Talking Tip-Flation, No-Show Fees, Meatless Menus, and Re-Finding the Spark

In this episode, we dive into some of the more pressing (and sometimes frustrating) issues the hospitality world is experiencing right now – beginning with ‘tip-flation’ and the growing backlash from consumers. Is the tipping model completely broken? Or are people just tired of being prompted to tip everywhere they go?

From there, we dig into reservation and cancellation policies. Credit card holds are now standard operation, but is a 24-hour cancellation window still fair? What happens when guests ask for leniency, or when a table is filled anyway after a no-show? Is it time for restaurants to rethink how they handle this?

We also explore something that’s been on my mind a lot lately: what do you do when your restaurant is running smoothly, but the team vibe feels flat? How do you reignite that spark when the energy dips, even with a veteran crew?

Then there’s the profitability conversation — this time with a ‘meaty’ twist. Could serving less meat actually be better for the bottom line? With more veg-forward spots pricing dishes under $30, we unpack whether that’s a necessity, competitive strategy, or just smart economics. We compare meat versus veg labor costs, and what guests are willing to pay for plant-based menus.

And finally, I pose my guests with a personal question: After everything we’ve been through in this industry, what still drives you, and what keeps you coming back?

Speaking of my guests, this time around I’m joined by four of Vancouver hospitality’s best and most vocal personalities: James Iranzad (Gooseneck Hospitality), Shira Blustein (The Acorn, Lila), Shaun Layton (¿CóMO? Taperia), and Adam Henderson (Superflux, Superflux {Cabana}). As always, it’s a lively, thoughtful, and unfiltered conversation; I hope you enjoy it.

The Backlash Against ‘Tip-flation’ - The Tyee

Face it: you're a crazy person - Experimental History

If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email at trackandfoodpod@gmail.com 

Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:00

A fun filled group chat with four amazing restaurateurs. That's coming up next. Today's episode of Track and Food is brought to you by Scout Magazine. If you're wanting to learn more about Vancouver's food and cultural sphere, with regards to community news, new restaurant openings, central guides to some of the city's best offerings, as well as who's hiring, Scout is where you should go. You can find them at scoutmagazine.ca. That's scoutmagazine.ca. Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of the pod. I'm Jamie, as always. On today's episode, I'm joined by a great panel of friends. I can call them friends because I really love everything that they do and bring to this city in this hospitality scene. Someone you've heard me have on here almost all the time is my good friend James Ironzad from Gooseneck Hospitality. We've got Shira Bluestein from Leela and Acorn. We've got Sean Leighton, co-owner of the lovely Como Tepperia. And last but not least, Adam Henderson from Superflux and Superflux Cabana in Victoria. I wanted to get them on to have a nice, wide-ranging conversation about some industry topics that have been kind of circulating in my brain, as they always do. For today, we kick things off by debating restaurant cancellation policies. For me, it was more just looking into the idea are 24-hour windows still fair or is it time to shift something to be a little bit more flexible? I've heard some comments on this from friends and people who book reservations consistently. So I wanted to hear their thoughts as operators who obviously deal with these issues. Then we get into team culture and what to do when a solid crew starts to feel a little flat. I've noticed this a little bit from some of my dining experiences lately. And I wanted to hear from them specifically and kind of what they have done for their teams or if they've seen this personally and how we might be able to address and kind of give those teams or those ideas or those crews a little bit of that spark. From there we dive into the economics of meat versus vegford menus. The idea came back from me when I was just kind of looking into I can't remember how it came about, but I was looking into some menus and some restaurant stuff, digging in for another column idea, and I noticed some similarities between the VegFord pricing at Acorn and at Folk, another VegFord restaurant in Quitsilano. And it made me think about some ideas and some concepts. And I wanted to hear specifically obviously from Shira, who owns Acorn, does less meat actually lead to more profitability? So I wanted to hear that from them and kind of the economics of how you price things out when it comes to menu profitability and stuff like this, and how that comes about with labor and things like that. So that actually became quite a fun part of the episode. And then finally, I wanted to get a little more personal. I read a really interesting column on a wonderful Stubstack and I sent it to them and I wanted to hear what that still inspires them. And this column was that kind of digs into the idea of unpacking and uh whether people kind of realize what they're getting themselves into when they look at career opportunities and exploration. And as the four of them have been operators now for quite some time, you know. Are they still hungry? Do they still love it? Is this everything they expected? And what's in it for them now that they've been doing this and that whole idea and obviously what still drives them. But I will say at the top, we do touch off into the probably classic topic nowadays is uh tipping and tipflation, which seems to be on tip of mind for a lot of people. The Tai wrote a column about that a little while ago, and uh yeah, it seems to be still a debated issue for some people, so I wanted to address that a little bit, and uh, we definitely get into that a little bit as well. But as always, with these four individuals and some wine, we had a great time and a lot of laughs, and I appreciate them all. And uh without further ado, I'll bring them on. Enjoy. Hey, pretty good. Thank you. We have beautiful Adam Henderson sitting next to him, who's the owner of Superflux, one of the greatest breweries in the world. How are you doing today, Adam? World. In the world, I'd say in the world. Doing great now. Yeah. So actually, just to give you a nice story, I had some guests from Germany come in the hotel the other day, specifically saying that we came back to Vancouver to see the city and they wanted to go to Whistler, but they were like, We stayed at your hotel last time, and they asked me, He's like, Do you guys still pour that beer at Superflux? Oh wow. So they were really from Germany. Yeah, from Germany. Holy. So, yeah. So like that. So that's some world famous. Yeah, they know their stuff there. Yeah, I think they make beer out there, don't they? Yeah, yeah. So next in, we got Mr. Sean Layton from Commo Taparia. Hello, Sean. How are you? Hello, happy Monday. I'm very well, very well. It's been about a year since we've had you on, huh?

SPEAKER_01 5:02

I think I would guess so. A little bit over a year. Yeah, I was sitting on that side last time, though. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 5:06

And then last but not least, the most beautiful person here, Miss Cher Bluesteen from Acorn and Leela. How are you?

SPEAKER_05 5:14

Also well. Hi, everybody. Hello.

SPEAKER_04 5:16

Last time you were on with me was when we did my birthday, which was a lot of fun. That was really fun. Yeah. So episode 100, yeah. So uh yeah, it was good. But, anyways, we're not here to do too much reminiscing. We've already talked a little bit and we got into some fun discussions out on my patio. But I brought you guys all together because I have a lot of things that I think are interesting to be talking about. I sent you guys a long list of stuff. Sean said that was a little bit spicy, but I think it's gonna be it's gonna be good. Originally, I was gonna start with reservations and cancellations and stuff like this because I have, I feel like this is gonna, I'm gonna fight with James quite a lot about this one. But last week, Taieb posted a feature by Isaac Fanaguen, labor reporter there, did a kind of tipped flation column talking about people's frustrations. I don't think this is new to any one of us. We've talked about this before, we've heard about this. But I thought I'd bring it up to us a little bit early and just to get you guys' thoughts on seeing that in the news again. And how does that I feel like it's an over talked about topic? I think people are but I what was interesting about it is I sent to you guys is the comment section of that column was quite cornery, is probably a good word to maybe describe it. I don't what did you think about all that?

SPEAKER_02 6:22

I do not read the comments. You didn't read the comment section of anything.

SPEAKER_03 6:26

I know James did. I mean, I kind of did. It's hard though, right? We were chatting and I was saying that like I got down to like the third or fourth comment, and I had to stop because like I don't know, it's just so much negativity, it's toxic, it just felt gross, and I just didn't want to bring that into my life that day.

SPEAKER_02 6:44

That's why I don't do that.

SPEAKER_04 6:46

Well, I mean, I I think what's interesting about it is like people are complaining about this now because pretty much no one pays in cash, and we pay with these tip machines now, and people hand them to you, and automatically there's the gratuity thing. I think a lot of businesses sometimes don't control, like they don't pay attention to like the fact that the tip prompt is on there because I think it's automatically put on. Is that true?

SPEAKER_05 7:02

I think it's when you No, I think you have to put it on, you have to choose it and you select what tip percentages you're defaulting. So it is a conscious choice.

SPEAKER_04 7:11

Yeah, but I mean, people have this, they're upset about it, they're frustrated because you're now, you know, I think for the longest time when we thought of tipping, it was tip your cab driver, your hairdresser, and you're probably your service, your waiter, your whatever, whatever marketer. And now people are starting to see that prompt everywhere else, and you know, and they're starting to get frustrated about it. But I guess at the end, me for the biggest part about it is why do we tip in the general? I think that's the first part of the question I think we should be looking at. And I think that's something that's more greater part of our kind of public consciousness in Canada, in the United States, and Western world. Sean, I feel like you have something to do.

SPEAKER_01 7:40

Yeah, I mean, I think obviously me being from here and being mostly in the restaurant industry, my whole working career, it's always been that way here. And the tip is, in my opinion, it is part of the revenue, and the restaurants aren't building into the price because you're tipping on the service which is going to the employees. And so people appreciate that service, and that service is the tip is quote unquote earned, which I don't necessarily agree with, the guest being the person who gets to decide that or not. That's kind of the way it's always been. I'm not saying it's right, but that's what you're tipping for is the service. And I think that the tipflation thing is, especially since COVID when we were just trying to help everybody out and give everyone some extra money. There was some things that had no service at all that people were just automatically tipping on. And now that's filtered into a lot of businesses where some people feel obligated to be tipping the same amount that one of our awesome servers at Como or any of our restaurants could spend two hours working up a bill and having great service, pouring water, opening wine, serving food. But there could be someone that gets a service that has a five-minute window or a two-minute conversation where they might feel obligated that they have to tip the same because you have to tip 20% to 25%. And I think that's where the tipflation thing and frustration is coming from. And I think to me, I think that takes away from most of my employees because now when people are tipping them 20, 25%, I don't think they appreciate the service as much. And so, me personally, if I go to uh you know a coffee shop, I'm always gonna tip well on a coffee or whatever I order. But if I'm getting a bag of coffee with that, or I like the plates they have, I don't feel obligated to tip no sense on that.

SPEAKER_04 9:28

It's kind of funny that you say that because I actually the grocery store right around the corner here that I go to all the time tasty market is awesome. And I went in there this morning to get some wine and the the Stampel and Grino, the USC right before you. And you know, I got a sandwich and a coffee, but like the tip prompt comes up and I tipped. But it's just like, but like I guess the bigger question is what is service for people?

SPEAKER_03 9:48

Is service like what qualifies a tip worthy service?

SPEAKER_04 9:51

Yeah, like when people are like, Why tip on service? But I'm like, what is service? What is service to someone? Is service someone going to coffee shop and making you a coffee, or is it it has to be like a sit-down meal? I think that's kind of where people are maybe like, where is the delineation? What are we thinking here? There's something that kind of is the driving factor of this. Because then if you go into service, I mean there's so many things that we do in our life that are service, you know, that are have those elements. And I think I think it's probably where people are starting.

SPEAKER_05 10:14

So takeout. Do people tip on takeout? You're not getting a big service within that, but I mean, I always tip on takeout all the time.

SPEAKER_01 10:20

I think you still do personally, but I I've found myself I will maybe tip per item rather than per percentage if I'm not getting service with it, knowing that someone is preparing that and there is some sort of pool for that business, 100%. But there is times when you're tipping before your meal in a lot of places now. And some of them I like, some of them I'm not a huge fan of because once you've paid and you've already tipped and then you kind of get ignored, not a huge fan of that. But you know, there is people that are working there that do need the tips, and there are people preparing the food. I just think you have to gauge every situation, and it's not an always an automatic 25% for me. And I'll also frequent places where I feel appreciated and good service. Sometimes I'm not gonna say where, but you'll go to a tasting room, not super flux, because they do table service and it's very attentive service. But sometimes there is counter service places that once you eat your beers, you're kind of ignored and like you've already paid and tipped. And I'm not the hugest fan of that. I just won't frequent those places. But there's other places where it's counter service and they take really good care of you. One of those places I was at recently, not recently, a few months ago, and we I went to take my beers back up to the counter, and the girl serving us who we know, she gave me shit. She's like, What are you doing? I'm like, Oh, I was just gonna bring our beers back up. Or not, she's like, You take those back, I can do my job. Thank you very much. She said it to you like that? 100%. Wow, that's spicy. I was like, okay. I'm like, I'm just so used to that now. But I go there anyway, knowing that I'm always getting good service. But sometimes you do go to places where you pay and you're just kind of ignored. And also those places, if I was an owner in one of those places, a lot of those places, like people aren't drinking that much because they're just camping out because no one's taking care of them. Yeah, but I think there's a loss of hospitality.

SPEAKER_04 12:00

So yeah, so that's so that's an interesting one because there is a couple of places that I frequent where it's you go to you go up to the bar or whatever it is, and you get your beers and you go sit down. But my thing I find fascinating about this is that you what sometimes you see in these spaces where they're not busy. They're just the person who's behind the counter is just like walking around. I'm like, why couldn't they just walk around and just serve you and just like give you the service and give you and also like have more of a personal element, but also like I go order my beer, I go sit down, we have a beer, but maybe they could walk by and be like, hey, you guys want another one? And you like generate more revenue for themselves and the business. And so instead of me having to be like, you know what, I like, or and then just having to get up and go get another beer.

SPEAKER_05 12:34

I don't know, I think that sounds like the culture that's being set by those establishments more than the motivation.

SPEAKER_04 12:40

Right? But I mean, if they're standing there and they're not doing anything and they're just bored out of their mind and they're well, they're in the wrong business, obviously, right?

SPEAKER_03 12:46

Like it just needs to be said some people come into our industry because they might not have discovered where their passion is yet, what they want to do, and they view it as a stepping stone, but that's not doing our industry any favors, and they're certainly not providing the kind of hospitality that we appreciate. And I think most people appreciate whether they're conscious of it or not.

