← Restaurant Unstoppable with Eric Cacciatore
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- [00:00]
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.
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B
Thank you.
- [00:49]
A
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 guests and so many others and get one step closer to becoming unstoppable. This episode is made possible by Sir Bony your all in one bookkeeping and financial solution. We're talking about reliable tax preparation, business incorporation, seamless payroll and compliance reports, strategic CFO services that drive business growth, detailed custom reporting for complete financial clarity, dedicated.
- [01:45]
B
Support for restaurants in multi location businesses.
- [01:48]
A
Did I mention bookkeeping? 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 bot. Limited time Offer an exclusive to restaurant stoppable listeners. Mention this Message and get 20% off your first month of services. 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 888-779-5314 to get started. This episode is made possible by US Foods. Running a successful restaurant takes more than just great food.
- [02:52]
B
With US Foods you can expect more.
- [02:54]
A
High quality products, advanced tools and flexible deliveries to grow your business. Their industry leading moxy platform also just place your US Foods order. It uses AI to help you take control, save time and increase profitability. Visit usfoods.com expectmore 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 888-779-5314 to get started with excitement.
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B
Allow me to introduce you today's guest founder of Fajita Pete's, Pedro AKA Pete Mora. My man Pedro, are you feeling unstoppable today?
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C
As much as one could be in.
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B
The restaurant industry, Dude, I'm excited to be here. Just gave myself a little bit of time to dive deep into your story and you're living the American dream, man. And we'll get into that. And I think what you're doing today to collaborate with technology partners to reverse engineer solutions that are for you and your unique business, I think that's really exciting. Exciting too. I can't wait to get into that. But before we dive into who you are, what you're doing, and how you got to where you are today, let's get that motivational inspirational ball rolling with a success quote or mantra. What do you got for us?
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C
We have two here at Fajita Pete's give a damn every day, which I think is the most important one, and then suck a little less every day.
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B
Why is giving a damn the most important?
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C
Because when I was going through the franchising process with somebody following you around documenting the processes and procedures, you take so much care into that that when if people don't give a damn, they don't need to read past the second sentence in that. It could be a 300 page operations book, right? Because nothing else is going to matter. The same thing, you know that I do when I hire crew. They don't have to know anything about restaurants. They don't have to do anything. But if I get the feeling that they give a damn, that they care, you can teach everything else, right? You hire attitudes, train the rest. So it's that same type of mentality and in this industry you have to give a damn.
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B
Yeah. I'm thinking of the eos, the entrepreneurial operating system language. People have to get it, want it and have the capacity to do it. And I think all those things is giving a damn, right?
- [05:37]
C
Yes. Giving a damn is. You can write a book on. On what giving a damn looks like. You can write an operations manual.
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B
They can have the vision, they can have the core values, they can have the training, but if they don't care.
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C
Yeah.
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B
They have to want it. They have to get it and you.
- [05:50]
C
Can'T want it more than they want it for themselves.
- [05:52]
A
Yeah.
- [05:53]
B
That was the first half the quote and the second half was suck a little less. Yeah.
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C
And that's just something that in the restaurant industry that's a. Another book you want to call Atomic Habits. And you want to improve one thing every day and that's, you know, through as a. Starting a restaurant from scratch and learning how important it is to be organized because you're not. Then you can do so many things to improve along the margins. And when you're in the penny business, it's super important.
- [06:23]
B
We have to pull back a layer on Atomic Habits because that's probably single handedly one of them. Maybe not the most, but it's in the top 10 of most important books I think a restaurant owner or anybody for that matter should listen to or read. So what? Give me like one big takeaway from that book.
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C
I just think that that the whole idea of, of improvement, little by little minute things that you can do that you can apply to your health, to your business, since we're talking about restaurants and just to your overall life, to parenting, to anything. It's just taking that first step is so important. Like they say when you. The most important. When you're trying to get in shape, the most important lift is lifting your eyes off the couch. Yeah.
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B
You know, and walk to the front door.
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C
Yeah. And just that in a world, in the restaurant world where you. It's easy to become overwhelmed. I think just having those short goals that are attainable.
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B
Right.
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C
But get you moving in the correct direction.
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B
I think restaurant people are big dreamers and we want to change the world tomorrow. But you don't change the world tomorrow. You start by changing yourself a little bit today and over time that ripples out.
- [07:33]
C
Yeah. That's a tough lesson. And it takes forever to learn. Right. Be it. What do they say? Be the change you want to see.
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B
Exactly.
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C
You know, but I think that all goes into. And it's an everyday thing that because you're never done learning. But it's an everyday thing of start with something small that gets you to the next thing.
- [07:51]
B
I love it, man. Great way to get this thing started. Now that we're feeling motivated, we're feeling inspired, Just give us a snapshot like, like, where are you today? Like, what is Fajita Pete's today? How many locations?
- [08:03]
C
Fajita Pizza has 26 locations open. We are primarily 98% of what we do is outside of our walls. We're an off premise concept. We occupy between a thousand and fourteen hundred square feet. Typically we focus on catering and delivery. Catering makes up about 30% of our total sales. And catering for us is not, as restaurant people know, is not banquets and plated meals for us. For us, our meat and potatoes is corporate catering. Orders from 15 to 35 people Daily engineer meetings, lunch and learns that we go and do during that time period. Most of our caterings are Monday through Friday because our focus is on corporate events or corporate meetings. The rest of it is at night. We have our pickup business, our delivery business. And of course we use third party now. We introduced that a few years ago, third party vendors. So we focus on just getting everything out the door. People enjoy our food at their house.
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B
So 30% catering. What percent would you say is delivery?
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C
Delivery. The rest of it is right down the middle. So half pickup, half delivery.
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B
Got it. And you have seats inside, do you?
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C
We do. Some stores don't. Some store. Most stores do.
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B
Okay.
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C
Yes sir.
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B
And I can't wait to dive deeper into that world of the reverse engineering a delivery solution for your business. I think that's really cool. We're gonna hold off on that. But on, on average, can us like per unit, like volume, like what you're doing for like sales?
- [09:36]
C
I think we're averaging about 8,800,000 a unit, 850 somewhere around there. And are you like my attorney would tell me refer to Adam 19 on the FDP.
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B
Can you share percent profit?
- [09:49]
C
No, I cannot do that.
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B
What about for your.
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C
I can tell you for my unit. Okay. My unit puts to the bottom line. But it's. I mean I've been doing it forever. My unit puts the bottom line about 18 to more. I feel, I feel bad.
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B
I mean, I mean it's. It's a weird conversation. What do they teach you when you're a kid? Like don't ask people about how much money they make and don't ask them about relations.
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C
No. Well, I wanted to talk about the situation in Minnesota right now.
- [10:14]
B
No, Well, I think it's important that we share benchmarks. We understand your business model, we know what you're doing, we know what's possible out of a 1200 square foot.
- [10:23]
C
No. And when you talk about, in the context of, of restaurant people and peers, I think it's very important to say, hey, your target should be. And also because the other side of it is when, when people hear that a restaurant sells $3 million a year, they're, oh, he must have made 4 million, right? No, you know what I mean? There's, we're in the pennies business. So I, I do think it's very important for people to have realistic understandings with people in the industry and then people getting in the industry.
- [10:50]
B
Can you share your best year in terms of percent profit?
- [10:53]
C
Man, when I used to run it by myself and be here every day, I mean I, I put over 25% to the bottom line.
- [11:02]
B
That's awesome, man. And I can't wait to learn more about that. So 26 current locations. At one point you were at 30 locations.
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C
Yes.
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B
And two of those locations are outside of Houston. Currently you have one in Illinois and one in Pennsylvania.
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C
Yes, sir.
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B
The majority of your locations are in or around Houston.
- [11:19]
C
Yes, sir.
- [11:20]
B
And Dallas and Austin. Austin is what I saw. So I love that centrifug circle, like expansion. I think that's something we're going to get into. Anything else we should know in terms of you, your portfolio? Is it just restaurants or do you own anything else?
- [11:34]
C
No, I like fajita pizza is just a restaurant concept. Personally, I do other things, mostly real estate, but commercial real estate, because that's one of my biggest things is turning your, you know, for small mom and pops like I, like I am, is using your P and L to acquire commercial real estate. I think that's a big thing. When you're talking to other restaurant operators about long term stability for their family. Maybe their kids don't want to sell tacos, but they do want to own commercial real estate. I think that's another avenue that I do. But that's very, that's. Aside from Fajita Pete's.
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B
When did you start thinking like that? When did buying the real estate happen?
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C
MAN in the entrepreneur. So I graduated from U of H, University of Houston from the entrepreneurship program. In that program you have to do a lot of business plans, a lot of different ideas. We have a lot of mentors that come in and teach us. Right. So we had a carpet guy who came in, he had a flooring guy and he said but you know where I really make my money is I put my store in the middle of a strip center and then I release out the rest because that's, that's where I make it for later. There's other restaurant people in Houston that, that's how I make my money in the restaurants, my wealth and send the real estate underneath.
- [12:45]
B
Right.
- [12:45]
C
So. And then everybody knows McDonald's.
- [12:47]
B
Right. That was exactly what was on my mind.
- [12:49]
C
Right. Yeah, so. So that's kind of where I started thinking about that now. When you're starting out, you know, you have to save up your, your pennies to, to put that first down payment and. Right. It doesn't happen overnight while life happens.
- [13:01]
B
And when was the first, what was the first piece of property you bought relative to the businesses?
- [13:05]
C
I bought a piece, an acre and a half in Richmond, Texas for some reason in man. Had to be 2007.
- [13:14]
B
Okay.
- [13:14]
C
Yeah, I saved up well, that was every penny I had.
- [13:17]
B
After you opened or before you opened Fajita Pizza?
- [13:20]
C
Yeah, that was after my first full service restaurant. So I don't know if you want to touch on it now, but my full service restaurant opened while I was still six months out of college. I still needed six months to finish college, so we talked ourselves into a lease. Very nice landlord here in town, the Myers. They put the confidence in, in letting us take over an abandoned restaurant that was, that had been closed for three years. It was a full service Mexican restaurant before 6,300 square feet.
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B
Smart approach though, going to a turnkey operation or.
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C
Yeah, no, and I mean coming from, you know, I'm from Colombia. Coming from here. My mom always told me we didn't bring you here to fill out applications, you know, so you're either going to find out if you're going to make it or not, and it's better to start when you're young because guess what? If you don't make it, you have the rest of your life to make it. And if you lose everything. Yeah, guess what? You don't have shit right. So lose it now before.
- [14:16]
B
That's a huge lesson.
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C
Yeah.
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B
Yeah. You can always go back home to mom and dad. If you fall on your face when you're 17, 18, 19 years old, that's normal.
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C
Yeah. I didn't even leave it. You know, she used to always tell me growing up, because, you know, you have a little, you know, wild about you when you're growing up, but she used to say, why don't you leave the house now before you realize how dumb you are? Because Once you're old enough to realize how dumb you are, I'll never get rid of you. Those are all the. The lessons that we learned. And, you know, but you mentioned something.
- [14:46]
B
Cool, and I love it when I get to speak to immigrants. You came here when you were young?
- [14:50]
C
Yes, sir.
- [14:51]
B
How old were you?
- [14:52]
C
I was eight years old.
- [14:53]
B
Eight years old. You and your family fled Columbia?
- [14:57]
C
Yes, we. My parents started a transportation company in Colombia, involved in the oil field. People that were drilling down there for oil. It grew, thank God. And then during that time, there was a lot of turmoil, and the guerrilla people, the guerrilla armies would want you to pay toll on certain roads and. Or pay monthly fees for the. They call it the vaccination so you don't get sick. Right. And then during that whole process, they decided to take my father. They kidnapped them, and then they took my mother.
- [15:35]
B
You forgot to take his medication or his prescription.
- [15:37]
C
Yeah, exactly. He's getting old.
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B
Just to be clear, the medication or prescription is protection.
- [15:43]
C
Protection money. Yeah. And so, you know, I think it came down to not paying toll on one road or something, and. And just that whole attitude and. And just the. The environment at the time they took my father, he got sick while he was captive, and then my mom switched places.
- [16:02]
B
Not narco sick, but actual sick.
- [16:04]
C
Yeah, he got actual sick. He had. Y' all seen the. How. They sent you newspaper pictures with the date so they can see what day he's still alive. Yeah. Proof of life. And then he lost about 40 pounds because they took him in the jungle. And then my mom said, I'm not paying for a body, so she switched places with him. And then they took him. They took her, and then they put him. Threw him in a hospital, in front of the hospital. And then they negotiated the release for my mother, my dad.
- [16:32]
B
That's some nasty stuff. Yeah. So this is the world, you know, adjacent to this world is what. The world you came up in.
- [16:38]
C
Right.
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B
And you were 8 years old when you came to America. I mean, is there any more to the story? I don't want to cover, like, skip over important stuff to you?
- [16:47]
C
No, I mean, that's a shortened version of it. You know, that was over a set amount of time. It. You know, that thing takes time to negotiate all that, but, I mean, it's really a blur, right? It's. And. And I. I see the good things about it. All right, because what. I mean, what else is there? I saw what my parents built and the life they had, and then you see the other side when everything's taken and starting over. But I think for me, it was very important to see that you could achieve things. I think that's one of the biggest lessons that they did achieve something. So it's out there to get right, you know, So I took that with me.
- [17:23]
B
I mean, I'm seeing the silver lining too. I mean, we're just a side lesson. Like, you're. You're built. Your parents were entrepreneurs. You came from a family of entrepreneurs. It wasn't like that was what you got. They were entrepreneurs back home and they were forced to leave. But they.
- [17:38]
C
You.
- [17:38]
B
You were born out of that cult culture.
- [17:40]
C
Yes.
- [17:41]
B
Of the hustle.
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C
And they have it. I mean, entrepreneurship, you know, it's almost like a disease. I tell people it's. It's not for everybody. It's. It's definitely shouldn't be for everybody because you. You just. It puts you. Once you're an entrepreneur, it's everywhere on you. It's not something you dip your toe in the water, you jump in.
- [18:01]
B
Right.
- [18:02]
C
So to have that level of grind and that level of attention to one thing, it's. It's definitely not for everybody. And I don't recommend it for everybody.
- [18:11]
B
Well, you. You also, I think coming from that world of absolute corruption, and I think you can say that the narco system, what's going on there to this day in different parts of South America, that absolute power corrupts absolutely always. And I think that that that idea of absolute power isn't just in the unlawful world of drug trafficking. It's also in all aspects of life. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. And you said something. You build something, and then you can have it taken away from you.
- [18:41]
C
Yeah, that lack of stability.
- [18:43]
A
Right.
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B
And I think we have the. In the restaurant industry, in. In America, in the world we live in, a world right now where there are very few powers at the very top, getting more and more and more powerful. And we have to remember. Remember that absolute power corrupts absolutely. Like, we have to be conscious about how are we going into the future, you know, like, where. What entities are we giving too much power? Because we will lose control of everything. We will lose everything if we let that happen. So I. Maybe that's a little extreme. Do you think it is?
- [19:13]
C
Jeez, man. Lord Jesus.
- [19:15]
B
I mean, it's just there's. There's a crazy world right now. Don't you think?
- [19:18]
C
Call the restaurants. I'm gonna close up right now. Just. Well, I mean, liquidate.
- [19:21]
B
Like, it's just crazy.
- [19:22]
C
No, I think. I think. No, I. Of course I have children.
- [19:25]
B
Yeah.
- [19:26]
C
So you think about the world that they're coming into. Right? But I think what you do is you control what you control, right? You control what's around you and you try to put out what you want to see. So, I mean, it's hard to do every day. It's. And we're all human, we're all imperfect beings. But I think that's the way you make a little ripple right, in the little ecosystem that you can control through examples, through the way you treat people.
- [19:52]
B
Pedro, we're starting heavy today, man. I usually wait until the end again.
- [19:57]
C
We should be smoking something.
- [19:58]
B
Hey, we can make that so. All right, so you, this is the world you're born out of. You come to America, you land in Houston at the age of 18. It sounds like you had, sorry, eight. Thank you. Sounds like you had very encouraging parents that had that, that entrepreneurial bug and that they were pushing you to take risk at an early age. So that's where we left off.
