00:00:00:00 - 00:00:04:10 Bill Valentas So we have a lot of discussion around what are we, what are we trying to be? 00:00:04:12 - 00:00:06:16 Marc Cohen Frozen custard and steak burgers. It's in the name. 00:00:06:16 - 00:00:10:04 Rich Sweeney I know it's not fair. I didn't get to have lunch before this. And now I just want. 00:00:10:04 - 00:00:11:21 Marc Cohen Well, they sent a few pictures, right? Right. 00:00:11:21 - 00:00:12:08 Bill Valentas That show. 00:00:12:08 - 00:00:18:19 Marc Cohen It. We'll put some up in post. We'll have burgers flying. 00:00:18:21 - 00:00:39:17 Rich Sweeney Welcome to restaurant 365 Presents Behind the Numbers podcast, where we talk to restaurant owners, operators, chef's kitchen managers, CFOs, everybody to find out what is the secret sauce that makes every restaurant tick. Before we get started, just a quick reminder to like and subscribe wherever you're tuning in, if not only helps us, you know, get drives more, traction gets more people checking us out. 00:00:39:20 - 00:00:48:16 Rich Sweeney But if you leave us a review, it does. Even more gets even more folks coming to check out the show, and it helps build out our restaurant community. With that, I'm your host for training. 00:00:48:18 - 00:01:13:07 Marc Cohen And I'm Mark Cohen, and we're here today with Bill Volantis, chief financial officer. Freddy's frozen custard and steak burgers. Freddy's is a fast casual restaurant concept that creates fresh, made to order, craveable food served with genuine hospitality and a fun, inclusive environment. Freddy's has become one of the fastest growing franchises in the U.S, growing from a single restaurant in Wichita, Kansas in 2020, in 2002 and now has more than 550 locations in the US and Canada. 00:01:13:09 - 00:01:33:19 Marc Cohen Bill has a diverse background with experience in the personal service, hospitality, consumer products and of course, the restaurant industry's CFO bill is focused on Freddy's strategic plan and day to day operations of finance, accounting, purchasing, IT and growth bill. Welcome to Behind the Numbers. Let's dig in here. We're happy to have you here live at Arts. 00:01:33:19 - 00:01:34:18 Bill Valentas Yeah. 00:01:34:19 - 00:01:36:01 Rich Sweeney This is all that going on. 00:01:36:01 - 00:01:38:06 Bill Valentas Yeah yeah just a little bit. 00:01:38:08 - 00:01:42:03 Marc Cohen Where did everybody go. Everybody's in the whole crowd behind us. People here. 00:01:42:07 - 00:01:42:21 Rich Sweeney We're scared them. 00:01:42:21 - 00:01:58:14 Marc Cohen Off. They're off learning and absorbing and developing their skill set. So we always like to start this with sort of a fundamental question of what do you think's the most important thing leaders like you should be focused on and store operations and finance right now. What's top of mind for your communication? 00:01:58:16 - 00:02:24:00 Bill Valentas It's trying to figure out where we've been, where we're going and what's working for us and what's not working for us. And, you know, I think the biggest piece of what we have is making sure that teams, we do so many things out cross-functional. And I think that's the thing that came out of Covid is that you need to have people in different departments doing different things so that we're not all doing the same things and having that communication to make sure that people are on the same page. 00:02:24:02 - 00:02:24:19 Marc Cohen 00:02:24:21 - 00:02:41:12 Bill Valentas And just understanding what's working out of that communication. Because sometimes you're, you're running against the wall all the time. It's just something that's not working the way you want it to work. You need to make a small tweak and get there. But that's a little bit of what we try to focus on is keep making those little tweaks so we can keep growing. 00:02:41:13 - 00:02:46:04 Marc Cohen And so when we're talking about communication organization of your size you how many locations do you have? 00:02:46:06 - 00:02:47:00 Bill Valentas Just over 500. 00:02:47:00 - 00:02:53:06 Marc Cohen AC and how many of those are corporate? The 3838. And so how many employees are we talking about communicating? 00:02:53:08 - 00:02:54:00 Bill Valentas 1500. 00:02:54:05 - 00:02:56:11 Rich Sweeney So that's it. 00:02:56:13 - 00:02:56:21 Bill Valentas That's it. 00:02:57:02 - 00:03:00:16 Rich Sweeney Just a couple of people to make sure there's some messages under 1800. 00:03:00:18 - 00:03:02:12 Marc Cohen Right. So there's some seasonality. 00:03:02:12 - 00:03:03:01 Bill Valentas Yep. 00:03:03:03 - 00:03:09:19 Marc Cohen So how do you measure that. How do you control that. What is this is technology solution is everything is is managing top down. 00:03:09:19 - 00:03:22:03 Bill Valentas Yeah. Everything we do is technology okay. There's not anything that technology doesn't touch on the business. And if you're running a business that's not just technology enabled, right. At least in the restaurant space, it's really hard. 00:03:22:08 - 00:03:38:03 Rich Sweeney It's almost impossible. I mean, trying to stay on top of things ever changing, market ever changing, you know, kind of variables that are happening. Communication among your team. Yeah. You make a change to a recipe. If that doesn't get communicated out then or accurately, then that's going to have a huge impact on your cost from the bottom line. 00:03:38:03 - 00:03:42:23 Rich Sweeney At the end of the day. So just so many pieces that tie into that absolutely. 00:03:43:01 - 00:03:52:21 Marc Cohen And so with the franchise group. So there's another layer of communication I would imagine. So we're making sure everybody's on the same page. So how does that get sort of pushed down from the corporate level. 