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Welcome back to Turning the Table.

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We've we've got episode 1 36 here today.

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Everybody will come back.

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You'll probably notice that unfortunately it's just me today missing Adam Lamb.

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Unfortunately he's not around today to join us.

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But he'll be back soon.

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Today we've got Anthony Voletta, the president of Bar Taco, which

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is doing some really cool stuff.

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We're gonna talk about innovation in the industry.

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We're gonna talk about labor models that make it easier to stay ahead and looking

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forward to some of that discussion.

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So be back in a second and away we go.

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Welcome to Turning the Table, the Most Progressive Weekly podcast for

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today's food and beverage industry, featuring staff centric operating

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solutions for restaurants in the hashtag new hospitality culture.

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Join Jim Taylor of Benchmark 60 and Adam Lamb as they turn the tables on

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the prevailing operating assumptions of running a restaurant in favor

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of innovative solutions to our industry's most persistent challenges.

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Thanks for joining us and now on.

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This episode is made possible by e vocalize.

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E VOCALIZE makes complex local digital marketing push button easy for anyone.

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Empower your franchises with programs that automatically optimize performance

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To find out more, go to Turning the table podcast.com/e vocalize.

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Anthony, welcome welcome to Turning the Table.

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How are you?

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Great to be here.

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Good.

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How you doing?

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I'm good.

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We were chatting earlier about how you it seems like you're on a podcast every week.

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You're like the most popular guest around right now, I think.

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You gotta take advantage while you're the A-list celebrity because before we know

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it, you become yesterday's lunch, right?

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So it's all going well.

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Excuse me, it's no surprise that you know that people are wanting to talk to you

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because of what's going on with Bar Taco.

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I see you guys in in the media and the news on social media that there's

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this crazy rapid growth going on.

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Congrats.

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But thank you.

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Maybe just give us a, what's the latest with Bar Taco?

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What's going on with you guys?

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That's yeah.

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Big growth this year.

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We just opened up in Nashville and in DC a few months before then.

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We're opening up Chicago in a month.

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We've got another store in Boston the month after that.

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We're opening in Charleston, South Carolina, third one in Miami.

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So growth is great.

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It's thankful all of our guests and our staff are making it happen, but it's

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been, it'll be a heck of a year for us.

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Yeah, we gotta get you guys up to Canada.

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We need a bar taco in Canada.

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It's not the question at some point if you're gonna go quote

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unquote international, the first one likes to be right up north of us.

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So wouldn't be surprised to the point we look at it.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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You'll probably end up in Toronto though, on the other side of the country before

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on at, but we'll slowly work our way up.

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We'll get there eventually.

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So there's lots of different things that we can talk about from we were

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chatting earlier about what's all the, what's the latest way to get through

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all this craziness in our industry?

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And we wanna make sure we talk a little bit about the labor model side

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of things in terms of what you guys have been really innovative with.

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But what's, can you just maybe give us like, what's the secret

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sauce without giving away all.

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Without giving away all your trade secrets, like what's so cool about

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Bar Taco besides what we see on social or for those that have been Yeah.

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And we're very open about trade secrets.

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We don't keep anything secret.

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We like to be public with it.

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But for us it's barta's been an escape since it started 11 years ago.

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The goal for us as you go in, it feels like you're either in your mountain cabana

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getting ready to hit the slopes, or in the beach with your toes in the sand,

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being able to relax and unplug from life.

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Fresh squeeze margaritas and fresh squeeze cocktails and

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really good quality food.

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People love that they flock to it and it's always been a great value concept.

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We're built during the previous recession, so we've got this really

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different approach to how we do things and we like to break a lot of the

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rules and do things differently.

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And it's it's worked for 11 years, so we're gonna keep it going.

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Okay.

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So you just mentioned that you wanted to be an.

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Is that like the whole concept of be the third place for people?

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Yeah, that's it.

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We, when we first started, there wasn't even plugins for laptops.

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Like we wanted people to literally be detached and just be able to go in

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and feel like you're on vacation for.

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However long you're in the restaurant for.

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Techs change a little bit, so of course we've got plug-ins, but the

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idea was we wanna be transported.

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And people, when they walk in the door, that's the biggest compliment we get.

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It's God, I feel like I walked into someone's beach house.

