Monte Silva-Operational opportunities

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. Hey, hello Music City. Welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio. This is Brandon Styll and we've got a good one for you today. We're gonna be talking with Monty Silva. Monty is the former director of operations for Tom Katz, which is your Southern, Acme, all those type restaurants as well as House of Cards. He was the director of operations for the House of Cards group and he's doing some consulting now and he's just amazing. So we get to talk shop. We're gonna talk about everything that you've got going on right now. If you're doing to-go's, what's the best way you can do it? Are there some new ideas as to make it innovative and memorable? If you're a guest, we talk about some different things you can be doing. How to leave reviews, what to do if you have a bad experience and we just talk about all kinds of stuff. So I mean, if you like working in restaurants, this is... I wanted this to be a conversation between two guys that would have a conversation like this and maybe you get to listen along. So we're gonna jump right in now with Monty Silva. And welcome back to Nashville Restaurant Radio. I am here now with Monty Silva and Monty is a restaurateur in Nashville for 40 plus years. So Monty, tell the listeners a little bit about yourself. How are you by the way?

01:48Yeah, what are you doing, man? What are you doing in order to stay sane? That's awesome. That's exactly why I wanted to bring you on today because I think that we have a lot of things that are symbiotic. There's a lot of things that we do. We think a lot the same way. And today's episode, what I really want to get into, the state of the union, where you think that we're at and then I want to talk about what people can be doing right now. And if you're a guest in the restaurant, what are some things going forward? Just let's talk about best practices for going out and dining out. Some cool things I think that might be fun for people that aren't industry people to hear.

03:13Well, I think that there's some great creativity going on by restaurateurs and chefs right now that is really cool. I know there's restaurants that have allowed people to pull up in the parking lot and basically dine in their cars as food is brought to them from the restaurant and we're setting up lawn chairs and stuff in the parking lot and, you know, keeping the social distance that's necessary, but looking for creative ways to still go out and support restaurants. And I think that's really cool as an opportunity to, you know, you see your neighbor, you know, or a friend sitting 20 ft away from you, but there's enough social distancing because they're hanging out in a parking lot. So that's one thing that if guests find opportunity for that's kind of cool and fun, kind of like the old, you know, diner, remember the A&W Root Beer places that used to be able to pull up to a little car hop thing and Sonic does that.

04:17Oh, yeah. A little car hop thing. I think those are opportunities to still get out. A friend of mine, Trey, the chef at Farmhouse and Black Rabbit is doing a lot of that. I know Manit Chauhan is doing that. My buddy Alex Blue from Dallas and Jane in Murfreesboro is actually doing these really cool things called Family Meal, which, you know, comes from the name of providing food for your staff. But what he's doing is taking orders each week and he's providing three dinners for four people. So that's a total of 12 dinners for 150 bucks. And it's, you know, a preset three course or three three night dinner dinners that people can bring home and just heat up in the microwave or in the oven. And it's great opportunities to support community that way. Purchasing gift cards is awesome. It's providing some cash now for the restaurants to continue to do business. It will be interesting to see how successful it is when the restaurants reopen if everyone's using their gift cards for full amount and there's no income coming in at that point. But I think that, you know, guests have the opportunity to maybe use half of their gift card on each visit. So there's still some current revenue coming in as the restaurants reopen. Well, it's funny you mentioned the gift cards. I had this idea and I was talking to one of my clients and said, what if you sold gift cards right now? And with those gift cards, you gave 20% to your laid off staff. You know, you just you generate income, you're generating cash flow, but then you're also giving back to your staff. There's all kinds of fun things like that out there. Let me ask you that's a great, you know, obviously, well, I would hope that all restaurant tours are thinking about their people. I think I think most

