Eric Cacciatore

00:00Welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio, a podcast for and about the people of the Nashville restaurant scene. Now here's your host, the CEO of New Light Hospitality Solutions, Brandon Styll. Hello Music City and welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio. My name is Brandon Styll and I am your host and we have got an amazing show today. I hope you are feeling unstoppable because we have got Eric Cacciatore and he is the host of Restaurant Unstoppable, the number one restaurant industry podcast in the world. So we're pretty honored to have him here today and this conversation that we have, we just cover everything and if you're an operations guy, you like working in restaurants, you want to know what the future is, we just kind of talk about everything. It's just with such a, I felt motivated and excited after talking, we actually talked for like an hour after the interview was over, we just got so excited about talking about stuff. So I have a special offer for you right now. My company, New Light Hospitality Solutions and Janet Kurt's company, Kurt's Hospitality Marketing are joining together for this one special time. Coming back from COVID-19, if you're a restaurant or a hotel is challenging. There's a lot of things that are happening right now. We don't want it to be, we want to make your life easier. That's why we're joining together. We're joining together for a one-time 60-day business jumpstart program.

01:46What that's going to be, it's going to be an immersive 60 days. It's operational, it's cultural realignment, it's marketing, it's public relations and we're going to do this for you. It's a 60-day program. That's it. It's all you're in for two months, but we're going to do this for what it costs for an entry-level manager. This is something that we've put together to come in and help you. We have limited space available. I only have so much time that I can spend towards this, so go to Kurt'sHospitality.com. There's a form on there. Fill it out. We will get back to you and we will talk about what we can do to help your business succeed right now. We look forward to jumpstarting your business with you. I also want to talk about Springer Mountain Farms Chicken. They have been an amazing sponsor for us, but you know something that's really cool. I like to throw out random facts about Springer Mountain Farms Chicken. They're the greatest chicken in the world. How do I know that? What makes them the greatest chicken in the world?

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04:07So thanks again, Springer Mountain Farms. So let's all jump in here. We have got this episode, Eric Cacciatore. I'm so excited for you guys to listen. Get in there. Hopefully you're feeling unstoppable. Thanks, Eric. Let's go. All right. We are welcoming in Eric Cacciatore. Welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio. Thank you for having me, man. It's an honor to be here. It's an honor to have you. Eric is the host of Restaurant Unstoppable Podcast, the Restaurant Unstoppable Podcast, which is the number one restaurant industry podcast in the world. Congratulations on that. Thank you. You know, you know, it's a little, it's a little weird saying that. I feel like it sounds really pretentious when we put it out there, but you know, there's more and more podcasts coming up every day and you know, I've got to compete with you now. So who knows how long. Yeah. My little world of Nashville. I think you're good. I am so excited to have you on the show because this is Nashville Restaurant Radio and you are Restaurant Unstoppable, but you are nationwide. You're worldwide. So where I'm focusing on a tiny, tiny city in the grand scheme of things, you're really talking to a nation and I'm so excited to have you here because your perspective, I think a lot of people in our city can take and hopefully earn some perspective, gain some perspective from you. Yeah. Don't, don't build me up too much, man. First, you just showed your logo. Put that up there again. I will. So you are, I just learned something that I didn't know and I don't know if you know, in your logo, you are speaking into a pineapple. Right. It's a pineapple on a little mount. It's supposed to look like a microphone. Tell me about that. So yeah, the international symbol for hospitality is a pineapple. So back, and I don't know exactly

06:09the era, but I know it was, I'm guessing it was late 19th century, early 20th century, maybe somewhere around that time, maybe even a little bit before that, who knows. But the idea was that if you were a hospitality business, you would put one of these things out, whether it be on the stairs or like on a spike of the gate, you know, how the old gates had spikes on them and it would represent that you were, you had like pineapples at that time or something that not everybody had access to. It was a very privileged thing to have. It showed that you had abundance. It showed that you had wealth and it showed that you were able to be generous and giving. So if you were a traveler and you were looking for a place to stay, stay like this, the hospitality businesses would put this out to show that they were open for business and that they were, you know, warm and generous and that they could provide comfort. We all learned something today. Yeah. So another fun fact is that the upside down pineapple is the international symbol for swingers. And I did not know that. And it's tilting downward, which I guess into your mouth almost. I'm open minded, but not necessarily trying to communicate Thomas Winger, I guess.

07:21That's, uh, that's awesome. I had no idea. Yeah. My brother. Thanks. Every podcast that you start, you ask people, uh, what is your motivation? You say, let's get the motivation inspirational ball rolling. Give us your success quote or mantra. Yes. So I think it's only necessary that I have to ask you that same question, right? Yeah, I guess so. It's fair. Uh, so I'm going to share the corner, share two quotes. Uh, the first quote is the quote that kind of gave me the kick in the, can I swear on this podcast? Of course, gave me the kick in the ass I needed to take the lip, the leap off the cliff to get started with restaurant unstoppable. And that quote is, if you have, or sorry, you can have everything in life you want. If you will just help other people get what they want. And that's from Zig Ziglar. And the idea of like, if you exist to serve, if you exist and make people, other people's lives better, if you exist to be a value to other people's lives and helping them and serving them over time, whatever it is you want in life will come to you. And that's kind of the, the, the line that gave me the courage to just leap off the cliff and to start conducting these interviews and to make it about my audience and giving them an example of what success looks like into this idea of sharing knowledge and not holding your secrets, secrets close to your chest. But as a matter of fact, the, the more generous you are with your knowledge, the more you serve, the more you help them, the better off you'll be. Um, yeah. And then the other one was, uh, I wanted to share was, um, ain't nothing to it, but to do it, man, just start, uh, can't stop, won't stop.

