November 28, 2025 • 33 mins
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
It's that time, time, time, time, luck and load. So
Michael Verie Show is on the air. You unlock this
door with the key of imagination. Beyond it is another dimension,
a dimension of sound.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Polly for a men.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
Like passengers sat saying that day for three Russell Lebara
is our guest. Uh. You know, it's funny how serendipity.
I suppose the line he was on gave out just
as I looked up and realized we're up against a break,
So it could not have worked out better. We've got
(00:52):
it back though. Russell Lebar is our guest, and we're
talking business secrets, the secrets of the secret sauce as
I like call it, of what makes your business run.
And Oracle, the fellow at Oracle who is behind NetSuite,
which is their AI machine learning package for business owners,
is a fan of the show and loves what we
do and wanted to sponsor when we have business interviews,
(01:15):
and we said absolutely. And you can get the Chief
Financial Officer the cfo's guide to AI and machine learning
at NetSuite dot com forward slash my last name netsweet
dot Comberry NetSuite dot com slash, Barry Russell. You talk
about Sybelo, Texas and opening a location in San Antone
(01:37):
and are outside of San Antone and that's not your core.
I mean, I can see the immediate challenge being most
people there don't know what Gringoes is. Yet You've got
such market equity in the greater Houston area and that's
a lot of capital to start in a location like that.
I know you're a guy that studies and learns and
(01:58):
asks a lot of questions. How do you ramp up
your name ID to get people in the door?
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Well, I believe for starters, our building will have a
lot of carbon pills, so we're going to deliver it
there for sure. And you know, we went to our
furthest location now is College Station only you could almost
say that's kind of Houston in a way because how
connected the two cities are. But College Station was our
(02:25):
number two volume store in twenty twenty four, and so
that tells us a couple of things that the brand
has definitely a market recognition already, and being that far
away from from the Houston market, but the suburbs again,
(02:46):
I think we can, we can, we can thrive there
and we'll know soon enough because we'll be opening in
civilo hopefully by the end of next year, in twenty
twenty six. And as a matter of fact, we had
a meeting today on the site, the site layout, and
it's gonna be a beautiful location and and our tombaw
opens up later this year. But you know, we we
(03:08):
have to test it at some point, you know, as
you well know Lupid Rtillas and Chewies and all these brands.
Text Max is just popular, and that's that's the good
thing about it. And we'll just you know, go in
and do what we do best and and focus there
and if we as long as we deliver where we're
supposed to do, we should do okay. And we're not
concerned about that. And we're all concerned about the stuff, okay, No,
(03:31):
just that we're just concerned about what we can what
We only focus on what we can control, and that's
the people in our seats, and that's it. We Every
guest is important, every every meal. That's our first core value.
Developing guest relationships one meal at that time, every single
meal we serve is important.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
Yeah, it's it's a tough business. I think people don't realize,
you know, you always say you're only as good as
the last meal you serve. It's funny how people there's
a there's a meme that goes around and I'll see
about once a year and it'll be this idea that
you can have ninety nine great meals at a locally
owned restaurant around the corner, and on the one hundredth
(04:08):
it's bad, and you go online and you criticize the place,
having never complimented them online, whereas you go to Walmart
and have a bad experience, or some national chain and
have a bad experience, and you don't think to complain.
And it was about supporting local businesses for this very reason.
In your business, that's the tough part is you've got
a lot of moving parts, You've got inventory that can spoil.
(04:31):
You know, it has to be delivered on time. You
know all these things, and it's easy to mess up.
It's easier to mess up than not. I have to
ask you, Russell, Lebara Gringoes, Textmax dot com. I have
to ask you. It feels like I moved to Houston
in nineteen eighty nine. So my first eighteen years in
Orange we only had two little Mexican joints, the Casola,
(04:53):
and then we had a local joint called Guadalajara, and
it wasn't anything fancy, but we loved it. It was good food.
It was a Mexican family that owned it. And I
moved to Houston, and I was shocked at how tex
mecs seemed to be everywhere, but it wasn't nearly as
prominent as it is now. It feels like, I mean,
it's the number one concept in America by far. Why
(05:14):
do you think textmes has exploded at least in the
greater Houston area over the last thirty years or has
it always been as big.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
It's always been big relative to the population. But I
will say that there's a lot of value in text
added value in tex mex When you sit down, you're
automatically delivered a basket of chips and salsa, which a
lot of restaurants, casual dining restaurants, burger joints, what have you,
(05:43):
you don't get that. In our case, we also provide
the green sauce and a free ice cream as you
leave the restaurant. So those are those just bring a
lot of value to the experience, and it's unlimited. I mean,
you know, a lot of restaurants like a Chili's. They
charge for this kind of stuff, and I think that's
one of the benefits of the restaurant Tex mex restaurant
(06:03):
industry as a whole. But you know, at the end
of the day, though, I mean, obviously you have to
pass on those calls through your pricing. But you know,
we we just know where we need to be on
our food costs. We know where our labor needs to be,
and we also know where our volume needs to be.
And if we can hit hit on all cylinders, then
we can make money. But again, our focus is the
(06:25):
individual experience. We don't we don't you know, put the
cart for the horse, because you know, you can go
souths real fast in this business.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
Yeah, And I think that's why so many fail. I
mean almost almost every restaurant does fail. And it's you know,
as a consumer. You know, I've spent a lot of
time studying restaurants by talking to people like you and
asking questions and going into your kitchen and comparing notes
and all this. And everybody, every consumer wants to be
(06:56):
a reviewer, so so they can be very critical of restaurants.
And that's fine. It holds you to a high standard
that makes you want to try harder and all that,
but the understanding of how hard it is to deliver.
I mean, if I cook a meal for the family,
I'm going to screw most everything up because when I
do do it, everyone's all excited until they eat, and
I mess something up every time, and it's frustrating. Imagine
trying to do that over and over and over again.
(07:19):
It's tough. So if you hadn't done hospitality, if you
had not done restaurants, what do you think you would
have done?
Speaker 2 (07:26):
Oh, without a doubt, I've been in cells of some sort.
If I believe in something, I can sell it. As
a matter of fact, when I was selling fre ol
Matador and I was calling on these restaurants, I had
one particular restaurant. I would visit him and he knew
our family was in the restaurant business. But he told
me that my face Russell would never buy from you.
That was a challenge to me. Seven months later he
was buying from me and we became friends. So sells.
(07:49):
I love sales, and I almost went into a priorate
opening Gringos because I was trying to find my place
in this world and it was actually going to be
selling a high production Corner to Tea Equipment, California. Yeah,
there was a really good company out the Launch Equipment Company.
And as a matter of fact, my brothers have a
full flower to Tea line from them that's probably over,
(08:13):
I don't know, one hundred and fifty feet long. It's
it's incredible to watch fully automated from the from the
dough to the package product. It's fun to one. Michael Berry.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
Russell is our guest. Ringo's, texmex Is his primary restaurant.
