Jensen Cummings

00:00Reopening your restaurant comes with great responsibility. Are you doing everything you can to keep your staff and guests safe? With Trust20 certification, you and your guests can feel confident you're doing everything you can to keep everyone safe. Trust20 is home to the new standard of restaurant safety and consumer comfort. By becoming a Trust20 certified restaurant, diners will know the practices you follow to create a safe and healthy environment. Have confidence you're going above and beyond minimal requirements. Have comfort knowing your practices have been independently verified. To learn more, visit Trust20.co. That's Trust the number 20.co. Trust20 restaurants have access to a suite of resources that include expert led training in four key areas, individual consultants, communication material and signage. When you visit Trust20.co and tell them you heard about them on Nashville Restaurant Radio. Trust20, partnering with you to keep everyone safe. Welcome 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.

01:16Hello Music City and welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio. My name is Brandon Styll and I am your host. We've got a special show for you today. This is our last live recording, last interview we're gonna do for a couple of weeks. We're gonna kind of do a little reset and upgrade some different things and get ready for a new season. As we get moving on and on in 2020, we're gonna finish it up strong. But this episode today is with another podcast and his name is Jensen Cummings. Jensen is the host of Best Served Podcast. Check it out. Go listen. Look it up wherever you find your podcast. Best Served. This guy is a bright, brilliant guy. If you're an industry person or just somebody who likes business, we talk about all kinds of stuff. The last 30 minutes this interview is just so good. We really get into some theory and some good stuff. I just, I could talk about restaurant stuff for hours and hours on end and if you are somebody who likes this business, this episode is for you. You heard at the beginning of this episode we talked about Trust20. Please go to Trust20.co.

02:30Get them set up. They will come and do a certification for your restaurant. Make sure that your guests are taken care of as well as your staff. I also want to tell you about Springer Mountain Farms Chicken. Please, please, please join the flock. Go to springermountainfarms.com. Enter email address and get email updates weekly with new recipes, farm updates, podcast updates, all kinds of cool stuff and you can do that only at springermountainfarms.com. We record the roundup live every Thursday at 3 30 from our Facebook page. Myself and Delia Joe Ramsey. We go over all of the Nashville news. We have a guest host. This week it's going to be Alex Ballou of Dallas and Jane in Murfreesboro. We're also gonna have Chef Garrett Pitler on to tell their 9-11 stories. As Friday as 9-11 we are in a never forget moment we want. It's 19 year anniversary of the fateful day September the 11th and we're gonna talk about what we were doing the moment that we found out what was going on. It's probably an emotional show but I think it's something that's valid and I think that we'd love to have you there.

03:42So if you want to comment, if you want to listen, if you want to ask questions please join us on Facebook today at 3 30 and you'll be able to listen to it on the podcast the next day. So thank you, thank you, thank you. We appreciate everybody for joining us on the roundup. Such a fun show. So we appreciate you listening today and hope that you enjoy this episode. All right, I'd like to welcome in to Nashville restaurant radio Chef Jensen Cummings. Welcome Chef. Thanks for having me. Super excited to have you here. You have, you're the host of the best served podcast. You also are the owner of best served creative that you kind of your company that you do around all of this. How are you doing today? I'm really great. I had two shows come out today. We're just non-stop hustling and communicating out here and we got to talk tacos with Rocco Mangle of Rocco's Tacos in Florida and he's got a location in Brooklyn and just I just love talking to people across the industry. It's super fun, super exciting. Now I keep mine pretty specific to Nashville however you are in Denver Colorado and you're interviewing people all over the country. And a few all over the world. We got Mexico and Canada and Paris, Singapore, London. Yeah, you know for me it's interesting because I want to show how interconnected we really are and I think for me it's finding people across the country at every level in every facet of the industry and finding their stories, finding the uniqueness of their stories and the overlap of their stories that kind of just really connect us all. So it's interesting dynamic of being able to talk to people in Nashville or in Denver or in in San Diego or in Portland and just kind of find out what's

05:42happening for them. See if there's similarities, if there's differences and just kind of connecting all those story threads. So doing that right now are you noticing anything that's glaring? What are the things that you're seeing that are the biggest similarities and the biggest differences across state lines and country lines? The number one thing, the first thing that we always ask people is when did you first catch the hospitality bug? We very much are taking this pandemic and flipping the idea of a bug, a virus and owning it and it's very fascinating. Our first jobs in the industry tell us a lot about our trajectory in the industry and it also it's just something people are always excited to talk about because none of us knew nothing. We were just so green and we found our tribe. You know you find your people and I think that's the really galvanizing thing is people just find wow I was so into the culture and the intensity and and the camaraderie and the chaos of it all. There's something about it and when you reflect back on those early days it's really kind of taking you back to childhood in a way and I think a lot of our stories start there and so it's very much something that connects us all I think is fascinating. It also humbles us a little bit because myself especially got high in my own supply far too many times, read way too many of what people are writing about me or saying about me at times and didn't focus on the thing that actually matters because all I care about is what we call unsung hospitality heroes. The people in the trenches that make it happen day in and day out we spend as much time as possible being introduced to as many people as possible and so when you go back to those moments you were that no matter where you are in your career when you reflect on that moment you are just a snot-nosed punk kid and there's something just so genuine and again so humbling about that it's my favorite part of the show is really going back to that place and I do God

