opsi is a daily workflow app built to progress the way modern operators manage their restaurant. With robust recipe management, true recipe costing, task and food prep lists, and product guides, opsi is suited for any operation looking to maximize efficiencies within their kitchen team, and cut down on employee training times. James has 20 years of experience in the hospitality industry and a strong vision for technology’s role in it. His time in the kitchen has taken him from New Jersey to Rhode Island, Washington DC, San Francisco and Minnesota. As a chef, James has worked alongside industry-leading chefs such as Michael Mina and Gavin Kaysen, giving him a profound understanding of restaurant operations. The inspiration for opsi came early in James’ career after he took over as chef de cuisine in a restaurant that was in the midst of change and facing issues with internal communication. QUOTES “(Being a restaurateur) is a wild and challenging business. From any angle, as an operator it’s even more challenging because you’ve got 50+ people banking on you.” (James) “I love the stories behind entrepreneurial ideas because they’re usually very simple, very true and very authentic and that’s what makes them wonderful.” (Michael) “Technology was a space for me where we could develop a solution where we could keep all the information in there, keep the team on the same page and marching to the same sheet of music and moving in the same direction.” (James) “(opsi) made it easier for us to focus on the larger goal, which was servicing the guest and putting out a really high quality product.” (James) “In any kind of creative business, there’s organized chaos and artistry but I agree that people need and love process. A little organization isn’t a bad thing.” (Michael) “My belief is that anyone – from a food truck to a three-star Michelin restaurant – can utilize opsi.” (James) TRANSCRIPT 00:01.48 vigorbranding Hello everyone today I am joined by someone who knows a lot about how to run an a fishing kitchen his name is chef James Pasa Faro James how you doing say hello and give us a little bit of your backstory.   00:17.65 James Hi thanks for having me. Um, yeah, my background I started in the cooking culinary world when I was really young something I really wanted to do from a young age bounced around a bunch ended up in Minnesota. I work for some really great chefs like Gavin Casean and Michael Mina and um here I am now working in technology which I never thought I probably have to say out loud.   00:42.10 vigorbranding That's awesome. We're gonna talk about opsy here in a little bit but where did the whole love of cooking come from like where did it start I mean how did you? How did you happen upon it.   00:51.22 James Yeah, um, you know a lot of the times I think generally this story kind of goes for people. It's like you know they're cooking in a kitchen if they're grandmother or mother some some family member or it's a family-owned operator. My parents. Ah, my mom was in sales for telecoms so she worked for att my father was in floing so he worked worked in union in New York and then he owned a business in New Jersey where we grew up and he just had friends that were in hospitality so they would always throw a a game dinner every year at a restaurant called perona farms and it was run by 3 brothers and.   01:09.94 vigorbranding And.   01:25.26 James They're they've been in business for over 100 years now and they're like in their sixth generation of family running it. But at the time um Kirk was the chef and he was kind of running this program where he could. Ah, bring in local hunters and fishers and cook a dinner each year and kind of run it for friends and family and kind of started blossoming from the late 80 s to early 90 s where he actually um, he launched a really successful smoke salmon business and he started sign. Ah the likes like Danielle on Louis Palydan um wolfgang puck   01:54.87 vigorbranding Um, wow.   01:55.80 James Kind of all over the country and then he started bringing these really large name chefs to this game dinner every year. So when I was like ten or eleven it was every Tuesday of every year for first Tuesday every year they would close the restaurant prep for the weekend weeding up to that Tuesday and then these chefs would come off from all over the country and at the time I had. You know and no idea it was like mingai and Robert Irvine and Danielle Balloud and all these people um, but what really drew me to it was just it was seemed like friends having fun together and it was the energy of the space and the camaraderie and the food was obviously a plus on top of it. But it wasn't ever that. Ah. That magic moment of like something hitting the pan or me tasting something. It was more about being in an environment being around people. Um, and I think really just like the culture and the energy that was built around it at the time was what really drew me in.   02:42.85 vigorbranding It's fantastic and the game dinner sounds awesome. Yeah, you have to at the end here if you have ah a recipe for Elk I Need I mean I I always have a freezer full of Elk I'm a diehard hunter and you know there's nothing better than having a great meal with friends around something you know that you've actually worked really hard for so.   03:00.94 vigorbranding Ah's it's because it's not easy to cook game I mean it's not I mean people ruin it a lot so that's fantastic. Um, so you work in Minneapolis San Francisco Boston um, did you ever have a desire to do your own restaurant.   03:01.38 James No, it's not.   03:15.61 James Um I did I mean it's obviously still there right? Ah, you know you travel different paths and it's something I definitely want to do at some point I hope to pick it up in the future. Um, but it's ah as you know and people you talked to.. It's a wildly challenging business. Ah, from any angle of it. But as an operator. It's you know ever more challenging because you're looking at 50 plus people that are banking on you.   03:39.33 vigorbranding Yeah, and no question Plus well and be an entrepreneur though. But you're now so you jumped into the tech. So that's so much easier than running a restaurant right? Ah yeah.   03:46.48 James Um, bit different ah different skill set different different patients level.   03:52.50 vigorbranding So how talk a little bit about ah opsy I Mean you've said in the past the idea of opsy started with a simple concept right? You know how to get rid of the paper clutter. You want to talk a little bit about that and you know the brain child behind it I Love entrepreneurial I mean I I consider myself one and I love the stories behind them because they're usually very.   03:59.87 James Yeah.   04:07.95 vigorbranding Simple. They're usually very true. They're very authentic and that's what makes them kind of wonderful.   04:13.31 James yeah with opsy um yeah I was about 26 in San Francisco I was working for Michael at the time. Um I just took over as chef de cuisine for a restaurant called r and 74 that was in the fiai. Um, and it was this really beautiful french. Burgundy restaurant built on a great wine program and I was drowning I um, you know took my first step into the really deep end. They trusted me with a lot of so lot of things inside the restaurant and what I really wanted was just something that I didn't have to chase around paper. Um I didn't have to. Print all this stuff off overcommunic communicate fill the binders up and I kind of went on this search for something that I thought should have been out there at the time we all had iphones and we all still have iphones and Android devices and there was these like little computers in our hands every day that I just assumed there had to even been something right? and when I went out and looked it. Didn't really satisfy the need. So I kind of went down this path with my friend and we started building. Yeah a dodpercent.   05:15.12 vigorbranding That's awesome. Necessity is the mother of invention right? So so oil stained prepless and recipes you want talk a little bit about that.   05:28.31 James Yeah, it was um yeah we were. We were going through this large change at the restaurant I I came in as an executive soou chef and then when ah the chef Mike Graffiti left I took over as a Cdc for him. Um, it was you know it was very disjointed in communication. It was kind of hurting the team because it was more of a a survived less thrive situation on a day-to-day basis. Um, and we really were very leaning forward into systems and system orientation for communication and kind of removing a lot of this gray area which a lot of restaurants are gray generally. Ah, removing a lot of the gray in this human element of just like collecting the physicals and having to put them on stations and keep them in places because you know they get oil spilled on them and you have to rewrite them or print them out again. Um, but always having a backup somewhere and technology for me was that solution to kind of develop a space where we could keep all the information in there. Keep the team all on the same page marching in and singing off the same sheet of music and moving in the same direction so that every single day when they came in they knew the goal. They knew what their goals were and what they were driving towards and then once you kind of for us when you got rid of a lot of minutiae of like where is it who wrote this who did that who did this where as a recipe. Um, it made it easier for us to focus on the larger goal which was servicing the guest and like putting out really high quality product opposed to just making it through the day because the system was broken.   06:52.28 vigorbranding Yeah I mean in any kind of a creative business which obviously being a chef is super creative in a kitchen I mean there's that organized Chaos. There's that artistry. But I think I do agree I think that people need and love process I just spent unfortunately way too much time talking about that as far as our business you know. Keeping the time and keeping things organized so that they they are. They're able to thrive right? A little organization certainly isn't ah isn't a bad thing. Um, but talk about your partner and and how your partner got into it in the business and how it got started and all that.   07:10.50 James Yeah.   07:21.67 James Yeah Matt is wildly talented. Definitely completely different skillset than I have he spent a lot of his early career in videography design. He's done all the architecture from the backend working with our cto justin writing all the code. Um, and he's done all the uiux experience for opsy which I think is really powerful because the the whole idea is that when I was conceptualizing the idea we were running into these walls of just really large enterprise systems that just weren't resonating with what I needed every single day and we needed to make sure that the tool we designed and built had to be very streamlined trim light feeling. Not so dense and cumbersome. So Matt is amazingly talented. really really smart he's taken an incredible approach from just a design perspective and user interface perspective I think he's he's setting us up for a ton of success because it's it should be something that you could easily pick up understand get into get out of and get back to work.   08:19.89 vigorbranding Fantastic and opsy recently partnered with ah Gavin Caseson is that correct notable chef ah James Blair word winner.   08:26.88 James Yeah, yeah, Gavin has um, yeah, been a ah longtime mentor friend boss lots of different capacities advisor investor. Um, but ah when I first met Gavin I came out to Minneapolis to dodge at belcour and spoon. Um, and it's kind of in between what I was going to do next and we're winding down in San Francisco and he offered me a job and I you know, kind of just expressed the idea that you know if we continue down this path talking about opportunities that I wanted to make sure you understood there was things that I was working on and that I would need this duality of support as I make me this next. Step forward. Even though I didn't take the job at the time because it wasn't the the chef role that was open. He immediately gravitated towards us and he became our first adviser very early on probably going to back six years now and then when the opportunity came up to move to a swoon and stable. We started piloting the actual project inside the restaurant. So it was um.   09:22.95 James Blessing in a curse right? You're kind of drinking from a fire hose at that point when it comes to feedback when you're given it to your team.   09:27.13 vigorbranding Absolutely so I mean you know obviously organization in any business is super important and this is an opportunity for you I guess to sell your dream or your vision here. What types of restaurants need your tool the most like who do you see as your primary customer who's who's the most suited to. To to to be involved in the Opsy platform.   09:49.49 James Yeah, we get this question a lot. Um, generally my belief system is that anyone whether it's a food truck to a threet star Missioncheland restaurant could utilize opsy multiunits single concept multi unit multiconcept the. At the end of the day. There's a there's a very large event diagram of functionality that all is true within restaurants right? You are producing food. You're managing people. You're pretty prepless like all these things are just common truths throughout the whole industry. So. We started in a place of like a spoon and stable upscale casual. This is just based on my background and Kavin's background and we built it for the 4 walls of that restaurant and it works extremely well and as we continue developing. We're focused more on both going downstream to more fine dining restaurants but also on the opposite side of that stream. Going into more casual qsr virtual brands to make sure that you know the tool still fits. We don't we don't develop in any specific way that it's like okay this really only works for Thomas Keller or Danielle or Gavin this doesn't just work for you know the Mcdonald's or the larger change or the the quick growing franchises. It's um.   10:50.64 vigorbranding Um.   10:57.25 James We take a really honest approach and when we when we work with a company whether it's your business or a multiple tuda businesses that that are our partners Now we yeah we have lots of conversation with how we can be become better.   11:07.82 vigorbranding It's awesome. It's awesome. Well I know in this industry I mean I I started my illustrious career in a restaurant like most well I shouldn't say most everybody did but I was a dishwasher and but I was very fortunate actually because I worked with ah a gentleman who was. Pretty ah, well known it was in Hershey Pennsylvania and he was a chef and he had his own place and it was sort of his last sort of ah chapter he wanted to just do his thing his way and talk about the oiltained recipes I mean this guy was crazy. Um, gourmet magazine was begging him for his. Ah.   11:22.73 James Okay, you know.   11:39.23 vigorbranding Coconut Cream Emmaellatta recipe. It literally died with Him. He would not let win the building when he made it and I mean there's a lot of that old school sort of philosophy and like artistry I mean how how how is this help with that I mean are you finding resistance from those old school guys or is everyone really realizing hey look. We've got to. We've got to have this product ah to help streamline things.   11:59.48 James You know when we first started it was a matter of like trying to delutter and reorganize and kind of update because there's been very little focus on the back of the restaurant when it comes to technology tons on the front. But you know as time goes on I think especially with covid covid has kind of changed the way people think about.   12:13.29 vigorbranding Um.   12:17.82 James But staffing and all the hardship that everyone is going through from finding staff now that people want tools that help them do more with a little bit of less systems ultimately scaffold that structure and allow people to do those things because there's you know a rubric to work within um and now we are starting to see it's less of we're not here to convince people. Of what they should be doing I'm not going to be a ah person trying to give in someone how to change the way they run their business. It's up to them to make that decision. But when we find the people that are coming to us for this Problem. It's it's something that is it clicks like they see it immediately. They understand they need to solve the problem and you see it on both ends like older chefs will have to eventually come to this idea because.   12:56.62 vigorbranding Who.   12:56.73 James They're hiring younger and younger cooks and servers and people every single day that the tool has to meet them at their staffing where they are today and yeah when I'm not very old but I'm not young anymore. Um.   13:09.68 vigorbranding Jesus.   13:10.85 James When I started. It was like take the muskin out and listen to me talk and write it down and if you don't write it down. You don't know what's going on and now it's like if I had to give a binder of paper to an 18 year old kid coming off the street to be a prep cook like he's going to look at me cross-eyed. So we're we're hoping to help meet these people this workforce this new generation of cooks and chefs. Where they are and they're far more technically inclined than any generation before they they grew up with it in their hands. Their whole lives.   13:36.72 vigorbranding It's it's wonderful I mean it's ah as I was saying earlier necessities of other invention. It makes total sense. It's a simple concept but it's a great concept and something it's it's absolutely needed I mean where do you see yourselves going in the next day two three years I mean what's what's your vision for the business.   13:48.56 James We Want to you know obviously bridge a lot of these gaps we want to again meet the people where they are. We want to help bring a little more insight to the day-to-day operators and start to segment out a piece of business that is not so financially high minded. Financial high-mounded tools are great for the controllers cfos accountants of the world but it doesn't really help the operators that are running the restaurant a day-to-day basis scheduling cooking things like that. So we're hoping to be a distillation of information at some point it sit in between those tools. Um, and then you know we're. people that believe we need to stay focused on what we're great at um and we've built a really great tool that I believe works well and we're going to continue embellishing on it and progressing and changing and ideaating on the tool and making it better and a lot of my focus now going forward is finding strong partners that are also likeminded that are. Best in class technologies that we can work with and we actually you know in the next couple weeks and months we're going to have a few announcements coming out about some of our partners that we're working with and people that I I put high value on and what they're doing and believe they are best in class.   14:53.59 vigorbranding It's awesome. Yeah I mean it's It's ah it's remarkable and it's ah it's great I mean and I think you have the the absolute right perspective on growing a business you got to stay focused and and take it to the people that need it and and I love it I Love it I'm looking forward to seeing what what the future holds.   15:04.19 James And.   15:08.61 vigorbranding Um, so I have to ask these are we do every year we do food and beverage Trends and restaurant trends and technology obviously is just always there. Always there. In fact, it's hard to find things that aren't tied to technology for a trend.   15:14.50 James Food.   15:21.33 vigorbranding Um, we we read a lot and heard a lot about robots and Kitchens and all that I mean what do you? What's your honest opinion about Robot servers and that kind of a thing.   15:30.32 James Um, you know they have their place I've been I've been to the sushi train places where the the robot brings you your drink and like drives cocktails around for sure. It'll always exist the the robot cooks like the sweet greens of the world I Think there's definitely a place for it. There's you know.   15:33.98 vigorbranding You.   15:47.82 James Very fast casual grab and go type situations that definitely serve that purpose. It will fill a gap for sure. Um, for like everything in the middle market I even think like all the way down to fast casual. Yeah I think technology is going to continue growing in a way that helps bolster the human element because. For me again going all the way back to being eleven ten twelve the reason I came into restaurants is people when you go to a restaurant and you sit down and you pay money you you get a server that is talking to you get a cook that is cooking the food. Yeah um. You ideally have a consistent experience but it's always never going to be the same It's always going to hopeful build and build and build for you and if you start removing that? yeah humanity out of the experience. Um, and I think all the way down to you know, fast food service elements. There's. Still pieces of it that the humans are going to be so I believe like technology itself. Everyone's going to want to talk about Ai replacement of people robots I mean it's just not realistic. It makes sense. So I think we'll always go down that path in certain segments. But I think where where technology really needs to go and should go is.   16:48.32 vigorbranding Um, the hunt.   16:59.62 James How do you better? The human experience while they're working and how does that bolster of the human experience while their employees of that space bolster The human experience as a guest and how do you engage with them differently and continue driving that experience and bringing them back. Whether you're picking up a burger. You're sitting down and spending thousands or hundreds of dollars on a meal.   17:17.30 vigorbranding Yeah, and I mean I love that answer and and I mean the robots are kind of kitchen kind of cool. Whatever's neat sort of trendy maybe but I love the idea your technology is one that that allows humans to do a more efficient job. Hopefully it'll drive more.   17:31.76 James Do.   17:34.74 vigorbranding Happiness culture better experience for the guest and I think at the end of the day you're right? That's what we all go out for right? We want that human experience. We want to. We want to be with friends or ah, you know business associates and just have a great time and it's That's the overall interaction. It's The. Ah, the servers. It's everybody that's involved that that makes it fantastic and makes it it. It makes an experience right? So I think ah I agree with you I Love the human side of things versus ah maybe what were the robotic side. Um, yeah, That's right, That's right.   18:00.81 James I Mean if we go all the way to robots you're gonna It's not go be hospital tow anymore. It's gonna be something completely different.   18:09.51 vigorbranding That's right, is there anything else, you'd like to tell us about opsy I mean anything else about your business the future What you see for technology. Ah any ancillary products anything like that that you want to talk about.   18:21.50 James No, we're you know we're hoping to push out a bunch of updates here. It's um, you know the the technology piece is a process that ah, that's new to me because it's it's not so physical. It's not tangible. It's more of a conversation then there's there's other people that are smarter and better than me ah doing the work and. I kind of I kind of wait for the results to test and play with um, not at the moment we're we're really just excited about some of the partnerships we're going to announce and also um, yeah, we we love being substantially footed inside the hospitality you know with myself my background Gavin we have a couple other.   18:45.57 vigorbranding Um.   18:55.68 James Chef advisor investors that we're going to kind of bring to the forefront and it's it's going to be our prime focus of having these types of conversations and create dialogues with our chef partners to make sure that we are developing the tool in a way that is applicable to their day-to-day life not from a perspective of James has been removed from the kitchen for a year and a half and   19:14.21 vigorbranding Um, yeah, you're always in Beta right? I mean you're always in Beta and it's It's a tough thing I'll see for me personally I had to learn like with the the dev work that we do and things like that it is that.   19:14.30 James He still believes. He knows what he's doing because he hasn't work in the kitchen anymore. Um, it's it really needs to be rubber meets the road type development. Yeah.   19:30.26 vigorbranding You know I'm used to in life start and stop like here. We make this and it's finished but this when it comes to software and anything development. You're always in beta so um, all right? Why? Yeah, absolutely so I got one last question all right if you had 1 final meal. What would you eat and where and why.   19:31.73 James Who.   19:38.71 James That's constant churn.   19:49.95 James Um, you know I hate to bring it all the way back to the beginning of the conversation. But um I I spent a lot of time in the kitchen while early days in the kitchen with my father as he like spent time around his friends. Um, and one of the first things I can vividly remember not making but help put together was a venison carpacco dish um with with ming sigh and it was like toasted sesames hot sesame oil slice Ven Venison Tenderor wine and like a bitter green salad and.   20:13.00 vigorbranding Um, this.   20:23.98 James Being an 11 year old kid I've never had anything like that or you're close to raw food and I the the idea is so visceral my mind I think from just the weekend leading up to it and being around my father and being around all these types of people if I had to have 1 final bite. In my life. It would be going back to that moment in time and um I think that is like the the white switch that flipped in my mind to say like you know food is what I want to do because I don't have to do social studies anymore if I do it? Yeah, we hunted fish still all the way up growing up.   20:55.45 vigorbranding Ah, that's that's fantastic. So was your father also a hunter then.   21:02.50 James Ah, mostly like upline foul stuff. Yeah.   21:02.72 vigorbranding That's awesome. Yeah, very cool, very cool. Yeah I share those passions big time. Um, what's your favorite game meat. Would it be that or is there ah venison Ah birds I mean.   21:15.12 James Um I love duck obviously um, we have amazing duck producers out here and then pheasant because that again going back to the experience like the first time I learned how to break down a full bird was um.   21:18.76 vigorbranding Who.   21:32.65 James Jalo we poed on and it was right a year or two before he passed away but it was like just learning experience and it's not going from like cleaned animal from a bag to the table breaking it down. It was like feathers and heads and wings and like.   21:48.41 vigorbranding Um.   21:49.14 James Endto-end learning how to do it. It was a really cool experience. It's something that really super value because it's applied everywhere right? Ducks Pheasants Chickens Geese All kind of the same.   22:00.67 vigorbranding That's awesome I mean like I can totally relate I mean I've done all that but never not nearly as sophisticated as you have I can guarantee you that but I mean the whole thing from the you know field to to to table.   22:10.26 James And.   22:12.30 vigorbranding And ah and I'll say this the fun and the camaraderie that comes around with it stories. It's just ah I mean it's just something I crave. In fact, if you're anywhere near my cabin on any given weekend. There's bourbon being poured and Elk burgers or ah backstraps being being provided I.   22:16.66 James Yeah.   22:30.10 James Ah, so.   22:30.80 vigorbranding I Cook all the time up there for everybody and people just stop by. They see my lights on the not even invited people will stop in because they know I'll probably be making Elk or you know pouring a good wine or bourbon and it's It's always a nice time. So I totally respect that. Absolutely absolutely.   22:41.15 James And well we'll have to talk offline about that one then.   22:47.75 vigorbranding I listen it James it was fantastic I really enjoyed talking to you I appreciate your time anything else, you'd like to leave us with.   22:53.39 James Now. Thank you I Appreciate this love to stay in touch and just appreciate giving us a platform to talk about what we're doing and we're excited to keep on going forward with everybody.   23:02.12 vigorbranding Absolutely hey and best of luck to you I Love what you're doing and I love the attitude behind it. It's excellent, well done. Thanks.   23:07.31 James Thank you appreciate it.

