June 3, 2025 • 49 mins
In this episode of CULINARY MECHANIC, Simon sits down with Noelle Labrie, founder of Tri Skill Consulting, to explore how frontline experiences in the industry—from bartending in Deep Ellum to building restaurant teams in Kuwait—shaped her passion for developing “fresh leaders.” Noel’s story starts with jello shots and ends with training hospitality professionals around the globe.
This conversation hits hard on the realities of poor leadership in restaurants and why most management problems aren’t personal—they’re systemic. Noelle and Simon talk people-first operations, the fallacy of promoting based on technical ability, and how to identify untapped leadership talent hiding in plain sight. From practical systems to emotional intelligence, they break down how small basics lead to massive improvements.
Whether you're running a hot dog stand or a multi-unit brand, this episode delivers a grounded blueprint for people-centered leadership and scalable restaurant culture.
Key Quotes
"People don’t leave companies. People leave people." — Noelle Labrie
"Start with what hurts, then trace it back to the systems—or the lack of them." — Noelle Labrie
"Restaurants are restaurants. Doesn’t matter if it's Kuwait or a hot dog stand in Vegas." — Noelle Labrie
"Leadership is getting paid less for what you do and more for what you know—until you're paid for what you impart." — Simon Zatyrka
Connect with Noel LaBrie
Website: https://www.tri-skillconsulting.com/
LinkedIn: @Noelle-labrie
Connect with Simon
Email: simon@culinarymechanic.com
Book a Call: https://calendly.com/culinarymechanic/connect
Website: https://www.culinarymechanic.com
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
You're listening toHeritage Radio Network.
I.
From kitchen chaos to well-oiled machines.
Get ready for newfangledtechnology and old school Know-how
(00:21):
stories and a good bit of fun.
I'm Simon, and this iscalled Area Mechanic.
Simon (00:31):
Today I am joined by Noel LaBree.
Noel, welcome.
It's culinary mechanic.
Noelle (00:39):
Thanks, Simon.
I'm happy to be here.
Simon (00:42):
Yeah, I'm happy you're here as well.
Uh, I think that you andI first connected, I wanna
say last year, wasn't it?
Noelle (00:50):
Yeah.
Toward the end of last year.
Simon (00:52):
Um, just, just kind of.
Stayed in, stayed in contact, andreally just made sense that we, we bring
you on and kind of see what we see.
So, um, I know that you dosome consulting, uh, and
it's Tri Skill Consulting.
Uh, I'd love to just kind rollback the way back machine and say,
(01:14):
how'd you get into the industry?
How'd you get, get connected to,to food service and hospitality?
Noelle (01:21):
Oh gosh.
We're, we're going way back, Simon.
You know, I, I was a wee babe when Igot involved in the world of restaurant
hospitality, but I'll tell you truthfully,my very first job in a restaurant,
if you can even call it that, I.
As a jello shot girl.
So this is going right, this isgoing, oh, jello shots way back.
(01:43):
And I was, uh, I was living in Dallas.
I was going to school and my roommateat the time, uh, was bartending in
Deep Ellum, you know, way in, inthe innards of, of downtown Dallas.
And, um.
This was back in the day where shehad a friend who made Jello shots
at home and then sold them to all ofthe independent bars and restaurants,
(02:07):
you know, down in, in Deep El.
So again, going back a few years, at anyrate, she called me one Friday afternoon.
It was Halloween weekend, and shecalled me in a panic and she goes.
Do you have a costume?
And I was like, what do you mean?
And she goes, do youhave a Halloween costume?
Do you have something you could put on?
And I was like, I'm sure I couldscramble something together.
And she goes, we need you to come down.
It's to the place it wascalled The Cockeyed Parrot.
(02:30):
And, and she goes, we, we need you to comedown to the parrot and, and I need you
to be the jello shot girl this weekend.
She called out sick and I waslike, what are you talking about?
And, and she says, literally all you gottado is wander around and flirt with the
guys and try to sell 'em some jello shots.
And I was like, all right.
Whatever.
So sure enough, I scrambled togethera costume, went out to the bar.
(02:50):
I worked Friday and Saturday night.
Probably made 250 bucks in cash,like straight off the top, just
literally walking around with a trayand jello shots for a dollar a piece.
So that was my entry into thevery, um, exclusive world of
being a cocktail waitress.
And eventually, um, the group thatowned that place, it was a couple
(03:14):
of British brothers and they.
I had a couple other bars that were alittle, a little bit of a level up from
that, and I eventually ended up actuallycoming to work for them and then.
Eventually becoming a bartender.
Um, they sponsored a, a rugby teamand all the guys were from quite
literally all over the world.
(03:35):
I mean, they were from, you know,Ireland, Scotland, England, South
Africa, Australia, New Zealand.
They were from all over the place andit was quite an education as a very
young, vulnerable early 20 something.
Aged woman to be exposed to theseguys from all over the world
who played rugby and animals?
(03:58):
Oh my God.
It was, I'll tell you, myvocabulary increased by like
10 times working with them.
It was incredible the words Ilearned working with those guys.
Um, but it was just reallyamazing and it gave me such a, a,
first of all, it was super fun.
I mean, we, we had a blast andwe were very much a family and
really looked out for each other.
(04:20):
But it was such a learning experiencewith regard to people and psychology
and sociology and human behavior.
I mean, I was going to school at the time,my degree was in English composition.
You know, I, I was a literarystudent, and here I am being exposed
to this completely different world.
(04:41):
And I fell in love withthe people aspect of it.
Yeah.
And, and that's what really sucked mein was, you know, the, the different
cultures and, and how people connected tofood and how people connected to drink.
'cause it was a bar andwhat does that mean?
And it was, it was just such a completely.
Different kind of education.
(05:03):
So that, that's how I stumbledinto, quite literally stumbled
into the restaurant world.
Simon (05:09):
I, I, you know, I, I love it.
Uh, somewhere in the annals of mywebsite and my, my click on my bio
and it says that I came, I camefor the, the food and the fun, and
I really, I stayed for the people.
I, I just have always.
Been in awe of all the differentpeople you can meet in this business.
(05:32):
Yeah.
Um, and I, I've been lucky enough tokind of bounce around the country and see
all sorts of different things, um, anddifferent places and, uh, you know, from
fine, fine dining to little bars and barand grills on the beaches of Florida.
Um.
And as well as, you know, I got to workin some pretty fun hotels that were,
um, highfalutin, I think is the word.
(05:57):
Um, okay, so you're in.
Yep.
What keeps you there?
Like what?
Like, uh, and it doesn'teven have to be that job.
I think that, you know, kinda whatis, so the, the people got you to
stay, so like how does that progress?
Noelle (06:12):
Well, like I said, I was gonna school and I, I graduated
and, um, I, I had been pre-med fora little while when I was in school.
I really thought that thatwas a direction, potentially
that I was gonna go.
And I was working in doctor'soffices during the day and then
bartending at night, um, to, youknow, get myself through school.
I worked three jobs.
I mean, it was a crazy, crazy time andthen had some pretty significant life
(06:36):
changes and ended up in a new city.
I moved to Denver, Colorado, and.
Quite literally knew one person and,and I went there to get away from a
situation, come into something brand new.
And what do you do?
You get a job in a restaurant becausethen immediately you're gonna have
a collective of people, right?
(06:57):
Like you're, you're gonna have afamily whether you want it or not.
And you might not always get along, but.
They're gonna be your people.
And I fell into this group.
Um, I, I went to work for PFChang's, and this was Oh wow.
You know, back in the day whenChang's was really growing big and,
and expanding quite a lot, you know,definitely getting themselves out
(07:18):
there as, as kind of the place to be.
And I landed a, a bartending spotin downtown Denver and randomly met
this amazing, amazing circle of.
People who quickly became my family there.
Right.
And again, what I realized is as I progressed there, you know, started
(07:40):
out as a bartender and then I becamea trainer, and then I was approaching
a somewhat significant birthday and I.
I had a college degree, but I was stillworking, you know, in the restaurant.
My dad's kind of in my ear aboutwhen are you gonna get a real job?
And I went into management becausethat kind of seemed like a natural
progression of a real job, you know,within the restaurant world really.
(08:05):
Where my passion though was in.
I discovered, again, going backto the people, it was in the
people development side of things.
It, it was in the, the training and howdo I help people grow and what can I teach
them and how can I share my knowledgeand help them to understand who they are
and the gifts that they have and how theycan expand in, in their capabilities.
(08:31):
I, I randomly, I guess it wasn't sorandom now looking back on it, but an
opportunity arose for me to interviewfor a regional training position.
I was fortunate enough to land kindof what turned out to be my dream job.
At the time I was in, I wasselected to be the regional training
(08:51):
manager for the southwest ofthe us so I covered five states.
Wow.
Yeah.
And I always teased that I had thebest territory because I had, you know.
Denver, Phoenix, San Diego, Las Vegas.
Like that was my whole world.
And
Simon (09:08):
sounds tragic.
Noelle (09:09):
Oh yeah, it was rough.
It was really, really rough.
You know, I had to be in Vegasevery six weeks-ish for five years.
Yeah, it was hard.
Um, but it, but it was amazing, thetravel part, don't get me wrong,
now, looking back on it, I mean,I was on the road 80% of the time.
But I got to be in these incredibleplaces with these incredible people
and open incredible restaurants.
(09:29):
And all of it led to, or contributed to,I guess I should say this, this passion
that I had for helping people grow.
Like, what's the next thing that youwant and, and how, how can I support
you in your desire to get there?
So.
The regional position actually ledto an international role, um, because
(09:53):
our home offices were in Scottsdale.
As we kind of, sort ofwere starting to dabble in.
International expansion.
Our franchise partners wouldcome to Arizona, which was my
territory, to do their training.
So I had the opportunity to open our firstfranchise restaurant, which was in Hawaii.
(10:14):
Then I had the chance to openour first true international
restaurant, which was in Mexico City.
Wow.
And after that, I said to the, we didn'teven have an international department.
We, we had one guy who wastrying to like, expand, you know,
this, this thing potentially.
And I said to him, I waslike, oh my God, I love this.
(10:36):
I'll go anywhere, I'll do anything.
You know, tell me what you want.
I, I wanna see and do andbe more with more people.
And a little while later, he, he calledme and his, he'd, he was this Italian
guy and you know, was, ah, ciao bella.
