January 22, 2025 • 31 mins
At its core Tom’s Watch Bar is a “super sports bar,” cofounder and co-CEO Brooks Schaden tells Bloomberg Intelligence. In this episode of the Choppin’ It Up podcast, Schaden sits down with BI’s senior restaurant and foodservice analyst Michael Halen to discuss how hundreds of screens and an upscale menu separate its sports-entertainment venues from the competition. He also comments on the impact of sports betting, Formula 1 and emerging leagues like the WNBA on the business.
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Speaker 1 (00:13):
Welcome to Chopping it Up.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
I'm your host, Mike Halon, the senior Restaurant and Food
Service analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence. Our research and that a
bi's five hundred analysts around the globe can be found
exclusively on.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
The Bloomberg terminal.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Quick shout out to my friend Age for letting me
use this track Still Dreaming for our new podcast intro.
Check them out on Apple Music and Spotify. He's great.
Today we're joined by Brooks Shaden, co founder and co
CEO of Tom's Watch Bar. It's nice to meet you, Brooks.
Congrats on the new gig man.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
Thanks Mike, pleasure to meet you as well, and thanks
for having me.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Short thing, can you describe Tom's Watch Bar for the
listeners that aren't familiar with the brand?
Speaker 3 (00:51):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Tom's, as with a lot of things,
is a startup that we created, you know, years ago
and evolved into what it is today. But at its core,
Tom's is what we call a super sports bar. And
you know, what we've found in our past is that,
you know, in the consumer business, it's really hard to
create new things. So what we tend to do is
(01:13):
find existing things people are familiar with. Twist the frame
a little bit and just bring something new. So we
took the sports bar category and tried to bring something new,
and so we are all about sports entertainment and bring
in a great sports watch experience to fans. Very cool.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
So this may be the most important question I have
for you. What's the audio for Sunday Football?
Speaker 1 (01:34):
What's what do you go with?
Speaker 3 (01:37):
It's it's funny you say that it is a constant
and never ending debate about what to put on for sound.
So that the short answer is it depends on the game.
And what we really try to do is curate both
the screens and the audio. So we have have as
many zones as possible. Because these days there's so many
games people are watching. How do you split it up
(01:58):
so you can watch one game in one second, one
game in another segment and listen to the sound. And
then for other sports like baseball, this sound's not so exciting,
so you got to turn the music. Sure, So it
really depends on what the game is. You know. We
find for basketball, it almost it doesn't even matter what
the commentary is. They want to hear the squeaking of
the shoes and just feel the energy from the stadium.
(02:19):
I mean, that's our overall big goal is we want
it to feel like it's the next next best thing
to being in the stadium, and so we we want
to create that experience and getting the sound on as
part of it. But yeah, it's it's always a little
debit with the debate. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
Yeah, well, you know, first it's the local team and
then if not, maybe game of the week. You know
here in New Jersey, nobody wants to listen to commercials,
so you know, usually have a DJU going for the
for the commercials.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
Yeah, we know, it's fun. We really actually do that
as part of the focus for our brand. We call
it the run a show and we have DJ's or
mcs on for just that reason, because yeah, downtime in
between which game do you turn on? And a perfect
example too, you'll get NBA games on TNT. If nobody's
paying attention, the game ends. Next thing, you know, you have,
(03:07):
you know, some TV show that's played. So it's it's
always a battle to make sure that we keep that
energy cool. All right.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
So from the picks I've seen, I haven't been able
to make it to one yet, but from the picks
I've seen, it looks like a gambler's paradise.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
Is that something that you're really leaning into.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
Yeah, absolutely, the sports betting and fantasy leagues. There's just
so many tailwinds behind sports right now, and it's it
really was what we were trying to build upon. You know,
entertainment and entertainment experience is such a big thing, but
what we wanted to do is lean heavily into entertainment.
That was not something new. You know, we're not producing
(03:42):
the content, we're just trying to feed off of it.
And so what sports betting was one of the big ones,
and what we've noticed it brings is a ton of
fan engagement. You know, if you've got to bet on
the game, people tend to be a little bit more engaged.
It doesn't even matter how much it is. And even
more importantly, notices people aren't just watching one game. You know,
(04:03):
you may be in Denver and you're watching the Broncos.
You gotta bet on the game, but you'd probably have
your fantasy quarterback in a different game and you got
to bet on some other game. So we have it
takes a lot more than just having a lot of
TVs on this the wall. We are very meticulous about
designing the screen so that you're always looking at multiple
So you might be watching the Broncos on the big screen,
(04:25):
but there's lots of other clusters of screens around so
you can watch the game. We make sure that we've
got you know, really powerful Wi Fi because everyone wants
to make sure they're signals strong enough to get the
real time bets in and so that's been a really
big piece of fan engagement. The other funny one too,
is people are betting on different things. You know, it's
not just who wins the game. They stay and watch
(04:46):
the end of the game because they want to see
the spread or did their quarterback get the number of
yards or whatever it might be. So it's it's really
added to that that fan engagement. So yeah, we're not
trying to get directly involved in sports betting obviously, but
we partner with them a lot and promote it and
just make it part of that energy.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Yeah, player Props will have you watch in a game
that's you know, that's a team's down thirty points in
the fourth quarter, for sure.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
I got to say, though, the one thing I've noticed
is that it's pretty remarkable those those odds pickers and
spreadmakers are really really good and accurate. You get, like
you said, the games, you know, teams up by twenty
points and everyone's there still cheering because it's a twenty
point spread. It keeps people on their seats and drink it.
So that's that's what we care about, Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
And I've read the chain places a strong emphasis on
emerging sports and emerging leagues like the WNBA Formula one,
UFC soccer.
Speaker 3 (05:40):
Yeah. Yeah, that's the other big tail. One we've been
noticing is the number of events is growing, but also
the number of sports. So perfect example, right now, we're
in college football season. Right we got the twelve game
College Football Playoff, which didn't really exist before. That's twelve
new games or ten or nine new games that they
(06:00):
didn't have before in our big games, and those are
huge days for us. So it's it's a lot. Each
league seems to be adding games. You have, NBA has
a playing tournament, so they're just extra games. And then
the other leagues that people are watching more, I mean
the w n B A and the tailwent on that
has been unbelievable. I mean that the hyper Caitlin Clark
(06:22):
and all the energy she brought to the league is real.
You know. We uh their opening game I think this
year was at our Mopeakan Sun We have a location there.
They sold out the game. Place was packed for the
opening day of NBA. I was. We just on Monday
opened our next location in Indianapolis. I was glued to
the TV for the w NBA Draft making sure she
(06:44):
got drafted. To the DNA fever anyone was the last
time you kind of put on your calendar w NBA
drafts and then you know, a lot of the other
obvious ones like soccer, Formula one are big popular sports
that are starting to fill in the rest of our calendar.
You know, uh, I don't know if you watch a
few weeks ago, but the Mike Tyson J. Paul fight
right the hype in the marketing they put around that,
(07:06):
regardless of what you think about the fight itself, it
was a big driver. And so that weekend we had
that Tyson Paul fight. There was a Nuggets game that
afternoon on Saturday was college football. That night was a
UFC fight. So the more sports that keep coming, even
with one hundred and fifty TVs, we have a hard
time actually keeping all of these groups hordened off and
(07:29):
to your point, the sound, who's showing what and on
what level. So it's been a really exciting part of
our business. And then it also leads us to how
we design the space where we go, what our locations
look like, what markets are good for it. But it's
been a lot of fun. We spend a lot of
time on Mondays and Tuesdays planning ad for what the
sports calendar looks like for the week.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
Okay, typically sports bars have to hire capex needs due
to the av setup. So how often do you need
to replace the HD screens?
