Owner: Jeremy Julian
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
oysters, people, seafood, brand, bit, restaurant, product, guests, stores, location, menu, franchise, square feet, takeout, franchisee, food, talk, business, open, purveyors
SPEAKERS
Jonathan (62%), Jeremy (38%), Intro (1%)
I
Intro
0:02
This is the restaurant technology guys podcast, helping you run your restaurant better
JJ
Jeremy Julian
0:13
Welcome back to the restaurant technology guys. Thank you everyone out there for joining us. Another really cool episode and it’ll be fun to chat with, with the CEO of a restaurant brand as I tell you guys often, I love when I get to talk to restaurant operators and people that are running Restaurant Brands just because it’s, it’s a, it’s a really, really cool job. And I know that so many of our listeners out there love this industry, which is why you guys subscribe. So if you haven’t already subscribed, make sure that you guys go out and subscribe to the podcast as well as the newsletter, you’ll get once a month emails with all the podcasts and any of the blog articles that we post. Today we are joined by Jonathan who is the CEO of shuckin shack, which I am probably jacking up that pronunciation. But Jonathan, why don’t you introduce yourself a little bit? Who are you? And then we’ll talk a little bit about the brand that you get the privilege of running every day.
JW
Jonathan Worthington
1:02
Sure you you nailed the pronunciation. Jeremy, my name is Jonathan Worthington. I’m the CEO of Shuckin Shack oyster bar. And we’re based in Wilmington, North Carolina, but have locations in seven states. And so we’re, we’re definitely on the uptick and an emerging franchise.
JJ
Jeremy Julian
1:18
Very cool. Very cool. And I guess a little bit about your history. Where did you come from before you got to check and check where you were you shucking oysters, and then they just said, You know what you get to be the boss today, we’re kind of waiting, all of that come from wasn’t
JW
Jonathan Worthington
1:30
quite that simple. I knew the concept when it was founded. So I was actually working at a business a couple of doors down. The founders when they founded the brand. I was actually at the time working through grad school. But I had always been in customer service all the way from frontline sales up through department and store management. And at the time, when when Shuckin Shack was founded, I was finishing or actually starting and then subsequently finishing grad school. I have a master’s in international relations. So that doesn’t really have a lot to do with with oysters, and helps sell lots of oysters. Right? Right. But it, it certainly helps me critically think. And so I think that’s a big part of, of certainly disposition, and really any position, but I love the customer service industry. And so I knew the guys, when they founded the brand, I had worked for some very, very large retailers in the country, the largest electronics retailer at the time, worked for VF outdoor the largest clothing retailer, were for Hilton Hotels. And so I had been in the customer service industry about 15 years prior to franchising. And so when the guys started are thinking about franchising. They called me and said, essentially, I don’t know where you fit, but we think you fit Do you want to help us do this? And I said, Sure, I was at a point in my career where I always had kind of an entrepreneurial spirit, and had started several businesses on my own, even going back into high school. And so for me, it was a it was a great fit, because I knew the brand very well. And it was just about how can we repeat this branding, wherever, essentially wherever we want to go.
JJ
Jeremy Julian
3:14
I love it. I love it. Well, thank you for giving me a little bit of your background for those that are unfamiliar with Chuck and Chuck, tell me a little bit more about the brand. Is it just oysters is it?
JW
Jonathan Worthington
3:25
You know, that’s kind of the way it started. We started in 2007 and Carolina Beach, North Carolina in a single restaurant about 900 square feet. And that restaurant essentially was a dive bar that serve great food.
JJ
Jeremy Julian
3:36
Well what good 900 square feet.
JW
Jonathan Worthington
3:40
Yeah, really tiny essentially, you know, most people’s restaurants at this point. 900 square feet might represent a portion of their of their dining room or even a even a dry storage closet.
JJ
Jeremy Julian
3:52
The takeout area, the takeout party delivery drivers and stuff.
