April 15, 2025 • 31 mins
In the latest Catering Cage podcast, host Erle Dardick and CaterZen's Michael Attias discuss how AI and automation are transforming restaurant catering while emphasizing the need for specialized management systems, strategic investment during economic uncertainty, and community collaboration. They predict a future with AI order-taking and robot-assisted preparation but stress that investing in catering strategies now can potentially double restaurant profits.
Sponsored by:
OPGA: Off Premise Growth Academy - Join tight-knit communities for catering sales, operations, catering in the c-suite, and catering technology. Find a group that’s right for you and elevate your catering!
https://opga.academy/
CateringInnovation #RestaurantTech #FutureOfFoodservice
Get Your Podcast Now! 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. Take the next step in your industry leadership journey – visit https://www.savor.fm/
Capital & Advisory: Are you a fast-casual restaurant startup or a technology innovator in the food service industry? Don't miss out on the opportunity to tap into decades of expertise. Reach out to Savor Capital & Advisory now to explore how their seasoned professionals can propel your business forward. Discover if you're eligible to leverage our unparalleled knowledge in food service branding and technology and take your venture to new heights.
Don't wait – amplify your voice or supercharge your startup's growth today with Savor's ecosystem of industry-leading platforms and advisory services. Visit https://www.savor.fm/capital-advisory
Sponsored by:
OPGA: Off Premise Growth Academy - Join tight-knit communities for catering sales, operations, catering in the c-suite, and catering technology. Find a group that’s right for you and elevate your catering!
https://opga.academy/
CateringInnovation #RestaurantTech #FutureOfFoodservice
Get Your Podcast Now! 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. Take the next step in your industry leadership journey – visit https://www.savor.fm/
Capital & Advisory: Are you a fast-casual restaurant startup or a technology innovator in the food service industry? Don't miss out on the opportunity to tap into decades of expertise. Reach out to Savor Capital & Advisory now to explore how their seasoned professionals can propel your business forward. Discover if you're eligible to leverage our unparalleled knowledge in food service branding and technology and take your venture to new heights.
Don't wait – amplify your voice or supercharge your startup's growth today with Savor's ecosystem of industry-leading platforms and advisory services. Visit https://www.savor.fm/capital-advisory
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Good morning everybody. Here we are another rainy day here
in Vancouver, British Columbia, but snow is still falling in
the mountains. You're asking, I'm not up skiing today. I'm
actually here on this podcast another episode of the Catering Cage,
where we do everything that's related to catering. Our focus
here is strategy. Our focus here is education and training.
Our focus here is community, and our focus here is technology.
(00:36):
And today I've invited back a very special guest, a
very important gentleman doing very important work in the space.
He is the leader of Cater's in. His name is Michael. Michael,
welcome back to the show. It's great to see you again.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Hey, did you see you? Earl? I'm honored that you
skipped the slopes to interview me.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
Truth be told, it's snowing high up and I'm very
spoiled up of the mountain looks great. Bottom mountain not
so good. So uh so I digress and I got
a lot of work to do. Michael. I'm doing a
lot of work. There's a lot happening. You know, you
and I stay in touch, and you know we keep watching.
Watch what you're doing. I'm hearing great things about caters
in in the community, which is amazing and just overall
(01:17):
really encouraged. We're like, you know, operators are coming into
the next generation where they're paying more attention now to
you know, what is catering strategy? What do I need
to do inside my company to get more catering. And
I'm really excited for you because you're right in the
mix and you're doing great work. I hear great things,
you know, so happy to appreciate that.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
We're you know, I love the Ray Croc line. We
end up quicker than they can copy. My brain does
not stop with just trying to figure out the what next.
In fact, I think it was on my podcast you said,
you know, somebody should use AI to figure out when
people change jobs. And then I'm already talking to a
(01:58):
company that has a service and they will literally scrape
your whole database every night and let you know who's left,
where they've gone to. So that's on the drawing board
as well.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
That's that's exciting, like getting that smart in this stuff,
like you know, helping people prospect, you know, loading up
that whole side of the business, driving more efficiency within
the context of the pipeline. You know exciting times, right.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
You know, just trying to mirror AI with what we're doing.
You know, the sort of common sensical stuff you write
about in your book and teach and I AI is
just going to take it to a whole other level,
and you're just it's going to get so dialed in,
like and then we're going to have to live off
the grid. You're going to live in the mountains and
I live in Costa Rica and we'll grow fruit and
(02:49):
raise chickens or something, because why.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
Because it's going to be so accosting, like we're going
to be so sick of it or like, what is it? No?
Speaker 2 (02:56):
I think you know, I know we're not. This wasn't
the purpose of the thing. But I think AI is
going to basically make everybody in the basement of their
parents' house smoking pot, getting into no good that they
did some study on mice and let's just say there
was a reason Rome fell And if we have nothing
to do and no purpose, we're not going to degenerate.
(03:19):
So planner escape. I'm just saying, Wow, you heard it
here first.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
Yeah, I mean, I think you know everything I'm reading
about AI, all the AI agents I watched in the
video keynote. I'm understanding this concept of AI agent libraries.
My understanding of the application of AI where it's really powerful,
certainly in business, is the automation of repetitive tasks, right,
which are you know, there's so much power within the
(03:49):
context of the data, unstructured data that we have, within
the context of our emails and all of our things,
you know, And like the research that I'm doing is
that AI agents will be able to go and look
at all all those conversations, pull it all out, put
it into a structured database, bring in the marketing machine
that's going to automate, bring in the referral engines. Of course,
(04:09):
you know voice is going to attach to that for
you know, automated ordering, all that front end of the business,
right client relations. But you know, I find it interesting
because I actually think, like in these environments, like what
it's going to do is it's going to shift perhaps
the focus. And this is a great segue for us
(04:30):
for this episode, okay, which is like what do you
do with the people while all this is happening?
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Right, you know that's the you know, I'd love to
have a time machine and go back to when factories
started because they probably had the same conversation, yeah, or
maybe they did have the conversation, we need people to
run the factories. So now there's more opportunity. So it's
really the reverse of that, right, what do you do
(04:55):
with the people? Because supposedly some things I've seen and
heard and read is well, if AI can build everything,
do everything for you, you're really not there's not a
job for anybody.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
Right Well, but I think I think jobs jobs are
going to shift, and so this idea like where I'm
task oriented right now, I got to do this, I
got to do that, I got to do this. Our
work is going to move to much higher level thinking
in the process where we can you know. So, so
I think like the opportunity is in training your team,
like getting back inside your companies and training your people.
(05:30):
If they say catering as an example, I mean, it's
across everything, but let's take catering as an example. There's
no better time than to invest in your people and
helping them to use the AI tools to elevate their
skills and and do more higher level relationship building people.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
I mean, right, you a one thousand percent we have
customer support people offshore and we're teaching them how to
use AI to make their department better and do put
together programs that they wouldn't even have the skill set on.
