BarNinja Podcast - The Ultimate Bartending & Mixology Podcast
The bartending podcast for home and professional bartenders. We share best practices, tips, trends, tools, hacks, product reviews, and innovations in the bartending and mixology field. We cover everything from being a better bartender to being a better drinker.
BarNinja Podcast - The Ultimate Bartending & Mixology Podcast
Behind the Bar: The Life of Restaurant Owner/Chef Bobby Maher
Chef Bobby pulls back the curtain on restaurant ownership, revealing a leadership philosophy centered on genuine care for his staff. His innovative approach guarantees front of house $27/hour regardless of how slow business gets—a practice that's transformed his Arlington restaurant's culture while virtually eliminating callouts.
Behind every seemingly simple dining experience lies a complex ecosystem of challenges: HVAC systems failing during summer heat with repair companies booked months out, food costs spiraling unpredictably, and the delicate balance of maintaining menu favorites while protecting slim profit margins. Bobby's candid discussion about these realities offers a masterclass in adaptability.
What sets Bobby apart is his evolution beyond the stereotypical angry chef persona. "I never let anyone know when I'm angry," he explains, "because as soon as you express anger, anything you say won't be taken well." This measured approach extends to conflict resolution, where he intentionally creates space between incidents and their resolution—often discovering the intensity has dissipated by the scheduled conversation time.
His operational strategies show equal thoughtfulness. By maintaining consistent proteins across menu iterations while changing accompaniments, his kitchen team develops expertise in preparing certain dishes while allowing for creative evolution. Cross-training 75% of servers to bartend creates remarkable flexibility during emergencies while enhancing staff members' skills and future employment prospects.
The conversation reveals a fundamental truth: exceptional restaurants aren't just about outstanding food and beverages—they're about understanding humans on both sides of the service equation. Ready to transform how you think about restaurant service? Listen now and discover the power of putting people first.
Hey Bar Ninja Nation. Welcome to the Bar Ninja Podcast, where we talk about everything from trials and tribulations, from life behind the bar, from tips and tricks to make you a better bartender and a better drinker. Join your host, bill Thornton, kayla Lowe and yours truly, mike Garrison. Let's go have some fucking fun.
Speaker 2:Cool, I think we're live.
Speaker 3:All right, sounds great.
Speaker 2:Mic check, mic check.
Speaker 1:Yep, yep, I can hear you, bobby. Everybody's got green coming in on their stuff. I think we're good to go levels.
Speaker 2:Good recording push levels are good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, recording button is pushed we're about to take off the space I know, yeah, we did a whole podcast once and I had was like you hit record, didn't you?
Speaker 3:And I was like no way, she's like.
Speaker 1:I never saw the number countdown, I just figured you did it before we got on. Yeah, it's kind of embarrassing.
Speaker 2:And technically we will always blame that on the blind guy.
Speaker 1:No matter what it's Bill's fault. Bill was supposed to push the button. Yeah, so I have a couple couple questions. Bill's got a ton of. Bill sent me texts all day of questions to ask you. I got a couple. You're in my old neighborhood too. I'm in Richmond, virginia now. In Churchill. I used to live like I was a colonial village, so like two blocks from the metro. Stop Back in that single family home neighborhood. We were always in that stomping ground.
Speaker 3:It's so much fun. There's about 15 more restaurants there now. There's like 35 restaurants in a block or two. It's crazy, but it's like. You know Virginia's little restaurant district. Yeah, yeah, it was great. You can like walk a block and then go anywhere and get any food, any beverage you want. You know it's, it's too convenient and I spend too much money.
Speaker 1:But I know that's what we it's very expensive to live there, oh my God. So that's gotta be one of the more expensive places to live.
Speaker 3:It is.
Speaker 1:So I prepared and Bill's like I don't want to prepare, Like if you're going to prepare.
Speaker 2:I just want to go in fresh. We're all industry people, so you know people, and so I prepared.
Speaker 1:I had a couple comments and questions. From that kind of quick fire stuff you pay your bartenders sometimes a guaranteed salary, or did during covid, I don't know if you still do or not, and I was like that is g. So one thing I've noticed about you and your style is that you really play kind of understanding the human at a different level and you're like you don't let nickels get in the way of dollars.
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, I just try to like make myself a little happier. You know like it's sometimes the give and take. You know there's sometimes where I'm too nice, but I like to just try to bring loyalty into the restaurant because I feel like a lot of times restaurants struggle with keeping staff and then customers are like what's going on? I always thought like I'd see my servers on a really slow night say it was like like holiday weekends are slow and clarendinic July 4th is going to be slow. You see them walking away with 40 bucks and I'm like this doesn't feel like it should be legal. So I always just after a while I was just like you know what, I'm just going to guarantee every shift and you know a lot less people trying to call out, a lot less people trying to like leave early on their shifts.
Speaker 1:That's a good point. The call out too, cause everybody all of a sudden gets sick, right oh?
Speaker 3:yeah, or they like hear how many reservations there are and all of a sudden you're getting like three people trying to call it at once and it's just like I, you know, and I'm like a one, I'm not a one man show, but like like I'm, and, and I'm just like I need to like make it as streamlined as possible and if, if I think you had a few more bucks, you know cause I, you know I do save money, cause I do both things, so I'm happy, like to to give that back to my staff.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So how does that work? Do you just if they, if I made $40, you cover a split up to a certain amount?
Speaker 3:Well, I guarantee $27 an hour and, like you know it's it's maybe one shift a week. I'm putting in a hundred bucks. It's really not that much, but it makes like it makes for a much more trusting environment.
Speaker 2:I feel like you know it creates culture and a family family, which is which is which is fun.
Speaker 3:It's getting summer now, so there's a lot of, there's a lot of turnover with that, which is which is kind of sad. You know, my parents are psychiatrists so I always try to like think of my servers and my bartenders. I know that if they're freaked or they're not happy, the tables feel it and I have a small restaurant and they feel it Like there's been times, like we've been doing this four years now, where, like, I've had staff that bicker a lot and you know I would get an email saying, like you know, get right, you always have to be the adult in the room, which really sucks. I hate that so much. You know, like giving conversations and letting people go and stuff like that, but just trying to like keep the staff fair, happy. And you know we also do a tip pool, which is, you know, a whole different set of issues and trying to keep people working in a fair amount.
Speaker 3:It's just you know it's a lot of like just trying to keep the culture and you know, you know how restaurants are like in virginia, you know from new york city, and and new york city has a lot of like servers that wanted to be actors and now are servers for a career and you have these really serious, amazing servers and there's a lot of those in dc too. But virginia it's it's a little more like people, whether it's like right out of college or doing two things at once or like hustling. It's a lot of people who's like a lot of my servers, like are looking to do something else or like in grad school, are doing all this stuff. So you know it's, it's hard to see it's not their career. You know it's their job.
Speaker 1:You have an interesting conflict resolution tactic that I really liked, where you know if you have a conflict at the restaurant, you know maybe it's between two employees or something, and you're like, look, we're going to deal with this. We don't have time to do it now. I'm going to carve out time in a day or two and we're going to sit down and we'll talk about it and then by the time that comes around it's kind of like Lincoln when he'd write the letter, never send it. By the time it comes to get the conflict resolution, no one remembers why they were mad at him.
Speaker 3:No, I've had so many times where people were like I can't work with this person, or this person did that, and then I go like, okay, well, let me investigate, let me do this and that You're saying I hear you, right, you're like I hear you, I definitely do.
Speaker 3:I address the issues for sure. Intensity of it you can't really address effectively. When two people are intense, know it's never gonna it's. You're only siding with one or the other, yeah. And then all of a sudden you're taking sides and someone's friends with this other person and someone's from that person and all of a sudden you have a restaurant bickering and and the that like when the restaurant starts bickering with each other, like that can just rattle the place to pieces.
Speaker 3:So oh yeah, you know, I just try to like really like calm tensions because it's hard. You know, I'm a chef. I got to hide in back forever. You know, only for the last four years I've learned how to serve, I learned how to bartend and there's something just so like stressful and draining about talking to customers and keeping professional and keeping everything going and it can really get like me and me like you kind of get like me and me like you kind of get like worked up sometimes, you know, and like trying to calm that down and like realizing, like you know, hey, we're like I tell them a lot of times like it's like we're selling laptops here.
