant Technologies, the leader in automated cooking oil management. Unstoppable restaurant owners know which services to keep in house and which services to outsource. Oil management is one of those things you should outsource. Their Total Oil Management Solution is an end to end closed loop automated system that delivers, monitors, filters, collects and recycles your cooking oil, eliminating one of the dirtiest jobs in the kitchen. Create a more efficient food service operation and ensure consistent food quality with a safer, smarter and sustainable cooking oil solution. Restaurant technology services over 45,000 customers nationwide, including countless past guests on the show. Automate your oil and elevate your kitchen by visiting RTI Inc.com or call 888-779-5314 to get started. This episode is made possible by Sir Boni. Sir Boni is your all in one bookkeeping and financial solution referred to me organically in episode 1200 by Mama Betty's founder Jason Carrier. You gotta hear what Jason had to say about Sir Boni. Anything that comes remotely close to your financials, Sir Boni has your back. Reliable tax preparation and business incorporation, seamless payroll and compliance reports, Strategic CFO services that drive business growth. Detailed customer reporting for complete financial clarity and dedicated support for restaurants and multi location businesses. Did I mention they do bookie? They do it all. This is an end to end financial management solution all under one roof. Let Sir Bony handle the numbers so you can focus on the vision. Call Sir Bony today at 281-888-2413 to schedule your free 30 minute consultation and discover how Sir Bony can streamline your operations and boost your bottom line. Limited time offer and this is exclusive to Restaurant Unstoppable listeners. Mention this Message and get 20% off your first month of services.
- [61:33]
B
So I, you know, I've used the, the term that I've, I've consulted with other people and I would say that every 10 people I consulted with I charged one because I knew that if I could give somebody just a leg up or a little piece of information that wasn't going to, or that was going to help them not lose their, you know, their parents money that they just gave them to them up, opened up a restaurant or wasn't going to put them into bankruptcy, you know, if I could do something to help somebody survive or get better at or quite frankly, and I say this, talk them out of it, talk them out of it, I can't tell you there's a folks that work for me at the Sheffield group, they always laugh because, you know, I get these people to come and talk to me, you know, okay, well, maybe we'll, you know, we'll charge them, and we'll, you know, we'll get some fees. And I inevitably be the guy that says, you don't. You get. Don't do this.
- [62:31]
A
Right.
- [62:32]
B
You know, and if I could do that, it's like I'm helping somebody. I'm saving somebody the pain.
- [62:38]
A
100%, I always say. My mission with this podcast, I used to joke, is to inspire, empower, and transform the restaurant industry. And to talk you out of it.
- [62:46]
B
Sure.
- [62:46]
A
And if, hopefully, by hearing all these stories and hearing that you have to climb through over glass for four years, how bad do you want it?
- [62:54]
B
Right.
- [62:55]
A
Do you want to have parties and get the girls?
- [62:57]
B
Right?
- [62:58]
A
Because there's other things you can do, like, take class on charm, you know, like, don't open a restaurant.
- [63:03]
B
I would crack up when somebody would call me up, and I always. I always ask the why. The why, to me, is the most important question in life in general.
- [63:11]
A
Why?
- [63:12]
B
Why? Is it because if you understand the why, the how will come. But if you understand the why and you're honest with yourself about the why and really honest with yourself about the why, you can really prevent some pain in the future. For instance, why do you want to be a restaurateur? Well, all my friends tell me I'm an amazing cook. Why do you want to be restaurateur? Well, it'd be great to have a place to have friends hang out, you know, bad.
- [63:39]
A
Host a dinner party.
- [63:41]
B
Right, Exactly.
- [63:43]
A
You can even have your friends help you pay for it.
- [63:45]
B
Right.
- [63:46]
A
You know, just provide the space and, like, ask for some money for food.
- [63:49]
B
Right.
- [63:50]
A
That. If that's what you love, then do that. And I hear you 100%. I like to say why? Start with why, and then after why comes who. And I think a lot of people start with how or what. They're like, here's what. Here's my, like, my. My vision. Here's, like, the. The concept. Don't tell anybody about my concept. I don't want to steal it. And it's just like, why and who trump what and how.
- [64:14]
B
Sure.
- [64:15]
A
Every day.
- [64:15]
B
Sure. You know, it's funny when a chef, one of my chefs comes to me and says, you know, know, you know, I've got a great idea, or I want to do this dish. And it's like, you know, do you think you're the only person that came up with this dish? You know, it's like everything's been done.
- [64:30]
A
Right.
- [64:30]
B
It's just, it's just, it's just how you're, how you do it and how you affect it through your, your, your, your hands and your, who you do it with. Right, Exactly.
- [64:37]
A
Yeah. So four years climbing over glass. I want to mention this approach you take, I think is the approach, if you're, if you're. The approach of how you got your first restaurant approach somebody who. There are people all over America that have restaurants on Main street that have kids that want nothing to do with it, and they don't have an exit strategy. Their exit strategy is die. If there's a location that you've been eyeballing, just go in like to your point, just ask and start talking.
- [65:10]
B
Exactly.
- [65:10]
A
And then I think, think there's a book out there called the Main Main Street Millionaire. Author is Corey Sanchez, and she takes you through a process to start negotiating that. She, she makes it a point to say, do not buy restaurants. But if you're crazy enough and you still want to do it. The same exact approach you took. But basically you just, I, you bait all the profits so you have owners pay. You're paying yourself a salary, and then all the profits, it just goes towards paying back.
- [65:39]
B
Exactly.
- [65:40]
A
The, the restaurateur or the, the former owner.
- [65:43]
B
You bring up a great point. There are thousands of restaurants out there right now that are on the edge that somebody's just trying to. Sitting up late at night trying to figure out how the. Do I get out of this thing. And if you are smart and you just, you, you can tell, you can feel that. You know, if you observe a restaurant and you see its business going down, whatever it is, go approach that person.
- [66:08]
A
Right.
- [66:08]
B
Because otherwise, what are you going to do? Try to raise like $4 million and build something from scratch. I mean, it just.
- [66:16]
A
You're doing them a favor.
- [66:17]
B
You're doing them a favor.
- [66:18]
A
Yeah. And the industry's changed so much in the past 25 years, which I'm sure you can attest to what people got into the industry for. It's a much more competitive now. There's a much more that people have to do that they might have not ever had an interest in doing. Like the world of technology stay on top of that marketing and the technology associated with marketing. Sometimes people just, they just want to tap out. They know they don't have the energy, they don't have it in the tank to keep going. They want out. So, yeah, check out that book, the Main Street Millionaire. Corey Sanchez. It'll Give you a play by play and how to set this up. And I think I always like to amplify that books. I think it was really well done. So the other thing I want to point out, four years for you, I kind of made the assumption, and was wrong of me to make the assumption that you were bankrolled and you probably had money and family money put behind you. And that, that's why I always. I never make assumptions because you never know what's going on behind the scenes. What, what could happen to you that could take you from one place to the next in terms of, you know, life, adversity. Just take us back to that point. Four years in, five years in, you start to realize you got to change how you. You're doing things. Take it from there.
- [67:26]
B
Well, you wanted me to be honest. Gonna be very honest. So I. About a year and a half, two years in, this person I opened up the Savoy with and I, who were very dear friends, started going in two different directions. There was things happening in the restaurant I didn't agree with and he didn't necessarily agree with, and, and it was affecting our families and give you a great story. He walked in one day and we had a buy sell agreement. And he puts a buy sell agreement in front of me. For those who don't know, and please do this if you have a partner, and I will encourage you never to have a partner, but make sure that there's an agreement within your operating agreement that says, okay, if I hate you, you hate me, and we want to split up, here's exactly how it's going to happen. And our buy sell basically was that he, you know, he came and offered me a certain amount of money, and I had 30 days to either come up with that amount of money and pay him, you know, get him to go away, or he'd have to give me that money, that amount of money and make me go away. So that happened, which triggered 30 days of me not sleeping and trying to figure out what the fuck am I going to do? I just.