07:45there was this one cook who just did X Y & Z and it really like it stuck with me all these years and we all have that experience we all remember those people that had an impact on us and it takes us back to that place. What was it for you? What was your beginnings? You ask people all the time I don't know how often you get to actually tell your story so I'm excited you're on my show I get to I'll start with your origin story you I say let's start with your origin story on your show and I love that what is yours? Yeah my story started before I started my family has been in the restaurant industry for five consecutive generations we opened our first restaurant in 1900 in Little Falls Minnesota called La Fond House that was great great-grandfather great-grandfather and grandfather had restaurants and bars quite a few bars was their their focus in San Francisco and then three uncles my dad's three younger brothers owned restaurants between California Iowa and Florida and even my younger brother he cooked for me for quite a few years so really was kind of ingrained in me I've never I feel lucky I've never been asked by my family when are you gonna get a real job because our family's been in this game we're gluttons for punishment so many people get asked that question like this is this transient industry and it is it's inclusive of people who are going to college who are looking to like make some money while you know they work towards their end goal completely fine it also is a place where a lot of people had have career paths and I think it's something we need to always be aware of that you can be a true professional in this industry and sometimes that doesn't happen so anyway I felt very grateful for that when I was 17 years old graduated high school in North County San Diego and moved out to Ames Iowa talk about culture shock in 2000 graduating high school and then I go out to Ames Iowa to just go watch dishes and chase college girls at one of my uncle's restaurants is basically what I thought it was and within a week I was I was all in it was so the counterculture

09:45crowd that I was looking for I just loved everything about it I love the hazing of it I ended up rooming with you know I think seven or eight different people that I worked with throughout the years at different places the college atmosphere was was perfect for me at the time and so that was it I went to culinary school in in Iowa as well and you know my wife she is a cyclone an Iowa State cyclone born in Ames Iowa and went to the Iowa State so that's really where it started for me wow I think you know I think a lot of people have not the same thing you do is where your family has just been at forever my dad was in the music industry and everybody says why didn't you go into the music industry and I kind of went well because I didn't want to do what my dad did at the same point I also wanted to I got I started working in a restaurant when I start working in a restaurant it was really the first time in my life that I was around people that I felt like I could be me around does that make sense and which was which was incredibly reckless I was so incredibly reckless that I was kind of like shunned from all these other industries like you're too reckless and I got to restaurant industry I was like I'm just right I'm just the level of reckless that works and they opened me with a pirate ship Brandon we're the island of misfit toys the band of rebels like all of those things I think are super true it's funny that you say you didn't want to do your dad did my dad's three younger brothers his two sons incredibly talented in the industry we joke kind of a joke that our dad can't boil an egg that the man can't cook to save his life and he eats like a child we say all the time and so it's funny I didn't do what my dad did it's just the rest of my family clearly was in the game yeah but it's you know it's kind of in your your culture of your family it's in that there's there's a there's a side of it that's different which for like I never thought it was gonna be a career for me

11:47I never thought it was gonna be a career for me and then one day somebody said hey you should get into management and I was like I I was 22 years old when I got into management and it kind of was a I don't know it was a weird moment it was a weird moment to get in management somebody said everything that you say from now on people are gonna remember and I walked back into the restaurant and I couldn't hug everybody because you know it's kind of like the party coordinator for you walk in and like the manager doesn't hug people and I was like oh this could be different and then I started looking at it and I I felt like it was this adult side of me got to be like the running the pirate ship what was it for you because you haven't I mean you were a chef but you went to culinary school was it culinary school that really did it for you that kind of put you into that this is a business I want to do it forever kind of a thing I think I knew before that it's why I went to culinary school I wanted to really layer on what I knew I worked at Wallaby's Bar and Grill in Ames, Iowa a sports bar of my uncle that was the first restaurant started washing dishes and within a year was running the line and so very much had the aptitude for it was the first in last out kind of mentality work hard play hard mentality all of that was like very much ingrained in me and after a few years of working I said okay I want to see what I don't know yet and so culinary school seemed like an opportunity to kind of do that but I already have my chops I could do 500 covers standing on my head like boss and a lot of people I went to culinary school with even recently I interviewed a couple people from back in the day on the show and they were like yeah man you were super intimidating because a lot of us came in green and you had already worked in some high volume kitchens and so I was like okay so that made that made sense to me as far as like taking that and applying some of the things at culinary school now here's the interesting thing that I get asked this all the time and I'm just gonna ask myself on your show Brandon is it worth it and I say it completely depends on

13:48you is it worth putting yourself in massive debt and never having restaurant experience absolutely not is it worth understanding that it is an opportunity to round out your skills and to make sure that you you know meet the right people and and use that as a strong networking opportunity if you leave school with no debt then I think it's absolutely worth it so for me it was it was really that there was a couple moments that were really seminal moments for me and they happened in culinary school that definitely put me on a trajectory the first was we had a group of chefs and their whole families came from Saint-Antoine France which is near Lyon and cook with us for a week and then we went to Vegas with them which taking French chefs from a small town to Vegas let me tell you that's a whole other show to talk about in Vegas and it just really changed my my trajectory for sure because I outcooked a lot of people at school you know was was was that guy and I was very competitive about it and I was a leader of leaders on our teams you know when those French chefs came they were on a whole different level and I was just so quick there was a language barrier but I just watched and paid attention and they kind of took me under their wing and would say like Jensen's got this because I kind of understood what they were trying to accomplish in these different demos and so the fact that I was able to connect with them that was a big moment for me where it's like okay I could connect with chefs outside of the little bubble of culinary school and of value and then the second was the French Laundry Cookbook one of my friends Ben Hayes who's one of the people that I interviewed recently great chef works for Facebook now and he got this cookbook and I was like what the hell is this I had no idea that food could look like that to that point I was a damn good cook and I knew all the basics and I could pump out a service like no other never got overwhelmed barely broke a sweat when I saw food like that I was like I need to go into that and then that put me on a path coming out of culinary school moving from Ames to Kansas City where for Debbie Gold who's a James Beard award winner best new