Speaker 3:You know, like if we get, we get a customer. That's like a little like tough. I'm like, oh, we're just selling laptops, you know, and they know it takes that like I try to take the sting out of it and just I'm. But I think the customers can stay happy because service is quick and they work hard together and they don't bicker, they don't seem like they're, or if they do, we quickly put an end to it. It's a learning process every single day and as your staff evolves you're learning new stuff and I just feel it's always a challenge, as he has known.
Speaker 1:The longer you do it, you normalize it more. I was talking to a manager of blue moon and, uh, nag said north carolina this week and you could tell it was a tough day. And then, you know, it's all kind of done. It shifts over and we were sitting at the outside bar and she comes out like, hey, she's like, you know, putting out a lot of fires today. She's like but no one bled, it's a good day. No one bled.
Speaker 2:You know, and I was like oh, there's nobody's crying in the walk-in, nobody's in the walk-in crying.
Speaker 1:So we're fine. This is a fun day um so that's.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I, I uh, as long as no one's crying the walk-in. But yeah, I gotta. I have a camera in the walk-in so I get to see what that happens. Funny one time one of my cooks dropped a whole um, it was cold already but dropped a whole uh, I think it was like a hotel pan of of soup on them and I have this amazing video that. But yeah, as long as nobody bleeds and the restaurant doesn't have to like close for the night, we're all good. You know, has that ever happened.
Speaker 3:This restaurant space has probably been around for I haven't figured it out yet like 10, 15 years. I took over I signed at least four years ago but it's so patched together, it's so like so many different, like fixes and stuff like that. So stuff breaks all the time and even Monday my AC went out, boom like that, and all of a sudden it's getting hot and I'm going upstairs trying to fix it, calling people. I called three HVAC companies and they came back to back to back and they're like, why is this other guy here? And I'm like, oh, oh, it's my building, I don't know what's going on. And so, like, I got one person to patch it.
Speaker 3:It lasts for tomorrow and they're coming in the morning to fix it, but it's just like it's never ending. Yeah, it's just like. But then you get addicted to it. You know you get addicted to the fact that you're like, oh, hey, well, I fixed this problem. Yeah, cost me money, but you know it still feels good at the end of the day being able to still like, open and and prove to your like you know customers and your staff that you're serious. You're not gonna like be like I'll take a vacation for a week they told me two months.
Speaker 3:They said that hvac would not be up for two months. What yeah?
Speaker 1:yeah, you're in a big building. You're in the building, um, I mean, it's right on the corner the fillmore in clarendon it's like the.
Speaker 3:It's in the crossing area. Um, do you know where uh cheesecake factory is? Yeah, they're on the corner in that building. Okay, it's all like like my landlord, it's all like triple net like you, don't you? You're responsible for your plumbing up into the street, you're responsible for your age. You just got a dark shell and it's all right yeah, it's totally like we all have these different restaurant spaces where all of us have like different breaking things, and Cheesecake Factory has an HVAC guy there every single day.
Speaker 1:How does a hood system work? How many stories is the building?
Speaker 3:It's like it's three.
Speaker 1:It's the worst, are you venting out the?
Speaker 3:back or on the roof. On the roof, yeah. And I just found out. I talked to the I don't want to get him in trouble, but I talked to the Cheesecake Factoryvac guy and he's saying that like they had moved the vents and stuff like that and that had like caused a whole, like it kind of caused like a huge cooling issue in my, in my, uh, in my restaurant. And it's like one of the things you say, you, you think like everything's good and you sign up, you don't think about that?
Speaker 3:not at all, yeah not at all, you know. That's why, if I, you know, if I do it again, like, uh, like a second restaurant, like it's got to be like completely studs Standalone, it's got to be like empty and I got to put everything in there, because you never know, I mean, you really never know, like my landlord, I'm going to get in trouble. Was there a kitchen in it? There was a kitchen in it, it was. It was I don't know if you're around there at the time. It was Heritage Brewing Company, heritage brewing company, and then it was Ruby Tuesday's taco concept, which lasted six months.
Speaker 1:Gotcha, I was out of there in. We moved to old town. I remember what year it was, probably 2018.
Speaker 1:And then we were in old town until like 2021, 2022 or so when I was in Clarendon it was like the hotspots were a big Liberty tavern and line hall Whitlow's yeah, for bars and stuff, but it was, uh, sullivan. Yet don tito's don tito's was new, yeah that that opened while I lived there. So that little rooftop was hopping. First was wilson hart were there yet or I don't. I think that opened, but I don't know if it opened while we lived in clarendon village there's's just so much choice.
Speaker 3:There's so much choice. Everything's like new American too. It's like it's, it's, it's it's. We're all, like you know, chasing each other's.
Speaker 1:You got a lot of competition down there for employees and for customers too, cause I mean there's endless choice, oh yeah.
Speaker 3:And it's like being downtown Manhattan almost. It is without the skyscrapers on top of you and also we don't have the tourists coming in. So we have a huge suburb type of feel. On holiday weekends we don't get the tourists coming in replacing the people that live there, and stuff like that. A weekday is going to be a little slower for everybody.
Speaker 1:So there's those issues that really make you have to like it drives a better restaurant, though, because when we lived in old town, everything just turned into the same restaurant group and everything went just went to a low common denominator, because they didn't care, because 10 000 people get off a tour bus every day and they're like, oh, this place looks pretty it was all smoke and mirrors, the restaurants looked gorgeous and there's a couple that were you know decent, but I mean you could one hand you.
Speaker 1:there's a couple that were you know decent, but I mean you could one hand you could name the restaurants that were actually like good food and everything else was just basically a you know restaurant group style neighborhood or you know restaurant group style restaurant.
Speaker 3:That's what's taken over everywhere. Pretty much is that restaurant group like pretty, build out corner restaurant like you know buzz this and that and you go there and it's like, uh, not the greatest food you know, it's, it's just the, the. I feel like the costs are getting so high that people are taking. You can start, you can start seeing a crunch here a little bit because of like we're buying dc and stuff like that. I already know like two chefs who you know that go got fired, like you know, and so the quality really starts they don't feel like they need a chef.
Speaker 1:I mean, they're managing, they're optimizing for profit. We're not optimizing for customer experience. We're not optimizing for food quality, more, we're optimizing to make money. We are an investment group, yeah, and so that eventually it kind of destroys the restaurant or become soulless um and it tortures a lot of chefs.
Speaker 3:Yeah, because they try so hard, they build it up and like, what's your, what's your, uh, your reward? You get fired at the first opportunity. You know, once your sous chef gets strong enough to get the place going, it's, uh, you know, but you know, we're used to it and and, uh, that's how we learn so much stuff, you know, yeah, I'm sure, like I'm sure it happens more with, like, bar managers and and beverage program people. As soon as you put that in place, like you know, and the penny pinches started coming in, like just yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:A lot of them are doing consultants. Now you know they'll have a consulting company, write the menus and then just do a training.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And then just run a bar staff with a consultant.
Speaker 3:But I don't know if that's more expensive or less expensive, but how do you?
Speaker 1:do yours. Are you making your barman? Are you making your cocktails?
Speaker 3:I I do like 50, 50. So I like to like I'm a bar manager who, who I love a lot, ben, we both try to play off like each other's like ideas. I like to take ideas from the staff too, cause flavors for food is like my strong point. Cocktails is like my strong point. Cocktails is there's like a science to it, and so I like to like take a lot of feedback, a lot of ideas. I'll do contests and stuff like that.
Speaker 3:Just try to figure out like what's fun and what's what's like new. Because you know you look on instagram and you're like see all these cocktails and you're just like oh, wow and and none of them have any like substance to them. So I like to try to motivate and you know my bar manager is really starting to come in with like these delicious cocktails and I'm able to like kind of like step back a little bit from the making the cocktail recipe, which is like really like makes me happy, like that I can train somebody do it better than I can, and that's like really the end of the day is like I want everyone here to be better than I am at everything. Yeah, it's really important because you know you need to step away. Sometimes you get hurt sometimes and if your staff's trained up and and ready to go, you're those stressful times of getting hurt, being out for a month or something yeah, that was you've cross-trained.
Speaker 1:You were saying like not necessarily front to back of the house, but like back of the house. Everybody can kind of do every position in front of the house.
