From Line Cook to COO - Protecting your brand and the path to growth for chefs, operators, and owners

Thousand-cover Sundays, a half-size kitchen, and a turkey-pot burner pulling fry duty, this conversation opens inside the controlled chaos that forged a chef who would later run a multi-unit brand. 

We sit down with Rob to trace the arc from CIA grad and PM kitchen manager to executive chef, GM, Sysco corporate chef, and now COO of the recently rebranded Taste Unlimited, unpacking what it actually takes to scale beyond a single line while keeping soul, branding,  and standards intact.

We revisit the 1998 Virginia Beach dining boom and pull hard-won lessons from the line: building speed without losing quality, improvising when equipment falls short, and navigating menus when a $9.99 prime rib was still a thing. Rob explains the leap from back-of-house to full P&L responsibility, the Sysco years spent educating top customers, and the lost art, and current opportunities, of food shows, where chefs learn by seeing whole animals broken down, testing gear, and building relationships that still move product and careers.

The playbook for small-batch makers gets specific. Work with your state Department of Agriculture. In Virginia, leverage Virginia’s Finest and the Virginia Specialty Food Association for endorsements, shared booths, and buyer intros. Backpack your samples into national shows like Fancy Food, hit the seminars, and walk up to speakers and buyers. It’s boots-on-the-ground, not magic, and one container order can change the year. When we turn to growth of Taste, we get an inside look at brand discipline: protecting trademarks, defending visual identity, and growing to nine stores plus catering, e-commerce, and a bakehouse without chasing every trend. 

We close the convo on culture and ownership. Taste’s ESOP conversion brought 150 team members into the cap table, aligning pride with performance and giving sandwich makers to drivers a real stake in outcomes. Guests may be dining out less, but they’re demanding better; operators who reinvest in people, process, and product win. If you care about restaurant operations, brand building, or getting your sauce from garage to shelf, this one is packed with moves you can use today.

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Visit and support Taste at https://www.tasteunlimited.com/ and on IG at https://www.instagram.com/tasteunlimited/

Welcome to the show! Burnt Hands Perspective

Chapters

• 0:00 Reunion And Restaurant Origins
• 3:04 1998 Virginia Beach Dining Boom
• 5:39 First Nights On The Line
• 8:34 Thousand Covers And Improv Cooking
• 12:54 Price Memories And Menu Realities
• 16:34 Jumping From Kitchen To Management
• 21:04 Sysco Years And Chef Education
• 25:19 Food Shows, Costs, And Access
• 29:44 How Small Producers Break In
• 34:39 Branding, Rebrands, And Taste’s Growth

Transcript

SPEAKER_03: 0:24

All right. Kristen, we're here again, again and again and again. We're gonna always be here, aren't we?

SPEAKER_00: 0:28

We are always, we're not going anywhere. We're not going anywhere.

SPEAKER_03: 0:30

So if you want us to go somewhere, just turn off your channel because it's not happening. It's on you. Rob Reaper's sitting here with me today. This guy right here, me and him go way back. Okay, way back to we were just talking, discussing uh culinary world, all things culinary, burnt hands perspective. We talk about everything from dishwashers all the way up to the bar to uh getting wasted on the line, and then we move over to other parts of the uh of the fields of professionalism, um growth, uh, everything to now a COO, Mr. Rob here. So this was an amazing thing, bro. So we started in 1997, we were trying to calculate 98. So we started in 1998, and this shows the diversity of my realm in the in the culinary world because at that time I was front of the house and you were back of the house. You had a great surfboard shirt, I believe. Or maybe a parrot's on it. Something like that. What they made us wear is part of my trauma. You know what I mean? I PTSD from that.

SPEAKER_00: 1:24

From surfing having to wear that shirt. Kind of like the flur in the movie, if you had enough flair on your vest.

SPEAKER_03: 1:29

Kinda, man. It was cheesy as fuck. They made us wear these black shorts, black sneakers, and these ridiculous rayon shirts that had like parrots and surfboards and shit on them. It was ridiculous. It was almost like the old surf style jackets. Remember? The hypercolor? Hypercolor shit like that.

SPEAKER_01: 1:47

So anyway, it's the best.

SPEAKER_03: 1:49

You come in, we're all sitting there, they want to make an announcement at the time. Chuck Sass was a great chef at the time. He was running the whole place. Uh, still is involved quite just saw him a couple days ago. He's getting ready to retire in November. Wow. We're talking about guys retiring when they were just starting when I met him. I'm getting old. So Chuck would bring the brought you in to the kitchen, and this was Mahima's. So this was a huge turnover, just people coming in from everywhere. It was like the hypercenter of Virginia Beach dining at the time in the 90s. I mean, this place on a Sunday was absolutely mobbed. We were making$1,000 on a double shift as a waiter in 1998. It was insane. It was one of the highest-grossing uh restaurants in Virginia at the time. And probably I'd put that up against other states too. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So what happened was we had this guy come in, chef wanted to make an announcement. Um, we have a new guy coming in, and let's talk about what he said. Let's let's throw this out there.

