Technology Disruption With Catering

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
We are back here on a restaurant Masterminds podcast, and
of course today we're going to be talking about catering.
And this isn't just a regular catering show. Today, we're
actually going to have one of the legends in the space,
and that's mister Earl Dardig. He's going to be joining
us in a minute. But before we get into that,
how are you, my co host Ms Annatousan, how are

(00:20):
you well?

Speaker 2 (00:21):
I'm well, I'm well, it's so nice to see you
haven't been on in a while. I'm really excited about
this episode. I told you like when we when I
found out it was Earl, I was like, Oh my.

Speaker 1 (00:29):
Gosh, I think it was perfect.

Speaker 2 (00:30):
Hi, I cannot wait. I mean we could probably just
have one whole episode of just me asking questions.

Speaker 1 (00:37):
Well, we're probably going to have this. It might be
an actual consulting session here. So you guys are going
to love this. Stick around for this one. We'll be
right back. My name is Paul Baron. As the early

(01:10):
pioneer in fast casual, I've seen the industry evolve from
just a few operators to the most sought after segment
by consumers around the world. Now we're planning to shape
its future. Tap into decades of my expertise identifying the
emerging brands and tech winners in the space Saber capital,

(01:32):
we'll be fueling the next generation of fast casual innovation.
All right, let's get into it. Anna. First of all,
big news with you. You are now the proud owner
of a bakery. Tell me all about it.

Speaker 2 (01:45):
I am so well.

Speaker 1 (01:48):
Sort of.

Speaker 2 (01:48):
The motivation behind it, right is my husband and I
want to purchase businesses as we move forward towards retirement,
and so this is part of that plan, and that
we come from food service. I've been a baker my
entire life. I love it. I am not that talented
when it comes to decorating, however, So of course we
went ahead and bought a wedding and celebration cake bakery.
Often it's been abun for fifteen years. It's always been

(02:10):
woman owned. They have a really good book of business already,
and we took a look at it and we were like,
you know what, I think we can I think we
can turn this up a little bit.

Speaker 1 (02:17):
So interesting with my market You've been listening to Alex Hermosey.
I bet.

Speaker 3 (02:24):
Do you know him?

Speaker 1 (02:24):
He's like a business.

Speaker 2 (02:27):
Yeah, yeah, there's a few out there. And it's so
funny because I told my husband Ashley, I was like,
we're not going to do food service. We're not going
to do food service. And then you know interesting, we
have our eyes as well on a bar and grill downtown.

Speaker 1 (02:39):
So listen, I tell you, once you get the entrepreneur bug,
you just never go back. It's you just want to
build more businesses. We've been doing kind of a similar approach. Obviously,
most of our stuff is in the media space, but
now we're starting to venture out into more tech and
blockchain stuff, you know, with Saber Capital and Barn Capital.
But it's going to be a good one. Today, we

(03:00):
of course have the legend joining us today. You guys
will know him mostly from his years at Monkey Media.
Of course, he is the guy who set the tone
for the technology sector when it comes to catering, and
there is no one else in the world that I
think will give you better information around catering than mister

(03:21):
Earl Dartik. Great to have you on man.

Speaker 3 (03:23):
Hey, happy to be here. Hi Anna, how you doing.

Speaker 1 (03:26):
Yeah, We've got it. We've got a good show lined
up for you. Yeah, before we get rolling into all
the goodies. I want to learn a little bit about
what you are doing over at OPGA. Explain to our
audience what Off Premise Growth Academy is.

Speaker 3 (03:41):
Yeah, you know, thanks for asking, Paul. You know, on
my journey when it comes to catering out of restaurants specifically,
as you know, sort of my wheelhouse is really focused
on the B to B channel, right. So you know,
if I roll back the clock and I think back
to my journey, it was really the catering institute that
was my deepest passion, Okay, And when I look back,

(04:02):
I see a lot of young people who attended our
workshops and classes and all that, and you fast forward
the clock fifteen years because that's how long it's been,
and those young people are now like off premise directors
and they're they're leading these brands now and so so
that really resonated with me and connected to me that really,
people development is really underserved in this market, especially as

(04:25):
it relates to catering. And so what we've done basically,
the Academy is a school and it has a number
of tentacles. One of them is it's got a digital
school and it's not just my content poll, which is
really cool. We're actually aggregating other content providers and so
there's so many experts, so, you know, experts within the
context of the space of catering out of restaurants that

(04:48):
I'm trying to create an inclusive environment because there's a
lot of really great content out there.

Speaker 1 (04:52):
You've got some certifications on this too.

Speaker 3 (04:55):
Yeah, yeah, And so I've hooked up with a lady
named reve Beck Revey as an educator. She has a
master's in education and she and I are working on
taking the materials and working towards a certification program. And
so the Academy is really all about people development. I
think it's one of the last frontiers. You know, we've
seen the tech. There's lots of options out there now.

(05:16):
We talk about that. You know, people have to make
their core investments into their catering programs, but the people
development part of it always falls short. Yeah, So that's
what the Academy is all about. And it's also connected
to a community that we started which is called cater
Linked and we've got about two hundred and thirty members
in there now. And the community piece is really the
peer to peer network.

Speaker 1 (05:37):
I love it. Yeah, when you look at the area
of growth, especially around education. This is one that we're
seeing more so, I think now than ever, at least
in the professional space. You see a lot of people
that are creators online that are coaching new business entrepreneurs.
It seems like there's a lot more people that are
getting into business. And when you get into business, you

(05:59):
need these tactics and coaching models that you guys have
done with and around catering. Yeah, when this was built,
when you when you really started going, because I know
you've done some events and now you're doing the online model,
what is the strategy going forward for you? I mean,
how will you build this?

Speaker 3 (06:18):
Uh? Yeah? So the academy is basically, you know, our
core product is going to be training, training and certification, okay,
And the market that we're selling into is we're working
with brands who want to train the trainers. So for example,
we find a lot of brands, you know, whether you
have one location, whether you have one hundred locations, catering

(06:38):
still sits in a silo their materials. There's everyone's got
the how to okay, like how to do catering, Like
we all know that now, but there's a much deeper
conversation around how do you make catering part of your
culture and and and and then training new leaders and
and so you know, it's really just about connecting the dots.

(07:00):
And in our world, it's around the framework, which is
the five stages of takeoff, every hearing, and then we've
got twelve investments, one hundred nine core characteristics. There's actual
business model there that people need to tap into. So
that's what that's all about.

Speaker 1 (07:15):
What do you think, I mean, are people I know,
everybody I talk to it, I mean, we're you know,
we have Fast Casual Nation the podcast here this one
of course with Masterminds and almost every CEO, every key executive,
catering comes up in the conversation these days. Is it
something that you can really build on as a brand

(07:39):
or as an entrepreneur, as a core tenant of your business.

