[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hey guys, Ship Close here. Host of the Restaurant Strategy Podcast. I've got a quick ask of you if you've been listening to the show for a while. If you've gotten any sort of value from the conversations we've had on this show, then I'd love to ask you to go over to Apple Podcasts, leave us a five star rating and review. Just let people know what you get out of the show, what you've gotten out of the show, why you listen. That more than just about anything else will help me continue to grow this audience, will help me grow my small business again. Go to Apple Podcasts, leave us a five star rating review. Just let people know what you get out of the show and make sure to come back Talking with the founders, the partners of Noco Restaurant in East Nashville. It's a great conversation because they're doing a lot of things different. If you think there isn't a better way, an easier way, a new way for us to be building restaurants, they're going to tell you how they're building theirs. Don't go anywhere.
There's an old saying that goes something like this. You'll only find three kinds of people in the world. Those who see, those who will never see, and those who can see when shown. This is Restaurant Strategy, a podcast with answers for anyone who's looking.
Hey there. What's going on everybody? My name is Chip Close and this is Restaurant Strategy Podcast dedicated solely to helping you build a more profitable restaurant. Each week I leverage my 20 plus years of experience, my 20 plus years in the industry to to help you build that more profitable and more sustainable operation. I also work directly with owners all over the country through my P3 mastermind program. The three Ps stand for profit process and Progress. If you struggle to generate consistent, predictable 20% returns every single month, and I promise you, I can show you a better way. Set up a free call by visiting restaurantstrategypodcast.com schedule. That call is absolutely free. You'll chat with either me or someone from my team. We'll learn more about you and your restaurant. You'll learn more about us and the program we run and we'll see if you're a good fit. Again. RestaurantStrategyPodcast.com Schedule as always, you'll find that link in the show notes.
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Now as I said at the top, I've got two guests on the show today. The owner and founder of Noco restaurant, John Murray and also Wilson Branak, one of the managing partners at that restaurant. They're located in East Nashville.
They're doing things differently. I can't wait for you to hear how they're building their restaurant, how their, their new perspective is making a, is making a change for the better. I think tons of questions that I have for them. I'm really excited for you to, to chat and for you to hear what they've got going on. John Wilson, welcome to the show.
[00:03:38] Speaker B: So stoked to be here. Appreciate you having us.
[00:03:40] Speaker C: What's up, y'all?
[00:03:42] Speaker A: My pleasure. All right, so let's go back. Talk to me about how you guys met. Talk to me about how you guys each individually got into the industry.
[00:03:50] Speaker B: Why don't we start with how you got in? How you got in?
[00:03:54] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
[00:03:54] Speaker C: I'll start off Wilson here.
But yeah, I mean, before restaurants, I was actually a karate instructor for about four years and I went to a family Christmas party and my cousin was looking for some extra help down in Atlanta. There's this thing called gift show at America's Mart. So it's a bunch of apparel shows get together. She needed a bar back for the week and I was like, why not? I was kind of at a crossroads. I got denied out of Georgia State University. I was supposed to go to school for film. That kind of fell through. So went there and then fell in love with the industry. Like the hustle and bustle of a restaurant, you just can't replace that. I feel like anywhere. That's how I got started. Met John in 2017 at Oku Atlanta. It's one of Indigo Road's outposts down in West Midtown. Applied as a server and we hit it off ever since.
Grew into a bar manager, assistant manager. Moved to Nashville in 2019 to be the AGM of Oak Steakhouse in Oaku.
Moved to Charleston, South Carolina, to be the opening general manager of one of John's brainchilds, Maya with in Indigo Road, and eventually becoming the director of operations for the King street locations before coming here.
[00:05:22] Speaker A: Love it. Film, karate, and then food. I am convinced that almost everyone in this industry takes the side door or the back door or the crawl space. So I love it. I appreciate that. I certainly took the side door in, so I'm really vocal about sharing my story. I appreciate you sharing your story, John. Let me hear your story.
[00:05:42] Speaker B: So my first job was a dishwasher at Applebee's. My brother waited tables. I was, I guess, 18 years old, freshman in college, was going to a community college, needed to make some money. My brother said that you need to wait tables.
Because I had never served, Applebee's wouldn't hire me as a server. So I started as a dishwasher. Only dishwashed for like two weeks. Then was able to start server training, was in the business. That's how I got through college. And then I worked in the music business for a short stint in Nashville, Tennessee. So took a little hiatus. And then after 08, in early 2011, I took a break from the music business, moved to Charleston, South Carolina. Nobody was really paying anything that was substantial enough to, like, not be in the restaurant business. So I started waiting tables at a company called the Indigo Road when they had their second restaurant, Oku. And I guess 13, 14 years later, here I am.
[00:06:40] Speaker A: Yeah, See, again, music, karate, film. We all come to this in such different ways. So talk to me. You guys obviously crossed paths. At what point did you say, hey, we want to go do this on our own? What made you think you were going to be able to do it on your own? That you were going to have sort of the skill set, the concept that would succeed. When did you say, hey, we're going to go do something together?
[00:07:09] Speaker B: So I, oddly enough, I mean, I've always wanted to open a restaurant. Not always, but since I've been in the business and started taking it seriously, I wanted to open a restaurant. But oddly enough, kind of crazy, you know, Wilson and Junior, our other partner, were two people that I believed in. I saw a ton of talent, but we also had, like, a connection that I'd never had with other people that I worked with. And I had a dream one night that Wilson and I were business partners and that we should open a restaurant.
And so the next day I called him. I'll never forget it. I was on the interstate, heading to Raleigh, North Carolina, to the company we used to be with, one of their properties. And I felt like I was asking a girl on a date. And I said, hey, Wilson, I had this crazy dream last night. You and I were business partners.
Are you in? And like, without hesitation, he was like, let's go. And so the rest is history. And here we are.
[00:08:05] Speaker A: So listen, opening a restaurant is no easy thing. I've done it, I don't know, eight or nine times. I don't recommend. It's not for the faint of heart.
Talk to me about this concept, Talk to me about the restaurant that you guys conceived, and talk to me about the concept and talk to me about why you felt like it had a chance or why it needed its place.
[00:08:28] Speaker B: Well, I mean, I think there's. It's a twofold thing, right? So conceptually, the restaurant was born out of COVID It was born out of the pandemic. The restaurants were shut down.
And so two, three times a week we would all get together. And because we didn't know, like, the extent of what Covid was, we cooked outside, we cooked over charcoal, we cooked over wood, we cooked with gas.
And I think one night we were all just kind of at the end of the night, sitting back and. Because Junior, who primarily cooks Asian food, I mean, cooks everything, but it. Everything seemed to have this, like, Asian inflection on it. And at the end of the night, we're like, wouldn't it be cool to have an Asian wood fired restaurant? Something that was more focused on, like, a fundamental element of cooking?
