EP1: AI in L&D for Frontline Workers with Gregg Majewski, CEO of Craveworthy Brands

Get ready for a dynamic conversation as Rachael Nemeth and Gregg Majewski dive into the game-changing impact of AI on the restaurant industry. They break down the biggest challenges—shifting consumer habits, soaring costs, and ongoing labor shortages—while exploring how AI is reshaping everything from customer service to operations. 

Timestamps:

00:02 Introduction

00:32 Guest Introduction

03:53 The Evolution of the Restaurant Industry

05:08 AI and Its Impact on the Service Industry

10:55 AI Implementation in Craveworthy Brands

14:36 The Role of AI in Training and Development

21:26 Future Outlook of AI in Restaurants

27:32 Closing Thoughts & Q&A

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Transcript

Rachael Nemeth: 0:02

Hey everyone. If you are just joining, it is uh my pleasure to um introduce you to our esteemed guest today here at Opus uh on our fireside chat series. My name is Rachel Nemath. I'm the CEO and co-founder of Opus Training. And today we're going to be talking about artificial intelligence AI in learning and development, but also in the broader context of the service industry. I have Greg Majewski with me. He's the CEO of Craveworthy Brands. Before I let him introduce himself, I just want to set context a little bit. For those of you listening live, you know, it's clear that we're officially in an era where AI is no longer just a buzzword. It's really shaping the service industry in pretty interesting ways. And restaurants in particular are at a crossroads between tradition and innovation. We're seeing it at Opus, lots of decisions around which direction you need to head. And a lot of you leaders don't really understand that yet as much as Greg does. Greg is going to provide some real world perspective for us. So excited to sit down with you. Largely because he's actually putting these tools to work at his restaurants. He brings lots of experience building those brands. And we're going to tackle questions that I know a lot of you are probably thinking about, a lot of the things we are thinking about, which is where does AI actually make sense in my operation? How do we make sure that we're using it responsibly? And what do we actually need to put in place before we go all in? So excited to have you all here. If you have any questions, feel welcome to throw them in the chat. We will have a live QA with Greg in about 28 minutes here, though. So feel free to uh keep them in your head so you can ask him directly. Um but Greg, I'm gonna toss it to you. If you could just give the world uh uh uh uh your introduction, who are you and tell us about Craverworthy Brands? It's such a unique business model.

Gregg Majewski: 2:18

So um, well, I'm Greg Majewski. I am now CEO and founder of a company called Craverworthy Brands, which is at this time the fastest growing restaurant company in the United States, uh, mostly through acquisitions and stuff over the last two years. Um two years ago there were zero of everything. At the end of this year, it will be 225 open restaurants, 500 under development, and just over 225 million in system-wide sales. Um I think 14 or 15 brands under the portfolio at that point. So um background. I came from the restaurant industry, put myself through college through the industry, um, worked for a company called Jimmy Johns, which everyone is very, very familiar with. Um, built that company from 30 restaurants to 300 and 700 sold by the time I left, and then uh became a franchisee, worked in every other aspect of two other brands afterwards, consulted for everybody in the industry. And for whatever backwards idea, I decided I was bored and I wanted to do Craveworthy. And now there's no bored in my life.

Rachael Nemeth: 3:24

Um, can you give us a couple of examples of brands within Craveworthy? Are that you all QSR, FSR?

Speaker 2: 3:30

So we are QSR, which we would call QSR Plus Fast Casual, um, and then full service. And where specialty is obviously QSR Plus full service. Um QSR plus fast casual is where I think are the sweet spots of the Raspberry industry and where I think that industry is gonna continue to develop and go due to the economics of the big boxes.

