Latest / The Weekly Run / Finally, PICKLE BALL | #16

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Finally, PICKLE BALL | #16 · The Weekly Run

• Jeff Perera: Welcome to the Weekly Run. I'm Jeff. I'm Aaron. What's hot at the bagel run this week, Aaron? Uh, Phoenix actually is very hot. It is very hot here. I've sweating for two straight days. been sweating and we're outside. You can, I mean you can't see, but you maybe one day we'll see. That's right. That we are outside. beautiful. It's like beautiful. We're in the shade. It's 107, but. Yes, right. In the shade. In the shade. But yeah, we're here at the restaurant leadership conference in Phoenix, Arizona. Is it what you expected? So much more. Say more. So much more. Why is it so much more? Because you go to a lot of these things. this is now part of your life. This is your circuit. Conference going is like part of what we do. It's your DNA. It is who we are. This one is ⁓ in that we have a lot ⁓ really level engaging in very level conversations. And I mean by is people are just like... ⁓ the CEO of whatever whatever is eating the same buffet barbecue as you and you're at a picnic table outside. And so the conversations are great. They're, what's your brand? What do you do? Who are you? Which is awesome. And just the access to the people is ⁓ ⁓ would agree. And I think that ⁓ hadn't thought of it until you just said it, but ⁓ conference so far has done a really good job at creating those spaces. ⁓ And I think that's a miss on a lot of conferences that maybe just focus on breakout sessions, central aisle snack areas and stuff like that, which are all necessary. Like that's how you do a conference. They do them here too. But this one's create a lot of different spaces where I think you mingle more and they'll cover it in a second. Obviously, pickleball turned out to be super mingly and like ice breaking and mingly. Is that a word? It is now. It is now. It's in the lexicon. But I thought that this show in particular has done a great job at that. And I agree with you that what it's done is it's created the opportunity to have lower level conversations. And I also feel that the balance of sort of vendors and the necessary evil of lot of these things of like, people are going to sponsor this and they want access to decision makers and there's sales involved and nothing wrong with that. But I feel like that balance is also better than I've experienced in the past where you don't feel like it's a constant pitch fest. Even with vendors, you're having authentic conversations in lot of cases. Yes, 100%. vendor mix here is very good. ⁓ think it's a wide range of ⁓ to services to ⁓ cups, whatever you need. I think there's a wide range of vendors, but it's a limited amount of vendors. ⁓ content has been geared towards... ⁓ restaurant leaders. It hasn't been geared towards a specific niche of... category, know, there's some breakout sessions, but they're, they're sort of limited to be honest. I feel like there's two breakout sessions each day, pretty limited in the sense that, you know, you don't have to go. You can have a meeting with somebody you want to talk to, or you can catch up and have a coffee with someone you haven't seen in the year. And there's places to sit and do that. And it's, I like it. I really enjoy it. I've really enjoyed it so far. So first one's been good. First one's been great. I highly recommend it. Definitely think we're going to come back next year. ⁓ I would. ⁓ I found it useful and I got a far fewer of these than the rest of the team does but I think it's to your point it's just been great to have some conversations get some exposure looking forward to coming back and like fostering those relationships as we grow as we grow with our partners Danielle had a great experience with one of our vendors where she's been talking about trying to get something done for months and when you have to do it through email and set up meetings and everybody's busy and you're trading things back and forth And I saw them do something in a five minute breakfast conversation. Yeah. Because that's what you need. And there's no time for that unless you make time. And this sort of gives you that platform. Definitely. We are in the right place with the right people at the right time. And I think some magic happens when you do that. Any surprises? What's been the big surprise for you so far? So I think the big surprise for me has been You know, we're a small fish in a big pond here. 35 units almost open. The village is going to open tomorrow, so 35 units almost open. We've got a small team. You know, we're not Taco Bell. Yeah, we're not rolling deep. We didn't bring the division. The division did not show. We all fit in one car still. Yes, we could share the minivan. But, you know, we're a small fish in this big pond. but people know who we are. That has been the biggest surprise. It's a combination of I've seen your branding, I know your stores. ⁓ I always see you posting on LinkedIn or I love your TikTok. Like