Latest / The Inspired Stories Podcast / Inside Max Hospitality: Scott Smith on Leadership Succession, Partner Ownership, and Building Restaurants That Last

Transcript

Inside Max Hospitality: Scott Smith on Leadership Succession, Partner Ownership, and Building Restaurants That Last · 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 Codaspodi and
• 0:17
  today's guest is Scott Smith, CEO and president of Max
• 0:20
  Hospitality. They are a respected restaurant
• 0:24
  and hospitality group based in Hartford, CT Founded in 1986,
• 0:29
  Mac's Hospitality is known for its diverse portfolio of
• 0:32
  restaurants, catering services, and unique dining experiences
• 0:37
  that bring communities together. Scott assumed leadership in
• 0:40
  2022, taking over after founder Richard Rosenthal sold his
• 0:45
  shares. Over the years, Scott played key
• 0:48
  roles as Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, shaping
• 0:52
  the company's culture and growth.
• 0:54
  In December 2024, he announced the addition of 11 new partners,
• 1:00
  showcasing his commitment to building a strong team.
• 1:03
  With deep roots in the Greater Hartford area, Scott has guided
• 1:07
  Mac's Hospitality toward innovation and continuous
• 1:10
  expansion. Now before we get into all that
• 1:13
  good stuff, today's episode is brought to you by my company,
• 1:16
  Add Back Benefits Agency, where we offer very specific and
• 1:20
  unique employee benefits that are both great for your team and
• 1:23
  fiscally optimized for your bottom line.
• 1:26
  Imagine being able to give your restaurant employees free access
• 1:29
  to doctors, therapists, and prescription medications.
• 1:32
  And here's the fun part, the program actually puts more money
• 1:36
  into your employees pockets and the companies too.
• 1:40
  One recent client was able to increase net profits by $900 per
• 1:45
  employee per year. Results vary for each company,
• 1:48
  and some organizations may not be eligible.
• 1:51
  To find out if your company qualifies, contact us today at
• 1:54
  AD back benefits.com. All right, back to our guest
• 1:57
  today, President and CEO of Max Hospitality, Scott Smith.
• 2:01
  Thanks for making the time to Share your story today.
• 2:04
  My pleasure, Anthony, nice to meet you.
• 2:06
  So, Scott, how did you first get your start in the restaurant
• 2:09
  industry? What pulled you in?
• 2:12
  An overabundance of energy and actually finding a place that I
• 2:15
  could actually required a lot of energy was working in
• 2:19
  restaurants. And I I grew up in the shoreline
• 2:22
  here in Connecticut and worked in a number of places, seasonal
• 2:26
  places, clam restaurant, a seafood restaurant.
• 2:31
  And that's how I got my start. So it was this high school, was
• 2:34
  this college? Was this earlier?
• 2:37
  Started washing dishes when I was about 1314 years old and
• 2:41
  yeah, it's about the only thing I've ever done.
• 2:43
  Did you end up going to school for this or was this just OK
• 2:47
  kind of brought up through there?
• 2:48
  Yep, I did a two year stint at CIA, graduated in 1983 and then
• 2:54
  went on to do a apprenticeship at the Greenbrier in White
• 2:58
  Sulphur Springs, WV. So CIA, not the Central
• 3:02
  Intelligence Agency, but the coloring.
• 3:04
  The same. The same one?
• 3:06
  No. Coloring Institute of America,
• 3:08
  Yes. Yeah.
• 3:09
  And as you think of some of your career stops along the way,
• 3:12
  Scott, before Max Hospitality, which one do you look back on
• 3:17
  and think, wow, this is really where I learned my skills?
• 3:20
  This was kind of the most formidable thing for me.
• 3:23
  Boy, I'll tell you there's, there's a whole variety of
• 3:27
  skills that it takes to manage in our environment.
• 3:30
  But I think that the one that I probably learned the most
• 3:36
  technique and line speed and, you know, as a cook was working
• 3:40
  at a overnight breakfast place in Scottsdale, AZ.
• 3:44
  And I worked alone on the line. And but then when it got busy in
• 3:48
  the morning, you know, we, we really got challenged.
• 3:53
  So, you know, I, I think I learned, I think I didn't have
• 3:58
  great line speed before that, but after that I, I could cook
• 4:01
  with the best of them. So.
• 4:02
  And do you think it's important for somebody who's in restaurant
• 4:05
  management to have started at the beginning like you did
• 4:09
  washing dishes, line cook, etcetera?
• 4:12
  Yeah, several of my partners have.
• 4:14
  A lot of us have coloring backgrounds and I would say the
• 4:19
  kitchen is probably the most challenging part of the business
• 4:22
  to run. The personalities, the
• 4:25
  techniques, the you know, just when you're when you're trying
• 4:29
  to make a decision on that sizes of things and without that
• 4:33
  experience in the back of the house, it's very easy to be LED
• 4:38
  astray and you know, and not really know what you know, if
• 4:43
  you're having a conversation with a chef about something,
• 4:45
  really not know what they're talking about.
• 4:46
  So I think it's given me some credibility and also it is, you
• 4:56
  know, it it it's really an important foundation for
• 4:58
  management. Where did you first cut your?
• 5:01
  Teeth in the management side of the business.
• 5:06
  I actually worked my first gig as a manager, was working for a
• 5:10
  food service management company years ago, running the food
• 5:15
  service for a law firm down in Washington, DC, and did that for
• 5:20
  three or four years before I wound up coming back to
• 5:23
  Connecticut and getting back into restaurants.
• 5:26
  And how did the opportunity at Max Hospitality open up?
• 5:31
  Interestingly enough, my old partner Rich had one restaurant
• 5:35
  when I met him was Max on Main. It was the first restaurant in
• 5:39
  the group and he interviewed me to be the chef.
• 5:44
  And in Rich's great wisdom, one of the things that he was always
• 5:52
  adamant about is that when he hired somebody for a challenging
• 5:55
  position like that, that they live within 20 minutes of the
• 5:58
  restaurant and I lived about 45 minutes away.
• 6:01
  So, so it didn't, it didn't come to pass.
• 6:03
  But then about a year later, he was opening his second
• 6:08
  restaurant, Maximia, in Avon and asked me to join, asked me to
• 6:13
  join with him then. Join as a partner at that point.
• 6:17
  No, no. I was actually kind of a
• 6:19
  consultant helping in the kitchen, help get the restaurant
• 6:22
  open. And then my kind of second
• 6:28
  career was in systems and data management for restaurants and I
• 6:34
  did that independently and Rich is one of my clients.
• 6:37
  So we had that relationship after Max and me open that I was
• 6:42
  consultant, he was a client and then a few years later, a few
• 6:46
  years after that, I came on board full time.
• 6:48
  OK, so that first restaurant opportunity where he wanted you
• 6:50
  to be the chef, but you didn't live within 20 minutes, right?
• 6:53
  When you said it didn't come to pass, you didn't end up taking
• 6:55
  that spot because you live so far away.
• 6:58
  He didn't offer me the job. OK.
• 7:01
  All right. But but we remained friends, so
• 7:03
  it was. And so how did you get into the
• 7:06
  consulting side of things? You know, I, I, I think this is
• 7:11
  going back 35 years. I've been with Max.
• 7:14
  We opened Maximia 35 years ago and I just had an aptitude, I
• 7:19
  think for information that a lot of other people didn't.
• 7:22
  It was easy for me to write recipes and understand how to
• 7:28
  trans translate invoices into data that could be usable
• 7:33
  information for restaurants. And so I started a company.
