August 23, 2024 • 27 mins
Paul Corvino sits down with Mike Colonna! He is the Ceo of Norms Restaurants. Norms Restaurants is a well-known chain of diner-style restaurants in Southern California, founded in 1949 by Norm Roybark. The first location opened near the corner of Sunset and Vine in Los Angeles. Norms quickly became popular for its promise of "great food, great service, and great value". Now with 23 locations across Los Angeles, Orange, and Riverside counties, with plans to expand into Las Vegas.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
This is CEOs You Should Know.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
And now from iHeartMedia, here's Paul Corvino. This is Paul Corvino,
Division President of iHeartMedia in sunny Los Angeles, California, with
another episode of CEOs You Should Know. Today, I have
the privilege of talking with Mike Colonna, the President CEO
of Norms Restaurants. As you all know, Norms is an
(00:25):
LA institution with twenty three locations and they've been around
since nineteen forty nine. I'm personally a fan of the
Lumberjack Breakfast. I like my eggs and my breakfast for dinner.
Oh welcome Mike, Thank you, and it's a privilege to
be here.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
I really appreciate the interest that you have in us
inviting me here today.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Before we get started, I like to do a little
quick game to get the mouth and brain working. I'll
ask you questions and you got to answer quickly off
the top of your head. Ok. Ready for rapid fire,
Go for Okay, beat your ski vacation beach.
Speaker 4 (01:01):
Tom Brady or Michael Jordan.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
Oh, I'm from Boston.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
Brady, Beatles are Stones, Beatles all day long, Star Wars
or Godfather, Godfather Sean Connery or Daniel Craig, Sean Connery.
Celebrity people say you remind them of you.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
Know, I have an Italian background inheritage, so I usually
get compared to a lot of guys that don't do
good things. So I'll just leave it at that.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
You're talking to They're talking to someone who was born
and raised in little Italy in the Bronx. So we've
got two Italian East Coasters. We have the Bronx and Boston.
So as long as we don't talk about the Red
Sox or Celtics or spying on football practice, we're in
good shape.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
I'll be honest with you. As I got a little older,
I just appreciate great teams, great franchisees LA is a
great city, New York. I mean think Boston so so.
I I just think that you have to admire the
teams that really do well and how they get it done.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
You're you're you're a Boston guy in l A. And
that's that's tough rivalry.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
That's that's true. Last time I went to a game,
I think the Red Sox closed out the series against
the Dodgers.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
That was.
Speaker 4 (02:24):
The Lakers and UH and Celtics rivalry.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
Absolutely, absolutely Hey, what I'd like to do is like
to learn about aback your journey. How this boy from
from Boston wound up in Los Angeles running this tremendous
chain with twenty three restaurants, and when did it start.
Tell you?
Speaker 4 (02:41):
Tell me about your background, how you grew up.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
Well, my parents are immigrants, so so we were. I
was born and raised in the concrete Jungle in downtown Boston,
and then we moved out to the Suburbs, which is
about five miles outside of Boston, So that was the
Suburbs back then. And just a local kid, a blue collar.
I started in restaurants when I was fourteen years old
at a company called Howard Johnson's.
Speaker 4 (03:04):
Howard Johnson and I used to.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
Cook breakfasts and my motivation was to buy a set
of drums and get a car, and so I did that.
So as I went through high school, I went to
school at Tufts University, got a great education. I was
actually a kindergarten teacher for a couple of years, and
that wasn't my calling. I enjoyed that teaching and that
(03:26):
whole environment of trying to make influence people even though
we're the little kids. And then Honestly, I was a
little lost and I got a job at Burger King.
And I was so astute back then that I said,
I like whoppers better than McDonald's McDonald's Big Max, And
I went with Burger King, became a regional training director
(03:47):
and then worked for some really good companies Boston Market
at one point, Victoria Station and their heyday, you know,
traveled the country in senior management.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
So tell me about that progression. What job did you
started out and how did you get to that next level.
Speaker 3 (04:02):
I always started in operations and uh, you know, because
that's where the rubber meets the road. So I was
a regional training director at one point with Boston Market.
Became a regional director for a couple of full service
restaurants after not working with fast foods which we now
call QSRs, and that led to an opportunity as a
(04:23):
regional director with the company called Victoria Station. And at
that point I took over facilities, operations and concept development.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
Anyone advising you, did you have a particular mentor.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
I've had probably three people that influenced me most of
my life. One is my dad. My dad self made man,
always worked for himself, owned restaurants and bars and then
owned a taxi cab company. And my dad probably had
the highest emotional quotient of anybody.
Speaker 4 (04:54):
I know, you had the you had the entrepreneurial blood
running three years.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
Absolutely, my dad was just genuine. He could talk to anybody,
he could show respect, and so he was you know,
I kind of learned from him, you know, early on.
And then I had really two restaurant mentors. One was
a guy named Jay Willoughby, who was at one point
the CEO of Boston Market during the heyday. And then
(05:18):
another one gentleman, was a gentleman named John Altemar, who
was just a true blue restauranteur. Loved to be in
the stores. Although he was in a VP director position,
he just he wanted to be in wrestler.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Well, what were the most important things you've learned from
these mentors?
Speaker 3 (05:35):
Oh? Details, They were just a pain in the button.
I'll use that word. I can use that on air, right.
They stickler for details and consistency. So they were tough
operators and I got scolded a few times when I
was younger in the walking and you remember those things.
But they always treated you with dignity and respect and
(05:57):
they'd always put that arm around you afterwards because they
were trying to do things to make the restaurant better.
You know, Altimar told me once because I wanted to
be a dentist or a doctor when I was young,
and I took chemistry and physics and almost flunked out
of Tufts at the time. So I said, let me,
let me take psychology.
Speaker 4 (06:16):
I can.
Speaker 3 (06:16):
I can figure that stuff out, right, And there was
one point where I was telling the story of that.
Speaker 4 (06:22):
So you didn't have a business background.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
No, you know, except for except for except for working
in all these great companies.