there's a general awareness about Jeff's Bagel Run from this audience that is higher than I thought. That's interesting because obviously a lot of what we do when we come to similar shows, maybe not this one because this one's not. geared towards brand awareness per se, or certainly not geared towards franchise sales or any of the other activities that we do when we go to a big show like you were a few weeks ago at MUFC and stuff like that. I find that interesting and surprising as well that you're seeing that brand awareness in a place where it's not really the point here. So this is sort of honestly earned. Like we have presence just because somebody's actually heard of us. They don't need to, but somewhere we did something right. And they have. Like a restaurant operator in Ohio in the Korean space ⁓ is I've heard of just bagel run. I'm so glad you made bagels this morning because I couldn't wait to try them. They're really good. Congratulations on your success. ⁓ Why have known who we are? ⁓ You almost to be dismissive. Like, no, like you shouldn't know us. I don't understand. ⁓ that part ⁓ that part surprising to me. ⁓ It's a delightful surprise. Yeah, it's surprise. It's nice to to know that the work that we are doing on the marketing front on the, you know, front, it's a validation point. Yeah. And, you know, we we're not here to sell this is truly a restaurant leadership show. We got the opportunity to play pickleball, which we you know, we have to dive in that we have to finish the pickleball saga. So, let me set it up. Can I set it up? Of course. So, if you haven't been listening all along, Aaron and I, about a month and a half ago, signed up for the pickleball tournament at Restaurant Leadership Conference. Well, we were given the option of a number of different activities, and this is really just meant to be icebreaker activities. You could go hiking, you could play golf, which I think the most people did. It's beautiful out here. So you just had to pick one. Let's just be clear, like, this is the most passive sort of thing. Here's five options. Pick one. We picked pickleball. We picked pickleball, but we picked pickleball tournament. There was pickleball lessons. was the choice. Pickleball party participant, which was just come and spectate. We chose tournament. Yes. As two people who've never played pickleball. That's not true anymore. Not anymore. are now. As of Monday. We are now players. I like to think. We're players now. Pro amateurs probably. I'd handicap us. I could handicap us. It's a strong day. For sure. And so we show up and the format's laid out as a king of the court. And if you're a pickle baller, you probably know what this means. I had no idea what it meant. Four courts, two teams of doubles set up on each court. And court number one is a championship court. Court number two, three, and four rotate through. Winners stay or move up. Losers move down to court. So if you lose on championship court you go to court too If you lose on champ on court to you go to court three, etc If you win you move back up. It's like a bubbling it bubbles up. It bubbles up and Aaron and I as partners pickleball enthusiasts Set out on our grand adventure and they said Every time you win or lose you switch your partner. That was jarring for me. I wasn't ready for that. was a... You were shook. I mean, you were shook. There was a comfort in knowing that we were in it together. And we were in it together, Aaron. i you could say that from the jimmy jim court i think that i was languishing in court for you really didn't work for him and i'm champion i'd be strutting around high-fiving all the ⁓ you know excellent pickleball players like that we're good i think i like that Alright, so we just had some recording issues, our connection dropped and we were talking pickleball. Well this is what it's like to be on location. We are on site, on location, with a laptop that is tethered now to a cell phone with about 19 % battery life. You know when we have high production values in years to come, we'll remember these days. People have built mini studios, have you seen them? there's like several people podcasting at the next level, some of which you've been on this past two days. did one, yeah I know. Maybe next year we set up just a podcast booth and we interview people. I think we need to do guerrilla. Guerrilla podcast? Guerrilla podcasting. and just like hijack There's no way they would let us actually podcast. So we should go to a podcast. I think like Riverside strapped in like a backpack laptop and just walk up to somebody and just... I'm in to try it. Like we can make this happen. Okay, so that's for... Yeah, that'll be next year. Yeah, brainstorm later. This year we made a splash with Pickleball. We had great outfits. So yeah, I think you're saying you do need to sub that in for the episode card. ⁓ yes. I will put the picture of us in our Pickleball outfits. the photo for the weekly run. Maybe I'll add a little graphic to it. But it was a good time, it was fun. The