Travis Talbott

00:00Welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio, the tastiest hour of talk in Music City. Now here's your host, Brandon Styll. Hello, Music City, and welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio. We are powered by Gordon Food Service. My name is Brandon Styll, and I am your host back at you coming at the weekend. So excited to be back live in person post COVID. Man, I feel like we've been on this show since the day one.

01:01March 13th was our first episode, and we talked about COVID. We have talked about COVID for two and a half years, and finally I got it, and it sucked. It was not fun. I definitely felt sick. I had a cough. I was bedridden for a few days, did not do an interview, and it was kind of nice. It was kind of nice taking a little bit of a break. I'm not going to lie, but I am back. We are back and better than ever. I am not kidding. Today, we're talking with a man named Travis Talbot, and he is a restaurant guru. The guy has just kind of done everything. It's incredible. Right now, he is a company called the Hospitality Arts Group, and he is the co-founder and lead consultant. We did this interview. He's in Mexico City learning Mexican culture because he wants to be able to offer his Mexican concepts. He works with some real authentic options, and I think that's super duper cool. The guy's just a nomad. He's all over the world, and it's really super interesting.

02:03So I cannot wait to share this. This is an operational restaurant interview. If you're a restaurant industry person, this episode is for you. I feel like I have so many announcements. We are doing a best Mexican restaurant bracket right now. We're working with NetChex, and they have been an amazing partner and sponsor for this show. If you love NetChex, please give them a call. Go to NashvilleRestaurantRadio.com. Click on the NetChex tab and give them a call. Talk to Lauren and get set up. They do HR. They do hiring. They do payroll. They do so many amazing things, and NetChex is just a fantastic partner. But you need to go to NashvilleRestaurantRadio.com right now. And on the homepage, you can vote for your favorite Mexican restaurant. We are at the final four. So we are talking memos in Mount Juliet versus Mas Tacos, por favor. That is your bracket in the, I don't know what division that is, but that is the memos, Mount Juliet versus Mas Tacos. And right now, one of those is running away with it.

03:05So they're going to make it the championship unless you go vote now for your favorite. In the second bracket, we are looking at La Hacienda versus El Fuego. And one of those will next week. You're going to be up against memos or Mas Tacos. But the vote is up to you right now. Go to NashvilleRestaurantRadio.com right there on the homepage. You can see where you can vote. This is a big one. We're going to throw a big party on September the 15th for the winner. And so excited to NetChex for sponsoring that with us. We are talking about labor. Also, labor is a big deal for you. I have a gift. I have a September is an early fall present for each one of you. And it comes from Poached. Poached is the nation's top jobs marketplace for the hospitality industry with innovative and on-demand staffing technology and permanent hire solutions. Poached gives employers the flexibility to control what's needed to decrease labor costs and increase productivity.

04:07And for the month of September, you can post your job for free. Yes, forget Indeed. Forget all the other places you can go to hire. You need to go to Poached.com right now and you can post your job for free. You need a server. You need a bartender. You need a manager. You need whatever it is. You can go there and post your job for free. Now, what you have to do is you have to go to NashvilleRestaurantRadio.com. Click the Sponsors tab and go down to Poached right there. Click that link. And there you are. You can post your jobs for free for the month of September. That's worth like a thousand bucks, right? How many jobs are you posting right now? That is it. And if you're looking for a job, go to Poached.com and see the jobs that are posted there. It's amazing things. So another thing, you know, I have these advertisers and we are doing something in the month of September that is, I think, pretty cool. And what we are focusing on this month is new technology. So Maintain IQ and GoTab are two new technologies that I've got amazing feedback from.

05:12Everybody loves them. I'm using them. They are the best. So here's my ask of you this month. I want to give away five hundred dollars. Yeah, five hundred bucks. Here's how I'm going to do that. The first five people to set up and do a demo with either GoTab or Maintain IQ, what you do is you set up the demo, you do the demo, and then I want to buy a one hundred dollar gift card from you, whatever restaurant you are, whatever restaurant you have that you set up a demo for GoTab or Maintain IQ. I'm going to buy a one hundred dollar gift card from you. So that's the first thing. And then when you sign up for any, any of the sponsors that you set up, you call them, you get Jason Ellis to come in from SuperSource. You call Matt Clements over at Robin's Insurance. You call GFS, What Chefs Want, The Compost Company. We've got Coarse and Fire.

06:13If you, you know, if you're using Pie Bark or something else, call Coarse and Fire for every single person on my sponsor list that you call and you set up a demo and audit, whatever it is, I'm going to put your name in a drawing, right? So every single time you said you talk to one of my sponsors, your name goes in a drawing. At the end of the month, I'm going to buy five gift cards. The first five people who set up a demo with Maintain IQ or GoTab, I'm going to buy a hundred dollar gift cards from. At the end of the month, I'm going to give those five one hundred dollar gift cards away to a restaurant randomly. Whoever's, you can enter as many times as you like. They have as many of my sponsors you call and get to know. That's an entrance. That's an entry fee. That's interest. You can get, I think 12. I have 12 sponsors on this show. You can get up to 12 entries if you call them all. And if you're already, if you've already signed up for one of my sponsors because of the show, send me a message and I'll enter you in the contest right there, too. We're going to do this for month of September and we're going to do this for the month of October, right?

07:16October, I'm going to have two other sponsors that I'm going to drive you to this month. It's Maintain IQ and GoTab. You set up with them. I'm going to buy a hundred dollar gift card the first five and then I'm going to give away that $500 gift card. Think about that. You give that as employee prizes. Hell, you can go try five new restaurants if you want. But I want to support five locally-owned and operated restaurants, five restaurants in general. I don't care who you are. Five restaurants. I'm buying a hundred dollar gift card and then we're going to give away $500 in gift cards to restaurants. Let's continue to help each other succeed. I may even throw in an extra hundred to one of my restaurants just because I'm cool like that. So lots of fun things happening in the month of September. Stay tuned. I just interviewed the best guy, I swear, Tamash. Tamash Vorschak. He is over at the TC Restaurant Group. That's Tequila Cowboy Group, which is Jason Aldean's, Florida Georgia Line, Luke Bryan, Miranda Lambert.

08:18He is the executive chef for all of that. We talked for an hour and oh my gosh, if you don't want to, if you want to know what's going on downtown, I have the scoop for you. That episode is going to be out Monday. And then next week, I will have another big episode. We're talking with Andrew Cook, who is the owner of the Fox Bar and Cocktail Club. He also owns Elegy Coffee. They have a new location going in right there in Germantown. He's also the drummer for Dan and Shay. So we talk a lot about music. We talk a lot about his life as a drummer. We talk a lot about the Fox Bar. We're not a lot about the Fox Bar. Actually, we talk about like everything but the Fox Bar. But if you want to learn about the Fox Bar, go back and listen to the episode with Laura from the Fox Bar. She's their head bartender with Kayla Ellis and the Gospel of Cocktail podcast. Lots of fun. Guys, I am telling you, I am so stoked to be back and I'm so stoked for fall. I'm so stoked for football season. Holy shit. We have so many things happening, guys. Thank you for listening.

09:20I do all of this to share these amazing conversations with you. The sponsors that sponsor this show allow me to do it. I would love it if you would call them, utilize them. Even if you know you're not going to use them, it might be a great way for you to learn about something new. Sharpier's Bakery. You need to give our girl Erin Mosso a call right over there. Go to the website, NashvilleRestaurantRadio.com. You can look at all of our sponsors, see who you need, get yourself entered for $500 in gift cards. I love, love, love this promotion. Okay, well, I feel like I just birthed a baby. 10 minutes of me talking. Let's jump in with Travis Talbot. I know you're going to love this interview. Let's go right now. Super excited today to welcome in Travis Talbot.

10:24He is the co-founder and lead consultant at the Hospitality Arts Group. Coming to us live from Mexico City. What's going on, Travis? Hey, how we doing, Brendan? Thanks for having me this morning. It is an honor to have you. And this is a really fun. I've listened to, I've done a little bit of research on you because you're not, this is Nashville Restaurant Radio. You want to simply talk to Nashville restaurant people. But this is a little bit of a departure because you're a world restaurant person. You're not just a Nashville restaurant person, literally a world restaurant person. You've held almost every position in every type of restaurant. And you're a consultant now. And I am so excited to dig into like a million things with you. I'm ready, man. Let's get into it. First of all, will you give us like, it's going to be longer than 90 seconds, but an elevator pitch. Give us your, I could go, we could go in to talk about Calgary and all of your history for a long time. But I want to just, I want to jump right into some current stuff. So give us your, kind of your history.

11:26Well, I'm a, you know, I'm what they call a lifer. So I've been in this game since I was nine years old, you know, working for my mom. Well, working, I think is a charitable word. I think nowadays they call it child labor, but working for my mom in a diner that she ran. So that's where I started out, you know, sweeping floors, stocking shelves, graduating, so to speak, into the dish pits and then into busing. And then since then, I've honestly held every position in every sector of hospitality, with the exception of I've never done any accounting, except for when I own my own restaurants and nightclubs. But there's always a bean counter somewhere in the background. But so through the years, like all the way through high school, I worked in restaurants. When I went to university, ironically, I went to university for veterinary sciences. That never actually came to fruition, even though I say I'm still working with animals all the time. And then I worked on cruise ships right out of high school. And then in university, I was working, I was managing multiple operations for nightclubs, live entertainment venues, high-end restaurants, dive bars, you name it.

