He Opened a Restaurant at 28 With No Money—Now He's Franchising | Clarke Merrell | Below the Surface

Today on Below the Surface, we sat down with Clarke Merrell — the man behind some of Eastern NC's most recognizable restaurants: Prime Bistro, Wine Bar, Circa, Dank Burrito, Merrell Estate & Gardens, Social Q, and Beaufort Olive Oil Company. 
In this episode, Jared and Clarke get into what it really takes to build a hospitality empire from scratch, the brutal reality of tight margins in fast casual, what "dank" actually means as a brand standard, and why he believes you're in the people business first, no matter what you're serving.
They get into franchising Dank Burrito, navigating economic uncertainty, knowing your numbers when commodity prices are moving, how Clarke builds and keeps loyal teams.
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Topics covered:
-Opening Circa at 28 with no capital and no experience
-Franchising Dank Burrito — the lessons learned in the last 12 months
-Why Dank doesn't have a microwave (and barely needs a freezer)
-Managing tight margins when beef prices double
-"Management is an action sport" — what accountability actually looks like
-Handling Google reviews without losing your mind
-Building culture through the human element
-Why every chart has red candles

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hey guys, welcome to the Blow to Surface podcast. I met Clark, I don't know, four years ago, I think. Um doing work for him in his restaurants and uh kind of built a relationship outside of that. Um and talking about that is kind of funny. I was talking to Maria about that too. It's kind of funny how friendships develop. You know, you know, I've noticed that a lot over the years, like you really don't even have to hang out or do anything, but you still have some kind of friendship there. Yeah. And I kind of it's how I feel about you. It's a connection. It is, it's a good, a good connection, man. But yeah, um, anybody that knows Clark, man, Clark's built some very successful um restaurants in the area. Uh we're sitting in beautiful prime bistro right now. Um he has Cerca, he has Dank Burrito, um, Merrill States, um, which is a beautiful wedding venue event center. Um, we actually had our Christmas party back there in December. So had it had a great time. But what's going on, man? What's new?

SPEAKER_00 1:00

What is new? We also have the Beaufort Oliver Company. You don't service that.

SPEAKER_01 1:04

No, we don't.

SPEAKER_00 1:05

Yeah. So that's that's our retail store. We have we have one in Emerald Isle, um, we have one in Beaufort, and we have one in Moorhead. Awesome. We do it oils and vinegars and specialty provisions. I think I do remember that now. It takes like a mediocre home cook, it kind of elevates their game a little bit. Is that the ones you give out here? Yeah. Okay. They're they're gifts we give here. That's right. But uh what's new? I mean you know, I get asked that a lot because people people kind of joke with me because it seems like every time you turn around, there's a new project, uh something going on. And and it has been pretty accurate, man. Like, you know, I opened Circa in 2010. Right. And that was my first restaurant. I was 28. And um I think every year since 2010, I've had a project, big or small, going on. And I've and I kind of feel like right now we are in the middle of just in the middle of it. It's like, have you ever seen that like that saying, you know, be careful what you you wish or pray for because you you just might get it. Right. Right? Like and it's like, you know, remember you you prayed for this moment of being busy and all like the things and the family. And um, I feel like we're we're there, like we're in the spot where I need to really just kind of um step back for a second and analyze and just kind of strategize like what we have going on. Right. So, you know, in December we opened a private dining room at Circa. So we can accommodate like 30 extra folks now. Okay. Um, we can do like private parties and bridal luncheons and baby showers, stuff like that. So that opened in in December. So that was kind of our last like thing right now. Um, I'm just you know, I mean, that wasn't even that long ago. I mean, we're sitting here in March. Right. So, you know, we we had a big snow this winter, so it was just, you know, I think me and the teams were just kind of working on ourselves and our systems and just kind of digging through what's going on and and getting ready for the summer. Correct. Um, you know, at this stage in the game, man, it just seems like, and you could probably agree with me here, like every year just seems like it just speeds up. It does. Right? Like a week isn't really a week. No, right? Like some people are like, oh, my birthday is in like a month, it's so far away. And I'm like, no, it's like 20 minutes, right? Like it just it goes by because as a business owner, you're so your days are already kind of planned out for you, right? Like, and uh, you know, people are like, you work a lot. I do work a lot, but so it's it's kind of opposite, right? Like I have to plan to take time off. I don't like schedule my work, like right, like it's always work unless I decide to not work. It's not when do I work, it's like always there, right? So um, you know, it's just kind of sifting through all that, but um, so nothing really big or earth-shattering, you know, on the horizon. I mean, we're franchising thing burrito, we're still kind of pushing that ball. Um, you know, but you know, we're in the day, right, where you know, Trump's blown up Iran right now. So things have just diesel's at 539, right? So this is gonna be documented so we all kind of know where we're at. Right. Um, I mean, that's where we're at. So I think just everybody's kind of in this state of like latency. Yep. Right. So, you know, hopefully it doesn't affect our summer business because that's important for us here at the beach. Absolutely. So we're you know, we're just trying to prepare not for the worst, but prepare for a little bit of a pullback and hope that we don't see it.

SPEAKER_01 4:35

Right. That's kind of where we're at right now. And it's funny that you touched on how the schedule is when you run a business. Yeah. You know, you don't really schedule your days off if you you you work and then you kind of just go you plug things in as you can.

SPEAKER_02 4:51

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 4:51

Um, and a lot of people don't understand that. Regular employee, regular people that work in a business don't understand they're scheduling their vacation time off. That's right. Um, and we're actually in the same season as you. It's I've actually stepped back a whole lot in the last three months. Yeah. Um, which is a big change, and we talked about that in a past podcast, the struggle of having to constantly change as a business owner your roles. That's right. And that's tough because you know, you go from one extreme to another extreme to another extreme, and and every season's different too. Um Dank Bruto.

SPEAKER_00 5:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:26

Where are you at with that? Like, what is what because everybody's seeing it blow up. Everybody I talk to says Dank Bruto, Dank Bruto.

SPEAKER_00 5:32

So Dank's interesting, man. Like, Dank is I'll I'll be honest with you, man. It's it's Dank Dank Dank as a brand is is awesome, man. It's really cool, and I'm really proud of what we've done uh with Dane Brito and Robert McGuinness um is my director of operations, and he is my best friend first, right? Like we're buddies, man. We go back almost 20 years now, and we've done a lot of stuff together, and he's done a great job like growing and navigating Dane Brito and and and working just right beside me growing that thing. But man, like there's just Dane Brito is a unique um it's a unique thing, man. It's it's it's hard. And and the journey and the path has not been as linear as I would hope to be. Right. Right? Like uh people who trade the stock market or read like um charts, right? Like you got green candles and red candles, like green were up, red were down. Like it's it's been it's been a little bit of a red candle minute, man. Like and you know, I it's it's the margins are so tight, right? And like, you know, the word dank, right, is representative of just high quality. Apply it to what you want. Pot, food, whatever. I don't care. But we take the high quality part of dank and like we associate it with our food. So here we are as a brand saying, you know, this is this is our stand, right? We want high quality, right? Like dank breeder doesn't have a microwave. Right. Right? Go find me another restaurant that doesn't have a microwave. Right. It doesn't, you're in the wrong, you're not they don't exist. No. And we and we barely need a freezer. Um if if the food distributors would have smaller pack sizes and I could buy fresh, like I wouldn't need a freezer because we you know, we just don't, but I can't, I don't blow through you know 50 pounds of ground beef that fast. So I need to freeze it or I'm gonna lose it, right? Um but so we've taken this idea of like we want this really high quality, which the when Dank Burger started in the food truck, we were literally buying the same food, the same raw material for the Dink Burger truck as I was for Circa, and that we do for Prime. Right? Like Prime, we're $100, $110 a head price point average, like high-end steakhouse. That's us. And then you got Circa who hits about $60 a head, and you got dink that hits $15 a head. Right. We're buying the same tomatoes, we're buying the same beef, we're buying the same, like, so our margins, everything gets squeezed. So we have to be a lot sharper and crisper and more accurate on the dank level, because if not, there's a lot of room for like waste. And you know, I think people really kind of think that because dank is fast casual and just counter service, you don't have a waitress, that it like it automatically like takes takes it down a level, the experience level down. Um, so you can't charge as much. So like, you know, honestly, like the food and the skill and everything that we put into a burrito, they should be $20 a piece just because. But because it's wrapped up in a tortilla, the effect of like visual, like the price people are willing to pay is is less. So you know, that's that's like the headwinds that Dave Burrito faces. So it's like our margins are super small. So we have to be can extremely consistent all the time. We have to be really accurate. And I feel like our customer, because the price point is a little bit lower than let's say circa or prime, man, like we're we just really kind of open ourselves up to like um, I don't know, just like criticism. A lot of like people can get really like stupid, um, and and they just mean for no reason. And you know, you you get like and this is this happens all the time. We have a store in Raleigh, then people will order like DoorDash, and uh we'll fulfill it. It'll be perfect, everything will be will be perfect, and uh we'll get a charge back. They'll say, Oh, they didn't they didn't give me my case so they'll call DoorDash and they're lying. Absolutely, yeah. So then we get charged back. So, you know, we had to pay to put that food out. We had to pay the DoorDash drivers and all the fees and all that crap, and then they they backcharge us because these people are ghetto or whatever for lack of better terms, and you know, they just they just anyway, it sucks, man. You know what I'm saying? So you work your ass off and build this business and this brand, and you just get hit with all these like little silly things. Yeah, but um, you know, we uh we're we're still grooving and coaching and training, and and it it's it's it's been really cool. Dent Bird has come a long way. I mean, we started in a food truck in 2014, right? And you know, we opened up our brick and border in 2015, and then we opened up Raleigh right before COVID. That like kind of kicked us in the knee, and then we had to you know kind of come back from that. Um, you know, we have Greenville um open now, Rock Hill, and we're we're opening a few more, but it's there was this big like surge, and then we've we've learned a lot. We've learned a lot. We've learned a lot more about like what it looks like to get these dinks open. We've learned a lot about um the markets that we should be in. And I'll tell you one big thing that I really I think my biggest lesson that I've learned to think burrito in the last let's just say like 12 months, is uh at first when we were launching, you know, when you have a business plan or you're putting together like a pro forma, you're putting together like all these numbers, right? And it's all theory. It's theoretical, right? Right. In theory, theoretically, if we do right, like we average ten dollars a head, we do you know 200 people a day, like $10,000, whatever, whatever the math is, right? But like you gotta bring in those 200 people, you gotta you gotta do the thing to make that thing happen. Um one of the biggest lessons I learned is our Moorhead store in Moorhead, um, I I kind of underestimated the power of what we have built and the brand we built in Moorhead. And I say that because you know, when we're moving into these bigger markets, I just thought surely because we were in a bigger market, we would like, let's just say double our sales, right? So like when we're building out or when we're looking for lease space and we're looking for um everything to kind of put this performance together to do these stores, they were all based off of a bigger store volume than what we're doing at Morehead. And I realized that like we have built a pretty cool brand in Morehead. And when you start looking at like average uh unit volumes for like industries and sectors in food space, they burrito is on the higher side of the averages on all of them. Yeah, so I'm like, man, and I you know, and it's interesting because Dank is a young brand, right? Like, I can't compare myself to a Chipotle, like right out the right out of the 3,000 stores plus, right? And they're you know, I think they're averaging a volume is like over three million dollars, right? So like that's amazing. Like we have to work to get there, and just because we open up in a Charlotte, or we open up in a Raleigh, or we open up in a in a Charleston or somewhere like that, like we don't automatically like get to fall into that bucket. We gotta work our way there. And yeah, but as you're building these proformas and you're putting these business plans together, like it would like for me, it was easy to say, well, you know, in Moorhead, if we're doing a million six, surely in Charlotte, we should be able to do two million dollars. Correct. But it doesn't seem that far away, right? But you know, it's you you gotta get into the market, you gotta prove yourself, you gotta work your tail off and let folks know that you're there. You gotta be consistent in the food and the products you bring to market. And uh, you know, I I thought that it would be a little easier. Not and it's not in the sense of hard work or not hard work, but just like, you know, I felt like we had our stuff put together and figured out, and we just had to show up and do the thing and it would work. Well, you know, that's not always the case. Correct. You know, and it and it and it's not necessarily something wrong with our system or the system. It's a lot of time, man, it's just like time on task, right? Like you just I tell folks like you just can't plant an apple seed and want apples like six months later. It's not about that. No, it's gotta grow, it's gotta, it's gotta mature, it's gotta, it's gotta breathe and live. And you know, one day, maybe year two, year three, you get this beautiful fruit, but it doesn't happen right away. And you know, as a as a new business owner in any sector or of any business, you gotta be ready for that.