partner switching, well, it threw us off and we didn't realize that the tournament was gonna kind of be friendly, although there were some very competitive players. It's true. Aaron and I did separate. We met some great people along the way. We got to play with other pickleballers who did different things in different companies and it was fun. It was fun. It was fun. What surprised me over the next couple of days has been, I'll give the conference really kudos for leading off the event with an icebreaker. I've come to appreciate how genius that is. I've had several social interactions that have really just been from pickleball and nothing else. And another thing that was really great is nobody has badges on and nobody has any branded gear on. Everybody's in, We have branded gear on because we're idiots. But everybody else was just wearing athletic gear. So I don't know if I'm talking to a vendor. I don't know if I'm talking to an operator. I don't know if I'm talking to a supplier. I don't know. And so it's just cool to meet people in that capacity in a very level sort of playing field engagement wise and then see them later in the show. And I find that I have less bias about those interactions with those people because I know them as humans now first before like, oh, you're going to sell me or oh. I should be intimidated by you or oh, put whatever context you want in there. I thought it was a really great way to start. And the flip side of that, the mirror of that that I thought was interesting is that, so we did that, we went in with our outfits and had a ton of fun with it, worked way better than I thought we could have ever imagined that it was going to, but then that led into the activation the next day that we chose to do. And I got a lot of things saying like, oh, that's cool, I remember you guys from yesterday. And I thought that was a really interesting sort of sequence of events for the show of just how you show up for something like this. Yeah, I think the way we showed up here as a brand, even as a brand, like I said earlier, like this small fish in this big pond where I was surprised that people knew who we were. Then we show up at Pickleball, we're socially engaging with people that, you know, we don't know who they are, but it's fun, we're having a great time. And it was truly a great time. It truly was a lot of fun. then... No injuries. No injuries. Like I'm still walking on all my original bones, no casting. No injuries. It very sore. Extremely sore. My back, calves, everything hurts. Yeah, so we met great people. We made a little bit of an impression with our ridiculous outfits. And in those experiences, we got to tell people, like, hey, come try our bagels tomorrow, because we're doing a breakfast activation. It was a pre-activation. Pickleball was a pre-activation to our activation. Yes. And so we had the opportunity to- Unintentional. Totally unintentional. But we got to roll dough yesterday. You rolled some dough for the first time. How'd I do? You did good. Like, let's just be honest. I mean, you did better than Eric. ⁓ it's on record. is on episode three, so this is episode 16, so it's gonna take him about four weeks to get Excellent. So I should plan for like June. He's gonna be mad June for no reason. We're not even gonna know why. We're not even gonna know why. He's gonna be like, real. Listen, he after it though. He rolled a lot of He gave it gumption. He did. It was fun though. You had a much more natural understanding of what to do. You did great. So, side note on that, and this is not what we're talking about, but... just made me think, I spent a lot of time in stores. Now I'm just observing from the software's perspective and just systems and, but I think what comes into that is like, as we were doing it, a lot of it felt natural only because I've watched bakers, our bakers and other stores do it for hundreds of hours at this point to do my job. But, but there's an osmosis there. I felt comfortable and familiar even though had no idea what I was doing. you start to see, you'd identify something, ⁓ I've seen that. And I can kind of mimic it a little bit. You did great. You did great. mean Eric did great as well. was giving him a hard time, because it's fun. we rolled dough. You know, we are scratch made every day. whether we're It was fun to see what stores do. was fun. Shea W. Marriott in Phoenix, Arizona. Yeah, I mean, we created a little store inside their banquet kitchen. It was wild. We were getting a lot of eyes from the kitchen staff, the chefs. The real chefs were like, what are these guys doing? They weren't sure. And then we fed them bagels this morning, and they were like, oh, now I get it. Oh, were you able to give some to Oh yeah, we gave them a whole tray this morning. Yes, that's great. whole crew downstairs. in the banquet kitchen ate and then we had probably about a tray left over at the end of the activation that we gave to the wait staff. So good. and they were all super excited but yeah so we essentially had