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That's exactly what we want them to feel like.

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So that original location, does it have plug-ins now?

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Did you guys go back and, yeah we've retrofit everything.

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Some stuff you gotta adjust but it still has the same feeling,

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still has the same vibe.

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And that's what.

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And so let's get into this big one that everybody wants to ask you about.

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Yeah.

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This at a time when every, pretty much every restaurant in North America,

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in the UK and probably everywhere in the world, can't find people.

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You guys don't have that problem?

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No.

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Listen we've got challenges like everybody else, but we're

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fortunate to be about 92, 90 3% staffed across the company.

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And yeah, we've got opportunities like everybody does.

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But at the end of the day we use Covid v.

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During that time when everybody was really hunkering down

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and just trying to survive.

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But we were doing that simultaneously.

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We were looking for ways to come out of the backend of

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this in a different approach.

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And we created our new model created a position called a service leader.

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So it's this hybrid of a server and a manager the salaried and

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bonus and things of that nature.

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Their only job was to make sure the guests had an incredible time

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when we came out of the pandemic.

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So we doubled down on salary, labor to do that.

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And by doing that without servers, all those tips that the guests

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were giving now became free reign.

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So we have a fully pooled house.

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So everybody in every restaurant makes the exact same amount

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per hour every employee.

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And then the tips are evenly dispersed based off of hours worked, right?

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So the per hour wage is the same for every employee.

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So when you think.

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The challenges that we have, not only finding staff, but equity of pay

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and people talking about, I have a better section, or they have better

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this it's now, it's all equal.

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And the dishwashers for that matter who've been underpaid and underappreciated

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for decades in our business are not making the same money as the line cook

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and the host and the food runner.

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And it builds this amazing camaraderie of teamwork.

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That's self-regulated because if Jim's not pulling his.

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I know he is impacting my pocket and I say something.

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So now the managers really are able to just run the restaurant.

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And that really let us come out.

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It was challenging at first to convince people that telling a cook

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that's made 20 bucks an hour their entire life that they're gonna make.

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12 plus tips, they're like, yeah, no, I don't believe you.

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So it took some education, but now that we're going on two

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years after it's been amazing.

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We've been able to pay overly competitive rates in every market.

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Some were paying double minimum wage in certain markets.

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And now our managers have a really good growth trajectory because

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we've created these levels.

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Of ability to grow and with the amount we're growing they

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can actually see a future.

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So the whole package has really, it's changed the landscape for us.

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And we get literally, I kid you not probably a call every

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week from another company saying, can you teach us how to do this?

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And we very freely tell them everything.

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We share the backend information and all the data because we think

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it's really gonna help businesses.

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Good for you.

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And that's not unique in our industry either.

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Usually there's a lot of hoarding of information and trade

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secret and that kinda thing.

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Question for you about the, everybody makes the same.

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Yeah.

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Is there ever challenges with you, this person maybe has more a

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section that's either bigger or more challenging or more detailed or

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more complex versus somebody else.

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Is there ever I have to work harder, so I should make more kind of a discuss.

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There out of the gates.

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There definitely was.

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And it was actually more dominant in the back of house cuz out front

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the sections, there's no servers.

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It was just managers covering a section I did before in the kitchen.

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There was a lot of that a lot of the for lack of a better term,

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preme, donna line cooks that had been around forever that oh, they

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made more, they didn't believe in it.

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And for us, we believed in providing a living wage and making sure all

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of our staff could literally take care of their family, take care of

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themselves on the wage they work for.

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And honestly we part of waves most of those people because to us it,

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it's just as much about the pay as it is the mentality of our staff.

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If we're gonna build a teamwork, cohesive environment, we want them

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to believe in what we're doing too.

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And I'll tell you the turnover, when we first started doing it

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and our kitchen was really high.

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But now the wave that's in here they really appreciate it.

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And we have had, I think, minimal to no comments about Jim works harder than me.

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I work harder than Jim.

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I should make.

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It doesn't happen.

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We just say, Hey, if you wanna take the next step, we'll promote you.

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You wanna be more I'll pay you more.

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We'll get you to be a sous chef.

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And our internal promote rate is consistently climbing month to

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month, which helps our growth.

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So it's, we've killed two birds of one stone.

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Really?

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Wow.

