Latest / The Inspired Stories Podcast / Scaling a BBQ Brand: Micha Magid's Journey from Wall Street to Mighty Quinn's Co-CEO | Restaurants & Franchises Series

Transcript

Scaling a BBQ Brand: Micha Magid's Journey from Wall Street to Mighty Quinn's Co-CEO | Restaurants & Franchises Series · The Inspired Stories Podcast

0:04
Welcome to another edition of Inspired Stories, where leaders
0:07
share their experiences so we can learn from their successes,
0:10
how they've overcome adversity, and explore current challenges
0:13
they're facing. Welcome to another edition of
0:18
the Inspired Stories podcast where leaders share their
0:21
experiences so we can learn from their successes and be inspired
0:25
by how they've overcome adversity.
0:27
My name is Anthony Kotaspodi and today's guest is Misha Majid Co
0:32
founder and Co CEO of Mighty Quinn's BBQ, a restaurant that
0:36
got its start at an outdoor food market in Brooklyn, NY where
0:40
they were doing smoked briskets and pulled pork on the back of a
0:43
mobile pit attached to a truck. Seeing instant success validated
0:48
that they were filling a gap in the city where it was hard to
0:51
find authentic BBQ. That led them to open their
0:54
first brick and mortar location in the East Village.
0:58
Three months later, they found themselves on the front cover of
1:00
the New York Times dining section and they were off to the
1:04
races. We will hear how Misha made the
1:07
transition from the whirlwind of Wall Street to slow cooked
1:10
meats. And before we get into all that
1:12
good stuff, today's episode is brought to you by my company,
1:16
Add Back Benefits Agency, where we offer very specific and
1:19
unique employee benefits that are both great for your team and
1:22
fiscally optimized for your bottom line.
1:25
One recent client was able to add over $900 per employee per
1:29
year in net profits by implementing one of our
1:31
proprietary programs. Results vary for each company
1:34
and some organizations may not be eligible.
1:37
To find out if your company qualifies, contact us today at
1:40
Add Back benefitsagency.com. Now back to our guest today, Co
1:44
CEO, Co Founder of Mighty Quinn's BBQ.
1:47
Misha, I appreciate you making the time to Share your story
1:49
today. Yeah, Anthony, thanks for having
1:51
me. I appreciate it.
1:53
Yeah, so Misha, tell us, how did you go from working on Wall
1:56
Street to starting BBQ restaurants?
1:58
Yeah, I guess it's not the most conventional path into the world
2:01
of restaurants, but when I was on Wall Street, I was what was
2:04
called a generalist investor. So we really, you know, my fund
2:07
invested across a diverse list of industries and I always kind
2:12
of gravitated towards the industries that touch the
2:15
consumer. Because as a consumer myself, I
2:18
founded most, I would say most efficient to understand the real
2:23
kind of drivers of the business value as a as a customer of that
2:26
business versus some areas like, you know, chemical
2:28
manufacturers, oil and gas businesses, where as a consumer
2:32
you don't really interact with as an end user.
2:34
So having that end user exposure always kind of gravitated
2:37
gravitated me towards consumer focused businesses.
2:40
Then I think that was kind of like my foray into things that
2:44
were, you know, consumer package facing restaurant industry and
2:47
other retail businesses. And So what happened was my
2:51
brother-in-law, Hugh started smoking meats in Brooklyn.
2:54
And at the time I came in solely as an investor.
2:57
But when we saw that what we were doing, we had some legs to
3:00
it, myself and my two other partners really decided to focus
3:03
on Mighty Quinn's full time. And so it started basically as a
3:07
food truck, right? Yeah, not so much a food truck
3:10
because we didn't actually have, we weren't serving out of a
3:12
truck. We had a mobile pit which is
3:14
basically dragged behind the truck.
3:15
So a little bit of a different new ones there.
3:17
So if you think about kind of the pit next to a 10 by 1010,
3:21
you know, we had all the meats already smoked obviously because
3:23
some of these things take, you know, upwards of a day to
3:26
finish. And so we would open up at 11.
3:29
You know, we had lines down the block and basically just kind of
3:32
served BBQ for five or six hours until we sold out on the
3:35
weekends. And so were you doing any kind
3:38
of special promotions or advertising?
3:42
No, well, you know, the odor off the pit is kind of like your two
3:45
block free advertising, right? Those smells just kind of
3:48
permeate everywhere. So I think people knew that
3:51
where we were serving with someone of a weekend food
3:53
destination. So people were already coming to
3:56
discover new and interesting things.
3:57
So that was really the marketing done for us.
3:59
So the crowds were already at the market and I think they just
4:01
gravitated towards, you know, what we're doing with, you know,
4:04
wildfire smoking always attracts a crowd.
4:07
And your brother-in-law, Hugh, did he have a background in this
4:10
or was he just, he just kind of started doing it for fun on the
4:12
side and friends and family were like, oh, this tastes good.
4:15
You should. You should sell this to people.
4:17
That's a good question. He's a classically trained chef,
4:21
so, you know, cut his teeth in some formal restaurant
4:23
environments. And I think, you know, having a
4:26
dad with some Houston lineage let him down the path of
4:29
barbecue. And so as most chefs are artists
4:33
and they experiment with different things, you know this
4:35
this BBQ thing kind of clicked and we were off to the races
4:38
from there. And so how long were you
4:41
operating the food truck before you were like, man, we're really
4:44
on to something, We should take this leap into a brick and
4:47
mortar location. Yeah, the outdoor markets are
4:49
running for about a couple years, but after the first year
4:52
is when we really hit the pavement to find that first
4:54
brick and mortar location. We knew it would take a while to
4:57
find a place that we could, you know, smoke in a in a restaurant
5:01
environment in the city. And so that probably took us the
5:05
better part of the year to lock down a spot that we were happy
5:08
with. Is that because there's special
5:10
permits required to smoke meats? There's still, I mean there's
5:14
logistic challenges, you know, bringing the 6000 LB pit into a
5:17
restaurant. So you know, you need load
5:19
capacity on the floor, you need to be able to vent per code like
5:22
you just pointed out and in a way that's not going to affect,
5:25
you know, the the neighbors or anybody else in the building.
