Latest / The Inspired Stories Podcast / The Outsider's Advantage: How Dan Simpson Transformed Taziki's Through Fresh Perspective

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The Outsider's Advantage: How Dan Simpson Transformed Taziki's Through Fresh Perspective · The Inspired Stories Podcast

0:04
Welcome to another edition of the Inspired Stories podcast
0:08
where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from
0:11
their successes and be inspired by how they've overcome
0:14
adversity. My name is Anthony Kotaspodi and
0:17
today's guest is Dan Simpson. Let's start that one over.
0:21
Can't butcher your name in the first get go?
0:26
Welcome to another edition of the Inspired Stories podcast,
0:29
where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from
0:32
their successes and be inspired by how they've overcome
0:35
adversity. My name is Anthony Kotaspodi,
0:37
and today's guest is Dan Simpson, CEO of Tziki's
0:41
Mediterranean Cafe, a growing restaurant chain dedicated to
0:45
offering fresh, healthy meals inspired by Mediterranean
0:48
cuisine. They focus on quality
0:51
ingredients, handcrafted dishes, and fostering community around a
0:55
shared table. Now, under Dan's leadership,
0:58
Tzatziki's has expanded to numerous locations and continues
1:01
to bring people together through great food in a casual setting.
1:05
Dan has been with the company since 2016, guiding innovation
1:09
and business development. He has a strong background in
1:13
culture, building technology, and market development.
1:17
In addition, Dan earned his MBA from West Virginia University
1:21
and has ABS in biology from Clearwater Christian College.
1:25
He has also worked in both for profit and nonprofit
1:28
organizations, bringing a unique perspective to leading teams and
1:32
cultivating positive work environments.
1:34
Now before we get into all that good stuff, today's episode is
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AD back benefits.com. All right, back to our guest
2:17
today, CEO of Tziki's Mediterranean Cafe, Dan Simpson.
2:21
Thanks for making the time to Share your story today.
2:24
Great to be here. So nice to meet you Anthony, and
2:27
great to be on the pod. Yeah.
2:29
So let's see, Dan, you've got a pretty interesting background
2:33
before joining Tzatziki's. I see some work in healthcare.
2:37
I see technology stops. Maybe pick one of those that was
2:42
the most formidable for you and tell us about it.
2:47
Yeah, our our careers are often winding roads and rarely
2:51
straight lines, right. They often make sense maybe when
2:53
we look back on them, but not so much when you're trying to, you
2:56
know, get out of college and and blazer trail.
2:58
But yeah, I think, I think probably I think back actually
3:00
to the the some of the healthcare jobs.
3:04
I did some start up companies and then I was invited by a, a
3:08
friend to join this, you know, small organization the times
3:12
called AIM Healthcare and they had a few 100 employees.
3:16
And the biggest thing there, they ended up growing up to 1000
3:19
nationwide, thousand employees nationwide presence and getting
3:22
acquired by Optum or by United Healthcare.
3:25
And now it's called Optum. And so it's a big player in the
3:27
healthcare space. But I got to be there in the
3:29
early days and the cool thing then was, you know, they hired
3:32
me. I took a step backwards with pay
3:35
and with position at the chance that I have a chance to help
3:38
scale this company. And they're right.
3:41
I showed ambition. I was curious.
3:43
I learned very quickly. And before long I was managing a
3:45
team of 80 people. And the big thing that really is
3:48
formed about that was I've got to work with, directly with the,
3:51
the investors and the, the, the C-Suite.
3:55
And what I learned there was basically though, you know, if I
3:59
showed ambition and curiosity as I, as I said that they would
4:03
give, give me opportunities and they, they, they put tremendous
4:07
trust in me to be able to go start new divisions and broker
4:13
multi $1,000,000 deals. And I was so wet behind the
4:15
ears. And they would do a great job
4:18
with, with finding people that earned their trust and then put
4:24
them in the deep end of the pool, support them, but they,
4:27
they were not risk adverse. And that, that has taught me a
4:30
lot about how to hire people and how to think about people to try
4:34
to surround yourself with people that you trust that have a huge
4:37
upside and, and take some risks. Let them.
4:40
It's OK to swing and miss and fail as long as you can fix it
4:43
quickly. And so it was really it really
4:45
helped me not to be afraid of risk.
4:47
Or there's a singer-songwriter, David Wilcox.
4:50
I like that has a a saying about you want to live your life where
4:54
you swim along the shoreline, where you are close enough to
4:58
the shore to stay alive, but far enough to feel alive.
5:01
And I think that lies to business too, right, Which is
5:04
got to find that sweet spot between risk and reward.
5:06
And so this is it. It sounds like influence the way
5:10
not not only that you carry yourself, but the way that you
5:13
approach cultivating talent within your organization today.
5:18
Yeah, absolutely. Like there is this idea of speed
5:21
to trust, right? You, you, you, you, you want to,
5:26
you know, surround yourself with people that in this case, now
5:28
that I'm in the restaurant business, coming as an outsider
5:31
like you said, from healthcare, from technology and some other
5:34
industries, I found that it crosswalked very nicely into the
5:37
restaurant space because the restaurant space has all of
5:39
those things. Of course there is a culinary
5:41
chef driven component, but it's operations and now it's very
5:45
tech enabled and it's HR and it's people building and it's
5:50
it's finance and it's it's so many components like any
5:53
business. And So what I look for is just
5:56
talented people that are kindred in values and then bestow upon
6:01
them the deep end of the pool and then just coach them along
6:05
the way. You know, you mentioned that our
6:09
careers, their winding paths is, you know, we're just sort of
6:12
trying to figure out like, where do we land next right out of
6:14
school? And then as you look back, you
6:18
can kind of connect the dots a little bit better.
6:19
As you kind of look back at your career, is there a common
6:23
thread, you know, through sort of these different opportunities
6:26
that you've taken? Yeah, there's, there's a couple.
6:30
I mean, I think the first one is the core, the core of of my
6:36
value set is, is empathy and humanity like it's, it's always
6:40
been about people and projects that advance the common good and
6:47
advance people getting opportunities.
6:50
There's always been a a a bent towards like a purpose driven
6:55
opportunity that's very people oriented everything, whether in
6:58
every venture that have been a part.
6:59
And that's why the for profit and nonprofit that tax status is
7:04
a is a really less important because the common thread
7:08
between all of them was were we, you know, a parasite and
7:12
extracting from humanity, or were we actually adding value
7:16
and bringing something good to the world?
7:18
And so every project I've been a part of that was key.
7:21
I think the other dynamic is I never been a person that had a
7:27
clear like dream to launch of my own right.
7:32
I, I, I though, you know, very much an idea person.
7:35
I've never had an idea that I said, OK, this is what I want to
7:38
do. I want to take my dream and
7:40
launch it. And so everything I've done has
7:41
been really finding other people who have dreams that are worthy
7:46
of joining and help, but maybe they on their own don't know how
7:49
to scale it and applying my energy and my strategic thinking
7:55
and culture building to their dream to help it grow.
7:58
And I've always been very comfortable and in fact just
8:01
really enjoyed about finding those people with big dreams
8:04
that are worth joining and help them grow.
8:07
And so how did you find Tziki's and what was it about their
8:13
idea, you know, 10 years ago that you got so excited to help
8:17
grow? Yeah, it, it was, you know, in
8:21
each of the businesses that I've been part of, like if there was
8:23
another thread that brought me to Tziki's, it was technology.
8:27
Not a coder, not a technologist by trade.
8:30
But as I got into every venture, I realized to scale more
8:35
affordably, I had to learn how to leverage tech, right.
