January 24, 2025 • 29 mins
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
One of the sound bites that I didn't get to
this week that I want to make sure I did
comes from Jordan Peterson, and he's talking about the unbelievable
might of the American people, our willingness and ability to
(00:23):
do good things, not only for ourselves, but in so doing,
for the world.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
I'm America first. It is time we take care of
the American people first. But when we do that, we
create a model to the rest of the world, and
we tell the bad guys we are united behind our
own excellence and strength and resolve. President Trump called himself
(00:55):
in his inaugural speech a peacemaker and a unifier. Believe
it or not, peace through strength works. This was what
Jordan Peterson had to say, and I didn't want to
get through the week without playing.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
For a long time, people who held conservative and then
even classically liberal values have been on the defensive. And
that's not a good strategy.
Speaker 4 (01:22):
And it would be a lovely thing to see, and
I think we will see it that the virtues that
made America great will be unabashedly promoted and centered. That's
a high probability event, and I think if that happens,
the place of loom I was here. Tammy was as
(01:42):
well in the United States and the nineties when the
internet boom first hit and this place just thrived. And
you Americans, you do that on a fairly consistent basis.
And I think we're on the verge of something like
that again, and so it'll be It's very interesting to
see what the opening moves are because Trump.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
Has done this before, and he's more prepared this time.
Speaker 5 (02:06):
And I'm hoping that.
Speaker 4 (02:10):
The unbelievable bite of the American people will be unleashed
to get and then that'll be salutary and useful for
the whole work.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
I think President Trump understands how powerful the swamp is
in a way that even he didn't recognize. I think
he understands how the court around him, the palatial politics,
the knives are out, and he has to have loyal
(02:42):
people of great resolve around him. But I got to
tell you, he is a different man than he was
eight years ago. He is ready. This is his moment,
and he has risen to it, and he has learned.
I think you have to have I think you have
to get knock down to rock bottom, which he has
(03:02):
been to be in the position that he has to
lead this nation, and I feel very very optimistic about it.
Live laugh learn doing it big.
Speaker 6 (03:20):
On The Michael Berry Show.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
I often speak about the importance in life to having mentors,
and I describe it as a man who was once
a boy in that and I often say that I
particularly believe that boys, as they grow into men, need mentors.
(03:44):
And then as you get older, you still have mentors.
But sometimes those mentors are your peers, they're your same age,
they may be your same station in life. You hang out,
you may play poker or shoot shotguns or go fishing together.
But in many ways you learn from them, you draw
from them, you seek to emulate them. I had a
(04:07):
Sunday school teacher tell me twenty five years ago that
if you want to know what you're going to be
in five years, look at the people around you. And
my wife heard me say that one day at home.
I don't let her listen to the show because I
wouldn't be able to talk about her. And she said, well,
women need mentors too, we just don't do it as well.
(04:27):
Women don't understand in the workplace in the home. You know,
women need mentors as well. They need people to tell them,
you know, as a mom, how do you deal with
you know, the demands of being a mom. Mentors are important,
and I preach on this frequently. I jokingly use the
(04:50):
term preach for those of you who wonder if I
think I'm a per pastor. I don't, but I talk
about this a lot because I think it's very important
and I have made it my business. In fact, was
an article a woman who wrote for a magazine was
in Houston. Houston has a superior cancer treatment center, and
she was getting cancer treatment in Houston, and she heard
(05:12):
our show and she heard me talking about the fact
that my friends are not people who live next door
to me, or who I happened to go to school with,
or who I happen to be related to. I choose
my friends, and I choose my friends on the basis
of people that I admire, that I respect, and that
I want to be like, who I can learn from.
(05:36):
And that's because you only have so much time in life,
and the time you spend, even in recreation, can be
time that makes you better as a person. And so
she wanted to write an article and did about what
I called strategic friendships. And I realized, to some people
that sounds like a person that is a schemer or whatever.
(05:59):
It's not. There are people you associate with because you
sell products to their company, but that's not your real friend.
We use the term friend, and social media has put
that term into to too often a use. You know
how many I don't have three hundred and fifty one
thousand friends, which is what my old Facebook account has.
You just have a few real friends, people you trust,
(06:20):
who trust you anyway. So I like to share what
I learn from these people I'm around. And I asked
Russell Lebarro. I said, it's been a while since you've
been on the show, but every time I talked to
Russell Lebarro and I have this problem with mattress Mac too.
We tend to talk about things we're doing for the community.
(06:41):
Camp Hope needs money, or here's a great programmer, here's
a great success with Camp Hope. Thank you for doing that.
And with Russell, it's every cause we're involved with He's
always he Connie Stagner at Corey Diamonds. There's a few
folks that just jump right in. I don't have to
ask twice. And I said to him. Recently, we were
talking about site selection for restaurants and his business acumen
(07:06):
is amazing, And I said, you know, Russell, I'd like
to do an interview with you on air where we
talk about business, not service to the community, not all
the wonderful things you're doing. I think people would really
enjoy hearing your perspective because he's a very very smart businessman,
the way Tilman Fritita is, the way Jim mcnbell is
(07:28):
is a very smart businessman. And I said, will you
do me a favor and we do an interview on that?
And he said anytime. So now is that time. I
also want to say, as something that makes me very happy,
the folks at Oracle knew that we do these business
leader interviews and wanted to sponsor these interviews. And I'm
(07:53):
all up for that. So I will tell you because
I believe it to be true that if you got
data all over the place at your company, if you
are a decision maker like a Russell Letbora, and you're
trying to decide, Hey, we're gonna look at opening a location.
