S2 E10 Keith Border- Cardo's Pizza- A Slice of Wisdom

A Slice of Business Wisdom with Keith Bordner, Owner of Cardo’s Pizza & Tavern

Episode Highlights

In this episode, Janis Francis and Michele Cook welcome Keith Bordner, the mastermind behind Cardo's Pizza and Tavern, a local staple known not only for its mouthwatering pizza but also for its innovative business strategies. Together, they dig into the secrets behind Cardo’s success, including how Keith has woven his own touch of creativity and community focus into this beloved pizzeria. With a unique twist of insights and humor, this episode serves up a perfect mix of entrepreneurial advice and entertaining stories!

Key Takeaways

1. From Passion to Ownership
Keith shares his journey of taking over Cardo’s Pizza not once, but twice! He dives into the history of the brand and his pivotal role in revitalizing it. Keith’s commitment to quality and consistency is evident, from his selection of premium ingredients to his goal of creating a full-service dining experience that blends family-friendly charm with a great bar atmosphere.

2. Transforming the Business Model
When Keith re-entered the restaurant industry, he knew he wanted more than a traditional pizza joint. By adding craft beers, a bourbon selection, and a unique atmosphere, he turned Cardo’s into a place where patrons could enjoy quality food and drink in a lively setting. 

3. Facing Challenges Head-On
Running a restaurant has its ups and downs, and Keith opens up about the challenges he’s faced, from reshaping the culture at Cardo’s to navigating through the pandemic. 

4. Marketing Magic
Keith explains how he has capitalized on community events like Pizza Wars to introduce Cardo’s to new customers and strengthen his local presence. 

5. Secrets to Retaining Top Talent
Employee satisfaction ranks high on Keith’s priority list. He talks about the importance of systems that ensure consistency and efficiency. From team outings to recognition through holiday parties, Keith believes in celebrating his employees’ hard work and dedication.

6. Advice for Aspiring Entrepreneurs
Keith’s advice is simple but impactful: Aim to be the best, don’t shy away from challenges, and embrace the rollercoaster of entrepreneurship. 

Memorable Moments

• Pizza Perfection: Cardo’s Special and the pulled pork pizza with a BBQ drizzle top the list of crowd favorites. Keith’s philosophy? Consistency and high quality are non-negotiable.
• Live Music Vibes: Cardo’s is known for its lively entertainment, from acoustic nights to performances by top-notch local musicians. The focus is on creating an ambiance where families and friends can unwind.
• Future Plans: Keith hints at expansion plans based on market conditions but emphasizes that Cardo’s core mission will always be serving the Pickerington community.

Where to Find Cardo’s Pizza & Tavern
Visit Cardo’s Pizza at 7897 Refugee Road, directly across from Pickerington North in the Kroger Shopping Center. Check out cardospizzaandtavern.com or call 614-834-8101 to experience Cardo’s renowned food and service.

Tune in Next Time!

Whether you’re a budding entrepreneur or a pizza enthusiast, this episode offers a delicious slice of business wisdom. Don’t forget to subscribe for more exciting conversations with inspiring entrepreneurs!

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Transcript

Cardos
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[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to cosmos and commerce. The podcast for stellar business insights.

Meet cosmic cocktails. I'm your host. Janis Francis from REMAX Connection, as well as the Humble Crate Artisan Marketplace. And joining me as always is the ever energetic Michele Cook from Body Acres State Massage Center. Together we're here to fuel your mind and ignite your entrepreneurial passion with a dash of pizzazz.

That's right, Janice. Today we're switching things up and diving into the sizzling world of pizza with a twist. We're talking with none other than the dynamic man behind Cardo's Pizza and Tavern, a pizza shop that's not just serving up cheesy goodness but also crafting a galaxy of business success.

We'll be chatting with Keith Bordner to uncover how he is needing creativity into their dough and topping off his business with innovation. That's going to be a delicious conversation from creating mouth watering recipes to building a brand that's truly out of [00:01:00] this world. There's a lot to chew on, so grab a slice of your favorite pizza.

And get ready to savor some top notch business insights. Absolutely, let's dig in and find out what makes Cardo's Pizza and Tavern a cosmic hit in the pizza universe. Let's give a warm welcome to Keith Bordner, owner of Cardo's Pizza and Tavern, the man behind the brand. Welcome, Keith. Well, thank you for having me, ladies. Having a couple cocktails while we're doing this too, so that's why I'm out. Cheers. Yum. Can you share the story behind the beginning of Cardo's Pizza and Tavern? And you're the second owner, right? Well, you could say I'm the second and the fourth. But the third one was also the first one, so.

So there were two guys that bought it back in 1963. It started in Great Southern Shopping Center. They split up about a year or so later, one took 270 North, one took all Southern [00:02:00] Ohio. I went to work for the one that most people know, which is Rush Floyd.

I had a stint in probably four or five shops of his, managed the one in Pickerington where it used to be a Kroger bought that from him in 88 at that one, Bryce Road, Reynoldsburg, Lancaster Avenue, Reynoldsburg.

