1254: Sarah Heard, Chef/Co-Owner of Foreign & Domestic

Summary

Restaurant Unstoppable Ep. 1254: Sarah Heard, Chef/Co-Owner of Foreign & Domestic

Date: February 19, 2026
Host: Eric Cacciatore
Guest: Sarah Heard

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Eric sits down for a second in-depth conversation with Sarah Heard, Chef and Co-Owner of Foreign & Domestic (Austin, TX) and Commerce Cafe (Lockhart, TX). Eight years after her first feature on the podcast, Sarah provides an honest account of the challenges, growth, and evolutions that have defined her journey in the restaurant industry. The discussion centers around company culture, adapting through the pandemic, technology shifts, financial transparency, self-care, leadership lessons, and the crucial importance of industry collaboration and vulnerability.

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Key Themes & Discussion Points

1. People-Centric Leadership & Company Culture

• Mantra: "People come first. Without a team that has the same goal that you do, you're not going to go anywhere fast." – Sarah ([05:28])
• Goal: Sarah strives to create a restaurant environment where people feel comfortable, crave hospitality, and desire to return.
• Evolution: Initial leadership was strict and traditional ("the chef way"), but has evolved toward high expectations with empathy—a "disappointed mom" approach.
• Culture Shift: From top-down pressure to an atmosphere of tolerance, grace, and support, where staff help each other manage stress and tough shifts.

Notable Quotes

• "I've learned everyone responds differently. More disappointed mom approach to corrections — 'I know you can do better.'" ([13:08])
• "If your server is genuinely happy at work... that's a different feeling than a server who's having their job held over their head." ([15:27])

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2. Adapting & Surviving: The Pandemic and Beyond

• Business Impact: Foreign & Domestic celebrated its 15th anniversary in 2025. Commerce Cafe, launched during COVID (May 2020), started with counter service before shifting to full service.
  • Foreign & Domestic: ~1.2 million revenue in 2025, 6% profit.
  • Commerce Cafe: ~$600,000/year, mostly breaking even.
• COVID Adjustments:
  • Focused on takeout-friendly menu items and packaging.
  • Shifted sick policies—realizing the necessity and possibility of coverage when short-staffed.
  • Increased flexibility and support among staff, prioritizing well-being over martyr-like management.

Notable Quotes

• "We learned it is possible to work without a person, to cover when people are sick—so that's been a big one." ([17:40])
• "If you mess up, you're fired. That's the world we came up in. Now, we try to give grace and space." ([13:54])

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3. Financial Transparency & Industry Realities

• Profitability: Open discussion of profits and struggle—losses in previous years, changes that brought Foreign & Domestic back into the black.
• Surcharges & Backlash: Added a 3% health insurance surcharge, offering Blue Cross to staff, but faced public controversy.
  • "Death threats over three pennies on a dollar... fear of another national blow up." ([26:09])
• Consumers' (and industry’s) ignorance:
  • "People want us to pay staff more, have benefits for staff, but don't want to pay more for the burger." ([22:39])
  • "We're so generous… it’s also our biggest weakness." ([27:47])

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4. Tech Stack Evolution

• Adoption of Toast POS: Switched from Breadcrumb to Toast for reliability and catering integration.
  • Toast's catering and handheld features save time, reduce bottlenecks, and offer real-time menu 86 tracking.
  • Uses ExtraChef for inventory, acknowledging some limitations.
• OpenTable vs. Resy: Stayed with OpenTable due to legacy pricing and a helpful, relationship-driven rep, despite earlier high costs. OpenTable's updated features make reservations simpler, especially remotely.
• AI Integration: Uses Google Slang AI for basic phone queries and reservation booking, freeing up hosts' time but sometimes frustrating guests.
• Other Integrations: Collaboration with US Foods, attracted by personal touch and cost savings.

Notable Quotes

• "Our greatest strength in this industry is also our biggest weakness… we're warm, generous and almost too generous." ([27:47])
• "We went with OpenTable because our rep—it's hospitality from them, too." ([41:06])
• "Integrating AI for phone answering helps, but some guests get frustrated not talking to a human." ([53:03])

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5. Ownership, Collaboration, and Real Estate Strategy

• Building Real Estate Portfolio: Sarah sees restaurant real estate as her retirement plan—she owns the Commerce Cafe property, two rentals, her own home, and is flipping houses.
• Advice: Start with a homestead, convert to rental, keep rents saved for more down payments, and do as much renovation yourself as possible.
• Collaboration Over Competition: Early rivalry between Lockhart businesses is dissolving in favor of mutual support—a text thread for sharing resources, tips about inspectors, cross-promotion, and community culture-building.

Notable Quotes

• "Building the culture in the restaurant is like building culture among restaurant owners." ([72:29])
• "Every person that walks through the door is a potential sale. So having the farmer's market here is people coming in." ([74:04])

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6. Self-Care, Burnout, and Leadership Evolution

• Burnout Disclosure: Sarah is candid about cycles of burnout, their link to physical health (migraines, stress), and her journey to mitigate it.
• Self-Care Tools: Regular exercise, foraging, and setting boundaries (not responding to work alerts at home).
• Goal for the Future: Shift out of daily kitchen operations to focus on developing staff, marketing, and building more freedom for herself.

Notable Quotes

• "You have to ascend—if you're not moving up, you're dying. Remove yourself from the business, create opportunities for others to ascend." ([102:03])
• "You have to give yourself grace. What can I accomplish today that feels good? What needs to be pushed till tomorrow?" ([103:59])
• "I sacrificed being a mom... trying to do everything and being unreasonable. There's no need to be there for every regular's visit." ([95:59])

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7. Team Structure and Partnership

• Sarah and business partner Nathan are both chefs—a rarity.
  • They “alternate burnout stages," supporting each other through the stresses of running two restaurants.

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8. Tip Pooling & Staff Incentives

• Both kitchen and front-of-house staff participate in tip pools, creating more collective accountability and engagement.
  • "It's really incentivized the kitchen to take an active role in hospitality." ([84:46])

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9. Advice for Aspiring Restaurateurs

• Flexibility is Key: The biggest asset is the ability to adjust to what the restaurant and community need, not what you want as an owner.
• Fire Fast, Hire Slow: Address toxic culture quickly, offer tools and redirection, but move on if someone’s not a fit.
• Be Unapologetically Transparent: Share real numbers, struggles, and solutions.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments (with Timestamps)

• On culture: "I was scared shitless to have a bad service. We understand people have lives and things are more difficult. We've learned to give grace and space." ([13:54])
• On leadership: "Everybody responds to different methods of management… more disappointed mom approach: 'I know you can do better.'" ([13:08])
• On consumer pushback: "We ended up on Fox News… death threats over three pennies on a dollar." ([26:09])
• On burnout: "I finally… started going to the gym. Just taking that little break from work where I'm not thinking about work allowed me, when I am at work, to feel more invigorated." ([61:47])
• On industry collaboration: "There's a text thread—all the restaurant owners on the square… health inspector’s on the square, we all know immediately." ([71:26])
• On leadership legacy: "Transition from the doer role into the wisdom and teacher role—ascending… just part of growing." ([105:20])
• Sarah’s wisdom: "Embrace humility. Learn everything you possibly can. And be a part of something." ([107:05])

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [05:28] – Sarah’s Leadership Mantra: People come first
• [11:01] – Culture evolution: From strict to empathetic leadership
• [17:40] – Post-pandemic business and menu pivots
• [20:14] – Health insurance surcharge controversy
• [29:06] – Transition to Toast POS
• [42:50] – Value of real human connections with tech providers (US Foods/OT)
• [53:02] – AI phone answering pros/cons
• [56:50] – Partnership balancing: alternating burnout
• [58:54] – Migraine struggles & stress management
• [67:20] – Foraging as restorative and food system commentary
• [76:04] – Collaboration replacing rivalry in Lockhart
• [90:50] – Firing quickly to protect culture
• [92:17] – Roughest year (2024): lessons in boundaries, self-care
• [103:12] – Industry needs less ego, more grace
• [104:21] – Book recommendations: "Leaders Eat Last," "From Strength to Strength"
• [105:59] – Ability to adjust = unstoppable
• [106:44] – Most proud: empathy

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Book Recommendations

• Leaders Eat Last by Simon Sinek ([104:21])
• From Strength to Strength by Arthur Brooks ([105:20])
• A Brief History of Everything by Ken Wilber (referenced by Eric)

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Final Thoughts & Closing Reflections

Sarah exemplifies the new era of restaurant leadership: empathetic, transparent, adaptable, and collaborative. She doesn't shy away from revealing the harder truths—burnout, financial pressures, community critique—while pushing for a more connected and resilient industry. Her vision for the future is not ego-driven growth but a sustainable life for herself, her team, and her community.

Contact:

• Instagram: @chefherd ([108:53])
• Foreign & Domestic / Commerce Cafe (Austin/Lockhart, TX)

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Next Steps

To join the community and connect live with Sarah and other industry leaders, check out Restaurant Unstoppable Network and join 'Coffee with Eric.'

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Summary prepared for those seeking actionable insight, honest storytelling, and current best practices in independent restaurant leadership.

Transcript

[Eric]

A couple things before we get started today. First, thank you so much for showing up week after week making my vision

for restaurants Unstoppable come true.

Your downloads are allowing me to do this show the way I've always wanted to do it. Boots on the ground, word of mouth, leaders, referring leaders, giving the industry an uncensored, no BS platform to share their perspectives and truth. That's on you. Thank you so much.

And we're just getting started.

So if you're enjoying what we're doing here and you want to help us do it even better, please subscribe to this podcast on your platform of choice. And if you do that, I promise to do everything in my power to continue to improve the show. I'll deliver the restaurant tours you want to hear from and we'll continue to make everything you love about this show better. Thank you. Welcome to restaurant unstoppable. For 10 years and over 1,000 episodes, I've been traveling the country chasing word of mouth leads and having in person only long form, informed discussions with the industry's finest owners and operators. Our mission is to inspire, empower and transform the restaurant industry by bridging the gap between this generation's leaders and the next. Listen to today's guest and so many others and get one step closer to becoming unstoppable. This episode is in partnership with Giving Kitchen. The restaurant industry takes care of people.

That's what we do.

But historically, we haven't always been great about taking care of our own. That's why I want you to know about Giving Kitchen. They're a national nonprofit supporting food service workers facing real crisis. Medical issues, accidents, unexpected hardship. The kind of thing that can really derail a career. Since 2013, they've helped more than 35,000 restaurant workers across the country and awarded over 17 million in financial assistance and stability resources. If you're an operator, chef or anyone food service, this resource is worth knowing. A lot of restaurants choose a rally around Giving Kitchen because at some point everyone in the business knows someone who needs it. Go to giving kitchen.org to learn more and see how you can be a part of it in your own way. This episode is made possible by Sir Bony your all in one bookkeeping and financial solution. We're talking about reliable tax preparation, business incorporation, seamless payroll and compliance reports. Strategic CFO services that drive business growth. Detailed custom reporting for complete financial clarity. Dedicated support for restaurants in multi location businesses. Did I mention bookkeeping? Sir Bony handle the numbers so you can focus on the vision. Call sir boni today at 281-888-2413 to schedule your free 30 minute consultation and discover how Sir Bony can streamline your operations and boost your bottom line. Limited Exclusive to Restaurant Unstoppable 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.

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Allow me to introduce you today's guest chef and co owner of Foreign and Domestic and Commerce Cafe Sarah Heard. Sarah, my lady, are you feeling unstoppable today?

[Sarah Heard]

I'm feeling unstoppable.

[Eric]

I'm feeling unstoppable. I love reconnecting with past guests. This is the second time you're on the show. It's crazy to think the first time I had you on the show we was eight years ago. 2018. Yeah, that's crazy. It was when I was first like traveling in the country. I had my Honda Fit and I was sleeping in that thing and you were a great guest. That was episode 564 if you want to go check that out. Our listeners if you want to get caught up here, Sarah's come up her her backstory. It's it was truly an inspiring story. I forgot how much of inspiration you Wore. You're like 19 years old became the executive sue. The boys were telling you you couldn't do it and you ended up taking over their I loved it. It was a great story. And then he went on Ned Elliott took over foreign and domestic. You it took you six months to figure out how to get the financing to pull it off and you pulled it off. It it's truly an inspiring story. I do got recommend you guys go check that one out again, 564. But today we're going to cover the last eight years. And I can't wait to dive into, you know, where you are today and how you got to where you are today. But let's get that motivational, inspirational ball rolling with a success quote or mantra. What do you offer us?

[Sarah Heard]

Absolutely. I would say people come first. Without a team that has the same goal that you do, you're not going to go anywhere fast.

[Eric]

People come first without the same goal. Wait, say that one more time.

[Sarah Heard]

Without the same goal or without a team that has the same goal, you're not going anywhere fast.

[Eric]

What is your goal?

[Sarah Heard]

To make people happy. To make a restaurant where people feel comfortable coming in and they crave it. They want that hospitality.

[Eric]

Are you making people happy?

[Sarah Heard]

I hope so.

[Eric]

Yeah. And I think at the core of it, I mean that's what hospitality is all about, is just seeing people and making people happy. And I wish there was a way to measure that. And like, how are we, like, how do we measure success based off of that?