Speaker 4 (06:28):
Yeah, you had. You had a real world business.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
And when I was with Boston Market and you know,
I told her, you know, I really had. You know,
you get middle aged, you go, geez, maybe I could
have done this, I should have done this. And he
kind of gave me a metaphoric backhand and said, what
are you doing? You you have probably a thousand people
working for you, and their livelihoods depends on whether you're
good or not. And you have so much influence on
(06:51):
people's livelihoods. Don't ever estimate what the restaurant business does.
So he was really the first person that told me
you didn't have to be an off You didn't have
to be an attorney. Didn't you were doing something that
you know, maybe it's a little dirty, or maybe it's
a little you know, a little more difficult in a
lot of ways, but there's a tremendous opportunity. One last
(07:15):
thing I'll mention, if I may. Coming from the Italian heritage,
my mom was the best restaurant operator evenue. If we
had a party at our house, the house was immaculate,
the food was amazing, and if Uncle Frankie was coming over,
we had the bottle of crown for him. So being
from the Italian heritage, so many things happen around food,
(07:39):
you know, in terms of morning, our.
Speaker 4 (07:41):
Lives was centered around food. There was always food.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Yeah, as you know, there was always something in the
refrigerator that we could eat that's for company. It was
usually an intimate's cake.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
And there's a story of Errad. I can't recall the
author that after World War two, when Paris was decimated
and they were rebuilding the war was over, what happened
was a couple of cafes opened up, and that was
the sign that we can get back to a normal
(08:11):
being and slowly but surely, the economy came back, the
businesses came back. But the first business is to open
up were the where the cafes on the street, and
they were opening up in rumble and you know, and
all these rumbles and decimation, and it's kind of an
interesting story about how that was signifying that they could
get back to something normally.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
What would life be without having a restaurant to go to,
whether it's a whether it's a diner, or it's you know,
or it's Spago, it's you know, it's it's life. I mean,
it's with Without that, it really just takes away so
much of why we live.
Speaker 4 (08:49):
Absolutely absolutely so.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
Now so now you're you're in Boston. What position were
you in before you made the leap to Los Angeles?
Speaker 3 (08:57):
I was a regional director for Boston Market, okay, and
I'd worked for a few years with them, and Boston
Market kind of lost its way and I moved on
to what year is this eighty five or so? It's
right around eighty five or so.
Speaker 4 (09:14):
A surrender.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
In eighty five, you're in Boston. You you've got a
big job with Boston Market, and what happened? You get
a call from a recruiter that had head headed work.
Speaker 3 (09:25):
I actually opened up my own restaurants for seven years.
Oh okay, I started having a little kids. I have
three daughters now, all in their thirties. And my wife
and I talked, and my wife said, you know, if
we're gonna have a family, you can't be on the road.
You can't be a road warrior. And I said, okay,
I'll open up some restaurants. So I actually opened up
three restaurants in the Greater Boston area for about eight years.
Speaker 4 (09:45):
Of my own.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
So, you know, being in there every day doing everything
and not having somebody to delegate to, it's just a
different experience.
Speaker 4 (09:53):
What kind of restaurants were they?
Speaker 3 (09:54):
One was a Boston Boston chicken knockoff little rotisserie store,
and then I I had that, and then I opened
up a diner, a classic diner. And at that point,
I said, I'll never do breakfast again because you do
like two hundred people, and you know, you'd sell five
hundred coffees and like a couple of eggs and you
look at the till and go is that all I made?
(10:16):
And then I opened up ty In Restaurant with the
sports bar adjacent to it, and I owned that during
the year that the Red Sox, the Patriots, and the
Brooms were all in championship games.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
So it was just it was in two thousand and
six when they beat my Yankees.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
No, this was right when the Bledsoe Bay. So this
was a little bit before probably nineties. I can't recall.
Speaker 4 (10:45):
That's when they were still losing to the Yankees.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
Oh but yeah, absolutely, you're right, you know. And so
that was some some great years that we had. You
had mentioned about some of the mentors and some of
the people that made impression on you. One gentleman, and
I won't say his name, his first name was Bob.
I took my first job, as I mentioned, Howard Johnson's fourteen,
(11:09):
trying to save up to buy some drums, and so
me and my buddy Sean, Sean, we were the lead
cooks on the weekend and this was a busy restaurant,
so there was three of us. I was I forged
the working papers.
Speaker 4 (11:24):
I got my.
Speaker 3 (11:25):
Cousin to sign him. So I was fourteen, fifteen years old.
So I was there for like two years, and myself,
Sean and Joe did Nato. We were in a rock
band at the time, you know, ninth grade or tenth
grade and uh yeah, and we were like, we were
really good cooks and it was Mother's Day and we
(11:45):
came in at four am. Here's the prep sheet. Bob
did the prep sheet, he did the forecast. We did
everything he told us to do, and we ran out
of like everything. At ten o'clock. We ran out eggs
and bacon. We had toast and people are crying. Waitresses
are crying, people are like yelling at us in the window,
(12:07):
and we're like, you know, so Bob Spears came in
there and he was frantic, and he decided yelling at
us because were kind of we were not laughing, but
we're like, there's nothing we can do. And he goes,
what are you laughing about? Don't forget you're just a
social Security number to be wow. And so the three
(12:27):
of us look together at each other and said, okay, Bob,
and we finished the shift and we turned in our keys,
and we said that last lasting memory was on some
things that you just should never do in terms of
how you treat your people and norms. We're pretty good
on our operator mentality. We don't do everything right. We
(12:49):
don't do everything perfect, but we do have a culture
and a high tenure of individual that worked us ten fifteen,
twenty years. We have most of our general managers started
off as cooks or servers, work through the ranks, shift leaders,
that type of thing. So going back to my dad
and that emotional quotient, you know, I think that taught me.
