Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] We're talking about stories and we're talking about people and we're talking about the stories that people tell, giving them a shorthand to talk differently about you. We talked a lot about the guest experience. And I want to talk in this last episode of this 20 episode arc, episode number 20, I want to talk about how we help impact the employee experience.
[00:00:19] It begins at the very beginning, the interviews. That's what I want to talk about on today's episode of Restaurant Strategy.
[00:00:27] 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.
[00:00:58] Hey, everyone, thanks for tuning in. My name is Chip Close. This is the Restaurant Strategy podcast. We put out two new episodes every single week to help you level up and build a more profitable and sustainable business. I wrote a book. It's called the Restaurant Marketing Mindset. There's a link in the show notes to get that. If you want to learn more about how to market your restaurant. I got a new book coming out in just a couple of months. It's called the Restaurant Profit Playbook. More information very soon on how you can get your copy. For that, I wrote a mastermind. It's called the P3 mastermind. It's the best way I know. It's how to impact people's businesses. To teach independent restaurant owners what the big groups and chains already know. You go to RSPROFIT to learn more about that. Mostly, though, I wanna remind you about the Restaurant Profitability Summit. It's the big event I throw every single year. We cap the event at 200 people. This year, we're hosting it in Minneapolis. October 18th, 19th and 20th. Two full days teaching you playbooks, actionable how to's how you run a more profitable business. All of the tactics, all of the playbooks. Chef Gavin Casen is headlining the event. He's going to join me on stage, talk about his growing restaurant empire, how he thinks about success, sustainability, specific, specifically, profitability. He's opened restaurants, he's closed restaurants. So he's known success, he's known failure. I think all of that is part of this story. I think you're going to learn a ton from him. You get your tickets by clicking the link in the show notes. The Restaurant Profitability Summit happens three days in October, capped at 200. As of the time of this recording, about a quarter of the tickets are left. They will go they sell out every single year. You will leave that event with 30 to 40 actionable playbooks, things you can put into practice the second you get back home to your restaurant. If you want to be there, I want you to be there. I promise you, this is the thing that will move the needle in your business again. That link is in the show notes.
[00:02:46] What's the food cost for your third best selling entree? You don't know. But with Margin Edge you could know instantly. Margin Edge is a complete restaurant management software that we recommend to every single P3 member, anyone looking to improve their profitability. With Margin Edge, you just get to snap pictures of your invoices and you get real time data for every area of your business. You get to see plate costs in real time. You get a daily P and L. You know, I love that your inventory count sheets are automatically updated. What happens is that Margin Edge saves you a ton of time and it lets you make better informed decisions. I got a client, Gather brewing. They were P3 member for a better part of a year. They started using Margin Edge last year and within one month, I'm telling you, 30 days, their food costs went from 38 to 28%. Massive savings that those 10 points dropped straight to the bottom line. Trust me, there's a reason I recommend Margin Edge to so many my clients, so many listeners, so many P3 mastermind members. It's because it works. I know it works. If you've been listening for a while, you know I talk about it. If you're interested in learning more or you want to see how Gather brewing went from 38 to 28%, they put together an incredible video video. Head over to margin edge.com chip again. Margin edge.com chip as always, you'll find that link in the show notes.
[00:04:05] So we're talking all about stories, right? For the last 20 episodes, we've been sharing stories. The stories I tell more than anything else, the the last three episodes here in this arc are really tactics. They're stories I tell because I use them right and I talk about how it can impact your business.
[00:04:19] We spend a lot of time about the guest experience and I want to save this very last one about the employee experience because for the most part, working in restaurants sucks. Long hours, late nights, weekends, holidays, time away from your family, right? It's difficult work. You got to really want it, right? You got to really want it to be a part of this. I know. I've been in this industry for 25 years. You got to really want it. And I Know, you know, it's.
[00:04:41] So how do we impact the guest experience? I want it. There's a lot of different ways we can do it. But I want to share with you one way. Number one is when you hire.
[00:04:50] It was. It's been difficult for the last, I'll say, seven years to find and retain great employees. Right. We talked about pre pandemic 8, 2018-2019. It was just as hard to find people as it is as it was coming out of the pandemic. People think it was the pandemic. It wasn't. It was happening before the pandemic.