06:19of us are. I know that Acme is selling t shirts and the proceeds of their t shirts are going to their staff. I know that Icon Entertainment, which has a number of restaurants downtown, are having their their chefs and GMs cook meals for their employees to come pick up. So there's lots of lots of creative ways to not only be able to support the restaurant, but be able to support the staff that are unemployed right now. Those are good things. Those are great things in which I think that if you're a restaurateur and you're doing to goes right now, everybody has to be doing to goes. If you want to stay open, you want to support your kitchen staff, whatever you're doing, you've got to stay open. If you're doing to goes, you're trying to make it as beneficial as possible. I'm going to tell you a quick story. I ordered to go the other day because I want to support our local restaurants like everybody out there does, and I got the to go order and I brought it home and I opened it. I'm not going to say who this is from because this could be anybody. This is just a general example, but I got food that was that was pretty dried out, like it was it was obviously not good, and my kids got some sliders and I wanted cheese on the sliders, but it didn't have cheese on them. They were just kind of like hockey pucks, and my wife had a salad and she loved it. She said the salad was fantastic, but it to me was interesting because I thought it was an indicator because you look at stuff and you say, are people mailing it in with to go? So if you're not opening your dine-in and you're just doing to goes, are you running a skeleton crew and just throwing any food out there? Because I almost felt like I was preyed upon for my generosity because, hey, I wanted you to go, and they were just like, hey, you know what, man? We're doing, it's only to goes. Sorry, it's not good. Deal with it kind of a thing, and to me as an operator, it kind of pissed me off because I thought if your dining room's not open, your bar's not open, the patios aren't open, why aren't you the best damn to go service you possibly can?

08:24What are some things in your opinion if you're running to go and you want to operate on a super high level, what are some things that are just non-negotiables that have to be done? Yeah, it pisses me off that you have that kind of experience as well as a restaurant tour. Primarily because, first of all, the guest is not getting a discount when they order to go, so they should be, and they're not getting the hospitality experience of dining in the restaurant and truly being served by the staff, so I think it's foolish to not put everything into the to-go operation because, A, it's a disservice to the guest, but here we are, and I know you didn't mention their name, but here we are talking about it, and I think that this is an opportunity for the restaurant community to come together and really focus on excellence, and if it is to go, it should be, like you said, the best possible to go that someone could get, which is not only going to get them to go back and get more to-go food during this process, but ultimately it's going to create new raving fans, and, you know, I think that the loyal support of community, there's an expectation on them that they expect to be getting great products as they're trying to support their community and their restaurants, and it's up to us as restaurateurs to not drop the ball and continue to execute at the highest possible level.

10:00I completely agree, and I think that being memorable in what you do, when you, you know, if you have the idea of, I'm going to do, I'm going to be memorable, I'm going to go pick something up, I'm going to create some level of service that people are going to remember that's going to be a differentiator, and this is one of the things I wanted to ask you as well, so if I'm executing to-go, you mentioned earlier people are putting out lawn chairs, they're doing all kinds of So when you're busy and to-go's are busy, you probably have a line of cars. Why don't you have somebody outside greeting people? You know, I kind of look at Chick-fil-A and your impression, everybody's impression of Chick-fil-A is that they just kill it, it's a mindset. What they do is they know what they're going to do ahead of time and they exceed your expectations, although it's fast food, I think no matter what you're doing to go, get the best kind of box. Make sure the food is hot and that it's perfect. Don't skimp, like if your standards are, I put food in a window and if it's going to go out to a guest and if it doesn't match your standards, what do you do? You throw it away, you replace it, you clean it up, you make it look perfect.

11:04We need to hold those same standards when it comes to to-go's, and if you're outside, throw somebody out there that's greeting people, hi Mr. Johnson, welcome to be here, we're so happy that you're here, your food's coming out in just a moment, may I give you a bottle of water while you wait? Hey, and maybe you have a stand outside that has a table and then like 15 bottles of wine sitting on ice, like do you mean to add a bottle of Chardonnay to your order today? I mean, impulse buys happen, but are people doing that out there right now? Not as much as they should, for sure. I think it is cool, you bring up an interesting point, I think it is cool that the state has allowed us now to be able to sell, you know, off-premise beverage, which they weren't, obviously restaurants weren't allowed to do before. I think the state has really, you know, Tennessee's done a very good job at trying to accommodate our industry. I think that, you know, obviously we need to get as much support as possible, not only from the state and local government, but from the federal government, because, you know, 5% of the population is in the food service industry, and, you know, that's a, that's a big hit financially for the country, you know, it's 5%, that more than doubles our unemployment rate just from, you know, the service industry, and then you, then you have these people not being able to purchase services and goods, and now that's affecting everybody else.