15:53restaurant winner top chef masters all of that and got on that very chef driven focus versus just kind of the family-owned independent restaurant and so kind of brought those two worlds together a little bit that definitely culinary school changed that trajectory for me for sure I love to hear that story because I think it's so much of it is it about your mindset you know and I've had the you know being in sales and food sales and food leadership I've spoken a lot of you know the artists to here in town or we have a couple different culinary schools and I've come in and I've talked about kind of that aspect of the food sales in coming in and doing a lot of that and paying attention in class and it's almost like they have me come in to kind of get people excited and motivated to do something a little bit different but I always thought like if you go to culinary school it's such an amazing opportunity if you take exactly everything you just said if you're paying attention to really honing in on your technique in your form and you're really interested in this is what you really want to do you can get a lot out of it if you're just doing it because somebody's sending you to school and you're gonna end up maybe working in a kitchen somewhere someday you get what you put in you know you take out what you put in and it sounds like that's kind of the differentiator hey if you go in there with the right mindset and you put everything you possibly can into it you can take a lot out like anything you know it's interesting because I went to culinary school is not what makes me a chef no and it's even interesting in this moment where you know my handle is at chef Jensen Cummings and I reflect on that having burnt out in the kitchen I mean I work 70-hour work weeks for 10 years you know there was a almost a seven-year span where I didn't take a single sick day I was just like had to be the Ironman it was like my it was my mindset to just overcome all and strength and weakness like a lot of things right and I just couldn't sustain and I think that is kind of a normal story for people and so I reflect on that and I think about that now I'm like am I still a chef am I not because I don't work in a restaurant or am I always chef just like somebody's always coach once you

17:55have been at that level for you know hundreds of people on your teams over the years because they refer to you with adoration as chef because you were in the trenches and you led them and you taught them something you brought value to their life in their career and so that's an interesting dynamic and culinary school is not where I achieved that if I even did it was definitely what happened in all of the years working in kitchens and being a leader and recognizing that when I succeeded it's because I recognized that I work for my people and every time that I failed it's binary every time that I fail is because I took people for granted every time that I've succeeded is because I hustled to empower them right and so that's what chef means to me and so thinking about that is pretty important if I were to list the ten things that that make me a good chef that made me a good chef eight of them have nothing to do with food and so you know I didn't learn any of those things in culinary school so it's it's interesting I got a lot of value out of culinary school I learned a lot of fundamentals there were a couple seminal moments that really really pushed me onto this path yet when I look back everything that I know about being a chef I learned on the job when I was interacting with people that I worked with that I worked for that worked on my teams but you're one of a handful of people that has that mindset where's that come from in order to be in that situation to pivot your brain to have that attitude where does that come from I mean that's family once again William Cummings and Mariko Gifford mom and dad both are self-made entrepreneurs both are some of the most thoughtful and creative people in their spaces both have done transformational consulting work both have done paradigm shifting both have done a lot of work on getting people from scarcity mindset survival mode into like abundance and growth and so I always kind of remember those things one of my first jobs was like on a giant desktop computer typing up quotes

20:03that went into little pamphlets and booklets for my dad's courses when he would go to big companies like like Pac Bell Pacific Bell AT&T type scenarios I remember he was into telecommunications for a while and go and teach leaders about inter interpersonal communication and there was all kinds of different like word games and in different ways of like communication and disrupting communication and understanding you know games like telephone stuff like that and so I always remember thinking around the corner I always remember anticipating not what was in front of you but the depth of meaning that was inside of words or communications or non-verbals things like that so I always remember bringing those things and having a very kind of cerebral approach even in the kitchen my first my company is still actually we have DBAs of best serve but it's called fortune cookie concepts because everyone would call me the fortune cookie all the time because I would throw these like hilarious term one-liners and terms and these little quips out there and people would make fun of me all the time and then years later they'd be like so I absolutely say it's as important the way you slice chives and how you sear foie gras to every cook I hired because you beat that into my head years and years and so I guess great I love that so very much it comes from a mindset place and Brian I gotta tell you this is another thing I reflect on now I was a cook and I was a chef that was a chef owner right and then I was a culinary consultant chef consultant what I recognize now is I've always just been a communicator I happen to use food and beverage and hospitality as my medium purely a communicator and so now I'm using the platform of you know podcast and webcast and live streaming and social media as my vehicle for communication it's still communication and it's all relationships it's the only thing I remember if we tell stories it's about the chefs in France it's about Ben Hayes and the French laundry it's about going to the French laundry and having chef Keller show you around the kitchen like these things that you remember I

22:04remember maybe one or two of the dishes from the French laundry and only because I remember from the cookbook I don't really remember those but I remembered the moments because of the people I remember that was our honeymoon with my wife Betsy I remember again chef Keller showing us the kitchenette per se it's relationships and we get too stuck on the food and the beverage and unfortunately those things can be commoditized like that it's very much the ethos and the the mantra of our show is for us to value and focus on why and who before what and how we're like channeling Nietzsche meets Simon Sinek for hospitality like very much focused on why we get out of bed in the morning and who it is we serve versus what we do and how we do it because that stuff you just get chummed up in the minutiae of that and we we see that play out all the time in the industry well it's so funny because I think that's something that we find synergy in it because the first time that we spoke you know I think we talked for like 30 minutes we just kept talking about all kinds of different hospitality type things that we're kind of in a similar place except for my existence was more front of the house I was kind of the sommelier and then working with taking that level of service into sales with chefs so I worked with chefs for 14 years but more on the kind of helping them get what they need kind of a deal but constantly working towards getting restaurants I started a consulting company but you were in the kitchens chef operator and then you kind of started your own you're doing consulting and when did you start your podcast when when was it actually started November 18th 2019 at noon mountain time was exactly when it was started we we started with a Facebook live stream a really talented chef who also owns a knife company called element Wenzel he's my next door neighbor one of the most talented sushi chefs in in Colorado for sure and you know and so we did a Facebook live where I interviewed

