August 18, 2025 • 45 mins
In this episode of the Restaurant Technology Guides podcast, host Jeremy Julian interviews Brian Reece and Steve Crowley, co-founders of Service Physics, a consultancy focused on optimizing restaurant operations. The discussion delves into the concept of service physics, which helps improve productivity for staff and guest experiences in restaurants. Brian and Steve share their background, the principles of lean manufacturing and Kaizen, and how they align business goals with operational efficiency. They emphasize the importance of using data to drive changes, the value of customer and staff feedback, and methods to ensure long-term implementation success. The episode concludes with information on an upcoming workshop in Dallas aimed at making their methods accessible to a wider audience.
00:00 Service Physics
00:14 Introduction and Guest Welcome
01:29 Meet Brian and Steve: Background and Journey
04:08 Service Physics: Concept and Mission
06:58 Lean Manufacturing and Kaizen in Restaurants
12:41 Evaluating and Improving Restaurant Operations
16:01 Aligning Business Aspirations with Operations
19:41 Addressing Sacred Cows and Customer Feedback
23:50 Myth-Busting Customer Value
25:02 Empathy Through Technology
25:52 Empowering Staff Voices
26:56 Problem-Solving Acumen
29:33 Guest Experience Challenges
35:18 Engaging with Service Physics
42:10 Transforming the Industry
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
This is the RestaurantTechnology Guides podcast,
helping you run your restaurantbetter.
In today's episode, I am joinedby the founders of Service
Physics.
Service.
Physics is a professionalservices organization that, uh,
helps restaurants to optimizetheir restaurant experience so
(00:26):
that they can drive the bestproductivity for their staff,
for the guest, and deliver onthe guest experience that
everybody promises.
Brian and Steve go really deep.
I got super nerded out on the,the things that they've done for
people.
Love to share that episode.
Um, please stay tuned until theend.
'cause we talk a lot about howsome of the biggest brands in
the country continue to optimizeto make things better.
(00:49):
If you don't know me, my name isJeremy Julian.
I'm the Chief Revenue Officerfor CBS Northstar.
We sell the North Star point ofsale solution for multi-units.
Check us out@cbsnorthstar.comand now onto our episode.
Jeremy Julian (01:02):
Welcome back to the Restaurant Technology Guys
podcast.
I thank everyone out there forjoining us.
as I say each and every time.
I know you guys have got lots ofchoices, so thanks for hanging
out today.
We are joined by a differentstyle of guests.
I think this is the first timeI've had, uh, a team like this
on the show, but I'm excitedfor, uh, for Brian and Steve to
share a little bit about whatthey do.
But I'm gonna kick it over toyou, Brian.
First, why don't you introduceyourself.
(01:24):
You can introduce your partner,talk a little bit about kinda
your guys' background.
Then we'll talk about, uh, whatyou guys have been doing the
last few years.
Brian Reece and Steve Cro (01:29):
Yeah, thanks for having us on.
Really excited to be here and,connecting with you and your,
and your audience.
my name is Brian Reese, one ofthe co-founders along with Steve
of service physics.
Uh, we're kind of a consultingcompany that does consulting
wrong, we've never beenconsultants, but we've got a
unique view on the world and,uh, really, uh, see a lot of
opportunity for the restaurantindustry to kind of think
(01:50):
differently about operations.
so.
I'm based in upstate New York,two daughters and I love, uh,
barbecue.
Jeremy Julian (01:58):
I love it.
ironically, I had barbecue, uh,today, uh, for lunch.
So had one of my favoritebarbecue places here in town,
so, it's, uh, it's hard, hardnot to get good barbecue here in
Texas, so there's that.
Brian Reece and Steve Cro (02:09):
Texas style is where it's at.
Jeremy Julian (02:10):
Awesome.
Well, uh, you want to introduceyour partner?
Brian Reece and Steve Cro (02:13):
Yeah.
I mean, Steve needs nointroduction really.
But, uh, I will say, uh, he's,you know, we've been working
together for 10 plus years.
We met working at Starbucks,back in 2012 when I joined
Starbucks.
Uh, but I'll let Steve tell his17 year, Starbucks story and
that leads a little bit into thecompany service physics, and how
we got here.
(02:33):
Awesome.
So, yeah, thanks for the, the,the brief intro.
The longer intro is that, um.
I'm based in Des Moines, Iowa.
Uh, although we're calling youtoday together, we're not
normally in the same, uh, roomat the same time.
We thought we'd use thisopportunity.
We're in Boston, Massachusettsconducting some business
meetings and visiting someclients.
Uh, I'm originally from Boston,so this is kinda a little bit of
(02:54):
a homecoming for me.
lived all over the country.
We started the company whenBrian and I both lived in New
York City.
Um, during COVID, we both tookthe opportunity to.
Uh, live in other places.
And now hail from Des Moines,Iowa, uh, which is really great.
Uh, we don't have a, a companyheadquarters, um, anywhere that
everybody goes to work in everyday.
And we've got about a team of 20people that are distributed, not
(03:16):
only nationally, but uh,internationally.
and we like to consider ouroffice, our clients,
restaurants.
so we put a lot of value ongoing to see being where the
real stuff is happening,collecting data, working with
the team.
and so working, from the middleof the country is great because
it doesn't take me a full day toget from coast to coast.
I can be anywhere, you know,first thing in the morning and,
even sometimes get home duringthe same day, uh, which is
(03:38):
really great.
Uh, Brian mentioned we metworking at Starbucks.
I started working at Starbucks,uh, in the nineties.
at that time, Starbucks wastalking a lot about, open the
2000 store by the year 2000.
That was kind of the, the battlecry.
we did it.
Uh, I didn't have much to dowith that at the time I was a
barista.
but over the course of a coupledecades, held all of the field
positions, uh, in operations.
(04:00):
And about halfway through thatjourney transitioned into a
corporate headquarters position,working in operations strategy,
uh, which coincidentally, andthis is sort of one of those,
Lucky unlucky moments as, as thecountry was facing the great
financial crisis and Starbuckswas in a lot of hot water, I was
able to join an operationsstrategy team who at the time
had partnered with Toyota, uh,to learn about better ways to
(04:21):
think about work, uh, andoperations and creating flow and
simple, uh, repeatable, uh, workroutines for.
Uh, employees, and it was duringthat time we started to codify,
uh, the practice that we nowcall service physics.
Brian and I went on to worktogether again at Anheuser-Busch
in Bev's innovation arm calledZX Ventures, where we were,
(04:42):
basically hyper scaling.
We opened above 550 bars andrestaurants in five years across
13 countries.
Uh, and no matter what.
Operating format brand, local,cultural or regulatory
differences that exist.
These ideas around servicephysics we're transcending all
of these, uh, boundaries andobstacles.
And we just had this moment, uh,at one of our brew pubs in
(05:05):
Patagonia, Argentina, which wenow consider the spiritual home
of service physics, uh, thatthis.
Practice was too good to bereserved for the biggest beer
company and the biggest coffeecompany in the galaxy when 99%
of the industry is small, mediumsized business, uh, in an
industry that has a brokenequation, between, you know, the
employees, the customers, andthe owners.
(05:25):
It's known for being a low, uh,margin industry, a low wage
industry.
And if we're all really honest,nine times outta 10 when we go
to a restaurant, there'ssomething that happened that we
wish didn't.
and so we know that there's abetter way, and service physics
as a practice is the way to dothat.
And our mission as a company isto make service work better for
people.
And it's meant to have a doublemeaning.
(05:45):
Both make the work better forthe employees to do and then
make service work better for thepeople who are receiving it.
and then that always boils downto a better margin for owners.
So, that's who we are and whatwe do.
Jeremy Julian (05:57):
Love that.
well, and I know we'll dig quitea bit in tech, kind of how you
guys do what you do, for ourlisteners out there, and I've
got so many introductions togive you guys after that intro
of people that I know are,aligned with what you guys do
and might do it a little bitdifferently or do it in a
different way that could beadjacent to.
And I think we could probablyalso, uh.
Also wrap about some of the, uh,former Starbucks people that
(06:17):
have now spun off that we alsodo business with and have been
on the show.
So, but you guys, talked aboutkind of, I don't wanna say lean
manufacturing and Kaizen.
I know that that was part ofwhat we had been talking about
for our listeners that are lessfamiliar with, with even what
that means because I got somebooks on my shelf over here and
Six Sigma and just all of thesedifferent things related to, a
lot of times people that I talkto that are in the restaurant
(06:39):
industry, don't consider.
The manufacturing practices ofToyota to resonate with what's
going on within what I stillcall, I think restaurants are
still manufacturing plants.
There's many manufacturingplants that are taking raw goods
and turning'em into a finishedgood and selling them to'em.
It just happens to be perishablegoods and it happens to have a
very tight timeframe.
But I'd love for you guys toeducate our listeners what is
(07:01):
Lean Manufacturing and Kaizenjust kind of at a macro level
because I think it'll really diginto what service physics is
helping to educate, um, yourguys' customers on.
Brian Reece and Steve Crowl (07:11):
You or me?
Well, I'll tee it up for you.
I, You know, the, what is leanquestion, is the perennial
question.
And it's actually very difficultto describe because it's, it's a
lot of things.
And even if you go to the LeanEnterprise Institute website, I
think they told us that the,what is Lean page is the most
popular page, uh, on there.
And so it is a, it's difficultto grasp because it's a lot of
things, and I think most peoplewould say it's a bit of a
(07:33):
mindset.
Uh, and so it's a continuousimprovement mindset.
Things can always be improved.
Things can always be better.
Uh, and it's usually.
Uh, and, and one of the thingswe really espouse, it's a minds
before wallets approach.
So let's go look at the workthat we're asking people to do
every day that creates value forthe customer.
And how do we remove everythingfrom that process that is not
adding value?
(07:53):
So how do we get rid of all thewaste?
There's lots of waste in everyproduction process.
And, it's sort of just a factof, of, uh, reality.
That's why we call ourselvesservice physics.
There's a physics to the work,uh, that, you know, just
requires, uh, you to pick thingsup and move things around.
but if we can reduce the amountof motion waste or waiting waste
in a production process, thatgets back to that making work
(08:16):
better for people.
so Steve, yeah, the thing Iwould, I would add to that, and
this is a little bit of a, aprovocation, for you, but.
Lean is a technology.
Um, and so we often think abouttechnology as being digital or
having wires and clouds and APIsand all these things.
but you know, when we wereinvited to be on the podcast,
(08:36):
the first thing I thought waslike, what business do we have
talking about, you know, digitaltechnology?
But then when I started to thinkabout.
You know, the definition oftechnology, it's more about the
application of scientificknowledge for practical purposes
than it is about like hardwareand software.
Um, but even
Jeremy Julian (08:52):
it's also taking a process and and accelerating
it to help create a better guestexperience and a better staff
experience, which ultimately isa lot of what you guys do.
Sorry to interrupt you, but Ijust think it's so critical to
understand that it, technologyfor technology's sake, and I say
it all the time, is worthlesstechnology that makes the guest
experience better and thestaff's experience better and
ultimately the shareholders'experience better is where it's
at.
So sorry.
(09:13):
I'll let you, I'll let you keepgoing, but that is so critical
for people to consider becausethey don't.
Brian Reece and Steve Crowl (09:18):
No, you're, you're absolutely right.
And there are all kinds ofexamples in history where
technology has outstrippedoperational practices.
So like a really good example isthe Civil War, right?
So there were massive upgradesin the technology around
weaponry and communication.
yet we still lined up in thesetraditional battle lines and,
you know, just massacred eachother.
(09:39):
and so it, it's really importantthat.
people think about.
Lean as on a, a as a long gameas a transformation.
Um, but it really is about dailytransformation and making small
upgrades all the time where thetechnology and the operations
match each other and worktogether.
but to, to hit the nail on thehead when, you know, the
audience is probably stillthinking like, yeah, but what is
(10:00):
it?
Um, there are a few coreconcepts I think that.
really embody the practice.
Uh, and Brian mentioned there's,there's a lot to it and part of
the, the, genesis story ofservice physics is really
recognizing that there's toomuch to do all at once.
And really, if we can justdistill it down to like a
minimum effective dose ofknowledge to get people started,
then those people get off to theraces and now they're on a
(10:22):
learning journey that reallynever ends.
Um, but when we talk about leanspecifically, we're really
talking about the practice ofdifferentiating between activity
that creates value, which wedefine as work and activity that
does not create value, which iswaste.
And so if you think about it asa pie chart, um, you know, it's
a big circle that representssome amount of activity, is
creating value, and some of,some amount of activity is not
(10:43):
creating value.
