37:51
Owner: Jeremy Julian
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
margaritas, restaurant, people, started, run, mexican food, teams, grow, reopened, brand, menu, years, business, managers, pandemic, augusta, bit, mexico, maine, opportunity
SPEAKERS
Bob (71%), Jeremy (29%), 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 podcast. We thank you guys for joining us. As I say, at the opening of all of these, I know you guys have hundreds 1000s 10s of 1000s of choices of where you can spend your time, and what podcasts you can listen to. So we appreciate you guys spending some time with us. Each and every time we drop one of these podcasts. Today, we are joined by a special guest Bob ray of margaritas restaurants. But why don’t you say hi and tell our audience a little bit about what you get to do for margaritas? And then we’ll get into the brand story and what you guys did through the pandemic.
BR
Bob Ray
0:49
Thanks, Jeremy. Hey, Bob Ray.
BR
Bob Ray
0:54
I’m, what I do with margaritas is a little of everything. I have a long history with margaritas goes back 30 years came up through the restaurants and had, you know, the opportunity to work closely with the owners through my career as this company kind of grew and add restaurants and add systems and structure and learned learned what it meant to kind of grow into a mid sized, you know, chain restaurant company. And so a lot of different experience over the years working with really great people a lot of fun. And now, you know, we’re, we’re working on kind of, you know, seeing where we can take things again. And, and, you know, you know, I have the strong operations background, and I’m kind of leading the organization to be really built around our operators, you know, our leaders in the field, our managers and our operations leadership team and, and keep things well structured and focused and fun for everybody. So
JJ
Jeremy Julian
2:01
I love it. I love it for those that are not familiar, because I know you guys got somewhat of a reasonable following today. But one might assume when they hear the word margaritas then we’re talking about Chinese food right now. I’m teasing obviously. So it’s it’s Mexican food. But for those that aren’t familiar fast, casual, fast food, fine dining, casual dining, talk to me a little bit about the brand and, and even tell the brand story where did it come from? How did we get Mexican food in you know, New England because you don’t always think about Mexican food in New England. And the same the same sentence when when people are are starting to look for Mexican food.
BR
Bob Ray
2:37
You’re you’re you’re so right, left less so now. But when the brand started in the 80s it was really it was really something so so John Pelletier, he came up with Chuck Steakhouse, Chuck steakhouse brand in Connecticut, and he’s in Concord, New Hampshire running running a restaurant for them. And you know, he sought out the opportunity to take over that restaurant converted it to what was T wands, but it’s the original margaritas menu and concept. And, and kind of built from there. So it’s, you know, it’s casual dining, Mexican, but we really run kind of two businesses in one where our locations are set up with a dining room, which is great for families, in most cases, you know, large parties, celebrations, date night, that kind of stuff. And then we have a bar lounge side. Which is, you know, good for having fun staying out late, you know, have a little tequila, drink a little bit of margaritas. Yeah, see where the night takes you. So, so John can, you know, he ran it, developed it. And then partnered with Stan Bagley who owned a restaurant up in Orono. Maine, which is pretty far north is where the University of Maine is. And you know, they converted Stan’s restaurant bar stands into margaritas and called it margaritas and kind of off they go you know, had success there. Again, you know, really doing really well with with the bar side of it. The college crowd running a great restaurant. And from there, you know, they they started to build a team set up kind of headquarters in Seacoast New Hampshire, started adding restaurants. And you know, I was just we have we just promoted gentleman, Mark Lakeman to director of operations over for the restaurants and he worked in Orono in 1987. And oh my gosh, no, he he and I were were co managers. He was the GM of Augusta after it opened in 1990. And that’s where I started with margaritas. My first real assignment was working with him. In 1992, no. So there was a lot a lot of their love stories like that when margaritas with the woman who’s because he got promoted. The woman who was promoted to gm of Augusta Sean Maddox, hired her as a server in Lewiston in 1992. You know, so we have a lot of great stories like that. And it’s, you know, a real important part of the culture, you know, these these folks that have grown with margaritas, and we’ve done a lot of work, you know, becoming an organization that’s about personal development, professional development, helping people set goals and achieve them. And, and people have stayed a long time. It’s been so so obviously,