SPEAKER_04: 2:45

It was it was terrible. It was uh I came in as a I think a PM kitchen supervisor, moved here Friday Memorial Day weekend, and started at Miles on Saturday. And my introduction to the line was by Chuck, who was also a fellow CIA grad. He looked down the down the line of this is when Johnson Wales was still in Norfolk.

SPEAKER_03: 3:06

So you graduated from Culinary Institute of America. Yes, sir.

SPEAKER_04: 3:09

Right. Um and uh he looked down the line and said, What is a hey guys? I have a question. What does a Johnson Wales grad call CIA grad? And I'm like, oh boy, this is not gonna be good. And he looks down and goes, boss, and I'm like, oh god, this is really this is my introduction. Yeah, they immediately hate you.

SPEAKER_03: 3:29

But that was funny because I was there for that. And I remember that. It's crazy. I mean, this was in 1998, and here you are sitting here now. So between our lives, right? Our lives from 1998 to now, crazy.

SPEAKER_00: 3:43

Yeah, a lot has changed. You know? Well, you met him, but it was a year before I met you, so yeah, around the same time. We all came up through so many changes in the industry and watching it go up and down and the beach.

SPEAKER_04: 3:54

Yeah, and and it was a windy path to get to get here too. I know we've all seen some things, but man, um yeah, it it it I think we've all changed as people. And I mean my career path has changed because of family.

SPEAKER_00: 4:09

Well, yours changed a lot.

SPEAKER_04: 4:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 4:11

Because I mean, we're going from my mom was talking about being in the kitchen, and what when did you actually leave the kitchen as a chef? When was the last time you were chefing in a kitchen?

SPEAKER_04: 4:21

Well, so I did four years, my first four years at May's Ma's was as the executive chef. And then I wanted to learn the the other side of the business. So made a I mean a split second shotgun decision. My w my soon-to-be wife didn't even know about it. Went in and uh I think we're we had just opened Rockfish and uh Johnny Kay had given his notice and I said, I want his I walked in the truck's office after a manager meeting, I said, I want his job. And it was like mid summer. And uh he's like, All right, and I had pretty much had 30 days to learn what I needed to learn and hire my replacement, which was Kevin Sharkey. Yeah. Um, uh, in order to go to Rockfish.

SPEAKER_03: 5:08

And you know what's funny about that? Johnny Kay gave his notice and then so did I. Uh-huh. I think a lot of people did. Yeah. Because he was a great guy. Yep. He was a great leader. Yeah. And I don't remember exactly what happened to him to make him give that notice. I don't remember if it was life or if it was something work force related. I don't remember because I was probably high or fucking drunk or something. So I don't remember why, but I just remember that when he did, it was the big uproar because we were all young and we all followed the leader type of thing.

SPEAKER_04: 5:31

Yeah, yeah. And that was that was the first part of kind of the disbanding of our team because we had, you know, we had uh just an amazing management team, and then that was followed by followed by the Hilton opening. And while the Hilton was opening, I got to do other stuff, like I opened Piseria and Tortugas, and and managed to come back to Moz before I left.

SPEAKER_03: 5:49

So yeah, you have your hands in some really good spots down there, and a lot of them are based around the seafood world, things like that, just because of where we are at the beach. So the Virginia Beach is you know synonymous for what we have indigenously, and that's seafood. Yeah. Oyster's crabs, stuff like that. So uh moving up to that, so you started at um you started right out the gate as the guy. So when you got into that, we're gonna talk about that just for a minute because it's it's intriguing, I think, to anybody listening. That when you start, you come out of the CIA, you go in there Memorial Day weekend, which is the weekend, and you're saying, okay, here you go. What now, how old were you right then? Well, so I was 21. So I was about uh about a year out of culinary school. And how long did it take you to realize that holy shit, there's a lot going on in this kitchen right now, and there's a lot of people who already know what the fuck they're doing, and I gotta figure this out so I can be a boss, but yet I gotta ask them what I'm doing.

SPEAKER_04: 6:43

Well, my uh, you know, I was just a I I was just a uh uh PM kitchen manager, supervisor, whatever. So my job description was do whatever Fred does. So Fred was the sous chef at the time. Right. And uh so I followed Fred around, and remember you probably remember our chef, who was Thomas, the New York real loudmouth. All I could hear is him in my sleep screaming. Um, but you know, we going right into that, it was it was a it was an eye-opener. I mean, it was we were doing the thousand covers a night, and uh it was just a complete, complete ass kicker.

SPEAKER_03: 7:22

People don't realize what that means when you say a thousand covers a night. That means you cooked two thousand things. The people don't understand that when you have a cover, they're eating more than one thing, they're having a bunch of stuff. Thousand covers a night in a restaurant, not a banquet, not a not a hall, not a dining wedding party. We're talking about a fucking restaurant. You turn on the damn computer, you punch in your orders, and they come in the tickets. And I remember ticket line, the rail for the ticket line was absurd. You hear it in your sleep, and the tickets were still coming out in 20 minutes. Yeah, yeah, but we still had 20, 25, 30 minute ticket times at most. Right. And uh cranking it, just cranking it.

