← Restaurant Unstoppable with Eric Cacciatore
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A
A couple things before we get started today. First, thank you so much for showing up week after week making my vision for restaurants unstoppable come true. Your downloads are allowing me to do this show the way I've always wanted to do it. Boots on the ground, word of mouth, leaders, referring leaders giving the industry an uncensored, no BS platform to share their perspectives and truth. That's on you. Thank you so much. And we're just getting started. So if you're enjoying what we're doing here and you want to help us do it even better. Please subscribe to this podcast on your platform of choice. And if you do that, I promise to do everything in my power to continue to improve the show. I'll deliver the restaurant tours you want to hear from and we'll continue to make everything you love about this show better.
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B
Thank you.
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A
Welcome to restaurant unstoppable. For 10 years and over 1,000 episodes, I've been traveling the country chasing word of mouth leads and having in person only long form discussions with the industry's finest owners and operators. Our mission is to inspire, empower and transform the restaurant industry by bridging the gap between this generation's leaders and the next. Listen to today's guest and so many others and get one step closer to becoming unstoppable. This episode is brought to you by Restaurant Technologies 3, 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 hyphen inc.com or call 888-779-5314 to get started. This episode is made possible by US Foods. Running a successful restaurant takes more than just great food.
- [02:06]
B
With US Foods, you can expect more
- [02:08]
A
high quality products, advanced tools and flexible deliveries to grow your business. Their industry leading moxy platform also does more than just place your US Foods order. It uses AI to help you take control, save time and increase profitability. Visit usfoods.com expect more to learn how to become a US Foods customer one more time, that is usfoods.com expect more with excitement.
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B
Allow me to introduce to you today's guest, founder of RO Hospitality, Ryan Pernis. My man Ryan, are you feeling unstoppable today?
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C
I am. Let's get into it.
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B
Yeah man. I'm stoked. So you are here today because Ryan Turner referred You to me. He's been so generous with his network. And if you're like the last person he referred to me, which was Robby Kugler, I know this is going to be good. That's a high standard to me.
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C
Yeah, no pressure.
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B
But before we dive into who you are and how you got to where you are today, let's get that motivational inspirational ball rolling with a success quote or mantra. What do you got for us?
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C
Yeah, cool. So I want to start with what the RO in my company name stands for. Company name is RO Hospitality. That stands for reckless optimism.
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A
I was curious, man.
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B
Reckless optimism. Dive into that.
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C
Yeah. So I came up with this idea is kind of like you said, a mantra when I was a high school senior. Put yourself back in that time. You graduate, you know, you're going to school, maybe you're not going to school, but whatever that next step is, you're in this world of possibility where everything is open to you, the world is your oyster, so to speak. So in that mindset, I came up with this idea that I just want to attack my future with the spirit of reckless optimism. And that little, you know, 17 year old Ryan wrote that down and had some journal entries about it and thought up and thought and thought. And as you get older, you know, life throws some things at you, start paying taxes, you get a mortgage and that kind of thing. But I had always, in a nod to that younger self, wanted to attack things with a spirit of reckless optimism.
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B
So when you say reckless, what other synonyms come to mind of just the
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C
word reckless in a vacuum or my
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B
version of reckless in this use case?
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C
Yeah, in this use case, I think reckless is largely synonymous with, with brave in the face of impending chaos and uncertainty. I mean, I think to get into restaurants you have to be a little, little reckless. Right. Not maybe an investor friendly word. But, you know, facing restaurants is a daunting challenge. We know the numbers, entrepreneurs, you got
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B
to, you got to go for it.
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C
Yeah. So I think there's an element of, you know, I understand that this isn't a business with the highest chance of success. It's not a business you get into knowing I'm going to make a ton of money and I'm going to retire early and all those things. So you have to be a little reckless to get into restaurants.
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B
And same idea with the optimism in this use case. Why do you think optimism is so important?
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C
Because I think it is very easy to get down on yourself down in the world. And in that mindset, you just stay in Bed. And why even get out? So optimism. You know, we actually look for optimism as one of our five traits and who we want to bring on the team because you need that spirit of, I can impact this, I can do well, I can achieve the goal we want to achieve. And that's optimism. Yeah.
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B
I think of optimism. The word hope comes to my mind. And, you know, I had a Professor David Mazur once say, a leader is a dealer of hope. And you have to give people hope. You have to be optimistic that whatever you see, whatever your vision is, it's achievable.
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C
Right.
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B
When I hear reckless optimism, I also kind of think of, like, unreasonable hospitality.
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C
It's similar in ways.
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B
Right. Is that a stretch?
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C
You know, not. Not a surprise that we might land in roughly the same place because I think, you know, it's hard to marry. I hear you probably encounter a lot of people who have these sort of business templates. And many business are good to great. I read Jim Collins and I'm going to do, you know, step one to step two to step three, and that's my template for. For success. But in hospitality and restaurants, things can be so chaotic. There can be as much artistry as there is science. So many shades of gray also, that I think you've got to approach it with a more elastic, reckless, unreasonable set of standards for how you're going to go about it. In order to wrestle success from this crazy business we've chosen.
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B
Right. And you can't be like everybody else. You've got to do something. The juxtaposition.
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C
Juxtapose.
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B
Is that right?
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C
That's right.
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B
So, yeah, I mean, great way to get this thing started. So before we dive into your story and talk about how you got to where you are today, give the listeners an idea of what RO hospitality is.
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C
Yeah.
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B
Locations.
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C
We've got two locations now. We had four. Covet happened. We have two now. So we've got. Table in Maine was opened in 2011. I was 25 at the time. Opened this on Canton street in Roswell, Georgia. Roswell is a town of about 100,000 people.
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B
Beautiful town.
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C
Beautiful town. All this quaint, charming, you know, bucolic kind of.
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B
I meant to compliment you on how gorgeous your town was when I got here.
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C
Thank you very much. We. We take it very, very seriously that this town is charming, cute, quaint, got this history to it. A lot of Civil War history happened here. So it's all those things. Right. And Table in Maine was very meant to evoke all of them. So 2011 Table in Maine opens. It's a tiny restaurant. It's 1600 square feet inside. We have about just over 100 seats, including the patio, which is almost fully half again our seating on the inside. So average check here is about 50, 55. That's table in Maine. Simple, seasonal, southern is the concept.
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B
Got it.
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C
So go down the road. Our sister restaurant, Oster Rimatone, I opened with my brother Daniel in 2013. That restaurant, a little more formal, a little more white tablecloth on one side, a little more casual on the other. It's a little bigger, just under 3,000 square feet. About 110, 120 seats. Again, the patio is almost half again the seating, but it has a little more seating inside than Table and main does. So that is Roman Roswell. Right. It's this Italian was strictly Roman when we opened. It's kind of grown to include all areas of the country of Italy. And that one's been open since 2013.
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B
Got it. And you're fortunate to be in Georgia. Your patio season is what, like it could be as early as March?
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C
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, just last weekend we had a 75 degree Saturday and you know, we'll take a swing at that pitch. We had our busiest day at Table Maine ever actually that day.
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B
And does it start to get slow around November?
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C
Outside starts to get slow in November and we extend that season as long as we can. Right. We've got the heaters out there. We got tons of bourbon, so that'll keep you warm. We put a, we put a yurt, which is sort of like a glamping intimate dining experience out there to get that patio action even through the winter. So 15 years in at Table and Main, 13 years at Osteria, we kind of know how to manage the seasons a little better.
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B
Got it. And in terms of percent profit, are you willing to share that information?
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C
Yeah, sure. We actually had a fantastic year last year. Two years ago, Oster area hit a record breaking profit. And last year Table Maine did so table main. Again, 1600 square feet. It's a tiny restaurant. It did about 2.6 million in revenue last year with a 9.8% profit.
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B
Okay.
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C
At Osaria, we did about 2.5 million with about a, what was it, 5.5% profit. Okay.
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B
And I mean to hear that you're doing your best years ever during this time where everyone I'm talking to is down or very few people are up to be up right now is a testament in terms of prime costs. What does that look like?
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C
Both restaurants hover this is not going to shock your listeners. We're about 70% food, we're running about 25 to 26%. I'm sorry, total cost of goods sold, about 25 to 26%. And total cost of good. Our labor cost is pretty high. We're in the high 30s. Yeah, 36, 38%.
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B
I had a feeling that was going to be the case because of when you said that, you know, when you shared the percent profit, I was like, he's taking care of his staff. Yeah, because of, because of the, the lineage you have, the experience you have, what people are saying about you. And one of the, you know, things that is coming up lately, it's getting harder and harder for good people to do good work because, not to say you're not doing good work, but to hit those numbers of 15, 20% profit because you got to take care of your staff. If you want to take care of your staff, like, where's it going to come from?
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C
Yeah, that's exactly right. And you know, I put in context, we're in Roswell, Georgia. It's hard for us to get that late night turn. So we're, you know, a two turn. We get an early seating, we get a mid seating. No one's walking in here at 9 o', clock, 9:30. I talked to some of my colleagues downtown. You know, you want to run a restaurant, Buckhead, you're still bumping at 10pm that's just not us. We're also really small and we're not open for lunch. So immediately, that sort of limp puts you in a box in what you can do. Now. What I'm proud of is that our revenue has increased from the last seven years and that's accurate from COVID to here. So is that actually six years or so? From COVID to this year, we've done better in our top line. We are having some struggles, as everyone is, with costs being crazy, labor costs has certainly gone up and all those things.
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B
Yeah. And I mean, I'm also curious, do you have owner's pay? Do you take owner's pay or do you.
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C
Yeah, I do. Which is another thing. And when I mentioned earlier that we went from four restaurants to two, our corporate staff did not shrink accordingly. So, you know, four restaurants, we're carrying the cost of our four person corporate team. And now two restaurants are.
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B
The plus side of that is you have a bench, right?
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C
We have a bench. And you know, to be perfectly frank with your listeners, and I think it's really important conversation in restaurants right now, I believe we run really great restaurants. I believe we run really good businesses. We also allow our team to have a life, and that includes me. So at this point, you know, we have a bench, as you mentioned, we are in a position where we're working on the engine so that when we're ready to expand, we can jump on that opportunity. Yeah. Instead of having to get the engine humming again.
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B
How many employees are you at right now?
- [11:26]
C
Table, man, is about 30 to 35. It's seasonal and we're at our lowest right now because we're about to get into spring season and Osri is a little more about 40. And our corporate team's four people.
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B
Okay, so right about 100, give or take.
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C
Correct.
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B
In that ballpark. And I think it's also important the, you know, you're doing close to 200 or a little over 200,000. Right around 200,000 a year profit and owners pay. There's a lot of people that would love to make that kind of money. Yeah, you're doing what you love.
- [11:53]
C
Yeah. And I admittedly get down on myself because I'd like to be doing double digit profitability. I know some people are. So I, you know, talk to.
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B
They have 30 seats. Sorry, how many seats are 100 seats?
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C
It's tiny restaurants in Roswell. And also, as I was getting to earlier, you know, we try and allow everyone to have a life, including. Including me. I get to take my little girl to school every day, pick her up, put her to bed many nights. I think that's a win for a restaurant.
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B
And I think that's something that we don't put enough emphasis on. So I think redefining what success is is really something that we could be better about in this industry.
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C
And I think we're getting there. You see a lot of conversation about toppling the old. I mean, heck, all your listeners will recognize the article just came out about Rene Redzepi. Oh, my gosh. As like an extreme example of an old template for how this is done. And if we take that as a case study of, you know, there was a time when restaurants did not value personal life and those things. And I think we're evolving.
- [12:44]
B
We have to. Yeah. And a great way to get this thing started. And thank you for the transparency, the vulnerability. I know it's weird to ask these questions on a public platform, but I think that because we don't talk about these things is why we get in trouble. Because we don't have any benchmarks, we don't have any reference.
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C
Well, you Talk to a lot of entrepreneurs. And, you know, the previous guys you mentioned, Ryan Turner, Robbie, ran big, big restaurant groups.
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B
Right.
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C
I've got two restaurants. You know, I want to grow more, but I think it's important for other entrepreneurs to hear that, you know, on my scale, imposter syndrome is a real thing. You talk to your friends in restaurants and you hear, damn, you're. You know, just the other day, someone said, oh, our credit card fees are 2.5. I'm like, man, I've switched my credit card company three times trying to get mine down. Like, how did you figure that out? And I can't. So there's a lot of internal struggle where you're, you're trying to. To maintain a sense of pride in what you've built and accomplished while recognizing, I can still do better. How can I approach that in a healthy way that's not. Just get down on myself?
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B
Yeah, there's a company out there, Merchant Advocate, that does negotiating on credit card processing that I like to throw that company out there.
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C
I don't know if you ever heard, yeah, Merchant advocate. Maybe it's merchant advocate.
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B
Yeah, Merchants advocate with the nest. Anyway, let's get back to your story, man. I'm already loving the conversation, but where does it make sense to start sharing
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C
story at the beginning. It was a dark and rainy night when I was born, probably up in. Up in New York.
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B
Okay. And you mentioned that you had a motto as soon as high school. How many high school kids have their own credo?
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C
You know, I'm pretty lucky in that I actually have journal entries from when I was 10 years old describing about how I wanted to open a restaurant.
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B
That's crazy.
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C
And that has afforded a lot of benefits to be able to go right to, is this going to help me achieve my dream or not? And there's, there's a through line from. I took my first job in restaurants at age 13, worked in restaurants also all through high school. And I was cooking on the Grill at 13 at a restaurant called the Roasted Garlic up in Alpharetta. And then I went to the hotel school at Cornell University, studied restaurants there, restaurant consulting. Opened a restaurant with Danny Meyer. Moved down at 25. So that's, you know, it in a nutshell.
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B
Moved down at 20 at the age of 20. What do you mean, down here?
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C
Yeah, I was back up in New York at 25 and then moved back down here.
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B
So you're from this area?