12:31So, so I think that the state has done a great job at allowing us to be able to sell off-premise beverage, and so that's an interesting idea, Brandon, I think that hopefully as restaurateurs listen to this, they'll be able to take a lot of these great thoughts and apply them. Also, I couldn't agree more, there's, just because you're in a situation where you're not as face-to-face with the guests, doesn't mean that we can't look for opportunities to wow them, just, you know, that, that friendly greeting that you get when you go to Chick-fil-A, you know, it's interesting, I was just interviewed about three weeks ago on another podcast, and they brought up Chick-fil-A as well, but they crush it, and there's a way for us to be hospitable six feet away from someone, smiling, you know, doing extra things like you mentioned, you know, what if, what if you dropped a free bottle of water, you know, in the, in the order with them, or a slice of dessert, you know, or something that really showed the appreciation of the restaurateur towards the guests who are supporting them?

13:35Absolutely, and I'm noticing, because I'm looking, I think we all have a lot of time to spend on social media, and we all have time to look at the internet, and I'm seeing lots of people, it's almost like you fall into two camps, you're either complaining about it, or you're positive, and you see that there's an opportunity ahead of you, you know, I think all these people at home, it's great that we're all watching Joe Exotic, but I'm kind of interested in identifying opportunities going forward, because I'm not going to take this time and look at it and go, ah, what did I do, I laid on the couch for several days, I'm like, no, hell no, I put a business plan together, I helped identify cultural opportunities when I do open, I'm going to be the best damn restaurant I did, and I think that there's a lot of indicators in what people are doing out there via their to go business that they can build on, they can say, do I have the right people, they can do assessments, they can do reviews, and you know, another thing that I was thinking about the other day, and I want your thoughts on this, people out there, so there's two parts of this, I've heard stories of restaurateurs not doing this well, we all know that this is a tough time, there's no playbook for how to lay off your entire staff, but I think there's a decency, and that there's a respectful way to do it, and I'm hearing of restaurateurs that have not done it the wrong way, I saw a thread the other day on a social media site that said, everybody leave the name here of the restaurateur who's doing this terribly, and let's start a database of all the people you don't want to go back and work for, and while I can see that and go, that's bound to happen, that's also a people aren't looking at it from the owner's perspective, and I'm gonna have a couple restaurant owners come on in the next couple days to discuss that, but what's your take on when this is over, the hiring market, because everything we've heard in Nashville is, it's so hard to find good people, what does the hiring market look like to you?

15:35I think that there's always opportunity amidst stressful times, and those people that are looking for viable positive solutions to stay relevant, to make a profit, to take care of their people, are really going to come out of this much better than those with negativity, you know, that person may have started a site that instead of saying, list all the crappy restaurateurs, what have you set up a site that said, hey, these are all the people that are taking care of their employees, these are all the people that are taking care of the guests, because I truly believe that, yes, we live in Nashville, and the market, there's been so much saturation of restaurants over the last couple years, that there's definitely a limited pool of talent, and when I say that, I don't mean someone that can't do the job, I mean someone that can crush the job, you know, someone that truly cares about other human beings, and is able to pour hospitality out through their pores, I'm talking about chefs who, and line cooks who really truly care about the presentation of product, and serve each dish as if they're serving it to their mom, those are the people that I think are going to come out of this with great opportunity, I think that the best restaurants are going to have a whole stream of talent that would rather maybe look for a new place to work, and a better place to work, I think that the top talent in the city is going to have their first choice of who they want to work for, I think that's tremendous opportunity, I think that people like yourself, people like me are going to come out of this learning opportunities to be able to advance our industry, you know, new exciting ways like your podcast, I think that that restaurant tours are going to find new ways to new