SPEAKER_04: 8:00

Well, and you had the sushi bar going off, you had raw bar going off in separate parts, you had a banquet going out the back door on the other end of the building. It was right, and then the kitchen was half the size.

SPEAKER_03: 8:09

Half the size.

SPEAKER_04: 8:10

Wow, so it was a line, it was it was one line. Would you have like 12, 16 burners? With a turkey pot burner on the back that we cooked wings in a big pot. Yeah, with the thermometer in it.

SPEAKER_03: 8:21

Um to make sure, just keep dumping oil. It it it was nuts.

SPEAKER_00: 8:25

That's crazy.

SPEAKER_03: 8:26

That's crazy. People don't realize what we have to do sometimes as chefs to uh uh compromise or um improvise. But you made it happen, you make it happen. So the turkey pot, people don't understand this either. Cooking a fry, frying food on a turkey pot is very hard because that shit, as soon as you put wings in it, that temperature drops.

SPEAKER_04: 8:43

And we were boiling. Oh, you're boiling them because we we we poached our wings and then jeweled them and dropped them and then filled the pot up again and poached them about 10 times.

SPEAKER_03: 8:51

You had to. There was no way you couldn't cook them fast enough the other way. Yeah, I'm not gonna. So you had to poach them out. You know, there's not a lot, there's a lot of people that actually do that. Yeah, sometimes it's better. Yeah, you know what I mean. If you do if you poach them properly, you get a lot of moist wing at the end. Yeah, because we breaded them and then and then par-fried them and then sold them like maniacs, man. But that's when wings were like 25 cents plant toisters and wings. Yeah. That was costing us back in the day, a pound of wings was what?$2, maybe? Yeah. Dollars something. Yeah. And junk.

SPEAKER_04: 9:19

That's when we were we had lobsters for$9.99. Prime rib and lobster night for$9.99.

SPEAKER_03: 9:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 9:24

Imagine that now.

SPEAKER_00: 9:25

Thinking about it.

SPEAKER_03: 9:25

Right. I don't even know who's selling prime rib right now, let alone for$9.99. Yeah. I was talking to my chef Andrea last night, my uh sous chef here, uh, chef de cuisine, and we were talking about going to get a nice piece of prime rib. And we're like, where do you even go around here to get a good piece of prime rib? Where? Who has that anymore? Is it like a bacon?

SPEAKER_00: 9:41

There's specials. I've seen specials pop up at a couple of times. Yeah, but they're usually they're usually one night. It's not a big, it's not a prime rib. Yeah, we need some prime.

SPEAKER_04: 9:49

Yeah, you're not getting a fret.

SPEAKER_00: 9:50

And you're not getting it for$9.99. Right.

SPEAKER_04: 9:52

And normally, if you have if you're eating prime in a restaurant, it's not a prime rib that was cooked to or or uh cooked at the beginning of the night. It's it was probably cooked the day before, and they're just bringing up the temp in some au jus or whatever.

SPEAKER_00: 10:04

Something yeah, that they're doing. So I mean, yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 10:06

It's hard to find.

SPEAKER_00: 10:07

It is for sure.

SPEAKER_03: 10:08

So what when you when you you said you went to Johnny Kay, right? You you did that, you took on that job. So that was a manager. That was a GM operating partner, Robert. Okay. Yeah. So that makes you out of the park, out of the kitchen, yeah, and more into the finances. Is that what led you into going to let's talk about taste where you are now? Because that's a huge road, too. How you've been there for how many years?

SPEAKER_04: 10:30

Well, yeah, so there I've been I've been at Taste for 10 and a half years, but before that I was with Cisco for nine and a half years.

SPEAKER_03: 10:36

So it's a whole nother That was a whole nother venue. That's when I went back to the kitchen. But but now you're the COO. So now what what that means is you had to go from the kitchen to Cisco or sorry to the front of the house, GMing. Yeah, and then from there out of the restaurant completely selling back to the kitchen in Cisco, then from Cisco moving to where you're back to buying from vendors, it was a yeah, not so much Cisco, but you're back to buying from purveyors in a sense, right? So there that you you're on the roller coaster of restaurant life right there. Yeah. And what does it take? What do you ever miss being on the line and just being keeping it simple like that, or are you fucking glad as hell you're not?

SPEAKER_04: 11:13

So the best job I think I ever had, which I took for granted, was the corporate chef role at Cisco, and that was my first four and a half years. And I mean, that role was just take care of our top customers. And I got to travel all over, take chefs to New York City, to California. Um it was it was probably the best job I ever had.

SPEAKER_03: 11:38

So you were basically a liaison for all good things. Yeah. Like I'm gonna take care of you, I'm gonna party with you. Yeah, I got to do.

SPEAKER_04: 11:44

And that's when, and honestly, that's when you know, that was the truly the fun days of Cisco. You know, when I could when I could take uh we had a food show at the ocean front, and I had Bobby Golwasser, his father, um with Ness that you know, they used to have Ness and Meets, and he came in. We got an engine lift, and his his 90-year-old dad came in and knocked down a side of beef. And you know, I just wanted at those shows, I just want to give chefs something they don't see every day. It chefs these days and kids coming out of school, they don't see they're used to receiving a piece of beef and then maybe cutting it into steaks, or most of them are buying pre-cut steaks now, you know. Right.

