Unlocking your restaurants hidden profitability with Marta Grumberg

00:00Sharpies Bakery is a locally owned and family operated wholesale bakery providing bread to Nashville's best eateries. They've been operating in Nashville since 1986, providing high quality fresh bread daily for restaurants, catering companies, hospitals, and universities. Their bread is free from preservatives and artificial additives. Learn more at Sharpies.com, that's C-H-A-R-P-I-E-R-S dot com. Or you can give Erin Mosso a call directly, her number is 615-319-6453. That's Sharpies Bakery. This is Jen Heidinger Kendrick, founder of Giving Kitchen. Let me tell you a little more. Giving Kitchen is a national nonprofit that helps food service workers. Headquartered in Atlanta since 2013, Giving Kitchen has served over 19,000 food service workers and awarded over $12 million to food service workers in crisis. If you or someone you know works at a restaurant, food truck, catering company, concessions, bar or tap room and needs financial assistance or stability network resources due to illness, injury, death of an immediate family member, or housing disaster like flood or fire, please ask for help at givingkitchen.org slash help.

01:27Welcome 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. My name is Brandon Styll and I am your host. We are powered by Gordon Food Service and we're excited today. We are talking with Marta Grumberg. She is one of the owners of Grumberg Accounting. Now, if you're anything like me, this is something that you don't know a lot about because I'm a restaurant guy and I don't like to do accounting and they're going to come on, they're going to help me do some accounting and this was a fun episode for me just to learn because I really genuinely don't know a ton about a lot of this stuff and I wanted to ask her some questions. I wanted to know tax tips and we talk about a lot of different cost savings you can do as restaurants and this was really informative.

02:33If you're a creative type and you don't like to do accounting, this is something that hopefully you can gain from. We did record this via Zoom so sound isn't like we're sitting in the studio but I think it's informative. I think that you will enjoy it. So hopefully you do. We are coming back to you real quick. We're going to have a quick turnaround with Calexo. We're going to have Ian and Ken who's the CEO and COO of Calexo, the amazing THC beverage brand. They're going to be coming up next weekend. If you want to watch the Calexo interview, anything that we do via Zoom, I'm automatically going to put up on our YouTube channel just so you know. So this interview with Marta Grunberg is already up on our YouTube channel and you can watch the Calexo interview ahead of me putting it out on Nashville Restaurant Radio right now. It is out and available on YouTube on the Nashville Restaurant Radio page. We've got like 200 episodes up there on the page. So if you want to watch us do the interviews, if you want to watch people, Will Gadara, all of these people, they're all out on our YouTube channel.

03:41We've got a bunch of food-related events coming up in the next month, month and a half and I wanted to tell you about them. The first one's going to be on March the 11th. It is Tennessee Flavors. It is a benefit for Nashville State Culinary Team. This is the Randy Rayburn School for Culinary Arts. We all love Randy. This was something he put a ton of time and energy into. The last time I saw Randy was at Tennessee Flavors and I know we all miss him, but this is a really big event and love to have you there. Tickets are available right now. Also, if you would like to participate, if you'd like to be one of the restaurants who are there sampling your wares, you want to support Nashville State, they need a couple more restaurants. If you need to contact Paul Brennan, it's paul.brennan, B-R-E-N-N-E-N at nscc.edu. If you prefer to make a phone call and ask him, hey, how can I be a part of this? What can I do?

04:42Give him a call. His number is 412-973-4057. That's number one. Number two is a big one. It is the Music City, I'm sorry, we'll go there. It's the Music City Food and Wine Festival. It's going to be happening April 24th through the 27th at Centennial Park. We're going to have them on the show coming up to talk about all of the details, but it's a three-day event. Friday they're doing a feast. It's a supper to savor. They're going to have a huge sit-down dining, big meal that you can eat some of Nashville's best chefs. And then Saturday, Saturday is the day in my opinion. Saturday is the grand tasting and the Iron Fork competition. Every year that's held downtown at the municipal auditorium, at the Musicians Hall of Fame, but this year it's going to be held at Centennial Park from what I understand. We'll get more details, not just what it says online. Grand tasting over 100 restaurants. That is the big festival day if you're hungry.

05:43And then Sunday is going to be a food fair where you can come and shop and do all kinds of fun stuff. And Google it, Music City Food and Wine Festival. Get your tickets today because that is going to be something that will probably sell out and you're going to wish that you had been there. The third one is coming up. It is on March 16th. Now this one's going to take a little bit of a drive, but I'm talking to restaurant people here and I know you've been hearing me talk about the Giving Kitchen. This is the granddaddy of all of them, if you're asking me. This is my third year to go. We're doing Team Heidi. Team Heidi is at Truist Park, which is where the Braves play. They open up the whole thoroughfare there and there's over a hundred of Atlanta's best restaurants and it is all about supporting restaurant workers. It is an amazing event. I've never been to a food event quite like this. There's celebrities walking around. There's food celebrities walking around. I'm standing next to Andrew Zimmern last year. You'll hear the story if you listen on Atlanta Restaurant Radio.