5:27
So and at the same time you also as a new brand, you want that
5:30
great visibility, right? So you don't want to find
5:32
yourself in, you know, an off the beaten path, hard to find
5:36
location. We really wanted to find a place
5:37
where we can kind of plant a flag and say, you know, BBQ is
5:40
here, Mighty Quince is here, come trash out.
5:42
And we did that by finding a great corner location in the
5:45
East Village. And there just wasn't much in
5:47
the way of good barbecue in the city at the time.
5:50
There was definitely, there was definitely barbecue in the city,
5:52
but I think it wasn't as accessible as we thought it
5:55
should be. There are more kind of sit down
5:57
restaurants, you know, where you're committing an hour and a
5:59
half. We wanted a more casual place
6:00
where people can come get meats at the counter and get out of
6:03
there. They can hang out over beers for
6:05
an hour or two. And we really wanted to have
6:07
that kind of convenience factor tied into this amazing cuisine
6:10
category and that that dynamic we thought didn't really exist
6:12
in the city. Where does the name Mighty
6:15
Quinn's come from? So Quinn is Hugh's eldest son.
6:19
It was named after him and just given the the brand recognition.
6:23
We we went with it as we opened up into brick and mortar.
6:26
OK, So you guys are operating out of a food truck.
6:30
You guys are selling out consistently.
6:32
So was it profitable pretty early on, even as a food?
6:36
Not a food truck, sorry, not a food truck, but a yeah.
6:40
You had a. Pet that you you drug behind the
6:42
the the truck. Exactly.
6:43
The mobile pet, Yeah, the, the, the economics of the business
6:46
were great because we had what seemed at the time to be just as
6:50
much we could fulfill as much demand as, as we could possibly
6:53
supply for. So that's kind of a nice dynamic
6:55
to have. The more, the more we made, the
6:56
more we sold. And I think that at the time,
7:01
you know, coming into the city as a brick and mortar
7:04
restaurant, we weren't really competing with many people.
7:06
If you think about you're being a new Italian joint or a sushi
7:09
joint or really Mexican, all these categories are so
7:12
competitive. We really felt we, you know, we
7:15
were one O 1 or one or two in our area.
7:17
You want to barbecue, you're coming to us.
7:18
So that was a nice little protected boat that we thought
7:21
was exciting. OK.
7:23
So you go through all this work to find a location, there's
7:27
probably a pretty significant investment for the build out.
7:31
You open this new location three months later, you guys are what
7:36
on the cover of the New York Times dining section.
7:40
Yeah. How did that come about?
7:42
I'm. Just I think that, you know, the
7:46
team at the times they do their thing, I don't know how they
7:49
discover, you know, how they pick who they pick.
7:52
We were fortunate enough to be on that that list.
7:56
One of the reviewers, Pete Wells, came in and had an
7:58
amazing experience. And the cool thing about that
8:01
review is that, you know, we're serving food on like disposable
8:04
plates, right? This is BBQ, this is not white
8:06
tablecloths, you know, porcelain dishware, whatnot.
8:09
So he saw past all that and really just rated us on the food
8:13
and you know, we scored in it. We had an amazing two and half
8:15
star review from him and, you know, we found out really the
8:19
day, you know, the morning had hit and you know, me is kind of
8:23
new to the restaurant industry was kind of like, oh, cool, you
8:26
know, we got a nice review, but you know, my partner's here more
8:29
experienced. You're like, you know, oh shit,
8:30
this is kind of like the Academy Awards of opening a restaurant.
8:33
Like we just won. So I was like, OK, interesting.
8:36
And then of course after that we had, you know, lines down the
8:38
block and we're selling out at 8:00 and, you know, really saw a
8:42
momentum pick up and. Was that like overnight?
8:45
Like the review shows up, you know, Sunday, and then Sunday
8:49
night or Monday, like the line start forming around the block.
8:52
Yeah, I think it was actually published midweek because I
8:55
remember still being on the trading desk at the time.
8:58
And it was literally the next day was the transformation to,
9:02
you know, crazy demand. And so at this time you were
9:07
still keeping your day job. Was there a point where you made
9:10
a transition into full time? Yeah, there was, you know, I was
9:15
on Wall Street for, you know, 10 years in different capacities,
9:18
you know, on the banking side, on the hedge fund side.
9:20
And I just really thought that what Mighty Quince was doing was
9:23
unique and that the brand had legs to expand beyond just one
9:26
location. And so I think it was just a
9:29
mixture of being excited by doing something different and
9:32
also jumping into something that kind of already tested the the
9:35
waters and proved successful. The the combination of those two
9:39
things led me to, you know, the the hedge fund, but that I was
9:42
out of the time and and focus on mighty principle time with my
9:45
two partners. And when did that transition
9:47
take place? I.
9:48
Was like, I would say mid mid 2013.
9:52
OK. And and how many locations did
9:54
you have at that point? Was it still just the one?
9:56
It's just the one. It was just the one.
9:57
And we still had our weekend pop up in Brooklyn.
9:59
So it's really just that was a seasonal location and then our
10:02
our main location. And so you came in full time,
10:05
you're like, I see where this is going.
10:07
There's there's a lot of growth opportunity here.
10:09
And so where are your energies focused now?
10:13
Yeah. So now it's kind of we've
10:14
evolved into a bigger company with the franchise business and
10:17
you know, licensing business. I would say, you know, aside
10:21
some kind of strategic oversight, more kind of on the
10:24
finance and marketing side and the development side, you know,
10:27
we're trying to understand in this very dynamic restaurant
10:30
environment, you know, where fast casual is headed, where BBQ
10:33
is headed, you know, what returns look like on new store
10:36
build outs, you know, and, and, and based on that kind of return
10:39
profile, where we should be looking and how we should be
10:41
expanding. So I would say that the job is
10:45
now very dynamic because we're in a very dynamic market.
10:49
If, if, if there, I guess if there's ever, you know, an
10:52
industry that is constantly changing, you know, ironically
10:55
it's, it's restaurants, even though it's probably one of the
10:57
oldest businesses, you know, to exist, it always keeps us on our
11:03
toes. You say it's very dynamic,
11:06
constantly change, like constantly evolving.
