Burnt Hands Perspective
This is a raw and unfiltered look into the state of the restaurant industry as a whole, powered by longtime friends Chef/Owner Antonio Caruana and former bartender turned News Anchor/TV Host Kristen Crowley.
Representing all aspects of the industry from the front to the back of the house we will dig into the juiciest stories and pull from decades of experience in one of the sexiest and most exciting industries in the world...the food and beverage industry.
From international chefs, sommeliers, industry pros, and so much more, this show will cover all of it without a filter. You turn up the volume; we'll turn up the heat.
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Burnt Hands Perspective
The Reality of Opening a Restaurant from YouTube Fame: Mr. Make It Happen is back!
Ever wondered what happens when social media stardom collides with the gritty reality of restaurant ownership? This episode pulls back the curtain on that journey as we welcome back Mr. Make It Happen, Matt Price, who shares the raw, unfiltered truth about opening his hot new DC restaurant, FRAICHE.
After building a 4 million+ following online Mr. Make It Happen really did make it happen by opening a brick and mortar restaurant in DC. We talked about this in our first episode with Matt in season one of the show (go back and check it out) and Chef Tony has provided consulting and feedback for the past year to help. It has been a journey and we are getting real and raw with the reality of opening a spot and delivering daily.
"The food side of things has been the least of my worries," he confesses, shattering the typical chef narrative. Instead, we got real on the challenges that actually determine restaurant success: assembling a reliable team, managing constantly breaking equipment, dealing with slim profit margins, and handling customer expectations when you're known from YouTube. Chef Tony and Matt agree on the advice to double whatever budget you've planned for opening a restaurant might save aspiring restaurateurs from financial disaster. Because it IS going to happen!
We went into practical restaurant management – from handling employees who take naps behind dumpsters to addressing bad reviews with FBI-level investigation. We explore the psychological journey of perfectionism that all restaurant owners face, "It's going to take you two to three years before it's not even going to be a thought in your head yet, because you're going to have a very hard time releasing it." - Chef Tony
Perhaps most valuable is the counterintuitive wisdom that resonates throughout: "Don't worry about the food. Your menu should be so secure that you're going to build an empire around it." This perspective shift – focusing on operations, systems, and business fundamentals rather than culinary creativity – offers a roadmap for anyone considering the leap from social media to brick-and-mortar. It is time to treat your restaurant LIKE A BUSINESS!
Ready to see these principles in action? Visit FRAICHE at 3345 14th Street Northwest in Washington DC's Columbia Heights neighborhood, open every day except Monday, and experience the culmination of this journey yourself.
Thank you again Matt for continuing to share your journey with us on the show and being a supporter of Luce as well. We can't wait to get up to DC!
Support him by subscribing to his YouTube here:
https://www.youtube.com/ @MrMakeItHappen
Check out his Make It Happen products here:
https://mrmakeithappen.com
Follow him on Instagram here:
https://www.instagram.com/_mrmakeithappen_
Welcome to the show! Burnt Hands Perspective
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*The views and opinions on this show are meant for entertainment purposes only. They do not reflect the views of our sponsors. We are not here to babysit your feelings, if you are a true industry pro, you will know that what we say is meant to make you laugh and have a great time. If you don't get that, this is not the podcast for you. You've been warned. Enjoy the ride!
What's up, guys? It's Mr, make it Happen and you're tuned in to the Burnt Hands Perspective Podcast.
Speaker 2:Alright, shoot days always fun. Always a good time Always fun and the best part about it is that, no matter what the hell we got going on, no one realizes how much it takes to get it here. So it's like we just look cool on the screen right now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm not cool right now. I'm fucking, I don't know it's bright.
Speaker 2:But what I'm getting at is the shoot. Days always make it better. They do no matter what happens, especially when we have great guests like him.
Speaker 3:Because we make it happen. Because we make it happen, hence the name. No pun intended. Sorry, that was cheesy.
Speaker 2:Well, it's good, though that's what we need. We need some cheese, Parmesan, margiano, whatever it on. So it's good to always bring you back, because you're like us. You're always into something. You're always moving, shaking and baking. You always got something cracking, which is good, because I'm the same way. Kristen's definitely the same way. We're always trying to reinvent what we can do next. I don't know if reinvent's the right word. What do you think?
Speaker 3:Grow expand, which you've done. I mean yeah, that's why we today, because we wanted to see, because it's like this you've had this trajectory of turning, you know, social media, youtube stardom into an actual brick and mortar, and we talked about it on the last episode where chef was giving you some advice on opening, building the restaurant out. Now it's all happened and it's here.
Speaker 2:It's open for sure so what are you thinking, man? Let's go, let's talk about this, because what? What the listeners need to know here? I think some of the people tuning in they all know who you are. Like Kristen just said, you're kind of a phenomenon when it comes to social media. Everybody knows who you are. You do a great job, but now here you are in brick and mortar where you have to prove yourself and your team and your capabilities, and now it's a whole different thing because the camera doesn't shut off. For sure there's no retakes.
Speaker 2:Exactly. The likes walk through the door or they do not.
Speaker 1:The likes walk through the door or they do not. Yep.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, so go ahead. Tell us what's your experience, man and I want to chop this up a little bit because it's important for people to know I'm always the chef who started with no social media didn't exist, and then I've tried to work myself into social media not so successful, right, when it comes, compared to someone like you. However, flip the thing around and I'm a chef who's luckily very successful in brick and mortar and with actual people, and it's hard, so you know. Flipping it around on your end is you're now a social media guy flipping over to the restaurant, right, so go ahead.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean I'm just learning a lot every day. I mean there's something new every day. I think you said one of the key words a minute ago team. I think that's the more difficult part, in my opinion is assembling the right team, having people that care Nobody's going to care as much as you, but care enough that they can stay on the team, care about the guest experience, care about the little things not walking over trash that's on the floor, cleaning up, just doing the small things that I kind of lose sleep over. The food side of things, I don't want to say it's been easy, but in relation to everything else, that's been like the least of my my worries. My worries have been more on the service side things breaking down. We're in an old, historic building in dc, so constantly having to repair things, replace things, just every day something new, whether it's a dishwasher, a leak, a walk-in, whatever you name it.
