Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: All right, well, yeah, we are here. Episode 19.
[00:00:03] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:00:04] Speaker A: Of the Shit. Yeah. Show. It's. I can't believe we're on episode 19. When we first had the idea and just the opportunity came. I was with. With Jesse Blanco on Eden and like it's podcast, and met John, who's the producer. I guess you'd call a producer. I don't know how all that works in this, but had a great conversation and I was like, I've always wanted to do one. And then it just, you know, the opportunity came to be. And so time flies.
[00:00:28] Speaker C: And now you're on 19.
[00:00:29] Speaker A: Yeah, now we're on 19. And you. The initial intent of this was for us to really engage all six stakeholders of the business. And so on our last episode, we had an artist, Joshua Bilkus, who's doing incredible things. Scad grad. Started his business and found him in the park selling art. And now we've had, I think, his two largest orders ever.
[00:00:51] Speaker B: Now he's hanging up in two of our restaurants.
[00:00:53] Speaker A: Yeah. In two of our restaurants. And we've got. Actually, his art is about to be designed into the four locations we have in Florida coming up. So just really cool to see how the impact of our growth can have on small business as we grow, because it touches everything. And it's also the fun part of the restaurant business for me is all the different relationships we get. And so that's how you're here with that. I'm a big believer that engagement equals ebitda. It's a key part to being profitable in business, but it also adds to the variety of business when you make yourself available to talk to all stakeholders and then hopefully try to enjoy it. And so the way we came together was really through this. Yeah. Promise. I think that's. That's it.
You know, you've been a guest of ours in the Hilton Head location.
Not sure how long it's been, but kind of the execution of the shit. Yeah. Promise is what brought us together. So Mark, one of our very valued fans, guests, hopefully fan of what we have going on, be it the product, the business model, whatever it is. You're our first fan ever to have on this. Yeah.
[00:01:59] Speaker C: Show that could be good or bad. I'm not sure yet.
[00:02:02] Speaker A: It's good because you're here and we get to talk to you. And we are an imperfect business serving imperfect people. And so we always have opportunity to improve.
Sam is here. Is our guest moderator coming in to make sure we keep it on time. I don't get too crazy with this, but also Sam is part of the story. So Sam is our private event catering retail manager and I think he may have been the first point of contact.
[00:02:26] Speaker B: Sarah and I was the very first one because we failed epically two times with Mark. We did. It was Disney Fest was the first one because we closed early and he had went and we had no like advertisement. We were closing early and then he was trying to make reservations for the igloos and there was a big mishap in all of that as well. So we did not start on the best of things with Mark. But I'm glad that we were able to get stuff resolved and all of that.
[00:02:52] Speaker A: Yeah. You know, and it's one of those things that's kind of like I. There's no. I don't believe in coincidences. I believe that there's a reason why that, you know, we're averaging a five star rating at all of our locations over the past seven months. But for whatever reason, we dropped the ball multiple times. Is with you. And you know, it's tough like that feedback. I take it personally. Right. And it's tough to get that, that kind of feedback, especially when we're a growing company and we have a lot of extra people on payroll to support that growth and try to do things the right way and set standards and do that.
And you know, I think a lot of owners of businesses, they, they run away from that. I've talked to owners of restaurants. They're like, they just don't respond to any reviews. Right. And it is something that I'm a huge believer of of just, it's a chance to, you know, your fans and be heard. And I think there was pretty quick communication. Was that right?
[00:03:46] Speaker C: Yeah, there was really quick communication. I will say that surprised me. As we talked previously, I'm a past entrepreneur in the restaurant business for many years and so forth. So it was nice to see positive feedback and quick feedback because a lot of times you don't see that in the restaurant business. So that was nice. And then to sit down with you and talk through it and I could really tell that you wanted to know what was going on and you had some great ideas. So I appreciate the invite down here for the podcast.
[00:04:16] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. It was a super productive, you know, meeting. There was so much alignment on. On things of, I think how we see the restaurant business. But really the topic of conversation really was. And I think what caught my attention is we went viral on what is it? I love Hilton Heads.
[00:04:30] Speaker B: It was. I love Hilton Head. It was Because I'm a member of that as well.
[00:04:34] Speaker A: Right.
[00:04:34] Speaker B: And I saw the post, and then I recognized. Then I immediately recognized the name, and then it kept going. And then that's when I sent you a text. I was just like, there's something here that we need to be a part of. And then when it got to, like, over 400 comments, I was like, we've got to get in this. This is perfect.
