“Back to Basics” with Rachael Nemeth
Back to Basics podcast cuts through the noise to focus on what matters in hospitality. Join Rachael Nemeth, CEO of Opus Training, as she talks with service industry leaders who are shaping today's workforce.
“Back to Basics” with Rachael Nemeth
EP16: How to Scale 19 Brands Without Breaking the P&L
"Brand building starts with your P&L, not your logo."
Josh Halpern has one of the most unconventional careers in the industry: P&G, Clorox, Anheuser-Busch, CEO of Big Chicken, and now Chief Business Officer of Craveworthy Brands—leading strategy across 19 concepts while still running Big Chicken. In this episode, he joins Rachael Nemeth (Opus CEO) to break down what brand building actually means across chicken, pizza, coffee, taverns, Mediterranean, and more.
Josh explains how Craveworthy acquires brands with strong IP but weak foundations, why unit economics must be fixed before scale, and how he uses real-time guest and employee feedback to remove friction. He shares their 6–18 month “fix before franchise” rule, why no sacred cows survive growth, and how quarterly goals (EOS) create the traction most restaurant companies lack.
He also unpacks the CPG lessons that translate to restaurants, why hyper-customization is a non-negotiable for Gen Z + Gen Alpha, and the leadership framework—love + accountability—that drives cultures where GMs speak up, teams actually execute, and stores move from average to exceptional.
Key Takeaways
→ Unit Economics First: Brand strength depends on prime cost, occupancy, and a working P&L.
→ No Sacred Cows: Anything dragging down results—recipes, vendors, or locations—gets reworked.
→ Fix Before You Franchise: Spend the first 6–18 months removing friction and stabilizing the model.
→ Mind the Bell Curve: Averages hide underperformers; weak stores define your real reputation.
→ Shopper vs. Consumer: Loyalty must target the decision-maker, not just the card swiping.
→ Hyper-Customization Wins: Gen Z expects full choice—chains must adapt.
→ Staff as Personal Brands: Under-40 workers sell better when their own identity is empowered.
→ Love + Accountability: High-performance teams thrive on care, clarity, and follow-through.
→ Train GMs Like Owners: Most need stronger financial and leadership skills.
Perfect For:
Operators deciding when to accelerate or tighten, franchisors preparing for scale, multi-brand leaders, and teams aiming to blend strong operations with disciplined growth.
About Josh Halpern:
Chief Business Officer at Craveworthy Brands and CEO of Big Chicken. Known for disciplined growth, turnarounds, and a leadership approach rooted in love, accountability, and traction.
Time Stamp Chapters
00:00 Intro
01:09 Role at Craveworthy & the “restaurant vs. business” split
04:28 Brand building, unit economics & real loyalty
07:30 Fixing foundations: menu, locations & “no sacred cows”
10:47 90-day goals, EOS & driving traction with Opus
14:16 CPG lessons: data, bell curves & store-level performance
16:49 Shopper vs. consumer & targeting the right guest
19:08 When to scale vs. slow down (franchising & failed bets)
21:35 What brands will win by 2030: customization, chicken & everyday staples
24:32 Leaders who shaped Josh: love + accountability
30:23 Who thrives at Craveworthy: legacy, GMs & truth-telling culture
35:30 The GM skills gap & staff as personal brands
42:55 CEO as left tackle, empowerment & what Josh is learning now
About Us
Opus is the hospitality training platform purpose-built for the frontline. Train 100% of your team in 101 languages on the job to quickly get them up the productivity curve. With full visibility across your workforce, you get the frontline business intelligence needed to drive your business.
Have an idea or experience you'd like to share? Keep the conversation going with us on LinkedIn!
Hello everyone, I'm Rachel Nemith, and today on Back to Basics, I'm sitting down with Josh Halburn, someone I've really admired for his willingness to make big brand bets, to say that 10 times fast, and really thought-provoking predictions in the industry, specifically around restaurant culture. Eight months ago, Josh went from CEO of Big Chicken, Shaq's fast casual concept, to chief business officer of Craverly brands. And now he's leading strategy not only across 19 different restaurant concepts, but he's also still running Big Chicken. So what I really appreciate about Josh is his openness about his journey. He's talked about the operational challenges that come with rapid growth. And now he's really applying that across an entire portfolio to chicken, pizza, coffee, taverns, you name it. I'll let him speak to it. But I think those challenges and how he solved them is exactly what operator scaling businesses need to hear from Josh. So Josh, really excited to have you here. Welcome back to basics.
SPEAKER_01:Excited to be here. Thank you for having me.
Rachael Nemeth:Yeah, of course. Um just give us a quick intro. Tell us about yourself, your role at Crayworthy.
SPEAKER_01:I was born on a Tuesday. I actually was.
Rachael Nemeth:Is that true?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I was. I was born on a Tuesday. You should fact check that. Your team should fact check that. Yeah, so I mean, Shaquille and I, we we got Big Chicken up to almost 50 units. And for us, Crayworthy, we had gotten to know Greg. And, you know, Greg would always pick my mind on growth-related things, and I would always pick his mind on operations-related things. And there became the opportunity for synergy to happen. And now, you know, it's how can we how can we do things the Craveworthy way, but but take on brands that have incredible brand equity, but something just sort of went wrong along the way. And we could come in and kind of provide that rocket fuel to make sure that these great, great brands are fulfilling all of their wildest potential. And uh, as much as I love Big Chicken and it's always number one in my heart, we've got a couple other brands in our portfolio, like Gregory's Coffee and Taffer's Tavern, that are like knocking on the back of Big Chicken, going, hey, we're we're about to pass you in his heart. And they may. We'll we'll see.