8:38
Basic concept there. And so I ended up actually, from
8:42
those experiences, launching a technology company which had
8:46
various different applications. And one of them ended up being
8:50
in the sort of grocery store restaurant hospitality space.
8:55
Didn't ever imagine myself getting into the restaurant
8:58
space. It was.
8:59
Company was this is this. Yeah, that was, that was to go
9:02
technologies. Yeah.
9:05
And and it's first iteration actually was a little bit more
9:08
healthcare leaning around nutrition and Wellness and
9:11
reward programs working with Blue Cross Blue Shield plans.
9:16
We needed the other side of that network needed to be grocery
9:18
stores and restaurants. And so that, that that pushed me
9:21
into that space from a nutritional angle.
9:24
And I was then told by at the time the, the head of the
9:29
National Restaurant Association, David Gilbert, who happened to
9:34
live in Nashville where I live, and said, man, if you're going
9:36
to go down this space, there's this guy named David named
9:40
Michael Bodnar, who is a whiz. He's the guy that understands
9:45
integrations technology wise from systems into restaurant
9:48
point of sales. Great.
9:50
So we had lunch, we hit it off. He told me about his group
9:53
called Fresh Hospitality, which was an incubator of aspiring
9:57
restaurant brands. One of them was Tziki's.
10:00
And we, we hit it off for he said, look, I'll make an
10:02
investment in your company if you repurpose some of this tech
10:05
and build a mobile ordering platform for my restaurant
10:08
group, which included Tziki's. And eventually I ended up
10:12
working, transitioned to go work with him and, and at Fresh
10:16
Hospitality to help him spin up new brands that again, somebody
10:19
else's dream who needed help with scaling and building tech
10:24
and building culture. And so I helped to do that for a
10:28
few smaller brands. And then he eventually said, why
10:30
don't you come join the Tzatziki's group, the founder
10:35
not as the CEO, but as the chief innovation officer, which was
10:38
just a fancy title for come be a consultant and help help us
10:42
figure out what the next 20 years looks like.
10:45
I was going to say it's, it's a little unusual, sorry.
10:47
You were the CIO for a couple of years and then eventually I
10:51
think that's what you're getting to.
10:53
You transitioned into the CEO role, which on the surface
10:57
sounds like a rather unusual career art.
11:00
I don't think I've come across the CIO or CTO that has made
11:05
that transition internally to the CEO.
11:08
But as I hear your story, I think it it, the details make a
11:11
little bit more sense because you want a coder, right?
11:14
You're not a programmer. You, you know, you kind of
11:17
understood how to connect the dots on things.
11:19
And I think that's where the skill set really lent itself
11:21
well to, to transitioning to that CEO role.
11:24
Yeah, I, I, I'm exactly right. I think the, the Michael Botany
11:28
was the chairman of the board of Tzatzikis as well at that time.
11:31
Just he looked in and recognized that the founder Keith, the
11:35
foundering chef was, was still very much involved and and the
11:38
menu was excellent and the brand had an amazing reputation.
11:42
But there we're we're moving into a world where more and more
11:47
guests wanted to order not just dine in, but off premise and
11:50
that requires systems that they didn't have in place.
11:54
Likewise, when you can have less conversations with your guests
11:57
face to face, where you get to learn their names, where the
11:59
kids go to school, and that leads to catering opportunities.
12:02
Well, now you have to figure out a way to leverage collecting
12:04
data, to listen carefully in these new ways, to then interact
12:08
with the guests in a way that is as close to face to face as you
12:12
can. And so that was maybe the
12:14
impetus. But when I got there, that was
12:16
all true. When I got there, I recognized
12:18
that there was more to do that when the founder and I, when
12:22
Keith and I sat down and talked, you know, we realized, you know,
12:25
there was opportunities to refresh and reposition the
12:28
brand. And so it became sort of a
12:29
marketing business development component of what we started
12:33
working on. And then there was also a part
12:37
with talent. I, I assessed very quickly that
12:39
we had a lot of nice people that were loyal, but maybe the people
12:43
that got us here weren't going to get us there.
12:44
And so we need to start looking for the next level of talent
12:47
that aren't that, you know, you have to do this with any
12:49
startup, right? But there was still Zika is
12:52
still very much in a startup, very small nuclear mode and
12:55
needed to evolve the tech, the talent, the brand positioning to
13:00
be ready to scale. So in a moment, I want to hear
13:04
about what the Tzatziki's dining experience is like because I've
13:07
not had the opportunity to be at 1:00.
13:09
But there's something you said that really caught my attention,
13:12
how, you know, you don't have as much of that customer
13:14
interaction that can, you know, lead to sort of catering
13:17
opportunities. So you have to learn to listen
13:18
to the data. How are you guys back in 2016,
13:22
1718, listening to data? What does that mean?
13:26
Yeah. Back back then not so well and
13:29
not so much. I'd say over the years now what
13:33
that has evolved to looks like this there we, we now have a
13:39
centralized database where we taking all of our systems and
13:43
integrated the data into one data lake or they call this.
13:47
And then ACDP layer, which is a customer data platform.
13:50
And all that does is takes all these fragmented pieces of data
13:52
from your mobile app and from your point of sale and from
13:54
social media and 3rd party delivery and all of these
13:57
different pieces. And it puts it all in one place.
14:00
Almost imagine like a, a baseball card or a football
14:03
card. It's got all your stats on the
14:04
back and, and it shows you've ordered, you know, all these
14:07
different restaurants and what you've ordered every time and
14:10
the sequence of what you've ordered and you're ordering for
14:12
one or you're ordering for a family.
14:13
And so it's watching for patterns and it's watching for
14:17
preferences. Even things like do you prefer
14:19
to, you know, do more likely respond to an e-mail we send to
14:22
you or a text? And do you more likely respond
14:25
at 8:00 PM or 8:00 AM? And so all of that data in one
14:30
place with some of those technologies allow us to pay
14:36
attention and then with that then serve up a better
14:41
interaction, say on the mobile app where instead of just
14:44
everyone getting the same home page, if we, if you've already
14:47
disclosed to us that you love meat, we're going to show you
14:49
about our lamb burger and our beef beast and our new lamb
14:54
kebabs or lamb meatballs. But if you signal to us through
14:57
your ordering behaviors that you order a lot of kids menu items,
15:01
but only salads and vegetarian, then I'm not going to show I
15:04
don't. I want to honor that and not
15:06
push the, the, the lamb meatballs on you, right.
15:09
So the same thing in my mind, it goes back to good tech really
15:12
just empowers good empathy, right?
15:14
It's good listening, good empathy of if I care about you
15:17
as a guest, then I wouldn't want to offer the things that would
15:20
delight you and I would never. I'm not, I'm really not in the
15:22
business of pushing things. I really want to be in the
15:24
service business where I find out what you care about, what
15:27
you don't care about. And I serve those preferences.
15:30
And so the data just allows me to do that even if you're not
15:33
face to face with me. Yeah, if I'm a vegetarian and
15:36
you're pushing meat dishes on me, you feel it comes across as
15:39
tone deaf. Exactly, Yeah.
15:42
So I'm kind of curious where the state of that tech is today.
15:45
You know, I would imagine when it first started out and correct
15:48
me if I'm wrong, that it's very sort of like if then sort of
15:52
statements. If you know, they order meat,
15:55
you know, show them this. If they order, you know, 75%
15:59
kids meals, show them that. Has it progressed to the point
16:03
where it's more, I don't know, AI driven, where there's more
16:07
like intuition where you don't have to give it like explicit
16:10
rules, but it is sort of connecting the dots on its own?