Speaker 3:A lot of people can do we train every single server to bartend? Yeah, unless they really you know, I have some servers that really don't want to, so I don't do it, but usually I have 75 can make all the cocktails and be like the sole bartender on like a night, and and that's like really important because, yeah, you know, it's good, bartenders are hard to find, hard to hold on to. When you're, when you're like a like, kind of like a sole operator, you don't have that corporate structure behind you. So you kind of and I feel like really good bartenders respond really well to like that corporate structure. So it's like I kind of compensated for that by like making my servers like and my bartenders like all do everything and learn off each other and, and it's like a little extra thing, I feel like to teach a server how to bartend because now, all of a sudden, their next job could be a bartending job and you know they're good, they're good wow yeah, it opens
Speaker 1:up skill set, capability I tripped on honey mustard in the kitchen, going around the dish pit once, and hit those old school wine chiller things where the bucket was removed from the little prongs that held it. So the bucket was in the disc pit and the prongs things right beside the corner. I slipped and one of the prongs went through my rib mid shift, broke my rib. I go out to the next table and they're like, oh, you have a little raspberry vinaigrette on your shirt. And I was like, oh, I do. And I touched it and then just like hunched over and just straight to emergency room. So then like, if somebody else can bartend, that's not a problem. You know what I mean. But if, like, no one knows how to bartend now you have a very large problem on your hands.
Speaker 1:So I've been yeah, I've been in at least three situations where somebody went to the emergency room from shift, you know, and it's like wow, what do?
Speaker 3:you do now, yeah, and it's, it's you, just, you, you, you, you put a server in there and make them cry and ruin their day. And you know, and you know that's like my my ultimate goal is to get the front of house, in the back of house, to um, to to like be able to like to go back and forth. Yeah, like, because because that's like kind of what I do, like I have a slipped disc right now, so I'm kind of just, like you know, on the sideline, like coaching and letting my guys go, but like I'll they'll hate it, but I'll hop in there and make cocktails and and, and, you know, take tables and, and, you know, on a busy night I'll go to the table and take the two or three and, like I really want my other guys to be able to do that. You know, I want my, you know I want my like you know bar manager to be able to make a salad if something happens, and and, uh, I just open it.
Speaker 3:Like you guys said, it opens a skill set and it's like makes the job more rewarding, you know, you know, cause, like I don't have that corporate thing where, like people can climb, climb, climb and go like so like if I can like make them stronger. Service industry people like they can make tons of money. Yeah, you can make so much money serving and I don't even want to tell my cooks how much. You know they can make so much and and it's it's really fun too. If I was a little more social, I would definitely love the bartending thing, like it's so much fun just shaking a cocktail and like and you know, getting that rush out and you're on stage, it drains some people on stage.
Speaker 2:You're interacting. You're making friends too.
Speaker 3:That's how you bring back the regulars who pay the rent for sure, for sure, for me, I get like, I get so worried about like, is everybody enjoying things that it kind of takes the fun out of it. But yeah, you know, one day I'll definitely, like you know, maybe when I retire I'll, you know, take a bartending job and really feel, see how? Uh, you know, because it looks like so much fun, honestly like just like connecting the regulars, like making drinks and just like the rush of it, yeah, and you're not sweating like in the back.
Speaker 1:Yeah, correct. Yeah, how hot is your kitchen today? You stole that question from Bill.
Speaker 2:But after the AC going out on Monday I'm like I don't even want to know.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I got it back to normal somewhat normal, but it's 90, 95 maybe. Yeah, it sits to the point where I called my refrigeration people, my uh refrigeration people and I was like come out and they're like why I'm like you'll find out soon Like I don't know Something's going to break, it's too hot, like. And then they told me we're booked till July 30th. No way, yeah, yeah, july 30th For restaurant refrigeration repair. That's crazy, like the good ones it is. It's getting crazier. Yeah, the heat, the heat, really like my buildings AC went down. I went outside today there was an HVAC truck on every corner.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Every single corner, you know, and like that's part of the service we provide, is a nice, chill, cool environment. It is not cheap to fix. Yeah, no, I, cool environment. It is not cheap to fix.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I imagine commercial PC Bill. You had some questions.
Speaker 2:I mean I was good First of all, bobby, how you doing, man?
Speaker 3:You say it sounds like it's been a day. The day was Monday. Now I'm just having fun.
Speaker 2:Okay, good, good. It's mind boggling to me to think about how much. You've got a slip disc right now.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, it's, super.
Speaker 2:So well, I'm glad you're getting to relax and do a little recording right now, I'll tell you one thing. I'll appreciate it. So how did you find yourself in the restaurant industry? What was your first gig? How'd you get drawn in?
Speaker 3:Well, I was always like it was always what I was good at, and I always heard the stories from people and I was like I, I'm not gonna do it, like it's too hard. Like when I was a kid I could like already cook, like pretty pretty well, uh. And then I was like you know, I'm gonna try to like I'll go to college and like try to do like a desk job. And I did that and I got a two, four, eight, eight GPA and my first desk job. I just fall asleep and I was like you know what I gotta I gotta do, I gotta do what I'm good at. You know, I think I was a. I also was like an antiques dealer for a while. I wasn't good at that and um, and then, uh, it just like one day like uh, you know, I was having a bad, bad year and I was like I got to do. I got to do what I'm good at, and so I went to culinary school and that and that was it.
Speaker 3:And then I worked in like corporate, like fine diet dining for a while, which is like it was a doctor's club that I started out in and we change a menu every two weeks and we would like do catering and dinner service, lunch service, all at the same time. And I'm sitting there and like why am I here? And I was like it was like you know, I'm just doing so much stuff that I'll learn so much that by the end of this I'll turn myself into a good chef. And all my culinary school friends were at like these, like you know, Michelin star places. By the time I had like two years under my belt and could do everything. They were just getting off, you know, the salad stations that like they're at their places.
Speaker 3:So like I, I really like I beat myself up and and learned a lot, you know. And I was also in a kitchen with no cell phone service. So like chef tells you to make something, you gotta remember how to make it and all that's, all that stuff. Uh, and like in this industry especially, all the tough times are you're like they're they won't grow and you almost I gotta be addicted to it. You know those, those, those those tough days where you're like pressure makes diamonds, baby, and then, but every time when it's over, I'm like, ah, I felt good, I don't know why, I don't know why, but like I have a, you know a boosted energy and and and like, and. Those are the stories I tell.
Speaker 2:Like I'll tell this HVAC story probably like 20 more times before you know, before I go. Well, I think it's, you know, it's one of the defining things for for us career or anyone in the restaurant industry the excitement, the adrenaline, the good times, the camaraderie. At the end of the night or in the middle of the mix, it's like, yes, we are doing something that is not easy to do on any level, with a lot of moving parts, and we're having fun and making money and it's, I really like, just kind of touching base on the OK. I know you both are upset with each other right now. We are in rush, so I'm going to need you to stay clocked in and be professionals and we're going to circle back to this. I don't know if you do.
Speaker 3:Do you do weekly meetings or anything like that than like a group? When it's like a, when it's like a real time, unless it's like really like a really huge issue, I try to like separate it off because, like you know, every time I've had a team meeting where I've like gotten upset. People start texting each other this and that and all of a sudden every server that wasn't there is hearing a different story and it just blows up.
Speaker 2:So it just turned into 20 things that didn't happen.
Speaker 3:And I'll tell you one thing like no, I don't really like I'm sure my face shows it, but I never let anybody know. I try to never let anyone know when I'm angry, because I feel like as soon as you get angry or show like anger, anything you say is not going to be taken. Well, you know. So I really try to hold it in and I have like my poker face, I'll deal with it like away from like people seeing and and because as soon as I every time in this industry when I have raised my voice and like really like try to be gordon ramsay, just like nobody takes it seriously anymore, like nobody takes that type of managing, like I mean some people do, of course, like some people are really good at it, but like yeah, I think it's a marketing thing I've lost, like I I when I started doing that like to be in my career, I feel like I lost like a lot of respect and I learned from that. Like you know, I feel like every like a lot of like industry people. Like when you get your first like managing job, you kind of take it too seriously and all of a sudden managing jobs over if I try to find a new job and that definitely happened to me. And you take all those things and you realize like, yeah, I I'm not, like I'm a normal person, I don't know what I'm thinking.
Speaker 3:At the end of the day, we're, we're, you know, selling laptops. It's like such a pretentious field, but like that's not. That's not the fun part to me, the fun parts that come out of it. And like getting food out to a table and them having no clue how hard it was and I have no clue how long. Like writing the menu was you, you know how, how, how hard making the cocktail, but they don't, they just like enjoy it, they write a good review and it and it and it's, it's, it's, it's good. And you know, I, I definitely like need to be stricter in my managing approach, for sure, a hundred percent, as long as I can make people not want to hate their lives at the end of the day, Like I think that's important to me think that's important to me.