• 7:38
  It was called Magnolia Management.
• 7:40
  I ran it out of Guilford, CT and did that for seven or eight
• 7:45
  years. I had a variety of clients.
• 7:47
  But then, you know, Rich's. Rich's need outgrew the size of
• 7:53
  my business, and so it made sense for me to join him full
• 7:56
  time. OK.
• 7:57
  And then at what point did you become a partner and owner?
• 8:02
  How did that unfold? I guess that was about 25 years
• 8:07
  ago. And when the way Rich kind of
• 8:11
  grew the company is that he had always had a vested partner
• 8:16
  managing the restaurant, somebody who actually put money
• 8:19
  in. And then he had a group of
• 8:21
  outside investors. And then when he got to the
• 8:23
  second restaurant, he invited the manager from the first
• 8:27
  restaurant to invest in the second restaurant and so forth.
• 8:30
  So all of my partners and I have had opportunities throughout the
• 8:33
  years to invest in all the new restaurants that we opened with
• 8:35
  Rich. And my opportunity came about 25
• 8:41
  years ago when we opened Max's Tavern at the Basketball Hall of
• 8:44
  Fame in Springfield. So I took out a business loan
• 8:48
  and actually dealt with the when we did the not to jump ahead,
• 8:53
  but we did the rich's buyout. I was able to go to to the exact
• 8:59
  same banker that I got my first loan from.
• 9:02
  So, so I borrowed money and then every restaurant that we opened
• 9:07
  after that I participated in. And so how many restaurants are
• 9:11
  we talking about today? We are 10 restaurant, We have 10
• 9:15
  restaurants, a bar, a golf simulator and a catering
• 9:21
  business as well. OK.
• 9:23
  So the restaurants, are they all unique concepts or do you have
• 9:28
  multiple of the same ones? We have, why don't we start at
• 9:33
  the top? We'll go through all of them.
• 9:35
  Max downtown is kind of our flagship restaurant.
• 9:37
  It's a steakhouse that you know, I would put against just about
• 9:42
  any steakhouse anywhere in the world.
• 9:45
  We really have a talented team there.
• 9:47
  Our hospitalities over the over the top and Hartford has not
• 9:52
  been the the most inviting or best place to operate a
• 9:57
  restaurant the last 10 or 15 years, but Max downtown is doing
• 10:01
  a tremendous business. Then we have two seafood
• 10:04
  restaurants, Max Fish in Glastonbury, CT and Max Max's
• 10:09
  Oyster Bar in West Hartford. And those are, you know,
• 10:14
  seafood, seafood driven restaurants and all of our
• 10:17
  restaurants, one of the things that makes us unique is that
• 10:21
  they're, they're very chef driven and it's, it's not
• 10:27
  doublespeak. I'm, I'm, we're, we're driven by
• 10:29
  the front of the house in terms of the guest experience, but
• 10:31
  we're also driven by the chefs in the back of the house.
• 10:34
  Because we have found through the years that we get a lot more
• 10:41
  out of our chefs who are able to put their name on things and
• 10:45
  say, you know, if I went and I said, you know, this is our
• 10:48
  Caesar dressing, I want you to make the Caesar dressing without
• 10:51
  him looking at it, agreeing that it's the best Caesar dressing.
• 10:53
  Or maybe you can do this or maybe you can do that to it.
• 10:56
  Then it becomes his dressing. And, you know, and I think one
• 11:01
  of the things that we've been very successful at is
• 11:05
  maintaining and retaining the staff that we've had for years
• 11:08
  and years, which is one of the most difficult things in the
• 11:10
  business. So we've done that.
• 11:12
  So Oyster Bar is our highest volume restaurant.
• 11:15
  And then after that we have Max's Tavern at the Basketball
• 11:18
  Hall of Fame, which is the steakhouse.
• 11:20
  We have two burger concepts, Max Burger.
• 11:22
  Those are the only ones that share a name and a menu.
• 11:26
  We're getting ready to open a third Max Burger.
• 11:29
  And then we have Savoy Pizzeria, which is a small wood fired
• 11:35
  pizzeria in West Hartford, CT. And then we have Trumbull
• 11:40
  Kitchen, which is kind of a global, you know, global comfort
• 11:48
  food cuisine. We've we've talked about it,
• 11:50
  it's right in downtown Hartford. And then the catering
• 11:54
  businesses. And then last year, we, we had
• 11:58
  some event space that we had a lease on in Springfield and we
• 12:04
  found coming out of COVID that there really wasn't the demand
• 12:06
  on that for large meetings like we had before.
• 12:09
  So we had some money to invest and we decided to turn it into a
• 12:14
  indoor golf facility. So, so we have 9, we have 9 golf
• 12:19
  days in there and all the menu comes from Max's Tavern.
• 12:23
  And it's it's a great little business.
• 12:26
  Yeah. So a couple things I want to dig
• 12:28
  into there. You mentioned that you guys have
• 12:31
  been pretty good at retaining staff in an industry that that's
• 12:34
  not an easy thing to do. And part of what it sounds like
• 12:38
  is working for you is being able to involve the chefs, giving
• 12:43
  them ownership and different decision making processes.
• 12:46
  What else have you done, sort of, you know, whether it's back
• 12:49
  of, you know, house or front of house to help keep other folks
• 12:53
  engaged and on board. Well, the easy way is just, you
• 12:59
  know, really to make sure that we're paying competitively and
• 13:04
  you know, and that's, you know, we've, we've got, we're a 35
• 13:08
  year old company with a lot of our managers and chefs that have
• 13:13
  worked for us almost for the duration.
• 13:16
  And you know, you, you, you kind of have to, you kind of have to
• 13:20
  set an environment both in terms of benefits and salary and, and
• 13:24
  just the working environment. The people don't want to leave
• 13:28
  because everybody opening up a new restaurant knows, you know,
• 13:32
  I'm going to knock on, you know, the back door of Max's and you
• 13:35
  know, if I can get a guy from there, you know, it'll, it'll
• 13:39
  make, it'll make my opening much better.
• 13:41
  So, so I think that, you know, we've, we've got a better than
• 13:46
  average benefits package. We have 4 O 1K that we
• 13:50
  contribute to. We do a 4% match on the four O
• 13:54
  1K. And you know, we cover all the
• 13:59
  people that are on benefits. We, we participate in that and
• 14:03
  cover people's families. And so it's, you know, I
• 14:10
  wouldn't say it's a, it's a, it's a golden benefits package.
• 14:14
  But in terms of restaurants, you know, it's, it's more than
• 14:18
  competitive. So I think that's it.
• 14:20
  And then, you know, and I think that the real, the real other
• 14:24
  big factor is that, you know, we, we want somebody to make a
• 14:31
  career with us. We want them to work for us for
• 14:33
  10/20/30 years. They got to have a life.
• 14:37
  And, you know, it's a very demanding business.
• 14:40
  And so it's very easy to like say, OK, well, I'm going to
• 14:43
  structure my kitchen with a chef and a sous chef and not have 1/3
• 14:46
  sous chef. And I'll just make the chef and
• 14:48
  the sous chef work six days, you know, and then the sous chef
• 14:51
  gets sick and the chef is pulling double s and you know,
• 14:54
  and you're not, you're not going to get, you're not going to get
• 14:57
  a long career out of somebody if that's the way that you treat
• 15:00
  them. So we've had, you know, while
• 15:02
  it's been challenging to get staff, we have, you know, we've
• 15:07
  allowed our restaurants to develop A-Team so that people
• 15:11
  can actually take a night off, take a weekend night off and,
• 15:16
  you know, and, and actually have a life, go to the kids ball game
• 15:19
  and whatever else that that's always been important to us.
