Smarter Restaurant Operations: More Revenue, Better Culture, Happier Guests
Running a successful restaurant isn't about working harder. It's about being more intentional with how you operate.
In this episode of the Restaurant Rockstars Podcast, I sit down with Joe Mikulich, co-founder of EDO Hospitality, a growing restaurant group operating in the highly competitive Las Vegas market and beyond.
Joe and his team have learned how to compete for guests and great employees while going up against some of the biggest names in hospitality. And they're doing it with smarter restaurant operations, strong culture, clear accountability, creative selling, and memorable guest experiences.
Here are some of the biggest takeaways from our conversation.
Make Your SOPs Work Harder
Standard operating procedures shouldn't just tell your staff what to do. The best SOPs can improve the guest experience and increase revenue at the same time.
Joe gives a great example.
When guests arrive for an anniversary or celebration, many restaurants immediately bring them complimentary champagne. It's a nice touch, but you may have just eliminated their reason to order that first cocktail or bottle of wine.
Joe's approach is to let the guests settle in and order their drinks first. Then surprise them with the complimentary bubbles.
The guest still gets the special experience, but the restaurant doesn't unnecessarily give up a sale.
Sometimes a tiny operational change can make a big difference.
Hire for Attitude and Coachability
Would you rather hire someone with years of restaurant experience or someone with a great attitude who's hungry to learn?
Joe chooses attitude and coachability.
Experience can be valuable, but experienced employees can also arrive with habits that don't fit your restaurant.
Skills can be taught.
Finding people who want to learn, improve, and become part of your team can be far more valuable.
Set Expectations and Hold People Accountable
This is huge.
Operators ask me all the time why employees are late or why their performance isn't consistent.
My first questions are always:
Did you clearly communicate the expectation?
And are you holding people accountable to it?
Joe feels strongly about this too. If someone is consistently late, ignoring it sends a message to the entire team.
Your people need to know exactly what's expected of them, and leadership has to address problems when they happen.
Give Your Best People a Leadership Role
You can't be everywhere.
Joe relies on experienced team members to help coach newer employees, correct mistakes, and reinforce the restaurant's standards.
That's how you build depth in your organization.
Your strongest employees shouldn't just be great at their own jobs. Give them opportunities to make the people around them better.
Build a Culture People Want to Join
Independent restaurants can't always compete with huge restaurant groups on wages, benefits, and perks.
But you can compete on culture.
Joe actually meets members of his team to run hills together in a local park. Afterward, they grab coffee.
It has nothing to do with serving food.
And that's exactly why it works.
They're building relationships outside the restaurant and creating a sense of community.
Joe also uses friendly sales competitions instead of tired employee-of-the-month programs. One example challenges the staff to sell Spanish wines, with a bottle of wine going to the winner.
Recognition doesn't need to be complicated or expensive.
It needs to mean something to your people.
Find the Profit Opportunities Hiding in Your Operation
Restaurant margins are challenging, which makes it even more important to look for opportunities everywhere.
Joe's team gets creative with beverage profitability.
They cross-utilize cocktail ingredients, take advantage of wine buying opportunities, change by-the-glass offerings, and run specials when they've purchased products at favorable margins.
Don't simply accept the margin you're getting today.
Keep asking where you can buy smarter, waste less, cross-utilize more, and sell more effectively.
Give Guests More Than a Meal
Guests obviously come to your restaurant to eat.
But food alone isn't necessarily what brings them back.
Joe wants his staff interacting with guests and giving them something interesting to remember, whether that's explaining an unusual ingredient, sharing the story behind a dish, or teaching them something about a wine.
It's not about showing off what you know.
It's about adding value to the experience.
When guests leave talking about something they learned or experienced in your restaurant, you've given them another reason to remember you.
Get Creative With Restaurant Marketing
You don't necessarily need a huge advertising budget.
EDO Hospitality has had success inviting smaller local and micro-influencers into its restaurants. One dish unexpectedly took off on social media and now guests specifically come in asking for it.
During our conversation, I also share one of the most successful local marketing strategies I used in my own restaurants.
We created an offer around one of our "cash cow" menu items, something with a very low food cost but a high perceived value to the guest—and gave local influencers a way to introduce new customers to the restaurant.
Our cost was minimal.
But once those new guests came through the door, we had the opportunity to turn them into repeat customers.
That's the real goal of restaurant marketing.
Shop the Competition
Joe tries to dine at another restaurant about once a week.
I love this.
See what successful restaurants are doing.
What's great about the service?
What's getting guests excited?
What's priced differently?
What doesn't work?
