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David:
That’s right. And there’s the Applebee’s of the world that I can’t
stand, quite honestly. And they have lines of people, but I will
backhand compliment them. They have lines of people because they
suck the same way every single day. Its consistency is incredible
about building your sales. It’s not about just putting out the same
dish the same way every single time, same ingredients, and same
portions for profitability. That’s a major part of it. But quite honestly,
putting it out all the time so your guests know what to expect every
time they walk in, that’s huge. That’s how you drive your sales.

Nick:
Definitely. David, one thing I want to get into is we’ve gone through
these three systems, and tracking your food costs and all those things
isn’t so sexy to bar owners, to restaurant owners. There are a lot of
them to whom it seems like a lot of work and that’s not exactly what
they want to do. They want to focus more on growing the business
and talking to customers, which I agree with. My question is for a bar
or restaurant owner who doesn’t want to do this, they understand:
I need to know my food costs, I know I can make more money, or I
know I can have better structure within the kitchen. How can you
help them at TheRestaurantExpert.com when they’re like: hey, I don’t
David: want to do any of this stuff? Just give me what I need so my kitchen
No, I know exactly what they’re talking about. In our software, we manager can do this for me. Can you tell us a little bit about that?
have the ability to do that, but I don’t believe in it. It’s called cherry-
picking. When I was an operator and I was using spreadsheets, I David:
had created a cherry-picker where we grabbed our bids from all of Yeah. Here at TheRestaurantExpert.com, we’ve been doing this –
our vendors and put them into this spreadsheet. It would do a sort, I’ve been in business now for 13 years. And over a decade plus, our
and my kitchen managers in both locations, all they could do was members have told us what they needed, and we’ve built every tool
order whatever we told them, based on price. The challenge is by necessary. But what we look at ourselves as is a restaurant training
doing this, we pay attention to all of our proteins, we pay attention and coaching company. We’re not a software company. We’re a
to these high movers, and then we get screwed on paper supplies, restaurant training and coaching company. What does that mean?
janitorial supplies. And it takes damn near a full-time person to pay We’ll teach your managers what needs to be done. We’ll tell them
attention to all this. exactly what the job is, how to do it, how well it should be done,
and by when.
Instead, in today’s day and age, I’m going to tell you that nine out of
10 times, I will recommend somebody tries to get a prime vendor We have unlimited training support on our software. And software
agreement from one of the broad line distributors, where you will handle every aspect of the business, literally, from a daily
promise to buy 85 or 90 percent of your purchases from that one manager log and cash controls to scheduling and labour controls,
vendor. It gives you the flexibility to run to Costco and get Styrofoam complete food and beverage systems from recipe cards, ordering
because nobody can touch it. It gives you the ability to go to a paper inventory, prep, and everything in between. So it’s a journey.
vendor and get a better price or a produce vendor and get better We’ll start off with daily paperwork and make sure that the
produce. But the fact of the matter is, while with the large, broad line communication is happening on a daily basis, your cash is making it,
distributors I may lose on some of that pricing, I’m going to win on and all your invoices are in so that we can calculate our purchasing.
the vast majority. And you should be able to reduce your food costs That purchasing allotment system will become automatic.
by three to five points by promising to get the majority of them from
one vendor, so that’s the direction I would go. Those other pieces We’ll get your employees in. We’ll start them scheduling, but instead
of software that go out there and do that are not always apples to of scheduling like they always do, we’ll throw a labor allotment
apples comparison. Take, for instance, garbage bags. They’re not system in there that will show them that they’ve overscheduled 10
the same, the thickness, the quality, all of those things. If you’re just hours in the kitchen because your sales are going to be trending
buying cheap, you may just buy cheap that doesn’t work. down next week, and show them how they can adjust that as well
as track on a daily basis.
Nick:
Yes, and then you’ve got a problem with consistency probably, too, in When it comes to the food systems, we’re set up so that any
different food items as well, right? vendor you use can be in our system. Especially if they give you

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