WHO'S TO BLAME FOR FOOD SERVICE ISSUES

As we wrap up this series we uncover who is to blame for food service issues in the restaurant industry. The answer will surprise you. 

Local Eats are the Best Eats!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:14

Well, good afternoon. It is June the ninth, two thousand twenty-six. And straight from the Highley Caffeinated studio, this is the Mad Food Critic Podcast. And I'll be your host for the next half hour. I truly, Will Bryce have been in the food service industry for over 40 years. I've owned restaurants, designed restaurants, done every possible job in the food service industry that exists. Doesn't make me an expert, but I have seen a few things and I do have an opinion. And I've decided that I want to wrap up this six-part series tonight. I've got some other subject matter that is really pressing that I want to get to starting next week. So we're going to go ahead and wrap this up tonight, pulling from the other uh three episodes that we've done, and find out tonight who is it, who's the who done it, that is responsible for the issues that are facing the operators and restaurants today. Now we talked about food service manufacturers and the role they play. We talked about food service distributors, and we talked about food service sales reps. And now we're going to talk about restaurant owners and the patrons and the part that they play, and then we're going to wrap it up and talk about who's the real problem in the industry. And like I told you as we started going through this whole series, it's not one person, it is a systemic problem. But let's take a moment and start with the patron and the restaurant owner, and then work it back up the chain the other way and see how the problem gets magnified. This is the problem. You can take a grain of sand and you can put it in your shoe. Now, it doesn't seem like a huge problem. One grain of sand, right? The longer you walk on that grain of sand, the bigger problem it's going to become. And if you don't get out of the sandbox, guess what? You're going to have more than one grain. And that's kind of the way this whole problem, this whole systemic problem is that faces the food service industry that is literally crippling the restaurant owners. Now, I'm not saying that they don't have some part to play in this whole systemic problem, but let's look at what part they play. We start with the patron. They walk into a restaurant. What is some of the things that they face today? As you walk into a restaurant, uh, your food is not the same quality as it was. Uh, your prices have gone up exponentially. Uh, I had to wait longer for my food. Now, all of these problems, and there's that's just the tip of the iceberg, but all of these problems are being conveyed to the restaurant owner. And the restaurant owner is sitting there with his head in his hands every day going, it's taking longer to get food out. I didn't have all my staff show up today. I I I'm having waste, I'm having turnover, I'm having food costs rise above what what I can possibly even fathom to manage. What do I do? And what do they do? They turn to their food service sales rep and they say, Hey man, I need some help. I I don't have, I can't get staff as if I hire some that two days later they're gone before I even learn their name. Uh, it it takes it takes, I don't have the people to do the prep work. I have all these problems. And the food service sales rep says, Okay, I hear you. Let me see what I can do. The food service sales rep goes back to the food service distributor, and they're in a meeting, and they're like, Well, what what problems are your restaurant owners facing? Well, it's you know, staffing, and and they can't replicate the quality of their food every day because they don't have enough staff and they're having waste and they're having and their food costs are rising and they're having all these issues. And then the food service distributor sits down with the food service manufacturers, and this is where it takes a turn. Do you remember the old game that was played in grade school? And they would put 20 kids in a circle or in a line, and one person would come up with a phrase, and they would whisper it in the ear to the child next to them, and it would be whispered the same thing over and over and over all the way until it came back full circle. Now, when it got back to that original person or to the last person, the teacher would say, What did they say? And that last person is going to repeat what they've heard after it's been passed through 20 people, and it was never anything remotely close to what the original child said. This is no different because as these problems are being conveyed from the patron to the owner to the sales rep to the food service distributor to the food service manufacturer, it is no longer the same thing that was conveyed sitting at that table in the restaurant. But then there are times where it is conveyed semi-properly, semi-correct, but it's in the response because food service manufacturers they hear, oh, they're having these issues. How can we turn this into a profit maker? Now, look, I'm gonna say this one time and one time only, and I'm not gonna repeat myself. I don't have a problem with anybody making money. That's what we're here for. Every one of us. The restaurant owner, the food service rep, the food service distributor, and the food service manual manufacturer, they all have overhead and they have to make money to stay in business. I understand that. Here's the big problem. Here's my question. Are you telling me? And I know I'm about to really make some people mad, and guess what? I don't care. I care, but I don't because this has to be said. When you have been in this industry as a manufacturer, a distributor, whatever, all of these years, and the only response that has been coherent and a decent response to the issues has been the pre-cut produce. This has been the only thing that I would put on a list that they have done correctly. It saves labor. It is a little bit more expensive, but it's the amount of labor and taking the knife out of somebody's hand so they're not chopping up lettuce or chopping up tomatoes or whatever the case may be. But here's the thing: you solved a lot of problems, even if it costs a little bit more, you saved a lot of a lot of heartache and a lot of problems with that one thing, the pre-cut produce. But are you telling me that that's the only thing that you can come up with to give an answer? The only answer you have for everything else is for it to be pre-breaded, pre-stamped, pre-cut, pre no. Let me restaurant owners, listen to me when I say this. Hear me. Write this down. If you are in your breakfast, lunch, or dinner service, and your dining room is not full, and you don't have a line going out your door, and you serve a lot of pre-made, pre-frozen, pre-ever, there's your problem. Just because people eat it don't mean they like it. And you just say, Well, I don't have the staff, or