JJ
Jeremy Julian
5:48
you’ve been there for a couple of years. It sounds like so. Well, I guess the the logical part, and I know I alluded to it earlier, where where exactly did you know I guess where did the whole Mexican concept of the takeover of Mexican restaurant and then realize that it had legs like, now it doesn’t seem odd to me, I, I grew up in Southern California, longtime listeners know, I moved to Dallas couple years ago, but in Southern California, Mexican food was always a thing. And Texas, Mexican food has always been a thing and but I know for me traveling over the last 30 years, I would go to different places in the country, and it would be hard to find Mexican food or it’d be hard to find good Mexican food. I remember a number of years ago, there was a brand out of I don’t remember where to eat. I’m not sure he’s but um, cheese that was up in kind of the Midwest area. And I know that they had gotten a national following. And I was like, Oh, this is not California Mexican food. It’s not Tex Mex. But where did Mexican food come from? And, you know, obviously, we know that it came from Mexico, but how did it get there? And how did the founders get to a place where they, they were obviously able to make it successful enough that, that they’re doing good business? And, you know, growing the concept and being profitable and growing people? Yeah,
BR
Bob Ray
6:59
yeah. I mean, that’s a really good question. Because how we describe our, our food and and what we’re trying to bring to people. It’s not, you know, it’s not authentic Mexican, it’s not straight Southern California or Tex Mex. What it is, is this kind of original original margaritas concept that has evolved. And John took over that concept, and that’s the foundation of it. But where it really becomes what we are, you know, probably starts with his first trip to Mexico, and then trips to Mexico. Like, I couldn’t tell you how many times he’s been his brother Dave have been down there, if it was about a few things. But very early on, it was all right, going from these, you know, simple white stucco walls, you know, a lot of standard equipment, and these regular conversions, like the building from ground up, you take place over, use their chairs, you know, you put some stock go up, and do it cheap, get it open, and then, you know, see where it goes. And as you grow, you have more resources, but, you know, they, they, down there and, and, and learn more about the culture met, met artists and, and found the factories to have the chairs made. So started sending tractor trailers of, of the tile that we use in the restaurants up and having chairs made and shipping them up and buying all the art that’s in the restaurants, buying fabric that we use, you know, on the booths, and so on light fixtures. That that is is really how the connection to Mexico started to evolve. But while they’re there, they’re eating. Yeah, they’re
JJ
Jeremy Julian
8:55
having fantastic food. Right, and thinking,
BR
Bob Ray
9:00
like they’re having good food or have bad Mexican food. Yep. And then thinking about our what, what, what would work for us, and then you know, how we talked about it after, after a while was like, it’s like, Mexico meets New England. It really is somewhere in between where you take the best ideas, you try and execute them in a way that’s going to have appeal for people. And then it’s always been kind of a constant evolution and trying to keep things exciting. Yes, but, you know, there’s just, there’s passion, there’s passion behind it. And, you know, it’d be up scratch kitchens, you know, making all this stuff every day. You know, with the intent to really, really give people a great dining experience for what it is. It’s not fancy. It’s not authentic. It is margaritas, Mexican. I love it.
JJ
Jeremy Julian
9:56
I love it. Well, and I and I’m sure over the years and you You said it just now that that you’ve seen even palettes change, you know, as people start to explore more options in the, in the early 90s or late 80s, when they when they started the brand, you know, you weren’t able to introduce some of the types of items that you probably have on your menu today, because either two people didn’t know what they were or it didn’t look like what they were used to coming into. Whereas now, it feels like whether it’s the the advent of the Food Network, and, you know, people that are being foodies, like people are willing to try and see things that they never have seen before. You know, tell me a little bit about that journey. And how do you guys even decide what, you know, you get inspiration. But if you were to go straight to, you know, straight to, you know, something super offbeat, that you might have had in Mexico, it might not fly. And so talk to me a little bit about that menu innovation over the last 30 years and how that’s come about because I think it’s an important part of your guys’s story, because you have to stay relevant. Because if you don’t stay relevant, people stop coming.