And so that's conceptually how the idea came about. But Wilson and I really got into this deep, deep conversation about what needed to change about our business. What needed to change inside the four walls of a restaurant? What, why people? There was obviously, we're all, you know, familiar with in the business. There was like a mass exodus when. When CO happened and, you know, everybody was short staffed and nobody showed up to work, and people were working for Amazon and they were able to work remotely and all these different things. So we started going, man, what, what's different? Like, what do we need to do differently? And so the, the, I think the like, core of who we are and who NOCO is and who Wilson, who Jr. And who I am, is like, how do we make this a more sustainable industry? And. And how do we create something where people want to actually be in restaurants and make a living out of it?
[00:10:09] Speaker A: So talk to me about how you answered that question. How do you. I agree with everything you're saying, you know, as we were exchanging emails prior to this conversation, there's, there's nothing that you've said that I didn't agree with. That's why we're having this conversation. So how do you, how do you do that? How is this restaurant different than every other restaurant? How are, how are you, how are you changing the mold?
[00:10:35] Speaker B: That's a really tough question to answer. How is it different from any other restaurant?
You know, Wilson and I, we, we sat in a conference room at. I had a buddy who managed an apartment complex and he had this big conference room. And Wilson and I, we got in this conference room and locked ourselves into it for an entire day. And I'm not even exaggerating. And we brought out our paper. We. And we said, what needs to change? Like, if we were to stay in this business or we just ping pong? Like, what do you hate about the business? What doesn't seem fair to you? And so we create and we still have this massive list of things we want to do for our people that we haven't done yet. Because we're an unproven concept. We need to be able to have proof of concept. We needed to make sure we were profitable. We needed to make sure we could pay our debt back. But we just built this laundry list of things that needed to change. Things that we hated. Like a small thing, but a big thing. I can't tell you the last time I had my birthday off in a restaurant. Right? Like, and so we were like, well, let's make sure every single employee has their birthday off. And not only let's love it have their birthday off, let's pay them for them to have their birthday off. So it just, I mean, I, you know, we wanted to do things differently.
[00:11:48] Speaker A: So talk to me, talk to me about that laundry list. Whether you've gotten to it or not, tell me some of the things that are on there that you have been able to institute so far in, you know, the first year of the business. And talk to me about other things that you're actively working on. I love the idea of this laundry list of things that we wish were different.
[00:12:06] Speaker B: Sure, I'll go for one. Yeah, go for it.
[00:12:09] Speaker C: Yeah. I mean, so for our full time employees, we do two weeks of paid vacation every year. The way it works is you get one week after six months, and then an additional six months you get another week.
But I think it's really cool coming from the front house standpoint instead of, you know, there's companies that give you minimum wage or they bump the hourly up to $10 an hour. And that's not necessarily something, you know, some of the front of house employees are used to making a week.
So you're already, you're scheduling yourself a week off, then you've got to save up to take the week off. What we're doing a little bit.
[00:12:47] Speaker B: You.
[00:12:47] Speaker C: Are getting an average of what you're paid a week. If you're averaging, let's say twelve hundred dollars, you will get paid twelve hundred dollars. If you're a front of house employee, if you're a back house employee and you're a vital piece of the team and you're working five hours overtime, you're going to get an average of your paycheck. Or if you're playing both sides, you're expoing on the weekend and you're in the kitchen in the front of half of the week, you're going to get an average of your paycheck. It's not going to be, you know, 40 hours of 7, 25 or 40 hours of $10 an hour. It's going to be something that, you know, you've grown accustomed to making day in and day out.
[00:13:25] Speaker B: We thought that was important. You know, I can remember I was front of house my entire life other than the short stint at Applebee's. And then oddly enough I was like, I want to work in the kitchen. That didn't last long. I was too.
Anyways, I. It just wasn't cut for the kitchen. But whenever, like someone say someone would get married and they'd be like, hey, we want you to come to our wedding. I'd have to sacrifice a weekend of substantial income. Yeah, I'd have to sacrifice paying for travel and then I'd come back and I'd have to make up for that lost weekend. And that money I came out of pocket. So we thought it was, you know, important that not only do people take time off but that they don't sacrifice their income during that time off. I mean, listen, two weeks of paid vacation outside of our industry is not unheard of.
[00:14:17] Speaker A: Agreed.
[00:14:18] Speaker C: Very standard.
[00:14:18] Speaker B: You say it in our industry and listen, there's a ton of people that are doing it, but in our industry, people just don't do it. They say they can't afford it.
We take 1% of our profit or not 1% of our profits, 1% of our gross sales and we every single month we transfer that total into a separate bank account. We do that every single month. And at the end of every calendar Year, we take that 1%, we divide it between our people and their hours worked, and we help pay for one of their vacations. So not only are we paying them for their time off, but we're helping them pay for a vacation as well. It could be hotels, it could be airfare, it could be a combination of it. You know, just using a round number, let's say, you know, that their paycheck, their 1% was $1500. Right. Let's say Airbnb was 500 bucks and their flights was 500 bucks. Well, then we give them another $500 to go enjoy for whatever it may be. Yeah. We have health, dental and vision. We also have insurance for them to have access to therapists. It's all virtual. They have no cost associated in that whatsoever. We pay 100% of that. We have a gym membership with a local gym here in town that our employees get a free gym membership. We have a bi weekly yoga class, it's called Noco Yoga, that we do together that's free to them.
I feel like I'm blanking on other things. We're closed every Monday, we're closed every major holiday, we're closed Christmas Eve, Christmas day, day after Christmas. Whether you celebrate Christmas or not, it's a great time to slow down. We're closed Thanksgiving.
So we're trying. There's more to life. I think a lot of us learned this during COVID There's more to life than just making money.
And it's becoming ever apparent that, yes, you need to be able to provide for yourselves and for your family, but it's more important that we slow down and actually enjoy life. Because one day we're gonna look up and it's gonna be all gone. And if we didn't travel, if we didn't spend family with or spend time with family and friends and loved ones, what's it all worth?
[00:16:28] Speaker A: Yep. So I wanna back up because I got a comment and a question.