24:04him a little bit he interviewed me and then we came out with just straight audio podcasts on you know we still have that that channel and it was because of watching an episode or listening to an episode randomly of Gary V with Chase Jarvis and they talked about anchor the the platform on this guy where I literally was like what you could just push podcasts through your phone I was like yep I can do that and I was I'm just like one of those people like yep I'm going and in five weeks had a podcast got a $30 cheap headset thing just got on zoom I was either like in this room right here in the corner with like the drapes drawn because I the sound is echoey in here and you know I didn't have this nice microphone and so that or I would be my car and in the parking lot by the lark burger across the way because the the data wasn't very good in the back of our place so I drive my Jeep over there park hang sweatshirts in front of me and next to me to help buffer sound and I would just sit there and have a conversation with somebody across town or somebody in Atlanta Georgia or somebody in Seattle Washington just to have these conversations and was very much these unsung hospitality heroes we had conversations not tell me what's on your menu because I don't care unless it's a dish that's on your menu because you've been cooking gumbo with your grandparents since you were a kid then I want to know everything about it I want to know if you use filet or if you use roux or how far you take the roux or do you use sassafras like I want to know everything about it not because it's it's a item on your menu but because it's important to why you exist and who it is that's gotten you to this point and those are the conversations the other function of the show that is really unique was there was always two guests on every single episode the second guess was an unsung hospitality hero you were required to be on the show to nominate somebody else who you

26:05believe needs to be recognized needs to be acknowledged and acknowledgement became the word of power for us how do we knowledge more people in the ecosystem than just those that have a name brand and so for 10 minutes at the end of each episode would be just you know tell me about the relationship what's it like to work with somebody like Carlo the Magna you know what does that look like for you as chef in Portland and it was really really great to get to hear and get to introduce to new people and you know I had 22 year old kids who nobody's ever heard of and somebody was the first mentor they had at culinary school and like these relationships they matter they really matter Brandon and that's what we were trying to highlight so we were doing two episodes a week maybe a little bit more we got to 37 episodes and then shut downs and I said I can't I can't have these hour-long conversations with people asking them about their grandmother and the first job in the industry and you know who is somebody that you want to highlight because they were just trying to survive in that moment and so I said we need to go live I just need to be there for people I'm gonna hustle and communicate and try to bring value and if people are out there struggling like I need this I've recognized it was therapy for me and March 18th went live for the first time and we have not stopped going live seven days a week every day we're hitting 200 episodes this week that we've done since March 18th two days a lot of times and it's just because there's so many good stories there's so many good people there is and I feel yeah I kind of did a similar deal you know I'm doing working with restaurants helping you my goal is to help other people you know I have that spirit of service and as far as not wanting to wait tables or bartend really working with operators to help them be more efficient but starting the podcast was really a how do we share perspective you know and you're doing this on a national level and I'm really my idea was in Nashville you know

28:08similar to Denver there's different there's pockets it's Aurora and low-high and high-low all these different areas around Denver and Nashville we have East Nashville and West Nashville and Brentwood and Franklin and all these different spots but if you work in one you don't know what the other is doing there's no medium that shares that and during a pandemic when nobody's working and people are at home by themselves in the quarantine idea was how do we share that how do we share what's happening with each other because if people my big thing is I'm a I'm in recovery you know I'm a recovering alcoholic right so I know that in our industry mental health issues as well as substance abuse runs rampant and it's everywhere and I kind of got scared for my fellow people during this time that is gonna be really tough for a lot of people and hey how do I share other people's stories throughout the city as to what if you live in West Nashville what's happening in South Nashville what's happening over here people are getting this I'm not alone I'm not alone here sitting in my house the other side of town listening to this I'm hearing other people that are struggling feeling the same things I'm feeling and you know I think it was a good way good way for the man I didn't know you felt that way people are reaching out to each other hearing them on the show just as a medium to help and then it morphed and it's not I'm not a I'm not a food guy either I'm a food guy but like I'm not so tell me about your favorite appetizer on your menu that's not a question I want to I'm really about the why also I love Simon Sinek and it's just a time about yourself your story I want everybody if there's a chef out there that everybody knows and they know who he is I want them I want to have that chef on at the end of that interview everybody learned something they didn't know about him you know what I mean absolutely I think that's fascinating to me because we're going down similar similar rabbit holes with people is that the best moments are when that chef when that bartender when that

30:09farmer when that filmmaker all these people that interview learn something about themselves through that is the best and and so often that comes from acknowledging others this is a really challenging thing Brandon we we don't acknowledge each other enough we are so good so good at taking care of our guests we are so good at putting on a smile because it's part of your uniform we understand these things and they are so innate in the way that we interact with in restaurants yet we are so bad at taking care of each other and taking care of ourselves to your point I knock on wood got away from the the drinking and drugs with out hitting absolute rock bottom but I woke up in my car in the back parking structure of my restaurant multiple times after some tirade or some BS that I put myself and people through time and time again and and and I think it's important for us to recognize how we take care of ourselves and each other because one of the one of the visions I have one of the things that I hustle so damn hard for is that I want us to be in an industry where it is the standard that 65 year old line cooks are getting ready to retire after putting 35 40 years of service in that our industry invested in them that they could have a true professional career path where they get to put the 2.5 kids through college and they get the gold watch and the pension I talk about this a lot and I'm like on repeat on this point because we need to invest in the most valuable asset the restaurants have and it's always your people always and it's your biggest cost direct labor is your biggest cost and we deal with that a lot on the operational and business model side it's your number one asset and we see it playing out more now than ever because when we are coming up in the restaurant industry the independent chef driven restaurant they really had something that nobody else could encapsulate you couldn't repeat that at scale for the big chains we see it today though food products can be

32:10commoditized the big guy can have the hip cool ramen dish four months after becomes a trend not for years right and so now you have to compete in a very different game and the game that you have is not the commoditized white noise of fried Brussels sprouts a buffalo cauliflower or even ramen again unless it's something that is so innate in you it is absolutely your people because that is the asset that the competitor does not have and the more time we spend acknowledging that and acknowledging each other we're going to empower people to take themselves seriously and actually look at themselves as true professionals if we invest in what we call the good with kind of the four tiers of investing in human capital which is wages benefits education and culture and we need to make sure we're paying people livable wage and where you are I'm not I never advocate for like universal wage or $15 minimum wage or whatever these things are because I think it's very nuanced yet I think we need to be paying livable wages benefits is absolutely something you go to any other industry it's an expectation yet it's something that we claw in one direction or another to never invest in and then we wonder why people don't stay and then we have a 73% turnover rate the average restaurant tenure employee is 56 days it costs $6,000 on average annualized to lose one employee at line level 13 to $14,000 for a manager and we turn through people at that rate and then we haggle on one or two dollars investing because we're so focused on prime costs it drives me crazy it drives me crazy and it's so personal to me because both I played that game for so long and then failed multiple times of being the chef owner of restaurants and I was like I'm really smart I'm a good operator yet I also did things like every single person on my teams got bonuses and I would give dishwashers $250 visa gift cards you know every other month when we kind of did these cycles and so like I did those things and I was

