The Pre-Shift Podcast presented by 7shifts is a deep dive into what it takes to run great restaurant teams.
Host DJ Costantino covers the restaurant industry with conversations featuring industry leaders and innovators sharing their business growth insights, backgrounds, and valuable lessons on running restaurant teams.
In this episode, Chris Britt, Chief Operating Officer of Epic Restaurants, joins us.
For nearly five years, Chris has served in a leadership capacity at Agave & Rye, one of the fastest-growing restaurant concepts in the U.S. He has accumulated a diverse array of experiences since joining the Agave & Rye team in 2018, and through his expertise, Chris has helped continually grow the company into a now multi-brand restaurant group, touting such revered concepts as Agave & Rye, S.O.B. Steakhouse, Shindig Park—and the soon-to-be-unveiled, Trashy Dawg. Chris started as the GM of the original location in Covington, Kentucky, before taking the same position at Agave & Rye’s flagship location in Liberty Township, Ohio. Soon after, he was promoted to Regional Director, followed by a promotion to the Director of Operations role. Chris has been in his Chief Operating Officer role for more than a year, right in time for expansion plans in 2023.
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Listen, rate, and subscribe!
Spotify
Apple Podcasts
Google Podcasts
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7shifts Blog
Credits
Host & Executive Producer: D.J. Costantino
Editor: Fina Charleston
Producer: Samantha Fung
Designer: Jake Sinclair
The Pre-Shift Podcast presented by 7shifts is a deep dive into what it takes to run great restaurant teams.
Host DJ Costantino covers the restaurant industry with conversations featuring industry leaders and innovators sharing their business growth insights, backgrounds, and valuable lessons on running restaurant teams.
In this episode, Chris Britt, Chief Operating Officer of Epic Restaurants, joins us.
For nearly five years, Chris has served in a leadership capacity at Agave & Rye, one of the fastest-growing restaurant concepts in the U.S. He has accumulated a diverse array of experiences since joining the Agave & Rye team in 2018, and through his expertise, Chris has helped continually grow the company into a now multi-brand restaurant group, touting such revered concepts as Agave & Rye, S.O.B. Steakhouse, Shindig Park—and the soon-to-be-unveiled, Trashy Dawg. Chris started as the GM of the original location in Covington, Kentucky, before taking the same position at Agave & Rye’s flagship location in Liberty Township, Ohio. Soon after, he was promoted to Regional Director, followed by a promotion to the Director of Operations role. Chris has been in his Chief Operating Officer role for more than a year, right in time for expansion plans in 2023.
Resources
Listen, rate, and subscribe!
Spotify
Apple Podcasts
Google Podcasts
YouTube
TikTok
7shifts Blog
Credits
Host & Executive Producer: D.J. Costantino
Editor: Fina Charleston
Producer: Samantha Fung
Designer: Jake Sinclair
Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Pre-Shift Podcast. My name is DJ and I'll be your host, diving deep into what it takes to run great restaurant teams. Joining me on the show today is Chris Britt, chief Operating Officer at Epic Brands.
Speaker 2:My name's Chris Britt, Chief Operating Officer, COO of Epic Brands and Agave Rye.
Speaker 1:Chris has been around since the first location of Agave and Rye and now the group boasts more than a thousand workers across thousands of locations and a few different concepts. We chat about how they've expanded while maintaining their core values, the other challenges and scaling that quickly, and the distinction between running a restaurant and operating business. This is a long one, but a good one, and I promise you, if you stick around, you'll come away with some really valuable insights. As always, the Pre-Shift Podcast is brought to you by 7 Shifts. Team management for restaurants. Chris, how are you, man? Doing well, doing well. Thanks for having me. Absolutely Glad you could join us today, Excited.
Speaker 2:Anytime we can talk, our lovely industry it's a go for me.
Speaker 1:Yes, I'm looking forward to it. I'm just going to dive right in. So I understand you were part of Agave and Rye, kind of from the very beginning. Can you tell me about your decision to join that team in the early days and what went into that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's crazy. We just celebrated our six-year anniversary in February from our initial store.
Speaker 2:Thank you, and Covington, kentucky. I originally worked for our ownership group. We're still husband and wife privately owned Wade and Yvonne Sarber. I went to Ohio State back after high school in Columbus and degrees in sports business. Don't know how I ended up in this industry, but I had picked up a bartending job, part-time restaurant called Oliver's in Columbus and that's one that Wade and Yvonne had owned, in addition to two other ones at that time. Quickly, within six months I was GM of that restaurant and I've never left never left this fun and exciting and chaotic industry.