Rachael Nemeth:So I normally ask you more to describe about your role, but I I think we know what this is. It's big. You're doing a lot, and it's very strategically focused. So instead, it would actually be helpful if you could share one-to-do parts of the craveworthy business that you're focused on right now, whether it's it's businesses themselves or just strategically, where's your mind at?
SPEAKER_01:I mean, the the thing that people forget when we say the restaurant business is those two things can actually be very different things, right? There's what happens inside the restaurant, and then there's what happens inside the business, right? Um I handle what happens inside the business, right? So when we look at growth, when we look at contracts, when we look at expanding our business into other verticals, uh, into other countries, into uh other ways of working, um, that all falls on my plate, right? So it's it's how do we take the IP we have? We are first and foremost an intellectual property company. We buy brands with tremendous intellectual property. The number one way we deploy those brands is through restaurants in the United States, but it's not the only way we deploy that intellectual property. And you're gonna see a lot more of that out of us over the next couple of years.
Rachael Nemeth:I've heard some pieces of that, but I'm excited to see where that goes. Um so maybe, you know, I usually end with learnings, but I actually want to start with learning. So, you know, you're eight months into leading uh 19 brands: chicken, pizza, cookies, coffee, Mediterranean, Beattie's Mongolian Girl, Taverns. For those of you who don't know, Craperly is very diverse.
SPEAKER_01:You know my portfolio better than I do, I think, at this point.
unknown:Yeah.
Rachael Nemeth:I put those in order so that I so they set them more smoothly. There are ways to really mess it up. But um so what's the biggest thing that you've really learned about brand building in particular that, you know, because and we'll get more into your background, but what you've learned really about brand building that you're now applying across these different, you know, business types in the portfolio.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I I think it's two things, right? When people say brand building, they immediately think branding, but that's not true. Right, right. Right. Um in order to build brands, the most important thing that you can be thinking about is your unit level economics, right? Because you could do all the cool stuff in the world. It could be so badass. And and I've had companies both in the restaurant space and the consumer package package goods space before say to me, Yeah, we're growing and people love our brand, but we're running out of money because our unit level economics or our PL doesn't work, right? So the speed of brand building is first and foremost, do you have a PL that works? Is your prime cost right? Are you in the right real estate? Have you set yourself up for the greatest probability of success? Right. And until you've done that, it's like the Maslow's pyramid, right? Like that's like the baseline, that's survival. And for you to get all the way up to the top of that pyramid, which would be loyal rabid fans of your brand, people that want to go every day. Uh, when we bought Gregory's coffee, I said to Greg Zampotis, the founder uh, and Majuski was like, I know you like this brand, you gotta play it cool. And the first thing I said to Greg Zampotis was like, I am such a fanboy of your brand. Majuski's like, you know, but it all worked. It all worked out, right? But to get there, like to be a regular and have that loyalty, maniacal following, um, you need to actually drive real royal uh real loyalty. And one of the issues that we have in the restaurant industry, uh you you Google the word loyalty, and it's all about love and heart and belonging and belonging to a community. And then you put the word restaurant in front of loyalty, and it's all like free French fries when you download my app and it's like that's not loyalty. If I have to pay you to hang out with me, that is something very different than loyalty, right?
Rachael Nemeth:Right, right. That's a different thing.
SPEAKER_01:We really look at doing things like the way Gregory's coffee does them on the loyalty side, where it's hey, you're gonna have access to things that you may not have had if you weren't a regular. Within Big Chicken, you could save up enough points to go on carnival cruises. And you know, we're trying to figure out how to get Shaquille-related stuff integrated into the app. It's how do we build this sense of community where people want to be a part of these brands, not just one brand, one brand, one brand, but the whole craveworthy portfolio of brands uh for the long haul. And that takes a lot more time to achieve, but you can't achieve it if you don't have the right unit level economics, you'll run out of.
Rachael Nemeth:When you look at brands like Gregory's versus versus Big Chicken, actually, you mentioned really getting the PL straightened out. But but more specifically, like what are some of the foundational elements that really have to be in place before you can even think about scaling? Are you talking about go through all of this with a fine-tooth comb and be ready to slash where you need to? Is it, you know, have the difficult conversation around that location that's inefficient? Like, what are some of the things that you're always looking for when you're trying to identify what's needed before the bridge can scale?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, we're not a slash house, right? I mean, um, although we've had to close some locations, right? Because as we've bought a brand, we've had a look at it and say, if three locations are bringing down a 40-store chain, how do you get rid of the anchor? You know, the noose around your neck, right? Um we look at that. Uh, we'll look at menu and say, does the guest love all of our menu items? Yes or no, right? That we are in ovation every single day, multiple times a day, seeing what's the guest saying about us? Are they commenting on ticket time being too slow? Are they commenting on one or two specific menu items they don't like? How do we remove the friction to the experience with the guest? And that's really what we focus on. So when we come into IP, we're gonna spend the first six to 18 months, preferably six, but it can go longer, kind of carving out the issues, right? So we can get to really lean muscle that we can grow on. And then we can grow nicely, right? We cut double digit food cost out of the brand Tyme, and now we're starting to franchise it, right? We couldn't have done that the day we bought Tyeim. It wouldn't have worked.
