Sean Lyons

00:00It is Black Friday, a day when everybody's out shopping, and if you own a restaurant, this could be your day too. We want to encourage you to utilize our sponsors on this show, Cytex, SuperSource, Sharpies Bakery, What Chefs Want, and Complete Health Partners. All of these companies are here in Nashville to help you succeed. Please go to NashvilleRestaurantRadio.com, click the sponsors tab to learn more. Welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio, the tastiest hour of talk in Music City. Now, here's your host, Brandon Styll. Hello, Music City! Welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio. My name is Brandon Styll, and I am your host. I am joined today on the intro with Jen Ichikawa.

01:06What's going on, Jen? Hi, how are you? I'm doing great. I like doing intros where you're involved. I know that you have got so much going on in your life, and I know people are like, you have a co-host, but like half the shows are without her. This is a crazy time of the year. We're gonna do something in the new year. Well, maybe we'll talk about some of this stuff, but everybody's got a lot of stuff going on, and I'm just happy that you're here. Me too. Today we're gonna be talking with Sean Lyons, and he is the new managing partner over at the Germantown Cafe, and he's working with Jeffrey Martin, who is a longtime chef at the Germantown Cafe. He was at Germantown East back in the day with like Jay Luther and everybody, and then today we're talking to Sean just about where he came from, what he's doing, what you think about the interview? Well, he's definitely a really interesting person, and he has some insight. I don't know that I would, I don't think we would mesh together if I worked there. I think it's probably not the right environment for me, but that doesn't mean it's not the right environment for others. Yeah, well that's eloquently stated. I think you'll hear in the interview where he talks, he comes from a dance background, and he's very passionate.

02:27He has a finance degree, so some of the things that he does in business and creating community, and he really, I don't know, I don't know if, I feel like he articulated it, but I see what you're saying. Like he really wants people to do their best, and he wants to know what their goals are, and he wants to do a lot of extracurricular, like let me help you be a better person kind of a thing. And while I think that some people are super down for that, and they want that, I also can see where people like yourself, or even myself, but I would just say, I'm good man, thanks. Yeah, I definitely, I think intent over impact is a big conversation in the world right now. Like we didn't intend to hurt your feelings, but the impact is we hurt your feelings, right? And so that's like a global conversation we're having with like the reckoning of understanding white privilege, and understanding gender stereotype, and all of these things. And I think in that capacity, I would not be a fit there, because I think just in my standpoint, I just, yeah, I just think I wouldn't be a good fit there. But I'm not looking for a job either, like I'm full up. Well, and you know, every job doesn't have to be every job for every person. You know, I think that it's, you know, there's a lot of people that only working for me.

03:49Yes. Raise my hand. You are polarizing, which I think is so, because you're my favorite boss, which isn't just like a stuck up thing, but like you are. So it's funny to me. Yeah, but it's different. Like I can, I think that part of being a leader is identifying your style and what you want, and then articulating what you want to people in saying you can either be in this culture, or you don't have to be in this culture. I think that we talked a little bit about that with Alex when coast when she was on the show over at Dino's, you know, she, she was, yeah, she was, she owns Dino's now, but when she was, when she was at Josephine, it just wasn't a right fit for her. It's a great fit for a lot of people. Yeah. It just wasn't for her. So I think that's interesting conversation. Do you have to be a one size fits all type restaurant or can you be a, Hey, this is how we're going to lead. This is what we want to do. You can come in and if that's what you want, then awesome. If it's not, don't work here. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. I think, and again, I think his intent is really great. I think his intent is to better everyone that he meets. And I think that's like such a great goal. I just think sometimes the impact of that can be different or lost or misconstrued. And well, now we've got everybody's appetites whetted. We're ready to go. You're going to love this episode. It's going to be a fun episode. I hope that, did you have a nice Thanksgiving? Yeah, we did. Very busy day.

05:19Very busy day. A lot of fun, uh, working with you on Thanksgiving. It's always one of those days where you really get to test every, everybody just kind of comes together. And I think when you experience working, we do like a thousand people every Thanksgiving at Maribor. And when you do that many people, everybody works together and you kind of go through the fire together. I think it's a great team building kind of a day, especially you spend Thanksgiving with all the people you work with. So it's kind of like your work family and you get to really share with them. It's pretty neat. Yeah, it'll be, it's a, it's a fun day for sure. Yeah. All right. So we're going to not have any live episodes in the month of December, just to let everybody know we're not doing live episodes in December. We are going to put our, our thinking caps on every time I had a teacher was like, let's put our thinking caps on like, what is this motion? Uh, put our thinking caps and we're going to be planning, doing a lot of really cool stuff. I know you've got some plans for it. You're going to be contributing to the show in 2022 and I'm really, really excited about it. We're not going to let the cat out of the bag quite yet, but we're going to do four episodes.

06:21We're going to do repeat shows, go back. We did a grateful Nashville show. We put it out the day before Thanksgiving. We get to hear Benjamin and Tara Goldberg talk about their holiday traditions. Steven and Jolene smithing who own the restaurants we work in. Um, they, uh, talk about their family traditions and kind of what they do for what they're grateful for. And then I get caught up with Kelly Sutton. That's another great episode for you guys to go back and listen to because Kelly was my cohost last year and she, uh, she was great. She's doing, she's all over the place now, syndicated radio shows. It's amazing how she's killing it. So, um, I think we should just jump in, right? You guys are tired of hearing us talk. Well, hopefully not too tired. It's a long episode. It is a long episode, but you know, before we even get into that, I want to tell everybody out there about Sharpier's bakery because you know what? Erin Mosso is amazing. I talked to her last week and I said, Hey, how's everything going? How are you guys doing with that? She goes, we are busy.

07:22Everything is going really well. We love working with you. People are calling us. We're getting set up for new accounts and I'm just like, yes. So you guys out there are supporting local, you're buying your fresh bread from local people. She's still out there. If you go to our website, NashvilleRestaurantRadio.com, you can click the sponsors tab and you'll find Sharpier's bakery. Click that link or you can check them out at Sharpier's.com. That's C-H-A-R-P-I-E-R-S.com. They're celebrating 35 years of being the local bakery for the chefs in Nashville. They deliver six days a week. They have over 200 different types of bread that they make. Guys, if you're tired, like right now you're prepping for Thanksgiving or prepping for Christmas holidays, it's so much easier when your bread is delivered. It definitely makes a huge difference. It's not just burger buns and dinner rolls. They do it all. So check them out. Sharpier's bakery, but let's talk right now with Sean Lyons from Germantown Cafe.