Home Run Inn is a family owned & operated establishment with nine restaurants throughout the Chicago area. They’ve been making pizza since 1947 and began creating and selling frozen pizzas for grocery store distribution nationwide in the 1960s. Dan is the 4th generation leader of Home Run Inn Pizza. He started in the family business at the age of 13 as a busboy. Home Run Inn’s signature square-sliced pizzas originated in the 1940s when the tavern would slice the pizza into small sample-sized pieces to entice customers. The restaurant’s frozen pizza was born after a regular customer used to request par-baked pizzas to take to his summer home in Wisconsin. Home Run Inn Pizza has a synergistic relationship between the restaurant brand and the frozen brand and doesn’t view the relationship as cannibalistic when it comes to sales for either brand. QUOTES “Everyone who has a restaurant wants to get into CPG. They want to put it in grocery stories. They think it’s easy to do CPG.” (Michael) “Our first distributor was our bartender. He would take pizzas after work, walk them down to the corner grocery store and pick up the cash the next day.” (Dan) “Our frozen pizza production facilities model and mirror what we did in the restaurants. My uncle would say, ‘The reason we make it like that is because that’s the only way I know how.’” (Dan) “Pizza is like sex. It’s all good, but some is better than others.” (Michael) “The (Home Run Inn Pizza) restaurants drive brand awareness on the marketing side for our frozen pizza.” (Dan) “A brand is a promise. Many times, an agency is hired to create that story or build that authenticity. What’s beautiful about what Home Run Inn Pizza has, is that (story) is already baked in.” (Michael) TRANSCRIPT 00:00.22 vigorbranding And with some great guests and so I thought well we should keep it going. It's good for social media. It's good for you know it's good. So I mean you know I'll be honest've I'm only done a few of these but it's been fun and you know I don't know it's just ah, you know the guys do a great job. So it turns out all right? yeah.   00:06.19 Dan Costello Um, yeah.   00:16.98 Dan Costello Um, cool, Awesome. Look forward to it. Don't give hi.   00:19.29 vigorbranding Yeah, yeah, yeah, know yeah this will be this will be a lap for you I mean you know it's just just like your story and I mean it sincerely I mean great story, great family. Great product. It's just you know it's just it's just super cool. We got a guy here working the production Robert who you're already his fan. He's a huge fan of home run his friends.   00:28.80 Dan Costello Gun.   00:36.54 vigorbranding Took him there and he you know is one of his best buddies is out there archer ra and thirty first street with archer a thirty first yeah Yeah, so yeah, yeah, so yeah, yeah, heyan on one thing we're you know can keep casual and loose. We're already kind of rolling here. Um, just 1 thing he got to do once we kind of finish up the convo.   00:42.27 Dan Costello Ah, okay, nice Robert very good.   00:55.40 vigorbranding We just gotta have you hang on the line thus til your tilll your file kind of uplis what locally so we' probably just got hang out for extra 10 minutes when we're done reporting just to make yeah just to make sure everything you know gets off load quickly and everything everything like that. Okay, we're wrong. So guy you're ready cool hi.   01:02.40 Dan Costello At the end of it. Yes, yes.   01:12.79 Dan Costello Um, new promise.   01:14.91 vigorbranding Well again, this will be fun casual tell stories. Enjoy it. It's all good. So I'm I'm ready when if Dan's ready if you're ready Robert yeah, we're good to go best all right. all right   01:24.43 Dan Costello Hi whenever you're ready I'm good Mike.   01:31.36 vigorbranding Hello everyone I am joined today by my good friend and our guest Dan Costello Dan is the Ceo of home run in pizza in the Chicago area now home run in pizza says a lot right there Dan You want to say hello and give us a little backstory.   01:46.66 Dan Costello Hi guys mike good to hear from me again. Yeah so home run in is a family owned pizza establishment in the Chicago area. We have 9 local restaurants including one that is a partnership in midway airport. We've been in business since nineteen business started in 1927 and pizza business started 1947 and we also along with the restaurants we have frozen pizzas. Ah, in across the country. So we're nationwide with various retailers like Albertson Safeway and they were regional with other retailers like Walmart and um and Kroger and then you know find ourselves in the southeast southwest and covering coast to coast. So. That's the core of what we do.   02:33.18 vigorbranding Yeah, it's it's ah it's it's an amazing story and so it's super near and dear to me, not not only your friend but with Vigor we're we're obviously really passionate about restaurants and restaurant brands. But. Quench another company we own and have started. It's all cpg so you cover both worlds. So this is really super intriguing and as I said near and dear to my heart. But let's talk about how did you get started? Yeah, ah, you're a bus boy at age 13 you would talk a little bit about the the early days of of Dan's career   03:00.41 Dan Costello Sure, um, so yeah, so I think I said a fourth generation. So it's family business so we grew up. We grew up in it. We were encouraged especially very early to come into the business. So I you know I started when I when I was 13 I started. As a bus boy at our original restaurant on thirty first street on the on the southwest side of Chicago there store still there. It's doing really well so grew up on the restaurant side of the business. So that's back in the oh there's probably back around 1984 1985 and my uncle who unfortunately no longer is with us. That's when he really started making a big push to try to take our restaurant product into the frozen ah retail section of the grocery stores. So. He was kind of the driving force behind that 1987 he built our first factory which is behind that original restaurant. Still there today. We still use it. We have a main facility now out in the suburbs of Chicago and Woodridge Illinois but that's ah you know that was kind of the the advent of the frozen pizza goes back. You know quite, it's grounded in the roots of our restaurants you know making par big pizzas for people cooking them halfway people taking them home. So my uncle is just kind of like we got to figure out how to how to do this on ah on a grocery type scale.   04:26.53 vigorbranding Very cool. So okay, it says on here. You're also sausage grinder now some would consider me a sausage grinder my role now but you can talk a little bit about that you started as a kid. You're a sausage grinder this is the sausage thing um from what I understand pepperoni is the number 1 topping in the United States except for.   04:32.37 Dan Costello That's a question.   04:43.31 vigorbranding In Chicago.   04:44.18 Dan Costello Chicago Midwest maybe Milwaukee too I'd have to check with the people there but we know in Chicago the number one pizza dock and sausage. It's it's ah yeah, it dates back I mean it's his historical I mean we just got a lot of ah eastern european that settled here they they went with sausage. So um.   04:48.88 vigorbranding Yeah, yeah.   05:01.70 Dan Costello Yeah I mean we did everything from Scratch. We'd make our dough. You know we blended our sauce and we would one of the jobs I had as a teenager which was Definite. Weve had a butcher shop I worked in the butcher Shop. We'd get In. We'd get in pork and we'd have to take the bones out So and then we'd we. We'd cut it and then we'd. Grind it. So I Guess yeah, it's sausage Grinder. You know that was that was a job in the past.   05:25.88 vigorbranding So I love some of the the history of it I mean it was started in the restaurant I mean I think you told me the story and I've I've noticed it before I knew you would you know go round pizzas but somehow you guys decide to cut them up in little squares. Why why did you do that.   05:42.30 Dan Costello Yeah, so the history on that is you know so my grandfather got out of the war. Um, so nineteen circuit 1945 right and he gets comes back and he's looking for a job and he was you know he's a mechanic by trade.   05:59.10 Dan Costello But he couldn't find he couldn't get a job so he went to work from my motherin-law who owned a bar called the home run in and so he's working at the bar for you know a couple years and he had he he had come. Ah, you know he's from italy from bar italy so he has you know a version of pizza my grandmother encourages him to. Show it to my great grandmother so they start making it in the restaurant and giving it away to get people to come in to drink and um so what they did is they cut it into small tiny squares. That's why Chicago tavern pizzas is cut in squares this listen. You know from our perspective this is how it started for us because they needed it to fit on a cocktail napping. They didn't have plates. They didn't have China they they weren't a restaurant. They were a bar they were just trying to so they're just trying to get people to yeah have a little snack by another beer so that is why our pizzas are cut into. Tiny squares and a lot of the pizzas in Chicago because that's how it was introduced. It was introduced as this we're one of the first pizzas in Chicago we started in 1947 we believe that you know like there might have been another 1 or 2 competitors starting in 44 45 but that's how it came to be for us cocktail mac and head fit. Had to give it away.   07:16.19 vigorbranding That's fantastic. Can you tell tell me the story because again, it's such a cool history. So your Uncle's in the pizza shop talk about how you got into the cpg site the frozen pizza I mean that's like everyone's dream whoever makes or has a restaurant. Ah you know they want to do a dressing. They want to put it in the grocery stores everybody thinks it's. Easy to jump to cpg? How did it all start with you.   07:36.70 Dan Costello So I mean if you really go all the way back. It probably goes the story goes back to the 50 s for us where a customer comes into the restaurant. Um, so my uncle's young at this point and he's just probably hanging out and. The the gentleman comes in and he he wants a pizza and he wants it to bake bake it halfway he tells my grandfather so we call that par bake today you guys just like bake it halfway my grandfather was he said why? Why do you Why don't you want this cooked all way and the guys this was our first frozen customer he goes I want I take it home. I'm going to put it in my freezer my icebox right? and he goes I spend the summers up in Wisconsin so he goes I want you to make me a dozen so I have them for the summer up in Wisconsin and he goes and so our original frozen pizza was ten inches because a ten inch pizza would fit in an icebox because it wasn't freezers back then. So people had ice boxes so that I think my uncle saw that so then the sixty s come around and you know actually we had ah bartenders like hey why don't we make more of these and I'll on my way home I'll stop at the corner grocery store I'll drop them off. And then I'll see how many they sell and on my way back to work the next day I'll pick up the cash and how many they sold and I'll bring it back so that's even our first distributor was our bartender he would take the pizzas back to work. He'd walk him down of the corner grocery store pick him but pick up the cash the next day bring him back.   08:58.73 Dan Costello So my uncle's growing up in the 50 s and sixty s watching this and and restaurant expansion happens in the seventy s he's working on that and he he just has this just this vision that hey there's probably a better way to make these pizzas freeze them. And get him into the local grocery store so he really started investigating that probably in the 70 s and then in the eighty s he starts talking to the local groceries here which back then it was Dominic's and jewel jewels still here. Dominics is no longer here. Um, but those were the 2 big grocery brands.   09:26.98 vigorbranding Straight.   09:34.97 Dan Costello And he starts he starts selling them and he's then starts figuring out how to make it and the only way he could he knew how to make it was to make it like we made in the restaurant which was to make it in this parb bake format. So he'd make them in the restaurant. He'd put them in the oven. He'd parb bake him he'd throw them in the freezer. He'd wrap him and then he'd start selling in the grocery store. But year over year he just tried to figure out how do I do this better How do I get automation in this. How do he so he had to learn this whole thing. So our our frozen pizza production facilities really model and mirror what we did in the restaurants all these years and my uncle would tell you today if he was still with us. He said the reason we make it like that is because that's the only way I knew how to do it. So yeah.   10:13.92 vigorbranding That's awesome. Yeah, and I was fortunate I was actually with you on a tour you gave us a tour and I was able to try it right there par baked and it was delicious then we actually compared went to the restaurant and compared a frozen to the restaurant pizza and I I say this because it's True. Um. Was almost as good and I mean almost as good which I think is says ah a lot. Everyone loves Pizza. You know I've got this terrible saying that that pizza's like sex. It's all good somes better than others right? So I Just think ah ah that that I was amazed how close and how good the frozen pie was and I mean I just was it was it was tremendous.   10:41.78 Dan Costello So let.   10:48.80 Dan Costello And the process real similar so he I give me like he had a very he had a very clear vision on how he wanted to do this and yeah, he spent a lot of years Bc you know equipment had to be developed over you know back in the 70 s and eighty s in order to do this and he was.   10:51.00 vigorbranding Um.   11:05.42 Dan Costello He was integral in working with people and saying this is what I needed to do? How can we do this and you know got us to where we are today. So it it positioned us really well and you know so we have a healthy restaurant brand and now we have a healthy Cpg brand and you know the restaurants really drive that brand awareness in the marketing side for the frozen pizza.   11:11.28 vigorbranding Meet.   11:24.17 Dan Costello That's what why? that's what makes us a little different than a lot of our competitors you know majority. You look at the competitors and in the freezer case. There's really only 1 or 2 that have restaurant background and roots of California pizza kitchens one and that's about it. You know you can find a couple regionals here and there. But.   11:36.74 vigorbranding In this.   11:41.72 Dan Costello There's not a lot of people who do both.   11:43.83 vigorbranding Right? And with all due respect to California Pizza shouldn't really come from California right? It just doesn't feel right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it doesn't feel right? Um, but I mean how but so talk about the the relationship between the restaurant and the frozen product. The cpg product.   11:46.28 Dan Costello I That now you yeah have me way. Yeah will be kind. We'll be kind right? so.   12:02.00 vigorbranding Ah, one drives the other the other drives the other I mean you know it's ah it's ah it's a neat thing because a lot of people have one and they want the other and somehow it's just kind of organically happened with you.   12:10.10 Dan Costello Yeah I mean again, it's it's the way that the business grew I mean we call it our flywheel now you know, really these restaurants you know we started in 1947 you know in today we feed we feed over two and a half million people a year out of our restaurants.   12:25.68 vigorbranding Well.   12:27.81 Dan Costello So You know for us, it's It's if if the most you know, Um, if the deepest level of connection with somebody is like is that type of taste experience. It's a really hard. It's a really difficult marketing um to to duplicate you know. With just pure dollars and say hey try Myself. We're actually feeding like our marketing is feeding people and having them talk about the product and enjoy the product and having create these great experiences at our restaurants which is why we do a lot of a why the restaurants allow us to be parts of the community. You know you know once you're in a restaurant. Yeah we can. We can.   12:47.40 vigorbranding No.   13:03.63 Dan Costello Work with your local lily we can talk to you you know with your school. We can. We can be part of the community which then gets people to understand our brand nor our brand trust our brand and then that trust we we know translates to when they're walking down the frozen ile grocery store. So the synergy there. A lot of people ask us like well doesn't the restaurants hurt the frozen with the frozen hurt the restaurants but we don't see it like that at all, we see it very very synergistically and I you know thankful that our our product translated from a restaurant into a cpg brand. Um. It's a hard thing to do and I know like you said like I've learned from you a lot of people. This is what everybody wants, but it's not an easy trick right? It's very difficult to pull off so I'm sure timing had some of 2 for us I mean we each Joe was an early adopter and moved down this early in the in the career and the life the life cycle of homer in.   13:46.62 vigorbranding So I.   14:00.81 Dan Costello So I'm sure that helped I think the fact that it's a good product. It's a really good product helps I think that we're dedicated and our teammates are dedicated to making it the way we do and to be parts of the community that helps so it's all these pieces have to come Together. You know so you can gain trust with the customer so that they'll they'll continue to invest in you. And continue to purchase that product So That's where it's um, that's how I see him working you know the the parts of our business they're they're complimentary and they both depend on each other.   14:23.73 vigorbranding Little.   14:29.68 vigorbranding Yeah, it's It's very I think it's a very pragmatic way to go about I think it's smart it just they just should feed literally no pun intended off of each other because they're both great brands and the the restaurant might have more history but because the history it allows that. That flywheel if you will to to capture the cpg side and again, yeah, then the product's great so you get the product in people's mouths and the rest is is History. You talk a lot about your uncle and obviously 4 generations of family owned and operated how important is family owned and operated for the brand.   15:06.39 Dan Costello I think it's I mean it's really important I mean we're very proud of it. Um I know the the my brother and my cousins that I work with there's a lot of pride I mean we grew up in it. So it means a lot to us. You know when we don't. Do a good job and we hear from our customers take it very seriously. Yeah I think you can you don't have to own something to you know to care for it that way. But I think it certainly doesn't hurt. You know that we're very invested in it. So it's important to what we do who we are. It's important to our teammates I think our teammates enjoy and like knowing that we're here and that we're involved that we're not absent owners I think that's a really important cultural aspect of a family business if you can be ah, a present owner. Think that makes that's meaningful to the people that are helping you build the thing you know we can't do this without our teammates and we got over 500 and um I kind of view it for us is that we owe it to them to be present and in the trenches with them as we can as we do this every day.   16:14.36 vigorbranding Very cool I mean you know people always say when you own restaurants and restaurants are volaging in my family and it's like you've got to be there right? And then you know couple that with a brand you know when I put my I'll say my marketing hat on a brand is a promise right. And you know, many times an's hired to create that story or try and build that authenticity and what's beautiful about what you have is. It's already baked in I mean again, just right there family owned and operated everyone Cares. It started with the restaurants. There's a story a history a reason for being. And then it just kind of goes from there. It's just so really a natural ah concept and it's It's just it's just Wonderful. We talk a lot you know about controlled expansion for any brand. Um, what are some of the mistakes that you've seen pizza franchises or chains making they're popping up everywhere. Um, when expanding it to say new markets Or. Maybe a new way of doing the same thing or new Concepts and and maybe hit a little bit about what what are your thoughts on expansion I Mean do you have anything that you're looking forward to in the future. Is there anything that you have in back your mind or anything you want to share.   17:18.72 Dan Costello Yeah I mean I think you know we've made plenty of mistakes I mean some of it is. It's you know the the world's changing and how people are using restaurants is changing. So I think you have to be in tune with that like I'm not We're not that interested in open up the 250 see pizzeria anymore like we did back in the 80 s and 90 s right. Have to pay attention to that and sometimes you're a little slow to to identify that trend I mean even though it's been coming for a long time like we're recognizing now for us to grow our restaurants. Um, you know we have to do it differently than what we than where we came from I think you know overall I've always been confused. When I talk to people that are in there the the restaurants side of the business particular and they tell me they're going to a new market and they're gonna open up 50 stores and I'm like that's great, but like like in 2 years or 3 years and like but how do you know? they're gonna work like you know for us, we probably take a much. This might be part of our company culture and history I mean look we've been in business since you know the 1947 started making pizzas and then actually the bar business goes back to 1927 so I just will probably take more of a cautious approach like open up, you know 1 to 3 stores and how they work.   18:19.56 vigorbranding I purpose.   18:32.64 Dan Costello Yeah, how how you doing I Just I've always been fascinated people open up. But again, it's a it's the it's probably most of these are franchise systems are looking old. They have different. They have different desired results than we do and different desired outcomes right? So you know our desired results is when we go to a new market is.   18:38.35 vigorbranding Yeah, yeah.   18:50.88 Dan Costello Is this restaurant going to synergistically support and facilitate growing our frozen Cpg brand and if it doesn't do we need to do it. You know so we have those type of conversations all time because you know the frozen the frozen brand's growing.   18:59.67 vigorbranding Um, right.   19:08.21 Dan Costello And the restaurants we've been a little bit more stable in the last couple of years just trying to get through this pandemic and get through hiring but we're looking at some opportunities where we think we can go to other marketplaces outside of Chicago and do the same thing we did in Chicago by tying our frozen business in our restaurants together.   19:24.87 vigorbranding Love it.   19:27.19 Dan Costello The the biggest kind of the biggest thing we want accomplish is build I Like how you said it earlier a few minutes ago that you know Brand is a promise right? and so that's what we want to do we want to make sure that our brand is building trust with our consumers right? It's a promise to them. So for both the restaurant and the cpg side. So I Think. You know with expansion too like what are you gonna do differently what?? What's the value proposition for people and what value are you going to serve for them and we want to just be in that Position. We're one one of the only pizza brands that we can help you whether you want to come out or you want to stay home or can be there for you right.   19:59.88 vigorbranding And you nailed it to I obviously your goal is not to slap a sign up in every town in America and just ah pump stuff out. It's not a franchise. It's not ah, it's not you know these are company-owned stores for lack of a better word and.   20:03.60 Dan Costello Somebody else doing that.   20:17.95 vigorbranding And I Also think it's really really smart How you look them out as as Marketing. Ah how how they play off each other for the frozen side I think that's ah, a really smart way to go about it. I Love that concept. It just makes to me. It makes all the sense in the world. Um, so okay, I'm going to ask you some a couple questions here and hopefully these these answers don't get you in any trouble. So. There's very very difficult high level pizza questions. Okay pineapple and pizza. Yes, or no all right.   20:36.19 Dan Costello 5   20:43.55 Dan Costello Now Warm pineapple This is gross I'm sorry yeah.   20:49.49 vigorbranding Ah, ah feels feels a little California doesn't it all right dipping pizza and ranch dressing. Yes or no I love it. That's right thoughts on white pizza. Okay.   20:55.21 Dan Costello Now is the cross isn't any good. Yeah, yeah.   21:07.39 vigorbranding Deep dish pizza is that still pizza tough one.   21:13.12 Dan Costello Yeah, sure I think so I'm from Chicago deep dish pizza's pizza. Yeah yeah, yeah, ah, 2 3 times a week   21:13.53 vigorbranding Yeah I was gonna say you could alienate some locals if that one that's a little tough and how often do you eat pizza. Nice and and show he's on pizza you know is that something? Yes, yeah.   21:28.50 Dan Costello Not for me, It's not for me. Yeah, not a lot of people in our market. Do it? Um, but yeah, we we have a little bit of it. But this not much I don't see a lot of it in our stores.   21:39.80 vigorbranding Yeah I think I was like ah more of a big East Coast thing and I felt like it was ah you know, maybe a whole generation ago I remember doing it I remember hearing about it I actually ordered one one time and I love pisa it like 1 of my favorite things in the world was open a box of fresh fresh pie and I did it 1 time and with anov I thought this week exciting. Want to try this. Was god forsaken and I actually like ancho he so I was like no way ever again. Never again. So.   22:00.35 Dan Costello Yeah I just I don't see it a lot I'm not seen it I'm not seeing it come up at that much I mean even when I was you know working in the restaurants every single day small percentage. Yeah.   22:13.43 vigorbranding That's funny all right? So my very last question I'm gonna actually take pizzes off the board here I don't think he should be allowed to say that or answered with that answer. But last question if you had 1 final meal. What would you eat where and why.   22:29.14 Dan Costello Oh man, what would I eat where and why? um, she's I've had that's probably a question I think if you ask me I it probably changes based on my time of year my mood and whatnot. But I think at the end of the day. Unk go with a steak right? You know I'm gonna go with the classic of you know, great steak and steak and fries right? not working I have that I'm not a hundred percent sure we got a lot of choices in Chicago. Um.   22:47.22 vigorbranding This is.   22:54.12 vigorbranding Nice there you go.   23:02.20 vigorbranding Open.   23:02.74 Dan Costello Gibson's comes to mind is one of those a place that just never disappoints. There's this place ah down the city called the vets beef just fantastic. Great owner operator there. So I think those would be a couple things that pop in my head about where I might want to spend a last meal soly I don't have to do that anytime soon.   23:20.49 vigorbranding I Hope not I hope not any last things anything else you want to say anything you want to leave us with.   23:21.36 Dan Costello Night map. Yeah.   23:29.60 Dan Costello Ah, well one and this is fun then really appreciate you having me on it. This is I think for anybody listen this first time ever been on podcast. Hopefully I did. Okay so yeah.   23:35.51 vigorbranding He did. It was fantastic I thought it was great and I I Love you know you one of my favorite people and I always enjoy talking to you So it's a layup right? It's just easy.   23:43.49 Dan Costello Yeah, this was a lot of fun. But yeah I to anybody listen keep going out to eat right? Restaurants and grory stores need you. So yeah, we'd love to keep love to keep serving it. You got Mike.   23:51.48 vigorbranding It's right, very cool. Fantastic Dan. Thank you so much. It was a pleasure.

Joseph is the former host of Forktales and is currently working as the VP of Digital Experience for 3 Owl. He’s also the author of “Stop Blasting My Mama” (a book about effective email marketing) and “The Bullhearted Brand: Building Bullish Restaurant Brands That Charge Ahead of the Herd.” Joseph’s book, “Stop Blasting My Mama,” tackles the topic of email marketing and how modern marketing is overrun with overly aggressive terms – like blast and campaign – to describe what should be a friendly and civil interaction with consumers. Consumers today have more power today and can ignore brands – or cancel brands – whenever they want to. Technology is changing the restaurant industry and restaurants need to get onboard with that technological evolution or risk being left behind. QUOTES “One day we’ll be able to do a podcast without mentioning the pandemic. Today is not that day.” (Joseph) “I always cringe when I hear the words ‘e-blast’ or things like that because it’s antithetical to behaviors of humans in general. Nobody is walking around saying ‘Gosh, I really hope I get blasted today.’” (Joseph) “I like to think of this world that we’re in as one big party. If you walked into that party alone and you said at top of your lungs, ‘Hey everyone, I just want you to know that I’m really cool.” You’re immediately not and you’re going to have a hard time convincing everyone that you are.” (Joseph) “Restaurants are the backbone of every single economy – from micro local to federal. If you lose restaurants in the city center, you’ve lost the city center.” (Joseph) “The first victims of AI are the ones who phone it in. The mediocre hamburger won’t be there anymore.” (Joseph) “Bro, we are not eating bugs. It’s not happening. Unless there’s some sort of nuclear holocaust, Americans are not eating bugs.” (Joseph) TRANSCRIPT 00:01.20 vigorbranding Well hey there um some of you watching this may be a little confused right now usually ah Joseph is on ah on the left side of your screen and for those that who are watching ah this podcast. The reason he's on the right side is because he's a guest a guest today. And I was honored to be 1 of Joseph's guests way back when um, the reason we've switched sides is Joseph has accepted another position. He's no longer with vigor or the provone marketing group but he's off into some wonderful new things that he's going to talk to us about and we're excited to to catch up with Joseph. Um. For those don't know my name is Michael Pavone I'm the Ceo of the provevone group and we have several different agencies in our holding company and we're excited to talk to Joseph. He's created 67 fantastic episodes and we're going to hit a little bit of your. History the the the good old days. Ask you some questions and just just find out what you're up to. 00:55.28 Joseph Szala Awesome. It's great to be here. 01:00.95 vigorbranding Ah, since you're in your house. It probably is always great to be there. But anyway, all right? So ah, let's see let's it's talk. Let's talk about a little bit. What have you been up to talk about your career which you're heading to now and what you're excited about as far as the restaurant industry and technology. 01:04.39 Joseph Szala That's right. 01:17.37 Joseph Szala Yeah, yeah, so um, as you said I forayed out of the advertising and marketing world into more tech forward focus and space I'm currently vice president of digital experience at a transformation company There's not much detail I can say but. We'll we'll say that we're building an experience management system for restaurant brands. Um, you know what? What really got me excited about the tech space is how much this industry is going through a breakneck speed digital transformation. Um. one day we'll be able to do a podcast where we don't mention the pandemic today's not that day. Um, the pandemic really spurred on any mules that were out there and now everyone is realizing that tech is not the way of the future. It's now and um, part of that is how how do we get people. Ah, through ordering faster quicker keep them happy. How do we pull some of that share of wallet away from third -party delivery and then more importantly, how do we make sure that brand teams have access to the tools so they can um pivot and make pivots in real-time all through a singular. Portal that brings together an average of 5 to 8 different systems. So very nerdy stuff but that's the stuff that I get excited about. 02:39.70 vigorbranding It sounds like you have the secret sauce. It's awesome I Mean you're right I mean obviously the whole world's Changed. You see these lines that drivethroughs the delivery services you see the the clients trying to get their share back because these delivery services have come out and taken you know their hands in their pocket and it's really been. Ah. Ah, it's It's amazing how that how fast that happened It's certainly the pandemic exacerbated it. So it's It's kind of ah, kind of interesting to watch and I'll be great to watch you and what you're doing as the time moves On. Um, Okay, so let's jump back a little bit. Ah you don't like blasting people with emails. Ah, you want to talk about that. 03:15.85 Joseph Szala I don't like blessing people in general I think it's a broader what which started as sort of um, a tongue and cheek thing or not a tonguein cheek thing but like 1 moment I always cringe when I hear the words eblast or anything like that because it's inethetical to. Behaviors of humans in general. Nobody's walking around saying gosh I really hope a brand would blast me today. Um, and it sort of harkens to like the old school mentality of advertising and marketing when I say old school I mean like way back in the day where we were just doing billboards and magazine ads where it was push push push push push. Well. The the people have the power they have the power of no no longer just turning the dial as we used to say in the in the tv days um or flipping the page they have the power to completely ignore a brand and shut them out and even more so they have the brand the power to cancel a brand if they get too aggressive and so. Blast then as I pondered it more became ah almost a um I want to say rallying cry but it's going to be more the same There's just a lot of violent terminology in our industry and it's kind of sad because we're not at war with people. Um, we're we're looking to befriend and hopefully get some people to fall in love with our our clients. Um no matter what side of the creative or um, consulting table. You're on the goal is to get them to love the brand and you're not going to do that. 04:47.20 Joseph Szala By blasting them or launching a campaign another war term. Um, it's it's more How do you become friends and and I like to think of this world that we're in as as 1 big party and if you walked into that party alone. And you just at the top of your lungs said hey everyone I just want you to know that I'm really cool. You're immediately not and you're going to have a really hard time convincing anyone that you are after that moment yet. That's how we approach things today we meaning the collective creative advertising industry. Um, and so that really has kind of settled into maybe more of a um personal purpose to 1 identify better terminology. Um, for all these various things. Um, that is a little more in line with what we're actually trying to do and and that's that's why I hate the word blast. 