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And so how does it differ from market to market?

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Just in case anyone's ever wondering if I'm a little, if I'm a smaller

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operator, excuse me, or If I'm an employee thinking about maybe that

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I should work at a place like this.

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Yeah.

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How does it work in a market that minimum wage is $15 an hour versus

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minimum wages, $7 an hour, or $2 an hour?

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From a tip perspective, how does it work depending on the market?

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Yeah we never take tax tip wage, so markets that allow you to

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pay three, four bucks an hour for a service, we don't ever do that.

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So it's always the lowest it goes is minimum wage in most of our

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locations, barring a few except.

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We pay minimum wage plus the tips, and the average employee makes about $24 an hour.

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Some are north of 30, almost 40 during season.

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Yeah.

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Which is great.

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But yeah, there is variability.

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So like Colorado for example, minimum wage is like 1726 or something right now.

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So their staff does make more, but at the end of the day, we look at it as

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that 1726 is a big part of the cost.

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Sure, right?

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DC is high, Colorado's high places that the markets are going up it

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tends to be that way across the board.

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So sure there's a benefit.

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If you wanna make 40 bucks an hour and go work in Colorado, you can.

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And we're more than happy to do that.

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But we actually monitor every week.

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We have a call every Monday and every single store shows the

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base pay and it shows the tip.

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And we look at what the cumulative dollar amount per hour by store is.

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And if that number, and our baseline has always been about $20 an hour.

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If a store does not break $20 an hour for more than like consecutive weeks,

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obviously randomly it'll happen.

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We supplement the pay and we bring, we take their base wage up for that week

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because we believe very firmly that $20 mark and up, no matter which market

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you're in, Is the absolute bare minimum we're gonna commit that you'll ever make.

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And that goes a long way when you basically say, I'm gonna take money outta

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my pocket to make sure you make the cash.

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They work so hard for that.

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And I'll tell you, we, at the beginning, we had to do it a couple,

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probably a couple times a month.

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Now I think we've done it once in the past, probably six months because

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the staff's being so efficient.

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Wow.

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They realize they're making more cash now without even us having to supplement.

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So there's just really strong buy-in is what it sounds like you're saying.

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Absolutely.

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And it, it took two years of blood, sweat, and tears.

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But the people that are with us now I'm thankful every day for how hard they

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work and for them making this reality.

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And are mostly your locations in downtown markets?

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Are they in suburb or No, it's a mix.

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We don't have many downtowns.

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We try to, we don't love the big concentration of urban.

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We've got a couple, but nothing crazy.

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We like those kind of subsidiary markets just outside.

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We do well in certain suburban markets.

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We love the college crowd markets.

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So we're, it's a little bit of a smorgasborg, if you will, of

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our locations and the style.

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But it's more about the use case.

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People use us 3, 4, 5 times a week in different manners and styles, right?

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Business, lunch, happy hour, late night drink date in the weekend.

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So it allows us to, to get really.

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Creative with our real estate selection.

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Yeah.

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Interesting.

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Just comment from Shane there.

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This is big brain stuff.

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I agree, Shane.

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That's why we wanted to have him on the show.

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We've been Anthony, I've, we've had a couple good conversations

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about this in the past.

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Yeah, it's, yeah, it's cool to have you here to talk about it.

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Okay.

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So you said you're pretty open with other companies.

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They call you to say, how do we do this?

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Yes.

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So if I'm an operator of a I'm a small, independent, I own two locations in

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a pick a market, if I phone you what do you, what's the advice you give?

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What do you tell 'em?

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I walk 'em through everything.

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Every call's been a little bit different, right?

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Because I think everyone's starting to adjust their service.

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Models because of whether it's staffing, shortages, pay, commodity prices,

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all these things that are impacting our business, everyone's starting to

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get, I shouldn't say starting to be, everybody's been very creative, right?

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They're really thinking a little bit differently.

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Typically I ask, I'm like, what is it you're trying to accomplish?

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If they're looking to do it exactly the way we do it, great.

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I've got the playbook and I'll walk 'em through beginning to end how we

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transitioned, what we did, where we.

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Cuz I firmly believe if we could get another a hundred different

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concepts to be doing the same thing, it's better for all of us, right?