12:35And then worked in casinos for quite a while. And then eventually decided to go out on my own. And my brother and I put together a small consulting agency. Nice. Okay. So is that the current consulting agency you're doing now? Well, we actually have a number of entities that we're working on. And actually, it became a result of COVID. Is that, A, we saw that there was some other needs in the marketplace. Owners just didn't need menu consultants and menu development. They needed help with diversifying their brands. They needed help with their business models and making them a little bit more dynamic and agile. We saw a big need in the space, because we primarily work in resort environments. And then we saw a big need in that space for what we call eco-intelligence. So these resorts do a phenomenal job with water conservation, land management, a lot of the stewardship that comes to running a place that's in that kind of environment. But then when you get to food and beverage, they're lacking some insight there, or it's usually a little bit further down the priority list.

13:39So we got into eco-intelligence. And then we also do design. So we now have partnered up with some engineers and some interior designers and some architects. So we can take everything from an idea right to implementation, everything in between that whole journey along the way. So we've got a few entities, but the one that we're kind of have the most traction with and where majority of our clients are is the hospitality arts group. Okay, now you're in Mexico City today, but where do you live? I don't. So I am a nomadic foodie is the title I've given myself to kind of justify my existence. But honestly, I've lived all over the world over the years, multiple different cities, multiple different countries. And then when I left the casino world and decided that we were going to break out and do this coaching and consulting kind of gig, I decided to go full nomad. You know, I call it my Anthony Bourdain kind of wannabe travels, right?

14:42So I've lived in the last, since 2019, I lived in Bermuda for a while. I was in Jamaica for a stint. I was in Dominican Republic. And then I just spent the last year touring all of Mexico, learning about the cuisines from different regions and kind of the authentic heritage recipes. And then from here, I'm off to Nicaragua. Spain, Portugal. That's what I have on the list so far. Wow, so you're single. Yeah, I don't even have I don't even have houseplants. I have a container in Vancouver, which is my, you know, my pretty much my only existence in that regard. Wow, that's incredible. I could talk about that for the entire hour. I mean, it has been it's been a journey, especially living all over the map and living in these amazing cities like I did Vegas for a year. I've lived in Boston multiple times for some extended periods throughout all of Canada.

15:42So that part has been cool. But the real experience has been in this new kind of culture that we're in of this, you know, wanderlusting and this work from anywhere kind of culture that came out of COVID. And one of the things that has been positive for me anyways is that when COVID came and everyone, all these countries are bouncing back and they've lost a big chunk of their tourism trade is they've now allowed for these work visas. So some countries where you can never stay more than 90 days are now offering one year long visas. So I've been really taking advantage of that and getting out and experiencing the world and broadening kind of my culinary palette, right? What's the end game? I mean, do you just travel around the world forever and then you know everything and you've experienced all cultures and then you can like teach what you've learned to people? Like, what do you... Well, that's kind of why I'm doing it in addition to just the experience itself is I want to be able to speak intelligently and authentically when we are making recommendations.

16:47So we have a number of clients and potential clients who are exploring, hey, we want to do more Mexican cuisine. We want to be more authentic in the offerings that we're giving out. We don't just want to be a replication of chipotles. And so I can now through my travels share with them. I'm like, oh, okay. So if you want to do this style of taco or hey, if you're going to do a mole sauce, this is how it's done in different regions. So definitely being able... There's some benefit in having been on these travels and being able to say here's the real way to do that or here's a way that's from scratch that gives you a lot more authenticity. So it's actually giving us the information and the knowledge where we can empower our clients in that regard. But in terms of end game, honestly, I know it's a bit cliche and every guy that's ever worked as a chef or anybody who's ever worked in a kitchen and watched Anthony Bourdain, they want to live that existence. But to me, I just decided I'm going to go for it. So I call it my braving Bourdain journey. So my end game is to travel and then eventually become skilled enough to be able to write about it where it's entertaining.

17:53There you go. Yeah, no, that sounds amazing. I'm a little jealous, honestly. Well, there's ups and downs to everything but I got some pretty good war stories about sleeping in parking lots and living in airports and you have all those kind of stories. But for the most part, it's been enriching. I think of Up in the Air, the movie with... Yep, George Clooney. George Clooney, yeah. And everything he did revolved around points and miles. Do you get into that? Are you into that culture of like, oh, I'm a Merrick Geyer, I'm a Hilton Geyer, I fly on Southwestern? No, actually, I don't. So a couple of things in that regard. Well, one of the things that we do when we work with clients is when it comes to travel and accommodations and stuff, we ask them to look after that end of the agreement because they can pick and choose how they want us to... Like, I don't care if I fly coach, I don't care if I've got the last seat next to the bathroom and the back end of the plane. But it's for our clients, it's like, oh, nice. These are real everyday people and they're not trying to live the high life on our dime.

18:58So usually, and then usually when they purchase the plane... Or sorry, the planes, they don't purchase planes. When they purchase the tickets and so forth, they're collecting points, so there's actually a benefit to them in doing the booking. And then for me, I like to go grassroots, man. Like I fly coach, I've taken buses to projects. And then with these days, I've been staying in a lot of these, what they call like the co-working, co-collaboration culture hotels and boutiques. So I'm always like in the... Like I said, in Mexico City, I'm not staying in any branded flag. I'm staying in these work environments where every walk of life is traveling. Like in the place I'm in now, which is kind of a nice boutique operation, there's everything from coders to kids that are just traveling and backpacking to retirees that are out and on their life journey and writing about it. So yeah, man, I go the easy-peasy kind of grassroots street level kind of approach. – Oh, I love that. So what were you doing on March 13th, 2020?

20:00– Oh, is that when the curtain came crashing down? – That's when the world stopped. Everything stopped and then we went into lockdown. What were you doing in that moment and tell me about that transition. – So we experienced hardcore. When you say shut down, we were working in Steamboat as a ski resort in Colorado. And we were there, my brother and I, and we were working on a massive project with that resort. And then we were in the middle of a meeting and we were literally talking, chewing the fat on different menu developments and different concepts to consider. And somebody walked into the room and said, everything is done. You guys are done, get out. And we were like, oh, we blew it. So I was looking at my brother, I'm like, what did you do? And he's like, I don't know, man. I didn't meet anybody last night. I didn't talk to anybody this morning. And it was like panic mode where they're like, you guys need to get out now. And we thought, okay, the meeting is over. Something else is taking priority. Go back to your hotel room and we'll reconvene.

21:01Where it was like, we got to our hotel room and our stuff was packed and our suitcases out front our door. We went to the airport. Yeah, and then they kicked us out of towns and not only did they kick us out of the resort, they're like, you guys have to leave. Was this a client you were working for? Yeah. That was putting you up and doing the whole thing? And they were like, this is over, get out. To some extent. The person that came in and actually was like saying, hey, listen, like I'm the authority here and we're shutting things down was somebody from the health board. So some kind of provincial authority or some kind of regional authority. So they were mandating, hey, clear your hotel rooms out and they had police in the parking lots. It was intense. And then we got to the airport in Denver and it was just a gong show. It was the busiest I've ever seen that airport. People were so disheveled and then nobody knew what was going on. Nobody understood what was happening. And then we got told, hey, listen, by the border patrol, where are you going and what are you doing? And I literally got told, hey, where are you going and why?

22:04And I'm like, well, I'm going to go back to Canada because I'm a Canadian citizen. We're here on work. And he's like, do you have to go back? And I'm like, well, no, I have other options. My brother had to go back because he's got a family. And he's like, well, we don't know when this is going to be over and we don't know, you know, we think the borders are going to be shut down for a while. So if your work is primarily in the US and you're a Canadian, I would recommend you find an option in the unit. So luckily I had options. And so I ended up being in Boston for the majority of the lockdown and the riots and everything else. It was crazy. What did you do as a consultant? Restaurants are all closed. Did you go into like hibernation? Did you finally take like a really long nap? Or did you immediately start working? Well, we did a couple of things. So first, depression, right? Because we went from building this business. I left a great role and an executive role with the casinos that had stability and a huge future to it and all the perks and benefits too.

23:05We went out and did our own thing, built a book of business. And then literally in five days, like we just got email after phone call, after email saying, sorry guys, like we're shut down. We don't know when we're opening. So we can't engage. So there was a bit of a shock there like a lot of people and then depression. And then we kind of took a bold leap of faith where we reached out to all of our existing clients and said, hey, listen, this isn't going to last forever. We don't know how long it's going to last, but we know it's not going to last forever. With a lot of our projects, we're looking at one year, three year, five year outlooks in development depending on the scope and scale of the project. So we're like, you guys are going to unbox these projects at some point in time. So we worked for free. We said to our clients, hey, listen, we need to keep sharp. You know, these products are going to come to fruition at some point in time. Why don't we keep the ball rolling so there's no momentum lost? And we'll finish the project so that when you do, you know, fire up again, it's their complete packages and not, you didn't lose all that time.

