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Ep. 3 - Entrepreneurism in Food Service · Big Talk About Small Business

0:03
SPEAKER_02: Hey everybody.
0:05
SPEAKER_02: Uh we're back here for another episode of Big Talk About Small Business.
0:11
SPEAKER_02: And of course, I'm here with my co-host, Eric Howerton.
0:14
SPEAKER_02: Hello, Mark.
0:16
SPEAKER_02: Hello, it's great to be here with you as always.
0:19
SPEAKER_02: It's always a good time.
0:20
SPEAKER_02: And we have two very special guests today.
0:24
SPEAKER_02: One is Omar Quesum, who is the founder and owner of a multi-restaurant chain.
0:33
SPEAKER_02: Um, Con Queso and Plomo Quesadilla.
0:37
SPEAKER_02: Quesadilla, excuse me.
0:41
SPEAKER_02: I don't know, my talk about that.
0:43
SPEAKER_02: But did you just say quesadilla?
0:45
SPEAKER_02: I don't know what the hell I'm doing.
0:47
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
0:47
SPEAKER_02: But uh quesadilla is about quiche.
0:50
SPEAKER_02: Anyway, that idea, right?
0:53
SPEAKER_02: We're gonna have my baseball.
0:54
SPEAKER_02: Well, we'll have Omar tell a little bit about himself and his story, but but um Omar is one of the most entrepreneurial people I know.
1:02
SPEAKER_02: Um he was a student of mine, but um he already had his idea for his business long before I ever met him.
1:09
SPEAKER_02: And uh he's also blossomed into a real estate uh investor.
1:13
SPEAKER_02: But um, what do you have?
1:15
SPEAKER_02: Five locations now total?
1:16
SPEAKER_01: No, so we have three and we're going on four.
1:18
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
1:18
SPEAKER_02: We're opening the fourth one in Dallas.
1:20
SPEAKER_02: Very cool.
1:21
SPEAKER_02: We can talk more about that.
1:22
SPEAKER_02: And then also we have our barbecue artist extraordinaire with us today, Jordan Wright, who has uh come on the barbecue scene not all that long ago.
1:35
SPEAKER_02: Would you open about six years ago?
1:37
SPEAKER_02: Seven was the food truck.
1:39
SPEAKER_02: Okay, seven was the food truck, and then you turned it into a real restaurant six years ago.
1:44
SPEAKER_02: And uh Jordan is is has dominated our market uh without question of uh is known to have the best barbecue.
1:54
SPEAKER_02: I just uh he's got three locations now in northwest Arkansas.
1:58
SPEAKER_02: And uh I had a friend that was coming through here.
2:02
SPEAKER_02: Um he lives in in Pittsburgh, and he was coming back from visiting another guy we know in LA, and uh he stopped off in northwest Arkansas and stayed at our house.
2:12
SPEAKER_02: He's like, I gotta drive to Kansas City to get some barbecue on my way back home.
2:17
SPEAKER_02: I'm like, no, you don't.
2:18
SPEAKER_02: No, you don't.
2:19
SPEAKER_02: You don't not anymore.
2:20
SPEAKER_02: No, no, you just go to to Wrights.
2:23
SPEAKER_02: You want to go to Crystal Bridges, so go up there, get there early, have a nice early lunch, beat the crowd if you can.
2:31
SPEAKER_02: Get there when the doors are opening, and you don't need to go to Kansas City.
2:35
SPEAKER_02: We got the best barbecue in the world right here.
2:38
SPEAKER_02: But um, so um, and then Omar with with Plomo, I mean, everybody loves it.
2:45
SPEAKER_02: It's uh it's just a novel way to serve the product, the way you put it in that tone, and it it it just creates a completely different experience and uh minimizes people hanging around in your restaurant too.
2:59
SPEAKER_02: You know, it's like carry this away with you, which is exactly what you want based on where you are.
3:05
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, especially at 2 a.m.
3:06
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
3:08
SPEAKER_02: But um you know, in any case, um Eric and I were talking about uh restaurants, and it really uh I wrote an article here in the recent Northwest Arkansas Business Journal.
3:19
SPEAKER_02: I don't know if either of you guys even saw it yet, but it was prompted by us going out to eat with our family.
3:27
SPEAKER_02: I had my brother and sister-in-law in town, and you know, normally my wife and I, we go at the Bella Vista hour, you know, which is what I call, you know, like we get out of there like five, five fifteen, we're heading because heading out because we know we can get in.
3:44
SPEAKER_02: And so with my brother and sister-in-law there, and I don't know, people were busy.
3:49
SPEAKER_02: We left the house at like 6.30.
3:53
SPEAKER_02: And wow, what a different experience we had.
3:56
SPEAKER_02: We and this was during the week, we went to four places before we found somewhere we could eat because everybody had 45 minute waits and uh you know it just sort of and then we went to a Mexican restaurant that the parking lot was empty and went ahead and just got seated and ate right away.
4:15
SPEAKER_02: But it just sort of brought up, you know, in my mind this this this idea that the the restaurant business is sort of bifurcated.
4:25
SPEAKER_02: There's people who are really, really successful, and then there's a lot of people who are just barely getting by.
4:32
SPEAKER_02: And I put you two guys in the category of really, really successful because you know what you're doing.
4:39
SPEAKER_02: And uh so I I think it's good to talk about that because we need to help some of these other people who clearly don't get it.
4:47
SPEAKER_02: Um tell us tell us a little bit about um your story, Jordan.
4:53
SPEAKER_02: I know you were working in corporate America before you got into this.
4:57
SPEAKER_02: How did you do it and what's your secret?
5:00
SPEAKER_03: I mean, uh to answer your first question about how do we help people.
5:05
SPEAKER_03: People have to want to help themselves that are business owners.
5:09
SPEAKER_03: I mean, they've got to be able to s want to see their weaknesses and want to be able to improve.
5:13
SPEAKER_03: I mean, there's there's a lot of gaps in our market specifically, and and I'd say most markets have gaps.
5:20
SPEAKER_03: You go to, you know, your major markets, your Chicago's New York's, LA, Vegas.
5:25
SPEAKER_03: D FW.
5:26
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I mean, that would be below those major markets, and and then go, you know, say then down to D FW, Houston, etc., um, Atlanta, you know, but you go those major, major markets, big, big cities, tons of co tons of culinary uh talent, tons of hospitality talent, bartender talent.
5:46
SPEAKER_03: There's just so much there when it comes to just the level of service and the service culture in those areas.
5:54
SPEAKER_03: And we just I don't know, we just don't have that up right here.
5:58
SPEAKER_03: We just don't have a lot of people and and specifically staffing and uh and just overall, whether it's bartenders, waitresses, waiters, uh, you know, hostesses, front-of-house GMs that have seen the the game be played on such a high level in those big markets.
6:16
SPEAKER_03: We don't we need to attract, I mean, our area needs to attract more talent in that area.
6:21
SPEAKER_03: And as we grow and get bigger, more people will move and better talent, chef talent.
6:26
SPEAKER_03: I mean, we've got great chefs in this area, but great chefs, great people that run businesses, but you go to those bigger markets, it's like, man, these guys are just crushing every little detail.
6:37
SPEAKER_03: Like you're you're talking about driving around not finding a place to eat.
6:41
SPEAKER_03: Why are we not why are we not better at reservations up here?
6:43
SPEAKER_03: Why are we not just more organized with better, better plans, better, better people running?
6:49
SPEAKER_03: So that you can then book your reservation at five and you know, hey, when I when I was when I was in Vegas last week, uh-huh, we want to go eat somewhere.
6:57
SPEAKER_03: Boom, I'm on Resi, I'm finding a spot, yeah.
7:00
SPEAKER_03: I'm seeing reviews as quickly as I can because I'm in a new market and I'm like, I know that place.
7:05
SPEAKER_03: 515, oh, they don't have 515, I've got a 530 degree up booked.
7:08
SPEAKER_03: I show up, I get seated.
7:09
SPEAKER_03: I'm not going hoping at some of these restaurants that I might get seated.
7:13
SPEAKER_03: And then you end up at a place that may or may not have been great.
7:16
SPEAKER_03: It was an empty restaurant, probably wasn't fantastic.
7:19
SPEAKER_03: It was probably just serviceable and you and you move.
7:21
SPEAKER_03: Exactly.
7:22
SPEAKER_03: But I mean, the way I got started, I mean, I was at food service sales back 12 years ago, 13 years ago.
7:29
SPEAKER_03: And selling the back house restaurants, so working for food service sales companies.
7:34
SPEAKER_03: And so getting to know all the products, processes, chefs, you know, getting to learn how the sausage was made behind the, you know.
7:43
SPEAKER_03: Literally in this case.
7:44
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
7:45
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
7:45
SPEAKER_03: And so I mean, it's like I mean, that's half the battle is half the battle of sourcing great ingredients, getting your product on time, and being able to, you know, manage back a house.
7:54
SPEAKER_03: And so did that and then moved on to Tyson and was selling, you know, frozen food, prepared ingredients, chicken, all that stuff.
8:01
SPEAKER_03: And so that's and then you know, kind of had a vision idea of what we wanted to do concept-wise, and then hey, don't suck.
8:09
SPEAKER_03: We were talking about earlier, don't suck.
8:11
SPEAKER_03: I mean, so it helps.
8:12
SPEAKER_03: The goal is you know, we we set out a goal to be you know, the best uh barbecue restaurant, and and not only barbecue, but best restaurant we could possibly be, and and then set a standard for the area.
8:23
SPEAKER_03: I mean, I think one of my first vision statements was like we're seeking not only to be the best barbecue place, but the best restaurant all that that entails service, hospitality, uh you know, cleanliness, and you know, try to be the best we can possibly be.
8:39
SPEAKER_03: So that's been the secret sauce is just standard above all else, and and when you don't hit that, get better.
8:46
SPEAKER_03: And knowing that, you know, the only thing that's important is tomorrow's meal because today's is already done.
8:51
SPEAKER_03: We can't change anything.
8:52
SPEAKER_03: What can we do to get better tomorrow?
8:54
SPEAKER_04: So I was gonna say, were you a backyard barbecuer as a hobbyist or at all?
9:00
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, so about twelve so ten years ago, my parents got me a big green egg in response to a story a ton.
9:09
SPEAKER_03: But um when I was twelve, I got a chemistry set, and it was the worst Christmas gift ever.
9:15
SPEAKER_03: And I was not good at science.
9:17
SPEAKER_03: Hated science.
9:18
SPEAKER_03: In fact, I was like failing in fifth grade at science, and but Miss Bishop was like not ever happy with me.
9:23
SPEAKER_03: And so, but my parents got me this chemistry set and then moved forward.
9:28
SPEAKER_03: It was like always every Christmas, we were bringing up the chemistry set, like, yeah, hey, listen, at least this is better than the chemistry set.
9:34
SPEAKER_03: No matter what the gift was, it was better than that.
9:36
SPEAKER_03: Right.
9:36
SPEAKER_03: And so that was like for 10 years, we were talking about that and laughing, and and then around 2011, 2012, they my parents got all my siblings' gifts, and it was like, you know, we were young, young married.
9:47
SPEAKER_03: I was young married with my wife Amber, and we just had our first kid, and you know, parents were still buying you know a lot of gifts.
9:53
SPEAKER_03: I feel like at the time, now that I'm thinking through it, it's like why why were that we getting so many gifts as adults?
9:58
SPEAKER_03: Um, which blessings, but my my sister's getting gifts, they're all awesome.
10:02
SPEAKER_03: My wife's getting new luggage.
10:04
SPEAKER_03: I got like a wallet and a belt.
10:06
SPEAKER_03: I was like, I'm good, I don't need anything.
10:08
SPEAKER_03: Why did I, you know, why'd I come to Christmas this year?
10:10
SPEAKER_03: I got nothing.
10:11
SPEAKER_03: And then they walked me out, they're like, hey Jordan, your gifts in the garage.
10:14
SPEAKER_03: So we walk out and it's like a you know,$1,200 grill.
10:16
SPEAKER_03: Holy unbelievable.
10:17
SPEAKER_03: My dad was like, Don't ever bring up the science, the chemistry set again.
10:21
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
10:21
SPEAKER_03: And so I was like, okay, deal.
10:23
SPEAKER_03: And then I started just kind of cooking at that point, just kind of just hanging out, and then started cooking for birthday parties.
10:30
SPEAKER_03: It was more affordable to smoke it myself, and um, and then people started asking me to, you know, cater a wedding here and there, and cater a church event, and so did all that and just kind of got into cooking.