06:44All these people are just so amazing. They do a huge auction at the end and if you have not been, you need to go and watch this auction. It's going to raise $1.3 million for restaurant workers. It is a big time deal and if you have the means and you can make it to Atlanta, I don't know if they need volunteers or donations, but if you can't afford it and you can't afford to get in there, message me and I'll see if I can't work out some way where you can come and help in some way, but Team Heidi in Atlanta for the Giving Kitchen, it is the best food event you'll ever go to. So much fun. I got to take a picture with the World Series Trophy last year. So there's that. I mean, come on. On top of that, I got nothing else because I got so many episodes coming out. I have so many episodes that we have recorded. We've got Sean Lyons, who is the owner and managing partner at Germantown Cafe, Park Cafe and the all-new Carrington Row.

07:44He's going to come on and tell us a story of everything that's going on with Germantown Cafe, their purchase of the Park Cafe, opening Carrington Row, what they all are, what they mean and I'll tell you, if there's some restaurateurs in town that I love, it's these guys because they are legit. They do things for the community. He's involved in everything he can possibly do. I told the story, we tell the story on the interview where he was snowing and he went and picked up his whole team. He rented a truck, a four-wheel drive truck, the last big snow that we had and he went and picked up his entire team because he wanted the people in the community to have a place to go eat and he wanted his employees to be safe and then he had to drive them all back home too, which is the, it's out of the box thinking. If you want to hear more on that, you can probably find the episode that we did with him also on the Brentwood Up podcast. We do a help, a woman named Cathy Devereaux who was with KAD of Tennessee.

08:47She's awesome, but we interviewed him for that one also. I co-host that show with her and check it out. Check it out. It's a really nice interview and we have a lot of fun. We've got so many interviews coming up. We are going to be speaking with the owner over at C&B Lennon and I am so excited to talk to Jason Cruz is his name and what he's doing in Waynesboro, how he's affecting his community, what he's all about and guys, I'm telling you, C&B Lennon, these guys are the new super source of the world and I'll tell you the new super source, I say that because when we brought Jason Ellison here, everybody's been going wild. Almost everybody that comes in the studio is like, I thank you so much for introducing me to super source. They're the best dish machine chemical company I've ever had. Jason's the man. Literally everybody says this and now I'm getting people calling me saying, Hey, is this C&B thing for real? And I'm like, yes, there's no fees whatsoever. They're not charging you a service fee, no clean green services.

09:49They're not even charging replacement costs. They're not even making you work on a par system if you don't want to. You can just order your Lennon's like normal. There's one flat rate for everything, no hidden costs. And you know, you may say, oh, well, the prices are going to be more expensive. They're actually not. They're right in line with what you would be paying at most of the other places, but without the big fees and not just big fees, but complicated fees. Go look at your invoice right now. Tell me if you can read that thing. What is the ARC, the replacement costs, the whatever it's called, it's usually on a separate line and then there's a number for it that you can't really figure out. But then that line doesn't extend out. It just builds into this big number and it's like, what, what is going on here? If I'm paying 10 cents a Lennon, how come if I buy 2000 Lennon's, it cost me $410? That doesn't make sense. Look at your Lennon invoice. C&B is not about that. That is not what they do. So you can contact C&B Lennon. They're on all of the Instagrams.

10:51They're all over the place. Or you can email Krista. Krista is the general manager over there and I'm going to give you her email. I don't have it right here next to me. Krista Carroll. Krista, it's KCarol, C-A-R-R-O-L-C-A-R-R-O-L-L at C-B-Lennon.com. Send her a message or send it to me through their partner of mine with NARA, the Nashville Area Restaurant Alliance, which we are building right now. We're in the middle of it. I have a price list that I've negotiated for all restaurants out there. So they've, we've, we've gone in, I've said, listen, I'm going to have a hundred restaurants that are going to be a member of this alliance. I need a great price for all of them. That is something that is better than everybody else that we've negotiated. She goes, no problem. And they made it happen. And I have that price list. If you want to see those prices, send me an email. Brandon at NewLightHospitality.com. I will get that email and I will send it over to you and I can tell you all about it.

11:55If you're just interested in NARA as well, send me an email. I'd love to tell you about it. We're kind of on a pause right now because I have too many restaurants. I got to do the work now. I've got to go through and I'm helping people negotiate their vendor contracts. We're, we're helping restaurants succeed and it is a lot of fun. And hopefully you'll have some testimonials for you real soon. I know Sean is really excited to talk about it on the podcast, but there are some really neat things that we are doing out there and I look forward to helping you. All right. So let's get on with this interview with Marta Grumberg. She is with Grumberg Accounting. We are super excited today to welcome in Marta Grumberg. And she, are you the owner of Grumberg Accounting? Yes, I'm a co-owner. I'm assuming from the name of the accounting company. Makes sense. Yeah. How are you doing today? I'm good.

