November 28, 2025 • 33 mins
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
It's that time, time, time, time, luck and load. So
Michael Verie Show is on the air.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Live rob Television SETI at Hollywood.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
No men come and listen to the story about the
man name or them out there barely keptus, Damia said.
Rustle Bar is our guest ringos text next to me,
Chinas and so much more. You were talking about building
a culture and how proud you are of the people
you have that have been with you as many as
thirty it's from day one, literally from day one, and
(00:39):
and that's unheard of in the hospitality industry. You and
I have had conversations about Johnny Carabba. I think one
of the reasons Carabas is a special restaurant, a special
company is his ability to retain employees for their entire careers.
You go to the Carabas on on Voss and there
are multiple waiters there who have children and who are
(01:00):
also waiters there. It's a career, not a job for
kid after they finished high school. He keeps his people
for a long time, and you do too, and there's
reasons for that. You create a great workplace. But I
interrupted you. I had to work against the break, go
ahead and finish that.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
One if you would.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
What was I saying, Well, I don't remember, we're both
we both have dementia. You were talking about Heather starting
with you since she was eighteen. You're talking about a
culture and a business that will last beyond your time
all lesser.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Yes. So I was talking about these chains that come
and go, and there's so many of them. They start
off at a certain level of quality, and then they
get taken over by private equity and these accountants start
driving the brand saying, look, if we just cut a
little bit here, we'll be able to save X dollars.
And they'll do it and they'll see the results, thinking well,
we can probably cut a little more here or there,
(01:49):
and before you know it, you don't even recognize the
brand anymore. And so I would just share a story
about that recently with Heather, and I said, you know,
we need to get some watches and I need to
pass them out to my leadership team. And on the
face of it, it says these to say, not on
my not on my watch, because whoever takes over the
reins will have to make big decisions and the last
(02:10):
thing they want to do is make a decision that's
going to drive the business down and change what made
it successful. There's a to share something different with you.
There's a restaurant in fort Worth. You may have heard
of it, Joe T. Garcia's yep, of course. They've been
in business since like nineteen eighteen or something like that,
and this third generation running it. And you know, when
(02:32):
we do site selections, not that we're going to fort Worth,
but when you do site selections, you kind of want
to look at alcohol cells for the restaurants that you're
going to be here, And just out of curiosity, I
was looking at their alcohol cells and they're tremendous, soul,
tremendous in fact that their alcohol sales in one month
is the equivalent of five or six gringos alcohol sales
(02:53):
in a month. It's phenomenal. And they're cash you only business,
which is wild.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
But anyway, No, I'm just I'm just probably I'm sorry,
I'm spellbound. Yeah, wow, i'd slinging a lot of booth.
That is slinging a lot of booth.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
It is.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
So tell me about a mistake you made when you started.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
I'd love to.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
I know you're good at that, but I want you
to tell me about a mistake you made No, you
know what, I'm going to go back. You always tell
the story about having to give up the keys to
your vehicle and a what a humiliating moment that was,
and how you draw on that energy a lot to
guide you now.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
Well, yes, in my twenty so I lost my house
to foreclosure when I was twenty six years old, I
returned a vehicle because I can no longer afford the
PM here at twenty dollars ninety one cent payment. It
was a fort Bronco and I remember dropping off of
the dealership and then walking away from it and then
turning around at it to look at it one last
time and telling myself inside, I'm down, but I'm not out.
(03:50):
And I think that all too often people define themselves.
They defined themselves through failure. And really you're supposed to
fail forward, as as John C. Maxwell said, failing forward
you learn from those mistakes to not repeat them, but
find the lesson in them. And there's so many of them.
And we, for example, and you know, we had opened
Gringos Seafood Kitchen that what was it? My two point
(04:11):
eight million dollars seafood platter next to Gringos Mexican kitchen
in Stafford and we closed it a year and three
months later. And one of the things I didn't like
about that particular location besides they didn't have the seals,
was that we were next to the feeder road and
the road was just drove me crazy. I mean when
you were sitting out there, it was just very, very loud.
So when we opened up Jimmy Chongos Katie in twenty thirteen,
(04:33):
we purchased some real estate not on the freeway feeder road,
but just set back just a little bit. Well, we
may have set ourselves back just a little too much,
and so in the future we will never make that
mistake again because it can be very costly, and we
will always only do freeway locations for the most partners
where within a master plan development that has enough traffic
(04:55):
to support at Gringos. But there's a lot of benefit
to being on a freeway. I know that b not murking,
but Waterburger cells on freeway locations versus off the beaten
path are just drastically different. So you know, if you're
going to make the investment, you definitely want to make
sure you maximize its potential.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
Yeah, I learned that one the hard way. I used
to say that the RCC was one thousand feet from
being the hottest place in town.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
Exactly, if if only.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
Yeah, So when you look at today how you lead,
you lead a big operation, you have a lot of employees.
When you look at how you lead today, how is
that different from when you started?
Speaker 2 (05:36):
Well, I I definitely am not as involved in the
day to day operations as I used to be. It's
more the larger picture of you know, future site developments.
I enjoy always being involved in some way. But you know,
we men, you rolled out items. I like to get
involved in that new drinks, just giving feedback and you know,
(06:00):
we have fun. We'll meet in the in the back
kitchen area of our corporate office and we'll put a
couple of dishes out there or drinks, and we just
go to town and we try to you know, go
with the majority of feedback as far as you know
what's hot, what's not, and and you know, just be candid.
I think all too often a lot of people are
afraid to be candid. And there's nothing wrong with it.
(06:23):
I mean, your your opinion matters, and we want everyone
to know that. So even our corporate office staff that
They have a lot of input in what we do,
just because they're there trying it and letting us know
what they think.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
Is that I always wondered about this because I get
to see my people face to face. Jim works from home,
but we communicate thirty times a day. Is it hard
having started with just you and a cook? Is it
hard having grown to the point that you have employees
that you don't get to see or see very often.
(06:57):
And your name, you know, Gringo's text Maxx is Russell
Leabarro and everybody knows it, and somebody could walk in
and you know, we're going to have a bad experience, right,
Everyone's going to have a bad experience on occasion. Is
that hard for you? Having to let go of that
level of being able to see every person that comes
in the door.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
It's I really did enjoy when we had three locations,
four locations, five, you know, where I could visit every
store every almost not every day, but almost every day,
and and uh interact with the staff, And that's mostly
what I enjoy them, you know, doing. But as we've grown,
it's it's changed a lot. I enjoy giving preciates whatever
(07:35):
I visit. When the restaurants right before opening and talking
to our servers, uh, you know, the the frontline, uh team,
that they can impact a visit, you know, in a
positive or negative way. Just they have that kind of power,
you know, and so uh you always have to make
the story about them and how it impacts them, because
it's not it's not you can't tell them, hey, we
(07:56):
need you know, sales, or we need to make that
summer dollars or whatever. It's it's how does it impact them?