• 15:23
  And I think that our employees, for the most part, value that
• 15:27
  and understand it. Have you kept Rich's rule of
• 15:31
  having to live within 20 minutes of the restaurant?
• 15:34
  No, it's, it's very, very difficult to do that for the
• 15:36
  most part. And you know, but I would say
• 15:39
  that I'm within about 20 minutes of all of our restaurants now.
• 15:42
  So at least I follow it. So thoughts on replicating any
• 15:50
  of your other concepts? You talk about the burger place,
• 15:53
  you're getting ready to open up your third one.
• 15:56
  What about some of the other concepts?
• 15:57
  It seems like that would be easier to kind of replicate an
• 16:00
  existing model than continuing to open up new concepts, but
• 16:03
  takes away from the creativity part of it too.
• 16:06
  That that's just it. And I think that, you know, a
• 16:09
  lot of people in the restaurants take pride that, you know, the
• 16:13
  oyster bar is the oyster bar and the oyster bar isn't Max Fish.
• 16:16
  And we've got 2 very talented chefs, one who has kind of a
• 16:22
  French classical background, another one who's very inspired
• 16:26
  by Asian cuisine. And, you know, so they're able
• 16:30
  to, they're able to express that on their menus.
• 16:33
  And while we have some items that are in common, it's, you
• 16:39
  know, the, the, the, the, the, the restaurants are sisters, but
• 16:43
  they're not twins. And so I think that the, you
• 16:51
  know, the challenge in being able to recreate that is finding
• 16:54
  somebody who's going to come in because nobody's going to agree
• 16:56
  and come in and say, oh, you know, your pasta recipe is the
• 16:59
  best. And and I'm going to make that
• 17:00
  in in, you know, in my restaurant.
• 17:03
  So, and it's been a challenge of burger because one of the things
• 17:05
  with burger is that it is a chef driven burger chain, you know, a
• 17:10
  burger restaurant. And we wanted to make sure that
• 17:13
  it was a place that other chefs wanted to come at the end of the
• 17:16
  night. Because, you know, it wasn't
• 17:18
  just a bacon cheeseburger, that it was something with some
• 17:22
  braised short ribs or some one collie or, or, you know, you
• 17:27
  know, really innovative, fun ingredients that make the food
• 17:32
  sing. So, so it's something that it's
• 17:35
  going to be a challenge as we as we continue to grow to be able
• 17:38
  to try to maintain that at some level.
• 17:40
  I think we've got to take some of that control back.
• 17:42
  We're going through that right now with Max Berger, but we just
• 17:46
  want to make sure that we have enough of the space on the menu
• 17:52
  for the chef to feel his identity there and not, you
• 17:57
  know, and not that it's food that's coming from me or it's
• 17:59
  coming from the chef at Max Burger in West Hartford.
• 18:02
  Why do you feel the need to take some of the control back?
• 18:06
  Is it just trying to rein in food costs or standardized
• 18:08
  procedures? Yes.
• 18:10
  And it's, it's we just, you know, I'd mentioned Caesar
• 18:14
  salads before and we just went through this process where, you
• 18:17
  know, we kind of had the same Caesar salad and all the
• 18:19
  restaurants. And we have a food committee and
• 18:23
  we travel around to the restaurants and we try.
• 18:25
  And one of the things we realize is that our Caesar salads, while
• 18:28
  they're good at all the restaurants, they're not the
• 18:29
  same. And now the weight, you know,
• 18:33
  and they were probably the same five years ago.
• 18:36
  And in the five years since then, somebody has gotten a
• 18:39
  different dinner roll. So he's using that to make
• 18:41
  crouton. Somebody didn't have any extra
• 18:44
  bread, so he's buying a frozen focaccia to come in and make
• 18:47
  croutons. And you know, and then somebody
• 18:49
  says, well, I don't like the powdered cheese, so I want to
• 18:53
  use, you know, more shredded Parmesan on it, which, you know,
• 19:00
  doesn't make a great salad. So all these little decisions
• 19:02
  are kind of, you know, there's there's just an erosion.
• 19:04
  They're not bad decisions. They're kind of the decisions
• 19:07
  that if I were the chef of a restaurant and I want to improve
• 19:10
  things or change things or put my thumbprint on it, I would I
• 19:14
  would probably be making those myself.
• 19:16
  But you know, if it's going to be called a Max of Caesar salad,
• 19:19
  it's got to be a Max of Caesar salad.
• 19:21
  If it's not going to be a Max of Caesar salad, we'll call it
• 19:23
  something else. And, you know, so there's a lot
• 19:26
  of, you know, there's, there is a lot of efficiency in, in terms
• 19:32
  of buy, purchasing from the same vendors when you have, you know,
• 19:37
  a set ingredient. And instead of buying 2 * 1
• 19:40
  restaurant, you're not buying 3 * 1 restaurant.
• 19:42
  And there's, there's great value in that.
• 19:45
  So keeping everybody in tune with that is, is important.
• 19:49
  And then it's just, you know, it's, you know, in terms of
• 19:52
  being able to move staff, you know, the restaurants are still
• 19:54
  going to be pretty close to one another.
• 19:56
  So we have a manager that's going to move from one spot to
• 19:58
  another to help out for a shift, or we're going to have a cook
• 20:01
  that's going to go help. It's very important that they're
• 20:05
  stepping a new environment that they're familiar with and not
• 20:07
  having to learn a whole bunch of new things.
• 20:10
  And aside from the one that's the location that's at the
• 20:14
  Basketball Hall of Fame, are all the restaurants in the Hartford,
• 20:18
  CT area. Yeah, that and that's probably
• 20:22
  25 minutes from downtown Hartford, Springfield.
• 20:25
  And then we're also in Longmeadow, MA, which is about 5
• 20:30
  miles from Springfield. Got it.
• 20:33
  You mentioned that Hartford has not been maybe the most
• 20:36
  welcoming or easiest place to run restaurants lately.
• 20:40
  Why is that? Well, you know, Hartford is
• 20:43
  insurance city and you know, going through COVID, we had, you
• 20:49
  know, full, I wouldn't say full, always full offices and the
• 20:54
  like, but when people stopped coming to the office five days a
• 20:58
  week, that certainly hurt us. And so in one of the, one of the
• 21:03
  buildings that our restaurant Max Downtown is in, I think it's
• 21:09
  36 stories and right now it's about 30% occupied.
• 21:12
  You know, they've, the, the, they've, the tenants have, they
• 21:16
  don't need as much space because they've got a lot of people that
• 21:19
  are still working remotely. So that's been a challenge.
• 21:22
  And I think that the, you know, Connecticut is, has, has a good
• 21:29
  thriving economy. I think it's got a very wealthy
• 21:33
  segment of the population, but there's also a very blue collar
• 21:37
  element in certain parts of the state that I think have been,
• 21:42
  you know, really hurt by changes to the economy and, you know,
• 21:48
  and probably didn't come out of COVID as as healthy as we did
• 21:52
  so. Yeah.
• 21:53
  It's, you know, we're recording this in late 2025 and I'm
• 21:57
  curious, have you or are you thinking about making
• 22:00
  modifications to your menu to help bring prices down to make
• 22:04
  it more accessible for folks as the economy is kind of
• 22:07
  struggling? Yeah.