Most business activity.
Is super wasteful.
and all you need to do is go andsee it.
And once you go and see it, andyou put the right processes in
place, where most of what peopledo is creating value and instead
of, creating waste, then we canthink about like what, you know,
digital technologies orequipment can we bring in to
take the processes that alreadyexist and start to remove more
(11:04):
friction from them.
and so I think it's a reallygood place where like these two
technologies come together.
Jeremy Julian (11:09):
And I love that and I, I want you guys to dig
into kind of how you guys goabout that.
But I also would love,'cause Iwent on my own lean journey a
while back and, and especiallyin restaurants, I'm certain of
it, you guys run into this whereit's like, but it only takes me
30 seconds, but it only takes me30 seconds to grab, Even in a
Starbucks case, I had a guest onthat's building an automated,
um, not an automated baristaaltogether, but a barista that
(11:32):
can help with some of the mixes.
You know, so many of the drinksare, are mixed drinks, um, and
are cold.
You know, we talked about somestatistics and the amount of
math that you have to do.
It's like, how do we get itfaster for the baristas so the
guests can be better?
Those types of things.
as the, you know, customer'spals have changed, but it's
like.
You talk to people and it'slike, well, it only takes me 30
seconds to go grab the oat milk.
(11:52):
that 30 seconds, if you, if youdo it 10 times a day, is how
many minutes a day that you'renow cutting out of, to your
point, waste.
Um, so talk me through, I guessjust in general, at a high
level, you guys are at a placewhere.
You guys are trying to findthose areas of opportunity to
accelerate.
So I guess let's, let's startwith you, Steve.
(12:13):
You know, where are those areaswhen you guys go in and look
with brands?
And funny enough, as I lookthrough the brands that you guys
have worked with, 1, 2, 3.
Four, five of'em have been onthe show at some point.
Of the brands that you guyshave, that you guys have worked
with, at least that your guys'pr company sent over.
Um, so I guess how, where do youguys start as you guys are
evaluating brands that you mightwork with to, to figure out
(12:36):
where the lowest hanging fruitis?
'cause oftentimes that momentum,I know will, will accelerate
things.
Brian Reece and Steve Crowle (12:41):
So you're not gonna love this
answer, but it depends.
we'll start wherever we can, uh,because for us it's, you know,
very important to build therelationship, but the work can't
begin until first we understandwhat the businesses aspirations
are, what are they, what valueare they trying to bring into
the world?
And that can happen before weever step, step, foot in an
operation.
(13:02):
Uh, but the very next thing wedo is go and see.
Um, so we use that, that phrasego and see quite a bit.
There's no substitute for beingin the, the presence of what we
call the three reels.
Uh, real people, real place,doing real work.
You can add some more reels,dealing with real inventory and
real customers and real, all thethings that get real when you
get into the operation.
Uh, and we have a standard, Sortof like baseline of data that we
(13:24):
like to collect that really istrying to match inflows and
outflows and find bottlenecks,uh, within the operation.
So it could be things like, uh,what is the, the utilization
level on each piece ofequipment.
Um, what we hear often, uh, I'dsay more than 80% of the time is
operators asking for highercapacity, larger, more efficient
(13:45):
equipment.
but then when we go and collectthe data, uh, we've yet to find
one restaurant across, you know,tens of thousands of restaurants
of data, that we've collectedthat is using their equipment
more than 50% of the time duringpeak periods.
and so you, you start sayinglike, we need another double
fryer, so we're gonna have tolike, extend the hood and move
this refrigerator down, installnew electrical.
(14:05):
And it's like, but yeah.
The two double fryers that arehere use less than half the
time.
So there's something else goingon.
Uh, the next thing we'll do is,is look at how people are
spending their time.
Are they actively working onsomething?
Are they idle, not working onanything?
They're ready to do work.
Are they walking between twopoints?
Are they completing some tasksthat could be done later in the
day?
And then we try to get a matchbetween, the equipment.
(14:26):
Utilization and the humanutilization.
And, you know, the practice oflean helps us put people and
equipment together in sort oflike a well orchestrated, uh,
ballet so that we can keep thatequipment running, keep the
machines busy so we don't haveto make the people busy.
And often the people are likebusy.
Moving around from place toplace.
Uh, and so motion Kaizen isusually like the first place we
(14:47):
go to, to drive improvementbecause sometimes it's
impossible to see the otheropportunity that exists when
there's a whole bunch of likenoise and the motion that's
happening on top of that.
So, uh, again, understandingwhat the business aspiration is.
Going to the operation tocollect some data, understand
the current state, and thendoing some motion kaizen to calm
the noise a little bit.
And then we start to think aboutlike, how does this system,
(15:08):
perform today versus how couldit perform in the future to get
to what the business'saspiration for value delivery
are in the first place.
Jeremy Julian (15:15):
Love that.
I'm gonna pivot to you, Brian.
so how often do you guys walk inand have a misalignment from
what the business says theywant?
Versus what actually happenswhen you get into the operation.
'cause we see that often, we'regonna go to the moon, but then
everybody in there is like, no,no, no, no, no.
We wanna go to the beach.
Like we're not gonna the moon,we're gonna the beach.
'cause that, that's really whatwe want to do.
And, and now you guys are stuckin this consulting place where
(15:37):
you've gotta, now only, not onlythe executives are saying, we
need to go here, we need todrive sales, we need to drive
customer engagement, whateverthat is, we need to reduce
waste.
But then you get in on theground floor and all of their.
bonuses and all of their metricsand all of those kind of things
are very different.
Does that happen often?
I see both of you guys smiling.
For those that are sitting onvideo, you're like, yes, can you
go in and talk to some of mycustomers?
(15:58):
'cause we need some more ofthat.
So I'd love to, I'd love to hearyour opinion on that.
Brian Reece and Steve Cro (16:01):
Yeah, I mean unfortunately it does
happen more often than we'dlike.
but another piece of the leanapproach is, systems thinking.
Uh, and so the reason I bringthat up is, you know, we've,
Stumbled into, or, you know,just sort of, developed an
evolved our sales process thatwe can kind of weed out some of
that misalignment ahead of time.
So we really try not to, youknow, start an engagement
(16:23):
without a really clear alignmentto, that scope and, and to your
point, like, are we gonna thebeach or are we gonna the moon?
We try to align that before wesign on the dotted line,
together.
And, I think for better orworse, oftentimes that has.
Uh, killed, uh, opportunitiesfor, for us as a business.
But, uh, to your point, there'sno, uh, and, and maybe like a
another, uh, lean saying wouldbe there's no, nothing so
wasteful as improving that,which should not be done in the
(16:45):
first place.
So if we're trying to improve asystem that's designed to go to
the moon, but management wantsto go to the beach, that's just
all waste and all, all, Timespent, not rowing in the right
direction.
So we really try to avoid that,as much as possible.
but in the occasions when, youknow, we are potentially
misaligned, we always, go to thedata.
Uh, and so it really depends on,as Steve was saying, kind of
(17:05):
what the situation is.
but I guess I'd be remiss if Ididn't mention that we have an
app, uh, on the app store thatallows, uh, operators to go into
their operation and collect thisdata, the same data that we
would use.
To go and understand, you know,um, not just like the typical
metrics of sales or throughputor, you know, average order
value and, and some of theseother things.
(17:26):
But, you know, what are thoseleading indicators?
what's happening in theoperation and how can we
quantify that and show thatthis, upstream process, area is
actually what's driving orlimiting your ability to sell
more, uh, to, to your customersor driving those really high
wait times or, you know, thosekinds of issues.
So, uh, we really try to let thedata do the talking.
(17:46):
And in fact, you know, we'll gointo an operation and meet an
operator for the first time andthey'll say, well, what do you
think?
And we say, well, we don't haveany data.
And so we'd prefer to wait untilwe have the data to, to draw any
conclusions because.
You know, opinions are, are justthat.
And so much of, and you know, wesay we do consulting wrong.
So much of, uh, restaurantconsulting is folks leveraging
their, you know, experience andjust giving their opinion.
(18:08):
Uh, and we really lead with dataand try to let the data do the,
the convincing, uh, that maybethe moon is, is the right place
to go instead of this beach.
And, uh, so we'll, we'll takethat approach, uh, when,
whenever there seems to be amisalignment, just like what
does the data say and how canwe, how can we look at reality?
Uh, versus, um, a made upfiction of reality.
Can I add a a little bit to thatbefore the next question?
(18:29):
So, um, Brian mentioned earlierthat lean is really a, a
mindset, it's a way of thinking.
and.
One of, you know, Brian and Iboth worked in Fortune 500
companies for more than adecade.
Uh, and Brian was in with theDepartment of Defense before
that.
So not a Fortune 500 company,but also a massive organization.
and we know what it's like totry to drive change within an
(18:52):
organization.
There's a lot of politics,there's a lot of competing
priorities.
There's competing for budgets.
One advantage that we have.
is that when people come to us,they've already, completed the
most important step of problemsolving, which is admitting that
you have a problem in the firstplace.
Um, and so we we're already pastthat when things don't go wrong,
and Brian said that we couldkind of weed some of this out in
(19:13):
the sales process is.
When folks come to us becausethey've been pushed to us by
somebody else, or they, they're,too proud to admit that there's
something wrong, um, it'susually not going to be a good
match.
the mindset requires us toreally love problems, uh, not
try to sweep them under the rug.
Like the bigger the problem, themore upside there is in solving
it.
Uh, and so let's, let's get upunder it and find it.
Jeremy Julian (19:35):
Well, and I think that was where my next line of
questioning was going.
Uh, Steve was really wrappedaround.
I'm certain you guys often alsofind sacred cows within the
businesses where the data showsyou that you need to kill this
menu category.
Uh.
But the CEO, it's his favoritemenu category or some board
member, or it's what built thebrand or, we talked a, a little
(19:57):
bit earlier, you know,cheesecake Factory, for many,
many years still had some oftheir CEO's favorite menu items.
Fortunately, as years have goneon, have, but they used to have
liver and onions still on themenu.
In the nineties, you don'treally need liver and onions.
I mean, and again, probablythere's people out there that
are eating liver and onionsevery day, but like, it's not
really, you know, in the, eventhe nineties, which is a long
time ago, but still, it wasn'tnecessarily something that you
(20:18):
would want to have.
I'm certain you guys find sacredcows, whether that's menu items,
whether that's the way you dobusiness, whether that's the,
we're absolutely not gonna go tothird party delivery, or we're
only gonna pick one third partydelivery provider.
Help us understand kind of.
How, not necessarily how youguys deal with the executives,
but what is the mindset shiftthat, that you guys help people
(20:39):
have to come through torecognize that there is a sacred
cow that they at least need toevaluate from the data?
Because as I'm thinking aboutour listeners, there's a lot of
times they probably know there'sa problem out there.
They just aren't willing to lookin the mirror in a very hard way
to say, let me go solve thisproblem.
Brian Reece and Steve Crowley (20:58):
I have like three things I wanna
say.
I know, that's a good question.
Well, one, uh, I'll just kind oftee Steve up with one, one, uh,
thing that, I always go to,which is the voice of the
customer.
So we have, we talked earlierabout, you know, lean being all
about.
creating value for customers.
And so I think it's reallyimportant to get clear on what
(21:18):
that value is.
And so we've developed apractice around, uh, it's a
consumer insights practice, butallows us to get really clear on
what value is, what are theyexpecting when they pay, you
know, your restaurant for, forthe experience, for the product,
for the service.
And so we can get really clearon what that is.
And, uh, we've got a few storiesof, you know, when we go and
(21:39):
actually talk to customers andask them to rate.
Your restaurant against what yousaid.
The value was, there's alwayssomething at the bottom of that
ranking, right?
And it's like really at thebottom and almost every time
that is some sacred cow that thefounder or CEO is like clinging
onto.
And we've actually seen somesuccess in saying like, look.
(21:59):
This is what your customers aresaying.
We quantified it, we talked tothem.
This is just not important tothem right now.
Let's move on on these thingsthat we know we're really,
nailing in terms of valuedelivery and we've got some
opportunity, you know, to, todeliver more value more
consistently.
And so let's put this one on theshelf for just a little while,
while we go focus on what'sgonna really move the needle for
the business.
(22:19):
Uh, so again, it's just bringingthat data back into it, but, I'm
amazed how many business ownersdon't.
talk to their customers with anyirregularity.
Uh, so I, I would alwaysadvocate for the invoice of the
customer.