10:43
SPEAKER_03: And then once you start cooking for more people, you're like, Oh, hey, I can cook for 200 people.
10:49
SPEAKER_03: Quite a bit of money.
10:50
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
10:50
SPEAKER_03: Let's let's figure out.
10:51
SPEAKER_03: And then I bought had a had a crazy idea one day to buy a catering food trailer, just a smoker.
10:58
SPEAKER_03: And then a friend of mine kind of challenged me, he's like, Man, why don't you just edit it?
11:02
SPEAKER_03: Why don't you just make some changes to the trailer and make it a food truck and do the farmer's market?
11:06
SPEAKER_03: There's no food there.
11:08
SPEAKER_03: So I emailed them, I emailed the farmers market people and and then took them some breakfast.
11:12
SPEAKER_03: They were like, Well, we're concerned you can't do breakfast.
11:14
SPEAKER_03: And so I took up some breakfast tacos and breakfast burritos and breakfast bowls, and was like, What do you think?
11:19
SPEAKER_03: And so they let me in in 2016, started the started the trailer.
11:24
SPEAKER_03: So that's kind of how it's been an amazing success story.
11:26
SPEAKER_05: Growing up, yeah.
11:27
SPEAKER_02: You know, I got a chemistry set when I was a kid, and it had benzene, which is a known cancer-causing chemical.
11:35
SPEAKER_02: And I remember like starting fires and mixing stuff that was like burning holes through our floors and everything.
11:42
SPEAKER_02: But uh anyway, get to those are the days.
11:44
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, they don't get to play with cancer-causing chemicals.
11:50
SPEAKER_02: But but you know, I I I wanna I want to get to to Omar here, but what one last thing I think was interesting in what you said, Jordan, is that you had a vision for what you were trying to accomplish, and and and that was clearly articulated.
12:05
SPEAKER_02: And you know, I think a lot of people start businesses like yours.
12:08
SPEAKER_02: They don't have a vision.
12:10
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, you know, yeah, I don't think you're wrong.
12:12
SPEAKER_03: I think I think some people might be talented in a certain area, um, and they may be good at certain things.
12:18
SPEAKER_03: I think I think in order to be a great leader, a great, great restaurateur, a great business owner, whatever it may be you're doing, obviously it's important to know where you're trying, at least to have an attempt to know where you're trying to get that vision will change and it will grow.
12:32
SPEAKER_03: I mean, if my initial vision was to be lunch only and be sold out.
12:36
SPEAKER_03: Well, then you start hiring team members and taking care of guests, and when the guest experience becomes, say, your your highest priority in that vision, then it's like, okay, maybe I don't need to be closed at two.
12:48
SPEAKER_03: I have now team members that want to live a great life and make money.
12:52
SPEAKER_03: I have customers and guests that want to come in and eat at different hours.
12:56
SPEAKER_03: We're not Texas, you know.
12:58
SPEAKER_03: So how I had to change my business model just to take care of more people, take care of my people, take care of our guests.
13:05
SPEAKER_03: I mean, that that and you know changes as it goes, but yeah, you're right.
13:09
SPEAKER_03: Without a foundational, like, hey, we this is who we want to be, it's really tough to you know find direction.
13:16
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, because something like we talked about before.
13:18
SPEAKER_04: I mean, honestly, what Jordan is is and Omar is too, he's actually a business person.
13:23
SPEAKER_04: Right.
13:24
SPEAKER_04: Right.
13:24
SPEAKER_04: You're not you're not just uh you know good at making food and barbecue, right, and making food.
13:30
SPEAKER_04: Right.
13:31
SPEAKER_04: Like you start when you start talking about that, you're caring about your employees, and then you're caring about your customers, then you're caring about team members and team members and guests, right?
13:40
SPEAKER_04: But I mean it's uh And I like the way you think that's even that's another statement about the way you're thinking is you're calling you know you're you know, you have called them that, right, and and categorize that because you care more for that.
13:53
SPEAKER_04: You want to make sure that it's it means something more.
13:55
SPEAKER_04: We work together.
13:56
SPEAKER_04: To you and to them exactly all part, right?
13:58
SPEAKER_04: But I mean, I think that's one thing I've missed that folks miss a lot in entrepreneurship, yeah, is that they're just thinking one thing, but really as a business, as an organism, right?
14:06
SPEAKER_04: And it's got to grow, you gotta cultivate it, and that's what you've been doing.
14:09
SPEAKER_02: That's pretty cool.
14:10
SPEAKER_02: It really is.
14:10
SPEAKER_02: So yeah, Omar, um, why don't you tell these guys a little bit about yourself and how you got started and kind of where you're going now?
14:18
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, for sure.
14:19
SPEAKER_01: And to circle back on the point of, you know, how can we help other restaurant owners, you know, I think that in business and in life, people have a lot of simple, not easy problems, but they choose to complicate it because it's easier to answer the reason of why these are happening through a convoluted, complicated answer than the simple answer.
14:42
SPEAKER_01: You know, and and one of the reasons why I got into the restaurant world having no restaurant experience prior or business experience because I was immediately out of college, was because the restaurant world is very, very d defined in the sense that you can look at any restaurant on the planet, look at their PL, and specifically looking at, you know, three or four line items, identify what the problem is with that business just by looking at a handful of numbers.
15:12
SPEAKER_01: Yep.
15:12
SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, I think there are a lot of great resources out there that outline this perfectly that it's you can look at this and say, okay, your problem is sales.
15:22
SPEAKER_01: You're not bringing enough sales volume.
15:24
SPEAKER_01: Your problem is your lease terms or your occupancy costs.
15:27
SPEAKER_01: You're paying way too much relative to the volume that you're bringing in.
15:31
SPEAKER_01: Your problem is food costs.
15:32
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
15:32
SPEAKER_01: So there's food going out the door, or you're selling food way too cheap.
15:37
SPEAKER_01: You know, there's a lot of different issues that can be simply answered by looking at the PL.
15:44
SPEAKER_01: And so that's the thing that I love about restaurants.
15:46
SPEAKER_01: But when you talk to restaurant owners that struggle or want the secret sauce, they are expecting some magnificent answer that, you know, it's like, oh, well, if you do X, Y, and Z thing completely different.
16:03
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
16:04
SPEAKER_01: And and you know, I think that what Doran referenced is it's about serving your guests and great providing a great experience.
16:11
SPEAKER_01: And then operationally providing an environment that allows your team members to succeed.
16:17
SPEAKER_01: Uh so I think that that again, simple but not easy, but usually the problems tend to be very, very simple.
16:24
SPEAKER_03: Well, you said you said Mark, you said no uh no what I think what business slogans or acronyms and things like the reality is it's uh I hate to do this, but it's KISS.
16:34
SPEAKER_03: It's got to keep it simple.
16:36
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, stupid or keep it still keep it simple.
16:40
SPEAKER_03: What do you say?
16:41
SPEAKER_03: Smarty Pants was from Ted Lasso last week.
16:43
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's funny.
16:44
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
16:44
SPEAKER_03: I thought of Ted Lasso, greatest show on TV.
16:47
SPEAKER_03: But I'd been telling my team, uh, I've got a baseball team of coach and I've been I've been telling him a lot.
16:51
SPEAKER_03: Like, look, it's not it's not difficult.
16:54
SPEAKER_03: The fundamentals are not difficult.
16:56
SPEAKER_03: The fundamentals of being a great baseball player, the same fundamentals that Mookie Betts works on every single day are the same things he did as a 10-year-old.
17:06
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
17:06
SPEAKER_03: But they don't change.
17:07
SPEAKER_03: There's not a magical outfield drill, just like Wilmore saying, there's not a magical recipe that's going to somehow save your business.
17:14
SPEAKER_03: It's it's literally managing the fundamentals, the blocking and tackling, the daily simple things that that will change a business from faltering to like, oh crap, we're paying, we're now paying attention.
17:25
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
17:26
SPEAKER_03: If you're paying attention, you have a good chance.
17:28
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, most definitely.
17:29
SPEAKER_02: What I love about the restaurant business is we all know we like tacos.
17:34
SPEAKER_02: We know we like uh quesadillas, we know we like good barbecue, at least I do, all those things.
17:40
SPEAKER_02: And so it's not like we have to validate the market demand, you know, which is I I get so sick of the way entrepreneurship is taught.
17:49
SPEAKER_02: That's like one of the most fundamental things is validation of demand.
17:53
SPEAKER_02: It's like, look, you know, we had other barbecue restaurants in this area, we had other taco places or whatever in this area, and yet you guys come on the scene and suddenly you do well.
18:07
SPEAKER_02: You know, I mean it it it it and the other thing is, you know, you mentioned keep it simple.
18:13
SPEAKER_02: I mean, the great thing about FLOMO, for example, is it's such a simple menu, you know, and so you don't have you can be good at doing something.
18:22
SPEAKER_02: I mean, yours is relatively simple too, Jordan, really.
18:26
SPEAKER_02: And and so being just good at something, you go in these Chinese restaurants and table of contents.
18:32
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's like, holy shit, how could anybody do all this stuff?
18:37
SPEAKER_02: Well, I mean, you're gonna be getting something that's not fresh, you're gonna be getting something from somebody that doesn't know how to prepare it.
18:44
SPEAKER_02: It's inevitable.
18:45
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, for sure.
18:46
SPEAKER_01: And I I think that one of the other things that I love about the restaurant world is that it's not zero sum.
18:51
SPEAKER_01: You know, so Jordan and I can sit here across from each other and not want to stab each other, you know, because we're extreme competitors.
18:58
SPEAKER_01: Like if I can attract, if I can put a restaurant next to Jordan, it's better for me because I know that his customers are eventually gonna become my customers and vice versa.
19:08
SPEAKER_01: Yes, you know, so but to answer your original question of how I got started, please.
19:14
SPEAKER_01: I originally came to the University of Arkansas solely because it was a top 25 business college.
19:20
SPEAKER_01: I originally was gonna go to the University of Texas, um, had dreams and aspirations to do that, got accepted, cried whenever I got accepted, and uh just really decided against it because when I got my acceptance letter to the University of Arkansas, they were allowing me to be in the author's college, they were giving me a full ride, they were doing all these things for me.
19:41
SPEAKER_01: And the University of Texas, you couldn't even become a business major.
19:46
SPEAKER_01: I I remember trying to uh go into and log into the the business college, and I could only do undeclared.
19:52
SPEAKER_01: And I asked them, you know, hey, I think something's wrong.
19:55
SPEAKER_01: I want to be a business major.
19:56
SPEAKER_01: And they're like, well, the first two years you're undeclared, and then eventually you'll go into business school.
20:01
SPEAKER_01: Yep.
20:02
SPEAKER_01: And I just always knew in my heart that I wanted to be in business, not necessarily an entrepreneur, but I remember seeing that and being like, man, you know, what if two years comes and I don't get into the business college?
20:12
SPEAKER_01: This is what I want to do.
20:13
SPEAKER_01: And they're like, well, you can always try the pong here.
20:16
SPEAKER_01: And here I was talking with some of the people that I now work with, being a professor at the honors college or in the business school, that, you know, they were so helpful.
20:25
SPEAKER_01: And so something about that, uh, and then again, of course, the the top 25 business college made me really want to pursue uh Northwest Arkansas.
20:34
SPEAKER_01: I I knew nothing about this area, but whenever I decided to come over here, I just said, you know, I'm gonna go ahead and make this the best opportunities possible.
20:43
SPEAKER_01: You know, I forewent my dream of going and starting my life in Austin.
20:49
SPEAKER_01: So I'm gonna make sure that it counts and make a big splash here in Northwest Arkansas.
20:53
SPEAKER_01: And so once I came here, I just fell in love with the area.
20:57
SPEAKER_01: Uh, I was originally gonna go to law school.
21:00
SPEAKER_01: So I wanted to get into transactional law uh where I could play both sides, be an entrepreneur, be a business person, but also be an attorney.
21:10
SPEAKER_01: I think that my parents, having been entrepreneurs themselves, always tried to steer me in a path of, hey, how can you work 40 hours a week, be able to get off by 5 p.m.
21:20
SPEAKER_01: and have uh a separate life for your family and whatnot?
21:23
SPEAKER_01: Uh, because growing up, you know, I was the guy that where everyone else was going to, you know, play sports or go do all these different things after school.
21:32
SPEAKER_01: I certainly got to do some of that.
21:33
SPEAKER_01: Um, but my after school program was going to the family business, whatever that was.
21:38
SPEAKER_01: Right.
21:38
SPEAKER_01: And so my parents really wanted me to not do that.