[Sarah Heard]

Outside of Yelp.

[Eric]

Yeah. Well, I mean, anyway, let's not start on such a dark note. So before we kind of dive into the last eight years, help me kind of understand where your businesses are today.

[Sarah Heard]

Yeah. So foreign and domestic just last year celebrated its 15th anniversary. We've been here for eight. So I like the tipping point. We finally feel like it's. It's ours. And it's had ups and downs. Of course, we had Covid was wild. That's also a dark point that I love.

[Eric]

We'll touch on it, but I don't

[Sarah Heard]

want to spend too much time there. No, me neither. Never again. And we've gone through a lot of changes, a lot of iterations, a lot of small revamps to try to stay relevant. But the reality is it's a 15 year old restaurant and it's difficult. It's a whole different set.

[Eric]

I talked about you challenges painting your lines on the parking lot the last time we were here and I just, I noticed and I was like, it's been about eight years.

[Sarah Heard]

Yeah, it's time again. It's time for sure.

[Eric]

So how many seats in foreign domestic?

[Sarah Heard]

42 inside. And then we during COVID added the patio, which at its peak we had two tents out there and we had a. An additional 35ish seats.

[Eric]

How many additional seats today?

[Sarah Heard]

Today we have 17.

[Eric]

So on all cylinders, you're right. About 60 seats.

Right?

About 60 seats. Full service. Absolutely. And relatively small menu.

[Sarah Heard]

It's decently small. I'd say it's in the mid range.

[Eric]

Would you say casual? Fine. Elevated.

[Sarah Heard]

Elevated.

[Eric]

Slow food.

[Sarah Heard]

But we've gone more in the last couple of years towards comfort and flavor versus Instagram.

[Eric]

Okay. Are you comfortable sharing numbers?

[Sarah Heard]

Yeah.

[Eric]

So I would love to get percent profit. And if you're. If you're comfortable sharing revenue, I would get that too. But no pressure there.

[Sarah Heard]

Yeah. 2025, we did about 1.2 million, which is down, but not by as much as it could be, and we're sitting about 6% profit.

[Eric]

Okay.

[Sarah Heard]

Last year we actually were in the red. This year we've made a lot of changes.

[Eric]

I can't wait to get into that.

[Sarah Heard]

Yeah. To try to navigate the new landscape that we're in.

[Eric]

Yeah. And that's really what we're here to do, is to unpackage the growth, the evolution, the learning, and to pay that forward. So that covers foreign and domestic. And where are we at with commerce?

[Sarah Heard]

Commerce is good. So it's our five year old baby. We opened in May of 2020, right during the shutdown, I think we were able to open at 25% when we opened, we have an event hall upstairs, so we're really focusing on the catering there and events. We just hired on a new sales coordinator and she's fantastic.

[Eric]

Awesome. When you said 25. 25 profit?

[Sarah Heard]

No, 25. We were able to open it 25 capacity.

[Eric]

What?

Okay. No, no, this was Covid.

[Sarah Heard]

Yeah, yeah. No, commerce is, you know, it's a different demographic. We were a little early to Lockhart, so we're finally starting to see less pushback on prices this year. But prior to us, we don't feel like there had been anything in Lockhart that was, you know, scratch made. Farm to table, you know, focused on sustainability and. And the type of hospitality that we have at foreign and domestic.

[Eric]

So how many seats at commerce?

[Sarah Heard]

60.

[Eric]

60. And is that full service as well?

[Sarah Heard]

It is, yeah. We started as counter service. That was our initial plan. But we felt like people were wanting full service, so we pivoted into that.

[Eric]

Yeah. And like, what kind of food are you doing that? Forgive me, I haven't had a chance to check it out.

[Sarah Heard]

No, you're good. It's so. It's cafe food. So spaghetti Bolognese, chicken fried steak, you know, steak and potatoes, that sort of thing. But with the same farm to table sourcing, the same, you know, sustainability, all from scratch. The popovers are there, the exact same burgers there.

[Eric]

I mean, I already destroyed my popover Uber, but. Or I'd show you guys Maybe I can grab some B roll before we leave. You're delicious.

[Sarah Heard]

Awesome. And then it's just more relaxed, more welcoming, more small town. Yeah.

[Eric]

And what kind of revenue are you doing there?

[Sarah Heard]

There? We're at about 600, 000 for the year.

[Eric]

And is it profitable?

[Sarah Heard]

It has not been. We had one one year that we profited a little bit, but we're pretty much breaking even right now.

[Eric]

Okay. And I appreciate the vulnerability, and, you know, I know you're a badass, and. And it's. It's crazy what's happening out there right now. And I think there, you know, it's. It's just the realities of the industry. It's really hard, you know, so we're gonna unpackage that more. But before we do, I mean, let's just go back to 2018, when I last spoke to you, going, like, what was going on around that time, like, between 2018 and before the pandemic? Like, how are you guys evolving?

[Sarah Heard]

So back then, we were trying to make the menu here more welcoming, more, you know, affordable, trying to find that balance between the upscale restaurant that it was in, the neighborhood restaurant, that it has to be because of location, and trying to figure out how to build a culture. That's something that we felt was missing at the time that we came in. And so building a culture in the restaurant has been a huge learning process.

[Eric]

And I'm. I'm gonna be talking with popover shoved in my cheek, because I cannot resist having one of these things. Thank you for sharing. So I remember when you took over, it was not really family friendly, so that was one of the things you were trying to do. You made it family friendly. You added a kids venue.

[Sarah Heard]

Yeah.

[Eric]

How did that change things?

[Sarah Heard]

We definitely see a lot more neighborhoods, neighborhood support, too. So not only do they come in, they're excited to show people. They post about it on next door, which is exciting. But also we're seeing people that had their first dates here, then they're pregnant, and then they bring their kids here.

[Eric]

You've seen families grow.

[Sarah Heard]

Yeah, that's cool. Really cool. In.

[Eric]

In terms of culture, how did you work on that? Like, what was your approach? And, like, how has that changed?

[Sarah Heard]

So initially, you know, I did what every chef does and tried to just be strict. And, you know, that's not how we do things. And over the years, I've learned that everybody responds to different methods of management, so that's been fun. But more taking a disappointed mom approach to corrections. And, you know, hey, I understand that you're frustrated, but this is something that we need to.

[Eric]

To handle differently, get more into what the disappointed mom approach.

[Sarah Heard]

It's, you know, the I know you can do better.

[Eric]

Yeah.

[Sarah Heard]

Method. So, you know, the line goes down and I'm like, I know you guys are better than this.

[Eric]

It's raising the bar. It's having high expectations, and it's nurturing people to be able to hit those expectations. So what else did you do relative to the culture, to this swing things around?

[Sarah Heard]

We've definitely worked on creating a culture of tolerance and humanity in the restaurant, I think. And everybody's guilty of this, and I'm not going to say I'm not at all, but used to be. You come in, you do your job no matter what. There's no tolerances. There's no, you know, excuses. If you mess up, you're fired.

[Eric]

Is that the world you came up in?

[Sarah Heard]

Oh, absolutely. I was scared shitless to have a bad service. But we understand that people have lives and that things are more difficult than they used to be. And we've definitely learned to give grace and space. So if somebody's having a rough day and we feel like we can cover it, we try to move them out. You know, go take a day, take a rest, get what you need to do done and come back. Servers, they'll come to me and say, hey, I'm feeling really overwhelmed right now. This table's giving me a hard time. And I'll say, okay, go walk the block. Where are your tables right now? I'll go touch them. You know, I'll make sure that everything's still moving. Go walk the block. Take a breather, come back and jump back into it. And that's been huge. We're starting to see the staff do that for each other too. So that's really cool to see. You know, instead of being, you know, dog eat dog, they're, hey, let me help you go do this.

[Eric]

You know, I just have enlightened hospitality like that. That expression from Danny Meyer just running through my head right now, like, what is hospitality? It's warm. It's generosity.

[Sarah Heard]

It's right. And how do you do that for others if you're not doing it for yourself and your team?

[Eric]

You have to start with yourself, and you have to. And it ripples out from there. And if you can focus on that, then to your point, your team starts to act like that. They start treating each other like that. They start treating the guests like that. Then the guests are like, wow, this is awesome. We love this spot. And you make them better people. And that's how we change communities.

[Sarah Heard]

Well, you can feel it when your server is being yelled at in the back. You know, you. You can. It's less genuine. Right. So if your server is genuinely happy at work, genuinely happy to do what they're doing and take care of you, that's a different feeling than a server who's having their job held over their head.

[Eric]

Right.

[Sarah Heard]

You know, and they have to do it in order to keep their job.

[Eric]

Like, have you ever been screamed at?

[Sarah Heard]

Yeah.

[Eric]

Like, where is your head for, like, the next 48 hours after that? Or at least the next 12 hours?

[Sarah Heard]

Well. And it's. It's dysregulated.

[Eric]

Yeah.

[Sarah Heard]

You know, I'm not functional. It doesn't fix anything. I'm not gonna say that every now and then, I don't yell, but usually it's after.

[Eric]

Yeah.

[Sarah Heard]

Several other things have happened.

[Eric]

Do you think by yelling at somebody, you're gonna snap them out of something and they're gonna finish the shift better than they were before? No. They're gonna be thinking about how they want to murder you.

[Sarah Heard]

Yeah. Or how they. You know, they.

[Eric]

Or guilt for me.

[Sarah Heard]

Yeah. I go into my own head, and then I feel shame, and then I'm embarrassed, and then I can't focus. Usually if. If yelling occurs in this restaurant, it's the. The final.

[Eric]

And you retained a lot of your original staff.

[Sarah Heard]

Right.

[Eric]

That was a big thing for Ned. He didn't want to get rid of anybody, even the executive chef.

[Sarah Heard]

Yeah, yeah, we managed to. I mean, there's turnover. Of course, we don't have any of our original staff from eight years ago.

[Eric]

Right.

[Sarah Heard]

But we. We see. We generally see servers stay about a year, line cooks about a year, year and a half, with some exceptions. Right after Covid, we were hitting, like, a month and a half on some staff. Like many staff turnover was absolutely insane, and I feel like it's finally evened out a little bit.

[Eric]

Okay, so in the two years from when I last spoke to you, leading into the pandemic, how. What were the biggest points of evolution? And then we'll talk about. We'll touch on the pandemic. I'm more interested in how the pandemic made you better thereafter. I don't want to talk about that. Two years of just, like, when it's sucked for everybody. Yeah. But what was the biggest evolution in the first two years between when I last spoke to you in 2020?

[Sarah Heard]

Yeah. So business wise, since the pandemic, we've definitely leaned more into making Our food takeout friendly. We've adjusted our sick policies tremendously. I think during the pandemic, we actually realized that it is possible to work without a person or to have enough people on staff to cover shifts when people are sick. So that's been a big one. And then menu wise, I think it's just that the. We consider how everything will plate in a box now because we do significantly more takeout, even though it's not pandemic, people got used to it.

[Eric]

Interesting. So what were the biggest changes you. You made to your takeout game or the biggest improvements you made to your takeout game?

[Sarah Heard]

We do a lot less garnishing with delicate herbs. Do some. Some heavier herbs for garnish. We will test things to see. You know, if I put risotto in a box, is it gonna be a block by the time it gets to them, is it going to be gross? We changed our takeout containers to be more considerate of presenting a dish versus just being your leftovers.

[Eric]

Yeah. What are you using for takeout containers?

[Sarah Heard]

Yeah, we have these black plastic boxes that I love a lot. They're also reusable. My house is stocked with them, so it feels better to put something out if we're going to do a lot of takeout that is reusable and that people are apt to reuse. Yeah.

[Eric]

So are they expensive?

[Sarah Heard]

They're pretty expensive.

[Eric]

Yeah.

[Sarah Heard]

Yeah.

[Eric]

Does. Do you pay that forward to the guest? Is that accounted for?

[Sarah Heard]

No, no, we just eat it.

[Eric]

Yeah. What feedback are you getting from the guests with that stuff?

[Sarah Heard]

Honestly? Nothing verbally, but I think the repeat guest taking food to go says something.

[Eric]

Yeah. Would you feel guilty if you did pay that forward to the guests?

[Sarah Heard]

It's a touchy subject. Yeah. You know, we. We had a big debacle when we instituted the health insurance surcharge.

[Eric]

What was that? Fill me up.

[Sarah Heard]

Was that. I think it was. I think it was 2018.

[Eric]

Okay.

[Sarah Heard]

Not sure what month it's been so long.

[Eric]

So you said reinstated the health insurance

[Sarah Heard]

just when we instated it. So we do a 3% surcharge on the bill. It's written on the menu. It's on the ticket.

[Eric]

Is that after I had you on the show?

[Sarah Heard]

I don't remember. I don't remember talking about that. Yeah, I think it must have been after because I don't remember touching on that 3% surcharge.

[Eric]

So you're charging 3% fee basically to help pay for insurance for your staff.

[Sarah Heard]

And what it does is it allows us to have Blue Cross Blue Shield Available to the staff.

[Eric]

Okay.

