How to Create Restaurant Training & Systems That Scales

How do successful restaurant groups scale without losing quality, culture, or accountability?

In this podcast, we break down how to create restaurant training systems that scale—especially when you’re growing from one location to multiple restaurants, managing more GMs, opening new concepts, and trying to maintain the guest experience that made you successful in the first place.

You’ll hear a real conversation with restaurant owners from P Hospitality as they discuss the challenges of scaling restaurant operations, building leadership buy-in, holding managers accountable, improving employee training, and creating repeatable systems that don’t depend on the owner being in the building every day.

If you’re a restaurant owner, operator, GM, or hospitality leader trying to grow the right way, this podcast will help you understand why training is not just a checklist—it’s a system of accountability, communication, follow-up, and leadership execution.

In this podcast, you’ll learn:

✅ Why high-performing restaurants use daily masterminds
✅ How to get your leadership team bought into accountability
✅ Why “messaging” should become a repeatable system
✅ How to build restaurant training that survives busy seasons
✅ Why guest recovery can create loyal regulars
✅ How to create a chain of command as your restaurant group grows
✅ Why “what got you here won’t get you there” when scaling
✅ How restaurant managers can create meaningful guest relationships
✅ Why accountability improves culture, training, and guest experience

Scaling a restaurant requires more than great food and good people. You need clear systems, strong leadership, consistent training, and a team that knows exactly what winning looks like.

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

People always ask us, they're like, what's the difference between the successful restaurant we worked with and an unsuccessful? And I'm gonna tell you right now, every high performing restaurant we've ever worked with had daily masterminds done. It was literally the difference. The one thing that's always consistent is they did not commit to the daily masterminds. Like, oh, our team's really stressed out. Busy season, listen, I I get it. But we want a stress test during the busy season. That's the whole point. And then when they see the benefit of it too, when they get good at it, it becomes a skill set for them. They know how to control the narrative, implement new systems, follow up with people, work with their teams, get more other people, they start growing with it too. If you own a restaurant and you're wondering how do I get my leadership team bought in, how do I get them holding people accountable? I'm gonna show you three simple steps. And I'm gonna show you by actually working with restaurant owners. Now, we're gonna sit down and talk to the owners of P Hospitality. It's a husband and wife duo, and they've been owning and running, operating restaurants for quite some time now, right? It's that family heirloom of theirs. Now, not only that, but they've now owned multiple locations with multiple concepts, and obviously multiple GMs, multiple managers, and are really wondering how do we wringle our managers in or GMs in and get them really motivated and understanding accountability at a high level. They all have great staff, right? They love their management team, they appreciate the leadership team, but they're trying to tighten the screws because they really want to grow the right way. They're about to open a new restaurant and they have a restaurant opening after that, and they know the more I open, the more I want to get down to the brass tacks and learn how to actually develop my people to operate the highest level possible so they can focus on just growing the business, and that's where we're here to break down. So pay attention, take notes because there's a lot to take in. Well, you guys have had a lot of success, right? Um, but I would love to hear that. Yeah, 100%. With success comes failure. So uh what tell us about that journey a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 1:45

We got started off in the business. Um, you know, I was working in restaurants in high school and mom and pop places throughout high school. And when I went away to college, tried the corporate route, you know, Ruth's Chris Steakhouse, a couple of other places, um, learned a lot, and Christina did the same thing, but we ended up eventually um moving home from college and taking over what was a family restaurant, um, what my dad indirectly opened as a midlife crisis. We took a small mom and pop Italian restaurant, just beer and wine, like the checkered table cost the whole nine yards. We took that to a fine dining Italian restaurant with full bar, live entertainment, the whole nine yards, um in, you know, grew it, grew the business by 5x in eight years. Um and once we realized there was a little bit of a ceiling, we said, you know what, it's time to sell the business and kind of go off on our own and take that avenue. Um so that's when P Hospitality kind of started. We we first bought our first restaurant, was a was a failing brand, and got in there, said, let's figure out a way to make this our own and make it work. It's you know right in the middle of Boca Ratone. There's a ton of opportunity here, ton of business, ton of money. I know we can make this work. Um that was January 1st, 2020.

SPEAKER_03 3:08

Perfect time.

SPEAKER_01 3:10

Yeah, so um stress test. Yeah, so it was it was unreal, but at the end of the day, I think the the COVID thing almost helped us. Our glass was half full in the fact that we looked at it as a reset opportunity for the restaurant because we accepted the fact that it wasn't doing well and that there was a reason it was for sale. And we took that and we ran with it. We said, you know what, with the closure of COVID, we're gonna sunset all of the things that we feel were making this restaurant not do well. And we did that. We we got rid of the bogos, the you know, all the things that you think would drive or people think drive business would were it was the opposite of what it was doing, was killing the business. So um we reset it, did a whole new menu, you know, retooled the interior a little bit, didn't go crazy. And when we were permitted to reopen after COVID, we kind of launched with almost a new restaurant and and reinvigorated the restaurant, and that kind of springboarded us into you know, number two, and then taking over our first management contract of another restaurant, and um began a little a little bit of a snowball. Um, and five years down the road, our original restaurant, our family restaurant that we owned, ended up coming up as an opportunity. And that's we jumped on that and created Eddie and Vinny's, and um that was in March of 2025, and had three openings that year, and got another another couple openings this year, so it's just one thing has kind of led to the next, and it's been a it's been a ride for sure, and we're really happy to be doing it.

SPEAKER_03 4:48

That's awesome. Um, and so with that, um did you want to add anything?

SPEAKER_00 4:54

Um no, I think during COVID it was a great time to reset, but also what helped us is that that's what allowed what we're good at to shine, which is having a team that cares and providing that genuine hospitality because it gave us a chance to go down to bare bone staff. It was me, my husband, our executive chef, and like three managers. So we were running around doing to go, but we got to meet the whole community, we got to put our personal touch on everything, and we may not have gotten that chance without it. So um then when we were rebuilding, we were able to really concentrate on that.

SPEAKER_03 5:29

Yeah, I love that because that's that's sometimes what it takes, right? You have to kind of get a reset and see what matters and who's bought in and and having the right team in the right places, and yeah, I love that.

SPEAKER_01 5:40

Everybody from that initial core COVID crew is still with us today.

SPEAKER_03 5:46

Because you gave them I think it's a they give them you they get you get buy-in because there's so much clarity and there's unity too, because you're there as owners really being able to put your hands on them and and have be mission-driven together. And you guys go through a bonding phase like that too, where you know that's that's it's kind of like where were you at at that time at the moment. And you guys were together side by side, shoulder by shoulder, you know, going through the trudges and and rebuilding, right? So they had a the their DNA is in it a little bit, so they have more commitment, more buy-in. That's why I would say, you know, there's two hires, right? There's two ways you can get a manager. One, you can move move them up from within, that's how you're gonna get a soldier. Uh, and then you have someone you can hire from outside, and that's a higher gun for hire. It doesn't mean it won't work, but it's much more difficult to get that buy-in, right? Because they don't have the blood, they haven't put the blood in. It's not their baby. When you work for a company for you know four, eight, ten years, and you help build things, develop things, it becomes, you know, you have a little bit of ownership in there, even if it's not monetary, right? You still have ownership of it because you built it and you committed to it. And so when you move them up into a leadership role, it just the buy-in's crazy. What I love about you guys is that you're successful, right? And uh you guys have a lot of money. I'm joking. I was I always mess around. I had a I had a post the other day where I said um, I forgot what it was, it was it was something about you know, tips, and of course, it's just so funny to me every time tips come up, you know, or or you know, whatever. I I was trying to change your mentality about tips, and uh uh uh inevitably someone will always mention in the comments pay them a living wage, you know, pay them fair, blah blah blah. And then one person wrote, All these owners are making so much money. Oh yeah, and they're and they don't pay and they pay them the minimum. I'm like, I'm like, it's just my it boggles my mind because I'm like, you know, I don't think people would understand what it would be like if there wasn't a tip culture. Like restaurants would one out of four restaurants would go to business, right? Or four or three out of four restaurants would go to business.

SPEAKER_01 7:39

It's it's funny, there's a there's a Facebook group down in South Florida that's got 250,000 members on it, and anytime something about tips or living wage gets gets like sprinkled in there, it's like throwing gas at the end. Oh, for sure. And everybody always has something to say about it. And I just I bite my tongue because it's not it's not worth trying to explain, you know, at the detriment to the detriment of like my company. Um but you know the fact of the matter is tip minimum wage has gotten from 556 in 2020 to almost $11 an hour. It's $1098 right now in 2026. So in five years it's doubled on the restaurants, and if you you factor that into like a monetary thing, it's you know, to go up by 100%. It's crazy.

SPEAKER_03 8:23

Yeah, and and and and there's just so many things to it. They say, oh, everyone should have a living wage. It's like what A, what is a living wage? What is a what like what does that mean? Yeah, how is what is well who defines that? And then secondly, you know, every job is not supposed to be a living wage job. That's not how it works. Stepping stone to the next thing, and that's how you learn and you develop and you grow. Because I I my first job when I was a busser, I worked two jobs and I slept on my friend's couch. I think he charged me like $150 or $200 a month. And I worked two jobs to do that. I took the bus, I didn't have a car, and you know, like, but I worked my way up. But at no point was I like, this is so unfair. They should be giving me money that I can I so I can have my own apartment. I can why? Like I haven't earned the skill set or the right. And I always tell people like you have because everyone's like, you have the right to do this. You have the right to earn that opportunity. That's it. That's all that's where your rights end, in my opinion. Like in life, period, right? Also, like when let's just say we just said, hey, we're gonna pay all of our servers $30 an hour because we're gonna give everyone a living wage. Where do we put that? You gotta you gotta charge more. It's in the menu, right?

SPEAKER_01 9:27

And then so now chicken parm is $60. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_03 9:30

$70, $80, right? $90. And then so now it's just like now uh experiences, escapism is just less accessible, right? Who pays the most, right? Middle class. Yeah. Middle class and people that are, you know, same with like fast food with the whole, you know, in California, I don't know if you know this, but it's so it was so ridiculous. Like 35, if you have 35 locations or something like that, and you're fast food, you have to pay your employees 20 bucks an hour minimum across the board. So you're at McDonald's, you get hired at McDonald's first job ever, 20 bucks an hour. And so, but where does that price go? Now McDonald's is freaking, it's like you know, $14 for McF for Big Mac. Who suffers the most, it's the the consumer. And does it the person that we're trying to get in into a living wage, now they have to spend more money buying food.