21:42
SPEAKER_01: They didn't want me to be an entrepreneur and put my future family through that.
21:46
SPEAKER_01: Um that all kind of went to shit once I uh, you know, was graduating year early.
21:52
SPEAKER_01: I had to either do an honors thesis, which is a huge dissertation, big book report, or I could do a business.
22:00
SPEAKER_01: Plan.
22:00
SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, coming from a family that is half Peruvian, half Pakistani, food culture is really big in my life and diversity is really big.
22:09
SPEAKER_01: And my sister lives in Dallas.
22:12
SPEAKER_01: And I remember anytime I'd go to Dallas, I could have all different types of food.
22:16
SPEAKER_01: And this is 2013, 14.
22:18
SPEAKER_01: Uh, so at the time, Bayetteville, the food culture really wasn't present.
22:23
SPEAKER_01: And I just remember always when I came home, I always wanted X dish or X type of food.
22:30
SPEAKER_01: And so I did a business plan on the problem that I faced every day, which is what people usually recommend you work on, problem that you face.
22:38
SPEAKER_01: And that was, you know, something that had ethnically diverse food options.
22:43
SPEAKER_01: Uh, and so that eventually became conquesos, which it was tacos with a twist, tacos that uh the the vehicle itself was really simple, the taco shell, but it was what was inside was flavors from around the world.
22:57
SPEAKER_01: And more and more as I started working on that in tandem with studying for law school, I felt like I was dragging myself out of bed to be able to study two hours a day for the LSAT.
23:09
SPEAKER_01: Uh, whereas whenever I was working on this business plan, it just really excited me.
23:14
SPEAKER_01: I found myself committing two or three hours and then working eight on this business plan.
23:19
SPEAKER_01: And I told myself uh summer of 2014, I was gonna work on both projects as hard as I could every single day.
23:28
SPEAKER_01: And by the end of that summer, whatever fulfilled me, what made me more excited about life was gonna be the thing that I decided to work on.
23:35
SPEAKER_01: And so uh by the end of it, of course, the the restaurant started really exciting me.
23:41
SPEAKER_01: And so uh without really telling my parents, I didn't show up for my L side exam.
23:46
SPEAKER_01: I uh tried to burn all the bridges and and jump two feet into this.
23:51
SPEAKER_01: And you know, now we're you know, six years later, uh a lot of whole ups, downs, and in-betweens, you know, operating three stores and going on four.
23:59
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's an awesome story, and uh it's been great watching you be successful.
24:04
SPEAKER_02: Both of you guys.
24:05
SPEAKER_02: So let's come back to a few things.
24:08
SPEAKER_02: I'd like to ask some really tough questions, okay?
24:12
SPEAKER_02: Um, one of my contentions is restaurants have not the best workers because they don't do anything for their workers.
24:21
SPEAKER_02: I mean, so many restaurants are basically operating on the same model of we just get the cheapest people we can get who will do the job and and they're all replaceable.
24:33
SPEAKER_02: How do you guys get good people so you can grow your businesses?
24:38
SPEAKER_02: And and of course, you're all you're both multi-location, you can't be there all the time.
24:43
SPEAKER_02: How do you get good people and how do you keep them?
24:46
SPEAKER_02: How about you, Jordan?
24:48
SPEAKER_03: I mean, I think you gotta know who you want to work with.
24:52
SPEAKER_03: I mean, you gotta know who you want to work with, you gotta know the type of people you want to bring on to be on the mission with you.
24:56
unknown: Uh-huh.
24:57
SPEAKER_03: And then you gotta get people to buy in and you gotta take care of them, you gotta care about 'em.
25:01
SPEAKER_03: I mean, bad business owners exist all over the place.
25:05
SPEAKER_03: Um to me, bad business owners create staffing issues for themselves.
25:12
SPEAKER_03: Someone thinks there's a staffing shortage or people that don't want to work.
25:16
SPEAKER_03: We've not experienced that in seven years, even through COVID.
25:21
SPEAKER_03: Um and it it really just it boils down to what culture do you create?
25:27
SPEAKER_03: Um how do you how do you strengthen and emphasize the culture of service, uh the culture of service to your team members?
25:34
SPEAKER_03: And how do you, you know, how do you do all that?
25:36
SPEAKER_03: Well, you do it by by caring, yeah, by giving a shit.
25:40
SPEAKER_03: And and really, really living that, not saying you give a shit, not telling everyone, oh we have such a great culture.
25:48
SPEAKER_03: We're a family.
25:51
SPEAKER_03: No, no, you're we're we're working together.
25:53
SPEAKER_03: Um, we're a team.
25:55
SPEAKER_03: Um, and so I don't know.
25:57
SPEAKER_03: I mean, I think that I think that people create their own issues because they don't want to work on themselves, whether it's how they're treating people, whether it's an anger issue or a stress issue, or an anxiety issue, or a trust issue.
26:10
SPEAKER_03: Um, you know, everyone used to ask me all the time, like, well, how do you deal with not, you know, how are you doing it?
26:16
SPEAKER_03: How are you how are you growing or how are you how are you having a life?
26:19
SPEAKER_03: How are you able to coach baseball and be a dad and and and run a barbecue spot and now two smokehouses or whatever?
26:26
SPEAKER_03: And the correct answer is or oh, you haven't cooked in all that look, I cook every day.
26:33
SPEAKER_03: I cook through my team that that follows our standard, that that cooks the food that I wish to put out every single day.
26:43
SPEAKER_03: So I I test it, I taste it, I judge it as if I put it out there myself and and you know, but in the same regard, I'm not walking in there eating a piece of you know, eating a bowl of mac and cheese and and throwing it at my at our kitchen manager.
26:58
SPEAKER_03: Right.
26:58
SPEAKER_03: I mean, there there's there's things that I know people do that I've never and and part of Omar, I think we're in the same light.
27:05
SPEAKER_03: Uh we're we we didn't come into this industry with a history of being maltreated or having a bitterness towards ownership or a bitterness towards our That's an interesting point.
27:19
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
27:19
SPEAKER_03: We came in as as people who wanted to run awesome businesses and awesome restaurants, and then you go start hiring great people and having fun, and there's really no freaking reason why you should treat your people, even if they make a mistake, like they're less than ever.
27:39
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
27:39
SPEAKER_03: And so, like it's a non-negotiable, and if you have someone on your team who treats the team or treats you uh less than or treats your guest less than, that's a real easy cut.
27:49
SPEAKER_03: And so all that I mean, the culture talk is is is huge.
27:53
SPEAKER_03: I mean, that's every business, but that's how you keep great people.
27:57
SPEAKER_03: That's how you don't I mean that that's that's the lifeblood of every good business.
28:03
SPEAKER_03: And you keep uh highly trained team members for as long as as they will were willing to work with you.
28:10
SPEAKER_03: And when they do decide to go somewhere else or start their own business or whatever, again go back to the same thing, you know.
28:17
SPEAKER_03: It's if if you don't train people to do it as better as good or better than you, what happens if you keep them ten years and then and they're still not not good enough?
28:27
SPEAKER_03: You know, or what happens if they leave and go up in their business?
28:29
SPEAKER_03: What happens if they don't and they stay and they're just bad for your business?
28:32
SPEAKER_03: It's just a cancer.
28:33
SPEAKER_03: You've got to train, you've got to lead, you've got to be involved.
28:36
SPEAKER_03: And if you're not doing that, you're gonna struggle to hire and keep people.
28:40
SPEAKER_01: But yeah, certainly.
28:41
SPEAKER_01: I think that there's three things that I tried to three objectives that I have with each new employee is one, how do we how do we give them a best friend at work?
28:52
SPEAKER_01: How do they have someone around them that really whenever they come into work, they're like, man, I'm excited to see so and so.
28:59
SPEAKER_01: To the point that, you know, our employees are even working and hanging out with each other after work.
29:04
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
29:04
SPEAKER_01: You know, um how do we hire people that this industry actually excites them?
29:10
SPEAKER_01: So there's a lot of joy that comes from the hospitality realm.
29:14
SPEAKER_01: And you really have to be a person that gets excited that when you put out a product, when you put out a dish, that when the customer comes back and they say, you know, this was an amazing experience, oh man, we love coming here, that that lights something up in you, you know.
29:31
SPEAKER_01: And so I think that it's important that the people that you you bring on, that that part of the the business really excites them, that they really feel, you know, really genuine uh whenever they get that that feedback.
29:46
SPEAKER_02: But how do you do that with some of the typical pay constraints and working hour issues that are associated with the restaurant business?
29:58
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
29:58
SPEAKER_02: And it's easy to say, but I mean, how how do you find those people?
30:02
SPEAKER_02: Because it seems like everybody's complaining about a lack of talent.
30:06
SPEAKER_02: You know, I mean, look at our unemployment.
30:08
SPEAKER_02: It's like the lowest anywhere in the nation.
30:10
SPEAKER_02: We're in just such a bubble here in Northwest Arkansas.
30:14
SPEAKER_02: It's it's amazing how good the economy is.
30:17
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I I I think that the first thing that I would always say about that is losers complain, winners train, you know.
30:23
SPEAKER_01: So the people that usually complain about that are people that that don't really have the infrastructure or the culture set up to maintain great talent.
30:32
SPEAKER_01: And maybe in in some cases, they're expecting people to come ready, you know, ready to serve in in the sense that they're ready trained, they're developed, they know how to do the job effectively, which some of our best managers, some of our best team members have been people that haven't been in the restaurant world, that have no prior experience, that really just been, you know, all the other fundamentals were right about them.
30:55
SPEAKER_01: They got excited about hospitality, they worked hard, they were honest, genuine people, and they understood the assignment when we would present to them, hey, this is you know what your job is, this is why it's important, and then really buying into that.
31:09
SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, the thing that I've learned over the years, having trying to do it umteenth different ways, uh, because like Jordan said, you know, I I didn't come in with this experience that it's like, oh, this is how things are.
31:23
SPEAKER_01: You know, I was trying to figure out how do we do things our way.
31:26
SPEAKER_01: And how is that, how does that turn into the correct way?
31:29
SPEAKER_01: Is that compensation actually isn't the most important thing to most team members.
31:34
SPEAKER_01: We've we've done it where we've been like, whoever, you know, we hire, wherever they come from, we're gonna pay two or three dollars an hour more just because you know, if they come from McAllisters, like come from Slim Chicken, some establishment that we know that their training and their development process is good, yeah.
31:52
SPEAKER_01: That it's like, okay, we're just gonna try to capture these people.
31:56
SPEAKER_01: And what we always found is that those people usually came and went.
32:00
SPEAKER_01: The people that thought that compensation was the most important thing to them rarely bought into you know the passion and the culture aspect of it.
32:08
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
32:09
SPEAKER_01: And so what we've found is that really if you provide a great work environment, people, there's a there's a certain floor.
32:16
SPEAKER_01: I'm not saying that you can pay, you know, team members anything, but there's a certain point where they're like, you know what, this compensation is sufficient for me.
32:25
SPEAKER_01: But what's more important to me is the work environment.
32:28
SPEAKER_01: And we've really, you know, going back to my my points, we've really learned that if we can have each team member really have a best friend at work where they enjoy coming to work every single day, um, if we can provide them an environment, they're learning something.
32:45
SPEAKER_01: So, you know, with our many college students, they've never cooked in their life, the ability to learn how to grill a piece of chicken is something that's a lifelong skill that actually is exciting.
32:55
SPEAKER_01: And and what's even more exciting to me is when they creative endeavor.
32:59
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and what's exciting to me is whenever they come and tell me, like, hey, I made, you know, my uh my girlfriend or I made my friends, you know, some shrimp alfredo the other day, it's like, wow, that's cool.
33:11
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, like yeah, it like foods, you know, becoming exciting to you.
33:15
SPEAKER_01: You know, though those two factors, um, along with again, hospitality being exciting to them, that it's like when you put out a product and someone says, You make a good uh you make a good product, that they get excited about that.
33:29
SPEAKER_01: Now, the um how we how we really make that happen is by creating a great product.
33:37
SPEAKER_01: So Wright's barbecue, second to none, that's a great product.
33:41
SPEAKER_01: I don't think you have the rights culture without having really, really good food.
33:46
SPEAKER_01: You know, plum quesadillas, people all the time come and tell us that this is the best quesadilla that I've ever had.
33:53
SPEAKER_01: They ask us about franchising, they ask us all this.
33:55
SPEAKER_01: And that, you know, when you have it's fundamental, isn't it?
33:59
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
33:59
SPEAKER_01: Well, and when you're sitting there as it is as a team member and you're working and you hear that every single day, it makes you feel good about where you're working.