Jeremy Julian (22:30):
Or even experience the brand as a
customer.
I, I tell people all the time,go order on DoorDash.
Go order on your website.
Go walk in without anybodyknowing you're the CEO, you
know, there's a show on NBCUndercover Boss.
They, you know, dress them allup and make them go experience
their brand and they're like,this was awful.
Why is anybody even come here?
It's like, well, why don't youdo that?
This is your opportunity.
(22:51):
So, sorry Steve, I know you saidyou had some ideas on kind of
that, but I, I want.
Our listeners to hear that.
Oftentimes we get stuck in theseruts and we don't evaluate, is
it even really working?
And we start to do these thingsor we, we have menu items or we
have ways about going aboutdoing business that really
aren't working.
And maybe it worked, three yearsago, five years ago, 10 years
ago, but it's not anymore.
(23:12):
It.
And we still do it and it'shurtful to the staff.
And I think of even somethinglike curbside, there's certain
brands that are still trying tokill it on curbside, and there
is no curbside anymore.
It's all third party.
So sorry, I'll let you, butthat's an example of where
curbside, 10 years ago was thehottest thing ever.
It's no longer nearly.
So keeping eight spots out infront of your restaurant for
curbside for some brandsprobably doesn't make sense.
(23:33):
So sorry Steve.
I'll let you keep going on onthose thoughts though, man.
Brian Reece and Steve Crowle (23:36):
no need to apologize, and I totally
agree with you.
And sometimes the things that wedo had a, had a purpose at one
point in time, and we've createda new story around why we still
do it, and sometimes it's stillimportant, yet the story behind
why it's important.
Has changed.
So we worked with a fast casualbrand in New York City about
four years ago, uh, where theleadership was convinced that
(23:57):
the sort of follow your foodmodel in there, the line they
had set up was all about,showing, um, variety and
availability, as value for thecustomer and, and our insights.
What we found was that.
The primary value was that thecustomer wanted to make sure
that the order was accurate, sothe things they wanted to end up
in their bowl was actuallyending up in their bowl.
So we were able to kinda likemyth bust, like it's still
(24:19):
important, but it's notimportant for the reasons you
think it's important.
Uh, and another example from a,a cannabis company we worked
with years ago where the founderwas hell bent on this value, uh,
of nostalgia.
Uh, being part of the customerjourney, we needed to bake it
into the operation through workroutines and standardization.
and it was the lowest ranked,value out of all the things.
(24:40):
And so the leadership team whowas struggling to get the
founder over that hump was ableto like point to the data.
We were outta the conversationat that point.
We just provided the opportunityfor them to shift things in the
right direction.
so I think to echo what yousaid, it's super important to
get that.
Experience from the customer'spoint of view of like how
they're experiencing the brand.
Equally important isexperiencing how the worker is
(25:00):
experiencing this.
Uh, and so a recent, this is a,a, a digital technology or
equipment technology.
That is new and we're usingquite a bit is the meta RayBan
glasses.
And so you can put these glasseswith clear lenses on anybody
working in the kitchen andrecord three minutes of video.
And it is remarkable of gettingempathy from leadership to
(25:23):
understand what people are goingthrough.
Because you see how many timesthey're looking at a KDS screen,
how many times they have to movesomething down the line because
something's in their way.
How many times they have todepart their station to
replenish something or getsomething that should, that's in
the wrong spot.
And just in those three minutes,you've opened up the, you know,
the leader's mind to all of theopportunity that exists.
And then you put that alongsidesome, alongside some
(25:45):
quantitative data and then anopportunity for like what the
ROI of solving that problem is.
And it's, it's super, supereffective.
Jeremy Julian (25:52):
it's funny that you say that'cause that was
where my next line ofquestioning was, is how do you
also make the staff understandthis?
But again, all too often I thinkthe staff has a lot of the
answers to some of the problemsthat you might have out there.
But for some reason their voiceisn't heard.
You guys talk about, Brian, youtalked about, you know, the
voice of the customer, ensuringthat the customer's heard, but
how do we also create a culturewhere the staff oftentimes has
(26:14):
good ideas that they can solvethese things?
And I know certain brands, it's,it's culturally embedded in who
they are and what they do.
Where, you know, the, the, the,the, cream rises to the top and
these, these people continue towork their way up and, and they
listen to them and they makechanges.
And then there's other brandsthat are like, no, we know
better.
We've been doing this for 30years, shut up and just do your
job.
And I don't really care.
I love that idea of the RayBan,suggestion because that is a
(26:38):
real life, tangible way to livein their shoes, but not screw up
a Friday night shift trying torun the pizza station.
'cause you don't know how tomake a pizza'cause it's been 30
years since you've been on theline.
So are there any other examplesof how you've seen people do it
effectively?
To take the data that you haveat the staff level and bubble it
up to the top?
Brian Reece and Steve Crowl (26:56):
One thing I I'll, I just wanna hit
on this point of like helpingthe worker solve problems.
So, I like, I believe inempowerment and I believe that
people do have a lot of goodideas, but I do not believe that
as humans, we are born problemsolvers.
And so I do.
believe that every organizationshould invest in problem solving
acumen in their team from dayone.
(27:18):
Um, let's understand what aproblem is, how to define it.
Understand things like motiondoes not work.
Uh, and in that case, and thisis to answer your question, like
a good way for, somebody to stepoutside of the work they're
doing and watch what'shappening, to start to gen, to
understand that there's aproblem in the first place.
Because if you go to work everyday and you're working 40 to 60
hours a week.
(27:38):
On your feet.
It may not seem like walkingback and forth with the
refrigerator is a big deal toyour earlier point.
It's just 30 seconds.
It's just five seconds.
It's just one second.
Um, but if you give them, andthis kind of back to like the
minimum effective dose of lean,there's a very effective tool
with a low barrier to entry wecall spaghetti diagram, which is
just a piece of paper and a pen.
You draw the layout of the areaand you put a pen to paper where
(28:00):
the operator starts, and thenyou move that pen along the
paper.
To where they're going.
Um, and you, you end up withsomething that looks like a
plate of spaghetti.
It's all their motion.
But as an operator, when peopledo that within 30 seconds,
they'll always say like, why isshe going over there?
and they want to get up and fixit, but you've gotta stop them
and say, don't worry about that.
Now when we're done with this inanother 60 to 90 seconds, we're
(28:21):
gonna have at least 10 thingsthat we need to ask.
Like, why is that thing overthere?
Not Why did they go, they wentover there to get something.
the question is why is it therein the first place?
You get enough of those things.
There's lots of things that, alot of problems that can be
solved locally, like wherethings are.
Uh, and then there's, you know,the, the larger the
organization, then we need tostart thinking about what things
are actually.
pervasive across the enterprise,and we need to solve
(28:43):
programmatically.
Uh, we talk a lot about ifyou've ever seen schoolhouse
rock, there's a cute cartoon onhow a bill becomes a law.
Um, we're probably aging out, interms of being able to use that
reference for much longer.
Uh, but we like to think abouthow a problem becomes a program,
uh, because we're in businesses.
And we're in a particularly likemessy business because it's
(29:03):
physical retail and service.
And so there's hundreds if notthousands of problems everywhere
all the time, and we can't solvethem all.
Um, so we need to start thinkingabout like, these are your
problems to solve and it's okayto solve them.
Um, we're gonna teach you how tobecome better problem solvers so
that you do it.
But then there are some problemsthat apply to everybody, and
they need to be solvedorganizationally with a program.
Jeremy Julian (29:24):
Yeah.
I, uh, I appreciate that, and Ipromise you, I'm gonna chew on
your, you know, people aren'tnaturally problem solvers, but
I, I'll, I'll respect youropinion.
You live in that world.
but, uh, the last line ofquestioning before we kind of
talk about how you guys do thisand what engagement would look
like is really wrapped around,modifying the guest experience.
So, back to my barbecue example.
I was at a, at a place that, youknow, I went to the barbecue.
(29:46):
Counter, I ordered my brisketsandwich and, and whatever else.
Then I went through the, theline and I, I made my sides and
there was a queue to pay, andthey added a second cashier,
which is really the takeoutsecond cashier.
But it, it created a, a, anenvironment for me.
Where I was like, okay, do Istand in queue and I wait one
more?
Do I walk 10 feet across the wayand it's this weird deal?
(30:08):
And I had, I was there forbusiness, so I had a couple
other people with me and werethey gonna follow me?
Were they not gonna follow me?
But I even, even going back toformer employers of your guys',
I've sat at Starbucks, I wassitting at my daughter's
softball game the other day orpractice and I was sitting
working at a Starbucks for acouple of hours while she was at
practice.
And it's this very def differentguest experience than it was 10
years ago at Starbucks becauseof the way they do those things.
(30:29):
Talk to me a little bit abouthow you guys go in and go, this
is really hard because inStarbucks, not all of'em look
the same.
Not all of the Davis's hotchicken look the same, not, you
know, not every drive-throughlane looks the same way.
How do you guys, deal with thatside of things?
Not every kitchen, again, wetalked about Cheesecake Factory
earlier.
Every kitchen in their brand.
They've got 12 differentprototypes across their 300
(30:49):
stores, and every one of them isa little bit different.
Plus the menu mix is a littlebit different.
In the Beverly Hills store, theysell more salads than they do in
Woodland Hills, and so they needa high, a bigger pantry and they
need a less, so help meunderstand how you guys even
consider those things, becausethere's both the guest side and
then really what works at onedoesn't always work in all of
them.
the problem solving mindset, toyour point, Steve is great, but
(31:11):
how do you guys, I guess,normalize that, for both the
guests and for the team memberson the other side?
Brian Reece and Steve Crow (31:18):
Man, just to, uh, really reinforce
what you're saying there.
it.
It, uh, never fails to surpriseme or, or just be amazing, in an
industry that is known forhospitality, for warmth, for
empathy, how terrible sometimesthe guest experience is because
it just feels like, it's likenobody's paying attention to,
you know, that, like I love whatyou said.
You should go in and, andexperience your concept as a
(31:40):
guest because,
Jeremy Julian (31:41):
decided to put that cashier right there, like
that was the dumbest spot in theworld to put that cashier.
I'm like, who's designing thesethings?
Sorry.
But I literally thought tomyself, I'm like, this is the
dumbest thing.
As I had lunch today, ahead ofour call today.
So, sorry, I didn't mean to cutyou off,
Brian Reece and Steve Crow (31:54):
And, uh, I just think it's, it's so
emblematic of where theindustry's at.
And actually part of our, ourmission is to really transform
the industry, to make theservice work better for people.
but that really is how do wemake that work that the team is
doing, serve a guest experience.
But now we have to think, okay,well, what.
Is that guest experience.
And I think, again, when, whenyou talk to a founder or a
(32:15):
restaurateur, a lot of times youget this sort of like, what we
call, uh, fiction, right?
We've got this idea in our headsabout what we want the guest
experience to be.
And it's, honestly, it's notvery.
it's not very granular, it's notvery tactical, right?
It's like we want people to, uh,be overwhelmed with a sense of
awe in the, you know, in thevariety of, you know, and you're
like, okay, hold on, but wheream I paying?
(32:36):
And so I think it's just like,how do we take this down?
And, I think the other thingthat happens is.
You get a little measure ofsuccess, uh, and you start to
expand and all of a sudden youstart solving your problem, not
the guest's problem.
Right.
And we call that operations foroperations' sake.
And this is back to solving the,the problem solving thing.
Like, are we solving the rightproblem in the way that's still
gonna create the value for theguest?
(32:57):
Uh, so, um, you know, I, I justthink there's no, there's no
substitute for standing andwatching.
whether it's watching youroperation, how did, how are
those pizzas getting produced oractually watching your guest
experience so that, that, uh,customer who's ordered from
their phone, are they walking inand knowing exactly where to go
and how to get their order?
Or are they having to like, takea beat, look around, see if
(33:18):
there's a sign, decide if maybethey want to ask somebody.
Do I just wait?
Maybe somebody's gonna call myname.
Like, those, guest experiencesare terrible.
Uh, and just to like, you know,uh, this is not a, Small
problem.
Even at Starbucks, I used to,rib the story design folks.
Uh, every time they would showthe design for a new concept or
a new store, there was never aperson in the picture.
It was always a, this beautiful,like, you know, there's this
(33:40):
wood paneling and this marbletile and all, but not a single
person, not an operator, not aguest.
So I just think there's anopportunity in the industry to
be more human centric in, inthinking about not just the work
that you're asking youroperators to do, but also like
really being intentional aboutthe guest experience at a very.