17:39revenue channels, whether it's cooking shows, or selling gift cards, or better to go business, I think, I think that those that are keeping positive, are going to come out of this in a better opportunity than prior to the Corona virus. I could, again, I couldn't agree more, two things in response, but you just said on that thread where the guy said, hey, let's call out all the restaurant tours that were doing this terribly, 90% of the comments were people saying, people that were doing it really well, so 90% of the comments weren't doing what the guy asked for, they were saying, well, I know this guy's doing it awesome, and this guy's doing it awesome, which is a good thing, and I read an article in a US Foods magazine, Food Fanatics is their magazine that they have, and it said that by 2021, 75% of the food that you would serve in our restaurant would be to go or delivery, and I now look back on that article and I go, damn, they knew this was happening way before we did, now I now, now, so I want to find out who wrote that article, that person is brilliant because they were spot-on, so let's talk about opportunities. One of the things, if I'm a restaurant worker and I'm going back into another restaurant, if you're out there listening to this and you care about this industry and you are a line cook or you are a server, whatever your history is, this is a great big reset button. When you go back to work, there's gonna be so much work available, you can change everything about you, if you've been, you have, you whatever the situation you were in, if you're dramatic or whatever it is, if you start caring about this and you get in there and hustle and you show up to work on time 15 minutes early and you learn the wine list and you learn your menu and you really take pride in what you do, it doesn't matter what happened in your past because everybody's looking towards the future when this thing ends. What a

19:41great opportunity if I work in this industry, in this business, to come in and reinvent myself. You know that's the difference between like service and hospitality. Service is a skill set, hospitality is a mindset and I think that you know just like in the kitchen, you know growing up, I'm sure you're probably in a similar situation when you wanted to work for a great chef to really hone your craft, you're willing to go stage for them, you know, and in today's market especially in Nashville, you know an $18 an hour employee who got laid off from construction job is willing to take an $18 an hour cook job with no experience and they kind of expect that and so this is a chance to reset attitude and a lot of the thinking that I'm trying to put out there in our space is more about thought and thinking through these processes as opposed to changing attitudes. You know I'm a firm believer that attitude changes your altitude and I think that you're absolutely right, it's a chance for people to reset and if they don't reset it's gonna be very difficult. I was listening to and you know obviously I'm listening to podcasts and reading through social media stuff and someone posted that they miss that guest who wants to ask a million gluten-free questions at the bar while I'm trying to make drinks. You know it's a different attitude, we miss those people. You know back when we were all open and making a ton of money,

21:44those people were a nuisance. Now they're like wow I miss that person and I hope that people in our industry really take that to heart and it isn't just a well I miss them right now but when I jump back into this I'm not gonna really give a crap when I'm making a thousand bucks a night bartending on Broadway. You've just nailed it. I mean perspective right? Everything is about perspective and one of the reasons why I decided to do this podcast was I have conversations with people like you and chefs and restaurateurs and we have a lot of you know the way it is we have lots of conversations like this and in a room where there's three of us and we all tell me we all nod our heads and go yep that's a great idea man I love that love that love that we leave the room feeling motivated. If I could have that conversation and just open it up to the entire restaurant community so they can hear the kind of stuff that we're talking about maybe I can help people gain that perspective over the entire Yeah that's really not I mean you and I aren't talking about earth-shattering trade secrets.