Speaker 1 (08:01):
And I always like to tell our servers that, you know,
hold right there working, we're gonna we're gonna come back
to I always like to tell our servers so that
you and I don't forget that since we those seem
to forget everything.
Speaker 3 (08:09):
Hold for.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
Russell Lebarro is our guest Ringos texmex dot com is
his website. That's where you can buy the book, talk
about the book in a moment. That's where you can
learn about his restaurants, his story, the family story, the
business story, the the story of the people who work there.
He also owns Jummy Chonga's. You said, I always tell
(08:33):
employees that, Yes, So I always.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
Like to tell our servers, uh. At during appreciate that,
you know, working at Gringos. If they don't make the
company part of their long term career, I want the
experience to be one of the best that they've ever had,
and I want them them to continue developing and mastering
(08:56):
a skill set. And it's really a skill set of
communication with the public, because it's something that's being lost
because of technology. Everyone has their face and their phone,
and so that they can really take these these skills
that they're learning and apply them in their future careers.
And they're all going to have one. I tell them, Look,
thirty years from now, forty years from now, you're going
(09:18):
to be somewhere in the serf that's either on the
ground or six feet under. But you're going to be somewhere.
And so why not start creating tomorrow today? And you
can do that just by working somewhere like a restaurant.
I mean, it's a beautiful thing, it really is. And
we have a lot of servers that earn let's say,
one hundred dollars tip and I always tell them, listen,
(09:42):
you earned it, yes, But it wasn't just the service.
The service was important that at the end of the day,
just like that receiving that one hundred dollars tip made
you feel good. You did something so well interacting with
this game that you made them feel so good that
they were willing to part ways with that one hundred
(10:03):
dollar bill. And and you'd be surprised how many servers
receive one hundred dollar tip. And it's it's incredible and
and that's part of the culture that that uh it's
infectious obviously, and and uh for good reason. But I
just it's just a wonderful thing to create a working
environment where excellence is our motto and always trying to
(10:25):
improve at every level every single day. And and as
long as we continue doing that, it's like a person
in a relay race. There's no way you can lose
that race if you've been given that lead unless you
back down and and and and uh don't continue moving
the same way. But uh, we we just have a
(10:46):
wonderful team. And I couldn't speak, you know, about them
more highly than they are.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
But they flout you.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
And I love that.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
Russell Lebar is our guest. I do want to say
thanks to Oracle. They have a product called NetSuite, and
they wanted business owners to know about it and they
knew we were doing business interviews over the years, and
one of the guy who's responsible for NetSuite with Oracle
(11:16):
is a fan of our show and loves what we
do and said, we'd like to sponsor your business interviews.
Why not. You can get the cfo's Guide to AI
and Machine Learning at NetSuite dot com slash Berry my
last name, NetSuite dot com, slash berry. And the idea is,
(11:39):
if you've got data all over the place, and like
Russell Lebarro, needs to make a decision quickly, you need
your data quickly. You need AI, you need machine learning.
You need that technology because you have manual intry of
everything in manual retrieval and manual processing, and you can't
get your information fast enough. To get the cfo's Guide
to AI and Machine Learning, go to NetSuite dot com
(12:03):
forward slash Barry my last name, Russell. When you talked
about servers, you have employees from uh, you know, bartenders
to what used to be called waiters servers. Many of
those become managers and on a when you hire somebody
or the kitchen do you have or when you did
(12:25):
hire at that level, Now that's for your managers. Do
you have kind of a process that's important that you'd say,
here's the fundamentals of hiring good people.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
You know, some people interview very very well, as you
can imagine, but you know, sooner or later, whatever their
personality traits are, they come out. But at the end
of the day, I don't think there there is such
thing as a bad employee. I really think that's just
bad leadership. And and I think that we've just done
(12:54):
a good job at weeding out individuals that just don't
really fit us. And that's a good thing. I mean,
we've had people come and go, but a lot of
times they just can't. They don't buy, they don't drink
the kool aid, so to speak. But yeah, we we
just I think my management team overall does a great
job because there is a certain you know, image you
(13:16):
want to portray, you want your staff to portray. And
you know, we've we've changed the way we've you know,
our standards have changed, only not because we wanted them to,
because society has just evolved. There was a time where
you couldn't even have tattoos, you know, but or even
other things that you know, we've had to change or
(13:36):
adapt to because as times are changing, whether it's you know,
something like tattoos or just just quality of life schedules.
I mean, we're doing things that are unheard of twenty
thirty years ago. So you know, we we we listen
and we try to pay attention to what's going on
(13:58):
within the industry to remain competitive, because we all, at
the end of the day, compete by comparison, and we
want to make sure that you know, we're doing what
is expected out in the out of the marketplace.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
I was at your Katie location my good friend Stephen Woodard,
DPS trooper. A lot of folks know Woodard, and it
was a Saturday, and went out to see North Shore
play in the state semifinal, which they shockingly did not win.
They were expected to win state this year. It's a
strong team. But afterwards, the stadium was not far from Gringos,
(14:36):
and I said, let's go to Ring Gringos, and of
course he loves Gringos. And we're there and there was
an employee, very pretty light skinned black woman, I forget
her name. She could be a model, and she had
something on her hand that looked almost like a cast
and her arm I can't remember, And I said as
I'm sitting there, what happened? And she said, oh, nothing,
(15:00):
I have a tattoo. We're not you know you're not.
We're not allowed to show our tattoos at work. And
she doesn't know that I know you. But I took
the opportunity to say, well, I think the owner probably
has a concern that employees make a positive reflection and
some people are bothered by tattoos. But I thought that
was a pretty bold thing, because that's saying, yes, you
(15:22):
can still work here, but there are things that may
upset some customers, and it's important that you project the
right image. I don't know how you came to that conclusion.
I just thought it was pretty bold.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
Yeah. Well, like I said, our dress code has changed
quite a bit, so but it's still still positive.