- [68:41]
A
How far into it was this? How many years?
- [68:43]
B
This is about three years. Years into it.
- [68:44]
A
Okay, so before that moment where your daughter.
- [68:48]
B
Exactly. About three years into it. And I had. I had a. A couple. They were. I. I won't mention their names because she was a very famous actress that lived here in Asheville. And he was a very famous businessman. And they used to eat here every single day, lunch and dinner. And we became friends. And again, I knew him through the Jewish community. And one day he Was dining at a table, and the restaurant was kind of empty, and he was in here by himself. And I was sitting across the room with my hands on my head. And he walked over and he goes, eric, what's the matter? I said, I won't use his name. But I said, you know, Jim, you're never going to believe what happened. I told him what happened, and he sat down with me and he said, well, this is going to be the best day of your life. I said, what do you mean? Oh, no, let me back up one other thing. So my dad was always great to me, but my dad was, you know, if I asked him for 50 bucks, I had to pay him back with interest. He was obviously teaching me a lesson. So I went to my dad. I could tell you that, you know, my ex partner offered, said, you know, I'm gonna buy you out for $165,000. Well, I was able to come up with $125,000. And that's because my dad said, I'll give you the money. My dad was great. Times like that, but here's how you're gonna have to pay me back. So I was like, 40 grand short. So I'm sitting there with this guy, we'll call him Jim. And he sits with me and he said. And I just tell him, I said, I don't know how to come up with the other, you know, with this last 40 grand that I got to come up with this. And he goes, this is going to be the best day of your life. I said, what do you mean? He says, just wait here. And he left. He came back and he brought me an envelope of cash. And he said, go buy this out and, And, And. And make this your place.
- [70:36]
A
That's awesome.
- [70:37]
B
And it's people like that that, you know, have changed my life, that. That have been, you know, the difference in me sitting here or not sitting here with you right now. Yeah. And I'll never forget it, you know, And. And there was one other time my dad stood up to the plate. I had hired a. And everybody listen to this one closely. Don't hire bookkeepers and not triple check their work. I had hired a bookkeeper at the time that was, you know, one for him, two for me. One for him, two for me. And I was new at this, and I was juggling, trying to figure out how to run a restaurant or own a restaurant. You know, I was cooking. Some days, I was running in front of the house. Some days, you know, it was. It was hard. Long story short, she was putting money in her pocket and not getting given the money to the federal government.
- [71:24]
A
Oh, my gosh.
- [71:25]
B
And I had an IRS officer show up at the front door and basically say, you got 30 days. I'm locking the door. And I was like, holy.
- [71:33]
A
You know, and what year was this?
- [71:37]
B
This was probably. This is after that four year period of time. Just at that. Around that time, actually.
- [71:42]
A
Okay.
- [71:43]
B
About four years in. And I have a woman in my life. Her name is Renee Hermanson, who's now my cfo, who had. She had taken over for this woman. And she. This Renee saved my life. And my CPA, Stuart LeBlanc, saved my life. We just got together and we tried to work out plans with the irs. Every story you've ever heard is true. They are the worst people on the planet. They have no souls. They don't give a. And so I made them offers. I can pay you this, I can pay you that. And they just kept on turning it away. No, no, no, no. And it's like, what the are we gonna do? And I lovingly.
- [72:31]
A
How much did you owe?
- [72:32]
B
Your allow to say it was about $180,000, almost what you paid to get it paid.
- [72:38]
A
Yeah. Wow.
- [72:40]
B
And I, I. This is going to sound funny. I pulled what I like to call these days and joke with my daughter, the blind card. So my CPA and myself and my wife and my daughter and my nurse, chief financial officer, got in a car, we had an appointment, went down to Charlotte, and we were lucky. We got a woman that, like, had a half of a heart. And we sat in that office, and actually my wife and daughter waited outside. And I started saying, you know, this is what I can give you. This is all I have. And I asked for what's called an offer in compromise, which is where you come up with an amount, and if you can pay that amount and stay clean for 10 years, it all goes away. So at one point during the meeting, I said, excuse me. And I got up and I got my wife and daughter, and I brought them in a room, room, and my daughter's sitting there. I forgot how old she was. She maybe like six years old, five years old. And I said, that's the reason why you need to help me. I said, that's what I go home to every night. That's who I'm trying to support. That's what my life's about. And I was able to get this woman to break a tear. And about three weeks later, she agreed to this offer and compromise we have. And my life changed. But I'm telling you, you know, things come at you all the time, you.
- [74:03]
A
Know, you never know. There's a million and one different things that could push you out of business.
- [74:06]
B
You know, the state of North Carolina, which is an interesting state to deal with, they have this, you know, they watch to see how, how much tips are being reported by your servers. Well, again, I didn't know, but they were only reporting like, you know, I think it was like 12% and they want a minimum of 18%. Yeah. So we had to change how we were paying them. So instead of them telling me what they were getting for tips, we would collect everything and pay the trips back. But it's, it's stuff like that, that if you don't ask, you don't know.
- [74:45]
A
Don't know what you don't know. And there's so many variables in this industry, so much. And if you don't know, like, if you don't have the experience, how are you supposed to learn? And any one of those things that you shared with us, there are four opportunities you could have gone out of business already in the story. And we're in the first one. You only have one restaurant.
- [75:01]
B
That was, that was the first restaurant.
- [75:04]
A
Like, and this is why the podcast is two hours.
- [75:06]
B
Well, and I gotta tell you, I mean, if you are gonna get into the restaurant or if you're currently in the restaurant, look at your, who your CPA is. Yeah. Because restaurant economics is unlike anything else.
- [75:19]
A
Yeah.
- [75:19]
B
The rules, the write offs, the filings. It is, absolutely.
- [75:25]
A
You need a custom specialist.
- [75:27]
B
You need somebody who really knows what they're doing. Otherwise, you know, don't use your Uncle Tony.
- [75:32]
A
Right.
- [75:32]
B
You know, it's gonna bite you in the ass. Yeah.
- [75:34]
A
I think, you know, I'm really proud of my partnership right now with Sir Boni Financial Services. I discovered them through an organic Testimonial. Jason Carrier Episode 1200 and I went to that company and they're fractional. They're all in one financial service. Bookkeeping, taxes, payroll, and they are a fractional cfo. They offer all those services. I don't know, I don't want to say how much it costs because it's case by case. But they're also kind of like a tech stack, like a, you know, they don't, you don't have to go all in on those services. They can meet you where you're at and offer the most important services. Bookkeeping, taxes.
- [76:12]
B
Right.
- [76:13]
A
And I think that that, that approach is the future of the industry. I really do believe that the future of the industry lies in fractional executives. Because you're really fortunate that you can afford to see a CFO well, you know, in a cpa, like it was. Do they have, do they have other customers or they.
- [76:31]
B
Oh, no, absolutely no.
- [76:32]
A
Well, so it's kind of like a fractional them.
- [76:34]
B
My CPA has probably, you know, he's got other customers and he actually handles most of the restaurant tours here in Nashville. My cfo, Renee is my CFO and I'm her primary client and, and we, we office together and such. But she does have other restaurant clients that she'll, she'll do fractional stuff with.