16:13
Yeah, I'm so glad you asked about that.
16:14
It's been so fun, such a wild ride in just a short number of
16:18
months to see how AI is starting to empower these types of
16:22
interactions, this UIUX. And it's really both, you know,
16:26
I'll start actually on our training side, right, 'cause we
16:28
have, we serve kind of two different groups of people and
16:30
1:00 and it's the thousands of people that we hire and train
16:34
and empower to be successful. And training platforms used to
16:38
be, you know, annuals and then they were online manuals
16:41
essentially. And then they were just very
16:43
static Rd. maps. Well, we've, we've now evolved
16:47
to a training platform that yeah, there's a, there is a
16:50
training path for every person, but now it is paying attention
16:55
to both your what your knowledge and your confidence or lack
16:58
thereof in every question. It's using AI to pay attention
17:02
to what you got right or wrong, to feedback training down the
17:06
road. It's looking at other factors in
17:10
the business to inform, or maybe there were some knowledge gaps.
17:13
There's this idea of like, you have a learning curve.
17:15
You also have a forgetting curve, which we all do, right?
17:17
You don't remember everything we've learned.
17:19
And so the AI is helping us to create custom training pass for
17:23
each individual that again, pays attention, not into what they
17:26
learn and what they forget. But also it measures things
17:29
like, you know, if you get it right and you're and you're
17:32
confident in your score, if you show confidence, that's great.
17:36
How does it measure confidence? It's just like speed answer.
17:39
In actually in the, in the, in every question, it's actually,
17:42
it's one of the questions that it asks.
17:43
It asks about what it, what is the answer and what is your
17:46
confidence level like one through 5.
17:48
And so it's monitoring things that are helpful.
17:52
Ideally, you have people that are get it right and they're
17:55
high in their confidence. What you watch out for is the
17:58
people that are high in their confidence, but they're getting
18:00
it wrong. They're dangerous.
18:02
But likewise, you might have, there's also a type of
18:05
individual that gets it right, but their confidence is low,
18:08
right? And so you can, you can mentor
18:10
and coach that person up. It's not a function of
18:13
capability or aptitude. It's literally a function of, of
18:17
more personal confidence and, and, and encouraging and giving
18:21
them opportunities to, to lead and to build their confidence
18:24
because their knowledge is already solid.
18:26
So but AI is helping us make all of those interactions app based,
18:31
real time, personalized dynamic with that person.
18:36
Other things like it used to be you can only ask the manager.
18:39
You had to call someone at the corporate office to ask a
18:41
question and you go to an app into the discover function and
18:44
ask it anything about anything. How do you make the hummus?
18:47
And it'll generate a video for you.
18:49
So said you don't have to like go into a catalog of training.
18:52
Now it's ask it anything. It generates the video on the
18:55
fly, no? No, it will.
18:57
It will Purdue, it will basically yield it will share,
18:59
share the video. But here's the, it's taking
19:02
many, many what used to just be isolated curriculum and now
19:06
it's, it's making that now it can tap into any component of
19:09
curriculum and serve up a specific answer to a, to a
19:11
specific question. So those are some examples on
19:14
the staff side, on the on the on the customer side.
19:17
We're actually getting ready in just the next few months.
19:20
In fact, at our at our upcoming task on our conference where we
19:24
gather the whole company together, which will be
19:26
happening in middle of September, we're going to be
19:29
announcing a new mobile app and web or in platform.
19:33
And so stay tuned. But this, this does have
19:38
personalization, customization and, and some AI driven
19:43
components where it is paying attention to the, the the guests
19:48
behaviors. Instead of us pushing generic,
19:52
you know, they'd say like spray and pray marketing approach.
19:55
We're just pushing out things. Instead.
19:57
Now it's going to be listening and watching what the guest does
20:00
and then responding not just based on just their patterns,
20:05
but also looking with, with AI to then recommend things to an
20:08
engine that pays attention to what other, you know, other look
20:12
alike customers might, might enjoy.
20:15
And so there's. You know, they're not just that,
20:18
but like I mentioned before, this idea of also communicating
20:20
the the message at the time and in the format they like.
20:23
Do they prefer text? Do they prefer e-mail in morning
20:25
or night? So paying attention to what the
20:27
guests want and trying to serve them as best we can.
20:30
That's really interesting. I'm going to guess that there's
20:32
some combination of using third party tools and then you guys
20:37
kind of layering in your own customization.
20:39
This isn't, I mean, you're not a tech company.
20:42
It's not, it doesn't make sense for you guys to home grow all of
20:45
this stuff. Yeah, that's, that's right.
20:48
It's a, it's a, it's a combination of figuring out the
20:51
right tech partners that exist in the space.
20:54
We've had a by and large, we've had a, a bias toward partnering
20:59
with companies that are sort of where we are as a company.
21:03
And so for the most part, that means not going with £800
21:07
gorilla in the industry, but going with a someone that's also
21:11
not just an upstart, but someone that's emerging in their
21:15
presence in the industry. And then we form a partnership
21:18
with them where they're, they're really happy to have us.
21:21
We're really to have have them. And then we have a dialogue
21:24
where we can help inform some of their tech development.
21:27
So yeah, we're not trying to code our own software, but we we
21:31
particularly want to work with types of companies that
21:34
genuinely want to listen and collaborate on something that is
21:38
a win, win for both of us. That makes a lot of sense.
21:41
If you guys are comparable sizes and similar trajectories, it's
21:44
going to feel more like you're equals.
21:47
They're going to hear your voice.
21:48
You're going to get some of the features that you're asking for,
21:51
which I think is really important, especially with like
21:53
cutting edge tech like we're talking about.
21:55
Yeah, that's, that's right. So it's been fun.
21:57
Like there's companies like Square Point of Sale, which is a
22:00
very well known company, but in the enterprise restaurant space,
22:05
they're a smaller player. We've been to lock step with
22:09
them for the last five years to help them develop some new
22:12
software that meets our needs. And being we're on their
22:16
development kind of guidance board to be able to inform what
22:19
they're doing and make sure that it works for us and also helps
22:22
them as they grow into the space, for example.
22:25
We, and when I say we, it's the royal we.
22:27
I got really excited about talking about the tech and so we
22:30
got sidelined for a second. I want to come back to what the
22:32
actual customer experience is. What is a Tzatziki's restaurant?
22:36
I've never been before. I walk in, what do I see?
22:38
Smell, taste here. Yeah, so, so Lovett one, one
22:42
thing in the general sense is that Tzatziki's is really like
22:45
an elevated fast casual experience, right, Which really
22:48
differentiates us from from if you look at the spectrum of
22:52
restaurant options options today, you have on one side, you
22:55
know, fast food, which the whole which is largely drive through
22:58
driven, but it's all optimized for speed.
23:01
So it's low for lower price items that are often not, you
23:05
know, not high ingredients or made scratch.
23:08
And there's just about get it in, get it out as fast as
23:10
possible. On the other extreme, obviously,
23:13
you have fine dining, which will be typically more of a farm to
23:16
table and, you know, white tablecloth and lots of
23:18
attention. In the middle is the fast casual
23:20
space, which has been the darling of the industry for for
23:23
more than a decade now. But even inside of that, there's
23:26
still a lot of people that are moving towards kiosks again,
23:31
optimizing for speed and, and, and less human interaction or
23:37
even just cheaper building materials, right?
23:39
They're trying to crank out as many units as they can.
23:41
And so there's a lot of plastic and a lot of a lot of materials
23:45
that don't signal come and stay in a comfortable space.