SPEAKER_01 13:43

Yeah, you know, and I think that's why most people feel, right? They don't want to see it through.

SPEAKER_00 13:47

Well, sometimes you know what I'm learning too is like just being underfunded is like a real thing. Yeah, absolutely. You know, and I've again you I think people want to to invest, and then they have to have that investment like immediately start working for them, right? So, like, and things don't always happen that way, right? So, you know, but um again, you know, we've we've learned a lot in the last 12 months, and it's really kind of shaping up to like what does our franchise look like, you know, what locations you know would would fit us better. Um, you know, and it's it's interesting because it's like, you know, everybody's like, dang, we crush you in college towns. Well, we're an ECU and we do okay up there. I mean, it's it's growing, but but I think you know, Sub Dogs kills it, right? But like Sub Dogs have been in Greenwood forever. Right. They've they've they've paid their dues, they put their time in, they've they've worked it, right? They've they've they've done it. So, you know, it's about establishing yourself. So it's really trying to like understand like you know, who and what Dake is as we continue to evolve and grow. And it's all part of it, man. It's growth and any chart is not a straight line. No, you know what I mean? Not at all. Yeah. So but I think a lot of people don't realize that.

SPEAKER_01 14:54

Yeah, they don't. Um, I got a million questions to ask how for what we just talked about. So I think the first thing that really intrigued me about you when I first met you was for one, you're ahead of me in a way because you started circa in 2010, right? Mm-hmm. So, and I I literally think I met you in 2020. Um, so you had circa, you had the food truck, you just purchased estates. Well, a little bit out of like 2021 or something.

SPEAKER_00 15:26

I bought the states at twenty uh December 31st of 2018. It was the last day of the year.

SPEAKER_01 15:30

Well, it was around there, it's like you're really starting to get into um estates. Um you start you bought this, renovated this. Yep. Um so like you were just doing all these things at once that I saw, and like to me that was just amazing. That's what I wanted to do because when you met me, I was just starting out.

SPEAKER_00 15:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:49

Um, so that was really cool, just seeing you grind and taking all these risks, you know, because that's kind of people I like to follow, and I think that's what makes successful people. It's just take these risks and hey, this is what I want to do. Um, going back to dank, do you think your experience in the more upscale casual dining that you have is really allowed you to be successful in dank to give you uh you know that extra twist to it that like maybe Chipotle or somebody else is not given it?

SPEAKER_00 16:22

Um, I don't know that I would credit it towards like more of a like a high-end experience as more as like just a fusion chef experience. Okay, it's kind of like more discovery and exploratory. Okay, and it was about bringing food to the folks who you know you have like like traditional food, you got classic food, you got regional food. And at some point it's really fun to like to like mash it all up. And I think Deng Burrito was kind of like this brainchild of a couple things. Number one, it's in 2014 when we launched the truck, there was no there was no taco or burrito concept outside of your traditional Tex-Mex sit-down Mexican restaurants. So, you know, we like to say that you know, the taco shell or the burrito shell is just like the vehicle that your food, your ingredients are wrapped up in to eat it. So, you know, so and then we started kind of like like kind of spanning off of that. I think if I was being completely honest, I think one of like the early aspirations for me was Laz and I had taken a trip to Key West, and there was a food cart down there. It was called Garbo's Grill, and they're really famous now. I think they've been on Food Network a bunch, and but they were this little tiny um, it wasn't a food truck, it was like more like one of those New York City style, like two guys could fit inside a cart, okay, but you couldn't move. And they had like a six or eight item menu, and they were really cool. And I remember thinking like this is really neat. This is like they had a line around the block, like two guys in this little ass thing. I was like, this is cool. And I was like, and that was kind of like the that's like where I think that was the other original light bulb moment for me, and uh that was in like 2007, so I mean it was like six or seven years, or maybe that light bulb went all before you well, yeah, before I even took you know took action. But I just remember thinking like that was really cool. But um, but to be able to like bring different foods, and then yeah, her and I took a trip to uh with the kids to Jamaica, right? Like jerk chicken, so big down there, and like it's like what can we mash up and like putting a taco burrito? Like it doesn't have to be like ground beef and cilantro and chopped onions, like or whatever, like carne sauce, like it could be whatever, you know, it just get it there, and that's what we've done today. I mean, if you look at our menu, it's so varied. I mean, it's you know, we do like Euro tacos. We do, you know, Eastern North Carolina loves a shrimp burger. So we took the shrimp and the the cocktail sauce and the slaw, put in a taco, and I think it eats better than a shrimp burger because it's not as bready. Correct, you know what I mean? And I like a I like a pillowy bread, like you know, hamburger bone, but I mean every all that protein, so cram right in a taco shell is great. Um, and so that's that's kind of like where that inspo kind of came from. Um, you know, it's it's it's interesting because you know, everybody asks me, like, what is what's your favorite restaurant? Where do you like to be? Where do you spend they always ask where do you spend the most time? So they want to know that what I like the most. And you know, it's like whatever needs my attention, but it's like, you know, so we have four restaurants right here, more because we also have social queue, the barbecue restaurant. And it's um it's like picking a favorite child, right? Like they all bring something different to the table. And you know, having multiple restaurants right here on the main drag, like we're able to like cross-utilize products and our resources, our people. Um, you know, it opens up like a little bit of a different playbook for catering. Because sometimes I'll call a smokehouse. I'm like, hey, I need like X amount of pork because we got you know, sliders in the menu at the estate. Right. Like go ahead and smoke me some meat. Like, so we just have like a little more tools in the toolbox when we have the different brands right here. Right, like the newest for me is Prime, right? And the most upscale is Prime. And we've put a lot of thought into Prime. And Prime is Prime is very like intentional in nature, it's very consistent. My chef here um is is very consistent in everything he does. Like he it doesn't it doesn't waver very much. Uh and then Circa Circa started off in 2010. Like my vision for Circa was more of like this younger, trendy, New York stylist, like fun small plate restaurant. And it's it's it's it's gone through its different seasons of change. And that's where you know that's for many years, 10 years or more, I I was there in the kitchen, running the kitchen like every day. Yeah, even when I had these other concepts going on, and it I mean it wasn't until right after COVID where I hired like full-time chef and pulled myself out. Um but circa is definitely like more neighborhood in nature, and we see a lot of the same people like multiple times a week. Um, and my staff has done a really good job of just connecting. That's it's just about the connections. I mean, you know, we have we have customers that go on vacation that bring my staff gifts back. That's pretty cool. You know what I mean? Like they they're they're in in Jamaica, they're in Spain, and they bring our our team gifts. Hey, I thought you would like, you know, and the the connection of circa is really, really unique and different. I have a guy down there named um Peter. Peter, I've known Peter since the mid-90s, and he's been a friend for a long time. He's about 10 years older than me, maybe, maybe 15. And he's kind of I hired him to bust tables because we we never really had a the servers were responsible for busting their tables early on, but a circa's grown, the needs are grown. And I hired him as a busser. And he has kind of turned into this like Matri D hostie. Like, I think he's performed four or five Heimlich maneuvers. So he's like he's like saved people. Um he's very he's very sensitive and intuitive with like older. Folks. Okay. He's really good at like spotting, like uh just kind of like inconsistencies and like just behavior. Um, and what I mean by like, I mean, we've had some old people like stand up too fast and they gave eye head and like I almost fall, and he's like there to grab them. Like uh we had one, we I forget his name, but he's a he's a large man, he's like 6'7, probably like 350 and older. So like he has to sit in a certain chair, he can't fit in a booth, right? And Pete knows where he can sit. And when this guy goes to stand up and pushes off the table, Pete kind of goes over there and holds the table down, but doesn't let him know he's like there's so many little things that Pete does, like, and and like people just love Pete, but like the connection at Circa with the teams, there it's just different, man. It's just very, very different. And I'm sure there's other restaurants that have that relationship with their customers, but Circa's circa's special like that, and it's that's kind of cool. And you know, social q Shawnee runs social Q for me. Um she is she's a warrior, man. She just battles hard. She doesn't she doesn't back down from nothing. Um her husband Matt helps me out a ton. He's uh retired military. He's he's just tough as nails too. He's he's a super solid guy. But she uh she has she has gone through some like just some shit, man, medically, and just you know, uh her daughter's husband's deployed, so she's like new new grandma, and like you know, the hours of the barbecue restaurant are all over the place. We're closed on Mondays and Tuesdays, but she may have a catering uh our you know, we we have uh like a pick guy that that does our cooks for us, you know, every now and then, you know, people call out, you know. She'll work all day and she'll cook all night. Dude, she's she's a tank, man. Yeah, it's we we got some really good people that that work on our teams. It's you know, because I can't do this shit by myself, man. Like, you know, I got I can only do I got two ants. Right? We got four restaurants. So I mean, it really rely, you know, we really rely on the teams to get the stuff done.