[Sarah Heard]

But people don't want to see it. Our. Our menu, the prices are whole dollars. So if I were to add three pennies on the dollar, the menu prices would be all over the place. They wouldn't make sense.

[Eric]

Yeah.

[Sarah Heard]

And we wanted it to be optional. So if you say, hey, I don't want to pay this. I don't want it to be part of my bill, the server can take it off with one push of a button. They don't even need a manager to take it off. But that was a huge frenzy on LinkedIn and we ended up on Fox News.

[Eric]

And what was the frenzy?

[Sarah Heard]

What were people saying that it wasn't okay to. To charge the guest for the insurance. My favorite comment of all was, well, the next thing they're gonna do is add the electricity to the bill. And I was like, well, what do you think is wrong? Where do you think that's coming from?

[Eric]

Like, this is just how we love our guests.

[Sarah Heard]

Yeah.

[Eric]

Let's start by saying we love our guests. We can't do what we can't do. We can't do what we do without our guests. We're here to serve them. But most people are wholly ignorant about how businesses are.

[Sarah Heard]

Well, and 90% of the people that weighed in on the surcharge were not our guests. They weren't even in this state. You know, they were people that had never heard of us before. But yeah, it's. There's an ignorance to where things are paid for.

[Eric]

Right.

[Sarah Heard]

You know, people think, oh, it's a steak. I can buy that at H E B. But they're not thinking about that. I'm sure you've heard this a million times. You know, the cost to, to buy the tables, to buy new chairs when the chairs get destroyed, to keep the AC going to, you know, we have your staff. Right.

[Eric]

Them.

[Sarah Heard]

How everybody wants us to pay the staff more and have, you know, all these benefits for the staff, but they don't want to pay more for the burger.

[Eric]

Right.

[Sarah Heard]

Which is, you know, an age old problem.

[Eric]

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I think it's worth pointing that out. Like you're sourcing responsibly. You using the whole animal. Like you can't hire somebody off the street and pay them. Yeah, 10 bucks an hour. To be able to do and cook at the level that you're delivering your food, it takes skill. And what about the fact that these people aren't cooking it themselves and they're able to sit down and be present and engage their family or friends or business, whatever. Like that's all value.

[Sarah Heard]

The dishes, right? Have to leave, you go home, you don't even clear the table. Yeah, right.

[Eric]

Not to derail your train of thought.

[Sarah Heard]

Oh, you're good. You're good.

[Eric]

So yeah, the industry is wholly ignorant. But I. Not the industry, but the consumer and many times the industry. But at the time like. But at the same time, I think the reason why we are in this position is because we don't talk. You know, we're not sharing information. I'm still surprised that you would feel. Let's bring it back to why you don't charge for the takeout.

[Sarah Heard]

Yeah.

[Eric]

So like, how do you rationalize, like, what does that inner conversation look like?

[Sarah Heard]

It's fear. It's fear of another, you know, national blow up. And I, we don't have a PR company, so it's me. So all of those nasty comments and believe it or not, death threats over three pennies on a dollar, they come straight to my phone. So, you know, I'm a mom too, so it was really hard to sit there with my daughter. I remember when it started, I was at a park with my daughter and she was six or seven, I can't remember exactly. And I remember trying to like be mom because I had had so little time to be mom with her and my phone was just blowing up and I was in a total panic and cortisol was, you know, spiked and it was awful. Yeah. So fear, you know, it's,

[Eric]

yeah, it's, it's tough out there. And you know, I would encourage you, I mean, I'm not, I'm here to learn from you, I'm here to share your perspective, but I would encourage you to be unapologetic about charging exactly what you need to charge in order to be profitable on your business. Yeah. And that means covering all of your expense. If it's a, if it's an expense, if you pay for it, then it has to. Like, I, I come from the, the belief that like you have to account for that and pay it forward.

[Sarah Heard]

So I think there's also the, the train of thought because this has definitely crossed my mind. They're not taking up a table, they're not taking up the service of the server.

[Eric]

Yeah. Even more of service. You're bringing it to their house. That's.

[Sarah Heard]

Well, they're not bringing it, they're picking it up. But, but I'm saying, like, we don't have to wash the plates. We don't have to, you know.

[Eric]

Yeah.

[Sarah Heard]

Some balance.

[Eric]

I admire where your heart is, but I think that our, our greatest strength in this industry is also our biggest weakness is that we're warm, generous and caring and almost too generous, you know, so. But I do, I do love that you made the pivot to make that at home experience even better because more and more people want those. They're leveraging these, these third party conveniences and you have to think about how does this present when it gets to their house, how can we serve it on a plate and in a box? I think those are all great questions to be asking.

[Sarah Heard]

And a lot of that stemmed from during COVID We were trying to do a lot of takeout, and one of my favorite places has phenomenal pasta. And I was so excited. And I got it in a box that had. It was one of those compostable, not cardboard, but kind of cardboardy boxes, and it had absorbed all of the sauce.

[Eric]

Oh, man.

[Sarah Heard]

And it was not good. And I was like, oh, no. And then I started thinking about our food, and I was like, man, we really need to test.

[Eric]

Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's cool. Any other changes post pandemic technology, like your relationship with her handhelds?

[Sarah Heard]

Yeah.

[Eric]

I noticed that you're using Toast now. When did that happen?

[Sarah Heard]

That happened pretty early on. I can't pinpoint what year it was, but I think it was shortly after we talked last, so probably 2018 as well.

[Eric]

Yeah. You're using breadcrumb.

[Sarah Heard]

Breadcrumb, yeah. And it was glitchy.

[Eric]

Yeah. They. They started off, like, strong and promising, and they were purchased by Upserve, and then things kind of went downhill pretty fast thereafter. I was really excited about that company. I think Toast came in and kind of, like, just made it hard.

[Sarah Heard]

They were like, we're the whole piece of bread, not just the crumb. I like Toast. It's growing really fast, and I think they've had some glitches. But overall, we use it for our catering software, too, which is really nice that it seamlessly integrates. So for accounting, when somebody pays an invoice, it automatically categorizes and goes in, which is great. And then it automatically shows up on the catering software as confirmed.

[Eric]

And so when the. When the invoice comes in, whether it came in as a catering or, like, in house or delivery, like it knows. And then it.

[Sarah Heard]

Yeah. Which is awesome.

[Eric]

What. What is unique about the catering features that you like? And when were those even an option?

[Sarah Heard]

Oh, they came about. About two years ago that I became aware of them. I'm not sure how long it had been there, but they're number one, way cheaper than anything else. We had been looking at triple seat,

[Eric]

which has they being the catering feature, Right.

[Sarah Heard]

Yeah. So Toast. Toast catering feature is significantly cheaper than, like, triple C, which is what I had known from previous jobs, and it's cost prohibitive. It does have a lot of really cool features, but it wasn't something. Right. That we need.

[Eric]

What were the features that were there that you felt like you didn't need?

[Sarah Heard]

Not that we don't need them.

[Eric]

But that couldn't justify the cost, justify

[Sarah Heard]

the cost of things like floor plans and being able to change seating arrangements and all of those, like, really planner specific things. So with toast catering, we're able to have the menu in the computer already. They just click the buttons just like they're putting in an order, tallies everything up, auto populates it to a B O, and sends the guest an invoice.

[Eric]

That's cool.

[Sarah Heard]

Yeah. The guest pays the invoice, it marks it as confirmed, and at that point, we print the beos. But the toast, because it's all one program, knows exactly how to categorize that when that cash comes in, I can do the deposits with it seamlessly. It's. It's pretty cool.

[Eric]

That is cool. And are you all in on toast? Are you using their, like, all, like the integrations?

[Sarah Heard]

Several of them. So we use extra chef, which is good. I. The inventory part of it is a. It could use some fine tuning.

[Eric]

Yeah.

[Sarah Heard]

But I think they'll get there. And then we use the handhelds, and

[Eric]

so table side ordering handhelds. A lot of the pushback with the handhelds early on was that it's not as hospitable. Do you think that that's the case?

[Sarah Heard]

Yes and no. So I think that, yeah, it adds a degree of technology to your hospitality. But what in our lives isn't technologically Right. Integrated right now. But also what it does is it allows the ticket to come back to the kitchen faster.

[Eric]

Right. No bottlenecks.

[Sarah Heard]

Right. And then you don't have servers. When they get double seated, they're not sitting there and taking two orders and then going and waiting at the pos. So that first getting what they were told. Right. Then they got to wait in line at the POS. Because the reality is the building's 1300 square feet, we really only have room for two POS's, and you're still shoulder to shoulder. So that. That first table, they take the order, they go to the second table, they take the order, then they go to the POS and they wait. And then both tickets go in at the same time. And then even though one table put their order in first, they're getting their food at the same time. Or second, you know, if the tickets come in at the same time, the kitchen's not going to differentiate.

[Eric]

So it's more accurate as to what is happening in real time as it's going into the kitchen.

[Sarah Heard]

Logistically, it makes the. The bottleneck at the POS and the bottleneck at the kitchen dissolve.

[Eric]

Right. I think there's. There's things we can do. Like, as they're talking, are you entering it, or are you talking to them? Taking the order, making eye contact and going, okay, you know, or maybe that's not as efficient. I don't know. What are you training for people to do?

[Sarah Heard]

Interesting. So we. We have servers that all do it different ways. We've tried to encourage them to do it how they feel comfortable, but to make sure that they are utilizing the device we usually see when they first start using it, they'll hold the device. They'll kind of look at it to see if there's 86s and things. That's another thing that's great is they know in real time, if something's 86,

[Eric]

they can't click the button, right? Yeah.

[Sarah Heard]

And they're still at the table, so they don't have to come back and be like, oh, my God, I'm sorry. Which is a lot of time wasted. But they. Some servers, when they start, they'll do it, you know, how they normally do with the device in their hand, and then they'll go to the host stand and put it in. Or they'll go, you know, tuck into the wine. Wine area and put it in. But eventually we see them get comfortable enough with it that they're just doing it right at the table. Yep. Yeah.

[Eric]

Back to toast. Any other features you mentioned, the glitches? What were those glitches? I'm curious.

[Sarah Heard]

It's really weird. The menu editing has been split into two different sections.

[Eric]

Coffee order.

[Sarah Heard]

Oh, we love them. It's a Rudimaya. They're fantastic.

[Eric]

I don't think he knows we're here. Thank you. So shout out to Rudimaya.

[Sarah Heard]

Yeah. They're awesome. And he's great. He's been delivering since day one. Same guy.

[Eric]

Is that what we're drinking right now? It is delicious.

[Sarah Heard]

Yeah.

[Eric]

Speaking of which.

[Sarah Heard]

Yeah. And it's roasted in awesome supporting local.

[Eric]

I love it.

[Sarah Heard]

Thank you very much.

[Eric]

Keep going.

[Sarah Heard]

We always go medium roast. Okay. Good acidity.

[Eric]

Did I leave enough for you?

[Sarah Heard]

Oh, yeah, there's plenty.

[Eric]

So we're talking about the glitches. I mean, I don't know. I like to. I'll be honest. Like, I. I often. I try to avoid partnering with big POS companies or big companies in general, because I like to talk about them, and I'm worried that if I get money from them, I won't be able to say bad side.

[Sarah Heard]

Yeah.

[Eric]

You know, and I think it's really important that we don't let these big tech companies influence the narrative in the industry, especially have control and influence over the media that's supposed to be reporting on these things. So I, I'm always interested to like really get the, the honest opinion, the honest review of these platforms. So I appreciate you. Let me push.

[Sarah Heard]

So it's, you know, the glitches are menu editing right now is still split. It's been multiple years. They have two different sections. You can do certain things on some sections and certain things on the other section, but not all of them on both. Some of them you can do on both gets a little confusing. But the big glitch has been with their payroll right now with onboarding. They do these updates, right. And it changes things. And they don't tell you that they're going to do the updates, they don't tell you what things it's going to change. So you onboard somebody. And right now I'm having a glitch where I will onboard two people the exact same way, same position. And one of them, I will have to go into the old employee section outside of payroll where it has all these banners that say do not edit in this section. And I have to click on a button to give them POS access. But the other person, it went through just fine. So there's some weird little technological glitches.

[Eric]

So you have to remember these are all like little micro habits that you have to remember.

[Sarah Heard]

Yeah, well, and it's always, it's a little embarrassing because, you know, these two people start I onboard them both, one of them can clock in and the other one's like, I don't know, my number's not working.

[Eric]

Yeah.

[Sarah Heard]

And I don't know.

[Eric]

You guys want to hire me.

[Sarah Heard]

Yeah. Like I don't know that it's not working until the staff member is like, hey, you know, the only way to navigate that would be for me to drive to the restaurant and physically try their number when I onboard them. Which is not convenient.

