Matt Plapp, CEO of America’s Best Restaurants | S1E25 - The Pre-Shift

Episode Transcript
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DJ Costantino (00:00):
Hey everybody, what is going on?
My name is DJ, and you're backwith the restaurant growth
podcast by seven shifts on thisshow, we speak with the best
minds in the restaurant businessto give you big insights and new
ideas on how to help yourrestaurants grow today on the
show, we welcome Matt flap, theCEO of America's best
restaurants.
He makes it his mission to helpindependent restaurants, market

(00:22):
smarter.
Get both customer attention andretention by levering social
media inspired by GAFI and hisred Camaro.
Matt and his team have takenadvanced cross country visiting
well over 1000 restaurants,which they have profiled on
their site and social mediapages suffice to say, they know
what makes restaurantssuccessful.
From a marketing standpoint,Matt shares his stories, some of
the best practices and ways thatindependent restaurants can get

(00:43):
that repeat business, that ownerstream of not to mention
retaining staff while they're atit.
As always.
We'd love to hear from you, tellus who you wanna hear on the
show, what you like, what youdon't like, and anything else
that comes to mind.
Just shoot me amessage@podcastsevenshifts.com
with that.
Here's Matt.
Matt, how

Matt Plapp (00:59):
are you today?
I am doing amazing.
Outstanding.
How

about you?
I am amazing and outstanding aswell.
So glad you could come on theshow today.
I'm

Matt Plapp (01:09):
stoked to be here.
We're

really happy to have you.
So Matt, you know, you couldprobably do an intro better than
I could tell us how you gotstarted in this restaurant
business of our.

Matt Plapp (01:18):
Cool.
So I'm the CEO of America's bestrestaurants and that's what we
are now.
It started back in 2008 as adigital marketing company called
driven media.
And my concept was pretty simpleto help small businesses
leverage technology in 2008,which it's crazy to see where

(01:38):
it's come since then.
Yeah.
But it's also honestly crazy tosee.
A lot of what I was preaching in2008, still isn't happening with
small businesses.
And so kind of rewinding beforethat my background started in
the late nineties.
I worked in TV and radio.
I degree in broadcast journalismcommunications, and learned on

(01:58):
accident about technology.
I built a website in 1999 for afamily boat in RB dealership
that we were creating at thesame time.
Of creating that business.
I sold radio advertising andselling radio advertising.
Saw that nobody called on themom and pop restaurants.
And it's kind of ironic becauseit's where it led me to today.

(02:20):
And like, I look back like,how'd you get the restaurants?
And like, it changes every timeI look at it because right.
It started really when I was akid, my mom and dad had an
insurance company.
And my mom focused on theconsumer side, my dad focused on
the B2B side and he had, I wannasay almost every restaurant in
the Northern Kentucky,Cincinnati region, the big name

(02:40):
ones in shirt.
Yeah.
And so we always would, wouldeat out.
It was never eat at home.
It was like, we're gonna go toMike Franks this night, barley
corns this night, the glass men,it was just, there was a whole
list of restaurants that hewould go to because they were
clients.
It was networking and takingcare of a client.
And so when I look back at myhistory, it, you know, it
started at a young age.
I was always at restaurants andthey were all independence.

(03:02):
And in the late nineties, when Igot in the radio, the negative
in radio, when you're brand new,is that all the good accounts
are taking the car dealers, thecasinos, somebody already works
with them.
And so I started looking atthings and said, okay, who is
nobody talking to?
And nobody was talking to theFerrari's little like Ferrari
little Italy.
So one location restaurant inMadeira, nobody was talking to

(03:23):
the personas.
And so I went to them, found asolution that would help'em on
radio advertise.
And that kind of launched mycareer there.
And when I went into consultingwith this company in oh eight, I
had a lot of those restaurantsreach out and say, Matt, show us
what this Facebook thing is.
Show us about the internet.
Uh, the first restaurant I everworked with.
Was I went there, a friend ofmine shared their coupon on

(03:44):
Facebook and this crazy lookingburger called the bar.
Zillows like this big.
Yep.
And I went down there and hadlunch because of that Facebook
post.
Well, I'm talking to the owner.
I said, this place is awesome.
It's a little hole in the wall.
I love what you got.
I said one suggestion.
They said what?
I said, well, you currently yourFacebook post that was made.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
It does great.
You have a person named barbsburgers.

(04:07):
If Facebook sees that they willdelete your profile, you need to
have a business page.
Well, I don't know how to dothat.
I'm like, I'll help you.
Well, what can we do?
I'm like nothing I'll help youso, well, we wanna do something.
I said, gimme a free burger.
And so that led to them givingme like 250 bucks in food a
month and we would handle theirsocial media.
And so from there, it kind ofballooned out to where by 2015,

(04:28):
we had created a, uh, technique.
That has since been copied by alot of people of how to gather
customer data from Facebook andInstagram into messenger,
through VIP programs.
And then, you know, we justballooned out from there 2017,
we went national and got rid ofall of our other clients, car
dealers.
Yeah.
And became America's bestrestaurants.

(04:49):
And, you know, that was, it'skind of surreal.
Five six years ago, it was meand a couple, one full-time
employee and a handful ofpart-timers, uh, you know, we're
hiring two or three people aweek now, the last three years.
Wow.
And so we not a week by, we justalways are hiring.
Yeah.
And so, you know, this week I'vehired three people and we're up
to, let's say we're about 48 to49 people now with about 15 to

(05:11):
20 freelancers overseas.
And we work with restaurants,nation.
It's exciting.
That's

amazing.
Congratulations on all thatsuccess.
And, um, thank you.
You know, it is an interestingjourney, right?
From 2008 until today.
You know what I guess I'mcurious.
So what, what are some of thebiggest changes, but also what
are the, what are some of the,the concepts, what hasn't
changed since then?

Matt Plapp (05:31):
So my last book I wrote called restaurant
marketing that works came outlate last year.
Like, what was that?
Yeah.
Late last year.
The title of it was supposed tobe, I was writing it before the
pandemic.
There was restaurant market thatworks, uh, and it was gonna be
back to the basics 1 0 1.
Actually it came up two yearsago.
I think.
I can't remember.
The years are the last two yearsis like one, one big year.

(05:52):
It seems like one month.
It seems like.
Yeah.
And so we changed the name tobefore, during, and after the
pandemic, my publisher called meup and he said, Hey, Matt, on
the book we were doing it.
He's like, what's changed.
I said, what do you mean?
Like what you just said?
He said, what's changed inmarketing restaurants.
I said, nothing.
The things we've been preachingfor the last seven to 10 years
are as relevant today as theyever have been.

(06:13):
If not more.
Yeah.
And it's the same stuff.
And so that's where we decidedto change the, the title of the
book from restaurant marketingthat works to restaurant market
that works before, during, andafter the pandemic for that
reason.
Because what we were preachingfive years ago, telling your
story, gathering customer dataand using the data correctly is

(06:36):
more relevant today than it wasthen.
You've got a, you got a consumerthat's confused.

