Joshua Sharkey (04:39.458)
Perfect.
Joshua Sharkey (04:48.782)
Does his range of emotions ever go above a five? Because I never see him get too you know. Yeah.
Xavier Mariezcurrena Vega (04:55.552)
He's even keel. He's even keel, except for when we have our little post shift talks. And that's the best part about Tony is he's he certainly has his service face, as we all do. And then he's got his what the hell just happened? I need to smoke a cigarette by the dumpster face. And that's the one I usually get on our one to one calls. You know, and it could be as simple as how the hell does this guy still have my phone number? He texted me on Sunday night to
remind me that what was it, black garlic should not be hitting dry goods. It should be you know what I mean? Like stupid shit like that. And he'll certainly let it rip in those situations. It's cathartic. We let it out. But to answer your question, it's been a really good marriage for us. You know, I I handle a lot of the guest facing, guest facing client facing stuff.
Joshua Sharkey (05:30.988)
Here produce
Joshua Sharkey (05:48.552)
I guess too. Yeah.
Xavier Mariezcurrena Vega (05:50.466)
I'll interact with you know, I'll do a lot of the onboardings, I'll do a lot of trainings and, you know, I I most of the outreach. And he handles a lot of the project management, the vision for the tech, and he's done an incredible job with it because, you know, I think after having been a corporate chef for so many years, he can identify with your kind. And, you know
Xavier Mariezcurrena Vega (06:19.966)
Is it a jab? No. Your kind your kind is incredibly they're thoughtful. They work on their feet. They have a ton of shit to worry about. They're not just doing schedules, but they're worried about deliveries and orders and inventory, pleasing the accountants. Hey, we're gonna open for brunch, but labor's too high. All that stuff you guys gotta deal with. So, you know, from my perspective, I feel like chefs have too much to worry about. And, you know, as a result of that
Joshua Sharkey (06:48.742)
That's yeah, I I would say that's probably true. No, I think that's probably true. So, you know, I I actually want to like and I do this often when I whenever someone's on and I just get to, I don't know a lot of about you. Because you know what's funny is for years I'd be like, yeah, you I've talked to my buddy, he's got you know, he's got this company called Cheebox. Every single time, they're like, X. And I'm like, no, Tony. Every single person is like, Yeah, I know X.
And I'm like, I don't know X. I never met X before. I don't know I don't know who that is. Yeah. And I eventually obviously I met you. I know a few things about you. I know you well, I've made an inference that you really enjoy wine from your handle on Instagram and then a couple of things, but I we never talk about wine. I know you are a low carb dude. Not maybe by design, but you just have no choice. Or you
Michael Jacober (07:39.502)
Are you low carb high protein or more of a you're low carb high protein?
Xavier Mariezcurrena Vega (07:45.816)
I listen to too many podcasts, you know.
Joshua Sharkey (07:48.278)
Wait, is that I thought it was a medically induced like you had no choice but to stop eating
Xavier Mariezcurrena Vega (07:52.984)
Well look, I can so it all started. It was all a dream. I thought that I had woken up and I I'd made I had made fun of gluten intolerance for many years in my operating days, but I was always like the GM or Som on the floor that had a like an extra couple po couple to eighty pounds around his suit, you know? And I was just always I was always
Off, just feeling off, right? So I went to the doctor and the doctor said, You should probably avoid gluten. And I'd never gotten a test for anything. So, you know, all those years of making fun of people for their intolerances came back to bite me right in the face, literally, because I started developing a rash and all this stuff. So I stopped eating gluten and everything got better. And as a result of that, I also stopped eating carbs just because I wanted to slim down.
And I know GLP ones and all that is like a thing now, but I'm gonna try to avoid those and do it the natural way. And the natural way for me has been not eating French fries and avoiding coca avoiding Coca Cola. If they're sponsors, I'm sorry. Orida, Orida, you know, Coca Cola, I'm sorry. I avoid them now, just for health reasons.
Joshua Sharkey (09:10.508)
It's funny 'cause the the f the the fire chief last night also had this pep has a peptide company. And
Xavier Mariezcurrena Vega (09:17.366)
mean he has a could just make a peptide company as a fireplace?
Joshua Sharkey (09:21.486)
Yeah, his I don't I'm gonna give him a shout out and I think it's called it's called Helix, something or other.
Xavier Mariezcurrena Vega (09:27.054)
He looks the cat?
Joshua Sharkey (09:29.472)
What is this thing called? Hold on. 'cause I was asking a whole a whole bunch of questions about it because there's this so you were talking about GLP ones and helix amino is what it's called. There's this new peptide. I don't know how new it is, but it's becoming a lot more ubiquitous now called retotutrite. ritutrite
Michael Jacober (09:45.646)
Yeah, so it's a G L P three.
Joshua Sharkey (09:49.004)
Yeah, so it it it like does the weight loss but but you know typical D L P ones like will will will like remove like forty percent of your muscle. Now if you're like obese right kinda doesn't matter, but if you're but if you're not, it's it's it can be dangerous. And apparently re retotrutide only, you know, will decrease muscle by by a maximum like ten percent. And so it's and a mu a a a number of other things that it that apparently helps with. I haven't gotten into the peptides yet, but
Michael Jacober (10:14.605)
You have not Josh?
Joshua Sharkey (10:16.17)
No, I feel you know, e every time I try, I've I have a a few friends that are that are deep in this and a buddy that's like has a company with them and a that sells them. And every time I I I start to explore just 'cause I like to try these things, he's like he's like you don't need to. He's like you're you're thin. You're slim. He's like, What what's what's the point? Why do you why why do you want to do I was like, I don't know, just cause And they're like
Xavier Mariezcurrena Vega (10:37.778)
Forever? Don't you want to run a a restaurant tech company forever? Don't you want isn't that like everything that you've like you wake up in the morning like just another day. Another day.
Joshua Sharkey (10:49.038)
I feel like there's other it's gotta be other we other ways to do it. But who knows? I'm scared of all these things. My cardiologist was like, you gotta take statins and I was like, No. And I and like they kept telling me. Finally I started taking them and then they called and like, you to double your dosage. And I was like, Fuck this. I'm not doing this. This is like forty milligrams of statins. I I haven't taken them in in six months. I had to start taking this like C O Q C Q ten thing because I've got Yeah. so I just stopped and now I feel great. So
Xavier Mariezcurrena Vega (11:17.206)
for you. Listen, I've I've I've seen some studies and I don't know what to believe anymore because sardines are good for you but they have a lot of arsenic and then coffee's excellent for you but it's moldy. I mean who who knows in this world what you're supposed to
Joshua Sharkey (11:31.576)
Hold on we yeah, we we we got off we we got off X. So hold on. So you so you got your diet stuff, which we okay, you're so you're a beefcake, you eat a lot of
Xavier Mariezcurrena Vega (11:40.686)
I like I like protein. You're high protein. I like wine. I'm high protein. like protein.
Joshua Sharkey (11:44.858)
This is the surface level stuff. How did you get to like you're starting a tech company because you're a front of house guy, you're wine, you're like you love service, you love wine, it sounds like but what why why a food tech company? I I I understand why Tony did. Sure. Because he was telling me that, you know, obviously like he was processing invoices every day and it was retard you know. Yeah. Sorry. So it was not not not a
I use a different word. And he clearly like he was like this is this is not working. I'm gonna I'm gonna start a company that does this. But where did yes w how did you guys do that together?
Xavier Mariezcurrena Vega (12:24.674)
So truth be told, Tony and I, when we met down in Maryland, he was in the process of of of sunsetting his career with Charlie Palmer. They were getting ready to move Oriole from like that beautiful old mansion to like a much bigger space in a corporate environment. I think it was in the Bank of America Tower. And he thought it was like a good time for him to move from like, you know, the romantic ideal.