Speaker 1 (15:41):
So we talk about making tough decisions, and everybody wants
to be the person who makes good decisions, tough decisions,
but it's not easy to make tough decisions, and so
the rubber hits the road when a tough decision might
cost you money. So so coming up, I'm going to
ask you about what was probably a tough decision for you,
(16:05):
and maybe you made it easily, but it would be
for a lot of people because it's a decision that
costs you money, but it's probably turned out to be
the right thing for your business. Russell Lebarro our government.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
A recession is when your neighbor loses his job.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
A depression is when you lose your Richard Michael Berry.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
And recovery is when Jimmy Carter loses.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
Russell Lebarra is the founder and owner. I don't know
what is Tyler's chairman of the board. I think Jonathan
Kim's the president maybe CEO of Ringo's text Mex. But
his business card does not say CEO or chairman of
the board or anything else. It says Master Enchilada Roller,
which is designed to reflect his position that I am
(16:48):
the guy that can go in the kitchen and wood
or clean the floors, or wipe down the restrooms or
whatever else. And I love that approach about him, the
servant leader. I wanted to ask you about a tough decision,
and we all talk about tough decisions. You know, you
have to make the tough decision. Everybody says that, but
it's not until you say, hey, sometimes you got to
kick your kid out because they there's a failure to launch,
(17:11):
and they're not they're not leaving. Sometimes you have to
say something that makes someone angry. So I told you
I was at Katie Location with Stephen Woodard, my DPS buddy,
a couple of weeks ago after a football game, and
we're sitting there and he was driving me. So I
wasn't driving, so I could drink more than I would
have if I was driving. In fact, my rule with
(17:33):
my wife is her rule is you can go anywhere
you want, you can drink as much as you want,
but if you're drinking, you can't drive. And so Uber
is my friend, or if I'm going with Uncle Jerry
or someone else, I ride with them.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
And so I had.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
I can't remember. I want to say. I want to
say it was that that orange crush margaerite. Y'all had
a specialty marguerite at the time. I don't remember what
it was, but I had the specially margerite and then
I had another one. No, I didn't. I had beer
that day. I had two beers, and so I had
two beers and I'm ready to have my third one.
And we've been there for a while and I'm not driving,
(18:13):
and I'm completely loosid and I ordered another one and
she said, I'm sorry, sir, I can't give you a
third drink. And I looked at her like, you're joking,
right am I slurry? And I said, oh man, I've
been here long enough to process this. And by the way,
I'm not driving. She said, I'm sorry, I can't, and
I thought, you know, I can respect that because business
(18:37):
liquors where people make their money, especially in text mex
To have a policy, and I'm sure you must have
problems with people being drunk to say, we're a family
restaurant and we're going to choose to lose the marginal
money that you would spend because at the point at
which you get drunk and some people would cause a problem.
That's a decision of business owners should be willing to make.
(18:57):
Customers can choose whether they like it or not, and
they choose not to come back. How tough of a
decision was that for you?
Speaker 2 (19:05):
Well, it all I has to do with liability. So
our drink policy is no more than four and the
one of the drinks you had must have had contained
two shots in it. But it's easier to manage when
the policy is consistently across you know, twenty something locations.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
Russell, I need you to answer the questions, but not
out me on what was in my glass. I like
to tell my story the way I want to tell
my story.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
Well, it's for drink minim. She did it right, and
as much as I love you, we couldn't bend the
rules for you, because then I'm sending the wrong message
to the entire staff.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
She didn't know who I was, but it didn't matter that.
The point was she enforced the rule and I respected
that there was a rule. Now, listen, there will be
people who like to go in and get hammered, and
they would say, I'm mad at you. You didn't sert. Well,
guess what. You don't have to eat there. There's a
text max on every quarter. You can go somewhere else.
I respect businesses that are upfront, have their rules, articulate
(20:05):
their rules, and stick to their rules because it's part
of a bigger business concept. Hey, some people aren't good
for our restaurant. We also don't want pedophiles, rapists, or
neked people in here, no matter how much they're going
to spend. I mean I respect that, I really do.
I think that's a hard thing to do. That's the
quote unquote tough decision, and you may lose money in
(20:27):
the short run to make more money to be a
place that people want to go because you do the
right things. I'll give you a good example our mutual friend,
Beaver Applan. I asked Beaver one time. I said, y'all
don't allow eighteen wheelers at BUCkies and I would have
to think that they buy more gas than anybody. Why
(20:48):
don't you let them in? And he said, families don't
want to be at a truck stop, and truck stops
tend to attract certain things around the truckers, not the
truckers themselves that families don't want to be around. And
so in order to be what we are, we have
to give up that revenue stream in order to get
(21:08):
this one over here. And I thought, wow, that's the again,
tough decision, but the right decision.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
Right. That's the third model at the end of the day,
that's a model.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
So you read a lot of books because you are
always reading something and always quoting something from what you're reading.
How do you choose what books you're going to read
and what is your time of day you read? Because
a lot of people say to me that they would
like to read more, and they'll say when do you read?
(21:40):
And I tell them I read on the pot, I
read before I go to bed. There's certain times that
I read that if I didn't read a book, i'd
be reading my phone and doom, scrolling Twitter or whatever else.
And I get more out of reading. But have you
made a time or when when is your time to read?
Because I know you're a big reader. Well, thank god
(22:02):
for audio books. But from my house to my office
is about a thirty minute drive, so you can knock
out quite a bit of a book just listening on
the way to work.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
So I do that a lot. But I mostly listen
to autobiographies of people I admire, and that's where I
get a lot of my wisdom, if you will. But
there's some really great material out there. There is a
lot of great material.
Speaker 1 (22:27):
And I find, you know, the term self help has
a bad meaning, and there are guys who are you know,
it's a whole industry like wellness, and I think some
of it is complete pablem But I find there are
certain people that are very good at explaining things in
a way that I can read it and apply it
and make minor improvements to my life. Exercise is very
(22:50):
important to you. Fitness is important to you. Good health
is important to you. Was that always the case or
was there a moment where you made a conscious decision.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
It's mostly been the case throughout my life, but there
was a time in my thirties where I would say
that my core was not where it should have been
and I had back problems. And ever since then, I've
done sit ups consistently and I've never had a back
problem since. So I like to keep the core up.
For sure. I don't do is. I don't run like
(23:25):
I used.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
To, But no, I'm convinced is bad for you. None
has had so many back problems from running. I think
running is absolutely horrible or just absolutely horrible. Tell me
a restaurant that you've eaten that recently. I've got about
thirty seconds in this segment. Tell me a restaurant you've
eaten that recently that impressed you.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
Milton's in the Village, Rice Village, owned by Benji Levitt.
He converted a restaurant the second floor he had opened
up a different concept and then closed it shortly after,
but just reopened it as Milton's Italian restaurant, and I
probably had the best lasagna that I've ever had anywhere.
(24:09):
But then I went there last night with some friends
and they didn't have the exact same lasagna they had.
They had a vegetarian style lasagna last night. I didn't
order for that reason. So I'm gonna go back and
get the the bolonaise version of it if he will
was because it feels excellent outstanding.