[Eric]

Right. I've heard too, through the grapevine that Toast is really starting to pull back on their open API, which was what made that platform so interesting in the first place, is that they had open API. It basically means that the technology can that the integrations, a lot of technology prior to that was closed. They didn't want things to move. They wanted to own that technology and they wanted to make a one stop shop for everything. But Toast came along and said, no, we're going to make it so that we have a bunch of technology partners. We're going to have an open API and everything's going to flow. So no matter what other technology you're using, there's an integration so we can all play nice together. But I've been hearing that they're kind of pulling back on that and that they're. They're really starting to make it a more closed platform, so you have to go all in. I don't know if they're purchasing. I need to say I'm not exactly sure how they like Extra Shift. Do they own Extra Chef? Or is that like a partnership? Or was it once on its own where there was integration? They said, we're going to buy you, like, I don't know. I could talk to people who probably know more about all the history of Toast. If you're out there and you're like a hardcore, like, POS nerd, let me know. I'd love to learn from you, but I have heard that things are getting a little more restricted and less open, and I was curious if you're finding that. But it sounds like you're. It's off your radar.

[Sarah Heard]

Not necessarily. I think our only outside integration that we have is with Open Table. And sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

[Eric]

Yeah.

[Sarah Heard]

We don't rely on it, that's for sure. But it is nice to be able to see on Open Table, like guest spend and what they ordered previously, especially when we get a bad review.

[Eric]

Yeah.

[Sarah Heard]

Then we go look at that reservation instead of having to go hunt it down on the computer. We can pull up their ticket, which is great. But otherwise, I think we are all in with their partnerships. They did want us on Toast Tables for a while, and we didn't. We didn't feel like it had the marketing network that OpenTable does. And that's super important.

[Eric]

It's a big part of what you're. You're paying for is that third party, like Marketplace.

[Sarah Heard]

Yeah.

[Eric]

You said something about Toast. That's. And I was too busy listening that I forgot. I do want to talk about OpenTable. Maybe the toast question will come back to me. So OpenTable, you were really happy with them back in 2018. And it was around that time that OpenTable was starting to catch a lot of heat for their business model. You've been with them since then?

[Sarah Heard]

We have. We became unhappy with them at some point. Our bill was like $1,800 a month. Wow. And it was just not. Not doable. And then we're looking at, you know, Resy.

[Eric]

They're like, you were originally with Resy you left Resi went to Open Table. This is why I love getting past guests back on the show. Because it's like, what's happened since? How are things evolving?

[Sarah Heard]

But ultimately, you know, we got some quotes from some other places. We talked to our rep at Open Table. They put us into, I think it's called, like, some sort of legacy program. And they gave us some deals to make it doable because they want us on the platform, which is great.

[Eric]

And then we have a reputation. You know, if you see, you know, foreign, domestic, is there, then that. To other restaurants. Monkey see, monkey do.

[Sarah Heard]

Right.

[Eric]

So if you leave. Well, foreign and Domestic seems like they know what they're doing. What do they know that I don't? I'm gonna go with Resi, you know.

[Sarah Heard]

Yeah. And he's, I think, made a lot of changes for the better. I have heard a lot of great things.

[Eric]

Yeah. They have come a long way. So you were considering them. Why didn't. Was it because Open Table was able to come? Did you make that threat that we're thinking about going to Resy?

[Sarah Heard]

We did talk to them about it, but ultimately, I think a huge part of us staying was that I like our rep. Open Tables. David. Yeah, he's awesome. Super helpful. They. They just felt like they really wanted to keep us. Like, there was. There was the hospitality side from them. Right. They didn't just hear the threat that we're going to leave and say, okay, well, this is the best deal I can do. Take it or leave it. They said, how can we work with you? And ultimately, what we're in is a program where we can kind of throttle how much we're spending with them on the advertising. So if we're just, like, getting absolutely packed and don't need any, I can just pull that throttle off. And we're not paying for any advertising from them.

[Eric]

Got it.

[Sarah Heard]

Until we need it again.

[Eric]

That's cool. How do you remember to do that in the middle of a rush?

[Sarah Heard]

Well, we. It's not like a middle of the rush thing. So the advertising is more of like, are we getting put at the top of their list? Are we paying to be, you know, priority?

[Eric]

So if they're seeing that you're booked, they'll. They'll just. It's automatic.

[Sarah Heard]

No, we. We do it.

[Eric]

Okay.

[Sarah Heard]

But if I start seeing, like. Because that's. I mean, marketing's not like, we're just busy one day. Right. So we throttle it. It's more of like, if we're busy, you know, through for a month, And a half. Then I'm gonna go ahead and pull that back a little bit, you know.

[Eric]

Got it.

[Sarah Heard]

And then put it back on when we get slow again.

[Eric]

And I love what you said. It reminds me. Have you ever heard the expression people don't work for restaurants, they work for people? People don't, you know, work for restaurants. They work for leaders, managers that they like, and when that leader or manager goes to a different restaurant, like, they bring a wave of people with them. I think it's true with, you know, tech companies is that people don't work with technology. They work with people.

[Sarah Heard]

Right.

[Eric]

And I think that there is this real trend towards. With some companies, I won't name the ones, but a lot of big companies that they. They doubled down so much on features and cost that they can't afford to keep the good people. And they're starting to get rid of the sales reps that. The people that. The relationship side of things. What are your thoughts as I'm saying this?

[Sarah Heard]

I mean, like I said, that's why we're with Open Table, like, our reps. So one of the reps that I love also is US Foods. And we hesitated to use any big, broad liners for a long time because it didn't feel like it fit our ethos. Right. But one of our old chefs ended up working with US Foods and was like, hey, you know, I know who you guys are. I know you know how to make this work for you guys. And then we started seeing how we could cut cost on. On things like, you know, to go cups and to go supplies and silly things like that. Um, so we're picky and choosing what we use with them. But what I have noticed is that our. Our rep, his name's Johnny, even if I mess up on the order, he's on it. Like, he will drive to the warehouse, pick it up, and bring it out to Lockhart if I need it. Just yesterday, actually. I always put in my order Sunday for Tuesday, and apparently something glitched. Something happened, and it didn't submit. So he texted and said, hey, I see you have items in your cart, but nothing got submitted. It's usually in on Sunday. Do you want me to push it through instead of just letting it, you know, come Tuesday, my order doesn't come in, and I don't know what's going on.

[Eric]

Yeah, it's that human element of anticipating, empathizing with. I don't think this is right.

[Sarah Heard]

Right.

[Eric]

And then your brain starts to figure out, how is this possible? I'm just Going to reach out.

[Sarah Heard]

Yeah. And I'm sure they could train like AI to send me an email, but I'm just going to ignore the email. Right, right. A text from my rep. A person

[Eric]

is like, I don't want to leave this person hanging. Yeah, there's something there. There's that human connectivity.

What did.

Was. Was your. Was Johnny the past chef that you had your rep?

[Sarah Heard]

No, his name's Austin.

[Eric]

Austin.

[Sarah Heard]

Yeah.

[Eric]

But it was Austin who said, you know, I think that there might be an opportunity for you with US Foods. How did he convince you? What did that conversation look like?

[Sarah Heard]

They just sat down and, you know, he had a pretty intimate knowledge of what we actually use, product wise. So he brought it all to us, Took away some of the guesswork, did some comparisons, you know, helped us sit down and really look at things and see how it would benefit. Also brought us in on some programs for rebates with things. And at the time that we started using US Foods, we were not. Not in the black. We were definitely in the red. We were starting to panic a little bit thinking, you know, how are we going to cut cost? So that was a big part of it, you know, cutting cost on things that are silly, like paper cups and paper towels for the bathrooms.

[Eric]

Yeah. You know, so how were you able to move the needle with US Foods once you made that switch? Like, how did that manifest on your p. L?

[Sarah Heard]

I don't have exact numbers on it, but we definitely started seeing that cost of goods.

[Eric]

Whole points.

Were you moving whole points?

[Sarah Heard]

Like, I would say we moved at least a point.

[Eric]

Okay, awesome. And I want to point out US Foods is a sponsor. I did not know that you were using US Foods when I showed up here. And the reason why I'm working with them is because I been getting testimonials like this, and I'm very intentional about who I get into relationships with, because I only want to promote the best. And I've been really impressed with US Foods.

[Sarah Heard]

They feel like the small town broadliner. Yeah, Right.

[Eric]

So if you're considering a switch, consider US Foods mention restaurant unstoppable. If you can think of it. I don't know if it'll get up to the executive level, but, you know, any support letting them know that this thing is getting the word out will help. Thank you. So talked about toast. We Talked about Resi. OpenTable. Back to OpenTable. That's another company that I feel like has made a. A turnaround. So you talked about how they're willing to, you know, give you the legacy Resi was up on, was coming up for a while, really giving them a run for their money still. It's like neck and neck. So if. If it wasn't for that legacy and being able to honor those original rates, do you think you would have made the switch to Resi?

[Sarah Heard]

Actually, I think Toast Tables was our. Our closest contender just because of pricing. Like, if we were going to make the switch, we were going to go because of pricing.

[Eric]

Got it. But they didn't have the Marketplace. Resi and OpenTable have a decent marketplace. I just remember the question I was going to ask you earlier. I'm going to make a note, though. I don't want to come back to general like ledger. So how has open table changed the game or not change, not the game, but their game.

[Sarah Heard]

Little things that have helped a lot. Like I can now access what's called the timeline on my phone, which is great. I do.

[Eric]

What is the timeline?

[Sarah Heard]

The timeline is basically just a list of tables versus a floor plan. So you can see the tables and they have blocks where each table is going to be seated. So if the table seated for two hours, it blocks that timeline for two hours on that table. And what I can do is kind of slide them around and play Tetris.

[Eric]

Like a Gantz chart. Do you know that term against chart? It's like a visual. It's. It's vertical, though.

[Sarah Heard]

Yeah, it's vertical.

[Eric]

It's just. Yeah. I think a Gantt chart's like. It's basically like a. A timeline. But I think you can go either vertical or horizontal. But it just kind of gives you a mental picture of, like, what's going on.

[Sarah Heard]

Yeah. And. And that has been really great because I do a lot of reservations over the phone from home. Our phone pushes. We use Google voice and it pushes to my phone if nobody answers here. So to be able to actually talk to people and they're like, I can't get a reservation on an open table and I can sit there and move the tables around on my phone now is fantastic. Doing it on the floor plan is the screen's just not big enough to do that. So little. Little things like that. Yeah, I could probably brainstorm and figure out a couple more.

[Eric]

But what I'm. What I've heard is that they kind of had some shady practices in the past. Like they knew that they were the number one big dog, that the restaurant needed them. And then when the market got a little bit more competitive, people started to say, fu. Yeah, like, this isn't fair. Like, you're like, you know, I think similar practices, like what Yelp does, where they like, disproportionately push restaurants that pay more or something. I can't. I don't know exactly. Is anybody ring a bell or.

[Sarah Heard]

I didn't dig into any of that. I do know that we had a lot of questions on our bill for a while, like, why is this so high? What is going on? But they addressed it as soon as we brought it up.

[Eric]

Yeah, I know. Resi recently acquired Tik Tok. Oh, not Tik Tok. Talk, just talk.

[Sarah Heard]

I forgot about them.

[Eric]

Yeah, well, now they're Resi. I don't know if they, they buried the technology or if they've integrated that into their platform, to be honest. And I also know now that American Express owns Resi.

[Sarah Heard]

Oh, wild.

[Eric]

And this, this stuff scares me.

[Sarah Heard]

Yeah. What.

[Eric]

When I say that, what do you think?

[Sarah Heard]

I immediately thought, like, are there going to be kickbacks? So, like, if you use Resi, you get less charge, less percentage on Amex

[Eric]

as the, like a restaurant owner or as a consumer?

[Sarah Heard]

No, as an owner. Like the percentage that you pay, are they gonna have kickbacks for that?

[Eric]

Well, just also, American Express having all that consumer data behavior. And like, I really worry about the future of the restaurant industry when these big companies, giant companies, have that much influence over consumer behavior. Google's another one. Like, they own, like, the answer to good marketing right now, if you ask any marketing expert, is Google. Google's the answer.

[Sarah Heard]

Yeah.

[Eric]

And nobody black, nobody bats an eye at that. Like, this is a good thing that Google has all this consumer behavior that they can.

[Sarah Heard]

Yeah.

[Eric]

Like, who has the relationship with the guest today? Is it third party giant tech conglomerates or is it restaurant owners?

[Sarah Heard]

That's a hard one.

[Eric]

Yeah. And I. If anybody out there listening to this, I don't want to push too hard today. I would love to talk to people who understand the. Is it ramifications. Am I using that right?

[Sarah Heard]

Sounds right.

[Eric]

I. I'm like, isn't that like a porcelain thing too? I don't know the, the impact of this. Please reach out to me. I'd love to educate myself more because I don't want to say too much out of line. Okay, so we're still kind of like, we're talking about some of the tech. We kind of got into Tech Stack and those changes you've made. Anything else relative to Tech Stack?

[Sarah Heard]

Not off the top of my head, yeah. Oh, we did integrate AI into our answering service.

[Eric]

What are you using?

[Sarah Heard]

Google Slang.

[Eric]

Slang.

[Sarah Heard]

Yeah. So slang was able to integrate with the Google voice, which is great. And it. It does some good things.

[Eric]

What's it doing for you?

[Sarah Heard]

So it answers the phone initially, and it'll answer like, the basic questions like, do you allow pets on a patio? Do you have liquor? You know, those questions. And then we still get several that come all the way through. So if you say certain things, it'll push you through to the restaurant phone, which then pushes to me if nobody answers. But some of that came about because one, we. We can only afford to have one host during service. So if they're at a table, they can't answer the phone.