I used to send some of my best employees out to other restaurants and have them bring back what they learned.
There are great ideas all around you.
Pay attention.
Use AI to Give Yourself Time Back
Joe and his team are also exploring AI for repetitive tasks, including aspects of managing and responding to guest reviews.
That's where I believe technology becomes valuable.
Don't adopt AI just because everyone is talking about it.
Ask yourself:
What repetitive work is taking time away from me or my managers?
If technology can handle some of that work efficiently, you can spend more time leading your people, interacting with guests, and growing the business.
The Bottom Line
Smarter restaurant operations don't necessarily mean adding more procedures, more technology, or more work.
Sometimes it's the opposite.
Be intentional about your service.
Set clear expectations.
Hold people accountable.
Develop your best employees.
Look constantly for hidden profit opportunities.
Create a culture people want to be part of.
And give every guest something worth remembering.
Work smarter, operate better, and give your people, and your guests, more reasons to come back.
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What if the secret to higher profits, stronger culture, and happier guests isn't working harder, but a different approach to the competition? In this episode of Restaurant Rockstars podcast, I sit down with restaurateur Joe Mikulich. He's the co-founder of a fast-growing hospitality group that's thriving in one of the most competitive restaurant markets in America, Las Vegas.
Joe shares how clear SOPs, staff accountability, creative team culture, smart beverage strategies, and memorable guest experiences are helping his restaurant stand out against celebrity chefs and Vegas Strip giants. Plus, we dive into hiring, retention, marketing, AI, and the simple operational tweaks that can dramatically increase revenue.
If you're looking for practical ideas you can apply immediately, don't miss this conversation. Listen on
Welcome back to the Restaurant Rockstars podcast. So psyched you're here. And Joe, How you doing?
What's up, Roger? Good to be on. Thank you so much for having me.
we all have these crazy restaurant stories. Anything come to mind you can laugh about today, but it was, like, so difficult or challenging at the time?
A crazy... I'm not gonna l- name restaurants. I'm not gonna name names. But, so I used to be a sommelier before I, you know, we did our own group and everything, and I remember I had one of my best VIPs wanting to come in to celebrate, like, a very big milestone in business, and he had pre-ordered a bottle of champagne, a very expensive bottle of champagne.
And I was a young som, so I wasn't, I wasn't the director or anything at the time, and my director wanted to drop the temperature of the bottle of champagne much lower to serve, and put it in the freezer to drop it really quickly. And I, I, I was,
Yeah.
not aware of this at all at the time. Anyways something had happened where the guest showed up much later, and we got busy, and the sommelier-- or the director forgot the bottle of wine in the freezer. when we went to go grab it, we had a slushie, it was a very expensive slushie. And we didn't know what to do. We literally panicked.
The guy was already here ready to celebrate, so we had to pivot and I ended up calling a, a colleague at a different restaurant and bought that bottle. I had to hop in my car and go to a different hotel and buy that bottle, and act like everything was fine. We-- I can't remember how we delayed it. It was a handful of years ago.
But we, we made it... We smoozed it over with something like a welcoming cocktail or something, and then I brought the bottle of wine like forty minutes later.
Hey, the show must go on, right, Joe? You made it happen. Right behind the scenes, never let them see you sweat. You made it happen. I'm stoked about that. I'm glad you, you were able to pull that off, and hopefully that guest came back and was a loyal repeat guest. Awesome.
Yep, yep. For sure.
Fantastic. Well, you've got a growing restaurant group, multiple concepts.
There's a lot of things going on. I always call it the thousand details of running great restaurants. what would you say the competitive advantages are of your restaurants, and how do you stand apart? Because, you know, Vegas is a big foodie city, and there's a lot of well-known chefs, of course, that have opened up branches in all the major, obviously, strip hotels.
Sure it's a tourist market, but there's also a-- I mean, it's one of the fastest-growing cities in America, so you gotta cater to tourists and locals alike. What's your competitive advantage?
I mean, so true. We, you know- from the Strip, when we opened up our restaurants off the Strip, you know, it almost was impossible to not have that mentality of working on the Strip. And you're right, like lot of the people that come to our restaurants, yes, we do get tourism, but a lot of them are the locals of Las Vegas, and that's a completely different demo that you're catering to.
So it definitely was a shift in the entire group when we first opened, and we still today try and you know, we have to cater to the locals. The locals are the ones that keep us afloat during like the down seasons of you know, tourism, right? Would say one of our competitive advantages, at least with our group you know, I have an amazing partner and we, we, you know, he's a little bit older than me.