SPEAKER_01 10:14

So it's not just a perpetual cycle of like, you know, just driving prices up.

SPEAKER_03 10:18

Right. And and and it costs more money, you know, and and again, it's like it's so anyway. My point is that you know it's it's it's a tough industry, but you guys have seen success, right? You guys have seen growth. Um, most, I think, you know, it's like I kind of look at the number, but I think like eight percent of owners have more than one location. Um, most of them don't last past five years, right? So you guys have had some serious success. And so with that though, comes challenges, especially when scaling, you know, going from one to three, three to five, five to seven, seven to ten, those are like big changes on your on your level, right? Because now you're managing multiple concepts, multiple people, multiple roles. You know, you don't you're not managing one GM, you're not managing three GMs, you're now managing seven. And that's challenging, right? Um, so I know that's where a lot of your challenges are coming from, but right now, what do you see as your biggest hurdle, your biggest bottleneck?

SPEAKER_00 11:12

I think for sure training. Um because no matter how many systems are in place, all it takes is one day to mess everything up. Um and we're not in the stores really ensuring that new employee experience like we used to be. So it's hard with all the day-to-day going on for the in-store management teams to hold an importance to that, um like we do. So we've tried to be in control of it, we've tried to let go of control, so it's just finding the balance as we grow to whatever works best.

SPEAKER_03 11:54

What do you see as the downfall to that, right? Not getting this piece figured out.

SPEAKER_00 11:59

Everything. Yeah. Like every time, everything gets messed up if the first day is not perfect, if the first week isn't perfect, if that employee isn't truly built into our culture from the start, it's all it's a big investment. That's a waste of money. Um, it affects all of the team that we have that are invested in that culture, it makes them feel frustrated. Um, it's really tough. And it ends up affecting the guest experience at the end of the day.

SPEAKER_03 12:27

So that's what suffers the most for sure.

SPEAKER_01 12:29

We we had a conversation about this previously, but your your team sees everything that's going on, and if you're not setting expectations for that team member on their first day, whether they're a dishwasher or rather whether they're the general manager, if there's not like a specific buy-in from them, it's the rest of the team is gonna witness that. They're gonna see what you accept or what you hold firm to, and that's where they're gonna rise or fall to. And that's been our biggest challenge in scaling, is we that's like an inherent thing for Christina and I. If we're in a restaurant, working the day-to-day, only focus on one thing. Like, you know, we always try to make sure that happens. Now, as we're scaling, kind of conveying that to our management teams, and you know, until we're blue in the face of you know, the importance of this, because people don't generally understand the important importance until like that light bulb goes off in their head. So figuring out the best way to get that light bulb to go off in each manager's head as to why this is so important is has been like a pretty big challenge because everybody's different.

SPEAKER_06 13:45

Yeah, that's a good point.

SPEAKER_01 13:46

They come from different, you know, different backgrounds, different other restaurants. What this worked for me here, why isn't it working here? It's like, no, this is the way that it needs to happen. Um, this is the way we want to continue to grow our business.

SPEAKER_03 13:59

Epi hospitality, yeah. Great point. Um and there's a couple things there. One is, you know, we talked about this today, you know, because we were working we worked with your leadership team. And it's understanding the importance of it and getting them to understand the importance of it. I think that was great when your manager was like, oh, we can get better. It's like, no, like we have a huge problem and we need to fix it now. And that's why I always use that analogy about the the, you know, if if your bar manager says we're missing $5,000 in inventory, for sure, it's a fact. You would we're solving this. Yeah, like everybody stop everything you're doing. Let's solve it right now, right? You're gonna be texting, you're gonna be emailing, you're gonna be going crazy, you're still you're losing sleep, right? Until we find out where that inventory went, hold those people accountable and make sure it never happens again, right? It's gonna be our obsession. It's gonna be like a focus of that year, right? And but yet we're missing five, ten thousand dollars in guest retention, unrealized income, we're like, well, let's just try and let's let's let's we'll figure it out. And when it slows down, we'll kind of just try. It's like, but it should be something we're obsessed with because it's costing us so much money that we don't see, and sometimes it's money we'll never get back, right?

SPEAKER_01 15:07

Christina's thing always when we do an opening or or do like a retraining if we have the opportunity to speak in front of the team. It's all every table you go to is a Super Bowl.

SPEAKER_03 15:19

100%.

SPEAKER_01 15:20

And you need to knock it out of the park with every table. It doesn't matter how bad of a day those people are having at the table behind you, this table's a new table. And you can't let what's happening over there affect you over here because each of those people over there might have had a really bad day doing whatever. Somebody died, somebody got fired, whatever it is, and they're taking it out on you as a server. But you need to take it all in and go to the next table and know that this table is going to be different. You can't carry that over to the next table.

SPEAKER_03 15:49

100%. And that's the whole mindset. But we, you know, this is a lot of like us trying to convey a message to them. And you said it really well. You're like, how do we convey that message to them? How do we uh convey this message? And I want you to start replacing the the idea of messaging with just systems. We're not trying to get a message to them, we're just giving them a system to execute, and then now we can manage that system, is it getting executed or not? Then we can it's much easier for us to execute that or monitor that way versus I'm gonna talk about it, are they getting it? Do they get it? Are we doing a good enough job? Should we do this? Should we do that? It's like a system that we're gonna create to in order to execute that. Um, so for example, you talk about training, right? And what I would love to start off with, you said, like, why do you think you, when you were doing it as yourself, had a bigger impact than let's say your your team doing it now?

SPEAKER_00 16:37

I think I I genuinely get really excited about bringing in new team members and growing people. Um I think it's really cool when you can look at your whole staff and they're all good at different things. And no one's gonna be perfect at everything, otherwise that doesn't exist, you know. Um so I think it's fun trying to take everyone that wants to be a part of whatever we're doing and position them so that way they're all doing what they shine at, and then they're surrounded by people who can make up for whatever they're bad at and it like works. But that is hard to replicate and to it's not a system that can go to every restaurant and you can just expect your management team to spend all of their time doing that. So I think trying to stop training, like we used to train per person. We'd have someone come in, we'd be like, okay, what do you what do you know how to do? What do you need to learn? What are your strengths? And then try to shape it like that, trying to find a system that you can have your team do with every single person and reach them because some people learn talking, some people learn writing down, some people know everything in two days. Um, some people come in as really refined servers and they have a hard time memorizing the food ingredients. Some people can memorize everything, but they don't know how to provide the level of experience and hospitality that we want. So I think identifying what each person needs and trying to make a program that covers it all without being like six months long was our struggle. And maybe when we were in there doing it like physically ourselves, we were taking the time to really get to know each person and um shaping it to what they specifically needed.

SPEAKER_03 18:20

Yeah, and that's obviously that's that's a great, you know, obviously a great way to lead people. It's gonna be um hard to systematize that for sure. And I I would say what we want to do is because you have the right idea, right? It's really it's because what you're doing is you're understanding the person, you're getting to know the person, making them feel seen, heard, and and um cared for, and then you're you're you're building them up. I would say right now, because like right now, what is your biggest with training not being where where it is, what are you seeing happening where you're like, it's like I can see it, I can feel it, I want to fix this.

SPEAKER_00 18:53

The accountability part and the follow-up, I guess, from us on a corporate level to see where the store level managers are at with their training and to make sure all the systems in place are being used. Um are they having those conversations at the end of the night when a floor shift is complete? You know, maybe they're checking all the boxes on their list, but are they really making sure that that person understands what they need them to understand and feel supported and feels like they know what their goal tomorrow is? Um, and going through training like that to where sometimes we'll get to like a test out day where they're doing a mock service and you know, then we'll realize that they didn't hit those proper steps because you can see it in the service, but then we wasted a week of time with this person who you know is just shifting around the restaurant because no one in the store is making sure that they hit their steps, and it's not because a lack of like everyone wants to, but I think you know the managers aren't there seven days a week, so it's the communication with the team, so that way every day everyone knows exactly where you're at, what you trained on yesterday, what you're doing today, who's training you. You know, we have a key manager here today, not the GM. It's a lot of moving pieces like that.

SPEAKER_01 20:08

Yeah, and I think a lot of a lot of what you know occurred when when we were in the stores in the day-to-day is that typical mommy daddy. You know, so we and and the personal relationships we've built with a lot of the team that's still with us, you know, that's a huge positive that we have people that have been with us from when we were a very small mom and pop. But now getting to the point where there's six, seven restaurants, changing that mentality a little bit and and trying to explain the why as to why there can't be a direct line to me or to Christina to vent about this or that, and it needs to go through the right channels, and and um that's been a little bit, I think, of a challenge for us too, because we have such deep ties, whether this person helped get us through COVID or whether they had a a struggle that we assisted them with, and and like you know, those little things, because you you create personal relationships with with your team when you're working side by side with them. So now trying to kind of take that next step into a mid-sized business or whatever whatever you want to call it has been a challenge on our side and and I think on on the team side as well, um, understanding kind of like what that next step really looks like and how it's gonna positively impact them with this new procedure because they're so used to it being this way.

SPEAKER_00 21:34

Well, you said it today when you're talking to our team, it it all leads to an accountability problem at the end of the day. It's having those tough conversations with people where they have these you called it um a type of experience where it was like out of the ordinary, like um Oh, um extreme circumstances. Yeah, it's dealing with things when people have an extreme circumstance, but being able to have that conversation where you're like, I love you and I appreciate you, and I understand this isn't normal, but we still have To hold you accountable for this. And that's something that we struggled with in the past because all of our personal relationships, everything's in extreme circumstance sometimes. And it's really hard keeping that family bond and then also holding people accountable. You know, our management team loves and cares about their staff so much, and it's hard holding them accountable when you don't want to pile on when they're already having a bad day about something. But I loved how you said, you know, it's just about wording it and approaching that hard conversation. At the end of the day, if we don't, you know, hold them accountable, it's not helping us or them. And the same thing with the team, if the management team doesn't know how to hold their team accountable because they don't want to offend them or make a bad day worse, it's not helping anyone.