Rachael Nemeth: 3:54

Well, let's start there actually. You have so much industry context. Um I wanna really talk about the fact that we're seeing such massive shifts in consumer behavior. Plus, there's new technologies that are emerging almost weekly. At every conference I'm at, I feel like I can't even take enough notes. Plus, changing workforce dynamics, increased in increases in labor, in policy, changing generations. And the truth is that some restaurants are really thriving in this environment and others are really struggling to adapt. So um, just in the past year, we've seen a lot of restaurants start to experiment with AI-powered drive-throughs and kiosks and automated kitchen equipment, and there's so there's just no shortage of innovation. Um but uh sometimes when we're moving this fast, it feels like we're focusing on too many things at once, and it's easy to miss the kind of fundamental crucial things. Um so that's the the where I want to start, which is listen, whether it's AI or not, um, what do you think is the restaurant industry's biggest blind spot right now?

Speaker 2: 5:08

Right now it's, I mean, the biggest brands rather than the industry is that we don't want to admit that our consumers are hurting. And because our consumers are hurting, we're all not feeling it. And we jacked our prices up to offset negative sales and everything else because our food and labor costs have gone up. We've sort of taken a blind eye to what the consumer feels. And we're now scrambling for AI and cost savings because we all are starting, the bells are starting to go off in our heads. Oh crap, we took too much price. How can I not take price anymore but lower my margins and increase my margins everywhere else? Um, so I think that's the biggest blind spot. Unfortunately, it was our own stupidity. Um, we got very, very not greedy, but we got very, very over our skis and we took too much when we needed to, and not we never lowered it. So I've been using the example in the grocery store industry. Milk goes up, milk goes down. When the cost of milk goes up, you pay a little bit more. When it drops, it goes down. But the consumer gets a relief. Restaurants, there's never that relief point on pricing. We take price, we never give it back. And unfortunately, with the state of our consumer, we needed to give some price back. So now that's where AI and all these tools that you just mentioned come into play. How do I now not take any more price increase, but now increase my margins?

Rachael Nemeth: 6:31

Yeah, so it's it's funny that you're talking about this. This has kind of been our thesis for a while, which is restaurants are gonna hit this breaking point where they have to do more with less. Whether it's fewer and at the time it was fewer people. Um now we're not seeing the same staffing shortages in every area of the industry, but a lot of it is around budget and how do you actually um maximize your team? I don't know if you feel the same way.

Speaker 2: 6:57

I mean, but it's it's still a labor shortage, just a different type. It's now the exact same thing that you had you couldn't staff before. Now you can't staff because you can't pay enough people to do the job because there's not enough margin in it. So it's the exact same issue, just m in a different context. And that's going to that's always been the restaurant industry's issue is you have two major things you control: cost of food, cost of labor. You know, and if you can get those to be where they should be, which in most industries you want to target 55% for those. So you have a gross margin of about 45 or higher, 45 to 65 is where you want to be. If you can do that, then all of a sudden you don't have to worry. But now with rising labor, we've got to cut labor to get to that margin other ways. And that's the robotics that are going into the restaurants and AI and helping the managers get through other tasks faster. Um, and I'll preach continually that's great, as long as hospitality doesn't suffer in the restaurant because people still come into the restaurants to have uh experience. They don't come in just because it's quick and easy, they come in because they want something they can't get at home.

Rachael Nemeth: 8:08

Well, I actually think that's a good transition. Because one of my questions to segue directly into AI is that um, you know, it's obviously a buzzword. We can't seem to go a day without talking about it. Um, but I'm curious to hear about the human side at Craveworthy right now. When you think about your team from corporate to restaurant level, what's been the general sentiment around AI this past year? Good, bad, neutral? How are people really feeling about it?