SPEAKER_04 13:07

But I mean, like, Adam, I mean, specifically, I mean, your industry and breweries and stuff like this. I mean, that's common for breweries where you just go up to the bar and you order your beers. And some people like are like, I mean, if you go to 33 acres, I mean it's that you walk in that the lineup is there, and people go sit down and it seems to work fine for most people. I don't I wonder what that experience would be like if you were to go there versus like go to your establishment or go somewhere else. And do you think people would like the experience more at 33 acres if there was more service?

SPEAKER_02 13:30

I wonder if that's yeah, I don't know. I think it depends on the place, but I mean, like Sean got the right word, which is hospitality, right? So like you are getting hospitality one way or the other, and if you can still feel like you get that from a counter, which you can for sure, right? Like people who go to their favorite coffee shops and a coffee shop generally is a counter interaction, and there still can be really great hospitality there, those short interactions you have like every day with the same person that you see or the same three people that are like working at your coffee shop. So at a brewery you could do that. Like I think a lot of us with breweries, we started that just because it was like an economic model that makes more sense is to just you can have less staff if you're coming to the counter, but that does kind of forgo some of the hospitality. And like Sean said, like kind of upselling and offering that other service that helps the business. Like if you're sitting there and you're having a beer and your beer's like this, and near the end, and somebody says, Another one, like I mean, I am incapable of saying no. Most people will say, you know, that's yeah, that sounds like a good idea. If we're all sitting there with empty beers and we're saying, should we go somewhere else? We might go somewhere else. Like that idea just needs to be like a missed opportunity. It just needs to creep into the group, right? And so there's that side too. So it is like it's six and one-half in a way. I have seen a lot of places that used to do counter service go out of business. There's a number of places that I can think of that don't exist anymore. I'm not saying that's a recipe for that. I also can think of like actually, this place is for sale or sold. There's a bar called the Tornado in San Francisco. It's like one of the best beer bars in the world. Yeah. It is like, it is one of the few places that can be like, fuck you, you order at the bar, it's cash only. Like, we'll give you surly attitude. And if you make the right, like it's kind of one of those like just holier than thou places, but it's like one of very few places that can pull that off. So I don't know. I think it it would depend. At a brewery, like lots of breweries do it, and there's a good reason for us because it's kind of how we got started. We're smaller rooms, like most of us in Vancouver are like 65, 70 seats. That's like manageable from a bar. You can still like move around the room. A lot of like there's bars that do it, right? So it makes sense at like a bar bar, you know.

SPEAKER_04 15:40

You know, it's kind of funny as as a bartender. One, it's kind of funny, and Sean, you can attest this as having been a bartender before. When you serve your guests, I can immediately spot when I see someone who's weak. And what I do is like if they're drinking wine, I'll just grab the bottle and I'll just go through them. Like, would you like another one? And I just did like, yeah. And I can always tell when they're like, you can just tell when someone's like immediately they'll have two or three. It's like the tears instead of going up, instead of asking.

SPEAKER_03 16:09

So instead of eating it, it's off as this pretty kind of dude, and you're just mean and manipulative.

SPEAKER_04 16:16

I'm like, because I can go up to him and go like this. That's wine. But instead, I'll just walk up with a bottle and I'll just start almost pouring it. And I'm like, would you like another? And they're like, yeah, sure. How do you say that? That's true, though. But that's you need this.

SPEAKER_03 16:28

And that's like you framed it in a really kind of like Dr. Evil kind of way. But like, yeah, I totally agree. I've never really understood the counterservice thing. I just feel like the amount of money that you might save in labor is nowhere near going to make up for the loss of sales that you're gonna have by not taking good care of people, getting your timing better on like the next round of drinks or food or dessert or whatever the case may be. And counter service, there's no way like tip averages a percentage is gonna be anywhere near what it is for a restaurant that has table service. So the public works that way.

SPEAKER_04 17:02

I have a question for you guys, a little bit side to side note, but as owners, when you guys are like kind of at a point maybe during the day and your restaurant's like not that busy right now, and you want to you are you guys ever heavy cutters, cutters of your staff, being like, let's cut some labor and maybe cut a couple hours here and there. Is that something you guys or do you guys worry about like I'll do that and I'm gonna lose service quality? And I'm always curious about that.

SPEAKER_05 17:19

Our staff tend to do it themselves.

SPEAKER_04 17:22

Don't be like, yeah, we don't need to, we're not needed.

SPEAKER_05 17:29

They will cut if they think that there's a strong team on and they think they can do it with less, they will. And I 99% of the time they're spot on. But they are self-motivated to do that.

SPEAKER_04 17:40

But do you ever worry because you're tip pooling?

SPEAKER_05 17:42

That's right.

SPEAKER_04 17:42

Yeah, right. Yeah, but are you guys ever kind of like we'd like to make sure that we like push for that? Like if we can get the labor down a little bit, or is that something like we want to make sure that we always meet meet our standards?

SPEAKER_01 17:50

I'm just kind of curious. I think it kind of depends on the restaurant. Like we are a fairly small room. Patio season, it's a completely different ball game, so it can get stressful when those clouds come rolling in because I hate telling people that they're on call for a night and then telling them that they're off because that sucks. Generally, like if there is clouds and it's a Friday and we've got like a one dedicated person for that section, we'll just throw it out there to everybody. Like, does anyone want the night off? And it is summertime, even if it is raining, someone always wants the night off rather than having to tell someone they're not coming to work tonight because that sucks. Um, and then when it comes to like if you have to cut people, if it's a slow start or like it tapers out pretty quickly at after like 8:30, nine o'clock. I think that's just having good management. And we have great managers that are really good at that. And also like every restaurant's different, but having management that are also on the tip pool motivates them as well to manage the labor accordingly. You may have management that aren't on the tip pool that don't really might not care and keep everybody on. Yeah, I think when you have a full tip pool and the management are also part of that, it makes them cognizant as well. And it just makes everyone work as a team, I think.

SPEAKER_04 18:59

Uh well, it's interesting because like in hotel world, like they I used to always think that like numbers were the most important number was like the revenue that came in. But I've heard from and maybe you guys can quote me on from wrong the most important thing is guest check average. Is that what most people look at? You guys are the that's the number.

SPEAKER_03 19:14

Yeah, we look at that a lot. But I mean the difference between a hotel is that you have a another revenue stream that restaurants don't have. Yeah. So for restaurants, every single restaurant, labor is always going to be your biggest expense. Always. So for sure. Always, right? You think you know, like so cutting those a few hours, if you can cut a couple of those every day. It adds up, right? 15 minutes here and there over the course of a year is a family holiday. Yeah. You know, so absolutely you know, you it's something that we keep a close eye on.

SPEAKER_04 19:40

Yeah, no, that's the thing because I'm just kinda I've always wondered about that.

SPEAKER_03 19:42

I'm like, what's the balance of like keeping the quality and the service and then also you can't compromise, you know, depending on who you are and what your values are, but that you also can't be compromising the quality of service and hospitality you're providing.

SPEAKER_04 19:53

Yeah. No, I'm just I'm always fascinated about that. Cause like like, you know, labor, the hotel, like we'll talk about like labor is a big issue because our we've They pay it's expensive and still. So now I always wonder how I was I'm like, I'm like, well, you cut us for two hours, like you're saving forty bucks. Like, what's is that really worth it? And then I think about it, maybe it does add up long term.

SPEAKER_02 20:09

Yeah, it definitely does. I'm not the one looking at the bills at the end of the month and being like, I mean, so we like to what James said was like labor could be I mean, depending on the business, it could be like four to six times rent, right? Like four to six times rent? Yeah. Jesus. I'd say like I mean, probably at least three anywhere, and then probably more like four to six times what your rent is. So like usually in like a restaurant, like it depends, but like decent rent would be like six to eight percent of revenue. It can definitely be higher, it can definitely be lower. Some people's parents give them buildings, which is I don't have that, but uh that happens. Uh so their rent might be zero, but generally speaking, you're gonna be in that range. Whereas labor can like total labor can be 30%, right?

SPEAKER_04 20:53

So is that it's 30%'s the goal?

SPEAKER_02 20:55

Yeah, it depends. It depends on your business.

SPEAKER_03 20:57

Yeah, and it's also like there's a lot of other things that go into labor, like there's like the employer contributions to your CPP and your EI expenses. Like, if you calculate that into your labor, which a lot of people do, a lot of people don't, that's fine. But like the gross pay that every employee is getting, like, I mean, if if you're running it 30%, I think you, you know, it's it's gonna be a little tricky. Hopefully, if that's the case, then you have kind of good margins in other areas of your business. Okay. Because if it's 30% or you want to stay lower, you'd be in trouble, I think, if you were 30% or higher. Way higher.

SPEAKER_05 21:29

Yeah, we are way higher at Acorn.

SPEAKER_03 21:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 21:31

For labor?

unknown 21:32

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 21:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 21:33

I mean, I've always been since day one.

SPEAKER_04 21:35

Yeah. I mean, that that's that's gonna touch in.

SPEAKER_03 21:37

Which is super normal, right? When you have like restaurants that have really skilled labor cooks that uh specialize and whatnot, absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 21:44

Well, and I mean your what you do at Acorn and Leela is probably very labor intensive for the menus and the especially in the backhouse, probably.

SPEAKER_05 21:51

I mean, you can't you try to, if you were to cut a prep shift, which we have done, you know, you staff up for 100% capacity and you have a low booking, you know, ahead, and you're sort of like, you know what, maybe this is one area where we don't need to prep for 100%. We can prep for half as much, potentially, but it's still there's only so much.

SPEAKER_03 22:08

You gotta find the money somewhere, right? So if you have higher labor, then hopefully your food cost is pretty good.

SPEAKER_04 22:13

When I worked at my old restaurant at Sastu in Sushiro, Megan told me her labor was 11%.

SPEAKER_05 22:18

Whoa.

SPEAKER_04 22:19

So she's a one person. No, no, like back end. No, my I'm wrong. Not her labor, her food cost was 11%. Okay. Okay. Food cost 11%.

SPEAKER_03 22:27

Yeah, that's incredibly low.

SPEAKER_04 22:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 22:29

So what kind of restaurant was it? Sushi. Sushi. Yeah. Seafood in Saskatchewan with 11% food cost, I would never eat there.

SPEAKER_04 22:38

It was the best restaurant. It was the best restaurant in the city.

SPEAKER_03 22:41

Is that a relative statement? First of all, it was absolutely better than what the Denny's and the Smitty's. Really? Come on. We have good restaurants in Tusk. I know. I'm Saskatoon. It's the Paris of the Prairies, I believe. And when I got hired, I Yeah, Christy Peters. Shout out to Christy Peters.

SPEAKER_04 22:54

I'm gonna take my I'm gonna give I'm taking my own flowers here. And now it was the one who liked. I came in and they were like a mama pop little sushi restaurant, but the food was good, but no one knew anything about it. And then I came in and I was like, we need to actually have they never had anyone know how to run the kind of front house. And I was like, okay, I just changed that and we actually put some real drinks on, some service and turned the lights down and put some good music on, and it just like the whole atmosphere changed and it was bumping. Yeah. And then I moved to Vancouver. So yeah, it was great.

SPEAKER_02 23:18

They owned it for 18 years.

SPEAKER_04 23:19

So amazing restaurant.

SPEAKER_02 23:20

Sorry, I wanted to just say one more thing on this because I like it. When you talked about food and food costs, and you said if your labor is really high, hopefully something else is really good. So, like somebody told me this a while ago, which this was as I was learning how to think about all these costs, and just listeners might find it interesting. Is you know, if you look at like uh there's a burger joint versus like a steakhouse, right? A steakhouse could maybe run like really high food costs because their labor could be really, really low. Their labor would be low because they might still pay their servers minimum wage, and then they get tons in tips because the bills are like 300 bucks, right? So they can say, Oh, we'll run 45% food cost. And because every time we sell it, that like the bulk numbers are so big they can make that up in labor. So the point of that is not all the number, like there's no absolutes. Like you can say, oh, there's industry average, but you have to take into account like what's happening over here, what's happening there. We have those discussions all the time about stuff. Like we have fairly cheap wine at the brewery. We don't try to sell a lot of wine, that's not our main thing. But when people want a gluten-free option, we've got wine. And I was looking at the cost and I was like, our costs are really high in the wine. And then my head of ops, Justin, was like, Well, who used to work at the keg and run the beverage program there? So he was used to looking at all these numbers in a lot of ways. But he was like, Well, he's like, even at 50%, like we get to keep more than if we sold a beer. So I was like, Oh, so selling a glass of wine's better than selling a beer.

SPEAKER_03 24:40

No, it's also probably less than one percent of your sales. Yeah, it's right. So it doesn't really make much of an impact to your overall financial performance. It's higher than one percent. It's but not by much.

SPEAKER_02 24:52

It's going up quite a bit. We sell a lot of wine. We're actually so James told us that we're Pompo Moose Juice's like number one account. Oh, what? Well, because we only sell like one or two wines, and that's mostly it. Well, yeah. He tells everybody that.

SPEAKER_04 25:05

He might tell everybody that you guys almost have all sold his wine, right? Oh, yeah. I was actually gonna do it. I I think I brought this up to you guys. Maybe I was thinking we should we should do a phone if I'm gonna do that.

SPEAKER_05 25:16

You don't sell his wine, right? This is what this is the long statement.

SPEAKER_03 25:20

I have in the past, but yeah, this is turning into like basically we are uh because every time you go on the podcast, he's like he's like, you know, you fucking sell my wine right now.

SPEAKER_04 25:27

I know. We're like fucking Jimmy and Mad Damon right now. I sold it for a long time in the hotel last time. Yeah, but you stopped. I don't make the wine decisions. I mean, if I did I mean, if I did, I would never put it on. So it's you know, it's it's like you know, why would I want to put dodgy wine on?

SPEAKER_03 25:43

See, this is mean Jamie today. I like James's wine.

SPEAKER_04 25:46

We're gonna bring him back. He's gonna listen to this. We're not gonna do it. He's not here to defend himself, so I'm happy to hey. Our guests love his wine, so we're happy to give it to them. Well, I'd say it's not his wines, it's Jordan's wines. That's true. Jordan is Jordan, James is just the the weird Aussie who just gets talking about.