34:10like and we just we still couldn't make it and now and people were like well you're doing all these things to you know nobody else gives bonuses to their dishwasher I was like that's the problem I don't want to survive in this industry at five or six percent net profit if I have to then pay a dishwasher $12 an hour and not be able to incentivize them and churn through people I just don't want to be in that industry so I had to take a step back and say I can't be working in the restaurant anymore I need to figure out a way to work on the restaurant model and that's what we've been really working on the best-served creative side let's talk about that because I was fascinated talking to you about that and I for those of you who are listening right now and you're not a restaurant yeah we have a lot of people that work in restaurants and own restaurants we also have guests that come in this will be a good insight for you to kind of listen to some in what we like to call inside baseball yeah because I want I love geeking out some time on exactly what you're about to say if I think I know what you're about to say what are you working on with the creative side of best-served yeah what's interesting is is there's a lot of jargon that that I throw out there yet people always even if they've never worked in a restaurant always understand me because they're like it was like I didn't understand some of the terminology that use I don't know what prime cost is yet I understand when you invest in the business and not invest in the people I like people across all industries really get that and my intensity always comes through so what we work on is something called the paragon pillars and this was born out of that frustration that I had of hustling so hard for so long being such a good operator and still having to close restaurants and coming to terms with well 65% of restaurants closed in the first 12 months why why do we just take that and say yeah that's just the way it is that's fucked up like I don't want to be in an industry where you make five or six percent and and you should be

36:13thankful and if you're not one of the 65% then you're good to go like that's not a sustainable viable industry in an industry that has 900 billion dollar market cap that has 660,000 restaurants operating at any given moment that has 15 million people working at the second biggest employer behind the government and we're not investing heavily in the viability of that that's what we focus on so the paragon pillars for me is like I want outcomes I don't want to keep drudging in the muck to get a half a percent here or one percent there to try and survive because I've done that and I hated it and I failed at it and most people do and so I wanted to say what are the two outcomes and the goals that I have and the 65 year old line cook just kept coming to me and so the two goals that we have the two pillars of the paragon pillars are one to invert the 73% and get to a 75% employee retention and satisfaction and I mentioned the wages benefits culture education there is a roadmap to a more equitable profitable sustainable business model and that's what we focus on that's number one we have got to start investing in people we need people to feel not that they're just bodies think of the term bodies we say we need bodies we need hands you're not even important enough to be a whole person you're just a set of hands or a body like you're you're at the morgue and so these tropes that we have like we need to reflect the words matter we're telling people that they're unimportant and I think that there's something that we need to again we need to reflect on that so that's number one number two is that we need a 19% net profit to be the industry standard for single operation at flow state year-on-year 19% again depending on where you look within the numbers six percent seven percent eight percent is the industry norm what's the first thing Brandon that people say to me when I throw that number out there there's no way there's no way I'm at 7% you want me to over double almost triple my net

38:15profit and I say yeah I do I really do how do we get to that number because there's certain things that we've just taken a status quo why is rent supposed to be a projection of 10% of your gross revenues why is that the number why isn't it seven point one seven point three why are these numbers that the way that there are it's because somebody else has set a market value for these yet now what we see is restaurants and this isn't about leverage this isn't like a buyers and sellers now restaurants have the leverage over let's say a landlord that's not what I'm advocating for at all what I'm saying is every industry that touches restaurants all 104 112 147 line items of your budget your P&L are an opportunity to have a partner and every one of those industries that feeds into the restaurant industry now more than ever recognizes that restaurants are fundamentally the pillars of both culture and commerce in any given community now all of a sudden landlords are saying you know what yes we need to invest in the viability of restaurants because I also don't want my location vacant every 12 months because restaurants close at a 65% annualized clip I don't want that so how do we invest in their viability and we say this is the number 19% can all 147 of us get on the same page that includes regulators and legislators how can we not have somebody have to budget one and a half times a base salary for an employee right because if I pay somebody $50,000 I'm budgeting $75,000 because depending on where you are you're talking payroll taxes you're talking workman's comp you're talking about setting aside some money for unemployment insurance potential to be on the hook for that so it's not $50,000 that you're haggling for it's not $12 an hour it's actually $18 an hour so I understand that from the operator standpoint we need to understand how do we get that number that we budget and usually the actual

40:15numbers are 1.38 1.42 something like that how do we get that to 1.31 1.29 what's the investment that can be made in again the viability of restaurants because generations past of the the shopping mall being the epicenter of commerce and then restaurants happening to be there that's not the case anymore you're talking about different neighborhoods in Nashville I guarantee you the neighborhoods you're talking about restaurants built the commerce they built a brand they drove attention they drove foot traffic they drove revenues and now it's the restaurant not the JCPenney or the Sears that it used to be it's the restaurant that's driving commerce to the yoga studio on the shoe shop to the boutique this or that to the it's restaurants so restaurants need to be invested in at every single level it's fundamental and we recognize that and those are the two things that we're doing on on that two two-sided front of the paragon pillars with best served creative and really reestablishing the mindset for the industry into invest in growth because a lot of things we're talking about you and I have done this we've done a lot of cut and control control your costs cut your costs and at the end of the day I'm all about seconds and pennies yet the way that you get there is pretty important and so I'd much rather always be like well how do we invest and grow and and properly run those numbers versus like how do we cut how do we control how do we cut how do we control because that's a race usually to the bottom and at the end of that your number is right and the money is walking out the door six thousand dollars at a time on employees but hey you got your food costs down to twenty seven and a half percent so we're focused on the micro and not recognizing the macro enough and that comes from restaurants we're we're instant gratification it's part of our thing it's why we're so good at the next plate the next plate the next plate one guest at a time you're only as good as your