22:48This is this is stuff that probably a good portion of our community believes but they may have forgotten about it for a moment because you know obviously when there's needs pressing you know like how am I gonna put food on my table how am I gonna pay my bills obviously those those urgent situations take priority but I think it's it's good to be able to step back and reflect and that's what I'm doing now and I know you're doing that now so we spoke about that prior to this that we're strategizing now and looking for opportunities to do what we do better maybe in different mediums and and just really trying to be that this is a time for us to all get better no matter how I also think that there's gonna be opportunity to create more of a social presence out there I think that you know restaurants that have embraced the challenges but in a positive fashion are now getting online and doing cooking classes and this is just I think gonna make us stronger in the ability to market ourselves in the future in many new ways I think that you know consultants are gonna find opportunity as they engage more and more people outside of their particular city so I think I think learning how to navigate social media to go to gift card sales refining your staff I think are all gonna gonna make the restaurant tour and the restaurant stronger I think that there will be some weeding out of you know people that maybe shouldn't be in this business that are running restaurants or working for restaurants and for the for the employee I think it's gonna be a good opportunity to remember you know we've got in Nashville you have crazy money down on Broadway and other other areas of Nashville where you might have a bar

24:53on a Saturday night and they're freaking out now because they never thought hey maybe I should save for a rainy day and so I think that there's gonna be some positive planning out of this that people people in our industry that make really great money but are tied to you know the flow of business I think that they're gonna be able to kind of reconfigure their plan of hey let's put a little more cash aside for rainy days I think restaurant owners are gonna keep a little more money in cash reserves and through that I think that overall the industry is gonna grow tremendously I think when we get through this people that are stir-crazy are gonna race to the restaurants you know and they're gonna have opportunity to celebrate getting through this this horrible episodic pandemic that's that's facing all of us right now and I think that there's gonna be just a tremendous amount of business afterwards so let's talk about that if I'm a guest and I want to go out to eat this whole thing's over and we can finally go out to eat what do you think are the top couple things you have to give me like a top five what are the top mistakes that people who go out to eat typically make I think that if I'm a listener right now and I'm talking to two restaurant guys I want to hear some of the things that people in general make mistakes that they do and then maybe when it comes time to go back out and eat what are some things that you think guests may try to do and they shouldn't need to celebrate you know and not just because we've gotten through this

27:13pandemic but I think that you know when you have an opportunity to enjoy just incredible food credible cocktails and spirits great bottles of wine and be taken care of by people who truly want to serve you I think that those are those are opportunities in themselves to just celebrate life and instead of looking at a restaurant as well I don't feel like cooking so I'm gonna go there but truly look at it as an experience I think is going to really create an enlightened diner and so I wouldn't look at a restaurant as well I don't have to cook or I just need to get some food in my kids but look at it as an opportunity to really celebrate life enjoy friends enjoy great food so that would be one thing you know it's well my intention is always to take care of the guest I do believe that we've entered an age with you know the different cooking channels and things that everybody thinks they're an expert and I think that they need to remember you know when someone complains on social media that their steak was overcooked and they didn't allow the restaurant to fix it because they didn't mention it but they decided to blab it to the rest of the world I think that they have to remember okay yeah you may be able to cook a perfectly good medium-rare steak on your grill in your backyard while you're drinking a cocktail with no pressure but when you're a steakhouse and you're cooking 600 of them in one night and one or two get cooked wrong that's a that's a pretty good that's a pretty good ratio of rock star so I think just appreciating the real effort that goes into taking care of you as you as you dine in a restaurant I think the guests could maybe appreciate that a little bit

29:16more I think there's two sides to that though money I think that if I'm going out to eat at a steakhouse and I'm gonna spend $50 for a steak and I'm gonna go out and eat and it's gonna have I want it medium-rare and it comes out medium well and everybody at my table gets their steaks and they're fine and maybe I'm hosting maybe I'm not but then my steak is not good and they have to take it away and or you don't you don't want to say anything but I'm spending 50 bucks for a steak I'm expecting it to come out perfect every time opportunity to fix it so so that's what I've done in the past and I know other great restaurateurs have done this you're right the last thing you want is now to have a guest sitting there with no food in front of them while you're recooking the steak while the rest of their table is dining and they're trying to be hospitable to the rest of their table they don't want to really say anything but by doing so what a restaurateur should do is maybe bring out you know a bisque or something that the guests can have so they can physically eat something while their guests are also eating something and then bring out the steak when it's ready allows allows the restaurateur to first know that they made a mistake correct it make sure that the guest leaves happy don't charge them for the steak but when you when you don't say anything you charge for the steak you ate something you didn't really want you ate something you didn't really deserve to be eating so I would just say you know the guest should understand that it's okay to say hey this isn't really cooked right or this isn't really to my liking because you're right when you do spend you know I just thought of this and maybe I'm crazy so there's a couple