Of the chef-driven restaurant to what was going to become probably a more corporate expression of the restaurant. We met down in Maryland. I was just coming off a life changing experience where I had taken my first big bonus check from being the GM of Bobby Flay's steakhouse in the Borgata and took my bonus check, cashed it in, and went all in. I wasn't a big gambler, separate with my career.
I I took all my fucking money and put it right on to opening a restaurant in Dallas, Texas. That that goes deep. I thought
Joshua Sharkey (13:32.844)
I'm gonna say right on you.
Xavier Mariezcurrena Vega (13:40.854)
That would have been awesome. I you know what? It would have saved me a lot of time. But anyway, I did I opened this restaurant and I'm like, why isn't anybody doing farmed table in Dallas? How come, you know, there isn't more of like a gastro pub kind of, you know? Why isn't that a thing in Dallas? I grew up in restaurants, you know, I loved them. My mom wanted to get me out of the house. She introduced me to a friend of hers and I
Michael Jacober (13:46.134)
Right.
Xavier Mariezcurrena Vega (14:09.538)
Became a bus boy, fell in love with the hostess, the rest is history. My father from to this day, probably, you know, turning his grave because I didn't want to go to college. But I just fell in love with it. And from that moment on, when I opened my restaurant, it I knew it was going to fail. Like the first night of service, it was one of those things where, you know, I had been running this extremely successful dude. We were doing $15 million in 2005.
Joshua Sharkey (14:38.818)
What?
Xavier Mariezcurrena Vega (14:39.058)
And I'm like, this is how it goes. You know, my numbers are great. Costs are in line. Everybody loves me. I'm great with the staff. Guests come back and ask for me. I could do this for myself. Ha. So I opened up a I opened up a restaurant down in Texas with a good buddy of mine. We packed our shit from Atlantic City and moved down to to Texas. And we held on. I mean, I learned a lot of s survival skills. It was
incredibly informative because all the infrastructure I had, from the guys that worked on the docks to the team that did all the accounting work to even just simply executing payroll, all of that was taken care of in the casino infrastructure. And the moment you go off and do it on your own, every single thing that obviously could go wrong does go wrong. And every single administrative task that
None of us like to do. I I mean, I I don't want to speak for you, Josh. Or
Michael Jacober (15:42.766)
Do you go by MJ? Mike. Mike. MJ. How you like
Xavier Mariezcurrena Vega (15:48.93)
I don't want to speak for you, Mike, either. You may love the administrative stuff. Some people do like it. But I I I absolutely despised it. And so Tony and I really hit it off. We enjoyed our chats. We have a lot of the same feelings about food in restaurants. And and we were gonna open a restaurant together. Our goal was to open a restaurant called American Oak, which was going to be in the space
where ocean prime is today in Philadelphia. And I was running a steakhouse for a really, a really a well-known real estate developer. He fell on hard times. He ghosted us after like a very deep, a very deep dive into developing the concept, drawing out plans, putting menus together. We were being interviewed in Philadelphia Inquire. I mean it was rolling. And then all of a sudden it
The rug got pulled from us. It's like restaurants are like the land of broken dreams, you know. But it was through this process that we were trying to reimagine how we could operate to just get the most out of our team and make them happy and not have them do things that sucked. And one of the things that really sucked, in our opinion, was you know, trying to make sure that you were on top of your costs, keeping the powers that be, because
Back then when I was an operator, I didn't trust the numbers that I was getting on a PL. It was always like food costs is so high. You know, you're supposed to hit 32 and it's 33 and a half. And then I'm like, well, that's not the reason we lost money. What is this management fee for $800,000 that hit in February the one time I was going to hit bonus? Like, we'll get back to you on that. Like, there's got to be a better way. So ultimately, the idea to, you know, start a platform that would help to start.
To automate this administrative burden, but also give operators clarity, transparency, and provide accountability throughout every single layer of the operation. That's where it was born, right? It was, it was really us putting our hats on to being like, dude, you know, why are we asking Sioux chefs to, you know, to compile invoices and do food costs, you know, off the back of a pen or, you know, why are we asking, you know, hostesses?
Xavier Mariezcurrena Vega (18:13.846)
or hosts to constantly be on the phone. You know, so we were just trying to rethink processes that were bottlenecks. And the invoice thing was a huge deal. And it's like, you know, it's 30 to 60% of your costs are coming on a piece of paper. Dropped off at the back door with the bread. You know what I mean? Like tied to a piece of tape. Like what? And this still happens. This still happens. Like it's just
The entire industry sometimes feels like it's hanging by a fingernail. And anyway, I wanted it to feel like at least the fingernail was easy to find, not like a diamond or not diamond, a needle in a haystack.
Joshua Sharkey (18:56.088)
So You know, the the one thing I was I'm always baffled by, I mean you guys over Easy Office, which is an incredible, incredible company and and so smart that you sort of not transitioned, but like layered on the services element to to the tech because I mean I think you were ahead of the time because now that is like that is the play is services on top of tech, especially with AI. But how you started this a long time ago and you are
Two white dudes from Philly, how did you like land your team in the Philippines and decide to fly out there and start like meeting those folks? And how did that how did that work?
Xavier Mariezcurrena Vega (19:42.38)
It was it was a lucky setup. So when we had first gotten the idea for Shoebox, which you know was the first company, that company was like, Hey, we should have the restaurant industry should have a platform that makes it easy to look at invoices. Just look at them, right? Because I'm sure we all went through this. You know, you have a a spreadsheet, an Excel spreadsheet, you fill it out, there's like a tracker, it starts to deplete a budget each week.
You know, you got your Samuels delivery, your Pat La Freda delivery, how much was it? What was the invoice number? And originally the idea was just to have invoices on the cloud. So that, for example, if I wanted to reorder coffee cup and I didn't want to, for the third time, order what I thought was the coffee cup, and the salesperson decides to send me the coffee cup, and it's a different coffee cup and the spec that's on the floor. I was like, it would be really cool if I could just.
Order by the UPC number or the SKU that's on the invoice from Fort Tessa or whatever. That was the original thought. Like it'd be really cool if I could just find the invoices. And so we had first started working with a with a company called SourcePad that was based out of New York. And we had zero experience with this stuff. But the idea was just wireframing in the beginning, like hop on a phone call, explain exactly what we're trying to build.
This is obviously d I mean, this is generations ago at this point. This was in two thousand thirteen. We're like building wireframes and stuff. and it was a horse.
Michael Jacober (21:20.339)
Source pad is a is a is a dev shop? Is that what
Xavier Mariezcurrena Vega (21:23.81)
That's correct. They were that they're they I don't think they exist anymore, but they were a dev shop that was based out of New York and the team that they were working with was based in the Philippines. So we would often have to wake up super early in the morning to hop on with these with the team that was overseeing our development. And we would explain what we were trying to build. And as a result of those conversations, we build an MVP and we were just begging, begging people to use this platform. It's like, hey.
Scan your invoices. And instead of populating an Excel spreadsheet, you can populate this software we built that will attach the invoice to the information that you're populating. And then anytime you wanted to find an invoice, it's there for you. And it's going to populate your budget for you. Right? That was the original version of it. And man, asking restaurants, they have so much to do, but asking them to change their habits, you might as well, I mean.
It got to a point where I was showing up at the restaurants, scanning the invoices for them. And I'm like, Look, invoice four eight two seven five, you hit enter, and now it's here for you. that's cool. you want to go get a shot? You know, and it's like I want you to use my platform so that my father stops telling me it's a horrible idea. So ultimately, man, one day Tony is like, What do we have to do? Because we were in like a bunch of cool restaurants in Philly.
Michael Jacober (22:37.454)
No.
Xavier Mariezcurrena Vega (22:52.12)
But nobody was engaging with the platform. and so we ended up like we're just like, do we have to fucking code the invoices for these
Michael Jacober (23:00.15)
Yeah, you were like let's let's just do the let's just do it for them. Let's just let's just tell them You now you just need to scan the invoice. That's it.