00:03:53:00 - 00:04:11:04 Bill Valentas Well we we use a concept called a franchise business coach okay. And now SBC is our main point of contact for that franchisee. And then they have resources behind them. So it's all our teams, our cross-functional teams working to get places. And they're the eyes and ears of that franchisee to let us know what they like, what they don't like. 00:04:11:06 - 00:04:32:17 Bill Valentas We ask our franchisees for a lot of feedback, and we do a lot of it directly too. So we, you know, myself and our CEO Brian Wise, to call every period that's an, you know, because of the owners, okay. So we're trying to give them information at a higher level of where we're going or what we're seeing. And then we have our other departments that are leading different calls for different purposes across. 00:04:32:18 - 00:04:47:21 Bill Valentas And so there's always a communication that's and right now we're asking our franchisees, hey, give us feedback. Are we over communicating now. Are we hitting the points right. Right. You know, how is it working for you guys so that we can always make sure we're getting better and we're adjusting to what what's the need? 00:04:47:23 - 00:05:03:06 Marc Cohen And I'm curious with that feedback loop because we're seeing a lot of what we're seeing technology solutions coming out to to support that. Right. Not just in an ownership level, but in an employee level. Two. Right. Things like Tattler giving the employees the ability to get feedback on a daily basis, and how the shift was, how their manager was. 00:05:03:11 - 00:05:14:12 Marc Cohen I love this, but is there you find you get better feedback when it's an anonymous or when they're being upfront and you know, for more with you. I'm curious where the honesty lies. 00:05:14:14 - 00:05:18:03 Bill Valentas So I think there's some of our employees that are always on it. 00:05:18:08 - 00:05:19:04 Marc Cohen Okay. Right. 00:05:19:04 - 00:05:50:22 Bill Valentas I think there's always faults. Yeah. I think there's others that are sometimes afraid to say something. Oh, it's trying to make that comfortable spot in between there that they'll say something that's meaningful and not just, you know, be in a moment that they've really thought about. And those are some of the best. Right? Right. So as they thought about it, as they work through it, as they say, here's the problem, that encountering those are the things we love to hear, because that's the things we can really fix because they're detailing details behind it. 00:05:51:00 - 00:06:11:06 Bill Valentas And so, you know, whenever guest calls in there with a complaint, we're always trying to figure out the details. It's the same thing with employees that we need more details to understand how it's affecting and then really can say, okay, from there, what does that look like? What what else can we do? Because even in our stores, where we do a lot of the testing and everything we do, that then gets real about franchisees. 00:06:11:08 - 00:06:20:18 Bill Valentas We really rely on the communication of our team, not just the general manager, but the team members who are doing those tasks as we're testing, or to be able to have that feedback. 00:06:20:20 - 00:06:25:11 Marc Cohen Right. Because if we can get the buy in of the operators at the corporate level, it's a pretty fair bet we're going to get. 00:06:25:11 - 00:06:39:07 Bill Valentas It at the franchise. Yeah, absolutely. And then we'll roll it out to a franchise group and let them experience it how we were doing it. And we make a lot of cases from that as well, because they see it in a little bit different way, and we kind of just keep rolling that out. And so we're like, okay, we got it all good. 00:06:39:09 - 00:06:44:23 Bill Valentas If we need somebody to speak on Operations Point, right. We said, hey, we'll talk to this franchisee because there's no one that said it's okay. Yeah. 00:06:45:01 - 00:07:02:13 Rich Sweeney Have you ever run into the the iteration version like, you know, you're kind of rolling it out a little by little getting that feedback, modifying. Have you ever seen it where it's gone almost full circle, where you've gone by through everybody's feedback and it almost takes you back to where you started? Or do you think you see enough little changes and tweaks that like what you end up with seems significantly different than where. 00:07:02:13 - 00:07:05:05 Bill Valentas You guys start? That's a good question, because we saw that. 00:07:05:07 - 00:07:07:00 Marc Cohen The loop full circle. 00:07:07:01 - 00:07:28:08 Bill Valentas In the beginning. And I think that was a little about us saying from stage earlier was that you you get in this cycle of you just keep doing, doing, doing and when, when not everybody's bought in you, they always push it back whenever they want to push back. It's the ability to say, well, I don't know. I have some questions. 00:07:28:08 - 00:07:49:00 Bill Valentas Let me follow up with you. And then it never comes back around. But you keep moving and you just keep the circle. But what we saw is that as we got our ops teams involved in the process and got them bought into what they wanted to do and how they wanted to do it, it's really helped to break that off and make small changes that are helping us get better. 00:07:49:02 - 00:08:09:18 Rich Sweeney I think from the buy in perspective, too, it's like, it's great that you guys are taking that feedback from your team, from the franchisees. But then I think from the, you know, some of the people out in the field, it's like you have that feeling like you're making an impact on something and that when you see it coming out, you know, if you gave some feedback to say, I think this is a bottleneck, that when you see it actually fully rolled out and it's been resolved, it's like, oh, like I got to have a say in that. 00:08:09:18 - 00:08:13:04 Rich Sweeney It's almost like a take on a little bit more ownership of the process. 