08:58Maybe there's three, no, I know it's a, it's a good thing because that's what hospitality is. I mean, a lot of what we do is we have these hearts of servants, you know, we constantly want to be doing is helping other people and you're putting out that positive energy into, into the world. It, it, it comes back and it's, um, it's a special thing. I think that's what a lot of people are missing right now are having to missing during the quarantine was that that's who we are in our soul is we're people that get out there and give love by offering service and nourishment. And when we've been unable to do that extensively, that's what's causing a lot of people or had been causing a lot of people pain. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's part of our DNA where, um, we're social creatures. Um, topic that's gotten super interesting to me over the past seven years doing this is just the study of us, uh, how we work, why we work anthropology, uh, just the, the history of us, the history of cultures. Um, the more you understand about human behavior, the analogy I like to use is like, um, like if you're driving down the highway and you hear something happening underneath, you know, the hood and you're like, what is that noise?

10:05What's going on? Like, I'm scared. I don't understand what's happening, but if you just take a little bit of time to understand how an engine works, then you can identify what the noise is and you know, but there's nothing to worry about. And the same is true. Like your mind is an engine. It's a, it's a machine. Um, and it has little, it has little quirks and little ticks. And if we can learn to identify what those little ticks are, like anxiety, for example, or, or, uh, anger or any, any emotion, any irrational emotion, we can learn to identify those emotions and go, that's not serving me right now. Like it's okay. Like override this and just keep going. Um, and just understanding human nature in general is just so powerful. You know, um, I haven't really talked about this much, and it's not something that, um, I don't want to get too deep into it, but, um, I quit drinking seven months ago and I'm still in this whole journey, but somebody asked me the other day and they said, what's like the biggest thing that now that you don't drink, like what's, what's the, have you lost like 50 pounds? Like what's the biggest thing you've noticed? And I said, you know, the biggest thing I've noticed is that I have to feel everything now. I have to feel everything. And if something happens to me, I can't just go, I need a drink. Like I have to start identifying what that feeling is, why I'm having it, and then like find an avenue to go fix it. It doesn't fall into a, it's not in a bottle. It's in a, it's in a book. It's in a meditation. It's through a conversation that I'm having. It's through listening to a podcast. It's all of those things. And it's kind of what you just said. It's really becoming in tune with what it is. And when something happens, identifying where it is and being able to fix it. I agree 100% man. And congratulations on seven months.

11:49Thank you so much. It's, um, it's been, it's been a fun, fun journey so far. So let's get into you. What, what in your background, you, um, your family owned a restaurant growing up and then you went into being, um, in the aviation industry. Yep. You want to be a pilot, right? Yeah. I mean, who knows what you really want at the age of 14. Um, what I thought I wanted, uh, honestly, reflecting back at that time, like you mentioned, my parents opened a restaurant. Um, they opened that when I was three years old. They had it until I was 13 years old. And, uh, there used to be, you know, just all the pilots that I knew in my life, there was one pilot that stands out, uh, in particular, Albert and Dono, just something about this guy, um, his energy, his, his, his love for life, his love for people. And just the, he always lifts up a room whenever he walks in just other, other pilots of friends who had dads who were pilots or moms who were pilots, the lifestyle, they all seem successful. They all seem happy. They all had nice things. A lot of them had beautiful wives. Um, sign me up and get to travel the world and go wherever you want, whenever you want and just go, go, go. And, um, to me, that was like, that was like, okay. Yeah. And flying planes. Come on. That's so cool. Like, come on, sign me up. Uh, but when you're 14, 13 years old, you have no idea who you are or what your, your strengths are. You have real, no self-awareness, you know? Um, so I, I guess the long story short is yes, I went down that path. I, I became a commercial pilot. I'm the kind of person that finishes what I start.

13:22Um, and I, I probably figured out maybe after my freshman or sophomore year that I probably wasn't on the right path, but was too proud to stop. Um, and I wish, and that was probably the biggest lesson that I learned from that experience is like, it's okay to quit sometimes. You know, it's, it's ironic. My whole thing is unstoppable, right? But just because you, you change a course doesn't necessarily mean you're stopping. Um, and that's a hard lesson to learn, you know? Do you have any questions? What was the tipping point? What was the tipping point behind what made you, what was the day where you went, I'm not going to do this. I'm going to move forward with something different. And what was it? There was like a seminal moment. Um, I mean, there's a few critical points, so I should probably preface this with, um, I'm colorblind. I have horrible ADD and I'm dyslexic. Um, which one? Well, the ADD, I'm, I'm terrible ADHD. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so I mean, I was never really, it was never really a good path for me. And I think I had a lot of insecurities and, um, just a lot of self-consciousness about my disabilities. I buried them. I never really, um, wanted people to know, obviously as a commercial pilot, I was terrified that people would find out that I was dyslexic and I always buried it and I always denied it. Um, because I didn't want people to treat me differently. Uh, and if you tell me I can't do something, well, guess what? I'll show you. And, and I stick with it and I don't quit. Um, so I stuck with it and I always kind of in the back of my mind knew that I wasn't the best technical pilot in the sense of like, uh, being able to take the quick communication, the quick math, uh, put numbers into the flight computer backwards sometimes. And sometimes my co-pilot would catch it, um, or I would catch it and go, Ooh, close one, you know? But it was always in the back of my mind, like I'm going to screw up real bad and either like end my career or hurt somebody even worse. And that was always kind of like a cloud hanging over me and just like, it was like this, like this, like a weight, you know, on my chest. Um, and the last quiz,

