Latest / The Weekly Run / The Encore | #38
Transcript
- Jeff Perera: Welcome to the weekly run. I'm Jeff. Aaron: I'm Aaron Jeff Perera: And today we're talking about what's hot at Jeff's Bagel Run. And Aaron, I feel like the hottest thing right now is change and newness and the implementation Aaron: That's deep. Jeff Perera: of stuff. It is deep. this is this is what is like this is ex- Aaron: You haven't slept recently, have you? Is this what store openings are like? It's a little sleep and you start getting metaphysical. Jeff Perera: Yeah, that's it. It's like the like deep tracks, like reviews on albums, like that's where we're at right now at the biggle run. Yeah, Aaron: There you go. There you go. I'll go I'll go there with you. It's okay. I'll go on the journey. Jeff Perera: let's let's go on this let's go on this ride together. there's just a lot of moving parts happening right now on the back Aaron: Yeah. Jeff Perera: end of the business. I mean your team's involved with it. You know, I got stuff going, Danielle and Ops has got stuff going, marketing's always got stuff going. So It feels like in a world where, you know, we're building a franchise company and we would think that there's a lot of stuff that should just be like cookie cutter the same, the same, the same. It's Aaron: Yeah. Jeff Perera: really not that at all. It's a lot of constant evolution and change. And it just feels like we're in the flywheel of that right now. Aaron: It does. And I think the part that gets really hard about it too is when it's a mix of things that you can kind of talk about but not talk about in a way, you know, we're we're at the size now where, you know, some of the certainly marketing likes to have a plan when they tell the world things that we're doing. So we have to try and respect that, you kinda work on it behind closed doors and you wanna get it ready. I think that's the big shift, it mentally, is there's just doing things 'cause they need to be done. And then there's like, hey, let's get this let's get this right. Let's build it, let's perfect it, let's test it, and then let's roll it out. And then that's sort of a a multi stage thing. Versus what I'm sure it was going all the way back to like you and Danielle. If you guys had ideas, you just did it. Jeff Perera: Yeah. That's a hundred percent. I mean I think there was times where we would sit at the dinner table and have a conversation about something we thought would be a neat idea and the next day we just went to the store and tried it. Just did it. Aaron: Yeah, it's Jeff Perera: You know, and when you're impacting one store, two stores, it's different than impacting forty. Aaron: Yeah, you just basically had to get clearance from Danielle. That was the only wicket to ideas back then. Jeff Perera: that's still the main hurdle to clear though, to be honest. That doesn't that Aaron: It's true. That's true. Not much has changed. Let's be real. Jeff Perera: yeah, that hasn't changed very much. If I okay, so loaded baked potato is a f is a loaded baked potato is a probably one of the most liked, beloved bagels of the day. Aaron: Good reason. Jeff Perera: It's delicious. I mean, who doesn't love a green onion bagel, topped with cheddar cheese, bacon, salt? I mean Fantastic. Ten out ten. That started at our dinner table as a conversation of should we make a potato roll bagel? Aaron: Mm. Jeff Perera: And it came from some friends. We were having dinner with them. And when we started talking about the idea of like potato rolls being the best rolls for burgers or whatever, like sandwiches. And then I was like, ooh, I wonder if we could do that as a bagel. And then someone said, Well, what if you did like a loaded baked potato? And then so I got just down this like rabbit hole of can I make a potato bread? Would potato bread work? Potato bread actually didn't. Do anything for the dough. You couldn't really taste the potato. It didn't add anything. Aaron: Yeah. Jeff Perera: But the green onion dough layered in so much flavor and adding the bacon and the cheese. And then when you pile it together with the cream cheese or the butter, it gives you the same effect of what it's like to eat a baked potato with all the fixings in it. So that happened at a kitchen table. That was, you know, 15 stores in, 12 stores in maybe. Now it's Aaron: And even that had a little friction. It was a little bit of like, Jeff Perera: a lot of friction. Aaron: okay, we'll do it. Hold Jeff Perera: All right. Aaron: on. Jeff Perera: Ideas like that still happen, and I guess that's the fun part is ideas like that still happen, but now when the idea sparks, we take sixty, ninety, a hundred and twenty days at times to get it to execution in the store. Which is different. Aaron: That feels but that feels right at this point, if I'm being honest. You you get to a certain point where I think all of us in our respective areas of the business recognize I'll I'll say that sort of the impact