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🎙️ Interesting Humans Podcast
Real stories about fear, failure, and rebuild — because your story isn’t finished either.
🇺🇸 Host @jeffhopeck Fmr U.S. Secret Service Officer.
🎙️ Interesting Humans Podcast
Ep. 68: No Experience. No Plan. Now He Has Georgia’s Best Burger [Billy Kramer - NFA Burger]
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Billy Kramer wasn’t supposed to succeed in the restaurant world.
No culinary background. No formal training. Just a growing frustration with his career—and a decision to fix his life.
What started as a personal obsession with burgers turned into something much bigger. Billy began traveling, tasting, analyzing… and then cooking. One tweak at a time. One lesson at a time. Until he created something people couldn’t ignore.
From disastrous pop-ups to launching inside a gas station, Billy built NFA Burger into one of the most talked-about burger spots in the country.
But this story isn’t just about food.
It’s about obsession. Reinvention. And what happens when you refuse to settle.
As Billy says:
“Anyone can do something great once… try doing it 80 times a day.”
And maybe the simplest truth behind it all:
“We all give a sh*t.”
🎯 KEY TAKEAWAYS
- How dissatisfaction can become fuel for reinvention
- Why obsession beats experience
- The power of iteration and small improvements
- What it really takes to scale quality
- Why caring deeply is still the ultimate competitive advantage
👉 Host: Jeff Hopeck. To learn more about my ventures and the conversations I care about, find me at www.JeffHopeckBrand.com
Folks, welcome to episode 68. I have Billy Kramer from NFA Burger. Billy, thanks for being here. Thanks for having me. I should say actually thanks for having us here because we're at your place. So folks, this story is about so much more than burgers. This man sitting here was not supposed to be successful in this space. He started off in a completely different industry. So if we look at what the business books suggest, you should not be a champion winning all these awards for best burger, but something happened in your story, and we're we're going to get into it. So, no restaurant background, none. Didn't come come through that uh through that space. Walks into the burger world and starts beating everybody, okay, evidenced by awards that we're going to talk about. The question is, um, and I think everybody out there is gonna want to know, how do you come from radio, radio sales, to an industry that's so unbelievably crowded, right? And and not only enter the industry, but come in, be a champion out of the gate. What did you see?
SPEAKER_00Well, I've always been fascinated with process since I was a little kid. Uh I had family members that worked at McDonald's growing up in Memphis. Wow. We had a family, uh, family friends owned at McDonald's. Yeah. And I remember going in there as a kid and I saw the manual. They had this like uh this guide, their their operations manual. And I remember opening to the page where it said, you know, the I can't remember the exact number of seconds. It was it was something like when a customer gets to the counter to leaving with their bag of food should be like 87 seconds. It was something that was like so specific. Wow. That was like really like stood out. I was probably like, I don't know, let's say 10 years old, 10 years old when I saw that. So I've always been fascinated by that. Um when I'm having a rough day, I'll go down a crispy cream on ponts and just watch donuts being made. Um but I'm okay with the route I took.
SPEAKER_03So yeah, let's go all the way back. I'm curious, right? Um so where you're from, what part of the I was born born in Memphis. Uh I moved to Jersey for high school and college. Can you look back right now where you are? Can you look back into those earlier years and draw any connection at all that says, oh, I I really was an entrepreneur back then?
SPEAKER_00Um I always say it's a Kramer family syndrome. We're always the smartest people in the room. Yeah. And we know, you know, the success takes place, I think, when you realize you're not the smartest person in the room. When you realize like you there are other people who know more and you can learn from those people.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00But even my first job out of college, the first I was gonna travel around the southeast in a car. This is before apps. Okay, there was I just got my first email address, quite frankly.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And um, first thing I did was I went to the bookstore and I bought a book called uh I think I still have it, something like Road Trap, Road Eats or something like that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00And my I was any state that I was in, I was gonna stop at the restaurants of these books. So I was already kind of, I don't know, probably secretly into that stuff without even thinking about it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Um just like uh, you know, some of the interesting places I saw that I would go out of my way to um to these small towns to eat at this like weird restaurant that's been around for like a hundred years.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Right.
SPEAKER_00Um just to have like a piece of fried chicken or or cornbread or whatever they're great for.
SPEAKER_01Sure.
SPEAKER_00Um, so that's so I still have that book, but that's kind of like my interest in exploring. Um also, you know, I had a per diem. So it wasn't like I could go out for steak dinners all the time.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Right? I was like, you know, $35 a day. You're looking for like dive restaurants and this stuff. So uh wound up trying to start my own coupon website that didn't go well. Uh went to work in sports radio at 680 the fan. Yeah. Had the most fun I really I ever had selling was at the end. Nick Cellini. He's there now, but back then it was we were a startup back then. And um I was in charge of the internet, and then they came to me and they said, Billy, we need a salesperson because we we're having trouble right now. So I just got in there and I was like, all right, we're gonna do this, this, and my sales manager, Tim Rohrer. Um said, How are you getting these accounts? And I said, I we need the accounts, right? Like it wasn't like how was I getting the accounts? I was like, oh, you said we you said we're struggling and we need accounts. Yeah. I'm doing my job.
SPEAKER_02I'm gonna go out and get accounts.
SPEAKER_00And we're gonna be creative because when you're you know when you're WSB, 750 WSP, you don't have to be creative. Yeah, you have all the listeners. Yeah, right? And people are just handing you money left over right. Now, they're phenomenal salespeople, the most well-trained salespeople in the world work for Cox Communications. Yeah, um uh I never would have I would have lasted there two seconds.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_00Because I just don't have that mentality of like following rules, and um you know, I have to be able to color outside the lines. Yeah, I just have to. And uh I would say like if you just let me do my thing, you're gonna be you're you'll be the happiest sales manager of all time. If you get in my way, I'm I won't be here very long. Right. So when I was at 680, David Dickey and my and my boss Frankie, the other just said, look, Billy, just get out of Billy's way. Because he's he needs to put food on the table. Right. He knows what he's doing. Let him go. Yeah, so just get out of my way.
SPEAKER_03If I stop, if if if I talk to you back then, was there any inkling at all that you were ever gonna own a business if I asked you?