Speaker 1 (24:29):
Benji is unafraid of the radar restaurant who opened or
closed a restaurant Milton named for his grandfather, Milton Levitt.
We're talking to Russell Ibarra Ringos texmex dot com and
we'll continue that.
Speaker 3 (24:43):
We're gonna add a little bit about these oar houses
I know all about.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
Ramon wants to know what around the.
Speaker 3 (24:48):
World is whistling bungholes, spleens, splitters, whisker biscuits, honkey riders,
Whosker doos, whosker don'ts nips and dazers with it without
the scooter stick or one single whistling kiddy chaser.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
Russell Levarro, my friend, mentor and the owner of Gringo's
Text Mex, is our guest. You mentioned that you had
a great meal at Milton's, which Benji Levitt has in
Rice Village. You sent me an email of a conversation
between you and Michael Sambrooks, who has a text Mex
(25:23):
joint called Condente, and he is following your lead, which
makes you a mentor of his also and at I
guess that location he has created similar to your Plato Soldado,
which gives two dollars per plate to Camp Hope and
ends up being hundreds of thousands of dollars and it's
a lot, a lot of money every year just off
(25:43):
people ordering that dish, and he's doing a Bandera plate,
which very very similar. When people ask you're always talking
to another restaurant owner, and often it's someone I think
you're hoping to learn from. You were talking to me
about the the rich Carlton CEO or the four Seasons.
(26:07):
I can't remember but four seasons. And yet some of
the time it's a one, one shop small business owner
that's meeting with you. What do people ask you when
they meet you and they want to learn from you?
What kind of questions do you typically get?
Speaker 2 (26:24):
Well, I mean a lot of them want to know
if if their cost of goods are lining up with
the industry standards, and of course everyone's standards are going
to be different depending on their overhead. But I met
recently with a a It was a Puerto Rican Honduras
type restaurant up on the north west side of town.
The owners reached out to me via Instagram and and
(26:46):
wanted to set up a meeting, so we did at
my office, and they were just curious about a lot
of things. You know, they're not where they want to be.
Their cost of goods are way too high, their labor
is way too high, and their prices are just way
too low. So that's probably the reason. But I've had
several young entrepreneurs reach out to me. One of them
(27:07):
was on Vierto Martinez that owns Space City Video downtown Houston,
and his story is unique and it's a prime example
of what it takes to become successful. So this young man,
about thirty four years old, he bought a burger franchise.
It was an Israeli burger franchise called Im the Letter's
(27:27):
im Burger, and they started popping up all around the
United States. I think they had eight hundred franchises sold
or something. But he opens four months before COVID, So
he's basically dead in the water before he got started.
And so when final that he was able to open up,
of course, never did the sales he needed to do.
(27:48):
He ended up deciding to close the restaurant and was
basically handing the keys to the landlord and say, look,
I can't make it. But he had noticed that there
was this new trend of tacos going around called Biddi
of Tacos and it's basically, my kids are good. Okay,
(28:10):
well well yeah, so uh, you know, it's like a Cassidia,
but you know, you get some consumme to dip your
taco in. And he so he opened up this place
called Space City Video and it's a small restaurant in downtown,
but he, uh, he is doing incredible, incredible numbers, and
(28:31):
he's already looking for his second location in Parland. And
so we've been kind of Jonathan and I both have
kind of been guiding along to help him negotiate the
lease or look at the terms and uh and have
a plan going forward. But we love doing stuff like
that for people, and you know, and and never really
(28:51):
expecting anything back except maybe a free free taco or something,
but you know, and then I had another gentleman from
up in the king that owns local cantina and he
has a restaurant there on the lake and he is
doing it really, really well, and he reached out and
we've met several times. I've taken him to the Rockets
(29:13):
game now and and but I love surrounding myself with
young entrepreneurs because sometimes I wish I could go back
and start all over again, because it's been fun and
and it's it's it's even it's it's a lot more
fun in the early days because it's new. It's it's
like a child when you're you know, he's growing up.
(29:34):
Everything around them is new, and so in business, you
know that there's something really sweet about that, and I
miss that. So I guess that's one of the reasons
why I have an open line all the time to
entrepreneurs that want to get started and and help them
as much as I can.
Speaker 1 (29:52):
There's also something invigorating about the passion of a new own.
You know that I've known people that had a day job,
but they cooked on the weekend or at night, and
they were good at it, and they save up and
then they quit their job, which a man is such
a hard thing to do. You know, you've got to
(30:13):
steady income and they you know, they're people. What people
don't realize is when you show up first day to eat,
you don't realize that that was just a shell. You know,
they had to build all this stuff out and then
to make all those decisions. Now, finally we're ready, we're
opening up. You know how exciting. You've told the story
before on you know, opening the blinds on your first
(30:33):
day and waiting on the first car to come in
and you were going to serve them and you had
your kitchen guy in the back. There is something really cool.
You use the word sweet, which I think is is
is the right term. There's something cool like, uh, you
know when I talked to Crockett or Michael's friends and
I asked them, you know, what are you going to
do this summer and what are you studying and what
(30:55):
and just hearing there their kind of nervous but ambitious optimism.
It's it's invigorating. It's it's good for me, it's good
for the soul.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
It really is it really is.
Speaker 1 (31:10):
You were supposed to say more than it really is.
You're supposed to add something to that. That's that's how
the interview format works.
Speaker 2 (31:16):
Well, I'm practicing, so I love it. I love it.
Speaker 1 (31:22):
How do you decide where to put a new location?
Because and the reason I ask is, you've been very
successful at location selection. And it's not just a you know,
put your finger to the to the wind. There's a
text mex Joint on every corner already. There are competing concepts,
there's a lot of other restaurants, there are many choices.
(31:48):
Have you learned over the years kind of this is
what works for us.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
Well, Like I mentioned previously, freeway locations will always be
for us now. But as far as expanding the Gringos chain,
we we we have Houston pretty much covered. I mean
we could there are some spots we could probably put
other locations, but we're starting to venture outside the market.
(32:14):
We're going to be opening in Sybelo, Texas or right
outside of San Antonio shirts and then in Kyle, Texas
as well, both on nine thirty five, and then we're
looking at a couple other places, one outside of Austin,
but will always remain in the suburbs. That's kind of
our lane of.
Speaker 1 (32:33):
This and.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
Well, well for lots of reasons, but one is a
lot more families in in the suburbs. There's the real
estate is a lot less expensive in the suburbs. And
and mostly because it's an underserved market with the level
that we bring to the market to the marketplace. Because
(32:59):
I would much rather, you know, be a big fish
in a small pond than vice varsa.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
So uh wait right there, wait wait wait wait right there.