Speaker 3 (07:58):
Yeah, it's interesting that the screen have actually lasted fairly well.
You pay a little bit more for the commercial grade
of screens, you know. Sometimes we often say it'd be
easier if you just say, let's buy the cheap ones
from Costco and replace them every six six months. But
it's what we've really tried to do with the total
buildout is let's skinny down the spend at other places
(08:20):
because the reality is, if we're doing it right, the
place is packed, so you don't see the floor, and
they're mostly looking up at the screens and so they're
not paying attention. Do you have, you know, Italian light
fixtures that you imported for thousands of dollars. They're probably
gonna get broken anyways, So we try to skinny down
on a lot of the other finishes, make the place
a little bit bulletproof, quite frankly, because it gets busy
(08:42):
and growded, and so we can spend more money on
the av and a lot of what we're seeing as
well is it's less about the screens himself. It's all
the technology behind it. And as that continues to evolve,
it's getting cheaper and allows you to do more stuff. So,
you know, at some point we see the vision where
rather than having you know, if you go back a
while ago, you had a manager in the store with
(09:02):
remotes running around all the TVs. Now it's all controlled
from an iPad in the store. We'll get to a
stage here soon. We we'll have you know, immediate coordinator
centrally controlling all of the TVs at every screen around
the country.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
So very cool.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
So what's on the menu, Yeah, so it's at its core,
it's typical sports bar food. You know, we've evolved over
time what works and what doesn't work. We've tried to
bring some other things onto the menu, to try different things,
to be a little bit of an elevated sports bar concept.
But the reality is people kind of want the same stuff.
So our goal has always been let's bring a better
(09:37):
version of what people want. So we're going to have,
you know, Burger's wings, but let's do a better version
of let's do jumbo wings, Let's have a variety sauces.
You know, we got a background on the burger business.
Let's do a great burger to make sure that people
get that. But on top of that, let's make a
few more premium products. We have a prime rig French
dip that's amazing, a little bit higher price point, but
(09:57):
people are willing to pay that to have a little
bit better experience. And then we'll round out the menu
with some great salads. We do an ahy two in
a tower, a poke bowl, some things like that. So
you avoid that kind of veto vote because the other
trend that we've seen, as we're talking about with the
breakfast sports, it's not just you know, college kids coming
(10:18):
to watch I mean, that's not really our audience. We're
trying to bring a little bit better experience, but we're
also saying a much more balanced approach. So our guest
mix is about fifty to fifty male female, and so
we're trying to bring a menu both on the food
side but also the alcohol side that has you know,
a course light, but you also have some cocktails real
(10:38):
elevated as well. So really trying to round it out
without going too broad.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
What is the alcohol percentage?
Speaker 3 (10:44):
So we run on average across all locations about fifty percent.
It's north of that during game days and on weekends,
a little slower outside of that, but it runs north
of fifty percent, which is an interesting business. It's a
heck of a lot easier to run a bar sometimes
is making a lot of food. Yeah? Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
Does that percentage make site selection more difficult in some states?
Speaker 3 (11:08):
Yeah, I don't know if it makes it difficult, but
it definitely adds a different element to how we look
at real estate. So it's interesting as we look a
lot of the other traditional metrics you might look at
we've looked at in our past. You can say, great,
there's lots of rooftops, there's tons of population, lots of traffic,
but are they all at home in bed By seven
and eight o'clock, we're at our core. We're a bar,
(11:29):
so we've got to make sure that we're in those
markets that have enough of a population that's going to
be out at night. And again, we're not at one
or two o'clock am type of bar, but we are
heavy dinner. A lot of places we don't even do launch,
So we just got to make sure that we've got
those statistics. The nice part is these days there's so
much analytics out there. You know, we're not just looking
(11:52):
at the population. You can look at census data to say,
what's the average amount spent on alcohol, how many people
you know, how much do these restaurants to do post
four o'clock, What is the percentage of people that are
in fantasy leagues. You can start to get really more
specific with where to go. And the other piece is
is finding sports fans. You know, every market around the
(12:15):
country is really different with their sports loyalty. We opened
up in Minneapolis about two years ago now, and you know,
downtown struggled post COVID, and so we were a little
cautious about what it was going to look like in
the downtown market, will people come out, And we couldn't
believe We're blown away. It was four times what we
(12:35):
thought it was going to be. And a lot of
it is you just have these sports fans what I
call it multi generational. I was in the restaurant early on.
We're nowhere close to the Viking Stadium, but it was
like a sea of purple in the place, and there
was a grandfather, his son, and grandson all in their
jerseys out and so you just have that. The sports
is in the DNA. So that's our two big goals
(12:57):
is outside of the traditional restaurant real estate stuff is
are there's lots of sports fans. Do they love their
sports and do they stay up past you know, drink
an hour?
Speaker 1 (13:07):
Yeah? How big is your off premise business?
Speaker 3 (13:10):
Yeah, it's not something we've really pushed heavily on. It's
a very very small piece in some of the downtown markets.
We kind of learned it around the COVID timeframe. Two.
We're about entertainment, it's about being in the place with fans,
and so trying to sell food off premise just really
wasn't something that we realized was going to be a
big part.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
Cool and how many units are there?
Speaker 2 (13:32):
Where are you strong geographically if you are, and who's
the core customer?
Speaker 3 (13:36):
Yeah. So right now we are at thirteen, just open
the thirteenth in Indianapolis. We have seven more on the
docket for twenty five, might add a couple more, so
targeting to be around twenty and then doing in that
range of ten plus a year after that. You know,
like a lot of things, you start off small, get
the concept right, turn the dials, pull the levers, and
(13:58):
we kind of reached that state where it o got
the concept rate, we've got the unit economics rate, the
box works, and now we're starting to grow. But initially
we were really opportunistic about finding what we call centers
of gravity, so by stadiums, by convention centers, tourist aarius,
places where there's already a lot of people and they
(14:19):
may not know the name, but they know what a
sports bar is. They just we like to design it
to look like what we call the bug light effect.
Lots of glass, lots of TVs show the bar lighted up,
so even if they don't know what Tom's is, they
can walk by and go, oh, that's a sports bar.
I'm gonna go out of watch my game. And so
that was really because of that. We're all over the country.
Grif we are in La Portland or casino north of Portland.
(14:43):
We're opening up in Seattle. Down to Orlando. On I
drive DC, We're in LA and LA Live. We're in
a casino Mohegan Sun which I mentioned, Minnesota, Houston. We've
hit kind of all the four corners and so now
the strategy will be to start finding more of those locations,
but then filling in around.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
Okay, cool, I'll be in LA this weekend. I'll have
to check it out.
Speaker 3 (15:08):
Yeah. Yeah, we're literally right across from Crypto Dot Chrown.
It just still doesn't quite roll off the tongue yet
from Staple Center Bench, but right across the street. So yeah,
come on in, We'll love that.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
How big are the restaurants and how much they question
to build?