My comment is going back to where people rushed out of the. Rushed out of the industry. And you've sort of answered it over these last few minutes. I totally agree with you. Whereas five years ago, pre pandemic, we lost people to other restaurants. During the pandemic and beyond, we lost people to whole other industries because I think a lot of people realized, hey, I don't have to do this. I mean, the number of people I know that were busing tables, that went into landscaping, that said I can make more money in six months landscaping than I did an entire year bussing Tables, like, it's huge. The number of people that I left, you know, runners, bussers, porters, who went and got jobs at Target and were assistant managers or, you know, or supervisors six months, nine months after starting that job. And they were like, look at all the stuff I get. The health, the dental, the vision, the life insurance, the 401k with a match and all of that. Like, I think we lost people who just realized, I don't need to be in this industry. I sort of highlighted, you know, that I took the side door, you took the side door, you took the side door. We also took a side door or a back door into this industry. We didn't necessarily get into it because we had to do it right. People get into music or film because they love it, they have to do it. People get into restaurants. I think plenty of people get in just because it was a job, it was a way to get through college. That's what it was for me. It was their first job. It was just the very low barrier of entry. And I think that's my comment.
The other piece to that is that I think that's why a lot of people in this industry get kept down, because it's not taken seriously. It's not a real career path. It's just a job you slip into, and it's a career you just sort of have when you stick around long enough. My question to you is all these things you're doing, and I love this laundry list, and I love everything you've outlined so far. But naturally, the question I think a lot of the listeners are going to have is the same one that I have is how does that affect your profitability? Because we hear a lot about the razor thin profit margins. How are you guys able to make that jive on a P and L?
[00:18:47] Speaker B: It's a good question. I mean, you know, I think until we get further along, will we be able to have, like, specific data that shows profitability? I'll tell you this. We're. We're months where we're plus 30% net profit even with these costs.
When Wilson and I were doing the Performa, when we were backing into these things, we were very, very intentional. We've been very intentional with every single choice and decision we've made, from placement of menu, from menu engineering, from purchasing, from approachability to the neighborhood, to affordability from the neighborhood or to the neighborhood.
You know, in. And I think in our. The past company we came from, a lot of this was already in there. So, you know, you look at It. Right. If you go and you look at the last three years of data and you pull from, you know, restaurants what they've spent on overtime, what they've spent on turnover, what they've spent on training, I would say that what we're doing isn't that much more than what people have actually spent on that. Right?
[00:20:01] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:20:01] Speaker B: If you look at it, it's probably going to cost us 5 to 6% of our bottom line this year when it's all said and done with everything that we offer. And so we could look at it.
[00:20:11] Speaker A: Which is particularly why I ask, I want to interrupt real quick because we know the average independent restaurant in this country is, you know, data that's been put out by FSR magazine, by Toast, by, supported by nra. Right. The average independent restaurant in this country, country never makes more than 6% profit. So when you say you're dropping 5, you have to be at that 30, you know, 25, 30% to be able to make that worth it.
[00:20:33] Speaker B: So.
[00:20:33] Speaker A: I totally agree. I love what you're doing. I just, that's, I think why a lot of people, a lot of people probably heard 5 or 6%. Whether you said it out loud and I'm glad you did say it out loud. I agree with everything. I think you're absolutely right. I think just the churn cost alone, if you put this in investing in your people and actually kept them there, you're gonna pay it one way or the other. Why not pay it to keep. To take care of our people and keep them there for a long time? I agree.
[00:20:59] Speaker B: It's going to make everybody's life easier. I mean really is. And listen, I, you know, we know that if the concept didn't resonate that maybe we wouldn't be as profitable. Right. But, but I feel like our people are happier.
You're never going to be able to change 7:30 on a Saturday night. It's going to be chaotic. Everybody wants to eat at prime time. People are going to get double sat. I mean there's days where like at 5:00, by 5:15, the entire restaurant's full. And that means that every server gets double, triple, quadruple sat within a 15 to 30 minute period. Right. But the thing is you have that rush for four or five hours.
But if we're taking care of ourselves outside of service, then we tend to be happier. But we just, you know, Chip, to be honest with you, it was scary walking into it. Are we going to be able to afford these things? But Wilson Jr. Said it's a non negotiable. Whether we go out of business in pursuit of this or whether we are successful, we know that something needs to change and we are committed to changing it within our restaurant.
[00:22:13] Speaker A: So I love that. Talk to me about what's next on your list, right, Because I asked you for this laundry list. You've already laid out a whole bunch of things that you sort of solved right from the beginning. What are some things on your horizon that you'd like to be able to do that you just haven't done yet or you're not sure whether you could do it? Like, talk to me about your wish list.
[00:22:33] Speaker B: We want to pay 100% of everybody's insurance.
We want, we want to have childcare for those that have children.
I mean, and it gets as trivial as like we want people to have access to, to go get a massage once a month. I mean, things to. It seems like, does this really matter? But to us it does. I mean, the list goes on. It could be from the smallest thing to the biggest thing. But I think. And this will be the hardest hurdle to overcome. But at some point we would like the opportunity to pay for everybody's insurance 100%.
[00:23:08] Speaker A: I love it. I want to use that to launch into the next thing. So I have a question about profitability. It's sort of the, the most important word in my life because that's what I do. I work with restaurant owners to help them increase the profitability of their restaurants. That's the mastermind I run. That's what I do. I look at P. Ls every day, all day, all the time. And we, I find we're talking about it a lot more on this, on this podcast. I want to understand how you're, what you're doing to achieve such great profits in your place. Because I think if you can share the insights, it's only going to help other people out there. So whatever you can share, I'd love to sort of tease that out.
And probably wrapped up in that, you guys wrote to me and you said, hey, we want to talk about surcharges and we want to talk about the rising cost of goods and sort of the misnomers about those things. Both of those things I would love to talk about. And maybe that's part of the profitability conversation. Maybe that's separate. But those are the three areas I want to make sure we cover. While I've got you on the line, you guys tell me where we go first.
[00:24:19] Speaker C: I think we rewind it all the way before the lease is signed. I think that's where we start.
[00:24:23] Speaker A: Cool.
[00:24:24] Speaker C: So John and I, we have like, ground rules when it comes to profitability. Our PNLs. And one of them starts before the lease is even signed. This is our first one. But coming from our past lives with the previous company, 7% occupancy cost is a comfort zone for us. Anything that kind of eclipses that, we're kind of like not very comfortable with us. Reason being is because here at Noco, occupancy cost is definitely sub 5%. But that allows you to make decisions on your menu pricing. You can stay affordable to the neighborhood. You don't have to change your concept if things get tough down the road.
So it allows you to. Gives you more freedom to do what you want going forward.
And I think there's a lot of developers that are selling you on these grandiose spaces, giving you lots of ti. But you're paying 18 to $25,000 rent and you've got 90 seats. And that tells you what, you know, what you have to charge per person if you get two, two turns in one night or one and a half turns a night. So occupancy cost for us sub 7%. That's something we're comfortable with. And you know, we talked to a couple of other restauranteurs and some of their occupancy cost is, you know, 10 to 12%.
[00:25:48] Speaker A: So when you talk about occupancy costs, you're talking about rent or is that rent and utilities?
