Happy Thursday

I was genuinely, totally blown away by the story of Cameron Mitchell. I'm embarrassed to say I knew very little about him or his restaurant group before the podcast episode, prompting research beyond what he shared in the episode.  

Cameron Mitchell is the founder and CEO of Cameron Mitchell Restaurants and author of the book "Yes is the answer, what is the question", a premise that is core to how his organization and operations work and a key to his success.  

He graduated 592nd out of 597 in his high school class. He has since then opened 112 restaurants, generates $600M in revenue, and has over 6,000 employees, with a retention rate that is the 1% of the 1% in our industry.

There is so much to take away from his ethos of "Yes", among many other principles he shares with me on the episode. I walked away more convinced than ever of the power of culture in a company when it is so clearly dialed in, when every team member is vetted to fit that culture, when every ritual and process is reflected in the culture, and when it is just as bottom-up as it is top-down.  

For perspective (whether this is directly correlated or not), earlier in Cameron's career, he sold most of his business (22 restaurants) to Ruth's Chris for $92M.  He was never consulted post-sale on the operation. 6 years later, Ruth's Chris resold that same business for $10M. A profitable business, stripped of its culture, will lose the very thing that made it profitable.  

This week, I'm doing another round of takeaways, this time 6 of them, from my conversation with Cameron Mitchell. I highly recommend listening to the full episode as well.

🤔🌶️ Hot Take

6 Takeaways from Cameron Mitchell

1. Write your goals on paper and tell everybody.

Cameron wrote out all of his goals at age 18. Graduate CIA, executive chef at 23, GM at 24, regional manager at 26, president of a restaurant company by 35. He hit every one in a fraction of the time. That's already impressive. He's adamant about writing them down on paper, something about the energy it takes and how much more real it feels when it's handwritten. But he shared that, more importantly, he would tell EVERYONE he met his goals.

Once he'd told everyone he was going to the CIA, backing out would have made him look like an idiot. I have done the same thing my whole career. The social pressure it creates is a fantastic motivator.

I remember when I was a young, broke cook and would tell everyone I was going to Mexico or going overseas to cook. Knowing full well I had no money to afford it. I maxed out credit cards and made it happen. Same with starting my first restaurant. I was really grateful to hear Cameron share that he uses this same tactic.

Here's a clip of the conversation on LinkedIn and Instagram.

2. Your core values are only sticky once they cost you money or pain in service of upholding them.

Early on, one of Cameron's most talented executive chefs called one of his managers the c-word. Cameron drove over, and the guy was gone five minutes after he walked into the building. No replacement ready. Two green sous chefs were left to manage the kitchen. "Either this guy's gonna be gone, or I might as well throw the culture and values out the window."

Everybody has values on a wall. Once you see them put to the test and prove to your team you mean it, the culture will start to stick.  I can't think of a single business this does not pertain to.

3. The power of a "Yes" mentality.

Hospitality, and more broadly, company culture and even more broadly (and in my opinion, the way you live your life), should be designed around finding ways to say yes rather than reasons to say no.

For Cameron, “yes” doesn’t mean blindly agreeing to everything. It means starting from the assumption that you want to help the guest, employee, vendor, friend, community, etc., then figuring out how to make it happen. He argues that this mentality only works when it becomes an operating principle rather than a customer-service slogan. Hire people who embrace it, empower them to act without excessive rules, and put employees first so they naturally extend that hospitality to guests. He credits this people-first, hospitality-first culture as a major reason he was able to grow the way CMR has.

When I first heard this premise from his book, I was skeptical. But understanding more deeply what he means, it really hit home. It's something I have always considered, though mostly in terms of innovation. If the first thing you consider is why something won't work, you're already halfway gone. But Cameron widened the aperture and helped me understand how much more it impacts those around you.

By starting with yes, you set a precedent for your team that it's ok to ask, and it's ok to try. A precedent for customers to feel safe and taken care of. For vendors to feel comfortable with terms. Like any core value, it only works if it's embedded in everything you do. It came about for Cameron after he ordered a milkshake at a restaurant. They said no. They clearly had a blender, milk, and ice cream. He convinced them to make it. Again, when asking for a grilled cheese. The restaurant said no. He ordered a cheeseburger with no patty, no toppings, just cheese. His point is basically: don't make the customer solve your organizational constraints. Figure out what they're actually trying to accomplish and find a way to say yes.