15:28the last practical tests I had to take before graduating, it was like a GPS elective. And, um, the, my instructor passed me on that, uh, test and said to me, Eric, just promise me this. If you go flying in bad weather, don't go alone. And then sent me off into the world to become a commercial pilot. So I got that on my back. So like, okay. Um, but he also said this to me, if, if this, this was anybody else, I would have failed them, but I like you, you've been there for me. You've been a good friend to me. And keep in mind, flight instructors at this time, like was, we're only like two years apart. So when I was a sophomore, he was a senior. We're both RAs. We had a relationship and we had a report. Um, and I mean, in that moment, my, my weaknesses have never been more revealed. You know, I've never been more vulnerable, but at the same time, my strengths had never shown so brightly because it's because of my ability to be a good person, to be a caring person, to be emotionally intelligent, to be socially intelligent, to, to have people push me through the system because they saw how hard I worked and they liked me and they wanted to see me become successful is a testament to what I should be doing is something where it's heavy on emotional and social intelligence and taking care of people, not a technical skill, not a, I'm not a tech technical person. So in that moment, I kind of, I didn't recognize it, but reflecting back hindsight's always 2020, you know, I was like, wow, that was my life to kind of help me identify like my path, my lane, what I should be doing. Um, and then the tipping point for me was when I was 26 years old, I was when I actually resigned. So I was eight or I was 22 at that point, four years later, as you know, as after flying for four years professionally, um, I was flying for United Express. Um, like the RJ's? No, it was a dash eight. So it was a 50 passenger turbo prop. Um,

17:35nice. Like a commuter. Yeah. Uh, lots of fun flying, but, um, I kind of just got to the point where I was, I was an IOE, which is basically like, you just passed all of your tests. Now you're kind of like on probation and like anything you do, like you're like, we're keeping an eye on you. Um, it was around that time and I was honestly struggling because I'm a slow learner, you know, I'm willing to admit it. Um, and I just, I just like, I had this moment. I was in, in my mind, I was like, I could do this and be miserable for the rest of my life. And I could, I mean, at the time I wasn't making, I mean, there's money to be made in aviation, not right now, but, um, there's money to be made in aviation. Uh, but in my mind I was like, I'd rather do what I love and be poor than do what I hate and be poor. And at the time I was working part-time in restaurants to supplement my income because pilots at that point don't make a lot of money. And I was like, I love the hospitality industry. I love working with people like I want to do, I want to go to my part-time job. You know what I mean? Uh, so I resigned from aviation, went back to school for marketing and hospitality. That was a loaded answer.

18:39Yeah, no, that's, um, that's good back. One thing that kept coming up in my brain as you were telling this, and I'm not a therapist, but ADHD, dyslexia and colorblind, what was that like? Because I'm trying to identify the guy who has this type of unstoppable drive and what makes you, what was, what was it like growing up in school? Were you a good student? Were you, I mean, I mean, it was growing up in school and like, because of my strengths, I always had friends. I always got along with people. I did have a complex because I had learning disabilities and I would be separated from class often to go learn my way, you know? And I do remember reflecting back at that, I just remember how embarrassing that was all the time. Like it really gives a kid a complex to be separated. And so you're not quite, they didn't say it like you're not quite where everybody else is, but you're smart enough at the age of, you know, six and beyond to recognize when you're being treated differently, you know?

19:41And it was always like a complex thing. Like I was always led to believe I wasn't as smart as people. But again, when you're young, you don't recognize different types of intelligence. You don't appreciate different types of intelligence. And society at that point in the 90s, didn't really appreciate other types of intelligence either, you know? Did it make you work harder? Did it make me, so I'm six foot six and I always grew up and I was always the tallest kid in the class. And I don't know, it's just always a thing. And I had a brother who was always bigger, faster, stronger than me. And I always had to work harder because I was, what's that? How tall was he? He is six, eight. I have a brother, he's six, eight, like 300 pounds. He's a giant. Keep going, sorry to interrupt. No, but I just, for me, like it was a constant, while I was with all of my peers, I was a taller kid and was constantly working for people's affection and wanting to be liked and wanting to be loved and then wanting and constantly competing with my older brother that when I got into the business world, it was like, dude, this guy's out of his mind. Like what's going on?

20:50I just would hustle, hustle, hustle, hustle, hustle, hustle. Like I had something to prove. Then I know like for you, like if you recognize anything in yourself from like growing up with those learning disabilities where you feel like, man, I tried so hard to overcome some of these things and that's, you know, I think we look back into it. So it's kind of shaped who we are today sometimes. You know, I think if anything, it's held me back because I've told myself that I'm not smart and I limit myself from doing more because I'm afraid I'll fail, to be completely honest. But at the same time, I think that it's also subconsciously, unbeknownst to myself, made me a stronger person because I had to lean on my strengths to compensate for my weaknesses and my strengths are social emotional intelligence. Look, you don't have to be good at everything if you're really good friends with everybody who's good at one thing. You know what I'm saying? So say that again, say that again, because that was really powerful.

21:53You just said don't have to be good at everything if you're friends with everybody who's good at one thing. And I just, I always had friends. If I ever, if I ever needed help with something, I knew who was good at something. I always admired what other people were good at. And I always saw the strengths in other people. And at that point in my life, it manifested in admiration and a little bit of jealousy. Like I wish I could do that, you know? But later in life, you learn that like, I don't need to be good at everything. I just need to know who to go to, who is good at that thing. And if you're able to, you know, and it's weird for me to even say out loud that I feel like I'm socially and emotionally intelligent because it sounds like I'm tooting my own horn and makes me sound like a little bit, have a little bit of ego. You know what I'm saying? But really powerful if you know how to wield it. And when you're young, I think that those skills don't really serve you as significantly as they do later in life. And especially like dyslexia and stuff like this, like when you have dyslexia, like you, you have to learn how to lean on those other skills to get by. And those skills are like communication, empathy, just how to manage any social situation, de-escalation, you know, things like this. And you're constantly sharpening the edge on those skills. Later in life, those are the most important skills. If you look at CEOs, that's where they're strong. That's where they shine. It's self-awareness in knowing who to surround yourself with. So I think that like, you know, in a sense, having a dyslexia or disability young forces you to get creative and think outside the box. And if you're able to, you know, have an open mind, you can go very far. You're not necessarily put into a box.