08:25All right, super excited today to welcome in Sean Lyons. He is the managing partner at the Germantown Cafe. How you doing today, man? I'm doing well. Like I said, just keeping up and it's a lot of anticipated demand and we're just trying to satisfy that and stay sane, you know? So you are the managing partner. You came on while you guys were on the break. Now you guys weren't, you guys were affected by the tornado and you have not opened since you just recently opened this past week, right? Yeah, that's correct. I was kind of involved or getting involved about a month before the tornado and the tornado hit and then we asked if we were going to keep going and we got business business interruption insurance. So we decided to keep the plan going and then COVID hit and luckily we already had business interruption. So it was kind of a blessing in disguise and but it slowed everything down dramatically and gave us less money because of COVID, but at least we got something. But yeah, it's been the second week open since in 20 months. So when did you come on board? Officially this past May, unofficially about a year and a half before that. Oh, wow. Yeah. So what were you doing before this? Let's get back to, let's start off with just kind of some of your history because I don't know you. Like I've kind of been watching you via the social media and obviously I've known Jeffrey Martin for many, many, many years. You're kind of new on the scene to me, but I like what you're doing.

09:53Like you have a, I think if there's anything you're about as authentic as it comes to really genuinely wanting to be part of the community as the Germantown Cafe, as like the Germantown neighborhood restaurant, that's what, from my eyes, that's what looks like you want to be. Where does that come from? I don't know. I think it's a need for community. When I was younger, I always wanted to be in restaurants. I was one of those Food Network babies. I was just blowing up and I wanted to be in the Food Network and my mom said at the time they weren't in the food industry, they said, well, if you want to do that, you better go get a job because you think you're going to hate it. And then I didn't. I was a busboy and a cook and I freaking loved it. Probably because I was a wrestler and I was deprived of food all the time. But regardless of the reason, I still kind of fell in love with it. I had like two simultaneous passions growing up. It was food and dance and all my money from food went into dancing. I never knew what I was going to, which one I was going to choose when I got older. And I had the opportunity to do both and it was just a matter of when I did each one.

11:02What type of dancing? When did you start getting into dance? Because that's something that's unique. Yeah. When I was 11 years old, I woke up on a pool deck in Miami and the only cruise I've ever went to in my life. And I saw a salsa convention going on and I just started liking girls at that time and I wanted to be that guy. So girls crawl up legs and dip in and all that stuff. And I think I already liked dance and I liked that version of it. And so, yes, there was a girl that I kind of had a crush on when I was younger and she asked me if I wanted to learn how to dance. She was Latina, like six months after that experience. And I said, yes, yes, I do want to learn how to dance. And I was at a ballroom studio and then I went to a competition and saw some really good people. And I was always an athlete, you know, until then, you know, since I was like five years old, but I was like, wow, these people are actually athletes. And so I saw the athlete plus the guy girl dynamic and kind of fell in love with that. And so when I turned 15, it cost a lot of money to do that kind of dancing. So literally all my money went from cash tips straight to my dance teachers. So, but yeah, yeah, I went to college because at Purdue, because they had a really good hospitality program and they had one of the best ballroom dance teams in the entire United States, ended up dropping out of the hospitality and did finance instead, because I had been working in restaurants for six years, five to six years at that point. And I didn't understand spending 30 to $40,000 to learn the stuff that we already knew. So I got a degree in finance and then did dance throughout that stuff. And then when I graduated, I decided to try to get a job in finance just to make sure, because there's potentially a lot of money in it. And I worked with great people, but I hated what I was doing.

12:49I was good with numbers, but I didn't like what it was being applied to. It was just boring to me. And so I went to work for a group called Hillstone. You might know them, but it's the Brooktops group originally. Brooktops split off from Hillstone and Hillstone went off to make, you know, 40 to 60 restaurants at this point. And they're known for being like sticklers and super high standards and operations and have really good training programs. So they could also pay a lot of money. And so the step down from finance to that restaurant group wasn't so rough in terms of like my ego at the time. And so because I had a finance background, I kind of helped a lot of their chefs implement systems in which allowed me to kind of grow pretty quickly with them. And they moved me around to three different cities to run their kitchens. And then when you were back at the house, I was originally training for front of the house, but I had a lot of backhouse experience and a lot of systems revolved around food cost and like tools to evaluate theoretical costs and stuff. They didn't really have the systems for that quite yet. And so I made manual tools for them. And so they asked me if I'd want to do back of the house and run kitchens. And I said, well, get me quicker to the GM spot, which was a lot more money and just more of my personality. And they said, yeah. And so I did that. And by the time I left with them, I was still in backhouse stuff. And I decided to leave because a champion dancer friend of mine and one of the choreographers on Dancing with the Stars were starting a studio in Columbus, Ohio. And they asked me if I wanted to turn pro. I never wanted to in the past because I wanted to keep passion separate than professional. But they said basically you only have four more years that you could do it anyways. Why don't you just do it? And I didn't have a kid or a wife or anything at that time. So I said, why not? And so my old boss from there said I should go do it too, because he always wanted to be in a band and he never was able to because he had a family early. He said, we'll always hire you back. And so I went into that

14:52for about three years, three, three and a half. And then I aged out of that, just like they said, did as much as I could with that and then reached back out to that same boss. And he had become the vice president of food and beverage at the Dream Hotel and they were just building the Dream Hotel in Nashville. And my wife and I at that time, I had gotten, well, my fiance at that time, we had talked about moving to a warmer state and Nashville was already on the list. And when I called him and he said what he was doing, he said, we're building something from scratch in Nashville. Do you want to move to Nashville and build it for me? And I said, yeah, that sounds perfect. So I've been heading my head up my butt for the past three years with Dream, building all of their venues, their nightclub, their brasserie and the craft cocktail and cafes and stuff. And they were really awesome. But at the end of the day, I always wanted something of my own. I wanted to put all those 18 hour days into my pocket instead of somebody else's. And when my wife and I moved to here, we lived in Germantown for three weeks, for three months, sorry. And then we bought a house right across from Germantown in Hope Gardens. And so we've been here this whole time.