11:08
What what about the industry? Do you see that it is sort of is
11:13
constantly changing? Yeah, sure.
11:15
So if you think about just ten years ago, you opened a
11:18
restaurant with a dining room to serve your guests at a table,
11:21
and now a meaningful percentage of basically all fast casual
11:24
business is done digitally. And so those customers often
11:28
never even step foot in your restaurant, right.
11:30
So if you think about just the math behind, you know, real
11:33
estate selection, build out how you configure your restaurants
11:36
to accommodate people who are just picking up food and not see
11:39
not not not sitting to eat or third party couriers.
11:43
It's it's a very different thing.
11:44
And so we've had to adjust by, you know, we've had these
11:48
restaurants that existed for, you know, our oldest restaurants
11:51
are, you know, 1010 plus years old at this point.
11:54
We've had to, you know, renovate and redo the way that the
11:58
restaurant flows to accommodate this huge new digital impact.
12:03
When you say digital impact, you're talking about like Uber
12:05
Eats, Grubhub, like like these delivery services.
12:09
One component, third party delivery is 1 component.
12:11
But then you also have our own native web ordering solutions on
12:14
our own app, right? So which can accommodate both
12:17
delivery and take out. So again, like, you know, you
12:19
designed a restaurant for someone to come order, sit down
12:21
and eat, and now we're receiving an order through a tablet, you
12:25
know, to a guest who's probably has not even stepped foot in the
12:27
restaurant or there's a potential that they haven't even
12:29
stepped foot in the restaurant. They're just probably, you know,
12:31
could be a delivery only customer, it could be a takeout
12:34
only customer. So just serving that guest is a
12:37
much different thought process, right, than knowing that they're
12:40
eating and sitting down or sitting down to eat.
12:44
And so as you are looking at new store locations, does the
12:48
footprint change under this new dynamic of fewer people sort of
12:53
coming in to sit down? Yeah, absolutely.
12:55
You know the to accommodate the same you call it AUD is the, you
12:59
know, average unit volume of the store.
13:01
You now need less real estate because you don't have to have
13:04
the seats to hit that revenue number.
13:07
So we want to think about things like very fast throughput from
13:11
when an order gets received and when it's put in the bag and
13:14
ready to be picked up. We have to focus more on
13:17
minimizing order errors. If you, you know, forgetting
13:19
something in that bag, being the guest is not there to, like, see
13:23
it with their own eyes. And speed is important, right?
13:28
You know, someone's ordering. They're doing it because it's a
13:30
convenient way to get food. And you don't want them to be
13:32
waiting, you know, more than 30 or 45 minutes to get that
13:35
delivered to their home. So there's a lot more KPIs that
13:39
are different now than they were when we opened ten years ago.
13:43
That you mentioned that your brother-in-law Hugh is a
13:46
classically trained chef. So that really helped initially,
13:50
right, to establish, excuse me, really delicious food that
13:54
people were attracted to. But what you're describing to me
13:56
now is a lot of like really intense like operational
14:00
tweaking. Did anybody in your partnership
14:05
group there have the experience of sort of that operational side
14:09
of the restaurant business that they were able to apply or is
14:12
this something that you just kind of been learning as you go
14:14
well? We kind of had a cool
14:16
partnership at the outset. It was Hugh and our other
14:20
partner, Christos Guamos. He came from the restaurant
14:22
industry. He'd been in a restaurant in
14:24
catering halls basically his whole career.
14:25
So he came in with that operational experience.
14:29
You know, Hugh came in on the food side and I kind of came in
14:32
with, you know, everything else, but none of us had an experience
14:36
on how did the experience of how you transition to 100% seated
14:40
dinners to, you know, 60% of your revenue being in the
14:43
restaurant and, and 30 to 40% being digital, right.
14:46
So that's, that was a learning process that I think the entire
14:49
organization goes through. And you know, while we have the
14:52
foresight to get more early on and developing our our digital
14:56
and our web presence for ordering, it certainly was a
15:00
learning curve to make sure that we're doing it correctly.
15:03
Were there any, I don't know, resources or mentors that have
15:08
been helpful to you and sort of wrapping your head around the
15:12
sort of the KPIs and the metrics and the, the operational aspects
15:15
that you guys, you know need to kind of level up on?
15:18
Yeah, You know, not at the time that all this was happening.
15:21
You know, a few years ago we brought on some institutional
15:23
capital. We've had a, we have a formal
15:25
board now with guys who are, you know, have a lot of directional
15:28
experience. But when this was all taking
15:30
place and kind of the 2016 to 2019 period, it was really kind
15:35
of like a, a, a testing environment in terms of figuring
15:40
out what works, what didn't work.
15:43
It wasn't so much that we had a playbook to go by from somebody
15:47
else who had gone through this because the whole industry was
15:49
going through this basically at the same time.
15:52
I'm looking at your website, which is Mighty Quinn's with an
15:56
SB bq.com and the store locations are really cool
16:00
looking, both the interior and the exterior.
16:04
Did you guys have some outside help in designing these spaces?
16:08
I mean, you know, you're in the fast casual space, you know,
16:11
kind of like a Chipotle, but this, this feels a little more
16:14
refined. It's it feels like a little bit
16:16
of a step up. I appreciate you noticing that.
16:18
Thank you. You know, when we designed the
16:21
first location, we said, OK, we want this to feel like a
16:23
timeless restaurant. We didn't want you to feel like
16:28
you came in and we're being pitched some kind of hooky
16:32
version of BBQ with, you know, license plates on this, on the
16:35
walls and all the kind of things that you think about are like
16:37
stereotypical of like your BBQ place down South.
16:40
We just wanted a kind of comfortable, minimalist,
16:42
timeless location that 10 years later would still feel kind of
16:46
relevant. And so that was the foundation
16:48
of the restaurant design. And we've had obviously made
16:51
updates and changes as we've evolved in different formats and
16:54
sizes and locations. But for the most part, we kind
16:57
of try to stay true to that ethos.