05:50.95 vigorbranding That's fantastic. Um, you also wrote a book. Do you want to talk a little bit about that. 05:53.98 Joseph Szala Yeah, 2 books. So the first book is stop blasting my mama which is essentially building off of that whole line of thinking. It's specifically about emails. But I think maybe one day in the near future. It might get expanded into general messaging marketing theory who knows. 05:57.80 vigorbranding Right. 06:13.56 Joseph Szala Um, but what I would call my greatest achievement in in the literary sense to date or not literary because it is nonfiction. But um, it's called the bullhearted brand which is evocative of more I would say a general thinking and approach to how brands are built. Ah, fostered grown encouraged all the words and then of course marketed and all that other stuff and so the idea is um, boiled down into a bunch of different I would say 10 different um anecdotes that then. Unfurl into Theory. Um I've read a lot I've done a lot and this just happens to be the culmination of all my knowledge at the time and it's something I'm pretty proud of. 07:02.60 vigorbranding Very cool and you should be now speaking of proud I know you did 67 episodes this is my first. What's your advice I mean yeah obviously I'm not as good looking as you so strike one now where do we go from here I mean like what do I do? How give me some advice on. 07:13.58 Joseph Szala Okay, yeah. 07:20.24 vigorbranding And how to be an engaging podcaster or. 07:22.15 Joseph Szala Yeah, So what's good is you have a fantastic history of being able to speak So You're a pretty good Order. So when I when I talk to like a novice or someone who's looking to start I would say the hardest thing that you're going to have to do is get rid of the ums and the Us and the other filler words. Um, you're pretty good at that and so that that doesn't need to be delved into further. Um I think it's yeah and I just said um, too. Yeah, so. 07:45.27 vigorbranding But now that you put that in my head. 07:53.97 Joseph Szala What? Ah, That's usually the toughest thing for people to do. It seems like we're very uncomfortable with silence and pauses. But you start to get really used to them and it becomes an empowering moment I think is when you just stop and let the silence be what it is um on the other hand. I Think one of the other good things is just letting the guest talk but that actually starts not with the host it starts with the production team and making sure that the kind of guests that are brought on have something valuable to say so when when a guest is rambling on I might be doing that Now. It's really easy to want to jump in. 08:23.10 vigorbranding Very cool. 08:30.93 Joseph Szala Um, but when a guest has something really powerful to say it's a lot easier to sit back and let them go. 08:33.75 vigorbranding Fantastic. So the thing second thing I learned is it's all the the production team's fault if it's not good. Perfect well done. That's great. That's that's that's take home value. That's take home value. Fantastic. So so I want to ask another question on your on on the the blog. 08:42.47 Joseph Szala Um, that's right, Yeah, you're the talent you you could just point the finger. That's okay. 08:53.43 vigorbranding Or the blog I'm sorry the the podcast 67 episodes which one was your favorite. 08:58.98 Joseph Szala Ah, man it's such like God is so hard to say it's It's like when you have friends or or kids or or in your dating life. It's like every one of them was different and every one of them was amazing and terrible at the same time. Ah. 09:12.22 Joseph Szala No I think there was generally some great insights coming from people I was really impressed with it's really hard to to keep them apart. Um Carl oresburn which I think his episode should launch soon and Meredith Sandlin um they're just so brilliant and they're at the absolute forefront a digital transformation from a hardware and software side. Um, you know early, you mentioned a lot of the transformation that's happened on the front end like my drivethroughs and my and my lines and everything it's easy for people to ah, not know. Unless they were in the industry and forget if they are no longer in the industry. There's an entire backoffice engine behind the scenes that have to make stuff work. So I mean they're in the nitty gritty especially Marilyn or Meredith. She's absolutely crushing it so much insight and it was. 09:48.13 vigorbranding Sure. 09:59.28 Joseph Szala Both of those episodes were episodes where I wish I could have had more of a Joe Rogan format where it would have been three or four hours long um surprising was ah chef Scott Conant one I was surprised that he agreed to come on so that was awesome. Um, for those that don't know he's on. Tv Networks he's very well-known. But what's so surprising is he his approach his demeanor his intelligence. Um, and just him it was just a really really good talk and one of my prouder moments as well. 10:32.96 vigorbranding Very cool I mean it's It's ah it's interesting to me as you know obviously I've seen podcasts and doing this now being on this side is really ah, really interesting because it is all about the the guest and it's what they have to bring and I sit back and I ask myself too like what do people want to hear. What are they going to want to see and I'm thinking about people that have just great stories entrepreneurs people that have built things from nothing people that have just really you know taken a category if you will and expanded on it that that kind of stuff that excites me I don't know if that's something that that everybody else would would would glom onto I mean I know the. Technology I mean obviously all about food and beverage and restaurants and all that but the technology is super important. It's changing a light speed. Did you you spent most of the time with the technology side of things in the restaurants or did you find that it just hearing people's personal stories about how they got involved is that do you think that's intriguing to guess. 11:22.94 Joseph Szala Yeah I think it is I mean the reason why I'm so passionate about restaurants is they are the backbone of every single economy from micro-local the wholeway to federal and I think people forget that and that includes franchise systems and franchisees. If you lose restaurants in a city center. You've lost the city center. Um, it happened I would say decades ago. Ah, for instance down the street from Harrisburg in York you know York was a ghost town. What brings people back food restaurants. Do. 11:54.67 vigorbranding Um, yeah, yeah. 11:57.28 Joseph Szala Good restaurants and then comes the retail and then comes the businesses because they want their people to be in a bustling location with lots to do and then comes the residences people want to live there but without the restaurants you get none of that. Um, and so that to me is such a powerful thing and. 12:09.30 vigorbranding Ah, right. 12:16.90 Joseph Szala I Think in that vein the stories of how people got into that powerful industry are always interesting I think founders. How did you found the concept and grow it is another one. Everyone wants the secret sauce yet? No one wants to realize that there is no secret sauce. 12:31.58 vigorbranding Right? yeah. 12:34.66 Joseph Szala That the secret sauce from 1980 s is not the secret sauce from today. Um, and that I think how you know how how things are evolving today and how do these leaders continue to grapple wrestle pin down and ultimately win in an ever-changing environment with all these. Shifts that seem to have accelerated so quickly after the the big p. 13:01.76 vigorbranding That's Good. So what? What do you? Think's next for restaurants I mean the technology you're working on obviously is exciting. Ah, we do marketing of restaurants I mean I'm sure we'll continue to work together in the future. What What do you see as ah. I Don't know what's next. What do? What do you think is going to be the the new thing or the thing that we have to really understand. 13:22.37 Joseph Szala Yeah I think some of it is aligned with every other industry mediocrity has no place any longer. There's no place for it Ai the first victims of Ai are going to be those that phone it in so your mediocre hamburger. It won't be there anymore or if it is it's going to be replaced by. Ah. 13:31.65 vigorbranding He. 13:39.59 Joseph Szala By robotics and ai in in general I know it's a really big 2 letters but um, at some point I think we'll also see a complete shift away from the mindless person punching keys on ah you know on a register. And instead becoming more of a helpful entity to help people actually order from kiosks you kind of see it happening in retail already. Especially if you've used the self-checkout at grocery stores or or um, you know like Target or something there are people there whose job is to just help. 14:09.66 vigorbranding M. 14:15.38 vigorbranding Yeah, yeah. 14:16.92 Joseph Szala Make sure you know what you're doing make sure you're able to get through I think we're there especially for qsr restaurants. Um, there are restaurants out there that don't even have those people they just have cubbies and there's a person that backed that makes the food puts them in the cubby just like the old automat. It's been rejuvenated and. 14:27.25 vigorbranding Oh. 14:36.31 Joseph Szala There is a time and place where and I think we're we're at both right now. Full service I think you're going to see a divide. You're going to see a bigger schism between casual dining and fine dining where fine dining gets even higher touch with people who actually not only know the wine menu. But actually know the nuances of the wine If. That's an option at this particular fake restaurant that are very deeply integrated and are very high touch and most of us have had that experience and when you go to that and then you go to like a sort of fine dining or just full service. Man. 15:04.63 vigorbranding Okay. 15:12.67 Joseph Szala That's just going to get so much bigger whereas casual dining I think will become more tech enabled to where you can be more self-service but still have that sitdown moment and then there's the great frontiers of Self-d delivery or self-driving vehicles and what that means for delivery. Um, can I sit in my. Vehicle of the future and order directly from my screen that's in the car without getting in an accident of course. Um and then what does virtual Worlds and the metaverse start to look like um in general and that's where I start to get really weird with you know, ah, 3 D printed food and things like that. But. 15:34.30 vigorbranding Oh. 15:48.74 vigorbranding You. 15:50.90 Joseph Szala Everything that sounds insane today next year probably won't be insane at all. 15:54.12 vigorbranding Yeah, very interesting How about like you you spent a lot of your time branding and helping create Concepts. What do you see? I mean there's There's so many out there. I Mean do we have too many.. What do? What do you think is going to happen where is there a genre that you think is going to be prevalent or or place that people are going to head to I mean I don't think we need another burger joint right? I mean there's just so many burger joints right? So What do you?? What do you think?? What do you think from branding standpoint what's going to be What's What's next. 16:17.27 Joseph Szala Um. 16:23.86 Joseph Szala Yeah I feel like if you ask any anyone of the pundits that talk about Trends and and what's coming they're they're always going to jump to bugs like I swear every year I see a food Trends report. Not um, not on the retail side but maybe on the retail side but when I'm looking at restaurant stuff. It's like and bugs. Bro We are not eating bugs. It's not happening unless there's like some sort of nuclear holocaust like we're just Americans specifically will not be eating Bugs. Um, but I think I think outside of that there are a number of paths that. 16:45.40 vigorbranding Yeah, yeah, yeah. 16:59.20 Joseph Szala That can happen for concepts I think exploring robotics exploring alternative for wall experiences like I know some folks who are embracing all outdoor where the food is cooked outdoors. Everything's outdoors. Um. Very gorilla very interesting to me I don't know if it would have a su but as far as trending we just I think finished up the chicken sandwich wars um I think taco wars are bubbling. Um you know and and we're seeing it Taco Johns for instance, just released their. Ah. 17:27.16 vigorbranding O. 17:35.27 Joseph Szala Trademark of Taco tuesday along with a call to action from Taco Bell to do something charitable when they use it and donate Taco Bell ignored it completely. But we'll see if they embrace it? Um, but the fast food tacos are something that I would definitely keep my eye on. And then I think we're still looking for what's that next american food staple. You know we have tacos pizza. We have hamburgers like you said what else you know what? what else are we going to embrace. 17:56.33 vigorbranding Who. 18:05.82 vigorbranding Yeah, yeah, you know it's funny I had this idea one of my dreams was ah I wanted to create my own restaurant franchise. So my idea which was a terrible one by the way is I wanted to buy a location near every like single a double a triple a ballpark right. And I wanted to call it baseball hot dogs and apple pie and I just wanted to sell hot dogs and have different hot dogs on the menu named after the players tied into the players and then different like Apple pies like that's it and a draft beer so you can have it outside the ballpark. It would be a sports bar and everything else I just thought it had enough of a niche and I always wanted to create that business I just thought it would be the most fun thing and anyway. 18:24.37 Joseph Szala Um. 18:30.40 Joseph Szala Yep. 18:43.29 Joseph Szala Yeah, it's probably why you still have money? yeah. 18:43.82 vigorbranding I never did it but maybe one day and it probably fail. Yeah, exactly exactly it'd probably fail. So yeah I know I know how to stay in my lane. Ah all right? So so great I mean this has been fantastic now we going to go down through memory lane a little bit here. Ah. 18:50.96 Joseph Szala Right. 18:59.68 Joseph Szala Ah. 18:59.87 vigorbranding And ask you some questions we're going to test you on your knowledge of your guests and ah boy I hope no one ever does this to me. Ah, and we're and and I'll remember my first guess I'm good I got that one down so that's 3 things I got nailed down from this this interview. Um, who was your first. Forktails guest. 19:19.50 Joseph Szala Oh yeah, so it's funny. Ah, the first forktales guest was my friend sam slaughter he was also a copywriter at vigor at the time to known for bathing with a bunch of cheese balls. 19:25.71 vigorbranding It's correct. Oh. We We won't dig into that any deeper. But anyway, ah, ah, all right? So which guests did you have on the show more than once. Yes, very good, Very good. 19:34.86 Joseph Szala Um, listen to the episode. 19:44.15 Joseph Szala Justin Bartek yeah 19:49.15 vigorbranding All right? Let's see here which guest is described in his episode as let's see here lover of seafood and honesty. 20:00.10 Joseph Szala That is chef Andrew gruel. 20:06.80 vigorbranding And you're nailing them here. You might might have someone give you the answers ah finish this quote from your interview with Meredith Sandland if someone comes here and tries to take my blank. It's going to get really ugly very good. 20:19.42 Joseph Szala My gas stove I stand by that. 20:23.50 vigorbranding Ah, good. Ah all right? which guest beat Bobby Flay 20:32.66 Joseph Szala Ah, Kenny Gilbert right yeah oh man, best chicken sandwiches man if you're ever in Jacksonville chicken sandwiches and champagne. That's all you need to know. 20:35.12 vigorbranding That's correct. Yes, it is very good. Yeah, nice, nice sounds like a perfect combo all right, which guest was born and raised in Hawaii and is now a chef in Denver very good, very good. 20:51.55 Joseph Szala Ah, Chef Choy Guard Yeah, all about that Aloha ohanna. 20:59.80 vigorbranding And which guest said this is said my job as ah as lead creative is to give everyone creative whiplash. You never know where we're going to do next. 21:07.76 Joseph Szala That is the guy from liquid death whose name I'm blanking on Andrew Pearson there it is yep. 21:14.55 vigorbranding Andrew Pearson yep very good and the the folks of liquid death are killing it no pun intended. So right finish this quote from you in your interview with Lauren Fernandez 21:22.62 Joseph Szala Um, yeah. 21:29.75 vigorbranding You can tell how well a restaurant is managed if you just look at the. 21:35.38 Joseph Szala God landscaping now. 21:40.14 vigorbranding You know what? The only thing they wrote down was blank. So I can't answer it. The only one I don't have an answer on you don't have an answer on how about the bathrooms I would say the bathrooms. 21:48.40 Joseph Szala Yeah, it could be bathrooms for sure landscaping. Oddly enough is one and then I would say the happiness of the employees but they may all be wrong. 22:00.36 vigorbranding Um, we'll put all 3 down all right? Oh no, it's here the vents. 22:05.92 Joseph Szala Oh God The vents. Yes, oh next time you're at a restaurant either do or don't just look up at the air events man. Oh how can I forget that. 22:13.16 vigorbranding Yeah, we're all looking we're we're all looking around my office now at the air events but a bit aren they're okay, no, no yeah. 22:20.26 Joseph Szala Well, the good news is you're not making food but there's something pretty disgusting if you're making food and those air vens are just just C clopped full of old grease and the. 22:26.65 vigorbranding Ah, yeah, that's funny which which guest was described in her episode title as 1 woman economic engine. 22:36.81 Joseph Szala Oh that is Adena Ana Bio she's absolutely wonderful. 22:43.10 vigorbranding Yep, very cool finish this quote from you in your interview with Zach Anderson whenever I have a bad day I think to myself at least I'm not. 22:57.46 Joseph Szala Oh god yeah least I'm not working on 1 again. Um, at least I'm not mopping the floor is that what that isn't it. Oh I'm blanking on that one. 22:59.72 vigorbranding Ties into restaurants. 23:10.51 vigorbranding Know it's It's ah it's honestly it's how I started my career. It's busing tables. 23:17.30 Joseph Szala Busing tables. Yeah dude Oh God Although if we ever wanted to know the key to stopping time. That's it You can literally stop time by either planks doing planks or busing tables. 23:27.49 vigorbranding Yeah, yeah, you know I will say though in in all joking side I got one heck of an education from busing tables I worked in a restaurant called hobarts with a gentleman by the name of Hobart Umberger Hobart was this chef. He had a restaurant that sold a lot of quantity food was called ah it was called ummmies in Hershey and he wanted to do. He's got older. He just wanted to do whatever he wanted to do he wanted to do his thing so as the chef he opened up hobarts named after him white tablec cloth. He made maybe five things a night didn't care if you liked it or not and that's what he made. And was as simple as that but he taught me everything I won't get into what he called me as a nickname I think he actually liked me but I can't say to anybody what he called me. But anyway I digress he taught me how to pour ah mixed drinks because I'd have to make him mixed drinks at the end of his night. 24:04.58 Joseph Szala Yeah. 24:19.30 vigorbranding He basically taught me everything I knew about food and wine I got an incredible education at age I think it was 14 like I need to worry about wine at 14 and than anybody in my family and most any well all my friends you know, just because Hobart would teach me and it was ah was actually pretty cool. In fact. Ah, 1 thing that was kind of neat was ah he would go in at three o'clock in the afternoon to make his coconut cream emirata pie and no one was allowed in a building and go ah gourmet magazine ah begged him begged him for his recipe and he would never give it to him so he died with it. It was kind of interesting thing. They'd write him. Letters. 24:38.76 Joseph Szala And. 24:51.54 vigorbranding Because a lot of prominent people that came through hershey always ate. There was the best restaurant in Hershey and people would write letters to the magazine and so they kept begging him for this anyway, kind of a neat thing. But yeah, it was cool and I really did truly get a phenomenal education from that from busing tables and working in that restaurant business all right? so. 24:58.90 Joseph Szala I Love that. 25:06.56 Joseph Szala Um, well I think that's a testament to to the restaurant industry in general, not not to diverge too much. But again not only is it the economic backbone of every every locale. Um, but it's a hell of a way to get a hard knocks education that is unforgettable. No matter where you go after that I mean you're. You're you're the Principal partner of a very large advertising conglomerate I'd be willing to bet that your your your travel to that layer would have been a little bit more difficult had you not been in the trenches at that at that location. 25:37.82 vigorbranding Ah, yeah, look in ah in a restaurant you learn how to hustle you learn how to deal with issues as they pop up because that's what they do, they just pop up and you get to deal with customers and you make everyone happy. So you you learn a lot about yourself. Ah. You don't have 5 layers of folks around you to protect you per se and it's just ah, really kind of an interesting kind of dynamic and you're just thrown into it especially when you're young I've always wanted my kids to work in a restaurant and also somehow do sales I don't care if you're selling girl scout cookies. 25:56.11 Joseph Szala Okay. 26:07.82 Joseph Szala Ah. 26:09.34 vigorbranding Or newspapers I mean I'm now I'm really dating myself here but whatever it would be that you're selling just a sales job. Huge huge education that you don't even know you're getting that you don't even know you getting So anyway, um you had a great thing at the end of every one of your podcasts. You would ask the same questions and I want to continue that tradition. 26:14.76 Joseph Szala Absolutely yep. 26:28.51 vigorbranding Ah, so you have one last meal. What do you eat and why. 26:34.47 Joseph Szala Yeah, so for those that have ever listened to all of them back to-back which is literally nobody except for me I've answered it and I thought about this again because I did know this question was coming. It hasn't changed. Um I would have a Thanksgiving dinner. Absolutely hands down. Um, it's my favorite meal and I have the unique situation where I know that that's what I would choose because there was a time in my life where I thought I was having my last dinner and um, it was before yeah I mean good good good perspective um 26:52.12 vigorbranding That's it. Thanks Jimmy. 27:02.83 vigorbranding Nice, Well not nice, but right. 27:10.58 Joseph Szala You know I was going to have heart I had heart surgery. So although it was fairly so you know safe. It's still heart surgery you know and so I was like this very well could be the last mail Thanksgiving dinner man. Absolutely. 27:16.67 vigorbranding Sure really. Wow now I got a side question would it be just the meal itself because you love like the turkey and the gravy by yourself. Are you talking Thanksgiving dinner with everybody that you normally have a Thanksgiving dinner with and and hopefully none of your family's going to watch us to know the real answer. So. 27:31.95 Joseph Szala Um, to stay. Yeah, Absolutely um, I'd be I'd be selective with who I broke bread with because there's some family members that I love them because they're family but my God I would not want to have my last meal with them. And I think that's everyone. But for the food sake I could eat alone and be happy for the sake of the moment I Absolutely would love my family to be there. 28:00.95 vigorbranding Fantastic Speaking of family you have some ah big news. We love to talk about that. 28:03.36 Joseph Szala Yeah, sure yeah number 2 our second baby is on the way evelyn our first is about to turn ten months at this time of this recording and baby boy will be here by the end of the year and we're ah, really excited and honored and. 28:17.68 vigorbranding Fantastic. Are you gonna be the oldest father in the elementary school. 28:21.98 Joseph Szala Praying for Health and happiness. You know Absolutely I'm going to be in there with a walker. Yeah. 28:29.42 vigorbranding Ah, that's awesome Joe so I've known you for a long time and I'm happy for you I'm proud of you and I'm congratulations. That's wonderful. Wonderful. 28:35.46 Joseph Szala Absolutely well I'll drop one more piece of news that might get you excited before this is all over in case, you haven't heard Atlanta has finally been honored by being accepted into consideration for Michelin stars. So we were all. 28:48.93 vigorbranding Nice. 28:52.93 Joseph Szala Everyone in the food community here in this city. We're all, um, hoping and excited to see if one of our many fantastic restaurants will be graced with star stars. Whatever it may be so next time you come down to the city. Hopefully you'll you'll have that option. 29:06.41 vigorbranding very cool. very cool yeah yeah I'll be down in a couple couple of weeks I'm gonna watch a Braves Phillies game. So looking forward to that and I heard something in the background some'm cheering I think it was are yelling somebody was ah their baby I think was excited about the Michelin star. So that's awesome. 29:19.53 Joseph Szala Yeah, yeah, evelyn it's perfect. 29:22.54 vigorbranding But's awesome. Ah fantastic. Well, it's thank you so much for this. It's been great. It's always good catching up with you and I I know we'll stay in touch. 29:28.32 Joseph Szala Absolutely I'm looking forward to seeing hearing the guests and and hearing the interviews and really happy that you're able to continue continue on with us. 29:35.72 vigorbranding Yeah, only hopefully I can fill your shoes. It'll be tough but I'm gonna do my best. So awesome! Thanks Joseph. 29:42.20 Joseph Szala Um, if they're not that big. Yup cheers.

Caroline serves as Chief Operating Officer of Tupelo Honey and is a champion of high-growth, employee-centric workplaces. She joined the company as part of the initial senior leadership team in 2013. In Caroline’s nine-year tenure, she has been responsible for Tupelo Honey’s workforce expansion efforts, founding and leading its human resources and training teams and growing the brand from two locations and less than 100 employees to 22 locations and more than 15,000 employees. Tupelo Honey’s goal is to be at the forefront of the employee experience and at the forefront of what can be the new experience for restaurant workers. Sixty percent of Tupelo Honey’s management positions are filled from within the company. . Like a lot of restaurants, many Tupelo Honey managers started as servers or dishwashers, which helps them relate to entry level employees and makes them better managers. Communications methods like text alerts for younger workers (instead of email) work well for Tupelo Honey and its employees. It’s important for companies to initiate conversations with employees about culturally significant events that might impact employees, even if those conversations are difficult to have. Those conversations build trust with employees and show that a company cares. QUOTES “The restaurant industry is being required to level up in how we’re looking at the employee experience.” (Caroline) “We have to add the human element back (in restaurant employment) and care about people holistically. They have a life outside of work and they want support beyond just a paycheck.” (Caroline) “Entry level workers want to stay. They want a path to grow their careers.” (Caroline) “Younger workers and millennial workers learn differently. We’ve had to recognize that there’s a different way to communicate with them.” (Caroline) “Every employee is different and restaurants can’t have a one-size-fits-all program. You have to have options for everyone.” (Caroline) “What we do is simple. At the end of the day, it’s about one guest, one relationship and one experience.” (Caroline) TRANSCRIPT 00:00.00 vigorbranding Everyone today I'm joined by my new friend Carolyn Skinner she is the Ceo so Ceo oh not yet although Carolyn there has been a history of people on this show getting rapidly promoted. So don't want to dangle the carrot it could happen. 00:10.69 caroline Hello that. 00:14.32 vigorbranding Ceo of tupalo honey which we're going to dig into the concept a little bit throughout this episode talk a lot of other things as well for now Carolyn say hello and give a little backstory. 00:24.80 caroline Yeah, thank you Joseph for having me. Um I am Caroline Skinner chief operating officer I am a native of Asheville North Carolina which is also the home. Um, an original location for Tupelo Honey um and our restaurant brand has been around for about 20 years we really started to grow in the last ten years I've been with the company for 10 years and seen pretty much all of the last twenty of our 21 locations launch in open so I'm really happy to be here. 00:53.85 vigorbranding I awesome yeah and I appreciate you taking the time out so we work together put together an awesome production sheet I think there's so many great things to talk about and then Harvard business review came up with their new episode episode issue and these have a fantastic article in here called. Ah, the high cost of neglecting low-wage workers and I think there's no better outline to kind of go off of here because tuplelo how has been doing such great things that I think you're actually tackling a lot of these challenges. But I think we want to know more Um, and so. I think this might be a better outline and so I'm going to throw a ringer at Caroline today and she has approved this ringer. So what I'll do is I'll lift list off the challenges or the or the misconceptions and let's just pick them apart together. Um, so the 6 here number 1 is. Restaurant leaders. Don't realize that low-age workers really want to stay with them number 2 is they underestimate the importance of location and stability they meaning restaurant leaders 3 restaurant leaders underestimate workers goodwill 4 they leave workers to initiate create ah career discussions five they disregard low-wage workers strategic importance and then the final one is failing workers on 3 things that matter the most which is mentorship career pathways and guidance on learning and development so that is quite. 02:23.60 vigorbranding Ah, strong list of issues that is a far cry from the they want paid more money. Ah Narrative which obviously we're very well-versed in so clipping at number one here. How how do you approach realizing that low-wage workers. Actually want to stay with the company. They don't want to leave How do? How do you tackle that. 02:45.25 caroline Yeah I mean for us and I think so let's just talk about the the industry in general I think our industry has gotten a bad rap and especially in the last three years when you talk about people having having options the gig economy whether that's you know the. Car drivers. Um, you've got people like Amazon coming out and really these entry workers are getting targeted from from lots of other industries and the industry as a whole the restaurant industry I think is being required to level up in how we're looking at the employee experience. For us at Tuplelo and just a little bit more about my background actually started with the company in human resources was the first hire had a closet office and it was just sort of like we need to figure this out. Ah and we really wanted and I say as a small. Company at even at the time you know we we always functioned. It's a small but mighty big ideas and we were at the forefront of a lot of the farm to table movements early in Ashville and when I came on really the task was we want to be ah at the forefront of the employee experience. Um and we want to be at the forefront of. What we believe can be the new experience for the restaurant worker that was ten years ago and we were doing things that nobody had even heard of um, like coming up with a program. We called our fair start wage program and it was um it was base wages but it was wages with insurance for tip workers so you would never as a tip worker. 04:16.12 vigorbranding Um, blue. 04:17.39 caroline Have to worry about getting stiffed by and a customer and that affecting your take home pay. You could never go below a certain threshold and we were doing that you know ten ten years ago and we had things like our honey pot program and it was more of a it's a lifestyle benefit where. You can dip into the pot for everything from tuition reimbursement if that's where you are in life to um, paid parental leave if you've got children and a family and I think the industry did ah it was challenged at the time about you know. Work is very transactional. You come in, you get your tips you go home and you do your part I do my part and and we we go our separate ways. Um, but where we saw the trend of the industry going is you know we have to really add the human element back and care about people holistically. Um, that they have a life outside of work that they want support beyond just a paycheck and so I think going back to the the heart of that question. Ah these entry level workers. They want to stay. They want a path to grow their careers and when you start really valuing. Them as humans and their experience in in the work as you know we're taking care of them and their life. It's not just about the time that they're here. We're giving them options to go out and whether that's raise a family whether that's pursue education whether that's. 05:41.74 caroline Just offsetting things like transportation cost. That's ah, that's a real thing and and they're looking for those options so meeting them where they are but but knowing that every employee' is a little different so you can't have a 1 size fitts all program that says. You know here's the magic bullet for a great employee experience. You have to have options for everybody. 06:01.21 vigorbranding Yeah I love that I love the idea that honey pot as well I presume that the honey pot was probably handcrafted by one of the employees because you are in Asheville if you know you know? Um, so there's I'm sure there was a potter on staff. It's like no literally I'm going to make a honey pot. Um, that's right. 