16:03And we always kept going to Germantown Cafe. And I loved that neighborhood vibe. And I think that brought me back to my childhood of wanting to build community and know people. And that's just the extrovert in me, I think. And I thought this place had the cheer. It had all the things that are really hard to build. It just had to flip a couple, in my mind, the low hanging fruit. Yeah. What was the lowest hanging fruit when you came in? Consistency of food and service. I think there was pretty average service. Like it wasn't bad. It was all right. But I think there's little things that they could do just to make it that much more to be that like really community driven spot. I think they had been kind of riding on their past 15 years versus really trying to go out. I think it's my biggest frustration in Nashville is that I've been to multiple places every single week. I know they recognize me, but they never acknowledge it. They never say, hey, nice to see you. Hey Sean, I'm John, the manager.

17:05Thanks for coming in every week. So I feel like that need to do that here is frustration, truthfully, because I come from Chicago, was in Dallas, was in some bigger markets where that was a little more common. Sorry. No, I just think it's interesting because I love people who have, I feel like your kindred spirit with the way you operate a restaurant. And I think the way that we are with the green, we operate the Greenhouse Grill in Mayor Bowl. And the Greenhouse Grill for Allenton's purposes and Mayor Bowl are absolute community restaurants. We know we're not going to win a James Beard award. We're not going to be a top 50 restaurant in the world. We don't want any prizes for what we do, but we want, if you live around us, we want you to walk into our restaurant and we want you to know that we know who you are. And when you walk to your table, you're going to see your neighbors and you're going to be able to build community and that we're going to be able to give back and be something that's more than just a place that serves food to make money. Like we are a destination, people can come that they feel warm, that they feel welcome and they feel like they're remembered for who they are.

18:13And you're kind of the closest thing I've seen to somebody who's actively going towards that on a daily basis. And I love it. Yeah, I appreciate it. We should have connected sooner, right? But I think like the dance and then the food stuff is kind of with the dance stuff, like with the ballroom is always like the fairy tale as things, you know, like in fairy tales, there's always like the waltzes and the whatever is. And I think like, for some reason, I always thought that fairy tales were kind of true in moments. Like you have moments of fairy tale and like life kind of sucks if you don't have that stuff. And so like all these romantic things like ballroom dance and restaurants, like I think they really align. And so they seem pretty different. But I think as I get older, I realize like there's lots of common strands between like my drives and motivations. Yeah, I would say this whole time you've been talking, I keep thinking about like every, I feel like every manager I've ever had in any restaurant has talked about like the dance of the restaurant. Like, OK, the plate hits and it has to look beautiful. And then somebody else takes the plate. And then once the plate is gone, it goes to dish. And it's this whole like moving thing. And they talk about it's choreographed. Yeah. Do you feel that way? Like, do you like or do you try to make your restaurants feel that way of like this very like seamless movement? I mean, the word we use is graceful. Like you're on grace at the restaurant. But I mean, right now we definitely don't have it to where we could be. But I think me being a performer and a lot of our staff are performers or models or something. So when I use that vertige that a lot of us use, like you're on stage, it's like, no, literally, like half of us have been on stage and like this is what like this is what I mean by it. Like a small example is, you know, we I expect people to have to pay attention to their like, basically they show up looking good and they show up like both in terms of service, like the service they provide, but also how they look like, like I'm not because I'm, it's not because I'm looking for models or I'm shallow. You could be, you know, 70 years old and still look great, you know, because it's the from us. People come here because they want to see beautiful things. Doesn't mean you need to be 20,

20:19you know, but it needs to show that you like put yourself together and you're standing tall, you know, from like when I taught dance, it's how you make money and dance as you teach it, you you have a little more liberty, there's a little less HR in it. But like, you can tell somebody you're not wearing enough makeup, you're not looking good. Like, you're not standing tall, stop wearing a moomoo. Like, wear this stuff to the dance practice, because if you don't wear it, you're going to feel like crap. And you're not going to dance well, and you're wasting your money. So in the in the in the like, restaurant world, it's like do your hair, if you do makeup, do it well. If you do your nails, make sure they're done, I'll stand up, like, make sure there aren't these things. Because if you don't, then your motivation is going to be an all time low. Like, we all have bad days. It's kind of like the military mindset of you make your bed every day, because at least you accomplish something. In the restaurants, it's like you did your hair that day, so at least you accomplish something, right? You know, it's, it's funny, because last week, I woke up and I had, I was having a tough morning, like one of those mental health mornings, you know, where it just starts off and it's just a shit show. And you're like, I'm just kind of feeling down.

21:28And I knew I had like a 12 hour day ahead of me. It was just one of those tough things. I did like a meditation and then I put on a suit. And I wore a tie. And I never wear a suit and tie. But today, I put on a suit and tie, because I needed that extra little something when I walked in to feel like I could go on stage, like I could walk in and lead people, like I could be the person who did that. And it was like, wow, you look nice today. And I was like, thanks. You know, and all of a sudden my ego is just getting pumped up. But there was a side of that, that I intentionally was like, I'm going to wear a full suit to work today just so that I can get out of this funk I'm feeling this morning. And it worked. Like it totally, the rest of the day, I was like, I'm wearing a suit. What's up? So I mean, I guess as I, you know, progress, I, I realized that the lines between the two worlds keep crossing. And luckily in Nashville, there's a lot of people that can relate to it versus like a Kansas City or Arkansas or what do you, smaller, I don't want to say smaller cities, they're emerging cities, but where there's more entertainment around, which is also why I like definitely consider Nashville home like forever, just because it has all the pieces to like who I am. It's like small enough where there can be community and there's enough talent here where like, they can relate to my background and like the struggles of that world. And they have goals outside of like day-to-day life, which is, which is easier to motivate than I'm just trying to get to tomorrow, you know, which for some people that's okay, but inside plenty of employees that that is their goal for other reasons. But yeah, I like Nashville a lot.