I had them all until about 94. Then the restaurant game becomes a young man's game, and at 35 I decided to get out of this business. And did some other ventures along the way, mostly startup companies. Was a global sales director before I got back into this. And took this back over and bought it from Rush again in 2015.

So, almost 10 years now. Kind of like keeping it all in the family. What'd you do in the meantime? My father had a manufacturer sales rep business, and [00:03:00] he used to design all of the parts for his clients. It was mainly in the wood window and door industry. That spun off into buying a prototype machine.

Where we could show them what it looked like versus here's what it looks like on a piece of paper. One of the first companies that ever had one of those machines. Fast forward to 2015 that company was sold as well. They had 17 machines were the largest privately held rapid prototyping company in North America.

The company that sold them the machines bought them. That was about the same time that I was a global sales director for a different company. We were in the fishing industry and that company was bought and sold twice while I worked there. So, 2015, I'm sitting in here with my brother, Brett, having a gondola sub and a beer.

About six [00:04:00] months later, I walked in the door as the owner.

Did he mark it up a lot from the time he sold it to him? Yeah. You want it back? It's 50, 000 more. It was worth sentimental value to me to make sure the old man was taken care of. Russ still comes in here on Saturdays, has a couple of beers.

He's 83 now. Good dude. He just looks at it every time he comes in here. Shaking his head. Why? I get the progress, right? Oh, yeah. Yeah, it's a lot different. He's impressed with what you've done with it. Were you in here at all? No, I've only been since you've been the owner.

Okay, we basically took this dining room and turned it upside down on its head, spun it around, the vision was to make it into a full service restaurant versus just a bar on one side. And Kids go on the other side while the parents are drinking on the other side.

Took a little bit of while for everybody to get used to [00:05:00] that. I like it better. It's nice and open. Yeah. And everybody And then as we progress, we add a little 24 by 24, what I called smuggler's line hotel back. Now it is 60 by 40. You guys have seen a full bar plus the infamous alcohol. Yeah. One of the first in Ohio to have that, right?

Yeah, one of the top, one of the first five in the state of Ohio to have it. Which is why Joe loves to come here. And still the only one that has one outside in the state of Ohio. So we're about eight months usage. Most of the other ones are inside. We're 12 months out of here. But it makes that patio fun for sure.

What were some of the biggest challenges you faced during the beginning of owning Cardo? Changing the culture was probably the biggest thing. They were the land of the, what I like to say, the 2 tall domestic [00:06:00] beer. I had a vision of craft beers. I had a vision of more bourbon selection, tequilas, things of that nature.

It just took a while to flip the coin and realize that what we're getting is really good stuff versus, you know, a 2 Bud Light or whatever it is, back then, part of my restaurant history, I was also with Applebee's as a publisher of the franchise. We had the 2. 75 tall back then in 94.

I just don't think some people think that. Right now it should be 2. 75, but you have a keg of beer that was 42 back then and a half barrel now is 129. So it's hard to hold a 2. 75 price tag. If you want halfway decent. Yeah. Those are challenges where we also want to stay in business.

Part of that comes service. It was a big flip with the clientele, but it was also a flip [00:07:00] with the staffing. Get them to understand what direction we're going. Out of that initial staff, I still have five, most of them are in the kitchen. It's just creating a positive environment for the staff as well as the customers.

That's really what this whole thing's been about, just creating a service that can't be outdone by anybody. I think that's a good long time employee. Yeah. Three in the kitchen are 10 years. One out front is nine years. I've got a lot of that five year range. When we went into COVID, we went into battle together because nobody knew what was going to happen.

And that was probably the second biggest challenge that we had. Yeah. But as with everybody else, Michelle's business got shot down. Yeah, completely. Yeah. Yeah, the day I was, I, I have a business partner, Kyron, and I called him [00:08:00] and said, shouldn't we even reopen? This seems ridiculous at this point.

And later on that afternoon, they announced that we could reopen. I was like, well, here we go. Guess we didn't talk about that soon enough. So during that timeframe, I just told the staff, Shut us down, shut down at Sunday night at 10 o'clock. Well, I think we left here at 5 a. m. After hours party, probably not legal, but we did what we did.

We were just discussing how we're going to handle this. I said, for those of you that want off, I'll pay you for four weeks. Got enough cash to pay everybody here based on your salaries, So I did that. Two days in, I'm here cleaning stuff up and I'm watching the Wendy's parking lot drive through across the street I walked across the parking lot to somebody I knew and handed them a little card and said, do me a favor, when you get through [00:09:00] this line, call me.

Oh, so you could time it? I want to know how long it took. It took them 22 minutes to get that line across the street. And I said, okay, we can do better. So I ordered some orange cones, put them out in the fire lane out front. We were told two days in that we could open because we were one of those needed businesses.

So that's when my kitchen guy that's been with me forever came in, said, Hey, can I like organize the cooler or something? I can't stand being at home. I said, You want to deliver? He goes, What? I go, yeah, I'll take all the orders. I can get a hold of. I'll make them if you want to believe. So two days in we were back up and running, but we told everybody that we were still closed.