Rachael Nemeth:We're gonnao long ago either, was it?
SPEAKER_01:That was Tyme uh 18 months ago or so.
Rachael Nemeth:Okay, yeah. Yeah. I mean, and that's not an easy feat to be identifying those issues. So are you saying it's really, you know, for the operators who are listening, is it really as simple as, you know, listening to the guest feedback? You're obviously looking at the numbers, but it sounds like what's really driving a lot of those decisions is just listening to the the customer.
SPEAKER_01:Guest feedback as well as employee feedback. I have this thing, I say it so much, I think my team wants to like brand me with it. Um, no sacred cows, right? There is no there if you're an operator today or if you own your own business today, are you willing to lose that business because you're like, but this sauce is gonna be our sauce no matter what? We are gonna buy tomatoes from this farm no matter what. I'm willing to lose my business over this farm stand. No, right? So the minute you say, uh, and and by the way, some some say yes, especially founders, right? Because it's sort of like you're messing with my Mona Lisa, and what gives you the right to mess with my Mona Lisa, right? But once you get past that notion, then it becomes a all right, then let's have a really solid conversation. Like, what are the five to ten things we can do this quarter to better our business? And then at the end of the quarter, did we do them or not? And if you identify five to ten things, you should do like 80% of those things or more because you know that those things are going to heavily impact your business. And hopefully, if you identified 10 and you only got eight done, it wasn't that you didn't try to do the other two. It was, I just need an extra month for the other two, you know, because of how fast we're moving or whatever. That notion of constant, set the set the quarterly objective, drive to-dos each week, rinse and repeat until you've taken all of your major issues off the board. And then it's now let's grow. Fast, fast, fast growth.
Rachael Nemeth:You're talking about quarterly goals. Why quarterly? Why not monthly? Why not annually? Why not biannually?
SPEAKER_01:Okay, so we became an EOS company at Big Chicken. And I thought I was like good at meetings and like good at leading teams before we became an EOS company, right? Uh, EOS is a management system. And then like I forced Greg to put EOS in all of Craig Worthy when Chicken came in. And now, like the minute brands come to us, we're like, you're now EOS, right? Um, the the number one saying in EOS is vision without traction is delusion. Right? So if we have these big monthly projects, you're not gonna get traction on that. The day-to-day is gonna take you away from that. If you're annual, or if you're like, hey, it's gonna take us five years to do this, you're not gonna drive traction on that either, right? Three months gives you the ability to drive traction. And then we want to have to-dos every week or every other week on each of those key projects we want to get done this quarter. Because if I know it's eight steps to finish a project over 90 days, I better have a to-do every one to two weeks for those 90 days, or it's not gonna happen, right? And that goes back to what I said earlier. If if we're driving 10 projects across the company for those 90 days and we achieve eight of them, and the other two are like, we just needed one to two more weeks, you're you're okay, right? You're doing you're doing well, right? You're honoring your commitments. Um, because things do happen. You take on a new client and it derails something, or you lose a client and it derails something, right? But uh, if we can be as a restaurant industry always driving traction in our agenda, we can all collectively win.
Rachael Nemeth:Um easier said than done, but but I agree with you, and I love what you're saying around a vision without traction is delusion, delusion.
SPEAKER_01:But when you think about it, isn't that the point of Opus? Like that's literally the point of the company you created, right? The point it's execution. It's if we can't drive traction inside our restaurants, right? Like if you're at a 10-minute ticket time and you want to get to a seven-minute ticket time and you just keep yelling at them, I want seven minutes. Like, you're not gonna do it, right? Uh, if you're at 10 minutes, it it needs to be, hey, for the next two weeks, can we get to 9 30? For the next two weeks, can we get to nine? Yeah, you gotta drive traction. And then with with Opus, and it's why Big Chicken embraced Opus, why Craig Worthy embraced Opus, Gregory's coffee embraced. I think we're at a point where we're only like buying companies that they're your customer, I think, at this point. But just kidding. But maybe not really. Yeah, yeah. But but what I loved the most about it was it was we could look at guest feedback in real time, we could understand the pain points, and then we could lay out the plans through training to drive traction. And if we can do that, life is really, really good for everybody. Our franchisees, our guests, everybody.