[00:04:53] Speaker A: And so I think I may, like, contract you out to, like, start that fire.
Can you believe they're charging 2.6% for a shit. Yeah.
[00:05:02] Speaker C: Fee?
[00:05:02] Speaker A: That's absurd. What do you think about it? Right? And then we'll just. We'll just be in there, get the conversation. The conversation going of, you know, why. Why we do that. And so we'll talk about what sucks. You know, you've been in the restaurant business. What sucks about it, what you love about it and that. But I definitely want to talk about that and bring to light. That's probably the spirit of this podcast, is I want all six stakeholders to say, shit. Yeah. But especially our fans, when they come in, I want them to feel that if there's ever any issue that we're going to, there's a full guarantee, right. To where we'll refund your order and we'll send you a gift card for the same value as fast as we can to make it. Because when we mess up, we're wasting your time. Right. And it can ruin an experience. Could be a birthday, whatever it is. Right. So we want to get you to come back.
[00:05:50] Speaker B: And even on the large orders, because I've did an epic fail of a catering order, and we refunded $1,400 and turned around and gave it a gift card for fourteen hundred dollars, which is bonkers. But they valued that so much, and now they've been very. They repeated business.
[00:06:08] Speaker C: Yeah. I think what you'll find is not just a transaction. You're trying to build that experience, that relationship. We're all humans, you know, and, you know, coming down here to Savannah today, I was human. You know, I hit potholes in my car, and I wasn't happy about it. But I walk in here, and I'm still looking for that experience, and I'm looking for that relationship and building it with people. And that same thing happens at the restaurant. People may not be having the best of days. They might be celebrating something very special. We don't know. But we want to build that experience with them and have that relationship with them when they come in. And you know so. And that's. You guys did blow it the first two attempts, let's be honest. Hey, that's why I'm here. But the flip side of the coin is you made up for it and you're building that relationship. So now I did post a question. I don't think it was a negative question online.
[00:06:59] Speaker B: It was a great question.
[00:07:00] Speaker C: Just to get some feedback and some other perspectives. But we're building that relationship. And now I'm on a podcast with you guys. And where will it go from here? Will I be in other markets asking those same firestarter questions? Who knows? One day, hopefully.
[00:07:15] Speaker B: Let us know when you do.
[00:07:16] Speaker A: So, you know, to, to talk through that. That. Yeah. Experience of, of the 2.6% fee. One of the reasons why we do it is fine is a four letter word in the restaurant business. Like someone, you know, when you walk around and someone says it's a fine experience, they're probably not coming back, right. Unless there's something that really draws them in. It's just, you know, it's not a shit. Yeah. Experience for sure. And if they're not coming back, it's really bad, Right. And it's gonna live on. You know, they're gonna tell other people if it's their first time. And so when you charge somebody for it, right. If. If there's anything wrong and they're looking at their tab, they're gonna say something. And so it creates a conflict. And then because of the 26 Club, we have the ability to text, right. And we're. And we're pretty attentive on that. We have multiple people that are in there. We have the email, we have all of these ways to get it. We're looking for those opportunities because I believe that's the somebody over is. There's a, there's an unexpected aspect of I'm complaining in the restaurant of something going on. And then we can go above and beyond and make it built in. You know, it really helps. And I think for our team too, it's one of the hardest things for a team member. When something gets messed up, it's like, how are they supposed to handle it? I've had all so many times where things are messed up and it's like they get mad at me when they forget or mess something up. It's like, what do you want me to do about it?
Like I. Let's get creative. What can you do about it? You can remake it, you know, you can refund it. You could give me a gift card. Do something but the, the amount of people that will not do that and, like, it's just not. Not ingrained in the business.
[00:08:53] Speaker C: I think in too many restaurants, you know, the, the servers and so forth are. They're a little hesitant to come to management or hesitant to go back to the kitchen and say, I need this remade or I'm having this issue. Because they're going to get that resistance, they're going to get that pushback. And with your.
That 26, 2.6%, you give them that option or the ability to just make the sandwich again, take the cheese off the dumb thing and go home.