12:55I'm great. Thank you. Thank you for having me. How are you? I am, I'm well. I am well. I'm getting into the new year. I've got a lot going on and taxes are due real soon and this is fun to be able to talk to an accountant this time of year and hopefully we can, we can mine some really important information that we can share with a bunch of restaurant owners. Tell me what it is, what you do, what your specialties are and why you're on the show. So we do everything except taxes. We prepare you for taxes. That's amazing. There's a lot of work around the taxes and everybody talks taxes. But before taxes, you need to put in order your books. So we help with that. We manage books for companies and we also do analysis and consulting about cycles, cash flows, up and downs. Basically everything that is needed to build your strategy for your business. Wow.

13:55When did you start doing this? Oh, more than 10 years ago. Why did you start doing this? What about you said, I want to do accounting because that never has entered my mind in my life. That is my kryptonite and it's the hardest thing for me to do. Why is that your favorite thing to do? Well, that's a funny story. I wasn't planning on that. I went to business school. I wanted to do marketing. I used to work in the newspaper many years ago. I did not plan to go to accounting. But life happened. We moved and my husband, he had this annoying idea all the time to build this business. He was nagging and nagging and nagging about it. I was saying, no, not now, not the right time. Then when I was pregnant, maybe that was the hormones. I'm not sure. When I was pregnant, I decided, well, yeah, let's do it. Let's try. I'm so happy with it. How long ago was that? 10 years ago? Yes. 10 years ago. I bet you've seen a lot in 10 years of doing accounting.

14:59Now, why do you specialize in working with restaurants? Well, I started doing everything and shortly after I started, I got a few food industry clients and I realized how I love to deal with them. And I love the industry. I love what they do. I understand them. We have a good relationship. And I understand the small details of the industry. I understand their cycles. I understand their flus. I understand when is the point, the red flags. I see it so clearly. Maybe it's because in the past long time ago, we owned a restaurant. So I had a few boo-boos on myself and I have the sympathy and love to these people that run and love the food industry and have those businesses. Tell me about your restaurant. When did you guys have a restaurant? Did you have a restaurant or did you and your husband have a restaurant? Yeah, me and my husband. Well, we weren't married there, but we had it for three years.

16:02We made plenty of mistakes. We recovered from the mistakes. It was a long time ago before college even. Wow. So you've been an entrepreneur for a long time. Yeah. So you understand the aspect of small businesses, people chasing their dreams. And sometimes they're really creative people who make amazing food. But doing accounting and books and some of the other little detailed business stuff that goes along with owning and operating a restaurant isn't a lot of people's strong suit. And that's where you come in. Yes. I think there's nothing that managers and owners hate more. Managers of restaurants and bars and catering that they hate more than finance and accounting. It's stuck in their throat. They hate to do that. They want to run their business. They want to create food to run the shift. And it's a nightmare for them, for most of them, like 99%. I'm sure I know that.

17:03So you're in Charlotte, North Carolina, right? And now you work with restaurants all over the country. How is that possible? Well, today with the technology, I think even if your client is your neighbor, you still do everything online and you store everything on cloud just in case. And that's the way things work for the past many years, I think, I find it. So you keep your archives on cloud to make sure it's safe. The softwares are online. You communicate through emails and video calls. So you're all set. Now, I think that it's interesting because one of my ideas or thoughts are when you're inside of a restaurant seven days a week, you become emotionally invested. You become emotionally invested and every day something new pops up. There's people, there's empathy, there's guests, there's food. There's a million moving pieces. And one of the things as a restaurant owner you do is you get emotionally involved in what's going on.

18:07You get emotionally involved with your vendors. You get emotionally involved with your team. I've found that as I walk into a restaurant and I'm not emotionally involved in some of that stuff, I can see things that they can't see. So as you're working with restaurants, do you identify like hidden costs that people see, that they don't see? Like what are you recognizing when you work with restaurants when you're not emotionally involved in their day-to-day operations? Oh, for sure. For sure. The first thing, and that will be funny, it's payroll. Because you say payroll, it's an obvious cost. Why it's hidden? Because of the seasons and the cycles of the restaurant. So in a slow season, you have less employees. There comes a busy season and you try to hire. So it's hard to hire good employees. We all know about the restaurant problem of the employees turnover. And all your competitors, they're also looking for employees. So it takes you time to hire people.

19:08Meanwhile, your business is good. You don't have as much employees as you need. So it's kind of win-win. You make more money, your employees make more tips, everybody happy. The problem comes after the busy season. So you slow down and owners or managers are slow to fire people. So to downsize the team because they get emotionally involved. Like you say, they remember how hard it was to build a good team. And that's how they eat all their cushion, all their financial cushion. By the time that they downsize the team. It's time to hire again. It's time to hire again. And sometimes they get in such a big problem that they cannot recover. I've seen this too. And it's here where I come and say, hey, the season is slowing down. Come on, guys, we need to downsize. We need to make sure to build some new technique, some new strategy about your labor costs. The second thing that I see very clearly in most of the restaurants is also the menu. So you come to your baby, like you say, and you're emotionally involved and you have all those dishes, delicious dishes that you build.