SPEAKER_03: 12:24

They don't see I don't think that's a skill thing. I think that's more of an affordability at this point for cost of food costs, cost control, uh purchasing the amount of here. I have as an executive chef and owner for me, I I always struggle and juggle because it's a matter of do what do I do with this excess of the excess stuff. So if now that the meats and everything are so expensive per pound, what in that pound am I getting? Is it worth it to buy the lean cuts or is it worth it to buy the whole piece and butcher anymore? Not so much. Now it costs more for bones to make a friggin' demi than it does for some of the cheaper cuts of meats. When bones they used to give to me just for buying their meat. Right. You know what I mean? So it's a hard, it's a hard pill to swallow right there. And that that changes. But back to the food show thing, my question for you on that is I agree with you 100%. You learn so much from a food show. If you go there with a mind that that's what you want to do is learn, there's so many things out there. Do you recommend to newer chefs now? It seems like they don't go to food shows.

SPEAKER_04: 13:21

Well, food shows are few and far between, I think. Um, you know, I learn now from national shows. So we went to um we went to NRA this year in Chicago. Um, and that's got the technology that's got everything from food.

SPEAKER_03: 13:39

Did you go as a um a customer or did you go as you set up there to be seen as well?

SPEAKER_04: 13:44

No, we bring we we brought a group um from Taste. Um we go try and go every year or every other year, but yeah, as we grow, we need to follow the technology and and you know, with full service catering, you know, there's there's things coming out every day.

SPEAKER_03: 13:58

And we're gonna hit on that subject in a little bit. Actually, Kristen's gonna hit that up when it when we talk about the branding and keeping the brand strong because that's key, that's essential for it, is staying educated. Yeah, but we'll get back to that part in a minute. But you know, back to the chefs and the kids learning and going to these events. I remember when I was young, going to a food show was all the deal. You know, if you go up to Maryland to the Cisco show back then, it was a three-day event and it would include alcohol, drinking, going to these things hung over. Half the half the cooks and chefs that went couldn't make it to the next day because they were all hung over. It was a lot of fun. And then these events, like you said, they're cutting slabs of meat, they're showing technique, they're showing demos, they're giving pan demos, and they're giving things away. It was a really good event, you know. Um you think we should bring that back or what? How do we do that?

SPEAKER_04: 14:40

Well, I think COVID killed a good portion of it. Plus, you know, marketing funds are, you know, they're reducing marketing funds, products getting costing more. But I know there's still some purveyors that are doing big shows, but there's also ones that have scaled down immensely. You know, there's not a big show at the Virgin Virginia Beach anymore. Right. Um, it's moved to a smaller show. Um, but I enjoy the shows because you get to see it. It's in front of you. I'm more of a hands-on, you know, we do a lot on the internet, but sometimes you just want to touch it, feel it, see it.

SPEAKER_03: 15:10

You have to. I think I I think look, you can you can put pictures of food on the internet all day long, but if you can't really taste it or experience it, you're you're only using the sense of eyes, the sight, the vision, and your thought process. Right. So, like you said, it's a very important to smell the room, hear the clanking, hear the noise, hear the commotion. But you know, like everything in the world, it's hard to put on a show right now because everything that costs so much to do it. You can't even rent a hall right now at a realistic price to put a show on. You can't someone like me who wants to bring my sauces and stuff to a show, it costs so much to get in the show that you're you're not even it's not working out on your profit. Yeah, you're gonna use most of your profits for the year to just pay for that show to make your profits back that you spent to be there. It it's it's it's almost impossible because of the I call it greed. I don't call it necessity, I don't call it essential, I call it greed. You know, everybody wants to make money now off of the they'd rather make all the money now off this one show and never have a show again instead of making money slowly over the course of 10 years and letting that course grow. You know, that's what it seems like to me.

SPEAKER_04: 16:11

Yeah, so but there are outlets. I there are outlets for small batch producers, though, to get into those shows. And a lot of it, um, you know, the Virginia Specialty Food Association, Department of Ag, they help fund getting you there. They also do um collaborative booths where it's getting they're bringing multiple producers into one booth. And some other guys that are already going to the show will bring your product with them to go and display on your behalf. Sure. But if you can justify a return on that investment, absolutely. If somebody's gonna go and buy a container full of sauce, it just made your it just made your day. Yeah, you know, but you never know. But there are local shows, so every other year in Richmond, there's a um uh a producer show for Virginia producers at the convention center. So that show will be next year. Okay.

SPEAKER_03: 17:05

Well, these are all great things and great tips you have, and maybe uh you can you can help provide for people listening out there who are trying to figure out. I'm sure if Virginia has it, it's uh so does every other state. And this because this show is watched all over the world, really, um, can't really help you outside this country. That's on you. However, in this country, uh it all runs through the same type of algorithms and all that stuff all the way around. So I think that if you had some good points or tips that we could put out there, or or if you could just tell us now where where can someone like myself or anyone making hot sauces or any type of thing go? Where where can they go look right now to get some of this assistance you're talking about?

