Restaurant Leadership Podcast: Overcome Burnout, Embrace Freedom, and Drive Growth
Welcome to the Restaurant Leadership Podcast, the show that teaches you how to overcome burnout, embrace freedom, and drive growth
Your host, Christin Marvin, of Solutions by Christin.
With over two decades of extensive experience in hospitality leadership, Christin Marvin has successfully managed a diverse range of concepts, encompassing fine dining and high-volume brunch.
She has now established her own coaching and consulting firm, collaborating with organizations to accelerate internal leadership development to increase retention and thrive.
Each week, Christin brings you content and conversation to make you a more effective leader.
This includes tips, tricks and REAL stories from REAL people that have inspired her-discussing their successes, challenges and personal transformation.
This podcast is a community of support to inspire YOU on YOUR unique leadership journey.
This podcast will help you answer the following questions:
1. How do I increase my confidence?
2. How do I accelerate my leadership?
3. How do I lower my stress as a leader?
4. How do I prevent burnout?
5. How do I improve my mental health?
So join the conversation and listen in each week on spotify and apple podcasts and follow Christin on LinkedIn.
Voice Over, Mixing and Mastering Credits:
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Artwork by Solstice Photography, Tucson, AZ.
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Restaurant Leadership Podcast: Overcome Burnout, Embrace Freedom, and Drive Growth
92: The Number One Chicken Sandwich in Chicago: Joe Fontana's Journey from Failed Meatball Concept to Fast-Casual Empire
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Joe Fontana, founder of Fry the Coop, is redefining what it means to build a fast-casual chicken empire with heart. From his Chicago-based restaurants, Joe shares the unexpected journey that took him from a failed meatball concept to creating what he proudly calls "the number one chicken sandwich in Chicago" – double-fried in beef tallow for that perfect crunch.
What makes this conversation particularly fascinating is Joe's candid discussion of his viral moment. When thieves broke into one of his restaurants causing $3,000 in damage for a mere $9 in change, Joe transformed potential disaster into marketing gold.
His Home Alone-themed response to the break-in generated 27 television appearances and drove record sales – a masterclass in turning lemons into lemonade that any restaurant owner can learn from.
Beyond crisis management, Joe dives deep into the leadership principles that have allowed him to scale to nine locations with plans for 75 more. He articulates the profound loneliness of entrepreneurship and shares how he stays connected to his team's needs while navigating rapid growth.
His refreshingly honest admission about financial management missteps offers a cautionary tale about the importance of diligent invoice tracking and expense management – "expenses are like fingernails, they're always growing and they always need to be cut."
What truly sets this episode apart is Joe's people-first philosophy. Rather than focusing solely on profits, he frames his ambitious growth goals around creating opportunities for his team members.
"We're growing our company so we can grow our people," he explains, detailing how his expansion strategy aims to eventually provide meaningful financial outcomes for everyone involved. This perspective challenges the traditional profit-centric restaurant model and offers a compelling alternative vision for sustainable growth.
Whether you're running a single restaurant location or dreaming of building your own multi-unit concept, this episode delivers actionable insights on leadership, crisis management, operational excellence, and maintaining your values during expansion.
Resources:
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Grab your free copy of my audiobook, The Hospitality Leader's Roadmap: Move from Ordinary to Extraordinary at christinmarvin.com/audio
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Welcome to the Restaurant Leadership Podcast, the show where restaurant leaders learn tools, tactics and habits from the world's greatest operators. I'm your host, kristen Marvin, with Solutions by Kristen. I've spent the last two decades in the restaurant industry and now partner with restaurant owners to develop their leaders and scale their businesses through powerful one-on-one coaching, group coaching and leadership workshops. This show is complete with episodes around coaching, leadership development and interviews with powerful industry leaders. You can now engage with me on the show and share topics you'd like to hear about, leadership lessons you want to learn and any feedback you have. Simply click the link at the top of the show notes and I will give you a shout out on a future episode. Thanks so much for listening and I look forward to connecting.
Speaker 2:Hello everybody standing out there in the Starbucks line and sitting in front of us. This is the Restaurant Leadership Podcast. I'm your host, kristen Marvin. I am joined today by Joe Fontana. Did I say that right? Yeah, joe Fontana From Fry the Coop. Very exciting. So nine locations, correct, all in Chicago. Yep, okay, give us a little bit of inside scoop about what Fry the Coop's all about.