00:08:13:09 - 00:08:29:12 Bill Valentas Absolutely. And I think with AI coming up and what I could do for us, that could create a little bit more of that bottleneck. But hopefully there's a release for the bottleneck with AI too. So I think there's gonna be a lot of things that spin around there that people are going to challenge. 00:08:29:14 - 00:08:45:11 Marc Cohen But I love something you talked about earlier was the fact that, you know, you're very we're very much about using the tool as it was intended. Right. But what we don't want to see is people trying to to you can bend it but don't break it. Right. And that's, that's critical with technology. And you know, change is hard. 00:08:45:11 - 00:08:53:10 Marc Cohen Change management is hard, especially for restaurant folks. It's just we're stubborn people. It's just who we are. What? Not so. So really. 00:08:53:14 - 00:08:54:04 Rich Sweeney 00:08:54:06 - 00:09:04:05 Marc Cohen So, you know, really, we talk about this a lot, but it's like you're enforcing not just the here's what you're going to do, but here's the why behind you're doing it and here's why. This is the tool selected. 00:09:04:06 - 00:09:05:00 Bill Valentas Yep. To what's. 00:09:05:00 - 00:09:05:17 Marc Cohen It. 00:09:05:18 - 00:09:23:00 Bill Valentas Yeah. No, it's it's a little bit of a we're we're trying to fail before you fail. Right. So if we're going to do something let us try it. And if it fails, it's on us. Right. But if we find something that works and that really makes our teams more efficient, then why not run that all the way down? 00:09:23:04 - 00:09:38:22 Bill Valentas And you know that that same way we can help those teams kind of understand why we're doing it. And once they understand why we're doing it, they're like, okay, that makes sense. I mean, I get what you're doing. It's just not making change for the sake of change. 00:09:39:00 - 00:09:39:09 Marc Cohen Yeah. 00:09:39:09 - 00:09:58:10 Bill Valentas Right thing. Right is that it's if the system is working, then remember to ask that question what's what was intended to do? Because I think in the beginning when we implemented it, we forgot that say we were just like, we want to fit it into our process. And our process every year has to tweak just a little, of course. 00:09:58:10 - 00:10:03:18 Bill Valentas And so if you don't change it, you're going to be less. And the stone is, you know. 00:10:03:19 - 00:10:06:03 Marc Cohen We change our software from time to time as well. 00:10:06:06 - 00:10:07:10 Bill Valentas Yep. 00:10:07:12 - 00:10:26:23 Marc Cohen I like to or not. Sometimes I like and sometimes that changes in both. But you start to, you know, you start to build momentum. The more you're rolling out these successful solutions to your teams, the more momentum you gain, the more trust you gain and just makes that process easier versus, you know, changing the changing the workflow, changing the soap on a regular basis. 00:10:27:00 - 00:10:43:02 Marc Cohen Yeah, you're just going to lose by. And immediately we see that a lot. Like especially when there's turnover at an executive level in these restaurant groups, somebody wants to come in and strip out the old and replace it with the new. And that's always a hard conversation to have because yeah, we're personally vested in them keeping our software. 00:10:43:04 - 00:10:49:09 Marc Cohen But I'm more concerned about the day to day operations and how that's going to disrupt in an organization. 00:10:49:11 - 00:10:54:04 Bill Valentas Yeah. No, I agree is but I think everybody's comfortable with what they're comfortable with. 00:10:54:05 - 00:10:54:13 Marc Cohen Yeah. 00:10:54:13 - 00:11:01:03 Bill Valentas And so, you know that's part of the piece of how. 00:11:01:05 - 00:11:14:01 Bill Valentas How can you use what people have to be creative and not just put your own playbook because there's so many different things you have to do. Right? Right. And making and doing an implementation is not an easy thing. 00:11:14:03 - 00:11:16:16 Marc Cohen Well, you guys make it a little bit easier. 00:11:16:18 - 00:11:39:04 Bill Valentas But it's easy. But if you're trying to get to a place where you're trying to make, it will change in a new job, you know, it's probably not those places to start. There's probably other things. Yes. But you a lot of leaders go to places they feel comfortable first. It gets them a running start. Right. So you know, I think I think I look at it the other way is that what is the organization really. 00:11:39:06 - 00:11:47:15 Bill Valentas And then put those things at us. Where do we have to go and what should be first versus what's comfortable for me to get first. 00:11:47:15 - 00:11:48:05 Marc Cohen Right. 00:11:48:07 - 00:11:51:04 Bill Valentas Maybe I just like to be uncomfortable. 00:11:51:06 - 00:11:51:21 Marc Cohen Maybe what. 00:11:51:21 - 00:11:52:06 Rich Sweeney Was being. 00:11:52:06 - 00:12:04:18 Bill Valentas Uncomfortable? Yeah, I think that that helps think about the process better and then take constructive criticism when it doesn't go the way you think it's going to go, right? Because most of the time that's on you. And then you have to figure out, okay, where, where did I. 00:12:04:19 - 00:12:05:10 Marc Cohen And everybody's. 00:12:05:10 - 00:12:06:13 Bill Valentas Looking, who did I pass? 00:12:06:15 - 00:12:28:06 Marc Cohen Yep. That's a great point. So, when it comes to implementing the R3 65 solution with your franchisees, what do you I'm going to I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that probably the hardest thing to get them to understand would be an AB report. Is that is that something that not a lot of new restaurant operators have seen before, you know, what do you feel is that sort of the biggest hurdle for them to clear? 