Let's say this may not be true, but I'm just
making it up. We're looking at open a location north
(08:15):
of the Woodlands. And he calls his team and says,
I need data on what our sales are at our
location that's fifteen miles away, and where the people are
coming from, and what their zip code is and how
much they're spending in all that. If he's got to close,
he's got to get a contract on a deal, he's
got to make a decision fast, and if he can't
get that information fast, he can't make a decision, a
(08:38):
good decision based on data. Everything's data driven now. That
enables his company to be efficient and effective. That's what
NetSuite does. And you can get the free cfo's guide
to AI and Machine Learning at NetSuite dot com slash
(09:00):
my last name Barry NetSuite dot com slash Barry. They're
going to be sponsoring our business interview whenever we do them.
I love to do them. I do them every day
if I could, but I know at some point I
got to talk about what's in the news as well.
But they love the fact that we talk about the
secret sauce behind the success of businesses. And they have
(09:21):
a program called Success from Scratch and they asked if
they could sponsor it, and I said, yep. In fact,
I got one coming up with Russell Ibara. So if
you want, and I hope you do, the Chief Financial
Officer's Guide to AI and Machine Learning, go to NetSuite
dot com slash Barry my last name, Russell Ibara. It
(09:43):
is an honor to have you back on the show.
I want to talk, as I said, business principles and
the success you've had in business and how you make
those decisions regarding most every aspect of your career. But
I have to ask you, if I had asked you
when you were ten years old, what do you want
(10:05):
to do when you are the age that you are
right now, which I think is sixty three?
Speaker 5 (10:10):
Is that right? That's correct?
Speaker 2 (10:13):
If I'd asked you at ten or twelve, would you
have said a drummer in a band, a professional baseball player,
because I know you were good at both of those things.
Or what what would you have said you were going
to do?
Speaker 5 (10:23):
You left out Elvis Presley. I want to be a Presley? Yes, yes,
good call all the above. Yes, But you know, I
was fortunate to grow up in the presence of a
dreamer and an entrepreneur and my father who had started
a restaurant chain in the early sixties, and so just
being exposed to his way of thinking helped start developing
(10:46):
my way of thinking, and I would like to think
that I evolved. You know you Every generation should aspire
to get better than the previous, and I think I've
done that because I've always kept an open mind two
new ideas wherever they come from. I don't have to
be the one that comes up with an idea, but
(11:08):
my team and I we come up with some great
ideas because we really do brainstorm and coming out with
the best of us the outcome whatever we're doing.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
Our conversation with Russell Ibara, the master Enchilada roller at
Gringostexmex dot Com, Gringos Tex Mex and Jimmy Changa's.
Speaker 6 (11:25):
And a whole lot more HIV spooky Vaginosis, Michael Ferry
Sinning with your naked bod is evil and atrocious.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
Russell Ibarra is our guest. Let's follow up on what
you were talking about with regard to I forget how
you said it, but I heard Bill White, who I
ran against for mayor back in two thousand and three.
He was the first person I heard use this phrase.
You can get a lot more done when there's no
pride of authorship. When you don't need to be the
(12:01):
one that gets the credit, your team will be more effective.
And I have found that to be true in so
many ways. How did you say you learned that lesson?
Who did you learn that from?
Speaker 5 (12:14):
Well, just one small example. When I was younger running
El Matador Food, the frtilla factory that my family owns today.
I remember that there was one particular employee working on
the production floor and he was doing something he shouldn't
have been doing, and I wanted to catch him. So
I came in one morning, really early, around five o'clock
(12:36):
in the morning, just to catch him during production and
I called him and I presented the problem to my father,
who told me, hey, you can terminate him, but just
be sure and find his replacement. And that was going
to be the hardest part of that entire equation. There,
there's just no way I was going to be able
to So in business, you have to really him back
(13:00):
and always looked at the larger pitcher and house. One
decision is going to impact the entire organization, and a
lot of times it's not your way, it's really the
best way in terms of you know, what is the
best outcome for the company, and if you can approach
approach it that way, you'll come out a lot better.
You know. There was a Instagram post that I just
(13:22):
saw recently and it's this owner of I want to say,
seven different restaurants in the California area at Los Angeles area,
and he was talking about one of his locations where
he's been in business since two thousand and one, so
he's at the time he posted this twenty three years
in business and over the twenty three years he's had
(13:44):
fifteen general managers. Well, that told me a lot, told
me almost everything I need to know about this individual.
Because Gringos, the original Gringos and Paerland, has been in
business thirty two years and we've only had for general managers,
and the three that are no longer general managers have
only moved up to the company, not moved out. And
(14:08):
that's the kind of things that are red flags for
me when there's high turnover. There was this other gentleman
years ago when we had the Burritos franchise. I received
a letter from a window washer, someone that actually cleaned
his windows there at the restaurant, and he sent me
(14:29):
a letter complaining about this franchise. E. And I'm thinking
to myself, how bad of a person do you have
to be to where you can actually stop a window
washer from his daily activities to write a letter to
complain about someone. I mean, you have to really be
a certain type of individual. So at the end of
the day, we are again, we're a people business. We
(14:52):
deal with Our customers are people, and our staff for people,
and so they have to be our priority and how
we approach everything we do in business everything.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
The problem with talking to you is that halfway through
your answers it raises fifty more questions that fascinate me
and made me want to answer them. I learned so
much from this dude. This is what it's like when
we hang out. He's not a big drinker. He'll have
one beer. He's the consummate moderation except in moderation person.