Speaker 2:Whatever could break has broken, it will break, and even if you think you fixed it just now, all you did was bought yourself time Right, because that's just the way it is. This equipment, everything we use, is nonstop.
Speaker 3:It doesn't stop your refrigerators never take a break your freezers never stop.
Speaker 2:You know, the ovens, ranges, gas lines, they never stop. Everything's consistently moving parts at all times and people got to take care of the stuff.
Speaker 1:That's the thing, like I said, the team part of it is like just use a little common sense, let's treat it like it's yours.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and a lot of them don't. So at this point, how long have you been open?
Speaker 1:We opened we had a soft opening in the middle of February. We officially opened probably the end of February going into.
Speaker 1:March. So from March till now went on about four months. But yeah, I mean things. Luckily we've been busy. I mean the business has been really good, especially for a brand-new restaurant and in a very competitive market like DC. There's tons of great options to eat in DC in a very you know walkable city Per capita. There's probably more great restaurants there than I mean outside of like New York and some of the you know mega cities.
Speaker 2:And there's a lot of. You know, you have everything from Michelin stars all the way down to food trucks that are phenomenal, so the options are endless. But the good part about it, though, is I'm always a big fan of this. People say well, what if another Italian opened a restaurant? I'm opening up a deli. Now, three doors down, there's another deli opening. Now, all of a sudden, sucks for them. Well, that's what I say, but not only that. If you're good at what you do, your product's good, your knowledge is good, you have a reputation and you're putting out a product. If there's three or four more delis, that's just three or four more reasons for more people to come downtown, sure. So, as long as you're putting out that product and you put out a good product. So that's what you have to do is keep the product right.
Speaker 2:And people are going to come Because out of all those people, especially in DC right, when you have a city with all these numbers and all these people, you have more options because there's just plenty to go around. Here, where I am in Chesapeake, there's only so many options because we have a per capita right so you can only have so many great restaurants for all the people that go to this type of restaurant in this community to go to. So you have to be the best here because you have to be the first choice. Sure, over there you can dabble Right and as long as your product is going good, you're going to. You're going to win that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and consistency is something that we're really focused on, particularly with the food. I think we've we've gotten to a better place there, but just you know, I'm still trying to get the service where I want it to be. But just you know, I'm still trying to get the service where I want it to be and it's just like you said, the same thing with customer options of where they can go, worker options of where they can work. There's a lot of places in DC you can go make good money as a server or a bartender.
Speaker 2:It's just trying to acquire the talent and then keep the talent.
Speaker 1:We'll have a great. I think our line cooks are phenomenal, but some of these guys will sell you out for 50 cents more per quick, per dollar.
Speaker 2:I mean my analogy to that is this I can give one of my employees a brand new car, yeah, and they would leave me the second. Someone gave them a place to work, to park it for free if someone gave them a free parking spot. They would leave here with their brand new car and go park it for free. Definitely, you see what I'm saying. That's, some of them are like that. Then again you have some that are loyal as shit.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But the loyal ones are going to help you succeed and that's going to help you grow, and they're going to be. Everything's going to work well. It's not as detrimental as the ones that are shitty, though.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:When someone's shitty in the kitchen, immediately known than someone who's loyal and cool.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Their presence is known because you can rely on them, got it. That works well. But if you have someone who's toxic in the kitchen or lazy or something that is felt instantly, Got to get rid of them.
Speaker 1:One of the best pieces of advice I heard from somebody was like as soon as you see a red flag, clip them, Clip it. Like don't give them a second chance, and it's easy to say that sitting here right now, it's hard to do.
Speaker 2:But it's hard to do because that red flag is also something you need to do to continue. So sometimes getting rid of a red flag just like this is typically someone's advice that doesn't have to deal with the aftermath.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So usually a restaurant owner will be. I'm a chef owner, so I'm in the kitchen nonstop and I'm also on the floor watching everything because I want my food to come out a proper way, all that and so on. So if you get rid of a red flag sometimes and you're in the kitchen working with that red flag, getting rid of that red flag may not be convenient, because now who's going to do the work Sometimes dealing with that red flag is necessary.
Speaker 1:We had a busy weekend this weekend. What are you going to do? You just kick the guy at work to grill you.
Speaker 2:How are you going to go out and take care of everything else? I mean, yes, I will. I always will, if I have to. They're going to be. They're going to be that way and they're not going to stop. They're only going to get worse For sure, because once comfort sits in and now they know they can get over on you. Even the best employees get comfortable. They have their little tricks, their little things. They come in, they know when to sneak out, and that's okay. But when someone who's a shithead gets comfortable?
Speaker 3:That is a problem.
Speaker 2:We just had to let a guy go on Sunday.
Speaker 1:this past Sunday I forgot to send you the picture.
Speaker 3:One of my guys got a storage.
Speaker 2:Oh man, I love the pictures.
Speaker 3:Now we need the picture.
Speaker 1:Now we need the picture we got a storage in the back for like extra refrigeration and whatnot.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 1:So one of my chefs is going back to grab something to bring back for service. He sees some you know dress shoes just sticking out from behind a trash. Can the guy's drunk middle of the day Dress shoes? One of our busboys, drunk, laid out asleep on the ground.