But what happens after that? Right, so that ten to
twenty years, what happens after that where literally AI can
(06:09):
do the thinking for you and it will make your
coffee and it will literally do everything. Then what's next?
Speaker 1 (06:16):
You know?
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Do we move to an enlightened in utopia? Do we
find purpose someplace else? Because man's purpose has been tied
into his work, his or her work. Right, and so
what happens when everything that you have AI has, right,
it knows your knowledge mine, It takes all the best
catering minds in the planet and puts it in one head.
(06:38):
Well you are you needed?
Speaker 1 (06:40):
Yep?
Speaker 2 (06:41):
I don't know. And and literally whatever you're thinking, AI
can decipher for you. Like I'm doing some traveling and
I've never been to Amsterdam, and I don't have time
to pour through guide books. I just say, hey, this
is how much time I have, this is what I
want to do, and in three minutes there's an agenda
of what I should go see and do. I mean,
it's crazy, right, That's that's that's nursery school.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
Well, you're tapping into collective knowledge. So I think that's
going to happen on catering, right, Like we know that now.
So that's why I like the whole conversation on with Dovetail.
I said, I feel like Michael, everybody's doing like how
to do catering, how to do catering. It's like, Okay,
there's lots of ways of how to do catering, but
I mean there's fundamentals. You know that there's fundamentals because
you build software around those fundamentals, you.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
Know, and I did it when I build my restaurant,
just like you did. I mean you have to you
have to crawl, walk, run where I think it's going
to be really cool. You talk about the tools that
are going to help people, right, you know Level one
who were you know, we're working in the voice space.
You know some AI voice as well as just recording
a voice, and so Level one is, hey, I can
(07:43):
analyze the calls and see who needs to be coached.
Level two is you're sitting on the phone, you got
a headset in and it's going to listen to you
take that catering order. Hey, Eryl, why don't you ask
them if they want some fudge nut ice brownies, as
you know, because you didn't ask for that, right, and
it's going to give you. It's going to feed you
the script of what to say, right. And so now
(08:06):
all of a sudden you've turned until the AI voice
can take the place of that person on the phone.
It's just gonna make that person sharper, right.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
Yeah, yeah, But I mean voice is coming fast. I'm
seeing it in call centers and I mean it's it's yeah,
it's around the corner. I mean it's it's it's not
here already. So you should see what Jesse Stein is
working on. Have you seen what he's working on.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
It's that the is that the guy doing the party
room stuff?
Speaker 1 (08:31):
No, no, her medic hermitic dot AI. I think it's
called you can I'll send your link after. But all
voice really cool, a lot of outbound Yeah, I mean
that's all coming, all these integrations. You're going to be
integrating with those things shooting.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
Yeah, I mean we're already talking with somebody now about
like AI catering, answering, survey, the field calls, and then
eventually it'll just be you think you're talking to live person.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, Well that's amazing. So so that's all
moved h in an interesting way. Well, Michael, you know, listen,
let's talk about the kitchen for a minute, because I
think this is a piece. This is a big disc
in it, I feel, and so you know in my mind,
and it's always so refreshing to speak to you because
you're in it, you know, and you're you're you're right
(09:18):
on the front line there working with multi nut restaurants,
right and and and and restaurants and and and catering.
There's uh, you know, commissaries like you sit in the genre.
You know, there's a genre of like solutions I would say,
in the comprehensive solution set within the context of B
to B channel A specialist in catering out of restaurants,
that's where you've been for decades. So you have all
(09:38):
these incredible subtleties within the context of caters in that
is like amazing. There's hundreds and hundreds of like uh
you know, time uh, time tested features and functions right
that that that people use within the context of your
of your solution. But I always feel like in the
restaurant spaces where the thing gets disconnected is in the kitchen, right.
(10:00):
It's always like, so the strategy for operators, restaurant operators
technology wise in their stack, has always been like, the
kitchen is owned by the point of sale companies typically
unless you're dealing with QSR, where you might be like
USB kitchens or some separate KDS system you know, but
primarily you know, it's over the years, the point of
sale guys acquired all these companies, right, and they've got
(10:22):
the kitchen piece right. And then so what happens is
in a lot of places, especially in the ones that
are not that sophisticated or early in their strategies, they
don't understand this idea of not driving catering orders into
the kitchen and actually driving it into a different dashboard
where you've got your production reports, your labels, you know,
all the stuff that you need to be able to
generate your your batch based production. Because as you and
(10:46):
I know, catering is often, if not mostly always forward looking.
It's true there's always last minute orders, absolutely, but for
the most part we're looking a day or two, you know,
in advance, right, and so production planning becomes a thing.
And so going with this is like the disconnect I
see is like in that shift within the context that
the workflow and manufacturing process and fulfillment of catering orders
(11:08):
because there are B to B transactions and the way
the products are manufactured is different than what you do
in your store or in your takeout business, right and
therefore the best strategy currently today until we see something different,
is to actually not put your catering orders from a
production perspective into your point of sale, but actually allow your.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
I mean one thousand percent. You know a lot of
people that are like, oh, we need it, so we
could put it to the KDS. I said, so tell
me on what planet can you do box lunches for
fifty people? It gets fired off you. There's pretty planning.
You've got to assemble the box that you got to
decide what's going to go in them. Do I have
to bake off cookies? Do I need this? Do I
need that? I need a pre slice stelling meat because
(11:52):
I got to make five hundred sandwiches tomorrow morning for
all these box lunches. So it's a whole different thing.
And so you know, I think we have continued to evolve.
We were the original kitchen catering KDS developers, and we
made it for any type of tablet, iPhone, whatever. And
(12:12):
as much as I want to think I'm the smartest
guy in the room, you know, I'm definitely smart, but
I'm smarter in that I have an ear when customers speak,
is it's something that's a bullshit, you know, one off,
like okay, you're smoking crack, nobody needs this, or damn,
why didn't I think of this?
Speaker 1 (12:32):
And so that's good. What I remember those days when
people would ask for things and it was a big
scrap on the team about and I'm going, no, do
not add that function into our software. It's actually bad process.
Get them to fix what you're doing. And I used
to get like the evil eye, and I was the
guy that I was the guardrail.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
I said, no, wait, you have to because otherwise you
have a camel as a horse creative by COMMITTI software exactly.
So one of the things we got from the guys
at Corky's Barbecue, who I chuck you know, you know,
got in the business on the guy's like, man, we
love the fact that it goes from one color to
the next to prep it. But what happens when you
(13:13):
go from prep food to box food? Can you get
another color? And I'm like, well, shit, that's stupid.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
Why didn't I think of that?
Speaker 2 (13:22):
So now you know we're about to launch where there's
three colors. So it goes from the food needs to
be prep it's been prepped, and now the person assembling
it has a way to check off, and then things
like totals for the day, you know, on the electronic
not just the order and special what do you do
with special instructions? Because they're on modifiers so they have
to show up a different way. And what happens when
(13:44):
you have deli platters and you're telling it how many
sandwiches to make, but it doesn't tell you how many
sandwiches go on each platter. So we solve that problem.