Speaker 3 (15:21):
Yeah, again, it's a little bit of a range. So
you know, on average, I would say our sweet spot's
about eight to nine thousand square feet, but we've got
some as large as twelve thousand, and we've got one
as small as four thousand. We're really trying to cater
towards what the crowd is there. So a only line
when the Lakers were playing across the street, you know
you wish you had fifty thousand square feet, you'll take
(15:41):
all the people as you can get. Yeah, other properties,
the smaller ones in a casino in north of Portland,
it's more constant day park traffics, so you can kind
of keep it full all day long. So it's a
pretty wide range. But that's sweet spots in that kind
of eight to nine thousand square feet. The build cost is,
you know, it really ranges. It's so so diverse across
(16:03):
the country. But as I was mentioning before, we've really
engineered with a lot of the experience we have here
about how to get the kitchen really tight and right.
What we've learned too about the sports business, we get
we get a lot in surges, so you need as
many seats as possible. Because we're a bar heavy, we
can get away with the slightly smaller kitchen keep that
cost down a little bit. You know, concrete floors, basic finishes,
(16:25):
you keep it nice. You know, we don't want to
we really don't want to be that old school sports
bar that's nothing but wood and stinks like old beer
and jerseys on the wall. But you don't have to
spend a lot of money on expensive finishes, so you know,
we've got the ROI really dialed in, and I think
have opportunity to get it even more improved.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
Cool, and it seems it seems like it would be
a great fit for casinos because when I've seen the pictures,
it looks like a very high end sports book.
Speaker 3 (16:52):
Yeah, it's it's funny you say that. It's it's one
of our biggest focuses right now. We have three casino
locations right now. We're in Ohegan Sun in Connecticut, and
then Mohegan Sun built with a partnership out north of
Portland a casino called al and A. And then we're
in the New York, New York casino with MGM, right
on the strip. It's a great location. When we first opened,
(17:15):
the T Mobile Arena wasn't even there. Now they just
opened up, you know, right next door. It's it's a
great partnership because what we've we've found, at least with
the casinos as well, the sports betting business isn't a
huge margin business. They need volume and it's more of
an amenity. So what we really do is partner with
them to help draw people in to come watch the game.
(17:35):
Now they've got them in betting and go into the casino.
You know, if you've been in the casino, you kind
of want to take a break from the floor every
once and like go watch your game, grab a burger,
just relax a little bit. But the other piece we're
talking to we are probably in on Li with about
fifteen different casinos right now, and a lot of it
is exactly what you mentioned. They've got these giant, old
(17:58):
school sports books. There's a lot of horse races and
dogs races on the screens, and there's five guys probably
sipping the same coke that they've been drinking for the
last four hours. And it's not that that has to
go away, but how do you really integrate our sports
bar and do it to add some energy and make
it a more exciting place to be. You know, if
you've ever been out to Vegas during March Madness, you know,
(18:20):
well it's just Mayhem and the sports books. If you
go two weeks before that, it's quite in that same scenario.
If you can create that energy, we can really bring
something special to them and and vice versa. Cool.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
Yeah, Mandalay Bay this was years ago Buddy's bachelor party,
but Mandalay Bay sports Book was one of the best
places you could possibly watch, like fifteen twenty years ago.
Speaker 3 (18:42):
You know, you and I may have been high fiving
each other years ago and didn't even know it. I
was probably there standing next to you for sure. Man.
It's an exciting time, right, you know, and it's a
great reminder of what we're in the business to do.
It's that energy we're trying to bring because if you
think about it, these days, anyone can buy a TV
and put up on their will, right, you can get
(19:03):
all the stats on your phone. Sports fans go out
because they want to be part of a community and
with other people. You know, why do you fly to
Vegas to go watch March Madness Because you want to
be part of that energy. And that's what we're trying
to do and bring around the country is create that
same entertainment and energy in a sports bar. And so
you know, even though we are obviously a restaurant and
(19:24):
our revenue comes from FMB and our operational execution is
about a restaurant, our demand and our sales, all that
is really driven by sports fans. We promote events, you know,
March Madness is it is our biggest month across the
entire country. Because of just that reason, people are coming
out for events and so it's it's a really fun
(19:46):
part of the business. It's it's not just hey, our
burger's better than somebody else, you know, eat lunch here
instead of there. We are very in a very targeted
way reaching out trying to find sports fans. If it's
an AVS game on Thursday in Denver where all the
apps fans out, how do we talk to you come
in for that game, and it's day by day, week
(20:07):
by week, completely different. But the nice part these days
is you can get really targeted with who you're going
after versus just everyone eats and I want you to
eat my place supposed to someone else. So it's a
it's a it's a really different business, but a lot
of fun.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
Is there any other unit economic data you'd like to share?
Speaker 3 (20:24):
Yeah, you know, I think the the interesting part, as
I mentioned before, is we've tried intentionally to not be
very formulae because every market will the design will work
a little bit differently. So we've got some restaurants where
we've got our restaurant that does fifteen million in sales
and we've got as low as four million. Auv's kind
of in that seven million dollar range, but we very
(20:46):
intentionally design those so that the ROI is fantastic on
both ends, you know. And one of the things we've
found in this business, if you try to design towards
a really big AUV, some markets may not quite be that,
and you'll lose money. If you design towards the lower
end and you do more great, But we've really made
sure we can make money at every range of the spectrum.
(21:07):
The alcohol miics is a big part of that, making
sure we remember that we're of our as much as
we are a restaurant, so we've got great margins, which
also allows us to fluctuate throughout the year because there
are seasonal times in this business. In the middle of
the summer and it's just baseball, you're going to have
lower sales, and we just know that if we've engineered
the P and L to make sure that that works
(21:28):
at the low end and the high end that works
as well. So it's the four wall economics are better
than anything I've ever seen in this business. And now
it's ready to go stamp them out around the country.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
Good stuff.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
What percentage of your new store gms are brought in
from existing restaurants.
Speaker 3 (21:45):
Yeah. I mean, the short answer is we try to
make it one hundred percent internal. We adopted a what
we call the operating partner in regional operating partner program,
which is you know, there's others that do it. We
have a big base of folks from Texas Roadhouse. My
co CEO, Shannon McNeil, phenomenal operator, has been in those
(22:05):
business for decades. Came from Garden that was a Texas Roadhouse,
helped grow Cheddars and it's been a game change of
force because it really creates that ownership mentality. And because
of that, we have people clamoring internally for the next
big spot, and not only for the new, next new location.
(22:26):
It's people looking to upgrade. So the operating partner who
runs our small casino that does well, he wants to
upgrade to, you know, the big fifteen million dollar casino.
And so it creates this nice, healthy competition as well,
and so we we call it. Shannon loves to use
the phrase this is invitation only, and he's got people
from his past knock on the door saying, hey, I
(22:47):
want to come join you. Guys, We're like, well, we'll
let you know when you get the end. So it's
it's it's created a nice internal feeder system as well.
You know, there are certain markets where it's it's better
to have somebody that's local from the market and really
knows put people there. So we might go external in
certain markets just for specific reasons, but we really try
to keep a really heavy internal promotion system to keep
(23:11):
that one up going.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
Yeah, Darden and Texas Road to House know how to
run restaurants, that's for sure, man.
Speaker 1 (23:15):
So that's some good pedigree.
Speaker 3 (23:17):
Yeah, they sure do. You know. It's it's been a
phenomenal benefit to our team, and I think really, quite frankly,
the core of part of our successes. We've got a
really great, balanced and unique complementary skill sets on our team.