(15:32):
But I just asked him questions because I learned so much.
Let's go through your life. Some people I've talked about
your bio. Let's quickly go through your life so people
kind of understand where you are. And I'm not speaking
ill of you. Some people won't understand this. You've had
failures that are terrible failures. That most people would hide from,
(15:53):
and instead you embrace them, you talk about them, you
brag about them, because from those failures you have seated.
But let's start step by step to and just take
one point at the time, and I'll speak to get
you to the next one. Kind of where you were
born in real quick answers, because I think your story,
your your timeline is fascinating. So where were you born?
Speaker 5 (16:18):
I was born in Pasadena, Texas. Grew up in Laporte.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
Family size.
Speaker 5 (16:23):
I have six brothers and one sister. Your place in
the number three, I'm number three, yeah, which was a
great spot, by the way, and it was a great spot.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
The quick story only because I only have so much
time and there's so many things I want to get
to with you on the reason your father went into
the restaurant business, because this is a great one.
Speaker 5 (16:43):
So my father when he was a young tea, well,
let's go back a little further when his parents his
parents divorced when he was three. He was dropped off
at his grandmother's house by his mother to live there permanently.
So it was very shocking to a little five year old,
as you can imagine. And so he had plenty of
aunts and uncles to help raise him, which thankfully they did.
(17:06):
And when he graduated from high school, he sold batteries,
but he knew that wasn't going to pay the bills,
and so he opened up a restaurant in the port
called Laporte Mexican Food, that's all it was called. But
in junior high he had broke his arm. And the
reason they opened up a business because it never held
back properly and he could never pass a physical to
(17:29):
get a job with the city or the county or
wherever he was applying. So that kind of forced him
into becoming a business person. But he had to drive
like no other and definitely a visionary because he was
doing things back in the seventies, way before Google that
amazed me even today, the fact that he had a
(17:49):
central kitchen set up. He had these huge sixty gallon
pressure cookers growing pressure cookers to do gravy into outer
gravy and refried beans and tonkle beat and what have you.
And he even went to Mexico wants to buy an
avocado farm, only to learn that you couldn't import avocados
at the time, so that killed that. And I remember
(18:09):
pulling up to a halopano pickling plant there and outside
of Monterey, Mexico, because he was interested in buying this plant,
this Halopanio pickling plant, and that would have been an
incredible investment. But I don't know what happened there, But anyway,
he partnered with his brother in law and them two
together grew ill trolled to as many as eight locations
(18:32):
at one time, and then the sisters could not get along,
so they ended up my father bought his brother in
law out, and then the two of them individually could
not do well in operations or in business in general.
They were really a team. So that was something that
(18:52):
I recognized early on. But my father was fortunate that
his oldest sons were were graduating from high school and
they came on board to start helping him try to
not only run but grow the restaurant chain, the Ultroll chain.
But only my father's last three restaurants that he opened
(19:13):
and he ended up closing, and one of them was
the Greenos, the original Greenos in Perland, which I took
over in nineteen ninety three. But myself, I mean, I
was a C student in school and I always tell
people when I say I was a c student. I'm
bragging because it was worse than that, and I did
not go to college. I got married very very young,
(19:34):
and fortunately I had a good set of eyeball as
my wife is as beautiful as the day we were married.
And I had a drive in me to succeed, and
I tried a lot of things in my twenties, from
selling satellite dishes to selling sports cars and some other things.
I even ran an ad Believer or Not on the
back of the Star tabloid magazine, trying to sell these
(19:59):
little chain al arm It sounds funny, but I did.
I muster to fall the money I needed to run
one AD and actually sold quite a few of them.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
But Russell Lebarro of Gringos Text Mex is our guest.
Speaker 5 (20:12):
More, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Mitch
michael Berry, Genius.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
Russell Lebara, the owner of Gringos Tex Mex dot com
and Jimmy Changa's and a lot of other things, is
our guests. I want to thank Oracle. They have a
They have a program called NetSuite and you can get
the Chief Financial Officer the cfo's Guide to AI n
(20:46):
Machine Learning at NetSuite dot com forward slash Michael. They
wanted to sponsor our interviews we do with business owners,
and I thought that was a great idea, So you
can get that at NetSuite dot com slash Barry. Did
I say Michael Barry my last name? NetSuite dot com
(21:09):
forward slash Barry Russell Ebara. We're talking about his business
and how he arrived where he is and how he
makes decisions and what we can all learn from that,
whether we own a business or not. It might be
running your household. You were talking about your father's physical
impairment that prevented him from going to the army and
(21:31):
doing a lot of other things, and that closed a
door and another door opened, and that was entrepreneurship. You
had the virtue of growing up watching your father's success
with El Toro and El Mattador and he didn't have that.
Where did he develop the savvy to be so successful
(21:53):
to build to build this restaurant empire.
Speaker 5 (21:56):
That's a great question. I mean, other than he parked
with so his chef that he hired around nineteen sixty
three was a gentleman named Juan Martinez. We called him
mister John. And if he saw him, you could understand
why he was in the restaurant business. Or he was
a chef. He was a large man, and he just
(22:17):
had a unique palette for foods and was an excellent chef.