So it just keeps going deeper and deeper and deeper
because it's a whole different animal. Well then you know,
when we were starting off, it's just a damn piece
of paper. And if you didn't have sharp people, you
(14:05):
weren't in the catering business. I mean, you know, you
had to know food math, you had to know all
this stuff. Now, literally, as I tell people, I said,
I could walk into any kitchen tomorrow, I might not
know how to make your recipes, but if I had
to make KDS, I could definitely run your kitchen, your
catering department and just say hey I need this, I
need this. Yeah, you know what's the process for this?
Speaker 1 (14:26):
Yeah, well you're a standalone system. I would say, you
handle the order to cash cycle. You don't. You don't
need one of sale. So that's basically it. You're just
you know, you have you have an end to end solution,
which is what's unique to caters in I mean there's
others that are in that genre as well. You know,
Monkey Company I Sold was one of them. You know,
certainly Flex Catering, Food Storm, Spoon Fed. You know, there's
(14:46):
sort of like these this category. They've still been getting
acquired you know, over time.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
Yeah, there was somebody at your conference with Monkey It
was on stage and said she's the ord catering operating system,
which I love. And then Elena Yeah, and then another thing,
I like to say, what are pos on steroids?
Speaker 1 (15:03):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (15:04):
Because for the catering business, right, and you know, you
go to home depot, you buy a two before it's
in the POS. You go rent a tool, you know,
something to air h your yard it's the machine. They've
got to inventory it, they've got to have maintenance schedules,
check in, check out. It's a different process, it's a
whole different business.
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Speaker 1 (15:53):
So let's talk about the future. So we're getting into
these kitchens because some of what I'm seeing next is automation.
In the kitchens, I'm seeing robots. I'm seeing like and
so we're around the corner, like salid robots are happening,
for sure, Okay, Like that's happening, and so it's definitely
going to spill into catering as well. So you know,
there's a point in time soon. I don't know where
(16:14):
it is, but it's not too far in our trajectory
where we're going to have AI that's taking the order
we're going to. It's going to hit the order management system,
which is then going to automate all the processes of billing, payment, collection,
production is going to go to the robot.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
The right delivery.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
We're not far.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
This is whevery and set up.
Speaker 1 (16:36):
Is this where we're going? This is where we're going.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
I think it's where we're headed for everything in life.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
I mean just this.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
You know, if the vision of a twenty five thirty
thousand dollars robot in your house to do all the
bs that needs to get done, why can't it be
in the kitchen environment or you know? I remember last
year I was in LA for my birthday with my daughter.
She lives out there, and I see this car and
there's nobody in it. I'm like, WTF and she goes, yeah,
(17:03):
it's I forgot the name of the service I saw
two or three times. I'm like, well, is it's so
far fetched that not only going to have these autonomous vehicles,
but you'll have robots that can deliver things, set them
up and you don't have to worry about did the
guys show up, did this happen? Did that happen? And
then we'll pay tax on this right, because the government
(17:24):
will say, look, we're people. We're putting people out of work.
So if you've got this human equivalent right, you're going
to pay an hourly tax for using this robot because
you're taking jobs out. And then we'll have a universal
basic income and a lot of people will get paid
to sit in the quote unquote the basement of their
(17:45):
parents' house and play video games.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
Wealthy, wealthy people will have the robots first home.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
Of course, but eventually, you know, cars were for the wealthy,
and then it became everybody had it, right.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
Yep, eventually that's just what a future. My goodness. I
feel like we live in the best years. Like I
don't know your age, but I'm like.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
Yeah, I'm I'm about to hit a big milestone. We're
the same age.
Speaker 1 (18:08):
Yeah, yeah, So I'm like, I'm like, yeah, I feel
like I lived in the best time. You know, like
music was good.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
You know, music was good.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
I I media was to get information like overseas. I
was like, you remember having to read a newspel It
was a whole different thing.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
I remember having to go to the library and had
to do research for.
Speaker 1 (18:25):
Pipers, like microfiche.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
Yeah, oh my god, that's like really old school books.
I was, yeah, I was. My son gave me a
subscription to Memento. You write a book and you have
to dictate things. And I was talking about the one
thing that I feel very sad for what he and
his sister didn't have in future generations. Like when I
was a kid, my parents threw my ass out at
(18:48):
six am, drink out of the garden hose, don't come back,
and you know, you take your bikes and you got
into trouble, and you played sports in people's backyards and
you'd go up to the mall. You know. I look
forward to every month I could get my free battery,
a radio shack and punch the card. I mean, it
was just a whole different times. And I think they're
(19:09):
no less dangerous. It's just we have too much media
to let us know. Susie and Sacramento got kidnapped, and
now everybody's up in arms. I mean, it was still happening.
We only knew what happened in our backyard back there
because it was it was hyper local. Well that's something else.
So speaking of hyper local, let's talk about that for
a minute, because let's pivot into like, you know, helping
(19:31):
operators to get more sales, because I think they're all
suffering in that sense. But before we do, I just
I'm putting out a podcast they had little rent last
week on sort of like the maybe some prediction Michael,
And I mean, I feel like, you know, we're coming
back into this negative sales cycle again, where like you know,
potentially everyone's talking for session and there's terror, like all
this stuff is upside down. People are uncertain, everybody's nervous,
(19:57):
depending on which side of the aisle you' on, you know,
right with your perspective, but you know, for the most
part it all impacts companies, and companies is the B
to B space, which is and so expecting a pullback, right,
which is cyclically It's happened over and over and over
over over. I mean, how many times does it happen?
Speaker 1 (20:15):
Right? But positioning it, this is the time to invest
in it because it always bounces back, you know, And
I actually, you know, the slowdown is difficult, of course
for anybody. But if you can, if you can take
your resources and concentrate and putting your catering strategy, put
in your education strategy, putting your technology, plumbing, get yourself
organized while your people are slowed down a bit, okay,
(20:38):
and then investing in your people and teaching them sales
skills and getting out and how to get back to
get ready for the next update.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
It's like a rebuilding year. But I'm going to challenge
you on a front that i think restaurants have an
advantage of. You know, if you are going to call
Susie's cater and we deal with everybody, right, so I'm
not I'm not, I'm not calling anybody out in a
bad way. But if you're dedicated cater and you have
to order in specific food for a customer, and you
(21:06):
know the restaurant, the advantage has it it's food they're
selling in the restaurant, right, So there's a lot of
buying power. There's a lot of inventory power there. You
can swim upstream, so the person that might have been
doing the expensive holiday party for their factory workers with
this caterer, they can come in and do it as
(21:26):
a restaurant and it's it's it's more cost effective. So
there's definitely up channel opportunities if the risk, if the
money gets tight, to swim upstream and take some of
that business.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
Yeah, but I findly what happens to make for a
lot of operators is their restaurant slows down too. And
so there's there they're just like there's small businesses that
are bootstrapped. They don't have the resources and they tend
to well, panic starts to happen, right, and then people
start to cut. That's what happens. And then and it's
it's it's tough, you know, it's hard to financing your business.