Speaker 2:I think you've got your head exactly where it needs to be, because the positive energy, the love, everything we can do to keep ourselves calm on such a stressful industry and what we do is what really flows out to the customers and also keeps us sane. And that was one of the things I was going to talk about, kind of the Gordon Ramsay thing, because you've even seen him evolve from the anger. It's a waste of time. There's going to be emotion, people are going to get upset, but when you can help your staff and make sure they know that, no matter what, you're there for them and we can all work together and be happy, no matter who threw the pan of soup on the floor, whatever's gone down, we're in it together, folks soup on the floor.
Speaker 3:Whatever's gone down, we're in it together. Folks, so important I do think the gordon rams, you think I.
Speaker 3:I haven't seen the yelling chef in in a while oh yeah, and it's good to see like that, that that move away like and I think, like the, the younger generation won't stand for not at all poorly and you and you really really have to evolve.
Speaker 3:Because I know like I'm millennial and like we kind of would just like work hard, just because, like we were promised that it, if we worked hard and put our head down, we would be rich someday.
Speaker 3:And it's definitely like a lot different working with this generation and and they really look out for themselves and I think that's good. You know, I really do, because I saw so many industry professionals wear themselves out, I mean myself, but yeah, but uh, you know, and and I think, like if we could make this industry a lot less tough and hard days and and you know, like not being able to call out, if we, if we can like evolve to more like a more friendly, more like a higher paid environment, like it, it in like a place where you can call out when you have a sore throat or something, I think that would be really make this industry evolve to the next level. Because even like, from COVID to now the servers, the cooks and the chef, we give the staff so much more like ability to like, be sick, have their lives. Like I remember before COVID, like nobody could call out, like nobody yeah, you'd show up with. I mean, I'm sure you tried to work with your punctured rib, you know like you're calling out was basically I don't, you don't work there anymore oh yeah, oh yeah I mean
Speaker 1:terrifying saying that text we worked for bill and I worked for a food and beverage director at a ski resort, but if you called, he was driving by that house. Are you serious? He's going to make sure that car's in the driveway. Yeah, so wow, wow. Well, this is early. Two thousands. So we're Gen Z or Gen X? Sorry, young Gen X.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you guys went through it.
Speaker 1:So while we're like, I can't remember what they call it Xenial, not Xenial, but I'm like the borderline between X and millennial.
Speaker 2:And I am full on Gen.
Speaker 1:X, I've been screamed at.
Speaker 2:You know, we've had people pulling me off the chef, the chef pulling the chef off of me. You know, and it goes back to the and.
Speaker 2:I learned in my management and ownership early on, it's not helping nothing. Just like you were saying, bobby, like's I'm if I'm gonna get mad. All I'm doing is ripping the foundation out from underneath all of us. And you know, I think back to those days and and people in the industry now that I'm so proud of, because you know, we just want to be happy and we want our customers to have that walk away experience to where they're enjoying themselves, and we've all got to be in the right frame of mind to do that.
Speaker 3:And it's hard, so hard.
Speaker 3:And the thing that I really learned is like when I get angry and I express it, I will be playing that back over my head the entire night and all of a sudden I wasted all my energy when I could have been done doing anything else, anything else, anything else, anything else.
Speaker 3:And that being able to just not like express anything else, and that being able to just not like express or like stop, like that thought process is like saved a lot of time and a lot of grief. And I just think we have we have such an industry where it's we go through a lot, and I think like the mental health aspect of it isn't really addressed nearly as much as it as it needs, as it needs to be. You know, and you know I'm a chef we only have so much money like Like a lot of places don't really have effective HR, all this stuff, and and think like hopefully one day we'll be able to evolve to where we can really like have, like you know, more healthy of a, you know, mental yeah, bill, and I always used to talk about that in just even like health insurance with small businesses and all because the cities and counties tax you so much too.
Speaker 1:I mean it's like this is like a business that barely makes it. You know, one in five restaurants are ever going to make it, but we're going to put extra taxes.
Speaker 3:We, just, we just got that Arlington just raised their meal tax by 1%.
Speaker 1:Why food and intermittent? It doesn't make any sense, because these are businesses that barely succeed. They barely survive.
Speaker 2:What's that?
Speaker 3:percentage. You're paying now 10. Now it's 11.
Speaker 2:Good, I mean, that is crippling.
Speaker 3:It doesn't make any sense. Arlington has tons of money. Yeah, arlington is like you know. I mean, maybe I'm wrong, I don't know, but you know and the thing that hurts us too is you go to a grocery store, which I think is right. 1% is the tax on grocery stores, and that's Amazon and huge corporations that don't quite need the help the restaurant industry we really could use. We don't need to tax the hell out of our customers.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's one of the higher taxes, probably used taxes. It's out there. It is Like 17 or something. It's 17. I can't remember Richmond's a too right. It is In Richmond like 17 or something, yeah, 17.
Speaker 3:I can't remember Richmond's a little weird with taxes.
Speaker 2:That stops anyone from wanting to open a business from becoming an operator in the food and beverage platform, and I think us just talking here and the other podcasts out there are doing it with our following. This is the beginning of the evolution to where we have to have some kind of representation. You can't keep your killing at one of the largest industries in the country.
Speaker 1:It's now we're going to start. We bought it a long time ago. We still own it, we're sitting on it, but it's a four-letter domain, like when you could get domains in the beginning. So we have aopb association of professional bartenders and then we have a long form associated professional association of professional bartenders, and our goal was like we were going to start a big group healthcare policy and then like, so like anybody who was a bartender.
Speaker 1:Basically, you did join the association and then you'd be able to get healthcare, group policy, healthcare through the association, and then but we know it's just so hard, it's so hard we're so busy. We've never did it, but I will give if anybody listens to this podcast wants to do it. I have both those domains and we're ready to help you.
Speaker 2:And just from a corporate standpoint. I mean, this is something that puts money into it.
Speaker 1:Well, you need to help small businesses out. I mean, you can only do so much as a business.
Speaker 3:We don't talk to each other though the local restaurant owners. We're all pretending how rosy and amazing our restaurant is. We won like how rosy and amazing our restaurant is, yeah, we won't. We won't talk to them. We won't go to the owner next down the block and be like, wow, that was a shitty month. Yeah, never do that. And like the fact that we don't talk to each other. We can't like, we can't do the things that that we need, like, like, even like, like, like local politics wise and stuff like that. I mean, we just had something passed in virginia where it's like you know, know how linen companies could just put in their contracts and auto renews after five years if you don't cancel it. That just happened to me, but I had learned that Virginia had made a loss and you can't do that, so it saved me. But if we had more representation in these areas, we wouldn't get screwed upatory.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's, it is everybody from I think we stay with these thoughts and make it happen, yeah you know we have the power to do these kind of things now we do and and I just wish we had like more ability to organize, you know and imagine yeah, well, we, we have to.
Speaker 3:We we only have so much time in the day and and but like, if, if we had, like you know, our restaurant associations, I, I don't want to like, I mean, what do they do that?
Speaker 3:Even like, when I, when I read, like you know, dc's restaurant or um, uh, organization stuff, everything's roses and we're not getting like any real, like data or any real stuff other than like we've grown the food sales have grown like five percent and yeah, but last year we don't get anything and it's just like we put on this front and like I just feel like the professionals need to like figure out a way to like discuss, like what's going on, like in a real form, and we're just so guarded and and it's because we had to bring like this image of I got this great restaurant to like everybody and that you know, it makes us like and we're also at the last, like all the expenses come to us and then we give the food to the customer, you know, and and that like we didn't know. Like, if you're a small, independent restaurant, you have no bargaining power with, with like yeah, you don't want to bring her.
Speaker 1:I mean like, so I had a. I had a buddy that was with I don't know if it was a brinker, but his whole job was like hedging butter, like he's just analyzing food costs at a massive scale and like hedging orange juice, hedging butter, hedging stuff like that, just for to get their costs down on stuff. Yeah, so I mean, like when you're talking about competing with these big, huge, the big massive players, I mean they're, they're counting every little penny every little penny and and they take every opportunity to raise the price.
Speaker 3:And as soon as they raise that price they never lower back to where it was ever. Like maybe the eggs kind of got back to uh, kind, not really actually, but you know, did you take the eggs or do you have to raise?