[00:25:52] Speaker B: Rent. And how do you. Yeah, so, so basically your, your rent, you know, you take your rent and divide it by yourself sales and that that percentage would give you your occupancy cost.
[00:26:02] Speaker A: Yeah, sometimes. Great. So I agree. I mean, I always, I always go. I always used to say, you know, 8% of. Of total revenue should be rent. But you said occupancy costs. And I know I have worked with some people, some restaurateurs who feel really deeply that they need rent plus utilities under 8%. So I. That's not. But that's not what you're saying. You're saying.
[00:26:24] Speaker B: And I mean, every operator is different, you know, and also to go back, we, we've built our performance on worst case scenario. Right. A lot of people say, oh, we're going to do X amount of dollars and we're going to put X amount in the bank.
I don't. Just because we have to borrow money to do these. It's. I feel more responsibility that it's to pay it back than I would if it was mine or if it was right. And so we build our performance on worst case scenarios, what that weekly spin or that weekly number is going to be. And if it doesn't work there, then we don't do it. Yeah, we also.
[00:27:03] Speaker A: Okay, so rule of thumb to keep it below 7%. What else you were talking about? Sort of before you even sign the lease, as you're looking at spaces coming up with concepts, what else sort of goes into your mind to keep that P and L in line?
[00:27:16] Speaker B: Well, we manage our costs daily. There's a program we use called Margin Edge and we are such a fan of Margin Edge.
[00:27:23] Speaker A: We've been a sponsor of this show for the last two years. It is, I could not speak highly enough of them.
[00:27:28] Speaker C: They're awesome.
[00:27:29] Speaker B: I mean, not only are they awesome, but the program, once you understand it and you use it, it allows you to run your business at a such a high level and it's so intuitive, it's so user friendly. I'm not getting paid to say this any. We, we wouldn't be able to be as profitable, as successful with such ease as we are without that program. So we manage our costs every single day. We do weekly inventories of every single food item, every single booze item. We pay attention to our labor on a daily basis. We know for a fact, like where we're going to be within 1 percentage points of all our cost of goods, of our labor into the point now where we have what we call a mess around P and L. Before our accountant gives us our P and L back, we know within two points what our profitability is going to be. So I think the biggest thing is like you have to operate your business at such a high level and if you don't, then you're going to throw a 5 or 6% bottom line.
[00:28:32] Speaker A: I love it. This is, this is literally what I do for a living. So this is what I help restaurant owners do. So I appreciate that. So just being in total control of it, I always say we, we have to be more proactive than reactive and, and building tools like pro formas, like forecasting, using that to generate budgets so that you can make decisions based on, you know, I always say this like, you know, I'll, I'll, I'll talk to people and say, well, we had a really bad weekend. I said, why? So huge storms, you know, came in, it just wiped out all Friday, all day Saturday. I said, give me your phone. Do you have a weather app there? He says, yeah. I said, so you knew roughly eight days Ahead of time that there was a storm coming and that it was potentially going to wipe out all Friday and Saturday for eight days.
Apple was telling you that hey, look out and that you did nothing to plan for it. You did nothing to overbook your Friday night to overbook. Listen, I would ran the front door. That's what I did for 10 years around the front door in New York City for Michelin starred restaurants. It's not, doesn't take a rocket scientist to look at the weather and understand that 20%, 25% of your book is going to cancel day of or no show. You can overbook by roughly 20 to 30%. So you make sure you're not stuck because at the end of the day you need to make the revenue you need to make on a certain day. So I just, I find that, I find that answer so unsatisfying. It's so lazy. So yeah, I mean building tools and creating systems for yourself where you can be proactive, where you can say, hitting revenue targets on a daily basis and say, hey, what do I need to make today, tomorrow, the next day, the next day, what do I need to make next weekend in order to return the profit that I, that I think we need to return to repay debts, to pay our partners, to put food on our own table. So I love it. So just staying really, really diligent. How do you talk to me about how you, and maybe it's different for you guys because you guys are all partners here and sort of so involved with the, the day to day as of right now, but talk to me about how you share those tools or how you help integrate your managers into that to help them, to help them be part of the solution.
[00:30:39] Speaker B: We, we are an open book.
You know, I, and I can't speak for everybody, but I know a lot of restaurateurs with their managers, they do not share their financials. We share everything we want our people to. The goal is whether our people stay with us for 20 years or our people stay with us for two years that they walk out of our upbringing a better operator, a better leader and a better person. Right? So we are as transparent as they come. You can see how much money we put in the bank. You can see what our labor dollars are.
We're open book. And I don't think that if you want to grow a business, if you want to grow a company, you have to lead that way. And if you don't, you know, you're always going to, you want people to. We want to build future operators Yep. Whether they're with us or not. I'd love to. One day, four or five of our people help fund or invest in their dreams.
[00:31:45] Speaker A: Thousands of restaurants across the country use Kickfin to send instant cashless tip payouts directly to their employees bank accounts the second their shift ends. It's a really simple solution to what's become a really big problem because let's face it, paying out cash tips to your workers day after day, shift after shift, it's kind of a nightmare. Tedious tip distribution takes your managers away from work that actually matters. It's sometimes hard to track payments, which leads to accounting and compliance headaches. Plus, cash tip outs create the perfect opportunity for theft. And there's never been, there's never enough cash on hand to pay out those tips. So what, what happens? Your managers are constantly having to make bank runs. Bottom line, there's never been a secure, efficient way to tip out. Until now. Meet Kickfin. Kickfin is an easy to use software that sends real time cashless tip payouts straight to your employees bank accounts. 24, 7, 3, 6 5. Tipping out with Kickfin gives managers and operators hours back in their day. It makes reporting a breeze and protects your business from mistakes and theft. And guess what? Employees love it. So it becomes a really powerful recruiting tool. Best of all, restaurants can have Kickfin up and running overnight. Employees can enroll in seconds. No hardware, no contracts and no setup fees. Get in touch today for a personalized demo and see how restaurants and bars across the country are tipping out with Kickfin. Visit kickfin.comdemo and yes, that link is in the show notes.
Isn't that such a big deal?
[00:33:14] Speaker B: It's a huge deal.
[00:33:15] Speaker A: I talk to people and they say, hey, I don't want to be, I can't be fully transparent because then if people see it, they're going to see how to open their own restaurant and they're going to go open their own restaurants. It's like, right? And they need capital. And since you're a successful restaurateur, you're going to invest and then you've got a passive income stream because guess who they're looking to first they're going to say they're going to go to you for help. If you present yourself as the, as the Sherpa, as the Yoda, you're going to be able to be part of that. Maybe you partner with them, maybe you invest with them, maybe you just play matchmaker to your bank, to your pool of investors. And it all come, you know, a rising tide lifts all ships. It just a narrow view of it rather than coming at it from this. This place of plenty. Right. Like, there's more than enough to go around. And if you show people how to open, I mean, look at all the successful restaurateurs that have come through. Through Danny Meyer's organization. Right. Through us, H.G. i mean, you just go down the laundry list and not. And not minor players. I mean, major players. Right?