- [76:54]
A
Yeah, but I think with the future of technology and how everything's cloud based now there's this real opportunity for specialists. If you know restaurant technology operations is finance.
- [77:05]
B
Right.
- [77:06]
A
It's tied together. So tech stacks like Restaurant Systems Pro or Restaurant365 that are general ledgers. Accounting, inventory, budgeting, purchasing, like literally all the things that touch profit are now under one roof. They're cloud based. And you can. And if you. Onboarding and knowing how to use those platforms is, is a lift and if you can master those technologies and you have the accounting background.
- [77:33]
B
Sure.
- [77:33]
A
And you like, you can manage so many accounts with that technology. Because now the reese. The tools are there.
- [77:40]
B
Yeah, but what's missing?
- [77:41]
A
Relationship, Right?
- [77:42]
B
Yeah.
- [77:43]
A
I think if you can do it in house, amazing. But at the, at the same time, what's going to bridge you from going from one location to 10 locations until you can bring it in house? I think there's a common. I think there's something that you. I don't know. I don't, I don't have all the answers. But I do think that in order to have a competitive edge, you need to leverage technology and specialists. And sometimes we don't have the money for the specialist as well as the goods go up.
- [78:09]
B
You may not have the money, but you may not have the money because, you know, one of the things I love is that at any given time I can get up from my office and walk across the hall and there's Renee and I can sit with her and we can say, how do we solve this problem?
- [78:26]
A
Right.
- [78:27]
B
You know, I have a chief operating officer who's been with me for nine years. I've got chief experience officer who used to be the manager of this restaurant. Restaurant, you know, and those connections and those, and the ability to sit down and to talk about empirical data because that's, that's, that's really important in the restaurant business is like you know, what happened two years ago when this, this, and this happened, or, you know, you know, let's go look at our numbers for last December. What are we going to be? You know, how do we prepare for this December kind of thing? It's hard, you know, and one of the things I would suggest to anybody is first of all, treat people with respect and treat them well, because at some point you may need to lean on them.
- [79:09]
A
Right.
- [79:09]
B
And that's what I. I think I did, because that's why people work for me so long, you know, So I have these people that have been around me that get to know me, that drink the Kool Aid, that understand the vision, that can act and react to almost anything that happens to us, whether it be Covid or the hurricane, recently.
- [79:26]
A
Even gotten closer to talking about that.
- [79:28]
B
You know, so it's, It's. I understand what you're saying, and it is what the future is going to be. But the more you can surround yourself with people, I'm a. I'm a huge believer in creating career paths for people within your organization, whether they be a server who maybe wants to be an accountant, you know, a bookkeeper one day or whatever it might be. Talk to your people. Yeah, I do this thing called 10 minutes with Eric. It's hard with 170 employees, but I go to each one of the restaurants and they have to sign up and.
- [80:00]
A
17,000 minutes with Eric, it's about that.
- [80:04]
B
And I spend 10 minutes, you know, it's amazing.
- [80:07]
A
1700, I think.
- [80:08]
B
1700, yeah. It's amazing what you can find out. And I get to know my employees and, you know, some of them may say, I want to be a restaurant manager one day. I want to do this. And, you know, and I think about, okay, how can I help you? For. How can I. You know, one of my big mantras you said earlier is, you know, you can come work for me for five minutes or five years. What's more important to me while you're doing that is you become a better person first and then a better server or a better cook, something like that. So I try to look at how the relationship can be reciprocal, how you're going to help me, I'm going to help you. But also if I can help you with a career path that benefits me in the future, whether it be. I mean, I have several examples of. Of chefs that started out with me as dishwashers, that have their own restaurants or their own catering companies. I pay attention to that stuff. I don't look at each Individual as just how much money you gonna make me, right?
- [81:00]
A
There's so much wasted. Actually, ironically, my next interview is the author of Wasted Talent, Sam Kaiuchi, also a founder of One Huddle, which is a training platform. Past guests in the show and what you're talking about is wasted talent. If you don't take the time to listen to understand what are your goals, what are your dreams, what are your aspirations, what are you good at? What do you love? You. How are you supposed to create those win win situations if you don't know what winning looks like for that person?
- [81:27]
B
I'm going to be a slight bit angry. Dizing why I'm successful is because I'm in my restaurants every single day.
- [81:34]
A
If you don't want to be in your restaurants every day, then don't open a restaurant.
- [81:37]
B
Don't open a restaurant.
- [81:38]
A
And some people would argue that, that that's not the case. You should try to make it so your restaurants don't hinge on you. But you should. I believe that your, your restaurant shouldn't hinge on you. You should be able to go to a funeral. You should be able to go to a wedding. You should be able to go be with your family if they need you. But you should want to be in the restaurant very much. You should like to be in your restaurant. You should find joy in being in your restaurant. You don't want to go hang out on a beach and that's what you want to do and have this passive income machine.
- [82:09]
B
But also, don't be the dick. I like to say that. Excuse me, but it's like if you're going to hang out in your restaurant, be there to bring people support and joy and mentorship, you know, don't be constantly pounding on them, you know. Yeah, there's days I get a little upset why somebody did something and we talk it through and such. I may be, you know, I'm very direct and honest. Honest with people I don't believe in. But, you know, I also understand I don't want them every single time I walk through that door to be like, you know, puckering a little bit, like, oh, he's here again. I want them to smile when I walk through that door and understand I'm there to help them in their careers again, whether it's for, you know, you know, five months or 10 years. Yeah, it's so important.
- [82:57]
A
I mean, I'm loving this conversation and I just want to check in with you. We blocked from noon to 2. Give me a hard stop.
- [83:05]
B
2:30.
- [83:06]
A
2:30 okay. That will really help me moderate the conversation going forward. And I mean, we're still in first gear right now. I feel like in terms of like where you are in your career. You've opened seven restaurants in total. Think about your story. Second gear, third gear, fourth gear. You're in fifth gear now. Or are you in fifth gear? Is there more?
- [83:29]
B
You know, I'm just celebrated 25 years. They just threw me this big ass beautiful party. It was great. Yeah. And I gave a little speech. And at the end of my speech, I said, I can't wait to see what the next 25 years is going to be.
- [83:42]
A
You know, you got it in you. Only 66. That's. That's young by today's age.
- [83:46]
B
Exactly. I. Will I ever stop? No.
- [83:50]
A
Do I want unstoppable?
- [83:52]
B
I'm definitely unstoppable. You know why I'm unstoppable? I know you're gonna ask me this question. Question. Why is that? I wake up every single day knowing it's going to be okay. I really do have found a space inside of myself. I don't have fear.
- [84:04]
A
We are anxious creatures by nature.
- [84:06]
B
We are. And I just, you know, I've been through so much that I just know every single day I wake up, I'm gonna be able to figure it out. I got good people around me.
- [84:15]
A
This is the conversation I had with my girlfriend when I left New Hampshire a month ago. I had $2,000 in my checking account and I'm driving a truck camper from New Hampshire to Texas, where I know half my budget is going to go up in flames just getting there.
- [84:31]
B
Right.
- [84:32]
A
And she's like. I'm like, it always works out. It's going to be okay.
- [84:36]
B
It always does.
- [84:36]
A
I'll figure it out.
- [84:37]
B
It always does. And I'm.
- [84:38]
A
And I haven't gotten to the negative yet. And I'm on my way back.
- [84:41]
B
Exactly. There you go.
- [84:43]
A
It works out.
- [84:44]
B
No. And. And you know, I look, failures, never an option. It just never is. Because if you're a good person and you're doing the right things, there's always a solution. There's always a way to figure it out. And if you're also brave enough and think of yourself as being unstoppable, ask other people. Go say, hey, I'm in the shits right now. Do you have any advice? What can you do to help me? You know, there are good people out there. People do want to see other people succeed.
