[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hey, Chip Close. Here I am, your host of this Restaurant Strategy podcast. Every summer I do a 10 episode arc. This is the very last episode of this arc. It's deemed, I've dubbed it Crazy Ideas. Crazy ideas to ways to think outside the box. Rethink the static and staid ways that we've done it. Today, I'm gonna challenge you to rethink everything about your restaurant. I want to talk about some of the sacred stones that we are gonna turn over all of that on today's episode of Restaurant Strategy.
[00:00:33] Speaker B: 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.
[00:01:04] Speaker A: Hey, everyone, thanks for tuning in. My name is Chip Close. This is the Restaurant Strategy podcast. You get two episodes every single week, all meant to help you level up building more profitable restaurant, therefore a more sustainable restaurant. A restaurant that could create stability, security and generational wealth for everybody behind you.
You know I give talks. You know I wrote a book. You know I run a coaching program. It's called the P3 mastermind where I work directly with 150 restaurant owners every single week. So far, we put more than 300 people through the program. Program works. That link is in the show notes. If you want to learn more about the program that I run, the way that I work directly with restaurant owners, go set up a free call. We get to ask each other a bunch of questions to see if it makes sense. Go and do that. I also want to remind you We've got the P3 profitability summit coming up. I host this event every single year. It sells out every time I do it. Last year was in St. Louis. This upcoming year it's in Fort Worth, Texas. If you've never been to one of these events, I would strongly urge you to come. As of the time of this recording, we've got less than 20 tickets left to the event. We cap the event at 100 attendees. It is a tight, intimate group. It is an incredible couple of days. It is overwhelming. It's an immense amount of information.
General admission tickets get you into two full days of education, plus the big party on Monday night. So food, music, open bar, all of that is included with your ticket. Then we also have VIP tickets available. You get everything that the general admission ticket gives you, plus catered lunch on Monday and Tuesday of the education days. So extra facetime with me and my.
[00:02:38] Speaker B: Team, chance to ask more questions.
[00:02:39] Speaker A: You also get a VIP welcome dinner on Sunday night. It's not going to be crap. It's going to be a proper dinner. It's going to be amazing. And then finally I'm running a workshop. A four week workshop. Four hour long sessions via Zoom. For you, yes. For your managers, yes. But mostly for your servers and your bartenders. How do we increase check average? I'm going to show you you the playbook, the scripts, the tactics that actually work and we're going to do that. That's all included in the VIP tickets. You can literally put as many people as you want into those sessions. That alone makes that, I think a killer, killer deal again. Chip close.com c h I p k l o s e.com you can go check out tickets click the Summit button or you will find the direct link to explore the summit in the show notes. Go check that out now.
[00:03:27] Speaker B: Now are you tired of juggling schedules, tracking hours, worrying about HR compliance and dealing with all those last minute no shows? Well, it's time to say goodbye to the headaches and hello to Time Forge. Time Forge is a labor management solution designed for the fast paced world of restaurants with product offerings ranging from recruitment to retention of your team members. With Time Forge, you can simplify employee scheduling with automated AI schedules based on sales, weather and other events. You can track attendance and labor costs in real keeping up with complex labor laws like Fair Work week and meal penalties. You can recruit staff who live near your stores from our more than 11 million hourly job seekers. They have 11 million plus job seekers on their platform. You can pay employees their wages and tips on a daily basis after every shift. And you can communicate proactively with your staff using messaging, surveys and more. And that's not all. Time Forge integrates seamlessly with most POS systems, giving you full visibility into labor and sales performance, suggesting when you should staff up or staff down. Whether you manage one location or dozens, Time Forge saves you money, time and stress so you can focus on what really matters, delivering exceptional service and growing your business. Thousands of restaurants trust Time Forge, so why not you visit time forged.com RestaurantStrategy today and see how Time Forge can help your team and your restaurant run like clockwork again. Timeforged.com RestaurantStrategy as always, that link is in the Show Notes Pop Menu has reimagined the restaurant. They're breaking the mold of the menu, taking the kitchen doors right off the hinges and serving up their most comprehensive technology solution yet. Pop Menu Max it comes with the previous ingredients that we've talked about here on the podcast. Right. Websites designed with SEO marketing tools that help keep you top of mind with guests, and of course that patented interactive menu technology.
This new recipe brings automated phone answering to the table, third party online order aggregation, wait listing and more. Pop Menu's phone answering technology, for example, has your ringing phones covered with AI. The simple questions that used to keep your phone line tied up will now be handled by the computer without having to pull a staff member away from your in person hospitality. So all those questions that people ask can be answered by the AI server, by the AI phone answering service. So no more missed reservations, no more people asking for your hours or if there's parking or if you've got a gluten free whatever.