[00:09:17] Speaker A: Exactly. And so it's a choice of doing that. I recommend every restaurant should do that, charge that fee, and then have a guarantee on that business. And it will transform your relationship with your team and your fans in doing so. And it's covered from the cost. So a big reason why restaurants don't refund it is it's really hard to make money in the restaurant business. When you charge that fee. It says, okay, it gives you the permission to do it. And it just kind of gives everybody a breath when we do mess up. And it empowers everybody to fix it. And it even empowers to say, hey, it may have been a good experience. Everything's good. That's not what we're shooting for. We're shooting for shit. This is like, I had the best time ever, right? That's the goal of doing this. Because as a, you know, restaurants now, it's not just about the product.
You know, it really is about, you know, overall experience. There's so many. It's pretty easy to open up a restaurant. That's why you see 10 burger shops that are doing the same type of thing, right? You can copy, rinse, and repeat. But it's the experience is the differentiator. The great brands have that experience and they're able to scale that. And so I say, you know, if we're anything, we're really an experience. And it's one that we want you to leave saying, shit. Yeah.
[00:10:31] Speaker B: And I think the best part is.
[00:10:32] Speaker C: I would add just to that, that relationship, too. Building that relationship, your customers have that experience, but you need to have that relationship. When they walk in, they know who's going to be there, and. And they know what kind of service to expect out of that.
[00:10:45] Speaker A: And so that comes to, you know, retention. You know, we talk about all the time of if, if. If you want to build your bar business, you need to have on Tuesdays the same bartender working on Tuesday. With that same musician. So you can build a clientele and, and do that as something we've learned.
[00:10:58] Speaker B: Over time, build that vibe, that experience. And the best part about the 2.6 is now on the other side, now that I fully understand it being here is, you know, money's tight now.
It feels good to know that I can go to a restaurant and my hard earned money, if they eff it up, I'm going to get my money back and they're going to make up for that. It's not going to be just a lost cause.
[00:11:20] Speaker A: It's surprising too, how many people have tried to burn us on that.
[00:11:25] Speaker B: Not a, not a lot.
[00:11:26] Speaker A: None.
That's one of the first things is how many people, people always go to that of like the people are going to scam you on it. Like the amount of scamming you have to do for 2.6% to get burned on it. Right. And other businesses do that. I think one of the ways to win in business is take best practices of other industries and drop them into yours. Like how does our realtor do marketing? Maybe that might work in the restaurant business. Right. My wife's a phenomenal real estate broker. Right. You can take those best practices. So many industries have guarantees. And so one of the reasons we do this right is because the restaurant business sucks. We're here to change it. That's our vision statement. And so in order to change restaurant business, really you have to have growth at a certain level, which we're really around the corner to have some explosive growth over the next year. And you know, two years, which is really exciting. But you don't change something. You know, if we grow but it's doing it the same way as everybody else, then you haven't changed anything. You're just doing it the same way. Right. You just may have a little bit better of a business model so you can grow. But, but I really, honestly, I hate the restaurant business and so many things about it, but I also love it. It gave me everything. And so that's why for 10 years I've been on this journey. It's 10 years now, 20 years that Zunzies has been in business since 05. We need to bring that up, make a note of like we are in our 20th anniversary. It's a big deal. Ten years, us, you know, holding the umbrella.
You know, I think that's, that's, that's, you know, just a big, big thing. So let's go into your experience in the restaurant business and just a little bit of your Background. It's just fun to, you know, thinking back of the dynamic that I had with our team as all this feedback was kind of like, what in the hell's going on? And now we're here. Thank you so much for feedback. I wish all of our fans would engage with us and do that.
But restaurant business.
[00:13:16] Speaker C: Yeah. So the restaurant business, for me, I don't have a long lineage of restaurant business. I don't come from a family of, you know, restaurant owners and so forth. I came out of the healthcare industry. Okay, so what in the world does the healthcare industry have to do with a restaurant? Well, we were building a new medical complex back in 2016.
We're talking like 300 exam rooms, a fairly large building. And I said, you know what? I want to put a restaurant in there. And everyone at the federal level where we were getting some of our grant funding said I was nuts and stupid. And I was like, no, I want to put a restaurant in there. What are you going to do with a restaurant? I said, how many times have we gone to doctors? The doctor's been late. I'm sitting in the waiting room, I'm getting aggravated. Maybe I get told some bad news. I want to empower the staff to give a voucher and let that person go down and get a lunch, get a dessert, get whatever, you know, I want them to wait and get that medicine they so desperately need to get. Well, have dessert on us or have some French fries while you're waiting. And we did. So we put the very first restaurant in a medical building and what's called a community health center. And it did extremely well. We were open for breakfast and lunch, and I said, well, how do we expand that? Because, you know, I leave at 5:00, and sometimes you want to go home, sometimes you don't. And then I opened up a restaurant as well at that point.
