Episode #001 Why Knives and Wisdom: Tools, Not Talk

Tired of vague leadership advice that doesn’t work on a Saturday night? Same. That’s why we made this show.

In this debut episode of Knives & Wisdom, Jason Brooks and Simon Zatyrka get real about why most hospitality leadership content falls flat—and what actually helps. You’ll hear the backstories that shaped their no-BS approach to building stronger teams, smoother operations, and restaurant systems that run without you.

This episode introduces the core premise: practical tools for restaurant pros who are tired of theory and hungry for results. Jason and Simon share what they’ve seen from the back dock to the boardroom, and reveal the first tool of the week: a battle-tested delegation system designed to buy back your time.

If you’ve ever muttered “I’ll just do it myself,” this episode is for you.

👉 Grab the free tool, implement it at your next shift, and subscribe for more no-fluff guidance on hospitality leadership, restaurant systems, culture building, and team alignment.

Connect with Jason
Email: jbrooks@jasonebrooks.com
Website: https://aimdrivescale.com
Book a Call: https://calendly.com/jason-e-brooks/leadership-strategy-call

Connect with Simon
Email: simon@culinarymechanic.com
Website: https://www.culinarymechanic.com
Book a Call: https://calendly.com/culinarymechanic/discovery

Transcript

0:00

From the front of the house to the back of the house, from dreams to daily execution, this is Knives and Wisdom where we serve up practical tools for restaurant professionals who are tired of theory and hungry for results. I'm Simon, your back of house specialist. And I'm Jason, your leadership systems expert. Real operators with real solutions manage lead. Coach, repeat knives and wisdom. Time to get cooking.

Jason E. Brooks 0:39

Uh, man, first episode. Yeah.

Simon Zatyrka 0:46

Exciting, right? Like exciting. Uh, I still, honestly, I still remember the, the day when you sent me the, it was like a Friday afternoon and you're like, Hey, you wanna do a podcast? And I was like, fuck. Of course. Uh, so yeah, no, that's good stuff. Let's see. There we go.

Jason E. Brooks 1:04

You know what I, um, I think. It's, I think it's a great idea. Um, you, you know who we do this for, who, who we plan on doing this for. Um, you know, you don't need another podcast telling someone to just lead better or run a restaurant better. You know, I think that it is the actual tools to do it. Yeah. So, of course culinary mechanic. The absolute tool person that goes in, um, breaks it down, puts it back together, optimizes it, and uh, yes, some may call me the brains, but I think it's just'cause my head's big. I don't think it's because, I don't think it's because there is a lot of stuff in there. Um, but

Simon Zatyrka 2:02

I'm gonna disagree and say I, I think there's a lot of stuff in there. A lot of shit in there.

Jason E. Brooks 2:12

Oh man. But yeah, that's why I like, you know, emailed you on that Friday and said, Hey, you know, what do you think about this? What do you think about going in and creating something? We can never say what's never been done. You know, it's kind of hard to not do something that hasn't been done. Totally, totally. But I think it's easy to say it whenever it's Simon and Jason doing it. I mean, yeah,

Simon Zatyrka 2:40

absolutely.

Jason E. Brooks 2:41

Wow.