42:15last plate is we're so short-term thinkers that it allows us to think in 30-second spans two-minute spans 15-minute spans pretty well to operate in the restaurant it makes us good tacticians it typically makes us really poor strategists and thinking long-term and the long term is every one of those employees walking that door that's six thousand dollars imagine if you ran any kind of restaurant and six thousand dollars walked out the door of food products you would lose your shit Brandon immediately immediately and we let $6,000 worth of human capital walk out the door every day every day I was listening to an episode you dad was trying to look at the guy's name I forget it was he had a Cahaba Calabas Calabas it's a hiring software the guy created uh you mean kobeo kobeo Brian Doolin with kobeo right Doolin I was listening that today and I was really impressed because you brought up something that I thought was really fascinating this was a point that you made and I just it was great because right now in the time that we're in there's been a vulnerability that's been exposed to restaurants big time that you know hey this isn't a that nothing is certain and there's a lot of really talented people that are in this space and right now those really talented people have other options and they're moving into other areas in the hospitality industry is losing really really good talent and I just started thinking like you know right now where we went from an extreme employees market especially here in Nashville where there's just so many restaurants and it's hard to find staff the number one thing you ask any chef or restaurateur in the city of Nashville the past five years is what's your number one problem they would say people finding the right people getting people and now there's

44:17not a lot of restaurants there's still a ton of restaurants that haven't reopened and there's a lot that have but there's an abundance of people and I think that people right now this is this is an amazing time to ensure to reinvest in those people and make sure that you are getting the best people and keeping them and and really invest because I don't know I just I just see a lot of people that are oh we're good we've got a lot of people now and it's like but there's a there's a whole stable of really talented people that are here that are slowly trickling away this is a time to ensure that you have the best people on your staff and and keep them there and build up build up your culture and reinvest in in your business yeah Brandon what you're talking about right now is the single most important thing the thing that's on my mind the most the number one fear that I have for the industry I also have recognized this for years and years and years and it's the paragon pillars are now at the forefront and a lot of people are talking about that and I get hit up dozens of times a day saying how do we take that to the next level and six years ago when I first came up with the concept people like yeah Jensen that no nobody's doing that that's not the way that it is this is the way that it is like that's the way that it's been and the restaurant business model hasn't changed for over half a century we are so about to get disrupted like you would not believe and then look what's happened in the industry in the last five years and so this isn't like a I told you so moment it was just seeing that and trying to figure out how to map towards it and I had to be patient which I'm not good at to wait for a moment where people were listening people started listening about last year 2019 people started listening going this is just brutal we're just running through the same wall again and again and again and we're coming through people you know there was kids these days they're not as passionate they don't show up no call no show well here's the reality I know 24 year old kids that hustle their face off I know 30 year olds that hustle their face off

46:17and I know 60 year olds that haven't worked a hard day in their life so it's not necessarily this generational thing what's happening is we're being called out at scale at mass scale that we have a culture should not a labor issue that's manifesting as a labor shortage is the culture issue within restaurants restaurants are no longer a great place to work that's what's being said because I thought getting a plate thrown in my head with a badge of honor turns out that was toxic stupid and not sustainable and that's why I burnt out among the reasons that I mentioned before so these things are the reality that we have to come to terms with and then move forward I mean you know the first the first step in fixing a problem is admitting you have one right and I think this is a very important thing that we have an opportunity and to the point that you made people started thinking in this well now we have lots of people I even heard that three years ago just wait till the economy crashes then they're gonna need these jobs I was like oh shit this mindset is getting worse they're basically now pitting themselves and saying I'm just not going to invest in these people because they don't care it's like well yeah chicken or the egg who's gonna take responsibility for the way things are the kid who didn't show up for their first shift because one look at your place after a phone interview recognized that this place was not the kind of culture that they wanted to be a part of and that's their fault yeah they should have taken the job absolutely yet you are on the responsible side of the equation it's your business you're in leadership so these are the things that I'm very concerned about and spending a lot of time communicating with people at the line level Colbeo is another very interesting model where they're looking at hiring very differently right they're almost like a matchmaker saying what do you want to get paid what hours do you want to work what skills do you have what things do you want to learn and then their algorithm connects them with jobs that actually match that not a job that needs a body and you happen to have a body and you can fill that void for them until they get bored with you you

48:20get bored with them which is happening faster and faster and so that's a big part of the focus of again acknowledgement if we spent more time focusing our energy acknowledging the people that actually make it happen we have a huge opportunity we could be the best industry Brandon we see that we are in certain ways people are struggling right now so desperately yet I get messages every day somebody saying is there somewhere where I could donate my time is there somewhere where I could go cook to feed people like there's that kind of humanity in hospitality we need to really recognize that and empower that and we have that opportunity yet when you see your things like oh they're Google of that industry you hear terms like that and I'm like you know what that means is they're the best it doesn't mean that they have bouncy ball chairs and foosball tables and free snacks that's a byproduct what it means is they are the best at investing in culture in education in innovation and when I look at the upside potential of restaurants I see that we absolutely could compete with tech I want to take people from tech and move them into the other way around I want people that go into food sales because they can't work in the restaurant anymore and they you know the money isn't there and they've missed every single wedding and every single family event for the last decade I want us to be the industry where people go I've been in food sales for 15 years I need to go into restaurants that's where I really feel like I can thrive I can shine I can be a part of something special I can put the 2.5 kids through college and restaurants just are not that it's concerning I mean there's if for the bulk they're not I think that there are some it's really refreshing to me to see restaurant tours the biggest problem I'm seeing is that people don't clearly define what their culture is yeah you know I mean yeah there is a culture and there's there's an incredibly toxic culture that you grew