of a mistake or a misfire, you know, or a miscue or however you want to think of it. And so that calculus sort of changes from I always like to laugh, it's like how many calls do you have to make? Something goes wrong, if I only have to make two calls, that's a you know, that's a lot different, you know, exposure than fifteen calls or thirty calls or now I can't even make the calls. It has to be an in an email because I'm emailing hundreds of people. It's like it's sort of that's part of that growth journey. And I think it's a measurement to say, man, we've gotten to a point where like I said, we still want to be creative, but we want to be responsible with how we build these things, because the system's big now. Jeff Perera: It is. It is. Last night I made a mistake. I posted the bagel of the day calendar on social media. And I guess for some reason I thought my birthday was on Friday this year, not Saturday. Aaron: W hold up, hold up, hold up. So just to pause for that, did you just admit that you got your birthday wrong? Jeff Perera: Yeah. I got my birthday wrong. Yeah. I'm an old man, Aaron. I'm an old man. So Aaron: Okay. Y you need to sleep. Clearly to take a nap. You might be going a little too hard. Jeff Perera: I well, the worst part about it is I plan these calendars so far in advance and I have them just in a folder and I just botched it weeks ago when I created it. And I'm looking at the calendar and I was like, this isn't right. And then of course Aaron: That's not my birthday. Jeff Perera: it was the first time we sent it out. via email push for marketing. So the first time we get sc screwed Aaron: Yeah. Nice. Jeff Perera: that up. So I quickly like Aaron: See again, so I'm talking about blast radius, it matters. Jeff Perera: It matters. Yeah, there's impact. And so took the bagel of the day calendar down. I'm sure Catriona sent an email saying, sorry, here's the real calendar. And then like, you know, I'm professing my apologies to our devout fans on social media, Instagram, TikTok, wherever they see the calendar. And it happens. There were a few DMs that came through. So which day is blueberry cinnamon sugar the bagel of the day? Cause Aaron: Yeah. Jeff Perera: one said Friday, one said Thursday. Which one is it? I want to make Aaron: Yeah. Jeff Perera: sure I get it right. You know, the app is always right. The app is a single source of truth, regardless of whatever I create for content, because that's I mean, that's done by people smarter than me. So Aaron: Yeah, we don't let Jeff touch the app. So if you're ever really curious Jeff Perera: Which is not true. I I I always load the calendar. So even if I load the calendar wrong, the Aaron: Yeah. Jeff Perera: app is right. So I could have loaded it incorrectly. Aaron: Exactly. Jeff Perera: But once it's in the app, I just change all the media to to match what's in the app. Because I can't Aaron: Yes. So you follow the app. That's great. Jeff Perera: change the app because I've learned that lesson. I've done that before and I've broken it. We talked about that a few Aaron: Yep, you did. Jeff Perera: you know, a few months ago, so Aaron: True. It's true. Jeff Perera: But there's just a lot I guess there's a lot of things happening and some of them are pretty meaningful. So I think we Aaron: Yeah, I'm excited. Jeff Perera: have to slow down to speed up and do it right and understand the impact it has. Aaron: it's a bit of a health check for us. It's cool to be working on some of these things and to go from a couple of years ago feeling like, man, every day is just trying to keep up with the growth and how fast it's going. acknowledgement of where we've gotten to with the business that we can actually spend a quarter working on things and then rolling them out. Jeff Perera: And I think that's what it feels like right now. It feels like Aaron: Yeah. Jeff Perera: we've been spending time on things that are going to bear fruit in November, December, in January, February. I don't know, maybe I'm just not patient enough. Maybe I just want it Aaron: Yeah. Jeff Perera: right now. That could be part of it too. Aaron: That's that's that's natural. That's natural. I the that's the best and the worst part about working in any young company, young brand is is you have everything to do always. There's always there's always something to make better or to explore or opportunities. Man there's no there's no lack of them. It's you know, can you have the discipline to manage them and and identify hopefully which ones are the The best. Jeff Perera: and there's divided opinion on what's best all the time. I mean always. Aaron: Always. Every for everything. Jeff Perera: I think about your team. Your team might have one of the cleanest roadmaps. And by clean I don't mean like consistent. I just mean like thoughtful and planned out. When you when I think about what you're Aaron: Yeah. Jeff Perera: working on. And you look at your roadmap and what you've got for