So Shannon with that kind of background and it's just
a phenomenal leader of people, and it just him as well,
(23:40):
but he brings the next layer of management with him,
and they bring their bench and all of a sudden
you start building out this really big, wide breadth of
operating prowess. But then the rest of our team you
just bring all this great experience across whether it's finance, accounting, operations, strategy, growth,
real estate, you need all of those different pieces, and
so having folks like that, with that kind of pedigree
(24:02):
on our team really really makes a difference, especially when
you're just starting out.
Speaker 1 (24:05):
How's your employee turnover?
Speaker 3 (24:07):
It's great, It's really good. You know it. Again, it
really depends on the market. But one of the things
that really helps is is, well, probably the biggest thing
that helps is exactly what I just talked about. As
you'll know well within this industry, having the right leader
in the restaurant is absolutely at the core of what
we do. You know, there's a very big difference from
our past concepts of a manager running a smash burger
(24:32):
you know burger place that does a million dollars a
year versus a ten million dollar restaurant. I mean, that's
a different level and caliber of managing. And so we've
been very careful to get the right people in house,
and they really help with that retention because they're great leaders,
lots of experience. I mean, most of these guys would
be a regional running you know, ten twenty thirty restaurants,
(24:52):
but here they're operating one and they know how to
keep people. The other big part is we're a big
bar business. So there's lots of and you know, the
numbers I hear from some of the servers on some
of our bigger weekends that they walk away with is
kind of mind blowing. It takes me back to college
days and thinking about the amount of money that I'd
make it a year and they'd make it in the nights.
So it's another piece that really helps. And it's just
(25:14):
a fun business, you know, it's not just constantly serving
food in the typical restaurant business. They're wearing jerseys, they're
high five and in trash, talking with people and the
crowd about whatever game's on. It's just a funness. So
that that turnover is high in this business. It's a
natural part of it, but we've managed to keep it
relatively low compared to any other things we've done.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
Or the end of day, great and how are you
looking to drive Seemstar sales growth in twenty twenty five.
Speaker 3 (25:41):
A lot of it is what I talked about before. Again,
it's different from traditional restaurants, so it's not just how
do we get people to come out and eat or
gain a bigger share of the burger or wing category.
It's really making sure we're promoting all of the different events,
and I would say it's really two things. One, make
sure you know it's obvious. In Denver, the Broncos around
(26:03):
on Sunday, people are going to come on watch in
your la. The Lakers are across the street. You're going
to get people, So make sure you give great service,
great execution, get people through the door. You know, if
you've got a ticket to the Lakers game, you probably
spent a lot of money on. We got to make
sure we get you in, get you out, get your fed,
get your check to you fast. I mean that that
(26:24):
operational design that we put in place to handle those
kind of surges is really important and it's a really
big part of what we do to make sure that
we can get quick turnover. And then on the converse,
when people are coming in to watch a game, they're
not in a rush to get in or out necessarily,
but we've got to make sure that we We've to
very specifically to design the service system, the service model
(26:46):
to have servers and stations always there with you. You know,
that worst thing you can have is an empty drink
when you're trying to watch a game and you're looking
around for the server, trying to find them. So there's
a lot of operational pieces we try to make sure
that we are very meticulous about, you know, a lot
little things that add up. And then the more macro side,
it's about what are the others, you know, don't miss
(27:07):
out and promoting the Jake Paul fight, the UFC fight.
Is there a big soccer match coming on that we
didn't think about and it's on at nine am on Saturday,
or you know, whatever the events may be. It's really
about looking forward to see what other sports are out there,
so we bring people in for more of those events,
you know right now, or our marketing team and was
looking out my door a minute ago. They it's really
(27:29):
quite funny as the bowl predictions keep changing and who's
going to go to what Bowl, who's going to be
in which game, They've got like the matrix up on
the wall and are there on the phone constantly calling
because there's like six hundred different scenarios who's going to
play in which game? And they're on the phone calling
alumni groups saying, hey, come, we'll carve off a space
for you. We want you to come in and watch
(27:50):
your team in our space. So it's those are the
kind of things that we're doing to really drive sales,
to let people know, outside of the obvious games, come
come watch with us, we're gonna we're gonna take care
of you and your fan.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
Yeah, that's great, it's uh, it's definitely adds another level
of planning and and you know, uh, strategy when when
you're so closely tied. You know, I covered Buffalo Wild
Wings for a long time, and you know, the number
of big events every quarter was something that was talked
about on each and every earnings call.
Speaker 3 (28:23):
Yeah, it's it's it is, it's at it's great. It's
the challenges we found and it's just what we have
to do. Every market's different too. You can't have one
global national marketing plan. It's here's the marketing plan for
this week or this month for this location. Because you know,
if the Nuggets are in the playoffs, that's a different
(28:46):
that people in LA may not care about quite as much.
And so we do a lot of research. We use
a lot of analytics on finding out where the fans are.
You know, the obvious games are obvious, it's that next
layer of games, the next layer of fans. We get
a lot of traveling teams too. You know, it's interesting,
especially for the Bowl games or even NFL games that
(29:07):
the team that travels in to see them. You know,
there's a fan club group called the Niner Empire Packers
fan clubs. They travel in and so we'll get just
as busy, if not busier with the away team coming
into visit. So it's it's a really focused and detailed
plan by location by market, but it's uh, keeps on
(29:27):
your toes.
Speaker 1 (29:28):
Yeah, it sounds like fun. Man. All right, So last question.
Speaker 3 (29:31):
It really screws up all of my my sports affiliations
when I grew up in Chicago as a as a
Bears fan and Bulls fans. But now it's it's all
about whoever's across the street and in the market.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
There you go, man, all right, it's a last question
with your favorite order.
Speaker 3 (29:45):
My favorite order, I mentioned it before our Prime Rib
French dip is is unbelievable. It's a it's a big
old sandwich. It'll it'll put you asleep afterwards, but it's
it's a great one that and we you pair it
with we have a signature to handled forty outs beer mugs,
so you take forty ounces as a beer and a
big primary French tip. You'll you'll you'll be fat and
(30:06):
happy to watch the game for the weekend.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
Yeah, you're making me hungry, man, I haven't eaten yet. Awesome,
So looking forward to trying that. Whether it's in LA
this weekend or in Orlando.
Speaker 3 (30:17):
Ahead of ICR, Yeah, we'll be we'll be down there
for for ICR and presenting and and we have a
really cool location on International Drive. We actually built it,
believe it or not. It's on the top floor, the
tenth floor of a parking garage right at the top
of the International Drive. So we have this great, big
patio looks right out towards where Universe is building their
(30:37):
their opening in May, their next theme park, Epic Universal.
So that's this beautiful view out over there.
Speaker 1 (30:42):
All right, very cool. Thanks for doing this, Brooks.
Speaker 2 (30:45):
Where can the audience go to find their nearest Tom's
Watch Bar and what social media platforms should they follow
you on?
Speaker 3 (30:51):
Yeah, thanks for having Mike really appreciate it. We Tom'swatchbar
dot com is the website has all of our locations.
Like I mentioned, we just open up and eat Annapolis.
We got stuff and Moore coming next year. We are
on all the social platforms, primarily Instagram, Facebook. We're on
all those and constantly sending out messages with whatever the
game is it's coming on this weekend, trying to stay
(31:12):
in front of it. So come on out and watch
your favorite team at Tom's Good.