00:12:28:08 - 00:12:34:09 Bill Valentas I would agree, but I but I think it's the steps that lead up to okay, so. 00:12:34:15 - 00:12:36:05 Marc Cohen I know you want to call it ATV. 00:12:36:05 - 00:12:36:20 Bill Valentas I know I do. 00:12:36:20 - 00:12:37:23 Marc Cohen It all the time. 00:12:38:01 - 00:12:41:00 Bill Valentas That's why I just slow down so you can. You got me my brain. 00:12:41:02 - 00:12:43:10 Rich Sweeney This is the part where we have to insert the graphic underneath. 00:12:43:10 - 00:12:46:13 Marc Cohen That's Sunday, Sunday, Sunday we have that one. 00:12:46:15 - 00:12:54:01 Rich Sweeney But then next to it is the AV equals actual versus theoretical because we love a good three letter acronym. And sometimes we forget whoever's listening. 00:12:54:01 - 00:12:55:12 Marc Cohen But might use too many acronyms. Yeah. 00:12:55:15 - 00:12:58:22 Rich Sweeney But I mean yeah that that a I almost said ATV. Now to. 00:12:59:03 - 00:13:00:03 Marc Cohen The actual versus the. 00:13:00:05 - 00:13:02:14 Rich Sweeney Actual versus theoretical report. There we go. 00:13:02:16 - 00:13:31:09 Bill Valentas Yeah. It's it's it's the stuff that leads up to here. So the items, the measurements, you know, so if they're, if they're trying to so our process for people that aren't not the, the brand repository is to I when we have an LTL so limited time offer. Thank you. I didn't screw that one up. It really gives them the recipe. 00:13:31:09 - 00:13:51:08 Bill Valentas And so we, we dump it out of our recipe book. Yeah. Inside of restaurant 365 in the Excel format, which is great. We send it to them and we let them input. And sometimes when they input it, they won't have heard as a unit measures because they missed it. Oh, okay. And so when they try to go create that that's a little bit of a break trying to understand. 00:13:51:10 - 00:13:52:09 Marc Cohen How the sausage is made. 00:13:52:09 - 00:14:08:11 Bill Valentas Yeah. Yeah. It's the purchase unit measure versus the inventory unit measure. Like which one do I use. How do I use it. So that's the more complicated piece of it is that I think they get bogged down there because they just they want to be able to put whatever they want to put in and just have a calculator. 00:14:08:11 - 00:14:08:16 Bill Valentas What if. 00:14:08:16 - 00:14:09:19 Marc Cohen You just have it work. 00:14:09:21 - 00:14:23:23 Bill Valentas And it's just easy, but. Right. Yeah, it's just not that easy. But it's the pieces before that, I think if they knew that better or got into our brand repository, it would make that process a little bit smoother as well. 00:14:24:00 - 00:14:43:20 Marc Cohen Yeah, you're taking a lot of that lift off of that. Right. And so so they're resisting. What we're talking about here is, you know, Freddie says a model where they're able at a corporate level to sort of push down to all their franchisees and help them manage the recipes in their inventory and their purchase items. So, so even if they're in their own database, everybody's got consistency across. 00:14:43:22 - 00:14:46:17 Marc Cohen And so everybody's sort of looks the same. 00:14:46:19 - 00:15:04:01 Rich Sweeney So yeah, just making sure especially to new menu items changes and things like that, being able to have that information get pushed down so it doesn't fall on the franchisees to have to manage it themselves. Yeah. I think it's something great that you guys have in place. So many franchisees, when we talk to them, they're just like, all right, I have so many things in the air. 00:15:04:01 - 00:15:14:12 Rich Sweeney How do I keep track of it all? And then when we rolled this out, it was like, oh, this is like, you guys do that for me. We'll help you with that. Don't worry about it. Like, one less thing to be on their plate so they can focus on the business and the operations. 00:15:14:12 - 00:15:22:01 Bill Valentas Yes. And and the other side of that is I was just talking to another, group that uses the platform that they're all on the same class. 00:15:22:05 - 00:15:23:00 Marc Cohen They're all. Yes. 00:15:23:00 - 00:15:45:08 Bill Valentas And so they do all that stuff in theirs and is on track to the franchisees. And I think about that and I'm like, that sounds cool. But we're getting so many franchisees now. Some other concepts, right? It's kind of blending things up. We've always worked on the idea that we want to give flexibility to franchisees to be able to do what they need to do, but we want to help them get to a place quickly. 00:15:45:10 - 00:15:58:14 Bill Valentas Right. And so it's like, okay, where do you find that balance of what do you need to do versus what what do you have to do? And how do you how do you grow as a franchise, or how do you make them do it? Because at the end of the day, it's our choice. So we want to just give them good advice. 00:15:58:19 - 00:16:14:05 Marc Cohen And that's right. Because because we are seeing these franchise groups now go out and buy a couple of different concepts, right? They want to diversify their portfolios, and it's great that you give them that flexibility to say, hey, we're going to set up your Freddy's portion of the database and then hopefully they learn some valuable lessons there. 00:16:14:05 - 00:16:18:07 Bill Valentas And yeah, because I couldn't imagine trying to manage on the other side that I got to go into three different county sets. 00:16:18:07 - 00:16:19:19 Marc Cohen No way. Yeah, yeah. 00:16:19:20 - 00:16:20:10 Bill Valentas That'd be tough. 