He also has Jimmy Changa's, and he has a lot more.
But we're talking business principles with him. Normally, when I
talk to Russell, it's about humanitarian things. It's about all
the good he does for Camp Hope, It's about all
the good he does for community, all the good he
does for his employees. Today we're talking business principles and
(08:53):
his life. And I love to do these interviews because
I find it interesting. I like to ask questions and
I think some of you do as well. You were
saying about importing avocados.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
Yeah, so the avocados Mexico. Avocados from Mexico used to
only be allowed in the US if you remove the seed,
and of course we all know what happens once you
cut into an avocado. Its shelf life is just all wars,
really and so and that was done because of the
(09:27):
California Avocado Commission. They were the mafia of of avocados
back in the day, and they controlled a lot of
what happened of the pricing of avocados. I mean, they
were expensive back then. They're expensive today, but not as
as expensive as they could be. But what it happened
was with NAFTA. When NAFTA passed and what was it,
(09:50):
ninety two ninety three, everything was allowed to be imported
exported between Mexico, Canada and the US. But there were
some except and one of them was avocados. And the
reason was, according to California or whoever was in charge
the Mexican alvocado had a weavil in it that would
(10:11):
contaminate the crop of the US, so you could only
ship them above the freeze line in the US. And
of course the major demand for avocados was in Texas
and Florida, and so they didn't allowed for a few
years only because the California Avocado Commission growers they wanted
to go into Mexico and start controlling the farms and uh,
(10:32):
and they did. They started buying up a lot of
these production facilities and packing facilities and and then once
they got control of Mexico's avocados, they said, hey, okay,
you can you can bring them in. We've resolved the
weevil issue. And they started importing them from Mexico. So, uh,
Mexico produces something like seven or eight times what the
(10:56):
US does and and and it's a it's actually a
great avocado because of the soil that the most of
the farms in mite cotton where they're at, where they're located.
But that's one of the reasons why also the cartel
got involved in avocados. They are now extorting money from
the farmers. They would get the records of how any
(11:16):
they don't call them acres but acres that they own,
and they would charge them attacks if you will, on
their land. And that's caused big problems as well. But
it's because they call it green gold. It's just it's
just there's a lot of money in avocados because they
were for one, you know, California doesn't have the same
(11:37):
amount of land that used to have to grow up avocados.
A lot of it has been given up to development.
Plus it's a water issue, believe it or not. It
takes eighteen gallons of water to produce one single avocado,
and obviously Mexico has it. In the US doesn't, California
doesn't have it. But I love avocados. It's my favorite fruit.
As a matter of fact, I do too. I love them.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
And you know, Eddie Martini is allergic them. Eddie Martini
is allergic avocados and bananas, two of my favorite things
in the world. Can you imagine living your life like that?
That's a y me god question exactly. So why do
avocados go bad shortly after you cut into them?
Speaker 2 (12:16):
That's a good question. I mean they just oxidized. I
guess I.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
Need you to note that answer by the next time
I talk to you, can you ask Stephen Gonzales it
Houston avocado because I bet he knows. I bet he
knows the actual reason.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
As a matter of fact, his boss, Mark used to
own an avocado farm in Mexico until the cartel took
it over and told him, hey, if you want to
come get it. They literally told him that, so now
you can have it. Wow.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
Wow, I mean you think about I mean, I wonder
what percentage of American consumption of avocados, which has to
be massive. I wonder what percentage is text Mex restaurants.
I bet it's a good, good percentage. I wonder if
it's over half, could be oh easily. When you walk
into a restaurant and you you are always going into
(13:04):
restaurants learning from them, mentoring them, and enjoying them, a
lot of people in your industry don't like they never
have anything nice to say about other restaurants, and that
creeps me out, Like why do you you have to
run everybody down to help yourself? But you never do that.
When you walk into a restaurant, what is something you
see that you say this place is going to succeed?
(13:26):
And what is something you see that you go, well,
they're going to need to fix this or they're not
going to make it great question?
Speaker 2 (13:34):
So yes, I love to go into restaurants and get
that first impression when you walk in, what do you see?
Because it's you know, in the restaurant industry, we deal
with all the senses, all of them, and I like
to look at just how the staff are interacting throughout
(13:54):
the restaurant. I like to see what the lighting looks like.
Lighting is so important. People don't realize how important lighting
is and how it can make or break and experience,
especially for women because they don't like a bright restaurant
for whatever reason. But anyway, how does the restaurant smell?
I mean, you know they're if you go into some
(14:15):
casinos now, they have their own dedicated scent being pumped
throughout the entire property because over time, uh, with mopping
and all the chemicals they use, uh, you know, with
mopping and cleaning, that's what the property starts to smell like.
And we've actually been talking with a company that provides
sense because we've talked about it. We're looking for a
(14:37):
spice scent of some sort to to uh, to send
our restaurants with. We're we're testing it, but you know
there's UH so we look at that noise levels. Noise
levels are also critical because you should be able to
have a conversation across the table without screaming. And I
don't know about you, My hearing is not the same.
So I meant restaurant noise levels.
Speaker 1 (14:59):
In lot of restaurants, I get the sense that they
have designed it to intentionally be loud, with harsh surfaces
that bounce sound. And I don't jat at all, and
especially I'm fifty four. But you see older people out
in public and that bothers them. You know, you can
see that. Huh huh, and it's not fun. Before my
(15:21):
dad got his hearing aids, he didn't he wouldn't go
He did not want to go out with us to
eat because he couldn't hear because the sound, the ambient sound,
was so distracting to him. And you know, younger people
don't understand that. I'll tell you. The other thing gets
on my nerves has nothing to do with you, is
well it kind of does. Menus Now, somehow they shrunk
(15:43):
the font they're using a font looks like about one
And as I've gotten older, I can't read that small.
And I don't know why they don't understand that older
people need a little more, a little need to be
able to see what's on the damn menu. Do you
find that?
Speaker 2 (16:00):
Uh? Yeah, I do. But I mean that's why I
carry readers with me wherever I go. I almost feel
like I'm disabled if I don't have a pair with me.
But one thing that has to go away. Is the
QR code for menus?
Speaker 1 (16:14):
Oh, Russell, that makes me crazy. I want to read
a menu holder men you feel him and you touch it,
you know, run it through my fingers. What kind of what?
What quality of paper was it printed on? And and
to I don't want to have to go to my
phone to read you. Oh, it drives me crazy. Russell
Lebar is our guest whole type. Don't you call me?
Speaker 2 (16:35):
Don't you call me a chicken?