Speaker 3 (07:43):
Yeah, well you kind of have to, don't you. I
mean I would say that, you know, food service is
blending as we know, you know, you have to talk
about that many times over the years, like what is
the difference now between a restaurant or a specific kind
of restaurant versus convenience stores who are running commissaries and
they've got relationships with door to ash and uber eats

(08:04):
right or grocery, which is you know, a whole other
like the restaurant within grocery. And so so when I
look at the market, I look at food service as
a whole, and then of course there's hotels which are
starting to shift and pivot. And then you've got you know,
sort of what I would call the contract caterers, which
are the aero marks r dexos of the world, and

(08:24):
then caterers themselves. And so when you look at that
entire ecosystem, that's a that's a two trillion dollar industry.

Speaker 1 (08:31):
It's a massive thing, trillion, two trillion, and.

Speaker 3 (08:34):
It's blending, you know, it's blending. And there's the B
to B channel, there's the B two C channel, there's
crossover and all of it. These are these are very complex,
like we're truly in the time all and and like
we're truly in the time of you know, ubers, uber
market segmentation.

Speaker 1 (08:52):
Now.

Speaker 3 (08:52):
Yeah, it's just you have to keep on dividing your
services into channels to be able to today. And if
you're not doing that as an operator, you're missing out.

Speaker 1 (09:04):
Anna is an operator. So I've talked about some operations.

Speaker 2 (09:09):
Yeah, sure, where do you see people category? Like where
are they putting their catering department? If you will? So,
I'm I'm chief marketing officer for a restaurant brand as well,
and we have nine ten now almost ten different brands
underneath our window right now, all full service. And what
you know as we develop this, like where does it go?

(09:29):
Is it operations, is it marketing?

Speaker 3 (09:32):
That's a good question, Anna, it's a very good question. Look,
I am advocating we are ready for the first chief
catering officer. Yeah, it hasn't happened yet.

Speaker 1 (09:43):
Okay, Now under one category or it's always Sometimes it's operations,
sometimes it's marketing.

Speaker 3 (09:50):
Yeah, and you know, so this is a cross functional
really is business and you know what, and I think
this is the conversation. I mean, operators have a hard
time integrating the idea that catering is a different business.
But the power of it, the magic of catering out
of restaurants specifically, okay, is that you're leveraging existing assets.

(10:13):
And so if you can find a way by which
to design a menu that complements your current situation and
you can utilize your people, the existing people that you
have now to just fulfill more sales, then you've got
you've got a better unit economics. Okay. So the conversation
is complex in the sense that it's really about how

(10:38):
do you scale up this business inside your business, And
it's so critical to the long term success certainly of
restaurants who are just like margins or shrinking. Sales are declining.
Competition is severe. You know, groceries coming at our business
seven eleven's coming at our business down here. I mean

(10:59):
the world, you've seen it, like woah wah. You know,
you've seen what they're doing. So restaurants have to start
to understand that what they have is and I don't
care if your fast casual QSR or find out like whatever, okay,
like any to me their kitchens and a kitchen is
a factory. That's how I look at it. And you know,
distributing an experience to a table is one particular distribution point,

(11:23):
but it does not prevent you from having a backdoor
business that, by the way, is synergistic and complementary because
if you look at the lunch segment for catering, everything
has to be out the door by eleven thirty am. Yeah, yeah,
and your lunch rush hasn't started yet at the restaurant, right, So.

Speaker 1 (11:39):
We saw this return to office traffic. And this is
a question I want to ask you, because you're talking
to a lot of catering companies and restaurants. Has this
stuck around or has this been kind of a false start?
Do you think people are back at the office now.

Speaker 3 (11:55):
I don't know what the numbers are pulled for back
to office, but I can tell you that food work
has become a huge movement and being able to provide
services to companies to feed their employees has become a
bigger opportunity post pandemic. And I think the core there's
a couple of core reasons. One is companies are trying

(12:16):
to woo their people back to the office, like say,
come to the office, We've got a great meal, freed you.
There's that piece. And then the second piece is, you know,
during the pandemic, a lot of the contract caterers shut
down their kitchens and so we're used to be an
office building where there was a kitchen inside that building.
That operation is shut down, and so now you've got

(12:39):
you know, more of those businesses reaching out on contracts
to restaurants to fulfill that need. So I think those
are the two big drivers that are happening out there.
You know.

Speaker 1 (12:51):
Yeah, well, and this is a factor I think we're
seeing so much of in the fast casual sector. There's
been a lot of concepts that have kind of evaded
the center city kind of approach from a real estate standpoint,
mainly to get away because the office. You know, everybody's
concerned that I know, in our business in the digital
side and a lot of the entrepreneurs that SAVER is

(13:12):
now investing into, we're seeing more and more people saying that,
you know, the work from home model or remote work
is still a very strong tenant in how business is done,
so that kind of goes opposite of where catering is going.
But do you see that there are maybe opportunities still

(13:33):
within that area.

Speaker 3 (13:35):
Absolutely. I think, you know, every time something shifts in
the market, there's always a new demand that pops up somewhere. So,
you know, catering is strong, and I think, you know,
the restaurants that are not doing it well really are
missing out all. You know, there's no doubt they're leaving
a lot of money on the table, and it's just
it's a massive conversation because you know, everybody thinks you

(13:57):
put up a sign the window, we cater and that's
all you have to do. But it's it's not like that,
you know, And.

Speaker 1 (14:02):
How have you guys handled it. I mean, you've got
multi brand, You've got a lot of destination locations as well.

Speaker 2 (14:08):
So we do well. I want to ask one question
that's kind of or you've touched on it a little bit,
but is there one sign or several signs that a
restaurant is not ready to do catering yet?

Speaker 3 (14:19):
Yeah, one hundred percent. If your ce if your CEO
is not bought in, yeah, don't do it. Don't do
it period. I mean that is from that, you know,
you will you will find you will get a light lift.
I mean there's a lot of brands that are still,
you know, playing with the idea and I'm going, how
are you playing with the idea after decades of this?

Speaker 1 (14:37):
Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 3 (14:38):
You know, all you have to do is look at
brands like Jason's Delhi or you look at i mean
I'm talking ones at Scale now. Okay, you know they've
been doing catering for thirty years. It's deep in the DNA.
It's deep part of the culture. Their systems are all
set up for the you know, their people are compensated
based on it. They celebrate it. It is. It airs
a lot going on in there to do catering out
of two hundred twenty locations, But at the end of

(15:00):
the day, you know, when somebody really needs something big,
you know, a million dollar catering order, they get it,
you know.