Russell Lebara, as our guest, will continue our conversation with
him coming up. H
It's that time, time, time, time, luck and load. So
Michael Verie Show is on the air.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Live rob Television SETI at Hollywood.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
No men come and listen to the story about the
man name or them out there barely keptus, Damia said.
Rustle Bar is our guest ringos text next to me,
Chinas and so much more. You were talking about building
a culture and how proud you are of the people
you have that have been with you as many as
thirty it's from day one, literally from day one, and
(00:39):
and that's unheard of in the hospitality industry. You and
I have had conversations about Johnny Carabba. I think one
of the reasons Carabas is a special restaurant, a special
company is his ability to retain employees for their entire careers.
You go to the Carabas on on Voss and there
are multiple waiters there who have children and who are
(01:00):
also waiters there. It's a career, not a job for
kid after they finished high school. He keeps his people
for a long time, and you do too, and there's
reasons for that. You create a great workplace. But I
interrupted you. I had to work against the break, go
ahead and finish that.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
One if you would.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
What was I saying, Well, I don't remember, we're both
we both have dementia. You were talking about Heather starting
with you since she was eighteen. You're talking about a
culture and a business that will last beyond your time
all lesser.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Yes. So I was talking about these chains that come
and go, and there's so many of them. They start
off at a certain level of quality, and then they
get taken over by private equity and these accountants start
driving the brand saying, look, if we just cut a
little bit here, we'll be able to save X dollars.
And they'll do it and they'll see the results, thinking well,
we can probably cut a little more here or there,
(01:49):
and before you know it, you don't even recognize the
brand anymore. And so I would just share a story
about that recently with Heather, and I said, you know,
we need to get some watches and I need to
pass them out to my leadership team. And on the
face of it, it says these to say, not on
my not on my watch, because whoever takes over the
reins will have to make big decisions and the last
(02:10):
thing they want to do is make a decision that's
going to drive the business down and change what made
it successful. There's a to share something different with you.
There's a restaurant in fort Worth. You may have heard
of it, Joe T. Garcia's yep, of course. They've been
in business since like nineteen eighteen or something like that,
and this third generation running it. And you know, when
(02:32):
we do site selections, not that we're going to fort Worth,
but when you do site selections, you kind of want
to look at alcohol cells for the restaurants that you're
going to be here, And just out of curiosity, I
was looking at their alcohol cells and they're tremendous, soul,
tremendous in fact that their alcohol sales in one month
is the equivalent of five or six gringos alcohol sales
(02:53):
in a month. It's phenomenal. And they're cash you only business,
which is wild.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
But anyway, No, I'm just I'm just probably I'm sorry,
I'm spellbound. Yeah, wow, i'd slinging a lot of booth.
That is slinging a lot of booth.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
It is.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
So tell me about a mistake you made when you started.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
I'd love to.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
I know you're good at that, but I want you
to tell me about a mistake you made No, you
know what, I'm going to go back. You always tell
the story about having to give up the keys to
your vehicle and a what a humiliating moment that was,
and how you draw on that energy a lot to
guide you now.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
Well, yes, in my twenty so I lost my house
to foreclosure when I was twenty six years old, I
returned a vehicle because I can no longer afford the
PM here at twenty dollars ninety one cent payment. It
was a fort Bronco and I remember dropping off of
the dealership and then walking away from it and then
turning around at it to look at it one last
time and telling myself inside, I'm down, but I'm not out.
(03:50):
And I think that all too often people define themselves.
They defined themselves through failure. And really you're supposed to
fail forward, as as John C. Maxwell said, failing forward
you learn from those mistakes to not repeat them, but
find the lesson in them. And there's so many of them.
And we, for example, and you know, we had opened
Gringos Seafood Kitchen that what was it? My two point
(04:11):
eight million dollars seafood platter next to Gringos Mexican kitchen
in Stafford and we closed it a year and three
months later. And one of the things I didn't like
about that particular location besides they didn't have the seals,
was that we were next to the feeder road and
the road was just drove me crazy. I mean when
you were sitting out there, it was just very, very loud.
So when we opened up Jimmy Chongos Katie in twenty thirteen,
(04:33):
we purchased some real estate not on the freeway feeder road,
but just set back just a little bit. Well, we
may have set ourselves back just a little too much,
and so in the future we will never make that
mistake again because it can be very costly, and we
will always only do freeway locations for the most partners
where within a master plan development that has enough traffic
(04:55):
to support at Gringos. But there's a lot of benefit
to being on a freeway. I know that b not murking,
but Waterburger cells on freeway locations versus off the beaten
path are just drastically different. So you know, if you're
going to make the investment, you definitely want to make
sure you maximize its potential.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
Yeah, I learned that one the hard way. I used
to say that the RCC was one thousand feet from
being the hottest place in town.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
Exactly, if if only.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
Yeah, So when you look at today how you lead,
you lead a big operation, you have a lot of employees.
When you look at how you lead today, how is
that different from when you started?
Speaker 2 (05:36):
Well, I I definitely am not as involved in the
day to day operations as I used to be. It's
more the larger picture of you know, future site developments.
I enjoy always being involved in some way. But you know,
we men, you rolled out items. I like to get
involved in that new drinks, just giving feedback and you know,
(06:00):
we have fun. We'll meet in the in the back
kitchen area of our corporate office and we'll put a
couple of dishes out there or drinks, and we just
go to town and we try to you know, go
with the majority of feedback as far as you know
what's hot, what's not, and and you know, just be candid.
I think all too often a lot of people are
afraid to be candid. And there's nothing wrong with it.
(06:23):
I mean, your your opinion matters, and we want everyone
to know that. So even our corporate office staff that
They have a lot of input in what we do,
just because they're there trying it and letting us know
what they think.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
Is that I always wondered about this because I get
to see my people face to face. Jim works from home,
but we communicate thirty times a day. Is it hard
having started with just you and a cook? Is it
hard having grown to the point that you have employees
that you don't get to see or see very often.
(06:57):
And your name, you know, Gringo's text Maxx is Russell
Leabarro and everybody knows it, and somebody could walk in
and you know, we're going to have a bad experience, right,
Everyone's going to have a bad experience on occasion. Is
that hard for you? Having to let go of that
level of being able to see every person that comes
in the door.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
It's I really did enjoy when we had three locations,
four locations, five, you know, where I could visit every
store every almost not every day, but almost every day,
and and uh interact with the staff, And that's mostly
what I enjoy them, you know, doing. But as we've grown,
it's it's changed a lot. I enjoy giving preciates whatever
(07:35):
I visit. When the restaurants right before opening and talking
to our servers, uh, you know, the the frontline, uh team,
that they can impact a visit, you know, in a
positive or negative way. Just they have that kind of power,
you know, and so uh you always have to make
the story about them and how it impacts them, because
it's not it's not you can't tell them, hey, we
(07:56):
need you know, sales, or we need to make that
summer dollars or whatever. It's it's how does it impact them?