SPEAKER_01 23:52

Well, that's what it is to every business, right? And I think a lot of people miss that. Uh most people miss that. It's their team around them. They're the ones actually you're the builder, you're the mindset, you're the one that lays the structure and the processes of everything, but you have to have good people to take it from there. Yep. That's right. Like I tell my my guys and my team all the time, it's like, I I'll go as far as y'all want to go. Yeah. I I mean, I I I can't even, I couldn't handle what we have now by myself. So it's not what Jared really wants. I'm here to help you and assist you and get where everybody wants to go, but we have to come together as a team and on the same page exactly where everybody wants to go. And I've noticed that across your all your restaurants is your staff. Well, for one thing, here we hear all the time, is the staff don't change. Yeah, it's consistent. I mean, the servers know our name. Yeah. Um, because they've seen us for the last three years. That's right. Um, that's very special and it's unique. Um, and I think a lot of people at restaurants miss that um when it comes to you know, they'll focus on the management and stuff like that, but they kind of don't really focus on the server side of things. Yeah. The cooks, you know, um, the busers, the hostes. I mean, how important is a host in a restaurant? I mean, that's what they see right when you walk in the door. That's what they see when you leave, too. So you can't slack on that hire.

SPEAKER_02 25:23

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 25:23

Um, you know, and how do you deal with hiring? Because, you know, I'm in restaurants all the time, know a lot of restaurant people. And that's the number one complaint you get is I can't find good people. That's right. Um, so how do you find your good people?

SPEAKER_00 25:38

Yeah, that's a good question. Um, so Liza is my wife, and she's she she runs the estate on a high level. Um, for the restaurants, she's mainly behind the scenes. She doesn't get a lot of credit from the public because they don't know her, which is which is it was it's okay with her, she doesn't care. Um we at least we're not in competition with each other, but for so long, with me being the chef in the face of everything, and you know, if if if if anybody said has studied kind of the EOS system, right? Like you got the the the visionary and the and the the integrator implementer, and that's kind of like where she's at. And you know, we're very much a yin and yang when it comes to that. So I you know, kind of my it's not a specialty. I don't know. It is what it called what you want, but like I guess kind of my area of interest is um is the concept and and and putting the projects together and and getting them off the ground. When you do that, then you got a business you gotta run. I remember one day my dad told me, and my dad passed in 2020, but it was kind of in this growth phase, and he was like, You don't like running the businesses, you just like building them. And I was like, I stopped. It made me think a minute. I'm like, he's kind of right. Like, because once you build it, now you gotta like, now you gotta just pour into it forever and constantly, and you gotta nurture it. And I'm like, I want to go on to the next thing and do it again because that's I really I really do like that. But um I'm a terrible interviewer hire type person. Liza is is who does that for me, my wife. And um she's pretty good at reading people. I I'm just so bad at it, man, because this is where I you know if you come to me and you want a job and I have a job opening, let's get to work. Like, what's there to talk about? Right? Like, you you tell me you're a cook. Like how and and there's so many times where I'm like interviewing cooks and I'm like, we're sitting at a table and we're talking about cooking. There's no discovery here. Like, can you cook? Yeah, I go. We gotta go to the kitchen. We gotta get we gotta get a pan in your hand. I gotta see what you can do. Right. Right. So like I'm just not good at it. So she she literally does all of that. There we have we have three or four key hires that work in our business that I would have said no to that have that are killing it for me. And I have probably like 10 people that lasted that I hired like two days. So I'm like, all right, well, my my my win ratio here is smoked. Like I'm not I can't do this anymore. So Liza takes care of our hiring. She's pretty good at reading people, she's good at digging through the bullshit and the lies and the inconsistencies, and she'll call you out in a second. And that's and and you know, I I think one of the big things that I've learned throughout this you know journey uh since 2010, really, and it's more so recently than than when I first started was staying your lane. Like, and as you grow, your lane gets more defined. Yes, and my lane is not hiring, you know, and I'm not good at it either, but yeah, I'm I'm I'm so bad at it.

SPEAKER_01 28:36

And but wait, I think people like us take people for the word. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Yeah, because like to me, like you know, like I'll have a conversation with people that don't work out, yeah. And you know, it's a conversation a lot of times it's like my bad because if you tell me you can do something, I believe you because I'm the type of person I'm gonna tell you I can do it, or I'm gonna find out really quick how to do it, and you're never gonna know the freaking difference. Yeah, like you're gonna know I know how to do it. Yeah, so like I think that's where we mess up because like again, if I tell you I can cook, yeah, I'm gonna go in and show you I can cook. Even if I gotta go to YouTube before I come in here. And I think a lot of people just oversell themselves. It's like, and I think I think it's more of a society thing now, too, where people can skate by in in life and and didn't have responsibilities and duties and stuff.

SPEAKER_00 29:28

But it's funny, man, you say that because yesterday I had a um we're looking for a banquet chef, and I had uh like an application resume come through an email, and I'm reading it. And I thought this before, but I I thought it again yesterday. I'm like, these resumes are like they're so full of shit. They're just so full of shit. And and and for a for a cook, for a cook, they say the same damn thing. Let me see if I can find it real quick, dude. Because they chat GBT it rather. Probably, but I mean lit literally like the same, and it's so like ambiguous.

SPEAKER_01 30:00

Like it there's no create me a great resume for a line cook, right?

SPEAKER_00 30:04

Like it is Professor Summer, experienced kitchen manager and lead line cook with strong background and staff training, inventory management, and food safety compliance, demonstrated leadership and mentoring teams, implementing cross-training programs, maintaining high standards and food quality and kitchen organization, skilled at fostering positive work environments and ensuring efficient, compliant kitchen operations. Dude, that's bullshit. Like I guarantee this dude can't even fucking bounce a chugbook. You know what I mean? Like, yes, I'm just like just say you can call them. I'll do I yeah, man, it's but they're they all say the exact kind of same thing, and then I get them in and like like I watch them like sneeze and then I'll go wash their hands, you know, or something stupid. I'm like, go wash your hands. Like, how can you lead anybody you can't lead yourself? You know what I'm saying? Like you're you're like you better get deep. I talk about this all the time. Management is a verb. Yes, management is an action sport. Yes, it's not it's not something, it's not a title, not at all. It's something you do, like and people don't realize it, but we we manage our lives whether we manage it poorly or we manage it really well. We like we get up in the morning, we shower, we shit, shave, coffee, whatever you're doing. You manage to like get out of bed, you may whatever. So like that's life, and that's like that's bare minimum. That's what we need to live and survive. And then, like, if you take a job as a manager, you gotta be able to do all that, and then this. It's not it's not a title, like it's not I'm a manager, so I get paid X. Like, like you're you're you're thinking about the future, what's to come? You're thinking about like risk mitigation and liability and what what's what's gonna be needed in the next you know, today, next week, next month. Like when I got events, you know, at Circa, we have a whole clipboard system in the back of our upcoming events. So for weeks, Liza posts that stuff up there. So, you know, we know if we need to order something special for it, we need this special gluten-free bread for this bride, or you know, this bride wants this special type of protein or whatever, and everybody knows. And then, you know, so when it comes time to execute, and if we don't we don't have it, you can't say you didn't know. Like it's been up there forever. Like, we got you got to manage your time, you gotta manage your resources, you gotta manage people. You like man it drives me crazy because people want to throw away or throw around the word manager or management, and and uh eight out of ten people just don't have it, even if that's their title. And and for somebody like us, they the that manager gets inserted probably prematurely just so we can buy a little bit of our time back. Amen. Right? And then oftentimes, sometimes like they just they just don't live up to it. And there's some great managers out there that really like I and I have some, yeah, but I have some folks that have come through that they're not managers, they don't manager pay, they don't do manager work, they don't know what manager manager is a verb, it's an action work, you gotta do it.