Speaker 1 (15:09):
Okay, So what is the largest scale that you have
seen successful today? Meaning percentage of sales in a multi
unit brand or even in an independent doesn't matter. Have
you seen anybody say, okay, we're over fifty percent.

Speaker 3 (15:23):
Oh yeah, lots lots of independence paull for sure. I've
seen over fifty for sure. Yeah. Absolutely. And I see
pockets within the franchise system, which always blows me away.
So I go into a system like, you know, a
bakery cafe, and I know you've got bakery, so you know,
bakery cafe has got a hundred locations, a mix of

(15:43):
corporate enfranchise. I find a franchisee that's doing fifty percent
of their business at the back door catering, and I'm like,
and then other stores are like ten percent and what's
the difference here.

Speaker 1 (15:53):
Okay, our friend Sam Stanovich did that with exactly.

Speaker 3 (15:56):
Sam's Sam's a great example of that. He's like warming
at the top within the you know, fire our subsystem
as it relates to catering, but it's it's completely owner
operator driven.

Speaker 2 (16:07):
Yeah, so what we've we've done so the restaurants that
I represent as a CMO, we're independent, full service, and
they did a lot of catering of course during COVID
and they shifted away and focused a lot more on
in person since then. You know, Paul, you mentioned that
we're in a high tourist trap area. It's true, or

(16:28):
we're in a very high tourism area. We haven't needed
to added this sales area. And so now we are
exploring it. And I know you just said, like what
do you mean, You're just exploring it, but we need
to make sure that we are ready.

Speaker 3 (16:39):
Now.

Speaker 2 (16:39):
We do we do catering for some of our own events.
So we have an event venue as well, and so
we cater there whenever people do an event there at
Green Hall, which is the oldest dance hall in Texas.
So if you're doing an event there, we're going to
cater it. Yeah, and then our textmex concept Cantina del Rio,
we do offer catering, but we haven't pushed it yet,
And frankly it's because I've been a lot little hesitant

(17:00):
and like who should we go after? What's the most
valuable catering customer? So we focus on you know, repeat
business or high end weddings, that kind of thing. Do
we on the marketing side do we need to do
physical lead behinds or is it a still Okay? I
have all these questions in my head and so here
you are.

Speaker 3 (17:16):
Yeah, you know, to me, it all starts at the strategy,
which is, you know, what is the vision for catering
out of your brand. The brand specifically in a multi
brand environment is a little more complex because each brand
is each restaurant is different, each brand is different. I
have seen some people like set up a separate catering
brand and they aggregate from all of their different brands.

(17:37):
Like sometimes I run into that, But I think what
you first have to do is to find, like what
is catering to the brand, And I think there's lots
of options there. Like so for example, you mentioned in
one conversation there's drop off catering and there's event catering.
Those are those are two very different things, you know,
and so you have to be intentional if you want
to be in the in the event catering business, you

(17:59):
have to be intentional about that. And then within the
context of event catering, there's off prem and on prem right,
because you might have a private dining facility, maybe you
book out the restaurant or you know, you book out
a room, and so the experience as it relates to
on prem off prem event catering is not accidental. It's

(18:20):
purely defined. You'll find in that business a lot of
times it's custom based, you know, catering. You know, that's
a different problem to have. You know, if you're customizing
every single time a menu, yeah, you're more in the
cater So the trick is to try and figure out
your packages that are consistent with your menu and your

(18:40):
offerings and then offer those to the specific channels. The
differentiation between your event catering and drop off catering might
be something like, well, for that you provide service. Maybe
you've got alcohol, maybe you've got rentals, maybe you've got floral,
you're driving, Okay, so you can define it could be
anywhere in the middle. It doesn't have to be that deep.
But also timately, if you can stay close to your menu,

(19:02):
and maybe you're packaging differently. So for a wedding, for example,
might go in ceramic plates or bold, but for a
drop off order, it's going in some packaging that you've
designed that's disposable, right, Yeah, so hopeful.

Speaker 1 (19:15):
Have you seen any brands that are now launching, because
we've talked to a lot of emerging brands over on
Fast Casuals podcast, and there's been a handful of brands
that I feel I could maybe launch as a catering
brand and secondarily as a retail brand. Are you seeing

(19:38):
maybe a trend in that area.

Speaker 3 (19:39):
I don't see anybody bold enough, Paul, But I'll tell you.
You know, I was having trouble. I was having a
conversation with a burrito concept. I'll leave them nameless, and
h you know it's X, you know so and so.
You know it's got one name something burritos, right, yeah,
Taste of Mexico or like whatever it is. And they're

(20:00):
telling me that, wow, catering is flying. You know, we're
doing like we're thirty three percent or how do we
get to fifty. I said, it's very simple, you know,
change your name to Paul's Burritos and Catering Company. And
they're looking at me like going like, you want me
to change the name to and catering Company. I'm going yeah,
you know, And so I have one brand that yeah,

(20:22):
I have one. I have one brand. I know they
don't want the marketers don't want to mess with it.
I have I have one brand that tried that in
a pocket and guess what happened? Sales went up? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (20:34):
Interesting, Okay, very subtle. All right. So with with the
the let's stay on the category side of things, because
you know, Anna hits on a lot, you know, from
full service, very destination driven, unique branded concepts. You know,
with her group, you look at fast Casual, which has
been kind of the star of this space for a while.

(20:55):
But is there one category subcategory inside of all of
the restaurant industry that still wins this hands down? Has
it always been? If we go back to your history,
you know how you got started. Yeah, you know, was
it Tony's Delhi? Is that right?

Speaker 3 (21:11):
Yeah? I mean you know Tony's Deli was designed around
a Monday to Friday business and that was purposeful. I
didn't want to work on Sundays, and you know, the
occasional we would do the occasional event, it would come
along two hundred people, you know, they dropped thirty forty
thousand dollars on us, and it always killed the business.
It was always like the people were exhausted. Everyone complained.

(21:31):
It would take us completely off our game because we
weren't really event caterers. Okay, yeah, okay. So I was
focused on a Monday to Friday business, which was you know,
lunch primarily, okay, and then it was and then around
it as it grew, we put in a breakfast program,
we put in a cocktail program, eventually some evening, and
we filled in the pockets around it over time. But

(21:54):
to your questions, like, what is the category that's killing lunch,
it's sandwiches, Bill sandwiches. Yeah, Easy cater has all that
data you can access.