And I got exposed to that as well, and one
of those being that mister John only used the highest
quality ingredients that craft foods are served at the time
or sold at the time, and so being exposed to
that really helped shape a lot of what we do
at Gringos today. But again, even one of the things
(22:42):
that I did in the early eighties was started a
tortilla factory because of my father's equipment that he had
there at his commissary. He had a corn to tea
line and he had a flower tortia line, and so
I would go out selling tortillas to any Mexican restaurant
that were willing to buy them. And I ran into
one problem was that I called it guilt by association.
(23:05):
Anytime that a potential client would consider buying tortise for
me if they found out that my family had restaurants,
because I operated under a different name, it was Il Matador,
and so if they found out that my family also
had restaurants they would stop buying from me, so that
was a little frustrating. But one of the bigger lessons
that I learned running l Matador was a lot of
(23:27):
the equipment my father had. It was very old equipment
and I could not produce a consistent product out of it.
And one of the accounts that I picked up in
the late eighties was Castlela. I was selling Costa Ay
all of their flower tortias. Larry Fourhan was kind enough
to give me an opportunity, but I did something very
stupid and it was definitely come back and bite me,
(23:48):
and that was when I ran samples to his offices.
I hand selected the product. I mean I literally hand
selected to give them the best of the best, right,
But that was going to catch up with me sooner
or later did and now I ended up losing the account.
So when I opened up Gringos in a building that
my father had owned and had already been four other restaurants,
(24:08):
I was very paranoid about consistency. I borrow some ideas
from Consolay. They pack all their spices and pre portioned
all their spices for batch cooking, so that would ensure
a consistent product from batch to batch, location, the location,
and I did everything in my power to make sure
(24:29):
no matter what we served it was consistent. And Truett
Cathy with Chick fil A says that you can you
can serve a terrible cup of coffee, just be sure
and serve it that way each and every time. So
that's the kind that's the kind of approach that we've
taken at Gringos that no matter what we serve, let's
make sure it's consistent. And so there are a lot
of systems and procedures that we have to put in place,
(24:50):
and that's all we ever talk about is how if
we're going to roll out a new menu item, how
are we going to do it to ensure consistency across
all twenty three restaurants.
Speaker 7 (25:01):
I owe you a debt of gratitude for the fact
that I did this exact interview with Larry foehand fifteen
years ago, maybe longer, and you set that up because
of a friendship you all developed, not as competitors but
of peers in a similar industry.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
I don't know if I ever told you, but Casso
Olay was in Orange and Casa Olay was the fast,
fanciest restaurant in Orange when I when I grew up,
like it was a special occasion. If you went to
Casa Ola Casa olay for an occasion like that was
a big deal. Later in the career, in the lifespan
of that business, it wasn't that. But at that time, boy,
(25:43):
that that was. That was really fancy, all right. So
take us to the next step in your in your
life's journey.
Speaker 5 (25:50):
Well, you know, after when I when I first opened
Grengos in which we just celebrated thirty two years this
past Saturday, January eleventh, and when we all in ninety three,
knowing the history of that building, it forced me to
have a paradigm shift and that I was no longer
focused on making money and I'm still not even focused
on making money today. That's my that's not my primary focus.
(26:13):
It's about delivering a quality product, a good value, a
fair value, and then taken care of everyone that touches
that product, meaning our guest, our staff, the community, everyone
that supports us, because without them, we're just the building
at the end of the day. But it's the people
in the building that makes it successful. So I've always
(26:36):
just wanted to focus on what matters the most, and
you know and be consistent with that. I mean, you
know a lot of people they change over time when
they become successful. But I would like to believe that
I'm the same person from the in terms of how
I treat others. You know, from day one, I haven't
(26:56):
changed as an individual of anything. I would like to
think that I've improved in lots of work.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
I was going to say, I think you have changed.
You've changed in the time I've known you, because you've
grown older, you've grown wiser. Your family has expanded, which
I think also changed you for the better in the
way that family changed me for the better. And I
also think you have watching you and I've learned a
lot from this. You have come to understand your responsibility
(27:23):
to the community, to your employees, to your family, and
how much is expected of you. And that is way
more than maybe is the standard or the typical or
what we see from other people, but that your your
standard should be high. So, yeah, you have changed, but
I see that as as continual improvement, which I hope,
I hope I'm able to do that. All right, So
(27:45):
take us to the next phase.
Speaker 5 (27:47):
Oh, well, was well, I'm building the team. I mean,
that's been a huge component of our success. My first
team member that I hired was Ugo old Vera nicknamed
those Cabayels because he did the work of two men.
And Ugo is still with me today thirty two years later.
(28:08):
And then John Fernandez was the second piece of the
puzzle that I hired. Coming up on thirty years is
coming June, which is incredible. And then Jonathan Kim, the
president of the company, is this coming June, will be
twenty five years. And I'm just that that obviously makes
me more proud than anything that these individuals have been
(28:30):
with me that many years. I mean, Heather McKinnon, she
started eighteen years old. She's in her mid forties, and
she sees our COEO and you know, I can go
on and on, Matt Busha, Danny Hanks, all these guys,
and I guess what makes me proud about it is
that I know that the company that we have built,
(28:51):
our team is built over the years, can continue way
after I'm going from this earth and with the same
same vision focus. And it's funny because we talk about
all these other brands that started, let's say in the
late eighties.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
U these wells Lebron Hold right there, Hold right there.
Speaker 5 (29:11):
I'm up against a break my moment.