the rest of this year, for Q1, for Q2, next year, you have a very thought-out, logical approach to the work that you have to do to layer into ball the systems, right? So, Aaron: Yeah. Jeff Perera: we're working on a an inventory reconciliation system for our stores. that's part of automation. It will be part of our proprietary set of Software that you get for being a franchisee at Jeff's Bagel Run that'll help you run your business better. It should give you a better idea of your cost of goods every month. It should give you a better idea of your true ownership of product that you have in the store. And that's a valuable tool for our teams, when it's there. But it's not something we can roll out halfway. It's not something Aaron: No, there's no experiment. We're not gonna try anything there. Jeff Perera: No, the testing's all happening in development environments, not real life environments, because it can Aaron: Yeah. Yeah. Jeff Perera: it can screw somebody up. You know what I mean? It could put them in a position where they have too much of something and they create shortage in their store or they have too little of something and create a gap in potential sales because they missed out. So yeah, so this is all div like dev environment working on testing there and figuring that out. Danielle and I were working on the part of that project the other day, like weighing every single ingredient. So that we You're you're so you're you're welcome. It's I think s I think I Aaron: Which I appreciate you guys for, by the way. If I if I haven't said that. Jeff Perera: think I think the other Aaron might have worked on it a little bit too to help us out because it was a lot of you don't realize how much stuff you have until you have to count it to the gram. Aaron: Yep. Jeff Perera: Like we got a lot of stuff in the store. How many grams of poppy seeds go on a poppy seed bagel? I know now. Aaron: It's and I'm glad because I need I needed to know. So that's that's Jeff Perera: You yeah. Aaron: useful. But that's a great example to your point of of trying to like there's no shortcutting that. There's no MVP of that s as you know, as people like to say, we're not gonna roll something half thought out out and then have stores experiment with it. Some things you can, don't get me wrong. Like we we do do that with certain things that that fit that that approach, but We're getting to the point now where no, this thing needs to be right. I was having a conversation today with some potential franchisees who had some experience with another brand that that does their tech own technology as well or you know is really sort of tech forward. And just talk about their experiences. And I was really I mean, to be blunt, they were they were grilling me on our roadmap and how we triage things and how we in the in and I'll say it the right questions that a franchisee should be asking. But but we've got to be ready for that. And thankfully I feel like we are, but but the questions are valid ones in that how do we prioritize these things? How do we say that A is more important than B? And When you can do everything, you know, when do you focus on internal operations versus additional sales channels versus you know employee facing efficiencies? All big questions. And I think you've got to figure out, you know, sort of as a team a way to triage all that and work through it. Jeff Perera: If we're not thoughtful about the approach that we take to new innovation or to changes that we're trying to implement with our stores, it will negatively impact the business operations. And I think that's the bottom line. So we just have to be thoughtful about that and be ready for it. sorry I missed you guys today. I would have loved to have spent time with them. Aaron: It was a good conversation. Yeah, you were you were definitely missed. but it's that's what's so great about I think that's probably my favorite part just while we're talking about development and and building stuff on this side. My favorite part is sort of that constant rotation of we're operating, you know, our franchisees are operating, they have their stores, we have our stores in the corporate environment as well. So we're always operating. But we're trying to pitch and sell new people to join the system at the same time. And then we're also trying to grow the whole thing at the same time. So it's like we kinda go through these different modes of because each party wants a little something different. So I love having these checkpoints where it's like, Yeah, let's check in with new franchisees. What do people want? What do people care? What are other brands doing? What do they hate? What they love from other brands? It's just it's such a great feedback loop. Jeff Perera: It really is, and the same feedback is happening in stores live that we have today. So like I'm in Cumming Georgia, and we are opening a new store this week, and we have brand new franchisees going through all the