December 7, 2023 • 31 mins
Red Robin Gourmet Burgers’ new flat-top grills make better burgers, improve efficiency and give the chain more menu optionality going forward, CEO and President G.J. Hart tells Bloomberg Intelligence. In this episode of the Choppin’ It Up podcast, Hart sits down with BI’s senior restaurant and foodservice analyst Michael Halen to give an update on the chain’s North Star plan, which includes improved food and operations, fewer discounts and new compensation plans for market partners and single-unit operators. He also comments on marketing spending, sale-leaseback transactions and changes to the loyalty program.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:19):
Welcome to Chopping It Up. I'm your host, Mike Hallen,
the senior restaurant and food service analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence.
Today we're joined by G. J. Hart, President and CEO
of Red Robin Gourmet Bergers. Thanks for doing this, Thanks Mike.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Good to be with you.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Yeah, our audience can't see us, but it's good to
see you. Let's let's just jump right in here. Man,
what attracted you to the Red Robin job.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Well, let's let's go back in time a little bit
when when we were building and growing Texas Roadhouse, Red
Robin was in it's really in its prime time and
was really one of the premier casual dining restaurant brands,
and we learned a lot in terms of what they
were doing and doing it well. And the biggest thing
is just how the differentiated space about kids, family, great food,
(01:09):
great hospitality, reasonable price, and so following them, I've always
had an affection form. They were phenomenal around being parts
of communities, giving back to communities, all things that we
were doing at Texas Roadhouse, and so roll forward over
the years, I was asked if I would be interested
in going on the board of Red Robin at the time,
(01:30):
and that was in twenty nineteen and right before COVID,
and I was like, you know, if I could make
some difference because they were, you know, hit upon some
challenging times and I thought, well, shoot, I'd like to
do that. And so going on the board first. And
then when the board approached me about the opportunity to
take over. You know, I had been retired for about
(01:52):
six months at the time, nine total, and I was like,
I was ready. I was too young to not work
and sitting boards is great and I love it, but
it's not the same as operating a business. And so
a lot of things lined up really, really well, and
so I jumped in because I just felt like I
could add some value here and really take this brand
(02:13):
back and make it come back to its roots and
make it relevant for today. So it's been an exciting run.
I'm having a heck of a lot of fun.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
All right, good stuff. I saw some news out this week.
Our friend Nicole Miller Reagan was placed on the board,
which is great. Nicole's awesome. What about the senior management team?
Are they in place or do you still have roles
to fill there?
Speaker 2 (02:35):
Yeah, So we've done We've put together a phenomenal team.
I'm really proud of the group that we've put together.
And the one position that we have left, we've got
an interim who was my former chief people officer Texas
Roadhouse who retired and he came back as interim, and
we're on the final stages of that search. We've actually
(02:56):
got an offer out and there'll be an acceptance I'm
pretty sure for the Chief People Office role and then
we'll be totally complete. But the team is definitely ready,
willing and enable, and we're high functioning and I believe
that we're going to get some high performance out of them.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
Okay, good stuff. So just for the audience that may
not be familiar, what's the store count now Red Robin
and where is it strong geographically?
Speaker 2 (03:22):
Yeah, so the store count today is a total count
of five hundred and ten restaurants. Our strongest markets are
up really on the West coast. Red Robin was originally
founded up in Washington State, so we've got a big
pros big presence up in Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, and
(03:43):
of course you know on the East coast as well.
We're probably a little bit lesser density in the Midwest.
We've got a good presence in the Southwest, but clearly
the West Coast is the predominant portion of Red robin.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Oh okay, So being on the West Coast, do you
think you're going to see any impact from the for
the fast food wage increases that we're we're seeing in California?
I know there have been some people talking about how,
you know, they expect maybe full service chains to have
to pay a little bit more in the kitchen. Is
this something that that you've discussed with the team.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
Yeah, we're we're paying attention to it. Clearly, there'll be
some compression and there'll be some expectations. You know, generally speaking,
if you think about our team members on the West Coast,
particularly in places that there's no tip credit, they're they're
well above that now in terms of total compensation. But
at the end of the day, as you know, there's
an expectation and as those positions in fast food go up,
(04:40):
that they're going to need to go up as well.
So you know, we're going to watch it real closely
and see kind of what's what what's the right course
of action. It's not just about just taking price because
you know, as you know, the consumers ever more sensitive
today to price, So we'll we'll watch it and we'll see.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
Okay, so who is the the Red Robin customer.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Well, it's interesting our our our guest base is pretty
wide and demographics pretty wide, so you get, you know,
a varied income. It tends to skew a little bit
more female generally, which is not surprising candidly although it
being Burgers being premiere, but we do skew that way.
And and it's a pretty wide spectrum from everything from
(05:27):
your from your hard working sort of you know, Middle
America high income folks to two people that are that
are at the high income levels. So that's the benefit
that we do have because we're so family and kid
centric that it allows people to come in and as
they are and feel comfortable in the Red Robin no
matter what walk of life that you're in.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
Yeah, my son, when he was younger, you always loved
the place. And I am a huge fan of the
onion rings too. So uh so I was answering too. Yeah,
all right, cool, why don't we talk a little bit
about the guest experience improvements? You know, all good turnarounds
start with better food and better service. Right, so if
you could talk a little bit about the improvements that
(06:09):
the team's made there.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
So we put together a plan that I really developed
with all the different stakeholders, different folks around the company,
just to realign ourselves on what our north star would
be and what's that overall mission vision and brand promise
and over our core values. And we came up with
this north Star plan and the first part of that
plan was was around people and culture and you have
(06:33):
to start there. And what had happened with Red Robin
over the years, and I've talked about this a lot,
is there were some decisions made for whatever reason that
clearly were not good for the overall guests, nor was
it good for the team ember things like getting rid
of bussers back in twenty eighteen and started to do
away with the expo the need for a senior person
(06:54):
in the expo window, or not having a true management complement,
more generalists and not have kitchen managers or service managers,
and then really challenged by COVID and staffing challenges in
some of the decisions made made it verally challenging for
the company, and so we really started to look back
(07:14):
at the basics around that first started with management compliment,
put back our certified training, restaurants started to go back
to kitchen managers. We've put over two hundred and fifty
kitchen managers in place in addition to what we already had.