One of the sound bites that I didn't get to
this week that I want to make sure I did
comes from Jordan Peterson, and he's talking about the unbelievable
might of the American people, our willingness and ability to
(00:23):
do good things, not only for ourselves, but in so doing,
for the world.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
I'm America first. It is time we take care of
the American people first. But when we do that, we
create a model to the rest of the world, and
we tell the bad guys we are united behind our
own excellence and strength and resolve. President Trump called himself
(00:55):
in his inaugural speech a peacemaker and a unifier. Believe
it or not, peace through strength works. This was what
Jordan Peterson had to say, and I didn't want to
get through the week without playing.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
For a long time, people who held conservative and then
even classically liberal values have been on the defensive. And
that's not a good strategy.
Speaker 4 (01:22):
And it would be a lovely thing to see, and
I think we will see it that the virtues that
made America great will be unabashedly promoted and centered. That's
a high probability event, and I think if that happens,
the place of loom I was here. Tammy was as
(01:42):
well in the United States and the nineties when the
internet boom first hit and this place just thrived. And
you Americans, you do that on a fairly consistent basis.
And I think we're on the verge of something like
that again, and so it'll be It's very interesting to
see what the opening moves are because Trump.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
Has done this before, and he's more prepared this time.
Speaker 5 (02:06):
And I'm hoping that.
Speaker 4 (02:10):
The unbelievable bite of the American people will be unleashed
to get and then that'll be salutary and useful for
the whole work.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
I think President Trump understands how powerful the swamp is
in a way that even he didn't recognize. I think
he understands how the court around him, the palatial politics,
the knives are out, and he has to have loyal
(02:42):
people of great resolve around him. But I got to
tell you, he is a different man than he was
eight years ago. He is ready. This is his moment,
and he has risen to it, and he has learned.
I think you have to have I think you have
to get knock down to rock bottom, which he has
(03:02):
been to be in the position that he has to
lead this nation, and I feel very very optimistic about it.
Live laugh learn doing it big.
Speaker 6 (03:20):
On The Michael Berry Show.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
I often speak about the importance in life to having mentors,
and I describe it as a man who was once
a boy in that and I often say that I
particularly believe that boys, as they grow into men, need mentors.
(03:44):
And then as you get older, you still have mentors.
But sometimes those mentors are your peers, they're your same age,
they may be your same station in life. You hang out,
you may play poker or shoot shotguns or go fishing together.
But in many ways you learn from them, you draw
from them, you seek to emulate them. I had a
(04:07):
Sunday school teacher tell me twenty five years ago that
if you want to know what you're going to be
in five years, look at the people around you. And
my wife heard me say that one day at home.
I don't let her listen to the show because I
wouldn't be able to talk about her. And she said, well,
women need mentors too, we just don't do it as well.
(04:27):
Women don't understand in the workplace in the home. You know,
women need mentors as well. They need people to tell them,
you know, as a mom, how do you deal with
you know, the demands of being a mom. Mentors are important,
and I preach on this frequently. I jokingly use the
(04:50):
term preach for those of you who wonder if I
think I'm a per pastor. I don't, but I talk
about this a lot because I think it's very important
and I have made it my business. In fact, was
an article a woman who wrote for a magazine was
in Houston. Houston has a superior cancer treatment center, and
she was getting cancer treatment in Houston, and she heard
(05:12):
our show and she heard me talking about the fact
that my friends are not people who live next door
to me, or who I happened to go to school with,
or who I happen to be related to. I choose
my friends, and I choose my friends on the basis
of people that I admire, that I respect, and that
I want to be like, who I can learn from.
(05:36):
And that's because you only have so much time in life,
and the time you spend, even in recreation, can be
time that makes you better as a person. And so
she wanted to write an article and did about what
I called strategic friendships. And I realized, to some people
that sounds like a person that is a schemer or whatever.
(05:59):
It's not. There are people you associate with because you
sell products to their company, but that's not your real friend.
We use the term friend, and social media has put
that term into to too often a use. You know
how many I don't have three hundred and fifty one
thousand friends, which is what my old Facebook account has.
You just have a few real friends, people you trust,
(06:20):
who trust you anyway. So I like to share what
I learn from these people I'm around. And I asked
Russell Lebarro. I said, it's been a while since you've
been on the show, but every time I talked to
Russell Lebarro and I have this problem with mattress Mac too.
We tend to talk about things we're doing for the community.
(06:41):
Camp Hope needs money, or here's a great programmer, here's
a great success with Camp Hope. Thank you for doing that.
And with Russell, it's every cause we're involved with He's
always he Connie Stagner at Corey Diamonds. There's a few
folks that just jump right in. I don't have to
ask twice. And I said to him. Recently, we were
talking about site selection for restaurants and his business acumen
(07:06):
is amazing, And I said, you know, Russell, I'd like
to do an interview with you on air where we
talk about business, not service to the community, not all
the wonderful things you're doing. I think people would really
enjoy hearing your perspective because he's a very very smart businessman,
the way Tilman Fritita is, the way Jim mcnbell is
(07:28):
is a very smart businessman. And I said, will you
do me a favor and we do an interview on that?
And he said anytime. So now is that time. I
also want to say, as something that makes me very happy,
the folks at Oracle knew that we do these business
leader interviews and wanted to sponsor these interviews. And I'm
(07:53):
all up for that. So I will tell you because
I believe it to be true that if you got
data all over the place at your company, if you
are a decision maker like a Russell Letbora, and you're
trying to decide, Hey, we're gonna look at opening a location.