23:46So I think maybe if you're listening to this, you may have found two or three of your own motivation success quotes right there, what you just said. Sweet. Tag them up, man. So this is a motivation, or yesterday was motivation Monday. So I do like the episodes to be somewhat motivational because I feel like people right now are looking for leaders. And I really feel like you are one of those people. And that goes back to 2013. What year did you start the podcast? 2007 years, seven and a half years now. So yeah. 2012-13 around that. Yeah, right around 2012. It took me a year to actually launch. So you were pretty innovative and there were podcasts out there. You said you were an assistant winemaker back then. You didn't say this. I've done a little bit of research about you. You were an assistant winemaker and you went to school and you're one of your professors that challenged you to listen to podcasts. And you started listening to podcasts and you identified that there just wasn't a really good, there was entrepreneurial podcasts, there was business podcasts, but there wasn't a really good restaurant business podcast. And you said, look, I could do that.

25:01I'm going to do that in almost grassroots. You put this together and just out of hustle and grit in your personality and who you are and knowledge, you put together Restaurant Unstoppable. Seven and a half years later, what does the journey feel like to you? Feels like it's been fast. It's never ending learning and realizing the more you learn, the more you realize you don't know. And that you think that you're going to just keep on when I started, it's like, oh, I'm going to interview these people. And then in like a year or two, I'm going to know the secrets to life and I'll be rich and a millionaire. And does it take longer than that? A lot of that's happened. But the thing is the more I'm realizing, I mean, I still have a lot to learn obviously, but the more I'm realizing is there's no one way. There's no right way. There's just the way that's right for you. And there's a million different people that get from point A to point B and there's infinite paths you can take.

26:06There's infinite charts, you know, paths you can chart. And it all depends on your strengths, your weaknesses, your network. Like what's on the table? You know, you've got to MacGyver the shit out of that. What do you got to work with? And the more you can learn, the more tools to your Swiss army knife, you know, and the more things you're putting on the table to like the more pieces of the puzzle, the more, you know, so like, there isn't necessarily one way to do things, but I kind of come from the school of thought that you should be a student of life and learn as many ways as possible. And then you're going to come across a situation where you're like, I'm going to go into my, you know, my toolkit for this situation. But you never know when it's going to come up. You're just going to have to have it there. And I think Jordan Harbinger from the Jordan Harbinger show has a great line and it's about relationships. Like, you know, you don't dig the well when you're thirsty. And the idea is you don't establish a relationship when you need it. You establish the relationship before you need it. But the same thing could be said to knowledge. Like you don't learn when you need the knowledge. You just learn always. And you never know when that knowledge is going to serve you.

27:22Wow. There's, there's again, some wisdom coming out of you and I, I've never seen so I don't know, man. I just, I mean, that's big. That's such an amazing just thought right there. I mean, you know, dig the well before you need it. I mean, if that's preparation, I've always said preparation is, paramount to any sort of success that you have being prepared, being ready and digging the well before you need it. That's amazing. So I learn all the time. I'm a, I'm a nerd, like nerd. I love the restaurant business. I love operations. I love people. I love serving. Been selling to chefs, been working with them, just the creative minds that happen. And I love listening to your podcast. I love listening to some of the people that you have on and every time I listen to a show, I learned something now. That's, thank you, man. That's the best thing I could hear. That's the goal. Thank you.

28:24That's what I, I recently found hiking. I used to love canoeing and here in Nashville, I've got a place two minutes down the street from me that has these wonderful trails, lived here 30 plus years and never really went there. And now I'm like every single day I'm doing trails, but I'm listening to podcasts. I listened to the last one I listened to was an episode you did with Patrick Mulvaney and just, gosh, man, the guy talks about, and I'm going to ask you your favorites here in a second, but he talks about how do, how do you build momentum on a team? And we call it, remember me. How do you take pride in what you do? And he tells a story of how he has lime cooks and he'll be out talking to guests and the guest has a dish that a certain, a new guy had cooked and he goes, Hey, I'm going to send him out here in a minute. We talk, give him a little bit, beat him up a little bit for me and then tell him everything was great. And he goes back in and tells, he's like, Hey, uh, John, I need you to go out and talk to table 12. He's like, why? He's like, did you make the, uh, that halibut dish? And he says, yeah, they want to talk to you. They want to talk to the guy that made it. I don't know. I don't know what it is. He doesn't seem happy. And then he sends the guy out there and the guy does a, yes, sir. How's your, how's your food? And the guy gives, he harasses him a little bit and then eventually says, everything was perfect, man. Thanks for doing this and sends him back in the kitchen. It gets back in. Everybody kind of gives him a round of applause. They'll know what's coming. He's a new guy. But the idea of if you're working behind the line coming full circle to walk out and see the end result to actually interact with a guest that ate the product that you made to go back in the kitchen and go, you know what? I'm not just creating food to put in a hot window.

30:07There is an end user and I got, I know who that person is and just creating that connection. I thought was so innovative. And I'm like, gosh, you want to do that. You want to say, you make this dish as if you're making it for your parents. But the way he did it, he took it a step farther and have like a SOP for it. And everybody knew about it, but it was really cool. And I just little things like that. I get all the time you've done over 700 episodes. What are some of the things you've learned? You know, people ask me all the time, like what interview really stands out to you? Like what's the one interview? And they're really, it's almost embarrassing to admit there isn't just one, but there's just like this, these like accommodate. What's the word I'm trying to say? Culmination. Say the word for me. You know what I'm trying to say? Culmination. A weird word, right? Culmination of a bunch of lessons and like an evolution of just like, oh, I think I figured it out. And then you're like, oh man, well, there's this other thing that's, you know, like whenever I think I figure it out, I figure something else out that is completely contradictive of what I thought I knew, which is back to the point that I made earlier. There is no one way, you know, it's depends. But I mean, and that was one of the biggest revelations right there is that there is no one way, right? And I'm trying to find, I'm on this journey to find the way to be successful in the restaurant industry. And I'm like, fuck man. Like when I, the more I learn, the more confused I get. This isn't how it's supposed to work. You know, this is the opposite of what I thought was going to happen after interview. I thought I was going to get answers. You know, like now I'm just more confused and people are leaning on me for advice. Like I don't freaking know. And like that was kind of the click was like, there is no one way. You have to just learn everything and have an open mind and see things from different perspectives and just, I mean, but I mean, I'm kind of jumping out of order. I would say the biggest lesson I learned when I thought that like, I figured it out was systems, processes, procedures, protocols, you know, like you need organization. You need to replace yourself with systems, processes, procedures and protocols.