Speaker 2:On the clock Like the Wizard of Oz. The shoes are hanging out Wicked witch.
Speaker 1:He sends me a picture. He's on the clock, asleep in the back, drunk.
Speaker 2:Did you take his shoes off and his feet curled up?
Speaker 3:No, but I clocked him out immediately. You should have stole his shoes. I just stole his shoes, Dude.
Speaker 2:one time I had a kid put an iron directly on my brand new VanCat leather one brown, one in the back. Hot iron on there. You know what his excuse was. I didn't think it was still hot. You're fucking ironing literally right now. Skylar, remember this kid.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:Skylar's back there. She's kind of cracking up a little bit. She knows what time it is.
Speaker 3:I'm trying to remember. The worst one, varte, was when you went back and we used to have drinks that all had whipped cream on them and just like cheesy drinks at the oceanfront frozen drinks and all the whipped cream. You'd keep grabbing cans and none of them worked and cans and none of them worked.
Speaker 3:And these fuckers are back there just doing whippets all day from the kitchen staff just sitting there, and so you've got literally 36 bottles of whipped cream you can't use. So you just ate all that cost and they're just high for 10 seconds and then going back out there maybe five right, not even that it was so dumb.
Speaker 1:I'm like guys, come on, man, like we know it's you like?
Speaker 2:there's no way, we're not gonna know. It's not us, yeah us, yeah, you got it wasn't me.
Speaker 1:Come on, I got a thing, like when people are like oh, we're having a, this is a good shift, I'm like shh, yeah, not even nine o'clock yet, so that's going good then.
Speaker 3:Like the shift part, but we, like you, have to talk about the opening process too, because this was, your like, first experience opening a building.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's been a grind man. I mean, I've had to be there Like I got an apartment in DC now, so I'm actively splitting time between here and DC. I think part of it is I just don't have enough people that can get the job done at the level that I would want it to get done.
Speaker 2:Well, you won't yet, man, it's going to take you a year or two to understand that. And here's another thing I'm going to tell you, and I can tell everybody out there listening it's going to take you two to three years before it's not even going to be a thought in your head yet, because you're going to have a very hard time releasing it.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Whether there's someone there you can count on or not, that person's only going to make you feel better while you're there. It's going to take you a very long time. It took me almost nine years before I could walk out of my place and open up another one, because I was so adamant about being there all the time. Yeah and yes, no matter what. No disrespect to my team. I love them. They're amazing, but no matter what, the standard is going to drop a little bit because they're not you yeah they want to get through the day.
Speaker 2:They want to get. They want to make sure you're satisfied. They don't want to get yelled. They want to make sure everything's good. Don, they don't want to get yelled, they want to make sure everything's good. Don't get me wrong. They do have a passion about them, which is very clear. However, it's still not you right. So you have to understand that when you are ready to make the next move or take a day off, you have to give up some level of that expectation or you're going to be chained to it.
Speaker 1:And that's okay. That's a balance I'm trying to figure out. It'll take time.
Speaker 2:And I don't know if you'll figure it out until the day you're ready. A day will come where you're just ready to say, okay, I'll let that go, that little piece of paper on the floor where you would just flip out over someone walking over.
Speaker 2:You'll just walk over nonchalantly and just pick it up and you're going to choose your battles differently. Right, you know what I'm saying? Because there's so many little things that happen that are never going to go the way you want it. If it does, dude, you're going to move on to something else. Yeah, because now it's going to be boring, right For sure. So, like Kristen said at the beginning here, when opening up, what recommendations do you have? Everyone's already seen you on the show. If not, go back and check, can check them out. They can see them on your websites and instagram. We'll plug that in a little while. But, um, how, how do you? What do you recommend? As far as what would you have done differently? Man, go right to the fucking dirt. What would you have done, right?
Speaker 1:away. I would have taken my time making, uh, the, the important hires like the, the cornerstone pieces, the gm, the, the executive chef or whoever's going to be there when you're not there, kind of deal, this, whatever you want to call them, cdc, chef, chef, whoever that person is. If you're the executive chef, obviously, whoever's under you, whoever you're trust, whoever you trust the most in the in the building, take your time making those hires. I kind of pulled the trigger a little quick on a couple of those hires that I ended up regretting um, whatever your budget is, uh, throw that shit away.
Speaker 2:What's that?
Speaker 1:Add a double yeah, at least. And you know, do your due diligence. Like have somebody, an expert, come in and like give you a full rundown, like come in here and pick this place apart, tell me everything that's wrong with it, instead of like going into it with you know, let's hope for the best and just, you know, do what we want to put a blind eye to the actual problems. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I was getting ready to get into a contract or a lease with some situation and it just things kept piling and escalating, and what it was that piling up for me was money. Yeah, yes, you're going to help me. Yes, you're going to help me, but you're going to help me with shit I shouldn't need help with. You're going to help me with a portion of the money I have to spend.
Speaker 2:That's not what I want to hear, because it's not this, it's not ready yeah and these are things I've learned growing right just like you said, and and when I when this place, when I built this place, I had a lot of great, great assistance and we had the best matter of fact, we'll be interviewing one of my designers, or my designer heather, who has this type of advice. Yeah, I call her now for everything. Yeah, even if I'm having an idea or a thought thing, I'll, I'll pass it over, kristen, we'll talk.
Speaker 3:I'm gonna check you a little bit, like you kind of need some people to say no right, you need the people that have either been there or are willing to stand up to you as an owner or, you know some, anyone with notoriety be like no that's not.