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C
Yeah. So let's, let's, let's go way back. So born in Long Island Lived in Long island until I was nine or ten. Moved down here. My dad worked for Delta. They moved him right here before the Olympics. So that was where I was born. Started working in restaurants at age 13. We were out for my mom's birthday at this restaurant one town over and surprised everyone by saying the owner was at the table. I said, are you hiring? He said, yeah. I said, okay, I'd like a job. And he looked at my mom, he looked at my dad, and they just kind of shrugged. Next thing I knew, I'm in the kitchen, you know. Yeah, come in on Monday. So that was. That was great. I worked with that same family. Also a restaurant family in Georgia. You may have heard of the Castellucci family.
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B
Yeah, I've had. Oh, my God. His first name is escaping me.
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C
Fred Johnson.
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B
Federico.
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C
Yeah.
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B
Frederico. Yeah. Frederick. He's been a two or three time repeat guest.
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C
Yeah, I imagine so. Fred was right next to me on Saute when I was working grill at 13. So the two of us, very young, you know, I cooked through his family's restaurants when I was in high school.
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B
Oh, yeah, that's a great, great family. What they did, what he did. And you guys both ended up going to Cornell together too, right? That's cool.
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C
Yeah, he got in. I thought, oh, shit. There's no way they're gonna let two kids from the same restaurant, from the same town into this school that had only 220 people in my class. Yeah. But I. I tricked them. They let me in.
- [16:09]
B
That was a great episode. I'll try to find the episode number and maybe mention at the end of the show. But if you guys have not checked out that episode, what he did to turn around that family business was pretty inspiring.
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C
Yeah. And I had a ringside seat to it. I helped, you know, for one summer. I helped work with him in that summer. But he really did do that. So you listen to that and you go, is that all it really is. Fred did an amazing thing. His sister Stephanie is now involved in the business. John, of course, Stephanie was, I say now involved. She was always involved. And their younger brother John is their head of culinary. They're a very interesting case study of a family. Great people, for sure.
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B
All right, so back to your story. So you knew really young that you wanted to do this. I'm curious, was your why then the same as your why today?
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C
I think it was, yeah. And that, to me, is this idea. I call it cockpit mentality. You know, to me, operating a restaurant, opening restaurants taps on every different skill you have in the basket. And it's an element of creativity. You know, design the logo, design the menu. Culinary, of course, wine, of course the setting, the scene set, the ambiance. Then there's the whole sort of business acumen I learned at Cornell. You know, how to read a P and L, how to put all the pieces of the business together, get the accounting team right, invoicing process and all that. And that, to me, is the most attractive part of restaurants, is you do all those things in a day. You wake up culinary tasting at 10. You may go meet with your accountants at 11. I got to talk with my director of operations about our P and L. What are we doing to fix food costs, whatever it is. Then you're in the shift, you're talking to people, you're adjusting the lights, you're making the setting correct, you're helping the expo. And the chef's got to step off the line. So all these things happen in a day. And that hustle was part of the appeal to me.
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B
And today, is that the same thing that pulls you in, do you think? The hustle?
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C
I think so, yeah. There's nothing like stepping into a restaurant when I wasn't the one who had to turn the lights on for that day. You know, we've coached the team, and now we've got an apparatus that is executing at the level that I wanted them to, that we've. We've talked about of their own volition, because they're all their own true professionals. And that feeling is of the same palette, but maybe a slightly different color. When you step into your dining room on a Saturday and everything is clicking, and you think, all right. Damn. Yeah.
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B
So it sounds like your overall experience at Cornell was positive.
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C
Very much so, yes.
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B
Was there one mentor, one person there that you think had the biggest influence on you?
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C
You know, I want to tell a story of a guy named Chef Craig Hartman, who has his own restaurants up in. I think he's in Virginia.
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B
Yes.
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C
Barbecue exchange. Yes, Barbecue exchange. Wow. Have you talked to him?
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B
I have, yeah. And I talked to Brooke Tanner, who loves.
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C
Yeah, Brooke is in the kitchen there too.
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B
Oh, my God. I love Brooke.
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C
So, Chef Craig Hartman. When we first got to Cornell, Fred and I were freshmen, and again, this is how close Fred and I were. So we get to Cornell, and we both wanted to work in the kitchens. And when you're a freshman, you typically work in banquets in the kitchens called Statler Hotel up there. So they typically. Okay, freshmen, you know, you're going to work on banquets. And whatnot. Fred and I, we didn't want that. We wanted to work in the kitchen. So kitchen there was, at least at the time, was ban fee. It might still be. So chef Craig Hartman is the chef of the kitchen, and he is making those calls, and he gave Fred and I each a recipe. He was like, all right, we'll make this. And I had to make southern style biscuits, which I had actually never made before. And I'll never forget, you know, I made the biscuits call chef over comes over, and however long it took, and he takes a bite, and it's like, all right, yeah, okay, you could be on the line. So Fred and I were some of the first freshmen they let cook on the line at Fanfi.
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B
That's cool. I think it was actually Brooks Tanner who put Federico Castellucci on my radar.
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C
It might have been, yeah. Because Brooks was, I think, the sous chef, kitchen manager there at the time. It's an extension of that story. I remember Fred and I getting off one of our first events that we had cooked at Banffy. It was a Banffy event, so we cooked it. You know, the line was rocking. We were doing service, we're doing the event, and chef goes out to talk to the event. He goes, all right, Casalucci, Pernice, you know, come on out. And I remember. So chef. Do I change my chef code? He goes, no, I like to let him know you're working in here. So that moment of when he had kind of tapped us to have a chance to show what we could do, step onto the line, which to us, we were working with seniors on the line, that was really cool. And that was a very early moment of this is still my community. This is. This is where I belong.
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B
You said Craig Hartman from Barbecue Exchange, formerly. What was the name of that restaurant again?
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C
I know. It is barbecue. Barbecue Exchange. Yeah.
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B
But you were working at the inn, right?
- [20:34]
C
Yeah. Statler Hotel and the restaurant in Statler Hotels. Banffee.
- [20:37]
B
Got it.
- [20:38]
A
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- [20:46]
B
keep in house and which services to outsource. And oil management is one of those things you should outsource.
- [20:52]
A
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- [21:34]
B
How was Craig Hartman? What was it about him? You said that this is one mentor that stood out. What. How did he influence the man you are today?
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C
Well, you know, the stories of chefs throwing plates and things at the kitchen that could not have been less. Chef Craig Hartman, another thing he said to me, said, you know, in the kitchen, you have a good or bad manager. If they ask you how your day is and they keep walking like, you know, you don't actually wait for an answer. Right.
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B
Make eye contact.
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C
Yeah. So he was just a very early, visible example of how to be a strong leader, be visible, expect excellence, and not be a jerk. That was, again, something that just reaffirmed. You know, if I had had a person that really burned me out of working in restaurants at that point, maybe I would have done something else. Right. But it was another invitation into that world that helped keep me going.
- [22:23]
B
I love that. So where do you fall on the conversation of, you know, if you could do it all over again, would you do it? Do you think The. The expense. Did you have to pay for school? Did you get help from family?
- [22:36]
C
I got help from family, and I also paid. We kind of split some of it.
- [22:39]
B
Yeah. Do you think that. Where do you fall on that. That conversation of should you go to culinary school or. Or not or. I think, did you study culinary or.
- [22:48]
C
It was not culinary. Yeah, it was. It was basically the hotel school is an undergraduate MBA that focuses in business. Right.
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B
I think that is a much better investment than culinary.
- [22:57]
C
Yeah, I agree. In the culinary world, I don't feel expert enough to speak to, you know, our chef Woody went to culinary school, but I think even he would agree you learn as much, if not more actually working in the business. And I think one thing the hotel school does well is they'll teach you the academics and the structure and the theory. They also make sure you work in the business, too, because I don't care how well you can format in Excel. If you've never seen the inner workings of a restaurant, you're going to go into restaurants. That's a tough sell.
- [23:24]
B
Yeah. I think the biggest value of going to a culinary school or a hotel school like Cornell or CIA, wherever you end up, is that you are the average of those you surround yourself with. And if you have it, if you want it, if you're good at it. The instructors will see that, the professors will see that, and they will open up doors. They will get you 100% surrounded with the people that can get you to wherever you're going. I think then that network is the most valuable asset, the network.
- [23:53]
C
And also, you know, it's not like you get a Rolodex. So there's also the innate skill of, well, how do you use that network? How do you be a people person? And I had friends who were way smarter than I was, who's. Whose time at Cornell was much more difficult because they were an engineering school and they had these classes that would discuss concepts in mathematics I couldn't even follow. But can you lead people? Can you talk to people? Can you rally a team? Can you, you know, give a. A football locker room speech to rally the troops on a difficult shift? You know, those things. I think it's a different set of skills and how you interact with people.
- [24:28]
B
For sure. Yep. So your path from Cornell, Avaro, Union Square hospitality, back to Atlanta.
- [24:36]
C
Yes.
- [24:36]
B
So why Averro out of college? What were you thinking? What was your. Your game plan?
- [24:41]
C
Yeah, So I would never describe myself as a foodie. I am not a great cook. I'm a fine cook. You came over for dinner tonight, you'd be like, all right, this is pretty good.
- [24:50]
B
Was that invitation?
- [24:51]
C
If you want. Yeah, you're welcome to. It'll be steaks tonight.
- [24:53]
B
Okay. Okay.
- [24:55]
C
And that's. That should be telling if any chefs like, I'm cooking steak tonight. So it's not exactly chef Y. Grilling is different than, you know, chefing anyway. So going to Avera was. Was, for me, an opportunity to learn. Okay, how does a business work? How does this. At the time, it was very tech startup Y focused on hospitality. So I could still say in that world. And my particular skill set, I think, isn't that I'm a brilliant cook. It's that I kind of see the strings that control the system in a restaurant. A restaurant is a bundle of a million different processes, and I can see those pretty clearly and put them together in a way that makes people happy. So that, to me, was an opportunity to really open up the hood on some of the greatest restaurant groups that I'd studied at Cornell, and now I was in New York, and Union Square Hospitality Group is one of my clients.
- [25:40]
B
Okay.
- [25:40]
C
So imagine I would describe myself as fairly nerdy in business stuff. For restaurants, I like to look at the numbers. I like to tweak those things. And now I have access to all of the numbers for Union Square Hospitality Group. Are you kidding me?
- [25:55]
B
That's pretty cool. That's a privilege right there.
- [25:57]
C
So that was great. You know, we mentioned Will Guidera earlier. He was one of my clients, Daniel Hume. I sat next to a computer and I talk to Danny Hume about how to use our tool. Same thing with Danny Meyer himself. So those opportunities to see the numbers and then there's also the working at, you know, a company. Restaurant groups are their own special breed of business. Working in a business taught me how to write an email, you know, conduct a meeting, put an agenda together. All those things are a skill set sort of unique beside what restaurants teach.
- [26:26]
B
Not only do you see their numbers, but you get to understand their psychology of what they're communicating to you. What are they interested and what do they want to know? What are their concerns?
- [26:34]
C
What are they, what are their priorities? What are they focused on?
- [26:36]
B
Yeah, that is such a cool perspective. I've never had anybody on the show that took a path like that. That is really cool. Did somebody steer you in this direction or did you intuit this?
- [26:45]
C
I'll give a lot of credit to my parents, of course. You know, my dad was in revenue management and so all the time he would talk about theories of revenue management, yield management and those sorts of things sort of around in that world. And as I was at Cornell, he'd come up and, oh, you took Sherry Kimes revenue management, yield management class. And so we'd kind of geek out on those things. But I think it was a huge benefit to not just come with a love of food. I love food, so I'm going to do restaurants. It was, I love food, but again, I'm not a foodie. I love building a thing that is this creative and more hard nosed, business minded enterprise which is a restaurant. Yeah, you know, Danny Meyer would say a restaurant's a warehouse. Right. It's a factory. It's the only factory where you receive your raw ingredients in the morning. You do stuff to them and then you sell the finished product, comes to
- [27:34]
B
the door as a commodity and goes out as not even a product, but a service. Service economy or experience economy? You know, it's. Yeah. I'm curious, when you were with Avero, what were the biggest lessons you learned during that time?
- [27:49]
C
There were a lot of lessons in how important hospitality is. You know, I guarantee you've heard this on your show before, but it's a quote that's in our handbooks attributed to Maya Angelou. I'm not sure she said it, but people, people will forget what you say they may even forget what you do. They will never forget how you make them feel. Yes. And so there were examples of working with these restaurant groups where you were made to feel hospitality. A great example is I was a recently graduated freshman, and one of my clients was the Modern up in New York, where actually my brother worked. Chef at the time was Gabriel Kreuter, who went on to open his own restaurant later than that. But at the time, he was at the Modern, and he had specific questions about how to use Averro to achieve something. And it was, see what servers are selling desserts. I forget what it was, but I remember I went up there, we had the meeting, and then he said, are you hungry? And I said, well, no, I got to get back to, you know, I got to get back to the office. I'm on. They know I'm on this mission. I got to come back. And he said, all right, well, have you eaten lunch? I said, no, I haven't eaten lunch. Goes okay. Stick around. And three courses of food came to the table. And I believe it was Dino Laverini, who's the gm, came over and he says, you know, a splash of wine wouldn't hurt. And he poured something while I had their tart flambe. And I remember thinking, I just graduated from college, and this amazing chef I've read about, we studied this restaurant, and I met this company, did this thing for, you know, a nobody me. That was such an impactful moment of hospitality, making you feel a certain way that I'm telling you the story now. I remember the rest of my life. There's also the element of being, you know, 21. Oh, my gosh, this is so cool. Isn't life grand in New York City? My life starting anew. So it was a very impactful, Technicolor kind of moment.
- [29:36]
B
How long were you with Overa?
- [29:38]
C
About two years.
- [29:38]
B
Two years. And I'm sure that helped you get in the door with Unisco Hospitality.
- [29:42]
C
Yeah. As they were one of my clients, I remember doing a meeting that was all USHD's chefs and GMs and Danny and Richard Korain that they asked to just do a brief, like, look at all our restaurants and tell us what we can do.