BR
Bob Ray
10:58
Yeah. Yeah. And it’s an interesting part of that conversation is trying to figure out why when you bring flavors in like, you know, Dave Peltier was roasting jalapenos in the kitchen in Portsmouth back in the 90s and we got into you know, Chipotle as a flavor pretty early on people didn’t know what it was and adobo and you know toma to came to our menu we did you know, the inspiration we did a case so fundido but it was we took our cheese and did on a big skillet and put the computer around but it’s inspired by this place in in Malachy Paki where they had a big mocha hate, they were like, tomatillo, and they dropped the milk and cheese in and we were just, we’re down. They’re blown away. Right? And so our How do we do that? And so there’s a lot of that like, figuring out how converts and and then knowing Alright, sometimes you don’t sell a ton of certain things. But you you hit a segment of people that become raving fans, and
JJ
Jeremy Julian
12:11
it’s a gateway to moving towards that. I don’t I don’t know you. You know, you and I haven’t hung out. But I don’t know if you understand how much you’re speaking my language. My friends will tell me that, that there’s not a case of that I that I have eaten that I haven’t enjoyed somewhere and so queso fundido specifically is like one of my jams, you know, Teresa and queso fundido with some either roasted Serrano’s or, you know, tomatillo like, that’s, that’s my deal with Mocha, hit the mic. My kids teased because I do speak Spanish, because I’ll say it with an accent but But yeah, that’s, that’s, that’s truly my jam. But I mean, again, even introducing something like that that’s been commonplace down in Mexico probably was, was interesting, in the beginning as you guys started to launch those things. And so, talk to me a little bit about supply chain because, you know, going and getting chairs built and getting, you know, getting the tiles like those things don’t change all that often. But getting tomatoes, getting hatched, green chilies getting, you know, jalapenos. Is that was that something that was easy? Were you guys using broad liners to get that stuff? Were you guys having to figure out how to go get those pieces elsewhere? You know, talk to me a little bit about about what that looks like over the years. I’m guessing it’s more common now and a little bit easier. Save the last couple of years with the pandemic, which we’ll get into a second. But was it Is it easier now? Was it hard to get those ingredients because that’s one of the things that I’ve heard from restaurant tours as as they try and introduce these things, whether it’s Asian food, or, you know, South American food. I had the guys from oil compatible on recently and they’re they’re from El Salvador. And they said the same thing. Like, at first, it was really hard until we kind of figured it out. So talk to me a little bit about what that looks like for you guys.
BR
Bob Ray
13:52
Yeah, I think I think the key and if we didn’t do a lot of really nifty stuff, but it is always about setting up that supply chain before you get into it. Last two years, a total totally different animal, you know, but along the way, we, we did some different stuff like having hot sauce made and in and shipped up from the Caribbean and to or to a warehouse in Waterbury or go down and fill the back of my truck and get it out because we just try, you know, trying to get some different flavors and bring some heat like we tried to bring heat to people in New England for a while and, and as as part of changing the palette. You know, it’s not all about heat, but that was one thing. But we I mean, we’ve had really good partners on that front, working with PFG North center out of Augusta, Maine. They they really worked with us as our broad liner to slot things for us that are that are unique to us and, and be a good partner over 30 years. Um, lately, it’s been like a week, I mean, more reopen, we sat down for a couple months and then reopened and like, Miss started in May of 2020. And then, you know, one or two a week getting everybody fired back up. But it’s so many disruptions, and just absolutely had to accept a different mindset, on substitutions on on being out of products. Because that’s we net, we never accepted that before we would, we would do anything and everything to deliver our menu to the guests that chose to come through our doors. Yep, we would run the store, we would borrow from other restaurants, we would do anything if we had made a mistake in ordering or got shorted or whatever. And so the last few years where it’s getting back to normal, but that’s been crazy. And one of the decisions we made when we reopened, helped a little bit. We, you know, over 30 years of really loving the food and doing specials, we we grew our menu quite a bit. And on the reopening, we trimmed it way down, got down to two sided menu instead of COVID COVID
JJ
Jeremy Julian
16:15
gave us an opportunity to shrink those people because they you’d have that lady that would come in once a week and always want the same item, but you sold five of them the whole week. And your your story is not unique. I apologize for interrupting you. But I I love that you guys consider doing that because I think more people could have taken the opportunity to trim that menu for the items that weren’t selling or weren’t very good profit margins or prep times were significantly higher than the rest of them, only to kind of wrap on that for just a couple minutes.