24:11So we took a leap of faith and it's, you know, knock on wood. We had some really amazing people we were working with and it all worked out. And then we also took that time to say, hey, let's take some inventory on who we are. What is our brand? What are we offering clients? And what are they going to need through this pandemic, through the crisis? What do we think they're going to need post-COVID? And so that's when we started to create some new services, new offerings, and we really reinvented ourselves. I know that's a cliche term these days, but we went from being kind of, yeah, but we reinvented ourselves. And that's part of the reason why I'm on the road is, hey, if we're going to be coaches and we're going to be tier one consultants, we got to evolve and we got to improve ourselves and make sure that what we're offering to people is, you know, relevant and it resonates. So yeah, but that whole, I'm okay with those couple of years being in the rear view mirror. Yeah, no kidding, right?

25:12Well, I thought even as a consultant, it's such an amazing time because I feel like the real innovators were able to come out. You know what I mean? We're at this time where everything closes and you can either take time off and take a deep breath or you can reckon, I mean, a lot of restaurants had no idea what to do. If there was ever a time that a really good consultant could come in and help somebody who was collaborating during those times to help restaurants with, what the fuck do I do right now? Everybody's scared to death, right? So I mean, I just thought it was a really good opportunity and time to get in there and talk to a lot of that. I started this podcast, I started talking to all these people and I just kept generating ideas and hopefully sharing this content that says, hey, look, this is what everybody's doing, jump in. Let's all, I've never seen more people join together during something that was so bad. I think we learned, it was an amazing, crazy time. Yeah. Well, and I think you nailed it on the head. I think that the creativity came out as a result of the crisis and people had to become innovative or at a minimum, they had to take inventory and say, okay, what are we and what is our brand and what is our guest experience and what are we good at and how are we competitive?

26:23So I agree with you is that the mindset and the approach changed. The unfortunate thing though as a consultant is everybody was cash strapped. Everybody. Everybody was taking, everybody took a beating on their financials and so for as much as they wanted to have those conversations about how do we innovate, how do we become more dynamic? Hey, why are we trying to do IHOP menus that are 30 pages long? Let's go back to what we started out as. It is, we're really good at these 15 items. Yeah. So those conversations were dynamite and I agree with you. I was a part of so many, those collective zoom calls and everybody getting together and doing like industry think tanks as a city, right? Nevermind just as three or four people in the community or four or five operators that know each other. So there was some great conversations that came out of that. But as a consultant, it was tough because no one could afford to say, hey, those are great ideas. How do we go, how do we advance that from an idea to implementation?

27:25So it was tough, but you're right. It is tough. I think if there was anything good that came out of COVID, it was that change in mindset. And like even nowadays too, one of the things that's post COVID that I wouldn't say it's a hangover, but it's a residual is now that everyone is so real, they've realized how important their people are. Hopefully they have. Well, and the ones that aren't are the ones that are like, we can't get anybody. We know there's nobody working out there. These damn Gen Z's don't want to work. I'm like, no, no, you missed it. You missed it all together. I made a post on LinkedIn last week. And I said, if you're still leading the way you were in 2019, chances are you think you have a labor problem. And I said, you don't need to invest in labor technology. You need to invest in a mirror. Love that. And I agree with you. So to your point is the innovators, the people that were intent on being hospitality operators.

28:26And I use that word more than food and beverage people or restaurant. It's all hospitality in my book. But the ones that got it and took inventory and realized, hey, shit, like we've got culture matters. I think that culture, the word culture is about is it's diluted like the word subway fresh or the term subway fresh, right? But at least people were saying, hey, let's look at our people and let's look at how what we do as an operator, as an owner, how it affects the lives of the people that are making us money, right? So I think that that was one of the good outcomes of COVID is people saying we got to take a little look at things here, right? Well, I think defining what it was, you know, I worked with many restaurants. I started a consulting company February of 2020. Talk about a terrible time to start a consulting company. I started the podcast the next month almost as just a, hey, look, let's just do this out loud. But during that time, I thought it was a great opportunity for restaurants to sit down. And while they have every single restaurant that's out there has a culture.

29:30That is the thing. It's defining what that is and then being intentional with driving it forward. You know, so identifying what your three to five core values are and then saying, this is our foundation. We're living by this and you could, I think every restaurant had the chance to do that during this time. The economy wasn't back. Even when you reopen, there was enough time. You're kind of rehiring everybody back to say, we're coming back. This is who we are defined moving forward. Yes. We're putting arms around each other. This is our team. We work with integrity and you know, all of the things. I don't know. It's just a big opportunity. I'm going to tell you, I went to the RLC, the restaurant leadership conference in Phoenix. I don't know if you were there or not, but. Okay. Yep. WindSight does these things. They have FS Tech coming up in September. We're really excited about it. I love this stuff. While we're there, the opening, the opening line, remember room full of, you know, CEOs of multiple chains. It's the restaurant leadership conference. And he says, what an amazing thing this pandemic has done for us.

30:35It has burned off all of the dead wood at the bottom of the floor, the forest. And now we are able, the professionals, we're the professionals, we're the restaurant. All the non-professionals, the mom pops, they're all gone. Now it's our turn to really shine. And I just felt like, damn, that's an incredibly cold way to look at a bunch of people closing their restaurants. And it must be nice to be able to have, it must be nice to have this huge conference to bring all of us smart people together to figure out how to take down the little guy. And it rubbed me the wrong way. And I'm curious about your kind of, what do you think about that statement? Well, I think there's a ton of hubris in there. And I think that they, that's the epitome of the corporate goliath that's just looking to just eat up everything as opposed, like I don't look at those operators or those organizations or companies as being hospitality companies. Because man, how can you look at somebody else's demise as being a benefit to your business?

31:43Like I get about, you know, I'm all for being competitive, but not at the expense of somebody else's existence, right? So I think that's a terrible statement. But I will say from our perspective is that COVID started out as a crisis. Then it became what we called camouflage, where it enabled a lot of operators. And I'm thinking mom and pause are those that have, you know, three to four operations or independent operators, regardless of their size, is to say, hey, listen, we wanted to scale back our menu. We wanted to relook at our organization chart. We wanted to put in a new culture paradigm. So they were able to do that under the camouflage of COVID where prior to they're like, well, we can't do that this week because customer A is going to cause a riot or hey, you know, our community is going to lose their minds if we don't have 75 items on the menu. And they've realized during COVID and also looking at their pricing because there was a lot of people. Unfortunately, the hospitality in the food and beverage game was becoming lowest common denominator competition prior to COVID where everyone's just like giving everything away.

32:48And so under COVID they could say, hey, we looked at our pricing again. We looked at our sales mix. We can charge more for this or hey, people do realize by watching the news that supply chain issues and the cost of goods are all going up to the cost of business. Going up, you know, obviously the end user has to subsidize some of that. So anyways, that was good. And then it became the COVID catalyst where operators were then embracing technology where hospitality world technology was always like, yeah, yeah, yeah, we're in the people business. We'll worry about tech later. We're like, okay, we're missing the boat as an industry. So that would change. And then the whole discussion like we're having is people's intentions and how they're going to treat their people change. So we look at that as the COVID catalyst, right? Yeah, those guys, that's terrible, man. Like that's what a terrible way to come into the industry. And talk about the hubris and throwing that out there in front of everybody, right? He used the term the dead wood has been burned off the forest floor and now the trees can spread their branches.

33:51Now us big trees can spread our branches. I was like, damn. Nice metaphor, wrong intention. Seriously. Well, you know, I looked at it as a consultant as somebody who, and I'm the director of operations for a restaurant group here in Nashville. I have a full-time job. But I like to help others and I like to share and I like to collaborate and that's just kind of part of who I am. And I just, I don't know. I look at that and I just, I felt like I was lucky to be in the room to hear that. And I was lucky to be a part of that because all of the big company, all the big tech companies are there. They're talking about so many good ideas. I mean, those guys have some great ideas of running a business. And I feel like locally owned and operated restaurant tours are so busy right now responding to the demands of a crazy labor environment, a crazy supply chain, just the perils of running a business. They don't get a chance to go to those things. So I love being able to go to those things and come back and share like, hey guys, you should use a digital checklist for all of your manager opening duties.

34:55And there's so many great things out there. Nobody knows about here. Well, we used to say all the time to a lot of our operators, especially the smaller independents like, hey, before you test the waters and everything, go look at what the big boys are doing because they've already invested in the technology. They've already invested in the market research. They've already done the homework. You don't have to replicate, but there's some insights there. But it's funny you said that. I was actually on a collaborative call. I think it was in Boston. And like it was one of those calls where the whole industry was like, hey, what do we do? And we're gonna lobby the city to be able to take over parking lots for additional seating or outdoor patio seating. We're gonna lobby the regulatory boards to allow for takeaway drinks and stuff. So there was a lot of thought process come out there. And there was a restaurateur there, just an independent guy, super savvy individual though. And he's like, you know what's great about COVID? He says that the QSRs and the big boys and the chains are gonna take it. And I go, what do you mean? And he's like, he had the same perspective as that big guy, but saying, hey, listen, there's not gonna be a TGIF on every 15 feet now.