16:59
So let's just build something that feels comfortable and
17:01
authentic and not something that feels, you know, like you're
17:04
over the marketing of the food category in a way that's that's
17:08
not real. How many locations do you guys
17:11
have now? Yeah, between the franchise,
17:14
corporate and license locations, we're about 17 right now.
17:18
OK. And you guys are in New Jersey,
17:21
New York, Maryland, Florida. Yeah, Maryland will open later
17:26
this year. We our first Florida location
17:28
did open at the end of 22 in Tampa.
17:32
That's also our first drive to the location.
17:34
So that was that was pretty cool.
17:35
Another example of, you know, figuring things out in real
17:38
time, you know, having a whole new sales distribution channel,
17:42
you know, selling through a window was an exciting
17:45
opportunity for us and we were happy that the franchise you
17:48
found this amazing location. And so now we have, yeah, the,
17:50
the drive through sales channel is another kind of arsenal in,
17:54
in the the AUV toolbar or tool kit to to drive sales and new
17:58
locations. What have you learned from that
18:01
drive through experience? Speed has never been more
18:06
important, right? Once someone places that order
18:08
that the clock is ticking and they are literally waiting,
18:11
sitting there staring at a window for the food to come out.
18:14
It's a little bit different than when you're trying to get an
18:16
order out for delivery quickly because the person's at home.
18:19
It's not like they're not sitting there staring at their
18:20
front door waiting for the doorbell to ring.
18:23
So in this case, it was really just figuring out how to dial in
18:25
the process even further to get that that water out as quickly
18:28
as possible. Were those lessons then that
18:32
you're able to apply to your more traditional locations that
18:35
don't have drive through where you can still shave seconds off
18:38
or did you kind of leave that refinement just for the the
18:41
drive, the location with the drive through?
18:43
Yeah, the refinement was definitely for the drive
18:45
through. You know, Tampa is a little bit
18:46
of a different market. It's hotter year round.
18:49
So there's the beverage sales are higher.
18:51
So we have its own dedicated beverage station for the drive
18:53
through. So there's certain things that
18:55
exist in Florida that are not really relative to the New York
18:57
market. So I think they're kind of their
18:59
own two different things. Do you see doing more drive
19:02
through locations? It's super competitive now.
19:05
Whenever you have a great drive through location come up, you
19:08
know the big brands are all over it.
19:10
So you know you're competing with guys with much bigger
19:13
balance sheets than we have. We are lucky down in Tampa
19:16
because it was a little bit of a of a project to get this, this
19:19
building kind of turned around and, and alive again.
19:22
It was an old bakery that has been closed for some time.
19:25
So, you know, going forward, we're definitely looking for
19:27
them. But we know, you know the the
19:29
club that the Class A real estate drive through locations
19:33
that they don't last long and often don't even hit the market.
19:37
Got it. And what's the growth projection
19:42
now, Misha, like what's what's on the horizon?
19:44
Are there more corporate owned locations coming?
19:47
Are there more franchises? What can we expect?
19:49
Yeah. Really both.
19:50
So we're working on getting our first location open in
19:53
Connecticut, which is going to be another pivot for us and that
19:56
that would be a a full service location with a full bar.
20:00
So we're kind of tweaking the menu to accommodate that new
20:03
format. And then we have a bunch of
20:06
franchise locations opening, two in Maryland, 4 down in in the
20:11
Tampa area. And so the team is really
20:13
focused on just executing this next, you know, five to seven
20:16
locations. That's our focus right now.
20:19
We're not really looking at growth right now beyond that
20:22
because when you go from you know, 17 to 25 or 26 or 24,
20:27
that's that's a big list and we want to make sure we execute
20:29
correctly. So the location in Connecticut
20:34
with a full bar, this is a bit of a different approach, right?
20:37
Because I'm hearing you say that a lot of these locations you're
20:39
getting less sit down business, right?
20:41
More take out, more delivery. And now with a full bar, you
20:45
know, now you're even more so inviting people to come in and
20:48
kind of, you know, park it in the seat for a little while.
20:51
What's the what's sort of behind this thought process?
20:53
That's a great question. So if you look at the growth of
20:57
Mighty Quinns, our real estate has not been very formulaic in
21:01
that one looks like the other. We've really opened up different
21:05
location sizes and formats depending on the market.
21:08
So we have a 680 square foot location down on Wall Street
21:11
with just communal seating as part of a food hall.
21:14
You know we have a 3500 square foot restaurant in Clifton with
21:18
100 seats, right? So very different.
21:20
And this in this instance, we found a neighborhood where
21:25
people are kind of going to this very specific dining district to
21:28
hang out and enjoy their evening.
21:30
And so we don't feel that the fast casual format would really
21:35
maximize our potential in this market.
21:37
So we want to also accommodate the atmosphere, the bar, the
21:40
relaxed vibe. There's also going to be a small
21:42
game room in this location. So it's really about fitting the
21:46
format and the service style to the region.
21:48
And in this case, we feel like we've kind of linked those two
21:52
together correctly by having a more full service offering.
21:55
Is that a bit difficult on your brain like, like there, I would
22:00
think there's a part of you that sort of wants to come up with a
22:03
cookie cutter approach so that it's easier to stamp out each
22:06
time. But you know what, you guys are
22:08
doing it, it's a lot more work, right?
22:11
You you got to look at each location and treat it uniquely
22:14
and differently. Yeah, I part of me wishes there
22:19
could be a cookie cutter solution, but in our markets and
22:22
that does work for barbecue in certain markets, right.
22:24
That the same, you know, 2000 square feet with cafeteria style
22:28
service or full or fast casual service format in the Northeast
22:32
where we're finding opportunities.
22:35
It's just it, it, it's just different and we don't want to
22:40
be beholden to the cookie cutter format because it's easier to
22:43
execute. We want to find a strategy that
22:47
maximizes the revenue and value of the brand.
22:50
And so doing it this way, it's a little harder, but we do think
22:53
that it's right. We're, you know, putting round
22:55
pegs and round holes and not trying to force a format that we
22:58
don't think will be successful in the area.
23:00
And so it's, it kind of is what it is.