Speaker 3:oh yeah, oh yeah, there was a time where I bought 300 eggs and it was $333. Jeez, 300 eggs. Yeah, your cost. Yeah, and I do a lot of brunch business and I was just like, well, I have to make $0 for brunch, I have to lose money. I didn't lose money, but my margins are done. All my brunch we do french omelets and stuff like that.
Speaker 2:Like I mean four eggs and you know and like it we.
Speaker 3:Just I was just like, well, I'm just gonna take a hit, roll with it and keep your head down and just hope for the best, pretend like something broke this month and bad to pay for it and that's it, you know, because we can't pass. We can't pass everything to the customer. Just there's no way, especially now, with, like you know, we have to eventually, but, like you know, we have to like, balance the sentiment and and with, like you know you know, with costs, I guess you, do you like predict what's like?
Speaker 1:what's a bubble or like there's a salmonella thing in tomatoes, so they're going to be expensive for a minute? Those kind of things you would just ride through versus. I mean, do you kind of decide whether you think this is a bump up forever versus like a?
Speaker 3:yeah, I search my hardest, best product and like the most cost effective. And if that doesn't work, I just take it off, like which. I just relight the menu. I just take it off like I. I've had squash blossoms like fried, like stuffed fried squash blossoms, different variety, like on like 75 of my menus. And then, like I, I one day I was just like these are just like everyone, everyone loves them, but they're just don't make me any, any money. I take them off. Yeah and that, like there's so many good things I used to sell like venison, this and that, uh, chilean sea bass, all that stuff, all the really good stuff it's it's too cost restrictive, at least in this area in Arlington, for it to be profitable.
Speaker 1:You know DC different story, but like Arlington we have a lot of people that you know live here and they're almost like big neighborhood restaurants, though I mean, we would go to the same five restaurants all the time. You know we'd get to know the GMs at some point, you know. Just so it was like it's like you're, it's, it's like you said. Arlington's not a tourist destination, it's a real livable city, so it's it's a different like dc you can get away with.
Speaker 1:You know a tour style restaurant that has some kind of crazy price point, you know.
Speaker 3:But the tourists. There's something, there's something like too, something expensive to make people think it's good. Yeah, you know, there was one year I think it was like my second or third year I was like you know what, like prices are getting high, I'm gonna like try to like build my customer base a little more, not raise prices nearly as much. And that did nothing. Like, yeah, same, same amount of business. It was like a little higher. But like, just like, just from like operating like I was like what am I doing? And then I realized like people are skeptical. If you're, if your chicken dish is a little less expensive than someone else's, they become skeptical.
Speaker 3:Like why am I like? Why me and and it's like it's a whole psychology of it just bouncing like, but nowadays everything's getting too expensive. So I, you know, I, I try to to make everything like more. Um, like you know, the, the I want to say the cheaper. But like I try to find like really good, like I'll take chicken and I'll, I'll, I'll make it really delicious. Or I have I found a cut of a cut of steak that's like a you know the butchers take off of the strip loin. It's called the Dakota steak. It is like way better than a prime piece of prime strip and it only costs. It costs like I. Have a good piece of prime strip and it only costs. It costs like I. I have a nine ounce dakota strip for 32 and it's making me a margin and it's way better. I used to have a the new york trip for two for like 78 and I wasn't making any and this is better, and so you just gotta.
Speaker 3:you gotta search for what works. But yeah, it's hard because the the these the customers want what they had and they, they want to come back and they want to have that venison again, they want to have those squash blossoms again. And telling them like, oh well, you're not going to pay $25 for three squash blossoms. It's tough and I think the longer you go, the more trust you build and the community will come back. But in the first couple of years, when I had to start taking some of the finer things off, there was a lot of pushback. And when I hear year three or four, I would hear all the time you took this off and I didn't come back. But then I realized your restaurant's really good, so I started coming back all the time yeah, that's the trick.
Speaker 1:Is you just got to keep rotating that menu, right? Yeah, and so they know that you're not chili's, or it's going to be the same southwestern records every time you come in. But your brand is the quality of food you're going to get, not the physical dish you're going to get yeah, and there's.
Speaker 3:There's ways that are out. Like you know, those corporate restaurants have the same menu, so it takes like training. What I do is like try to keep the same proteins. So, and like the salmon's always cooked in a very specific way, I'll just change everything around, change all the sides. So my cooks are so good at cooking duck and salmon and chicken, but it's just keeping those proteins in their heads. So when they're learning a new menu, at least that duck's going to be cooked right and all they're doing is putting sides on it. So that's one way I took some of the training and made it a little easier. That's smart.
Speaker 1:It is smart and there's a little bit of consistency too with your clientele. Like you kind of know, you're going to be able to get your protein, which a lot of people focus on, and then the setup always feels fresh, yeah, and like it definitely.
Speaker 3:like you know, people come for the salmon they don't know what's on it A lot of times, you know. Or they come a lot of times, you know. Or come for the duck and, like you know, and I I don't like I have people just tell me like like there's one customer was like well, it was, it was time for like a menu change and they were like like I don't know what you're going to put in the next duck, but I know it's going to be amazing.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean that's exactly where you're going to be.
Speaker 3:That's, your customers trust you. That's a hard place to get. Yeah, it is.
Speaker 1:This one was hard too, because I put like I had an idea, like I wanted to make um a risotto that was like halfway between like a bread, uh, like a rice pudding and like a savior risotto and risotto is a technical dish, right, it's easy to make a mistake on that.
Speaker 3:It's it's hard, but like I made a coconut and date risotto duck pairs well with sweet and and I was like this is stupid, it paired so well. And like it really makes it easier for me having the same proteins, because you really like remember what works and what doesn't, and like I only have so much time and there's sometimes where, like you know, I barely have time to write a menu and that really helps. You know barely have time to rent a menu and that really helps. You know that really really helps so on, like bar costs.
Speaker 1:Now that cocktails are a lot more complicated than they used to be, is bar cost something you have to manage as far as like the ingredients really building out these cocktails, so not exactly how much they cost you, and yeah, I mean they.
Speaker 3:The prices don't rise nearly as much.
Speaker 3:Liquor than it does yeah, yeah, it's a lot more stable. It's it's it's state regulated and stuff like that. Like I, like we're just about to reevaluate the liquor costs. I think we're probably doing this week or next week. You can only, you can only charge so much. Like, like, cocktails are like 16 bucks now. Yeah, we're like in a suburb of DC. Yeah, we're like in a suburb of dc. It's a city, but yeah, that's a lot of money. I, I, you gotta figure out ways of either making something really special or find that brand of of tequila or vodka that is just as good as tito's and cost a little bit less, you know, and but the the price increases are. So you know it's what food used to be. It's they're so stable, like they move so stable. Now, like I'm spending so much time just food costing and see and like reprinting menus and and you know, either lowering prices, raising prices, and that seems like 75 percent of my job yeah, you're general managing and chef yeah yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it sounds like he's an hvac tech. It sounds like there's a lot going on definitely not hvac tech.
Speaker 3:I tried turning that thing on. I made it 10 times worse. It was so stupid. But hey, you live and you learned.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, that's how it's the industry. So are you finding that you're having a lot of those cocktails that are pairing or, you know, just going out the door with your proteins and your entrees and your appetizers? Are you seeing trends with that? I mean, you're moving drinks as well as you want to with.
Speaker 3:It's become. I've seen wine take, take like over more than than cocktails. I think right now we have probably our best tasting cocktail menu we've ever had and it's not selling, it's not beating. It's not beating wine, and I think that has do with like the costs of it too as well. But like you know, it's, it's, it's.
Speaker 3:I mean, we don't sell any beer, which is really really crazy, but we just sell cocktails and we sell beer, but we don't. You know, there's some weeks I sell 250 bucks worth of beer, no wine and cocktails. Yeah, it's crazy. I, when I first, when I first opened, I have like 14 lines of beer and then you know, you kind of don't know which way your restaurant's going to go. When you first open, you see a neighborhood All of a sudden. I was like, well, this is a wine and cocktail restaurant and then all my beer's gone. But I definitely see cocktails starting to struggle and people starting to turn to like wine, gotcha starting to struggle and people starting to turn to like like wine and like like the cheaper, because they're just getting so expensive in new york city.
Speaker 2:It's like 20 for a cocktail. I mean it's just a couple weeks really kind of dampers. The we're gonna hit the bar after work and have, you know, several beverages type you're gonna find happy hour and and then, and it's just, it's not as fun.