Speaker 3:So Fry the Coop is a fast, casual chicken sandwich joint. We double fry everything at 100% beef tallow, Love that, and we just put a lot of love into what we do. We make sure that we do one thing right and that is just chicken sandwiches, french fries we have some tenders on the menu chicken and waffles. Other than that, we just really focus on delivering happiness to everyone that comes in our door.
Speaker 2:I love it. So anybody that's listening here what's the closest location to the National Restaurant Association?
Speaker 3:show Our closest door is in Westtown, which is Chicago Avenue in Ashland. It's about maybe a 15-minute cab ride from here. Okay, so not far.
Speaker 2:Awesome. So for anybody listening, we are live at the National Restaurant Association show. Awesome First time to be able to be here at the show and record this Awesome First time to be able to be here at the show and record. This is just epic. And they've set us up in this amazing little cube so everybody can see us. We're like in this little fishbowl here recording today, which is really, really awesome. So very grateful for your time, joe. Awesome to just connect with you and get to know you. We were connected through restaurant technologies so we're going to head over to your spot. Dave Chang and I, after this to lot of lunch for the first time, so I'm super excited.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I'm going to explore your approach to leadership and thought process and how you've been able to overcome some challenges. But I want to have some fun with your break-in stories that I saw on social media and your home alone approach to that. Will you dive into that a?
Speaker 3:little bit for the listeners. Yeah, this is a crazy story, but it starts with me being woken up at 3.15 in the morning from the Chicago Police Department calling me dispatch, saying your store's been broken into. You need to get downtown right now. And you're just waking up. I'm so confused. What's going on? Your store's broken into, Sir, when can you get there? I'm like what do you mean? I can't get there. They're like the police are waiting for you, sir, you need to be there right now. Like when can you be there? I'm like, uh, 45 minutes, you know.
Speaker 3:So I'm quickly watching the film. I see somebody smashes our front door, smashes the window. They smash the vestibule window to get into the restaurant. Pop, hop the bar, grab the register, rip it out of the wall and run out of there in like two minutes. I mean literally, it was so fast. They just broke in boom, boom, boom. What was happening was there was a spree of break-ins and these guys were doing that. They stole the car and they were just bouncing around, going to restaurant to restaurant, breaking the window, go in, steal the cash box. Clearly they've never worked in the restaurant business before or any retail, because nobody keeps cash in those.
Speaker 3:It's like you have your till which is maybe a couple hundred bucks, but then at the end of the night everyone takes the money out and puts it in the safe or puts it like under a drawer. You know it never stays in there overnight. So these guys got away with like $9 in change right Meanwhile. They created $3,000 in damage in like the two minutes that they did it. But thankfully I was able to watch the cameras. I saw they took the cash box. I remembered I have an extra cash box at our office. So I bolt over to our office at 3 in the morning, grab the cash box, grab a printer, head over to the store Police. Are there Glasses everywhere? I mean it was like so bonkers. So I'm like okay, like you know what happened, I show the cops the footage. They leave right away. They're like great, we've been here for an hour and a half like we're out, so they take off Now.
Speaker 3:I'm sitting in our store. It's four o'clock in the morning in the city, which is not the best time to be, you know, exposed. There's no way to lock this door because the glass is just completely shattered. But all of a sudden I see this guy pull up across the street and he starts boarding up the restaurant across the street which, hilariously enough, has been vacant for like a year. So these knuckleheads broke into a vacant pizza place.
Speaker 3:Anyways, I run across the street, I go oh my gosh, are you boarding the store up? And the guy's like yeah, that's what I do. Amazing. I was like yeah, that's what I do. Amazing, I'm like you board up our store, I'll be over in 15 minutes. Amazing, I'm like what is happening right now? I guess he listens to police scanners. This happens, unfortunately, all the time, and so he's made a career of going around. Anyways, I clean the glass up, I get the whole store ready to go, put the cash box in. He comes, helps me board up the store. I'm talking which I'm freaking out because I have a busy day ahead of me.
Speaker 3:I had an appointment at eight o'clock. I had the store boarded up, everything fixed ready to go by like seven o'clock in the morning. It's ridiculous. Yeah, I got in the car headed to my appointment, um and uh, even he goes. All right, well, my glass guy will be here about nine, nine, thirty. I go, your glass guy goes, yeah, yeah, we'll replace the glass too. I was like this never happens in the restaurant business, like ever right. Like how did everything just kind of work out. But okay, so then now I'm driving to my appointment.