Rachael Nemeth:All of this is coming from about 20 years of brand building at PG, Clorox, Anheuser-Busch before you really became an operator in the restaurant space. So what principles from CPG translate surprisingly well in restaurants? And what do you think from C the CPG space that actually just kind of falls apart from a principle standpoint?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, you know, I I think CPG taught us, taught me a few things, right? One, it starts and ends with execution and it starts and ends with the data, right? And I think that's true in this vertical just as much as it was true there. I think where we all get hung up, and some of the CPG companies too, but when I went to Anheuser-Busch, um, we would look at like Walmart and like every other company I work for would be like, ah, we have a 30 market share, right? And at Anheuser Busch, because it was direct store delivery, it was like that 30 means nothing. What's the market share in this store? Because uh I was shell-shocked at 7 Eleven in Chicago, Anheuser-Busch, same portfolio, same city, ranged anywhere from a 12 market share to a 46 market share. And then it became like, what if we could get the 12 closer to the median while keeping the 46? Like, wouldn't that be great? Yeah. So when I hear things like, well, you know, our system is great because we're at a uh ticket time of X, or, you know, we have 4.6 stars. And okay, well, what about this store over here that's at a 4.1? Or what about this store over here that's at a 14? It's great that the system at a macro level is okay. How do we fix the bell curve? And that that was one of the key lessons of CPG that that I sort of learned, right? Like there is a bell curve in every business, and you have to get the left side of that bell curve to center. You have to shift the curve, right? In order to truly be successful and truly win.
Rachael Nemeth:So is it really about we're only as great as our weak weakest link? Is that what you're saying?
SPEAKER_01:Big time, right? Like because if I go into a restaurant, if you're a 100-unit chain and I go into your restaurant and it sucks, is someone gonna say to me, well, if you went to these other 12 locations, it would have been great.
unknown:Right?
SPEAKER_01:No, you know, so it there's a lot of that. You know, we get blinded by this macro sense, and and it's not really the macro sense that that matters, right? I think the one other thing that CPG taught me, and it's why like people all the time are like, man, your views are different, right? Um we had full understanding at Racket Ben Keyser and Clorox and Anheuser Busch and Procter and Gamble that there's a fundamental difference between a consumer and a shopper. The consumer is who you are when the sandwich is in your hand. You're a shopper when the credit card is hitting the terminal. And most loyalty is against the shopper. Right? It is not against the consumer. And for me, I have teenage boys. I can promise you, I have gotten to select zero QSR fast casual restaurants for my family in the last five years. Zero. Right? My credit card runs through every single transaction, but I have selected zero. Right. Because the core consumer that the chains want to be targeting are my kids, but we're targeting me.
SPEAKER_02:Right, right.
SPEAKER_01:In fact, I shared it uh uh recently, you know, or a few times. There's four fast casual burger chains in our town, and the one that we all go to is not for any other reason than the fact the most popular kid in my oldest guy's grade is like this is the one I go to. So now like everyone goes to this one. What's crazy about, I think I ate there like 18 times in a year, right? Which would make me very loyal, right? And the thing that was so fascinating was I kept getting certain loyalty messages like, hey, we notice you don't come in Monday to Friday between 10 and 3. If you come in, we'll give you a free milkshake. And I'm like, you don't understand me at all, right? At all, right? Um I'm just the shopper. I'm literally just the bag holder and the credit card man. Where at uh in CPG companies, like there's firm, firm, firm understanding of like this is who you are when you're buying a 30-pack above light, or this is who you are when you're buying the 10 bags of Tostitos chips versus this is the consumer eating them.
Rachael Nemeth:Huh. Very interesting. When you're evaluating which brands in in the Crayworthy portfolio to really swing big on then versus ones that really do need to go back to basics, you know, and kind of build that foundation. What signals tell you? Because you've you've brought up things around execution and loyalty and all of this, but like what are really the the two to three signals that tell you it's time to accelerate versus it's time to tighten? In other words, you know, walk me through a recent decision where you had to tell the team, not yet, let's fix it first.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, the there's two financial ratios that matter in this business, right? What are your prime and your occupant costs relative to sales? And then what's your cost to build relative to sales? And if you have both of those green, you know you're in better shape, right? But and then the second component of it is is your menu truly ready to scale fast? Right? Have you figured out all of the food? Have you figured out all of the systems, right? Like can you really scale fast or not? Right. So we have a brand in our system right now, uh Seagre, tremendous Indian brand. We're still working to get the menu systematized and getting our spice blends done and our sauces done and these things. So we said, look, we're gonna start franchising the brand, but we're gonna franchise it really slow. And we're really only willing to entertain franchising between New York and Philadelphia right now, until we get some of these items like set and custom done and all of these things, right? We'll turn on Chicago too because Craveworthy's there. Like we're gonna need heavy touch with our franchisees for the next six to twelve months, right? And then once we have these food items kind of done and we can go, we're gonna go, right? Other brands, it's easier to go fast, you know. At the end of the day, we need to be in a in a situation where the pro forma makes sense for us to begin franchising, otherwise we can't, right? And uh that's why so much work up front gets done. You know, people are like, you guys bought this brand six months ago, and there have been no new stores announced and no franchisees announced. And it's like, that's right. That's right. By the way, the bigger problem would be if we did. Not if we did it, right?
Rachael Nemeth:You bought them for a reason to to help these brands scale into something really incredible.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and not every bet we make will work, right? We bought a brand Hot Chicken Takeover. It cost one dollar to buy. It was seven units. All seven units were racked in debt when we took over. We did our best to repair. We couldn't. Um, we made the hard decision to close the stores, but out of it, we were able to get new vendor relationships that now benefit four of our other brands. We were able to take a couple recipes into other brands. We were able to learn a ton and and do a ton that benefits the entire Craveworthy portfolio. So no harm, no foul.