Xavier Mariezcurrena Vega (23:08.238)
I'll just scan. Which which that's it. Mike, I'm gonna tell you. That's not even easy. But you know what I mean? So so we so anyway, I had worked since we were working on the Philippina develop development team, we wanted the speed of the change in time. And obviously, you know, we wanted to take advantage of being able to pay well here. Creates, you know, a lot more of an economic value for the
Michael Jacober (23:14.808)
No.
Xavier Mariezcurrena Vega (23:36.504)
For the stateside user in in in the US. And I had worked with an awesome sommelier in my casino days. And she had come back here to start a family. She had worked in restaurants for like Stephen Starr and for a bunch of for Nobu and John George. Like she went to CIA. She went back to the to Manila to start her family. And my first thought was, let me hit up, let me let me hit up Pierre. She's
From the industry, understands how US restaurants work. Let's start training a team on how to process this data. And that's how the Philippines connection started. And I think 2013 we started with the platform. 2015, we might have been doing like $2,300 in MRR. You know what I mean? Like it was a slow, slow burn. And it took a lot of time to get adoption.
But, you know, I mean, we're restaurant people. If there's anything that we're good at, it's eating glass. So I would fly out here, sleep on couches, spend time with the team, process data with them, help them understand that sometimes there might be a chicken juice smudge on a delivery. Ignore that. If somebody circles something, I don't know if it's a return. I don't know if it's a price issue. But, you know.
You know, it's like trying to help them get into the mind of a chef, get into the mind of a restaurant operator. And essentially that's how it happened. That's how we got to the Philippines. And that's how that's why I'm here now, 'cause obviously the team's grown way beyond what we were before.
Michael Jacober (25:16.706)
Talk to me a about the economics here. So you you so Pierre, she helps you get set up. Does she do all the recruiting in the in the early days for you? Is she a is she a team member at this point? Are you paying her? Are you guys burning cash? Or are you guys just, you know, taking cash from customers and whatever you have? You're okay. So you were you were in in the early days you guys were
Joshua Sharkey (25:43.95)
They bootstrap from early on, which I'm just so jealous of.
Xavier Mariezcurrena Vega (25:48.376)
We were bur so so Mike, just to give you some context, so I quit my job working as a psalm. Yep. I had I had a mountain of debt from a failed restaurant, a badass little, you know, farm the table gastro pub in Dallas. you know, and Tony had finished a career as a as a corporate chef. And, you know, we were just we had raised like a little bit of
Friends and family money, let's call it like a hundred grand. And that's what we
Michael Jacober (26:20.812)
That that gets you your MVP, I would assume. Yes. That's the so some of that goes to the dev shop and then does some of that now go to paying the team Manila as well?
Xavier Mariezcurrena Vega (26:23.544)
That's correct.
Xavier Mariezcurrena Vega (26:31.982)
That's correct. So everything went back into the business for like the first five years. So
Joshua Sharkey (26:39.288)
Curious how different it would be if you hadn't gone there and talked them through that. I've Yeah. You know, it's it's funny. Like this has happened to me twice now. I remember when when we had bark hot dogs, and we we we would get a whole steer, like a whole cow, for the burger. But there was very particular parts that I wanted, and then there was some that we like we gave the short line to Jake Dixon. Shout out to Jake Dixon. But I I remember having to go to the slaughterhouse.
Xavier Mariezcurrena Vega (26:46.35)
It would have never made it.
Joshua Sharkey (27:06.454)
And show them how I wanted to break it all down and package it up so that it would work for, you know, like how to get it into the restaurant. And like we would never be able to do that if I hadn't been there hands on. And the same thing with me is like I had to like go to Vietnam and like talk them through why a quart and a gallon are different and what it matters for them to scale different ways and what this why like sliced and diced is is different and how this database means what it and like explaining it in detail and sort of like drawing pictures, yeah. It never would have worked.
If I I mean our team's obviously in house, but like it never would have worked if I had been there for a couple of weeks. Well, how was like the language barrier for you? Like did was that hard when you were when you were there to just like explaining what you wanted to have happen? But it's
Xavier Mariezcurrena Vega (27:47.31)
Still
Michael Jacober (27:48.332)
Interesting. Because Philip the I I've found that their English is very strong. Yeah.
Xavier Mariezcurrena Vega (27:54.56)
no no it's
Joshua Sharkey (27:56.386)
Well Xavier's first language is is Spanish, just you know.
Michael Jacober (28:00.376)
So I could tell you you're having a little difficulty understanding what Josh and I are saying. So maybe if we'll maybe we'll speak a little slower for you.
Joshua Sharkey (28:08.846)
Fix it.
Xavier Mariezcurrena Vega (28:11.022)
The no, I mean, so listen, my my parents are both, you know, they're off they're off the boat. They my dad's Basque, my mom's Puerto Rican, they both have strong accents. I've learned over time to not take for granted just literal interpretations of things, right? And it's so for me it's I I understand that there's things that you may have to over explain sometimes, but ultimately in the beginning, look, they're super sharp and super smart team members.
in our original team, like they obviously we went from a team of six to now four hundred. So I mean we did a lot of things right in the beginning. but it's hard to process that you might buy mustard by fucking the little tub, you know, that little great coupon guy, to the glass one that goes up to then
Michael Jacober (29:00.076)
Up to the food service one. The gallon, yeah.
Xavier Mariezcurrena Vega (29:03.558)
And you know, then then you throw in the wrinkle and then there's gonna be ones where they come in packets. And they might not count those. And they're like, what? You know, and you're just trying to explain this all, but it was just literally, it was it was sitting on top with them, and then you identify the A players, you'd identify the team members that get it, they're super sharp, that are are are thoughtful, and then you challenge them. Like one of I I'll never forget.
I met somebody in a co working space in Philadelphia who was super kind and she worked for a payroll company and no no, she worked for breadcrumb. She worked for breadcrumb I don't know if I met her at like one of these meetups and stuff and I'm like
Michael Jacober (29:45.314)
Point a point of sale? Is that a
Joshua Sharkey (29:46.862)
Yeah. It was sold to somebody bought it, I forget who.
Xavier Mariezcurrena Vega (29:49.966)
For a lot of money. Group on I Groupon
Joshua Sharkey (29:52.366)
This show is brought to you by you guessed it Mize. Mies helps thousands of restaurants and food surface businesses all over the world build profitable menus and scale their business successfully.
Michael Jacober (29:54.286)
Good re good memory.
Joshua Sharkey (30:08.3)
If you're looking to organize your recipe IP and train your team to put out a consistent product every day in less time than ever before, then Mii's is just for you. And you can transform all those old Google Docs and Word docs and PDFs and spreadsheets and Google Sheets into dynamic, actionable recipes and Miis in lightning speed. Plus, stop all that manual work of processing invoices, because Mis will digitize all your purchases automatically. And there's a built-in database of ingredient yields, prep yields, and unit-to-measure conversions for
ingredient, which means you're gonna get laser accurate food costs in a fraction of the time. Visit www.getmeze.com, that's G-E-T-M-E-E-Z.com to learn more. And check out the show notes moving forward because we're gonna be adding promotions and discount codes so that all of you lovely and brilliant Me's podcast listeners get a sweet deal on Mies.
Xavier Mariezcurrena Vega (31:02.818)
So I met this lady and she was super kind and we're like, hey, let's trade leads. And she knew I was pretty well embedded in the Philadelphia restaurant scene. And I remember saying to her, like, what kind of leads are you nurturing right now that are like interested in what's new in tech? And she's like, she's like, I, you know, I'm I'm a gun for hire. and I can't, I'm not allowed to like make intros to you. But if you wanna just mosey on through Salesforce, I've never seen a CRM in my life.