stuff that brand new franchisees go through. the GM said to me today, 'cause I I I probably it's good it was good feedback. I don't think he intended his feedback, but it was good feedback where he said yeah. Aaron: Accidental feedback. Nice. Jeff Perera: He said, Well, it's easy for you. This is like the fortieth time you've done it. It's my first one. And that's fair. And Aaron: Yeah. Jeff Perera: I was trying to help him understand that the things that we're gonna teach the team are all easy to learn. They're all Aaron: Yeah. Jeff Perera: real repeatable, methodical. But his mindset's a lot different than the person who's been running the store for eighteen months, than the person who's been running the store for, three years. So it's an ever moving target that we're chasing after when it comes to the ops or training side of the business to make sure that the stores are running well and the guests are getting the best experience they can get. Aaron: and that's another thing we sort of talk about new stores is you never stop growing the business, especially at the stage that we're at, it's always interesting to see franchisees join in flight and And again, depending on when you join, maybe you joined during a quiet period, maybe you joined during a an exciting sort of you know fast moving period. for the people that are joining now, we we really have a big end of year planned on a couple of different fronts. And so it's gonna be really dynamic for them over the next four months, which is great. There's a lot of opportunity right out of the gate, you know. And it Jeff Perera: Yeah. Yeah. Aaron: it just I think about that. Right, and and when sort of we want to drop certain things and and when things get introduced. And I remember when we released our our big update to to the bake system over the summer. And the big question was like, okay, we have a couple of stores that are in the opening phases. Thankfully there's only two. But how do we train them? Do we train them on this unreleased software so that they can hit the ground running? Because it's gonna come out like around the week that they're opening. Do we make them do we do we allow them to ignore it? and just sort of onboard them to the new features later. And actually I think we did a split. We trained some early and other ones we let that already had received some training. So we did both. But these are real questions that aren't relevant at ten stores, but at forty and fifty. Very relevant. Jeff Perera: Yeah. And I think it was we learned a lot in that. We learned that Aaron: Yeah, we did. Jeff Perera: teaching those teams how to do what's coming versus kind of what's now and then looping them into the rest of the rollout time is probably the better decision. Because what we actually earn there is we earn some people who are brand new in the system. We earn their in what's the word I'm leaving for? We earn their like seal of approval there, Aaron: Yeah, they bought in Jeff Perera: We we yeah, we earn their buy-in as a new franchisee, and they can then help share and evangelize for the new system with existing franchisees. And then there's a group of people who are existing who are testing it. And so there is a bit of like you have to build support around the thing before you drop the thing into the middle. Bake is a great example of that. And I think bake's one of those things where when we rolled it out. Different than like we were just talking about the inventory challenges and what that looks like. The inventory has to be right from the jump. Sure, we'll tweak it, we'll make adjustments, we'll make updates, we'll do all the stuff that we always do with the software, but like it has to come out like a hundred percent baked, pun intended. The Aaron: miss. Jeff Perera: the the procedure for bake two point and the algorithm that determines what bagels to bake when, we have tweaked that. Every week since we've rolled it out. We are like, this Aaron: Endless. Jeff Perera: is not enough. Do this, do this. And so and that's all it was real time feedback because we needed in modeling it looked great. But then you get into real life and you start thinking, like, wait a second, the model says I have this much time to do this thing, but in real life, I don't have this much time to do this thing because I'm one person and I twisted my ankle the other day. And so now I'm kind of hobbling around the store and I can't get from one side to the other as fast as I could the day before. Like there's so many like real factors that come into play that As we started to get real life feedback, we made changes that we could never have anticipated in a dev environment. Aaron: Completely. And I think that's one of the advantages I mean, anybody in our market here with our corporate stores, I get to abuse our corporate stores, so that's just an advantage that I have access to as as a tech team. But but in Jeff Perera: I didn't use abuse, Aaron. That doesn't feel