Speaker 1 (31:16):
Stuff And thanks to the audience for tuning in.
Speaker 2 (31:19):
If you liked the episode, please subscribe and leave us
a review.
Welcome to Chopping it Up.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
I'm your host, Mike Halon, the senior Restaurant and Food
Service analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence. Our research and that a
bi's five hundred analysts around the globe can be found
exclusively on.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
The Bloomberg terminal.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Quick shout out to my friend Age for letting me
use this track Still Dreaming for our new podcast intro.
Check them out on Apple Music and Spotify. He's great.
Today we're joined by Brooks Shaden, co founder and co
CEO of Tom's Watch Bar. It's nice to meet you, Brooks.
Congrats on the new gig man.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
Thanks Mike, pleasure to meet you as well, and thanks
for having me.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Short thing, can you describe Tom's Watch Bar for the
listeners that aren't familiar with the brand?
Speaker 3 (00:51):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Tom's, as with a lot of things,
is a startup that we created, you know, years ago
and evolved into what it is today. But at its core,
Tom's is what we call a super sports bar. And
you know, what we've found in our past is that,
you know, in the consumer business, it's really hard to
create new things. So what we tend to do is
(01:13):
find existing things people are familiar with. Twist the frame
a little bit and just bring something new. So we
took the sports bar category and tried to bring something new,
and so we are all about sports entertainment and bring
in a great sports watch experience to fans. Very cool.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
So this may be the most important question I have
for you. What's the audio for Sunday Football?
Speaker 1 (01:34):
What's what do you go with?
Speaker 3 (01:37):
It's it's funny you say that it is a constant
and never ending debate about what to put on for sound.
So that the short answer is it depends on the game.
And what we really try to do is curate both
the screens and the audio. So we have have as
many zones as possible. Because these days there's so many
games people are watching. How do you split it up
(01:58):
so you can watch one game in one second, one
game in another segment and listen to the sound. And
then for other sports like baseball, this sound's not so exciting,
so you got to turn the music. Sure, So it
really depends on what the game is. You know. We
find for basketball, it almost it doesn't even matter what
the commentary is. They want to hear the squeaking of
the shoes and just feel the energy from the stadium.
(02:19):
I mean, that's our overall big goal is we want
it to feel like it's the next next best thing
to being in the stadium, and so we we want
to create that experience and getting the sound on as
part of it. But yeah, it's it's always a little
debit with the debate. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
Yeah, well, you know, first it's the local team and
then if not, maybe game of the week. You know
here in New Jersey, nobody wants to listen to commercials,
so you know, usually have a DJU going for the
for the commercials.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
Yeah, we know, it's fun. We really actually do that
as part of the focus for our brand. We call
it the run a show and we have DJ's or
mcs on for just that reason, because yeah, downtime in
between which game do you turn on? And a perfect
example too, you'll get NBA games on TNT. If nobody's
paying attention, the game ends. Next thing, you know, you have,
(03:07):
you know, some TV show that's played. So it's it's
always a battle to make sure that we keep that
energy cool. All right.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
So from the picks I've seen, I haven't been able
to make it to one yet, but from the picks
I've seen, it looks like a gambler's paradise.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
Is that something that you're really leaning into.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
Yeah, absolutely, the sports betting and fantasy leagues. There's just
so many tailwinds behind sports right now, and it's it
really was what we were trying to build upon. You know,
entertainment and entertainment experience is such a big thing, but
what we wanted to do is lean heavily into entertainment.
That was not something new. You know, we're not producing
(03:42):
the content, we're just trying to feed off of it.
And so what sports betting was one of the big ones,
and what we've noticed it brings is a ton of
fan engagement. You know, if you've got to bet on
the game, people tend to be a little bit more engaged.
It doesn't even matter how much it is. And even
more importantly, notices people aren't just watching one game. You know,
(04:03):
you may be in Denver and you're watching the Broncos.
You gotta bet on the game, but you'd probably have
your fantasy quarterback in a different game and you got
to bet on some other game. So we have it
takes a lot more than just having a lot of
TVs on this the wall. We are very meticulous about
designing the screen so that you're always looking at multiple
So you might be watching the Broncos on the big screen,
(04:25):
but there's lots of other clusters of screens around so
you can watch the game. We make sure that we've
got you know, really powerful Wi Fi because everyone wants
to make sure they're signals strong enough to get the
real time bets in and so that's been a really
big piece of fan engagement. The other funny one too,
is people are betting on different things. You know, it's
not just who wins the game. They stay and watch
(04:46):
the end of the game because they want to see
the spread or did their quarterback get the number of
yards or whatever it might be. So it's it's really
added to that that fan engagement. So yeah, we're not
trying to get directly involved in sports betting obviously, but
we partner with them a lot and promote it and
just make it part of that energy.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Yeah, player Props will have you watch in a game
that's you know, that's a team's down thirty points in
the fourth quarter, for sure.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
I got to say, though, the one thing I've noticed
is that it's pretty remarkable those those odds pickers and
spreadmakers are really really good and accurate. You get, like
you said, the games, you know, teams up by twenty
points and everyone's there still cheering because it's a twenty
point spread. It keeps people on their seats and drink it.
So that's that's what we care about, Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
And I've read the chain places a strong emphasis on
emerging sports and emerging leagues like the WNBA Formula one,
UFC soccer.
Speaker 3 (05:40):
Yeah. Yeah, that's the other big tail. One we've been
noticing is the number of events is growing, but also
the number of sports. So perfect example, right now, we're
in college football season. Right we got the twelve game
College Football Playoff, which didn't really exist before. That's twelve
new games or ten or nine new games that they
(06:00):
didn't have before in our big games, and those are
huge days for us. So it's it's a lot. Each
league seems to be adding games. You have, NBA has
a playing tournament, so they're just extra games. And then
the other leagues that people are watching more, I mean
the w n B A and the tailwent on that
has been unbelievable. I mean that the hyper Caitlin Clark
(06:22):
and all the energy she brought to the league is real.
You know. We uh their opening game I think this
year was at our Mopeakan Sun We have a location there.
They sold out the game. Place was packed for the
opening day of NBA. I was. We just on Monday
opened our next location in Indianapolis. I was glued to
the TV for the w NBA Draft making sure she
(06:44):
got drafted. To the DNA fever anyone was the last
time you kind of put on your calendar w NBA
drafts and then you know, a lot of the other
obvious ones like soccer, Formula one are big popular sports
that are starting to fill in the rest of our calendar.
You know, uh, I don't know if you watch a
few weeks ago, but the Mike Tyson J. Paul fight
right the hype in the marketing they put around that,
(07:06):
regardless of what you think about the fight itself, it
was a big driver. And so that weekend we had
that Tyson Paul fight. There was a Nuggets game that
afternoon on Saturday was college football. That night was a
UFC fight. So the more sports that keep coming, even
with one hundred and fifty TVs, we have a hard
time actually keeping all of these groups hordened off and
(07:29):
to your point, the sound, who's showing what and on
what level. So it's been a really exciting part of
our business. And then it also leads us to how
we design the space where we go, what our locations
look like, what markets are good for it. But it's
been a lot of fun. We spend a lot of
time on Mondays and Tuesdays planning ad for what the
sports calendar looks like for the week.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
Okay, typically sports bars have to hire capex needs due
to the av setup. So how often do you need
to replace the HD screens?
