Michael: probably. A lot of us, [00:02:00] uh, think the same way. Like, um, this could never be a job. You know, I don't think that this is, being a chef isn't something you run out and think, wow, that's the job I wanna do.
Um, you have to be passionate. You have to love it because what you have to put into it every day. Is really, um, you know, it's probably one of the harder jobs you could, probably, professions you could get into, but the reward is what you get every, every day, every night. When you get to walk out and see all the people eating in your restaurant and see the creations that you and your team have made, watch it all come to life.
Whether it's a restaurant, whether it's a dish, anything about it. And that's what makes, you know, I think that's what at least makes me get up every morning is thinking about. Boy, we we're really blessed. We get to create, we [00:03:00] get immediate gratification and we get to touch a lot of people's lives.
Ryan: Um, so before I started fix, I had owned restaurants as well and I'd always wanted to open up.
I wanted to be like the next Chipotle founder since I was like 13 years old. And so I loved this industry because, like Michael said, it's one of the only industries where you get instant gratification. When you, when you serve someone good food and you give someone a great experience, you see how happy they are right afterwards.
And other professions like legal or doctors. Or things like that, it could take a lot longer to kind of get that benefit. And then eventually when I started fix, I kind of turned that same passion to talking with actual restaurants and seeing, you know, what drives them and what makes them tick and what, how we can be a better service of helping all of these other restaurateurs.
So I kind of parlayed the passion for serving, you know, the customers and now restaurants are our customers and so that's kind of what drives us every single day.
Josh: Yeah. Um, I [00:04:00] spent. Most of my career as a chef and now in tech, I think anything that you really love is also supposed to be really hard, I think.
And so, you know, the joy for, for me, I think passion is something that's joyful specifically to you. And when you find something that, um, it's very hard to distinguish between work and play. That's when I think, you know, you have something really good for me. I've always been obsessed with finding the thing that, um, that most people overlook or disregard, or think is not worth improving upon, and then going like ridiculously deep into the weeds to create something that's brand new, but also feels very instantly familiar.
So in my early days after, by nodding, that was. Recreating the hot dog and thinking about what, what would it be like if a hot dog had like incredible ingredients? And we worked with organic farmers and we made our own sauerkraut, and we thought about [00:05:00] the importance of acidity and sweetness in every condiment.
And, um, you know, what would, what would it be like if we applied those same techniques of fine dining to a hot dog? And, and now, you know, I have a, I have a recipe technology company and I think about, you know, what would it be like if, you know, organizing and managing recipes in a kitchen didn't suck.
Like, what if that was easy? And what if we didn't have to do all that math and what if all we had to do is think about, um, what we wanted to build and create and our vision and everything else was taken care of? And so that's for me is where I sort of derive that joy is, is, you know, giving people joy in something that they, that they otherwise may have hated or thought was not even possible to improve upon.
Amy: I think we're gonna come back to that hotdog example. 'cause I think this idea of innovating and rethinking, um, sort of the vision in line of profitability, I think is a really important one. So Suzanne,
Suzanne: I would just say I, I agree with Michael. It's, it's not a job. It's basically your life, so, [00:06:00] um, so you better make it really good.
Um, but I think for me it's, um, I still, I mean, I really love to cook. I love creating spaces. I love the, the community that the restaurants create. But I also, for me, a lot of it's the staff. You know, I have people since we opened in 1998, and I have people who worked for me for 20 years and I just, you know, you know their families and when you bring more people into that restaurant family, like getting to go to work every day and see those people and work together, it just, it almost gets better and better even though the work part, like where we are now, which we probably will talk about, just makes things harder and harder.
But I feel like that community part and like farmers and winemakers and all the people that you kind of collect and become part of your family over the years, like that is, to me, the passion. That's what keeps me. Keeps me going.
Amy: Yeah, absolutely. It's that people part. And we always say this, that guitar, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
And I think, um, that's, that's wholly true. Um, so moving on. Um, thanks everyone for your answers. So we all recognize how lucky we are to either make an ingredient or craft food for people to enjoy. We celebrate our craft, yet we also can't lose sight that we're [00:07:00] also running a business. How do you balance creativity and craft with the pressures of the bottom line?
That's a very specific question.