Speaker 3:We were doing a IT refresh at one of our stores in Southside. I'm heading to meet the IT guys. I get a call from WGN. They go hey, joe, we heard about the break-in. You know, are you still at the store? I'm like, no, I left. You know, I have an appointment. He goes. Well, can you just pull over and do like a quick like uh, zoom on your phone with me. Okay, sure you know.
Speaker 3:So all of a sudden I'm being interviewed on wgn on like the side of the road. Then all of a sudden my manager calls me. She goes cbs just called, they want to talk to you. What's going on? Then all of a sudden fox news calls, then abc calls, then uh, n NBC calls. I was like, oh my gosh.
Speaker 3:So now my morning turns into me doing interviews on TV. Then ABC calls back. They're like hey, we actually want to do it in person. We're going to send a camera crew over, can you meet us back at the store? So I run back over. Whatever do that.
Speaker 3:So I was on TV five times, five interviews that day, right, crazy? Well, what I found out? Our publicist sends us a link at the end of the week like this was a crazy media week. You know, here's all the clips. There was 27 clips of me on the news because, like the morning show, the midday show, the night show, and each producer had like a different spin on it. So we got shown on the news 27 times that week.
Speaker 3:Then our social media person meets up with me. We start filming videos about it. We show the break in, you know, which got like almost went viral, just like showing the break in on social media. And then we thought you know what, let's make it like a funny parody of this. And she came up with an idea to do like a parent trap and she keeps talking about like we got to set up booby traps and I've never seen Parent Trap before. But I'm like I'm pretty sure you're talking about Home Alone. And she's like alright, yeah, home Alone. Yeah, same thing, right, we're just setting up booby traps.
Speaker 3:So we filmed all these hilarious like oh, if the burglars come back, like I'm going to set up a bowl of coop sauce above the door, that. And then we were kind of like fighting about the Home Alone music or whatever. I'm like this has to be the Home Alone music. We put that to the back of the video. Anyways, this thing goes viral and it was bonkers and then even WGN. On Friday morning they picked up on the what's Happening thing so they started airing our social media video. So this thing went totally viral for us and we had like almost a record week that week. So whoever broke into our place, thank you. You sold $9. That was three grand in damage but probably made us like 30,000 in sales. So that's ridiculous.
Speaker 2:What an extraordinary story. Way to just grab the bull by the horns.
Speaker 3:I know it's a long story. I felt like all those pieces, oh no, that's captivating.
Speaker 1:I love it.
Speaker 3:It's crazy.
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Speaker 2:So you've got nine locations, yes, and you've got some big ambitions to grow to 75. Yeah, amazing.
Speaker 3:Thanks for.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's amazing, big area, audacious goals, did you? Did you start out saying, ok, I want to be multi-unit, I want to grow to 75.
Speaker 3:So my first concept I came up with was called Meatball Republic and that was a really one-off restaurant. I grew up cooking meatballs with my grandma and so I'm Italian. It was very, like you know, a passion thing for me to do like my restaurant dream. But that concept I really didn't think it was scalable. It was kind of a one location, one specific and I really thought it was going to be special. When a series of failures led to us not opening up Meatball Republic, I fell in love with chicken sandwiches and I pivoted. So I started writing a business plan about chicken sandwiches and about seven pages into what I was going to write about maybe 15, 20 pages, seven pages in I'm like, oh, this is a hit. And the one thing that had dawned on me while writing the business plan was that it was scalable. Like this was like a repeatable concept.
Speaker 3:So the original plan and I should say I was living in California at the time and the real estate was back here in Chicago where we grew up so I had to sell my wife on, selling our first house, we had our first baby. My wife was also pregnant with our second, so we had no plans on coming back to Chicago. We were living in California for five years and I had to like sell her into the idea like, hey, we're going to sell our first house in a great location that we love, and like pull our kids out of school and basically go back to Chicago. So one of the big components was that like I'm not just going back to Chicago to open up a job, like I'm going to create a brand and we're going to scale this to 15 locations. So before we even opened, that was like my original audacious goal. It was like we need to get to 15.
Speaker 2:When you were writing that business plan, you were seven pages in. What was the thing that gave you that moment of insight? To know that it was a hit, Because chicken's a competitive space, but yours is very different.