Speaker 3 (07:58):
Yeah, it's interesting that the screen have actually lasted fairly well.
You pay a little bit more for the commercial grade
of screens, you know. Sometimes we often say it'd be
easier if you just say, let's buy the cheap ones
from Costco and replace them every six six months. But
it's what we've really tried to do with the total
buildout is let's skinny down the spend at other places
(08:20):
because the reality is, if we're doing it right, the
place is packed, so you don't see the floor, and
they're mostly looking up at the screens and so they're
not paying attention. Do you have, you know, Italian light
fixtures that you imported for thousands of dollars. They're probably
gonna get broken anyways, So we try to skinny down
on a lot of the other finishes, make the place
a little bit bulletproof, quite frankly, because it gets busy
(08:42):
and growded, and so we can spend more money on
the av and a lot of what we're seeing as
well is it's less about the screens himself. It's all
the technology behind it. And as that continues to evolve,
it's getting cheaper and allows you to do more stuff. So,
you know, at some point we see the vision where
rather than having you know, if you go back a
while ago, you had a manager in the store with
(09:02):
remotes running around all the TVs. Now it's all controlled
from an iPad in the store. We'll get to a
stage here soon. We we'll have you know, immediate coordinator
centrally controlling all of the TVs at every screen around
the country.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
So very cool.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
So what's on the menu, Yeah, so it's at its core,
it's typical sports bar food. You know, we've evolved over
time what works and what doesn't work. We've tried to
bring some other things onto the menu, to try different things,
to be a little bit of an elevated sports bar concept.
But the reality is people kind of want the same stuff.
So our goal has always been let's bring a better
(09:37):
version of what people want. So we're going to have,
you know, Burger's wings, but let's do a better version
of let's do jumbo wings, Let's have a variety sauces.
You know, we got a background on the burger business.
Let's do a great burger to make sure that people
get that. But on top of that, let's make a
few more premium products. We have a prime rig French
dip that's amazing, a little bit higher price point, but
(09:57):
people are willing to pay that to have a little
bit better experience. And then we'll round out the menu
with some great salads. We do an ahy two in
a tower, a poke bowl, some things like that. So
you avoid that kind of veto vote because the other
trend that we've seen, as we're talking about with the
breakfast sports, it's not just you know, college kids coming
(10:18):
to watch I mean, that's not really our audience. We're
trying to bring a little bit better experience, but we're
also saying a much more balanced approach. So our guest
mix is about fifty to fifty male female, and so
we're trying to bring a menu both on the food
side but also the alcohol side that has you know,
a course light, but you also have some cocktails real
(10:38):
elevated as well. So really trying to round it out
without going too broad.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
What is the alcohol percentage?
Speaker 3 (10:44):
So we run on average across all locations about fifty percent.
It's north of that during game days and on weekends,
a little slower outside of that, but it runs north
of fifty percent, which is an interesting business. It's a
heck of a lot easier to run a bar sometimes
is making a lot of food. Yeah? Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
Does that percentage make site selection more difficult in some states?
Speaker 3 (11:08):
Yeah, I don't know if it makes it difficult, but
it definitely adds a different element to how we look
at real estate. So it's interesting as we look a
lot of the other traditional metrics you might look at
we've looked at in our past. You can say, great,
there's lots of rooftops, there's tons of population, lots of traffic,
but are they all at home in bed By seven
and eight o'clock, we're at our core. We're a bar,
(11:29):
so we've got to make sure that we're in those
markets that have enough of a population that's going to
be out at night. And again, we're not at one
or two o'clock am type of bar, but we are
heavy dinner. A lot of places we don't even do launch,
So we just got to make sure that we've got
those statistics. The nice part is these days there's so
much analytics out there. You know, we're not just looking
(11:52):
at the population. You can look at census data to say,
what's the average amount spent on alcohol, how many people
you know, how much do these restaurants to do post
four o'clock, What is the percentage of people that are
in fantasy leagues. You can start to get really more
specific with where to go. And the other piece is
is finding sports fans. You know, every market around the
(12:15):
country is really different with their sports loyalty. We opened
up in Minneapolis about two years ago now, and you know,
downtown struggled post COVID, and so we were a little
cautious about what it was going to look like in
the downtown market, will people come out, And we couldn't
believe We're blown away. It was four times what we
(12:35):
thought it was going to be. And a lot of
it is you just have these sports fans what I
call it multi generational. I was in the restaurant early on.
We're nowhere close to the Viking Stadium, but it was
like a sea of purple in the place, and there
was a grandfather, his son, and grandson all in their
jerseys out and so you just have that. The sports
is in the DNA. So that's our two big goals
(12:57):
is outside of the traditional restaurant real estate stuff is
are there's lots of sports fans. Do they love their
sports and do they stay up past you know, drink
an hour?
Speaker 1 (13:07):
Yeah? How big is your off premise business?
Speaker 3 (13:10):
Yeah, it's not something we've really pushed heavily on. It's
a very very small piece in some of the downtown markets.
We kind of learned it around the COVID timeframe. Two.
We're about entertainment, it's about being in the place with fans,
and so trying to sell food off premise just really
wasn't something that we realized was going to be a
big part.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
Cool and how many units are there?
Speaker 2 (13:32):
Where are you strong geographically if you are, and who's
the core customer?
Speaker 3 (13:36):
Yeah. So right now we are at thirteen, just open
the thirteenth in Indianapolis. We have seven more on the
docket for twenty five, might add a couple more, so
targeting to be around twenty and then doing in that
range of ten plus a year after that. You know,
like a lot of things, you start off small, get
the concept right, turn the dials, pull the levers, and
(13:58):
we kind of reached that state where it o got
the concept rate, we've got the unit economics rate, the
box works, and now we're starting to grow. But initially
we were really opportunistic about finding what we call centers
of gravity, so by stadiums, by convention centers, tourist aarius,
places where there's already a lot of people and they
(14:19):
may not know the name, but they know what a
sports bar is. They just we like to design it
to look like what we call the bug light effect.
Lots of glass, lots of TVs show the bar lighted up,
so even if they don't know what Tom's is, they
can walk by and go, oh, that's a sports bar.
I'm gonna go out of watch my game. And so
that was really because of that. We're all over the country.
Grif we are in La Portland or casino north of Portland.
(14:43):
We're opening up in Seattle. Down to Orlando. On I
drive DC, We're in LA and LA Live. We're in
a casino Mohegan Sun which I mentioned, Minnesota, Houston. We've
hit kind of all the four corners and so now
the strategy will be to start finding more of those locations,
but then filling in around.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
Okay, cool, I'll be in LA this weekend. I'll have
to check it out.
Speaker 3 (15:08):
Yeah. Yeah, we're literally right across from Crypto Dot Chrown.
It just still doesn't quite roll off the tongue yet
from Staple Center Bench, but right across the street. So yeah,
come on in, We'll love that.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
How big are the restaurants and how much they question
to build?