Michael: So I, you know, I think as it, it's probably one of the things that we all have to think about the most, and I think probably one of the parts of this industry that I hate the most is how many unbelievably talented chefs that we have probably seen throughout our life that have just ridiculous talent that nobody in this room knows because their business.
Didn't make it. And that like, you know, that's the part of it that really wakes you up and says, okay, well how do you make it? And how do you do exactly what you just said? How are you gonna balance it? And I think different, you know, it, it isn't a one answer fits all because different size, restaurants different.
There's. Um, [00:08:00] you know, really different business models out there based on what type of restaurant you are, based on what your check average is based on so many variables. So I'll talk about my restaurants and how we do it. Um, you know, and it has become harder and harder, there's no doubt about it. It's become harder and harder as time has gone on.
But I think the thing that I always talk to e everyone on my team about is let's not make it a race to the bottom. Let's not figure out how we can cut, cut, cut and get to profitability. You know, when, when I look at the people that run our restaurants, because at the end of the day, every, everybody is so important in a restaurant.
Every single person on the staff, but you know, the chef and general manager of the restaurant carry a lot of burden, carry a lot of responsibility. And, you know, sometimes they will [00:09:00] be great at the financial side of running the business, but honestly, um, that isn't the key in our business. The key in our business is how can you drive top line, not bottom line.
Um, the top line kind of solves everything. And to do that, it's an enormous amount of discipline. It is really an enormous amount of discipline. You have to be working. I mean, the way we look at it is like we're working on calendars. That are three and a half to four months ahead of time, all the time, every holiday, every weekend.
It's, you know, there are certain times when you just aren't like in this world, it's gotten harder and harder to do a second seating, um, or to get two seatings in your restaurant. All these things have gotten harder and harder. You have to take advantage of the times. [00:10:00] When there is revenue to be had and you have to constantly create in a way in which you're creating, I, I call it revenue and relevance.
And those are the two things that, like everything you do think about, what's it gonna bring your restaurant in revenue and what's it gonna bring it in? Relevance. And so constantly doing the things that are, whether they're wine dinners, whether they're this or that. It's easy to overlook those things and to just not do 'em.
But at the end of the day, if you're constantly doing that, you're gonna give yourself a much better chance of driving top line, which then in turn is gonna let you have. The ingredients, the staff, the things you need to run your restaurant the right way. And that's kind of the way we focus on it.
Amy: Yeah, that's great.
I have a question about covers, but we'll, we'll get to that in a second. But Suzanne, just a quick question kind of on the same topic. At what point in the r and d process does sort of profit come into the equation and r and d [00:11:00] process? Not just necessarily recipe development and, um, creating menu design, but also, you know, restaurant design and, and customer experience.
Suzanne: Well, I think it, it's, it's part of it for me now all the time. Yeah. As they're kind of, they go hand in hand. I mean, for example, when we opened our restaurant tavern in 2008, it was the first time we spent $3 million on that restaurant, which we had never done. We were so scrappy. We opened Luke for like $450,000 and we had a, you know, we had a OC and then we're like, we were moving to Brentwood and it was a big space and it was a fancy neighborhood and we kind of blew it out.
And, uh, we spent $3 million, which now is probably nothing, but at the time, to us was a lot of money. And then of course the, the financial crash happened like right as we were opening. And it took us like 10 years to dig out of that hole, you know, to finally get to the point where we could start to have a return to our investors, start to actually have real profit that wasn't just going back to paying off that debt.
And I have that like seared in my brain in the like, do not do again department. Um, so I think, you know, you learn from your mistakes and we, [00:12:00] um, it was a beautiful restaurant. We, um, we dug our way out of it, but I feel like I'm, you know, every time I'm thinking of a dish, I'm, I'm, I'm weighing that in my head now.
I'm not a big, I'm not a fo gra truffle person. So for me it's more about, um, like the vegetables finding really great protein, but there's times where, you know, there's a beautiful Sonoma lamb and they wanna sell me whole lambs. I can't buy it. I can't do it. And it sucks. Like, I would love to do that. I would love to have it on the menu, but when I look at it and what I would have to charge.