- [20:20]
C
Yeah, no, I think that's when that was the time for us to do it. Just in the situation we were in. It was in. Restaurants are nasty businesses that let you know really quickly if you're not gonna make right, which is what you want when you're, when you're starting so young. So we, we started, we tried it and, you know, it stuck. Was the typical story when you make the tables in your garage and you paint the whole place, you regroute it, you, you know, figure out how to, how to get open. You live in the place for three years. Because the good thing about being 23 is that you know everything, right? And then the first year you're just trying to stay above water, you know, I mean, the first day you turn on everything, breakers start tripping and, and you running extension course to, you know, so, so it's just a good time to start, a good time to. You have the energy to do it.
- [21:19]
A
Right.
- [21:20]
B
So you graduated in 03, you opened your restaurant Poblanos in OH2. So there's a six month overlap from when you're still finishing school and you're a restaurant. You weren't. Was it a certificate or was it a four year degree?
- [21:35]
C
It's a four year degree.
- [21:36]
B
So you're a high school. You have to get like four year degree.
- [21:38]
C
Yeah, you have to get like a marketing degree and the entrepreneurship. Yeah, it's in the business school.
- [21:42]
B
What were the biggest challenges for you in that, that first couple months before that, How'd you even get the money?
- [21:49]
C
Well, that's the thing, right? So you gotta hustle, you gotta wait tables, you gotta save some money. You pull friends and family, whatever you can, and then your parents tell you, here's the money, then this is it. And we'll do this now, and then, you know, you take care of it later type of deal.
- [22:07]
B
Cover you now, you cover us later.
- [22:08]
C
Yeah, so. No, and it's. It was a lot of support. I mean, my mom was extremely supportive.
- [22:14]
B
Can you share how much money you needed to get open? What was that that mark you got to hit, man?
- [22:19]
C
I think it was.
- [22:20]
B
Keep in mind, this is 2002.
- [22:22]
C
Two. Yeah. And it was a free lease, no deposit. Wow. Yeah. I think we ended up using about 80,000.
- [22:34]
B
Okay. That's pretty low hurdle to get over.
- [22:36]
C
Oh, yeah. It was a. The restaurant was the kitchen. All right, so it was our. It had the grease trap, it had the coolers, it had everything. All we need to do was put tables. And it wasn't the prettiest restaurant in the world. Don't get me wrong. You know, this was very typical. Mom and Pop down dirty, the local Tex Mex joint.
- [22:56]
B
How did this even land on your radar as a possibility? Like, how did you know about this with that spot?
- [23:01]
C
Yeah. So I got. I was blessed to have a realtor that was very into helping people. And she got me so many meetings with landlords that just laughed when you walk in. Right. And I don't blame them.
- [23:15]
B
Let's give her some love. What's her name?
- [23:17]
C
I can't remember. For. To save my life. I never saw her again.
- [23:20]
B
Whoever you are, you're an angel. Thank you.
- [23:22]
C
Yeah. And it was. She, like, came. Came in and left, and she. She rescued animals, and she was like, very.
- [23:29]
B
We need more people like her.
- [23:30]
C
Yeah, yeah, yeah. She was a very nice lady. And. And. But she. She set up all these meetings with landlords around town, and she. I. I finally got a. A broker who actually listened to me, and I sat down with him. They showed us the leaves, we went over was, you know, typical lease, but you have to give back all red and say, hey, these numbers don't make sense. And beg, borrow, you know, and talk yourself into an opportunity where you sell them on the story that you're going to take an abandoned place, you're going to fill it up again. Because to me, that's one of the pretty things about business, is you take something that's dark, cold, and not producing anything for anybody, and then you turn the lights on. Yeah, there's people coming in, there's kids Laughing. You know, there's music on Friday nights. There's employees everywhere.
- [24:28]
B
You get to reinvent it.
- [24:29]
C
Yeah. And it's. To me, that's, that's one of the pretty things about business I got to know, man.
- [24:34]
B
You're. How old are you at this time? 22? 23?
- [24:37]
C
Yes, 23.
- [24:38]
B
And you're in class. You're taking classes. How did you know what to mark up red on that. That lease agreement?
- [24:46]
C
Oh, no. In the entrepreneurship program that you come out. It's a tough program, dude. It's. It's an amazing program. I've always liked school. I've always done well in school. I've never liked school, but that's the one program that I really, once I got in it, I, I really looked forward to going to it.
- [25:01]
B
That's cool.
- [25:01]
C
They have great professors. They always have an academic professor, and then they have a associate professor of, like a business person that comes in and gives you real deal examples, real life examples. You, you study leases. You have to do a very intricate business plan as part of your year and a half project. And it takes you through leases, marketing, just every typical business plan.
- [25:25]
B
That's what school a restaurateur or chef should go to.
- [25:30]
C
Oh, if, if I had. And, and they're talented chefs. I've worked, I've had to put it working with a guy named Chef Eddie. And I see the grind that, that, that these people put in. He owns a great pizza place now called Tailspin Pizza, by the way. Amazing here in Houston. But if I had been a chef before business school, I don't know if I would have taken the steps to be successful and to save my business. Because at the beginning, you're not trying to be successful, you're trying to make payroll. Yeah.
- [26:01]
B
Please tell me you took that lease to a professor and had them look over it for you.
- [26:05]
C
I took it to my realtors. I talked a lawyer into looking at it. But I mean, it's, it's. Leases are pretty simple. They're never for the tenant. They're always for the landlord. Right. But you try to make them as fair as possible. And at the end of the day, it was a really. A gift from, from the landlord to let me have it because there's no way they should have approved it. I didn't have. I mean, what. There's nothing for them to go after if I didn't make it. It was just a blessing. This.
- [26:34]
B
So you guys opened this 2002. You're still in school. You graduate in 03. I think that, that hustle, that grind is truly inspiring, dude.
- [26:42]
C
And then I do want to give them love. The landlord, the Myers, please. The Myers, the Meyer family here in Meyer park, they were always very fair, very supportive. More than they needed to. Looking back for a kid like, you know, for the situation that we had, they did more than they needed to know.
- [26:59]
B
Honestly man, that's the part of the industry that I want to make sure we. We like hold on to. I look at the future and it's getting harder and harder for mom and pops to even find real estate. All these new developments are going up, but those developers are deep into bed with giant companies and they just want a path of least resistance to fill retail and like those. You don't get those same opportunities.
- [27:20]
C
I think there's a romanticism to entrepreneurship that allows to open doors to people's heartstrings.
- [27:25]
B
Yeah.
- [27:25]
C
You know, and. And at the end of the day, you have to, you know, try to sell yourself with somebody that, that, that will at least grind it out to make it. But along the way, you always need luck. You always need a lot of help. I mean, and I mean I don't to be like there's very few people that I believe are self made. Like, I just don't. There's some. There's always somebody there to help you right at the time when you need it. You know, whether it for me, my parents, the. The. The blessing of running into the right opportunity. Yeah. The right agent, the right realtor, the right contractor who's not going to rob you blind because I've been robbed later. You know, and, and just. Just everything falling into place. There's no, there's nothing that I've done that's because of me. You know, there's. It's. It would be impossible.
- [28:19]
B
Well, that, that self awareness I think is huge because you. You can't do it alone. You have to be. You have to give credit or credit's too.
- [28:26]
C
Oh, I think. Yeah. Like I told my team, we. We make it this far in spite of me. Right. Because. Because of them. Yeah. Yeah.
- [28:32]
A
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- [31:21]
B
That's a huge leadership quality. Just, just seeing people and acknowledging it, you know, and that, that will go so far. But you were here at Poblano's from 02 to 2008, right up until Fajita Pete's.
- [31:33]
C
Yeah, it was really open, close one day, open the next.
- [31:35]
B
So take us to that point. Well, I mean first like anything during that six year period of growing as a restaurateur.
- [31:42]
C
Yeah. So the first year is just survive. Yeah, right. Then once you got that down, it's figuring out how the cash moves through a business because you can study it, you can do case studies, you can do whatever, but till you, till you write checks that actually go out of your account, that, that's how you really learn the business. And in. When you start, you know, slow restaurants are the best teachers. You know, that's where you really learn how to manage.
- [32:09]
B
We say slow restaurants, low volume.
- [32:11]
C
Okay, Low volume. Got it. Restaurants will teach you the most how to manage it. Now they, they're horrible to manage because you can, you can't afford as much labor. You, you have to do a lot yourself. But that's what we signed up.
- [32:21]
B
Nobody wants to work at the restaurant that's empty.
- [32:23]
C
Yeah, exactly. Because nobody wants to eat at the restaurant. And when you have a 6, 300 square foot, 60 table restaurant, even when it's half full, it's half empty.
- [32:32]
B
Yeah.
- [32:32]
C
You know, and, and so, so you learn that aspect of it.
- [32:36]
B
Yeah. I've heard before on the show. Just proof that all advice isn't universal in the restaurant industry. That when you're opening a restaurant, you want to go big because it's the same amount of work to run, you know, 10,000 square foot restaurant as is around a 1200 square foot restaurant. You still have to go through the same motions every day. So there's more volume, there's more throughput. I don't know if I 100 agree with that. Because to your point, you got to keep that thing full.
- [33:03]
C
I think that. And, and that's the beautiful thing about the American dream. Everybody's dream's different. So I do believe in that. There is something to that in real estate, I hear all the time. So I buy a little building because the big guy say I'm gonna spend just as much time on the big deal as a little deal. That's where you need to do it. Because that's where I started. But I can't focus. I can't spend that time to focus on that right now. So it just depends where you are. Right? I, I couldn't afford to. I got what I got because that's what I was allowed to get at the time. And I couldn't afford to fail.
- [33:36]
B
Right.
- [33:36]
C
So there was no. Which is weird because you never even think you're gonna fail.
- [33:41]
B
Not even an option.
- [33:43]
C
Yeah, I mean, I don't know. I mean, looking back, it was very risky.
- [33:47]
B
But where was Poblanos in 2008? Like, were you guys doing all right? Because you said he built something like it sounds?
- [33:53]
C
Yeah, we did. Well, but then when it was time to sign the extension, I had, so. All right, so second year, we started looking ways to get additional revenues.
- [34:03]
B
Were you in the block around this time?
- [34:05]
C
Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, like, you can't open that long enough, you know, but you're signing an extension, rents are going up, and it sounds like it, and it feels like you're signing a plea deal on a charge, you know, and you're like, maybe it shouldn't feel that way. Do I want to. Is this what I want to do for 30 more years?
- [34:24]
B
Was it a five year lease or a 10 year lease?
- [34:26]
C
It was five year lease. It was month to month on the last year because we were trying to negotiate a smaller space. Because during that time, I had began to cater to oil company companies in hospitals. And I said, that's kind of more what I want to do. Because I was selling more before lunch, opened at 11, before I started my shift, I had more out the door than I would from 11 to 3. Right in the door. So then you start thinking, man, it's all about sales per square foot during that time. Also, you start seeing other restaurant concepts shrink. And I saw Wingstop pop up. I dropped my cousin off getting a job there.
- [35:00]
B
Yeah. The fast casual world starting to explode at this.
- [35:02]
C
Yeah. And I said, man, that's where it's at. Because people come in, it's a simplified menu. My catering taught me that as well, because you can't cater everything because it doesn't travel well. So my menu was very focused on what could travel, what was compartmentalized, and then going. And then that just gets the whole ball rolling. And then you put on the spreadsheet and you're like, oh, man, if I could just cook, even though I' ma sell less, I'm gonna keep more at the end of the day. So then you, you know, once that starts going and you just, It's a.
- [35:32]
B
Matter of start to realize, like, when did this, like this realization bubble up.
- [35:35]
C
Inside of you, man? I think it was around year three.
- [35:38]
B
Okay, so 2005, 2006.
- [35:40]
C
Yeah.
- [35:41]
B
So you're still two years out from actually making the move. What was the plan? Was it to just wash your hands of poblanos and just start from a script?
- [35:49]
C
Okay. Yeah. I wanted to start over. I wanted to, because I wanted the concept to be simple. I wanted people to come in and know exactly what they were getting. And I wanted the name to mirror the simplicity of the menu. The simplicity of the kitchen, and just people think it's called fajita Pete's. There's nobody's coming in trying to get fettuccine. You know, they know what they're getting. The menu was very simple, more than it is now at the time. And I wanted people to come in. In my mind was 40 seconds of hospitality, because full service, you. You want hospitality. Now you're dealing at a counter. People don't know what it is at that time. There's only Chinese and pizza. That's really getting delivered. It's 2008. Mexican food delivery is weird to people. So they come into the counter, they look at the menu. They're like, oh, it's expensive for a fast food joint. So then there's that whole education process. So you make it real simple. I put a poorly taken picture on the wall next to me of what the fajita pack looks like, and I set up the tortilla lady right behind the counter so I could see us making handmade tortillas. Because that. In Texas, that carries weight.
- [36:58]
B
Yeah.
- [36:59]
C
You get credit for that. Right. They go, oh, okay.
- [37:02]
B
What was your opening menu?
- [37:03]
C
It was fajitas half pound and pound.
- [37:06]
B
And chicken, steak.
- [37:07]
C
Chicken, steak, shrimp. Only on during lint.
- [37:10]
B
Okay. And that's it. Just fajitas.
- [37:12]
C
And some days I would make enchiladas. Okay. Some days I would make tostadas. It was literally. We started with a chalkboard. Fajita pizza.
- [37:21]
B
How many actual items on the menu.
- [37:25]
C
We make. We make rice and beans. We shred lettuce, cheese. We make pico and guac, beef and chicken. Some days we get frisky and roll it up and make taco plates. Oh, easy. Yeah. And then we always had quesadillas because the kids. But whatever. I mean, there's never more than 15 items on that thing. And they're all the same thing. Thing.
- [37:46]
B
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's. It's a beautiful business model. It's what people would call something that has legs. You can scale that. And fajitas, man, Like, I keep hearing that. Yeah, man. Fajitas. Is that that option? That menu item is fire anywhere in the country.
- [38:02]
C
It.
- [38:03]
B
It transfers. It translates well across the country. So maybe not 15, 20 years ago before the Mexican boom happened, but now everybody knows what a vid is. It's the number one thing for most Mexican restaurants.
- [38:14]
C
Yes. So.
- [38:15]
B
And nobody was doing it yet. You know, you have burritos, even you have. In Dallas, you have dillas, you know, quesadillas. Do you know Gordon?
- [38:23]
C
Yep. No, I don't, but I. I know the concept.
- [38:25]
A
He's great.
- [38:26]
B
I'd love to introduce you. You guys have similar concepts, but. Yeah, man. So there's definitely potential here. Very smart, entrepreneurial thinking on your behalf, for sure. So what were the. The challenges?
- [38:36]
C
Getting started and everything came out of necessity. Right. It wasn't anything bright or like people say, hey, how did you think about. You were a ghost kitchen before ghost kitchen. And nobody was thinking about ghost kitchen. I was thinking, I don't want to pay that much rent. I want my family to be able to eat, and I want to do that. If I'm gonna do it, I don't want to do it for another five years. If I don't think I could do it for 20, then I shouldn't do it.
- [38:59]
B
Right. And there's a hole in the market, too.
- [39:01]
C
Yeah, right.
- [39:01]
B
Nobody had had focus solely on fajitas. Was born in Houston, technically. What was it? Thank you. But nobody had, at this point that I'm aware of, had just focused on, I'm just going to do fees.
- [39:14]
C
And there was another in. Once you start looking at how to fill a gap, there's another gap. The bigger restaurants didn't want to. They wouldn't even deliver to oil companies unless it was for 40 people and up back then. So then you start making all your advertising from 0 to 39 people. I'll deliver. Yeah, right. And then people get it. The. The admins understand. Oh, they deliver. The pharmaceutical reps start thinking, I don't have to go and pick up bags.
- [39:39]
B
Yeah. And you only deliver and you own like. Well, you don't only deliver, but, you know, you're. This is where you specialize. So catering and delivery, that's what we do. So you put. I'm sure you probably sucked a little less every day making that delivery and catering experience better.
