David Birner

00:00Welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio, the tastiest hour of talk in Music City. Now here's your host, Brandon Styll. Hello Music City and welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio. My name is Brandon Styll and I am your host. We are powered by Gordon Food Service. We're going to be joined shortly with Caroline Galzin, our amazing co-host. Today's guest is David Berner and he is a commercial sales manager at Gordon Food Service. And I'm just super excited to talk to him. I'm going to talk to him more of just a second, tell you about this episode. We have a few announcements to make, a couple of things happening in the city that I want to talk about that are really cool. If you have an announcement, if you've got something cool, an event, charity event, something like that that you're working on, tag us in the post that you're posting or use the hashtag the roundup, hashtag the roundup and we will get to it.

01:13We will talk about it. I would love to talk about promote some things that you guys are doing out there. And I will tell you that the ACF Middle Tennessee chapter is back and that's the American Culinary Federation. On September 25th at Nashville State Community College at 5 p.m. they will be hosting a meeting. And at this meeting, Edgar Pendley will be speaking and talking about what he does. And there's a raffle. It's just it's a good way for everybody to connect. Tom Neville is running this thing now and he's doing a great job. Also on September 25th is the Giving Kitchens golf tournament. If you haven't, I think it's sold out, but if you're going, then I'll see you there. I'm excited to be there. Another thing that's happening on October the 1st is the Cletus Burger Bash. So if you are a hamburger lover, this is where it's at. OK, here's the deals. It's going to be on October the 1st from 5 to 10 p.m. It's at Cletus Burger on Elmhill Pike and it is going to be Cletus Burger, Bad Luck Burger Club, Dream Burger and Cabin Attic Burger.

02:24They're going to be cooking up burgers and see how many times I can say burger in a 60 second span. 100% of the proceeds will provide meals for the hungry and unhoused. It is very close to Shane Nasby's heart and I definitely think you should get out there. I'm going to try and make it October the 1st. I'd love to see you there. Do you want to say Chago's Cantina, Chago's Belmont Cantina, our new iteration, which is one of my restaurants, is going to, it is open. We are officially open and we're on Belmont Boulevard every single day of the week, from 11 o'clock until 8 o'clock and then on the weekends until 9. Those times are fluid. We're going to see what the business does. We may open late night on the weekends for college kids to come in, but very excited. We've done our friends and family the other day and I cannot tell you the stress that is off my shoulders because now we're going. This getting everything going was just a lot and now we are open rocking and rolling.

03:26Come see me over at Chago's Cantina on Belmont. Again, if you want to be a part of this, just tag us in any of your posts about this or use the hashtag the roundup. We'd love to know more about it. So in this episode with David Berner, we're going to discuss the current state of the industry here in Nashville and I love his perspective because he is one of those people who's out there. He's in the market. One of the things he says is he's seeing more checks bounce and I think that's a perspective. When you have somebody who's in just tons and tons of restaurants, you get a really good perspective of what's going on. We also discuss spreadsheeting. Are you familiar with this term? Spreadsheeting where you use multiple vendors and you buy the cheapest product. We discuss why this practice just doesn't work and it's really me that explains why this practice doesn't work. I explain the math behind it. This part of the episode will save you money. This part of the episode will make your restaurant better if you're listening. Would love your feedback on this one. I may do a whole episode.

04:26Teach everybody how to do this because there's a lot of verbage and wording that makes sense in this that I can help you get better with your vendor relationships. While we're talking about vendor relationships, you've got to work with your vendors. What we talk about in this episode is why it is important to have the relationship with your vendor and what the benefits are. This is what I'm talking about with our sponsors on the show. It's not just your broadliner. It's your insurance company. We recommend Robin's Insurance Company and Matt Clements, Sharpier's Bakery with Aaron Mosso, Course in Fire with Kevin Rose. What Chefs Want has such amazing people working over there. They want to help you out. And obviously, Gordon Food Service, David Burner and Paul Hunter. And I'm going to put every one of our sponsors' contact information in the show notes. If you're listening to this, go look in the show notes where they are and you can see the phone numbers and how to contact them. I highly recommend you do because these are people that I vetted, that I know, that I trust, that I would love to help them build their business because these are the good guys, the good guys that want to build partnerships with you.

05:33We talk about it more later on the episode, just what those relationships look like and why they are important. So lots of fun things happening today with David Burner and we have our Fantasy Football League and it is going. We're doing a show every week. It is Sunday. I'm recording this on a Sunday, so the football is live right now. Titans won today. We're very excited about that and so that makes it a good week. Hopefully next week will be better. I'm losing right now to Naima but it's an interesting week in the fantasy football world as lots of things are happening and love for you to follow along. Follow us at Nashville underscore restaurant underscore radio on Instagram where I'm posting the matchups. I'll post the league scores at the end of the week. That'll be Tuesday morning. You can follow us and you'll see who's winning in our league and then we'll post the matchups Friday morning when we come out with a brand new episode where we're talking about our matchups. Chef Tony Galzin is the co-host there and he is giving his chef special which is a three-team parlay every week. We're making picks. We have a pick them. It is lots and lots of fun. So that's what we've got going on out there and let's jump in right now with David Berner from GFS. Super excited today to welcome in David Berner. David is a, you just told me your title. I want to call you a district sales manager. Commercial sales manager. Commercial sales manager for Gordon Food Service, our fine title sponsor and we are here live today to talk to him. Hi Caroline. Hi. How's it going guys? Good. Good. We're good. We're good.

07:17It's an exciting beautiful day today. It is a beautiful day today. So kind of we started this. I like to be transparent here because this is a show and what Caroline we were kind of talking like so is this going to be we're having David Berner from GFS and GFS is our title sponsor. Is this going to be like an infomercial? Is this like hey let's talk about how amazing GFS is for an hour and the answer to that is no. I don't want this to be just like how amazing is GFS. I'm going to ask you normal questions that are I'm going to I'm going to I want to know because I think you're an expert. You're an expert in this field. You're an expert with all the restaurants in Nashville and you're you're looking at multiple restaurants at one time and I think that's a really unique perspective and I want to learn more about that. Sure. Is that cool? Yeah. Tell us about yourself. You have three kids. You we're talking about this because you are your headphones. You have one headphone that is off of your ear and I go what's the story with one headphone off the ear? You tell us the story. It stems from I've got a brother-in-law and father-in-law that we all like to jump on at late at night and and play Fortnite and so with three children running around 12, 8, and 6 things are bound to happen. So yeah girl girl boy. So yeah the one the if I get too much noise canceling then then bad things happen and then I end up in trouble for not catching it. So it's it's a quick easy way for me to catch something in the background that I need to nip in the bud but continue to you know blow off some steam and you know play some video games. Are you from Nashville originally? No. So we moved up here my wife and I moved up here about 10 years now in Nash. So I moved up with P.F. Chang's. Oh nice. So yeah I worked my I've been in restaurants in some way shape or form for like the last 20 years. Nice. So I started with Chang's down in down in Naples as a server and worked my way up to. That's where you grew up? Yep worked my way up to general manager.

09:11They moved me up here and I ran the one on West End for call about two years and then I went to Del Frisco's and I opened the Del Frisco's in Brentwood as the opening GM there. Ran around that steakhouse and then one day a guy from GFS came in and said hey man I heard you might want to talk and five years later here I am. And the rest is history. Yep so far so yeah. Nice. So a little bit of corporate restaurant background and definitely you know seeing then with GFS I was business solution specialist so I really got to see you know what what restaurants are doing and kind of help consult and do those types of things with you know with the restaurants and then now back on the sales side. Nice. Yeah well I'm a gigantic restaurant nerd like I love just talking about restaurant concepts philosophies and you and I got to go to Asheville. Yeah it was about two years ago. About two years ago I think it was and Chef Rob and all these people and we we went to Asheville and we ate at like nine different restaurants and ordered like one of everything on the menu and you want to talk about just like the the nerdiest funnest time in the world for somebody like me was just going there and and just talking about food and operations with people for like two straight days. Yeah. It was fantastic. It was funny about that too is like we don't let any of those restaurants know what we're doing we just walk in so I think the first restaurant we walked into we were the first table in the restaurant and you could just hear the printer just going and going and going and you literally saw the chef like turn his head and look out be like what is going on because I think we ordered every single item on the entire menu.