32:12Like you can't put the whole, if the business depends on you, then you don't have a business, which is like the big lesson I learned at first. And then I was all about systems, processes, procedures. And then, and then I was like, well, culture is really important. And some people say that culture eats systems and processes for breakfast, but systems and processes. And if you have too many systems and processes, people, it inhibits creativity and a sense of contribution. And, you know, there's, there can always be too much of a good thing. You know what I'm saying? So the next revelation was culture, actually a strong culture, a culture where people have the same vision, a culture where people know what the purpose is and everyone's pulling in the same directions. And there are core values, but not just written down in a book being echoed every day. And people are being empowered to call out anybody a flat hierarchy. Like that's not how we do it. And that's more powerful than a systems, processes, procedures, because there's soul in that. And we are soulful beings and we need soul.

33:19So finding that balance of process and culture and where is that sweet spot? You know, and then like I said before, there's just a million different ways to execute. There is no one way. It all depends on what's right for you. It all depends on what you're going for. Do you want 20,000 stores or do you want one store? You know, like what do you want? What's success for you? That depends a lot on what the answers are. Right. And so it's different for every single person. And the more your show, I mean, the more people you speak with, you're speaking to all those different kinds of people. I've got the one restaurants. I've got the guy that has the 500 seat place. I've got the guy that has 20 restaurants. And you're learning all of those different concepts. I couldn't agree more with you that systems and processes, I try and be intentional with everything we do. You know, so if you're in a restaurant and somebody says, hey, why do you do this? And they go, I don't know. That's because we've always done it. Then I failed because it needs to be a reason why you do everything. But the balance of core values in your culture and living those things and having systems and processes together, I think is, and you couldn't be more spot on with what you just said. I was like, this guy's preaching. This is beautiful. You know, and it all depends. Like where I'm at right now is like, what's the right balance of collective happiness and prosperity? Like what does, I mean, we put a lot like what, like what, what new values does society need? Like are our current value system or our current set of values accurate for what we know about what it takes to be happy? You know? And like, that's what like I'm exploring right now is like, what's the, what is the quote unquote perfect business model? And should we be defined by how much money and security we have? Or should we be defined by how much money and security we give others? You know what I'm saying? And, you know, I have some ideas, I have some thoughts, but like I'm still the verdict's out for me, you know? And I think

35:22it's always going to be like that. I'm a naturally curious, challenge, status quo kind of person. I never quite accept what is right, you know? And do you take a lot of responsibility with that? So with what you have right now with your podcast and the reach that you're currently reaching, what level of responsibility do you feel like you have right now to speak about stuff like that? I mean, I think my responsibility is to not think I know all the answers and to be open-minded and to be a student of life and to challenge my own status quo, check myself sometimes. I think that's my obligation is, and you know, when I first started, I only interviewed independents because I thought that big corporations were the devil. And we, I mean, I still kind of lean towards smaller organizations, like a balance of, I mean, I would hate to see a world of like only 500 restaurant concepts that we all get to share across the world. You know what I mean? To me, that's soulless. To me, there's no culture tied to that or anything. So the question is, how do we stay small but act big? You know what I mean?

36:40You know, or like act small, but I don't know. What's the balance? Like I said before, there's usually a balance between systems and cultures. And I think there's a balance between the right, the appropriate size of an organization where it's not taking it more than what it needs. Where am I going with this, man? You're saying that we should buy local. I mean, in a way, yeah, I think, but it's more than that. It's more, it's just, there's a lot that's broken with our systems. And I think we're learning more and more as we go. But at the same time, to write off a corporation or a franchise because I automatically group them or have a prejudice towards those types of operations as big and evil is wrong in itself. So like, I should be open-minded to say, hey, like if I'm closing you off and saying, fuck you, like, I don't trust you, get the hell out of here. Then I'm limiting myself from all the opportunities and all the lessons I can learn from those people about how to be fiscally secure and about systems processes, procedures and about scaling. And if we take the best of those worlds and not close ourself off to that world, but take the good parts of that world and implement them at a small scale where we can, because they think that like those organizations, their biggest challenge is scaling culture, right? That's the hard part is how do you scale culture?

38:12How do you scale? Behind every great restaurant is a great person. And that person is making an impression on everyone they touch and injecting their vision, their values, their mission into them saying, let's do this together with a more and more people that you stack onto that person, the more diluted that person gets, they can't make an impression on everyone. Unless they're Danny Meyer and they wrote the Bible for hospitality and everyone knows his core values. So the idea is like, why can't we, I mean, if their biggest challenge is to scale culture into inject culture into organizations, then that's probably going to be what they put most of their effort into. So if we can take what they've learned about how to do that well and implement it on a small scale, we're going to have the best of both worlds. We're going to have great communication and say, Hey, I'm this restaurant owner. I only have 20 employees, but now I can take these practices of this big organization and go that much deeper with you, 20 people, because I'm using these best practices. And I'm just, for me, I like to think of it as, as impact overreach. You know, don't focus on reach. Don't focus on how far out I can go focus on how deep I can go right now. And if you focus on going deep, far out comes over time.