(13:13):
That was just that. That was when I was fourteen
years old, and to this day, I can remember that
incident as a mouse.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
It's an important thing to help you manage the right
way of managing. Yes, So now you're you're in Boston,
it's mid eighties and you've got your own restaurants. What
happened and why did you get out of your own
restaurants and moving to Los Angeles?
Speaker 3 (13:38):
I wasn't happy in that small environment and had I
had a lot of credibility in the industry. So after
my kids grew up a little bit, my youngest daughter
went to kindergarten, I turned to my wife and said,
I'm really not happy doing this. I want to get
back in the multi unit stuff. So that's when I
went to Boston Market. And then I left Boston Market
(13:59):
and I ended up doing quote unquote consulting but it
was really restaurant management.
Speaker 4 (14:06):
Out here in California, all over the country.
Speaker 3 (14:09):
Yeah, me and my partner, guy named Jim Bayless, probably
one of the smartest guys I know. He's got a
finance background. I have an operations background. So we made
a pretty good partnership and uh, you know, we we
ran small companies. We fixed them, we set them up
for sale, we took over as CEO COO that type
of thing, you know, small companies that you might know,
(14:32):
Wendy's franchises, some Burger Kings. We ran a restaurant called
Carnegie Delhi knowed very well for a year, which is
the craziest experience I've ever had in the business. And
so we did a lot of things and uh, and
then we settled in into trying to find something a
little more permanent. So I had worked at a company
(14:54):
called Fat's Cafe on the East Coast. I was the
chief operating officer and Jim had on moved on to
the West Coast and worked with a company called Capital Spring.
That's our ownership finance guys, very bright, but they used
to finance companies. They wanted to buy companies, and so
we were their first baby that they bought, and so
(15:17):
he called me up and said, listen, I got a
great company for you. I think you can run it,
and you live in the Bay or we'll figure that out.
And so that was twenty fourteen and I came up
and that's how I kind of fell into Norms.
Speaker 4 (15:34):
And so what was your first position at Norms?
Speaker 3 (15:36):
I was president? You're a president and then shortly after
president's CEO. Okay, So in a small company like that,
I'll be honest with you, there's not much delineation between
the titles. The titles that kind of thing. You can
call somebody a regional manager or district manager, but when
you're in a smaller sized company, it's really the same responsibilities.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
So Norms, and how many locations did they have at
the time.
Speaker 3 (15:59):
Uh, seventeen and they just lost the lease to one
restaurant in Westwood and so we went down to sixteen
and now we've built it back up over the years
to about we've got twenty four right now.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
And what sets Norms apart, I know Norms is, you know,
a lot of restaurants has probably the highest failure rate
of almost any other business that you can go into.
You've been successful everywhere you've gone, including your own businesses.
What is it that makes NORMS work? Why is it successful?
Speaker 3 (16:32):
Well, I think you have to give a lot of
credit to Norman Roybach, the original founder in nineteen forty nine.
Norm was a car salsman and after the war, that
was the time period in where there was car dealerships
with bright lights, big chrome, big bumpers, the Chrysler's, the Cadillacs,
and so he was a car salsman and he wanted
(16:54):
to do something else besides cars, and he also liked
to play the ponies. Said that respectfully. Norm and he
would go to Santa Anita and he would see the
one dollar line, the three dollar line, and five dollar line,
and the one doll line was around the corner with
people trying to make bets. He said, I'm going to
open up a restaurant that's like a one dollar line,
which is the value proposition of what he did. So
(17:17):
he developed restaurants that looked like car dealerships with the
windows and the bright lights, and then you know, he
gave great value. Norms was basically built on two items.
The bigger, better breakfast, which we still serve today, and
a t bone steak, so he had the breakfast item
and the dinner item, and then he offered soup and
(17:38):
salad and side dishes and great value. Now, the other
thing about Norm, and it's so important in the restaurant business,
is he knew how to pick locations, picked great locations.
So some of our restaurants are forty fifty years old
and there's still vibing locations. You know, how things change,
the neighborhoods. So he knew how to pick sights, and
(17:59):
he knew how to stay true to the brand and
always offers that value proposition. The last thing that Norm did,
you know, people say it's the food stupid. It's really
the people stupid, you know. And he found people that
he paid well, that gave him a fraction of the action,
that stayed with them and had a vested interest in it.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
It always is the same, the same with our business.
It's about our on air talent. It's it's about people
being able to drive to work with their best friends
on the air. When they get a recommendation for your friends,
it works and it's trusted. And then the rest of
the staff and everyone else that's in this building, people
sitting in this room today.
Speaker 4 (18:38):
That the same as yours. In the end, it's always
about the people.
Speaker 3 (18:41):
Sure, yeah, Now is it more difficult today? Absolutely? And
I think what we took.
Speaker 4 (18:46):
Why is it more difficult today?
Speaker 3 (18:47):
Well, just the financial pressures of everything, you know, it's
it's not just the commodities and the cost of goods.
It's it's the labor, it's the rent, it's the insurance.
Everything has put pressure on the margins, especially the last
three or four years.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
Now, let me ask you right now, I mean if
I go to McDonald's, it's it's I don't know. I
don't get out of there without spending twenty thirty dollars
at McDonald's. But I was recently in the Norms and
the prices are still low. It's cheaper to go to
Norms now than it is to go to a fast
food restaurant in a lot of ways.
Speaker 4 (19:25):
How are your prices so much lower than some of
the others.
Speaker 3 (19:29):
Well, we buy very smart, and we also have an
executive chef named David Cox that's able to develop recipes
that make it affordable for us to do things. So
we always have a value menu.
Speaker 4 (19:41):
Right now, we're.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
Running seven for seven ninety nine seven items for seven
ninety nine, which is an entry price, so if somebody
wants that value, they can go there. But we also
have on the back end t Boat and Porthhouse steaks,
but for only twenty dollars you can get you can
get a twenty ounce Porthhouse steak for twenty two dollars. Yeah,
(20:03):
with two side dishes you know. Oh you want soup
and salad. Okay, that's ne extra three bucks, you know.