And when I say already had, some of the restaurants
did not follow suit with some of the sort of
changes that came down from the corporation. So we started there,
(07:39):
and then we started really building up our staff. And
one of the things that had happened in the hospitality
model was it was more of a team approach, and
in and of itself, that's fine. So you had server
assistants and so servers were having many more cables and
if a server assistant or you had a staffing problem,
which as you know, coming through COVID was close, but
(08:00):
then even coming back was challenging. Now all of a sudden,
a server can't possibly service our guests when they have
ten tables and so without the proper services. So we've
gone more to a traditional model, less tables for servers,
added back busters, added back to the expos stations with management.
So we started there and that was first and foremost,
and then we started working on the food as the
(08:22):
second piece of it. And on the food front, we
changed the cooking process for gourmet burgers because I asked
the question, if our brand promise is about the best
gourmet burgers, are we convinced we could do that with
the what we're doing today And the answer is no.
And so we started looking back and Jeff Brian, our chef,
and I started working on what makes the most sense,
(08:44):
and we changed the whole system to flat top cooking.
So we got rid of the nico the belt driven
ovens that gives us not only a better burger, it's bigger,
it's juicier, all those kind of things. It actually helped
efficiency as well as it us more optionality for menu
development down the road, which is a big part of
our plan in the North Star plant anyway. So I'm
(09:08):
pleased to say that in that whole process, the hospitality
piece has come through. Been in the system the longest,
so we've seen our overall net sentiment for service has
gone up twenty eight percent. So if you serve all
the social data points, I mean, twenty eight percent increase
over this period of time is really I think terrific.
(09:28):
The food is coming now. We did the change mid
year for the flat tops, but we actually in the fall.
We just just recently launched our full menu with where
we've touched eighty five percent of the menu and we've
upgraded ingredients. So we've done things like improve our bund
we've improved our mayonnaise. We've improved our going from a
(09:51):
regular tomato to a vying ripened tomato. We've improved our bacon,
we've improved all of our sauces, so we've touched almost
every part of it. And that was launched just a
few weeks ago and that's doing really really well, and
we're super excited about people really seeing the difference in
our burgers and seeing the difference in our optionality on
the menu because we've added clentres, meaning we've added Whiskey
(10:14):
River barbecue ribs, we've had a tsunami shrimp, we've added
a non fried appetizers with the shrimp, and then we've
added Brussels sprouts and some additions like that that help
us to really have more optionality, less veto vote for
the guests, and so those are the type of things
that we're doing. We've still got a long way to go.
But first, the first hospitality service and people. Now it's
(10:38):
going into food and we're working. We're pretty excited about
what we're doing for twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
Good stuff. And you revamped the market partner program. Can
you speak to that, sure?
Speaker 2 (10:50):
Well, the company was had typical general managers that had
a base salary and a bonus opportunity, and bonuses were
changed each year based on the prior and I'm not
a big fan of that because a lot of times
you tend to leave out the guest experience right at
the end of the day, growing guest traffic and sales
as a result of people doing the right thing, and
(11:11):
if you take care of the people, they take care
of your guests. And so you know, going to a
managing partner compensation program where they really get paid each
month based on their success of their restaurant, to me
makes sense. It gets that sense of ownership, that pride factor.
They become very much involved in every aspect of their
business and they become business people, not just great restaurant operators.
(11:33):
And so we launched it for our multi unit midyear
this year and it's going extremely well. And we started
there so that we can learn and adjust. When you
have a big restaurant count like we do having done
this before. It takes a while and it's difficult to
implement a system like this in a big, big number
(11:53):
of restaurants. So we started there great learning and our
plan is through and we will be rolling out the
managing Partner program right after the first of the year.
And we're excited about it because, you know, we think
it's really going to move the brand forward with that
sense of ownership and pride.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
Yeah, very cool. And you mentioned that customer experience is
included in there, so you know a lot of these
programs people are comped out based on sales, so it
sounds like you have some customer service scores involved in
the compensation structure.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
No, it'll be solely around guest traffic, sales, and profitability. However,
you can't drive sales or profitability or traffic without really
having a great guest experience. So the idea is you
share all these operators, share best practices from it, what's working,
what's not, and they tend to be competitive with each
(12:47):
other in terms of things like guest satisfaction scores. But
all of it flows back that it's about being running
a business, and you know, Mike if you're running your
own business, if you take care of your people, they're
going to take care of your business. So that's that's
the idea here.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
Yeah, for sure, you know, customer service scores and speed
of service and all that stuff is so closely linked
to traffic obviously, totally, totally, all very cool. And so
you're also going to implement the single unit operator program.
Is that going to be similar to what you implemented
at Texas Roadhouse and Torches?
Speaker 2 (13:21):
It will be similar. All the dynamics are different for
each brand, but yes, it would very much be similar
to that.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
Okay, great, And you're making some changes to the loyalty program.
A lot of people in the restaurant industry are making
some changes right now, So can you speak to that
a little bit?
Speaker 2 (13:42):
Sure, Well, we do have a big, big loyalty base.
It's they're about thirteen and a half million members, and.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
Yeah, that's strong for them.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
It is strong, and we're still gaining. The loyalty platform
has historically in my pay and being focused on maybe
not the right thing to me. Loyalties about rewarding your
most loyal guests for frequency and for being loyal to
the brand versus trying to acquire new and then give
them ongoing discounts and ongoing promotional activities. So we're going
(14:18):
to flip that and really start to reward our most
loyal guests. And we're going to go to a point
based system versus what we have today where you've got
to get nine, you get to ten free. So the
points where it's more in real time and we think
makes more sense for our guests going down. And we'll
get that launched and sort of the first half of
(14:41):
next year, and we're super excited about it. What we've
learned is the company was really messaging mostly discount promotionals
to the loyalty base. And what we want to do
is start just having a dialogue and start to individualize
that communication that we can do with our guest base.
That'll tap longer term into how we can communicate on
(15:03):
an individual basis. So we're super excited. It is a
big asset of the company. We think it's we can
lever it the right way, tell our story more successfully
that way, and I'm really liking the path that we're on. Great.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
So you know, on your earnings call, you mentioned that
you saw a shift and that from September to October
and results had improved despite student loan repayments resuming, And
we kind of saw the same thing industry wide. You
may have your improvement may have been larger than the industry,
(15:40):
but we did see some improvement in October industry wide
that we we thought was a little bit surprising. What
do you you know, what are you seeing as there?
You know, and what did you think was the main
reason for that improvement in October?