Speaker 3:Well, I think I've always noticed trends happening either in California or New York, and then they kind of make their way to the Midwest at some point. So I kind of saw what was happening in California and kind of like I saw this chicken sandwich trend before it even happened. And so it turns out. I mean I was betting on it. But I was right because of course a couple of years later the chicken sandwich board thing came out and our business just went bonkers. I mean I remember driving around Chicago and every billboard had a chicken sandwich on it. I was like they're advertising for us. This is amazing, amazing, I love that. But I just saw it coming. So I kind of knew like okay, if this is a hit in California and LA right now, the lines were down the road. I was like in two years from now this is going to happen in Chicago.
Speaker 2:So you knew. I mean it sounds like you kind of embraced the fact that chicken was already present and being kind of marketed and it was. It is a little bit of a saturated market, but you leaned into that.
Speaker 3:A hundred percent. Yeah, I also was living by an In-N-Out burger at the time and so I saw the craze of In-N-Out, both drive-thru lines like constantly, and I just I was in love with these chicken sandwiches but I'm looking around and there's nowhere to get them at. So that was like there was like a supply and demand thing where I'm like these are so good and there's nowhere to get this like handmade, like beautiful, like really big chicken sandwich at. So it was kind of based on the idea of that you can't find it and like what if we modeled like an In-N-Out burger, that's like around chicken sandwiches?
Speaker 2:I love it. I was going to ask you if there were some models out there that you were kind of looking at and taking some lessons from.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, and that was like. The other thing that I noticed in California was the places that did just one thing really, really well, just like crushed it. El Pollo Loco, which is a brand on the West Coast not very known here, but it started out with a guy just having chicken and tortillas. Like he had rotisserie chickens and just tortillas and some salsa. So it was like kind of getting food for your family Opened up at 4 o'clock. The lines would be like a mile long because once people started to realize like oh, I could just stop by this little shack, grab a chicken and some tortillas and bam, I got dinner for the family for the night. But he just did one thing. It wasn't like there was this huge menu, it was literally there was one option to buy A whole chicken, came with tortillas and salsa and that's it. So I noticed that happening. I was like if you just hone in on that one thing, you're going to crush it.
Speaker 2:What was your leadership structure like in your first few locations?
Speaker 3:You know, I think I really leaned into leading by example. So I was the first one to show up, I was the last one to leave. I was reading a lot of books at that time and I just knew that, like you know, I really cared for our team. You know, if we had to have a hard conversation like it's not fun to have hard conversations but I just leaned into it and I was like I'm going to have these hard conversations regardless if it's, if it's uncomfortable. I mean, I've had conversations like like this we're in a closed room office or a janitor closet, right, I'm shaking nervous because it's like hard to tell somebody bad news about them if you're firing them or whatever it is. But I always tried to just not ignore those hard conversations and just accept that that's a part of it and I just got to do it and actually, to be honest, they get easier. As you do them, they do get easier.
Speaker 3:So one funny story I read Simon Sinek had a book called Great Leaders Eat Last, and so I read this book and we've only been open for a couple months at this time and so I was like, oh, this is like amazing. You know, it was like based on the military and, like all the Marines, you know the sergeants and the leadership, they don't, they wait to eat. So everyone comes in the mess hall, all their teammates, and then, you know, once they're done, then the leaders get to eat. So one day we're I'm working all day famished, haven't eaten anything, not one bite of food. It's 10 o'clock at night. We had a huge busy day. Like everyone's exhausted, we're working hard to clean.
Speaker 3:I said you know what I'm buying everybody pizza today. You know, secretly, I'm like, also like selfishly, like hungry, you know. So I want pizza too. Anyways, I order some pizzas, we throw them in the back and no one's touching them. I'm like, guys, there's pizza, you know. So I want pizza too. Anyways, I order some pizzas, we throw them in the back and no one's touching them. I'm like, guys, there's pizza, you know. They're like, oh yeah, well, we're done, we'll clean them up or whatever. But I'm starting to get like woozy because like I'm um, I'm famished, because I've been working literally since six o'clock in the morning, it's 10 at night, haven't eaten at all. I'm like lightheaded. We're cleaning, cleaning, cleaning, cleaning. No one's touching the pizza. I'm like guys, eat, eat, eat. We'll do it later. Okay, finally, I'm like I guess I just have to eat. I'm going to pass out, and so I'm eating. And as I'm eating it, I'm just like I'm such a bad leader. I mean, first, I'm such a bad leader, Simon.