Speaker 1 (16:37):
Michael May, we're talking to Russell Lebara, the founder and
CEO of Gringos textmax dot com. But he calls himself
the master Enchilada Roller because it doesn't like it doesn't
like overly fancy things. He'd rather be the everyman, just
(16:58):
like anyone in his company. And I like that. We
were talking about the QR codes before we went to
break the QR codes at restaurants where they don't want
to print the menu. They want you to go to
it on your phone.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
You know.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
I was at brass Free nineteen years ago before I
ever knew Charles Clark, and I went in and there
was or maybe I knew him by them, but they said,
would you like to see the wine list, and I
said I would, and they brought out an iPad and
I said, so I started litting. I said, do you
have a wine list printed out? He goes, sure, I'll
(17:32):
get that for you, and I said, here, take your
iPad back because I don't want to accidentally walk out
with it. So the next day, I'm talking about how
I don't like this trend of putting wines on an iPad,
and I was at a fancy restaurant and I didn't
say where it was. So a month or so later,
I'm talking to Charles Clark and he said, I'm going
to make sure we always have a printed out menu
(17:53):
for you, because I know you hate wine on the iPad.
And I said, how do you know that? He goes,
I listened to you every day and I said, yeah,
but I didn't say your name. I wouldn't have done that.
He goes, I was the first person in town to
do that. I know who it was. I know you
would have seen that at our place. And I said, wow,
that's that's really good. But that goes back way back.
That's that's been kind of one of my things. But
(18:14):
some people really seem to enjoy that because then you
get to see the label and the whole thing. So
I guess to each his own. So tell me three places.
Because you eat out more than anybody I know, and
you're always trying new restaurants. Tell me three new restaurants
you've been to in the last six months that you
really liked, and tell me one thing about each that
(18:35):
you really liked. Why you liked it.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
Well, let's see here. And there's been so many of them,
and I like them for different reasons, and they're not
for everyone. Because I look at them, I guess through
a different lens. For example, Toka Madera, a lot of
people like it, a lot of people don't. It's it's
kind of a nightclub atmosphere. It's very loud. But what
I like. What I like is that the effort they
(18:59):
put into the design, the interior design of that restaurant.
It's it's over the top, and I'm not saying I've
learned anything from it, but I just enjoy it. I
go to the one in Vegas quite often anytime i'm there.
But that one and then another restaurant that opened up recently,
a Mexican restaurant is Mexican Sugar out of Dallas. They
(19:20):
opened up on Dallas Street and they did a nice
job of creating a two story space, which I would
never recommend a restaurant open up a two story restaurant
because it's very difficult to manage. But they did a
great job of designing both levels and I think they're
going to do really well there. It's it's something unique,
and if they hurt anyone in the Inner Loop, it's
(19:41):
gonna be Tokomadera because it's kind of the same, kind
of the same model. But another restaurant that opened up
that I've enjoyed a lot is Balboa Stuff Club Philippi. Yes,
they did a really good job, but there's some former
execs of Hillstone or Houston's. Yeah, and they opened up
(20:03):
a location of Dallas. Plus they have an Italian restaurant
in same development called Il Bronco, and they're doing it
just a fantastic You've been is like it? Yes?
Speaker 1 (20:11):
Did you like?
Speaker 2 (20:12):
I've only been? I enjoyed it, but I haven't been back.
I've only been twice. By having been back, I've been
to Balbo more often.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
I was just talking to Eddie Martini about those two
restaurants and he was saying how much he likes those two.
He also eats out a lot, but he unlike you,
he eats out because he has a company credit card
and he can eat out at fancy restaurants, not because
he's checking them out. And who was the third one?
Who was the third restaurant? Or did you say it?
Speaker 2 (20:40):
Uh? Well, I know I already said, yeah, Balbo was
a third Mexican sugar in a toka. But there's just
there's just so many great restaurants. Houston has a revenue
restaurant opening every single week. It seems like a movie premiere.
And but the pie is not. I don't think the
pie is large enough to support all these restaurant especially
the overhead some of them have the rents that many
(21:03):
of them are paying, or you know, five six, seven
hundred thousand a year, if not more in some cases,
and and and I just don't know how they can
make the numbers work. But you know, there's always people
willing to put money into an invest money in a restaurant,
and a lot of these restaurant tours are able to
find them, so well, yeah, I.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
Think part of that is you've got to be inside
the loop to be written about by the by the
food critics. So that's where they all hang out, preferably Montrose,
and I think it's oversaturated Montrose and the heights I
think are oversaturated. And then you know folks like you
Open and Laporte and Katie, where none of the restaurant
(21:42):
you know, the fickle five hundred folks go and where
the restaurant tours that so desperately want to be written
about by the food critics. So you got all these
restaurants in this little pocket, and then you got very
little outside of that, mostly just chains. And I think
it just opens up an opportunity for folks like you
that say, well, we'll come in and serve great food
at a very good price and not be prissy, and
(22:04):
we won't be written about, but we'll still be here
twenty years from now hopefully.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
Yes, that's the way it's supposed to work.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
Remember when we talked about the interview formatt is, when
I say something, then you have to say something more
than a couple of words.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
Remember that party, But I want to say something worth saying.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
Oh, good, good point, yes, yes, okay.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
That you were going to ask me something about my book,
I was how did you know that because you mentioned
it earlier.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
Oh yes, I was so. Rush Limbaugh wrote two books.
And this is a guy who created content for three
hours a day for many many years and was the
best ever at it on the radio. He wrote two
books that were fabulously successful, financially, commercially, professionally, you name it.
And he said, I want A caller called up and said,
(22:50):
you know, you got to write another book. I've read
your books. I love your books. And he said, I
won't do it, And he said, it's not for me.
I don't have an iron butt, So I just don't have.
You know, when I get up out of the seat
from doing my show, I don't want to sit down
and write. It's harder than people realized. How was the
writing process for you compared to what you expected it
(23:11):
to be.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
Well, it was mostly the editing part that was the
most challenging, But the content. I'd actually been writing a
lot of it over the years, and I've already started
keeping I already have a list going of all these
different stories I want to put in my next one.
Should I write the next one? And because they're always
these stories are always popping up, I mean, they just
(23:32):
they just kind of create themselves through through conversations with
other people. A prime example this my nephew called me
a few days ago because he wanted to know if
I knew the owner of this particular restaurant. And the
reason he wanted to know was because he wanted to
take his wife there that night to celebrate her birthday,
(23:53):
and he wanted them to put on the marquee Happy
birthday so and so and so. And the reason was
because they had already they quoted him two hundred and
fifty dollars. Now, he had never been to this restaurant.