Simon Zatyrka 2:41

There's

Jason E. Brooks 2:41

no

Simon Zatyrka 2:41

doubt about that. You know, I, I was thinking about this. I think that what you said just a minute ago is. People, there are podcasts, there are whatever. There are creators out there, and they all say lead better. And every time I get down and dirty with a client, half, half the time I hear, so what is leadership really like? What, that's all great. I I can be a better leader. I wanna be a better leader. But what does that mean? And so I think for me, I spend time with that half of the, the, the group. And we talk about like what it, what it feels like, what the things are that we say that have impact to people, what people, what their people need to hear from them so that they can know what to do. And I think that that's where you and I really came together on this project and that we. We both understand it's about the day-to-day stuff that needs to be said, that needs to be done. Um, and I think that, you know, thinking about tools and thinking about ta, real live tactics, you know, like what are the habits that you want to incorporate into your daily life So that. You have sys certain systems in place, and I don't, I think it's really easy to say, oh, it's a system. It's a, it's a paper checklist. It's four pages long that will exhaust people at some point. But having the understanding of a tool is a, is a set of instructions. And sometimes that's just simply talk to your people, talk to your servers every day about. What they're selling. How they're selling. That is a system, that is a tool, that is a process that's awesome. Right? The nitty gritty, I think is where we can, for lack of a better technical term, we can really make a difference because so many people are talking at the about this stuff at the 10,000, 20,000, 30,000 foot level, neglecting the fact that it's really. Truly about the day to day, minute to minute stuff that you do.

Jason E. Brooks 5:04

And it's all about the intentionality, you know? Yes. Uh, how are you being intentional at leading? How are you being intentional at creating the space where leadership can grow? And I'm not trying to beat that word down about intention, but we have. Intention for a lot of stuff within our business. Let's say, I always love to use this example, washing dishes. Washing the dish. We create a intentional space to wash a dish. We, we will what? Scrape the pan. We will then wash the pan. No. Wait for first. First. Scrape the pan. Pre rinse the pan. Rinse the pan. Yeah. Wash the pan. And then rinse it and then sanitize it and then air dry it all for washing dishes. Whenever I ask someone, how many intentional leadership processes do you have leadership processes that you use daily or weekly within your restaurant, how many do you have and what are they? Nine times outta 10, it's crickets. And they're like, I don't.

Simon Zatyrka 6:21

Mm-hmm.

Jason E. Brooks 6:22

I don't, I don't have anything off the top of my head. We train people, um, and I'm like, yes, but training is a catchall terminology, but what kind of intentional leadership processes do you have within your restaurant? And it's crazy how long it takes for someone to try to think of one. But we can have one for food cost inventory. Mm-hmm. We have one for pouring drinks. We have one for seating tables in a proper rotation. We have one for expo. We have so many processes and systems and tools, but when we bring in the world word leadership. It's crickets. Yeah. That's what this is for. Totally.

Simon Zatyrka 7:13

Yeah. I mean, it, it's funny as you as you're saying, saying those things, I'm like. There are moments when I want to take the, take some of those words and just throw'em out and go, what do you do in a day to make a nice restaurant happen and a good restaurant happen? Mm-hmm. What are those things? Mm-hmm. Because so many of those things, people neglect to understand the importance of consistent action. Right. So you talk about intentionality, I talk about consistency, and when they're put together, it's like, oh, I actually have. Have a lot of things that I do that are intentional leadership processes, but people don't always know that, and I think. I really think that that's something that you and I together can offer people, right? It's, Hey, these are the things that you're, if you're doing these things, you're doing the right stuff. Maybe you're not doing them enough. Maybe you're not doing them at the right times, and sometimes just, sometimes maybe your delivery sucks.

Jason E. Brooks 8:19

What do you by sometimes? We know how to give great feedback. Like, dude, your sauce sucks. But you know, sometimes how we deliver that can actually change future behavior or continue that same behavior, and that's where it's, you know, that delivery. Um, but yes, consistency and intentionality equals magic. Yeah. And this is where the magic happens. So if you are burned out, if you're short staffed, if you're still the one closing every single shift, this is your show. This, this is your show, knives and wisdom. So let's, let's, let's get to some backstory. Let's get to some backstory. Um. You go first. Tell us about your back story, some of your pain points. Um, what, what's, what's the story behind Simon?