SPEAKER_01 32:59

Yeah, yeah, they're they're just looking a lot of people are just looking for the the pay raise, and we deal with that a lot too. Um, and I've made the uh many mistakes of prematurely because you see somebody that kind of gets your business and can do the daily task, and you're like, hey, I'm gonna promote you to manager so I can buy some time back. Yeah, and you make that mistake, um, and and it happens, and that's that's probably one of the quickest lessons I had to learn um was promoting people to prematurely. And I actually had a guy that works in with us is the one that helped me with that. Let's put them on a structure plan to get there. Yeah, we think they have the abilities, let's make it like a six-month or a year plan to slowly grow them into that role. Um, so that's kind of what we started doing, but you're exactly right. I tell people all the time it's I can look at you and look at your life.

SPEAKER_00 33:54

You can look in the car, in their car. In their car until it's fucking McDonald's bags and stickers wrappers and coke bottles and sticker packs that are two, three weeks old sitting down there.

SPEAKER_01 34:03

Correct.

SPEAKER_00 34:03

That's the manager getting.

SPEAKER_01 34:05

Correct. There I learned a uh tip from a guy one time, and the people at work laugh at me. Um, but I but I actually do it, is you go behind somebody in a bathroom and there's pistons on the seat. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:22

It's funny, man. I always clean up public bathroom. I mean, I don't know. I do too. It's gross, but like I just yeah. But I listened to, you know, it was on a I don't know if there's true that, but like I remember Donnie Greggs, he's a pastor of the church, you know, he he talked about that one of his this is years ago, but he was talking about like how he just can't help himself. He's in a public space and like leaving it better you found it. Leaving it better you found it.

SPEAKER_01 34:46

Well, it's small things to watching people, like, and you can watch that with your employees is if do they walk by trash on the floor? Yeah, do they pick it up? Yeah, people at the grocery store, do they put the cart back? That is the number one thing for me. Like, I can't stand it. Like, like I'm a firm believer of how you do everything is you know, how you do one thing is how you do everything.

SPEAKER_00 35:07

Yeah, there's a lot of trick to that.

SPEAKER_01 35:08

Um, you know, like how you sweep the floor. You know, if you cut corners and sweeping the floor, you're gonna cut corners elsewhere. That's right. And people have to learn that cutting corners don't get you nowhere. Eventually you got to come back around that corner and clean up the mess that you cause when you try to cut that corner. And that's the biggest thing that we teach, man, is like I think people just struggle with that because people really just don't know structure and haven't been taught structure or haven't been around somebody that really has it. And I think a lot of times, like, and I think probably with you too, you can kind of come off intense sometimes just because we hold ourselves such to a higher standard. I'm not going to lower that for people around me either. I'm not, I'm not gonna do that.

SPEAKER_00 35:53

I think it's important too to like for accountability for someone to hold someone else accountable. Because like in those moments, I think that's where like that BS kind of gets called out. Correct. Right? So, like I think it takes a strong manager or leader to be like, hey, like you didn't sweep right. Like, do it again. Like, it's not like you gotta kind of be indifferent about it. You're you're not you're not mad, you're not being a dick, you're just being factual. Hey, like you missed that, like go get it again, you know. And then I think once you hold people accountable for a certain period of time, you know, it's like it's it inspect what you expect, right? You you you expect it, so you gotta inspect it to make sure it's getting done. And then I think the the inspections can kind of get pushed out once you start creating that expectation and that standard and that rapport with whoever's doing that task or that job, because then you know that like they know what they're doing. Correct. Like, like Matt here at Prime, like he, you know, he I don't have to tell him to clean his kitchen, he just does it. I mean, he's the chef. He drops his own fryer, he cleans his own hoods, he like, but his shit's clean and it's tight and it's always ready to go. Yeah. Right. And I don't have to worry about that, you know. And then if I do find something or flag something, I mean he's on it, and he, you know, he he gets kind of beat up on himself because he's mad he missed it. Yeah, you know. And I think all employees should hold each other accountable.

SPEAKER_01 37:06

Yeah, that's the number one thing I preach. I mean, you know, like in our business, man, we have the technicians on the road and always say, like, I mean, we hire these people, we train them, and we hope they're doing what they're supposed to do when they get out there because I mean they don't have body cams on them. Yeah, they're away from your supervision, you know. So, like, it's up to dispatch and managers to hold the text to certain responsibilities. Yeah, and I like I tell the dispatch and stuff all the time, it's like they're not going to change or do things the way you want them until you start holding them accountable. Yeah, you know, like we do pictures and videos in very detailed notes. Well, if that's not in the work order, you tell them to turn around and go back. I promise you, they do that a couple of times, they're gonna start taking that picture and video before they leave because they're gonna quit turning around. Or they'll quit. Yeah, either way, you're good, you're good, you know, because he can't work here if you don't do that anyways. Yeah, so he's gonna end up getting fired. So, like, like you said, it's it's accountability, and I think a lot of people struggle with that because like it's like you just said, I was like, they don't even know how to hold yourself accountable. So, how can they hold somebody else to you know be responsible to do something? So, like I think that's our biggest struggle in business, man. It's like there's so many moving pieces, and it's trying to because you got so many management and so many employees, and you're just trying to get everybody to flow because like everything is a flow like a machine, like a factory, you know. If one person messes up, forgets to pack the box on the conveyor line, a package goes out wrong.

SPEAKER_02 38:35

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 38:36

But it can be a hundred people on that line that that one person caused the whole thing to mess up. I'm big into sports, so I relate to sports all the time. I mean, you know, you can have the greatest football team in the world. You have one bad offensive lineman, you're not very good. That's right. You know, so let's um let's take it back a little bit. I want to go back to how'd you get into all this? Like what where where did you wanting to be a chef and cook and open up restaurants come from?