Speaker 2: 8:37

I mean, it depends on which level you talk to. Um there's some worries that it's gonna replace them, especially in the advertising departments and stuff like that, because you can throw something in and get as good of work as what they've done or a plan by not knowing as much. So obviously AI is gonna play huge savings on those type of departments. But in the industry, in the space, in the field, they're not very concerned about it. They want their lives easier. They know that not everybody can be replaced by a tool. Um, they want to get better at their tool, and they you're also not getting the education of the management before the staff because you don't have the cream of the crop to pick from, and you know, you've got to move a hell of a lot faster because you've been short staff, or someone leaves for a quarter down the street and you got to get a backfill, they need to get brought up to speed faster. Those people are a little bit more excited about using the tools because it helps them get up to speed faster. So I mean it it's truly two completely different worlds. Um even my financial team is starting to get a little worried because I can throw now an Excel spreadsheet and tell them to do the modeling for me and take it out, and you can get it to actually spit it out for you, which is amazing.

Rachael Nemeth: 9:51

Yeah, um, you know, I think I agree. I think there's a lot more on the kind of support side that's being automated and almost replacing, but I am seeing a lot of enhancement, and it's almost like a lot of the theory is it's not necessarily that we're gonna shed headcount, but as we grow, we don't need to add headcount. Um but time will tell, I suppose. I think um one thing I wanted to transition into is this concept of implementation. So what was it, a year and a half ago, 18 months ago when OpenAI came out? It wasn't even maybe it wasn't even a year at this point. I should have done my research before. Um but AI, even in the past year and a half, is incre is increasingly embedded into tech rather than this standalone product. Um how is it being used at Craveworthy? Is it more on the embedded side? Are you still kind of on the chat GPT, you know? You just said that you inject your your financial model into something.

Speaker 2: 11:02

I mean, I've I'm using it more where I originally said I wouldn't ever use it because it takes I wanted to touch and feel it, but I've come to the realization that I have to become really, really good at it so I can know how to use it for the rest of my company. Um, so I'm using it more in everything that I do. So even putting customer reviews in, I have a bot set up that I throw every review in now and the synopsis so I can start seeing trends and this and that, and it's my brand identifier for the individual brand. So then I can develop a marketing plan off of it. I tell them to go pull the book from Budlong. Can you go and pull what are the key points and all this? And how do I drive sales for our number one item based on the data that was provided? It it's remarkable in the stuff that you can do. Um, it's a time saver, it's a way for me to see stuff that I haven't always been able to see, but it's also now I know they can do work in half the time. So things that I used to go to my marketing team or even my ops team, hey, I need this or that. I know they're all throwing it into Chat GPT to spit it out. I can get more out of them quicker. And so I think it's at this point, still on the executive level and like the above, it's how you use it where you use it. Um, and everyone's getting good and trying to find the right path. I think in the training levels or customer service and stuff like that, the bots and the communication tools and all that are extremely good. Now, the voice-activated drive-throughs, I think, is a customer fail because I don't I think it takes hospitality out of it. Yes, it's fun, it's neat, it's cool, your orders are probably a little bit more accurate, but you don't have that service, you don't have someone greeting you, you don't have someone, they're never gonna be as friendly. You know, and if you walk drive-through to a Starbucks and you get that person that's overly bubbly and first thing in the morning is so happy to be there, no matter how tired you are and grouchy you are, it makes you feel good. You know, it it just does.

Speaker 1: 13:04

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 13:05

When you get the voice activated drive-through, you don't ever feel that way. And I think those are the components that are still not quite there.

Rachael Nemeth: 13:14

Are you seeing a big pickup on those though, despite the lack of hospitality?

Speaker 2: 13:19

So in the bigger PE groups or PE groups that are out there, they're pushing for it because it's saving labor. Um in the groups that are still about hospitality and want to make their brand special, they're avoiding it at all costs. Um and I think that's gonna be sort of the next couple years where you see people over push in the wrong places and when the consumer pushes back. And I mean, look at my parents' age, they want to talk to somebody. You know, when you go in and you go to kiosk and there's some incredible companies out there that are bite, for example, that you can go in and have an incredible order experience. But if my mom or dad have to go and do that, they're leaving, you know, so because they want that interaction, they want out to be served. Um, so I think there's a balance that's gonna have to be found. And my way of not using it in the hospitality side is probably not right. And going all in on it is probably not right either. It's gonna be somewhere in between.