Speaker 2:Sinek would be so disappointed in me. That's great. I love it. What is it about your leadership that has made Friday Coupe so successful?
Speaker 3:I would say just authentically caring for our people, you know, and you just have to be there for them. And kind of going back to the negative side of that, like I truly believe even when you fire somebody, like you might be doing them a favor. They might be complacent and they're staying at the job and if it's not a good fit for them or for us or vice versa, whatever it is like it's probably not great for them, just specifically, which other way it's not good for. But I always think like sometimes, like pushing people out is like you sit down with them and you explain like hey, I know this like sounds bad today. People out is like you sit down with them. You explain like hey, I know this like sounds bad today, but you never know what's around the corner for you. So like I know I'm pushing you out right now, but you don't know like this might lead to something around the corner that you can't see right now that's going to be great for you. So I always like try to encourage people, even in the bad times or the good times, and I think that's what a true leader will do. Is just kind of like go through those authentic like moments with people, whether they're good or bad. So that's been, I think, a good part of it.
Speaker 3:I will say now, like we're about to open our 10th store. I'm working on our 11th. We start construction in like six weeks. On that, we're also building a commissary behind that 11th store. So I've been so busy in the minutia of building stores and whatever.
Speaker 3:I kind of feel like I've been a bad leader because I'm so busy with like the day-to-day I'm not able to like step back right at this moment this season and like have those like really authentic moments. I will say I'm very lucky that we have a director of operations who's awesome and he's been making sure everyone's birthdays are, like you know, on the calendar. So when someone has a birthday, even if it's as simple as like getting the team to all say happy birthday, writing a card, everyone signs it and like just being like top of mind of our teams, like you know moments in their lives personally, so we're like acknowledging them and stuff like that. But I think it's a big part of like any culture, or at least our culture, to be a good leader it's so hard to stay connected to all aspects of operations and people when you grow.
Speaker 2:How do you have any like secret recipes or any any recipes for success on how to do that, or is it something that you're still trying to kind of figure out?
Speaker 3:I think we're still trying to figure it out To me. As you grow and you get to hire people, you kind of like take a piece of your job. Like I used to pay all the invoices. Even up until about two years ago, we had seven locations. I was still like sitting down and not doing a good job at it, by the way, but I would like try to get our accounts payable, like take care of. Maybe it was three years ago now, but now we have an accounts payable person. I don't pay invoices anymore, which is amazing. So like I think it's nice, as you scale and grow, you kind of get people to like take over those jobs, and I hope that one day I can get to a level, maybe in the next couple of years, where my only job as the leader is to like really think about our people, care for our people.
Speaker 3:I sat down with the CEO and got some advice way before I started the business and I was just like what does a CEO do? Like what do you do, you know? And he was like well, it's not my job to do anyone's job. He's like it's my job to help everyone accomplish their job and support them. And so I was like huh, that's pretty interesting, and so I think my goal is still to get there.
Speaker 3:I'm still doing like four different jobs right now, but I'm hoping that one day we build a team I can set the tone, like I call myself the chief culture officer, because I feel like if I can set the culture, set the tone, and then like those people just thrive, that are better than me at whatever one specific job they're doing, and then I can get to a point where I'm like, hey, like my job now is to just care for our people, you know, keep them front of mind. What are they going through? How can I support them? How can I help them? But you're right, it's so hard when you're growing. Yeah, four, four million things on the task list.
Speaker 2:So yeah, and you can feel like you're losing control. Yeah, yeah, it's difficult. It's also the more that you well, just being an entrepreneur is lonely.
Speaker 3:It definitely is lonely.
Speaker 2:How are you kind of investing in your own development and combating that loneliness?
Speaker 3:I try to carve out some time for myself. Like I started going to the gym this year, which has been really helpful. I found an amazing gym. But while I'm there, I like try to pick people's brains. I still talk to them Like I'll see an old man in the hot tub and I'll be like, hey, what was your career? You know I owned a business. You did really tell me about it.
Speaker 3:You know, also, too, I in a lot of uh groups with people that I've like built up relationships over the years so if I'm ever feeling like really like on an island by myself, I can call people and talk to them about it. I have a ton of friends that are business owners so we kind of chat back and forth about, you know, some of their struggles and some of my struggles and, um, it's good to get stuff off your chest. You know, when you're going through stuff. There's a couple groups and that's another thing that I'm like bummed about not having time right now because like there's a group called EO that I've been really entrepreneurs organization, I think it's called but I learned like that people say it's like a game changer. They're like you need to do this, like it helps, like you know, kind of bring a bunch of like business owners together and you can, you know, help each other. Like all ships rise with the tide, kind of thing.