10:40That's awesome. So they were just you know it's a good time. Absolutely. So let's jump right in. Sure. What are you seeing out there? What are you seeing in the world? What is the big trends? Is there anything that's like bubbling up right now that that you're seeing that we should be concerned with or should be on our radar? Well you know trend wise food wise I actually texted Chef Rob the other day and I said true or false? Are you seeing like pickle everything right now because I feel like I'm seeing like pickle everything and he was like so true. So like whether it's pickled dips, pickle ranch, pickle like we're just starting to see just pickles besides being the good old Tennessee fried pickle. We're starting to see pickles all over the place and whether it's a different you know somebody's pickling their own you know in-house or something like that but just kind of getting playful with it and seeing the different from a trend standpoint I was like man I just I feel like I see pickle everything right now. You think that's it right now is a trend? Pickled stuff? He agreed with me you know and I think too the other thing I see like I mean I'm sure you guys are the same I follow a ton of people on like Instagram and just you know you see the different reels and it starts to you know Instagram's always listening and starts to see what you're what you're paying attention to and I was like man I just I see pickled dips.

11:56Yeah pickles just showed up in my feed that's crazy. So you know that sort of thing. One thing I am you know I think you know we kind of talked about it earlier a little bit slower of a summer yeah and one thing that I am seeing that kind of concerns me and not to you know point it but I see a lot of you know just a lot of you know seeing some checks bounce a lot that way more than what I used to we might see one or two in a month now I'm seeing three or four or five in a week you know wow like that so I think you know from the operators that are really buttoned up I don't see that kind of stuff but I see some of the other stuff that are you know it's the people are kind of struggling a little bit and I think everybody is you know the wallets are tighter and things like that and I think it's starting finally starting we were kind of in a bubble you know being Nashville and exploding and doing all the things that we were doing and I think we're finally starting to see a little bit that run through you know we had shoot Brandon what's the gentleman from a marshal hospitality that we had on the show a few months back like Anthony Marshall no we had um you know I just saw him in a soccer game the other day too great I'm so sorry that I'm I haven't had it's early in the morning guys this is much earlier than we normally record I haven't had all of my it is earlier than we normally record um but with buckets and deacons you have Lyle Lyle yes Lyle um he is just I mean so so sharp and and there's such great operators there and I remember when he was on the show he made a prediction and said unfortunately what I think is going to happen over this year because I feel it was closer the start of the year that he was on the show uh he said I think what's going to happen is you're going to see these restaurants that January 15th yeah right at the beginning of the year uh restaurants that were relying on the ppp money and the erc credits and all of that are starting to going to start to run out of money and then find that we're kind of back at square one and actually we we recorded an episode last

14:00week with nick giedry and one of the things we were talking about then was um you know kind of that same pandemic thing of of people you know when the pandemic started we kind of found out that all of these restaurants that are seemingly doing so well only had like 14 to 30 days worth of operating capital and I think that's how most restaurants genuinely and truly run so if you combine that with a very slow summer a lot of people are back to square one yeah yeah why do you think this is so you said combine that with a very slow summer but the combined that why do you think restaurants only have 14 30 is working capital right now yeah gosh I mean I don't think it's right now I think that most independent restaurants whether they will say so or not are in that position if you had to close your doors today would you have enough money to pay all of your bills for the next 30 days yeah well I mean you know you're starting to see the inflation ease but I also think you're you're starting to see some people tighten their wallets just not going out as much right so I think there's a pending recession that's about to go down people are saying October January I think people I think people are afraid yeah I think there's a little bit of that too and I think you know Nashville has been such a destination too you know I mean I know a lot of people that you know have rental properties down in 30a and they're like man we were gangbusters the last two years I was like how's it going this year and they're like yeah it's I haven't lowered my rates yet but I'm not sold out by any means so I just think you're seeing some people kind of stay home and not travel quite as much and you know we saw I saw an interesting you know thing on the news the other day they said you know the last two summers and going into fall we haven't seen any airline like specials you know south restaurants them all the time whatever they said get ready because we're going to see them again because even the airlines are starting to tighten up so at Nicky's we are such a neighborhood restaurant that we are a place

16:04that when everybody goes out of town like spring break fall break summertime those are our slowest months of the year typically may through august is like worse than january in some of those months we have had the busiest summer that we've ever had in the history of the restaurant it has it hasn't been like october december busy but it has been knock on wood very busy and very consistent so that actually would kind of make sense if you're saying people are staying home more because that means that you know if we've been so busy we rely on neighborhood and locals not tourists we had rob floyd celebrity mixologist in here and he was on bar rescue for years and years and years and I asked him I said what's the thing you walked into a you've walked into all these bars what's the easiest thing people could do right now to fix their their their restaurant their bar and he said personal accountability he goes looking in the mirror and fixing your problems and not blaming other people and I feel like we're sitting here blaming a bunch of external factors do you think that bad management people not knowing what they're doing or maybe not reading the market right do you think that there's a level of that that's causing some of this stuff you know I think yes and no you know you're gonna have good managers you're gonna have bad managers I think that the owners you know being in that restaurant and in being in their daily is is huge you know I think that you know and I think accountability whether you know you have it for yourself or whether you have it for your team is also is also really big but I also think one of the biggest things that people could do is just just walk into the restaurant and sit down at a table and look around there's so many times where you can just step back because it's so easy and I remember doing it as a GM you get in and you got to get your checklist done you got

18:07to get this done you got to get that done in the day and the day just goes but if you would just sit down at a table and see it from the guest point of view and be like oh well that doesn't look good over there and like that's not appeasing to the eye and that's not this and that's like and then changing those things and removing yourself from that owner manager point of view and putting yourself in the guest point of view I think is something that gets missed a lot because they don't you know when was the last time you know you sat down and you looked at something in your restaurant right it's easy to like just go go go go go but to pull back and do it from the guest point of view I think is something that gets missed quite a bit I told the whole team had this like speech the other day and maybe I said this on the show at some point I don't know if I did or didn't but I said operating a restaurant is kind of like being a magician kind of like when you're when you're doing your thing you're like a magician the people that come in and dine are kind of the the people in the crowd they don't know what's going on but when you're in the restaurant you know the woman's not getting sawed in half you know kind of the nuts and bolts around the whole thing you know that this is not real magic because you're do you're you're the magician but when you go dine in your own restaurant and sit down and experience the magic show you go wow that's really cool but you can also have that perspective of hey look I can see her legs like though that that's the flies on the windowsill the dirty linens or the dirty this so that's like hey we got to fix and you can see that stuff if you go dine in your own restaurant as a guest and you kind of give the caveat don't come up to me all the servers don't come up like just let me dine and don't come over no special treatment I want to watch the show I want to be a spectator of the show you can learn a lot it's really good sometimes I wonder do you think are we slowing down just because we were one of the first ones open after COVID right so think about it like the city everybody went to everybody went to Florida Florida was

20:11the wild wild west you could do whatever you wanted and we opened up very very quickly you know obviously not as as quick as Florida but we were open the city was open for business pretty darn quick so if you were in Chicago you were in some of these other places that were shut down and you needed to get out and you wanted to go do things like you kind of were limited on your options right you couldn't go to Chicago you couldn't go to New York you went to Florida you could go to Nashville so is there some of that that's playing into the little bit of a slowdown is that these people are now able and they have been for a little while now but they can go spend their money in their backyards whereas before they couldn't they could come to Nashville they could go wherever they wanted in Florida they could do all those things but that sometimes I wonder if we're just naturally going to see a little bit of a slowdown over the past two years just because of the fact that you know you could come and you could go that is actually a really interesting point because I know that Chicago has released tourism data for the summer that says that this the tourism in Chicago this summer exceeded 2019 tourism and Chicago is a big summertime tourism city so for this summer to have exceeded even 2019 you know maybe it is a thing everybody's gone to Florida the fast past few years maybe everybody's come to Nashville the past few years and now they're going and exploring some other cities that you know are let's go somewhere different let's try something different and I feel like too last summer we had a terrible summer last summer it was one of our slowest that we've ever had and I remember not this past summer but 2022 summer but I do remember hearing around town everybody being like we're so busy we're it's bonkers we're so busy so busy so busy and again we're the place that relies on that locals people in town neighborhood business and this summer we've had an incredible summer so I think that they're you know from our kind of amateur little research circle here I think