- [85:13]
A
100. There's more good than bad. But yeah, we often gravitate towards the negative because the negative gets amplified. It's.
- [85:20]
B
You want to know something? It takes less energy to be negative than it does to be positive. It really does.
- [85:27]
A
It takes less energy to be negative than it does to be positive. So you're saying because it's easier to.
- [85:33]
B
Be negative, it's easier to. To, you know, have a, you know, lazy pity party for yourself. It's being late. It's being lazy.
- [85:39]
A
Just because being positive means turning on your frontal lobe and figuring it out.
- [85:44]
B
Exactly.
- [85:45]
A
And that's hard. Exactly. That thing takes up a lot of energy.
- [85:48]
B
Absolutely. You get exhausted.
- [85:50]
A
Yeah. Your brain is a big energy suck. We don't realize it. It's just this gushy thing that, like. It's like. It's. I think, what's. I can't remember the percentage, but it's a big chunk. I think 25 of all the energy that we produce goes towards running.
- [86:05]
B
Oh, absolutely.
- [86:06]
A
Something like that.
- [86:06]
B
But, you know, you talk about fifth gear. So, you know, I've got a new concept coming online. I just bought a building and we're moving our corporate offices in there. The Shepherd Group, and a new concept. And, you know, I. We were talking the other day, and it's like, oh, you know, I think the concept's going to really take off and be great. So, like, where's the next one going to be, you know, or what's the vision? The concept?
- [86:28]
A
Yeah. Your vision for Shefford Group.
- [86:30]
B
You know, I hope it goes on for as long as it wants to go on.
- [86:34]
A
What's your dream, though? What's the vision?
- [86:36]
B
I'll tell you. So we. Do you know what a charrette is?
- [86:39]
A
No.
- [86:40]
B
Okay. Charrette is. Is sort of a gathering of people within your company or in your business or in your life, where you figure out what your plans are. No.
- [86:49]
A
Sounds kind of.
- [86:50]
B
I know. No, it's not. It's actually. It's a business term. I think it's French. But so I do charrettes a lot with my. With my staff, my executive staff and such. And we're in the middle of one right now. It's like, know, where do we want to go from here? And, you know, for me, my vision is in the next five years. So by time, I'm like, you know, 70 or 71, something like that. I want to be able to take more time. I want to be able to travel with my. My wife and daughter. Just with my wife, you know, and go live in Spain for a month and cook or learn or whatever and come back and know that the people that I've left in place see my vision, you know, embrace my vision. And more importantly, they're all making good money doing so. It's very important to me. So. So. So for me, the vision is. Is to let this thing go as long as it wants to go, you know, until I. Until I can't stand anymore.
- [87:46]
A
Yeah.
- [87:47]
B
Or they don't want to stand anymore.
- [87:48]
A
And I love. Your vision is creating opportunity for others.
- [87:51]
B
It has to. Yeah.
- [87:52]
A
And I think that that's. That's the. The magic sauce right there is when I always like to say the two things determine growth. People and cash flow.
- [88:00]
B
Absolutely.
- [88:01]
A
And the only time you should open a new restaurant, I believe, is if you have somebody on your team or somebody in your network that you love, and you have them, and you can. You have the people, and then you have the cash.
- [88:14]
B
Right.
- [88:14]
A
To support it.
- [88:15]
B
Right.
- [88:16]
A
And if you don't have the people or the cash flow, then wait. And, like, if you're. If you're gonna lose an opportunity or somebody who you brought up and you've mentored and educated, they hit a ceiling because your. Your bench is deep. That's when you open the next restaurant, because you got to take those very much people, those culture carriers, and give them opportunity.
- [88:37]
B
It took me 10 years before I opened up another Vinnies because I wanted to be right. Yeah. And I wanted all the systems in place, and I wanted everybody to be.
- [88:47]
A
So this is gear two.
- [88:48]
B
That was gear two.
- [88:49]
A
Yeah.
- [88:50]
B
Right. I want. I wanted the people around me to have enough experience and enough knowledge under their feet to where we could. We could go into battle together and succeed.
- [89:02]
A
Okay, we got about 30 minutes left together. We just identified gear two. What. What was gear three? What care are you in right now? Four. If five is what you're about to do that you're in four.
- [89:11]
B
I'm in four right now. Now, gear three was when I wanted to open up Jetty Ray's Oyster House.
- [89:16]
A
What year did that happen? That was 20. 20.
- [89:18]
B
2020.
- [89:19]
A
Gear three.
- [89:20]
B
Yeah. In the middle of COVID Wow.
- [89:22]
A
I was curious if that happened before or after.
- [89:24]
B
It was right in the dead. I had signed a lease, and we had deployed contractors and such, and Covid hit.
- [89:35]
A
So you're in gear four. So what was the next gear that you shifted into over the past few years? Five years. What changed? What was a big pivotal point for you?
- [89:49]
B
There's two factors there, if you will. The one factor which I mentioned earlier, I. I know what it's going to take to care to take care of my daughter for the rest of her life. So. I know. I know roughly.
- [90:02]
A
Goal. Vision.
- [90:03]
B
Right. A goal of vision. How much money needs to be in a bank, you know, somewhere else. My wife. Target. Right. So I've got that target in my mind, and I. And so that's one piece of it. The other piece of it is, you know, satisfying this thing I have inside of myself of. I'm a creative guy. You know, I love creating things. I love giving other people opportunity to jump in that pool with me and create as well.
- [90:29]
A
Yeah. Co create.
- [90:31]
B
Co create. And I know the more I can do that, I know this is gonna sound the way it's gonna say, but the more I can do that, the more opportunities I'm giving other people to start their visions in their lives and move on to do the things in their lives that. That they choose to do and provide for their families, you know. At the end of the day, how.
- [90:50]
A
Did this start for you? Real quick. At the end of the day, finish that thought. I don't want to cut you. I don't want your.
- [90:55]
B
No, it's okay. At the end of the day, when I move on to the next. Whatever, it's going to be when I. When I'm.
- [91:03]
A
Whatever's after.
- [91:04]
B
Whatever's after. I. I want people to, if you will, say about me or reflect about me, that I always gave them an opportunity to be the best they could be, to find the pathway for their dreams, to learn things, to be better people in life, how to treat people in life better. So, you know, it's. It's. You know, money's always got to be the byproduct. If you go into anything wondering, you know, how much am I making today? You still need a plan. You still need goals. But if every single day that's all you're thinking about, you're screwed.
- [91:45]
A
Yeah, you need to be. Financials, financially or fiscally responsible. Yeah, yeah, you need to be responsible. You need to know what that looks like. Like. But if that's the goal, if that's the objective, is that. That's what I'm hearing. That that won't be enough. Wait, did I miss it? I think what I'm saying is if you're making all but money, then you're missing the point. Is that what I'm hearing? Or are you saying that you need.
- [92:08]
B
If you're making. What I'm saying is, again, if money is.
- [92:12]
A
Is.
- [92:13]
B
Is. Is. Is the motivator.
- [92:14]
A
Okay, that's what I thought I heard.
- [92:16]
B
Then you're Screwed. Got it.
- [92:18]
A
So I think, and I want to point out what I wanted to share before was that you, this all started for you because a restaurant tour gave you an opportunity.
- [92:26]
B
Because somebody gave me an opportunity.
- [92:28]
A
A restaurant tour gave you an opportunity.
- [92:29]
B
Exact.