Granular and tactical level.
so there's some, uh, tools.
Your, your listeners can, youknow, uh, research a little bit.
(34:02):
Uh, journey mapping does,empathy mapping.
Uh, these are all ways to putyourself in the shoes of your
guest and say, what is thatexperience that I want to create
for them?
And then tactically.
How many point of sale do Ineed?
What are the different roles?
How am how is the guestengaging?
Is it a sign, is it a person?
Is it a, a, a mark on the, onthe, um, on the floor?
and that journey starts as soonas you, uh, have the, the
(34:24):
restaurant insight, right?
And all the way through, I'vereceived my, my order, and I now
I'm gonna enjoy it, whetherthat's here at home.
So, uh, I just really, uh, wouldadvocate folks go and, and
observe their guest experienced,especially if you're gonna make
a change to it.
Jeremy Julian (34:37):
and I, I, I'll add one piece to that'cause it
often comes up, oh, I wanthandhelds for tableside
ordering.
You know, in our point of saleworld, it's like, does your
kitchen have any more capacityto produce more food?
Or are you just moving theproblem from here to there?
Um, I tell a very true story ofa brand that I used to go to on
a weekly basis, and then theyreally screwed it up with COD,
where they didn't do a good jobof managing digital orders with
(34:58):
in-person orders.
And the digital orders wereflying out the door, but the
in-person orders were awful.
And so as a guest, I was like,this sucks.
I'm waiting for 45 minutes forfast casual food.
That's not gonna happen.
I'm done.
I'm done coming.
And it was the third time thatI'd done that because all of
those orders would, would jumpto the front of the line and
they hadn't done a good job withit.
And I think all too often wedon't think about those things.
(35:18):
And so, Steve, walk us throughwhat it would look like for
people.
You know, we're at a place wherewe've talked a lot about the
problems that you guys solve.
I know we could talk for daysabout the hundreds and thousands
of hours that you guys havespent out in stores, out working
both in your guys' career beforeservice physics, and then since
you guys started the company.
But what does it look like toengage with a brand?
(35:39):
What does their, theirengagement look like to once
they know that there's aproblem?
Back to what you said earlier,how do they engage and what,
where does that first step inthe journey go?
Brian Reece and Steve Crowle (35:48):
So again, I think meeting with the
leadership team to try to drawout of them why we're doing this
in the first place.
We often talk about, somethingwe call the story of work, and
so every story ever told has abeginning, a middle, and an end.
Uh, our work story begins withthe question of why we get outta
bed in the morning.
Like, why have we chosen to giveour time, which is like the
most, precious resource we have.
(36:09):
In fact, no matter how wealthywe ever get, we can't buy our
time back.
It's what's gone is gone.
But we get outta bed every dayand we go to give this time to a
company.
It's invaluable.
and then that story ends with.
What the customer gets, whetheryour customer is an internal
employee within the organizationor the customer that's actually
like ringing up at the POS andgetting, getting food and
service.
we often gloss over the middleof the story, which is the most
(36:32):
interesting part, which is notwhy we get out of bed and not
what the customer gets, but likehow that goes down, how the work
happens.
and so, you know, getting thewhy is super important.
And then we'll go and collectthe data and start to understand
the what and then more data,really understand how things are
happening.
Uh, and that's when we, we sortof like bring the team into
service physics.
And, and Brian mentionedearlier, we do consulting wrong.
(36:54):
We don't have a single person onour team of 20 people with
consulting background or salesbackground.
It's amazing that we've beenable to stay, uh, but we're also
not professional, podcasters.
So, let us know how we do.
but we're good problem solvers,right?
So,
Jeremy Julian (37:08):
you guys have a passion.
I mean, the one thing that,that, that oozes out of both of
you guys is this passion to helpmake things better, to solve
problems, and to truly look atwhere things are at and how can
we make incremental changes tomake the lives of the staff and
the guests better.
Brian Reece and Steve Crowl (37:23):
I'd say we, we, um, engaged with
Sweet Green a few years ago andbefore they hired us, the COO
asked to interview our existingclient base.
And so we gave him some namesand he came back to me a couple
weeks later and I was ready formy feedback.
I was actually a little bitnervous.
We were still new and gettingour feet up under us, and he
said.
He's like, Steve, here's what Ilearned.
Every client I talked to saidthe thing they love about
(37:46):
working with service physics isthat you make their problem,
your problem.
Right, which is actually not atenant of lean.
Lean tends to be like, you'regonna own your problem and then
your coach is gonna like, helppull you through that problem.
Uh, one of the things we'velearned is like, yes, that is
important.
Building capability is reallyimportant, but you know what,
this is a competitiveenvironment and life is short
(38:07):
and is when things are just likeactually pretty clear.
And if someone just had adifferent point of view, there
is a best way to do this, thenwe should help them.
because not everybody has enoughtime to go on that journey.
Uh, we love to bring.
Uh, team members from the clientteam onto our team.
Like that's a, an idealengagement where they'll like
dedicate a team member to us,you know, halftime or full-time,
(38:30):
uh, that way when the project'sover that capability resides in
the organization and, you know,they don't need to keep hiring
us to solve the same problemover and over again, which is
not why we started the companyin the first place.
So, um, hopefully
Jeremy Julian (38:41):
am say so you're not one of those consultants
that creates work for you tocontinue to get Bill billing.
You know, there's neverconsultants out there that do
that.
I'm sure you guys have neversigned off on those transactions
at the Department of Defense orin some of those other Fortune
500 companies that you guys haveworked in.
Right.
Brian Reece and Steve Crowl (38:55):
One of the things that, you know, we
learned, from our coaches atStarbucks, the Toyota folks, is
that the technical solution isusually easy compared to
changing people.
Uh, people are working in thisindustry, they're in
environments that are set up ina certain way.
there's, uh, you, you've heardphrases in the industry like,
time to lean, time to clean.
And it's like, well, what if itwas just like time to be ready
for the next customer to arrive?
(39:15):
Like, that's also importantbecause if we're off cleaning
when the customer arrives, thenwe're gonna create a delay.
so.
Jeremy Julian (39:21):
be spending time educating ourselves?
Could we be time, spend, timegetting to know our team members
so that we, you know, we'rehelping?
Yeah.
I mean, there's so manydifferent opportunities, but
yeah, that, that old, old adageof time to lean, time to clean,
it's like, no, let's help makethe business better.
And yes, cleaning has to happen,but we're gonna schedule that.
sorry,
Brian Reece and Steve Crowl (39:36):
And so, yeah, so the technical
solutions, you know, they're,they're, they're, they're,
they're available.
They're not, you know, they'renot.
Complex.
Sometimes they're a little bitcomplicated, but really we're
trying to design the work to besimple and repeatable.
But if you cross your, if youcross your arms like this one
way your whole life, and thensomebody asks you to do it
differently and then to keepdoing that a hundred times a
day, it's gonna take a while forthat to embed.
So the sort of like quoteunquote consulting part of it,
(39:59):
the technical part is a piece.
There's a really importantcomponent that takes months
after that, especially in largeorganizations, which is.
What materials are we gonna useto create the case for change?
How are we gonna cascade thisinformation through leadership
to the frontline so thateverybody in the organization
can walk in and say like, Hey,what's happening right now is
expected, or this is unexpected.
(40:20):
And then be able to support andcoach and to keep the sandcastle
from crumbling into the seabecause these are service
systems, not hardware andsoftware.
it's like, it's like humansoftware without any housing in
it.
Um, and so it's super
Jeremy Julian (40:32):
it's cultural change at the end of the day.
I mean, culture is really what,who, how do we act here?
And you have to change how weact here.
If they're making theseorganizational changes on the
way they, they do things andit's gotta be supported from the
top all the way down and fromthe bottom, all the way up, or,
or you don't end up gettingsustainable change.
You guys come in and do anengagement and six months from
now you're like, what the hellhappened?
We, we had them working so welland now they're, they're back to
(40:54):
their old ways,
Brian Reece and Steve Cro (40:55):
Well, it's really funny, uh, because
you, you said, you know, theconsultant that, uh, figures out
how to make more work forthemselves as part of their
deliverable.
I think, again, probably morelucky than, than smart, but to
your point, the change and theculture shift takes time.
And so while we can, you know,the technical consulting work
that we do for these largeorganizations, we can get done
(41:16):
in a matter of months.
But then when we talk about,okay, well now let's make sure
it implements and delivers onthat.
Uh, on that business and, andcustomer value, that is what
takes a long time.
And so we establish really, uh,long-term in-depth relationships
with our clients because we're,we're in the trenches actually
helping them to implement and tochange, uh, the hearts and the
minds of, of operations.
(41:36):
But that translates also intothe other folks in the, in the
headquarters or the sportscenter as well.
Everyone, sort of, gets in theboat and starts rowing and, and
we've developed a few, Engaging,activities and workshops, uh,
that we do that really helpsbring the hearts and minds of,
you know, those executives, uh,all the way down to the
frontline, dishwashers, etcetera, uh, into this new way of
(41:59):
seeing the business.
And it is more just about, morethan just.
Efficiency.
It's about how can we make thework better for people?
And so, this is a coolopportunity to talk about, uh, a
workshop that we're, uh, we'reputting on.
So we, we've lamented, you know,our mission is to transform the
industry.
We really want to make workservice work better for people.
And given that the vast majorityof restaurant industry is, uh,
(42:20):
you know, independent operatorsand, you know, single units to,
you know, maybe low, low teens,So how can we take these
services that we've beenoffering to these large
companies and actually make themaccessible and make this
practice accessible, for folks?
So, uh, we're really hoping tobring those workshops that we've
been, selling to these likemassive organizations and, and
finding a lot of impact intransformation, uh, in, in terms
(42:42):
of culture and mindset.
How can we make that moreaccessible for all the
operators, in, the, in thecountry?
and so, um, in August we'll bedoing, uh, our version of
service Physics 1 0 1.
It's the original workshop, uh,with, a lot of, uh, builds from
what we've learned doing servicephysics as a company.
It's the original workshop thatwe, built, six plus years ago to
do that minimum of effectivedose of lean.
(43:03):
Uh, so we'd really love to, youknow, kind of stay connected so
that when that's coming out, uh,folks have the opportunity to,
uh, to participate.
Uh,'cause we, you know, wereally wanna see the industry at
large.
transform and, and really thinkabout work differently.
and so this workshop is ournext, problem solving step to
see how we can, kind of reachout beyond just these like, you
know, deep pocketed largecompany companies.
(43:24):
And it's in Dallas, so you it'sin there, you hometown.
Yeah.
Jeremy Julian (43:27):
we, we better, we better figure out how to, how to
make our way there.
so where do people find that?
Where do people find you guysonline?
You know, and I know, I know thewebsite, but, uh, I guess why
don't you guys read off thewebsite and then what other ways
would you say that people shouldstay connected?
So if they can't make the Dallasworkshop, but they want stay
connected and learn, how shouldthey engage and, here's where
you guys do your sales pitch.
How do they engage with youguys?
How do they sign up?
(43:47):
They're a large brand.
They got, Billion dollars insales and they're gonna need to
figure it out down to the momand pops.
You know, tell'em how to engageand how to stay connected so
they can continue to learn andcontinue to grow and make, make
the world a better place likeyou.
Brian Reece and Steve Crowle (43:58):
At www.servicephysics.com and keep
it simple.
Uh, we also keep it simpleenough that our email addresses
are our first name and thatdomain.
So steve@servicephysics.com.
brian@servicephysics.com, or,uh, if you don't want to go
right to us,contact@servicephysics.com.
LinkedIn's a great place tofollow us, uh, individually or
you can follow the company page,which try to put updates there.
(44:19):
and.
That's it.
We, we we're trying to get, Moreactive on the national circuit
as well.
We've done National RestaurantAssociation the last couple
years in a row.
We love to have the booth thereand have, former colleagues, uh,
folks who've been talking aboutdoing work with and just anybody
else who wants to stop by Thisyear, we did the spaghetti
diagrams.
We had a giant screen up with acouple of, cooks working in a
(44:40):
restaurant and have people, youknow, sort of trace their, their
motion through the restaurant.
It's, you know, within 30seconds you've kind of got it
and you can go back home and dosomething with that.
But yeah, we, we hope to see asmany people, uh, as possible
and, and, you know, whether it'sto engage, uh, and learn more
or, you've done some research onyour own and you've had a win.
Uh, anything you can do to helpus understand and contribute to
(45:03):
the larger, body of knowledgeof, of service physics, uh,
would love to hear about it.