23:48
So with that as context, you walk into Itziki's and first of
23:52
all, there are many times there'll be a, you know, like as
23:54
our Greek founding a white building with a with our blue
23:58
tzatziki sign welcoming you in with some potted plants outside
24:02
with, you know, olive trees or other other plants as you herbs.
24:05
As you enter and you walk in, you're going to notice that the
24:07
store is bright white. There is accented by salty dog
24:12
blue and there's basket crafted basket lights hanging over a
24:17
community table. And then there's comfortable
24:20
seating. There's a, there's an assortment
24:22
of banquets and, and, and two tops and four tops around the
24:25
restaurant. There are beautiful photographs
24:28
all around the restaurant. And these are actually taken by
24:29
our founder in his multiple trips to Greece and Turkey and
24:32
places around the Mediterranean. And they all tell a story.
24:35
And, and they're not just places, but they also tell a
24:38
story of ingredients. Like we have direct partnerships
24:41
in the Mediterranean where we get all of our lemon juice from.
24:44
And I visited these farmers and, and it's our lemon juice is one
24:48
of the things that makes, you know, our cooking and our
24:50
flavors really unique and, and special.
24:53
We also import, you know, our olive oil.
24:55
Olive oil is a key ingredient in the Mediterranean diet.
24:57
And so we, we have an assortment of things that we import
25:01
directly from Greece in the Mediterranean.
25:03
And you can see photographs of those farms and farmers and
25:06
ingredients on the waters are our salt, our Mediterranean Sea
25:08
salt is from this beautiful place called Petrus.
25:12
You can, you know, if you could see far enough, you'd be looking
25:14
across to Italy, But it's a beautiful area where all of the,
25:19
the sea salt is harvested. And we, we have that available
25:22
in our restaurants actually on the table as well.
25:24
So we, we, we make it to be an immersive experience.
25:27
When you walk in, though, as a guest, you're going to be
25:29
greeted by, you know, a, a, a menu stand to walk you through
25:33
our, our, our salads and our bowls and our EUR and our feast.
25:40
And you can, you can, you know, you can level it up with a glass
25:43
of red or white wine and some baka for dessert.
25:48
But you're, you're like fast casual tradition.
25:50
You'll, you'll stand in line and then be greeted by a cashier
25:52
who'll walk you through the menu And, and then when you sit,
25:56
we'll, we'll, we'll bring out your meal throughout the meal,
26:00
we will refill your drinks and you can add anything during the
26:03
meal. And then we'll bust the table at
26:05
the end. So once you stand in line to
26:08
place your order after that point, it's really full service.
26:11
And we, we want to make sure that our guests are busy, have
26:15
places to go. We want to make sure that we
26:16
that we make that be as a comfortable experience as
26:19
possible. OK, so I got to call something
26:23
out here 'cause I, I did a little bit of research, you
26:25
know, a few weeks ago leading up to this interview and I don't, I
26:28
didn't remember there being bulls.
26:31
Is this a mistake on my part? Did I miss that?
26:33
Well. Yeah.
26:34
Thanks so much. Bulls are bulls are new.
26:37
They're new a week and two days in that we've launched our first
26:41
bulls program. It's actually to have a little
26:44
fun with bulls. We, we, we adopted the Greek
26:48
word for bulls, which is kipolos and kipolos.
26:53
So kipolos is the way to go. It is we have, we started with
26:56
three, three bowls were there. It's, it's, it's a both chef
27:00
curated and also collaborated with the guests.
27:05
So you get to build your own bowl.
27:06
So it's, you either choose quinoa or rice or pasta as your
27:10
base. And then there is a grilled
27:13
vegetable medley. And then you choose whatever
27:15
protein. There's chicken kebabs or
27:17
grilled chicken, salmon, grilled shrimp, beef, etcetera.
27:23
There's, there's a falafel, there's a variety of proteins on
27:26
top. And then, and then it's topped
27:29
and it's a perfect blend. We, we look at the space of the
27:32
bowls and there's some that are you walk into a restaurant and
27:37
it's scoop and serve and they present you with 100° and say
27:39
gas, right. And I think that sort of, that
27:43
sort of decision fatigue is though the flavors are amazing.
27:47
It's a little bit too much for a lot of people.
27:49
On the other side is restaurants that basically make a bowl where
27:51
you don't get to choose anything.
27:52
So we've, we've tried to strike the middle path whereby it's all
27:57
chef design with these three basic options.
28:00
We know that they're all these these 24 different options are
28:03
going to taste amazing and but the but the guest gets to
28:06
collaborate on how on on the base and on the protein.
28:09
So we're a week and two days into this as we record at the
28:12
end of August 2025. Is it too early to tell how it's
28:16
been received? Do you have any data on that?
28:19
Yeah, I was just looking at the data this morning actually.
28:21
This is our, this is our most successful limited time offer
28:24
we've ever done in 27 years. It's it's selling.
28:29
It's selling great. Guests love it.
28:31
Our staff are having fun with the name.
28:33
They're the, the guests are having fun learning a new, a new
28:35
vocabulary word and and they're coming back for more.
28:39
So yeah, we're, we're really thrilled.
28:41
With any luck, probably probably too soon to make a formal
28:45
announcement. With any luck, this will end up
28:47
being a permanent menu item that will feature starting next.
28:49
Year. OK, I was giving you my follow
28:50
up question 'cause you called it a limited time, but if consumers
28:55
demand it, there's a possibility this could stick.
28:57
Around yeah. And it's it's been really fun.
29:00
We're our founder, Keith is, is, you know, I, I, I joke, but I'm
29:04
serious when I say like, he has a certain kind of genius in the
29:07
kitchen. And it our, our name, in fact,
29:10
is the first clue. If you look at the word Tazikis,
29:13
if you, if you, you know, know, you might be like, wait, that's
29:16
not how you spell it. You spell it Zedzikis.
29:18
What happened to these two other letters?
29:20
Well, when they chose that name to launch the first restaurant,
29:24
they they said, you know, that's a little bit of a fussy,
29:27
complicated name. Let's make the name be like the,
29:31
the, the menu, which is more approachable.
29:34
Let's drop 2 letters and make it be more readable, roll off the
29:37
tongue a little easier. And then Keith took the same
29:40
approach with the menu. He, he kind of deconstructed all
29:42
these ingredients that he found across the Greece in the
29:44
Mediterranean and said, let's, let's reconstruct in a way that
29:48
feels more familiar. And it really works.
29:50
Our guests say, man, they come in and it's, they eat so well.
29:53
And yet as they leave full but still feeling light and they
29:57
were exposed to so many ingredients that were new, but
30:00
also so many, they're comfortable.
30:01
It's it's in some ways it's meat and rice and potatoes and salad,
30:06
right? And just with some different
30:07
ingredients in there. Yeah, and the other thing that I
30:10
think is fun and and I don't see this in a lot of fast casual
30:13
environments is that you've got wine available, right.
30:16
And so couple of, you know, parents are, you know, just
30:19
grown-ups out for an evening and they want to have a drink with
30:21
their meal and, you know, they don't want to, you know, fork
30:24
out the cash for a, you know, a fine dining kind of environment.
30:28
You sort of bring all those elements together here for them.
30:31
Yeah, that, that's exactly right.
30:32
We want to, that's part of that elevated experience.
30:35
We want it to be perfect for a date night.
30:37
You know, a lot of a lot of times, again, if you're, if
30:39
you're not just eating at home, but I still love to cook at home
30:43
or you're not just eating as a pure utility, you're stuck at
30:46
work and you need to order DoorDash Drive, which by the
30:49
way, you can do through our app that we partner with them and
30:51
they deliver for us through our own app.