20:17But you don't think that through the day, not all your, like how many hours? You open 14 hours, let's say a day. Oh, 11. Let's say 11 to 11. 11. Let's say, yeah, 12. You don't stay busy the whole day as you stay, let's say, in the evening or during the weekend. And many dishes require a chef or maybe even three chefs. So adjusting your dishes and your menu or your working system. And let's say, let's have a breakfast menu in the morning when it's not so busy. That does not require the chef will help the downsize. That's a hidden cost to have to have chef through the day if you're not really needing. That's it. Well, that's managing your kitchen labor. And I feel like the real hidden cost. And when you said this, it popped into my brain was people who spend a bunch of money to print menus.

21:18You print menus and it costs you 500 to a thousand dollars. And you do this quarterly. Now, if you have an egg heavy menu and you print it quarterly and you just spend a thousand dollars to print 500 menus or whatever it is, eggs have gone up 100, 200 percent. And now you're stuck on a menu with the price of everything being way lower than the market. And I tell people, I go, you know, get a really good printer, buy a really good printer and print the menus on nice paper. But I mean, if you need to raise your prices based around what the market is doing, that's going to be something that's going to make you way more money than you may think there's an additional expense involved in buying that equipment. But man, being able to be nimble and move your menu prices with the market is a way to really be able to not take it. I mean, you lose eggs go up 200 percent or steak meat is this big center of the plate items go up and you're stuck selling it at $19 when now your cost is 16.

22:22Well, I guess I'll just eat that money for the next three months. Like, no, no, reprint the menu, raise the price. I tell you, Kroger or whatever grocery store they have in Charlotte, they don't wait. The day milk goes up, they change the price. The day the USDA changes whatever price, it gets changed immediately. I think that's something where restaurateurs miss a lot. Oh, I totally agree with you. That's why I keep saying cost managing is very important. It's very important to keep performing reports and analysis and change your strategy according to the market because things change. We have inflation, prices rises, and it's very important to look into it. Many people ask me, what do I do? How do I keep up with the market with all the prices, the crazy prices? How do I manage to stay in the market? And that's exactly what do I say. Review your vendors, review your costs, review your costs. If you have those eggs and five dishes, try to modify your dishes.

23:25It's okay. Change your menu. Don't be afraid to change. That's what's important. And in the end of the day, if you've done everything, that's time to raise the price. Now you, one of the things I think that you probably see theoretical food costs, theoreticals where people are building out a menu in advance and pricing their menu. Do you have any strategies for how to price a menu? Yes. Yeah. You have, well, yeah, you need to look into your cogs and cogs shouldn't be more than 30%. So that's important. Well, I think that that's based on what kind of food you're selling. If you're a breakfast place, then maybe it's less than that. But if you're a steakhouse, it might be a little bit more than that. Yeah, of course. Of course. Well, it's better not to have it more than that. Yes. It's better to stay on less than that. That would be a good advice. But sometimes, and I say to my clients when I keep bugging and asking them to change, it's easier to say than to do.

24:28Sometimes it's very hard to do. It's very hard work. It's hard emotionally. Sometimes it's hard physically. And sometimes the change is too big. Do you see price? You said maintaining, you know, looking at vendors. Tell me what you mean by that. When you say reviewing vendors, what are you seeing? I see sometimes it's the most simple example. Sometimes when you order from vendors and they deliver to you, the price will be higher than to go and buy wholesale. You'll see it especially when you have prices rising. I was so curious. I was like, how come? How come I'm ordering from a vendor and I pay more than I go to any of the wholesale stores? And it's because they're locked in contracts. Those huge stores, they're locked in contracts with vendors. And they have the ability to keep their prices lower for a certain time. So if you go and purchase your cogs from a wholesale, sometimes it will be cheaper than to order from the vendor.

25:36And that's why it's important to review all the time. Another thing is there are more competitive people, more companies coming into the market. Sometimes some local, a smaller company will have a better prices or better service, which is also important. They deliver faster, which is also important to review. I definitely believe in working with local vendors, but I also believe in signing contracts with the big vendors. The big vendors, I think a lot of people will pit four or five different companies against each other and purchase whatever the lowest price is. And I think that that's one of those hidden costs in restaurant operations people don't recognize is their own time. If I can negotiate a deal with a broad line vendor and I can negotiate the best deal I can possibly get and have four different vendors bid against that and I pick the best one, now I'm working with one vendor over three years and I've locked in my margin. So I know that whatever the market rides, I'm only paying 8% over on my beef prices.