36:00They're gonna scale back to whatever their best location is, which means I've just now got my neighborhood back. And with COVID, there was a change in guest behaviors where you wanted to support that guy on the corner. You wanted to find that local pub again that had that real authentic social fabric to it. So I've heard that same argument from independent operators saying, good, I don't have 10 Starbucks around me anymore. So now I can get back into my daytime cafe business, right? So hopefully that's some of the dead wood at the bottom was the overproliferation of, you know, chains choking the life out of all the neighborhoods, right? Yeah, I think people were able to sit back and learn that there's so many good human interest stories that came out of the restaurant industry. There's so much, you know, I feel like the restaurant industry is everybody's Red Cross. I mean, the second anything happens, restaurants are expected to just bring food and they do. Yeah, and they do.

37:00And they do. They do, yeah. Every day, every time somebody walks in the restaurant that says, hey, can I have a gift certificate for this or this or this, we're doing it. I mean, everybody's given all they possibly can, but I think that the pandemic actually shined a light on that. People were able to go, oh, wow, look at what these people do for our community. And it really was, it was really special. It was really awesome, which is a special time. Well, in addition, I think that people, yeah. And I think that people realized how important their local restaurant was, their local neighborhood pub, the local small cafe that they go in for croissants and a latte every morning. I think they realized how important the food and beverage restaurant world was to their social, you know, their social values. Like there's currency and being able to socialize. And I think that we learned that from being locked down. And nowadays, like, I remember when we were growing up and here I go dating myself, you know, you'd spend the weekends with your grandparents at the Legion or the Moose or the Elks.

38:01Then you had the wave pool and the community rec center that you'd hang out in. And then there was the cafe, you know, in the corner. There was all these, and even, you know, hanging out after school, you'd hang out after school for two to three hours or go to, you know, before school, two to three hours to hang out. There was all these social outlets and all of these different venues and platforms to get together and interact. And then over the course of time, like those don't exist. And where they do exist is in your local restaurants, right? Your local neighborhood pub. That's the new third space of the age that we're living in. So there's work, there's home. And then there's that third space, which is, you know, food and beverage hospitality. You know, I'll never forget the owner of our restaurants. His name is Stephen Smithing. But we have a restaurant called the Green Hills Grill. And it's in a nicer part of Nashville, but it's really a community restaurant. It's really amazing. And we're probably three weeks into this thing, two weeks in and it was, we're on a conference call. And I said, Stephen said, man, I just, this sucks.

39:03And I said, yeah, this is tough. And he goes, I miss the people in the restaurant. Like I'm, I miss seeing them. Like he's, he's one of those owners who's constantly in the building. He's the mayor, that's the title. He's the mayor of the restaurant. He knows every person by name. He comes by, he talks to you. How's your mom and them? How's your friends? You know, he knows everybody. And so in the middle of the pandemic, he wrote a letter that said, hey, thank you for supporting us. Thank you for ordering to-go's. I miss you. Here's my cell number. Here's my email. Send me a message. Call me, catch up. I need to talk to you. And we started putting those in every single to-go box. And he goes, my phone's ringing off the hook. I'm catching up with everybody throughout the whole time talking to all these people. And I just thought that that's what this is about. That's what we do right there. That's the essence of hospitality. Well, that is genuine hospitality at its core, right? Yeah. Actually, I have a similar story. I was in Vancouver. And I was lucky enough to attend kind of a staff meeting where they were getting everybody back and saying, here's where we're at.

40:06Here's what we hope our opening procedures or our opening path opening is going to be. And the manager got up and said, hey, guys, he says, has anybody thought about all the people that they miss talking to during the course of a week? Like Ted that sits at the bar and orders Negronis and tells great stories. The couple that comes in, like the older couple that comes in on Friday afternoons and has a rose all day Friday, he got up and he's like, and it was great to hear him not to say, we miss our guest or we miss our customer or, hey, guys, do we value those bodies coming through the door? They all got into a session talking about the whos. And sometimes they couldn't remember the names. We all know this. I can never, never remember that guy's name, but I know he's scotch and water two ice cubes, right? Like always orders the chicken special. Yeah. Yes. And they, and they knew like, oh, they always come in at four o'clock on Fridays or that person always orders this and then always sends it back. And we always had like, and not in a bad way, they were actually talking about how they knew their guests. And I think that that was an important thing for COVID.

41:08So yes, the people out in the community missed being able to go out and socialize and they maybe missed going out to restaurants and the after work beers and stuff. But I think that the hospitality staff also said like, man, like we miss our guests for who they are, not just for being, you know, a process or something that comes through the doors. They miss them as individuals, right? Yeah, a hundred percent. So have you been to Nashville before? I have, I had, I remember most of it, but I was on a tear on that one. But yeah, everybody else there. Oh man, I totally became that guy. The tacky tourist, you know, buying all the t-shirts, drinking out of the bongs. But I had a good time and then I saw a lot of good live music, right? So. Oh man, Nashville's a, it's a, it's a, I went downtown a couple of weeks ago and I typically I live here, so I don't go downtown a whole lot. No reason to, I went to a Titans game, but I walked my kids down Broadway. So I have seven and nine year old kids, they don't go downtown either. So let's walk down Broadway, I want you to see this.

42:11And I was blown away. I mean, just somebody who lives here, who doesn't go experience that, downtown Nashville is shocking to me. It's awesome. Shocking. And this Monday, this episode comes out on Friday. Monday, I'm interviewing the chef Tamatz, who's the big chef at the TC group, which is like Jason Aldean's. And I'm so excited to hear all the details and operations behind what they're doing down there. It's going to be fun. I'm excited. So Mike, I tell you that to ask you this question, you are around, I want to pick your brain and I want you to help us as restaurateurs here in Nashville. You've seen everything all over the world, you're traveling. What is the most common mistakes? What advice do you think you can give independent restaurants? We have two different types of restaurants here. We have the tourist places that are just packed and they're going to stay packed doing 125 million a year. Like what a crazy place downtown. And then you have the suburbs places that serve families and they serve the community.

43:14What are you seeing out there post-COVID that's kind of one of the biggest issues and do you have any hacks or do you have any advice? What do you got? Let's start there. Well, I can say without question, the number one thing that all operators aren't doing that we see and I'm talking every end of the spectrum is we go in on time and we say, hey, can we first start off this conversation because can I see your plan? Like what's your strategy? What's your plan? What have you gotten written down? Where's your playbook that your managers and leadership team is referencing when they're putting together the menus, when they're putting together features, when they're putting together promotional nights and it's always absent, right? And I don't even care if it's on the back of a napkin like old school, like Wayne Gretzky signed his contract on the back of a cocktail napkin. Yeah, so and that's a good word is we're like, hey, you guys have some phenomenal ideas, lots of good intentions, but how do you transform from intention to implementation? And that's missing all the time. And that's usually one of the first exercises that we do as consultants is let's sit down.

44:18Like how do you define your brand? And not your PR language that the guy from OpenTable gave you to put in your bio, like you're an upscale steakhouse, like what does that mean? So like, what is your brand? What is your personality? What are you good at? And then how are you gonna get that to market? And then when you get those guests in, how are you gonna execute on all that so that it is an expression of your brand, right? So I would say that's number one is nobody has a game plan anymore. And it's funny is a lot of times when we do go into an operation, they're like, oh, here you go. And they'll give us this Bible. And I'm like, no, no, no. This is what you did to raise funds. This was your original concept of your business plan to get your bank to support you. Where is your plan to execute? So that's number one. Number two, I would say, and I wouldn't call it a hack. I would say it's, well, my dad would say it's horse sense, but it's only a horse sense if you've been around horses long enough, right? Is people. Like, so this whole great resignation, and I heard the term the other day, I started seeing popping up everywhere is quiet quitting because of the gen Z's and stuff.

45:23I'm like, oh, that is horse shit. Where's your plan to treat people well? Where's your hospitality in-house plan? And that goes miles. Like, hey, guys, we are going to continue with Travis Talbot in just a second as he gets into that. How do you treat your staff better? But first, we're going to say a quick word. We're not going to talk about sponsors. We are going to drive you to nashvillerestaurantradio.com. Want to tell you one more time about this promotion. The first five restaurants that set up a demo with maintain IQ or with go tab will automatically be entered. I will buy a $100 gift card from the first five restaurants to set up a demo with either maintain IQ or with go tab. So once I, once we have five people do that, I will buy five $100 gift cards. And at the end of the month, for any one of the sponsors that we have on nashvillerestaurantradio.com, there's a sponsors tab.

46:23You click that sponsors tab and for any one of them that you call and you set up a meeting where if you've already called one of them to set up a meeting or you use one of them because of the show, I want you to message me and let me know. And there I will enter you in for the drawing. At the end of the month, we'll put them all into a big hopper and I'll videotape it and I'll reach in there and we will grab one restaurant that will get the benefit of five $100 gift cards to these restaurants that have continued to show support to this podcast. So I really want to spend this month utilizing these sponsors. Let's get out there, let's use them, let's call them. They are here supporting me so that I can support you and we just absolutely love them. So right now, go to nashvillerestaurantradio.com, click the sponsors tab and set up a meeting with one of my sponsors. Look, there's a bunch of them. I think I've got 12 now, right? We've got What Chefs Want, we've got Gordon Food Services, our title sponsor, Robin's Insurance.