I just feel like I'm, I'm not sure people would pay it. It skews our check average too high, and for us, I think as a restaurant that's been around for 22 years. Um, that value, like what people, what people see as value and what people see, because right now I feel like there's a big fear of like, it's too expensive.
Like people are obsessed with like how expensive everything is. So if it used to be, I feel like I would've put that lamb dish on the menu and I would've charged more, and people would've had value, they would've known value for it. We would've told the story about who grew it and it, and people would've paid it.
I feel like now people are very, very conscious [00:13:00] about the price, and so I just don't, I don't even wanna put that number on my menu because I. You worry about scaring people off and that's hard. So in, to me, instead it's like, okay, what would, what would I have done with that whole lamb? And I think, okay, actually I could get lamb next and why don't I get, which is an incredibly delicious meat.
They're like, it's like cheap. So how do I take that product and then make it into a dish that's as delicious as that whole slum lamb would've been? Um, but that actually can make money. And that's when actually I feel like the limitations actually inspire creativity. And I love that.
Amy: No, that's great. I was gonna say, does that make you your jellies like angry or do you get excited about the possibility of having to pivot your, your brain to be like, okay, that's not gonna work, but let me figure out a way to make this
Suzanne: work.
I guess it's kind of both, because I wanna, I wanna also support that that guy who's raising the lamb. Right. You know? And so to not be able to do that sucks. Um, but I also, there, I, there's, I'm a realist too, so I think I just, I ha I know that I have to be kind of crafty, you know? [00:14:00]
Amy: Well, Josh and Ryan, I mean, you guys are essentially consultants to your clients, right?
And so how do you guys help facilitate profitability when you see an opportunity like that or see a, a business problem that you're able to sort of glean a different perspective on? Um, you know, glean perspective on through the services or just being able to have like a different angle, being able to come into the restaurant and, and have insight in whether it's recipe, um, sort of, um, cataloging or just, you know, costing.
Yeah,
Josh: I mean, I mean, you know, at meez we, we, we really believe the profit starts with the recipe. And I, that that seems simplistic. Like, oh, that the recipe cost should be, uh, good, but, but there's so much more to that. And generally speaking, I don't think that creativity can exist without constraints. Right.
So I think we should set the stage there, like it's not really a craft or there's not some sort of cost constraint or time constraint or a resource constraint. Otherwise we're just kind of, you know, um. You know, just sort of this flippant kind of art, which we don't do, right? [00:15:00] So there are these constraints that you have to have and, and, um, the way that we think about it at, you know, at, at me of how we help our customers is, is first and foremost that profit starts with the recipe.
So the way that you engineer the recipe, not just thinking through what ingredients can I use, but who do I have on my team that can execute this if I wanna do this every day at scale and make sure it's the same. Right. Like, what, what, you know, what techniques can I use that are, that are gonna be, you know, that my team's gonna be able to execute?
Can I cross utilize things? Uh, and of course, you know, can I look at this menu at, you know, at large, the entirety of the, of the menu and understand the impact of what I sell this item for. Um, and then do I make sure that this recipe is so explicit that my team can execute it every single day? And. If you waste food, if you don't have a very explicit way to execute something, one, your guests won't return.
Right? Who's not terrified of coming back the next time for the same dish and it tastes different and you [00:16:00] waste food, which means you lose money. So. That's why for us, like we, we, we really drill home, like it starts with the recipe. You have to make sure you engineer this thing. Um, and thinking about that paradigm of what is the recipe?
It's, it's, it's your vision for this thing that you're gonna create, that your team's gonna execute for you. And you have to be empathetic to how they're going to execute it. How your team, how your customers are gonna pay for it and, and, and, and the business at large. So, um, for us it really does start, like right at the beginning.
Ryan: So like at fix we have, um. A lot of clients that are like SMBs, right? Like Michael, chef Michael Mina said that a lot of chefs, you know, will open up restaurants and they, they're gonna have the best food in the world. But a lot of times those restaurants end up, you know, they end up closing within the first year because they just don't know how to actually manage their business.
Obviously I'm coming from like the financial standpoint, which may not be the most popular at times, but ultimately. Your passion. It can't, you can't be so passionate that you're stubborn and not take like a look of what actually is happening. So we always try to present, you know, [00:17:00] not even financials.