30:54
Then you want to go for an experience of some kind, right?
30:57
You want it to be comfortable. Like we don't have any TV's,
30:59
excuse me, we don't have TV's, we don't have distractions.
31:01
We want it to be a place where you can gather, you can enjoy
31:04
the meal. But we recognize that usually
31:06
when people break bread and enjoy meals, you're either
31:09
celebrating something or commiserating something.
31:11
It's either been a hard day, a hard week, a hard season and
31:14
food is comfort and we gather together to to do that with
31:18
people. Or best case is someone got
31:21
engaged, someone got a promotion, someone's kid got
31:23
into college. Like these are these happy
31:25
moments. And so in either case, you know,
31:28
having a glass of wine at the table and the best moments are
31:30
the hardest moments. It is such a a key part of of
31:34
breaking bread around the table together.
31:36
That's great. I want to talk a little bit
31:39
about, well, first of all, how many locations do you guys have?
31:42
We just opened our 100th and 9th location this this week.
31:47
So we're, we're, we've got, I think five more that are
31:50
scheduled to open in 2025. And is this all franchises or we
31:56
have corporate owned locations? What?
31:57
What's the balance here? Yeah.
31:59
The the first thing I'll say is like in all cases they're
32:02
partners. And so we're always looking for
32:04
good people and partners. And but that said, there's kind
32:07
of there are two different kinds of partners.
32:08
We have, we have about 60% our franchise partners where they
32:12
are 100% owners and they, they bring the Mediterranean through
32:16
to Zikis to their community and and we partner with them that
32:20
the other ones are company joint ventures where we have a a local
32:23
operating partner that we sponsor essentially and work
32:27
with and we have eight of those markets so and that represents
32:30
about 40% of our our units so. It's what does that mean?
32:34
A a company joint venture? We've got a local partner.
32:38
Yeah. And so it's, it's, you know,
32:39
some, some restaurant models, they set up a traditional org
32:43
chart where you, you know, you've got your CEO and your
32:45
vice presidents that, that and every, everything is a top down
32:49
organization where everyone in the organization below is an
32:52
employee. End of story, right?
32:54
And they might get a good paycheck and they might get good
32:56
benefits, but that's it. They're not partners, they're
32:58
employees. We really want to have partners,
33:01
not employees. And so we find we launched like
33:03
we just launched a new market a year ago in Saint Louis and we
33:07
found a gentleman that's from there, lived there, had been
33:10
successful in launching other brands.
33:11
He was ready for his next adventure.
33:13
And so instead of just hiring him as the local manager or
33:17
market leader, we partner with him.
33:19
So he is a a part owner and has equity in that market along with
33:25
us. And so we fund most of it.
33:26
He funds part of it. And and so that means we're,
33:29
we're, we're joined to the hip. And when there is profitability
33:32
in distributions then then he gets his his portion pro rata.
33:36
It's really interesting. I don't think I've come across
33:38
that model in the franchise world.
33:41
This probably isn't entirely unique, but unusual.
33:44
Yeah, it's, it's, it's kind of like our fast casual format.
33:47
It also is a hybrid and elevated in a sense, it goes back to like
33:52
our, our belief in this is not just about, you know, units and
33:56
unit economics and profitability, but about people
33:59
and partnerships. So we, you know, for, for
34:01
example, to give me, let me give you an example.
34:03
There's in the national market where, where I live, we, we
34:07
hired an entry level position at a gentleman by the name of
34:11
Armando Perez. And he worked his way up to
34:13
become a manager of 1 store. And now he has now he manages
34:18
all 13 locations here and is also along the way become a, an
34:23
equity holder and an owner. And so this is a, you know, he's
34:27
an immigrant from, from Venezuela.
34:29
He's a huge success story. He's now a leader of leaders and
34:33
we, those kinds of stories to me are super encouraging.
34:37
A big reason why I stay invigorated about this brand is
34:41
we could make that true for, for, you know, another 100
34:45
franchise partners and another 100 local operating partners
34:49
where it's not just a hired gun, but the change, it could change
34:52
his life and his family's life. And so that that's a wonderful
34:55
gift. He works really hard and has
34:57
earned it. So don't, don't don't
34:58
misunderstand. But we also like just make sure
35:00
it's a win, win a rewarding for him and his family as well.
35:03
I love that. That's so cool.
35:06
That kind of leads me into a question that I almost hesitate
35:09
to ask because I I don't like to get political on this on the
35:11
show. But you know, I hear a lot in
35:14
the media about the impact of tariffs on small business,
35:19
impact of immigration enforcement in certain
35:23
industries. And I'm always curious how much
35:27
does the media hype meet? What's really going on for
35:32
businesses, small businesses? And so I'm kind of curious to
35:36
hear, Dan, from your point of view, the stuff that I'm hearing
35:40
on the news, is it really impacting you guys?
35:44
Yeah, yeah. Thanks for asking that.
35:47
One thing I think I'll start by saying like, I think as a
35:50
leader, an important thing is to not just be a hype man.
35:54
And so I, I've tried to to be pretty true to the idea of a
35:57
SWOT analysis, which means, yeah, you do celebrate the
35:59
strengths and the successes, but you're equally quick to be
36:04
courageous about the weaknesses, the opportunities that you may
36:07
be yet to achieve and the threats.
36:10
And I think to be a good leader, you got to be balanced and, and
36:13
unafraid of addressing all four parts of that.
36:16
And so, so therefore talking about, you know, we're, we're if
36:19
you ask our team where I'm, I'm pretty shrewd about where we
36:22
suck and they're really trying to confront our weaknesses.
36:25
But, and we don't like to make a lot of excuses.
36:28
And but when you but you have to look at the threat and you're
36:31
asking about something to what are the external threats and
36:33
impact a business. So yeah, I mean, I'll say, you
36:38
know, first of all, you know, the, the news is certainly more
36:41
hyped than the reality #1 #2 is, you know, people and local
36:47
economies and, and team members are way more resilient than as a
36:52
temporary crisis, right? And so I one thing I've learned,
36:56
whether through the pandemic or through the, some of the like
37:00
Black Lives Matters protests, which impacted a lot of the
37:04
markets where we have restaurants or the great
37:07
resignation and, and now some external threats.
37:12
I've been so thrilled with how resilient people are, both our
37:15
customers and our staff. Now that said, right now, this
37:19
year, year to date, I just had a board meeting where we talked
37:21
about some of these things. And yes, inflationary pressures
37:24
are real, meaning the cost of goods for us to buy our
37:27
ingredients, whether you know from from local farmers, we get
37:32
our, we get our lamb from Michigan, all of our produce is
37:36
local. Our chicken is all, all domestic
37:39
like, like American farmers, right.
37:42
All of those costs for us are all up at the same time.
37:48
We, when you say you normally would look at that those costs
37:52
and you would do a minor price increase to offset that.
37:56
But right now you're watching, you're watching those
37:59
inflationary pressures hit consumers to where their spend
38:03
away from home is down and so they're a little bit more
38:07
cautious of spending. So it really is a time where we
38:09
can't right now pass on price increases.
38:12
And we've not taken any prices this year, no price increases.
38:16
So we're absorbing this, which is putting a lot of strain and
38:19
limiting our ability to keep investing, reinvesting into the
38:22
business as much as we would like.
38:23
So, yeah, so, so inflation is real.
38:26
The tariffs pressures are absolutely real.
38:30
And you could think like, well, you know, how much 10 percent,
38:32
20% single digit percentages really impact the restaurant
38:37
business. But I said the other dynamic is
38:39
on the labor side or the workforce front.