Let's say this may not be true, but I'm just
making it up. We're looking at open a location north
(08:15):
of the Woodlands. And he calls his team and says,
I need data on what our sales are at our
location that's fifteen miles away, and where the people are
coming from, and what their zip code is and how
much they're spending in all that. If he's got to close,
he's got to get a contract on a deal, he's
got to make a decision fast, and if he can't
get that information fast, he can't make a decision, a
(08:38):
good decision based on data. Everything's data driven now. That
enables his company to be efficient and effective. That's what
NetSuite does. And you can get the free cfo's guide
to AI and Machine Learning at NetSuite dot com slash
(09:00):
my last name Barry NetSuite dot com slash Barry. They're
going to be sponsoring our business interview whenever we do them.
I love to do them. I do them every day
if I could, but I know at some point I
got to talk about what's in the news as well.
But they love the fact that we talk about the
secret sauce behind the success of businesses. And they have
(09:21):
a program called Success from Scratch and they asked if
they could sponsor it, and I said, yep. In fact,
I got one coming up with Russell Ibara. So if
you want, and I hope you do, the Chief Financial
Officer's Guide to AI and Machine Learning, go to NetSuite
dot com slash Barry my last name, Russell Ibara. It
(09:43):
is an honor to have you back on the show.
I want to talk, as I said, business principles and
the success you've had in business and how you make
those decisions regarding most every aspect of your career. But
I have to ask you, if I had asked you
when you were ten years old, what do you want
(10:05):
to do when you are the age that you are
right now, which I think is sixty three?
Speaker 5 (10:10):
Is that right? That's correct?
Speaker 2 (10:13):
If I'd asked you at ten or twelve, would you
have said a drummer in a band, a professional baseball player,
because I know you were good at both of those things.
Or what what would you have said you were going
to do?
Speaker 5 (10:23):
You left out Elvis Presley. I want to be a Presley? Yes, yes,
good call all the above. Yes, But you know, I
was fortunate to grow up in the presence of a
dreamer and an entrepreneur and my father who had started
a restaurant chain in the early sixties, and so just
being exposed to his way of thinking helped start developing
(10:46):
my way of thinking, and I would like to think
that I evolved. You know you Every generation should aspire
to get better than the previous, and I think I've
done that because I've always kept an open mind two
new ideas wherever they come from. I don't have to
be the one that comes up with an idea, but
(11:08):
my team and I we come up with some great
ideas because we really do brainstorm and coming out with
the best of us the outcome whatever we're doing.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
Our conversation with Russell Ibara, the master Enchilada roller at
Gringostexmex dot Com, Gringos Tex Mex and Jimmy Changa's.
Speaker 6 (11:25):
And a whole lot more HIV spooky Vaginosis, Michael Ferry
Sinning with your naked bod is evil and atrocious.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
Russell Ibarra is our guest. Let's follow up on what
you were talking about with regard to I forget how
you said it, but I heard Bill White, who I
ran against for mayor back in two thousand and three.
He was the first person I heard use this phrase.
You can get a lot more done when there's no
pride of authorship. When you don't need to be the
(12:01):
one that gets the credit, your team will be more effective.
And I have found that to be true in so
many ways. How did you say you learned that lesson?
Who did you learn that from?
Speaker 5 (12:14):
Well, just one small example. When I was younger running
El Matador Food, the frtilla factory that my family owns today.
I remember that there was one particular employee working on
the production floor and he was doing something he shouldn't
have been doing, and I wanted to catch him. So
I came in one morning, really early, around five o'clock
(12:36):
in the morning, just to catch him during production and
I called him and I presented the problem to my father,
who told me, hey, you can terminate him, but just
be sure and find his replacement. And that was going
to be the hardest part of that entire equation. There,
there's just no way I was going to be able
to So in business, you have to really him back
(13:00):
and always looked at the larger pitcher and house. One
decision is going to impact the entire organization, and a
lot of times it's not your way, it's really the
best way in terms of you know, what is the
best outcome for the company, and if you can approach
approach it that way, you'll come out a lot better.
You know. There was a Instagram post that I just
(13:22):
saw recently and it's this owner of I want to say,
seven different restaurants in the California area at Los Angeles area,
and he was talking about one of his locations where
he's been in business since two thousand and one, so
he's at the time he posted this twenty three years
in business and over the twenty three years he's had
(13:44):
fifteen general managers. Well, that told me a lot, told
me almost everything I need to know about this individual.
Because Gringos, the original Gringos and Paerland, has been in
business thirty two years and we've only had for general managers,
and the three that are no longer general managers have
only moved up to the company, not moved out. And
(14:08):
that's the kind of things that are red flags for
me when there's high turnover. There was this other gentleman
years ago when we had the Burritos franchise. I received
a letter from a window washer, someone that actually cleaned
his windows there at the restaurant, and he sent me
(14:29):
a letter complaining about this franchise. E. And I'm thinking
to myself, how bad of a person do you have
to be to where you can actually stop a window
washer from his daily activities to write a letter to
complain about someone. I mean, you have to really be
a certain type of individual. So at the end of
the day, we are again, we're a people business. We
(14:52):
deal with Our customers are people, and our staff for people,
and so they have to be our priority and how
we approach everything we do in business everything.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
The problem with talking to you is that halfway through
your answers it raises fifty more questions that fascinate me
and made me want to answer them. I learned so
much from this dude. This is what it's like when
we hang out. He's not a big drinker. He'll have
one beer. He's the consummate moderation except in moderation person.