23:04How do you, how do you, how do you, how do you communicate to people that I need you to put more makeup on or that I need you to dress differently or I need you to, because that's such a sensitive topic. I mean, people kind of come into work, I need you to care about this, your spirit of service has to be there and you're on stage. We're like, how do you actually communicate that? Well, I, you know, in other restaurant groups that have much stronger illegal teams, they can tell you girls can wear makeup and guys can't. Like they can say that and they can fight those legal battles, but we can't. And truthfully, I don't really care that much. I mean, the thing is that what you're going to do, do well, right? So if a girl's going to wear makeup, wear well. And if you're not going to wear makeup, you better make sure your hair is done well, not because girls need to wear makeup and just like, I want a guy's hair to look just as good as the girls, right? Look put together. So it's like, again, I'm just saying stereotypically, if, if a girl doesn't, if it's not who she is to wear makeup, she doesn't have to, you know, but like from common courtesy, it doesn't matter if you're a guy or girl, you can put effort into your hair. You can put effort into ironing your shirt.

24:08You can put effort into wearing something somewhat stylish within our boundaries. All the other pieces still have to add up and you can still look great, you know? So it is still being equal to that, to some extent, but it's also constant general pressure. You know, I constantly talk about everything, you know, and I train our like leaders to do the same. So it's when somebody walks in, obviously I'll do it in private, but like, Hey, you have too many frizzies in your hair, but great shirt. Hey, great. Like this burger is awesome. Layers are not good. You know, hey, the melt in that cheese is not so hot. Oh my God, those fucking fries. Look at that stack. It's awesome. It's like, they're just used to constant braid of like words. So the way I try to teach the leaders is if you're constantly saying something, it's very rarely going to be taken negatively. That just becomes who you are and how you manage. But if you don't do that from the beginning, then it's going to be taken negatively because then they feel like it's not normal. Sure. Yeah. You have to set the standard. I think, you know, I, I'm like a very, like my best friend and I talk all the time about how we're like, Oh, gender's a construct. Like we don't believe in like gender stereotypes. And I'm print my, I have two, I have twins that are 10 and a half months old. And I'm like praying that my son wants to be a drag queen, like desperately praying for it.

25:22And my husband's like, that's fine, but you don't need to like start him in drag, like let him figure it out or whatever. His hair was in a ponytail yesterday. I was so excited. Anyway, so like they're almost one, they're almost one. Yeah. And I just like, we all put my husband bought him a football too. And like, was like, all right, well maybe they'll, he'll be the first football player that also does drag. Like I hope that for his future. Um, but anyway, I've done drag. Have you, I was going to say if you've done ballroom in any type of dance world is certainly worn makeup and all that. Yeah. So like this far as like the dressing, I totally agree with you. And my, my big thing is like a clean apron. I feel like if your apron is clean, then your shirt is likely clean. And then you're, cause the apron is the afterthought, you know, it's like, that's the thing that you leave in your car and that you, you don't bring home to wash every day and stuff like that. So if your apron looks nice, then chances are you've probably put on a nice shirt and you've probably put on pants that are somewhat clean or presentable and things like that. So I'm trying to clean everything. I used to dry clean my apron every day because I wanted the crease in the middle, everything about like the spirit of service. Like if you look good, you feel good. You present much better, like the people I always felt that way.

26:33Yeah. When he came in, when he came in in that suit, I told him, he looked like a politician every time he wears a tie. I'm always like, you look like you're running for office. Well, and I always give like my main shift that he's probably going to turn to one of our general managers. He's amazing. And he worked with us at dream and at dream, it's much more chic and cool than you are. So like we had even more, I think, bandwidth or a little more flexibility in terms of like what you can get away with in terms of what customers feel comfortable with or what they relate to. And I had a looser dress code there as well, mostly just black and looking professional in certain things. And I always use him as an example, but I was like, you know, he is gay and he had really great style. And so like he would fit within the boundaries. It was all black. He would wear like lace on his arms. It was a very professional shirt and it was not out of place for the location. It fit, like I said, the fit was great. I'm like, this is, I, when he wore it for the first time, he and his boyfriend, I'm like, this is, this is perfect, right? It shows your personality. It fits within the guidelines. This is awesome. You know? So yeah. So like I said, there's the underlying take care of yourself, but within the boundaries. Yeah. Okay. So I've seen you do, when you first kind of got back in the building and I was there, I was there the morning of March, the third, I think is the owner's name Reed. Yeah. Yeah. He's there. He's our investor. I was there with Reed and Jeffrey on March 3rd that morning, walking through your restaurant. That was like two inches deep in water because all of your apartments above flooded through the building. I had a chainsaw. We were like cutting down the trees in the front and off the back. I've got some pretty gnarly pictures. I'll send you of the Germantown cafe that morning. But once you got back in there, you started doing these like financial classes. And it makes sense to me now seeing as though you went to Purdue with a financial degree, you talked about theoreticals in a kitchen. What are you teaching and why, what's the motivation behind that? You just, Hey, look, we've got this building, we are not able to open the restaurant yet, but I'm going to start bringing people in who want to

28:35learn about restaurant finances. Yeah. I think it's a mix of, like I said, selfishness and what's good for people. So like selfishly, I get motivation from teaching. Like that's what I learned in the dance world too, is like I get the most satisfaction like for my soul when I teach people or like when I help them grow. And yes, that was in the dance world and they like grow in personal ways. But like here is very similar people. It's like young people that don't know what they want. And a lot of times they get so stuck into like making drinks and doing food that they never get out of that. And they can, like what, what are you waiting for to learn about finance? Cause they don't have the resources or they don't have the lens or they're not motivated to do it because it's hard. Right? So it's an unknown too. I mean, I think it's part of it. How old are you? If you don't mind my asking. 31. Okay. I mean, I'm about to be 31 too. I think some of that is generational too. Like our parents, they didn't, you weren't supposed to talk about your salary. You weren't supposed to talk about like how much your competitor may like, that was just a taboo topic, right? It was money and like how to manage it or keep it or build it. Or I think some of it is generational at least.

29:47Yeah. And a lot of people in our industry, you know, the good ones do want their own restaurant or they're doing their own business or they're doing a Etsy shop or they're doing something. It's not that hard. Like, yes, I, numbers come easy to me, but if you break it down very simply in a way that they recognize, like from a server financial or like their personal finances, it's nice to see the light bulb go off. If you just do really, to me, it's like, everybody knows this, but they don't. And so for me to put the effort in, to do a 40 minute class that I don't need to think about because it's so ingrained in my like heart, heart, my mind, right? Yeah. It's not a lot of effort for me, but there's a lot of value that I can provide to other people. And sure. I mean, if people come in and they really like this stuff and I, I like building the relationship and truthfully, it's kind of a filter too. If people come in and I offer to the public and they're motivated to do something and they want to come work for me or not, or if they just want to like be friends and come in later, great. But like there's a mix of, I get satisfaction from working with motivated people and allowing, giving them the tools to be that way.