- [92:30]
A
A restaurant owner gave you an opportunity. And it's not in the same nature of what you want to do for your staff very much.
- [92:36]
B
Want to do it with them very much.
- [92:38]
A
But it's, it, But I, you know, it's, it's. And I wrote down gear four giving others opportunities to co create. And now that's. And that's what you're, you're building the house to move into right now. And that's gear for.
- [92:49]
B
For. Exactly.
- [92:50]
A
Yeah, exactly.
- [92:51]
B
So I mean the, you know, my dream, like I said in four to five years is that, you know, my wife and daughter and I decide to go to Spain for, you know, three, four weeks. And I know that everybody's got my backs. Everybody's there for me because. Not because out of fear, because they want to, they want to, they want to do a good job for me and for themselves and they want to provide for me and themselves.
- [93:17]
A
They all proactive.
- [93:19]
B
Proactive. Yeah, exactly.
- [93:20]
A
Reactive, which the industry is really guilty of being reactive consumer to so many outside forces. And I, whenever I can, I like to echo my mission statement to inspire, empower and transform the industry. And I do believe that if we transform the restaurant industry, if we get more restaurant owners to think like you, then in restaurants across the country are thinking like you. You're telling me that we're not going to change the world?
- [93:45]
B
Of course we will.
- [93:46]
A
I think food, the things closest to food have always been what has been we. Our evolution or who we are has always hinged on our relationship with food. And we are the closest thing to that right now, with the exception of.
- [94:01]
B
Maybe farmers, you know, a chef's name.
- [94:03]
A
Not with maybe farmers got us beat. But we are very close to them, you know, and, and I think, I think you're an example of like what you're doing. Your vision for scale is what I want to be amplified. It's about creating it's transformative power to you. Change comes from the inside out. We have to take control. We can't point to the government and say why is anybody doing something about this? What the are we doing exactly? What are we doing to do something about it? And this is going to hit some people. I'm going to piss them off. Like when. When the food stamps went away recently. Horrible. I want to say I Think that's horrible, but the same at the same time. How up is it part of my language that we need to rely on the government to feed our neighbors?
- [94:49]
B
48% of the US was like, sucking. Right.
- [94:53]
A
You know what I'm saying? Shame on us.
- [94:56]
B
Right?
- [94:56]
A
You work in a restaurant when you. How many. How much food goes into that.
- [95:01]
B
That.
- [95:01]
A
That trash every day? What the are we doing, man? We are the problem. Don't point your finger at the government and say, do something about this.
- [95:09]
B
You do something. Right?
- [95:10]
A
What are we doing?
- [95:11]
B
Exactly? Exactly.
- [95:12]
A
It's time for us, the industry, hospitality, warmth, generosity, communality, caring for each other, to lead by example and change the world.
- [95:22]
B
But it's also why you can't. I see so many restaurant tours, just walk in their restaurant and they look at the people that work for them as like, how much are you making for me? How much are you making for me? How much you costing me? Right, right. It's so impersonal.
- [95:37]
A
And how much am I making for you?
- [95:38]
B
Right.
- [95:39]
A
What can I.
- [95:40]
B
Exactly. You gotta flip it. Yeah. And once you flip it, it's amazing how things just grow and how that. That safety net, there's a. I just want to quickly say there's a great chef. His name is Pierre Tem. I don't know if you know him. He's a Senegalese chef, and he was on Lynn Rosetta Casper's show that was on NPR called oh, my God, Setting the Table. No, that's Danny Myers, the Splendid Table. And he. You should look this. This episode up. And he talks about a concept, a way you live your life. In Senegal, it's called taranga. And teranga is. Is so much more than just how you carry yourself every day. It's sort of what your soul is about, and it's about how you treat the other. How you invite people into your home to sit around your bowl because they eat with their hands around. Right. But how you invite others into your home and whether you know them or not, and bring them around your bowl, and they are, at any one given time, the most most important person in that moment. And you're sharing with them whether you know them or not, and you give everything to them. That's how I live my life and how I run my businesses and how I treat my customers and how people.
- [97:01]
A
Existed for the majority of our existence, pretty much. So it was always about, who's at your table, who are you? Who's standing around the fire with you?
- [97:10]
B
Right.
- [97:10]
A
That was the most important part. Person in any moment. It was the Person you're sharing the community oven with in the meal.
- [97:17]
B
Absolutely.
- [97:18]
A
There's this book I'm reading right now called the Social Brain, was co authored by Robin Dunbar, who's the. The man that's behind the Dunbar number.
- [97:27]
B
Yeah.
- [97:28]
A
It's fascinating. The Social Brain is the name of the book and it talks about. I. I love this stuff. It's like, I do think our.
- [97:35]
B
Our.
- [97:35]
A
The answer to our future is in studying our past to understand how we came to be this creature that we are, what is optimal, you know, and then reverse engineering our future to co. To meet our instinctual needs. But I could talk to you for three hours, man, but we gotta. We gotta stop it.
- [97:55]
B
I wanted to say something else. There's a great chef. I think it was one of the questions you're gonna ask me who I. There's a couple of chefs that I. That I really respect a lot.
- [98:08]
A
I know. Yeah.
- [98:09]
B
One of them is Ismael Torres. He owns a restaurant called Rough Chop. And he talks about what you allow to become your standards, what you allow around you in your culture to be the standard defines everything.
- [98:24]
A
And so perception is reality.
- [98:26]
B
Perception is reality. And so. But if you allow a line cook to be sloppy. Right. If you allow a server to stand out back smoking a cigarette and being on their phone, what are your standards? What are you setting for yourself? And what are you setting for them?
- [98:41]
A
Right. Yeah, I. People think they're. People like to think their culture is what they put in the operations manual. But your culture is the reality of what's happening in any one given moment.
- [98:51]
B
Yeah, exactly. The other person is Eric Repair. You know, he. Anybody has an opportunity to read any of his books.
- [98:59]
A
Thirty Oaks.
- [99:00]
B
Thirty Oaks. I love it. You know, here was a guy who came out of the whole French kitchen, you know, brigade system of cooking and screaming and throwing plates and making you recook something. Until he found Buddhism and he realized what a complete prick he was and how he had to change himself.
- [99:19]
A
When did he find that?
- [99:21]
B
It's probably about 30 years ago. Okay. Yeah.
- [99:23]
A
But for. Or after he wrote. I'm trying to remember that. If I remember that from the book 30 yokes that we talked about, I.
- [99:29]
B
Think it's before it, but anyway, that he took a look in the mirror and realized that this destructive, poisonous environment he was creating and how it was making him sick and everything else around him, poisoned and sick.
- [99:46]
A
Yeah.
- [99:47]
B
I really so respected that. Yeah, I really so respected how he did that. And. And we all need to look at that every single day.
- [99:54]
A
Yeah. I want to Focus on these, these gear shifts. We identified 07 or sorry, 2010 when you opened your second location. You've since opened five more locations. You've closed three.
- [100:06]
B
I, I closed three.
- [100:09]
A
Give us a lesson from when you're in gear two of being a multi unit operator. So the. How you evolved, how you transformed during.
- [100:15]
B
This time, you know, it's. It was very difficult because I was somewhat learning on the job, right. I had all this ambition, this drive and this vision, and I wanted to do these things. And one of the things I was not being cognizant of, that I quickly changed, was how the team that was around me, the closest to me, the executive staff, if you will, were drowning because I saw them sucking through a fire hose. Right. I was shoving slowly, so much information at them and like demanding we, we gotta keep. Right. And I had to take a step back. Waterboard, right as waterboarding. And I had to realize, okay, you're not me. You know, maybe I can handle that, but I understand you're each individual, so, so let's take a step back. And I really started to respect, you know, I always respected, you know, their, their, their opinions and such, but I also started to respect the fact that, that each individual could only handle so much.