[00:14:38] Speaker A: And so it's different from that. Your own temperature.
[00:14:40] Speaker C: Yeah, my own restaurant on.
So that was called Trax.
And then we had Tracks was what was inside the medical building. And then my own restaurant was called the library.
[00:14:53] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:14:53] Speaker C: And we opened up that in 2018.
[00:14:56] Speaker A: Got it. And so where did that open?
[00:14:58] Speaker C: In Florence, South Carolina.
[00:14:59] Speaker A: All right.
[00:15:00] Speaker C: And I've since relocated to Hilton Head, South Carolina, and kind of enjoying the retirement phase of life, if you will. So I'm sure.
[00:15:07] Speaker A: So kind of in the tail end of your career, you decided to go in the restaurant business. It's. It's incredible how many people I've seen move to Hilton Head and then open restaurants. In retirement, I'm like, that is the exact opposite of what you want to do unless you have experience in it and you've got some play money.
[00:15:24] Speaker C: I think for me, it was more about that relationship because you've mentioned it. And I think the 2.6% is.
Has the ability to solve a lot of those problems as long as the customer is educated and the staff is educated to use it correctly. But too many times, we have to be careful. Cost is crazy for everything right now. You know, I don't care. Buy a dozen eggs, buy a gallon of gas. It's just crazy. So everyone is so guarded with where they spend their money. You want to have that experience when I go. So, you know, and I was. We've all been to those restaurants where it hasn't been phenomenal. It was less than phenomenal. And you don't want to be that Karen out there complaining and always being negative. So that's why we opened up our restaurant and did that, where we could build that relationship and really focus on the customer service side. And it wasn't just customer service to our patrons, but it was also the customer service for our team members.
[00:16:20] Speaker A: Right.
[00:16:21] Speaker C: Because if they're not happy, they're sure not going to be, you know, portraying that out to the customers out on the dining floors.
[00:16:27] Speaker A: And so we have complete alignment there with our shit. Yeah. Promise. Our team is our first stakeholder than our franchisees, then our fans. Right. And so you've got to be serving them first. Right. In order for that to work. And so I'm sure you had some pretty good success with that as the focus.
[00:16:42] Speaker C: We did. It did phenomenal. And the medical center one has been duplicated, and I think there's three or four now across the United States. That's awesome.
[00:16:52] Speaker B: You started that. So that's really cool.
[00:16:54] Speaker C: It was really kind of one of those things that you totally, you know, raised by your parents never to brag and all that, but that's one of those things I do.
[00:17:01] Speaker B: Sometimes you're allowed to brag.
[00:17:03] Speaker C: That's it.
[00:17:03] Speaker A: Yeah, it's really cool. And so, you know, the amount of people that are that touch the restaurant business, you know, I say it all the time. Everybody eats, and at some point, it seems like everybody's worked or done something like that in the restaurant business. So let's kind of go into that. So from that perspective, what do you think sucked the most about owning a restaurant from, you know, did you buy it? Did you build it from the ground up?
[00:17:25] Speaker C: Build it from the ground up.
[00:17:26] Speaker A: Okay. Full service.
[00:17:28] Speaker C: Full service. And. And I guess what sucked the most was working sometimes with the food vendors and having the 86 certain menu items because of things that were outside of your control and hopefully having that relationship with your customers, your regulars that knew that Susie was going to be here on Tuesday and with that bartender or the musician and so forth, that they had that relationship, saying, okay, maybe my filet mignon's not going to be available tonight, but I'll be able to order the drunken ribeye or whatever. But just to build that relationship when things were outside of your control, that you could still make them happy and come back again.
[00:18:08] Speaker A: So I think that's. That's one of the things from, like, how do you have a relationship? I think communication is key. And once again, it's why we have the 26 club is I'll ask a lot of restaurant owners of how do you communicate with your fans? How can they communicate with you? It's like, well, there's the phone, right? Then a call. Well, they're not going to get you, right? And so that's kind of an open loop. There's social media that's just like death by a thousand cuts of like all the different places. You've got it, you've got to do it. Trying to funnel them to one place, it has been really a. Is something that has become a little bit of an obsession for me.