We just answered the phone. So then it became a funny thing because this [00:10:00] parking lot was lined with cars. Yeah, that is so cool. So those are challenges. How different was your revenue during that time? Really, all we missed was the alcohol sales. The food sales were straight 

so we didn't really lose anything. It probably helped us long term coming out of it. You got pp money too. We were honest, direct incline up until probably last year when I decided that This kitchen couldn't handle as much delivery plus dining so I removed delivery.

Okay. So it's, that's been probably the only flat line that I've had this whole thing, but it gives just another six months. We'll be right back. Yeah, yeah. So can take over that daycare. What they need to do is they need to give me a space on either side of me so I can put my kitchen in there. [00:11:00] Yeah, that would be awesome.

Right to the outside. Yeah, straight to the outside. Yeah. Yes. Yeah, that would be good. Can you share an achievement that you consider your biggest success with Cardo's?

Being a staple in the community. And continuing, to make that my, goal, I guess is what I want to say. Grew up here, went to school here. Know both coaching staffs for football. Some of the basketball coaches over here. It was trying to figure out how, you know, we have the big behemoth of a restaurant here in Pickerton, which is the largest roosters out of all of them.

And how can I compete with that? And it wasn't, it wasn't, oh, how can I beat all of my other pizza shop competitors? I [00:12:00] wanted to figure out how I could pick up the pace. Basically what I call the scraps from them. Because , they're a machine. Yeah, they're busy all the time. Those are the things that I look at trying to keep this thing moving forward.

How do we take the next step? Right now the kitchen is bogging me down. Producing more than we can. Two hour period on a Friday. It's just crazy. Good problem to have. So you serve award winning pizza. Do you guys have a secret sauce recipe that you can't tell? I believe the recipe is our consistency.

You know what you're going to get every day you walk in the store and it doesn't fluctuate and it's become a joke with a lot of the regulars. They'll go, Hey, pizza's really good tonight. Make it. And I said, of course I did. And they just look at me and start laughing. They know I've been out in the dining room walking around but it's training the staff.

I made the first one and I made it repeatable. Yeah, I mean, it's, you know, there's a few things we won't change, the sub [00:13:00] buns Yeah, I will never, ever, ever change those. And I've had people go, why, I mean, I like abinos, I like this, I like that. Okay, there's other places around. I mean, no secret to the bun, it's a pepper charm bun.

Okay. High quality. It looks nice. It's just been our staple forever, so I will never change that. Our pepperoni.

It's probably a higher end pepperoni than most people use, but I've known Johnny since he was really like me, I like using local. Correct. Yeah, I can. People you know. It's more about. Not changing because of price, sticking to what you do, be consistent, put out a quality product every single time.

Isn't that why roosters is so packed though? I [00:14:00] think because you go in there and you know the wings are going to taste the way they're always going to taste. Correct. It's going to be consistent. Correct. Even if it's not. It's all right. It's not the best food in the world, but it's good and it's reliable and dependable.

That's what you have done as well. Yeah, that's more what I feel. No, but yours is really good. Yes, we have a good pizza. It's quality. I am not afraid to put ours up against. Any of them locally. No, you've won awards, with, Pizza Wars. Yeah, Pizza Wars. The only year we didn't win it, we did better.

They moved it around location to location.

I liked it when it was a chamber because I was a judge and I loved eating all that pizza. The Lions Club doesn't do a judge's choice anymore. It's all in [00:15:00] favor. Okay, yeah, so we better go. Yeah, you have to. I mean, I do, I do go. Yeah, yeah. I think I was working the shop because they did it on a shop hop night.

That place was crazy. People were coming in my shop and saying, They waited like 45 minutes. Everybody was, a little unprepared for how many people were actually going to be in there. I was the only one who was prepared.

I know. That's why you won. And I heard that too. And they, maybe they were giving out two bigger pieces and instead of, I don't know what the I know what they did wrong, but I'm not going to tell you what they did wrong. Oh, you're going to hold that in your back pocket. Shops have to understand that.

Let's just say that first year was probably,

we won by attrition because there was nobody else to vote for. , second year, those guys brought their A game, which was fine. 

That's what I wanted to see. And we took almost all the awards. 

They had six awards and I won [00:16:00] four. There you go. And the one that I'll go after this year is the one that I think I should have preserved at all times. Oh, pepperoni is our most bought pizza

And is that in September? What is that? I think it's in November. . If you look at it, those competitions for me are about getting in front of those people that I've never had before. ~Yeah. ~And if I gain one or two more customers out of that, that's really a win. Winning is a good thing. It's a marketable thing. I just believe in getting in front of the customers and even the customers that are blind like yourselves, when they're there it gives me an added chance to get in front of you to talk to you.

Because I can't talk to a lot of you when I'm in here because I'm busy. You're busy, yeah. So I focus on, hey, good to see [00:17:00] you. Hey, have you tried this one yet? Because I'll take everything that's in our repertoire. Mm hmm. And Yeah, we can try new stuff that we wouldn't normally. And then it also gives me a chance to spend a little money at the bus show and buy some beers for people.

Would you say that Pizza Wars is your best marketing thing, or do you have something that's worked better for you? I mean, it's got to be the top one because you're in front of a lot of new people. How many people in the night say, I never knew where you were? A lot. That's so bizarre.