- [101:13]
A
Right.
- [101:14]
B
So we had to pull the brakes back a little bit and we started taking things in pieces. Breaking, breaking down. Okay, we're gonna, we're gonna buy another property, we're gonna build another Vinnies, you know, we're gonna, we're gonna open up jetty rays and. Oh, shit, Covid just hit, you know, how do we pivot into things? And what I did was something that, I mean, again, I'm pretty direct and honest with all my staff, but I started listening more. You have to listen. I mean, there's a reason why they're sitting. There's a reason why you're paying them.
- [101:44]
A
Right?
- [101:45]
B
So don't always, you know, roll over them with your, with your vibrato or your, your thoughts and such, listen to people and let that stuff start to marinate in your brain. And that helped me a lot. It helped us really start to compartmentalize how we're moving forward and systems. Right, right. Creating systems, better accounting systems. You know, we upgraded in that time to aloha. Now we're upgrading. I don't want to. Well, maybe I shouldn't have done that. But now we're upgrading the toast, you know, just watching how things make out.
- [102:17]
A
Why shouldn't you? Said what, what, what was wrong with that?
- [102:20]
B
I. I guess, I guess Nothing. Might as well be honest.
- [102:23]
A
So leaving Aloha was the. What you shouldn't have said.
- [102:26]
B
Yeah, but I guess it's no problem.
- [102:28]
A
Yeah, I mean it's. Yeah, but you're moving to toast. Why? I. I actually love talking about this stuff.
- [102:33]
B
Aloha, quite frankly, went from being a really good hands on company to being bought by ncr. And then, you know, it's weird how that happens. Having to call into, you know, 15 different call centers and you have to start the conversation over again and over again and just, you know, you got.
- [102:50]
A
To fix the problem.
- [102:50]
B
Right. I have a. My coo, Sean Cudmore, and I love him to death. He knows more about Aloha and how to use these systems than the people that pick up the phones on the other end of the phone. Yeah, he tells them what they're doing.
- [103:04]
A
Yeah, yeah, I hear you. I want to get into tech stack.
- [103:08]
B
Sure.
- [103:09]
A
But before we do that. Gear three. 20, 20, 20, 20.
- [103:13]
B
Covet hits.
- [103:14]
A
What was unique about Jetty Rays that made you think that this is a gear shift for you?
- [103:20]
B
Well, you got to understand something. I was going to Jetty Ray's with a different mindset. This was going to be a coastal seafood restaurant that was going to start elevating seafood in my mind's eye here in Asheville and bring amazing quality oysters and such to the table. But now we turned it. We basically, we did all of our restaurants, we turned them into counter service. Vinny's became counter service. Oh really? Yeah, because look, if I didn't, we'd all be. You and I wouldn't be sitting here talking right now. Right. So it's like how do we stay open? How do we keep as many people employed as possible? The good news is funny, Vinnies. We always had a very robust to go business here, you know, like you would in any small Italian restaurant in Long island or Brooklyn, something like that. So we said, okay, let's push into what we do with to go. We, we know it very well and let's turn Jetty Rays into basically a counter service to go restaurant.
- [104:17]
A
Yeah, I think that that's the future on. Honestly, if I'm opening a restaurant tomorrow, I'm not using servers. I'm gonna have hosts and they're gonna maybe zones depending on the size of the restaurant. You don't. I think I, I think the idea of a server is kind of antiquated. It was like that was born in a time during fine dining when it was very high touch. It was very steps of service. It Was a dance. I don't want to disrespect the craft, but it's also a huge operational expense. The training, the, the actually having a, the person do that. I think at the end of the day what makes people come back is the relationship.
- [104:54]
B
Well, being a server today is, is become transient. You know, you're right. There was a day where you became a server and that was your profession.
- [105:04]
A
Right.
- [105:05]
B
That's what you did. It's very rare to find that these days.
- [105:08]
A
Well, I, it, it was a need. Need. There are. The world's changing and as much as we hate these things, sometimes it can take an order better than we can. It might not be able to ups. Actually I would argue it can upsell better than we can because it like a kiosk. If you market properly, the data supports that. A kiosk will get people to spend more money.
- [105:33]
B
Sure.
- [105:33]
A
Because it will never forget to upsell. If it's busy. It's not going to skip over things.
- [105:37]
B
Right, right.
- [105:38]
A
It's going to know what you're ordering. It's going to make with every top. It's going to make a suggestive. Do you want more like, you know, like do you want to double like it. It just does a better job at upselling. But at the end of the day, the order taking isn't the hospitality though. I think you can have a. Somebody on staff and their job is to just be present and to touch tables and to float and to look for distressed people and be warm and generous. How can I help you? What can I get you? You know, like.
- [106:09]
B
Well, in the old days, I mean a dining experience, a server took you through the experience.
- [106:15]
A
Right, right.
- [106:16]
B
They, they. Most people want to be told what to eat.
- [106:19]
A
Right.
- [106:19]
B
Like you're saying with a.
- [106:20]
A
Exactly.
- [106:21]
B
Yeah. And, and, and I'm gonna get in trouble. But generally, generationally, you know, generations changed and the interest of each individual young person changed and they, they, their, their, their interaction with this made them less able to interact with this.
- [106:42]
A
Right.
- [106:42]
B
So you know, when they went to take an order, it wasn't, it wasn't this romantic experience of, you know, you're a server, you help me get to my meal and such. It was just more like I'm gonna take an order.
- [106:51]
A
And yeah, there's a lot of changing things right now too.
- [106:54]
B
I think tons.
- [106:55]
A
Restaurants are also much smaller menus. We're realizing we don't need to have a right super educated person on all these things that we offer. We can just do a few things really well. There's a lot of different veros. And I'm not saying that that's going away. Omasaki, for example, it's hot. There's. How many restaurants are winning Michelin stars. Omasi.
- [107:15]
B
Thank you.
- [107:15]
A
What did I say? Oma. Thank you.
- [107:17]
B
Just so you know, that's my hobby.
- [107:19]
A
Oh, is it really? I thank you for correcting.
- [107:20]
B
I travel a lot.
- [107:22]
A
Boston just got one.
- [107:23]
B
Do you hear that?
- [107:25]
A
But that is high touch, high service. And it also costs a thousand dollars to go out to eat. So I don't think those concepts are dying. There's just going to be a whole lot less of them because of the operational costs associated with it. And only a few people of a few privileged people can afford to eat that.
- [107:44]
B
But we'd be remiss if we didn't recognize the fact that the culture of the, the, of the young people today is, is, you know, they're very isolated. There's not a lot of wanting that if you not a Makassi experience. But you know, that that experience of dining, it's just, it's just, it's just not there anymore.
- [108:07]
A
So I think the question was third gear. Jetty rays. How was that third gear? And I think it was trying to figure out how to do that.
- [108:15]
B
Well, my third gear was getting through Covid.
- [108:19]
A
Okay, and how did you come out of COVID stronger?
- [108:25]
B
We. Because we. Because we learned. We learned. How can I say this? We learned what we were doing wrong when we were a full service restaurant at Vinnie's and made it better once we reopened as counter service. As counter service.
- [108:41]
A
So what were you doing wrong? Oh, God.
- [108:44]
B
God. You know, well, we learned a lot about to go our to go business. I'm going to get in trouble with this one too. But you know, Uber Eats and Grubhub and all this stuff, I mean, they take a lot of money away from you. Yeah, they really do.