Mitchell shared that early on in his career, someone deliberately went into one of Mitchell's own restaurants and ordered a milkshake, and was told no. He realized a value isn't real just because leadership talks about it. He turned the milkshake into a company-wide symbol: new employees receive one during orientation, meetings include milkshake toasts, and employees are recognized for going beyond expectations.

4. The 51/49 ratio, and he means the ratio literally.

One of CMR's core values is to "Make a damn good profit. Never at the expense of our people." It's essentially a decision-making hierarchy. When the interests of the business and the interests of the people are at odds, the team gets the 51% vote.

The company absolutely needs to “make a damn good profit”; Mitchell is not arguing that employee happiness should trump economics. Profit is what allows the company to survive, grow, invest, and create opportunities.

But profit is the 49, while people are the 51. When there’s a close call, the organization should resist improving the economics by extracting the difference from employees. That’s what he means by “Never at the expense of our people.”

5. "We'll get there together."

This is Cameron's way of saying the company’s success should be shared with the people responsible for creating it. Growth isn’t supposed to be management or ownership pursuing a destination while employees are simply labor used to reach it. The organization and its team are on the same journey: as the company grows, employees should gain opportunities, responsibility, income, recognition, and career advancement along with it.

This is another seemingly obvious principle that felt like it was way more crystallized in his org. I have heard this saying as we all probably have, many times. He views the entire org as one unit that must collectively catalyze growth. This means, then, of course, they must promote from within, develop leaders before they need them, and create new opportunities through expansion. Making employees feel that the company’s future creates a future for them, not just for its owners. Cameron hopes that every new employee has just applied for the last job they'll ever have.

This creates a sense of ownership and intrinsic accountability that doesn't need to be forced. It organically manifests in every team member because they truly are part of the collective growth. It ties directly to his 51/49 rule, of course.

He brought this premise up to me in response to a comment I was making about the importance of every team member having the agency, autonomy, and information necessary to completely control their outcome and results in the company. And it was another example of me realizing how much more I have to grasp about the value of my team feeling completely tied in to our growth and how we collectively move the ship forward. It's funny how we can be humbled by what wisdom we believe we have when we are open to listening intently to those who have come before us.

Check out the clip of this conversation on LinkedIn and Instagram.

6. You can't be successful at home if you're not successful at work. And you can't be successful at work if you're not successful at home.

He treats both like bank accounts. Overdraw at work and you go put deposits back in at home. When he was hiring David Miller, now his president and COO, he flew to Long Beach to meet him, then asked to do brunch on Sunday so David's wife could ask him questions before the family uprooted to Columbus. That was 30 years ago, and David is still there. He also handed a sous chef named Joe his Southwest points so Joe could take his kids to Disney, knowing full well that that time away was critical not only to Joe's happiness at home, but to his continued success at the restaurant.

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🎙️ The meez Podcast

From Dishwasher to Restaurant Empire: Cameron Mitchell on Loyalty and Culture

Cameron started washing dishes in 1980 for $2.65 an hour and opened his first restaurant at 30 with a one-bedroom apartment and $7,000 to his name. Cameron Mitchell Restaurants is now Ocean Prime, Cameron's American Bistro, Cap City Fine Diner, and the rest of a group he's spent 33 years building. He doesn't hedge on any of it, including the sale that nearly ended him.

• Down to his last $70 before the first lease got signed
• Ten restaurants in the first six years
• The $92 million sale and what came after
• Firing his best chef to protect the values
• Why he hates the phrase "hold people accountable"
• Rich Melman, and the parallels 20 years apart

👉 Watch the full episode

Recipe:

Old Pal Spencer

Cameron loves a good cocktail. So do I. This one is a recipe from the phenomenal bartender Pete Vasconcellos in NYC.

He shared this with us during COVID when meez temporarily launched a platform for chefs and beverage professionals to sell recipes to raise money for their businesses or charities of their choice. An initiative called Recipe for Relief.

Pete was very generous with his time and shared an entire recipe book of incredible cocktails. This is one of the simpler ones from his collection, and it's a gem. Sort of a cross between a Manhattan and a Boulevardier.

👉 Get the recipe

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