'cause I think financials and data overwhelms a lot of, um, operators and people that are running restaurants. We try to really simplify and say like, Hey, like if you can do these three things. This month, then the next month you'll win. And you know, if you can buy this food from this particular vendor or maybe cut down on the one particular cost that seems to be skewing out of, uh, out of the norm.
We just try to give our customers kind of quick, easy decisions to win. And then. Going forward, they can focus on the passion that drives the menu and drives the revenue like everyone is talking about. I'm involved in some restaurants right now where look like the city is tough to run restaurants right now between all of the rising costs, which everyone here knows, and we have a couple of dog locations and my partner in those restaurants, I think we've kind of.
Held those held onto those locations longer than I would've liked. And I think we've finally said like, we gotta take a cold hard look in the mirror and say, look, not every location is gonna be a winner. [00:18:00] You think you're gonna open up, you know, every restaurant is gonna hit a home run. And like it just doesn't.
No one bats a thousand. McDonald's doesn't even bat a thousand. So at a certain point you gotta say, look. This isn't working, let's cut bay and let's refocus and reallocate our resources to the ones that are actually doing well. And I would imagine that probably happens within menus and seasons and things like that.
And I think sometimes it's tough for operators, even myself to say, to take a look at the stuff that isn't going well and say to yourself, Hey, you know, maybe, maybe we gotta refocus our efforts elsewhere.
Amy: Great, and we can, let's try to make it also a little bit more tangible for the restaurants as well.
So, um, Michael and Suzanne, you mentioned sort of top line as well, um, rather than just bottom line, but are there ways that you've found, um, actual, tangible examples that you can give that help you sort of preserve, preserve that creativity and innovation while also making sure that you're still maintaining profitability?
Um, I know you gave some examples early on, um, [00:19:00] but maybe some other examples that you can share.
Michael: Yeah, I mean, I think what Suzanne said, obviously, um, is very much in line of, you know, you, it does start with where, where's the limit for your clientele? You know, what, you know, kind of what, what, what are people expecting when they come to your restaurant?
What are they expecting to spend? But, um, I'll go back to the same thing. I think that you have to be extremely, extremely focused. On the times when you are gonna be able to drive revenue. And so those are holidays. Those are holidays and happenings. Those are, you know, certain nights of the week. Those are creating experiential events.
Those are really event business if you have the space for it. And if you can do it, I mean, you look at so many restaurants. Now, and I think it was really one of the interesting things coming out of the pandemic was how creative [00:20:00] people got and how creative people got with different ways to, you know, drive extra revenue into their restaurant.
And, you know, um, you, you see so many different things like. Um, I just saw a restaurant in DC that was doing something really cool. They like created a community table it was called. Right? But it was kind of similar to, um. If you think about like the two star lazy bear restaurant in San Francisco, which is a great, that's a very upscale version of it, but this restaurant actually created it 16 top within the restaurant, right?
And they almost created a restaurant within the restaurant. And so, you know, I think that it's really does take a little bit of thinking outside the box right now. Um, and that's the part that's actually pretty fun about, you know, when you get, you [00:21:00] start to get to do different style menus, different, you know, just, um, we just went to something that we're doing in a lot of our restaurants and it's like a, we do a large format menu and you have to order it 24 hours in advance and it's for eight or more people.
And, and it is fun because like some of those things you were talking about, like you can get whole animals, you can do things that actually are cost effective and really delicious, but you need that time to prep it. You need to know in advance.
Amy: Just really quickly, a follow up question and then I'll pop back up to you, Suzanne, is just so I'm curious, um, when you host those types of events, are you finding that it's a wholly separate type of, um, customer who's attending those events or are they oftentimes also going to a two top or, um, you know, at a r dining at the, at your restaurants as a regular diner?
Um, yeah, kind of varies
Michael: in all honesty. It has so much to do. With the loyalty that [00:22:00] you build with your clientele. Yeah, totally. Because those, if we're doing it right, we never even advertise it. We literally are just doing it out of our, you know, VIP database or whatever it is. You're never advertising it and, and.
You know, and, and you want it to be experiential. I mean, it has to be something that their people are like, wow. You know, I got, I got into this and it never went out to the public.