39:29It's like a triangle, right? Like if you have like a, here's kind of like a triangle right here, right? Like a little bit, like if you come down, like you're going deeper and as you go deeper, you're also going out. You know what I'm saying? Like, so like, I don't know, that's kind of the analogy, I think, but people just try to go straight out. But when they go straight out before going deep, they have no roots. They have nothing holding them to, you know, to the, to the ground, like a big gust of wind can come and they can get blown away. But if you focus on going deep first, now you're anchoring yourself. Now you have security. And I think there's a lot that small businesses, and I say that small businesses can learn from these large corporations. And I'm glad that you're able to talk to them and share that information because I've always said there's a, kind of like what you said earlier, if you're the one person, there's only a finite number of things I know, but I identify the people around me that I can ask the right questions. And you have the humility to raise your hand and say, I don't know that.

40:33I think that's one of the areas in which most restaurant owners really fail is ego. I don't, you know, hey, I know how to do that. I know how to do everything. And it's like, do you? Because you, when I asked you what your number one most profitable item was on the menu, you said, I don't know. And when I said, how did you decide how you're going to price your menu? You said, I just looked at what everybody else is charging. Like you didn't say, I negotiated with my vendors and I identified what my cost structure was. I created theoreticals and then based upon them, the market that I have here, I put in a cost structure that was able to, I'm able to make X amount and these large companies do that really well and take that piece from them. I mean, so sorry, go ahead. I'm just listening, man. I'm loving what you're saying. Yeah. I mean, that's, that's part of it. If you can have the humility to take what these people sit in offices and rooms and put all of this stuff together and they're very intentional with every single thing that they do, which like you said, it takes a little bit of the soul out of it because they know what, how much money they're going to make if they do X amount of guests over a certain amount of time. Perfect example of like, you know, we like, you need to know your numbers, but you can, you can be blinded. Your numbers can blind you from what really matters. We don't, we got, we have to measure numbers. We have to track numbers, but we have to remember that it's, we're managing people. You know what I'm saying? Like the, you know, it's the trust and track mentality of like, you track the numbers and you trust the people and you give the people the core values they need to do the job right. And if you, if you inject the right values into them and you have the right, a good culture, then think about, I mean, it's, you got to find that balance, man.

42:13Like, and if you, if you focus only on the bottom line at the expense of your people's happiness, then you're going to have issues. And you're not going to have the people that make what you do special. I've always felt like the true differentiators in restaurant is the culture. I mean, you can have great food, you can have whatever might be, but the people in the, the, the hospitality that those people create, the feeling, the vibe, the heart and soul of a restaurant a lot of times is why people come back. Yeah. It's all about relationships. So one of the biggest revelations I've had, and I don't think I've mentioned this one yet is, and I mentioned that I love the study of cultures, the study of us, the history of us. I'm having a brain fart. Anthropology, I'm pretty sure is the right term for that. That's the right word. Yeah. I love that stuff because, I mean, we haven't changed over the past 200,000 years. We're exactly the same. We're, and I feel like things were much more simpler back then, you know? And there's a lot of evidence in how we work. But one of the biggest lessons is, you know, what is money?

43:19You know? Oh, like what, what is this thing that's money? What's the point of it? How does it work? And really what money is, is just a way to measure relationships, is the way to track relationships. And you know, you ever heard about that? Like the, I can't remember the name, where in the world this is, but maybe it was Africa or maybe Asia. I'm not sure. The shells, you know what I'm talking about? People who would use shells as currency. Do you know what part of I know about, I know the reference. I'm saying I love this stuff and I can't even like specifically identify where it's coming from, but I do it all the time. It's okay. People use shells as currency. Well, yeah, but we used to think that that was like a, like a, hey, like I, you know, here's five shells, like give me that. But it was less like how we treat money and more for them. It was like a reminder. Hey, like I did this thing for you. I'm going to give you a shell to remind you that now you have five shells, you know, that's five favors or whatever. I'm kind of, I'm sure I'm butchering this. What's that? Yeah. It's just a way to measure relationships. And that's all money is today is a way to measure relationships. And who did I have on the show recently? I think it was Von Dugan who said there is no bad business with good people.

44:38And all business is, is a way to support. It's just relationships. It's money is just a way to manage relationships and value of your relationships. And if we look at it that way, if we put relationships first and not the amount of money we have, then it's weird how money just starts coming in. You know what I'm saying? And I think one of the big lessons I've learned, one of the things I would like more people to look at, and especially right now, and this is actually great timing, because we're being forced to come to a standstill. There's restaurants shuttering their doors left and right. And there's this void right now in the marketplace. And it's devastating, absolutely devastating. But at the same time, it's so hopeful because we get to pause, reflect and choose for the first time and maybe humanity. We've learned so much about how the brain works and what makes us special. This frontal lobe, this ability to not be reactive and to be proactive and to choose our fate. We get to choose how we come back. And I haven't even said the word yet or the phrase, but vertical integration as I think the future of the industry I would like to see where it's not about me in my business, but it's about me in the relationships of businesses. And how can I create one business and then create all these other businesses underneath it that support each other, that are symbiotic? And not just me, but collaborating with other people in my community, finding people who are strong where I'm weak, knowing everybody else's strength and saying, hey, you're good at this. I'm not good at this. How about you create a business and I become your first customer?

46:25And you vertically integrate all that. And I think an example of this would be you have a restaurant and you start doing pasta in-house, but you hire somebody who's amazing. Their favorite part of the job is pasta and they have a skill for it. You can tell they have a passion for it. You say, Sally, you're great at what you do. Why don't we create a commissary or just start real small, like old pop-ups, right? Where you do your pasta and this will be your business, but you're going to be part of our restaurant group. Or you just do wholesale or you have a storefront. Instead of putting another restaurant next to our restaurant, why don't we put a pasta shop next to our restaurant? And why don't we buy from you and give you a piece of the pie, give you equity in the partnership? You know what I'm saying? And you recreate that and you just find ways to vertically integrate businesses and create opportunity for other people and not make it all about how rich can I get, but how can I give other people opportunities to be rich in purpose and rich financially and rich with relationships and create stability in our community? And I think we used to be like that. We got so far away from it, but it's not too hard to get back to that. It's a simple decision that we can make.