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Because it becomes the norm and the guests get trained that this is the way

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that restaurants can run effectively and still give great hospitality.

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But if they're trying to do hybrid pieces, I'm I ask 'em the

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questions, it's more of a dialogue.

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What is it, what's the problem you're solving for?

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And what do you, why do you think this is a solution?

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I try to help them understand that Delta.

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But the biggest thing for us when I talked to 'em, some of 'em

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were like, Hey, I just need to make more money, which is fine.

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Sure.

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For us, that was actually the unintended benefit.

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The initial play was really, I, we wanted salaried managers because they had much

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more buy-in to be leading hospitality at a higher rate than anybody else.

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Because we knew after Covid, every restaurant in the world was struggling

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to just put food on the table.

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It was like, it was just a struggle and we're like, if we can lean.

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And provide amazing hospitality better than we ever have before.

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When everyone else is just trying to execute, we win.

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And luckily we came out of that and when we were, when we first came outta Covid,

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our guest sediment, we reach out of five.

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We were a 3.85.

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Okay?

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Right now, rolling six months, we're a 4.73.

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The curve has been nothing but 45 degrees up.

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So the real goal of us was to provide an amazing guest experience, provide

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a living wage for our team so they.

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Not have to work two and three jobs, but hopefully go down to one, maybe two.

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And then the end of the day, if those two things happen,

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profits always follow, right?

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That's happy guests, happy staff.

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Yeah.

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Everything else is easy.

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And we accomplish both those first two.

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So obviously the financial benefit is great too.

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So depends on the people that what they're trying to accomplish, right?

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There's different benefits of doing.

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Yeah.

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Makes sense.

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So it sounds we all, we know now and I follow you guys quite closely, so I know

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there's really strong growth trajectory.

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You've got pipelines of people that are like you said, 93, 92, 90 5%.

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What's the biggest challenge in the, in, in the way for you guys right now?

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Because rapid growth is difficult at the best of times Sure is.

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So what's, what do you see as over the next year or two, as things that

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are gonna be challenging to work?

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Yeah.

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I think the challenge is, even though we're at a really good percentage, right?

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Numbers tell a story.

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There's qualitative behind every number.

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And the narrative for us, like everybody, we're always trying to

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find the best people in the market.

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And for us, convincing people that this new model is something that

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they want to be a part of is a, is still a big challenge for us.

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You think about 95% of restaurants in America have been doing it the same.

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For decades.

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So looking at a seasoned manager Jim comes over and he is, got 15

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years of experience and worked here, there in the other place.

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And I tell him hey, I've got a different proposition for you.

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Sometimes either they stge or they come in and they're like this

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doesn't feel like it's for me.

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And that's okay.

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Like we're very, we try to be overly transparent when

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we interview, like over to a.

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Like, I'm like, I tell our talent team, I'm like, talk them out of

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the job because it's so different.

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And if they're really still excited about being tech forward and providing this

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type of experience, then they're for us.

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And it's, that's still hard to convince cuz because all

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of us are in a staffing cycle.

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What we're seeing is we pay at like the 85th to 90th percentile in comp

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wages from the research we found.

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So we pay.

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But people are starving for good people that they'll come out and

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say, Hey, I'll pay 'em $15,000 more.

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Yeah, you can work less hours.

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And by the way, all the accountability you have at that company, cuz we're

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data freaks you don't have here.

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So they come in, they turn the key in.

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The sad part is a lot of people are like, you know what, I'll

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take that, I'll take the money.

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Le stress, like mental health is a real thing.

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So to them they're like it's a little bit easier on me personally,

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I can make some more cash.

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So we're fighting a little bit of the norm.

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We're trying to be that pioneer.

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Kinda shifting.

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We joke, like the movie Money Ball, we joke like we're the

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Oakland Athletics a little bit.

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We're doing it totally different and trying to get people on

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the team that believe in it.

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So honestly that's a big challenge for us is to find those right people.

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And I think also like everybody else, the uncertainty of what's gonna happen

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in the next 12 months, we don't know.

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It's, this is, it's, it feels like stable ground, but the

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stable ground's a little shaky.

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Yeah.

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So we're doing our best to just plan for the best and the worst at the same time.

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But most importantly, we wanna make sure, our big challenge is to make sure

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our people are safe and protected.