[Eric]

Right.

[Sarah Heard]

They're seating a guest. And then also people get absolutely livid if we don't answer the phone outside of restaurant hours.

[Eric]

Yeah.

[Sarah Heard]

So trying to navigate that, it's been okay. But we have some guests that are really frustrated with it sometimes and that

[Eric]

they don't get a human.

[Sarah Heard]

Yeah. You know, some people aren't accustomed to navigating that or just having. Isn't.

[Eric]

Isn't it meant to be kind of like you talk to it like anything else?

[Sarah Heard]

Right. Yeah, it's supposed to be conversational. But, you know, when they don't get the answer they want, they get angry or they want to do something crazy. They're like, I want to change my reservation to add five people to it. And. And it's like, you can't do that.

[Eric]

Right. Until you get the slang AI to integrate with Google and open table. And that's all, like, on the horizon.

[Sarah Heard]

Even it does integrate with the reservations. So you can make a reservation through slang.

[Eric]

Yeah. You can now be driving down the road, say, hey, Siri, I want to make a reservation for foreign, domestic, blah, blah, blah, and like, it will all get done. I'm waiting for my phone to start talking to me. Sorry, I got. I'm good.

[Sarah Heard]

Yeah. But being told no by a robot versus a human has a different.

[Eric]

A little more compassion there.

[Sarah Heard]

Yeah, yeah. So people do get frustrated with that. Speaking of the, hey, Google thing, we had an issue at Commerce Cafe, so we do take reservations there, but we don't have, like a reservation system. We just pen and paper. We don't do a lot of them. Right. It's more like, hey, I have 14 people coming, those types of reservation. But we've had a slew of people using Google Coner or something to call the restaurant and make a reservation, but it's not going through. Like, it'll go through to the voicemail. And somehow it thinks that because it left a voicemail, it has a reservation, and then people come in and they're like, I have a reservation. And we're like, no, you don't. So that's been really weird. But I did figure out how to turn it off. But I was frustrated with our Google listing because it added that on its own. It was like, it updated all of a sudden. That was a thing, and we had no idea what was going on.

[Eric]

And is the customer going to be pissed off at Google?

[Sarah Heard]

No, they're pissed off at the restaurant.

[Eric]

Exactly.

Yeah.

Again, like, if. If all of consumer behavior hinges on one entity or consumer habit hinges on one entity, and that entity, like, has so much power.

[Sarah Heard]

Yeah.

[Eric]

Like, but we're. I worry that, like, restaurant owners are like, oh, I just have to do this, because if I don't do it, then my costume, like, my competition is going to do it, and I'll be left in the. But what are we sacrificing for convenience?

[Sarah Heard]

Right.

[Eric]

You know, what are we sacrificing to make the guests happy? Uh, it's. I think it's a question we really need to ask, and we need to talk to each other and say, like, who's winning here? You know, the. The other question that I lost that came back to my head is relative to Toast, you're using chef tech or chef Extra chef. Extra chef. Thank you very much. Is that a general ledger, Extra chef or like, are you doing all of your, like, your. Your basically, like, does it serve, like, QuickBooks?

[Sarah Heard]

So I know that we still have QuickBooks in place.

[Eric]

You're still using it, and it integrates with Toast.

[Sarah Heard]

This is more of Nathan's wheelhouse, but I know that it integrates really well.

[Eric]

Okay. Okay. I think we've covered a lot of the tech stack. I like going deep into that, so thank you for letting me do that. Straight out of the gates. In terms of what got us here, where we're talking about post pandemic, where you started changing your. Your to go and evolving your technology. You just mentioned Nathan's name. Partners in the business. Yeah. You guys bought this together. Foreign, domestic, where we're sitting today. Talk about me or talk to me about how that partnership has evolved over the past eight years.

[Sarah Heard]

Yeah. Two chefs, you know, both savory chefs.

[Eric]

I was curious about that the last time I spoke to you, because typically when you get into partnerships, it's like you're finding complimentary partners. Like, I'm front of house, you're back of house. Divide and conquer. But you had two chefs, so how has that. How have you Guys, found your lanes within the back of house.

[Sarah Heard]

I think, honestly, the. The one thing that I never thought I'd experience because no young chef thinks that they're going to deal with it, is burnout. And luckily for us, I think that we've kind of alternated burnout stages.

[Eric]

So when was your burnout stage?

[Sarah Heard]

I'm in it right now.

[Eric]

Thank you for getting open and vulnerable.

[Sarah Heard]

Yeah, it's a rough one.

[Eric]

Take me there.

[Sarah Heard]

But over the years, you know, you have a month or two of just being over it, and it's great to have another chef to take over and, you know, run the specials and. And, you know, keep things moving. For. For me right now, there's been a lot, a lot to the burnout. Some of it's physical. I finally, you know, I'm getting older.

[Eric]

You're 24 when you purchase, 28 when you purchase.

[Sarah Heard]

37 now, which is a lot in restaurant years.

[Eric]

I'm 40. It doesn't get it

[Sarah Heard]

last year. So I've struggled with migraines for about eight years. If you place that timeline on top of another one, I've had them my whole life, but they got really bad. For the last eight years. It had gotten to where I was having three a week, and they were pretty debilitating. Finally, last January, I had what's called a thunderclap migraine. Ended up in the hospital. It was terrifying. Had lots of, you know, tests done, and they told me that I have several lesions on my brain from the migraines, but otherwise there's nothing physically wrong with me. It's all lifestyle.

[Eric]

I.

What you said lesions from, like, scars. Like, I had no idea that you injure yourself.

[Sarah Heard]

Yeah. Every time you have a migraine, you run the chance of getting a lesion. Every time you get a lesion, you run the chance of it being in a spot. So that could paralyze you or kill you or do nothing, which I'm lucky. Luckily, I have had good placement on those. But it was terrifying. They came back. They told me it's all lifestyle. Right. So you need to change your lifestyle.

[Eric]

That's what I was going to ask. Like, what did they tell you? Like, what. Like, what is the. Do they know what causes stress?

[Sarah Heard]

It's chronic stress being, you know, constantly in the restaurant, living, you know, our house. All the broken equipment is at our house waiting to be fixed. So you walk in the door, you see everything that still needs to be done. There's no relaxing. You know, we live together, so. Or we did, and you get home and it's, oh, this person did this. We need to fire this person. We need to figure this out. The AC is broken. You know, you just never stop. So there's no downtime.

[Eric]

Yeah. And it's like, it's easier said than done to just cut it off, leave it at work. Because there's enough hours in the day at work, right. To address everything.

[Sarah Heard]

But if you just push yourself to continuously do it all day, every day, you know, until, you know, you're in bed at 1 o' clock in the morning on the computer running payroll. So if you allow that of yourself, you're never gonna push yourself to figure out alternate ways to do it. You're never gonna push yourself to, to delegate if you're like, I can do it, I can do it, I can do it either. The martyr mentality is deadly.

[Eric]

Right?

[Sarah Heard]

Right. So I had to start, you know, adjusting what, what my role is in the restaurant. Learning to not take things so personally. You know, I told you, the. The reviews come straight to my phone. All the PR stuff comes straight to my phone. I've got every alert on the planet set, but I've learned to not panic and open it when it pops up. There's a lot of mental work done on that to not be like, you know, ooh, piece of candy. Open it, check it. You know, I now wait to do that until I'm at work. I see the notification, I know that I need to do it in the morning, but I don't do it at home. Started going to the gym was huge for me. I didn't realize how physically out of shape I was until I started going to the gym. And from there, once I started getting that movement and that almost meditative state that you get when you're working out. Started feeling less burnout, started feeling, you know, more creative at work.

[Eric]

Even freeze the mind.

[Sarah Heard]

It does, yeah. Just taking that little break from work work where I'm not thinking about work while I'm on the treadmill or lifting weights. Allowed me, when I am at work, to feel more invigorated about it.

[Eric]

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like to your point, you know, all the stress, all this like we're like, we're these creatures that are very sedentary, sedentary relative to our ancestors where we would have to get up, do manual work to go find the food, forage for it, dig, climb whatever trees. Like we had to like move or go chase down a mammoth.

[Sarah Heard]

Yeah.

[Eric]

You know, like and you know, one of the things that makes us unique is our endurance to go chase down something and we're running like 5, 10 miles just to like or more. And eventually the animal just gets so exhausted from heat or whatever, but we're just sweating fine. You know, we're endurance animals. We're, you know, so. But we need that outlet and when we, when we have a place to put all this pent up energy and stress, like we need to get it out. Yeah, we need, and it's so important to exercise. Like I, I hadn't been great about it until recently. I'm making it a point to go exercise. And I was just talking to my girl, thank you very much. I was just talking to my girlfriend. I was like, oh, I've been so busy traveling to get out to Texas. Yeah, like you don't, do you get out of your routine? I was like, I just went for a run.

[Sarah Heard]

Right.

[Eric]

Like, you seem really relaxed. I was like, I just ran five miles and I Was like, I feel great. You know, I'm like, ah, you miss it. Your body needs it.

[Sarah Heard]

I got sick off and on for the last three months with Cedar and we worked acl. I got the stupid ACL flu and all that stuff. Sinus infections. And I haven't been able to go to the gym. And it's been awful because I'm also learning to not push myself when I'm sick, to let my body heal. Um, but that's been rough. It's funny you mentioned foraging. Um, that's one of the big things that I really leaned into this year because I want to have, you know, cooking adjacent hobbies. Right. So I still feel like I'm being productive, but I get to connect with the food.

[Eric]

Right.

[Sarah Heard]

And foraging has been something that's always been super important to me.

[Eric]

I remember that from our first conversation. That when we were talking, like, that's what lit you up was the using all of the plants.

[Sarah Heard]

Yeah.

[Eric]

You know, what do you say? Root to flower?

[Sarah Heard]

Root fruit.

[Eric]

Fruit. Yeah.

[Sarah Heard]

Yeah.

[Eric]

And it's cool that you're able to, like, kind of reconnect with what got you here in the first.

[Sarah Heard]

So I'm out. You know, I really pushed this year. I was out almost every single morning from May through November.

[Eric]

That's awesome.

[Sarah Heard]

And there's, you know, I went from just foraging dewberries to now I'm foraging like 15 different things.

[Eric]

That's cool.

[Sarah Heard]

And it's. It's a lot of fun.

[Eric]

You know what pisses me off?

[Sarah Heard]

What's that?

[Eric]

That we're told that the. That we need the current food system, or even with the current food system, we're not going to be able to feed the world.

[Sarah Heard]

Right. There's a lack of knowledge.

[Eric]

I'm not making any noise, but if you're watching the video, you're like, I'm making faces. Like, I. I find it so hard to believe that with all, like the. The earth is so able to produce or we're just not having enough people who are interested in producing good food.

[Sarah Heard]

You know, some of it is, you know, we're destroying the dirt because of monoculture. Yeah. Yeah. We're not giving it back what it needs. We're taking from it and not giving, but also, you know, planting grass, being worried about our carpet lawns. I have a neighborhood. She's super sweet. She's an older widow and she's terrified of everything. But she's. What are you gonna do? What are you gonna do when they start controlling our food systems? I said, well, I've Got.

[Eric]

I already do.

[Sarah Heard]

I know. I was like, I've got chickens and a rabbit and there's like 15 different plants in my backyard. I can eat. I'll be fine. Yeah, you know, like, I'll make it happen.

[Eric]

When.

What is she talking about? When they start controlling our.

[Sarah Heard]

The government.

[Eric]

The government.

They already.

[Sarah Heard]

Conspiracy.

[Eric]

Oh, what? Is there something. Is that another more popover is coming on? Nice. I love how your timer isn't like, like, like rough, you know,

[Sarah Heard]

fantastic. But you can change the tones on the timers. And so every now and then somebody will get bored and put it on like Christmas music. And it is the most obnoxious thing on earth.

[Eric]

So you guys still rocking the rationale? We talked a lot about that last time.

[Sarah Heard]

Yes. We have a double stack now.

[Eric]

Nice.

[Sarah Heard]

Yeah.

[Eric]

Rationale. If you're listening to this and you want to support a podcast, let's talk.

[Sarah Heard]

And if you want to give us free ovens, that'd be fantastic.

[Eric]

Yeah, let's do that too. Hook us up. Back to this idea of, like, the food system. You know, I.

[Sarah Heard]

We're.

[Eric]

We're a little ahead. The fun thing about talking to past guests is I jump around all over the place because, you know, like, it's. There's rapport. And I think it's important that we talk about the future too, because right now I think the industry is. I think the industry, the restaurant industry is the most well positioned industry to change things.

[Sarah Heard]

Yeah.

[Eric]

I just heard recently that it's the second largest industry behind government, and it used to be behind healthcare, and it was the third, but we just surpassed healthcare because of the amount of money, because the cost of goods are going up, that the revenue is going up. And we just passed healthcare. I don't know my. The fact, check me on that one. But second largest industry in the world, second to government and the most human. I used to say, like, the, the second was healthcare. And that's like, even though we're like taking like literally saving people's lives, it's so transactional. It's sick care.