Rachael Nemeth:So speaking of, you know, the brands that that don't make it in the brands that do, five years out, you know, we're looking at 2030. What do you think will separate the brands that scale from the brands that stall in in today's environment?
SPEAKER_01:It's hard to predict, right? I think if you focus on macro trends, you're gonna be in a better environment, right? Gen Z and Gen Alpha want hyper customization. They the days of like, well, this is the way it comes, it's over, right? I'm sorry. Like I know like every vice president of operations in the industry just like threw something in his brain as I said that, right? But the but it's true, right? They want hyper customization. My oldest son is like addicted to Chipotle, and it's because he can choose the exact thing he wants at that moment in time. When him and his friends talk about all the customizations they do to their stuff. So that's why for us, you know, a brand like Taeem is a big bet, right? Because it's hyper-customization in a food that's a little trendier right now, a little healthier, that Mediterranean food. Uh now I say that out one corner of my mouth, but out the other corner of my mouth, my very first food service conference was in 2009, and the number one item was Panda Express's orange chicken. And then when I took over the on-premise business for Anheuser Busch in 2013, it was Buffalo Wild Wings, Chicken Wings. And then I came to Big Chicken, and it was, why would you come here? It's the midway through the chicken sandwich wars, and it's like it's always been chicken, right? Like chicken is never going to go away. Chicken will always be the number one protein. It's gonna be a long time before chicken ends, right? So, you know, hyper-customization is one thing, another thing is chicken, and then another thing are just the day-to-day staples that people love. I mean, pizza is never gonna go out of style, coffee is never gonna go out of style. So it's if you bet on chains that are heavily customized, um, the classics or or chicken, we think we're in a good position to win, uh, just being mindful of commodity costs and and all those pressures that could get in the way of growth payment as fast as we like.
Rachael Nemeth:Well, and I can really appreciate that. It still takes time to to go back to basics on even the kind of most um fundamental foods that Americans, people in the world love. Just shifting gears a little bit. I want to talk a little bit more about Backafaus or or people. Obviously, like that's the the biggest line on a PL, arguably. Um maybe not always, but you've had this incredible arc from P and G to Clorox to A B, you know, to restaurants now. Um laying the foundation for kind of the next part of this conversation, who were the leaders who actually developed you, Josh? And what do they do differently that really helped you shape how you develop people now?
SPEAKER_01:I'm so damn lucky, right? Um in this forced gump-like career that I've had, you know, for a while, like the number one CEO on Glassdoor was a guy named Ben O'Dorr, who is the CEO of Clorox. His first VPGM job, I was on his staff. Right. Um, ten years later, uh I or seven years later, I'm at Anheuser Busch and Carlos Brito is named the number one CEO by Forbes magazine, and I was a two-down report of Britos. Right. I've gotten to work for some of the best, some of the best. And it's heavily shaped who I am as a person, and it's heavily shaped my ethos, right? And how I lead. And then working with Shaquille, who would be the third leader of this triumvirate, he helped frame it for me. This thing that I've been feeling coming from Venno and coming from uh Freedo and coming from the other CEOs I worked for too. And it's for this to work, business to work. You need to love everyone around you. Like you need to be their biggest cheerleader, you need them to know how much you care, you need to be vulnerable, you need to be approachable, you need to be in the restaurants and conference, you need to be at the bar till 2 a.m. Even if you're not drinking, just being with your general managers and getting to know them, you need to love your people. Uh, but in a business setting, you can only truly love, and they can only truly love if you're accountable to each other. People will run through a wall for anyone if you look at that person and say, I think that person loves me, and I know that person is accountable to me. And as a result, I want to be accountable for them. Uh, and when that happens, those are the most beautiful business moments. Um, I was known, I'm not the guy you bring in to get like industry plus a point, right? Like I was the guy brought in for massive business turnarounds when the team thought there was no chance in hell we would ever win, or to get massive explosive growth the way we did with Big Chicken. This notion of love and accountability working together are how you get people there, how you get people to believe that even though we failed for the last decade prior to this moment, now it's gonna work. Or, hey, we're a two-unit chicken chain, let's go take over the world, right? It's love and accountability. And that accountability shows itself going back to what we talked about earlier. You said this week you were gonna do this towards your 90-day goal. Did you do it? Yes or no? Period, right? And it works both ways, right? Someone in the someone below you needs to call you out, and you need to call the person below you out. You said you were gonna do this. Did you do it? Yes or no?
Rachael Nemeth:We um at Opus, we have uh a document that every new employee has to fill out. It's called a working with me document. It's 16 questions. You know, there's no, you know, crazy out of this world anything. It's just we want to get to know how you work every day. How do you make decisions? Um, what do you like to do in the morning at work and what do you like to do in the afternoon? Do you like to work on Sundays? Not because we're asking you to, but because that's a quiet day for you. Just so we understand your rhythm and flow going into it. And the one question we ask is how do you prefer to receive feedback? It's the only question where everyone answers the same exact way. Give it to me right away and directly.
SPEAKER_02:That's right.