Speaker 2 (15:55):
Yeah, So in our case, we're making a lot of
changes we just talked about, from management, hospitality to food.
We're doing so much that we think that we're going
to see and are seeing effects of that as a
result of our change. The current bigger picture or macro environment,
(16:16):
it's hard to say and ascertain exactly, you know, how
much is coming from where given all the change that
we've got, But nevertheless, we'll take it right and so
so feeling good about that. And Mike, you may have read,
you know, we had negative comp for the quarter. We
signaled that it was within expectations because again we were
(16:36):
making some decisions to get ourselves out of virtual brands,
because to focus on the brand long term. The Red
Robin brand we think that's the right decision. Well, that's
you know, that definitely comes at at a price. We
have gone away from all this deep discounting in every
channel to be and focused on brand development long term
in providing our guests and experience they can count on
(16:59):
day in, day out, and that comes with the price.
So we had all those things on top of, you know,
within all this noise. So there's just a lot in
terms of us analyzing, you know, just the macro environment
in and of itself. What I would say to you though, is,
you know, I've been pretty pretty surprised how resilient the
overall consumer has been and continues to be, because you know,
(17:22):
if you really look at some of these economic trends,
you know, we feel certain things and things are not
necessarily perfect, but generally speaking, people have more money and
more disposable money to spend. So I've been pretty surprised
at how resilient they've been. So hopefully that continues and
and and then as we make our changes, we'll benefit
(17:43):
and really be able to grow our business.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
Yeah, and it looked like investors were happy with with
the earnings report even though you know, same sort of sales.
One thing went down, So it seems like they're they're
bullish on you know, these changes that you're making and
the direction that Red Robin is moving in. Back in August,
last time I saw you at the prosper conference, you know,
you know, we were chatting it up and I was
telling you how I was surprised how find dining results
(18:09):
had been so poor this year. That was probably the
biggest surprise I've had, you know, throughout the industry. Is
there anything that's surprising you about the US consumer outside
of it being resilient, you know, and whatever else you
had already spoken about.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
Now, you know America, American consumers like to spend right,
So at the end of the day, I don't know
that I'm surprised, I say it. You know, I'm a
little bit surprised, as I just pointed out, But at
the end of the day, that's good news. So yeah,
you know, if there was an overriding concern, I think
it's really centered around more of the geopolitical situation and
(18:50):
just you know, how does that because it definitely affects
people at home, and I think that that that worries
me a bit. There's obviously nothing I can do about it,
but it is something that h that that they do
think about. But at the end of the day, now
there's no no huge surprises of the then how resilient
they are?
Speaker 1 (19:08):
Okay, good stuff and uh you like another one of
your h casual dining competitors made the move to cut
back on discounting, and I think that's important. I don't
think you want to train your customers to only come
to your restaurant when you're offering some sort of a discount.
(19:29):
So can you talk about how that's gone and how
it's going, and you know how this maybe uh you
know might impact your your decision to about how you're
going to deploy marketing spend and if you're going to
increase it or to decrease it over the next year.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
Well, let me let me unpack that a little bit.
And in terms of how it's going, it's going fine.
I think to the to build a brand successfully over time,
you need to provide guests uh uh, the ability to
know exactly what they're going to get when they're that
every time they come in they're going to get that
same type of experience. And sure there's times you want
(20:09):
to promote certain things, but not just to come in
as a result of some discount. So it's going fine. Guys,
we just talked about you know, we felt it in
terms of sales and traffic a little bit, but we're
going to roll over that. And last year the company
was really throwing a lot at all the different channels
and really discounting significantly. So as we roll over that,
(20:29):
we'll get through that. And I do believe with the
changes that we're making, people are experience. We're seeing it
and the feedback that we're seeing as I just mentioned
some of the consumer sentiment data, some of the overall
experience data that we're getting is showing that they see that.
So I think all in all, we're feeling really good
about the progression that we're making and the progress that
(20:51):
we've seen so fully intent and we're optimistic about the
future here in terms of marketing spend, let me just
do with that. One of the things I want to
just say about marketing spend is we're really unpacking and
really taking a look at how do we how do
we use our dollars to be more effective than maybe
(21:11):
what we've been in the past, being very laser focused,
being more community oriented, really targeting as We just talked
about loyalty and using those platforms to make our dollars
work that much harder for us, and we think we
can do that. So at the end of the day,
will we need to spend a little bit more. We've
talked about that, We've been asked quite a bit of that.
We're going to make the right decision because we need
(21:32):
to bust through to get people to understand it. There's
a new day here at Red Robin and this comeback
is real. We're bringing it relevant to today and just
come give us a shot. So we're kind of figuring
out exactly how best to do that, and then from there,
what's the level of investment. It's not going to be
significantly different than what we've done this year, but you know,
(21:54):
this year we've we've cut back the marketing spend to
focus on operations. Get that right. First, you've invested a
tremendous amount back into the business and we've talked about
that on our last earnings call. How many millions of
dollars we've invested back into the company with all the
food investments, in the labor investments and all those things.
So more to come on that, but at the end
(22:16):
of the day, we think marketing dollars, we can spend
a lot more effectively.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
Okay, great, Now, are you you shifting your mix of
traditional versus digital ad spending in the next year or two?
Speaker 2 (22:26):
Yeah, you know, clearly, you know the whole we're going
to have less traditional and more digital. You know, I
think that's the way of the way it is today.
Long term, it's how do we communicate and understand enough
about each individual guest to be able to communicate them
on a one on one level. We're not there yet,
but we think longer term we can get there with
(22:47):
some of those changes, and that's when they real magic
can happen. Is Hey, Mike, you came in, you know,
last week and you got X, Y and Z. Would
you know, would you like to try the same thing
or would you like to try something new? And you know,
those kinds of relations and hips will be important and
through the total guest experience, people want to know, want
to feel special, and we need to be able to
do that in a fun environment where they can come
(23:09):
as they are, and that's what we're going to do.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
Okay, great. Also, uh, you know, you got you have
a lot of a lot of moving pieces. Man, you
have an ambitious plan. It's it's great because it's all
stuff that makes a lot of sense and seems to
be gaining some uh, gaining some steam. But can you
talk about the renovation plans a little bit? I mean,
what what what percentage of the stores do you expect
(23:34):
to touch and how long do you expect it to take?