22:12there's some merit to that I think so too do you guys think that there's too many restaurants that's the thing there's two are way too oversaturated your perspective maybe hey more the merit right I mean when I moved to Nashville 10 years ago I couldn't believe how difficult the labor market was I mean it was my head spun for for weeks because I remember you know working down in Naples at Chang's if you know if we had an opening I had three or four or five applicants that showed up for interviews and and did all those things and showed up for training within a day you could replace somebody and then we went here and I mean it was just it was just short staffed everywhere and I can remember thinking to myself like another restaurant another hotel another this like where are they going to find the people I can't find the people right now so you know I think we've all kind of thought that at one time or another but the easy answer is yes but I don't know I you know I have seen several times people post on the Nashville hospitality professionals Facebook group people who work on bars downtown on Broadway whatever and saying hey is anybody else's tips been really low this summer is anybody else not making money this summer and my first thought was that maybe it's oversaturated downtown and that's why but it also sounds like maybe there's a tourism maybe I'd be curious to see what the tourist data is this summer in Nashville compared to the last couple yeah because every time I go downtown I'm like who are all these people there's people everywhere I mean I've never seen so many people downtown you walk down Broadway and I'm like how did you all get here don't you feel like it's been like that though the last five years I do I feel like it gets well now because you got fourth and broad like it just keeps getting longer and they keep going higher and like it's just like there's just people crossing the streets and x's now they're like going across in

24:14this way and it's just just just lines outside of every bar and it's just like how do they fit more people in it just it feels like there's more people than I would know even what to do with I can't it doesn't look like tourism is down to me and now that's Broadway from Fifth Avenue to First Avenue I'm not talking about the Gulch I'm not talking about 12 South I'm not talking about any of the other typical areas that people who are tourists go to I remember back in the day like when I was driving Uber at night times at like eight o'clock at night the Gulch dead and people just gravitate towards Broadway so I mean I wonder if that's a thing I wonder how like the the external little areas are doing now I will say this is just my own personal observation I work out in the Gulch and my gym is right next to the mural with the wings yeah so several times a week I'm do you go to Barry's boot camp I do go to Barry's boot camp I am a Barry's devotee um but I do feel like the lines have seemed less massive for the wings I feel like I'm seeing less of a crowd at the wings over the last several months than what I recall seeing previously and I used to kind of gauge business at Nicky's on the weekends based on that I'd be like oh there's so many people in town the line at the wings was really long we'll have a busy weekend uh but does that work sometimes yeah you know because you can also tell like if there's something going on if there's people in town um but another thing I will say perspective again is a place that relies mostly on neighborhood business if there's a big event in Nashville like the the race or the NFL draft or some kind of big major thing happening in the city people do not leave their house we are slower and our delivery business like DoorDash and Uber Eats is much much much busier yeah that that makes sense I can remember saying

26:19like you know there's soccer you know the soccer game's going on and this is going on like Nashville is going to be ridiculous I'm not even gonna last Saturday we had the UT game yup UT Virginia downtown at the um Titan Stadium you had Vanderbilt and you had a Nashville SC game we were slow yeah that's a really good example for us where we had numbers wise a killer weekend like busier than usual but in terms of volume of business actually in the restaurant was slower than usual it was mostly delivery into goes yeah interesting okay David tell me more about your job what do you do like what is what is your day look like when you wake up what's the first thing you do hey look I'd like to record a podcast every day well I know I know you know for me I've got a team of nine and it's just kind of working through you know working through trying to bring on new business helping people you know with helping existing business with problems that they may be having or trying to partner with those people and you know move the ball forward or you know it's it's a multitude of different things because you know with us you know we we cater to so many different segments to you know the pizza restaurant to the fine dining restaurant and everything in between you know no day is the same everything changes what people are looking for is different and changes and all those things and with my geography for my team I've got I've got reps all the way up to Kentucky all the way down to Tullahoma so it's a it's a wide variety of of customers that we're catering to so you know no day is ever the same it always changes so what's an example of a problem that a restaurant might be having that's something that you guys could come in and help with well you know it's it could be is something as easy as hey we just want to see some different products or you know what does this look like or you do you have something that's got a you know better price or I can save a couple pennies here you know or it's

28:22hey we're really struggling like I you know we've got a newer newer customer that's down in Murfreesboro and they are really struggling with with their ordering you know they're they're they're ordering some of the wrong things they're ordering new things they're they've got too many of this thing so like we got you know our business solution specialist down there and he's working with with with them over the next two days to kind of hey this is how you pull a p-mix and this is how you see what you've been what you've been selling and then correlating that with what you've been ordering to make sure that you're ordering the right things and these are some spreadsheets that you can use so that you can go in the back and you can count and you can see what you've got on hand and you can start to kind of forecast what are you going to need how much are you going to need to get through the weekend so that you're not running to the you know to the grocery store or to one of our stores or restaurant depot or whatever those are you know on the fly because oh my gosh I can't believe I ran out of this item so that's probably one of the biggest things is just trying to help people get a little bit more organized so that they can work on the business instead of constantly trying to play catch up and run around in circles so you're teaching people how to be proactive versus being reactive and I think that's the big sales pitch that most people want to give is that we're going to do all of these things ahead time for you we're going to figure this out we can help you in your business when I had your job when I did your a similar job I was a district sales manager at US foods I think that was the big thing we can help you do all these things and I can help you but I was just always on the back of my heels man I was just always getting hit my truck was late you know we're it was based out of Knoxville so I was here in Nashville and like if there was a relay truck that got stuck in traffic there's a wreck on 40 yeah my life was just screwed I mean you guys are coming from Sheppardsville right some which is just north south of Louisville but then yeah you're coming down if there's a big wreck and you can't get trucks to us all of a sudden you're running everything about your day is fucked I mean there's nothing you can do like all of a

30:27sudden you wake I had anxiety like because I would wake up in the morning and if I had 37 emails I knew that day I'm just react I'm a fireman I am not able to go and help my restaurant succeed that was what I wanted to do I wanted to go in and go let's put theoreticals together for you let's identify your ordering habits I can run a p-mix of everything you've ordered I can do your order for you let me help you but I was just always putting out fires I was putting out why did they send skirt steak when I wanted fillet why did they do this why did it and it was just a constant just waiting for my phone to ring and then when my phone let's just say I had a really nice day I woke up in the morning and there wasn't 37 emails there was one all trucks right on time everything's looking good nothing's short and I'm like wow I was so freaking exhausted that day that I didn't even I wouldn't even know what to do because I was so busy playing defense it was like oh shit I could go on offense today then I'm like I'm just gonna go start I'm gonna go tell people I lost confidence I'm gonna go tell people a bunch of things that I could do for them that tomorrow I'll be right back in on my heels playing defense and I'm not gonna get to follow through with all the things I said I was gonna do so fuck it I'm not gonna do it I'll just wait and be responsive I think for us and that was a difficult thing to be in I think for us though we we got so good at finding products through the pandemic we got so good like you know we've I'll give it to my reps because I'll be like hey this item it looks like it might not come in next week and they're like oh don't worry about it I got 20 cases stashed at one of the stores we're good and I'm like I'm just blown away because so many of them are thinking ahead and being like I know I'm gonna need those chicken wings so I'm gonna go ahead and I'm gonna get them to the store and then I'm gonna let the van run it and or hey those fries have been a little wonky lately so I'm gonna go stash 10 cases at the store and that way if it does get out of control