Speaker 1 (22:03):
Yeah, let's move into tech for a minute, you know,
because there's been a lot of talk this year around
technology integration with a lot of companies on the point
of sales side as well as fulfillment side, management side,
back of house and catering is like the hot button,
you know for a lot of these guys to say, hey,
we have this new catering module X y Z. When

(22:26):
you look at the tech landscape right now, first of all,
and you've been through an acquisition, You've seen this up close,
and you got to look under the hood with everything too,
Is this a tool? Is it as the category? I'm
not picking on one company. I'm just saying as a category,
is tech in general a tool that you must have

(22:49):
to make this work at scale?

Speaker 3 (22:51):
Yeah, you have to have tech. The big challenge we're
in right now is our tech stack within the restaurant's
baseball is so fragmented. As you know.

Speaker 1 (23:05):
That's the problem I'm getting at is because you know
when you're yeah, we're coaching a lot of brands right
now that we're looking at investing in, and we start
looking at their technology and I'm like, holy crap. I
had no I've been in this industry for twenty plus years,
had no idea it was this bad.

Speaker 3 (23:21):
It's completely Yeah.

Speaker 2 (23:23):
It's terrible. Nothing talks to each other.

Speaker 1 (23:25):
You know.

Speaker 2 (23:25):
You try to do it and it costs so much money,
and then you're like, well, I'll just put this on
the radar for next quarter, like exactly.

Speaker 1 (23:31):
They slow it down.

Speaker 3 (23:32):
Yeah, you know, and even more than that, And the
real challenge is that the tech companies are spinning up
their marketing. Yeah, and so they're selling you things that
they don't have.

Speaker 2 (23:43):
Yeah, Blue Sky Earl, I am dealing with that problem
right now. Actually, where we chose to go with an
online ordering company that I believed was good and could
handle both catering and regular orders, they are still not
able to build my regular menu. They love pulled you
they did, and me, who like I ask all the
good questions I've been in the expert I was. I'm

(24:07):
still shocked. I'm just still shocked.

Speaker 3 (24:09):
It's a huge problem and has been really sort of
my pedestal for the better part of a couple of decades.
And and by the way, it's gotten way worse now.
So they're they're they're.

Speaker 1 (24:17):
That's my That's my point is that because there's been
so many companies that have come into the fray, I mean,
you look back at the growth. I don't know, if
you went to the NRA show this year, Oh my god,
it seemed like every tech booth had a I on it,
you know, as a new category.

Speaker 3 (24:33):
You know, Paul, we've seen this Paul, come on, it's
such remember you remember that, you remember the days of
groupon and all.

Speaker 2 (24:41):
That, you know, puld them in that way, but.

Speaker 3 (24:45):
They've all come and gone.

Speaker 1 (24:47):
It's amazing handful.

Speaker 3 (24:48):
Stay. Yeah. So I think like the big conversation certainly
that restaurants need to have with themselves as it relates
to technology is they got to step back and they
got to think about channels, and not every channel is
the same, and so at that level, the tech stack
itself has to be channel specific. And even more complex

(25:11):
than that is it's all funneling into a single operation.
So that's flexity, right, So you're but it's also the
beauty because the more sales you can drive into your restaurant,
the more efficient you will get, okay, because we all
know that, like a busy restaurant runs better than a
not busy restaurant, okay, And so but the complexity in
that is being able to use your menu to divide

(25:34):
and conquer in the process. And so you have to
send your customers to the right place at the right time,
depending on what it is they're buying. The consumer could
be one consumer who buys for five different reasons. So
Earle today wants to order an online order order for pickup.
I just want to take out order for pickup while
I'm at it. You know, my daughter's having an engagement party.
I need food. I need fifty people on Sunday to

(25:56):
my home. You know, I don't want a vent k,
but I just want you to drop it off to me.
Like there's very subtle conversations that are happening with one
particular consumer giving them reasons to spend more money with
you and come back. That is the exercise, Okay, But
we underestimate as operators the complexity of what's actually happening

(26:18):
in our world when it comes to order execution and fulfillment. Okay,
and the tech stack is essential in that process. So
I ask you a question and you're on the You know,
when somebody says I have a catering module, just look
at them and go is catering a module? H I
don't think it's a module. Now.

Speaker 2 (26:38):
It shouldn't just be an alternative venue either.

Speaker 3 (26:42):
It is. It is its own thing and needs its
own solution. Now, when you when you look at the
B to B channel business to business transactions, you know,
all you got to do is look at the tech
provider and go is that your background? Do you have
any expertise in B to B transactions? Just ask that
question and if the answer is no, then away. Yeah,
And it's it's the B to B space. So you

(27:04):
know I'm biased of course because you know I.

Speaker 1 (27:06):
Had well, almost everybody is building on B two C
right now too, because they're trying to figure out the
customer journey and you know, tension side loyalty.

Speaker 3 (27:15):
The marketing is easy, the sales is easy. You know,
it's all about the order execution. It's order management is
the problem. And so when the order comes into the restaurant,
where does it go? What's the data we have to collect?
What are the questions we need to ask? What is
the reports and fulfillment reports that they're getting in the kitchen?
And the big challenge that we have is point of

(27:35):
sale is legacy okay, and everything is driving into point
of sale, but point of sale because they own the
kitchen after all these years, right and so, and point
of sale does not have the business logic that you
need for what is managing business to business catering orders here? Well?

Speaker 1 (27:53):
Okay, so that brings in the question I guess around
niche You know when you look at knee potential opportunities here,
whether it was something like what Anna's doing now with
the bakery. They could narrow in on event and weddings
and you know, something of that nature. You know, where
you go that direction, or maybe you go into corporate
events or sporting, whatever it might be. You win on

(28:17):
niche and try to be the best of that niche
and dominate enough to be able to generate scalable businesses.

Speaker 3 (28:25):
Yeah, I mean, I think you know, if you have
a good operator and you're looking in your community and
you want to launch a catering program that is symbiotic
with your existing operations, there's no reason why you should
not have thirty three to fifty percent of your business
should be that interesting, Okay. And when you layer that on,
if you take one, if you're taken one restaurant and

(28:45):
all of a sudden you've got incremental sales of five, six,
seven hundred thousand dollars on your restaurant, you tell me
what happens.

Speaker 1 (28:51):
Yeah, that's huge. Well, it also when this drags in
the customer, that is the catering customer, because that's now
a new way to essentially create loyalty and or even
trial for the first time in some.

Speaker 3 (29:06):
Cases, and a cross pollination between channels, and so you know,
you have customers you're exposing to the brand that may
never have been to the restaurant, and you have restaurant
customers who are exposed to the brand that have never
had catering teaching. And this is why the the off
premises growth Academy. I'm so passionate about it because to me,
that's a people problem, all right, right, So you know,

(29:27):
if you can get your organization culturally to understand that
every interaction with a customer gives you the opportunity to
sell additional services to them, that is that's that's the
training that our frontline people need when and.