34:08
SPEAKER_01: It makes you feel great about what you're contributing to.
34:11
SPEAKER_01: And for our managers, you know, we have like three or four managers that are under 23, 24 years old, that those guys are looking at me like, man, this is somewhere that I can actually work long term and make a career out of this.
34:26
SPEAKER_01: So they're no longer thinking this is an in-between job, that's my college job.
34:31
SPEAKER_01: You know, eventually, people uh through like feedback saying this is an amazing place, you guys should open more, you should open more.
34:40
SPEAKER_01: Your management starts to believe, like, you know what, they can open more.
34:44
SPEAKER_01: I can be a part of this too.
34:46
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that's not that's not no lie spotted there.
34:50
SPEAKER_03: I mean, I think the the the the pay culture um for a lot of places does have to improve.
34:58
SPEAKER_03: I mean, I think there is a there is a limit to what uh restaurants and what say uh customers or guests are willing to pay.
35:08
SPEAKER_03: Yes.
35:08
SPEAKER_03: Uh there is a there's a definite uh friction point.
35:14
SPEAKER_03: You've seen it with McDonald's um going to a completely automated service model in one of their locations.
35:21
SPEAKER_03: I mean, there is a level of where it's it's food costs so much to just produce great quality food.
35:29
SPEAKER_03: And then it it does cost a lot for us to uh hire great people, pay them well, above minimum wage, then getting tips, feeling good about them the revenue they're bringing in for their own families.
35:43
SPEAKER_03: Taking care of we we take care of uh 50% of employee benefits.
35:47
SPEAKER_03: We have uh uh unlimited paid vacation.
35:50
SPEAKER_03: So it's like for uh for our managers, that's huge.
35:53
SPEAKER_03: They take off uh for our team, we they've got uh two weeks' pay vacation and and you and that's why you'll earn that if you earn that off.
36:02
SPEAKER_03: The reality is people need time off.
36:04
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah.
36:05
SPEAKER_03: And and most restaurants will sacrifice people and just go hire again because somebody needs to take care of their mom for a few days.
36:13
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's crazy.
36:14
SPEAKER_03: Somebody needs somebody sick for two days.
36:17
SPEAKER_03: Sorry, you didn't pick up your shift, we've had issues, we're moving on.
36:21
SPEAKER_03: And whereas our management team is built to go take that load off of that person.
36:27
SPEAKER_03: So, hey, when that manager's sick, guess what?
36:29
SPEAKER_03: Our team knows that we've got their back.
36:31
SPEAKER_03: And if I need to go work an overnight shift at a rights, like I'm gonna be there.
36:35
SPEAKER_03: Right.
36:35
SPEAKER_03: I'll go work two weeks in a row.
36:36
SPEAKER_03: It doesn't matter what the issue is.
36:39
SPEAKER_03: You just have to be able to take care of people and know that you're out there for them and not against them.
36:43
SPEAKER_04: And I think that I think that some of the restaurant entrepreneurs that are they don't consider enough, they may have a great product, but unlike maybe what you guys have done, where they don't consider enough that the restaurant business is definitely a service business, right?
36:59
SPEAKER_04: Right.
36:59
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
37:00
SPEAKER_04: And in order to get for a customer or or or a uh you call it Jordan, your your guests to invest in your business or in your in your product over and over again and come back, they have to have good service and that's done by good people, right?
37:16
SPEAKER_04: Your good team.
37:17
SPEAKER_04: And I think that maybe what I was a quick question on how do you how do you identify a good team member?
37:26
SPEAKER_04: Like, I mean, we've talked about how important that is, but like in it is it in in the interview process, like I mean, is it intuition?
37:33
SPEAKER_04: I mean, what is it that is there?
37:34
SPEAKER_04: It's a lot of intuition.
37:36
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
37:36
SPEAKER_03: I mean, it's a lot of I don't know, you probably agree too.
37:39
SPEAKER_03: I mean, it's like you can look at a resume all you want, but till you sit and cross someone and find out their values, what makes them tick, what makes them laugh.
37:47
SPEAKER_03: That's one of my favorite interview questions.
37:49
SPEAKER_03: Is what makes you laugh?
37:50
SPEAKER_03: What do you find funny?
37:51
SPEAKER_03: What do you do for hobbies?
37:52
SPEAKER_03: What do you enjoy?
37:54
SPEAKER_03: If somebody's got no life to live, like there's nothing that really like if you ask if you ask me what makes me la laugh, I'll say stepbrothers like a 100% every single day.
38:04
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I'm a wrestler developer all day long.
38:07
SPEAKER_03: I'm curbing your enthusiasm, I'm I'm like all these things, so it's like but like you can tell me like if you ask me what makes you laugh, a lot of things.
38:13
SPEAKER_03: I find humor is very important in life.
38:16
SPEAKER_03: But if you ask me about hobbies, I play golf, coach my kids, uh I love sports, like I I love movies, I love great TV shows.
38:23
SPEAKER_03: Like there's things that make you who you are.
38:26
SPEAKER_03: Omar has things you guys all have things that make you who you are as a person.
38:30
SPEAKER_03: So if someone's like nothing really, I just don't really like much things.
38:36
SPEAKER_03: I do you know, I go to my house, I'm not gonna hire you.
38:39
SPEAKER_03: Like, but if you have a great personality, like that'll show in an interview.
38:42
SPEAKER_03: I mean, the resume is the bullshit that gets you the meeting.
38:45
SPEAKER_03: Right.
38:46
SPEAKER_03: You have to win the meeting to get the job.
38:48
SPEAKER_04: Well, your your business is a personality and identity of itself, right?
38:52
SPEAKER_04: So it's a life force.
38:53
SPEAKER_04: I mean, in all honesty.
38:54
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
38:54
SPEAKER_04: That's why guests are investing in it.
38:57
SPEAKER_04: And if you're interviewing somebody, they don't have a life force to contribute to it and it doesn't match that, then kind of does it make sense.
39:05
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, certainly.
39:06
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I I think for me, I I mean I keep interviews relatively short.
39:11
SPEAKER_01: And the things that I look for is one, are you smiling?
39:14
SPEAKER_01: Because if you're not smiling, you know, it's good point.
39:17
SPEAKER_01: You you're you should be excited for the opportunity.
39:20
SPEAKER_01: Sure.
39:20
SPEAKER_01: You know, uh, you should be excited to meet someone new and just you know, I can't think of a time that I met someone new that when they said, Hey, my name is so-and-so, that I just frowned at them and was like, hi, I'm no more, you know.
39:34
SPEAKER_01: You know, and so uh so you know, that that first initial part is is important.
39:41
SPEAKER_01: The next thing that Jordan kind of referenced uh is you know, what are you passionate about?
39:45
SPEAKER_01: I always ask people, you know, what's something that excites you?
39:48
SPEAKER_01: What are you passionate about?
39:49
SPEAKER_01: What's your favorite X, Y, and Z?
39:51
SPEAKER_01: And if your favorite thing can't get you talking about it, you know, if I asked Dwag about, it's like, what's your favorite car and why?
40:00
SPEAKER_01: We wouldn't have enough time to be able to be able to record this podcast because he's really enthusiastic about, you know, right right now the motorcycles, Janice.
40:10
SPEAKER_01: And so that's something that, you know, before we even uh did this, you know, he was talking to me.
40:16
SPEAKER_01: So so that's really, really important is like, what are you passionate about?
40:20
SPEAKER_01: And then I always just like to ask them, what do you know about the restaurant?
40:24
SPEAKER_01: Not restaurants in general, what do you know about our restaurant?
40:28
SPEAKER_01: Is there a reason why you want it?
40:30
SPEAKER_01: Like, why are you here?
40:31
SPEAKER_01: And there's sometimes where people are honest with me, they say, I've never been in here before.
40:36
SPEAKER_01: I just thought it indeed.
40:38
SPEAKER_01: It seems kind of cool.
40:39
SPEAKER_01: But, you know, looking around, like, yeah, this is exciting.
40:42
SPEAKER_01: Like, it seems like there's a lot of happy people.
40:44
SPEAKER_01: There's, you know, whatever.
40:45
SPEAKER_01: You know, then there's other people that they can tell me everything there is from my life from 2012 to present, you know, that they're like, Oh, I remember you graduated from the business college, you started this business, like you had this situation happen, you managed to bounce back, now you're doing this, and that's really fulfilling.
41:03
SPEAKER_01: So I I like to try to see what people for ego is that uh well in the sense that like yeah, there's there's a reason why that I it's getting more so and it can just be about the restaurant in general.
41:16
SPEAKER_01: It's more so like why what's your all alternative reason of why are you here?
41:20
SPEAKER_01: Are you here strictly for a paycheck or because you got fired from somewhere else that you just need something?
41:26
SPEAKER_01: Are you here because you're just trying to file for unemployment and you have to meet a certain amount of energy?
41:31
SPEAKER_01: I'm sure that's a reality for both of you guys.
41:33
SPEAKER_01: You have people like that.
41:35
SPEAKER_01: But then there's a lot of people that it's again, like they're like, I have the Escobar Quesadilla, and I freaking love that thing.
41:42
SPEAKER_01: It's like, okay, great.
41:43
SPEAKER_01: If you love our food, we can teach you the rest.
41:45
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
41:45
SPEAKER_01: And so that's something that that I those three questions are usually what I ask.
41:49
SPEAKER_02: I I I'd like to take it a a new direction for a minute.
41:53
SPEAKER_02: Again, as an observer of small business and critic of everything in life in general, which is probably why I'm on wife number three, in part, at least.
42:05
SPEAKER_02: Um I go in a ton of restaurants, okay.
42:09
SPEAKER_02: I mean, we just eat out so much.
42:10
SPEAKER_02: I I I wish I could get that MX bill down below 16 grand a month because it's just killing us living on a fixed income.
42:18
SPEAKER_02: But um I think you get five months for us, okay?
42:22
SPEAKER_02: I mean it's a low fixed income too.
42:24
SPEAKER_02: I mean, it it it you know, but but it you know, I go in a lot of restaurants and and I see some of the same things.
42:31
SPEAKER_02: It's like we went in one um uh night before last, it was my uh uh now 12-year-old daughter's birthday, and we were up in Rogers and had to go to Build a Bear workshop and then go out to eat.
42:45
SPEAKER_02: And we step in this place, and here we are.
42:48
SPEAKER_02: It's early, there's nobody at the hostess desk, and the the the workers just keep walking by and walking by and walk, and nobody says, Hey, sorry, we'll be with you in just a minute, please bear with us.
43:02
SPEAKER_02: Nothing.
43:03
SPEAKER_02: I was I honestly, I was pissed off after the 10 minutes we stood there until somebody finally came over.
43:10
SPEAKER_02: It's only because my wife decides to go walk back in the restaurant and go, you know, hey, can somebody wait on us?
43:18
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I don't understand how anything like that can happen.
43:21
SPEAKER_02: And then secondly, why are the quantities so big everywhere?
43:27
SPEAKER_02: If you go to the chain restaurants, I could feed my family of four on on some of the the the quantities that we get.
43:35
SPEAKER_02: If they're worried about their profitability, it seems like they'd be a lot more consistent and and you know uh uh have have better portion control.
43:49
SPEAKER_03: What is that about?
43:50
SPEAKER_03: There's a lot to unwrap there.
43:52
SPEAKER_03: Um number one, I'm not gonna ask you what restaurant I really want to ask you what restaurant it was.
43:57
SPEAKER_03: Just to like think through Uh just the framework of the question of how that would happen.
44:03
SPEAKER_03: It rhymes with brillies.
44:04
SPEAKER_03: No, it was a chain.
44:05
SPEAKER_03: It wasn't chilies.
44:07
SPEAKER_03: It was a chain.
44:08
SPEAKER_03: But it was a chain.
44:08
SPEAKER_03: It was a chain.
44:09
SPEAKER_03: It was a chain.
44:12
SPEAKER_03: It was um big orange.
44:13
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
44:14
SPEAKER_03: So that's a that's a local change.
44:15
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
44:16
SPEAKER_03: That's a local chain.
44:17
SPEAKER_03: Um Yellow Rocket does a great job across their their their business.
44:22
SPEAKER_03: Oh no, absolutely.
44:23
SPEAKER_03: And so that's what what I was thinking through is a number one, how would that happen?
44:28
SPEAKER_03: Um and and I think that what happens from a guest's perspective versus like an operator perspective people are not perfect.
44:41
SPEAKER_03: Restaurants are not perfect.
44:42
SPEAKER_03: There's a lot of imperfect people at a lot of imperfect restaurants trying to serve a lot of imperfect guests.