26:39That saves me the time. I mean, I think you say go to a wholesaler. Okay, great. I'm going to drive. I'm going to get in my personal vehicle and drive to a store to buy chicken. And then we'll put it in my personal vehicle and drive it back to the restaurant. Not only does the health department get upset about that, but also what's my time worth? If I'm gone for an hour and a half, did I really save any money? Because I'm gone for an hour and a half and now I'm trying to save $7, but my time's got to be worth more than that. Well, I agree when you are able to lock a big vendor in a contract, but sometimes you are not big enough and you are not able to lock. That's where the problem comes. They won't lock it. They will lock it with popcorn and huge restaurants and McDonald's and Wendy's, but they won't lock with you if you are not one of them. So then comes the problem. That's what I'm working on right now. That is my big, that is what the Nashville area restaurant alliance is doing. I've got a bunch of restaurants that we're banding together so that those smaller restaurants have the ability to get those locked in pricing.

27:46It's not just a, oh, you're not big enough. Sorry, we're going to gouge you wherever we can. No, no, no. Now you can be part of something bigger and you can share the strength of a large buying group. It's a micro GPO that I'm working on to help local restaurants in Nashville. So it's wonderful. Yeah, I'm really excited about that. I mean, I just wanted to clarify what you were saying that sometimes you get in a contract and it's not good. I'm like, well, you can definitely negotiate a bad contract, but if you're a smaller restaurant, a lot of these vendors know you're stressed and you're trying to hire staff and you're trying to put out new menus and the toilet is blocked and you have to do all of these things and they're not looking every day at the price of their CO2. They're not looking at the price every day of their dish machine and chemicals and their cilantro and onions. Exactly. And that's where a lot of vendors, when you're not watching, linen companies are notorious for it of just fleecing you because they know you're busy.

28:47And that only happens with smaller restaurants. Exactly. Because they know they can. They know you're small. You don't have all this financial ability to keep people to watch them. And that's what they do. They reap the small ones, not the big ones. That's how it works. Well, the big ones have systems and processes in place to check that. And they have a manager who looks over and says that you didn't drop me off enough of this. Let me look at this. Otherwise, we're just slammed. I think that's an important thing to talk about with hidden costs in restaurants, that a lot of people just go every day and don't even recognize that they're doing it. So how can specialized accounting drive growth in restaurants? I think for me to understand the business and understand the people, that's why it's important. Not many accountants understand the food industry and the people that work there and their passion. And their routine. How busy they are. How hard for them to get to the papers and receipts and invoices and answer your emails because they were busy reviewing menus, driving people in, working on marketing, serving people, figuring out their stuff.

30:01So here where I come, I give the restaurants an opportunity to outsource accounting to somebody that specializes only with them. I understand their costs. I understand the reports that they need. I understand how to make analysis and summarize it in a small, quick table or a few sentences. I know how to raise flags and how to consult and when to say stop change, or we need a judge, or we need to review. And I think that's the most significant benefit. Because if you go to an accountant that does everything, he will know how to record your expenses, your bill and income. That's not the problem. The problem is the attitude and how you understand the business and the deep flows of the business. And communication, of course communication. We built our organization the way that the communication is very easy to the business owners.

31:05Most businesses are built that you communicate with the bookkeepers and then they build the pyramid in their organization. Usually the owner will be the manager. So we build our uptown particularly to be able to provide the best customer service to those guys. I love that. We just talked about how much we are in the middle of everything every day and there's a million things that pop up. I don't remember the last day that I had where I had a good plan going into the day and my day was scheduled out and I got to do everything on my schedule. Something happens every day that just pulls me and I'm sorry. If I schedule anything with you by three o'clock in the afternoon, if I get to that meeting at three o'clock in the afternoon, that is a damn miracle. Because something happens. I think that's why they love us. If you're having accounting, what I think you're saying is that do you guys put together P&Ls for people and arrange all of that, right?

32:07Yeah. So when you do that, I assume that when you produce this P&L, you don't just send out and say, hey, here's period one P&L. You send out saying, here's period one P&L. Looks like food cost crept a little high. Your dairy cost was high this month. I also noticed that your CO2 cost went from 1% to 3%. I don't know what happened there, but that's a really big jump. And then your repairs are really big, but that was due to the new refrigerator we bought. Just wanted to let you know what the high notes are and the low notes are. Do you give that kind of feedback when you produce a P&L? Exactly. That's what we do. Here comes the analysis. That's what's important, not just to build the report. To be able to deliver to the key people and make sure that they make the change and that we adjust and stay in business and stay profitable. And that's exactly what we do. And that's exactly where we have the red flags and we say, hey, the season is over. Let's see how we adjust the theme. Hey, wait a second.

33:07Cogs are twice more expensive than it was last year. Let's see what happened here. We raised the flag. We work as partners. As we provide the service on a monthly basis, we're kind of partnering with the clients. So we work together. We work on the financial side and they work on running their business. And then we meet when it's needed and we figure out whatever should be done. And we're also flexible. You're right. Most accounting firms, they're like nine to five and that's it. So I'm not saying that they like to work at midnight, but if something comes up and it's very important and I have cases when people get saying, you know what, I was so busy. I forgot to pay something. Can you do me a favor and help me with that? And I'm like, yeah, sure. No problem. We can do that. So we stay flexible. We stay open-minded. We look globally on the business. We try to look on a business as a whole business and not just the financial side.