Rachael Nemeth:And and um I like what you're saying around being a culture that balances love and accountability because everyone at the end of the day wants the same two things. They want love and accountability. It's just about being a CEO who's comfortable delivering on that. And I admittedly, I'm someone who's still working on that as a CEO, you know?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I think it depends on on how you get at it. I don't get mad at people, I don't yell at people, right? Um we talk a lot about each person playing their role on the team. So that if you didn't do your role, you know that you've let down the team, right? Or uh I might say to someone, and I have in the past, uh, I've seen you at your highest and best, and I know that in this moment, this isn't it. Right? Um, which is different than uh like you suck sort of a comment, right? Um, it's really important that people feel like you actually know them, and it's not like a fake thing. It's you literally actually need to know the people around you. Uh, in our meetings each week, our department calls, our executive team call, we start the meeting with like a five-minute kind of segue where someone will throw out like a dumb question, like, what's your spirit animal? What's your favorite movie? What's your go-to breakfast food or your go-to 3 a.m. food? And we go around and we share and we laugh about it for two minutes because in those five minutes of business that where we didn't talk the PL, we humanize the whole thing and built unity around each other. And that's five of the most important minutes of the week. But they it's an intangible on the PL.
Rachael Nemeth:Sure. Well, and and when you're When you're building teams across all these different brands or these concepts, what's the one thing that you're looking for that indicates that someone's gonna actually thrive in this, you know, high growth, accountable environment versus somebody who's just gonna kind of flame out? Is there something that you vet early on, or does it come with time that you're kind of sussing out? You know?
SPEAKER_01:You're never gonna bat a thousand, right? And I hate when people are like, oh, you think you're a good people leader? Like this one hire that you have. It's like many.
Rachael Nemeth:Here's the one interview question.
SPEAKER_01:Stop stop with that, right? Um, for me, I'm really looking at the person's overall ethos. Are they doing this because they want a job or are they doing this because they want to leave a legacy? Right? At the end of the day, our careers are really just the people that that we meet along the way. You can take away every brand, every result, every everything, leave you with the people you've collected along the way, and you'll do something crazier, bigger, bolder next, right? So I like people that want to be accountable to the team, understand that they to hold others accountable, they need to be accountable. They want to leave the jersey in a better place, they want to leave a legacy. Uh, for my partner, Greg, his view in life is are you paying attention to the details? Are you gonna let all this stuff slip through the cracks? Because saying stuff versus doing stuff is very different. And I think you put those two constructs together and you sort of get to it, which is you know, are you accountable for the day-to-day, accountable for the bigger picture, accountable for your team? And do you see this as more a part of your legacy versus just a paycheck?
Rachael Nemeth:Being at the CraveCon, the Craveworthy Brands. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Thank you for coming to that, by the way.
Rachael Nemeth:Yeah, I mean, it was fantastic. And I've never I I go to a lot of customer conferences, and this was one where the um, you know, the accolades were flowing, but also there was such an emphasis on execution, not because the C suite was on stage saying execution matters, but because it did seem like there were there was this culture, and correct me if I'm wrong, but um it was a culture more of work-life integration rather than work-life balance. And not at the to the expense at the expense of their families, you know. Um but it was really magical to see how people are kind of incorporating Craybrothy into their lives and it's kind of how their heart beats. And I could see that when you're talking about execution, and I don't hear the kind of quiet sigh from people who are like, yeah, yeah, yeah. The C-suite's talking about execution. People actually understood that that meant growth.
SPEAKER_01:Our culture is actually the uh the opposite. It's um our culture is the culture where like GMs were calling us out, saying, Why aren't you focused on this? Don't you realize you could get food costs down or ticket times down if we did this? And you're like, this is great.
Rachael Nemeth:Yeah, right. You're welcoming that.
SPEAKER_01:Right. Um, you know, Greg, when he's in market, goes and tries to spend at least half a day with GMs all the time, right? Because he really loves and thrives inside the restaurant, right? And he knows that that's how we're gonna operationally get better, is if he actually has a true pulse on what's going on. You know, most of the time the CEO comes in and you kind of like see the person in the front and they're like, right? But here it's like, hey, Greg, I need to show you something. Hey, Greg, come to the back. Hey, Greg, this process isn't the best it could be. What if we did this and this? And, you know, much to the chagrin of some of the leadership team, right? Like, Greg will make a call on the fly, like on the line, and be like, hey, we're doing it this way. But I mean, that that comes only when you build a very special culture, right? A culture where execution and that accountability matter, and you know that the CEO wants to know the truth and not just to have the conversation. And that, you know, I gave that example, but I mean, there's plenty where Greg's like, no, let me explain to you why this is the exact way it is. And I hear you, but we're not going to change. But there's plenty where he'll change based on what he hears on the on the fly. Who knows the business better than a general manager?
Rachael Nemeth:Well, and it's interesting that you're saying that, you know, many of the businesses that you operate are franchised too, but it but I agree that the GM really is the silver bullet. They're the one who they're picking up the 5 a.m. phone calls from the delivery driver. They're going there in the middle of the night to unlock the door, they're the ones who really do see everything and are aching to get their voices heard.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and and in the franchise environment, it's what makes it tricky because often the franchisee is not the manager of their store.
Rachael Nemeth:Right.