• 22:10
  You know, I think when we start to see it reflected in our
• 22:14
  sales, we do a little bit more in terms of value menus, you
• 22:18
  know a prefix menu, it may be a three course menu that's, you
• 22:22
  know, we have are able to kind of dictate the items that are
• 22:26
  available for this deal and people take advantage of it.
• 22:29
  So happy hour is very, very popular with in most of our
• 22:34
  restaurants. You know, it drives the people
• 22:38
  in the restaurants a little bit crazy because, you know, you got
• 22:40
  all these people coming in and eating for $5, you know, instead
• 22:44
  of coming in and paying 25 or $30.00 for a full entree.
• 22:49
  But to me it's, it's, you know, it, it adds energy to the
• 22:52
  restaurant and it probably brings some to the restaurant to
• 22:55
  dine who wouldn't otherwise dine.
• 22:57
  And, you know, if they like it for that, that's great.
• 22:59
  And it's going to be their wife's birthday at some point in
• 23:02
  time, and they're probably going to come back and, you know, try
• 23:05
  us so. You know those happy hours, are
• 23:08
  they a bit of a loss leader? Are you still making up for it
• 23:10
  on people buying drinks and whatnot?
• 23:13
  Alcohol is very, very profitable.
• 23:15
  So and it, and it's also one of the easier areas for us to be
• 23:19
  able to control just in terms of like watching the inventory and
• 23:23
  you know, over pouring and you know, so we, we have a, we have
• 23:27
  a very tight bar program. So if we have to discount food
• 23:30
  in order to be able to get people to come in and buy
• 23:33
  drinks, it's a win for us. It's a little bit more difficult
• 23:38
  in Massachusetts because Massachusetts if you have a
• 23:43
  discount, if you offer a discount on a drink in
• 23:45
  Massachusetts, you have to offer for the for a full week.
• 23:49
  So you can't just have it between 4:00 and 6:00.
• 23:52
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 23:53
  So we do a little bit more with food up there.
• 23:56
  Oh, interesting. Is that a law that's been on the
• 23:58
  books for a long time? Is this sort of one of those old
• 24:00
  blue laws? I I think so for as long as
• 24:03
  there's been laws. I don't understand it but.
• 24:06
  Trying to protect us from ourselves.
• 24:08
  Huh. So what's behind the name?
• 24:10
  Max. Max was our founder, Rich's
• 24:15
  grandfather, maternal grandfather, and his last name
• 24:21
  escapes me right now. But anyway, he was a candy man
• 24:28
  in Hartford. I think he worked for Schraff's
• 24:30
  or something, but he used to go around to all the pharmacies and
• 24:34
  newspaper stores and sell candy to them and, you know, made an
• 24:40
  honest living. I believe he was an immigrant
• 24:43
  and when Rich opened, Rich really admired him.
• 24:45
  And when he opened his first restaurant, he named it after
• 24:49
  Max. So it was Max on Main.
• 24:51
  So everything, just about everything in our company has
• 24:54
  Max attached to it. Nice.
• 24:55
  What a nice trivia. And then as we mentioned in the
• 24:59
  intro, you recently brought on 11 new partners.
• 25:03
  Is this kind of borrowing from the structure that Rich used
• 25:07
  when opening new restaurants or how does this work for you guys
• 25:09
  today? Yeah.
• 25:11
  You know, it was a, it was a really good decision, I think on
• 25:16
  our part. And we knew a lot of us are
• 25:21
  aging. We we're all aging, but me and
• 25:25
  most of my partners are in our late 50s, early 60s.
• 25:30
  And we have this whole generation of people that are,
• 25:34
  you know, incredibly dedicated to our business who work
• 25:37
  extremely hard. And you know, we wanted, we
• 25:42
  wanted them to know that they had a future beyond just, you
• 25:44
  know, a week to week paycheck. And so we had to make
• 25:50
  modifications to our operating agreement and we were able to go
• 25:56
  out, We actually bought out some of our old outside investors to
• 26:00
  be able to get some equity for them.
• 26:03
  And 11 of them opted to buy in. So they they went to the bank or
• 26:09
  they went into their retirement savings or whatever and put
• 26:12
  money in. And so now we are instead of
• 26:16
  eight, we are 19 partners. OK, so are these mostly chefs?
• 26:22
  Other manager type. Roles, several chefs, mostly I
• 26:28
  would say front of the house managers, our HR director who's
• 26:34
  incredibly valuable to the company and and I find
• 26:38
  indispensable. She joined, she joined our
• 26:40
  partnership group. So, you know, it's, it's a good
• 26:44
  mix. And I think that, you know, it's
• 26:47
  kind of guaranteeing that the the makeup of the management of
• 26:52
  the company 10 years from now is going to be people that have
• 26:58
  significant experience in the business with us, who understand
• 27:01
  our culture and who have, you know, kind of made their careers
• 27:05
  with us. Interesting.
• 27:08
  So how does bringing him so many new partners, obviously they're
• 27:11
  holding some kind of a minority stake, but how does that change
• 27:15
  your approach to day-to-day operations or making bigger
• 27:20
  decisions? It's a little bit more of a
• 27:22
  democracy than it was before when Rich was running the
• 27:25
  company and but you know, it's all their input is, is
• 27:30
  incredibly valuable. There's, I have as much to learn
• 27:33
  from them as they do for me. And I think that my partners
• 27:36
  feel the same way. So we do have partner meetings
• 27:41
  twice a month now. We used to have them once a
• 27:43
  month. And you know, and it's very
• 27:46
  important for us to hear what they have to say and for them to
• 27:50
  feel valued in, you know, in their jobs, just not for coming
• 27:53
  in and, you know, running the restaurant, but for steering the
• 27:57
  company. So there's, there's a senior
• 28:01
  management aspect for our board and we're, I would say the the
• 28:08
  main decision makers, but but we, we don't just do things
• 28:13
  unilaterally without, you know, consulting all of our partners
• 28:15
  to make sure that we're making the best decision for all the
• 28:18
  restaurants. What's a surprising challenge
• 28:21
  that you've run into with this new expanded structure?
• 28:25
  More partners? You know, I think they're, it
• 28:30
  hasn't been quite a year and they're all getting used to the
• 28:35
  fact that, you know, and, and we laid out what this partnership
• 28:39
  is going to look like and how this investment historically has
• 28:42
  worked with us. And we, we gave them all that,
• 28:44
  you know, that information and they're all realizing, I think
• 28:49
  everybody's understanding now that there's a little bit more
• 28:52
  to it than, you know, just having the equity stake.
• 28:55
  And when we open our new restaurant in Avon a couple
• 29:00
  months ago, you know, it, it required a, a, a huge amount of
• 29:03
  cash. And we do our profit
• 29:06
  distributions 4 times a year. And because of the amount of
• 29:10
  money that we had tied up in the new restaurant and it just
• 29:12
  opened, we decided to hold distributions back and not do
• 29:17
  distributions that quarter. And I think that was a little
• 29:20
  bit of a shock, you know, for some of them.
• 29:24
  And I think we, I think we probably communicated it, but
• 29:28
  I'm not sure that we communicated it loud enough
• 29:31
  where they heard it, you know, the way, the way that we meant
• 29:33
  it. But again, I think, you know,
• 29:35
  it's, it's something that me and my partners, the senior partners
• 29:40
  feel very strongly about. You know, my first investment at
• 29:43
  Max's Tavern, I don't think I saw a dime of that for about 3
• 29:47
  years. It took us a while, took us a
• 29:49
  while to get profitable. But you know, so it's, you know,
• 29:54
  there's tax changes for all of them.