SPEAKER_00So I started traveling, and again, I'm on these per diemes, and I was like bored out of my mind when I was traveling. So I'd go to like a burger place in LA, or I'd go to a burger place in Chicago, wherever I was. And um, I don't know if Instagram's still like that now, because I don't really do that very often, but you know, I would reach out to people, say, hey, I'm gonna be in New York. Um, I know you really like burgers, so can we uh can we meet up for burgers, right? And so they'd say, like, yeah, that's great, I'll get some other people. So I'd go to New York and there'd be 10 of us eating up. Meetups. And then I started meeting these people, and then they knew the restaurant owners and the chefs. Yeah. So it became like I, you know, then I just got more aggressive with my questioning. So one day we were at Emmy Squared in New York, and uh the co-founder, Matt Hyland, knew the so the people I was at the table with. And I said, Hey man, can I see your kitchen? He's like, Yeah. Well, in New York, you know, kitchens are anywhere, right? Downstairs, upstairs. Upstairs. It doesn't really matter where it is, right? Wherever they can fit it. Right. So we go downstairs and and uh I'm asking him all the questions about his burger. Why pretzel bun and how do you make the meat and what's special about your grill and all the stuff. And that is if you find people who um who really care about what they do, they want to share with everybody else who's anybody else who's interested. Right? So Matt was, and Matt and I are friends now. Matt is so he was like, here's somebody who's really interested in how we do this. It's not just bring me my burger and eat. Right. You know, he's like, he really wants to know more. And I and at this point I wasn't even considering a restaurant. Sure. I was just like, yeah, here's a guy who's gonna answer any question I have. It's incredible. What what year, roughly? That was I think 2015, maybe. Okay. Something like that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um, then I started to meet more people, went to the Burger Bash in Miami.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. All burgers. It sounds like it was all burger stuff, right? It's always burgers. Always burgers.
SPEAKER_00You just well, I figure I was gonna like pick a topic, learn how to use social media.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00The more niche you are, it seems the more um the not the better the the more the not the more followers, but the the more engaged followers. Yeah, you know what I mean? So like I just did burgers. Sure. Right? And then what started happening is I started traveling around to other bet uh cities, and people got wind that I had an Instagram account. And so I would go visit a prospect or a client, and they're like, hey Billy, where would you love burgers? Uh we got a place here if we if you want to go for lunch. I was like, Yeah, let's go for lunch. So that's awesome. We'd go to this place. And then when I started changing jobs, I'd had to go in interviews, and the guy interviewing had heard from the recruiter that I had a burger account and I love burgers. So I would go in these interviews and they'd say, We're going for lunch. Where do you want to go for a burger? So it was like everybody kind of knew, no matter where I went, that I was into burgers. The problem is I don't know how to make a burger. Right. A terrible cook. I'm not even to call me a terrible cook could be even insulting to cooks. I didn't know how to do anything. But something changed, clearly. So I started, but I started so I started asking more pointed questions.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00What kind of meat do you use? You know, uh, how long do you do, you know, what kind what style of burger is it? Why do you use this bun?
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00What's special, like why does this bun fall apart when you make it you eat a this kind of burger, and then you get these explanations. So well, the higher the fat, if you have this brittle bun, it'll break down, you know, whatever the answers. So when I would go on these trips, um, I would go in a night early, and I'd go have dinner, and I'd go have a burger somewhere, and I'd go talk to somebody. And if I went in that morning and I didn't I wouldn't schedule a meeting, I'd say, I know I'm gonna go to the museum. I gotta I gotta like bring myself back to sanity.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, right. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00If I made a burger, I wasn't just making burger for myself. It's like, can I make the best burger ever? Alright, what does that take? Right? Uh if I can make the best burger ever, can I make it for my family? Can I make it for my friends? Yeah, could I make it for uh do I do a can I do a pop-up? Could I do it in a restaurant?
SPEAKER_03What was that in the beginning? I want to pause there. What what to you when you first set out to make the best burger, what what were the details then? And I would love to fast forward more compare them today.
SPEAKER_00Well, so the thing today is the details then. I mean, it was I approached it from a certain point of view, and that was what do I hate, what are the things I hate about burgers?
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And I'm gonna fix those things. Yeah. So one thing I hate is like strips of bacon because they're always inconsistently cooked.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_00Uh they either come out of the bacon or you're not getting, you know, you might get some bacon here, but this bite doesn't have bacon. Yeah. So I was like, okay, I can solve that problem. I'm gonna use diced bacon. And we're gonna put bacon over the whole burger. That way there's bacon in every bite.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Same thing with mustard and sauce. Like a vagiant pet peeve is when you go to a restaurant and they talk about how great their sauce is. Right? And then like four bites into the burger, you're like, I don't know, where's the sauce? Right? And you're like, oh, got to it. Right? So if there's um right, so I want sauce here. I want mustard here, and I want the patty to fit the bun properly. Okay, bun to meat ratio. Um uh going out for a burger and asking for a medium rare and then it's coming out well done, and you have to play this game with the chef three times, and you know, it's like frustrating. All right, how do I get rid of that problem? All right, Smash Burgers don't have that problem. Okay. So, truth be told, at the time, I wasn't like a Smash Burger fanatic. Like, I didn't really care what burger I got when I went somewhere, sure. I just want it to taste great. So, um, but I was like, okay, if I'm gonna play this game, how do I make it so no one can ever return their burger? Well, Smash Burger accomplishes that, right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So I was like, okay, that's gonna be the burger I make, and this is gonna be how I do these things. This is how I'm gonna layer it. Um I said, but also, you know, there's Shake Shack and there's steak and shake, and there's all these places that do the same thing. You said in the beginning, like, how do you it's a very crowded place, so how do you separate yourself? So I said, all right, it's gotta it's gotta taste different. It can't just be salt and pepper. Okay, because everybody does salt and pepper. And if everybody's doing salt and pepper, then I'm not I'm unnecessary.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_00Okay. So I called a buddy of mine. This is how stupid I am, this is how little I know about cooking. Um I called my buddy who makes a barbecue rub. It's amazing. Yeah. Said, hey Jeremy, talk to me about how you make your rub. He's like, all right. You got a pen and paper? I said, Yeah, I'm I'm writing this all down. Yeah, yeah. Go to the store, go to the spice aisle, and find all the spices you like, and then mix them together, and that's your rub. Oh my gosh. And I was like, I'm such a too good to be true, though. I would have now. But it's a true story. I was just with Jeremy the other day, by the way. But I was I'm such, I mean, it's such a dumbass. Like, I'm the guy who like saw a recipe for aioli. Right. It just really did happen. I went to Publix and I was like buying all these ingredients. My buddy was with me, my different buddy, Jeff. Yeah. He's with me. We're buying all these ingredients. He's like, why don't you just buy mayonnaise and put some stuff in it? I was like, what? He's like, yeah, all you're doing is making mayonnaise. But I'm following this instruction list of like, you need eggs and you need oil and you need this. And I'm going. I think it was Matt Hyland from Emmy. I just sent him a text. I go, is ALE just mayonnaise with other shit in it? And he's like, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. I was like, shh. See? You're the process guy, though.