- [39:53]
C
Oh, yeah, yeah. And. And. And then you. You figure out who you're. I mean, before, so, so thoughts went into, who's my customer at Fajita Pete's? I would sit in poblanos and think, right now, where do they go? We don't have the unlimited funds to go market everywhere. How do I find pharmaceutical. And this was a. I mean, it was a grind. It was literally go drop off an order, stock people in the parking lot, see who else is coming up with food. It's usually, you know, a guy or a gal with. With food trying to carry a backpack. So you go with your cart, hey, let me help you out. Right? And then because you just came out I just dropped off actually. Oh, here's my card, you know, if you want to come have free lunch. Yeah. And that's how you get it, you know, but that's not sexy. But to me, one, one catering customer was worth everything, you know, so, so it, in doing that multiple times, you figure out what they don't like, right. You say, oh man, I always have to go pick it up because they, they don't do it. You know, it's got to be a bigger order for them to drop it off. It's just a hassle. Hey, tell me where you're going to be, I'll walk out. You're walking in with your empty hands. Sign the credit card and you'll be on your way.
- [41:03]
B
So you, you had like Blue Ocean effect times too, you know, nobody had cornered the fajita market and nobody had cornered the delivering of fajitas and catering of fajitas.
- [41:14]
C
Yeah.
- [41:15]
B
So like you owned that market. That's what they call Blue Ocean, where like there wasn't a lot of competition.
- [41:19]
C
Yeah, but I didn't own it. I mean, okay, I got what I could, right. I think I could have gone more aggressive and done a lot better, bigger things, faster. But you know, you're also. Life is happening in the meantime.
- [41:33]
B
I do love that grind of guerrilla marketing though, just showing up. I mean, the best form of marketing is food in mouth.
- [41:39]
C
That's it.
- [41:39]
B
Just give away food and, and start relationships. Be kind, Think of ways you can.
- [41:45]
C
Add value, make their life easier. That's all you have to do. Because we. You sell fajitas, but you're really selling convenience. Yeah, they're packaged as fajitas but you're selling them convenience.
- [41:54]
B
So were you side hustling Fajita Pete's while, while you had poblanos going?
- [41:58]
C
It wasn't a side hustle, it was just poblanos catering. So my, it was called Poblano's Mexican Grill.
- [42:04]
B
My company, you have the vision for fajita?
- [42:06]
C
Yeah, it's still called. My company is PMG Catering llc. It was always that. So because it's, it's, it is the same food. It's just a different name, a different thing that we're doing.
- [42:17]
B
So when were you able to make the swing to get out of POBL and go all in on Vietnamese?
- [42:21]
C
We couldn't work out a deal for a smaller spot in the center. I was in because I wanted to get smaller. So I said, okay, maybe if we get a 2,500square foot space within the center. I stayed with the same landlord. We never could work out a deal because the timing wasn't right. And then an agent came by who was a customer of mine. There's a pizza place closing. Do you want to take it? It's got a little hood, and it was. I mean. All right, let's do it.
- [42:47]
B
And I mean, what do you need to invest in for machine? Like a flat top, right?
- [42:52]
C
Yeah. You need a grill. A flat top for the. A grill. A charbroiler.
- [42:56]
B
Okay.
- [42:56]
C
A tortilla skillet. A griddle.
- [42:59]
B
Yep.
- [42:59]
C
And then a stove. Yeah. You know, in the fryer.
- [43:02]
B
So what. All in. What was your investment like? What did you have to put into that space?
- [43:05]
C
I don't remember. Dude. It wasn't.
- [43:06]
B
It come with a griddle?
- [43:08]
C
No, I brought my. My equipment from Poblanos.
- [43:10]
B
Yeah.
- [43:11]
C
So, I mean, it was zero. Most of the expense was getting rid of that. I didn't need anymore at Poblanos.
- [43:17]
B
So it was an easy. You were scaling down?
- [43:18]
C
Yeah, I was scaling down. You never realize how much stuff you have till you move. Yeah.
- [43:22]
B
And is this the spot that we're in right now, the original location?
- [43:24]
C
No, it was across the street. It was a.
- [43:26]
B
That mall where the Whole Foods is.
- [43:28]
C
Yeah, a little sushi place. 1200 square feet.
- [43:30]
B
Got it.
- [43:30]
C
And I went in. They had a pizza hood. I went in there. And then within months, I had to replace the hood hood, because it's just not enough. It was too much volume for what I did. The smoke. It's just a different thing. Right. So overnight you get a hood, build it, you know, they. They make the hood, and then overnight they come install it, and it was just a whole nother grind.
- [43:53]
B
Yeah. So from leaving Poblanos and going all in on fajita, Pete's focusing all of your energy into doing one thing really well, which is a great business practice. What is your one thing? What is your core focus? How long did it take for things to kind of catch fire? Did you bring a lot of business with you because you already had this.
- [44:11]
C
Yeah, so. So a lot. All the catering came with me. Right.
- [44:13]
B
Which is 30% of your revenue.
- [44:15]
C
Yeah, well, at that point, it was 80% of the revenue. No. And. And. And then more luck happens. Like, that's a good thing about luck is, like, it's always out there. Right. So we open, and then in 2008, Houston has one of its storms called Ike. And I just got. I mean, I was open maybe three weeks. I just got a food truck delivered, and then Ike happens. So the city shut down. I, I don't even think, I think my sign's getting put up at the time the on the building. So my cousin and I figure out non flooded streets. We come down to check on the store and then we have an unmarked van because I don't have my logo on it. And we go through the neighborhood looking and nobody has lights. We run into a lady who has, she's putting together a community cookout and we tell her, no, tonight fajita pizza is gonna feed you. Of course. She says, what the hell is fajita pizza? I said, don't worry about it. Go to Whole Foods. Just go to Whole Foods and there's gonna be smoke coming out of a chimney. Go there. And that night we got like two, three crew members to come in. There was no options because, I mean there wasn't very many options anyway. But we cooked fajita a half pound and a pound with all the trimmings and we just started bagging them and at 5:30 we had a line out the door and we gave away free food to like 80 families that night.
- [45:35]
B
That's some good marketing right there. Yeah, because you're trying to take care of people, but there's a side and.
- [45:39]
C
You don't know when the lights are going to go up because they didn't have lights, but I did and they're a block away.
- [45:42]
B
Let's be honest too. You don't have lights, you don't have refrigeration. Yeah.
- [45:46]
C
So it's all going to go to waste. I said, either I'm going to have a write off or I'm going to have a marketing expense. Expense. There you go. Yeah. And I said let's, let's just give it away. And it, I mean the lights never went out and then, but people kept coming into, they, they charged their, their computers or they came in, we would give out bags of ice. And that's how we got known in, in the neighborhood. We just moved in. Nobody knew what it was.
- [46:11]
B
That's the best thing you can do. I mean it's about relationships. At the end of the day, people will show up for, for those who.
- [46:16]
C
Show up for them, you know, that's the sweetest thing. So in 2017, Harvey happens in, in Houston. Houston just, you know, if a cat pees, you have to worry about a flood. So we had Harvey, which is horrible and I don't have any social media. I mean the company does. But somebody showed me, a customer showed me, hey, look at this post. And somebody said, hey, Pete was there for Us during Ike. Let's be there for him during Harvey. And it was nine years later. Yeah, it was the most random. You know, you don't think people remember.
- [46:46]
B
But quid pro quo, man.
- [46:48]
C
It was crazy.
- [46:49]
B
What goes around.
- [46:49]
C
It was very sweet. Yeah. Yeah.
- [46:51]
B
So first, what was their second location? When did you open that?
- [46:58]
C
It was on that piece of property that I bought. No, no, no. It was actually. The second location was in Dallas.
- [47:05]
B
Okay.
- [47:07]
C
I go up to Dallas for franchising symposium, and I come down and I'm talking to. I come back to Houston, and I'm talking to customers. Oh, where are you at this weekend? I was in Dallas for free, and somebody says, you're selling franchises? I said, yeah. How much? Forty grand. Because that's what I remembered the paperwork was going to cost to get the franchise together. And they got one opened in Dallas. Of course, it was a horrible idea.
- [47:38]
B
Why?
- [47:39]
C
It did great. But I had no way to control it. I had no way to control the brand. Control the brand. Thank God. The guy was great. The guy busted his ass. He did great at it. But it was. I mean, looking back on it, I got very lucky. I got extremely lucky. And. But that's. That was the second one. And then we opened. Then I opened on that property I had in Richmond. The SBA then comes up to me, says, hey, you bought that? You have any property? I said, yeah, about an acre and a half, cash. Back in 07, something like that. They said, you. You don't know anything on. I said, no. They go, well, we're doing the thing where we're building. We'll build a building. Zero down. So I built a restaurant for nothing.
- [48:21]
B
You just had dirt?
- [48:22]
C
I had dirt. It was a pecan plantation. Like, it was nothing but trees on it. And then built it up, had that. Built one on I10 and Beltway 8 here in its energy corridor here.
- [48:36]
B
So when did you build that third location on dirt?
- [48:39]
C
That one took a long time to build. It was. What year was it? 20, maybe 13. Maybe. I've been here five years. Okay, maybe.
- [48:49]
B
So when did you move to this spot?
- [48:51]
C
Eighteen. I moved to. To across the street. Street.
- [48:53]
B
So this is like 2022.
- [48:55]
C
No, 2018. About this building.
- [48:58]
B
So that's right. So you went from there to here in 2018. Yes, but your original location. So I, in my mind, works like. I've noticed that there seems to be points of evolution for restaurants, 1 to 3 and then get beyond that third. Some has to happen to, like, evolve the business.
- [49:13]
C
Yeah, I think three. Three to five is easier than one to three, for sure.
- [49:17]
B
Yeah. So one to three. First location, 2008 across the street, a Whole Foods. Second location was Dallas. How many years after that first location?
- [49:26]
C
I think approximately. I think it was three or four years only.
- [49:30]
B
Three or four years only. So now it's like 2012, 2011.
- [49:35]
C
Yeah.
- [49:35]
B
Ish. You got lucky with a good operator.
- [49:38]
C
Yeah. To franchise owner, operator.
- [49:40]
B
Or else. There could be a lot of lessons to be learned here, I'm sure.
- [49:42]
C
Oh, there was. Yeah.
- [49:44]
B
And then your third location was 2000. That was your dirt.
- [49:48]
C
Dirt.
- [49:48]
B
2013.
- [49:50]
C
13.
- [49:51]
B
Yeah. So you went about five years ago to one to three locations. What? Like when. When did things start to get hard for you? How many locations?
- [50:02]
C
Oh, they never got easy, right. Yeah. No, they stayed hard. Luckily, the good operator handled his business in Dallas. The. The Richmond property was always difficult just because of where it was located. The dirt. Dirt. Yeah. Just because. Yeah. When I built it up, it was a restaurant, you know, thank God I put a pickup window on. Was a good real estate deal. But it was. It was hard. Just because you learned the market hadn't gotten there yet. The market hadn't gotten there. You're also. There's more cows than people. Yeah. We're going now in the 3 mile radius.
- [50:35]
B
I'm not familiar.
- [50:36]
C
I sold it.
- [50:36]
B
Okay.
- [50:37]
C
Yeah. I sold the. The dirt. So.
- [50:38]
B
But it's.
- [50:39]
C
It's.
- [50:39]
B
It's not a pd.
- [50:40]
C
No, no, no. I saw another restaurant concert came and said we. We want that dirt. And we want.
- [50:45]
B
I bet that dirt. I mean, how far out from the city is. I'm just not familiar.
- [50:47]
C
It's about here. I mean. Yeah, it's.
- [50:50]
B
I mean, I know. I saw how fast things are expanding up north.
- [50:53]
C
It was a good real estate deal.
- [50:54]
B
Was it not Canoe. But what's. Where the lakes up Conroe. Conroe. Like that. The, the real estate between here and Conroe. Closer towards Conroe. That's blowing up right now.
- [51:03]
C
Yeah. No, anything's always. Yeah. Yeah.
- [51:05]
B
So this was a. I'm sure it was a good investment.
- [51:07]
C
It was very good investment. Yeah.
- [51:08]
B
Yeah.
- [51:09]
C
Very good.
- [51:09]
B
So before we move on, because the second location was you dipping your toe into franchising.
- [51:15]
C
But, but see how I, I always got lucky in the sense that I, the, the franchising had a great operator. Okay. The other one, the dirt, had a backstop in it. It's. It's. They built me the, the, the, the store. The bank builds me the store. It. It's my dirt. So there's a backstop there. I'm always very. I was very careful with how I did it, you know, to make sure that. That if you fall down, you don't fall all the way down to the first rung on the ladder.
- [51:43]
B
Right.
- [51:44]
C
You know, and during that time, there's a lot of life things happening as well. So you always have to be careful of the steps you take. So it was always very protected. The next step, if that makes strategic.
- [51:58]
B
Calculated.
- [51:59]
C
Yes. Yeah. I could have probably grown faster if I had been more rec. Not reckless. That's a bad word. More aggressive.
- [52:05]
B
Okay.
- [52:05]
A
I think it's good.
- [52:06]
B
I think people get in trouble when they grow fast.
- [52:09]
C
Yeah.
- [52:09]
B
Because they're just trying to like. You had a very unique concept that hit at the right time. You could have scaled like crazy, but what would it have become, you know?
- [52:19]
C
No. Yeah.
- [52:20]
B
No.
- [52:20]
C
And I'm not the most organized person. Right.
- [52:23]
B
Most entrepreneurs aren't.
- [52:24]
C
Yeah. So you need people to help you.
- [52:26]
B
Right.
- [52:26]
C
You know, along that process, you. You get people that come in your life and you make. Make a team to be able to scale it properly and protect it.
- [52:34]
B
Right.
- [52:34]
C
More serious. Because I also noticed a thing about us, we don't grow up, we just get older. So, you know, because you. You're in the business and, and. And now that I'm old, I look back and I say, man, I've always been in. In. In some role of. In charge. What did I miss out on? Because sometimes it's good to go into a situation where you have more people over you and shape you and then you learn and you. Leadership style.
- [53:01]
B
You never got that mentorship. You went to school.
- [53:03]
C
Yeah. No. And you. And you get out and it's the life. And, and so there's a lot. I mean, it's a lot of blessings, a lot of luck that definitely.
- [53:11]
B
Well, I've heard the harder you work, the luckier you get.
- [53:14]
C
Yeah. I mean, there's never. It. There's always work in the restaurant industry.
- [53:17]
B
I mean, so help me understand your scale. I. I work chronologically. For some reason, my mind. This is how it works. So you're at 26 locations today. At one point, you are at 30 locations. When were you at 30 locations?
- [53:34]
C
Maybe a year and two years ago.
- [53:35]
B
Two years ago? 2024. So it took you from 2008 to 2024, approximately 16 years to go from one to 30 locations. I think that's a good timeline.
- [53:49]
C
It's crazy.
- [53:50]
B
Yeah. I think it's aggressive, but it's not too aggressive.
- [53:53]
C
No, no. And it's the way we did it right, Because a lot of things happen in between. So in. In 20, 20, 15, 16, I got my. My shop on I10 and I'm behind the counter. My cousin runs it with me. And then some guy comes to try to sell me meat, right? He owns my meat business, my protein business. And it wasn't Dean.
- [54:16]
B
Dean Peeler by any chance, was it?
- [54:17]
C
I love Dean and Peeler.
- [54:18]
B
Yeah, I had them on the show.
- [54:20]
C
Yeah, I love Dean and Peeler. I don't. I don't do business with them, but I. I like them. I think they're good people. It was a guy that was like a business guy, development guy for Roma Foods pfg. And he's training his salesman who's like, man, I can't get this guy named Pedro to buy food from me. And of course he's like, ah, come on, boys. I'll show you how it's done. And then we start talking about the idea. He sees it like everybody else. He says, I think it's got laid. And he became my partner. His name is Joey Aguia. He came in and he was. He had his own concepts in the past. He was a franchisee for CC's as well and in other concepts. So he had the operating experience he'd scaled in the past, and he had the food sales experience. You know, that dark side. So then we start. We partner up.
- [55:18]
B
What year was this?
- [55:20]
C
My. My work. My brain works differently than yours. Yeah.
- [55:23]
B
How many locations were you at this point?
- [55:25]
C
I think three or three or.
