The Heart of Hospitality: A Conversation with Culinary Innovators: Ryan Giffin, Chef Thomas Mandzik & Stan Hays
This podcast episode features a compelling dialogue that underscores the significance of innovation and partnership within the culinary industry, particularly through the insights of Ryan Giffin, a prominent figure in Florida's commercial kitchen sector. Fresh from a notable acquisition, Giffin is dedicated to facilitating access to high-quality equipment for food service operators, thereby enhancing operational efficiency in their establishments. Additionally, we are privileged to engage with Chef Thomas Mandzik, whose extensive culinary expertise enriches the conversation as he prepares two exquisite dishes, all while sharing his insights on leadership and the delicate balance between artistry and accountability in the kitchen. This episode serves not only as a celebration of culinary excellence but also as a testament to the collaborative spirit that drives the food industry forward. Join us as we delve into the intersection of culinary artistry, business acumen, and community support, reflecting on the essence of service in the hospitality sphere. Plus Operation BBQ Relief co-founder, Stan Hays.
Takeaways:
- This episode highlights the significance of serving those who serve others in the culinary industry.
- Ryan Giffin discusses the importance of partnerships in providing essential resources to operators.
- Chef Thomas Mandzik shares his creative process in balancing artistry and accountability in the kitchen.
- The podcast emphasizes the role of storytelling in connecting with customers and enhancing the dining experience.
- Listeners learn about the challenges and opportunities in the commercial kitchen equipment market.
- The discussion includes innovative approaches to service and technician training in the food industry.
- Why we need non-profits with Stan Hays
Transcript
You've just stepped inside the Walk and Talk podcast, number one in the nation for food lovers, chefs and storytellers.
Speaker A:I'm Carl Fiordini, your host, shining a light on the flavor, the hustle, and the heart of the industry.
Speaker A:We're the official podcast for the New York, California and Florida restaurant shows, the Pizza Tomorrow Summit, the US Culinary Open at nafm, and the North American media platform for the Burnt Chef project recorded at Ibis Images Studios where food photography comes alive.
Speaker A:I get the first bite.
Speaker A:Find out more info at the Walk.
Speaker B:And talk dot com.
Speaker A:This week on the Walk and Talk podcast, we're joined by Ryan Giffen, a driving force behind one of Florida's fastest.
Speaker B:Growing commercial kitchen companies.
Speaker A:Fresh off of a major acquisition, Ryan's helping operators access high end equipment from brand new builds to refurbished staples, all while deepening partnerships with brands like Middleby.
Speaker A:His mission, to serve those who serve others and make the business of food just a little easier.
Speaker A:Behind the line in the kitchen, we'll be joined by chef Thomas Manzik, executive chef at the tampa club.
Speaker A:With 30 years of culinary experience, from hotel leadership to private dining, and even launching his own fine dining barbecue concept, Chef Thomas brings creativity, edge and real world perspective to everything he plates.
Speaker A:He's cooking two dishes live in studio while we dive into his story, his leadership style, and how he balances artistry with.
Speaker A:With accountability.
Speaker A:It's business, it's food, it's community, all in one episode.
Speaker A:Let's get into it.
Speaker B:All right, so Thomas.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker B:Talk about the raviolis.
Speaker C:I started with the duck because that's one of my favorite dishes to do and I like to do all the parts of it.
Speaker C:And so I confit the duck leg, a little caramelized shallot, ricotta.
Speaker C:And then to make sure that you knew that I didn't buy those from Publix, I roasted some beets and then blended it in with the pasta.
Speaker B:So I didn't say talk about the duck dish.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:I said talk about that ravioli.
Speaker B:It was so good.
Speaker B:First of all, the duck cooked perfectly.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker B:But that ravioli was different.
Speaker B:It was just different.
Speaker B:And I really appreciate what you did to make it different.
Speaker B:You came with your A game today.
Speaker C:Thank you.
Speaker B:I mean, you already saw some of what John was putting out there.
Speaker B:Oh, yeah.
Speaker B:With photography.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Dope.
Speaker C:If John did all my pictures, I'd be a billionaire chef right now, I tell you.
Speaker B:Well, we can make that happen.
Speaker B:All right, so let's talk about the next dish.
Speaker C:Yes, sir.
Speaker C:So on our menu at the Tampa Club.
Speaker C:We have a grouper, obviously, Tampa, and we plantain crust it just like, you know, with the fresh plantains, a little Joe Robichon ode with making them look like fish scales, and then that roasted pineapple curry and the jalapeno risotto, then finishing it off with a little blueberry caviar.
Speaker B:So that was a really pretty dish.
Speaker B:This is the first time a dish slipped through where I didn't get a bite.
Speaker B:Yeah, it was the first time ever.
Speaker B:There were 161 episodes into this podcast, and I've never.