Yep.
And the competition is, is, isbigger than it ever has been.
I think, especially with all thebigger players kind of getting
bigger past few years and reallycreating from, from what I can
see as an industry, that's likethe big guys and the small
people and the divide is evenbigger than it ever has been.
Yep.
So tell me a little bit aboutthe roadshow that you guys do.
I know you, uh, you visitedthousands of restaurants more

(07:03):
than in the past few years.
How did that get started?
And, and what's

Matt Plapp (07:06):
that all.
Yeah.
So there's actually one of thetwo vans are here right now.
If you can see that.
Ah, very cool.
Yeah.
There's one of the vans.
The other one is in Erie,Pennsylvania right now I believe
is where I think Luis and alland Ryan are at.
Okay.
So in 2018, when I wastraveling, not like I got'em all
sitting here.
I was traveling, speaking atfood shows are my first book.

(07:26):
Don't 86 year restaurant sales.
And I had a friend of minerecently.
I don't understand the title.
I said, good.
I didn't want you to Causeyou're not a restaurant person.
They understand 86 and.
When I was traveling with thatbook, I always would say, and
this is even more ironic, cuz Ijust got back from Monday
spending the day with guyFietti.
But I would say back in 2018that restaurants don't do a good

(07:48):
job of telling their story thatthey don't do a good job of
telling their story.
And there's nobody out therewith a megaphone screaming for,
and there was two examples Iwould always use.
I would always say, if you lookat Yelp, Yelp is a place that
restaurants get a lot ofattention.
And the negative is they don'tcontrol it.
And then I look at the otherside and I look at guy Fietti

(08:09):
and diner driving design, themost famous personality in the
independent restaurant space,hands down.
And I used to say, imagine ifguy I was telling my team, cuz
we have a large marketing teamand then we also have the media
side.
Now I used to say, I want you toimagine if guy looked at that
restaurant owner, he had justgot done talking to and said,
Hey, I wanna, I wanna sit downand talk to you.
I see some things in yourrestaurant.
You could be doing differentmarketing wise.

(08:30):
Would you be able to talk?
There's not one.
That would say, no, I'm notinterested.
Right.
And so that was my theory wasokay.
What if we do those things?
What if we figure out a way tocreate a platform that allows
the restaurants to control theirown narrative, unlike all the
other platforms where theconsumers have input.
And then what if we create ashow that allows us to Chronicle

(08:54):
the little guy in their journeythat mom and pop independent
restaurant in every town.
And then at the same time, nowthat we're doing that, Hey, if
you need help, our team's behindyou, whatever you need.
So, 2018, I started taking myphone a tripod and I would go to
re.
So when I would travel and speakwith the book, when I would go

(09:15):
to food shows and have booths, Iwould find 4, 5, 6 local
restaurants I'd have aconversation with them.
One of them actually came up ina Facebook memory the other day
from four years ago, it wasJune, you know, yesterday, four
years ago at a place called buzzbull Creamery in downtown
Cincinnati.
And that was one of the firstones.
And so we started doing that andI realized that my vision was

(09:36):
never gonna come to fruit.
Because my long term goal wasfor America's best
restaurants.com.
It was.net back then.
Cuz we couldn't afford do com tobe completely transparent.
I looked at the amount I had topay it.
I'm like about that.
That sounds pretty

good.

Matt Plapp (09:51):
let's bring to it.
Yeah.
Net, I guess net like do netnet.
So back then we had the.net andthe Brandy, ironically wasn't
orange and blue.
It was gold and black.
I was trying to separate thetwo.
Yeah.
And make them look different.
Eventually I realized that waswrong, but.
Back then I had this vision ofAmerica's best restaurants, not
net of being a, a place whereconsumers would go to find local
restaurants, not chains, notfranchises for the most part.

(10:15):
Now some regional franchises,but not like McDonald's and taco
bell.
Right.
Find that mom and poprestaurant.
And I soon realized that if Mattflap was trying to be the guy
fi.
It would never happen becauseguys been doing it since 2006.
And as of last year, I think thenumber I heard he said in an
interview was 1300 restaurants.
He had visited since thousandsix.

(10:36):
Yep.
My goal is to get a hundredthousand restaurants on the.
And so in 2019, we kind ofshelved it and I looked, sat it
back and said, okay, let's focuson running the company.
Let's figure this outeventually.
Cuz I, I still can't wrap myhead around it.
Well, by late 2019, I startedwatching a couple of my
employees cuz I'm real adamanton my employees be involved in

(10:56):
the community, be involved onFacebook on Instagram when you
go to lunch interview the owner.
Yeah.
And it's funny cuz people wouldnever do it.
I'm like, Hey, grab your iPhoneinterview the owner.
Well, I look and I start seeingtwo of my employees, Doug and
Luis.
I.
These dudes are better on camerathan me.
like, I think I've become prettygood at being on camera.
They're unbelievable.
Yeah.
And so I got both of themtogether and said, Hey, I got an

(11:17):
idea.
What if I bought a motor home?
And we took turns, drive themotor home for one week, I'll
drive it for five days acrossthe country.
I'll stop and interview 15, 20restaurants.
You fly in, you take the motorhome, you leave.
Doug comes.
That was the game plan.
Hmm.
And everybody's like, love it.
Love the idea.
Luis is like one problem.

(11:37):
I go, what he.
I can't drive a motor.
I can barely drive my car.
Like you think I'm a maniacdrive my Mazda.
Like you think I'm gonna drive amotor home?
Like, okay, that's a good point.
So then I started thinking aboutit and we used to be a motor
home dealer, uh, back in theday.
And I, I remember the Mercedessprinter chassis, you know, the
small van.
Yeah.
That Amazon's got everywherenow.
I said, what if I bought this?

(11:58):
And that's the one out here.
There's what we called.
One Kenobi.
It's the first one, our, ourvision.
We're trying to finalize thenumber.
I think the number that willmake sense for our company is
about 25 to 30 vans on the roadin five years.
Yeah.
So I bought that van, uh, hiredfive more people were up to 15
now just in that department andthey travel to two to three
restaurants a day, uh, be in thedifferent.

(12:20):
To it's a three to four hourshoot.
And the whole concept is to helpthem tell their story.
We go in, we, we actuallylaunched some pretty cool things
this summer, cuz we trialed itout a lot.
Last year we went, we started inJune, 2021 or thousand 21 and we
went to, gosh, I think the firstmonth we did 8 78 restaurants.
Wow.
Which is a lot.