SPEAKER_03 22:43

So a couple things there. So first things first is like you guys are growing. You said something really great. I usually mention it, but I had to like tighten up my my presentation so much. So I knew the accountability piece is going to take a big portion of it. He told me that was the focus, and that's why this is here. A big piece of uh what you what we talked about today and what you said is like what got us here won't get us there. That needs to be your mantra. Whatever got us here today is not gonna get us to the next spot. We have to have that mentality, right? And we have to always be evolving. That's why I talk about innovation as being so important, is we have to have that mindset. What can we do differently? How can we grow? And and and seeing patterns before they kind of come up. So that's really important. And then another piece is you said like family, and that's a big one, especially for like big companies, uh, you know, or companies that care, right? They talk about family, right? Oh, you know, treat them like you're, you know, I want to, I want to and we want to stuff stay away from that. Someone put up, you know, made a really good point. They're like, would you hire your family, right? But would you hire your family, right? Traditionally, people say don't hire your family, right? Uh, my brother works for my company too. So, but like, you know, traditionally don't hire your family because it causes, you know, it could cause turmoil, it could cause its own challenges sometimes. So we always say that we're we're not family, we're a team, right? We're a team and we're a championship team. We want to be a championship team, and I'm gonna take care of you like my team, but you're not my family, right? That we got to take that out of the equation, that mindset, because what happens with family, yes, then it becomes about I thought we were cool, right? You know how much I've done for you? Yeah, how much have I I was here since day one. I was here for COVID, right? And like, so you're trying to hold me accountable for being late when I have this issue coming. So that's where it gets messy really fast. So it's like starting to talk about that. It's like we are a team, right? We're championship team. We're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna win some championships here, but we can't say that we're family, so that's big. What you said about accountability is huge. Now, I again I talked about today. I'm like, a lot of people try and solve the symptom, not the problem. They want to solve the symptom, which training is a great example. I'm not saying, I'm just giving you some perspective where it's like we got to fix our training. How do we get them to get it? How do we get them to understand, right? And the training is a big piece, but we got to fix the set the problem first before we can fix the symptom. Sometimes the symptom will fix itself, but either way, we've got to fix the problem first. And right now, the problem is we have to have a ladder and a system uh procedure. So you have to have a ladder and a chain of command, right? You guys come up with the system, it gets funneled down through your director of operations and then through your GMs and ultimately through the staff, right? But it has a pattern and then you have a system that where you implement it and it works, right? So you give it to your director of operations. Now, if you give your if you hand off your system, your new system to your director of operations, after you properly train him, what if if something goes wrong, if you find out a GM's not doing their job, whatever, who's who do you hold accountable? The director. Director. That's it. Stop, that's it. My job is to hold you accountable at this point. Why are my GMs not doing this? Why why did that not happen, right? And they get held accountable, and then and then obviously your director of operations, when something goes wrong, your GM holds gets held accountable, and then your GM holds you know their managers accountable. So it's a chain of command. That's how you get true ownership, right? And buy-in. So if you have a system, you just hand it off to your director of operations, but you have to create that system first. Okay, you can't just be like, hey, you're the director of operations, figure it out. Just do it, right? You've done it before, right? Do like because it's like we have we want there's always this teeter-totter I've noticed with companies that we worked with where they don't want people bringing outside things in, right? Yeah, hey, I get it that that worked at Ruth Chris. It's not gonna work here. Please stop trying to, you know, like bring in stuff from your old company into here, it's not gonna work, right? You don't want them doing that. You're like, this is how we do things here, please keep that stuff outside of this business, no longer like applies. But then it's like when we need them to execute, it's like, didn't you do this before? Yeah, like do how'd you do it before, right? It's like we got to introduce our way of doing it, right? We can have a conversation and say, what did you do before that work? And we gotta figure it out, but we have to have that clarity. Like I talked about clarity. So director of operations, let's sit down, let's talk about it. I want to be able to give you a system, you implement it with the lead GMs, and then the GMs implement it. I want timelines, right? How long is it gonna take to implement something? Is it 30 days, is it 60 days, is it 90 days? What's realistic? Because that's another thing too. We want to let these things breathe. People want results fast, and that's normal, that's a human thing. Exactly. So, what we really want ultimately is permanent results. Okay, and I talk about that all the time. Like our our our server training is is can be up to six months, right? And that's not on the floor, yeah. It's with what daily masterminds, right? But we have a process, it's six months. Parents go, six six months, right? It's like, yeah, but tell me all your servers that are past six months right now, how good are they? How fully trained are they? Like what is the what is the alternative? You know, so we want results, permanent results. And so sometimes, like with the daily masterminds, like I said, it's a seven-day process, you know, to implement something, but sometimes that turns into 30 days that we're just talking about over and over and over again before it starts to set in or before we start seeing results. So setting up those systems is so important with your director of operations, fixing that problem first, because you said, like, I want them to understand the training piece. I want them to understand it, I want them to get it, but it's not really about them understanding, it's about you just giving them a system and they execute it and you manage it. Are you doing the system? Yes or no. It's a yes or no question. Is it happening? Yes or no, why or why not? Again, we have to be able to hold our director of operations, our GMs accountable, and then they have to be able to hold their staff accountable. And we have to have that in our whole entire organization. So if you hand your GM something and they don't do it, they're gonna give you an excuse. Yeah. They're not gonna be like, I, you know what, I don't I don't really like that. So that's a pass for me. They're gonna say, it's too busy, it's this, it's that they're gonna have, and we have to eliminate that mentality altogether. Again, what got us here won't get us there. So what are we doing to say unacceptable, right? Not not gonna like it's it's a yes or no, pass fail, like this is what we're doing, and we need you to be a part of it. And there's a uh phrase I'm gonna butcher it, but it's like disagree uh and engage. Have you heard of that before? Basically, and I could be butchering it, it might be I'm saying it's really wrong, but basically the whole concept is you we're I'm I'm your leader or we're equals, whatever it is. You can disagree with me, but you still have to engage. Right? It could be like, hey, I don't really think that's the best way, but if Preston, as my boss, if that's the way you want to go, I'm fully supportive and I will do it 100%. I will, I will, I will fully support it back. And I'm not gonna do the whole, yeah, we'll do it. All right, Eddie wants to do this new thing again, so let's just like, you know, make, you know, it's like, no, I fully support it. I don't think it's the best course of action, but I'm here and I fully support it, and I got your back, and I'll make sure it's as much success as humanly possible on my end. So those are that that's the mentality we want. You don't have to agree with everything we say. Your job, your job as owner sometimes isn't for them to agree with everything you say, right? You can try your best to give them the why, to give them the what, to get their support, but ultimately you have what, seven GMs?

SPEAKER_06 29:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 29:34

You have seven GMs that can go to ten GMs at any time. There's no way you're gonna get seven people to think that every direction you go is the best direction. It's gonna be impossible. So what we have to do is just uh disagree but engage, have that mentality. And then when we have a system, it's are you doing it yes or no? There's an excuse, it's not gonna be acceptable, right? And and and then they have to have that same, and what we call this sterile accountability, meaning that it's just very uh um cut and dry, like I talked about, right? We're coming in, we're holding you accountable just because this thing didn't get done, and we just gotta make sure it gets done, and that's across the board. Every single person gets held accountable every single time, but and it's very light. And again, we're just asking you, we create a system, right? Like, say, for example, when you greet a guest, you're gonna ask them when's the last time you dine with us. Is that like crazy to ask of you? No, yes, no? Okay, cool. So that's reasonable. Okay, so if we get super busy, I still need you to do it. And if you if you get back, if you have someone complain about a wait time, I'll handle it. I got your back, right? We're fully supportive. But number one focus is that we make that greet uh priority and we do it every time. Otherwise, you get held accountable. That's the priority here. Any confusion there? You got okay, cool. So you know if we don't, we hold you accountable. So you just have that conversation. So when they don't do something, it's not this heavy thing, right? And they, oh my gosh, my my grandma and then my cat and then my dog all at the same time. I get it. I'm sorry. If you need time off, by the way, I got you. Tell me. We'll give you some time off to process and all that stuff. I need money. Okay, I get it. I still have to hold you accountable, right? I I will let you be here, even though you need money. You you're saying you're you you can handle it, you need the money. I just we gotta we still have to operate the business, right? Other than that, I got your back. You need money or to help with something, I can we could be see if we could sponsor something, donate something, whatever it is. But outside of this, you gotta show up. If you're gonna show up, you gotta show up, right? Is that fair? Because once you start the ripple effect of people realizing in the whole entire organization that they can't excuse their way out of things, everything changes. Yeah, their whole mentality changes. That's it. Bottom line, period. And you've both worked at jobs too, where you've seen the someone you give them an excuse and they're like, oh, they bought that? Okay, cool. Then I'm just gonna freak in. I can throw an excuse out there, like, no problem. They're not gonna either they're not gonna say anything or they're gonna be like, okay. But when you have that manager who doesn't take any BS, or like if in school, you have the teacher who's like, no homework, F.

SPEAKER_05 31:49

Yeah, that's it.

SPEAKER_03 31:50

Oh, can I do it tomorrow? Nope, F. You're like, guess what? I know I can do it. I'm gonna do my homework at the right time, right? Okay, got it, done. And guess what? You probably learned the most, you probably got the best grades, and it probably ends up being one of your most uh impactful favorite teachers.

SPEAKER_00 32:03

It ends up making you better.

SPEAKER_03 32:05

Makes you better, right? And you're like, man, right? I that that yeah, and it's like it sucked going through it, it was difficult, but at the end, I felt so much better. Like I I look at him go, thank you. And so that's what we want to do. So, what are your thoughts on that so far?