Simon Zatyrka 9:25

Oh man. I started cooking in 1989, the first George Bush was in office. Um, and I mean, people are, they're pulling out their, pulling off their socks to count how many that is.'cause it's, it's a big number, but that's okay. Um, I spent the first 10 years of my career as a line cook and I, I just, I worked in some. Garbage joints. I worked in some great, great establishments. I got my first sous chef job somewhere around 2000, 2001, and I had no idea what I was doing. I was literally just a salaried line cook at that point. And fast forward a couple years, I got my first like. Real sous chef job. And I was like, huh, these people don't like me. Like I, I have to pay attention to what I say so that they're gonna help me do my job. And that's where I started to understand about what happens with people. And then a couple more years of doing that, I, I got my first chef job and. Now it was like, okay, I definitely can't do everything myself. I need help. I need to learn how to do some of those intentional leadership processes we just discussed. I needed to learn how to delegate. I needed to learn how to really put it all together so that I could help. I could then in turn help people do what they're doing just a little bit better. Um, and then at the last, probably the last 10 years I spent working for a company where I oversaw multiple kitchens, and then I got to use all of that information, all that knowledge and wisdom around how food. Gets prepared how people, um, need to approach their day, how, how we can work together as a team, how those little habits really start to come together. Um, and I think that for me, it, it's, um. The real day-to-day aspects of leadership and, and those actions that we don't always know are leadership. That's the important stuff to me. Um, very, very boots on the ground. Um, day-to-day tactics are, are for me, are the, are the way to build, um, better and better leadership. Um, how to grow your influence, um, how to teach people the way you want. To be taught the way you want your people to be taught. Um, and that's me, man. Like, uh, boots on the ground, back of house processes, back of house systems, tools, um, and, and ways to make it feel real and, and grow into the, to be the next leader. Wow. What about you? Tell me about you man.

Jason E. Brooks 12:17

Well, um, you know, we have likely origin stories within this field. Um, started out early, slinging dishes, age of 15. Uh, but the thing is though, uh, uh, a lot of my story tends back to go to when I was a we lad. Uh, even in elementary school, yes, we're going back that far. Um, most people, again, don't know this, but the reason why I do what I do now stems from that. Even if you think about any superpower, any superpower, any superhero has something happened in their past that caused them to become who they are, even with you. Okay, now for me. My superpower. Um, some would say that it's speaking, which is crazy. It's bananas. And the reason why that that is, is because as a little kid, I used to stutter and I'm, and I'm talking about bad. I couldn't finish a sentence. I couldn't finish a, my parents put me in breathing classes in elementary school to teach me how to breathe so I can finish a sentence. So I got called all the names I. All the names. So when I first went to get a job, what did I go do? Wash dishes. Why? Because I could put my head down, face the corner, knock out some dishes, and not have to say a damn word. Now, of course, I didn't know about the restaurant business. What? What I didn't know is the more you get better at what you do, they actually ask you to start training people. The more you get better at what you do, you actually then start to shift roles. Then I had to call back orders. Then I had to change into different roles. Then I had to teach people as well. Then I was leading shifts. Now, at this point, it was still there. You could absolutely still hear it very clear, but I wanted to find out, how can I say the least amount of words and make it the most impactful. That's how I shifted my strategy mentally. So I actually signed up for, um, Toastmasters. Toastmasters taught me how to frame something atop'cause Think about a alley rally. Think about a pre-shift. You have to gather a group of people and in about two to three minutes, five to seven, if you have the time. And try to get them focused in the right direction with the least amount of words in the most impactful way in order to get results. Okay. So I started to think about how can I do that? So I went to Toastmasters, and now through all of this, I went from dishwasher to, uh, pantry prep, uh, sous chef, uh, gm, bar manager, service manager, director of operations, franchise business consultant, franchise operations coach, VP of operations through it all. And I learned how to. Um, take the words, make it impactful in a short amount of way. Not like what I'm doing now,'cause I'm dragging this out right now. But that's how I shifted into doing what I do for single store owners, large corporations on big stages doing workshops because I'm always constantly thinking of how can I say it as impactful as possible to make them feel it right now and make change. For the next moment, change, future behavior.