It drives me crazy. I know. That's my and Jack's focus for the next 12 months. Your marketing guy, yep. ~Yeah. It's the gig. ~These people that don't know where we are, that don't even know that we have a back patio, we'll get a lot of people going, I'm not going to that patio. They see the problem. They think that's what you're talking about.

Right. So nobody, I mean, the fact that we have 110 seat back patio. It just makes it fun, [00:18:00] you know, ~and just, I mean, so yes, there is still that. Yes. ~Still don't know why they don't know where we are. Have you been Here in this building. So the actual physical shop's been here since 2000.

Yeah, we've been open since 2010 and people come in all the time. I never knew you were here. ~Well, ~do you look around when you're driving? ~I was just wondering. ~I know they're not keeping their eyes on the road because nobody does. They're looking at their phones. You look at it and go, what are you spending your marketing dollars on?

How am I going to get in front of these people? I'm spending it over here. ~Yeah. ~So that's why I focus on getting involved in the school. ~Okay. ~So you're going to make sure they know who you are. ~Who they are young. So we, you know, it's, ~I like to say it's kind of like the McDonald's approach. When we were kids, Mom and Dad took us to the McDonald's drive thru to get you a Happy Meal because there were fries inside.

I look at that as when the team meal comes about. I'll throw a team meal at every single team in this city. It doesn't [00:19:00] matter to me. Both schools. And it's to get in front of those kids because eventually I had a mom who's really not happy with me when I said this one time, but I said, how old's your daughter?

She gets 15. I go, well, you know, I said, I get in front of all these kids now when they're 21, they're going to be sitting here right where you're at. That makes you think that's so funny. And I go, but it's true. ~Yeah. ~They're going to be sitting at some bar, right? So it might as well be my back patio because of the pizza.

And they're going to be so close to their house. Hey mom, I'm coming home. Get involved with them at a young age.

Yeah. So switching to employee satisfaction over customer satisfaction, what, what is your top tips to keeping employees satisfied in their job and reducing turnover? Here's the way I look at it. Take care of me, I'll take care of you type of [00:20:00] mentality.

I believe in systems. And we run systems in here because that's how we're successful. If you follow the system, you will grow ~across ~1000%. If you don't follow the system, you're not going to grow as fast as you are now.

Like you didn't follow the system. For instance, a lot of people want to know why I don't want to cut in my chair. Friday night in a two hour period, we'll have probably in the neighborhood of 200 pies coming out. We're cutting, then we're looking at the ticket and going, Oh crap, it's supposed to be pie shaped.

And then those customers are mad. I can't do it on a Friday. So that's real. I mean, it's systems like that,

Could we do it when we're slow? Yes. Okay, we'll [00:21:00] do it on a Friday night. If we do it on a Tuesday, they're going to come back Friday. ~Yeah, yeah. ~Like you did it for me Tuesday. Why can't you do it for me Friday? It's those systems that create the volume so we can get it out in one little thing. , Right. So if you saw something, a pizza come out, pie cut, you'd be like, oh, you're fired.

Because we remind them, but that person's probably going to ask us on a Friday. Yeah. You find that customer and be like, you got lucky tonight. They're not supposed to be doing that. Typically, I'll visit the table and if I've seen it, I would go, Oh, that's interesting. Who do you know back in the kitchen?

You know, I mean, it's one of those things. Yeah. So, I mean, so retention of the, getting back to the employees, retention, I, [00:22:00] especially in the kitchen, have no alternative. But I make them work. You know, no phones, no this, no that, no playing around. So it's work. Front of the house, my mentality is it's my job to make sure that What we call button teams.

The only way you're going to keep the front of the house staff long term is if they're making money. I have to put the butts in seats to make sure that they're making money. As a sales guy running a restaurant, that's the focus. The more volume you have, the more you create, the more it takes care of all your business.

I've noticed that you have some younger people that work here. That's a lot of times the first job for people is working in a restaurant. Do you have any tips on working with the younger generation? Anything different about them than with older? ~Yeah, ~I let my mid range adults that work here take [00:23:00] care of that for me because I don't understand that.

It's hard for me when I see them on the phone. Especially when we're busy, but for the most part, as long as they understand that the common goal is to make sure ~yourselves who are ~customers are taken care of versus being on the phone. I think it'll probably change this year because the school's not allowing them to have their phones in school.

Really? Oh, this is gonna be hard. ~I did not know that. That's, ~that's what I've been told by a couple teachers. ~So this might be the start. ~Do they leave them in their bags? Do they leave them at home? Like they're not even allowed to have them? ~Or do you know the line? ~The back pocket, it just can't be sitting here right beside them.

Let's just say you can't be texting with your right hand while you're putting pepperoni on with your left hand. ~Yeah. I mean, ~it just doesn't work. That's a hard group of people for me because I'm approaching that retirement age, ~so. ~Is that part of the job interview, like you can't be on your phone while you're working?