SPEAKER_01 32:18

So it's it that just like sparked something in my head. And every now and again I get like a warming in my heart. We um most recently, like two months ago, I got a DM from somebody that worked for us that said they just this is years ago, they they just started a new job recently and made them think of their first job as a cocktail server with us and how we held such a high standard for them, and they've carried that through and everything that they're doing now, and and this newest job that she started made her think of like how we were when she first started serving at the restaurant, and like just a big thank you, and like stuff like that, like brought it brought a tear to my eye, and I showed Christina and she did the same thing, and it's like you know, you don't realize those little things carry with people for for so long, and I think that's like that's the why, you know, why we do what we're what we're doing for those moments where like you know, screw the money, you know, screw like everything else. Like the fact that we made that much of an impact on somebody's life for them to randomly out of the blue just DM me and be like, you've done this, that's that's worth the world to us. So, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:36

And that's when you were able, you know, to enforce that accountability piece the most, if you think about it.

SPEAKER_03 33:41

Yeah, and that's and that's that's the impact you'll have on people, and that is what it is, right? At the end of the day, you know, money's money, right? Like it makes life easier, of course, but at the end of the day, it's like you know, what is it? It only does so much for you, but when you have impact on people's lives, that is huge, right? Like it's it's it's what it's all about. We have a responsibility as owners to have that impact on people's lives, to, you know, um make people better. And there's like we work with restaurants all the time where they're like my freaking Sush, my executive chef or my GM or whoever went on and they opened their own restaurant, right? And they have like a whole tree of like, you know, people, Danny Meyer, Wil Gadera, right? Will Godera's gonna have people that will open up restaurants underneath him and they're just gonna have these like successful uh businesses because they worked under uh Wil Gadera's crazy, you know, super hyper, you know, accountable, high stress, you know, situations, but they get better, right? They get better, and so that's why it's um it's important. So I would say yeah, first things first is like how do we create that system? Okay, because like right now it's like training is a symptom and I and it is everything. Um but but first it's like how do we create that that that system where we give it to our director of operations and then he owns it, right? And he threw distills it down to the GMs first things first, and we want to stress test it by giving them like one system, right? Again, it could be a way you greet the table, but just one system. What do you guys think? Or not the system, sorry, what do you think the uh sorry, what do you think the like what would you be what would be your strategy right now to talk to your director of operations and say this is our first step?

SPEAKER_01 35:17

Um it's actually funny. We there was one thing that that he brought up to us that we felt was a great thing to launch a couple weeks ago, which was a each manager at the restaurant every week needs to have a meaningful interaction with five guests. And from that, I want that manager to follow up with that guest the next day with an email, with a phone call, whatever, however you can, and once again thank them for their visit, whether it whether it was a recovery or whether it was just a table touch, or you've met them at the host standard, they're at the bar, whatever it is, create that meaningful contact with that guest and and follow up with it the next day because that's what shows that you truly care about building that business. And that's one of the things that we started, we immediately started implementing because I thought it was a great idea. Yeah, it is. You've literally built your best regulars, and she's built her best regulars from fixing a problem. Like she's got diehards that will run through walls for her because she recovered a table that was that would have been absolutely like it was a dumpster fire, and and somehow has managed to recover these people. So, like those little things go such a long way, and and that's what we're holding our managers accountable for currently. That's not a huge thing, it's really part of your job if you're going, if you're touching tables throughout the night, just that little bit extra following up with that table. Okay, let me go to open table, check this person's reservation. Write it down in my notebook, okay. This is Mr. Smith, I'm gonna give him a call tomorrow. Um, he loved the Caesar salad, he wasn't a fan of the New York strip, whatever it was. And next morning, send him an email, give him a call, and just like solidify that relationship. And and that's been like the first thing we wanted to really start pushing down on everybody is making those meaningful relationships.

SPEAKER_03 37:13

Yeah, I love that. And that's a great point you bring up because I tell people that all the time. There's gonna be, you know, no one stops going to a restaurant or writes a bad review because they got an overcooked steak, because their food took a long time, because they're, you know, they waited when they had a reservation. They write a bad review or they stop going because of the way we respond. That's what pisses people off, right? We just lack a care. We don't care. Oh, I'm so sorry about that, right? The apology tour or the just comp it off or yeah, we'll just take care of it. We'll just take care of it we'll take care of one of your appetizers. We took care of your dessert. Like, that's like the like almost one of the worst ways to handle it when you get the check and they go, by the way, um, because the steak was overcooked, we took it off your pill. Wow, thank you. I moved, right? Um, versus a manager coming out and you know and having a whole system and process behind that. And yes, I tell people that all the time, you can't, we can't, there's so much we can't control in a restaurant, we can't control food costs, we can't control labor, we can't control COVID, things like that. What we can't control though is how we react, right? And and having those guest experiences because uh statistically it takes someone having three great experiences in your restaurant for them to become a regular, loyal three times, right? That's where they start trusting the brand. You can get instant loyalty if you handle a guest recovery correctly. And I tell people all you have to do, it's not about money, right? That's gonna be part of it, of course. It's about care. Do they believe that you care, right? And if they do, they're gonna be loyal. They're gonna be like crazy loyalty.

SPEAKER_00 38:43

And those recoveries sometimes help us improve because a lot of the times the guess is correct, and it's our fault in the situation, or it's something that is easy for us to change, but we just haven't thought of it yet. And then we're able to make that change, and then they come back in the next visit and see that that change has been made, and they're so happy and so proud. Um we always say like a complaint is a compliment and it sounds corny, but it's like they care enough to take time out of their day, out of their meal or their experience to give us feedback that will help us get better. And the alternative is that they leave and then they never come back, and we don't know why, and we don't have the opportunity to fix it, and they assume that we don't care. Right. So some people can look at complaints as, oh, that guess is being annoying or unreasonable, but it's really just them giving us the opportunity to make it right.

SPEAKER_03 39:29

And that's why I hate when I when I hear that from owners, especially, but I hear it from staff a lot. But mostly it's always scary when you hear from a GM or an owner or manager when they're saying, like, oh, there's you know, you can't people just like to complain, that's what they do. They like to over-exaggerate, they like to do that. It's like, but we still have to listen. Yeah. And I and I'll tell you this much. If I go to a restaurant and it has 3,000 reviews at a 4.8, I've never been to one like that that had bad food, that had a bad experience, right? It was a good restaurant. Because yes, there's gonna be bad reviews, there's gonna be false reviews, but but no matter what, when you go to a Google review, it usually is a good the the true sentiment, right? Of what that business is and how it operates in some capacity. Yelp, on the other hand, Yelp is, yeah, I don't, I don't every I don't people still use Yelp? Oh, we're the ones that want to complain.

SPEAKER_00 40:16

Well that's the critical part about the three experiences that they need to become a loyal regular is because if they are able to have three good experiences, if something goes wrong and they're fourth, they're gonna know that's not normal, and I should say something, because it's not how it is. As opposed to if something goes wrong on someone's first visit and it's not acknowledged that it's wrong, they're just gonna assume oh that's just how they do things here.

SPEAKER_03 40:36

Right, exactly. And so that's why, first of all, statistics, right? 91% of people won't complain. They'll just never come back, or they'll just tell their friends and family. But they're just like they're dad. They're gonna say, yeah, yeah, but they're gonna say, hey, this is a bad experience, and I I I don't trust you guys to fix it. I don't want to I don't want to go through the the hassle. So yes, you're right. If someone raises their hand and says I have a problem, uh we're freaking lucky, and how can we fix it for you, right? Thank you for saying something. Thank you for letting us give giving us the opportunity to make it right. How can we fix it for you? And we will fix it for you, right? Um by showing you that we care. So that's such an opportunity. I agree with that 100%. We can't sit there and say, oh, they complain, but they I and then a lot of times people try and play detective, they're trying to get something for free, they're over exaggerating. So what? Give it to them, yeah, right? That's what we want to do. We want to play, we want to play it safe.

SPEAKER_01 41:22

Well, because what's the alternative? You you piss them off more, right? And they go and tell more people. Exactly. Because like you're just now you're just gonna fuel the fire.

SPEAKER_03 41:29

100%.

SPEAKER_01 41:30

I don't that doesn't not that that creates a comp culture, but I mean I think that's you know, a lot of in the corporate world, I think people do sometimes try to push it, you know, and the big corporations have said, you know what, let it happen because they know the ramifications of pushing back against somebody because of that.

SPEAKER_03 41:49

Well, also it's like you're you you become you're leaving it up to subjective being subjective, right? How do you tell if someone's taking advantage of faking it, whatever? It's and then that then there's becoming reliant on managers, your experiences. I have seven locations. How am I possibly going to be able to train managers on to sniff out the perfect, yeah, they're taking advantage, or no, this is just a guest with a legitimate problem. I'm just I'm what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna end up burning good guests instead of just creating the mentality of you, we just give it to them. Okay, if they're taking advantage, they're taking advantage. That's fine, let them take advantage, give it to them. This person comes in three times, same problem, three times, that's a different conversation. But we have someone coming in, our job is not to play detective. How can I fix it? I'm gonna fix this right now for you. Give me five minutes. Can you give me till the end of the meal? I'll make sure you leave happy. Can you can you give me that opportunity? Fantastic. But instead of saying, wait, is this person, hmm, let me try and figure it out. I had a manager we were working with the other day, and she goes, Well, this person had a problem, but then this person was the one complaining. They wouldn't speak up, but this person was complaining and kept chiming in and kept making it worse. All right, solve the problem. Pretend they're the guests. It doesn't matter. Like, but then they're trying to like say, well, why is this person speaking up? And it's their problem, and they shouldn't have been speaking up, and they're just trying to matter. It doesn't matter. Yeah, solve the problem. What do you think, you know, like what do you think we should do here? Okay, awesome. I got you. Give me five minutes, right? I'm gonna fix this for you. Versus trying to, hey, don't let them speak, right? It was it was it it that's where ego comes in, and that's where we're gonna uh try and strip that away from leadership. Is like, don't let your ego get involved. That's you know, that's and that's hard to do. You guys are owners, we've been there, it's hard to do because sometimes you're like, it's personal. Oh, it feels personal, right?

SPEAKER_00 43:22

Well, that's when you can use your team. Sometimes you can be like, I know that we just need to do this to make it right, and this is really hard for me now. I need backup. Can you come in and be the good guy? Can you come in?

SPEAKER_01 43:33

Sometimes that like person coming in on the tail end is I mean, most of the time that person's the hero. So like if you can, you know, if her and I are working together and I'm just taking the grenade, and you know, I'm the one that's just getting shot at, and I'm like, okay, here's here's the deal. Right. I need you to go drive this home because I know this is best for the guest.