23:02
We, you know, we do have people that we're bringing on with, you
23:06
know, deep experience and, and full, full service format and,
23:09
and, and the bar business to be kind of partners with us in this
23:11
location. So I think we set the foundation
23:14
of correctly to be successful. And I think this would be
23:18
actually really cool from a customer perspective, too.
23:20
Somebody becomes a fan of a Mighty Quinn's BBQ restaurant
23:25
and they're traveling. They're in either a different
23:27
part of New York City or they're traveling in a different part of
23:29
the country. And oh, I, I, yeah, Mighty, I
23:32
love their food. The quality of the food isn't
23:34
going to change, but the dining experience may be a little bit
23:37
different. Let's go check it out and see
23:38
how it how it's a little bit different here.
23:40
Yeah, 100%. Look, our culinary team is so
23:42
talented. They do an amazing job, but at
23:44
the same time, they're still kind of fenced in to this fast
23:47
casual format service style, right?
23:49
Which limits what we can do. And now if you take that same
23:52
amazing skill set and transfer it into a full kitchen with
23:56
grills, you know, flat tops, fryers, everything that we need
24:00
to create a broader menu, I think people are going to really
24:02
be impressed with the product we're putting on the table.
24:04
Because now these guys have the ability to really no longer be
24:08
kind of fenced into fast casual format parameters and really can
24:11
do we can do whatever we want. And I think the food is going to
24:13
be truly phenomenal. So sometimes when I talk to
24:18
newer franchises, franchisors that are expanding, sometimes
24:24
they run into supply chain issues as they go a little bit
24:28
further out geographically. You know, so you'll see
24:31
traditionally a franchise sort of start, you know, in New York,
24:34
for example, New Jersey's not a big deal.
24:36
You can kind of ship all your, you know, different foods and
24:38
your ingredients in, in, in a region there.
24:40
But now you're expanding to to Maryland, now you're expanding
24:43
to Florida. Were there any issues that
24:46
you've run into there on the supply chain side?
24:49
Well, we we set up our supply chain out to knowing that we're
24:51
expanding it's new areas. And so by virtue of that we only
24:54
teamed up with national suppliers.
24:57
So the guys that we partner with they can facilitate you know
25:00
deliveries in really any major market.
25:03
So we feel and the deals that we have with on the on the product
25:06
side is also with national producers.
25:08
So in terms of supply chain, I think we're fairly dialed in.
25:11
It's not an issue now. You mentioned you're, you know,
25:15
17, going to 25 locations like that is sort of all the further
25:19
that you're looking at the moment.
25:21
But you know, what do you think things look like in the next few
25:25
years? Are you guys you're looking for
25:27
more franchisees? Are you looking at other
25:29
geographies? What, what's sort of the thought
25:31
process here? Is that too far down the road to
25:36
really think about? Well, we have to think about it
25:38
because it's important as we're trying to, you know, maximize
25:40
the value of the company to think about kind of a longer
25:42
term plan. But right now when you're kind
25:45
of, you know, when you're, when you're hiking up a mountain and
25:47
the mountains very steep, you're not really, you don't really
25:49
care what's on the other side of that mountain.
25:51
And we're kind of that's where we're at right now.
25:53
But I will say that we're also keeping our eyes open to seeing
25:56
what the market looks like. You know, I think over just the
25:59
past few months, we've seen a lot of, I would call it, you
26:04
know, chaos in some of the the multi unit restaurant groups,
26:09
some, you know, filing for bankruptcy, others getting
26:11
acquired. I think there's going to be a
26:13
lot of opportunity to expand in a non traditional way.
26:17
You know, Mighty Quince right now, we're really looking mostly
26:19
at second generation spaces that we're taking over to renovate
26:22
versus, you know, 6-7 years ago, we were starting with, you know,
26:25
a concrete shell from from nothing.
26:27
So we're just, you know, we're focused on the growth for this
26:30
year and next year and we are mindful of keeping our eyes open
26:33
to seeing what opportunities present themselves in the
26:35
market. Along those lines, I've found an
26:38
article online that mentioned in early 2023 that you made a
26:42
strategic investment in Detroit based Slow's BBQ.
26:48
Tell me. Tell me more about how that came
26:49
about. Yeah.
26:50
So you know, one of the interesting things about fast
26:52
casual BBQ, I guess barbecue in general, is, you know there is
26:56
no nationally recognized BBQ chain, right?
26:59
There's no Shake Shack of BBQ, right?
27:02
There's regionally strong multi unit players who are probably #1
27:06
or #2 in their markets and we kind of have to step back and
27:10
say, OK, why is that right? Why can't there become a
27:13
nationally recognized go to spot for this category?
27:16
And and the reason is a is a few fold.
27:18
First off, you know, there are some regional styles, but I
27:21
think that's kind of like a secondary issue.
27:24
The main issue is like these brands come up and they become
27:27
the go to spots for their market.
27:28
They're loved locally and time and time again, you know, we see
27:32
them try to expand into new markets and often fail.
27:35
And so we're very mindful of this category being very
27:38
successful in a small regional basis, doesn't have to be one
27:41
state or city, but you know a cluster of states or a cluster
27:44
of markets where the company really has lineage in history.
27:47
And so we thought that and I think the kind of growth path
27:51
for us going forward is potentially also on the
27:54
acquisition side whereby we fold other successful BBQ chains
27:57
under our umbrella, not to rebrand them, but just to get
28:01
the benefits of scale to the common ownership while
28:04
maintaining individually successful brands.
28:06
So I think that's and that's going to be a big value driver
28:09
for, you know, the category I think going forward.
28:12
And so where does that scale come into play?
28:14
Is it supply chain? Is it like back office
28:17
administrative stuff? Is it?
28:19
Other supply chain is a big component of that.
28:22
You know, if you think about BBQ restaurants, we're buying 80 to
28:25
90% of all the same proteins you know you're buying racks of ribs
28:28
and chickens and briskets. And so being able to scale up on
28:32
those volumes allows you to get some pricing benefit, but also
28:35
consistency of supply as it's become kind of a bigger player.