00:16:20:12 - 00:16:36:20 Marc Cohen That's what people come in with books and they come in with eight different cookbooks. Yeah, but the other thing I love about this too, is, is it really puts one of the things I feel like we always forget to think about when we're implementing a solution is that the future, like we're looking at now, we're looking at how to fix where we're coming from. 00:16:36:20 - 00:16:58:12 Marc Cohen But I feel like a lot of the times we don't think about where we're going. And even if you don't think like you started with 11 stores, now you're 38. And maybe that was the plan from day one. But even if you're a single franchisee plan for 50 stores, you never know, like do the work now so that that whatever that solution is you're implementing in this case restaurant 365 like future proofing. 00:16:58:13 - 00:17:04:11 Marc Cohen So it's scalable because because if you get to 38 stores and you don't do that, it's a it's not a process. 00:17:04:12 - 00:17:25:04 Bill Valentas No. And I think we started the other way is that you're saying franchisees, you got 1 or 2 stores do what you're doing. You don't have to run restaurant 365 because it's going to take you a long time to learn what you're doing. But then we started realizing that there's so many key aspects of the software that makes the job easier as they go to the second store. 00:17:25:04 - 00:17:26:01 Marc Cohen Or those single owners. 00:17:26:02 - 00:17:36:02 Bill Valentas And so it's feel the pain in the beginning, but it's that balance of dormancy, of the pain in the beginning versus opening my first store. Like, what can you think? 00:17:36:04 - 00:17:38:18 Marc Cohen Yeah, what he'll do, I want to die. But I think we, I think. 00:17:38:18 - 00:17:47:05 Bill Valentas What we realize is that the pain is good upfront, because if you can get it all set up, then your second one is a breeze. 00:17:47:07 - 00:17:48:03 Marc Cohen Oh, yes. 00:17:48:05 - 00:18:14:10 Bill Valentas Because it's all ready to go and you're just going. So, Yeah, it's it's a, it's a different, different model. But luckily in our, in our concept we don't have very many single commerce. We have a lot of them all together. So it's it makes it easier from that standpoint because everybody's got to do a second. And we've been lucky enough that the ones that have signed one units have actually called quickly to buy the second or that's. 00:18:14:10 - 00:18:15:17 Marc Cohen So pretty good way. 00:18:15:18 - 00:18:17:16 Bill Valentas Yeah. Yeah. It's awesome. We like that. 00:18:17:18 - 00:18:24:05 Rich Sweeney Yeah. They get one and then they get hooked and they come back looking for more. I see I see your model. I see how you know. 00:18:24:07 - 00:18:28:07 Marc Cohen It's not a pyramid. No it's very different. So different mindsets. Yeah. 00:18:28:09 - 00:18:31:13 Bill Valentas There's no knives involved. No. 00:18:31:15 - 00:18:48:13 Marc Cohen So one of the things I want to talk about right now in this in specifically in the QSR space, is there's a, there's a couple things I feel like that are knocking at your door. A threatening one is the idea of the the snack now being a drink. I think we've talked about this right. The Starbucks effect or whatever you want to call it. 00:18:48:15 - 00:18:55:18 Marc Cohen Like, are you feeling that a little bit of pressure from some of these beverage chains that are popping up, people are replacing a steak burger with a Frappuccino. 00:18:55:18 - 00:19:14:11 Bill Valentas And I think that everybody's worried about that. Yeah, right. Because I think that you only have so much of a share, a wallet and the share of wallet is shrinking right now. And so, you know, that's that's a problem solvers even those ones that are winning on today on the drink side, they're down to where they were. 00:19:14:13 - 00:19:16:19 Marc Cohen Yeah. And so the honeymoon's over. 00:19:16:19 - 00:19:34:10 Bill Valentas Yeah. Yeah. And so it's, it's trying to figure out how you can be relevant to that occasion with the guest when they want to be a guest. And, you know, that's that's the challenge I think everybody has is how do I get a guest to come in again or more often, but not pressure them right to do so? 00:19:34:10 - 00:19:53:01 Bill Valentas Like you want to be a place where they always want to go. And are you ready for and you know, that's I think that comes a little bit of hospitality as well, that you're not pushy about what you're doing. But it's difficult. It's difficult time, especially when you see the markets keeps going up and up, and you're seeing that guests are pulling back more and more. 00:19:53:03 - 00:19:54:00 Bill Valentas 00:19:54:02 - 00:19:58:23 Marc Cohen Casual dining seems untouchable right now, though. Casual dining seems to be killing. 00:19:59:00 - 00:20:00:16 Bill Valentas They are, but they're spending a bunch. 00:20:00:16 - 00:20:01:17 Marc Cohen Of money, right? Right. 00:20:01:22 - 00:20:25:04 Bill Valentas To do so. And so what does that look like in the future? Yeah. It's hard to be in that discount game, because you always are resetting the value of your product. Yeah. And so it'll be interesting to see how they work themselves from this point and next point. I mean, they've done a fantastic job of staying with what they did a couple of years ago and and keep pushing it until it started working. 00:20:25:06 - 00:20:36:02 Bill Valentas Which is great. Right. And that's what you hope for. And now they have a transformation of one of them that it could help push them, or they could be left behind because they can't get out of that way. Right. Yeah. 00:20:36:02 - 00:20:39:16 Marc Cohen And so it's not that what do we used to call it, the Groupon effect. 