SPEAKER_00Right, so now I'm like, okay. Um I read Kenji Lopez Alt's uh book, The Food Lab. Um not the whole book, because I don't really care about how you make uh eggplant. Yeah. But I read the part about burgers.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And then there he's got a fry sauce. He's like, this is not my recipe. Uh take it, make it your own. Yeah. I did it, make it your own. So I saw the recipe. I said, alright. Well, it's got mayonnaise and ketchup and pickle juice and mustard in it, and it's got these other spices. So I swapped out the spices from my seasoning that I made, which took me 19 attempts to make. So the batch we get on our burger today is batch 19. Yeah. Um that's cool. So um yeah, so I made my sauce. I had my my cousin who's a chef, uh, like classically trained in Italy, you know, northern, southern Italy, all kinds of stuff. I had to make the recipe at home. He's like, all right, make these tweaks.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I was like, okay. And I made those tweaks. That's the sauce we have today. So um, so it was like, make it my own, make my own seasoning. How are we gonna make the burger that's gonna make it different? Well, the way we season the burger is different than it really anybody else does. Yeah, because again, I want everything in every bite. So everything we do is just focused on that one thing. We have four pickles. I can't tell you how frustrating it is when you get a burger and they like just drop all the pickles in one spot. Right in the middle. Right? Or they make give you two pickles. Yeah. Or even three, right? It's just you know, it's about surface area. Um so I mean, if like get Kenji Lopez all he talks about surface area in his book all the time. Like crinkle cut fries have more surface area. So when you see if you're gonna do seasoned fries, crinkle cut is great because it has more nooks and crannies for the seasoning to get in there, right? You have more surface area. So I hope I'm saying all that right. Um interpreted right, or I interpreted it right. Now I'm worried about these people listening to this for some reason. They're like, that's not even all at all what happened. Yeah. Anyway, so um, so that was it. So I started making that burger, and as I got a new batch of seasoning, I'd invite my friends over.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And then I said, Alright, next batch, come over. And then it was just like they would just wait. They knew a new batch was coming. They knew when I was in town and wasn't traveling, they're like, oh, Billy's home. Yeah. Uh burgers are coming soon. Yep. And then one day my friend uh Jeff's wife, Karen, said, or well, Jeff told me, no, Karen won't eat burgers anymore. And I was like, oh my god, I made her sick. Like, I really thought, like, the way you said it didn't sound right.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Right.
SPEAKER_00I was like, oh my god, did I make her sick? And he she said, No, no, no, I didn't say that right. She will only eat your burger. She doesn't need any other burger anymore.
SPEAKER_03Oh my goodness.
SPEAKER_00Oh, that's pretty cool.
SPEAKER_03But still, no thought at this time of having a restaurant.
SPEAKER_00No, not really. You're still sent him an email. Hey, can we chat? Wow. He's traveling, but Richard will talk to you. Richard's his uh COO, right-hand man, Richard Corain. And he got on the phone with me. And I said, Hey, Richard, talk me out of the restaurant industry. He's like, Well, what do you do? I said, I make a really good burger. Interesting. What year are we in? This is 2018.
SPEAKER_03Okay, so 18 years ago.
SPEAKER_00It's almost exactly eight years ago. COO of Union Square Hospitality Group. Talk me out of the restaurant industry. I said, talk me out of the restaurant industry. I love it. Because what I learned in the magazine business was I asked all the wrong questions. Okay. I asked, every, you know, wouldn't it be great if I did this? And I had all these people who are like, yeah, that sounds like a billy, your cheerleaders. Yeah, to be happy, right. And you can't do that. So this time I went the other way. Wow. What do you hate about the restaurant industry? Because if I could get through all that, I can then I can then I can make the decision of whether or not I can handle it.
SPEAKER_03What did he say? I'm dying to hear this.
SPEAKER_00He just he actually was pretty interesting. He said, Well, how good's your burger? I said, it's really good. He said that you should open one.
SPEAKER_03And uh even though you asked him to talk you out of it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, well we we then we had another conversation because he said, you know, tell me about this documentary. It was about Danny Meyer opening um two restaurants at the same time. He was gonna open Eleven Madison and Tab Tabula, Taboula, I can't remember the name of it. And there were two drastically different restaurants, but they shared like the back space together, and so he was had this concept and he just spent so much money. And the whole documentary is like uh God, what was that movie with uh Michael Douglas where he was trying to build his house? The roses, War of the Roses, Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner. It was like that, it was like every everything was bad was happening inside these two restaurants, and he couldn't and I so I really wanted to say it. Right? And I know the answer, not from him. Here's the answer in the restaurant industry. Here's the other thing I learned. If you do it once, you think you can't fail. Okay, so he's got Grammar Sea Tavern, and it's it's highly regarded, and it's Michelin, whatever, right? It's all these things, right? It's the best restaurant in New York. So you're like, oh, I'm really good at this. Yep. Of course I can't fail. Do it again. Right? So I'm gonna do it again. And if you see like all these, I call the owner's paradox, because you see all these restaurants, top chefs, man. Great here, open another place, fails miserably. It because they're not, well, I don't know, I don't know in their scenario why it happens, but I have a I have a guess, and that is they don't underst they don't really understand why their business was successful. They don't think about it as deep as they should, to go, okay, what are the elements that made this successful? Yeah. And do those elements exist over here? So it could be location, it could be um type of food, it could be the chef or a variety of things. All right, right? But so if you're not thinking about those things, you're just like, oh, well, I have a steak place, I'm gonna open a fish place. Yeah. Right? And it's gonna do great. It's gonna do great, do great because I'm I was on TV and I know everything about restaurants, right? Or, you know, whatever it is, right? So that's why I ask these questions to these people. It's like, I need to know what, I need to know about your failures. I don't I can see the greatness.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Right? That's easy. That's everywhere. That's in the New York Times and in Bon Appetite and you know, every article on the web. I need to know the failure, because those are usually the things that are not out in public. So, one of the questions I'll ask is a guy named Dan Van Lowe, works for Rocket Farm, uh, which is uh Super Rica, Little Ray Optimist. Yeah, he's their COO. Okay. And I see him about once a year at this conference, and I ask him the same question every year. I see two questions. What's the one thing that you thought was gonna be great that failed? And what's the one thing you thought was gonna fail that's great? Okay, and I always ask people those questions. I was doing it when I was in media, the uh CMO of Pepsi, I was at a conference. Ask him the same. I will always ask you those two questions. Yeah, because that's how you start thinking about things in the in the right way. Like, okay, well, I thought this was gonna be great and it failed, so now I no longer think that thing's the reason we do well.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Right? In this other thing, you know, so you just like approaching things from different angles. So that's kind of like the questions I'll ask you, Richard Corrine. Um so after I got off the phone with Richard, I said, alright, I'm gonna do a pop-up. And um, so I went and found a place. I had this like crazy Instagram following. Yeah. They've been watching me make burgers online, you know, on my account, right? So I have a feeling like, okay, I could sell like 50 of these at a pop-up, right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Found a place, battle and brew in uh Sandy Springs, convinced them to let me have their kitchen. I have never used a kitchen. Okay, right. Commercial kitchen. Waddog grill grill or the whole kitchen. Okay, okay. Oh, you eat the whole, right? Excuse me. I said I'm gonna do a I'm gonna do a pop-up here. What was that? Battle and brew Battle and Brew. Battle and brew. It's still there since Sandy Springs. Okay, gotta be. It's like a gamer bar with like an upscale. Not upscale like a a better menu, like a it's not a fast food menu, like but with like real chefs, like real doing real things. It's a gamer bar. So it's kind of an interesting place to have like really high quality food. And um, so I went in there, and the guy's like, Well, look, you have this Instagram account. Why don't you just invite people here? We already make burgers. I said, That's not what this is about. This is about to see if I can use a kitchen and do I like it. Right. And they said, Well, you know, we can't just do that unless you we know what your food's like. I said, Hey, that's great. I brought some with me. So can we go use your kitchen? I was like, Yeah. Go back there and make a burger. And I've always felt bad for this chef. I don't know his name. But the general manager takes a bite in my burger and goes, This is the best burger I've ever had. Right in front of the chef who makes all the food for this master. And he makes burgers too? Yeah. Well, he makes not only that, he makes smash burgers. Oh but he like, you know, let me tell you about this chef. So this is like like they did, they did like a Game of Thrones night. So they have like a whole Game of Thrones menu. And this chef is like, we're doing turkey legs made with this, we're doing drinks made with you know, fancy stuff. I could never do any of that. So I'm like, I'm in awe of the chef and what he can do. And then this, you know, the general manager's like, that's the best burger I ever had. I was like, oh man, that guy, that's gotta be a kick in the gut, right? Yeah. Um so um, but we set it up. They they supplied all the staff. I brought the meat. I said, Look, I'm gonna bring everything. You keep all the money. I don't want any of the money.