Rachael Nemeth: 14:18

Well, and that brings me to the off side of things. So you referenced training. Um I'd love to hear a little bit more around how you're using it in the L and D space and what sort of how it's what sort of enhancement you're seeing, or if there's any pushback that you're seeing.

Speaker 2: 14:36

In the training space, there's been absolutely none. And I'm gonna plug you all on this is that the stuff that you guys have coming and have developed for Opus and allows us to get a manual out and uh, you know, new LTO training up and running and a hell of a lot faster because of it is priceless. Um, those are the tools that are needed in the industry. Um and those are the things that I'm very, very excited about seeing. Um I don't think the there's any fear in using those. I don't think there's any fear in having an employee go through that type of training or, you know, hey, something didn't work right, you didn't get this, but you're close, and not just getting a score, but going back and re-educating them on points. I think that's the future of how training and how it's used long-term. Um, people hate getting a score. You know, you love it when you get 100% or an A, but when you're not quite there, they'd rather not know they're not quite there and automatically just go backwards and get retrained. And these are the things that AI is going to be allowed, allow us to do that we weren't able to do before.

Rachael Nemeth: 15:40

It's interesting that you say that too, because I I have noticed in kitchens a lot of frontline teams almost self-educating with ChatGPT. So even if those tools aren't available yet, that iterative process is so natural to how people want to be learning and absorbing information. But everything that we've done previously has been is the antithesis of that. It's like overgamification, overscoring, all of that. And then it becomes punitive almost as a result.

Speaker 2: 16:10

Yeah, and I mean, even when you're dealing with your franchisees, it's not a you don't want to give a black and white score. You know, you you want to be their partner, you want to be their helper, you want to get them to be successful. And you know, the old days of just cracking a whip and saying, hey, you're gonna be this or you're out. It's it's not the world anymore. And AI is allowing us to tweak those models and that the way we talk and the way we operate and the way we get people to where we want to go without them knowing that's where we're taking them. You know, and AI is gonna allow us to do that a hell of a lot easier.

Rachael Nemeth: 16:43

Yeah. Um well, let's talk about the other side of this though. So I know from my perspective, I've seen um I've seen and and talked to the CEOs who are hesitant about AI, the legal teams who are hesitant, um, less so the tech teams. Uh I think it's more on the legal side, um, specifically in larger organizations, but also I'm starting to see a trickle down market to, you know, smaller restaurant groups that are planning to grow. So can you talk a little bit about have you put any guardrails in place around AI? It sounds like you're encouraging your team to use it, so maybe not. Um, but I'm speaking more around AI governance and data protection, which feels like we're entering that phase.

Speaker 2: 17:27

I mean, you gotta pay for the better and more sophisticated. You can't just use Chat GPT on your own, you know? And right now we're at fault. We still have individual accounts. Um as the cost and all that becomes more beneficial, you'll put the enterprise values in, and that will definitely happen. Um it's legal's always going to find a reason to hate something, um, no matter what they do, and that's what they're there for. But they're overprotective on, hey, how do you get a mark or how do you get you can't use the graphic that was just provided. And that that's absolutely true. You can't use the graphic that is automatically provided unless you're doing a LinkedIn post or something that doesn't really matter. You've got to then make it, you've got to take that image or that idea and make it your own afterwards. You still have those people that need to do those things, but you can get an idea or a basis out of it.

Speaker: 18:22

Legal, like everything new, it's gonna complain until they understand it.

Rachael Nemeth: 18:28

Well, and there's also the there's different segments of AI. Like in L and D, there's there's the the large side of it, which is data control, and and I understand that. But there's also just data processing and using it for you know, using AI for inspo. You know, if your training leader is being tasked with a large initiative for a new group that you acquired, then um sometimes saying, well, what's the best way to train you know a QSR that has three people because it's a small, quick operation, um, can just give people a jump start rather than being the end work product. Um it feels like there needs to be a spectrum.