And he's like, Noel, Ihave this thing for you.
And then I get, you know, I havethis job and I'm thinking that I'm
(10:58):
gonna be based in the US and travel.
Right, right.
Like, that's, that's my thought.
No, no, no.
I ended up in Kuwait for four years.
Not exactly what I expected.
And Simon, I will tell you quitefrankly, that those four years
absolutely changed my life.
It gave me such a different sense,again, of who people are and
(11:23):
what they're capable of, and Ibecame even more passionate about.
The leadership development and, andthe people development side of things.
So while here I am kind of globe trottingand having the chance to op literally
open restaurants all over the world.
For me it was, it was the individualpeople, it was, it was the buser
(11:47):
who never thought he was gonna doanything else other than bus tables.
Now he's traveling with me toTurkey to be a, a trainer, you know?
Oh wow.
It was such an incredible experience andit just kind of fueled this fire and,
and, and gave me this desire to helpothers see in them what I could see, but
(12:14):
they just couldn't see it for themselves.
That was a really longanswer to a short question.
Simon (12:20):
No, that's perfect.
That's, that's, that,that's what this is, right?
Like yeah.
Uh, there is so much power in, in the,the narrative that, that brings us along.
Right.
I think for me, um, like.
You talked about the sort of the greaterthe, the, the greater growth of, of people
(12:43):
around you and that, that are workingwith you and for me, like I love all that
stuff, but there's nothing better to methan the aha moment of, Hey man, like
I know you've been trying thi this way.
Try, try doing that ahundred percent reverse.
And they go, oh, I neverthought about it that way.
And it's, and justtheir eyes light up and.
(13:06):
Seeing people's, like right beforeyour eyes, you see people's neural
pathways rewire and they're like,oh my God, I, I, you know, and, and
then they get excited and then they,like, they get that visceral reaction.
Their neck starts to pump a little bit.
There's nothing better than, than allof those things, um, in the day to day.
I think that I, I love hearing thestories of like, traveling around
(13:29):
the world and you're getting to.
To teach people in the busboy, butfor me it's all those little moments
in between that really, I don't know.
And I had never got, I've really nevertraveled very much internationally.
Very, very little actually.
Um, but I think the big thingfor me as I've been across this
country is like understanding that.
(13:50):
At the end of the day, restaurantsare restaurants or restaurants.
That's my favorite part.
Yeah.
It's like, it doesn't matter howfancy or not, whatever the polar
opposite of fancy is, right?
Like it isn't, it isn't low brow,it's just less of something.
Um, but whatever the polar opposite offancy is all the way up to the scale of.
(14:15):
Of stupid, crazy luxuryrestaurants or restaurants.
Ain't nobody dying.
We are feeding people and withany luck, we're creating memories.
But
yeah.
Okay, so now we've been around the world and you know how,
like I, I guess how to sum that up.
How does, how does that time leadyou to where you are now and tell us
(14:40):
about what you're doing right now?
Noelle (14:44):
It's so crazy 'cause exactly what you just said, that restaurants
are, restaurants are restaurants.
And that aha moment of peoplehave, that's exactly what's
gotten me to where I am right now.
So a couple of things.
The, the buser I mentioned, his name isSAE Ali, I'm still in touch with him.
He truly was a pivotal.
(15:08):
Person in my life to help me to realizewhat I really wanted to do because he was
from a lower cast in India, was told hisentire life, this is all you'll ever do.
This is all you'll ever be.
And Simon, when I tell you, he wasthe hardest working guy in our entire
restaurant and got along with everybody.
(15:31):
Everybody respected him.
Everybody enjoyed to be with him.
He was so easy to work with andhe was so damn good at his job.
He could teach anybody anything.
Oh, wow.
And helping, I, I can't even say helpinghim, just guiding him to that realization
of, of the potential that he already hadthat he didn't even know that he had.
(15:56):
That was it.
Like he literally changed my life.
Because I realized this,this is what I want to do.
I want to work with, withthese folks who have.
No idea.
The, the talent and the gifts thatthey have within them that are just
(16:18):
waiting to be tapped into and, and whatthey can share with regard to service
and what they can contribute to theirteam and what they can provide for
their guests and all of those things.
Exactly.
To your point, it doesn't matterif, if I'm at a restaurant in Kuwait
or same thing right now, I'm, I'm.
(16:39):
In conversation with a gentlemanwho owns a hotdog stand in Las
Vegas, like literally right now,we, we had a conversation last week.
It's the same principles andthe same things that we all are
dealing with in this industry.
And, you know, how, how do you, how doyou provide both for your employees and
(17:03):
for your guests in a way that is gonna be.
Positive and, and, um,expansive for, for both.
How do you give your employees theexperience that they need to support them
in whatever it is that they're doing?
How can you serve them so thatthey can serve your guests?
(17:25):
And, and it doesn't matter if you'rerunning a hotdog stand or PF Chang's,
or like you said, some, you know, finedining, white tablecloth restaurant,
you know, you could be talking to WillGadara about Unreasonable Hospitality.
And it's across the board, it's the same.
Basic principles for all of them.
So truly working with SA Ali was,was what really was pivotal for me of
(17:49):
realizing that my, my passion and mydrive and, and path in life was working
with young, I say young leaders, Idon't necessarily mean young in age,
I just mean young in experience.
You know, the ones who, who, again,they don't know what they don't know.
Simon (18:09):
I call those fresh leaders.
Noelle (18:11):
Yeah.
Oh, that's a good word.
I might have to borrow that.
Simon (18:13):
Right?
Because I might have to borrow that.
Because they don't, they don't like,like especially in my world for
chefs, they don't have to be young.
Right.
They just have to be new to that levelthat, and so it's fresh because that's
where, that's what food is, right?
Yeah.
It's either fresh or it's old.
It's not young or old.
It's fresh.
So yes, I like that.
Fresh leaders.
(18:34):
Right.
Noelle (18:34):
I like that.
I like that.
And, and that's exactly it.
And I know Simon, you and I havechatted about this a little bit.
It's, you know, as well as I do that whathappens so often, I'm sure this happens
in other industries too, but we see itin restaurants, is that somebody, it's
a great prep cook or great on the line,or they're an awesome server and then
(18:56):
they get promoted into the ne that nextposition and then they suffer because.
They don't, they don't know thedifference of, dude, I was just out
drinking with that guy three weeks ago.
How am I supposed to tell him hecan't come into work hungover?
Like they, they don't know how to dothat because nobody's teaching them.
How to have those conversations or how tomake those decisions or how to manage that
(19:21):
change and, and I think that's where youand I have a lot of commonality is what
can we do to support that fresh leader,that fresh chef, that fresh young manager.
And give them the confidence andthe knowledge that they need in
order to be successful becausethey can't, they can be successful.
(19:42):
They just need somebodyto guide them to that.
So yeah, it's that, that's nowwhat, what I do, very similar to
what you do on the culinary side.
Simon (19:51):
Yeah, I, I absolutely love it.
I think that I.
I used to have a lead cook, and Iremember we were somewhere in the, uh,
call it 2008, 2009, and I remember thatwe were short a saute cook and there
was a dishwasher who was demonstratingto me that they were a hard worker.
(20:14):
And so I, I went to my lead cook andhis name was Danny, and I said, Danny.
What do you think aboutthat guy over there?
Do you think that he can, do youthink that he has what it takes to,
you know, like, do, does he have anyexperience be like, is was he doing
anything else besides he came herebecause I, I'm pretty sure that you
brought him here and he goes, no.
(20:35):
And I was like, does he like,man, we, we need another cook.
And he is like, he's like.
You're asking the wrong questions.
And I said, what?
And he says, no, no, you'reasking the wrong question, chef.
He says, it's not, does he,does he have the skills?
It's not, does does he know how it's,does he have the desire to learn more?
(20:58):
Does he have the desire to do more stuff?
And I was like, huh.
Because I had never thought aboutit, like up until that point.
And I think I'd, at that point, I'd beenin the business for 18, 19 years and I'd
always just, it was always about, largelyabout capacity, but also about like, how
much do you like about your competency?
(21:19):
And so I think that being ableto shift from competency to
like good old flashing desire.
Desire to work hard, desire towork smart, like desire to do
a little more and get a raise.
Like all those things, whether, whetherit's just the transaction or not,
(21:41):
like the desire has gotta be there.
Um, and I think that that's whatI love about hearing about like
the, your experiences in Kuwait,because you start to understand that.
Again, it's restaurants andit's the same wherever we go.
Um, and a funny story about realfast, a funny story about like not
(22:03):
thinking about other industries.
For the longest time I was like this,this only happens in our industry.
We're just like the little, we're like thedirty little animals in the corner, right?
And all those people in thosecubicles, they must get.
Like in the corporate world,they must get training.
And then, you know, I, I leavethe restaurant world and I start
paying attention and I perhapsI just lift my, my chin up a
(22:26):
little bit more than it had been.
And I start looking around andI start talking to people and
I'm, I. I'm on an airplane andsomeone says, well, what do you do?
And I'm like, well, I do this.
And they're like, oh myGod, that would be amazing.
I'm like, what do you do?
He is like, I fly planes.
I'm like, he's like, I'm a pilot.
There's, you know, like, like that,that kind of stuff you just described
about, about like people not knowing,not having people skills and their,
(22:47):
their desire to communicate or, or not.
He is like, that's everywhere.
And I'm like, is it?
Oh, okay.
You know, and so like.
Now I'm like, oh, everybody's fucked up.
Cool.
Got it.
Noelle (22:59):
And, and that's exactly it.
I mean, it really does happenacross industry and you know, the.
When you talk about KPIs or you talkabout competencies that are necessary
for leadership, I mean, across the board,for the most part, they're the same.
Again, decision making, changemanagement, team management, you know,
all of the communication, like all ofthat stuff, regardless of industry.
(23:24):
In a leadership position, you, yougotta have some element of that.
I think the thing that makesthe restaurant, restaurant
and hospitality world.
A little bit different is the languageis different, the pace is different,
the hours are different, like.
(23:44):
I mean, I, I've, I'veworked corporate jobs.
I, I've done the kind of, sort of nineto five ish thing, you know, even though
I always end up outside of nine to five.
But that's a whole other different story.
But I think that becomes, itcomes from my, my background in
restaurants where I'm used toworking 12 hour days or 14 hour days.