(15:32):
But I just asked him questions because I learned so much.
Let's go through your life. Some people I've talked about
your bio. Let's quickly go through your life so people
kind of understand where you are. And I'm not speaking
ill of you. Some people won't understand this. You've had
failures that are terrible failures. That most people would hide from,
(15:53):
and instead you embrace them, you talk about them, you
brag about them, because from those failures you have seated.
But let's start step by step to and just take
one point at the time, and I'll speak to get
you to the next one. Kind of where you were
born in real quick answers, because I think your story,
your your timeline is fascinating. So where were you born?
Speaker 5 (16:18):
I was born in Pasadena, Texas. Grew up in Laporte.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
Family size.
Speaker 5 (16:23):
I have six brothers and one sister. Your place in
the number three, I'm number three, yeah, which was a
great spot, by the way, and it was a great spot.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
The quick story only because I only have so much
time and there's so many things I want to get
to with you on the reason your father went into
the restaurant business, because this is a great one.
Speaker 5 (16:43):
So my father when he was a young tea, well,
let's go back a little further when his parents his
parents divorced when he was three. He was dropped off
at his grandmother's house by his mother to live there permanently.
So it was very shocking to a little five year old,
as you can imagine. And so he had plenty of
aunts and uncles to help raise him, which thankfully they did.
(17:06):
And when he graduated from high school, he sold batteries,
but he knew that wasn't going to pay the bills,
and so he opened up a restaurant in the port
called Laporte Mexican Food, that's all it was called. But
in junior high he had broke his arm. And the
reason they opened up a business because it never held
back properly and he could never pass a physical to
(17:29):
get a job with the city or the county or
wherever he was applying. So that kind of forced him
into becoming a business person. But he had to drive
like no other and definitely a visionary because he was
doing things back in the seventies, way before Google that
amazed me even today, the fact that he had a
(17:49):
central kitchen set up. He had these huge sixty gallon
pressure cookers growing pressure cookers to do gravy into outer
gravy and refried beans and tonkle beat and what have you.
And he even went to Mexico wants to buy an
avocado farm, only to learn that you couldn't import avocados
at the time, so that killed that. And I remember
(18:09):
pulling up to a halopano pickling plant there and outside
of Monterey, Mexico, because he was interested in buying this plant,
this Halopanio pickling plant, and that would have been an
incredible investment. But I don't know what happened there, But anyway,
he partnered with his brother in law and them two
together grew ill trolled to as many as eight locations
(18:32):
at one time, and then the sisters could not get along,
so they ended up my father bought his brother in
law out, and then the two of them individually could
not do well in operations or in business in general.
They were really a team. So that was something that
(18:52):
I recognized early on. But my father was fortunate that
his oldest sons were were graduating from high school and
they came on board to start helping him try to
not only run but grow the restaurant chain, the Ultroll chain.
But only my father's last three restaurants that he opened
(19:13):
and he ended up closing, and one of them was
the Greenos, the original Greenos in Perland, which I took
over in nineteen ninety three. But myself, I mean, I
was a C student in school and I always tell
people when I say I was a c student. I'm
bragging because it was worse than that, and I did
not go to college. I got married very very young,
(19:34):
and fortunately I had a good set of eyeball as
my wife is as beautiful as the day we were married.
And I had a drive in me to succeed, and
I tried a lot of things in my twenties, from
selling satellite dishes to selling sports cars and some other things.
I even ran an ad Believer or Not on the
back of the Star tabloid magazine, trying to sell these
(19:59):
little chain al arm It sounds funny, but I did.
I muster to fall the money I needed to run
one AD and actually sold quite a few of them.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
But Russell Lebarro of Gringos Text Mex is our guest.
Speaker 5 (20:12):
More, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Mitch
michael Berry, Genius.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
Russell Lebara, the owner of Gringos Tex Mex dot com
and Jimmy Changa's and a lot of other things, is
our guests. I want to thank Oracle. They have a
They have a program called NetSuite and you can get
the Chief Financial Officer the cfo's Guide to AI n
(20:46):
Machine Learning at NetSuite dot com forward slash Michael. They
wanted to sponsor our interviews we do with business owners,
and I thought that was a great idea, So you
can get that at NetSuite dot com slash Barry. Did
I say Michael Barry my last name? NetSuite dot com
(21:09):
forward slash Barry Russell Ebara. We're talking about his business
and how he arrived where he is and how he
makes decisions and what we can all learn from that,
whether we own a business or not. It might be
running your household. You were talking about your father's physical
impairment that prevented him from going to the army and
(21:31):
doing a lot of other things, and that closed a
door and another door opened, and that was entrepreneurship. You
had the virtue of growing up watching your father's success
with El Toro and El Mattador and he didn't have that.
Where did he develop the savvy to be so successful
(21:53):
to build to build this restaurant empire.
Speaker 5 (21:56):
That's a great question. I mean, other than he parked
with so his chef that he hired around nineteen sixty
three was a gentleman named Juan Martinez. We called him
mister John. And if he saw him, you could understand
why he was in the restaurant business. Or he was
a chef. He was a large man, and he just
(22:17):
had a unique palette for foods and was an excellent chef.