Speaker 2:But we had no clue what we were doing back then. We call those old co-days. We had no clue what we were doing back then. Right, we call those old co days. You know, I think we had the mindset and Wayne, yvonne had the mindset of a lot of first time entrepreneurs when it comes to the industry, where it's simple and easy All you do is sell food and drinks and get guest pay and it's and it's happy and not understanding all the ins and outs and the million variables that go into a successful restaurant. As you know, 60% fail in year one, 40% don't make it to year three and we were part of those numbers back in Columbus at that time.
Speaker 2:So Wade and Yvonne had a restaurant coach fly up from Austin Texas. He said you need to close or sell and start from scratch. So they sold Oliver's, where I was GM, and closed DeNovo, which was our fine dining restaurant, both downtown. We've learned downtown markets are also difficult. But at that time Yvonne had started working on the agave and rye concept and looking to move out of Columbus somewhere in the Cincinnati market and they found this small 1500 square foot corner restaurant across the river in Covington, kentucky, with a little bit of debt $1,200 to their name and an old U-Haul of restaurant equipment and artwork and started a God band right there, with a gigantic risk as a lot of owners would have just switched industries right. But they kept it going. So I did not go with them.
Speaker 2:Initially I stayed on at GM at Oliver's in Columbus with the previous owner but always stayed in contact with Yvonne throughout the day. She's kind of a second mother figure to me. She has a daughter the same age as myself, so we have that familial bond and when you trust and love and respect the people you work for, it makes difficult decisions In this case of me moving from Columbus, where I lived for 12 years, down to Kentucky and we always laugh that you know. I always say you know, going to Kentucky to sell tacos and tequilas kind of sounded like an asinine idea, but clearly it's paid off. So that was the decision making on my end to come down there. After, like I said, they opened in February, I came down in December. I came down after Christmas Eve of 2018 and took over GMing of that first restaurant there and it's been a whirlwind, a positive whirlwind ever since that's awesome.
Speaker 1:Um, you know, I know from a previous interview, um, you know that first location was successful but given the past, uh, the owners, uh, yvonne and uh didn't really want to expand. You know, they wanted to stick to that one restaurant. But, um, you know, I read in the news now you've got over 100 locations of just Agave and Rye plant, in addition to being a multi-unit restaurant group, epic Brands. What was the deciding factor in those early days? Let's actually go and expand this and see what it can become, rather than just kind of rest on that one location.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sure, and piggybacking off what you said, you know we owned, any given time in Columbus, five restaurants at one time, all different concepts, right. So I think the thought of expansion and this is where a lot of restaurants go wrong right is the difficulty from just number one to number two is so severe and dramatic and has to be systemized. So I think there was a little hesitation on doing that until we knew for sure we had something that was duplicatable, especially in, you know, a casual full service restaurant. It's very difficult to duplicate, unlike a QSR non-scratch kitchen model. But about 14 months in, we realized we had something special there and we took in a minimal outside investment to open that second location and part of our third and we've self-funded ever since then, which is great and rare. And now we've learned you can only self-fund so far. You need that working capital, that cash flow. So lessons learned throughout scalability. But, yeah, we opened our second location in Lexington, kentucky, in June of 2019 and have been expanding ever since. The second location wasn't very busy and is still our least. It's our lowest sales grossing restaurant currently. So that kind of gave a little pause as well. But then, once we opened our third location in greater Cincinnati. I transferred over to open that restaurant as GM and that's been our flagship location ever since and our number one grossing restaurant, and at that point we knew we had a brand that could continue to scale and continue to be successful.