Speaker B:And this is the first one, but it looked beautiful.
Speaker C:Thank you, sir.
Speaker D:All right.
Speaker B:I'm a little disappointed, frankly, but whatever, I'm gonna get through it.
Speaker B:John, you have some.
Speaker E:We might have.
Speaker B:Look at the guys.
Speaker B:Yeah, they got the.
Speaker B:They got the dirty looks faces there.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker B:All right, chef, look, 30 years you've been in the business.
Speaker B:First of all, you're a creative guy.
Speaker B:You were once a tattoo artist.
Speaker B:I was, yeah.
Speaker B:I didn't know that until today.
Speaker E:Yeah.
Speaker B:All right.
Speaker B:Do you still do that on the side somewhere?
Speaker C:That's one of the top questions everybody asks when I tell them that, but definitely not.
Speaker C:No.
Speaker B:Do you have the guts to do it if somebody asked you?
Speaker B:Oh, yeah, because it doesn't matter what it looks like.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker C:You know, a little bit behind the curtain, I guess I've got the guts to tell you I could do it in a couple of days, you know, come down here and cook.
Speaker C:I can definitely put a taxi right there on the chest of yours.
Speaker B:No regrets.
Speaker B:No Regards, man.
Speaker C:We'll spell attack that for you.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:All right, well, let's.
Speaker B:Let's real quickly, let's just kind of.
Speaker B:Let's touch on that creativity.
Speaker B:You go from tattoo artist.
Speaker B:You have to have some sort of a love for art.
Speaker B:Yes, sir.
Speaker B:Life happens.
Speaker B:Things happen.
Speaker B:You go from, you know, sitting with the ink pen.
Speaker B:Now you're with the tweezers.
Speaker C:Definitely, definitely with the tweezers and the sauces.
Speaker C:But there is definitely mix of both, you know, the colors, the parts of the body, AKA also the plates, kind of making them line up.
Speaker C:You know, where's it best to make things land?
Speaker D:What?
Speaker C:Color coordination.
Speaker C:But the difference is with the food, you also have to make sure it tastes good.
Speaker B:Chef, when you're plating a dish or you're going to ink somebody, Right, how are you judging color palette?
Speaker B:And how are you judging the composition of the arm, the plate, et cetera?
Speaker C:I wish I had, like, a technique or some type of math equation on how I do that.
Speaker C:But it's just really feeling, and it's a hundred percent the truth in that.
Speaker C:Could be the.
Speaker C:The dish drives it.
Speaker C:In other words, the part of the body.
Speaker C:Or it could be the color, you know, or just simply the request on both.
Speaker C:You know, is it something that they really want?
Speaker C:Is it.
Speaker C:Is blue their favorite color or our peaches in season?
Speaker B:All right, let's talk equipment, and let's talk acquisitions.
Speaker B:You know what?
Speaker B:Let's actually usher on the.
Speaker B:Ryan Giffen, welcome to the program.
Speaker D:Thank you for having me.
Speaker D:Carl.
Speaker D:We met about a year ago, and we've been talking about this, and it's a pleasure to be here, and really awesome to see what you built.
Speaker B:Thank you.
Speaker B:And by the way, you drove in, you're from South Florida.
Speaker D:Yeah, Palm Beach.
Speaker B:Palm Beach.
Speaker B:It's a humbling, really great feeling when people travel more than an hour to get here.
Speaker B:It blows my mind.
Speaker B:So thank you, sincerely.
Speaker B:And that goes for everybody in the room right now.
Speaker B:But let's kind of find out where you came from.
Speaker D:Sure.
Speaker B:Tell us a little bit about your story.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker D:Where to start?
Speaker D:You know, I was born and raised in South Florida, and I went off.
Speaker D:I was a college baseball player, and when I came.
Speaker D:Came back and, you know, decided to, you know, look for a job or, you know, I thought it was going to be a high school teacher.
Speaker D:And a couple things happened.
Speaker D:You know, I actually.
Speaker D:We talked a little bit about crypto in my story.
Speaker D:I got into bitcoin early, and that kind of gave me some.
Speaker D:Some something to move with entrepreneurially.
Speaker D:And I was already getting into distribution to restaurants, and I wanted to.
Speaker D:You know, I kind of thought at the time as well, that, like, if I could become a successful business person, maybe people take me more seriously if I talked about crypto.
Speaker D:That was kind of an idea.
Speaker D:And, you know, I kind of.
Speaker D:I fell in love with the industry from there.
Speaker D:You know, in college, actually, I was playing baseball.
Speaker D:My wife used to laugh at me because she was then my girlfriend, but I would always say I ate for nutritional purposes.
Speaker D:I had a very bland diet.
Speaker D:Didn't eat dessert, anything like that.