Is that a [00:24:00] problem for you? Are you going to withdraw? I mean, are you allowed to ask that question? ~You know, ~I don't know. I would think you could. That doesn't seem discriminatory. I wouldn't think so, but they would be offended by it. ~I think it's, it's hard for, I mean, ~I watch some of the clients that come in here with their kids and their kids are ~um, so I mean, they're ~used to it.

I've gone out to eat and seen a whole family of five on their phone.

I think things are probably going to go the other direction. . It's hard for them to come in this door and change what they're doing every day. ~Yeah. ~Let's just say I do it with kid clubs. Even with the adults, I'm pretty much an acquired taste back there. You have to understand me in order to get by the night. Do you guys do any team building where it helps them understand you?

We do meetings in here. ~Yeah. ~Quite a bit. Maybe we should have our meetings here. Our [00:25:00] office is so little to hold everybody at once. ~Yeah. ~Can we rent out your space for Halloween? Christmas we throw a party. In the past, I had rented a fun bus, piled everybody on ~a fun bus, ~and we went to dinner somewhere, and then we came back, we shut down on a Monday.

It's usually the first Monday of December we shut down. We do things like that. Some of my kitchen staff, like to fish a lot, so I, Work it out with this charter up at Lake Erie. You guys take off Monday, I'll cover the shop on Monday. You four go, I'll take care of it. Those type of things.

~Nice. ~So, yeah, we do it. We do our big event out back. Once it gets to nine o'clock at night, the whole staff is on my tab. ~You know, it's one of those things. ~They're going to bust their butt for what they're doing. I've got to reward them.

~Yeah. ~We do a lot of, personality [00:26:00] style testing in the beginning to figure out where everybody falls ~and then hiring, yeah, ~like a dis test, but it, you know, it's got so many names, there's different variations. So we usually do an onboarding where we talk a lot about that. And then ~we ~have them guess what Kiren and I are after talking about it.

Usually they can guess ~it's pretty fun, ~but that's how we ~help them, ~help them figure us out. I learned that whole thing when I was in the sales world. So I'd walk into somebody's office. Yes, exactly. So you know how to alter your conversation. ~Yeah, yeah. ~You can flex into their style. It's hard to do that in here, because they're in my domain.

~They're not in, you know, ~you can see pictures on the wall. I have one guy. ~Oh yeah. ~The whole office was immaculate, like he never was in there. Oh, he's a detective, or analyzer, probably. I was like there, and I sat there, and He'd go, Right. Let's get out the key file, pull out of them. ~That's the only thing I was just asking, ~I'm like, this is intimidating.

Yeah. [00:27:00] So what are you in that desk? ~I'm off the chart, or ~I'm off chart D, ~I'm sorry. ~Oh, okay. So like bossy. Oh yeah. ~Okay. ~And I've mellowed through my years, so if I'm still a D. ~Yeah. ~I'm pretty even between D and I, I is like an entertainer. D is like the dumbest. So I ~can, I like ~vacillate between the two.

My wife's an I. ~Okay. ~It's a good match. She's gotta have interaction all the time. ~Yeah. ~My husband is a D and I'm more I. But we're both pretty high on both. S is supporter. C is like analyzer. Where do you think you'd fall? I'll have to give you the test. I've never taken that test. I'll have to send you a copy.

Send me a copy and then we'll find out. I'm probably more inside the line on the D now. Because I probably know it. Yeah, it softened a little bit. That happens when you get older, ~if I have found it. ~Some of my staff will tell you that I probably didn't know it at all. ~They didn't know you before.~

They didn't know you before.[00:28:00] 

Oh my gosh. Okay, so with Bodyache Escape, we rely a lot on Google reviews. for people to find us online. Do you have a strategy behind Google reviews or how much stock do you put in them? I look at them, I would say probably 85 percent of those are probably worse than content or worth everything that they're giving you. 15 percent drive me crazy. Yeah. And some are warranted. I mean, it's pretty good. 4. 5, I think, somewhere in that range. We have our ups and downs, depending on what site you're on.

Yelp or TripAdvisor. Yeah, any of those. But I mean, you know, Google, we're probably 4. 5 overall.

Do you respond to all of your reviews? I try now someone may take a couple weeks

Oh, okay, you want to be entertained don't get sold by battle ~I'll do that later. Um, ~I just don't feel that the [00:29:00] ones that deserve to give us a one will accept it ~and I'll accept everything ~and I'll make it right. The ones that are just doing it those are the ones I feel like I have to turn around and give them a customer review.

Yeah. Yeah. Yes. And I do it. That's good for you. That's good.

~So I mean, ~I mean, they're important because people do look at that. So it's got to make sure

When I read those reviews, you can kind of read between the lines if there's any negative, I'm like, he was just pissed for the day, you know what I mean? Somebody peed his cornflakes that day or you know, whatever. What makes me mad is when you get a one star review and you make it right and then they don't change their review at all.

~Yes. ~You make it right before they leave the restaurant and they still, they still dance. People are dicks. People suck sometimes for sure. All right, tell us a little bit about your live entertainment and how does that play into your business plan? So once upon a time we used to [00:30:00] do full live bands on Saturday.