00:20:39:16 - 00:20:47:04 Rich Sweeney Oh, it's that vicious cycle of just discounting and then trying to find a way, like you're just devaluing your, product over and over and over. Yeah. 00:20:47:06 - 00:20:52:18 Bill Valentas And it's it's so hard because the biggest metric in spam in restaurants is same store sales. Yeah. 00:20:52:18 - 00:20:55:00 Marc Cohen And that's all you have to go by. 00:20:55:02 - 00:20:58:17 Bill Valentas Is that really a good metric? Because it's only showing your top line. 00:20:58:17 - 00:20:59:03 Marc Cohen Right. 00:20:59:03 - 00:21:00:15 Bill Valentas Where what matters is your bottom. 00:21:00:15 - 00:21:11:03 Marc Cohen Line and, and average spend. And you know, the number of KPIs we can be tracking now in terms of that beverage are you guys doing anything internally to to come up with some different. Yeah, we're. 00:21:11:03 - 00:21:21:15 Bill Valentas Working on some different things. We've been trying to move faster on the beverage side, but you know, it's it's something that I think we're trying to see what our. 00:21:21:15 - 00:21:22:06 Marc Cohen Guess what? 00:21:22:07 - 00:21:36:18 Bill Valentas Okay. Before we just throw things out there we think are worthwhile, but it's got to be meaningful. And so yeah, we're trying some interesting things. We just aces and things last week that were were great using cluster that was, you know, a little dirty soda that's. 00:21:36:18 - 00:21:37:17 Marc Cohen Using oh I like it. 00:21:37:19 - 00:21:39:14 Rich Sweeney Yeah I'm always out for dirty set up. 00:21:39:15 - 00:21:59:23 Bill Valentas It's like our special creamer mix. So it's it's interesting where it's going. So well we'll be having some more drinks and trying to we've been thinking about snack category a lot. Okay. So how do you get more smaller portions. What does that look like? What's fun for kids? Because we're family oriented. So, you know, what can we do from that side? 00:22:00:02 - 00:22:12:20 Bill Valentas There's there's a lot of things that are bubbling up. It's just making sure you're, you're thinking about how it's going to affect long term. But, you know, we have the option to roll things out in limited time. 00:22:12:20 - 00:22:13:16 Marc Cohen Offer something. 00:22:13:18 - 00:22:18:08 Bill Valentas You can test it and see how guests react. And you know, if guest don't like it, they don't like it. 00:22:18:12 - 00:22:19:17 Marc Cohen And you got data to back it up. 00:22:19:17 - 00:22:20:01 Bill Valentas That's right. 00:22:20:01 - 00:22:20:21 Marc Cohen At that point, yeah. 00:22:21:00 - 00:22:50:21 Rich Sweeney So yeah, I mean you mentioned like now obviously the family friendly version of things and you mentioned like smaller portions for things. One thing that's kind of come up a lot for people, especially at restaurants now, is like GLP ones, and it's like the GLP one effect. Is that something? I mean, like other smaller portions driving decisions like that or do you think it's more so you're just trying to have more of that snack factor, that maybe somebody who's taking that medication wants to be able to kind of like, you know, come in and be that guest and they don't want a full meal. 00:22:50:21 - 00:22:55:02 Rich Sweeney They want just something smaller, I guess. What's where do you see that driving for you guys? 00:22:55:04 - 00:23:15:15 Bill Valentas That's a good question. I think there's been a lot more talk around that, and there's been more data now that's been shared, which is makes me feel better because when somebody's saying GLP ones are driving something, it's kind of like back in the day when delivery was saying, well, we increase your sales no matter what. Well, we're not to show you anything. 00:23:15:20 - 00:23:41:05 Bill Valentas You just have to trust us and right at the end and give us 25%. Yeah, at the end of the day was right. They they have a different gas. That's our guest. But but I think it really based on the data I've seen is split out between the low end gas and the higher gas, and it's, there's a very different sediment of what's happening because of the price points. 00:23:41:07 - 00:23:53:09 Bill Valentas And I think that once we see that become in more mass where it's a pill or it's just skin, if the insurance companies decide to start covering it. 00:23:53:11 - 00:23:54:14 Marc Cohen More. 00:23:54:16 - 00:24:15:05 Bill Valentas Because it's it's really presenting other things and saving them dollars, that's where it's going to get more dynamic of, okay, what's that really going to do to you guys? So I think smaller portion size, especially in the market we're in today, when you get to a price point that everybody's gotten to with price because of where commodity costs are, you have to start re-engineering your product. 00:24:15:05 - 00:24:34:10 Bill Valentas You have to. And so what does that look like? Yeah. And so I think so smaller portions are the ultimate thing that comes out of that. Now. It's how do you stay true to what you are is the hard thing of that. And so we have a lot of discussion around what are we, what are we trying to be. 00:24:34:12 - 00:24:39:03 Marc Cohen Frozen custard and steak burgers. It's in the name I like. Let's go. 00:24:39:05 - 00:24:40:23 Bill Valentas Starting is we can get right. 00:24:41:00 - 00:24:44:05 Rich Sweeney This is not fair. I didn't get to have lunch before this, and now I just want. 00:24:44:06 - 00:24:45:14 Bill Valentas Well, these are different pictures, right? 00:24:45:14 - 00:24:45:21 Marc Cohen Right. 00:24:45:23 - 00:24:46:09 Bill Valentas That show. 00:24:46:09 - 00:24:48:19 Marc Cohen It. We'll put some up in post. We'll have burgers flying. 