- [55:27]
B
Okay, so 20, 12, 13, 15, probably.
- [55:30]
C
15, 16, three, I don't know. But so we, we get together and then we're like, okay, well, what are we gonna do now? And we put up a sign that says, franchise is available on the doors. And then we sold 10. 10 right away. So they were like, oh, so that we. We go higher.
- [55:49]
B
At this point in 2013. Forgive me for interrupting. 2013, 14, 15. Approximately. What are your per unit? Like you had three, the four locations. What kind of revenue are you doing at this time?
- [56:01]
C
I don't remember, man.
- [56:03]
B
Ballpark.
- [56:05]
C
Good enough. That where they're all making profit.
- [56:08]
B
Were you in the 20s at this point?
- [56:10]
C
20%? Yeah. No, dude, the first one was okay, and then the other ones are right around 10.
- [56:15]
B
Got it.
- [56:16]
C
You know, ramping up.
- [56:17]
B
Got it. What were your struggles prior to bringing on this business partner? Where were you as an entrepreneur? Your self awareness? Where are you? Like, I'm really good at this. We got this dialed in. I could be better at this.
- [56:30]
C
What was that for you, I think that it was just standardizing everything. I'd rather set my eyelids on fire then create an OPS manual.
- [56:40]
B
So, dude, we're alike.
- [56:42]
C
Yeah. So, like, my inbox has 9,000 things in it. And I know people that it'll drive them crazy once it gets to one, you know? Now, that's not it, but I. I had to understand that I want to suck a little less at that.
- [56:59]
B
Right.
- [56:59]
C
So then get somebody that's slightly more organized to help me with that.
- [57:03]
B
Yeah.
- [57:04]
C
And that's what I wanted. I. I was really tired also at that. At that time, there's a lot of family stuff going on. The. The mother of my oldest son got diagnosed with brain cancer. So that. That's another thing that led me into the franchising world, is I want to scale it, but I'm not going to have the time.
- [57:27]
B
Yeah. The one thing I think franchising gets a bad reputation. I think a lot of people in the world of franchising abuse the model or grow too fast or provide the support to their franchisees or use the franchise model to sell. And don't let the franchisee get in on that. You know, they don't pay it forward to the franchisee. I don't know where your ethics lie on that, but has a. It can be a great way to scale if you do it intentionally.
- [57:56]
C
Yeah. And there's. So I'm. I'm gonna tell you the franchisor side of it, because everybody always looks at the. The first of all, I thought I'd never seen people happy with their franchiser, but I. I went into it, and that was a mistake I made. Is. Is you think everybody can do it better than you because you're like, my dumbass did it. And these guys are very impressive. They're more accomplished, polished. They're gonna do better. And sometimes it's a different skill set that restaurants are different animal. Right. And people ask me, does your model work? Like. Like, what's the percentage? Was it, dude, there's nothing promised in the world. Nothing. When people say, does your model work? I say, yeah, if you do.
- [58:42]
B
Right.
- [58:43]
C
You know, if. If I could sell, if my marketing was so good that it guaranteed. Because that's what people want, is guarantees.
- [58:51]
B
Yeah. People want mailbox money.
- [58:53]
C
There's nothing. Yeah. If I found it, I probably wouldn't sell it. Yeah. Right. You know what I mean? I would be selling marketing because that's a lot easier than doing.
- [59:03]
B
Right.
- [59:03]
C
You know, so that's. That's my side of it. Restaurants and Then my concept also, when people see it, the ticket average is so good. Right. It's like a $75 ticket average. And. And then people get excited and do hockey stick models up and to the right and. But doing it is a daily thing. It's a grind. It's shaking hands. You get in the restaurant business because at some point you like people and you miss that in this model. You miss some of that. But you still have to give that 40 seconds of hospitality. The value proposition to the guest is more than the food in the bag. It's something else that's intangible.
- [59:45]
B
Well, as a franchisor, I think your guest shifts to the franchisee. You're no longer focused on the guests as much as you're focused on the France. Like your hospitality, your warmth, your generosity, becomes the franchisee.
- [59:58]
C
Right.
- [59:58]
B
Because if you. But that's them successful.
- [60:01]
C
I'm gonna introduce you to a guy named Kevin Hogan, who's a franchise sales guy, and he'll explain the franchise system very well.
- [60:08]
B
Yeah.
- [60:09]
C
Because the only thing that matters is that next guest that goes through the door, because without him, any percent you charge is zero.
- [60:15]
B
Oh, I don't disagree with that. But you gotta empower the franchisee to be able to ripple that through to the. The guests they have to be bought into. So, like you, you're not. Yeah, exactly. You're recreating yourself in franchise.
- [60:27]
C
Yes. And that's another thing that my job becomes to find Better Pete's. And that's easy because, you know, because it's me.
- [60:36]
B
Right.
- [60:36]
C
You find the better pizza everywhere. Now it's just hoping to God that they make it and do it right and follow the system and give a damn. And even if you do everything right, there's no guarantees. You know, the world has changed in the last five years.
- [60:51]
B
It's going to change even faster as we go.
- [60:52]
C
Yeah. So. So. So how you move with it is so important. And we're all figuring it out together.
- [61:01]
B
Right? So these partners that came in around 2014, 15, that take you beyond three or four locations.
- [61:06]
C
Joey. And then. And then I'm buying the building in 18. Right. So I think I met Joey in 16, probably.
- [61:13]
B
Okay.
- [61:14]
C
Then I'm buying this building in 18, and I go to talk to a gentleman that Joey introduced me to, and he's giving me advice on how to purchase a building, how to negotiate it, what I need to look at. He's a commercial real estate guy here in Houston. I don't want to mention because I don't want him. I Don't want to ruin his name by being associated with me, but thank you. He's a very nice guy. He's super, super smart. And he walks me through this deal of how to negotiate this little strip center. Right. In the meantime, we start talking about, hey, what's for you to Pete's. He's seen a couple of them around town and, and he says, I got this group of people that are thinking about getting in the restaurant business. I say why?
- [62:00]
B
Want me to talk them out of it?
- [62:01]
C
Yeah, give me two minutes. They'll run the other way. And then that turns into some meetings with a group of investors that are looking to get in the franchisor side. And then we go and meet with them for eight months because there's really nothing there. And we can't get to the right number because when you're selling, it's priceless. When you're buying, you're trying to quantify. And during the eight months time we finally got to a number number that, that, that felt right to us now, but it felt right and then that brings a whole nother level of complexity to the business. Complexity. Not in a bad way. Sophistication, I guess.
- [62:44]
B
Relationship.
- [62:44]
C
Yeah, sophistication is, is the way because these are sophisticated people and then they put in better systems. We get the opportunity now to be better funded to redo our logo. Right. And, and, and, and do other cool stuff like that. Marketing and, and just the structure of the business and how to, how to treat something in a way that you're actually going to grow. Because as an operator in the, in, in the way my life was going and the things that were happening in it, you just make it. You, you're just living life. Right, right, right. But, but this was an opportunity where we knew we had something that, that could grow and, and, and thank God we got lucky and, and picked the right people to help us grow it. Right. Another, like I just, like I said, luck. We, we met a. The, the right people that we partnered up with and, and they became, you know, owners of the, you know, they own half the brand in the franchising of the side side and, and that's how we were able to, to attack the market.
- [63:49]
B
Can you get into how you organize that? Like so you have your original concepts, the, or your original locations, I should say. Very kind of reminds me to Johnny Caraba. Right. They franchise or does that just become corporate? Was it a franchise or a corporation?
- [64:03]
C
No, I think there's a lot of stories you hear about them, but they, they Went to franchise, and then he kind of. The way I understand it, stepped back a little bit from that side of it. It's still franchise, but I should try.
- [64:17]
B
To get him back on the show.
- [64:18]
C
Yeah. I mean, he's. There's. I've never heard anything. Anybody say anything bad about him ever. He's a great guy.
- [64:23]
B
Yeah.
- [64:24]
C
And I think his model, as I understand it, was. I'm gonna step back because the franchising is hard. Oh, yeah. And then kind of just train people and get a. A royalty stream that way.
- [64:34]
B
Right. So they use his likeness, his brand, the franchise?
- [64:37]
C
I believe so. I'm not.
- [64:39]
B
He owns the original Carabas, like, right down the street. And that location is what he's doing. That he's a legacy in Houston is phenomenal.
- [64:49]
C
Yes.
- [64:51]
B
So did you set it up the same way where, like, your original Fajita Pete's is owned by you, is not a part of the.
- [64:57]
C
Not a part of it.
- [64:58]
B
If that goes under, you still are the og.
- [65:00]
C
Yeah. Like I tell people, if Fajita piece goes good on Pete. If not, I'm Pedro again, and I was fine with that.
- [65:06]
B
So how many. How many locations do you own under your.
- [65:09]
C
No, I owned. Mine is the. The original one that we're right next to.
- [65:13]
B
And then you own 50 of the.
- [65:14]
C
Franchise now is less. Yeah, because Joey and I own 50.
- [65:17]
B
Of the franchise back in 2016.
- [65:19]
C
Yeah. Yeah. So. So now we have a group of investors. And. And. And I don't like to say I own this and they own that. No, we own the fajita. Beats franchising. Yeah, we all pay to be franchising. And. And they've been very additive, and they pushed us.
- [65:32]
B
When did that happen?
- [65:34]
C
I believe it was eight. Eight.
- [65:37]
B
A few years after Joey comes on board.
- [65:39]
C
Yeah.
- [65:40]
B
So when Joey came on board, was he with Performance Food Group?
- [65:43]
C
Yeah, he was working with them as a contractor, trying to standardize their sales process or something.
- [65:47]
B
And he sees something. He sees that this thing's got legs. He said. How did he compliment you? What. What did he bring to the table? What were his strengths relative to operating?
- [65:56]
C
I think just the organized organization of it, getting systems in place.
- [66:01]
B
You're a CEO, he's a coo.
- [66:04]
C
Yeah.
- [66:05]
B
Operation.
- [66:05]
C
He's a coo.
- [66:06]
B
Yeah.
- [66:07]
C
Yeah. He's an operator, for sure.
- [66:08]
B
Are you familiar with eos?
- [66:10]
C
Huh?
- [66:11]
B
Eos, the Entrepreneur Operating System. So, no, in that language, you're. You're the. The visionary, he's the rocket fuel.
- [66:18]
C
Yeah. I mean, I think the most important Caesar, the cooks. Right. But. But Yeah, I mean, that's how it laid out. I'm the CEO, he's the CEO. And because that's what we needed at the time. Right. And we structured it in a way that was palatable to people that could be packaged up and marketed.
- [66:38]
B
And this is at three to four locations.
- [66:39]
C
Yeah.
- [66:40]
B
And that's the thing that I've identified, you know, because in my mind there's one to three, it's opening one. That's a hurdle.
- [66:46]
A
The next big hurdle is three to.
- [66:48]
B
Four, because you can't do it alone at that point because you need to, you need things to be in places you can't be in that many spots. You need, need the business to rely on systems. And if you're not a systems minded person, you need that partner, that rocket fuel that is going to systematize who you are. And then the next hurdle seems to be, in my experience, going from 4 to 10, you know, or like 1 to 3 and then getting from 4 to 10, like. But what was it for you? I don't want to put words into your mouth.
- [67:18]
C
For us it was just going. So once we started opening stores. Right, right. That, that gave us other advantages and issues.
- [67:26]
B
This is 20, like 16.
- [67:29]
C
You're gonna have to stop with the.
- [67:31]
B
Sorry.
- [67:32]
A
So this is three to four units approximately.
- [67:35]
B
And then with, when Joey came on board, how many more units?
- [67:38]
C
We opened up Tomball, we opened up Parand, we opened up Sienna. Like we started opening the franchise agreements that we signed.
- [67:44]
B
So you had like, you doubled in size essentially? Yeah, from like 3 to 4 to.
- [67:48]
C
6 to 8 pretty quick.
- [67:50]
B
And then that's when you brought on another partner in 2018?
- [67:52]
C
Yeah, they, they started seeing the growth. And then we had commitments at the time for the, for the stores. We had signed agreements. Yeah. And then we said, okay, well let's start marketing this thing. And then once we got, we never really market. We took a lot of inbound calls, but we needed a system to standardize the, I guess, sales process, the selection process.
- [68:12]
B
Right.
- [68:12]
C
Yeah. Because at the beginning people just call us and me and Joey, we go meet them and talk. And, and then we, we, we got with the gentleman I mentioned earlier, Kevin Hogan, and he kind of said, no, this is how you got to do it. This is what franchising is, this is what it isn't. And, and then he, he kind of made the system. He, he, he takes the inbound calls, puts the people through a process, we meet them at the end. It's called an observation day. And that's how it Got standard process.
- [68:39]
B
For finding franchisees, right?
- [68:42]
C
No, because we never did outreach. People just came.
- [68:45]
B
Or at least when I say finding, I guess like filtering through.
- [68:47]
C
Filtering through people.
- [68:48]
B
And this was after Joey came on board. Kevin was his name.
- [68:52]
C
Kevin Hogan.
- [68:53]
B
Yeah. And he's the. The additional partner?
- [68:55]
C
No, he's not a partner.
- [68:56]
B
Oh.
- [68:56]
C
He's a third party franchise consultant. Got it.
- [69:00]
A
Got it.
- [69:00]
B
And what. What company is he with?
- [69:02]
C
I think it's called LDL Consulting. Okay, so I can get you that.
- [69:06]
B
So you guys are having success. You're realizing that you can sell the franchise, but can you execute the actual scaling of the franchise with the additional levels you had the store level, systems and processes, but did you have the franchisor.
- [69:20]
C
Exactly.
- [69:21]
B
Of systems and processes managing all that? And that's what he brought to the table?
- [69:26]
C
It is.
- [69:26]
B
Hit me with his name one more time.
- [69:27]
C
Kevin Hogan. Kevin Hogan. And then he introduced us to Wayne Bunch, our corporate attorney. Okay, and so you're building the house.
- [69:34]
B
Right now before you move into it, you're saying we need more chiefs if.
- [69:37]
C
We'Re gonna really scale this, we need systems. Yeah, yeah, we definitely need systems. And not. My goal was always to get it to a place where we could run a hundred stores. Okay, Right. And then. Because if it's like buying a building, it's like signing a lease. If I don't want to do it for 20 years, I don't want to do it for one.
- [69:53]
B
Right.
- [69:54]
C
The building. If I'm thinking about flipping it in a year, then I just won't do it. If I don't, you know, I have to be able to own. Own it. And that's kind of how. If we can't do it to 100 stores and why would we do it? I mean, I had a pretty good life at that time with my three stores. Right. And, you know, I had good. I've always been blessed with a good crew. I had a guy here in the Raphael Roman. He's been with me forever. I've had crew with me since the first day at Poblanos. That's still with me today.
- [70:20]
B
What kind of volume were you doing with three stores?
- [70:25]
C
We counted. Count smiles on people's faces. We don't really count dollars.
- [70:28]
B
I'm just trying to get an idea of, you know, like, you had security, right? You're doing over a million sales, I'm assuming.
- [70:33]
C
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And. And I. I never lived above my means.
- [70:38]
B
You're doing about 15 per location, approximately.
- [70:41]
C
I never lived above my means. That's the key.
- [70:44]
A
The Key to everything that's a good place to be.
- [70:46]
C
You know, like great place to be.
- [70:48]
B
And to, to choose to scale beyond that. Like what package of, of chaos are you opening? And like you got to really be aware that life isn't going to get easier necessarily.
- [70:58]
C
Well, that's where my stupidity comes in. As in. And you think it will in the, in the hope. Right. And you, because as an entrepreneur you're always blessed with, blessed and cursed with the hope. Right, Right. And, and you do it and you hope it gets easier. But I mean it's, what do they say is the prisons you build for yourself. But, but it's, it's been a blessing in the sense that we've grown. I have a brand that, that don't.
- [71:21]
B
Get me wrong, I think, I'm not saying you're in a horrible place right now, but it's the.
- [71:24]
C
No, no, no, no. And, but it is different.
- [71:27]
B
Right?