44:48
SPEAKER_03: So so what what what takes place is kind of uh okay, what's my expectation?
44:55
SPEAKER_03: How long was that wait?
44:58
SPEAKER_03: Was it five minutes?
44:59
SPEAKER_03: Five minutes is a long time.
45:00
SPEAKER_03: Ten minutes.
45:01
SPEAKER_03: Ten minutes is an eternity.
45:02
SPEAKER_03: Close your eyes and keep them closed for a minute and a half, and you're gonna be like, man, I was did I fall asleep?
45:08
SPEAKER_03: That was that's a minute and a half is a long time.
45:10
SPEAKER_03: If you forget the ranch for your fries at Big Orange, and that waitress has to go back to the kitchen while you're waiting to eat for another minute and a half after waiting for ten minutes to get sat, after waiting another ten minutes to finally get food or fifteen, and then it's another minute and a half or two to go do this.
45:26
SPEAKER_03: There's a lot of lack of perspective from an awareness.
45:31
SPEAKER_03: And again, this goes back to the service culture, um, just understanding how we view hospitality in this specific market.
45:40
SPEAKER_03: Um, but what works, like what works for big orange, like what do they do really well, what works for Yellow Rocket?
45:47
SPEAKER_03: A lot of times, and even this will help you as a lifelong critic of things, is instead of walking into any restaurant, whether it's big orange, chilies, rice, lomo, chewy's, um, whatever Smitty's, instead of kind of like looking at what's not working, sit there and kind of say, Okay, I do realize uh everyone can, it's really easy to recognize what didn't work there, right?
46:10
SPEAKER_03: They didn't have a hostess on on on there.
46:13
SPEAKER_03: So what it was a great burger.
46:15
SPEAKER_03: It's great that's what is working by them.
46:17
SPEAKER_03: What is working for them is they've got great food.
46:19
SPEAKER_03: Right.
46:20
SPEAKER_03: They've got great ambiance, yep, uh atmosphere.
46:23
SPEAKER_03: They usually have great staff.
46:24
SPEAKER_03: Every every yellow rocket concept I is usually the server was excellent.
46:29
SPEAKER_03: Yes.
46:29
SPEAKER_03: Somebody dropped the ball, and something probably happened.
46:33
SPEAKER_03: So if I'm looking at it as an operator standpoint, like if you would say send a one-star review to Google or Yelp and I wouldn't do that to him.
46:40
SPEAKER_03: Well, no, so but people do.
46:42
SPEAKER_03: And so if I'm looking at that review and I'm I'm trying to say, okay, number one, Mark is a human.
46:48
SPEAKER_03: I'm not mad at Mark for having a bad experience at Big Orange because of a hostess not showing up in ten minutes.
46:56
SPEAKER_03: I've got to view you as an operator, I've got to view you as a human who's who's got expectations, who's got wants, who's choosing to invest their dollars in my restaurant.
47:06
SPEAKER_03: And I think a lot of people get really mad at reviews and get mad at guests for having bad experiences instead of being able to say, okay, you're right.
47:17
SPEAKER_03: And then guests get mad at restaurants for one single flaw.
47:20
SPEAKER_03: Sure.
47:20
SPEAKER_03: Right.
47:20
SPEAKER_03: Even though the entire 95 per 90% of that experience was awesome.
47:25
SPEAKER_03: But they'll kill you for the five or ten percent or whatever did not go perfect.
47:30
SPEAKER_03: And so you've also got to say, okay, we did a lot of good things.
47:34
SPEAKER_03: If I'm if I'm Scott and the team down in Little Rock who runs Big Orange and I'm and I'm looking at that experience, we did a lot of things really great.
47:43
SPEAKER_03: But whatever happened with the hostess, that's a training, that's probably some training that needed to happen.
47:49
SPEAKER_03: And sometimes it's just a dead gum mistake.
47:53
SPEAKER_03: It's just something happened and that hostess got pulled off and was helping another team member and left the hostess stand un unwalked or unwatched for too long.
48:02
SPEAKER_03: And everybody in that business would all sit there and agree, be like, You're right.
48:08
SPEAKER_03: So I don't know.
48:09
SPEAKER_03: I mean it's kind of like how do we make sure as operators that that we're not just getting mad at guests for having a bad experience and also teaching that awareness level up.
48:22
SPEAKER_02: Um you're not gonna crash these guys.
48:24
SPEAKER_02: And we go back there again, but the point is there were we were there and then there was another set of guests there.
48:31
SPEAKER_02: No doubt.
48:31
SPEAKER_02: And you just kept seeing the servers go by.
48:34
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I you could I could say it's a requirement of the hostess, but really it's the servers needing to pick up on the fact that the hostess wasn't there.
48:42
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, in my mind.
48:43
SPEAKER_03: And my point is it's awareness.
48:44
SPEAKER_03: You know, yeah.
48:45
SPEAKER_03: My point is most of those chains, most of those places, it's it's getting the service staff to be aware.
48:51
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
48:51
SPEAKER_01: So Charlie Munger, you know, yeah, uh right-hand man uh Warren Buffett has a saying, show me incentive and I'll show you the outcome, or I'll tell you the outcome.
49:00
SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
49:01
SPEAKER_01: And so there probably wasn't an incentive structure for the server to take care of the host's job.
49:07
SPEAKER_02: Uh I I mean, there there should be though, because that's server with us at your table, and then we're gonna think better of the server.
49:16
SPEAKER_02: We get a better tip.
49:18
SPEAKER_02: There should be an incentive there.
49:19
SPEAKER_01: But but again, you know, the incentive may have not been there, it may have not been realized.
49:24
SPEAKER_01: So you got the outcome that you got.
49:26
SPEAKER_01: Uh the the the answer to a couple of your questions about why are portions so big, but maybe the wait time was was different.
49:35
SPEAKER_01: You know, some restaurants haven't figured out or miss have a misinterpretation of the value proposition of the restaurant.
49:43
SPEAKER_01: Right.
49:44
SPEAKER_01: A lot of businesses do, not just restaurants in general, but a lot of businesses, it's amazing that what made them successful, they start shying away from that.
49:54
SPEAKER_01: And so many times people try to reinvent the wheel when it's like, hey, this wheel got us rolling.
49:59
SPEAKER_01: Let's keep on rolling down the hill.
50:01
SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
50:01
SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, for the restaurant world, the value proposition, something that I always tell our employees is that, hey guys, like it doesn't matter what price is, whatever price is, it could be here or here, but value's got to be this far above it, you know.
50:17
SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, I'll I'll tell on ourselves, you know, there have been times where some of our employees at uh at Con Queso's, you know, they may be running out of plateware or something.
50:28
SPEAKER_01: So instead they, you know, it's near the end of the night or something, we'll use to go where.
50:34
SPEAKER_01: And there are times that I've been made aware of that where I've seen it myself and I've been like, hey, the customer's paying this much for the product.
50:42
SPEAKER_01: It's like, would you be happy about paying this much if it came in plastic cups, paper cups, and things like that?
50:47
SPEAKER_01: No, you wouldn't.
50:48
SPEAKER_01: So that ceramic wear that we use or that we have stocked is important because it adds to the ambiance, adds to the experience, adds to the value proposition.
50:57
SPEAKER_01: You know, and so I think that people assume that because you're in the restaurant world, all that matters is food portions.
51:04
SPEAKER_01: And that's not correct at all.
51:06
SPEAKER_01: You know, what matters most is the combination of the entire experience.
51:11
SPEAKER_01: When you walk in the door, is the music playing?
51:14
SPEAKER_01: Is the music on cue with what the ambiance is?
51:16
SPEAKER_01: Are you being greeted?
51:18
SPEAKER_01: You know, how pleasant is that experience?
51:20
SPEAKER_01: When you get uh taken care of, whether it's fast casual where you're ordering at the counter or you're being waited upon, what is the time between when you're first interacted with and engaged with to when you're able to get your food and then being able to leave?
51:36
SPEAKER_01: Because that's also really important, too, that you can have your food in 10 minutes, but if it takes the server 40 minutes to be able to Now we're talking about chilies.
51:45
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, right.
51:45
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's like once they bring your food out, it's like good luck ever seeing them again.
51:50
SPEAKER_02: Well, they want you to pay for it.
51:52
SPEAKER_02: They want you to pay through the the uh electronic device.
51:55
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, the electronic thing that doesn't work.
51:57
SPEAKER_01: You know, okay.
51:58
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but my point is is again understanding the value proposition of just saying, you know, hey, these are the reasons why our why we're valuable and you know, this is the price that we pay.
52:09
SPEAKER_01: We have to make sure that we excel on these things.
52:11
SPEAKER_01: Now, I've always found that I that unpleasant experiences, those one-star reviews, are opportunities for us to really become better and really introspect and say, you know, this situation happened.
52:26
SPEAKER_01: More than likely, it probably has happened a handful of other times.
52:29
SPEAKER_01: So what can we do to fix the situation?
52:32
SPEAKER_01: And we've turned customers that have had a really, really unpleasant experience into lifelong customers because not of what happened, because you can't change today, you can only change tomorrow, or you can only affect change for tomorrow.
52:46
SPEAKER_01: You know, we've I think that when people complain, they typically want a handful of things to happen.
52:52
SPEAKER_01: One is they want to be acknowledged.
52:54
SPEAKER_01: So they want to say, whatever I'm feeling, I'm I'm I hear you or I'm being heard to.
53:00
SPEAKER_01: They want an outline of what went wrong so that way they have an understanding that you understand where something went wrong.
53:09
SPEAKER_01: So and then third is they want someone to do something about it.
53:13
SPEAKER_01: They want some sort of a change that says, you know, hey, I totally understand why you're upset.
53:20
SPEAKER_01: You waited in line for you know 10 minutes, no one greeted you, that was your expectation, and we fell short of that.
53:28
SPEAKER_01: We should have done this, and then as a result of us not doing this, we want to make it right with you because you're important.
53:34
SPEAKER_01: So this is what we're gonna do for you.
53:36
SPEAKER_01: Right.
53:37
SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, I've found I always tell our our our team members that, you know, like I've got secret shoppers all around Northwest Arkansas.
53:46
SPEAKER_01: And sometimes that's people like yourselves that are my friends that are gonna be intellectually honest and will reach out to me and be like, hey, Omar, I came by your restaurant, subpar, not a great experience.
53:59
SPEAKER_01: This is what happened.
54:00
SPEAKER_01: This person did X, Y, and Z, need to fix it.
54:03
SPEAKER_01: I also have people that I don't know that are my secret shoppers that are the people that are going to review us, that are going to send me old emails, that are going to send me messages on our point of sale and say, hey, you know, they get the receipt.
54:17
SPEAKER_01: There's a direct feedback button that says, you know, I had a bad experience, I had a frowny face experience.
54:22
SPEAKER_01: And it goes directly to my email.
54:24
SPEAKER_01: And those are opportunities that, again, we can shy away from it.
54:28
SPEAKER_01: We can say, you know, that person doesn't know what they're talking about, whatever.
54:32
SPEAKER_01: Or we can take the opportunity to reach out to that person and say, how can we make it right with this person?
54:37
SPEAKER_01: And so at the end of the story, you know, they could say all they want to their friends, like, oh my gosh, I waited so long for this, it stunk.
54:45
SPEAKER_01: Then I had to do this.
54:47
SPEAKER_01: But at the end of that story, they have to say, Well, what happened?
54:49
SPEAKER_01: It's like, well, the owner reached out to me and he gave me a$50 gift card because our our meal was, you know, it was$25.
54:57
SPEAKER_01: So he wanted to refund me, plus he wanted me to come back, so he incentivized me by giving me$25 extra.
55:03
SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's that's a good ending to the story, in my opinion.
55:07
SPEAKER_03: I got a question for you.
55:08
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
55:09
SPEAKER_03: What would have been better?
55:10
SPEAKER_03: Would it have been better to have someone greet you, tell you that you had a 20-minute wait, and then go on?
55:17
SPEAKER_03: Would that have solved it for you?
55:20
SPEAKER_03: Well, I mean I'm just curious.
55:21
SPEAKER_02: If and this not, just thinking through the restaurant was largely empty.
55:25
SPEAKER_03: I mean, that this was but it but you gotta gotta get past the fact that it's empty.
55:30
SPEAKER_03: You gotta say what would it have been better?
55:32
SPEAKER_03: Would it have been better to have been greeted early?
55:33
SPEAKER_03: It would have been better just for somebody to say hello, just to recognize you.
55:36
SPEAKER_02: Then I know that they know that I'm there because that that would have solved everything.