So we buy smart, We purchase really well, and we
try to find opportunities that allow us to give the
value back.
Speaker 4 (20:17):
You know.
Speaker 3 (20:17):
Coming up soon as our seventy fifth anniversary, which makes
seventy fifth menu five years. Thanks, yeah, thanks. The menu's
going to start at seven dollars and fifty cents. That
the anniversary menu, it'll go up to ten eleven dollars,
but for ten eleven dollars you're going to get bone
in pork chops and stuff like that. So we've already
tried to plan that value. You have to have a
(20:38):
value component today so that people that are on that
have less disposable ancount.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
How do people know about this? We're in the advertising business.
We help advertisers like yourself get the word out to people. Sure,
now you your expertise has been in operations and partners
and finance. Who handles the marketing? Inf you get involved
in that or do you we're running a business, do
you divide into divide and conquer?
Speaker 3 (21:05):
Well, well, I have a very good VP of marketing
Ingrid Martinez and David David Cox the executive chef, and
I have a great operator Leo Thomas, And so I
think I think I'm surrounded by pretty pretty good people.
But I'm a generalist.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
How do you know what's what's your goal in in
building the brand and and driving business from the marketing side.
Speaker 3 (21:29):
Uh, you know right now is to make sure we
promote the value value propositions. Everything is. Everybody's looking at
sales and sales and sales, but you can inflate sales.
Everybody's taking price increases. We look at traffic, right, you know,
an empty butt doesn't tip. It's kind of an old,
old old saying. So so we're trying to offer value.
But we're also value is just not a price. And
(21:52):
and you know value is Honda has one of the
highest value reputations. They're not the cheapest card of the market.
So so value is what you get in terms of
the total experience, you know, the food, the food quality,
the portions, the service, the atmosphere. So we're trying to
get value right now, especially competing with you know, QSRs
(22:15):
are doing breakfast right now, Wendy's and all these other
restaurants but Mickey D's, and they're all at five ninety
nine starting points. But by the time you get out
and you add the drink and you add the coffee
and stuff, you're up there.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
You get to sit down and get service at the
same time. Absolute one of the things that I see
right now, there are so many restaurants now that I
walk into and you got to wait online to order
something that's not cheaper than what you would get in
a diner where you get service and then you sit down.
You might get a number or something and then come over.
(22:48):
I personally like to go in, have someone bring me
a cup of coffee, read the menu, and have it coming.
Speaker 4 (22:55):
It seems.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
Do you think it's seed going back that way? Do
people want service again?
Speaker 3 (22:59):
It's funny. I was talking to Edith, who's a little
younger than me, a lot younger than me, and we
were talking about boomers and gen z's and x's and millennials,
and you know there there is there is a desire
to sit down and eat. Now, COVID change a lot
of things, so you have to have a great takeout menu.
You have to do delivery because there's that desire and
(23:22):
people have less time. So so even though you do
sit down, you have to be efficient and quick and
take care of the guests so you meet that demand
in terms of how much time they have. So I
do agree. You know, years ago Dunkin Donuts used to
have counters. Now they took out all the counters, and
you know they're they're actually a quick service restaurant. Years
(23:44):
ago the diners took out the counters because they wasn't
cool diners. Counters are really a great place to sit
in a restaurant. So if you're your your other dude
that's going to work, or the blue collar worker or
the guy with the white shirt and tie and you
just want to and you don't want to sit at
a table, you'd be less conspicuous or whatever. And if
you sit down at the counter, you probably know the
(24:07):
name of the server because you go there once in
a while. So there is this this social you know,
benefit of coming to going to a sit down restaurant.
So I definitely think it's come back. But you've got
to do the other things.
Speaker 4 (24:22):
Well.
Speaker 3 (24:23):
You know, we revised our to go packaging and made
our product more durable and vented containers and serve different
service where so that when you do to go and
you want to satisfy that need, which is about about
fifteen percent of our business is off premise, it's called
you want to make sure you execute that because it's
an extension of the brand. We just redeveloped our catering menu.
(24:47):
You know, you think, oh, why would you go to
Norms for catering because we can do continental breakfast, full service, breakfast,
burger bars, full dinners cheaper than anywhere you're going to get.
You know, we're on easy catering and a couple of
these online. You know, you need to beech technologically very
savvy today as well.
Speaker 4 (25:05):
So what's what's new? What's up next for Norms Vegas?
Speaker 3 (25:10):
We're going to Vegas and we we think that that
will be very successful. I'm very excited about this location.
Speaker 4 (25:16):
When it will be opening October twelve.
Speaker 3 (25:21):
I think if we can get the construction done, construction
has been. It's been difficult for us, but but mid
October we're going to be open up before the holidays.
We missed it back to school season, but that's okay.
We'll we'll be okay.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
That's exciting going to Vegas at it's his first time
a Normo has been out of the state of California.
Speaker 3 (25:39):
Yes, yes, we haven't given up in California. By the way,
it is more difficult here and it's a little more costly,
but there's more business in California. So we're still looking
for about two or three more locations in so cal
you know, whether it's all a county Inland Empire. You know,
we've got more than enough restaurants in Orange County. But
we haven't given up in California. We still think we
(26:00):
can do really good business here, including our existing restaurants.
Speaker 4 (26:04):
So well, thank you.
Speaker 2 (26:05):
We've been talking with Mike Kolowna, the president and CEO
of Norms Restaurant. Very informative, learning a lot about the
restaurant business, and a lot about you personally and yours
and your management style and the value proposition that normal offers.
Thank you so much for coming on. This is Paul
(26:25):
can I.
Speaker 3 (26:25):
Give you one more. I'm sorry interrupted. This is a
plug not for NORMS. We're involved with No Kid Hungry
and we donate part of our income to it. People
make donations, so I would love to invite everybody to
come into norm but also keep in mind the affiliation
we have with No Kid Hungry.
Speaker 2 (26:45):
Go to norms dot com and you can find out
how to donate to such a great cause.
Speaker 4 (26:49):
Absolutely, this is.