BR
Bob Ray
16:44
Right, all of that it was so hard to give up some flavors. And but we had so many good ideas over the years, specials got to put into the menu menu grows your six pages. And this was our chance we kind of went back, you know, back to the 90s when when we were sitting around in April of 2020. Like not knowing what was going to happen and and thinking about where this business should be. And we at first we took out all the lunch. We opened at three o’clock every day are the original operating hours. margaritas were one show a day, four o’clock. And stay open late. We’re okay. No. And so we reopened like that we also dropped out Mondays, because because we kind of we we didn’t predict what was going to happen with with the labor market, I thought it would be more favorable. But we came back with two manager teams or three manager teams and thought you know, lock in the Monday has a day off for everybody. Keep things focused open after three, streamline the menu, get some efficiency, and we had a we had a significant impact on our profitability, our ability to run the restaurant, we’ve taken a lot of wage increase our labor, our labor stand for person is way up over two years. But we’ve created efficiencies that have helped us make it worth it. You know, we had our best people. The other thing that was great is we have really good leaders in our restaurants. And they came back all of their people wanted to be back. Yeah, no, that’s not a that’s not a universal story. In the restaurant business. A lot of people sat it out for for a year.
JJ
Jeremy Julian
18:37
And oftentimes haven’t come back. I was I was talking to a friend I was having a meal the other day. And he’s not a restaurant guy. And he was like, Where did everybody go? Like they found other jobs because we pretty much overnight told them you don’t have a job and they needed to make an income. And they figured out that they either didn’t want to come back or, or you know, the job wasn’t available to them when they were ready to come back, you know, post pandemic and so I love that that you guys had that. It was it was actually the the thread that I wanted to ask you to talk about for a couple of minutes is you talked about your guys’s philosophy on building from within and, and growing your people and investing in that. How has that been a distinct business advantage for you guys? Do you think and and you know, I guess how do you keep it? How do you keep it going as you guys are growing because it’s oftentimes what I’ve seen with Restaurant Brands is they do it when they’re two or three. But as they get beyond that it gets it gets harder. It gets harder to grow managers it gets harder to get across servers host bartenders, all of it.