06:14.26 caroline Honey back. 06:18.31 vigorbranding So I love I love that approach. Um, and in rethinking the employee experience I think one one of the issues that a lot of companies across many industries have is that they have these this suite of we'll call them low-age workers I hate we got to think of a better name entry level. Um. And and 1 or two start to rise to the top with their work ethic with their ability to follow procedures and those folks usually get put on a track to management. Um, if it's not carefully crafted if if they're not given the opportunity to ah be educated and trained on what management is. I think you see a lot of flailing at that level meaning this third issue is um or fourth issue as you say is leaving workers to initiate career discussions when you start putting on that managerial hat the responsibility is not only ensuring that everyone's following procedure. Not only is it scheduling and I don't want to give anyone a ptsd here because we can go down the list. Of all the managers roles but it is to start to guide the new crop of entry level workers on their paths. Whatever they may be how how have you tackled that um issue of making sure that managers are not just trained for the um. The day-to-day grind side of things but the actual like how am I going to foster these people's careers. So. 07:36.48 caroline Yeah, well I think it's first and foremost just culturally ingrained in every single one of our managers cause they've experienced it. Um I can think of so many of our general managers today. The average tenure of our general managers is is six years and we've only been growing for 10 so that. Says to you most of them have been been here for a large part of our growth and many of them started as servers. Many of them started as cooks or dishwashers. Um, so for them, they're sharing their story which is um for these injur entry level workers. Hey I was in your shoes I started as a server and I didn't I didn't actually see this as a career path but I'm now I'm a general manager of this company now I'm a regional director of this company and so and we even have kind of the nontraditional pass as well because we've had the benefit of being ah a startup company and now we have. Ah, we call it our hive. We. We don't like the term corporate office but we have workers who facilitate different departments so we have people in it that started out as servers we have people in our construction department that started out in the kitchen and it's I think it's very very culturally rooted in the leadership of our company that. This topic of growth that that you can aspire to be just about anything in a company like ours and your your career path is actually a path. This is. It's not just a dead end job. It's not just ah, a means to an end and if it is that's okay, um, but they're seeing examples real time of. 09:09.29 caroline People that are around them and that they're working with on a regular basis that that were exactly where they were not that long ago. 09:16.94 vigorbranding It yeah and so I think one of the things that happens too. Well, there's a good stat here 60% of your management positions have been filled from within the company I mean that's practicing what you preach really starts to make a statement. It's not a dangled carrot. It's not ah well if you work real hard for 35 years maybe you'll be able to wash lettuce now. Um. 09:34.19 caroline Um. 09:34.57 vigorbranding You know? but I think one of the issues that managers come up across too is ah that lack of training leading to burnout and frustration and early departure. Um how how have you guys tackled that how have you made sure that they're supported and that they have the right training. 09:49.85 caroline Yeah, we we come at it from all angles and really when you're talking about entry level workers. Especially younger workers millennial workers. They they learn differently and so we've had to recognize there's a different way to communicate with them. Um, we've a we've actually just started. Um, a text alert system that's automated so that they get different ah pings at different points in their employment experience. So on day one we're saying hey did you realize you're you're eligible for all these benefits on 3 day 3 we're checking in with them. How's your training going and they love that because they can engage real time and it's like wow. Someone's asking me about my feedback somebody cares enough to share this with me but it's not in the like hey let's send them an email and hope that they read it because this generation is not is not what they're doing so I think it's meeting them where they are with communication but it's also very multifaceted when it comes to training so within this industry. Um, it is fast. It is a lot of on-the- job learning and you know we're not expecting for people to sit in front of a computer for 10 hours and then be equipped to do the job. Um, so we're hitting them with you know micro learning bite size learning. But then we're also saying okay, let's apply this in the real world. Let's get some hands-on learning. Um, surround them with trainers. We invest really heavily in trainers whether that be in the location when we're doing a new restaurant opening actually bringing trainers from all across the country kind of the best of the best to say you know we're gonna work alongside you and make sure that you're you're equipped. But then the third thing I'll say and I think this. 11:24.33 caroline Maybe hits on a nerve within the industry I think there's been historically just workers that have ah had a harder time rising through the ranks and you know we see we see that with females. We see that with people of color and we've created a program specifically and we call it our aspire program to. Take those underrepresented people who have historically had harder time and maybe haven't historically had the mentorship or the support system we put them through a fifty two week mentorship program it's designed for high potential people. It's designed for people that are. Historically underrepresented in the industry and we give them a 1 ne-on-one coach mentor um so they're getting leadership development via the coach. They're also getting group learning sessions so they meet and they cover topical sessions and are really kind of a way to to unite high potential leaders across the company. We use Zoom and we use technology to facilitate all of this. But um I think a lot of times the industry has ignored those people who are underrepresented or hasn't made an intentional effort to promote them and that is something that we're being very intentional about and we're actually saying you know, no no, we want a diverse workforce because we. We serve a diverse customer base and and we want representation from all walks of life and so we're specifically targeting those people and saying like hey we're going to invest in you to have a coach to have a mentor to really raise you up and the promotion rate out of that program is about 75% so when we put people through it. They get this. 12:54.71 caroline This personalized custom coaching. They're better equipped to to take on new roles in advance. 13:01.22 vigorbranding Yeah, it sounds like I mean you're you're hitting that last um, that number 6 pretty hard which is the mentorship. There's clear career pathways and there is guidance on learning and development and and those 3 are the keys I think above all else. But I think it's also interesting. Is you know, unpacking the um the the you know the perceived ceiling that a lot of under. So I mean a lot of underserved communities are facing I wonder how much of that is a result of the human nature to simply just identify with people that act like you. Look like you and things like that. Ah, meaning that requires some different kind of like education and training. It's not just identifying high potential. It is um, hey this person may be different for me in every single way but man they are checking. Box a b c d and e for being a really good manager even though we may not get along I mean we get along. But and I mean like we're not going to go out. We're not going to have a beer. We're not going to hang out and we don't have shared interests but boom how do you How do you start to even chip away at um, polishing those skills because they're they're so nuanced. 14:12.85 caroline Oh yeah, it's absolutely true and I think validated with research that that we hire people that are like us or we gravitate towards hiring people that are like us and so I think first is awareness and we've made a very intentional effort to have diversity training up front. But also then it comes back to exactly what you referenced having clear checkpoints for what is what does the skill set look like not the personality. Not the you know, but they talk like me or act like me. What's the skill that we're looking for to identify. And then being able to say yeah, you've achieved this milestone or if you haven't having conversations about why where you are and how you can get there. We do that because our kitchens are so scratch made one of the most important roles in our company is our executive chef and. Um, we do this on ah on a regular basis and we're hoping to do it even more frequently where we go through and ah assess our chefs where they are in every skill set and we but we develop that skill set based off our most successful chefs. And we said you know what do you have what percent of these skills. Do you have what percent. Do you not have and then we're going to continue to talk about the ones that you don't until you know you're you're fully where we need you to be. 15:34.39 vigorbranding So Yeah I Love that So I Think what's interesting is how do you start to break that inclination. Overall you know in my head there. There are some easy easy or what seem to be easy paths which is um if you look like x. I'm going to pair you with everything not X if you look like y same path and so I think that's a nice one step but I think any any progress as a um company as a team as a society which we don't need to get into that bigger one is feeling like you're safe to express your thoughts. And I think that starts by creating a place that is um I hesitate to use the word safe because I think it's been overused in the wrong ways. But um, a place of shared interest that is not aligned with your personal values. But a shared interest of common growth and and coming to understanding um is that in the top of your mind is that like kind of boiling in there as you think about these programs. 16:40.86 caroline Yeah, and I think it's something um you know that when we are, we're facilitating communication. We're facilitating. Programs being really intentional but it's something that that really flew in the face of I think this industry even through the pandemic when you talk about the conversations that were spread around George Floyd and um just diversity in general in this country people of color and the challenges that they had and. We we stepped into those conversations and it it wasn't always graceful and it wasn't always perfect. But I can tell you that our people and I heard some examples even recently um, our people appreciated the fact that you're acknowledging a moment that. Is impactful for our country impactful for everyone but specifically impactful and especially hard for a certain group of people and sometimes it's just picking up the phone and saying are you? Okay, you know I see you I acknowledge you I acknowledge what's going on right now and it's ah it's a hard time. Um, but Pat. Ah, rather than just ignoring the sentiment and and and we've I've spoke with leaders in our company who were like you know previously in my work life. It was like it's not happening. We're going to ignore it. We're not going to talk about it but having the boldness encouraged to say wow this is. 17:58.45 caroline This is a thing that's happening. It's a hard thing and and we're gonna talk about it. We're gonna check in with you. We're gonna make sure you're okay, um, that goes so far and especially when we're talking about these entry level workers because you know they're carrying weight that a lot of times we don't realize and you know just giving them the benefit Of. Um, acknowledging sometimes that you know things can be hardened. There's burdens that we may not know that they're carrying Um, that's compassion. That's empathy, but that's also great leadership and I think again the restaurant industry is being challenged more than anyone and we were on the front lines of pretty much everything when it came to the pandemic. But. But these really hard Conversations. We were on the front line of and I think you're seeing the companies that did that well and that really entered into those conversations and were brave enough to enter into the conversations. Um, and maybe they didn't always do it perfectly and they didn't always have you know the perfect thing to say but they were they were bold enough to to step into it. Um, they're earning trust and they're earning respect from those workers and that goes back to kind of who we are just being absolutely authentic and and being able to you know, navigate these things the best we can with mutual understanding for our employees but also Mutual respect that we're learning things from them that you know. They're helping us as as we go through this journey too. 19:16.88 vigorbranding I yeah I love that I mean because it wasn't for everyone I mean we we were we were on the front lines or maybe not the front lines we were in the back office from you know the backlines um of everything that was happening with the pandemic everything that was happening with ah the the George Floyd um tumult I'll just call it that. Um, and in some cases some of our clients were just ill ah illrepared and ill-equipped and honestly shouldn't have had a voice in it. But what you said I want to reiterate because I think that's an important approach which is it started by picking up the phone and talking to the people internally not. Putting the black box on your Instagram and saying oh that's done um and and having just say hey we're here for you. We understand as much as we can understand we are a company after all that makes a lot of sense and I think that empathy lever is um. 20:07.93 caroline Um, to you are. 20:12.26 vigorbranding Oftentimes not easily pooled for some of the leadership that we have in the industry and across all industries for that matter. But it's also it can be a bit of a dangerous one because you can almost empathize too much. Um, where the person's like okay I've heard you let it go. Ah I want I Want to get back to work I Want to focus on my career kind of thing. Um. 20:24.69 caroline Um, yeah, yeah. 20:31.61 vigorbranding And I like that you brought it back to the entry levell workers because I think there is there. There's 2 narratives at play right now that I see the one that is most prevalent is there's a bunch of people who want pay too much to do an entry-level job and they don't want to work and I think there are representation. There's representation of that we see it right. Um, but I think some of that issue starts with devaluing um the insane strategic importance of to use a term that you probably never want to use in your company drones or worker bees right? Like you're so much more than that just because your entry level and so I think if the. 21:05.99 caroline Um. 21:10.37 vigorbranding If The script is flipped. It's like wait a second. How can we treat these folks better and show them that entry level is a label that can easily dissipate with us. Um, how how have you approached the messaging around that. Because when when you're talking of bringing folks through the system. It's Easier. You have a direct line of communication when you're trying to draw them in.. How do you pass the smell test with some of the messaging. How do you get them to believe you and outside of word of mouth of course because that's a different type of marketing. 21:42.91 caroline Yeah I mean I think for us there as we grow you know in more business like you said they you know we we still have metrics. We still have ah objectives that we're targeting in all of our. Restaurants and we've been quite successful at it. We're industry leading and a lot of those metrics. Our average restaurant volume is 4000000 and we're hitting on some of these industry-leading aspects of why we're growing and how we're growing um and and that also comes with. You know a little bit of skepticism from employees. Okay, well, you're growing and um, but what's in it for me and so I think we're coming back to obviously proving that out with employees is you know, putting your actions. Ah. To work and and for us right now. All of our profits are going back into the company. So yes, they're funding great metrics and great results but they're also funding jobs and opportunities and so our employees are seeing on a regular basis. Ah, new positions created new locations created. We're entering into new markets where there's jobs. Um, and I think getting a lot of credibility from that first and foremost. But then we also you know we're we're giving back to and yes, we're a for- profit business and yes you know we're focused on our profitability. But. 23:05.45 caroline Um, heart and soul behind what we do is our people is our employees and that's hospitality so they have to be bought in that we trust we empower we believe in them. Um, we launched our biscuits for a cause fund just as an example during the pandemic and this program really was kind of It was you know pandemic was worst case scenario for us. Um, 95% of our sales dropped in a matter of a day when our business was relegated to takeout and we were in that moment I very clearly remember sitting in our senior team meeting and sort of wrestling with what is next. And you know there's all the decisions like technology and to go and we turn on all these things and um, you know, really pivoting our entire business model but the very first conversation was how do we take care of our people and what does this look like because clearly we can't run a business. Where 95% of our sales are down and keep all of these people. How can we still take care of them. Um, so in the midst of of furloughing our employees. We also said um, we're going to look at our business and while we are making little to no profit. Let's figure out a way that we can create a fund for our employees and. You know the magic of the biscuit appeared at that moment where we said we've been giving away this item on our menu for forever. Um, we're gonna go to to go. We don't even know if people always want biscuits when they're ordering to go so let's put a price on it but instead of just putting a price. Let's put a. 24:19.50 vigorbranding Are. 24:36.72 caroline And opportunity and so um, we said you know profits are gonna from the biscuit are going to go to our employees. We're also going to put a donation line because we knew it was heavy on everybody's mind industry restaurant as a whole was Struggling. So. Um, it started right there that you know we were taking this one item and we were sort of converting it to say we want to give this back to our employees. Um, and when we did you know we we had no idea how it was going to Catch. Um, it's. 25:06.72 caroline We didn't really even know how the biscuit would sell because we'd never sold it before we didn't know if it was going to be a popular item to sell um so started selling them started selling them and take out and the whole thing just sort of caught fire and guests loved it. Employees Loved it. They loved to people to talk about a fun that. 25:11.17 vigorbranding Um, right? yeah. 25:25.26 caroline Goes directly to their benefit. Um, and to date it's it's generated $600000 so I think that's where that's where like you can be a business and you can still do good for your people um, get them to buy and get them to believe in that. But also let you let your action speak for that. 25:28.69 vigorbranding Oh God I Love that? yeah. 25:39.65 vigorbranding Hundred percent yeah I love that story and I think telling that story is so incredibly important because it really is the actions and and we say that a lot to our clients is that we can spend here all day Nalgas we can pretend to build a thing we can talk about it in new ways. But if you're not doing it if you're not if you're not able to actually show it. It's really going to fall flat. Um, and it's going to prevent growth right? So it looks like there's very measurable ways that you've built people up from entry level to new positions that open up as well as leadership positions you yourself being representative that going from the um. 26:16.33 vigorbranding I'm going to say something that I will I promise you I will not make it your title the Harry Potter of ah hr in the closet up to you know where you are today. Um, you know and and these other paths as well and so that has it looks like it's spawned a lot of growth so we're at 23 locations now. 26:23.14 caroline Um, yeah, yeah. 26:35.59 vigorbranding And the goal is to be at 38 by 2025? Um, obviously good strong hr internally helps with that. What are some of the other keys in your mind that really help to create strong sustained growth meaning how do we. Expand doubt without having to retract and. 26:55.68 caroline Yeah, um, we like to say it's it's what we do is simple at the end of the day. it's it's about 1 guest. It's about 1 relationship and 1 experience and if we can have that mindset when we're in the restaurant and even when we're talking about growth you know, doubling. Your growth in 3 years sounds insurmountable, but really, it's about the guests that walk into our door and having that relationship and having that experience with them each and every time and so um, we kind of like to take it down to the smallest possible level and view it from. Okay, you know, let's. Let's let's double our growth. But um, how do we do that to each and every guest that comes in and how do we ensure that that experience is exactly the way we want it every single time and I think there's several components to that. Um foundationally training and making sure that you're hiring the right people. Um, but beyond that once you do that I think there is a big component that is partly empowering them to do the right thing they know the brand they've had the training. We've talked about that already. But I think what we've created for. Our restaurants is we want you to be local in every market. We want you to know your market. This is not a you know cookie cutter brand and if if you couldn't tell we're in locations from Boise idaho to Myrtle Beach South Carolina so so the brand resonates but we can't. 28:23.79 caroline Expect that tupalo honey boise is going to look the same as tupalo honey myrtle beach and every community has a unique um and unique feel. A unique employee base and so we want our managers to be empowered to have that local feel that's also very authentically tupalo being being Asheville um. You know we have that independent spirit and we've always had that independent creative spirit so we want our managers. We want our team to still be who they are within their community. Um, and just 1 example I'll I'll tell you of how we create the guardrails but also empower them to do what they do locally. We have a program called the 1 guest program. It's it's right off that slogan 1 guest 1 experience 1 relationship? Um, and we use a little bit of technology so behind our host stand. We sort of power it with guest frequency information so we can see when guests are coming in. And know when a guest walks in that is ah a regular. This program is designed to really recognize our regulars in the moment. So the host Dan will throw up a little flag that might say Joseph's coming in and he's been here 6 times in the last six months so he's your he's a regular vip. Which alerts our managers to say wow this is somebody that really we should value that is ah is a loyal guest. Um, and we have a program behind that right? It's our worn guest program comes with a little gold coin. The manager can actually go up in the moment talk to that guest and say Joseph I'm so glad you're here. Thank you for being a regular. 29:55.88 caroline We want to invite you to our 1 guest program and with that comes you know free apps, a secret menu item. Lots of goodies but at the end of the day. What's really important about that program is the relationship that that manager just built with that guess sure there's technology sure there's a program behind it. But the power of being recognized in the moment as a guest and and having someone actually know without you knowing that they know that you've been there that you've invested your money there and that that you care enough to keep showing back and then taking time in that very moment to say hello to say. Thank you That's really powerful and and those are the hospitality moments that we're trying to create and and I think that's what people want more of they want less of the loyalty emails and they want less of the you know how many places can somebody hit me over the head with your brand message. Um, but they want more of those authentic. In-person relationship driven moments where you know I value you as a human coming into my restaurant spending your time spending your heart on money and that's just an example of a tool and a way that we empower our managers to say you know you are local. You are myrtle beach tupalo honey. And and it's not too below honey the the 22 location brand. It's too below Honey Myrtle beach because I know Patrick and he's the general manager here and he came in and talked to me today. Um, so I think that's that's a little bit of why and how we're growing. Um. 31:21.00 vigorbranding Um, right. 31:28.81 caroline We want it to be. We want it to be local. We want it to be unique in every market and we're trying to create systems that allow managers not to reinvent the wheel but but to be local to be authentic while also still kind of operating into the Twolo Honey umbrella. 31:44.68 vigorbranding Yeah I Love that example as Well. I mean there's a lot of discussions around ah the coldness of technology and how you can strip out the human touch and the hospitality of the whole thing and that's a good way of using technology as what it's supposed to be which is ah a tool. It's um, a way to make things better. Doesn't mean that you can't or shouldn't use it to um to streamline systems like I'm a big proponent of Kiosks I think they're fantastic I'm also a big proponent of having someone next to the kiosk to make sure people aren't getting tripped up and make sure that there is a human touch and so I love that? um. 32:09.35 caroline Are. 32:19.96 vigorbranding So this has been absolutely fantastic I think I have to hit you with 1 final probably the toughest question in the world which is if you had 1 final meal. Um, and wait times were not a factor. What would you eat where and why. 32:35.97 caroline I love this question. Um, so this one's a little nostalgic for me because it's not a meal that I would can go to a restaurant and get but um, it would have to be my grandmother's new year's day meal and just a little southern. Southern ah information that you can learn in the south. We're super superstitious about days like new year's and so the whole meal revolves around certain little traditions but my grandmother was an amazing cook. Um, so you would always have collards and colards represent your money. You would always have black eyeed peas and that represents luck and then you would always have some kind of pork but she did an amazing fried pork chop and that was supposed to represent like prosperity and progress and so to me that's the perfect southern meal and. My grandmother is no longer with us every year I try to replicate that meal and it's just not quite right? So I would I would pay a lot of money to get the opportunity to eat that meal again and see you know that I would wait time I would pay money I would do all the things. 33:43.79 vigorbranding Um, I absolutely love that. Yeah, it's a fantastic answer and one of the things I love about that question in general is the broad diversity of answers you get and um, all of them are 100% um, powerful and memorable in my opinion which the final meal absolutely should be um, Caroline. Thank you for being so amazing with your time and your insights and kind of opening the doors of tuplelow honey as well as your own thinking. Um, how should people connect with you and the brand. 33:57.85 caroline Um, yes. 34:11.85 caroline Ah, you can find me on Linkedin and you can find our brand on too below honeycafe.com we're also on Instagram under the same handle. So and hopefully coming to a city near you. 34:22.75 vigorbranding Um I Love it. Check the show notes for those links folks and thank you again.

JUICER is bringing dynamic pricing to the restaurant industry. Together with their customers who operate more than 4,000 restaurants across the globe, JUICER is applying machine learning algorithms to help restaurants optimize their digital menu pricing. Carl is also the co-author of “Delivering the Digital Restaurant,” a book that explores the world of off premise food and the massive disruption facing American restaurants through first-hand accounts of restaurateurs, food industry veterans, and start up entrepreneurs. Dynamic pricing in the restaurant industry can mean lowering prices to increase traffic during slow hours, increasing prices for specific menu items to reflect changes in ingredient costs, or increasing prices for all menu items during peak hours, peak days or peak seasons. The result is a pricing model that ensures the right time for each sales channel to optimize a restaurant’s profitability and the guest experience. JUICER’s focus – for now – is on off-premise dynamic pricing, where the adjustment of prices is easler. On-premise dynamic pricing is more difficult (because of menus with fixed, printed prices) but will be more likely in the future. QUOTES “What JUICER is trying to do is become a full-service solution. We take 12 months of transactional data, put that through our algorithm, come up with recommended prices based on different times of day, and then our team will implement those price changes.” (Carl) “Consumers today are already experiencing dynamic pricing on DoorDash and Uber Eats. The delivery prices will change. The challenge is, restaurants aren’t getting any of the upside of that dynamism.” (Carl) “The challenge of dynamic pricing as a term can be somewhat divisive. What we’re doing at JUICER is completely avoiding anything related to surge pricing. We’re talking about relatively small changes in prices that don’t cause a negative reaction. In many ways, the customer doesn’t even notice many of the price changes.” (Carl) “There’s only one Taylor Swift. In a marketplace, there are hundreds of other pizza places that you can go to.” (Carl) “The whole idea of delivering the digital restaurant is to help restaurants understand that they have to optimize their off-premise channel. It’s far more than just turning yourself on DoorDash or Uber Eats and letting those channels run themselves.” (Carl) TRANSCRIPT 00:00.41 vigorbranding Everyone today I am joined by my new friend Carl Orsburn it's oars burn or born say with me everyone um, all joking aside Carl. Thanks for taking time out of your day and your week hang out with me while you say hello and for those that don't know you give a little bit of backstory.   00:17.53 Carl Orsbourn Thanks! Thanks! Jo really good to be here and glad we get to spend a few few minutes together today. Um yes, I'm Carl Osborne I'm the co co-founder at juicer a dynamic pricing company for restaurants. But so. A lot of people know me from my first book that I wrote with Meredith Sandland delivering the digital restaurant that book became a bit of a bests selller and really um, cemented I think my kind of presence in the industry and been out to talk about restaurant digitization before that I was over at kitchen united helping. Ghost kitchen world gets settled helped build out their operating model and before even that I was in the seas storell world I used to run ah a thousand unit um franchise business by the name of ampm a billion dollars worth of revenue about 400000000 of it was food but in a very different and somewhat more stagnated industry and so. But I moved over to the startup space I was really excited into talking about more innovative type themes and everything that we're probably going to get into today.   01:19.20 vigorbranding That's brilliant. So ah, admittedly I didn't know about your C-s store stint ah probably more than a stint but I will wax about that for a second I grew up with ampms and ah I thought.   01:29.58 Carl Orsbourn How well.   01:35.68 vigorbranding That apm was what you called convenience source like because I grew up with it so growing up it was go to the apm because where we just said ap like dropped off the m too much too many letters. Um, and so I think I was maybe like 18 or 19 before I realized that.   01:42.12 Carl Orsbourn Yep yep.   01:52.62 vigorbranding Oh no, that's actually a brand name. That's not what you call C stores that's or like convenience stores. So for me, it was synonymous like band-aid instead of ahesive strip. It was the same thing. Um, so that's kind of wonderful and I think there's a whole world that we could talk about with C stores. Maybe not. We'll see if we get to it. But.   01:55.66 Carl Orsbourn Wow, That's interesting.   02:10.81 vigorbranding You know there is a discussion to be had around sea store's encroachment into the ah fast food and in quick service space and some of them are are doing a fantastic job of it. But what I really want to dig into first and foremost is dynamic ricing because you of course are a proselytizer you you have an entire company talking about it.   02:18.87 Carl Orsbourn Dot com.   02:30.13 vigorbranding And I I Want to say I'm a naysayer I'm just highly skeptical and I think I really want to dig into. Let's talk about the good side of it. Um, so before we you know butt heads against why don't you for the listeners try to clearly define What is dynamic pricing in the restaurant industry. Clear up the misconceptions.   02:51.27 Carl Orsbourn Yeah, look. It's it's a really interesting subject and I think you're right? It is quite divisive. Um, it's quite divisive just as ah as a theme and so before I give you my version of a definition. Let me tell you what I think our vision is surprising because we we see enormous opportunity to. To bring pricing science to restaurants and that's that's way before anything we get into around price dynamism right? So pricing. Let we know is tremendously complex. It's ah, a discipline it requires expertise in data science. It requires access to lots of market data the ability to quantify how changes in price affect demand. And these are not disciplines I think it's fair to say that have historically been part of the restaurant industry I think it's fair to say that most restaurants price using a blunt instrument and if you on where they want to be perhaps positioned against relative to the competition and a desired you know gp so you know with with due to what we're excited to bring. Our experience on working on these problems and my co-founders are these clairvoyance Joseph because they herald from the travel and hotel industry where they've seen all this stuff play out and not a week goes by without them saying yes but we've seen this happen before let me tell you how this is going to play out and it's always funks. We we riff on it a bit so so restaurants now have this kind of opportunity to use these tools. Um because the industry is undergoing to see a change. You know how it interacts with diners or everything I've talked about in my books um and and restaurants are for intents and purposes now an e-commerce category. Um.   04:22.20 Carl Orsbourn Fact that menus are presented as pixels on a screen not printed pages gives us far more flexibility than in the past and so I think that insight that restaurants can capitalize on this change in consumer interaction is giving us a more sophisticated idea about how they can price and that's very much at the heart of our vision Producer. So. How does dynamic pricing fit into this framework. Well for me, it's It's just a fancy way to say we measure Consumer demand and use algorithms to match prices to demand at that point in time.   04:54.92 vigorbranding So I think so that makes sense so there's a prerequisite though right? like you said you're going to have to know what those outside influences are so you can affect the pricing in real-time and of course you need. Digital menu boards that are more than just a I'm going to make a joke but a fire stickk stuck in the back of a Tv screen. Um, which you know for the the do it yourself as I've seen that happen many times but essentially what ends up manifesting though is pricing that changes.   