He was my mentor for a very long time, so I've always had a lot of respect for him. But we just have different ways of life, different walks of life. He's about 20 years older than myself, so we, we cater to a different audience and, you know, I'm the, the, the younger I guess a little bit more young, agile owner, and he's like the more wise.
He's the Gandalf, right? And we balance each other very well, but we, you know, we, we come from a different perspective where we bounce ideas, and we, we, we argue, and say things will work and don't work, and, you know, we figure it all out. But we're definitely the owners that are still very active in the restaurants.
We're not like, you know, growing so much that you're never gonna see us in the restaurant. So I think that at least from a local standpoint people really appreciate that, and they wanna support things like that. And so far, that's worked out pretty darn well.
Awesome. So you get the benefit of experience, multiple people, but you stay in your lane, you bounce ideas off each other, you're constantly innovating and thinking about what's the next big thing, which-- But I'm hearing you don't fix what isn't broken, right?
We do not. No, no, there's, there's definitely things that you know, sta- have always been a you know, non-negotiable in our, in our world, and we, we definitely stick to them. If anything, we just enhance them.
Terrific. Fantastic. Let's talk about SOPs or standard operating procedures. What makes your operations successful from an SOP standpoint?
You know, from the Strip, I think the, the, the bigger restaurants that are, you know, the big name chef, like you mentioned, I've had-- we've worked for a few of them, and what they... A big thing that they do differently is, is they have very clear, defined SOPs and not so broad of SOPs. You know, we-- A lot of them are like in the chains.
They, they definitely like make them broad, and sometimes it's a little confusing for someone that's not too versed in the restaurant world. You know, if you have a young busser, this, this could be potentially his first job. He's not gonna fully understand all the inner workings or the thought process of some bigger, broad SOP.
So what-- one thing that we really focus on is of like a, a SOP. Like for example, I'll give a prime example. The idea of when a guest comes in for like a anniversary or celebration, we always have the SOP of, you know, doing something nice, splashing them with some bubbles or whatever. I always thought it was a little strange where It'd be like, you know, the, the hostess gives the chit to the server and the manager, and it's like, okay, splash, and it's always like this robotic process that's not very well thought out where the somm or the manager go grabs the bottle, and they haven't even gotten their water poured it's so early in the night. And I... What a missed opportunity in my world where it's like, w- we-- let's let them get settled. Let's let them order a drink. And then after they order the drink, why are we cannibalizing this, this, this sale? Let them order their drink, let that get working, and then we go in, and then we add a little bit of value that way.
But, you know, sometimes... a lot of times I'll go to a restaurant for a celebration, we sit down, they splash us with the bubbles, and it's like this, you know, a, a, a full glass of bubbles, and I'm like, "Well, I, I guess I don't need to order a cocktail at this point. Like, I'm gonna get, I'm gonna get a nice buzz going." And that happens a lot. And I, I think if we just wait, and we're a little bit more intentional on the, the steps of service, , you can... That's an easy one that you can gain so much more revenue. It's insane.
No doubt about it. You know, I was all about that suggestive selling. You know, letting guests... Well, educating, informing, and entertaining the guests turned into increased checks and higher check averages because my team were trained to recognize opportunities, but they also were telling people about things that they might not know about that we knew they'd enjoy and appreciate.
And so it was a win for the guest, it was a win for the house. So you're speaking my language for sure.
Sure.
Joe, one of the biggest challenges, I don't know if this is the same in Vegas, but a lot of restaurants are still struggling with labor two ways. Obviously finding great people, retaining great people, but then accountability of those people and having them perform.
Are you having any challenges with labor?
We... So I'll, I'll give two examples 'cause we do have a, we have a restaurant in Seattle, so a different market, and we opened that up last, last year, and completely different area than Las Vegas. So, you know, in Seattle, it's, it's definitely a lot more difficult to find employees to work in restaurants 'cause, you know, cost of living is so high. A lot of my staff has to drive, like, 45 minutes to an hour just to get to work. It's just an interesting beast of a city. Whereas compared to Las Vegas, you know, with, with the Strip, we have a surplus of people that are willing to work in restaurants and, you know, they, they make a good money compared to their, their cost of living. So we've never had too big of a problem finding people. Maybe initially, no one really knew of the group and, you know, were willing to have faith in us to, to leave the Strip and come join a restaurant off the Strip. Now it's getting a little bit easier that we have a little bit more credit. But, but there is always that battle where people wanna join us, and they learn, learn skills and stuff like that, and it's...
and then they're like, "Oh, well, now new, the new steakhouse on the Strip is opening up. I'm gonna apply there because I'll make potentially twice as much money if I land a good spot." So that has always been a struggle of maintaining, maintaining our team and creating, like, a family dynamic where, like, they- feel very secure in staying with us rather than just going to the Strip and making union, you know, getting union pay and all that jazz like that we can't, we can't afford.
