February 10, 2025 • 23 mins
Discover how restaurant operator Nick Panos transformed his family's pizza business into a thriving catering operation through innovative technology and operational excellence. Learn his proven strategies for maximizing profit margins, building effective teams, and leveraging unused capacity to scale your catering business. From custom tech solutions to timely delivery systems, Panos shares practical insights on how restaurants can build sustainable catering revenue streams while maintaining quality and customer satisfaction.
RestaurantCatering #FoodServiceTech #RestaurantBusiness
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RestaurantCatering #FoodServiceTech #RestaurantBusiness
Are you a hospitality or restaurant industry leader looking to amplify your voice and establish yourself as a thought leader? Look no further than SavorFM, the premier podcast platform designed exclusively for hospitality visionaries like you. ➡ Visit www.savor.fm
Follow on X: Savor_fm
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Good morning, everybody. Welcome to another episode of The Catering Cage,
where we're dedicated to building community and excellence and catering
all things catering, restaurants, commissaries. We're thinking about convenience stores,
grocery all the time. Today, I'm thrilled to introduce you
to a young man I met recently, and his whole
thing is really about how to drive more catering sales.
(00:36):
He's all things kay. He understands catering technology, he's involved
in catering operations, catering sales. He's all about eliminating third
party commissions and really creating a first party channel. I
want to introduce you to a gentleman who oversees portfolio
focused on turning catering to high margin revenue streams. His
name is Nick Panos. Nick, welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Thank you, guys, thank you for those kind words. I'm
thrilled to be here and be able to talk all
things catering with you. It's one of my biggest passions
in life, being able to talk this.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
Yeah, I know, I think you know. Nick. I see
you all over Lincoln, I see you doing your thing.
You're clearly a leader in our space and I'm really
excited to dive in. But before we do it, just
a couple of questions just to get us going here.
So here's a question off topic, not catering, but you
know you're throwing a dinner party last minutes. Yeah, you
got to impress your crew that's coming. So what are
you gonna make?
Speaker 3 (01:28):
Oh? What I'm gonna make? I'm a huge Rabbi fan.
I love cookie Rabbi. That's one of my passionate projects.
I have a green Egg at home, one of the
things that whenever I don't eat pizzas, that's my main
bread and butter.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
I love grilling, seak, nice and green Egg. You know
some of my friend Dan Gertzikov, he's the president over there.
Do you know Dan?
Speaker 2 (01:45):
No kidding believer?
Speaker 1 (01:48):
Dan was with Focused Briands. Hey, we should get him
on the podcast one day. Actually, the green Egg, that's
something it really is. So you know, let's let's dive
a little further list like, so, what what sparked your
interest in catering, specifically at a restaurants? Like how did
it happen?
Speaker 2 (02:03):
For sure? Sure, so I'm basically born into the industry.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
My parents opened up our first Metal Mushroom, which is
a pizza chain, back in ninety six, and I've grown
up in the family business. A little bit after I
graduated college, I went up to spend some time in
New York on Wall Street in restaurant merchers and acquisitions
and really understood at the highest level what restaurants were
and how to optimize them, and took all that knowledge
(02:29):
brought it back into the family business, right So, but
bringing it all back, I kind of realized it's a
lot easier to sell one person my one hundred dollars
worth of food than to sell two hundred people slices
at two dollars and fifty cents. So I had this
moment of lucidity with the catering director of Melal Mushroom
at the time, and my eyes were opened to the
idea of corporate catering. And prior to that, I was
(02:52):
in restaurants fighting for every dollar, and the idea of
catering to me was people doing fine dining, people walking
around with aprons. You know, that's to me what I
thought what catering was. But we've kind of established a
little niche within a niche within a niche, which is
restaurant B to B catering drop off, so we don't
do any type of events where we serve them. Our
(03:13):
primary bread and butter becomes the drop off side of it.
So it kind of really it took it from the
very beginning and to get the highest margin items for us,
we learned was catering, and we were really twenty eighteen
is when we started, and then twenty nineteen, you know,
we were humming, and then of course twenty twenty came
and everything wiped out, which for us at the time
(03:35):
was actually a blessing in disguise because we grew at
such a rapid clip that I had no idea put
what I was doing. I also trying to keep up
with it all. So being able to level set in
a forced way and then rebuild from there, I think
it has been the secret to our ability to operationalize
everything so heavily.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
Very cool. Well, you know, I experienced a downturn and
catering way back in two thousand and one, Nick, so
I had maybe I don't maybe you weren't even born yet,
I don't know, you know, No, yeah, I.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
Have a young face.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
But nineteen ninety six Tony's Deli DELI was humming. I
got this DELI started doing catering. Catering was cranking U
you know, we built the software. I mean, you know,
similar to your story, right, You've been doing the same
kind of thing. Yeah, and uh and then nine to
eleven happened, and then the tech sector blew up, the
world changed, Catering dropped off a cliff. That was my experience,
(04:28):
and that was that forced me to pivot and I
ended up in the tech software business. That's how that happened. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
yeah yeah. I was in a full steam ahead and
that's how it happened.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
I started showing people the software we had created for
our catering business, and I ended up in the commissary
bakery space ERP. It's a long story. You know, I've
told you so many times. This podcast is about you,
my friend. This is about you. You know, history repeat yourself.