Speaker 2:have you ran that Correct, have you?
Speaker 3:actually ran pro forma for the next five years. That's exactly right. You know exactly what's going to happen. Then you can say to them straight up.
Speaker 2:How much is this going? How is my vision? If you find someone that works with you, well, Heather and I work really good together. We have a really good vision together. When it comes to what I want in a restaurant, she's really good Heather and say hey, how much is this going to cost me? Right, and she'll tell me a million and a half, at least three million Right away, no doubt. You know what I'm saying and it's like, okay, that was a good idea.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that was a great idea. It might not be practical.
Speaker 2:It might not be practical for that application we could take three million somewhere else, so on, so on, so on. Just like you said, if you're going to go into a building and you don't inspect the building to see what the problem is, yeah, these are things that listeners need to know, especially my camera. All you chefs out there who are going to open your restaurant and go open up your little fucking pop-up cool man, I don't want to down you.
Speaker 2:Everyone has the right to go do this. Yeah, understand what it is you're doing. It's being a chef owner is way different than working for someone as a chef for a very long time. You're always underneath the cushion of that umbrella. You're always under the umbrella of someone else and it seems easy. But when you go and open up your own place, you don't worry about the food. Don't even worry about your food, because your food can't do shit unless it gets to the table. You know what I mean. It can't do shit unless it gets to the table. You know what I mean. It can't get to the pan, or it can't get to this, that and the other. It can't do shit, right? So you need to make sure that your food is the last thing you worry about, because you should be as confident in the chef and your food, no matter what you're doing. So if you're so confident in your food, stop worrying about the food.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's everything else. Every chef I know is so worried about them. Chef, you've got to see this menu I'm working on. That's cool, dude. But what are you going to do about your restroom? How about the floors? How about this, that and the other? Don't worry about the food.
Speaker 1:Your food should be People having clean towels. What do you do when you get a fruit fly infestation? There's a million things that could happen Exactly.
Speaker 2:And you're lock in your food should be so secure. Your menu should be so fucking direct that you're going to build an empire around it. You shouldn't even be worried about your food right now. Your food is the least thing. You should be so confident in your food that you should go to bed at night, not worry about my food. My deli is opening soon. Haven't even considered a menu. My sandwiches, my menu, my salads, all the accoutrements, everything I'm going to be doing I'm not even worried about that. I'll tell you what put all my ingredients in the building and then I'm going to make a menu in about an hour and a half.
Speaker 1:That's experience. Yeah, because when you're doing it for the first time, you kind of focus on what you think is the most important thing, but you don't know what you don't know thing, but you don't, but you don't know what you don't know. Yeah, so, like this is good advice and people should definitely, definitely listen to it. That's something that that I kind of didn't really, I didn't know what I was getting myself into completely, and I'm good for just jumping in the pool, so, um, that's that's kind of what.
Speaker 1:What ended up happening for me too is just like I'm learning all of the the P&L stuff, like how to, how, like how to make this thing profitable, like I know how to make the food.
Speaker 3:Well, the numbers I mean and that's the part that we always say it, and I mean we say it in marketing, with our clients all the time. And you know, being in the restaurants for so long, I had to deal with the liquor costs and things like that, but I didn't care as much about the big picture because I was again just an employee or a manager.
Speaker 3:I, I was sitting there grinding numbers all night and wondering how everybody was going to get paid. So you're the only person doing that and it is hard. I mean you just have to actually treat it like I say you are a brand, you've created a massive brand, but you are your brand. Your brand is your business, and if you don't treat it as a business, you're going to fail.
Speaker 1:That would be my other piece of advice is to try to focus on having those systems in place so that when you open, you can plug everything into your spreadsheet and it'll spit out. You know you're at 15% here, you're at 7% here, you're 3% over over here. Next month you need to watch your labor. You got to do this, or even know what your labor should be or know what your projections are in all those spaces, Labor is always going to be the issue.
Speaker 2:Man Employees and labor are always going to be the biggest issue in the restaurant business because you have to have them yeah, and a lot of them don't have things bringing back your wait staff. They get paid the least by the hour. It's the best on your employee as far as your payroll is right.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Because it's the best. However, they bring the most from it, so you're paying them the least and they're bringing the most. However, a dishwasher essential, very key.
Speaker 2:I pay mine very well, yeah, but their position is a necessity, not a bring it doesn't bring money in right yeah it's a hard cost, it's a loss yeah, period, no matter how you look at it, when financially it's a loss, it's needed to be done. But there's no profit coming from their position whatsoever, right? Bartenders, servers, bus people, kitchen support staff their job is directly to the customer, at least adding money to the thing. So you got to go in the kitchen where a lot of the some of the places places prep salads, things like that. Their portion is not outweighing their salary, right, that?
Speaker 1:makes sense, and that's another. The labor, particularly on the prep side, is something that I've been working with or talking to my team about. It's like if you give a human eight hours to do a thing, they're going to take eight hours to do that thing. Give them six, yeah. Instead of coming in at seven in the morning and leaving at three, make them come in at nine and I bet you they get the same exact amount of work?
Speaker 2:Of course they will, because they're going to take advantage of everything. The only problem is when you have someone come in at six and it takes them fucking seven and it used to take them nine. You see what I'm saying and they're still not doing it, because they still learn how to snake and take naps behind a dumpster with their new shoes on.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know what I mean. Take a quick nap. New shoe goofing. Well, so we've seen the restaurant line. I mean it looks awesome. So I guess, since we're going to have design coming up, how did you? Did you kind of have a vision for what you wanted visually?