[00:18:41] Speaker B: A little bit.
[00:18:42] Speaker A: Just a little bit with that. Because it's. Because then, you know, pretty much everybody texts now. It's honestly replaced. Most people prefer to text over just phone calls. It's like now, now it lives there. And it's the one thing that people are not going to delete, most likely. I'm not sure if you even can delete, you know, your TE Messaging app from your phones, but it's there. And so it's kind of what you do with it to have a relationship. But I think to have a relationship, even talk about it, you've got to have a way to communicate easily. And it's really been fun to be able to do that. And we're like, just in. I think we're 5% into where this is going to really go well.
[00:19:17] Speaker C: And honestly, that was one of the things that impressed me first, is like you said, you can call, you're never going to get anyone. You're going to get dumped somewhere into some kind of phantom voicemail box that may or may not get checked. Social media, everybody's weekend, you know, warrior typing. They can say anything and everything on there. So you don't expect much of a response. But when I did have those questions, I sent the message and I immediately got the text message back. And I was like, wait a minute. There's something different here. You know, because you said it earlier, there's a million and one burger places. They're opening up all the time. And I'm not saying you guys are a burger place.
[00:19:53] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:19:53] Speaker C: But, you know, you have so many options and so many choices, so why try again and try again at your place? Well, because it was different, you know, because I was getting a different response that I hadn't been getting anywhere else. So I was like, these guys.
[00:20:08] Speaker A: Yeah, we're trying on these.
[00:20:10] Speaker B: My favorite part is when people realize that there's an actual human being on the other side. Sarah. And she's like. And sometimes us, if it gets a little crazy. Cause they'll be like. Cause we do have the automated just to get fed. But then sometimes I'll read stuff. And they're like, the other day it was just like, whoa, is this a real person? And Sarah V. Being so, like, quick to stuff. She's like, yeah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then it just. It started this conversation and people just love it.
[00:20:36] Speaker A: And so we're trying to figure out how to scale it because that's. That's one of the things. Like, my vision for it is to have, you know, the GM have a hierarchy of the. Of the org chart of the business to where you would have. A district manager has, you know, 10 locations. He can oversee the communication there. The GM has the ability. And so, you know, when you scan it, how cool would it be if the GM is in the restaurant, they see someone at table 26 and they're like, oh, right there. And they. They send them a text for a free cocktail or something. Right? And there was this. There's this connecting the digital in person. And. And so as this grows and we're actually working very closely with. With the. The community app on that because we're.
[00:21:16] Speaker B: Like one of the really. We're really like the only restaurant really, truly using it and not even really to its true potential. We learned some other. Some other cool little things that we could do. The other day, Sarah A. When she was on the call that we're actually going to.
So I love it. I love that we can just instantly just be like, hey, well.
[00:21:35] Speaker A: And so what's fun is like, I think people are so used to just like there's so much white noise everywhere. Like, your phone is just full of spam you're getting spam calls. There's just so much advertising that's there. And then when they realize that there's somebody there, they get weird. Yeah, they do. All of a sudden they're like, huh? Oh, right. And then you kind of play around with it and then there's emotions. And that's the thing, like it starts to bring out emotions which the quality of your life in my opinion is the quality of your emot. And it's all what you focus.
[00:22:03] Speaker B: You realize you're connecting with a true human, not an AI.
[00:22:06] Speaker A: Right.
[00:22:07] Speaker B: Which is awesome.
[00:22:08] Speaker A: Right. And it's unfortunately it gets scary of how, how real I get.
You know, we'll do Samrock AI where you know that may be a competitor of yours.
[00:22:18] Speaker C: Coming up. The AI experience.
[00:22:20] Speaker A: And I'm good. You know, they're, they're certainly doing that. But if they're doing it and it's for customer service, you know, the way I look at this is hey, our 2.6% fee really covers that. That it covers us to be able to have humans. I believe people serving people is the path. Right. I think, you know, as the business grows, if they're not consciously focused on that all of the time, it ends up being numbers serving numbers. Right.
[00:22:45] Speaker C: You got to keep it. Don't ever go change your mindset thinking it's only a transaction and it's a numbers based business because you'll fail. And it may work on the numbers and the spreadsheet may show it works, but it's not going to work as a real.