Speaker 3 (15:21):
Yeah, again, it's a little bit of a range. So
you know, on average, I would say our sweet spot's
about eight to nine thousand square feet, but we've got
some as large as twelve thousand, and we've got one
as small as four thousand. We're really trying to cater
towards what the crowd is there. So a only line
when the Lakers were playing across the street, you know
you wish you had fifty thousand square feet, you'll take
(15:41):
all the people as you can get. Yeah, other properties,
the smaller ones in a casino in north of Portland,
it's more constant day park traffics, so you can kind
of keep it full all day long. So it's a
pretty wide range. But that's sweet spots in that kind
of eight to nine thousand square feet. The build cost is,
you know, it really ranges. It's so so diverse across
(16:03):
the country. But as I was mentioning before, we've really
engineered with a lot of the experience we have here
about how to get the kitchen really tight and right.
What we've learned too about the sports business, we get
we get a lot in surges, so you need as
many seats as possible. Because we're a bar heavy, we
can get away with the slightly smaller kitchen keep that
cost down a little bit. You know, concrete floors, basic finishes,
(16:25):
you keep it nice. You know, we don't want to
we really don't want to be that old school sports
bar that's nothing but wood and stinks like old beer
and jerseys on the wall. But you don't have to
spend a lot of money on expensive finishes, so you know,
we've got the ROI really dialed in, and I think
have opportunity to get it even more improved.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
Cool, and it seems it seems like it would be
a great fit for casinos because when I've seen the pictures,
it looks like a very high end sports book.
Speaker 3 (16:52):
Yeah, it's it's funny you say that. It's it's one
of our biggest focuses right now. We have three casino
locations right now. We're in Ohegan Sun in Connecticut, and
then Mohegan Sun built with a partnership out north of
Portland a casino called al and A. And then we're
in the New York, New York casino with MGM, right
on the strip. It's a great location. When we first opened,
(17:15):
the T Mobile Arena wasn't even there. Now they just
opened up, you know, right next door. It's it's a
great partnership because what we've we've found, at least with
the casinos as well, the sports betting business isn't a
huge margin business. They need volume and it's more of
an amenity. So what we really do is partner with
them to help draw people in to come watch the game.
(17:35):
Now they've got them in betting and go into the casino.
You know, if you've been in the casino, you kind
of want to take a break from the floor every
once and like go watch your game, grab a burger,
just relax a little bit. But the other piece we're
talking to we are probably in on Li with about
fifteen different casinos right now, and a lot of it
is exactly what you mentioned. They've got these giant, old
(17:58):
school sports books. There's a lot of horse races and
dogs races on the screens, and there's five guys probably
sipping the same coke that they've been drinking for the
last four hours. And it's not that that has to
go away, but how do you really integrate our sports
bar and do it to add some energy and make
it a more exciting place to be. You know, if
you've ever been out to Vegas during March Madness, you know,
(18:20):
well it's just Mayhem and the sports books. If you
go two weeks before that, it's quite in that same scenario.
If you can create that energy, we can really bring
something special to them and and vice versa. Cool.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
Yeah, Mandalay Bay this was years ago Buddy's bachelor party,
but Mandalay Bay sports Book was one of the best
places you could possibly watch, like fifteen twenty years ago.
Speaker 3 (18:42):
You know, you and I may have been high fiving
each other years ago and didn't even know it. I
was probably there standing next to you for sure. Man.
It's an exciting time, right, you know, and it's a
great reminder of what we're in the business to do.
It's that energy we're trying to bring because if you
think about it, these days, anyone can buy a TV
and put up on their will, right, you can get
(19:03):
all the stats on your phone. Sports fans go out
because they want to be part of a community and
with other people. You know, why do you fly to
Vegas to go watch March Madness Because you want to
be part of that energy. And that's what we're trying
to do and bring around the country is create that
same entertainment and energy in a sports bar. And so
you know, even though we are obviously a restaurant and
(19:24):
our revenue comes from FMB and our operational execution is
about a restaurant, our demand and our sales, all that
is really driven by sports fans. We promote events, you know,
March Madness is it is our biggest month across the
entire country. Because of just that reason, people are coming
out for events and so it's it's a really fun
(19:46):
part of the business. It's it's not just hey, our
burger's better than somebody else, you know, eat lunch here
instead of there. We are very in a very targeted
way reaching out trying to find sports fans. If it's
an AVS game on Thursday in Denver where all the
apps fans out, how do we talk to you come
in for that game, and it's day by day, week
(20:07):
by week, completely different. But the nice part these days
is you can get really targeted with who you're going
after versus just everyone eats and I want you to
eat my place supposed to someone else. So it's a
it's a it's a really different business, but a lot
of fun.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
Is there any other unit economic data you'd like to share?
Speaker 3 (20:24):
Yeah, you know, I think the the interesting part, as
I mentioned before, is we've tried intentionally to not be
very formulae because every market will the design will work
a little bit differently. So we've got some restaurants where
we've got our restaurant that does fifteen million in sales
and we've got as low as four million. Auv's kind
of in that seven million dollar range, but we very
(20:46):
intentionally design those so that the ROI is fantastic on
both ends, you know. And one of the things we've
found in this business, if you try to design towards
a really big AUV, some markets may not quite be that,
and you'll lose money. If you design towards the lower
end and you do more great, But we've really made
sure we can make money at every range of the spectrum.
(21:07):
The alcohol miics is a big part of that, making
sure we remember that we're of our as much as
we are a restaurant, so we've got great margins, which
also allows us to fluctuate throughout the year because there
are seasonal times in this business. In the middle of
the summer and it's just baseball, you're going to have
lower sales, and we just know that if we've engineered
the P and L to make sure that that works
(21:28):
at the low end and the high end that works
as well. So it's the four wall economics are better
than anything I've ever seen in this business. And now
it's ready to go stamp them out around the country.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
Good stuff.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
What percentage of your new store gms are brought in
from existing restaurants.
Speaker 3 (21:45):
Yeah. I mean, the short answer is we try to
make it one hundred percent internal. We adopted a what
we call the operating partner in regional operating partner program,
which is you know, there's others that do it. We
have a big base of folks from Texas Roadhouse. My
co CEO, Shannon McNeil, phenomenal operator, has been in those
(22:05):
business for decades. Came from Garden that was a Texas Roadhouse,
helped grow Cheddars and it's been a game change of
force because it really creates that ownership mentality. And because
of that, we have people clamoring internally for the next
big spot, and not only for the new, next new location.
(22:26):
It's people looking to upgrade. So the operating partner who
runs our small casino that does well, he wants to
upgrade to, you know, the big fifteen million dollar casino.
And so it creates this nice, healthy competition as well,
and so we we call it. Shannon loves to use
the phrase this is invitation only, and he's got people
from his past knock on the door saying, hey, I
(22:47):
want to come join you. Guys, We're like, well, we'll
let you know when you get the end. So it's
it's it's created a nice internal feeder system as well.
You know, there are certain markets where it's it's better
to have somebody that's local from the market and really
knows put people there. So we might go external in
certain markets just for specific reasons, but we really try
to keep a really heavy internal promotion system to keep
(23:11):
that one up going.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
Yeah, Darden and Texas Road to House know how to
run restaurants, that's for sure, man.
Speaker 1 (23:15):
So that's some good pedigree.
Speaker 3 (23:17):
Yeah, they sure do. You know. It's it's been a
phenomenal benefit to our team, and I think really, quite frankly,
the core of part of our successes. We've got a
really great, balanced and unique complementary skill sets on our team.