Speaker 2:And we sell things that you can't find anywhere else. We're not a commodity restaurant, it's an experience, economy, experience, hospitality that's what we do. Our food is 100% scratch. You can't find it anywhere else. There's always imitators and now everybody wants to do tacos, which is totally fine. You know tacos is our vessel, that we do whatever we want into it. A lot of American cuisine. We're not Mexican it's a misnomer, because people think tequila and taco is Mexican. We use a lot of the Mexican staples and turn them into a unique, innovative menu and we win awards all the time for best tacos, most innovative menu. We just won both of those in Cincinnati, which is a huge market and a huge food scene. So we're super proud of the team for doing that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's no end in sight, obviously. We just opened our 17th location in Cleveland, our second Cleveland location. We have one more scheduled this year in greater Cincinnati again. Then we have our steakhouse SOB steakhouse, our QSR model in Alabama called Trashy Dog, and we're opening a new concept in Grandview, which is Columbus, here in about a month, called Loco Social, which is also a QSR model. So a lot of fun things, which is also a QSR model. So a lot of fun things that we've accomplished, but a lot of more fun, exciting things we want to do in the future and we like to say we'll continue to be aggressive but not reckless. Once we get reckless, that's where kind of the chaos no longer can be controlled. So, yeah, looking forward to it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's exciting and congrats to all of that and looking forward to seeing what happens. But, um, to get from that one location, um, as a GM now to COO, um of a multi-brand restaurant group, um, I'm sure you've learned a lot along the way and I want to tap into that. Um, but what is a typical day? What is a COO of a multi-brand restaurant group? What are you responsible for and what do your days look like?
Speaker 2:Yeah, sure, and my role might not be atypical to other restaurant groups I'm not quite sure. I do have a lot of connects and as we grow we've been able to build our network and I've been able to grow my network of resources and people within the industry, which is one of the great things Because we all have that same passion and drive in our industry. We wouldn't be in it but, yeah, like you mentioned, that transition from having worked every position in hospitality and in the restaurant business and have grown and have always been the second hand to our ownership group. So it's always been kind of Yvonne 1A, me 1B or 1-2 punch, right, yvonne, we're driven on founder's mindset and very entrepreneurial. I'm probably more of the analytical, logistical, operational type of thing, so it's a great, I think that's a great successful brand. You always have those at the top to kind of bounce ideas off and feedback and we have a good relationship. We're not afraid to make the other person mad because we all have the same goal right To protect the brand and to protect our people and to scale the brand. So, throughout that scalability process and, mind you, none of us have done this before in our group, right, everyone that we've hired in has never worked for a large corporate entity or in the hospitality industry.
Speaker 2:So in regards to my days, they vary, right that you know. Nowadays it's almost 75% probably behind a computer or behind a phone and 25% inside our restaurants. You know I love being inside our restaurants and it'd be being kind of spraying. All day can get monotonous and sometimes you lose the perception or perspective of actually what's going on inside your four walls and interacting with the people and make sure that culture is still there, the morale is still there, it's a clean restaurant, the, the, the team's performing well, the foods, foods consistent. But in regards to now, you know I get up every morning plethora of emails. Going through those, most of them go into the spam folder, as I'm sure you can imagine, intranet, so to speak, on all of our we require everybody to leave daily notes. So checking all of our department heads notes and making sure it's my job to make sure I have that firm pulse right of what's happening throughout our brand, not just in the stores but within the departments, that kind of facilitate on how the stores operate. So you know now I have marketing reports to me, it store operations, culinary facilities, maintenance, purchasing, events and catering and worked in tandem daily with finance and HR, so it's a large percentage of those departments and those directors that report directly to me.
Speaker 2:We did scale up our corporate we call it Beehive quite heavily for an anticipated faster growing scalability. But before we do that, like I mentioned, we don't want to be reckless. We want to make sure we have the right people on the bus right, because we like to do the analogy right. If you have one cog or if you're on an 18-wheeler that represents every department or whatever, and you have one flat tire or one that's running out of air slows down the entire operation. So we've scaled that back a little bit and it's actually helped because now everybody's kind of more on that same seamless page, knowing where we're going and achieving the same goals, and so it's difficult because I also am responsible for day-to-day operations.
Speaker 2:I have a great regional director who kind of oversees the more micro part of that. I oversee more of the macro but then also focusing on strategic growth, concept, development and you know what, the trends of the industry, where are we going? The crazy economy, the financials, the you know how to, you know our numbers in line and communicating that down, top down, bottom up and now we're probably 1200 deep right and team members. So a lot different from that first story where there was 30, from that first world where there was 30. You know, so that's been a little challenging in essence, but I think we do a really good job and you know, we preach. You know, if we do these four things every day, right, hold each other accountable, over-communicate with humility. Right, Throw the ego out of the window and then have fun, smile and be happy. You smile and be happy, good things happen.