31:18there's there's like thoughts flooding my brain right now so if you're a guest out there and you go into a restaurant and you buy a 50 $55 steak and it doesn't come out correct and you're with a group of people it is okay to be upset by that and it's okay if you're embarrassed to say something to a manager because you don't want to be that person in front of your friends if you don't have that dining experience the restaurant cares the restaurant cares that you did not have that dining experience because it is not their intention and if you leave that restaurant and you don't tell anybody but you go home or on your uber on the way home you pull up Yelp and you blast that restaurant over the without trying to contact them or tell them anything that is a disservice it's disrespectful and that needs to stop right now if you do not contact that restaurant and say hey look I'm just gonna call you I had a dinner there last night and I was with a bunch of clients and you know we all got steaks you know we had a pretty nice tab but my steak came out medium well and I wanted it medium but I didn't want to say anything because I didn't want to be that guy make that phone call to the general manager of the restaurant before if that general manager goes well man tough man you should have said something while you're here if they do that that's their fault and now they don't care they deserve to be blasted on Yelp if you just if that's your first go-to stop it call the restaurant let them know privately after the fact or let them know during the time I was just thinking if I was a restaurateur I would maybe have a form letter written that says dear mr. so-and-so because you now know who everybody is with open table and seven rooms or res you whatever you use you now know who the people are you could put it in thank you dr. Johnson we understand you're with a group of people we understand your steak wasn't correct we are so sorry please contact me my name is Ronald Jones and I'm the general manager here enclosed I've put a hundred dollars in gift cards I would love talked about your experience we care about I didn't want to interrupt you at

33:20your table what kind of a unique experience would that be you know it's again hopefully the restaurant tour values their guests enough and it would be mortified when I said earlier that there are gonna be mistakes certainly that doesn't negate the responsibility of trying to minimize those and to and to correct those as you can and and when the guest gives an opportunity for the manager to do that whether it's that on the spot or you know if they're feeling comfortable and I get that and I respect someone not wanting to complain while others are dining but certainly a phone call the next day to the to the restaurant I would bend over backwards to take care of that person when someone decides that Yelp is going to be their revenge on the restaurant I have far less concern to make their experience great but somebody that somebody that reached out to me directly you know I've had opportunities where someone has complained to me and they've become my biggest and most faithful and loyal fans because of how I turned around the situation oh it's a huge opportunity when somebody complains to really turn them into a rate you use the term raving fan earlier it's it's the ultimate opportunity for vulnerability and all of us that are in this industry and I think that that you were in the direct moment right now I heard a restaurant tour the other day tell me he goes this is gonna be the thing that thins out the people who genuinely have a spirit of service and love to do this from the people who are casually owning restaurants people that casually do this aren't count the stomach for this the people that are in this thing because this is who they are and this is in their blood they're gonna make it through because they don't want to comp a $50 steak they'll send out a $7 dessert to

35:32me that's that's almost a slap in the face it's like oh you're gonna you're gonna try to turn my situation around by seven me sending me a $7 dessert instead of comping the $50 steak that wasn't up to par I think that's on page 14 of the restaurant manager handbook from 1984 that says if the guest has a less than perfect experience try offering them a dessert see if that doesn't make them happy things have definitely changed since then so about some servers bartenders trying to be motivational for everybody but let's pivot to the people who actually own the restaurants what can they do right now what are some of the things if you own a restaurant how can you pivot and what can you be doing during this down time yeah I think that self-reflection is super important in any industry and and you know a lot of times restaurant tours working 60 70 plus hours a week and and they don't really know they feel exhausted when they're done and then they got to go home and you know now they try to figure out how to be a good dad and husband and or wife and mom and it's challenging to take the time to be reflective in the midst of chaos and now we have an opportunity in this downtime to really reevaluate everything we do you know menus I talk about this a lot you know it used to be in the music industry did someone would buy an album of their favorite band because there were three radio songs on it that they really loved and the rest of the album could have been crap but they didn't care if they paid for the album and they got the three songs off of it and as soon as downloads happened people had to get good at recording full albums with no filler songs because people would just download the two songs that were good and wouldn't buy the album and I