(12:40):
And we had to do a lot of trialand error cuz I'm a big person.
I always say first to fail.
Yeah.
Be first to fail.
Get there fast.
The quicker you can get thefailure, the better, the quicker
you can find the.
And so I started doing that.
And when I got to the point lastyear, we started tweaking it.
Now we're at two vans.
We had a west coast and an eastcoast van.
I realized really quick how hardit was to manage a team on the

(13:01):
west coast.
We're in Kentucky, NorthernKentucky by Cincinnati.
And it was me flying everycouple weeks out there.
And it was just wasn't feasibleat this point.
So I brought the van back andwhat flew one of my employees
out, he spent three days drivingit backwards, snow skiing, a
couple places, had a blast.
Nice.
And brought it back here.
Now both vans run out here andthat vision is, you know, the,
right now, the way we're pacingis that financially, cuz it's

(13:23):
not cheap.
We spent$700,000 last year onit.
And so when I talk torestaurants and they go, well,
what's the catch.
I've never heard of you.
What are you doing?
Yeah.
I'm like, well you've neverheard of us cuz we're brand.
But the name America's bestrestaurant says all you need to
know, like diners drive-ins anddives 10 years ago meant nothing
to most people.
They had never seen the show.
Yep.

(13:43):
If your, if your restaurant getson Facebook or Instagram and
says, Hey, America's bestrestaurants is coming in a month
to film, to film with us.
They've never heard of us, butthey get excited.
Because the name dripscredibility.
So last year we did that.
We, we, we bought the do orguess two years, we bought
the.com.
We trademarked the brand.
We built out a lot of, uh, lotof branding and, and, and

(14:06):
everything's that nature.
We built America's bestrestaurants.com.
It's a pretty cool site, got amap colors of the states or
orange we've been to blue.
We haven't been to yet.
And then I hired a team of five.
What we call assistantproducers.
They find the restaurants and wedon't go by Yelp or goo.
We go by what we see.
And then two phoneconversations, which lead to a

(14:27):
Google, meet our zoom call andhear the story.
And if the restaurants a fit, wepropose them, us coming out.
And then we go from there.

I'm curious, you said you kind of just made a
couple phone calls.
How do you decide where to go?
Where are you

Matt Plapp (14:39):
looking?
So we we've built an avatar.
Uh, okay.
And the, the, the theme that weuse is a restaurant you would
eat at weekly.
Okay.
And I tell my team to thinkabout that.
Would you eat at a restaurantthat had a banner hanging on the
front door for their BA theircompany for two years?
Doesn't exude a lot ofconfidence to me.

(15:00):
If you can't afford to put asign on your building.
Yep.
Would you eat at a restaurantthat had dirty diapers on the
floor?
So what we came up with is, isan avatar of what we believe as
a restaurant, people would visitevery week.
And at the end of the day, it'swhat we would visit, you know,
well taken care of.
Yeah.
Updated.
We had a restaurant recentlythat applied cuz restaurants can

(15:20):
apply to be featured.
And one of my producers broughtit to me and said, Hey, this
checks off a lot of the boxes,but there's a couple ifs to my,
my, my book.
I said, what do you got?
Let me, let me look at it.
I said, what's your, if he'slike, well, those tables and
chairs are from 20 years ago.
They aren't, they aren't antiquechairs.
Right.
They're just shitty old chairsand tables.
And I said, well, and I I'llleave it up to them.

(15:41):
I'm like, why, why does thatquestion?
They're like, well, if theyhaven't spent the money to
update the restaurant, Is itjust a dive restaurant?
Is it a dive barn?
There's nothing wrong there.
There's probably good food.
There's people with goodintentions, but with us where
we're at now, America's bestrestaurants.
I want it to be that localrestaurant in your neighborhood.
That's easy to get to that youwill go to every week that has

(16:02):
great service, great food and agreat atmosphere.
And somebody in the four wallsthat cares.
Right?
Because there's a lot ofbusinesses I interviewed
yesterday on one of our, we havefour podcasts and one'em.
I interviewed a.
Who was, uh, Steve Robinson, whowas a marketing director for
Chick-fil-A for 35 years.
Wow.
And he talked about what wasdifferent.

(16:23):
I asked him, I said, how doesChick-fil-A keep that local
ownership feel when it's anational chain, a big one?
And he said, because our ownersfor the most, like think 90% of
'em only can own one Chick-fil-Aright.
That is their business.
They're inside the four walls.
Whereas I know a guy that has 28of this one.
Yeah, and he's never inside thefour walls and it's obvious.
And so that was a key elementwith, to me was I want America's

(16:46):
best restaurants to be asounding board for that
independent restaurant, becausethere's another side of it.
It's gonna take a few years, butAmerica's best restaurants.com.
And about three years is goingto be a place that is first on
all the searches that consumersare looking at to find
restaurants in theirneighborhood.
And I want that to be filledwith places that.

(17:09):
That have owners and operatorsthat it directly impacts versus
the millionaire.
That's got 35.
McDonald's right.

So really focusing in on the, the
independent mom and pop owner,giving them kind of a leg up on
the, on the big, the big guys orthe, the big boys, I think, as
you call it on, on your, uh, onyour site.
So I'm curious beyond the kindof, I think that's kind of table
stakes is, you know, restaurantsthat care, right.
Because we've all been to onethat does, and we've all been
told one that doesn't, how manyhave you visited in the past few

(17:40):
years as a team, over athousand.

Matt Plapp (17:42):
A lot.
I mean, we've, we've filmed atalmost a thousand in 11 months.
Wow.
Uh, per and we've, we've visitedanother four or 500 in kind of,
you know, if we're out and.
Today, Luis and them are up nearErie, Pennsylvania, somewhere,
wherever that's at.
I don't even know it's somewherenear Pittsburgh, but I don't
know exactly where, but whenthey're out and about, they've
got a list, we develop a list ofabout 500 restaurants a week

(18:06):
that look ideal across thecountry.
Okay.
And when those guys are outthere, like they're film two
episodes today, but they'll stopby five restaurants, right.
As a customer.
And shake a hand and look at theplace and then get, get on the
phone and tell that producer,Hey yes, this place is a, this
place looks great.
This would be a good fit.
Talk to the owner or, Hey, no,take this one off.
Like I almost got shot and thenfrom, and then, and then from

(18:29):
the marketing side, I'vepersonally outside of America's
best restaurants, the roadshowI've visited somewhere in a
neighborhood of, you know, 1500to 2000 restaurants since 2017.
Cause I've up until February ofthis year, I was traveling every
other week.
Wow.

So I'm curious with all of those, those visits
under your belt and experienceand all that.
You've probably been to morerestaurants, I think, than
probably anybody in the country.
Yeah.
You know, I, I wanna take a twokind of pronged approach to
this, so I want to know firstand for.
You know, from a marketing andcustomer retention, customer
service standpoint, what are therestaurants that are cut above
the rest?
What is the biggest differencebetween them and everybody else
from a customer servicestandpoint?

(19:06):
And I do wanna talk about someof the employees and the culture
and that too, but first we'll,we'll kind of go in the, in the
customer.