• 29:55
  The way that they're getting paid is a little bit different,
• 29:59
  but it's it's very healthy in in overall, it's very healthy for
• 30:03
  the company. Yeah, well, and I imagine they'd
• 30:06
  be even more surprised if they were involved in a cash call.
• 30:10
  And maybe that isn't happening because of lines of credit or
• 30:13
  whatever, you know, other mechanisms you have in place.
• 30:16
  But that's a that's a rude awakening for a lot of folks in
• 30:19
  their first time and being an equity partner in something.
• 30:22
  Yes. And and that's, you know, and
• 30:24
  that's one of our challenges in this environment or this, you
• 30:27
  know, this new group is how we raise money moving forward to
• 30:30
  open new restaurants. So, you know, we've, we've been
• 30:33
  able to find some very generous landlords that have allowances
• 30:38
  for us when we were building out a restaurant.
• 30:40
  So that helps a lot. We don't, we try very hard, not
• 30:43
  we've got a great relationship with our bank.
• 30:46
  So, you know, we do have, we do have funds available.
• 30:50
  So we haven't gotten to the point yet where we've had to go
• 30:52
  out and do a cash call. I don't think we've ever done
• 30:54
  that in our history. Yeah, that's impressive.
• 30:58
  You know, as I think back to your history with Max
• 31:01
  Hospitality Group, came in, you know, is a consultant came in
• 31:05
  full time COO, now CEO in, you know, all the years that you've
• 31:11
  been with the group. How is your perspective on what
• 31:15
  makes a restaurant successful evolved over time?
• 31:21
  Wow, that's going way back. I told you I was an apprentice
• 31:27
  at The Greenbrier in West Virginia.
• 31:29
  And we're actually, they're having in February, they're
• 31:33
  having the 50th anniversary of the apprenticeship program.
• 31:38
  So me and a bunch of my fellow apprentices are going back.
• 31:40
  I'm really looking forward to seeing them.
• 31:42
  But I was going through some of my old stuff from that and one
• 31:45
  of our projects that we had as apprentices was writing menus,
• 31:49
  restaurant menus. And I'd kind of come out of,
• 31:52
  even though I worked on some shoreline restaurants, I'd spent
• 31:54
  a lot of time working in hotels and, you know, hotel fine dining
• 31:59
  and things like that. And I look at the menus that I
• 32:03
  wrote 3540 years ago. They were horrible then.
• 32:08
  You know, it was all, it was all about creativity.
• 32:10
  It was all you know, And it's, you know, if I, if I were to
• 32:14
  take any one of those menus and put it in one of my restaurants
• 32:16
  now, we'd be out of business. And, you know, you didn't have
• 32:19
  the financial acumen that well. And, and not only that, but, you
• 32:23
  know, one of the things that I think me and all my partners
• 32:25
  really learned from our founder Rich, is you got to write a menu
• 32:29
  of things that sell. You know, it's, it's, you know,
• 32:32
  you can't, you can't, you can stick your nose up in the air
• 32:35
  and say, I don't want a hamburger on my menu.
• 32:37
  But guess what? People come to the bar, they
• 32:39
  want a hamburger. And so it doesn't matter how
• 32:42
  fine dining you are, you know, Gilda, Gilda Lily a little bit
• 32:46
  and, you know, do fog raw on your hamburger and charge $29.00
• 32:49
  for it, but have a hamburger. And so, you know, so I think
• 32:53
  that we've all learned that there's a, there's got to be a
• 32:57
  balance between the creativity and what you want to make and
• 33:02
  what people really want to eat and, and, and buy.
• 33:06
  You know, it's, it's actually much easier in Italian
• 33:09
  restaurants. I think in our Italian
• 33:12
  restaurants, because there's so just so much good food.
• 33:15
  There's just such a variety. And you can make a little tweak
• 33:18
  here and there with some of the ingredients.
• 33:20
  But you know, our new restaurant, I would say we've
• 33:26
  got like 6 or 7-8 pastas on the menu and they're all fresh made,
• 33:32
  but they all have their roots and something very traditionally
• 33:34
  Italian. You know, it's, it's not just,
• 33:36
  you know, a little of this and a little of that.
• 33:39
  And it's, it's been very successful and a good learn and
• 33:43
  a good learning experience for all of us.
• 33:46
  What's something surprising you've come to understand about
• 33:49
  human psychology from all of your restaurant rolls?
• 33:57
  The value of a discount, I think is, is something and, and you
• 34:02
  know, I think that we've had to be very judicious in our history
• 34:07
  about how we use discounts because if you, if you discount
• 34:12
  too much, you, you kind of establish a new price that
• 34:16
  people come to expect. And you know, if every Thursday
• 34:20
  is half price bottles of wine and we, we don't do that
• 34:23
  anymore, but we pre COVID, we did it.
• 34:26
  And those people that want to go out and have a bottle of wine
• 34:29
  are just coming on Thursdays. So, you know, so it's, that's,
• 34:37
  that's something that, you know, and, and it's something that I
• 34:39
  think that my partner's all the time.
• 34:41
  They, you know, they see they have a slow Friday night coming
• 34:44
  up and they're like, we got to do a lobster promotion.
• 34:46
  You know, let's, let's do it for $25.
• 34:49
  Actually, I might be the one who's saying let's do it for $25
• 34:52
  to really draw people in. But you know, it's only, it's
• 34:56
  only going to have, there's only going to be so many people that
• 34:59
  it's going to be able to draw. And, you know, and again, you
• 35:02
  just, you want to make sure that the, the prices that are on your
• 35:06
  menu and your wine list and things like that are the prices
• 35:09
  that people expect to pay. You know, they're, they're,
• 35:12
  they're fair prices were neither the most expensive nor the
• 35:16
  cheapest in the market. But you know, a lot of thought
• 35:18
  goes into how we price them. So we discount and we have to be
• 35:21
  very careful about it. So that that's one lesson that
• 35:23
  I've learned. And so when you see, be very
• 35:25
  careful, just not do it with any regularity is that.
• 35:28
  Right, yeah. And, and, you know, and I think
• 35:33
  that the that you don't want that to be, you don't want to
• 35:37
  establish that that's what somebody's expectation is for
• 35:41
  coming into the restaurant. You want people to come to the
• 35:43
  restaurant for great food. It's a great environment.
• 35:46
  And every once in a while it's it's discounted.
• 35:49
  Great, you know. What are some upcoming trends
• 35:54
  that you're keeping an eye on in the restaurant industry?
• 35:57
  Wow. You know, I think that we're
• 36:02
  hearing from a lot of our vendors, equipment and food
• 36:05
  vendors that a lot of the challenges that some of our
• 36:09
  competitors and other people in the industry are finding with
• 36:12
  help are really forcing people to relook at buying pre prepared
• 36:20
  items, you know, cut vegetables, you know, a a braised short rib
• 36:26
  or something like that. We haven't really gone down that
• 36:28
  road. We, you know, everything in our
• 36:32
  restaurants is from scratch. And but it's, you know, it's
• 36:38
  something that I'm keeping an eye on.
• 36:40
  And I think all of my chefs and partners are keeping an eye on.
• 36:43
  Because I think there is going to come a point in time where
• 36:46
  we're, you know, whether it's because the hourly wages are
• 36:49
  just, you know, have gone up so much and in relationship to what
• 36:53
  we can charge for something on the menu.