Is the time to your point, this is maybe a
(21:58):
year of rebuilding, okay or for a lot of people,
and for that you need to finance that rebuild, you know,
and look to the future. So I mean, that's some
advice I would give to, you know, any operator ear
there that's thinking, I got to pivot into catering. You know,
restaurants sales are tough. Catering sales are tough too, But
you got to make some very strategic decisions in your
company if you want to.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
See you know, it's amazing you'll spend twenty thousand dollars
on deck ovens, but you don't think about spending money
in catering. But catering can double the profits out of
that building. And then the other thing is, unfortunately in
our industry, we've not taught the value of sales and
marketing from the top down. Like I when I was
(22:38):
building catering, I didn't I didn't have the luxury of
hiring somebody. Literally, I would leave my restaurant at two
o'clock in the afternoon, go to Starbucks and work on
catering for an hour or two a day. So everybody
has an hour day. You can make calls, you can
go visit people, you can do something to push the needle.
We all have that ability.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
Yeah, and that's a good dovetail. Uh. You know, we
talked about strategy, right. We talked about the importance like
you know, you know, as a technology provider that if
you go into a multiunit restaurant company, especially because we're
talking about restaurants, multi unit community, that if they don't
have a strong leader or a good strategy for catering,
(23:19):
it's often a mess for you to put software into
those companies. And so that's so strategy is key. We
talked about the importance of doubling down on people in
terms of education and training, and of course we understand
the importance of technology to support the strategy and to
give you the framework and control and the gates and
everything that you need for the workflow ultimately, which is
creating efficiency within the context of your multi unit you know, subsets.
(23:44):
You know, this catering within the context of multiunit restaurants,
it's its own effort, its own business, its own team,
but the technology provides the framework and support for them
to be able to do their jobs. Okay, so that's
that's clear, So you know, and then what I've still learned, Michael,
I wonder if you run into this, like I still
see a lot of companies where catering is in a silo.
You know, it's still a small team. It's not core,
(24:06):
it's not in the court. You know, it's like in
the strategy, like in terms of the conversation, but there's
nobody in the boardroom really fighting for it. And that
brings me to community because a lot of people feel
lonely in that process. I talk to a lot of
catering leaders who feel like they're in a silo. They
feel like their companies don't hear them, and they want
more connection with people like themselves. Other leaders from other
(24:29):
brands and other food service are to you know, commiserate, right,
so like camaraderie, to share, to share stories, what's working
for you, what's not, and really just to get support. Okay.
And that was the sorry, that was the impetus of
cater Linked Okay, which is which was born. And you
stepped up, you know, you stepped up as a supply
chain community member who sees value in supporting that community.
(24:53):
And because you know you're you are a partner in education,
a partner in community with us over at cater Link.
And I we would like to ask you why you
agreed or why you made that decision to say, look,
I'll give this a shot because it's untrued, untested. You know,
we're just trying to figure it out. And you've been
very generous in this process. But I would like to Yeah,
maybe you could share that.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
Yeah, I've always been a big believer in education, even
if people aren't my client. Like I met with somebody
they have one hundred and fifty delis. I'm not going
to mention the chain and call them out. And she said, hey,
would you spend some time and let me brainstorm with
you because when you make the industry better and it's
(25:35):
it helps me indirectly, right, So whether it's somebody as
a client or somebody will be a future client because
I help them, or they say, hey, this guy's sharp,
we can't use them, or we don't have anough application,
you need to use them. And personally, my best growth
has been through these mentorship programs. You know, when I
(25:57):
and they've all been informal, like Dan Can he's a
big marketing mentor, and I would meet people at these
conferences and we would sort of have informal masterminds where
we'd get on the phone or I'd have people that
I could pick up the phone and call, and that
the industry has to grow for me to be viable.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
Right.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
If there's no catering, then there's no caters in right, totally.
And so for me, I also enjoy Somebody said, what
would you do if you retired and had nothing to do?
I would probably sit at Pinewood Social, which is this
place I hang out and work from, and I would
let people buy me coffee that I would pay for
and consult because I enjoy not only the giving back
(26:42):
but the brain power of hearing people's great ideas adding
to them, you know, whether it's plusing their ideas. That's
a big concept. It's like plussing an idea that I
that I enjoyed throwing around, or hey, here's something somebody
else is doing, or something I heard from something that
(27:03):
is the problem solving is more fulfilling than anything. We
talked about money before we got on here, Like we're
both blessed people, We're both very lucky, and unless I've
got private jet money, there's really nothing that's going to
change for me. As I joke around with my friend,
I'm still gonna eat steak tonight. But you know, so
(27:24):
I enjoyed the giving back and I was very humbled
and honored to come to Denver. You know, I love
what you said about when are we going to have
a chief catering officer. It's like it can add half
the profit it should have, at least the seat at
the table. I loved how you said that. And we're
just happy to give back and give further and further
(27:45):
in the community, and we get good ideas from it,
Like every day I get ideas to make my software better.
You know, I can't tell you how many things are
on our dev schedule because a prospect or, a customer said, oh,
here's a problem, can you solve it?
Speaker 1 (28:02):
Yeah? Yeah, you know, I love the culture Michael, that
you're building because ultimately, and by the way, thank you
for that, because you know, we're dancing this dance. We're
trying to stay like the Steven Keel And so I'm
trying to encourage as many people as possible to invest
in catering, especially in technology, because the more investment that
comes in, the better it is for everybody. But at
(28:23):
the same time it turns up the heat too, so
it's like it's like I'm always I'm always like a
little bit trying to trying to trying to manage that.
So we appreciate your what I would call mature perspective
in supporting what is a community of people and not
being afraid to have competitors they're sharing some space because
I think certainly in your case, at least I've come
(28:43):
to know you is that you know, you believe so
deeply that you are the best solution out there, which
is great because your company needs that. That you're not
afraid to go in the ring, you know, which is
I think an amazing, amazing thing and it's actually why
you're going to win some business like a lot of business.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
Okay, so I don't really look competitors because I believe
everybody has a little bit different point of differentiation even
though we're in the same space. And I just I
wake up every day worried about what I'm trying to
get done. I don't have time to worry about like
you know, I'm at the president of Flex at your event,
(29:18):
super nice guy. Honestly, I don't know what the hell
his software does. I haven't, you know, taking a test
drive of it. I don't know. I don't really care.
He's got his customers. I've got mine, and every day
I wake up trying to make myself better, my team better,
our process is better. And that's what I'm focused on
is I want I want to be the industry standard
(29:39):
where people go, what we're building in the CRM space
is going to be transformational that people go, you have
to use caters and they're the only people who haven't
figured out.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
Yeah, well that's great, and that's a great place for
us to end this podcast. Michael there, you guys heard
it straight up. You know, you hear where Michael's going
and hear what he's building, and you got to take
a look because it's you're, you're, you know, you're you're.