Speaker 3:So, but going back to growing, it's so hard to carve out time for my family because I don't want to miss their childhood by like getting bogged down with working so much. Yeah, so it's um, it's a thing too Um and uh, you know, it's really kind of you can't. There's certain things you can't complain about or talk about with your team, because, like owning a business is to me, it's like having a baby. You know, you can read a bunch of books about it, you can talk to people about it, learn, watch YouTube videos, but there's no reality until you have a baby in your hand. So it's like complaining or talking with someone who doesn't have kids. When you have kids, about kids, they can never comprehend what that's like unless they have their own children.
Speaker 2:You're talking to somebody that doesn't have children.
Speaker 3:I can't relate I empathize I want to.
Speaker 2:I totally get that. I can't relate. Yeah, I empathize. I want to. Yeah, I totally get that. What's the biggest challenge that you've run into in this growth phase that you're in?
Speaker 3:So one of the things that I was telling you I've listened to thousands of podcasts, and not only just like podcasts of like business owners, like specific niche restaurant podcasts. I've never heard anyone talk about this before. Yeah, after like 1,500 podcasts, I was like how is this possible? But basically the biggest thing that I screwed up is I never collected all the source documents for invoices, receipts. We just trusted our vendors and set them up on autopay. In the beginning I mean, it was like bonkers. I was like, oh just, we'll go on autopay, you just deduct the money out of our bank account, no problem. And the invoice says, oh, I don't need the invoice. If there's ever a problem, I'll work it out.
Speaker 3:And we hired a bookkeeper Because I think the three key things that you need is great service, great food or great product and then great finances. If you don't have those three things in any business, you're not going to make it. So the finance part I thought by hiring a bookkeeper, like well, that's taken care of. Like we got the bookkeeper, like she's doing it. Well, I learned that our bookkeeper was just basically going off the bank account and then she was just guessing like what everything was. There wasn't like a very specific and if you think about like an invoice, it might have like disposals on it, it might have food, it might have chemicals. So even though, like, you've got this one invoice and it comes across, as you know, maybe a $5,000 payable, like you don't know what's in there. So I think that was a huge mistake and going from we got away with it, going from one to five restaurants, no problem.
Speaker 3:But then going from five to ten, it has turned out to be like a huge ball to untangle. And going from five to ten, it has turned out to be like a huge ball to untangle. And so we've had to really, like, go back to step one, collect all invoices, all receipts, make sure that each line item is GL correctly, general ledger to our finances, like 100%. So now we know specifically, like, down to the minutiae, like was that repair a building repair? Was it equipment repair? Was it a preventive maintenance? Was itiae like? Was that repair a building repair? Was it equipment repair? Was it a preventive maintenance? Was it? You know like, but we know very specific now and we're still improving on that, but like that was a huge thing. I wish I could go back and just tell myself like collect all the invoices.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it seems like it's the way you described. It is really, really simple, but it doesn't give you the visibility over every single where every single dollar is going. Oh yeah, what were some of the aha moments that you had when you switched everything over and you started to really have that visibility over each line item?
Speaker 3:Well, I think you just kind of understand your expenses a little bit and I've learned I love this phrase expenses are like fingernails, they're always growing and they always got to be cut. And that is so true. Whatever business you're in, even at your house, your expenses just always keep going up. You know how did it get like this, you know? So you have to dive into the details and say, oh, okay, wow, we're spending this much on this, we're spending this much on that.
Speaker 3:So I think, knowing specifically where your expenses are and like kind of like looking at them, you're like wow, we spent $90,000 on preventative maintenance. Well, now, maybe I can hire a preventative maintenance person, maybe for 65K, give them a $10,000 bonus and they do all preventative maintenance. I just saved 10 grand a year. You do that enough and you start, you know, finding those little pennies and nickels on the ground. You know that can add up to a profitable business one day. So I think that's the key. Like aha, like, oh, like, I can really hone in on the, you know, and everyone should go through their P&L with a fine tooth comb Cause, like I said, those nails are always growing.
Speaker 2:I've never heard that before. I love that. So what made you decide to change your strategy, your growth strategy, and go from 15 to 75?