doesn't feel like the right word. Aaron: with love, abused with love, I don't know. Does that does that help? They listen, they they're the Jeff Perera: They're like guinea pigs. They're guinea pigs, they're guinea pigs. Aaron: they're the lab. I you know, I've never been turned away. I will say every time I come into a store that I'm gonna do that to, I'm like, you can opt out of this. You just have to tell me, not right now, Aaron. This is not the week for this. I remember it was I we wanted to test something and Otown is always my my go to for for that. And so I was talking with their GM and they were they were staring down the barrel of the Arnold Palmer invitational. There's a massive golf tournament here in in Orlando, Arnold Palmer International Golf Tournament, really big, big event, takes all week. And it's insanely close to the O-town store, like 10 minutes away. And so that store was Supplying a lot of bagels and spreads, and by supplying I mean crates full of spreads. I mean they were making spreads Jeff Perera: Yeah, we Aaron: for weeks. Jeff Perera: we served like we were the Aaron: Yeah, what are the numbers? Jeff Perera: we it was a few Aaron: Crazy. Jeff Perera: it was over a hundred dozen a day for seven Aaron: Yeah. Jeff Perera: days. So our we like sponsored the volunteers. So we basically fed all of the volunteers and the staff that was a huge undertaking because they start their day really early, like before we start our day. So I'm pretty sure those store teams Aaron: Yeah. Jeff Perera: were coming in. Yeah. So anyway, they were under the they were under pressure from essentially eight straight days of catering that started like five A. every day. Aaron: They ran a double business for a week. It basically doubled their business for a week. And so Jeff Perera: brutal, yeah. Yeah. Aaron: I came down and and and we were talking with the GM about that and she's like, No. Not this week. and we talked about what was going on. Like, yeah, no problem. Totally makes sense. I walked away. So I try to be nice, but it's very but that's the beauty of being able to have those conversations. And, you know, with that testing, kinda how we want to make sure things are right, I would equally never roll anything out. At Thanksgiving or Mother's Day. Right? 'Cause these are days that are very busy for us. And so it's nice to be connected to the business and be able to make these choices and just be more strategic about how and when we do these things. Jeff Perera: Well and you have other parties that you have to like plan for too. When you're thinking about software updates, you Aaron: Yeah. Jeff Perera: have to submit everything to the app store ahead of time. It has to be approved. Aaron: it's the hardest part. Jeff Perera: That's hey, your your calendar is like, yeah, Aaron: I don't know why. It just is. Jeff Perera: it's if you need something to roll out in three weeks, you gotta have it delivered to the app store three weeks ahead of time. And yeah, there's a lot of that sometimes isn't enough. Aaron: Yeah, it's it's an interesting process. I think I still think I have it easier than than others. we we don't mail I mean, just talking about other stuff that we we roll out and sort of have to do, we don't mail as many things as we used to. But it's been fun over the years to watch like the training team and the ops team bundle thirty packages Jeff Perera: Yeah. Aaron: of whatever to ship out binders and new recipe cards and sticker packs Jeff Perera: They Aaron: and Jeff Perera: I think they send a monthly at least a monthly what we call bagel mail. Like an Yeah. Aaron: Bagelmail, that's right. Jeff Perera: It's bagel mail. It's like an intercompany envelope style kind of package Aaron: So great. Jeff Perera: full of recipe cards, collateral, things like that, updates that require something physical from us, we'll send that. It usually gets shipped though, I think with the coffee orders, so Aaron: that's it gets co packed with that? Jeff Perera: Yeah, I don't I don't think it's a separate thing unless it's urgent. It's packed with coffee. Yeah. Aaron: But these are the things that we have to think about. It's a lot. Jeff Perera: And it's getting harder as I get older, Aaron. Aaron: The thinking part or the the doing? Jeff Perera: Maybe both. I don't know. Aaron: Well what's your so I mean we're we're we're being obnoxiously vague on some of the things here Jeff Perera: It's my Aaron: that that we have to be for what we've Jeff Perera: Mm, I know. Aaron: got coming up, but like what's out of everything we're sort of brewing right now, do you have a favorite? Do you have anything you're most excited about? Jeff Perera: Yeah, I'm most excited about probably the thing that we get asked for the most every day Aaron: Yeah. Jeff Perera: by by our guests. And so, our Aaron: This is where we need to poll. What do we th what do you think is asked most? Jeff Perera: I could I could drop a poll. Yeah. What