SPEAKER_03 26:00

So mean today.

SPEAKER_04 26:02

Okay, let's go. Let's let's let's get to fight. Let's get into a fight. Okay, so I brought up this with James a little while ago, and he's like, Oh, you want to fight about this? Okay. I wonder what you guys think.

SPEAKER_03 26:11

James or other James? You. Okay. Oh, yeah, okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 26:13

Because he's you're you're Jimmy when he's here. Okay. Restaurant reservations and cancellation policies. I have a bone to pick about this because I find it annoying. I don't know why. Okay, first off, nowadays when restaurants, you make a reservation, you have to give a credit card because people cancel, people suck, and they're flaky. And I'm all for that. I love that about restaurants. I'm curious, is the 24-hour cancellation policy window too long? Because I've run I've talked to a lot of people who've been frustrated about this, where like they wake up in the morning, they're not feeling good or whatever, and they can't cancel and they don't know how to get rid of the reservation. I talked to my buddy Tristan at Kiefer. He says if anybody has any issues, they need to get rid of it, just email me and we can obviously talk about whatever your circumstances are and I can waive the fee. My question is, do you guys think it's too long or do you think it's too short? Some restaurants do three days, some restaurants do do two days.

SPEAKER_02 26:56

Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_04 26:56

And then my curiosity is do restaurants ever double dip? They take the fee and then they still seat the table? Does that ever happen?

SPEAKER_02 27:02

Oh, probably. Yeah, that's cattle dipping. Yeah, I wouldn't call it double dipping either.

SPEAKER_04 27:07

Well, I don't know. I'm I'm not trying to, I'm not playing, I'm not mad at restaurants for doing one anything. I say restaurants, get your money. This is important. I think the other one is are we ever worried about if you do charge a consumer the fee of like sour taste in their mouth? Are we ever worried about that?

SPEAKER_02 27:23

Maybe. So first question is 24 hours too long? I was gonna, is that like kind of a normal amount? Like is that what like on open table?

SPEAKER_03 27:31

I've occasionally seen people say like at least six hours notice or something like that, but I think 24 hours is like the norm and maybe the minimum that you see most commonly.

SPEAKER_05 27:41

I think it 100% depends on your establishment. Like we are prepping for our tasting menu reservations ahead of time. And if a tasting menu does no shows, quote, look, we're not in the business to make money off of people for not eating at our establishment. That is not how we make our money. So if somebody is calling me to say, oh my gosh, this horrible thing has happened or I can't make it, and they're showing that they care enough to let you know, there's a good chance I'm not gonna charge somebody for that because we're all people and I and I get that. But to no-show straight up on a booking when we've been prepping for that table, that's okay.

SPEAKER_04 28:20

So a couple questions. Does no-shows happen all the time?

SPEAKER_03 28:23

Oh yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 28:24

Okay, so they happen all the time. Do you ever get people complaining? Yes. Okay, so that happens. Complaining about the fact that they were charged a fee. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 28:31

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_04 28:31

Yeah, yeah. Does it work? And do you have to charge the fee often? Like, would you say like once or twice a week, few times a week?

SPEAKER_01 28:37

We don't do a huge charge, we do 25 ahead. We do do 24 hours, but we do that knowing that generally if you if you're in between the 12 and 24 hour window, we're not gonna charge you, most likely. Unless it's like a big grouping that we spent a lot of time on organizing and then they just flake, then we may. But generally, if it's under 12 hours and we don't hear from them, we'll charge them. We'll charge them. If we do hear from them, we do a couple things. Either we look at the history, if this is a trend, like we have notes on people that have done it many times, then we may charge them. But generally, if anyone calls and they have a good excuse or they're nice, either we'll just wipe, we'll wipe it. But that does actually cost us money if we charge them because then you lose money on the cancellation fee because there's someone always taking a piece. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 29:22

Oh, I never thought about that. So then say like a four.

SPEAKER_01 29:24

So many things you haven't thought of, Jamie, when you want to pick a fight on me about this. Like double dipping is not double. There's so many costs to doing business that's a good thing.

SPEAKER_03 29:32

Also, you are like absolutely in your right to charge. No, no, no. We know that when you're a large group who just bails with no notice, like absolutely no no, I'm like, that is so fucking disrespectful. Yeah, yeah, you know, and you know, Como, great example, amazing restaurant, not a huge restaurant. So, I mean, always busy. There's walk-ins and whatnot, but still that could really hurt your business. In Shira's case, the fee's not gonna cover the cost of the tasting menu necessarily. So it's not designed to be punitive, but it's you know, it's just designed to be somewhat cautionary or preventative. You know, it's certainly not gonna be.

SPEAKER_04 30:04

So the bigger better than not having them in. Even though this is happening and people are more understanding or seeing that, okay, if I make a reservation in a restaurant, I'm probably gonna have to put my credit card down. Why are we still still having the no-shows? I find fascinating.

SPEAKER_01 30:18

Like that. I think a lot of people are just putting it out there, but they're not charging the people. And then people are getting, oh, well, this place does, this place doesn't. We're really nice. If you call us and we've already charged you, what we do is we offer you a gift card for your next visit, which we also lose, we lose money on that. That's so nice. That's incredibly generous.

SPEAKER_04 30:36

You you do that because you're just worried.

SPEAKER_01 30:38

Well, someone we we charge like a four-top that just no showed, and then maybe they call us the next day and they're like really genuine, like, oh, someone in our family was in the hospital last night. We are gonna offer you, invite you back. And if they're if they're actually lying about that, then they're a terrible person. That's awesome. But people lie all the time. That was the thing that was curious about how do you verify this stuff? Well, because you can't we use Resi, and on Resi, you can Google people, and there's been I could count on more than one hand the amount of times I've looked on, Googled the person, and then it their Instagram user comes up first, and then I saw that they were out, and you're just like, okay, so you went somewhere else. That's totally fine. But but still, I'll I'll invite them back and we'll offer them a gift card. That should be like an extra asshole. This is so nice of you, Sean. Honestly, that's incredible hospitality. And we're not mailing it to them. It's next time you reserve, we'll have them waiting for you.

SPEAKER_03 31:26

But it is if you see that in their history and there's pattern behavior of repetitive no-shows, then you know have you done it's like you are 100% getting charged for that. Have you done the deep dive a few times? Oh, yeah. I Google people all the time. But that's like that's normal behavior in my in in in big city restaurants for sure.

SPEAKER_01 31:45

And yeah, I think it's I'm not exaggerating since we started doing the charge on reservations, or even it's kind of just like the you know, you're at a par three and there's a lake in front of the hole. You think twice about maybe you know, clubbing up and going for it, you might be safe.

SPEAKER_02 32:00

Strong metaphor, but it's kind of thank you. It's a part three, you're always going for a par three.

unknown 32:04

True.

SPEAKER_02 32:05

Um the golfers here. Adam's a golfer. I golf a lot, but I cannot consciousness say I am a golfer.

SPEAKER_03 32:11

I'm not so very poor smart. Like three times a year golf LeBron James, how bad you're at golf? Basically. I like going out for a walk and drinking with my friends and a golf cart.

SPEAKER_01 32:20

If you look at like Saturdays, for example, it's always Saturdays three years ago when we started doing this to now. Cancellations of no shows have gone down probably over 40%.

unknown 32:29

Really?

SPEAKER_01 32:30

Oh, yeah, especially like a nice Saturday. You'd go to like we capp the book at a modest amount because we do have lots of walk-ins, but we do want those people that are reserving because they're usually ones that are coming for a proper dinner, they're spending more time, whereas a lot of our walk-ins are in and out quick, which is also what we're supposed to be to have as a bar. But it's gone down over 40%. So you'd wake up on you'd go to bed on a Friday after service and like, okay, we're full for tomorrow. And you'd come back and you'd lose 30% of your resumes.

SPEAKER_04 32:56

Holy shit. Yeah, 100%.

SPEAKER_01 32:57

And then you might have no shows.

SPEAKER_04 32:59

So now it's now it's you might lose five percent. How long have we been doing the charge? Like probably three years. How long have we been doing?

SPEAKER_05 33:06

Longer. We used to do the full deposit. So we would take a deposit up front and then we would we would refund it when the guests arrived. And we had zero no-shows when we took the full deposit. So why did you stop doing it? Because the fees of those deposits was thousands of dollars a month.

SPEAKER_01 33:24

The fees to open table. Uh was whoever resume or talk. Yeah, yeah. They take a piece when you well they all take a fees on the month. So much.

SPEAKER_05 33:31

So then you have to say, okay, are we in we're not losing any no-shows. So we're not losing any potential revenue, but are we losing more in these fees at this stage?

SPEAKER_03 33:41

How much are the fees a month? Well, it depends on how many covers you're doing, right? So it depends. Open table is the most expensive, right? Well, I think it depends on your relationship with them. And like you can there's there are things that can be negotiated. There's certain parts that would be a set cost, and then there would be like a rate per cover that you're paying. And that rate depends on whether or not the reservation is coming through the open table network or if it's coming through a widget on your own website. But you're looking at probably five, six grand a month. It's not that much. Not that much, but it's still that's a lot of fucking money by the way. Five or six thousand dollars a bit. It's not that much. I'm not, but it like it could be easily two thousand dollars a month. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 34:16

Are you still taking the deposit when people book? Yeah, charitable deposit.

SPEAKER_03 34:21

We do it as an option now, it's not a requirement.

SPEAKER_05 34:23

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 34:23

Yeah. Because that was a whole other mess.

SPEAKER_05 34:25

Was that what you were gonna throw down on tonight?

SPEAKER_03 34:27

No, I was gonna I was gonna run with the golf metaphor for a second, just because we the no-show rate was so high, I remember at Wildebe's, that we would kind of play the slice a little bit and we would actually book to 110%. Yeah, knowing so like a plane. Yeah, knowing that we were gonna lose some, and then we would still be fucking full. And it would be like, oh, tear her sweet apples at the door. She's gonna make she can do anything, and she could handle it and like move things around if necessary, or whatever, and make a seamless night. But you just knew you're gonna lose some because people were reckless back then, and the whole charging thing has really helped a lot. And you know what's weird, by the way, too? I know you guys travel a lot sometimes, like in Europe, obviously, very different policies about say tipping. It's not as big of a part of the culture there as it is in North America. But if you want, like, I'm going to Europe next week or tomorrow, and like I've been making reservations in restaurants, and you have to pay the full amount up front on your credit card. There's no, there's not like a$10 or$25 fee. Yeah. So like, and it's not like just the it's not even for all like bougie restaurants. For certain places, if they allow reservations, you're paying for the full amount, whether you show up or not.

SPEAKER_04 35:34

Well, the only restaurant in the city right now that's doing that is St. Lawrence because they're doing the tasty menu. You're just you're basically buying a ticket. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 35:39

Well, so Anna's doing it too.

SPEAKER_04 35:40

Annalena's cancellation charges$100 per person.

SPEAKER_03 35:43

As it should be. As it should be. I'm putting in a crazy amount of work into that.

SPEAKER_04 35:46

Oh, I'm totally on fine with it. Now, the better question is should more restaurants do what they're doing and just charge you. It's like a ticket. You come in. Well, most couldn't, I don't think.

SPEAKER_02 35:56

I think if you're 22 seats and you're one of the best restaurants in the city and you have a Michelin star, you can do it. You can get away with it. If you're 100 seats or whatever, I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 36:05

How much do you think how much easier do you think that is for St. Lawrence where on July 1st they release the reservations for the August and they know all their numbers before August equals?

SPEAKER_02 36:14

Well, totally it would be if you can plan everything properly. But to what Sheer said too, I mean, maybe on the flip side, they don't know what would happen if they stopped doing that because they haven't. And then they might be like, oh shit, we're gonna save thousands of dollars in fees and we're full anyway. That could happen too. But they would only know that if they did a trial where they stopped doing that.

SPEAKER_05 36:32

But the fees that we were paying were because we were taking a deposit and then refunding that deposit. So we were losing out on the fees. But if we had just when we sell tickets online for a special event and we would just keep that fee is just factored into your cost of doing business.

SPEAKER_02 36:46

But wouldn't like talk or resi keep the money that like St. Lawrence charges? Or wouldn't they? It would keep for like five percent or whatever. They would take but whatever five percent of all of their revenue is that goes through that platform could be saved by them.

SPEAKER_05 36:59

Yeah, but you're still paying 2% on your credit card fees in the restaurant. So you're probably losing out on like three percent.

SPEAKER_02 37:04

Anyway, I don't know actually what the numbers are. Yeah, okay. So we don't well to give you the flip side though, for us. So like for our restaurant in Victoria, which is like burgers and fries and beer, right? And margaritas. Well, sure, change burger, fries, and beer. I'm not, but I'm in terms of the scale of between us and St. Lawrence, there's a whole room of like what everybody in the restaurant business does. And we don't charge the fees anymore. We did because we found like if you're over six, we do, but usually we'll just handle that a little differently. But otherwise we don't just because we're more casual. And we found it was like preventing certain bookings, and there'd be times, and so we'd rather kind of not have a barrier for some of the bookings. It's really hard to manage our room because it's still small. Like we're only like 55 to 48 to 55 seats, depending on the configurations. So we stopped doing it, which is good, and then we'll kind of do that where we'll overbook a little bit and we'll find that that'll usually work because yeah, it's just people will cancel. But again, it's like to what James is saying, you're just trying to hold people accountable for the decision they made, which is totally fine. Which is what yeah, really. And so, but I mean we we're in a different segment, and at the brewery, we don't really do it at all. If you were like a really large group there, we'll take a fee. But we're I don't know how many breweries do like resos these days, but we do it on open table and it's helpful. We've just found it to be a valuable tool, as well as like at certain times we can advertise on there, which is helpful, and it just kind of catches different groups of people, which is nice. Do you think 12 hours would be too short a window?

SPEAKER_01 38:27

I think if you did it said 12 hours, then someone's eventually gonna say six. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 38:31

Oh, okay. So you think you think 24 hours?

SPEAKER_02 38:33

24, but it depends on discussion, depending on what restaurant you are.