Speaker 2 (23:39):
Yeah, the when when you talk renovation, why don't we
just say this coming out of COVID as many restaurant
companies struggle to keep up with just general maintenance.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
And oh yeah, R and M is up for all
my companies, this yere.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
And and so to be candid, we're actually, I won't
say they're all renovations, but we're spending the bulk of
our capital dollars going back to get our restaurants where
we need them to be just day to day operationally
and looking right. And so we're spending tremendous, tremendous amounts
(24:15):
of dollars. Having said that, we also know, as we've
got an aging an aging fleet, we need to think
about what does that remodel look like. And we've announced
that we were going to do a few restaurants in
a couple of markets to see kind of what level
of investment we need to make and what kind of
returns that we can get a good return. So we haven't.
(24:39):
We're actually doing the plans now. We will actually do
some of the work for those renovations in the first
part of next year and then we'll monitor those aside
from there. But again, there's so many uses of our capital.
We're trying to be really effective here, and so the
remodel program in the way you're thinking about it will
take numerous years for us to do as we earn more.
(25:02):
It's like I tell people, this is we need to
earn our way, and that's what we're doing and reinvesting
that capital to make sure that we're not just doing
it and just food quality. We're also making sure the
facilities are right and giving our team members the assets
and something that they can work with.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
Yeah, you're doing it the right way, because you know,
if you spend a lot of money on ads and
renovating your stores before you get the operations nailed and
the food improved, what's the point, right, So yeah, that
makes a whole lot of sense. Do you do your
stores employee server handhelds and are there any other tech
(25:42):
enhancements that that you're interested in implementing.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
So again, it's sort of back to basics here, and
we do use handhelds, but to be to be candid,
we're upgrading all of our restaurants. Will have done here
very shortly where we'd have Wi Fi in every restaurant
and so metch of the handhelds that we currently are
using our radio frequency and kind of the old way.
And we are working now to plan to uh to
(26:08):
have handhelds with with Wi Fi and the restaurants. And
we're currently taking our infrastructure and updating all of it
so that we can be so in this century, if
you will. And so I tell people, first things first,
and that's what we're doing. First. Are there plenty of
(26:28):
bells and whistles we can do down the road to
achieve some of the things I've talked about that individual
relationship with guests. We are, but we've got to do
this first. First things first, and so this infrastructure is
really important and the handhelds will be a big part
of that.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
Okay, cool, And what about the sale, lease back traction transactions?
Excuse me, still not recovered from Las Vegas and R FDC.
So if you could give us an update on the
on the cell least back and what do you plan
on doing with the cash.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
Sure, So, we've completed two tranches of it's nineteen restaurants
at this point. We've got one more trench that we're
looking to do and with the two we've actually invested
it back into business. We've paid down some debt, we
talked about that at our earnings release as well, and
we bought back a little bit of stock. So so
(27:20):
our plan with if we get the third trunch completed,
which we're currently working on, then that would go to
reduce debt and at the end of the day, we're
using it to strengthen our balance sheet.
Speaker 1 (27:32):
All right, great, where does where does the leverage ratio stand?
Speaker 2 (27:36):
Well, what we we hope to do, you know, sort
of getting down to a leverage less than two to one.
So we think we'll have that completed by the end
of this year.
Speaker 1 (27:48):
Okay, great, And I heard Red Robin was on the
tonight show and something you mentioned something about a burger
teeny What can you talk a little bit about that.
Speaker 2 (27:57):
Yeah, so we were working with a celebrity bartender group
that was that's a reality star that wanted it that
came to us and our PR team have been working
hard and came with this idea doing a burgertini, martine
and burgertini and basically taking burger juice and a bunch
of ingredients and making a martini and and UH. Anyway,
(28:19):
so then there's this this this UH program called Chainfest,
which is a Michelin star chef out in California in
LA that really likes chains and then takes and really
romanticizes eight brands items to something that he thinks was cool.
And they're doing these big events coming up I think
in early December, and we're one of the restaurant companies.
(28:42):
And and last night on the on the Late night show,
they had had a mission star chef on there and
a couple of the items and most of it was
around Red Robin and and our burgers and UH and
the burgertini. It was a lot of fun. It was
it was a good piece, you know. And look, at
the end of the day, we're anywhere where we can
start to tell people there's a new day here at
(29:04):
Red Robin. We're trying to do and these are just
fun little events that if we have people talking about us,
they're gonna hopefully give us a shot.
Speaker 1 (29:12):
Yeah, it's cool, and I feel like Red Robin has
some of that like experimental, like innovative type stuff in
its DNA.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
Right.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
I remember the uh, you know, the first time I
ever saw like beer floats, you know, with Sam Adams
beer and a milkshake was at Red Robin. Right.
Speaker 2 (29:31):
Yeah, so we're known for those those first of all
in beverage innovation for sure, and we've got a great
team working on things now. You know, we need to
come back and one of the things we're trying to
use his own shakes again to your point, come up
with some cool creative shakes. We're the non alcoholic beverage
we continue to lead away and freckled lemonade is still
(29:52):
you know, our most popular drink and and so yeah,
we're known for that. And the same thing with burger,
you know, gourmet burger innovation. And so you're going to
see some really cool things coming. We have a Lava
Burger coming, which is going to be a really cool
kind of experience at the table. And yeah, that's the
beauty and that's the history of this fifty four year
old brand, iconic brand that it's been known for that
(30:14):
and we want to bring those fun elements back to
this brand. We brought our mascot back, Red, as you know.
I have to tell you, Mike that we had our
town hall where after our earnings, we get our whole
teams together, and we had Red there and we had
a we do a lot with Make a Wish Foundation
and the family. The fifteen year old son was the
(30:38):
wish recipient, but they had his brother was a young
little kid and stall Red and we had a couple
hundred people in this room and I watched this little
kid just walk all the way to follow Red and
then just literally put his hands up in the air
for Red to pick him up. And it was just priceless,
you know. And that's kind of what you want.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
Yeah, that is cool. Yeah, and you know it makes
your job a little more fun. It sounds like can
I could tell the passion you have in your voice
and you talk about the brand. That's great, man. So
uh yeah, it's on my list. Man. This weekend, me
and Jake are gonna make it over to the Seacaucus.
Red Robin. I'm looking forward to it. So thanks again
for doing this. Where can the rest of the members
(31:16):
of the audience find their nearest restaurant, and uh, you
know where can they find Red Robin on social media?
Speaker 2 (31:23):
Well, any of the social media redrobin dot com, and
they can find us and there'll be a restaurant near
them for sure.