You know, that's always the struggle.
right. So that's very interesting point, 'cause originally without that knowledge, I would have thought, okay, thousands and thousands and thousands of employees work in these hotels on the Strip, right? And it's all hospitality-based, but you're telling me that there's a surplus of labor, which is a great problem to have.
But now we're talking about how do we compete against the unions? How do we compete a-against all those perks and benefits, perhaps, that the hotels can offer? And s-- you must be doing something right. So how would you speak to your company culture, and why do people work for you, and what do you do to retain them?
So a few things there. I mean, a lot of the guys, you know, I'm, I'm thirty-five and a lot of these guys that have joined us is, you know, some of them are-- a lot of them are older than me, but I've worked with them or I'm just... I was very in the hospitality world on the Strip growing up, whether it was for events or like, you know, Las Vegas is a very small, cool community of restaurants where, you know, we do like these bar competitions at the local, you know, the, the off-Strip bar, and everyone comes to support.
And, you know, we do, we just had event, an event called Unstripped where a bunch of chefs from all around the city, on-Strip and off-Strip, they do like this one bite kind of tray pass thing. And it's cool to see that community happen. But if you're not in it like that, then it's hard for people to kind of think of you as like a group that, that, that cares you know, about the employees as well as the community. So I think being part of those is good. People, people recognize you and wanna be part of something, a fun movement like us. You know, we, we've only, we've been in business really with r- EDO Hospitality for about ten years now. And now we're about to have four restaurants under our belt, which is super cool. but it, it had to build to get there. Like we started with a food truck and, and now it's, it's growing to something a lot bigger. But I think people wanna be part of a cool community and a cool movement. They, they like the idea of not just feeling like a number on the Strip, no offense to the Strip, but you know, it's such a big thing.
You just get forgotten in the folds. And, and I think that people, obviously people need to make money and need to make a living, but I think they're, they're, they're desiring a little bit more where it's like they have fun. You know, we do, we do things all the time. I, funny enough tapping into the whole soccer thing, like I run hills with my staff full invite for free. We go to this local park on Wednesday mornings, and we run hills. Like it's brutal, but it's something fun to get you up, out. It's a cool community. We go grab coffee afterwards and like No restaurant on the Strip is doing like any sort of thing like that. They don't care. So that's one small thing.
It's team bonding, but it's also a health and wellness thing, right? But it puts you in a great perspective for the rest of the day when you start out by getting your blood up a bit and running around with people you care about and then going back in. It's like it takes the edge off, you know? And then you can deal with the hospitality and deliver great service and just be part of that team.
So I love that you're doing that. That is definitely out of the box. A lot of people are not thinking about what can we do to keep the staff happy and, and, you know, part of, part of our team. So that's, that's really cool. Let's talk about what you look for. Now, when you hire... Actually, I like the word recruiting versus hiring.
There's a big difference there. But when you bring somebody new in and you're interviewing them, it's like, are you looking for experience? Are you looking for attitude and approach, and we can teach the rest? I mean, some people think of it one way, and some people approach it the other. And how do you do it?
I think obviously if, if, if they-- you know, there's, there's also a threshold to where, and I'm sure you can, you can agree, that has almost too ex-too, too much experience and arguably bad habits,
Yes.
also not be a great thing. A lot of, a lot of our g- you know, our servers or the small EAs, they've worked on the Strip, so they, they, they could have picked up some less favorable habits.
You know, you don't know who their GM was or who did their training or lack of training. So of course, if there's a level of experience, maybe if I've been served by them or I've seen them in restaurants, that, that also assists. A lot of the times when I interview people and it's like for a higher position, I'll go to their restaurant that they're hopefully still currently employed at and just to see how they move. But with regards to the hierarchy, I think I, I'd much rather have someone with an amazing attitude and a willingness to learn over someone with experience that... You know, something that's trainable, something that's okay-- someone that is okay with being coached you know, and their willingness to learn and adapt new ideas.
You know, we, we, we have different thing-- we have different ideas, different SOPs than some other restaurant groups. We move in different ways, and if, if they have that ability to kind of change you know, their habits, I'm, I'm all for that. We, we have people that have been in the restaurants on the, on the Strip for, for many years, or off Strip for that matter, and they're a little bit older, and they've been set in their ways, and then we had to spend a little bit of extra time to, you know, change how they do things, but all for the greater good of the restaurant, right? But if... Yeah, willingness to learn is probably number one for me.