38:42
And it's, it's no secret at all that far on the table, whether
38:48
we're talking about agricultural picking in in in the picking
38:53
seasons or all the way to the restaurant business, that there
38:56
there are a lot of individuals, this is their first job.
38:59
Or if they're immigrants, this might be, you know, one of their
39:02
early jobs. And the restaurant business has
39:05
a lot of individuals that are some of our best workers, been
39:08
with us a long time. And certainly this year there's
39:11
been new pressures that we've not experienced in the past as
39:14
far as people that have citizenship or had a work visa
39:18
or had a student visa or they had temporary protective status,
39:21
they have a legal status. But where we've lost a lot of
39:25
those individuals or they are experiencing a lot of pressure
39:28
because their statuses have been changed or threatened to be
39:30
changed. So there is a new dynamic that
39:33
there's a lot of fear and that is that's led to people leaving
39:37
and. So not just people who are
39:40
illegal immigrants, but people who are here legally, they've
39:43
got the documentation and those folks are having their status
39:48
changed, feeling pressure to to leave.
39:50
Yeah, that's right. Well, in those, in those
39:53
moments, you know, my first response was I hit the road and,
39:55
and went to go visit some of our, our key markets and, and
39:58
heard people's stories. And they got to tell me where
40:01
they walked from, countries they walked from because they were
40:05
being oppressed because of their faith or were being oppressed
40:08
because of local gangs or, or they were pursuing the American
40:11
dream. And, and you know, most, maybe
40:15
people don't recognize, but most States and most businesses have
40:18
to run all their employees through a program called
40:20
E-Verify to confirm they have legal status.
40:22
And so. Yeah, my first, my first
40:25
instinct is to hear people's stories, to empathize and try to
40:28
do what we can to educate them about these changing dynamics,
40:32
to let them know that we're family and and you've been with
40:34
us for a long time. So we're going to do what we can
40:36
to support you through this and then do what we can to try to
40:40
advocate for the the people making decisions that they may
40:44
not realize that the impact this is having on local businesses.
40:47
What does that last part mean? Well.
40:52
My for instance, in the next couple of weeks, I'm I'm really
40:55
thrilled to be able to go to DC, going to have an opportunity
41:01
with an advocacy group to go meet with some congressional
41:05
delegates and plan is some some folks from the White House as
41:09
well and to share some facts and data, some stories.
41:14
The gentleman I mentioned before, Armando Perez, who now
41:17
runs the national market, he, he literally just in the first
41:19
quarter of this year, just became a AUS citizen, a
41:22
naturalized U.S. citizen. And is one of one of my most
41:26
proud moments of this year was to see his story.
41:29
He was here, he had legal status, but it was a student
41:32
visa and a work visa and asylum visa.
41:35
And he became a full U.S. citizen.
41:36
And so my, my goal in going to DC is a, is to tell these
41:39
stories. These are success stories of
41:41
people that you know, they're, they go to church, they're
41:43
plugged in their kids schools, they're hardest working leaders
41:48
that I would follow into battle. And these are, these are my
41:51
neighbors and, and fellow citizens.
41:52
And so my goal would be to tell those stories and to create a
41:56
path where maybe companies like ours can have skin in the game
42:00
and have like a company sponsored work visas and say,
42:03
look, look, we, we will take some ownership of these
42:06
individuals. They worked with us for a long
42:07
time. If there is concern about their
42:10
their status being continued, let us let us take some
42:13
responsibility. This this is very common in the
42:16
agricultural space. I'd love to see it to be true in
42:19
the in the restaurant and hospitality space.
42:21
So educate me on that a little bit.
42:24
So there are special work visas that exist for international
42:29
workers who have come here to help work on farms.
42:32
How does that process work? How would the translation work
42:35
in the restaurant? Environment it's, it's, it's
42:38
essentially businesses determine what their demand is for labour.
42:44
They say, well, I've got, you know, in the agricultural space
42:47
might be out more out West where they determine, we have, you
42:50
know, this many crops need to be picked.
42:52
They, they go through a process of, of, of putting out
42:56
applications for people, local people to accept those jobs.
42:59
They fill say 50% of them. They can illustrate that there
43:03
in fact is a gap, a need for labour.
43:06
So there is not an elimination of an American job or domestic
43:11
job that is going to be impacted.
43:13
And then with that remaining need they they can offer company
43:18
sponsored visas. Those are those are seasonal
43:23
visas that are again for agricultural picking.
43:25
But there's many other visas, there's student visas, there's
43:28
visas for rock stars that are from other countries that come
43:31
to America and to player they have to have a visa.
43:33
There's many kinds of visa that are many for temporary aligned
43:36
with education or aligned with a job.
43:40
And you know, in this case, I think we can, we can clearly
43:43
illustrate that we have more jobs than we have applicants.
43:47
And we can also illustrate that we have many people that have
43:50
worked with us that have had that are are here legally and
43:53
they're contributing to society, paying their taxes and are key
43:57
leadership members in our team. And that we would, we would be
44:00
willing to have skin in the game as far as a, you know, a company
44:03
sponsored program just like they have in the AG world.
44:07
So if I'm hearing you correctly, Dan, you're not going there in a
44:11
protest capacity. You haven't made-up your signs.
44:14
You're not marching on Capitol Hill or one of the monuments or
44:17
something. You're meeting with key decision
44:20
makers to say, hey, here's what's going on, Here's how it's
44:24
affecting us, here's how it's affecting small businesses and,
44:28
you know, on Main Street and, you know, real town USA and, you
44:32
know, can we come up with some solutions together?
44:35
Yeah. And, and that's right, there's,
44:36
there's this is one of the topics that that I think most
44:40
people, if you got most Americans and even most
44:43
legislators in the room there, we would have agreement on 95%
44:47
of this whole topic. And so let's start there.
44:49
Let's start. Of course, we need strong
44:51
borders. Of course, we need to deal with
44:53
anyone who has committed any crimes.
44:55
But that would be true of anybody in the country, but
44:57
including anyone who came from another country.
45:00
And then we need to determine what America has always been,
45:02
which is a land where people pursue their dreams legally in
45:07
partnership with schools or with companies.
45:09
And that's the type of of common sense solution that would love,
45:13
love to see. And rather than waiting around
45:16
for someone else to go, I'm, I'm really thrilled at the
45:19
opportunity to, to, to go in a few weeks and, and see if we can
45:23
win any hearts and minds and provide a solution that feels
45:26
like not a compromise, but truly a win win.
45:29
Yeah. Well, I wish you well and we'll
45:32
have to check back in with you to get some updates.
45:35
I want to shift gears, Dan, and maybe talk about a serious
45:39
challenge that you have overcome, something personal or
45:42
professional. How did you get through that?
45:45
What did you learn? Yeah, so I actually want to go
45:50
back. There's so many.
45:51
Honestly, it could be a whole podcast just about the the the
45:55
missteps. I like to say, you know, bad
45:57
choices make good stories, but sometimes it's not a function of
46:00
bad, a bad choice. It's a function of your own,
46:02
like personal development. And, and one that comes to mind
46:08
is actually, I'm going back to the, the, the questions you were
46:10
asking before about like how did I get into this job?
46:13
And when I, when I was asked to come join Keith, the founder of
46:18
Tzatziki's to help him put together a plan for the future.
46:23
I, that was it. I at that time, up until that
46:27
time, I had done a series of two to six year projects.