Also, no more missed revenue. And that's just the beginning. You have a passion for food. Pop Menu has a passion for technology. Together that's a recipe for restaurant success. And now even more digital ingredients are in their technology pantry. And Pop Menu is helping restaurants attract, engage, remarket and transact with their guests on a whole new level. Trust me, if you're a restaurant owner, you need to look at Pop Menu to take your business to the next level. For a limited time only get a hundred dollars off your first month. Plus you get to lock in one flat unchanging monthly rate. Go to popmenu.com restaurantstrategy to claim the offer. That's a hundred dollars off your first month by visiting p o p m e n u.com RestaurantStrategy as always, that link is in the show notes.
[00:06:48] Speaker A: Okay, so if you've been following these last nine episodes, I appreciate it. I appreciate you giving me your time and being willing to think outside the box. These are dubbed crazy ideas.
Crazy ideas for how we continue to iterate and evolve our industry. Because I think the model that we've got now is not necessarily the model we're going to have 20 years, 50 years, 100 years from now. And we have to be bold enough to make the changes, right? So I shared a whole bunch of crazy ideas and on today's episode, I want to turn over all the sacred stones that we've been afraid to turn over. You have to be willing to rethink everything.
You do not. I'm guessing you do not have a 3,000 location brand. And if you two, God love you, you are a big shift and you're a big ship and shifts happen very slowly, right? Big ships don't make right turns. But for all the rest of you if you are small, you are a speedboat. You can go fast and you can make hard turns. You can be nimble. And being small and being able to be nimble is your strongest strength.
And if you are not leaning on that strength, if you're not taking advantage of that, you're missing the greatest part about being small. My business is small. I am able to stay nimble. There are very few things that are stuck and stayed about me, my coaching business, what I do. I can make changes very, very quickly to be better, to be more profitable, to serve more people. And the same thing is true with you. You can make changes, quick changes, to be better, to be more stable. You can be more nimble, to serve more people and to be more profitable.
There are no sacred stones. I shared this on an earlier episode. I'm gonna share it again because it's a great way to round off. Nick Kokonis was one of the co founders of the Alinea Restaurant group. He's no longer an owner there, but I heard him give an interview once with Tim Ferriss. And he said he didn't grow up in the restaurant industry. He came at it from the finance world. And he said one of the best parts, one of the best things that he brought to the table was his willingness to say why, to say why and to challenge everything, right? Why do we do it this way, why do we do it that way? Why does that go there? Why do we have to put this here? Why can't we do it like this? And he said over the course of the process of opening alinea, he said 70% of the time. There was a good answer. And he said, okay, great, now I know. But 30% of the time, which, if you think about it, is a significant number, he said 30% of the time.
The answer was, well, I don't know. Yeah, I guess we could do it that other way. We don't have to do it the way we've always done it. And that's incredibly powerful.
[00:09:31] Speaker B: Running a restaurant means juggling a lot. Staffing, inventory, customer service and finances. Sales tax has to be done. And while no one plans to miss a deadline or miscalculate a payment, mistakes happen.
When those happen, they can lead to penalties, fines, and, yeah, added stress. That's why there's Davo by Avalara. Davo integrates with your point of sale system and automatically sets aside sales tax daily, giving you a clear view of your actual cash flow. Then when it's time to file, Davo files and pays your sales tax on Time in full, guaranteed. No more last minute scrambles or costly mistakes. Just seamless automation.
Thousands of restaurants trust Davos and with a 4.9 star rating on G2, it's a proven solution. Your first monthly filing is free with zero commitment. Get started
[email protected] RestaurantStrategy I will add in here. This fits in perfectly with what we're about to talk about again. Davosalestax.com RestaurantStrategy and yes, that link is in the show notes.
[00:10:40] Speaker A: Crazy ideas and I'll remind you of all the things that we talked about in these episodes and go back and listen to the full episodes. But what happens if we get rid of waiters? What happens if we get rid of tipping?
What happens if we rethink the structure and the layout of our dining rooms?
I challenged us in the fourth episode in this arc to rethink our beverage programs. So many restaurants really rely on alcohol and the high markup that comes from that. But the next generation is not drinking right. They're drinking 25% less or more. That's a meaningful impact in our bottom line, I promise you. And we have to think about how we maintain profitability in our restaurants through our beverage program if people aren't drinking, you know, gin and tonics.
Talked about multiple menus different nights of the week. We talked about going from full time staffing to entirely part time staffing. Let them pick the, let them pick their schedules instead of us assigning schedules.
We talked about the dynamic pricing. We talked about offering private chef services.
We talked about having a restaurant that only served pop ups.
And today I'm going to challenge you to rethink everything else that I'm just not smart enough to bring up to you.