It's a very nice steakhouse and one I had never
heard of. But anyway, two hundred and fifty dollars just
(24:15):
seemed very very steep. But this restaurant missed an opportunity
to put the letters up let's say fifty dollars or
one hundred dollars or whatever, something more reasonable. But it's
like they said two hundred and fifty because we're doing
you a favor, and yet they missed the entire transaction
because they ended up going to another restaurant, and they
would have posted on social media and really probably helped
(24:37):
drive a few more tables there and maybe been a
regular guest. I don't know, But why do you make
those kinds? How can a restaurant tour make those kind
of mistakes? I don't understand it. In such a competitive environment,
I would have said, yes, sir, we'll put it up,
no problem, we'll do it for.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
Free hold right there. Rust of our is our guests
more than him. We'll fight hard for the the Michael
Arry Shoe direction. Russell Labarre is our guest and talking
to about secrets of success, how you accomplish your goals,
(25:16):
how you order your life, Lessons learned, failures learned from
and he's always embraced his failures with me. And that's
something I appreciate because when I talk to people, whether
on air or off, I will often ask, almost always
ask them, tell me a major failure in your life
(25:36):
and why that failure occurred. Because if we let's say
somebody opens a restaurant and they opened, they have five restaurants,
and they're about to open their sixth and they open
it and it fails, and I say, what did you
think was going to happen? That didn't happen because nobody
thinks they're going to open a failed restaurant. They thought
(25:59):
that the neighborhood would be more supportive, or they thought
that that street had more traffic, or whatever it is.
I think we learned a lot from that. But you've
also had a number of successes, Russell lebar. When you
look at your life and things that you have succeeded at,
where do you see your successes?
Speaker 2 (26:20):
Well, obviously it's been attracting the right people. I mean,
I know, I'll keep going back to that, but that's
that's again that that is what we are. We're a
collection of just people that share a common interest and
common goals. But you know, I most of our failures
(26:42):
happened during my twenties, and I call those are my
college years if you want to call them that. But
I learned a lot and I'm grateful that I did,
and I'm grateful that everything that happened happened. But you know,
going forward, you know, I don't want to have any
ferry that would destroy everything we've done. But you know,
we have to approach, you know, especially living in such
(27:07):
a litigious society, and we we we have a dispute
right now going on with a team member, an accident
that happened and you know, I've always been proud of
the fact that we've been involved in very few lawsuits
over the years, very very few. And sometimes you have
to see again, see the larger picture and not uh
(27:32):
say it's your way of the highway, and then and
then fight to the end and still end up paying
what you would have paid if you just settled way back.
And so I believe in, you know, locking locking hands
instead of locking horns. And we've been we've been very
successful at staying out of a lot of lawsuits for that,
and and I consider those for some people being failures,
even though they may have thought they won. And uh yeah,
(27:55):
I can share some weld stories with you about family
members soon as family members. I mean it's sometimes but
some people are determined to prove that they were right,
and they did, but it just cost them how many
hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
Yeah, you know. Percy Forman a very famous criminal defense
attorney in Houston many years ago. He was like the
Flee Bailey of his day, springing the O. J. Simpsons
of the era. And he had a client who everybody
knew was guilty, and he managed to get him off
and The story goes that a newspaper reporter said, mister,
(28:30):
mister Foreman, mister Foreman, don't you doesn't it bother you
that your client was guilty and you got him off
And he said no. He said, don't you think he
should have to pay? And he said, oh, he's going
to pay dearly. And the point was he got a
Rolls Royce out of the deal. And that's how the
guy was going to It was going to cost him
a lot of money, just maybe not maybe not going
(28:50):
to prison. You mentioned lawsuits, Russell Lebar and one of
the things when I talked to business owners is everybody
understands that that if you're in the wrong, there should
be a course, a recourse for a victim to make
that right. Nobody has a problem with that. It's the
frivolous stuff that gets you. You shared publicly a picture
(29:14):
of a woman who walked into one of your restaurants,
I don't know which location, and she looked around make
sure nobody could see her, and then she fell on
the ground and proceeded to do a snow angel and
told everybody that the floor was slick and she had
fallen and she wanted, you know, several hundred thousand dollars
or whatever. I don't know if you remember the details
(29:34):
of that case. How often does that happen?
Speaker 2 (29:39):
More often than you might think. But we just had
people just falling over. I mean for those who do
walking and fall over. You know, when I travel to
other countries and I look at their sidewalks, their roads
there everything, and I'm thinking, wow, I mean I went
(30:00):
to a restaurant the other day and in Colombia and
there were steps everywhere, and I'm thinking, in the US,
it just couldn't happen because people be tripping and falling everywhere. Yeah,
it's it's it's ridiculous. But you know, we have liability
insurance property liability insurance, and the problem with that, believe
it or not, is it takes us out of the
(30:21):
equation whenever there is a dispute or an alleged accident
of some sort, and the insurance companies they just settle. Unfortunately,
they just they don't fight these cases and and and
they'll settle. Fifty seventy five one hundred thousand. We had
a guest and then team member one time bump heads.
(30:41):
They each turned around at the same time and bumped heads.
Of course, our team members, fine, but this this guest
sued and was awarded one hundred thousand dollars. Well settled.
The insurance companies settled with them. So they said they
they just figured it's cheaper. They just figured it's schuper
to settle.
Speaker 1 (30:58):
Well that most people don't understand, and this is the
economics of it all, is that that hundred thousand dollars,
while the check was written by the business owner, the
person who's going to end up paying that is the customer.
So rolled into every ten dollars you spend at a restaurant,
(31:19):
is this many pennies or this many dollars for lawsuits,
and this many dollars for avocados, and this many dollars
for the rent, and this many dollars for the air conditioning,
and that's one of those things, and this many dollars
for theft, and so the rest of us pay for
that nonsense. So that's what makes it even worse. It's
people have this idea that there's the rich business owner,
(31:40):
and it's good he should have to give up some
of what he has. He's not going to pay for it.
It's going to be passed on to the customer.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
Well, if there's one bit of advice I could give
all business owners, actually is making sure that every employee
signed a binding arbitration agreement because it forces if there
is an incident, it does force their attorneys to have
to work for it rather than resolve it through an
insurance company.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
And a lot of lawyers just want to send a
demand letter and get forty percent of what you're willing
to settle for before you have to engage in an
outside firm. And that is the reality, Russell Lebara. I've
kept you longer than you agreed to stay, but you've
been very gracious with your time and very candid with
(32:30):
your answers, and I appreciate it, and I know our
listeners do as well. I appreciate all you do for
our veterans with PTSD at Camp Hope, all you do
for your employees, your customers, and our community, and I
value and appreciate your friendship.
Speaker 2 (32:47):
Thanks for being with my friendly Thank you, Michael. I
appreciate it for me.
Speaker 1 (32:55):
Thank you, and goodnight,
It's that time, time, time, time, luck and load. So
Michael Verie Show is on the air. You unlock this
door with the key of imagination. Beyond it is another dimension,
a dimension of sound.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Polly for a men.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
Like passengers sat saying that day for three Russell Lebara
is our guest. Uh. You know, it's funny how serendipity.