Speaker 1 (29:43):
I think you're right because a lot of brands this
is something that I ask because we look at it
and building our membership businesses in you know, on our
media side, and I'm like, what is the lifetime true
lifetime value of that customer? Because you look at scalability.
You can go in and say, I have an offer.
You know, we'll just call it a ninety nine dollars

(30:04):
a month program, whatever it might be. But the key
is you're trying to get them to spend three hundred
dollars a month or one thousand dollars a month, whatever
that might be. And a lot of marketers I've noticed
are so focused on this small transactions that they lose
sight of where the real value could be. Back to

(30:26):
your point of building a catering model around.

Speaker 3 (30:29):
Our industry is trapped in discounting, Paul. It's always been
like that.

Speaker 1 (30:32):
No, it's do you want once a week on lunch
or take those thousand customers that you see every week
and land twenty five catering deals that are three x.

Speaker 3 (30:44):
We got to find that first person that started discounting
and ruined it for everybody, because then everybody started discounting,
and it's just a race to the bottom, you know that.
You know. Even when I got involved in my deli,
I mean it was a distressed operation. And I remember
like the two for one coupons. You remember that entertainment book,
And I was watching Lunch Hour and I'm going, like,

(31:05):
every single person coming in here had to be a
valve pack. It was actually entertainment book.

Speaker 1 (31:10):
I'm just thinking that it had to be valpacked. That
was the one that generated this in the restaurant.

Speaker 3 (31:15):
Yeah, maybe, but I remember watching the purchases happening and
the transactions and everybody in the line how to coop on. Yeah,
So I was going like, so I got discount shoppers, Like,
what's the point I They'll never pay rent, They'll never.

Speaker 1 (31:27):
Exactly exactly never pay retail.

Speaker 2 (31:29):
We have a program like this and it's very very popular.
It's a bogo program. We wanted to run it twice
a year. And it's because we exist in a very
high high tourism area, right and we need locals to
come in, and so we've relied on this for early
It's been going on for like twenty four years something
like that, and it's we know that the customers that
come in only come in once a year. We know
that they will not come back. They tell us, they're like,

(31:50):
we only we only come, you know, during this time
of year. And so I've started asking questions like, well,
what do we do, what's why? What are we doing
with our labor during this time, what's going on with
our ordering this time? What if we did something totally different,
what if we did away with it completely? What would
that look like? And I think it's really opening up
people's eyes to look at the numbers and see how
much food is walking out the door for free worth it. Yeah,

(32:12):
they're never coming back. So we don't even have a
good relationship with these these customers. And I'd love to,
of course, but like they're not going to give me
their email address, they're not going to give me their
cell phone number, and they're not going to come back anyway.

Speaker 1 (32:24):
Not a good thing for growth. Okay, so let's let's
shift gears.

Speaker 3 (32:29):
Especially it's a great grade.

Speaker 1 (32:31):
That's a good example of how you know what we're
dealing with.

Speaker 3 (32:34):
But yeah, you're afraid to make the move because it's
like it's so part of the transactions and volume, you
don't know, it's hard to predict the impact. So the
question is like, what do you do about that? I
think is the best.

Speaker 2 (32:44):
Well, so luckily I have a really creative CEO and
CFO at this point, and so the three of us
are getting together to be like, okay, let's run some scenarios,
let's run the metrics and just see what happened before
we pull a trigger.

Speaker 1 (32:55):
Well, I think you're you're in a good position too, Anna,
because you've got you know, your executive team seems to
be ready to make these kinds of moves, you know,
so a lot of times, especially with legacy brands like
what you guys have. You know, people have been around
that community for a long time. It's hard to change.
There's many cases.

Speaker 3 (33:14):
Yeah, what market are even.

Speaker 2 (33:17):
We're in New Bronfles in San Antonio in Texas, but
is called green spelled the German way.

Speaker 3 (33:24):
Yeah, yeah, so just you know, just that's I think,
I know that I've been there, but I think like
if if tourism is a big piece of what you're doing,
like for me, what I would be doing on my
catering program is I would create a box launch program
and I would go do contracts with the bus companies
and all that.

Speaker 1 (33:39):
Stuff and all the parks. Do you guys do anything
with letter Bond?

Speaker 2 (33:44):
We're friends, but no, we don't have any official But
that's a whole other story.

Speaker 1 (33:49):
Yeah, okay, all right, because it's interesting you need to
get with. There's a group out well, it's not going
to create a lot, but it might create some exposure
out on Lake Travis's Texas sailing and cater all those
high roller saleboat.

Speaker 2 (34:04):
Now remember now I have my own facility in Austin
as the other business. It's just peaks and things like that.
And we've been talking about what about dessert catering, what
about savory catering? What we've got systems like? Why not?

Speaker 1 (34:17):
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is the place for you. Check it all out. Just
go over to gusto dot com use our link down
below to get started. See you there. Let's talk about
AI for a second, because almost any thing you do
today I can I can vouch that it has sped

(36:07):
up our processes in business. You know, we're we're using
in a lot of ways that I never imagine that
we would use it, and it's being done and it's effective.
I get into this quandary of is this really scalable?
You know, in a in what I think is a
hospitality driven business, can you use it to create that

(36:29):
personalization or other ways that could generate maybe better value
on the catering side. Are you seeing any use around
some of these AI tools right now?

Speaker 3 (36:39):
For sure? Well, I'm seeing a lot of chatter about it, yeah,
and then when I dig in, I realize there's nothing there.
It's chatter a lot, and so I would encourage operators
to be very careful. It's it's very early still, yeh.
What I am seeing is I'm seeing snippets of of

(37:00):
solutions like task oriented agents that are popping up yep.
And they're complementary to existing ordering systems. So that's interesting.
So when you look on the fringes of the transaction,
like the heartbeat is at the order management okay, right,
and there's a whole bunch of people that they're saying, yeah,
AI order management data haven't seen yet the complete We.

Speaker 1 (37:22):
Ran across a company that we invested in on the
tech side, on the blockchain space, and they are in
the middle of building these AI agents that basically suck
up these APIs to places like door dash. It's a
voice agent and basically you just say hey, just hey,
I want a burrito for lunch and make a chicken
blah blah blah, and the AI goes out handles the

(37:45):
selection of the brand because it's looking, which I think
is going to be a very interesting thing, just like
you know, Gary Vaynerchek talks a lot about this over
the last couple of years. He said Voice would eventually
be the new Google. But I think it's going to
be you know, perplexity and law and all these different tools.