SPEAKER_00 39:06

Um so my family moved down to the area from Virginia Beach. And I was a second grade, and we moved down here because my family had purchased a restaurant over in Atlantic Beach on the island with my grandfather and another partner, and um kind of fast forward through the process, my dad ended up buying the restaurant out and uh operating it. So I grew up in the restaurant, and uh our restaurant over on the beach burned down in '96. So it was the last week I was in eighth grade, and then we didn't reopen it until August after I graduated high school. So for those four years, it was gone. But during those four years, I had worked in restaurants in Emerald Isle, and I was still in the business. But like, you know, from uh for like I don't know, like seven or eight years, like that was I was just there all the time. Like every time my dad had a truck with build exhaust. Every time I would heard exhaust the truck start up, I was like, in the summertime, I was like, even if I was asleep, I'd wake up and all ass downstairs jump in the truck. Right. I wanted to go. And so I just was around it and it just made sense to me. And um, I graduated high school in 2000, and uh I didn't have any foreign languages that I was able to pass. I failed French and I failed Spanish. So ECU denied my my letter. I was like, you know, screw you, ECU. Um so I was going to the community college to kind of figure out what what I wanted to do, right? You're supposed to go to college after high school. That's what we were doing. That's what you think. Back then, yes. So I went and got Pell Grant, I think it was a couple thousand bucks, went and bought speakers for my car and an amp, you know, like responsible kids do. Blew all that money, supposed to buy books and shit. I was like, I don't need books. Um I did that for a couple years and just there was just no traction. And I was like, man, like what am I doing? And uh I had been cooking for my dad working, I was like, I I need to go to culinary school. Like this just makes sense. I've been doing this and um I need to go learn more about it. So I moved down to West Palm Beach, Florida, South Florida, did school and then I came back. And so I mean, I've I've literally always been in the restaurant, man. I mean, I just don't have any memories of not. And you know, it started it started young. I mean, there was there was definitely moments where like I was just like that annoying owner son in the way. Right. But about 10 or 11, like I was on the schedule and shit. Like in the summertime, like busting tables and if there was a dishwasher call out, like I was I was that guy. Right. Even young, I started cooking about 12. Then I I was annoying probably in the way on the line, but um the boys, the the line cooks would tolerate me, then I'd toast bread and just do shit and help them out. Right. But um, that was kind of like where it started. And um going to culinary school, then graduated and worked worked around a lot of restaurants. And I mean, so that's really where it where it kind of came from. But I always it's interesting, man, because like you know, it's like culinary art. So it's like, you know, people consider it like of the arts, like it's just artisan type food plating, cookery, all that. Yeah. My mom is a crazy incredible artist, my sister is a crazy incredible baker. Um yeah, she is. And and yeah, you know, so like art runs in our family, and I don't really see myself as as that side, but um a lot of like folks in the restaurant business are like, especially chefs, are they're chefs, and they kind of tend to lean more towards like music and arts and like the liberal side of artistic things for sure. Like I'm chef, but I lean more to like entrepreneurship and like business and growth and leadership, and so like I don't play music, I don't understand how a guitar works, and I'm okay with that, and I don't I'm not into like peace, love, and happiness and all that like that stuff. That's not like I'm like dollar sense, numbers percentages, like gains, like that type of mindset. So um you know, I've always been fascinated with with that, like um just success. And I've all I you know as a kid, you just like well, I mean, what's like every little kid's dream? I don't want to say every, but you know, like nobody girls up and says, I want to be Brooke. So, you know, the opposite of that is I want to grow, I want to be rich, I want to travel, I want this, you know, little boys want these, you know, they're building these Bugatti Legos and right, like these girls with these Barbie Dream castles, and like everything's big and bigger than life, right? Like, same with me. Like, I used to watch like uh when I was a kid, it was Robin Leach, it was like Lifestyles of Rich and Famous, and all these like MTV Cribs, and like you're like, that's cool shit. I want that shit. Like, cool, right? Like, oh, your blinds work off a remote. I want that, you know what I mean? You got an affinity pool, I want that. And like, so like I just kind of always resonated. With like that type of mindset and work. And um I you know, I didn't really know how that was all gonna play out. I mean, but I I had the opportunity in 2010 when I was at 28 to open up circa. I had worked for my dad for a couple years. Uh I'd save some money, and uh Laz and I uh and I like real estate. I got my real estate license right after culinary school. I went and got uh my my real estate agent, and then I got my broker. Now there's a provisional broker. So I was I was the last licensed group of real estate brokers before they switched the law to a provisional. Oh, okay. I was like May of whatever year that was. And uh so I had to do the agent, and then I moved to Riley and I ended up finishing my broker. So I was a real estate broker for a while. Um, because I felt like when I graduated culinary school, I was like used to that classroom format and I wanted more school. I feel like I wanted to keep learning. So I was I I've always loved restaurants and real estate. Those are like my two things and construction. I would really love construction too. Um to church one Sunday, we were leaving church. I don't know why, but we had driven separate, and I was taking her back to her car, and I was like, I'm just gonna go run around and see what's up. This is in like 2010. And I drove by where Circa's at now, and there's a release sign out there, and it was for the restaurant. It was like Sunday at like two or three in the afternoon. So I was surely expecting uh a call with a voicemail with a callback follow-up on Monday, right? Like nobody answers on Sunday. All right. Well they answered the phone, and uh this lady answered, and she's like, Yeah, I can meet you up there in like 10 minutes over there. Oh wow, I'll just sit right here and wait for you. So that happened. She came up, and like I walked in the circa, and it was it was ugly as shit. It was just it was he and I'm not trying to. It was, yeah, so it was an old seafood restaurant. It was just wasn't my gym. It was like salmon pink walls, a deep sea blue, um, very 1993-ish in style. But I walked in and I walked into the kitchen and it was like set up ready to go. Like hoods, coolers, walk-in, walk in the freezer, like triple sinks, everything. Like it's just so much had just left. There wasn't any smallwares really, but it was fine. Um plates, I mean everything was there. And uh I was like, does all this come with the lease? There's he's like, Yeah, it's all here, like it's all yeah, it's part of the deal. And I think my rent was like like 2,000 bucks back then, which I thought was like just dirt cheap, right? And I was like, this is cool, especially it's like so perfectly. If I'm gonna invest, I just need to make it pretty because the stuff's here, and that's what happened. I ended up signing that lease. I was 28. I didn't um I didn't even tell my dad. I I told my dad after I signed the lease. I was like, come up here and look at us. Like, he was so confused. He was so confused. And at that at that point of time, he had uh he had his leg amputated, he was an amputee at that point, so he got his leg amputated at 54, uh, which was the year I got married in 2009. And uh he was so confused. He came up there and anyway, so it was I signed the lease. I was 27 when I signed the lease, I was 28 when we got opened. Um but me and my dad, my brother renovated that spot, put the bar in. We like we we just you know, it was a big deal then. I look at it now, I'm like, that was pretty easy, but put the booths in, like built those little like knee walls at the at the entrance, built the bar, made it functional, painted it, um, that kind of stuff, and uh built those bank acts, and we got opened in January 2010. So, you know, when I opened in January 2010, it it was pretty wild, man. It was wild, it was wild because if I would have written a business plan or had all my shit together, like and and and pitched a partner or an investor, they would have laughed me out the door because none of my shit was in order, man. Right. Like it was just it, I didn't even have a plan. My my plan was this don't like don't fail. Figure it out. Yep. And it was it was literally like okay, and this was like the skinny version. It was like, okay, the business sucks, I'm gonna cook. Liza can like host this and wait tables, and my sister can wait tables. And like, if that's like all I can afford to do. Uh our first liquor order, Liza put on her credit card, it was like $1,500. And I had about when I finished all the construction and all the stuff, I had about $10,000 off the bank, which wasn't shit. It was already spent by my first food truck order, and we did two nights of soft opening. And I had a I had about five days of like employee payroll prep and everything to get ready to open, plus giving away two days worth of food and all the work. So I was basically negative when we opened the door with no money to even think about bailing myself out. I don't know what I was gonna do if it didn't work. It was literally like chips in the middle of the table. I didn't even realize well, that's why it worked because you didn't have no choice. I didn't even really realize it until I look back and think about it how like crazy that move was. But we didn't have kids, we had just gotten married. I didn't really have shit to lose. I mean, what the fuck? I mean, you know what I mean? So it's the worst thing haven't, right? I go back to my my dad still had his restaurant, like what like you know, Liza had a good job. I that really kind of was a safety net in the back of my mind. Well, like, if this shit doesn't work, this won't be like eating out the trash can, right? We we can at least eat right ramen noodles or something. But that um yeah, I mean it circuit took off like took off from day one. We never like we had some pullbacks like in some off seasons, and it took a we're we've definitely have grown. I think I think my first year of business we did like 2010 was like a little over 500k, and I thought that was a lot of money. But you know, we but is at first, you know, and you know, we yeah, we've we've we've way, way, way surpassed that now. But um that was that was kind of like where all that started. So I mean I don't yeah, I tell people the business picked me. I didn't really pick it, man. It's just it's like part of who I was and how I was, and it was like, you know, at a 28, like it's pretty young. I mean, to be like jumping into something like that. And you know, did I have all the experience? I don't know. I learned a lot and I continued to like be open, right? And I went early on when I first opened circa, I went and did some like uh stash or like internships at some other restaurants just to get exposure and learn, right? Like I was just constantly like learning, and Laza's smart as crap too, right? So like you know, if anything that just didn't make sense, you know, I had someone there to like talk to about it and like figure figure it out. And um yeah, I mean it and it I feel like we like a lot of thrust, a lot of power to get that plane up, but like once we were kind of like climbing and like flying, I I kind of got I didn't want to say I got bored, but there's always something to do, but I was like, I wanted to talk I wanted to do it again, and that was when we opened up our yogurt shop, which I had for five years and shut down and didn't make a freaking dime. I think cost me hundreds of thousands of dollars, but I mean we didn't make any money on that thing. I mean, we caught yogurt at the um it was a fad, man. I don't remember Fuzzy Peach, all the things, sweet frog. You don't even see him anymore. Yeah, we caught that at the tail end, right? So market reversed on us, and we were like sitting there like, oh shit. And yeah, we walk like we went to Fuzzy Peach in Cape Corteret a couple days ago with my daughter wanted some yogurt. We started, I remember when uh Fro Yo was like 19 cents an ounce, and then it went up to like 21. Fuzzy Peach is at 69 cents right now. So if we're like and I told my like my son, he's like active and he can eat anything and he won't gain a pound. And they have their cups, and he usually makes this big ass like I'm like, dude, I was like, no, just like two bites, like beat that. Don't be stupid. Like, and that was kind of like all of us, like we just had a little, like it wasn't hope, nothing, really. It's like $32 for full cups of yogurt. And I mean, they weren't like like gigantic by any means. Anyway, it's the industry's gotten a little bit sideways, but you know, I've had projects that don't work, man. Everyone's like, everything you touch turns gold. I'm like, bullshit. You just don't see the ones that yeah, I mean, and I don't hide them. I mean, the first the the twisted spoon, it was a great concept. Everyone thought we were we were national branded, and that was kind of the goal is to grow that that way, right? Robert was instrumental in that with me, but like it just it just came and then it left. I think you know everybody got excited. Um, just kind of like that virtual golf that pop in my head. The guy, like, he was there for six months and closed. Like, why don't you play virtual golf one or two times? Like, you're good.

SPEAKER_01 52:54

When it's hard to replace ice cream, it's hard to replace ice cream.

SPEAKER_00 52:58

I mean, I and our machines, man, they're always breaking down and shit. I feel like the yeah, they're they're yeah, those tailors are just they're like old cars, man. Like compressor beater, those beater blades, you know, they're expensive shit. They they are. So, you know, I opened that and shut that down. I had a retail store in Beaufort that I that I opened and then I shut down that, you know, it you know, you you you gotta try. You gotta put your sucker, right? And I think for me, I feel like with my experience in hospitality and restaurants, at least the bed is like hedged on my side a little bit because I like to think that I know a little bit about what I'm doing as opposed to going blindly into something. Right. But that's that's kind of like where Circa and all that stuff got started. Yeah. And then we've just kind of like grown from there. We ran dank truck out of circa for over a year, and it got to the point where our food deliveries inbound were for dank, were just as big as Circa. I was running out of a room in that little cooler, and you know, we were prepping for Circa, and I had a guy that was prepping for dank in this little corner, and we just needed a space, but it was a great launch pad because I was I didn't have to take on any more debt or any kind of responsibility to make the truck happen. I paid cash for the truck. Me and my brother built that from scratch, so that was paid for when it hit the road, and then I didn't have to have a commissary or any of that. Like we were our own self-contained commissary. That's sweet. And then early on, man, like you know, again, you got to manage the product, manage what you're doing, but like any any kind of like overage, leftovers, whatnot, we could uh we could pump through the circuit system, you know. Like I didn't have to sit on it. A lot of these food truck guys, man, they only operate on the weekends. And if they got five pounds of ground beef left at you know four dollars a pound, right? That's 20 bucks. You're gonna freeze it, which you can. But if it's cooked, are you gonna eat it? That's a profit. You can give it away. Now you're not making any money. Like, what are you gonna do with it? You know, you're not open tomorrow, you don't open till next Friday. Like, you're gonna fold it into your next week's batch and it's gonna be kind of suspect. Like, what do you do with it? So, like we always had we operated every day, so we we had a way to like move. Right. I like to tell everything it's like a kitchen sink, like all that shit has gotta go down that drain. Like everything in that sink to funnel, right? Like nothing for sure, nothing can come out. Like we make our money. I tell folks, I'm like, you think the Brinks truck driver just to like grab a hundred off the stack because he's around it all day? Like, I make my money with the food, like don't touch the food. This is how I make money, it's how you this I pay you. Right. I don't know, I'm no ferry that fills in my bank account so I can pay your ass. You know what we sell food, that's all we do. I thought you did, right? That's what they think.