Speaker D:And it wasn't until, you know, I started getting clients in restaurants, and they invite me out and I'd eat the food.
Speaker D:I was like, wow, there's so much more to food.
Speaker D:So that was the kind of the journey.
Speaker D:And then a commercial kitchen stop.
Speaker D: icals and hygiene products in: Speaker D: nded and we came to market in: Speaker D:And then we.
Speaker D:I hired a gentleman who was very good at design build, and he kind of opened up my eyes to a lot of different things, Designing the concepts and, you know, procuring the equipment.
Speaker D:And then we just kept on going, you know, so we talked about our mission is to serve those who serve others.
Speaker D:So kind of be the backbone for people like Chef here, because those are the relationships I have, and his relationships are with the customers.
Speaker D:And we want to make sure those guys are standing tall and have the right resources to operate.
Speaker D:And we just kind of said, well, how can we do that?
Speaker D:And our guiding light is just to make buying food service equipment and supplies as easy as possible.
Speaker D:So we just became very vertically integrated.
Speaker B:When we met at the show and somebody had told me, hey, there's this fellow Ryan.
Speaker B:He's going to come by.
Speaker B:I'm like, okay, what's he do?
Speaker B:And they said bitcoin.
Speaker B:And I'm like, I don't.
Speaker B:What.
Speaker B:He go, no, no, you don't understand.
Speaker B:This doesn't fit into food.
Speaker B:We're about the industry.
Speaker B:And I think it was Pooch.
Speaker B:Pooch said, no, man.
Speaker B:He, like, has equipment.
Speaker B:He does this whole thing.
Speaker B:And I was like, okay, it turns out you're a cool cat and you're deep embedded into the industry.
Speaker B:And when you started talking about your story when we met, it's pretty dynamic in how you started because, you know, you had some luck, good fortune, I should say, with bitcoin.
Speaker B:And that kind of.
Speaker B:And that kind of moved you forward with your whole industry, you know, restaurant industry operation.
Speaker B:How do you go from being successful, short period of time, you're talking four or five years, and you had your first acquisition.
Speaker B:Congratulations, by the way.
Speaker D:I appreciate it.
Speaker B:How does that happen?
Speaker D:A lot of hard work, a lot of late nights, very, very few days off.
Speaker D:And the sweat equity is, you know, you got to put the work in.
Speaker D:In general.
Speaker D:And I would say, you know, just kind of be intuitive, you know, look at.
Speaker D:There's a good book to read, you know, who Moved my Cheese?
Speaker D:I think that's the name of it.
Speaker D:So, you know, when you find something that.
Speaker D:That works, kind of double down on that.
Speaker D:So that's whether we moved into actually during COVID when it was very hard to get equipment.
Speaker D:This is actually kind of funny.
Speaker D:I was trying to break into the design build world, and the factories had long lead times, and I knew there was Very specific pieces that people would want to have 25 week lead times.
Speaker D:So I was just putting in massive purchase orders, praying I would sell it by the time it showed up.
Speaker D:But I had 25 weeks to try to sell these things.
Speaker D:And I started going around to jobs and just getting their lead times.
Speaker D:And meanwhile, these operators are, you know, are paying rent, they have pressure from the landlord, they need to get open.
Speaker D:So that was one of my first big swings that allowed us to really break into that industry.
Speaker B:And that's a lot of.
Speaker B:Let me interrupt you.
Speaker B:That's major stones to do that, looking.
Speaker C:Back at it, because the average, the.
Speaker B:Average piece of equipment cost is probably 15 grand.
Speaker D:An average restaurant to build cheap is for one piece.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker D:You know, somewhere around 3 to $500,000 for your average restaurant.
Speaker D:Average restaurant, you know, food service, equipment package.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:So here you are, you're saying, oh, like here's the, the top 10 items that, you know, a restaurant tour or a chef is going to need.
Speaker B:And you're.
Speaker B:And you're taking POS on that yourself.
Speaker D:Yeah, it seemed logical at the time, looking back at.
Speaker D:Seemed like it was a little bit of a riskier move.
Speaker D:But, you know, it's kind of, you know, we do personality indexing too, for hiring staff.
Speaker D:We're up to about 60 employees.
Speaker D:And, you know, so my profile came back as Daredevil, and it all kind of started to make sense as I look back at things, as I jumped into more what appeared to be volatile things to do, whether it was crypto or doing something like that.
Speaker D:And that was kind of, you know, a big swing for commercial kitchen stuff to break into that industry and get it, start building a big name and design build in the South Florida region.
Speaker B:All right, so how do I get my hands on one of these tests?
Speaker D:I'll text it to you.
Speaker D:It's eight minutes undivided attention.
Speaker D:You'll learn more about yourself.
Speaker D:And it's actually scary when you start to read it.