47:24If you're looking for an insurance company, if you need a bakery, you want fresh-baked local bread, we have Sharpier's Bakery. If you're looking to compost, you can do The Compost Company. If you look at Justice Industries, they are just dot glass. You can recycle your glassware. Give them a call, set up some glass recycling, bam, you're gonna be entered into our contest. Corson Fire and Security, these guys are absolutely amazing. They have a restaurant division. Kevin Rose wants to come help you with your fire and security. Super Source, probably my longest running sponsor. Jason Ellis is the man, he is all over town. Net Chex, who is doing our Mexican Restaurant Challenge right now. We've just got so many amazing sponsors and if you contact them today and just set up a meeting, you are entered into the $500 in gift card contest.

48:26So please go to NashvilleRestaurantRadio.com today, vote for the best Mexican restaurant and then set up meetings with these people. Just learn about their companies. You may need them now, you might not need them now, but this is the month to sit down and learn about them. We love ya, thank you for supporting all of our sponsors and thank you to the sponsors for believing in what we're doing here at Nashville Restaurant Radio and allowing us to continue interviewing amazing people in this industry, promoting, telling stories. We absolutely love you sponsors. So please go to NashvilleRestaurantRadio.com and message our sponsors. Love you guys, let's get back to Travis Talbot. Let's talk about it. All the stuff that, yeah, all the places that we go into where let's say we call them resuscitation projects, it's like, okay, you guys are on your last legs. You know, your brand is tired, like you're losing guests, your revenues are down, your costs are up. We always can trace it back to, well, it's a people problem. And what I don't mean by people are the problem, like you're not recognizing the people.

49:27You're becoming too mechanical in your operations. You don't have a plan for culture. You only have a plan for, we're gonna do this promo on Tuesdays and we're gonna do Groupon at the end of the month. I'm like, you know, it's, which are all like life preserver kind of initiatives, but where's your plan for people and how are you gonna treat them and how are you gonna go? It's great to have core values. It's great to have a mission statement, but then how does that become activated? Like what are the activities behind that? What's the behavior behind it? So it's not just this poster that's in the kitchen somewhere next to the schedule. It's actually something that goes into effect. You have to be it. Yeah, and I see people all the time, I go culture isn't a theory, it's an activity, right? And it's like, what's your, culture is behavior. So what are your behaviors every day? What are your activities? What are the things that you are physically doing so that culture becomes something that's tangible, right? But I would say that that was one of the things positive out of COVID is talent is picking and choosing employers now and sometimes they're doing it by going onto Glassdoor.

50:33They're going onto Facebook. They're going onto Google to see what other employees think about those organizations and think about those managers and leaders that are driving the bus forward. So I think that if you're looking for two hacks, I would say, or two insights, have a plan and it doesn't need to be the 40 page university thesis. Where do you work? Just needs to have... Okay, I'm gonna catch up. I'm a restaurant and I don't have a plan. I'm operating a restaurant. I'm underwater right now. I've got a straw, I'm breathing. I'm trying to keep open every day. Then you walk in as a consultant and go, what's your plan? Where do I begin? How do I even just like start that process? Well, you know what? The simplest thing is to using that new tool that came out called the Google machine. There's so much content out there. There's so many templates. There are so many great... Actually, there was a group out of... I want to say they were out of Tokyo. They're called the Black Sheep Restaurant Group and they became legendary during COVID where they were writing plans for their organization.

51:41They were writing their reopening plans, their pivot plans. They were sharing all of this content for free. They were like, hey, we came up with an opening checklist. 101 things you need to do to reopen post-COVID. Or, hey, here's our new HR plan. And they were sharing it out there. And there's so many people out there that are doing that community-based kind of purpose-driven initiative. So the information's out there. You just got to go and kind of grab it. So I agree. Most operators don't have the bandwidth and time or they don't know what they don't know and it's not really an activity that they are familiar with. So it would kind of be a make-work project. But there's stuff out there. And we give away stuff like that all the time. Like, what do I care if I have a template that I can share with you from a restaurant from 15 years ago that will give you some insight or to give you some idea, right? So we share stuff like that all the time. Well, we work on the EOS model for traction by Gina Wickman.

52:42No, not familiar with that one. You have to check that out. It's amazing. Okay, I'm going to write that one down. Yeah, traction by Gina Wickman. That's how our entire operation operates on the EOS, the Entrepreneurial Operating System. And if you go, I think it's traction.com forward slash VTO, like as in Vision Traction Organizer. If you Google right now the VTO, you will see that that is a business plan. It's your six-month, three-year, one-year, three-ten-year plan. What's your vision statement? What's your core values? How do you do? And it really, it's a great place to start. And if you're looking at it right now, you can... Yeah, well, I'm going to dive into that a little bit later. But yeah, there's so much. And actually, there's another one. Actually, here's a good tool for those that are strapped for time is are you familiar with Blinkist and Headway? No. The apps? So there's an app called Blinkist. And basically, you sign up for a subscription. It's relatively inexpensive. And it takes, I don't know how many books they have on there, 10,000 books in every genre or category.

53:46And it just gives you the summation. It just gives you the 15-minute, here is what this chapter's... Like if you read medium and they'll say, hey, this is a six-minute read if you want to dive into it. Otherwise, this blue highlighted paragraph, that's the whole gist of the whole... That's amazing. ...article. So Blinkist, you can literally be in your car and not listening to someone reread the book like an audiobook. It's just like, hey, this chapter, this is the key point. This chapter, these are two key points. So 15 minutes, you can read a book or you can learn about the essence of the whole book. And so it's self-education. The other one, and even our team is doing that, is we do, rather than getting together and go, okay, let's talk about our core values and let's read... All the warm and fuzzy talk and all this cerebral kind of stuff. Every week, one of our team members shares a TED Talk. And that's our food for thought for the week. And we usually try to do it on marketing, branding, but also a lot about human behavior, psychology.

54:49And then there's another one. Have you ever heard of Ogilvy, the marketing company? No. It sounds familiar, but off the top of my head, I'm going to tell you no. Well, most restaurateurs wouldn't know. And we just stumbled across it. But they're one of the largest brand and marketing agencies in the world. And they have a division, which is all about behavioral economics slash behavioral science. And so it's all about the language you choose and how people make decisions and the stimulus behind decision making, like pretty intellectual stuff for the most part. But they've got this guy, this old English guy, who's obviously a boozer. I love him. And he's just no BS. He's just an everyday guy who thinks he's a comedian, very Don Rickles in his kind of his humor. But he's got a whole course you can take. And even though it's called behavioral science, really what it is is, hey, how do we market to our guests? How do we design a menu that pushes the items that we want? Because here's how people tend to read things.

55:51And here's the difference between this word and this word and how it resonates. So I guess my point for all that is, for the person that is strapped, for that independent operator that's got that straw on his head just below the water level, is there's small bite size insights out there that they can get. So they don't have to sit down and read, take a whole six month course on business dynamics. So that would be, there's so much good content out there. And there's so many good people, like I say, that are sharing, which is great. Like we find, that's one of the ways we use social media, is Siri's always listening and so forth. You get on Instagram and you like something next minute, you're getting an ad for it through your Amazon, is we use that to our advantage and say business models, post-COVID, white reports. And I can't believe the amount of information that we get every day streaming to us for free from reputable agencies, from industry leaders. Like you can get a Danny Myers talk where he was on for four hours talking about how he's pivoting his company for COVID.

56:55Like, how is that any different than getting the chance to sit down with Danny Myers? It's the same thing, right? So I think- If you're taking the content versus the, I need to see him live, yeah. So there's the hack is that people need to learn to use the Google machine and use social media to their advantage and not look at like it's a time suck, right? Well, I think- You can get- This is good, planting the seed inside of, if there's a restaurant who will listen to this, who is how I just described, planting a seed that, you know what, I'm not intentional. When I'm laying in bed tonight, instead of playing Candy Crush, I'm gonna Google what's the first step. I'm gonna Google traction and the VTO. I like sharing what other people are doing because sometimes it's that easy. And we build things up in our heads to go, I need to do that. And then I need to do a core values. Then I need to do this. And then it's, I'm not doing all that. And it's like, no, no, no, no, just stop, just stop. Just Google, where do I start? Just Google this one thing, Google Ogilvy.

57:55Start with the marketing strategy. What are you doing here? Just bite-sized pieces can get you out of that drowning type situation and hopefully give you the confidence that you can do this. Well, and you know what, from my experience, a lot of times when an operator is just flustered and they seem like they're overwhelmed and at the brink of just exhaustion and collapse, once again, coming back to a plan, I'm like, okay, well, why are you doing schedules? You have a manager for that. Why are you working the fryer later? Are you telling me that the place is so busy, you have to work the fry station and that you have no other options? I think you missed the boat in your scheduling that you don't have enough bodies there or you have to look at your culture. You have to look at your pay scale. There's so many things as part of a business plan that are probably leading to a lot of those factors that are causing burnout, that are causing that operator to feel overwhelmed. So a lot of times like you say, if we just sit down, take a big breath, purge it all on paper, even if you want to use pen and paper and just really look at it and take that, you got to take the time out.