Closest thing I had seen was like, you know, compete inventory software. That was like the most anything I've ever, or Excel. She's like, I'm gonna go to the bathroom for the next 20 minutes to have a cigarette. By the time you come back, whatever you want to pull, you can pull. And there was, and I remember back then, and may even still today, like my dream client. I'm like, all right, who's in their CRM? And they had everybody. So I like take Danielle, I take John George Baumgericht in.
I'm like, it's a Momofuku in there. Momofuku. And I'm pulling all these names, Jose Andres. And you know, some of them I may have had connections to, some not. But I I pulled like a list of like 15 people. She comes back and I'm, you know, pretend like nothing happened. and she's like, well, I hope you got what you needed. let me know if you have any introductions for me. And she leaves, right? And then I start to write cold emails to these people. A noop. Well, I'll never forget. I said, Hey.
We're building this in invoice processing technology. And I'm not sure what platforms you're on, but we're experts. Can compete, see to it. I'm just rattling things off. And they're like, hey, we have an interesting use case that we're trying to solve for. And so I went up to their offices. I met this guy, Sam. They have dogs in there. It was like a startup office before startup offices were a thing. And it was a really cool environment.
And ultimately this guy Sam, who I think was the inventor of the frozen foie dish. Remember that dish where they would freeze the foie and microplane it on like to brittle or something?
Joshua Sharkey (33:10.958)
I think it was Leachy Sorbet and F and Shave Foil.
Michael Jacober (33:11.372)
Yeah, yeah.
Xavier Mariezcurrena Vega (33:16.918)
Okay. So one of the team members that is still with us today was really, really sharp. And I'm like, all right, listen, dude, there's a whole new project. And if we can get this to work, I think it can open doors for us in terms of other companies we work with. It's also gonna really prove out that this is a valuable service. Our goal was to convert purchase orders that were being made and compete, attach an invoice image to them.
And make validated data. So for example, they may order 10 pounds of big eye tuna, but you know, they might receive bluefin and it might only be 8.42 pounds. So we've got to make the adjustment of how much quality was received, maybe adjust the per pound price if it's a different spec on tuna, and then alert them that hey, you didn't get the spec that you ordered. And that goes, I mean, imagine a place like Momofuku.
They have like seven different kinds of soy sauce. You know what I mean? Like it's it's not an easy, it's not a cookie cutter place to start doing this work with. But what it did was it really forced us to dive into minutia on a level that even at my experience with blind and all that stuff in those days, I never had exposure to. And more importantly, we grew confidence in our ability to cross train people and we got exposure to some of the hardest invoice processing to do from the beginning.
And then, you know, as you're as you learn systems and how to train and how to create awareness and how to help a team member. And let's be honest, right? Like these guys are processing invoices for Domain Romani Conti. They're like, There's bottles of wine that are $1,500. And I'm like, Yeah, crazy world out there. And then it's like, you know, what are truffles? And you know, so dude, we would do
We would do cheese tastings. You ever want to like really disappoint a Filipino? Put blue cheese in front of them.
Michael Jacober (35:20.088)
They're
Joshua Sharkey (35:20.558)
They're like,
Xavier Mariezcurrena Vega (35:22.092)
You guys eat this, right?
Michael Jacober (35:24.524)
Yeah.
Joshua Sharkey (35:26.382)
I mean, yeah, they got a few things on their end. trust me. Breakfast
Xavier Mariezcurrena Vega (35:30.254)
Smells like, you know, somebody forgot fish on the dock. So
Joshua Sharkey (35:34.926)
Isn't there like an egg? There's like a isn't there like a fermented egg or something that they eat?
Xavier Mariezcurrena Vega (35:38.222)
There's a fermented egg, which is which is more of a snack that's balut. they they sell it a 7 Eleven here, right? It's like the it's like the partially developed chicken or duck embryo. I've had it once, and once was enough. It doesn't taste bad, but it looks horrific. It's one of those, you know, when you see like feathers and a beak, it's it's hard, it's hard to unsee that.
But look, B A L B T.
Joshua Sharkey (36:08.75)
Yeah, I don't you know what? I I'll eat I'll eat anything, but I don't really have a desire to eat that. I remember when I was in Iceland and I ate the shark and I was like, Yeah, I don't know.
Xavier Mariezcurrena Vega (36:16.75)
It's fermented.
Michael Jacober (36:19.822)
It was it was gross. It was gross.
Joshua Sharkey (36:21.718)
Terrific. Like you know, at some point you just guys can maybe this tradition is just done. How about that? Can a little silbacha? Can a little
Xavier Mariezcurrena Vega (36:28.48)
Suraja hook that thing up so that you're at least like or no.
Joshua Sharkey (36:32.152)
Yeah. no. No, it was it was not good. Not and it's just like, you know, you eat it just to say that you ate it. And it's like Yeah. Really? That's why
Xavier Mariezcurrena Vega (36:40.418)
Well, in in you know, in my case it was it was a hazing moment where I wanted to prove to the family and to the you know, the team that I was open minded enough to participate and I participated once and I won't participate again. That's it.
Michael Jacober (36:58.946)
That I gotta say, that's that thou that's pretty gnarly. It's sharp. No, no, the bul the bullet, the bullet.
Xavier Mariezcurrena Vega (37:05.676)
Yeah, I know. No, trust me.
Joshua Sharkey (37:07.354)
Are you looking at it right now, Mike?
Michael Jacober (37:08.736)
yeah, it's it's it's dark. It it's a dark
Xavier Mariezcurrena Vega (37:11.13)
Be able to sleep tonight. That now that we've taught brought this up, I won't be able to sleep tonight.
Joshua Sharkey (37:15.694)
Well, yeah. We're gonna we're gonna get into a little bit more food in a minute, but I wanna get your thoughts on I mean, I when I first met you guys, I think I was when I was at Orify and we like switched from plate IQ to shoebox. Okay. when we were with three sixty five. Game changer, by the way. Cool. That's when I first met you guys. So that was eleven years ago, I think. Wow. So you've you've been at this for a while. Yes. I wanna know you've seen it all, right? You've seen it all happen over the past, you know, I mean at least for the last
decade or so. Couple questions for you. Sure. Because you guys work mostly with like accounting software, back office software, and those the firms that ha that that manage those bookkeepers. Yep. So two questions. Sure. One, are bookkeepers going extinct now with AI?
Xavier Mariezcurrena Vega (38:04.558)
Two.
Joshua Sharkey (38:06.04)
What are like the biggest flaws or the biggest flaw that you see in back office systems that you're like, fuck, why don't you just fix this?
Xavier Mariezcurrena Vega (38:16.334)
Okay. So first bookkeepers are not going anywhere. Here's here's why.
Joshua Sharkey (38:21.198)
Tell me why.
Michael Jacober (38:22.434)
Yeah. I I I wanna I wanna hear this. 'Cause I I I I have a different perspective.
Xavier Mariezcurrena Vega (38:28.942)
Okay. Okay. Here's the thing. Yeah. Elon Musk is gonna have robots out there. Elon Musk, right? He's gonna have robots out there driving self automated taxis. I'm sure Bezos is gonna build a robot that can fucking go through a warehouse and automatically pick shit. I'm sure the US government has a robot that can pinpoint your fucking heartbeat.
Find you and kill you where we stand right now. But who gives a shit about helping a bagel shop figure out how to make another $400 a month? Like, ultimately will it happen? Maybe in a decade, maybe in 15 years, maybe we'll figure it out. But who's gonna dump the money in to really suss out, A, all the different chart of accounts, all the different ways that people like their books done, all the different period accounting, you know.