Matt Plapp (19:12):
So I break restaurants down three ways.
Like I had a restaurant, thisguy's name was Lenny.
About five years ago, we haddriven about a thousand
customers into his restaurant in60 days through this marketing
program that we have.
and he goes, well, how do I knowthey're coming back, Matt?
Cuz that was his question.
Like we, we drive'em in for thefirst visit and we don't wanna
coupon the next two years.

(19:33):
We wanna bribe them ethicallyfor the first visit.
And then after that, it's up tothe marketing to stay in front
of them to retain them.
Yeah.
And I said, let me ask you aquestion.
Lenny, is your food suck?
He looks at me really shockedand I goes, is your food
socking?
And he goes, well, you can justate.
What did you think?
I said, I think the food'sexcellent, but I'm also sitting
here with the owner.
And the chef probably knows thathe goes, no, our food is

(19:53):
excellent all the time.
I said, okay, cool.
I'll give you that.
I said, what about the service?
He goes, well, the onlinereviews show us like a 4.4 to
4.6 everywhere.
I said, okay, that means youprobably got solid service.
I said, the atmosphere looksgreat.
If your service is good, yourfood's good.
And your service is good.
Why wouldn't they come back?
And so those are the three bigthings I look at with
restaurants is, is the foodservice and atmosphere.

(20:15):
Yeah.
And so on top of that, Is the Mothe only way you bring those
people back on a consistent,dependable manner is marketing.
And so the biggest thing Inoticed, uh, and this is
gigantic is that between 90 to95% of restaurants are not

(20:35):
actively involved in gainingcustomers data.
When you walk in the restaurant,number one question, you'll get
asked if you go tonight, Ipromise you if you and your wife
go to dinner tonight and youwalk in, let's say you go.
Casual dining restaurant.
You walk up to the frontcounter.
Do you know the three wordsthey're gonna ask you?
Have you been here before?
How are you?
Oh, right.

they don't care.
I was hopeful that they wouldask if I've been here before

Matt Plapp (20:56):
they're gonna ask.
I I've I've literally have wentto a hundred restaurants and
charged it 90 to 95.
I'm gonna ask you, how are you?
Don't give a shit how I am.
I don't care how you are.
It's a nuanced question, right?
What they should be asking iswhat you just said.
Have you been here before?
No, I haven't cool.
Before we go any farther, we'vegot a V I P program that you get

(21:18):
a free dessert on your nextvisit.
Do me a favor.
Stand this QR code.
It's gonna take you here.
It's gonna ask you fivequestions.
You're gonna get somethingbonkers that you're gonna love.
Now let's take you to yourtable.
Hmm.
90 to 95% of restaurants are notdoing anything to gain the
customer's data that walks intheir four walls.

(21:38):
And that.
Blows me away because mybackground from when I worked in
radio from 99 to whatever itwas, oh three at that same time,
99 to oh eight, we owned a boatin our dealership.
Nobody walked in our boat in RVdealership, front doors without
giving us their phone number,name, email, birthday, and
nobody ever fought it because ifyou frame it correctly, if they

(22:01):
were in there to buy a boat orcamper, it's pretty easy.
Hey, before we get forward, Iwant a couple questions I asked.
They're gonna give'em to you.
Your name, your phone number,email.
Cool.
What are you looking for?
What to.
If they're a customer coming tobuy fishing tackle, I wanna make
sure you're in our, our birthdayprogram.
Cuz you'll get a$25 gift cardfor your birthday.
Oh, you're kidding me.
No, fill this out.
We were doing that in like, ohtwo.
Yeah.
And restaurants in 2022, aren'tdoing it.

(22:23):
So that was the biggest thing.
And the reason I bring that upfirst is that if you've got
awesome food, awesome serviceand an awesome atmosphere, why
wouldn't somebody come back?
Well, they won't come backbecause you have failed to
retain their attention.
Scott, uh, Sean Walsh and ISean's one of your guys.
Yeah.
We started a podcast.
It comes out June 22nd calledown their phones.

(22:45):
And the whole concept of thepodcast is to follow the journey
of my company, working withSean's company to help him
market better.
Cause he is awesome at digitalstorytelling.
He wasn't awesome at use ofdata.
So we're coming in, we'reteaming up.
We're going from there, but theconcept of the podcast is to own
people's.
Be relevant on their email, ontheir text, on their Facebook,
Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn,YouTube, MySpace.

(23:08):
I don't care where it's at butthe only way you can do that in
a predictable manner is to havetheir information.
And so that's a huge element.
So outside of that, the thingsthat I've noticed as far as the
restaurants that stood out,storytelling's a big one.
So back in June of 2000, I wentto our tech team.

(23:31):
Tom on our tech team is calledthe build and tech team may help
connect technology for ourclients and make sure that
customer data comes in fromgreat place from all the places.
And I asked him, I said, Tom, Iwant you do me a favor.
Go analyze the top.
25 and bottom 25 restaurants wework with.
Cause we have a prettysophisticated dashboard that
monitors the front endacquisition.

(23:51):
We can see if they have 20%conversion rate, meaning
somebody 20% of the people thatgive us their data.
Walk in the restaurant, they got2% how much they spend all this
stuff.
I thought he was gonna come backwith some really cool chart and
Hey, okay.
Restaurants with this manyFacebook fans, this many emails,
this many texts, like I thoughthe would gimme like a roadmap to
what we need to do.
Yeah.
And he came back and he goes,you're gonna love this.

(24:13):
I go, why?
He said the people that aredoing the best are the ones that
tell their stories on online.
Yeah.
The ones that are visible.
As the owner on Facebook andInstagram and this past Monday,
I was down in pigeon Ford,Tennessee with a downtown flavor
town, a client of ours and guyFietti, he's the, the name

(24:34):
behind the restaurant.
One of our clients, Bucky maowns it and created it along
with him.
And I talked to guy, we've gotsome footage coming out soon,
but I talked to guy, I said,that's exciting.
I said, tell me, cuz I, I, Ididn't know his business for a
lot of theories.
I've seen him on TV a billiontimes.
Never met him.
and I didn't know where he stoodbusiness wise.
I said, you've got triple D.
We've got America's bestrestaurants road show.