SPEAKER_04 38:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 38:36

Like if you're prepping your tasting menu at nine in the morning already, yeah, well, then that's not a hard time.

SPEAKER_04 38:41

How hard would it be if we like share for you? Let's say you're at Acorn and a table of four cancels, let's say 11 a.m. and they were supposed to come in at six. How hard would that be to fill that seat, do you think?

SPEAKER_05 38:55

I mean, we don't get as many walk-ins because people are planning to go there for the experience and they're typically doing that in advance.

SPEAKER_04 39:03

Okay, so yeah, so if you're a walk, if you get a lot of walk-ins, you probably would be fine.

SPEAKER_01 39:06

That's not necessarily the case though, because if you're like say you're ex say you have we have four four tops in our restaurant, four to five four tops, and if they're booked by Tuesday for Friday, and then on Thursday night someone cancels, like we could fill that with a walk-in, no problem. But that walk-in might just be they might be going down the block for dinner, and there might be two other four tops from out of town that tried to book and got, oh, they're sold out. I guess we can't go. So it's not just like, are you filling it with a walk-in? It's like you probably disappointed some other people because you're sold out. And so there's some there's some people that will only go up the reservation. And we have people say it to us all the time like, Oh, we always try and book and we can never get in. I'm like, what are you talking about? There's always a way to get in. But no online, it always says you're booked. And so it's like, okay, if you had three four tops drop out Friday morning, you're gonna fill those probably with neighborhood people, which is also great. But those other people that only book online. And will only come if they have a reservation. They say stuff to me like that sometimes. I'm like, that's sometimes because you get that late cancel, but those people can't book.

SPEAKER_04 40:08

And to give your business partner flowers, me and James went into uh Como about two months ago, and it was Friday at like seven o'clock. You guys were we didn't have a reservation, you guys were packed, and he just saw us and he just looked at us. He's like, Don't worry, I'll get you guys in. I'll figure this out. And like panky and handed us uh handed us a martini, and it was just like, yeah, well, no, what I'm saying is like I remember when I was to speak about that restaurant back home in Sastoon. My my assistant one day I was off for a week and he comes to me, he's like, Man, I turned away 38 people last night. We were so busy, and I was like, that's not a good thing. Don't turn away anyone. Like, if you don't have to, I'm like, find a way to keep them in and especially with all the money they were making on fish.

SPEAKER_00 40:43

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_03 40:45

Yeah, but you posed the question this year, how hard is it to fill? And I think that it's not like it's not a measure of our effort, you know. Like maybe we get on and I don't know, on Instagram or something, post a story and say, hey, you know, last minute cancellation. But like, first of all, you shouldn't have to do that, but then you're also relying on your followers to see that and maybe maybe you'll plant a seed and and you know, inspire them to make that choice. But what if it's raining? You know, like you you can't rely on walk-ins, like there's so many different factors. Um, you know, I use the weather as an example, but there's so many different factors at play. So the point also Sean made is I think really valid that like some people just won't go out if they don't have a reservation. So if you cancel last minute so late, then you've denied people, uh the rest of the public that window that they need to make their plans and book their table at whatever it is, you know, at Como or at the Acorn.

SPEAKER_05 41:41

So Can I just interject and say how much I miss the old days when you couldn't make a reservation anywhere and everybody just flocked to places and you there was like energy around waiting for restaurants.

SPEAKER_04 41:56

Reservations are so hot right now. Do we like reservations then? Do you guys not like them as operators?

SPEAKER_05 42:01

I think they're necessary. I think the world shifted after the pandemic. I'm like, I'm people don't want to stand outside without knowing that they're not a good thing. I'm a diva.

SPEAKER_04 42:07

I like having a reservation. I don't really like not going sometimes because especially some restaurants that I want to go to.

SPEAKER_03 42:12

I'm like, You're such a diva today.

SPEAKER_04 42:14

But I can always but I'm also I will say one thing, which I find fascinating about Vancouver. I'm the type of diner who has no problem going at 10 o'clock. Yeah. Like I you I will tell you this you're a favorite kind of diner. You can get into any restaurant at 9 45. Oh you can. Like I was tell I was telling my friends this year.

SPEAKER_03 42:29

You'll get amazing service and people will appreciate you. And yeah, yeah. Well, I was talking to my friends the other day, she's like, she's like, she's like going out for dinner at seven o'clock.

SPEAKER_04 42:37

She's like, I want to get into Chase Lena. I was like, you can go anytime. She's like, no, it's booked. And I was like, no, just go at 9 45. And I I we looked at like seven days in a row. 9 45, no problem.

SPEAKER_05 42:47

He was a Jew, and she's like at 9 45.

SPEAKER_04 42:49

And she looks at me, she goes, Well, it's with my sons. And I was like, they're 18 years old. They're not four-year-olds. Like, you can take them to a restaurant at 9 45. I was like, Are you serious? That's the early seating in Spain.

SPEAKER_02 43:00

Yeah. It's true. Exactly. Right at open works pretty good too in a lot of places, especially like if you're more like industry and you kind of know, like, you don't have to be industry, but you just go in and you'd be like, okay, like they're like, Yeah, we need this table back in an hour and a half. So we didn't book it, but you can have it for an hour and a half and be like, I can eat and drink in here in an hour and a half.

SPEAKER_03 43:19

And oh, 100% area. You know, they'll make something work anyway at that point. Well, a lot of times, when your hour and a half comes up, they're like, Yeah, you know, we might move you to the bar, but you know, because then somebody knows will make you a lot of people. Exactly right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 43:30

Oh, when I was in Athens, when I was in Greece, I mean the dinner didn't start until 11:30. Yeah. It was like, I remember we were in Neplio and like 11:30, like there's like hundreds of kids walking around freaking out and screaming in this court in this big open like uh courtyard, and like all the restaurants were packed, everyone's hanging out. Like it was just I was like, I was like, I love Europe. I love everything about Europe. Yeah, yeah. I'm very jealous you get to go there tomorrow. Thank you. So I'm excited. Okay, so 24 hours is good. And then you guys have, I guess we talked about this. The double dipping, has that ever happened?

SPEAKER_01 44:00

I don't look at this double dipping because there's so many things like if we lose a four-top and then we give them a gift card and we fill it with a four-top, that's just casual four-top, and all the correspondence that goes on with that. Like, I just think that's one of the costs of doing business where the restaurant actually is in the plus because there's so many that they're not, yeah, that that's just one minor victory amongst many losses.

SPEAKER_02 44:23

Especially at your two places, if four people don't show up, that costs you money, even if you seat a different four people.

SPEAKER_01 44:30

And there's a phone call, there's an email thread, and there's that's important.

SPEAKER_03 44:33

Yeah, there's financial and emotional labor that goes into like filling those seats, and I think that shouldn't be discounted.

SPEAKER_04 44:40

James, what was the worst experience you ever had at Wildebees with no-shows? Like, did you have like a night where it was just like, holy shit, we had so many fucking no-shows tonight?

SPEAKER_03 44:47

No, I I I can't think of something specific, but I just I we learned that lesson of playing the slice very early days. Like if it's like if it's January and you've got 330 in the book because it's dying out, and you just look at it and you just book that extra five to ten percent and make sure that you're okay. You're okay. Yeah, that's good. And you trust your Metre D to manage it and make sure that everybody's really happy.

SPEAKER_02 45:10

And if you pour a little bubble at the door, then that's what you gotta do. You'd rather pour some free prosecco than have tables cancel. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 45:18

What does a hotel do? For someone cancels, they get charged. Do you guys rebook the room?

SPEAKER_04 45:24

I actually I mean, in the lounge we don't really take reservations at all.

SPEAKER_01 45:26

No, but for like the rooms in the hotel. It's just an analogy.

SPEAKER_04 45:29

Oh, yeah, I never thought about it. Yeah, I guess you're right. Yeah, they would charge you. But they'd rebook the room. They probably rebook the room, probably, yeah. I would say, yeah, I guess it makes sense. I'm not memoaning any restaurant for doing that. I was just curious. I was just curious to do that. There's just lots of businesses where if they I'm curious to learn if it actually I mean, yeah, I'm just curious if it actually does happen.

SPEAKER_05 45:44

There's always those double standards with restaurants and hospitality.

SPEAKER_01 46:02

Most people are super stoked when you say, Oh, you're gonna like give me back a gift card, they're super happy. And then you know they're coming back.

SPEAKER_03 46:08

People do take advantage of our kindness and hospitality. It's so true. I mean it's sad. I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 46:13

I mean, Sean, you know, Sean's so nice, picks up his own glasses and brings them to the bar and gets yelled and gets yelled at the shoot out about me.

SPEAKER_03 46:20

Jesus.

SPEAKER_04 46:21

Sean, stop being so nice. Stop being so nice.

SPEAKER_03 46:24

No, but we do all kind of sometimes sacrifice and diminish our own self-worth because like we have this hospitality mindset, and then we kind of bend over backwards for people, even at our own detriment, our own financial kind of harm. And that's honestly, it's not okay. I feel really protective about people in our industry, and and I wish people wouldn't do that. And there needs to be a little bit more personal responsibility by the public. And if that's learned by getting a$10 or$25 charge through open table, because you no-showed your Friday night reservation, then you know, so be it. So be it.

SPEAKER_01 46:55

It's crazy how many people have COVID on Saturday morning when the sun comes out that night. You don't really hear that one that much anymore. But for a couple of years there, it was just like Oh, I got COVID.

SPEAKER_04 47:05

I'm so sorry. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 47:06

And those ones, those are the ones where you're like, okay, tell you what, next time you're coming in, please put a message and we've got on your profile that we have a gift card waiting for you.

SPEAKER_03 47:15

Please send us a photo of your test result.

SPEAKER_00 47:18

Could you imagine?

SPEAKER_04 47:19

Could you imagine? Jesus. All right. So, question two, that was good. Um that turned out we didn't really fight that much, but it was good. No, we're not done yet. Yeah. Second question team culture when the spark is gone. I've noticed this a few times where I've gone to a restaurant and it hit every every mark. Greets you nicely, you come in, service is prompt, food's good, it's all good. But for some reason, I feel something is missing in the in the establishment. And I wonder if you guys have ever experienced this, whether it's just like kind of a malaise of like maybe we need to get some new blood in here, or is there something going on? Is this something you guys ever see or feel? Or have you ever been like there's something here? And I guess the question is I don't know. It was just something I I thought about the other day, and I just wondered if this is something that's maybe just me thinking this. I'll let James go first.

SPEAKER_03 48:00

Yeah, I mean, morale goes a long way, obviously. Like we all want to enjoy first off, you have your experiences. Have you ever been to a place where you've got to be able to do it? Man, I've been doing this for 25 fucking years. Of course I have. There's no age jokes, by the way, when James is in here. Yeah, you're still the honesty. I know you can still do that. Honestly, nothing is better than when everybody gets on well and loves each other, supports each other, and it's like just a smooth, fluid Friday night, and everybody's speaking the same language, and you know, it just you feel so good in those services, you know. But there are times when somehow, somehow, like there's some maybe there's an individual who's going through a hard time, or maybe they slip through the cracks and they're just a really negative person, and and that can be really damaging to the team. It's amazing. Like, there's studies about this. Adam Grant talks a lot about like the negative impact a negative person can have to the performance of the rest of the team, to the confidence of the rest of the team. And you gotta be really mindful of that, I think. And you need to be careful about how you take care of that person who's struggling, but also you have to think about the big picture and sometimes realize that it's a brutal way to put it, but sometimes the herd needs to be culled a little bit to make sure that the rest of it really thrives and survives because there's so much at stake.

SPEAKER_04 49:13

Well, and it's like this idea of like if you've ever been served by someone who you could you felt like they didn't want you there, or that they didn't want to be there, but they didn't feel it. That's it. Yeah, and where you're sitting there and like you can tell they don't want to be there, and then you feel that energy. Yeah, yeah. But they're not doing anything wrong, you just feel it.

SPEAKER_02 49:28

Well, no, they're doing that wrong. That's wrong. That part is wrong. Like you're in the hospitality business, you can't show up not wanting to be. You're allowed to not want to be there. That's the day where you got COVID in the morning and you call in sick. Like, if you can't show up and bring your best, because then you expect to get tipped, you know. Like, I mean, really? And I think that's it. We all have it. Like, I don't serve right now. I have served a lot. I've had a ton of serving jobs, I've worked in kitchens, bars, everything. And you have those days where you have like a day where you went out last night and you're like, I'll be fine tomorrow, and then you're super hungover, and everyone's like, You're like, I am not at my best. Like that happens to everybody, but yeah, like you did that wrong. You're not paying 400 bucks for somebody who doesn't want to be there who makes you think they don't want you to be there.

SPEAKER_04 50:12

Have you ever felt that with your own teams where you're like working, you're maybe on the floor and you're like, there's something here that we need to fix. For sure. Yeah. Where you're like, we need to. I just thought it was interesting because I was at this one restaurant recently and I was there and I was sitting there and I was like, I was like, wow, this I feel like the entire staff doesn't want to be here. I felt like they were just kind of going through the motion.

SPEAKER_03 50:28

Okay, so that's a different thing because we were previously talking about an individual and you're talking about the whole staff. The vibe. So there that says to me that whoever's leading that team is doing a very poor job. There's something going on there that's like infiltrated to all of them. And all these people that are miserable.

SPEAKER_04 50:45

All these people that work there are like established veterans, they've been there for a long time. They know that they they're good at their jobs, they know what they're doing. But they just, I felt like when I was there, I was like, wow, this whole team just feels like they're just like kind of just like dirt over it.

SPEAKER_03 50:57

Well, if it's the manager, then the owner needs to step in. If it's the owner, then you're, you know, somebody needs to have an intervention. Otherwise, they're either gonna lose a lot of those great people.

SPEAKER_02 51:06

Right.

SPEAKER_03 51:06

But there's context to that too.

SPEAKER_02 51:07

Like, was that a you know a one-day thing? Or you've been to this place except I've seen it a few times, yeah. I've seen it in the same place. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I was gonna say, you never know what happens in a game.