37:33think that we have an opportunity in the restaurant industry to reevaluate our menus you know and make sure that things that aren't selling we can use you know POS tools to run P mixes and see what wasn't selling what wasn't working what we did get guest complaints on and restructure our menus rewrite our wine lists rewrite our beverage programs we think about how we train our people rethink about what kind of people we want to hire and and like you said hit reset and really open open our doors in a much better position so what you're talking about somewhat is having theoretical setup right so when you say redo your menu redo your wine list identify different opportunities on your menu the things that aren't being sold you've got your what do you have your dogs your plow horses your stars you know how they categorize a menu into four different ways but you do that by creating theoreticals right I think of theoreticals I think I think of theoretical costs yes and so I look for opportunities to if I'm selling this many items of this particular type of food my theoretical food cost should be this my theoretical beverage cost should be this and it's a chance to really jump into our our budgets and and our planning and reassess what we're charging for things what we're paying for things and and really you know it's also not only an opportunity to reassess theoretical costs but it's also an opportunity to go okay look 17 of my 20 items crush saute I need to I need to balance out my menus so that so that grill has an equal share if it's not a steakhouse a lot of times grill is not necessarily as busy as saute you know put some things on fire put some things

39:37in other in other in garbage and some other areas to kind of balance it out which is going to allow the kitchens not to crush I think reevaluating open table or resi and how many guests we take per 15 minutes I think is you know there's just a lot so many great opportunities to reevaluate what we do and I think that being able to plug into experts like yourself really give restaurant tours the opportunity I think that we should you know restaurant tours should be looking for mentors someone that they trust and respect and help them through this process if you have a rest a lot of the times you didn't plan on necessarily being the operator all the time you started the restaurant and then you know one day a dishwasher quits and you're now the dishwasher and then you have a sewage backup and now you're a plumber and then the toilet backs up or you're the bartender this this isn't happening you all of a sudden become kind of a super you're fixing everything and you're running around and then somebody at somebody like me says what's your theoretical costs and you go dude I don't have the time to do stuff like that what do you mean my theoretical costs and I go well what is the percentage of items you're selling that are above this number and they go dude I don't know and I say why did what what is the most profitable item on your menu and what is your gross profit for that versus your overall margin and they go dude what language are you speaking and that this is the opposite this is the time for you to really you're not dealing with a bunch of that auxiliary stuff that you can fit in sometimes you just want somebody to talk to at the end of the day you want me to call and go hey what should I be doing here so motivation to help restaurant tours move in the right directions to me to bounce ideas off of sometimes that helps a lot to really help you you know learn and get up to speed and and you really do

41:58yourself as a restaurant owner to service if you micromanage somebody with great experience because they probably know more than you and you probably kind of need to take a little bit of a backseat you're still in charge you're still the owner but really pick their brain and really you know if you're gonna pay someone a lot of money that's got a lot of experience and you build a trust them if you haven't really put those key players in your restaurant then you certainly should seek out a consultant or coach or someone that can really guide you through those experiences and I think that a lot of first-time operator you know restaurant tours don't really have that expert and so being able to plug into someone like you and myself and really gain the knowledge and have that extra set of eyes you know even managers that are that are skilled when they're walking through the restaurant you walk through the same restaurant every day you're gonna miss stuff because it's become a little bit of a normalcy you know when I drive home from work I don't even sometimes remember how I got there it's just I'm on autopilot and same thing sometimes for people in the restaurant but looking at the same restaurant every day getting a fresh perspective having a coach come in from the outside and really help them fine-tune things this is this is the time to do it if you have the money for sure but as you're ramping back up I would certainly recommend having a mentor or a coach that can help you through that and you know one of the other benefits too and I love everything you just now said because it's so true if you take emotion out of some of the things you're doing I mean I think that you work so close to everybody and there's so many emotional ties that you have and people have helped you here or they haven't helped you there but having somebody come in who doesn't have emotional attachment to people and things can sometimes give you a really interesting perspective because they're