JW
Jonathan Worthington
3:56
That’s exactly right. So yeah, still 900 square feet, we’ve never expanded, we did add a walk in and outside a few years ago. So that helped free up a few square feet on the inside at least. Nonetheless, we started single location Carolina Beach 2007 started essentially as a dive bars serve great food and then over time people figure it out. And the food here is really, really good. And so we expand the menu a little bit. Now we we opened our second location in 2012 in downtown Wilmington. So a little bit more market proof which is about 25 minutes away from the original location. And at that location, we were able to expand the menu expand the drink selection, much larger spot. And so that allowed us an opportunity to see exactly where we could take things culinarily and with our beverage program and so no, we’re not just oysters, about 70% of our menu is seafood. But we do we have a significant amount of non seafood options. And what we try to do you know, our motto is essentially keep it simple, stupid like many other places, but also whatever we do, we want to do it exceptionally Well, and so we don’t have a huge menu. But all the things that we have on the menu are good. They’re legitimately good. And I’m not just saying that.
JJ
Jeremy Julian
5:08
Well, and so talk to me a little bit about the founding of the company where, you know, with the guy just like to drink and had, you know, had really fresh oysters right there at the at the, you know, at the ocean. And Carolyn, is that pretty much anyone in a place to hang out with his buddies for 900 square feet and just, you know, and then it turned into, hey, I can, I can make good food.
JW
Jonathan Worthington
5:27
You’re not far off. It’s few founders. So Matt, pickin and Shawn Cook, and they were buddies. They were around, Matt was working for a home builder, Sean on the business, two doors down the talent who shot I was actually one of his employees. And they spot became available, this little 900 square foot spot in the island. So Carolina Beach is located on an island called Pleasure Island, which includes Carolina Beach, curry beach, and Fort Fisher Island didn’t have an oyster bar. And it’s kind of a sleepy beach town still is not overly commercialized or anything. I’ve never even heard of it. Ironically, yeah, pretty small place. It’s just south of Wilmington. And there was no oyster bar. And so the thought process was, you know, they were in their 20s. And who doesn’t want to own a bar in their 20s. And so that was essentially hit the hey, let’s open this, it’s pretty low risk, we can open a bar. If it doesn’t work out, no big deal, we can still go find jobs afterwards. And so that’s pretty much what they did. They borrowed money from family and friends and use personal funds, and then opened it and what do you know, it worked?
JJ
Jeremy Julian
6:31
I love it. I love it. So you talked about the food. So these guys figured out how to open up a barn obviously made it successful. And that 900 square feet and then then grew to the Wilmington story she talked about? How does food get added to the menu? What are the recipes come from you guys have a chef? Like, tell me a little bit more about that? Because I’m always intrigued, like, quite frankly, I’m I am looking at the menu online. And I’m like, Dang, this looks really good. And I’m the closest stores, you know, probably 30 minutes for me. And I’m like, I don’t know that I can pull that off today. So. So tell me a little bit about, you know, just kind of where do you guys come up with those ideas? Is it is it you know, do you guys have a full color department or talk to me a little bit more about that.
JW
Jonathan Worthington
7:12
We really don’t, you know, going back to the emphasis of everything is we wanted to keep it simple. And we wanted to keep it simple, stupid and executable. And so our thought process because we are East Coast seafood and East Coast seafood, the general thought process as opposed to Cajun seafood, which I love. By the way, East Coast seafood is pretty much straight out of the water into the steamer and use the natural flavor of the seafood to enhance the dishes. And so that’s what we’ve done. And we’ve kind of stuck to that. Now we do. Obviously other menu items that are that are inspired differently, taste wise. However, we don’t have a chef, we’re not Shefter who no one, no one has the title of chef in our organization. Matt, our co founders still hands on every day from an operational standpoint. And he works with some of our locations, including franchise locations, as well as internally in our test kitchen, which also happens to be our downtown kitchen, in creating these menu items. And then what we do from a new development standpoint is we create several options of these menu items. And we send it out to locations in which they can test it as an LTO. And then we look at we look at sales performance. And so that’s how we decide what goes on the menu. What comes off the menu, we do manual review pretty much once a year. We’re constantly looking at at sell through, obviously a menu product and product mixes and all of those things. But really that menu review period happens once per year. Usually right now, actually, we’re going through menu review right now. And so we generally launch an updated menu coming into April May of every year. And then that allows us to say what’s selling really well what’s not selling at all, what needs to come off what needs to go on. And then that also gives us an opportunity from a planning standpoint to develop menu items for the future.