do you think is asked most? Aaron: That's right. Jeff Perera: it's honestly it's you know, I'm you know, I don't mind talking about it a little bit. We're we're pretty close, but we had you know, we had to get some franchisees signed on and on board for this. But like we're hoping to be able to roll out a gift card program. And our guests want gift Aaron: Super exciting. Jeff Perera: cards. They want to be able to share the joy of Jeff's Bagel Run with friends and family. And it's it's a lot larger of an undertaking than I think anyone maybe anticipated. It's big. It's a big it's I've learned more about Aaron: I've learned a lot. More than I ever thought I'd know. Jeff Perera: Yeah, I've learned more about gift cards in the last six months that I've wanted to ever think about. And I've also gone down some really incredibly fantastic rabbit holes, like unclaimed property So fantastic. Aaron: It's Jeff Perera: Searching every state with Aaron: it is a Jeff Perera: my name for unclaimed property. You never know it could be there. Aaron: Yes. Jeff Perera: so yeah, I think I think I'm probably most excited about the gift cards. I really do. I think that will I think that's gonna really meet a ton of guess where they are. And when we think about trying to meet guess where they are, there are people who who really do want to spread the joy of just Bigel Run through a gift card with friends, family, teachers, colleagues, whatever that looks like. And I think that's gonna be a real win for us when we get that up and running. Some of the other stuff is also Equally as exciting, but it's a little I gotta be I'm gonna be a little more cagey about those. Aaron: You probably should. I mean we who knows Jeff Perera: Yeah. Aaron: we might be in trouble already for for s for saying so much. Jeff Perera: I did an AMA on Saturday or Sunday. Yeah, I know. Someone's gonna yell at me. But on Sunday I did a little Ask Me Anything as I was traveling up here to Georgia. And Aaron: Yeah. Jeff Perera: the number one question I get is when are you opening this in a st a store near like that's the number one question. Number one question I Aaron: And then blank. Jeff Perera: get is when are you opening a store here, near me, whatever that location is? And man. We can't announce a store and like the plantation location. Forty-seven questions. When's plantation opening? When's plantation opening? Aaron: huh. Amazing. Jeff Perera: I h I know you have a store opening. I know you have a store opening in Indiana. When's Indiana opening? Like the timing is like I don't control it. I can't. I wish I did, but Aaron: think what we need to do I'll I'll put this on our extremely long roadmap. we need to have we need to have a website kind of, you know, like like utility service where you can just go and say, When will my you know when will my area be supported by Jeff's and you can put in Jeff Perera: Yes. Aaron: your zip code or your town or your whatever. And then if we have an answer we can give it to you and be like, Yes, we will have service in your area in Jeff Perera: Like the call before you dig number. Aaron: You know, Q one of twenty twenty s yeah, exactly. Like dis can you can you get this in your area sort of thing. Yeah. see that's on me. That's on me. Just to save you, to save you the work, Jeff. Jeff Perera: that'd be so great. That and I and I also think we I don't I don't mind. It's actually fun. It's great 'cause I get interact with a lot of our you know, our fans. It's fun. what would be really great would be we need a Jeff tracker on the app. Aaron: Ooh, was this like the Santa Norad tracker at Christmas time where you think just wherever you are at any given Jeff Perera: Yeah, same vibes. Yeah. Aaron: moment? Jeff Perera: Yeah. Where where might I be this week? 'Cause you know, last week I was in three or four different stores and people are like, my gosh, I haven't seen you in this store in forever. And so now you know I'm in Atlanta this week. It could be really fun to I don't know. It's also a little stalker level. Aaron: See that's an that's an that's a lot stalker level. I don't think there's any little to it. I think that's that is yeah, we're definitely not feeding something healthy there, but you know. If you're down if you're down, Jeff Perera: It what listen. Aaron: I'm down. That's fine. Jeff Perera: Maybe maybe the Jeff Tracker There's some other I think there's some other marketing features that Katrina would rather have ahead of time. So Aaron: Daniel's Daniel's like, I don't want a Jeff Tracker. No Jeff Tracker, please. Jeff Perera: No. I should most of the time I'd probably just be at my house. Like, no. Aaron: You know, maybe it can just simply be more like do you remember do you remember the old app called Foursquare? And and you you could be the mayor Jeff Perera: yeah, yeah, that was great. You could be the mayor. Yeah. Aaron: of somewhere. So maybe it's just it just tracks when you're checking in