Suzanne: Right. Great. I was just gonna say for sure that, I mean, the driving the top, the top line answers everything, right? Yeah. So I think the hard thing, and we do the same thing, like probably, yeah, I'm, I'm being, I'm motivated now to do more events, but it's hard sometimes, you know, you're doing your thing and it's like exhausting and you're the dishwasher's coming out or river's happening, but you do have to keep pushing and pushing like that to keep creating new events and celebrating holiday, you know, coming up with things to celebrate and having farmer dinners and winemaker dinners, because that is what brings the top line in.
I think for us, especially now in la it's like you also, it's, it's looking [00:23:00] at, it's like cutting costs too. Like what can we cut without cutting, um, quality and the guest experience. And I think, actually it's funny, I think it's where the building of the team actually ties in and benefits us because we do have certain nights, like if we have a slow Tuesday night, we'll call somebody off and we'll go with one less person on the line.
And I can do that because every, everybody's been with me a long time. They're bad asses. They love each other. They don't want the other person to go down in flames. And so like, it's like everyone ships to the pantry station and helps everybody. Then everybody shifts to oven and they have a, they actually have more fun because it's not fun to be slow.
So they have a more fun night and we kind of save that, you know, that one person for the night or, or it's just having a talk with my team. Like we used to always have two dishwashers. We had an upstairs dishwasher and downstairs dishwasher. Okay. During the week, we don't need to have two dishwashers. I know you like it and I know it helps 'cause they deep clean and they put things away and whatever.
But it's like, do we actually need that to run the business? And the answer is no. It's kind of, it becomes kind of like a luxury. So, [00:24:00] okay, we cut that out on certain nights during the week and everybody just works together and gets it done. And the thing that seemed I, uh, impossible, you know, it seemed like, oh, we can't do that.
We need that person. When you do it actually. If you have the right people doing it with you, and for you it's like, oh, we actually can do that.
Amy: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's sort of this idea of, you know, you profitability, we talk about profitability, but the sustainability of your restaurants Yeah. Is wholly related to the success of your team and building that team camaraderie.
And that's a huge testament to your ability to do that. And also just to create a sense of trust. Right. And, and that's where that comes from. And that will lead to downstream profitability, right?
Suzanne: Yeah. This is, this is gonna, this is
Amy: gonna,
Suzanne: um. Date me. But I remember when, when September 11th happened and we were at old a OC, we used to have, we had a cheese bar and it was my favorite thing.
It was like my favorite thing when we created that restaurant, when you walked in, you saw this like beautiful refrigeration with all this display of all the Lummi and charcuterie and the cheeses. And actually I used to work that station, so I would make the cheese plates every night and make the meat plates and people would sit at the cheese bar.
It was like 10 seats and it was like the, [00:25:00] it was the best. So September 11th happens. You know, business tanks we're meeting with our, um, CP or financial, uh, whatever accounting people, and the guy's telling me like, you know, well something has to give. Like, you have to cut labor or you have to cut food, cut, you have to cut something.
So. He's like, you need to cut one person outta the kitchen. So I was like, okay, what am I gonna like, I can't, like, I need a person on the grill, I need a person. And I was like, okay, I have to, I was like, well, we can't, I don't, I can't cut anybody. I need somebody on the cheese bar. I need this, this, this. And he goes, okay, well then you're not gonna have a restaurant.
And I was like, oh, okay. So, and I did, I actually moved the cheese, that whole I, I gave up that thing that I loved. And I moved the, the cheese cut. I moved that stuff into pantry. And of, of course, the pantry people at first are like, they're like, there's no way we can't do all that, dah, dah, dah. And of course, once we do it and you work with them and you show them it can be done, it it, so, and that's a little bit of like a gut punch, like a, I mean I love that part of the restaurant so much, but in the end, like my option is to [00:26:00] not have a restaurant.
So.
Amy: No, for sure. I mean, I think that there's something about this idea of innovation, right? And I think we're always thinking, well, what's new? Like innovation? What's new? But I think there's also a way to think about innovation, reflecting on right, what you think you already know, and sort of rethinking that.
Josh, you brought that up in a conversation we had a couple weeks ago. Um, sort of this idea of like, okay, well it doesn't have to be this esoteric thing that no one's thought of. It could be let just take a little moment and self reflect on how I'm running my business and like maybe I can shift things a little bit.