Okay, cool. And do you have any mentoring and shadowing that goes on with, you know, some of your veterans that, you know, share their best practices with anyone new coming in?
Absolutely. The, the only, the only way we've been able to constantly grow, do these next restaurants and, and, you know, now we have this thing in Seattle you know, there's times where I got, I gotta fly out there and be gone for a week or my, my business partner. So who's gonna be the ones-- obviously, the leaders need to do it, but Whenever we have new staff, especially at both restaurants in Vegas right now, it's incredible. They definitely do a good job on the service side, some of my more veteran employees of, of coaching and training and, and being a, an extra set of eyes to make sure that things are going the way that they're supposed to. And I, I definitely pull those, pull those more veterans and those leaders aside and say, "Hey, like, you know, I can't be the eyes everywhere.
I need you guys to not just do your job, but go, go the extra mile and try and coach these guys. Tell them when they're doing things wrong. Take a second after service and, and replicate that experience and, and try and, and, and show them a different way of doing it." Because that's the only way they're gonna grow.
And it's o- and it's only gonna make their lives easier once we-- once they know their skill, right? If they're constantly putting a plate down wrong or with the wrong hand or whatever, and the guest continuously gets annoyed by it, i-if you just teach them to do it the right way, it's not gonna-- it's not-- it, it eliminates that ability for that to happen and makes the server's life even easier, the manager's life even easier, because it trickles.
It goes up, and, and if someone's complaining, it's gonna go to all of them, right? So...
Absolutely. I speak at a lot of major restaurant shows across the country, and I s- I get to speak to a lot of operators like you, but a lot of people are struggling. We t- we started talking about labor, and some of the struggles they're having is with, you know, they ask me questions like, "Why do my people not show up on time?"
Or, "Why is their performance good sometimes and it's not consistent?" And I ask them two questions. "Okay, one, do you set clear expectations? And two, do you hold your team accountable to those expectations?" And they, they look at me and they go, "How do I do that?" How do you guys do that? Like how do you-- do you set clear expectations, and how do you get accountability from your team?
I, I think, I think the-- one of the biggest... Yes. we definitely do. I'm, I'm a big-- I, I think it's one of my biggest pet peeves is people being late, especially if they're late, like, consistently. There's-- You can get, you can get across Las Vegas Valley for, in like twenty minutes pretty much from anywhere.
So I-- the excuse of, like, long tr-- like big traffic, like a big, big city like LA or something, Seattle it doesn't work with me. I... Like, if you're consistently late, there's a genuine problem, and that, I guarantee, is like breadcrumbs about other things and other aspects of your life. If you're constantly showing up late, you're probably forgetting to, to acknowledge a birthday.
You're probably forgetting to, to ring in that extra course or whatever. So I I think the biggest thing is, you know, people are humans. They're gonna make mistakes. We just have to, on the leadership side, make sure that we acknowledge it when it happens and set the tone from the get-go. Because if, if you're not, people are gonna take advantage of that, unfortunately. And if they don't take you as seriously then, then something as being late every five minutes, that, that definitely will go through the entire team. So I think the biggest part of that is we just have to, when people don't do something right, we have to acknowledge it. It has to be done.
I love that you said that because hospitality is a two-way street. And I always used to think that whether it's front of house or back of house, we're not just delivering hospitality to the guests, we're delivering hospitality to our team members. You know? And that's sort of the foundation of culture.
So it sounds like that's happening in your, in your places. That's terrific. And what about staff recognition and rewards? Do you do anything special? Like, you know, the employee of the month thing is pretty tired. I went into a restaurant in Utah last week, and sure, there's the employee of the month, and there's the picture behind the counter.
And it's like, come on, can you get more creative? What do you think? What do you guys do?
You know, we, we've never done an employee of the month thing. I think that is a little tired, but we, we definitely... You we, we have-- we like doing like competitions to make it fun, just to keep it like jog up a little bit of more of a competitive side with the team. Like we, you know, right now we're doing this eat, eat Spain, drink Spain thing, being a little bit more Spanish restaurant.
So I'm pushing my guys to sell all, you know, on the wine side, it'seasy for me.
Thanks for
So I'm
pointing
tasking them with selling all Spanish wine, and whoever sells the most Spanish wine at the end of the month gets a bottle of, of their choice to take home. And, you know, we have some pretty high-end things. But I don't know, just doing some more competitive, creative things, taking a little bit of time to think about
out. I'm
you know, don't make it so cliché and boring of, of an experience, but just jog up a little bit of creativity and, and, I like competitiveness, so I, I'm all about it.