Speaker 3 (38:01):
For sure.

Speaker 1 (38:01):
I don't even use Google anymore to find Yeah, so
you've got to win that battle. And if we get
into voice, little agents that are writing on our phone
and it knows what we like, when does AI start
to take over? Yeah, I don't really need a selection

(38:23):
process for food service. That's not really a thing I
should worry.

Speaker 3 (38:26):
Well, I think it's happening, Paul, I think like so
to So, so here's what we don't know. So what
I wanted to say was we see things happening in
the fringes. So, for example, outbound sales is a good
example where that's that automation is coming fast, okay, And
it's a combination of reaching out. The machine reaches out,
it's machine learning, it's learning. It gives you all these

(38:47):
interaction points that you can converse with the machine, whether
it's through chat or whether voice, Okay, I call it
dialing for dollars. Okay. So so the machine is making
the calls and it's automated like that.

Speaker 1 (39:00):
It's just a numbers game.

Speaker 3 (39:01):
It's a numbers game. So that that's happening, and I'm
seeing it in other places as well, like on the
on the delivery side and a few things. But I
think the big question, and this is to your point,
which is an excellent segue to a conversation, was will
the complex order management systems get displaced in the in
the process of that AI or not? Because the big

(39:23):
question differs, like if you've got an AI agent that
recognizes my voice and knows my preferences because it's got memory, Yeah,
then as soon as as soon as it connects with
me on my cell my number, it's able to retrieve
the record and say here, you know, in April the eighth,
you ordered, uh, you know, a turkey sandwich with a

(39:43):
would you like the same order or would you like
to change it? Like that? That's the dynamic, okay. Whereas
right now I'm going in.

Speaker 1 (39:49):
I got to go into my account and yeah, it's
too Yeah, it's a it's a very detailed process to
still just order food.

Speaker 3 (39:56):
Right, it's reversing, it's reversing the behavior to put the
work on the agent itself. And so the big question
is is how does that data get into That's a
big question.

Speaker 1 (40:08):
So okay, so this is the question that comes up
a lot in the development teams that I'm working with.
And right now, the API integration, as we know OLO
is kind of the gatekeeper of where we're going to
see interfaces in scale, at least at large brands. These
agents are actually circumventing what is happening right now through
API directly into something like a door, dash, et cetera.

(40:31):
And here's the thing that really is intriguing to me
is this integration of payment. They just passed this genius
bill this week and a lot of people don't know
what that is, but it basically allows stable coins to
exist in the financial system. Stable Coins are now immediate transaction. No,

(40:53):
there's no time issue in terms of what do you
call it, the flow between the bank and the credit
card company and all that that has now been eliminated.
And some of these stable coin companies I just saw PayPal,
who has their own stable coin talking about and Stripe
and also Shopify all integrated now saying that they will

(41:16):
pay merchants half a point, pay the merchant half a
point to utilize these stable coins. So put it in there.
So I think it's just a matter of time before
payment is now digitized. You don't need a merchant account anymore.
You get AI integrations through agents, and essentially you could

(41:38):
build these commissaries that are all automated without point of sale,
the requirement for merchants, the requirement for the you know,
you just basically need you know, a production facility all
those Anyway, what do you think about that kind of world?

Speaker 3 (41:55):
I think that's I think that's happening, boll. I think
the friction and the transactions are getting displaced. I wouldn't
want to be a point of sale company today. Yeah yeah, okay, Now,
I mean door Dash is acquiring. I mean, look, they
just acquired. They're in the advertising business is coming up.
It's a billion dollars now, okay, that business.

Speaker 1 (42:14):
Like Amazon, Amazon, that's their biggest business.

Speaker 3 (42:17):
They're consolidating with deliver Route. They did did that consolidation, right,
it's the European company, right, yeah, they bought yeah Europe exactly,
and they're just getting bigger bigger and bigger, and you know,
who's to say that they are not going to be
the solution set of the future, which is an int
end transaction. The marketplace is just one piece of it.

(42:37):
They've also got the deliveries and why why not launch
call centers at the same time. So now they're taking
all the orders. And to your point, if the friction
can be removed, why wouldn't they get into the banking
business pall.

Speaker 1 (42:49):
They have to? I mean, that's that's where I think
it's going, is they're going to be the merchant and
Visa and MasterCard are essentially going to compete with the
door dashes utilizing these stable coins which is essential a
segue into the banking system that doesn't exist today I.

Speaker 2 (43:04):
Think exists for restaurants. Then when it comes to like
how to make sure that their restaurant stays discoverable on
all these different.

Speaker 1 (43:11):
Platforms, that's the thing that I don't want.

Speaker 2 (43:13):
To be on DoorDash. I don't want to I don't
want to be listed there. So what do I need
to do from like a traditional SEO perspective to make
sure that my restaurant is still discoverable for online ordering,
for voice ordering or whatever comes next.

Speaker 1 (43:24):
Yeah, and I think the question is if we see
AI truly because I mean now the kids like Mike
under ten, they don't even know what Google is anymore.
They only know the question that they're asking either chat,
gptor or perplexity or the different ais that they're doing. Okay, totally.
This eliminates SEO, It eliminates in some cases social I

(43:47):
just saw this morning, X is getting ready to integrate
trading into the app, which means it's just a minute
away from food ordering, you know, because if you can
do trading and real time transaction actions, why wouldn't an
agent just be able to on X boom order my burrito,
get it here by eleven, I don't care from who,
make sure it's chicken, high quality, four star rating done.

(44:10):
So how do you win as a brand when that automation?
And Gary Vee says this that the future of brand
is no more. It's all about message or what was
his not message? It's all about attention. How do you
garner attention? Which is his whole thing is that he

(44:33):
is the only way.

Speaker 2 (44:33):
I guess, but I kind of disagree with him in
that way because what is it? What is brand if
not attention and what people think of you. So, like,
you know, I disagree a little bit. I think he's
a little bit of a clash and you knows that
catch attention anyway.

Speaker 1 (44:47):
Yeah, well he gets attention, but.

Speaker 2 (44:48):
From a remarkable perspective, Like I think, yeah, what what
how do you stand out? I disagree with you, Paul.
You're not going to order a burrito from just anywhere?
You care too much about food?

Speaker 1 (44:58):
And well, no, man, I don't know. I'm doing it
on Amazon right now. I'm doing it on not ordering
a burrito, but I'm ordering things on Amazon that I
would used to.

Speaker 2 (45:09):
But are you putting in your body?

Speaker 1 (45:12):
Yeah, well that's the difference that that is the difference.
I would agree.

Speaker 3 (45:16):
Yeah, And I just want to riff off that for
a second, Paul, and if I can, because I mean,
it's all speculative at this.