BR
Bob Ray
19:36
Yeah. Yeah, we’ve seen that whole cycle. It was I think a good a good mix back in the early days where these guys are smart and selective. You know, they went outside to hire me. Yeah, back in 92. But we we had in in 2018. We were coming off some years of a lot of external hiring. And I think, not enough cultural stability to integrate people well enough, and too much turnover. And a lot of expense related to that. In 2018, we made, you know, the team that was in place, I think God, Dave Pelletier and John Peltier were running things at that point. They decided to really focus internally again. And we’ve had a lot of great people come up through over the years, it was no secret. But going outside feeling like you had to go outside to keep up with turnover, it just was kind of perpetual. So we locked in on internal promotes, did really well with it, and 18 and 19. Really went outside very little, and in 20. And we’ve added a few external people in the last half, 21 and 22. And I’ve had some some real, you know, we have some real winners that we brought in like that, that’s an important part of how to build the teams. But this, this real focus at the location level on being aware of who, you know, shows interest and talent and giving people opportunity. We’ve got an amazing group of managers, a lot of them are newer, because there was a lot of change in the industry. I mean, we had some change, because we went from, you know, this, a lot of our locations, were seven days a week lunch and dinner, you know, the shift distribution is different, we came back and said, Look, we’re a nighttime business, that there are a lot of opportunities in hospitality that aren’t that. Yep. And so we, we lost some people to lifestyle, and, and understand that, and we only want people that really love what we do, and it fits, you know, for their lifestyle. And they, they’re feeling successful. So having people that come up through I think part of part of the benefit there is they’re already working those shifts, they’re in the restaurant, we know them culturally, we can, we can teach, you know, management, we will get back to more leadership development focus this year. Like some of you know, we just couldn’t do everything we want to do over the last couple of years. It’s survival mode. But we’ve got, you know, a long history of this focus on leadership development, basic, basic leadership skills, more advanced stuff for people who are ready for it. Like it’s, it’s a part of the margaritas culture that started early on with, with Sean Joyce. You know, he was president for a while and, and introduced us, we had some leadership guidance out of the University New Hampshire facilitated some seminars, people started to understand the impact of these basic skills on how their teams function and how you know how it’s tied to their success. So that that stuff when you have people promoted from within focusing on those basics that maybe they would get if they were in other careers or bigger, you know, other organizations that have that. We kind of, I kind of think we know what to do for these young managers to set them up for success. So I think the future’s bright there, because we have inspirational managers in place to look at it think, Hey, that looks like I can see myself doing that and being successful looks like fun. Yep. You know, you need that for it to work this way.
JJ
Jeremy Julian
23:53
Well, and you and, you know, everybody knows that that’s part of the part of the story of, of retaining people is giving them opportunities to grow, giving them opportunities to do different things that they wouldn’t be able to do otherwise, you know, both increase their income, increase their influence, increase, increase their ability to, to make an impact. And so the fact that you guys have got a system in place, did you guys do anything formally? Or did you just kind of organically grow? Like I say, formally, did you guys go implement an LMS? System? Did you guys just internally say, You know what, we got to do this focus and you resource it. Talk to me a little bit about that, just because I I’d love to have that because, quite frankly, it’s one of the biggest things that I see restaurant groups that have an opportunity to grow, struggle to get to get to a place beyond, you know, three or four or five stores because they just don’t do the investment that way they need to.
BR
Bob Ray
24:43
Yeah, the the investment. If you’re talking you go all the way back in the 90s. When we started this, it was it was not technology driven. It was and I think that’s partially because of when it was How’d you know, it was these, you know, surveys, they’re handed out piece of paper at three tabulated and, and you kind of went like that it was more of an investment in external resources on the leadership side to help guide us. And then time, you know, to be willing to take time from, you know, pull people out of the restaurants and get them together and say this is really important, spend the money, there’ll be sides, you know, some of that straight personal development stuff we we did quite a few years, we did some work with Outward Bound teams, where we, we brought, you know, all the managers usually split into a couple of groups, but we did some stuff up in the up in the mountains of Crawford Notch, and, you know, ropes and course, and team building stuff in Kingston, New Hampshire, and just, like have everybody stopped what they’re doing come in, and, and learn some, you know, basic team building, stuff connect with each other. A lot of things that aren’t about development that we do to bring people together, I think have impacted as well. But looking at it, you know, today, we do have the benefit of, you know, more technology, we’ve we’ve put scoots in place, you know, to help with our learning, management, and organization around that. And, and we’re just kind of at the tip of the iceberg there, you know, been in for nine months or so. So, I think, I think figuring out, I believe, in kind of the core principles and activities and approach that we defined over 20 years of looking at this, and becoming a real coaching organization where people are open to feedback, and they understand that like, focusing on strengths and opportunities and, and being organized about what really matters. Now, kind of just looking ahead at this year, and planning the resources to do it. But it is a different environment, I think it’s going to play out a little differently than it has in the past. Oh, absolutely,
JJ
Jeremy Julian
27:25
absolutely. But I think that I think when you know, at least what I found with Restaurant Brands, is when they know that there is a chance for success, you have a better, you know, recruiting better onboarding better, you know, growth trajectory, if they know and they can see somebody ahead of them that has already been there and done that and they come back and, you know, land a hand up to show them what life might look like, if they had a goat they were to go down this path. Yeah. So. So you talked about you talked about kind of where you guys are going? i The one question I didn’t ask all, corporately owned some corporate some franchise talk to me a little bit about kind of the structure and then kind of where do you see 2023? And beyond going for margaritas? You guys said, you know, obviously you guys were around. You guys made it through the oh, 808 debacle, you guys made it through this pandemic, you guys are in, you know, in a place that that might have been pretty scary for a while there. But it feels like we’re in a we’re in a place where you guys are looking to expand and grow. Talk to me a little bit about what that looks like for 23 and beyond.