SPEAKER_01Oh my god.
SPEAKER_00I'll bring the meat, the buns, everything. Yeah. You just staff it, and I just need to see how this works. It was horrible. Not horrible. It was horrible. I would tell I call it a glorious disaster. Yeah. Because I love that word. They let everybody in at once.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00They um started taking orders all at once. And they were only doing they thought that like people would order off the menu. I'll get nachos, I'll get a drink. They were only ordering my burger. Everybody there was there for my burger. Oh, jeez. The rail. I mean, I kid you not. It was like the length of the bar. And it was just like burger, burger, burger, burger, burger, burger, burger. Oh my gosh. It took, there were 50 tickets on the rail before the first non-burger came in. The grill is this big. It's not a thermostatic grill. I didn't even know what that meant at the time, but I meant every time you put cold meat on it, the temperature drops. You need a certain temperature to smash a burger. So it never got back up to that temperature. So after the first like 10 burgers, every burger was just sucked. Oh no, it was terrible. Also, you had the kitchen who just got all these tickets. And kitchens generally are built on speed, right? Okay. They're just like, can't have high ticket times, can't have high ticket times. So we never got the grill up. And then we started doing things with the meat and the seasoning that shortcuts, but it wound up making the burgers bad. Like it's too salty. Yeah. And so I get home that. Oh, by the way, the 51st order of the night was nachos. Uh-huh. It turns out it was my son. He ordered, he was the only one that night to order, not order a burger. Because he was like, Well, I eat your burgers all the time at home. So I wanted nachos. I was like, all right, I can't. I get that. Sure. He was uh 8, 12 at the time.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So um anyway, so uh I get home and I've got this big grin on my face. My wife's like, how was it? And I'm like, it was terrible. Now I've known my wife since high school.
unknownRight.
SPEAKER_00Since 1980. Well, no, no, since 1986, but dating since 1989. She knows me better than anybody. Yeah. And she's like, I don't understand. You have this big smile on your face. And I said, Oh, it was terrible, but I can fix it all. I know I can make it all better. And I loved it. And um so the next morning I'm on the I'm on the phone with people who make griddles. I'm like, alright, tell me about thermostatic griddles. What makes a good one, what makes a bad one. Um tell me about fryers. What's a good recovery time, bad recovery time? Like, how does a perfect fry get made? And yeah, and that's it was like game on, right? And now I have no job because I've just been fired like 30 days earlier. And so now I'm like, you know, in this deep deep mode. And again, I go back to this conversation I had with this actor the other day, last couple weeks ago, which is like if I had had something interesting in high school, I could have been doing this much longer. I just wasn't interested in any of that. But if we had said, Billy, we're gonna go learn how to run a restaurant, like ah, that would have been awesome. Right. We're gonna learn about grills and how a perfect burger gets made and how this that would have been amazing, right? I just didn't that just wasn't how that worked back then. So um so I just took this deep dive into it and started doing pop-ups and uh was invited to go to the tour championship and be do a pop-up there. I got struck by lightning. That was fun. Um you can Google it. Google Billy Kramer Lightning. No way. Yeah, that was fun. Oh my gosh. Um the best is my buddy was in like London and he sends me a text. He's like, Billy, look at that golf cart in the back. It gets when the lightning strikes, the cart blows up in the air and the guy goes flying out of it. I was like, Yeah, that was me. No way. Yeah, he's like, really? I was like, he's like, yeah, my friend took the video. My friend's at the tournament, and he'd send it to me in London, and that's you. Yeah, it's pretty funny. Anyways, so um, did pop-ups, cafe opened inside the gas station in Dunwoody.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00My friend who's in the restaurant industry, Daryl Dollinger, he runs the franchise groups, owns franchise groups for Flying Biscuit and Sinnaholic. Okay. I become friendly with him. He said, Billy, you gotta take that cafe over. I said, I don't know how that works. We didn't even take it over. They just opened it. It's their business. I'm just gonna walk in there and tell the guy to move over. I got this. So I went in, had a burger. The general manager, Sonny, who's still the general manager of the chevron, he came up to me and he's like, What did you think of the burger? I said, it was okay. He's like, Well, what would make it better? I said, Look, man, I'm the wrong guy to ask. You can't be trying to please me because I'm kinda I'm a burger person. Yeah. You know, I wasn't, I don't like aficionado, but it was like, look, that's kind of my thing.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And I'm it's unfair for me to tell you how to make your burger. He said, no, no, no, I want to know. I said, how about I just make you one? He's like, okay, so I go back there. I don't have any of my stuff.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Make a mixed seasoning real quick and make a burger, and he's like, yeah, this is way better. So he introduces me to the owner of the Chevron, and Salim, I go sit with Salim in his office over at Northside in Powers Ferry. What? Or Northside in Pacers Ferry. Yeah. So um I'm at his desk, and then I had to be sales guy because I'm trying to get the cafe. Okay, so now I have to be sales guy, not Oshocks hamburger guy.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So I just looked at him, I said, wouldn't it be cool if the best burger in the world was made in your gas station? And he started laughing, and I was like, nah, I'm dead serious. He's like, oh, well, that would be pretty cool. I'll tell you what, my son's gonna come to your pop-up tonight. I said, Alright, great. Next morning he calls me and said, My son said that's the best burger he's ever had. So about three months later, he called me, he said, Would you like to take over the cafe? Yeah. And so that's how we started. That was it. Oh my god. It was game on.
SPEAKER_03And now okay, so what was this year?
SPEAKER_00That was December 3rd, 2019.
SPEAKER_03You're you're now you're really off to the races because you're on your spot.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Alright. But I mean I didn't put any of the equipment, it was just I walked in. I'd been sick, I didn't know I was sick leading up to that. Um, a week before I was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis. And the way that disease attacks me, attacks people in a similar manner, but particularly me, the high inflammation just drives me into the ground.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And I didn't, I probably had it for a year and had no clue. And a lot of it's from stress, and I was out of work, and I hated my career I was in, and so all these struck by lightning, all these things are just like I have we have no money.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I have friends who want to invest in a business, so I have financing if I need it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00But I we personally have no money.