05:13.51 Carl Orsbourn A.   05:28.14 vigorbranding I wouldn't say in real time right? I mean it happens in real time, but it's not like it's not like a stock ticker like as I'm in line I'm watching the price fluctuate from $2 for a cheap hamburger to $25 because of the outside influences. Um what what rate? or um.   05:33.87 Carl Orsbourn All right.   05:45.23 vigorbranding But kind of fluctuation have you seen or do you anticipate with it like what are the updates. What are the refreshes is it daily is it hourly when we're talking about the fluctuations and in dynamic rising.   05:55.27 Carl Orsbourn Yeah, couple couple of things in answer to that because the first thing I'd say is we are focused on off-premise transactions first so you talk about this idea of standard in line and digital menu boards I think that is to come. But I think the industry has to move a little further down the line before we start to see that becoming a major area of focus when it comes to dynamic pricing probably for all the reasons as to why you you might be a bit of a skeptic on the subject right? because for me the opportunity exists today and off-premise because consumers today are already experiencing dynamic pricing. On da dash and uber breeds right? The delivery fees will change. You. You are empowering the customer to say if you want to pay an extra $3 I can get it to you within 20 minutes as opposed to the advertise 40 minutes the challenge is restaurants aren't getting any of the upside of that dynamism today. That's all going into the marketplaces and so. Something here about really just trying to recognize that. How do you actually find the best way to introduce something like this into a part of the industry that is already experiencing it. But you know for me consumers are ah more sophisticated than they often get credit for you know dynamic or demand-based pricing is. Built on the the well-understood intuition that products are more expensive when there's a high demand for a product right? Um, restaurants have been doing this for ages Joseph. You know if we at happy hour em menus right? There's any diner need clarification when a drink or appetizer is less expensive before six zero Pm of course not   07:13.10 vigorbranding Um, sure.   07:21.19 vigorbranding Ah, right.   07:23.19 Carl Orsbourn Know that the restaurant's less busy and they're going to try and drum up more demand for it. So I think it's trying to work alongside those forces and try to help restaurants actually support. What is their lowest Margin channel.   07:35.84 vigorbranding Yeah I mean so that's a great analogy or or a great example I should say um and you're right? The prices do fluctuate then I think the most restaurants are banking on can I keep them here past the happy Hour Marker. So I can start to realize my margin. And and I Also agree I think Dynamic dynamic pricing um could be really fantastic from the monetary spreadsheet level of restaurant brands I think where I start where my yellow flags I Only call them red flags because I'm super interested or else I would have I don't want to talk about it right? like I'm like I'm already set I'm ah pretty malleable on it.   08:06.70 Carl Orsbourn 7   08:11.29 vigorbranding But I think the challenges that we have to overcome is um, the the brand experience that's not me being a carpenter and only seeing nails. Um, and what I'm getting at is if we take other industries that have adopted dynamic pricing that everyone's familiar with like otas. Ah. You know, um in in the travel industry so online travel agents I think is what that stands for which is kind of silly. But um, you know so like Expedia and the aggregators and things like that and anyone that has tried to book a flight and is trying to look for different options and you realize oh my original flight just went up in price.   08:34.34 Carl Orsbourn Yeah.   08:50.16 Carl Orsbourn And.   08:50.66 vigorbranding Which is really funny and not cool at all. Um, that becomes a frustration point for me as a consumer the other layer not to pile it on but I'm going to is if if we use hotels. Let's say as the model.   09:08.32 vigorbranding The hotel still gets the benefit of managing the brand experience when the person walks through the door. We don't have that with delivery as restaurants. So yes, we do want to realize more money but I think one of the issues outside of the the fees and all the other gripes that we hear.   09:12.64 Carl Orsbourn And.   09:26.57 vigorbranding 1 of the issues with that third -party delivery mechanism is we have no control over how good or bad. The service is We're just a machine you gave us money I made your burger. That's all I can do. So we're actually losing the things that add value incrementally. To pricing. So for instance, mcdonald's hamburger versus ah shakeshack versus choose your gourmet burger brand whatever you know? Um, yeah, there's quality ingredients and things like that. But part of it is the touch right? It's the the way it's presented the way it's delivered. The.   09:53.16 Carl Orsbourn It.   10:04.86 vigorbranding The the smile or lack thereof hotels get that opportunity. You know. So if you decide that you're going to spend a little bit more money for a hotel and you walk in you get the greeting. You get the high. You know the white glove even though they're physically not there anymore but like the white Glove Bell hoppy experience for more money. But if you took all of that away. It really does become a commodity I Think that's my worry is commoditization of restaurant brands meaning brands don't really matter any longer. It's just quality of products and that's it I was a lot sorry.   10:33.72 Carl Orsbourn Ah, really one ah lot a lot in that a couple of things. Um, first of all, you mentioned like airlines and the number of price changes what we're finding right now is is at most 2 or 3 changes a day so just to give you an idea that we're not talking about. And I don't think it will ever get there quite honestly where you see that mid-transaction and that change of price because.   10:56.38 vigorbranding So so so hold on hold on and I'm sorry what I'm getting I just so we're clear like literally if I'm on delta.com sorry Delta I love you. But I hate you too. Um I search for flight from Atlanta to to Phoenix because we're talking about our rlc right now. Um. Boom. Okay, hey it's ah, $1200 a first class because you know how I roll um, but then I well maybe maybe I want to go at 11 a m instead of 8 am m okay I look at the price. No not so much I come back to my 8 a m boom. It's gone up.   11:29.29 Carl Orsbourn He's gone. Yeah yeah, and look I'll give you one even worse right? Um, what about when Katrina happened right? and everyone didn't have a home and they had to go into these hotels and the hotels at 40500% price increases right.   11:31.13 vigorbranding That's what I'm like yeah that's the the reference.   11:44.31 vigorbranding Oh yep, Yeah yeah, yep.   11:46.87 Carl Orsbourn That's where I mean Taylor Swift ticket master right? right? if we want to go to an even more recent example that that's where the challenge of dynamic pricing as a term becomes somewhat you know, divisive and and I think it's an understandably so there's another term that. Someone closer to our industry started to create and that's uber and they came up with the term search pricing right? which is kind of in in this whole space it what we're doing at juicer is completely avoiding anything to do with search pricing. The pizza will never be 400 % and what we do with our approach is that we. We asked the restaurant. What is the range that you would like to operate within and it might be minus ten to plus 15 but that means the price only ever moves in between those zones. So what we're talking about here are relatively small movements in price. Don't create that level of negative reaction and as I say in terms of the amount of price changes. Not not a huge plentiful amount so you don't get to that delta example that you're mentioning before so in many ways the customer doesn't really even notice a lot of these changes. In fact, when we start putting our pricing in place. We do a few things.   12:44.54 vigorbranding Um, is.   12:59.86 Carl Orsbourn Because guest sentiment is absolutely central to the way in which we approach this and so before we do any pricing. We do a scan of every single reference to the customer voice in that particular restaurant unit looking for words like expensive or too pricey and anything affiliated to value. And then we look at ratings and then we monitor that all the way through any pricing activity so that we can see if there has been a reaction in terms of the customer voice now you could say well that's fine for those that leave a review but many will just vote with their feet so we also of course monitor volumes and we do diff on diff analysis. And we have test locations and control locations to accommodate any macro changes in the environment to really try and give a clear identification of the uplift we're able to demonstrate and what we've been had to do so far. Joseph is. We've been out to see a lift of somewhere between five and seven percent of off-premise margins without any detrimental effect on traffic and without any detrimental effect on gas sentiment and I think the reason for that is twofold 1 is because of the micro changes. We discussed. You know it's not huge levels of changes. It's just trying to optimize in a certain small area at different times of day and then secondly. I think a lot of this is actually to do with what I mentioned at the start and that is just getting the base price in right helping restaurants really understand what is the willingness to pay for a certain item for a customer and the last thing I'll mention on this is I write for for nations restaurant news with Meredith um every month or two and.   14:22.30 vigorbranding Here here.   14:31.69 Carl Orsbourn We had an article last summer that came out around throttling and I think this is one of the the hidden diseases in off-premise right now because throttling is something where you're you know, closing your virtual doors to your customers because your kitchen can't cope with the amount of demand that they're facing. It's almost like.   14:44.57 vigorbranding Um, right? um.   14:48.27 Carl Orsbourn Ah, good problem to have right? and you've got so many orders coming in but you can't cope with them so you're going to focus on your higher margin channels and that's the logic of why a lot of technology companies have built throttle it but that is perhaps the first time a new guest is discovering your restaurant same as like having ah an abusive price by the way you know if they see a bad price on a menu.   15:01.70 vigorbranding Right.   15:07.91 Carl Orsbourn Like you go wow that place is expensive I'm not going to go there for date night on Saturday even if they're just thinking about a launch third -party experience on this particular occasion. So so for me here. The the point is is how do you create a situation where everyone is free. Having a benefit of dynamic pricing. How do you actually empower the guest so they feel that they have a choice you know if they really want to eat from your restaurant on a friday night at seven p m when your restaurant is at its busiest and they have to pay an extra fifty sixty cents for that item. As opposed to it being completely shut down and not available at all. What would you rather do and similarly if we can get to a world and I think we will get to this type of world where you then can incentivize and almost train the guest to be able to say well if you order a head or if you order up six zero p m on that friday night you can actually get it for a slightly cheaper price.   15:44.27 vigorbranding A.   16:01.14 Carl Orsbourn Isn't that actually empowering the guest isn't actually empowering the restaurant to keep their guest happier by letting them have their control. That's where I think we're going to have a better experience. Overall.   16:12.44 vigorbranding Yeah, yeah I don't I don't fully disagree at all like I again I think there's there's still impediments. Obviously we're not in a perfect world and and idealism is rarely ah realized um but you actually just did spark something in my head with with the ah the throttling and all that.   16:30.50 vigorbranding While we're thinking embarking on this dynamic pricing opportunity. We've already experienced dynamic timing as a good and bad thing. Ah by by the very nature of time and how busy a kitchen gets right? so. Um, what I mean by that is you use Friday night at seven P M bro try to get a pizza delivered. You know I mean like it's going to take you anywhere from 60 to 90 minutes sometimes depending on where you are and what city you're in and that's just happening by the very nature of traffic. So it's it's it's dynamic timing right? So I know if I want to get a good pizza for Friday night I probably should get that order in at five P M so that actually tracks and makes a lot of sense now I'll maybe contradict myself here because um, I'll contradict myself but I do see it from the restaurant's perspective fully. And I've seen it because you know being being ah on the marketing side I've always tried to include operations as a part of the conversation and have a voice at the table. It's important. Um, what I think people consumers I hate that word but I'll use it. Consumers don't realize is how much.   17:30.33 Carl Orsbourn And.   17:41.31 vigorbranding Money has been taken on the chin by restaurant brands like it takes a lot for them to decide to move their price. You know so they'll they'll absorb a lot of costs. They'll eat into their own profit margins to prevent even a fifteen cent increment so when you start talking about the percentages of like the 10 to 15% plus minus that makes a lot more sense than maybe ah, a pure dynamic pricing in real-time jump allah miss swift.   18:07.74 Carl Orsbourn So yeah, yeah, absolutely and look. There's there's only a certain amount of seats on a plane or in a a theater right? or in ah, an arena so it becomes um, a little bit of an easier science I suggest in that regard if that's something that you want to do but also. There's only one Taylor Swift on a marketplace. There are hundreds of other pizza placess that you can go to and so that's the challenge today and look you you mentioned something earlier on I'll put my author hat back on for a second if I may and and that is.   18:41.20 vigorbranding Um, yeah.   18:43.72 Carl Orsbourn You know the whole idea of delivering the digital restaurant and at some point I'll tell you about the new book. But the the whole idea of it is to help restaurants understand that they have to optimize their Off-premise Channel It's It's far more than just turning yourself on on door dash or uber eats and just let them let that kind of channel run itself and off you go.   19:00.32 vigorbranding Right.   19:03.85 Carl Orsbourn Don't think guests have said anything particularly good about the off-premise experience in recent times. In fact, I'd go as fast to say that the guest experience for off-premise today has never been worse because guests aren't getting their food in the time that it was promised the quality of the food isn't.   19:14.13 vigorbranding Right.   19:22.88 Carl Orsbourn As good as they perhaps would expect in an on-premise occasion and ultimately the biggest issue that's happening with off-premise today is the accuracy of whether the order was indeed fulfilled correctly is it the right items is it. You know as per the spec that they request it. So.   19:36.68 vigorbranding Um, right.   19:39.93 Carl Orsbourn You know there's this thing here to be able to say well most restaurants today are putting on a threshold increase onto their third -party prices and even the door dashes of this world are sending notes out to restaurants that are going beyond a certain threshold to say look if you keep doing this. We're going to reduce your presence on the platforms and reduce your appearance if you will. Which is ah another entire subject. We should. We can talk about but the point is is if that's happening then the guest is saying well I'm paying this much more and I'm given an inferior product as a result and I think all that's going to lead to is customers. They've become even more switched on.   20:11.63 vigorbranding Um.   20:17.92 Carl Orsbourn To be allowed to know which restaurants can they rely upon which ones are able to do this consistently which ones are actually changing their operating system to be able to make sure they do get a better experience and so price is a function of value but the experience all those table touches and things you were mentioned in your earlier question. Are very much still central to it and you know in in delivering the digital restaurant. We talked about how gig workers are for intents and purposes your new server. Do you remember that chap sir Joseph you know that that that one was all about when I was going out as a door dash driver myself and feeling terribly treated by the restaurants that I went into.   20:46.79 vigorbranding Um, yep, yep.   20:56.18 Carl Orsbourn You know? and maybe so maybe understandably so because I was taking tips away from their staff and things like that. But but but um, the point is is that if you embrace those drivers if you give them samples of your new items on the menu if you give them a free cup of coffee or allow them to use your restrooms. They are going to to more likely more likely. Not definitely but more likely.   20:58.22 vigorbranding Sure yeah.   21:16.13 Carl Orsbourn Be, a better proponent of your brand and give the guests that they're servicing on on your behalf a better experience and so there are little bits and pieces that need to happen in that regard to try and bring more elements of digital hospitality into off-premise. But ultimately. It's the operation. The operation needs to get Better. We been now to do things to a better quality on time and more accurately and all of that's going to play into whether customers see they get value from this or not.   21:43.82 vigorbranding Yeah, what? what was the brand I want to say it was chipotle but I don't want to ah missattribute this where they they created a whole delivery driver experience for them to wait and hang out. It's kind of was kind of a lounge I think it was in New York um   21:55.95 Carl Orsbourn Ah, Buka Depeo Buca Depeo had a bit of reference to this in in the news a few months ago. But I think there were a few that are starting to do it so it wouldn't surprise me that partly I doing it as well.   22:05.80 vigorbranding Yeah, yeah, it makes sense I'm surprised inspire brands hasn't done it either I mean they've invested so much in this innovation center here in Atlanta on the west side. Um there's definitely the space for it. Um I think that's something it makes a lot of sense. You have to start treating them as such but then I think that starts to. Makes some folks in the c-suite a little cringy considering the back and forth pendulum swing that we see with labor ownership and things like that like you you treat them too. Nice are you starting to blur the lines right? and you know we know how that goes. Um.   22:31.92 Carl Orsbourn Yeah, well But then you've got these first party logistics software platforms. You know like cartwheel that are out there that are allowing you now to try and figure out how you wish to service different diners. You know, perhaps your most loyal diners with your better drivers from your own fleet. So there are. There are ways and means by which you know technology is enabling you to give the best service to your most valuable customers.   22:51.10 vigorbranding Um.   22:56.96 vigorbranding Yeah I believe ah Romo is on the forefront of that as well. We had Alan Hickey on the show a little while ago. Um, proud Scotsman he's gonna hate me for that. No, he's he's definitely proud. He's the proudest scotsman there ever was.   23:02.68 Carl Orsbourn Um, yeah Irish my Irishman ah he'll hate that you.   23:11.23 vigorbranding I do this every every so often. Some of the episodes just see if Allen's listening um and you know when I'm when I'm in person and I do run into him I'll say it again. It's it's an ongoing joke. But yes, he is an irishman and he is wonderful. Gracious guest but they're doing great things. So um.   23:23.55 Carl Orsbourn So.   23:28.36 vigorbranding Thanks for digging in so much into this I feel like there's so much to still unpack and and I am really excited about where you're going with Juicer which is the company that you founded to essentially tackle this thing head on. Can you tell me a little bit about juicer before we shift gears and talk about the the new book and even the original book.   23:45.60 Carl Orsbourn So yeah, so so Juicer has been around for a year and a half my my co-founders as I mentioned earlier have come from the travel hospitality space. In fact, our technical co-founder Marco he he builds a company called Duetto which is one of the 2 remaining platforms that help hotels dynamically price. But the difference the difference I think between hotels and restaurants beyond what we've already discussed is that hotels have revenue managers as part of the team as part of the property team restaurants don't so what juice is trying to do is become a full service solution and so we take twelve months worth of data transactional data. Put that through our algorithm come up with recommended prices based on the different times of day as we've discussed and then our team will implement those price changes so we we get given that range we talked about maybe the minus ten to the plus 15% and that's it the restaurant hands us the keys and then we report back to them the revenue up if we've been out to generate. Yeah, sentiment analysis. The volume analysis and a way we go from there. It's as simple as that now it sounds simple but there's a lot of complexity behind the actual algorithm as you can imagine. But also there's this piece that um is a complexity that affects many restaurant technology companies and that is integrations. Very early on into my tenure I said to the team look if we have to wait to build integrations with every pos out there. This is going to be a very difficult thing to be able to implement and what we're trying to do is to try and help brashchnault see the upside of our approach so that their voice can go to their technology partners to help.   25:19.37 Carl Orsbourn Build the necessary integrations because we have teams in India in Mexico and in Brazil that are actually making these price changes manually today and that's that's like wow what what does that? you sure that's the right way of doing it. Well it is because that way we've got more assuredness that it's going to happen and b it demonstrates the uplift. And then also the restaurants are going to have the louder voice in helping the tech companies see why they need this as part of their technology platforms. It's also adopting I don't know whether you've heard this term before but headless commerce um salesforce I think introduced it. But for those of you are your listeners that haven't heard of that. It's it's all for instance, all intents and purposes. It's a bit like ah a Chrome plugin right? as opposed to being Chrome or another piece of technology to add into the tech stack. Um, it's actually said no we want to be almost like a white label solution that sits on top of your current technology providers that supports you when you are ready for dynamic pricing.   25:58.80 vigorbranding Um.   26:12.10 Carl Orsbourn And I think that's really really important for many technology leaders out there to consider because the problem today is that restaurants have got so many technology solutions to choose from. They've got some folks that are out there saying oh we do it all. We do all, we're an all in one solution which isn't true and the other are those that are very specialist in other regards and so it's very difficult for The average restaurant owner-erator who let's face it remember that they didn't get into this industry because they love technology. They love food. They love hospital hospitality. They love seeing the smiles in their guest faces. Those are the reasons they got into it and so technology is a necessary efor if you will to to support the the business and where it is today. And so therefore we're trying to make things easier I think by building the company in this regard it it also then means the procurement practice is also a little easier as well and been able to find the necessary clients. So we we we certainly go direct out to restaurants. But also we're building partnerships with the lights of oracle with it a checkmate and others. To try and have that automated nature so we don't actually have to have manual teams implemented it but the best thing about it. Is it just it helps restaurants have this pricing capability without affecting anyone on the ground and because it's just off-premise focus. It doesn't really create any distraction for them.   27:25.63 vigorbranding That's great. Yeah I mean I think the the future obviously would be um, some sort of on-prem Maybe maybe with less real-time you know, maybe it happens on the weekly or things like that. But it needs it needs to happen for the restaurants in order for restaurants to thrive. Um.   27:35.48 Carl Orsbourn Yeah.   27:42.54 vigorbranding I'm always going to be the ultimate defender of the people or at least the brand experience. You know So How do you make sure that it's delivered in a way that isn't going to negatively affect the Brand's experience but like like you have said and I've even attitudes like the brand experience is already under threat and there are a lot of negative experiences happening. Um. This probably isn't going to.. It's it's pales in comparison like if everything was perfect and you're dropping a dynamic pricing model. Um outside of the even the 15 or 10 then maybe there's a conversation but I'm actually more more interested on the technology side like what's going to be done with packaging and how how can. Our delivery vehicles be ah, fitted with cold and hot areas to to keep food as good as possible. Um packaging that holds in the heat without sweat things like that like it makes French fries Such a bummer man.   28:29.70 Carl Orsbourn Um.   28:36.27 Carl Orsbourn Um, well look in our first book. Um, one of the chaps is was called why pizza works and it was when there was a bunch of references in to think about the amount of science and innovation that's happened to the pizza box right? So from the 4 little vents around the edge.   28:41.67 vigorbranding Um, yeah.   28:48.55 vigorbranding Absolutely.   28:52.48 Carl Orsbourn That little thing you'll probably tell me Joseph if whatever the little thing is in the middle and then the little trade that it sits on you know all of those little components are to ensure that when a pizza arrives at your front door. It's in the best condition possible and so you're absolutely right. Packaging is very much. It's vital with your marketing hat on.   29:03.79 vigorbranding Um, that's right.   29:09.15 Carl Orsbourn There's a great third party. The first party conversion angle on the packaging but there's also a quality angle to it as well.   29:14.88 vigorbranding yeah yeah I think there's there's so much room for growth and this is one of those permanent pivots. So one of the other things that happened. Um so I've mentioned this so many times on the show and I apologize to listeners. But. Back in 2019 I had the opportunity to speak at the fed summit ah held by restaurant design development design magazine great group of people over there at Zumba group. Um, and I predicted a lot of things that are happening now not because I'm a genius but because I know how to read and what I didn't predict was the acceleration that would be brought on by. Pandemic. Um, what's great is a lot of the things that we're talking about now and a lot of things that you covered in the first book that you and Meredith Pennd haven't had a chance to read the second one? sorry um, have come to fruition and and we are. It's no longer this sluggish. Dip the toe. Maybe the second toe into the water we are full plunge into digital transformation and that is essentially the topic of your you and Meredith's work in general from all your thought leadership. So can you give maybe like a quick hit on the first book.   30:09.13 Carl Orsbourn And.   30:20.40 Carl Orsbourn Yep.   30:24.20 vigorbranding Why why? it's interesting. Why people should grab it and then I want to make sure you have enough time to talk about this second book because I didn't give meritdiff any time to talk about it and I still feel bad about it.   30:29.28 Carl Orsbourn Yeah, and absolutely well it is a sequel to delivering the digital restaurant your roadmap to the future of food that was the name of the first book and and that was written in the early days of the pandemic. You know we were into the outline. Think we spoke to a big publisher and they said yeah, we'll get this out but it'll be 2022 and we went ah this this is happening right now restaurants need this so we had to go through our hybrid publishing path. Um and we wrote it to help restaurants see the why behind digitization but being you know off-premise and.   30:53.21 vigorbranding Are.   31:03.45 Carl Orsbourn But consumers are hungry for better ways to engage with restaurants and then it wasn't the evil tech companies or vcs forcing the change to happen but it was the consumer that was driving this to happen and of course timing couldn't have been better for us in in writing and given that book out of that time. The book came ah international bestseller. It's. Just got the romanian restaurant association would you believe agreed to translate it into romanian so I wasn't thinking the first foreign language translation would be romanian. But thank you Romania but you know the the fact that at this time in 21 every restaurant became a ghost kitchen overnight. They were forced to embrace digitization to survive and.   31:25.43 vigorbranding Um, that's amazing. Yeah.   31:38.94 Carl Orsbourn It really was a spray and prayy type approach just to keep in business but the second book you know now we're in a different phase