34:10No, I love that. I think that's really important and that's not something you get out of everybody. I mean, I know there are accountants that specialize in restaurants. It's so fun to talk to you and to learn a little bit more. What trends are you seeing out there? Are there anything in the current, just current trends you're seeing with your restaurants that you could share that might help somebody out there? He's going to answer that right after this word from our sponsors. We are talking about Black Sheep Tequila. You can purchase Black Sheep Tequila for your restaurant through Ajax Turner or in the finest liquor stores. Let me tell you a little bit about their story. Black Sheep provides an additive-free farm-to-bottle model, enabling the tequila to maintain superior quality and consistency. Black Sheep Tequila provides a trusted and memorable luxury brand for new and unsuspecting tequila drinkers. At the same time, the connoisseur will appreciate the standalone style that is reshaping the category.

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37:18They have the cucumber citron. They have my favorite, which is the semi-tropic, and then they have the citrus rose. These are delicious. I sell them at two of my three restaurants, and they're doing really well. Stay tuned next week as we'll be talking to the CEO and the COO of Colexo, but you can be ahead of the game and pick up Colexo today at your favorite liquor store or from Lipman Brothers. Robin's Insurance is your go-to if you are looking for insurance for your restaurant. If you're looking for insurance for anything you need to call Robin's Insurance, they are local, and Matthew Clements is the man. He loves dining out in your restaurants. He also loves bringing a level of service to the insurance business that is unparalleled. His number is 863-409-9372, and I've been out talking to restaurants like Crazy for Nara, and every single one, except for one, has already used Robin's.

38:20They don't need a new insurance company. They've already got Robin's, and everyone has said, we love Matthew, and the one that didn't use Robin's Insurance, well, guess what? Now they do. Matthew Clements has been serving the Nashville restaurant community and protecting them so that you can sleep well at night for a long time. No matter what happens in your restaurant, you need to be insured. You need to have the right insurance, and Matthew will walk you through that process. Matthew Clements with Robin's Insurance. Again, his number is 863-409-9372. If you prefer to email, you can email him at mclements, that's C-L-E-M-E-N-T-S, at robbinsins.com. Just current trends you're seeing with your restaurants that you could share that might help somebody out there? Yes, there's a lot of going on around the AEL right now. The what? The artificial intelligence? AI, yes.

39:21AI, sorry. So a lot of going on around that. People looking into integrating new softwares, trying to ease, trying to save time and money on regular processes like accounts payable, accounts receivable, payroll, and things like that. It's a great feature, and one of the things that we do with consults and help for restaurants, two restaurants to adjust and use the right software for them. Because you have many people reaching out. If you Google softwares for restaurants, you will be overwhelmed with what you see. They all say, okay, I'm going to help you to manage your inventory. I'm going to help you to save on whatever. Yeah, just with like $600 a month. They just forget to say that you need to hire a person that will manage all this data for you and will input your data inside because it's garbage in, garbage out.

40:25And I've seen people basing their strategy on the report that had the wrong conclusion because the data was horrible. So it's very important. It's good to adjust and it's good to evolve and get those integration and work with technology. It's very important. But it's important to pick and choose what is good for your business. I like that. What will benefit you. Well, I just think that that's interesting how you phrase that, that they don't have enough people to look at the data. And this is one of the things that I feel like is a major issue. That there's so much technology out there. There's so much amazing. We can learn so much about our customers. We can learn so much about buying trends. It's just that smaller restaurants don't have the ability to disseminate all this data. And if you're Applebee's, you've got a whole floor in a 12-story building of people who are disseminating that data.

41:28And they're able to identify so much more. And just to be able to identify what you're going to say when you greet a table based around that information. I would say it's an unfair advantage that local restaurants are just sitting ducks because there's a psychology behind it. And I think you touched on something that's really big right there. It's just how do we disseminate all the data? How do you do that? You don't do that though, right? No, but the problem is with the int of the data. That's the problem. Not to manipulate the data. If they input correctly the data, that's not the problem. You have software. You have me. We can draw conclusions. It's great. The problem is when a chef runs the kitchen, he won't run to the computer to write that he opened a bad box of leaves. To reduce from the inventory, small things like that.

42:29And then the data is not correct. You can see a better opportunities in the liquor system. It works better, but with the kitchen, it's so hard to input all the data to draw the right conclusion. Makes sense. So you work around that. Yeah, no, we still do. We still do analysis. I'm just saying that the software that they propose you and try to make you purchase not always good particularly for your business. Something will work for McDonald's, but won't work for a local chain of seven restaurants. It's not the same working ability. I mentioned at the beginning of this conversation that it's tax season. While you don't do and file the taxes, you prepare everything to give to a tax professional to submit the taxes, right? Yeah, we prepare everything and we work with the tax specialist.