Um, anyway.
Ryan: I had a question actually. So I feel like, um, like most restaurants, 'cause I've done the same thing, like when it's busy and you know, you have like, you know, a lot of sales are coming in and you're just like, let me just add another staff, we'll add over time. Who cares? We're gonna have the sales.
It's gonna be fantastic. Right? And then you end up not making maybe as much money as you probably should have. And then when you do have the downturn in your slower season, and the times when you do want to cut and you probably can't cut that [00:27:00] much because at a certain point you're gonna affect service and quality of food.
I feel like a lot, and I, I've made this mistake plenty of times too. It's like. We get, we, we get this tendency that, yes, revenue cures all, but we can't also kind of say like. You know, we we're just not going to like, be blind to it and try to make those really great revenue days. Like you were saying, like as profitable as you can, so that way you can weather the storms of like the slower times.
Yeah. Yeah. And the times when you're going to, you're gonna need to cut, but you can't go below a certain threshold.
Suzanne: Yeah. I think you have to keep, you have to keep the lessons that you learned when times were tough. Yeah. And keep those lessons when times are good. I mean, that's the a hundred percent, that's the key.
Michael: Yeah. Yeah. A hundred percent. And trust me, revenue doesn't cure all right. If you don't have the discipline. Behind it upfront where what you just said, it's, you know, I, you see it all the time. Oh, it's, this is gonna be a huge Thanksgiving. This gonna be whatever it is. If you don't have the discipline to really, and, and it really does help if you [00:28:00] have somebody really good in finance, obviously, but you gotta really have the discipline to really understand is that revenue really gonna come in?
And, and, you know, really have that laid out in a way. And, and that's what I said is like to create that kind of any sort of lift. 'cause even a little lift helps a lot because you usually don't have to staff more for it. Right. It's a lot of times the 15 covers are better than the 45 covers. Because you didn't have to staff any different, or you didn't have to do anything any different.
Right. And so it's not the, the, the perfect science to it is just, that's where, to me, that's where a lot of the hard work goes is are you gonna take that three months ahead of time to really look at how you're gonna market, how you're gonna do it, how you're gonna create that particular event, and then be very disciplined about not overshooting it.
Yeah. [00:29:00]
Amy: Yeah, those are all really important points. Um, I wanna ask a two and a half part question. Um,
Michael: two and a half,
Amy: honestly. Two and a half? Yes. Okay. Um, so we all have this idea that customers will never fully understand the true cost of a dish, right? It also happens with chocolate like. No one totally understands everything that goes into chocolate.
Um, so again, two part, two and a half parts. Um, do you all think there will ever be a world where the perception of the customer is aligned with the actual true cost? And when we say true cost, I'm not just talking the ingredients, but we're talking the labor, the experience that, like everything that goes into creating this beautiful moment that people are choosing to, um, take part in, you know, of Anyway, I could go on and on, but so.
Suzanne: I think there's people who, there are people who get it and people who are never gonna get it. I mean, we definitely have a, we have a really loyal clientele and I feel like, yeah. Do they understand like how we get to that number? No, they don't, but they value, yes, it's worth it to them. Yep. So whether they understand, you know, whether that answers [00:30:00] the question or not, but for them it's worth it.
And then there's people who, yeah. Who don't, who just
Amy: don't and never will.
Suzanne: Never will. Yeah.
Josh: I think there is a, I mean this is where like the experience really helps and, yeah. The, there is a, a job of us to, um, tell a story that helps and create an experience that is more than the sum of the parts of the food.
I mean, we talked about this on the call and I think about this all the time. You know, you go and you eat somewhere and no one will ever, um, be able to quantify like the cost of. What they just ate. Because if they tried to say, well that shrimp I can get at the store if you can even get it, 'cause you probably can't get those kinds of prawns.
Um, but you know, to have it on time, on demand every day in that setting and they'll clean up after you. And when your glass breaks, they get you a new one and the music is playing and the air is the right, the right temperature, uh, and the light is the right temperature. And when you have something else that you're thinking of ordering, someone is there to order that for you.