The first Dog Haus opened in Pasadena, California in 2010. Since then, Dog Haus has expanded to include 91 locations throughout southern California. Dog Haus has garnered critical acclaim and national attention for its signature all beef Haus Dogs and handcrafted proprietary Haus Sausages, as well as its 100% genetically tested, humanely raised, hormone- and antibiotic-free Black Angus beef. Many start-up restaurants rely on a celebrity name to drive consumer interest, which calls into question the quality of the food and expertise of the celebrity when it comes to the offering. Consistency of quality is important. Some restaurant brands don’t have standards – or don’t clearly define the standards – which means different dining experiences between each location or even at the same location. QUOTES “Our advantage is the quality of the food. It’s the product itself.” (Justin)   “We are created by people who are very much into food. That’s been our goal since day one.” (Justin)   “Zeroing in on the quality of the product. That’s not a different story. So many brands think their product is ‘the best.’ What (Dog Haus provides) is reasons to believe why that’s true.” (Joseph)   “How do you get someone to pay $8 for a hot dog when Costco sells it for $1.50. That’s a unique challenge for us. We do that with high quality ingredients. It’s not just a hot dog and you know that when you see it.” (Justin)   “Quality matters, especially on delivery.” (Justin)   “(Some restaurants) make it as cheap as possible and maximize profitability, get the money and go. I think now more than ever, the delivery game has changed that. After I’ve paid for delivery fees and that (meal) comes back tasting like garbage, that’s horrible.” (Joseph) TRANSCRIPT 00:00.00 vigorbranding Everyone and today I'm joined by Justin Bartek you probably remember our episode from early on in the fork tales days I had to have him back because so much has changed since then Justin won't you say hello and ah give us a little update on where you've been and where you are now.   00:16.68 Justin Bartek Yeah, man, it's good to see you Joseph as always in the past few months about five months ago now I joined doghouse worldwide which is a hot dog brand but we do smash burgers hot dogs, gourmet sausages breakfast burritos that are actually killing it. Um. And more so it's very exciting to be over here I've sort of been put in a position to help with those virtual brands that they have called the absolute brands. But I'm also you know there's always so much to do that I've been helping with my own connections and background to all across the organization. So. It's been great.   00:50.71 vigorbranding That's awesome. So um, for those don't remember you you used to be at the Ramen company Jinnya I Still go there. Still love their ramen.   00:56.60 Justin Bartek I'm correct.   00:58.38 vigorbranding Um, and as you said now you're in this new position. Jinnya is a brick and mortar. It's full service. Well it's actually fast casual technically there's counters service. You sit down, you're kind of waited on um, whereas doghouse and and especially the virtual brand world completely different. So how has this transition gone from you gone for you and.   01:04.90 Justin Bartek And.   01:18.23 vigorbranding And what are what are some of the biggest challenges in shifting from this company that you're at now from Virginia as well as the format shift.   01:27.51 Justin Bartek Yeah, sure, um, you know when I came here. It's it's kind of a great time to be here and that you know when the doghouse brand started it started in 2010 as well same as Virginia um, but they were they were kind of a fast casual brand. You know it wasn't really about the bar. Yeah, they had beer. They didn't have full liquor licenses at the time they didn't have the doghouse beer garden concept. It was just doghouse so that's kind of our legacy brand at this point and you could imagine ah ah a doghouse like that might be in in an old Taco Bell like the old school Taco Bell that you know from the seventy s that building though. That's where a doghouse could be now. Got doghouse beer gardens. They've got full liquor licenses. They've got patios. They've got games. They've got you know, just much more of a bar experience. So since I've been over here. We've been talking about how to make this brand more bar. Friendly. How do we make it better. How do we. Increase the happy hour. How do we put it in new drinks. How do we? you know like we're really going through that top to bottom and really you know have a beverage committee now we're working with our drink partners like Coca-cola but we're also looking at the alcohol brands and kind of trying to do some bigger things we're doing. Doing milkshakes which we're going to do some spiked ones coming up which is really cool. So like all these things are in development and we're sort of that brand that's known for really like if we get an idea. Maybe we'll make a virtual brand out of it. Maybe we'll put it on our menu. You know we'll see but like they've been doing that over time and it's led to a lot of success.   02:50.65 vigorbranding That's awesome. Yeah, so I mean it's a completely different format even within doghouse. It sounds like you guys are really ah, evolving and iterating and learning. Um, what's interesting to me is this more immersive experience that you're talking about with the ah beer garden. It's nothing new, but.   02:53.54 Justin Bartek Um, yeah.   03:06.83 Justin Bartek Your.   03:08.66 vigorbranding Shifting from the traditional idea and bringing this in but then thinking about doghouses building this this. Um you know fame around that experience but virtual doesn't offer it So How are you bridging that gap. How do you bring that fun and that immersiveness and that uniqueness that doghouse has into these virtual brands that. Maybe inextricably linked ah for people For example.   03:30.41 Justin Bartek Um, yeah, it's funny. We've got these quirky names like badass breakfast burritos for instance or jail bird which is our wings um just different ideas like that. But what? what? I found what it really comes down to and I don't want to talk negative about any competitors but you know what it is. It's like. Got these brands that might have a celebrity at the Helm or just their name is slapped on it. The food quality is not there people know right away what we've seen. We've done a ton of research on this and really the last six months, especially but. The idea that you know Mr. Biesberger has 800 locations 3000 locations. Whatever that number they want to put on there but how many reorders are they getting after you order that 1 time how many people order that again I would say it's very small. The other thing we have going for us. You know in our like our badass breakfast burrito concept. We we average selling you know hundreds a day of that product right? So it's like that's per location. Mr. Beast we found only sells seven per day at the locations that they have so even though it's a huge volume because there's 3000 of them or whatever that number is they're not selling a ton. You know per location. So what we found is that our advantage is really the quality of the food and we we really try to push that in the forefront from the operations angle from packaging from you know, getting it to a science where we know this is what sells what's good. We know how to make it. We know how to deliver it with our partners or you know even taking that.   04:54.36 Justin Bartek Into direct delivery and that sort of thing so that's the that's the future. But what we what our advantages is the product itself and our food really sells itself like we're getting tons of repeat orders. We've got a great loyalty um to the brand and infinity to the brand. So now. Our next challenge is like how do we make. That doghouse fan know about badass breakfast burritos because it is not inside the 4 walls right? It's not on the menu board is badass breakfast breeze ah jail bird is not on the menu right? It's all virtual. So that's that's our challenge is like how do we connect them or maybe do we not want to connect them right? like maybe we don't need to connect them. Maybe we can license. Badass breakfast burritos with another bigger concept and they can sell that right? So like there's all these ideas out there that we're working on so there's a lot of excitement but really I think what it's come down to is the core products and how they travel and. This badass breakfast burritos I mean it's just it's doing so well, it's 20% of our sales now across the branch. So. It's just really taken off in ah in a huge way. So for my job. It's like how do I what I want to do is make badass breakfast bur briritos and or doghouse what you think of when you think of a breakfast burrito and I know that's hard to do in California but. In Maryland maybe it's easier right? Maybe it's easier in Atlanta you know, like just these other places where breakfast brito culture is not what it is I feel like we can really plant the flag and be that because this product tastes so good and it's really working. So.   06:05.49 vigorbranding Um.   06:16.30 vigorbranding Yeah, that's so much to unpack there. Um, so for clarity purposes the the virtual concepts that you have now solely exist within dog house footprints or do you have them for other ah Kitchens and.   06:25.20 Justin Bartek We? Yes, so we do work with both the main kitchen. So kitchen united is obviously our close partner but we do work with with the others as well in certain instances. You know what I mean but it's very limited and what we've what we've really found. Is we this year. We've sort of. Taken a step back from those so like the kitchen experience the virtual kitchens and really dove more into our own brick and mortar and how to make the execution better from our own stores and so even though we have 6 virtual brands. It's not like we're out here trying to get ghost kitchens for all of them. We're trying to run them from our own kitchens.   06:52.30 vigorbranding Um.   07:03.35 Justin Bartek And that's been sort of the focus for this year but what's great about that is like I said we could turn on a new brand tomorrow and then here's ah, here's another brand here's a different take on it. You know we're always the the real research in the kitchen is what. Is great here because these guys love to cook. They love food and it's like they're always inventive with that. So it's like it's it's a nice feeling to know they're also not scared to say okay, here's a brand like all we need is a logo It's a packaging and we we got the same ingredients for the most part usually so it's um, you know.   07:29.17 vigorbranding Um.   07:30.38 Justin Bartek They're They're very adventurous when it comes to that and then if one sticks great if doesn't we can take it away. You know it's not a lot of not a huge investment.   07:37.27 vigorbranding Yeah,, that's one of the things that I think has been um I don't I mean I'll say scary but I don't mean scary I think so in y'all's case it makes a lot of sense you have footprints you have a kitchen you can take the mitigated risk that is lower cost all things considered and by all things I mean. The the cost of finding a location putting an loa down um securing a building out blow this goes On. Um, so that's great. But I do think that there is a misperception or misconception from a lot of folks that all it is is create a fun name throw a logo together put some packaging together. Wham Bam. Thank you Ma see you later.   07:59.29 Justin Bartek Um, yes, yes.   08:12.67 Justin Bartek Um, right.   08:13.72 vigorbranding And get it out there and I think that my thinking is that it's going to lead to some of these set it and forget it brands. It's going to lead to failure is that something that you see that you're seeing is that something that you guys are worried about.   08:29.36 Justin Bartek I would say not, We're not worried about that and it goes back to the product. We've tried all these brands right? where we always are like let's try this one. Let's see this barstool whatever like but what is it and we get the packaging. We see the food like ah great.   08:40.85 vigorbranding Um, yeah.   08:42.48 Justin Bartek And it's not. It's nothing that I really would ever want to order again and I don't want to trash. Anyone's brands but like it's just the the name of the game you know, but it's like it's like dude like.   08:48.99 vigorbranding Let's track him come on.   08:53.60 Justin Bartek Is Barrstol really spending time to do that research is Mr. Beast really out here testing food like that you know, no, he's not he doesn't have time to do that. We know that and plus when it's not your passion like when I when I see Mario Lopez Tacos do I ever want that? no.   09:00.46 vigorbranding Um.   09:08.96 Justin Bartek Is he known for tacos. No, he's known for being Latin right? like so on du like you just now it's getting stereotypical like it's just funny to me that um you know it's just they don't have the the culinary background right? and I think where doghouse shines is we are.   09:11.54 vigorbranding Um, right.   09:21.30 vigorbranding Right.   09:26.26 Justin Bartek Created by people that are very into food that was the goal from day 1 we use King Hawaiian roles we do we do all these things that are a little different and we really focus on quality like creekstone farms is our our meat provider. Let's say no antibiotics like it's not a joke here like we talk about it but we we need to talk more about it because I think. You know today's guests especially the younger ones they care about those things they care about the environment the planet where where things are sourced. You know they chipotle is you know for what they are if they've done that job of like hey we we're selling you something better. Is it really I don't know but they talk about it right? So we we kind of we're leaning into that as well like let's put it out there what we're doing because.   09:58.27 vigorbranding Right.   10:04.16 Justin Bartek You are paying for that quality and I think you know from what I've heard from our team only being here five or six months you know in the past it's like how do you get someone to pay $8 for a hot dog when Costco sells for a dollar 50   10:15.21 vigorbranding Right.   10:16.77 Justin Bartek So that's ah, a unique challenge for us. But it's like how do we do that with high-quality ingredients telling people about the ingredients making these exotic builds and things that look different. It's not just a hot dog and you know that when you once you see it, you know so it's that's our job to really get in front of people.   10:26.38 vigorbranding Sure, Yeah yeah I Love the approach there and so you're you're really zeroing in on the quality of product That's not a different story I mean everybody thinks Well I won't say everyone that's blanket right? So many people think that their food is quote unquote the best.   10:42.56 Justin Bartek Friend.   10:44.70 vigorbranding Um, but I think what you started to unpack is reasons to believe why it has a better flavor profile those Kings Y and buns the quality of the product. Um, and how you're putting it together and I think that culminates to give the market reasons to not just acknowledge but believe and you're right.   10:52.53 Justin Bartek A.   11:04.48 vigorbranding What does Mr Beast bring to that table. So 1 thing that he has that even y'all don't have is a loudspeaker. Um, you guys have to pay for that right? So you have to go out there to put paid media together. You have to get the you know influencers god forbid I say that word um god I hate that word so much.   11:12.10 Justin Bartek Um, prayers are.   11:18.54 Justin Bartek Let me.   11:23.28 vigorbranding But you have to get influencers to go out there and also add um gravitas to those claims because no one's going to believe it coming from the Brand's mouth. But once the word is out and you've brought someone through that early funnel using marketing speak to a point where they want to try with Mr. Beeer less with little substance.   11:36.34 Justin Bartek You.   11:42.88 vigorbranding With barstool um I'm actually not familiar with their brand I probably their brands I know barstool sports but not their virtual brands. But I would I'd have to imagine Dave Portnoy does have a pretty good stranglehold on pizza and I would say he may have a better stranglehold on pizza than.   11:55.39 Justin Bartek 5   12:02.72 vigorbranding Many other pizza people out there just because of that series I don't know if you've seen it. But yeah.   12:05.11 Justin Bartek Yeah, well, what's funny that brand they don't they didn't they weren't doing pizza. It was wings right? exactly. It's yeah, it's one of those things. Dude it's like um.   12:13.40 vigorbranding Okay, great. Yes, so like why not do pizza. It's like like ah.   12:21.00 Justin Bartek To take it away from virtual for a second just to to talk about this like dobrick dobrick has a pizza shop now here on sunset no one's going there for the quality of the pizza watch any review I I saw one last week with Portnoy testing it and he's like I know you're my boy but dude. And he was really honest like I don't think I'd eat this again, you know and it's like very interesting and what we're seeing with that is like yeah the fame carries it so far. But it's like with any brand. Yeah, you want to open big those are all going to open big because they do have that that megaphone and they can blast that message out hey great but is there are people buying it again.   12:39.10 vigorbranding Um, yeah.   12:55.31 vigorbranding Right.   12:56.59 Justin Bartek You know I mean that's all that I care about because yeah, you'll have this huge splash. Yeah, you might have millions of people interested. But if you don't deliver the first time like any brand people aren't going to go back so over time to to one of the questions you would ask like are are they going to die. Are they going to do this. They might not die some of them are definitely going to die because people aren't going to order them after having it once and then.   13:14.25 vigorbranding Um.   13:16.55 Justin Bartek You know restaurants are not going to serve them anymore. There's because say you know what that one doesn't Work. We're just not seeing any orders. Why are we doing it and I think that's what's going to Happen. It's going to take time. But I think you know even though it's cliche that quality piece matters and especially in delivery because you don't want to get something that sucks or you know you waited Now. It's not good or. All those things matter on delivery in ah in a major way. So yeah, they have the fame and they can say hey here's this virtual Brand I didn't have to do anything I just put my name on it here here's the burger if you order from a different Mr. Beast Did you know that there is no standard like the meat quality doesn't matter to them. They say here's the build but they don't care what meat you're Using. They don't care what condiments. It's just yeah, you use ketchup use mustard to use this meat So every time you have it. It could be a different experience depending on where you get it. That's not really what people look for and brands in my opinion. So another advantage for someone like us who.   14:11.43 vigorbranding Um, yeah.   14:11.70 Justin Bartek Does have that standard and you know what you're getting every time with us. So.   14:16.13 vigorbranding Yeah I think there's like this misconception from folks that are either novice novices to the industry or um, play on ah on a lower scale I think it's a nice way of saying it where those things don't matter and it's like.   14:28.48 Justin Bartek Yeah.   14:32.81 vigorbranding Make it as cheap as possible maximize the profitability get the money and go. But I think now more than ever The the delivery game has changed it I mean you're paying a lot of money you know for something that would otherwise be very like very inexpensive like if I got that same Mr Beast Burger Let's say.   14:42.75 Justin Bartek Yes.   14:51.83 vigorbranding You know at a park out of a truck and it and it wasn't it was different than but the one I'm used to like I probably wouldn't care too much. You know what? I mean I'm like hey it's got the things that's fine. But after I've paid for the fees and the delivery fees and I have to tip the guy.   15:04.59 Justin Bartek Yeah.   15:06.75 vigorbranding You know I'm paying more for all that than I am the actual product and that thing comes back tasting like garbage I mean that's horrible. Yeah.   15:11.67 Justin Bartek Highly disappointing right? like when that happens you're just like and it leads to in the delivery game. It's like I feel like a lot of people just probably have a few favorites. You know I mean they can trust it. They know what they're going to get even if they're like I'm not hungry for Chipotle today but you know if that bowl comes. Gonna be what you want pretty much and it's the same thing every time right? But for others, it's like if I have to do trial and especially with a food like a hamburger. Not the best you know situation for traveling obviously fry same thing like they're gonna get not as good advantage for us tots.   15:32.98 vigorbranding Um, yeah.   15:45.63 vigorbranding A in.   15:46.87 Justin Bartek Tots last longer. You know what? I mean like little things like that where it's like we don't we're not going to lean in to fries the way we set up our virtual menus like tots are going to be number 1 just trying to think in those ways where it's like what what does the guest want and need and then try to outthink them if that makes sense and say. What are we gonna deliver that they don't know they want or can we set it up in a way where it's like they're sort of fallen where where we say this is the best of our menu because we know it's going to take twenty or thirty minutes to get to you so maybe avoid this go with this right? You're still going to get great flavor all that but we' that's. Where we're at now too is really just engineering that menu or the the menus and trying to get them to that place and we're also playing with like you know menu positioning so like on on our virtual brands. What's the order on the dsps versus our own site does it matter. How does it work. what what are the sales differences. All these things we're trying to just get a lot of data right now and. And push that forward and then the other piece kitchen night I mentioned they are a partner but they're actually building an os for us that will live on top of toast where we'll have multibrand ordering and with that in the same basket meaning multibrand loyalty which is really exciting for us because if you're a doghouse.   16:39.73 vigorbranding Um.   16:45.38 vigorbranding In.   16:58.51 Justin Bartek User or fan and you've ordered and we have your history. We know what you're doing but you've never tried Badass Breakfastry here's an email you you got to try this here's your discount here's whatever that is. It's like tying all that together is really exciting because now people really know that the brands are connected in that way and they're like oh I like the doghouse calling y I'll probably like. You know, bad mother KClucker I'll probably like Badass breakfast brito that that looks Amazing. So we'll be able to tie that together so that kind of is going to change our whole marketing strategy Once that's ready to go this year. Um, and then then on my side. Obviously you know me, but ah I push for digital I have a partner with partnership with hyperlocology.   17:18.38 vigorbranding Um, right.   17:34.97 Justin Bartek We're already talking about dialing into that direct ordering once this K U environment's ready because every marketing piece is going to go direct direct orders you know, um, collect the data retarget.   17:43.54 vigorbranding Bright.   17:47.68 Justin Bartek Find lookalikes. The whole thing is going to be dialed in in a way that this brand's never had it before so we're really excited about that because in conjunction with this k u thing with Hyperlocologist help. It's like we're going to drive transactions direct for our own ordering you know and then we'll get away from fees that way we'll be able to subsidize the order. Um, fee or you know the delivery fee through our partners but it's still cheaper than giving them 2025. Whatever you know these guys have signed up for in the past. So that's really exciting and that's just going to open up a new world and I know you you talk about this probably a lot on these pods just in in your career but like the data piece.   18:22.40 vigorbranding E.   18:24.35 Justin Bartek Restaurants still struggle with it because we don't have a data data analyst on our team but we know we need that data. We need to take that data and then. Use it in ways that will help us grow our brand or grow repeat business or grow. You know, like whatever that thing is but we need to harness the data and start using it. So that's that's been a huge goal for this year as well.   18:40.70 vigorbranding Yeah, it's huge I mean everything is providing data these days but rare is the case that you find folks that really know how to use it. So my friend Tammy billings She started abe and aben's been pretty great to look at from outside looking in as far as harnessing some of that.   18:48.40 Justin Bartek Right? yeah.   18:57.49 vigorbranding Sales data and getting really nuanced with when people are buying when people are making buying decisions. Um you know and hopefully hopefully I'll get her on the podcast here soon. But um, you know that's why here at at Vigor Povon we have a data science team for that very reason like it's like we know you have data. But what are you doing? What story are you excavating from that data that can help you make decisions on things like buying behaviors on things like um, where where not just profitability. But how can you maximize that profitability. How can you maximize order counts and order averages. Um, but a lot of it just comes from the gut.   19:33.84 Justin Bartek Definitely yeah.   19:36.44 vigorbranding So that's that's really troubling now one side of this that really we haven't I haven't really dove into it with anyone and but it's really intriguing to me and since you're kind of on the front lines here is the innovations in packaging you know so you mentioned the the french fry game which I mean anybody that works with Frenchchris we know. It just the sweating makes them suck and it's really tough to keep a well-balanced crisp to to a tooth ah balance in there but what innovations crip crip the tooth. Yeah, it's really important.   19:57.39 Justin Bartek Yeah.   20:09.13 Justin Bartek Crisp the tooth. Love it crisp the tooth. Ha.   20:13.69 vigorbranding I'm but I'm borrowing tooth from the Pasta world. But yeah, it's um, what are you seeing as far as innovations and then what kind of Impact. Do you think that's having on the bottom line because as we know innovations when they first come out cost more. Because it takes a while for the very you know the demand to catch up with the supply and therefore drive prices down.   20:32.91 Justin Bartek It's Funny. We we're in the middle of packaging you know like we're figuring out how what package you do want to go with in the near term in the short term. It's like we have some packaging that looks nice, um, with hot dogs a little different so it's like a tray and then you slide it into a box and it keeps it well. But. Is it hot Enough. It's Cardboard. You know it's not.. It's not ideal right? Fryes same thing like we don't have great fry packaging solutions right? now here. But at other brands I worked for like hello guys they solved it if you've seen their fry package. It's pretty awesome. It's got holes in it holds? Well the lid shuts like.   20:50.93 vigorbranding Right.   21:08.74 Justin Bartek I Would love for us to go to something like that. Um, but literally I can't really help you with this because we're in the middle of like trying to figure this out. We've got our designers working on the look and feel but as the actual products like we're taking a look at everything and we're probably like a lot of brands like okay what for our brand. What makes most sense you know like our burgers are pretty big. They're square right? but they're.   21:25.30 vigorbranding Um, yeah.   21:28.63 Justin Bartek Hawaiian roles. So you got to think through that How does that work right? like there's a lot here where things you don't have to worry about at other brands we sell corn dogs like how do you get a corn dog hopped someone in the most in the best way so it doesn't break while it's on the way you know there's things like that. So we're really, we're really in the middle of it right now trying to figure it out just like everybody.   21:41.50 vigorbranding Right.   21:48.20 Justin Bartek Um, but to your point it is a huge I wouldn't say a concern but it's like we need to solve it just like everybody else because we do want to get that quality product to you hot and you know crisp to tooth.   21:57.76 vigorbranding Yeah, it's um, you know may I think obviously there's there's innovations that that happen with the packaging too. But I wonder what what can these dsps delivery service providers for those that don't know. Um, what can they do to help out. You know like I'm I'm surprised we don't have um modular solutions that have both hot and cold that can be put into vehicles. Um, you know because then that would make our jobs a little bit easier when we're thinking about innovating and that hey we know the hot side is going to be capped at one forty one sixty, whatever that that temperature is.   22:33.74 Justin Bartek Pronounce.   22:35.84 vigorbranding Um, but if you're going to provide delivery I think the means of transportation is only 1 facet like you know you're talking about food and and part of that's food safety which is really tough.   22:41.83 Justin Bartek Um, yeah yeah I remember you know a few years ago when it was really happening. Everyone was looking for stickers like how do I seal my bag because before that we didn't even do that right? you might tie it. You might do whatever it's like.   22:54.40 vigorbranding Um, right.   22:57.19 Justin Bartek I Got to seal it to make sure that you know a driver doesn't accidentally grabs some fries out of it or whatever you know, like course the horror stories but it's true. You know you need all that. So um I feel like that part of it. You know was Covid really pushed a lot of you know hey we got to figure out this to go packaging and like.   23:00.80 vigorbranding Um, yeah, um.   23:14.50 Justin Bartek Like you said when I was at Virginia when I started at Virginia 8 stores even had delivery even had online ordering 8 right? We had to build it in two months we had to set it up. We needed to talk to dsps like a lot of our stores didn't even do third party Virginia because they didn't need to.   23:19.49 vigorbranding E.   23:30.95 vigorbranding Um, yeah, well and soups a whole nother level man like get yeah.   23:32.12 Justin Bartek You know and saying like they made enough money. Yeah, and they were just like we're good. We're good. So I know that really from the frontlines of Virginia we had to figure that out within a month or 2 and really get to go and negotiate contracts set it all up with all our franchisees make sure they're on board make sure they know how to execute you know change the packaging.   23:49.11 vigorbranding Um, right.   23:50.64 Justin Bartek We actually set up some some stickers at Virginia that named the which bowl of ramen you you get which sounds so like yeah of course you should do that? No they were using a grease pencil for years because they didn't have a lot of words so like sure whatret then stickers became mandatory we needed it. You know it helped the guest immensely because you're getting 4 bowls if you're ordering 2 rains soup.   23:59.40 vigorbranding Um, yeah.   24:10.90 Justin Bartek Toppings soup toppings knowing which is which is huge and especially for someone who might not order ramen a lot so we saw we saw our guest satisfaction go way up once we started doing that we saw it on reviews. We saw it everywhere like oh we love these stickers because now we you know we really know that that's ours. You know if we have a multiple order So little things like that go a huge go a long way. Um.   24:13.26 vigorbranding Um, right.   24:29.74 Justin Bartek But you know I just think the packaging experience is very top of mind here and we're trying to solve that this year because we know you know it's it's got to be done especially across our brands like we when they started the brands it was right when covid started so like the bag they're like let's do it cheap.   24:38.51 vigorbranding Um, right.   24:49.14 Justin Bartek Here's a stamp of the logo. So literally we've got people at the restaurant stamping bags Badass Breakfast burritos and that was our that was our packaging Now we're like let's pick it up a level. Um, you know we could license this brand potentially to another brand. We got to make sure we have everything died in so we're working through it. But it's all important man.   24:54.32 vigorbranding Um, right.   25:05.35 vigorbranding yeah yeah I mean and I think that's that's the thing there's like no 1 thing that should just be painted over but I do like the idea I mean especially when you're starting something up, um a lot of places want to do it perfect but perfect is undefined because you you don't really know what people are going to be buying in what kind of volume and so.   25:08.57 Justin Bartek F.   25:23.14 vigorbranding You know we're big proponents of like get the things set that you know for sure are borderline immovable but also be ready for that evolution. Be ready to learn and iterate and iterate um quickly and if you were in Silicon Valley God I Hate to say this now considering the the things with the banks but like fail fast.   25:25.92 Justin Bartek Right? yeah.   25:42.10 vigorbranding You know and the whole idea of failing fast is learn. What's not working adjust iterate. Try something new until you get the right thing rather than trying to turn every knob perfectly and wait for the perfect moment because there is no such thing. Um.   25:42.16 Justin Bartek Yep.   25:47.42 Justin Bartek And.   25:55.16 vigorbranding You know how how much of that. Are you guys employing how much of that mentality are you putting to use when you when you think about these innovations.   25:58.61 Justin Bartek We definitely are not not on like packaging per se even though we were talking about that but like happy hour. Let's say we've got different franchisees in different parts of the country and some might say hey we need x on our happy hour menu because this local audience will react and for the longest time. And this is at every brand but they're like no, we have our set thing here. We're sticking with this even though it might help you there. We don't have the bandwidth to create this for you one-off style you know like every brand goes goes through that we've been going through that. But how we're how we're solving for is we're allowing certain franchisees to. Try things. We're setting up committees where it's like there's a packaging committee. Let's say um, there's a happy hour committee. There's all these committees with like maybe 4 to 5 franchise partners but like it's the ones that that's their specialty. Let's say so the guy that sells a ton of delivery. We want him on the packaging because he's going to know right? He's selling the most. So.   26:35.29 vigorbranding Are.   26:53.35 Justin Bartek Um, That's how we've tried to kind of set this up and we'll let them try things then we'll come back together say how's that working for you. How has that impacted sales. How has that impacted your cost etc and then we'll sort of keep the ball rolling and we'll say all right? We're going to implement this now everywhere take this these learnings. This was the best thing because we are of the we're the kind of people that you know. The best idea wins. Not my idea you know it's just we want The best idea we don't care where it comes from. So um, we're really into that now this year. We've honed in on these committees and I think even though I wasn't here what I've learned from this brand is communication communication communication because when Covid happened.   27:13.83 vigorbranding Um, sure.   27:30.17 Justin Bartek Franchisees were freaking out. They didn't have any of the virtual brands. They only had doghouse. They made the decision the first week when everything shut down. Hey let's turn them on. Let's go and it was a complete leap of faith because we didn't know how we were going to do it. We didn't know how to do 6 brands at the same time you know, but like worked our way through had the partners.   27:32.67 vigorbranding Means home.   27:47.92 Justin Bartek Um, the partners had our backs meaning our our founders but then franchisees every week at a weekly call How's it going here's what we're learning kind of triaged our our team. So. It's like you're an expert in delivery. You're an expert in design. You're an expert in this and we would bring things to the table every week as it was happening so like hey. Ah, Panera Bread's doing this and it's working for them and just letting our french disease know like this is what's out here. Everyone kind of became an expert in a certain you know piece of this and then we just would communicate and overcommunicate and I think that really helped this brand survive it. Their sales actually came out higher because when they launched the virtual brands they got about a 30% pop.   28:24.67 vigorbranding Um, nice.   28:25.87 Justin Bartek So It really was a smart thing to do at the time. But even though I wasn't here. It's likeve been talking to our team. It's like that's how we attacked it. You know, just everyone kind of became an expert. Everyone would talk overcommunic communicate and really I found in my career communicating communication in general most important to franchisees to operations for me being a marketer. Um, early ah in my early early days like baha fresh I Just remember going there and like ops didn't talk to marketing or at least they were always at