And I got exposed to that as well, and one
of those being that mister John only used the highest
quality ingredients that craft foods are served at the time
or sold at the time, and so being exposed to
that really helped shape a lot of what we do
at Gringos today. But again, even one of the things
(22:42):
that I did in the early eighties was started a
tortilla factory because of my father's equipment that he had
there at his commissary. He had a corn to tea
line and he had a flower tortia line, and so
I would go out selling tortillas to any Mexican restaurant
that were willing to buy them. And I ran into
one problem was that I called it guilt by association.
(23:05):
Anytime that a potential client would consider buying tortise for
me if they found out that my family had restaurants,
because I operated under a different name, it was Il Matador,
and so if they found out that my family also
had restaurants they would stop buying from me, so that
was a little frustrating. But one of the bigger lessons
that I learned running l Matador was a lot of
(23:27):
the equipment my father had. It was very old equipment
and I could not produce a consistent product out of it.
And one of the accounts that I picked up in
the late eighties was Castlela. I was selling Costa Ay
all of their flower tortias. Larry Fourhan was kind enough
to give me an opportunity, but I did something very
stupid and it was definitely come back and bite me,
(23:48):
and that was when I ran samples to his offices.
I hand selected the product. I mean I literally hand
selected to give them the best of the best, right,
But that was going to catch up with me sooner
or later did and now I ended up losing the account.
So when I opened up Gringos in a building that
my father had owned and had already been four other restaurants,
(24:08):
I was very paranoid about consistency. I borrow some ideas
from Consolay. They pack all their spices and pre portioned
all their spices for batch cooking, so that would ensure
a consistent product from batch to batch, location, the location,
and I did everything in my power to make sure
(24:29):
no matter what we served it was consistent. And Truett
Cathy with Chick fil A says that you can you
can serve a terrible cup of coffee, just be sure
and serve it that way each and every time. So
that's the kind that's the kind of approach that we've
taken at Gringos that no matter what we serve, let's
make sure it's consistent. And so there are a lot
of systems and procedures that we have to put in place,
(24:50):
and that's all we ever talk about is how if
we're going to roll out a new menu item, how
are we going to do it to ensure consistency across
all twenty three restaurants.
Speaker 7 (25:01):
I owe you a debt of gratitude for the fact
that I did this exact interview with Larry foehand fifteen
years ago, maybe longer, and you set that up because
of a friendship you all developed, not as competitors but
of peers in a similar industry.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
I don't know if I ever told you, but Casso
Olay was in Orange and Casa Olay was the fast,
fanciest restaurant in Orange when I when I grew up,
like it was a special occasion. If you went to
Casa Ola Casa olay for an occasion like that was
a big deal. Later in the career, in the lifespan
of that business, it wasn't that. But at that time, boy,
(25:43):
that that was. That was really fancy, all right. So
take us to the next step in your in your
life's journey.
Speaker 5 (25:50):
Well, you know, after when I when I first opened
Grengos in which we just celebrated thirty two years this
past Saturday, January eleventh, and when we all in ninety three,
knowing the history of that building, it forced me to
have a paradigm shift and that I was no longer
focused on making money and I'm still not even focused
on making money today. That's my that's not my primary focus.
(26:13):
It's about delivering a quality product, a good value, a
fair value, and then taken care of everyone that touches
that product, meaning our guest, our staff, the community, everyone
that supports us, because without them, we're just the building
at the end of the day. But it's the people
in the building that makes it successful. So I've always
(26:36):
just wanted to focus on what matters the most, and
you know and be consistent with that. I mean, you
know a lot of people they change over time when
they become successful. But I would like to believe that
I'm the same person from the in terms of how
I treat others. You know, from day one, I haven't
(26:56):
changed as an individual of anything. I would like to
think that I've improved in lots of work.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
I was going to say, I think you have changed.
You've changed in the time I've known you, because you've
grown older, you've grown wiser. Your family has expanded, which
I think also changed you for the better in the
way that family changed me for the better. And I
also think you have watching you and I've learned a
lot from this. You have come to understand your responsibility
(27:23):
to the community, to your employees, to your family, and
how much is expected of you. And that is way
more than maybe is the standard or the typical or
what we see from other people, but that your your
standard should be high. So, yeah, you have changed, but
I see that as as continual improvement, which I hope,
I hope I'm able to do that. All right, So
(27:45):
take us to the next phase.
Speaker 5 (27:47):
Oh, well, was well, I'm building the team. I mean,
that's been a huge component of our success. My first
team member that I hired was Ugo old Vera nicknamed
those Cabayels because he did the work of two men.
And Ugo is still with me today thirty two years later.
(28:08):
And then John Fernandez was the second piece of the
puzzle that I hired. Coming up on thirty years is
coming June, which is incredible. And then Jonathan Kim, the
president of the company, is this coming June, will be
twenty five years. And I'm just that that obviously makes
me more proud than anything that these individuals have been
(28:30):
with me that many years. I mean, Heather McKinnon, she
started eighteen years old. She's in her mid forties, and
she sees our COEO and you know, I can go
on and on, Matt Busha, Danny Hanks, all these guys,
and I guess what makes me proud about it is
that I know that the company that we have built,
(28:51):
our team is built over the years, can continue way
after I'm going from this earth and with the same
same vision focus. And it's funny because we talk about
all these other brands that started, let's say in the
late eighties.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
U these wells Lebron Hold right there, Hold right there.
Speaker 5 (29:11):
I'm up against a break my moment.
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