• 36:55
  But there's, there's a lot of convenience items out there.
• 37:00
  There's a lot of convenience equipment, you know, and again,
• 37:05
  we're we're we're just kind of scratching the surface, but it's
• 37:07
  something we're keeping an eye on that I think, you know, the
• 37:09
  future of the business is going to be, you know, it's, it's
• 37:15
  definitely going to it's definitely going to be a factor.
• 37:18
  We've also, we've also started using, I've been using AIA lot
• 37:25
  more just for, you know, just going in to ChatGPT and, and you
• 37:29
  know, asking it a question, it helps organize your thoughts and
• 37:34
  things like that. So that's something I'm very
• 37:36
  excited about, you know, the future of and seeing that
• 37:39
  develop and see how we can incorporate that a little bit
• 37:41
  more into our businesses. And so currently you're using AI
• 37:45
  more as like a brainstorming partner or is there more of a
• 37:48
  structured way that it's helping you to analyze data or something
• 37:51
  else? Well, a lot of our enterprise
• 37:54
  reporting tools now have AI functions.
• 37:57
  So, you know, it used to be that you'd have to go, you know, if
• 38:00
  you wanted to find how much salmon you sold, you'd have to
• 38:02
  go through this long sales report and, you know, pick out
• 38:06
  all the items that had salmon. And now you can go in and you
• 38:09
  can just ask the question in these tools.
• 38:12
  And so they're they're very helpful.
• 38:16
  I also think that one of the things that I look forward to is
• 38:21
  how that's going to impact scheduling, You know, being able
• 38:25
  to look at sales trends because that's something the our
• 38:28
  scheduling tools and our sales tools are integrated right now.
• 38:32
  So you're looking at kind of a forecast and things like thing
• 38:34
  like that. But I got to believe that
• 38:36
  there's a tool that's going to take into take into account, you
• 38:40
  know, this Saturday from 2025, what the weather look like in
• 38:46
  2025 that Saturday, what were the other events and you know,
• 38:50
  and help us, help us come up with a better tool for
• 38:55
  forecasting and planning out our labor.
• 38:58
  Yeah, That would be really cool, very effective.
• 39:00
  The labor issues that you have mentioned, I'm going to guess,
• 39:05
  kind of kicked off because of COVID and then maybe have gotten
• 39:09
  worse because of some of the immigration policies.
• 39:11
  Is that correct? Yeah, COVID definitely had a had
• 39:18
  a bigger impact on us. We had a lot of people that I
• 39:22
  think our industry had a lot of people that went to other
• 39:25
  industries. We're seeing a little bit of
• 39:28
  people coming back now. Somebody who worked for us five
• 39:30
  years ago who, you know, the, the pasture wasn't quite as
• 39:34
  green. And so now they're coming back.
• 39:35
  And, you know, being a server in a restaurant is great because
• 39:38
  you can usually you can work for 3032 hours a week and make, you
• 39:42
  know, twelve 1500 bucks. And you know, so if you're a
• 39:46
  parent, if you're, you know, you have another part time job
• 39:48
  somewhere, you're a student, it's a great, it's a great way
• 39:51
  to make a living. But you know, we are seeing with
• 39:55
  increases to minimum wage and also the cost of benefits just
• 40:01
  keeps going up. You know, no matter, no matter
• 40:03
  what we do in terms of our employee base and our claim
• 40:10
  history. You know, we have a, we have a
• 40:13
  great year. Our claims are, you know, at a
• 40:15
  low percentage compared to what our premiums are.
• 40:18
  But we still see, you know, every year the premiums go up
• 40:21
  and go up and go up. And, you know, we share that
• 40:23
  cost with our employees. And, and you know, I'd like to
• 40:27
  say that, you know, we, it'd be stupid to say that we can afford
• 40:31
  it, you know, because we should really be looking at everything.
• 40:33
  But the, the, the real pain to that is that the employees have
• 40:37
  the burden, you know, part of that as well.
• 40:42
  Let's see, where do I want to go next?
• 40:44
  Here we've covered a lot of good ground.
• 40:46
  How about a big, serious challenge that you had to
• 40:48
  overcome in your life, Scott, and some things that you learned
• 40:50
  going through it? Oh boy.
• 40:54
  You know, I think relationships with the people I work with, my
• 41:00
  family and, you know, just just working with people in general
• 41:08
  has to me, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm not a particularly social
• 41:13
  person and you know, I, I don't, I don't gravitate, you know,
• 41:19
  towards the, to be the center of attention.
• 41:22
  My, my partner who we bought out Rich was, you know, much more
• 41:26
  dynamic and had this big personality and kind of, you
• 41:29
  know, took over the room when he came in.
• 41:31
  So in terms of that, I think people had some expectations for
• 41:35
  me and, and I had some big shoes to fill.
• 41:39
  And, but I've had, I've had to find other ways to, you know, to
• 41:42
  kind of fill them. And, you know, I'm, I'm, you
• 41:46
  know, I'm serious about the business.
• 41:48
  And I think it's, I'm, I'm, it's been a gift to have the number
• 41:53
  of people that work with me that are also very serious about the
• 41:56
  business. But you know, huge challenges
• 41:58
  is, you know that there are people that you bring in, you
• 42:01
  expect to be serious, you expect to be very talented and driven
• 42:04
  and committed and they're not. And the damage that that can do
• 42:07
  to a business is. Is huge.
• 42:10
  What was it like for you going through that transition of
• 42:13
  stepping into Rich's shoes and just being a different person
• 42:17
  with a different approach to things?
• 42:18
  Yeah. You know, I, I was worked with
• 42:22
  Rich and I was the chief operating officer for 20 some
• 42:25
  odd years before all this happened.
• 42:27
  And, you know, Rich, to his credit, I think was even before
• 42:32
  COVID was starting to step back a little bit and was spending
• 42:35
  more time in Florida and but, you know, still still very
• 42:41
  involved in the business. And I think that, you know, so I
• 42:44
  had an opportunity to really study for the role and train for
• 42:49
  the role under him. I mean, there was nothing
• 42:53
  organized that said, you know, this is this is, you know, this
• 42:56
  is how I'm going to transition the company.
• 42:57
  It all just kind of happened. And that in and of itself is an
• 43:00
  interesting story, But, you know, it's, it's been, it's been
• 43:08
  good. And I think that the, you know,
• 43:10
  I think that the expectations of my partners, you know, they kind
• 43:18
  of, I think that they all expect whoever's in that role to be,
• 43:22
  you know, have Rich's personality and stuff like that.
• 43:25
  And so that's been a little bit of adjustment, but it's, it's
• 43:28
  been 4 years. And so I feel pretty comfortable
• 43:32
  in the role now. In the early days, did you feel
• 43:35
  any pressure to try to adjust your personality to be more
• 43:38
  similar to what Rich's style had been?
• 43:42
  No, no, I I didn't really feel that.
• 43:45
  And I think that, you know, rich, again, you know, there's,
• 43:49
  there's all different aspects to a big personality and Rich, you
• 43:54
  know, he, he was known. He could roar like a lion when
• 43:58
  he really needed to and, you know, walk in and, and, you
• 44:04
  know, see something out of place and make sure he had everybody's
• 44:07
  attention about that. I'm a little bit more subtle.
• 44:10
  And I think there's a way to get the message across differently.
• 44:15
  And that's, you know, and I and who am I coaching to managers is
• 44:18
  like, you know, find your style, find your way.