32:28or it does get you know does go sideways I've at least got a backup stock to keep my customer going so it's what's really been you know we've really learned how to do that and we really do you know not to sit here and you know talk about GFS and the infomercial but we really do have that advantage to have that store in Murfreesboro and in Goodlitzville and in Cool Springs because my reps are so good at saying no no no I got I've got five of those stashed at the store let me go grab them for them all right good no I was just gonna say as a customer and I'm sure that you know it's happened at some point over the last seven years but there is absolutely no frequency with which you guys are out of products for us for our deliveries compared to some other vendors that was the thing people and you can hear me on the podcast talk about it when people would say during the pandemic man the supply chain is terrible we don't have this we can't get this we can't get this which is a very real thing but for some reason I don't know if we we're very special to you guys or not we didn't feel it like I really didn't have any issues with procurement now we don't order anything crazy it's all kind of steaks and you know potatoes type stuff but I never had any issues but it also it also plays to the organized restaurant tour right so if you're if you're organizing you know what you're going to need and you can get that order in at 11 o'clock in the morning as opposed to 455 ah there's so now we're learning stuff right so I can I can do something with that at 11 o'clock if I know you've got two out of stocks you've given me time you've given me time we always did a day in a skip day we would do two days in advance skip day is I mean that's where it's at you know to be honest with you so like two years ago we have you know we've got a we've got a large market in Indianapolis that we that we take care of they're one of our larger markets that comes out of shepherdsville there's I would say 85 percent of the routes that hit that downtown Indianapolis market are skip day routes so those people that were when wings went on allocation and everybody was freaking out and doing all that kind of stuff those those reps up in india were like what are

34:31you talking about we don't we don't see any out of stocks those people that were able to do that and forecast they saw way less out of stocks than anybody else so I think that's a big that's a big little easter egg right there and that organ because I used to work for um creation gardens back in the day and we had people order up until midnight for next day delivery and you'd get all these chefs that you'd hear them at the bar at like 11 30 I sent me some of the and it was funny because you could hear some of the phone calls of like I would get a voice recording like what did this chef try and order and it would be like this game like you're trying to figure out what somebody tried to order at a bar and it's like if you place your order at 11 45 and you need really obscure things sometimes those things don't come in but I mean it's it's kind of that if you wait till the last minute and you're not organized then sorry well especially too on the skip day for us like think about it if the warehouse is running behind I don't care how far the warehouse is running behind for a skip day customer because that truck's gonna get loaded it's gonna be sitting in my yard by one o'clock in the morning we're never gonna run late on a skip day route ever like the amount of times that we run late on it I've never seen it that was the thing I was gonna say also that truck because at Green Hills Grill we have to have it at seven it's like a window of like seven to 705 I mean like a truck's gotta be there at seven o'clock which is stupid right because you gotta give it to our window there's so many factors but dude every day you could set your watch seven o'clock that truck was being unloaded every time that delivery is there and it's like yeah I don't know what they're doing but they have it there perfect every single day invoice was perfect the orders were perfect like I never had to deal with it was never a so when I came over to Marable and Green Hills Grill I was straight from US Foods and I was like here we go and I'm not trying to talk shit about US Foods US Foods has a lot of really great things and I I'm a big fan of what US Foods does my experience during that time was very tumultuous because I don't

36:36maybe I wasn't good but it was constantly playing defense and as much as you want to play offense and we tried to pivot playoff it's most of the time I was just playing defense I think so much of it now for me is just you know it's almost you know it's the same thing back to running a restaurant being a GM is just putting your arms around your people and just getting in the car and being able to talk to your people and know that somebody might be struggling because when you're a sales rep you're you're you can be on an island right you are you are in charge of your day you're in charge of your time and you are in charge of your results and you can fib it for a little bit but you can never outrun the numbers so I think for me it's just a conscious effort to make sure that if I didn't talk to that rep yesterday I gotta get on the phone and I gotta talk to him today no matter what's going on no matter how many late trucks and out of stocks and miss picks and whatever it may be that I'm trying to run around and help recover it's just because all of a sudden you know that that person you can you can spin your wheels and you can drive around in circles all day long and get nothing done and be very frustrated and then it can get to be to where you're just like man I'm on an island so for me it's just that's the biggest thing it's just just talk to the people and try to help them and if that you feel like they're struggling just getting in the car how do you do that I mean you say how many reps do you have nine I have nine so I have two restaurants about to be three restaurants and I'm in a bit of a quandary because I don't know how to do it right I told Steven today I go dude one restaurant's great and I enjoy I can get in one restaurant and I could I could operate the hell out of it two restaurants I'm splitting my time between two it's a lot of time and energy but then three I never have I've never done that like I need help I don't know how I'm going to be able to operate three restaurants at one time and still maintain the level of service and level of accountability throughout three restaurants like I don't know how I'm gonna do it and as you're saying that I think I had six reps under me when we were when I was at US Foods and I would spend like I scheduled my time Monday was like a day on the phones and on the computer we did the conference calls then Tuesday Wednesday

38:39Thursday I was in a car riding with a rep each one of those days and I would do three reps this week and then but they all sent me reports every day on what their day was and we had sales you guys use a CRM yeah we use a CRM so for my guys it's it's tell me the 10 most important things you're gonna do this week so on Monday Sunday night I get a report that's got the 90 most important things that my reps are gonna do that week and very similar to you so Monday I'm on you know conference calls and I'm running reports and I'm doing all those things and we're touching base but then I'm able to look and say okay I'm gonna be a part of this one I'm gonna be a part of that one I'm gonna be part of that one so I may get with three different reps in a day or four different reps in a day and kind of try to ping pong around as fast as I can because I think you would probably agree and I would agree and I think the reps would agree like me getting in the car with them for a day they're like oh really man eight hours in the car with this guy like you know do we had we had to do coachings at the end of the day we had to like actually like I had to sit in the car with them pull up my laptop and go okay how do you feel like you did today when we stopped by Parthenon Grill yeah and then I'd be like uh what do you mean like do you feel like you exhibited the core value of you know making our customers succeed and it was like I had to do this in the car sitting with it was the most awkward worst thing and that's like when I worked at the Gap in high school they're like every day they're like here's what we're going to focus on today Christmas sweaters and how do our guests connect to Christmas sweaters I was like 17 I can totally understand that stoned I'm like what the fuck is it who gives a shit man how about how many restaurants does each of your reps handle it varies I would say the app if we put an average on it I would say they probably got about 40 accounts but I've got you know we've got newer reps that have empty laptops where we've just said all right it's just let's go and then you've got veteran reps that probably have you know one of my most vet reps probably has 65 so you probably have what 350 in your book you get nine yeah I'm thinking that's 80 or that's eight

40:46what is that is that nine is that yeah about 325 325 somewhere in there so then you said the new reps are they kind of cold calling places going in making calls shaking hands dropping off all the things wow yep yep so I mean and that's that's what it is for me and I really like that okay they're going to go and they're going to show you know Mary Bowles new french fries I'm going to go be a part of that and then so and so is going to go show you new pepperoni so I'm going to jump over there after that and I'm going to go be a part of that and trying to really kind of prioritize prioritize the time and and also have the most impact where I can be right so maybe it is a new rep and maybe I do spend a half a day in the car with them but there's a lot to that to just walking in about you know and trying the biggest thing I'm trying to teach the new reps is don't waste your guys's time like come in with a purpose like what are we talking about today what's the objective like what are we trying to get done and then let's schedule the next appointment and let's get out of there because they're busy I will never forget when we first opened we were with a different company not Gordon and I know these these four guys showed up at like 330 on you know we we open at five so 330 with a pack of trout they had this like guy in town who's the the new trout rep and they showed up with trout unannounced four different people with our rep at like three in the afternoon and Tony's like I can't fucking look at trout right now also we'd only been open for like a month it's like guys what are we doing here make an appointment you know I think that's one of the big things is just do some homework you know it's it's fine to walk into a restaurant and not know anything about them but don't you know drop a card off say exactly and then and then but do some homework or like walk in the door and be like hey I know you're busy right now so I'm not gonna ask for any of your time I'm gonna leave my card here