Sage hasn't done it. They don't give a shit. you know, R365 is going to do their very best, but there's not one restaurant group that has the same set of books that does a third-party delivery the same way to reconcile it to, you know, there's not like a some standard uniform way that accounting happens across the restaurant industry. Subway has their systems, McDonald's has their systems, Tacobell has their systems. And I mean, those systems.
even require the review. The entire system is so reliant on the operator's layer that's at the store level, that's receiving cash in many cases, that, you know, has third-party delivery drivers that are grabbing the wrong thing. You know, staff is eating some food, forgetting to put invoices in the scan pile. You know, the process is not built around structure. The process is built around survival. And
Ultimately, at the end of the day, there are so many things that you're dependent on from the people who are in the restaurant. And these people are incredible, but they're not administrative geniuses. They're not, in many cases, like people that do well behind a seated desk format. They're great on their feet. They're great interacting. They're great problem solving. They're great with fire. They're great.
Xavier Mariezcurrena Vega (40:55.894)
you know, handling guest complaints. They're great diffusing. They're great, you know, the dishwashers just cut their finger. my God. All right. Well, when you get a second, you're the bar back. I want you to go back and you need to wash dishes every 15 minutes. I'll remind you if I can't get to them. Like they're incredibly smart and sharp on their feet, but they're not like they're not administrative taskmasters. Right. And that's it's the major reason I got into the industry. I like
On being on my feet. I like interacting with people. I like smelling. I like knowing, garlic's getting toasted. Start a new pin. You know what I mean? Like that kind of stuff is what we're good at. And so we're so reliant on the store level to provide us with the information that we need that, you know, there's no closed perfect system that is gonna allow us to really attack this problem in a way that is scalable.
And I don't believe anybody's really gonna invest the money in trying to figure it out when at the end of the day, what's what's the other side of them figuring it out? That restaurants now hammer them on price because they have six units and they're going to seven? Like
Joshua Sharkey (42:07.086)
Well what's the what's the sorry, let maybe we should level something like define define the scope of a bookkeeper.
Michael Jacober (42:13.538)
Yeah, what is what is the bookkeeper responsible for?
Xavier Mariezcurrena Vega (42:16.782)
Okay. So first, everything everything starts with sales, obviously, right? Top line revenue is is the most important piece in the cycle. So first you need to make sure that you're getting the money that you're owed. And that is all driven from the POS. Once that comes in, the POS itself, in how it's built, can have a bunch of failure points. But let's just say, for example, the, you know, there's a new special, a new manager steps in.
They decided to make an open item button. Now Josh's system is messed up because we don't know what depletion looks like. Now, you know, for example, open fish. What does open fish mean? Was it the salmon? Was it the swordfish? Was it the halibut? We have no idea. Right? Now, was the button made as food? Let's hope so, because it comes with a certain tax that's assigned to it. But if it's not assigned to the right button and a he accidentally or she accidentally put the swordfish button or the open fish button under liquor.
Now the wrong tax is being assigned in some states. You know what I mean? There's there's incredible trickle down effects that you never think of. So bookkeepers responsible for viewing all that.
Michael Jacober (43:22.446)
Okay, what does the review actually look like?
Xavier Mariezcurrena Vega (43:27.896)
The review looks like, all right, there's a new button that came in from the POS.
Joshua Sharkey (43:32.12)
Hold on, I wanna that what you're talking about makes total sense. I see that as like either you have somebody or you have like over easy office that has to do that and you gotta follow up on that. But I don't I when I think of a bookkeeper, I think of just the very basic like I have my purchases, I need to make journal entries.
Michael Jacober (43:53.248)
Enter month journal entries, bank reconciliations, okay mapping tran mapping transactions, invoice processing in some capacity, but invoice processing doesn't really fall under the bookkeeper anymore because that's an outsource service.
Joshua Sharkey (44:00.344)
Yes.
Joshua Sharkey (44:06.802)
Yeah, I th so for for context, like yes, in the restaurant, to be able to do what a bookkeeper needs to do, all the stuff you just mentioned has to happen. Right? You have to make sure that things are mapped and
Xavier Mariezcurrena Vega (44:19.886)
Cash shorts. Are your deposit like look, there's there's an expectation of a bookkeeper that is literally just a ubiquitous team member that doesn't add value. They're just an administrative tie end tire, right? And then there's a bookkeeper that actually adds value. And that bookkeeper should be letting you know if the deposit slip for store eight that was due $148 but never made a deposit, they should be telling you that.
They should say, Hey, we never got cash with store number eight. What's going on? And then they should tell you.
Michael Jacober (44:54.146)
How do they identify that? How does that how does that level of bookkeeper I identify that issue?
Xavier Mariezcurrena Vega (44:59.278)
They're logging into the bank to see if a deposit was made that they can tie back out to the POS journal entry for cash owed.
Michael Jacober (45:05.678)
Okay, so let me ask you this. If you have a plaid integration, right? So you're able to get access to all your bank your bank recs, an agent can have access to to plaid.
Sure. So an agent can actually see the bank transactions. Now go to the POS. So POS transactions come in. Mm-hmm. Why can't an agent this is a digital view, like a digital transaction that comes in through that that is now even whether it's a direct feed from the POS or there's a login that you need to go into and look at the bat. An agent can do both of those things and can compare. So
What is where is the human in the loop in that just in that function, where is the human in the loop required?
Xavier Mariezcurrena Vega (45:55.636)
Sometimes you may have to solve for two-factor authentication. Sometimes you may have to solve for the fact of whether Plaid is integrated with that bank or not. Sometimes you might have to solve for if there is a problem with the POS. Allah, hey, cash owed was negative $582. Why? so and so, one of our investors came in for dinner last night.
I didn't have the ability or the access to put a house account button in for clearing that table, it's still open.
Michael Jacober (46:27.886)
So what you're saying is coordination coordination between communicating with the store level team if there is a if there's an anomaly, basically get being able to dig deeper into information.
Xavier Mariezcurrena Vega (46:41.644)
And don't get me wrong, Mike. Don't get me wrong. There are plenty of things that I think technology can solve for and that we're trying to solve for. It's not to say that that it's like an endless pit. What I'm saying is for the level of nuance and detail that the industry requires to actually get high quality numbers, I think that it's going to be a long time before there is actual relevant data.
Michael Jacober (46:50.222)
Yeah.
Xavier Mariezcurrena Vega (47:10.658)
That allows you to make proactive decisions. Because AI is great at getting you 80 to 85% of the way there, depending on the process. Sometimes 100, sure, right? But like sometimes 100 is not valuable in accounting when two to five percent is what you're scratching the surface on in terms of your margins. And if, for example, you have an invoice that comes in.
And the invoice says you ordered X amount of wine. Let's say it's $10,000. But on the bottom, a handwritten, which is AI has a very hard time processing and reviewing handwritten invoices. Yeah. Yeah. Right? It says returned case broken. But then there's no but no human in the loop to verify this data. And all of a sudden an invoice makes into the system for ten thousand dollars. And then all of a sudden you pay that invoice.
What happens to cash?
Joshua Sharkey (48:08.078)
I think I I think this is kind of where I was also saying, like, you know, define bookkeeper because I think what you're saying makes total sense. And I think this is also what what you all do really well. Because in the restaurant space, unlike a lot of other industries, it's all in the margins. Yeah. You know, like the like a typical bookkeeper, if you just go on wherever and find a bookkeeper, they're like, Okay, give me your invoices and I'm gonna put them in account in your quick books. And it's very it's very straightforward. And and a lot of that stuff we're just like
You already have the information and you're just transferring it to another place. Yeah. That that I mean, there's a lot of bookkeepers that that's their that's their job, you know. And y you know, not not in the restaurant space. So it it would seem like maybe restaurants just never are aren't just are just aren't using those types of bookkeepers and they just need somebody that's more broad stroke. But the but now then the job becomes way more breadth that you can have. So if all that stuff's taken care of, you can actually have more, you know.