Jeremy Julian (45:08):
Love it.
Well, uh, you know, if, if theservice physics thing doesn't
work out, you guys did great onyour podcast.
You know, you're notprofessional podcasters, but I,
uh, I appreciate you guysjumping on.
Um, to our listeners, guys, Iknow you guys got lots of
choices, so thanks for hangingout.
Um, hopefully you guys learnedsomething today from the service
physics team.
If you haven't alreadysubscribed, please do so to the
show on your favorite listeningplatform and make it a great
day.
(45:30):
Thanks for listening to TheRestaurant Technology Guys
podcast.
Visit restaurant technologyguys.com for tips, industry
insights, and more to help yourun your restaurant better.
This is the RestaurantTechnology Guides podcast,
helping you run your restaurantbetter.
In today's episode, I am joinedby the founders of Service
Physics.
Service.
Physics is a professionalservices organization that, uh,
helps restaurants to optimizetheir restaurant experience so
(00:26):
that they can drive the bestproductivity for their staff,
for the guest, and deliver onthe guest experience that
everybody promises.
Brian and Steve go really deep.
I got super nerded out on the,the things that they've done for
people.
Love to share that episode.
Um, please stay tuned until theend.
'cause we talk a lot about howsome of the biggest brands in
the country continue to optimizeto make things better.
(00:49):
If you don't know me, my name isJeremy Julian.
I'm the Chief Revenue Officerfor CBS Northstar.
We sell the North Star point ofsale solution for multi-units.
Check us out@cbsnorthstar.comand now onto our episode.
Jeremy Julian (01:02):
Welcome back to the Restaurant Technology Guys
podcast.
I thank everyone out there forjoining us.
as I say each and every time.
I know you guys have got lots ofchoices, so thanks for hanging
out today.
We are joined by a differentstyle of guests.
I think this is the first timeI've had, uh, a team like this
on the show, but I'm excitedfor, uh, for Brian and Steve to
share a little bit about whatthey do.
But I'm gonna kick it over toyou, Brian.
First, why don't you introduceyourself.
(01:24):
You can introduce your partner,talk a little bit about kinda
your guys' background.
Then we'll talk about, uh, whatyou guys have been doing the
last few years.
Brian Reece and Steve Cro (01:29):
Yeah, thanks for having us on.
Really excited to be here and,connecting with you and your,
and your audience.
my name is Brian Reese, one ofthe co-founders along with Steve
of service physics.
Uh, we're kind of a consultingcompany that does consulting
wrong, we've never beenconsultants, but we've got a
unique view on the world and,uh, really, uh, see a lot of
opportunity for the restaurantindustry to kind of think
(01:50):
differently about operations.
so.
I'm based in upstate New York,two daughters and I love, uh,
barbecue.
Jeremy Julian (01:58):
I love it.
ironically, I had barbecue, uh,today, uh, for lunch.
So had one of my favoritebarbecue places here in town,
so, it's, uh, it's hard, hardnot to get good barbecue here in
Texas, so there's that.
Brian Reece and Steve Cro (02:09):
Texas style is where it's at.
Jeremy Julian (02:10):
Awesome.
Well, uh, you want to introduceyour partner?
Brian Reece and Steve Cro (02:13):
Yeah.
I mean, Steve needs nointroduction really.
But, uh, I will say, uh, he's,you know, we've been working
together for 10 plus years.
We met working at Starbucks,back in 2012 when I joined
Starbucks.
Uh, but I'll let Steve tell his17 year, Starbucks story and
that leads a little bit into thecompany service physics, and how
we got here.
(02:33):
Awesome.
So, yeah, thanks for the, the,the brief intro.
The longer intro is that, um.
I'm based in Des Moines, Iowa.
Uh, although we're calling youtoday together, we're not
normally in the same, uh, roomat the same time.
We thought we'd use thisopportunity.
We're in Boston, Massachusettsconducting some business
meetings and visiting someclients.
Uh, I'm originally from Boston,so this is kinda a little bit of
(02:54):
a homecoming for me.
lived all over the country.
We started the company whenBrian and I both lived in New
York City.
Um, during COVID, we both tookthe opportunity to.
Uh, live in other places.
And now hail from Des Moines,Iowa, uh, which is really great.
Uh, we don't have a, a companyheadquarters, um, anywhere that
everybody goes to work in everyday.
And we've got about a team of 20people that are distributed, not
(03:16):
only nationally, but uh,internationally.
and we like to consider ouroffice, our clients,
restaurants.
so we put a lot of value ongoing to see being where the
real stuff is happening,collecting data, working with
the team.
and so working, from the middleof the country is great because
it doesn't take me a full day toget from coast to coast.
I can be anywhere, you know,first thing in the morning and,
even sometimes get home duringthe same day, uh, which is
(03:38):
really great.
Uh, Brian mentioned we metworking at Starbucks.
I started working at Starbucks,uh, in the nineties.
at that time, Starbucks wastalking a lot about, open the
2000 store by the year 2000.
That was kind of the, the battlecry.
we did it.
Uh, I didn't have much to dowith that at the time I was a
barista.
but over the course of a coupledecades, held all of the field
positions, uh, in operations.
(04:00):
And about halfway through thatjourney transitioned into a
corporate headquarters position,working in operations strategy,
uh, which coincidentally, andthis is sort of one of those,
Lucky unlucky moments as, as thecountry was facing the great
financial crisis and Starbuckswas in a lot of hot water, I was
able to join an operationsstrategy team who at the time
had partnered with Toyota, uh,to learn about better ways to
(04:21):
think about work, uh, andoperations and creating flow and
simple, uh, repeatable, uh, workroutines for.
Uh, employees, and it was duringthat time we started to codify,
uh, the practice that we nowcall service physics.
Brian and I went on to worktogether again at Anheuser-Busch
in Bev's innovation arm calledZX Ventures, where we were,
(04:42):
basically hyper scaling.
We opened above 550 bars andrestaurants in five years across
13 countries.
Uh, and no matter what.
Operating format brand, local,cultural or regulatory
differences that exist.
These ideas around servicephysics we're transcending all
of these, uh, boundaries andobstacles.
And we just had this moment, uh,at one of our brew pubs in
(05:05):
Patagonia, Argentina, which wenow consider the spiritual home
of service physics, uh, thatthis.
Practice was too good to bereserved for the biggest beer
company and the biggest coffeecompany in the galaxy when 99%
of the industry is small, mediumsized business, uh, in an
industry that has a brokenequation, between, you know, the
employees, the customers, andthe owners.
(05:25):
It's known for being a low, uh,margin industry, a low wage
industry.
And if we're all really honest,nine times outta 10 when we go
to a restaurant, there'ssomething that happened that we
wish didn't.
and so we know that there's abetter way, and service physics
as a practice is the way to dothat.
And our mission as a company isto make service work better for
people.
And it's meant to have a doublemeaning.
(05:45):
Both make the work better forthe employees to do and then
make service work better for thepeople who are receiving it.
and then that always boils downto a better margin for owners.
So, that's who we are and whatwe do.
Jeremy Julian (05:57):
Love that.
well, and I know we'll dig quitea bit in tech, kind of how you
guys do what you do, for ourlisteners out there, and I've
got so many introductions togive you guys after that intro
of people that I know are,aligned with what you guys do
and might do it a little bitdifferently or do it in a
different way that could beadjacent to.
And I think we could probablyalso, uh.
Also wrap about some of the, uh,former Starbucks people that
(06:17):
have now spun off that we alsodo business with and have been
on the show.
So, but you guys, talked aboutkind of, I don't wanna say lean
manufacturing and Kaizen.
I know that that was part ofwhat we had been talking about
for our listeners that are lessfamiliar with, with even what
that means because I got somebooks on my shelf over here and
Six Sigma and just all of thesedifferent things related to, a
lot of times people that I talkto that are in the restaurant
(06:39):
industry, don't consider.
The manufacturing practices ofToyota to resonate with what's
going on within what I stillcall, I think restaurants are
still manufacturing plants.
There's many manufacturingplants that are taking raw goods
and turning'em into a finishedgood and selling them to'em.
It just happens to be perishablegoods and it happens to have a
very tight timeframe.
But I'd love for you guys toeducate our listeners what is
(07:01):
Lean Manufacturing and Kaizenjust kind of at a macro level
because I think it'll really diginto what service physics is
helping to educate, um, yourguys' customers on.
Brian Reece and Steve Crowl (07:11):
You or me?
Well, I'll tee it up for you.
I, You know, the, what is leanquestion, is the perennial
question.
And it's actually very difficultto describe because it's, it's a
lot of things.
And even if you go to the LeanEnterprise Institute website, I
think they told us that the,what is Lean page is the most
popular page, uh, on there.
And so it is a, it's difficultto grasp because it's a lot of
things, and I think most peoplewould say it's a bit of a
(07:33):
mindset.
Uh, and so it's a continuousimprovement mindset.
Things can always be improved.
Things can always be better.
Uh, and it's usually.
Uh, and, and one of the thingswe really espouse, it's a minds
before wallets approach.
So let's go look at the workthat we're asking people to do
every day that creates value forthe customer.
And how do we remove everythingfrom that process that is not
adding value?
(07:53):
So how do we get rid of all thewaste?
There's lots of waste in everyproduction process.
And, it's sort of just a factof, of, uh, reality.
That's why we call ourselvesservice physics.
There's a physics to the work,uh, that, you know, just
requires, uh, you to pick thingsup and move things around.
but if we can reduce the amountof motion waste or waiting waste
in a production process, thatgets back to that making work
(08:16):
better for people.
so Steve, yeah, the thing Iwould, I would add to that, and
this is a little bit of a, aprovocation, for you, but.
Lean is a technology.
Um, and so we often think abouttechnology as being digital or
having wires and clouds and APIsand all these things.
but you know, when we wereinvited to be on the podcast,
(08:36):
the first thing I thought waslike, what business do we have
talking about, you know, digitaltechnology?
But then when I started to thinkabout.
You know, the definition oftechnology, it's more about the
application of scientificknowledge for practical purposes
than it is about like hardwareand software.
Um, but even
Jeremy Julian (08:52):
it's also taking a process and and accelerating
it to help create a better guestexperience and a better staff
experience, which ultimately isa lot of what you guys do.
Sorry to interrupt you, but Ijust think it's so critical to
understand that it, technologyfor technology's sake, and I say
it all the time, is worthlesstechnology that makes the guest
experience better and thestaff's experience better and
ultimately the shareholders'experience better is where it's
at.
So sorry.
(09:13):
I'll let you, I'll let you keepgoing, but that is so critical
for people to consider becausethey don't.
Brian Reece and Steve Crowl (09:18):
No, you're, you're absolutely right.
And there are all kinds ofexamples in history where
technology has outstrippedoperational practices.
So like a really good example isthe Civil War, right?
So there were massive upgradesin the technology around
weaponry and communication.
yet we still lined up in thesetraditional battle lines and,
you know, just massacred eachother.
(09:39):
and so it, it's really importantthat.
people think about.
Lean as on a, a as a long gameas a transformation.
Um, but it really is about dailytransformation and making small
upgrades all the time where thetechnology and the operations
match each other and worktogether.
but to, to hit the nail on thehead when, you know, the
audience is probably stillthinking like, yeah, but what is
(10:00):
it?
Um, there are a few coreconcepts I think that.
really embody the practice.
Uh, and Brian mentioned there's,there's a lot to it and part of
the, the, genesis story ofservice physics is really
recognizing that there's toomuch to do all at once.
And really, if we can justdistill it down to like a
minimum effective dose ofknowledge to get people started,
then those people get off to theraces and now they're on a
(10:22):
learning journey that reallynever ends.
Um, but when we talk about leanspecifically, we're really
talking about the practice ofdifferentiating between activity
that creates value, which wedefine as work and activity that
does not create value, which iswaste.
And so if you think about it asa pie chart, um, you know, it's
a big circle that representssome amount of activity, is
creating value, and some of,some amount of activity is not
(10:43):
creating value.
Most business activity.
Is super wasteful.
and all you need to do is go andsee it.
And once you go and see it, andyou put the right processes in
place, where most of what peopledo is creating value and instead
of, creating waste, then we canthink about like what, you know,
digital technologies orequipment can we bring in to
take the processes that alreadyexist and start to remove more
(11:04):
friction from them.
and so I think it's a reallygood place where like these two
technologies come together.
Jeremy Julian (11:09):
And I love that and I, I want you guys to dig
into kind of how you guys goabout that.