And, you know, I said once to somebodyin a, a completely different field.
(24:08):
I was like, oh my God,my dogs are barking.
And they were like, whatdo you need to go home?
And I was like.
What, and they like, they just, itdidn't, it didn't connect, you know?
And, and I think that, that wehave a, a frame of reference
that unless you've worked in arestaurant or worked in the field.
(24:32):
And not everybody gets it.
I, I wish I could saymy family, for example.
I wish I could say that they allunderstand what I do and where
I've been and what I've done.
And bless them all, they have no clue.
'cause none of them, none of my immediatefamily has worked in a restaurant before.
And, and it's just, it's a different worldand they, it's not something that they.
(24:55):
Can relate to.
So there's, we're, we're just, haven't
Simon (24:59):
watched the bear.
It'll explain everything.
Noelle (25:01):
Well, my mom funny that you say that because my mom actually,
when Hell's Kitchen was like firston tv, and this was, I don't know,
however many years ago that itfirst started, started coming out 20
Simon (25:10):
years ago.
Noelle (25:10):
Yeah.
I mean, a long time and, and back thenI, I was in operations and my mom was.
Horrified and she's like, oh my God,do your chef speak to you like that?
And I was like, fuck no.
There is no way in hell that my chefwould speak to me that way because
of the environment that I was in.
We were a very dedicated, specific,you know, type of environment.
(25:33):
I know that that existed.
It just wasn't my world that Iexisted in, but my mom was horrified.
She was like, I can't believe that theywould speak to each other that way.
And I'm like, yeah, we don't.
But others certainly do.
And it's, again, if you're not init, you just, you just don't know.
Simon (25:54):
Yeah.
I, I like to tell people, if, if youwanna understand, then let's, uh, let's.
Close off all the air in, in, in a closet,and let's just throw a heater in there and
then let's rattle a bunch of stuff, right?
And, and then like make demands,uh, on, on your, on your being
(26:16):
that are very, very rigorous.
And then we'll see how you behave.
Noelle (26:20):
Right.
Simon (26:20):
You know?
Um, and I, I. For better or for worse?
Mostly for worse.
I can tell you that I hada number of those chefs.
Yeah.
And I, I exhibited some ofthose behaviors for a while.
Um, but interestingly I found thatwhen I was getting pushed to the
place where I was starting to be oneof those like freak out on people
(26:44):
I reali, I started to like, feel.
I, I started to feel it likeI didn't feel good inside.
That didn't make me feel likethat wasn't enriching my life.
Right.
And, and,
and that's, I think therewas a turning point.
Um, I don't call it 2005 oroh six, where I was like, huh.
(27:07):
If this is how I have to getresults and I don't like it, I
have to find a different way.
And then I was told I was up for apromotion, um, with a company and,
you know, a hotel company and I, I.
Didn't get the job.
And she, the lady was very, veryblunt and honest and she said,
(27:28):
you're just not enough of a leader.
She says, I hear the most amazing thingsabout the things that you pull off
every day and that your team pulls off.
But I think that you'retoo much of a doer for me.
I need somebody who's gonna scowl at mypeople, have great thoughts at night, come
back and implement them the very next.
She says, I need somebodywho can lead us to greatness.
(27:52):
And I was like.
Hmm.
I came home and I was all pissed offwhen she told me that I didn't get it.
And I told my wife, and like two dayslater she flings leadership for dummies at
me and goes, start reading, you know, likeshe flips, uh, what was it, John Maxwell,
John c Maxwell's Leadership 1 0 1.
Like a little tiny book.
(28:12):
Right.
She whips that at meand goes, keep reading.
Like, let's go like,figure it out, you know?
And it was like, that wasjust a mindblower for me.
They'll be like.
Well, there's another way to do this.
Okay.
Right.
And, and then to, toleave myself out of that.
And I, I, I did, I did pretty well.
I, I, I moved myself from an executive,sous chef, sous chef job to a chef de
(28:33):
cuisine job and a pretty fancy joint.
And then right after that,I was an executive chef, and
I've never turned back, but.
It was like, oh, this isthe, this is really hard.
Like you have to think.
I gotta really, really think.
And that's when somebody said to me, theysaid, okay, when you were a, when you were
in a, when you were an employee, just astraight up line level employee, you got
(28:57):
paid every day to do for what you do.
And now as you progress from sous chefto executive sous chef, to chef, to, to
whatever is after that, every day thatyou go forward, you're gonna get paid
a little bit less for what you do anda little bit more for what you know.
(29:19):
And at some point you're gonnaget paid for what you impart.
And I went.
Oh my brain's aching andI didn't get it at first.
It took me a while.
I was like, nah, I don't knowwhat you're talking about.
You know, have a shot.
Woo.
Uh, you know, just like whatever, man.
You know?
I think that was literally abar stool conversation, but.
(29:39):
Embracing that and then molike driving myself forward.
Um, and then you get all theaha moments and all those
great things to come together.
So tell me about trike Consulting.
Like just tell me, like, what, tellme, obviously you're, you're, you're
around the, the hospitality industry.
What's the goal?
What's the, what's the plan?
Noelle (30:02):
So, oh my gosh, I have so many thoughts right now, and I want to comment
on so many things that you just saidabout leadership and, and that's a, again,
that's really where, where my heart is.
The, the thing of it is, and, andthis happens a lot in the restaurant
world, that no leader likes to betold they're bad at leadership.
For the most part, peopledon't really wanna hear that.
(30:23):
So what I try to do is, is to look atthe pain points so you know, within your
individual unit or within your restaurantgroup, what does your attrition look like?
How high is your employee turnover?
How much money are you throwingin the garbage can every night?
Either because you know, the.
The cooks aren't cooking stuff,right, or they're not following
(30:46):
recipes, or your servers don't knowhow to explain the food, right?
And so the guest orders somethingthat they don't really want.
And so you end up with all thiswaste, um, looking at things like,
you know, online reviews and gettingpoor reviews again because of service
or food, whatever the thing is.
So let's look at the pain points,which ultimately are all symptoms.
(31:10):
Of whatever's going on in themanagement and culinary team, right?
So let's figure out what'shappening painfully in your world.
Then what I try to do is to go back tothe, the management and culinary team and
say, all right, let, let's again, goingback to those things we talked about
earlier, let's talk about communication.
Let's talk about decision making,but it comes down to fundamentals.
(31:33):
Are you having a pre-shift?
Do you actually have recipe cards?
Do you have some kind of a trainingprogram or is it just a brand new
person and you say, Hey, go followthat guy for a couple of days.
So, you know, let, let's get backto the basics and, and look at the
systems that you have in place, andthen look at the leaders within.
(31:54):
And how are you again?
How are you?
Serving your staff in the bestway so that your staff can serve
the guests in the best way.
But you gotta start with what hurts,and then kind of go backwards into,
all right, where, where are thosepain points really coming from?
(32:15):
'cause attrition doesn'thappen by mistake.
There's a reason people leave.
Simon (32:20):
No.
Absolutely.
Noelle (32:21):
Yeah.
Simon (32:21):
Uh, I, there not too long ago there was, you know, just, uh, some,
some little, I call them thumb videos.
'cause you thumb through them, right?
Yeah.
Uh, probably TikTok.
And it's a young lady and she'sin a car and I was like, wow,
your production studio is amazing.
Um, and you know, and she's like.
People don't leave.
(32:42):
People don't leave good jobs.
They leave and she had these like10 things and I was like, God, I,
and I can't, like, I, I don't know.
I scrolled past it or I did somethingon my phone and it was gone forever,
and I, oh my God, what do I do?
But it's, it's just that, it's likenobody leaves like an amazing job.
They leave the jobs, they leavepeople who, who are not engaging with
(33:05):
them, who are not investing in them.
They're not, you know, all those things.
But you said somethingthat really like it.
It's uh, it's the universe's way of, ofreinforcing stuff for me because I don't
know about you, but when I hear somethingand then it's like, Ooh, and then I just.
Like another person says itand another person says it, and
it's nobody's in the same room.
(33:25):
Everybody's spread across thecountry or across the world.
And that is back to basics.
Because I was talking to somebodyand it's like, okay, order the food.
Prep the food, right?
Like, you know, a par you haveone, the par is two, you order one.
(33:47):
It's like, wait, stop all.
Nevermind all the technology.
Nevermind the ai, nevermindthe tool, the thing, the stuff.
Fuck all that.
Go back to the basics.
That's why I wanna have, I wanna likerename some days I wanna rename culinary
mechanic as the, as the, the, the.
(34:07):
Systems rename it to like, back to basics.
I, I don't know, something,something like that.
Just that, that says like, heredo the, do the rudimentary things.
I don't know.
Rudimentary consulting,you know what I'm saying?
Just like the, the, the simplestlittle stupid stuff in repetition
(34:28):
every day the same way.
That's it.
And that, that, that is like,that will en enable like.
Great production, you know,
Noelle (34:38):
but essentially, Simon, that that's what a mechanic does, right?
Like
Simon (34:42):
all day.
Noelle (34:43):
That is, that's what a mechanic does, is to look at the
systems and the processes and, youknow, let's talk about, do again,
do you, do you have a line check?
Are, are you actually checkingtemps every now and then?
Do you have some procedurefor receiving food?
Like all of the things that.
(35:04):
They all contribute to the cultureand, and having those safeguards
in place goes back to exactlywhat you just said a second ago
about whoever that was on TikTok.
People don't leave companies.
People leave people.
Yeah.
So your, your staff in, in yourrestaurant, if you're having a tough
time with turnover, they're not leavingyour restaurant, they're leaving you.
(35:27):
And that can be a really, reallytough pill to swallow as an
owner or a GM or an exec chef.
But at the end of the day, as aleader, everything that happens in
that restaurant is your responsibility.
Simon (35:43):
Mm-hmm.
Noelle (35:43):
Everything.
Simon (35:44):
So as leaders, we are guardians of the business.
Yep.
Noelle (35:46):
Yes.
And so when you put, when youput the mechanics in place, when
you put the, the systems and thesimplicities and the basics, and
you start with that foundation.
You can only go up from there.
Yeah.
And all of those things are necessary tohave some stability in your four walls.
(36:07):
You gotta start with thatand, and it's so crazy to me.