SPEAKER_01:And you would be amazed to know how many times we were getting different intel from the owner of a franchise unit versus the GM of a franchise unit, right? And then that becomes a delicate tightrope to walk because you can't piss off your franchise owners. But at the same point in time, if I had to bet the farm between what the GM told me or what the owner told me over what happened in the store yesterday, you know.
Rachael Nemeth:Speaking of this culture of accountability, but also just development in general, what's the skill that you want the GMs to be building in the stores right now? What do you feel like is the biggest opportunity for across crayworthy brands? Or is it brand by brand?
SPEAKER_01:I think it's not just across crayworthy brands, it's across all of the restaurant industry. We're asking GMs to basically act like they're the owner of a mom and pop company when you think about it. They are the king or queen of that store, but they don't have the financial uh literacy or accounting literacy that you know a store owner would need to quickly develop if they wanted to keep their store. You know, they need better training, I think, on understanding how to grow, motivate, develop teams, how to get shift leads into their role so that they can move on to be unit directors and those sorts of things. So I think we spend so much time as an industry on the operations of the store. You know, like back when I was in CPG, they used to take every kind of GM equivalent, if you will, off-site and for a week and give you the skills to become a director, right? And then directors off site to give you the skills to become a VP. And there were like those uh individual development plans to help make sure you knew exactly what you needed to do to get to the next level, and then you had mentorship to get to the next level and all those things. Uh, I think we're still in our infancy 34 months ago, Craig, where they didn't exist. You know, now we're over we're about now we're 300-ish stores, and you know, so uh we these are things that'll be built over time, but there are chains way bigger than us that don't have them. I think though that that's one of the key changes for the industry. I think you mentioned staff earlier, but we didn't touch on it. We have to change our view of staff in the industry. Uh when I was at Anheuser-Busch, we recognized that all of these store owners and all of these bar owners and all of these chain operators had the same five pain points. And one of the five pain points was having engaged staff. And then we dug into it and we spent a lot of money on insights, and we learned that in the restaurant industry under the age of 40, uh, 97% of staff did not actually think they worked for the borrow restaurant they worked for. They were mercenaries for hire and they wanted to grow their own personal brand. 81% said they wouldn't be working there in a year. 81% were still in the restaurant industry in a year. But as a result, we started to really get into that whole dynamic, and we learned like 18% of restaurant sales are triggered by direct staff participation and recommendation. Staff asking you, would you like fries with that? Would you like to upgrade to a shake? This is my favorite item on the menu. This is the item I stay away from on the menu, which by the way is a great selling tool because if you tell someone what you don't want on the menu, what do you like? Because that's what I want to order, right? You save me from a disaster, right? Telling me not to yet deliver an onions. Not that I probably was gonna anyway, right? Um, but you know, as a result, then you start to harness in the notion of staff and you say, look, if our number one KPI is getting your tips higher, if our number one KPI is getting your bone, whatever that looks like, let me teach you the hacks that are on your personal brand, but also help my brand since you do technically work here, even though you don't see it that way, we can build the PL in a much better, more vibrant way. And that works a little better in a casual dining environment than a QSR Fast Casual. Luckily, we have Tavers Tavern and a couple others. But even in a fast casual environment, what prevents us from saying, hey, there's a$50 gift card for whatever front-of-line uh employee upsell the most milkshakes over the course of a month and you make it fun and vibrant and engaging. It's just not a lot of people do it.
Rachael Nemeth:So are you saying that some of this this piece about building the desire for frontline staff to be developing their personal brand? Um, I would imagine that also translates, it's just kind of generational. So that also translates to the GM who may be under 40 as well. So how how do you actually achieve that? You know, you guys have a really rich training environment. Does it just mean that you leave 20% up to the trainee to kind of decide how they're gonna execute on things? Or is there even a playbook for you know developing your personal brand?
SPEAKER_01:Yes and no. And by the way, I could like geek out on this for like, yeah, I can write a book on this. I talk about it so much, right? It it becomes a how do I help you understand your personal brand better? How do I provide for you hacks, right, in our menu that make it more vibrant for you when you're talking to the guest when they're in front of you, whether you're in a sit-down environment, counter environment, whatever, right? And how do I create those hacks in a way where I'm doing better as a result of it, but so are you? Your tips are going up, but also like the brand affinity you have with your personal brand goes up because you're like, man, I'm really on brand right now. Right? So, like my favorite one, you know, we have beer park in Las Vegas. The the parent, that's not craveworthy, it's it's big chickens ownership. And uh, that's how I got to know those guys. That's how I got to know Shaquille was through Beer Park by Budweiser. And for a long time we had it where you would walk in on a Saturday or Sunday, and the hostess, as she was seating you, would say, as you can see, we're really busy. I'll try to get a server to you as quick as possible. But would you like for me to put in a bucket of butt light while you wait? And like 80% of people would be like, Dang, you guys are really busy. Sure, put in a bucket of butt light, that's great. We're at a$60 ticket, and you have their butts haven't even hit the seat yet. Meanwhile, the hostess feels incredibly validated because she just made the sale and she knows she just made these people's day, and so often they would say goodbye to her as they walk out and everything else, right? And that currency is so damn important. The currency of recommendation with staff is so damn important. If Greg's in the restaurant and a staff member says, Can I talk to you about something I think could be better? And Greg agrees, man, we're gonna we're gonna be in a joint brand collaboration with that person's individual brand for quite some time, right? Because the intrinsic value is so much there, right? Uh, and that can't be understated.