Speaker 3:you know, we used to go out and just like, forget about what, just order, like, can I have this cocktail? Not think about a price and just see the, you know, see the bill. Okay, now, if you do that, you're spending like all right well, some of these bills. When I go out with my girlfriend I'm like how did this happen? Yeah, we've all been there. We had four drinks.
Speaker 2:We had four drinks. Yeah, we did.
Speaker 3:And I was at Amaretto and I mortgaged my Two drinks each, I mean you get $100 real quick.
Speaker 1:With Tip you probably get $100. And we're in the industry.
Speaker 3:We got a Tip good.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we got it.
Speaker 3:I'm crying, writing that Tip. I'm like, ah God.
Speaker 2:You deserve this.
Speaker 3:We got to go sell one of the kids. Yeah, it's, it's crazy and it's like, but how do we like slow down the the prices and still make money? I like, I guess it's just technique. I guess that's what we have to do is, is you know, we're trying one of these? Um, it's not, it's not selling the best, but it tastes really good. We're trying one of these clarified cocktails. Oh, yeah, yeah, and uh, we, we put like the milk disclaimer.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think, like it's no question which kind of like I don't, I don't know if I aren't things quite there yet, but tastes delicious and it has a little more technique to it. So like it can save you some money there and I think, like, like technique is what's what's gonna save us. But that's harder and harder to find, you know, harder and harder to find. Yeah, you know it's just harder to find. Yeah, you know, it's just the love for it is still definitely there and there's a lot of industry professionals that are just like amazing, but like I'm trying to see the new generation and like at least in Virginia, I'm having a hard time seeing people who really, really love it. There's like there's a few. It got so technical.
Speaker 1:There's a barrier to entry now where you have to be so into it. It's like being an audiophile that's got some kind of crazy speaker system and there's just so much work to become a craft cocktail mixologist now. Yeah.
Speaker 3:It's so hard.
Speaker 1:We're going to have. Tony Maloney, the guy that wrote Bartender's Manifesto. Have you read that book?
Speaker 3:I've seen it. Yeah, you need to get that book. It's good.
Speaker 1:It's the best cocktail book ever he gave us Violet Room in Chicago. Like some of the early like yeah, but it's really well written for the industry. It's not like a regular bar book. It's all the tactics and how to do it and why, and like how to create cocktails from scrap craft cocktails, and like it's so hard to figure out.
Speaker 3:Yeah, he breaks it down. So the reason is yeah, to just add some salt. So yeah, he breaks them all down.
Speaker 1:He breaks all the sugars down and he's like you would use demero sugar with this because that's you know, and he like there's a lot of infographics in there, but like I found it the most helpful cocktail book ever.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I need to buy that because I've always wanted to figure out like we make cocktails. We waste like tons of like we we try, we fiddle, we do this and that, but there's it's science, you know, it's like baking, I feel like, and he teaches, he unlocks the code. Yeah, it's good there's still, like, a lot of cocktails you can like with cooking. Everything's been done before, but, like there's still a lot of fresh ideas with cocktails that you can do, even though you know if you Google it, it's probably done already.
Speaker 1:But yeah, give it a new name.
Speaker 2:Well, there's a lot to be said about originality within the room too. You know it's very much a because the jump from. I've seen this on TikTok too. We're going to serve 37 of these drinks in the next hour. The customers don't understand that. Drinks in the next hour. The customers don't understand that. So from operators it's like okay, how are we going to tweak every single bolt on the ferrari to get it? Yeah, the ferrari drink yeah, there was one.
Speaker 3:There was one cocktail we did with, uh, with like mini madeleines in it, and I'm like this could be great. And then, all of a sudden, I'm like I gotta make a lot of mini madeleines. Yeah, yeah, just like you, you want the art. And then it's like, well, my bar guys are doing a hell of a lot of a lot of prep for this, yeah, for this art and uh, it's a balance for sure. But you know, that's one thing. I, I really like a weakness is definitely my like my cocktail, like creating, like for me I struggle and I really like had to put a lot of work into it and and like just like having those, those voices and those, you know that science behind it, you know, and I think if, like here in churchill, we have grisette, alewife, roosevelt and the jasper opened a new um bar, pearl denver lounge.
Speaker 1:Those are all phenomenal craft cocktail bars. Those guys also the guys you know, grisette are at the brunch at Alewife. You know, there's a community where everybody's like well, I'm doing the milk washing here and I'm doing this.
Speaker 3:You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:And so like everybody's like sharing, like this program is doing this and this cocktail program is doing that, like we've seen really quickly a synergy where the information's being shared in this little network and then everyone's cocktails get a lot better real fast. And so it's like if we could do that, we're going to actually have more mixology guests on. We spent the first kind of year of bar ninja doing other stuff, but we are going to get more into mixology this year and interview toby and then interview these some of these uh really good. Uh, operator mick, like chad's going to be on from Bar. I don't know if you've ever been to Service Bar in DC.
Speaker 3:It's a genius. I mean people who can make like craft cocktails, like it's much. I mean. I want to make chefs. It's harder than food, honestly, to balance a cocktail and make it like that's not something that's been done a million times.
Speaker 1:And teach somebody else to do it 100% J 100.
Speaker 2:What did you just say? That'll get Gordon Ramsay reaching out to the podcast right there.
Speaker 3:Like flavor wise and technique wise and thinking that it's so hard, I waste so much alcohol just trying to balance things, and like trying ideas and this and that, and like it's a genius it is. I mean, some of these guys like you know what's that? A cocktail bar in New York city? There's one of them, I forget what it's a genius it is. I mean, some of these guys like in, um, what's that? Uh, cocktail bar in new york city. Um, uh, there's one of them. I forget what it's called. Um, the stuff they come up with is it is incredible. What is it called? It's not, it's not a bathtub gym, it's. It's oh, um, it's. They don't have food. I don't think they just like forget what it is, but the ideas these guys have and I like watching about their process and how they just talk about the cocktails. I mean, honestly, I think it's more difficult.
Speaker 2:Well, the passion has really increased to where it's a complete build. I mean it is.
Speaker 1:There's definitely now. There's like that level of bartending and then there's like fast, casual or, like you know, chain restaurant bartending. They're like needs to be a better middle.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, elevate the, the jump from the good old-fashioned bar with a pbr and a shot to the middle row yeah, I'm sure it'll evolve someday, but it really is so hard I mean, like you can find restaurants where the chef's good and you get good food, but, like I was, it's hard finding like middle row borrowers, like the mixologists are are at these places, that I struggled with it when I first started.
Speaker 1:It's so hard because I mean, bill and I were slinging purple hooters in our birthdays most of our, you know, professional when we were just bar manager, bartending um, you know, and it evolved and caught up to us and they were like, oh, these are like what, what are we talking?
Speaker 3:about. You know, it was like I never.
Speaker 1:I worked at a bar for 15 years. I never pulled that bottle off the shelf, like no one orders that and you know. Now that's like, yeah, you know main ingredients and stuff.
Speaker 3:So blue carousel era was, yeah, and the bartender that was the coolest guy in the world, 45 and uh, we had a customer who wanted a blue carousel drink and he I mean he's been bartending since he was like 21 or whatever and he named off like 30 blue carousel drinks. That's funny. That's an era. I want to go back to you know, but also, we've evolved so much that the palates of the customers are so much stronger. I can't even drink a Jack and Coke anymore.
Speaker 2:Yeah, You've almost came up with a promotional night idea there, though, where you do and this may fit more for other operations, but where you do a night where it's I don't know what you'd call it. The nineties are back, I don't know.
Speaker 3:That sounds like so much fun, but still do something with garnishes, or you know the old martini bars.
Speaker 3:Remember those yeah yeah, yeah, I mean that would be amazing. I mean just like I think we're missing the dive bar at least. Like back at home, like in new york, like the dive bars are are are going away and like to. If we could bring that vibe back with better cocktails dive bar night uh, amazing, yeah, I wish, just give me, give me, give me a restaurant space that's breaking down more than this, and uh and uh, sticky floors and and I'll be, I'll be happy yeah, that's all.
Speaker 2:There's so many people listening to us right now, like you could smell it. You could feel that all this industry folks fun.
Speaker 3:We had, like there was a, there was a bar in new york city. It's not there anymore. Five dollars for it was ten dollars for five shots or something. Yeah, and you can have a great time and just not think about it. Nowadays it's hard to find a place where you can just not think about it and have fun.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Just go out. Yeah, and how dive bars are? You know they're, they're their own niche.