SPEAKER_04: 17:40

The the first thing I would say is if you're a Virginia producer, work with the Department of Ag and get set up with them. Um Virginia Finest Program is amazing. They do full endorsements of all your products, get your stamp on your label. Um, but then I've been part of the Virginia Especially Food Association for a long time, and their whole goal is to get Virginia small batch producers to the shelves and make the relationship between big box um purveyors like Cisco's and PFGs of the world, as well as the tastes of the world. So we we provide a playground to go and bring those two communities together.

SPEAKER_03: 18:21

So merge, and then hopefully in that merge, one connects with the other. Some product out there is just stands right out in one of these bigger packages, might pick it up. Is that the goal of the Virginia? Absolutely.

SPEAKER_04: 18:31

But also, you know, for someone like you that's just starting a bottle, it's a great place to say, hey, I need a bottler. Hey, I need I need labels. Hey sources, I need to get this product vetted with nutritionals. Um so same playground, it just allows people to network within the community to get the answers. Because a lot of you have the hot sauce guys that are producing out of the garage, you know, that love their hot sauce, but they just don't know how to get it from here to here. Right.

SPEAKER_03: 18:58

And that's and the other thing is can they get it from here to here without the assistance? It's very hard. It took me a lot of money and a lot of time and a lot of stress and nonsense to get to where I am with my jars. And I'm sure because it's the first run, the first batches, I'm I did a lot wrong. Yeah, but I'm willing to take that risk because you have to, you know, there's only one way to get it out there.

SPEAKER_04: 19:17

But there is an investment to get it off the ground. Sure.

SPEAKER_03: 19:20

It's a risky one.

SPEAKER_04: 19:21

Yeah, because you have to be able to purchase the ingredients to make that first batch. And maybe it's not right and you got to do it again.

SPEAKER_03: 19:28

So commitment. You got to put your faith in the person who's bottling. Right. There's a lot to it. So this is a conversation that can go on and on and on. And it kind of leads into, you know, the chef world. There's a lot of chefs out there who I really tell them all the time if you want, if you think you have something good, try and get it out there. Because as long as you're working for someone in a restaurant, which is where we all pretty much started, and pretty much 95% of us are, right? Um, you have to get your product outside of that. So without disrespecting where you are or who you're working for or with, you know, you need to go on podcasts like this and stuff and listen to these avenues. I didn't know about these avenues before. I learned them when it was a little bit too late, but it's never too late. Never because I'm just gonna now I've got the hard part out of the way. Now I can listen to what they have to say on the next level.

SPEAKER_04: 20:14

Well, see, you're you've hit the cross thread of, okay, now I got this stuff. Now what do I do with it? Right. You know, you've got a great location opening up, but just say you want to get into the big box stores. Sure. You know, trying to get a meeting with Kroger or Harris Teeter or Trader Joe's or Wegmans is not easy. Correct. But that's where these playgrounds open up those doors and go into the shows and bumping into the buyer from Wegmans and saying, Oh, hey.

SPEAKER_03: 20:38

What is the now when the when you're talking about the board you were on, which you just stepped down from, what was that again? The Virginia Specialty Food Association. So now you're throwing that out there and people are listening, oh, cool, I can just get into that. Now, let's take how simple it sounds and add in the rigma row to getting stuff actually done. What what does that turnaround process look like, even if you're involved with the with them? Once you get involved with them, yeah, how far does it take before you're actually put in front of somebody or you see some sort of uh relevant uh you know outcome of it?

SPEAKER_04: 21:06

Well, you know, the well, the first part is getting it getting it in the bottle, and that could take an undetermined amount of time because you got to go through the steps to get it vetted. So I'm in the bottle. Once you're in the bottle, now you got to get it from point A to point B. So first thing I would I would say is you need to start getting meetings, and sometimes it's an introduction through, you know, we've got a lot of mentors with Specially Food Virginia Specialty Food Association, as well as the Specialty Food Association, which is a global group. So fancy food show, we talked about that, winter show is coming up. Just go as an attendee with a backpack full of sauce. Right. You know, it's bumping into those connections along the way, sure. Uh making introductions, going to all the forums and the the educational seminars. So when you're sitting at a seminar and some of the big guys are the ones speaking, wait for that thing to end and walk up and say, Hey, can I introduce myself? You know, boots on the ground. Yeah, you've got to, you've got to do the dirty work and you've got to be aggressive. You can't people don't just come to you unless you've got a great podcast and you're, you know, worldly now that you know now now they're seeing the sauce everywhere. But um you've got to go and you've got to you've got to grind it out and you've got to make those connections. But the shows um and the relationships are the ones that are gonna get you there. It's hey, talking to this guy, oh, he knows this guy. Yeah, let's yeah, make an introduction.

SPEAKER_03: 22:30

Um right. So it's all great food for thought. So with that being said, I'm gonna uh I'm gonna take a little break from talking and let Kristen do what she does best. And uh she does a lot of great things. However, you really focus and you're really good at the branding aspect of life. And um, so I'm I'm interested in what you have to say to him because I'm now I'm gonna sit back and listen to someone. I know. I'm gonna take the.