(24:56):
You're doing it on food network.
We're doing it on the Facebookpage of the restaurants.
But tell me 2022, the importanceof a restaurant telling their
story on Facebook and Instagram.
And he was like, Matt, it's whatthey have to do.
Yeah.
People don't come in here forthe calories.
They come in here for the app,the relat.
You know, and then, you know,20, he said 20 years ago when I

(25:17):
owned my restaurant, when Ifirst got in the restaurant
business, you had to buybillboards and yellow pages and
maybe radio.
And if you are lucky TV, now,you don't have to do that.
Now you can get on all thesesocial media platforms and the
most important part of all thatis the person.
And he said something I hadnever heard before, man, it's so
deep.
He said a song means a lot morewhen you know the story of the

(25:39):
artist.
Mm.
There's a, you know, there's anartist from Kentucky named Jack
Harlow, a rapper, and my songets a kick out of it that I
listen to Jack Harlow and Idon't listen to Jack Harlow cuz
I love his music.
I listen to Jack Harlow cuz Iknow his story.
Like I know the story of him insixth grade going around his
school with 10 Nicks tapes thatwere probably God awful, but it

(26:02):
didn't stop.
And that's me like some of thevideos I did 10 years ago were
God.
And so when guy said that, I waslike, wow, that's deep man.
And like you think about thatfrom a restaurant standpoint,
that was the reason that Isupported barleycorns during the
pandemic, that when we had achoice in may of 2020, where to

(26:22):
eat.
I didn't go to the subway orMcDonald's, or even Chick-fil-A
I went to barley corns.
Why?
Because I knew the high familyowned barley corns, and we went
there, we got our wings and ourSaratoga chips and our French
fries and our cheese sticks.
And we sat in our damn car intheir parking lot and had dinner
two to three nights a week onaverage for probably three to

(26:43):
four months.
Yep.
And it was because I knew theowner.
And so that's, that's what Ithink is a huge element there.
Not think I know is thatrestaurants need to know that.
And by the way, uh, there's aURL.
Can I put, give you a URL whichtells a lot of stats your life?
Yeah, of course.
So it's America's bestrestaurants.com/stats.
If you go to America's bestrestaurants.com, you won't find
us on the menu.

(27:04):
This is a, a standalone page,and this page is fed by life
stats.
Every day.
My team have a little holder ontheir phone.
If I go on my phone, I can go onhere and I can click this
button.
And it's gonna do, what's calleda restaurant attention audit.
And so on that attention audit,it answers six questions about
the restaurant's use ofmarketing.

(27:26):
And that's how our teamunderstands.
If the place is a good fit forus to talk to'em on the
marketing side.
So we started publishing thosestats on that America's best
restaurants.com/stats.
And it's updated.
If I go on there right now andreview a restaurant on what we
see, it'll update the stats.
And so there's some pretty coolstats that are kind of scary,
but that storytelling also goes.

(27:46):
So what's the number oneproblem.
The last 12 months restaurantshave had in the United States,
labor, labor hiring, you knowwhy a lot of restaurants, it
doesn't look fun to work there.
Right?
I get the applications I get allthe time.
Here are unbelievable.
I have two friends of minerecently who have companies like
mine and different niches, butthey do marketing and consulting

(28:08):
and they said, man, we can'tfind anybody.
I said, that's because you don'tbuild an assign story.
What do you mean?
I said, if I go to your Facebookand your Instagram right now,
There's nothing that gets meexcited about wanting to work
with you.
Actually it looks really damnboy, and it's really self
absorbed.
I said, if you go to my Facebookand Instagram and TikTok, you're
gonna see how I use the Lambo.
You're gonna see our road trips.

(28:29):
You're gonna see our Nerfbasketball court.
We put it in the basement.
You're gonna see our ping pongroom.
You're gonna see our weightroom.
You're gonna see that everybodyhere wears the orange gear in
rocks Jordans and gets Adidaswhen they start, like we have
shoes you get, when you startthat master company of colors
we've and we put that on video.
And so that was a big thing.
I've got a lot of restaurantsthat didn't have a problem

(28:50):
hiring people.
Why?
Because the owner and the teamare always in the marketing,
always on TikTok and Facebookand people that are 18 to 30
years old that were looking forthe restaurants base said, okay,
I can work at these 20restaurants.
These 15 all are just a job.

(29:11):
These two or three pay a littlemore.
These two or three look funny.
And that's where they picked.
And, and it also goes back tothe thing to think about it.
If, if you worked at arestaurant and you didn't enjoy
the day and you didn't have funtime and the culture, wasn't
great.
And you went home at night andyou had a roommate and your
roommate said, Hey man, how waswork?

(29:31):
Oh, Hey, it sucked the owner's ajerk.
This happened.
That happened.
That roommate wouldn't go.
Oh, cool.
Can I.
But if you went home and said,oh, it was great, man.
We had a good time.
It was a good day.
Had some things happen, but man,you know, team's great.
The owner's awesome thatroommate or spouse or brother is
gonna go, can you gimme anapplication?

(29:53):
Right.
And so that was a big thing.
And that goes back to what youasked earlier with culture.
Is that how you treat people,how you handle things.
We've got this right here.
If you can see the money.
Every Friday tomorrow I go tothe bank tomorrow and I'll have
to withdraw based on this week'ssales, I'll probably have to
withdraw about$2,000 cash.
I will put the$2,000 cash inhere in between tens to a

(30:14):
hundred denominations.
And my there's 12 people fromour team that contributed to the
sales that get to reach into themoney bucket tomorrow at we're
doing that one 30 tomorrow.
Yep.
And so that's fun.
And so when they go home andtheir friends are looking for a
job and they say, man, on thispoint, How'd you get 300 bucks
day dude, cash money, the moneybucket.
What's the money.

(30:35):
Have you ever heard of a moneybucket at an office?
No, exactly.

We definitely don't have that.

Matt Plapp (30:39):
and, and, and that restaurant's need it.
Like we, I have clients of minethat we've trained on the money
bucket that we say, Hey, you'vegot your VIP program.
You know, you've got your signups like this, you know, you got
your, your napkins on the tableand your server.
You'll walk up and go, Hey, dome a favor, scan the B, scan the
code and join our B P program.
You're gonna get an awesome giftnext week at a free steak for

(30:59):
your next meal, whatever it.
Right.
And when they do it, they walkback or they, they, they walk
back the owner and say, Hey, Ijust got somebody to sign up.
Cool.
Reaches the money bucket.
And now that server's out theredoing that stuff, they're having
fun.
They're making more money,they're making cash.
And then it's benefiting therestaurant by getting that sign
up that I mentioned neverhappened.
So those are little things withculture outside of that.

(31:21):
I'm not an operations guy.
So, uh, I don't really critiqueservice.
And I think it's been impossibleto critique service, cuz even
for me, The best restaurantsstill have had some limited
capacity with regards to whatthey could do the past couple
years.
But those are some of thebiggest things I've seen in the
restaurant.

Absolutely.
I I'm curious about this kind ofgathering, like the VIP list,
you know, the napkin, you justheld up with the QR code on it.
So I think I've been talking toa lot of people lately about,
uh, paint in the past coupleepisodes.
Our last episode with, um, PhilCrawford.
He, he works, uh, technology,chief technology officer for,
for Carl's junior Hardy's.
Oh, cool.
We talk about loyalty.
You know, the, the big, the bigplayers in the, in the industry

(32:01):
is everyone has an app now.
Yep.
And they're getting really goodat it.
You know, Starbucks is great atit.
McDonald's is great.
You know, and they're gettingthat loyalty, but I think the
average restaurant can't createan app and they should competes
with that, but they don't needto.
Right?
No.
So it seems like these are thekinds of things that the mom and
pops, independent restaurantscan approach loyalty in a
different way.
Yeah.