Speaker 2:And if we can, we say TLC, train, lead and develop or coach and develop our leadership at the stores, because ultimately, they're the most important people. I don't get to work in the stores every day, I'm not interacting with our guests. So it's up to that LOH, leader of the house, which is our acronym for GM, and his or her leadership team to facilitate our brand standards down. We like to create the framework for them to operate freely within, to achieve brand standards and deliver on our promise, which is deliver an epic experience to our guests, team members and community. And we have 17, 18, 19 stores now. Sometimes I lose track. It's difficult, very challenging, especially with three to four different concepts and we like to. I was having a coaching conversation with our director of operational FP&A yesterday, ryan and you know, having you know, and he takes our financials in and helps communicate it down to the store level ops team and he was a little frustrated.
Speaker 2:I'm like, well, you can't deliver the message the same to all 16 stores. It's no different than a GM having 16 different servers. The end goal is the same Provide that experience Right, facilitate and get to know the people on a human basis and know what makes them tick, what makes them have that motivation and inspiration and allow them to come up to the solution themselves, instead of you giving them that solution. And it's challenging for a lot of people, but that's the exciting part of this industry is every day is a challenge, a new challenge, and then seeing the rewards and seeing people happy our team and our guests is what makes us do what we continue to do.
Speaker 1:That kind of goes in. I've heard you speak before about there's a difference between running a restaurant and operating a business. Is that kind of that distinction for you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, especially as you grow and scale, because when you have one, two, three, four, it's still kind of running a restaurant Right. That that that mindset shift. John Maxwell has a book called Leader Shift, which is kind of appropriate and knowing how to you know. That's the thing. Everybody that works in a restaurant currently right in our, in our stores, probably most restaurants right can properly facilitate running a day-to-day shift. Everyone knows the opening procedures, everybody knows that a server should be doing a bartender, a cook, the food, the drinks, providing that service, hospitality to the guests, right, that's kind of the 101. But as people get promoted and continue to grow their career in this industry and move up the company ladder or whatever you want to call it, there's that shift Even from. You know you said the word multi-unit right, even to oversee. We've had a lot of GMs, originally LOHs, that have been promoted into district roles, right, originally LOHs that have been promoted into district roles, right. So instead of working day-to-day in one store, now they're kind of overseeing four to six stores operating and that's a gigantic shift and very difficult to understand.
Speaker 2:That you're literally responsible and the GM, I'll say, is literally responsible for everything that happens inside those four walls. They have to take. Although they don't own the actual restaurant. They have to take ownership of responsibility and accountability for everything that goes inside of that. And running a shift is just a few of those variables right, super important. But are you running a shift to budget, right? Or do you know how to read a P&L? Do you know what prime cost is? Do you know what income from operations is? Do you know what management fees are? Do you know all of these types of things In addition to how to market your store? Are you using the collateral we send to you to upsell for guests? Are you using the data we're getting to make strategic decisions on staffing and the P-mix, on how to properly prep? How are you holding everybody accountable? Sometimes culinary is a little separated too, but they're responsible for culinary side as well. Do you know how to fix a leaky toilet? Or do you call somebody Right? Do you put in a facilities ticket? You know on and on and on, and I think that shift from you know owning to operating a business and knowing you're responsible for everything inside those four walls is challenging.
Speaker 2:I think it's intimidating, I think it's scary for a lot of people, especially in a green brand. By green I mean young brand as ourselves, and especially those that have been promoted from within our brand and haven't maybe worked in restaurants before. It's a big shift and we're very you know we have a system for everything. It's a big shift and we're very you know we have a system for everything. It's our job to minimize that gray area right. A restaurant's never going to be black and white, but sometimes there can be a lot or a little gray area and it's our job to facilitate, provide the tools and resources and information necessary for leaderships to make the decision where they feel comfortable, knowing shifts are going to run smoothly, maybe when they're not on the floor, you know, so they can focus on more of the administrative side, which takes up a large portion. You know, like expensing and everything's tech now. So you know tip cards and we have, you know what we call in, burst cards when money gets loaded and that becomes a store debit card if they need to go out and purchase things. So it's a lot.