16:05

Okay. Quick break. If you're getting something out of this, make sure you're following knives and wisdom wherever you listen. That's how you catch every episode, no algorithm required. In the show notes, you'll find our go-to tool of the week and direct links to connect with both Jason and me. Dive deeper, ask questions. We got you.

Jason E. Brooks 16:27

That's my origin story.

Simon Zatyrka 16:29

Ah, like, just take a second and soak that sucker in.

Jason E. Brooks 16:36

I like it. Thank you, sir. Thank you, sir. Thank you, sir. Thank you, sir. All right. So knives and wisdom. I don't, did we even say what the podcast name was? Is this the first time that it's being said? Like, I think

Simon Zatyrka 16:50

so, man.

Jason E. Brooks 16:50

I think so. 10 minutes into the movie they finally say like, oh, they said the movie name, uh, knives and Wisdom. That's the, that that is a name Yes, sir. Of this podcast. So why did we choose Knives and Wisdom?

Simon Zatyrka 17:04

It was pretty on the page, man. What else? Yeah, it is. No, I think I'll, I'll say from, from my part, it, it spoke to. I don't know, some grittiness in the world, you know? Mm-hmm. Knives and wisdom, like wisdom for me is hard fought, right? You can, you can know a lot of stuff, but that's not wisdom. You, you gotta feel it. You got, you gotta have done, done stuff. And I think both of us have had the opportunity to, to, to do a lot of stuff, man. Mm-hmm. You know? Um. And who doesn't like playing with knives? So for me that was, that was it, right? Like you

Jason E. Brooks 17:42

poke your eye out

Simon Zatyrka 17:46

and I mean, I, I know that, I know for a fact that you, you cook on a regular basis, and that's one of the things that I, I love is that, that you might not like, you might not be the back of house guy anymore, but you understand like. The feeling of holding that knife and like taking care of dinner for the family, like that is a, a very elemental thing. It's very, very important to me. Um, and so I think that it made a lot of sense, right? Like knives and wisdom. You're gonna, you're gonna get like the, the hard edge of things, but you're also gonna get some, some good feeling of how. How it can be done. Not only like we can tell you how to screw it up. We can also probably tell you how to, how to fix it and maybe even do it right the first time, you know? Um, but that's, that for me is the essence of knives and wisdom.

Jason E. Brooks 18:37

Yeah. Even when you think about it, knives is definitely the trade that craft, and then wisdom is the mindset and that leadership, and you need both. To build a team that lasts, you absolutely need, absolutely need to have a skill set in both, and B, like we said, intentional about both, about how you're doing, what you're doing, how you're crafting the trade, and then also that mindset as well. So, you know, this show came out of real conversations. We, we were both seeing the same gaps in totally. Different roles and, and we wanted to create something that wasn't theory, but action tools. Right. And not talk. So a part of this podcast is that, you know, we will always provide a tool for the listeners to be able to implement into what they do. Now, we aren't coming out with 52 tools per year. But it does so happen that our conversations will always revolve around the craft and the leadership, and then what's the tool that helps combine the two that you can actually be, take back and do something within your business. So this is for the GMs, kitchen leaders, district managers, operators, trying to scale their business and their teams at the same time without. Losing their sanity.

Simon Zatyrka 20:19

That's it. Um, I think I lose a little bit of sanity. I think it's part of the industry.

Jason E. Brooks 20:25

You're right, there is a lot of stress out there. It's, and especially these days, the environment is always unknown. Um, but you still gotta keep some of that sanity because you have to repeat it all that next day when the alarm goes off, you, you gotta keep some of that. Some of that sanity. Yeah,

Simon Zatyrka 20:48

I mean, I think, I think if we could just get to a place where people tune in and they know that they're gonna hear two people who, who get it, um, and, and want to help, uh, from a very elemental space, I think that they will find something. Something to, to reflect on, something that helps them, uh, wake up tomorrow and, and be recharged and keep moving. Um, I think the tool aspect is, is something that we just don't see every day. Like, you know, I, I think that, I think over time, man, we're gonna have a, a great, great, uh, for lack of a better term, archive of some cool stuff that we can, we can share with people. So I, I look forward to getting to see what it, what it all. Kind of becomes,