SPEAKER_01Sure.
SPEAKER_00And um I got diagnosed. I was on medication for like three days before I started feeling better, like almost instantly. Yeah. So I just told my wife, I said, December 2nd, I said, I'm going in tomorrow to cook. She's like, okay. So you're gonna pick up on a theme here. So I go in, I come home, I got this big smile on my face. She's like, How was it? I go, I made three burgers today. So it's like $30.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And she's like, you know, we kind of need to be better than that. Yeah. And I said, I know, but this is we're good. Yeah. All three people really liked it. So the next day we do like 10. Yeah. Next day we do like 35. That third day was the first time I had my sale at my manager. He had called me. I'd worked with him at a pop-up and he had called me and said, Billy, can I come work do work for you? So yeah, sure. I don't know. I didn't think, I just I wasn't even there. I wasn't even like, I oh, I need an employee. Oh, I could use an employee, sure, why not? Sure. Shows up. So day one, three burgers, day five, 125. Uh out of control nightmare scenario. Yeah. Me and my manager, the only ones making the burgers. My son, who's 12, is on the grill. No, uh, he's 14 at the time. Yeah. He's on register. Okay. Uh we were gonna handwrite notes on all the bags. Yeah. Like Starbucks. You know, we were like, hey, thanks, Jimmy. Thanks, yeah. Yeah. That went out the window in about five seconds. Because now we just have stacks of bags. We have no rails system, we have no receipts, right? No nothing. We're just we're literally like my son would be like, double, you know, combo.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Okay, that's a burger. Two combos. Okay, it's two burgers and two fries, right? You know, and that's how it went. Yeah. Stack of people waited an hour in line and an hour to get their food. Unreal. Uh I was like, okay, I can fix all this. Right. I had there's that feed. Right. I always felt like uh, you know, Sean Penn of Past Times at Ridgemont High. Like, no, I gotta, my dad's got a great set of tools.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I was like, no, I can fix it. So by that next Tuesday, so we that was Saturday, closed Sunday, Monday. By Tuesday, I had printers, square receipt printers. Um uh the tablet was set up differently. Yeah, you know, it was all just different, right? So almost instantly more efficient just from a quick some some tweaks. And that's kind of how we've done it every day since. There's no day where like people would see me behind the grill cooking, and I would turn around and I have this like vacant look in my face. Like I'm not, like almost like I'm asleep inside my head. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Right?
SPEAKER_00But my eyes are open. Sure. And uh and I said, Billy, what's going on? I was like, no, no, no, I see something over there. We're gonna have to fix that. You know, or I'm like, okay, that's not, and but it was all in my head, right? I wasn't like saying out loud, like, well, that's stupid, or whatever. I was just constantly just fixing things in my head, like, okay, we can't fix it now. I'm also a big fan of that. Like you at some point, the um the ship sail has sailed.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And you can't fit, like, I couldn't go get a printer in the middle of the Saturday. I was like, okay, this is where we are today.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00We're gonna make the best of it. It'll be fixed tomorrow. Right. Yeah. And so that's kind of like how we do this. If we can fix it in the moment, we will.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Right? If there's something wrong with uh I don't know if make something up, something wrong with the mustard, I'll just go buy a new mustard, right? I can fix that thing in the moment. Sure. Okay, but I can't get new equipment in the moment.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So that's kind of like how we operate. Every day it's like, okay, you know, it's just little improvements here and there, never stop, never be settled. Um about three months in COVID hit. Uh so now you've got a guy who has no interest, no experience running a restaurant, is now dealing with uh a pandemic. Uh we quickly just made adjustments. We're like, okay, we're gonna move the cashier over here, we're gonna keep people outside. Um I have a friend's family who does Pisy Glass. They made us the Pisy Glass Barriers. Wow. So uh we just got fortunate. Uh the AJC stopped doing food reviews during COVID. But Wendell Brock had he was their food critic and he was like, Well, I need to do stuff. Sure. So they changed the focus. So they started, you know, the Lana magazine started highlighting restaurants that were great at takeout. And here we are, only we all all we do is takeout.
SPEAKER_03It's so unique how you do it too. Walking out to the car, the picnic tables.
SPEAKER_00I mean, it's yeah, so it's funny, we get complaints about it sometimes.
SPEAKER_03You do?
SPEAKER_00They wouldn't let me wait inside. I'm like, it's the greatest part of your life. Order food, go sit down, read the paper, right? Play a game on your app, walk your dog, do whatever you want. We're gonna bring your food to you. Isn't that great? It's awesome. I think it's great. I love it. Kids love it too. But people get like so bent out of shape sometimes over the weirdest things, right? Anyway, so Wendell Brock wrote an article on the AJC, it just went like this, you know, and then food and wine put us as the best burger in Georgia. Went like that. Ah, it's incredible. It's just you know, and and then when you think like you're out of things, you can win, you know. I love a Michelin. First off, I don't know, that's not even a possibility for me. Like, wow, somebody when the first Michelin's came out, they said, Bill, you didn't get a what was it? A Bib gourmand. And I was like, why would I get a Bib Gourmand? Like a burger joint gas station. Right. No, no, no, you deserve one. I'm like, no, I don't think they do it. There's so many other people out there doing chef-like coronary experiences, right? And I'm okay with that. Like, I'm not a, you know. But you start thinking, like, oh, there are things out there we we might. We're like in that, we're in that area now. So we um just recently came back from Miami. We were invited to be in the Burger Bash, which I'd been to as a guest ten years earlier. Sure. And I had seen Matt Highland and Emmy Square back there cooking 1,500 burgers and sweating and loving it and having a drink while he's doing it, having the best time. And I just remember seeing Guy Fieri and all these people just killing it and having the best time. Yeah, yeah. And then uh this past October I got invited to it. I'm like, I don't what the heck is happening here? Um there were two choices. There was winner uh peoples and judges. Yeah. And uh you know, we had a lot of chefs looking at us during our setup, and we're dressed. I mean, if you look around here, see how we're dressed? Yeah, that's how we were dressed. They've won these awards, and this guy won a Michelin, and this guy is James Beard, and this guy's just and um and here we are, just Brett, my CEO, is just setting up the booth for speed. So it's just all about consistency and speed.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00We don't need it to look great. We we always tell everybody like we're we're a Pinto with a Ferrari engine, not a Ferrari with a Pinto engine. Okay? So I don't really care what it looks like from the outside. We're when it gets in front of you, we're gonna kick, we're gonna kick your ass. Yeah. So he said he Brad set up this great setup, and all of a sudden the chefs started coming and looking at how we were just like burgers was just coming out left and right. They're like, uh that, yeah, that was a good idea. Yeah, that was a good idea. Yeah, we should have done that. Um and then we you know, next thing you know, we're on stage. My daughter's got the giant check, $2,500, and I've got this 20-pound trophy.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that you walked around with the stuff.