But I also would love,'cause Iwent on my own lean journey a
while back and, and especiallyin restaurants, I'm certain of
it, you guys run into this whereit's like, but it only takes me
30 seconds, but it only takes me30 seconds to grab, Even in a
Starbucks case, I had a guest onthat's building an automated,
um, not an automated baristaaltogether, but a barista that
(11:32):
can help with some of the mixes.
You know, so many of the drinksare, are mixed drinks, um, and
are cold.
You know, we talked about somestatistics and the amount of
math that you have to do.
It's like, how do we get itfaster for the baristas so the
guests can be better?
Those types of things.
as the, you know, customer'spals have changed, but it's
like.
You talk to people and it'slike, well, it only takes me 30
seconds to go grab the oat milk.
(11:52):
that 30 seconds, if you, if youdo it 10 times a day, is how
many minutes a day that you'renow cutting out of, to your
point, waste.
Um, so talk me through, I guessjust in general, at a high
level, you guys are at a placewhere.
You guys are trying to findthose areas of opportunity to
accelerate.
So I guess let's, let's startwith you, Steve.
(12:13):
You know, where are those areaswhen you guys go in and look
with brands?
And funny enough, as I lookthrough the brands that you guys
have worked with, 1, 2, 3.
Four, five of'em have been onthe show at some point.
Of the brands that you guyshave, that you guys have worked
with, at least that your guys'pr company sent over.
Um, so I guess how, where do youguys start as you guys are
evaluating brands that you mightwork with to, to figure out
(12:36):
where the lowest hanging fruitis?
'cause oftentimes that momentum,I know will, will accelerate
things.
Brian Reece and Steve Crowle (12:41):
So you're not gonna love this
answer, but it depends.
we'll start wherever we can, uh,because for us it's, you know,
very important to build therelationship, but the work can't
begin until first we understandwhat the businesses aspirations
are, what are they, what valueare they trying to bring into
the world?
And that can happen before weever step, step, foot in an
operation.
(13:02):
Uh, but the very next thing wedo is go and see.
Um, so we use that, that phrasego and see quite a bit.
There's no substitute for beingin the, the presence of what we
call the three reels.
Uh, real people, real place,doing real work.
You can add some more reels,dealing with real inventory and
real customers and real, all thethings that get real when you
get into the operation.
Uh, and we have a standard, Sortof like baseline of data that we
(13:24):
like to collect that really istrying to match inflows and
outflows and find bottlenecks,uh, within the operation.
So it could be things like, uh,what is the, the utilization
level on each piece ofequipment.
Um, what we hear often, uh, I'dsay more than 80% of the time is
operators asking for highercapacity, larger, more efficient
(13:45):
equipment.
but then when we go and collectthe data, uh, we've yet to find
one restaurant across, you know,tens of thousands of restaurants
of data, that we've collectedthat is using their equipment
more than 50% of the time duringpeak periods.
and so you, you start sayinglike, we need another double
fryer, so we're gonna have tolike, extend the hood and move
this refrigerator down, installnew electrical.
(14:05):
And it's like, but yeah.
The two double fryers that arehere use less than half the
time.
So there's something else goingon.
Uh, the next thing we'll do is,is look at how people are
spending their time.
Are they actively working onsomething?
Are they idle, not working onanything?
They're ready to do work.
Are they walking between twopoints?
Are they completing some tasksthat could be done later in the
day?
And then we try to get a matchbetween, the equipment.
(14:26):
Utilization and the humanutilization.
And, you know, the practice oflean helps us put people and
equipment together in sort oflike a well orchestrated, uh,
ballet so that we can keep thatequipment running, keep the
machines busy so we don't haveto make the people busy.
And often the people are likebusy.
Moving around from place toplace.
Uh, and so motion Kaizen isusually like the first place we
(14:47):
go to, to drive improvementbecause sometimes it's
impossible to see the otheropportunity that exists when
there's a whole bunch of likenoise and the motion that's
happening on top of that.
So, uh, again, understandingwhat the business aspiration is.
Going to the operation tocollect some data, understand
the current state, and thendoing some motion kaizen to calm
the noise a little bit.
And then we start to think aboutlike, how does this system,
(15:08):
perform today versus how couldit perform in the future to get
to what the business'saspiration for value delivery
are in the first place.
Jeremy Julian (15:15):
Love that.
I'm gonna pivot to you, Brian.
so how often do you guys walk inand have a misalignment from
what the business says theywant?
Versus what actually happenswhen you get into the operation.
'cause we see that often, we'regonna go to the moon, but then
everybody in there is like, no,no, no, no, no.
We wanna go to the beach.
Like we're not gonna the moon,we're gonna the beach.
'cause that, that's really whatwe want to do.
And, and now you guys are stuckin this consulting place where
(15:37):
you've gotta, now only, not onlythe executives are saying, we
need to go here, we need todrive sales, we need to drive
customer engagement, whateverthat is, we need to reduce
waste.
But then you get in on theground floor and all of their.
bonuses and all of their metricsand all of those kind of things
are very different.
Does that happen often?
I see both of you guys smiling.
For those that are sitting onvideo, you're like, yes, can you
go in and talk to some of mycustomers?
(15:58):
'cause we need some more ofthat.
So I'd love to, I'd love to hearyour opinion on that.
Brian Reece and Steve Cro (16:01):
Yeah, I mean unfortunately it does
happen more often than we'dlike.
but another piece of the leanapproach is, systems thinking.
Uh, and so the reason I bringthat up is, you know, we've,
Stumbled into, or, you know,just sort of, developed an
evolved our sales process thatwe can kind of weed out some of
that misalignment ahead of time.
So we really try not to, youknow, start an engagement
(16:23):
without a really clear alignmentto, that scope and, and to your
point, like, are we gonna thebeach or are we gonna the moon?
We try to align that before wesign on the dotted line,
together.
And, I think for better orworse, oftentimes that has.
Uh, killed, uh, opportunitiesfor, for us as a business.
But, uh, to your point, there'sno, uh, and, and maybe like a
another, uh, lean saying wouldbe there's no, nothing so
wasteful as improving that,which should not be done in the
(16:45):
first place.
So if we're trying to improve asystem that's designed to go to
the moon, but management wantsto go to the beach, that's just
all waste and all, all, Timespent, not rowing in the right
direction.
So we really try to avoid that,as much as possible.
but in the occasions when, youknow, we are potentially
misaligned, we always, go to thedata.
Uh, and so it really depends on,as Steve was saying, kind of
(17:05):
what the situation is.
but I guess I'd be remiss if Ididn't mention that we have an
app, uh, on the app store thatallows, uh, operators to go into
their operation and collect thisdata, the same data that we
would use.
To go and understand, you know,um, not just like the typical
metrics of sales or throughputor, you know, average order
value and, and some of theseother things.
(17:26):
But, you know, what are thoseleading indicators?
what's happening in theoperation and how can we
quantify that and show thatthis, upstream process, area is
actually what's driving orlimiting your ability to sell
more, uh, to, to your customersor driving those really high
wait times or, you know, thosekinds of issues.
So, uh, we really try to let thedata do the talking.
(17:46):
And in fact, you know, we'll gointo an operation and meet an
operator for the first time andthey'll say, well, what do you
think?
And we say, well, we don't haveany data.
And so we'd prefer to wait untilwe have the data to, to draw any
conclusions because.
You know, opinions are, are justthat.
And so much of, and you know, wesay we do consulting wrong.
So much of, uh, restaurantconsulting is folks leveraging
their, you know, experience andjust giving their opinion.
(18:08):
Uh, and we really lead with dataand try to let the data do the,
the convincing, uh, that maybethe moon is, is the right place
to go instead of this beach.
And, uh, so we'll, we'll takethat approach, uh, when,
whenever there seems to be amisalignment, just like what
does the data say and how canwe, how can we look at reality?
Uh, versus, um, a made upfiction of reality.
Can I add a a little bit to thatbefore the next question?
(18:29):
So, um, Brian mentioned earlierthat lean is really a, a
mindset, it's a way of thinking.
and.
One of, you know, Brian and Iboth worked in Fortune 500
companies for more than adecade.
Uh, and Brian was in with theDepartment of Defense before
that.
So not a Fortune 500 company,but also a massive organization.
and we know what it's like totry to drive change within an
(18:52):
organization.
There's a lot of politics,there's a lot of competing
priorities.
There's competing for budgets.
One advantage that we have.
is that when people come to us,they've already, completed the
most important step of problemsolving, which is admitting that
you have a problem in the firstplace.
Um, and so we we're already pastthat when things don't go wrong,
and Brian said that we couldkind of weed some of this out in
(19:13):
the sales process is.
When folks come to us becausethey've been pushed to us by
somebody else, or they, they're,too proud to admit that there's
something wrong, um, it'susually not going to be a good
match.
the mindset requires us toreally love problems, uh, not
try to sweep them under the rug.
Like the bigger the problem, themore upside there is in solving
it.
Uh, and so let's, let's get upunder it and find it.
Jeremy Julian (19:35):
Well, and I think that was where my next line of
questioning was going.
Uh, Steve was really wrappedaround.
I'm certain you guys often alsofind sacred cows within the
businesses where the data showsyou that you need to kill this
menu category.
Uh.
But the CEO, it's his favoritemenu category or some board
member, or it's what built thebrand or, we talked a, a little
(19:57):
bit earlier, you know,cheesecake Factory, for many,
many years still had some oftheir CEO's favorite menu items.
Fortunately, as years have goneon, have, but they used to have
liver and onions still on themenu.
In the nineties, you don'treally need liver and onions.
I mean, and again, probablythere's people out there that
are eating liver and onionsevery day, but like, it's not
really, you know, in the, eventhe nineties, which is a long
time ago, but still, it wasn'tnecessarily something that you
(20:18):
would want to have.
I'm certain you guys find sacredcows, whether that's menu items,
whether that's the way you dobusiness, whether that's the,
we're absolutely not gonna go tothird party delivery, or we're
only gonna pick one third partydelivery provider.
Help us understand kind of.
How, not necessarily how youguys deal with the executives,
but what is the mindset shiftthat, that you guys help people
(20:39):
have to come through torecognize that there is a sacred
cow that they at least need toevaluate from the data?
Because as I'm thinking aboutour listeners, there's a lot of
times they probably know there'sa problem out there.
They just aren't willing to lookin the mirror in a very hard way
to say, let me go solve thisproblem.
Brian Reece and Steve Crowley (20:58):
I have like three things I wanna
say.
I know, that's a good question.
Well, one, uh, I'll just kind oftee Steve up with one, one, uh,
thing that, I always go to,which is the voice of the
customer.
So we have, we talked earlierabout, you know, lean being all
about.
creating value for customers.
And so I think it's reallyimportant to get clear on what
(21:18):
that value is.
And so we've developed apractice around, uh, it's a
consumer insights practice, butallows us to get really clear on
what value is, what are theyexpecting when they pay, you
know, your restaurant for, forthe experience, for the product,
for the service.
And so we can get really clearon what that is.
And, uh, we've got a few storiesof, you know, when we go and
(21:39):
actually talk to customers andask them to rate.
Your restaurant against what yousaid.
The value was, there's alwayssomething at the bottom of that
ranking, right?
And it's like really at thebottom and almost every time
that is some sacred cow that thefounder or CEO is like clinging
onto.
And we've actually seen somesuccess in saying like, look.
(21:59):
This is what your customers aresaying.
We quantified it, we talked tothem.
This is just not important tothem right now.
Let's move on on these thingsthat we know we're really,
nailing in terms of valuedelivery and we've got some
opportunity, you know, to, todeliver more value more
consistently.
And so let's put this one on theshelf for just a little while,
while we go focus on what'sgonna really move the needle for
the business.
(22:19):
Uh, so again, it's just bringingthat data back into it, but, I'm
amazed how many business ownersdon't.
talk to their customers with anyirregularity.
Uh, so I, I would alwaysadvocate for the invoice of the
customer.
Jeremy Julian (22:30):
Or even experience the brand as a
customer.
I, I tell people all the time,go order on DoorDash.
Go order on your website.
Go walk in without anybodyknowing you're the CEO, you
know, there's a show on NBCUndercover Boss.
They, you know, dress them allup and make them go experience
their brand and they're like,this was awful.
Why is anybody even come here?
It's like, well, why don't youdo that?
This is your opportunity.
(22:51):
So, sorry Steve, I know you saidyou had some ideas on kind of
that, but I, I want.
Our listeners to hear that.
Oftentimes we get stuck in theseruts and we don't evaluate, is
it even really working?
And we start to do these thingsor we, we have menu items or we
have ways about going aboutdoing business that really
aren't working.