Speaker 3:That's a great question. So I kind of realized, one restaurant, two restaurants, 10 restaurants, you know like how, how, whatever you set, your audacious goals are, whatever that ceiling is like, you can only grow into that ceiling. So when I kind of realized like 15, I'm like, well, what would our business look like at 15 stores? And then I kind of was like, oh, like we actually need to have more EBITDA than that. And so one of the things that really honed it in was I was like I found out, if you want to bring a company public, the magic number is really around 25 million EBITDA. So I was like, okay, 25 million EBITDA, you don't have to be that number to go public, but that is like a very key marker. When you have 25 million at EBITDA, you have a line of investors, private equity, people that want to take your company public. There's just you create opportunity at that point.
Speaker 3:And then I looked at a very brand I love a lot called Potbelly. They started in Chicago. I was like, how many stores does Potbelly have? I looked around Chicago they have 80 locations. But it's not like a Starbucks effect where you would like you can stand in one place and see like four Starbucks in one block. You know they're not like bumping into each other.
Speaker 3:So I thought, okay, and then I started working backwards. Like, okay, how do we get to 25 million EBITDA? We would need 75 locations to do $2 million a year. That gives us $150 million in revenue. And then, if we can be 15% profitable, boom, I got to my $25 million in EBITDA. So that's when I was kind of just looking backwards and I was like, oh, we can open up and our market in Chicago is so great because it's huge, we have 9 million people here, there's 300-plus neighborhoods. So I started thinking, thinking, well, this is a very accomplishable goal. Like if we can have 75 stores in chicago and hit those numbers, like now, we've created this great opportunity for our people. And me too, I'm included, I'm people in the business right. So we've kind of moved a little bit of our purpose to we're growing our company so we can grow our people. And if we accomplish that goal, I think we can either have an exit for our people, we can set up retirements for our people. There's just a lot more opportunity to care for our team.
Speaker 2:I love that. Love the emphasis on people. It's, it's simple, it's you. You think it's common sense, but there's so many people that do that. Just don't prioritize their teams.
Speaker 3:Well, you don't do it by yourself and I always thought like no-transcript, no, we're in this together and if we can rise up together like I want, to cash everybody out, I love it Amazing.
Speaker 2:That's great. What is the single biggest thing that you need in order to create sustainable growth as you get to 75? I need cash. To create sustainable growth as you get to 75? I need cash. Besides cash, can I borrow $30 million? Any chance you got that in your bag over here. I love that you think that I could come up with something like that, but no, I can't help you, I think.
Speaker 3:Well, obviously, funding it properly, you really have to do a balance between debt and revenue and profitability, and if the scale tips too much, you know you can get yourself into trouble. I also think standard operating procedures are now our best friend. I'm Joe SOP Fontana, nice, to meet you. It is literally so key in the point of making sure that everything's written down. The operations is lock stock and smoking barrels, cause I could give you the Bible to fight a coup. Right now. I can give you everything, all the recipes, the location, everything like write everything down, and that is only like 5% of it.
Speaker 3:Operations is everything, almost like military precision and operations, and so I think, as you scale, you have to take that very seriously. You need people in place that are doing a very specific job. That's very like thought out. The SOPs are in place, the trainings, the you know everything that goes around running a very operationally tight ship. There is places that have awful food. We're not going to name them because people are up there listening but there is places that we all know of the food is awful, but guess what? They're crushing it. And why? Because they have great operations and they're reliable and it's there every day and you know when it opens, you know what they do, you know what to expect.
Speaker 2:But I think, think, like, if we can do great food and great operations like so killer. It makes me so happy to hear you say that I coach independent multi-unit owners and it's so because of cash flow and just the way that the industry is structured. Most of them start by doing everything on their own. They are the bookkeeper, they are the marketing person, they are the HR component, they are the chef, they are the maintenance person and they've got everything up in their head, it's all in their mind and it's so difficult as you grow to A, let go of that control and B, transfer all of that knowledge, all that institutional knowledge that you have, and get it done on paper and take the time to build the systems and train the systems and then continue to tweak the systems. But it is the most important thing and it gives you freedom as an owner.
Speaker 3:It's so important Consistency and also to like I think, to me too this feels overwhelming to write everything down. We're almost getting to the point where we might hire an operations person and that's all they do is just come up with those SOPs, write it down.