59:03I think that was one thing from COVID too is, and you look at it from when I'm looking at people that are looking at recruiting managers or senior leaders, it's not necessarily always about the dollars too many operators think it's just about the cash where we see so many managers now saying, well, I'll tell you what, I'll come on and I'll join your team. I love what you guys stand for. Can I work a four day work week? No problem, we'll figure that out. Figure that out, yeah. Yeah, we'll figure that. As the owner operator, no problem. I can engineer a schedule. I noticed, for instance, when I worked in the casinos, a lot of negotiations weren't about salaries. They were about paid time off. So rather than saying, you know what, I'm going to sit here and I'm going to go back and forth and we're going to do this negotiation for $20,000 a year, which breaks down to not a whole lot per every two weeks. But they're like, you know what I'd rather have? Can I have six weeks paid vacation? Sure, right? I'm happy to make that work, right? Well, you know, I was reading a book called Alchemy by a guy named Rory Sutherland.

01:00:06And he did a study between- Rory works for, Rory's the guy from Ogilvy. Oh, is that, okay, Rory Sutherland is? Rory Sutherland, yeah, he's the drunk English guy. Yes, okay, okay, so I know Ogilvy sounds familiar. Rory Sutherland, I love that book and I love every- Yes. Yes, I mean, definitely go check out Ogilvy now. I've wrote it down. But no, he is amazing, isn't he? Yes. Have you seen his TED Talks? No, I started to watch one, but I listened to the audiobook and it's really hard to listen to because he's talking like, it's like, what? And he does, he sounds like a drunken- His TED Talks are hilarious because I think he's drunk for a few of those things and I don't think he doesn't care. But he, and he uses it, ironically, he uses food and beverage and restaurant guest experience for a lot of his analogies, right? So anyways, he's on point. He talks about vacation. He says, you know, we always think so much like, well, if they take too much vacation, then they're gonna get out of rhythm. So we give two weeks vacation.

01:01:07It's like, and you have to take five days and you take five days here. He's like, and in Great Britain, we do month-long holidays because you take it, you get two months off a year. You only work 10 months that you get two months off. He goes, the theory is after a month, the first week you're decompressing, the second week you're enjoying yourself, the third week you kind of miss work. And then you have a free mind, an open mind to start thinking about going back to work and then ideas start to flow. He goes, so if you could get somebody versus getting them out of the day-to-day grind of doing their business, you give them a month off and then one of those weeks, they have to go eat at five restaurants or they have to do something to spark creativity for when they come back. He goes, you're gonna get so much more out of those people and they're gonna be so happy because they got to fully decompress. You're gonna start changing people's lives and you're gonna get more out of them. And it's like, that's the mentality. You have to think that way. And it's not the way people normally think.

01:02:08They think less vacation, more work, but you could get more if you give them more vacation. Well, and here's the other reality. So in the corporate world, we had this conversation or this battle, I should say, with HR all the time. And we actually went in and said, okay, let's actually dive into the data on this rather than just having this battle of people are taking too much holidays, this, that and the other, we can't afford it. Do you know what it costs the company? And we're like, okay. And we dove in and we found that 70% give or take of the employees weren't using all the vacation time that was allocated to them anyways. And 25% of them were taking it all at one time. So I agree. If one of my top leaders leaves for a month at all at once, yeah, there's gonna be some shuffling. There's gonna be a bit of chaos. But that's our job to manage. And if he has a good team, people will rise to the occasion. But for the most part, no one is taking that much time off because there's significant others can't take that much time off. Or like you say, they don't want it, but they want to make sure that they get that time that they go and have the reunions with their buddies, the golf reunions, or it's the family get togethers.

01:03:14So you got to treat people like human beings. And what you get out of it is I call it the ROE, the return on effort is immeasurable, right? A hundred percent. Yeah, so I'm all for that. And then here's another in hospitality. I remember started when I went back to when I was bartending when I'm going to university. One of the reasons that hospitality industry was so appealing was that you had that flexibility in schedules, you basically could come and go as you pleased within reason, right? And it was a reciprocity of respect. So you came in, you worked your ass off, you delivered, and then hopefully you walked out of there with a pocket full of money. But then you also had earned for the operator, your owner, like you'd made money for the business. So if people are earners and there's this mutual level of respect, I'll give you as much time, you work whenever you want, I'll figure out the schedule. That's my job is to figure out the scheduling so that everyone is taken care of, right?

01:04:14Everyone gets what they need. I remember working with guys that were, of course there's always actors, but then guys that were taking their PhDs and girls that were in like taking their doctorate and stuff like that. There was all walks of life. And the reason that they were in hospitality was flexibility. I can work when I'm able to, so to speak, right? So, and then here's the other, here's what I always laugh about, especially for people that are running food and beverage or running restaurants and have never actually worked in them, like they've never come through the ranks, is I'm like, you know how much time off I've taken when I, you know, even when I had a signed agreement that you get three and a half weeks off paid per year. I'm like, if you actually went through and took, you know, all those extra days I took and shifts I horse traded with other people on my team with, or I said to my manager, hey, can I get another day off this week that wasn't recorded? Like I probably had eight to 12 weeks off a year. So if you're tracking that down and trying to be the enforcer on time off, it's the wrong approach.

01:05:16You just need to look after people so they want to come to work. And when they're there, they are feeling jazzed. They're ready to rock and roll, right? So I just, I always find it such a hilarious conversation. Like, oh, I'm not giving them more. I'm like, well, they're going to take it regardless. Like, so you're crazy. They're going to figure it out. Yeah, they're going to figure it out, man. There's always a way to beat the system, right? It's an, it's uncanny how they will figure out a way to beat the system. I say they, I mean, anybody, anybody in any walk of any life. That was me. Yeah, that was totally me. I was always finding the angles, right? Always finding the angles. But then when you worked for a great manager, I remember kind of feeling guilty. I'm like, oh man, this one manager we had, I'm like, Spanky is so good to us. And he always looks out for us and he's always got our backs. And I'm like, I feel like a schmuck, you know, taking that extra day or, you know, taking that angle. And so, you know, if you treat people well, it resonates, you know, human beings, for the most part, I think are sincere and they don't want to, you know, they don't want to screw everybody over.

01:06:18There's always one or two, but come on, right? Seriously. So we were, we're talking all kinds of things here. This has been a lot of fun, Travis. Thank you for doing this today. I told you, no idea we're going to get into today. We're just going to jump all around. It's going to be great. Apps, you're on your, you're on your phone a lot, I assume traveling a lot that's probably, I'd love to see your weekly usage. What is the app? What is like a really cool restaurant app that you have, that you could share with people or what do you, which app do you use the most? Well, so that's a great segue back to both the use of technology and then for those individuals that are time strapped, right? Is you don't have to sit in the office. And actually I used to love working for the operators that made the office the most nightmarish place to sit, right? It's like, well, I don't want you in the office. I don't want you digging into spreadsheets. I want you on the floor, touching tables. I want you supporting your team. I want you at the window, making sure food's not dying and being, you know, sitting there. So I think nowadays we're in such a position of empowerment with technology that you should be able to run your restaurant from your phone.

01:07:28So you've got apps like seven shifts where you can do all the scheduling. You've got apps where you can integrate into, I think it's a Vero, where you integrate into the POS and it'll tell you, hey, Brandon's coming on overtime. Well, why is Brandon on overtime? Are they busy down there? Like, so, and then you can, it can be misused. You know, these, the force can be used for both good and evil. So you get those micromanagers and this will be the kiss of death. But for the other ones, they're saying, hey, I just want to know what's going on in the restaurant. How are the sales looking? What's labor look like? Oh, did somebody place the orders? Because I didn't get a notification that Cisco received my order. So there's so much you can do through your phone. I would say personally, the number one app that we use as a team and we encourage all operators to use is Slack, right? Communication. Wow. So out of all the apps available, so all the integrations, all the inventory, cost control management systems, scheduling, you know, mobile, actually mobile ordering is pretty important. But I would say the number one tool that we would recommend to people is Slack because communication is usually when you hear about a disgruntled employee or when you talk about, when you talk to staff on the front line and say, okay, why do you call the culture toxic?

01:08:41Like, I had to find that for me or what's missing or what would be the solve for that? It's usually, well, we don't know what's going on and we don't, we never get our schedules on time or we don't know, our manager's always too busy that he can't sit down. Like, nobody does one-to-one reviews anymore. Like, nobody's got time. I do. Right? Oh, you do? Both restaurants. Oh, we have quotas you have to hit. You are the exception to the, we don't, I don't see it. I don't see one-on-ones and we don't see micro sessions because, you know, they talk about, hey, just at the end of a shift. Brandon, good shift, nice sales. Way to move this, this, and that, right? They, hey, I heard your wine pitch to that table. Phenomenal. So we do, we go the most basic thing in the entire world, right? So we do one-minute manager, right? It is the most. Love it. Familiar with this? Right, you let the staff know what your expectations are. Guy, you do a full lineup and you say, this shift, this is what we're looking for. And then you inspect what you expect and you walk around and you find people doing the things that you ask them to do and you tell them, thank you for doing the things you asked them to do, where you find the people that are not doing the things you asked them to do and then you redirect them.