30:52And then if people are actually motivated, like I said, I'd rather attract them into like my circle. So if you were to give me the, the, the cliff notes, something you know that every server should know financial tips from a server listening to this, or if I'm lying to anybody listening to this, are you teaching them life skills or you're teaching them restaurant skills? I think life skills first, then restaurant skills. I think restaurant skills come after you feel like somebody's invested in you and they're willing to buy in because most people don't care about restaurant skills is care about money and they care about getting to their goals. You know, 90% of people in restaurants don't give a shit about wine and give a fuck about the burger meat you use. So what's their motivation? So give them what they want first, and then maybe they'll care about what you want. Like we're bringing in on December 8th, we're bringing in a friend of mine who is on HGTV for real estate. You know how many servers and bartenders want to be real estate agents? A lot. So we're going to bring that in and introduce them, make some connections. And then maybe if they, you know, actually take steps forward and then they're like, okay, I gave you what you want. Can you like learn about the Bordeaux that I'm bringing in this week? Yeah, I got you. You know, so again, it's the same thing with like the notes that we're leaving. We also like turn to like go give like give before you receive. I know it's like corny and it's like cliche, but it's true. And so that's kind of what we're doing, trying to mimic that. So trying to do it obviously from the top, but also like in the community as well. Well, it's kind of like a pay it forward thing. You know, I see you run as a, hey, I like your dog or hey, this is cool. Like you're just walking through and you're finding something that somebody in your neighborhood has or does that was intentional. And you're saying I recognize it and I see the little things that you're adding to our neighborhood. And I just want you to know that I see you and I want to thank you for making it beautiful. Yeah. And like I said, there's some selfishness to it. Like I always saw the service. I'm like, it's going to feel good. Like you're

32:53going to feel good because of it. You know, like make it I don't care if you make it selfish. You have a shitty day and it's like literally you're just going to give a note just so you can feel good. Great. You know, I teach a class because I'm tired. I'm teaching class about finance, but I'm tired about teaching about service. Like I've taught that for 15 years. You know, I can teach a class about finance and something slightly different that I haven't taught before. So I get motivated, you get something. What's the most important thing you're teaching? What's the most important fact you could give us right now in finance for servers or anybody in the business? Profit minus expenses equal, sorry, sales minus expenses equals profit. Most people don't know what that means. It's the simplest thing, right? And so whether you're, whether you're, if you're doing your own FC shop, what are sales? It's how many like monogrammed bracelets you made, right? If you're in restaurants, what are sales? It's your food and your beverage. What are expenses? There's three types of expenses. There's labor, there's cost of goods sold, and there's other expenses, which could be a million other things, but those are the big things, right? Like big three controllables. Yeah. Cost of goods sold. What are the goods you're selling? I'm selling bracelets. I'm selling houses. I'm selling food and wine. Are you selling to go containers? No, you're not actually selling to go container. Is that labor?

34:12No, that's another expense, right? So just breaking down simple things. And so we'll use the lens of restaurants because that's what they're in every day. That's the problem with teaching something that people don't use every day, like a foreign language or history or I don't know, real estate. People aren't in it every day in college, so they don't remember any of it. So if we use a lens, even if they're not interested in food, if we use the lens that they recognize, then at least they'll remember it. And then when they remember it, then they can apply it to something else. So it's making content relatable for them. Yeah. And so at the end, like I make sure whether it's when I hire them or when they come to class, I'm just like, what is your goal, right? I want to have my own food truck. Awesome. And so like during the class, like, okay, when you're example, this is what that means. Or at the end, I'll say, let's talk about your example. What we just learned, you understand what we just learned in restaurants, right? Yeah. Okay. What does it mean with what you want to do? And they kind of start making the connection and maybe they don't understand a hundred percent, but they start saying, oh, this is like achievable, which is motivating. I ask people to write it down. If I say, what's your goal? And they go, I want to be a pilot. I go, awesome. That's fantastic. I love for you to be a pilot. I want nothing, but I want you to leave this restaurant. I either want you to retire from this restaurant or I want you to leave this restaurant to go pursue your dream being better than when you came here. Okay. I want you to pursue it, but write it down. What's your goal? Write it on a piece of paper and then have it there and then set a date that you want to achieve that goal by and put it on your wall. I put on your wall so that you go, I've written it down. That's my first step is I can say it to a hundred people, but when I write it down, I have to look at it every day and I go, what's my first step? And then you just go do the first step. And then what's step number two? Do the step number two. It's getting people to get off their asses and start chasing their dream. They don't have dreams, but it's writing it down and following it. The problem with the people in the restaurant industry is nobody actually does, or I'd say 80% of the people don't actually do what they say. That's why they get stuck in the restaurant industry. And that's

36:15why we're the leaders, you know? And it's not because they have a lack of, well, they do have a lack of motivation, but there's something in them that doesn't allow them to do it. So you may do this too, but I don't trust that they're actually going to write it down and put it on the mirror. And so we have a running Google doc that has their goals. Oh, nice. So when I bring it up, I bring it up in pre-shift. I say, Hey, this guy wants to do this thing. This is what he's going to do, or I'll follow up. I even started to do it. Somebody wants to go work in our restaurant. She wants to go and fight sex trafficking. Her dad was in special forces. She wants to do this. And then I connected her with somebody that I know that can do it. But I'm walking the horse to water, basically. So when they say that they want to get braces for their kids, they need the money to do it. And if they call off, I said, Do you still want to get money for the braces for your kids? Yeah, I do. Well, you probably shouldn't call off in that case. How bad is the thing that you need to cancel this for? Right? And so this is a very sales oriented thing, right? Like you get their motivations and then you bring them back to their motivation. But it's also like life, you know, it's like bringing a certain level of accountability beyond the four walls of what you're doing. I mean, it's saying, Hey, look, I'm going to invest in what you're doing as a person.