SPEAKER_01 55:28

Um, there's something you said earlier, and I think like I've been around a lot of restaurant people because I've been in restaurants my whole life, just in a different way.

SPEAKER_00 55:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 55:37

Um, and so I've seen restaurants not be successful, and I've seen very successful restaurants, and and like you're one of them. And it's really intriguing to watch people like you grow. And I think what you said earlier is the biggest difference, is most of the time people that open restaurants are, you know, they like to cook, they're cooks, and they're like artistic, and they like that side of it. Um, well, you like to cook too, but you're a business person. The business person really is what pushed you more probably than anything. Um, and I think that's why you've been so successful, is because you've you have that business mindset, and we're and me and you are just alike. We're we're builders, not operators. I actually said that in the last podcast that I I I struggled for so long because ProServe grew so fast that I got stuck as an operator for a long time, and I'm not a damn operator. I'm a builder. I want to keep going and building. Um, so I think that's what's made you so successful because you're you're a builder, so you keep wanting to build, but also you have the vision to see the niches of things, and like you just don't open a pizza joint, or you you kind of figure it out because everything that you have is something that's needed, like social cue. Yeah, there's nowhere around here to get a good barbecue and brisket anymore. Yeah. Steakhouse. There's nowhere around here. You have to go to a free almost Raleigh to go set down to a very, very nice steakhouse. Yeah. Um, and then you know, the estates. I mean, uh there's nothing like that around here. Um, so like those things that you open, it's it has a purpose, and you is really, I think you thought it through.

SPEAKER_00 57:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 57:22

And you seen that it was a need. It was more of like, this might not be exactly what I want to do. You know, I might not want to be a freaking barbecue master, but we need a barbecue place here. And then the way you got the concept of a social social queue, it's amazing because you sell out a barbecue, you're closed. Yeah, you're done. Right. You know, so like just watching you grow over um since I've known you, man, um, it's been an inspiration to me. That's cool. Um, I've really enjoyed watching it. Um because it's it's it's different, man, because you don't really see a lot of people in the restaurant industry that way. And I think that's why a lot of restaurant people would get stuck and you see them, you know, own one restaurant and don't go any further than that. Um, and if you also have learned how to delegate and trust your team to where you can also have a life, enjoy your wife and your kids, and also do all this at the same time, which is the biggest goal, right?

SPEAKER_00 58:18

Yeah, man. It's yeah, it's and uh it's not always perfect, that's not always pretty, that's not always easy. Yeah, but I think one thing that like comes to mind, one word is like being intentional. Intentional is like it's important. Um yeah, and it's hard, man. Like, because it's there's like as we both know, there's different levels of the game. That's like what's the game or whatever you're playing, but like there's different levels, and you know, it's you know, uh when you're when you're in a certain level and you're and you're and you're rising up, it gets harder and harder and harder, and you like you're like you see this ceiling, then you push through, and then all of a sudden that ceiling becomes your floor, right? And like as you push through in these levels and these intervals, like it's growth, and growth is very uncomfortable. I mean, you work out like you know, you go to the gym and you bust your ass and you tear your body down and you're sore the next day. You're like, I'm sore, but it feels good. You know what it took to get there, and you know your body is better for it, and you're gonna grow from this. Like, it's the same thing in life and anything else that you're doing. Like, it's it's hard, and and not everybody's built for it, you know. And absolutely and everybody's tolerance is a little bit different, and it comes and goes with like seasons of life, right? Like, I was checking with somebody the other day, and it was pretty extreme on example. But I was like, I don't shit my pants anymore, right? Like, I'm not a kid, I'm not a child. Like, I've grown past that part of my life. I'll probably be there again one day or I'm shitting my pants. But like I say that because like you know, change is change is important too, and like understanding like what's important, yeah. Absolutely in a in a business owner's life and journey because I'm like, I'm how old am I? 44? I'll be 45 in October. Like, I'm not the same person I was 10 years ago at 34. My kids aren't the same age. Like, I like I my my wants and needs and desires aren't the same. Like 10 years ago, like I was very much still in the mindset of like really chasing like culinary awards. Like it was important to me, that mattered to me. I could get two shits about that anymore. Like, I just want like a good, steady restaurant that's got a great business. I want teams that care. I want I want to give the best guest experience that we can give, right? Like, and they'll they'll they'll recognize it. They'll, you know, my customers will reward me. You know what I mean? Like, and you know, there's there's a there's two really good books that I really, really love. Um, one is from Danny Meyer. It's called Setting the Table. I don't know if you've ever read that, but it's very much it's it's more restaurant focused, but any business, any industry, any sector can pull from it. He's he's kind of like the restaurant tour of uh he's Mr. Like he's awesome. Yeah, there's some big restaurant tours in the country. He's he's probably one of the most famous by by far, and uh great book. And then he had uh like an understudy that worked for him for a long time that went on to have great restaurant success. His name was Will Gadera, and uh he he wrote that book called Um Unreasonable Hospitality.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:14

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:14

So both of those books are uh they're they're they're great reads, man. There's so much to take away from them. But um setting the table first, unreasonable hospitality second. But we read the book Unreasonable Hospitality here as a team, and when we first launched Prime, and like you said, we haven't had a lot of turnover in any of my restaurants. Um we've had people that graduated, grow, move on to different career things, but very, very, very seldom do they leave because I fired them or they got like you know, if you got a drinking problem, that's on you, and you'll probably weed yourself out anyway, or I'll fire you. But right, like just just like a good employee have they been pretty consistent. But we we started off here at Prime reading that as the team, and if you read it, I suggest reading it with a highlighter because there's so many good takeaways from that book that you'd want to like come back to, uh, unless you want to read it a second time. But um I definitely read it with a highlighter, but man, like the mindset of like unreasonable hospitality is just has really served us well here. And and the concept is right, like you know, hospit you get in in the hospitality space, like you have like true hospitality and then you have like transaction, right? Like if you go somewhere wherever, uh name a restaurant or name of a gas station or fashion, whatever, like and you buy something and then you get what you bought, like that's a transaction. No, no real hospitality was exchanged, but so like hospitality is like is like this this this notion of like getting something that you can't like pay for. Like like you can't, like it's it's a feeling. It's like we it's like when you come to Prime and we know your name and and we know who your favorite server is and we know where your favorite table is, and we know that you like you know three mart three olives in your martini instead of one, right? Like those are that's like hospitalized those that's the thing you can't pay for that. Like that's right, like, and that's kind of what this whole book talks about is like how uh to go above and beyond to make these experiences memorable because it's all about the experience. Experience is like how you're how you're made to to feel, right? Like, like a transaction is just a transaction. Like I'm giving you a dollar for a service, boom. There's like there's there's no experience there. Right. So like we really focus on like customer experience here, and we we track like data on all of our customers. Like we have a computer and we have we print these chits, and when reservations come in and the guests arrive, we we spit out the chits and we hand them a server, so they kind of have like intel on the customer. Like, Mrs. Lewis doesn't like onions in her salad, like so. My server already knows that, right? So like he just doesn't have to ask, or she doesn't have you know, so like we try to gather like birthday, like birthdays and anniversaries in any restaurant are kind of like that's a little hanging fruit. That's but but when you can like get really like under the hood and really understand like what your customer likes, right? Like Mr. Johnson likes you know four splashes of bitters and not one, like that makes his martini perfect for him. Like we want perfect for him. It might not be perfect for you, but perfect for him. So we want to like hit that, right? Um we carry, I keep here like these big black um Pashmina like wraps. So in the event like somebody gets cold, you know, there's no you got a lady that's in a sleeveless dress, she's dressed up real pretty, and she's sitting there at the table shivering, you know what I mean? Like I can I can fix that for her to give her a better experience, right? Like we have like purse hangers for the table, right? Like you got a three or four thousand dollar Louis Vuitton bag sitting on the floor, like no, like let's hang it from the table. Like it's like little things like that that like create this experience. Didn't cost me anything, but it's just being intentional, it's being thoughtful. It's like it's like they're just not here to eat a steak and get the hell out of here. Like, that's not what I want. I want them while they're here, while they they picked us. And I talk about this at Dank in all of our stores. Like when people eat with us, we we won that day. They could have gone to dinner anywhere.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:16

There's a lot of places.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:17

You could have drove to Newburn. You drove from Newburn to coming here.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:20

Right? Like you passed Smithfield's and they passed, you know, Chick-fil-A, and they passed what and they they landed at Dank. Like you just we just won. We won. We won today's fight. Like, make sure that when they spend their money with us, that it's you know, they're glad that they they did. That's just like some of the stuff that we kind of practice, but we we talk about it. And I feel like one of the big things too is like a leader is you're forever coaching. It's never done.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:44

Oh, never.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:45

And as soon as you think that like it's done, like because things evolve and change, but kind of going back like what I was saying is that you know, you got to figure out what's important to you, and it's okay to change, it moves. Like I said, 10 years ago, my mindset from 34 to 44 is completely different. And I gotta figure out what that looks like and how to implement it.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:05

One thing I want to touch, and then we'll go into my final question that I have for you. Um, for one was you're talking about the small things, and that's what I preach. People underestimate the small things, they're always trying to hit a home run, you know. Um, and they're missing how all these small things add up that you do.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:23

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:24

Um, another good example that like I kind of compare you a lot to um in the way that you do certain things. Um, me and Maria love Charleston. We go to Charleston all the time.

unknown 1:06:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:34

Hall's Child Palace is one of my favorite places to eat.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:37

I've never been, but I know about it.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:38

But they do the same thing. Once you're in their system, they know everything about you, what you like to eat, what you ordered last. Yep. Um, and another cool thing that it blew my mind is about two days once you get home, you get a thank you card in email in the mail from the server.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:55

Handwritten thank you card from the server. Like it's it blew me away.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:59

So like it's just stuff like that. Like, and if you do that, like you can almost have a like your foo can almost been bad.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:06

Almost been bad. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:08

And you get a thank you card in a mail. Yeah, you're gonna go back to child, you're gonna go back.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:12

And they reference your kids, you know, who have a great birthday.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:16

Yeah, like they were they remember everything. Like it's like they go around a corner, write down like stuff that you talked about, and they put it in a system and then they put in your thank you card. And like it's just it's very simple, like, but a lot of people just don't think of that. Small gestures. And in that another thing I see people fail in business that you do so well is in restaurant businesses, I think they don't focus on the team because it's such in most restaurants, it's a revolving door. A lot of revolver. The team is like it's a revolving door, so they well, this person's gonna be gone tomorrow. So they don't focus on that team atmosphere, so they don't get that feel. And I think they, you know, that's where they miss that like a restaurant is a business, and it should be treated like a business. And I think a lot of people make that mistake of treating it like a restaurant, a restaurant and not a business.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:02

And I think that's what you do so very well. So my last question for you, well, more advice for people listening. What is the number one piece of advice that you give somebody that owns and operates a restaurant to really make it grow and become popular and become, you know, make it make money?