JJ
Jeremy Julian
8:56
I love it. I love it. So talk to me a little bit about you said East Coast seafood. I live in Dallas, a lot of Cajun a lot of Cajun food that came over from Louisiana. And so when you know I took my son out to a place that I think would would be similar but at the same time it was it was Cajun, you know and it reminded me of that kind of idea. What is that? And what’s the differentiation that? What’s the differentiation you say straight from the ocean in, you know, as you guys get farther into the boiler. Talk to me a little bit about what those flavor profiles look like and what guests should expect when they come into the brand.
JW
Jonathan Worthington
9:29
Sure, so I guess you’d expect a really really fresh product, all of our seafood almost all of our seafood is domestically sourced and wild caught. And so we’re not purchasing seafood from Asia. We’re not purchasing you know, farm raised shrimp that’s been sitting in a pool of its own excrement for you know, a couple of weeks while it’s growing. Everything that we’re doing is wild called our shrimp actually comes from the Gulf so not far from you. And that is distributed across our entire footprint. Our oysters are about 90% plus of oil yours these days are actually aquaculture oysters. And they’re they’re more regulated and there’s more care. So the the oystering industry has changed quite significantly, even in the last 10 years and that aquaculture has has gone has become the way of the future and the way the present in the reason it does that is because it allows the oystermen to control the product a lot more, you develop a lot more consistent product, you developed a product that you can find year round, we get a majority of our oysters from Virginia, actually. So Virginia is the largest oil producer on the East Coast, we get them seasonally out of the Gulf as well, which are typically wild harvest oysters, there’s some aquaculture going on there as well. But the vast majority of oysters in the United States now are aquaculture. And what that means is it’s basically a lot more controlled, it allows for a consistency of product. And so you have oystermen that can great oysters a lot better, they can control the access to sunlight, which is important part of the oysters, they can control the salinity in the oysters based upon where these essentially boxes or cages are put out in the bay. Because it’s everything is titled and so the oyster Manor are taking great care, overlooking that process and harvesting those oysters. And if they’re not large enough, they’re put back in until they are large enough. And so it’s a lot more controlled process and allows for consistency, which is, you know, the name of the game, especially in the seafood side?
JJ
Jeremy Julian
11:28
Well, and that’s I mean, I think that I think it’s one of the things that I’ve wondered, and I’d love to ask that question is, is product selection and product quality, you know, in retail, you know, where you’d been before and even, you know, in Hotelling, like you kind of get it, you know, but when you’re talking about a live product that you’ve got to figure out how to talk to me about the distribution challenges. I’m sure they’re even more exacerbated now than they were, you know, even five years ago, because of supply chain shortages. But how, how do you grow a brand when you’ve got this product, that that’s tough to to ensure that you’re getting the right product out to Mansfield, Texas or to you know, someplace in Virginia or whatnot, as a CEO, talk to me a little bit about that, because part of what makes you guys who you guys are is how good the product is how fresh it is? How is it prepared? How’s it how’s it displayed on the on the plate for for consumers?
JW
Jonathan Worthington
12:21
Yeah, I mean, it’s tough. There’s no two ways about it. That’s, that’s a big part of what we do, I think the biggest thing that we’re doing is keeping our finger on the pulse. We’re never letting that that communication lapse, we work with a supply chain management company. And that supply chain management company is really kind of our hands and feet on the ground in developing those contracts for that product. We actually buy our shrimp a year at a time. And so we do case commitments on Trump, we work directly with the shrimpers down in the Gulf. And so we are not necessarily depending upon market fluctuations. We do that with shrimp, we do actually we do crab legs, we we don’t do them a year at a time. But we do futures on crab legs, we do some oyster contracts as well, it’s a vast majority of our scent of the plate items are essentially predictable from a cost standpoint. And so we get kind of first seat in that car ahead of other people, we get to ride shotgun with the shrimp boats, because, you know, we’re committing to a much larger case you should so we’re not at the volatility of the macro market. We have seen some of that volatility. Obviously, it kind of reached a fever pitch back in June, July, August of 22. But it’s gotten a lot better, a whole lot better from a cost perspective as well. So how we’re distributing it, we’re working with abroad, liner abroad honors us foods, so we work with them on a lot of things. They have a really strong seafood program. But then on top of that we also leverage regional seafood purveyors. So there’s several regional seafood purveyors across the country. And we actually leverage those guys in filling in our gaps, as well as getting a vast majority of our oysters from those regional seafood purveyors. They’re really strong. They allow us to do case commitments. They’re flexible, they cover our entire footprint, including there in Dallas. And so you would think that it’s pretty complicated, but it’s not nearly as complicated once you start peeling back the layers. And the biggest part of it for us too is this domestically sourced product. So we’re not necessarily at the mercy essentially, of cases, or shipping containers coming over from China or coming over from Asia. It’s all domestically sourced.