Speaker 2 (26:50):
Paul Corvino, Division President of iHeartMedia saying thank you for
listening to another episode of CEOs you Should Know.
Speaker 4 (26:59):
Listen you CEOs you Should Know on the iHeartRadio app
This is CEOs You Should Know.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
And now from iHeartMedia, here's Paul Corvino. This is Paul Corvino,
Division President of iHeartMedia in sunny Los Angeles, California, with
another episode of CEOs You Should Know. Today, I have
the privilege of talking with Mike Colonna, the President CEO
of Norms Restaurants. As you all know, Norms is an
(00:25):
LA institution with twenty three locations and they've been around
since nineteen forty nine. I'm personally a fan of the
Lumberjack Breakfast. I like my eggs and my breakfast for dinner.
Oh welcome Mike, Thank you, and it's a privilege to
be here.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
I really appreciate the interest that you have in us
inviting me here today.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Before we get started, I like to do a little
quick game to get the mouth and brain working. I'll
ask you questions and you got to answer quickly off
the top of your head. Ok. Ready for rapid fire,
Go for Okay, beat your ski vacation beach.
Speaker 4 (01:01):
Tom Brady or Michael Jordan.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
Oh, I'm from Boston.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
Brady, Beatles are Stones, Beatles all day long, Star Wars
or Godfather, Godfather Sean Connery or Daniel Craig, Sean Connery.
Celebrity people say you remind them of you.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
Know, I have an Italian background inheritage, so I usually
get compared to a lot of guys that don't do
good things. So I'll just leave it at that.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
You're talking to They're talking to someone who was born
and raised in little Italy in the Bronx. So we've
got two Italian East Coasters. We have the Bronx and Boston.
So as long as we don't talk about the Red
Sox or Celtics or spying on football practice, we're in
good shape.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
I'll be honest with you. As I got a little older,
I just appreciate great teams, great franchisees LA is a
great city, New York. I mean think Boston so so.
I I just think that you have to admire the
teams that really do well and how they get it done.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
You're you're you're a Boston guy in l A. And
that's that's tough rivalry.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
That's that's true. Last time I went to a game,
I think the Red Sox closed out the series against
the Dodgers.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
That was.
Speaker 4 (02:24):
The Lakers and UH and Celtics rivalry.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
Absolutely, absolutely Hey, what I'd like to do is like
to learn about aback your journey. How this boy from
from Boston wound up in Los Angeles running this tremendous
chain with twenty three restaurants, and when did it start.
Tell you?
Speaker 4 (02:41):
Tell me about your background, how you grew up.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
Well, my parents are immigrants, so so we were. I
was born and raised in the concrete Jungle in downtown Boston,
and then we moved out to the Suburbs, which is
about five miles outside of Boston, So that was the
Suburbs back then. And just a local kid, a blue collar.
I started in restaurants when I was fourteen years old
at a company called Howard Johnson's.
Speaker 4 (03:04):
Howard Johnson and I used to.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
Cook breakfasts and my motivation was to buy a set
of drums and get a car, and so I did that.
So as I went through high school, I went to
school at Tufts University, got a great education. I was
actually a kindergarten teacher for a couple of years, and
that wasn't my calling. I enjoyed that teaching and that
(03:26):
whole environment of trying to make influence people even though
we're the little kids. And then Honestly, I was a
little lost and I got a job at Burger King.
And I was so astute back then that I said,
I like whoppers better than McDonald's McDonald's Big Max, And
I went with Burger King, became a regional training director
(03:47):
and then worked for some really good companies Boston Market
at one point, Victoria Station and their heyday, you know,
traveled the country in senior management.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
So tell me about that progression. What job did you
started out and how did you get to that next level.
Speaker 3 (04:02):
I always started in operations and uh, you know, because
that's where the rubber meets the road. So I was
a regional training director at one point with Boston Market.
Became a regional director for a couple of full service
restaurants after not working with fast foods which we now
call QSRs, and that led to an opportunity as a
(04:23):
regional director with the company called Victoria Station. And at
that point I took over facilities, operations and concept development.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
Anyone advising you, did you have a particular mentor.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
I've had probably three people that influenced me most of
my life. One is my dad. My dad self made man,
always worked for himself, owned restaurants and bars and then
owned a taxi cab company. And my dad probably had
the highest emotional quotient of anybody.
Speaker 4 (04:54):
I know, you had the you had the entrepreneurial blood
running three years.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
Absolutely, my dad was just genuine. He could talk to anybody,
he could show respect, and so he was you know,
I kind of learned from him, you know, early on.
And then I had really two restaurant mentors. One was
a guy named Jay Willoughby, who was at one point
the CEO of Boston Market during the heyday. And then
(05:18):
another one gentleman, was a gentleman named John Altemar, who
was just a true blue restauranteur. Loved to be in
the stores. Although he was in a VP director position,
he just he wanted to be in wrestler.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Well, what were the most important things you've learned from
these mentors?
Speaker 3 (05:35):
Oh? Details, They were just a pain in the button.
I'll use that word. I can use that on air, right.
They stickler for details and consistency. So they were tough
operators and I got scolded a few times when I
was younger in the walking and you remember those things.
But they always treated you with dignity and respect and
(05:57):
they'd always put that arm around you afterwards because they
were trying to do things to make the restaurant better.
You know, Altimar told me once because I wanted to
be a dentist or a doctor when I was young,
and I took chemistry and physics and almost flunked out
of Tufts at the time. So I said, let me,
let me take psychology.
Speaker 4 (06:16):
I can.
Speaker 3 (06:16):
I can figure that stuff out, right, And there was
one point where I was telling the story of that.
Speaker 4 (06:22):
So you didn't have a business background.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
No, you know, except for except for except for working
in all these great companies.