That'd be a lot of noise. I am, yeah, yeah, I mean a lot of what we've done here, the carpet on the floor. The walls are insulated. The foot area at the bar is insulated. I mean, if you step on it, it's solid. So there's no vibration whatsoever. My son was a drummer, so that helped me. Acoustic ceiling tiles.

So it's all to try to keep, so you don't have to turn it up. Everything should be, you know, and everybody should be able to hear. It played a part in it. What became an issue was. I like live music very, very much and I would not allow there to be any bad bands in here. So I would go out and search them out.

They would shoot, the band went on at 8. 30 or 9. People [00:31:00] would show up at 7 30 to get a seat, maybe hovered over top of the families with kids. ~And I go, okay, Yeah, ~in the environment, you're not making as much money, because people aren't moving. So, we eliminated that with strictly acoustic. I probably have the best talent that you could possibly think of.

Yeah. You know, for instance, this Wednesday's a gay. You want to do that about Yeah, it's just got to the point where Wednesday, thursday, friday, saturday, they look to see who we are. A couple of guys out of Nashville will come up. ~So, I mean, it's a big part of it. ~It allows the parents to introduce their kids to live music in a comfortable setting.

My son was 14 he was playing in bars. It was kind of ~okay ~how do we win on this and still allow these kids to be here. ~So ~the parents [00:32:00] are getting crazy. I like the acoustic too because it's more calm. ~Yeah, ~you can still talk.

Michael's been with me since day one, on Thursday. Just a great entertainer. ~Nice. ~He does a nice job. And he's got some, interaction with the crowd. That's what you want. Sometimes, it can be interesting with the live bands. Like, we do Dan Orr projects in here once a year. I know Dan. And we try to do that in between the week of Christmas and New Year's.

He draws a large crowd. ~Correct. ~People love him. He's fun. So we've got North to Nashville here. ~Oh, ~my friends follow North to Nashville around. ~Oh, yes. ~They're groupies. ~So we use them for Is that the crawl or there's another event you do? No, we've, ~we've been involved in the Buckeye cruise for cancer. ~Yeah.~

Okay. team. ~Nice. ~2018 2019 summer. So it's a fundraiser for that. Yes. We raise money for the [00:33:00] James. The Buckeye Cruise started AJ Angelo used to do it over at Gatsby's. And he came and asked me Or just cause and I said, What do I got to do? Have a turn from my America whole time talking about this 10. I'm thinking that it's on the Buckeye cruise, so it's money spent to get in front of 3000 people that I've probably never been in front of.

Let's sure I'll do it. I'm not knowing that the event was You've been 16 foot 10 out back of Gatsby's over their patio and my name was on the stage. And then two years there, then we moved over [00:34:00] here. So first year I was involved raised 83, 000. Second year was 101. Then we moved to here and the first year was 213, 000.

That's crazy. Do you put tents up out back too or is it just what you've got? On the back patio. ~Okay. ~Picks up the whole back parking lot. ~Okay. ~50 foot wide by another 140 foot long. Holy moly. We'll have to come. You're four. We did 325, 000 in the last year. This past year, we did three. Three years here have been 850, 000 today.

Today. Okay. We do Friday night. First two years. North nationals on Friday. A. J. All day long on Saturday, starting ~to do ~until 11 different acoustic artists. [00:35:00] Ex football players, ex basketball players, men and women, OSU alumni band, cheerleaders, just a number of different things going on all day long.

AJ has a band that he used to head called Just Another Band. They're a country band as well. ~So ~he goes on stage at nine o'clock at night after ~we do ~our live auction. Live auction is pretty interesting to watch. ~I mean, just that alone, ~one hour is 150, 000. Crazy. It sounds like you have a lot of people donating things for this live auction.

So, yes. We have a condo at Hill Pet for a week. AJ does a hog roast. With the band at their house. That's fun. This would go for a lot. [00:36:00] I typically get a barrel pick of bourbon. And I'll auction off a spot to go with me on the pick. The first year we did it, we had three couples that bid 8, 000.

And I just looked down at both of them. I said, yeah, all three of them. Okay, we're all done. That would be the kind of crowd to hang out with somebody who could drop 8, 000. So I mean, you know, summer, somebody makes a unique tables now. I guess what is it. Plastics and what's that called? The resin. Yes, on the live edge and all that.

Somebody will build a table. Yeah. Wow. an entrepreneur? Do you have anything special that you do every day? I don't, I think my specialty There's never a routine. If there is a [00:37:00] routine, I'm probably bored. ~So ~I prefer to get crazy so I can adapt on the fly. That's what makes this staff once they see, ~Hey, ~nothing scares us when it comes in the door. I mean, Saturday morning, give me a heads up. We've got 20 people coming in.

I want to watch the women's soccer game. ~Don't know again. ~Okay. I was back three hours later. Hey, I think we got about 30. Okay. Hey, it's actually 100. I'll be back the next day. Hey, we're probably gonna have 50. So I ~go ~looked at the staff and I go, who else wants to come in at 11? The kitchen just looks at it goes just another day.