(32:21):
Because at the end of the day,you're competing with the big
players.
Yep.
You know, so what are some ofthe ways beyond the kind of the
napkin that you recommend youteach or that you see
restaurants doing to get peopleback in, in, and getting them on
the list and then utilizing thatlist?

Matt Plapp (32:34):
Well, so, so number one, I'll, I'll address the,
whether if the elephant in theroom, if you're an independent
restaurant with, I'll say under20 locations, don't waste your
time with an app.
I eat out all the time.
I'm not downloading it.
People, the, the people thathave apps that do.
Chipotle Chick-fil-A StarbucksDuncan, the big boys that have

(32:55):
massive money that people eat atall the time.
And they just dump a lot ofmoney into that process.
But I'll also say this, like Ieat at Chipotle.
I don't have their app.
I'm not a big ad person.
And so if you're an independent,you're a small chain, you're a
small brand, the app.
Isn't where it's at.
We actually just have a, aclient.
We work with a, a franchisethat's on their they're

(33:18):
switching to their third.
In four years.
Wow.
And it was kind of comical wasthey were hardcore pushing it
about a year ago.
Well, always hardcore pushingabout a year ago, they're
telling one of our, ourlocations that we help gather
email and data and drive a VIPprogram that they needed to get
quit doing that.
And just focus on the app folkson the app.
And I said, what are your, whatare your sales?

(33:38):
What's your pull through on theaction?
Like it's between eight to 11%,depending on the month, I said,
what's your pull through withwhat we do?
35.
Interesting.
So they spent tens of thousandsof dollars over here on
something.
And the reason that is, isnumber one, people don't want
apps at the end of the day.
Right?
The other thing is that about 60to 70% of the people that we see

(33:59):
that walk into the restaurantare new or lost, or they're an
infrequent guest.
And so they're brand new andthey're infrequent.
If they're brand new andinfrequent, they are not doing
an app.
They aren't even doing a loyaltyprogram.
If they're a frequent customer.
Yes.
They will do a loyalty.
They'll do a loyalty program.
If they're a frequent customer,that's hardcore.
Yes.
They'll do an app, but thatthat's 10% of your audience.

(34:21):
Like I've not seen yeah.
A, a midsize to smaller chainyet be above 14% when it comes
to that app usage on their, ontheir, their customer sales.
What we look for is there'sthree places.
We preach.
Restaurants need to find data.
Now, first, our acronym we usefor America's best restaurants
is ABR attract, build, retain.

(34:43):
So there's three main places youcan attract attention.
You can attract tension on yourwebsite.
You can attract tension onsocial media.
You can attract attention insideyour four walls.
Inside your four walls is themost important on your
website's.
The second most important.
And in social media's third,most important everywhere you
attract attention, you should beleveraging it to gain data.

(35:04):
So it's, father's day thiscoming Sunday, and this week, a
lot of our clients like almostall of them, haven't been doing
Facebook posts saying happyfather's day, come in for the
brunch.
They've been making Facebookposts with a picture of them and
their dad and saying, this is meand my dad.
Here's a memory about us.
By the way, drop your memorybelow in the comments for a
chance to win a$25 gift card.

(35:26):
And next thing, you know, ahundred customers comment.
The reason I say that is that wehave that hooked up to
automation that takes theconversation, the messenger and
says, Hey, Matt, thanks for yourcomment.
By the way, I see you and Imember of our VIP program, click
below to join and get four freeoffers.
And so you've got social mediatactics like that, that can

(35:46):
build a database.
You've got your website.
If I go to your website, Theonly places I typically see
restaurants have way togetherdata is when I order food.
What if I'm there just peekingand looking right?
You ought have a popup that boombumps my face and says, get a
free waffle hell yeah.
Free waffle click.
It gave you my data.
Boom.
And the big thing with when Isay that people are surprised

(36:08):
how my end customer will do it.
Customers will give you theirinformation.
When you position it correctly,Matt, you want a free waffle?
Yes.
I want a free waffle greatclick.
Here they go to me.
Here's your free waffle.
Don't be they come to me.
Here's your free waffle with apurchase of nine entres two
drinks, and you have to nameyour kid after us.
Right.
And I heard something the otherday on the, uh, restaurant Topia

(36:30):
podcast.
You ever listen to thatrestaurant?
Topia?
I'm familiar with it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So Anthony, I think is who saidit?
He said, you know, consumersbecome loyal to a restaurant
with free.
They become loyal to a couponwith a.
Meaning when you keep givingcoupons out, like in these lame
magazines that you consistentlylike this restaurant, this is

(36:54):
actually a friend of mine'srestaurant that's in here.
I'm sure.
Actually look like a differentone, but he he's got a coupon in
here the last 10 years, 10 off30 last 10 years.
Doesn't listen to me.
I'm like, dude, everybody that'susing that coupon knows it's in
there.
They're using every month.
Your customers are.
You're cannibalizing yourprofits from it.
Right.
But they're addicted to thecoupon.
Whereas if it said a QR code andsaid, scan this for a free X, a

(37:17):
free offer, it's like, here'sthis the turf club that actually
is a client of ours.
So the turf club got in herefive off in the order, free
burger, if I'm him, which I'mgoing to text him, actually one
of my managers doing theretonight, I I'll end off, I can't
make this stuff up.
I'm gonna take these out and puta giant QR code and say.
Want something amazing and freescan me.

(37:41):
And there's the QR.
They scan it because if thisperson gets this and they do
this six times a year, they canalways use that free burger.
And you don't know who used it,and you don't have any, any way
of having their data.
You have that QR code, they gointo your tool, whatever we use,
messenger, whatever that youuse, they go into there.
And now all of a sudden you canget their information.

(38:03):
Every time they see this, thisad in the future and they scan
it.
It notice them, Hey Matt,welcome back.
We see you used your freeburger, but you have a dessert
available or, Hey, we see you'veused all your VIP offers.
We appreciate your loyalty clickhere to go to our website and
see what's going on.
I mean, you can do a lot ofdifferent things with it.
And so of course, when yougather data, you've gotta look

(38:26):
at all of your inroads, yourmarketing in store, which I
would consider that kind of anin-store marketing element.
You're online marketing yoursocial media.
So inside the restaurant, the,the biggest opportunities, your
servers, if you're a casualdining restaurant, let's imagine
you and your wife, what's yourwife's name?
Rachel.
Rachel.
So you and Rachel are havingdinner.
You just, what's your favoritefood?