Thanks for pointing that out im a big, I'm, I'm a big lover of Spanish wine, so I'd love a glass of Rioja this afternoon just before dinner.
You know, your team, they're the foundation. And if you treat them right, obviously it just translates to a great guest experience. So everyone does it a little bit differently, but it goes back to that culture.
Let's switch gears a little bit and talk about finances and KPIs. What's important in your organization to keep costs down, keep profits up? Maintaining margins is a big deal right now. Obviously, they're rising. Margins in this business have always been Low. Some restaurants do better than others. But what do you guys look at?
What are your top two KPIs, and what do you monitor regularly?
You know, Vegas, Vegas is funny. We... And especially being on the wine buying side, yes, I do hold accountable like my chefs to, you know, a certain cost on, on their food and stuff and, and labor. They, they for the most part, it's very... It's a juggle with trying to be a group that does, you know, more creative dishes you know, with some more unique items.
Some of those items get a little bit more expensive. So yes, they-- I hold them accountable to you know, certain, certain percentages, but it's not anything ridiculous. I think where we really try and save money is on our beverage side. We get creative, With cross utilizing ingredients and cocktails there's a lot of crazy deals that come up especially like as we're ramping up for the summertime on the wine world.
Wine, wine kind of slows down with regards to tourism in Vegas. So there's some crazy deals that come up, and we take advantage of them. We buy pretty heavy and, and really we have the storage to, to hold a bunch of wine. So then we switch some of the things by the glass for the summer or run different specials with things that the margins are crazy good as compared to just normal or considered normal. So we, we have always done a good job with that. I think a... As any seasonal city, it's, it's kind of a struggle with holding onto labor. When it g- when it does slow down, you have to cut pretty heavy and, and run with more of a skeleton crew. That's a little bit of a task because you, you...
we want to still keep our guys happy and employed and everything. But the, the reality of the business is that we, you know, sometimes we have to cut pretty heavy. So it's just us being aware and acknowledging it, I think is the biggest part.
And that's pretty predictable in terms of when things start to slow down and then they ramp back up again. And how much time are we talking about in between those shoulder periods?
It's not much. Two months, two and a half months. You know, summertime when it gets so unbearably hot in Vegas, it makes sense that there's no, no big conventions and stuff. It's more of a pool season type of a time. And that, that guest coming in is, is, you know, not, probably not coming to a restaurant that has a tasting menu and sitting down.
They're probably drinking at the pool enjoying themselves. So it does slow down a little bit for sure, but it's not, it's not insanely long. I really just push my guys to say, "Hey, you know, if we kn- if we know this time is coming up, and save your, save your vacation. Go on a vacation during this time and, and, and get out of the city or go experience another city's restaurants or whatever."
But if I... If you can kind of push them or urge them to take their vacations during that slower time, it makes it a lot easier.
Do many of them, any of them sort of go on unemployment for a short period of time, but you can retain them? Or are you losing staff because you've got to lay them off even if they're good, solid employees
You know, we, we don't really have anyone go on unemployment. We've... I, I can't really think of
recently
anyone that
has
I think for the most part, and I don't know if this is everywhere, but definitely happens with us is their guest or servers are, and staff are a little bit more okay with taking a cut during the, the warmer time.
So if they're o- if they're used to working five days a week and it goes down to three days a week for the summertime, I... they're, they're kind of okay with it. It's not the end of the world.
good. Well, that sounds like that's working out as well would you say your guests are really seeking in their dining experiences, and how do you over-deliver on expectations? Like, what is-- you know, what's that competitive advantage look like? Besides hospitality that everyone expects. Hospitality is a given.
It's like, what really drives your restaurants forward?
I think so our, our group and our restaurants from now, like the, the restaurants we have open right now, they definitely are a little bit more on the creative side, unique ingredients and, and we have tasting menus in both of them. And, you know, that's the perfect-- the goal for a first-time diner.
It's like, "Hey, you know, I just wanna sit down and, and try a tasting menu, learn some things I haven't had." 'Cause we, we have more control at that point, right? Of the biggest things that I tell my guys is obviously people are going to restaurants to get full. There's a-- They're, they, they're going to eat food, right? But if we aren't doing our job with regards to touching the tables and talking with our guests and interacting with them and teaching them something they've never learned in a restaurant or whatever, giving some other value that they can leave and be like, "Hey, remember when so and so was talking about this dish?