When I have conversations with people,especially if they're independent owners,
again, because you don't know what youdon't know, like I, you know, maybe
you're a fantastic chef and you think thenext thing is I wanna open my own place.
Or you're, you know, great bartenderand you think I wanna open my own
little bar, or whatever the thing is.
(36:30):
But you don't know anything about actuallyrunning a business, and you gotta have
those, you gotta have those foundations inplace, otherwise you're not gonna make it.
It's just not gonna happen.
Or you're gonna wanna be stabbingyourself in the eye every other night
because things are falling apart,which, that's no way to live either.
Yeah.
Simon (36:47):
Yeah.
Uh, I, you know, again, socialmedia, I'm watching some guy
who is clearly a chef, right?
He just, he just looked, he just looksbattle worn and he starts talking about,
he goes, when I, when I first openedthis place, the, he says, the first
restaurant I opened, we did the foodfirst and figured everything else out.
(37:09):
Later he says, and now when Igo to open a restaurant, we.
We spend months on, on the site andwe spend months on the build out and
we spend months on, on the conceptand we spend months on getting all the
vendors in the relationships all builtand really everything set he goes.
(37:31):
And the very last thing we dois we bring the team in and we,
we build the menu as a team.
He goes, and those restaurantsthat I've built that way.
Those are the ones that succeed.
He says, everybody thinksthat it's cooking and then
everything else, and it's not.
It's everything else.
(37:52):
You have to be able torun a business, right?
You have to be able to run a businessand then you get to cook, and that's
one of my most favorite revelationsis, is the guy who says, no, no,
you don't have to do anything you.
Get to, you get to grind, youget to go and sweat in the
kitchen and, and work hard.
(38:13):
Um, and it, and it's gotta bethe privilege of cooking, right?
And that's, that's a lot of what I tryto teach people is, is like, just do all
the other stuff and get really good atthe other stuff so that it goes fast.
And if you.
If you then upgrade from your lawnmowerengine to the, the, the Hyundai, to the
(38:34):
Toyota, to the Cadillac, then you're,you're moving with AI and you've got, you
know, insights coming to your email everyweek and you can pick apart you're, where
you're losing money and, and then you'respending less time in the office and
you're out on the floor, whether that'sout in the dining room or in the kitchen.
Um.
It's about like, you gotta, when yousay, when I say like rudimentary,
(38:57):
I mean like lawnmower wind upthe little rubber band playing.
Like how does that work first?
Not the, the real complicated thing.
You know, I, I think about enginesall the time, uh, because I name my
business culinary mechanic, but Ithink about that and I'm like, no,
I don't want a fuel injected thing.
(39:19):
I want like a single.
It's old school carburetor that likeyou gotta twist and tweak the little
thing in the screw and then you pop thelittle thing with the back of the screw.
You know, all those little things.
Um, and at the end of the day, it'sexactly what my father taught me as a kid.
When something doesn't work, youtake it apart, you clean the contacts
(39:39):
and you put it back together.
So that's, that's my business.
It sounds like that a lot ofit is your business as well.
Yeah.
Um, you also mentioned Will Gadaraand Unreasonable Hospitality,
which, um, shout out to Will Gadara'cause the dude's like amazing.
Uh, and you know, I've, I've listenedto the book twice now on, on audiobook
(39:59):
'cause it's good for walking dogs.
Um, and.
I realized recently it's if you tookhis methodology, and that is to invest
as much time, effort, blood, sweat,and tears in a, as a chef does for,
for product and, and for, for rawproduct as well as finished product.
(40:25):
If you really invested all of thatin how you treated your employees.
Right, like if you took Ho, if youtook Unreasonable Hospitality and
turned it from just being, well, notjust, but largely being front, front
facing, and really made it, we'llcall it gyroscopic hospitality, I.
(40:47):
In every single, right?
Like if you just like went in everydirection, if you remember to be
nice to the guy who's having a roughtime, who's delivering your coke, you
know your stacks of the bibs, right?
The big boxes of, of, of sodaconcentrate in a, in a bag.
For those of you who are notin the industry, um, it's
called a bag in a box, but.
(41:09):
You see a, you see a, a deliveryguy who's sweating and he's dying
and he's three hours late, andyou're like, where's my stuff?
Well, fuck, he's having a bad day.
Instead of yelling at him, go inside, makea sandwich, put it in a box, hand it to
him, bottle of water out the door, andyou will always get your stuff every time.
Guess what?
Amazing, right?
It's hospitality, but it'snot just about the paying.
(41:32):
Customer, it's about how we treat Jimmy,the line Cook whose mom's showing up
out of town and mom didn't think togive him extra notice, so he doesn't
have time to plan that with you.
He just gotta go.
'cause mom, right?
Uh, yeah, I could go on forever.
Um, no, I, oh gosh.
Noelle (41:53):
I totally feel you on that though.
And, and funny because I have read thebook and I have two different thoughts.
I. Say often and, and sometimespeople disagree me with me on this,
but I say that hospitality is notabout food, it's about people.
Yeah.
And you know, it's, if you don'thave the people, whoever they are,
(42:17):
vendors, employees, guests walkingin the door, it doesn't matter what
kind of food you're putting out.
If you don't have thepeople to support that.
So I, I really feel like ourindustry is a people industry.
It's not a food industry.
But the other crazy thing, and we couldprobably do a whole other hour on this,
(42:40):
what absolutely blows my mind about Willand the book Unreasonable Hospitality.
And now there's like a whole school ofthought on it and there's, you know,
classes and online courses you could take.
Oh my God, Simon.
I, I look at all of those.
I love the book.
There's amazing things that arepresented in there, and I think
(43:02):
to myself, isn't this what we'vealways supposed to be doing anyway?
Like, how in the worldis this so revolutionary?
Now, granted, his, his measures werepretty over the top because it was 11
Madison a avenue, and you, he had the.
Capability to, to go really over thetop, but the the core principles, like
(43:28):
it isn't that the stuff that we'resupposed to be doing, like being kind
and compassionate and considerate ofeach other and thinking of your staff's
needs and doing something a little extraspecial for your guests to make this
situation memorable, like, haven't we?
(43:50):
Haven't we like, aren't, aren't wesupposed to be doing that for the last
20 years anyway, so it's, it's kindof amazing to me that this book has
like exploded in the way that it has.
I'm glad that it has, 'cause itbrings a whole other perception, but
it's kind of like, um, it's kind oflike Anthony Bourdain with Kitchen
(44:10):
Confidential when that came out andit's like, you didn't already know this.
This shit's been going on for years.
Like, why are you surprisedthat this is what's happening?
You know what I mean?
It's, it's kind of the samething from a culinary perspective
and a hospitality perspective.
It just like, it blows my mind.
It's kind of crazy.
Simon (44:25):
Well, I, I have a couple things to say about all of that.
Number one, with the whole thing ofshouldn't it have been, shouldn't,
shouldn't this be the baseline, iswhat you're basically saying, right?
And of course, but.
You know, I, I look atit very much like this.
Uh, there's an old French guywho's couple hundred years dead.
(44:48):
His name was, was agu, August Esca, right?
Like, this is the, the master.
This is, okay.
So everybody's like, oh, he's the kingof, king of Chefs, blah, blah, blah.
And at, if you've only heard limitedthings about him, people will say
he was like the greatest cook ever.
No.
He is the guy who said,this is how it's done.
(45:10):
He took and he codified, he took,and he regimented and he documented
You take this and you add it to this.
He take you.
If you then take the, the, the, the bigpot and you like reduce it down and add
it to that one, you get something else.
(45:31):
And then if you add four moreingredients, you get something else.
For me, will Gadara said we've lost sightof where we are, where, where we can be.
Right.
We've lost sight of it becausegreed, capitalism, whatever,
all the things and Right.
And.
And, and I'm gonna write it downand, and it was like a love letter
(45:54):
to making people feel good, right?
The quote in it is the MayaAngelou quote, they'll forget.
They'll all forget what you told themor what you did, but they're always
gonna remember how you made 'em feel.
Well, number one, that's amazing, right?
All by itself.
Number two, my favorite likeinnovation in that whole thing is the
Ticketless coat check, because it'sthe biggest duh you've ever heard.
(46:17):
Yes.
Instead of having a randomset of numbers, we changed the
numbers to the table numbers.
Wait, what?
Like how did you wanna talk aboutsomething we should have figured
out like a hundred years ago?
There's, there's literally like, there'sliterally like thousands of mater D's
rolling in their grave going, my lifewas so hard because of coat X. Right.
(46:39):
And now it's like, what?
You know, so, yeah.
Yeah.
And then let's talk aboutBourdain for a second.
'cause I. Loved that book because therewas so many things that I had experienced
and I was like, I feel so seen.
Which we didn't say 20 years ago.
Right.
We didn't say that, but okay.
That's how I felt.
That's how I, I think now, back now,but my favorite part about reading that
(47:02):
book and being at work, I was workingwith this young lady who had been
in like three different James Beardnominated restaurants and, and like.
James Beard winning restaurantsand, and winning chefs.
And mind you, I'm old enough thatI remember when Michelin wasn't a
thing in the United States, right?
Right.
It's like we, we worried about JamesBeard Awards and we worried about ide.
(47:25):
Right.
She had worked in like three Jamesand she's like, that's such bullshit.
That's not really how restaurants are.
I'm like, man, you, your life sucks.
'cause I had fun in my restaurants.
Noelle (47:38):
Like, where have you been?
Simon (47:40):
Yeah.
And again, like she also likethat she alone could be the.
Subject of at least one podcast.
'cause I learned a ton from her.
Like the, the way she workedthe, the, the, the, the, she's a
former figure skater, so, so shelike floated through the kitchen.
It was amazing.
(48:00):
I, I just never, to this day I, I'mlike, I don't know how you do that.
Like, I'm this big clumsy guy.
I am almost six foot tall and.
You know, well over two 50and I, I'm a bull in a China
shop if there ever was one.
Um, you know, so I'm notnimble and I'm not a ballerina.
Um, but I, I make it through the world.
(48:20):
Um, so yeah.
Well, gosh, I think wecovered a little ground, huh?
Noelle (48:25):
A little bit, but all the way around the
Simon (48:26):
world.
I, I think we've done
Noelle (48:27):
pretty well.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Not too bad.
Awesome.
Simon (48:30):
Thank you so much for coming to play in my, my
little sandbox of the world.