01:09:50You don't, you just say, hey, man, can we do what we're doing here? At the end of the shift, we find people that are doing the right thing. You know, we put it in our manager notes so everybody can see the people that did a great job and the people that had to be redirected. And we communicate, we use group me for most of our stuff, but a similar thing than Slack. Well, you know, and I say, and I say Slack, but you know, in Mexico, for instance, the culture here, everybody's on WhatsApp. That is the platform for everything, right? But at least anything for communication because that is what I feel is missing. And one thing I've seen coming back, which I love, is pre-shift, right? And pre-shift meal or family meal, like talk about a culture developer is, hey guys, we're about to go into service. Here's our specials. Here's what it looks like. Everybody please have a taste of it, right? So you know what you're selling. And by the way, did everybody get something to eat today before you go into this six hour power rush? And I just love that. I think that's culture. That's an opportunity for management and coaching. And I love your approach, Brandon, is for years, the hospitality issue became, and actually my brother used to call it the hostility industry as opposed to hospitality, is everybody was trying to be an enforcer.

01:11:00Like, oh, you broke the rules. You did this wrong. Hey, you did that wrong. It's like, oh man, okay. Like you're killing me with all this negativity. All I'm hearing is these Debbie Downer sessions. Like I gotta be doing something right or I would have been fired. So now post COVID, we're seeing people to have, and I think the language out there nowadays, everyone using is either situational awareness or emotional intelligence. We like to just say, read the room and read your people. But empowerment. So what you're doing is education and empowerment. And that goes so much further than enforcement, right? Well, we have two different, so I did two things. One is I'd rather you find something, somebody doing something right. Nine out of 10 times, find somebody doing something right. And then everybody will want to continue to have you finding them doing the right thing. They know when they do the right thing, they're gonna get the praise that they deserve versus constantly finding the things they do bad. And the other thing that I did was I changed the term bonus, right? So I don't bonus the managers anymore. There's no bonus for the managers. What I do pay is performance-based compensation.

01:12:02And I have different categories, but I changed the categories from being straight, food cost, sales, bar cost type thing, cost centers. And I made a retention bonus. Retention is part of the, I immediately changed. So we're in this labor situation. I changed it from being, you need to hit these costs and everything, keep those in line. While those are important, retention became my number one thing. Instead of having a manager going, that guy came in late, they need to go, they need to go, they need to go. I go, well, why are they late? If you sit down with, she's a single mom and she doesn't have a baby, maybe you need to put your arm around her and say, hey, look, we got you, we will cover you. No worries, come in, I'll schedule you 15 minutes later than everybody else. I don't know, but that's what you need to start doing versus the, you're out of here. If your first mentality is that guy's gotta go, we gotta fire him without having three or four conversations and seeking to understand what's going on in their life, then that's not what I wanted to do. So I immediately changed to performance-based compensation around retention. And then all of a sudden managers were like, oh, we get paid to not fire people?

01:13:06I'm like, yes, and it's amazing because- What a paradigm shift that is though in thinking for a lot of people. And that to me, once again, Brandon, is hospitality and hospitality starts with your own people. Like, hey, what can I do for this hospitality venture that we all work in to make your life easier, to make your, like, I worked with one organization where they call it their employee experience. And actually they're now working on changing the word employee. So they don't wanna become Walmart where everyone's an associate. But they wanna say, what's a better use of language that we're recognizing that people are individuals and humans, and that we need to treat them as such so that in turn, it's a natural reflex for them to be hospitable to our guests, right? 100%, I love how you said that. What can I do to change whatever it is? One of the books that's required reading for our entire staff is a book called QBQ. This is another one, if you haven't read it, by John G. Miller, QBQ, the question behind the question.

01:14:08But what it does is it teaches you to stop asking questions like, how come they didn't seat me? When are they gonna start caring about me? When are they, well, how come they never run my food? You know, start asking questions when you put yourself into the answers. You say, what can I do to ensure my food gets ran on time? What can I do to ensure that I'm treated fairly? What can I do to be a better teammate today? What can I do to provide the best level of service I possibly can? Put yourself in the solution in person. You can't change anybody else but yourself, right? So every day, what can I do to be the best me I possibly can? And that rubs off on other people too. Oh, for sure. And my brother has a cheesy line because he's worked in some pretty intense Gordon Ramsay Ask Kitchens and so forth. And he's like, when I go into every shift, he goes, the first thing I say to myself, it's my self pep talk, is how can I influence awesomeness? Right, and I'm like, you are so cheesy. But it's true. He's basically saying, how can I make an impact? How can I, I'm the one that's gonna influence how this day goes, how the shift goes, how my team's gonna respond to the things.

01:15:11So I like that one. And actually, we were talking about Rory Sutherland. We're talking about all these other great paradigms. There's two I would like to kind of throw into that mix. Sure. Is Simon Sinek, you follow him? Oh, it starts with Y. It's great. Of course. Yeah, it starts with Y. What's the Y behind everything? And also his Ted Talks, his materials, and there's so much of it out there that's free. Leaders Eat Last is one of my favorite books. Love it. And that goes to another, one of the most successful clients that we've ever worked with in the last 10 years. They changed their whole model. And I know you hear about top down and you hear about flat org charts and stuff, but they have a thing called, it's not theirs, but it's out there called Servant Leadership, where the higher you go in the organization, the more accountability and responsibility you have to serve your own people. You're the resource. You're the one that they're gonna go to and say, hey, this is all fucked up. How do we fix it? Or, hey, we've got some challenges here. We're coming to you. You're the smartest guy in the room, hopefully. Or you have the most tenured guy, or you've got the most scar to you.

01:16:11Or you have the ability to make change. Whatever it is, you have the ability to change this. We're coming to you. Help us. Listen, just listen. Well, you do this. I'm sure you do this. And I'm gonna do this when I come to your restaurants. But one of the places I like to get seated is either at the bar next to the till, where the servers are ordering all their booze, or anywhere that there's a cash register or a host station or closest to the kitchen window. I wanna hear those conversations. Then you'll find out all the... And I say that to operators all the time. I'm like, if you wanna know what's going on in your restaurant, if you wanna take a health check or a temperature check, sit next to a till, right? Don't sit in the staff room because they know you're there being sneaky Pete. But one of the things that I love is when I'm in a restaurant and you're sitting next to the till, you're next to the kitchen pass, and a manager comes up and goes, what can I do? How can I help? As opposed to this is wrong, that's wrong. You need to pick up your socks. It's like the guy that comes in and says, how can I help, man? I'm the utility player.

01:17:12Where do you need me? I'm here for you guys. With all humility, with all... And also that's like you say, that's the guy that's got the power and it holds the keys and they access code to the Death Star. He's the guy that can make... They're the person that can make the change, right? Absolutely. This has been lots of fun. I feel like we've covered a lot. I don't know. I feel like we could do this for another two to three hours. I could shoot the breeze on this one all day long. But I know we're almost at time here and I know you've got so much going on. Let's do plugs. Do you have anything that you wanna plug? Do you have a website? Do you have an Instagram? Do you have a company? Tell us how we continue to communicate with you. I'm done listening to this podcast. I wanna consume more Travis Talbot. How do I do it? Well, the best place right now is our website for hospitalityarts.group. That's up and it's live and it's running and that's kind of one of the places that we're getting the most amount of traction and having the most work that we're doing.

01:18:17And then I'm on almost every social media channel. Granted, I haven't been great with it lately because I've been taking all these classes and traveling and so forth. But I'm under a T-Bone Talbot and there's a story behind that on almost every social platform. And we never get into why we call you T-Bone. I never called you T-Bone. Yeah, well, depending on what city I've lived in and what time of life I'm in, I've had many, many nicknames. But T-Bone is one that I got from my cowboy grandfather. Oh, I didn't tell you that. So the only other job I've ever had other than being in hospitality was I was a cowboy for a couple of years. So I grew up in a cowboy ranching kind of culture. And my dad was a livestock contractor. So he would buck bulls at rodeos. So for a couple of years, after one of my nightclubs went south, I decided I was gonna get out of the hostility industry and I was gonna go be a cowboy. So I did bull riding and rodeo clown work for a couple of years and I was god awful at it. So I came back to hospitality, which hopefully I'm good at. But my grandfather who was a hardcore old school Clint Eastwood, Charles Bronson kind of cowboy, he used to take me to the rodeos with him all summer long and every year.