Speaker 1 (45:22):
Point, right, So sure, but hey, you've got to you've
got to see the future.

Speaker 3 (45:25):
But at the end of the day, I think what
it comes down to is if a brand wants to
survive these times, it needs to just focus on first
party transactions. Right, So a lot of the old basic
ideas of just getting back out into your community, you know,
participating locally, you know, shaking hands, kissing babies. And by
the way, you would you wouldn't realize how weak some

(45:47):
operators are at that, Like they're.

Speaker 1 (45:48):
Not coxactly disappearing. It's the lost art so.

Speaker 3 (45:51):
To me, to me, and this is this is why
I'm so passionate on the stuff we're doing at the academy.
Is I teaching your people the skills that they need
to retain and acquire customers locally is going to be
the differentiator.

Speaker 1 (46:09):
And mean paramounts?

Speaker 3 (46:10):
Yeah, because look, you know, we all have these phones,
Like how many messages do you get a day on
this thing?

Speaker 1 (46:15):
It's ridiculous, It's almost insignificant to me now.

Speaker 3 (46:17):
Yeah, and it's like how much junk comes in there?
And by the way, how many lists are you on
that you never signed up for exactly? You know? And
so I just turn it off. It's to lead. I'm
a I'm gonna I'm in an unsubscribed process because I
just it's just noisy.

Speaker 1 (46:33):
But I don't know, I don't know or listen. Fortunately,
I have very young children, and it's giving me vision
into an area that I did not realize existed. And
I'm thinking because their vision of how the world should
work is much different than mine. I'm teaching the you know,

(46:54):
the the personal skills right now, and my son, he
is constantly questioned that whole necessary thing. And I'm like, well, Graham, yes,
you have to interface with people and eventually, you know,
you have to learn how to learn how to negotiate
a situation. But why so.

Speaker 2 (47:14):
I will Okay, It's the converse, the absolute flip of this.
My children go to a Waldorf school and it is
an anti screen school, and they do not know how
to I mean, they can talk to Alexa, but that's
they don't know. They don't know any of it. But
you know what they are learning. They're learning personal connection, interaction, debate, acting,
I hope, things really necessary for personal connection and to

(47:38):
help people in the future. What are we really good
at that cannot be replicated by AI or any of
your fancas, No doubt, connection love like that's what they're learning.

Speaker 1 (47:49):
Oh, I know this is going to be a kumbah
Yah episode. Now. I was saying, as the tech guy here,
this ship is coming and it's not sure.

Speaker 2 (48:01):
But the basics will never go away. Hopefully, I hope.

Speaker 1 (48:04):
I do hope that because I am a lover of hospitality.

Speaker 3 (48:07):
Well, fast food is going to be the first.

Speaker 1 (48:09):
It'll be the first of all, for sure. You remember
that movie Demolition Man. Do you remember that one?

Speaker 3 (48:16):
Yeah? I do.

Speaker 1 (48:17):
Sylvester Saloone Sandra Bullock and he wakes up in the
future and there's only one restaurant, Taco Bell. Yeah, because
everything has been assimilated to just so much automation. And
he's like, though has happened.

Speaker 2 (48:35):
For the for the younger people? And that came out
in nineteen ninety three.

Speaker 1 (48:38):
I was, yes, yeah, for you guys watching go check
it out. It's it's a very old film. I just wonder,
you know, here we are thirty years later.

Speaker 3 (48:47):
But to your point, you know, we have to embrace
it and we got to understand it. You just got
to beware of the uh. It's still such an early adoption,
and it's for sure nobody really knows, you know, the buzz.
You got to watch out for that stuff.

Speaker 1 (49:01):
No doubt. All Right, last last section here, and we're running. Man,
we could go for hours on this thing. Let's first AA,
do you have any more questions? I want to make
sure we get the consulting session done.

Speaker 2 (49:13):
I mean, I think I'm very curious always like, have
there any have there been any really good marketing campaigns
that worked really well for a catering business, for a
restaurant business that's looking for repeat drop off catering type orders.

Speaker 3 (49:27):
Yeah, I mean, yeah, there's lots of really good campaigns.
I'm not a big fan. Like I see a lot
of people discounting, or I see a lot of people
giving giving things away, and I don't think that's the
right offer. It's a whole conversation. But if you really
want to succeed with catering to b to be your
buyer is your admin assistance mostly, and so you need
to appeal to them. That's why easy cater has been

(49:49):
very successful because they have their loyalty program and they're basically,
you know, comping these admins for placing orders and so.
And that's smart, you know, And I would I would
think more towards like reward programs like the airlines have done,
or like the sorry not the airlines, the credit card
companies have done. You know, you're in points for using
credit cards. You can then go to a website you

(50:10):
can buy whatever. You know. It's like that is we
need to evolve to that if we want to secure
more of that business.

Speaker 1 (50:18):
Do you think we're going to see any autonomy in
terms of delivery that could be integrated into catering in
any way, whether it's cars, drones, any of that kind
of stuff.

Speaker 3 (50:29):
I think it's going to be tough. Pat they tend
to be larger orders. There are some environments, for example,
like that I've seen where drones are being applied on campuses,
so the airspace on the campus is not controlled, like
they can actually fly these drones around from building to
building right right, And so I have seen some kitchen
deliveries coming out, but there's there's nothing. Nobody's done it

(50:49):
in sort of large orders or just in small orders.

Speaker 1 (50:52):
What about robots? You think Elon could put some of
these things out there.

Speaker 3 (50:55):
Yeah, I think robots are definitely going to be coming.
I think I think we're going to see we're going
to see the automation in our kitchens for sure.

Speaker 1 (51:01):
Like you know, I can't wait for the robot to
show up on the first catering order at Google. Yeah,
because they'll do it, you know they will.

Speaker 3 (51:08):
Yeah, it'll happen, it'll happen.

Speaker 1 (51:10):
I think corporate, corporate campuses. What about these corporate campuses
and buildings. This was a big craze where they were
putting commissary kitchens in the buildings to kind of serve
up into the population but also serve the community you
know around that. Is that still a thing anymore?

Speaker 3 (51:26):
Yeah, there's still a thing, and that many of them
shut down and they're just sitting as idle kitchens. Yeah,
great opportunity for.

Speaker 1 (51:31):
Somebody there you go, catering kitchen right there, totally.

Speaker 3 (51:34):
And by the way, the deals are so good because
it's an idle asset that's doing nothing, so they do it.
They'll do like percentage of sales deals or whatever. You know.