50:21up in and I grew up and when you get thrown you know stuffing thrown at you in a kitchen that's part of that and I was fine with that because that's that to me is a badge of honor too right but now people have to clearly and effectively communicate their expectations in every way and they have to have a true north that everybody on the boat people today want to work together they want to be led they want to be on something that means something more than what they are and just the just get in here and wait on the fucking table isn't okay anymore like you need to have something that people are striving for and I think a lot of that turnover that you talk about is because the people just a lot of restaurants just aren't well run people aren't identifying that that's how you lead people and just putting words to what your core values are in having core values and putting it on paper and saying this is what we're all going to do every day and having this baseline for accountability that everybody signs off on when they work for that job you keep people ten times as long because they know what the expectations are and they get held accountable they go okay I want to be I want to do this I'm never shocked when I walk into work and somebody throws something at me that's not part of our that's not part of our culture yeah it's it's interesting because what goes without saying does not it needs to be said the loudest and the most often and too often we think because we're in this experiential industry where we are the masters of wowing people with food and beverage and hospitality and experience that somehow as a natural byproduct that is going to transcend into the culture that we have because we are the culture any community comes to us to be cultured right we don't do that internally and we just expect that there's this osmosis and the reality is it's not there the reality

52:23is it's the antithesis of that you're feeling you are putting all of that joy and good into the work and not leaving any of it for yourself and that's what ends up happening it is a one-way pipeline of sucking out that from you and we got it we have to recognize that and that's again why the things that we're talking about are creating that equitable profitable sustainable model it's equitable for the people that work there it's sustainable for people that work there it's profitable and sustainable for the business itself these things work in hand I think having good business does not mean that you chum through people I think it's actually bad business yet you might be successful on paper and might be opening three or four more concepts that is not the growth trajectory that I'm talking about it's how many people have been there for more than five years right why don't we give James Beard awards for the team that has been together the longest I would love to see that if that was the aspirational ascension of our industry of best dishwasher in the north eastern Americas the team that's been together the longest combined 140 years on the job in this restaurant I would celebrate that I would vote for that every time I have found that the chefs that I have on the show that I talked to that earned my respect the most and I that's I've been blessed to interview some really amazing people and again thank you for coming on the show today but the thing that I've found that when I interview a chef that would they would they kind of tell me their badge of honor when they start telling me about where their sous chefs are chefs at they start telling me how long people have worked there when they tell me oh well you know that oh yeah that guy worked for me then and that guy worked for me then and that guy worked for me then and he's got six executive chefs around town that he came up through his ranks because he wanted to develop them that's the thing to me that really lets me know like wow they're

54:24they're a coach they're a teacher they care about the development they care about ensuring that this it's not just about your restaurant it's about an industry and like you said it's a cultural center we all should want everybody in the industry to elevate our game no matter who you are if you're constantly I always I always had the mentality if I want to try and hire my replacement right I want to hire somebody that can come in and do my job better than me and maybe I can move up somewhere maybe do something different but if I can constantly be developing people it only helped the industry you know I had a guy who owns a distillery here in town come on the show and he said Jack Daniels helps me do anything I want to do he makes a Tennessee sour mash whiskey goes Jack Daniels will do anything in the world to help me make because you know what they don't want me to make a bad Tennessee sour mash whiskey because if somebody's trying a Tennessee sour mash whiskey they realize they don't like it they're never gonna drink Jack Daniels yes like we all have hustle and do the thing we got to do to elevate everybody because this is the cultural center this is what people go out and do so anyway yeah I love it I think of a Robert Mondavi in wine talked about when they started Mondavi that he didn't sell Mondavi wrong wine he sold people on American wine California wine like Napa Valley wine and then said and by the way we may have the best representation of that wine and I think about that a lot like what is the bigger why that you're selling because if it's just the ramen or the commoditized this or that you just are not gonna sustain and if we get so chummed up again in the minutiae of what we do and how we do it thinking that that's our point of differentiation we're incredibly vulnerable because somebody else has a bigger machine somebody else has more money somebody else has a better message and that's the reality that's that's kind of being put out there it's interesting too of the replacement I always said if you don't want my job I don't want you to work here and there's strength in that it

56:28also filters out a lot of people I think of Kim Smith's radical candor I'm a big fan of that she talks about superstars and rock stars and superstars are the ones that have that steep trajectory and steep potential but there's a lot of people that just want to be the best line cook and I also am trying to find ways to celebrate that that that should be getting paid $24 an hour and not be put into management then they fail because they're not that person and so I think about that too because I think what you're talking about does create a lot of potential and I also think there's there's an equation that we need to balance that sometimes we don't because we want everybody to kind of be you and the reality is like there should only be a handful of those the other thing that I've had to do is I very much was that incubator as well I was so big on putting executive chefs out in the system that a lot of times the restaurants I was at this number seven person all the way down just came from being an executive chef and they came into our system and we had just this like really really intense like incubator where we were just pushing out great people the follow-up question to that question and the one that I struggled with and had to reflect on was I put a lot of executive chefs a lot of chef owners out there and the question is would would they come back and work for you because just because you put them out maybe meant that you had a good system it does not necessarily mean that you yourself were the good coach and I had to eat that sometimes too and say wow I didn't coach that person correctly and they went on to succeed that wasn't because of me that was in spite of me and so that's a challenge too to reflect on that that's a big that's some some big reflection right there that was heavy well me that that's that's what personal accountability is I mean you can you can stop and you can say despite of me and then you can reflect upon that and identify what you could do differently I mean that's really what it's about I mean it's okay to make