Xavier Mariezcurrena Vega (49:05.198)
I would imagine it would work, right? Because we talked about a lot about robotics at the last. I didn't get a chance to go to this RNRA, but we talked a lot about robotics in the last NRA, and I'm sure it's still a hot topic. I do look, there's a great opportunity to automate so much within the administrative side and the back office side, but I think there needs to be a net new buy-in with once a company establishes and they need to have the money to really weather the storm in terms of getting adoption and getting people to buy in.
If you could fit operations into your system, then I think there's a chance, right? I think there's a chance for this type of system to automate entire workflows. But think about think about me going to a 50 unit restaurant group that has 25 years of financials. They're always doing period review. They're doing year by year review. They want to know what happened last year versus this year. And then I'm asking them, hey,
I can save you X amount of dollars in your bookkeeping or in your clothes p time if you're if you retrofit your details into a system that allows for a much more regimented and automated system.
Michael Jacober (50:18.702)
It's hard.
Xavier Mariezcurrena Vega (50:21.014)
It's hard. And look, the does I think the restaurant industry deserves every advantage it can get. And I think with the future, the way it looks to me is that they're gonna need every single advantage that they can get. But that said, I think there is way too much, you know, the hype machine right now. In a lot of ways, I think there's so many great things AI can do, and I'm playing with it a lot more than I ever have.
But you know, there also is a hype machine behind it that isn't necessarily like in defense in government contracts. I could see robotics exploding. same with industry, same with large scale warehousing. And you know what mean? But in terms of it ever like I I don't see the local operator, I don't see the operator of less than 100 units even sniffing.
Joshua Sharkey (51:19.582)
hundred percent agree. Because the challenge is the infrastructure. Like if you want to start using robots, you gotta rebuild your kitchen, which none of them have the capex to do. You know, and then the only way this works
Michael Jacober (51:32.238)
Administrative.
Joshua Sharkey (51:34.742)
Well, yeah, I think we're X was talking about robots now. I think there's there's a Okay, yeah. The only world that that works in, I think, is if the companies actually fund it. If there's a long tail, but who's gonna fund that if you don't know if that restaurant's gonna be open? You know, 'cause you could say, you know what, I'm gonna fund you rebuilding your infrastructure and you're gonna use all my robots. If you know that the long tail on that is or if the you know, if the the life of that use of your of your robots in that kitchen is ten years, you you probably would fund it and
And make your money back and then the kitchen wins as well. But that's a hard sell for most most restaurants.
Xavier Mariezcurrena Vega (52:10.51)
To your point, Mike, look, I I'm not gonna if I had a third of the tools that are currently available to restaurant operations, I may I I wouldn't have been pissed off enough to build what we've built. It was at a pure.
Michael Jacober (52:26.776)
Of course. Yeah. You built this at a time, I mean, I wish I had known about it in I mean I had a full time I had a full time office administrator that did all like like full time when I had when I had two restaurants. Yeah. Right. And that was and that person worked, you know, forty to fifty hours a week and wasn't
Joshua Sharkey (52:42.167)
Right.
Joshua Sharkey (52:49.582)
Overboard.
Xavier Mariezcurrena Vega (52:50.476)
And think about it, we're doing sales validation, we're doing bank recks, we're doing third party delivery, we're letting you know if your cash over short is changed, we're letting you know if a check was written from the checkbook and we don't know who it's for or who it's from. A new vendor comes in, a different pack size and your garlic is here. You know, like if if a a table's still open, somebody forgot to clock out. I mean, we're exhaustive in our processes because we know how important it is to have real information to make decisions.
But you're getting that, Mike, for literally the cost of a of a dry edge quarter house every week.
Joshua Sharkey (53:29.678)
I think for a lot of a lot of restaurants, it's you know, for especially for what you guys do, it just makes way more sense because the the notion of I'm gonna build or or or there will be these things available where I can sort of automate all this stuff. One, most people just won't have time, won't do it right, won't be able to upkeep it. But again, it's all just on the margins. All the things on the margins are actually what makes it difficult. Yeah. You know, if everything was was like super straightforward and every time Jeff Warehouse sends you garlic.
And it's a five pound tub, the right skew comes in and it's actually a five pound tub and not four or five pound tubs and the you know if that always happened exactly the same way and that when you've got a credit, you know if none of that ever, you know, happened, it'd be really straightforward. But yeah, I again I think in restaurants that's just the norm. That is actually it's not the edge case.
Xavier Mariezcurrena Vega (54:16.984)
You're dealing with nature. You're dealing with nature and you're dealing with people, and it's it's what makes it beautiful, right? I mean, please, yeah.
Joshua Sharkey (54:23.116)
Other question is the you work with so many systems. Yeah. And obviously they've improved a lot. But like what is the what is what are the biggest flaws or things that like you get most frustrated with in these back office systems and accounting systems that you're that you work with?
Xavier Mariezcurrena Vega (54:41.142)
I'm removed from the day-to-day now. So I I'm not necessarily like entrenched in systems. What I will say can be frustrating is many platforms out there spend all their dollars on the outreach and marketing piece and don't actually do anything to level up their platform. And we're constantly investing them. I know you guys are, Josh.
constantly investing in in creating a better, stickier product. And I I've seen a world where PE has come in to really usher a new era in restaurant technology, but in many cases it doesn't it doesn't that doesn't add more value necessarily in the in the in the product itself or in the user experience or in the feature set. It's really just throwing salespeople out there and trying to
you know, win the game of numbers. I think that's honestly the most frustrating part is and you know, trust me, restaurants are they're they're loud and they're they voice their opinions and I do wish that companies would invest more in the quality of product.
Joshua Sharkey (55:55.246)
So you're not day to day 'cause you're you know, you're traveling between Bogota,
Xavier Mariezcurrena Vega (56:01.548)
Well, I mean, look, I mean, there's four hundred team members out here and they're all fantastic. And we've we've got an onboarding team, we've got a recurring services team, we've got a data team, we've got a data management team, we've got an IT team. And I don't want to do accounting. So I I'll let them do what they're good at. And I my job is to get out there and make great relationships and meet cool people. And it's it's hard to gain the trust, you know. It's it's I understand the level of trust.
Michael Jacober (56:16.522)
Yeah.
Xavier Mariezcurrena Vega (56:29.89)
that our clients and our, you know, our partners give to us. So thank you. And but at the end of the day, like, you know, I take it super seriously and I I love what I do, but I definitely am not good at that stuff. You know, like not comparing myself to anybody like, but you know, Steve Jobs didn't do development. I'd prefer not to do accounting. Even though that's what I sell.
Joshua Sharkey (56:53.718)
How do you spend your weeks now? 'Cause I when I talk to you, you're your smokings and you'll mean you're you
Michael Jacober (56:58.562)
Are you mostly I mean, is majority of your job business development? or is there is there still an operational component to your day to day?
Xavier Mariezcurrena Vega (57:06.872)
So there's quite a bit of flow in the focus, right? And usually quarterly, we will take like a a chunk of goals and really try to hammer home on those. So last year was really focused on updating the over easy office brand and getting out there more and creating a better a better a better footprint in terms of our website and getting marketing to a place. We've got we've hired great
marketing team and they're doing excellent. So right now, back to you, Mike, we've built some incredible tools for A autum AI automation within our processes. but the team is not engaging the way that I we want them to. And my job here for the next couple of weeks is to really beat the drum of one, why these are important. Two
how much more valuable as team members they become when they when they really embrace the tools, give us feedback. And more importantly, can two, three, and five X their ability to to bring on new clients. And you know, we really want to be on the forefront of this service enabled technology or technology enabled service. And and and and more importantly, I just I know that the future is is going to be tougher than it is going to be blue sky in terms of
restaurants and their ability to to remain solvent and sustainable. So I I have very much on my mind how do we create the most impeccable product that gives the best insights and the most value for operators who are constantly just having to deal with, you know, new tax codes and increasing costs for labor. And I mean, dude, I don't know if you guys have seen the cost of tomatoes lately. It's insane. I don't know what's happening. There's so much just
everything feels it like it's just so much in flux just on the world stage. And it worries me that restaurants will bear the brunt of a lot of this because the consumer is less competent, because things are more expensive to operate. And ultimately at the end of the day, restaurants are what make any one of our neighborhoods and communities cool and fun and unique. And I don't want to live in the world that, you know, it's Best Buy, Red Lobster, and you know, is Best Buy still a thing?