[00:34:17] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:34:17] Speaker A: So everybody. I mean, everybody from Tom Coleco to Damon Wise to Marco Canora to Will Godara to. I mean, on and on and on. Look at the people who have gone and done extraordinary things because he runs like an open book, 100%.
[00:34:31] Speaker B: I mean, if it. If our last. My mentor, Wilson's mentor, didn't operate the way he did, we wouldn't know what we know today. And, you know, when we left, was he sad? Sure. But, man, he's been championing us the entire way. And that's real leadership. That's not insecure leadership.
[00:34:49] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:34:50] Speaker B: You lead with abundance. Right. You give people. And who knows? I mean, we want to give up. I don't want to run the restaurant forever. Wilson doesn't want to run it forever. We're. We'd love to give away the piece of our company to people that we want them to be owners.
[00:35:07] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:35:08] Speaker B: We do. And anybody. And I hope this doesn't sound wrong, anybody that leads from an insecure place is never going to be wildly successful.
[00:35:17] Speaker A: Yeah. I think it comes out of a place of fear. Right. I think a lot of us have this fear, and I feel this way running the mastermind. I feel like people are afraid. Right. There's this imposter syndrome. Like, I don't know what I'm doing. I'm just doing it the best I can. And I think when people get in the room and realize, like, oh, I know what I know, and now I know what I don't know, and then I can level up and learn. I mean, the thing you notice about being around really great people, really great leaders especially, is they are so quick to say, I don't know, what do you think? Like, they're the first to just take everybody else's opinion and to be really clear, when they don't know something, they tell you that they don't know. And I've worked with a lot of people. Some good, some okay, some bad. And then I had the great privilege of working with two mentors who really showed me how to do this, how to run profitable restaurants and all of that. And it sounds like you guys had. Had a champion and a mentor and in, in, in there as well.
It's such a big deal. We don't talk enough about it.
[00:36:20] Speaker B: Yeah. Vulnerability, in my opinion, is a superpower. And a lot of leaders, you know, when they don't know or they make the wrong decision, they, you know, oh, it was his fault or her fault or no, it's like, man, I made the wrong decision. Guess what? I'm just as human as you are, and I'm expecting you're going to make mistakes as well. And that's what we call a thing called forgiveness. But vulnerability is a superpower, in my opinion. And not enough people lead from that place.
[00:36:48] Speaker A: I love it. I love it. It's great. Talk to me about. Okay, so you run this P and L with an iron fist. You know, you know where every single cent is going. You've got benchmarks for the key.
The key sections in your P and L. You open your books, you invite the others into the party.
I want to talk about food costs because I think we're in alignment here, but I want to hear your opinion, and then we'll riff on that. Talk to me. You said here, inflation's not a thing. Food costs are not on the rise. They're not actually skyrocketing. Explain what you mean.
[00:37:26] Speaker C: Things skyrocket.
Very like.
[00:37:30] Speaker B: Yeah, dramatic.
[00:37:32] Speaker C: There. There are some things that have risen in cost. I think we can all agree things have risen in cost.
But for us, we're not married to a single purveyor, a single product. You've gotta shop around, and you've got to lock yourself into a deal that you are comfortable with, and you've got to watch your, you know, every single line item like the hawk. So going back to margin edge, one thing that we like to tell the chefs, because chefs have a million things to do every day.
But there's this thing called price movers.
And we'll give you an example. One month, our food cost jumped up 1%. We knew it was going to jump up 1% because we didn't adjust our menu price, but our bone in ribeyes went up $4 a pound.
Now, $4 to, you know, as, you know, if you're just coming in day to day and you're like, oh, it jumped up $4. But we sell 600 pounds of.
[00:38:32] Speaker A: When you move them.
[00:38:32] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[00:38:34] Speaker C: So that affected our profitability.
[00:38:36] Speaker A: 2,400 bucks. Yeah, yeah.
[00:38:37] Speaker C: $118,000.
And our food cost jumped up a point. We were okay with that because one thing we Value more than anything else is being affordable and approachable. So we're like, you know what, we'll take the hit on this. Where can we save elsewhere?
But it's costing out your. It starts with costing out your menu. You gotta have, you know, a blended, A blended margin of. Or a blended idea of what you're gonna do and then just watch like a hawk.
[00:39:06] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:39:06] Speaker B: I think that the thing, the biggest thing that probably has affected cost, if I look at it as labor, right.
We've having to pay more than we've ever had to pay. And can I be honest with you? That's amazing. Because what a lot of our people in our industry have been paid in the past is not equitable. It's not a living wage.
You know, but for people to say, oh, my goodness, you know, food skyrocketed. It hasn't.
I mean, listen, does it move? Of course it does. Have there been things that have gone up? Of course they have. Enough to raise your menu prices 25, 30%? Absolutely not. You're just in, in what we hope in our intention is 10 years from now, our menu prices to have not changed. That's the goal. Right. And I'll say this. I mean, it's not my saying, I've heard it, but people over profit, right? There's, there's in not just our people, but like the people that come in when we're. I already believe we're at the start, if not in the start of the downturn, things are going to get tougher and tougher. People are going to be very, very mindful of where they spend their money. Right. When they go, hey, it's our anniversary, it's our birthday, whatever it may be. Mom's coming in town, where do we go to dinner? They're going to go to the place that made them feel amazing. Right. That took care of them, were extremely kind. But a place that's also. They feel like nobody's taking advantage of them.
Right. And so it is imperative that our food, like our pricing, not be unrealistic. We don't need to take advantage of people. When people feel taken advantage of, they don't come back.
[00:40:52] Speaker A: I would agree with. I would agree with most of that. Part of what I feel is that there's something very objective about this. So whenever I work with my clients and they've got a cost of goods problem, I love it. I said, this is the best problem we can have because there are actually five potential solutions. Right. We can renegotiate our price. We can source a Different ingredient. We can find another partner, another purveyor. Right. Another vendor. We can play with the portion size or we can increase the price. Actually, four things we can do before we even think about moving the price. And if we just talk about price, then we're sort of getting lazy.