Speaker 1 (31:31):
All Right, thanks man, This is it's a great story
and I'm looking looking forward to continuing to follow it.
And you know, I wish your success, all right, my friend.
Thanks all right, and thanks to the audience for tuning in.
If you liked the episode, please share with your friends
and colleagues.
Welcome to Chopping It Up. I'm your host, Mike Hallen,
the senior restaurant and food service analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence.
Today we're joined by G. J. Hart, President and CEO
of Red Robin Gourmet Bergers. Thanks for doing this, Thanks Mike.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Good to be with you.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Yeah, our audience can't see us, but it's good to
see you. Let's let's just jump right in here. Man,
what attracted you to the Red Robin job.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Well, let's let's go back in time a little bit
when when we were building and growing Texas Roadhouse, Red
Robin was in it's really in its prime time and
was really one of the premier casual dining restaurant brands,
and we learned a lot in terms of what they
were doing and doing it well. And the biggest thing
is just how the differentiated space about kids, family, great food,
(01:09):
great hospitality, reasonable price, and so following them, I've always
had an affection form. They were phenomenal around being parts
of communities, giving back to communities, all things that we
were doing at Texas Roadhouse, and so roll forward over
the years, I was asked if I would be interested
in going on the board of Red Robin at the time,
(01:30):
and that was in twenty nineteen and right before COVID,
and I was like, you know, if I could make
some difference because they were, you know, hit upon some
challenging times and I thought, well, shoot, I'd like to
do that. And so going on the board first. And
then when the board approached me about the opportunity to
take over. You know, I had been retired for about
(01:52):
six months at the time, nine total, and I was like,
I was ready. I was too young to not work
and sitting boards is great and I love it, but
it's not the same as operating a business. And so
a lot of things lined up really, really well, and
so I jumped in because I just felt like I
could add some value here and really take this brand
(02:13):
back and make it come back to its roots and
make it relevant for today. So it's been an exciting run.
I'm having a heck of a lot of fun.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
All right, good stuff. I saw some news out this week.
Our friend Nicole Miller Reagan was placed on the board,
which is great. Nicole's awesome. What about the senior management team?
Are they in place or do you still have roles
to fill there?
Speaker 2 (02:35):
Yeah, So we've done We've put together a phenomenal team.
I'm really proud of the group that we've put together.
And the one position that we have left, we've got
an interim who was my former chief people officer Texas
Roadhouse who retired and he came back as interim, and
we're on the final stages of that search. We've actually
(02:56):
got an offer out and there'll be an acceptance I'm
pretty sure for the Chief People Office role and then
we'll be totally complete. But the team is definitely ready,
willing and enable, and we're high functioning and I believe
that we're going to get some high performance out of them.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
Okay, good stuff. So just for the audience that may
not be familiar, what's the store count now Red Robin
and where is it strong geographically?
Speaker 2 (03:22):
Yeah, so the store count today is a total count
of five hundred and ten restaurants. Our strongest markets are
up really on the West coast. Red Robin was originally
founded up in Washington State, so we've got a big
pros big presence up in Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, and
(03:43):
of course you know on the East coast as well.
We're probably a little bit lesser density in the Midwest.
We've got a good presence in the Southwest, but clearly
the West Coast is the predominant portion of Red robin.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Oh okay, So being on the West Coast, do you
think you're going to see any impact from the for
the fast food wage increases that we're we're seeing in California?
I know there have been some people talking about how,
you know, they expect maybe full service chains to have
to pay a little bit more in the kitchen. Is
this something that that you've discussed with the team.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
Yeah, we're we're paying attention to it. Clearly, there'll be
some compression and there'll be some expectations. You know, generally speaking,
if you think about our team members on the West Coast,
particularly in places that there's no tip credit, they're they're
well above that now in terms of total compensation. But
at the end of the day, as you know, there's
an expectation and as those positions in fast food go up,
(04:40):
that they're going to need to go up as well.
So you know, we're going to watch it real closely
and see kind of what's what what's the right course
of action. It's not just about just taking price because
you know, as you know, the consumers ever more sensitive
today to price, So we'll we'll watch it and we'll see.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
Okay, so who is the the Red Robin customer.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Well, it's interesting our our our guest base is pretty
wide and demographics pretty wide, so you get, you know,
a varied income. It tends to skew a little bit
more female generally, which is not surprising candidly although it
being Burgers being premiere, but we do skew that way.
And and it's a pretty wide spectrum from everything from
(05:27):
your from your hard working sort of you know, Middle
America high income folks to two people that are that
are at the high income levels. So that's the benefit
that we do have because we're so family and kid
centric that it allows people to come in and as
they are and feel comfortable in the Red Robin no
matter what walk of life that you're in.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
Yeah, my son, when he was younger, you always loved
the place. And I am a huge fan of the
onion rings too. So uh so I was answering too. Yeah,
all right, cool, why don't we talk a little bit
about the guest experience improvements? You know, all good turnarounds
start with better food and better service. Right, so if
you could talk a little bit about the improvements that
(06:09):
the team's made there.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
So we put together a plan that I really developed
with all the different stakeholders, different folks around the company,
just to realign ourselves on what our north star would
be and what's that overall mission vision and brand promise
and over our core values. And we came up with
this north Star plan and the first part of that
plan was was around people and culture and you have
(06:33):
to start there. And what had happened with Red Robin
over the years, and I've talked about this a lot,
is there were some decisions made for whatever reason that
clearly were not good for the overall guests, nor was
it good for the team ember things like getting rid
of bussers back in twenty eighteen and started to do
away with the expo the need for a senior person
(06:54):
in the expo window, or not having a true management complement,
more generalists and not have kitchen managers or service managers,
and then really challenged by COVID and staffing challenges in
some of the decisions made made it verally challenging for
the company, and so we really started to look back
(07:14):
at the basics around that first started with management compliment,
put back our certified training, restaurants started to go back
to kitchen managers. We've put over two hundred and fifty
kitchen managers in place in addition to what we already had.
And when I say already had, some of the restaurants
did not follow suit with some of the sort of
changes that came down from the corporation. So we started there,
(07:39):
and then we started really building up our staff. And
one of the things that had happened in the hospitality
model was it was more of a team approach, and
in and of itself, that's fine. So you had server
assistants and so servers were having many more cables and
if a server assistant or you had a staffing problem,
which as you know, coming through COVID was close, but
(08:00):
then even coming back was challenging. Now all of a sudden,
a server can't possibly service our guests when they have
ten tables and so without the proper services. So we've
gone more to a traditional model, less tables for servers,
added back busters, added back to the expos stations with management.