SPEAKER_00We walked around all around all around South Beach like we won an Oscar. Um yeah. And so like every time we think like we've run out of like a little runway to get some more publicity, it's something we put ourselves in a position to do it. The sad thing is, is all the restaurants who are really good that can't find their way into it to get that little pop, to get them successful. Um that's why you asked what the hat is, the gimme kitchen. You know, I spend a lot of time trying to raise money for it because there's a lot of restaurant people out there who are struggling. Um, just trying to figure out any way we can to help keep these people in the industry. You know, you want people, you know, I don't I hate kiosks. I hate QR code ordering. I just do. It's impersonal. I get it as a labor control. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's just impersonal. Um we're in the hospitality business. Right? Like I want people when they come here to be happy. I want people to be um I don't know, they spent their money, they can go spend their money anywhere. I want them to enjoy it.
SPEAKER_03I love that your flair is on it. Like now when I see those things, they're they're from you. Yeah. That's you've you've pulled the corporate uh the corporate piece out of it, so to speak.
SPEAKER_00If we see something's wrong in somebody's plate, we don't ask them if they want another one, we go get another one. It's like little things like that. That's like not like not negotiating with your customer for their for happiness. Like I'm going through with one of my vendors right now.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00They're like, how do you want to be taken care of? No, that's not how that works. How do you think you should take care of me? Right. Uh so what's the catch-up thing?
SPEAKER_03It's probably such a basic question.
SPEAKER_00All right, two things. One is, well, three things. One is my grandfather, my parents are from Chicago.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_00Uh I always say people, I'm like uh I'm Tom Cruise in Days of Thunder. Right? Not I'm not that I'm Tom Cruise, but point is it's like I don't know any of the Lingo.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_00Okay? Right. You know, I don't know what rubber is and all that stuff. And all that, you know, like here's what I know it tastes good or it doesn't taste good. Yeah. Okay, I don't need the culinary aspect of it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I don't know that like when I built my burger, I was like, oh, there's sweet and there's savory and there's acid and there's uh yeah. You know, that's what my food is good or not. My friends or chefs picking them like, oh my god, you can taste this, you know, all these elements that make food great. And I'm like, yeah, I just like it to taste good. Right? So um, you know, so that's just kind of it it doesn't need ketchup. The ketchup's in the sauce, by the way. It's ketchup, mayonnaise, pickle juice, mustard, and seasoning. But if you remember my conversation earlier about mayonnaise, it's eggs and oil and stuff, right? So I can make the elements that create ketchup, right? I can put sugar and vinegar and whatever and tomatoes in there, or I could just buy ketchup and start from there. So I always say ketchup's a shortcut. I don't need to put all mayonnaise is a shortcut.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Ketchup's a shortcut. Okay, there's just a way to take all these things that somebody else already put together and then create something else. Right? The things that aren't shortcut, mustard.
SPEAKER_03Uh and mustards on it.
SPEAKER_00Mustards. But we have mustard in the sauce, but it's it's it provides a different, you know, uh flavor profile to it. Again, words I never thought of using. Sure. Flavor profile and it's just, you know, I kind of just walk, honestly, walk ass backwards into something because I just grew up loving burgers.
SPEAKER_03Which is cool. Like So, what's the word? What were what do you credit it to like looking back now? Is it just because you were so naive and you just got into an industry and said, I'm gonna just do it my way?
SPEAKER_00What would you really credit it to? Um I'll say what I say to everybody. Whenever whenever I'm asking a question about why we're successful, I give the same answer. That's alright, buddy.
SPEAKER_03Oh, you're good. Yeah, no. Hey, Ryan, how are you, man? We're not we don't edit anything out of here either. It stays in. You're good.
SPEAKER_00I just got nervous, man. Yeah, yeah, we're on camera.
SPEAKER_03Alright, I wanna I gotta I gotta hear this. I'm dying to hear this, what you credit it to.
SPEAKER_00Um, we all have one thing in common. That's we all give a shit. Okay, we all want you to have the best product possible, we want you to have the best experience possible. It's why reviews, negative reviews, are really frustrating. Because it's not that I can't take constructive criticism, it's that there's never any constructive criticism. And it's never somebody who's come and talked to me. If you come and talk to me, I will make you I'll make you happy. We had a guy here the other day. I came up to him, he's from St. Louis, went to his table and said, How is it? He's like, It's okay. What's wrong with it? He's like, Well, it's okay. I said, No, that's not that's not the normal response we get. What's the matter? He said, Well, it's really salty. I said, Okay, I got you covered. I went back in. I said, I need a double less less uh seasoning, no sauce, light sauce, light seasoning on the fly. Bring it back out. He takes a bite. I said, How is it? He's like, Ah, this is great. I said, So the next time you're in a restaurant. And you don't like something, give the restaurant the chance to make it up to you. Because we all want you to have a great experience. Wow. Right? So when you're you know, when I'm winning that trophy and I'm on stage and they're asking me what makes makes our burger great, we all did a great job that night.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00Like I got lucky because Gail King really likes a simple cheeseburger.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Okay. She likes the simple elements of the crispiness and the flavors and not too much stuff, right? Yeah. And I got lucky that Bert Chrysler loves just a cheeseburger, right? You know, if he liked truffles, I would have lost. You would have lost. So, you know, this other the one next to us would have won, right? So also there's like a you know a little bit lucky to draw, but the reality is everybody there that night, the Burger Bash made made a great burger.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00You know, we just made the burger the judges liked, right? So great, that's awesome.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um, and I will take it. I'm not I'm not gonna downgrade my win. Um I love it. But so I think like again, anywhere you go, if it's your favorite pizza, yeah, it's not happenstance that it's good pizza. Right. The guy making it cares about how great the pizza is.
SPEAKER_03And doesn't just say it as a word, we care. Right. Because that's easy to do too.
SPEAKER_00Well, you know, it's like Elf, you know, the funny scene where it's like the world's greatest cup of coffee, right? Like, or Tommy Boy, um, where they say something like, uh, you know, why do they put guarantee on the box? You know, I can take it to open a box and mark it guaranteed, I have spare time.
SPEAKER_02Yeah right?
SPEAKER_00Like if you have to tell somebody it's great or that it's guaranteed or all this stuff, you've probably lost the battle at that point. Because when you bite into it, they'll know.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00If you tell somebody it's a great cup of coffee and they drink it and it stinks, they're gonna go, God, it's a crappy cup of coffee.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00Right? So just make your coffee. If somebody really loves it, you'll f you'll know. Yeah. You'll know. And by the way, you can go to like a steak and shake and have an amazing burger. If the guy on the grill, the person on the grill cares about how well it was cooked and how well it was plated.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Okay. And by the way, you know, sometimes I catch guys in the kitchen taking a shortcut and I'll look at the so we have a rule, you square it, it's called squaring the cheese. I don't even know if that's an industry phrase. I it's for me. I love it. Anyway, you take the patty of the cheese and then you put it right over the other patty with the cheese so it's all perfectly together. It's like the OCD element in my brain. Yeah, love it. But sometimes we get a guy that's like in a hurry. He thinks being in a hurry is okay. And he'll just put that down and it'll be like kind of cockeyed.
SPEAKER_01Off, yeah. Right?