JJ
Jeremy Julian
14:31
I love it. I love it. One of the other brands that I work with on my day job for those longtime listeners know that that’s that’s what I do for a living is run a point of sale company that that talks to customers that we’ve got a brand that is a is a food brand out on the West Coast and talking with them talking with their CEO, just to kind of about the whole sustainability of seafood. How much does that how much does that come into play when you guys are choosing products, making sure that it’s sustainable, making sure that you can get it making sure that you know because nobody wants to come in to have their favorite item and Then have it not be available because you can’t get it. Talk to me a little bit about what that looks like from from your guys’s product selection and supply chain and those contracts that you guys are doing as you guys going out to the franchise world. That’s,
JW
Jonathan Worthington
15:10
that’s everything. It’s actually one of our core values. So sustainability is is at the crux of what we’re doing. We’re making sure that whatever we’re taking, I mean, oysters being essentially our number one product, let’s let’s take that, for instance, the reason that we’re working with aquaculture oysters, is because there’s actually return process of discarded shells that go back into the bay that allow more oysters to grow. And so if you look back at especially the Virginia oyster industry, if you look back it was it was decimated, it was basically at 0% production. As soon as the 1960s there was no oysters coming out of the water. And so what what family farms and oystermen have done in Virginia is they have gone to an aquaculture method and the aquaculture method allows them to return discarded oyster shells, and that allows the bay to grow, it creates a more sustainable ecosystem so that more oysters can reproduce from all the way from the spat all the way up to the two to three inch oyster that we eat. And so when we’re choosing our purveyors, when we’re working through those contracts with our regional, with our regional purveyors, with our broad line purveyors, and with our supply chain management company, that’s a question that we’re asking. We can track all our traceability is really, really high, we can track all of our shrimp, from the harvest date from the general area that was harvested, we can track our oysters, basically, from, you know, a few meters square of exactly where it came from out of the water, we’re required to do that by law, but that’s also something that we do. Because it’s important, the traceability and the sustainability of our product gives our customers the assurance that you know, it’s a safe product to eat. A lot of people are scared of oysters, you know, only once that ended or that’s what they’ve always been told, that is no longer true. And it hasn’t been true since refrigeration. And so we can we can harvest soldiers 365 days a year, they’re, they’re completely safe. You know, I eat them once a week. And so there’s there’s nothing wrong with with enjoying great seafood year round.
JJ
Jeremy Julian
17:08
I love it. I love it. So I’m gonna pivot here just a little bit and talk about your guys’s growth. You guys have grown? You know, I mean, you know, I guess the brands were 15, almost 16 years old at this point. You know, and you guys have grown quite a bit. Where are you guys at now and what a growth projections look like? He’s you talked about franchising? How much of its corporate how much of its franchise, talk to me a little bit about where you guys have grown? You’ve been with the brand, seven, eight years, nine years, something like that. So talk to me a little bit about kind of what you guys have done through through the last few years. And and where do you see the future going for, for Chuck and Chuck, and where are you guys want to hit hit more markets.