Speaker 4 (06:28):
Yeah, you had. You had a real world business.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
And when I was with Boston Market and you know,
I told her, you know, I really had. You know,
you get middle aged, you go, geez, maybe I could
have done this, I should have done this. And he
kind of gave me a metaphoric backhand and said, what
are you doing? You you have probably a thousand people
working for you, and their livelihoods depends on whether you're
good or not. And you have so much influence on
(06:51):
people's livelihoods. Don't ever estimate what the restaurant business does.
So he was really the first person that told me
you didn't have to be an off You didn't have
to be an attorney. Didn't you were doing something that
you know, maybe it's a little dirty, or maybe it's
a little you know, a little more difficult in a
lot of ways, but there's a tremendous opportunity. One last
(07:15):
thing I'll mention, if I may. Coming from the Italian heritage,
my mom was the best restaurant operator evenue. If we
had a party at our house, the house was immaculate,
the food was amazing, and if Uncle Frankie was coming over,
we had the bottle of crown for him. So being
from the Italian heritage, so many things happen around food,
(07:39):
you know, in terms of morning, our.
Speaker 4 (07:41):
Lives was centered around food. There was always food.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Yeah, as you know, there was always something in the
refrigerator that we could eat that's for company. It was
usually an intimate's cake.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
And there's a story of Errad. I can't recall the
author that after World War two, when Paris was decimated
and they were rebuilding the war was over, what happened
was a couple of cafes opened up, and that was
the sign that we can get back to a normal
(08:11):
being and slowly but surely, the economy came back, the
businesses came back. But the first business is to open
up were the where the cafes on the street, and
they were opening up in rumble and you know, and
all these rumbles and decimation, and it's kind of an
interesting story about how that was signifying that they could
get back to something normally.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
What would life be without having a restaurant to go to,
whether it's a whether it's a diner, or it's you know,
or it's Spago, it's you know, it's it's life. I mean,
it's with Without that, it really just takes away so
much of why we live.
Speaker 4 (08:49):
Absolutely absolutely so.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
Now so now you're you're in Boston. What position were
you in before you made the leap to Los Angeles?
Speaker 3 (08:57):
I was a regional director for Boston Market, okay, and
I'd worked for a few years with them, and Boston
Market kind of lost its way and I moved on
to what year is this eighty five or so? It's
right around eighty five or so.
Speaker 4 (09:14):
A surrender.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
In eighty five, you're in Boston. You you've got a
big job with Boston Market, and what happened? You get
a call from a recruiter that had head headed work.
Speaker 3 (09:25):
I actually opened up my own restaurants for seven years.
Oh okay, I started having a little kids. I have
three daughters now, all in their thirties. And my wife
and I talked, and my wife said, you know, if
we're gonna have a family, you can't be on the road.
You can't be a road warrior. And I said, okay,
I'll open up some restaurants. So I actually opened up
three restaurants in the Greater Boston area for about eight years.
Speaker 4 (09:45):
Of my own.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
So, you know, being in there every day doing everything
and not having somebody to delegate to, it's just a
different experience.
Speaker 4 (09:53):
What kind of restaurants were they?
Speaker 3 (09:54):
One was a Boston Boston chicken knockoff little rotisserie store,
and then I I had that, and then I opened
up a diner, a classic diner. And at that point,
I said, I'll never do breakfast again because you do
like two hundred people, and you know, you'd sell five
hundred coffees and like a couple of eggs and you
look at the till and go is that all I made?
(10:16):
And then I opened up ty In Restaurant with the
sports bar adjacent to it, and I owned that during
the year that the Red Sox, the Patriots, and the
Brooms were all in championship games.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
So it was just it was in two thousand and
six when they beat my Yankees.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
No, this was right when the Bledsoe Bay. So this
was a little bit before probably nineties. I can't recall.
Speaker 4 (10:45):
That's when they were still losing to the Yankees.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
Oh but yeah, absolutely, you're right, you know. And so
that was some some great years that we had. You
had mentioned about some of the mentors and some of
the people that made impression on you. One gentleman, and
I won't say his name, his first name was Bob.
I took my first job, as I mentioned, Howard Johnson's fourteen,
(11:09):
trying to save up to buy some drums, and so
me and my buddy Sean, Sean, we were the lead
cooks on the weekend and this was a busy restaurant,
so there was three of us. I was I forged
the working papers.
Speaker 4 (11:24):
I got my.
Speaker 3 (11:25):
Cousin to sign him. So I was fourteen, fifteen years old.
So I was there for like two years, and myself,
Sean and Joe did Nato. We were in a rock
band at the time, you know, ninth grade or tenth
grade and uh yeah, and we were like, we were
really good cooks and it was Mother's Day and we
(11:45):
came in at four am. Here's the prep sheet. Bob
did the prep sheet, he did the forecast. We did
everything he told us to do, and we ran out
of like everything. At ten o'clock. We ran out eggs
and bacon. We had toast and people are crying. Waitresses
are crying, people are like yelling at us in the window,
(12:07):
and we're like, you know, so Bob Spears came in
there and he was frantic, and he decided yelling at
us because were kind of we were not laughing, but
we're like, there's nothing we can do. And he goes,
what are you laughing about? Don't forget you're just a
social Security number to be wow. And so the three
(12:27):
of us look together at each other and said, okay, Bob,
and we finished the shift and we turned in our keys,
and we said that last lasting memory was on some
things that you just should never do in terms of
how you treat your people and norms. We're pretty good
on our operator mentality. We don't do everything right. We
(12:49):
don't do everything perfect, but we do have a culture
and a high tenure of individual that worked us ten fifteen,
twenty years. We have most of our general managers started
off as cooks or servers, work through the ranks, shift leaders,
that type of thing. So going back to my dad
and that emotional quotient, you know, I think that taught me.
(13:13):
That was just that. That was when I was fourteen
years old, and to this day, I can remember that
incident as a mouse.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
It's an important thing to help you manage the right
way of managing. Yes, So now you're you're in Boston,
it's mid eighties and you've got your own restaurants. What
happened and why did you get out of your own
restaurants and moving to Los Angeles?