- [71:27]
C
You know, it's, it, you go through these ways as an entrepreneur where you have money and then you have time and then figuring out time and money is different. You know, and, and, and one thing you can never turn off is, is caring about the business so you can have more people working with you. But guess what? When a review comes in at 12 o' clock at night, it still hits your phone and you wake up and you're up till three. Yeah. And it's a store that, it's way over there and you're wondering what happened and you still care. It still pisses you off. Right? So there's that. But that's, like I said, that's the disease of entrepreneurship. There's a lot of people that are more successful, mature, organized, that probably could compartmentalize a little better. But as a, as a Latin hot blooded male, you still get, you know, you can pay people to do the work, nobody will ever care as much as you. And, and not because something they do wrong, it's, it's, it's all, you know, your perspective.
- [72:31]
B
So if I'm summarizing the story up to this point, I would say you're in like third gear of this. And if you're in sixth gear now or fifth gear now, however many, let's say call it a five gear gear, you're in third gear. First gear was opening your first restaurant. Second gear was focusing on doing one thing really well and finding your niche and owning that niche. And then now you're going into, in your story, you're going into third gear where you're realizing, I need to build a Team, we have something, but we could, we could suck less.
- [73:00]
C
Yep.
- [73:01]
B
And we need to find people, get.
- [73:02]
C
People in the right spots that do things that I don't do well.
- [73:06]
A
Right.
- [73:06]
B
What was the challenge for, for you during this time, this time of growth, this time of like building a team, this time of changing how you operate or at least documenting how you operate?
- [73:17]
C
The challenge. Well, well, personally is like you have to decide like, like you, you asked the question earlier is why would you do this? Right. So I said, well, am I done growing or do I think I can grow some more? Now you have. Just because you have a good life and a good, good flow to everything doesn't necessarily mean that's where you should stop.
- [73:40]
B
If you stop, the world will probably grow beyond you. You got to continue to grow.
- [73:43]
C
Right? Yeah. And, and then just for yourself, you. I always wanted to try it, you know, and, and then figure out if, if I could do it.
- [73:51]
B
What is it in this growth? Okay.
- [73:53]
C
Am I just a. Because I tell people I'm not a restaurant guy. I'm a guy who's had a restaurant, which is different. Right. So I needed to get restaurant people around me, systems people around me, business people around me, me. And, and I always, it's, it's that same hoping and, and wonder like, hm, how far could we take it? Could we do it? We believe in it. You know, some of my, my biggest success stories are, are seeing operators take it. Like the Dallas guy, it changed. You know, he was a manager at a. Another QSR for years, took it, changed his family's life, life. You know, I, I have another owner operator right now. That's. That to me is so inspiring. His name is Naen and the first guy's name was Jose Rosinos. And n. And them, they, they, they take something, they take such good care of it. And, and we have other operators that are great. But I'm just thinking about small owner operators who go from making X as an employee to making, making 3 to 5x as an operator. And then they really wear it.
- [75:01]
B
Were they managers before this? I think managers do really well on the franchise model because you're handing them a system and they're already good managers. Yeah, they're just managing the business now. But they have, It's a great way to create opportunity for people who are the leaders and managers. Right.
- [75:21]
C
And it's a. And you never know how it's gonna be. Right. Because it is shocking to be in charge of everything. Like there, there's been countless examples in the restaurant world where A number two guy will take, will go do something and it won't work because it's, it's just a different level and that's where the luck comes in and the right people doing the right things comes in. And just having a system like, like our system is pretty. I mean obviously I believe in them a little, but I believe in it in the sense that I tell people it's like Mayweather like or just like Mary Floyd. Yeah, money Mayweather. Like you can't hit them in the phone booth. Like you can't hit them period. Yeah. So the system's like that. You can turtle up and survive the bad times. And then the catering and the high ticket averages allows you to go score when that time comes. Right. So that's what the model is now. The model is protein based. So that's the weakness of it. You're. You're selling the most expensive thing you can sell. So there's no fluff, there's no sizzle, there's just state, right? So. So you have to make sure that you control that it and just making sure that, that that model fits the skill set of the people that are gonna run it. And you never know. You never know till bullets start.
- [76:41]
B
How does it feel to get somebody who was locked into a role that had a ceiling where they couldn't grow beyond that and then to give them a vehicle to create opportunity to help them full meet, meet their like a higher potential or, and put them on the path, their full potential?
- [76:59]
C
I think that's the most rewarding part of it, I think seeing. Because that's all we're talking about is vehicles of, of growth, right? Real estate, restaurants, whatever they are. It's just tool. Money is a tool, money is a vehicle. So. But just seeing that, to me, those are the most rewarding stories. They honestly are, you know, I, I think that, that it's, it because that's why you, you start a business, like I mentioned earlier, you get an empty space that's dark and then there's life in it. You get people employed. And, and I saw the street performer in Los Angeles one time, time I went to visit my brother and they're doing street aerobics, you know, and they're gymnastics. I'm sorry. And, and, and he said, you know, this isn't the best job, but it keeps us out of the poor house and out of your house. You know, that's kind of what the restaurant industry is, right? You get people and it's. And you provide employment for people that are Usually in the transitional part of their life. And, and then that's another rewarding thing to get, get people and see their change while they're with you. So, so I think the whole, and I think that's just life in general, but the whole idea is to provide a, a vehicle that can be something great for somebody.
- [78:12]
B
Right. And the cool thing about franchising and I think it really applies to those who are great leaders and coaches who are also great managers because that is what you're doing with a franchise. You're not the creative, you're not dreaming up a concept. Maybe that's not your strength. But if you believe in something that has a good model, a, a company that has good values and a, an inspiring mission and you can take that vehicle and you can sit in that vehicle as a, as a driver, as an owner and work the system.
- [78:43]
C
Yeah.
- [78:43]
B
You know, and that creates a lot.
- [78:44]
C
Of opportunity for people and everybody can put their own spin on it. Right. Like, because leadership is, is so individual. And I do think that the most important thing to store success is the on site leader.
- [78:54]
B
Yeah.
- [78:55]
C
You know, there's nothing better for the soil than the farmer's own two feet. Right, right. So, so that's gonna be what makes a difference. And that's hard as a franchisor because it's, it's so intangible. I guess what could, could not happen. But I think, you know, as an entrepreneur, I just want a shot.
- [79:16]
B
Well, I think that's one of the reasons why I like your approach to taking it slow. Because I think what happens when people get something that has legs in a blue ocean market it. Then they get excited and they get nervous and they start making fear based decisions of if I don't do something about this now, somebody else is and we're going to miss our opportunity.
- [79:34]
C
Like people, I mean, oh well, your system. I can go do it. I said, dude, I'll tell you where to go do it.
- [79:40]
B
Yeah.
- [79:41]
C
Because I know you're going to fail at it. So that way I get a fully built restaurant. When you leave, you know, tell me where, I'll show you the map where I would put them.
- [79:48]
B
Yeah, but, but your approach of really focusing on the relationship, relationships, focusing on building people, that is what will, that will be a test of time.
- [79:58]
C
And for every restaurant, it's so important that within one mile around you, they know you. And when you say relationships, that's what I think about. Right. Is every elementary school around you has to know you. Every, every fire station has to know you. Like when the next storm in Houston happened, happens. Well then guess what you do? You make a whole bunch of Fajita for 10 packs and you go to the fire and police station.
- [80:22]
B
They know everyone.
- [80:23]
C
Yeah. No. And you know they're gonna have a long night. Yeah. You know, and, and you go drop off food there. The local charities, teachers, preachers and coaches. Right. That's, that's how you, you, you get. And within a mile to three miles, people can know you. They, they can hate you. But it's not an excuse. It's inexcusable for them not to know you. Right.
- [80:43]
B
Any other, like lessons, Specific lessons. Knowing what you know now. Reflecting back at this time, bringing on first partner with Joey and then a few years later going to the, the partner that helped you build out your franchise systems. Not your four walls unit level systems, but the, the greater picture. What do you know now that you wish you knew then? What advice do you have for somebody who's thinking about getting into that next in their journey?
- [81:11]
C
Man, it's so different for everybody. It and it. I guess it's where do you want to end up? And then work backwards. Because there's 10,000 ways to do the right thing. Because there's 10,000 goals. If you talk to 10,000 people, there's different goals. Right. So I think it is figuring out where you want to end up and then do the math work backwards. It's like when I look at a site, I say, hey, my ticket average is this. I need to sell X amount of tickets. I look at the map, I go to Google Maps, go satellite view. Is there enough people around there to get me that? Because you all do. Well, I'm getting 90% up. No, you're not. You're gonna get 1% of the market if you're killing it. So is there enough people around me to even do that? And that's how I would go about it. Where do I want to be? Where am I in my life? Right. Life is weird that way. It happens and then work backwards. Is this something that will make me happy? If I do get to that goal.
- [82:09]
B
Am I moving in that direction?
- [82:10]
C
Yeah. Is this something that's going to get me there quicker in a better way? Am I going to enjoy it and am I going to learn? That's one of the biggest things for me was I knew that I would learn a lot from this group and I have not enough.
- [82:25]
B
What is your vision? Where do you want to be?
- [82:31]
C
My vision is opening more successful stores. My vision is growing our unit volume to where the franchisees become more profitable. The vision is controlling, maybe always looking to innovate better ways to do what we need to do in a more efficient way. Listening to ideas from people that come up. We've implemented a lot of ideas from franchisees. These. But that's the goal. The goal is improving unit economics through smart decisions.
- [83:12]
B
Do you have unit economic goals markers that you think. I know, I know you lawyers are listening. We're not saying that these are the promises, but what are the goals?
- [83:22]
C
The goals for me are we use a tool called Ovation.
- [83:29]
B
Zach goats past guest in the show, past sponsor. Great tool.
- [83:33]
C
Yeah, he's awesome. So that's part of our KPIs, his tool. The. The customer review part of it. Our goal is 4.6.
- [83:43]
B
So the KPI is you want to.
- [83:44]
C
Hit a 4.6 or higher on Ovation. I want to hit.
- [83:48]
B
That's a Google review, right?
- [83:49]
C
Specifically Ovation. No, Ovation has its own scores.
- [83:52]
B
Okay.
- [83:53]
C
And then if they. They can go to Google and there's a whole tool, he can explain it 10 times better than I can. But it's a great tool. I always push it. I like Zach. I've met him and yeah, he was nice enough to talk to me.
- [84:05]
B
Guys got energy for days.
- [84:06]
C
Yeah, no, he's a good. He's a good guy. So that's one of our goals, the customer satisfaction, the survey rating. Then the other goal is 75% of, you know, I don't know if you know how his tool works, but it's like an angry face to a heart face.
- [84:23]
B
Yeah. Is that also through Ovation?
- [84:24]
C
Yeah.
- [84:24]
B
Okay.
- [84:25]
C
So. So that's how he. It's just quick for the guests to get through and see it. So 75% of amazingly content guests. Right. And then you have other goals about when you do QVRs. QVRs are visits that franchisors do to see how the store looks, temperatures, things like, you know, what's that stand for?
- [84:47]
B
Qbr?
- [84:48]
C
Quick something Something.
- [84:49]
B
Quick visit.
- [84:50]
C
Yeah, something.
- [84:51]
B
Review or situation.
- [84:53]
C
Yeah, like I tell people, the three Cs, convenience, consistency and quality. But the, the. You. You want to have a goal of like 85% there. So that way people stay ready and are in shape. In. Yeah.
- [85:08]
B
You don't ever want to be 100% because then you're done.
- [85:10]
C
Yeah, yeah.
- [85:11]
B
You want to.
- [85:12]
C
Yeah, yeah. You want to be in a position where. And you're never going to be 100%. It's. It's a restaurant business. Right. And then you have a 5% sales growth as a goal. So. So we have very small attainable goals that we can measure. And then like I said earlier, based on those goals, we say, how do we need to get there?
- [85:30]
B
I want to list those one more time. 4.6 on the rating for through Ovation. A 70% approval.
- [85:36]
C
75%. 75% extremely happy guess.
- [85:39]
B
Out of four. You want three out of four. Basically, the other one was 5% sales growth. Sales growth.
- [85:45]
C
Growth year over year.
- [85:46]
B
What was that last one?
- [85:48]
C
The visits? The 85 on the visit is that. You already mentioned that.
- [85:51]
B
So I think I'm gonna miss that one.
- [85:52]
C
All right.
- [85:53]
B
And 85 of the visits. Is there another one?
- [85:55]
C
That's it. That's it.
- [85:56]
B
So these are really cool KPIs that people can share.
- [86:00]
C
Yeah. Because. And we talk about them in our meetings. Right. And then we can say, okay, it sounds silly, but it's so important to share with your on site crew. Right. Hey, man, that's just two new loyalty guests a week. That's just one catering. Every other one new catering customer every other week.
- [86:19]
B
This is why vision and goals is so important, because you can see it. And then you start to ask yourself, well, what does that look like?
- [86:23]
C
How do I get there? Yeah, yeah. And that's the same thing that you asked me about how to decide to do this franchising path or not. Well, where do I want to be? And then you start thinking, will it help me get there?
- [86:34]
B
Where do you want to be?
- [86:37]
C
Ah, man, I don't know. Every day. Is it. Because the. The days are long and the years are short? You know, I just want it to be. I want to be somewhere where I'm always proud of the brand. I want to be somewhere where the brand is additive to people that come in contact with it, whether it's a customer, a franchisee, and just be. I guess that's it. Just be somewhere where it can be proud of it. Be that it's. It's an honest.
- [87:08]
B
Are you proud of it right now?
- [87:09]
C
Yeah, yeah, I'm very proud of it. Extremely proud of it. And I want to continue that, you know, so that kind of keeps you.
- [87:17]
B
What would make you more proud of it?
- [87:20]
C
Just seeing more stores be more successful quicker, you know, the shortening the Runway. Yeah.
- [87:28]
B
So you guys on a hold right now? Now to.
- [87:31]
C
Yeah, well, like I said, the world changed in the last five years. How covet happened, I don't know if you. Oh, you saw that? Yeah.
- [87:40]
B
Try not to focus on it.
- [87:42]
C
These materials started becoming more popular and. And then so supply chain issues happen, cost of opening happened. You know, the world shifted to a more to go.
- [87:58]
B
I mean, so you gotta completely change your business model.
- [88:01]
C
No, I mean, you just have to know what's out there.
- [88:04]
B
You know, I think you were like, you, your model really was weathered going into the COVID Oh, we served.
- [88:10]
C
It was amazing.
- [88:11]
B
You probably did better. I wouldn't be surprised if some of.
- [88:13]
C
Your best did awesome. Yeah. During those years. Oh, we're killing it.
- [88:16]
B
Yeah, I bet.
- [88:17]
C
But then, so, so the, the cost of open goes up because of just generally the cost. Everything goes up. Right. So it's just a different world and you have to adjust to it. You have to thank God we have the volume to control more of our, our costs. That's all that's an ongoing thing, is figuring out how to control cost, packaging cost, protein cost, and then figuring out how to implement different things into the business to make it more efficient through technology. Our labor need is small because of small square footage in the model. So all those things kind of the tools that happened also during the last five years have changed.
- [89:03]
B
Yeah, that's the thing too, that I think Moore's law. Are you familiar?
- [89:08]
C
Remind me.
- [89:09]
B
Moore's law basically states that technology increases or gets better or improves at an exponential rate. So it was like the amount of circuits or something on a computer. I don't know, I'm not a nerd. But basically technology improves at an exponential lead is the core of it. Okay, but we're moving at a point now where that law is holding true. But the rate of change is, in my opinion, outpacing humanity's ability, your average person's ability to develop new neural pathways to change habits to keep up with the latest technology. And it's only going to get faster if Moore's law holds true. So at what point is good, good enough.