What you're doing is amazing, Michael. Thanks for being on
the show today.
Speaker 2 (30:04):
Is always a pleasure.
Speaker 1 (30:05):
Before I let you go, like, what any trade show
is coming up that you're doing, or what are you
doing now?
Speaker 2 (30:11):
I'm going to for my birthday, I'm going to Europe.
I'm gonna go to Holland and Paris and maybe Morocco.
But I've always wanted to ride a bicycle in the
tulip fields. So I've got a couple of excursions planned.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
So awesome. So that's what are you going to me now?
Speaker 2 (30:27):
I leave Monday.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
Oh well, thanks for squeezing this in before you go.
I don't know the next time i'll connect with you.
I'm heading on a big trip in May as well,
so where you're headed. I am doing a couple of
weeks in Spain, around Spain, and then I'm heading to
on a safari. I'm heading to Africa.
Speaker 2 (30:42):
Oh my god, that is going to be amazing.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
I know. So I'm gone from me third June three,
but we'll connect.
Speaker 2 (30:47):
After yeah for sure.
Speaker 1 (30:49):
Okay, thanks l for having me, great, Thanks for being here.
Good morning everybody. Here we are another rainy day here
in Vancouver, British Columbia, but snow is still falling in
the mountains. You're asking, I'm not up skiing today. I'm
actually here on this podcast another episode of the Catering Cage,
where we do everything that's related to catering. Our focus
here is strategy. Our focus here is education and training.
Our focus here is community, and our focus here is technology.
(00:36):
And today I've invited back a very special guest, a
very important gentleman doing very important work in the space.
He is the leader of Cater's in. His name is Michael. Michael,
welcome back to the show. It's great to see you again.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Hey, did you see you? Earl? I'm honored that you
skipped the slopes to interview me.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
Truth be told, it's snowing high up and I'm very
spoiled up of the mountain looks great. Bottom mountain not
so good. So uh so I digress and I got
a lot of work to do. Michael. I'm doing a
lot of work. There's a lot happening. You know, you
and I stay in touch, and you know we keep watching.
Watch what you're doing. I'm hearing great things about caters
in in the community, which is amazing and just overall
(01:17):
really encouraged. We're like, you know, operators are coming into
the next generation where they're paying more attention now to
you know, what is catering strategy? What do I need
to do inside my company to get more catering. And
I'm really excited for you because you're right in the
mix and you're doing great work. I hear great things,
you know, so happy to appreciate that.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
We're you know, I love the Ray Croc line. We
end up quicker than they can copy. My brain does
not stop with just trying to figure out the what next.
In fact, I think it was on my podcast you said,
you know, somebody should use AI to figure out when
people change jobs. And then I'm already talking to a
(01:58):
company that has a service and they will literally scrape
your whole database every night and let you know who's left,
where they've gone to. So that's on the drawing board
as well.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
That's that's exciting, like getting that smart in this stuff,
like you know, helping people prospect, you know, loading up
that whole side of the business, driving more efficiency within
the context of the pipeline. You know exciting times, right.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
You know, just trying to mirror AI with what we're doing.
You know, the sort of common sensical stuff you write
about in your book and teach and I AI is
just going to take it to a whole other level,
and you're just it's going to get so dialed in,
like and then we're going to have to live off
the grid. You're going to live in the mountains and
I live in Costa Rica and we'll grow fruit and
(02:49):
raise chickens or something, because why.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
Because it's going to be so accosting, like we're going
to be so sick of it or like, what is it? No?
Speaker 2 (02:56):
I think you know, I know we're not. This wasn't
the purpose of the thing. But I think AI is
going to basically make everybody in the basement of their
parents' house smoking pot, getting into no good that they
did some study on mice and let's just say there
was a reason Rome fell And if we have nothing
to do and no purpose, we're not going to degenerate.
(03:19):
So planner escape. I'm just saying, Wow, you heard it
here first.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
Yeah, I mean, I think you know everything I'm reading
about AI, all the AI agents I watched in the
video keynote. I'm understanding this concept of AI agent libraries.
My understanding of the application of AI where it's really powerful,
certainly in business, is the automation of repetitive tasks, right,
which are you know, there's so much power within the
(03:49):
context of the data, unstructured data that we have, within
the context of our emails and all of our things,
you know, And like the research that I'm doing is
that AI agents will be able to go and look
at all all those conversations, pull it all out, put
it into a structured database, bring in the marketing machine
that's going to automate, bring in the referral engines. Of course,
(04:09):
you know voice is going to attach to that for
you know, automated ordering, all that front end of the business,
right client relations. But you know, I find it interesting
because I actually think, like in these environments, like what
it's going to do is it's going to shift perhaps
the focus. And this is a great segue for us
(04:30):
for this episode, okay, which is like what do you
do with the people while all this is happening?
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Right, you know that's the you know, I'd love to
have a time machine and go back to when factories
started because they probably had the same conversation, yeah, or
maybe they did have the conversation, we need people to
run the factories. So now there's more opportunity. So it's
really the reverse of that, right, what do you do
(04:55):
with the people? Because supposedly some things I've seen and
heard and read is well, if AI can build everything,
do everything for you, you're really not there's not a
job for anybody.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
Right Well, but I think I think jobs jobs are
going to shift, and so this idea like where I'm
task oriented right now, I got to do this, I
got to do that, I got to do this. Our
work is going to move to much higher level thinking
in the process where we can you know. So, so
I think like the opportunity is in training your team,
like getting back inside your companies and training your people.
(05:30):
If they say catering as an example, I mean, it's
across everything, but let's take catering as an example. There's
no better time than to invest in your people and
helping them to use the AI tools to elevate their
skills and and do more higher level relationship building people.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
I mean, right, you a one thousand percent we have
customer support people offshore and we're teaching them how to
use AI to make their department better and do put
together programs that they wouldn't even have the skill set on.
But what happens after that? Right, so that ten to
twenty years, what happens after that where literally AI can
(06:09):
do the thinking for you and it will make your
coffee and it will literally do everything. Then what's next?
Speaker 1 (06:16):
You know?
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Do we move to an enlightened in utopia? Do we
find purpose someplace else? Because man's purpose has been tied
into his work, his or her work. Right, and so
what happens when everything that you have AI has, right,
it knows your knowledge mine, It takes all the best
catering minds in the planet and puts it in one head.
(06:38):
Well you are you needed?
Speaker 1 (06:40):
Yep?
Speaker 2 (06:41):
I don't know. And and literally whatever you're thinking, AI
can decipher for you. Like I'm doing some traveling and
I've never been to Amsterdam, and I don't have time
to pour through guide books. I just say, hey, this
is how much time I have, this is what I
want to do, and in three minutes there's an agenda
of what I should go see and do. I mean,
it's crazy, right, That's that's that's nursery school.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
Well, you're tapping into collective knowledge. So I think that's
going to happen on catering, right, Like we know that now.
So that's why I like the whole conversation on with Dovetail.