Speaker 1:Did you have a designer come in, jimmy Drummond, who's very well-known in the DC area. He's done a lot of very, very well-known restaurants, big name. He did the initial design. Then we had another team come in and kind of finish the job in terms of the actual labor and the construction.
Speaker 2:So it's a dance between two partners, and that's you with your vision and him with his idea of how he's going to bring it to life, while they're always going to add their twist, for sure, and and sometimes, though, with me and heather, her twist always ends up cool yeah it works out well because it's a it's another view I haven't seen right or she has access to things that I haven't had access to, or stuff and and it really just refines perfectly.
Speaker 2:Now I have worked with someone before that was not on the same page Right, and that was a goddamn nightmare, and I said look. I just sat down with this person and I said hey look, I am. This is not going to work. Your vision is not my vision. We are on two totally different planets. Yeah, you know what I mean. You're trying to decorate Mars and I'm on Uranus. Yeah, you know what I'm saying Literally.
Speaker 3:Literally, I'm on your ass all the time.
Speaker 2:I'm on your ass. I'm all up in Uranus.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but he did it. He did a good job. We kind of had a couple of like well-known. There's a guy, kelly Tauszig. He does the Wall Festival in DC. It's like a street art festival, biggest art festival in DC every year. So he came in and did a mural at the bar and then that kind of got us doing a couple different art pieces throughout the restaurant. That came together nicely. There's like three separate dining areas in the restaurant. They each have their own kind of vibe.
Speaker 3:Oh cool.
Speaker 1:You've got the street art at the bar with the mural. When you first walk in it's like uh, the cherry blossoms in dc are a huge thing so there's like a cherry blossom uh mural in the front and then in the back. It's more of like the the date night kind of vibe that's good.
Speaker 2:That's good because you have your different perspectives in different places.
Speaker 1:If you could, eat there three times and feel like you were at a different time. That's's cool, that's a fun concept.
Speaker 2:Actually, kristen and I are going to go up there and we're going to actually do something.
Speaker 3:We have to go, we have to see it, we've been doing this for two years now you and I talking.
Speaker 2:I've been watching your progression and because I've been so busy right now I don't know what the hell is going on here, but we are getting so freaking busy that I'm having to reconfigure how we're doing things in the kitchen and how we're taking our reservations, because it is affecting the quality of service, because there's so many people coming and, unfortunately, the type of people that are coming don't understand what we're doing and they don't have the patience for what it is we're doing. And the more people that come, the more patience is required, because we can't expedite, we don't have microwaves. I'm not going to dummy stuff down to make it happen.
Speaker 3:No.
Speaker 2:Your food doesn't come out in 10, 15 minutes. It doesn't come out so right. So people have to understand. When it is busier, so are we.
Speaker 3:Your food's going to take 45 minutes. Still takes me the same amount of time.
Speaker 2:You got it. You know what I'm saying. To come feed something doesn't change the time frame. To take something out of the sous vide and let it set and then and then sear. It is the same time, but now I only have seven of them to do instead of two.
Speaker 1:You know it doesn't stop, you know. Yeah, how do you deal with that when you, when you have like bad reviews, or people come in and and say oh, you have we have some bad reviews lately.
Speaker 2:I'm not gonna lie, we always have really good I think everybody has, at least of course you're not doing good. If you're not causing hell, you've got to raise hell. If you have bad reviews, you have to instantly go through them. Look at all of them. Read the ones that make sense, fuck the ones that don't.
Speaker 2:Because you can't get crazy over everything. You know what I mean. So what I do is we take them my manager meetings every Thursday. We'll go through the reviews and we'll put them in categories and we'll go by kind of like averages On the average. They're talking about this, right, it seems like there's four.
Speaker 2:Right, there's four reviews coming in in the last week bad ones which is not heard of. It doesn't happen like that, but when they do, we're all down. We are all down and we're instantly going into the situation room. So once we sit there, we go over it every Thursday and we're going to sit there and, on the average, look at what's going on. All right, obviously there's a problem with people taking too long to get this. Let's attack it. Why, right?
Speaker 3:And then we'll frigging.
Speaker 2:Do the FBI board on the wall when they're trying to find a serial killer, right? Tracking everything reason why you go through the numbers what time they got in. Look at their reservations. People don't realize that when they put a bad review, they're getting interrogated. Yeah, because we've got to find out who they are, what level of food they're at, what type of atmosphere they are, so we can really gauge what we're doing and what we're going with. Fbi level research.
Speaker 3:Yeah, whatever you want to call it right Food beverage investigation, right, fbi.
Speaker 2:So what we're doing is we're just trying to make sure of that, right? So you have to analyze why they're talking, what it is and then nip it in the bud. What it is. Typically when it comes to us, what it comes down to is overload too fast in the kitchen. Yeah, too many reservations at the wrong time. The Resi system that we use shout out Resi, that'll be some sponsorship money, please. Thank you, just get up with our assistant. Anyhow, we have to take our time now and we cap it. We have to rearrange the dining room right now. We're going to talk about it this thursday. This is a hot topic, right? So if you ignore all the residents, all the uh reviews because some of them are legitimate for sure I'll read a couple today that actually legitimate I have one that's legitimate, because we can't always bastardize the reviews no, but it's fun as hell.
Speaker 3:When someone's a knucklehead, well you can tell, and one's like an anomaly, but then when it's consistent more than two or three.
Speaker 1:You know there's an issue, who knows what they're talking about? And when one is valid, then it's like that one kind of hits home when it's just somebody that's sure.
Speaker 2:and here's matt, this is what I'm going to tell you, and everybody else too. When it comes to reviews, when it comes to perfection, that piece of paper you talked to on the floor before earlier, you said something about a piece of paper on the floor that they walk by. Yeah, that is a perfect example, right, because it all happens at the front door, right there at the front door, as soon as they walk through your front door and something goes wrong, right there.