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Like when Covid hit, we didn't lay off one employee one salary.

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We kept every salary, paid 'em in.

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We believe that our people deserve that.

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And we are fortunate to be able to do that.

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So we're really trying to make sure we can still plan for that if God forbid

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recession or God knows what happens.

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So those are our challenges that I think we've got in the next 12 to 18 months.

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You're comment about protecting people you're speaking my

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language when you say that.

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So we spend a lot of time talking to people.

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Restaurants, other industries all over the world about how to do that better.

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So you're speaking my language.

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Shifting gears a little bit.

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Yeah.

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You and I had a conversation the first time we chatted about that

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you, when the pandemic happened and everybody went to QR codes.

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You haven't gone away from them?

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No.

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So I had a interesting discussion with somebody a few weeks ago about

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that sort of, their stance was, and they're a fairly senior leader in our.

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Their stance was that customers are missing menus.

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Customers want that nostalgic service related menu thing.

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So besides the service, obviously it's a big part of the service model that

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you guys use QR codes, but what I mean your own opinion or the bar taco one.

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What's the other benefit?

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Because I believe that there's huge opportunity with keeping QR codes.

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I agree.

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So I'm curious your take or your opinion on that.

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Yeah of course cuz we don't have menus.

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I'm gonna sign on the QR side but I think he makes a great point though.

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There is some nostalgia and there's something about holding a menu.

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The touch of it, the feel of it, the design, like it's

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a brand touchpoint, right?

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Like how you design the font you use whatever, no matter what style

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of service, quick service define.

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That's a touchpoint of your brand.

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There's some, there's a connection from your guests to your concept

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when they grab that menu.

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So I agree there's a component of that a thousand percent.

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But on the other side, and I think when it depends on the concept style we're

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very primed towards a younger audience.

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Our target demo is 25 to 30.

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So we're and it's starting to shift a little bit younger.

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So we're millennial, gen X, gen Y, gen Z and ultimately they don't want to

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talk to anybody if they don't have to.

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They'd prefer to not because they don't want the interaction, because they're

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so comfortable on their device that everything in their life is instant.

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So to us, we leaned into that saying yeah, menu is great, but when we stuck

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with the QR codes and our QR code, just, I guess for the listeners, it's not just the

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menu, you actually order via your QR code.

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So it's a digital menu with a platform called one nine.

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So you control the whole experience.

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But the points where it really leaned in for us was when you think about a guest

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experience having a typical server or a menu for that, Either I went to dinner

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last night with a few people and we were waiting to try to find the server to just

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order our appetizers, and it's that's the most frustrating thing at the table.

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Sit down, I'm hungry, I just wanna get something in front of me.

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Trying to get the second drink, but you can't, you have to wait

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for your server to come back.

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Trying to pay your check because the kids are screaming and you know

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it's bedtime and you want to get 'em out, but you can't find the server.

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Those things happen at every restaurant from fine dining to quick service.

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So we gave those moments back to the guest and the menu can't do that.

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It just doesn't have that ability.

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And we still have kind of menus in our restaurant, but even pre covid

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for anybody that's been to the brand, we used to have sushi cards, so we

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actually didn't even have formal menus.

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It was a sushi card and you filled.

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The quantity and what you wanted with your name and you'd pass it in.

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So the concept actually started in 11 years ago.

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The thought was, we didn't need servers then.

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And then we realized, oh my God, we're so busy we need servers.

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And we brought 'em back in.

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And so we're really going back to our roots of, Hey, we didn't really want to be

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a menu driven restaurant that had servers.

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Now we're just using technology.

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And I think the pandemic accelerated people's acceptance

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of technology as a substitute.

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For things like a menu.

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So I don't ever foresee a fine dining restaurant having it.

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I shouldn't say ever, that's a bold statement but I think

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there are segmentations of the restaurant that Absolutely.

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Again, that brand touchpoint is just something about it.

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I went to a really nice restaurant and they handed me an iPad for a

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wine list and even to me, I was like, this doesn't feel right.

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Yep.

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But for our brands it, I think it aligns.

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So I think there's a place for it depending on what your style

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of cuisine and style services.

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And then you said

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your

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data freaks.

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So how much of the information from the QR codes do you guys use?

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Oh God, so much there, right?

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We have more data than we know what to do with anybody.