SPEAKER_00 43:52

I know this is what is best for the restaurant. I need you to go take it through the finished line because you're a fresh face and they just want to throw it all at me.

SPEAKER_01 44:00

Or they want to throw it all at her, and then I come in and I'm like, hey, I'm Christina's husband, or you know, I'm like whatever, whatever it is. It's like you're able to navigate that and it's like how to win friends and influence people almost.

SPEAKER_00 44:12

It's like just come in and take ownership. Hey, Eddie told me what uh ball drop we had, and we've been running around trying to figure out the best way to fix this for you, and this is what we've came up with, and we're gonna own this and it's never gonna happen again, and we're so sorry. But you know, this is what we can do now. And is that happy does that make you happy and try to come to an agreement?

SPEAKER_03 44:35

Right, right, huge. And that that, like you said, the fresh face helps.

SPEAKER_00 44:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 44:38

So I think with this, okay, we talked about, I think this is a good you know topic that you talked about, you know, touching tables, right? Because it's a good example, right? We have this opportunity where it's like the goal is to touch the table, right? Um, five table touch meaningful table touches a week, so that's a number. Um, but this is still a lot of there's a lack of clarity. There's a big lack of clarity. And obviously, you haven't told me everything that he said, you're you're you're giving me a summary, but like right now it's there's a big lack of clarity. Okay, touching five tables, right? How are we gonna monitor that? What does touching five tables mean? Okay, it could be a guest recovery, it could be a table touch, it could be someone's first time, you know, dining with us, whatever it is, but five tables, what how are we monitoring it? How are we managing it? What are we saying? Um you said a meaningful touch. What does that mean? What is a meaningful touch, right? Because that's gonna mean something different to you, something different to you, something different to me. Ironing out that clarity of instead of saying meaningful touch, let's just give them directly what it is. We want you to make a personal connection with them, and here's three things, one of three things you need to do, right? Find out X, Y, or Z. Okay. And then the next piece is we're gonna follow up with them the next day. Okay, and so and then when we follow up with them the next day, it can't be a generic generic email, it has to be personal, um, and then it has to have like a throughput, right? How was everything? I just want to double check to make sure everything was they ate something spicy, and they're like, Oh my god, it was so I just want to make sure you're feeling good today, everything's good. Uh double check on everything again. Thank you for being so understanding. Thank you. And and and also I just want to invite you back for a glass of wine. If you come in, the text me, I want to buy you a glass of wine, bring bring a friend, like oh, right, buy you guys a glass of wine, whatever it is, something like that, but having that throughput, and so we we now have the uh uh objective, right? Five touches, five follow-ups a week minimum. I kind of the number worries me a little bit because then it becomes about the number, right? So it's like okay, five, it becomes transactional, but at least at least it's a good place to start. We have to have an exit strategy from that, like you talked about, right? You say we sometimes we have an issue, that issue makes us realize we need a system, and then that system makes us realize that we have to have a system for that system, right? It's this whole thing, right? So think about that way too. We have an exit strategy out of that five touches, because that five touches can really easily become about five, the number five. And now we're just we're setting the wrong tone, the wrong temperament, the wrong idea.

SPEAKER_01 46:54

Yeah, it's like okay, I got my four done. I need to I need to do one more tonight, right?

SPEAKER_03 46:58

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, so it's like okay, and then I'm gonna uh hi, how was that? Okay, cool, awesome. Uh yeah, and then they're like they're emailing them, hey, I just wanted to check in. I know it was your first time, hope you had a great experience.

SPEAKER_01 47:06

And then the person's like, Yeah, okay. We that's yeah, yeah, that's a little weird.

SPEAKER_03 47:10

So we gotta be just be cognizant of that, right? And then when we're training, we're talking about that. We don't want you checking boxes, right? We want you to have 15. You're just giving us five, right? We're just having five. But we want these to be meaningful, so there's three different options guest recovery, first-time guest, or just straight table touching, right? Walking by and table touching a table. And so that's where we gotta be careful of that. But we have the objective, right? Whatever that objective is, five table to five meaningful table touches. The things we have to have around it, because this is where most businesses fail, is before and after. How do we implement that properly? Again, the clarity is lacking. Meaningful table touch, right? How are we implementing it properly? How is Rob implementing it properly, and then how are we following up? That's a big piece. How is he follow up? How does he know? How does you how do you guys follow up? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 47:56

The the expectation is a BCC to him. Okay. So he's he's got visibility immediately when that email is sent um to the guests, thanking them for their experience. So um it's part of his kind of weekly to do to just monitor all that comes in and that GMs or every manager?

SPEAKER_00 48:16

GMs, just the GMs, yeah. And then I think how we oversee it and what we started doing with all of our GMs um to help us follow up with them is every week on Teams, because that's what we use to communicate, they fill out a Wednesday to Wednesday update where it's kind of a stop point for them to kind of catch up on all the admin stuff and everything that is repetitive on a weekly basis where they go through and they fill out this update on their computer or on their phone that goes to me, Eddie, Rob, our controller, Gabby. Um, and in that we added it in there, um, you know, complete your five follow-up emails if you haven't done so already. So we're we were trying to give them um catch up point for the week or a reminder because when so much variable stuff is going on throughout the week and that's like the one guarantee every week is you gotta do that Wednesday to Wednesday follow-up.

SPEAKER_01 49:09

Like go through it's a little, it's just a form that's pretty much like like what she said, just kind of gives you oh, I need to I need to do that. Let me go get that done. Or you know, just um try to keep, I guess, a little consistency in in such a highly unconsistent day-to-day.

SPEAKER_03 49:25

You know, the before and after, and and really again being cognizant of like we're not making it about the five. Like that's what I'd really stress to you, is like make sure you're just kind of trying to stay away from that as much as possible. And then I think one one thing that you're gonna be missing, because it's like how do we follow up, right? And so their BBC, I like that idea. I mean, that's definitely a way to track it. It's but again, it's gonna be a lot of like busy work for your director of operations because he's gonna be like having to track down five emails, and then it's like, how do we make sure to prevent it's not like um transactional? Like saying copy paste, you know, there's some there's some love behind it and stuff like that. So I would say what's really important, I think the biggest piece here that you can get like the biggest value add out of this is that we're getting them to um focus on these things, right? Focus on touching tables, focus on talking to guests, meaningful interactions, but then once a week we have a meeting with the the seven of the GMs or whatever, and we talk about these interactions. What did you notice when you talk to the guests? When you guest recovered, you talk to them, what have you noticed as replies from that? Have you seen guests come back? Have you, you know, like when you're table touching, you know, what does that look like? Is it is it, you know, are you what's your verbiage you're using? What do you what are you starting the conversation off with? How are you making sure it's not like a generic, you know, run-to-the-mills?

SPEAKER_01 50:44

It's like putting them in a group setting and and really like their peers hold them accountable at that point. Almost like at a pre-shift, you start asking somebody, hey, what's in what's in this salad or what's in this? Nobody wants to be that person that can't answer it. So if you're putting everybody in the same room and you're like, oh, tell me how your um tell me how your interactions went with with your follow-ups with your guests this week and um you know what worked out, what didn't work out, like you know.

SPEAKER_00 51:11

Well, I guess that could be similar to like our calls with you guys. He can hold that time slot in the future and maybe use that time slot as a weekly development for the general managers where they pick we we did talk about that. Yeah, where they pick a topic each week and then they really go hone in on it that week and then they discuss, you know, how it worked.

SPEAKER_03 51:27

And table touches are gonna be the key to that, like for now, or whatever the the manager engagement, like that's just the only focus. That's why we're getting on this call is to talk about this and and it should hold an hour because and then also you can say what's working for you when you table touch to make it not a basic table touch, right? And someone might say something really good, and someone like most might be listening, and they're like, Oh wow, right? And and I'm gonna call on you guys to be prepared, right? Um, and and and just making it less about the number, more about the actual execution and action, because eventually what we're gonna want to do is secret shops. Has Steve talked to you about that yet, or Kenneth? Um, not with you guys, but if you got if that's something you guys we don't do it personally, but we have a company, but we just the thing is like secret shops. Like my recommendation is is doing it twice a month in each location because it's gonna give you real data. We just base everything off of that, right? It's like, listen, this is tier GMs and your director of operations. This is gonna tell us what the story is, right? Whatever's happening here, we can just times that by 10 or 20, right? It'll give us a real read of what's happening, and it's a third-party unbiased, and we need to be hitting these marks. One of the marks can be guest table touching, right? Making sure the manager's touching all the tables, whatever it is, right? But we just I I just want to start like again having an exit plan for this five, because I'm gonna tell you right now, it's just gonna slowly become about that. They're gonna begrudgingly do it versus like how do we get them bought into it, understanding how important it is. That's a whole nother piece. So, but having those conversations is gonna be a big piece of it, right? Getting them excited, talking about it, um, and then giving them milestones. Hey, I you know, what is your what is your biggest weakness right now as a GM when it comes to table touches? Is it just table touching a table randomly out of nowhere? Because that could be awkward. I hate that, right? When you once a manager comes up, hi my name's Preston. How is everything over here? All right, well, I'm the manager. If you need anything, let me know. Like Yeah. Got it. Thank you. Like added zero value, right? It's very transactional. And then there's managers that are really good at table touching, right? We walk up and you talk to the server first. Is their first time, birthday? Is there anything I can know? You know, what do they order, right? You know, so you can go by hi, my name's Preston. I heard that you're you've been here a couple times. Okay, I'm sorry, I've never met you. I I would love what was your name? Right? And then I saw you ordered the salmon. Have you had that before? Oh my god, it's so freaking good. By the way, don't order dessert. I'm gonna bring out dessert for you. You guys have been here before. I appreciate that. I want to show you just a little thank you and love. I'm gonna bring out dessert and uh yeah, I'm really I'm gonna stop bugging you, but enjoy your meal. I just want to come by and say hi since you've been here so many times. So it feels like it has a purpose and a reason. Oh, that was nice, right? Versus like, how is everything over here? All right, well, my name's Preston. Enjoy it. Yeah, and you're like, cool, that's you just made me go through an awkward interaction for no value whatsoever. So um, and you know, having those pieces and those milestones, so it's like we get on a weekly call, whether the GMs, how are you feeling about everything? How are the table touches? There's no such, don't give me the the, you know, when you ask your kids how's school, right? Good. But you know, I want an answer, right? So we gotta ask questions that that warrant an answer, right?