- [108:59]
A
But what's the most important thing they take away from you?
- [109:02]
B
The interaction. Human interaction.
- [109:04]
A
The. The, the. Yeah, the relationship.
- [109:05]
B
Relationship.
- [109:06]
A
Not even. They're not in, in your four walls. You don't have a way to, to talk to them?
- [109:11]
B
No, no, not at all.
- [109:12]
A
You know, and, and I'm being your customer. You don't have the data.
- [109:16]
B
Right. When we took over at, at Kanshan, my, my, my Asian restaurant, Sean, my CEO came to me and said, you know, look at this 30% we're giving to somebody else. Look how much money we could be making. And look, look at the interaction we could create by getting rid of this. And I was so scared to do it. And we did it. Business hasn't changed. In fact, we're doing better than ever. And it was like, I don't have to be given 30% of.
- [109:43]
A
Oh, sorry. I've been. You've been. It's. It's amazing it lasted this long. I've been watching on the corner of my house.
- [109:48]
B
I should have moved that further back 30%. Eric, hit the right.
- [109:51]
A
The camera.
- [109:52]
B
Sorry. 30% of your hard work. You're just giving us some, you know.
- [109:57]
A
Yeah.
- [109:58]
B
Company and some dude that's driving around in their car that really doesn't give a shit what your food's gonna look like when it gets some of these.
- [110:03]
A
You're outsourcing. You're using third parties. That's one of the things you were doing wrong. You don't do that anymore.
- [110:07]
B
Don't do that.
- [110:07]
A
So you do that all in house. Delivery or takeout. How do you do that if you don't do delivery, do you?
- [110:11]
B
I stopped doing delivery.
- [110:12]
A
Okay. But you were doing delivery.
- [110:13]
B
Yeah, people come here. Oh.
- [110:15]
A
Because, you know. Because things open back up.
- [110:17]
B
Exactly.
- [110:17]
A
Gotcha.
- [110:18]
B
So. And then Jetty Ray's, we took to. I took to where I wanted to go, which was not quite Savoy, but a more elevated space of dining. Not white tablecloths, but really great steps of service, really great wine list, amazing seafood. Things that people weren't getting here in the mountains. And it's, you know, not good at doing. Fantastic. Sorry.
- [110:36]
A
No, you're fine. What haven't we discussed that you want to make sure comes out of this conversation.
- [110:48]
B
Look at my notes because I wrote some things down for me. Well, never compromise. It's really important, you know, don't be afraid to. To. To stick to your. To your values as long as are dead good values. But, you know, don't, don't, don't. Let me see. I'm going to look at my notes. One second. Ah. One thing that's really important we said this earlier is, and I tell this my daughter all the time and to my staff, you know, what other people think of me is none of my business. Just keep your head down. Stay out of other people's shit. Focus on what you're doing every single day. Find a way to get better or to change yourself and what you're doing. Doing in the business itself. And success starts to really start to come that way. You know, be collaborative. Make sure that you treat everybody from the dishwashers on. On up and down equally. Yeah. You know, everybody's got a. And everybody's Got a story. Don't forget that. You know, and I try to. I try to make sure that I'm constantly thinking about how am I contributing to building the next generation.
- [112:00]
A
Yeah. And there's still so much I want to talk about with you. Honestly, I could.
- [112:05]
B
I could go.
- [112:05]
A
I could do this podcast for three hours. This has been so much fun. What is your tech stack? So you mentioned Toast. You're moving to Toast?
- [112:12]
B
Moving to Toast. You know, we. Everybody, you know, we, you know, we use Google teams.
- [112:20]
A
We.
- [112:21]
B
I mean, obviously our phones are important. Because what I like about Toast is, is, you know, I can look at any one given time and see the, you know, what the numbers are. Yeah, I have to stop that sometimes, you know, my wife and I'll sit on the couch at home, like, oh, do you see what you. Yeah, you know, sometimes you got to put that down.
- [112:37]
A
Are there any other technologies you're using other than your. That's your pos. But what about for labor management, inventory purchasing, when. General ledger? Are you using QuickBooks or.
- [112:45]
B
Well, we're using QuickBooks. Okay. But Renee and her team, you know, we look at. Here's something else I'll tell people. Look at your numbers constantly. You know, we do weekly P Ls, we do, you know, weekly P mixes, what's selling, what's not selling. Don't be. I'm not saying be like, react, you know, reactionary all the time, but have the information, let the information sit with you and make decisions based on if you're new at it. Well, it's going to have to be, you know, it's going to take you some time, but if you've been doing this for a little while, use the empirical data, use the stuff you have in your back pockets.
- [113:21]
A
Are there any new implementations that you recently have relative to technology that or a new system that you think is really moving the needle for you that you want to share something you've been happy with?
- [113:31]
B
No, not really.
- [113:32]
A
All right. What about. No, you're fine. I always. I'm always looking for leads. It's all about mining for gold and trying to get leads. Companies to collaborate with and make an.
- [113:42]
B
Sure.
- [113:42]
A
So that's all I'm doing. What I like to talk. So, again, the mission statement is to inspire, empower, and transform the industry. If we look to the future, if we're going to be intentional going forward, like, what is that future that we as an industry, independent operators can work towards together? What should that look like?
- [114:04]
B
I think it has to be several things. One is whether You're a counter service restaurant or you still have service. Creating environments that people feel safe, that they feel nourished, that they feel, quite frankly, joy. You want, you know, you want to make sure for me, if you're going to be a restaurant owner, if you're going to be a chef, teach. Give people tools, show them the way, show them the pathway. Because I certainly don't want the restaurant business to go away. I mean, that would be horrible. You know, if it just becomes right this world. Right.
- [114:44]
A
We still gotta eat and we still need to be seen.
- [114:45]
B
You still need to be seen.
- [114:46]
A
Yeah.
- [114:47]
B
And you know, when you see somebody, do it with an open heart of gratitude when they walk through your door. Teach your staff to be that way, to be incredibly grateful for what they have every single day. You know what? I hate one last thing. And I'm, I hate when servers sit around and counter tips at the end of the night.
- [115:05]
A
Yeah.
- [115:05]
B
It's like tonight's not going to matter. This next year will matter as a whole. But don't sit there and count your tips every night because it's A, you may just get bummed out, but B, it's about the whole, it's about what you give as a person and if you can help teach them that. Yeah, it's so important.
- [115:22]
A
I love that. We have a couple questions. I want to respect your hard. Stop. We have five minutes. What is one thing about your business? A value, a process, a system that makes you truly unstoppable?
- [115:40]
B
I have to say that that's interesting. I'd have to say that for me as an individual, it's always, always having an open door and listening to people. Yeah.
- [115:53]
A
What is one conversation you think restaurant owners need to start having with each other?
- [115:58]
B
With each other as restaurateurs?
- [115:59]
A
Yeah.
- [116:00]
B
How can they help?
- [116:00]
A
Help?
- [116:01]
B
What can I do to help you? Yeah.
- [116:04]
A
Is there an organization or a way you started doing things differently? An organization you outsource to, whether it be like a financial, like a, like a service or something, you started doing differently. That's really been a breakthrough for you and your business recently.
- [116:18]
B
Well, I'm not just doing this, but Schedule Fly is great.
- [116:22]
A
It is great. And I love Will Bradley.
- [116:24]
B
Yeah.
- [116:25]
A
Simple solutions.
- [116:26]
B
So freaking simple. But it helps.
- [116:28]
A
I don't mean that as a bash.
- [116:30]
B
No, no.
- [116:30]
A
We over complicate.