55:41
SPEAKER_03: The big key here is yeah, you felt like you didn't matter the restaurant.
55:45
SPEAKER_03: No, that's right.
55:46
SPEAKER_03: And if any of us go look back at our our worst experience in a restaurant, whether it's as a guest or as a team member, my my worst experience as an operator is when a ca a guest says that they didn't feel like we cared about it.
56:00
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, like you said, guarded me.
56:03
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, so when you feel irrelevant, it it that I mean, and honestly, that's probably most people's worst experiences in life.
56:11
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, you're right.
56:12
SPEAKER_03: You're absolutely right.
56:13
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
56:13
SPEAKER_03: And so our goal, a guy named Michael Tibbs from Invictus Hospitality, I'd picked this up from him in Vegas at the Bar and Restaurant Expo last week.
56:21
SPEAKER_03: He said, you know, the biggest thing you can communicate to your team and to anybody in any business is applies.
56:30
SPEAKER_03: Take that feeling like Mark had.
56:33
SPEAKER_03: If I'm training that staff, I'm I'm talking to my staff and I'm saying, okay, let's let's put ourselves in Mark's shoes.
56:42
SPEAKER_03: Let's let's visualize the worst I've felt as a guest walking into a restaurant and not being treat not being greeted, not being informed of the weight, seeing empty tables and no one recognizing me.
56:54
SPEAKER_03: Let's let's put ourselves in those shoes.
56:56
SPEAKER_03: And then tomorrow or this next shift, let's go make every customer and every guest that walked through these doors feel the opposite.
57:05
SPEAKER_03: Right.
57:06
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
57:06
SPEAKER_03: Very simple.
57:07
SPEAKER_03: It it it's not difficult.
57:09
SPEAKER_03: It's just how do I make my guests feel cherished and honored and glad that they're there and eager to serve them?
57:18
SPEAKER_03: If they would have been eager to serve Mark, there's no issue.
57:20
SPEAKER_04: Well, there's problem solved.
57:22
SPEAKER_04: Your team is full of people, right?
57:23
SPEAKER_04: That and people have you know some of them that are gonna be really great at keeping that top of mind every single day and every single shift.
57:30
SPEAKER_04: But in most cases, like folks I mean, like to to be reinvigorated and motivated and and have that perspective.
57:38
SPEAKER_04: It's a daily task.
57:40
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
57:40
SPEAKER_03: And it's on your managers, your shift leads, your GMs, it's on them daily to have those shift conversations and pre-shift, talk about what's important, talk about what's going on, talk about the plan on how we execute guest satisfaction and all that goes into that, it is it's a daily battle.
58:01
SPEAKER_03: It's not something so if you were to go anywhere at once and it's done.
58:05
SPEAKER_03: Right.
58:06
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, because anybody can have a bad day, and anybody anybody on your team can walk into the store and say, and and and half of it, uh I'll say this too about staffs and restaurant team members.
58:18
SPEAKER_03: It's really easy.
58:20
SPEAKER_03: This is why I said to think about the review.
58:22
SPEAKER_03: And if I was if I was analyzing the review and uh how I have to view you as a guest and not just or and a guest as a human, as a person, there's a lot of No Mar you probably feel the same way of working in the stores and getting getting the stories of the of the bad guests experience that your staff had to do.
58:42
SPEAKER_03: Oh, there's some horrible things.
58:43
SPEAKER_03: And so there's some really there's some really tough things.
58:46
SPEAKER_03: I'm sure.
58:46
SPEAKER_03: But in the same regard, how much how many times you hear in the back of your restaurants and and and it's like, oh, you know, this guest, gosh, these customers, man, they're just every time coming in, there's just something, blah, blah, blah.
58:59
SPEAKER_03: And this negative, negative conversation about it.
59:03
SPEAKER_03: You can't have that.
59:04
SPEAKER_03: You just you it it's really easy to be like, oh yeah, cost and you're like, no, no, stop that.
59:11
SPEAKER_03: We're gonna not talk like that about our guests, right?
59:15
SPEAKER_03: These guests are coming in and blessing you with and blessing us with their with their time, their energy, their money, and they're they're putting that in.
59:22
SPEAKER_03: You can't view them as they're right as a proxic problem that like and complaining.
59:27
SPEAKER_03: It's like really easy for team members.
59:29
SPEAKER_03: Like this could fall into a great business if we just didn't have customers.
59:33
SPEAKER_03: You would just let them sit up here and do nothing.
59:35
SPEAKER_04: But that becomes a that's like in any business, it becomes like a a cancer.
59:39
SPEAKER_04: That's your poison your culture.
59:41
SPEAKER_04: Well, uh, if it dominates, then bad news.
59:44
SPEAKER_02: What one thing I know about both of these guys is they're highly engaged.
59:48
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
59:49
SPEAKER_02: Right.
59:49
SPEAKER_02: They don't shut down, they're both super responsive if you ever try to communicate with them.
59:54
SPEAKER_02: And I really value that.
59:56
SPEAKER_02: Um, what do you think about these these restaurant owners who think they can run their business from afar and just not be involved with it?
1:00:04
SPEAKER_02: I mean, do you ever see that be successful?
1:00:07
SPEAKER_01: Gotta have a lot of money and be willing to pay someone that will do all that work that we care.
1:00:13
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:00:13
SPEAKER_01: But you've got to have a lot of money.
1:00:15
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you got to be willing to pay someone to where they feel like they're an entrepreneur and also have an incentive structure in place where that person can succeed.
1:00:24
SPEAKER_01: But oftentimes it doesn't work.
1:00:26
SPEAKER_01: I mean, everyone wants to be the bar owner, but not necessarily do the work, you know?
1:00:32
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
1:00:33
SPEAKER_03: I mean, there's it did yeah, it's all it's all relative to the the people and to the business.
1:00:38
SPEAKER_03: I've seen it, I've seen it be very successful.
1:00:40
SPEAKER_03: There's a lot of great restaurants that you don't know who the the again picking up this thing, you don't know who the wizard is behind the curtains, and yet the restaurant runs great.
1:00:51
SPEAKER_03: Houston, so it's one of those chains that I love.
1:00:53
SPEAKER_03: Amazing.
1:00:54
SPEAKER_03: Well, and Houston's is so good.
1:00:56
SPEAKER_03: You know, it's it's to Homer's point, it's training.
1:00:58
SPEAKER_03: It's training, it's compensation, it's having I mean, Chick-fil-A's one.
1:01:03
SPEAKER_03: You you don't know you know the owner operator in each Chick-fil-A location.
1:01:08
SPEAKER_03: If they work in partnership with the corporate office, it's not it's a corporate-owned real estate location, it's a corporate-owned store, it's not a franchise, it's all company-owned, but the Cathys are in Atlanta and Jim Bryant's here in Rogers doing an unbelievable job.
1:01:26
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
1:01:27
SPEAKER_03: Why?
1:01:28
SPEAKER_03: Why why is why is Chick-fil-A able to do that and able to go get great people?
1:01:35
SPEAKER_03: Number one, they have a key, a very specific type of person they're trying to hire that's a leader, former military, whatever it may be, a great leader of people, and then they go take that person, throw them into the store, high amount of training, high amount of buy-in from that leader, and then they run great companies.
1:01:54
SPEAKER_03: And they give them a real opportunity.
1:01:55
SPEAKER_03: They give them a real opportunity to make real money.
1:01:57
SPEAKER_01: Right.
1:01:58
SPEAKER_01: So it it it is possible, but not a lot of people.
1:02:01
SPEAKER_01: But I think your question is different, right?
1:02:03
SPEAKER_01: I think you're asking, are you saying like someone wants to open a brand new restaurant, but then they don't want to actually participate in the management?
1:02:09
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:02:10
SPEAKER_01: I mean, whether it's open a brand new one or I'm gonna buy one and and sort of bar.
1:02:15
SPEAKER_02: It's like a passive investment.
1:02:16
SPEAKER_02: It's just yeah, you gotta be engaged.
1:02:18
SPEAKER_02: Uh, there's one we're running out of time, but there is one last thing I wanted to bring up and hear you guys' comments on.
1:02:26
SPEAKER_02: Again, those who aren't in Northwest Arkansas would not be aware of Herman's in Fayetteville.
1:02:33
SPEAKER_02: But to me, I've always looked at that as holy cow, how do you have a restaurant?
1:02:40
SPEAKER_02: And again, I I like Herman's, okay, I'm not being critical of it, all right?
1:02:45
SPEAKER_02: But the prices are super high.
1:02:47
SPEAKER_02: They don't spend any real money on their facility.
1:02:51
SPEAKER_02: They've got the craziest menu I've ever seen.
1:02:54
SPEAKER_02: You go in, it's supposed to be a nice restaurant.
1:02:57
SPEAKER_02: They serve you crackers and cellophane packages and salsa.
1:03:01
SPEAKER_02: You get your food.
1:03:02
SPEAKER_02: The the salad has never been run through a strainer, okay?
1:03:06
SPEAKER_02: Every bowl of salad's got about a half a cup of water in it.
1:03:10
SPEAKER_02: Um you know, you get your food, you know.
1:03:14
SPEAKER_02: The guy the last time I went in, I was stirred by a guy that had jeans on.
1:03:19
SPEAKER_02: It looked like he just cut his grass.
1:03:21
SPEAKER_02: I I was blown away with a with a farmer's hat, and yet it's a friggin' institution.
1:03:28
SPEAKER_02: You go there, it's packed every single night, and their prices are high.
1:03:34
SPEAKER_02: I admire that.
1:03:35
SPEAKER_02: How do you get to that stage where it's like it almost doesn't matter what you do, you're gonna be churning out a profit over there?
1:03:44
SPEAKER_01: I think they're a unique situation in the sense that they're what I would consider a legacy restaurant, that there's just so much history.
1:03:51
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, they don't change anything.
1:03:53
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, there's just so much arm, there's so much history and value in that that some of the other things, you know, again, when we talk about the price versus the value, value proposition, their value is largely upon the fact that it's, you know, the historical restaurant that everyone goes to whenever, you know, all the Arkansas celebrities, you know, Bill Clinton's favorite restaurant and everything like that.
1:04:18
SPEAKER_01: Right.
1:04:18
SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of value proposition there that that that makes a lot of sense.
1:04:22
SPEAKER_01: I don't think that Jordan and I could get away with some of the things that some of those legacy restaurants could or do because we haven't established that that's not part of our value proposition.
1:04:34
SPEAKER_01: Our value proposition is a different mix.
1:04:36
SPEAKER_01: I mean I make disagree.
1:04:38
SPEAKER_01: No, well, I agree.
1:04:39
SPEAKER_03: You may get papers.
1:04:40
SPEAKER_03: I've got paper menus and we put everything on paper and we serve decently priced menu items on tray liners with paper boats and I mean paper, and we use plastic utensils and stuff.
1:04:52
SPEAKER_03: Get away with that.
1:04:52
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
1:04:52
SPEAKER_03: I mean, they're but you're not serving like$30 state.
1:04:55
SPEAKER_03: Well, yeah, but to be fair, I mean I look, I love I love Nick and and I love the team Germans.
1:04:59
SPEAKER_03: They're they're awesome people and they're great.
1:05:02
SPEAKER_03: And and I think to your point, um, well, number one, people that have gone there forever love the gigs.
1:05:09
SPEAKER_03: Give the crackers and sauce.
1:05:10
SPEAKER_03: That's an it's an amenity that's fun.
1:05:12
SPEAKER_03: And and just like they don't have dessert, they have the sucker, and that that's what they do.
1:05:16
SPEAKER_03: And it's it's awesome, yeah.
1:05:17
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
1:05:17
SPEAKER_03: And and then the steaks, look, freaking beef is expensive.
1:05:20
SPEAKER_03: So I mean, if you want a good steak, you need to pay for it.
1:05:24
SPEAKER_03: And you know, who cares what somebody I mean, if if somebody's not in a you know, nice suit or whatever, like uh say Roos Chris serving you food.
1:05:35
SPEAKER_03: Right.
1:05:35
SPEAKER_03: I mean, you know.
1:05:37
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, you're right, legacy restaurant.
1:05:38
SPEAKER_03: But they it's more it's more how do you how do they get away with doing that?
1:05:42
SPEAKER_03: Still charging things are expensive, people still come.
1:05:46
SPEAKER_02: Um I think it's my model of success.
1:05:50
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I love the I love how they can do that.
1:05:53
SPEAKER_02: They can pack 'em in every single day.
1:05:55
SPEAKER_02: They change nothing.