I really appreciate it.
Noelle (48:35):
Oh my gosh, this is so fun.
Great conversation.
Simon (48:38):
Awesome.
In the show notes, I'm gonnamake sure that we can find
you at Tri Skill Consulting.
I'll put it all in there.
Um, to all you out there.
Please continue to listen to us.
Uh, we're now a part ofthe Heritage Radio Network.
Uh, this is Culinary Mechanic.
You can find us.
Let's see.
There's YouTube.
There's Spotify, there's Apple Podcasts.
(48:59):
Wherever you consume podcasts.
Please leave us a five star review.
Remember to like, subscribe, follow.
Did I miss anything?
Nope, that's it.
Um, once again, thank you so much forcoming to play to all you out there.
I'll catch you on the flip side.
Bye-bye.
You're listening toHeritage Radio Network.
I.
From kitchen chaos to well-oiled machines.
Get ready for newfangledtechnology and old school Know-how
(00:21):
stories and a good bit of fun.
I'm Simon, and this iscalled Area Mechanic.
Simon (00:31):
Today I am joined by Noel LaBree.
Noel, welcome.
It's culinary mechanic.
Noelle (00:39):
Thanks, Simon.
I'm happy to be here.
Simon (00:42):
Yeah, I'm happy you're here as well.
Uh, I think that you andI first connected, I wanna
say last year, wasn't it?
Noelle (00:50):
Yeah.
Toward the end of last year.
Simon (00:52):
Um, just, just kind of.
Stayed in, stayed in contact, andreally just made sense that we, we bring
you on and kind of see what we see.
So, um, I know that you dosome consulting, uh, and
it's Tri Skill Consulting.
Uh, I'd love to just kind rollback the way back machine and say,
(01:14):
how'd you get into the industry?
How'd you get, get connected to,to food service and hospitality?
Noelle (01:21):
Oh gosh.
We're, we're going way back, Simon.
You know, I, I was a wee babe when Igot involved in the world of restaurant
hospitality, but I'll tell you truthfully,my very first job in a restaurant,
if you can even call it that, I.
As a jello shot girl.
So this is going right, this isgoing, oh, jello shots way back.
(01:43):
And I was, uh, I was living in Dallas.
I was going to school and my roommateat the time, uh, was bartending in
Deep Ellum, you know, way in, inthe innards of, of downtown Dallas.
And, um.
This was back in the day where shehad a friend who made Jello shots
at home and then sold them to all ofthe independent bars and restaurants,
(02:07):
you know, down in, in Deep El.
So again, going back a few years, at anyrate, she called me one Friday afternoon.
It was Halloween weekend, and shecalled me in a panic and she goes.
Do you have a costume?
And I was like, what do you mean?
And she goes, do youhave a Halloween costume?
Do you have something you could put on?
And I was like, I'm sure I couldscramble something together.
And she goes, we need you to come down.
It's to the place it wascalled The Cockeyed Parrot.
(02:30):
And, and she goes, we, we need you to comedown to the parrot and, and I need you
to be the jello shot girl this weekend.
She called out sick and I waslike, what are you talking about?
And, and she says, literally all you gottado is wander around and flirt with the
guys and try to sell 'em some jello shots.
And I was like, all right.
Whatever.
So sure enough, I scrambled togethera costume, went out to the bar.
(02:50):
I worked Friday and Saturday night.
Probably made 250 bucks in cash,like straight off the top, just
literally walking around with a trayand jello shots for a dollar a piece.
So that was my entry into thevery, um, exclusive world of
being a cocktail waitress.
And eventually, um, the group thatowned that place, it was a couple
(03:14):
of British brothers and they.
I had a couple other bars that were alittle, a little bit of a level up from
that, and I eventually ended up actuallycoming to work for them and then.
Eventually becoming a bartender.
Um, they sponsored a, a rugby teamand all the guys were from quite
literally all over the world.
(03:35):
I mean, they were from, you know,Ireland, Scotland, England, South
Africa, Australia, New Zealand.
They were from all over the place andit was quite an education as a very
young, vulnerable early 20 something.
Aged woman to be exposed to theseguys from all over the world
who played rugby and animals?
(03:58):
Oh my God.
It was, I'll tell you, myvocabulary increased by like
10 times working with them.
It was incredible the words Ilearned working with those guys.
Um, but it was just reallyamazing and it gave me such a, a,
first of all, it was super fun.
I mean, we, we had a blast andwe were very much a family and
really looked out for each other.
(04:20):
But it was such a learning experiencewith regard to people and psychology
and sociology and human behavior.
I mean, I was going to school at the time,my degree was in English composition.
You know, I, I was a literarystudent, and here I am being exposed
to this completely different world.
(04:41):
And I fell in love withthe people aspect of it.
Yeah.
And, and that's what really sucked mein was, you know, the, the different
cultures and, and how people connected tofood and how people connected to drink.
'cause it was a bar andwhat does that mean?
And it was, it was just such a completely.
Different kind of education.
(05:03):
So that, that's how I stumbledinto, quite literally stumbled
into the restaurant world.
Simon (05:09):
I, I, you know, I, I love it.
Uh, somewhere in the annals of mywebsite and my, my click on my bio
and it says that I came, I camefor the, the food and the fun, and
I really, I stayed for the people.
I, I just have always.
Been in awe of all the differentpeople you can meet in this business.
(05:32):
Yeah.
Um, and I, I've been lucky enough tokind of bounce around the country and see
all sorts of different things, um, anddifferent places and, uh, you know, from
fine, fine dining to little bars and barand grills on the beaches of Florida.
Um.
And as well as, you know, I got to workin some pretty fun hotels that were,
um, highfalutin, I think is the word.
(05:57):
Um, okay, so you're in.
Yep.
What keeps you there?
Like what?
Like, uh, and it doesn'teven have to be that job.
I think that, you know, kinda whatis, so the, the people got you to
stay, so like how does that progress?
Noelle (06:12):
Well, like I said, I was gonna school and I, I graduated
and, um, I, I had been pre-med fora little while when I was in school.
I really thought that thatwas a direction, potentially
that I was gonna go.
And I was working in doctor'soffices during the day and then
bartending at night, um, to, youknow, get myself through school.
I worked three jobs.
I mean, it was a crazy, crazy time andthen had some pretty significant life
(06:36):
changes and ended up in a new city.
I moved to Denver, Colorado, and.
Quite literally knew one person and,and I went there to get away from a
situation, come into something brand new.
And what do you do?
You get a job in a restaurant becausethen immediately you're gonna have
a collective of people, right?
(06:57):
Like you're, you're gonna have afamily whether you want it or not.
And you might not always get along, but.
They're gonna be your people.
And I fell into this group.
Um, I, I went to work for PFChang's, and this was Oh wow.
You know, back in the day whenChang's was really growing big and,
and expanding quite a lot, you know,definitely getting themselves out
(07:18):
there as, as kind of the place to be.
And I landed a, a bartending spotin downtown Denver and randomly met
this amazing, amazing circle of.
People who quickly became my family there.
Right.
And again, what I realized is as I progressed there, you know, started
(07:40):
out as a bartender and then I becamea trainer, and then I was approaching
a somewhat significant birthday and I.
I had a college degree, but I was stillworking, you know, in the restaurant.
My dad's kind of in my ear aboutwhen are you gonna get a real job?
And I went into management becausethat kind of seemed like a natural
progression of a real job, you know,within the restaurant world really.
(08:05):
Where my passion though was in.
I discovered, again, going backto the people, it was in the
people development side of things.
It, it was in the, the training and howdo I help people grow and what can I teach
them and how can I share my knowledgeand help them to understand who they are
and the gifts that they have and how theycan expand in, in their capabilities.
(08:31):
I, I randomly, I guess it wasn't sorandom now looking back on it, but an
opportunity arose for me to interviewfor a regional training position.
I was fortunate enough to land kindof what turned out to be my dream job.
At the time I was in, I wasselected to be the regional training
(08:51):
manager for the southwest ofthe us so I covered five states.
Wow.
Yeah.
And I always teased that I had thebest territory because I had, you know.
Denver, Phoenix, San Diego, Las Vegas.
Like that was my whole world.
And
Simon (09:08):
sounds tragic.
Noelle (09:09):
Oh yeah, it was rough.
It was really, really rough.
You know, I had to be in Vegasevery six weeks-ish for five years.
Yeah, it was hard.
Um, but it, but it was amazing, thetravel part, don't get me wrong,
now, looking back on it, I mean,I was on the road 80% of the time.
But I got to be in these incredibleplaces with these incredible people
and open incredible restaurants.
(09:29):
And all of it led to, or contributed to,I guess I should say this, this passion
that I had for helping people grow.
Like, what's the next thing that youwant and, and how, how can I support
you in your desire to get there?
So.
The regional position actually ledto an international role, um, because
(09:53):
our home offices were in Scottsdale.
As we kind of, sort ofwere starting to dabble in.
International expansion.
Our franchise partners wouldcome to Arizona, which was my
territory, to do their training.
So I had the opportunity to open our firstfranchise restaurant, which was in Hawaii.
(10:14):
Then I had the chance to openour first true international
restaurant, which was in Mexico City.
Wow.
And after that, I said to the, we didn'teven have an international department.
We, we had one guy who wastrying to like, expand, you know,
this, this thing potentially.
And I said to him, I waslike, oh my God, I love this.
(10:36):
I'll go anywhere, I'll do anything.
You know, tell me what you want.
I, I wanna see and do andbe more with more people.
And a little while later, he, he calledme and his, he'd, he was this Italian
guy and you know, was, ah, ciao bella.
And he's like, Noel, Ihave this thing for you.
And then I get, you know, I havethis job and I'm thinking that I'm
(10:58):
gonna be based in the US and travel.
Right, right.
Like, that's, that's my thought.
No, no, no.
I ended up in Kuwait for four years.
Not exactly what I expected.
And Simon, I will tell you quitefrankly, that those four years
absolutely changed my life.
It gave me such a different sense,again, of who people are and
(11:23):
what they're capable of, and Ibecame even more passionate about.
The leadership development and, andthe people development side of things.
So while here I am kind of globe trottingand having the chance to op literally
open restaurants all over the world.
For me it was, it was the individualpeople, it was, it was the buser
(11:47):
who never thought he was gonna doanything else other than bus tables.