SPEAKER_00: 22:57

But going back to taste itself, their brand, I mean, the ethos, how you operate, and you've been with them for 10 years now. How many locations are there at this point?

SPEAKER_04: 23:07

We've got nine business units, nine nine stores, um and getting ready to open up the 10th.

SPEAKER_00: 23:14

That one soon.

SPEAKER_04: 23:16

Uh looks like an early November opening.

SPEAKER_00: 23:19

Okay.

SPEAKER_04: 23:20

So it's still metal studs right now.

SPEAKER_00: 23:22

Um this will come out around then, so we should be able to, you know, that'll be our that'll new.

SPEAKER_04: 23:26

That'll be our new Pungo store. Um, and then we also have full service catering division, we have a specialty division, um, and we have our taste bake house, um, and we have e-commerce. So we've got multiple business units, and we have the cafe in Norfolk in the Chrysler Museum, Zinnia Cafe.

SPEAKER_00: 23:46

Oh, okay. So well, and you guys, the brand itself, I mean, it's it's pretty much stayed true since the beginning, you know, founded. It was 1973.

SPEAKER_04: 23:53

1973. Um, you know, when John Prudent and uh family and friends bought the business in 2006, the first thing they did was the rebrand to the taste block letters away from uh Taste Unlimited, but Taste Unlimited is still something that's very uh near and dear to our core, and um you'll still find us at Tasunlimited.com.

SPEAKER_00: 24:16

And so all of that has stayed the same. So when were you there for that rebrand when they refreshed everything?

SPEAKER_04: 24:21

So in 2006, I had just gone to Cisco. Okay, but interestingly enough, we were trying to get their business. So I flew with John, Peter Coe, the founder, and uh a few others. Uh we've we actually flew to Zingerman's uh in our Ann Arbor, Michigan. And I consider Zingerman's one of the top markets in the world. Um sandwich shop started a sandwich shop in a little a little Jewish deli in a in a house, and the thing is an empire. Um and they've been one of our peers, so we've we've followed them very closely. But yeah, that I've seen it uh all the way through. But in when I trans transitioned into sales in Cisco in 2010, um Tace was one of my first customers. So that I had about four to five years at in sales supporting them and being part of the business. So I kind of followed them the whole way. I felt like I was part of the team already.

SPEAKER_00: 25:20

Yeah, so you knew that whole kind of trajectory of changing through. So when it comes to you guys, and you're now the COO, so chief operating officer, and you deal with kind of overseeing a lot of those, how important is the marketing and the branding to you guys now as far as like percentage budget? How do you allocate for that?

SPEAKER_04: 25:36

Um, I mean, marketing's huge the the brand is is huge for us. We protect our brand and our intellectual property um very, very, very well. Um we every day or multiple times a month, we're getting uh we're getting messages from loyal customers saying, Hey, I was just in Florida last week and I saw this place open. It's called Taste of Miami. And and then you look and it's our same block letters and same format on the menu, and you know, it pops up. We I was out running last year in Chicago, and hey, what do you know? Taste of Chicago.

SPEAKER_03: 26:16

And so you think people are seeing it and trying to get away, or they've been here before, right? And they're trying to get away with doing it over there and acting like they invented it.

SPEAKER_04: 26:23

Right. We we have a very transient community. Um, people love vacationing in Virginia Beach. They're like, oh, I think I think I can make this idea happen here, but what they don't realize is how far our reach is and how loyal our our guest following is.

SPEAKER_03: 26:39

It makes me laugh how people can go to Chicago and think they're gonna get away with it and forget that you were also here and saw it. So other people are also gonna go there and see it. Yeah, you saw it, you took it, you went to Chicago, like you're gonna get away with it. There's gonna be other people from here that go back to Chicago and see it, dude. Yeah, protecting our brand COO running down the street.

SPEAKER_04: 26:55

Yeah, protecting our brand is a it's a full-time job.

SPEAKER_00: 26:58

You have a trademark on taste.

SPEAKER_04: 26:59

Yeah, and if you and if you don't protect it, you run the risk of losing it. So um, yeah, we and we're always going after new uh domain names and you know uh yeah, so we've got taste.online, we've got uh I th I believe taste.com is one that we've been after for a while, but some guys just holding on to it for a bit. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 27:21

I think a lot of smaller restaurants like they don't understand that when you are opening a business or you're looking at a business that you can grow or scale or franchise, that you have to do all the work again, like we always call the unsexy work before opening the business, is going to USTPO, looking at trademarks, saying, Hey, can I use this name? I mean, taste is a very widespread word, but you're able to trademark or cut certain parts of it. So, I mean, for you guys, yeah, that most businesses don't understand that aspect of it, that it is very important to protect it once you have a tagline or a name. And you guys are protecting it fiercely because you're growing and you have to.

SPEAKER_04: 27:55

Yeah, and there's multiple aspects. Like um, I I think it was like 10 years ago Pampered Chef rolled out the good life. And we also own the word, the the phrase the good life. So we went after Pampered Chef and sent him a letter and cease and desist. And they had a year to eliminate that from their packaging. And yeah, you know, again, it's it's protecting who we are makes us who we are and and keeping things unique to us, and um, we constantly do that with our food, our packaging. This year, our one of our uh annual goals is actually increase our internal branding of more taste-branded products.