SPEAKER_00I'm like, no, no, no, no.
SPEAKER_01Right?
SPEAKER_00It takes as much time to do it right as it does to do it wrong, so let's just do it right. Yeah. Okay? So then when someone look at the picture, if you're not gonna see this on there, there's a painting right there a woman did. That's based on a picture that I sent her. Yeah. Okay? But if that's the cheese is symmetrical, and the sauce covers and the pickles cover, and uh, you know, I mean, you're getting everything in every bite. In every bite. And so that's that's cool. Um I mean, that's just the that's the basic part of it. So I I think uh, but it's not as easy as to say, like, if you just give a prep, then that you've you're gonna win, right? There's so many other elements to this business. It's a math problem. It's more a math problem than it is a quality problem, quite frankly. Yeah. Interesting. So the world is littered with Michelin Star restaurants that have gone out of business. They don't understand the math. Right? They're so focused on how great the meal is and how expensive, you know, like using the best ingredients and all this stuff that they forget that like you have to be profitable.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Right? So I'm not saying use inferior ingredients. I'm saying they're like if you ever watch the movie Chef, you know, it's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's that thing's too expensive you want to eat.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00You want to make, or whatever it is, right?
SPEAKER_03Like, so it's on it's science and art.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. I mean, look, you you know, so I use ground beef. I don't use Wagyu meat and I don't use uh triple blandness or whatever that. We use ground beef. No, we've tested every ground beef on the market, and we use the one that has the right that's made to our specs. Sure. Um we use American cheese. Sorry if it offends you. Wow. Okay. But it's every chef on the planet will say, like, yeah, that's really the best cheese for a cheeseburger. Like for a simple cheeseburger.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um so you know, just we use a Martin's potato roll. Not a brioche bun, not a handmade milk bun. Yeah. Now you can go to my buddy's place in Cleveland, Cordelia, and that burger is amazing, and he makes the buns in-house. He's that's his that's the way he wants to do it. Sure. And it's phenomenal.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Okay. I burger to me is um about my childhood more than anything. So it's about like after school, when I would go to McDonald's, you know, with my brother or my sisters or my father or my mom, whoever picked me up, or you know, um uh taking my kid for burgers. Like that burger is simple. Right? That burger's not truffles and and uh Gruyere cheese on a brioche punt. That burger was probably crappy wood bread with American cheese. Right. God knows what the ground beef was, right? And that was like your childhood memory of like hanging out with your dad or whomever you did it with your buddies after school. Right? That's what this burger is. This burger is not supposed to be fancy.
SPEAKER_03Um how do the big guys get it wrong then when they when they are getting it wrong?
SPEAKER_00I think we're better than the 300th Shake Shack. But the originals. But are we better than the original that's right across from Daniel Meyer's office, right in Madison Square Park? That's a great thing. Probably, you know, that's a probably pretty tough hill to climb, right? Uh you're better than Holman and Finch. Man, are we better than the Holman and Finch 15 years ago when uh you know they have the top chefs, you know, Michel Star chefs making 20 burgers a night, handing them out. Right. I mean, probably, you know, are we as good? Yeah. I think we're as good as all those guys. My point is, is like, you know, they've all grown their businesses and they're making money and they're doing all these things, you know, and it's easy. Uh like I always tell people, you can make a anybody can make a brisket. Anybody. Okay. You can watch Aaron Franklin's uh masterclass video on how to trim and put a smoke brisket. Okay. Now try to do now, try and do it 80 times a day. Okay? Try doing it 80 times a day, five days a week.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_03That's a way different than with you out of it, because you're gonna have to be out of it at some point, have somebody else do that.
SPEAKER_00That's a way different business, right? So that's why, like a lot of times, like Lewis Barbecue expanding to Atlanta, and he's got one in Greenville, and the quality seems to be very good, that's really hard, difficult to do. That's why most barbecue places don't have more than one.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Because to find somebody who's gonna smoke for 14 hours and who cares as much as you do, and is is is really difficult to find, right? So as we those big guys aren't necessarily getting it wrong, they've just changed their focus of what success is. You know, and I'm sure Danny Meyer would like to walk into a Shake Shack and Salt Lake and go, it's just as good as the one in Madison Park. But he knows. He knows the odds of that are pretty close to zero.
SPEAKER_03Pretty close to zero, right? So it's like they're playing the 80% if we can get it 80%.
SPEAKER_00It's about, you know, it's what are you seeing when you look out? I'm just gonna grow the business. Um trying to find the right real estate. Um about the math, it's about the math. Georgia, uh Georgia first. I think by the time it gets out of Atlanta Metro, I'll probably won't be a part of the company anymore. Well, not running it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um if I was 25, I'd have a hundred of these. And they would probably suck. Okay. They just would, but I'd be rolling at money.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Okay. I'm not rolling it money. I can tell you that right now. Um, but at this point in my life, you know, I probably have like 20 good years left. I'm 53. I probably have when I say good years, I mean I'm gonna die, but I mean like, you know, 20 years of doing stuff. Sure. You know, traveling and hopefully a grandkid or two or something, right, at some point. But I have no desire to die in the kitchen, and I don't, I'm not motivated. I'm not motivated by the things I used to be motivated by. Yeah. And it turns out I probably wasn't always motivated by those things either. I was never motivated by money. I just knew I needed it. But I was never motivated by vacation homes or vacations or giant diamond rings. I just don't care. Um I'm motivated, like at this point in my life, I'm like motivated by how somebody feels when they eat a burger. Are they really happy or are they really disappointed? You know, like and what can I do to like that's motivating to me. Like that's like instant gratification. Yeah. I can fix that. Again, another theme throughout this thing. It's like when there's something broken, I'm like, okay, can I fix it? Okay. And I think those big guys, they uh it's not that they're disinterested in fixing things. There's just so many layers to fix it. Yeah. Right? Yeah. And you gotta fix it in the case. It's like, well, you gotta call Jimmy, and then Jimmy's gotta call Frank, or Frank's gonna call Jennifer. And you gotta, yeah, then you gotta do this thing. And I've just walk in and go, yeah, can you just go to the store and get a screwdriver? Right. Like, would it do we have to call maintenance for this? Don't we have it? Do we have a screwdriver? Yeah, yeah. You know, and I think that's like where these big companies get into. So the trick is can we grow to a point where I can do something generationally for my family financially without it, won't be me doing it. Sure. I want to set it up. Uh my COO, that's why he's here. Most businesses like mine wouldn't have a COO.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Uh they would have a general manager, and then I'd be running both, and that never interested me. Yeah. If that was the way it was gonna be, I'd just run one and I'd be I'm happy.
SPEAKER_03So, what's your favorite thing in all of it now that you understand the business side of it, the food side? What do you love doing every single day? Your one thing.
SPEAKER_00Um the one thing I love doing is I like coming into the restaurant. I like talking to customers. Yeah. Hey, how'd you get here? How'd you get here?
SPEAKER_03You're walking around with a trophy. Right as well, it's the same. What do you yeah?