43:29Okay, perfect. As much as needed. So here's my question for you. If I'm a restaurateur, or I'm me, and it is February 12th, whatever day it is, and I'm looking for the rest of the year, and I've been bad at this, and every year my accountant slaps me on the hand and says, you're not doing this the right way. What are some things I can be doing right now to set myself up for success next year and maybe save a little bit of money? Are there any tax strategies? Hire a good professional that will help you to maintain your data in a clean, accurate way. That will be there for you if you get any notices, if you need help with licensing, that will be your partner. And that in the end of the year, if your CPA has any questions, he will have who to ask. I think that's the best way because it's very hard. And I know it from myself, also from the past.

44:29It's very hard when you try to do all by yourself. Yeah, it is. It's very difficult. End up doing it all by yourself. Make sure that you have a clean record, that you have everything reconciled, that your statements tie with your software, that you have all your receipts, that you know where you stand with your vendors. Do you have to keep receipts anymore? Yes, unfortunately, in case you get audited. You don't have to keep them as papers, by the way. I spend everything on a credit card for our company here that links with my QuickBooks and then everything I just reconcile that way. So if I need to recall it, I have a statement that has it on there and I can show what it is. Does that work? The last audit that I did, they asked for receipts. Oh, gosh. I know, and that's frustrating. But it's better to keep it all on the cloud. Do not use your shoe box anymore for that. What are the biggest red flags that auditors see?

45:36Obviously, if you get some large amounts into your bank account, that will assign a red flag. But you know what? I've seen so many things. It's so hard to get audited. And on the other hand, it's so easy. I had a client that got audited after two months. I have clients that are in the business for 30 years and they haven't gotten audited. It's very personal. It depends. Very random. You know what else? Also, if you fix your taxes. If you do it yourself? No, no, no. You do taxes and then you need to amend it. If you amend it, sometimes it will flag. Sometimes not. It depends. Okay, interesting. With sales tax and mills tax, it depends on the state. Sometimes when states run into financial difficulty, they will audit more. That's what we have seen after COVID. That makes sense. Hey, we need some more money.

46:37Let's go find some more money. Yes, yes. So it's good if you live in a rich state. Yeah, well, I've seen enough in Massachusetts. But yeah, yeah, I agree. I agree. I love it. What else do you want to talk about? Let's just say I'm a restaurateur and I'm hearing this and I go, man, I really like what Marta is saying over here. And my accountant is just a guy that puts it together and hands it to me and I get no analysis and I barely get it back in time. What's your turnaround time to get somebody a P&L? Oh, 24 hours max. Wow, that's impressive. You know what? I'll be just in case. I'll be on the safe side 48 hours. On the regular, 99% of the time. If I travel or sometimes things happen or if I'm extra busy, yeah, it might be. But if you mention in the subject that it's very important for you and you're a P&L, you will get it very fast. I love it. Let's just say somebody needs you and they want to learn more about what you do.

47:42How do they do that? How would they get a hold of you? They go to my website. It's grumbergaccounting.com. Social media, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn. We're active there. grumbergaccounting.com. And if somebody wanted to send you an email, how would they do that? It's info at grumbergaccounting.com. info at grumbergaccounting.com. All right. Well, look at that. See, there was a lot of stuff there really quickly. It's like quick fire things. And what else do you want to talk about? This is where I give it up to you. Let's see, let's see. I would like to talk about adopting to new trends. That's an interesting thing that I was thinking lately about it. Because you see all the chef restaurants or other restaurants that they use for years to work in the same trend.

48:49And how important it is to drive additional income with adjusting to new trends. Like delivery. It's something that became very popular lately in the past few years. You have Uber Eats, DoorDash. So many restaurants have been adopting and changing and building a special menu even for delivering their food. Yeah, the pandemic really catapulted that really fast. And I see that people that did that, they thrive and they increase their income and they stay on top of their financials. And they stay in business more than people that stay loyal to their old regular way. What else is more important? Important to go outside of the comfort zone. And sometimes many restaurants also changed and adapted and build a catering menu.

49:50And in the slow hours they have contracts when they send some catering services to others. So the key word is change and adapt and stay with the industry where it goes and get updated. Now, what do you feel about exclusive programs with these different vendors? So DoorDash, Uber Eats, Grubhub, they all offer exclusivity. So if I exclusively go with you, I can reduce my rate. Are you seeing these 30% rates that they're offering? Are you seeing people negotiate those way down? And are you also seeing people raise their menu prices to offset those? I've seen people raising their menu prices. I've seen people and which is in my opinion will be a better idea adjusting their menus. So they won't work through their whole menu and they will have a special menu to work through.