Jason E. Brooks 21:40

and you know, speaking of the two of us, our listeners will hear some episodes from just the two of us, and other times we, we will have guests who have actually led teams and built real systems. Every single episode, every single episode, you will walk away with one free tool, something that you can use by the time you get to your next shift, right before it starts. Um, that is, that is the goal, but it is definitely, um, these two, Simon and Jason and, and then at times some, some featured guest giving their spin on certain topics. Yeah. And God help them. Well, it's only God help them because we've been in their shoes. We're, we are not podcast hosts. We're operators with mics. There's a big difference. There's a huge difference. We're not just going to do some theory. Um, uh, for me it's 30 plus years for you. It's 90 years in the industry. Easy, easy. We, we have a wealth of actual real life footage to put into this podcast, so, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So your sweet spot, your angle. You rock back a house, you rock systems, daily ops, you know your sweet spot is fixing the gears in the machine. Tell me about how you do that right now.

Simon Zatyrka 23:30

I, you know, a lot of what I've been talking about with folks, a lot of what I've been doing is really just helping people find. How they do business, help them define their way. Mm-hmm. You know, like, uh, and honestly, at, at first I was like, no, we should, I shouldn't do that. I should, I should really tell them. And then I realized, no, I'm gonna listen more and help, and help people find how it is they want to do business. You know? Um, and then just, I, I, I. I really work to help them document that. And if that means that they want to take inventory every, you know, if they wanna do perpetual inventories on their stakes so that they're not losing anything ever, um, awesome. Here's how you do that. Um, it's about the, for me, it's really about helping people to define their, their way, right? If you're working with Jimmy's Tacos, then this is the Jimmy's Tacos way, and every single employee needs to understand what that means. Um. What is, what is going to be expected of them? How, how to do their job. And so it, for me, it's really about like documenting those things. Being the person that can say, well, okay, but this is the tool that's gonna work best for that. Having seen a whole lot of garbage ones and a whole lot of great ones, you know, and for me that includes like the new generation of tech that's coming along. Mm-hmm. Um, so that's, that's what I'm doing, man, is just. Really trying to help people find their way, be that advisor for'em.

Jason E. Brooks 25:06

My lane, per se, is leadership systems. You know, how do you coach better? You know, you can always see the logo, manage, lead, coach, repeat. How do you coach better? How do you make coaching? Um, a actual practice in what you do.'cause coaching isn't something reserved for a third party person done to an executive. Coaching is a means a tool, a level of communication that every person in your restaurant needs. They, they all need coaching. The question is, are you giving it to'em or not? How do you hold your team accountable? How do you build something that runs without you? Even when you go to go scale, how do you do so? And try to keep that thumbprint on through on through T two thumbs as similar as possible. How do you try to keep the processes, whether you're in Raleigh or Charlotte? How do you try to keep those two locations running as close to possible, even without thinking about franchising or or growing to a hundred units, you still want things to be similar, so how do you do that? I've sat in war rooms and one-on-ones, and in both it comes down, always comes down to clarity, delegation. And repeatable frameworks. When it comes down to how do I build something that runs without me? How clear is the vision? How do you delegate to things?'cause once you grow past one, you can't do it all by yourself. Nope. And what are the repeatable frameworks? Frameworks. Bigger word for systems, but it's a system that's built just for you. How is it clear delegate and repeatable frameworks in order to make that happen? That's typically my lane that I thrive in, and that's why both lanes make sense for mm-hmm. This podcast. Mm-hmm. So, yeah.