Speaker 1 (08:01):
And I always like to tell our servers that, you know,
hold right there working, we're gonna we're gonna come back
to I always like to tell our servers so that
you and I don't forget that since we those seem
to forget everything.
Speaker 3 (08:09):
Hold for.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
Russell Lebarro is our guest Ringos texmex dot com is
his website. That's where you can buy the book, talk
about the book in a moment. That's where you can
learn about his restaurants, his story, the family story, the
business story, the the story of the people who work there.
He also owns Jummy Chonga's. You said, I always tell
(08:33):
employees that, Yes, So I always.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
Like to tell our servers, uh. At during appreciate that,
you know, working at Gringos. If they don't make the
company part of their long term career, I want the
experience to be one of the best that they've ever had,
and I want them them to continue developing and mastering
(08:56):
a skill set. And it's really a skill set of
communication with the public, because it's something that's being lost
because of technology. Everyone has their face and their phone,
and so that they can really take these these skills
that they're learning and apply them in their future careers.
And they're all going to have one. I tell them, Look,
thirty years from now, forty years from now, you're going
(09:18):
to be somewhere in the serf that's either on the
ground or six feet under. But you're going to be somewhere.
And so why not start creating tomorrow today? And you
can do that just by working somewhere like a restaurant.
I mean, it's a beautiful thing, it really is. And
we have a lot of servers that earn let's say,
one hundred dollars tip and I always tell them, listen,
(09:42):
you earned it, yes, But it wasn't just the service.
The service was important that at the end of the day,
just like that receiving that one hundred dollars tip made
you feel good. You did something so well interacting with
this game that you made them feel so good that
they were willing to part ways with that one hundred
(10:03):
dollar bill. And and you'd be surprised how many servers
receive one hundred dollar tip. And it's it's incredible and
and that's part of the culture that that uh it's
infectious obviously, and and uh for good reason. But I
just it's just a wonderful thing to create a working
environment where excellence is our motto and always trying to
(10:25):
improve at every level every single day. And and as
long as we continue doing that, it's like a person
in a relay race. There's no way you can lose
that race if you've been given that lead unless you
back down and and and and uh don't continue moving
the same way. But uh, we we just have a
(10:46):
wonderful team. And I couldn't speak, you know, about them
more highly than they are.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
But they flout you.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
And I love that.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
Russell Lebar is our guest. I do want to say
thanks to Oracle. They have a product called NetSuite, and
they wanted business owners to know about it and they
knew we were doing business interviews over the years, and
one of the guy who's responsible for NetSuite with Oracle
(11:16):
is a fan of our show and loves what we
do and said, we'd like to sponsor your business interviews.
Why not. You can get the cfo's Guide to AI
and Machine Learning at NetSuite dot com slash Berry my
last name, NetSuite dot com, slash berry. And the idea is,
(11:39):
if you've got data all over the place, and like
Russell Lebarro, needs to make a decision quickly, you need
your data quickly. You need AI, you need machine learning.
You need that technology because you have manual intry of
everything in manual retrieval and manual processing, and you can't
get your information fast enough. To get the cfo's Guide
to AI and Machine Learning, go to NetSuite dot com
(12:03):
forward slash Barry my last name, Russell. When you talked
about servers, you have employees from uh, you know, bartenders
to what used to be called waiters servers. Many of
those become managers and on a when you hire somebody
or the kitchen do you have or when you did
(12:25):
hire at that level, Now that's for your managers. Do
you have kind of a process that's important that you'd say,
here's the fundamentals of hiring good people.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
You know, some people interview very very well, as you
can imagine, but you know, sooner or later, whatever their
personality traits are, they come out. But at the end
of the day, I don't think there there is such
thing as a bad employee. I really think that's just
bad leadership. And and I think that we've just done
(12:54):
a good job at weeding out individuals that just don't
really fit us. And that's a good thing. I mean,
we've had people come and go, but a lot of
times they just can't. They don't buy, they don't drink
the kool aid, so to speak. But yeah, we we
just I think my management team overall does a great
job because there is a certain you know, image you
(13:16):
want to portray, you want your staff to portray. And
you know, we've we've changed the way we've you know,
our standards have changed, only not because we wanted them to,
because society has just evolved. There was a time where
you couldn't even have tattoos, you know, but or even
other things that you know, we've had to change or
(13:36):
adapt to because as times are changing, whether it's you know,
something like tattoos or just just quality of life schedules.
I mean, we're doing things that are unheard of twenty
thirty years ago. So you know, we we we listen
and we try to pay attention to what's going on
(13:58):
within the industry to remain competitive, because we all, at
the end of the day, compete by comparison, and we
want to make sure that you know, we're doing what
is expected out in the out of the marketplace.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
I was at your Katie location my good friend Stephen Woodard,
DPS trooper. A lot of folks know Woodard, and it
was a Saturday, and went out to see North Shore
play in the state semifinal, which they shockingly did not win.
They were expected to win state this year. It's a
strong team. But afterwards, the stadium was not far from Gringos,
(14:36):
and I said, let's go to Ring Gringos, and of
course he loves Gringos. And we're there and there was
an employee, very pretty light skinned black woman, I forget
her name. She could be a model, and she had
something on her hand that looked almost like a cast
and her arm I can't remember, And I said as
I'm sitting there, what happened? And she said, oh, nothing,
(15:00):
I have a tattoo. We're not you know you're not.
We're not allowed to show our tattoos at work. And
she doesn't know that I know you. But I took
the opportunity to say, well, I think the owner probably
has a concern that employees make a positive reflection and
some people are bothered by tattoos. But I thought that
was a pretty bold thing, because that's saying, yes, you
(15:22):
can still work here, but there are things that may
upset some customers, and it's important that you project the
right image. I don't know how you came to that conclusion.
I just thought it was pretty bold.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
Yeah. Well, like I said, our dress code has changed
quite a bit, so but it's still still positive.