So we started there and that was first and foremost,
and then we started working on the food as the
(08:22):
second piece of it. And on the food front, we
changed the cooking process for gourmet burgers because I asked
the question, if our brand promise is about the best
gourmet burgers, are we convinced we could do that with
the what we're doing today And the answer is no.
And so we started looking back and Jeff Brian, our chef,
and I started working on what makes the most sense,
(08:44):
and we changed the whole system to flat top cooking.
So we got rid of the nico the belt driven
ovens that gives us not only a better burger, it's bigger,
it's juicier, all those kind of things. It actually helped
efficiency as well as it us more optionality for menu
development down the road, which is a big part of
our plan in the North Star plant anyway. So I'm
(09:08):
pleased to say that in that whole process, the hospitality
piece has come through. Been in the system the longest,
so we've seen our overall net sentiment for service has
gone up twenty eight percent. So if you serve all
the social data points, I mean, twenty eight percent increase
over this period of time is really I think terrific.
(09:28):
The food is coming now. We did the change mid
year for the flat tops, but we actually in the fall.
We just just recently launched our full menu with where
we've touched eighty five percent of the menu and we've
upgraded ingredients. So we've done things like improve our bund
we've improved our mayonnaise. We've improved our going from a
(09:51):
regular tomato to a vying ripened tomato. We've improved our bacon,
we've improved all of our sauces, so we've touched almost
every part of it. And that was launched just a
few weeks ago and that's doing really really well, and
we're super excited about people really seeing the difference in
our burgers and seeing the difference in our optionality on
the menu because we've added clentres, meaning we've added Whiskey
(10:14):
River barbecue ribs, we've had a tsunami shrimp, we've added
a non fried appetizers with the shrimp, and then we've
added Brussels sprouts and some additions like that that help
us to really have more optionality, less veto vote for
the guests, and so those are the type of things
that we're doing. We've still got a long way to go.
But first, the first hospitality service and people. Now it's
(10:38):
going into food and we're working. We're pretty excited about
what we're doing for twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
Good stuff. And you revamped the market partner program. Can
you speak to that, sure?
Speaker 2 (10:50):
Well, the company was had typical general managers that had
a base salary and a bonus opportunity, and bonuses were
changed each year based on the prior and I'm not
a big fan of that because a lot of times
you tend to leave out the guest experience right at
the end of the day, growing guest traffic and sales
as a result of people doing the right thing, and
(11:11):
if you take care of the people, they take care
of your guests. And so you know, going to a
managing partner compensation program where they really get paid each
month based on their success of their restaurant, to me
makes sense. It gets that sense of ownership, that pride factor.
They become very much involved in every aspect of their
business and they become business people, not just great restaurant operators.
(11:33):
And so we launched it for our multi unit midyear
this year and it's going extremely well. And we started
there so that we can learn and adjust. When you
have a big restaurant count like we do having done
this before. It takes a while and it's difficult to
implement a system like this in a big, big number
(11:53):
of restaurants. So we started there great learning and our
plan is through and we will be rolling out the
managing Partner program right after the first of the year.
And we're excited about it because, you know, we think
it's really going to move the brand forward with that
sense of ownership and pride.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
Yeah, very cool. And you mentioned that customer experience is
included in there, so you know a lot of these
programs people are comped out based on sales, so it
sounds like you have some customer service scores involved in
the compensation structure.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
No, it'll be solely around guest traffic, sales, and profitability. However,
you can't drive sales or profitability or traffic without really
having a great guest experience. So the idea is you
share all these operators, share best practices from it, what's working,
what's not, and they tend to be competitive with each
(12:47):
other in terms of things like guest satisfaction scores. But
all of it flows back that it's about being running
a business, and you know, Mike if you're running your
own business, if you take care of your people, they're
going to take care of your business. So that's that's
the idea here.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
Yeah, for sure, you know, customer service scores and speed
of service and all that stuff is so closely linked
to traffic obviously, totally, totally, all very cool. And so
you're also going to implement the single unit operator program.
Is that going to be similar to what you implemented
at Texas Roadhouse and Torches?
Speaker 2 (13:21):
It will be similar. All the dynamics are different for
each brand, but yes, it would very much be similar
to that.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
Okay, great, And you're making some changes to the loyalty program.
A lot of people in the restaurant industry are making
some changes right now, So can you speak to that
a little bit?
Speaker 2 (13:42):
Sure, Well, we do have a big, big loyalty base.
It's they're about thirteen and a half million members, and.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
Yeah, that's strong for them.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
It is strong, and we're still gaining. The loyalty platform
has historically in my pay and being focused on maybe
not the right thing to me. Loyalties about rewarding your
most loyal guests for frequency and for being loyal to
the brand versus trying to acquire new and then give
them ongoing discounts and ongoing promotional activities. So we're going
(14:18):
to flip that and really start to reward our most
loyal guests. And we're going to go to a point
based system versus what we have today where you've got
to get nine, you get to ten free. So the
points where it's more in real time and we think
makes more sense for our guests going down. And we'll
get that launched and sort of the first half of
(14:41):
next year, and we're super excited about it. What we've
learned is the company was really messaging mostly discount promotionals
to the loyalty base. And what we want to do
is start just having a dialogue and start to individualize
that communication that we can do with our guest base.
That'll tap longer term into how we can communicate on
(15:03):
an individual basis. So we're super excited. It is a
big asset of the company. We think it's we can
lever it the right way, tell our story more successfully
that way, and I'm really liking the path that we're on. Great.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
So you know, on your earnings call, you mentioned that
you saw a shift and that from September to October
and results had improved despite student loan repayments resuming, And
we kind of saw the same thing industry wide. You
may have your improvement may have been larger than the industry,
(15:40):
but we did see some improvement in October industry wide
that we we thought was a little bit surprising. What
do you you know, what are you seeing as there?
You know, and what did you think was the main
reason for that improvement in October?
Speaker 2 (15:55):
Yeah, So in our case, we're making a lot of
changes we just talked about, from management, hospitality to food.