Speaker 2:And then, being a role model, a figure of leadership, are you showing presence and prowess when you're on the floor, when you walk the stores? Do you know that person's in charge comfortably and then knowing how to see everything, because no one thing in the restaurant industry is difficult. Right, there's just a million variables and how to prioritize those variables. Urgent, important now, delegation, whatever it may be, and that's a difficult trait to teach anybody, let alone in our industry. And we like to say I like to say, when people ask me what my favorite animal would be, or if I had to be an animal to best describe me, when people ask me what my favorite animal would be or if I had to be an animal to best describe me, I always say an owl.
Speaker 2:Right, because I want people to just step back, observe you, just take a breath and step back and stand maybe in one spot for 20 seconds and then go to another area of the restaurant for 20 seconds and just swivel your head like an owl up in the tree, right, you'd be amazed at how many things you can see. You know it provides you coaching opportunities. You might see a light bulb out. You might see a guest you know needs a water refill. But if you're just walking the floor on the floor, right, a lot of times you just go through the motions.
Speaker 2:Right, we say lead on the floor.
Speaker 2:You should be coaching the team on your floor, interacting with the guests on the floor, those types of things, and then that develops that wisdom that you need to provide out to the team and then they know you're going to see something and they don't want you to see that before they do.
Speaker 2:So that's going to make them be more motivated to achieve the promise of the brand as well. So, yeah, it's a big shift, especially even on the corporate side of you know, when it was just me and Yvonne right to then grow in our bus, and now there's probably about 20 of us on the corporate side that we oversee, and you know, delegating out things that I used to do and having others do it and then hold them accountable, even if you know it might not be done the way you want it to or the way you used to do it or whatever it may be. You never will grow individually or personally and professionally if you don't allow those people to make mistakes, because that's the only way they're going to grow and learn into, and that's the only other way you can measure their performance as well.
Speaker 2:So it's definitely been an adjustment, but it's been a fun ride what are the best kept secrets from successful restauranteurs like stella?
Speaker 1:what do employees actually want? Is AI coming for your job? Our new newsletter, the Food Runner, answers these questions and more. In seven minutes or less. Once a month you've got a roundup of digestible data not the boring kind resources, practical tips and industry leader insights to learn more quickly. Sign up now at 7chipscom and check the link in the description. Now back to the show, and it seems to me like the kind of nice segue. I want to talk a little bit about the core values, and that seems to be one of those things that helps to facilitate all of that consistency and some of that leadership. So curious. You know what went into the creation of those core values and then like, how do you operationalize them? Right? So it's like it's one thing to just come up with a list of these are the things we stand by, right, but how do you make sure that that actually makes its way into everyday decision making?
Speaker 2:Sure, yeah, a lot of companies have, you know, mission statements, vision statements, whatever you want to call it. Um, so it's probably year two where Yvonne, as founder, kind of sat down and kind of thought about what is Agave and Dry. At that time it was before we had any other concepts. So you know why do we do what we do? Right, we require all leadership to read Simon Sinek's, start With why. That's one of our books and we have a whole book club we can get into later. But you know why do we do what we do and how do we do that? So Yvonne took some time and put some energy into it.
Speaker 2:We used to just have definitions, right, but it's a lot easier to attach words to those definitions as an easier way to remember or coach. And so you know, we came up with love, respect, inspire, community, exceed expectations and epic hospitality. So those six pillars kind of are the framework, the foundation of why we do what we do. And any successful group has to actually back up and practice and preach and talk about those where they just don't become another poster on the wall. And you know each of those have have, have definitions, of course, and no one is more greater than the other. You need all six kind of seamlessly integrated in order to succeed or get the point across right. If you're, if you're loving someone but not showing them respect, it's kind of contradictory. So, and you know, are you showing yourself? Respect the team, respect, you know the community, respect everybody your bosses, your coworkers, your peers, and all those are applicable to all situations and require our team to carry a core value card on them as part of their uniform. It just fits in their wallet or the back pocket and we'll go around and do some audits sometimes. Hey, you got your core value card and, yep, they're always super excited to pull that out of their pocket, which is great in English on one side and it's in Spanish on the other side, because we have a Latino presence and our culinary team and some of our front of the house team as well. So we want to make sure they feel inclusive as well. Team as well. So we want to make sure they feel inclusive as well.