SPEAKER_00But like I'm I'm um You're an ambassador. Yeah, I mean, that's the motivational part. And I love when businesses call me and ask me for help, ask me for advice. Uh love helping small businesses.
SPEAKER_03Like who?
SPEAKER_00Like who's I wouldn't name I wouldn't name a restaurant, but like uh, you know, there was like a wing place who called me about four years ago and he was struggling, and he he and his wife thought they might have to shut down. And so I said, alright, let's talk about it. Yeah, let's go through the math. I always start with the math. Okay, because you can buy better food. Okay, you can buy a better piece of equipment, but if you don't understand how the math stacks up, and this is all you have to know. Jack and the Jack in the Box exists. Okay? Go read their Yelp reviews. There's not one of them that has over two stars. Okay. Yet they have like a thousand locations, and their stocks, you know, they're they they make a ton of money, right? It's a great form. So it's just math. Wow, yeah. Right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Uh I think the McDonald's CEO who just got you know roasted for not knowing how to eat a sandwich, he's doing just fine.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Okay, his golden parachute is gonna put him on an island.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Okay. Oh, yeah. So he's doing just fine. Right? But this, you know, this husband and wife called me and um I guess we're running into a problem. I said, What are you charging for wings? And they told me, I said, All right, you know, your competitors all charge 50 cents more a wing. I said, but then we won't sell any wings. Or we won't sell any. I said, Well, which way do you want to go out of business? You want to spend your money and not make it back, or do you want to not have any customers? You pick the choice because you're going out of business either way, so just pick a path. Wow. But I know the one thing this path isn't working, yeah. This is the other path you gotta try. So I said, give me your square password. I'm gonna go in, I'm changing all your pricing. So we sat on the phone that night for an hour. We're for the cost of everything they do. Oh my gosh. He says, Well, what do I charge for line a? Four times what it costs. And then he'd say, like, what do I charge for this? Four times what it costs. Do you see the pattern? Okay. Four times. Okay, because this is what the four this is what the four elements pay for, okay? And that last one is yours. Okay? It's rent, it's labor, it's this, it's food costs. That last quarter is yours. Yeah. Okay. Changed it all. The next morning he's like, Billy, I just I don't know about this. I said, just do it one day. Calls me that night, we sold out. I said, Yeah, and guess what? You made 30% more money. Oh my gosh. From just doing it.
SPEAKER_03Which is his piece. So he made it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Right. Still in business four years later. Really? Yeah. Great. So, you know, things like that, or I think the biggest challenge we have in this industry is we don't communicate with each other. And so we don't know that we're going through similar things.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00It's even more impressive that he listens to you and goes, Oh, I think he might, you know, it's he might be right.
SPEAKER_03And gives you your pass the password. Right.
SPEAKER_00And um, but it worked, you know, and he's uh so I get a lot of calls from people about and I've I try and talk them all out of it. Not starting a business, not starting a restaurant, not that guy.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Oh, you know what? My advice, never own a restaurant. I'm not that guy. Right. That's a person who's you know jaded and probably did some stupid things or isn't treating their employees right or whatever they're doing, right? Sure. You know, like somebody who's like, man, I can't ever keep an employer. It's like, yeah, you but you probably should look in the mirror. Right? Because uh I I don't lose employees in that money. Right. So I don't know what to tell you. Yeah. Um I didn't have one person during COVID take things.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Didn't have one person. Yeah. They all came, they came to work every day. And I didn't it's cool. They came to work every day. Yeah. Um so you know, if you treat people right and and uh take care of them and care about them like family, yeah, um, you know, they're gonna come back to your work.
SPEAKER_03Do you still have that Instagram handle? Yeah, the one that sort of I'll say got it all started.
SPEAKER_00Uh Billy's Burgers.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, Billy's Burk. I never use it. What do you okay? That's it.
SPEAKER_00I can't remember the last time it posted to it. Yeah. All right. Um, because it's sort of that was the that was my research, that was where I would go out and eat burgers.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00But I just don't have the bandwidth to run multiple accounts.
SPEAKER_03What if somebody wants to get a hold of you now? Just go through the website or what do you do?
SPEAKER_00Website, NFA Burger, I answer all the Instagram messages. Oh, you do?
SPEAKER_03Oh, that's cool.
SPEAKER_00Uh I answer all the emails that come through the form on the website. Um I've never turned down a conversation with anybody who's asked.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Whether it's good or bad. Um so call and ask, and if I, you know, if you ask me for help, that's all the I will say that. If you ask somebody for help, they're gonna give it to you. Whether you, you know, so you have to you have to really want it. Yeah, yeah. Right? If you ask somebody for it's like ChatGPT.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00If you ask ChatGPT a question, it's never gonna not give you an answer. Right. Right? It's always going to give you an answer. You don't know if it's right or wrong. Right? It could be your it's like it's like uh Cliff Cleveland is running Chat GPT and it's just spouting out you know, answers. So cheerleading. Right, so yeah, and I'm not your cheerleader. Like I'm like I told the guy with the wing business. Like, which way do you want to go out of business? That's a great. I spoke to Richard Corrane back to that a couple years ago. I finished Danny Meyer's book. I didn't read it. I can't, I hate reading. I did the audio book. Reading puts me asleep. So, um, which is probably another reason I did it really well in high school.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So um I sent him a text. I found his cell phone number online, and I sent him a text. And I said, Hey, Billy Kramer, NFA Burger Atlanta, I'd love to chat with you about setting the table. I have all these questions, just like I did the first time when I watched the documentary.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00But this time I went to his cell phone. I didn't email him. And it it was him, it turns out it was him. And he said, That's awesome. And he said, Yeah, call my secretary, text my secretary and uh email her, and we'll set up a call. So I get on the call and Richard was on the call. So now it's Richard and Danny and myself on the Zoom call. And before Danny got on the call, Richard goes, you know, Billy, if you win any more awards, you're gonna need to build another house. And I was like, Richard, I don't understand. How do you what do you I'm an NFA burger, you Shake Shack, you're yeah, you're beyond wealthy at this point. Right. What do you you know, how do you know anything about us? He's like, we know all about you. And I was like, that's the coolest thing anyone's ever said to me. I don't know if Richard's telling the truth. I don't assume he's telling the truth. But yeah. Um we were at uh Burger Bash, Shake Shack was competing. And when we when I won the trophy, I sent him a dating picture of the trophy. And uh that was a lot of fun. That's um but it's in you know, it's in jest. I mean, look, those guys, look, I would take their life in a friggin' heartbeat. Yeah. So um, not their life. I take their money. I'm happy with my life. Their money. But I'll take the money. What a story, man. So I'm sorry, I sucked up. That was a long, that was a long time here. I apologize. No, it's absolutely great.
SPEAKER_03Alright, guys, as I'm sure you just heard, uh, this is a lot more than just burgers, this story. Um this is a guy who's an outsider and stepped into an industry and just refused and still refuses to back down. So thanks for checking out uh episode 68 of Interesting Humans. And as always, if you loved it, if you know somebody you can help, I'd appreciate it. Hit like, hit share, comment, and all the good stuff. We'll see you next episode.