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That's the world we live in.

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No.

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Your mom and pop are a 600 unit chain.

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Like we all have so much data that we actually don't even know

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what to do with it sometimes.

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Exactly.

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So to us, we're trying to really lean into just the customer preference

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data and really begin to start to mold experiences for them.

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Working on technology that if you're if you have an allergen or a

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preference of the way you dine, if you, our whole menu's gluten free.

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So if, let's just say you were vegan, that you can go in

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and literally toggle the menu.

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To the whole menu actually on digital is just vegan.

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You can't do that on the paper.

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You can signal it, right?

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But, so we're working on these customizations in the future that

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now I can go in, I can say, Hey, I'm a pescatarian, I'm a vegan.

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I have this, I don't, can't eat soy.

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One click of a button.

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And now you don't feel like that uncomfortable experience of,

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oh, hey, I have this allergy.

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Can you check with the chef?

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And it's back and forth and it's, it creates, We're

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trying to eliminate friction.

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So I think when those things start to come up and we're still developing those,

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I think it actually allows people to understand the benefit more of QR for

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an enhanced individualized experience.

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Whereas a menu with nine different icons for spicy or allergies,

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it, it gets a little too muddy.

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This is a little bit cleaner in our opinion.

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Yeah, interesting.

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Adam and I.

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Had a good discussion, just the two of us on the show a few weeks ago about

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just some of the innovations in the industry and just having some good

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open discussion about things like QR codes or this subscription model that

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we keep hearing and taco Bell, Andre, and some of these con concepts going to,

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and so it's cool to hear your opinion about you're in it you're in the

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middle of it, you're at the forefront of.

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It's cool to hear your opinion, but you're right about the data thing.

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Most restaurants, especially with all the technology that they've adopted in the

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last five years, there's more information than they will probably ever literally.

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And we get sold on it.

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It's oh, I can give you this.

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And the question, we start asking ourselves like, all right, what are we

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really gonna do with that information?

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And is it beneficial to us today?

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We're trying to narrow that down and be really specific about what we're doing.

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Yeah.

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The other thing that I gotta tell you too is that from my career in operations

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before the last, as of up until about three years ago I did a lot of travel

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and I I've heard you do the same thing.

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And so I think as the president of the company it's just really it's really

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good to hear about how much time you spent in actually in the restaurants.

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Cause I'm sure that goes a long way when it comes to retention.

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People wanting to move forward in the organization, so I'm

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gonna commend you for that.

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Yeah that that's where everything happens at the end of the day.

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I've, we've all worked for good and bad companies in our careers, and the

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leaders that I've always admired the most in my career and my development

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has been ones that really understood and had a connection on the pulse.

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I think especially when you're doing something that's, as groundbreaking,

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I should say groundbreaking, but innovative is what we're doing, and.

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It's important that you're on the ground hearing the feedback

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from those that are doing it.

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Cause it's easy to sit on your desk and say, oh no, this is

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the way it's supposed to be.

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And make up this vision in my head of what it sounds like.

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I need to see what it looks like.

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And quite frankly, it's fun.

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One of the downfalls of the higher you're getting the company is

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like you have less time in front of your guests and your staff.

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And that's why we all love the business, right?

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Like you want to get there and I want to hear how much our

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guests love the experience.

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I wanna meet the regulars.

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I.

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Welcome our new team members and the team and celebrate those milestones.

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So that to me, I think is, that's the fun part of the job.

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I wish I could do that all the time.

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I'll never forget a mentor of mine when I was in operations.

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He would always show up, not just show up.

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He would've, he would spend time in the restaurants.

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I always just said it as he would show up, but it was always Friday.

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5 30, 6 o'clock, something like that.

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And he would walk and he was an executive in the company

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vice president at the time.

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And he would cruise around the dining room and the lounge and talk

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to guests and check in on staff and how was your shift last week?

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And he'd remember all these people's names and all this different stuff.

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And at one point, I.

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I remember thinking to myself what is he doing here?

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Does he not trust us?

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Kinda thing.

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Yeah.

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And eventually one day I asked him, I said, look, it's Friday at six o'clock.

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Shouldn't, why aren't you at home?

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And I'll never forget his answer.

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And it seems aligned with kind what you're saying.