SPEAKER_01 54:30

So the everyday pickup, at school pickup with with our little ones.

SPEAKER_03 54:34

Yeah, you're like good. What'd you learn? Nothing. You're like awesome, all right.

SPEAKER_01 54:40

Well, we're gonna get a toy, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 54:42

Yeah, exactly. Like when I see my nephew, I'm always like, what do you what do you like most about school right now? What do you what do you not like most about school? And then, you know, so but we talked about that. What's what is what what is working for you? What's giving me a reaction you got you weren't expecting from a guest that you table touch, right? We start asking them questions, getting them involved, and uh, and and just by watching, by truly caring, and by getting an answer and showing them that it's not about the five, right? It's about what inner relationships are we building and what does that look like and having conversations about it? It's gonna mean more to them. They're gonna understand, start understanding the mission, and then when they're doing it, they're gonna be mission-driven when they're doing it. Now you're giving, you're framing it to them of why they're doing it, what they're doing it. So they're when they're going to the tables, they're thinking about that meeting, right? What am I gonna say to bring back the meeting? And then I remember Brian said this, and I'm gonna try that now. And then that's a conversation we can have too with the director of operations. Did you have, did you try something that you heard yesterday from somebody else this week? How did it work out for you, right? And sometimes you're gonna get people like, oh no, but you every now and then you're getting something like I did, and here's what happened. And then we just encourage that learning environment, that group learning environment, and the cohesiveness. Um, and and then we can find out ways to kind of build out from there. But again, just think about that every time you're implementing something. It's like, what's the before piece, the implementation piece, and what's the after piece, the follow-up piece? And is it effective? Because you guys talked about something um Shiffly, right? Where it's like Shiffly, Opus, great examples of like they are they're they're they're tools. But it's it's it's like saying, you know, I'm gonna build a house, and like I think like the nails are so important, right? I got these new nails that are just so good. They're good, they're these nails are amazing. And cutting edges, it's a certain type of metal, awesome. You're gonna need a lot more pieces though, and a lot more people, and there's a lot going on. The nails are important, of course, but like you're focusing on what like it's one piece to a very big picture, and so that's that's why this piece is so important, is like what we want we don't want it to be just about implementation, about numbers, about checking boxes, right? That side work, sure. Yeah, absolutely, right? We can make that about checking boxes. Are you doing all these things? Yes or no? It's fairly simple. We're developing people, which is this is what we're doing, right? We're trying to develop your leaders into doing these things. We can't make it about checking boxes because we make about checking boxes, that's what they're gonna do, is check boxes, and they're gonna have no passion behind it, nothing whatsoever. And then it becomes another checkbox thing. Your director of operation gets over really fast, they get over really fast, the meetings become really stale and awkward. You're hearing the same things over and over again. People are demotivated, he's demotivated, you're demotivated because you're like, what is this? You know, you get on a call, you're like, Oh my gosh, you talk. How are the five? Oh, yeah, the five are going good. I got three down, I'm working on the other two. It's like so that's what we want to focus on. Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah. Okay, do you feel feel like that's doable for you guys?

SPEAKER_01 57:25

Yeah, easily.

SPEAKER_03 57:26

Yeah, got it.

SPEAKER_01 57:27

What what are your feelings on Hillstones restaurants? Hillstones restaurants, uh feelings how? Um on their in or unwillingness to accommodate uh well I want an espresso martini, no.

SPEAKER_03 57:41

Right. So they they can do it because they're Hillstone, right? So they've built such a good brand value and and they they that they can do it, right? They they're allowed, they're able to do it. Trying to copy Hillstone's model is is not gonna work.

SPEAKER_01 57:56

It's a losing proposition. I see that from like anybody's standpoint, but it it's mind-boggling how it almost goes against a lot of what we preach on day-to-day.

SPEAKER_03 58:07

Because because they're they're they're selling something different, okay? So they're we're selling an experience. We don't have what Hillstone has. We haven't put the blood, sweat, and tears that Hillstone has put in, the length in business, they've been around for so long, they've battle tested themselves and they've gone through trials and tribulations to get to where they're at, right? We're we're and so we're offering an experience of like hospitality, personalized touch. What they're selling is consistency. That's it. They're selling you consistency. You know exactly what you'll get every time you walk into a Hillstone. You'll get a professional server who knows their menu inside and out, who will conduct themselves professionally, who will look clean and presentable. You'll get your food looking in the same exact way, tasting the same exact way every single time, no matter what. You'll know how long you're gonna wait for your food, you'll know how long you wait for your reservation, you'll know how long you'll be in the restaurants. Like you talked about stress, right? You take that stress out. 45 minutes guaranteed. If I make a reservation at Hillstone, I'll be in and out at this time guaranteed. Um, I won't have to deal with any drunk people or crazy people, right? I I know a host will treat me professionally. It won't be personalized. They're not gonna make me feel special or individual, but they will have that consistency, and that's why Hillstone's successful, because people are saying that's how that's how in-demand consistency is. Okay, but until you can offer that, and even if that's something you want to offer, we can't say no to people, right? We uh within reason, you know, within reason. We have to be like reasonable about it. So it's a business model that works for them, and people try and copy it and it doesn't work, right? Even if they don't copy that part, people try and copy their their training or their systems. Like we, you know, there's a there's someone out there I know, like online, who's like, oh, I was a you know, I I used to open Hillstones or something like that. I'm gonna train you the way the way I train Hillstone servers, that's like saying, I'm gonna put like a Ferrari muffler on your Honda and it's gonna be fast. Like it's you're you're you're taking a cis, you're taking a training system and putting it into a restaurant that that is like a 0.00001% of a restaurant operation with all these systems, all this leadership development, all this stuff set in place, and you're like, oh, I'm gonna go.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:06

40 years of goodwill or you know, whatever.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:07

Yeah, exactly. And I'm gonna give you their systems. It's like, what are you gonna do with that? It makes no sense. I'm like, I can't do anything, it doesn't fit. I'm putting a square uh peg in a circle hole, so it's not gonna fit. So, you know, but yeah, I mean it's it's it's it's a almost like a very like borderline once-in-a-lifetime thing, the way they've built it and the way they've they've established it, because they can guarantee you they can guarantee you this, so they're able to say no, but they can fully guarantee you that you will get this in the end, which is what 99% of restaurants can't do. And so because of that, they're able to do that that they're they're able to say no. All right. I don't like that business model personally, and I think that you know it doesn't, it's it's not what hospitality is about, you know, but it does serve a purpose, and it's obviously very popular, but you know, it's it's something that's that's very rare.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:53

Yeah, yeah, just it's a it's an interesting case study for anybody because it goes against everything that that we say. Like, of course you can make an espresso martini, but look, you're literally saying no, we don't do that.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:04

Right. Yeah, or we don't, you know, a party of five, like no. No, go somewhere else.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:10

All of our tables are drilled in.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:11

Yeah, exactly. We're not gonna do it, right? Yeah, absolutely not. So yeah, that's it's uh it's definitely uh uh an interesting concept. So yeah, I mean I think like I think we're getting you know to the to the nitty-gritty of things, but again, I just want you guys to focus, just always keep that in mind. And I don't and I I think simplification is gonna be good for you.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:28

Like, do you ever feel you get overwhelmed?

SPEAKER_00 1:01:30

Everything that happens, we're always trying to do, yeah, be proactive, and then also think of a way that we can take this one problem, fix it, figure out how to prevent it next time, and then alert everyone of that and try to help everyone be more proactive as a company, and then keep those processes organized somewhere when we bring in a new hire, we can give them everything they need to succeed and try to give them all the information without them having to. I get like stuck on trying to prevent the fail. And sometimes we have to let people fail to learn, but it then it affects the guest experience. So it's that mix of trying to make everything as perfect as you can for the guest at all times while letting a manager coming up experience those fails so that way you can teach them the right way to handle things.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:18

I mean, I think you're right and wrong. I think you guys need to go through those failures um once or twice or whatever, 10 times, 20, whatever it is, right? But you guys go through the failures so people coming up don't have to, right? I don't think they necessarily have to experience the failure.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:33

Um but it's like so hard to take a new manager and teach them how to handle every single variable situation the way that our company wants it in like a three-week training process. So it's like trying to keep the systems organized where you know they're on the floor, they're running around at the restaurant, something comes up. Is there a spot where they can like pull it up quick and reference it to where they don't have to go look in their manual that's at home because you know, like we gave them all this stuff when they first got hired? Um so that's the hardest part for us. I think like in a world where everything is so accessible and at your fingertips, it's like how can we have everything accessible and at the manager's fingertips when they need them?

SPEAKER_03 1:03:16

And so, I have a solution for you, but first things first, um because you're saying like I want them to be able to kind of uh uh under like have every solution figured out, right? Yeah, perfect scenario, and there's something to that, okay? Because I were I worked with someone before, I saw his team and I went to one of his events, it was a small event, like a hundred people, and his team went up there, and I went to see him, right? But his team came up and they're all like young and they're all so good, they're so knowledgeable, so well spoken, and they presented so well. I was so I was like my mind blown. I'm like, everybody that went up there, younger, freaking confident, knowledgeable, it was crazy. And so afterwards I go, dude, where where where do you find your people? Like, where do you get your people? And he was like, I don't get my people pressed, and I developed them. Yeah, he was like, you know how many times they have to present in front of me before they actually go up on stage? 50. 5'0. You know how much time that takes for me? You know what time, you know, so I was like, wow, that that kind of opened it up. But what I want to also say to you is like, well again, focus, right? We don't want to teach them the ins and outs of everything, because I can tell you right now, 80 to 90 percent of their problems that they need to solve on the floor, that they need to be ready for on the floor, uh uh there's gonna be 80 or 90 percent of of the same things. Then you'll have 10% of like random stuff that is like so rare that it happens. And I would say we don't need to prepare them for that. 80 to 90 percent, and then I would also say what was that 80-20 rule? That was the yeah, 80 well, 80, 80. Resourceful resourceful and 20% is resources, right? And that's the truth too. But so 80% of your problems that are on the floor that managers need to learn are gonna be what we want to teach them. After that, it could be a you know, we can start teaching them along the way. There could be like a, you know, course that we can create for them that they can take and maybe get a bonus if they take it, right? Or if they're interested in getting a raise after one year one, they have to learn this courses that we we give them, you know, where it elevates them. But 80% of the problems are gonna be on the floor. Tell me if you think I'm wrong on this, okay? I want your honest opinion. You can break it up into four things, really simply guess recovery. Can they guess recover the like you can? Yes or no, right?