Speaker 2:And if we accomplish or strive for emulating and demonstrating our core values, that allows us to fulfill our promise right, which is very simple. We promise to deliver an epic experience to our guests, community and team, and sometimes our team thinks, you know, sometimes we forget about all three of those. And it has to be, you know, because sometimes what we have to do to the guests maybe doesn't make our team super thrilled, or vice versa, or their store or responsibilities and not stepping back and seeing the big picture of the overall operation business that we've touched on earlier. But everyone can strive to achieve that promise.
Speaker 2:And, lastly, if we have that foundation of core values and we practice and preach and deliver on our promise, that allows us to achieve our dream right. In simplistic terms, our dream is to make sure that everybody that works for us we give a door, an access point, the tools and resources that they can take on into another profession or off to college or another degree or whatever it may be, and ultimately that's why we do what we do. We don't do it to make money. Obviously you have to be profitable to succeed and to scale, but profitability is the output right of putting in the effort to demonstrate our core values, our promise and our dream Do you have one of those cards on you.
Speaker 2:I have one. Let me see in my bag here. Yeah, I'm curious, see if I can find it. I used to have a stack. Let me see, because my wallet's upstairs. I'll send you. I'll send you a copy of it. Yeah, that'd be awesome. Yeah, it's pretty, I'll send you.
Speaker 1:I'll send you a copy of it. Yeah, that'd be awesome. Yeah, it's pretty, pretty cool. It's nice to kind of carry one of those things uh, you know that just remind you of um, you know purpose or what you need to be doing, or um, even if you're not like looking at it all the time, just knowing that it's there, I feel like, makes you think about it and um just drives that home well, and when, sometimes, if there's a team member violating a core value, right or not demonstrating or whatever, when leadership sits down with that team member, you know hey, get out your core value card.
Speaker 2:What? Which one of these aren't you following? Um, probably this one. And then then there can be a dialogue and a coaching opportunity, um, based off of that, which is great to see yeah, absolutely, it gives almost a.
Speaker 1:Like you said, it's a conversation starter, it's a. You know, sometimes, I think, if you don't have that, giving people feedback positive or negative can be difficult, as you know. It's like oh, it's up to interpretation. But if you have that kind of thing, it's like no, like this is what we follow and, for whatever reason, you're doing a great job at this one or you know you need to work on this one.
Speaker 1:Um, we have something similar here at seven shifts a little bit different of a type of business, right, but, um, we have our own core values. Um, so, uh, correct me if any of these numbers are wrong. Um, but I have that. You guys guys sold 2.3 million tacos last year, which is about 6,400a day, and over a million margaritas. So that's quite a lot. As you've scaled, I'm curious. We focus on employees a lot here and team management of course. So what's been the biggest challenge in scaling that quickly but also maintaining a happy team, because it can be a lot of stress, I imagine, on the corporate side and getting that done and trickling down to the team probably is easy, and you know how do you avoid that.
Speaker 2:Sure, no, there's a lot of ways we can go here, but the anytime you scale, especially a full service restaurant, a scratch kitchen, right, you're always worried about that consistency amongst product, right, not necessarily even from store to store, but from visit to visit. You know, if a guest dines at our coveted location on Monday and gets two tacos, they come back two weeks from them and get the same two tacos and if they're not the same, that's a challenge, right, and inconsistency is can be the the downfall of any successful brand, whether you know restaurants or group or whatever it may be. So, um, and we try, we preach that consistency as much as possible. But, as you know, when you're bringing more people on and there's a bigger flow of communication, especially it's something new that comes out or a menu change, whatever it is, how are we ensuring our team is set up for success? We know we do enough. We know we provide the tools, resources, everything they need. I question, I say probably probably better than most I would.
Speaker 2:People inside the store still have to take those tools and resources right and use it to succeed, and sometimes that's a caveat of over-communication and having a lot of oversight from afar, where the stores may still view the corporate team or others as a crutch right. Instead of operating, you know, instead of just a support system, right or thinking that we will or someone else will be doing some of the things that ultimately they are required to do. And that's always a challenge A lot of times. Hiring the right people right and holding them accountable, which is which is challenging. But the consistency part right. Growing quickly didn't allow us to maybe train external hires correctly, cause I, like I said, we're very operationally savvy. We have a lot of systems, we have a lot to learn. We're a scratch kitchen, a scratch bar, so if you come in and you only get two weeks before you have to be thrown into a store, you know that's probably not enough for them to be comfortable from day one. So there's a lot of learning on the fly and they'll always be learning on the fly, right.