I said, I feel like Michael, everybody's doing like how
to do catering, how to do catering. It's like, Okay,
there's lots of ways of how to do catering, but
I mean there's fundamentals. You know that there's fundamentals because
you build software around those fundamentals, you.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
Know, and I did it when I build my restaurant,
just like you did. I mean you have to you
have to crawl, walk, run where I think it's going
to be really cool. You talk about the tools that
are going to help people, right, you know Level one
who were you know, we're working in the voice space.
You know some AI voice as well as just recording
a voice, and so Level one is, hey, I can
(07:43):
analyze the calls and see who needs to be coached.
Level two is you're sitting on the phone, you got
a headset in and it's going to listen to you
take that catering order. Hey, Eryl, why don't you ask
them if they want some fudge nut ice brownies, as
you know, because you didn't ask for that, right, and
it's going to give you. It's going to feed you
the script of what to say, right. And so now
(08:06):
all of a sudden you've turned until the AI voice
can take the place of that person on the phone.
It's just gonna make that person sharper, right.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
Yeah, yeah, But I mean voice is coming fast. I'm
seeing it in call centers and I mean it's it's yeah,
it's around the corner. I mean it's it's it's not
here already. So you should see what Jesse Stein is
working on. Have you seen what he's working on.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
It's that the is that the guy doing the party
room stuff?
Speaker 1 (08:31):
No, no, her medic hermitic dot AI. I think it's
called you can I'll send your link after. But all
voice really cool, a lot of outbound Yeah, I mean
that's all coming, all these integrations. You're going to be
integrating with those things shooting.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
Yeah, I mean we're already talking with somebody now about
like AI catering, answering, survey, the field calls, and then
eventually it'll just be you think you're talking to live person.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, Well that's amazing. So so that's all
moved h in an interesting way. Well, Michael, you know, listen,
let's talk about the kitchen for a minute, because I
think this is a piece. This is a big disc
in it, I feel, and so you know in my mind,
and it's always so refreshing to speak to you because
you're in it, you know, and you're you're you're right
(09:18):
on the front line there working with multi nut restaurants,
right and and and and restaurants and and and catering.
There's uh, you know, commissaries like you sit in the genre.
You know, there's a genre of like solutions I would say,
in the comprehensive solution set within the context of B
to B channel A specialist in catering out of restaurants,
that's where you've been for decades. So you have all
(09:38):
these incredible subtleties within the context of caters in that
is like amazing. There's hundreds and hundreds of like uh
you know, time uh, time tested features and functions right
that that that people use within the context of your
of your solution. But I always feel like in the
restaurant spaces where the thing gets disconnected is in the kitchen, right.
(10:00):
It's always like, so the strategy for operators, restaurant operators
technology wise in their stack, has always been like, the
kitchen is owned by the point of sale companies typically
unless you're dealing with QSR, where you might be like
USB kitchens or some separate KDS system you know, but
primarily you know, it's over the years, the point of
sale guys acquired all these companies, right, and they've got
(10:22):
the kitchen piece right. And then so what happens is
in a lot of places, especially in the ones that
are not that sophisticated or early in their strategies, they
don't understand this idea of not driving catering orders into
the kitchen and actually driving it into a different dashboard
where you've got your production reports, your labels, you know,
all the stuff that you need to be able to
generate your your batch based production. Because as you and
(10:46):
I know, catering is often, if not mostly always forward looking.
It's true there's always last minute orders, absolutely, but for
the most part we're looking a day or two, you know,
in advance, right, and so production planning becomes a thing.
And so going with this is like the disconnect I
see is like in that shift within the context that
the workflow and manufacturing process and fulfillment of catering orders
(11:08):
because there are B to B transactions and the way
the products are manufactured is different than what you do
in your store or in your takeout business, right and
therefore the best strategy currently today until we see something different,
is to actually not put your catering orders from a
production perspective into your point of sale, but actually allow your.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
I mean one thousand percent. You know a lot of
people that are like, oh, we need it, so we
could put it to the KDS. I said, so tell
me on what planet can you do box lunches for
fifty people? It gets fired off you. There's pretty planning.
You've got to assemble the box that you got to
decide what's going to go in them. Do I have
to bake off cookies? Do I need this? Do I
need that? I need a pre slice stelling meat because
(11:52):
I got to make five hundred sandwiches tomorrow morning for
all these box lunches. So it's a whole different thing.
And so you know, I think we have continued to evolve.
We were the original kitchen catering KDS developers, and we
made it for any type of tablet, iPhone, whatever. And
(12:12):
as much as I want to think I'm the smartest
guy in the room, you know, I'm definitely smart, but
I'm smarter in that I have an ear when customers speak,
is it's something that's a bullshit, you know, one off,
like okay, you're smoking crack, nobody needs this, or damn,
why didn't I think of this?
Speaker 1 (12:32):
And so that's good. What I remember those days when
people would ask for things and it was a big
scrap on the team about and I'm going, no, do
not add that function into our software. It's actually bad process.
Get them to fix what you're doing. And I used
to get like the evil eye, and I was the
guy that I was the guardrail.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
I said, no, wait, you have to because otherwise you
have a camel as a horse creative by COMMITTI software exactly.
So one of the things we got from the guys
at Corky's Barbecue, who I chuck you know, you know,
got in the business on the guy's like, man, we
love the fact that it goes from one color to
the next to prep it. But what happens when you
(13:13):
go from prep food to box food? Can you get
another color? And I'm like, well, shit, that's stupid.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
Why didn't I think of that?
Speaker 2 (13:22):
So now you know we're about to launch where there's
three colors. So it goes from the food needs to
be prep it's been prepped, and now the person assembling
it has a way to check off, and then things
like totals for the day, you know, on the electronic
not just the order and special what do you do
with special instructions? Because they're on modifiers so they have
to show up a different way. And what happens when
(13:44):
you have deli platters and you're telling it how many
sandwiches to make, but it doesn't tell you how many
sandwiches go on each platter. So we solve that problem.
So it just keeps going deeper and deeper and deeper
because it's a whole different animal. Well then you know,
when we were starting off, it's just a damn piece
of paper. And if you didn't have sharp people, you
(14:05):
weren't in the catering business. I mean, you know, you
had to know food math, you had to know all
this stuff. Now, literally, as I tell people, I said,
I could walk into any kitchen tomorrow, I might not
know how to make your recipes, but if I had
to make KDS, I could definitely run your kitchen, your
catering department and just say hey I need this, I
need this. Yeah, you know what's the process for this?
Speaker 1 (14:26):
Yeah, well you're a standalone system. I would say, you
handle the order to cash cycle. You don't. You don't
need one of sale. So that's basically it. You're just
you know, you have you have an end to end solution,
which is what's unique to caters in I mean there's
others that are in that genre as well. You know,
Monkey Company I Sold was one of them. You know,
certainly Flex Catering, Food Storm, Spoon Fed. You know, there's
(14:46):
sort of like these this category. They've still been getting
acquired you know, over time.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
Yeah, there was somebody at your conference with Monkey It
was on stage and said she's the ord catering operating system,
which I love. And then Elena Yeah, and then another thing,
I like to say, what are pos on steroids?