SPEAKER_05 1:05:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:27

Every manager, that's important. We want to teach that ins and outs, right? And it's all the same stuff, right? It's just kind of what how angry are they, right? It doesn't matter though, if it's a guy, the the hardest guest recovery I ever had in my entire restaurant. I pri I tell you right now, anybody I guess recovers, leave me happy, right? We're gonna be best friends. The hardest guest recovery I ever had, and I spilt or one of my servers spilled a red glass of wine on a YSL bag.

SPEAKER_05 1:05:55

Oof.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:56

White one, brand new one that they didn't make anymore.

SPEAKER_05 1:05:58

Of course.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:59

Yeah, the hardest. Guest recovery ever had was this guy who got an overcooked burger. He was older and he was with his family and he was just besides himself. And he wasn't even like, it wasn't like one of those things where you're like, dude, you're being really like unreasonable. It was just, he was just so disappointed, and he couldn't, and he just he just couldn't get shake it, right? So guest recovery, what I'm saying, and my point is that it's guest recovery, it's guest recovery. We don't need to be like, so here's what happens when they say this, and here's what happens when they say that. It's like, are they upset? Figure out the problem, find the solution, right? And we have a whole framework we gave to you guys, right? So guess recovery, let's master that. Let's go through scenarios. Director of operations comes in, let's go over it, talk to me. I'm gonna throw a guest recovery at you. I want you to tell me what you would do in this situation. Nope, I'm not happy with that. What are you gonna do now? Right? So guess recovery is gonna be big. Um, accountability is huge. Can they hold people accountable? This is probably the biggest, these are probably the biggest two weaknesses, but the accountability is the biggest weakness. But that's why I gave you guys this. And so when you actually look and study it, like it has a daily mastermind, um, it has a couple pieces, but if you start going into there, there's there's emotional intelligence. I'm telling you right now, this is the secret to holding people accountable, right? So if you look at uh some of the big things like emotional intelligence, reading the team member, the pause before the reaction, learning that skill set, right? You're pausing, you're listening, you're figuring out before the reaction, holding your own state. I'm staying calm, cool, and collected the whole time. I'm not gonna let their emotions dictate my emotions. We've all been there. We start puffing up our chest with them, right? Uh the room is always watching, really important. If I'm talking to an employee, someone else might be able to hear me, and I don't want to be perceived as anything but professional. Reading through the excuses, and now we go through this part, right? The flat tire. Okay, so it says when to hold them where to hold them accountable, who to have with you, uh, what to have in front of you, and what they know. Okay. So that and then it's like uh which ring. So it's a is it first offense, is it verbal, is it is it actionary, right? So first offense is they're late but they showed up. Verbal, uh, that's a verbal, right? Next is it's a first offense with a severe impact on the team or guest, right? I showed up two hours late to shift. That's gonna be a different conversation than showing up five minutes late. And then there's a script, right? So it's a script. We we name what happened, we name the standard, and then we deliver the verbal. And it tells you what not to do, right? Don't ask them why they were late before you deliver the verbal, right? Why why were you late, by the way? It's like, what do you think they're gonna say? Yeah, there's an extreme circumstance that I couldn't control. Uh don't compare them to other employees. Uh don't apologize for holding them accountable. I'm sorry, but I have to hold you. It's like why I'm not sorry. Yeah, because this is part of the job. I'm not, you know, uh, and and and uh and don't add more words. If they say yes, right, what should we do at that point? If they say yes, yeah, if they're like, I get it, thank you for holding me accountable. What do we do? Yeah, thank you. Yep, that's it. All right, have a good day. I don't need a and by the way, I just want to say, no, no, just like stop the conversation right there. Now, this is big. Objections. This is huge, okay? So um, objections, right? Because they're gonna come up with the objections, and we have it all had a flat tire, other people are late all the time. Why are you holding me accountable? And then if they keep pushing back, right? Listen, I hear you, nothing about the standard has changed. This is just a verbal. I'm gonna log it, we'll sign it, we're done. And then if they if they still won't commit, then they just have, you know, what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna have you talk to the GM, okay? Um, I I get it, I hear you, I hear what you're saying. I'm gonna have you talk to the GM and then and then he might have a different uh outlook on it, but it's up to him ultimately. I'm just I'm just a messenger. If I'm a GM, I'm gonna have I'm gonna set up a call with Eddie. Is that okay? You guys can talk real quick, and then you know, again, I'm just a messenger if he has a different opinion. We'll because there has to be a point where we just say if they're pushing back too much. So this will give them every scenario, and then there's there's just different like things that are happening, right? Um, the ghost, right? If they do a no-call, no show, right? Objections, the scripts, like it has everything here. The pocket drift, what if they have their well if they pull their phone out on the floor in front of a guest, right? All this stuff, the guest snap, what if they give a guest an attitude, right? They they start. So there's just all these scenarios of how they can hold them accountable. So even if your leadership team just reached through this, yeah, that's this will be just gives them just knowledge. It's knowledge, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:10:03

Yeah, that's like a playbook for them to feel confident. And that's like part of the hard part, is just them feeling confident in those situations. They don't want to disappoint the company, the raps are on us, they want to be able to do the right thing, and we want them to feel empowered and that they know you know enough to be able to handle those situations.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:20

Yeah, exactly. And they want to do it. Yeah, and so just have them read through this. You guys can you know make your own. You might say the script. And the script is I always tell them, I go, those scripts are just ideas, right? Just showing you what someone might say in the situation. You say your your piece, right? As long as you're sticking to the bullet points and we're really making it sterile and making it because of, you know, for legal reasons too, right? We want to make it really just cut and dry, just super simple, cut and dry. So we can't say it's a personal thing, we can't say it's the this or that thing. It's just strictly about our standards, right? Or about our rules, about our systems. We need to hold people accountable across the board. So there's accountability piece, and then there's inspiration, which is like I'm being inspirational on the floor, which means I'm I am the example. I'm gonna be on the floor with you, you're gonna see me touching tables, you're gonna see me giving hospitality, you're gonna see me running uh drinks, you're gonna see me running food, you're gonna see me help you clear your tables, you know, you're gonna see me in action, and you're gonna see me living and breathing everything I talk about, right? Um, and a good example of this is is the mindset and the mentality, okay? Because I had a GM that really helped me out big time, one of my most influential GMs, and I was working at a restaurant, I was a bartender, and I was Mr. Hospitality, right? Mr. Hospitality, when really it was about me, not the guest, but I thought it was about the guest because I was so good at hospitality and I was so good at my job. And so I had um a GM there that I really respected. And so this girl server comes up, she goes, Hey, can I get a um a uh a half glass of wine? A guest wants a half of a glass of a wine, and I'm like, I mean, yeah, if they want to pay for a full glass and want us to pour half a glass, like we could do that. And she goes, Well, no, I like they want to pay for like half a glass of wine and get half a glass. And I was like, We're not like what are we doing, right? Like, this is a like, no, we can't do that. And then she was like, Well, Billy, the GM, did it. And I was like, So I walk in and I go, Billy, what are we doing here, man? Like, are you serious? Like, we're pouring half glass of wine, we're charging half a glass, and um, the restaurant we were in hasn't been profitable at that point, right? And so he goes, Preston, until we profit a dollar, until we accomplish what we want to accomplish, we're never gonna tell a guest no. So, yes, we're pouring half glass of wine. And I was like, right? And so that's part of leadership too. Is like it really wasn't like, yeah, we are. Yes, we do that for guests. I'm I'm saying yes. Like, don't it was like, understand this, Preston. Like, here's why. And it's why it was so clear. It was so freaking clear and so apparent. I'm like, oh my gosh, right? He just summed it up so well. So that the the inspiration part is really, really big. So these are the three that I would really focus on, and really the the top two. It's like, and because you you can get really bogged down with I want to give them everything as an owner, right? We want to give them everything, right? But then it becomes where do we start? And now it becomes this encyclopedia of knowledge, and then it becomes like what's important to them, and then how do we track it and how do we monitor it?

SPEAKER_00 1:13:07

And then and all of a sudden the restaurants are operating and the meetings are high operating. Yes, and all of a sudden, seven days a week, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:11

Yeah, exactly. And then all of a sudden, a year goes by. No movement, right? Because we're so focused on these one things. Let's just, I'm telling you right now, make this your obsession: guess recovery, accountability. Guess recovery, accountability. Are we holding people accountable? Are we able to guess recover at a high level? If we can do those two things, you're gonna see a lot of movement in the business. You're gonna see a lot of improvement in sales, you're gonna see a lot of improvement in employee retention, employee uh productivity, all that good stuff. You'll see the numbers and and on just these two things. Once we get this down, we have a master, and we feel like, man, I could bring any freaking manager in here within six months, they're gonna be nailing these things, which makes it awesome because now we can also open up our pool. We can bring people up right from within. You don't have any experience, that's okay. We're gonna take you through this process, or we're gonna make you badass. Because also the statistic was I think 70%. I gotta I gotta look up the number again, around 70% of the reason why managers uh have high anxiety and high stress in their jobs, their job is undesirable, is because they don't know how to deal with people.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:08

Oh, that's interesting.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:09

Yeah, and you can and you can look it up. It's it's it's the number, it might be higher, but it's because I I don't I I want to be dealing with these for example, if I move someone up, we were out drinking the night before. Now I'm your boss, right? How do I handle that?

unknown 1:14:23

Right?