1:05:57
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:05:57
SPEAKER_01: And kind of like what we talked to people with.
1:06:00
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:06:00
SPEAKER_02: You know, it's good.
1:06:02
SPEAKER_02: Even Ferrari makes better products every year.
1:06:04
SPEAKER_02: I mean, yeah, they do make them by hand and it's not an efficient process or whatever.
1:06:08
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:06:09
SPEAKER_04: But I think there's like a nostalgia to it.
1:06:11
SPEAKER_04: There's just like this classical, yeah, you know, something about I mean, there's other restaurants like that, like I think if Hugo's is kind of a safe scenario.
1:06:18
SPEAKER_03: It's like the strategy of changing nothing is what is driving.
1:06:23
SPEAKER_03: And I admire, I don't, I don't see, I personally don't admire changing nothing.
1:06:27
SPEAKER_03: So how they can get away with it.
1:06:29
SPEAKER_03: Well, it's oh I mean, either, and I would say this most of those places, if you think they're not changing nothing, you're probably wrong.
1:06:38
SPEAKER_03: They are, I mean, they've changed their prices.
1:06:40
SPEAKER_03: I mean, they price has gone up.
1:06:41
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, they've caused this.
1:06:43
SPEAKER_03: They've changed the way they've probably done a lot of things.
1:06:46
SPEAKER_03: I mean, you just may not pick up on everything they've tried to change, but I know Nick and I know the people Hugo's, they want to produce great food and and they want to put out the best product they can possibly put out.
1:06:55
SPEAKER_03: And I mean Nick does not leave.
1:06:58
SPEAKER_03: Um I know, so I mean, I know that Nick is doing the best job he can possibly do to produce food that his customers want and will keep coming back to.
1:07:09
SPEAKER_03: So none of none of the places that have been around forever, even bad chains that you may not like their food, there's still Apple groups.
1:07:17
SPEAKER_03: Well, there's still groups at Applebee's that give a shit.
1:07:20
SPEAKER_03: They are.
1:07:20
SPEAKER_03: I mean, they like there's still that pay it, Bill.
1:07:23
SPEAKER_03: There's still well, there's still groups that that like that even in that corporation and that office that are working to improve products, processes, training, trying to make their business work.
1:07:35
SPEAKER_03: And to me, I don't know, what what makes me impressed at restaurants and and and other you know business venues as well, it's like you have to have a commitment to excellence.
1:07:45
SPEAKER_03: If you don't, it's gonna be really hard to win.
1:07:48
SPEAKER_03: A customer back over and over again looks like chili.
1:07:51
SPEAKER_03: We said chilies a bunch.
1:07:52
SPEAKER_03: Hey, look, I freaking love chilies.
1:07:55
SPEAKER_03: I I would go to chilies in any town.
1:07:58
SPEAKER_03: I don't love I don't I'm not a big dessert guy with chilies, but I their chicken crispers are great, and they've changed them.
1:08:04
SPEAKER_03: Um but um their sliders, their queso, it's the same queso I loved as a kid.
1:08:09
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I love chilies.
1:08:10
SPEAKER_03: I always went there as a kid, and I would go there today if someone said, Hey, let's hit up a chilies.
1:08:16
SPEAKER_03: I'm there.
1:08:16
SPEAKER_03: It's uh one of the best, and that's why they're so successful.
1:08:18
SPEAKER_03: That's why Olive Garden's successful, that's why Red Lobster is successful.
1:08:22
SPEAKER_03: Like the the you may not not everyone may love it, but look, there's a lot of people that love like chain restaurants.
1:08:29
SPEAKER_03: Chain restaurants are not the enemy.
1:08:32
SPEAKER_03: I think there's I think there's a common misconception.
1:08:34
SPEAKER_03: We were talking early about or Omar said it's like we're not looking at each other trying to stab each other or whatever, but it's like we I view Omar and I view everyone, even even barbecue restaurants as my peer, not my enemy.
1:08:48
SPEAKER_03: We're in it together, we're all doing the same job.
1:08:51
SPEAKER_03: Being a restaurant operator is an island.
1:08:54
SPEAKER_03: It's no one, no one is on Omar's island with him.
1:08:57
SPEAKER_03: Right.
1:08:57
SPEAKER_03: He's running his business.
1:08:59
SPEAKER_03: There's not like another Omar.
1:09:01
SPEAKER_03: I mean, you don't have a partner that's that's equal, and and even if you did, like you'd still feel like you're an old island with your 50% because that guy has also got his share and he's feels like he's on his island because you've got a partnership.
1:09:15
SPEAKER_03: So you've got to be able to build better relationships with operators and and restaurant operators, and people have to really want to come together.
1:09:23
SPEAKER_03: The reason those big markets, this is probably the biggest question I have is why Northwest Arkansas has yet to kind of really blow up with a lot of great concepts that grow.
1:09:35
SPEAKER_03: We're so fragmented, and you've got one guy doing you know this and that, and maybe that's it's like I don't know, in those northwest in in the northeast and Chicago, you get people come together, they build these hospitality groups, and then they just freaking kick ass.
1:09:51
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and they the that's when that's when you get blessed with like a a Chewy's or a whatever may then grow from Austin or Texas or wherever you may be.
1:09:59
SPEAKER_03: All of a sudden you're like, oh, we get one of those.
1:10:01
SPEAKER_03: Well, the reason they're good is because they've got great restaurant people training in a really high level, and then oh hey, all of a sudden now more people are blessed with the ability to go to a Chili's or a plumos in Dallas because Omer's taking in a a risk and he's gonna go open one.
1:10:17
SPEAKER_03: And now people get to go enjoy his food somewhere else.
1:10:21
SPEAKER_03: If he would have stayed in one spot, okay, yeah, great, but he wants his food to be more accessible.
1:10:26
SPEAKER_03: So being able to execute at a high level, gain more accessibility for cu for guests, and I don't know.
1:10:32
SPEAKER_02: I just yeah, do you guys think a restaurant's gotta be differentiated to succeed?
1:10:38
SPEAKER_02: I mean again, you know, we can talk about Mexican restaurants around here.
1:10:43
SPEAKER_02: We got probably 40 of them at least.
1:10:48
SPEAKER_02: Do you have to be differentiator to succeed, or can you just do the same thing as somebody else, but maybe just gear a little more or have a little bit better training or care less and pay people?
1:10:58
SPEAKER_03: I mean, like I'd also be successful.
1:11:00
SPEAKER_03: You'd also be successful in front of one guy taco shop and be so your definition of success could be different than the guy on you know downtown Springdale running a taqueria's version of success.
1:11:11
SPEAKER_03: Like that guy, that guy has a different standard.
1:11:14
SPEAKER_01: Sure.
1:11:15
SPEAKER_01: I think that it it all it all comes back down to what is your value proposition.
1:11:19
SPEAKER_01: You know, they're an example that I think that we could take out of Northwest Arkansas, um, you know, New Orleans, Cafe Dumont.
1:11:27
SPEAKER_01: All they do are those uh what are they called?
1:11:30
SPEAKER_01: The the up, you know, you know, I'm talking about beignets.
1:11:33
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:11:34
SPEAKER_01: And it's like all they do is those beignets, they've been doing them for umpteenth years, yeah, in the in the coffee.
1:11:40
SPEAKER_01: Uh and there's nothing really proprietary about it, but there's historical significance to it that when you go to New Orleans, that's one of the landmark staples that you have to go to.
1:11:52
SPEAKER_01: You know, you have to like a Mike's pastry shop in East Ba or in uh north end of Boston.
1:11:57
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
1:11:58
SPEAKER_01: You know, um when you're at an airport, you know, the value proposition is that there's only three restaurants to go to, and I can get you in and out the fastest to make sure that you don't miss your flight.
1:12:09
SPEAKER_01: You know, when you look at a nice steakhouse or a nice restaurant, uh, when you're looking at the reason why I'm willing to pay$250 at Nick and Sam's versus, you know, maybe$100 at Betro here is that in Dallas, it's like, you know, there's that added value of going and eating at Nick and Sam's.
1:12:29
SPEAKER_01: And so I think it really just depends on what the value proposition is.
1:12:33
SPEAKER_01: There's something to be said about the business of hospitality that nothing in itself is completely proprietary.
1:12:42
SPEAKER_01: Anything can be copied and replicated.
1:12:45
SPEAKER_01: And so a lot of it comes down to execution.
1:12:48
SPEAKER_01: How do you execute your processes in a really uh great manner?
1:12:52
SPEAKER_01: How do you do the branding and marketing and execute that really properly and do it really well?
1:12:57
SPEAKER_01: And then how uh how do you just like take care of your customers?
1:13:01
SPEAKER_01: You know?
1:13:02
SPEAKER_04: You know, one thing I'm sitting here and think about, a lot of that, it even kind of relates to the to the Herman's question too, is guests come in, they have an incredible experience, they'll always go back and they tell their friends and family.
1:13:14
SPEAKER_04: And then those people come in at the same thing and just kind of multiplies and repeats.
1:13:19
SPEAKER_04: Talk about Applebee's or chilies, right?
1:13:21
SPEAKER_04: If there was only one Chili's or one Applebee's in the entire world, it would have the same exact scenario because it has this very unique and everybody has really liked it, but they franchised.
1:13:32
SPEAKER_04: They just replicate that model.
1:13:34
SPEAKER_04: Now it's not as it's not like a Herman's, right?
1:13:37
SPEAKER_04: There's many of them to go to, but they've they have absolutely created people.
1:13:41
SPEAKER_04: And on Jordan's point, people a lot of people like it.
1:13:44
SPEAKER_04: You know, and so that word of mouth goes around and then people go in and experience the same thing.
1:13:49
SPEAKER_03: And to your point about like does there need to be like diversification of of like your offerings to be relevant or to make a splash.
1:13:58
SPEAKER_03: Something about your business does.
1:14:00
SPEAKER_03: I mean, it may not have to be the menu items.
1:14:02
SPEAKER_03: I know that if someone opened a burger and fry restaurant or whatever it may be, it's like they better just be really good at something.
1:14:09
SPEAKER_03: I mean, you gotta be good.
1:14:10
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
1:14:10
SPEAKER_03: And you can also be okay and average in an area.
1:14:15
SPEAKER_03: But if you're consistent, the one thing you can't the one the three things you cannot lack in are qual are quality, consistency, and and cleanliness.
1:14:24
unknown: Yeah.
1:14:25
SPEAKER_03: So if you can if you can do those things, like and then service, I mean there's another thing.
1:14:29
SPEAKER_03: I mean, McDonald's big things are quality, service, and cleanliness.
1:14:32
SPEAKER_03: You know, there's a lot of really subpar restaurants, there's a lot of really great restaurants.
1:14:38
SPEAKER_03: People are existing.
1:14:39
SPEAKER_03: They're making living.
1:14:40
SPEAKER_03: They they may have to make living a little bit differently or or squeeze margin here or there based on their success level of how popular they are.
1:14:48
SPEAKER_03: But you know, the reality is if you want to open a business, and and this is probably the case in most businesses, if you want to open a business and you have a plan, you know, you go do it.
1:14:59
SPEAKER_03: There's t-shirt companies that open that just uh that just launched last year.
1:15:03
SPEAKER_03: Guess what?
1:15:03
SPEAKER_03: They're making money.
1:15:04
SPEAKER_03: Yep.
1:15:04
SPEAKER_03: There's large t-shirt companies everywhere.
1:15:07
SPEAKER_03: There's branding people that are opening right now, there's people that are becoming graphic designers, there's there's video game people that are creating video games that are first-person shooter video games or or large multi-player maps.
1:15:18
SPEAKER_03: And there's already been that's already been done.
1:15:20
SPEAKER_03: But they're gonna be new because there's new people that are growing into these positions.
1:15:25
SPEAKER_03: I don't know.
1:15:26
SPEAKER_03: I I think I think the biggest thing for restaurants has to be um, you know, like that person that wants to run that restaurant, if they're the shadow person who wants to live in wherever and run a few places, they're gonna sacrifice something.
1:15:42
SPEAKER_03: Can they make it work?
1:15:43
SPEAKER_03: Maybe.
1:15:44
SPEAKER_03: Hopefully.
1:15:44
SPEAKER_03: Hopefully for them and their business, they don't go bankrupt, you know.
1:15:47
SPEAKER_03: But you know, again, it's all can it work?
1:15:49
SPEAKER_03: Yes.
1:15:50
SPEAKER_03: Can the concept that's the same work?
1:15:52
SPEAKER_03: Yes.
1:15:53
SPEAKER_03: I mean, people open the same business all the time.