our table set up of bagels right next to where some people were coming through to get their their eggs and bacon. It a mini breakfast or a mini mini JBR. A little mini Right on site. Some of the bagels came out of the oven and it still hot because, you know, we were baking off premises in a new, unfamiliar kitchen, so I was not as fast as I should have been. I also did a full YouTube video with another media company while we were baking, so that was kind was pretty funny to watch you guys come out and the guy with the steady cam chasing you, because the rest of the team was just standing by the doorway. I don't know if you saw us when you came We were all standing by the doorways, and we were all like, where's Jeff? Because you were running about 20 minutes late. Yeah, yeah, was late. And so we're all like, where's Jeff? must be, whatever, something must happen. Then all of sudden you're rolling the speed rack out and then the camera crew, like the production crew is tailing as you're commenting over your shoulder to them as you're sort of camera like, oh man, this is like hard knocks. You're like I was mic'd up the whole time. mean, it was legit. They taped it to the, they taped the mic to my chest. What is it? Oh yeah. little clip mic and all that It was great. But yeah, so we did the bagel activation and that was super fun because all these leaders that identified with the brand, saw us at Pickleball, we had a chance to chat with over the course of, you know, the 24 hours that we'd been in Phoenix. We said, come have a bagel. And they're like, where did you make these? Right here on site today. Scratch made just for you. I think the whole team found themselves explaining that. I had a bunch of times I heard other people, as you guys were doing the activation and then right after people stopping reading our badge saying, ⁓ I love the bagels this morning. ⁓ thank you. What you have? You don't have that conversation. ⁓ Most people are blown away at the fact that you those this morning. ⁓ They're like, ⁓ you flew in or we have a local, like a location local to this area ⁓ that provided them or some other sort of, ⁓ I want say. It's not a gimmick, they just expect that the food's not done that way. And we're like, no, we did it the only way we know how. We do it the way we do it in stores. It's like we woke up yesterday and we prepped stuff. And then we woke up this morning and we baked them and then we served them to you. And that's, you get the Jeff's experience. They all got a Jeff's experience without going to a store. We brought the store to them. And I didn't appreciate that because I'm so, I live every day in these stores, eating these bagels, having these experiences. I forget that that's a neat experience. forget my own first time going to a Jeff's and having that experience. And so it's cool to relive that through people having the first time experience. ⁓ they're just going through progression of why it's a good bagel. living it with them. You're having it for the first And then you remember. ⁓ And it's a little bit more intimate than in a store experience because a store experience, person ⁓ has a bagel, they eat it. And then maybe they like, might come back in and tell a team member, that was so good. I love your bagels now. bagel I ever had. Thanks. And they leave, right? But we've had the experience of spending, I don't know what time is it now. We've been now, we are eight hours post activation. it was first thing this morning, seven in morning. person that had a bagel. I like has found us today and said, great bagel, oh my gosh, I can't believe it. I love your bagels. the first time, it was very cool And so we are getting to live a little bit of their first time experience, which I think is a fun, I think is a fun, I don't know, it's a fun way to introduce the brand to people. Why, in your opinion, why is that so important? We were talking about this earlier before we started recording. Why are we still recording? Sorry, that's a little Pavlovian, What we're doing is not necessarily what you come here and do. And we do this in other places where we're a little nontraditional and our marketing team is the best in the biz. In my opinion, they come up with a lot of awesome nontraditional stuff. But why do you think when building a brand and in our journey of really trying to emerge, as the player that we want to be, why is doing some of these non-traditional things that are really just brand-centric? Like, we're not selling franchises here. That's not what this show is. ⁓ Us building awareness doesn't really serve us directly right now, like in this moment in this show, but there's intangibles. Why are those so important? Why do we see them as so important? So I think a lot about the attention economy. Ooh, that's interesting. I think the majority of the attention economy is spent staring into your cell phone. ⁓ There's tons not commentary, but true. There's tons of ⁓ interesting there. You know, you can ⁓ scroll social media, you can get on ⁓ TikTok, can watch movies, you can watch documentaries, you can do everything you... Your whole life ⁓ can right in front of your phone if you want it to be. ⁓ But where our attention is. ⁓ And moments like today happen when we break people away from their phone. And we create this kind of divergent attention. And when they can interact in real life with a human being, it feels different because they're so focused on their phone. So they're having the experience. If you were to summarize it. An IRL experience. I mean. I get it. Stuff just doesn't happen in real life anymore, Aaron. This was a real life experience. You had a real life experience yesterday rolling that dough. 