I suppose the line he was on gave out just
as I looked up and realized we're up against a break,
So it could not have worked out better. We've got
(00:52):
it back though. Russell Lebar is our guest, and we're
talking business secrets, the secrets of the secret sauce as
I like call it, of what makes your business run.
And Oracle, the fellow at Oracle who is behind NetSuite,
which is their AI machine learning package for business owners,
is a fan of the show and loves what we
do and wanted to sponsor when we have business interviews,
(01:15):
and we said absolutely. And you can get the Chief
Financial Officer the cfo's guide to AI and machine learning
at NetSuite dot com forward slash my last name netsweet
dot Comberry NetSuite dot com slash, Barry Russell. You talk
about Sybelo, Texas and opening a location in San Antone
(01:37):
and are outside of San Antone and that's not your core.
I mean, I can see the immediate challenge being most
people there don't know what Gringoes is. Yet You've got
such market equity in the greater Houston area and that's
a lot of capital to start in a location like that.
I know you're a guy that studies and learns and
(01:58):
asks a lot of questions. How do you ramp up
your name ID to get people in the door?
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Well, I believe for starters, our building will have a
lot of carbon pills, so we're going to deliver it
there for sure. And you know, we went to our
furthest location now is College Station only you could almost
say that's kind of Houston in a way because how
connected the two cities are. But College Station was our
(02:25):
number two volume store in twenty twenty four, and so
that tells us a couple of things that the brand
has definitely a market recognition already, and being that far
away from from the Houston market, but the suburbs again,
(02:46):
I think we can, we can, we can thrive there
and we'll know soon enough because we'll be opening in
civilo hopefully by the end of next year, in twenty
twenty six. And as a matter of fact, we had
a meeting today on the site, the site layout, and
it's gonna be a beautiful location and and our tombaw
opens up later this year. But you know, we we
(03:08):
have to test it at some point, you know, as
you well know Lupid Rtillas and Chewies and all these brands.
Text Max is just popular, and that's that's the good
thing about it. And we'll just you know, go in
and do what we do best and and focus there
and if we as long as we deliver where we're
supposed to do, we should do okay. And we're not
concerned about that. And we're all concerned about the stuff, okay, No,
(03:31):
just that we're just concerned about what we can what
We only focus on what we can control, and that's
the people in our seats, and that's it. We Every
guest is important, every every meal. That's our first core value.
Developing guest relationships one meal at that time, every single
meal we serve is important.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
Yeah, it's it's a tough business. I think people don't realize,
you know, you always say you're only as good as
the last meal you serve. It's funny how people there's
a there's a meme that goes around and I'll see
about once a year and it'll be this idea that
you can have ninety nine great meals at a locally
owned restaurant around the corner, and on the one hundredth
(04:08):
it's bad, and you go online and you criticize the place,
having never complimented them online, whereas you go to Walmart
and have a bad experience, or some national chain and
have a bad experience, and you don't think to complain.
And it was about supporting local businesses for this very reason.
In your business, that's the tough part is you've got
a lot of moving parts, You've got inventory that can spoil.
(04:31):
You know, it has to be delivered on time. You
know all these things, and it's easy to mess up.
It's easier to mess up than not. I have to
ask you, Russell, Lebara Gringoes, Textmax dot com. I have
to ask you. It feels like I moved to Houston
in nineteen eighty nine. So my first eighteen years in
Orange we only had two little Mexican joints, the Casola,
(04:53):
and then we had a local joint called Guadalajara, and
it wasn't anything fancy, but we loved it. It was good food.
It was a Mexican family that owned it. And I
moved to Houston, and I was shocked at how tex
mecs seemed to be everywhere, but it wasn't nearly as
prominent as it is now. It feels like, I mean,
it's the number one concept in America by far. Why
(05:14):
do you think textmes has exploded at least in the
greater Houston area over the last thirty years or has
it always been as big.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
It's always been big relative to the population. But I
will say that there's a lot of value in text
added value in tex mex When you sit down, you're
automatically delivered a basket of chips and salsa, which a
lot of restaurants, casual dining restaurants, burger joints, what have you,
(05:43):
you don't get that. In our case, we also provide
the green sauce and a free ice cream as you
leave the restaurant. So those are those just bring a
lot of value to the experience, and it's unlimited. I mean,
you know, a lot of restaurants like a Chili's. They
charge for this kind of stuff, and I think that's
one of the benefits of the restaurant Tex mex restaurant
(06:03):
industry as a whole. But you know, at the end
of the day, though, I mean, obviously you have to
pass on those calls through your pricing. But you know,
we we just know where we need to be on
our food costs. We know where our labor needs to be,
and we also know where our volume needs to be.
And if we can hit hit on all cylinders, then
we can make money. But again, our focus is the
(06:25):
individual experience. We don't we don't you know, put the
cart for the horse, because you know, you can go
souths real fast in this business.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
Yeah, And I think that's why so many fail. I
mean almost almost every restaurant does fail. And it's you know,
as a consumer. You know, I've spent a lot of
time studying restaurants by talking to people like you and
asking questions and going into your kitchen and comparing notes
and all this. And everybody, every consumer wants to be
(06:56):
a reviewer, so so they can be very critical of restaurants.
And that's fine. It holds you to a high standard
that makes you want to try harder and all that,
but the understanding of how hard it is to deliver.
I mean, if I cook a meal for the family,
I'm going to screw most everything up because when I
do do it, everyone's all excited until they eat, and
I mess something up every time, and it's frustrating. Imagine
trying to do that over and over and over again.
(07:19):
It's tough. So if you hadn't done hospitality, if you
had not done restaurants, what do you think you would
have done?
Speaker 2 (07:26):
Oh, without a doubt, I've been in cells of some sort.
If I believe in something, I can sell it. As
a matter of fact, when I was selling fre ol
Matador and I was calling on these restaurants, I had
one particular restaurant. I would visit him and he knew
our family was in the restaurant business. But he told
me that my face Russell would never buy from you.
That was a challenge to me. Seven months later he
was buying from me and we became friends. So sells.
(07:49):
I love sales, and I almost went into a priorate
opening Gringos because I was trying to find my place
in this world and it was actually going to be
selling a high production Corner to Tea Equipment, California. Yeah,
there was a really good company out the Launch Equipment Company.
And as a matter of fact, my brothers have a
full flower to Tea line from them that's probably over,
(08:13):
I don't know, one hundred and fifty feet long. It's
it's incredible to watch fully automated from the from the
dough to the package product. It's fun to one. Michael Berry.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
Russell is our guest. Ringo's, texmex Is his primary restaurant.
He also has Jimmy Changa's, and he has a lot more.