We're doing so much that we think that we're going
to see and are seeing effects of that as a
result of our change. The current bigger picture or macro environment,
(16:16):
it's hard to say and ascertain exactly, you know, how
much is coming from where given all the change that
we've got, But nevertheless, we'll take it right and so
so feeling good about that. And Mike, you may have read,
you know, we had negative comp for the quarter. We
signaled that it was within expectations because again we were
(16:36):
making some decisions to get ourselves out of virtual brands,
because to focus on the brand long term. The Red
Robin brand we think that's the right decision. Well, that's
you know, that definitely comes at at a price. We
have gone away from all this deep discounting in every
channel to be and focused on brand development long term
in providing our guests and experience they can count on
(16:59):
day in, day out, and that comes with the price.
So we had all those things on top of, you know,
within all this noise. So there's just a lot in
terms of us analyzing, you know, just the macro environment
in and of itself. What I would say to you though, is,
you know, I've been pretty pretty surprised how resilient the
overall consumer has been and continues to be, because you know,
(17:22):
if you really look at some of these economic trends,
you know, we feel certain things and things are not
necessarily perfect, but generally speaking, people have more money and
more disposable money to spend. So I've been pretty surprised
at how resilient they've been. So hopefully that continues and
and and then as we make our changes, we'll benefit
(17:43):
and really be able to grow our business.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
Yeah, and it looked like investors were happy with with
the earnings report even though you know, same sort of sales.
One thing went down, So it seems like they're they're
bullish on you know, these changes that you're making and
the direction that Red Robin is moving in. Back in August,
last time I saw you at the prosper conference, you know,
you know, we were chatting it up and I was
telling you how I was surprised how find dining results
(18:09):
had been so poor this year. That was probably the
biggest surprise I've had, you know, throughout the industry. Is
there anything that's surprising you about the US consumer outside
of it being resilient, you know, and whatever else you
had already spoken about.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
Now, you know America, American consumers like to spend right,
So at the end of the day, I don't know
that I'm surprised, I say it. You know, I'm a
little bit surprised, as I just pointed out, But at
the end of the day, that's good news. So yeah,
you know, if there was an overriding concern, I think
it's really centered around more of the geopolitical situation and
(18:50):
just you know, how does that because it definitely affects
people at home, and I think that that that worries
me a bit. There's obviously nothing I can do about it,
but it is something that h that that they do
think about. But at the end of the day, now
there's no no huge surprises of the then how resilient
they are?
Speaker 1 (19:08):
Okay, good stuff and uh you like another one of
your h casual dining competitors made the move to cut
back on discounting, and I think that's important. I don't
think you want to train your customers to only come
to your restaurant when you're offering some sort of a discount.
(19:29):
So can you talk about how that's gone and how
it's going, and you know how this maybe uh you
know might impact your your decision to about how you're
going to deploy marketing spend and if you're going to
increase it or to decrease it over the next year.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
Well, let me let me unpack that a little bit.
And in terms of how it's going, it's going fine.
I think to the to build a brand successfully over time,
you need to provide guests uh uh, the ability to
know exactly what they're going to get when they're that
every time they come in they're going to get that
same type of experience. And sure there's times you want
(20:09):
to promote certain things, but not just to come in
as a result of some discount. So it's going fine. Guys,
we just talked about you know, we felt it in
terms of sales and traffic a little bit, but we're
going to roll over that. And last year the company
was really throwing a lot at all the different channels
and really discounting significantly. So as we roll over that,
(20:29):
we'll get through that. And I do believe with the
changes that we're making, people are experience. We're seeing it
and the feedback that we're seeing as I just mentioned
some of the consumer sentiment data, some of the overall
experience data that we're getting is showing that they see that.
So I think all in all, we're feeling really good
about the progression that we're making and the progress that
(20:51):
we've seen so fully intent and we're optimistic about the
future here in terms of marketing spend, let me just
do with that. One of the things I want to
just say about marketing spend is we're really unpacking and
really taking a look at how do we how do
we use our dollars to be more effective than maybe
(21:11):
what we've been in the past, being very laser focused,
being more community oriented, really targeting as We just talked
about loyalty and using those platforms to make our dollars
work that much harder for us, and we think we
can do that. So at the end of the day,
will we need to spend a little bit more. We've
talked about that, We've been asked quite a bit of that.
We're going to make the right decision because we need
(21:32):
to bust through to get people to understand it. There's
a new day here at Red Robin and this comeback
is real. We're bringing it relevant to today and just
come give us a shot. So we're kind of figuring
out exactly how best to do that, and then from there,
what's the level of investment. It's not going to be
significantly different than what we've done this year, but you know,
(21:54):
this year we've we've cut back the marketing spend to
focus on operations. Get that right. First, you've invested a
tremendous amount back into the business and we've talked about
that on our last earnings call. How many millions of
dollars we've invested back into the company with all the
food investments, in the labor investments and all those things.
So more to come on that, but at the end
(22:16):
of the day, we think marketing dollars, we can spend
a lot more effectively.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
Okay, great, Now, are you you shifting your mix of
traditional versus digital ad spending in the next year or two?
Speaker 2 (22:26):
Yeah, you know, clearly, you know the whole we're going
to have less traditional and more digital. You know, I
think that's the way of the way it is today.
Long term, it's how do we communicate and understand enough
about each individual guest to be able to communicate them
on a one on one level. We're not there yet,
but we think longer term we can get there with
(22:47):
some of those changes, and that's when they real magic
can happen. Is Hey, Mike, you came in, you know,
last week and you got X, Y and Z. Would
you know, would you like to try the same thing
or would you like to try something new? And you know,
those kinds of relations and hips will be important and
through the total guest experience, people want to know, want
to feel special, and we need to be able to
do that in a fun environment where they can come
(23:09):
as they are, and that's what we're going to do.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
Okay, great. Also, uh, you know, you got you have
a lot of a lot of moving pieces. Man, you
have an ambitious plan. It's it's great because it's all
stuff that makes a lot of sense and seems to
be gaining some uh, gaining some steam. But can you
talk about the renovation plans a little bit? I mean,
what what what percentage of the stores do you expect
(23:34):
to touch and how long do you expect it to take?
Speaker 2 (23:39):
Yeah, the when when you talk renovation, why don't we
just say this coming out of COVID as many restaurant
companies struggle to keep up with just general maintenance.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
And oh yeah, R and M is up for all
my companies, this yere.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
And and so to be candid, we're actually, I won't
say they're all renovations, but we're spending the bulk of
our capital dollars going back to get our restaurants where
we need them to be just day to day operationally
and looking right. And so we're spending tremendous, tremendous amounts
(24:15):
of dollars. Having said that, we also know, as we've
got an aging an aging fleet, we need to think
about what does that remodel look like. And we've announced
that we were going to do a few restaurants in
a couple of markets to see kind of what level
of investment we need to make and what kind of
returns that we can get a good return. So we haven't.