46:32
And again, I'd find someone that had a dream and help them scale
46:35
it. And then I would hand it off to
46:37
someone else to kind of manage it and move on to the next
46:39
thing. And I, I really thought that's
46:40
what I would do for for forever. Part of that is I, I also really
46:45
thought, boy, I'm, I'm a really good wing man and I'm my ego's
46:50
not in the way and I can put all of my energy into people and
46:55
scaling. And so sometimes we typecast
46:57
ourselves into these buckets. And so, you know, when the day
47:00
came along where I thought I was at the end of my project with
47:04
Tzatziki's, really thrilled with the progress we were making in
47:07
the plan, the vision we had set out.
47:09
And when I sat down with the, with the, the board at that time
47:12
and you know, they, they essentially said, we love what
47:15
we done, but it's time for us to transition to the next CEO.
47:20
And I said, great, who, who is it?
47:22
Let me, let me start the transition process.
47:24
And they're like, it's you, you, you're already making progress.
47:29
You're already, you're already harmonizing with the founder.
47:32
You're, you're already doing the things we would want somebody to
47:34
do. And yes, you've LED other
47:38
companies and other ventures and not quite like this.
47:41
And no, you're not a restaurant guy by, you know, by decades of
47:45
trade. But we need leadership of a
47:47
different kind right now. And so on one hand, of course,
47:51
that's a very flattering moment, right?
47:53
But I'll be honest. This is This doesn't sound like
47:55
a hardship. This doesn't sound like a
47:56
struggle. Well, but, but I'll, I'll, I'll
47:58
be honest and say like, I was thrilled at the opportunity, but
48:02
I also knew that when you're coming from the outside of an
48:04
industry, you know, it is a, there's a lot of stripes that to
48:08
earn and there's a lot of a sense of credibility that you
48:13
typically only earn one way. And that is you start at the
48:15
bottom. You work for decades to get up
48:17
to this place and it's the only way apparently to get there.
48:21
And so I knew that I was pragmatic about that.
48:24
What I would say is I went home. I probably had two weeks where I
48:29
barely slept. I, I felt incredibly anxious.
48:32
I think that the right term is imposter syndrome, right?
48:35
Where when I evaluated, I knew my skills, but I also knew that
48:40
I didn't come for this industry. And while it was one thing to
48:43
join alongside of the founder and be an advisor and a
48:46
consultant, and that part was easy.
48:48
But the moment they said, great, you're going to be in charge of
48:50
executing this. I knew that I had gas.
48:53
I knew that I would have to earn credibility from some people
48:56
that only saw it to be earned one way and that would only come
48:58
through time. I knew it.
48:59
I had naysayers. I knew that I also knew that the
49:03
restaurant leaders, for the most part, they were into sales and
49:06
food and profits and the building being clean and that
49:09
was it. But they weren't necessarily
49:11
into all the things that I really found to be very
49:13
important. Like we needed good tech and
49:15
good data. We needed to be equally
49:17
passionate about our our staff and empowering them with great
49:21
training and we need to listen to them.
49:23
So I brought the kind of other side of the business to the
49:25
table. I knew that I would have to win
49:27
hearts and minds. I knew this was a big challenge
49:29
and it took me probably about two weeks.
49:31
And I talked to some mentors and they're like, Dan, you want it,
49:34
You know, you want to do start up projects and consulting for,
49:38
you know, your whole life. What if there's an option to
49:40
deepen yourself and deepen your work and really get to know
49:42
these people and really invest in them?
49:44
What if you actually could see this through?
49:47
Yeah, there's risk because what if you're a fraud?
49:49
What if you can't do it? What if you're actually just a
49:51
guy that comes up with ideas and can't execute them?
49:53
So you have to face all those hard facts if you're a person
49:56
that's reflective. And.
49:57
And so it was a hard couple of weeks because I wanted to be, I
50:01
didn't want to skip over it or just grab a hold of it.
50:03
I wanted to reflect. And when I got through that on
50:07
the other side, I, I, I still, you know, fear is not something
50:09
that you, you know, have or don't have as, as a friend of
50:13
mine used to say, fear is, is really tall and really wide, but
50:17
when you press into it, you find it's really thin.
50:20
And so it's the exercise of pushing up against the thing
50:24
that you're a voice in your head says, I don't know, I can do
50:27
this and maybe I can't do this. And it's the exercise of pushing
50:30
through it that you actually find the antidote to fear.
50:34
And it's not fear less, it's just pushing through the fear
50:37
that you find. That's where action is and
50:38
that's where empowering is. And then, and then, and then you
50:41
have to earn your successes and earn your reputation.
50:43
So I'm so glad I said yes. It's been a challenging ride
50:47
because a few years and COVID hit us and I had to, you know, I
50:51
had to navigate through deconstructing the business and
50:55
putting it back together through some challenge time.
50:57
But it's actually been a fun ride.
50:58
So yeah, that I'd say that was a huge, you know, double, double
51:02
whammy challenges. 1 is more personal crisis.
51:04
The other one was more of a, you know, the, the, the crisis of
51:07
the pandemic. Let's kind of deconstruct this a
51:10
little bit because you said, you know, quite a few interesting
51:12
things. You originally you had yourself
51:13
sort of type cast as this wingman, right?
51:16
Somebody else's idea. I come in and I've got the tools
51:19
and the ideas to kind of help, you know, elevate it and and
51:23
grow it and, and, and that that's all good and I feel
51:27
comfortable there. And even with those successes
51:31
that you've had, there's a lot of this imposter syndrome that's
51:34
sort of like, you know, running in the background.
51:36
They're like, maybe I'm not the guy for this, Maybe I can't do
51:39
that. And I, I hear this so much and
51:42
I'm affected by it myself on a regular basis.
51:47
So it, it's, it's interesting to me that you took all this time
51:52
to reflect and it wasn't that you got to a place of no more
51:58
fear. It was the fear is there and I'm
52:02
going to do it anyways. I'm going to do it scared.
52:04
And I just had a conversation earlier this week with one of my
52:08
guests and, and I'm going to sort of butcher what she said,
52:11
but it was, you know, fear can either paralyze you or it can
52:14
motivate you. Love it.
52:16
And it sounds, you know, you went through that period of a
52:19
couple of weeks where you're thinking about it.
52:20
Paralyzing is probably a strong word.
52:22
You were paralyzing, you were contemplating, right?
52:24
But you eventually got to the point where this was, I'm going
52:27
to do this. I, I got to find out, is this a
52:29
chance for me to grow and growth is uncomfortable and I
52:32
acknowledge that. Or am I going to fall on my
52:34
face? And, and so then you get to the
52:38
so you get there and, and things are going well for a few years
52:40
and then you hit COVID. And so tell us about that
52:43
experience. Yeah, it, it was a really
52:48
invigorating experience. Right on.
52:50
On a personal level, I've been traveling, you know, non-stop.
52:53
And it was the first time in in in decades that I slept in my
52:56
own bed and got to watch my grass grow.
52:59
I mean, it was just a bizarre life experience.
53:04
I actually got COVID very early and had 104 fever.
53:07
And so I was personally hit by it like in March of that year
53:11
early. And so I, I felt it personally,
53:13
I felt the downside of, of it, that it was real and it was
53:16
impacting me. I felt the upside that I could
53:17
be in my own bed and that the world might look different
53:20
moving forward. And maybe there's new ways we
53:21
could work and, and not have to travel all the time.
53:25
But then from and then, and then confronting the business side of
53:27
it, which was, you know, we, we learned this is where the
53:30
entrepreneurial spirit is amazing, right?
53:32
I sent out an e-mail pretty early on that basically that was
53:34
entitled something like, you know, break all the rules,
53:37
right? We're a franchise company.
53:38
We have agreements with our franchise partners and with our
53:40
operating partners. You know, we have a, a lot of
53:43
guidelines and standards, basically said, screw it.