- [29:54]
B
Okay.
- [29:55]
C
And what Averro is pretty much. And so they all kind of knew me, which was helpful.
- [29:59]
B
That's cool. And how long were you with Union Square Hospitality? Was it five years?
- [30:02]
C
About two years. Two years, yeah.
- [30:04]
B
So if we're reverse engineering this to 2019, 2007, or like, 2006.
- [30:08]
C
2007 graduated in 2007.
- [30:11]
B
So Avero was very ahead of the curve when it comes to, like, I think what it. What it was doing in 2006. 2007 is kind of status quo for a lot of these POS systems.
- [30:22]
C
Yeah, totally. And actually, I think it's part and parcel of what we discussed earlier. The. The old guard, chef throwing plates, managed by intimidation kind of thing that restaurants were at one point in time. Same goes for, you know, you don't take a dish off because it doesn't sell. The chef loves that. Just. And you manage. My intuition. You manage by your gut. Navarro really, I think helped crack the code of, you know, scorecard. Scorecard, yeah. You can run your. Your restaurant business like a real business. Like, let's put on our big boy pants here and let's look at PMIX and what's selling, what's not. Let's make decisions with data as opposed to finger in the air kind of thing.
- [30:57]
B
Avero isn't a general ledger, is it? It's not like it wasn't like Restaurant365.
- [31:03]
C
No, it's. It's got a more targeted. They call it business analytics. Right. It's business intelligence.
- [31:07]
B
So it was pulling data from the pos, basically. Interesting. So anything else worth mentioning during that two years? The Vero, before we talk about your evolution at Uni Square Hospitality, I think
- [31:19]
C
we about covered it. It was a. It was a great time. I loved working with Avaro. I will give a nod to the fact that also when I got there, part of my job was to build a recruiting pipeline at Cornell. And so one theme I'd like to keep coming back to is the importance of relationships. The importance of Cornell giving me the ability to manage people, talk to people, work with people, develop relationships with people is really what it is. So when I went back to Cornell, I was there a lot. So much so that some professors would joke, didn't you graduate? Didn't you leave? So Cornell would send me back. Vero would send me back to Cornell two, three times a year to do a presentation, to do interviews and whatnot.
- [31:54]
B
That's cool.
- [31:54]
C
And I think that was great because I'm reaping the benefits of those relationships even now. Right.
- [31:58]
B
That's awesome. So, okay, so Union Square Hospitality. What was your objective taking that job? What was the end in mind that you had?
- [32:06]
C
So I was at Aveiro, and again, great time at Aveiro. Can't say enough good things, but I felt like, okay, I get it now. I feel like I've learned What I needed to learn here, the next set of skills I need in my basket to achieve my goal, which is open my own restaurant, is to do a restaurant opening. And, oh, my gosh, Union Square Hospitality announced they were going to open my lino two blocks away from Union Square Hospitality Group with general manager named Terry Coughlin, who I had a good relationship with through my time at Avero. And I thought, this is. This is what I need to do. Experience a restaurant opening with this, you know, amazing top tier restaurant group in the country. They all knew me. They knew I was a smart guy. I thought, this is the step I need to take. So I lined up some of my relationships. I said, you know, I'd like to take this interview. I had some people put in a good word for me. I was feeling really great about it. I went in, I interviewed with Terry, did great. Went back and interviewed with Terry and Richard Korain, the operating partner of Union Square Hospitality Group, and did not get the job. Felt real bad about it for a time.
- [33:12]
B
What was the job you were applying for?
- [33:14]
C
Dining room manager. Okay, now let's Tarantino this. Let's. Let's back up. Didn't get the job. Once I had the job, I was told I didn't get the job that first time because I interviewed, like a. This is a direct, quote, total fun vacuum. So I was so focused on getting the job, so intent on showing. I knew, like, the buttons and levers, the strings and the data and I could pull all these, that I guess I just wasn't very warm, welcoming kind of person, which is in itself is a very important lesson also. So, Tarantino, we're going back now. I didn't get the job of dining room manager, but what they did hire me for was this great title called Operations Specialist, which is awesome because it doesn't mean anything. And it was an opportunity to, in a classic sense of this kind of, like, trope that your dad tells you, you know, the job is what you make it. So I realized very early on the value I could provide to a new opening restaurant, and that they didn't really know how to use me that well. You know, my first task was to make a floor plan. Like, actually, did they create this job for you? No. It was a position they call. If you talk to any USHD alumni, they call it the Rod position. They called it the Rod position because there was a guy who held the operation specialist role. His name was Rod. And everyone after that took the name Rod.
- [34:33]
B
Right?
- [34:35]
C
They put me in there because of my Averro experience because of my interest in how the systems run together. Right. And that role was absolutely perfect for me at the time.
- [34:45]
B
So the first thing they had you do, I think you started saying this was putting together, optimizing the floor plan.
- [34:50]
C
Right. And by that, I mean, like, making a floor plan to laminate and post on the wall. And from that first job, you keep taking other jobs, keep wowing them. And they expanded my profile to include a lot more things that became essentially a boot camp in how to open a restaurant. And I was doing everything from, you know, making a physical floor plan to tip sharing spreadsheets, to managing the fact that when we got a box of carrots in the restaurant, split that box with the rooftop and with banquets. Well, how do you divide that box? So I built an Excel sheet that would handle that for them. I did, you know, formatting manuals, building out cost control, building out Danny Meyer's personal wine collection that was sold through the restaurant. Built a spreadsheet to manage and track that. And it resulted with one of the heights of my career. Danny Meyer introducing me to his wife as his numbers guy.
- [35:44]
B
Oh, wow.
- [35:45]
C
And that was a. That was a peak moment.
- [35:47]
B
I mean, that is like, that role is such an important role. Hearing you talk, like, are you familiar with eos, the entrepreneurial operating system? The book Traction.
- [35:56]
C
Yes.
- [35:56]
B
Visionary integrator relationship? So you have both visionary and integrator skill sets. And, like, there's. I think it's like, less than 3% of people have both of those qualities. It's. You're rare, man. Like, that's.
- [36:09]
C
That's cool to hear.
- [36:10]
B
Yeah. Like, and the integrator is that person that can take a vision and then put systems to it. And, like, you're a why guy and a how guy. You're in the clouds and in the dirt at the same time. Well, I think, as Gary Vaynerchuk would
- [36:24]
C
say, what's interesting about that is I think a lot of times those, like, grunt level positions are not appealing. You know, another example of this is I eventually did make it to the floor and got to work some shifts and see the sun not down once
- [36:36]
B
I got a chance. That bubbly personality.
- [36:38]
C
Yeah, that's right. You got. Once I showed them I am not a fun fact, they're like, all right, get this guy on the floor. Like, one shift a week only. So anyway, so I was up there, and since I was the junior person on the management team, they made me deal with all the angry people. And I kid you not, I'd be Standing there with Andrea Zaher, who was the AGM at the time, and someone would come up the table, 307 is mad about, blah, blah, blah. And she'd look at me and she'd just be like, you know, go get him. So I have to deal with all the upset people. And it was such great training. Like, it just became, you know, all right, do my job.
- [37:10]
B
Is that the training that you got from Danny Meyer?
- [37:13]
C
Doesn't he help about dealing with angry people? I don't, I don't recall the five A's, but I'm just.
- [37:17]
B
I think he has an acronym or something. It was in his book, like, how do you like?
- [37:20]
C
Or maybe I do recall this.
- [37:22]
B
Like, listen. Or acknowledge, I think was the first
- [37:25]
C
Acknowledge act is one of them.
- [37:28]
B
No, Acknowledge, apologize, act, accountability.
- [37:32]
C
I don't know.
- [37:33]
B
I can't remember.
- [37:33]
C
Whatever it was, there were five A's.
- [37:36]
B
Well, where I was leading with that question is how do you go about defusing an anger customer?
- [37:43]
C
The very first step is don't take it emotionally. You know, they're not angry at you. And I talk to my staff at all. And I'm not even really proud of this analogy, but I'll give it. But a lot of times in this business you have to suspend your own ego and say, look, you know, some people just want you to be a monkey clapping cymbals. And I don't take that personally. You know, you got some guests with a sense of ownership, they're coming to show off the restaurant. Some personality types just want to be like, you know, I know the owner. It's like, look, you just got to be a monkey clapping some symbols. They're going to wind me up and I just come in and do my thing. I don't take that personally. I have one metric for success in the restaurants, and that's, did we make you happy? You know, we messed up xyz. Did we make you happy? Maybe the best example of this is I had a guy I'll never forget because he had a floor length trench coat on. It was very matrixy, it was very weird. But anyways, full length trench coat. He was screaming at me at the front because he had insisted that it was his niece's birthday and that he had set this whole thing up with the owner, that we were going to have a table and a cake and a this and a that. And, you know, I'm talking to him, trying to figure out how I mentioned I'm the owner without making him feel like a total jerk. This is here, this year. This was 2012, like, shortly after we opened. And it was a very visible moment of I realize I'm on stage here. Other guests see, my staff sees. And so this is an opportunity for me to live the goal, which is make people happy. So you just don't take it personally. I'm not, you know, you're a liar. I'm the owner, you idiot. We never spoke. You're just lying. It was just, okay, what do you want? Let's figure that out. And he thought, the best way I can get what I want is to be angry and bow up right now.
- [39:15]
B
Well, the. The sad truth that many times in society, that is how people get what they want.
- [39:19]
C
Yeah. Right.
- [39:20]
B
You know, it's unfortunate that that can be true.
- [39:22]
C
Yeah. And the end result is he did get what he wants. You know, we figured it out. And actually, my mom is in this story too, because it was so early on that my mom would help at the door sometimes. I sent my mom to Publix to get a cake.
- [39:34]
B
You know what I was literally thinking?
- [39:36]
C
He wants a table and a cake. That's easy. You do that. Like, all right, I'm gonna get you the table. We're gonna get you cake. So we did all that. And I remember my further how family oriented this. My cousin was running the door that night, and she said, like, I'm conflicted with how you just gave that guy what he wants. And I said, well, we win when he gets what he's happy. Right. And he comes back. I win if you come back and spend money. Right. So, you know, we don't get any points for being right, for proving. No, you didn't talk to the owner.
- [40:03]
B
Yeah, I think that's another Danny Meyer ism is. It doesn't matter who's right. Yeah, Like, I think that's another thing that he's like. My mind keeps going back to Danny Meyer because of the connection with Union Square hospitality. But, yeah, I mean, I think when you think of what hospitality is, it's warmth, it's generosity, it's giving. And I think the best thing, like, it's not just physical, tangible things, it's that person's reputation in front of their family. Like, you sacrificed your own ego, you know, like. No, actually, that's not even true, because how you handled that was so well. Like, in that moment, you have the emotional control, the emotional intelligence to know that what he's saying doesn't matter. Like, my job is to make him happy. And that. That giving of making him happy, even if he's a prick is what we're here to do.
- [40:51]
C
Yeah. I think it's selflessness at the end of the day. I mean, hospitality is about the other, right? Yeah. So in that moment, it's not about me. This guy doesn't know who I am very obviously, so he's not mad at me. He's frustrated with the situation. And like you said, he's got his own agenda. Danny Meyer would call it an invisible sign. So everyone walks in with an invisible sign. Sometimes your sign says, you know, I'm gonna make this happen for my niece because my whole family's counting on me. Whatever. Sometimes it says, first date, I'm awkward, make me feel a little more comfortable. Sometimes it says, it's a business dinner. I want you to be seen, not heard.
- [41:21]
B
Yeah.
- [41:21]
C
So your job is to read that sign and then be that person, Adapt
- [41:25]
B
to whatever the situation.
- [41:26]
C
Yeah, exactly. So I think the first step in dealing with those difficult situations, the more difficult it gets, the calmer you are. It's just taking myself out of this.
- [41:33]
B
I mean, can you believe we're 40 minutes into this conversation and we haven't even gotten to your first restaurant yet?
- [41:39]
C
It's fun. So much fun.
- [41:40]
B
Yeah, it's fun.
- [41:41]
C
Well, this interview is four hours, right?
- [41:43]
B
It can be. I mean, I would go as long as my guest is willing to go. I love long conversations, but anything we should bring to the surface before pivoting to discuss how you opened your first restaurant.
- [41:55]
C
Yeah. And I think I can give you a good launching pad here. Another name you may know. Alex Susskind. So he is a professor of Food and beverage at Cornell University. Professor Robson would know him.
- [42:06]
B
Yes, Stephanie Robson. Amazing.
- [42:07]
C
Yes.
- [42:08]
B
Everyone knows who Stephanie is here.
- [42:09]
C
She was another fantastic professor of mine. So, Alex Suskind. I'm going to tie a couple threads together. One of them, that relationship. So I mentioned earlier, Averro had me go back to Cornell recruiting pipeline, bring that forward. Relationships matter through time. So, Alex Suskind. I'm actually currently involved in a project with his entrepreneur class, his master's class for restaurants, where they are helping us solve some business. There's problems here. Currently, they're going to be in Roswell in two weeks. And he was my professor of Food and beverage at Cornell University. So the point I want to make is, you know, as we get towards opening my restaurants, those professors opening doors for you, helping. A great professor once taught me that education is knowing where to find the answer. So their ability to help steer me towards truth matters, even today. Yeah. And I think that's an important part. Point to make is, you know, I graduated 2007. I'm still going back to the well of what I learned at Cornell to be helpful. And the fun fact I will end that story on is Professor Suskind gave me my two lowest grades at Cornell in Introduction to Food Service and Food Service Management. And here we are. I always think that's funny.
- [43:16]
B
That is. What was a grade?
- [43:17]
C
I gotta.
- [43:17]
B
I gotta ask.
- [43:18]
C
There's a B and a B minus.
- [43:19]
B
Oh, man. It's pretty good if that's your lowest.
- [43:20]
C
I told you, I'm very nerdy.