Your restaurants are varied and unique and dynamic. And there are things about your restaurant that can be rethought, that can be challenged, that can be reinvigorated.
I challenge you to walk through your restaurant and ask the question why? To rethink everything. To come up with your own crazy ideas. And not just today, not just because I'm telling you, but to do it all the time. I think it's helpful to set aside time and once a month or once a quarter to walk around and say, well, why do we do it like this? Why do we do it like that? Why does that go there? What if we did it like this?
This is a very important muscle to strengthen.
Just like you go to school, just like you, you know, practice your knife skills. Just like you test recipes, just like you Level up on your leadership and you figure out better ways to speak to people and how to get the most out of people.
Just like you upgrade your technology or the equipment in your kitchen, you have to upgrade your mind and challenge yourself to think outside the box, to rethink everything.
Why do you use the plates you use?
Why do you use the silverware you use? Do you even need silverware? Do you even need plates?
Again, do you need servers? Do you need bartenders? Do you need a bar program?
Do you need lots of cooks?
Do you need a restaurant? Do you actually need a physical space?
What are the other revenue streams that you could have?
If you had a restaurant, why would you also not have a food truck or a food cart?
Why would you not put something out front? Worked with a restaurant once that was a restaurant inside, it was a pastry shop, a patisserie, and then a cafe in the back. And in the summer, they wheeled out a soft serve ice cream machine out front and then they put a lemonade machine on the other side. So at their threshold, it was a soft serve ice cream on one side and a lemonade stand on the other side.
And they made up to $3,000 a day just in ice cream and lemonade, fresh squeezed lemonade and bespoke unique chef driven soft serve ice cream.
There's usually one Sunday they did and it was an extra $3,000 a day. You do the math there.
3,000 times 30 days or even 3,000 times 20 days, because let's say it's going to rain a handful of days. That's a meaningful amount of revenue.
They were bold enough to say, well, why don't we do this? Taking advantage of their footprint, of their real estate, coming up with another product.
People were going into the cafe to have lunch, they were going into the patisserie to get pastries and coffee.
But they weren't necessarily, people weren't necessarily thinking of going in there to get a fresh homemade lemonade or to get soft serve ice cream. They made it very obvious. They put it right out on the street and they were a heavy traffic location.
But they added like 20% to their monthly revenue simply because they offered other products.
I could give hundreds of examples of the things that I've observed, of the things that I've helped people do.
And I think if you took the time to do it, I think you could think of dozens or hundreds of examples as well.
We don't have to do things the way we've always done them.
You can sell more. You can serve people in different Ways you can rethink the ways you've done things and make a better restaurant for your people, a better life for you and your families.
The whole point of the restaurant strategy podcast is to help you increase the profitability of your restaurants. Because I believe when you make more, your business honors you and honors the the effort and the impact that you put in and that you make on your communities.
Again, I say this to my clients all the time, to the P3 members. There is an entire ecosystem around your restaurant.
You obviously employ people. You give people jobs. You have vendors that you support, so you're paying their bills. You have a landlord that you support.
You are paying state sales tax to your state.
You are supporting the other businesses around you. Because when people come down to your restaurant, they also stop at the little flower shop or the clothing shop or the dry cleaner.
You are propping up an entire ecosystem around you and you deserve to be taken care of in the same way. You just have to be bold enough to find new ways to do it, better ways to do it, more efficient ways to do it. That's what this whole arc is about. 10 crazy ideas. And today, the craziest of all the ideas is for you to be willing to do the same thing I've done and to do it all the time, constantly.
To step outside the box, to think outside the box, to look at the way that other people do it, not just in our industry, but to other industries. When we talked about dynamic pricing, again, they've been doing it at the gas pump for 40 years. They changed the prices, right?
Airlines have been doing it forever. Hotels have been doing it forever.
You have probably done it where you have your lobster is priced mp market price.
When it costs more, I charge more. When it costs less, I can charge less.
I would challenge you to challenge everything. Challenge even, even your most fundamental assumptions about our business and how our business is, quote, unquote, supposed to run.
That's it, guys. That's the end of this 10 episode arc. And I'll leave you with one final reminder about the P3 profitability summit. There are about 20 tickets left to this event. We cap the event at 100. Only 100 people in the room with me with guest speakers, some of my other coaches. We have sponsors, all there to help you level up to increase the profitability of your restaurants. It is tactical, it is actionable. Series of playbooks and scripts, things that you can take home and directly apply to your business.
I promise it will be worth the trip. Fort Worth, Texas in October. Go find the link in the show notes and Go Explore Tickets either general admission tickets available and also VIP tickets are still available. I want to thank you guys for taking the time out of your day to be here. I really appreciate it. I will see you next time.
[00:18:19] Speaker B: Sam Sa.