37:34And I'm going to kind of hold you're kind of being a life coach. Yeah. Am I wrong? Yeah. And I get any pushback from staff on it or have they all been like really receptive and like really into it? Yeah, I think everybody's really into it. I have a couple that have admitted that they worked elsewhere and like drinking alcohol is encouraged and like kind of goofing off is encouraged and we goof off but in a different way, right? Like I've had two people that said I want to be here because I know that the other places I'm at, I'm not going to move forward. They admit that it's like hard, but at the same time they know like that's really respectable, you know, that they that they're aware of who they are and that they're aware that this might make them better. You know, even if they choose to leave three months later, hopefully they get a little bit better. I guess my biggest concern at this point is like we want to scale we want to create other locations actually pretty quickly. If things work out, but my biggest thing is how do you how do you scale this, this mentorship and coaching to other people so they can keep doing it, right? That's the issue when you grow or at least I've heard is that like what you do in the first place is really amazing and then you get to the second, third, fourth, whatever and then you lose a little bit of that. So I guess that's kind of what I'm working on and I'm just doing that through drilling it into the really good people we have now and I'm hoping that you know they get retained and they can pass that culture on as we expand and put them into different seeds into different areas. I think that you're onto something here, but I also think that you know kind of the statement of the people get stuck in restaurants versus what they really want to do.

39:16I feel like there's a misconception about what working in a restaurant is because I know a lot of people that are career restaurant people and take a lot of offense to people getting stuck in their chosen profession because I love this and I get paid. My least favorite thing I hear somebody say is this is not my real job and I go well this is very real. These are real dollar bills that I'm making and my wife and children are very real people that I support from doing this and I don't want a half-assed effort because you're putting everything into some other job and you only hear one or two days a week. I want everything when you're here and I want to create I think the whole restaurant culture of this isn't a real job. I think that we as restaurant operators need to step up and do more things like you're talking about more personal development, but because we want people to be more well-rounded in this profession because this profession discards people and treats people like shit and when we can actually start treating them like this is an actual career that they want to retire from that we're going to offer them real benefits and competitive pay and we're going to take care of them. I think it's people like us that are leading people that it's up to us it's on our shoulders to change that. Yeah I agree. I think also though it's accepting that for a while that perception of this isn't a real job is a reality.

40:45You know I was in dance and like I did tv and I did whatever and you got plenty of calls like hey what else do you do? This is what I do. I get paid 150 dollars an hour to do this you know but you never get away from that you know. The people that really love it in these sexy, I still consider this a sexy career. It's like it's one of like the fairy tale careers right music, entertainment, restaurants. I want to retire and have a restaurant right like it's a romantic thing and romantic things don't traditionally get paid well. The reality of them is really tough and you have to work through a lot of weeds to get to the point of like you're an owner or you have recognition or you have an executive whatever the thing is. So I think just accepting that that's a reality or that's a perception and then I guess every single day just knowing that it's a school more than anything right like we're just like teachers every single year you go through a new class of people right like every single year there's new students you have to repeat the same lessons over and over again and as soon as you accept that like just like Danny Meyer says as soon as you accept that like putting the salt checker in the middle of the table is your job then it becomes easier except that you're a teacher that you're gonna keep teaching people the same thing over and over again you're gonna have some turnover and you're gonna have to start over as soon as you accept it then it becomes like reasonable and then focusing on the impact that you had on those people I don't know. I say we like to hire restaurant people here and we kind of define restaurant people as people that have told their parents that this is what I do and they're okay with it yeah you know they don't have to continue to say well mom I'm still chasing this dream I'm just working at this place for a short amount of time the ones who go no this is what I do this is where I I'm good at this I'm good at providing service for people I've spent years learning wine and food and all the backgrounds I mean you said something interesting earlier that was hey look I'm gonna help you I'd like for you to do something that I care about and that not everybody cares what type of beef we use or whether we're not are using local produce or the new porto that you're bringing

42:50in or they even want to learn the difference between old world versus new world I don't know I think that those people are out there and I think that people don't recognize the ability that they may have inside of them to do a great job I think we lost a lot of people in this industry to the pandemic and I think it's a unique opportunity for us to come back after the pandemic and really cultivate and motivate people to want to do this I mean I think it's it's there's a longer conversation there about why is it hard to hire people right now when I think defining what this is is really important right so like yeah I don't I love food I love wine I love restaurants but I don't think I'm a restaurant tour right like I think I'm a business owner that is teaching life lessons if that makes sense like I feel like this is the best area to reach people that are having trouble and that you can get them out of a hole right like that they may be in you can help somebody get somebody on their feet help somebody accomplish their dreams this just happens to be a building that does that right there's a medium of food that allows us to do that so like I could be very interested running a tech company I happen to dislike food and beverage right like but I could have a tech company that does the exact same motivation of like teaching people growing people whatever and food just happens to be the way that I choose to do that and so I think if you show smart people that really like hospitality and taking care of people that their are their mission is something different than providing the best bordeaux or the best meat then they might view the industry differently and therefore stay longer if that makes sense so I guess I have a little I have a little bit of pushback I guess because I don't know I'm kind of like not sure how I feel about all of it I guess my question is like yes stay longer right but but also like they're working on being a real estate agent or they're working on this so then when does it become okay hey so you've given us all this time and we

44:53appreciate and we love you now go do the thing you want to do yeah so I don't know I have and I feel like we're also kind of ignoring the back a house in this like the dishwashers that's not a romantic job right like that's not a romantic oh I don't think anything that we do actually do is romantic I think what we the end result is romantic to the end consumer if that makes sense sure yeah I mean I there's definitely a lot like I come from Disney I worked in Disney for a while and like the onstage backstage is very much there and like Disney is all create the magic never never break the magic like so I'm all in for that totally and my husband and I own a restaurant I'm all in for that but like the day-to-day of it right of like yeah you have to move the salt shaker every single fucking day like why can't the staff just figure out where the fucking salt shaker goes I have those feelings all the time like no question and I fully aware that I am going to be the one fixing the salt shaker like no question but I just think and I think part of my pushback comes from like the idea of so I think there are a lot of restaurant career people and I also think there's like a privilege in the standpoint we're taking right now which goes against the idea of a lot of the country a lot of the restaurant industry is illegal right and so with that comes like a totally different set of things and perspective that I don't personally know which is okay why I'm in this industry because they don't frequently ask for a green card so I'm going to stay here and I'm going to work here and I'm just going to go provide and I'm going to work in four of them because that's how much it costs for me to make the living I need for my kit so I just think there's some like wait so I'm confused what are you pushing back against either I think it's a very romance I think I love the idea I just think it's very I think it's a very privileged standpoint for front of house specifically it sounds like for um to say that like oh to like that you're in it to do things past to do something else yes yeah that makes sense um I mean yeah I think in the back house because I actually relate more yeah you mentioned you come from back a house