So you know, it's amazing. You know, I meet so
many operators, and today I see more and more, you know,
(05:02):
entrepreneurial operators who are venturing into their own tech companies,
which is interesting and I want to hear a little
bit about that from you. So, you know, moving into technology,
I mean, essentially, I would like to deep dive with
you a little bit into like what are the common
challenges that you're seeing out there that restaurant's face when
they're adopting new catering technology, Like what you know your
your friends authors? Yeah, like what's happening all right?
Speaker 2 (05:25):
Where do I start? So very high level.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
When I was looking at building our catering business, I
was very I'm very obsessed with the small detail. It's
become a big believer if you get those small things right,
the big things that care themselves. So one of the
biggest pieces that I was looking to solve, and I
couldn't quite find a solution in the marketplace, was the
ability to have our we use a lot of internal drivers,
we don't really rely on three party drivers, so the
(05:49):
ability to have our drivers take photo evidence, but not
in such a way where it's a text message with
the photo, but it's it's fed into a CRM, which
was we built in house. So I have extracted from
there the metadata of when the photo was taken, proof
that it was taken, and if there ever is a discrepancy,
(06:09):
it no longer becomes the he said, she said, it's
I know based on our technology that when this photo
was taken, it's unalterable. They can't change that timestamp. So
that gave me a lot more comfortability dealing with the
likes of easy cater or clients when they're saying we're late.
I have my own internal checks, so that kind of
the centerpiece I wanted to build around my business because
(06:31):
in the catering business, once you're doing more than one
or two orders a day, you no longer in the
food business. You're really in the time management, logistics and
really debent experience business. So you your ships comes from
is this food on time? To it needs to be
on time or else we've lost my clients in catering,
I'm sure as you'd experienced, everyone always says everything is great,
(06:53):
never anything is bad, but they'll never worry from you
again if you're lates. So we've taken that to hearts
and really that into our drivers where that is kind
of our writing model, where they come in they learned
they train. Number one thing is timliness. I was interviewing
a lady last week for catering role for us, and
she came ten minutes late to the interview and couldn't
even bother telling me she was late, let alone arrive
(07:16):
on time. So the interview was all of thirty seconds
me telling her okay.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
Okay, cool, well here you go.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
I mean, we're in the business of being on time
and if not heavily communication right where let me know,
but neither of those I can't have a few representing
my product out.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
There, no, one hundred percent. I couldn't agree more. And
you look like time and it says everything. I mean,
you've got a room, you know, a group of people waiting.
It's a high stress environment for somebody whoever placed that
order is stressed.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
Right, you know, so we money is the least of
their worry.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
Yeah, And I like your comment you said, Look, we're
no longer just a restaurant. We're actually in the logistics business.
I want to go a little deeper there because it's
more than just logistics. You're actually into food manufacturing. And
let me tell you a little bit about that. My
perspective on that is that, you know, catering is a
in the B two B channel is is you know,
for the most part, is a relationship based business. Right,
(08:06):
So you're dealing with corporations, you're doing people who live
in this corporate who work in this corporations and this
is yes, sary and they live there something. And the
beautiful thing about it, you know, this is the whole
thing is that you know, when you take you know,
you take metal Mushroom as an example, and you're in
your community. Uh, you've got a relationship of course with
a retail customer as well. But those people work with organizations.
(08:27):
So when you create a service solution for them at
their workplace, okay, uh, and they're already a fan of
the brand, you're actually creating an alternative service.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
Right.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
It's not like you're saying, come to my restaurants. You're
actually saying, use my catering. You already come to my restaurant,
which is great. Hey have you tried my catering, And
then if you come to my catering, hey, by the way,
you come to my restaurant. Right, there's that exactly. There's
a lot of cross Yeah. The cross pollination is is
a is a huge opportunity that you know, for the
most part, I don't see a lot of people doing
that super super well, that's a whole different podcast we
(09:01):
could do on that, but essentially, you know, but diving
deep into the planning process, right, Like a lot of
something orders are for next week, next month. Sometimes I
want to place ten orders at one time. There's all
of these dynamics that live within the context of the
transaction itself, which really are are consistent with what is
(09:23):
food manufacturing. So if I have a bakery and I'm
selling to restaurants or I'm selling to hotels, Okay, I'm
selling my bread, my muffins, you know, whatever I'm making,
that transaction is a B to B transaction and it
has the same order dynamics as a catom in transaction.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
One hundred percent, you're the longer B to.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
Say yeah, right, And so in there lives deeply within
the context of order management, right, accounting and billing, right production,
which is the order fulfillment right, and then of course distribution,
which is what you're talking about the logistics side. And
then there's also the selling side, which is the lead
(10:03):
lead tracking CRM, you know all that kind of stuff.
And you've got to be able to take orders, you know,
through the web. You've got to be able to have
third party partners injecting those orders into your systems. You've
got to be able to answer your telephones and take orders.
You've got to be able to track, you know, the
journeys all the way through. But it's it's and this
(10:23):
is where people don't really understand nick very well. And
maybe you could talk a little bit about this in
your operation. But within the context of catering out of
a multiinit restaurant environment, Okay, the catering team is often
you know, is not just a different team, but sometimes
it's the same people that are working both channels, right
(10:45):
and so the right. So the beautiful thing about it
is that because the timing of catering is different than
it is in your in store, right, that's where the center,
that's the synergy. Right, that's where the real synergistic opportunity is.
Because you're learning more volume on top of existing operations.