Speaker 3 (13:38):
I wasn't happy in that small environment and had I
had a lot of credibility in the industry. So after
my kids grew up a little bit, my youngest daughter
went to kindergarten, I turned to my wife and said,
I'm really not happy doing this. I want to get
back in the multi unit stuff. So that's when I
went to Boston Market. And then I left Boston Market
(13:59):
and I ended up doing quote unquote consulting but it
was really restaurant management.
Speaker 4 (14:06):
Out here in California, all over the country.
Speaker 3 (14:09):
Yeah, me and my partner, guy named Jim Bayless, probably
one of the smartest guys I know. He's got a
finance background. I have an operations background. So we made
a pretty good partnership and uh, you know, we we
ran small companies. We fixed them, we set them up
for sale, we took over as CEO COO that type
of thing, you know, small companies that you might know,
(14:32):
Wendy's franchises, some Burger Kings. We ran a restaurant called
Carnegie Delhi knowed very well for a year, which is
the craziest experience I've ever had in the business. And
so we did a lot of things and uh, and
then we settled in into trying to find something a
little more permanent. So I had worked at a company
(14:54):
called Fat's Cafe on the East Coast. I was the
chief operating officer and Jim had on moved on to
the West Coast and worked with a company called Capital Spring.
That's our ownership finance guys, very bright, but they used
to finance companies. They wanted to buy companies, and so
we were their first baby that they bought, and so
(15:17):
he called me up and said, listen, I got a
great company for you. I think you can run it,
and you live in the Bay or we'll figure that out.
And so that was twenty fourteen and I came up
and that's how I kind of fell into Norms.
Speaker 4 (15:34):
And so what was your first position at Norms?
Speaker 3 (15:36):
I was president? You're a president and then shortly after
president's CEO. Okay, So in a small company like that,
I'll be honest with you, there's not much delineation between
the titles. The titles that kind of thing. You can
call somebody a regional manager or district manager, but when
you're in a smaller sized company, it's really the same responsibilities.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
So Norms, and how many locations did they have at
the time.
Speaker 3 (15:59):
Uh, seventeen and they just lost the lease to one
restaurant in Westwood and so we went down to sixteen
and now we've built it back up over the years
to about we've got twenty four right now.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
And what sets Norms apart, I know Norms is, you know,
a lot of restaurants has probably the highest failure rate
of almost any other business that you can go into.
You've been successful everywhere you've gone, including your own businesses.
What is it that makes NORMS work? Why is it successful?
Speaker 3 (16:32):
Well, I think you have to give a lot of
credit to Norman Roybach, the original founder in nineteen forty nine.
Norm was a car salsman and after the war, that
was the time period in where there was car dealerships
with bright lights, big chrome, big bumpers, the Chrysler's, the Cadillacs,
and so he was a car salsman and he wanted
(16:54):
to do something else besides cars, and he also liked
to play the ponies. Said that respectfully. Norm and he
would go to Santa Anita and he would see the
one dollar line, the three dollar line, and five dollar line,
and the one doll line was around the corner with
people trying to make bets. He said, I'm going to
open up a restaurant that's like a one dollar line,
which is the value proposition of what he did. So
(17:17):
he developed restaurants that looked like car dealerships with the
windows and the bright lights, and then you know, he
gave great value. Norms was basically built on two items.
The bigger, better breakfast, which we still serve today, and
a t bone steak, so he had the breakfast item
and the dinner item, and then he offered soup and
(17:38):
salad and side dishes and great value. Now, the other
thing about Norm, and it's so important in the restaurant business,
is he knew how to pick locations, picked great locations.
So some of our restaurants are forty fifty years old
and there's still vibing locations. You know, how things change,
the neighborhoods. So he knew how to pick sights, and
(17:59):
he knew how to stay true to the brand and
always offers that value proposition. The last thing that Norm did,
you know, people say it's the food stupid. It's really
the people stupid, you know. And he found people that
he paid well, that gave him a fraction of the action,
that stayed with them and had a vested interest in it.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
It always is the same, the same with our business.
It's about our on air talent. It's it's about people
being able to drive to work with their best friends
on the air. When they get a recommendation for your friends,
it works and it's trusted. And then the rest of
the staff and everyone else that's in this building, people
sitting in this room today.
Speaker 4 (18:38):
That the same as yours. In the end, it's always
about the people.
Speaker 3 (18:41):
Sure, yeah, Now is it more difficult today? Absolutely? And
I think what we took.
Speaker 4 (18:46):
Why is it more difficult today?
Speaker 3 (18:47):
Well, just the financial pressures of everything, you know, it's
it's not just the commodities and the cost of goods.
It's it's the labor, it's the rent, it's the insurance.
Everything has put pressure on the margins, especially the last
three or four years.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
Now, let me ask you right now, I mean if
I go to McDonald's, it's it's I don't know. I
don't get out of there without spending twenty thirty dollars
at McDonald's. But I was recently in the Norms and
the prices are still low. It's cheaper to go to
Norms now than it is to go to a fast
food restaurant in a lot of ways.
Speaker 4 (19:25):
How are your prices so much lower than some of
the others.
Speaker 3 (19:29):
Well, we buy very smart, and we also have an
executive chef named David Cox that's able to develop recipes
that make it affordable for us to do things. So
we always have a value menu.
Speaker 4 (19:41):
Right now, we're.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
Running seven for seven ninety nine seven items for seven
ninety nine, which is an entry price, so if somebody
wants that value, they can go there. But we also
have on the back end t Boat and Porthhouse steaks,
but for only twenty dollars you can get you can
get a twenty ounce Porthhouse steak for twenty two dollars. Yeah,
(20:03):
with two side dishes you know. Oh you want soup
and salad. Okay, that's ne extra three bucks, you know.
So we buy smart, We purchase really well, and we
try to find opportunities that allow us to give the
value back.
Speaker 4 (20:17):
You know.