[Sarah Heard]

It's not health care. Right.

[Eric]

Food is health care and it's hospitality.

[Sarah Heard]

Yeah. You know, for me, and I'm a little, you know, hippie, but anytime I start to get sick or feel weird, like, that's the first thing I look at is what am I eating? What's. You know, what do I need to change what's not sitting right with me, you know, and, and I do a lot of things like, like making fire cider and using food to apothecary. Yeah. Like, when I get sick, it's immediately like ginger tea and chicken soup.

[Eric]

Food is medicine.

[Sarah Heard]

Yeah. So it's cool to hear that we've surpassed healthcare.

[Eric]

Well, yeah, you know, it's. It's. It's exciting times because I think that also the consumer is starting to wake up to it.

[Sarah Heard]

Yeah.

[Eric]

You know, it's. It's all connected. And I think that if we practice conscious capitalism, when we really start sharing, like, more about how the world works and how the human body works and how the ecosystem works, it's all connected.

[Sarah Heard]

Yeah.

[Eric]

And when you. When you look to our past and you study ancient civilizations, like the Mayans and like. Like people who lived in the Amazon and how we were just wholly sustainable and we, like, were able to manage these natural resources and flourish, and then you look at how people lived in, like, small groups, like, tribal behavior, and

[Sarah Heard]

how people took care of each other.

[Eric]

Right. It's like we. If we study that and then say, well, this is like, we're really like, civilization peaks before we started to, you know, control everything. How do we recreate that in business? How do we recreate that in community?

[Sarah Heard]

The whole taking care of each other thing just reminded me, and it's probably a far stretch, but that's how my head works. In Lockhart, there was all the restaurants were kind of pitted against each other when we first came in, and everybody

[Eric]

was, where is Lockhart relative to Austin?

[Sarah Heard]

It's about 20 miles southeast.

[Eric]

Okay, so everyone was pitted against each other.

[Sarah Heard]

Yeah. Everybody was just very like, dog eat dog. I've seen that a lot in Austin. It kind of comes and goes, but trying to get restaurants on the square to understand that the better we all are, the more people come to the square, the better it is for everyone.

[Eric]

We have to educate each other.

[Sarah Heard]

Yeah. So that taking care of each other thing, we've really seen that grow in Lockhart. You know, now there's a text thread. All the restaurant owners on the square. Somebody needs POS Paper. Somebody brings POS Paper.

[Eric]

It's toilet paper.

[Sarah Heard]

Yeah.

[Eric]

Flour.

[Sarah Heard]

Right. Anything. If the health inspector's on the square, we all know immediately things like that. And it's been really cool to see.

[Eric]

And, you know, that's what it's all about. And when I say inspire, empower, and transform the industry, I think if we're going to change the industry, and ultimately if I think we change the restaurant industry, we change the world, it has to come from the inside out. We can't point our finger and say, somebody's gonna do Something about this. Yeah, No, I need to do something about this. We need to do something about this.

[Sarah Heard]

Yeah.

[Eric]

And when you. When the. The owners start coming together, working together in a community, that will change a community.

[Sarah Heard]

Yeah.

[Eric]

You know, that ripples out. Revolution started.

[Sarah Heard]

Yeah.

[Eric]

In bars.

[Sarah Heard]

Right.

[Eric]

You know, like, we have influence. We don't realize how much influence we have. It's really exciting when you think about it.

[Sarah Heard]

It feels good, you know, to see. It's like building the culture in the restaurant. Building the culture among the restaurant owners.

[Eric]

Yeah. So now, over the past few years, since the culture at Lockhart started to change, like, how is the. How is it better? What are the differences you've seen?

[Sarah Heard]

Oh, there's a lot more teamwork amongst the businesses. There's a lot.

[Eric]

What does that look like? Are you sharing resources like you mentioned?

[Sarah Heard]

Yeah, sharing resources, sharing information, coming together, like during festivals, like, hey, can we or can't we put a bar out up front? You know, how are you navigating it? What issues do you see? You know, just making sure that we're. Instead of being like, well, I know how I'm gonna do it, and hopefully they get shut down edge on you, you know. Right. Like, it's more of just trying to create that teamwork, make sure we're all on the same team. Like, all of us want downtown to be busy. Right. The more options people have, the more people are coming down. But it's just the teamwork aspect of it than the. Not like. Like, when we first came into Lockhart, there was a business owner on the square that was literally calling in tabc, what he thought was TABC violations on another restaurant repeatedly, because he was mad that they were there. He got into a huge fight with me on online because he was mad that the farmers market on the square didn't have Porta Potties. And I said, hey, our restaurants open during the farmers market. People are welcome to use our bathrooms if that's, you know, a fix. Because for me.

[Eric]

Got mad at you for that.

[Sarah Heard]

Yeah, because he was trying to pick a fight. He felt like those. Like that the farmers market booths were encroaching on his sales. Oh, right. For me, if somebody walks through the restaurant, they're going to smell the popovers. They're going to see the facility, they're going to see that it's a clean restaurant. They're going to hear the hospitality from the staff, they're going to use the clean bathroom, and then maybe they're going to come back for their birthday or, you know, next time they they're out on the square and they need to have a lunch. They're going to be like, oh, I use the bathroom at that place. It looked really cool. I want to go. So for me, every person that walks through the door is a potential sale. So having the farmers market, there is people coming in. So I was excited about it. He got mad at me. I guess he was trying to throw a fit. I offered a logical explanation. He called me lots of nasty names, and that's. That's how it was on the square.

[Eric]

Yeah.

[Sarah Heard]

When we got there. And now that's not there. And actually. So he still operates in Lockhart. He's not on the square anymore, but has started engaging with our post and being supportive, and it's pretty cool to see.

[Eric]

Yeah.

[Sarah Heard]

You know, it's almost like transformation, finally, Right? Yeah. And it's not that I. I don't like his restaurant, but I didn't like him as a person. So now I feel comfortable when people.

[Eric]

We don't want him to hear this and stop getting, like. We don't discourage you.

[Sarah Heard]

Yeah. No. And it was like before, people would ask me how I felt about the restaurant, and I'd have to, like, kind of be fake or, you know, navigate the question, navigate around it.

[Eric]

Yeah.

[Sarah Heard]

But now I feel comfortable saying, hey, yets. Great. This is the type of food they have.

[Eric]

Right. You know, I love that. I love this. And this is. This reassures that I'm on the right path with what I'm trying to do with Restaurant Unstoppable and developing RU Network. We're literally like, you will be joining us. You agreed. We don't have the date yet, but a month after this goes live, you will make yourself available to join me for coffee. We call it Coffee with Eric. And every Monday, owners across the country get together and we just talk.

[Sarah Heard]

Yeah.

[Eric]

And if there's something that you hear in today's episode that you're curious about, Sarah's going to be there to talk about it. We just share information. And my hope is that I. That I grow Restaurant Unstoppable to have thousands and thousands of restaurants in my community, and people are talking. Although that would be great, and it would really support this mission. My hope is that it gets you comfortable talking to other restaurants, so you talk to the people in your own community. And

people can be.

[Sarah Heard]

If it's.

[Eric]

If they don't live in a community

where people are supportive like that, they're afraid to go talk to people. But I think the reality is most people do want to talk so if it gives you like that practice of getting used to talking to other owners, you know, that's. That's my hope.

[Sarah Heard]

Well, and it's like, if you think about it, our. Our health insurance surcharge came from our visit to California where we saw that practice, and we're like, oh, that's one way for our teeny tiny restaurant to offer health insurance. But it would have been, you know, we did a lot of research and read a lot of articles, but it would have been so nice to talk to some of the restaurants that had implemented that and seen, obviously the laws are different in California, but to see the struggles that they had had.

[Eric]

Right.

The only way we're going to make this happen is by communicating and not competing with each other. So there's this western culture of individualism. Yeah, right. That's. It's a beautiful thing. Let's be honest. Like, we are what we are.

We need.

Hear me out. If you're not watching this, you would have seen Sarah give me a little bit of a. I don't know about that, but I'm reading this book right now and I'm. I'm gonna go down a rabbit hole. It was referred to me by. By Rudy Mick, past guest on the show. I always have Rudy on. Love Rudy. Ken Wilbur. A Brief History of Everything, I think is the name of the title. And it literally, he just simplifies how the universe works. And in that book, he. The very first chapter, he talks about Holins. H O L O N Holen and everything in the universe is a hole. In a holen is defined as something that is complete on its own and also a part of something else. And everything in the universe in the universe. Like this microphone is a complete microphone. It is a microphone on its own, but it's a part of a recording system when it's connected to everything else. And it needs this interface and the

[Sarah Heard]

software and it has all these parts inside of it.

[Eric]

And I overlay it with the software to be able to get the video and together that is a podcast. A video podcast. A video podcast is whole, you know, so it's like that, that. So that where I'm going with this is that everything has to have autonomy. It needs to be an individual and it has to be a part of something else.

[Sarah Heard]

Yeah.

[Eric]

So that is a community. That is a restaurant owner is a part of a restaurant. The restaurant is a part of a community. And it's. And there's hierarchies. You. Like, people hate the word hierarchy, but they're Necessary. The reason why people don't like hierarchies is because usually hierarchies are associated with dominant hierarchies. And that's bad. But we all have to be a part of something else. Where I'm going with this is every Holland has agency and community and it's on a spectrum. And the trick is to find balance. Like you have to have agency and

[Sarah Heard]

to recognize that being part of that community plays back into who you are as a person.

[Eric]

Right. I think. I think what it comes down to is we need to re. Redefine values and re. Organize our culture as a society. To say, what do we care about? How do I have agency? Freedom.

[Sarah Heard]

Yeah.

[Eric]

To do what I love, to do what I'm passionate about. To have purpose and have that purpose contribute to something greater. And it's finding that balance of purpose and agency that also adds value. That's conscious capitalism. That is doing things to make the world better. Doing the hard thing, usually. And that's the thing, the thing that makes everything better is usually the hard thing. But they're. This gentleman you're talking about, he was on the far extreme of agency. Me, I want to win. And that's Western culture. More, more, more. III yeah. How much can I get? How can I be the best?

[Sarah Heard]

Yeah. Instead of welcoming in new business to bring new business to the square.

[Eric]

Right.

[Sarah Heard]

Is feeling threatened by.

[Eric]

Exactly. Now, what if we redefine what it means to be the best?

[Sarah Heard]

Right.

[Eric]

What if the best is the. The person who makes sure their community is the healthiest?

[Sarah Heard]

Well, having competition is the only way to really push yourself to be better. Whether it's competition with yourself, with your past self or with other people. But for me, it's more exciting to have a healthy competition with other people. Like, oh, the restaurant next door got toast handhelds. Well, I'm going to look into that. Right, right. Like, I'm going to see how that's working for them. I'm going to see if that. That works for us or they, you know, they started using a better cut of meat. Like, do I need to reevaluate my cut of meat? Like, it just challenges you to constantly evaluate what you're doing and make sure that you're being the best that you can.

[Eric]

Absolutely. Yeah. I'm really enjoying the conversation. How long have we been going? I'm curious. I haven't even looked at the time. An hour and about almost 20 minutes. We've been rocking, so we haven't really talked about Commerce Cafe. When did you open that?

[Sarah Heard]

May of 2020. Yeah, it was a rough time.

[Eric]

Well, I feel like that is actually, if. So you open after everything went to.

[Sarah Heard]

Yeah.

[Eric]

So you didn't.

[Sarah Heard]

Signed the lease on the building two days before the shutdown.

[Eric]

Oh, okay. That's rough.

[Sarah Heard]

Yeah. When the shutdown happened, we considered seeing if we could back out of the lease, but we were in love with the building and the location. And I grew up in Lockhart, so it was. It was a weird moment because I never thought I'd be back. But we felt like it was a good time, it was a good location. We were, like I said, a little ahead of the market. But I think that's the best time to get in, to get in, get your foothold before it's super competitive. And ultimately we did buy the building, but we were in a lease for a couple of years there.

[Eric]

So how did the market change?

[Sarah Heard]

You know, people gave us a lot of pushback when we opened for pricing. When we first opened, pricing was a big hot ticket with the community because we were definitely the highest price priced because everything was handmade. Labor is high. We wanted to make sure that we're paying our staff a living wage. And we. We also do full tip pooling, so it's a little different, but so even the kitchen gets tipped. Sorry, I don't know where I was going with that.

[Eric]

Are you using any tools to manage that tip?

[Sarah Heard]

Excel. I'm an Excel nerd. Like I like to say, I'm a freak in the sheets. But I use Excel primarily because I have it set up on a sheet that is pretty plug and play. So I could pay another software company to do it and integrate. But realistically, to run payroll for 45 staff members, it's still only taking me about an hour.

[Eric]

Yeah.

[Sarah Heard]

So I don't feel like I need to. And then I get eyes on it. So if something's off, I'm catching it before it goes through. Versus with a computer, I'd be apt to just skim it.

[Eric]

Right.