42:49hope you have a great service bye-bye yep yeah I'm gonna come by and see you next week or comment or how about you come in for dinner yeah come in for dinner oh yeah absolutely that I think that goes a long way too yep yep but I can remember I mean you know it's the same thing I think you know regional manager for a restaurant chain you know I can remember good ones and bad ones and the good ones were you know they would come in and they would they would spend some time and they would they would listen hey what are you struggling with what do you need help with and you we always had things that we had to say you could you could point things out on a pnl and know where they're struggling and things like that but I can remember distinctively one bad one that I had that he's like I'm gonna be in your restaurant on this day and I'm like okay so you know you're gearing up you're ready he's you know I'm working for a corporate restaurant and this guy's coming you know from out of state and that day he doesn't show up and I'm like okay I got stuff I got to talk to you about I got we got stuff that we need to talk about and then then he's like hey you got really busy I'm stuck in the other location I'll see you tomorrow okay so tomorrow comes and all of a sudden my phone rings and he goes hey man do you see me and I go no he goes I'm driving by you on 65 on my way home your numbers look great man have a great day and I was like what do you what do you get out of that you know so I was just like all right that's fine wow so I think it's just also you know the active listening you know active listings I've been on my phone for the last 20 minutes putting out a fire at the restaurant I'm over here just on the phone he's like I mean active listening I'm like what did you just say I missed that whole last part I feel like such an asshole we're going to take a quick break to hear a word from our sponsors and we are going to start with super source did not mention super source on the intro to the show that is completely my bad Jason Ellis over at super source is somebody who will absolutely take care of all of your dish machine and chemical needs and he absolutely cares about your business proactively he will identify when something isn't right you're using too much of a

44:54chemical he's going to ask you why he can do staff education as to why their quad sanitizer is what it is how much to use how much degreaser do you need I've told the story a bunch of times we were using five times as much as we were supposed to be using because the guys in the kitchen were thinking hey if I just use more degreaser to work better that's not the way it works he's come in he's educated I've reduced all of my costs he does not make you sign a contract he will rent you a dish machine and sell you chemicals as you need them no contracts quit any time you want the guy's doing amazing things again check the show notes and you will find a way to contact Jason Ellis his phone number will be right there I also want to talk today about what chefs want man they are doing amazing things over there if you need somebody to comment your broadliner you need a really great produce company specialty company they have specialty meats they have general meats they have seafood man they really have everything you need paper products you need oils they can deliver it to you seven days a week they have no minimums they'll split just about every single thing that they sell they really are what chefs want their information will be in the show notes as well I also want to talk to you today about charpies bakery for 37 years erin mosso and team has been delivering fresh baked bread to the back door of your restaurant and seriously if you're still baking your own bread congratulations that that is a that is a task that is difficult to do and they will make your bread for you and deliver it for you how much time would you save how much extra would you not have to order guys this is what you need to be doing you need to contact erin mosso and again her number is going to be right there in the show notes and finally I want to tell you about robin's insurance matthew clements over at robin's

46:59insurance is just you know when you have a guy when you have a guy when you need a guy matthew clements the time that you need a guy is when something happens for insurance reasons and if you don't know your person if you're just calling a number and hitting a one or two to talk to an operator and you have to explain your entire situation every time you need something from an insurance company it is a real pain in the neck that is why matthew clements is local he works with restaurants you have no idea when you need him but when you do need him you want to be able to call a number that you can get a hold of him immediately and he works with the best restaurants in town he knows your business this is what you need to be doing for your insurance company this is what i'm talking about here in this next segment you're going to hear me talk about partnering with your vendors this is what i'm talking about so give matthew clements a call again you're going to find his number in the show notes go to the show notes look at all the sponsors call the people you will not be disappointed let's jump back in with david burner i i you know i'm curious i hear you do this stuff and it's funny because as a restaurant guy we're coming down pf chang's what's the other place what's the state del frisco's del frisco's transitioning into this job i i don't know if you ever get it but for all my years when i was visiting kitchens and going in people would always say dude hey you ever got a job let me know hey i'm it was almost like this somebody's in jail like dude if you can get me a key to get me out of here let me know let me know you get that all the time but i've found most of the times that you hire somebody they don't work out because there's a perception of what you do and what sales reps do oh man you're just glad handing people you're just walking in the door saying hi kissing babies going to hockey games taking people out to nice dinners drinking nice wines like that's the life what this guy does

49:02there's this perception that's like i'm here in this hot kitchen busting my ass making food doing all the stuff and like i want to do that why is it such a hard transition from that to what you guys do and how did you do it yeah it's it's funny that you bring that up because we're interviewing some people right now and and i will ask that question like you just take me through what you think a day in the life of my sales rep is like what do you like what do you think it is and they'll be like well you know i think you're like home by two and i'm like but you know for me um so it's funny i tried to get on with gfs 15 years ago 20 years ago down in naples florida they were opening up a store and they said my my buddy was a gfs rep and he kept saying you gotta come over you gotta come over it's so much better you know yada yada yada he's we're gonna he's i'll get your i'll get your application at the top of the list i was like great and then i called them like two weeks later and i was like hey man nobody's called me and he's like yeah they got 320 applicants and they transferred somebody in and i was like oh okay all right um you know for me it was very apparent when i so i left del frisco's and went into a sales rep gig um and they said okay you're just here's an empty laptop you got two accounts i was i had two accounts both were buying a thousand dollars a week and they said we we just need you to go grow and we need you to be completely fearless and just knock on every door that you see and just have an open mind don't think it's a regional chain or this that or the other thing just knock on the door and find out so for me and that's one of the things that we definitely look for is just that that fearlessness to just walk on a door because it is is it it's intimidating to walk in and try to get your attention or to get your attention and you know and all those things and you could be very happy with where you're at but we still it's our job that we still have to do that so that was that's probably the biggest thing is just just a

51:03fearlessness just to walk in and i mean really at the end of the day what are you gonna do like yeah you could say no or you could yell at me and you could scream at me and it's okay i'm still gonna go get my car and drink my coffee and i'm gonna go to the next spot and i'm gonna be okay and i'm gonna go back again so that's that was the biggest thing for me is just you had to go back you couldn't just hear no and then be like okay cool check them off the list see you later no we got to go back ah yes i completely agree with you and all that stuff i think that that getting the no is the hardest part because people are afraid of getting a no and i love the analogy guys mlb players they they strike out seven of ten times they're an all-star like if you can hit three out of every your bet 300 you're an all-star but you got to step up to the plate and so many people would come in and they'd be like well i know the guy is there he doesn't he uses this but they don't really want it and i'm like you don't know until you walk in the door and i i've probably a dozen times in my career and maybe it's more i don't know i've walked in a door somewhere and the moment that a delivery went awry or they had a fight with their person and i walked in the door and i'm like hey i'm with fresh point nice to meet you guys like do you sell produce because my produce company is a shit head and they're like as a matter of fact i do i can have your delivery later this afternoon and you're like timing you have no idea when you gotta walk in the door you don't know what happened that day what happened in that moment and you'll never know i always say good things happen when you go see your customers like get out there and go do it and that's the hardest part because people in the kitchen the printer doesn't tell me no printer comes up i make food i get it done i place an order there's kind of a there's a system for it right there's there's a checklist i can come in and i can work on a checklist as a sales rep there's kind of a checklist but you have to go make your checklist you have to identify a territory a target learn the restaurant learn who the people are in the