[00:05:11] On this podcast, I like to remind people that it was happening before the pandemic and before the pandemic, right. So when I was managing, we were doing this. We did this thing. We made this one switch that I want to share with you. The one switch we made is we got rid of all interviews. Basically, we treated every new hire as a stage. If they submitted a resume. And we looked through and it looked good. Certainly good enough for us to bring them in an interview. Well, it was good enough for us to have them come in and just observe.
[00:05:38] So we basically say for bartenders, servers, bussers, runners, same thing with cooks. We'd say, this is how we do. This is how we do a first, an interview. It's basically an observation trail, a stage, right? We'll pay you, shift pay. You're going to come in and observe for three or four hours on a busyish night just so you can get a sense of what it is. We'll see you in action. You'll see us in action.
[00:06:00] Mostly we just want to see you on the floor and we want you to see whether this is a good fit for you, because there's plenty of people who are going to get here, watch it for a couple hours and be like, oh, yeah, this is not the energy for me. Totally fine. Better we figure that out that out now before we do a couple of interviews, see what happens. Something really, really important is that somebody needs a job. And usually in our industry, they need a job quick.
[00:06:20] So whoever gets the person hired fastest wins.
[00:06:24] So when you bring them in for the observation trail, it's basically their first trail. Now over the observation trail, they're going to come in and if they look crazy, you're going to say, great, thanks so much. We'll be in touch. And then you call them the next day and say, thanks. It's not really going to work out, you know, not a great fit. We went with another candidate, whatever it is. But if they're good, you get them in, they get to meet everybody they're seeing, the energy, they're feeling part of the team. And then before they leave at the end of the night, you sit down with them and you line up the rest of their.
[00:06:52] The rest of their training, Training shifts. So this is what we do. You pick up the phone, you say, hi, is this Amy? Hi, Amy. This is Chip over at Restaurant xyz. I just got your resume. It looks great. I'd love to bring you in.
[00:07:06] Just so you know, we don't really do traditional interviews here. We usually bring people in for an observation trail. We wanted to see if there was a night sometime later this week, either Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, when you could come in and observe for three hours from, let's say, six to nine, and they give you a thing, you say, perfect. So Thursday night, six o', clock, please come in black pants and a black T shirt, and we'll pair you up with one of our senior servers. And you won't do anything that night. You will just observe. We just want you to get a sense of what this place is all about. By all means. You can ask questions, you'll see the computer system, see the tables, you get to see a bunch of the food. At the end of that, at like 9 o', clock, we'll pull you off the floor, we'll sit you down, we'll let you order off the menu. So try an appetizer, a pasta, something like that so you can try our food. Then I'll sit down, we'll chat with a little bit. And so I can just get a sense of what you thought. And that's how our first. That's really gonna act like our interview. It's our first trail.
[00:07:59] All right, if we both think it's a good fit, then that is your becomes your first training shift. What do you think support for restaurant strategy comes from right work. Most restaurant teams are running on too many disconnected tools. One system for scheduling, one for team communication, another for reporting, another for training. And the managers are left having to piece everything together manually.
[00:08:21] Rightwork brings those workflows into one platform built specifically for restaurants. Teams can manage scheduling, communication, reporting, training and labor planning all in one place. So operators get more visibility and managers get time back. Right now, restaurant strategy listeners can get free onboarding, including a free labor model build out. Plus you get three months free of right work usage. Go to Wright Work Chip to claim the offer. Again, that's write as always, you'll find that link in the show notes.
[00:08:55] All right, so you just let them know. What happens is over the course of the phone conversation, you get a little bit of interview in there, and then you see them, you see how they compose, how they, you know, compose themselves, how they handle themselves, how they stand, do they lean, are they slouch, do they, they chit chat, are they observant? You know, are they respectful? Or they're friendly? You're going to get a sense of that at the end. Then you feed them, you sit them down, and you.
[00:09:20] And then you ask them a few questions. And then it's like you chat for 10 minutes. And mostly it's like, so tell me what you thought, you know, what were your observations from this shift? You know, what did you like here? You know, and there's all kinds of ways to structure that conversation. Hey, tell me one thing that you loved about it here tonight, and tell me one thing you didn't love, man, that's a really, really good question. So you're getting them gushing about you, and you're getting some, you're getting to hear some criticism. You're seeing if they're observant.