SPEAKER_01: 28:34

Okay.

SPEAKER_04: 28:35

Um so taking things that we love and seeing if we can make them ourselves or find a great partner to put our put our name on them.

SPEAKER_03: 28:41

And also a branding, you have to have the creative energy to continue creating and coming up with more concepts and always staying relevant and new and trending. So, how does the new trends in dining experience how does it affect you guys? So you have you're a sandwich shop. That must have been a huge turn for the gluten-free world. You know, all the things that happen like that now, that must be something for you guys. You have to really focus on keeping up with you have a majority of people, you have to please kind of everybody in order to stay relevant because you're such a diverse offering, right?

SPEAKER_04: 29:10

Yeah, so we pride ourselves on pragmatic growth or you know, pace growth, and um to go and jump immediately onto something that's a trend, like for instance, um, beef tallow. We like all of a sudden this thing hit hard, put the whole industry into a tizzy. Everybody's like, oh, we gotta go to a beef tallow. And now months later, it's like, all right, let's just you know, let's just ease it back and let's look at the studies. And you know, we we're looking at the GLP1 uh trend now with more protein added stuff, but you know, with gluten-free, we uh John John's wife was a celiac, so you know, there's a lot of focus from the early days on creating more gluten-free products. So we have dedicated gluten-free boards and we have a lot of and allergens are huge for us, so we have dedicated space and cutting boards for allergens, and you know, making sure we're doing everything we can to protect our our our our clients.

SPEAKER_03: 30:08

Not only protect, but serve. Everybody gets the same energy coming in the door.

SPEAKER_04: 30:12

And with that, it's a confidence too. You know, we want them to feel confident that we have the systems in place to protect them.

SPEAKER_03: 30:19

Yeah, sure. Yeah, that's amazing. That's really good. So moving forward in the future. What do you think? I mean, I always ask this to questions, especially with chefs who move around the the industry. What what do you feel about the industry in the future coming up?

SPEAKER_04: 30:33

You know, I think um you know we're in a we're in a weird time with um with what what people are looking for. It's you know, there's yeah, there's a lot of trends out there right now, but people also aren't going out to eat as much. We're fortunate. Um we just had a business review last week and um and uh our purveyor said, man, you guys are compared to a lot of other people we're looking at, you know, your purchases are up and your sales are up, and you know.

SPEAKER_03: 31:04

I'm blessed with that same problem, I guess you can call it. It's great. I think what you're saying is right, less people are going out to eat, but I got a feeling to say it differently. I I think that less people are more people aren't putting up with shit anymore. Right. And and all the red lobsters and all the big chains and all these things that were to have just been feeding the masses crap are slowly starting to get attacked and dwindle because people are demanding better. And and and if you bring better and quality and pay attention to your ingredients, pay attention to your staff, and stop trying to line. This goes for smaller restaurant owners or one single office or two bill, you know, stop trying to line your pocket with every profit you can possibly get, you know, and pay more attention to put it back in the restaurants. It's okay to make money, man. We're all doing it for a reason, okay? Even the people working here are doing it for a reason. Everybody needs to make money, right? But, you know, I do want to live a decent life. I do work my ass off to live a decent life. However, I have a cap on that. Everything needs to go back into the next phase of this operation. Uh, the the ingredient research, the bottling sauces. I could have taken all the money it took to do that, said, screw it, just made money off the sauces here and just pocket line my pockets. Right. That's only gonna last so long, you know. If you add to the culinary world all the time, I think people are expecting that, they see it, they feel it, and they're walking into restaurants or sandwich shops, that it's obvious their money is going back to them because it keeps they keep smiling and coming back, you know.

SPEAKER_04: 32:29

Yeah, we're I mean, we're constantly looking at reinvesting in not only the tools to make our people's lives easier, but the facade to make people, you know, you and it's a lot of what we learned back in the PHR Gold Key days is you know, you have to keep reinvesting in your your businesses, you have to have a plan to keep making them look cutting edge and and comfortable for guests to walk into and make them go, wow, this place is nice. But you know, for us it's it's about every day's a struggle to improve our processes and ensure that every guest that walks into one of our stores is getting a consistent experience. Right. You know, we have a diverse staff from 16-year-olds, you know, all the way to retirement, past retirement age. And you know, we have great, great, great people. We have a great culture, and it's just making sure that our guests are getting that same food, the same experience when they walk in, the music's the right, the lighting's right, there's just so many things that go into it. Um, but it's a daily struggle, and and training is something we spend training and process.

SPEAKER_03: 33:35

If you have a process, a standard operation, uh operating process or something, you have to have that because every person from that 16-year-old to whoever's in between, they may be great people, but their perception of what is good is different in every one of them. So you have to take away that the amount of the perception they get, you know what I'm saying? The amount of say they have, and you have to have a standing operating procedure that works to make that consistently happen, consistency happen. Right.