100%. We boiled and baked it this morning and then you watched people eat it. You watched the bagel that someone, you created something and they got to eat it today. And loved it. From the feedback we've gotten. And they loved it and enjoyed it. That is a good point actually. That I hadn't really, I was self satisfied just in the creation yesterday. But I hadn't really thought about the fact that you're right. And I think that's why people are drawn to sort of being a part of the brand We were able to come here and deliver on our three brand pillars of bake fresh, bring joy, build community. This just happened to be we baking fresh offsite in a banquet kitchen at a Marriott. The joy we brought was a fresh baked scratch made product in a world of banquet food. Yeah. And the community we built was with restaurant leaders, with people who know how hard it is and know that what we just accomplished here, normally is it difficult, but it's kind of special because we've brought people together around a commonality and all three of those things showed up and I think that's why it resonates. think that's why people have been talking about it for the last, or 10 hours that we've been floating around and ⁓ it's cool. think that will carry. I think that carries ⁓ to... ⁓ ⁓ the next show we go to when someone's gonna come up to me and they're gonna be like, did you bring the bagels this time? 100%. That's guaranteed. You should keep a ⁓ scorecard. It's a lot. To see how many you get at the next event. Because this business is, it's a big industry, but we're all in the same industry. It's the same people at the same shows. And again, in a good way, it is the business, but yeah, you'll see a bunch of people that were here at the next show and the next show. they're gonna be like, where are the bagels Where are the bagels? It's a lock. As we do these things and do these different experiments and have these moments and it's kind of fun. ⁓ It's fun to come here ⁓ and impress a bunch of people with that we're proud that we do. And if, again, kind of going back to my own self satisfaction, if JBR's self satisfaction is that we gave everybody really awesome bagel and turned some lovers of our brand into future fans, hopefully, and that's it, that's all that came out of it, I think that's enough don't think we need more than that. ⁓ Everything that stacks on that kind of feels like gravy. ⁓ And so as ⁓ we the brand that why do we want to doing that? think it goes back to just the principles that we stand on. know, we... The core values, you mean? Yeah, like our core values. I think it just comes back to that. talk a lot about ⁓ what we in stores, we talk a lot about ⁓ how we people feel, ⁓ but when actually get to do it, ⁓ it ⁓ different. It just hits different. And so being able to connect with someone you don't know over a bagel that they'd never had and tell the story about like, ⁓ I went, know, Danielle gets to tell the story because I didn't go to school in Oceanside or on Long Island. But like the number of people that she's met that are like, we went to the same elementary school together because they're sharing a bagel. Like it's a great common space to share. These events in particular, being that almost everyone here works directly in a hospitality capacity, damn it, so much nicer. there's a kindness, there's a, I'll hold the door for you. There's an empathy too. There's an empathy. We're all working in the same, you almost got attacked by that bird. That bird almost killed me. I think we caught it on camera. That was wild. But yes, there's an empathy for the thing that we're doing. Yeah, because we're all in the same proverbial boat. of serving customers well. Really. All of us are trying to meet those end goals. I've been really focused, think we an organization are really focused on. ⁓ meeting customers where they're at, whether it's with our technology, with our, if it's our franchisees, how ⁓ we reach if it's our prospective franchisees, ⁓ how connecting and helping them understand what our business looks like, if it's our team, like, ⁓ meeting where they are ⁓ in environment, it's really important, ⁓ being hospitable, making sure they feel seen and appreciated. ⁓ Those values, I they just ⁓ kind pull through all the minutiae of all the other stuff. ⁓ All that said, it's been, I mean it's been a great