BR
Bob Ray
28:27
Yeah. Yeah, I feel very fortunate to be in a position where that’s that’s what we’re looking at. And you know, it’s a little bit of a different outlook, once, you know, this forced reckoning, you know, what the business is how we’re going to do it, having some good fortune, making some good decisions, having some great people has put us in a position where are we? We can’t change the economics of the business. We refocused on what we know works best kind of proved that. guests that were coming in for lunch, would if they couldn’t get their margaritas, then they would come at a dinner time at a later date. We have what looks like a lot of conversion of of experience there because our, our true, you know, our same day, same day part. same store sales are way up. You know, we’re we’re cutting out a lot of launch and Mondays and we’re running ahead of 2019. So wow,
JJ
Jeremy Julian
29:33
that’s, that’s huge, because you reduced eight parts and you reduced 170 your week and you guys are still trending. Yeah.
BR
Bob Ray
29:41
It’s really I have to remind ourselves of that because we you know, you look at it’s like, oh, we’re we’re right around 19 Maybe a little ahead, but it’s really we’re doing pretty well there. So you know, we and we decided all right, this, this is really where Working we, we feel good about where we’re at. And we have plans to open one margaritas. So we have 18 company restaurants right now in seven franchise with three franchise partners. And we’re very active in supporting the franchisees and looking for, you know, selectively looking for new franchise partners we want to grow, you know, probably down the east coast, you know, but but open, open in that way. We have one location slated open in 2023 on the margaritas side and Maine and Brunswick, Maine. And we’re really excited about about that great market. And we’ve always, we have very strong restaurants in Portland, Auburn Augusta, and a long history in Maine, great brand recognition. So that’s exciting. We want to do more. We, we think, you know, we need to be patient. And we really liked doing conversions. So takes a little little more patience there to find the right market and the right spot. But we’re, we’re on the lookout to follow up the Brunswick location with another. But the formula for margaritas over the years was, you know, open one a year do it really well. We had some some years where we’ve done more we’ve taken some years off. But that’s that’s kind of kind of the outlook could change. And we’re we want to be in a position where we don’t we have the people and the resources to not pass up any great opportunities that come our way.
JJ
Jeremy Julian
31:34
Yeah, that was gonna be one of my questions is, are you looking for franchise groups? And if you are outside of New England, you know, where does this? You know, you guys have got pretty good brand recognition, kind of in that New England area? Where are you guys looking to expand? You know, 10 years from now? Where do you see this brand going? If everything goes the way that you would hope it what?
BR
Bob Ray
31:52
Yeah, we so we have franchising in Pennsylvania and one in New Jersey? And they’re both doing really well. And, and we, we think that’s kind of proven. Yeah, we were in New England, you know, forever. And it’s, it’s definitely proven the viability at least, you know, down the, down the Atlantic coast a little bit. We, we think it’s smart to look for partners to continue to have some continuity. So there’s, there’s brand support. But, you know, that’s our primary focus this year is is looking, you know, getting out we have a lot of outreach going on looking for, for candidates down the east coast. And, you know, people that already have multi unit experience infrastructure to do multi unit deals. Be happy to find one or two partners this year, that would be amazing. And get some more margaritas popping up down the coast.