(24:39):
We're actually doing the plans now. We will actually do
some of the work for those renovations in the first
part of next year and then we'll monitor those aside
from there. But again, there's so many uses of our capital.
We're trying to be really effective here, and so the
remodel program in the way you're thinking about it will
take numerous years for us to do as we earn more.
(25:02):
It's like I tell people, this is we need to
earn our way, and that's what we're doing and reinvesting
that capital to make sure that we're not just doing
it and just food quality. We're also making sure the
facilities are right and giving our team members the assets
and something that they can work with.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
Yeah, you're doing it the right way, because you know,
if you spend a lot of money on ads and
renovating your stores before you get the operations nailed and
the food improved, what's the point, right, So yeah, that
makes a whole lot of sense. Do you do your
stores employee server handhelds and are there any other tech
(25:42):
enhancements that that you're interested in implementing.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
So again, it's sort of back to basics here, and
we do use handhelds, but to be to be candid,
we're upgrading all of our restaurants. Will have done here
very shortly where we'd have Wi Fi in every restaurant
and so metch of the handhelds that we currently are
using our radio frequency and kind of the old way.
And we are working now to plan to uh to
(26:08):
have handhelds with with Wi Fi and the restaurants. And
we're currently taking our infrastructure and updating all of it
so that we can be so in this century, if
you will. And so I tell people, first things first,
and that's what we're doing. First. Are there plenty of
(26:28):
bells and whistles we can do down the road to
achieve some of the things I've talked about that individual
relationship with guests. We are, but we've got to do
this first. First things first, and so this infrastructure is
really important and the handhelds will be a big part
of that.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
Okay, cool, And what about the sale, lease back traction transactions?
Excuse me, still not recovered from Las Vegas and R FDC.
So if you could give us an update on the
on the cell least back and what do you plan
on doing with the cash.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
Sure, So, we've completed two tranches of it's nineteen restaurants
at this point. We've got one more trench that we're
looking to do and with the two we've actually invested
it back into business. We've paid down some debt, we
talked about that at our earnings release as well, and
we bought back a little bit of stock. So so
(27:20):
our plan with if we get the third trunch completed,
which we're currently working on, then that would go to
reduce debt and at the end of the day, we're
using it to strengthen our balance sheet.
Speaker 1 (27:32):
All right, great, where does where does the leverage ratio stand?
Speaker 2 (27:36):
Well, what we we hope to do, you know, sort
of getting down to a leverage less than two to one.
So we think we'll have that completed by the end
of this year.
Speaker 1 (27:48):
Okay, great, And I heard Red Robin was on the
tonight show and something you mentioned something about a burger
teeny What can you talk a little bit about that.
Speaker 2 (27:57):
Yeah, so we were working with a celebrity bartender group
that was that's a reality star that wanted it that
came to us and our PR team have been working
hard and came with this idea doing a burgertini, martine
and burgertini and basically taking burger juice and a bunch
of ingredients and making a martini and and UH. Anyway,
(28:19):
so then there's this this this UH program called Chainfest,
which is a Michelin star chef out in California in
LA that really likes chains and then takes and really
romanticizes eight brands items to something that he thinks was cool.
And they're doing these big events coming up I think
in early December, and we're one of the restaurant companies.
(28:42):
And and last night on the on the Late night show,
they had had a mission star chef on there and
a couple of the items and most of it was
around Red Robin and and our burgers and UH and
the burgertini. It was a lot of fun. It was
it was a good piece, you know. And look, at
the end of the day, we're anywhere where we can
start to tell people there's a new day here at
(29:04):
Red Robin. We're trying to do and these are just
fun little events that if we have people talking about us,
they're gonna hopefully give us a shot.
Speaker 1 (29:12):
Yeah, it's cool, and I feel like Red Robin has
some of that like experimental, like innovative type stuff in
its DNA.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
Right.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
I remember the uh, you know, the first time I
ever saw like beer floats, you know, with Sam Adams
beer and a milkshake was at Red Robin. Right.
Speaker 2 (29:31):
Yeah, so we're known for those those first of all
in beverage innovation for sure, and we've got a great
team working on things now. You know, we need to
come back and one of the things we're trying to
use his own shakes again to your point, come up
with some cool creative shakes. We're the non alcoholic beverage
we continue to lead away and freckled lemonade is still
(29:52):
you know, our most popular drink and and so yeah,
we're known for that. And the same thing with burger,
you know, gourmet burger innovation. And so you're going to
see some really cool things coming. We have a Lava
Burger coming, which is going to be a really cool
kind of experience at the table. And yeah, that's the
beauty and that's the history of this fifty four year
old brand, iconic brand that it's been known for that
(30:14):
and we want to bring those fun elements back to
this brand. We brought our mascot back, Red, as you know.
I have to tell you, Mike that we had our
town hall where after our earnings, we get our whole
teams together, and we had Red there and we had
a we do a lot with Make a Wish Foundation
and the family. The fifteen year old son was the
(30:38):
wish recipient, but they had his brother was a young
little kid and stall Red and we had a couple
hundred people in this room and I watched this little
kid just walk all the way to follow Red and
then just literally put his hands up in the air
for Red to pick him up. And it was just priceless,
you know. And that's kind of what you want.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
Yeah, that is cool. Yeah, and you know it makes
your job a little more fun. It sounds like can
I could tell the passion you have in your voice
and you talk about the brand. That's great, man. So
uh yeah, it's on my list. Man. This weekend, me
and Jake are gonna make it over to the Seacaucus.
Red Robin. I'm looking forward to it. So thanks again
for doing this. Where can the rest of the members
(31:16):
of the audience find their nearest restaurant, and uh, you
know where can they find Red Robin on social media?
Speaker 2 (31:23):
Well, any of the social media redrobin dot com, and
they can find us and there'll be a restaurant near
them for sure.
Speaker 1 (31:31):
All Right, thanks man, This is it's a great story
and I'm looking looking forward to continuing to follow it.
And you know, I wish your success, all right, my friend.
Thanks all right, and thanks to the audience for tuning in.
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