It's making your labor more efficient. You know, you're realizing
(11:05):
your assets. But the challenge is for the most part,
and this is where I want to ask you what
I see anyways, is that many, if not most operators
are trying to drive their catering transactions through their point
of sale systems. Yeah, what do you see there? Like,
what do you think about that? Because it's it's hardb it's.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
It's it's very tough. So the idea and it's the concept.
I become really enamored with the idea of unused capacity.
To your points early in the morning for us, where lunch,
we're at dinner, we have so much unused time, unused space,
unused people, and that's where the catering piece comes in.
But to your point, how do you separate those? There
are two different avenues, right, and what we're what we
(11:46):
were finding was we have a single pos so we
almost single but our port of sales system is Aloha
and for many years it was very difficult. How do
you separate catering from in house? It becomes it becomes
a nightmare. So the work around that we used is
there is basically a way to tag orders as catering
and they have different PLU numbers so you can price
(12:07):
it differently, which is very beneficial for many reasons. But
what we do is, I think alluded to earlier, our
software called Caterized, we use all We basically use that
as our data aggregation where we can now track orders
in so you get orders from easy catered, you get
orders calling in, you get orders placed online. If you
have no place to store it all with all that data,
(12:28):
when they ordered, how often they ordered, what's their frequency?
Are they ordering frequently but tiny? Are they're ordering very
infrequently but large? What type of player? You know?
Speaker 2 (12:37):
All that data If.
Speaker 3 (12:38):
You don't record it anywhere, it's lost, and that data
is so invaluable for many reasons. So for for us,
what we do is we take all of our data
into catorizes, right, so we have a point where we
have a storefront where clients can like if you have
Nix catering, you have abundance as order catering.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
We're the storefronts.
Speaker 3 (12:57):
We're also the order management piece where on the back
end we now can choose which drivers get which We're
able to see all that data live and that becomes
your single point of truth. You then process it through
the POS based on your franchise agreements. Most franchisors force
everyone to go through the POS for loyalty purposes, which
is totally fine, but you still need that piece that
allows you to see the data, which is in our
(13:19):
day and age, that's where the goal is. If you
don't have a data collection to see how they came
in and what they ordered, you're leaving so much insights
out and ultimately so much money on the table for
knocking any of that.
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Speaker 1 (14:02):
You know, I love your passion and I love the
way you've You know, you put together your own tech
solution around your operation, which is cool. Have you taken
that tech out to market and other people using it too?
Or is it yees?
Speaker 3 (14:17):
So for the longest time it was our own internal project.
We couldn't find a solution out there, so we created internally.
And we actually are approached by one of our business
coaches talking about other franchisees within the Nolish community looking
at buildingner catering and asked what do we do differently.
So that's kind of where we start the idea of well,
if we're running into this problem. Chances are some other
(14:38):
people running into that problem. So actually January twenty twenty
five was when we officially launched publicly. Actually it was
literally last month was when we officially launched publicly. But
we're doing a very slow, grassroot approach where the goal
is showing people I'm an operator in the space and
this is how I do it. It's not all flashy,
look at me. It's just this is just how I
(14:58):
do it. If you want to learn how to do it, great,
If not, you know, michaels to help other people make
more money catering because, as you know, in restaurants, increasing
your catering isn't like increasing your profit ten percent. You're
doubling or tripling your bottom line by increasing the catering sales.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
Yeah, totally, and once you see.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
It, you can't unsee it. You know, it's one of
those beautiful things. And then you layer in automation. I'm
a big, big proponent of automation AI and the ability
to either keep your product at the same price but
you lower cost through automation, or you increase your automation
and you're able to give a customer a better experience,
all without passing along that cost to the customer, so
(15:36):
you become the choice provider at a reasonable price while
you're making more money if you know, to integrate automation
and many of the other technology solutions we have available.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
Yeah, amazing. I think you have a great story brewing it.
It sounds really interesting, Nick. So you know, I won't
tell you about all the trap doors that are opening
for you as a techno. Let's see and then let's
you experience it. I was an operator, I pivoted into
tech and that was my journey. You know, twenty eight
years later, I had an exit. I had an exit
(16:05):
twenty three years later. You know, easy care A bought
my company. But primarily, you know what did they buy.
They bought, you know what was an order management solution
for first party catering transactions within the context of the
restaurant space. That's what they have. And there's a genre
of solutions that are doing that. And then uh, and
then there's a ton of innovation, like what you're doing,
there's a there's a whole bunch of people out there
(16:26):
that are doing all different things. You know, the online
ordering companies are running at catering the point of sale companies,
there's the ERP. So you know, for me, you know,
I'm a catering guy. I've been doing this for a
long time. I've been watching this industry grow, and to me,
there's nothing more exciting than watching a young entrepreneur like
you try and figure it out. Uh, you know, bring
your energy forward, you know, all of that kind of stuff. So,
(16:49):
you know, so let me ask you a question.
Speaker 3 (16:50):
Nick.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
You've joined you joined the community cater Link. We created
the community to be able to bring together like minded
individuals who were thinking about catering, you know, primarily at
of restaurants, but it's it's expanding now, you know, more
into you know, also into commissary and the idea is
to bring operators together and to create peer groups. Okay,
so this was This is one of the things that
(17:11):
I feel is a major h demand out there. As
you said earlier in the podcast, you know a lot
of people working out of their homes, feeling isolated, not
always practical to travel in person to go to a workshop.