28:39
So that's, so there's purchasing synergies and there's also I
28:43
think a more subjective best practices synergy opportunity
28:46
whereby we have a collective playbook of how brands have gone
28:52
from 1:00 to 10:00 to 20. And I think there's a lot of
28:55
learning in that history that can be applied to other brands.
29:00
And so while we think we can be helpful in maximizing a UV, you
29:04
know, the sales of brand portfolios and minimizing their
29:07
costs on the purchasing side, there's probably also a lot of
29:10
things that could be implemented to just improve operational
29:13
excellence. And by virtue of that, all these
29:15
brands become stronger, you know, can probably grow faster
29:19
and maybe that allows them to get to a better kind of
29:22
valuation for themselves over the long term.
29:25
And if we can do that under a common ownership umbrella, then
29:28
I think like that's where the real opportunity lies.
29:32
So as somebody who's never been into one of your restaurants,
29:35
all I can do is, you know, look at your website, listen to your
29:38
story. And I'm like, wow, this is
29:39
really cool. Like it's, it's a, it's a neat
29:41
brand. The, the stores are, are really
29:43
interesting. Talk to me about the food side
29:46
of things. Clearly that's been a really
29:49
important part of your success. What are you guys doing that's
29:52
different from other BBQ restaurants that you know, had
29:56
you selling out from your, you know, your first food market
29:59
experience and then three months after you open, you know, to win
30:03
the, the Academy Awards of, you know, of, of, of a food review.
30:08
Yeah. No, it's a good question.
30:09
I think that when we've started the franchise business, we
30:13
wanted to make as much as as we're make as as many of the
30:18
steps in in food preparation and service as possible to be almost
30:25
formulaic, right? Just to leave as little room for
30:28
error on getting an amazing piece of meat out of the pit and
30:31
onto the plate. And I think that by teaching our
30:36
system, you can create an end product that's probably far
30:41
superior than just, you know, the one off chef is kind of
30:44
eyeballing things. And without him, the restaurant
30:46
failed because there's no consistency.
30:48
So we really try to set franchisees up for, you know,
30:51
serving a consistent product, but also giving them the
30:53
operational tools to, you know, make it a viable business by,
30:57
you know, minimizing waste, knowing what products to
31:00
purchase and how much to purchase.
31:02
You know, really the whole playbook of why people kind of,
31:04
you know, sign up with with franchise businesses because all
31:07
of that hard work has already been figured out.
31:09
And so if you look at like, for example, our last new market
31:12
down in Tampa, you know, these guys are about to hit a 4.7, you
31:16
know, star rating on Google with, you know, 700 plus
31:18
reviews. And I think like it's slowly
31:21
becoming like the the spot to go to for authentic BBQ as more
31:26
people discover it and have a similar, you know, amazing
31:29
experience inside our restaurant.
31:31
And then that's the, that's the draft you want that I mentioned.
31:34
You guys have been around for several years, meaning that you
31:38
guys were around before COVID, during COVID, and thankfully not
31:45
all brands were able to say this after COVID.
31:48
What was it like trying to navigate that uncertain time
31:52
period there in the middle? Obviously, super challenging.
31:57
You know, I think a lot of our decision making was based on
32:02
sitting back and watching the broader restaurant market
32:08
respond to this pandemic. No one had a playbook obviously.
32:12
And you know, you constantly are sitting there making decisions,
32:16
often second guessing decisions. But I think at the end of the
32:19
day, you know, COVID made us kind of minimize the business in
32:28
terms of really understanding what's the foundational
32:30
necessities to keep Mighty Quinn's going.
32:33
And right, we that, that was kind of our new starting point.
32:36
And so there's a lot of businesses that we had to go
32:38
back from, a few restaurants that we had to close.
32:41
But I think coming out of that, we had a kind of a more start up
32:47
mentality in that we knew that people had to start wearing
32:51
multiple hats and working collectively.
32:55
So, you know, for the greater good of the business and not
32:58
kind of siloed doing specific tasks.
33:01
And so I think for everyone, it was a learning curve adapting to
33:04
that, that new reality. But as we sit here, you know,
33:07
four years later, 3 1/2 years later, I think it's we're in a
33:11
better place with an amazing team, many of whom have been
33:14
with us since COVID. And we're super excited about
33:18
the future of, you know, the only way restaurant groups can
33:20
grow is by having, you know, the team in place that is really
33:24
the, the engine behind that growth.
33:26
And I think we have a solid crew that's, you know, shared that
33:30
mission. Anisha, aside from the COVID
33:33
experience, which was truly challenging on its own, what's
33:36
what's another serious challenge either on a personal or
33:38
professional side that you had to overcome and some of the
33:42
lessons maybe that you learned coming through the other side of
33:45
it? You know, it's funny, coming
33:47
from a Wall Street background, you know, you're basically
33:53
staring at the market all day, right?
33:54
So from 9:30 to 4:00, stocks are trading up, stocks are trading
33:58
down, and you can kind of measure your success based on
34:00
your portfolio fix doing well or not, right?
34:03
So at the end of the day, you're either an idiot or a genius,
34:05
right, depending on how your portfolio did.
34:08
And so for me, coming to the restaurant business, it was a
34:10
much slower response environment.
34:13
If we launched a new menu item or did some strategic on the
34:16
marketing side, it wasn't that instantaneous.
34:18
Am I right or wrong? You know, so teaching myself
34:22
that patience to let kind of these new initiatives play out
34:26
and let the market digest them and get true data points.
34:30
There's a much longer kind of time horizon then being in the
34:35
stock market where you're kind of validated almost immediately
34:37
and you could also change your mind immediately, which is very
34:40
different than the restaurant business.
34:42
It's a totally different pace of feedback.
34:44
Exactly. The feedback loop is much longer
34:47
and you know, when you're kind of in the public markets, you
34:52
always know that if you're wrong, you can just sell
34:54
something. And in the restaurant business,
34:57
it's like make that real estate decision, the 10 year lease,
35:00
there's a lot more work that goes involved into making sure
35:02
that that's the correct decision and you're not always right.
35:06
Is there still a part of you that is having trouble with that
35:09
transition from instant feedback?