1:15:55
SPEAKER_03: I mean, McDonald's opens next to Burger King, you know, Burger King opens next to Wendy's.
1:15:58
SPEAKER_03: Like you go down to MLK and they're every guy.
1:16:01
SPEAKER_03: There's so many chicken devices.
1:16:03
SPEAKER_03: Tacos, chickens, canes, Zaxby's, McDonald's, Burger King, yeah, Sonic.
1:16:08
SPEAKER_03: It's like no one really cares.
1:16:11
SPEAKER_03: It's all about options, and there's plenty of diners.
1:16:15
SPEAKER_03: The biggest thing is there's plenty of diners that will go to Paloma, go to Wrights, go to Risk, go to Hermes.
1:16:21
SPEAKER_03: People just want to eat, and they don't eat the same thing all the time.
1:16:24
SPEAKER_03: True.
1:16:24
SPEAKER_03: And so they want to they want a rhythm and a schedule and stuff that's near their house, and that's how people make choices.
1:16:30
SPEAKER_04: So guys, I'm gonna ask one question that I've kind of been wanting asked for a few days actually getting ready for this.
1:16:36
SPEAKER_04: It won't take long to answer, so don't worry, Mart.
1:16:38
SPEAKER_04: I know you're giving me that we're almost out of time look.
1:16:41
SPEAKER_03: The podcast people probably all turned it off an hour ago.
1:16:44
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
1:16:44
SPEAKER_04: And the ones that are gonna the ones that are sticking around are are actually the ones we really want to ask.
1:16:48
SPEAKER_03: No doubt, yeah.
1:16:49
SPEAKER_03: These are the value listeners.
1:16:50
SPEAKER_03: They've got a lot of value.
1:16:52
SPEAKER_04: So living you were talking about change earlier.
1:16:55
SPEAKER_04: We're living in very rapid change, rapidly changing times with technology that has absolutely affected the restaurant industry, right?
1:17:05
SPEAKER_04: With the Uber Eats and DoorDash, etc.
1:17:08
SPEAKER_04: And I mean, expect more to come.
1:17:11
SPEAKER_04: Because it's not gonna slow down, it's gonna be something new all the time.
1:17:14
SPEAKER_04: How do you guys deal with that?
1:17:16
SPEAKER_04: Like, and how do you new tech comes out, whether it's a social media platform or whatever it might be, right?
1:17:23
SPEAKER_04: There's always something that's coming out.
1:17:25
SPEAKER_04: TikTok just in the last couple of years, right?
1:17:27
SPEAKER_04: Is another one.
1:17:29
SPEAKER_04: So how do y'all decipher that?
1:17:31
SPEAKER_04: How do you respond to it?
1:17:33
SPEAKER_04: How do you get involved in it quickly?
1:17:35
SPEAKER_04: I mean, or then how do you exit out of what doesn't work?
1:17:38
SPEAKER_04: And how are you I mean, do you have teams that that you trust or I mean are you just kind of testing and trying?
1:17:44
SPEAKER_04: And if it starts to click and work, then invest more time and energy in?
1:17:48
SPEAKER_04: I mean, what what what what's your response on that?
1:17:50
SPEAKER_01: I found that in the past year or so, where my priorities as an entrepreneur and the leader of the organization needs to be, and I found that I need to spend less time on operations and the day-to-day and more on the long-term vision because if no one's steering the ship, then we're just you know drifting endlessly.
1:18:15
SPEAKER_01: And so when there's new pieces of technology in this, you know, recent case, ChatGPT and and AI, you know, I really try to spend long periods of time where I just really dive into it.
1:18:30
SPEAKER_01: You know, Bill Gates has this reading week where every year he goes to this ranch and just reads uh on a particular subject that he just finds really, really important.
1:18:41
SPEAKER_01: And so for myself, I tried to emulate that where when I started seeing everything about AI, I thought to myself, how can I, even as a restaurant, you know, is this applicable to our business?
1:18:53
SPEAKER_01: Yes, no, maybe.
1:18:55
SPEAKER_01: I need to figure that out for myself.
1:18:56
SPEAKER_01: So I blocked my calendar off for about two, three days and literally just dove into it, played around with it, scheduled all kinds of meetings and demos.
1:19:06
SPEAKER_01: And there were really short meetings where there were like some that were three or four minutes, like, ah, you guys can't do anything for us.
1:19:12
SPEAKER_01: Sorry, like, you know, we we have no use for this.
1:19:15
SPEAKER_01: And then there were some that were like 60 minutes that I was thinking, okay, you know, gotta value like gotta see if the value versus the cost is gonna be there.
1:19:24
SPEAKER_01: So I really I've I've taken it upon myself to answer those questions because again, I think me as the the head of the company, I need to be uh a leading expert in some of those to some degree uh relative to the rest of our team members, so that way I can make the best decisions.
1:19:44
SPEAKER_01: The person with the most information can make the best.
1:19:51
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, most definitely.
1:19:52
SPEAKER_03: Cool.
1:19:53
unknown: Cool.
1:19:53
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I mean technology's changing constantly, and there's gonna be new at at every at every turn.
1:20:00
SPEAKER_03: I mean, we've we've we've just recently adapted the delivery uh item uh options with DoorDash and that stuff, and you know, my biggest qualm with that realm is is are we delivering our level of hospitality to the doorstep, right?
1:20:18
SPEAKER_03: Despite who's delivering it.
1:20:19
SPEAKER_03: And the biggest thing I tell my team all the time is take great care of the delivery drivers.
1:20:25
SPEAKER_03: That's your that's our I mean, we're obviously the customers getting the food, but let's make those delivery drivers love coming to Wrights and love getting the food from Wrights.
1:20:35
SPEAKER_03: Great.
1:20:36
SPEAKER_03: That way they're they're uh they're also extension, they're an extension of our brand now.
1:20:40
SPEAKER_03: So if we're very kind and courteous to them, we help them their job go better, uh, then then they're encouraged to receive an order from Wrights to take great care of it, take great care of our customers.
1:20:52
SPEAKER_03: So you've got to really the the the biggest thing, and I know we we talked about no religion, but um the biggest thing you can do in the restaurant business in any business is treat others better than yourself.
1:21:03
SPEAKER_03: So golden rule.
1:21:04
SPEAKER_03: It's Easter weekend, but I get it it's no religion.
1:21:06
SPEAKER_03: Oh no, but the reality is the golden rule works.
1:21:10
SPEAKER_03: No question about universal.
1:21:11
SPEAKER_03: Jesus said two most important the two most important commands are love God and love others, and and what does that mean to really love other people?
1:21:19
SPEAKER_03: It means to sacrifice and serve others above yourself, and if if you can put other people's needs above your own, your Godspeed for the rest of your life, things will things will go your way.
1:21:30
SPEAKER_03: And you really just do have to believe that.
1:21:32
SPEAKER_03: You have to believe that others are more important than yourself, and not that you don't take care of yourself, but that if you're feeding yourself, and and Omar, I know does a good job of this, um, and I know Mark, you know, in your career and life, and I don't know you very well, but but I was but but the real in your success, you know that you have to feed yourself as a leader.
1:21:56
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, if you're not feeding yourself, whether it's content, leadership development, right?
1:22:02
SPEAKER_03: If you're not whole spiritually, physically, mentally, then you can't give to others.
1:22:07
SPEAKER_03: You can't give what you don't have.
1:22:08
SPEAKER_03: So if you don't walk into your restaurant with a high level of energy, your team's not gonna you're not gonna leave that restaurant, still maintaining a high level of energy.
1:22:17
SPEAKER_03: And so you've got to give what you want people to give.
1:22:21
SPEAKER_03: And so as a leader, that's my number one mission is how can I energize and bring life to people that work with us so that we can go deliver an unbelievable experience to our guests.
1:22:33
SPEAKER_04: The fact that you're extending that to the delivery driver, but you're embracing as part of the team.
1:22:37
SPEAKER_04: I mean, it's it has to keep going.
1:22:39
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, there is uh a conversation I had with one of our managers the other day about um, you know, kind of letting loose and and things like that.
1:22:48
SPEAKER_01: And I was telling her, you know, I was like, you know, you'll never find me at our bar, you know, drinking or doing, you know, acting a whole in one of our restaurants and whatnot.
1:22:59
SPEAKER_01: It's like, and she was like, wow, you're you know, you're human.
1:23:02
SPEAKER_01: Like she's like, I would think that that's kind of fun.
1:23:03
SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, no, you don't understand.
1:23:04
SPEAKER_01: Like, I'm in copious amounts of debt.
1:23:07
SPEAKER_01: And she was like, Oh my gosh, like you got to pay bills.
1:23:09
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, no, like I'm in debt to you, I'm in debt to like our other team members, I'm in debt to my family.
1:23:15
SPEAKER_01: Like, whenever I went on this journey, like you have to understand a lot of your success is predicated on my success.
1:23:22
SPEAKER_01: If I don't output, if I don't build the next restaurant, if I don't build what I want to build, like you go no further in life down this path.
1:23:32
SPEAKER_01: You'll have to take an alternate path.
1:23:33
SPEAKER_01: You know, for my parents, you know, they set me up for success.
1:23:37
SPEAKER_01: And it, you know, I take that upon myself as a loan that it's like, okay, I've got to be able to fulfill, you know, my destiny and be who they wanted me to be and and even greater than that, surpass that expectation.
1:23:53
SPEAKER_01: And so there are a lot of times where, you know, I look at uh the long-term value and even something as simple as ChatGPT.
1:24:01
SPEAKER_01: It's like, if I do not actually become a student and really learn this critically, I'm doing a disservice to my investors, which are my like, you know, my customers, my team members, my parents, the people that surround myself, my future family.
1:24:18
SPEAKER_01: I always tell, you know, all of our um team members and and my uh my students, you know, like I'm working on a time crunch because there comes a point in time, or there will become a point in time where I no longer want to work and I want to focus on my family.
1:24:32
SPEAKER_01: And it's my obligation to be able to get us as far ahead as possible to where when that time comes, I don't have to feel bad about taking off or not working for weeks or not showing up to the office because we have set the the bolt the ball rolling down the hill to where it's collected enough snow to where if you made the investments is in time and money in learning and trying new stuff.
1:25:00
SPEAKER_02: Makes total sense.
1:25:01
SPEAKER_02: Well, I could talk about this stuff all day.
1:25:03
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I'm just starting to settle in and get it.
1:25:05
SPEAKER_02: I I I won't I won't get uh you know, when you when you said technology, the first thing that came to my mind was those pads of chilies, yeah, which I keep wondering when they're gonna abandon because they haven't really done what they want, I don't think.
1:25:20
SPEAKER_04: Uh it could just require somebody like really really folks like doing what Old Mar saying, just dive into it.
1:25:26
SPEAKER_04: Uh is this really giving a good experience?
1:25:28
SPEAKER_04: And then if it's right, how do you do it better?
1:25:29
SPEAKER_04: I mean, I could train and talk and and edu and and lead the team.
1:25:33
SPEAKER_02: I I think with any business, you know, one of the things that's Wide Group used to do years ago when it was Wag White is we sold um fully integrated um software systems for running architecture and engineering businesses.
1:25:46
SPEAKER_02: We were just a reseller of Dell Tech, and um it was uh, you know, it's it's it's very complex.
1:25:56
SPEAKER_02: And anytime you have to sell something that's so mission critical, like taking orders, and you ask a restaurant to change their process, man, that's risky.
1:26:07
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it is you know what I mean?
1:26:08
SPEAKER_02: That is so, so risky.
1:26:10
SPEAKER_04: And it just seems like I imagine the POS system at the restaurant is one of the bigger as far as technological.
1:26:19
SPEAKER_02: So I think there's a big there's gonna be a lot of resistance to adopting new technology in the restaurant business for that reason.
1:26:27
SPEAKER_05: Sure.
1:26:28
SPEAKER_02: You know?
1:26:29
SPEAKER_02: Well, listen, guys, we really appreciate your coming and giving us your time today.
1:26:32
SPEAKER_02: Thanks for having us.
1:26:33
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, um, I don't know about you all, but I'm getting hungry.
1:26:36
SPEAKER_02: Uh stay a couple of places.
1:26:39
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, right.
1:26:40
SPEAKER_02: Um yeah, I'm sure we do.
1:26:42
SPEAKER_02: So thanks so much for coming and seeing us, guys.
1:26:44
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, thanks for having us.
1:26:46
SPEAKER_02: Thanks for doing.
1:26:53
SPEAKER_00: Thanks for tuning in to this episode of Big Talk About Small Business.
1:26:56
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