- [89:47]
C
Enough? Yeah, you know, like, like, you know, I think. Yeah, no, and there's a lot of. I could talk about that, but I'm about to have to take a break in a second. But I think that's where the importance of the small goals come in. Right. Because if you have small goals and small like core beliefs about service and, and how to do, how to give that service out, I think everything that comes up, you can figure out how to funnel it into that structure that you have in your mind. Somebody said something very smart one day and I'm a butcher. But basically, it's like the problem that people that lie have is that they don't remember the lie. So it's so much simpler when you just tell the truth because then it's always the same, you know. And that's kind of if you have that guest satisfaction action. What I mean out of all those goals you can do thesis and in year long classes on sales growth, guest satisfaction. Guest retain the value of a loyalty guest. How do you become more sticky within that ecosystem? How do you go attract new people? That's the hardest thing is putting people on the top of the phone. Right. Once you, once they're in the funnel, you can figure out to how to keep them. And then like I said, at least you get your shot. Now it's up to you. Right. But so, so I, but, but as long as you have, you know, the core. The, the core. We, we sell food to people and then we sell convenience. Those things are never going to go out of style. I don't think right now there's going to be fluctuations where off premise is more and then on premise will come back and then we'll probably going to see a boom of 1950s style diners. When you, when technology gets too crazy with paper tickets and stuff like that.
- [91:35]
B
Yeah.
- [91:36]
C
You know that because it all that'd.
- [91:37]
B
Be part of the experience. Nostalgia.
- [91:39]
C
Yeah. Bell bottoms. Yeah. Have come and gone. Like, you know, like so I think everything but, but those core things and how you make people feel and what they feel in relation to your brand, I think those are what keeps you sticky. Yeah.
- [91:53]
B
You gotta take a break.
- [91:54]
C
Yeah. All right, we'll be right back.
- [91:56]
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 means consistently high quality products, industry leading tools, inflexible 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.
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B
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- [93:50]
B
We've covered basically in your journey. We're like halfway there, right? We're at the point where you're with these two new partners you brought on. How many?
- [93:57]
C
We're all over the place.
- [93:58]
B
No, but that's, that's the fun of it. We're bringing it back to center line, which is, that's why timeline is so important to me, because it's always the center.
- [94:03]
A
Bring it to back.
- [94:04]
B
But we can use units, total units. So you with two partners, Joey and remind me of the other gentleman's name?
- [94:11]
C
No. So it's a group of people.
- [94:13]
B
Yeah, Joe. Well, Joey represents a group of people.
- [94:15]
C
No, no, no, Joey. It was Joey and I. And then like a group came in and they're a whole group.
- [94:21]
B
Consultants?
- [94:22]
C
No, they're just the other investors.
- [94:24]
B
Other investors. So you recruited a bunch of people. These are all partners?
- [94:30]
C
Yeah, we had a meeting. What do they call them? Family office type people. They're very knowledgeable, local Houston family that got together like a group of them, and they wanted to invest in restaurants.
- [94:42]
B
Okay.
- [94:43]
C
And. And they became the other half of Fajita Pete's Franchising.
- [94:48]
B
And what's the name of this entity?
- [94:51]
C
Yeah, I don't remember their name, but we have a bunch of partners in it that have restaurant experience. Got.
- [94:56]
B
Got it.
- [94:57]
C
Yeah.
- [94:57]
B
That's cool. I think that's the first time. So it's a group of people that got together, families around Houston that wanted to invest in restaurants.
- [95:04]
C
Yes.
- [95:04]
B
And do they all bring something special to the table? Are they all like different skill sets or.
- [95:08]
C
Yeah, like they. Well, they've obviously grown businesses on their own. A lot of them are from the. In Houston, you get a lot of energy sector people. Okay, right. But those. But they know how to structure businesses, organize them, grow them, scale them. They know what needs to happen at a granular level, which is what I, I like most about it is learning that detailed grind that's what I've been presto with, actually. It's, it's the grind of it. The people involved with us are just, they're bright, driven, attention to detail, professional, polished. Like they're are very impressive people that have really helped shape, I guess, the systems and shape really the, the package that Fajita Pizzas today got it, polished it.
- [96:01]
B
And when they came on board, how many units did you have?
- [96:05]
C
Prox? I don't remember. It could be an approximate, I think six open seven.
- [96:09]
B
And they helped you get to 30?
- [96:11]
C
Yeah, over time we. So during that time time we started rebranding. Right. Because a lot of things happen concurrently. So we're selling these 10 things. We sold these original 10 units that now everybody's a part of in Fajita Pete's Franchising, right. We decided to rebrand. I had a corny little logo that I love. And then we hired a cool firm locally to make movement. Since we're off premise, we wanted to show more movement. So we had the scooter guy. We, we had different ways to show it. So pretty cool branding exercise there. While we're doing that, we're still getting inbounds and we're, we're getting more deals done, more, more franchise commitments for different markets, different territories. So all these things are happening at once and we're figuring out how to organize it as we grow. Right. So. So that's why linear is hard for me. Just because.
- [97:10]
B
Right.
- [97:11]
C
We're dealing with this and.
- [97:12]
B
Well, I guess what I'm point, like what I'm interested in is the points of evolution for you and Fajita Pete's right. So those, those struggles along the way and what your solution to those struggles were. So I guess from going to where you are, where you bring on additional partners, this, this network, this, this collective of individuals that are investing in you, what were the biggest evolutions from that point point to that really help you?
- [97:37]
C
For us it was, it was compartmentalizing everything, right? So we got. Joey is the coo and we have an operations team under him. We have Bruce Foster, who's. Who, who's an amazing fbc. He came from Subway, he managing a lot of different FBCs. So that helped us standardize that.
- [97:55]
B
What's an FBC?
- [97:56]
C
A franchise business consultant. It could be.
- [97:58]
B
They're called different regional managers.
- [98:00]
C
Well, no, they're not regional managers because they don't employ people or have firing and hiring power. They work for the franchisor as a compliance person and they can help troubleshoot, help any so you compartmentalize operations. Talk to Bruce. Training. Talk to Patty Brown. She was with Whataburger as a training person for Whataburger. They all report to Joey. Then marketing, we have Hugh, correct Will, who's one of the partners. And, and he, he's in charge of creating a system to where we take the 1% marketing fund and how do we best use it. Right now you give something that to me and I'm gonna have a whole bunch of feels like it's working. Let's do this. Now this guy's gonna take it and analyze everything that goes with it. Tessa works with you and they, they're together in the marketing department with third party vendors that we utilize. So you create all these systems to actually help you in the goal of sucking less every day. Because you have to figure out how you suck, analyze why you suck, and then figure out how to fix it little by little with the understanding that hopefully that doesn't suck too. Right.
- [99:16]
B
So what were the biggest un. Sucky things that you did? Like what was like. So if we're in third gear getting into this, like, like, I'll tell you.
- [99:25]
C
One of the things that, that, that we learned along the way that I think would help people that are going in this path. We had a third party brand manager, branding company, marketing firm of a firm, a third party firm that we spent a lot of money, money on and they made very good, pretty items. But marketing is such a weird world to an operator because they. There's no ROI that anybody can ever pin down. There's only the eye, the investment. That's all you know. And through the years that we. An evolution that was very important to us is we brought marketing in house because we wanted to be able to track where it's all going. And now with technology, things that have happened throughout the years and a better understanding of the marketing world and getting the right people in that world, we can track more accurately where somebody comes into our funnel. We can track them throughout the customer journey through the register. Okay, so that's a very important thing to do because then you can try different things and seeing how the market reacts to different offers, you can see what part of the strategy, what part of the customer journey are they getting hung up on. So you can. So then it's like another one of those things. So what's our goal? Okay, if somebody walks into my store, I don't want to put hurdles for them to get to the counter, but that's what we're doing in technology. Technology. There's so many hurdles, so many steps. And then, and then through a, through, through one of our franchisees, we met a, a coder and I'm just gonna talk about the marketing world right now because we've done a lot of things on the op side as well. Obviously we're operators at heart. We met a coder who says he's invested in, in one of the stores and he sold a couple companies and a couple tech companies. He goes, hey Pete, you know what? Your website sucks. Okay, cool. You know, well, I know it probably does cuz I'm not a website guy. I think it's pretty cool. And then he says, do you mind if we do this analysis of it? Just because I'm an investor in one of Haiti Pete's and I, you know, he believe.
- [101:46]
B
Was he one of the original, the people a part of the second group that came in?
- [101:49]
C
No, this was from a franchisee and it was December 3rd, 2000. I'm just kidding. I want to get you excited. I want to get you excited with dates.
- [102:03]
B
So this isn't Stephen by any chance, is it?
- [102:06]
C
Huh?
- [102:06]
B
Is this Stephen by any chance?
- [102:07]
C
No, this is Matt, Matt Hager. He, he, he's a, a guy that owns a company in Houston called Clutch I.O. and they've done. I met him because he said, you know what we do in the re in the apartment complex industry. He, he created some technology to help them get better at leasing apartments. Okay. And then that became other technology to open doors through your phone and just.
- [102:32]
B
Piecing all the technologies together for better getting solutions.
- [102:36]
C
What he is, is a solutions guy.
- [102:38]
B
Yeah.
- [102:39]
C
So he says, hey, your website sucks. I said thank you. And then, and then he analyzed in over and this is where, where having people on your team that have this type of focus and just mental structure works. It took a year and a half to really measure where the hang ups are. Right. And so we knew that it was a problem. We knew that it was too many clicks. And I'm getting into the weeds with this. But that's what we're here for, right? We're getting too many clicks. We can follow people and we can see how many seconds at each page that they're taking. And then we can eliminate the hurdles because like I said, if somebody walks through the front door to order something, you're not going to put a whole bunch of hurdles in the way you want them to get them and get them served goals.
- [103:21]
B
Get them on your website and on the order page as fast.
- [103:24]
C
Yes, yes. Which sounds simple.
- [103:27]
B
Yeah. Your model that's what you want because you're takeout delivery and catering.
- [103:32]
C
Yeah.
- [103:32]
B
So you want find me order now, website pay.
- [103:36]
C
Yeah. With three clicks is what we want. And then so over time we analyzed the website and created something that made it a lot easier. Now there's an AI component on it, right. Where say hey, I want to cater. I have an event for 25 people. It fills up the cart for you with the core items and then suggested items, you know. So we're refining this whole process over a year and a half, gathering data.
- [104:00]
B
Here's what's most popular. Most people buy these things together.
- [104:03]
C
Exactly. Yeah. And that really streamlined the way we order there. But that taught us. So they came in with what we call an innovation council, an innovation committee, where monthly we track data. At the beginning of the year we say this is the data we're going to track. Good, better and different. We're going to track it. And then monthly we track how we performed based on that data. And then you have year over year stuff that you can see. Are we doing better, are we doing worse? We spent at on Google Ads and now that we're better at tracking them, where are the people going? Right. How are they getting there? What type of ads actually make a difference? Is it an item? Is it a monetary amount? Is it the type of item? And then everything has different results.
- [104:49]
B
A B testing.
- [104:50]
C
Yeah, everything has different results that you can see suck less. Oh well this worked. So why don't we do more of that? That.
- [104:58]
B
Right.
- [104:58]
C
And less of this. And then that that fits into that type of mentality is beneficial in anything. But especially when the world is in a shutdown and then it comes out of a shutdown and then there's inflation and then you can see which channels are actually being affected by inflation, which are not. And then you can adjust and hope you're adjusting the right way. But the most valuable data that that gives you is the one that's not working. Because then you can stop doing, doing that and you can shift that little budget to something else and then keep on refining that way.
- [105:29]
B
Right.
- [105:30]
C
So that's kind of. When you asked about what the evolution is in getting other people involved is that my brain doesn't work in the way that it would probably have a year and a half worth of focus to do it.
- [105:46]
B
One of the most important things I think is to be self aware, to know what lane you belong in, to get the hell out of those other lanes as fast as possible possible. Because you're only holding.
- [105:54]
C
And I've Been blessed. I'm not good at anything. So I just, I just, I, I.
- [105:58]
B
Feel the same way.
- [105:59]
C
I just get people to help me and be partners.
- [106:01]
B
Yeah.
- [106:01]
C
Right. And then, and then magically, I mean, their, their talents. Yeah. Help us out.
- [106:07]
B
Yeah. So what?
- [106:08]
C
Yeah.
- [106:09]
B
So you compartmentalize the organization. You put butts and seats to focus on those different parts of the organization. And then you double down on data tracking in looking at how your efforts are manifesting. And then little tweaks. Little tweaks, little tweaks. Double down on what works.
- [106:25]
C
Yep. And then fill in gaps of things that are a company as small as ours can't get. We can't. We. We always work very hard at trying to punch above our weight. So like that, that development of the AI tool became a very important thing for us because it. You could see the basket sizes growing, you could see customers getting to the finish line quicker. And then implementing that idea has helped reshape our website. Now we redid the website that, that tool became a company of its own. And, and that company now helps reshape restaurant websites to be more efficient to what your restaurant wants it to be. Get, get you to the finish line quicker.
- [107:07]
B
Yeah. And this is Savory.
- [107:09]
C
Savory is the name of the company.
- [107:11]
B
And that, that was born. I think that's really cool. I mean this is one of the things I'm really excited about the future of the restaurant industry is that as the bar gets lower and lower and lower on actually being able to the.
- [107:22]
C
Barrier to entry to create solutions.
- [107:25]
B
And as more and more people get interested in the restaurant industry, more people with skills like this individual who invested in one of the franchisees, like it's just cool what we can do.
- [107:40]
C
And it was cool because it was just to make it better.
- [107:42]
B
Right.
- [107:42]
C
It was just like, hey, I'm invested in this fajita selling business. If I can help it sell more fajitas.
- [107:51]
B
Right.
- [107:52]
C
Then why not? Right. And the fact that he's solution oriented is. It was the key. Yeah. And that his solution process, it was so detailed was key.
- [108:02]
A
When did this process.
- [108:03]
B
How long have you guys been working on fine tuning this? Until it brings it to where you. Was it post pandemic or pre pandemic?
- [108:08]
C
Post pandemic probably two, three years ago.
- [108:13]
B
Okay.
- [108:14]
C
We started really tweaking the AI aspect of, of the website.
- [108:18]
B
Do you know how many units you had in 20 at the. During the pandemic?
- [108:23]
C
We've been pretty flat. We, we've been. I mean we got to. I, I can look Back and tell you the details, but what year were.
- [108:31]
B
You at 30 locations?
- [108:33]
C
Dude, why are you like this? It was all post. Because we started selling franchise after. Okay. Yeah, so. So most. Most of the franchise sales came after.
- [108:42]
B
Okay. When do you know? Like, I'm just trying to get in that sense of like, when did like this, like the, the scale happen? Because you were at like, it hasn't happened yet.
- [108:49]
C
Just wait.
- [108:50]
B
Well, you're at just 26 locations, man.
- [108:52]
C
Just wait.
- [108:53]
B
So what? I guess so I guess that when did like you go. Because I think when these folks came on like this community of folks in Houston and you weren't beyond like 10 locations yet.
- [109:05]
C
No.
- [109:05]
B
And that was 2016, 17, 18.
- [109:08]
C
Yeah, it happened quick. Like it happened in weight in stages. Like it happened in.
- [109:12]
B
Did it happen too fast at any time?
- [109:14]
C
Yeah, I think it happened too.
- [109:15]
B
That's what I'm trying to get at, like, was. Because when you see an explosion and then you see things close.
- [109:21]
C
Yeah.
- [109:21]
B
I'm not trying to beat you up. I'm just curious, like, what was the learning.
- [109:24]
C
Oh, no, no, no, no, dude. And failure is the most important thing, right? You have some clothes because they are in the wrong part of town. You have some clothes because construction happens in front of them, right. So there's. There's different. Or traffic patterns change or whatever happens. Or grocery store anchor moves, right. And then. So you lose foot traffic and stuff like that. But. And you do the best you can at picking the right locations through. Now another technology thing, you have all these software companies that analyze your credit cards and phones of your customers and get you splotch maps of where you should be in different markets. Oh, man.
- [110:08]
B
What's that company called? There's so many. I want to get some of them on the show. I can never remember. There's so much.
- [110:12]
C
There's. The one we used was Calibrate. Okay. Calibrate. And they were formerly called esights.
- [110:17]
B
Okay.
- [110:18]
C
And they were. You know, Buxton is the one you're thinking about that. That's probably the biggest. And retail. But. But there's companies that analyze that. AI Placer. AI is another one that I.
- [110:28]
B
That's the one that was on my mind.
- [110:29]
C
Yeah. So there's a. There's a bunch of those. We used Calibrate. I like them a lot.