Now he's traveling with me toTurkey to be a, a trainer, you know?
Oh wow.
It was such an incredible experience andit just kind of fueled this fire and,
and, and gave me this desire to helpothers see in them what I could see, but
(12:14):
they just couldn't see it for themselves.
That was a really longanswer to a short question.
Simon (12:20):
No, that's perfect.
That's, that's, that,that's what this is, right?
Like yeah.
Uh, there is so much power in, in the,the narrative that, that brings us along.
Right.
I think for me, um, like.
You talked about the sort of the greaterthe, the, the greater growth of, of people
(12:43):
around you and that, that are workingwith you and for me, like I love all that
stuff, but there's nothing better to methan the aha moment of, Hey man, like
I know you've been trying thi this way.
Try, try doing that ahundred percent reverse.
And they go, oh, I neverthought about it that way.
And it's, and justtheir eyes light up and.
(13:06):
Seeing people's, like right beforeyour eyes, you see people's neural
pathways rewire and they're like,oh my God, I, I, you know, and, and
then they get excited and then they,like, they get that visceral reaction.
Their neck starts to pump a little bit.
There's nothing better than, than allof those things, um, in the day to day.
I think that I, I love hearing thestories of like, traveling around
(13:29):
the world and you're getting to.
To teach people in the busboy, butfor me it's all those little moments
in between that really, I don't know.
And I had never got, I've really nevertraveled very much internationally.
Very, very little actually.
Um, but I think the big thingfor me as I've been across this
country is like understanding that.
(13:50):
At the end of the day, restaurantsare restaurants or restaurants.
That's my favorite part.
Yeah.
It's like, it doesn't matter howfancy or not, whatever the polar
opposite of fancy is, right?
Like it isn't, it isn't low brow,it's just less of something.
Um, but whatever the polar opposite offancy is all the way up to the scale of.
(14:15):
Of stupid, crazy luxuryrestaurants or restaurants.
Ain't nobody dying.
We are feeding people and withany luck, we're creating memories.
But
yeah.
Okay, so now we've been around the world and you know how,
like I, I guess how to sum that up.
How does, how does that time leadyou to where you are now and tell us
(14:40):
about what you're doing right now?
Noelle (14:44):
It's so crazy 'cause exactly what you just said, that restaurants
are, restaurants are restaurants.
And that aha moment of peoplehave, that's exactly what's
gotten me to where I am right now.
So a couple of things.
The, the buser I mentioned, his name isSAE Ali, I'm still in touch with him.
He truly was a pivotal.
(15:08):
Person in my life to help me to realizewhat I really wanted to do because he was
from a lower cast in India, was told hisentire life, this is all you'll ever do.
This is all you'll ever be.
And Simon, when I tell you, he wasthe hardest working guy in our entire
restaurant and got along with everybody.
(15:31):
Everybody respected him.
Everybody enjoyed to be with him.
He was so easy to work with andhe was so damn good at his job.
He could teach anybody anything.
Oh, wow.
And helping, I, I can't even say helpinghim, just guiding him to that realization
of, of the potential that he already hadthat he didn't even know that he had.
(15:56):
That was it.
Like he literally changed my life.
Because I realized this,this is what I want to do.
I want to work with, withthese folks who have.
No idea.
The, the talent and the gifts thatthey have within them that are just
(16:18):
waiting to be tapped into and, and whatthey can share with regard to service
and what they can contribute to theirteam and what they can provide for
their guests and all of those things.
Exactly.
To your point, it doesn't matterif, if I'm at a restaurant in Kuwait
or same thing right now, I'm, I'm.
(16:39):
In conversation with a gentlemanwho owns a hotdog stand in Las
Vegas, like literally right now,we, we had a conversation last week.
It's the same principles andthe same things that we all are
dealing with in this industry.
And, you know, how, how do you, how doyou provide both for your employees and
(17:03):
for your guests in a way that is gonna be.
Positive and, and, um,expansive for, for both.
How do you give your employees theexperience that they need to support them
in whatever it is that they're doing?
How can you serve them so thatthey can serve your guests?
(17:25):
And, and it doesn't matter if you'rerunning a hotdog stand or PF Chang's,
or like you said, some, you know, finedining, white tablecloth restaurant,
you know, you could be talking to WillGadara about Unreasonable Hospitality.
And it's across the board, it's the same.
Basic principles for all of them.
So truly working with SA Ali was,was what really was pivotal for me of
(17:49):
realizing that my, my passion and mydrive and, and path in life was working
with young, I say young leaders, Idon't necessarily mean young in age,
I just mean young in experience.
You know, the ones who, who, again,they don't know what they don't know.
Simon (18:09):
I call those fresh leaders.
Noelle (18:11):
Yeah.
Oh, that's a good word.
I might have to borrow that.
Simon (18:13):
Right?
Because I might have to borrow that.
Because they don't, they don't like,like especially in my world for
chefs, they don't have to be young.
Right.
They just have to be new to that levelthat, and so it's fresh because that's
where, that's what food is, right?
Yeah.
It's either fresh or it's old.
It's not young or old.
It's fresh.
So yes, I like that.
Fresh leaders.
(18:34):
Right.
Noelle (18:34):
I like that.
I like that.
And, and that's exactly it.
And I know Simon, you and I havechatted about this a little bit.
It's, you know, as well as I do that whathappens so often, I'm sure this happens
in other industries too, but we see itin restaurants, is that somebody, it's
a great prep cook or great on the line,or they're an awesome server and then
(18:56):
they get promoted into the ne that nextposition and then they suffer because.
They don't, they don't know thedifference of, dude, I was just out
drinking with that guy three weeks ago.
How am I supposed to tell him hecan't come into work hungover?
Like they, they don't know how to dothat because nobody's teaching them.
How to have those conversations or how tomake those decisions or how to manage that
(19:21):
change and, and I think that's where youand I have a lot of commonality is what
can we do to support that fresh leader,that fresh chef, that fresh young manager.
And give them the confidence andthe knowledge that they need in
order to be successful becausethey can't, they can be successful.
(19:42):
They just need somebodyto guide them to that.
So yeah, it's that, that's nowwhat, what I do, very similar to
what you do on the culinary side.
Simon (19:51):
Yeah, I, I absolutely love it.
I think that I.
I used to have a lead cook, and Iremember we were somewhere in the, uh,
call it 2008, 2009, and I remember thatwe were short a saute cook and there
was a dishwasher who was demonstratingto me that they were a hard worker.
(20:14):
And so I, I went to my lead cook andhis name was Danny, and I said, Danny.
What do you think aboutthat guy over there?
Do you think that he can, do youthink that he has what it takes to,
you know, like, do, does he have anyexperience be like, is was he doing
anything else besides he came herebecause I, I'm pretty sure that you
brought him here and he goes, no.
(20:35):
And I was like, does he like,man, we, we need another cook.
And he is like, he's like.
You're asking the wrong questions.
And I said, what?
And he says, no, no, you'reasking the wrong question, chef.
He says, it's not, does he,does he have the skills?
It's not, does does he know how it's,does he have the desire to learn more?
(20:58):
Does he have the desire to do more stuff?
And I was like, huh.
Because I had never thought aboutit, like up until that point.
And I think I'd, at that point, I'd beenin the business for 18, 19 years and I'd
always just, it was always about, largelyabout capacity, but also about like, how
much do you like about your competency?
(21:19):
And so I think that being ableto shift from competency to
like good old flashing desire.
Desire to work hard, desire towork smart, like desire to do
a little more and get a raise.
Like all those things, whether, whetherit's just the transaction or not,
(21:41):
like the desire has gotta be there.
Um, and I think that that's whatI love about hearing about like
the, your experiences in Kuwait,because you start to understand that.
Again, it's restaurants andit's the same wherever we go.
Um, and a funny story about realfast, a funny story about like not
(22:03):
thinking about other industries.
For the longest time I was like this,this only happens in our industry.
We're just like the little, we're like thedirty little animals in the corner, right?
And all those people in thosecubicles, they must get.
Like in the corporate world,they must get training.
And then, you know, I, I leavethe restaurant world and I start
paying attention and I perhapsI just lift my, my chin up a
(22:26):
little bit more than it had been.
And I start looking around andI start talking to people and
I'm, I. I'm on an airplane andsomeone says, well, what do you do?
And I'm like, well, I do this.
And they're like, oh myGod, that would be amazing.
I'm like, what do you do?
He is like, I fly planes.
I'm like, he's like, I'm a pilot.
There's, you know, like, like that,that kind of stuff you just described
about, about like people not knowing,not having people skills and their,
(22:47):
their desire to communicate or, or not.
He is like, that's everywhere.
And I'm like, is it?
Oh, okay.
You know, and so like.
Now I'm like, oh, everybody's fucked up.
Cool.
Got it.
Noelle (22:59):
And, and that's exactly it.
I mean, it really does happenacross industry and you know, the.
When you talk about KPIs or you talkabout competencies that are necessary
for leadership, I mean, across the board,for the most part, they're the same.
Again, decision making, changemanagement, team management, you know,
all of the communication, like all ofthat stuff, regardless of industry.
(23:24):
In a leadership position, you, yougotta have some element of that.
I think the thing that makesthe restaurant, restaurant
and hospitality world.
A little bit different is the languageis different, the pace is different,
the hours are different, like.
(23:44):
I mean, I, I've, I'veworked corporate jobs.
I, I've done the kind of, sort of nineto five ish thing, you know, even though
I always end up outside of nine to five.
But that's a whole other different story.
But I think that becomes, itcomes from my, my background in
restaurants where I'm used toworking 12 hour days or 14 hour days.
And, you know, I said once to somebodyin a, a completely different field.
(24:08):
I was like, oh my God,my dogs are barking.
And they were like, whatdo you need to go home?
And I was like.
What, and they like, they just, itdidn't, it didn't connect, you know?
And, and I think that, that wehave a, a frame of reference
that unless you've worked in arestaurant or worked in the field.
(24:32):
And not everybody gets it.
I, I wish I could saymy family, for example.
I wish I could say that they allunderstand what I do and where
I've been and what I've done.
And bless them all, they have no clue.
'cause none of them, none of my immediatefamily has worked in a restaurant before.
And, and it's just, it's a different worldand they, it's not something that they.
(24:55):
Can relate to.
So there's, we're, we're just, haven't
Simon (24:59):
watched the bear.