SPEAKER_04 51:15

Have you ever felt that in your own restaurant be like, I gotta, I gotta make a shake up or something.

SPEAKER_05 51:18

100%.

SPEAKER_04 51:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 51:19

I mean, I hold our managers to a higher standard than the rest of the team because they're the ones who are responsible to set the tone. And so they have to, if they're having a bad day, they gotta show up and be like and hold that close and be positive for the whole team because the whole team is gonna mirror that back and then it just circles all the way down. And it's so important. It is the most important.

SPEAKER_02 51:41

Well, they've also got to be the person who fixes the person that showed up the way I was describing. So if they're like that and then somebody else shows up that's not their best, downwards fire if they can't even help them, then then you're fucked.

SPEAKER_04 51:51

I think you and I were talking one time, and you said the most important part of a hospitality experience is the greeting and the goodbye. Is that you? I think that was maybe.

SPEAKER_03 51:59

I think that was a conversation that you and I and James were having. Yeah, uh, I wouldn't say necessarily the most important, but like there's tremendous value in the uh in the introduction and the way that final memory is implanted in the last five minutes or so, which is like the billing and the gratitude and the and the exit. So yeah, I mean, a lovely greeting and goodbye isn't gonna make up for a shit service. Right. No, you know, you can't do that. You know, people are gonna see through that in a heartbeat. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 52:28

Have you guys ever, I mean, we've probably all had this is a dumb question, but like have you guys ever had service so bad that you're like, I'm I'm literally gonna get up and walk away from this experience right now.

SPEAKER_05 52:36

Yeah, but I probably blocked it out of my memory.

SPEAKER_01 52:38

Yeah, yeah. I'm pretty easy going. I usually also going back on individuals having bad days, it can be really it's a hard job because you're constantly facing the whole time if you're at server.

SPEAKER_05 52:50

I think you want to give people the benefit of the doubt.

SPEAKER_01 52:51

Yeah, like sometimes people may have had something happen in their life and they're not in the best mood, and hopefully they can come around or they're just maybe just quiet. But if they're really negative or it happens all the time, it's just somewhere maybe you don't go back to.

SPEAKER_04 53:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 53:05

But sometimes people have a bad day. And I'm I'm like the most easygoing customer. I think I'll I'll sit there for like 10 minutes and get ignored, and I'll just be like I'm I'm like, oh yeah, they're busy or whatever. I'm very, very easy going. That's probably just being in the industry as long as I have. But if that constantly happens somewhere, I might just not go there.

SPEAKER_04 53:24

Yeah. I think it's kind of I mean, I I mean, I went to uh have you guys ever been to this place up on commercial? What is it called? Rhythm and Spice or something, whatever. I don't know. I remember. I went over there. I was up on commercial, I was buying a record at Audio Pile and walked by and I was like, I've never been to this place, walked in. Horrible, awful. Don't ever go there. It's the worst experience I've ever had in my entire life. The guy forgot, he took our food order, wrote it down, forgot one dish, said, and then when I went to go pay, because he forgot about us, I went to and I was like, I'm just like, I just put money on the table. I was like, I just need to get out of this experience. It was one of the worst experiences I've ever had in my life. Wrote up the bill and he's like, it's$30. I was like, dude, you only gave us one dish. And he's like, I did, and didn't remember. And I was like, you wrote it down in front of me. And he's like, and he's like, I thought I brought you both. And I was like, no, we've been sitting here for 20 minutes and you didn't even recognize us. Ouch. And I was, I was, I was like, I was, I just put the money down, and the food was awful. And I was like, I don't like to bemoan and say things, bad things about restaurants, but I was like, I was like, that was one of the worst experiences I've heard of my life.

SPEAKER_05 54:15

Okay, so are you gonna go to Google now and write a review? No. I would never have any of you ever left a review, Google review?

SPEAKER_02 54:22

Only positive. I'm sure that I have oh, I've definitely done it positive when I knew there was like a contest for an account, but yeah, no, I'm not a big review person.

SPEAKER_01 54:30

I get prompted all the time now, so I I generally, if I get prompted and I have time, I'll do it. But I don't know if I've ever given a bad review online. Well, I I'm the same way, by the way.

SPEAKER_03 54:41

Yeah, I'm the same as Sean Light. I write positive reviews all the time. Yeah. Oh, I've definitely I've never left. The internet doesn't need more than activity.

SPEAKER_04 54:49

The comedian Sebastian Manascalco does a really funny thing about this. He goes, he goes, Who has time to write shitty reviews? He's like, it's like you just don't go back. He's like, who who tattletales on the restaurant? I guess I just did that right now.

SPEAKER_01 54:59

But people that didn't have time to say they didn't like it when they helped out, Jamie.

SPEAKER_05 55:04

That that's that's the human connection, right? I mean, we're going to a space, you have a bad experience. I mean, as a person who believes deeply in hospitality, I want everyone to walk away and tell 10 people how amazing their experience was. And it's just as detrimental when you have a bad one.

SPEAKER_03 55:23

Well, more so actually, because people often take the good stuff for granted, unfortunately, right? Right. And so there's a real imbalance if you look at Google for reviews. That's why I actually really like if you were to book on a reservation platform, whether it's Resi or Open Table or Talker whatever, you're going to get a prompt for a review the next day. And I think that's more balanced, right? Because that's a great way to get an objective kind of opinion about what somebody enjoyed or not about your restaurant. And when you do that, like I just think it's uh it's it's a lot more worthy of our attention as restaurateurs to look at that. Yeah. So yeah, when I get the prompt, like Sean was just saying, I always respond. Usually it's like five stars. I'm honest about it. If there's something constructive, I can just message the restaurant privately. I always write, I just write meh, and it just leaves that one word.

SPEAKER_04 56:19

But you still give five stars? Uh and then we Google this guy, right? You gotta rep I've actually I've actually never like because you get that the next day, the email or whatever it is. I've never followed up with the case. Are you the guy who's taking such good care of us at the time?

SPEAKER_01 56:31

Say, I really thought I was gonna like this place.

SPEAKER_05 56:34

I really wanted to like this place.

SPEAKER_01 56:35

Do you get those?

SPEAKER_05 56:36

Oh, I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 56:37

I don't I don't read those.

SPEAKER_04 56:38

Do you guys look at your reviews? No.

SPEAKER_01 56:39

Do you guys care? I I care, but I have there's people that do look at them and maybe send us anything that's really important, but I stopped just generally looking at them a while ago. But the good ones and the bad ones, we'll see. I don't have a bad time at coma. I I don't know how that happened. Have you ever heard the life if you have a bad time? They make a runny tortilla, and that's not how they do it in Spain, because there's no way I would know.

SPEAKER_03 57:03

Like, how many times have you been to Spain since you opened the rest of the money? Like, no, that's what I mean.

SPEAKER_01 57:08

Like they don't they don't do that there. I'm like, oh really? You might hate soccer.

SPEAKER_02 57:12

Yeah, yeah. You know, that'd go a long way. Like, how do you like I don't get it? People are crazy.

SPEAKER_05 57:17

I think that people are so online and they're they're so detached from the experience by the time they're going to that forum that they forget that there are people, hardworking people behind that screen that provided the experience that maybe didn't meet their expectations that are very receptive to like an email directly. I'm all for that. I want all the constructive criticism we can get. But if I'm gonna see someone give me two stars, one star is not write anything, okay. Go F yourself, you know, and you can allow the ego, you can see. But I mean, give give us something like we need, you know, something to work with. You can't just do a walk by one star on your way to I we saw one person recently who also right after reviewing Acorn went and reviewed the gas town steam clock. You know, it's just like and Google is prompting people the gas town fucking steam clock. You can review anything. What you can review the tree outside your apartment. I swear, I should you not, you can review anything.

SPEAKER_01 58:24

It's crazy. We've been open seven years now, and I can say that we've got less than a dozen angry emails over that time. We've probably had over a hundred negative reviews. I have no idea, right? But less than ten angry emails about experience. Is that crazy?

SPEAKER_04 58:37

I find that's I mean, that's remarkable, and that's a pretty nice good for you on that.

SPEAKER_01 58:41

Well, you know, we have a great team and it's a fun experience for most, but there's some people that just maybe won't come back, and that sucks. But we don't get angry emails, so they're just angry reviews, maybe.

SPEAKER_04 58:51

I mean, one of the great joys of my life is running into Adam at Como because it seems to happen quite often.

SPEAKER_03 58:56

Yeah. I've run into you there before too. It's a good place to be. It's a fun place. You had your dog with you?

SPEAKER_02 59:01

It was awesome. The dog loves it sitting at the barrels. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 59:04

That's great.

SPEAKER_02 59:04

A little barrel cut.

SPEAKER_04 59:05

How do you like go to Como at seven o'clock on a Friday? It's like one of the fucking funnest room in the world.

SPEAKER_01 59:10

It's fun. It's so fun.

SPEAKER_03 59:11

Yeah, we recently did that actually uh when Jesse Grasso was in town. And we went early though. It was like 4 30. Okay. And stood at, you know, that's what I love at the bar. And we had like, yeah, two, two and a half hours, ate everything, lots of martinis, lots of genitani.

SPEAKER_04 59:25

I sat down and I went, I looked at our server and I was like, pork chop and the steak, please. And she like looked at me, she's like, Yes. And I didn't even ask anyone else. And she's like, and the people that were sitting with, like, what did you just order? And I was like, I don't care. We're just eating this right now because it's so fucking delicious.

SPEAKER_03 59:37

Was that around your birthday? No, this was last week. Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_04 59:40

Yeah, I mean, uh we had a great time. And then like, and everything showed up, and it was fucking the food's so good there. So good. Anchory butter. That's good too.

SPEAKER_03 59:46

Anchory butter is insane. So anchory butter on that T-bone is so good. Is it still a T bone right now?

SPEAKER_01 59:51

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 59:51

There's a ribeye too.

SPEAKER_01 59:52

There's a ribeye too where you can get they shave uhama on top, like the air guy tuna.

SPEAKER_03 59:57

I had that at uh my friend's birthday when we were there a couple weeks ago. Going in there with a big group, I know it's a pain in the ass for you, probably, but it works so good. Because I mean we ate the shit out of the city. You guys had a big crew that night too. I saw that. I think there was like 20 of us. Yeah, I saw that. Yeah, it's 18. 20's a lot. 20 is a lot. We had 18. We had the whole back. Okay. But it was so fun. So fun.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:15

Yeah. All right. So this next question is kind of one of the main reasons why I actually brought you guys here together because I was going to write this as a column, and this one is going to be talking with you, this one a lot, Shira. I was kind of curious about this idea because only because I looked at your menu at Acorn and I looked at the menu at Folk, and you guys had something in common. I thought it was interesting. I was just kind of curious if this is true or not. Do you make more money on having meat on a menu or not having meat on a menu? And what I mean by that is your menu, you don't have anything over 30 bucks. Can you charge more?

SPEAKER_05 1:00:40

We should charge more.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:42

This is not a straightforward yes or no answer, but you can buy pretty cheap meat out there. And I did just like a quick search to sort of see, because I don't source meat, but you can get a boneless, skinless chicken breast from Cisco for$5 a pound. And the organic pinto beans that we're buying from Crop and Farm are$13 a pound. And we have to put a lot of labor into that too, right? So it's like food cost and labor. So I mean, it's not a black and white answer. We should be charging more. I think that we're still, and we've been open 13 years, we're still working on showing the general population that good quality ingredients that might be vegetable forward have value, the same value as protein. I think people just see protein and they think that's where your money's going, even if that protein is cheap and total garbage.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:39

Yeah, because like okay, so those beans have a lot of protein in them. So I have to try and compare protein to protein just to sort of go that way.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:45

You know, like I mean meat protein. So we should be charging way more for our menu, 100%. And that's why our labor cost is as high as it is, because we could be charging more, but we're still.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:55

Would people pay more? Do you think?

SPEAKER_05 1:01:57

I think they would. But I think we're at a tough time right now, especially with you know the economy and people maybe spending less. That now's not necessarily maybe the time. We did a big increase, I think everyone did last year to sort of meet the inflation. And now I think we're just holding tight for a minute. But yeah, we should charge more. 100% we should charge more.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:16

Can you can you make more money off your steak, or do you make more money off like a smaller dish? Like there's the problem market.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:24

But it's like it's one of those things that is such a winner that it it instead of us upping the price, I'd just be happy that everyone talks about it. It does though, dishes like that do take away from other dishes on the menu because it's a pretty heavy dish. But if you have enough people, you're sharing. But for in that sense, I think that's also why the steakhouse analogy was interesting because the steaks cost a lot, but they don't you don't really have to do much to them. So you kind of look at it in that way too. Like if you look at like our tinned fish, for example, they're pretty expensive tins, but they're the least marked up thing in the restaurant. Most people don't know that, but it's not like a lot of bottle of wine, you're just opening it. There's no labor involved, there's no prep involved.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:56

You just gotta open the tin, that's it.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:58

Yeah, so like for a very nice vegetable dish that takes a lot of prep and mise en passe, like, yeah, you should charge more. There's so much. It's kind of like another analogy would be like the pizza slice analogy. People are like, you know, pizza slices are six or seven bucks now. But it's like if you have lunch at AJ's and you go have a slice and a Diet Coke at lunch for under 15 bucks. It's not bad. Like if you go to a restaurant and have a sandwich and that same Diet Coke, you're looking at 30 to 40 bucks. So they should be charging more for that slice, is kind of what I'm saying. That slice actually isn't expensive.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:25

Well, I just thought it was interesting that both the two main, like two dominant kind of veg forward restaurants in the city both have the same price on them. You guys have caps. I don't even know if you knew that.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:33

No, I don't think it's caps like that for any reason in particular. I mean, we do our tasting menu, it's$85. You get like 12 dishes, you get a significant amount of variety in food, all of which have a lot of time and labor put into each course dish.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:52

Delighted. It's fucking delicious, and you're probably gonna sleep better than you've had a big fat steak at 9.45 reservation.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:59

So I guess I'm like I'm saying it's like could you have a$70 dish on your menu? Do you think people would be okay with that?