- [110:33]
B
Why do you like them a lot?
- [110:35]
C
They're just nice people to talk to. They're easy to talk to. And they, they work with you on. On really what you're. What you're trying to get at.
- [110:43]
B
How do they help you?
- [110:45]
C
They anal. How do they help you? Like, what's their function? Their function? They analyze your customer data. You give them uploads of, of the customers that you have, and then they segment customers into demographic profiles. And then when you're going to another site, you see now, now through the history of your stores, what kind of customers you have, and you say, okay, 85% of these people live here. This is where around this area you should put one. Yeah.
- [111:13]
B
So you find out where those people live and that's how you do site selection.
- [111:16]
C
Yes. Yeah.
- [111:17]
B
Where is this data? What is this data telling you? Where are your people right now? What markets are you looking at.
- [111:25]
C
There? So we, and then another part of that question is, since you already started at some spots, you got to make sure you're not. You already shot the arrow and then you go draw a target around it. You got to make sure there's some of that going. There's not none of that going on. Right.
- [111:41]
B
So you're saying centrifug, circle scale. So is that what you're talking about?
- [111:45]
C
So what I'm saying is, is if you only open in certain spots, then the data is going to tell you only those spots work. Right.
- [111:52]
B
So you gotta, you gotta try different markets.
- [111:54]
C
You gotta try different markets.
- [111:55]
B
You gotta be willing to fail.
- [111:56]
C
Yeah, exactly. And, but, but you know, I think you can make it anywhere. I think a restaurant can. You know, operation is everything. But. So, so what they do is they get that data and they give you the best shot of succeeding based on your ticket average, based on the people that you're attracting, affluent people who don't have time to cook. It's a better option for dine in because it's restaurant handmade food delivered to their house. It's not necessarily fast food that they have to get, and they're willing to pay that premium for it. So you have to find those people around the cities that you attack.
- [112:36]
B
What was the name that company you're using?
- [112:38]
C
Calibrate.
- [112:38]
B
Calibrate, Right. I'm gonna look into that, ma'.
- [112:43]
C
Am.
- [112:44]
B
We have covered a lot today, and.
- [112:47]
C
It'S nothing we haven't even scratched. You know how it is.
- [112:49]
B
Yeah.
- [112:50]
C
People listening. If they're restaurant people. And we've been, we've been scratching the surface on many different things.
- [112:56]
B
So what is your business today in terms of your, your organizational structure? Your. You have, you have one of your own units, the original unit unit. You have a total of 26 units, including yours. You are a franchise model. You kind of Already laid out the organizational chart of the people you have and how that flows. Thank you very much. You've talked about Ovation and Savory and Calibrate as your tech stack.
- [113:25]
C
What about. So we have Hunger Rush as our pos. We have olo, the. That's, you know, popular in the restaurant space. They're kind of the. The engine, I guess, for it. I don't know how I'm not a.
- [113:37]
A
Techy guy online or they were blowing.
- [113:39]
B
Up, but they feel like they sold recently.
- [113:41]
C
They did, they did. Who do they sell to? I don't. You never know. All these companies, they all sell, right? All the time.
- [113:50]
B
Conglomerates.
- [113:50]
C
Hunger Rush sold a couple times. I was with them long ago when they were called Revention. In. In. And then it's olo and then it's thanks. Who's our app?
- [114:01]
B
That's rewards.
- [114:02]
C
Thanks. Yeah, is our app and Rewards and that's the tech stack. And then we have Savory that now does our website and our catering module.
- [114:18]
B
So what was, you know, with OLO and Than. OLO is just rewards, correct? No, thanks. Sorry. Thanks is just rewards and an app.
- [114:27]
C
Yeah, they're. They're our app.
- [114:28]
B
So ordering online.
- [114:29]
C
Yeah, they're exactly. They order online.
- [114:31]
B
And Savory does your website and your catering app.
- [114:36]
C
Savory does the website, the catering. There's no catering app. They do the catering portal of our website. But really what I like as an operator from Savory is that you never know that they're there. Right. Because that's all we want. We just want to see tickets. Yeah, we want. We want to process orders. And what, what they do. That, that, that for me, that I can't do on my own is they capture data of the guest, specifically catering data. Catering day catering, guest data. They put them in marketing channels to constantly reach out to them.
- [115:11]
B
Segments.
- [115:12]
C
Segments. Through. Through the tech stack that we have, we can see who's been active, who's not been active so that we can reach out to them again in different ways if they haven't ordered. Because catering is a different animal.
- [115:24]
B
Right.
- [115:24]
C
Catering you don't do every. Every day.
- [115:26]
B
Right.
- [115:27]
C
So so you.
- [115:27]
B
Seasonal.
- [115:29]
C
It's very seasonal. And then. So. So it helps you stay sticky with the catering customers as much as you can. And it also, on the back end, through some magical technology I don't know how to explain, helps you so much with SEO, so it creates relevant data for when people are looking for it and it knows how to talk to the system. So Google rewards you with Better SEO and it's all happening at all times now. They can explain a lot better. I probably butchered it, but that's what I like about it.
- [116:07]
B
And Google's constantly changing so you have to have a platform that's constantly updating to play to the Google.
- [116:13]
C
The server we use is different than the normal server. Right. Because it's got to be ready for agentic stuff that's coming down the line.
- [116:18]
B
Right.
- [116:19]
C
So it's already going to be ready for that.
- [116:22]
B
Right.
- [116:22]
C
So it just allows us to punch so far above our weight that, that, that, that it puts us in, in a, in, I mean a playing field that, that we should, we shouldn't do as well in.
- [116:33]
B
So I feel like there might be some redundancy. I mean you're using the, the savory for specifically catering online ordering and there isn't a lot of solutions out there. Specifically you have cateres that's more about finding and managing catering events, not necessarily shipping.
- [116:50]
C
Right? No, no. Yeah. No. And, and yeah. So you can, There's a lot of ways that I think catering is going to evolve in the future. But what I wanted to do is to streamline the ordering process to create kind of like, like our, our simplified menu. Create that same simple process in getting those daily 30 people, lunch meetings, nurses, pharmaceutical reps to come in and out of the system.
- [117:17]
B
Yeah.
- [117:17]
C
Right. And then figuring out how to, to reach back out to them.
- [117:20]
B
Yeah. A lot of the marketing I'm thinking like Biky does that but they're focused on single consumer situations. I don't know if they, they focus on. But to your point, nothing's been engineered specifically for the world of catering that I'm aware of.
- [117:33]
C
Yeah. And I think it's a, A, a lot of opportunity in that space right now.
- [117:38]
B
So why couldn't you use that for olo? Like why couldn't OLO do this? Because that's what have they're online ordering. Right.
- [117:44]
C
They don't in Hunger Rush doesn't have.
- [117:47]
B
An online ordering solution.
- [117:49]
C
They. Everybody has everything but it's getting it to work the way you need it to work. Right. I've learned that best in class is a word that easily thrown out There, there.
- [118:02]
B
What does that mean?
- [118:03]
C
Nothing. It, it Everybody said oh this is the best in class system here, this is the best in class system there. It just depends on what you need at your restaurant. It And I find that very few things are created by operators.
- [118:15]
B
Yeah.
- [118:16]
C
So you have a whole bunch of people. I've had presentations of solutions presented to me by a coder that cannot explain to me how to type in an order into a computer. So. And that's important. You know. And so I think the fact that there's got to be more restaurant people involved in creating restaurant solutions.
- [118:37]
B
Yes. 100 and that's what gets me really.
- [118:39]
C
Sounds silly to say.
- [118:40]
B
Well we were being like the restaurant owner is never the beneficiary of its hard work or their hard work. And like I, I feel like that's not. It's kind of a blanketed statement.
- [118:51]
C
But my.
- [118:51]
B
An example would be restaurants will go into a community and make that community community cool. Provide opportunity jobs for those people. Feed the people. Meanwhile whoever owns that real estate is getting rich.
- [119:01]
C
Right.
- [119:02]
B
That's an example of the. The. The community. The people that own the dirt getting rich off the back of restaurants that are coming and making that community valuable. Right. And I think you're seeing that again in there are all these people that are creating solutions for the restaurant industry. But the. At the end of the day yeah. You might be more efficient but you're also increasing your operational costs. Right. And we're making other companies very rich. You know. And there's this movement happening in the restaurant industry right now where restaurant owners are not looking at each other like competition as much as they used to. And they're realizing that we can go a lot further if we choose to help each other out. Communicate and lift each other up and share information. And we can do we. I think if you're an independent restaurant operator like that is the only path forward is start talking to your neighbor.
- [119:54]
C
And if we can restaurant people will help each other out. 100 we know the grind.
- [119:59]
A
If that starts to spill over into.
- [120:01]
B
The technology that we're developing and sharing with each other.
- [120:05]
C
You made a couple interesting points about real estate. I say own it then. Right?
- [120:11]
B
Exactly.
- [120:11]
C
Buy it. That's why I bought my building.
- [120:13]
B
But.
- [120:13]
C
And then what else is real estate? Your restaurant is real estate for the tech people. Like they're not bringing the market to you. You have the market.
- [120:25]
B
Exactly.
- [120:25]
C
So you have to figure out how.
- [120:26]
B
To cap the power.
- [120:27]
C
Yes. Now scaling technology is hard. Right. But it's getting to your point earlier. It's getting easier.
- [120:34]
B
Right.
- [120:35]
C
And then you have solution oriented people that can take existing tools package it. Because I'll Tech stack is a fancy word of saying tape and bubble gum. And you get three things together and you tie them up and then now there are different solutions. Right. And that's what you have people like to us meeting Matt and being able to create us. Hey, in the apartment complex industry this worked. And in this other technology industry this worked. What if we just try it because all you're selling is fajitas. Right. And then figure out how to make that easier. Right. So I think there's a lot of that going on in the space space and, and I do think there's opportunities for people to come in the market and create actual solutions, not just best in class solutions that are, are packaged up so they can sell their company again.
- [121:28]
B
Yeah, I'm actually talking to Albert Sanchez. I can't remember his, the restaurant. He's Alex, forget me or forgive me. Don't forget me. Please don't forget me. Beos. That's what it is. Bo's Restaurant. Longtime listener of the podcast. And when he found out I was coming to Texas, he is using AI to develop his own solutions within his. So now you get to this point because of AI, because you don't need to necessarily have a skill set. You can tell the AI what you want and work with it as long as you know how that like it can code itself. Y. I just think this is going to be game changing for the rest.
- [122:02]
C
Like our guy Bruce, he's spent half the time learning how to code through AI on how to make our reporting software better.
- [122:10]
B
Right. But how do we, as in the the independent restaurant industry, start sharing this information as much as possible so that we can, to your point, constantly suck less every day as an industry?
- [122:20]
C
Yeah.
- [122:21]
B
And how can we do learn how to do more with less? And I know maybe that doesn't make a lot of my tech sponsors happy to say that kind of stuff, but I think that's just inevitable. That's where we're going.
- [122:33]
C
And then how do you know. And there's so much conversation through technology. How do you, you convey the feeling you want your brand to have through technology in the right way? Yeah, because there's a lot of learning that are going to happen with AI because it's not going to be perfect like anything else. You know, it reminds me, read an article about those self driving cars that there was an issue with them going past stop school buses.
- [122:59]
B
Whoops.
- [123:00]
C
Yeah. And then the, it was like 20% of the time they went past the school bus or something and then the, the answer was yeah, but it's still less than humans. They go through it 60% of the time.
- [123:14]
A
Oh, they're gonna see the kid crossing.
- [123:15]
B
In front of them.
- [123:17]
C
So, so you know, it's that solution like it, it's still a problem but It's. Is it, is it a better solution than we had before? Because also there's gonna be a, you know, like I have a. A manual tortilla press that makes the tortillas round. I still think the most beautiful tortillas are the ones when we used to hand roll them. And they look like maps.
- [123:34]
B
Yeah.
- [123:35]
C
You know what I mean? So there's, there's that. That technology side of it is the balance of what you want and what, what's out there and does it convey the actual feeling of what you're trying to convey?
- [123:46]
A
Yeah.
- [123:47]
B
We're at the point of the conversation where I like to kind of glimpse into the future. We're kind of already dancing around the future. But when you look to the future, what are you doing in your business today? To be prepared for the future or. I have another question after that.
- [124:01]
C
All right, so when you say future, there's a lot of different things happening. Right. Procurement of supplies. We're trying to. We negotiate directly with manufacturers to control that as much as we can.
- [124:15]
B
So in this case is the manufacturer, the farmer.
- [124:19]
C
No further processor for us because we put a marinade in our product that we need to get centrally made. We used to do it in house until that was not scalable anymore. So that's what I mean. The manufacturer, also manufacturer. You could mean your to go container guy. The person.
- [124:35]
B
Right.
- [124:36]
C
You know, you deal directly with them and then the big distributors just become that. Distribution companies.
- [124:44]
B
Right. That's what food service IQ does. Are you familiar with them? They're based out of Boston, but they are. Are. They had a bunch of their founding members were. They worked for the big conglomerate or bigger distributors and they know how that works.
- [124:57]
C
I know the food service. I've always had a problem with the IQ part, but I think that I've never heard of them. Yeah, but I'll look into it.
- [125:03]
B
You know, I had them on the show. I'll share the episode with you. So. So you're going straight to the manufacturers.
- [125:09]
C
Yeah. So. All right, so there's different. The future is controlling costs. Right? That's. That's going to be. That's always going to be a future project problem, even in the future. Labor. How's AI gonna play into labor? Elon said the other day, there's gonna be more robots than people in the future.
- [125:27]
B
I don't know that all the parts are there, man. He says the hardware is there.
- [125:30]
A
They were just waiting on the brain.
- [125:31]
B
And they have that now.
- [125:32]
C
I saw somebody say that. You won't even remember that. They made cars.
- [125:36]
B
You know those like little voice things that like everyone's wearing right now. Remember? It's like everyone's wearing like these necklace. Not everyone. Some people are wearing a necklace that basically records everything they say. So if they need to recall something, a conversation, they could be like, I was talking to Johnny yesterday. What? And then they can spit out like here's what. So that is the brain.
- [125:57]
C
Okay.
- [125:57]
B
They're gonna put that in a robot that follows you around so you don't have to carry your own groceries.
- [126:04]
C
Right.
- [126:04]
B
Like that's the, all the, the, the pieces are all on the table.
- [126:09]
C
And my wife already remembers everything. Yeah.
- [126:12]
A
And that same brain will be in.
- [126:14]
B
Your car, will be in your computer, and no matter where you go, you're gonna have a centralized brain with the hardware to do the things you need. It's, it's crazy what's gonna happen, man. And that's why I'm scared sometimes. Sorry. I want to hear your, I want to hear your thoughts. Because I, I, I'll go down a desk Brial, if you, if you like.
- [126:31]
C
I just want to curl up into a ball now and wait.
- [126:34]
B
Well, it's interesting, dude.
- [126:36]
C
No, no, I think. And, and then where does, like how do you keep the humanity and you know, and.
- [126:41]
B
Well, people need purpose. That's the scary thing. Yeah, but I mean like self actualization.
- [126:48]
C
I'm trying to sell tacos. Right.
- [126:51]
B
And you know. Yeah, but it's, I don't think anybody has the answers. We don't really know how this is going to unfold, but big things are happening. So what was your train of thought.
- [127:01]
C
Before I went down my little crazy before the apocalypse? Yeah. I think figuring out. So with AI. What, what's that going to do? Nobody knows. But you can try to get ahead of it. Right? Right. Set up your, your website in a way that's going to be ready for that technology.
- [127:18]
B
Right.
- [127:18]
C
There's a server. Like I said, the people from Savory can explain a lot better than me. But you have to be ready for it because it will change and agents will be doing more business with your business. Business than people will in the future.
- [127:29]
B
Right.
- [127:30]
C
Like you said, the brain, whatever that is, they're going to be able to do more business. They're going to be able to, they're.
- [127:35]
B
Going to tell the agent to do the work for them.
- [127:37]
C
Yes. Because they're going to read your calendar.
- [127:39]
A
Right.
- [127:39]
C
And then your calendar has a meeting next Thursday for 30 people.
- [127:43]
B
Right.