- [43:22]
B
Well, dude, so when did you think you were ready? How did you know you were ready? At what point did you say, now's the time?
- [43:28]
C
Yeah, great question. And I would tell your listeners, those who have done it will agree and those who want to do it. You're never ready. It's like having a kid, right? Do you happen to have kids? No, didn't ask that. I'm sorry. I don't think you're ever really ready because you don't know. So how can you be ready emotionally, mentally, physically for something that you don't truly understand what it takes? So I think you need chaotic optimism. You need reckless optimism. Exactly. Reckless, chaotic. True too. Co hospitality will be the next one. Chaotic optimism. So what the turning point was. So I, two years out of Aero, tears at my Leno, fantastic experiences at both that really added a lot of new and essential skills to the basket. The trigger was my high school best friend. So yet again, the importance of relationships and reputation as a through line in your life. His dad was going to buy another building on Canton Street. His dad's current office is a couple doors away from us right now. And the basic pitch, if we fast forward a bit to this man Doug was, hey, if you're going to buy another property on Cant street, you're going to need a tenant. The way Cant Street's going, it's going to be a restaurant and it might as well be mine. And he agreed. So let's enter into the story Michael Curling, who is my high school best friend, Doug Curling, who is his dad and many times over, property owner on Kent street in Roswell, who was our first investor, first and only investor and our landlord, still at both of our current restaurants, Incredibly important relationship. And Doug as a mentor figure of mine, you know, gave a 25 year old kid a chance and he said, all right, well, let's go look at some places.
- [45:11]
B
Yeah, 25 years old, that is a huge gamble Right.
- [45:15]
C
So let's talk about that for a minute there.
- [45:17]
B
It isn't a gamble. At the same time, you're, you know, educated. You have. You worked for the best in the industry. Like, it was a good gamble.
- [45:24]
C
It was an educated guess. But, you know, how many people who work in this business do you hear them say, and I saw this at my Leno, you know, people much older than I am, my goal is to open a restaurant one day. You know, as I said at the very beginning of this podcast, life starts throwing some things at you and makes things, I'm going to say, harder, not easier, as you get older. So, you know, I'm looking around at some of my colleagues. Well, I was 24 at the time. You're 40, you got a mortgage, you have two kids and another on the way in New York, apartment payment, whatever. Are you really going to take that risk as life adds these weights, or is it easier to do it when I don't have kids? I was living at home when I moved back home. You know, all of these things weren't as scary when I was 25, so I would argue it's a minuscule fraction of the risk. Yeah. As when you might do this later in life.
- [46:18]
B
And, like, I think ignorance is bliss. Like, if you knew, like, would you have done it if you knew how hard it was?
- [46:23]
C
Yeah.
- [46:23]
B
Just going. Plus, when you're 25 years old, like, the recovery, the bounce back is way easier at 25 years old. You can still move in with mom and dad if you have to.
- [46:32]
C
I mean, everyone does a tour of duty back home. Yeah. And there's. If I did it now with my family, there'd be more emotional hurdles.
- [46:39]
B
I think there's so many benefits to starting as young as you possibly can because your endurance is way better. Your time to that. What is it, 10,000 hours?
- [46:49]
C
Yeah.
- [46:49]
B
You know, like, the sooner you start, the more time you can start logging.
- [46:52]
C
Yeah.
- [46:53]
B
Right. And it's that. That the sooner you start, the more time you have to be consistent. Right. And just, it's who shows up the longest. So just start.
- [47:03]
C
So I think that that goes to, you know, hopefully if you've got some. Some listeners who are considering taking this leap and they are younger, the risk only grows every successive day. Right. So the best time to start a restaurant is going to be harder tomorrow, it's going to be harder the next day. Now, there's some calculus here. Like, certainly I needed to get some skills in order to put myself in a position to take that risk and to be Investable. Yeah. Right. So, you know, if you're. I say be young when you do this. If you're 18, you've never had a job before. That's not what I mean.
- [47:33]
B
Yeah. I mean, you could at 18 years old, start a pop up, you know, like what's stop stopping you from doing that?
- [47:39]
C
That's another point. If you're really interested in it, there are less, you know, smaller bites you can chew that still get you towards the goal Right. That you might consider.
- [47:51]
B
You can buy a domain name, you
- [47:53]
C
know, who knows what that grows into exactly.
- [47:55]
B
You know, like your name, dot com, like to start, you know. So one thing I like to talk about is how did you get the money? And it sounds, it's weird to say this out loud. How do you feel about the world? Like, privilege. Is that a weird dirty word for you?
- [48:11]
C
No.
- [48:12]
B
Yeah. Why not?
- [48:13]
C
Because I think there's a lot of conversation right now about that idea. And I think everyone plays the hand you're dealt, right? So I was born in a place at such a time, in such a family unit that had boundless opportunities afforded to me. I know how lucky I am. So for me, it's like, well, I can't wish that away. I didn't make any of those choices. Here we are. But the choices I did make were, you know, be a respectable human being even through high school. So when I got to a point, like, imagine your high school friend group, every one of us had that like, dumb idiot, who's your friend? Like, imagine if you were that guy. And then you get to a point where you're like, hello, sir, who's known me since I was 15, like, give me money and take a chance on me might not have gone the same way. Right. So I think, you know, I was, I was afforded many opportunities and as you said, privilege and that, I can't wish that away.
- [49:07]
B
Right.
- [49:07]
C
But the things that were in my control, I would like to think I also shepherded appropriately. Right.
- [49:13]
B
I think it's really important to acknowledge what you did. The discipline to decide early, to stay consistent, to go through the motions, to get the education, to surround yourself with the right people. Those are all the right steps to make. And you are doing all the right things. Right. I think what is worse is if you have privilege and you choose to squander it.
- [49:32]
C
Yeah, exactly.
- [49:33]
B
Right. And you did not do that. You came in and you made your community better. You're creating opportunity for other people. Like, that is what you're supposed to do with privilege. And I shouldn't even assume that you. I mean, maybe I'm making the false assumption that you got money from family. Or did you? Maybe you were saving up that whole time and you were putting me money aside. Or maybe you, because of your experience, you were able to go get the loan on your own. Like I shouldn't make those decisions.
- [49:58]
C
Assumptions. No. I got the money from our investor, Doug, who fronted the money for the two restaurants. He, you know, built the space out and all those good things. And that is, as you said, a tremendous privilege. So I know how lucky I am. I mean, I'm a tall, white American male who was born in a loving home, who went to Cornell.
- [50:14]
A
If you're born in America, you're privileged.
- [50:16]
C
Yeah. Right. So I. I get it. But I think you're right also. You can squander that. And I think you just got to try and pay it back as much you can. And recognize I had many things good. The sacrifice for me came in at opening the Restaurant 25, there was still an enormous amount of sacrifice you do make. And it's all the weddings and bachelor parties and those things. You think at 25, like, all your friends are getting married, you're doing fun things. And so for about three years, I didn't really take a break.
- [50:45]
B
Yeah, it's a huge sacrifice. Yeah.
- [50:46]
C
And that. That was legit. That was a real true. Here's my buy into this. Yeah.
- [50:54]
B
So 25 years old, open your first restaurant. First time. Well, mean second time opening a restaurant. But I even think opening your own restaurant, as opposed to doing it through Union Square hospitality. We talk about, like, resources and a team. Right. That they can throw at a project. How did that experience set you up for success? Success opening your own restaurant. Like, what were the challenges opening your own restaurant? Like, how'd you overcome that?
- [51:22]
C
Yeah, I think the. The main benefit is the knowledge you can do it. You know, restaurants are difficult. No amount of privilege you have is going to make opening a restaurant not a very difficult experience. So I think the main benefit there was you. You get it done. You and I were talking earlier about your setup here. You know, you've got cameras, the learning curve for people, it doesn't come naturally. That tech part, it's like there's an element of fear. You're setting up your cameras. What if I get it wrong? I do this whole interview. It doesn't record it's happened. Right. So. So like that. Every time you encounter one of those. When you're opening a business, you got to figure it out. Education is Knowing where to find the answer. Right.
- [52:03]
B
You got me wondering. My cameras.
- [52:04]
C
Yeah, right. Do you want to take a time out real quick? So it's all that stuff that, you know, I didn't know how to incorporate in a state. I didn't know how to fill all the legal things. I didn't know how to. How do you get a liquor license? And you got to figure it out. So the knowledge of just pushing through all those things, there's really, you know, not a whole lot in our normal everyday business that we could confront. Something that I would say, you know, we don't know how to deal with this problem.
- [52:34]
B
Right.
- [52:35]
C
And I think that's a huge asset. Remind me I said that if we talk about COVID by the way, that was something I didn't know how to handle.
- [52:41]
B
Yeah. Nobody knew how to handle that. It was unprecedented. Every moment of every day, I feel like, is unprecedented. We live in a world that has never. So much is changing so fast right
- [52:52]
C
now, which I don't want to switch this to 2020, but I will give so a corollary to opening a restaurant 25 by yourself. You learn a lot of things and then have the confidence of dealing with those things. The corollary in 2020 was whatever. Just whatever.
- [53:07]
B
We're all. The thing that. Sorry, go ahead.
- [53:09]
C
The fear of not knowing was removed.
- [53:12]
B
I think the other thing that I try to remind people a lot of back in that time is we're all in this together.
- [53:17]
C
Yeah.
- [53:17]
B
This isn't just happening to you. We're all experiencing this.
- [53:21]
C
None of us know.
- [53:22]
B
Yeah.
- [53:23]
C
So there's that. There's, you know, O25 taught me that I can do the things I don't know. And 2020 really cemented. And you don't have to be scared of the things. Fact that you don't know. Right.
- [53:31]
B
Yeah. So just real quick, I'm going to zoom up the 30,000ft and cruise to where we are today. So 2011, you open table main. 2013, you open oysteria Metone.
- [53:47]
C
Osteria Matone.
- [53:48]
B
Oysteria matone. Thank you. 2018, you open coalition Food and Beverage. You close Coalition or so you sold Coalition Food and Beverage in 2022 and you opened Casa Rebels in 2022. May and close that in 2023. December and today. When did you start doing consulting?
- [54:14]
C
About six months ago.
- [54:15]
B
Six months. So that's the newest thing.
- [54:16]
C
So that's the newest thing.
- [54:17]
B
That's the. We just cruise 30,000ft now. Let's get in the helicopter, go back to2011 mission statement is to inspire, empower, transform. You've inspired us up to this point with your story. You're empowering us with knowledge. But I want to focus on the transformations you've had along the way. The aha moments, the struggles, how those struggles made you stronger. As I'm saying this, on this past 16 year journey, what were those points?
- [54:48]
C
You know, I think there's a. There's a maturing that happens. Open table main at 25 that afforded a lot of benefits. It also.
- [54:55]
B
Open table.
- [54:56]
C
What I. Open table main.
- [54:58]
B
I thought you said open table, like reservation platform.
- [55:00]
C
Yeah. What did I say? OpenTable Main in 2011. Got it at 25. A lot of benefits to that. But, you know, I was still very much a kid and learning how to sort of find your way through this enterprise. As a younger entrepreneur, what challenges, what
- [55:15]
B
were the biggest challenges for you that you had to overcome?
- [55:18]
C
You know, the easy answer would be that it was a struggle to get people's respect and attention. Because I was a younger person. I don't really feel that was the case. I think what was very difficult about being 25 and opening that was, I'm going to say, a feeling of isolation because of all that. I missed Fridays and Saturday nights. I was here. You know, I was dating a young lady at the time. I couldn't go to anything. So that was, you know, a struggle with relationship parts. All of that was. I just need to be very clear on I'm doing this right now. And that hurt some other relationships around me for a period of time.
- [55:58]
B
I feel I can totally relate to that on the road. So how did you overcome those things?
- [56:06]
C
I think you just. We, frankly, we. I waited it out. You know, we got Table Maine to a point. It was very much like a. Like an infant. You know, when you first have a baby, every burp, giggle, fart, they fall down. You're worried your days ruined. Are they okay? Do I have to take them to the doctor? And then you start to realize, hopefully, you know, you're doing what you need to do to raise a robust creature. And at a certain point you start worrying about when they fall down, they'll be fine. You put in place processes around your home. You plug in, you know, those outlet guards for your electrical outlets and stuff. So you do the things that you need to do to feel better about the chances of survival for this thing. Now is probably a pretty good time to touch on. You mentioned our staff tenure before. I'm incredibly lucky that I'll bring a few people into the Story since we're at Table Main, Matt Forsey, the general manager, and Woody Back, the executive chef, they've both been 10 years plus in their roles.
- [56:59]
B
They came in in 2013. Yeah. You also, you opened with Mark McCarthy.
- [57:05]
C
Ted Leahy.
- [57:06]
B
Ted Leahy. Who is Mark McCarthy?
- [57:08]
C
He's another professor at Cornell.
- [57:09]
B
Okay. I don't know why I had that written down there. So the struggle for you was the feeling of, you know, I'm missing out on this, this part of my life that all my friends are going out doing the things that I'm supposed to be doing when I'm in my late 20s, living my best life. And you overcame that. Like, what was the narrative you had for the person that's listening to this? Who's that version of you back then? They're young, they maybe just opened their own restaurant. They're going through it right now. What's your advice for that person?
- [57:38]
C
I think you've just got to be crystal clear on the goal. What is the goal? What am I about right now?
- [57:42]
B
What was your goal?
- [57:43]
C
It was to make Table Main succeed.
- [57:46]
B
When did you feel like you hit that goal?
- [57:48]
C
You know, I just wrote an article in the Restaurant Informer about when can you call a restaurant a success? And since this is an operator focused podcast, I'll mention, I think you can call a restaurant a success when it affords you optionality, because the opposite of that is when you feel trapped in this thing that limits what you can do. Well, when your restaurant functions like a business, you've built to the point where you have options, you could continue running it, you could sell it, you could do another thing. The consulting for us came about because Table Main is doing really well. So it afforded me the option to look into other things we can use our experience and our brand and our reputation for. So for me, it's. It's probably some element of you've been around at least X amount of years, you know, the debt's paid off, it's profitable, and you have options.