[00:23:00] Speaker A: Well talk business about it. You know, private equity is destroying the restaurant business. It is happening. It is a wreck. You see your favorite restaurants that are chains getting bought and sold and they're going for crazy numbers. And the revelation I've had with it, it's, it's founders are selling their companies after because it's so hard to get there and good for them, they're taking their check. But in the process they want to grow and so they take money and they do a strategic partnership. And I've had all those conversations as we've been growing it and been very mindful of what that looks. But they start off passionate like, like Matt from Origin Coffee. Just the passion is like incredible. What comes across. William Bandana Burger.
You know, it's people serving people and they just love it. It's how Gabby and Johnny did it. It's how when I first of my first five guys, I was just really enjoyed watching someone eat a juicy five guys burger and fries. Right. Then you start getting in and money comes in. And now you got to start serving money and people at the same time. And. And when you bring in the wrong money and a lot of the money, because just the multiples, just talking the finance side of the business, there's like tech multiples at the level in restaurants. 15, 20 EBITDA numbers. If you're a franchise company that has some growth behind it, those are crazy numbers. It's attracting people that really only care about the money.
[00:24:16] Speaker B: The money.
[00:24:17] Speaker A: And so what ends up happening is you go from people serving people to people serving numbers and people. People, right? And then it's more numbers than the people. The founder starts getting disgruntled in the process, and then all of a sudden, they're kind of pushed out of the process because they need the money now. They're tied to it, right? Unless they have something incredible that they can replace it. You know, Chipotle did that when McDonald's came in, and then they bought them out. And now it's a big public company, and the founder got his check and did an amazing job. But it's what happens if you get disengaged. But then it's numbers serving numbers. Number 26. Right. Employee number 26 serving ticket, ticket number 26. And really what they want it to be is, you know, employee number two, right. A lot less employees serving, you know, 126. And so it's less employees and. And more tickets. And then that's where, you know, I think every business, I think that's the goal is it's not about maximizing profit. It's about hitting your numbers that are best for everybody. And I think that's figuring that out. And that's what we've been on this journey now for 10 years. And with the goal of really getting data from our fans. That's the purpose of this is if I'm the purpose of this podcast. There's so many, but one is if we're constantly talking about, and I'm talking about what makes you say shit, yeah. What makes our vendors say shit, yeah. Our team, our fans, franchisees, then I'm going to be like the guy who knows what makes everybody say shit, yeah. And then I can paint the vision of the little shifts we have to make as things change.
[00:25:45] Speaker B: You'll be the keeper of the shit. Yeah.
[00:25:47] Speaker A: A constant pulse on it.
That's it. So the more feedback we get, then the better I can do at my job as the company grows, because that target will change. It's not just about Sauces or a burger or a sandwich. Flavor profiles will change if all of a sudden we should be the first ones. Hopefully I should be the first one to know as sentiment changes from our fans or from our team or any of our.
[00:26:14] Speaker C: It's a balancing act. You always have to.
Everyone's heard the saying before, you know, margin equals mission, money equals mission, whatever. You have to keep an eye on the right. You're not here to be a non profit and you can't give away everything every day. That'd be a unique business model.
[00:26:30] Speaker A: I've thought about it.
[00:26:31] Speaker B: I feel like you probably do give.
[00:26:32] Speaker C: Everything every day, but so you do have to keep in mind an eye on the dollars. But they can't be the main driver, in my opinion.
[00:26:41] Speaker A: Well, it has to be the. There's.
[00:26:43] Speaker C: It's just a balance.
[00:26:44] Speaker A: The more you grow, the more you can give. The more you give, the more you can grow. Right. You know, there's just those philosophies that I found almost what everybody thinks is the path. It's like do the opposite, do the opposite. It's a really weird.
[00:26:56] Speaker B: That's exactly what we do. Normally we kind of do it, do.
[00:26:59] Speaker A: It that way, but kind of like this, it's like now we're getting closer through this process. That was a problem and now we get to talk about it. And then, you know, I'm excited to see where this goes. So let's see what sucks about it. We talked about that. What do you love about the restaurant business?
[00:27:16] Speaker C: You know, I like the experience, you know, because I touched earlier. You know, life doesn't end for any of us. We're all busy. We're extremely busy. Everybody's glued to your phones this day. You wake up, you're grabbing your phone, your schedule is just crazy. So where do you go to escape that? You go out to dinner, you take your significant other to dinner, you take the family to dinner or you just go just to get away from that white noise.
[00:27:39] Speaker A: Right.