• 44:21
  You don't, you don't necessarily have to emulate, you know, that
• 44:26
  style. It's just the style that works
• 44:27
  for somebody else. You mentioned that the story of
• 44:32
  how the transition from Rich to you came about was an
• 44:36
  interesting story. Can you elaborate?
• 44:39
  Yeah, I'd love to. So you know, we've been building
• 44:45
  this company for Rich for 30 odd years and the only one who
• 44:50
  seemed to have any path out of the company was Rich.
• 44:54
  And so, you know, I had invested a lot of money, a lot of my
• 44:58
  partners had invested money in their business and none of us
• 45:02
  really knew what the next step was.
• 45:05
  And then COVID hit and Rich was actually in Florida when COVID
• 45:12
  hit and couldn't get back to Connecticut.
• 45:14
  So it really gave me and my partners a chance to feel
• 45:17
  independent. And, you know, while we're still
• 45:20
  on the phone talking to Rich all the time and, you know, figuring
• 45:22
  out and we, we, we did, we did so much during COVID just in
• 45:26
  terms of like setting up, you know, pantries for people to get
• 45:31
  food from and, you know, getting, getting stuff from our
• 45:34
  vendors so that, you know, people in the industry could be
• 45:37
  taken care of. You know, we, our restaurants
• 45:39
  were closed for 6-8 weeks. We had some that took even
• 45:42
  longer to close and all of the PPE money hadn't come in yet.
• 45:51
  And so we were, we were just, you know, we're doing everything
• 45:54
  we could to really hang on to our staff.
• 45:57
  But anyway, as we started to come out of it, we had somebody
• 46:05
  who approached us about a restaurant in another city and
• 46:08
  he actually owned the building and he asked us to go and take a
• 46:10
  look at the restaurant. And he, the deal he laid out for
• 46:16
  us was that he would build the restaurant and we'd be 25%
• 46:21
  partners and he'd be 75% partner.
• 46:24
  So Rich didn't really like that. And so we started like looking
• 46:28
  around the market and was like, we could open a restaurant down
• 46:30
  here. Let's, you know, let's try to
• 46:31
  find another one. And we found out a, another
• 46:35
  small chain, they had four restaurants in the Fairfield,
• 46:38
  Westchester County area that somebody had told us was
• 46:42
  available. So we went and took a look at
• 46:45
  them. And this guy with the building
• 46:47
  was very interested in the restaurant business.
• 46:49
  He's a great customer of ours. And he said, let's buy them, you
• 46:54
  know, let's figure something out and let's buy them.
• 46:56
  So, you know, we're scheming. Really, you know, this is going
• 46:58
  to be great. And and then one thing led to
• 47:02
  another and he decided that instead of just buying this
• 47:08
  outside chain, why does he just buy rich out?
• 47:11
  And so they talked about it and they, you know, some very good
• 47:17
  conversations. And the, this person who's still
• 47:24
  a friend of ours put together an LOI Rich bought it too, is an
• 47:27
  attorney, his attorney. And, and, and you know, me and
• 47:30
  my partners are like, this is great.
• 47:32
  This is our, this is our chance. Now we're going to be able to
• 47:34
  like figure out what our future is.
• 47:35
  We're going to be able to figure out, you know, what the
• 47:37
  company's worth and how we get out and all this other.
• 47:41
  And anyway, the deal just fell apart.
• 47:44
  It fell flat apart. And so my partner Steve and I,
• 47:49
  we were talking the next day and I was like, oh God, you know,
• 47:51
  we're so close and this is, you know, this is this is really
• 47:54
  going to be our ticket. And so I said to Steve, I said,
• 48:00
  what are we doing? Let's let's figure out a way
• 48:03
  that we can do it. We can you know, we'll go to the
• 48:04
  bank, we'll we'll raise some money and and we'll make rich an
• 48:07
  offer. So, so we and we had, we had
• 48:12
  some money in the bank and part of my part of my scheme was to
• 48:15
  use the money in the bank to buy rich out.
• 48:17
  But Richard was very clear that was his money.
• 48:20
  The money that was in the company's bank account, right?
• 48:23
  So so anyway, we, we made the offer to him and he's like, are
• 48:28
  you guys freaking crazy? He said you want me to go for
• 48:31
  this? And, and, you know, he, he ended
• 48:33
  up screaming at us and, and telling us get back to work.
• 48:39
  And so it was, you know, we were all deflated and we thought that
• 48:43
  was the end of it. The next day, Rich calls me and
• 48:46
  says, how about this? Why don't we try this?
• 48:50
  So he was intrigued by the idea of stepping aside.
• 48:53
  Well, I think his appetite had been whetted by this other
• 48:57
  person who made the offer. And you know, and I think he was
• 49:01
  spending time in Florida and on the golf course, whatever else,
• 49:04
  you know, he started to get a taste of what retirement would
• 49:06
  be like. And so we, the bank was, we was
• 49:11
  great to work with and we restructured the company.
• 49:16
  We were all separate LL CS before we created a Max
• 49:18
  Hospitality LLC and all the restaurants are now sub LL CS
• 49:23
  and, and all of our partners before had different percentage
• 49:27
  of ownership. And when we we did the new
• 49:30
  structure, everybody has the same percentage of ownership of
• 49:34
  everything. So it's it's a little bit
• 49:38
  fairer. And how quickly then from the
• 49:43
  point where he calls you back, says, how about this structure,
• 49:46
  did things actually get turned over to you?
• 49:50
  Boy, it took us, it probably took us six months to write the
• 49:55
  operating agreement and and the sales agreement going back and
• 49:58
  forth. But I think once once that was
• 50:01
  done and the money was in place, it happened pretty quickly.
• 50:04
  So I would say it was about six or seven months.
• 50:06
  Yeah. And we we sort of touched a
• 50:09
  little bit on COVID. What was that like for you guys
• 50:12
  going through that? It was frightening, you know,
• 50:17
  and I had, I actually had went to the hospital for an elective
• 50:26
  procedure the last day that they were doing elective seizures in
• 50:29
  the hospital. And you know, it just to see
• 50:32
  what was going on in the hospitals at that point was
• 50:34
  crazy. And then the procedure had to
• 50:36
  get redone. And the first day that I was
• 50:37
  able to get it done was the first day that the hospitals
• 50:40
  were doing elective procedures again.
• 50:43
  So, you know, I got a little bit of a perspective of how really
• 50:47
  devastating it was to families and, you know, the people in the
• 50:51
  medical community that we're doing all this stuff.
• 50:54
  But you know, it's it's it was very eye opening that, you know,
• 50:58
  and, and not something I'm really proud of, you know, is
• 51:01
  one of the reasons that I think we wanted to get the four O 1K
• 51:03
  put together under the new structure is that, you know,
• 51:08
  there's just so many people that live paycheck to paycheck, not
• 51:11
  just in our industry, but in in so many industries.
• 51:14
  And so when all of a sudden stores were closed and schools
• 51:17
  were closed and you know, it, it, it caused a lot of concern.
• 51:24
  And then as we started to loosen up and they, we got another take
• 51:33
  out business very fast, you know, which was difficult in
• 51:37
  some, you know, in restaurants where we're charging $65 for a
• 51:40
  steak, it doesn't, that's the first thing that comes to your
• 51:43
  mind when you're thinking about take out.
• 51:44
  But our customers were hungry for it.
• 51:46
  So we did that very successfully.
• 51:48
  And then we had, you know, they allowed 25% capacity in the
• 51:53
  restaurants. And so we we went out and our
• 51:57
  director of operations, Brian, we bought, you know, plexiglass
• 52:01
  and these stands. And, you know, we were putting
• 52:03
  plexiglass barriers up everywhere.