Speaker 2: 19:10

Correct. And that's what I mean you ask it for. I mean, I don't expect you to ever get 100% of what you're getting out of there. If you take what's in there and make it and just put it out there, then you're gonna get caught and someone's gonna figure out what you're doing and just replace you. Um if you can't act to it. Um, but I mean, I do think there's a lot of other benefits that you can go through and use and have those tools. I think, you know, the data protection obviously is gonna be the biggest point. So I have an ad company that we're talking to that has this incredible new feature that takes your customer data and is able to place the people not in your loyalty database and go and market to those individual people's off their email or phone number that you have. And then they're able to somehow find the credit card information for everybody in your loyalty database and not have it in there and only mark it to the other one so they can really tell you who is coming in off the ads that you're running that are new customers. That is unheard of before. But, you know, and I'm all excited about it because it will actually show me a true spin and what it's costing me to get new customers to come in, or if I'm even acquiring new customers. They're doing that with AI. You know, they built their systems and all that with that model, and it's because someone else has to go in and value and you know, get that data to that point. That wasn't available to us before. You could only go one way. Now you get to really pigeon down into, and we're even going as far as and I'm taking a customer from the grocery stores that are in my areas, I'm targeting the grocery store customers, not other restaurants, as a test because there are they everybody goes to the grocery store, you know, so and everyone can have the customer. I we've not marketed those people, we didn't know those people before. Now I'm gonna go after those people that are not my customers that go to the grocery stores and I'm gonna target them with something special to see if they come in. It's mind-blowing to me that we can do that now.

Rachael Nemeth: 21:10

So, how much of um just kind of future outlook here? Um where are you placing your bets right now for Craveworthy? There's the consumer side, and then there's the the employee side around, you know, labor efficiency. Is it 50-50? Are you weighing it more on the marketing side?

Speaker 2: 21:29

So I think on the consumer side, I'm not taking a lot of gambles on AI yet. Um the stuff that we're doing is very table stakes, it's you know, the customer feedback, that type of stuff. That that's that's as far as I want to go there. Um everything else is on the back of the house, and I'll go all in as on much as I possibly can to improve the life of my employees and give them a better environment to operate in. And our job is to make everyone's lives easier continually. And if that's using AI, if that's using an old-fashioned pen and paper, whatever is going to make their lives easier, that's your responsibility because they're all fighting for less time because you're asking them to do more, you know, because we don't have the margins. And I just came back from China and it was evident, I mean, I walked into these offices and there was uh 75 to 100 people for a hundred restaurants working in an office. I mean, doing bookkeeping and everything else. And I'm like, I wish I could have that many bodies, but the cost is so different that they're able to do that where I have to do it with three.

unknown: 22:38

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 22:38

You know, the and so it's not exactly apples to apples anymore on which you can compare. So you've got to find ways to make those things easier to operate on less. You can't eliminate everything in the store for impossible. And or in a retail situation or in hospitals and all that, you still need those bodies, you know, because you still need that interaction, you still need that. You can eliminate elsewhere and increase your margins by eliminating GNA expenses. That's where I think AI is going to be the most benefit, and then all tech. I think that's where tech in general is the biggest savings for us to win on. Um, is let's eliminate cost on GNA and not the frontline workers. The frontline workers are already taking a beating for what they need and take everything else and make everyone else's lives uh expense. You don't have to add another $200,000 employee to operate X number of restaurants.

Rachael Nemeth: 23:33

Right. So what you're saying is that's interesting. Um I tend to agree. It's um the the when you say that the frontline employee is taking a beating, it's like we're we're already stretching folks that's pretty thin, and but we also want to be great employers and create a better quality of life for people and career pathways and things like that. But if you don't have the right tooling, then it's smooth. Um and so it sounds like the biggest opportunity is is almost top down at this point.