Yeah. So I mean, it's because they know that if they get their grounding, I'm going to jump in. If the front of the house is drowning, I'm going to jump in. So, I mean, I prefer it to be controlled chaos. Do you ever get any days off? Even when I'm on [00:38:00] vacation.

I guess I'm always doing something for work. ~Right. ~I'm not always there. Saturday I was here during the day, I left at 3. 30. Cincinnati with the voice of America came back Sunday. But I work both those days. I mean, it's even when I'm on vacation. It's got Yeah, so touch it every day.

So how do you maintain the balance between your professional and your personal life? That's a question I have to ask my wife. Do you? Maybe she likes her alone time. Like me. There is no balance. Unfortunately. . I don't sleep. Oh. I don't sleep much either.

I mean, I'll be trying to email at two in the morning [00:39:00] or whatever. I get it. If you could spend the day having a pizza and a cocktail with any entrepreneur or business owner in the world, dead or alive, Who would it be?

Oh, that's a very interesting question.

I would say Warren Buffett. Okay. What would you ask him? How the hell he figured out what he's doing. No, he's like a wizard, I think. Somebody like that, probably. Yeah.

And I worked for, before it was four guys that had sold their medical software business. Three guys sold their medical software business. The fourth guy was their acquisitions and helped them do it. They started this company that I, started a company that I worked for. Those guys were very interesting.

One of those guys, was also a latino [00:40:00] music promoter for Live Nation ~that sold, um, no, ~he was the guy that put together the deal for Live Nation to buy Ticketmaster.

At 40 years old, they wrote him a check and said, go away. And he said, okay, and drove across. The desert to Vegas went to Mandalay Bay and said, Hey, I'm thinking about getting into boxing. You guys interested? What's your deal? I'll put it out back here. Give me a three story so we can let her tell. I'll go back over and get Live Nation involved.

~See if So I'm sure we're in. Goes back, ~Live Nation goes, sure we're in. Comes back to Vegas, drives across the strip, signs Mayweather, did ten fights. ~Oh wow. So it was Mayweather that did that? Cool, ~eight million every time Mayweather fought. Those kind of guys. ~Yeah, yeah. How did you know? Yeah. ~What do I got to do to have somebody running 50 shops?

What [00:41:00] is your favorite Cardo's pizza? I would have to say it's the Cardo's special. Okay, what's on it? pepperoni, mushroom, green pepper, onion, and sausage. Okay, we have a very good pizza in here. That's my creation. That's the pulled pork pizza. Oh, that sounds good. Does it have barbecue sauce on it too?

It's got drizzle barbecue. So that's probably a close second. It's probably one of ours. Let's Once you find it, there's a lot of good work. Just continue to buy it. So pineapple on pizza, yes or no? If you get anything on the pizza, it doesn't matter to me. It's not my favorite. My husband gets it. I ate it once by accident.

~laughing ~And I was like, oh this isn't that bad. I like it. I mean, we don't sell a lot of it. It's [00:42:00] available. There's people that do their own creation and we have a high voltage which,

it's pretty warm. Oh, Joe would like that then. He likes spicy food. ~Somebody will add. ~Well, I mean, it's our pizza sauce as a base, but it's birdseed or your crushed red pepper sprinkled into the sauce. And you top it with not only sausage and peppers and banana peppers but jalapeno. I burned my mouth off.

And we'll have people that'll order a high voltage with pineapple on it. So you need that sweet with the heat. ~Right. ~It's a good balance. ~Yeah~

So what piece of advice would you give ~it ~aspiring entrepreneurs looking to start their own business

If you go into something you've got to go into it the attitude that you have to be the best You have to be willing I think the good with the bad along the way. Never give [00:43:00] up. ~Yeah, ~entrepreneurship is definitely a roller coaster. Yes. Yeah, it truly is. So, I mean, it's go to work ~and ~the day's not going very good ~today, ~but you can't give up.

You gotta figure out how to get the track straight back on the track. Yeah, the longer you're in it, you know that it only lasts ~very ~temporary. It'll be different tomorrow. After a good night's sleep. Yeah. So knowing what you know now, is there anything you would have done differently with CARDOS?

Maybe not go on such a large scale and maybe have

How many do you have right now? Just this one here. But it's before it was. So, the old owner Rush had nine. But they were ~only ~pretty much pickup with a small dining area. ~Um, ~and then we would just pick up pizza, sit down at a table and go on the way. It wasn't any [00:44:00] service. Yeah, I would probably do a lot of smaller schedules.

Once you get to this size, you got to figure out how to keep it going. So speaking of that, what's your future plans? I think the economy is going to dictate that for me. If it stays like it is, it'll probably be just this one. If it picks back up, we have a probably have a good four or five year run, which is typically what happens.

Okay. How long until you see your exit?

Yeah. If this thing just becomes a point where it's a grind, ~you gotta work. ~I don't enjoy it anymore. That's probably when I'll come back. So, your kids work here. Do they want to be in the [00:45:00] business? My boys are out of state. Both of them have very successful jobs. I told them when they were in high school, never work in the restaurant.