[00:09:49] All of that is a much better way still in the year 2026. And I'm guessing for the next little while, for line level employees, for cooks, for dishwashers, for servers, bartenders, bussers, runners, hosts, just do that. Skip the interview. Because of the five interviews that you set up, I'm guessing you know this, at least three of them aren't going to show up. So you'll maybe have two, maybe only one person showing up to the interview. And then let's say you have a really intelligent person and they look good, say, this is great. You know, we'd love for you to come in to observe. Like, you're just jumping to the second. I'm just jumping to the second one.
[00:10:23] We're not rocket scientists. I don't need civil engineers. I'm not asking people to build me bridges.
[00:10:29] I'm just asking them to, like, take orders, make thoughtful recommendations about beverage pairings. I'm asking them to be polite on the phone. And when people walk in the front door, to walk them to a table, to pull out a chair for them. What we do is not that difficult to teach.
[00:10:45] If I need to hire rocket scientists, then yes, there's more that I need to go through. But for what we do, you could teach people to be really great at this. What I need to see and what I think you need to see is whether people have the capacity to do what you need them to do. And you'll figure that out in an observation trail probably even better than you would in an interview, right? And you sort of hedge your bets. Say, this is how we do the first interviews. We actually just have you come in for an observation trail. At most it's gonna be three hours.
[00:11:14] But if it's sort of sl. Or if it's a crazy busy, we might cut you loose beforehand. What happens if you come in and they're a really slob, or if they're. They're really rude or whatever? You pull them off after 90 minutes and say, thanks so much. So, you know, we're going to start picking up, so we're going to. We're actually going to cut you loose. Why don't you sit and have a bite to eat and then we'll. And then we'll be in touch tomorrow. So if you don't want to, you know, tell them no to their face. If you'd rather do it in an email, you know, or a phone call the following day, that's fine. Sit them down, get them some food, send them on their way.
[00:11:43] But if they're good, pull them off the floor, sit them down, get them food, and you sit down and have a conversation for 10 or 15 minutes with them as they're finishing their appetizer. And it's a great way of getting to know them further. And then ideally throughout that conversation, you say, so I was talking to the rest of the team and we think you'd be a really great fit. We'd love to bring you on here.
[00:12:02] Do you feel like this is a place where you could succeed? And they'll say, hey, I really liked it here. I think I could. Blah, blah, blah. Perfect. Fine. What I'd love to do is we do a, you know, six more training shifts. I'd like to set up at least the next three. Can we look at our calendars together and just get these, you know, get these plotted. And then you start doing that. Say, great, your next time you're gonna come in here, first thing we're gonna do is do all your paperwork, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, all of that. So the first day, treat them like an independent contractor, you know, otherwise known as a 1099 employee. You know, 1099.
[00:12:32] And you're gonna pay them, shift pay, you're gonna feed them, and that's their first interview. And I promise this is a better way of doing it, especially if you need someone, like, right away. Now, if you're just Interviewing because you always like to keep a roster, then yeah, just do regular interviews. But no, you're gonna have the same no show rate. So don't get frustrated. When you clear a chunk of time out of your week and people no show on you, you're gonna have a certain amount of your time wasted. If you need people, just get right to it and have them come right in. Guess what? Nobody does this except my clients. The P3 mastermind members all do this and they will report to you a meaningful difference in the caliber of people they get and the number of people who actually show up to that first interview. Because the first interview is really that observation trail. Some more going on. They don't have to just all look good and come all the way down there for a 15, 20, 30 minute conversation. Come down there for three hours and they're that much closer to getting the job. I promise you it works.
[00:13:24] So again, whole bunch of stories with some takeaways and then some tactics that work here to finish this out, this 20 episode arc. I hope you guys were inspired. Hope there's a little spark of creativity that got your juices flowing. There's ways that you can make your restaurant better. There's things you can do to make your restaurant better than any other restaurant in your market. I promise. The bar is so low for you to just go above and beyond. You will win the entire market.
[00:13:53] Again. We do so much of this in the P3 mastermind. If you want to learn more about that, go to RSProfit.com that link is in the show notes and we're selling the last few tickets to the Profitability Summit. Happens in October in Minneapolis. If you want there, you'll find that link in the show notes as well. Go and get your tickets. Thank you guys very much. I appreciate you guys being a part of this. I will see you next time.