Speaker 2: 24:05

I think so. Now there'll be others out there that completely disagree and they're the ones that don't work in a I'll call them out. They don't work in their restaurants, they don't go in, they don't see the faces and the tired and how they've gotten beat up. But COVID was hard, the labor shortage was hard. The change in the customer appreciation for the people doing their job is night and day different. You know, it's not what it used to be, where you got a thank you. I mean, very how often does a customer say thank you and think about yourself or the people you're with when you get off a plane, thank you to the flight attendants that you know for the flight, you know, most people walk off grouchy and they don't say anything. That level of respect is not there anymore. And that that hurts them. I mean, it's not right or wrong, it's just it it's the world today.

Speaker: 24:51

And those are the people that are looking for other jobs all the time.

Rachael Nemeth: 24:56

Yeah. Um well, with that in mind, um I wanna wrap up our conversation. I can't believe it's already been almost a half hour. Um I want to look ahead a little bit uh and get your take, and then a quick lightning round so we can get to know Greg better as a human of some quick quick fire questions. But um would love to hear from you um whether it's visionary and it doesn't exist yet, or whether it does exist, but maybe it's out of reach. Um which um AI enhanced tech do you think is really gonna be a must-have for restaurants next year?

Speaker 2: 25:37

So tech-wise, I'm gonna go after again, I always speak to the people that I use, and I use them because I'm all in. So Opus is a must, ovation is a must, restaurant 365 are a must. Those are my three must-haves. Um, I can't do anything that I want to do without having those three in place. Toast could be a the second tier, that's my POS of choice. Um, and then as far as AI and stuff like that, I haven't really settled on what an AI model should be. I mean, I put in, I use Gronk or whatever on X the other day, and I asked them to give me a Pixar character of myself, you know, to just see how accurate is of all the pictures of me and everything else. And the thing I got was nowhere close to me. You know, it was like not even night and day. So it's not a hundred percent yet that I can say anything's perfect. Um we used- I use Chat GPT, it's always open in a window. I throw something in, I ask it a question. Um I sat next to a guy on a plane the other day, and he was typing in, give me the best travel itinerary for this, this, and this, and how I'm going research. And I'm looking going, you just can't put in Google and type your flight, but it then spit out the entire list of where we should go and all these restaurant recommendations and all that.

unknown: 26:55

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 26:56

I think the more we get comfortable with it, we don't know what we're gonna use it for yet. Um are there other ones? Yeah, there, I mean, there's other things that I like to have fun with that I'm playing with and the graphic ones and stuff like that. If you're the question I I see is asking which um if you're asking about the advertising program yet, I'm not ready to say that yet because I haven't proven it out yet. And so once I get it proved out that I actually see positive results, and I'll it will be everywhere that we post. But I don't want people to go and use it until I actually can tell you yes, it did what it said it was going to do.

Rachael Nemeth: 27:32

So um I want to get into our QA with the audience. Uh for folks who are listening, uh feel free to um post a question in the chat, or we'll have you go live in just a second. Before we do, we're gonna do our quick lightning run with Greg. So we can even go in the non-AI direction. Um, Greg, you have 10 seconds to answer each of these questions. Uh, there are five, and they are whatever's top of mind for you. Um, first question what was your first job ever?

Speaker 2: 28:09

First job ever was working for my dad at um Christina. Actually, I take that back. My first job was at Halloween uh haunted house. That was my first job. I jumped out and scared the crap out of people at a mall that was at my house. That was my first job. I forgot about that one.

Rachael Nemeth: 28:28

That sounds like what CEOs do every day, too.

Speaker: 28:30

So it was absolutely it was a blast.

Rachael Nemeth: 28:34

Um describe your leadership style in three words.

Speaker: 28:46

I don't know if I can. Um it would be trust verified you know, teaching would be the dream that I would pick.