Speaker 3:Yep.
Speaker 2:You've already changed the tide of the day. You've already changed it right. Yep, you've already created some sort of fixing mode. Now you have to fix it if something went wrong. A snarky attitude from the hostess their reservation got jammed up. Or you're kind of telling them they don't have a reservation. They did. And how you present it, all the things. When they walk in, there's no place to sit. No one grabbed their jacket. They sat there for 15 minutes and no one even came. Anything that could go wrong at the beginning is going to escalate?
Speaker 2:Yeah, because everybody wants a story In every review, even if it was. Oh, we sat 10 minutes before we got served, okay, well, if that wasn't properly addressed now couldn't stop staring While I sat there for 10 minutes. They're reviewing.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Now I sat there for 10 minutes and I was staring at a piece of toilet paper that must have been on someone's shoe at the bathroom and no one picked that up. Uh, by the time the waiter finally got to us, I realized that my fork had stains on it because I was sitting there staring. This is how bad reviews happen, yeah, and the food got there. And finally the food got there. The food was okay, it was decent. We'd probably come back for the food, but we more than likely won't because of everything else. That means the food was fucking excellent and they had the goddamn create a story to make their valid, to make their valid right. They have to be valid and they have to have a really good reason to bitch. So they're gonna create a Just an avalanche of shit that they're gonna pick out. There was chips on the wall, the, the weights that everyone's aloof.
Speaker 3:They're gonna make things up to me dusty. There was a dust bunny in the bathroom corner. There's a bat up there.
Speaker 2:I had a guy mad because one of our light bulbs was out in a chandelier. It's been out since we opened because it was blown during the process of building. The problem is it's a $30,000 chandelier and fixing it right now is probably not good.
Speaker 3:It's not the highest priority.
Speaker 2:Well, we're going to damn fixture, so that's what needs to happen. But people don't understand that and they would have never said a damn thing.
Speaker 3:They wouldn't have noticed it at all. If they were happy and in a good mood, they wouldn't have cared.
Speaker 1:I've had people come in and rave like type up a raving review and then leave a four star.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and they still do that too, because they think a four star is bad. They don't understand what they're doing.
Speaker 2:when they do that, they they're trying to save face for themselves, Like nobody's perfect or I'm such a good reviewer that I have to save the perfect. I hate those people. Yeah, you're not David Portnoy with a pizza slice, bro you know what. I'm saying, is that his name David? I think so, david Portnoy.
Speaker 1:Well, and it's funny because you're new and you're in like a highly competitive market.
Speaker 3:So they've already started your website. They're judging that. They're judging walking up to the building. They're judging their first step in, like they're starting to judge you before you.
Speaker 1:So if you're not having your shit together and that's what I try to articulate to the staff- is like nobody's going to be like hey, you know, chef Mark fucked up today.
Speaker 3:He shit up today. He shit the bed. They're like matt can't cook. I knew that youtube guy was.
Speaker 1:You're not even there that night like yeah he fucked up my whole meal.
Speaker 2:I need you guys to pay attention well, here's another thing that goes on too sometimes, and people are used to seeing me. They're coming here, they see me in the news, they see me on the magazine, whatever it may be, and then when they come here for the first time, they're excited to see me and it might be a night. I'm off, yeah, so because I wasn't here, everything was not the same. Not understanding that I probably didn't cook it anyway if I was here. I have a phenomenal team back there and they all cook amazing. I go through all of it with them. We train, we teach, we talk to each other, we taste each other's food, right, so I could be literally here and someone would be happy because I'm here not realizing I didn't cook your food.
Speaker 2:That same person. I won't be here, you know, think that I. It wasn't good because I wasn't here making and it's.
Speaker 1:It's impossible for you to cook everything. Hell, no, I don't know, I can't if it's 130 guests in the dining room. I can't cook that many things.
Speaker 3:No.
Speaker 1:I can cook a station or maybe even two. I can touch two stations. I'm not gonna be able to cook everything that you ate tonight. Like people are like did you cook this? I tell people all the time if you want me to cook for you first show up on a night I'm here which is pretty much every night.
Speaker 2:Secondly, on the weekends we have chef specials. Yeah, I cook them.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Me. I'm the chef, it's my special, I cook. If you want me to cook for you, come on the weekend and order the specials, and I am literally cooking for you now. You now have a personal chef.
Speaker 1:Yeah, period. But even then the prep team probably did you know something, they might have pickled the.
Speaker 2:Of course they did. You know what I mean. Of course they did. It's always you can't do it all. No-transcript. Other things to worry about. I'm worried about cooking. I'm worried about why, the why the wine room door is cracked open and we're losing the cooling system.
Speaker 3:Air out of there you know what I mean.
Speaker 2:there's a lot of things going on, but right now the team is solid and you're going to find as you grow that you have new car syndrome, right, remember when you got a new car and you see a little piece of dust on the carpet and you pick it up, get all pissed off, go run the thing through the wash and get your detailer over.
Speaker 2:Then in about two years you'll see dirt on the floor and be like, ah, fuck it, I'm going to get another car one day anyway, right? So I'm not saying you're going to say, oh, fuck it, don't get me wrong, right, but it's at the beginning, the first few years, man, every little thing is going to drive you bananas.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it is, and it will, and it will and you'll lose sleep at night and your wife is going to be like dude. I didn't sign up for this. Yeah, neither did you. Right? You know what I?
Speaker 1:mean know right and and then you start.