- [58:42]
B
So it sounds like it's this point where you're no longer. Where the business becomes an asset, not a liability.
- [58:47]
C
Exactly. And I think a lot of operators feel trapped in this thing very much case be careful what you wish for. Right, Right.
- [58:53]
B
So, yeah, so you said optionality. Like, how did you get to that point? I mean, it sounds like your. Your first gear was opening, second gear was achieving optionality. When did that happen for you?
- [59:07]
C
I think that really started happening around year, year 10 with. It got accelerated by. By about last three years, really. And you know, people may be thinking, boy, you've been at it this long and you're just starting to feel, yes, that's true. We do not have a story. Maybe you've heard before from other operators where boy, year two, we were killing it. Everything was great. We've been profitable every year we've been open. Except Covid. That's true. What is also true is it takes a long time to really get a foundation where you feel like you're not beholden to this thing you've created. So I think it really has been that long. It's a 10 year run before a restaurant really starts to feel like a foundation.
- [59:55]
B
Yeah, I think that's the reality. If you look at some of the most amazing brands out there, they spend 10 years baking. You know, they're baking, they're fine tuning, they're developing, they're building their bench. I think we can't put enough emphasis on, on that process and how long that takes. You're also. Your concept isn't the kind of concept today to us I think especially it's a neighborhood concept. It's not a QSR that you, you know, are trying to like be first to market Ocean Effect and then prove that it's has lakes that's not this, you know, and the. I think we need more operations like this in communities where they're community hubs. They're. They're where people like the spot.
- [60:36]
C
You know, I think that's interesting and there's something to be said for. I appreciate my opportunity to tell the story of what I think is a more relatable common experience in restaurants. You know, we are not a unicorn where two years in it took off, we went viral, you know, pop up bagels that ain't us. We've been at this for a long time. We deliver excellence consistently every day for our neighborhood. We do not have, you know, three star Michelin aspirations.
- [61:05]
B
Right.
- [61:05]
C
So I, I think my story is helpful in providing a template for how it's possible to do this for a neighborhood in, in a way that affords you those options.
- [61:19]
A
This episode is made possible by US Foods. It takes more than great food to
- [61:23]
B
run a kitchen these days.
- [61:24]
A
With US Foods, more means consistently high quality products, industry leading tools, inflexible deliveries that let you grow your business on your schedule. Whatever your goals, US Foods helps you turn them into reality. As a US Foods customer, you'll gain access to their industry leading moxy platform which doesn't just make it easy to place your US Foods order But it uses AI powered technology to help you take more control of your business and increase profitability. You can also explore the latest issues of Food Fanatics magazine from US Foods. In each issue you'll find real world success stories, bold culinary inspiration and practical profit boosting ideas you can put to work immediately. Visit usfoods.com expect more to learn how to become a US Foods customer again, that's usfoods.com expect more so when did you achieve optionality?
- [62:19]
B
When did that happen? Like you said, 10 years in. But like how did you achieve it? Like what things happened? What did you start doing differently?
- [62:27]
C
There's no aha moment I can think of. But let me take you back to the last three years of table and main specifically. So we've got Matt Forsee, general manager in the front 11 years, Woody back, executive chef in the kitchen 13 years I think. So we've got this team that has been delivering excellence consistently every day because that's the job. We got a Michelin award. So we did get a Michelin Bib Gourmand. We did not apply to it. We did not know they were going to come up to us. It was the second year Michelin was in Atlanta. We did not know they'd be this far out. So getting that was very, very cool for us. It's an acknowledgment of, hey, you're focused on making people happy with excellent cuisine, excellent service is working. It's been noticed. Very affirming. The experience of getting that has really put us on a different plane of sales and of, I think execution.
- [63:18]
B
That happened 2023.
- [63:19]
C
That was 2024 is when we this
- [63:22]
B
past year was your best year. So you think it was that, that Michelin nod?
- [63:25]
C
I have no doubt that that had a big impact. Was that everything? No. We've also done a lot of things right in house. But getting that if I showed you a line graph of our sales and said where do you think we got the award? You'd be able to. Oh, something happened. Yeah.
- [63:42]
B
Yeah. How do you feel about the fact that an entity, a singular entity, maybe there's two that I can think of that have that much influence on the make or break of an operation.
- [63:54]
C
Yeah. I mean, however I think about is Right. So it's sort of like what that's just gonna happen because you weren't any
- [64:03]
B
better or worse before getting that nodded?
- [64:05]
C
No, no, not at all. But it did have a huge impact on our business. Yeah. So it's like who's the podcaster? Keith something Comes in and he, he can opine on a restaurant and it just tanks this place.
- [64:19]
B
Yeah. Like that pisses me off.
- [64:21]
C
Yeah. And I think that's something we're going to have to reckon with because in theory at least with Michelin, they come a couple times, you know, you get reviewed in the newspaper, they are supposed to come a couple times. Right. I don't really stop to really think, you know, do I think that's fair or not? It just is. Right.
- [64:40]
B
I think it's more, you know, this could be a conversation we have later, but it's, it's, I think it's a general trends like the industry shifting and I think it's, the world is bigger than ever before. Right. It's no longer communities like these, like pockets of communities are their own little like microchasms. Like you had thousands, tens of thousands of markets scattered throughout the country.
- [65:05]
C
Yeah, Fragmentation, right.
- [65:06]
B
And like, and every marketplace was its own thing, but now the marketplace is national and global. So there's more on an individual's radar than ever before. And it's so much that a person, an individual can't be as loyal to our restaurant like they once were. And they're now more loyal to third parties to get their information, to tell me what's good. So I think that when you throw in technology on top of that in the, these third parties that influence, influence consumer behavior, like, like delivery apps or reservation apps that are pushing information to you, like your, your habits will dictate where you go. And your habits are controlled by three third parties. Third parties are also award platforms. Right. Like your habits are like, I'm going to trust this platform to tell me where I should go. We're not, the consumer is not as loyal to the actual restaurant today. You know, it's a weird time. I think it's just because again, that word, unprecedented. We were never meant to exist in this global marketplace. Like it's not human.
- [66:10]
C
Well, I think that's what you said about, you know, habits dictated by this third party. It's not about the restaurant is true. I think for people who have not been to your restaurant or who maybe have only been once or twice scattered a long time, I think what control you do have is your brand, which is in danger of being hijacked as a dirty word. Brand to me is just reputation. Right. So what you do control is the experience you give people when they do visit you. And that then I believe takes precedence over a third party. So in other words, if you hear some influencer say this place is total trash. Don't go there. Right. But you go and you love it. You had a great experience that is then the primary driver, 100%.
- [66:52]
B
I think human relationship trumps all. But the resistance of making that connection and earning that relationship, I think is getting harder.
- [66:59]
C
Well, that's why I think the true best operators are starting to realize that the human connection piece is vastly more important than all the other variables we have in our handbook. You know, cuisine plus service plus experience equals story. Which to me is important because it means that no one of those things can override. You can have a subpar food experience, but still feel so welcome there, so loved, so happy to be there, that the story you tell is a positive one. There's a fantastic quote by James Beard you may have heard, which is, people often ask me what my favorite restaurant is, and I tell them why it's the same as yours. It's the one that loves me the most. And so I tell our people, guests like to talk about, is the food or service more important? Neither. It's the way you feel walking out of a place.
- [67:48]
B
Right. It's warmth, it's hospitality. And I think when I hear love, I think at the core, that is what hospitality is. It's seeing people, it's loving people. Right. And when you love, what goes around comes around. So what haven't we discussed in terms of your come up, your evolution, lessons learned? I mean, I think we need to talk about two closures. Right. Lessons learned there. So we haven't talked about opening your second restaurant. That happened only two years after your first restaurant.
- [68:15]
C
Yeah. So again, it was something we were not ready for. Our landlord came down, sat at that table right there with my business part at the time, said, boys, I'm going to open another restaurant right down the road. Do you want to do a second one? And our thought at the time was, well, if someone's going to compete with us at might as well be us. Right. And my partner again, Ted, at the time we sat down, we said, okay, what are we good at? What do we want to do? And what does Roswell need or have a gap for?
- [68:39]
B
So you just SWOT analysis?
- [68:40]
C
Basically. Yeah. Pretty much did a very brief restaurant post shift SWOT analysis and it was high end. Italian. Yeah.
- [68:48]
B
So same investor or partner. So this, this gentleman, your. Your childhood friend's father owns. Owns real estate and you're. That's a great relationship to have.
- [68:57]
C
Yeah, yeah.
- [68:59]
B
So any lessons about the second? Like, what was it like going from one to two?
- [69:04]
C
You know, I think we were very fortunate in that it's definitely two restaurants, but they're five doors down the road from each other, so I could maintain a presence at both, which I think is hugely important.
- [69:15]
B
Super important.
- [69:15]
C
Yeah. I mean, even Danny Meyer will say I didn't want to open a restaurant I couldn't walk to.
- [69:18]
B
Right. Because you might have to be in two places.
- [69:21]
C
You might have to be in two places at once. And luckily I can be because my brother came down and he is our business partner and beverage director at Osteria and all the restaurants. And so having him here was a huge, huge burden off my back as well.
- [69:35]
B
Yeah. You opened your third restaurant, I think it was in 2018.
- [69:40]
C
Yeah.
- [69:41]
B
So now going, I've identified like it's. You can do 1, 2 and even 3 with people culture leaning on people being there, but once you start looking at four or five people alone isn't enough.
- [69:58]
C
Right.
- [69:58]
B
You have to start really having rock solid systems in place. What was it like having that third restaurant for you?
- [70:06]
C
Coalition was difficult. So it was a place we had to drive through. It did split our team a little bit and we did learn a lot of lessons that about where we did well and where we could have done a lot better, such that when we sold it, it was a good time to sell it. We did quite well in that sale. I thought we could have got it back to where it needed to be, but at the time it just wasn't going to happen.
- [70:29]
B
So 2018, you, I'm assuming you must have had systems and processes and you sold an asset. Right. You made money on it, it sounds like. So you generally, when you, when you're doing that, where was the value? Was it in the real estate? Was it in the. Did you sell the business or did you sell?
- [70:47]
C
We saw it still operating actually. So it's still operating as Coalition, but I think it's Coalition Wood fired steak and seafood at the time.
- [70:53]
B
So why didn't you just keep going? What was the reason?
- [70:56]
C
I had a baby. And so this was post Covid. Right. It was 2022 that we sold.
- [71:00]
B
Yeah.
- [71:01]
C
So you're still in that kind of pull of gravity from this horrible thing that happened. And looking at the numbers in the operation, I know we could got it back to where it needed to be.
- [71:09]
B
So where did it need to be in your mind?
- [71:11]
C
Profitable. So it was in the red at the time. It was in the red.
- [71:14]
B
And this was in 2021, 2022.
- [71:17]
C
Well, this, I guess when we were having this discussion maybe towards the end of 2021 of wrestling it back to.
- [71:23]
B
I mean, that was a tough time for everyone.
- [71:25]
C
It was a difficult time. Yeah. And so we had been profitable. There was, you know, this horrible thing that happened and we got an offer and I looked at my partners, said, look, I just had a baby. This drive gets longer every time I make it. I know what is necessary to get us.
- [71:38]
B
How far is it?
- [71:39]
C
It's like a 25 minute drive. Okay. Which is just long enough to be annoying. Yeah. And said, we got this offer. I think we should take it. We can make everybody happy. Let's do it.
- [71:50]
B
Like, did this offer. Was it something that had been on the table for a while and like, why do they want it? Like, what? What? Without getting.
- [71:57]
C
I don't know how much you can give away. I think it was the. The opportunity to open up in downtown Alpharetta. Okay. Which had a lot of promise. I think the brand was strong. The build out was beautiful. It looked like a great restaurant. Yeah. We were having trouble underneath the hood. The plumbing of it was still a little rough.
- [72:11]
B
Yeah. Any lessons here that you. You know, an item to your checklist. If you look at another location to.
- [72:19]
C
You know. I think when we opened a coalition we had a lot of lessons learned about putting people in roles. We had some letdowns in a leadership perspective where we put people in roles they weren't quite ready for. And I think that was a lesson learned.
- [72:33]
B
What would you have done to get them ready? Not what would you do differently. Like if that. Would you say that falls on your shoulders. Putting them in that position.
- [72:39]
C
Very tactically. I would say we put someone in a role who had never done an opening before. And a restaurant opening is chaos. It is as controlled as you want it to be. Yeah. But it's gonna be nuts.
- [72:50]
B
You're.
- [72:51]
A
All you can do is guess.
- [72:52]
C
Yeah.
- [72:52]
B
Right. This is how I think it's going to go. And then pull the trigger. Okay. Readjust pull the trigger. Okay. Until you've. Dial it in. It will be what it wants to be.
- [73:00]
C
There's. It's funny you mentioned that you just guess because I tell people. It's just we're going to open with a plan and we're going to see how wrong we are real quick.
- [73:07]
B
It's a. But that's where I think paralysis by analysis can really kill you. Because you wait. You want it to be perfect. It will never be what you think it's going to be. Just start and let it become what it wants to be.
- [73:17]
C
And that's a certain kind of Skill set, a certain kind of point of view that you can say, I'm going to open and just. I'm going to take it on the chin for, like, three weeks in a row until we figure this out. And there was a point where an individual came to us and he said, when does this get easier? And me and Woody, at the time, at this meeting, we sat down, we said, it gets easier when we make it easier. You know, every night we get together, we have a little clipboards, and we're, what sucked today. How can we avoid it in the future? Future. But I don't care how good you are, there's going to be some period where if you're not adapting lightning quick, it's going to be difficult. And this is only like two weeks in, so that that individual ended up not staying with us. And that was a difficult, difficult pivot. Right. In the early days of the restaurant.