the Jeff's locations. So if you happen to be Jeff Perera: Yes. Aaron: at a Jeff's location, it just lets you know, hey, maybe we can just badge it in the app. Like, Jeff is currently resident to this Jeff Perera: Here. Aaron: To the store location. Jeff's in. Jeff Perera: That would be great. So so we need to layer in Foursquare into the Jeff's Bagel Run app. That sounds great. Aaron: Katrina's like none of this is in my roadmap, so this is not please stop. Jeff Perera: No. No, there's so many other things. well, the closest thing on the roadmap is my birthday on Saturday. And that is Aaron: Yeah, this is true. Jeff Perera: a marketing ac that is a marketing activation because I guess we're celebrating all the Jeffs that come into the store on Saturday with a free bagel and a spread. So that's pretty great. I think this is the third year we've done this. Yeah. Last year we had a specialty Aaron: This is third year running? Was third year we've done this? Second year? Yeah. Jeff Perera: drink. This year we have a new bagel of the day, the pesto bagel is going to be Aaron: Mm. Yeah. Jeff Perera: The bagel of the day on Saturday is very good. It's plain bagel topped with the pesto sauce and the mozzarella cheese. It is a nut free pesto because, you know, we like to stay nut free. but it's it's a very, very good bagel. I like it a lot. Aaron: What's the cream cheese for Jeff Perera: It's my birthday bagel. Aaron: that? What's the cream cheese for that one? Jeff Perera: You could do so many different cream cheeses with this. I think honestly all of the savories work regardless of the ti roasted jalapeno is my go-to, so I'm gonna put that on that bagel. Chive & Onion would be fantastic. It could be one I was gonna say this is gonna sound weird, but I was gonna say you could put like the maple spice cream cheese on there. Like Aaron: Wow. Jeff Perera: that the brown sugar maple. I really like that cream cheese. I eat that stuff with the spy like a spoon. So that would be a little little out there, but I think it would be really good. and then garlic herb butter is like a it's a lock. I mean basically pesto is just some is more herby-ish. Herbay herbaceous. Is that a word? That does make up a word on the podcast? No, herbaceous is a word. It's gotta be a word. Aaron: I I'm gonna go with Erby. I thought that was a better I thought that was a better word. Jeff Perera: Erby Erby. More herby. Aaron. I don't ever sleep the first night in a hotel. Does anybody ever sleep well Aaron: You're clearly not. Jeff Perera: on the first night in a hotel? Like tonight I'll be fine. Aaron: I don't know that it bothers me. Jeff Perera: I guess. Aaron: I'm surprised that you have any like I would think sleep would come to you easily at any point. At like any Jeff Perera: No. Aaron: point. Jeff Perera: No. Maybe tonight. Tonight I'll tonight I'll be a little better. But I think the first Aaron: You got bagels to make tomorrow. Jeff Perera: Yeah. we made bagels today. It's great. We're rocking and rolling. If Aaron: You be busy. Jeff Perera: you're in the coming Georgia area, North East Georgia, Northeast Atlanta market. I don't even know where we are really. I think we're northeast of Atlanta. Kind of beyond Alpharetta and the I don't know. If you're in the Cumming area, you know where we are. Come get a bagel. We'll be here. So Aaron: See, this is we d we don't have the Jeff Tracker built, so you just have to manually tell everybody that you're in that you're in the Cummings Georgia store. Yeah, you just gotta come and Jeff Perera: You're gonna you're gonna have to look it up. There's tools for that. There's tools for that, yeah. Jeff's Bagel Run, Georgia. There's only two of them in the state. You'll find us. but yeah, so that's this week. I'm excited about it. I think the Saturday celebration will be fun. Great new bagel of the day. I think Catriona looked it up. We have four hundred and forty four Jeffs signed up in our loyalty program. Aaron: just actively. So they're sitting on they're Jeff Perera: Active. Aaron: sit they're sitting on value. They just have to come Jeff Perera: Yep. Aaron: get it. Jeff Perera: I think there's twenty seven Jeffs with a G E O F F spelling as well, additionally. So Aaron: yeah. Which we accept. It just has to be phonetic, Jeff. Jeff Perera: It just has to be phonetic Jeff or Jeffrey. Aaron: Or maybe you just you know, well no, can't be a Jeff at heart. You have to actually be a Jeff. Everybody's Je Everybody's Jeff at Heart. Jeff Perera: You have to be an actual Jeff. We have to be an actual Jeff. Yeah. Everybody's, yeah, no doubt. Especially when it comes to bagels. Aaron: Especially when it comes to bagels. Jeff Perera: Especially when it comes to bagels. Well, Aaron, this has been fun. I think I'm gonna probably go take a nap and get ready for another Aaron: Good. Jeff Perera: big day this week at the bagel run. But big fresh, bring joy, build community, and we'll see you next time. Bye.