53:07restaurant study their menu identify if there's an area that you might be able to help them on and then walk in and ask questions right ask specific questions about their business without walking in and just vomiting everything that you know about your company yeah and there's a nuance to that and it's hard and you have to learn that you have to learn to walk in and go hey i noticed you have your sanitizer bucket over there says cisco on it and i was curious you also have cisco you have restaurant depot i see a u.s foods thing there and that's a that's a gfs do you have four different broadliners yeah yeah man we buy from four people and we wait to some people really yeah i'm sorry is that a stupid question no it's a whole thing why would you do that to yourself let me can i can i take this one for you i have this mission to stop spreadsheeting right you have a restaurant that says uh no i yeah i use all four well i put them all against each other every day and then i really take it to my i only order the cheapest stuff from each person right so what works in produce works in fish works in everything this is a perception guys this is a perception if i buy from multiple vendors then i will get the best price can i tell what happens in reality sure what happens in reality is there's a fixed cost for every time you make a delivery the most expensive thing is driving that gigantic truck the reefer truck loading that reefer truck driving it to your location putting down the ramp walking down that ramp the time it takes it costs like two hundred dollars every time you make it there's an aggregate it costs it costs like two hundred dollars every time you make a delivery right so let's figure that this is math this isn't a i'm gonna beat you kind of a thing this is math so if i have to deliver to you three times a week it costs me six hundred dollars to do business with you if you buy ten cases every time you get a delivery i gotta charge you twenty dollars a case over the cost just to break even so i really gotta charge you twenty five dollars a case because i'd like to make fifty bucks if i'm gonna stop the truck everybody in the world should understand that restaurateurs forget you i want you to make

55:11nothing there's no there's no i don't care i want the best price no matter what i i care nothing about it's not a win-win it is a i need to win i don't give a fuck about you kind of a situation this is my perception it is wrong it is wrong because your company is a company you we we i need my broadliner my broadliner is another manager in my building there is somebody that i respect that i care about that can be a massive tool to me that that can come in spending time with you what's going on the market hey look this is what i need clearly defining what my expectation of you is and doing that i can do that if i purchase every single thing from you because if i buy a hundred cases every time now you gotta charge me two dollars a case over to get those same three deliveries because then or you can charge me five dollars a case and triple your profits because you're getting a hundred cases at a time instead of that ten so i'll get a hundred cases cost you 200 bucks now you're making three hundred dollars every time and i'm only paying five dollars over a case is where if i buy 10 i gotta pay 25 over a case it's math so every large company when you don't hit that minimum or you're buying small amounts everybody raises their prices because we're losing money i gotta make that 25 on this where i'm gonna lose money nobody loses money we might for a day because hey look there's an opportunity i'll get in there i'll sell them i'll get more cases but the idea that i'm gonna buy from five different companies and then they get five price sheets they have a spreadsheet on the right and they go all right steaks what is my filet mignon whatever and they look at all the prices and they write the cheapest price down and they have a spreadsheet of the four companies and they go down listen i'm going to order from gfs today i'm order from pfg tomorrow us food cisco and they order from four different companies get four different deliveries and wonder why they're not hitting food cost and then when they and then the best part is when your cooler goes down and you need help it's the guy that has four different companies that goes hey uh hey my cooler went down you go best of luck with that because i'm not going to send a truck number to penske so you can get one of the refrigerator

57:14trucks out there exactly here's the here's the number to penske i'd love you to get but when you buy everything from your broadliner when you trust your broadliner when you i i love an mda i love a master distribution agreement i don't know if i'm going to get too far into this thing i'm not gonna i'm not going to the details of it too you're just going to get better service right you're going to you're building a relationship building a relationship the customer that buys 80 cases from me is going to you know and not to say that they're not that the person that buys 10 is not going to get as good a service but let's just think about it how much more valuable like on your side if you got a guy that walks in that fills your restaurant every single day right it's the same this guy comes in with a 30 top every single day and drops 15 1500 bucks or whatever it is i mean you're going to tell him no he that we don't have space right exactly so it's the same it's the same thought process it's you know and we're gonna in this no nobody wants to take advantage that's not what we're about or anything like that what we want to do is we've got to be profitable just like you have to be profitable but to the end but to what you're saying like we want to partner we want we want to have all that business because you know it's it's better for both of us yeah you know at the end of the day when at that point yeah at the end of the day if we're talking about two dollars a case on chicken what are we really talking about a half a cent an ounce it chances are your prep cook already threw it out in the trash whatever you just saved yeah let's be honest it's interesting well you're gonna say some carolyn oh no i was just gonna say i think that when you look at relationships with the vendors as a partnership as a partner in your business as opposed to you know having that perspective of like this is the enemy they're trying to screw me and in some cases you know there are going to be some companies that you just you know you have trust you can't trust them you have to work with them your hands are kind of tied i'm not going to name names but i feel like we've all got a couple that it's like i just have to work with them i kind of don't have a lot of options here but on the other hand you know when you say hey i want to have a better relationship

59:16with you i want you to be a partner in our business help me out i'll help you out everybody's going to be more successful well that's and here comes my infomercial part but that's what i loved about gfs because when i first came in and you guys were working with the restaurants i didn't know paul i didn't know josh binkley any of these people i didn't know any of them and i was straight out of u.s foods and they were we were not on any kind of account but i didn't know anything about you once i had the initial meeting and i explained what i'm about how i like to work how i want to partner with one company i want to do all these things it was like yeah man let's do it and from that day forth my relationship with gfs was amazing because they did all the things it was almost like it wasn't a lip service kind of a deal it was genuinely no man we were this is what we want to do and you it was proactive it was not reactive i would get phone calls would say hey man i've got this hey burner wants to come in and talk to you about a loyalty program or whatever the coolest thing david came in one day and he uh he came in and he's like hey guys i was just looking at a bunch of stuff and i noticed you guys don't have a loyalty program and i was like here we go like what loyalty and i don't have a loyalty program that i can sell you either by the way he didn't he goes i we don't like represent a loyalty program but these are a bunch of loyalty programs that are out there that i thought were really valuable i think this is something that you know would drive roi if you looked at this this and this and he came to me it was nothing they were selling it was just an idea that he had laying in bed thinking about our restaurant and ways to we could help and he's like you don't have a loyalty program so i did a bunch of research if you were interested in that let me show you this and i was like that's so it wasn't like something they went to a big all-employee meeting and they said i need you out and push loyalty programs it was a we don't represent one but these are the top five and i've never seen that before i've never seen somebody just come in who was thinking about my business who wasn't me who

01:01:16was just thinking about my business and thought of an idea and just wanted to share it with me that didn't necessarily benefit him in a financial way and i thought that was really cool that's the fun stuff for us right i mean that's that's when you talk about the partnerships and you get to that's when the fun stuff gets gets to go for us right and that's when we get to go to ashville or like we took some customers to new orleans you know and that's that's that's where we get to have fun so that's what makes that you know that sales rep job look sexy that you're oh you're going out to dinner with them or you're you know you're you're doing all this well trends tours trends tours and this that and the other thing like that's where that's where we get to have fun too so that's where we really want that partnership because man i want to go to savannah and go eat food for two days like that's work okay that's also building the partnership yeah taking place people places that hey i can learn what other cities are doing because we're all stuck here in nashville yep we're all stuck here in the four walls of our building busting our asses every single day and i don't i got to go eat at noco last week and it was amazing but like it's once a month that i really get a chance to like go out somewhere and have like a date night and go eat and do our thing i still get to do it that often i got kids i got three restaurants i got all this stuff and it's like i'm tired yeah yeah and so it's nice to be able to take time and do stuff like that yeah it's great it's great to be able to take people places and just you know get them out of their building allowed them to really focus in on what's going on it doesn't just have to be food like we've got customers we're going to take to the nra show next summer and they're going to be able to look at all the technology that they're looking to implement and what's coming up and what's new on that front as well to again help with their business and what they're what they're going to do whether it's labor saving or projections or whatever it may be you know that's the other it's it's fun for us at heart i'm a restaurant guy every single day i sit there and i go man i miss running expo sometimes because it's just a rush right and it's just fun isn't the grass always greener i was just yesterday i was like man i really wish i could just go wait table somewhere for like a part-time job i'm just like it sounds so fun and then i do it for a week and