- [127:43]
C
And then you're going to say, hey, order fajitas from that place for that meeting. And then it's going to tell you which meeting you have three meetings that day. Oh, the one with such and such.
- [127:52]
B
Yeah.
- [127:53]
C
Okay. And then, and then the next time it's going to remember if somebody was a vegetarian. And then the agent's going to do all that and you're going to authorize it to spend money on your behalf. So your website has to talk to agents because our communication, me and you talking. This is the most inefficient form of communication in my opinion. Because it's intentional though. No. And we're limited by our tools. Like my eyes, my voice, the fact that I learned English. English. And I'm talking to you in. In English. And three people could be sitting here and we would all hear different things.
- [128:27]
B
Right.
- [128:27]
C
So we're very inefficient beings. Computers don't have that problem. An agent can talk to another agent and in a nanosecond say what we've said in these two hours.
- [128:37]
B
Right. And every agent that exists will also know that information.
- [128:41]
C
Exactly. So you have to be ready for that.
- [128:44]
B
Right.
- [128:44]
C
And set up your business in a way that's ready for that.
- [128:46]
B
But that's a strength and a weakness on the agent side too.
- [128:49]
C
Yeah.
- [128:49]
B
You know, because I think that there's something to be said in, about diversity in having multiple perspective. An agent has one perspective and the collective of agents has a shared collective perspective.
- [129:01]
C
But they're results driven.
- [129:02]
B
But they're. I think that would also be one shared mind, like a hive mind. So it's really, at the end of the day, one perspective. And I don't know that this would be absolutely true. I'm just kind of speaking off the cuff right now. But the cool thing about having a human perspective is that that human is that they have their literal like own, like, like quantum physics. Like it's their own reality.
- [129:26]
C
Yeah.
- [129:27]
B
Their reality is different from your reality.
- [129:28]
C
We're on the restaurant.
- [129:29]
B
All these different perspectives. Which is valuable. That's valuable.
- [129:31]
C
Of course. We're on the restaurant show. If our. So if human sole purpose was consuming fuel, you wouldn't need Italian, Chinese, Thai, you know. So what you're saying is those perspectives, those different experiences are important. Important. And I agree.
- [129:46]
B
Right. 100 diversity.
- [129:48]
C
There's a reason the garden's pretty is because they have different color flowers. Right. You know, so I understand. I, I agree with that completely. I don't know. But I just don't know where it's going to go. Well, the thing that I think we still have to. I trust that we will somehow still incorporate our humanity into these systems.
- [130:04]
B
Yeah, I think we have to be very conscious going forward because it's going to be really easy to give one entity a lot of power. Whoever, whoever pulls out on front, whoever is the best at marketing their AI, is going to own the market, you know, and that's what we have to avoid from happening. Because if that happens, like if Google owns the market for AI, if Gemini becomes the number one option, they're going to own not just the medium through which we communicate and do everything, but they're also going to have all the data on us. And that's where we won't even know. Know how we're being influenced.
- [130:43]
C
We're in a simulation right now. You know this.
- [130:45]
B
Yeah, man. And that's so I just think, like, this is like, it seems like this.
- [130:48]
A
Is a restaurant business podcast.
- [130:50]
B
Why are you guys talking about this? Because it's all coming in, dude. It's all connected. And I think that we have to get ahead of it. We have to say, okay, like, how do we reverse engineer our future?
- [131:00]
A
Because the cool thing, for the first.
- [131:01]
B
Time ever, we are collectively conscious. We are like, more aware.
- [131:07]
C
You're connected. More technology has connected people a lot more.
- [131:10]
B
And we can.
- [131:11]
A
We just have to be really careful.
- [131:12]
B
About letting these bigger companies getting way too much control because then. Then we lose if.
- [131:18]
C
Yeah. And I don't know what the solution is. I don't know if it's like a. Because with phones, I mean, there's Android and there's iPhone, right? I mean. Yes.
- [131:29]
B
Right.
- [131:29]
C
There's two. And you don't know. I don't know if that's just. Just the natural result of things.
- [131:35]
B
Do you know, I've brought this up a couple times on the show, but have you heard of Zif's Law?
- [131:39]
C
No.
- [131:39]
B
So it basically states that in any given marketplace, any given marketplace, there could. There's usually one clear leader. 1. So in the market, number one usually does twice as much business as number two and three times as much business as number three. So there's always an uneven disproportion of resources that goes to number one.
- [131:59]
C
And that's an interesting anything.
- [132:00]
B
And that's in all marketplaces.
- [132:02]
C
Yeah.
- [132:03]
B
And I think that this wasn't as big of an issue when marketplaces were fragmented like before the second Industrial revolution. Once railroads came and telecommunication. Telecommunication came and the Internet came, that those fragmented micro markets all over the world became one market. But that rule is still applies.
- [132:23]
C
It applies to everything.
- [132:24]
B
Which means you have a bunch of really rich organizations that are number one in their niche.
- [132:28]
C
But then if it's a rule too. A rule. Right.
- [132:30]
B
It'll always happen unless you are aware of it and do something to be aware into intentionally. This is where I think conscious capitalism comes in, where it's like we can't just like default to the number one because if we all do that, we all lose the collective. You have to have balance and conscious. I think consciousness is choosing to do the hard thing, even the right thing, even if it's the hardest thing. And I think the easy thing, our.
- [133:01]
A
Human minds are defaulted to go with.
- [133:03]
B
Word of mouth to talk to Johnny or Sally. What did you do? Oh, I'm gonna do that too. But in that hard wiring of how we function, we were never meant to live in a global tribe. Yeah, we're meant to live with 150 people. And that works. Yeah, and that. But like, we're living unnaturally right now. So we have to consciously choose to do hard things because we're obsessed with convenience. Your model is geared towards convenience.
- [133:30]
C
Hey, hey, hey.
- [133:31]
B
You know what I'm saying?
- [133:31]
C
Get off me. Hey.
- [133:32]
B
You know, but like, it's what we're being told we want. And consumers are buying into that belief that we want more for less. Now that's what I want. But what we actually need is to have security, safety, feel like we're seen and valued by others, that we're growing personally and professionally and that we found.
- [133:51]
A
Our purpose in life.
- [133:52]
C
Life.
- [133:52]
B
And that's going to be hard to do in a complete corporatocracy where our rights, or like if one entity gets too powerful and we are forced to go to a communist solution, like no matter how that manifests, like, we're going to lose that sense of autonomy. We need it. Sorry, that was a rant. I've been thinking a lot about this lately.
- [134:15]
C
Can you tell? No, I had no idea.
- [134:17]
B
Half my listeners just as unsubscribed.
- [134:21]
C
No, I mean, there's a lot there and obviously. There's a lot of different ways to look at it. And I still hope that people will want what's best for them and their family and that's will in turn be what's best for the community as a whole.
- [134:44]
B
And that's conscious capitalism.
- [134:46]
C
Yeah, I don't know what it's called. I mean, I mean, I think it's.
- [134:49]
B
Choosing people, prioritizing people over profit, I think is what purpose over profit. Profit's important. I want anti profit. We need that. That's the blood.
- [134:59]
C
And I think it's also different ways of life. Right. I think when, like, if you travel to other places, there, there's different paces of life, and America in itself is, is. I mean, that's why I came here, because you can come, you can achieve things because there's stability, there's a system, there's safety, which is the basis of everything. And, and you can put into it what you can get out of it, what you put into it. It's still, there's still hope. Oh, yeah, it's. But it's a system like you, you, There can be. No, I've seen the change since I came to. Now, part of a system is when the screw breaks on the machine, you just get a new screw. And that speaks to what you're saying about the humanity in it, like in becoming part of that grind. But there's good and bad with it, right. And I think it's cyclical and, But I still, it goes back to what everybody's individual goal is, what everybody's American dream is a different dream. And that's why we can all achieve that.
- [136:12]
B
That's why it's beautiful. Yeah.
- [136:14]
C
The sun comes out for everybody. Yeah. And the fact that people chase their individual end goals, I think is good for everybody. And, and that pulling in different directions drags everybody along. Rising tides and all that. But I do like the, you know, I, I, you know, I, I believe in what I came, why I came here, what it's given me. And I'm, you know, I'm raising my kids here. Yeah.
- [136:44]
B
Pedro, I've really loved today's conversation, man. I got a couple questions I want to wrap up with all my guests trying to have discipline to ask these final questions. You ready for them?
- [136:52]
C
Like, I think they're going to happen either way.
- [136:54]
B
Yeah, they're, they're speed round kind of, kind of. So we can bust this out quick. What's one thing about your business? A value, a process, a system that makes you truly unstoppable?
- [137:03]
C
I think the sales per square foot, the ability to generate the, the, the revenue through the simplicity of the process.
- [137:17]
B
The mission statement is to change the world through inspiring, empowering, and transforming the industry. I do believe the restaurant industry industry has transformed into power. How have you personally transformed?
- [137:29]
C
I think transformative. The word transformative applies to so many different things in the restaurant industry. Like I said, you get people that come into the industry that are in, in changing parts of their life. Sometimes you get a young guy that's just there going through college Like I did waiting tables, right. You get people that are maybe down on their luck and in this, in your fallback plan, but you end up being more than that because they find a community in it. So I think that's part of the rewarding part of transformation. Another rewarding part of the transformative process is creating a system we talked about earlier. And the right operator can take it and transform their family's future and maybe get on an entrepreneurial path that wasn't an option for them before. For. I think that's transformative. I think the community aspect of it and it's so important for restaurant people to be an intricate part of their community. Be involved, give, give back, be there for them, because the guests are guests, but you have to be there for them at all times.
- [138:37]
B
Yeah, man.
- [138:37]
C
You know, I think that's, that's another important point. So transformative can be.
- [138:40]
B
I love it.
- [138:41]
C
So many things.
- [138:41]
B
Yeah. And I think you just spelled out why. I think if there is an industry that's going to change the world, it's going to be the restaurant industry, second largest industry in the world behind healthcare. And we have people and we see.
- [138:52]
C
The great things healthcare has done and there's no.
- [138:54]
B
Yeah, man. We like, we are. I think the, the restaurant industry will have a bigger influence on health because food is life. Food is health, our life. It's all connected, man. And there's a trend like, you must be excited about this protein trend that's happening right now.
- [139:08]
C
I think that people, people share two things. You share a couple things with people you love, you share music and you share food. And I think that's. To me, that's one of the important parts about being in the restaurant business, that when you're the feeling you get sharing a meal, it still goes back to the tribal mentality you mentioned of 150 people. Right. It's being able to share a meal with somebody. There's still something encoded in that's important.
- [139:35]
B
There's one more thing I think we all share too, which is culture. That music is culture. Food is culture.
- [139:39]
C
Exactly.
- [139:40]
B
Culture is vision and values. And that's. We're sharing our vision and values right now. And I think that's the exciting thing.
- [139:46]
C
And you live them in your four walls and you hope that that rubs off. Yeah.
- [139:50]
B
And if we can get owners across the nation thinking like you and thinking like the leaders across the industry, then we can change the industry. And if we can change that to your point, it starts with the individual, it ripples out to the team and it ripples, pulls out to the community. It's powerful, man. It's exciting.
- [140:04]
A
Time.
- [140:05]
B
Last question. Go ahead.
- [140:06]
C
The last thing I want, not the last thing I want to touch on. I also think that we're a guest driven business and you have to remember that your first guest is your employee. I think that's where it starts when you start with the ripple you treat. I've been blessed with a great crew and they bless me by treating the guest in. In a great way. And I think it starts with that mentality.
- [140:26]
B
Yeah, man. 100. So this is the last question before we wrap it up, before I have you refer me to my future guest. If you got the news you'd be leaving this world tomorrow, all the memories of you, your work and your restaurants would be lost with your departure. With the exception of three pieces of wisdom you could leave behind for the good of humanity and for your legacy. What were those three pieces? I think you already dropped a couple that you could just reuse purpose right here.
- [140:50]
C
Give a damn.
- [140:51]
B
1.
- [140:53]
C
Investor in people, regardless if you get something back.
- [140:58]
B
2.
- [141:01]
C
And leave something in. My in. In my circumstance is try to leave something through your children that can make the world suck a little less.
- [141:17]
B
Finish this thing the way we started. I love it. Who do you respect and admire? Admire in the industry? I'm really trying to let this last question here be my North Star. I don't want to be the one who decides who gets made an example of. I think restaurateurs know their community, know the industry. Who do you respect and admire?
- [141:33]
C
I. I mean there's so many people like you mentioned somebody, the Nimfas family that started fajitas here. Right. We're so local. I respect and admire people who take the risk to get in the business. I think there's something to expect respect and admire in every restaurant operator because we know the grind, we know the dedication it takes and we. And we know what, what's possible and sometimes not attained. It's not attained by everybody. So I respect and admire everybody that has the wherewithal to get into this business and stay in it for a long time. Time. Got it.
- [142:13]
B
Well, I'll take that answer. If we enjoyed today's conversation, we want to come check you out, check out your, your website or your handles or connect with you personally. Any information you're willing to share, we'll take.
- [142:24]
C
Oh, I mean. Fajitapeetz.com Peteapeet if you want to email me, ask questions, I will ramble like I did today. I'm sure we covered 1% of 1% of what we could talk about in this deep industry. So I mean any way that I can help and I don't know much but I can tell you all the mistakes I made and hopefully help try to help you try to avoid some. I do think that it's important for small mom and pop restaurants to be able to pass on something to the next people in your family. Family. I chose to do it through Fajita Pete's and building the brand also by turning my P L into property. I think that's an. That was an important thing for me to be able to stabilize my future through real estate acquisition through my P and L that my restaurant has allowed me to do. So I think there's a a lot of ways you can go about it. Like I said, everybody's dreams different but if anybody's dreaming is sounds kind of like that and I can help in any way, I'm one more than happy to.
- [143:35]
B
Awesome. And I do think we talked before hitting record that I do my my Coffee with Eric sessions. I'm trying to get all my guests. I would love to have you join. So stick around for the closing thoughts for a date on that probably about a month after this goes live. Am I putting on the spot right now? Is this awkward?
- [143:50]
C
No, I'll do it.
- [143:52]
B
Awesome. So stick around. We'll have a date for you. And this is where I say thank you so much Pedro for taking the time to to carve more than two hours out every day to give to me to this mission. I can't do what I do without you. There is no questioning my man. You are unstoppable. Cheers.
- [144:08]
C
Thank you.
- [144:09]
A
There's another episode wrapped up here at Restaurant Unstoppable. Special thanks to our guest today, Pedro AKA P. Mora, for coming on and getting personal and opening it up and sharing knowledge and sharing inspiration. Honestly, really enjoyed making an example of you man. And thank you for your generosity letting me park my camper on your property. And the fajitas, man, they were so good. This is an awesome guy. If you want to meet Pete Mora, then head over to Restaurant Unstoppable.com live because on March 16, Pedro will be live for coffee with Eric at 11am Eastern. And he joined the community. He joined Restaurant Unstoppable network. We would love to have you join the network too. Again, head over to restaurant unstoppable.com live to to be a part of this conversation and all future conversations. You are the average of those you surround yourself with and we're having fun. You know, we're, we're, we're sharing knowledge where we're lifting each other up, where, you know, we just, we're tapping into the collective consciousness, you know, like, we don't have to do it alone. We have people who've gone through what we've gone through. We have people who have had experiences we, we have yet to experience. But they can guide us, they can help us. They can give us perspective. And you don't have to do this alone. There's so much wisdom and collective knowledge out there. You just got to open yourself up to it. And that's what, what the network is all about, is using word of mouth to find good people and to help.
- [145:36]
B
Good people connect with good people.
- [145:37]
A
We'd love to have you be a part of it. If you enjoyed this episode with Pete Mora and you want to just join this session of coffee with Eric. Head over to restaurantstoppable.com CWE we want to make sure everyone is getting the help they need. So if the $47 a month is out of reach for you, then, well, we got this one one the first ones on us.
- [145:59]
B
We want to help you out again.
- [146:00]
A
Head over to restaurantsoppable.com CWE you'll get a Zoom link and just remember the date. 316 at 11am Eastern. We'll be there waiting for you. All right, guys, that's it for today. Until next time. Peace out.