(38:47):
Uh, I mean, I'm Italian.
You're Italian.
So you just crushed giant fetaChi Alfredo bunch of bread.
You're full and the server walksup to you and shoot me straight.
What you would say, server walksup, you guys are full, you got
the, you got sweats from eatingso much.
They walk up and say, uh, Hey,Rachel, you guys in for dessert,

(39:07):
what are you typically saying?
Probably I'm too full.
You're too full.
You know what you are, you crushthat Fe Alfredo.
So I

saw you.
You definitely are.
That that

Matt Plapp (39:16):
was delicious.
And you're like, yeah, it.
I want you to do me a favor.
Have you ever had ourcheesecake?
It's the bomb now?
I've not had it.
Okay.
Here's I you do.
If you scan this code and you goto messenger, go ahead and do
it.
I'll do it with you.
They throw out, scan the code.
You gotta do it with them.
Right?
It's gonna ask you fivequestions.
It's gonna have you enrolled inour VIP program.

(39:37):
You're gonna get a free dessertand a couple other offers for
your next visit.
When you come in next time yougot that cheesecake for free.
And so now what happens is youjust, cuz what that conversation
usually is.
Hey, are you guys in for dessertnow?
We're full.
Okay.
I'll get your check.
Right.
I call that my she's my chairpie.
We call that the warrant we'vegot names for our different call

(39:59):
to actions is that you teach theservers that technique instead
of going okay, I'm gonna getyour check.
You are full, you crushed it.
Let me do your a favor.
I want you to have a freedessert.
And then what happens is thatperson, now you have their
email, their phone number.
You have'em pixel and tagged onFacebook and Instagram, right?
You follow them around for thenext two weeks.
They come in your restaurant,they use their free cheesecake.

(40:21):
They have that deliciouscheesecake and now their next 20
visits, they buy the cheesecake.
Right?
So you not only had a goodengaging conversation on that.
You not only got their data, younot only drove a future visit.
That was more predictable, butnow you've just upsold a piece
of cheesecake LA Rose's pizza isa pizza brand down here in
Cincinnati, about seven, eightyears ago.

(40:42):
They did a cookie brochure.
I didn't know they had cookies.
Like it's a pizza place.
It's delicious.
We go there, we get, we had afree cookie promo and I'm like,
we'll have our free cookies.
And they brought three of'em outamazing made in the pizza oven
and they were.
We get the cookies.
Every time we buy the roses, Ihad a ping pong tournament at
our office.
About two months ago, I ordered27 cookies for the team on top

(41:03):
of bunch of pizzas.
And so there's 27 cookies.
I think it's like 5 99 forthree.
So I ordered whatever that is.
40 or 50 bucks in cookies off ofa free promo for like seven
years ago.
Wow.

Are you still getting.

Matt Plapp (41:18):
Still get'em every damn time.

Yep.
I mean, I, I tell you my, one ofmy favorite restaurant, my
favorite restaurant here, whereI live here in Brooklyn park
slope, shout out to the doubleWindsor, just neighborhood bar
and grill, everything done.
Right.
They have specials every week.
They have a new draft list everyweek.
I probably go twice a month ifthey just texted me the specials
and they texted me the new draftlist.
Once a week, I'd be in nervous.
What's your,

Matt Plapp (41:39):
what kind of

beer you drink?
Uh I'm I'm like a, I like themore like Mexican loggers, you
know, that kind

Matt Plapp (41:44):
stuff.
Okay.
So let, let's say, for example,the next time you're in there
that server walks up and says,Hey, how much changes in this
growler?
That's almost planted it.
And I keep it here.
How much changings in thegrowling?
You're like, I don't know.
Do me a favor, scan the QR code.
It's gonna take you to Facebookanswer, just guess on it.
You're got a chance to winhundred dollars gift card,

(42:06):
whatever.
Right.
So now you do.
And then you go to, when youscan that code, you go to that
post and you comment it opens upin messenger and says, Hey,
thanks, Dominic, appreciate yourguessing on the contest, by the
way you wanna join our V I Pbeer program.
You wanna join the beer tastingassociation, right?
What's that?
Oh yeah, exactly.

(42:26):
You say yes.
You go in there first so we canget your membership activated,
answer three questions, your,your email, your visit frequency
in your phone number.
As long as you lay it out, whatthey have to answer, they'll do
it.
And then after you answer that,what are your top three beers?
I'm a Mexican logger.
I'm a Hef and I'm a IPA, right?

(42:47):
So now in a month, when a stoutcomes out on tap, they don't bug
you.
Right.
But in a month when they getsome new imported Mexican
logger, You get a text messagethat says Dominic, you're gonna
love it because you're on the VI P beer list and you love
Mexican loggers.
Right.
We just got X, Y, Z, and can'twait to see us soon.
You're walking in therestaurant.

(43:08):
Yeah, I'm there.
And so you are, and I, I usethis number it's called, I call
it 600 friends.
You know, if you owned arestaurant, the most frequent
customers would be your closefamily and friends, right?
Yep.
So it would make sense that ifyou could develop a, a group of
600 more.
You would have a more successfulrestaurant.
So what I always talk tocustomers about is using tactics

(43:29):
inside your four walls on yourrestaurant's website and social
media to grow that 6,000 personannual list.
There's no way in heck there'sno way you can't find 10% of
those people to be awesomefriends.
And if you find at the off fromfriends and you use that data,
it's not hard to drive six morevisits a year 600 people at 600

(43:49):
visits is 3,600 visits a year.
Let's just say it's an averagecheck of$3.
Let me go to my Handmancalculator here.
3,600 times$30.
That's$108,000 in gross salesminus let's say you got food
cost of, of 30%.
So now you're down to$70,000 andyou've already got your

(44:10):
electric.
You've already got your water.
You've already got your staff.
You've got all of your costsalready there except for the
food cost and the marketing.
So you just probably turned$50,000 in profit.
Simply by engaging peoplecorrectly, getting their data,
getting a depth of data.
So you can segment it by loggerand IPA and stout Hef.

(44:32):
And then you talk to'em moreoften.

Absolutely.
And just engaging with peoplein, in a more meaningful way and
making sure you're, you'regetting their, you're not just
asking, Hey, gimme your phonenumber.
Right.
But you're, you're, you'regiving people value.
And I think that's the key togetting, getting people in.
You know, a lot of these timesyou downloaded restaurants.
You know, download app freefries, whatever.
That's enough for me to downloadsomething.
Right.
But I think on the localstandpoint, there's a lot of
room to grow.

(44:55):
I I'm curious, you know, we'regetting outta time here, you
know, I, I kind of like tounderstand a little bit of like
the diagnosis.
Why do you think restaurantshave been so far behind on this?

Matt Plapp (45:05):
Do I, I think they're afraid to seek outside
help, you know, the number ofrestaurant owners that called
me.
Matt flap, the marketing guy,you know, I'm not an accountant,
right?
You have a pretty goodunderstanding of that during the
pandemic to talk about PPP andidle loans.

(45:25):
Hmm.
Matt tell about this PPP.
I thought I saw you did awebinar.
It was pretty cool.
Explain the PPP.
This is, I literally got thiscall every day for three months
and I'm like, do you not have anaccountant now?
You don't have a trusted banker.
You're you're a trusted personfor financial advice on the
pandemic as a damn marketingperson.
Right.