Xavier Mariezcurrena Vega (59:30.102)
Yeah. And bath bad bath and beyond. I was I mean, you know that shopping center where that has just that stick it in there, like you know what I mean? The playbook. I don't want to live in a world like that. I wanna live in a world where the the corner pub is still thriving, where the dive bar is still pouring till ten, you know, two thirty in the morning, even though it's a little bit later than they're supposed to. But like I want that world. Yeah, tell.
Joshua Sharkey (59:54.414)
You know what's interesting? Food has been going up in price consistently over the past like five, six, seven years. You know that the the the the price of marijuana just keeps dropping? It's like down another seventeen percent.
Xavier Mariezcurrena Vega (01:00:10.156)
What's marijuana?
Joshua Sharkey (01:00:12.256)
it's a it's a it's an herb. you can you can you can eat it in a gummy, smoke there's lots of ways you can do it. You can get it in a dispensary. It the price keeps going down. How's that possible?
Xavier Mariezcurrena Vega (01:00:23.018)
Well, as this is one of the major things I worry about with things like anthropic and, you know, OpenAI and Claude and all the replets of the world. Once they have you hooked, my friend, once you decided the your your late night old fashioned is no longer gonna be your nighttime, you know, meditative moment of the evening, and you decide that you want to do a nice little tele ten milligram dummy or
You know, your little half grim pre-roll. And this is what I've read. You know, there will be a moment when, you know, the the the the financial powers that be say, I want my cut now. You know, I used to be able to get a ride from my house to the Philadelphia airport for about fifteen dollars. The last time I did that from the Italian market to the Philadelphia airport, it was like seventy some dollars. And
Joshua Sharkey (01:01:18.4)
As well.
Michael Jacober (01:01:18.84)
You're you're referring to a ride chair or like a yeah.
Xavier Mariezcurrena Vega (01:01:22.776)
So there will be a moment in joy. Maybe you should stock. I don't know if there's a way.
Joshua Sharkey (01:01:27.658)
I'm not I I actually I mean in all in all fairness, I actually d don't do do much anymore. It's been many years, but I was actually just Googling because I'm like, yeah, I'm saying, I want to what the price of tomato is, and then I was just curious, has the price of marijuana dropped? And I don't know if you know this, 'cause you know, people are drinking way less alcohol these days. it's just going down precipitously. Yeah. I heard recently that a lot of people are switching to micro dosing of ketamine instead of alcohol. Have you heard?
Michael Jacober (01:01:56.385)
Very interesting.
Xavier Mariezcurrena Vega (01:01:57.656)
Yeah, I I have a couple friends who are on that boat. They're really sweet. They're really kind. You know, they don't fight in their relationships anymore. And I'm like, dude, you are not the chef that I fell in love with. What happened? You used to have opinions. You used to get pissed off when people left the fucking, you know, like taped the wrong way on the core container. Now, you know what I mean? He's like, well, you know, taxes went up, no biggie.
Michael Jacober (01:02:11.092)
Do you
Xavier Mariezcurrena Vega (01:02:27.308)
And I'm like, come on, bro. What's going on here? But yeah, it's a kidamine the thing now.
Joshua Sharkey (01:02:31.638)
It's a thing. Yeah, no it's a thing.
Xavier Mariezcurrena Vega (01:02:33.706)
Psychedelics, there's all kinds of things now that are good for you, except for a glass of red wine. That's not good for you anymore.
Joshua Sharkey (01:02:40.494)
That's what I'm saying. I don't do they say that is that actually the the case? It can't be By the way, there's just no possible way that's true. Because any in moderation, other than like things like crack, maybe, but like you can't tell me that a beautiful bottle of wine that was made by this producer who's been doing this for multiple generations, that that glass of wine is bad for you. I'm sorry. It's just no, there's just no way.
Michael Jacober (01:02:44.194)
That has yeah.
Joshua Sharkey (01:03:09.324)
Now, if you drink that every day, fifteen glasses a day and you start at ten in the morning, sure. Then you're friends Then you're friend. There's just no way. There's just no way that like that that that is now officially bad.
Xavier Mariezcurrena Vega (01:03:22.83)
Josh, I'm with here's the thing. I'm sure that we're gonna look back on this in like forty years. You and I will be holding hands in the hospital. We'll be, you know, like looking back, wondering, you know, maybe we shouldn't have had that extra glass of of coconut.
Joshua Sharkey (01:03:38.094)
What is it, by the way, also, what does that matter? Like if you if you're eighty, eighty five, ninety, whatever, and you got to enjoy those things. When I like I I couldn't drink for fifteen years. I've been talking about this too long now, but like now our buddy Matt has sent me an enormous amount of wine. And when I sit down, when I do have a time, which is not very often, but like once a week, if I sit and I have a glass of wine, I'm like, this is fucking amazing. This is amazing.
Xavier Mariezcurrena Vega (01:04:02.234)
I'm with you. It's meditative. It's a moment to like use your olfactory senses. You connect with memories. It gives you a chance to like pause and just be in the moment. It's for me, wine it specifically is like it's such a cathartic, relaxing like any any any cortisol spike of my day, the moment I put my nut my nose into a beautiful glass of wine.
Joshua Sharkey (01:04:27.916)
Yeah, dude. Two bottles. Pick two bottles if you could only get infinite number of cases of two bottles of wine the rest of your life. And and by the way, just to make it like not a thing, no champagne. I'm sorry, Cindy. I met Cindy on and she's like only because that's an obvious answer, maybe
Xavier Mariezcurrena Vega (01:04:46.094)
So I I'll go with the wines that I would get because I haven't sold my
Joshua Sharkey (01:04:49.59)
And and and I'm also gonna say don't who cares about pairing? Just like two glasses of wine that you would just want to drink.
Xavier Mariezcurrena Vega (01:04:54.893)
No.
One would be this specific vintage twenty nineteen Guillen Bartod Le Fouet Chambon Moussagny. It's a small production, incredibly high quality producer that makes beautiful, elegant, but long lived red wines from a little village called Chambon Moussagny from a little vineyard called Le Fouet. I feel her wines are undervalued. I feel like they are the most incredible.
Incredible representation of somebody who invests their time in the land, and it's a family operation. and it's still a relative value compared to all the crazy prices you could play for Burgundy. So that would be my red wine, and my white wine would probably be I'd go with a 2017.
Vincent Dobisat, La Forêt Chablis. He makes Grand Cruz and he makes all kinds of more expensive wines, but I feel like just for the price that this wine punches way above its weight. and it's again like small vineyard, incredible producer, somebody who really lets the land do the work and doesn't overfuss in the winery. I'm sure Matt Brownway
It's called a Vincent Dovisat, the producer. And Laf La Forêt is the vineyard. And twenty seventeen was just a great year for white wines in Burgundy. And it's a Shibley for make crew. I'm sure that Matt Maddie Conway would be upset that I didn't call out some Roan producer or some Barolo producer. But you know, that's we're all snowflakes. Everybody gets to choose their their path.
Joshua Sharkey (01:06:51.118)
That's right. Well and can you buy these like from a distributor or is this one of these like you gotta have a production kind of
Xavier Mariezcurrena Vega (01:06:55.842)
Find them on the
Michael Jacober (01:06:57.336)
Yeah, I'm looking at it right now.
Xavier Mariezcurrena Vega (01:06:59.404)
Yeah. And if you can't find them online, then you hit me up and you know, we could figure it out.