And maybe it worked, three yearsago, five years ago, 10 years
ago, but it's not anymore.
(23:12):
It.
And we still do it and it'shurtful to the staff.
And I think of even somethinglike curbside, there's certain
brands that are still trying tokill it on curbside, and there
is no curbside anymore.
It's all third party.
So sorry, I'll let you, butthat's an example of where
curbside, 10 years ago was thehottest thing ever.
It's no longer nearly.
So keeping eight spots out infront of your restaurant for
curbside for some brandsprobably doesn't make sense.
(23:33):
So sorry Steve.
I'll let you keep going on onthose thoughts though, man.
Brian Reece and Steve Crowle (23:36):
no need to apologize, and I totally
agree with you.
And sometimes the things that wedo had a, had a purpose at one
point in time, and we've createda new story around why we still
do it, and sometimes it's stillimportant, yet the story behind
why it's important.
Has changed.
So we worked with a fast casualbrand in New York City about
four years ago, uh, where theleadership was convinced that
(23:57):
the sort of follow your foodmodel in there, the line they
had set up was all about,showing, um, variety and
availability, as value for thecustomer and, and our insights.
What we found was that.
The primary value was that thecustomer wanted to make sure
that the order was accurate, sothe things they wanted to end up
in their bowl was actuallyending up in their bowl.
So we were able to kinda likemyth bust, like it's still
(24:19):
important, but it's notimportant for the reasons you
think it's important.
Uh, and another example from a,a cannabis company we worked
with years ago where the founderwas hell bent on this value, uh,
of nostalgia.
Uh, being part of the customerjourney, we needed to bake it
into the operation through workroutines and standardization.
and it was the lowest ranked,value out of all the things.
(24:40):
And so the leadership team whowas struggling to get the
founder over that hump was ableto like point to the data.
We were outta the conversationat that point.
We just provided the opportunityfor them to shift things in the
right direction.
so I think to echo what yousaid, it's super important to
get that.
Experience from the customer'spoint of view of like how
they're experiencing the brand.
Equally important isexperiencing how the worker is
(25:00):
experiencing this.
Uh, and so a recent, this is a,a, a digital technology or
equipment technology.
That is new and we're usingquite a bit is the meta RayBan
glasses.
And so you can put these glasseswith clear lenses on anybody
working in the kitchen andrecord three minutes of video.
And it is remarkable of gettingempathy from leadership to
(25:23):
understand what people are goingthrough.
Because you see how many timesthey're looking at a KDS screen,
how many times they have to movesomething down the line because
something's in their way.
How many times they have todepart their station to
replenish something or getsomething that should, that's in
the wrong spot.
And just in those three minutes,you've opened up the, you know,
the leader's mind to all of theopportunity that exists.
And then you put that alongsidesome, alongside some
(25:45):
quantitative data and then anopportunity for like what the
ROI of solving that problem is.
And it's, it's super, supereffective.
Jeremy Julian (25:52):
it's funny that you say that'cause that was
where my next line ofquestioning was, is how do you
also make the staff understandthis?
But again, all too often I thinkthe staff has a lot of the
answers to some of the problemsthat you might have out there.
But for some reason their voiceisn't heard.
You guys talk about, Brian, youtalked about, you know, the
voice of the customer, ensuringthat the customer's heard, but
how do we also create a culturewhere the staff oftentimes has
(26:14):
good ideas that they can solvethese things?
And I know certain brands, it's,it's culturally embedded in who
they are and what they do.
Where, you know, the, the, the,the, cream rises to the top and
these, these people continue towork their way up and, and they
listen to them and they makechanges.
And then there's other brandsthat are like, no, we know
better.
We've been doing this for 30years, shut up and just do your
job.
And I don't really care.
I love that idea of the RayBan,suggestion because that is a
(26:38):
real life, tangible way to livein their shoes, but not screw up
a Friday night shift trying torun the pizza station.
'cause you don't know how tomake a pizza'cause it's been 30
years since you've been on theline.
So are there any other examplesof how you've seen people do it
effectively?
To take the data that you haveat the staff level and bubble it
up to the top?
Brian Reece and Steve Crowl (26:56):
One thing I I'll, I just wanna hit
on this point of like helpingthe worker solve problems.
So, I like, I believe inempowerment and I believe that
people do have a lot of goodideas, but I do not believe that
as humans, we are born problemsolvers.
And so I do.
believe that every organizationshould invest in problem solving
acumen in their team from dayone.
(27:18):
Um, let's understand what aproblem is, how to define it.
Understand things like motiondoes not work.
Uh, and in that case, and thisis to answer your question, like
a good way for, somebody to stepoutside of the work they're
doing and watch what'shappening, to start to gen, to
understand that there's aproblem in the first place.
Because if you go to work everyday and you're working 40 to 60
hours a week.
(27:38):
On your feet.
It may not seem like walkingback and forth with the
refrigerator is a big deal toyour earlier point.
It's just 30 seconds.
It's just five seconds.
It's just one second.
Um, but if you give them, andthis kind of back to like the
minimum effective dose of lean,there's a very effective tool
with a low barrier to entry wecall spaghetti diagram, which is
just a piece of paper and a pen.
You draw the layout of the areaand you put a pen to paper where
(28:00):
the operator starts, and thenyou move that pen along the
paper.
To where they're going.
Um, and you, you end up withsomething that looks like a
plate of spaghetti.
It's all their motion.
But as an operator, when peopledo that within 30 seconds,
they'll always say like, why isshe going over there?
and they want to get up and fixit, but you've gotta stop them
and say, don't worry about that.
Now when we're done with this inanother 60 to 90 seconds, we're
(28:21):
gonna have at least 10 thingsthat we need to ask.
Like, why is that thing overthere?
Not Why did they go, they wentover there to get something.
the question is why is it therein the first place?
You get enough of those things.
There's lots of things that, alot of problems that can be
solved locally, like wherethings are.
Uh, and then there's, you know,the, the larger the
organization, then we need tostart thinking about what things
are actually.
pervasive across the enterprise,and we need to solve
(28:43):
programmatically.
Uh, we talk a lot about ifyou've ever seen schoolhouse
rock, there's a cute cartoon onhow a bill becomes a law.
Um, we're probably aging out, interms of being able to use that
reference for much longer.
Uh, but we like to think abouthow a problem becomes a program,
uh, because we're in businesses.
And we're in a particularly likemessy business because it's
(29:03):
physical retail and service.
And so there's hundreds if notthousands of problems everywhere
all the time, and we can't solvethem all.
Um, so we need to start thinkingabout like, these are your
problems to solve and it's okayto solve them.
Um, we're gonna teach you how tobecome better problem solvers so
that you do it.
But then there are some problemsthat apply to everybody, and
they need to be solvedorganizationally with a program.
Jeremy Julian (29:24):
Yeah.
I, uh, I appreciate that, and Ipromise you, I'm gonna chew on
your, you know, people aren'tnaturally problem solvers, but
I, I'll, I'll respect youropinion.
You live in that world.
but, uh, the last line ofquestioning before we kind of
talk about how you guys do thisand what engagement would look
like is really wrapped around,modifying the guest experience.
So, back to my barbecue example.
I was at a, at a place that, youknow, I went to the barbecue.
(29:46):
Counter, I ordered my brisketsandwich and, and whatever else.
Then I went through the, theline and I, I made my sides and
there was a queue to pay, andthey added a second cashier,
which is really the takeoutsecond cashier.
But it, it created a, a, anenvironment for me.
Where I was like, okay, do Istand in queue and I wait one
more?
Do I walk 10 feet across the wayand it's this weird deal?
(30:08):
And I had, I was there forbusiness, so I had a couple
other people with me and werethey gonna follow me?
Were they not gonna follow me?
But I even, even going back toformer employers of your guys',
I've sat at Starbucks, I wassitting at my daughter's
softball game the other day orpractice and I was sitting
working at a Starbucks for acouple of hours while she was at
practice.
And it's this very def differentguest experience than it was 10
years ago at Starbucks becauseof the way they do those things.
(30:29):
Talk to me a little bit abouthow you guys go in and go, this
is really hard because inStarbucks, not all of'em look
the same.
Not all of the Davis's hotchicken look the same, not, you
know, not every drive-throughlane looks the same way.
How do you guys, deal with thatside of things?
Not every kitchen, again, wetalked about Cheesecake Factory
earlier.
Every kitchen in their brand.
They've got 12 differentprototypes across their 300
(30:49):
stores, and every one of them isa little bit different.
Plus the menu mix is a littlebit different.
In the Beverly Hills store, theysell more salads than they do in
Woodland Hills, and so they needa high, a bigger pantry and they
need a less, so help meunderstand how you guys even
consider those things, becausethere's both the guest side and
then really what works at onedoesn't always work in all of
them.
the problem solving mindset, toyour point, Steve is great, but
(31:11):
how do you guys, I guess,normalize that, for both the
guests and for the team memberson the other side?
Brian Reece and Steve Crow (31:18):
Man, just to, uh, really reinforce
what you're saying there.
it.
It, uh, never fails to surpriseme or, or just be amazing, in an
industry that is known forhospitality, for warmth, for
empathy, how terrible sometimesthe guest experience is because
it just feels like, it's likenobody's paying attention to,
you know, that, like I love whatyou said.
You should go in and, andexperience your concept as a
(31:40):
guest because,
Jeremy Julian (31:41):
decided to put that cashier right there, like
that was the dumbest spot in theworld to put that cashier.
I'm like, who's designing thesethings?
Sorry.
But I literally thought tomyself, I'm like, this is the
dumbest thing.
As I had lunch today, ahead ofour call today.
So, sorry, I didn't mean to cutyou off,
Brian Reece and Steve Crow (31:54):
And, uh, I just think it's, it's so
emblematic of where theindustry's at.
And actually part of our, ourmission is to really transform
the industry, to make theservice work better for people.
but that really is how do wemake that work that the team is
doing, serve a guest experience.
But now we have to think, okay,well, what.
Is that guest experience.
And I think, again, when, whenyou talk to a founder or a
(32:15):
restaurateur, a lot of times youget this sort of like, what we
call, uh, fiction, right?
We've got this idea in our headsabout what we want the guest
experience to be.
And it's, honestly, it's notvery.
it's not very granular, it's notvery tactical, right?
It's like we want people to, uh,be overwhelmed with a sense of
awe in the, you know, in thevariety of, you know, and you're
like, okay, hold on, but wheream I paying?
(32:36):
And so I think it's just like,how do we take this down?
And, I think the other thingthat happens is.
You get a little measure ofsuccess, uh, and you start to
expand and all of a sudden youstart solving your problem, not
the guest's problem.
Right.
And we call that operations foroperations' sake.
And this is back to solving the,the problem solving thing.
Like, are we solving the rightproblem in the way that's still
gonna create the value for theguest?
(32:57):
Uh, so, um, you know, I, I justthink there's no, there's no
substitute for standing andwatching.
whether it's watching youroperation, how did, how are
those pizzas getting produced oractually watching your guest
experience so that, that, uh,customer who's ordered from
their phone, are they walking inand knowing exactly where to go
and how to get their order?
Or are they having to like, takea beat, look around, see if
(33:18):
there's a sign, decide if maybethey want to ask somebody.
Do I just wait?
Maybe somebody's gonna call myname.
Like, those, guest experiencesare terrible.
Uh, and just to like, you know,uh, this is not a, Small
problem.
Even at Starbucks, I used to,rib the story design folks.
Uh, every time they would showthe design for a new concept or
a new store, there was never aperson in the picture.
It was always a, this beautiful,like, you know, there's this
(33:40):
wood paneling and this marbletile and all, but not a single
person, not an operator, not aguest.
So I just think there's anopportunity in the industry to
be more human centric in, inthinking about not just the work
that you're asking youroperators to do, but also like
really being intentional aboutthe guest experience at a very.
Granular and tactical level.
so there's some, uh, tools.
Your, your listeners can, youknow, uh, research a little bit.
(34:02):
Uh, journey mapping does,empathy mapping.
Uh, these are all ways to putyourself in the shoes of your
guest and say, what is thatexperience that I want to create
for them?
And then tactically.
How many point of sale do Ineed?
What are the different roles?
How am how is the guestengaging?
Is it a sign, is it a person?
Is it a, a, a mark on the, onthe, um, on the floor?
and that journey starts as soonas you, uh, have the, the
(34:24):
restaurant insight, right?
And all the way through, I'vereceived my, my order, and I now
I'm gonna enjoy it, whetherthat's here at home.