01:03:20i'd be like get me out of here three months into my job at gfs my wife looked at me and she said if you're thinking about picking up a nighttime bartending job she's like you don't want to know what's gonna happen at home and i was like okay okay i got it i'll figure it out i got it i did that when i was when i was at creation gardens in 2006 or seven we had our house in spring hill and i was working like seven just all the time crazy and i missed working in restaurants and there was a new applebee's that opened in spring hills the first app is ever and the gm was a friend of mine and he was like hey do you want to come bartend and be my opening like bark just whenever you want just come in and just bartend i was like fuck yeah i did and i did it for like two months and i worked like you know two nights a week but man it was so much fun just hanging out behind a bar talking it's like i get to meet a ton of people in the community just it was the only restaurant spring hill this is 2006 right this is a long time ago man i had so much fun that's why i drove uber it's a similar because you know what it is because you you're it's you're just doing a natural job you know what to do you don't have to create your brain doesn't have to make something out of nothing that's exactly what i was gonna say i think it's occurring to me right now that that desire of like man i wish i could just go wait because you can clock out well and it's not just that it's that the running a restaurant every day the actual business side of it and you know every day is different there's always some new fire to put out there's always some new challenge that i haven't that you know in some ways i haven't faced before and i've got to figure it out and i've got to you know be quick and creative and all of these things whereas if i'm waiting tables i know how to do that and i just i know that i can do a great job and just be done as opposed to i feel like in what we do managing restaurants there's so many days i don't know if you feel this way too brain and where i get home at the end of the day and i'm just like it's not like i did a bad job today but it's just like i'm ending the day and i don't feel great

01:05:22about where everything is right now you know it's like i haven't come up with that answer yet or i haven't figured that thing out yet as opposed to if i'm waiting tables to be like i did a great job tonight well and i think you know at the end of the day waiting tables or bartender or whatever it is you you you look at your pocket and you go i mean i made 300 bucks so i did a great job there's there is that finite i know i did a great job because it's it's tangible right here but a lot of times when you're running that restaurant you're like oh man and there's just always more to do there's never like you never get to like close the book or like finish the chapter you never get to clock out yeah there's always more to do and it's like yesterday i had a great day i had like the most productive day i've had in a long time i i felt so great about the day but then you know i wake up this morning and my to-do list is already like off the page so you know it never stops i think this is a really interesting concept this is kind of what we're talking about yesterday the other day with with nick was the perspective of like leadership and owners i think there's a there's a bad rap that were just these i don't know but that's why i like to mow the yard that's why i like to wash my car because i get results everything i do i never see results in real time if i have an idea if i'm executing something like it takes months to implement something to really see the thing happen and by the time that result is there there's six other people that are now working on this and i moved on to three other things i'm like oh look at that it's working now like i don't get to finish the day and go look at all the shit i did today like i don't there's nothing like that yeah i mean that's it like you just every day you're laying in bed going oh i didn't do these nine things or i wonder if this is gonna work or did that work i don't know why this didn't work and then you start the next day and it's like let's go again let's do it again let's do it again and it never ends it's like waiting tables if you came in and you worked a shift i could come in and know what work i'm doing i'm gonna finish the work i'm gonna clock out and go i just did that yeah similar to mowing the yard in my opinion they

01:07:22and not there's a much higher skill set obviously between tables but the idea of seeing results quickly is what i'm talking about and completing something completing a job not just closing the book as opposed to just turning the page yes yeah yeah it's a thing and you you have to feel that oh yeah one hundred percent yeah one hundred percent because at the end of the day too you know the one thing that i like to remind you know people that are coming you know that are interviewing to be at gfs or wherever you're still in the restaurant industry your phone is still gonna ring at seven thirty eight o'clock eight forty five nine o'clock like non-stop like and i like to remind them and say hey when was the last time you texted your rep did you text them at nine thirty and they're like yeah i said are you okay with getting 15 of those at nine thirty and they're like you should kind of just see the wheels turn and i go you're at home or you're but you still have to get those things done because they're relying on you now to get that product or get that thing or whatever it is that they desperately need tomorrow or the day after my wife got real good at it i remember we were at it was our anniversary and we were at dinner i think in savannah and my phone ringing it was chef dave at the brunwood country club this is eight thirty at night we're at dinner and i looked at her and she goes and i answered the phone this brand hey chef dave you know she looked over me she had her notebook out she had that in her purse she kept a little tiny composition book and she had a notebook out and i was like uh-huh a two case of blueberries uh-huh three cases and right there on our anniversary dinner she's writing down his order and i was like all right no problem we'll get it in and literally dinner ended we got in the car i called this order in form because we didn't i think i don't think we had online ordering back in 2006 but nevertheless it was like that was that was what you do you just got to do that it was part of our life yeah well and it's the same thing you know running a restaurant whatever the phone never stops so i can remember like when i was working with changs and del frisco

01:09:22my wife was like we're gonna go on a cruise i'm like what is your obsession with cruise she's like your phone doesn't work she's like you're absolutely gonna have like that's why we started going out of the country yeah like your phone does not work she's like even if it's a little three-day one when we lived in florida to just she's like you're in the middle of the ocean she's like it will force you to stop she's like and you're going to do this and i'll be like okay before cell phones worked in mek we went to mexico every year we went to europe or something it was one of the main reasons was my phone doesn't work there and it was like she got me me 100 phones away somebody you know what every time i came back the world didn't end yeah everyone was still there it was amazing which is crazy because on the front end you're telling people you have to answer your phone at nine o'clock at night and then at this point you're going stop answering your phone well i would say it's almost like how do you back that off that's the biggest thing that we that we're working on with some of our reps is you you know as much as everybody needs something at nine o'clock at night there's nothing you can do right there's really nothing you can do console them you can you can say yeah i'll try to find it tomorrow morning or whatever it may be but there's got to be some boundaries too just just like your job and our job there has to be a little bit of like you know we've lost some really good reps over the years just because they didn't know how to turn that off to say i see that they're calling or i see that they're texting and say hey i'll call you first thing in the morning because there's you've got to have that shut off time so that you don't so then all of a sudden you're not a puddle in the middle of the floor one day yeah i'll put my phone on sleep mode pretty early in the evening usually around seven uh like the do not disturb mode so i just and i do get text messages late into the night you know my manager i woke up to text from a couple managers and she's like i know you're probably asleep but you know and then here's the message and it's fine and i'm texted her back when i woke up at 6 a.m and i know she's probably asleep but you know it's

01:11:23just how it goes what was the last time you had your ringer on on your phone um i'm vibrate constantly it drives my wife nuts do you is your ringer on your phone like does your phone actually ring yeah my phone rings um i keep my phone on silent mode most of the time but if i'm expecting a call or if i know i'm gonna like set my phone down somewhere and walk away like if i'm i mostly work from home um so i know if i'm gonna like set down my phone and you know like make myself lunch or something and i want to hear it if it rings because i get sales calls um for private events on my phone so like if you call the restaurant we have like the voip or whatever it's called and it's like press too if you're interested if you want to talk to somebody about private events so i'm i always have to answer my phone well i just it was just a random thing right there and i'm trying to kind of like we're correlating the covid and people coming back to nashville versus phone ringing and i'm like i haven't had my ringer on in years like i haven't it's funny because my phone rang here a minute ago and it rings through the bluetooth thing and this thing but like i haven't heard my phone ring i don't think in years because i get it on my watch but also i think i have ptsd oh see i don't have an apple watch that's part of it okay so i i know if my phone rings it starts vibrating my watch i can see who's calling me i can answer it this is recent for me i refuse to do an apple watch that actually is a really firm boundary for me okay because i'm already enough kind of like tied to my phone i don't need the additional like micro notification of also having it on my body all the time all right i i did the apple what i was the same way as you and the only thing that turned me was when the guy said hey you know i like to go for a run he's like you know you can hook that thing up to your headphones and you can run without carrying your phone with you and i was like okay you found the need sold give it to me i like to track everything on my walks on my hikes everything and i this i'm like a nerd about numbers and i want to constantly be beating my