I did a workshop in Denver in October. It was
a great experience, but you know, it's expensive and people
(17:31):
don't want to fly and they don't want to do
the hotel and all that, and so you know what
came back out of that experience was that people want
to roll up your sleeves and dig in deeper. So
you've joined, you've joined cater linked and you've spent some
time there a little bit. Yes, you'll lead a peer
group for us? Will you do that?
Speaker 2 (17:48):
Absolutely kidding me. I'd love to.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
Yeah, yeah, I'll be the pleasure. I think that'll be amazing.
You know, the idea this is all about people development.
It's all about you know, increasing the awareness that it's
all about transferring the collective I P. You know, like
the thinking is collectively evolving, which is I think just
just amazing. You know, so.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
And it there are so.
Speaker 3 (18:12):
Many people who are one or two sets behind us
now banking them forward and then just catering as an
ADVID and to help them.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
Yeah, it's all about education and training. And you know
LinkedIn is a tool which is okay, but you know
there's a lot of selling happening on there. It's hard
for people to get deep. You know, we created this
to go deeper. It's a place for operators to you know,
have have an open, honest conversation and not be you know,
hopefully bombarded by supply chain partners who are trying to
sell their stuff all the time, which is important. We're
(18:39):
you know, we are going to we are going to create,
you know, a tech pavilion. We're going to create a
supply chain pavilion. Yeah. Yeah, we're going to do some things.
But but but separate from that is is you know,
creating a safe space for operators. You know, to have
to have a conversation. So so like what you know,
if you had to give one piece of a neck
(19:01):
to operators looking to take their catering experience and their
business at the next level, Like, what would it be?
Whatoul what would you tell them?
Speaker 3 (19:11):
When you start, you need to make sure you're able
to fulfill. So begin thinking how am I going to
create a team? Don't think it's just me the operator
putting food on my back and walking around delivering the food.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
It's how do you build yourself out of that?
Speaker 3 (19:22):
Because everyone loves the idea of getting more sales, getting
more sales, getting more sales. But if you're getting sales
and you're not keeping them as customers, what's the whole
point you paid to get the customer through either time
through relationship, bility or through money. And if you can't
fulfill and they just go somewhere else, you've lost sales.
And if you're constantly trying to chase new sales and
not keeping any, you're right on this treadmill that they
will never saw. The biggest advice I can give is
(19:44):
get your foundation solid, because once that foundation is solid,
you can then turn it up the volume and really
poor gas on the.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
And do some pretty crazy stuff.
Speaker 3 (19:53):
Go until you get that foundation salt, whether that's their people, teams, technology,
wherever it is that don't don't over look the boring
self like people always overlook the boring stuff, but it works.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
Right, So just to become tactical, like what you're talking
about essentially is to step back and really put together
a plan, right, that's.
Speaker 3 (20:11):
Where you're one hundred percent a plan and a team,
and a team could be you and one person.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
Yep, for sure. And so so I think where it
begins as it begins with leadership. You need a leader.
You need someone who's going to drive the catering business forward.
Speaker 3 (20:26):
And more than a leader, you need someone who's a
visionary to see what can this become? Not oh, we
have an order tomorrow, let me take it. It's how
can we become a powerhouse in catering and have that
energy transform from you or your leader into your team.
So our structures, I'm the carry director. I have catering
managers at each store. I then have drivers underneath each
(20:47):
of them. But it all sorts with me. If I
don't bring the energy in the morning, the enthusiasm, the
bishop of how to glow, They're a feed off of me,
and if I don't have it, they're not going to
go do themselves. So the goal is as the operator,
as the leader of the group, you have have this
insatiable desire to grow and become.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
The best in that business. And it's contagious. Everyone needs
off of it.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
Yeah yeah, So what kind of things do you do?
NIX like every day? Do you just like you send emails,
you do phone calls, you you have a stand up
what do you do?
Speaker 3 (21:12):
What do you do?
Speaker 1 (21:13):
How do you get them?
Speaker 2 (21:13):
So I'm a very hands on operator.
Speaker 3 (21:17):
I'm in our stores all the time, and sometimes my
team's telling me I'm in the stores too much because
I just want to be able to run their business.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
But a lot of.
Speaker 3 (21:26):
The little pods we have are based on location, So
each location has a manager, a care manager, and I'll
interact with them directly. It's then their job to figure
out how do we find more drivers to hire into
that to take the orders. They do all the organization,
but basically anything that is the hard stuff I handle
for them. Whether then it's angry customers get you know,
all the stuff that isn't necessarily their job finding more sales.
(21:50):
You know, all of that stuff I can do because
I've been doing this. Their job is to execute what's
been given to them and then let me handle finding
the leads figuring out like a big one is local
SEO Catering don't have any presents locally, so I'm running
my own experiment for the past six months. How do
I build a local SEO presence? How do I take
this and drive more business via the web when people
(22:10):
typing keywords? How can I become competitive? All that type
of strategizing may go nowhere, it may go somewhere. I
don't rely on my catering team to do that. They
need to execute you orders coming in, so those say
coming back.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
I have parts of my team. Their only job is
follow up via text.
Speaker 1 (22:27):
Well Nick before I let you go. It's been a
pleasure getting to know you, and congratulations and all your success.
Where can people find you if they have questions or
they want to reach you.