[00:41:27] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:41:28] Speaker A: That being said, you know, that being said, sometimes the price of goods does go up. Of course, the problem becomes, for me is when we don't raise the price because we feel like, oh, people won't pay that for fill in the blank. Which has been proven wrong time and time and time to get time again. Sure. Doordash. Uber eats. We pay 30 to 40% more for the convenience of sitting on our couch while somebody brings me the food. Food. So people are willing to pay for it in certain circumstances. For me, what happens is that if we have to pay our people more, then we have to pass some of that cost along to the consumer. Where, where we get into it is that we've got to make it. And this is where I agree with you, John. We've got to make it worth the additional cost. Well, why is it more? It's more because we're taking care of our people. It's more because the cost of the product costs more and we have to make it worth it in the eyes of the consumer. And I think too often we don't even bother with that part. We just. We're making food. We feel like, oh, nobody will pay fill in the blank number of dollars for fill in the blank food item. And I think they will. I think they. I think they have to. I said this during the pandemic. Dining out is going to get more expensive. I think it has to because it's a handmade product.
People grow it, people harvest it, people bring it to us. People prep it, people cook it, people serve it, people take it away, people clean it. It's a people business. What we can't, we can't do it as of yet with a whole bunch of robots. There's enough people along, every single part of that. So when you say people over profit, I just think it's. I think it's all part of the same thing. The other piece that I'll say here, and I always, I always feel like I say this is that dining out is a luxury. Of course, make no mistake, a hundred years ago, people dined out maybe once or twice a year.
Now we dine out, meaning, you know, outside, you know, food that we, that we have made for us, whether it's Uber Eats, DoorDash we go pick up a pizza, you know, take out pizza, or whether we go out to dinner, we do that on average, once to twice a week. Of course, 100 years ago, it was once or twice a year. Otherwise, meals were made in the home, consumed in the home. So what we do is a luxury. People are coming out to be taken care of. They're coming out for something more than food because they can make food for cheaper at home. They're coming out for something else. And I think collectively, as an industry, we have to recognize that people are after something more than food. They're out for better food, more interesting food, innovative food flavors they can't get. They're there because they want to get taken care of because somebody, like, went to school and figured out a great recipe and shopped for us and prepped it and cooked it and is bringing it to us. And later they're going to do all the dishes for us.
[00:44:16] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:44:16] Speaker A: Like, that's a big deal, whether that's a Wednesday night where we just want to go out and get something easier, whether it's our birthday and we're going to go blow it out. But dining out is a luxury, and I wish we viewed it as such and priced it appropriately, given the fact that it is an indulgence. And I think if we make it a commodity, we're going to get into commodity pricing. It's a race to the bottom. We can never win that. Especially. Especially again, given that there's so many people along the entire supply chain. Somebody's going to get screwed there. People need to get paid. People need to be supported. It's our community, and therefore it's got to be passed along. That's my two cents. That's my diatribe.
[00:44:55] Speaker B: Yeah. I don't. Listen, I don't. We're not giving away the house, you know, but we want it to be. We want it to be affordable and approachable for guests to come in here, because that's going to leave them wanting to come back time and time.
[00:45:07] Speaker A: I agree.
[00:45:07] Speaker B: Also nestled in the middle of a neighborhood. Right. And so audience. You've got to know your audience. You got to know what?
[00:45:14] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:45:14] Speaker B: You know what the Doyles want from up the street. Why do they come here once a week and they have been for the.
[00:45:20] Speaker A: Last four months, which gets to the heart of marketing. Right. We understand who has a problem we can solve. So what do the Doyles need?
[00:45:27] Speaker B: Right.
[00:45:27] Speaker A: What do the Doyles need that they can't get anywhere else or they'd rather not get anywhere that we can provide them with.
[00:45:32] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:45:33] Speaker A: I think that's the other piece to this that I wish we just took into. I mean, the people that really got screwed over the last year are the people that felt like they couldn't increase their prices because they didn't value themselves enough.
[00:45:47] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:45:48] Speaker A: And that's my, that's my real heartbreak because I think what we do is so difficult. Not anyone could, not just anyone could do it. And I think what we do is extraordinary. I think it's so important. Right. We make neighborhoods. Right. What's a neighborhood without a bunch of restaurants? If there's a neighborhood without restaurants? Not a neighborhood. It's just a group of houses.
[00:46:05] Speaker B: Right.
[00:46:06] Speaker A: Neighborhoods, communities are made when people collect, when people, you know, come to a street to shop, when they come somewhere to go eat. We provide jobs. We, we sort of, you know, increase the value of the real estate. I mean, you know, from an economic perspective to a community perspective to, hey, we help people pay for things like, you know, daycare and their car payments. Like, what we do is just too, it's too hard. It's too hard not to honor and too important not to recognize.
[00:46:36] Speaker B: Of course. Absolutely.
[00:46:39] Speaker A: Talk to me. The last section I really wanted to cover here is talking about these surcharges.
I have views about the surcharges. I want to hear your views on the surcharges.
[00:46:48] Speaker B: So, you know, in, in our business model, we don't believe in them.
And I'm not, you know, listen, there. I think for certain concepts, I think maybe it works.
I believe that if you come in to have dinner at Noco and you have subpar service, which we strive for you not to, but if you do that, you should tip based upon that. If you have a server that comes in that is not guest oriented, that doesn't want to take care of someone and is there just to collect a check. How are you? What can I get for you? Water levels run low, don't have refills on your drinks. I don't think that that person deserves to make 20%.
So. So we don't. We, as it currently stands, don't believe in surcharges. We, you know, and I understand why people are doing it, but we have no intention to ever charge 3% because we help people pay for people's insurance. We never. We're going to pay our people and we're going to pay them well. What we think is, well. And there's never been anybody in my career other than one person that I've ever said no to on a race.
And there's never been anybody here in these four walls. And the short eight months we've been here that have come to us, have asked for a raise or that we didn't go out and say, hey, we want to give you a bump because you're doing a great job.
So I personally don't believe in surcharges, but that doesn't mean that my opinion is right.
[00:48:21] Speaker A: Yeah, I find it's a slippery slope that I find if we spend $100 for dinner and we've got, let's say 7, 8% that goes to sale tax, which is a surcharge one way or the other. Right. So 7 or 8%, plus another 3% for credit card processing. Okay. We're at 10 or 11, you know, plus 20%. That's now 31. Plus. Plus a. Plus a. I just suddenly. Then we spend 30, 40, 50% above what our meal cost us. And I find, I find it's a really slippery slope if we, if we slide down there.
[00:48:58] Speaker B: It's. Yeah, I mean, it's hard. Listen, I mean it, I, it's a, it's a tough climate we, we live in right now across the board. It's a tough climate for full service restaurants. It's a tough climate for any restaurant for that matter.
You know, there's thousands of choices. There's, there's people that are in rent situations that they should have never gotten into. But that's why we've built, we build our performance on a worst case basis so that hopefully we, we rise above that, that we can still be profitable for sure.