JJ
Jeremy Julian
33:00
I love it. I love it. What part of the story did we miss today? Bob, like, I feel like we’ve we’ve run the gamut of a lot of things that you guys are doing anything specific about, you know, that you guys found success, whether it be through the pandemic, or you know, you’ve talked a lot about the brand. Selfishly now, I feel like Mexican food for lunch, which is, you know, have but unfortunately, there’s not any, there’s tons of Mexican food places where I live, but and then no margaritas here, here in Dallas at this point. And so, you know, we’d love to love to know, what did we miss in our conversation today that, that you think our audience needs to hear about?
BR
Bob Ray
33:38
We cover it’ll be covered a lot. I mean, I just think we and we’ve got a really, really great team, I think we’ve got, you know, this intent to continue to, to do things you know, to support our, our people, our teams on the front line, one big thing that we’re doing, it’s all focused on on. So when guests come in, they feel like they’ve got to come back like that. It’s about that we people should come in, we take care of them, they relax, have a good time have a margarita, that always helps. And, and we think we have a lot of room for same store sales growth, and, you know, going to other markets. But you know, the other thing that we’re doing right now that I guess I didn’t mention is we are we’ve been investing heavily in in the restaurants and the facilities and doing some some cool different stuff with look and feel and really kind of putting some money back in because we’ve been doing okay and we know been around 30 years. plan on being around another 20 or 30 years and and running it like that. And I think our guests we’re working through All kind of one restaurant at a time. You know, touching things up adding some new art changing some of the look little things, but I guess seem to appreciate it. And we’re seeing some real positive reactions. We know our teams appreciate it like they, they love coming into a place that we’re, you know, being part of a team where they know. We care. We care about where they work, and we’re here for the long haul. Yeah. So that’s been a that’s been a big part of what we did in 2022. And it runs continue through next year. About things feel pretty good around here.
JJ
Jeremy Julian
35:40
I love it. I love it. Well, how can people get in touch with you with the brand to learn more? If they’re interested in franchising? They want to go check out one of the one of the stores that you guys have one of the restaurants you guys have when they’re in the area? How would they learn more about the brand and and, and below? Check it out?
BR
Bob Ray
35:56
Yeah. www margs.com And they are je s. Um, that’s, that’s the website and there is a link to the franchising stuff. But you know, certainly, through there, you can connect with Tom Radomski, who, who runs outside of the business for us. My email address is B re, B ra y@marks.com. I’m open to connecting with anybody that’s interested in learning more about what we do. I
JJ
Jeremy Julian
36:25
love it. I love it. I was just on the website while we’ve been chatting and recognize there’s one in Toms River, New Jersey, which is where part of my family lives. And so next time I’m back there, I’ll have to check it out and send you send your review that it sounds like that’s a franchise but you know, it’ll be fun to go check it out. Next time I’m down there.
BR
Bob Ray
36:46
Oh, yeah, definitely let me know how it is. Awesome.
JJ
Jeremy Julian
36:49
We’ll do we’ll do well to our audience. Guys. I know I mentioned it at the onset. We know that you guys have tons of choices. When you guys are out when you guys go out, go out and check out marks.com. If you haven’t already done so please subscribe to the newsletter. Once a month we’ll send you an email with all of the podcasts and the blog posts to learn more about what we’re doing here at the restaurant technology guys. If you haven’t already done so, as well please give us a rating on the show because it helps more people find it and share it with your friends. Bob, thank you so much for telling us the story about what you guys are doing at margaritas. I’m excited to see your guys’s growth and be a fan watching you guys continue to expand outside of your core and in New England.
BR
Bob Ray
37:26
Thank you Jeremy. This is fun. Appreciate it.
JJ
Jeremy Julian
37:30
And to our audience guys make it a great day.
I
Intro
37:33
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