(45:47):
I think a lot of restaurants areso busy working in the business
that they have failed to work onthe business.
And when you work on thebusiness, you ha like this
conversation five years ago,Matt plap was the only
salesperson for our company.
I had operations out the galore.
It was just me sellingeverything.

(46:07):
And I did 30 or 40 sales calls aweek.
And I did probably five podcastsa week.
Now I do maybe two sales calls aweek cuz we got 12 people and I
do probably 20 podcasts a week.
Right.
I don't work in the businessanymore.
I work on it, working on it isspreading our word like this.
A lot of restaurant owners can'tget out of the kitchen and if
they can't get outta thekitchen, they can't study their

(46:28):
crafts.
If they can't study their craft,they can't identify.
That marketing company that'sout there that can help them
become more digitally savvy.
They can't identify the taxaccountant.
That should be their go toperson.
Yep.
And when you can't identifythose person, you don't do it.
And that's a big problem.
And so why a lot of theserestaurants aren't tax savvy is
because they've never taken thetime to educate themselves or

(46:51):
hire people like me.
This is, this is my bookshelf ofrestaurant books.
Those are all restaurant focusedbooks.
Yep.
These are the seven books that Iread on a quarterly basis.
I read the seven say or eightbooks now, same eight books.
Cause they're the only eightthat I need to make my business
better at every angle.
Yep.

(47:11):
And when I talk about reading toa lot of my restaurant clients,
like I haven't read in 10 years,like you, you've got to.
Yeah,

you gotta keep yourself educated and keep
yourself on the pulse and reallyjust take that time out of your
business to step away, even ifit's for a day, just to really
think about things.
And it's a challenge.
It definitely is.
But I think it, it just takesthe kind of intent to, to wanna
do that and to, and to say,look, I need to step away.
How can I do that?
You know, maybe I just need totrust somebody else for, for a
couple hours to, to handle it.

(47:39):
But yeah, I think, I thinkthat's, that's a big part of it.
It's just not enough time out.
Be able to.
Step outside of the restaurantand say, let me actually think
about this because it is such achallenge to run a restaurant.
It takes so much energy and somany hours and so much effort.
So with that, I have no go.

Matt Plapp (47:54):
I'll tell you real quick, quick story.
In the last two Fridays went toNashville two weeks ago for my
son's lacrosse tournament.
I went to Columbus, Ohio lastweek.
My son's lacrosse tournament.
I visited two restaurants thathave done business with my.
I don't know either owner.
Yeah.
I texted my team member andsaid, Hey, can you let them know
I'm coming by?
I just wanna shake their hand.
I'm not there for a free meal.
I don't take free meals.

(48:15):
Right.
I mean, I've been forced to'em,but I'm just there to shake
their hand.
That's why I was giving thembusiness cuz they've given us
business.
And so I stopped by therestaurant in Nashville and the
owner in an hour and a half has,does not have the ability to
leave the kitchen and come sayhi.
The next Friday, this past week,I go to restaurant up in little

(48:35):
Italy and Columbus, Ohio nearColumbus.
Avery not only has time to leavethe kitchen.
He hangs out for 20 minutes.
Talk to me.
Yep.
And he tells me he is like,Matt, I wanna thank it.
Was kind of ironic.
He goes, I wanna thank you.
I go well for what he goes fromyou.
I found David Scott Peters.
I started following, I dunno ifyou know, David Scott Peters has
been DSP

genius.
Yeah.
He's been on the shows on theshow back

Matt Plapp (48:56):
in, uh, in March guys.
Unbelievable.
He said from you, I found DSP.
I went down the rabbit hole ofwatched a hundred DSP videos.
He now is my coach.
I do his system.
He goes, Matt, I can I work fivehours a week in the restaurant
right now.
Nice.
From putting his that's the inplace, that's the dream.
And that guy is now able to workon his business.

(49:17):
He's able to analyze, Hey, I canput, I need to put napkins out
like this.
I need to do this.
His restaurant was spotless.
It was up to date.
It was, it was up, up theservers were, were happy.
The food was excellent.
The other restaurant I went towas average on everything.
Yeah.
I mean, it, it had the potentialto be great, but the owners in

(49:38):
the kitchen.
And if he's in the kitchen, hecan't work on the business.

And that's, the key is not working, is working
on the business and not in thebusiness.
Yep.
With that.
I think we're almost at timehere.
I have one last, last question.
I've been wondering since westarted talking about the van,
have you taken the van toHawaii?

Matt Plapp (49:58):
No, not yet.
That's it's funny.
You said that.
Cause I actually interviewed,uh, you bill Tobin is

I'm not familiar.
No, but I, I will definitelylook him.
Bill

Matt Plapp (50:05):
owns a Tiki restaurant in.
Honolulu, wherever Honolulu isat whatever island that is.
Yep.
It's the large, I believe it'sthe largest independent
restaurant in Hawaii.
Wow.
And he's got a book and he isgot a podcast and he is awesome.
And he's joked about that.
Yep.
Because my goal is to have 25 to30 vans to wear in five years,

(50:28):
there's vans roaming around theentire country.
Yep.
And he's like, you realize thatmeans Hawaii.
I'm like, oh no, I gotta figurethat one out for much island.
So we might do would be tricky.

Maybe we do both

Matt Plapp (50:37):
now.
That would be interesting.
An amphibious vehicle that justgoes island

island.
It goes like the ones that havein, uh, in Boston,

Matt Plapp (50:43):
we, we will get to Hawaii.
I might have to take like acardboard cut out of the van and
stand in

front of it.
There you go.
I think you can make it happen.
But with that, um, we're almostat time.
So Matt, thank you so much forcoming on a lot of great advice.
Take back to the restaurantAmerica's best restaurants.com.
Um, and where else can people,people shoot you an email find.

Matt Plapp (51:01):
yeah, my cell, phone's the easiest way to find
me.
Uh, 8 5 9 7 4 3 2 4 0 8.
All right.
8 5 9 7 4 3 2 4 8.
Awesome.
My website got also Mattplap.com.
So excellent.
Reach out.
I'm an open book.
I love helping people.

Absolutely.
And thank you so much, Matt, forfighting for the independent
restaurant owner.
Um, and, and helping them, uh,get back, um, you know, and, and
really compete in this, in thiscrazy market.
So, thanks again.
Cool.
Thank you.
Thanks again for checking outthe restaurant growth podcast
presented by seven shifts.
We're so grateful to ourlisteners, and we'd love to hear
from all of you.
Send us an email topodcast@sevenshifts.com and

(51:37):
check us out on social we're atseven shifts on all platforms.
Don't forget to hit thatsubscribe button and we'll see
you next week.

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Matt Plapp, CEO of America’s Best Restaurants | S1E25

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Matt Plapp, CEO of America’s Best Restaurants | S1E25