SPEAKER_00 1:08:22

Yeah. Um, well, that's that's a pretty I know that's a big yeah, there's not a package there, but you know, I I get asked, you know, from time to time like what's the hardest thing in the restaurant business. And I would probably say consistency. And you know, because any anybody can do something great one time, but can you do it over and over and over and over again, right? And I think it's kind of like the consistency with the expectation kind of sets you set your level of like where you're at, right? So like I'm sure you don't need a lot of McDonald's. I don't I don't ever read McDonald's, but let's just use them for an example, right? Like if you go to McDonald's and you know, like how often do you get a burger that looks like the burger on the commercial? Like never, right? Like, how often is your order like accurate? Probably half the time. Like, you know, so if you go through McDonald's and like you get your food and it's right and your fries are hot, like that's a win. You're like pumped. If you go to McDonald's and like it's like warm fries and like they still got your burger right, like you're it's fine, it's McDonald's, but if they totally blow it, like you're not surprised, right? Like it's McDonald's, like so like their their consistency bar to me is like pretty low. Like, I mean, even when it's good, it's not good, right? So it's like I think defining where you want to be and and working to just uphold that position, it can't be volatile. Correct. Because the volatility is what creates confusion, right? And it's like, oh, are you fine-dining or are you not? Like, do you do you polish your silver or do you not? Like, what are you clean? Do you have clean facilities? Do you like it's it's just you gotta define the bar and you gotta hold it. And that's what's hard, right? Like, I could sit there and hold this cup for like a minute, not heavy. If I'm holding it for an hour, this bitch is gonna get heavy. Didn't put anything else in here, but it's I'm constantly been holding it for an hour. Like, so when you gotta hold that bar for years, like call chopper, like it becomes heavy, right? But like, but at the same time, you're conditioning that muscle. Like what we everything we do is a muscle, it's a a giving muscle, a thinking muscle, a hospitality muscle. Yeah, we wear that muscle out, you know, and that as that muscle grows, you get better in that. Uh, I think another thing to be successful too is really kind of like knowing your numbers. I think for a long time, I I I operated very differently for a long, long time where I didn't have all of my hard numbers like drilled down, but I knew my numbers. I don't know if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:55

It was that makes total sense.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:57

It's like a pilot flying by like visual flight versus like instrument flight. And I don't like the weeds of the instrument. I don't like I like to read all of the data, but I don't, I'm not, I don't like putting all that data together. Right. Show me the reports on a high level, but I don't want the weeds of that crap. And when we were smaller team, it would have been me putting all that stuff together to just see the report. I just knew like I knew that if I bought this piece of steak for five bucks and I sold it for 20 bucks, like I had 25, that was 25% cost, and I'm whatever, right? And I was in the restaurants, I didn't nobody was really stealing. Um, I had to control waste again. I was a managing waste, so like that's an action item, that's an action sport, I was managing. So, but I think like knowing your numbers, because you know, in in food, what sucks and it's kind of unjustly fair for us, is that a lot of the stuff that we purchase is commodity-based, so it's constantly moving up and down in price. I can't move my menu price to keep up with it. Last year, at the end of the summer, I here at Prime, I was getting smoked with beef. But you have like we work off of percentages, but then you have like what the market will pay. And I feel like Prime already kind of lives in the top of what the market will pay apart. So if I'm always trying to keep up with a percentage basis, when beef doubles, I can't like double my steak price. Right. Right? So, like, what do I gotta do? Do I take it on the chin? Do I escalate it a couple percent to help offset some of that loss? You know, and then when it comes back into range, you're like, oh, it's good. But it's like it's like it can be suffocating, right? Like, so it's good to know like where you're at, or maybe you pull an item off the menu while things get extremely high, and you put on some chicken or pork and maybe some cheaper fish, or and then when beef levels back out, you get back on with beef. But you know, or you can say, hey, like, and this is where like I don't want to say integrity, but kind of integrity, like what's the compromise? Like, because there is lower quality products out there. Like we buy, and and we can talk about beef forever, but there's a I think there's a little bit of confusion in the beef world because you have the grade of beef. Everybody here is like select or choice, CAB, uh prime. So you have the gra that's your that's your grade of beef, your your your your choice select prime. Um but then you have the quality of the animal. Nobody talks about the quality of the animal. So you can have like a shitty quality animal that grades out prime. You see it a lot in grocery stores. Yeah, you know, you're like, oh, I got a prime brisket at Costco, it's gonna be great. Well, that that fucking that that cow was you know 12 years old and like dying of cancer, right? Like that's you know what I'm saying? Right, like well, like CAB has a program where like it's you know, three-year-old animal, like everything is very regulated and modified and and monitored and watched. So, like if you get like a CAB prime, like your best of the best, really, at that point. Yep. You know, so like people aren't talking about, so you know, beef prices go up. Like, do you stick with what you got? Do you go down a level and grade? Do you maybe you can go down, like if you got a 10-ounce flay, maybe you go down to a seven. Like there's some things to do to try to help offset that, but it's it's tough, but like knowing your numbers is is really important. Absolutely. And and and also kind of knowing your product mix, right? Like, we're gonna serve 100 customers a night, and you know, I know that like you know, 30 of them are gonna get steaks, and maybe 30 are gonna get fish, and 30 are gonna get pork, and 10 are just gonna get salads. Like, and if you start seeing patterns, right, at certain times of year or people eating certain things, maybe you can like take off one and put on another. Uh, maybe you tell your servers like, hey, you guys really push the duck on feed tonight. We got a lot of it, I got a good margin on that. I need to move that, right? Like steaks will sell themselves. Let's push the pork.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:50

You know, so you know, every day here at Prime, we do pre shi like pre-shift meetings. So it's like a 15-minute meeting with the staff to talk about uh quantities of things that we're we have limitations on, um, kind of state of what's going on, if there's any um like VIPs coming in, like who they are, like where we want to sit them, who's gonna take them. Um you know, and and and and hospitality goes both ways, right? Like we can have like whoever, Mrs. Smith come in, her husband just died. And like maybe she wants to like sit in the corner by herself and she doesn't want to be berated with everyone asking her how she's doing today because she's not doing great.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:31

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:32

Right? So like it's important for us to know that so we can make like we can manage that. Or you know, you got people that are on their first date, they don't want you telling Jack's their table, get away, let them fucking look at each other. You know what I mean? Right, but then we got like the old people that sit over here that want chat all day. They want chat all day, right? So like it's kind of conditioning and training the team to like pick up on that, be intuitive to that. And it and it's don't don't have that one spiel that you use for everybody, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:15:56

And it's other things that I see that you do to offset things too, man. Like the special events you do here are amazing. Yeah, that that's cool stuff. Um, and this is my last question, and I want you to make it quick because we could go very deep into this. Very deep into this. How do you tell somebody that doesn't have much experience with it or don't how don't know how to handle criticism with the world we live in today, with Google reviews, these Facebook pages that just blast these restaurants? What's your advice on to handle those?

SPEAKER_00 1:16:32

It's hard not to get beat up by it. I think that you have to some people just stay away from them all altogether, you know. That's my advice. But I think there's I think that's a little naive in some sense because there you we talk about like nuggets, right? Like in our world that we listen to like you and I were talking before we went live, like um guys, podcasts we listen to, people who kind of like um set certain paths that we kind of like subscribe to, or and we we we got those guys, right? That like you know, we we they're in our ear all day in our in our our podcast, or we're just the mindset, mindset is such a big thing. We talk about mindset all day, and um you know, I I think I think to just disregard it is a little reckless. So people are just like fuck that, they don't know what they're talking about. But I also I do think that like they don't know what they're talking about sometimes. It depends. It it's sometimes people are very like honest, sometimes people are trying to be like spiteful or get revenge, or you know, we had a bad review for somebody who never even came to the restaurant, they didn't like stuff that we had on our online menu, and they gave us that one star. So I think when you're reading online reviews as like a consumer, you gotta like read through and take it with a grain of salt. But it's easy to like say, hey, we're going to Charleston, Charleston's best restaurants, and right, like if someone shows up with like a 4.2 and everybody's like 4.6 or higher, you probably don't even look at the 4.2s, correct? Right? But like, and it's like, do they have a hundred reviews or do they have like 1,500 reviews? So like I think the story is told more so like over time, but it it sucks, man, because you definitely get some haters out there. Oh, right? Like, so like if for Dank, right? Like if we dispute a chargeback and win, that person's gonna write that online. Like, people just don't care. They don't really, yeah. So we we really kind of take the human element approach and try to reach out to folks and like, look, if you really got a problem, like look, I don't want anybody's money who didn't have a good time with me. Like, take your money back, I'll give it to you. I'll buy you next to me. I don't, I got it's not about that for me. Your your one-time transaction at my restaurant isn't gonna break me.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:37