[00:27:39] Speaker C: And so that's what I love about the restaurant business. Being able to sit down, not necessarily have to worry about cooking and so forth. And I love to cook, but just be able to sit down with my family or my business partner or wherever and have that conversation detach a little bit from the craziness, that white noise and just be able to inhale because sometimes you need to be able to.
[00:28:01] Speaker A: Absolutely, you know what you're seeing, you.
[00:28:03] Speaker C: Can do that in the rest.
[00:28:04] Speaker A: There's a lot of people investing in really the experiences side of life. You got Billionaires going into sports heavily. Because as you, you know, I think what's going to happen is it's really going to be experiences that are in person and then like AI and the robots, right? And so they're, they're pouring a lot of money into that because people are going to be seeking that more and more. And you know, the restaurants, it's either. I think you're getting two. I talk about it, you know, when I speak sometimes is, you know, I'll speak about the fast casual side because we have Zunzies. And a topic that comes up all the time is like, you know, experience in a fast casual or a fast food restaurant. Like, like the experience is execution trumps everything. You want to be accurate on time at a reasonable, you know, value. Right? But it's like, do you really care? Everybody's on their phone. It's a lot different than it used to be. Even when I got into five guys where it was like, it was kind of fun. You're snacking on peanuts, looking at stuff, you may engage. And now everybody's just ordering online. They want it quick, they want it to be accurate. And that's really, the experience is being really good at the logistical side of the business. The execution, you know, that's why we go so big on the experience is like go extreme. Live music, seven days a week, you know, sauces. There's all these different things that we do. It's because we want to be on the, on the far extreme of experience and do it and just be a place that you can really unwind. And for me, why it's a beach themed sports bar is that's my happy place is blue water and sandals, sipping on a good cocktail and I get to wear sandals. And that keeps me out of the kitchen. So you got that? What say, you know, what do you think in general, right? Because you know, you, you're passionate about the business. You've owned a restaurant, you've, you've started them. You obviously you go into restaurants and you, you have an eye for things that are, that are good, different. What do you think needs to change in the restaurant business? Because it's really, I think the restaurant business is in industry is in the worst spot it's ever been.
[00:29:58] Speaker C: I agree with you. It's definitely in the worst spot it's ever been.
And part of it, I think globally, everybody has become too selfish. And that's on the patron side, but also on the employee side. So we need to change that. And we can only change that with our Employees. I can't change it necessarily on the patron side, but so you need to educate your staff. Need to make sure they believe in your mission. You know how many of this you walk into? You mentioned five guys. Well, call, you know, call them out on it. You walk into five guys, pull someone out there and say, tell me what your values are.
They're. They're on the wall. Tell me.
[00:30:36] Speaker A: Right.
[00:30:37] Speaker C: I promise you, they couldn't tell you. Maybe one if that. If that, you know, all they care about is that paycheck that comes every other Friday.
[00:30:45] Speaker A: And we're not good at this. I know. Like, if I was to go into ours, right. It's why yeah is so important, because it is the single thing. I'm like, strip everything away and go, did they say shit? Yeah. Did you say shit? Yeah, working. Did our fan come through? If they didn't say it, then how do we fix that? Where do we go wrong? It's that one thing that ties everything together and it can apply to every business. We have our values, and as we grow, it takes enormous amount of resources to do it. We have one huddle. It's the gamification. An incredible app for training and doing those things. And we have great engagement on that. But it's the amount of things that you have to do in a restaurant compared to like this. We have five sauces. We're a legit sauce company. We are like, there's full brands that are like, you know, $100 million businesses with one sauce. And we just like start this and in a year and we have a full fledged sauce company.
[00:31:37] Speaker B: And all five are unique and very tasty.
[00:31:40] Speaker A: Yeah. And so you look at that and go, that's just a part of our business that we use really for marketing. You know, I have a vision for these that the, you know, that the profits are A percent of it goes to the umbrella fund for our team members to where it' you know, a rainy day fund. And. And so I have goals to make zero money on that. It's supposed to be really a nonprofit that we'll end up doing probably in 2026, which is cool. But it's, you know, what you're talking about. And the.
The change that's needed in the restaurant business, it is the hardest ever been.
And so, like, why is it so hard? I think, I think we are still in a post Covid world that people have forgotten the restaurant business. It was a central business business, and it was so essential that, right, we couldn't, you know, there was all this Funding, but it's still like supply chains. Never been the same.