Speaker 1 (15:03):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (15:04):
Because for the catering business, right, and you know, you
go to home depot, you buy a two before it's
in the POS. You go rent a tool, you know,
something to air h your yard it's the machine. They've
got to inventory it, they've got to have maintenance schedules,
check in, check out. It's a different process, it's a
whole different business.
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Speaker 1 (15:53):
So let's talk about the future. So we're getting into
these kitchens because some of what I'm seeing next is automation.
In the kitchens, I'm seeing robots. I'm seeing like and
so we're around the corner, like salid robots are happening,
for sure, Okay, Like that's happening, and so it's definitely
going to spill into catering as well. So you know,
there's a point in time soon. I don't know where
(16:14):
it is, but it's not too far in our trajectory
where we're going to have AI that's taking the order
we're going to. It's going to hit the order management system,
which is then going to automate all the processes of billing, payment, collection,
production is going to go to the robot.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
The right delivery.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
We're not far.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
This is whevery and set up.
Speaker 1 (16:36):
Is this where we're going? This is where we're going.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
I think it's where we're headed for everything in life.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
I mean just this.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
You know, if the vision of a twenty five thirty
thousand dollars robot in your house to do all the
bs that needs to get done, why can't it be
in the kitchen environment or you know? I remember last
year I was in LA for my birthday with my daughter.
She lives out there, and I see this car and
there's nobody in it. I'm like, WTF and she goes, yeah,
(17:03):
it's I forgot the name of the service I saw
two or three times. I'm like, well, is it's so
far fetched that not only going to have these autonomous vehicles,
but you'll have robots that can deliver things, set them
up and you don't have to worry about did the
guys show up, did this happen? Did that happen? And
then we'll pay tax on this right, because the government
(17:24):
will say, look, we're people. We're putting people out of work.
So if you've got this human equivalent right, you're going
to pay an hourly tax for using this robot because
you're taking jobs out. And then we'll have a universal
basic income and a lot of people will get paid
to sit in the quote unquote the basement of their
(17:45):
parents' house and play video games.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
Wealthy, wealthy people will have the robots first home.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
Of course, but eventually, you know, cars were for the wealthy,
and then it became everybody had it, right.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
Yep, eventually that's just what a future. My goodness. I
feel like we live in the best years. Like I
don't know your age, but I'm like.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
Yeah, I'm I'm about to hit a big milestone. We're
the same age.
Speaker 1 (18:08):
Yeah, yeah, So I'm like, I'm like, yeah, I feel
like I lived in the best time. You know, like
music was good.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
You know, music was good.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
I I media was to get information like overseas. I
was like, you remember having to read a newspel It
was a whole different thing.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
I remember having to go to the library and had
to do research for.
Speaker 1 (18:25):
Pipers, like microfiche.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
Yeah, oh my god, that's like really old school books.
I was, yeah, I was. My son gave me a
subscription to Memento. You write a book and you have
to dictate things. And I was talking about the one
thing that I feel very sad for what he and
his sister didn't have in future generations. Like when I
was a kid, my parents threw my ass out at
(18:48):
six am, drink out of the garden hose, don't come back,
and you know, you take your bikes and you got
into trouble, and you played sports in people's backyards and
you'd go up to the mall. You know. I look
forward to every month I could get my free battery,
a radio shack and punch the card. I mean, it
was just a whole different times. And I think they're
(19:09):
no less dangerous. It's just we have too much media
to let us know. Susie and Sacramento got kidnapped, and
now everybody's up in arms. I mean, it was still happening.
We only knew what happened in our backyard back there
because it was it was hyper local. Well that's something else.
So speaking of hyper local, let's talk about that for
a minute, because let's pivot into like, you know, helping
(19:31):
operators to get more sales, because I think they're all
suffering in that sense. But before we do, I just
I'm putting out a podcast they had little rent last
week on sort of like the maybe some prediction Michael,
And I mean, I feel like, you know, we're coming
back into this negative sales cycle again, where like you know,
potentially everyone's talking for session and there's terror, like all
this stuff is upside down. People are uncertain, everybody's nervous,
(19:57):
depending on which side of the aisle you' on, you know,
right with your perspective, but you know, for the most
part it all impacts companies, and companies is the B
to B space, which is and so expecting a pullback, right,
which is cyclically It's happened over and over and over
over over. I mean, how many times does it happen?
Speaker 1 (20:15):
Right? But positioning it, this is the time to invest
in it because it always bounces back, you know, And
I actually, you know, the slowdown is difficult, of course
for anybody. But if you can, if you can take
your resources and concentrate and putting your catering strategy, put
in your education strategy, putting your technology, plumbing, get yourself
organized while your people are slowed down a bit, okay,
(20:38):
and then investing in your people and teaching them sales
skills and getting out and how to get back to
get ready for the next update.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
It's like a rebuilding year. But I'm going to challenge
you on a front that i think restaurants have an
advantage of. You know, if you are going to call
Susie's cater and we deal with everybody, right, so I'm
not I'm not, I'm not calling anybody out in a
bad way. But if you're dedicated cater and you have
to order in specific food for a customer, and you
(21:06):
know the restaurant, the advantage has it it's food they're
selling in the restaurant, right, So there's a lot of
buying power. There's a lot of inventory power there. You
can swim upstream, so the person that might have been
doing the expensive holiday party for their factory workers with
this caterer, they can come in and do it as
(21:26):
a restaurant and it's it's it's more cost effective. So
there's definitely up channel opportunities if the risk, if the
money gets tight, to swim upstream and take some of
that business.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
Yeah, but I findly what happens to make for a
lot of operators is their restaurant slows down too. And
so there's there they're just like there's small businesses that
are bootstrapped. They don't have the resources and they tend
to well, panic starts to happen, right, and then people
start to cut. That's what happens. And then and it's
it's it's tough, you know, it's hard to financing your business.
Is the time to your point, this is maybe a
(21:58):
year of rebuilding, okay or for a lot of people,
and for that you need to finance that rebuild, you know,
and look to the future. So I mean, that's some
advice I would give to, you know, any operator ear
there that's thinking, I got to pivot into catering. You know,
restaurants sales are tough. Catering sales are tough too, But
you got to make some very strategic decisions in your
company if you want to.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
See you know, it's amazing you'll spend twenty thousand dollars
on deck ovens, but you don't think about spending money
in catering. But catering can double the profits out of
that building. And then the other thing is, unfortunately in
our industry, we've not taught the value of sales and
marketing from the top down. Like I when I was
(22:38):
building catering, I didn't I didn't have the luxury of
hiring somebody. Literally, I would leave my restaurant at two
o'clock in the afternoon, go to Starbucks and work on
catering for an hour or two a day. So everybody
has an hour day. You can make calls, you can
go visit people, you can do something to push the needle.