47:42I love it. And I think that that's what our country really needs right now. I mean, when we talk about minorities and people out there who have so much talent and are doing such, they can bring so much of their culture into our culture if they had that opportunity. I mean, the people with the opportunities to take those people and bring them up and help them generate wealth, I think absolutely, you know, kind of brings that gap away from this is an impoverished community to let's build them up and let's start building a social structure where everybody's equal and let's all kind of help each other. I mean, the second we start doing that, I think you start seeing changes in every level. I think every level changes. Yeah, absolutely. And it's a choice, you know, we can choose to come back that way. You know, it's a way to scale a business that serves you and other people, right? It's, I mean, it allows people to be creative. I think the way I like to think of it, so like, who was it? Cameron Mitchell was on the show from Cameron Mitchell restaurants in Ohio. And I think his analogy is perfect. Like when you have one restaurant that works and you are constantly fine tuning the culture and the systems, it's like a car, right? All those systems, cars have systems, cars have framing and purpose, right? You figure all that out. And then if you have somebody within that car, in that system that can drive their own car, right? You go and you basically duplicate the car and put a different shell on it to reflect who you are and what your vision is, right? So the core values are the same. The system's the same, but you're just putting a different body around the frame. And that's how you scale business. And the reason why I love that is because I think one of the issues, excuse me, one of the issues I have like franchises that, I mean, yeah, it creates a lot of opportunity for people, but we forget that

49:45people are creative, you know? We forget that people want to contribute their own unique way. People have different skills, you know? So I think it inhibits and dampens the human element a little bit. Sorry if I'm jumping all around. No, listen, part of what I do here is we just talk. I've kind of the kind of the vision is if you and I were at a bar having a drink and just talking, like if the stuff we say, if it could be helpful to somebody else, then hey, why don't we just do it and share it, you know? So I mean, there's not like this roadmap that I need to go down. I mean, I love just kind of hearing what goes on in your brain. I mean, I think that you've gained so much perspective over the years. The people that you speak with are so creative. And I love the independent restaurateur. I think that just their idea of just their vision, the way that they treat people, the way that they look at things are, I just love it. The hospitality is amazing.

50:50There's three books I want to share with your audience that I think will instead of me is ranting about this. I think who does an organization that does vertical integration really well is Zingerman's. I don't know if you're familiar with that. Arya Winesweg and he's a business partner. I always forget his name, but Arya is the author of these books. It's a it's a lapse anarchist attempt. I think approach approach. Sorry, a lapse anarchist approach to I can't read backwards. Building great business. I can read it for you. A leader in managing ourselves. And he's got I think one more coming out or a few other ones out there, but it kind of explains his whole philosophy of like vertical integration. And yeah, it's good stuff. That's definitely something for anybody to look into right now, especially at this time that we're in. Do you have any plans yourself with your what is your next step in becoming unstoppable? Talking, doing the stuff we're talking about right now, finding ways that I can collaborate with other people who are stronger than I am not needing recognizing that I don't need to go out there and create everything. I just need to know who's the best at it and give them a platform to stand on and share what they do best and not making it about me, but making it about other people, you know, creating opportunity for other people. So right now what we're in the process of doing is I think we mentioned the 80-20 rule. Did we talk about that today? We talked about that before we started recording. Okay. So the 80-20 rule is basically this idea that where it comes up in the restaurant industry is 80% of your profit typically comes from like 20% of your guests, your most loyal guests. So instead of focusing on putting more people into the pot, focus on the people that are in the pot and making sure they come back and that they tell their friends. Four walls marketing, I'm a huge advocate of it. But the 80-20 rule, yeah, so 20% of your customers are responsible for 80% of your profit, right? And this whole idea of quality over quantity, depth over reach, impact, you know, going deeper in increasing the quality

52:59of relationships. Money is all about relationships. So like these are the big lessons I've learned in seven plus years, over 700 interviews with extremely successful restaurateurs. And I want to start leveraging or not leveraging, but implementing those skills into restaurant unstoppable and trying to vertically integrate restaurant unstoppable. So we're in the process right now of launching restaurant unstoppable network where our mission with restaurant unstoppable is to inspire, empower, and transform the industry. You know, we're inspiring with stories. We're empowering by sharing knowledge. And the whole idea of transforming is if we can make an example of enough people and create that picture of perfection and aiming point of what success can be and should look like, and we make that available to the masses, you know, not make this information available to only those who can purchase it or those who have access to the right people, but say, hey, like our unique selling proposition as a species is our ability to tell a story, to compound knowledge, and to pay it forward. So let's lean into that.

54:04And so what I would like to do to transform the industry to share this knowledge is, who are the people that we just talked about, like this whole conversation, like who are the people that influenced me? What are the biggest lessons? I want to go back to those people. I want to go to the Ari Wines wags and say, you know, you're the best at this. I want you to come back on the show. I want to give you an hour just to talk about this one thing. And I want to connect to you with my 20%, the people who are most passionate and have the same core values and want to see the same change in the world and who realize we're going to do it together by coming together and sharing knowledge and holding hands and, you know, going together and realizing that I have a special skill that might help somebody else and they have a special skill that might help me. And if we come together and make our it factors known, you know, the things that separate us, then we are stronger together. So we're in the process right now. I've never been more excited to have a partner Casey Hensley from previously in the weeds. He built a community online of 14,000 service professionals. And I exist horribly online, by the way, because I'm dyslexic. I just don't like to read things. So he's going to be my online presence to help me execute this. And we're going to connect my past guests, the most impressive people in my opinion, the ones that had the biggest influence on me, we're welcoming them back and all my other past guests back for the record to be a part of this community. And we're going to connect them with the most diehard unstoppable is out there. And it's going to be restaurant unstoppable network. We're going to have monthly themes. We're going to have weekly rituals, you know, every Monday is going to be masterminding. So if you want to be a part of our mastermind, you come together with four other restaurants from around the world. We just help each other meet our goals. And then we're going to have a book club where we're basically the monthly theme is culture. We're going to cover X amount of books in that month. And we're going to talk about those books and support each other. And then we're going to have office hours that if you just need to come and talk to somebody, if you need support, if you're fucking having a bad week and like,