[00:32:32] Speaker C: I think supply chain has been changed. Covid destroyed the interpersonal relationship and we haven't recovered from that. And that's our biggest thing. And most of the businesses out there, whether it be the franchise or the mom and pop one offs, they're all still chasing that dollar, chasing those numbers so they don't see the value where you're talking about, about, hey, we're going to pause for a minute. We're going to spend a day and we're going to focus on some training. We're going to focus on customer service. Most of these guys are out there. Why the hell should I ever close this day? Because I can sell another 25 burgers well.
[00:33:06] Speaker A: So, you know, you talk about it. The first day you tried to come was Doonzy Fest, which is our day of celebrating our values. We close early, we have a team party. We talk about our. Why once a quarter. Because I'm like, when do you do that? We plant a flag when you do a team party, like at 11 o'clock at night.
So we do that on purpose to have that, but then also a day that, you know, with execution, we've got to do better at communicating that. In signage, there's so many things that go into it and you know, I'm committed to making decisions and doing the right thing. And then as there's fallout, I'd rather do that first and then figure out those things right. And do it. Or else, you know, you can think you have it all perfect on like closing loops. It's death by a thousand cuts.
[00:33:50] Speaker B: You always forget something.
[00:33:51] Speaker A: You'll always forget something. The shit. Yeah. Promise allows us to recover when we do that. Especially when you're doing business differently. Right. People don't understand it. And that allows us to do, you know, to allow to try things that are different that people just don't expect or understand. And then we have this, you know, all these different ways to communicate, to build a relationship. So this is extremely fun. I look forward to having more of our fans, you know, on, on the podcast as, as we do this. Thank you so much for making a trip to, from Hilton Head. We've got amazing things coming. Some new food innovation, a big seafood menu, low country crab bra bar, oysters. A lot of stuff coming out there, elevated bar program. So we're doubling down on a lot of that stuff that'll all be done by, by May to really have a great, a great season. And we'll definitely have you in so you can give us some good feedback on that, and we'll get back on. I love Hilton Head. And hopefully, you know, the 2.6% fee is now at a thousand.
[00:34:50] Speaker B: Yep. So, yeah, definitely. Thank you for having a voice and starting a conversation. For sure.
[00:34:56] Speaker A: Yeah. So let's see. What's your favorite sauce?
You know, we always take a swig of sauce.
[00:35:03] Speaker C: Oh, okay.
[00:35:04] Speaker A: You have a sauce. A sauce mustache right there.
[00:35:06] Speaker B: A sauce mustache.
[00:35:08] Speaker A: I just had the hottest shit earlier, and it was hot as shit because we just started bottling all of these, so there you go. I can help you out. You want shit? Yeah, sure.
[00:35:17] Speaker C: We'll go with that one. It doesn't matter.
[00:35:19] Speaker A: I'll pop it for you.
So you got the one wing down.
[00:35:23] Speaker B: I'll do a shit yeah, too.
[00:35:25] Speaker A: There we go. It's gonna be a shit yeah day. I'm gonna try the Mustafa curse curry.
[00:35:29] Speaker B: It was good.
[00:35:29] Speaker A: There you go.
[00:35:30] Speaker B: I haven't tried it since we finally tasted it.
[00:35:33] Speaker A: Customer service.
[00:35:34] Speaker C: Thank you. Thank you.
[00:35:35] Speaker A: All right, Mustafa curry. So the little fun fact that Mustafa curry was Gabby's original wing recipe that she did at Z2.
[00:35:44] Speaker B: Oh, I did not know that.
[00:35:45] Speaker A: Yep. Which was over at 9 Drayton street, which is Fitzroy in Savannah.
[00:35:51] Speaker B: Guests still ask us about it.
[00:35:53] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, yeah. It was wild. It was a white tablecloth. Zoonsies. Yeah.
[00:35:57] Speaker B: It was a fancy Zoom Z. It was a fancy bougie Zoom Z.
[00:36:01] Speaker A: It was so. All right, well, cheers. Yeah, yeah. All right.
[00:36:07] Speaker C: Plastic Battles.
[00:36:12] Speaker A: There we go.
[00:36:13] Speaker B: Oh, that's good.
[00:36:14] Speaker C: It is.
[00:36:15] Speaker A: Yeah. That's a good one. All right, well, thank you so much. Appreciate it.
[00:36:19] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