Simon Zatyrka 27:15

Yeah. I mean, in, in, honestly, in some ways, you and I say some of the same things. We just say them differently. Mm-hmm. You know, um. I, I want, I want their way to shine, and you want the way to shine. And at the end of the day, it's like, it's like, okay. Right. We're, we're saying that's what I love about it is, is you and I, we, we are able to take the same topic, look at it from two different angles mm-hmm. And, and just go after it. Yeah, so Jason, tell'em what they've won for, for hanging out with us today. What, what is our, like what are we, what are we offering for a tool today?

Jason E. Brooks 27:56

Oh, today's tool is, what are the things I've seen in the war room that you have to be able to do in order to buy back time to get shit done and what you need to buy back time so you can get shit done. Is a delegation form. Because the more we say, oh man, I am the only one that can do this, so I have to make sure I go in and get this done, or I try to pass it off before they screwed it up. So now I'm the only one that does it. Yes, like you have always done your truck order perfectly and you've never duplicated. Anything on your truck order like, like you've counted every single thing within your restaurant on the inventory. Even that strange cabinet that's up front in the dining room and you wonder why do people put shit up there knowing it doesn't go up there? You've always counted that cabinet too. You've wrote the schedule and you've never scheduled someone on their day off that they requested. You've never overscheduled hours or under scheduled on a busy shift. That you are perfect. That's why you do everything. Because when you give it to someone, they screw that up. No, that's not that. That's not correct. It's just because there isn't many systems for delegating the right way. So for today, your very first tool, your very first tool is how to delegate correctly, and we give you these steps. Of how to delegate duties the right way for you to buy back your time to focus on the big levers in your restaurant. That's today's tool.

Simon Zatyrka 29:48

Nice. I can't tell you, I. How many times in my early like sous chef times, you know, like that would've been so helpful to me. Like to just have somebody say, here man, this is how you do it. Because I kind of like, I figured some of it out along the way and then really I didn't, I had to, I had to like finally get to a bigger company where they actually probably showed me something very similar to what we're going to use give people today. But for me it's like, man, that would've been useful.

Jason E. Brooks 30:22

It is so true. It's, it's so true that the simple things we do,'cause half the time we think, well, Billy's been with me every Monday morning at 5:00 AM whenever we're doing inventory counts. And he knows that when I get to this certain point, I'm ask for this and I'm ask for that. So when I go on vacation three weeks from now. Billy's gonna do it. Billy's gonna do the inventory. He got it. And then you just say, Hey Billy, you got it. And then Billy's like, uh, yeah. And then you go on vacation and then you come back and it's all jacked up. Be like, ah, damnit Billy. That's why I should've trusted you. Damn it, Billy. But the thing is though, Billy isn't really focused on doing the whole thing. Billy is just like any other animal. Not say humans are animals, but we are. We tend to watch for body cues of what the next thing is going to be. So what does Billy do? Okay, Simon's moving towards the front. He's going to eventually ask me to go do this, so I'm just gonna get ready to do this. But he doesn't know. How does Simon log in and print that sheet? Where does he put in all of the numbers sat? How does he go back and double check? What numbers are in which category to make sure it's priced at the right amounts, yada, yada, yada, all all of those things. So that's, this tool just kind of helps give a roadmap on delegating in general. It doesn't matter what the task is at work, we all have to delegate. We all create these mini versions of us at some point, and that's called the delegation aspect. And this gives you some basic steps and processes in order to do that. Right. Nice. Like I

Simon Zatyrka 32:08

said, would've been helpful.

Jason E. Brooks 32:13

Well, you know, it's, this has been a great intro to the community. To the k and w, not cafeteria, the knives and wisdom community. And, uh, so thank you so much. I'm glad you said yes. I'm glad we found a platform we can do this on and I'm looking forward to dropping, not dropping knives, to using more knives and dropping more wisdom for our listeners.

Simon Zatyrka 32:47

I'll drop the knives. Don't worry.

Jason E. Brooks 32:49

Just don't try to catch it. Yo, you will lose a finger. No, do not catch the falling knife. Not try to catch it. All right, we'll see y'all later.

33:00

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