It's tough. I know it is tough. ~Yeah.~

So what resources would you recommend to someone looking to start their own entrepreneurial journey? I would venture to say that you probably should find a mentor. That's a common theme, a common answer with a lot of business owners that we've interviewed. Yeah, I mean, I don't think there, you can't read the blueprint on a restaurant, you can't read the blueprint on a restaurant. Real estate, you can't really put it on a spot or whatever.

You're successful because you do things the way you do them. There's no blueprint for you.

Are there any [00:46:00] other business ventures that you're curious about that you might want to get into as well as this?

Anything that's a challenge. This is the longest I've been in one place ever in my career. I'm typically a five to six year guy, everything I need to do. And when I got into this, I told my wife, I said, this was the last stop. Because I don't know that I have the energy to do something for somebody else again.

Yeah. Once you are your own boss, you are unemployable. Right. I was like, Build a global sales channel for the company. I worked for before, ~had no experience, um, but ~those guys were great mentors and they said, look, this is what I want. Go get it. Okay, that's all you have to tell me. I'll figure out how to get there.

When I worked for [00:47:00] others in the restaurant industry, For instance, I work for a franchise at Applebee's. I was in 37 stores in seven years because I was fixing all the broken stores. ~This is kind of I need your help again. I've never Well, corporate, ~corporate bought all the franchises back. That's part of the problem.

So you have all the people that have invested in that. Have you ever been to an Applebee's? Oh yeah, we used to go to Happlebee's. Because they had a really good happy hour. Oh, Happlebee's. I get it. Land of the 275 tall. Okay, so Keith, we're going to switch gears into a lightning round.

We're going to ask you fast questions, and you get the first answer that comes to your mind. You ready? Sure. You didn't read these beforehand, so this should be interesting. I know, I know. ~Okay, that's all right. ~

What is an unusual habit or an absurd thing that you love?

We can stick fantasy football. Okay, that's good. league [00:48:00] since 1987. Oh really? Oh man. Do you play for money or? Oh yeah. Oh. Yeah, ~yes. It's a big, ~it's a big time league. It's basically almost everybody here. Oh wow. Yeah. It's this underground fantasy football league we don't know about. So what's your proudest accomplishment? 

What purchase of 100 or less has made the biggest difference in your life? ? So now I'm redeeming myself. Vehicle. Oh. You got a good deal. 

What was it? What kind of car was it? It was a Catalina 400. So it was a big boat. ~Mm hmm. Um, ~I drove it to high school every day. I [00:49:00] mean, in today's world, it's probably a it ran. Did you have to pop the hood and jiggle stuff inside for it to start like I did? Oh, yes. It was an older couple. Oh, it was one of those garage cars that had low miles.

Low car, low miles. Gotcha. ~Yes. ~Yes. Perceived nice young man that they can sell their property to. Oh, that's great. What is one skill you would like to master? Oh,

I would go back to father started the business that he grew and it took his three boys ~here ~To run it once he retired so I could do that to where I could master that whole thing and bottle this up in the one and not have, you know, teach [00:50:00] other people to do it, but I could master that all by myself.

That would be what I would probably do. My dad was, he just worked seven days a week like me. It was amazing what he came to do and stuff like that. So if I could just master it. Everything that I do and everything everybody else has to do is behind the bottle or in one bottle, so it just gets done.

That's probably how I do it. What was your first job? You're gonna laugh. I worked for Donato's Pizza. Did you? Oh! Okay, okay. Where do you see yourself in five years? Tennessee at on vacation or retiring there or owning a cartas there? I would, I would allow Sauna Lake, Tennessee, or South [00:51:00] Carolina.

~They're, they're the,~

they're similar in what Florida does, taxation purposes. Oh, okay. Mm-Hmm. . So just wanna be on a lake. Yeah. So if I want to go to work today, I will. If I don't, I'm going out fishing like I like it being on a lake rather than like ocean,

what's your pop up song? You have a song to get you going? My son grew up on 80s and 90s rock. We actually recorded with ~um, ~an artist that used to be the lead guitarist for Steelheart back in the 90s. ~Okay. And ~he has a song called Life in a Day. It's about living your life in a day, in a whole day. So maybe that's a pop up song, but Kenny's, Kenny was a ~ okay, ~[00:52:00] Keith, thank you so much for joining us on Cosmos and Commerce. This has been delightful. I know our listeners will have so many takeaways and ideas. Please tell everyone where they can find you.

So, the address of the restaurant is 7897 Refugee Road, directly across the street from Pickerington North, in the Kroger Shopping Center, www. cardospizzaandtavern.

com. And if you want to call, it's 614 834 8101. All right. I have a feeling you're going to be getting some calls saying, Hey, we want to bottle up what you're selling there.

Okay. Well, thank you so much for hosting us here at Cardo's Pizza and Tavern. We had a great time. Had a great time with you ladies too. Thank you. A huge thank you to our listeners for joining us. Thanks. We hope you were able to sip some wisdom, save her some insights, and [00:53:00] are now ready to create your own success.

Don't forget to hit that subscribe button and stay updated on our latest episodes. And if you're thirsty for more, find us@cosmosandcommerce.com. Until next time, cheers. Thank you. Cheers. Nice job. Good job. Thank you. Thank you.