01:19:26And he would always make fun of me in front of all of his cohorts because I had such bad teeth. And he was like, that kid can eat a T-Bone steak all at the same time, you know, with a gap in his teeth, right? So that's, he said it once at like a family reunion in front of all of his drinking buddies and it never went away, right? So I just embraced it eventually. Thanks grandpa. Yeah. After years of therapy, I've accepted the name T-Bone. Man. Yeah, yeah, yeah, anyway. But yeah, so under T-Bone Talbot, I'm my most social platforms. LinkedIn, you can get me under Travis Talbot. And then coming up pretty soon here, what we're hoping to launch in September is we're gonna have a coaching platform. Nice. One offering that is an online coaching. So one offering that's for aspiring F&B entrepreneurs. And then another one that's for executives. And they obviously offer two different services, but that's called Apex Fox Performance Coaching. Okay. So we're launching that in probably mid September.

01:20:26And the reason we decided to bring that, and that's actually one of the things when we realized during COVID was, and you were mentioning it earlier is, so many mom paws can't afford a consultant like us, or they just don't, if they're gonna have, if they've got money that they got available, it needs to go into a POS system. It needs to go into replacing a faulty flat top. Like they have other priorities, but they would still benefit from conversations like you and I are having. So we're like, well, that sucks that we can't help out those that really need it, that can't afford the overall consulting agreement and engagement. So we said, why don't we make everything bite-sized? So if you're an aspiring food inventor and you're opening up a food truck, or you're doing your first restaurant, or hey, you've already opened up your restaurant and you really could use some help on marketing and branding and strategies or some insights with engineering, menu engineering, what if they could just do that by paying for it by the call or paying for it by the email, or hey, listen, I'm willing to sign up for 50 bucks a month and can I contact you once a week?

01:21:30So that'll be launching in September. And that's what we're also hoping we can give back to the community and to making a difference for new people coming into the industry. And then for the executives, what we wanna be able to help them with is all the stuff that you and I have been talking about is, hey, do you know the health of your culture? Have you done temperature checks? What are your initiatives that you have in play, which means activities, not ideas for culture? How are you connecting and communicating with your leadership team? All that kind of stuff. So we're hoping that we can help them and provide them with some tools, some resources and some alternate way of thinking so that they can be servant leadership kind of mindset. No, I love that. 100%, that's fantastic. And how am I gonna find that against Apex? Apex Fox Performance Coaching. So that'll be- Is there a website yet? Apex Fox Coaching, apexfoxcoaching.com. No, the website's just a landing page right now. So that's one of the things that we're working on. And hopefully with it during my travels here is what I'm supposed to be doing is putting all that content together.

01:22:35The web kids are just waiting for me, right? apexfoxcoaching.com is a landing page. Go add it to your favorites and then check back periodically over the next few weeks until it's fully loaded with all the good stuff. Wow, okay. Travis Talbot, thank you so much for joining today. One of the cool things that I think it's cool, we do the Gordon Food Service Final Thought. And the Gordon Food Service Final Thought is a something one to grow on, something to leave us. It could be a summation of today. It could be whatever you wanna tell the Nashville restaurant community. This is your time. As long as you wanna talk, whatever you wanna say, the floor is yours, go. I would say the final thought, and I'm thinking post-COVID world, the world that we're in and moving forward is everyone would benefit that's in this industry from defining hospitality, what their meaning of it is applicable to their brand, their organization and their people.

01:23:35I think if you can define hospitality from that, you can then turn it into core values. You can have that shaped around your overall vision for your business and you can put initiatives. But I think at the core of where we are as an industry, what we are offerings are to the guests and the business that we're in, if you can define hospitality and what it means to you and your people, I think that is step one, page one of moving forward in a healthy fashion, right? Yep, absolutely. In that book I told you about from John Miller, the QBQ, he defines QBQ service as do for others what you don't have to do. Love it, yeah. I don't, I can do the bare minimum or I can go above and beyond because I genuinely care and I want to exceed your expectations. Which is hospitality. Everybody serves Budweiser, everybody's got a burger on their menu is the point of differentiation aside from the marble bar tops and the amazing lighting system and all that stuff, it's really how you make people feel and how do you make them feel a certain way.

01:24:47It's doing that little extra, it's reading them. Like I was always once taught, Travis, you want to be a good waiter? I'm like, yeah, they go, well, when you look at a table, figure out whether they're hooking up or whether they're breaking up and then adjust your game plan accordingly, right? That's great. Yeah, so it's, you're right. It's just that how did you make people feel and you can only make them feel exceptional or feel great if you're reading them correctly and you're going that extra mile because just dropping plates on a table, regardless of how exceptional the food quality is or the food offerings, it needs to come with a certain level of hospitality and some personalization and the people going, oh, well, thanks, right? Like, wow, you didn't have to go that far for me or that was amazing that, and that's how people usually define exceptional service is all the extras they got besides the basic standard operating procedure, besides steps of service, sequence of service, that kind of stuff. It's like, that guy ordered us an Uber. Like, great. But how, I want to give you an example. I went to this place, I had a chef doing a pop-up at our restaurant. We went to go eat at another restaurant close by and with the burger joint, we ordered four hamburgers for the two of us because we wanted to taste the different kinds that they had, and then they flipped the screen around and you leave a tip, and I left like a 25% tip for whatever because it's just standard, it's what I do.

01:26:03And so they give you a little number and you go sit down and the guy brings the food out 10 minutes later or whatever and he sets the burgers down and I said, do you have any silverware? We're going to split these and he goes, yeah, it's over there by the drinks. He goes, it's over there by the drink fountain. You know what I'm like? Man, what a wasted opportunity to go, did you want any condiments to go with it or anything you need there? I'll be right back, yeah. But it was just a, no, it's over there, man, go get it. And I don't know, those sort of things when they just don't, like that killed me that day and it just felt terrible. I wanted to go to that guy and go, man, you missed an opportunity for real genuine hospitality just right there. You just nailed it right there though, Brandon, is I'm sure that, I heard a line once that nobody comes to work with the intention of doing a shit job, right? Everyone comes to work to do the best they think they're doing to get paid.

01:27:05So if that individual I think is, there's a missed opportunity, someone's not monitoring them, they're not paying attention to them, they're not seeing where they need support and education. So that, I looked to leadership team on that one saying, if you've got a bad employee, that's kind of a flag of kind of maybe potentially some poor management or poor culture, right? Yeah, amazing, man. This has been so much fun. I could, I literally could do this all day long, but I have to actually go open a restaurant. So it's a real thing. Lineup is in 30 minutes and I want to get there for that. I love being there for lineup and kind of setting the pace. That's the thing I tell every manager, you've got to set the pace, man. Do your lineups, make them exciting. And then after the lineup, don't go to the office for 30 minutes, walk around the restaurant, make sure everything's ready to go, start greeting people, talk to them. This is your opportunity for connection right after lineup. You've got to raise attention. You can go around, pat everybody on the back. How's it going?

01:28:06How's it like, that's your time before you get busy. Don't go to the office. You're leading by example. And I would argue, and I have this conversation with leaders, leadership teams all the time is, that's the job, man. Your job is to be the locker room guy that gets everybody jazzed up. That's the job. And then you don't give everybody the pep talk and then not come and play on the field. You got to be there, man. Jump in, play restaurant, it's the funnest time. You better get to work then. Travis, thank you for your time. Enjoy your time in Mexico City and we'll have to do this again for sure. Travis Talbot, thank you for joining us on Nashville Restaurant Radio. Awesome, Brandon, thank you very much. Well, it looks like I cut him off there at the very end, but Travis Talbot, thank you for sharing your wisdom with us here on Nashville Restaurant Radio. Those are really fun interviews. I am so excited to bring to you Monday our interview with Chef Tamash. He is over at the TC Restaurant Group and God, he is amazing.

01:29:07I think you're going to absolutely love this interview. If you've been downtown any time recently, you notice there's a gigantic place called Jason L Dean's, there's Luke Bryan, there is FGL House, there's Miranda Lambert's Casa Roja, they have Luigi's Pizza, they have all these restaurants and this guy is the chef for all of them. He spills all the tea, it is amazing. Wow, what a fun interview. I'm going to go spend a Friday with them over there at Jason L Dean's just to follow him around and see what that is like. I am so excited, keep my fingers crossed I make it through that because that's going to be an insane evening. And then the next week we're, next episode after that's going to be Andrew Cook and he's the owner of the Fox Bar and he is one cool, cool, cool dude. I had so much fun talking to him, absolute blast. I cannot wait to share that interview. We talk about almost everything but restaurants but that's cool. Like that sometimes that's the way that happens. Really neat insight. He is the drummer for Dan and Shay.

01:30:09So it was a lot of fun kind of just, they just played two sold out shows at Gillette Stadium in Boston and I wanted to know about that. Like, what is that like, man? Like, come on, what is life on the road like? You're playing with Old Dominion and Carly Pearce and who's that? Oh yeah, Kenny Chesney. It's like, I just, I wanted to know about all that stuff. Plus I wondered about the Fox Bar and we just had a fantastic conversation. Super, big man crush on that guy. He is awesome. So have a wonderful weekend and go to nationalrestaurantradio.com. We need you to support these sponsors. Just give them a call. Learn about what they do. You don't need it right now. Just call them and learn, learn, learn. If there's ever a month to do it, it is September 2022. We're so excited to have you all here along with us. Thank you. I hope that you guys are being safe out there. Best of luck with your fantasy football drafts this weekend. Happy, happy Labor Day and we love you guys.

01:31:10Bye.