Rachael Nemeth: 29:00

I'll take that answer. It's a great one. Um what's the last book you read or podcast you listened to?

Speaker: 29:08

Last book I read. I just finished. Podcast would have been Branded's Hospitality last week's.

Rachael Nemeth: 29:22

Yeah. That's a uh regular listen. Um what is the best career advice you ever received?

Speaker 2: 29:35

Um, you're gonna fail, and you're gonna fail hard, and that's okay. Um and that doesn't mean that you give up or that you may be at the wrong spot, may have been the wrong time, but pick yourself back up and learn from it. That was uh beaten into my head by two individuals, uh my dad and Jimmy. Um and it continues every day. Like I'm not afraid of failing because of it. It's if you're gonna go out on your own, you're gonna start something, or you're gonna take a gamble, you're gonna you're gonna fail at times.

Speaker: 30:06

It's it's okay. You know, and most people are too afraid to fail.

Rachael Nemeth: 30:14

Words I I think all of us need to continue to remind ourselves. Um last question, and then we'll toss it over to listeners. Uh, what's another CEO or restaurant brand that inspires you?

Speaker 2: 30:28

So uh Jeff Alexander at Wow Bao is probably the biggest one. Um the way that he has changed from a restaurant and pivoted his entire business to a CBG brand and built it when everyone else doubted that um took a lot of courage. Um and then going in and ghost kitchens and everything else when they weren't even an option, uh that's definitely would be the person that I've seen take the biggest gamble. And then also the way he goes back and he gives back to the industry continually. Um he's welcoming, he's inclusive, he always is trying to meet, get people to introduce each other and help them get to where they need to be, um, which is pretty remarkable in the world that we're in today that people are still like that.

Rachael Nemeth: 31:13

It's a great example. Um, and also a lesson in in just yeah, being bold and not being afraid to fail. Um without a doubt. All right. So we are uh at that special time where you can ask a question to uh Greg. We have one in the chat here already. Um Benzion, I hope I pronounced your name right. Uh Greg, what are your thoughts on individualized short or long-term development plans using AI rather than standardized AI-assisted or graduate generated training modules?

Speaker 2: 31:54

So I think they're acceptable as a basic point and a start. Um, but I think the individual creativity of what you're doing has to still come from that. You can put something in and get something as your your guide map, but it has to be tweaked for the individual brands or tasks. And no AI is going to know or understand exactly that unless you go and spend all the time educating them on the brand. So that can be built into what you're trying to do.

Speaker: 32:21

It will get there, but right now I think it's that would be hey, use it as a starting point, but not just take it and run.

Rachael Nemeth: 32:30

Yeah, I think the we're starting to do that at Opus where you can sort of train against the brand, because I agree you can only get a certain level of accuracy. Um any other questions? Oh, yeah.

Speaker 2: 32:45

It misses the heart of a brand. So AI, no matter how good it is, is going to lack the compassion component of what you're trying to teach people. And the restaurant industry is about compassion. You know, as much as people want to say it's black and white, it's this, but you're dealing with first-time employees and everything else, they need that compassion and that leadership style where they actually feel appreciated.

Speaker: 33:11

And AI, if it's all that way, you can't write that yet. It's not good enough to cover that.

Rachael Nemeth: 33:18

Agree. Um, it reminds me of uh, I was over hearing a manager the other day and she was saying she was coaching a greener manager on just the new hire experience. And basically telling that person, you can't expect a new hire to feel comfortable asking you questions. You need to create space for them to ask questions. This is a 16-year-old kid who's never worked here before. It's sort of the same concept where like you have to inject some sort of warmth and and hospitality even into the training experience to make sure that people feel like they belong.

Speaker: 33:54

And that goes for leadership teams too.