50:52So a smaller menu for delivery items that work really well that might live longer in a to-go box? Smaller or easier to make. It's also very important. If you have an easier to make items, the cost of the item is lower. So your margin is better. Okay, yeah, I see that all over the place. And we actually just, our three restaurants, we just went to Uber Eats is our preferred. That's what we sign exclusive with Uber Eats. They've done a fantastic job. We got a pretty good rate and I'm a big fan of what Uber Eats is doing. And it's been great for us. It's interesting because at two of our restaurants it works really well. In the other restaurant, Greenhouse Grow, we were doing all of the delivery ourselves. And now we're noticing about 30% of our delivery is going to Uber Eats, but it's not increasing the number. Our loyal people who are buying directly from us are now just ordering at Eats because they get points. True, yeah, true. You see sometimes it's a little bit biting.

51:58But they'd rather pay more, which doesn't make sense because our prices go up when it comes down. You're buying from Uber Eats. You buy directly from us, you save 15%. And you don't have the delivery cost, but they'd rather order from Uber Eats and pay what ends up being 20% more so that they can get points to get free food later. The psychology behind it's wacky to me. Why people make buying decisions around points and status versus just the raw money. Marketing, good marketing. Yeah, that's what marketing will do. They're so busy to count points that they don't pay attention to the extra few dollars that they pay for delivery. Yeah, I mean, it was a few years ago I had a Southwest card and I think that I did a calculation at the end of the year that I paid like $2,900 in interest and I earned two free flights. And I was like, I really would have rather spent $2,900 on something else.

53:01I could have bought two flights for a thousand and done 1,900 with something else. And I was like, oh, this doesn't work. This doesn't work at all. You fly on that flight and you're like, hey, I get a free flight, but I wasn't free at all. Unless you paid off every time, which is difficult to do for a lot of people. It was for me. Exactly. Yeah, I agree. It's something that we talk a lot among our colleagues about the flights and the points and the interest because many people are so happy to get something for free and it doesn't matter what, that they end up paying like twice or three times more. What do you feel about loyalty programs in this whole conversation? That's what we're talking about. I mean, restaurants that do really good. Have you seen a loyalty program that works really well for people? And what is the real cost of a loyalty program to a restaurant? Well, I don't have the cost on top of my mind. It might be different. It depends. It's very depends.

54:01Particularly the loyalty programs, it depends. It depends on the type of the restaurant that you have on the type of the food industry you are because a restaurant will be different. A chef restaurant will be different from an American bar will be different from a catering service. Sure. So it's all about a lot of variables. Yeah, we're a community restaurant. We serve the same people over and over and over again. And we have been hesitant to go to a loyalty program because quite frankly, the people are already loyal. And if we give 10% back after you spend X amount of dollars, we're just giving away money that they would have already spent. Exactly. That's why I say you should be very careful with that. On the one hand, it looks like a good marketing move. On the other hand, it might bite into your current profit or income. Yeah. And so I think if you're a new restaurant, you're trying to build business, that's one way to do it.

55:02And I don't know, these are all just interesting topics that are, again, why this industry is so difficult because there's so many different options for marketing. There's so much options for technology and data. And we're not even talking about vendors and what you can purchase and where to source all of these items, not to mention interior decorating bar, your bar program. And then you have staffing and then you have maintenance and then you have landscaping. And then it's like, oh, it's- You have everything and a lot. It is a lot. And so that's why having a professional accountant really makes sense because that's the one thing that is really difficult for a lot of restaurants. And if you have somebody in-house, awesome. But hiring a professional accountant will be something that would definitely help you in the long run. Marta, thank you for joining us today. Thank you. Thank you for having me. It was great speaking to you. I have one last thing for you today. Yeah. You ready for this? Yes. This is the Nashville Restaurant Radio. Gordon Food Service Final Thought.

56:05Gordon Food Service is our fine presenting sponsor. I think you can see the right up top there in my- Behind me, the Gordon Food Service thing. If you were here, I'd give you a mug or something. But what we do is the final thought, which means you get to take us out. Whatever you want to say, as long as you want to say it, the whole screen is going to be yours. You get to just- You could say whatever you want to take us out. You're talking to the Nashville Restaurant community. Great. Okay. Thank you for being with us and take care of your paperwork. Be ready for the tax season and enjoy the weather. It's great outside. There we go. I like it. That was short and sweet. And to the point, Marta Grumberg, it has been an absolute pleasure speaking with you today. And I will check back in with you midway through the year. Maybe you have some mid-year tips, tricks, anything that you might find out. I'd love to have you back. Maybe you could be our accountant that we refer to when we have stuff that comes up on the show.

57:10Maybe we can get a hold of you and you can help us out with all that information as we interview more guests throughout the year. That would be great. Please feel free to contact us for any questions. We'll be happy to answer. Again, you can email info at grumbergaccounting. That's G-R-U-M-B-E-R-G, accounting. You can find them on Instagram. You can find them on Facebook. And you can go to their website, grumbergaccounting.com. Yeah, thank you. Did I do that right? Yes, you did it perfect. Wonderful. Marta, we wish you a wonderful spring, which is coming up. We're going to kiss this winter goodbye. Happy spring to you. And we will talk to you again soon. Yeah, thank you. Thank you very much.