It'll explain everything.
Noelle (25:01):
Well, my mom funny that you say that because my mom actually,
when Hell's Kitchen was like firston tv, and this was, I don't know,
however many years ago that itfirst started, started coming out 20
Simon (25:10):
years ago.
Noelle (25:10):
Yeah.
I mean, a long time and, and back thenI, I was in operations and my mom was.
Horrified and she's like, oh my God,do your chef speak to you like that?
And I was like, fuck no.
There is no way in hell that my chefwould speak to me that way because
of the environment that I was in.
We were a very dedicated, specific,you know, type of environment.
(25:33):
I know that that existed.
It just wasn't my world that Iexisted in, but my mom was horrified.
She was like, I can't believe that theywould speak to each other that way.
And I'm like, yeah, we don't.
But others certainly do.
And it's, again, if you're not init, you just, you just don't know.
Simon (25:54):
Yeah.
I, I like to tell people, if, if youwanna understand, then let's, uh, let's.
Close off all the air in, in, in a closet,and let's just throw a heater in there and
then let's rattle a bunch of stuff, right?
And, and then like make demands,uh, on, on your, on your being
(26:16):
that are very, very rigorous.
And then we'll see how you behave.
Noelle (26:20):
Right.
Simon (26:20):
You know?
Um, and I, I. For better or for worse?
Mostly for worse.
I can tell you that I hada number of those chefs.
Yeah.
And I, I exhibited some ofthose behaviors for a while.
Um, but interestingly I found thatwhen I was getting pushed to the
place where I was starting to be oneof those like freak out on people
(26:44):
I reali, I started to like, feel.
I, I started to feel it likeI didn't feel good inside.
That didn't make me feel likethat wasn't enriching my life.
Right.
And, and,
and that's, I think therewas a turning point.
Um, I don't call it 2005 oroh six, where I was like, huh.
(27:07):
If this is how I have to getresults and I don't like it, I
have to find a different way.
And then I was told I was up for apromotion, um, with a company and,
you know, a hotel company and I, I.
Didn't get the job.
And she, the lady was very, veryblunt and honest and she said,
(27:28):
you're just not enough of a leader.
She says, I hear the most amazing thingsabout the things that you pull off
every day and that your team pulls off.
But I think that you'retoo much of a doer for me.
I need somebody who's gonna scowl at mypeople, have great thoughts at night, come
back and implement them the very next.
She says, I need somebodywho can lead us to greatness.
(27:52):
And I was like.
Hmm.
I came home and I was all pissed offwhen she told me that I didn't get it.
And I told my wife, and like two dayslater she flings leadership for dummies at
me and goes, start reading, you know, likeshe flips, uh, what was it, John Maxwell,
John c Maxwell's Leadership 1 0 1.
Like a little tiny book.
(28:12):
Right.
She whips that at meand goes, keep reading.
Like, let's go like,figure it out, you know?
And it was like, that wasjust a mindblower for me.
They'll be like.
Well, there's another way to do this.
Okay.
Right.
And, and then to, toleave myself out of that.
And I, I, I did, I did pretty well.
I, I, I moved myself from an executive,sous chef, sous chef job to a chef de
(28:33):
cuisine job and a pretty fancy joint.
And then right after that,I was an executive chef, and
I've never turned back, but.
It was like, oh, this isthe, this is really hard.
Like you have to think.
I gotta really, really think.
And that's when somebody said to me, theysaid, okay, when you were a, when you were
in a, when you were an employee, just astraight up line level employee, you got
(28:57):
paid every day to do for what you do.
And now as you progress from sous chefto executive sous chef, to chef, to, to
whatever is after that, every day thatyou go forward, you're gonna get paid
a little bit less for what you do anda little bit more for what you know.
(29:19):
And at some point you're gonnaget paid for what you impart.
And I went.
Oh my brain's aching andI didn't get it at first.
It took me a while.
I was like, nah, I don't knowwhat you're talking about.
You know, have a shot.
Woo.
Uh, you know, just like whatever, man.
You know?
I think that was literally abar stool conversation, but.
(29:39):
Embracing that and then molike driving myself forward.
Um, and then you get all theaha moments and all those
great things to come together.
So tell me about trike Consulting.
Like just tell me, like, what, tellme, obviously you're, you're, you're
around the, the hospitality industry.
What's the goal?
What's the, what's the plan?
Noelle (30:02):
So, oh my gosh, I have so many thoughts right now, and I want to comment
on so many things that you just saidabout leadership and, and that's a, again,
that's really where, where my heart is.
The, the thing of it is, and, andthis happens a lot in the restaurant
world, that no leader likes to betold they're bad at leadership.
For the most part, peopledon't really wanna hear that.
(30:23):
So what I try to do is, is to look atthe pain points so you know, within your
individual unit or within your restaurantgroup, what does your attrition look like?
How high is your employee turnover?
How much money are you throwingin the garbage can every night?
Either because you know, the.
The cooks aren't cooking stuff,right, or they're not following
(30:46):
recipes, or your servers don't knowhow to explain the food, right?
And so the guest orders somethingthat they don't really want.
And so you end up with all thiswaste, um, looking at things like,
you know, online reviews and gettingpoor reviews again because of service
or food, whatever the thing is.
So let's look at the pain points,which ultimately are all symptoms.
(31:10):
Of whatever's going on in themanagement and culinary team, right?
So let's figure out what'shappening painfully in your world.
Then what I try to do is to go back tothe, the management and culinary team and
say, all right, let, let's again, goingback to those things we talked about
earlier, let's talk about communication.
Let's talk about decision making,but it comes down to fundamentals.
(31:33):
Are you having a pre-shift?
Do you actually have recipe cards?
Do you have some kind of a trainingprogram or is it just a brand new
person and you say, Hey, go followthat guy for a couple of days.
So, you know, let, let's get backto the basics and, and look at the
systems that you have in place, andthen look at the leaders within.
(31:54):
And how are you again?
How are you?
Serving your staff in the bestway so that your staff can serve
the guests in the best way.
But you gotta start with what hurts,and then kind of go backwards into,
all right, where, where are thosepain points really coming from?
(32:15):
'cause attrition doesn'thappen by mistake.
There's a reason people leave.
Simon (32:20):
No.
Absolutely.
Noelle (32:21):
Yeah.
Simon (32:21):
Uh, I, there not too long ago there was, you know, just, uh, some,
some little, I call them thumb videos.
'cause you thumb through them, right?
Yeah.
Uh, probably TikTok.
And it's a young lady and she'sin a car and I was like, wow,
your production studio is amazing.
Um, and you know, and she's like.
People don't leave.
(32:42):
People don't leave good jobs.
They leave and she had these like10 things and I was like, God, I,
and I can't, like, I, I don't know.
I scrolled past it or I did somethingon my phone and it was gone forever,
and I, oh my God, what do I do?
But it's, it's just that, it's likenobody leaves like an amazing job.
They leave the jobs, they leavepeople who, who are not engaging with
(33:05):
them, who are not investing in them.
They're not, you know, all those things.
But you said somethingthat really like it.
It's uh, it's the universe's way of, ofreinforcing stuff for me because I don't
know about you, but when I hear somethingand then it's like, Ooh, and then I just.
Like another person says itand another person says it, and
it's nobody's in the same room.
(33:25):
Everybody's spread across thecountry or across the world.
And that is back to basics.
Because I was talking to somebodyand it's like, okay, order the food.
Prep the food, right?
Like, you know, a par you haveone, the par is two, you order one.
(33:47):
It's like, wait, stop all.
Nevermind all the technology.
Nevermind the ai, nevermindthe tool, the thing, the stuff.
Fuck all that.
Go back to the basics.
That's why I wanna have, I wanna likerename some days I wanna rename culinary
mechanic as the, as the, the, the.
(34:07):
Systems rename it to like, back to basics.
I, I don't know, something,something like that.
Just that, that says like, heredo the, do the rudimentary things.
I don't know.
Rudimentary consulting,you know what I'm saying?
Just like the, the, the simplestlittle stupid stuff in repetition
(34:28):
every day the same way.
That's it.
And that, that, that is like,that will en enable like.
Great production, you know,
Noelle (34:38):
but essentially, Simon, that that's what a mechanic does, right?
Like
Simon (34:42):
all day.
Noelle (34:43):
That is, that's what a mechanic does, is to look at the
systems and the processes and, youknow, let's talk about, do again,
do you, do you have a line check?
Are, are you actually checkingtemps every now and then?
Do you have some procedurefor receiving food?
Like all of the things that.
(35:04):
They all contribute to the cultureand, and having those safeguards
in place goes back to exactlywhat you just said a second ago
about whoever that was on TikTok.
People don't leave companies.
People leave people.
Yeah.
So your, your staff in, in yourrestaurant, if you're having a tough
time with turnover, they're not leavingyour restaurant, they're leaving you.
(35:27):
And that can be a really, reallytough pill to swallow as an
owner or a GM or an exec chef.
But at the end of the day, as aleader, everything that happens in
that restaurant is your responsibility.
Simon (35:43):
Mm-hmm.
Noelle (35:43):
Everything.
Simon (35:44):
So as leaders, we are guardians of the business.
Yep.
Noelle (35:46):
Yes.
And so when you put, when youput the mechanics in place, when
you put the, the systems and thesimplicities and the basics, and
you start with that foundation.
You can only go up from there.
Yeah.
And all of those things are necessary tohave some stability in your four walls.
(36:07):
You gotta start with thatand, and it's so crazy to me.
When I have conversations with people,especially if they're independent owners,
again, because you don't know what youdon't know, like I, you know, maybe
you're a fantastic chef and you think thenext thing is I wanna open my own place.
Or you're, you know, great bartenderand you think I wanna open my own
little bar, or whatever the thing is.
(36:30):
But you don't know anything about actuallyrunning a business, and you gotta have
those, you gotta have those foundations inplace, otherwise you're not gonna make it.
It's just not gonna happen.
Or you're gonna wanna be stabbingyourself in the eye every other night
because things are falling apart,which, that's no way to live either.
Yeah.
Simon (36:47):
Yeah.
Uh, I, you know, again, socialmedia, I'm watching some guy
who is clearly a chef, right?
He just, he just looked, he just looksbattle worn and he starts talking about,
he goes, when I, when I first openedthis place, the, he says, the first
restaurant I opened, we did the foodfirst and figured everything else out.