But we're talking business principles with him. Normally, when I
talk to Russell, it's about humanitarian things. It's about all
the good he does for Camp Hope, It's about all
the good he does for community, all the good he
does for his employees. Today we're talking business principles and
(08:53):
his life. And I love to do these interviews because
I find it interesting. I like to ask questions and
I think some of you do as well. You were
saying about importing avocados.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
Yeah, so the avocados Mexico. Avocados from Mexico used to
only be allowed in the US if you remove the seed,
and of course we all know what happens once you
cut into an avocado. Its shelf life is just all wars,
really and so and that was done because of the
(09:27):
California Avocado Commission. They were the mafia of of avocados
back in the day, and they controlled a lot of
what happened of the pricing of avocados. I mean, they
were expensive back then. They're expensive today, but not as
as expensive as they could be. But what it happened
was with NAFTA. When NAFTA passed and what was it,
(09:50):
ninety two ninety three, everything was allowed to be imported
exported between Mexico, Canada and the US. But there were
some except and one of them was avocados. And the
reason was, according to California or whoever was in charge
the Mexican alvocado had a weavil in it that would
(10:11):
contaminate the crop of the US, so you could only
ship them above the freeze line in the US. And
of course the major demand for avocados was in Texas
and Florida, and so they didn't allowed for a few
years only because the California Avocado Commission growers they wanted
to go into Mexico and start controlling the farms and uh,
(10:32):
and they did. They started buying up a lot of
these production facilities and packing facilities and and then once
they got control of Mexico's avocados, they said, hey, okay,
you can you can bring them in. We've resolved the
weevil issue. And they started importing them from Mexico. So, uh,
Mexico produces something like seven or eight times what the
(10:56):
US does and and and it's a it's actually a
great avocado because of the soil that the most of
the farms in mite cotton where they're at, where they're located.
But that's one of the reasons why also the cartel
got involved in avocados. They are now extorting money from
the farmers. They would get the records of how any
(11:16):
they don't call them acres but acres that they own,
and they would charge them attacks if you will, on
their land. And that's caused big problems as well. But
it's because they call it green gold. It's just it's
just there's a lot of money in avocados because they
were for one, you know, California doesn't have the same
(11:37):
amount of land that used to have to grow up avocados.
A lot of it has been given up to development.
Plus it's a water issue, believe it or not. It
takes eighteen gallons of water to produce one single avocado,
and obviously Mexico has it. In the US doesn't, California
doesn't have it. But I love avocados. It's my favorite fruit.
As a matter of fact, I do too. I love them.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
And you know, Eddie Martini is allergic them. Eddie Martini
is allergic avocados and bananas, two of my favorite things
in the world. Can you imagine living your life like that?
That's a y me god question exactly. So why do
avocados go bad shortly after you cut into them?
Speaker 2 (12:16):
That's a good question. I mean they just oxidized. I
guess I.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
Need you to note that answer by the next time
I talk to you, can you ask Stephen Gonzales it
Houston avocado because I bet he knows. I bet he
knows the actual reason.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
As a matter of fact, his boss, Mark used to
own an avocado farm in Mexico until the cartel took
it over and told him, hey, if you want to
come get it. They literally told him that, so now
you can have it. Wow.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
Wow, I mean you think about I mean, I wonder
what percentage of American consumption of avocados, which has to
be massive. I wonder what percentage is text Mex restaurants.
I bet it's a good, good percentage. I wonder if
it's over half, could be oh easily. When you walk
into a restaurant and you you are always going into
(13:04):
restaurants learning from them, mentoring them, and enjoying them, a
lot of people in your industry don't like they never
have anything nice to say about other restaurants, and that
creeps me out, Like why do you you have to
run everybody down to help yourself? But you never do that.
When you walk into a restaurant, what is something you
see that you say this place is going to succeed?
(13:26):
And what is something you see that you go, well,
they're going to need to fix this or they're not
going to make it great question?
Speaker 2 (13:34):
So yes, I love to go into restaurants and get
that first impression when you walk in, what do you see?
Because it's you know, in the restaurant industry, we deal
with all the senses, all of them, and I like
to look at just how the staff are interacting throughout
(13:54):
the restaurant. I like to see what the lighting looks like.
Lighting is so important. People don't realize how important lighting
is and how it can make or break and experience,
especially for women because they don't like a bright restaurant
for whatever reason. But anyway, how does the restaurant smell?
I mean, you know they're if you go into some
(14:15):
casinos now, they have their own dedicated scent being pumped
throughout the entire property because over time, uh, with mopping
and all the chemicals they use, uh, you know, with
mopping and cleaning, that's what the property starts to smell like.
And we've actually been talking with a company that provides
sense because we've talked about it. We're looking for a
(14:37):
spice scent of some sort to to uh, to send
our restaurants with. We're we're testing it, but you know
there's UH so we look at that noise levels. Noise
levels are also critical because you should be able to
have a conversation across the table without screaming. And I
don't know about you, My hearing is not the same.
So I meant restaurant noise levels.
Speaker 1 (14:59):
In lot of restaurants, I get the sense that they
have designed it to intentionally be loud, with harsh surfaces
that bounce sound. And I don't jat at all, and
especially I'm fifty four. But you see older people out
in public and that bothers them. You know, you can
see that. Huh huh, and it's not fun. Before my
(15:21):
dad got his hearing aids, he didn't he wouldn't go
He did not want to go out with us to
eat because he couldn't hear because the sound, the ambient sound,
was so distracting to him. And you know, younger people
don't understand that. I'll tell you. The other thing gets
on my nerves has nothing to do with you, is
well it kind of does. Menus Now, somehow they shrunk
(15:43):
the font they're using a font looks like about one
And as I've gotten older, I can't read that small.
And I don't know why they don't understand that older
people need a little more, a little need to be
able to see what's on the damn menu. Do you
find that?
Speaker 2 (16:00):
Uh? Yeah, I do. But I mean that's why I
carry readers with me wherever I go. I almost feel
like I'm disabled if I don't have a pair with me.
But one thing that has to go away. Is the
QR code for menus?
Speaker 1 (16:14):
Oh, Russell, that makes me crazy. I want to read
a menu holder men you feel him and you touch it,
you know, run it through my fingers. What kind of what?
What quality of paper was it printed on? And and
to I don't want to have to go to my
phone to read you. Oh, it drives me crazy. Russell
Lebar is our guest whole type. Don't you call me?
Speaker 2 (16:35):
Don't you call me a chicken?