• 52:06
  But it, you know, as things started to really loosen up and
• 52:11
  people came back full time, you know, I think we, the core of
• 52:19
  our staff was much stronger than it had ever been because we had
• 52:23
  kind of gone through it, through it all together.
• 52:26
  But we had, we had, we really had to hire and train, you know,
• 52:31
  we, we've had the gift of having very low turnover for years and
• 52:35
  years in the restaurant. So, you know, and it's, it's
• 52:39
  very easy when you have a new server you're bringing on to
• 52:42
  train with a veteran server. And when all of a sudden you're,
• 52:45
  you need your veteran server in a big section and you don't have
• 52:48
  somebody to train that new server, that becomes a
• 52:50
  challenge. So, you know, so kind of
• 52:54
  retooling our staff coming out of it was hard, but you know,
• 52:59
  it's we kept our heads on and you know, we, we came out
• 53:03
  stronger than than we were when we went into it so.
• 53:06
  So you mentioned introducing the four O 1 KS and you mentioned,
• 53:10
  you know, you guys all walk through this fire together and
• 53:13
  that really bonds people, you know, being stronger together.
• 53:17
  Were there any other significant operational changes that you've
• 53:20
  kept now being on the other side of COVID?
• 53:25
  We're a little bit stronger in take out.
• 53:27
  You know, I think that we learned a lot about the third
• 53:30
  party delivery services, you know, Uber Eats and DoorDash and
• 53:33
  things like that and where they were a kind of our lifeline and
• 53:37
  we were doing a lot of sales. As we transitioned back into,
• 53:41
  you know, people coming back into the restaurant.
• 53:43
  We had that line of revenue. It was it, we realized how
• 53:47
  expensive and how damaging it was to us, you know, to, to try
• 53:51
  to maintain that. So that's something that we had
• 53:57
  to adjust. But you know, there's, there's
• 53:59
  been minor adjustments. We have, you know, larger
• 54:01
  outdoor seating areas and a couple restaurants as a result
• 54:04
  of it. And the state loosened up on
• 54:09
  take out liquor. You couldn't, you know, you
• 54:11
  couldn't take liquor out of a restaurant before, and now you
• 54:13
  can take liquor out of a restaurant.
• 54:17
  The SO you made some changes, you realized how hard and how
• 54:26
  damaging those third party delivery services were.
• 54:29
  Does that mean you've gotten away from those?
• 54:31
  For the most part we have, you know, it, it's restaurants, you
• 54:35
  run tight margins in restaurants and you know, on a really good
• 54:39
  month in say our burger restaurants, we're, we're lucky
• 54:44
  to do 1012% and we're paying, you know, it's a significant
• 54:48
  portion of our sales in some cases like 1520% of our sales.
• 54:52
  And the, the fees, the third party delivery fees were 2830%.
• 54:59
  And so, you know, it's we, we're still using them at our pizza
• 55:04
  restaurant because our margins are a little bit better.
• 55:06
  And but yeah, we just it, it did not make economic sense to
• 55:11
  continue it in a lot of our restaurants.
• 55:13
  And so people still do take out, but they'll come and get it
• 55:16
  themselves. Yes, OK.
• 55:20
  Scott, how would you characterize your superpower?
• 55:24
  My superpower, well, it's, it's, it's changed, it's changed a lot
• 55:28
  in as I've gotten older I'm 64 now and I require a lot of a lot
• 55:34
  more sleep than I did 10 years ago.
• 55:37
  But you know, I used to, I used to be able to thrive on 4 hours
• 55:40
  of sleep. And, you know, and it's, it's
• 55:44
  one thing that everybody always remarks, you know, that they're
• 55:47
  getting emails from me at 4:00 in the morning.
• 55:49
  And so, so I think it's changed. But you know what my, my energy
• 55:54
  and my focus, you know, is on my, is on my business.
• 55:58
  And, you know, so I'm just getting a little bit more sleep
• 56:03
  than I used to, OK. What's your favorite thing to do
• 56:06
  outside of work? Oh boy, I took up G2 years ago.
• 56:10
  Two years ago, yeah, just I did not have the time before and I'm
• 56:14
  really enjoying that. And I'm a bit of a crossword
• 56:18
  puzzle addict, so I I do several crossword puzzles every morning
• 56:21
  before I get going so. Old style like in the newspaper
• 56:24
  or do you have? No on on the app.
• 56:26
  New York Times is a great puzzle app, and I do the LA Times and
• 56:31
  so. And how far are you able to get
• 56:34
  through a traditional crossword puzzle?
• 56:37
  Oh, I finish them all you. Finish them all, you get them
• 56:38
  correct? Yeah.
• 56:40
  How many times do you go to Google or ChatGPT to help with
• 56:42
  an answer? You, you, you don't need to go
• 56:45
  that often. You know, some there's some that
• 56:48
  are a little bit more obscure, you know, and if there's you
• 56:53
  know, it's usually like a modern rapper whose name I don't know
• 56:57
  or something like, you know, or ATV show that I've never heard
• 57:00
  of. You know, that some star from I
• 57:02
  may I may peek on that. But you know, it's it's it's
• 57:05
  just a it's just a it's just a it's a whole nother language.
• 57:09
  And once you understand the language, it's pretty easy.
• 57:13
  Well, Scott, I've just got one more question for you today.
• 57:15
  But before I ask it, I want to do three things.
• 57:17
  First of all, anyone who wants to get in touch with Scott, you
• 57:21
  can reach him at his e-mail address
• 57:23
  scott@maxhospitality.com. And Max hospitality.com is also
• 57:28
  where you can go to learn more about all their restaurants.
• 57:31
  And as a reminder for folks, if you want to get more employees
• 57:34
  access to benefits that won't hurt them financially and
• 57:37
  carries a financial upside for the company, reach out to us at
• 57:40
  Add Back benefits.com. Finally, if you'll take just a
• 57:43
  moment to leave us a comment or review on your favorite podcast
• 57:46
  app, you'll hold a special place in my heart forever.
• 57:48
  Thank you. So last question for you, Scott,
• 57:51
  a year from now, you and I reconnect and you are
• 57:54
  celebrating something big. What's that big thing that you
• 57:57
  hope to be celebrating one year from today?
• 58:01
  Good question. You know, I think the continuing
• 58:07
  the tradition of having profitable restaurants and, you
• 58:11
  know, a thriving, A thriving staff, you know, at a a strong
• 58:15
  place for, you know, people to come to work and feel valued.
• 58:19
  And, you know, I don't know if there's any one large thing that
• 58:25
  we've done. The restaurant that we just
• 58:27
  opened in Avon was, was a big investment for us and it's doing
• 58:31
  very well. So I hope to report a year from
• 58:33
  now that it's still doing just as well.
• 58:36
  But, you know, it's, it's a lot about business is just really
• 58:39
  being able to maintain and you know, and, and every year, every
• 58:44
  year you get into it is kind of a victory over, you know, the
• 58:47
  previous year or so. Scott Smith from Max
• 58:50
  Hospitality, I want to be the first to thank you for sharing
• 58:52
  both your time and your story with us today.
• 58:54
  I really appreciate it. Great.
• 58:56
  Thanks Anthony. It was been great.
• 58:58
  Folks, that's a wrap on another episode of the Inspired Stories
• 59:01
  podcast. Thanks for listening with us
• 59:03
  today.