56:05you just need to be like, this is what's happening. I need to get this out because it's lonely at the top, but it doesn't have to be. There's other people that you can come like just open office hours like this. Yeah. Let's just come talk. We'll be here. Or maybe you're just having a challenge and you have a question and you want to lean on somebody's skills that if they're strong or you're weak. And this is going to happen weekly every week. And then we're also going to be having these guest lecturers come on. And if you're a part of the community, you might not have access to that person. Traditionally, if you're like a small mom and pop, you might not have $2,000 to invest in this consultant or this restaurateur to come teach you. But because I have an audience of thousands of people, they'll come talk to me and I can bring you in on the conversation and I'll let you ask your questions directly to them. And that's going to be kind of the new format of the show. So we're going to be overlapping the show on top of this community and basically going deeper, right? It's all idea quality of the relationship. So I want to have better quality with my guests, a better quality with my listeners and bring them all together and create a real community and to find out how we can, you know, collaborate and vertically integrate people's skills. Is that too loaded, dude? Sorry if it was.

57:13No, I don't think that was too loaded whatsoever. I'm just over here just kind of taking it all in because what you just described is utopia. I mean, for me, I'm a restaurant consultant, right? So part of what I do is a lot of what you just described. Restaurant tours need other restaurant tours to collaborate with. They need other people to bounce ideas off of. You need, you know, there's all these different leadership networks where people can go to Vistage or, you know, whatever these executive groups are, EO, and they can bounce ideas off people for you to create something similar, a network where people can join in and not just for restaurant owners and CEO types, but anybody that wants to be involved with what you're doing and just the idea behind I'm going to do something to better the industry because ultimately that's what you're doing. Thank you. It feels so good somebody who knows the industry to recognize and this feels good and that's why I'm excited because it just goes back to reinforce everything that I said that if you make it about, if you can have everything in life you want, if you will just help other people get what they want and it's that simple, you know, and there's no better feeling knowing you're making, you're giving somebody what they want, you're, you know, like, and that's why where people like us are drawn to this industry because it's all about giving people what they want, creating those good experiences and nurturing and getting approval, you know. Well, and that's in essence why I started the podcast, my podcast, when I did was to do something similar to that so it's really cool, I mean, for me just because I'm, is there a way that I can utilize my network of restaurant owners and chefs

59:13to get them, like I said, if we were sitting at a bar having a drink and we had some really cool conversations, like if we were sitting a bar having a drink talking about this stuff, nobody else would hear that idea and what you're going to be doing and that is so vital, I mean, if you're, I can't wait for you to do that because I'm excited to be a part of that, I mean, I'm going to learn so much from that, what a great resource, man. I hope you, I mean, you're welcome to join the community, man, we'd love to have you be a part of it. 100%. Yeah, so it's going to be popping off, the mastermind start next month, July, we're already full with those, and the community, if you missed the mastermind, if you weren't, you know, if you're just finding out about this now, but you still want to be a part of the community in the conversation, you know, head over to restaurantunstoppable.com slash network, we haven't launched yet, but we're going to be launching in the next couple months and we'd love for you to be a part of it if you're interested. Wow, so that's awesome. Well, Eric, tell me if you do this too, because I get to a point where we're talking for almost an hour, and I feel like every episode I get into these great conversations with really interesting people who I respect, and I just want to talk about everything under the sun, I'm like, tell me about your family, tell me about this, tell me about that, because I'm just, I'm so into the moment, every person I say, I would love to have you back, please come back. And what you're saying is, I'm going to bring those people back, and we're going to continue the conversation.

01:00:46And I love when I said earlier, what's your favorite show, because people ask me that same thing. And I go, Oh, I really liked it when this person, but I really, you know, there's there's aspects of every single one that are special to me, because I feel like every time I have a conversation with somebody, there's a connection. And genuine connection with somebody while we're talking and is, you can't pick a favorite because that's in the moment, that's what it is, and it's special in the moment. So it is a tough question. What's your combination? What was that? The word again, culmination. I can't say that word. I didn't like to see it. Combination of every, all those things. The culmination. Culmination of experiences and relationships. It's, there's no one where it's beautiful. I totally understand what you're saying. Well, I appreciate you. I've called you a couple of times in the past couple of months as I have been getting going and you have been absolutely gracious in giving me advice. You're one of those people to me where I recognize this guy's really good at that and I need to call him and ask him a question. Thank you for reaching out to me and thank you for doing this interview today. Hopefully we can do this multiple times.

01:01:58I love gaining your perspective and what you're doing. I'll be back in Nashville before you know it. We'll connect for sure, man. Good. Well, thank you for coming on the show today and I I wish you nothing but the best of success and thanks again. Thank you, man. It was an honor to be here and I just appreciate this opportunity. Absolutely. Thank you, man. All right. I'd like to thank Eric Cacciatore for coming on the show today. If you are out there and you're feeling unstoppable, check out his podcast. It's available anywhere podcasts are available. It is called Restaurant Unstoppable with Eric Cacciatore. It's a great, great podcast if you are just if you want to just sit and think about the industry and hear really brilliant creative people tell their stories and what they're doing to be innovative. This is a podcast for you. Also, if you like my podcast, love you to subscribe to it. We now have a YouTube channel so you can go watch these podcasts as well. Hi everybody. So hopefully it's okay looking at me while you hear me speak and be sure honored that you came and listened to us today and we hope that you are being safe.

01:03:13I love you guys. Bye.