show. I feel really good. We still have whole nother day. Yeah, a whole nother day. Tomorrow's a fun event tonight. Tonight we're getting to go to a cooking class hosted by our friends at Kraft Heinz. This is the craziest thing that I think I've ever experienced. I mean, why am I going to a cooking class by the people at Kraft? I mean, I just hope it's not like just all mayonnaise and like, listen, I'm a mayonnaise fan, so I'm not like I could make that work. I'm sure it's going to be delicious. Their their executive chef's need some french fries. We'll go Canadian the whole way. Dude, if we do some poutine, some sayin mayonnaise and some poutine and let's go. It's what? Thinking to would you come back next year? ⁓ yeah. Well, we've talked about this, but like we're coming back next year for sure. I think this. is a great event for all the things we've already talked about, but we haven't talked about how great it's been to just connect as a team, a ⁓ space where we're not talking about work, we're not always thinking about solving the next problem. ⁓ It's been to be able to ⁓ build a bit of that camaraderie amongst our leadership team. find myself when we come to these sort of things and as a team, ⁓ elevates our own conversation for a couple of days. when come here ⁓ and you see people that are further along stages of the business, ⁓ it's inspirational. You see things that they've solved or challenges that they've ⁓ had, ⁓ and successes they've had. And you're ⁓ I'm excited about you in some cases maybe you see something, you're like, wait, we're already there. And you're you're bolstered by the fact of like, ⁓ man, this is further along than I thought. So the whole gamut, but it makes you start thinking in broader strokes about the business and where we're going and what we're doing and getting inspired and excited about what we're gonna achieve it's so easy for you to just get stuck in your like rut. Yeah. And this is a nice. Just to remind you, there's a bigger picture. 100%. Pick your head up. Yeah. Survey the scene. Feel good about your wins. Get focused on what we're striving to and then feel a little renewed to go back the next day and then get back into the guts of it and the details. I'm gonna miss it. It's too short. I'm it. too short. I know. I'm gonna petition for them to make it longer. It's just the show. I mean, I feel like we have that clout now. I mean, we've had them bagels. I feel like you should be able to request an extra day. Yeah. It seems like a reasonable thing. mean, like, they had a day. I'll bring more bagels. This is a trade that would work for me. If I were in charge of this event, I would take that deal. Maybe that's probably why I'm not in charge of this event. I don't know if this financially is the deal to be made, but I would make that deal. I would cut that I'll see what I can do. Listen, you know, every year is a little bit more pull and maybe we can get that extra day. ⁓ Well, don't know they'll ever listen to this, but a special thanks to the JW Marriott Desert Ridge culinary staff. Yeah, amazing. Amazing hosts. Brian ⁓ and his ⁓ banquet chef. ⁓ lead or whatever. Justin was awesome. His whole crew. They're fantastic. They hosted us and we were in the way the entire time and they never once made us feel like it. They were gracious and while serving, while preparing to serve the 600 people of us plus that are in this event, ⁓ they worked around us. While we made 300 bagels. Like, paled in comparison to what they were doing. We made about 300 bagels. that we were gonna cut in half to give away samples to the same 650 people that they created. A full dinner. A full breakfast, a full lunch, a full dinner for all day long. yeah, they were the best. It was great. It was really good to be in there and see their team in action. But yeah, special thanks to them and ⁓ kudos to you and to Eric and to Todd for... ⁓ You know, getting in there, making cream cheese, rolling bagels, boiling baking It was fun. Listen, I have an aspirational goal now to see if I can do the two handed roll and flip. The hand rolling has got to cut. Yeah, that's That's a vibe, that move. And so now I have a new goal for myself. I need to get there. ⁓ All right. If I can go into O-Town. and break out the two handed hand roll and ⁓ Street cred for a lifetime with those guys. I need it, I don't have it yet. I really don't. They don't think I can do anything. So I'm gonna practice at home. My wife's gonna be like, why do we have all this old dough in the house? What is going on, Aaron? She's like, I need this. Why did you bring all this 40 pound bag of dough? What is happening? It smells, bagels in here, what's in the bag? That would be so funny. You're like, I gotta practice, I gotta practice. You're take it to the garage. Three months of me on this folding table, rolling dough. ⁓ my gosh, I can see that. That's so funny. I mean, don't put it past me, man. I'll do it. That's the perfect spot to stop. Bake fresh, enjoy, build community. We'll talk to you next week.