Speaker 2:So, setting our teams up for success in a short amount of time, because as you grow, your internal pipeline slowly gets exhausted. By exhausted I mean shortened or less people right that can be internally promoted to a position without promoting them to a position where they're not necessarily qualified or have the tools and resources to succeed. Because once you put someone in that position now there's really not a way out, because you can never put them back in the other position, because it's a demotion and those things never work out. So we've learned a lot of lessons along the way on that. And just because you're a good server, bartender, host, doesn't mean you're going to make a great team lead or a member of leadership. Or maybe because you're a good GM doesn't make sense that you're going to be a good district. Maybe those skill sets. So identifying those skill sets along the way, but ultimately right, you, you, you need people to run shifts, you need people to operate from within the store. So sometimes we have to do that and then provide that, that extra oversight. But once you provide extra oversight somewhere, someone else is then getting less oversight.
Speaker 2:So trying to balance that ebb and flow, the teeter-totter effect to making sure everybody has the tools and resources when they need to succeed, and then that you know, trusting the process from afar, you know how can we, how can I know sitting here today in the office that our stores are operating efficiently? Right, that's always a big concern and you can base that. We have a lot of metrics operational metrics, financial metrics, right. But you know, when a negative review comes across the screen, how the hell did this happen? There should be zero way that this happened to this guest. So what went wrong? And then you're thinking, okay, what else is going wrong at that store or with that member of leadership? And then trusting the process that they get it and with the people we've hired to it, like I said, with that oversight on the corporate team, if we trust and respect them to have that same passion and vision.
Speaker 2:And no one works for our brand just for a paycheck, right? That's the output again from what you put into it. For a brand just for a paycheck, right, that's the output, again from what you put into it. So those have been some challenges. And then you know we talked about core values on. You know, are those being followed? Is our morale up? Do our teams still have that buy-in that they did a couple of years ago, now that we've exponentially grew our team, or as a new server, getting onboarded properly, and obviously we have all these metrics that track these things. But these are always things that are going to your mind.
Speaker 2:And then how, through quick growth or quick scalability, how can you continue to be proactive and approach instead of reactive? You see that a lot in this industry it's reactive, reactive, reactive, reactive. This happened, okay, I got to do this Instead of I know this is going to happen. Let me do these eight, nine, ten things to make sure if this does happen, or when it happens you know, every day you have a plan for plan B, c and D in our industry. Someone's going to call off sick. There's going to be some crazy thing that happens. Are you prepared to handle these situations? And then, are we prepared to handle big situations, right? Is someone going to you know randomly? Is a guest going to slip and fall and sue us? Right? What do we do in these situations to mitigate those types of things?
Speaker 2:Because, as you grow, people think, oh, money, money, money, money. Well, restaurant industry margins are still the same and even thinner now, with inflation and costs going up, which is crazy, right, you know, making, you know, one cent off every dollar sometimes doesn't click like that. So that kind of goes back to the operating. A business side of thing is understanding. Okay, you might've done $10,000 today, great day. But if you were over labor 15%, right, instead of quote unquote, bringing just the thousand dollars to bottom line. Maybe you only bought brought 300, or maybe you ran out of cheese and had to go to the store and pay double the cheese and then you lost the opportunity costs of the time in the restaurant. So what went wrong there? That means you weren't interacting with guests on the floor because you were running to a grocery store to get something right. So all these things that every restaurant group deals with and trying to mitigate and minimize the opportunity for disadherence to what we want to do.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. There's a lot that goes into it.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, there's a lot.