46:58so definitely and that's actually one thing when I was a kid being 15 years old I was like speaking Spanish and Spanish classes I would talk to these guys and they said they would come to America and can make enough money to buy their kid a pair of shoes in one day and it usually take them two weeks back home for a month um but I think there is still opportunity there too in the back house like what are they what are they there for they're there to provide for their family right they're there to like send money back home I think there's a big issue with immigrant or like immigrants stuff like I'm a huge advocate of immigration and like open immigration and reform I would love to talk about that more with like the worldwide community but um but for chefs and stuff a lot of them do want their like it's more I say there's a more common theme of chefs wanting their own restaurant wanting their own food truck wanting their whatever and so if you can help them get there like we have this window if you want to do a pop-up in the window amazing let us help you get there let's learn about inventory let's learn about again pnls right from the start it's like it takes 30 minutes in a day for me to teach you that versus waiting three years until you're an exec chef to learn about it um so in the back house what I find is that like people have more similar ambitions front of house they're much more diverse but you still provide somebody with that and from the back house again how can I teach somebody in the back house typically there's a lot more ego and there's a lot less a lot more piracy right there's people that come from criminal backgrounds there's people that came from bad homes more frequently um so how do I teach you to be calm and empathetic and control your emotions that's one of our values how do I teach you positive which is more common in the front house how do I teach you that like if um I would never say this but in other scenarios you're fucking up you're not doing a good job you're a piece of shit that's feedback that people get in the restaurant and like in the kitchen yeah I've worked for a restaurant set I got that in high finance yeah teaching them that

49:03it doesn't matter where you go you're getting this you'll get the same feedback I got doors slammed in my face when I was making very good money in finance and you're a piece of shit why did I hire you and so for me I had to think well what does that mean you're a piece of shit I I shouldn't have hired you well that means I probably should have got the report on your desk sooner it also means that let's see here maybe I this the detail he wants more detail and I go talk to like the strategies I'm like hey he said this I think it was good I'm thinking this is what he wants better and then other people yeah this is what he wants and this is this it's like learning how to work through various forms of feedback is valuable so some of that is like I'm a dishwasher I'm a prep cook and I'll never get out of this well guess what no matter what industry you get into no matter how rich it is you're gonna deal with the same fucking shit all the time so you might as well learn how to deal with it right here because then when you get to the next place at least it'd be better he'd be one step closer so like I think back house there's a lot of emotional stuff that we can teach like how to be a leader and how to deal with those things because it's it doesn't get much worse or much like hotter than a kitchen so it's um they can be professionals I tend to think we we focus more time and attention on the connection we have with our staff in the front of the house because the front of the house is not hot you're not behind the line you kind of have this the guys in the kitchen typically behind a line they're not accessible like standing in a side station talking to a server is where you go hey how's your family how's your wife how's your kids and you have more resources in the front of the house like back house they're just sprinting for their lives versus front house it's easier I think that there's a level of connection I think that the real difference and the thing that you have to have with your team is is actual connection like understanding about them and connecting with them I read I was reading a book today you're probably a big fan of Simon Sinek imagine but in the book leaders eat last he was talking and he said people just want connection because people that don't get if you have a worker who's just an average or a server or whoever

51:06that's an average worker they come in they do the job they do fine and you never have to like correct them you never talk to them they become engaged disengaged a lot faster and you will lose them at a higher rate than somebody that you go and scream and cuss at somebody so that you get in their face and actively tell them how bad they're doing and you scream and cuss at them stays like 40 percent longer than somebody who you do nothing with and it's just because they people need a level of connection with the person that they're following and I thought that was so wrong and so interesting that just because they were getting yelled at they felt like oh they see me yeah and like how many missed opportunities you have every single day to stop somebody and talk to them and just go hey how are you doing hey I saw you do that table day is really great I'm really excited about whatever just little conversations you real connections I think we missed those opportunities in the back of the house because for they're unapproachable they don't speak English they don't do this whatever it might be but like every single day I make it a point to walk behind the line and say good morning to every single person online I know I'm all by their first name and I say hi to them all and I check in on I don't go hey you work 12 hours that's a long ass shift man why'd you have to do that is there something like that seems like a long day and I'm sorry you were here that long and I have just a conversation with them and there and it's not because I'm doing it because I'm checking it off a list it's because I genuinely care like I want to know that their life is good I don't know I think that there's just a connection I think that gets missed from front of the house to back of the house and we need to foster that like as leaders like yourself who's in charge of an entire place who's an owner did you are you did you gain equity in the in the restaurant yeah nice so yeah as an owner of a place I mean that that's a major part of it and you do that for back of house too do you sit down and find out what their goals are and where they want to be yeah and I'm almost harsher on them about it because they don't think they're not used to it like we just promoted a couple sous chefs or we're about

53:07to and I said you don't get your promotion until you memorize our values right I mean and the reason the spot well but part of their values is also their goal and so we know about that what are your values what what are the values your core values we're positive especially if the world around us isn't we're kind empathetic in control of our emotions we are positive and in forward thinking we treat each other with dignity and respect we grow professionally and personally and professionally we are fiscally responsible and we over deliver on value which is product service and overall experience I love it yeah you know how many times I ask people what their core values are and they get like two or three of them I had a rep I had a rep come in we're doing an RFP right now for our all of our food business yeah I'm not gonna say what's that I want you to teach me about that yeah well yeah we'll sit down and talk this is something I was talking to I signed up with Reid and Jeff we were talking about it the on March 2nd I met with them about helping them out with that and then March 3rd the next morning I was like I'm sorry guys I know this sucks but anyhow um we're sitting in the meeting and the person opened the the page and they go here at xyz food company we believe in our core values this is how we live work and play and then on the next page it had the core values listed I said wait don't turn to the next page what are your core values and this person looked at me and goes no idea and I went okay just checking to see where we're playing here that you just said you lived worked and played by these core values yet you have no idea what they are okay good deal and then I'm just an asshole so that was part of me I mean I would have done the exact same thing it's just it's just I what I try to tell the leaders in the sous chef why I want the sous chefs and our future managers to know that is like it just makes your job easier like this again be selfish you know like