JW
Jonathan Worthington
17:42
So we still have two company units. The rest of our unit 17 at this point are franchise units. So two companies 17 franchise units, we’ve got several more under construction right now, I came onto the brand in 2014 Really didn’t start growing into 2015. And so in the last not quite eight years, about seven and a half years, we’ve opened 17 units. So you know, it’s a fairly steady growth pattern. We’re not in the business of, you know, selling hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of franchise units and then never opening them. Or even even worse, opening them and having them all underperform and then closing and going bankrupt. We don’t have any interest in doing that. And so we just want to help open healthy restaurants with good people. That’s that’s kind of exactly what we’re after, which is I’m not gonna say it’s uncommon, but we have we’ve taken the longer road, so to speak.
JJ
Jeremy Julian
18:34
Yeah, absolutely. I’ve been in this industry for almost 30 years. And I’ve watched I was just actually talking to at the bus stop this morning. Ironically, I was talking about a brand that had you know, meteoric rise, and I was trying to go to one of the stores. It had been maybe 18 months open and and I was traveling and I knew this store was there on this brand. And I gotta mention the brand name because it doesn’t add any value. It just, I was like, how was that started closing in a year and a half. And I love their food. But clearly it didn’t work and they sold a whole bunch franchises and neither didn’t have the capital or didn’t have the right people to run it or, or whatever that might look like. So is that your biggest challenge is picking the right spots and picking the right you know, the right franchisees, as you guys are going out to growth.
JW
Jonathan Worthington
19:14
Always the right people is I mean, we’re in the hospitality industry. And regardless of whether you’re a single unit, Mom and Pop location or franchise company, you’ve got to make sure that you’re bringing people into your organization that can live and breathe exactly why you built the company, we built the company to serve people well and so that people would have a good time. And if you put someone in a position to run a restaurant that is not equipped to serve people well and treat people well and to also have a good time, then you’re not going to you’re not going to succeed you’re going to
JJ
Jeremy Julian
19:41
close you’re gonna be in trouble in the stores not gonna be open and that’s gonna kill the brand name and you know, the the two founders will just go back to having their 900 square feet and a bar to to eat oysters with and drink some beer. Got Yeah. So I’m gonna I’m gonna pull up a different topic here. Talk to me a little bit about seafood and In takeout delivery third party, it’s probably the most common thing that I talked to restaurant tours about. I personally, I don’t know that I’ve ever ordered seafood to go. Because I’ve just I don’t know, I for some reason I think of seafood and I think of sitting in or in a restaurant and having it come straight out of the kitchen to my table. Talk to me a little bit about how you guys think of that. Because I promise you over the last three years, it’s become something you guys have had to adapt to even if you were 90%. In store, I’m guessing that the percentages have gone up and managing that managing packaging, managing product, managing your franchisees to make sure that they’re doing that stuff through the pandemic. Talk to me a little bit about how you guys solve some of those problems.
JW
Jonathan Worthington
20:37
Were kind of the outlier. Whenever the we took a different approach moving into the pandemic, you know, when we saw basically by June of 2020, hey, this thing’s going to stick around for a little bit. When everyone was doubling down on delivery services, and all of that stuff, we chose not to take that route, we knew at the time exactly the way you said it, Jeremy was that you don’t have a general association of seafood and takeout. And so I don’t either, as a CEO of a company that wants to grow our delivery and takeout business, I don’t either. And, and we have that same mantra going back to 2020. And so what we doubled down on was customer contact. So we made sure that we were still you know, contacting our customers via social media and whatever channels that we were using for communication with them, we were doubling down on the thought process that when you’re allowed to go out, call it quote unquote, I can’t even say can you believe I’m using the jargon allowed. So when allowed to go out, you know, one of the things you could do was purchase food. And so we will meet you at the curb, we will bring that food to your car, you can come and get it from us, we did almost no delivery, which is crazy. No, that’s crazy to a lot of Restaurant Brands. But we didn’t do it because we didn’t have to, we felt confident enough in our product that people wanted to get out. It was tough for me to stay in the house for 24 hours at a time, I’m going all the time, and all of a sudden, at all. And so we doubled down on the thought process that we believe that people will want to get out of their house. And when they do we want them to travel to us. And they did exactly that. And that really hasn’t changed in the last three years, you know, with shutdowns and then opening back up and all of that stuff that really hasn’t changed. We’ve we’ve continued to rely on our loyal customer base, engaging our customers and making sure that they will show up. And that’s exactly what they’ve done.