[00:49:33] Speaker A: I love it. I mean, I think, I think the industry has learned a lot over the pandemic. I think we're learning a lot now coming out of the pandemic. And as it's been sort of wild with labor going, you know, going up, up, up as cost of goods is going up.
Yeah. And suddenly that 5 or 6% that most independent restaurants see has gotten swallowed up. And if you've got a commodity product, which I don't think anyone out there should have a commodity product, we're all extraordinary, we're all interesting, we're all unique. And I think we can go put out unique, unique products. And that doesn't have to be, you know, Alinea, it doesn't have to be husk, it doesn't have to be something that's sort of breaking the mold. But just saying, hey, this is who I am. This restaurant's a reflection of me and sort of what I believe and this is a reflection of the community and in service to the community. I think.
I think I spent a lot of time talking about that difference between commodity and luxury. And I think I wish we took a page from that luxury mindset. Not that we need luxury products, Right. Pizza can be. Can. Can adopt a luxury mindset. But this idea that how do you create something that can't be gotten anywhere else? Right. The reason people go to Louis Vuitton to get a Louis Vuitton bag is because you can't get it anywhere else. Like, you can't even get anything similar. Like, there's only one Louis Vuitton bag. There is only one Hermes scarf. There's only one. You fill in the blank. And I think they do that really, really well.
And I think if we did that, if we took a page from that, we wouldn't put out a commodity product because, I don't know, I can get a spicy tuna roll at a lot of places.
[00:51:08] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:51:08] Speaker A: Like, what makes me choose one over the other? Right. The commodity mindset says, all things being equal, a consumer will make their decision based on familiarity, convenience, or price. And if we compete on those three things, we lose. Like, there's just no way to do it because we need people to go out of their way. We need people to be willing to cross the street to pay maybe a little bit extra, because what we do is worth it. Yep. That's my two cents on it.
[00:51:34] Speaker B: I agree. In. In Harry's Bar Cipriani in Venice, he says in there. And it's something that we.
That resonates with us. He says, I built a restaurant that you had to go to. You couldn't just stumble upon it. It had to be very intentional that you were coming to have dinner with me. And. And I love that because it's like, if you provide something that's that good in that above everybody else, people will come far and wide for it. If you build it, they will come type scenario, which I never.
[00:52:07] Speaker A: Which I never agree with. The. The. If you build it, they will come. It's in, like, the first chapter of my. Of my book of the. The Field of Dreams effect. Because the opposite thing is that there's this feeling of, like, well, I know what I'm doing. I'm going to create a great restaurant. All I got to do is build it, open the doors, and of course.
[00:52:21] Speaker B: They will come true at all.
[00:52:23] Speaker A: That's usually the connotation it takes which they want. No, that's. But if you build something, the people can't get Anywhere else? Yep. They've got to go out of their way. They'll cross the street. They'll go a little bit further than they would have otherwise gone. They'll pay a little bit extra, because there's nothing like that in the world. And I think it's really cool what you guys are doing. I think it's really cool the way you approach this stuff. I ask all my guests the same five questions before I let them go. Do you guys. You guys down for answering the questions?
[00:52:53] Speaker B: Yeah. Do you want us to each end answer both? All of them? Okay.
[00:52:58] Speaker A: Yeah. We'll answer individually. We'll bounce back and forth. We'll. I'll moderate here. I'll keep. I'll keep the piece cool. Wilson, kick it off. What's the last great meal you've had?
[00:53:08] Speaker C: Oh, last great meal that I had was bad idea in East Nashville. There's scallop crepes or money.
[00:53:17] Speaker B: Real good.
[00:53:18] Speaker A: Chef's kiss. Awesome. John, same question for you.
[00:53:21] Speaker B: Oddly enough, I ate there last night, and the food was superb. Bad idea in East Nashville.
[00:53:27] Speaker A: Awesome. Love it. All right, John, you're going to take the second question first. What's the last great hospitality touch you've.
[00:53:34] Speaker B: Had that I've received?
[00:53:37] Speaker A: That you've received the most?
[00:53:39] Speaker B: And I don't know if this is my last, but this is the one I'll never forget. We were at the Modern in New York City. It was a Saturday night. There were four. Four of us. It was. The host stand was packed. You could tell that they were beyond busy. We walked up, said, I know this is a far shot that we're ever going to be able to get in tonight, but there's four of us. Do you have anything available? The guy said, give me just a minute.
Five minutes later, he comes back. He said, we had someone just cancel at our chef's table in the kitchen. Would you be willing to sit in the kitchen tonight? And we were blown away. And I don't know if he, like, had some kind of inkling that we were in the business or what it was, but we got to sit in the chef's kitchen in the Modern on a Saturday night from somebody that just canceled. And it was they. It's the same that they. We like to adopt here. We're not in the business of saying no. We're in the business of finding a yes. And in that situation, they found the yes. And that. That's the most memorable hospitality experience I've ever had.
[00:54:36] Speaker A: I love it. Wilson, what's the. The last or or best hospitality touch you had?
[00:54:42] Speaker C: The last.
[00:54:43] Speaker A: The last.
[00:54:43] Speaker C: Since John did best. I'll do last. The last one that I had was.
So I go to this spot called SS Guy for lunch. They're in the washer in East Nashville. They know I love spicy food and they saw me come in, put my order in. They put a little extra, extra goodies in the, in the to go bag. And that was the last great touch.
[00:55:05] Speaker A: That's cool. I love it.
Great. Wilson, if a genie came down, could grant you one wish as it relates to the industry, what would it be? What would you wish for with your one wish?
[00:55:20] Speaker C: For some unreasonable guess to give us a little bit more grace.
[00:55:24] Speaker A: Okay, Love that. John, same question for you.
[00:55:30] Speaker B: Man. If a genie was to come down for our industry, it would be.
Yeah. It would be to change the perception of what it. The public perception of what it requires and takes to work inside of our business.
[00:55:48] Speaker A: Yep. I love that. John, what would you tell someone who's about to open their first restaurant?
[00:55:54] Speaker B: Have a great support system, have great people by your side because it's not going to be easy.
[00:56:01] Speaker A: Wilson, same question.
[00:56:03] Speaker C: Everything's gonna happen when it's supposed to.
[00:56:08] Speaker A: Love that. All right, Wilson, last question. Kick us off here. I want you to tell me about the future of restaurants. I want you to look five years into the future and tell me something you think is coming that others may not see coming in the next five years.
[00:56:24] Speaker C: If I can make a bold prediction, neighborhood restaurants are gonna take over. They're gonna be these spots to go to, not the grandiose spaces and downtown markets that are 6,000, 7,000 square feet. I think the restaurants that have a great ambiance, great hospitality and in that sweet spot, between 3 and 4,000 square feet in neighborhoods are really gonna shine.