So, uh, I just really, uh, wouldadvocate folks go and, and
observe their guest experienced,especially if you're gonna make
a change to it.
Jeremy Julian (34:37):
and I, I, I'll add one piece to that'cause it
often comes up, oh, I wanthandhelds for tableside
ordering.
You know, in our point of saleworld, it's like, does your
kitchen have any more capacityto produce more food?
Or are you just moving theproblem from here to there?
Um, I tell a very true story ofa brand that I used to go to on
a weekly basis, and then theyreally screwed it up with COD,
where they didn't do a good jobof managing digital orders with
(34:58):
in-person orders.
And the digital orders wereflying out the door, but the
in-person orders were awful.
And so as a guest, I was like,this sucks.
I'm waiting for 45 minutes forfast casual food.
That's not gonna happen.
I'm done.
I'm done coming.
And it was the third time thatI'd done that because all of
those orders would, would jumpto the front of the line and
they hadn't done a good job withit.
And I think all too often wedon't think about those things.
(35:18):
And so, Steve, walk us throughwhat it would look like for
people.
You know, we're at a place wherewe've talked a lot about the
problems that you guys solve.
I know we could talk for daysabout the hundreds and thousands
of hours that you guys havespent out in stores, out working
both in your guys' career beforeservice physics, and then since
you guys started the company.
But what does it look like toengage with a brand?
(35:39):
What does their, theirengagement look like to once
they know that there's aproblem?
Back to what you said earlier,how do they engage and what,
where does that first step inthe journey go?
Brian Reece and Steve Crowle (35:48):
So again, I think meeting with the
leadership team to try to drawout of them why we're doing this
in the first place.
We often talk about, somethingwe call the story of work, and
so every story ever told has abeginning, a middle, and an end.
Uh, our work story begins withthe question of why we get outta
bed in the morning.
Like, why have we chosen to giveour time, which is like the
most, precious resource we have.
(36:09):
In fact, no matter how wealthywe ever get, we can't buy our
time back.
It's what's gone is gone.
But we get outta bed every dayand we go to give this time to a
company.
It's invaluable.
and then that story ends with.
What the customer gets, whetheryour customer is an internal
employee within the organizationor the customer that's actually
like ringing up at the POS andgetting, getting food and
service.
we often gloss over the middleof the story, which is the most
(36:32):
interesting part, which is notwhy we get out of bed and not
what the customer gets, but likehow that goes down, how the work
happens.
and so, you know, getting thewhy is super important.
And then we'll go and collectthe data and start to understand
the what and then more data,really understand how things are
happening.
Uh, and that's when we, we sortof like bring the team into
service physics.
And, and Brian mentionedearlier, we do consulting wrong.
(36:54):
We don't have a single person onour team of 20 people with
consulting background or salesbackground.
It's amazing that we've beenable to stay, uh, but we're also
not professional, podcasters.
So, let us know how we do.
but we're good problem solvers,right?
So,
Jeremy Julian (37:08):
you guys have a passion.
I mean, the one thing that,that, that oozes out of both of
you guys is this passion to helpmake things better, to solve
problems, and to truly look atwhere things are at and how can
we make incremental changes tomake the lives of the staff and
the guests better.
Brian Reece and Steve Crowl (37:23):
I'd say we, we, um, engaged with
Sweet Green a few years ago andbefore they hired us, the COO
asked to interview our existingclient base.
And so we gave him some namesand he came back to me a couple
weeks later and I was ready formy feedback.
I was actually a little bitnervous.
We were still new and gettingour feet up under us, and he
said.
He's like, Steve, here's what Ilearned.
Every client I talked to saidthe thing they love about
(37:46):
working with service physics isthat you make their problem,
your problem.
Right, which is actually not atenant of lean.
Lean tends to be like, you'regonna own your problem and then
your coach is gonna like, helppull you through that problem.
Uh, one of the things we'velearned is like, yes, that is
important.
Building capability is reallyimportant, but you know what,
this is a competitiveenvironment and life is short
(38:07):
and is when things are just likeactually pretty clear.
And if someone just had adifferent point of view, there
is a best way to do this, thenwe should help them.
because not everybody has enoughtime to go on that journey.
Uh, we love to bring.
Uh, team members from the clientteam onto our team.
Like that's a, an idealengagement where they'll like
dedicate a team member to us,you know, halftime or full-time,
(38:30):
uh, that way when the project'sover that capability resides in
the organization and, you know,they don't need to keep hiring
us to solve the same problemover and over again, which is
not why we started the companyin the first place.
So, um, hopefully
Jeremy Julian (38:41):
am say so you're not one of those consultants
that creates work for you tocontinue to get Bill billing.
You know, there's neverconsultants out there that do
that.
I'm sure you guys have neversigned off on those transactions
at the Department of Defense orin some of those other Fortune
500 companies that you guys haveworked in.
Right.
Brian Reece and Steve Crowl (38:55):
One of the things that, you know, we
learned, from our coaches atStarbucks, the Toyota folks, is
that the technical solution isusually easy compared to
changing people.
Uh, people are working in thisindustry, they're in
environments that are set up ina certain way.
there's, uh, you, you've heardphrases in the industry like,
time to lean, time to clean.
And it's like, well, what if itwas just like time to be ready
for the next customer to arrive?
(39:15):
Like, that's also importantbecause if we're off cleaning
when the customer arrives, thenwe're gonna create a delay.
so.
Jeremy Julian (39:21):
be spending time educating ourselves?
Could we be time, spend, timegetting to know our team members
so that we, you know, we'rehelping?
Yeah.
I mean, there's so manydifferent opportunities, but
yeah, that, that old, old adageof time to lean, time to clean,
it's like, no, let's help makethe business better.
And yes, cleaning has to happen,but we're gonna schedule that.
sorry,
Brian Reece and Steve Crowl (39:36):
And so, yeah, so the technical
solutions, you know, they're,they're, they're, they're,
they're available.
They're not, you know, they'renot.
Complex.
Sometimes they're a little bitcomplicated, but really we're
trying to design the work to besimple and repeatable.
But if you cross your, if youcross your arms like this one
way your whole life, and thensomebody asks you to do it
differently and then to keepdoing that a hundred times a
day, it's gonna take a while forthat to embed.
So the sort of like quoteunquote consulting part of it,
(39:59):
the technical part is a piece.
There's a really importantcomponent that takes months
after that, especially in largeorganizations, which is.
What materials are we gonna useto create the case for change?
How are we gonna cascade thisinformation through leadership
to the frontline so thateverybody in the organization
can walk in and say like, Hey,what's happening right now is
expected, or this is unexpected.
(40:20):
And then be able to support andcoach and to keep the sandcastle
from crumbling into the seabecause these are service
systems, not hardware andsoftware.
it's like, it's like humansoftware without any housing in
it.
Um, and so it's super
Jeremy Julian (40:32):
it's cultural change at the end of the day.
I mean, culture is really what,who, how do we act here?
And you have to change how weact here.
If they're making theseorganizational changes on the
way they, they do things andit's gotta be supported from the
top all the way down and fromthe bottom, all the way up, or,
or you don't end up gettingsustainable change.
You guys come in and do anengagement and six months from
now you're like, what the hellhappened?
We, we had them working so welland now they're, they're back to
(40:54):
their old ways,
Brian Reece and Steve Cro (40:55):
Well, it's really funny, uh, because
you, you said, you know, theconsultant that, uh, figures out
how to make more work forthemselves as part of their
deliverable.
I think, again, probably morelucky than, than smart, but to
your point, the change and theculture shift takes time.
And so while we can, you know,the technical consulting work
that we do for these largeorganizations, we can get done
(41:16):
in a matter of months.
But then when we talk about,okay, well now let's make sure
it implements and delivers onthat.
Uh, on that business and, andcustomer value, that is what
takes a long time.
And so we establish really, uh,long-term in-depth relationships
with our clients because we're,we're in the trenches actually
helping them to implement and tochange, uh, the hearts and the
minds of, of operations.
(41:36):
But that translates also intothe other folks in the, in the
headquarters or the sportscenter as well.
Everyone, sort of, gets in theboat and starts rowing and, and
we've developed a few, Engaging,activities and workshops, uh,
that we do that really helpsbring the hearts and minds of,
you know, those executives, uh,all the way down to the
frontline, dishwashers, etcetera, uh, into this new way of
(41:59):
seeing the business.
And it is more just about, morethan just.
Efficiency.
It's about how can we make thework better for people?
And so, this is a coolopportunity to talk about, uh, a
workshop that we're, uh, we'reputting on.
So we, we've lamented, you know,our mission is to transform the
industry.
We really want to make workservice work better for people.
And given that the vast majorityof restaurant industry is, uh,
(42:20):
you know, independent operatorsand, you know, single units to,
you know, maybe low, low teens,So how can we take these
services that we've beenoffering to these large
companies and actually make themaccessible and make this
practice accessible, for folks?
So, uh, we're really hoping tobring those workshops that we've
been, selling to these likemassive organizations and, and
finding a lot of impact intransformation, uh, in, in terms
(42:42):
of culture and mindset.
How can we make that moreaccessible for all the
operators, in, the, in thecountry?
and so, um, in August we'll bedoing, uh, our version of
service Physics 1 0 1.
It's the original workshop, uh,with, a lot of, uh, builds from
what we've learned doing servicephysics as a company.
It's the original workshop thatwe, built, six plus years ago to
do that minimum of effectivedose of lean.
(43:03):
Uh, so we'd really love to, youknow, kind of stay connected so
that when that's coming out, uh,folks have the opportunity to,
uh, to participate.
Uh,'cause we, you know, wereally wanna see the industry at
large.
transform and, and really thinkabout work differently.
and so this workshop is ournext, problem solving step to
see how we can, kind of reachout beyond just these like, you
know, deep pocketed largecompany companies.
(43:24):
And it's in Dallas, so you it'sin there, you hometown.
Yeah.
Jeremy Julian (43:27):
we, we better, we better figure out how to, how to
make our way there.
so where do people find that?
Where do people find you guysonline?
You know, and I know, I know thewebsite, but, uh, I guess why
don't you guys read off thewebsite and then what other ways
would you say that people shouldstay connected?
So if they can't make the Dallasworkshop, but they want stay
connected and learn, how shouldthey engage and, here's where
you guys do your sales pitch.
How do they engage with youguys?
How do they sign up?
(43:47):
They're a large brand.
They got, Billion dollars insales and they're gonna need to
figure it out down to the momand pops.
You know, tell'em how to engageand how to stay connected so
they can continue to learn andcontinue to grow and make, make
the world a better place likeyou.
Brian Reece and Steve Crowle (43:58):
At www.servicephysics.com and keep
it simple.
Uh, we also keep it simpleenough that our email addresses
are our first name and thatdomain.
So steve@servicephysics.com.
brian@servicephysics.com, or,uh, if you don't want to go
right to us,contact@servicephysics.com.
LinkedIn's a great place tofollow us, uh, individually or
you can follow the company page,which try to put updates there.
(44:19):
and.
That's it.
We, we we're trying to get, Moreactive on the national circuit
as well.
We've done National RestaurantAssociation the last couple
years in a row.
We love to have the booth thereand have, former colleagues, uh,
folks who've been talking aboutdoing work with and just anybody
else who wants to stop by Thisyear, we did the spaghetti
diagrams.
We had a giant screen up with acouple of, cooks working in a
(44:40):
restaurant and have people, youknow, sort of trace their, their
motion through the restaurant.
It's, you know, within 30seconds you've kind of got it
and you can go back home and dosomething with that.
But yeah, we, we hope to see asmany people, uh, as possible
and, and, you know, whether it'sto engage, uh, and learn more
or, you've done some research onyour own and you've had a win.
Uh, anything you can do to helpus understand and contribute to
(45:03):
the larger, body of knowledgeof, of service physics, uh,
would love to hear about it.
Jeremy Julian (45:08):
Love it.
Well, uh, you know, if, if theservice physics thing doesn't
work out, you guys did great onyour podcast.
You know, you're notprofessional podcasters, but I,
uh, I appreciate you guysjumping on.
Um, to our listeners, guys, Iknow you guys got lots of
choices, so thanks for hangingout.
Um, hopefully you guys learnedsomething today from the service
physics team.
If you haven't alreadysubscribed, please do so to the
show on your favorite listeningplatform and make it a great
day.
(45:30):
Thanks for listening to TheRestaurant Technology Guys
podcast.
Visit restaurant technologyguys.com for tips, industry
insights, and more to help yourun your restaurant better.
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