JJ
Jeremy Julian
22:29
Well, I I know you don’t know my story, but I moved from from California to Dallas 18 months ago and the the the difference in the difference in kind of the way that things were dealt with in California versus the way that they were dealt with here in Texas was very, very different. And I’m sure being in North Carolina, you had some of that same that same Well, in most of your stores are in the south, it seems like you guys did a good job. You’re they did a good job of making sure that making sure that that you guys could, could stay open. I’m gonna I’m gonna flip again, or I’m gonna I’m going to add on to that conversation about kind of the takeout How did you guys? How did you guys engage with your guests? I mean, you you know, do you guys have a formal loyalty program? Is it just your social media? Are they kind of these, these downhome places in the smaller towns that are big kind of knows who you guys are? And, you know, everybody kind of knew. Talk to me a little bit about what that looks like. Because it it’s not the top? You know, it’s the top? Probably three things that I talked to Restaurant Brands about is is how do I how do I engage with my guests? How do I know who they are? How do I know how often they’re coming in? There’s some people that take these huge, you know, I just posted a podcast with the group from Jack in the Box. And they did a full like loyalty, you know, kickoff, you know, when they’re 1500 stores. And then there’s others that are like, No, we know how to get ahold of our guests. We know who they are, we know what’s going on. Talk to me a little bit about how you guys have dealt with that. How you guys have dealt with that, you know, not only through the payment pandemic, but kind of what’s your strategy on how to engage with the guests.
JW
Jonathan Worthington
23:53
Yeah, we’re definitely the latter of those two things. We actually launched a loyalty program in 2016, it failed miserably. And what we learned through that it was a good failure for us, because what we learned for that is that we don’t need that essentially formal loyalty plan or discount driven plan or whatever. In order for guests to come back to us. We know who our guest is pretty well. And it’s primarily through social media. That’s the that’s the way that we reach our guests. It’s we’re very fortunate from a branding standpoint to be kind of tongue in cheek, a little left of center, just kind of in our thought process and, and just in how we approach people, it’s very, at times very comedic, and very, we walk the line between what’s acceptable and what’s not not acceptable. And so naturally speaking, we do a good job at garnering attention to begin with. And because we already have that kind of attention, we can speak to our guests in a way that we want to speak to our guest. And so that’s primarily through social media, we don’t have a formal loyalty program. And so because we already had that attention even coming in through the pandemic, people were interested in what what meme we’re gonna post, or what video what parody video we’re going to do or whatever it may be, we already kind of have that attention that can reach out to our guests, we understand that in our guests bases understands that we are not a discount driven brand. And that has never been at the forefront of what we do, we so very rarely offer discounts on anything that we’re doing, we are far more of kind of the slightly, I guess, slightly higher pricing, but higher quality seafood in a very, very relaxed atmosphere. And so that’s exactly, that’s exactly who our brand is from top to bottom, we want people to come in as they are. We want them to sit down at the bar and have a couple of drinks and then have great food afterwards.
JJ
Jeremy Julian
25:48
I love it. I love it. I see that you guys just opened the store that you guys that close to me and Mansfield just opened recently. My daughter plays softball tournaments down there often. So I promise I’ll be going and checking it out. Last question kind of on the growth? How do you guys you know, so you’ve got this loyalty fan base in the where the stores are, and at the same time, you’re open to new stores? So how do you how do you get that brand name out there? You know, I guess when you guys are going into new regions, talk to me a little bit about what that strategy looks like. Because, again, one of the things that I think about personally when I think about Franchise Group, so this is that, you know, works really, really well in North Carolina, cuz everybody knows who you guys are. And then you get out of that North Carolina region. And people are like, you know, and I’m picking North Carolina, because that’s where you guys are headquartered. But it’s a problem. Because if they don’t resonate with the brand, and they think of you guys just sort of an oysters, they don’t ever try it and then go, why am I gonna go in there? Or why am I gonna go to the middle of Topeka, Kansas and, and have oysters like, where’s that going to come from, you know, type of thing. So talk to me a little bit about what that looks like for you guys, and how you guys go. Ensure that people know who you are and, and can engage with the brand in new regions.