And when you're done, someone cleans up for you. All of that. [00:31:00] If someone did that in your house, it's like, wow, I would love to have that. But you know, there is this ceiling because you know, there's a difference between a commodity and experience. You know, obviously you go to a spa and you pay $150 for the pleasure of being there.
And then you pay for your smoothie and you pay for your sandwich on, on top of that. And I do think that it's, it is incredible. I think it's amazing to see what people are doing in restaurants now of creating more of an experience, more of, and doesn't always have to be something interactive, but more of a feeling.
I have that feeling when I go to, to your restaurant and I just feel like I'm, I'm, I'm transported. I feel someplace special, and I'm willing to do that. I'm willing to, to pay more because I'm. I'm getting away from my day to day. And that's the job, right? Is, and that's with anything is you, you have to, you know, give them something that is, you know, an order of magnitude better than sitting at home.
And, and that's the only time that, that I think when that perception starts to rise. But no matter what, there's a ceiling, a burger can only cost so much until it's a novelty.
Ryan: So like, uh, my [00:32:00] family and I have a, a 10-year-old and a 7-year-old, and we recently. Implemented this new tradition where every Friday night we go out to dinner, the four of us, and we rotate whose choice it is and whoever chooses, no one could argue with whatever they're choosing.
Now, the first week I thought you were
Amy: gonna say whoever chooses pays the bill.
Ryan: Well, I had, well unfortunately, my, the first week, my 7-year-old kind of got one over us and chose Dave and Busters, but, you know, that's okay. Um, however, however, afterwards, we also. We do a review, we ask our kids and myself like, what was the food, what was the ambiance?
What was the service? What was the value? Right? And it's really interesting, um, hearing the, the reactions to it, because my wife and I were like, oh, that food sucked. And then the, the kids were like, oh, but like, you know, we appre like they appreciated the service and the ambiance was just awesome. And I was like, I never, I didn't think of it through their shoes at times.
So like. One of my kids loves the Heidi Lau hot pot place in Century City, and if you haven't [00:33:00] taken your kids there, it is awesome. Like the ambiance is fantastic. And then another time we took them to Fogo De Chow and they're like, this is the most incredible experience. And I'm like, oh, like going through these experiences through like a seven and a 10-year-old, and you didn't really realize this because you've already been there so many times.
It kind of has tweaked my perception of like the value that you see in some of these restaurants that you may not have gone to in a long time. So I just thought it was like an interesting tidbit from like my actual life.
Michael: Um, you know, I think that this is a very interesting question because, you know, perception of value, right?
So like what Susan said earlier, she built a restaurant and learned a lesson, doesn't wanna do it again. It took 10 years to pay it off, right? So the cost of building that restaurant has gotta get factored into the cost, right? And we see it right now more than ever. 'cause it's like saying, okay, well how do you.
Decide or how do people associate the value? [00:34:00] You can go have a great, you know, taco in the mission and. Pay $4 and you know, there's definitely a value for that. And then we watch the same people go to the modern day, I call 'em club stunts. Right. And they're catching things on fire and opening suitcases and charging you a thousand dollars or something, right?
And so there's, but they probably spent $35 million to build the place out. And it's more of a show. Than it is a dining experience or it's more of a scene than it is a dining experience. And so it's, it, it's a hard question to answer because it, I think it, so much of it depends on who the customer is and what they're looking for, you know, and I, I just.
You know, do they know how much it costs? I doubt they really know everything that it costs, but what, what are they [00:35:00] looking for and what is the value to them? You know, I wouldn't go to a place and order a steak in a suitcase and pay an extra a thousand dollars for it, but. Plenty of people do. So, you know.
Amy: No, that's a good reminder. And I think just taking into account, I mean, there's so many costs that you need to take into account, but this idea of, um, the cost framework of an experience and your cost of ingredients and balancing that, but it also takes a keen eye to making sure that you know who your customer is and, and what they're, they're on both sides of the equation, right.
Um, okay. Well, I wanna make sure we have enough time for questions. So I'm gonna ask one question, um, to the panel and then we'll open it up, um, to the audience. So I guess, sort of last question, what's the one thing that you hope the audience will take away from today's discussion?
Michael: Um, take away from today's discussion.
Well,
Amy: or life in general.