00:24:48:20 - 00:24:54:00 Rich Sweeney I know, I thought we were doing like, I was just going to, like, show up and be delivered in front of us. 00:24:54:02 - 00:25:06:03 Marc Cohen I forgot I you, not you. No no no, but you're you're not right. Like, I don't think the industry can support a $15. So you know Quicksilver's burger. I just don't think people are going to go so. 00:25:06:05 - 00:25:19:12 Bill Valentas No. And, you know, I mean, the interesting point is we're at the highest beef prices we've had in a long time. Right. And the herd isn't coming back as fast because the manna stayed high. And so it's, you know, you have all these other challenges that. 00:25:19:12 - 00:25:20:12 Marc Cohen You're trying to work through. 00:25:20:13 - 00:25:24:00 Bill Valentas That are now affecting other industries that. 00:25:24:02 - 00:25:25:02 Marc Cohen Yeah. 00:25:25:04 - 00:25:45:04 Bill Valentas That's what makes it fun. I mean, I think there's so many things that go into serving against a burger that you lose sight of all the little things that have to go right for it to be the exact perfect experience. And so we focus on can we give great hospitality and then we'll see it with the other stuff square itself cigarets off out. 00:25:45:06 - 00:25:52:16 Marc Cohen And that guest feedback. Good piece. Is that through like a loyalty app a mobile app. You guys are checking online reviews sort of all of it. 00:25:52:16 - 00:26:13:14 Bill Valentas So we do all of that and we have a guest feedback tool that we use, that helps us understand our guests perception even more. We roll that into our BI tool that we use, to be able to really give KPIs around each entity, each store, so that we know kind of, okay, how are we trending based on everything else. 00:26:13:16 - 00:26:15:13 Marc Cohen In place and against each other? Right. 00:26:15:18 - 00:26:19:21 Bill Valentas So voice I guess is a big part of what that calculation does for us. 00:26:19:23 - 00:26:23:23 Marc Cohen And unlike employee feedback, this feedback is all anonymous. 00:26:24:01 - 00:26:25:19 Bill Valentas Yes. No holds barred. Oh, right. 00:26:25:20 - 00:26:28:00 Marc Cohen They are brutally honest. Where do you want them to be or not? 00:26:28:05 - 00:26:40:00 Bill Valentas Yes. And and when they didn't have a good experience, you go. Yes. You get the most honest responses at the time. We get a lot of guests. They give us good feedback. That's what the, the, the good doesn't help us as much. 00:26:40:01 - 00:26:40:19 Marc Cohen But it's nice to hear. 00:26:40:22 - 00:26:43:17 Bill Valentas It is nice to hear. It makes you feel like you're going. You're doing something. 00:26:43:17 - 00:26:44:07 Rich Sweeney Right. Right. 00:26:44:08 - 00:27:03:00 Bill Valentas And it is it is nice. But the constructive criticism back from guests is what makes us better. Because not every time. But the important thing is that you have to make a change so that when that guest goes back in, they don't have the same experience or year to lose that guest. So they give you a chance to fix your issue. 00:27:03:02 - 00:27:04:17 Bill Valentas We need to jump in and fix the issue. 00:27:04:22 - 00:27:18:13 Marc Cohen And pivot quickly, right? Yeah. Especially if you start to see those trends. It's really interesting because it's it's it's it's contagious. I've been using that word a lot to start to see it spread really quickly, whether it's one store or one area. Yeah. 00:27:18:15 - 00:27:31:18 Bill Valentas And if and if you settle for oh that's okay. We'll get past that. I want get to the next one. I think you set a bad precedent for your brand. That absolutely is. Take care of the guest. And if we're not going to get there, then what? Are we in business? What are you doing? 00:27:31:19 - 00:27:35:14 Rich Sweeney Yeah, and if it's not Craveable, they're not going to come back. 00:27:35:16 - 00:27:37:15 Bill Valentas No, I agree. 00:27:37:17 - 00:27:47:07 Marc Cohen So regardless of, you know, rising commodity prices and people getting a Frappuccino for lunch, you guys are in a pretty heavy growth mindset right now. You're growing. 00:27:47:10 - 00:28:02:16 Bill Valentas We are. Yeah. Yeah. And we're you know, we're looking at operations, you know, ways to streamline the way we do things to. And so that growth along with the streamlining, how we're doing it with the different technologies we're using is is helping us. 00:28:02:18 - 00:28:04:19 Marc Cohen It increases that scalability. 00:28:04:21 - 00:28:23:18 Bill Valentas It does it it makes it a little bit more predictable to what's what's going to happen. But it's still you still have to know your area and you still have to know, you know, we tell our operators, you still have to be in the store. You know, you have to understand what the ceiling of that store is like. 00:28:23:20 - 00:28:27:02 Bill Valentas That what is it, a is it a fun stores? 00:28:27:04 - 00:28:31:20 Marc Cohen Well, and as a guest, you know, the minute you walk in. Yeah. Like you can feel that. 00:28:31:22 - 00:28:35:09 Rich Sweeney Yeah, yeah. When you walk into the place and you're like, oh, this, this doesn't. 00:28:35:11 - 00:28:36:07 Marc Cohen Know what he's happy. 00:28:36:12 - 00:28:46:13 Rich Sweeney That's from when you walk in, you're kind of not happy. Like it's not passing the vibe checking. You kind of just slowly back out. I don't know if I want to even order because it doesn't feel like a great. 00:28:46:15 - 00:28:50:11 Marc Cohen And we did look for a while in San Diego. We did look for Freddy's and we're going to go get it. 00:28:50:11 - 00:28:51:20 Rich Sweeney We did. Apparently, though. 00:28:52:01 - 00:28:52:23 Marc Cohen It's a little outside. 