55:09when the sous chefs in the back are disagreeing because one comes from one country one comes the other and they have different ways of doing things it's like hey what are our values and they recite them are you being empathetic right now no okay well this is a time to grow let's let's think about it right so um again a lot of times in the kitchen there's like you said lacks connection I think you you hit the nail on the head with that like that's 100 true um they don't feel connected because you're not involving them in the same things that we preach every single day in the front of the house but like people like structure and they like things to be hard right when there's structure and there's reasons for things people take pride in it after after they learn it you know there's resistance in the beginning but we need to show them that you're serious about it then they learn it and then they're proud and they pass it on really smoothly you know and I like tell the sous chefs you know if they have disagreements among each other it's like what do you think a cook's going to be when you just got out of prison and you have this other person who is like a kid who is a high schooler like a early college student who just dropped out and really loves food like you think they're going to really get along right away no like so just showing them that again these things are meant for like your growth and it's going to make things easier for you in the future yeah I think when you and hopefully if you work in a restaurant you're listening to this I mean the idea of people genuine connection with people in all forms throughout you're right if you're a leader if you're anybody that's that's what I've learned through the pandemic I learned that when everybody went home and you started looking at people on zoom or you didn't get to look sit next to somebody I mean Jen and I do these interviews all the time and she's on a screen and I'm on a screen like sitting next to her it's great because I can look at her and see in her eye is like or she's like stop talking or she's like hey I want to say something there's just something that about a human connection that if you're a leader and imagine that when Patrick Lencioni writes the how to lead through a pandemic book which I don't think has

57:10been written yet there's going to be a lot about empathy there's going to be a lot about grace and there's going to be a lot about human connection and how important that is in the workspace because we lost it for a while we we all had to be away from people for a while and then there's still like this gradual getting back to it I think that's the number one thing that most people missed and I think that that's the number one thing that we can gain from this is that when you connect with people generally when you connect with your community you know when you connect with your community and you say look we want to make this community better because we're not just a place you come in and get food we want to nourish you and we want to nourish the people around us we really want to build on our community and it sounds to me like that's exactly uh what you're doing I love the way in which you're approaching it and I'm glad we've got to talk today we're we're it goes so fast these interviews we're gonna have to do now I have some ideas for you so I want you to hang out after we're done but Jen I only have a couple yeah we're starting a new set you're starting off a brand new uh segment for us because I tend to just talk all the time and Jen I love talking to Jen forever I want like she doesn't get enough in here and I know like I wonder so she's gonna start doing the rapid fire questions for you that you get to do quick hits on okay sound good these are I just have a few all right so pizza is Chicago style king like is that your end-all be-all pizza yes to me okay well your pineapples belong on pizza yes oh that's my boy I say yes to pineapple notice Chicago style um what your biggest change since taking over German town cafe like quick answer what's the biggest change well you guys got an Instagram which is big yeah right um I think yeah um culture that everybody aligns with perfect um favorite style of dance outside of ballroom um hip-hop okay and dirty and who's gonna win

59:10uh Dancing with the Stars um it's a good question I haven't watched it in a minute oh yeah yeah a bunch of my reality stars are on I love reality tv and a bunch of them are on it do you watch the bachelor bachelorette series franchise I don't I watch world of dance usually youtube so okay my husband is obsessed with the lay twins like has been for years and years and years and so when they won he was like like the first episode he's like they're gonna win there's no question they're gonna win and then of course they won and then yeah but then we had twins and he's like maybe they'll be like the lay twins I'm like a world-renowned choreographer or something yeah yeah they're there I'll show you some videos they're like incredibly impressive I don't know what language you guys are talking about the lay twins they were on tour with Beyonce they're incredible I don't know who that is there you go it's like me talking about fantasy football to you there you go yeah Sean thank you for joining us today we didn't get to talk a whole lot about the actual German town cafe but thank goodness because at the end of every one of our episodes I like to give our guests the opportunity to say whatever they want to say for as long as they want to say it you get to take us out Jerry's final thought style and go well I guess I want to say because this national base is like the support has been amazing there's so many people that are just so happy that we're back open and they're willing to try anything and we're trying new things at the cafe to be fiscally healthy one of our values and to grow so what we're trying to do at german town cafe now is provide choice to people and I think that's a world trend but it's also a community trend like you accept people for who they are and and for all the different needs that they have in their life and so when you order with us you can do everything on mobile you can just do a couple things on mobile or you can just have the good old-fashioned traditional experience like everybody knows and loves and I do ask that people are empathetic because if you like the traditional experience there are people like me that has a one-year eight-month-year-old who appreciate service

01:01:14what needs to get in and out in that style of service and QR codes is very good for me and I'm a member of german town as well so and there's lots of new people in german town of all different ages that appreciate different levels of service so I know we're doing our best to build community and relate to everybody and we hope that everybody else can be patient and kind and empathetic towards um everybody else in the restaurant as well and know that we're doing it the best we can for everybody that walks in for our staff and also for the health of our business so we can actually be around for another 15 years fantastic I was just gonna say I'm glad somebody decided to hammer out like whatever they're pounding out right behind us you were getting into all of your stuff that was awesome that was uh Jeff probably got some plum pork I'm sure how do you enjoy working with Jeff yeah he's great he's like he cares about this place so much and he's a really good leader he is very calm under pressure and deals with you know employees in a very good way like yeah he's fantastic you know he's passionate yeah he's the only chef that I know well one of the only chefs that I know that actually goes home and continues to cook nice things he's like guess what I cooked last night I don't know how did you have the energy or motivation to do any of that that's awesome he's got a pretty amazing family he's a pretty awesome guy you're a pretty awesome guy thank you Sean for joining us on Nashville Restaurant Radio happy uh Thanksgiving yeah yeah holidays happy holidays thanks Sean thank you all right so some interesting conversation going on there with Sean Lyons uh love to know what you think about it send us a message we're going to be posting about this on the Instagram and Facebook put your comments in there listen to it let us know we'd like to start the conversation I thought some really interesting things that were said so um hope you guys had a wonderful holiday happy Black Friday and uh happy holidays we'll

01:03:20be back on Monday with Brian Baxter from the catbird seat hope that you guys are being safe out there uh go get vaccinated get your booster love you guys bye