Michael: Yeah. Look, you know, it. [00:36:00] Sometimes it, you, it, it is a very ugly picture that gets painted on how hard it is to succeed in this business, right? But if you really, you know, if, if this is what you're passionate about and you really want to do it, you know, put the upfront work into it.
Learning about like what we talked about. Learn those numbers, learn all the business side of it, learn everything. That's why you go work for people. That's why you go try to get as many experiences as you can get and pick everybody's brain. It isn't just an hour with us up here, you know, pick everybody's brain, but don't give up on it because it's really, really rewarding in the end.
Ryan: I'll add onto that. I think that like a lot of people open up restaurants and it's a very passionate business. Like Josh said, it's, it's hard and it's hard to, to do well, but you also have to be honest with yourself and say. You know, let me look at [00:37:00] all aspects of the operation besides just the cooking or the service.
And that includes the financials and not be afraid to look at 'em. Uh, and then the other thing if everyone could learn is don't let your kids choose Dave and Busters for like the,
Josh: I just need to get my kids to actually eat out at a restaurant. They still won't do that. It's just feted cheese and nuts. Um. You know, I think I'll, I'll just sort of reiterate what I maybe said in the beginning, which was just embrace constraints, like lean into them, you know, and in any business and restaurants specifically.
You know, I, I think oftentimes we think of it as a, um. As, as, as a negative. Like, well, I have to, well, I can't use this product, or I, I have to have this price, or I can only have this many team members. And that's all true. And yes, it's all very hard. So, uh, the worst thing you could do is, um, let that, you know, get to you to the point where you're just not having fun anymore and you're, you're, you're.
Tired team should, [00:38:00] should be leaning into this. Just lean into the, the constraints. Make sure you define what those constraints are for your business, whether it's a food cost or a price point, or how many people, or what size space we can have, or how many locations we can have. And then just really lean into it, you know, and, and actually enjoy creating within those constraints and, and I think you'll have a lot more fun.
Suzanne: I would say, I think that the independent restaurant community, I think, or independent restaurants are worth fighting for. And I think we all have to really fight right now. I was actually just talking to Alice Waters in the green room and she said, you know, restaurants have the power to change the world, and restaurants kind of reflect our humanity.
And I think it is that restaurants speak to our senses, you know, besides everything else. Like we speak to people's sense senses, but we give them those experiences that they don't otherwise, they don't even know, maybe don't know why they're what's touching them, but. There's some, there's something about, um, feeding each other, being together, eating together, and I think the community that restaurants bring together.
We were just, um, Saturday we just raised $1.3 [00:39:00] million for children's cancer with like the, yeah, so, so I think like the power of what our community can do is impressive and should hopefully unstoppable, but it is a really, really hard time right now. So I think everybody in this room probably already knows that.
But I think, um, we have to find a way to, to push through and preserve restaurants like our restaurant that we just closed a OC Brentwood. Basically, our landlord has been trying to push us out for two years and they're putting an aloe in because they can get 50% more rent. So they just didn't want us there anymore.
Um, and we were like, I mean, we were like a, we were there 16 years. So I think it's a really tough time, but we need to band together and find ways and put pressure on. I don't know what we ways to do it, but I think, um, I think it's worth preserving. It's what? I don't know. It's like, it's like when the pandemic happened, Nancy called me, she goes, I don't know how to do anything else, do you?
And I was like, no, I don't know how to do anything else. So we need to, you know. Yeah. It's like this is what we do. It is what we know how to do, it's what we love. And I think, yeah, we just need [00:40:00] to save it, um, and keep doing what we're doing. So
Amy: thank you all so much. Thanks. Um, thanks for attending.
Josh: Thanks for tuning into the ME podcast. The music from the show is a remix of the Song Art Mirror by an old friend, hip hop artist, fresh Daily. For show notes and more, visit get mes.com/podcast. That's GETM eble z.com/podcast. If you enjoyed the show, I'd love it if you can share it with the fellow entrepreneurs and culinary pros and give us a five star rating wherever you listen to your podcasts.
Keep innovating. Don't settle. Make today a little bit better than yesterday. And remember, it's impossible for us to learn what we think we already know. See you next [00:41:00] time.