[Sarah Heard]

You know, and maybe miss it. But I'm physically looking at the hours put in those auto clock outs, people that miss things. And then like, you know, sometimes tip reporting is off. So if something feels off, it clicks in my head, I go back and look at it. So.

[Eric]

Got it.

[Sarah Heard]

I'm pretty happy with the Excel sheet right now.

[Eric]

How does your team like the tip pulling?

[Sarah Heard]

It's been hit or miss. But we. So we're. We started off at Commerce, so we're five years into it. They understand it. They see the benefits of it. They understand that even if we have a bummer of a shift, they're still going to make the same that they normally do hourly. So they're not, you know, resentful of making 2:15 an hour when we're slow. Yeah, right. Also, we see the kitchen helping out significantly at both places. So when we started doing tip pooling, we started seeing the kitchen and F and D be more conversative with the guest, more observant. Whether or not they were observant before, they're more apt to tell us things like, hey, table 30 didn't look like they liked that first bite of risotto. You know, can you check on them?

[Eric]

Or. Right.

[Sarah Heard]

You know, hey, 31's looking around. So they're really communicative right now because it affects everybody. Right. And whereas in Austin at fnd, they're, they're kind of locked in on the line, at Commerce, they're not. The kitchens open on both sides. So what we see is when the servers are busy, the cooks now know the table numbers. They'll run food out, they'll talk to the guest. Everybody seems to understand now that the happier the guest is, the faster the food goes out. The more tips they're making, the more

[Eric]

they're likely to come back.

[Sarah Heard]

Yeah, that's good. It's really incentivized the kitchen to take an active role in the hospitality.

[Eric]

Right.

There's something that hasn't come out of today's discussion yet, which I think is really important. You own this building and Commerce.

[Sarah Heard]

We do.

[Eric]

Congratulations.

[Sarah Heard]

Thank you. It was a big step. Real estate is my, my other fun hobby and likely the only way I'm going to retire.

[Eric]

Well, I think it's really important. I mean, if that's a hobby, we should definitely go deeper into this and kind of understand your approach and what you need to know if, if this, this should be part of the business model, I think.

[Sarah Heard]

Right.

[Eric]

Two properties. Anything else?

[Sarah Heard]

I have two rental houses, my home, and technically I own a flip house. Right now. I'm in the process. I just partnered up with somebody, so they're funding the whole flip, which is fantastic.

[Eric]

Are you doing the work?

[Sarah Heard]

Yeah.

[Eric]

How?

[Sarah Heard]

I grew up in construction. My dad's been in construction my whole life.

[Eric]

How still, like, even if you know what you're doing, where do you find the time?

[Sarah Heard]

There's not really time, but it's worth it because you want to get into the nitty gritty. This one, one flip house is going to pay me out. It's. It's a four month flip and it's going to pay me out more than my salary from both restaurants for one year.

[Eric]

Yeah.

[Sarah Heard]

So it's, it's worth it. Um, and then again, having that team that I can rely on to handle things when I'm not here, being able to trust them when I'm not here to do things the way I would, that's super important. Gives me the freedom to go, especially when I'm in a burnout stage like I am right now to, you know, I come in, I put out a special. I know service is going to be good. I let them handle it and then I go work on the house. You know, it gives my brain that, that break that it needs.

[Eric]

Yeah. You have to focus on what you're doing right in front of you. There's no more mental. Like you're, you're doing work.

[Sarah Heard]

Yeah.

[Eric]

What advice do you have for somebody who wants to get into real estate?

[Sarah Heard]

That first down payment is the hardest because you need 20 for an investment property. So that's a big deal. But save up for that. And then what, What I did honestly was I took my first house that I bought as a homestead, and when I bought the house that I live in now, turned that into a rent house, saved all the rent from that, and then when I eventually sold, that, turned that into two more rent houses.

[Eric]

So you're, you're basically saving the money, growing profit account and then using that profit to pay off debt and. Or buy more assets.

[Sarah Heard]

Yeah. So all of the money from the rent houses goes into a separate account. And once that gets to the amount of another down payment, I let IT grow another 10, 15,000 for renovations and then buy another property.

[Eric]

So you get the down payment and then you get $15,000 worth of renovations just to put some lipstick on it and get somebody in there right away.

[Sarah Heard]

Yeah. And generally the houses that I've bought have been in horrendous condition, to put it nicely. So that 10, 15,000 does, you know, some drywall work, mostly supplies. You know, I'm doing a lot of the work myself, so not paying a lot of labor, which is why I'm able to do it right in that 10 to $15,000 range.

[Eric]

Yeah. And as you buy more and more properties, are you continuing this practice of taking all the rent? So you're basically exponentially. You're going to get to that down payment in $15,000 faster because now you have more units going into that account.

[Sarah Heard]

Yeah, it'll, it's, it's like a little multi level marketing scheme with just me

[Eric]

yeah, well, I mean, it's just exponential growth.

[Sarah Heard]

Right. Instead of working for me, the hard thing is like since June, I've had both rentals empty so that I was very close to buying another rent house. And now I've eaten through a significant amount of that. But the market's coming back, so I actually got applications on both houses this week.

[Eric]

And that's awesome.

[Sarah Heard]

Stoked.

[Eric]

That's cool. I mean, I think it's really important to diversify your portfolio.

[Sarah Heard]

Right. Can't put all your eggs in one basket.

[Eric]

Right. So back to commerce. Any big lessons? This is the first restaurant that you started from scratch cuz you took over foreign and domestic was a Ned Elliott concept that, you know, turnkey. You just moved in, already have oil.

Yeah.

Like that is a great approach for your first restaurant. Not your, not your vision, not your dream, but.

[Sarah Heard]

Right.

[Eric]

You know, an established, well respected restaurant and you were someone's exit strategy.

[Sarah Heard]

It's almost scarier, you know, to enter a restaurant that is well respected and to have to hold yourself to the standards and to, you know, am I going to be good enough to keep it respectable? Expected.

[Eric]

Right. Right. So how is commerce different for you guys? Any new challenges?

[Sarah Heard]

I would say building the culture from the ground up was interesting.

[Eric]

What was the struggle with that?

[Sarah Heard]

You know, you hire an opening staff and you hope that they're all good, but then having to call the people that don't want to be a part of that culture or having to explain

[Eric]

that they aren't a part of the culture.

[Sarah Heard]

Right. That they're not as great as they think they are. Usually. Usually it's somebody who's super egotistical and they're like, well, I'm the best server you have. And I'm like, yeah, but that doesn't matter because you're toxic.

[Eric]

Yeah.

[Sarah Heard]

So having to explain to people that that's a whole concept, but also going into Lockhart and that culture not existing in any other restaurant as far as we saw having to. We. We hired all locals. So having to break teach them. Yeah. That, you know, you can't just get drunk on the job because it's there.

[Eric]

Yeah.

[Sarah Heard]

You know, teaching them those things like holding themselves accountable. Holding themselves, you know, not gossiping at work, not talking politics with people at the tables, not, you know, creating that welcoming space that is not about them themselves. It's about the guest. In a town that we didn't feel like that had existed before. It was really interesting.

[Eric]

Yeah. How'd you overcome it?

[Sarah Heard]

Constant gentle pressure. Yeah. Another line from Danny Sometimes less gentle than other times.

[Eric]

Yeah.

[Sarah Heard]

I hate to say that the biggest thing I've learned is to fire people quickly, but it is. It's to. To give a couple of chances, to give as much redirection as I possibly can, to give them all the tools they need to be successful within our business. But then if I see that they're not making the effort to utilize the tools or to make the changes that are necessary to. To get them out. Right. To. Before they poison the weather. Right.

[Eric]

A huge fan of eos, the entrepreneurial operating system. Are you familiar with that? It's a. Check out the book Traction if you're. If you want to learn more. That's where Gino Wickman introduces the concept. But they talk about get it, want it, have the capacity to do it.

[Sarah Heard]

Right.

[Eric]

If you're ever putting somebody in a position, they have to get it. I mean, they have to understand it, they have to want it. That's a desire to move into that position, and they have to have the capacity to do it. They have to either have the skills that you trained or, like, they.

[Sarah Heard]

Or be in the right headspace. We've had people that we let go because they. They couldn't. And they went. They weren't somewhere else for a couple of years, and then they came back and they were like, hey, I'm ready. Yeah, I understand what you were trying to do. I'm ready.

[Eric]

Or maybe their place was. Maybe they, like, they just going on. Right?

[Sarah Heard]

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

[Eric]

So I. I want to make sure we talk about 2024, because you said that was probably your roughest year.

[Sarah Heard]

Yeah.

[Eric]

What made 2024 your roughest year?

[Sarah Heard]

It kind of all ties into that culture. We lost a bit of culture after Covid because we were so desperate for guests. I, as a young owner, was still of the mindset that, you know, we are open no matter what. I'm not closing sections. We're. If we, you know, for short people, I'm going to jump in and be a server and shirk my other duties. It was such a martyr thing. In the last couple of years, we've learned that, you know, what, if we're short of server, I'm going to move tables, I'm going to shut a section down. Right. We're going to limit reservations. Not being so desperate to just have money come in the door that we're losing what we are as a restaurant.

[Eric]

Sacrificing value.

[Sarah Heard]

Yeah. You know, prior to this year, we would have never closed during a freeze. It would have been Nathan and I. Dealing with the ice and getting up here to run the restaurant and whoever else could get here. But why, like, guests don't need to be coming in.

[Eric]

Right.

[Sarah Heard]

It's not necessary. And the fact was everybody had been to HEB in the last two days and cleared everything out, and everybody needed to eat that food, so nobody was coming in anyway. So why. Why would we not make the decision to close? It's all those little mindset changes that have made a huge difference in the last couple of years.

[Eric]

So getting away from those bad habits of feeling like you have to keep up with the Joneses in terms of, like, being unreasonable with.

[Sarah Heard]

Right.

[Eric]

Your life.

[Sarah Heard]

Yeah. You know, that's where unreasonable hospitality is actually unreasonable.

[Eric]

Right.

And I. I actually push back. I think that book is great. There's a lot of great gems in that. But I also think that we shouldn't be doing unreasonable things.

[Sarah Heard]

Right. Like, at what cost?

[Eric]

If it's out of reason, then, like, who. Who's really, like, is that sustainable?

[Sarah Heard]

Well, some ways I see some things. Like, you know, we've had people ask. They're like, hey, I'm on my first date. Can you put a flower on the table? And if I'm going by H E B and I can pick up a flower and it's a couple bucks, fine.

[Eric]

Yeah. Or like, you know, making that happen. There's a million spots in town. You can get a flower.

[Sarah Heard]

There are limits. Yeah.

[Eric]

I mean, I think it's also important to point out that Will Guerdera and eleven Madison.

[Sarah Heard]

Yeah.

[Eric]

They are in one of the richest markets in the world, serving the richest people in that market.

[Sarah Heard]

Yeah. And they have the means to be unreasonable.

[Eric]

And it's hundreds, if not thousands of dollars eat at that restaurant. Which means they have this unlimited, like, not. I mean, it's not unlimited, but they. If. If you are. If your thing is to be. Is to juxtapose and to stand out from everybody, and you can own that niche by hiring people whose job it is to write thank you letters and, like, that is their job.

[Sarah Heard]

Yeah.

[Eric]

And you can add that to the expense list and, you know, cover it with the giant bill. We all can't do that.

[Sarah Heard]

Right.

[Eric]

But there's other ways to be unreasonable or to just, like, instead of being unreasonable. The whole idea of being unreasonable is just. It's juxtaposition. It's like, people wouldn't expect that. There's other ways.

[Sarah Heard]

It's a marketing scheme, honestly. Yeah. Like, there's some degree of hospitality to it. But there's also A marketing aspect to it.

[Eric]

I. I used to say that you can measure your level of hospitality by the level of inconvenience. If somebody asks you to do something and it's inconvenient, the more inconvenient it is, the more generous it is. And that's hospitality. Lean into it. But to your point, there's a. You can't. We are so generous. We're giving all the meat away.

[Sarah Heard]

Yeah.

[Eric]

And there's no meat left on the bone.

[Sarah Heard]

Yeah.

[Eric]

So what happens when there's nothing left to give? And, like, that's the balance we have to figure out.

[Sarah Heard]

Yeah. Like, what are you sacrificing in order to do that? And for me, a huge part of that was I. And I. I hate saying this. I sacrificed being a mom. Like, I am a mom. And I have missed numerous things. I just played tooth fairy for my niece the other day, and I. As I'm trying to get this tooth out from under the pillow, I was like, I've never done this. I have a 14 year old and I was never part of this.

[Eric]

Yeah.

[Sarah Heard]

And so there's a lot that comes from, you know, being on the phone, responding to reviews at home, doing payroll at home, you know, trying to navigate everything and not delegating those things, like, and being unreasonable, you know, oh, our regulars are coming in on my day off, so I need to be at the restaurant. Why am I doing that? Yeah, it's okay for me not to be there. And that's almost egotistical that the only reason they would want to be there is to see me. Right. Like, why is that what we all fall into?

[Eric]

Right. So we're at the point of the conversation where we're kind of where we are today, present point. We kind of unpacked our tech stack. We went deep into that. I would like to know, as you have evolved into this woman, you are today more self aware, more conscious of the future you want for yourself.