I've never had that before. This is like a, you know, extra thing that they had sent out." If they don't get any of that value to take away, what s- what separates us any different than any other restaurant that they've ever been to, right? So that, that's a big one for us is the education side and trying to... A-a-and not like trying to be pushy educator like you're just trying to show off what you know. But to do it in a, you know, s- charismatic way of teaching them something new, I think is a definitely like a tangible or intangible thing that you can like walk away with and be like, "Man, those guys knew what they were talking about.
They were, they were great." But yeah, education's huge for us, for sure.
Let's shift gears, talk a little bit about marketing. We talked a little bit about the power of the Strip and the celebrity restaurants and all this. And it used to be where when people go to a hotel, even if it was a decent restaurant in the lobby, it's like they didn't want to stay in the hotel.
They wanted to get out and about. So there are certain people that do that. But then there's also all these global brand-name celebrity chefs that are big draws in your city that are in those hotels, and people leave one hotel to go to a restaurant in another hotel because of that. What do you do that works in terms of marketing, and how-- you know, is it a solid marketing plan?
Does it shift? Do you come up with new ideas? Like, let's talk about your marketing plan.
Yeah, so this-- You're, you're 100% right with regards to the Strip. It's definitely a beast, and the, the celebrity chefs, you know, it bring, it brings the people in, right? Like for example, I used to work for José Andrés for 11 years. You know, he's, he's one of the most famous chefs in the United States right now, and
His restaurants are crushing it in town, they are amazing. So what separates us Well, you still like we talked about and quality. Yeah.
yeah, quality, no doubt. And you know, we're always open to new ideas of marketing.
We're definitely not the best at it. I think that we can do better. We, we definitely shift a lot of it because we're a little bit more of a creative restaurant. We're not a traditional restaurant by any means, the group. That's also like our demographic. So we, we try to more and more utilize social media and inviting influencers or micro-- they're called like micro-influencers that aren't like these crazy expensive people.
You know, we, we don't, we've never paid for an influencer to come to the restaurant. We're just not, we're not that, that group. But there is a demographic of small ones that have a up-and-coming following that's not like, you know, mass, mass big name in the, in the social marketing world, social media world. And they can come in and, and have a couple bites and, and take some pho-footage and stuff like that. And that, that's turned out to be very, very successful for us. We, we have one dish that's like insanely viral right now on social media that... And it's probably the, the dish that I le-least thought would be popular on Instagram or whatever. And it's literally ev- people every day come in for it. It's, it's hilarious.
No kidding. You know, this may or may not be appropriate to you guys because it sounds like-- Well, we had family fine dining in our restaurants, right? But they-- we didn't take ourselves too seriously. It was a ski resort atmosphere, and we had influencers that actually sent business in the door, and we gave them trade for every dollar that someone...
that they drove in the door. And it was, it was basically our food cost, and that became hugely successful. And we did that every time we opened a new restaurant. We had, you know, Uber drivers and just people that were locals in the community that recommended our place on a chairlift ride or whatever it was.
So, you know, similar things like that I'm sure happened with Uber, Lyft drivers, concierges, that kind of thing. But sounds like you got your plan set.
That's a good point. You know, a lot of the... definitely you gotta be creative with that. A lot of, like, the taxi drivers or Uber drivers, like that, I've definitely heard that before. We've never set up a plan where it's like you know, some sort of a compensation way of doing it.
A lot of them just like supporting the, the, the small cool guys off the Strip. And there's not that many. There's, you know, a handful of restaurants that do cool creative dining off the Strip, and it, it's even more of a smaller community of chefs and friends. So we all stay, like, super close and assist each other, always you know, push other people our way, recommend each other to come to our restaurants.
But that, that's a good idea about the taxis and, and Ubers.
Well, I'll take that a step further, and again, it may or may not be appropriate, but what I did, we, we were huge believers in cash cows, and you know a cash cow is an item that costs very little to serve the guest, but it has this really high perceived value in the way it looks, in, in the way it tastes, it smells, all that kind of stuff.
And when somebody brings it to the table, it has what I call wow factor. So we had something that was hugely successful. It was our most popular appetizer, but it cost far less than a dollar to serve. We could charge ten dollars for it on the menu. And again, this was, gosh, fourteen years, twelve, fourteen years ago.
But I gave these coupons out. We printed up these four-color business cards with a photograph of that item. It said ten dollar value in the corner, and then it had crazy copy like stupendous, fantastic, amazing, blah, blah, blah, what it is, absolutely free. And we passed these out to these influencers, and they were like, "Okay, stamp the back or put your initials on it, and for every dollar that this coupon drives in the door, I'll give you ten percent back in trade before tax."