58:31mistakes I've I encourage people to make mistakes but damn it we're gonna have a conversation about it and I expect people to hold me accountable too I mean I've always been an open leader where I've said if I ever do anything I have an open door please come let me know because there's nothing worse than being afraid of somebody and I'm six foot six 260 pounds so people were naturally like oh shit like he's a giant hey come tell me it's okay don't do it in the middle of lineup but I mean you know pull me aside I'm happy to if I don't do something right I'm always able to learn from that so dude we've been talking for almost an hour I feel like we could talk for a hour on end and we'll have to do this again we're gonna talk some more we'll extend this story with your personal because next week you're on the show week after you're coming up on our show so I'm excited 20th I think we're doing it like a couple weeks yeah yes I was gonna take this conversation even further I'm excited about it because you and I are very simpatico in the way that we just think about the potential of the industry and it's there and I love the fact that you're out there just talking about it on a regular basis I love the platform of having a podcast and just the ability to share a lot of these ideas together I think is only positive if we have enough position in the market of bringing value that the person that's on our show recommends the next person just like you were recommended to me by Monte Silva who was on our show who was on your show almost everybody who's on the show is acknowledged and recognized and recommended by somebody else that's how people come into our system so when I say introduce me to people connect with people point out somebody doing something important and I will find a way to get on the show it's why I've had to do seven days a week for over five months two a days multiple times because so many people are introducing me to really amazing people that I need to have

01:00:32on the show and you may have never heard of them and sometimes it's like about getting the big names and I'm very aware of the attention graph I know that Ming Tsai or Edward Lee or Claudine Papan or Farmer Lee Jones whatever they bring a lot of attention to us yet I also want to hold space to that to Jai Cook or Zuri Rosendez or Amber Graff can be on the show that never has ever heard of who I think are some of the most important people in our industry or like yesterday we had three people on our show that were all bartenders and servers in the Northeast and Colleen Johnson went on to the industry united Facebook page and said I'm getting back to work in the dining room for the first time in months and months and months and I have jitters can anybody tell me what they kind of went through and that is the kind of post that can get so much shade thrown at it and I looked and there was two dozen comments that the moment that I checked it out and it was so positive and reinforcing but not just like you got this girl it was like you got this girl and here's something to think about here's some things that we did here's something that we did that was a shit show don't do that like be aware of this and it was very practical as well so yesterday we had our first level best-served table side which is gonna be an industry roundtable session where all three of them who just interacted on a Facebook group were on the show together to tell their story now those three have a relationship forever and that changes their trajectory and then others seeing them talk so vulnerably and honestly about the things that they're excited about to be able to get back to work that all three of them are talented people who say I love this industry and I want to stay even though it's been so hard I went from five days a week to two days a week we have all of these restrictions yet I'm still so passionate that story matters and I am so compelled to share it and create a platform that we can get Colleen Johnson and Caitlin Davis and Prudence Grubb on the show and now people know who they are and their stories they matter Wow I love that such a great idea I mean just a I love what you're doing I love everything about what you're doing same

01:02:35here I love what you're doing well we're restaurant people restaurant people are special people and I love them I love there's so much that's been given to me so much has been given to me out of this industry and through the relationships and people and I feel like I don't know how to give back I don't know what to do but this is in some small way my way of doing that I'm actually gonna take a two week hiatus you are my last show for today my last episode two weeks gonna reset gonna do a lot of different things put some best of episodes out and I will see everybody shortly after after that so you're you're taking us out for a couple weeks well I appreciate that the I'll take the swan song position well thank you so much man and we will connect very soon all right Brandon thanks for having me on really appreciate thank you everybody Nashville radio restaurant radio you have a great audience super engaged and Nashville I'm excited I need to come out there Brandon get out there we got Tony and Kathy Mantuano who are of Spiaggia fame we're opening a restaurant in Nashville shortly coming up on the show the same week as you were there so we're getting a little Nashville representation on the show they were just on my show awesome good they're amazing serious serious operators and the Spiaggia is in Chicago is like legend legend I mean so good he's been nominated for a dozen James Beard Awards that's crazy well he's like Leonardo Caprio he's getting nominated so many times and hasn't won is that right he won in 2005 he did chef Midwest yes he won like Leonardo Capra he's won one yes won a dozen he's amazing his wife there there you have to go check out the episode I do ask every guest that I have and I'm sorry about this I ask every guest when they're on the show to finish the show with whatever their thoughts are whatever they want to say if they have a message to the world anything they've got they've

01:04:36got open open mic open floor say it you get you get to do this a lot so yeah as you can tell I have a lot to say about a lot of things within hospitality the number one thing that I tell people to take away is acknowledgement acknowledgement acknowledgement acknowledgement spend a moment to acknowledge somebody else that is having that has had an impact on you your life your career your business because you will see that if you acknowledge them not just to them but to the broader community whatever that means it changes people's trajectory you can see it in their face the moment that somebody gets mentioned and we throw their name up on a banner on our show on stream yard just like kind of what you have here you you feel the energy that they have that crystallizes why they work for you and so take those moments because you have an opportunity especially with social media it costs you nothing to post a story a picture a video of somebody that truly represents you the work that you do your business and so I just I always plead with people acknowledge others what's not always comfortable you don't always know how to do it just do it and when somebody takes one of our episodes and you know they'll ask us to like cut it together for them we'll put together a little three-minute audio video piece and they play it at pre shift and the faces of the people that acknowledged the pats on the back it changes everything I absolutely believe that so thank you for the opportunity to tell people that it matters I love it all right man thank you acknowledge you hey I appreciate that man I'm gonna keep on I love to hustle and communicate that's all I know how to do wow well thank you so much to Jensen Cummings for coming on the show that guy is just one of the brightest people that I talked to you I would just love to just spend hours and hours hanging out talking to him if he had the time but he is a busy busy busy dude like he said I will be on his show September the 20th I will share that

01:06:40information with you and hopefully you guys can listen to that show if you want to hear us continue that conversation we really appreciate you guys listening today we are taking a two-week break from live interviews so hopefully you will hang out and listen to whatever we put out there we'll put out some past episodes and some fun things and we just appreciate all of you for listening we hope that you are staying safe love you guys bye