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He goes, you think that the important stuff happens in that office downtown

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that I have to drive to every day?

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And I said what do you mean?

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He goes, this right here, these customers, this, these staff, all of this stuff.

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This is why we're.

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Yeah.

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And it was I've never forgotten that from a hospitality and operations perspective.

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He's right.

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That's what it's all about.

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So he's absolutely right.

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Absolutely so it sounds like you've definitely got that

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same sort of perspective okay.

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So to wrap some of this stuff up, I'm curious, just your advice for

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anyone who's in hospitality that hasn't really shifted their service model.

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They're thinking about how do I be innovative to work

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through things like whether.

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There's so much information available, or I need to figure out a

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different service model that supports this labor shortage differently.

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What's your advice?

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Where do you start?

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Yeah I think the goal, yeah, no it's a great question.

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Big question.

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I think at the end of the day when you think about the upcoming years,

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there's commodity prices are gonna get higher, labor's gonna get higher,

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everything's gonna get harder.

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It's gonna have bigger impacts in industry that's gonna, that's gonna put a stress.

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I think we really need to stop thinking that the way we've always

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done it or slight versions of it are gonna get us to the future.

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I think the real way, and I use this on a interview not too long ago, I love the

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expression if it's not broke, break it.

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My mentality is you need to really go back in and assume nothing.

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Assume the way that you do it now couldn't be done ever again.

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What would you redo?

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Like how would you rein, how would you innovate it?

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How would you re.

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And I think having those conversations regularly is the most important thing

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you can do Right now, there's never gonna be a one size fits all, but

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cuz mom and pops are different than 20 units, than different than 600 units.

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But if we're, if you're not having the conversations harsh about we

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need to change what do we need to break and put back together again?

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Is a huge component.

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And I think also the questions that I'm starting to ask my teams every

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week now the first question I ask my.

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Moving forward is, what did you fail at last week?

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And we cel it's a celebration of failure, right?

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Like people look at it as, oh my God, I can't afford to fail.

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I can't afford to not fail and learn and move forward.

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And I think that's, that mentality with your team is celebrate failures,

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failing forward, failing often.

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Failing isn't plenty of books about it.

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But yeah, the reality is if you're not doing that now,

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it's gonna be really hard.

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And ultimately you're either gonna.

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In the coattails of somebody else or God forbid you're gonna, you got a business.

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And I would I would hate for anybody to see that happen.

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And it's easy to get stuck, especially for companies that

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are on this sort of rapid growth at the forefront of innovation.

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All the cool stuff you guys are doing, it's easy to just think about

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all the cool stuff that's going on.

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Absolutely.

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Definitely I would agree with you.

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It's, it, the fail forward thing is not easy to do, but No.

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That's really cool.

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Thanks very much for taking the time.

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I know you're obviously busy and we were talking about how much sometimes

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you're on the road and Easter coming up.

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But thanks so much for taking the time.

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I'm sure Its my pleasure.

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It's not just Shane that's listening to saying that this is been bring stuff.

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So I appreciate you taking the time and hope to have you on the show again

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here maybe in a few months and we'll get the update on the new openings.

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Absolutely.

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Happy to.

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Thanks for the time Jim.

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Really appreciate

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it.

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Thanks very much Anthony.

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Anthony and we'll be in touch.

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Thanks so much everybody for joining the show today.

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Again we miss Adam.

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He'll be back again soon.

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And onto the next episode here next week.

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See you then.

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I'm turning the table.

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Thanks for joining us on this episode of Turning the Table with

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me, Adam Lamb and Jim Taylor.

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We're on a mission to change the food and beverage industry for the better by

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focusing on staff mental health, physical and emotional wellbeing, by proactively

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measuring and managing staff workloads.

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Join other hospitality professionals co-creating the hashtag new

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hospitality culture by subscribing to our weekly newsletter at ww dot.

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Turning the table podcast.com/.

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In every edition, you'll find innovative solutions ready to test and validate

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Plus, listen to exclusive bonus content just for you.

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It helps other hospitality profess.

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Thanks for stepping in and speaking out for an industry craft and

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Remember, retention is the new Cool y'all.

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This podcast was written, directed, and produced by me, Adam Lamb and Jim Taylor.

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Turning the table is a production of Realignment Media.