or you tell me, well, the the restaurant industry that this is where it's headed, they need bullcrap. No, because I know I could give you a book full. You know what? Right here, I've got a book right here in front of me that has at least 300 pages, and I could fill it up with the names of owners of restaurants that do it every single day. They still make things from scratch, they still take pride in what they put, and when they put something on the menu that says it's their signature dish, guess what? By God, it's their signature dish. It's a signature. You take a pre-made, pre-frozen, pre-hamburger patty crap, pre-breaded chicken fried steak, that's not signature. Because everybody in town's got the same signature. Signatures are supposed to be unique, one of a kind. Look it up. It's in the dictionary. Webster will help you out with that one. Look, I'm not mad at anybody, I'm mad at the system. I'm mad that we are becoming complacent that we we won't take stand up and take pride into what we serve. Look, you spent your hard-earned savings to open up a restaurant. Why on God's green earth would you allow anybody to come in there and tell you, oh, this pre-breaded chicken fried steak is just as good? Really? I don't think so. How about you take that soy laden crap back with you? Am I mad? Yes. Yes, I'm mad. It makes me mad that restaurant owners are being convinced to serve this crap. Because the only person that is benefiting is the person that sells it, the person that distributes it, and the person that manufactures it. So I'm sorry if you're sitting in the hot seat on one of those, I bless your heart. That's all I'm gonna say. Bless your heart. We've got restaurant owners, you've got to start standing on your two feet on two feet. And when you get somebody, I don't care who it is, I'm not pointing fingers at anybody. I don't care if it's a if it's a food service rep or if it's a manufacturer, I don't care. If it's a radio ad, if it's something you saw on the internet, if it's not something that's gonna help you build your business, you don't need it. It's hard enough to survive in the restaurant industry as it is, and serving pre-made garbage is not going to give you a line out your door. Again, I can give you the list easily. In an hour, I could write down 300 restaurants with their owners' names and phone numbers that are in my phone right now that would tell you we do it from scratch every day. And I can tell you that they do because I've been in their kitchen, I've watched them do it, I eat there every chance I get. It doesn't matter what state they're in, it can be done. Is it easy? No, but if it was easy, what's the old saying? Say it with me. If it was easy, everybody would be doing it. But the easy part is to take this chant, chant, whatever of the of the, and here's the thing: they don't even call it, you know, you hear them use the word when they say, I'm sorry, anytime you get somebody comes in your restaurant and they use the word, you need to try this product. They better be referring to something that cleans the restroom. Because I'm sorry, if you have something that they refer to as product on your menu, there's a problem. You're a restaurant, you serve food, not products. This has been a great product for product does it clean the restroom? So you want to know who is the responsible party? The whole system. That's who. Who can put a stop to it? I can tell you the first person that can put a stop to it. And I guarantee you, the this list of people that I'm about to give you can stop it in a heartbeat. And as food cost rises, don't be surprised if you don't see more of it happening. And that is, are you ready for it? Write this one down. You're gonna want to remember this group of people that can put a stop to the crap. I'm sorry, I won't say crap anymore, I'll say product because that's yeah. Oh, and we we would be misled if we didn't say the value added product, because that's the new mantra. We gotta have value added product because that's what we serve. No, stop it. You don't serve product, you serve food. But the patron, that's what I want you to write down. Understand that the patron walking into your door, that's the one that can stop it. They're going to get tired of pre-breaded, pre-frozen. They can get that in the grocery store, they can get that at any drive-thru, they can get that anywhere. Set yourself apart. Don't be worried about what Bobby J's hamburger place down the street's doing. He doesn't pay your bills. Uh Janet Jane's chicken fried steak shack. She doesn't pay your bills. You do. Take care of what is under your own restaurant roof and don't fall for the value-added product. That's the problem, and that's who's gonna stop it. The people are gonna get tired, the patrons, they're gonna get tired, and the restaurant owners, they're gonna struggle even more than what they're struggling now. Take charge of your restaurant, and I promise you, if the patrons put their foot down, if the restaurant owners put their foot down, I can tell you those other three groups of people that bring the food to your back door, they're gonna listen. I promise you. But you gotta put your foot down. Is it easy? No. Is it doable? 100%. If you have any arguments whatsoever to this, you can find me on all social media. I've got a website, according to wheeliebee.com. You can leave me a message there, you can go to my Facebook page. I I don't care. You say whatever you need to say, and I promise you I have an answer already. And just know my feelings don't get hurt because I'm doing this to help the industry. I pulled so much good from that industry for so many years. The industry was the industry was good to me, and this is my way of repaying, trying to help, trying to get the word out so that people understand. Step away from the value-added product, have a true signature menu. Like I said, you got any questions, comments, innuendos, a string of cuss words, whatever. I don't care. Send them to me. I'll be waiting. Next week, guess what? I'm really gonna dive off into something that's probably gonna make a few more people mad. But this definitely has to be said. Next week, we're gonna talk about the catfish industry. I did a TikTok on it. One of my highest-rated viewed TikToks that I've done yet. It absolutely blew up. I can tell you from the amount of comments I get on these little TikTok reels. I can tell you, people are listening, people are agreeing. So there is that. But next week, we're gonna talk about catfish. So until next week, I do appreciate each and every single person that listens to this podcast. I do three different podcasts. I do the Mad Food Critic, I do Real Talk uh on slot machines, and I also do according to Willie B, which is food and travel. So any of those three podcasts are available on anywhere that you get your podcast from, and you can go to our website, according to WillieBee.com. Until I see you next week, don't forget, have a great day, and thank you again for listening. Bye bye.