- [116:32]
B
No, no. What Will did was, was, was brilliant. And I, I, I resisted it for a while and then, you know, I got, I got shown what was going on and how, how it changed. You know, even servers interacting with Being able to go online and, and, and you know, switch their shifts with somebody, whatever it is. So that was one thing to really.
- [116:48]
A
Yeah, that's a no brainer thing. To automate. Not automate, but to leverage a technology. Technology to do it more efficiently.
- [116:53]
B
I have to say this though because I know you're looking for something. You have to be careful about relying on technology only because what happened, me.
- [117:01]
A
Relying on technology, trying to get here in time. My phone froze on the highway and I was like, oh shit.
- [117:06]
B
Well, exactly.
- [117:06]
A
I don't know where I'm going.
- [117:07]
B
But I think you lose, you start to like trust something. Yeah. And then you lose the thing that helps you create some intuition with having the experience of what's really going on in your business.
- [117:20]
A
Right, right.
- [117:21]
B
So be careful with that.
- [117:22]
A
Yeah, I think we all need to be careful with that relative to social media and Google and like this, this inter, like connected world of technology that we're so dependent on. And I think the, the. What's that expression where they're pulling like the veil over our eyes or the.
- [117:36]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [117:37]
A
Like I don't think we really know what we're doing. I think we're all pawns.
- [117:40]
B
We are, we are all pawns.
- [117:42]
A
Yeah. It's scary.
- [117:43]
B
It sucks.
- [117:45]
A
If you got the new. Okay. Sorry. The mission statement is to change the world by inspiring, empowering and transforming the industry. How have you personally transformed. How are you a better man today than the men you were when you got started?
- [117:58]
B
I realize that I'm not the most important person in the room at any one given time that I, first of all, I have so much on my shoulders. So much on my shoulders. But it's not about me. You know, once I started realizing it's just not about me, it's about what I can do for other people. Gifts is, is, is how I transform my life.
- [118:19]
A
That helps me a lot too. When I think about who am I to be the one out here. It's not about me. It's not about what? It's. Everything I do is. I have my parents as this avatar in my mind because they were restaurant owners and they were struggling. It's like I'm doing it for them. I'm doing it for everyone that was like them. It's not about you. When you take it off of you, when you remove the ego and you make it about service. You can literally accomplish anything.
- [118:39]
B
You can accomplish anything. Yeah.
- [118:41]
A
If you got the news you'd be leaving this world tomorrow. All the memories of you, your, your, you know, your Restaurants. Everything was lost, with the exception of three pieces of wisdom that you could leave behind for the good, humanity and your legacy. What would those three pieces of wisdom be?
- [118:56]
B
I had that written down somewhere.
- [118:59]
A
You know it?
- [119:00]
B
I do. Three things I would say is, again, I've said a couple of these things, but what other people think of you is Noni your business.
- [119:09]
A
1.
- [119:12]
B
Relentless, relentless generosity brings us closer together. 2, and it's not about the things or the money or the crap you have in your life. It's all about the joy you feel every single day.
- [119:23]
A
3. This has been so much fun. Eric, who do you respect and admire? This is my North Star. I'm coming back to Asheville in the spring. I'm making it happen, and I would love to know who. Who do you respect and admire? If I come back here, who are the people who are doing it right, making money, making an impact while they do it? Who are those people that need to be on my radar?
- [119:43]
B
Well, you certainly want to come back and see Felix and Katie from Korate. They. They have done an amazing job to create an amazing company that has so many facets and such.
- [120:00]
A
Is it spelled like karate?
- [120:02]
B
C U, R A T E. Okay. There's Chef Silver of Nangs, who has done an amazing job.
- [120:15]
A
Chef Silver.
- [120:16]
B
Yeah. And it's N apostrophe, I think A, N, G, S. I'm so bad at that.
- [120:24]
A
Oh, you're fine.
- [120:25]
B
Thanks. Who else would I say? Sadly, we just lost a great man who used to start out with me as a. As a. As a novice out of cooking school. Brian Canopelli, who just passed away from 24. He'd be somebody. I wish he was still around for you to talk to. You know, there's a lot of young, great people. There's God.
- [120:55]
A
Well, you mentioned is my Al. Am I saying that correctly?
- [120:57]
B
Yeah, but he's in Chicago.
- [120:58]
A
Well, I get around, man.
- [121:00]
B
Go see him. He's pretty good.
- [121:02]
A
Do you know him?
- [121:03]
B
No, I don't. I wish I. I meet him one day when I go to Chicago. I'll try to look.
- [121:07]
A
If I. Well, if I get to him first, I'll let. I'll let him know that.
- [121:10]
B
That you're next, you know, is an amazing person. If you ever get to New York, is the chef of Kono, and his name is Atsuka Cookie.
- [121:22]
A
I think I have his actual email, a phone number. I have him. We've been in contact.
- [121:27]
B
He's amazing.
- [121:28]
A
I'd love to get him on the show. I don't like going to New York. I'm not gonna lie, especially because of the truck camper. I'm like, where the hell am I gonna park this thing? It's so hard.
- [121:36]
B
He's great.
- [121:37]
A
Yeah, he's on my radar. I'd love to get him on the show. Eric, pair always, obviously, you're always welcome to be a guest on the show. And Felix, Katie, Chef Silver Nings, look out. I'm coming after you guys.
- [121:49]
B
Yeah, you should definitely come see that.
- [121:50]
A
I'd love to be back. And we are over time, my friend. I apologize.
- [121:53]
B
Don't worry about it.
- [121:53]
A
And this is where I say I cannot do what I do without people like you. You make my work possible. How do we connect if we want to maybe come work for you or we have questions or.
- [122:04]
B
My personal email address is erichefergroup.com. you know, I don't hide behind anything. You know, call one of my restaurants to find me. You know, I. I'd love. I'd love to connect with people.
- [122:21]
A
So there is no questioning my man. You are unstoppable.
- [122:24]
B
Thank you so much.
- [122:25]
A
Cheers.
- [122:25]
B
I appreciate you.
- [122:26]
A
There's another episode wrapped up here. A restaurant unstoppable. Special thanks to our guest today, Eric Scheffer, for coming on opening up, getting generous with your knowledge and perspective, and I cannot do what I do without people like you. Thank you again so much. Eric Shepard will be live for coffee with eric on on the 16th of February. We'd love to have you join. Also joining us for that session is Philip Bolhoffer, who just went live last Monday. So if you want to do a little Asheville hour coffee with Eric, then that would be a good time for you to join. Head over to restaurantstoppable.com C W E, which stands for coffee with Eric. We'll get you the zoom link. Just remember that it's February 16th at 11am Eastern, and we'll see you then. And I'm about to hit the road again. Probably three months on the road. The plan is to head from New Hampshire, stop in New Jersey, stop in Atlanta, and then I will be connecting with my camper down in Mississippi where I left it on my way back north for the holidays. So quick, three or four days down to Mississippi, and then from there, I'm heading back to Texas to pick up where I left off. Maybe two to three weeks in Texas before I start making my way back east along the Gulf. I don't know if I'm heading down into Florida yet or sticking around the heart of the south, but a lot of what's going to steer me is what you have for me. Who do you want me to talk to? Who are the people that you think I need to get on the show? I want 2026 to be the best year yet, and part of making that the best year is really serving you, my listeners. Who are the people you want to get on the show? I will go to work for you. Let me know. Shoot me an email ericstaurant stoppable.com and if you have a place to park my camper, a backyard, a parking lot that's safe, where I can feel I can sleep anywhere as long as I know I'm allowed to be there. So any support on this mission would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance and we'll see you next time. Peace out.