01:13:27all my numbers in my i do some mostly for the rings i love the activity rings and my exercise lets me know how much activity i've done for the day like i gotta go work out i gotta go do something that keeps me motivated versus if i'm in a studio all day from the restaurant all day i can move more i move a lot in the restaurant that's like my other personal time though is when i am working out i put my phone in a locker or like have it away from me i never have my phone with me when i'm working out that's kind of like my me time where i'm like and i feel like it sounds so dramatic but it really for me to say in the middle of the day i'm gonna not look at or answer my phone for an hour that's actually a very long time for me to be away from my phone so crazy how we're all like how do people work before i remember going i remember going to lunch with my dad you know because he had like he had a company and he came back and he had like a secretary i guess that's what they call them back in the day it's front desk clerk administrative assistant what are we what am i looking for here but she did for the entire building you know there was all that she would and she didn't have the phone but when he got back she would be like mr still here's your missed calls and these little pieces of paper you go back to his desk and look through the piece of paper and who called him and then decide who he wanted to call back and i was like how crazy is that that that that but you go to lunch and you had stress free lunches like i'll call people i'll call people back when i get back i'm at lunch you can't get me like yeah it's kind of neat like the access is so out of control now all right day we gotta wrap this up um any great books what's your favorite book of all time i want to know what you read what do you recommend to read leadership sales what do you got i'm a terrible reader i'll be completely honest um it's just never been anything that i've ever really gotten into but i will tell you if i jump into a book and i it hooks me in the first couple chapters then then i'm then i'm in you know so i i went on a kick of gosh what was the last thing i can't

01:15:32like james patterson books and stuff like that like you know those types of things something that's quick and my attention span probably isn't what it needs to be um trying to get more into the you know the leadership in the sales books and things like that so like you know five disunctions of a team one of the best books ever one of the last ones that i read every once in a while i will still pick up the one minute manager because i feel like there's there's some really relevant as hokey and it's not it's a great book it's a great book but it but it simplifies everything so those are probably the the last two and actually with a really cool at del frisco's every new gm got one of those and it was signed by the the ceo of the company oh wow that was their thing like so that's that's probably where i picked it up and i've probably read it three or four times so have you ever read qbq i have not you gotta read that one all right have you read that one yet no i'm like you where i do enjoy reading but for me reading is like a a me time thing where i feel like so much of my life is consumed with work stuff when i i read a lot of magazines i get several magazines delivered every she watches a lot of quality television i watch a lot of television and i i do read but i'm more like oh i read a novel you know what's your show do you have a you have any what's your favorite television show you watching anything right now you binge anything i feel like i'm getting old and i'm watching all the things that i used to like over again and i don't know if that's starting to show my age like what like the sopranos oh i thought about that today i was like we should watch the sopranos so like start to finish so like the sopranos on the elliptical machine for a half an hour is like my my thing like right now yeah that's definitely an old person that's that's not a young man's game right there my wife was like how many times are you gonna watch the west wing and i'm like i don't know it's probably once a year while i watch the entire i'll watch it and she's like yeah you're getting old and i'm like breaking bad is when i can watch again oh i've rewatched breaking bad within the last year it's it's a great rewatch yep so you know if for i would say that's probably the biggest thing right now it's just

01:17:36we would rewatch some stuff but it's it's football season now so here we go football we yeah have a new fantasy football show oh yeah yeah it's a new fantasy football podcast that um will be out friday we have our first episode last week with tony galzin caroline's husband is my co-host i've got two co-hosts on the shows and they're both galzins i'm not leading this one this is tony and i's it's it's not we're both co-hosts i'm not like the host co-host or she we're just we're just doing the thing i have no idea what we're doing i love some good fantasy football this isn't that's always good stuff yeah there's so many different leagues and different things out there that are fun too we have a we have a chef's league we're doing it for the giving kitchen okay and it's for um charity so we have 10 people in our league we had 12 i just realized brian lee weaver and shane naz we got cut out last minute we did the draft it just cut them off for some reason i don't know why those two just they're out i don't know we got those jobs like why is there only 10 people in this league like why aren't you guys in how's like dude or how holden bach is in it we have max gulberg pat martin how holden bach naima walker fierce uh from german town but you know naima we have alissa gangeri from the buttermilk ranch we have tandy wilson nice myself and uh who's my last one brian baxter from the cabard seat all right that's our league that's a fun league we're talking about it every friday all those matchups all those people naima joins us on the show shows last week we'll see who's going to join us this week i don't know yet but it's me and tony sitting in here just talking smack it's like a whole draft analysis last week is that what you did we set up the league what it was and all kind of like this is what we're doing and then we broke down all the teams tony tony is that guy he's he's doing a three-team parlay every week and he's putting 25 dollars on it of his own money every week to put

01:19:38on it and he's calling it his chef special he's extremely proud of that i am extremely proud of that name awesome he also created a bunch of team names like fantasy football team names so if you need a fanciful team name that's based around the titans or local he created these team names you created a team name too well he was asking me for suggestions because he needed one for derek henry and so i came up with the genius name she thinks my tractor cito's sexy very nice because they call him tractor cito relevant right she thinks my tractor cito sexy very nice i liked um um chef by rd oh that's a great one too but that was good one tree tannahill we love the viards they are the loveliest people their foundation is absolutely incredible they're they're really really great folks i actually used his name in one of my leagues the i'm not the chef by rd but he came with the harold landry is a linebacker defensive i don't know what is what he does harold landry is on the titans jim tan landry it's a good one a little gtl from back in the day from jersey shore yeah jim tan laundry jim tan landry and i so i stole that i was like i'm gonna use that in one of my teams i thought it was hilarious that's fantastic yes so this is the moment i've been waiting for the gordon food service final thought never have we had a member of gordon food service come in to give the gordon food service this is the most authentic gordon food service final thought we've ever had geez so you get to take us out man whatever you want to say as long as you want to say it the mic is yours you're speaking to the seven people listening make it count for you know i think one thing that you know

01:21:39we've talked on it all day it's just it's all about partnership and that's that's really what we're here for we we're not naive we we know that we're not busy unless you guys are busy right so if if my customer is not a busy customer then i'm not a busy food distributor or sales rep or sales manager or any of those things so it's for us we really try to drive home that partnership piece and making it about you know what are the needs and really getting it's not a one one fits all right so for us it's you know creating that that distribution agreement that really fits to what your needs are and what you need to have done and what you need in your restaurant so i mean whether it's a rebate or pre-bate or trends tours or you know technology pieces and all those things we really we really seek to understand what you need so that we can help you and best partner and run alongside you and that's that's really what it's about for us i love it david burner thank you for joining us today thank you on nashville restaurant radio we'll uh we'll be talking soon yep all right buddy thanks wow that was a lot of fun thank you so much to david burner for joining us here on nashville restaurant radio do want to give some shout outs though i do want to say that sitex sitex is the other one guys that you definitely need to be looking at if you're looking for a linen company they are the company that you need to be working with and ros chandler is the man i'm telling you new restaurant we've got these new beautiful gold linens and i haven't seen one linen that hasn't been like perfect and they're not brand new linens i mean they're they're really nice linens at all three of our restaurants they just do such a great job and the quality of their product is good but the service is really where it's at and i'm just so honored to be working with sitex you will find ross chandler's information in the show notes that's where i'm going to start putting all this stuff so you can see it all the time you can see it in the show notes and um we're really excited we got a big week i'm

01:23:41interviewing stormy warren this week he's the former morning show host of uh the stormy warren show on the highway the largest country radio station in the world i think and now he is heading up the big 615 and he is doing a really cool songwriter series at the 12 30 club interviewing him this week at the 12 30 club and uh that should be a really fun one i'm really excited to uh bring that to you next week we've got all kinds of fun things coming up and um go check out those events at the beginning of the show that's all i got love to see you at chagos this week um um i hope that you guys are being safe out there love you guys bye