Speaker 3 (22:36):
You can buy me on LinkedIn. You can find me
my handles Nicholas Panos on Twitter. Nick Panos underscore just that,
and honestly, if you're on cater link to just come
by me.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
I'd be happy to talk to anyone.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
Awesome, that's great. There you have it, folks, you've heard
from feet on the Street. This is Nick Panos coming
to Live from South Africa. He's visiting over there, right,
you know, stay tuned dial to Nick. Watch what he's doing.
You'll learn a lot. Thanks for listening today, have a
great day. See you next time.
Good morning, everybody. Welcome to another episode of The Catering Cage,
where we're dedicated to building community and excellence and catering
all things catering, restaurants, commissaries. We're thinking about convenience stores,
grocery all the time. Today, I'm thrilled to introduce you
to a young man I met recently, and his whole
thing is really about how to drive more catering sales.
(00:36):
He's all things kay. He understands catering technology, he's involved
in catering operations, catering sales. He's all about eliminating third
party commissions and really creating a first party channel. I
want to introduce you to a gentleman who oversees portfolio
focused on turning catering to high margin revenue streams. His
name is Nick Panos. Nick, welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Thank you, guys, thank you for those kind words. I'm
thrilled to be here and be able to talk all
things catering with you. It's one of my biggest passions
in life, being able to talk this.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
Yeah, I know, I think you know. Nick. I see
you all over Lincoln, I see you doing your thing.
You're clearly a leader in our space and I'm really
excited to dive in. But before we do it, just
a couple of questions just to get us going here.
So here's a question off topic, not catering, but you
know you're throwing a dinner party last minutes. Yeah, you
got to impress your crew that's coming. So what are
you gonna make?
Speaker 3 (01:28):
Oh? What I'm gonna make? I'm a huge Rabbi fan.
I love cookie Rabbi. That's one of my passionate projects.
I have a green Egg at home, one of the
things that whenever I don't eat pizzas, that's my main
bread and butter.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
I love grilling, seak, nice and green Egg. You know
some of my friend Dan Gertzikov, he's the president over there.
Do you know Dan?
Speaker 2 (01:45):
No kidding believer?
Speaker 1 (01:48):
Dan was with Focused Briands. Hey, we should get him
on the podcast one day. Actually, the green Egg, that's
something it really is. So you know, let's let's dive
a little further list like, so, what what sparked your
interest in catering, specifically at a restaurants? Like how did
it happen?
Speaker 2 (02:03):
For sure? Sure, so I'm basically born into the industry.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
My parents opened up our first Metal Mushroom, which is
a pizza chain, back in ninety six, and I've grown
up in the family business. A little bit after I
graduated college, I went up to spend some time in
New York on Wall Street in restaurant merchers and acquisitions
and really understood at the highest level what restaurants were
and how to optimize them, and took all that knowledge
(02:29):
brought it back into the family business, right So, but
bringing it all back, I kind of realized it's a
lot easier to sell one person my one hundred dollars
worth of food than to sell two hundred people slices
at two dollars and fifty cents. So I had this
moment of lucidity with the catering director of Melal Mushroom
at the time, and my eyes were opened to the
idea of corporate catering. And prior to that, I was
(02:52):
in restaurants fighting for every dollar, and the idea of
catering to me was people doing fine dining, people walking
around with aprons. You know, that's to me what I
thought what catering was. But we've kind of established a
little niche within a niche within a niche, which is
restaurant B to B catering drop off, so we don't
do any type of events where we serve them. Our
(03:13):
primary bread and butter becomes the drop off side of it.
So it kind of really it took it from the
very beginning and to get the highest margin items for us,
we learned was catering, and we were really twenty eighteen
is when we started, and then twenty nineteen, you know,
we were humming, and then of course twenty twenty came
and everything wiped out, which for us at the time
(03:35):
was actually a blessing in disguise because we grew at
such a rapid clip that I had no idea put
what I was doing. I also trying to keep up
with it all. So being able to level set in
a forced way and then rebuild from there, I think
it has been the secret to our ability to operationalize
everything so heavily.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
Very cool. Well, you know, I experienced a downturn and
catering way back in two thousand and one, Nick, so
I had maybe I don't maybe you weren't even born yet,
I don't know, you know, No, yeah, I.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
Have a young face.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
But nineteen ninety six Tony's Deli DELI was humming. I
got this DELI started doing catering. Catering was cranking U
you know, we built the software. I mean, you know,
similar to your story, right, You've been doing the same
kind of thing. Yeah, and uh and then nine to
eleven happened, and then the tech sector blew up, the
world changed, Catering dropped off a cliff. That was my experience,
(04:28):
and that was that forced me to pivot and I
ended up in the tech software business. That's how that happened. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
yeah yeah. I was in a full steam ahead and
that's how it happened.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
I started showing people the software we had created for
our catering business, and I ended up in the commissary
bakery space ERP. It's a long story. You know, I've
told you so many times. This podcast is about you,
my friend. This is about you. You know, history repeat yourself.
So you know, it's amazing. You know, I meet so
many operators, and today I see more and more, you know,
(05:02):
entrepreneurial operators who are venturing into their own tech companies,
which is interesting and I want to hear a little
bit about that from you. So, you know, moving into technology,
I mean, essentially, I would like to deep dive with
you a little bit into like what are the common
challenges that you're seeing out there that restaurant's face when
they're adopting new catering technology, Like what you know your
your friends authors? Yeah, like what's happening all right?