Speaker 1 (15:41):
So we talk about making tough decisions, and everybody wants
to be the person who makes good decisions, tough decisions,
but it's not easy to make tough decisions, and so
the rubber hits the road when a tough decision might
cost you money. So so coming up, I'm going to
ask you about what was probably a tough decision for you,
(16:05):
and maybe you made it easily, but it would be
for a lot of people because it's a decision that
costs you money, but it's probably turned out to be
the right thing for your business. Russell Lebarro our government.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
A recession is when your neighbor loses his job.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
A depression is when you lose your Richard Michael Berry.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
And recovery is when Jimmy Carter loses.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
Russell Lebarra is the founder and owner. I don't know
what is Tyler's chairman of the board. I think Jonathan
Kim's the president maybe CEO of Ringo's text Mex. But
his business card does not say CEO or chairman of
the board or anything else. It says Master Enchilada Roller,
which is designed to reflect his position that I am
(16:48):
the guy that can go in the kitchen and wood
or clean the floors, or wipe down the restrooms or
whatever else. And I love that approach about him, the
servant leader. I wanted to ask you about a tough decision,
and we all talk about tough decisions. You know, you
have to make the tough decision. Everybody says that, but
it's not until you say, hey, sometimes you got to
kick your kid out because they there's a failure to launch,
(17:11):
and they're not they're not leaving. Sometimes you have to
say something that makes someone angry. So I told you
I was at Katie Location with Stephen Woodard, my DPS buddy,
a couple of weeks ago after a football game, and
we're sitting there and he was driving me. So I
wasn't driving, so I could drink more than I would
have if I was driving. In fact, my rule with
(17:33):
my wife is her rule is you can go anywhere
you want, you can drink as much as you want,
but if you're drinking, you can't drive. And so Uber
is my friend, or if I'm going with Uncle Jerry
or someone else, I ride with them.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
And so I had.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
I can't remember. I want to say. I want to
say it was that that orange crush margaerite. Y'all had
a specialty marguerite at the time. I don't remember what
it was, but I had the specially margerite and then
I had another one. No, I didn't. I had beer
that day. I had two beers, and so I had
two beers and I'm ready to have my third one.
And we've been there for a while and I'm not driving,
(18:13):
and I'm completely loosid and I ordered another one and
she said, I'm sorry, sir, I can't give you a
third drink. And I looked at her like, you're joking,
right am I slurry? And I said, oh man, I've
been here long enough to process this. And by the way,
I'm not driving. She said, I'm sorry, I can't, and
I thought, you know, I can respect that because business
(18:37):
liquors where people make their money, especially in text mex
To have a policy, and I'm sure you must have
problems with people being drunk to say, we're a family
restaurant and we're going to choose to lose the marginal
money that you would spend because at the point at
which you get drunk and some people would cause a problem.
That's a decision of business owners should be willing to make.
(18:57):
Customers can choose whether they like it or not, and
they choose not to come back. How tough of a
decision was that for you?
Speaker 2 (19:05):
Well, it all I has to do with liability. So
our drink policy is no more than four and the
one of the drinks you had must have had contained
two shots in it. But it's easier to manage when
the policy is consistently across you know, twenty something locations.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
Russell, I need you to answer the questions, but not
out me on what was in my glass. I like
to tell my story the way I want to tell
my story.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
Well, it's for drink minim. She did it right, and
as much as I love you, we couldn't bend the
rules for you, because then I'm sending the wrong message
to the entire staff.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
She didn't know who I was, but it didn't matter that.
The point was she enforced the rule and I respected
that there was a rule. Now, listen, there will be
people who like to go in and get hammered, and
they would say, I'm mad at you. You didn't sert. Well,
guess what. You don't have to eat there. There's a
text max on every quarter. You can go somewhere else.
I respect businesses that are upfront, have their rules, articulate
(20:05):
their rules, and stick to their rules because it's part
of a bigger business concept. Hey, some people aren't good
for our restaurant. We also don't want pedophiles, rapists, or
neked people in here, no matter how much they're going
to spend. I mean I respect that, I really do.
I think that's a hard thing to do. That's the
quote unquote tough decision, and you may lose money in
(20:27):
the short run to make more money to be a
place that people want to go because you do the
right things. I'll give you a good example our mutual friend,
Beaver Applan. I asked Beaver one time. I said, y'all
don't allow eighteen wheelers at BUCkies and I would have
to think that they buy more gas than anybody. Why
(20:48):
don't you let them in? And he said, families don't
want to be at a truck stop, and truck stops
tend to attract certain things around the truckers, not the
truckers themselves that families don't want to be around. And
so in order to be what we are, we have
to give up that revenue stream in order to get
(21:08):
this one over here. And I thought, wow, that's the again,
tough decision, but the right decision.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
Right. That's the third model at the end of the day,
that's a model.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
So you read a lot of books because you are
always reading something and always quoting something from what you're reading.
How do you choose what books you're going to read
and what is your time of day you read? Because
a lot of people say to me that they would
like to read more, and they'll say when do you read?
(21:40):
And I tell them I read on the pot, I
read before I go to bed. There's certain times that
I read that if I didn't read a book, i'd
be reading my phone and doom, scrolling Twitter or whatever else.
And I get more out of reading. But have you
made a time or when when is your time to read?
Because I know you're a big reader. Well, thank god
(22:02):
for audio books. But from my house to my office
is about a thirty minute drive, so you can knock
out quite a bit of a book just listening on
the way to work.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
So I do that a lot. But I mostly listen
to autobiographies of people I admire, and that's where I
get a lot of my wisdom, if you will. But
there's some really great material out there. There is a
lot of great material.
Speaker 1 (22:27):
And I find, you know, the term self help has
a bad meaning, and there are guys who are you know,
it's a whole industry like wellness, and I think some
of it is complete pablem But I find there are
certain people that are very good at explaining things in
a way that I can read it and apply it
and make minor improvements to my life. Exercise is very
(22:50):
important to you. Fitness is important to you. Good health
is important to you. Was that always the case or
was there a moment where you made a conscious decision.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
It's mostly been the case throughout my life, but there
was a time in my thirties where I would say
that my core was not where it should have been
and I had back problems. And ever since then, I've
done sit ups consistently and I've never had a back
problem since. So I like to keep the core up.
For sure. I don't do is. I don't run like
(23:25):
I used.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
To, But no, I'm convinced is bad for you. None
has had so many back problems from running. I think
running is absolutely horrible or just absolutely horrible. Tell me
a restaurant that you've eaten that recently. I've got about
thirty seconds in this segment. Tell me a restaurant you've
eaten that recently that impressed you.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
Milton's in the Village, Rice Village, owned by Benji Levitt.
He converted a restaurant the second floor he had opened
up a different concept and then closed it shortly after,
but just reopened it as Milton's Italian restaurant, and I
probably had the best lasagna that I've ever had anywhere.
(24:09):
But then I went there last night with some friends
and they didn't have the exact same lasagna they had.
They had a vegetarian style lasagna last night. I didn't
order for that reason. So I'm gonna go back and
get the the bolonaise version of it if he will
was because it feels excellent outstanding.