JW
Jonathan Worthington
26:59
Sure. So the most important ingredient to that mixture is the person. It’s the franchisee. And that’s it. We provide a lot of brand support on the marketing side, we can help people with, you know, SEO and pay per click and Facebook ads and Instagram ads and getting your name out there. But the absolute most important thing you can do as a franchisee is to talk to literally everyone,
JJ
Jeremy Julian
27:22
make sure that you actually engage with the guests that are because
JW
Jonathan Worthington
27:25
that’s a big part of building business. Generally speaking, whether you’re a franchise or whether you’re a single mom and pop location, and whether you’re in the restaurant industry, or retail, or what automotive service, it doesn’t matter, you’ve got to talk to people, and you’ve got to be willing to get out there and speak to people, you’ve got to be willing to go into other businesses and talk to the owners and get to know people around your community that is a big part of what we do. No amount of marketing that we can do on the corporate side, quote unquote, will replace exactly what one person can do within their community. And so that’s why it’s so critically important from a franchisor franchisee perspective that we’re choosing the right people that represent our brand. And so when those when those, that’s why we’ve grown slower, quite frankly, because we’ve been pretty selective with the people that we bring into the organization. However, when the people do come into the organization, there’s an expectation set that they will be pillars have their community, and not pillars in the sense that they’re going to donate to every charity because there’s quite frankly not enough money to go around. But they are pillars in the sense that they’re going to participate. They’re going to talk to the general public, they’re going to become friends with their customer base, they’re going to become the hangout spot. And that happens because they’re good people and because people like coming to their restaurant.
JJ
Jeremy Julian
28:38
I love that reminder, it actually reminds me of a story of my wife and I, we were going on vacation, actually to South Carolina. But we’re going on vacation and we needed to get our dog groomed. But our groomer was not available, the one that we normally go to. And there was a new store in town. And so we called over there, they had a spot open, and we went and checked it out. And instead of just walking in and dropping our dog off, like you might at a PetSmart or you know, whatever, Petco, the owner walked us around this brand new facility talked about how you know, all the different things that he had invested in to make it and now we’ve referred at least five people to that, that brand. And and and I love that that reminder that you talked about Jonathan, which is just one of the hospitality business like like people want to deal with other people, like, you know, they had a couple of years of not being not being allowed to leave the house. Now they want to engage with people and if you’re friendly to them, and you know, there’s another bar right and downtown in this little town that I live in, and the owner is always there walking around and saying hi to people and the place is packed because of that, you know, a little bit of hospitality training and service training but like in general, he’s still there and he’s checking in with the guests and and I think all too often people don’t recognize that that’s the product that you’re putting on the plate has to be good. But the experience that you’re getting, also has to be has to be better has to be part have this experience because if it’s not, the guests aren’t going to come back. And I think it’s, it’s, it’s a fantastic reminder for our listeners out there that says you’ve got to create an environment where your staff were the people that are working with you and for you are able to create those experiences because you as a guest remember when you walked into the Hilton, or you when you walked into the Ritz Carlton, and they they recognize you by name, and you know, had your room ready. And you also know that crappy experience where you walked in and they overbooked your room, and they didn’t take care of you. In that trip. That hotel, I will be going back to the hotel and in Savannah actually wasn’t a succulent or Savannah, Georgia, because they took care of me they overbooked my hotel, they took care of me, they bought me dinner, they put you know, wine and cheese in our room when we did finally get into a room. And I’ve now told 10 people about it. But that goes back to the hospitality experience that you’re talking about. And so I love that you that you threw that reminder out there, Jonathan? Yeah,
JW
Jonathan Worthington
30:56
I mean that, you know, last I checked, virtually every household in America has a stove and a microwave, but we choose not to use those things. Because we want a dining experience. And especially if you’re on the full service side, you have to be really, really careful about creating transactional relationships with your customers, you really have to put effort into, into making dining, memorable, because people that is, it’s expensive, it’s more expensive to eat in a restaurant than it is to cook at home for the most part. That’s not that hasn’t been true, necessarily in the last 90 days, but prior to the last 90 days, it’s more expensive to eat in a restaurant than it is to get home. And but the reason people do that is for two reasons for number one convenience. And for the convenience side, you have brands, you know, major QSR, brands, Subway, McDonald’s, everybody knows them, they have mastered the art of transactional relationships service, that transactional relationship services, when you walk into subway, you walk into McDonald’s, even Chick fil A, you do it because you know exactly what you’re gonna get it and you’re gonna get it in under five minutes. And so that is transactional relationship service on the full service side. The second, the second reason they do it is because they want an experience. And that’s where full service dining comes in. And so we have to, we have to consistently think about and put effort into making sure that not only is our food good, but more importantly, is the experience exceptional. And if you can’t, you know, I guess confidently answer that second question, is your experience exceptional, then you need to reevaluate what you’re doing. Because you’re not going to last long, you can’t get away with transactional experience in full service. If you have both bad food and bad experience, you’re gonna work?