SPEAKER_04: 34:01

And for us, nobody, nobody realizes what's involved in a menu change. Like we went from changing, uh, we had coming out of COVID, we had a very we stripped the whole place down, you know, it's bare bones, we're doing what we do best, and then we've gradually been expanding out, and then we realize we've dialed it up too far and now we're scaling back. So we're changing the menu three times a year, but that requires about three months of you know, RD, of trying new products. We're we're rolling out a new menu on October 1st, but it's a it's like 130-line spreadsheet with boxes to check uh from the marketing materials, the training materials, the training videos for every item. Like it's it's a it's a lot. The branding, it's it's it's a lot to get it rolled out.

SPEAKER_00: 34:43

Yeah, you just have good systems, which we say systems save lives. So you guys have systems.

SPEAKER_04: 34:48

Yeah, systems and it's great to have good systems, but you also have to have great people that can execute them.

SPEAKER_00: 34:53

Well, you guys include your employees a lot more than other companies as well, because uh you went through that shift.

SPEAKER_04: 34:58

Yeah, we just converted to an eSOP.

SPEAKER_00: 35:00

So yeah, which I don't if you can explain that to people what that is.

SPEAKER_04: 35:03

It's an employee stock ownership uh program plan. And you just did that last year or in November. Yeah. So there's 150 employees uh that are on the the ground floor of uh the new ownership.

SPEAKER_00: 35:16

So they're all invested in the company.

SPEAKER_04: 35:18

Yep, and once you're into the plan, you're in it um until you leave. So okay.

SPEAKER_00: 35:23

So they stay invested through through the their time there.

SPEAKER_04: 35:26

Yep, so they have to be full time and work a thousand hours the previous year.

SPEAKER_00: 35:29

And they make money off of that.

SPEAKER_04: 35:31

I mean, they're it's it's basically we're creating a retirement plan for all of our people.

SPEAKER_00: 35:36

Wow. That's impressive. I don't know, I I know I've heard other companies talk about doing that. I've been talking about yeah, I mean, we've talked about it, but it's you know, you never know in actuality how has that played off for you know profits, numbers, growth, like it's been amazing.

SPEAKER_04: 35:51

And I I believe there's only six thousand eSops in the country.

SPEAKER_00: 35:54

Really?

SPEAKER_04: 35:54

Um the risk still or no? It's a it's it's it's hard. It's very hard. But most employees that convert to an eSop, um, there's a there's a huge reward because you have more people invested in the outcome. Sure. So um give someone a give someone a reason to care and they're gonna absolutely they're they've got they've got shirts that say owner on the back, you know. Um walk it around. Which one are you talking to? Yeah, I'm I own the place, so come talk to me. Right, okay. Um but yeah, the sense of pride from you know, from uh a guy or girl making sandwiches to somebody in our commissary kitchen to somebody loading trucks in the warehouse and delivering every day. You know, these they're just all proud, they could say they're owners of the company, which is I can see them all standing around the dock talking about this like in Tommy Boy at the beginning. Yeah. We need to save the company. Well, you were there, but then for all the part-timers going, man, you know, I I I think if I can work a few hours, a few more hours. I mean, we have people that are seasonal that are still making a thousand hours, you know, they could be uh caterers. Sure. And uh, but yeah, once you're in, you're in. And then uh, you know, you as long as you work with us, um, it's there and you can continue continues to grow.

SPEAKER_00: 37:09

So I'd like updates on that as you guys move through like how it how it goes for the company. Cause I think in this industry that is important. And a lot of people don't know about it, they don't know that option is there. So that's that's a good one. That's different. I like that.

SPEAKER_03: 37:22

Well, Rob, it's been awesome, man. I'm glad you're here. We could talk all day, but listen, I know you're busy. You're busy as hell. And just the fact that you were able to sneak in here, we've tried to line this up for for but this is like the fourth time we tried. Yeah. With the with the schedules being how they are and everything else, yeah. I was I was really glad to have you come here and talk because what you have is a lot of information on this stuff and people listening. Um, you know, like I said, we talk about all kinds of different things, and there's all kinds of different listeners. And then this is you got a lot of educational stuff here.

SPEAKER_00: 37:49

That was awesome. Yeah, anything you want to plug right before we go into it. Yeah, where can everybody find everything?

SPEAKER_04: 37:53

Um I mean, really, you can go uh find us anywhere on the web from tasteunlimited.com, the taste.online. Um, we've got you come in and shop at any of our stores, you can buy online, um, you could order online. So um, yeah, just a great place, uh community gathering spot, and we welcome everybody out.

SPEAKER_00: 38:13

Yeah. Love it. Well, we love we love your place. So I was just telling them I just had chicken salad the other day.

SPEAKER_03: 38:18

If you're in the Hampton Roads area, go to the Taste Unlimited. Think of my man Rob here. Think about your stomach and how good it's gonna be treated. Think about coming back to Virginia and just don't think about taking a name and stealing it and going to Chicago and trying to make something.

SPEAKER_00: 38:29

Sorry, we're all coming for you now. That's lame back up.

SPEAKER_03: 38:32

All right. Well, listen, I'm gonna say it like I always say it. Chow for now.

SPEAKER_00: 38:35

All right, chow for now.

SPEAKER_03: 38:37

Thank you.