- [74:03]
B
Robbie, you reminded me of what Robbie Kukler said yesterday, talking to him, like, no matter what, it's gonna be a struggle. Life is a struggle. I think that we, by nature suffer. It's human to suffer. But when you get to suffer for something that you want, that's your vision versus, you know, suffering for someone else's vision, it becomes bearable. Right. And it's also, I think, understanding and recognizing that to suffer is human and accepting it and choosing not to bathe in it and say, like, this sucks, but, like, the. The freedom comes from enduring the suck.
- [74:43]
C
Right.
- [74:43]
B
And pushing through the suck and. And being proud of something, you know, that I think if you. It's never not going to. If you're growing, if you're getting outside of your comfort zone, if you're getting better. Have you ever gone for a run and you're out of shape? It sucks.
- [75:00]
C
Yeah.
- [75:01]
B
And then you get a little less out of shape, and you're running three miles and you're like, well, I'm a pussy. I'm gonna run four miles. And then it sucks again. And then it doesn't suck. If you're not pushing yourself. If it doesn't suck, then you're not growing. But that's. That feeling of growth is one of those Maslow's hierarchy.
- [75:18]
C
Yeah. It's kind of why we do it.
- [75:19]
B
Am I getting better? Am I finding my purpose?
- [75:22]
A
Am I seen and valued and appreciated for the thing that I'm bringing into this world?
- [75:26]
B
That's the. That's why we do it, right? To have those needs be met. And if you're.
- [75:32]
A
If it doesn't suck, Then you're not trying hard.
- [75:35]
B
That's how. That's what I think.
- [75:36]
C
Yeah. Danny Meyer would say, if you don't like pitches, don't play baseball. You don't like waves, don't go surfing.
- [75:42]
B
Yeah.
- [75:42]
C
You don't like problems, don't open a restaurant. Right. And one tangent I'd like to take with something you said was you made a comment about how, you know, at least if I'm going to bear a shitty situation, it's at least going to be in service of my dream. Right. And I have four daughters, three stepdaughters and a little girl. And as they look at college and things, I tell them, you know, what I want to make sure you hear from me is that people think entrepreneurship is so risky. What's risky to me is sitting in an office where decisions are being made that impact me and the company maybe in a completely different state. And I never hear about them until the end result is I get laid off. So I think it's never been more risky to take a so called secure corporate job than right now.
- [76:26]
B
Yeah.
- [76:26]
C
Where I said that. And I don't think this is bad. I think this is the way capitalism works. You will get laid off the second the organization realizes that you are more profitable being laid off.
- [76:36]
B
Right. And that's. There's a lot of those scenarios on
- [76:40]
C
the horizon and there. And that's what it should be. And that's terrible reality. But like at least, very least, if you open your own business, you open your own restaurant. If I lose, I want to lose because of, because of me. Because a decision I made a guess that I made, which I think is actually the story of Casa Robles to pivot to our fourth restaurant, which is that, you know, that restaurant, your listeners will know it was open for less than two years because I just made a wrong bet. I bet coming out of COVID that people would not want to be in downtown areas, that our experience during that time would be that people would be searching for opportunities not in the bustling downtown of things. And I just could not have been more wrong. Yeah.
- [77:17]
B
So you're opening in the burbs that
- [77:19]
C
Casa robles is maybe 300 yards that way.
- [77:22]
B
Okay.
- [77:23]
C
So it's in Roswell off Canton Street. So it was, you know, from a market perspective, it is in the downtown of Roswell, but not in the center. Not in the, in the hustle and bustle of things.
- [77:34]
B
Got it. And it's. Roswell is a. I wouldn't. I mean, we're. You're outside of the city limits or I wouldn't call it this.
- [77:42]
C
I mean it's a suburb of Atlanta.
- [77:44]
B
Yeah.
- [77:45]
C
I mean about a 30 minute drive north of it.
- [77:46]
B
It doesn't feel like a city, I'll say that. You know, it feels very suburbia.
- [77:51]
C
Right.
- [77:51]
B
Very quaint.
- [77:52]
C
It very. Is that. Yes.
- [77:53]
B
Yeah. So you're not like, you know, if we're using like a mid sized city, I don't know, let's use it like Nashville as an example. Right. Although it's kind of a bigger city now. Let's use Dayton, Ohio as an example. You're not like on the outskirts of a city like that, but you're like on the, you're not in like the downtown of this quaint small town community. I guess. I mean, is it a small town? I just drove through it, so I don't really know where.
- [78:20]
C
We're fifth biggest city in the state.
- [78:22]
B
Okay.
- [78:23]
C
So from a city, you know, geographically it's fairly large. It's also population wise, fairly large. But to your point, certainly when we opened table Maine in 2011, everyone is driving downtown to go out to eat. And the hypothesis of table in Maine was let's put an urban quality dining experience right in their own backyard.
- [78:38]
B
I do think there is something to be said about seeing like if you can get property or a location right on the edge, that is the best place to be. Because if you can hang on for two or three years, you're no longer on the edge. If that market expands, you become in the middle. The middle eventually perhaps, but I don't know this market well enough to make those kinds.
- [78:57]
C
My experience in our restaurants alone was that you want to be in the downtown thing coalition just outside of the main downtown, like a block.
- [79:06]
B
I'm thinking of like Austin, Texas right now.
- [79:07]
C
Oh, you're talking more.
- [79:08]
B
So here's an example. So like east side Austin, right. 10, 15 years ago, like if you're on east side, like you were in the dumps, like there's, you don't want to open a restaurant on east side, east side or Austin Explorer exploded around 2020, like starting like 2015, going into 2020, then thereafter, like now if you're in, on east side, like you're in, you're in the middle of Austin because it just blew up. Right. And like I think that's an example of like where if you're on the edge, if you can hang on until this, if the city is, if it's a momentum market, but that's, it's always a gamble. You don't know what the future has.
- [79:42]
C
Yeah. And once the city expands to encompass you. Right. You don't know if those people now living around you are going to be the people, people you were attracting initially. Right.
- [79:51]
B
The demographics change.
- [79:52]
C
Right.
- [79:53]
B
Yeah. So. Any other, like, key lessons? I mean, I would say you're. You're batting.750, which is pretty good.
- [80:05]
C
Yeah. And I, I don't look at those two restaurants. I look at Casa as a failure. I don't view Coalition as a failure.
- [80:11]
B
Came out.
- [80:12]
C
Yeah.
- [80:12]
B
That positive.
- [80:13]
C
We did fine. We made a choice, and it very much suited my lifestyle. The restaurant's still going.
- [80:18]
B
I think that's very important to point out that you made a choice because it wasn't, it wasn't going, it wasn't meshing well with the lifestyle you wanted.
- [80:26]
C
Right.
- [80:26]
B
And I think that's something you found balance. You chose family, you chose balance. I think that that is something we can be better about.
- [80:32]
C
Yeah. You know, I'll make the point that at the time, if you remember, we had tons of government bailout cash. It wasn't a. We're cash. We have to close, we have to sell right now or we're going to run out of cash. We could have kept running Coalition. I still maintain we could have gotten it back to where it needed to be. I had faith in the concept that. Faith in the build out. So Coalition, I don't view as a failure. Casa as difficult a pill that is to swallow. I just guess wrong.
- [80:55]
B
Yeah. Anything up to this point before we really start diving into where you are today that you want to bring to the conversation before we move on?
- [81:03]
C
I thought we've had a good, robust.
- [81:05]
B
Yeah, man.
- [81:06]
C
Ranging conversation.
- [81:07]
B
I agree. So let's give a snapshot. Let's go deeper. Your two locations today you're consulting. What is your organizational structure today? Like, who's a part of your team?
- [81:16]
C
Yeah. So right now we have our corporate team, our director of operations, Brian, our event manager, office manager, and me. And those are the people who kind of sit between the restaurants and do bookkeeping, invoicing, accounting, payroll stuff.
- [81:32]
B
Got it. In terms of future, what is the vision like? Like, where do you want to be?
- [81:37]
C
Yeah, that's. That's a great question. I do still want to open more restaurants, you know, personally speaking. You know, it's funny, in these sorts of podcasts, we rarely go into that the personal part matters. But, you know, you get married and now another person's happiness is in your view, and they get a vote in what you do. You have a Family and those things. So my world has changed very much. I got married to a fantastic partner who gets. My world is completely supportive of me, Kara. That's all within the last five years. We've got four girls now. Last five years. So my world is very different than when I opened table main in 2011. That being said, I do still want to open restaurants. I want to grow. Our attitude right now is we've got two restaurants that are doing fantastic. Could they be doing better? Sure. I could beat myself up as much as I want about that, but they're both doing pretty well. Even in carrying the corporate team we may or may not need at two restaurants. My attitude is, let's develop a concept we feel really good about, whether that's another location of table in Main or another concept that doesn't exist that we create. And let's find out where we would want to put that concept. So when the time comes along, we're ready to jump on it. There's plenty of work to be done at these two restaurants. To wit, we're about to do an expansion here at Table of Main that will take place this summer, and that'll take up a lot of my field of vision for three months.
- [82:54]
B
What do you mean by expansion?
- [82:55]
C
So the wall behind you is moving about 10ft back into the parking lot. That will give us more kitchen prep and storage space, which enables us, crucially, to do Saturday, Sunday brunch.
- [83:06]
B
Nice.
- [83:06]
C
We'll also gain 10 seats back there and the ability. We're going to have this kind of window that'll close to have a private room back there.
- [83:14]
B
I think you're making the right move. I think when people think of growth in scale, they think out. I need to spread out. I need more. But when you think of growth as, what am I already doing better? How can I make what I have better? That leads to that lateral growth. Yeah, it's kind of like sledging. You know, when you. When you swing in an axe. A mall. Right. That.
- [83:37]
C
As I do often, but, like, you
- [83:41]
B
know, like the whole idea of how a wedge works, if you want to make an impact, if you want to move laterally, if you want to send that wood flying, you put all the pressure into one spot. And then as you push deeper into that thing and you. You do what you're doing better, that's when the, you know, the lateral. When you. When you focus on an impact, the lateral comes. And I think people get so distracted with trying to try to pull the wood apart, not push it apart, you know, so when you push into what you're doing, I think that's when the opportunity starts coming to you. You like what the did they figure out over at Table in Maine? Like they got something special. That's when money starts like knocking down your door. Like we want to invest, we have another opportunity. People real estate developers are say like I want whatever goes into this development that I'm investing my millions of dollars into to be successful. Well, let's go to Table and Main because they seem to figure something out. I think that's what brings opportunity.
- [84:31]
C
Yeah, I think that's right. My, my mentor, landlord Douglas would have a comment that is, let me get this right. Ego drives expansion, excellence drives growth. And for him that's you know, just open. Just to open, which might have been coalition, it might have been casa for me was ego. Excellence drives growth. And we've certainly seen growth at our two restaurants already. I mentioned the last six years we've had increase in revenue. It's hard to do, right?
- [85:00]
B
What is growth? Is that bigger or is that better?
- [85:02]
C
So that's a question. So you know, we've got to decide when are we ready? When is our foundation set enough to then look at that third concept? Right. I'll bring in the consulting, which is something we started doing six months ago. We've got two current active clients now. That was okay. Well we have all this wealth of knowledge, experience, you know, the hard won battles, lessons learned. How can we deploy that in a way that's creatively fulfilling for us when we're not opening another restaurant? And that was the consulting.
- [85:29]
B
Yeah, that's cool. And I think that forces you too to constantly like if you're, when you're helping others, you're growing, you know. So one thing I'm curious about and I've been waiting for this is Tech Stack because you're, you're a numbers guy, you're an operations guy. What is your current Tech stack?
- [85:49]
C
So you want me to direct specifically or just start naming the tech we use? Just.
- [85:54]
B
Yeah, just start listing off like what is, like so what is your pos?
- [85:57]
C
Yeah, POS is Mobile Bytes, which I use because I called my friends at Avero and I said hey, who's you know, impressing you in the back end and runs a really good process. The thing about point of sale, there's millions of them and as we were talking about earlier, you get to a point where you sort of look at is there really how much better is the number two player than the number one player than the number three? Yeah, we chose Mobilebytes in I think April of 2020, if that tells you anything. Because at the time the world was falling down around us. We knew we had to pivot to online sales to go. Ironically, our contract or whatever it is with Aloha, which is what we. And they came to me and they said, all right, Aloha, you're going to use us again. You're going to refill your contract and we're going to give you, you know, these towers for the updated towers. I was like, so you're going to give me the same hardware, actual computer I got to keep in my office? They said, yes. That just seems backwards. Everything's online now. I feel like we shouldn't. But anyway, that was my key to. Okay, that seems like they're stuck in the past with this hardware solution when everything's going to a totally online. Yeah. So that got us looking around and mobilebytes came at a time when they kitted out our online sales in a way that worked for us. Online gift card sales. The Averro folks said it's really intuitive and user friendly and it has proven to be that. So that was an easy. We need a better solution. That's where we started.
- [87:23]
B
So you're using for pos Mobile Bytes, which includes your online ordering and digital presence. For data, you're using Avero.
- [87:31]
C
For data, we're using Avero. Go back to Mobile Bytes. I would say our online ordering is now returned to being a minuscule part of our total sales. Right. Maybe 3%.
- [87:39]
B
Right. So that's not a huge, you know, you're not a QSR that's trying to get people to Google.
- [87:44]
C
Yeah, exactly.
- [87:45]
B
I want pizza and show up as an SEO. Two clicks to ordering what you want, like that's not a priority.
- [87:51]
C
But they provided a very quick, easy for us to maneuver. You know, if you click on online order on our websites, you're in Mobile Bytes. Our website forever is Bento Box. Have you heard about them? Yes, I will sing their praises. Back in the day I had to call my PR team to change our website whenever we needed to make a change. BentoBox has been a fantastic. I control it, I can do the pop up, I can change the menu overnight on my phone, whatever. And that's been super helpful.
- [88:15]
B
Yeah, they are a past sponsor. They were kind of first to the game for like website.