Rachael Nemeth:It sounds like what you're talking about when it comes to personal brand, and I'm not saying this to be cute because it's not easy, but it's really about empowerment.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Empowerment. But and part of empowerment is making sure the person across from you knows how powerful they actually are. And that ultimately becomes our job as leaders. It's not to do, it's to unlock. You know, I tell people all the time when they ask, like, what advice would you give to someone who would like to be a CEO someday? I do a lot of like college, you know, like guest whatever, right? You know, what what what recommendation would you give? And it's like, all right, to use a football analogy, the CEO is never the quarterback. Ever. Right? The CEO is the left tackle. Their job is to block and make sure that the quarterback, who's normally the department head or general manager or whatever, doesn't take the big hit, that they have the opportunity to thrive. And if we're treating ourselves like that uh as a company where the leadership is making sure that our stores can thrive, great things can happen.
Rachael Nemeth:Perfect way to wrap things up. Um, everyone's favorite part of this series is the lightning round, where uh I'm gonna ask you five questions and you you have to answer as quickly as you can.
SPEAKER_01:Um man. Okay.
Rachael Nemeth:I did used to challenge people to answer it in less than two words. I won't do that here. Um but uh first question is what was your first job?
SPEAKER_01:I worked my uh father's docks and his warehouse at 14 years old.
SPEAKER_02:Uh what restaurant trend are you completely over?
Rachael Nemeth:As that came out of my mouth, I was like, I don't know, this is someone who who owns 19 different brands.
SPEAKER_01:I think the crazy discounted value mill.
Rachael Nemeth:You have a a four wins a day philosophy. Uh guest franchisee suppliers company, which one gets forgotten most often?
SPEAKER_02:None of them. None of them.
Rachael Nemeth:So it's it's all in equal measure.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I mean, day to day there may be a flow, right? But at the end of the day, if we're not winning, if our franchisees aren't winning, if our suppliers aren't winning and our guest isn't winning, we're broken. And we need to fix that break before we continue to expand, right? You know, right now I know so many CEOs are like, hey, uh suppliers taking price increases, a BS, da da da. I mean, they're taking an insane tariff hit, they're taking insane logistics head, they're taking insane stuff, right? Along the same line, I can't take the full price increase and look my guests in the eye. And I can't I can't tell our franchisees eat the cost and uh don't take price because I can't look them in the eye, right? So it's how do we not emotionally have these conversations and do the thing that makes the most amount of sense for everybody?
Rachael Nemeth:Josh, three more questions.
SPEAKER_01:That one didn't count. That was a pause on the lightning round? Okay.
Rachael Nemeth:Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh next one is best piece of advice you ever got.
SPEAKER_01:Uh-huh. Best piece of advice I ever got. I was once told by a boss I had things down to two decisions, and I couldn't make um the call between like A or B because there were very different reasons. I I went from like 40 options to two. And he looked me dead in the face as I laid it all out for him and he said, if I have to do for you, I don't need you. And I know what you're thinking, but a jerk, right? No. He was the best, right? Because ultimately what that lesson taught me was hey, you're in the chair you're in because we trust your judgment. You've thought about this the right way. There's no right or wrong. Go with your gut, go with what you you've analyzed all the data, right? Like make the call. Made the call, got big wins off the call, and then found out from my boss later on, he would have gone the other direction. Right? But he knew that like for me to truly own it, for your team to truly own it, you need to make sure like they don't like fall off like the earth, right? But as long as they've thought it through, they need to make sure you have to do for them, you don't need them. If he had to do for me, he wouldn't need me.
Rachael Nemeth:That's great advice. What podcast are you listening to, or what book did you read recently that you'd recommend?
SPEAKER_01:I talked about EOS earlier. I really recommend Traction and the Follow Up Rocket Fuel. But the best book I ever read in my life, and I've had been blessed that I've gotten to talk to the author a few times because I post it once a year or so on LinkedIn about this book. If you haven't read True North by Bill George, do it today. Because the whole point of the book is all of us have a clock in our minds of like, hey, I want to be at this title by the time I'm 40, and I want to opus to be X millions in revenue in four years, and that's following your clock. Your compass is creating the leadership model that that like steadies you and the people around you. Like it's the intrinsic side of this. And he profiles major, major CEOs like Howard Schultz of Starbucks and the woman who built uh Avon up from Avon calling to an actual brand on female empowerment and all of these things. It is tremendous. True North by Bill George.
Rachael Nemeth:All right. Well, on that theme, we'll end it with my favorite question, which is what skill are you learning and going back to basics on personally right now?
SPEAKER_01:I think I'm learning restaurant operations, truthfully. I mean, I am the business side of restaurants. I'm not the operation side of restaurants. But for me to get even better at the restaurant side or the business side of the better at the operation side of it.
Rachael Nemeth:Um Josh, thanks for joining. A pleasure as always. I love our conversations. This one just happens to be recorded.
SPEAKER_01:Um, but I, you know, I don't even want to think about that.
Rachael Nemeth:All right. Thank you so much for joining us, and uh, we'll see you next time.
SPEAKER_01:Thank you, Rachel.