Speaker 2: 33:57

I mean, I had a meeting with my leadership team yesterday, and there was one or two people asking questions, and I laid out a bunch of things, our goals and all that, and they all were processing, but they were afraid to ask, you know, a question at that point. Now I'll get questions after the fact, but it takes time to for that trust to be built in, especially as you merge new companies and people aren't with you for a long time, they don't instantly come out of their shelf. So it nothing changes. I mean, no matter how high up you go or everything out that very few people go all out and while asking a question the first time you ask them to. You know, you gotta usually pull stuff out of people. And that's the harder that's that's why training and all that and having AI tools are great tools, but the personality and the personal connection through training allows you to be able to do those things.

Rachael Nemeth: 34:44

Well, and it sort of leads to the fact that the whole concept around why blended learning is so important. There's no digital platform that's ever going to fully replace a trainer. You need that human there to help inject the brand's voice. Um any other questions from the audience before we part ways with Greg?

Speaker: 35:07

We do have one more. I see.

Rachael Nemeth: 35:14

When you were looking at acquiring a brand, how are you evaluating its craveworthiness? Is that a term you use?

Speaker 2: 35:22

It actually is. So there's a story behind craveworthy in the first place. So the name Craveworthy came, Jimmy was in my little closet office in my first when I was an intern, and he wrote on a piece of paper and stuck it up, but my door, my food is crave cravable. And, you know, sort of said that was the focus, that's what we were, and all that. So that's where the name came from. It was a we wanted our food to have that cravability all the time. So I have used that now for the rest of my career in my life, that any brand that I look at or anything, I have to think the food is remarkable enough that I think about it after I eat it. So, and then I'm like, oh, I wish I had a little bit more. When can I get that again? Or something of that nature. There's a lot of food out there that you can eat and you walk away from and you don't think much of it. It just fills the need of you're eating. The brands that we bring in and the brands that we have to part of is afterwards you got to be like, wow, that was really, really special. Um, and sometimes you can go too high on food quality and that the consumer doesn't resonate with it, and I've made mistakes by doing so. Um, there's that balance of where you need to be. Um, and my trip to China, I went and I tried a bunch of ramen in Chinese noodle shops, and there was this one on there that, and there'll be more on this later, because I can assure you. Um, but there was this one brand that for the rest of the day, all I could taste was their broth. Everywhere I went, and everyone that I went back to, I went back to their broth. I still had that taste in my mouth. That's what I'm looking for. Something of that nature.

Rachael Nemeth: 37:00

Is there some sort of metaphor in there for that's how you hire leaders at Craveworthy as well?

Speaker 2: 37:09

I have a I have been pretty good at the people that I brought in and the people that have been growing with us. And I I truly think it's because you allow them to grow with you and you give them the rope that they need to do their jobs, and you trust them fully. And people either step up to achieve that growth and get there with you and step up to the challenge and work at the pace that I work and everything else. And then there's other people that just can't cut it, and you remove them because it's not the environment they want to be in. They're more used to that big corporate culture. And I nobody in a corporate culture is ever going to work with me because we don't work that way. We're hands-on, we get dirty, we're moving at a pace that is unheard of. So, but yeah, the leaders and the people on my team are absolutely amazing. And you guys work with Cassie all the time, and you see exactly how amazing she is at what she does.

Rachael Nemeth: 38:05

Yeah, it's true. Um, and and behind every great piece of software is a great person running it, and Cassie is incredible. So um yeah. And runs a lot of brands, runs a lot of training for a lot of brands.

Speaker 2: 38:22

Um which uh have you ever seen somebody do that before?

Rachael Nemeth: 38:26

Not to that extent, no.

Speaker 2: 38:28

No, it's she's absolutely a rock star. Um thank you for having me. And if you have not signed up for Opus, I swear to you all, it is the best out there. And that's not a plug because I'm on this or anything of that nature. They truly need this is the best training platform that's out there.

Speaker: 38:48

Um you know, you guys do amazing work, so keep it up.

Rachael Nemeth: 38:53

Thanks very much. I appreciate it. Appreciate you. All right, see you later.