Troy was born in Hawaii. His family goes back five generations in Hawaii and was among some of the first missionaries to arrive on the islands. He started as a 14-year-old dishwasher in Maui and eventually worked his way up to a sous chef working with his mentor, Chef Roy Yamaguchi. Hawaiian culture emphasizes “ohana” which means family. Troy has worked hard to embrace that same family atmosphere in his restaurants. It’s difficult to maintain a restaurant culture as a restaurant grows. Owners often find themselves having to choose between managers who are a good cultural fit but underperform as managers or vice versa. Taking care of guests is critical and is the foundation of any restaurant’s success. Troy’s vision for TAG Restaurant Group changed during COVID. His new steak restaurant in Houston opened three months before COVID and struggled in 2020 and 2021, but rebounded in 2022 to become a successful location today. Quotes “(When it comes to ingredients), I was taught early on working in California, Hawaii, New York and Hong Kong that you utilize what you can from where you’re from.” (Troy) “Authentic and real. I think everyone can see when something is genuine. We try to hire people who are genuinely hospitable. Even if they don’t know how to cook but they have a good attitude and want to, we like those types of people.” (Troy) “The days of people staying for 10 plus years are probably long gone.” (Troy) “Pay is, of course, one factor, but it’s not THE factor.” (Joseph) “Our core values are passion, imagination, courage, caring, humility, harmony and ownership. That’s what I want to see in people. I want to give them ownership to do what they think is best.” (Troy) “It’s really tough to foster a culture when you spread out (to multiple locations).” (Joseph) “Two weeks in (at my first restaurant), we were $40,000 in the hole. My investors said if you don’t change we’ll have to close. The second month we lost $20,000. The third we broke even. And the fourth – I swear to God – we made $40,000. We made an $80,000 swing in four months by just focusing and working together. ” (Troy) “Marketing can get people to visit once. It’s the restaurant’s job to get them to come back.” (Joseph) Transcript 00:00.81 vigorbranding Everyone today I'm joined by chef troy guard from tag restaurant group which you're going to learn all about if you're not already familiar. Um Troy say hello give a little bit of backstory. 00:11.84 Chef Troy Guard good morning good afternoon good evening whatever time we're listening to here. It's March Seventeenth St Patrick's day and I'm just chilling in my marketing's ah my marketers' room right now. So talking to Joseph in the. Excited to be on board. Thanks for having me. 00:29.77 vigorbranding Awesome! Well Troy so you grew up in Hawaii um, which it's islands that I absolutely love and now you find yourself imp possibly the complete opposite. You're a mile up in the air in Denver. 00:35.91 Chef Troy Guard Um, you know. 00:42.93 vigorbranding Um, what led you to Denver from Hawaii and and how have those roots from the islands influenced your cooking and your outlook on life. 00:50.48 Chef Troy Guard Yeah, thank you so yup board on the islands we're 5 generations of being in Hawaii even though we're white where you know some of the first missionaries to come over there which is kind of cool. Um, great stories back there. Um I left when I was. You know, 21 and just kind of just went all over the place and it's funny now that you just said that that I never even kind of realized I knew I traded the ocean for the mountains but being at sea level and then a mile up. That's pretty crazy and it's the first first place. Anywhere in my life that I was landlocked I've always lived by an ocean. So I've been here 21 years now so the last twenty one years no ocean but it's kind of cool I get to go on vacation to the ocean. So ah, I'm actually going to Malley on Wednesday I can't wait and it is my happy place. 01:42.64 vigorbranding I love it. It's it's hard not to dis not to love? Ah Hawaii um I haven't gotten to maui I haven't gotten to Kawai I've only been to a wahoo. Um, but. 01:44.98 Chef Troy Guard So yeah, um. 01:49.89 Chef Troy Guard Um, they're all beautiful. They're all different and I think they're all very very special magical. 01:56.76 vigorbranding Yeah, yeah, and you pick up a little bit of local slang while you're there too. So I believe you're a howly and um and you make food that is very ono. Yeah. 02:01.83 Chef Troy Guard Yep, that's for sure I got picked on all the time I got you all? yeah oh no odo delicious um yeah I got picked on all the time because I was the little white kid over there. So um, yeah was it's pretty different, pretty crazy. Um, but I love it. I love the international flavors of Hawaii filipino Japanese Chinese ah polynesian american so it was pretty cool and the funny thing was I don't think I had a casadia ah so I was like 15 I mean we had like. 02:36.47 vigorbranding Um. 02:37.40 Chef Troy Guard That seasoning taco mix and stuff like that. But I just never really ate mexican food I I can't remember a mexican restaurant on Hawaii that I went to. 02:46.12 vigorbranding Yeah, it's wild. Um, the the food there is amazing and so for those haven't really thought about it or haven't been to the islands the influences make a lot of sense because Hawaii it's about what 5 hours off the coast or 3 hours off the coast of ah of California but it's 5 hours away from Japan and some of the other ones. 02:57.82 Chef Troy Guard Um, yep. 03:03.40 vigorbranding And then the weirdest thing that I found is they get a huge influx of estonians in the summertime which which is like such a weird thing. Um, yeah, very odd, but ah, suffice to say you you move over into the states or into the mainland I should say you're up in Denver. 03:08.68 Chef Troy Guard Um, oh nice it is yeah it sounds different. 03:23.15 vigorbranding How do you take the the love and passion and that influence culinarily speaking and and how have you used that to create these concepts within the tag group restaurant family. 03:32.11 Chef Troy Guard Yeah, great question. So I think years and years ago. Um, as you know, growing up as a kid a lot of stuff wasn't that fresh I can't remember like fresh brostel sprouts you had carrots and onions. But. Not the things that we are really accustomed to now you go on the whole foods and it's like I am even you know we have safeways. Whatever. So um I always was was taught early on working in California Hawaii New York even Hong Kong you know you utilize what you can where you're from so obviously in California it's a great season all year round. But in Denver like springtime coming up. We're going to get peas and ramps and asparagus. We'll have that too in California but they could have it more readily available. But. I like being in Denver I like the seasonality of a lot of things and we try to get about I mean as much as we can and I would say sometimes up to 80% of anything that are is on our menu comes from Colorado which I think is pretty cool. 04:36.19 vigorbranding Is that is that something that you're continuing as you branch out of Colorado I know that you're in Houston now and. 04:43.56 Chef Troy Guard So then when we go to Houston we want to use products from Houston so they're a little bit different over there. We might even have to adjust the ah recipes tweak them a little bit. But yeah, that's what we do and then I want to use our what I call continental different continents different flavors different cooking techniques. And I might want to bring in a hawaiian fish or Paca Paca I want to might bring in some japanese fish or some chinese spices and to kind of give it that twist I feel like America is a melting pot and it's so international now and Houston is one of the biggest international cities. It is fantastic down there. But I love those bold flavors those ingredients and to take you know a simple dish and just tweak it a little bit I think that's kind of fun. 05:32.70 vigorbranding I love that so I did mess up and and talk about the tag restaurant group family. So one of the words that you use from the island is ohhanna and Ohhanna essentially means family but it means I think more. It's a bigger definition. That's really hard to pin down in english. Um. 05:41.16 Chef Troy Guard Um, oh Hanna yes, do. 05:49.92 vigorbranding Especially when you talk about your staff in the yohanna. That's there. So what? what part does that play in the company culture. How do you foster this and people who haven't maybe had the Hawaiian experience. Um, and yeah, how how do you bring that out. 05:58.93 Chef Troy Guard Um, yup, so yes, oh Hanna means family in hawaiian if you haven't been to Hawaii. It's hard to really understand but I take it even like Mexico when you go down there they hug they kiss. Um. Hawaii's hug and kiss how you doing aloha means actually hello and goodbye. So um, it's kind of cool and we work with 450 employees I feel like we're a big family a big o hana because sometimes we spend forty plus hours here sometimes more than we do at ah with our families. So at home. So we're 1 big ohanna and if anybody needs any support. Anybody needs any help we you know we want to be great leaders and managers but also a great family if if anybody needs to lean on someone. 06:33.88 vigorbranding A. 06:50.65 vigorbranding Yeah, and I think in in this in this state that we're in this industry um in the struggles that we have ah finding new talent keeping great talent How how have you seen this this embracing because a lot of people say oh we're part of the family and then it comes time to scrub though, get baseboards and you don't really feel very family-like at that moment. 07:04.64 Chef Troy Guard Um, so. 07:08.80 vigorbranding Um, how do you put that out into the world in a way that feels honest and authentic and um, how has that played a role in this growth of tag restaurant group. 07:18.17 Chef Troy Guard Yeah, great too I I'll be 52 in a month and every year I think I get a little wiser a little bit more experience. Um I think ah when I sometimes say oh everyone doesn't like this or everyone does this. Ah, of course not everybody so let's just take a hundred people. There's probably about 5% that are the bad apples but sometimes a bad Apple can spoil the bunch so we try to focus in on more of the positives. But um, that's. 07:43.60 vigorbranding A. 07:55.49 Chef Troy Guard What we're trying to do in the restaurant business is work together. Um, now I got sidetracked Can you repeat that question I just lost my train of thought I apologize. 08:03.48 vigorbranding Yeah, yeah, well, it's no and I totally I threw that in as a ringer I think um when we see this idea of family manifest ah out there. How do how do you make sure it feels authentic and real and and what role has that played in. Ah. 08:17.70 Chef Troy Guard Yeah, so authentic and real I think everyone can see someone who's genuine if someone is kissing my ass or you know doing it just to do something you know that we we try to hire people who are genuinely hospitable. 08:18.86 vigorbranding The success of tag. 08:35.73 Chef Troy Guard Great smiles wants to do things even if they don't know how to cook but they have a good attitude and want to we we like those type of people. So and then as far as um, moving forward I think covid has changed a lot I mean everybody knows it. It changed a lot of different things. Ah, we just like to be a strong support system I mean the days of people staying for ten plus years are are probably long gone and that's okay, too. But while they're here. We're going to give it our our best. And after they leave I hope they remember all the things that they learn and literally two days ago I had a guy who used to work for me five years ago and just just wanted to reach out and say hey man you helped me tremendously in so many different ways that makes me feel so good. 09:27.38 vigorbranding Um, yeah. 09:29.47 Chef Troy Guard And you know some people don't of course like ah what we do, but most people enjoy the oh Hanna and the concepts and the structure that we have here just just like politics. There's never everyone who really likes something but we always try to do. What's best. 09:44.90 vigorbranding Right. 09:48.71 Chef Troy Guard For our employees and the business. Yeah. 09:51.81 vigorbranding Yeah, that's that's a fantastic path forward because I think a lot of people pin. Ah the the struggles of the industry on pay. You know oh it'ss that we don't pay enough ah restaurants under pay blah Blah Blah You know we've we've had those arguments before um. 09:58.90 Chef Troy Guard So right 2 10:05.16 vigorbranding But I think what you find is pay is of course 1 factor but it's not the factor and usually a lot of it is that interaction with um leadership. Ah, it's really tough I think to foster a culture when you start to spread out to the size of tag and but and and above you know what? I mean. So. 2 3 concepts locations. Not so bad. But when you have to start instilling that middle management. You get torn between that do I have the person who is a hell of an operator but a terrible cultural fit or or the opposite. Um. 10:26.63 Chef Troy Guard Right. 10:36.95 Chef Troy Guard Right. 10:42.20 vigorbranding And and I think if you go the opposite like yeah, you're really fostering that like how do how do you find you meaning you're fostering the culture but man we're flailing and we're not doing Well we can't stay open. Um so how do you build it. 10:49.14 Chef Troy Guard Yeah, so yeah, just took Ah yeah, just took out of my wallet here I made this I don't know if you guys can see it very well. Yup I'm going to explain it. Yep. 10:58.97 vigorbranding Um, ah let me are you going to explain it Otherwise I can okay, cool. Great. 11:02.75 Chef Troy Guard So at the top. It says our business perspective and then it says the vision you have to have a vision at work and so when we're coming to work. Of course we're doing it because we need to get paid and pay our bills but let's have a meaning to why we're coming so the vision. Tag is a celebration of the unexpected. You never know what's going to happen today. Someone calls in sick um, the dishwasher goes down you name it I've been there. It's happened. How do we put ourselves in those situations and it gets stressful that restaurants are stressful. And there's a lot of moving pieces. A lot of curveballs. So then the first thing is culture like we just talked about if you don't have the culture. You're not going to be successful. Everybody has to buy into what we do and again I'm going to say 95% of all our employees buy into what we do. Even if they're there for three months or 3 years they like what we do and they might have to leave for other different reasons. But that's okay or we might have to give them a new job somewhere else too. But the culture is number one next there are core values so we're coming to work and why are we doing this and. 12:08.40 vigorbranding A. 12:17.57 Chef Troy Guard Ah, core values passion imagination courage, caring humility harmony and ownership. So in one sense of the word when I sat down thirteen fifteen years ago before I opened my first restaurant like That's what I want to see in people I want to give them the ownership Joseph. You're a server that's the guest and the like something I'm giving you ownership to do what you think is best. Don't give away five hundred bucks but let's do something genuinely that's going to take care of. This situation and guess we care for each other I'm very passionate about my work you have to have imagination. So all these core values are great and then the last one is systems. So then we got all the systems in place and then once you do that? Our results are great food, great service and great finance. So. Out of all that money was the last when I was first coming up. That's all I thought about was money like because if I don't make money I'm going to lose but I had it all wrong I had to do the culture the oh Hanna and um, if that is. 13:33.17 Chef Troy Guard On on number 10 everything else should fall in the place. So. 13:38.78 vigorbranding Yeah I love it having that little reminder card is a nice touch I have 1 in my wallet that I put in there five years ago it just has 1 sentence. It just says what if you're wrong. It's just ah, it's just a reminder you know. 13:41.81 Chef Troy Guard Like. 13:51.10 Chef Troy Guard Um, nice I Love that I love that there's you know. 13:54.83 vigorbranding Like because especially if you have bold convictions and you really believe in something it isn't a challenge in a meaning you are wrong just to hey don't forget like what if you're wrong, just think about that other side. Yeah, um, but you did you talked about ah thirteen fifteen years ago um let's hop back there. So um. 14:02.60 Chef Troy Guard Yeah, exactly I like it. 14:14.10 vigorbranding Ah, around that time is when you opened your first ah concept and you're about a month into this idea of tag restaurant group and things weren't going well investors came a knock in and said hey man you got like two weeks that we're done how how did that feel. 14:18.50 Chef Troy Guard Yep. 14:23.71 Chef Troy Guard Yep. 14:27.53 Chef Troy Guard Yeah. 14:31.90 vigorbranding How did you overcome. 14:34.56 Chef Troy Guard Kind of like what your sentence says in your wallet. What if I'm wrong. So um I like to share my stories like that I'm pretty open I don't like to say I'm great when I'm not doing great or I'm I'm not doing great and you're great. So. 14:51.50 Chef Troy Guard I tell that story a lot of my investors tell it to a lot of different people too because I thought I was a great chef and I was but I didn't know everything that else that went on with it and there's a lot of moving pieces in this business. So. I focused in on the food instead of really being the leader that I needed to be in the restaurant so two weeks into it. Yeah, we lost we already were $40000 in the hole. It's like geez that's a lot of money troy how are we going to make that up I had you know too many people in the kitchen too many people on the floor ordering too much wine. Ordering too many high-end ingredients so we brought it all back in and we worked together as a culture the second month. Yeah, my investor said hey if you don't change. We're going to have to close the second month we lost 20 Grand so we were moving in the right direction. The third we broke. Even. 15:41.40 vigorbranding Um. 15:45.73 Chef Troy Guard And the fourth I swear to god we made $40000 so we made a $80000 swing in four months by just focusing and working together. 15:57.45 vigorbranding Yeah, but that's amazing. Um, it's fantastic I Think a lot of businesses suffer that from that where you have a leader who's passionate about the craft and because I'm passionate about the craft because I'm good at what I do therefore success. 16:08.53 Chef Troy Guard Um, to write? yeah. 16:13.10 vigorbranding Like yeah but you're missing so many other things that go into success. Especially it's the same sustained success as well. Um, and I love the story because it was so rapid and was such a turnaround because I think when you're that myopically focused on just the 1 thing if I build it they will come. Um. 16:26.75 Chef Troy Guard Right. 16:30.81 vigorbranding You can turn around things quite fast and I think what we see in restaurants large and small um multi-unit in single unit is a lot of Uberris and a lot of ah arrogance in that. Well it can't be all the things that I do it has to be something else. It's marketing. Let's fix marketing. It's like well. 16:45.31 Chef Troy Guard Right? see? yeah. 16:50.39 vigorbranding You know marketing is going to get someone to come there. Maybe once? um and I said this to a client a while back. That's right? Yeah I said that on a client call a few years ago it didn't go over very well but I stand by it I would say it all over again and that is we can get them to come there. 16:52.78 Chef Troy Guard Yeah, like yeah you marketing is going to get him in there. But what are you going to do to get him back right. 17:09.40 vigorbranding It's your job to get in the comeback and if they don't come back. No amount of marketing can finagle them back. You know, especially if it was a terrible experience. You know. 17:11.70 Chef Troy Guard Um, yeah, no, you're absolutely right? I always say the 4 walls. Um I'd rather do and you can ask anyone in the company. When we first start out I rather do 50 great covers a night than 100 sloppy because I want to blow those 50 away and then we can grow from there. So ah, we we hold the reservations we hold we pace things out. Because again numbers are great and I want to make a lot of money. Um, because we're we're in ah um, a business for profit. We're not a charity and so we need to make money but we have the first build a foundation and that's ah ah, taking care of the guest. 18:05.24 vigorbranding Yeah I love that and so that that kind of gets into another thing I wanted to open up which is this foray into Houston um, as well as the total footprint. So I think you have a total of 12 locations right now. 18:10.84 Chef Troy Guard Um, oh excuse me. 18:18.27 Chef Troy Guard Correct. We used to have more but um, we lost a couple in Covid and also a couple leases ran out and we we were negotiating and then my whole vision changed during Covid right? You know I was going to do this. 18:31.96 vigorbranding Um, yeah. 18:35.91 Chef Troy Guard This path. But now we're doing this path which before I think we had 8 or 9 concepts now we have 4 so I wanted to go an inch wide and a mile deep before I was a mile wide and only an inch deep which isn't bad but I want to grow the most successful concepts that have legs. And so going down the Houston our first one out of state was a steakhouse I mean Houston you would think no brain or right steak and but there's a lot of good stakeeak down there. A lot of great competition so we had to be on our a game and ah unfortunately three months after reopen covid happened. So. 19:02.85 vigorbranding Um, a. 19:13.87 Chef Troy Guard All those dollars spent in training and marketing and building the restaurant just down the tube. So you know we struggled like everybody. Um for that year so 20 and then 21 we were building it back up, but it's still covid's up and down. And then 22 january I think I remember covid hit hard again, but we had a great year a solid team and touching the tables and working those 4 walls I remember doing fifty covers a night now they're doing three hundred covers a night by taking care of the guests and working together. Um. 19:51.60 vigorbranding Yeah I love that um across the board. It's funny so much change in Covid But what didn't change was landlords and their idea of what the value of the space was is still happening. Um, yeah, so a lot of places closed not because they were doing bad but. 19:59.90 Chef Troy Guard Right now. It's crazy. 20:07.16 vigorbranding Quite simply because nothing changed on that level everything else changed but nothing changed there. 20:08.61 Chef Troy Guard I would say 90% so nine out of ten eight out of 10 landlords were really helpful and good and there's always that 1 or 2 just like I said that 95 and five percent. Not everyone's gonna do what they should or shouldn't do and it's just a bummer right? cause. 20:26.23 vigorbranding Um, yeah. 20:28.36 Chef Troy Guard Covid wasn't anyone's doing you know, come down on me if I don't pay the rent because I'm not being successful but you can't get mad at me for Covid you know what? I mean? yeah. 20:39.20 vigorbranding That's right, Yeah, it's really tough, especially when we're all in it together. Um I Also love the idea that you you took the It's a really difficult move to to shrink by design you know, ah for those that have ever gotten a haircut they call it a health cut. You know you chop back a couple inches because you need to grow longer. 20:56.25 Chef Troy Guard Yep. 20:56.34 vigorbranding Um, but so often I see um what ah I would consider tag a hospitality group hospitality groups. They with good reason are absolutely enamored with creating new Concepts I'm enamored with creating new Concepts which is why I started vigor as a branding agency I Love creating new Concepts but with each one of those. 20:59.60 Chef Troy Guard Yeah. Yeah. 21:11.53 Chef Troy Guard Um, it's awesome. Yeah. 21:14.94 vigorbranding You have you have to have your own marketing budget. You have to have unique processes because you kind of stem from the same hub but still like you have to make it unique like ksad diaz as you said earlier are not the same mistakes and all of that. So how have you wrangled that together. How have you ensured that when you do create a new concept. Um, it is coming from that same heart the Ohhanna heart. But. 21:21.96 Chef Troy Guard You hope. 21:32.55 Chef Troy Guard Um, yeah, you know it's it's everything is challenging but what I've learned and it took me a while to learn again is no matter what business we're in. It's about the people. 21:34.54 vigorbranding Manifests effectively. 21:49.38 vigorbranding Um, yeah. 21:51.32 Chef Troy Guard We all have to work together for the common goal. So I'm a very creative guy. That's why imagination is 1 of our core values and I like to create it. But then I got to the point I think where it's like all right now. Let's focus. On some of these great creative concepts that I've come up with and and our employees embraced it and made it awesome now. Let's take some of those they were all awesome for different reasons but tag was me it was chef driven. Um. I couldn't I mean I could duplicate it but not really that was that was everything of me my my heart my sleeve my tears everything and everyone that worked there made it amazing but without tag I couldn't have done these other concepts and so growing growing the. The tag it and getting back to your question I got off but going from 8 concepts or 16 restaurants down covid let us do that I I looked at covid as they gave us lemons I'm in lemonade right? so. 22:51.12 vigorbranding No your front. Yeah. 23:06.90 Chef Troy Guard Um, we reassessed what we were doing. We're all moving so fast that we forgot to step back and really take a look at what we had and so I could have kept tag open I could have kept tag Burger bar open I could have kept a lot of things open. But. 23:19.11 vigorbranding Um. 23:25.33 Chef Troy Guard I said let's take the four best like I worked for Roy Yamaguchi he only opened 1 restaurant for 2030 years now he's branching out and doing 3 4 or 5 different concepts. We I did it differently I branched out first. He didn't um, but that's where I learned a lot working with him growing. Not being able to be in 1 spot all the time. Ah and bringing the culture to each environment. That's what's going to make it special because everybody can make mistakes how are we going to make ours more special. It's I feel. It's with our people. 24:01.68 vigorbranding Yeah, so that's that's a good point. We you mentioned like the multiple footprints so um, creating new Concepts that are evocative of the area or this unique brand moment. Um, again, a lot of fun and you see a lot of hospitality groups that do just that. Um. 24:04.50 Chef Troy Guard Um, oh. 24:17.75 vigorbranding But when you start to go multi-unit. There are the optimizations that you mentioned but a new challenge arises which is how do you prevent it feeling going to use the C word like a chain you know which can have really you know it basically feels devalued. It's like oh well this is. 24:28.40 Chef Troy Guard Yeah, yeah, yeah. 24:36.30 vigorbranding This is also in Denver. It's also in l a it's also blah blah blah. So it's not unique to my neighborhood. How do you? How do you ah work around that. 24:38.71 Chef Troy Guard Right? But yeah I think when I was younger and more cocky I thought chains chains sounded terrible but as I've gotten older I think chains can be good. Um. The consistency the product, the culture. So um, let's just say let's pick a che maybe wolfgang puck or something. He's a chain but I know when I hear and see that name I have a certain quality or. Um, it's going to be a certain value to me even Mcdonald's I mean everyone says they don't like it but it's consistent I don't I don't eat it a lot but I have kids and of course I go to Mcdonald's but at least you know what you're getting and that's what I appreciate about chains is the consistency but you. 25:31.23 vigorbranding And. 25:34.50 Chef Troy Guard You have to be careful because then I see them cutting um, cutting standards or cutting things that made them that great right? So um, we never cut on. 25:42.27 vigorbranding Um, yep. 25:49.65 Chef Troy Guard The value of the plate the product I'm not going to buy a cheaper fillet mignon or a cheaper chicken just to make more money I'm going to try to give the best product I can a best value and we know how much everything has gone up since Covid to so it's been very challenging and in a delicate process to. 26:02.80 vigorbranding Yeah. 26:08.98 Chef Troy Guard I can't just up the menus all the time. What we do is we up it a little bit but we then work on something else on the p and l that we have to get better at whether it's instead of Joe's Joseph's coming in at one o'clock every day we're going to bring you at 151 and if you do that with 50 employees that adds up a lot. Okay, so you losing a few minutes here and there we're going to make it up another way. So um, and how we make it up is we put a service charge on on our checks for three point 5. 26:30.79 vigorbranding Um, yeah. 26:44.89 Chef Troy Guard And 60% goes to the house which myself to offset and everything right? So I don't have to raise the prices and we know like chemicals and gloves and everything just went up and then 40% we gave to the back of the house. Um because they needed a little bit more. 26:49.10 vigorbranding Um, yeah. 27:02.38 Chef Troy Guard The front of the house got it because when we raise our prices they get more tips. So um I think it worked out really really well that way. 27:08.65 vigorbranding Yeah I love that I think those those little changes can have such a big impact I think people forget that because they think everything has to be cataclysmic these monumental shifts to make monumental change and it's like no actually just little habits little. 27:17.39 Chef Troy Guard Right. 27:24.40 vigorbranding Little turning of the knob that doesn't devalue. It only increases value like all those things. It's good to hear that as a reminder for those that knew it but forgot it and it's good for those that don't know it to hear it. It's like actually it's just usually in the details. You know as they say um. 27:32.59 Chef Troy Guard Um, yep. 27:37.86 Chef Troy Guard Correct yep and I love looking at numbers before I was just food food food and I didn't care about the numbers. But you know like I said at tag if I didn't know the numbers. We're gonna fail just like I ask everyone. You know what's in your bank account. Of course you do so you got to know the restaurant too. What are your numbers. How much food am I bringing in today. How much if I bring in a hundred dollars worth of food. What do I need to do in gas per um, you know ppa and things like that. So um. 28:15.10 Chef Troy Guard I like to think we're tag university too. We we sit down once a month and go over the p and ls we sit down once a week and have manager meetings we sit down once a quarter with every manager in our restaurant group and we even fly them up from Houston so we're all together. As an ohna and working together like hey, how'd you get 20% man I keep getting 25. Let's connect and figure out the best way you know? So um, yeah, it's it's fun. It's cool and we have to. We have to take care of the guest but we also have to see all the other things that go on in the restaurant light bulbs. Why is the restaurant. This is a but 1 for me, we open at 5 but every light in the restaurant is is on at Nine Zero a m when everyone comes in like we don't need that it sounds silly. 29:09.30 vigorbranding Um, yeah, no, no, it does it. 29:10.81 Chef Troy Guard But every little thing every little thing adds up I'm a big stickler on um, the environment and waste like you should see like these are your papers that I printed out but later on I'm going to use it on this side. 29:24.56 vigorbranding Right. 29:26.62 Chef Troy Guard And anybody that has to print something we use recycled papers. So it takes an extra second to do what's right? And that's what we try to do? yeah. 29:34.83 vigorbranding Yeah I love that no the lights thing cracks me up because I'm in an I'm in an ongoing battle with the misses on that and I think every day I sing Teddy Pendergrass to her like turn off the lights especially during the day I'm like we we have beautiful windows we have plenty of light. 29:45.93 Chef Troy Guard Yeah, yeah I like it right I Love it exactly Yes I love it. You know. 29:53.95 vigorbranding Like you know and it's not that I'm a cheap case. It's just like but but why like you know it's better for you. Natural light is better for you anyway. 30:03.77 Chef Troy Guard Think our society gets a bad rap like everybody I feel needs a little love right now. Everyone's complaining or angry about stuff and we got to help the environment too and I have my four eight year olds and 13 year old like we're we're somewhere like dad look at that trash and they'll pick it up because. We've worked together to learn that stuff and we got to make the environment a better place. So so. 30:22.54 vigorbranding Yeah, absolutely love it. What what's next for you and tag restaurant group. What what can you tell me like get us excited about the rest of the year in 2024 yeah yeah 30:35.11 Chef Troy Guard Yes, 2023 is already flying by right? It's going to be April first in just a few days. Um, we've been working really hard with during covid so um, like I said we took a step back to reassess everything. And really focused on um, the foundation. Our people um making sure our recipes our daily duties all that kind of stuff and now we're ramped up to really hit it hard. So. We signed the deal a few days ah or a month ago to open our second hashtag we're working right now on 2 more hashtags that'll be open 24 probably we want to open 4 more hashtags in 2 years We're working on a garden grace. Um, possibly. In Dallas or another city right now we're we're in negotiation so that'll be hopefully next year and the boobooos and lo are gonna wait ah wait lo she is a boobo are gonna wait another year while we focus on these 2 but we're still working on those in the background but those are the 2 that we're going to focus on first and then we're going to um, spend more time on the quick casual boobo and we call badass mexican los chingones. 31:57.10 vigorbranding Oh yeah, absolutely lot I'm very familiar with Los Chiing goess. Um, we ah so when when I owned vigor we profiled that very heavily because we opened and created my neighbor Felix believe it or not yeah so yeah, so I'm good friends with the. 32:01.90 Chef Troy Guard 2 32:11.12 Chef Troy Guard Oh right on cool francois all hose is Jose is Jose up felix still okay, yeah, but he was there a long time. Yeah, he's cool. 32:16.16 vigorbranding Chef ah jose ah I love fran while I won't say we're friends but I don't think so no, he's he's stepped away but ah, really good friends with Jose yeah, he's great guy. Um, anyway, so next time I get to Denver I'll have to see you. 32:29.51 Chef Troy Guard Um, right on. 32:31.10 vigorbranding Ah, final question worst question in my opinion because it's so tough to answer but I will make you answer it if you had 1 final meal. What would you eat and where and why. 32:40.86 Chef Troy Guard Nice. That's a great question. Hopefully it's not for a long long time. So I haven't really thought about it. But my favorite thing is ah a grilled ribye steak. On charcoal because ah, growing up literally we ate on a grill five 6 days a week. My dad would barbecue something fish meat. Whatever and it'd probably be some type of rice I ate rice every single day. I like a little bit of teriaki sauce and butter drizzled over that nice steak when it comes out and I love what? What first time I went to Hong Kong like the way they cooked vegetables blew me away I always thought you know you got vegetables and you throw them in the saute pan and you cook them. They blanched everything or steamed everything and the color came out so bright. All that chlorophyll. So I love choice some I like crunchy vegetables and it's like a chinese broccoli. Um, maybe a little bit of kimchi or some hawaiian pokey and I'm a. 33:31.43 vigorbranding Um. 33:46.90 Chef Troy Guard Cours like guys simple and I would do that and I would probably have to do it on the ocean in Hawaii right. 33:53.28 vigorbranding Absolutely love it Man That's a fantastic answer. Um, thanks for being such an open book and generous with your time. A lot of insights in here I can't thank you enough. So best of luck to you in the future. 34:04.58 Chef Troy Guard Yeah, thanks for having me Joseph I can't wait to ah continue to listen to your podcast man. 34:08.17 vigorbranding Thanks.