Speaker 1:If you have that passion in you, bro, it's over, it just gets worse.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that would be the other last piece of advice that I would give to answer the original question is if you have partners, sit down with them and have very real, honest conversations about what I can expect you to contribute to this and what I, what you're not willing to contribute to it.
Speaker 1:Because in the beginning everybody's like, oh, I'll do this, I'll do that, I'll do. Most of them aren't going to do shit, or not half of what they say that they're going to do. So it's like, let's just have a real like I'm okay with doing the work, that's fine, and if you're going to write the checks, I'm cool with that too. Like, whatever the conversation may be, or whatever the agreement that y'all have needs to be outlined very, very well documented, and you know we all agree on it, because that's something not not necessarily just with this restaurant, but other business ventures I've had in the past it's like I always run into like all right, well, I end up like kind of putting it on my back because I don't want it to right, we don't want to fail and to piggyback off that, bro.
Speaker 2:Bro, I'm going to go a step further and my advice when it comes to partners is don't have any. That's a good advice. Don't have any Seriously, because you're going to make a big decision, right, when you make a partnership. But the other problem is this If you do have one now, if you do like you're saying, you have a difference. So some people confuse the two ideologies. Some say, yeah, I'm a partner in that place. No, you're not. You're a financial investor, right, and that needs to be said, like you said at the beginning. So you have to know your roles, because if you're an investor, then step off and let me do my work. You've invested, you did yours. Now Let me make sure we can pay back this investment, right, right, if you're an investor, partner, you need to say that Now. If you're a partner in sweat equity, you need to say that, because now you owe back that money because you weren't a financial investor. So you're absolutely right, you need to really streamline what it is each person is doing.
Speaker 3:And the same thing in your industry, your other industry with Reframe. Yeah, with marketing it's the same thing. I mean I have a partner in my business and you know, I mean we have a partner, like we have actual roles dictated. Who does what who's?
Speaker 2:better at what?
Speaker 3:And solid and outside of that also kind of the moral compass and what you want in again like I keep saying five to ten years. So we had, you know, very clear expectations for years one, two, three, Like we're not taking money, You're not getting paid, I'm not getting paid.
Speaker 3:That's an important conversation so you need to know what you're willing to sacrifice to get to the end result, whatever that may be If you're building to sell, if you're building to scale, if you're building to franchise, whatever. So I think it's a lot, yeah, but being very, very specific and getting everything in writing is like two of the things that people don't want to do when they're new to any business, and it will literally destroy your bank account and your friendships.
Speaker 1:The things that you don't want to do are the things you should do first. Yeah, do those immediately.
Speaker 3:We call it the unsexy work and like you're responsible for learning everything.
Speaker 1:Like you can't. You're you're um negligence or yeah, you know you're. You what you don't understand. You can't hold that against somebody else. Like you're responding, you're an adult, you're, you're like it's. I put it on myself too, like there's a lot of things about the restaurant industry that I didn't know.
Speaker 2:Like now I'm learning those things and the more you go, the more you're going to learn. You don't know? Yeah, I'm still learning bro. Yeah, there's still a lot of things now that I'm learning those things and the more you go, the more you're going to learn.
Speaker 1:You don't know, yeah, because I'm still learning bro.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's still a lot of things now that I'm learning that have nothing to do with what we would have thought. Now the restaurant business just get rid of the word restaurant and just call it business, Because I knew the restaurant business but now I'm learning business. You see what I'm saying Because the fucking financing the bills, the banks. It doesn't matter what business you?
Speaker 3:are in.
Speaker 2:It all comes down to how are you going to manage business?
Speaker 1:Business For sure.
Speaker 2:Business people you talk to. What do we call it when we network? Right yeah, we go networking you can go into business groups.
Speaker 3:Sure BNI EO there's a lot of business, entrepreneur organizations that will help you with other things. Exactly but the place I worked for. They decided. They decided not to pay their taxes for almost three years.
Speaker 3:And they came and literally chained the doors, closed Like I mean, took a chain and put it around all of their doors three restaurants in this area and they decided they wanted to do more Coke and champagne than they did, pay their taxes, and they had, you know, suits and clothes and paid and didn't, you know, live the high life because they thought that's what they were supposed to do as restaurant owners. They never worked in the restaurant, these were just the owners, and all of them one of them's fucking extradited to another, like hiding in another country now. So I mean, that was theirs, Like, oh yeah, well, we have someone handling it. That's the other problem. If you have someone doing your bills and your books, you have to check on them.
Speaker 2:You have to have checks, do it. You can't do it all If you sit there. It's good to do it all.
Speaker 1:You need to learn how to do it now. So at least I know it. I know how to do it. If I have to do it, I can't.
Speaker 2:You come from the financial background. You're a bank in background, weren't you?
Speaker 1:I was in sales.
Speaker 2:I worked for a bank but I was a sales rep, so you know exactly what it's like from a business perspective. Hence getting rid of the word restaurant and using the word business. So that's the biggest thing Everyone in the not everyone I can't say. I say everyone a lot, but I don't mean it that way but a lot of people who get into this. I want to go be a chef and open my own restaurant. They may understand a restaurant, but they never have no clue about business yeah and that's the problem you know it's it's a lot more in in depth, like people say.
Speaker 1:When people say the restaurant industry is one of the toughest industries, they're not. It's not just bullshit. They're not blowing smoke up your ass to try to get you to not do it.
Speaker 3:It's hard, it's hard you have it's hard, even if you kill it.
Speaker 1:The margins are like very small, the margins are small.