Speaker 2 (05:25):
Where do I start? So very high level.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
When I was looking at building our catering business, I
was very I'm very obsessed with the small detail. It's
become a big believer if you get those small things right,
the big things that care themselves. So one of the
biggest pieces that I was looking to solve, and I
couldn't quite find a solution in the marketplace, was the
ability to have our we use a lot of internal drivers,
we don't really rely on three party drivers, so the
(05:49):
ability to have our drivers take photo evidence, but not
in such a way where it's a text message with
the photo, but it's it's fed into a CRM, which
was we built in house. So I have extracted from
there the metadata of when the photo was taken, proof
that it was taken, and if there ever is a discrepancy,
(06:09):
it no longer becomes the he said, she said, it's
I know based on our technology that when this photo
was taken, it's unalterable. They can't change that timestamp. So
that gave me a lot more comfortability dealing with the
likes of easy cater or clients when they're saying we're late.
I have my own internal checks, so that kind of
the centerpiece I wanted to build around my business because
(06:31):
in the catering business, once you're doing more than one
or two orders a day, you no longer in the
food business. You're really in the time management, logistics and
really debent experience business. So you your ships comes from
is this food on time? To it needs to be
on time or else we've lost my clients in catering,
I'm sure as you'd experienced, everyone always says everything is great,
(06:53):
never anything is bad, but they'll never worry from you
again if you're lates. So we've taken that to hearts
and really that into our drivers where that is kind
of our writing model, where they come in they learned
they train. Number one thing is timliness. I was interviewing
a lady last week for catering role for us, and
she came ten minutes late to the interview and couldn't
even bother telling me she was late, let alone arrive
(07:16):
on time. So the interview was all of thirty seconds
me telling her okay.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
Okay, cool, well here you go.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
I mean, we're in the business of being on time
and if not heavily communication right where let me know,
but neither of those I can't have a few representing
my product out.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
There, no, one hundred percent. I couldn't agree more. And
you look like time and it says everything. I mean,
you've got a room, you know, a group of people waiting.
It's a high stress environment for somebody whoever placed that
order is stressed.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
Right, you know, so we money is the least of
their worry.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
Yeah, And I like your comment you said, Look, we're
no longer just a restaurant. We're actually in the logistics business.
I want to go a little deeper there because it's
more than just logistics. You're actually into food manufacturing. And
let me tell you a little bit about that. My
perspective on that is that, you know, catering is a
in the B two B channel is is you know,
for the most part, is a relationship based business. Right,
(08:06):
So you're dealing with corporations, you're doing people who live
in this corporate who work in this corporations and this
is yes, sary and they live there something. And the
beautiful thing about it, you know, this is the whole
thing is that you know, when you take you know,
you take metal Mushroom as an example, and you're in
your community. Uh, you've got a relationship of course with
a retail customer as well. But those people work with organizations.
(08:27):
So when you create a service solution for them at
their workplace, okay, uh, and they're already a fan of
the brand, you're actually creating an alternative service.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
Right.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
It's not like you're saying, come to my restaurants. You're
actually saying, use my catering. You already come to my restaurant,
which is great. Hey have you tried my catering, And
then if you come to my catering, hey, by the way,
you come to my restaurant. Right, there's that exactly. There's
a lot of cross Yeah. The cross pollination is is
a is a huge opportunity that you know, for the
most part, I don't see a lot of people doing
that super super well, that's a whole different podcast we
(09:01):
could do on that, but essentially, you know, but diving
deep into the planning process, right, Like a lot of
something orders are for next week, next month. Sometimes I
want to place ten orders at one time. There's all
of these dynamics that live within the context of the
transaction itself, which really are are consistent with what is
(09:23):
food manufacturing. So if I have a bakery and I'm
selling to restaurants or I'm selling to hotels, Okay, I'm
selling my bread, my muffins, you know, whatever I'm making,
that transaction is a B to B transaction and it
has the same order dynamics as a catom in transaction.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
One hundred percent, you're the longer B to.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
Say yeah, right, And so in there lives deeply within
the context of order management, right, accounting and billing, right production,
which is the order fulfillment right, and then of course distribution,
which is what you're talking about the logistics side. And
then there's also the selling side, which is the lead
(10:03):
lead tracking CRM, you know all that kind of stuff.
And you've got to be able to take orders, you know,
through the web. You've got to be able to have
third party partners injecting those orders into your systems. You've
got to be able to answer your telephones and take orders.
You've got to be able to track, you know, the
journeys all the way through. But it's it's and this
(10:23):
is where people don't really understand nick very well. And
maybe you could talk a little bit about this in
your operation. But within the context of catering out of
a multiinit restaurant environment, Okay, the catering team is often
you know, is not just a different team, but sometimes
it's the same people that are working both channels, right
(10:45):
and so the right. So the beautiful thing about it
is that because the timing of catering is different than
it is in your in store, right, that's where the center,
that's the synergy. Right, that's where the real synergistic opportunity is.
Because you're learning more volume on top of existing operations.
It's making your labor more efficient. You know, you're realizing
(11:05):
your assets. But the challenge is for the most part,
and this is where I want to ask you what
I see anyways, is that many, if not most operators
are trying to drive their catering transactions through their point
of sale systems. Yeah, what do you see there? Like,
what do you think about that? Because it's it's hardb it's.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
It's it's very tough. So the idea and it's the concept.
I become really enamored with the idea of unused capacity.