Speaker 1:I imagine, though and I know you go a little off script before we wrap up the internal promotions and looking at that as you grow, it seems to be a strategy for you guys to look internally and provide those career paths, and is that something that you guys are looking to do? Or, I guess, is it something that you prioritize, because it seems like you do, and what goes into that and what are the advantages of it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, of course, and kind of goes back to our core values right, our dream right, providing those opportunities but setting the team up for success. The good thing about values right, our dream right, providing those opportunities but setting the team up for success. The good thing about internally right, people have worked with you X amount of time, whether that's months or whatever. You can gauge their buy-in. You can gauge if they're a good person. You can gauge if they have potential to develop into an all-star or a leader. You can tell if people look up to this person. So that kind of eliminates a lot of the unknowns from maybe an external hire. Everyone can interview good, these days, references you're limited on what questions you can ask. So what we have noticed pros and cons to both. Right, the internal people, like I mentioned, we don't want to promote them too quickly. So we're working. Katie, our chief people officer we brought on over a year ago, phenomenal. We're working together on a plan called it's called Road to Ready right. So if you are a server and you want to become a member of leadership, because you have this brand, you see the growth opportunities, you know what it stands for, you see a career in this industry, you know exactly what steps you need to accomplish and in what timeframe to be eligible to be a ETL, which is our Epic Team Lead, which is our entry-level hourly position. And then, if you get that position, you know exactly what you need to do to become a dining room manager, which is our entry-level store salary position. So, developing that, because as we've grown quickly, right, some people have been put into roles after a few months, just in a previous position, and other people see that within the brand and sometimes assume, well, this person did it in two months, I should be able to do it in two months. And then it creates that gray area that we mentioned. So, in that course of conversation, if you say, well, we don't think you're ready to them, that can be seen as a they don't believe in me type of thing and that's not the case at all. Right, we want to set you up for succeed because as we grow, we need people in leadership positions that can operate with less and less oversight, because the corporate bus always grows at a much smaller percentage than new openings in theory. I mean that's kind of the model, you know, new openings in theory. I mean that's kind of the model.
Speaker 2:Now the external right. We have a lot of recent ones that have came on with great experience, great previous restaurant groups they've worked for, they're eager, they love the brand. But it's difficult right when you've been doing something a long time to kind of shut off and learn the new way of doing things or the agave way or the Epic Brands way of doing things, and sometimes they don't agree or not, you know, but we're open to that feedback. But so they have the basics of running a shift that we've talked about, or Restaurant 101, the management side. Then it's transitioning them into the leadership side of the equation and developing them where they're comfortable, also knowing all the systems in a short period of time, as opposed to those that have been internally promoted or we want to promote.
Speaker 2:Internally, they've been doing the systems for a long period of time. Internally they've been doing the systems for a long period of time and, as you're a scalable brand, what it was, if you're not growing or evolving or changing right, you're dying, quote Right. So our brand is always trying to try to stay on trend, create trends. We had beer, yet tacos two years before. It was a. It's a thing Now it's a thing everywhere and it's our number one seller, seller by far, and just things like that. But once again, as you're constantly changing or evolving, those changes in evolution have to be communicated down, bought in to provide that consistent product that can make or break you.
Speaker 1:Absolutely yeah. I mean I think that's that's a great place to kind of wrap things up. I'm curious, you know, I know you have an opening coming up soon, but what does the rest of the year look like for for you and and for the Epic Brands group?
Speaker 2:great market and we have one more in the books, one more agave and rye in the books and it's taken, geez, probably five years right to get a systematic, documented approach right for a successful, scalable business. So we eventually want to scale our steakhouse and open some new concepts, like I mentioned. But that shift from one to two, especially at a steakhouse. The consistency is even more important at the higher price point. So we're going to work on maybe developing this year some more systematic approaches. What does a duplicatable SOB look like and how can we do those types of things and then evaluate? You know, with our fast growth, we haven't really had a time to sit back. You know, with our fast growth, we haven't really had a time to sit back. Roundtables, collaborative communication on what does the next year look like, and that's all this year.
Speaker 2:Election years are always crazy in our industry. The weather is out of whack nowadays and the economy. You know we have to make sure we're financially stable for what we want to do. Right, we want to launch a loyalty program later this year. Right, We've been in contact with a bunch of providers. We want to do a lot of things. We want to offer more benefits to our team. We want to redo our bonus program, our operational metrics. There's a lot of these things, but everything costs money or time and how to use the best of our resources in time to succeed those. So we want to get Hamilton, which is on the outskirts of Cincinnati, open, probably in July. That'll give us the last half of the year to kind of strategize for the future, which we're super, super excited about.
Speaker 1:Awesome. Well, chris, I appreciate you coming on today. Thanks for sharing all your expertise and learnings with our audience and thank you so much. Yeah, anytime, much appreciated. Thanks again for listening to this episode of the Pre-Shift Podcast. If you enjoyed it, please leave a review and share it with one of your friends to help our show grow. We could not do it without your support. As always, I would love to hear what you think. You can email me at dj7shiftscom. I look forward to hearing from you. Until next time.