And some of these influencers drove, gosh, four or five thousand dollars worth of business in just a month or two, and it was huge. And we did it only until we didn't need to do it again. And then when I opened another restaurant, we'd do it again. So it was just a crazy idea, but it worked. And, and the cost was negligible.
And the average check, and again, this was twelve years ago, but the average check was like eighty-five dollars. Some was more, some was less, but usually it was two people that would dine One free appetizer cost less than a dollar. They'd spend 85 bucks, and then they became raving fans and repeat business.
Lifetime value of a customer, all that kind of stuff happened. So just, just, you know, creative thinking, that's all. Just being resourceful and figuring out, "Okay, how can I drive value to a guest and raise the check average and get a decent return on investment, and then have other people become fans of my business that spends this business?"
You know? It was just, it was just great how it worked.
I love it. Thats cool.
Shopping. Do you ever get out of town and... Well, not out of town, but do you ever see the competition and see what they're up to? You play your best game, but you kind of see what the competition is up to. What's their pricing like? What's their service like?
Are they offering real hospitality? Do they have any hooks that set that place apart that maybe we can use, you know? What do you guys do?
I, I-- so I definitely try and go out to dine at a new restaurant or a restaurant I haven't touched base with
At least once a week. I try to. It doesn't always happen. Okay, that's good.
There's so many restaurants that are, you know, opening up in Las Vegas or out... You know, I've been blessed to go to Seattle with the restaurant out there to see what other restaurants and what other markets are doing. And I always push my guys to, whenever they go on trips, to definitely think about, like, going to a, a cool restaurant, a new restaurant that they, they've... that's highly acclaimed, that's got great ratings, that you know, is in the, in the loop of, of popularity, blah, blah, blah. But, I, I mean, I love shopping restaurants.
I think it's, it's, it's a good way to get... pick up on new ideas and see what, also what doesn't work. You know, a lot of it is, is very, like, specific to an area. I, I... What I, what, what someplace on the Strip that's doing s- you know, seven hundred covers a day probably isn't gonna be the same model that we would do for a restaurant that's doing a higher check average and a hundred covers a day. But there definitely is, like, breadcrumbs of, like, brilliance out there, and I love talking with other restaurant group owners and, and, and leaders to see, like, if they're implementing anything new. The technology side is, is, is revamping every single day. There's so many to- new tools that we can use to make our lives easier or just more efficient.
So I, I do it all the time, for sure.
I'm glad you do. I, I did that as well, but... And then I started sending my team out, or I would have the top server of the week, "Hey, go, go have a free dinner on me. Just bring us back a report on what this place is doing." And they used to bring us back all kinds of great feedback on. So it was a win for the server.
It was an incentive. It encouraged everybody to keep pushing and keep being competitive, but it was just a fun night out for somebody You can learn so much by seeing what the competition is up to and never letting your guard down and always trying to stay ahead. So for sure. Last topics here. Let's talk about AI because it's become such a huge thing for every, every business really, but restaurants included.
And some restaurants are kinda on the sidelines, and they're not quite sure what's happening, or they don't really know what to adopt. How are you guys using it if you're using it, and what, what's been the benefit so far?
I think that we, we use it a lot. And I've actually just recently started, like, delving into it even more. So
Oh, yeah.
the, the first few app- you know, things we've been using, things that, like, we do on the computer or anything that's like a constant reoccurring task AI is now moving into the ability to, to really take on that job and it's, it's insane just, just how impressive it can be. But, you know, alert-- Like I have-- We have apps that alert us with regards to reviews and we, we have certain messages we can send out to let
let the guest know that we acknowledge their review
and things like that. Or even just asking you know, recommending for, for a review and things
Yeah. Okay.
for me. I'm by no means a pro, but a lot of the things that I
It
part of my like daily workload is now being
like
where I
we've got two
so you, you have the ability to really focus on what, what really matters in your business and not the, the fluff, you know?
Fantastic, Joe. God, you shared a lot of great things today. Best practices, nuggets of wisdom. You're operating really nice restaurants. You're competing very effectively against some celebrity chefs and everything else on the Strip, and you're growing. And it sounds like you're still having fun in this business.
Like, the passion is coming through. You got a smile on your face, and it's like, "I go to work. I love my partners. I love my team. I'm having fun." And that's really what it's about. So thanks for being a great guest on the show.
Yeah, I appreciate it, Roger. Thank you so much. Thank you. This was a lot of fun.
That was the Restaurant Rockstars podcast. Can't wait to see you in the next episode. Stay well, and stay tuned.
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