Speaker 1 (16:37):
Michael May, we're talking to Russell Lebara, the founder and
CEO of Gringos textmax dot com. But he calls himself
the master Enchilada Roller because it doesn't like it doesn't
like overly fancy things. He'd rather be the everyman, just
(16:58):
like anyone in his company. And I like that. We
were talking about the QR codes before we went to
break the QR codes at restaurants where they don't want
to print the menu. They want you to go to
it on your phone.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
You know.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
I was at brass Free nineteen years ago before I
ever knew Charles Clark, and I went in and there
was or maybe I knew him by them, but they said,
would you like to see the wine list, and I
said I would, and they brought out an iPad and
I said, so I started litting. I said, do you
have a wine list printed out? He goes, sure, I'll
(17:32):
get that for you, and I said, here, take your
iPad back because I don't want to accidentally walk out
with it. So the next day, I'm talking about how
I don't like this trend of putting wines on an iPad,
and I was at a fancy restaurant and I didn't
say where it was. So a month or so later,
I'm talking to Charles Clark and he said, I'm going
to make sure we always have a printed out menu
(17:53):
for you, because I know you hate wine on the iPad.
And I said, how do you know that? He goes,
I listened to you every day and I said, yeah,
but I didn't say your name. I wouldn't have done that.
He goes, I was the first person in town to
do that. I know who it was. I know you
would have seen that at our place. And I said, wow,
that's that's really good. But that goes back way back.
That's that's been kind of one of my things. But
(18:14):
some people really seem to enjoy that because then you
get to see the label and the whole thing. So
I guess to each his own. So tell me three places.
Because you eat out more than anybody I know, and
you're always trying new restaurants. Tell me three new restaurants
you've been to in the last six months that you
really liked, and tell me one thing about each that
(18:35):
you really liked. Why you liked it.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
Well, let's see here. And there's been so many of them,
and I like them for different reasons, and they're not
for everyone. Because I look at them, I guess through
a different lens. For example, Toka Madera, a lot of
people like it, a lot of people don't. It's it's
kind of a nightclub atmosphere. It's very loud. But what
I like. What I like is that the effort they
(18:59):
put into the design, the interior design of that restaurant.
It's it's over the top, and I'm not saying I've
learned anything from it, but I just enjoy it. I
go to the one in Vegas quite often anytime i'm there.
But that one and then another restaurant that opened up recently,
a Mexican restaurant is Mexican Sugar out of Dallas. They
(19:20):
opened up on Dallas Street and they did a nice
job of creating a two story space, which I would
never recommend a restaurant open up a two story restaurant
because it's very difficult to manage. But they did a
great job of designing both levels and I think they're
going to do really well there. It's it's something unique,
and if they hurt anyone in the Inner Loop, it's
(19:41):
gonna be Tokomadera because it's kind of the same, kind
of the same model. But another restaurant that opened up
that I've enjoyed a lot is Balboa Stuff Club Philippi. Yes,
they did a really good job, but there's some former
execs of Hillstone or Houston's. Yeah, and they opened up
(20:03):
a location of Dallas. Plus they have an Italian restaurant
in same development called Il Bronco, and they're doing it
just a fantastic You've been is like it? Yes?
Speaker 1 (20:11):
Did you like?
Speaker 2 (20:12):
I've only been? I enjoyed it, but I haven't been back.
I've only been twice. By having been back, I've been
to Balbo more often.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
I was just talking to Eddie Martini about those two
restaurants and he was saying how much he likes those two.
He also eats out a lot, but he unlike you,
he eats out because he has a company credit card
and he can eat out at fancy restaurants, not because
he's checking them out. And who was the third one?
Who was the third restaurant? Or did you say it?
Speaker 2 (20:40):
Uh? Well, I know I already said, yeah, Balbo was
a third Mexican sugar in a toka. But there's just
there's just so many great restaurants. Houston has a revenue
restaurant opening every single week. It seems like a movie premiere.
And but the pie is not. I don't think the
pie is large enough to support all these restaurant especially
the overhead some of them have the rents that many
(21:03):
of them are paying, or you know, five six, seven
hundred thousand a year, if not more in some cases,
and and and I just don't know how they can
make the numbers work. But you know, there's always people
willing to put money into an invest money in a restaurant,
and a lot of these restaurant tours are able to
find them, so well, yeah, I.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
Think part of that is you've got to be inside
the loop to be written about by the by the
food critics. So that's where they all hang out, preferably Montrose,
and I think it's oversaturated Montrose and the heights I
think are oversaturated. And then you know folks like you
Open and Laporte and Katie, where none of the restaurant
(21:42):
you know, the fickle five hundred folks go and where
the restaurant tours that so desperately want to be written
about by the food critics. So you got all these
restaurants in this little pocket, and then you got very
little outside of that, mostly just chains. And I think
it just opens up an opportunity for folks like you
that say, well, we'll come in and serve great food
at a very good price and not be prissy, and
(22:04):
we won't be written about, but we'll still be here
twenty years from now hopefully.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
Yes, that's the way it's supposed to work.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
Remember when we talked about the interview formatt is, when
I say something, then you have to say something more
than a couple of words.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
Remember that party, But I want to say something worth saying.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
Oh, good, good point, yes, yes, okay.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
That you were going to ask me something about my book,
I was how did you know that because you mentioned
it earlier.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
Oh yes, I was so. Rush Limbaugh wrote two books.
And this is a guy who created content for three
hours a day for many many years and was the
best ever at it on the radio. He wrote two
books that were fabulously successful, financially, commercially, professionally, you name it.
And he said, I want A caller called up and said,
(22:50):
you know, you got to write another book. I've read
your books. I love your books. And he said, I
won't do it, And he said, it's not for me.
I don't have an iron butt, So I just don't have.
You know, when I get up out of the seat
from doing my show, I don't want to sit down
and write. It's harder than people realized. How was the
writing process for you compared to what you expected it
(23:11):
to be.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
Well, it was mostly the editing part that was the
most challenging, But the content. I'd actually been writing a
lot of it over the years, and I've already started
keeping I already have a list going of all these
different stories I want to put in my next one.
Should I write the next one? And because they're always
these stories are always popping up, I mean, they just
(23:32):
they just kind of create themselves through through conversations with
other people. A prime example this my nephew called me
a few days ago because he wanted to know if
I knew the owner of this particular restaurant. And the
reason he wanted to know was because he wanted to
take his wife there that night to celebrate her birthday,
(23:53):
and he wanted them to put on the marquee Happy
birthday so and so and so. And the reason was
because they had already they quoted him two hundred and
fifty dollars. Now, he had never been to this restaurant.