Speaker 3:Yeah, they're charging, just as much as you know. You know the chain fast cash, everything you know. It's, it's, it's, uh, I think I'll come back.
Speaker 1:Is Galaxy Hut still in Clarendon?
Speaker 3:Galaxy Hut is. You know, I've never been there, I've walked by.
Speaker 1:Oh, there's a dive bar, is it? Oh yeah, I got to go.
Speaker 3:I got to go. Yeah, you got to go. Yeah, but yeah, it's, they have sandwiches, right Like, is that what?
Speaker 1:they're doing. I think they have food.
Speaker 3:The only thing I've ever had there is, I think, um, it's a cool, it was like the dive bar and we live there. That's where I go. Awesome, yeah, yeah, that that, uh, I mean, I I think like a cool dive bar. You know, like you guys are saying is that'd be so much fun then, like to have a restaurant where it's like what you like you also enjoy, like you can't get better, like now, like I like my spot, like a little higher quality food than I eat myself. You know, yeah, it looks great. I appreciate it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we would definitely come I'm always sitting there and I'm like, how the fuck am I going to do a bar? Like I just want to do a bar like a sports bar and like do like awesome sports bar food better than a lot of people. And I'm like, how do I do that? You know, and you know that that just just making something, but you really enjoy yourself, you know. I think that's like that's that, that's what I really like. I I enjoy this, of course, but like to do something where, like you, you really want to, like you know it's in your own wheelhouse, like I feel like that would be so much fun so on that.
Speaker 1:What's next? Would you open another restaurant? Would you do a different concept? Would?
Speaker 3:it all depends on like what come comes my way, like I, you know, when I first concept was supposed to be half pizzas, because I make like really, really I'm talking myself up here, do it like I make some of the best pizza, so, but I found this restaurant space and and there's no room for pizza, so I was like I just changed it, so whatever comes my way, but I really do definitely want to have, uh, a, you know, like in the like by the coast, like north carolina, what is it called? I want it so bad, so bad oh, we need.
Speaker 1:We have no pizza. I've had some next head, there's no good pizza, yeah, I want that.
Speaker 3:Well, there's an exit pizza company benny's pretty good, um, is it there's?
Speaker 1:I went to a place where no name pizza. Yeah, I want that.
Speaker 3:Well, there's an exit pizza company, benny's. It's pretty good. I went to a place where no name pizza was good. I don't know where that is, that's like in Maryland. But like you know that I think like I love the pace. It's a little bit slower pace of life and I love that I feel like you know I went down there a month or two ago and you know they fire the main courses after you finish your appetizers. You can't do that here and I would absolutely love that, like if I could just have my customers just relax, enjoy and just like be in a good state of mind, like that's like my number one thing, like I always thought I wanted to go to New York and like make something there. Yeah, it's tough, I need a slower pace of life and that's going in the opposite direction yeah yeah, yeah, out of banks in that
Speaker 3:way it's so nice. I, I, I'm like you know, I'm in love with it. I love that area. I could go back there every day. It's just like there's something about it. It just there's a lot less like I don't know what it is. There's just a lot less of that. You know city angst.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that I'm so tired of which part of the outer north carolina do you go to?
Speaker 3:it was. It was, um, I'm like I'm blanking on the cape. Um, I keep hope cape uh it's. Uh, I forget, I forget the name of it.
Speaker 1:Um, there's a fear there's Cape Padres, look out, maybe. Or oh, yeah, cape Lookout, that's not. Yeah, yeah, gotcha. Yeah, that's a little further south from us, but yeah, yeah anywhere up there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's just like it's being by. The water creates such a nice vibe, you know, and I'm sure it. It's like it's different when it's like the middle of the summer and you're getting pounded with tourists and stuff like that.
Speaker 2:But you know, like just, Well, operators and staff tend to really generally have that beach mentality. Yeah, how do you say the word?
Speaker 1:How do you release work too? Are you on like different renewals um three or five years, ten year options? It's 10 and 15. 10 and 15. Okay, yeah, so it's a pretty big commitment.
Speaker 3:I mean, oh yeah, pretty big commitment. And then, uh, you know, to come to a city that I hadn't really lived in before, uh, but I got lucky. You know, clarendon is, oh, you're in the middle of it, like you're right, and that's good, it's nice, it's a nice place to live. Yeah, it really is a nice place to live. There's everything you need and there's not like it's. You don't feel like you're like in a sardine, can you know?
Speaker 1:We used to say this is not real life, this is definitely of government contractors. And you're like how? How does everyone have the same job? I can walk to an apple store. I can walk to 20 restaurants. I can walk like, but it's like not even it's an apple store, not in a mall, not downtown dc, like it was just it was like not real life, it's so nice, yeah, the only problem is like everybody wants to put a restaurant in there.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, that's got.
Speaker 1:I mean honestly, for density of large restaurants and you're not even competing against some small ones, some, some of those spaces are huge. You don't even have cheesecake. Your neighbor is a massive restaurant.
Speaker 3:You know, like the palates they get are insane. I mean we have, we have four restaurants in the building, yeah you know, and four across the street and four for the other block. It it's kind of it. It's kind of like it's kind of crazy, you know, I know where you are now I remember the old taco shop do you remember the taco shop?
Speaker 1:no, one has remembered the taco shop. I do, I do, I do remember that, so I do know exactly where, I know you, I know your spot, I mean, I don't know if it was memorable, but that's, that's the taco but now I'm sorry to interrupt you, but it just clicked. I was like I've been in, if it was memorable, but that's that's. That's the restaurant in the taco shop. But now, sorry to interrupt you, but it just clicked. I was like I've been in his restaurant before.
Speaker 1:Oh, wow, that's awesome, but that's a great area.
Speaker 3:It is, it is, but we're like the only hidden restaurant in in Clarendon. So that's like the Whitlow spaces. Now, like you, you wouldn't know we're there and and everybody like around us has that corner, a lot and stuff like that. So you know, that's, that's, that's why, like you know, we gotta stand out a little more. But uh, but yeah, I, I I find it pretty like I'm always wondering, like you know, someone's bringing a restaurant in here. I'm like there's, there's like there's a, there's like a japanese restaurant moving in. I'm like there's like five japanese restaurants they're moving next to another japanese restaurant. I'm like there's another neighborhood what?
Speaker 2:are you?
Speaker 1:doing for this the problem is everybody uses these. You know restaurant analysis tools and clarendon just like pops up with like everyone has money and everyone spends it.
Speaker 3:You know, and so it's like, it's like the super desirable area, but they're smart business, they're so smart that like, like, the customers are so intelligent that they don't just throw their money around.
Speaker 3:So you really gotta give them a product, yeah, and and like you know, that's the one thing about the tourist dollar type thing it's so easy just to like turn a burn. Yeah, like here's a 21 cocktail, like here's some tortellini, there you go. But here you gotta, like you get a really old product and it's, it's, it's. You know, it's, it's. It's a different world and you know, we, we, uh, we don't even have any businesses anymore in Clarendon. There's no like our lunch business and the entire area is just dead. Oh, really, yeah, yeah. So that's. That's why I went to brunch seven days a week. I just made it seven days a week.
Speaker 1:I think seven days a week on brunch.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:That is unique.
Speaker 3:Well, brunch is good and there's other French-inspired spots that do it and I, just, like you know, some people want duck at 12 o'clock and you know. So I thought that was like a little way to like bring people into Clarendon for lunch, cause we don't have all our off builds are empty, like empty. I'm not a customer. I live right next to a office building that has zero people in it, you know. And so, like you know, we're in all these restaurants in here but, like you know, our lunch businesses, our lunch, like foot traffic is you wouldn't even think it if we lived here. That's crazy. You traffic is you wouldn't even think it if we lived here.
Speaker 1:That's crazy.
Speaker 3:You know you, you're around when clarendon probably was, probably during lunch. All those office pools are empty and they're not going to put people in them. Yeah, they're turning one of them. You know where the ups store was. It's kind of tough to to this. Is that ramen shop a really good ramen shop? I don't know if it was there when you were there, but they're turning that whole office building into just more houses.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, the apartment conversions and government conversions.
Speaker 3:Everything's moved to All the lunch. All the businesses moved to Clarendon. Oh, not Clarendon, they moved to Ballston. Yeah, so they're taking over the lunch type of crowd. So that's why I tried to do something different. You know, try to bring something that way and and sales definitely increased quite a lot. Yeah, uh, which is like that thankful for you gotta have that.