Joshua Sharkey (01:07:05.822)
I'm gonna the next time we are in New York, this is what we're drinking, I'm gonna get some right now. I tried to write down what you said. I'll text it. It came up with I found it.
Xavier Mariezcurrena Vega (01:07:18.574)
I'll text it.
Michael Jacober (01:07:19.886)
La Ferre is is not cheap. This is a I'm seeing it.
Joshua Sharkey (01:07:25.134)
twenty seventeen Davisat Chablis La La F La Four La Forest, is that how you
Xavier Mariezcurrena Vega (01:07:29.932)
It's it's spelled La Foresse, but in in the Frenchies want you to work hard for everything, so they c they say La Forêt.
Joshua Sharkey (01:07:36.128)
Okay. Gotcha. I found it.
Michael Jacober (01:07:38.51)
I'm seeing it for three fifty. That's
Joshua Sharkey (01:07:41.196)
And
Xavier Mariezcurrena Vega (01:07:41.326)
Anyway, that's a little higher. That's a little higher of a price than you should be paying. Around two to two twenty five is is is the appropriate price for it.
Michael Jacober (01:07:45.422)
Two hundred
Joshua Sharkey (01:07:51.054)
Okay. Where do you buy your wine?
Xavier Mariezcurrena Vega (01:07:53.452)
So I have a lot of friends that are in the industry and I'm I'm lucky enough that one of my friends is an importer. I have a couple of friends that are distributors. So I am lucky in that they will often sell to me at their landed cost. and I can skip the two second and third tier of the system, which definitely makes things better.
Yeah. All right. Because it lands it to the importer, then they have to sell it to their distributors, and then the distributors will sell it to a restaurant or a wholesaler, then they put their markup on it. So something might land for fifty bucks. Everything. Not everything, but but many things. I I take advantage of that.
Michael Jacober (01:08:26.678)
You can get it at the importer.
Joshua Sharkey (01:08:32.942)
Check out on corkage fees. Okay.
Xavier Mariezcurrena Vega (01:08:35.502)
Great question. I feel restaurants should embrace the corkage fee and and s do service appropriately and invite people. So here's my thing, right? Here's my thing. Let's say I want to bring in a bottle of wine that you can't get anymore that I know is gonna go great with with your food. And I really want to enjoy it. Here's the way I see it. I should be able to buy the cheapest wine on your list.
Whether it's the forty dollar Pinot Grigio or the hundred dollar, you know, I know how prices are today. Maybe it's a Fiano da Avellino in a New York Italian restaurant for 90 bucks. I should be able to say, hey, I brought in my own wine. I want you to make full infinity cost on, you know what I mean? Like zero cost of goods. I'm gonna buy the cheapest bottle of wine on your list. And then let me open my wine and enjoy it with your incredible food. And I'll tip.
on the wine that I would have opened from your seller, except now you have zero cost of goods. That's how I think it should work.
Joshua Sharkey (01:09:41.016)
That's a great first of all, it's a great heuristic of how to think about a cortgage fee. It just look at what's your cheapest bottle of wine and then twenty percent markup on that for tip. And that's your corkage fee. And still that's e also just easy enough to just do, it's just say 'cause you can't really do much with that bottle that you buy. It's just like that that heuristic of okay, our cheapest bottle is twenty one dollars. I'm gonna add five bucks on top or tw
Xavier Mariezcurrena Vega (01:09:52.056)
Yeah. Everybody wins. You
Joshua Sharkey (01:10:09.774)
Four bucks on top, whatever. And so our cook could be twenty five bucks. Yeah. Is that how they work? I have no idea how people think of
Xavier Mariezcurrena Vega (01:10:15.486)
It's arbitrary. I think that, you know, some some restaurants will charge 30, some restaurants will charge 50, some restaurants will charge 75. I was at a restaurant in in San Francisco that's a fancy restaurant and they charge me a hundred. But ultimately, for me, like the wine is such an experience. You know, if I want to bring in a beautiful bottle of burgundy or a beautiful bottle of champagne, or as long as it's not on your list, right? If it's on your list, then I get like no way. Like that's not fair.
Joshua Sharkey (01:10:44.942)
Well I don't know if anybody does do people do that? That's that that that makes no sense.
Xavier Mariezcurrena Vega (01:10:47.596)
Well they do do that. There are people that that I don't like. So if it's not on the list, that's rule number one. And then I would follow that up by all right, whatever the cheapest bottle on the list is, let's add a twenty percent for the server. You're using my glassware, you're using my restaurant. Obviously alcohol is so important to my margins. I get all of that. But then, you know, let's not make a fuss over it. Like, you know, yeah. I'm just trying to have a great time.
Michael Jacober (01:11:04.536)
Yeah.
Joshua Sharkey (01:11:13.786)
Right. What if you have what if you bring four bottles? Is that four X the Corkage fee? Yeah.
Yeah. Oof. All right. I'm That makes sense. No, that makes sense. I think it you
Xavier Mariezcurrena Vega (01:11:25.07)
You're getting hammered. I got a service. You're gonna use my glassware. You know, the whole thing.
Joshua Sharkey (01:11:31.65)
Yeah. That makes sense. All right. X, I wish we had another three hours. But what time is it by the way, where you are?
Xavier Mariezcurrena Vega (01:11:39.146)
It is ten fifty one in the eating.
Michael Jacober (01:11:42.03)
Twelve hours you're twelve hours ahead.
Joshua Sharkey (01:11:43.704)
Dude.
Xavier Mariezcurrena Vega (01:11:44.446)
that's the magic of Manila. No, it's cool because look, what's cool is most of the most of our clients are waking up now and the majority of yesterday's work is done. They're waking up to emails. They know exactly what punch list items they have to work on. They have they have a forward look at their financials, they have yesterday's P and L ready to rock and roll. And and the team here is finishing up their day and they're gonna go home and relax, maybe drink some beers, maybe
Eat some semi developed chicken eggs.
Michael Jacober (01:12:18.328)
Ba balut Balut. Yeah. Can't I can't unsee it. I can't unsee it.
Xavier Mariezcurrena Vega (01:12:21.063)
Xavier Mariezcurrena Vega (01:12:26.904)
Told you you shouldn't have looked it up, man. It's like soft. Like once once once it's there, it's hard to pull it out.
Joshua Sharkey (01:12:35.31)
Thanks, brother. I missed ya in Chicago.
Xavier Mariezcurrena Vega (01:12:41.945)
man, I'm looking forward to gonna be at you gonna go back to RFP C this year?
Joshua Sharkey (01:12:46.58)
yes. cool. I think the only thing that we're actually sponsoring is F FS Tech and Create. I'll be there just to, you know, see our customers and partners and stuff.
Xavier Mariezcurrena Vega (01:12:56.792)
All right, sweet. I look forward to seeing you soon, man, 'cause I always have great time when I hang. And Mike, man, I hope I get to see you I hope to get to meet you in the flesh sometime soon.
Michael Jacober (01:13:04.672)
Likewise, it was great to great to meet you over over a pod.
Joshua Sharkey (01:13:09.068)
Yeah, that could probably be at R D C too, I think. Okay.
Michael Jacober (01:13:11.416)
Cool.
Xavier Mariezcurrena Vega (01:13:13.324)
All right, sweet.
Joshua Sharkey (01:13:14.744)
Thanks so much for listening to the show. If you liked this episode or any other ones, you can actually check out more of this at getmes.com slash josh. That's G-E-T-M-E-E-Z slash J-O-S-H. I have my podcast there, the Mees Podcast, plus some other shows and interviews. Starting to write some stories and blog posts, some recipes, recaps, things like that. So I think you'll enjoy it. Again, it's getme's dot com slash josh.
Double Easy dot com slash J O S H. Thank you very much. Very grateful for all of you.