[00:56:51] Speaker A: Love it, John.
[00:56:52] Speaker B: I think unfortunately full service restaurants are going to get dumbed down and AI and all this stuff is becoming that. People are trying to cut costs and labor's too expensive and it requires too many man hours to do a full service restaurant. Unfortunately, I think AI is going to start rearing its ugly head in a people driven business and it's going to make it less personal.
[00:57:18] Speaker A: You know what's really funny is that I agree with you. I mean, I think, I think full service restaurants, the majority of them are going to. I think there's going to be something else that replaces them. There's a just like fast casual was born. When Panera came out, nobody, nobody saw that as like a elevated version of quick service. But I think there's something else coming. And I agree with you. Here's my pushback on this though, is that let's say a restaurant's got 10 servers, right? I got three great ones, I got three horrible ones. I got four in the middle that I'd rather keep my three great ones. I'd rather get rid of my three horrible ones. And I'd rather work with two or three of my middle ones and figure out who wants to be great. And I can then pay them better, I can support them better. I can. Then we have the people there that actually want to be there, and I can actually give more to them.
Then I can make sure that every guest actually gets people who really want to be there. I see it as not so cynical. I see if we do it right, we can actually remove steps of service, let's say, and inject it with more hospitality. And I'm really interested in that, that intersection of hospitality and technology, of actually how we can use technology not just to cut labor, but to actually make a better experience.
[00:58:38] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:58:40] Speaker A: Because I'm also sort of sick of, you know, like Sally the sassy waitress. Like, I don't need sassy Sally take care of me. You know, I mean, like, I don't, I don't need to go to a diner and have somebody sassy and like, sort of like throwing stuff down at my table, which I have every weekend when I go to take my kid to a diner. Like, I don't need that. Just give me a QR code or order what I want. Somebody can then bring me my stuff. I don't need people grumbling at me. So that's where I see it. Like, I see that there's an opportunity to just change certain kinds of restaurants to be something else and to then elevate the other full service restaurants so that we actually have people who want to be there and are, and are really good at the job. And that's how I think we make restaurants even better. It's. I see it, I see it. I see it going the. I see it going the right way.
[00:59:29] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, I think it'll be interesting, right? You've got to adapt with the times. Mario Carbone. I was listening to a podcast with him like last week and you know, the, the lineage and, and you know him, David Chang Teresi would all work side by side and they would jump from place to place every year to build a resume that's, that's not here anymore, you know, and so what he said that I loved, he was like, we've just got to adapt to the times and there's a lot of adaptation coming. My biggest fear is that people are going to look at their people as a cost and not an asset. And then that when that becomes, when cost becomes more important than the people, then I think that's when a detrimental change could happen.
[01:00:11] Speaker A: So. John, I totally agree. And so when you look at your people as what it costs you rather than the return on that investment. And listen, in the restaurant industry, we're horrible. We love to say, what's the roi? What's the roi? And we're really horrible pretty much across the board at actually measuring the return on the investment, like the return on staff development, the return on providing a benefit. Right. Like we love to say it, we love to, you know, ask those tough questions of agency partners and things like that. And we're really bad internally about actually measuring that. And I think then if we looked at them truly as an asset, we'd get better about measuring their, their contributions. Yep, that's a, that's a word. We don't spend enough time talking about contribution inviting. Contribution inviting sort of buy in and a sense of ownership.
This is where I think the whole conversation comes full circle. So I appreciate your, I appreciate your insights and I appreciate your perspective on this. I think, I think it's a good place to end. I think it's changing. I think it will continue to change. It will.
I guess for me, the last thing I'll say is that I don't want us to be too precious about the restaurant, the style of restaurant we have now, because restaurants have been around thousands and thousands and thousands of years. And the version we have right now was basically invented 200, 250 years ago. It hasn't been with us that long. And I'm not convinced that it's the best. It's just what worked in 1782 in Paris, France.
[01:01:45] Speaker B: Sure.
[01:01:46] Speaker A: That's basically the version that we're, that we're stuck with. And I think if they had some of the solutions we now have, I think for sure they, they would have used them back then. I think they didn't, they didn't have them. And I think we do. And I, and I, I hope that we challenge ourselves to make it better, not just keep going and getting and getting so, so sacred about it.
[01:02:06] Speaker B: Agreed. Adapt or die, right?
[01:02:09] Speaker A: Yeah, 100%. And, and that's what's, and that's what's happening right now. And all the complaints we have about the industry, it's like, nope, we Just have to do it better. We have to do it differently. We have to look at the reality. I mean, we talked about Danny Meyer a couple of times. Now he's famous. He went on the record, what, 20 years ago, 15 years ago, saying this business industry was built on the promise of cheap rent and cheap labor. And now neither of those things are really true anymore. So what do we do now? I mean, that was 15 years ago. He said it. Now look at how true that is. So what are we again? I think it's that conversation of a luxury, of an indulgence. We provide something that no one needs but everyone loves. They don't need it. They can feed themselves at home for a fraction of the cost. So why would they come out? And I think we have to provide that answer in a really compelling way.
[01:02:59] Speaker B: 100%.
[01:03:01] Speaker A: Yeah. Guys, listen, I appreciate you taking the time out of your day to sit and chat with me. Tell me, tell the rest of the listeners where they can go to learn more about the restaurant and all that you guys are up to.
[01:03:13] Speaker B: Nokonashville.com we're in East Nashville. Check us out on our website. You'll be able to find everything you need to know there. And if you ever have any questions, shoot us an email. Our emails are on the website.
[01:03:25] Speaker A: Awesome. We'll include the link in the show notes. Guys, I appreciate any last words of wisdom before I kick you out of here.
[01:03:30] Speaker B: Appreciate you, appreciate you having us on. Chip. Thank you so much.
[01:03:33] Speaker C: Thank you.
[01:03:34] Speaker A: Thank you guys. Keep up the good work. All the best to you.
[01:03:36] Speaker B: Thanks. Have a good one.
[01:03:39] Speaker A: So once again, I want to thank John and Wilson for taking time out of their day to sit and chat with me, for sharing their perspectives, to share, to bring some transparency to what they're doing down in East Nashville. If you want to learn more, again, the link is in the show notes. Again, I'll make one final request. If you can go to Apple Podcasts, leave us a five star rating and review. If you get any sort of value from this, if you've gotten any sort of impact on your restaurant, go let other people know why you like the show, what you've gotten out of it. Again, go to Apple Podcasts, leave us a five star rating in review. I appreciate all of you taking time out of your week to be here and listen to these conversations. Thank you so much and I will see you next time.
Sa.