Speaker 1:You said it once about like servers, maybe making a five minute best friend. Yeah, you almost have to really like bill and I would be just like curate our bars, you know, and so it's like you really had to be. Make that your superpower. When you're a neighborhood restaurant, it's like these are the people. I want to come back. I'm going to be a five-minute best friend with them and, like I mean that's, that's a skill, that that, like it's, it's disappearing, like, like.
Speaker 1:I feel like the general, you know, or just man you guys like are like the bet for the five and, best friend, like there's tactics you can teach though.
Speaker 1:So, like, one of the tactics we would teach is conversational threading. I don't know you. I want to create a connection, so I will just instead asking you a closed-end question like oh, where are you guys from? Okay, that didn't go anywhere because I don't know that place. Oh, what do you do? And you're asking all these open-ended questions until you find one You're like oh, my grandparents live in Virginia beach. What part of Virginia beach you aren't? So you basically throw, you're just fishing until you get something that you both click on and then hone in on that and then let that organically go into the conversation. So, just teaching somebody the conversational threading tactic of like, instead of you know where you're in, it comes from a place of general curiosity, and then also, once you get good at it, you start caring about people again, which also there's dehumanization these days, yeah, and so you're like oh, where are you guys from?
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, I just had a table in from there the other day. They were in new Haven, you know, you know, and it just, it just begets itself and then everyone feels part of your family and so that's got to be the strength and because clarendon it's you're a high-end neighborhood restaurant, you know. I mean, so it's like you got to get the same people in there once a week, once every other week, and it is going to be like a locals kind of elevated, high-end neighborhood restaurant.
Speaker 3:You know and that's like that. That's that's what makes it like like. It makes that kind of like I feel like harder for us too, because people come to that bar to eat, like you know, two three-course meal, so it kind of like it makes it like a little tougher to like figure out, like you know and you guys are probably really good at this if somebody wants to talk or not. Yeah, because people are, people are ordering, like you know, you know, duck and steaks at the bar, like they. They come to eat dinner there and and and like that. That is definitely one thing I struggle with is, is, is, is is making those contact, making those like connections, because, you know it, it's such a skill sometimes you shouldn't make connections because if you identify it's emotional intelligence right.
Speaker 1:If they're an introvert they don't want to be. You know, it would be emotionally exhausting for them to make a new friend, aka the bartender. But understanding and like kind of defining those cycle or psychographics of the designer or the diner and then being able to like, teach people how to like these people are extroverts. They probably want to make a you know, like just being able to identify that. But but that's, that is all trainable technically.
Speaker 3:It's definitely something like, like I want to like cause, when it comes to like service at like you know the table, like I think we like Excel, but it's making those, it's making those connections that like I think, like at the bar, like it would like really bring us to another, another level. It flows out to the room. It really will. It does. It doesn't and, like we, the whole restaurant could be full and if your bar is another people on it, people will be like, oh, restaurant's empty. You know, like having a full bar, you could have a. You get a full bar on a slow night people will walk in with, oh, all year, yeah, you know. But you get a whole room filled. Almost every table for bars empty homes. They're going to walk in. It's sick, it's so, it's so crazy. Like a bar really is the heart of the heart of that restaurant. Yeah, you know, and and and you know that, like I, I really wish I had you guys skill set because, like you know, that five-minute friend day.
Speaker 2:Welcome to you, bobby welcome to you.
Speaker 1:We call it the platinum rule. So, like you know, the golden rule is treat other people like they want to be treated. The platinum rule is serve other people like they want to be served. So, like, once you turn your radar on as a server or bartender to the person in front of you, if you're paying attention and you have any sense, you can figure out if they want to be talked to, don't want to be talked to, analyze that and then you can decide do I want to conversationally thread with this person? This seems like an introvert. They seem fun, they seem whatever. Now I'll throw conversational threading out If I, if the person looks like an introvert or is you know kind of given the introvert vibes off, okay, then I'm don't want to. It's going to stress them out for me to do that, so I don. They want to be served tonight.
Speaker 1:You know, is it a table of two that's celebrating the anniversary, right? That's a different service than two people coming in for a business meeting, you know. So, like, first I'm going to gather information, then, once I get the information, I'm going to figure out what type of people they are psychologically and then I'm going to give them the service that's perfect for their level, instead of just. You know what I'm saying. So it's just a. It's a next level of service where you're training the staff to. It's a most staff doesn't. They're not, that's not on their radar because they're just like okay here. You know we have some specialists tonight. I'm not trying to psychoanalyze my table, but you know, I think some of the best you know, we kind of isolated and like really studied some of the better servers and bartenders in the world and that's kind of what they're doing.
Speaker 1:You know they would serve. I would watch them serve a different table, differently than they were serving my wife and I, and I was like these guys are good.
Speaker 3:The skill and like the way you guys like even think about it like it's it's. I mean it's it's so good to hear, cause it's like you know it's a lot more short have than you guys have, and I love that. Wow, that was cool.
Speaker 3:Like just the psychology behind it and like the, with an executable, repeatable tactic and you can. It's so much easier to build clientele like that than have. I mean, you can have an okay product, but if you have a staff that can bring people back, like that's more important than the food, the drinks. I mean.
Speaker 2:I think it goes hand in hand. You know, it's very much a um, assessing, from paying attention from the moment they've stepped in the door to where they've hit the table. Little comments that are relatable and personable to yourself, but not you know the typical oh, how's your day going? It's, it's. It's a lot more than that, you know, because people think it's it's, it's hollow. It's just what everyone says. You know it's it and it is very teachable.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it is and it's, it's. It's still such a science and it's such a science, but also it does help. It is helpful to have good food too, cause if you're dropping off something to a customer, or cocktail you don't like, it's kind of like, uh, you kind of want to just like shy away and like you're not coming back from that in clarendon either, because I mean two by check, that two by check's brutal, like that's that's sorry again overcooked and or something that's just it make it so much harder to make those connections.
Speaker 3:yeah, but yeah, I might have my phone's blowing up, oh yeah, we've been on for a really long time. It's easy to talk to Talking like an animal.
Speaker 1:Sorry, it takes so much of your time.
Speaker 3:It's really refreshing talking to industry people who really love it, Bobby it's been a pleasure.
Speaker 2:Seriously, you say the word, we'll meet you in the Outer Backs, we'll have us a big old meeting and start getting some more stuff rolling.
Speaker 3:If you ever come to Virginia, there's a free meal and some cocktails for you?
Speaker 2:No, you charge us. We'll take care of your staff. We're here to help brother.
Speaker 3:I appreciate you guys. Man, have a great night and thank you so much for having me. It was so much fun.
Speaker 2:You're doing a great job, man. We'll come see you. We're in the HVAC.
Speaker 1:I.
Speaker 3:Good luck with that.
Speaker 2:Thanks a lot, guys All right, well, thanks, have a great day. Thanks so much, I appreciate you.
Speaker 1:That was a cool guy. Oh, I think he really needed to talk to us. He's going to do well, though he's got his head on his shoulders right, you can tell he has all of the passion within him with everything he's trying to do.
Speaker 2:the structure related to Takes care of his employees. Yeah, the guaranteed uh, I don't remember what the number was, but I mean that that's a big deal.
Speaker 1:You know that that is something that I it's amazing that he's like we're going to guarantee the service is gonna make $27 hours. Nope, yeah, I don't know a lot of people that would have done that. So, uh, it was a cool idea.
Speaker 2:All right, everybody. Thanks for listening to the Bar Ninja podcast. Everybody be good out there. Please throw us any ideas. Anything you're thinking about, especially relative to what we were just talking about, we can, as the people in this industry, get together and maybe start making things a little bit easier on all of us when it comes to meals, tax and everything else. United, we're going to do better, everybody's going to make better money and, on top of all that, customers are really going to be able to enjoy the experiences more. So we appreciate y'all. Everybody be safe.
Speaker 1:Bar Ninja out Bar Ninja out Podcast at Bar Ninja. If you want to get us any information, I'd get your episodes. We're going to do more interviews. We've had some people reach out and want to be interviewed, so we're totally open to that. So hit us up, let us know what you want to talk about and if you have something to say on the podcast. Until next time Later. Peace. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Bar Ninja Podcast. Please be sure to subscribe to us on your favorite podcast player and join the Bar Ninja Nation that has over 7,000 bartenders in it by going to wwwbarninjacom and you can enter your email Until next time. See you then.