[Sarah Heard]

Yeah.

[Eric]

What is the plan? What is the strategy? What is the future for you in the industry?

[Sarah Heard]

To have a comfortable life and to be proud of what I'm doing and to be proud of the staff that I have and to. To not have any questions of myself.

[Eric]

How do you achieve that?

[Sarah Heard]

By making decisions based on humans. By making, you know, if I used to be so terrified of the restaurant closing that I made decisions solely based on that, and I've learned specifically over the last couple of years that the only way for the restaurant to be viable is if the staff inside of it are happy and taken Care of. And I've learned to pull a lot of pride and a lot of self fulfillment from knowing that our staff are happy and healthy.

[Eric]

Yeah. You, you pointed out that you're kind of in the. What was the word you used? You were like in the dumps, but you didn't use that word. You're burnout, burnout stage. Are you out, Are you coming out of that? Are you still in it?

[Sarah Heard]

A little bit, yeah. I started running specials again in the last couple of weeks, which feels good. I think some of it's seasonal, you know.

[Eric]

Oh, 100.

[Sarah Heard]

I love foraging and there's not much to forage right now.

[Eric]

I'm somebody who definitely struggles with seasonal depression.

[Sarah Heard]

Yeah.

[Eric]

There's a reason why I get in a camper and go south right. In the winter.

[Sarah Heard]

Yeah. And then it's just been, you know, it's been really heavy. I mean, I'm super thankful that our banquets are kicking off, catering's kicking off at commerce, but it's a lot. And this is our first really busy year with catering. So it's taking a lot of hands on training. And so that's been a lot. And then holidays happened and going through some, some life changes and it's just been a lot the last couple of months. And then everybody I know has a birthday in, you know, November, December and January. So it's been a lot.

[Eric]

If you, if I could wave a wand bond.

[Sarah Heard]

Yeah.

[Eric]

And give you your perfect 10 year vision for yourself. Paint the picture. What does your life look like?

[Sarah Heard]

Yeah, I'd like to be. It sounds silly, but I'd like to be out of the restaurant more. I'd like to really focus more on training the CDC and being able to afford a front of house manager here and learning to manage the managers more than managing a staff. Right. I'd like to be less, less in the restaurant, which I don't think that's something I never thought I'd ever say. But I'm learning that there's a lot of, a lot of great things that happen when you're free to fix the issues. Like if somebody calls out and I'm like, oh, well, I can, you know, maneuver this or change this or something breaks, I have the time to go fix it versus before. I was like, well, I have to work a station on the line so I have to go in two hours early to fix this. And then my day is now two hours longer. And just giving myself the freedom to actually fix the issues as they happen has made me a lot less reactive to the issues. Yeah, that makes sense.

[Eric]

Yeah. I don't think it's crazy to see that you want to get out men

[Sarah Heard]

to be creative with, you know, the marketing and the pr. That's something that's been kind of sidelined. Right. Like, I. I do it because we can't really afford to have a marketing and PR company, but I'm also not doing it because I'm so tied up in operations.

[Eric]

So back to this word. Holland. H O L O N. The other cool thing about Hollands is they're either, you know, like wholly on agency or some. It's a balance of agency and community. But all Hollands are either ascending or descending. You're either ascending the hierarchy or. Or you're dying. Right. And I think that as a hole in each of us are holins. You are Holland. Our goal is to ascend our. And if you're not ascending, if you're not moving up the hierarchy, then you're dying.

[Sarah Heard]

Right.

[Eric]

So I think that it makes sense that we want to. When you think of moving up the hierarchy, I think it's not necessarily removing yourself wholly from the business, but it's what are the 20% of things only I should do?

[Sarah Heard]

Yeah.

[Eric]

And how do I ascend to focus my energy on those things so I can get even better at those things I already love and I'm already good at. How do I ascend on those things? And how do I create opportunity for others to ascend? By offloading these responsibilities to giving those things to people who love those things. How do I create opportunity for others to ascend? So I think that is the goal, is to remove ourselves.

[Sarah Heard]

Yeah.

[Eric]

And to climb the. The hierarchy, to create more opportunity, to maybe open more restaurants, buy more properties, to create more opportunity for different people. And you're out there strategizing marketing, finding the properties, reinvesting into assets to create more and more opportunity. That should be the goal.

[Sarah Heard]

Right.

[Eric]

That doesn't sound crazy. That's. Yeah, that's good.

[Sarah Heard]

It's just weird to say as a chef, it's totally counter from anything that I ever thought. You know, I thought I'd be cooking on the line till the day I

[Eric]

die, but there's so many people that are where you were when you were 19 years old that are chomping at the bit for that opportunity. Yeah. And you are now Lisa.

[Sarah Heard]

Yeah.

[Eric]

You know, and if you listen to episode 654, you know who Lisa is.

[Sarah Heard]

Yeah.

[Eric]

You can be that person that. That gives opportunity and you will never forget her. And that's what it's all about, like,

[Sarah Heard]

for her to give me at the age of 19, the opportunity to be in management is insane.

[Eric]

And you have to remove yourself.

[Sarah Heard]

Yeah. If she.

[Eric]

If she was taking up that role. Exactly.

[Sarah Heard]

Yeah.

[Eric]

Yeah. Well, that's exciting. What do you think has to change in the industry in order for that to happen?

[Sarah Heard]

Oh, man. I think the industry still struggles a lot with ego, and I think that being able to set yourself aside is. Is such a huge thing. And I'm not going to say that it's an easy thing to navigate, but getting rid of that martyr mentality, getting rid of the ego, and being able to focus on the art without tearing everything else apart is incredibly important. And just giving. Giving ourselves grace. Right. Like, I know I'm not feeling it today, so I'm not gonna just go in and push with every, you know, ounce of my. My body, I'm gonna say, okay, what can I accomplish today that feels good? And then what needs to be pushed till tomorrow? Right. Until I feel it.

[Eric]

Has anything not come out of today's conversation that you want to make? Sure. Comes out a message. You want to share a thought?

[Sarah Heard]

Not that I can think of. I did. You were talking about books earlier, and JC A chef in town, suggested that I read a book and that if you haven't read, it's fantastic, called Leaders Eat Last.

[Eric]

Ooh. Simon Sinek.

[Sarah Heard]

Yes.

[Eric]

I will get behind that. What was your biggest lesson from that book?

[Sarah Heard]

Just about. About. I mean, leadership and what it actually takes to. To put yourself aside and the changes that you make in order to be a good leader versus a good boss.

[Eric]

I think it was in that book he gets into the chemical, like, like, concoction that is our body of, like, serotonin, dopamine, and all these different things. I can't remember how he ties it

[Sarah Heard]

back to the book. I need to read it again. Yeah, it's been. It's been almost a year, but I

[Eric]

thought that was fascinating.

[Sarah Heard]

It definitely stuck with me. And then there's a book that actually one of our clients, who is a CEO of a company gave me, and it's called, I think, Strength to Strength. I could be wrong on that. It's strength. Strength, but I can't remember what the middle word is.

[Eric]

Do you know who the author was?

[Sarah Heard]

I don't remember, but I'll get it to you.

[Eric]

Strength to String. Let me see if I can't find it.

[Sarah Heard]

Right?

[Eric]

Yeah.

[Sarah Heard]

But it talked a lot about transitioning from, like, the doer. The doer role into the wisdom and Teacher role ascending and. Yeah. And it's just part of growing. Right. Your growth. And that was super.

[Eric]

From strength to strength, Finding success, happiness, and deep purpose.

[Sarah Heard]

That's it.

[Eric]

Sick. I'm gonna have to add this to my wish list, too. Okay, a couple questions before we officially wrap it up. What is one thing about your business? A value, a process that's truly uncommon, that makes you unstoppable?

[Sarah Heard]

I think the ability to adjust, to say, hey, the restaurant wants this, so let's make the change. Right. To not be like this is what I want for the restaurant. So that's how we do it. To say, hey, the guests are asking for this. The building's asking for this. Let's make this change.

[Eric]

The mission statement is to change the world by inspiring, empowering, and transforming the restaurant industry. I think we're going to do that. Transforming one person out of of time. How have you personally transformed? How are you a better woman today than the woman you were when you got started?

[Sarah Heard]

Oh, I would say I'm still ambitious, but it's not my only character anymore. I actually have some. Some human to me.

[Eric]

What's your most proud characteristic?

[Sarah Heard]

Empathy.

[Eric]

I love that. If you got the news, you'd be leaving this world tomorrow.

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 that you could leave behind for the good of humanity and your legacy. What would those three pieces of wisdom be?

[Sarah Heard]

Embrace humility.

[Eric]

1.

[Sarah Heard]

Learn everything you possibly can.

[Eric]

2.

[Sarah Heard]

And be a part of something.

[Eric]

3.

This has been a lot of fun, Sarah. Thank you so much. I'm really trying to lean into being a journalistic podcast. I don't want to be the one to decide who gets made an example of. I think success recognizes success. And if change is going to happen, it's going to come from the inside of the industry. People who know the industry, who know who needs to be made an example of. Dustin Teague told me to talk to you. I said, I will talk to her again, because you're right, she is awesome. So who do you respect and admire in the industry? Somebody who's doing it right. Who's running a tight ship. Yeah. Preferably somebody who's also making money while they're doing it, because we know that's a hard nut to crack. And I'm trying to find these people to learn from them. Who is that for you?

[Sarah Heard]

Yeah, I would say Joanne Irizarry. She's. She's become one of my mentors as far as business but also entrepreneurship and mental health.

[Eric]

What's her business?

[Sarah Heard]

She owns Thorn and Bread and Barb's BQ in Lockhart. And then she's also an accountant. She's in real estate. Yeah. She wears many, many hats.

[Eric]

Joanne Arzette Arzoit.

[Sarah Heard]

I R I R I Z A

[Eric]

R R Y. Risodi. That's Italian name. Yeah, Right?

[Sarah Heard]

Yeah. Well, I think it's a married name. I was gonna say she's Puerto Rican, but that doesn't make sense. I think it was her married last name.

[Eric]

Got it. Join lookout. I'm coming after you. I'd love to get you on the show. And how can we connect with you if today's conversation really resonated with us and we want to maybe come check out your restaurants or connect with you?

[Sarah Heard]

Yeah. Instagram's honestly the best. It pops up on my phone right away, so. And it's at Chef Herd.

[Eric]

Got it. And you did say you are willing to come hang out for coffee with Eric.

[Sarah Heard]

I love coffee.

[Eric]

Yeah. Thank you very much. And so stick around to the closing thoughts. We're going to find a date, and we'll let you know when that date is so you guys can join us. And if you want to be a part of that conversation in all future conversations, head over to Restaurant Unstoppable.com/live to join the community. And thank you in advance for supporting this mission. This is where I say, Sarah, it was a true honor to make an example of you. Again, I can't say thank you enough for getting open, getting vulnerable, sharing the realities, not putting up a front, not, you know, trying to let your ego get in the way, but really just getting vulnerable.

I think we need more of that

industry in the industry. And I'm just. I just can't say thank you enough. There is no questioning, Sarah. You are unstoppable.

[Sarah Heard]

Well, thank you. It's been an honor to be here again. Thank you.

[Eric]

Cheers. There's another episode wrapped up here at Restaurant Unstoppable. Special thanks to our guest today, Sarah Heard for coming back on the show.

And, you know, I just have to

tip my hat to Sarah and recognize how hard it is to get open to get vulnerable. And the mission of statement is to inspire, empower, and transform the industry. And I believe that when we get open, get vulnerable, get transparent together as an industry, that's the first step to moving in the right direction. I think a lot of times we can be misleading. We want to project this image of confidence, and, you know, that we have our together and Everything's okay. As a leader, we have to do that. But the reality is this is a grind and we're in it together. You're not alone. And I just, it's, it's not easy to do that. And I just want to recognize and thank Sarah for that willingness. And if you want to connect with Sarah, if maybe you're going through some of the similar things that she shared today on the episode, then she'll be live for coffee with Eric. On 3 23, March 23rd at 11am Eastern. Head over to Restaurant Unstoppable.com Coffee with Eric. We're having a blast over there. The idea, the vision behind Restaurant Unstoppable Network RU network is to bring together the the industry around conversation to find solutions and to really just to share perspective and knowledge so we can go further together. You are the average of those you surround yourself with and we're having a blast over there. It's a lot of fun. So head over to again to restaurantsoppable.com CWE this first session's on me. If you want to connect with Sarah, but we would love to have you join the community. Head over to restaurantstoppable.com live if you want to be a part of this and all future conversations. We just pulled on a community manager. We're rolling out new technology. I have a COO who's joined us who's really helping with user experience. He has a whole career background in digital user experience.

So we're taking it to the next level. And every time you sign up, every

member who signs up is supporting this mission to inspire, empower and transform the industry and we cannot thank you enough.

And if you're not interested in the

community, there's other ways you can support share this podcast with everyone you know. Leave those five star reviews on itunes and Stitcher Radio.

That helps so much.

And subscribe wherever you can, whether that be our email list or or YouTube.

It just helps so much.

And thank you in advance. That's it for today.

Until next time.

Peace out.