JJ
Jeremy Julian
32:37
Absolutely. Even if you’re in the middle of downtown New York, like you’re gonna go out of business, and you’ve got as much foot traffic as you can stand. It still, you’ve got to create that, and I talk about it on our podcast often is, you know, even you know, we talk about technology a lot and making sure that the technology fits the brand experience. You know, and I think that that, that I often will talk about, people dine out for two reasons. One is an experience or probably three, one is an experience, the other is sustenance. To me, McDonald’s subway is sustenance, like I’m just getting food because I need to get food and I’m on my way to soccer practice and they need to get the kids fed. And it’s not going to be an experience. But when you’re going out, you’re spending your hard earned money. And to your point, you guys aren’t the cheapest on the blog. So people are choosing to spend more to dry pass something that’s cheaper to get to your brand, you’ve got to deliver on that brand promise because if not, they won’t come back. But
JW
Jonathan Worthington
33:29
ya know that I mean, you can’t Don’t fool yourself into thinking that you have a forever runway of your new restaurant. If you’re a mom and pop restaurant, and you believe that you have a great product, don’t sell yourself short on just thinking that product is going to carry your through carry you through the runway is short, the runway is very short. And people as great as people are and as loyal as people are. You’re still dealing with the general public and when the tide turns with the general public good luck. Yep, it’s not coming back.
JJ
Jeremy Julian
34:02
No, absolutely. Absolutely. What did we miss Johnson? What are the things that we missed that we need to share with our listeners out there about the brand about where you guys are going? How do they learn more about what you guys are doing? If they’re interested in franchising? What does that look like for them?
JW
Jonathan Worthington
34:17
Sure. So you can go to chuck a check franchise.com Or just go to our regular consumer site. There’s a link there the shuck and check.com no G on Chuck. And, and, you know, I think just generally about the brand, if you’re interested in franchising with us. If you’re a good person, reach out to us if you’re not a good, choose another brand. Yeah, I really want good people in our organization. We’re very, very fortunate. I’m very, very fortunate from a leadership perspective, to have really, really good people in my organization, who I love working with on a day to day basis. And so we want to keep that and we’re very excited about where that’s taken us and we’re very excited about where that’s going to take us.
JJ
Jeremy Julian
34:57
I love it. I love it. Well, I Certainly I’m gonna go check out the store in Mansfield next time I’m down that way. Like I said, it’s a little bit of a hike to get down there. But I’ve got reasons to go down there we’ve got a half a dozen other brands that we know and work with that are down that way my daughter’s got softball all the time down in that, that neck of the woods because it’s growing like crazy. So congratulations on on the growth. Congratulations on the success that you guys have had since you got there. And it’s exciting to see where you guys are. Yeah,
JW
Jonathan Worthington
35:22
thank you. Thank you.
JJ
Jeremy Julian
35:24
So to our listeners, guys, we know that you guys have got choices, no different than we talk about choices of restaurants. You guys have choices on where you spend your time and your energy. So we appreciate you guys spending time with us, as I said on the onset. If you haven’t already subscribed, I’d love for you to subscribe check me out if you guys have got guests that you guys think need to be on the show. Please send them my way, because we’re always looking for cool guests like Jonathan to talk with. Jonathan, thank you for your time and to our listeners make it a great day. Thanks Jeremy.
I
Intro
35:50
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