53:46
In a time like this, we don't know where, what's happening,
53:49
what's going to happen next. Let's trust each other.
53:52
And that's lean on, on, on our ingenuity to serve our staff,
53:57
keep them employed and serve our guests in creative ways.
54:00
And by breaking away the pressure of all these rules, we
54:04
found people did amazing things like they, they, they created
54:08
whole new programs without any guidance from us, from the
54:10
corporate office about, you know, creating delivery programs
54:14
that would go feed entire communities and do, do you know,
54:18
community deliveries for, for family meals.
54:22
And we had, we had, we had groups that basically kind of
54:24
turned into a butcher shop. They had butcher skills and they
54:26
had community that did not, they had shortages, but we had access
54:30
to all this beef and chicken and lamb and steak and whatever.
54:34
And so we, we were able to come up with new programs to provide
54:38
even, you know, whole muscle products out to, out to people.
54:41
We partnered with with other businesses that were deeply
54:44
affected, whether they were cupcake companies or, or other
54:47
local businesses that had lost their ability to reach their,
54:51
their guests. And so it was so fun.
54:53
I mean, this is the thing that people look back and say, wasn't
54:55
it terrible? Honestly, it was invigorating
54:58
because we all, we got to a place where we broke all the
55:02
rules. We took what was a growing
55:03
bloating maybe set of rules and menu and we shrunk it down to an
55:08
express menu, the smallest menu we've ever had.
55:09
And our and our sales didn't barely go down.
55:13
We realized that all this belief that we have to have this huge
55:17
menu to survive was actually not true.
55:19
So it it, it freed us up from some limited beliefs.
55:22
It opened up our ingenuity. It built pathways of trust with
55:26
our partners and it let us focus on the most important thing,
55:29
which was how do we keep our staff employed and be a secure
55:33
employer for them? And then how do we go to great
55:36
lengths? Each community might be slightly
55:39
different. Go to Great Lakes to listen and
55:40
serve because this is what hospitality is all about.
55:43
So as you guys kind of got through the COVID tunnel and
55:46
things, you know, returned to some sense of normalcy, did you
55:50
keep any of the sort of experimental things that you
55:53
guys have been trying? Yeah, we did.
55:56
I mean it. It definitely informed a US us
56:00
coming around a much smaller nucleus of of core menu items.
56:04
And we, we didn't return back to this large balloon menu.
56:07
We said from now on, we're going to be really, really careful
56:10
about adding things that are are, you know, fill a need for
56:15
our guests or that are, you know, real value to our guests.
56:19
But let's just beware of that scope creep very common
56:22
challenge for many businesses. We, we also embrace this idea
56:28
of, of optimizing all of our kitchen procedures to make it
56:33
easier for our staff to run the restaurants, right.
56:35
We learned, oh, here, if you're sometimes not by making people
56:40
unemployed, but by people becoming sick, you know, your
56:42
staff would get cut in half and you now only have four people to
56:44
run the ship instead of 8. So we, we learned what we need
56:47
to cross train everybody so they can have, you know, more agile
56:51
choreography. So it, it changed the way we
56:53
think about, you know, hiring a team of a players who are, who
56:56
are cross trained kind of ninjas, rather than having, you
57:00
know, such broad teams are just maybe so isolated in their
57:03
particular roles. And then make it easier.
57:05
We started to ask them different questions about how do we make
57:08
it easier for them to, to execute the, the restaurant.
57:10
The restaurant's a hard business no matter what.
57:12
It's a real hard business to execute.
57:13
So we started to have more empathy around how do we make it
57:16
easier in our tech, in our processes and our equipment,
57:19
etcetera. And we made changes around that.
57:20
So it freed up lots of changes and thinking in new ways that,
57:26
you know, again, got us right back to the core, which is why
57:28
are we in this business, right? If it's just making food, that's
57:32
just the manufacturing of business where you're just
57:34
taking any ingredients, you're adding a recipe and you're
57:37
you're having some output. There's no necessarily not any
57:40
romance or any heart in that. So really for us, it's about
57:43
it's that, but it's about the staff giving them opportunities
57:46
and careers. Come for a job, save for career,
57:49
but also for our communities. And we, we really do, you know,
57:52
we want to serve them, which means we have to listen to what
57:55
they want and need. And so it's been fun to kind of
57:58
find that North Star again. That's pretty cool.
58:02
Dan, I just got one more question for you.
58:03
But before I ask it, I want to do 2 things.
58:06
First, I'm going to invite everybody listening to pause
58:08
just for a second. Go ahead and open up your
58:09
podcast app, follow us, like us, leave a comment, leave a
58:13
reviewer rating. That helps a lot of other people
58:15
find the show. And it's really the kindest
58:17
thing that you could do for this this program.
58:20
I just want to let Dan people know how to get in touch with
58:23
you or the brand. They want more information.
58:25
They want to just reach out to you and have a conversation.
58:28
How do folks do that? Yeah.
58:30
And probably the best way is if you go to just to zikis.com, to
58:35
our, our core website, you can learn about the brand.
58:37
If you're interested in bringing the Mediterranean to Zeki's to
58:40
your, to your community, you can do that right through.
58:43
There's a, there's a web page there that you can get access
58:45
that. Or if there's find there's a
58:47
location near you or one coming near you.
58:50
And the down below you can see there's a section about our team
58:53
can also find me on LinkedIn and, and reach out that way.
58:56
But we'd love love to hear from you, whether you're in a
58:58
community that already knows and loves the brand, or you're
59:01
interested in maybe being part of our future together.
59:05
Great. We'll make sure we include links
59:06
to that in the show notes for everybody.
59:09
Dan, last question for you. A year from now, you and I
59:12
reconnect and you are really excited.
59:15
You're fist pumping in the air. You're celebrating something
59:19
big. What's that big thing you're
59:20
celebrating one year from now? I'm first of all I got to say
59:26
two things. One is just really basic and
59:29
that is like with any brand, any brand with multiple partners and
59:33
multiple locations, you know, winning is disproportionate.
59:37
You know, everyone doesn't win at the same levels.
59:40
And so I'd say in a year from now, the thing I'd be most
59:42
excited about is like all of our partners are, are, are winning
59:46
at the highest level. You know, where we've gone from
59:49
where we are all, you know, playoff to Super Bowl, good to
59:52
great. And it's impacting all of our
59:54
partners and all of our locations.
59:57
And so you always have in any business, you always have your
59:58
bottom quartile that for whatever reason struggles to win
1:00:01
at the next level. And so we spend a lot of time
1:00:04
with like, you know, leave no store behind and make sure that
1:00:07
all of our team members are winning at the highest levels.
1:00:09
That'd that'd be very basic, but very, very wholesome for all of
1:00:13
us. And then the last piece, I, I,
1:00:15
I'll harken back to this advocacy work around, around
1:00:19
immigration and I would love to see in a year from now that
1:00:22
there's, you know, a successful new partnership that both the
1:00:26
government stakeholders and business community have come
1:00:30
together and found a win, win solution to put some of this
1:00:35
rhetoric behind us and, and make sure that the American dream is
1:00:39
alive and well all across America.
1:00:42
Good luck to you on that, and we'll check back in to see how
1:00:44
that's going. Dan Simpson from Tiziki's want
1:00:47
to be the first to thank you for sharing both your time and your
1:00:49
story with us today. I really appreciate it.
1:00:51
Thank you so much, it's been great.
1:00:53
Folks, that's a wrap on another episode of the Inspired Stories
1:00:56
podcast. Thanks for learning with us
1:00:58
today.