Chowly is a cloud-based solution that helps restaurants of all sizes integrate third-party online ordering systems into point-of-sale (POS) systems to manage orders, payments, billing, and more.The end result is a technology that saves restaurants time and money. Earlier this year, Chowly launched its Restaurant Control Center, which serves as a centralized hub for integrations and empowers restaurants with consolidated data and business insights. Sterling found that a lot of online ordering systems had great consumer experiences or great operations and back-end experiences for restaurants, but not both. Chowly’s acquisition of Koala allowed them to offer superior experiences to both consumers and restaurants. Sterling predicts that dynamic pricing will take off in 2023, with companies like Sauce, Pricing and Juicer leading the way. Apps need to provide an intrinsic value. They can’t just be used to check a box. Dynamic pricing will be a shaky system at first, but after 18-24 months, it will have found its footing and be widely accepted by consumers. Quotes “Co-opetition is wild in the restaurant space. The amount of overlap of features from point-of-sale to online ordering companies to loyalty systems to marketing systems – everyone’s got overlap of features.” (Sterling) “I feel like the restaurant industry is going through a bundling cycle right now. It’s not uncommon to see industries go through bundling and unbundling cycles.” (Sterling) “The consolidation has to make sense. It has to pair well together. Consolidation for consolidation’s sake isn’t helpful to anyone.” (Sterling) “The first question to ask is, ‘Do I need another app on my phone?’ I’m at the point now where the only time an app really matters is if it’s completely built with the customer in mind.” (Joseph) “Half of the restaurant industry is small operators and independents. We don’t have the same big-player mentality (as the travel industry).” (Sterling) “You can’t commoditize a really great burger. The airlines are very much commoditized. The experiences are very similar. In a restaurant, they’re completely different.” (Sterling) “As digital threatens the viability of restaurant dining rooms, the question becomes, ‘What makes my dining room worth sitting in?’” (Joseph) “Restaurants need to meet consumers where they are. I don’t think on-premise is going away, no matter how much I love the convenience of getting my food delivered to me.” (Sterling) Quotes 00:00.55 vigorbranding Hey guys today I'm joined by my new friend sterling Douglas he's the co-founder and Ceo of Chali which we're gonna dive into a lot so many things happening over there and just so you know we've been chatting for about 10 minutes on all things. So I think it's gonna be great episode. Ah. Sterling say hello and give up a backstory. 00:17.83 Sterling _Chowly_ Hey Joseph thanks for having me on I'm excited to kind of dive into a bunch of these topics that we were getting into yeah cofounder Ceo Chali where digital platform that enables restaurants to expand their off-prem capabilities before. Chaey I used to be an actuary deep into data analytics and just found that data really wasn't moving cleanly between restaurants and you know that really prompted kind of the founding for chaey so that we could take data from you know uber eats grubhubs of the world and help restaurants kind of adopt this new technology without. You know the operational headaches that a lot of them break. 00:56.73 vigorbranding Yeah,, that's Amazing. So Let's actually just dig right into that founding a little bit. Um, suffice to say online ordering and the tech that you got into there's a lot of players out there. So what. Really prompted because it seems like a big risk right? It's like I'm going to launch another online ordering platform you're going into a C of a lot of varying degrees of competition from the old guard to the New. Um, what made you feel like hey I think we're going to do this Better. We're going to do this different. 01:26.51 Sterling _Chowly_ Yeah I mean look over the years um I've looked at hundreds of online ordering and white label tools from like you said you know groups that started in you know, 2003 2005 and to you know some of the recent upstarts that have raised a lot of venture capital. They get their business going. It's something that we've been deep but we we partner with a ton of them. We've resold them. We've referred them. We've helped restaurants get stood up and we've gotten all this feedback. Um, and we always got to ask that question. Restaurant. All the time like hey, what's chali going to do an online ordering tool and and I always mostly just said I don't't really want to there's there's already so many out there. But what we ended up finding is that there was always most of these online ordering Tus fell into 2 buckets 1 they had great. Ah, front end and consumer experience which which was really helpful but then they lacked on the backend and the operational side at the restaurant. It was hard to manage didn't really work with their point of sales system or fifth or flow or you found the exact opposite scenario. Really great backend operational side. Ah, but the consumer experience was pretty lacking. Um. And so when we were kind of evaluating this the the opportunity to bring Koala under the same umbrella came out and the most interesting part to me is that that's all they do is the frontend and the consumer experience and they're so good at it. Even the biggest dog out there in the online ordering space olo refers them in and as a top partner. 02:53.52 vigorbranding Are. 02:55.47 Sterling _Chowly_ So we found literally the best in class on the frontend and on the chaey side most of our product is the operational flow. We're helping you know things like Gruhub and uber eats fit into the restaurants flow integrated the point of sale get all the data and everything so we knew we were really good at that. And 1 of the reasons that we didn't want to build that is because we knew it's really hard to be good at both. You know we didn't have the rightup on staff. It would have taken a long time and even if we did build it. It have been expensive and it still might not have been enough and so this opportunity to bring Koala and is like hey we can actually get both of these things we can have literally the best in-class consumer experience. And the best in class operational experience to the restaurant and if we can truly meld those together that's going to be the best experience for the restaurant industry and especially in the independent operator space where they just you know they don't have a good option to kind of get multiple things under 1 roof. 03:48.33 vigorbranding Yeah, and so for for those who have been um, either stuck in the kitchen and not able to ah bring their head up for the last few weeks chali just completed acquisition of Koala if you're unfamiliar with Koala we did do an episode with Brett ah from koala a few back and we'll make sure we have a link to that in our show notes. Um, Koala basically started ah for lack I'm going to make this sound really dumb. But basically they skinned the olo dot com services so you had a bit more brand control. You had a bit more um control over upsells and how that looks instead of just the out of the box solution that olo provides. And I think thereby reducing the um average of 5 clicks to get through a completion of an order so you guys scoop them up at its core chali started as more um, would you say an integration mechanism between pos and online ordering. 04:39.29 Sterling _Chowly_ Yeah, yeah, point of sale integration company. You know how we described ourselves for a while almost an api as a service right? because we were basically leveraging and creating apis to help data flow between these systems so bringing in you know Koala that specializes on. 04:49.10 vigorbranding Um, a. 04:57.66 Sterling _Chowly_ The user experience. Not only is it are they veniacal about conversion rates which I think is is lacking in the restaurant space but they've got you know machine learning that helps make recommendations to increase basket sizes and the customization of it is so Amazing. Go look at you know Mod pizza. And go look at Pf chains's they're both koala but they're completely different experiences. They're unique to the brand and it was one of the things that I thought was so special about what they were building. 05:25.60 vigorbranding I love that. So yeah, chali essentially is the zapier of the ah of the restaurant technology world. You know what's interesting is when you go when you go to the website. The Chali website. Um I think a lot of us who aren't super integrated into the online ordering and in the pos world. You know you say online orderering most people are going to say grubhub postmates door uber eats and maybe another one and and what's funny to me is like I almost had to take a step back and question how much I know about this industry when I see your ticker of logos and I'm like oh brother I haven't heard of like half of these. Um, oh my gosh. 05:58.63 Sterling _Chowly_ Um. 05:59.98 vigorbranding And so it's interesting to see um to see those those competitors out there now when when looking at Koala as a mechanism to get into a stronger online ordering offering. How do you imagine? That's going to play out. Um. As being basically viewed as a competitor to some of the folks that may have been a partner in the past. 06:21.42 Sterling _Chowly_ Yeah, yeah, so so 2 things on this one? Ah co-optition is just wild in the restaurant space. The amount of overlap of features from point of sales to online ordering companies to loyalty systems to marketing ones. 06:29.00 vigorbranding A. 06:38.67 Sterling _Chowly_ Everyone's got overlap of feature sets. That's that's something that's really just become standard in the industry. So that's not new, all right? Some of our partners have ah Third -party marketplace integrations and they just use us for the point- ofale side some of them are point- ofale systems that have a couple direct integrations but use us for everything else. And so that's commonplace in this industry. That's not new. Um, so for us, it's it's really something that isn't going to shock a lot of people but I think the important part that we need to always maintain and that we will is to create an even playing field. Ah, koala module and how it says today is going to work and use the exact same api that we make available to everybody so it doesn't matter whether you're you know billion dollar publicly traded grubhub you're using the same api that a new startup is using on the online ordering side that built to our system. And that's the same as we what koal is going to be using so making sure that we have an even playing field for everybody is is important and to be honest, the the co-opetition is not new. It's something that's been around for a while. 07:45.87 vigorbranding Yeah I love that it's um, it's It's part of I think a bigger issue too or not issue. But I think a new wave of challenges that are coming because the restaurant industry was so far behind in technology comparatively to other industries that are way ahead. Um. 08:02.41 vigorbranding I think we're going to start to see a lot more of this convergence of tech. Um, how do you see that playing out now. Obviously you know you know the the Chali roadmap. Ah even the stuff that we're not allowed to know yet. Um, but as you look around the the landscape. 08:19.10 Sterling _Chowly_ Is it. 08:20.87 vigorbranding Um, is this something that you're cheering on like this consolidation converging. Um and and where do you think the next step is going to be with this. Um, once we've aced the the combination of pos on online ordering What's the next um world that we're going to enter into. 08:35.93 Sterling _Chowly_ Yeah, so when when we think about the the convergence or the the consolidation and the tech space. You've got you had globs of venture capital poured into tech tech companies into the restaurant space and they all focused on a specific problem to solve because. Restaurants are deceptively difficult business models and people often underestimate how complicated it is and how big a business you can build solving one really meaningful pain point that restaurants have so you created a ton of these companies in all different spots. And as you've seen customer or as you've seen restaurants you know, go through last year where you just saw this crazy increase in labor costs and food cost all of a sudden it made a lot more sense for them to maybe I can reduce vendors save a few dollars here I might not get best of breed. But I'll still get enough for me to kind of make the advances and technology to meet my my consumers where they are and so you started to see a lot more of that consolidation and so I I feel that the restaurant industry is going through a bundling cycle right now. And it's not uncommon for industries to go through bundling and unbundling cycles. We weren't through a big unbundling cycle where best to breed was really taking place because the acceleration that covid you know, provided for restaurants and now you're starting to see a bit of a bundling cycle. Ah, and so. 09:47.89 vigorbranding Um, and. 10:05.28 Sterling _Chowly_ Yeah, you're going to see some of it but at the same time There's so much innovation coming in the restaurant industry so you're seeing consolidation on certain features. But you're still seeing tons of innovation in new ones you're seeing you know what's next I mean dynamic pricing is going to really take off this year that's a new and kind of separate. Ah, you know piece of technology that's going to go and it's going to grow a ton companies like sauce pricing and and juicer you know I'm they're the talk of the show and so you're gonna be seeing a lot of that you're seeing a lot on the data side. So you're seeing a lot of data consolidation. Not just from the point of sale. But how do I get my what. 10:25.37 vigorbranding Yep. 10:43.43 Sterling _Chowly_ You know my food costs my labor costs my sales and my customer and my payments all in 1 place. So I can look at these things together and so I think you're going to see just as much innovation in new companies and new product lines as you're going to see on the consolidation side. But I think the consolidation has to make sense. It has to pair well together consolidation for consolidation's sake I don't think is helpful to anybody. 11:07.24 vigorbranding Yeah I think it's a natural progression that you kind of talk about I mean what we saw is We had these Og old Guard Pus systems that sort of just tacked online ordering on as a oh yeah and we and we do that? Um, and I think what's great about um the innovation world or whatever you want to call it is. 11:17.59 Sterling _Chowly_ This is. 11:24.49 vigorbranding People see that and they say hey this actually is not good and that's like that is the seed of innovation we can do it better and if we can find a way to tap into that system. Well now we have a nice path forward. So you're right? It is this like natural ebb and flow. Where innovation really is the driver as people zero in on the pain points of those like micro. Not even maybe micro but like little bits of the of the picture that are already there from the Pos system. So they're focused on their machines. They're focused on their hardware. Maybe their software online orderings tacked on and actually it's funny because I see that happen a lot with email marketing. 11:59.31 Sterling _Chowly_ Is it. 12:01.30 vigorbranding Feel like it's like hey we have online ordering and email marketing is a thing too Anyway, the online ordering and you're like right? but that is such a huge thing that could be so much better with segmentation and automation and all these things but you just sort of crammed it on there. Ah I'm looking at you toast I'm sorry. But. 12:10.72 Sterling _Chowly_ Um, yes. 12:20.53 Sterling _Chowly_ Um. 12:21.57 vigorbranding Email marketing system is terrible and you could tell it's an afterthought. Um, so if you just open up a little bit guys then then other email marketing Anyway, all right off topic but the other thing that you mentioned too. Yeah. 12:25.32 Sterling _Chowly_ It. No, it's but but it's a good point because it's box checking tech right? like I need to check a box on this Rfp or I need to say that I have it I mean the amount of the amount of restaurants who say well I have to have loyalty right because in in the head they're like I need it and then I dig in and I'm like well what. Loyalty mean like what? what are the features that do it I get answers from being able to reorder something to email to things that are more of a crm and there's this huge sloth of things and a lot of a lot of companies especially tech companies get a deal done. They do box checking. 13:05.61 vigorbranding Right. 13:07.47 Sterling _Chowly_ And that was exactly what I wanted to do avoidid when we looked at Koal I wanted this to really make sense really be complimentary I wanted the missions do a line you know I wanted core values to align like it had to make sense for it really to truly work in my head. 13:21.94 vigorbranding Yeah, it's interesting. Um, you know, bringing up the loyalty side of things. Ah there sales people are always to blame I'm sorry guys I love you. But it's always that you know because it's like you're so good at your job. But. The first question hasn't been asked which is like do I need another app on my phone and and if it's just to check the box that I came here isn't there a better way now you know friends at big check and I'm sure you've run into them before Sam Standovich and and ah Jason Jason um great guys. 13:41.30 Sterling _Chowly_ Um, this. 13:49.53 Sterling _Chowly_ Course. 13:54.00 vigorbranding I mean they took that and ran I got to hear them talk um last year a little bit about it and they just they've connected it to the thing that matters most which is your payment mechanism and it's like yes we want to benefit you if you come here often. We don't need you to download an app I'm at the point now like where the only time an app really matters is if it's. Completely built with the customer in mind like Starbucks like Papa John's like some of these well-designed apps that are out there these out-of-the-box solutions are just that it's it's it's a loyalty. Yeah and not loyalty. It's ah it's a repeat traffic tracker and a fast track to getting into a mobile order. Um, have you seen have you I mean do you agree and do you see a world where those experiences are going to become better and more worth it because I've I've heard leaders basically say like we did the app and we paid for it and um, it just doesn't work for us. 14:48.31 Sterling _Chowly_ Yeah, it is a It's a hot topic because there are situations where it it really depends on the intrinsic value that you're providing So when I when I talk to to restaurants and they say I want an app you really dig in and and understand why and I have found that. Typically when they want the app to want the app while they go with a vendor who checks the box and they get in what they they get out what they put in but I've also seen situations where ah, they've wanted to get the mobile app because it's an it's they're meeting where their consumers want the. 15:18.39 vigorbranding Um, here. 15:27.35 Sterling _Chowly_ Have customers who actually want to interact this way when you're on mobile you have you can actually create easier flows. You can make it easier to order. You can build all of really good hospitable experience in it and then all of a sudden you've seen it like literally make them more money because all of a sudden they know that 10% of their traffic's going through. 15:41.43 vigorbranding Are. 15:47.24 Sterling _Chowly_ App because that's what their consumers are using the app has a 2.9 rating on the app store has a crappy conversion rate then they get 1 and they say hey we already know we have customers here. We want to give them a better experience and you build it with that intention. All the sudden you have a 4.9 rating on the app store. You're converting 70% other users that start in order and all of a sudden you went from 10% of your sales to 20% of the sales and it's almost all incremental. That's when it makes a difference That's when you're providing that intrinsic value. So we we have this discussion a ton internally on like what are we doing with the mobile app. And on my side I'm like ah we need to provide intrinsic value like we're not going to make the box checking product. That's not what I but I want us to do um and so when we provide that intrinsic value I think it is there. So I think that having that has tons of advantages to both restaurants big and small. Ah, but it has to be done with this intent and it has to be done deliberately and if you do it that way. That's how I think you can provide a great experience and at the end of the day make the restaurant more money and make their customers happier. 16:53.70 vigorbranding Yeah, love that and in online ordering I think is probably the better approach to really thinking about loyalty loyalties beginning start with repeat traffic repeat purchases and having a fantastic um experience time in timeout whether it's digital. Physical in Personson or even non-transactional and so if you have control over that online ordering report and you have the look there then it makes a lot of sense that you could easily start to push that into what does loyalty really look like and how do we reward it. How do we recognize it? um. And and it sounds like that's what koalas the acquisition of Koala is giving you almost a basis to start to approach. Um, maybe I'm digging into something you shouldn't talk about but it seems like that's the path forward right? yeah. 17:34.81 Sterling _Chowly_ But yeah, we we have so much work to do on. You know, getting getting the the first party experience the mobile app experience our third party experience making all the data we have enough on our plate right now I'm not not trying to add big things like that. Right now we have we have some great partners today on that side that are are experts in this and that's that's what we want to let them do. 18:02.86 vigorbranding I love it if it's being considered blink twice I'm just kidding all right? So no, that's great so you did bring up a topic that so I do think we're going to have Carl from juicer on the show here soon? Um I'm excited about it I am a. 18:16.64 Sterling _Chowly_ Um, excellent. 18:20.34 vigorbranding Unk Bullwark against dynamic pricing. Ah yeah, like like don't buy into it I get it from the operator side. It is so sexy to be able to make the money you want to make I think it's going to be a loyalty killer or at least in the way it's being thought about now. So tell me your I would love to hear your hot takes on dynamic pricing and how do you think. 18:21.43 Sterling _Chowly_ Yeah I bet. 18:40.25 vigorbranding We can launch dynamic pricing without harming our our loyalists the people who they know that with tax. My pizza is going to be 1172 and now all of a sudden because it's Friday at six p m my pizza is 1892 um, how do we. Tackle that right. 19:00.58 Sterling _Chowly_ Ah, yeah I I think there's a I can take this in a lot of different directions. Ah but let me start out by dynamic pricing is not applied to every purchase. Ah the same. 19:20.41 Sterling _Chowly_ There's there's a handful of ways that dynamic pricing can be kind of dispatched to make sure that you're not harming that that experience to your loyal loyalless and I can think of ah a ton that are literally live today and ones that will probably be live as the end of years. The technology gets better and better. But I think to start most of the uses I'm seeing on dynamic pricing are with third -party marketplaces and on these third -party marketplaces customers are paying for convenience. It's not a very It's not the most profitable channel for the restaurants and the operators. And so what dynamic pricing is really saying like hey if you want the added convenience. It's pushing that cost to the consumer when they're really busy and they have the opportunity and they say you know I have 100 orders to fill in this hour I can only fill eighty. how do I how do I handle that how do I maximize and optimize my my operations well basically making that eighty first order slightly more expensive and then the eighty second order a little bit more in the eighty third order a little bit more now. All of a sudden. The customers are paying for the convenience and ones that they really want it. 20:13.62 vigorbranding Or. 20:30.23 Sterling _Chowly_ And the restaurant is being able to benefit from like the convenience and like this is going to stress my system. It's going to be harder and harder for me to ah execute this order these orders so by the time I get to the one hundred and first order the risk in the executing it well to provide a good experience is already. There. So if I can help taper that down. So I don't get that high and I can optimize those orders so they're profitable. It's helping really share the risk. It's helping diversify that and it's why it's actually better for the customer because the customer look this restaurant's just too busy to take this order right now if you really really want it. Like you can have it but you can also self self select out so that you don't have a bad experience because it's hard to execute orders the busier that it gets so I think that's one case where it's really smart. You can always buy it to your third parties but not your first party so your loyal customers are going to be owing from your first party icing groups starting to do subscription services. You could easily set it so anyone who's part of like your subscription. Service always gets like standard pricing there. There's a number of ways that you can handle this and look restaurants are really good at being hospitable. They're getting better at doing it in the new digital world and I think that yeah when it first starts out. It's going to be shaky. You're going to have some grumpy customers. 21:26.71 vigorbranding Um, a. 21:45.49 Sterling _Chowly_ But we're going to figure this out and as long as technology companies continue to be mer first think about their operators and think about the experience I think that this is going to work and it's going to be normal. It's going to be standard. You know you know 12 to twenty four months from now. 21:58.30 vigorbranding Yeah I mean how how do how do you think that we prevent from getting into more of ah ah the same situation that happened with travel right? with Ota's online travel advisors because that's that's the other thought side is like everyone's like look at it worked for the travel industry I'm like did it because like now. The margins are even more razor thin. The competition is even fiercer. Um, that doesn't seem like a really good output for the industry like I get everything you're saying I don't disagree with what you said either I think it makes sense. It's almost like expenditure-d driven throttling as opposed to literal throttling. 22:34.95 Sterling _Chowly_ Yeah, exactly. 22:37.70 vigorbranding Um, but you know this this all of a sudden like I Love my hamburger from you know, sterling's burger shack but man that thing's double now. So I guess I'll try this other one that I wasn't going to try now I become a little more a little less loyal right. 22:54.46 Sterling _Chowly_ Um, yeah, but you're also trying out another restaurant and the other restaurant has a better burger. Ultimately, that's better for you as the consumer right? So like if you know at the end of the day. There's a bounce you know when Chali first started the third party marketplace. 23:00.38 vigorbranding Sure yeah. 23:12.42 Sterling _Chowly_ Ecosystem was really different I mean uber eats wasn't a marketplace. It was literally a guy drive around his car with hot subbs around a busy block for a couple hours during lunch. Um, you know e 24 was actually one of the biggest ones at the time so it was very different ah very different industry when we joined and. 23:19.48 vigorbranding A. 23:24.94 vigorbranding Oh wow, Yeah, go back. 23:32.37 Sterling _Chowly_ I remember going through investor conversations and everyone told me the same thing. It's like us's just like the travel industry. It's just like the travel. Everything's gonna end up just like the expedia of the world and my ah my counter to that was that absolutely not. This industry is completely different. Um, the amount of. Diversity you have in the supply side is great half of the restaurant industry is small operators independent Only half are big chains so you're you're going to run into issues. There's only a dozen airlines and there's 3 that do like 80% of travel so you don't have the same big player mentality. 24:07.52 vigorbranding Um, a. 24:10.13 Sterling _Chowly_ You also have a crazy amount of reinvigoration and into the supply 3% of all restaurants go to business every single month and 3.1% open up new every single month you have a constant rotation of supply and so your players are always changing. This is not at all how the travel industry works. Um, not to mention the business models are completely Different. You can't commoditize a really great burger like it's just not how it works.. The airlines are very much commoditized. The experiences are very similar. 24:34.68 vigorbranding Um, a. 24:40.41 Sterling _Chowly_ Ah, in a restaurant. They're completely different and all it takes is a new general manager new ownership and even at the same brand The experience will change a ton that type of like diverse Variability. That's just constant in your face makes it a completely different Industry. So I've never thought that it was going to turn like the travel agencies. I get on the surface. There's similarities but the fundamental business model that restaurants are is very very unique and very complex very different from most other businesses. 25:09.60 vigorbranding Yeah,, that's ah, it's a great response to it. Um, you know taking into account like travel in general. Um, and again mother of all inventions. So if it does create the ah you know the pain for people there will be someone that comes along to try to solve that pain. It's the beauty of ah. Free market enterprises and you know ability to innovate. 25:29.85 Sterling _Chowly_ If if if point- ofsale systems and third party marketplaces built their products with open apis in minds and were really like embracing of moving data chali would have never existed. 25:42.99 vigorbranding Um, yeah. 25:45.26 Sterling _Chowly_ We existed to solve that pain point and that pain point didn't exist before 2012 right it it didn't barely existed when we started really the problem really exacerbated 2019 2020 so it's ah it's the same thing. 25:53.45 vigorbranding Um, right. 26:02.93 vigorbranding Yeah, absolutely love it. So one of the things obviously that that sparked I think a rapid embracing of technology. We were kind of embracing it as an industry but um, you know, being forced into our houses and having to find a different way to get our food really just kicked it into the highest gear possible. Um, do you think that the behaviors have permanently changed like from consumers like obviously some things have come back but not to the way that we saw it. Um, do you think there's a world where dining in person becomes. More adopted than it has been in the last year or so or do you think we're we're in the hey the way I get my food is from the palm of my hand. 26:47.34 Sterling _Chowly_ Yeah I think ah, yeah, like covid accelerated things a ton it. It took consumer adoption and drastically increased it. But you know what also has happened over the past three or four years that had nothing to do with covid. Is that a larger percentage of the gen z generation has disposable income and is entering the workforce. This is a generation that grew up with tablets grew up with screens. They've been order on doordashson's before high school so you're going to see the natural progression that we have but then you also saw each of these generations. Take a big jump during the pandemic because they had to so baby boomers went from being 2 out of 10 wanting to order app from 4 out of 10 that's double and you saw you know gen z's always been I think like 8 out of 10 but now genzrep you know is double represents instead of you know. 27:30.66 vigorbranding Um. 27:38.19 Sterling _Chowly_ 3% of the workforce at 6% I'm making up those numbers. Someone will fact, check me and correct me on it. But you're seeing kind of both of those factors come into play and you know restaurants again. They need to meet consumers where they are and so that'll be part of it. So Yeah I think it's definitely changed but I Also don't think On-premise is going away. No matter how much I love the convenience of getting my food. You know, delivered to me or I go pick it up I Also love sitting down Love breaking bread with people interacting with people ordering food getting recommendations like that experience I don't think goes away at All. It's just kind of the the percentage share. That that people kind of want to enjoy their food. 28:19.60 vigorbranding Yeah I Love that I think it it makes the interior design and the architectural and and the customer experience I think even more important. Um so many branches open up and it's like throw throw tables in there. Get some paint on the walls or vinyl If you're the person I'm thinking Of. Um, and you know just give them give them a roof and give them a seat and then get them out. Um, you know so we can turn the table but I do think now is the time as as I don't want to use the word threat but I will but as digital threatens the viability of our dining rooms. The question becomes like what makes my dining room. Worth. Sitting in you know and and I think Tech desperately has a role to play there to make the ordering experience even better I've said it before I've I've made some people mad about it. But I'm like I'm not quite sure that my waiter is always the better Choice. Um. 28:57.99 Sterling _Chowly_ Um, yeah. 29:11.39 Sterling _Chowly_ It yeah a hundred percent I mean look at there's there's restaurants who like look at jets pizza. For example, the average jets pizza has to have like 3 or 2 tables in it. It is it is meant for like it is meant for pickoff. 29:14.70 vigorbranding The way we use them. Yeah. 29:19.00 vigorbranding E. 29:27.10 vigorbranding Um, bright. 29:28.70 Sterling _Chowly_ Is meant for delivery that is how they've designed their business model. That's what their consumers have wanted. They've leaned into it. They added things like text ordering super early and like that's when they're focused and they've done really? Well then I can point to a number of other different change that. Never did delivery or or pick up even during a pandemic when they didn't do it and that was another route to go and they're very successful and I enjoy going to these places I mean during the pandemic you saw I saw in Chicago especially there's. 1 2 and even 3 michelin star restaurants that were doing pickup and to go and they actually did really well and when the pandemic ended they ended those services but what they did do is they got involved in separate companies that focused on that and now you have literally you have ah. 30:00.98 vigorbranding A a. 30:18.17 Sterling _Chowly_ Are restaurant groups. So the guy like guys from Millenia For example, ah you know you have basically similar quality that they had on their takeout for finish at home and now it's available for delivering you can order it through an appp right? And so sometimes you want that super high quality food. You're going to finish it at home like that's its own experience in itself. 30:34.72 vigorbranding Right. 30:36.80 Sterling _Chowly_ There's a company called called entree doing this out of Chicago and and so that the experiences are shifting but the fundamentals are all there and again it's just meeting your customers where they are. 30:49.87 vigorbranding I Love that. So obviously so far it's already a pretty darn big year for chali. Um, what's next man like what are you? What are you able to kind of tease out there. What does the future hold for the company. 31:02.54 Sterling _Chowly_ Yeah, now we've ah we've got a big year in the store. This is just the beginning in January we we launched our new restaurant control center with some really cool, unique features that a lot of restaurants haven't seen and kind of putting them back in the driver seat giving them more control. Um, we've got a few features in there now we're going to pump a lot more into that throughout the year you've got the the bringing Koala in-house. So we're going to be able to have a combined offering for the s and b space. Um, you know right around midyear timeframe and there's there's more to come. 31:38.15 Sterling _Chowly_ We're we're not done yet. We've got a lot. We want to accomplish we think we're really well positioned to do it and you know to be honest, it's it's all for the sake of helping restaurants and I've never had a clearer picture of what we can do to help them. So yeah, more to come. And know it's only march third but I'm excited you know for? What's next. 31:57.14 vigorbranding Yeah, it's a big year. Um, final question then I'll let you get back to your day ah might be the hardest 1 of all if you had 1 final meal. What would you eat where would you eat it and why. 32:09.46 Sterling _Chowly_ Ah, man um I know it's probably a corny answer but it would probably be my mom's homemade Mac and cheese that she's been making for me since I was a kid. 32:22.71 vigorbranding Oh. 32:27.10 Sterling _Chowly_ Ah, it's ah I've never had anything quite like it. It's It's unique. Reminds me a home and I love it growing up and still love it every time I go visitor so that would probably be it. 32:40.60 vigorbranding I did not corny at all I've said it before my my final meal is Thanksgiving dinner. Um, you know I just I love it whenever I'm blue or feeling stressed out I find a way to make thingsgiving dinner and it's just the best. 32:44.41 Sterling _Chowly_ Um, nice. Oh yeah. 32:51.51 Sterling _Chowly_ Whatever whenever I'm balloons stressed out. It's usually pootine least healthy, but absolutely delicious thing. So you know that's that's probably the more common occurrence I can't get my mom to ship me Mac and cheese. You know too much. 32:56.78 vigorbranding Yeah, well. 33:04.15 vigorbranding I Can't blame you come on Mom step up a vet man. That's awesome. Well hey man thanks for being so candid. Thanks for everything you're doing for the industry I'm really excited about what's happening next with chali. 33:11.86 Sterling _Chowly_ Ah, not she's she's amazing. She's amazing. 33:24.90 vigorbranding Um I will have all the links to Chali and the ah and your social channels and all that stuff as well. But is there a way for people to connect with you directly sterling. 33:33.33 Sterling _Chowly_ Ah, yeah I mean look I'm I'm not hard to find very active on on Linkedin go through all that it's usually the best place to reach out, get people connected I go to a lot of conferences and shows love visiting. You know,