Speaker 1 (51:42):
Oh wow, Okay, lots to talk about here, Earl. One
last area. When you look at the market today and
we've talked a lot of opportunity here, big huge shifts
in scalability. Is there one area that you're really focused
on right now that you think is going to be
the next real area of focus for growth in the

(52:05):
next couple of years.

Speaker 3 (52:07):
Yeah, you know, I'm beating the same drum, Paul, you know,
which is essentially I still see a major gap within
the context of the right catering strategy coming out of
your brands, and there's so much work to do just
in that space. Because you know, you've got CEOs who
know there's potential, they don't give it the love it needs.
They don't get the resources they need. Catering is off

(52:28):
in a silo somewhere, and it's like the ugly step child,
you know, It's like nobody wants to really look at
it in the face and go, well, actually, this thing
is big.

Speaker 1 (52:38):
Why do you think what is the hold up?

Speaker 3 (52:41):
It's hard because it's hard.

Speaker 1 (52:42):
It's difficulty level.

Speaker 3 (52:44):
Yeah, it's just like it takes work. You know, people
don't want to work and I see work. It's work.
It's like you know, it's it's restructuring the way you operate. Yeah.
It impacts every single part of the organization from leadership
right through the run and impacts the kitchen. It impacts
your technology, so you're accounting everything.

Speaker 1 (53:05):
Yeah, yeah, for sure. And are you guys And obviously
you're now you're into the local community with the bakery
side of things. This could be a big opportunity for
you know, parties and stuff like that. But when you
see the surrounding market there in Austin, is there anybody
that's kind of winning this category. The cater who's the

(53:28):
caterer of Austin that's.

Speaker 2 (53:29):
Killed you know, yes, and in fact that's some friends.
So it's whim catering. Whim catering. They do, like Earl
mentioned earlier, They've got the rentals, they've got the plates,
they've got the tents, they've got the food, they've got everything.
They've done like a full picture area there, and they
just kill it. They do a really really good job.

Speaker 1 (53:49):
Interesting, you know localized. Yeah, because localized, I think is
to back to your point, Earl, is that if you
could create something that's truly tied into the local can
munities and you build it in the way you're talking about.
I don't know if it's scalable to multi city and
all that, but it is probably scalable where that could
be multi millions in terms of revenue for realized.

Speaker 3 (54:13):
Yeah. I've seen some caterers who have like four different factories,
and you know, factories are cranking out twenty million a year.
It's like it's one hundred million dollar business. Yeah, So
you know there's I mean, yeah, Florida, I mean proof
of the Pudding. I think it's called I mean massive,
massive operation, you know. And I'll tell you. And this
is so interesting to me. And this is where the

(54:35):
complexity comes in because restaurants that caters still have to
run their restaurants. Caterers that are doing catering don't have
to run their restaurants, okay, And so so that's the
layer of complexity that restaurants face when looking at this business.
And they and why they underestimate, you know, the effort

(54:59):
and all that stuff, which is why they're you know,
so many people haven't done it, or they do it,
and you know, they haven't pushed it as hard as
they should.

Speaker 2 (55:06):
You know, I think that they want to do it
with existing resources that they have on hand. They don't
want to hire more. They don't want to now and
then hire later if needed.

Speaker 3 (55:16):
And I want to invest. Yeah, you're right, totally, you
got to invest. I have a spreadsh I have a
spreadsheet call that I uh, I use when I when
I sit down with brands and I and I plug
the variables in there. And then when I show them
they've got to make a five million dollar investment across
two hundred locations, they look at me like I'm crazy.

Speaker 2 (55:36):
Right, But can you predict their sales too.

Speaker 3 (55:38):
Yeah. I show them the five year picture and I'm
going like this is like what what why wouldn't you?

Speaker 2 (55:43):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (55:43):
Yeah, you know, because layering catering on top is like
adding in forty more stores without opening stores exactly. And
how much does it cost to open forty more stores?

Speaker 1 (55:53):
Like the head of access, they understand.

Speaker 3 (55:55):
Oh, forty stores, I get that. You know. It's like yeah,
oh that's you know, that's twenty million dollars. You know,
But this side they're still having hard time. Yeah you know.

Speaker 1 (56:04):
So is the profit and margin any better when you
really zone in on the catering side.

Speaker 3 (56:12):
Yeah, completely, because what happens is well, first of all,
in catering, you know your your your margins are better
anyways at the price point. But what happens is you
get volume, and when you increase the volume in your restaurant,
your labor cost drives down. Everything you're buying, everything gets better,
you can buy better, you get cheaper prices on stuff,
your labor is more efficient. And when that happens, you're.

Speaker 1 (56:35):
Clearly everything's more efficient, right.

Speaker 3 (56:37):
And you've got and then so now you've got gross
margin dollars that are contributing to the overhead, and it's
like it's big, it's it's a big number. Like catering.
Catering can be twenty percent of your business but represent
fifty percent of your profit.

Speaker 1 (56:50):
Oh that's a good statement, right yere fifty percent of
the profit. Geez all right, guys, as usual, we have
dropped olden nuggets to you today, and they're not McDonald's nuggets. Okay,
they our golden, olden nuggets for your business. And Earl Dartick,
if you guys want to find Earl Dartik, you can

(57:11):
go over to of course off firmis Growth Academy. Where
can they reach you though, Earl if they wanted to
reach out direct.

Speaker 3 (57:17):
Yeah, LinkedIn is a great place to get me.

Speaker 1 (57:19):
Okay, hit you up on LinkedIn. Earl Dardick. You guys
check him there. Earl, thanks so much for coming in today.
We appreciate it.

Speaker 3 (57:25):
Thanks, Thanks Paul, happy bet all right, what.

Speaker 1 (57:28):
A great episode Anna as usual. Man, he got a
lot of good statements in there too.

Speaker 2 (57:34):
I like that I'm going right now and signing up
for that academy. Honestly, there you go.

Speaker 1 (57:38):
Time to go, let's go get in there. I feel
like I should open a catering business now.

Speaker 2 (57:43):
Oh right, what are we doing? No robot, Paul, none
of that.

Speaker 1 (57:47):
I just want one robot, just one that I could
act like, you know, he's doing something cool.

Speaker 2 (57:55):
Just stress you're one of your kids up or whatever and.

Speaker 1 (57:57):
Have them buy an Optimist. So I'll be the first
one to get one of those guys. Anyway, guys, if
you're not subscribed to the show, make sure and do
that right now. If you're listening here on YouTube like
now below, and if you're over on Spotify, podcast Guru,
any of the web or the next generation podcast apps,
you know that, you can of course subscribe there and
give us some ratings. We'd love to get those feedback

(58:19):
points as well. And we'll catch you next time right
here on the Restaurant Masterminds podcast

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