- [88:20]
C
Yeah, sure. And now you've got kind of pop menu, some other players coming out. You got.
- [88:25]
B
Bento Box was the first one on my radar. The that really was pushing I know Danny Meyer was an early adopter of bento bucks. They're out of New York City. Pop menu spot hopper owner.com now-track is another one that I've heard good things about that that space is really getting crowded.
- [88:41]
C
You know what's amazing to me is still no one's offered the holy grail of you know, hotels have a property management system. No one's offered a soup to nuts. This will do everything for restaurants.
- [88:51]
B
I mean I think that's where enterprise. I think I would call that an enterprise solution. I think Restaurant Systems Pro is offering something like that in Restaurant 365 would. Are you familiar with those?
- [89:00]
C
I'm super familiar but I mean like website, social media, guest reservations. So when.
- [89:05]
B
Okay, so you're talking more consumer marketing phase.
- [89:07]
C
Yeah, everything. I don't know, I can't think of anyone who's doing it. So you still got back end software like Compe or stuff like that. ChefWorks.
- [89:19]
B
What is the list of everything? I'm curious if I know of anything.
- [89:23]
C
All right, so if you take it all, it's reservations management, it's CRM, it's costing software, scheduling software. Now you got to add AI phone stuff to that. Social media, accounting, bookkeeping.
- [89:34]
B
Yeah. So I think the, the divided comes with like back office like operations and then there's front facing consumer like marketing. Right. And I think that's where the split is. There are like OLO for example I think would be something that would. You could contend that they're AN all in one owner.com is trying to be all in one I think too with what they put out. But on the back end I think R365 and RSP are the like they have. They are labor management, inventory management, scheduling, general ledger tied to you know all that integrated I think. And now Restaurant Assistance Pro just launched their own POS which was the one thing that R365 didn't have.
- [90:15]
C
You know. You know you're starting to seeing some, seeing some interesting overlap like bento box either got bought or, or bought Clover which is Clover bought. Yeah, I think that's right. So now there's merging there. You know we use triple seat for our event management. Well now they merge with OpenTable. Now OpenTable merges with slang which is our online AI. Right phone. So there's, there's interesting melding of the minds happening on all those back end things.
- [90:42]
B
What are your thoughts on that?
- [90:44]
C
I think it's ultimately useful. The tech stuff is always. You know I worked in a Kind of tech startup company, as long as it works. And sometimes you think it's working and it might not be. So I think it's a good thing. I worry about scope creep and how many it's. It's. When you use Excel it does so many things. 99% of people use only 5% of of the functionality of Excel. Right. They do sums and they do average but it can do so much more than that. So I think take Open Table for example. They do amazing great things. They provide so many tools. I want to make sure that, you know, I'm a champion of the 12 unit restaurant operator. I want to make sure that they're able to take advantage of those things that really drive the needle instead of distract from actually making more money, which these things should help you do. So I'm concerned about getting drowned by so much functionality that isn't actually that helpful that can work against you either by, you know, cluttering your own day to day. Oh, I got to make sure I update my menu online versus something that can really help you run the business. Yeah.
- [91:53]
B
It's interesting because it's like it used to be a four walls analog business. Right. And because we have to exist everywhere, there's more steps beyond to be able to meet all the consumers where they want to be. So that is an added challenge. I think to your point, these merging of companies, what scares me about that is that you're seeing fewer and fewer options and just like the conglomeration of everything, you know, I think let's use Rezi as an example. Like To Talk was an awesome platform. Really challenged the model. Right. Put everything on a sliding scale. So recognizing that a Friday night reservations more valuable than a Tuesday night reservation like that supply and demand, like should you make more money? I don't think that's dirty. To, to make more money on a Friday night, maybe charging for a reservation or something like that. I think that's the experience economy. And then you have these innovative platforms that end up getting acquired by Resi. Right. Resi is owned by American Express, you know, and like. And that those are old data points and now American Express has all these data points. They have more influence over the consumer. You know, so it's just, it's like we're giving all these giant companies all this data and they have even more influence on the people that we're supposed to have the best relationship with.
- [93:14]
C
Yeah.
- [93:15]
B
So that scares me a little bit.
- [93:16]
C
Well, if your point is the banks are gonna win, I think throughout history you've been pretty correct. Right. So yeah. And then even OpenTable's partnered with I think Visa now.
- [93:26]
B
I think they're partnered. It's not owned. OpenTable is owned by like bookings.com bookings.com I think they own like, yeah. The Kayak or whatever.
- [93:33]
C
But they now have, you know, we signed up for, with visa.com we can offer, we hold tables that then are offered to Visa reserve users. Yeah. It's basically what Resi did with American Express.
- [93:44]
B
Yeah. And I think just from my. This is, I am doing myself no favors having these conversations. I just want to go on record because a lot of the companies that you know, would support and sponsor this podcast. Like, I don't know if they want me talking about this kind of stuff, but I've, I've learned that these tech companies aren't interested in one and two union operators. They're just not. There's no money to be made in one to two unit operators. The same amount of effort to sell a two unit operator to get them to buy is more work than getting a 10 unit operator or 20 or 30 unit operator buy. All these technology platforms are trying to get 20, 30 unit operators on board because they're. It's a better deal. It's, you get more money with more restaurants. It's a per unit situation. Like it's.
- [94:32]
C
So I agree. And even at Averro I saw, you know, if we sign up one casino, boom, 20 restaurants that now use the software. Whereas if I sign up, me too. So you're right in that regard. But I bet if you still stack up, you know, 100% of the addressable market of restaurants in the country, the vast majority of those are still going to be one and two operators.
- [94:53]
B
That is the one thing we have going in our favor. But I think most restaurant owners aren't thinking about that as being leverage.
- [94:59]
C
Yeah. So here, here is where you can appease your sponsors and have your cake and eat it too is because I think that, you know that the banks are always going to win and they're going to use Resi and opentable or whomever as a tool to get at me or the consumer and make more money. That's just the way life is. Right. That's just going to happen. I don't think that makes their tools necessarily not of value to operators.
- [95:22]
B
I don't think they're not a value.
- [95:24]
C
Right. I just think as, as we would probably, probably agree. I just need to be clear on the value proposition and how to use the tools.
- [95:32]
B
Right.
- [95:33]
C
And I Don't know that one and two unit operators across the country. You know, again, going back to my privilege, I had the value of a Cornell education, so I can know how to unpack all these features and use Excel and use the integration and this and that. But even me sitting here talking to you about a tech stack is a, is a privileged subject line for us to have, right?
- [95:55]
B
Well, I think when you. One of the benefits of scaling is you get to have more specialists. Right. Somebody who's on your team, who's a COO or cto and their job is geeking out on the latest and greatest technology and also paying attention to what those things are telling us. Right. Same thing. I think marketing is becoming more and more important than ever before where you're seeing people who are the, you know, CMOs and they might even have stake in the business because it's that important to your survival. So, like, what is that balance of scale where you can create opportunity for these specialists but also maintain your individuality in like small town culture and charm?
- [96:34]
C
You know, could you imagine if you had a CTO and you showed up to every one of your podcasts and all this was already done for you?
- [96:40]
B
Oh, my gosh.
- [96:41]
C
And they were just like, you're all set.
- [96:42]
B
That's the, that's the dream.
- [96:43]
C
That's probably the least likely but most desired position I'd like to fill as the chief tech guy.
- [96:49]
B
Well, I think what's really interesting is that you're seeing more fractional executives. So because everything is cloud based and because you can be a Wiz at R365 or Restaurant Systems Pro, and because you can manage those platforms from anywhere, you're having somebody who's like a COO or CFO who has those skills and then they can do that for multiple restaurant groups.
- [97:13]
C
Yeah, we get pitched for a partial CFO all the time. Oh, yeah, a lot of.
- [97:18]
B
So where, where are you on that?
- [97:20]
C
We've used the same group for 13 years to do our accounting and bookkeeping. And, you know, I worry that it's one of those things that's worked that long that I haven't clued back into it. So we're probably due to check back in on. Okay, well, here's this piece of our business. It's crucial, critical importance. I set it up in 2013. Let me make sure it's still working for us, which I think everybody, every business owner should do that about all their processes on a certain period that's probably not every 13 years.
- [97:51]
B
Yeah. So are you considering that world of fractional executives.
- [97:58]
C
Not really.
- [97:59]
B
Yeah. What about AI? Are you leveraging AI 100%.
- [98:03]
C
How are you. I think, again, it's one of those things that, look, you can push back on it. It is going to happen.
- [98:07]
B
It's. Yeah, that's a. That that ship has left.
- [98:09]
C
Right. So I think in that case, knowing that it is a fact, it's a matter of physics, that this is going to happen. It's a sure thing.
- [98:16]
B
It's happening.
- [98:17]
C
Right. To take the stance to push back on it, well, you're just going to get lapped.
- [98:23]
B
What. How are you using it and how. Have you seen or heard other people using it? That has your interest.
- [98:28]
C
So our first dalliance with AI that I'm aware of was slang. So slang is an automated voice assistant that you call and you get Donna, this is her name, who answers the phone and can route your call. I've been surprised how good it is.
- [98:44]
B
Yeah.
- [98:45]
C
And. And that we've heard barely any guest pushback on it.
- [98:49]
B
Yeah. It's getting scary. Like, people will walk in and be like, Donna was so helpful.
- [98:54]
C
Yeah.
- [98:55]
B
Like, oh, yeah, we love her.
- [98:56]
C
And it. You know, all the success metrics that they could point out are accurate. You know, the number of times our phone rings has gone down. People just make that, handle that transaction online. And my brother Daniel and I, we had a long conversation about was it really hospitality to have a robot answer the phone? And what got me to that point was, Donna is there 247 if you want to call from your bed at 3 in the morning and make a reservation, Donna can handle it. Whereas before, you'd have to leave a voicemail. We'd walk into 30 voicemails on a Saturday. Now we got to take an hour, call through all those voicemails, handle that person's business, move to the next one.
- [99:33]
B
Right. If you're valuing someone's time, if that's a form of generosity, then it is.
- [99:37]
C
Sure. And like the ability to say, I can get you what you need, what you're calling for immediately with Donovan. Right to it. To an alarmingly significant successful degree.
- [99:46]
B
And let's be honest, if that human answers the phone, that's a new host that's been with your company for two weeks and they start asking questions, yeah, sure, Donna's going to know the answers better.
- [99:55]
C
I've told Donna the answer. Right. So that was, I think, a pretty successful leveraging of AI.
- [100:01]
B
I think Loman is a new. A new platform that's out that. So I had Lumen on The show and it's. The AI is evolving so fast that if you're, if you built your AI on a platform of a version of AI a year ago, it's becoming antiquated.
- [100:16]
C
Yeah.
- [100:17]
B
That's how fast it's moving. They were talking about that. It's. It's happening so fast. How else are you using AI?
- [100:24]
C
I mean, I use Chat GPT pretty much daily and can see an improvement in it already.
- [100:29]
B
How are you using it?
- [100:30]
C
So what I find really useful about Chat GPT does a lot of grunt level thinking for you. There's a phrase in writing, give yourself permission to write shitty first drafts. And I think Chat GPT gives me a lot of shitty first drafts of like, get kickstart my thinking on this thing. And you can argue with it in a way that if I'm talking with you in the business about something, you bring your own agenda to the table and I bring mine. And certainly your tech enthusiasts out there will say ChatGPT brings its agenda too, but it helps me think through and get folks further down the road towards resolution on topics. Right.
- [101:06]
B
I, I think that's a great way to use it. I kind of use it as a consultant where it's just like, I need to do this thing. What's. What is the step by step process to update my. I don't know, like something to do with technology where I would have to go like, read and like, watch a video. Like it will, like, if it's just like I need to optimize my social media presence.
- [101:26]
C
Right.
- [101:26]
B
What's. Give me a checklist. Right. And then, then you go in through the checklist. You'd be like, give me the step by step process for this step. And it will literally walk you through everything you need to do to make sure your social presence is better.
- [101:37]
C
And I've done that too. So check out, you know, look at Table of Maine's online presence and summarize our online reputation. Yeah. It can analyze our last six months of negative reviews to find threads and themes. I took a video of a walkthrough for another restaurant we were looking to step into and uploaded this video and it gave me its thoughts on layout. Yeah. Which is unbelievable.
- [101:59]
B
I think it's really helpful for helping you develop vision, core values, mission, purpose. If you have enough conversation with it, it learns your tone. Like, it picks up on the things that you care about. You can also give it prompts to go. Like, you can have it write your schedule.
- [102:13]
C
Yeah.
- [102:13]
B
You know, like, there's so many things that we're talking about, are you? It's one of the things that keeps up. Coming up often in the community restaurant unstoppable network where, like, I'm going to invite you to come join us for a conversation, right. Where people want to know, like, how are you using AI? And like, there's all these use cases and there's prompts that you can throw into it to, like, go through your, your P and L and to alert you when you're off. You can create your, your whole operations manual by like, and you can feed it your entire, like, operations manual and will tell you areas of opportunity to grow. Right. It's just, it's so powerful.
- [102:46]
C
So to that point, I have a separate folder in my computer that is all the files I will feed to AI. Because sometimes. Do you use ChatGPT or which.
- [102:54]
B
I use ChatGPT.
- [102:56]
C
So sometimes you'll get really long in a thread and it'll get laggy and needs to start over. Yeah. And so I will say summarize all the important takeaways from this conversation and then I'll start a new one.
- [103:04]
B
Nice.
- [103:04]
C
And I will upload this bucket of things that includes our handbook. I have a spreadsheet where I track every day of sales we've ever had. Upload all of that to it and can say, you know, for the 15 years table in Maine has been open, tell me about Mother's Day weekend. How does that differ from normal? What have my sales vs. Pmix been? You know, all those different things. And it can then say, here's what you need to look out for. It's. It's unbelievable.