They're one-timers, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:38

Well, I'm just saying, like, that that one-time transaction isn't gonna like make or break my rent, my bills, my like my anything. No, you know what I'm saying? Like, I would rather I'd rather end and fix whatever the problem was. And I and I I kind of like, and I've done this before, like if and we're not perfect, we're people, so we do miss the mark sometimes. And I remember like early on, there's a night, there was it's I did it a few times at circa, like a customer didn't like something or they're like so. You have like in a review, you have like truth and then you have like opinion. Like if you didn't like something because it was too spicy, like that's an opinion, right? Like if there's like a paper clip in your food, that's truth. Like, sorry, I don't know why it's there. You know what I mean? But like just because you like you know, like if your food is supposed to be fried shrimp and it's like cold and soggy, that's like execution error. That's like truth, that's that's shit. But like if you didn't like the breader I use, like but it was hot and fresh out of the fryer, like what's your opinion? That's on you, right? So like you gotta like understand like where they're coming from, but you know, I I've messed up before and I went straight to the table and they wanted to argue with like they wanted to like plead, and I just like apologized and took complete ownership of it, and they their head started spitting because they know what to do. They wanted me to like argue with them and defend my position, and I'm like, you're right, I messed it up. That shit was your steak was way too fucking overcooked. Sorry. I I don't know how the hell I came out of your table like that. You know, you ordered a medium and it was definitely a midwell. Like, I'm sorry. But then they're like, oh shit. Like, and I'm like, look, and I'll tell them, I'm like, you came here to eat. I want to feed you. Like, can I recook this for you? And they're like, oh no, no, like I you know, and I'm like, well, let me give you a gift card. Like, come back, like, I know your like mine's not in it anymore. Like, come back, try me again. Like, I promise, like, like, just give us another shot, right? Like, we were busy, like my cook called out, like, dot head takes daughter with all my doctor, like, I'm you know, we're running ragged around here. Sorry. Like, like, yeah, we missed the mark.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:40

Communication, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:20:41

Yeah, I mean, and and so I think that's kind of important with like reviews and stuff is just like just read them if you want. We have management systems, like we have software that helps like monitor that stuff, because you know, with franchisees and stuff, like it can start telling a story, right? Like if you know, you see two or three come in within a three or four-week period, five-week period where your hostess was rude. Or you maybe look into that, right? Like, you know, if you get a one-off hostess was rude and it was busy that night, and you know that she's sweet as pie, like, you'd be like, eh, that's not that doesn't sound like Katie. I let me look into this. But if Katie gets five in a row, you're like, Yeah, what's going on, Katie? Yeah, well, you and you and you and you don't you don't have to pull her to the side and like rail her ass. You're like, what's going on? You know, like and you might find out that her aunt just got diagnosed with cancer, or whatever. I don't know, whatever. Like she's having a rough time, or you know what I mean, or kid just got kicked out of daycare or something. I don't know, you don't know what's going on with these people's lives. Yeah. So like meeting them, like I like to use like you know, the human element a lot. Like, there's you know, we're all like this is a business, and what and one of the things has been important for me to transform, I wasn't like this early on, but like because so like I was like off the beginning, like very like line, like draw the line, draw the line. But you know, one of the reasons why I think we've been able to assemble and keep these teams the way we have is because you know, I want this to work for them. This is definitely like a marathon and not a sprint, right? Like we don't bring in college kids to fill gaps. Like my teams work a little harder the summertime to offset that extra busy. We don't bring in supplemental help, and they know that. So for 100 days, it's gonna suck. They're gonna make more money, they're gonna work harder, but then that that keeps you from having to hire temporary help or semi-temporary, and then they lose shifts in the offseason because now I gotta keep like I can't I can't seesaw employees, like so. We're all gonna work a little harder, like we're just gonna expand and contract just a little bit. And you know, that's that's kind of how we run everything, but like you know, it if and I still will cover for some of my guys. Oh, I know if there's a if like their daughter has a ballet or what they'll fucking miss that ballet. Like your kid's three, like your daughter wants you there. Like, I can I can step into the restaurant for two hours, you know, get back here when it's done, like don't take the fucking rest of the day off. But like, let's let's compromise here, right? You know what I mean? Like, I won't I don't want you missing your kids' baseball game. But uh Sunday, my uh chef at Circa, his we close at two, he gets out there about 2:30, has to drive to Newburn, he lives in New Bern. You know, he's like, hey, you think I can skate out of here a little bit early? My son's first baseball game starts at three. And I was like, hit it, man, go. Like, we weren't doing shit. I was, I mean, go, like, what's the point? I could have been a dick and be like, nah, like you gotta close down. Like, no, man, like families support him.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:35

That's how you build culture.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:36

You know what I mean? Well, uh, you know, it's it's it you can't, it's it's it's gotta be give and take. These people are people, right? They got families, and like like we gotta understand we have a we have a business and we got a job and we have a job to do and a business to run, but at the same time, like, you know, I I've you know, you attract more with honey than you do with vinegar, you know what I'm saying? So like and there's moments where we can't we can't flex. Right. And that's okay too, right? Like, no, you can't have off Easter weekend. Fuck no. But I can give you like Easter Monday off, like after Easter, like will that work for you? Like, can you rearrange, like, can you meet me in the middle? You know, and that's that's something that we've we work to with our with our teams. But like, with that, like, you know, they're not talking shit, and that customer service is better, and then you know, hopefully you get the good reviews, and you know, but yeah, I mean we're not perfect, man. But we but I think but it it's the heart of service, and it's the heart of like the action of where you're going and what you're doing. Like, it's gotta be intentional. Like, if you if you if you as a leader or your leaders truly don't care, it'll it'll show up everywhere, including the reviews. Um so I think you know you're this is so cliche and dumb shit, but like we serve food, but like we're in the people business, man. Like, we're in the people business. Like, you know, we we we serve it, we get there through food. You can see us through food, but you know, even at Dang Burrito, man, like we keep the same like principles and kind of eat those everywhere. Like, if there's like a mom with like a three-year-old and a two-year-old on her hip, and like I I want my dudes like running to the door to hold that bitch. Like, if she needs help getting a baby seat to the table, like you better help her get a babysit. Like, anything you can do to help that mom like take make like make her experience better. And literally in those moments, I don't give a shit about the money. It's about helping the mom. Like, she needs help, you know what I mean? Like, she needs help.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:30

Like, well, if whatever. If you do the right things, the money comes. That's right.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:33

So, you know, Pete, I was talking about Peter Circa earlier. Like, you know, we have a lot of elderly folks that come through circuit. We just do. I think the small plates appeal to them because we're a small plate restaurant. And I mean, half the damn time Pete's in the parking lot, like walking them to their cars, just making sure they don't fall, right? Like we've had the last six weeks, we've had a couple of our regulars kind of aging out to the point where they have fallen a couple times, not in the restaurant, but at home. And you know, it it it it sucks. So, you know, he he just makes sure that the lady they get into the car, we got a couple like weird little stairs going into circa. And if you miss one, then you can take a fall when you're 80 years old, right? You know what I mean? So it's just about that. Like, it's just about it's about really kind of caring about the customer and all that stuff online. It it it it takes care of itself, man. I mean, I don't give it a whole lot of weight, but like if you start seeing patterns. So still use it as a tool. We use it as a tool, yeah. You know, and and we also use it to also when we and we do get a lot. I mean, we'll we'll get our our our Nicks and stuff every now and then, but we also use it as a tool to like really highlight and celebrate the team. So we have a private like 81 hospitality Facebook page. So like we'll we'll post and share because a lot of times customers will call everyone out by name. You know, uh Sarah Social Q uh really helped me make some really great menu choices. She was awesome. Thank you so much. Boom, we'll post it on the 81 hospitality site. We'll send it to like we make a big deal about it. Cause it is a big deal. It is, you know, especially when they get called out by name, and it's it's really, really cool. Because it takes it takes those long hot ass days and kind of puts a bow on it for you. Like this makes it worth it, you know. Like, damn, like you know, it's it's they do they do see me, they do hear me. A pat on the back goes a long way, yeah. Or yeah, it's just a thank you. And you know, I get all the time texts come through, man. We just got social cute, this shit was bomb. Or Dang Breeder just catered my daughter's soccer team's, you know, end of your party, and man, like the kids tore it up. It was so great. Thank you. You know, yeah. It's like, yeah, that's that's that's the nugget. Like, like golf, I suck at golf, but that one good hit keeps you coming back, right? Like, yeah, you shoot shitty all day. I thought my son plays golf, but I don't I I always tell people all I need is a driver, pick any wedge because I hit them all the same and I putter. Right. And I call them gardening tools. You gotta have a landscaper follow me because you know I'm digging ruts and divots and size of crater. And I suck it off, but that one good damn drive that you just crush, you're like, all right, that felt good. Yeah. Right? That keeps coming back. Like, you know, in the days where you're just busy and all of that, like, you're just like, man, that one thank you, that good review, or that, you know, makes it makes it worth it.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:17

It does. Well, I think I could talk to you all day. We could. Um, but they'll probably have to do another episode at some other point, talk a little bit more deeper and some other things. But sure, I appreciate you, man. I know you're an inspiration to me. Um, you know, my uh my in-laws, you know, I've inter introduced you to them. They own restaurants in uh Newburn, which you're an inspiration to them. They talk very highly of you, and uh it's been great getting to know you and talk to you, and I appreciate you taking time out of your day to talk today.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:48

Yeah, man.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:49

Thank you for having me. Yeah, man. Have a good day.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:51

Yep.