Speaker 2:Okay, if you own a concrete company, right, and you bid out a concrete job, and you have your trucks, your skid stairs, your fucking connections, all your things are perfect, right, yeah, you can have a shitty day and still make a fucking $30,000 job happen in a day and a half and still, if it goes wrong or something like that, you still have a lot of profit to fluctuate yeah in the restaurant. If you drop one fucking ribeye on the floor, yeah, with today's prices you pretty much start losing profit off that whole thing yeah so if you cut a fillet out a tenderloin, and and you get eight portions good size out of that right.
Speaker 2:Probably five of those portions are going to pay back the plates. You only have about three portions left for profit yeah now that profit's not much. We're talking 90 over the three yeah you drop one of them on the floor. Now you're down to two. Yeah, someone leaves two of them out. Now you're to three. Now you have fucking four of them that got screwed up somehow because they couldn't figure out the temperature right now. You owe yourself money for having now you've lost money.
Speaker 3:That's a great way to put it it happens. Yeah, I think we do need to read the review, so we gotta read.
Speaker 1:I know you have them so you're gonna, let's do we're gonna do this with you next time, matt.
Speaker 3:When you like, we'll do your reviews and just yeah, it'll be hysterical. It's a good idea okay, so you want to pick one and read it, yep okay, I'm doing that right now pick your favorite out of all of them and then we'll we'll go through and get you to respond and then, Matt, you can kind of pretend it was your restaurant and respond to what?
Speaker 1:you say online.
Speaker 2:Okay, okay, okay, here we go. Um, I'll just go with the first one. It is the. This is a good one. It's one of them ones where it needs attention. The space is absolutely stunning, but the service was shockingly poor. We had a reservation, but we still waited 15 minutes to be seated, while staff seemed confused and disorganized. Our server barely acknowledged us, forgot our appetizer and never refilled our water once. At one point we had to walk up to the bar just to ask for our check. The food was decent, but the experience was so frustrating we left more annoyed than satisfied. Now I can understand this totally. What I don't understand is how the hell this would happen here, because there's so many points of you have a lot of points of service and contact from when they walk in right.
Speaker 2:The steps of service here are so vast.
Speaker 3:We have so many did you determine what time and night or anything. That doesn't say anything.
Speaker 2:We haven't done that yet, so disappointing anniversary dinner and that blows my, that hurts my feelings. That really is something. This is one of the ones we're going to look at, and this goes into the situation room.
Speaker 3:You know what I mean? That's a decent.
Speaker 2:This is a very sought-after review. Not sought-after, that's the wrong thing. So it was two stars On paying attention to it. That's one of the ones that okay. There's some decent words here that seem like they might be an issue, so that's one of them. That's a good one. What would you say about that one?
Speaker 1:Obviously the service piece of it, like having them. It seems like if they would have simply had attention they would have been fine.
Speaker 2:That's all it takes. So sometimes there are flaws there. Something could have been wrong.
Speaker 1:You're right, breeding them with happy anniversary, mr Jones, immediately now. I'm happy we have cards on the table.
Speaker 2:Everyone knows the drill we keep cards on the table just so you can literally see them, and the staff can see them, and every person in the staff walks by. We have a routine.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And having your water not filled is ridiculous to me, because we have not the waitstaff, we have service assistants, we have other people. Water is a big thing.
Speaker 3:That one surprises me that they missed that, which means that either it was super, super busy and the timing Sometimes there's like that just terrible timing, like you walk in between while everybody's busy and there's going to be a few minutes. You know, I mean I get that, but what if they also didn't say that it was their anniversary on the reservation I mean. So you didn't get a card on your table probably because you didn't say it. So you have to look at what is your fault.
Speaker 3:There are times where it's like you're getting held accountable for things that you know not really, but but this is the point you brought up, Chef was that they said the food was decent.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the food was decent. They didn't want to say it was bad because it was probably absolutely delicious, but they have to critique it.
Speaker 1:They can't put anything good in that thing because it just takes away from their— and nothing tastes as good as it could. If I'm already pissed off, Right, Like you've got to really blow me away if I'm pissed off and I'm waiting and I'm sitting here.
Speaker 2:Of course You're never going to give props. This was so good. Fuck everything that comes down to the team. Did you want to read another?
Speaker 3:one. Do we have time for one more? Next time?
Speaker 2:we have to start doing yours and let him respond in a way that you probably wouldn't, which will be really fun. I'll respond fun, I can't respond bad to that one, because there's some legitimate things that need to be looked at.
Speaker 3:They need attention. We need to look at it and make sure that we're not slipping there. We'll do it again, but you have to shout, tell everybody where the restaurant is. Where can we go and check it out?
Speaker 1:The restaurant's name is Fresh. It's spelled F-R-A-I-C-H-E, the French spelling for fresh. It's on 14th Street. 3345 14th Street, northwest Washington DC, in Columbia Heights. We're open every day except Monday.
Speaker 2:Perfect, and we're going to any other plugs you want to put out there for your socials.
Speaker 1:MrMakeItHappencom for all of my free recipes for the blog, for my products the spices, the chef knives, the skillets, all that good stuff. You can find me on YouTube MrMakeItHappen pretty much on every platform. Sounds wonderful and we're going to make our way up there soon.
Speaker 3:We are going to make it.
Speaker 2:We're going up there, we're going to come up there and bring cameras, not really do a review, but do a review Sure More like a chef's perspective.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it'll be fun.
Speaker 3:Of what you got going on there. We can do a little special bonus episode.
Speaker 2:Right, we're planning that pretty soon yeah let's do it All right.
Speaker 3:We're coming to DC. Man, we're coming in hot. It'll be fun, It'll be a good time.
Speaker 1:And thank everybody for watching.
Speaker 2:Hit like, subscribe all that good stuff. Give us some support, follow us and love to have you, love talking to you. Ciao for now. Ciao.