44:00not seeing things oh well that guy did this one thing that time well that one thing that that one guy did that one time is overshadowing the 32 things he's doing that are bringing you down and sometimes bringing somebody in who's just looking at it from that perspective just straight logic identifying what you're doing and why you're doing it is a big help well you can take what people say or leave it but sometimes just having somebody go oh it can open your eyes and take that the blinders off so to speak so money this is I don't think anyone ever wants to end someone's income you know sometimes it's necessary sometimes it's also you know sometimes you have to also remember that in the heat of moment when someone has done something that's not good you have to remember the other 50 great things that they've done that if that are good and and evaluate performance you know in the long haul and how someone you know I had a situation where I was asked one of their employees dropped a bottle of Louis Trey which is quite expensive yeah you know and broke it and I said well what happened I said well they were up there cleaning they were they were dusting and cleaning I said well the employee was doing their job and you can't really fault them too much because they were doing their job they weren't necessarily being careless and it's unfortunate that you lost a twenty seven hundred dollar bottle of cognac the person was trying to do what they're supposed to do how are they as employer they a great employee oh yeah they kill it they crush it they're great with the guests show up on time you know you've got to be able to allow for mistakes because we're all human and not

46:02get so emotional just because that particular mistake may cost you a lot absolutely so money how if I was out there listening to this and I said have I think that money guys pretty pretty darn sharp how would I get a hold of you you can reach me through a bunch of socials I'm on LinkedIn Facebook Instagram my email address is Monty M-O-N-T-E-A-L-L-L-A-N-SILVA-S-I-L-V-A at gmail.com I write a blog every week called hashtag restaurant tour and I'm starting to work on a YouTube channel but I don't quite have it there yet so we could follow you is the hashtag restaurant tour on what social media site is that is that on LinkedIn and Facebook and Instagram all that stuff every Monday and I love reading it too by the way every time I read it I think it's a I always think you're spot-on with what thoughts you're able to compile and put out there and I always read it and I feel like hey I'm now motivated I've read something as somebody else who thinks just like me who it's helped me many a weeks start my week off in the right way and I really appreciate you doing that it's you know it's it's something that like you you know we're passionate about what we do and having the opportunity to be able to share our passion with a lot of people is really an honor and I'm always very grateful when people do read it and comment and you know I value your appreciation of it because I know that you've been in the industry a long time and you know are a veteran and so I'm humbled by that that praise well you absolutely deserve it thank you so much we've spent almost an hour here talking it's been my absolute pleasure you are welcome back any time we should definitely do a follow-up or we just

48:04talk about I'm gonna hopefully get a bunch of chefs to send in a bunch of questions maybe do a Q&A it'd be a lot of fun I felt very inspired just hearing what you had to say about all the industry stuff as well so thank you for inspiring me hey man so we're here for all right we'll talk to you later Monty all right sounds great everybody so what a great time talking to Monty Silva today and if you have feedback for me I'm not always right sometimes I am I don't know but I'd love to hear it so I'm gonna put this podcast out on a post on my Facebook page at Nashville restaurant radio I'm also on Instagram also go follow me on Instagram on Nashville restaurant radios page and let leave me some feedback let me know what you think good bad ugly whatever it is we all like to know that what we're doing out there people are receiving it you're hearing it you like it you don't whatever it might be but our ultimate goal here is to create a service something that helps make your brain think a little bit it may motivate you to become a little bit better or whatever it might be so thanks for listening today and we got lots of episodes coming up love you guys bye