- [103:30]
B
Yeah, that's crazy. And here's the thing that I think we haven't even begun to touch on. Have you heard of any restaurant owners using Vibe coding to. So I had a guest on the show recently, Albert Sanchez out of Beto or Beto. Betos. Betos Mexican restaurant. Or maybe it's Betos B E T O. How would you say that? Yeah. And he is literally using AI to Vibe code his own software in his restaurant.
- [103:56]
C
I think it's amazing.
- [103:57]
B
Labor management, inventory management. What else did he do? Oh, he made his own version of Ovation, customer feedback and tools. And I think that's the most exciting thing because I think Kyle Gordon, somebody who comes into the network, he does a QSR power hour. He had a whole hour on what. How he's using AI. And he pointed out that, like, there are so many SaaS products out there today and they're all kind of like Barnacles on a whale. Like, over time, you get a lot of barnacles. You can kind of get dragged down. Right. But with AI, you can start. Start developing your own solutions and it's free. And I think that I really wonder what the future of SaaS in the restaurant industry looks like when independent restaurant owners start to realize that they can have a conversation with AI and develop their own software and then you have a network of restaurateurs sharing solutions. Like, it does not look good for the SaaS world right now. No.
- [104:50]
C
That's why I'm happy to be a restaurateur. Because still, chatgpt cannot offer hospitality.
- [104:57]
B
Right.
- [104:58]
C
Can't serve.
- [104:58]
B
You are experiences human. Yeah, it's. It's fun, man. So we're at the point of the conversation. We're looking to the future right now. So the mission statement is to inspire, empower and transform the industry. And, you know, if, if we're going to transform the industry, what does the future. How should the future work? What's. What should we be reaching for? What's the future you want to see for the industry?
- [105:20]
C
That I hope that we learn how to use these tools to better serve our guests and employees and not as shortcuts to things. You know, for example, I. I think we're having a conversation in hospitality about how much do we want that technology to be present in the guest experience. And the easiest way to look at this is, you know, we still run checks. You bring your check, we bring it in. A Southern novel. Put the check in there, you put your card, we run the check, we come back. Well, some places do that right at the table, you know, and I think some places would argue that that is more hospitable. Your card stays within your sight. You're not worried about someone skimming your card, doing whatever. Yeah, it's faster. It's all that stuff. I don't know that I have a thought on that to share right now, but that's a conversation to have. Right. Is what do people think is more hospitality forward? So I want to. I'm interested to see how we chart that course moving forward with technology.
- [106:10]
B
Yeah, I think it's interesting because, like, we're, we're babies, we're infants, essentially, with these technologies. And we've only had smartphones for 10 years. 11 years.
- [106:17]
C
Yeah.
- [106:17]
B
Not 11 years. Sorry, was 2007. We're going on 20 years. So relatively speaking, we haven't really built any social norms around how do we use these things?
- [106:27]
C
Yeah, right.
- [106:27]
B
We're just now getting the data to know what effect these things have on our psychology and our emotional well being, you know, our psychological well being. And we're seeing that it's not good, you know, So I think we're at this point where we can start developing new social norms and behaviors associated with how do we use technology. Like when we centralized the food system and started eating processed corn everywhere, we realized that wasn't good for us. We started eating healthier, and we're getting healthier as a society. I think that same thing is happening in the world of technology right now. And we're like, oh, like that was too much stuff.
- [107:01]
C
Another example of QR codes, you know. Right. All through Covid with QR codes because no one wanted to touch anything. Well, our guests told us pretty quickly they hated those. Some people can't figure them out. All this thought on, you know, menu and menu engineering is a science. Does that translate to a tablet? Right.
- [107:17]
B
So that's one translates to mobile ordering.
- [107:20]
C
Sure.
- [107:20]
B
Yeah.
- [107:21]
C
That's one example of how, you know, we're going to have to adapt and think through what's the hospitality answer here? What do our guests want? What works for us from a cost perspective? And how does that change how I need to run my business?
- [107:31]
B
Yeah. Is there anything you've done in the past two years that's really moved the needle? Top line or bottom line?
- [107:37]
C
Won a Michelin Award. That was a good one. But I think we paired that. Like we. We caught the ball. Well, you know, when that happened, we adapted on how ready we were to take advantage of that. So, for example, just the way we accepted reservations on our patio, we were ready to receive that additional volume without lowering our standards. So we don't. I say we don't get credit for the Michelin award. I guess we do. We got the Michelin award. But where I'm really even more proud of us is how we. We took advantage of that to make the extra money that came our way because of it.
- [108:17]
B
Yeah. One thing I'm always curious about too, is, you know, we. This podcast, like I've mentioned, is my research, and I'm looking to grow a massive network through word of mouth. So you've shared some technologies you're using. What about outsourcing to individuals that have helped, like, you know, whether that be like a fractional type or a consultant or a coach. Have you worked with anybody?
- [108:40]
C
We haven't worked with a formal business consultant or a coach or anything. No.
- [108:45]
B
Got it. Just trying to standardize that question.
- [108:48]
C
Sure, sure.
- [108:49]
B
So we're wrapping it up right now. We're almost at the end of the man. What's one thing about your business? A value, a process, a system that's truly uncommon and makes you unstoppable?
- [108:58]
C
I think it's socializing. The goal of make people happy. You know, a lot of places have great training, great handbooks, great rule books, checklists, side lists, all these things. But I think our staff is very clear on make people happy is the goal. And through that, they know they're empowered to do what they need to do to achieve that goal. So, for example, the best, most basic example of that is, you know, someone comes in, if there's something wrong, the server knows they're empowered to comp a dish because the guest didn't like it. It's that focus on your job is not to follow the rule book. It's to achieve the goal. And the rule book provides a structure and a framework for how we can achieve that. But you're the one who has the tools to get us there. I love it.
- [109:39]
B
The mission statement, again, is to inspire, empower, and transform the industry. I think we're going to do that by transforming, transforming one owner at a time. If we can do that, we can transform communities. So how. What's the example of how you've transformed today? Who's Ryan today? The man you are today versus the man you were when you were 25 years old in 2011. How have you transformed?
- [109:56]
C
Yeah, I think I have. You know, one. One easy answer to that is a thicker skin on things. And back in the day, one bad Yelp review would send me spinning. Wouldn't be able to sleep that night. And I think now there's trust in the team. Trust that if that Yelp review says something was bad, I might take that word as gospel. In the beginning, oh, the server really did do that. Food really was that bad. Whereas now it's okay. I know our team delivers excellence. You know, we got to run our game with every bad review. I got to go talk to the team. What happened? Let's get our side of the story, and then we learn what we may need to fix. But in that example, you develop a thicker skin to not freak out about those things.
- [110:35]
B
Yeah. Perception is reality. It could be an opportunity to get better. You're more aware of something, and every
- [110:40]
C
review has something you can learn. Right. So I always look, okay, did we really make the mistake they said we made? And if we did, let's learn from that. If not, well, maybe it's a messaging or an expectation thing, but Never do we read it and just go, to hell with this guy. Let's move on.
- [110:55]
B
So this is a loaded question. It's a doozy. Get ready for it. If you got the news, you'd be leaving this world tomorrow. All the memories of you you work in, your restaurants would be lost with your departure. With the exception of three pieces of wisdom you can leave behind for the good of humanity and your legacy. What are those three pieces of wisdom?
- [111:09]
C
Be wisdom as in things we've done or words I can offer.
- [111:14]
B
You want to leave something behind for your kids. Three things that you know to be true that you want to leave them with. What are those three things?
- [111:20]
C
Yeah. Okay. One is that Maya Angelou quote. People will forget what you say. They may forget what you do. They will never forget how you made them feel.
- [111:27]
B
One.
- [111:28]
C
Another is a quote from the Dalai Lama. One must master the rules so one knows how to break them properly.
- [111:35]
B
That's a good one. I've never done that before.
- [111:37]
C
Yeah, I love that one.
- [111:38]
B
How are you breaking the rules?
- [111:40]
C
I think we did things with greater trust and respect for the team from an earlier time than was common in restaurants.
- [111:48]
B
Yeah.
- [111:49]
C
And again, we've referenced that restaurant of yore, the old guard throwing plates and owners doing coke in the bathroom and kind of thing. We're just as far from that as you could get. So I think being that, you know, before it was cool, attracted a certain type of person to work here and has gone through in our staff taking care of people the way we want.
- [112:10]
B
People will remember how you feel, know the rules so you can break them. What's number three?
- [112:15]
C
I would say a bit of wisdom I learned from Douglas, which was you can say what you want to say or get what you want to get. Choose one.
- [112:25]
B
You can say what you want to say or get what you want to get.
- [112:28]
C
Right.
- [112:28]
B
Choose one. Which one do you want?
- [112:30]
C
I want to get what I want to get. And I think so often that involves you sucking up what you want to say. You know, we've all been in business and all the stories I gave about the guy in the black trench coat telling me off because we didn't have his reservation. Of course I wanted to tell that guy. I can't. I don't. I can't curse on you to fuck off. Of course I wanted that. But I don't win if that happens. Right. And I want to get what I want to get, which is to have this guy give me money.
- [112:58]
B
Right.
- [112:59]
C
And tell a good story about the restaurant. So that's a Good reminder that subverting yourself, you know, taking yourself out of it, not saying what you want to say, whether it's to an employee, a purveyor or whatever, is an important check. Because at the end of the day I want to get what I want to get.
- [113:16]
B
Yeah, this has been a lot of fun. I'm really proud of the fact that I find the people I make an example of through word of mouth. And you were referred to me by Ryan Turner and Chris Goss. They said, you gotta go talk to this guy. Who do you respect and admire in the industries? Somebody that if I sat down with them for two hours and spilled their life story, spilled their life lessons. Who's that person that you think would make an impact on our listeners?
- [113:46]
C
Well, my answer was going to be Fred and Stephanie Castellucci. But now if you can get an interview with their dad.
- [113:52]
B
Okay.
- [113:53]
C
And Federico Castellucci senior is another mentor figure of mine that I want to shout out here at the end who taught me the value of conviction. And that little 13 year old Ryan learned a lot of lessons from the Fred Castellucci. You know his dad. Yeah. He would just be a trip to have on the show.
- [114:10]
B
Yeah.
- [114:10]
C
The other one I will mention, Michael Lennox, owns Electric Hospitality, good friend of mine and Fred, starting in, in Covid. He and Fred and I, that was kind of our Covid pod where as you mentioned, we all call each other and go, what the hell are you doing about this? And they'd say, I don't know, here's what I'm doing. I'm not saying that's the right way to do it.
- [114:27]
B
Yeah, I think that is so important too. Talk to your neighbors, talk to other restaurant owners. We go further together. Stop looking at your, your restaurant down the street as your competition and realize that if you choose to work together, you will go further together. And I think that's one cool thing I've noticed about Atlanta is that seems to happen. I know Federico talks to different restaurateurs across the country. He's talking to Elliot, I think, out of Oklahoma City. I can't remember his last name, but he has, he's got a whole network of people he's talking to. He's talking to the Goldberg brothers in Nashville. Find your pocket of people, talk to them. I think you know Chris Goss, Ryan Turner, Mike Gallagher, you, I think you're in that group of friends too. Like talk to these people.
- [115:13]
C
Like share informational board of directors. Yeah, but you know, it's funny about restaurants. Supposedly the most cutthroat throat, fiercely competitive industry. But my experience has been owners are very collegiate about wanting each other to succeed. And even the restaurants down the road, I want them to do well. I want you to come eat here before you go there. And I would expect they want the same. But I don't want them to close. Right. And I. My thing, especially on Canton street, you know, for my restaurants, is as long as you are bringing something of quality to Canton street, to our market, you are improving the value of the experience here, which may bring someone back to try my restaurant tomorrow.
- [115:47]
B
Yeah.
- [115:47]
C
So I think there's some value in. Unless you're, you know, can list destination restaurant. You know, on our street here, all boats rise with the tide kind of thing.
- [115:58]
B
Ryan Pernice, man, this has been a lot of fun. I literally cannot do what I do without people like you taking time out of your busy schedule to sit, to share your story, to get vulnerable, to be transparent, to be generous with your knowledge. I just can't say thank you enough. How can we connect with you if we enjoy today's conversation? Maybe we want to come work for you or.
- [116:16]
C
Yeah, great.
- [116:17]
B
Just follow you online. How do we connect?
- [116:18]
C
We're very visible online. Tablemain is on Instagram and Facebook. I think it's got a LinkedIn page. It does have a LinkedIn page. Of course. We're@tablemain.com Same for Osteria. Our handles are all just the restaurant. Super easy. I myself, Ryan Pernis, I'm on Instagram and Facebook as well. So we're always available there.
- [116:34]
B
Cool. I'll try to get those handles from you. Do you know any of them at the top here yet?
- [116:37]
C
Yeah, Table main is at table and main. All spelled out. No ampersand. Osteria is at Osteria Matone and I'm at Ryan piece. And there's also at RO Hospitality. Cool.
- [116:46]
B
Yeah. We'll have those links in the show notes. And this is where I say there is no question, my man. You are unstoppable.
- [116:51]
C
Thank you very much. It's been a. This has been a blast.
- [116:53]
B
Thank you.
- [116:55]
A
There's another episode wrapped up here at Restaurant Unstoppable. Special thanks to our guest today, Ryan Pernice. He will be live in Restaurant Unstoppable network.
- [117:05]
B
He's gonna be joining us for coffee
- [117:07]
A
with Eric on the 18th of May at 11am so if you want to join that conversation, head over to restaurantunstoppable.com c w e. We'll get you the zoom link and be sure to mark your calendar for the 18th at 11am in May. And you can be there and you can ask the questions you wish I did. And we're gonna do this with every one of the guests we're getting on the show. So if you want to be a
- [117:28]
B
part of these conversations, if you want
- [117:30]
A
to expand your network and have people to talk to, have restaurant own, relate with and bounce ideas off of, or to go deeper into the topics we discussed during the episode, then you can do that again. Head over to restaurantsoppable.com CWE and go further together. We'll see you there.