SPEAKER_01 1:14:23

How do we always try to like move them? Yeah, put them in a different store. Yeah, this is like we're fortunate that we're that we can do that, but it's really difficult for for somebody to to bridge that gap because they're out drinking one night and all of a sudden now they're your manager and like they want to assert their dominance. Right. And this person is like, What do you why why are you telling me what to do? Like we're literally ripping shots at Yeager last year. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:47

I'm a better server than you. I know more about this place. I think you're longer, right? All these so if you move them, awesome, but they still have the problem of like they don't know how to correct. They don't know how to like you know interact with people. That's when emotional intelligence comes in, and that's where accountability comes in. That's where like that consistent accountability comes in, where it's just cut and dry. Someone come in, came in late, hey, can I talk to you real quick? Gotta hold you accountable, right? Super simple, you know. Oh my gosh, I get it. Okay, cool. I'll I'll send it up to the GM. I got you. Like, we're good. Like, I just I'm just I'm just a messenger, right? We gotta make it really painless when they interact with guests and then also with with the uh with the employees. We do that, all of a sudden your leaders are freaking looking like rock stars because you guys have been in the industry long enough, you guys have been training these people long enough. You've been in the industry.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:26

You were you did you work in the um I started at Marble Slab actually in high school. Right and then I started in real restaurants in college.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:34

Nice. So you so we both know, right? This is so it's so rare. I've worked at really nice restaurants where the managers didn't know how to guess recover for life of them. They just did the freaking basics.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:43

My first hostess shift ever, I'll never forget. I've never worked in a full service restaurant before, and I applied, I got the job, they told me to come in for training this day at this time. I walk in and they're like, here, I'll clock you in. And like they put I was like, oh like never answered a phone, never sat in a rotation, never nothing. And it was just I was working all of a sudden, and throughout the shift, the phone's ringing, and I'm like, I don't know how to answer, I don't know how to put it on hold. Someone wants to take a word, I don't even know the menu. Um, and then I quickly learned what it was like to sit people because I was just sitting them. I didn't know, and then I'm getting yelled at by servers, and it's all in my first day, and I was like, okay, I didn't realize that this was a thing. Um again, a lot of we're really critical in ourselves because we want to give everyone the best experience.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:34

But yeah, we we often we oftentimes look at the shoe on the other foot probably too much. Right. Like because we did that, that, and that. And then like, you know, when that excuse comes up, it's like, oh, I've been in that position where like that excuse is almost valid, and you know, you start, you start like that's where the accountability piece like really needs to be.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:53

Yeah, and that's cool. We we're developing this piece too, so we gotta listen, right? So if someone says, No one ever told me that, and you're like, So you never heard that in a pre-shift, and then because that's why it's important when I do pre-shifts and we give you the the form. It's like there should be a signature piece of the box, yeah, with everyone's name every single time. Can you just sign that you understood everything? You're 100% clear, right? New initiative. What happens if you don't promise me? Because if I hold you accountable, I don't want you to be like, I didn't know. Is that fair? Yeah, okay, cool. They sign off, awesome. We got everyone's signature here, so that way, you know, there's little things like, hey, I didn't know. It's like, come on. All right, let's just I get it. You might have forgot. Slip through the cracks, you're human, that's fine, but we still have to hold you accountable. Just do me a favor, like get my back here. Uh, but then also listen, right? Because someone might say, I didn't know that, and then you find out, oh, they were they were off for the week or whatever, or something like that, or no one did tell them, or someone might have told them, we're not doing that anymore. And you're like, wait, so we want to listen to those things, but we want to be very cognizant, right? Of just like, outside of that, dog ate your homework. I'm sorry, but we got to hold you accountable, right? And this is again gonna change everything. So, again, let's make this our main focus. And with everything that you guys do, remember the implementation piece, right? It's always piece by piece, one foot in front of the other. If we try to implement two things at once, we're gonna fail. Hey, here's two new initiatives that we're gonna do in one week, we're gonna fail. We have to do one thing at a time. That's gonna be hard enough, right? So we gotta do that. It'll take time, but the payoff will be immense. Again, we don't want to end up 30, 365 days from now and no movement whatsoever. A lot of ideas, a lot of information, a lot of docs, freaking Opus is locked and loaded. We haven't moved an inch though, because we're not being strategic here. One thing at a time. Just one thing at a time. Let's hyper focus on that and get it done. And then just make this your obsession. Guess recovery accountability. How do I just how do I get this instilled? How do we get that installed? And so, first things first, accountability and the daily masterminds. I'm telling you right now, this is your next move, right? We are doing daily masterminds every single day with every single employee at every single location, and then we're gonna follow up to make sure those are getting done, and then we're gonna hold people accountable after we start doing that. We're not gonna sit there and go, we're now holding everyone accountable for everything. Buckle up. We're gonna introduce this new thing, and then we're gonna hold you accountable on it, and we're gonna continue holding you accountable on it until the end of time. We're gonna introduce now being on time. This whole week we're gonna talk about being on time. Hey guys, I've been really lax, my fault, our fault, but from now on, new rule, you gotta be on time. If you're on time late, whatever, but boom, now we start implementing that, right? You see how that like starts trickling? Yeah, becomes a snowball effect. Do you see that being a problem?

SPEAKER_06 1:19:23

No okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:24

Do you think it's doable? Okay. Okay. And again, your managers, right? They're gonna do what at first? Push, test the waters. Right. They're gonna push back a little bit. Oh, understaffed, busy, this and that. I get it. We gotta we gotta make this a priority. Number one, first and foremost. Like, understand, like, even if the ship's burning, going down, we still have to have these daily masterminds. Because the reason why I always stress that piece is because when we say, when they go it's too busy, understaffed, that's gonna be 50% of the time.

SPEAKER_05 1:19:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:54

They're gonna be able to say, it was too busy, understaffed, it's too busy. And you just go, okay, well, instead of saying there is no negotiating here, this is what it is. You know, and I'm gonna tell you right now, every high-performing restaurant we've ever worked with had daily masterminds done. It was literally the difference. You look at it, you're like, the the restaurants, because people always ask us, they're like, what's the difference between a successful restaurant we worked with and an unsuccessful? It's if they listen, and the one thing that's always consistent is they did not commit to the daily masterminds. Like, oh, our team's really stressed out, busy season. This I get it. But we want a stress test during the busy season. That's the whole point. What what what we well why would we have something we're implementing our business that can't be done in the busy season? It kind of makes it pointless, right? Yeah, we have to make sure that these are going to be done during the busy season. There are no no's, there are no like uh uh you know, there's just no negotiating with this, with this piece. And then when they see the benefit of it too, when they get good at it, it becomes a skill set for them, right? They have a superpower now. They know how to go control the narrative, implement new systems, follow up with people, work with their teams, get more other people, they start growing with it too. So it's forced growth, if you will. Did you guys have any questions about that?

SPEAKER_00 1:21:03

No.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:04

All right.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:05

We've generally done, we do pre-shifts at each of the restaurants, but uh they they're more so like we were talking about there, they're I think they lean a little bit more informative than than engaging. Um a five-minute, three to five minute quick little one-on-one is much more impactful than a you know, 15-minute group setting before the shift with everybody in there at the same time.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:30

Yeah, and I and and and you know, two things. We're trying to solve for problems that aren't broken sometimes. So it's like the 86 item, for example. It's like, is that a huge issue, right? Are people like not able to figure out what's 86, so we have to be in front of them saying it to their faces in order for them to accomplish it? Or can we just say, right next to this expo line is 86, your job is to walk in and make that list. Now, if you sell an 86 item, we'll hold you accountable. We're gonna hold you accountable, right? Your job is really simple, walk in, write the 86 item, commit it to memory, and have that information. So, but yeah, spending that precious time with them is is so important. Go to a pre-shift, right? Go to one of your pre-shifts and watch it and be like, is this doing anything? Would I be paying attention to this pre-shift if I was if I was here? Because that's another problem too. If they go to a pre-shift over and over again, it's just so the same thing, but they're just they're just tuning it out. It's like another thing they have to do, right? And you're like, okay, you got it, right? So, but when they get that energy boost and they get that information and they get that realignment, they get a little bit of excitement, it's it it has a different impact. Number four is um is time commitment. So maybe yeah, committing your time to your team, like and and that's a big thing too. I want to talk about it more today, but we ran out of time. But I say the first commitment you want to make is spending 30 minutes with your team as a GM, as a manager, whatever, whether it's obviously it can be daily masterminds, you know, five minutes here, five minutes there, and then five minutes just on the floor talking to them, right? How you know, like, and and and spending a little bit of time with them is huge. People want that's what employees want. I want attention from my leadership team. I want them to care, I want them to talk to me, make me better, and and have that one more time.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:04

Last week, like we were able to get out to a few of the restaurants in one of the nights, and it's rare that like we're able to put the boys with somebody and her and I actually be able to make multiple stops together, yeah. And it's like, you know, when we when we get to somewhere we maybe we we hadn't been together in a couple weeks, or I I stopped in during the day, or whatever it is, like you can tell the team, you know, they light up and they like crave that like engagement. And you know, we go, we go, we try to have as much conversation as we can with everybody. How's the kids? How's this? How you doing? What's this? But like, and like that stuff means so much to them. It does, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:44

It's like it really does. Because they like attention from leadership, right? You know, and and showing them that attention and that love and that care, spending some time with them is huge. And so, yeah, and so that's right, and and with the teams too, just spending time with them is a big deal. So uh uh just focus on that, and I again, I mean, I would say come up with a game plan. I think the accountability piece is daily masterminds, right? And let's just start implementing that like tomorrow, be really you know diligent about it, bring it up on the calls, right? You can talk about with our team there too. What issues are you having? How's the feedback? What's your weakness?

SPEAKER_05 1:24:19

Right?

SPEAKER_03 1:24:19

Because it's it's it's focus, clarity, uh, uh energy and engagement. What's your what's your weakness right now? And then a lot, I think nine times out of ten it's always energy because people are like, well, it's not me, I don't know how I feel uncomfortable, I feel a little bit vulnerable. It's like you gotta get out there, we gotta just do it, right? And then give them give them some tips and some advice and walk them through that process. Alright, awesome. I think we have enough to move forward. There's a lot of information. Yeah, you're welcome. But uh yeah, I know I appreciate you guys taking the time.