00:28:53:01 - 00:29:02:03 Rich Sweeney The custard is going to be melted by the time it got here. And while I would have happily drank an entire glass of that, we said no. Yeah. So we're just going to do a field trip afterwards. 00:29:02:03 - 00:29:04:04 Bill Valentas Yeah, yeah. That's good. Yeah. Field trip works. 00:29:04:04 - 00:29:14:05 Marc Cohen So we, we always like to sort of end with, with a hot take on the industry. Something you love, something you hate about what you're seeing out in the world of restaurants these days. 00:29:14:07 - 00:29:17:08 Bill Valentas So I'll start with what I hate. Okay? And hate's a strong word. 00:29:17:09 - 00:29:23:02 Marc Cohen It is. Sorry. And I just love that you're like, I'm going to start a trend you'd like to see. Go away. 00:29:23:04 - 00:29:25:14 Bill Valentas I want delivery companies to be more transparent. 00:29:25:16 - 00:29:26:22 Marc Cohen Okay. 00:29:27:00 - 00:29:48:12 Bill Valentas I think that the idea of double dipping from both sides of the equation is, is not good. And I think they can be clearer on what they want. They can either take it from one side or the other. And I think all restaurant companies would look at that and say, okay, yeah, that makes more sense, right? I think that model has to change a little bit. 00:29:48:14 - 00:29:53:10 Marc Cohen I want them to do the same for concert tickets. So that is the same thing, right? It is. 00:29:53:10 - 00:29:53:16 Bill Valentas It is. 00:29:53:21 - 00:29:56:19 Marc Cohen Reselling. Keep service charge and keep reselling. It's that same model. 00:29:56:19 - 00:29:59:17 Bill Valentas And at some point you're gonna you're gonna piss so many people off. 00:29:59:18 - 00:30:00:13 Marc Cohen That, yeah. 00:30:00:15 - 00:30:17:01 Bill Valentas It's going to be hard to justify. It's already and but I think a lot of people don't understand how it all works, you know? So that's that's the piece. And if it was just more clear, I think that would make things so much better, at least for, for me. So if it was just me worried about it, and. 00:30:17:03 - 00:30:28:10 Rich Sweeney Now that things are most people, you know, it's like it's that thing of like trying to figure it out and then you're looking at it like, well, where did this come from? And then you're like looking at the receipt like, but I thought, I have a membership that I pay this company for so I don't get to see. 00:30:28:10 - 00:30:40:23 Rich Sweeney But then there's a different scene and then there's the fee for the seat. Yeah. Just it just keeps stacking on and on. Like I said, by the time you're done looking at it, it's like trying to read old school stereo instructions and you're like, this doesn't make sense. Just give me my burger and my customer. 00:30:41:05 - 00:30:52:18 Bill Valentas You. Yeah. And the thing that I like the most, I think it's the restaurant industry is always evolving. Unfortunate that some of pops. 00:30:52:20 - 00:30:53:12 Marc Cohen Yeah. 00:30:53:14 - 00:30:55:21 Bill Valentas You know, have to close down some that because some of the better restaurants. 00:30:55:21 - 00:30:56:19 Marc Cohen Are on the process. Yes. 00:30:56:20 - 00:31:05:15 Bill Valentas They're, they, they've started there. Right. But the evolution of tech in, you know, in smaller restaurants always makes it harder. 00:31:05:17 - 00:31:12:23 Marc Cohen Yeah, it's probably the last thing they think about spending money on. Right. It should be one of the first, you know, in order to keep an eye on that bottle. 00:31:13:00 - 00:31:26:08 Bill Valentas Yeah. And so it's, you know, the idea of hanging out of some of those bottle pops and, and seeing what they bring because they have a lot of good ideas. It's more about the food and not about the process. 00:31:26:08 - 00:31:26:22 Marc Cohen Right. 00:31:27:00 - 00:31:35:14 Bill Valentas You know, it's it's great to see that reinvigorated. Okay. And when you're a big scale, how do you make it like a marble top. And how do you focus. 00:31:35:14 - 00:31:35:20 Marc Cohen On that. 00:31:35:20 - 00:31:49:16 Bill Valentas Feeling. You keep improving and not just yeah, we had a great year last year. Let's just rest up. Let's just kind of coast. It's always changing and always, you know, there's always a challenge. And so that's what makes it a lot of fun to work in restaurants. 00:31:49:18 - 00:31:51:10 Rich Sweeney Was that yeah that's great. 00:31:51:15 - 00:31:54:03 Marc Cohen It's close on that. Bill, thanks for joining us today. 00:31:54:05 - 00:31:54:20 Bill Valentas Thanks for having me. 00:31:54:20 - 00:32:02:13 Marc Cohen This was awesome. You can find Bill on LinkedIn and Freddy's through their websites. Easy enough. Freddy's dot com, and of course all over social media. 00:32:02:15 - 00:32:20:11 Rich Sweeney And of course, thank you for joining us. Remember, we hope you have a great day shift, week month, all of it. You know, wherever you're at. And, if you got time online, you've got time to listen while you clean. So make sure you're liking and subscribing wherever you check out podcasts, whether that's on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, we're all over the place. 00:32:20:11 - 00:32:30:07 Rich Sweeney And you can follow us on social media, LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook. So come check it out. And if all else fails, come visit us at restaurant three 65.com. Oh, thanks so much, the speaker. 00:32:30:07 - 00:36:35:12 Marc Cohen Thank you from San Diego. We're out. 00:36:35:13 - 00:36:39:00 Bill Valentas But I think it's the steps that lead up to the aim. 00:36:39:02 - 00:36:42:03 Marc Cohen I know you want to call it a TV. I know I do it all the time. 00:36:42:05 - 00:36:45:06 Rich Sweeney This is the part where we have to insert the graphic underneath the Sunday.