It's a very nice steakhouse and one I had never
heard of. But anyway, two hundred and fifty dollars just
(24:15):
seemed very very steep. But this restaurant missed an opportunity
to put the letters up let's say fifty dollars or
one hundred dollars or whatever, something more reasonable. But it's
like they said two hundred and fifty because we're doing
you a favor, and yet they missed the entire transaction
because they ended up going to another restaurant, and they
would have posted on social media and really probably helped
(24:37):
drive a few more tables there and maybe been a
regular guest. I don't know, But why do you make
those kinds? How can a restaurant tour make those kind
of mistakes? I don't understand it. In such a competitive environment,
I would have said, yes, sir, we'll put it up,
no problem, we'll do it for.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
Free hold right there. Rust of our is our guests
more than him. We'll fight hard for the the Michael
Arry Shoe direction. Russell Labarre is our guest and talking
to about secrets of success, how you accomplish your goals,
(25:16):
how you order your life, Lessons learned, failures learned from
and he's always embraced his failures with me. And that's
something I appreciate because when I talk to people, whether
on air or off, I will often ask, almost always
ask them, tell me a major failure in your life
(25:36):
and why that failure occurred. Because if we let's say
somebody opens a restaurant and they opened, they have five restaurants,
and they're about to open their sixth and they open
it and it fails, and I say, what did you
think was going to happen? That didn't happen because nobody
thinks they're going to open a failed restaurant. They thought
(25:59):
that the neighborhood would be more supportive, or they thought
that that street had more traffic, or whatever it is.
I think we learned a lot from that. But you've
also had a number of successes, Russell lebar. When you
look at your life and things that you have succeeded at,
where do you see your successes?
Speaker 2 (26:20):
Well, obviously it's been attracting the right people. I mean,
I know, I'll keep going back to that, but that's
that's again that that is what we are. We're a
collection of just people that share a common interest and
common goals. But you know, I most of our failures
(26:42):
happened during my twenties, and I call those are my
college years if you want to call them that. But
I learned a lot and I'm grateful that I did,
and I'm grateful that everything that happened happened. But you know,
going forward, you know, I don't want to have any
ferry that would destroy everything we've done. But you know,
we have to approach, you know, especially living in such
(27:07):
a litigious society, and we we we have a dispute
right now going on with a team member, an accident
that happened and you know, I've always been proud of
the fact that we've been involved in very few lawsuits
over the years, very very few. And sometimes you have
to see again, see the larger picture and not uh
(27:32):
say it's your way of the highway, and then and
then fight to the end and still end up paying
what you would have paid if you just settled way back.
And so I believe in, you know, locking locking hands
instead of locking horns. And we've been we've been very
successful at staying out of a lot of lawsuits for that,
and and I consider those for some people being failures,
even though they may have thought they won. And uh yeah,
(27:55):
I can share some weld stories with you about family
members soon as family members. I mean it's sometimes but
some people are determined to prove that they were right,
and they did, but it just cost them how many
hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
Yeah, you know. Percy Forman a very famous criminal defense
attorney in Houston many years ago. He was like the
Flee Bailey of his day, springing the O. J. Simpsons
of the era. And he had a client who everybody
knew was guilty, and he managed to get him off
and The story goes that a newspaper reporter said, mister,
(28:30):
mister Foreman, mister Foreman, don't you doesn't it bother you
that your client was guilty and you got him off
And he said no. He said, don't you think he
should have to pay? And he said, oh, he's going
to pay dearly. And the point was he got a
Rolls Royce out of the deal. And that's how the
guy was going to It was going to cost him
a lot of money, just maybe not maybe not going
(28:50):
to prison. You mentioned lawsuits, Russell Lebar and one of
the things when I talked to business owners is everybody
understands that that if you're in the wrong, there should
be a course, a recourse for a victim to make
that right. Nobody has a problem with that. It's the
frivolous stuff that gets you. You shared publicly a picture
(29:14):
of a woman who walked into one of your restaurants,
I don't know which location, and she looked around make
sure nobody could see her, and then she fell on
the ground and proceeded to do a snow angel and
told everybody that the floor was slick and she had
fallen and she wanted, you know, several hundred thousand dollars
or whatever. I don't know if you remember the details
(29:34):
of that case. How often does that happen?
Speaker 2 (29:39):
More often than you might think. But we just had
people just falling over. I mean for those who do
walking and fall over. You know, when I travel to
other countries and I look at their sidewalks, their roads
there everything, and I'm thinking, wow, I mean I went
(30:00):
to a restaurant the other day and in Colombia and
there were steps everywhere, and I'm thinking, in the US,
it just couldn't happen because people be tripping and falling everywhere. Yeah,
it's it's it's ridiculous. But you know, we have liability
insurance property liability insurance, and the problem with that, believe
it or not, is it takes us out of the
(30:21):
equation whenever there is a dispute or an alleged accident
of some sort, and the insurance companies they just settle. Unfortunately,
they just they don't fight these cases and and and
they'll settle. Fifty seventy five one hundred thousand. We had
a guest and then team member one time bump heads.
(30:41):
They each turned around at the same time and bumped heads.
Of course, our team members, fine, but this this guest
sued and was awarded one hundred thousand dollars. Well settled.
The insurance companies settled with them. So they said they
they just figured it's cheaper. They just figured it's schuper
to settle.
Speaker 1 (30:58):
Well that most people don't understand, and this is the
economics of it all, is that that hundred thousand dollars,
while the check was written by the business owner, the
person who's going to end up paying that is the customer.
So rolled into every ten dollars you spend at a restaurant,
(31:19):
is this many pennies or this many dollars for lawsuits,
and this many dollars for avocados, and this many dollars
for the rent, and this many dollars for the air conditioning,
and that's one of those things, and this many dollars
for theft, and so the rest of us pay for
that nonsense. So that's what makes it even worse. It's
people have this idea that there's the rich business owner,
(31:40):
and it's good he should have to give up some
of what he has. He's not going to pay for it.
It's going to be passed on to the customer.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
Well, if there's one bit of advice I could give
all business owners, actually is making sure that every employee
signed a binding arbitration agreement because it forces if there
is an incident, it does force their attorneys to have
to work for it rather than resolve it through an
insurance company.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
And a lot of lawyers just want to send a
demand letter and get forty percent of what you're willing
to settle for before you have to engage in an
outside firm. And that is the reality, Russell Lebara. I've
kept you longer than you agreed to stay, but you've
been very gracious with your time and very candid with
(32:30):
your answers, and I appreciate it, and I know our
listeners do as well. I appreciate all you do for
our veterans with PTSD at Camp Hope, all you do
for your employees, your customers, and our community, and I
value and appreciate your friendship.
Speaker 2 (32:47):
Thanks for being with my friendly Thank you, Michael. I
appreciate it for me.
Speaker 1 (32:55):
Thank you, and goodnight,
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Male Room with Dr. Jesse Mills
As Director of The Men’s Clinic at UCLA, Dr. Jesse Mills has spent his career helping men understand their bodies, their hormones, and their health. Now he’s bringing that expertise to The Male Room — a podcast where data-driven medicine meets common sense. Each episode separates fact from hype, science from snake oil, and gives men the tools to live longer, stronger, and happier lives. With candor, humor, and real-world experience from the exam room and the operating room, Dr. Mills breaks down the latest health headlines, dissects trends, and explains what actually works — and what doesn’t. Smart, straightforward, and entertaining, The Male Room is the show that helps men take charge of their health without the jargon.