Speaker 3 (20:17):
Coming up soon as our seventy fifth anniversary, which makes
seventy fifth menu five years. Thanks, yeah, thanks. The menu's
going to start at seven dollars and fifty cents. That
the anniversary menu, it'll go up to ten eleven dollars,
but for ten eleven dollars you're going to get bone
in pork chops and stuff like that. So we've already
tried to plan that value. You have to have a
(20:38):
value component today so that people that are on that
have less disposable ancount.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
How do people know about this? We're in the advertising business.
We help advertisers like yourself get the word out to people. Sure,
now you your expertise has been in operations and partners
and finance. Who handles the marketing? Inf you get involved
in that or do you we're running a business, do
you divide into divide and conquer?
Speaker 3 (21:05):
Well, well, I have a very good VP of marketing
Ingrid Martinez and David David Cox the executive chef, and
I have a great operator Leo Thomas, And so I
think I think I'm surrounded by pretty pretty good people.
But I'm a generalist.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
How do you know what's what's your goal in in
building the brand and and driving business from the marketing side.
Speaker 3 (21:29):
Uh, you know right now is to make sure we
promote the value value propositions. Everything is. Everybody's looking at
sales and sales and sales, but you can inflate sales.
Everybody's taking price increases. We look at traffic, right, you know,
an empty butt doesn't tip. It's kind of an old,
old old saying. So so we're trying to offer value.
But we're also value is just not a price. And
(21:52):
and you know value is Honda has one of the
highest value reputations. They're not the cheapest card of the market.
So so value is what you get in terms of
the total experience, you know, the food, the food quality,
the portions, the service, the atmosphere. So we're trying to
get value right now, especially competing with you know, QSRs
(22:15):
are doing breakfast right now, Wendy's and all these other
restaurants but Mickey D's, and they're all at five ninety
nine starting points. But by the time you get out
and you add the drink and you add the coffee
and stuff, you're up there.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
You get to sit down and get service at the
same time. Absolute one of the things that I see
right now, there are so many restaurants now that I
walk into and you got to wait online to order
something that's not cheaper than what you would get in
a diner where you get service and then you sit down.
You might get a number or something and then come over.
(22:48):
I personally like to go in, have someone bring me
a cup of coffee, read the menu, and have it coming.
Speaker 4 (22:55):
It seems.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
Do you think it's seed going back that way? Do
people want service again?
Speaker 3 (22:59):
It's funny. I was talking to Edith, who's a little
younger than me, a lot younger than me, and we
were talking about boomers and gen z's and x's and millennials,
and you know there there is there is a desire
to sit down and eat. Now, COVID change a lot
of things, so you have to have a great takeout menu.
You have to do delivery because there's that desire and
(23:22):
people have less time. So so even though you do
sit down, you have to be efficient and quick and
take care of the guests so you meet that demand
in terms of how much time they have. So I
do agree. You know, years ago Dunkin Donuts used to
have counters. Now they took out all the counters, and
you know they're they're actually a quick service restaurant. Years
(23:44):
ago the diners took out the counters because they wasn't
cool diners. Counters are really a great place to sit
in a restaurant. So if you're your your other dude
that's going to work, or the blue collar worker or
the guy with the white shirt and tie and you
just want to and you don't want to sit at
a table, you'd be less conspicuous or whatever. And if
you sit down at the counter, you probably know the
(24:07):
name of the server because you go there once in
a while. So there is this this social you know,
benefit of coming to going to a sit down restaurant.
So I definitely think it's come back. But you've got
to do the other things.
Speaker 4 (24:22):
Well.
Speaker 3 (24:23):
You know, we revised our to go packaging and made
our product more durable and vented containers and serve different
service where so that when you do to go and
you want to satisfy that need, which is about about
fifteen percent of our business is off premise, it's called
you want to make sure you execute that because it's
an extension of the brand. We just redeveloped our catering menu.
(24:47):
You know, you think, oh, why would you go to
Norms for catering because we can do continental breakfast, full service, breakfast,
burger bars, full dinners cheaper than anywhere you're going to get.
You know, we're on easy catering and a couple of
these online. You know, you need to beech technologically very
savvy today as well.
Speaker 4 (25:05):
So what's what's new? What's up next for Norms Vegas?
Speaker 3 (25:10):
We're going to Vegas and we we think that that
will be very successful. I'm very excited about this location.
Speaker 4 (25:16):
When it will be opening October twelve.
Speaker 3 (25:21):
I think if we can get the construction done, construction
has been. It's been difficult for us, but but mid
October we're going to be open up before the holidays.
We missed it back to school season, but that's okay.
We'll we'll be okay.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
That's exciting going to Vegas at it's his first time
a Normo has been out of the state of California.
Speaker 3 (25:39):
Yes, yes, we haven't given up in California. By the way,
it is more difficult here and it's a little more costly,
but there's more business in California. So we're still looking
for about two or three more locations in so cal
you know, whether it's all a county Inland Empire. You know,
we've got more than enough restaurants in Orange County. But
we haven't given up in California. We still think we
(26:00):
can do really good business here, including our existing restaurants.
Speaker 4 (26:04):
So well, thank you.
Speaker 2 (26:05):
We've been talking with Mike Kolowna, the president and CEO
of Norms Restaurant. Very informative, learning a lot about the
restaurant business, and a lot about you personally and yours
and your management style and the value proposition that normal offers.
Thank you so much for coming on. This is Paul
(26:25):
can I.
Speaker 3 (26:25):
Give you one more. I'm sorry interrupted. This is a
plug not for NORMS. We're involved with No Kid Hungry
and we donate part of our income to it. People
make donations, so I would love to invite everybody to
come into norm but also keep in mind the affiliation
we have with No Kid Hungry.
Speaker 2 (26:45):
Go to norms dot com and you can find out
how to donate to such a great cause.
Speaker 4 (26:49):
Absolutely, this is.
Speaker 2 (26:50):
Paul Corvino, Division President of iHeartMedia saying thank you for
listening to another episode of CEOs you Should Know.
Speaker 4 (26:59):
Listen you CEOs you Should Know on the iHeartRadio app
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