To your points early in the morning for us, where lunch,
we're at dinner, we have so much unused time, unused space,
unused people, and that's where the catering piece comes in.
But to your point, how do you separate those? There
are two different avenues, right, and what we're what we
(11:46):
were finding was we have a single pos so we
almost single but our port of sales system is Aloha
and for many years it was very difficult. How do
you separate catering from in house? It becomes it becomes
a nightmare. So the work around that we used is
there is basically a way to tag orders as catering
and they have different PLU numbers so you can price
(12:07):
it differently, which is very beneficial for many reasons. But
what we do is, I think alluded to earlier, our
software called Caterized, we use all We basically use that
as our data aggregation where we can now track orders
in so you get orders from easy catered, you get
orders calling in, you get orders placed online. If you
have no place to store it all with all that data,
(12:28):
when they ordered, how often they ordered, what's their frequency?
Are they ordering frequently but tiny? Are they're ordering very
infrequently but large? What type of player? You know?
Speaker 2 (12:37):
All that data If.
Speaker 3 (12:38):
You don't record it anywhere, it's lost, and that data
is so invaluable for many reasons. So for for us,
what we do is we take all of our data
into catorizes, right, so we have a point where we
have a storefront where clients can like if you have
Nix catering, you have abundance as order catering.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
We're the storefronts.
Speaker 3 (12:57):
We're also the order management piece where on the back
end we now can choose which drivers get which We're
able to see all that data live and that becomes
your single point of truth. You then process it through
the POS based on your franchise agreements. Most franchisors force
everyone to go through the POS for loyalty purposes, which
is totally fine, but you still need that piece that
allows you to see the data, which is in our
(13:19):
day and age, that's where the goal is. If you
don't have a data collection to see how they came
in and what they ordered, you're leaving so much insights
out and ultimately so much money on the table for
knocking any of that.
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Speaker 1 (14:02):
You know, I love your passion and I love the
way you've You know, you put together your own tech
solution around your operation, which is cool. Have you taken
that tech out to market and other people using it too?
Or is it yees?
Speaker 3 (14:17):
So for the longest time it was our own internal project.
We couldn't find a solution out there, so we created internally.
And we actually are approached by one of our business
coaches talking about other franchisees within the Nolish community looking
at buildingner catering and asked what do we do differently.
So that's kind of where we start the idea of well,
if we're running into this problem. Chances are some other
(14:38):
people running into that problem. So actually January twenty twenty
five was when we officially launched publicly. Actually it was
literally last month was when we officially launched publicly. But
we're doing a very slow, grassroot approach where the goal
is showing people I'm an operator in the space and
this is how I do it. It's not all flashy,
look at me. It's just this is just how I
(14:58):
do it. If you want to learn how to do it, great,
If not, you know, michaels to help other people make
more money catering because, as you know, in restaurants, increasing
your catering isn't like increasing your profit ten percent. You're
doubling or tripling your bottom line by increasing the catering sales.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
Yeah, totally, and once you see.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
It, you can't unsee it. You know, it's one of
those beautiful things. And then you layer in automation. I'm
a big, big proponent of automation AI and the ability
to either keep your product at the same price but
you lower cost through automation, or you increase your automation
and you're able to give a customer a better experience,
all without passing along that cost to the customer, so
(15:36):
you become the choice provider at a reasonable price while
you're making more money if you know, to integrate automation
and many of the other technology solutions we have available.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
Yeah, amazing. I think you have a great story brewing it.
It sounds really interesting, Nick. So you know, I won't
tell you about all the trap doors that are opening
for you as a techno. Let's see and then let's
you experience it. I was an operator, I pivoted into
tech and that was my journey. You know, twenty eight
years later, I had an exit. I had an exit
(16:05):
twenty three years later. You know, easy care A bought
my company. But primarily, you know what did they buy.
They bought, you know what was an order management solution
for first party catering transactions within the context of the
restaurant space. That's what they have. And there's a genre
of solutions that are doing that. And then uh, and
then there's a ton of innovation, like what you're doing,
there's a there's a whole bunch of people out there
(16:26):
that are doing all different things. You know, the online
ordering companies are running at catering the point of sale companies,
there's the ERP. So you know, for me, you know,
I'm a catering guy. I've been doing this for a
long time. I've been watching this industry grow, and to me,
there's nothing more exciting than watching a young entrepreneur like
you try and figure it out. Uh, you know, bring
your energy forward, you know, all of that kind of stuff. So,
(16:49):
you know, so let me ask you a question.
Speaker 3 (16:50):
Nick.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
You've joined you joined the community cater Link. We created
the community to be able to bring together like minded
individuals who were thinking about catering, you know, primarily at
of restaurants, but it's it's expanding now, you know, more
into you know, also into commissary and the idea is
to bring operators together and to create peer groups. Okay,
so this was This is one of the things that
(17:11):
I feel is a major h demand out there. As
you said earlier in the podcast, you know a lot
of people working out of their homes, feeling isolated, not
always practical to travel in person to go to a workshop.
I did a workshop in Denver in October. It was
a great experience, but you know, it's expensive and people
(17:31):
don't want to fly and they don't want to do
the hotel and all that, and so you know what
came back out of that experience was that people want
to roll up your sleeves and dig in deeper. So
you've joined, you've joined cater linked and you've spent some
time there a little bit. Yes, you'll lead a peer
group for us? Will you do that?