SPEAKER_05 1:04:04

A$70 dish?

SPEAKER_04 1:04:05

Like a guess how much is your tea phone? It's like 60 bucks. Yeah. 60 sucks. 60 sucks. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:10

I don't know. I don't know that we could. I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:11

That's the thing I was curious about.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:12

Is I'm like, do people have this kind of like I think something like highly technical, super creative? Yeah, with the right, yeah, you're right. No, the right component, the right elements, you could definitely charge it. It's all about creativity and it's all about like execution.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:27

That's such a good point. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:28

Okay, so like you have six different restaurants and they're all different in different scope in what you do, but like, is it easier to make more money off the meat-centric dishes?

SPEAKER_03 1:04:35

I don't, you know, I don't think so necessarily. No, I don't. And you know, I think you know, you take a steak that might cost your cost on that might be let's say$25. And let's say you sell it for$50. Well, from a food percentage perspective, well, that's a 50% food cost. That sounds terrible, you know, compared to what a normal food cost would be in a restaurant or, you know, Saskatchewan sushi places, notwithstanding. But like 50% food cost would be like incredibly high, but you just made$25 on that dish. Every time. So your bottom. So you look at that. So from your bottom line perspective, and this is really important, like that's really that's something to be considered. It's the same with wine. Like, so a wine list, stuff that you have by the glass, which is normally a lower cost, you're gonna have a bit of a higher margin on that than you would on a$200 bottle, you know, on your reserve by the bottle list or whatever. And that's okay because you're making a bigger chunk of cash. And the fact that, you know, it happens to be a higher food cost doesn't really matter. Okay. So there's a bit of art to the science of costing out a menu, and you gotta factor those things in. But with regards to vegetables, like, yeah, for sure. Like, I mean, the margarita pizza at Bufala probably has one of the best, not probably, I know that it has like one of the best food costs of all of the pizzas that we have, and it doesn't have any meat on it. And the fact that I can charge a little bit more because of the meat doesn't make up for the difference in food cost. It's a bit of a misnomer. I think it's like uh this kind of yeah, it's a little bit of a myth. I think so.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:03

Would you rather sell more margarita pizzas because you'll make one profit margin off those? Well, I don't really look at our business in that way. No, I know I'm saying, but like if you were to think about it more in the uh economic part.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:12

Fuck, I don't care, dude. Like people to eat what they want to eat, and that's fine. As long as the overall is okay, that's cool. But like cauliflowers are expensive, you know, pinto beans are expensive. And when they're done right and they're grown by this like beautiful little farm, like, you know, less than 50 kilometers away, and then like turned into something magical by chefs at the acorner folk, like you gotta pay for that. And you shouldn't complain about it. It's like no, and I don't think anybody's complaining about it. I'm just I was just like, So I disagree with you. I think a lot of people would complain and say, Well, there's no fucking meat on this dish. Why am I paying$25 for it? Or why am I paying forty-five dollars for this? Yeah, because they don't get it, and there's this false kind of idol in their heads about there's an overvaluation of meat on a plate.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:50

Especially now, meat protein is like popular.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:54

How many steaks are on menus right now? Chaseline, Labattoire, yours. There's one at and it's kind of becoming like a big thing. I mean, I'm doing a series on pork chops right now, and it's like been the greatest fun joy of my life. There's 19 restaurants in the city that have pork chop on the menu. Really? 19 restaurants.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:09

Fuck yeah, how many of you have how many of them have you been to so far? I've tried 16 of them.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:13

Really? Good journalism. Okay, wait, sorry.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:15

That's good journalism right there, Jamie Ma. Don't remember.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:18

But a lot of restaurants that are opening now, which I I mean, here's what's amazing: they are doing more veg centric dishes. A lot more places have a lot more vegetarian options, or they're featuring more vegetables, and then there's like a little bit of protein, you know, like meat protein. So, like, I think as a slow-moving iceberg, whatever, we're seeing a shift that there are more vegetables on menus, but they are charging more because they're gonna put like a pork chop on it for and it's 40 bucks.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:45

The other question I was curious about is like you've been in business for 13 years, you're obviously successful and making money. Are you having a better, higher profit return on what you do? And is that a mark a model for other restaurants and be like, hey, I only charge up to 30 bucks when we make a lot of money. Could more restaurants be like, fuck, why would I do meat if I can just kind of mimic this model?

SPEAKER_05 1:08:02

I always joke and say, don't do what I do because I'm not profit-driven. You know, I think a lot of the choices we make in our restaurant are for the betterment of our team, of the environment. We're doing a lot of things. We're zero waste. We process down ingredients past the point that you would normally process it. So, you know, you we save the cores and the stems of something so that we can keep using it. We preserve, like we spend a week in the summer, our team spends a week preserving all the stone fruits so that we can have them in the winter. But like that is some serious labor costs. Like, don't do that. If you're worried about profitability, don't do that. But do it because you want to open, you know, a jar of peaches that were picked at peak season in the middle of the summer in December. You know, that's why we do it.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:48

I think on your menu, there should be at the front, be like, do you not fucking realize how much work we put into this fucking menu? Yeah, you're gonna enjoy one of the greatest meals you've ever had.

SPEAKER_05 1:08:56

That's gonna be our new menu. We talked about this before, right?

SPEAKER_04 1:08:58

Like we're like welcome to acorn.

SPEAKER_05 1:09:00

Welcome to the acorn. I'm gonna school you, but we have to be really careful about it.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:05

Remember, we talked about how stoic and modest. Again, it comes back to that sense of like we don't value ourselves enough. You know, it's this hospitality thing, you know, we downplay it, and we're often stoic and silent and humble about the quality of ingredients that go on the menu. We don't want to talk about it. We just, you know, but the suppliers, the purveyors that we're all getting our products from, our ingredients from to make these menus are like, well, they're really special. They're not, you know, it's not frozen fucking beef from the other side of the planet that's like super, super cheap. And I think it's important that people know that. So I totally get your point about like shouting it from the rooftop or putting it on the menu. Well, she's undervalued. Like their restaurant's undervalued. Yeah, but she's elegant. And I just wish that a lot of people would be slightly more in your face about it because the some of the public just need to be educated in that sense, you know, and that's okay. They've got other things going on in their lives, but if they knew the amount of like work that's going into it, into growing that vegetable or raising that animal or whatever, and all the way along the line until it's on the plate, then they might not be so concerned about the fact that their vegetable dish costs them$25. Right.

SPEAKER_05 1:10:15

Also, I have to just as you know, a former punk like musician whose friends are still punk. Thank you. No, but I want my artist and musician friends who maybe can't afford a$45 vegetable dish to come into the acorn and have a glass of wine and a nice snack and spend 30 bucks. Like you actually can almost do that. And I really want us to be that accessible. So maybe I want it all. I want to have the tasting menu, be super fancy, but I still want like the neighborhood to come.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:45

This is mean Jamie's back.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:47

Fucking pressable. Adam, I mean, here's here's to start talking about some of the Adam. I mean, I wrote a column in 2017. I was pissed off at your industry, the beer industry, the emerging craft beer industry, because I was like, you guys priced yourselves too low. Yeah. You guys priced yourselves too low compared to all the mass-produced balls, all the crap that we've been seeing for decades. I was like, your beers are so much better than theirs. Yours, your pints should have been starting so much higher. And I wonder if we tried to I think you guys are still undervalued.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:11

Thank you. I suppose I agree. I'd love to charge more. It would make things easier.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:15

Like I think your pints should have started at 15 bucks. Like, yeah, where would they do for your Bud Light?

SPEAKER_02 1:11:19

So that part's great. Which no, I like that. I've said that on this podcast before. It's it's great. Different than Bud Light. But there'll be people out there paying like Guinness is a brand. Like Guinness is a fucking monster, right? And like people pay 12 bucks for Guinness places and they won't bat nine. Won't bat nine.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:35

And you know, barbers. Or drink the first half of it in the first sip. Well, which is fucking the best marketing footage of all time.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:42

I still can't do it. So I it's too hard. Yeah, I don't know how they got that out there, where that came from. I remember the first place I heard about it, and then the other day I sat down and I actually had one with two buddies, and they both did it, and I didn't do it. And I was like, oh shit. I'm like, this is really caught on. Like everybody's doing it. Oh man. Everybody doesn't really. You're gonna start with Guinness logo. Yeah, put it at the end. How much do you think?

SPEAKER_04 1:12:01

Yeah, but do you think people do the big swig and then they're like, okay, I'm full, and they slow down. You can do more than the third of the glass.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:06

It's helping for sure because you think it's bottom line sales? I just told you, somebody comes by and they're like, another one? The way Jamie poured wine for crying guests at the hotel, right? Like when people come together, you're just giving them more. Somebody wants another one.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:18

If you're being a half, I go, another one. Yeah. And then if there's three guys and they look at each other and they're like one guy's like, no, no, no, I'm like, come on. I'm like, come on, seriously, buck up.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:25

And let's go for it.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:27

I'm a very pushy salesman.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:28

Come on, is the greatest sales tactic of all time. You're like, come on, come on. Low-key boy. Sorry, not just not just in our identity and I'm hired to be the devil.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:39

I'm hired to encourage you to drink until not too much, and then if you get belligerent, I kick you up.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:44

So sorry, what I was gonna say, like what James and Cher are saying, is I think it's also, and this works for beer too. We have a harder time doing it with like a pint. But like when you get a dish, like that's your opportunity as like a team, as a server with culture, with training to like put that in front of somebody and tell them what they're paying for. Like you put it down and you say, like, James kind of almost did it, but he didn't have the specifics of like, you know, it's like this came from here, this was prepared this way by these people, like this. That's why you're paying 30 bucks or whatever it is, right? And I recently I was in Hawaii in March, and everywhere I went in Hawaii, they did that. And we went to some like nice places, but we went to like burger place, like we went to Monkey Pod, which is like super casual, and everyone did that with everything. Guy fucking sold me beer. Like he totally like passion sold me a pint of beer. And I'm I actually don't remember the last time someone did that to me. He's like, We got this beer. He's like, I can't remember what it is right now. It was like a coconut blonde ale. He's like, Oh, I had that beer when I was here. Yeah, he's like, We only have one, or sorry, coconut brown ale. He's like, it's the only one that we have, it's the last one. He's like, it's fucking awesome. I love it. And I was like, Yes, I'm getting that. Like, only because you said it. And I think one of the reasons why they do it, and I've noticed it more in Hawaii than anywhere else, is like everything in Hawaii is like, first of all, it was US dollars at the time when our dollar was terrible. But it was also like burgers start at 30 bucks. Everything was just more expensive, right? And I think they kind of do that and they kind of know, like, well, just give this a little bit extra, and it softens the pain of parting with$30 for US. US. Oh, we went, we got coffee, and I think it was like$140 Canadian after tip for the coffees and like breakfast, like BLTs basically that we got. Because I think, yeah, it was like eight. How many people? Two. Yeah, me and K. So it was, I think it was$80 US after tip. You know, it was like an$8,$8,$15, 15 plus whatever. And it just ended up, and I was like, holy shit. And then I was like, can't afford to stay here.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:36

That's a tough time to go to Hawaii.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:38

Okay, so well, yeah, and it was worse back in March.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:40

But I mean, like when I say about the fact that you guys undervalue yourselves, like they undervalue themselves. You mean the beer industry? You mean the acorn? Acorn in the beer industry totally does. I think I still what is a four-pack now? Four packs, twenty bucks, usually twenty-one, twenty two.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:53

Uh yeah, like in most private stores, I think that's a pretty average price. Okay. You can get them. Is there a okay? So what's what does Corona come in?

SPEAKER_04 1:15:00

24?

SPEAKER_02 1:15:01

Six? Definitely a 24 and a six, every format. Six twelve. Corona comes in every format. Okay, Corona. Corona. If I get a six-pack, six pack corona is probably what, twelve bucks? I would assume at the BCL that's$11.99 for six coronas.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:16

Are we at a point now where the the craft beer industry is charging the appropriate amount for the way better quality, you know? And it should I think it should be able to some I think it should be marginal and massive.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:26

Some are, but some are still$13. Yeah, but some aren't better quality than Corona as well, right? Like, I mean Corona's quality. Sorry, no, I'm saying what Adam is saying is that some craft beer is not that good. Okay, like it's not better just because I'm a small producer, in my opinion. So I don't believe that. I should give it a um, like not every small independently owned restaurant is better than McDonald's. Like you can go to McDonald's in a lot of places, and you that might be a better choice than some. I wish it wasn't true.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:50

Corona has its moments.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:51

Would you ever Corona's are fucking delicious as well? I would drink those. No, a corona with a lime, it's its own thing. It's not a beer, it's delicious.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:57

Would you have a beer for it at like 2:30 in the morning going on vacation? A Corona is fucking delicious.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:03

Okay. One thing that I've learned about marketing is like when you put on your menu, put something extravagant on your menu that's really expensive because it makes everything else seem cheaper. Yes. Would you ever do a beer that's like$45 for a pint?