Speaker 2:I mean we have a lot.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but like really just lean into that more. And it doesn't even have to be like a full-time thing. You can hire somebody for nine months who does that, and then I don't know if it's letting them go or like a consultant type thing. Maybe it's just a front. Hey, for the next six to nine months. Like I need you to come in every day, write all this stuff down, yeah for us, and then you know, then you're kind of like at least have a foundation of the sop.
Speaker 2:They're always growing and changing always um, I'll give, I'll tell you a secret that I do so when I when I work with clients, because you're using AI a little bit in your business, right?
Speaker 3:Yeah, a little bit yeah.
Speaker 2:I use it for every aspect of my business, but when I work with clients and they want an SOP, we just discuss over the meeting exactly what they want to see out of those SOPs. It can be server training I think I know where you're going with this and then the AI meeting notes, just turns it into an SOP immediately that they can then take to their teams and start putting in tests. Oh, I love that and roll it. So it's very easy, very simple to get those things.
Speaker 3:I heard about something, too, where you can actually have the meeting recorded. Yes, and then it'll summarize the meeting afterwards. Yep, that's it. That's what you're talking about AI meeting notes Yep it's a game changer Wow. You can record phone conversations now on your iPhone if you you're traveling or whatever, and then, same thing, you can throw the transcript in and have it generate something for you. We're always talking about operations. Like our team, we're constantly going back about this and what needs to be done, and that's a brilliant idea.
Speaker 3:I love that capture it all and just have it do the work for you. I just thought about hiring someone to do that yeah, ai is very, very powerful.
Speaker 2:It's a really it a. It's a really great personal assistant for anybody in business these days.
Speaker 3:So you have a software or like a one.
Speaker 2:I use. I've tried a few different ones. I've used Otter a little bit, but my favorite right now is super normal and it connects with Google meet and zoom. And there's so many of them out there. A lot of them have free versions and they're very, very easy to use and they're 100%. Most of them are 100% accurate, which is really, really cool. And you know how it is. It's like with AI garbage in, garbage out, so it's going to spit you out something a little bit vanilla and then you just continue to tweak and tweak, which is really fun. But you can test it in one location and then get it exactly where you want it to and where you want it to be, and then you can roll it at all the other locations. It's pretty awesome. Thank you for sharing that.
Speaker 3:Super normal is funny because that's the opposite of anyone in the restaurant business. So here we go with our own one. We call it super weird.
Speaker 2:I love it. I love it. That's great. What are you most excited about in the next five years?
Speaker 3:Oh, I cannot wait to hire like seven more people on our team that can just kind of train and like right now, for example, I'm the marketer, we only have us. I have a social media person, but they're an outside contractor. We have a publicist they're an outside contractor, but the marketing is on me. I spend about 10 minutes a week on marketing. So to me that kind of breaks my heart because, like I know we could be doing way better and way more if somebody was able to focus on that 40, 50 hours a week.
Speaker 3:So, that being one example, I would love to hire a marketer. I need a facility manager, we need just operations people. I need a trainer. So in the next couple of years, as we scale the business, I'm really looking forward to boosting up our team so we can excel in these. That, like I would love to just be doing way better in than we're doing right now. Yeah, and so that to me like gets me like excited because I'm like we could be doing so much better. We just need someone that like does this full time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm excited for those people to free up your time too, to be able to spend time with your family. Continue developing yourself and be that chief culture officer.
Speaker 3:I am the hardest working, laziest person you've ever met, Like I'm working so hard so I could eventually do nothing.
Speaker 2:I love it. That's great, that's good. Well, thank you so much, joe, for coming on the show, really inspired by your story, love your commitment to people, know you're working your ass off and it's paying off.
Speaker 3:So congratulations, and I think I benefited here from your little tip. Here we're going to, we're going to be.
Speaker 2:I got some more after we get done here, so I love it. I can't wait to come check out your spot here in just a couple hours.
Speaker 3:Chicken sandwich number one chicken sandwich in Chicago, double fried and beef tallow handmade. Every bite of it is crunchy, salty, savory, handmade. And every bite of it is crunchy, salty, savory, spicy, sweet, all at the same time, and you are going to love it my mouth is watering amazing.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much. Thank you awesome. All right, everybody that's going to do it for us on the restaurant leadership podcast, share this episode and show with anybody that you know in the restaurant that could benefit and, if you have any availability, vote, or you know anybody for the positions that joe's looking for. We're staring at this big group out of people. You let them. Somebody's raising their hand already you got your first hire, I love. It Awesome everybody. We'll talk to you soon. Thanks so much. Thank you.