(37:09):
Later he says, and now when Igo to open a restaurant, we.
We spend months on, on the site andwe spend months on the build out and
we spend months on, on the conceptand we spend months on getting all the
vendors in the relationships all builtand really everything set he goes.
(37:31):
And the very last thing we dois we bring the team in and we,
we build the menu as a team.
He goes, and those restaurantsthat I've built that way.
Those are the ones that succeed.
He says, everybody thinksthat it's cooking and then
everything else, and it's not.
It's everything else.
(37:52):
You have to be able torun a business, right?
You have to be able to run a businessand then you get to cook, and that's
one of my most favorite revelationsis, is the guy who says, no, no,
you don't have to do anything you.
Get to, you get to grind, youget to go and sweat in the
kitchen and, and work hard.
(38:13):
Um, and it, and it's gotta bethe privilege of cooking, right?
And that's, that's a lot of what I tryto teach people is, is like, just do all
the other stuff and get really good atthe other stuff so that it goes fast.
And if you.
If you then upgrade from your lawnmowerengine to the, the, the Hyundai, to the
(38:34):
Toyota, to the Cadillac, then you're,you're moving with AI and you've got, you
know, insights coming to your email everyweek and you can pick apart you're, where
you're losing money and, and then you'respending less time in the office and
you're out on the floor, whether that'sout in the dining room or in the kitchen.
Um.
It's about like, you gotta, when yousay, when I say like rudimentary,
(38:57):
I mean like lawnmower wind upthe little rubber band playing.
Like how does that work first?
Not the, the real complicated thing.
You know, I, I think about enginesall the time, uh, because I name my
business culinary mechanic, but Ithink about that and I'm like, no,
I don't want a fuel injected thing.
(39:19):
I want like a single.
It's old school carburetor that likeyou gotta twist and tweak the little
thing in the screw and then you pop thelittle thing with the back of the screw.
You know, all those little things.
Um, and at the end of the day, it'sexactly what my father taught me as a kid.
When something doesn't work, youtake it apart, you clean the contacts
(39:39):
and you put it back together.
So that's, that's my business.
It sounds like that a lot ofit is your business as well.
Yeah.
Um, you also mentioned Will Gadaraand Unreasonable Hospitality,
which, um, shout out to Will Gadara'cause the dude's like amazing.
Uh, and you know, I've, I've listenedto the book twice now on, on audiobook
(39:59):
'cause it's good for walking dogs.
Um, and.
I realized recently it's if you tookhis methodology, and that is to invest
as much time, effort, blood, sweat,and tears in a, as a chef does for,
for product and, and for, for rawproduct as well as finished product.
(40:25):
If you really invested all of thatin how you treated your employees.
Right, like if you took Ho, if youtook Unreasonable Hospitality and
turned it from just being, well, notjust, but largely being front, front
facing, and really made it, we'llcall it gyroscopic hospitality, I.
(40:47):
In every single, right?
Like if you just like went in everydirection, if you remember to be
nice to the guy who's having a roughtime, who's delivering your coke, you
know your stacks of the bibs, right?
The big boxes of, of, of sodaconcentrate in a, in a bag.
For those of you who are notin the industry, um, it's
called a bag in a box, but.
(41:09):
You see a, you see a, a deliveryguy who's sweating and he's dying
and he's three hours late, andyou're like, where's my stuff?
Well, fuck, he's having a bad day.
Instead of yelling at him, go inside, makea sandwich, put it in a box, hand it to
him, bottle of water out the door, andyou will always get your stuff every time.
Guess what?
Amazing, right?
It's hospitality, but it'snot just about the paying.
(41:32):
Customer, it's about how we treat Jimmy,the line Cook whose mom's showing up
out of town and mom didn't think togive him extra notice, so he doesn't
have time to plan that with you.
He just gotta go.
'cause mom, right?
Uh, yeah, I could go on forever.
Um, no, I, oh gosh.
Noelle (41:53):
I totally feel you on that though.
And, and funny because I have read thebook and I have two different thoughts.
I. Say often and, and sometimespeople disagree me with me on this,
but I say that hospitality is notabout food, it's about people.
Yeah.
And you know, it's, if you don'thave the people, whoever they are,
(42:17):
vendors, employees, guests walkingin the door, it doesn't matter what
kind of food you're putting out.
If you don't have thepeople to support that.
So I, I really feel like ourindustry is a people industry.
It's not a food industry.
But the other crazy thing, and we couldprobably do a whole other hour on this,
(42:40):
what absolutely blows my mind about Willand the book Unreasonable Hospitality.
And now there's like a whole school ofthought on it and there's, you know,
classes and online courses you could take.
Oh my God, Simon.
I, I look at all of those.
I love the book.
There's amazing things that arepresented in there, and I think
(43:02):
to myself, isn't this what we'vealways supposed to be doing anyway?
Like, how in the worldis this so revolutionary?
Now, granted, his, his measures werepretty over the top because it was 11
Madison a avenue, and you, he had the.
Capability to, to go really over thetop, but the the core principles, like
(43:28):
it isn't that the stuff that we'resupposed to be doing, like being kind
and compassionate and considerate ofeach other and thinking of your staff's
needs and doing something a little extraspecial for your guests to make this
situation memorable, like, haven't we?
(43:50):
Haven't we like, aren't, aren't wesupposed to be doing that for the last
20 years anyway, so it's, it's kindof amazing to me that this book has
like exploded in the way that it has.
I'm glad that it has, 'cause itbrings a whole other perception, but
it's kind of like, um, it's kind oflike Anthony Bourdain with Kitchen
(44:10):
Confidential when that came out andit's like, you didn't already know this.
This shit's been going on for years.
Like, why are you surprisedthat this is what's happening?
You know what I mean?
It's, it's kind of the samething from a culinary perspective
and a hospitality perspective.
It just like, it blows my mind.
It's kind of crazy.
Simon (44:25):
Well, I, I have a couple things to say about all of that.
Number one, with the whole thing ofshouldn't it have been, shouldn't,
shouldn't this be the baseline, iswhat you're basically saying, right?
And of course, but.
You know, I, I look atit very much like this.
Uh, there's an old French guywho's couple hundred years dead.
(44:48):
His name was, was agu, August Esca, right?
Like, this is the, the master.
This is, okay.
So everybody's like, oh, he's the kingof, king of Chefs, blah, blah, blah.
And at, if you've only heard limitedthings about him, people will say
he was like the greatest cook ever.
No.
He is the guy who said,this is how it's done.
(45:10):
He took and he codified, he took,and he regimented and he documented
You take this and you add it to this.
He take you.
If you then take the, the, the, the bigpot and you like reduce it down and add
it to that one, you get something else.
(45:31):
And then if you add four moreingredients, you get something else.
For me, will Gadara said we've lost sightof where we are, where, where we can be.
Right.
We've lost sight of it becausegreed, capitalism, whatever,
all the things and Right.
And.
And, and I'm gonna write it downand, and it was like a love letter
(45:54):
to making people feel good, right?
The quote in it is the MayaAngelou quote, they'll forget.
They'll all forget what you told themor what you did, but they're always
gonna remember how you made 'em feel.
Well, number one, that's amazing, right?
All by itself.
Number two, my favorite likeinnovation in that whole thing is the
Ticketless coat check, because it'sthe biggest duh you've ever heard.
(46:17):
Yes.
Instead of having a randomset of numbers, we changed the
numbers to the table numbers.
Wait, what?
Like how did you wanna talk aboutsomething we should have figured
out like a hundred years ago?
There's, there's literally like, there'sliterally like thousands of mater D's
rolling in their grave going, my lifewas so hard because of coat X. Right.
(46:39):
And now it's like, what?
You know, so, yeah.
Yeah.
And then let's talk aboutBourdain for a second.
'cause I. Loved that book because therewas so many things that I had experienced
and I was like, I feel so seen.
Which we didn't say 20 years ago.
Right.
We didn't say that, but okay.
That's how I felt.
That's how I, I think now, back now,but my favorite part about reading that
(47:02):
book and being at work, I was workingwith this young lady who had been
in like three different James Beardnominated restaurants and, and like.
James Beard winning restaurantsand, and winning chefs.
And mind you, I'm old enough thatI remember when Michelin wasn't a
thing in the United States, right?
Right.
It's like we, we worried about JamesBeard Awards and we worried about ide.
(47:25):
Right.
She had worked in like three Jamesand she's like, that's such bullshit.
That's not really how restaurants are.
I'm like, man, you, your life sucks.
'cause I had fun in my restaurants.
Noelle (47:38):
Like, where have you been?
Simon (47:40):
Yeah.
And again, like she also likethat she alone could be the.
Subject of at least one podcast.
'cause I learned a ton from her.
Like the, the way she workedthe, the, the, the, the, she's a
former figure skater, so, so shelike floated through the kitchen.
It was amazing.
(48:00):
I, I just never, to this day I, I'mlike, I don't know how you do that.
Like, I'm this big clumsy guy.
I am almost six foot tall and.
You know, well over two 50and I, I'm a bull in a China
shop if there ever was one.
Um, you know, so I'm notnimble and I'm not a ballerina.
Um, but I, I make it through the world.
(48:20):
Um, so yeah.
Well, gosh, I think wecovered a little ground, huh?
Noelle (48:25):
A little bit, but all the way around the
Simon (48:26):
world.
I, I think we've done
Noelle (48:27):
pretty well.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Not too bad.
Awesome.
Simon (48:30):
Thank you so much for coming to play in my, my
little sandbox of the world.
I really appreciate it.
Noelle (48:35):
Oh my gosh, this is so fun.
Great conversation.
Simon (48:38):
Awesome.
In the show notes, I'm gonnamake sure that we can find
you at Tri Skill Consulting.
I'll put it all in there.
Um, to all you out there.
Please continue to listen to us.
Uh, we're now a part ofthe Heritage Radio Network.
Uh, this is Culinary Mechanic.
You can find us.
Let's see.
There's YouTube.
There's Spotify, there's Apple Podcasts.
(48:59):
Wherever you consume podcasts.
Please leave us a five star review.
Remember to like, subscribe, follow.
Did I miss anything?
Nope, that's it.
Um, once again, thank you so much forcoming to play to all you out there.
I'll catch you on the flip side.
Bye-bye.
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