Speaker 1 (24:29):
Benji is unafraid of the radar restaurant who opened or
closed a restaurant Milton named for his grandfather, Milton Levitt.
We're talking to Russell Ibarra Ringos texmex dot com and
we'll continue that.
Speaker 3 (24:43):
We're gonna add a little bit about these oar houses
I know all about.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
Ramon wants to know what around the.
Speaker 3 (24:48):
World is whistling bungholes, spleens, splitters, whisker biscuits, honkey riders,
Whosker doos, whosker don'ts nips and dazers with it without
the scooter stick or one single whistling kiddy chaser.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
Russell Levarro, my friend, mentor and the owner of Gringo's
Text Mex, is our guest. You mentioned that you had
a great meal at Milton's, which Benji Levitt has in
Rice Village. You sent me an email of a conversation
between you and Michael Sambrooks, who has a text Mex
(25:23):
joint called Condente, and he is following your lead, which
makes you a mentor of his also and at I
guess that location he has created similar to your Plato Soldado,
which gives two dollars per plate to Camp Hope and
ends up being hundreds of thousands of dollars and it's
a lot, a lot of money every year just off
(25:43):
people ordering that dish, and he's doing a Bandera plate,
which very very similar. When people ask you're always talking
to another restaurant owner, and often it's someone I think
you're hoping to learn from. You were talking to me
about the the rich Carlton CEO or the four Seasons.
(26:07):
I can't remember but four seasons. And yet some of
the time it's a one, one shop small business owner
that's meeting with you. What do people ask you when
they meet you and they want to learn from you?
What kind of questions do you typically get?
Speaker 2 (26:24):
Well, I mean a lot of them want to know
if if their cost of goods are lining up with
the industry standards, and of course everyone's standards are going
to be different depending on their overhead. But I met
recently with a a It was a Puerto Rican Honduras
type restaurant up on the north west side of town.
The owners reached out to me via Instagram and and
(26:46):
wanted to set up a meeting, so we did at
my office, and they were just curious about a lot
of things. You know, they're not where they want to be.
Their cost of goods are way too high, their labor
is way too high, and their prices are just way
too low. So that's probably the reason. But I've had
several young entrepreneurs reach out to me. One of them
(27:07):
was on Vierto Martinez that owns Space City Video downtown Houston,
and his story is unique and it's a prime example
of what it takes to become successful. So this young man,
about thirty four years old, he bought a burger franchise.
It was an Israeli burger franchise called Im the Letter's
(27:27):
im Burger, and they started popping up all around the
United States. I think they had eight hundred franchises sold
or something. But he opens four months before COVID, So
he's basically dead in the water before he got started.
And so when final that he was able to open up,
of course, never did the sales he needed to do.
(27:48):
He ended up deciding to close the restaurant and was
basically handing the keys to the landlord and say, look,
I can't make it. But he had noticed that there
was this new trend of tacos going around called Biddi
of Tacos and it's basically, my kids are good. Okay,
(28:10):
well well yeah, so uh, you know, it's like a Cassidia,
but you know, you get some consumme to dip your
taco in. And he so he opened up this place
called Space City Video and it's a small restaurant in downtown,
but he, uh, he is doing incredible, incredible numbers, and
(28:31):
he's already looking for his second location in Parland. And
so we've been kind of Jonathan and I both have
kind of been guiding along to help him negotiate the
lease or look at the terms and uh and have
a plan going forward. But we love doing stuff like
that for people, and you know, and and never really
(28:51):
expecting anything back except maybe a free free taco or something,
but you know, and then I had another gentleman from
up in the king that owns local cantina and he
has a restaurant there on the lake and he is
doing it really, really well, and he reached out and
we've met several times. I've taken him to the Rockets
(29:13):
game now and and but I love surrounding myself with
young entrepreneurs because sometimes I wish I could go back
and start all over again, because it's been fun and
and it's it's it's even it's it's a lot more
fun in the early days because it's new. It's it's
like a child when you're you know, he's growing up.
(29:34):
Everything around them is new, and so in business, you
know that there's something really sweet about that, and I
miss that. So I guess that's one of the reasons
why I have an open line all the time to
entrepreneurs that want to get started and and help them
as much as I can.
Speaker 1 (29:52):
There's also something invigorating about the passion of a new own.
You know that I've known people that had a day job,
but they cooked on the weekend or at night, and
they were good at it, and they save up and
then they quit their job, which a man is such
a hard thing to do. You know, you've got to
(30:13):
steady income and they you know, they're people. What people
don't realize is when you show up first day to eat,
you don't realize that that was just a shell. You know,
they had to build all this stuff out and then
to make all those decisions. Now, finally we're ready, we're
opening up. You know how exciting. You've told the story
before on you know, opening the blinds on your first
(30:33):
day and waiting on the first car to come in
and you were going to serve them and you had
your kitchen guy in the back. There is something really cool.
You use the word sweet, which I think is is
is the right term. There's something cool like, uh, you
know when I talked to Crockett or Michael's friends and
I asked them, you know, what are you going to
do this summer and what are you studying and what
(30:55):
and just hearing there their kind of nervous but ambitious optimism.
It's it's invigorating. It's it's good for me, it's good
for the soul.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
It really is it really is.
Speaker 1 (31:10):
You were supposed to say more than it really is.
You're supposed to add something to that. That's that's how
the interview format works.
Speaker 2 (31:16):
Well, I'm practicing, so I love it. I love it.
Speaker 1 (31:22):
How do you decide where to put a new location?
Because and the reason I ask is, you've been very
successful at location selection. And it's not just a you know,
put your finger to the to the wind. There's a
text mex Joint on every corner already. There are competing concepts,
there's a lot of other restaurants, there are many choices.
(31:48):
Have you learned over the years kind of this is
what works for us.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
Well, Like I mentioned previously, freeway locations will always be
for us now. But as far as expanding the Gringos chain,
we we we have Houston pretty much covered. I mean
we could there are some spots we could probably put
other locations, but we're starting to venture outside the market.
(32:14):
We're going to be opening in Sybelo, Texas or right
outside of San Antonio shirts and then in Kyle, Texas
as well, both on nine thirty five, and then we're
looking at a couple other places, one outside of Austin,
but will always remain in the suburbs. That's kind of
our lane of.
Speaker 1 (32:33):
This and.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
Well, well for lots of reasons, but one is a
lot more families in in the suburbs. There's the real
estate is a lot less expensive in the suburbs. And
and mostly because it's an underserved market with the level
that we bring to the market to the marketplace. Because
(32:59):
I would much rather, you know, be a big fish
in a small pond than vice varsa.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
So uh wait right there, wait wait wait wait right there.
Russell Lebara, as our guest, will continue our conversation with
him coming up. H
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