35:12
You know, sell it if it's not working to and we got to think
35:15
long term, you're making a long term commitment, a long term
35:18
decision and it's going to take a little while before you get
35:20
some feedback on if it's working I.
35:22
Think I've been conditioned enough now over the past 10
35:24
years to to know that things are not instantaneous and being
35:29
patient is often kind of the best recipe to figure out if
35:31
you're right or wrong. You know, as business owners,
35:37
we're, we're always got our eye on the, the bottom line, right.
35:39
And there there's sort of two ways that we can kind of make
35:42
that number move, right. We can, we can pull this lever
35:45
up and we can increase sales. We can pull this lever down and
35:48
we can, you know, decrease expenses.
35:50
I'm curious if you've got any examples of maybe some creative
35:55
ideas that you've tried to move either one of those levers.
36:01
Yeah, You know, it goes back to what I was talking about with
36:03
the restaurant industry always being a dynamic market.
36:06
It's always changing. I think as we're coming into a
36:07
slowing economy, people are much more value conscious and so they
36:12
want to make sure they're getting great value for their
36:14
money. And so for a few of our
36:15
locations, we're actually not testing out dinner and lunch
36:18
specials. So we're very, you know, traffic
36:20
is a huge KPI test. We want always to see that the
36:23
people coming in the door growing faster than it than it
36:26
was the prior year versus other things like, you know, check
36:29
average or check size. So, you know, offering something
36:33
that we think is very competitive on the value side is
36:35
interesting. So we just launched this test.
36:37
It's in week two. You know, so far there's some
36:40
interesting sea leaves that are presenting themselves, but
36:43
again, that'll take, you know, another four to six weeks to
36:46
really understand the impact of, of doing something like that.
36:50
Interesting. And you've got some sort of a, a
36:52
data tracking system on the back end that's feeding into a bigger
36:56
decision engine to help you guys understand what it is that's
36:59
going on. Yeah, the tech stack in in the
37:01
restaurant industry is super important.
37:03
So we have, you know, our POS system, which feeds into our
37:06
ERP, which is our kind of broad accounting and operations
37:09
management platform. So through the reporting
37:11
function of that we can see, you know, by day, you know what
37:14
items are selling at what locations and that's, that's,
37:18
that's in essence the data tracking tool.
37:21
You know, Misha, in a competitive job market like we
37:24
have right now, recruiting and retaining good folks is, is
37:30
really challenging. I'm curious if you've tried
37:32
anything creative or different that you found particularly
37:36
effective in there. Yeah.
37:39
So not something I'm directly responsible for, but our
37:41
operations team has definitely been leading into some AI
37:45
filters that have helped them on the hiring side.
37:49
And so these filters in essence allowed us to look at the job
37:54
candidate pool and make it a much more efficient hiring
37:58
process by increasing the show rates for interviews.
38:01
And also just the caliber of employee that they're talking to
38:03
is is is far superior. This is kind of a new
38:06
technology, but so far I think they've had positive results
38:08
with it. Well, that's fascinating.
38:11
I haven't heard people talk about that yet.
38:13
And so it's, it's sort of putting an AI layer over top of
38:17
resumes or applications that that you're reviewing.
38:21
And somehow it's supposed to help determine if these folks
38:25
are more likely to show up, more likely to be, you know, good,
38:28
good workers. Yeah.
38:29
And it's not, it's not solely just like a data analytic
38:32
platform where it's where it's reading, reading resume, resume
38:35
data. It's also I think doing some pre
38:37
screening for us, which is, you know, automatically filtering
38:41
out people who are maybe not that interested in the position.
38:44
And so, you know, it's a very time intensive thing to find the
38:48
right person to hire them. So we're able to reduce the
38:53
applicant pool by 50%. Of those 50%, there are people
38:57
that maybe weren't going to be showing up for the interview or
39:00
it was a very high no show rate in restaurant interviews or just
39:03
didn't have the right experience for the job.
39:05
That saves us a ton of time. And so it makes the hiring
39:07
process much more efficient. Any numbers that you're aware of
39:11
off the top of your head in terms of turnovers reduced by
39:14
this much or number of no shows to interviews this much?
39:19
Yeah. Well, I can't say that it's
39:20
solely a function of our new hiring process, but you know,
39:24
our turnover is down by about 30% year over year.
39:28
And so that's super important. I think that's also just a
39:30
factor of, you know, us promoting from within and people
39:34
staying on longer with the company.
39:38
That's a significant number. Yeah, that's quite an
39:40
improvement, Misha. What's something you wish you
39:43
could teach a younger version of yourself?
39:45
Something that seems so obvious now that if you knew this 1520
39:49
years ago, life would have been easier?
39:52
Just put all your money in Apple stock and go to the beach.
39:54
That would be the best advice. I don't even know.
40:00
I kind of was. I never thought that, you know,
40:03
graduating from, you know, undergraduate Business School
40:06
and working on Wall Street would lead me to the restaurant
40:08
industry. But I think it's important just
40:11
to, you know, in any job that you're in kind of it's a job,
40:15
but it's also your, your next iteration of education and
40:19
you're always learning things and just having kind of an open
40:21
mind to understand there may be things you discover that pull
40:24
you away from your, your preconceived plans.
40:27
You know that that road map of your life often has many forks
40:30
in it. And I think as, as we're all,
40:32
you know, younger people, we think it's just a straight shot
40:35
to our goal, to our dream. But there's a lot of bearing and
40:38
turning. And I think, you know, if you're
40:40
if you're more open eye to that phenomenon, I think you'll be
40:45
ready to make those important decisions when those, you know,
40:48
changing opportunities present themselves.
40:51
Was there any sort of an identity?
40:53
I don't know, crisis might be a strong word, but confusion when
40:57
you're this, you know, Wall Street guy and now you're going
41:01
into, you know, slow cooked meats.
41:03
Was there like a, wait a minute, that's not who I am, that's not
41:06
who I was, that's not who I thought it was going to be.
41:08
It kind of seems like a little bit of what you're touching on.