So Shannon with that kind of background and it's just
a phenomenal leader of people, and it just him as well,
(23:40):
but he brings the next layer of management with him,
and they bring their bench and all of a sudden
you start building out this really big, wide breadth of
operating prowess. But then the rest of our team you
just bring all this great experience across whether it's finance, accounting, operations, strategy, growth,
real estate, you need all of those different pieces, and
so having folks like that, with that kind of pedigree
(24:02):
on our team really really makes a difference, especially when
you're just starting out.
Speaker 1 (24:05):
How's your employee turnover?
Speaker 3 (24:07):
It's great, It's really good. You know it. Again, it
really depends on the market. But one of the things
that really helps is is, well, probably the biggest thing
that helps is exactly what I just talked about. As
you'll know well within this industry, having the right leader
in the restaurant is absolutely at the core of what
we do. You know, there's a very big difference from
our past concepts of a manager running a smash burger
(24:32):
you know burger place that does a million dollars a
year versus a ten million dollar restaurant. I mean, that's
a different level and caliber of managing. And so we've
been very careful to get the right people in house,
and they really help with that retention because they're great leaders,
lots of experience. I mean, most of these guys would
be a regional running you know, ten twenty thirty restaurants,
(24:52):
but here they're operating one and they know how to
keep people. The other big part is we're a big
bar business. So there's lots of and you know, the
numbers I hear from some of the servers on some
of our bigger weekends that they walk away with is
kind of mind blowing. It takes me back to college
days and thinking about the amount of money that I'd
make it a year and they'd make it in the nights.
So it's another piece that really helps. And it's just
(25:14):
a fun business, you know, it's not just constantly serving
food in the typical restaurant business. They're wearing jerseys, they're
high five and in trash, talking with people and the
crowd about whatever game's on. It's just a funness. So
that that turnover is high in this business. It's a
natural part of it, but we've managed to keep it
relatively low compared to any other things we've done.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
Or the end of day, great and how are you
looking to drive Seemstar sales growth in twenty twenty five.
Speaker 3 (25:41):
A lot of it is what I talked about before. Again,
it's different from traditional restaurants, so it's not just how
do we get people to come out and eat or
gain a bigger share of the burger or wing category.
It's really making sure we're promoting all of the different events,
and I would say it's really two things. One, make
sure you know it's obvious. In Denver, the Broncos around
(26:03):
on Sunday, people are going to come on watch in
your la. The Lakers are across the street. You're going
to get people, So make sure you give great service,
great execution, get people through the door. You know, if
you've got a ticket to the Lakers game, you probably
spent a lot of money on. We got to make
sure we get you in, get you out, get your fed,
get your check to you fast. I mean that that
(26:24):
operational design that we put in place to handle those
kind of surges is really important and it's a really
big part of what we do to make sure that
we can get quick turnover. And then on the converse,
when people are coming in to watch a game, they're
not in a rush to get in or out necessarily,
but we've got to make sure that we We've to
very specifically to design the service system, the service model
(26:46):
to have servers and stations always there with you. You know,
that worst thing you can have is an empty drink
when you're trying to watch a game and you're looking
around for the server, trying to find them. So there's
a lot of operational pieces we try to make sure
that we are very meticulous about, you know, a lot
little things that add up. And then the more macro side,
it's about what are the others, you know, don't miss
(27:07):
out and promoting the Jake Paul fight, the UFC fight.
Is there a big soccer match coming on that we
didn't think about and it's on at nine am on Saturday,
or you know, whatever the events may be. It's really
about looking forward to see what other sports are out there,
so we bring people in for more of those events,
you know right now, or our marketing team and was
looking out my door a minute ago. They it's really
(27:29):
quite funny as the bowl predictions keep changing and who's
going to go to what Bowl, who's going to be
in which game, They've got like the matrix up on
the wall and are there on the phone constantly calling
because there's like six hundred different scenarios who's going to
play in which game? And they're on the phone calling
alumni groups saying, hey, come, we'll carve off a space
for you. We want you to come in and watch
(27:50):
your team in our space. So it's those are the
kind of things that we're doing to really drive sales,
to let people know, outside of the obvious games, come
come watch with us, we're gonna we're gonna take care
of you and your fan.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
Yeah, that's great, it's uh, it's definitely adds another level
of planning and and you know, uh, strategy when when
you're so closely tied. You know, I covered Buffalo Wild
Wings for a long time, and you know, the number
of big events every quarter was something that was talked
about on each and every earnings call.
Speaker 3 (28:23):
Yeah, it's it's it is, it's at it's great. It's
the challenges we found and it's just what we have
to do. Every market's different too. You can't have one
global national marketing plan. It's here's the marketing plan for
this week or this month for this location. Because you know,
if the Nuggets are in the playoffs, that's a different
(28:46):
that people in LA may not care about quite as much.
And so we do a lot of research. We use
a lot of analytics on finding out where the fans are.
You know, the obvious games are obvious, it's that next
layer of games, the next layer of fans. We get
a lot of traveling teams too. You know, it's interesting,
especially for the Bowl games or even NFL games that
(29:07):
the team that travels in to see them. You know,
there's a fan club group called the Niner Empire Packers
fan clubs. They travel in and so we'll get just
as busy, if not busier with the away team coming
into visit. So it's it's a really focused and detailed
plan by location by market, but it's uh, keeps on
(29:27):
your toes.
Speaker 1 (29:28):
Yeah, it sounds like fun. Man. All right, So last question.
Speaker 3 (29:31):
It really screws up all of my my sports affiliations
when I grew up in Chicago as a as a
Bears fan and Bulls fans. But now it's it's all
about whoever's across the street and in the market.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
There you go, man, all right, it's a last question
with your favorite order.
Speaker 3 (29:45):
My favorite order, I mentioned it before our Prime Rib
French dip is is unbelievable. It's a it's a big
old sandwich. It'll it'll put you asleep afterwards, but it's
it's a great one that and we you pair it
with we have a signature to handled forty outs beer mugs,
so you take forty ounces as a beer and a
big primary French tip. You'll you'll you'll be fat and
(30:06):
happy to watch the game for the weekend.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
Yeah, you're making me hungry, man, I haven't eaten yet. Awesome,
So looking forward to trying that. Whether it's in LA
this weekend or in Orlando.
Speaker 3 (30:17):
Ahead of ICR, Yeah, we'll be we'll be down there
for for ICR and presenting and and we have a
really cool location on International Drive. We actually built it,
believe it or not. It's on the top floor, the
tenth floor of a parking garage right at the top
of the International Drive. So we have this great, big
patio looks right out towards where Universe is building their
(30:37):
their opening in May, their next theme park, Epic Universal.
So that's this beautiful view out over there.
Speaker 1 (30:42):
All right, very cool. Thanks for doing this, Brooks.
Speaker 2 (30:45):
Where can the audience go to find their nearest Tom's
Watch Bar and what social media platforms should they follow
you on?
Speaker 3 (30:51):
Yeah, thanks for having Mike really appreciate it. We Tom'swatchbar
dot com is the website has all of our locations.
Like I mentioned, we just open up and eat Annapolis.
We got stuff and Moore coming next year. We are
on all the social platforms, primarily Instagram, Facebook. We're on
all those and constantly sending out messages with whatever the
game is it's coming on this weekend, trying to stay
(31:12):
in front of it. So come on out and watch
your favorite team at Tom's Good.
Speaker 1 (31:16):
Stuff And thanks to the audience for tuning in.
Speaker 2 (31:19):
If you liked the episode, please subscribe and leave us
a review.
Host
Michael Halen
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