We all have that ability.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
Yeah, and that's a good dovetail. Uh. You know, we
talked about strategy, right. We talked about the importance like
you know, you know, as a technology provider that if
you go into a multiunit restaurant company, especially because we're
talking about restaurants, multi unit community, that if they don't
have a strong leader or a good strategy for catering,
(23:19):
it's often a mess for you to put software into
those companies. And so that's so strategy is key. We
talked about the importance of doubling down on people in
terms of education and training, and of course we understand
the importance of technology to support the strategy and to
give you the framework and control and the gates and
everything that you need for the workflow ultimately, which is
creating efficiency within the context of your multi unit you know, subsets.
(23:44):
You know, this catering within the context of multiunit restaurants,
it's its own effort, its own business, its own team,
but the technology provides the framework and support for them
to be able to do their jobs. Okay, so that's
that's clear, So you know, and then what I've still learned, Michael,
I wonder if you run into this, like I still
see a lot of companies where catering is in a silo.
You know, it's still a small team. It's not core,
(24:06):
it's not in the court. You know, it's like in
the strategy, like in terms of the conversation, but there's
nobody in the boardroom really fighting for it. And that
brings me to community because a lot of people feel
lonely in that process. I talk to a lot of
catering leaders who feel like they're in a silo. They
feel like their companies don't hear them, and they want
more connection with people like themselves. Other leaders from other
(24:29):
brands and other food service are to you know, commiserate, right,
so like camaraderie, to share, to share stories, what's working
for you, what's not, and really just to get support. Okay.
And that was the sorry, that was the impetus of
cater Linked Okay, which is which was born. And you
stepped up, you know, you stepped up as a supply
chain community member who sees value in supporting that community.
(24:53):
And because you know you're you are a partner in education,
a partner in community with us over at cater Link.
And I we would like to ask you why you
agreed or why you made that decision to say, look,
I'll give this a shot because it's untrued, untested. You know,
we're just trying to figure it out. And you've been
very generous in this process. But I would like to Yeah,
maybe you could share that.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
Yeah, I've always been a big believer in education, even
if people aren't my client. Like I met with somebody
they have one hundred and fifty delis. I'm not going
to mention the chain and call them out. And she said, hey,
would you spend some time and let me brainstorm with
you because when you make the industry better and it's
(25:35):
it helps me indirectly, right, So whether it's somebody as
a client or somebody will be a future client because
I help them, or they say, hey, this guy's sharp,
we can't use them, or we don't have anough application,
you need to use them. And personally, my best growth
has been through these mentorship programs. You know, when I
(25:57):
and they've all been informal, like Dan Can he's a
big marketing mentor, and I would meet people at these
conferences and we would sort of have informal masterminds where
we'd get on the phone or I'd have people that
I could pick up the phone and call, and that
the industry has to grow for me to be viable.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
Right.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
If there's no catering, then there's no caters in right, totally.
And so for me, I also enjoy Somebody said, what
would you do if you retired and had nothing to do?
I would probably sit at Pinewood Social, which is this
place I hang out and work from, and I would
let people buy me coffee that I would pay for
and consult because I enjoy not only the giving back
(26:42):
but the brain power of hearing people's great ideas adding
to them, you know, whether it's plusing their ideas. That's
a big concept. It's like plussing an idea that I
that I enjoyed throwing around, or hey, here's something somebody
else is doing, or something I heard from something that
(27:03):
is the problem solving is more fulfilling than anything. We
talked about money before we got on here, Like we're
both blessed people, We're both very lucky, and unless I've
got private jet money, there's really nothing that's going to
change for me. As I joke around with my friend,
I'm still gonna eat steak tonight. But you know, so
(27:24):
I enjoyed the giving back and I was very humbled
and honored to come to Denver. You know, I love
what you said about when are we going to have
a chief catering officer. It's like it can add half
the profit it should have, at least the seat at
the table. I loved how you said that. And we're
just happy to give back and give further and further
(27:45):
in the community, and we get good ideas from it,
Like every day I get ideas to make my software better.
You know, I can't tell you how many things are
on our dev schedule because a prospect or, a customer said, oh,
here's a problem, can you solve it?
Speaker 1 (28:02):
Yeah? Yeah, you know, I love the culture Michael, that
you're building because ultimately, and by the way, thank you
for that, because you know, we're dancing this dance. We're
trying to stay like the Steven Keel And so I'm
trying to encourage as many people as possible to invest
in catering, especially in technology, because the more investment that
comes in, the better it is for everybody. But at
(28:23):
the same time it turns up the heat too, so
it's like it's like I'm always I'm always like a
little bit trying to trying to trying to manage that.
So we appreciate your what I would call mature perspective
in supporting what is a community of people and not
being afraid to have competitors they're sharing some space because
I think certainly in your case, at least I've come
(28:43):
to know you is that you know, you believe so
deeply that you are the best solution out there, which
is great because your company needs that. That you're not
afraid to go in the ring, you know, which is
I think an amazing, amazing thing and it's actually why
you're going to win some business like a lot of business.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
Okay, so I don't really look competitors because I believe
everybody has a little bit different point of differentiation even
though we're in the same space. And I just I
wake up every day worried about what I'm trying to
get done. I don't have time to worry about like
you know, I'm at the president of Flex at your event,
(29:18):
super nice guy. Honestly, I don't know what the hell
his software does. I haven't, you know, taking a test
drive of it. I don't know. I don't really care.
He's got his customers. I've got mine, and every day
I wake up trying to make myself better, my team better,
our process is better. And that's what I'm focused on
is I want I want to be the industry standard
(29:39):
where people go, what we're building in the CRM space
is going to be transformational that people go, you have
to use caters and they're the only people who haven't
figured out.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
Yeah, well that's great, and that's a great place for
us to end this podcast. Michael there, you guys heard
it straight up. You know, you hear where Michael's going
and hear what he's building, and you got to take
a look because it's you're, you're, you know, you're you're.
What you're doing is amazing, Michael. Thanks for being on
the show today.
Speaker 2 (30:04):
Is always a pleasure.
Speaker 1 (30:05):
Before I let you go, like, what any trade show
is coming up that you're doing, or what are you
doing now?
Speaker 2 (30:11):
I'm going to for my birthday, I'm going to Europe.
I'm gonna go to Holland and Paris and maybe Morocco.
But I've always wanted to ride a bicycle in the
tulip fields. So I've got a couple of excursions planned.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
So awesome. So that's what are you going to me now?
Speaker 2 (30:27):
I leave Monday.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
Oh well, thanks for squeezing this in before you go.
I don't know the next time i'll connect with you.
I'm heading on a big trip in May as well,
so where you're headed. I am doing a couple of
weeks in Spain, around Spain, and then I'm heading to
on a safari. I'm heading to Africa.
Speaker 2 (30:42):
Oh my god, that is going to be amazing.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
I know. So I'm gone from me third June three,
but we'll connect.
Speaker 2 (30:47):
After yeah for sure.
Speaker 1 (30:49):
Okay, thanks l for having me, great, Thanks for being here.
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