SPEAKER_02 1:16:13

Yeah, maybe. I mean, for a beer, I think that would be insane. There are people who have kind of done it. Like Brew Dog kind of did that with their tactical nuclear penguin thing. But I don't think we really need to do that.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:23

But I mean, could you I mean, I guess what I'm saying is like, could you get away with it? Like, could would consumers be open to the idea? Like, you know, you go to a restaurant and you see a$500 bottle of wine, people are fine with it. Are we not testing the boundaries of like you? I mean, like$30, everything was nothing higher than that. Could you just go, you know, we're gonna have a couple of$40 and$50 and just test the limits of what people are pushing here a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:40

I mean, we have like with some beers that we've done where we sell them, like it's more on the retail side than on like the tap room side. Like we'd be more, you know, can we make like our business model when we start? I think I've said this on here before, is like we just make what we want to make and mark it up appropriately. So it's like if it costs$3 a liter, it'll be twice as like it can't really be twice as expensive as something that's a dollar fifty a liter, because that would make it like$30 for a four-pack. But we'll try to make like$26. And then 40 consumers will say, fuck yeah, and then the rest won't buy it, right? So, like there's a limit to where it's like, you know, we have a group of smaller now group of consumers like beer nerds who would be like, fuck yeah. And then the rest of the people are like, I don't need that, it's too expensive. I'll just buy normal beer. Or they'll buy our normal beer that's like at 18 because they're like, I don't need to, you know, like if you had and feel good about it, totally, and feel great about it. But if you had like a double poit gras royale burger, people would be like, There'd be a few people that would be actually working on it right now. You should uh happy that the royal tea.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:37

Well, it's kind of weird, as Josh says, that we have a restaurant called Bells and Whistles, and we don't have a burger that has like all the bells and whistles. Oh and so we're working on what will be we've kind of tasked the chefs and the team to just be like, hey, if you creative do anything you want, money is no object, and come up with like, let's go source a bun from a local bakery that's amazing. Let's go and get the we already have like really, really, really good beef, but like if you want to go, let's go find some wagyu or something. I don't know, like what else you want to do? Like maybe elevate the cheese a little bit. What are you gonna do to make it? And you know, maybe it ends up being like a$30 burger.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:14

You should put a can of superflux in the middle of the wood.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:19

People are interested in it. I love the superflux glassware is unbelievable. I love the drinking out of those. The most satisfying, yeah, it's like wider, stubbier, and you see the tail we posted the other day.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:32

Oh man, it just bubbles cascading up the oh that was the big one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So beautiful. But you guys look, I mean, look at that beautiful hat right there, too. But you guys use like the same glass for your sangria that we use for our pint. It's very similar. It's like a the glass for a beer for me is so important.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:46

I see it very much in Spain. We drink a lot of beer in Spain, and they always even like the shittiest the bar they've got. It's not even necessarily good glassware, it's just thin glassware.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:55

Yeah that drinks it. You know, our bells and whistles we have different glasses for different glassware for your beers, yeah. You do that at the brewery? Yeah, we use different glasses for different things.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:04

So I think I'd be more into a good beer glass than a good line glass hot take. But I think that's what is a lager?

SPEAKER_02 1:19:11

Lager it goes, it's wider, generally taller, but it kind of depends. So I mean, I would say it's all for me, it's mostly about where you're trying to aim aromatic, uh, is usually what I think about with beer glasses. But then also the way the shape of the glass, like the way beer hits your mouth, is like that has a huge impact. So, like uh like a narrow glass, like drinking beer out of a beer bottle is fucking delicious. And the kind of beer that comes in a beer bottle is so good, we don't put beer in bottles for a variety of reasons, but like that's just like it hits your mouth in a unique way and it goes glug and like it just it hits it. I don't know, it foams like beer bottles, yeah. Like beer bottles, like like shitty old like there's a bunch of beers that are great. I will say a corona with a long, it just has a way that it hits your mouth that's like unique. If you like you'd be a fucking psychopath to pour a corona in glass, there's nothing. You're a psychopath, you can leave my house. No one should do that.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:58

Yes, I saw it on tap. It isn't unimaginable.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:01

But like and they sell a bit of it apparently. I was doing anything good about Corona. There's a number, I don't want to name names, but um only because they're a good account. Um they sell Corona on tap, and apparently it does well. But I to me it seems psychopathic to be like again, ordering on draft is different. But you can't take it from the bottle and pour it in a glass. You shouldn't do that anyway. But so the glassware makes a lot. It's all part of the experience and stuff, right? It's all about the and there, there's a nostalgia, memory, tactile stuff associated with it for sure. So might be something to count for you guys. You guys are a great account, right? You guys are one of our uh mean Jamie's now insecure Jamie. Excellent. Yeah, so you guys are absolutely one of our best accounts. Nice. You don't have tons of beer and you sell lots of it.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:42

So I think I ordered, I usually order like two a week.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:45

So yeah, and I bet you're also getting um Adam's beer into the hands and mouths of a lot of people. Oh man, people Germany's elite, yes. Fucking Germans are drinking it.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:55

People could people fucking like I have you and Brassneck, the passive aggressive, next to each other, and those two beers fucking fight. Yeah, they're just so they're those. Which one of Adam's beers do you have? I have the color and shape. Yeah, and they both like I've had them both now. I've had yours for a couple of four, three, four years. Now I've had passive for two years. And those beers are almost catching up to the loggers. Nice. They are moving. Yeah. Like I used to have to order passive, like probably a I used to order like probably two kegs every two weeks. Now it's almost getting to a point where it's almost two kegs a week. Nice. And both, it's like they're moving. And it's like people come in and they're like, they know that we've had them for a while now. So it's like the those taps move. And the loggers, I mean, it's the four winds and it's Sammy's laser light. And those those obviously move a shit ton. But it's like it's weird with beer now. Ten years ago, pale ale was all the rage with Talismans and stuff like this, but now pale ale barely moves. I I can't even, it's hard to move it. People's palettes are just lager, IPA. Yeah. And that's it. And then you have Guinness, and then anything in between is just kind of a weird, weird gray area. It's like it's like it's it's like you sell them like a you know a smaller amount. But it's just I think people just recognize and they figured out what they like. It's either I like hops or something.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:02

But that's shifting, obviously, right? Because before they only drank lagers and pilsners, and now you know it's IP IPAs and what people I'm like, I'm an IPA. The research shows it's like a five year kind of learning curve.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:12

And I'm sure for you guys, like, I mean, you guys are predominantly mostly an IPA brand. I mean, R main stuff is main stuff. But I mean, like you've developed kind of like that niche of like people know that superflex makes awesome IPA, so it's interesting. Last question, because I think that turned out really is what still drives you as operators now? I thought this was an interesting one. Did you guys get all anyone get a chance to read that column that I sent you?

SPEAKER_05 1:22:32

Oh, yeah, yeah. I liked it. Yeah, it was good. It was fun.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:34

I thought it was interesting. It's this column I read by Experimental History, it's called Face It, You're a Crazy Person, talks about this idea of unpacking and unpacking in the sense of like, we always say, like, you know, people are always like, Oh, I want to be a coffee shop owner, I want to be a or a restaurant owner or a brewery owner. But we don't really kind of divulge and dig into kind of the nitty-gritty of what it's actually like to do these jobs on a fucking day-to-day basis. And then this column, the the writer goes into it and he's like, Did you ever ask yourself all these questions? And I guess my thing is now that you guys have been doing this for 13 years and seven years and year 10. Yeah, depending on what we but yeah. And Jimmy's 600, 600 years, is it everything that you thought it would be?

SPEAKER_05 1:23:09

And more, right?

SPEAKER_04 1:23:10

I mean, it was definitely it's definitely more. Is it worse? Is it more? Is it is exciting?

SPEAKER_03 1:23:15

When you say so more is better and worse is worse, but I mean, like, I mean, more is more either way.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:21

I mean, like, is there it was is it what you thought it would be? I can go first. I mean, I like it's completely different for me than I thought it would be. So I pretty standard like dude who started a brewery story, I think. Like I had an I had a different job and I was like, fuck this. And then I started like I was home brewing and I wanted to start a brewery. But on my way, so I said when I said I like didn't know the time, 16 years ago, I started a company that imports beer. And I did that so I'd learn how to sell beer. Because I was like, if I don't know how to sell beer, why would I make beer? I'll never sell any.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:48

Which is so interesting how you think about the mechanics of actually like making money, which is interesting.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:53

Well, I figured if I was pretty smart though.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:55

Most people go into it like I just want to make beer because I like making beer. You're thinking like there's a parts of the beer business, but then I figured they don't make beer anymore.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:00

That's what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_04 1:24:01

They don't make beer anymore.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:03

Unfortunately, it can be true. I mean, we do all like you said you're not in it for profitability, sure, but like you also would have stopped a long time ago if you made no money. Of course. Uh so to go 13 years, like you have to make some, and we have an obligation like to our staff and stuff as well to like if they don't have jobs. If we don't make like if we run out of money, we're done, right? So you have to figure that part out. But I so I learned how to sell it. But then I was like, oh fuck, I love like I just love being in the garage, brewing beer, and it's super fun. And it's like I would take beer at a homebrew contest and meet people and met this community, and I love them. And I was like, wow, this is great. And it's like I really loved like all the hospitality stuff I'd ever done. So, and I always, you know, I used to want to own a restaurant. So then I was like, okay, well, this is great, and I'll get into this this way. And now I don't do any of the things that I thought I would do. Like, and she probably is the same. I actually don't know you well enough to know what you do day to day. And you know, Sean's probably similar. Like I used to see, I met Sean once or twice at Labattoire, but then mostly behind the bar when he was working at backcountry. I don't see him behind the bar when I go to Como. He's doing different stuff, and Jimmy's doing different stuff, and it's like you're managing people, you're managing paperwork, you're managing PLs. But it is cool because it's like one of the things you have to learn that you if I had a different job, like if I was like selling fucking paper, no offense to anybody listening that sells paper, but I would be like, I don't want to do HR at the paper company. I don't want to do sales, I don't want to do marketing, I don't want to figure out how the PL works at the paper company or improve operations at the paper company. This fucking sucks. But for this, you can do it. So I think like that kind of drives me that I get to do that. And like every once in a while you wake up and you're like, oh, today's fucking awesome. I had a really cool day. Or like this is a good day. So this is a money.

SPEAKER_04 1:25:42

And so, I should be going to chance we should do this right now. We actually have some super flux in the fridge. We should crack the now you tell us. He brought them. Of course he did. We should crack very gracious. So yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:25:52

That unpacking, okay. For those of you who didn't read it, which I thought was really fun. I love the idea of this unpacking of the idea. So it's like, you know, I want to open a restaurant. Okay, well, unpacking it. Do you want to, or like, I want to be a surgeon? Okay, so do you want to do the same, you know, procedure eight hours a day for 15 years? You know, it's kind of like it's trying to like see it all the way through. And of course, I absolutely did not unpack opening a restaurant and what that would look like when I did it. And I'm so glad that I did it when I did. 13 years in, I mean, I still find ways to be creative and to like be part of a community. And like as that punk person in me is like, it's all about your community and collaborating and being part of something that's sort of bigger than yourself. And that part is so fun and amazing. But I spend most of my time behind a computer. And when I opened a restaurant, I was picturing myself on the floor all the time, talking to guests, you know, talking about food, serving food, eating food, drinking wine. And that is not, it turns out a lot of people are very good at that. And I am actually maybe better at doing some of the other things. And that I did not unpack 13 years.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:00

I don't think anybody does, honestly. Very few people. I think that's such a good point. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:27:04

Like how many meetings, how many meetings do you have to do a week? Per week for the businesses. Uh probably what, 10?

SPEAKER_03 1:27:08

It's all meetings. Yeah. I mean, if you have management meetings on Tuesdays, yeah. So we do like senior leadership meeting every week. Each restaurant has a monthly management meeting. The two newest ones have one bi-weekly, and then I do individual ones with the GMs in chat, just chatting, and there's a lot of mentoring and stuff going on as well, too. So yeah, but I love that. You know, like that's not a bad thing. That's quite the opposite. It's like, you know, having these conversations and you know, is uh that human element I think is like so beautiful part along with the creativity and the small business hustle is like, you know, those are my favorite things about it. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:44

Sean, is it what you thought it would be? Oh, yeah. I think I'm very fortunate that I favorite part of my job is going to Spain at least once, twice a year, which we there's no way if I don't go to Spain for a full year and I go crazy. Like right now, I haven't been maybe for since November, and that's I guess probably like seven or eight months, and I'm getting a little itchy. We're going again in September and then probably October as well. But to me, like getting to go all the time, and if you may or may not have gotten recommendations for Spain for me, like that kind of thing, like I send out my list people like five, six times a week, and just seeing those people go and do that because they know me and they because they know Como for me is very satisfying. And getting to bring, we brought in many staff members with us over the years to Spain. It's like it's a it's a bit of a write-off, I guess. But the return, if you will, we don't look at it that way, but there is such a return on like when I bring one of our staff members into one of our favorite bars in Madrid and just watching their face, like, holy fuck, this is awesome. Or like one of our old major D's who we brought with us once who always had sometimes had problems running the door at combo because we're very like, this is where you're sitting. You might have to stand, you might have to sit at a bar. Some people don't like it. I'm like, but we'll check on you in 20 minutes and you're gonna be having a great time. And so there was someone that we brought to uh this one one of our favorite bars where when you go in, they're like standing only, there's no seats, and they'll give you the menu and they'll say you have 45 minutes really every time. But then they see you order because they look at us and they like, oh, they probably think we're American or whatever. And then we order and they're like the first round, they'll come back to like, by the way, you guys can stay longer. Really? And like that's kind of the vibe that we try and portray into our staff is like have a bit of an attitude if you want, like push it. You sometimes push people, and we do that, and we were really stubborn for the first few years because if we weren't, everyone would have been seated, there'd be everyone would be a two-top, it'd be really boring, it'd be really spaced out. But we are so stubborn and we were so just because we go so often, we're like, we're gonna make this happen, we're gonna be pushy, we're gonna really just stand by what our thoughts are on the restaurant. And now it's like it's easy and it's so satisfying to like I don't do a lot of services these days, but all of our team is so good at it, they're better than I am, and it's really cool to see that translate. And when we bring like our kitchen staff with us to see them, see how the food's plated and see how simple and beautiful it is, and then watch them come back and put that on the plate. That to me is what always energizes me. And I can just like I I know people say, like, you take lots of photos and you ever look at them, I look at them all the time. So I'll look back at a place that we were at and I'll remember the dishes, and I think that it's really cool to be able to go all the time and keeping passionate about Bane, that's easy for me.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:20

So basically what you're saying is you still like your job.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:22

Love it. But there's you know, there's definitely lots of parts that suck. But I also like to do a lot of the silly everyday tasks, like come in and organize all the shelves, or I still pick up the liquor order and put most of it away. I those are the things that I just love doing, and I don't need to, but I kind of like it.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:36

Has anyone of you ever come home at three in the morning, wasted, and looked at a shitty Google review and wanted to write back to that person? Has anyone of you ever done this?