41:11
Not really. I never thought about it as like
41:13
that transition. It's more you know, going from
41:15
one business which is investing to another business which is
41:18
brand building. So you know, you know, obviously
41:21
what would you know the day-to-day is meaningfully
41:23
different and you know, in one version you have customers and
41:26
the other version you don't. But no, it hasn't been that that
41:32
black and white for me where it's like this jarring change.
41:34
And I think that having the right people around us, you
41:37
know, especially me coming into the industry with partners who
41:39
already had the experience, it wasn't such a crazy thing.
41:44
Misha, as you think about your own personal development or
41:47
professional development, I'm curious if there were specific
41:51
mentors or books or learning experiences that were
41:54
particularly formative for you. Yeah, I would say the best
42:00
business books are the ones that are not business books.
42:04
And I'll give you an example. I think the last one I read was
42:08
by Rick Rubin, the record producer, I think it was called.
42:11
I think it's called the creative act or a way of being, something
42:15
like that. And in the book, he just talks
42:18
about the way that his artists have been influenced and where
42:22
they get their inspiration from and also the creative process
42:25
and how that process has to be has to be nurtured in a certain
42:29
way. You get the output, which is the
42:31
best selling song, right? And so when I read this book,
42:35
it's just like business accolade after business accolade, you
42:38
know, understanding the source of your inspiration, you know,
42:41
why are you doing this? How is it going to be
42:44
successful? How is what you're doing going
42:46
to talk to somebody in a way that they're going to tell their
42:48
friends about it? And so for me, those type of
42:51
books, I think are invaluable. You know, Rick Rubens was one.
42:56
There was another book that I read about, I forgot the, I'm
42:59
blanking on the author. He's an Irish guy.
43:01
There was a story about, there's a little bit of science fiction.
43:03
There's a story about, there's a dinner party.
43:05
And at the dinner party, everyone's giving the cover of
43:08
a, of a newspaper from the future with the story about
43:11
their lives specifically. And they each see an opportunity
43:16
to take advantage of that data point a year in advance.
43:20
And like, for example, one talks about, you know, a stock that's
43:23
quadrupled. One talks about, you know, a
43:26
ship that went down and maybe that person was supposed to be
43:28
on that ship. And each case, they fail to have
43:33
any benefit from knowing that story in advance, right?
43:36
So through all these different convoluted things that happened,
43:39
you know, the thing that they thought was going to either save
43:42
their lives or make them rich, it didn't work out that way.
43:45
So, you know, the take away from the story like that is we think
43:49
that we can identify the endpoint and so we know the road
43:52
to get to that endpoint. But oftentimes so many things
43:54
happen that kind of knocks you off your path.
43:56
And I think being mindful of those things is super important.
43:59
So I love those books that are not necessarily business books,
44:02
but you get a lot of kind of business wisdom from.
44:05
It's interesting listening to you sort of describe those.
44:08
It's like I'm trying to think of how to sort of frame both of
44:13
them together because it's, it's almost like there, there's one
44:17
lesson over here, but the way your brain works, you're able to
44:21
then twist it and, and apply it to the specific business
44:25
challenges that you're working through at the moment.
44:28
Percent, you know, so there's those books, but there's also I
44:30
just love also there's there's just pure straight out of
44:33
business by autobiographies, You know, Brad Jacobs, you know, the
44:36
roll up expert just put out a book something like, I think it
44:39
was called, you know, how to make your first billion dollars.
44:42
Some kind of, you know, kind of like a a you know, kind of
44:45
cheesy on purpose title, but just an amazing story about how
44:49
he built all the various businesses and he was a part of
44:51
again and again and again. It kind of takes away that Oh,
44:55
you know, right place, right time thesis of people being
44:58
successful. When you see someone can do it,
45:00
you know, you know, 6 consecutive times, right.
45:02
So, you know, the straight up, you know, business stories.
45:05
I also enjoy reading about. If you think of the name of that
45:09
sci-fi book, let me know and we'll put it in the show notes
45:11
for everybody. That sounds like an interesting.
45:14
Yeah. Misha, I just have one more
45:16
question for you. But before I ask it, I want to
45:18
do 2 things. First of all, if you're
45:20
listening today and you like today's content, please hit the
45:23
subscribe, like or share button on your favorite podcast app.
45:26
Also, Misha, I want to let everybody know the best way to
45:28
get in touch with you. What would that be?
45:31
I guess it's easiest to find me on LinkedIn.
45:34
Just my name, Misha Madrid, the only one I made.
45:38
And Misha, for everybody who's listening and doesn't have
45:41
access to the show notes where we will include a link to his
45:44
LinkedIn profile. Misha is MICHA and Magic is
45:47
MAGID. OK, so last question for you,
45:51
Misha, I'm curious, how do you see your business evolving in
45:55
say, the next 5 to 10 years? What do you think the big
45:57
changes are that are coming? So for us, if we're executing
46:02
correctly, I think we'll be open in a few new markets that we're
46:07
already talking about and hopefully expanding into those
46:10
markets. And then we would also have been
46:13
successful in maybe acquiring some other brands that are kind
46:16
of doing their own thing and in non competitive areas that you
46:19
know, we can execute that mission of scaling up to success
46:24
and you know through acquisition.
46:26
And so the acquisition play for you may be very well outside of
46:31
the BBQ space. No, I think we're going to stick
46:35
within the category because to really get the benefits of
46:37
scale, we need to have all the things that we have talked
46:40
about, you know, the, the purchasing benefits, the
46:44
operational skill experience being transferred, the knowledge
46:48
transfer. So all of those components I
46:50
think need to you know, be in place for this to work.
46:53
And, and by just by virtue of that, it means that we're all in
46:55
the same, you know, category. And so when you say non
46:58
competitive you mean not in the same geography?
47:00
Then yeah, we're not going to look at a portfolio of
47:02
restaurants that can piece with something else that we already
47:04
own. Makes a lot of sense, but hey
47:06
Misha, I want to be the first one to thank you for sharing
47:09
both your time and your story today.
47:11
I really appreciate it. Absolutely, thanks for having
47:13
me. Great questions, I enjoy the
47:15
conversation. Appreciate that, folks.
47:17
That's a wrap on another episode of the Inspired Stories podcast.
47:21
Thanks for learning with us today.