Speaker 2 (17:48):
Absolutely kidding me. I'd love to.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
Yeah, yeah, I'll be the pleasure. I think that'll be amazing.
You know, the idea this is all about people development.
It's all about you know, increasing the awareness that it's
all about transferring the collective I P. You know, like
the thinking is collectively evolving, which is I think just
just amazing. You know, so.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
And it there are so.
Speaker 3 (18:12):
Many people who are one or two sets behind us
now banking them forward and then just catering as an
ADVID and to help them.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
Yeah, it's all about education and training. And you know
LinkedIn is a tool which is okay, but you know
there's a lot of selling happening on there. It's hard
for people to get deep. You know, we created this
to go deeper. It's a place for operators to you know,
have have an open, honest conversation and not be you know,
hopefully bombarded by supply chain partners who are trying to
sell their stuff all the time, which is important. We're
(18:39):
you know, we are going to we are going to create,
you know, a tech pavilion. We're going to create a
supply chain pavilion. Yeah. Yeah, we're going to do some things.
But but but separate from that is is you know,
creating a safe space for operators. You know, to have
to have a conversation. So so like what you know,
if you had to give one piece of a neck
(19:01):
to operators looking to take their catering experience and their
business at the next level, Like, what would it be?
Whatoul what would you tell them?
Speaker 3 (19:11):
When you start, you need to make sure you're able
to fulfill. So begin thinking how am I going to
create a team? Don't think it's just me the operator
putting food on my back and walking around delivering the food.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
It's how do you build yourself out of that?
Speaker 3 (19:22):
Because everyone loves the idea of getting more sales, getting
more sales, getting more sales. But if you're getting sales
and you're not keeping them as customers, what's the whole
point you paid to get the customer through either time
through relationship, bility or through money. And if you can't
fulfill and they just go somewhere else, you've lost sales.
And if you're constantly trying to chase new sales and
not keeping any, you're right on this treadmill that they
will never saw. The biggest advice I can give is
(19:44):
get your foundation solid, because once that foundation is solid,
you can then turn it up the volume and really
poor gas on the.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
And do some pretty crazy stuff.
Speaker 3 (19:53):
Go until you get that foundation salt, whether that's their people, teams, technology,
wherever it is that don't don't over look the boring
self like people always overlook the boring stuff, but it works.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
Right, So just to become tactical, like what you're talking
about essentially is to step back and really put together
a plan, right, that's.
Speaker 3 (20:11):
Where you're one hundred percent a plan and a team,
and a team could be you and one person.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
Yep, for sure. And so so I think where it
begins as it begins with leadership. You need a leader.
You need someone who's going to drive the catering business forward.
Speaker 3 (20:26):
And more than a leader, you need someone who's a
visionary to see what can this become? Not oh, we
have an order tomorrow, let me take it. It's how
can we become a powerhouse in catering and have that
energy transform from you or your leader into your team.
So our structures, I'm the carry director. I have catering
managers at each store. I then have drivers underneath each
(20:47):
of them. But it all sorts with me. If I
don't bring the energy in the morning, the enthusiasm, the
bishop of how to glow, They're a feed off of me,
and if I don't have it, they're not going to
go do themselves. So the goal is as the operator,
as the leader of the group, you have have this
insatiable desire to grow and become.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
The best in that business. And it's contagious. Everyone needs
off of it.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
Yeah yeah, So what kind of things do you do?
NIX like every day? Do you just like you send emails,
you do phone calls, you you have a stand up
what do you do?
Speaker 3 (21:12):
What do you do?
Speaker 1 (21:13):
How do you get them?
Speaker 2 (21:13):
So I'm a very hands on operator.
Speaker 3 (21:17):
I'm in our stores all the time, and sometimes my
team's telling me I'm in the stores too much because
I just want to be able to run their business.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
But a lot of.
Speaker 3 (21:26):
The little pods we have are based on location, So
each location has a manager, a care manager, and I'll
interact with them directly. It's then their job to figure
out how do we find more drivers to hire into
that to take the orders. They do all the organization,
but basically anything that is the hard stuff I handle
for them. Whether then it's angry customers get you know,
all the stuff that isn't necessarily their job finding more sales.
(21:50):
You know, all of that stuff I can do because
I've been doing this. Their job is to execute what's
been given to them and then let me handle finding
the leads figuring out like a big one is local
SEO Catering don't have any presents locally, so I'm running
my own experiment for the past six months. How do
I build a local SEO presence? How do I take
this and drive more business via the web when people
(22:10):
typing keywords? How can I become competitive? All that type
of strategizing may go nowhere, it may go somewhere. I
don't rely on my catering team to do that. They
need to execute you orders coming in, so those say
coming back.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
I have parts of my team. Their only job is
follow up via text.
Speaker 1 (22:27):
Well Nick before I let you go. It's been a
pleasure getting to know you, and congratulations and all your success.
Where can people find you if they have questions or
they want to reach you.
Speaker 3 (22:36):
You can buy me on LinkedIn. You can find me
my handles Nicholas Panos on Twitter. Nick Panos underscore just that,
and honestly, if you're on cater link to just come
by me.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
I'd be happy to talk to anyone.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
Awesome, that's great. There you have it, folks, you've heard
from feet on the Street. This is Nick Panos coming
to Live from South Africa. He's visiting over there, right,
you know, stay tuned dial to Nick. Watch what he's doing.
You'll learn a lot. Thanks for listening today, have a
great day. See you next time.
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