SPEAKER_03 1:30:44

If I come home wasted at three in the morning, uh I'm definitely not looking at Google.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:49

Has anybody ever done that? Like and looked at a shitty Google review and be like, I want to write back to this motherfucker.

SPEAKER_05 1:30:54

They always seem to come in around 1 a.m. or 2 a.m. too, for some reason. I don't know what that is.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:58

Well, yeah, that's definitely happening.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:59

There was one lady writing them, I think. You ever looked at it when you're drunk to it? I don't look at them, but there was one instance where someone actually was mean to our staff and lied about something that we knew was total bullshit, involved shrimp. So I instead of getting mad at the Google review, I just signed her up to like the Bubba Gump shrimp restaurant newsletter because I had an email address. And that was my way of being like, all right, I'm good now. Instead of like chirping back on a Google review.

SPEAKER_03 1:31:24

See, there you go. See, there you go. There you go. I've been signing people up to the Al Qaeda newsletter though. Or you can add them to like a Trump list or something like that.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:32

But there's so many like way more pointing. I don't get mad at Google reviews, I can't. It's just not worth it.

SPEAKER_04 1:31:37

I had a friend of mine go through that one time when he like did kind of like a reverse search of the email address and found out it was an old shitty employee he had to fire and he was pissed and that he was just being vindictive. And he's just like he's like called, he sent him a message, he's like, I know this was you, you f yeah. I thought that was pretty good.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:52

Oh man.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:54

Yeah, well, I've reviewed that one out.

SPEAKER_04 1:31:58

Uh well that's it.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:01

Jimmy, yeah, that kind of stuff happens.

SPEAKER_04 1:32:03

Well, I just thought that was an interesting column. And I for me, it was like you guys have been in doing this for a long time. And I mean, obviously, you know, I I'm always curious in the sense of like, was it what you thought when I was reading that I was like, I was like, I wonder it was it what you thought it was?

SPEAKER_02 1:32:14

And it could be like anything is no, like literally nothing is.

SPEAKER_04 1:32:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:18

Talk to any married couple, you know, 10 years deep. It's not like it's not apparent. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:32:24

Any dream job, any anything you ask somebody in five years, they're gonna be like, Yeah, it wasn't what I thought it was.

SPEAKER_04 1:32:30

I mean, there's a there's a musician friend of my new place at the hotel all the time. I always ask him, like, do you like you love, you know, you must love doing this. Like, it's awesome. He's like, Do you like making fucking martinis every fucking day? I'm like, Yeah, he's like, he's like, well, there's days where you just don't, you're just over it, and you're just kind of like you're just going through the motions. That sounded really passive aggressive from him, by the way.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:46

The guy that threw that back. He's like, Do you like making fucking martinis? He's like, whoa, whoa, I'm just having conversation, dude. No, I think what he said is like I think every job gets kind of repetitive and mundane and boring.

SPEAKER_04 1:32:56

Yeah, totally. I think that's like my curiosity was more in the sense of like, you guys go into doing this, you see other people doing it, and it's like you go into it and you're like, holy shit, this is way more than I thought it would be, or this is way better than I thought it would be, or way completely different. And you know, like when you're saying like I'm looking at spreadsheets all day, it's like you never you probably never thought about like 10 years ago, like I'm making beer, and all of a sudden 10 years later I'm gonna look at spreadsheets and and but you might actually like doing that. You might actually be getting Oh, there's parts of it that are great. Like the money part, you might be like, Oh, it's kind of cool.

SPEAKER_05 1:33:25

That is so nice stuff.

SPEAKER_02 1:33:26

Oh yeah. I like doing all that stuff once. Like, I definitely like the entrepreneurial side where I like starting something in motion and like you know, picture the little sail toy sailboat on the pond and just setting it off and see what like I like starting that out, building the thing, launch it, and then uh I'll touch the spreadsheet once or twice. I don't like looking at it every day. So I like to try to figure out how to like move those things off, is exciting for me. But so the entrepreneurial side is great too. And then like building a team or finding like new people, or you're like, oh wait, I can hire somebody to do that. And I'm like, that's a job now. And I'm like, oh, that's amazing. That's super helpful. And I don't know, there's always new challenges and that kind of stuff is great. So it's it's way more than yeah, it's way more than just making beer or whatever. Like, I literally haven't made beer in my brewery. I probably don't need to because I got better people than me that make way better beer and they know how to run that stuff and not hurt themselves. Whereas I don't.

SPEAKER_04 1:34:16

So, you know, probably good. All right. Last question. You all own different types of restaurants or businesses, should I say? You have to tell me which one of the businesses that the other person you would do. So you could be like, which one of their businesses would you want to do?

SPEAKER_00 1:34:29

Yeah, that's fun.

SPEAKER_04 1:34:30

So if it was me, I'd want to do a brewery because I think it'd be kind of cool to do a brewery.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:33

Don't are we all I don't.

SPEAKER_04 1:34:36

We can start unpacking.

SPEAKER_05 1:34:38

So I would say brewery, but that's just because it's something I've don't have any experience with, and I think it'd be really cool.

SPEAKER_04 1:34:44

Or you could own Buofla.

SPEAKER_05 1:34:45

Well, I mean, I would, but I I feel like that's very similar. I mean, I love Bufla, and trust me, my kids terrorize bells and whistles all the time. So thank you for that. But no, I would I'd probably do a brewery.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:57

I do a brewery. I I'll go rogue here. I'll do a vegetable focused restaurant because the challenge is a good idea. I will know because I'll live in Spain one day and it'll be easy. There's good vegetables all year round. It's still really hard, but they are. It's like tomatoes on a plate with olive oil.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:13

Yeah. That'd be fun.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:14

So that'd be fun.

SPEAKER_02 1:35:16

That'd be a challenge. Like honestly, I really want to do what all of them do. Like, I want to have more restaurants. I like restaurants. I want to do another restaurant that's like, you know, we have our like kind of casual restaurant. I want to do a high-end one. Well, I want to do something different than that. So, like, I mean, there's a ton of things. And but again, I said I like the entrepreneurial side of things. So it's like that stuff is really fun to me. But if I could pick one thing, then maybe not what they do, but like feel like definitely having been in Como so many times, I would work and run a tapest bar. That would be very, very fun. I would probably only like that for a week and then I'd be realizing how old I am and how bad I am at serving and how slow I am behind the bar. But that would be a lot of fun. Come on a trip with us. That sounds like yeah, yeah. I like the going to Spain part. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:36:01

I think we also go to Spain.

SPEAKER_02 1:36:02

Jimmy was I'm going this week. I know you are. Oh, you're going to Spain. Yeah. Oh shit.

SPEAKER_03 1:36:06

Yeah. What's your speech? Uh well, I mean, I genuinely love all of these businesses, but I mean, I think it's uh my track record shows that Como is easily one of my favorite restaurants in the city. So I'd like to get in on that a little bit. That sounds fun. Yeah. Yeah. I love going there. And so, yeah, easy answer. There you go. Well, that's good. Well, this has been good, you guys. Can I just interject for a second? Yeah, throw it. I would like to congratulate my friend Shira on being inducted into the BC restaurant Hall of Fame. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 1:36:33

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:36:36

I did not know. Very, very, very well deserved. And I will be delayed. Way too delayed. Well, you know, 13 years, you know, of doing amazing things. You know, sometimes it takes a little longer.

SPEAKER_04 1:36:48

I think you three are the same age. I think.

SPEAKER_05 1:36:49

I don't know who's out in case. 43, 33, 34.

SPEAKER_04 1:36:53

I was born in the 80s. Yeah. 80s, 80s. I was born in the 80s. I think you guys, I think you guys are all the same. Because I'm older than all of you by one year, I think. Yeah, I'm 82. Years old. I'm older than you by more than one year.

SPEAKER_03 1:37:03

But yeah. Well, no, you're old. I'll be coming to that ceremony just to um to celebrate you. Well done. That's amazing. Yeah. Did you vote for her? Of course you did. Goodbye.

SPEAKER_05 1:37:12

Yeah, because it's the old inductees that get to vote for the incoming ones. And it was a big thing.

SPEAKER_02 1:37:17

Sorry, the previous inductees just watching.

SPEAKER_03 1:37:22

Thank you, Adam. The previous winners. Old, old, old. Yeah. So it was a cool list of it was a big list of nominees, and there was a lot of worthy nominations in there. But yeah, I didn't vote for too many people. You don't have to. You have to vote for, I think, two people in each section. And uh first ballot, Hall of Fame. I would have called, I would have called it.

SPEAKER_04 1:37:40

I would have called her like, so I have an opportunity to vote for you right now. Should I do this?

SPEAKER_05 1:37:44

Yeah. What are you gonna get?

SPEAKER_04 1:37:45

Convince me, convince me. Convince me. Didn't even think of that. But next is evil, this is Evil Jamie today. Yeah. Well, it's been great. I love you all. And go to all these establishments. These guys run some amazing businesses. And I think our hospitality and shoe is doing really well and exciting. What we want to talk about?

SPEAKER_05 1:37:59

Well, yeah. When is this airing?

SPEAKER_04 1:38:01

Probably with the next like five, six days.

SPEAKER_05 1:38:02

Okay. So can I just say that on Saturday, August 9th, Main Street is doing a Catsalano style music festival called Pleasant Day. Oh, cool. This is the first year. It's the first year, so it's a free music festival.

SPEAKER_04 1:38:15

Someone's band is playing.

SPEAKER_05 1:38:16

And well, our band is playing at 12 p.m. on the main stage outside of the Acorn. So come, it's between King Edward and 16th Avenue.

SPEAKER_03 1:38:26

I'm so there.

SPEAKER_05 1:38:26

I just wanted to say that I think it's gonna be a pretty fun day for Main Street. And the lineup is really fun August 9th, Saturday, August 9th, from 12 to 8. You can check out the cure, but not actually the cure.

SPEAKER_04 1:38:38

Is this put out by the chairs?

SPEAKER_05 1:38:43

Bring some chairs, put them in front.

SPEAKER_03 1:38:45

We're gonna bring some, can we other drinks?

SPEAKER_05 1:38:47

You know what? Acorn is going to have a beer garden in front of the main stage. So yeah, you can hang out in front of the main stage all day.

SPEAKER_04 1:38:55

Jimmy, we're going. You know we're going.

SPEAKER_03 1:38:56

Yeah, we're gonna have a barbecue, yeah, beer garden.

SPEAKER_05 1:38:59

And the the lineup's good. It's very Vancouver.

SPEAKER_03 1:39:03

Wildly successful. Obviously, like, you know, it was just this past Saturday, and it was uh well, actually, it was a it was a record day for Lucky Taco. Like it's just like the it's record day. Yeah. And with there were three records this week, and like it was Monday, Tuesday, and then Saturday topped them all. It was just crazy down there. Anyway, yeah, it's a hundred thousand people out for that, you know. And the car free day on Main Street is like, you know, so so well supported.

SPEAKER_05 1:39:26

It's busy, but it's not busy for you know, restaurants. Yeah, but this is inside. I hope that's a good thing. But I think this will, anyways. I mean, with a beer garden up front, it would be fun. I mean, it's music in Main Street. I don't know. I think it's like everything, you know, fun.

SPEAKER_01 1:39:38

I mean, you can drink beer outside.

SPEAKER_05 1:39:40

And you can drink beer outside. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:39:42

Also, can we talk about how like it's so dumb it is that brass neck can't have a patio because the city won't give them one because they're like the all these policy hoops that they have to go through.

SPEAKER_03 1:39:50

I don't know why they have the same sidewalk as uh as Como does, and Sean had to go through the city.

SPEAKER_04 1:39:54

I was talking about they were like saying that they couldn't have like it was just this difficult process of like them getting one, they were like gonna forego it. Just they have a dining patio. And I'm like, and you guys were talking earlier before we went on air about what the silliness of the dear gus thing. It's like, why does it make it so why do they make it so difficult for patios? I don't get it.

SPEAKER_03 1:40:09

There's a survey out right now as well, too, that I just completed just to see how they're gonna change the patio program next time. Well, like it's like don't make everybody needs to fill that out.

SPEAKER_04 1:40:18

Just make it like you. You want a patio? Yes, good. Here you go.

SPEAKER_01 1:40:21

I think it's gonna be interesting when the World Cup comes here and you're gonna have people from all over the world and a lot from Europe that are gonna just be in our places and walking out the beers and be like, huh? What?

SPEAKER_04 1:40:31

I get that at a hotel. European guests come up to me all the time. I'm like, so we're gonna get a couple beers and go. And I was like, can't do that. And they're like, What? And I'm like, they're like, just give us a couple glasses, like to go glasses. And I was like, can't do that. And they're like, why? And I was like, exactly.

SPEAKER_03 1:40:44

But it's such a I mean, not so whatever, I know we're wrapping up, but like it's such a point of like leading from behind when you're scared and you only make positive changes in a performative way when the world is watching. We saw that in the Olympics. We saw a lot of progress forward because of the Olympics, and it was only because people were here from to see it calling out how ridiculous this is. Why do you have to wait at risk of being shamed to do the right thing to make your city more enjoyable and progressive?

SPEAKER_04 1:41:12

Wasn't XY86 the defining moment of that where all these people showed up for the city? And then all the restaurants were closed on Sunday born during that time. And all the restaurants are closed on Sunday, and they go, Oh shit, we should actually like change the law so they can actually open on Sundays, and they like changed it. And it's like, it's like, like, yeah, it's like, are you kidding? You can't like I love how they say we can drink in parks and beaches now, but they picked the three busiest ones that you can't at those places. I'm like, what are we doing here? On to the baby steps.

SPEAKER_05 1:41:36

Yeah, half halfway progress.

SPEAKER_04 1:41:38

Yeah. Uh well, thank you, everyone, and uh thank you. That was a wonderful time. We'll talk to you later.

SPEAKER_05 1:41:43

Bye.

SPEAKER_00 1:41:44

Bye.