Speaker D:It's like, oh my God, that is so true about me.
Speaker B:All right, all right, all right.
Speaker B:Is it like one thing because is it one link for like me and John or is two separate things?
Speaker D:I could just share it along and then it'll come to me and I'll shoot the data.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker B:Because I'm going to send one to my wife too.
Speaker B:Just put it out there.
Speaker D:And for restaurant owners that are listening, we use Culture Index.
Speaker D:A bigger one in the industry is Myers Briggs.
Speaker D:But it's just a big thing to make sure if you're looking for an employee, especially if you're looking to maybe duplicate some of a similar personality set, you can't have a company full of daredevils.
Speaker D:It would fall apart.
Speaker D:So you need to hire more logical people, maybe.
Speaker D:So it's very useful tool.
Speaker D:That and some other systems that we developed that we can maybe talk about.
Speaker B:Serving those who serve others.
Speaker B:That's a hell of a mission statement.
Speaker B:How do you and your company execute?
Speaker D:So we think there's three ways to accomplish that.
Speaker D:It's through a vertical integration.
Speaker D:So everything that we can do to not have to outsource something.
Speaker D:So a lot of dealers will just sell something, leave it at your back door.
Speaker D:Then you call the plumber.
Speaker D:You call, you know, a company that install my ice machine or my plumbing supplies or install my combi oven.
Speaker D:The more we can control our destiny, the more I can control the customer experience and make sure he's happy.
Speaker D:You know, a lot of dealers get a bad reputation for outsourcing to a company that maybe didn't do the right job.
Speaker D:So that's, you know, very important.
Speaker D:Secondly, solutions based partnerships.
Speaker D:So we part when we do make partnerships, like I was telling you earlier about in this area.
Speaker D:Teco Gas restaurant owners didn't realize they had large subsidies on their gas appliances that they could spend that they.
Speaker D:When they pay their monthly bill, it subsidizes funds.
Speaker D:But they had to get equipment for it.
Speaker D:So I became a partner with them because.
Speaker D:And we gave away probably 4,000 fryers over the last couple years that the customers didn't have to pay for.
Speaker D:Looking for partnerships like that.
Speaker D:And then my favorite one and the way we accomplished that is just having a healthy disregard for the impossible, which is a Larry Page quote I took years ago.
Speaker D:And I have it on my wall and it's on our website.
Speaker D:And those are the three ways we feel like we accomplished that.
Speaker C:If the bear would have had you, it would have probably only been two episodes where they were trying to put the restaurant together instead of the whole season.
Speaker B:Yeah, seriously, I gotta catch up on the bear.
Speaker C:Spoiler alert.
Speaker C:Sorry.
Speaker B:Yeah, take it easy.
Speaker B:All right.
Speaker B:I binge watched the first two seasons and I got the third to get into Chef.
Speaker B:Do you see any value in refurbished equipment?
Speaker C:You know, I think that when you come with refurbished equipment, it's a luck of a draw, so to speak.
Speaker C:You can have those moments where you lucked out and got the right one, but in the end, paying a little bit extra to make sure that you got the warranty and everything behind it.
Speaker C:It's probably the Best move in the long run.
Speaker B:All right, so Ryan, what kind of impact are you seeing with operators who are actually taking a shot, a risk in purchasing something refurbished versus brand new?
Speaker D:Well, I believe for used equipment, there's pieces that are very logical to buy pre owned pieces that are not overly mechanical.
Speaker D:So something like a Hobart mixer, it's $25,000 new and it's a very basic piece of equipment.
Speaker D:But you can buy used from us for about $8,000 and they last forever.
Speaker D:Some of them are much older than we are in this room.
Speaker D:Some of them are built in the 60s.
Speaker D:They just run forever.
Speaker D:So it's a very logical piece to buy.
Speaker D:Pizza deck ovens also can be $30,000.
Speaker D:You can buy it from us for $12,000.
Speaker D:And again, they're very basic pieces of equipment.
Speaker D:There's like four main pieces on there now with some other pieces.
Speaker D:I don't necessarily recommend buying used because the imports have been so impactful, but what we are watching right now is the impact of tariffs.
Speaker D:And now they're actually making the delta between a used piece and an imported piece further apart where a customer demographic needs to exist there.
Speaker D:And I do try to warn people on certain pieces.
Speaker D:The best thing about the used piece is the price.
Speaker D:So outside of that, like Chef said, you're taking a shot.
Speaker D:We do try to back it up with a 60 day warranty.
Speaker D:So I'll sell it to you.
Speaker D:Anything the first 60 days is on me.
Speaker D:But I can't warranty that piece forever.
Speaker D:You know, the best thing is the price with that if you need to get by with it.
Speaker B:Before we go further, let me say that we have another guest in the house.
Speaker B:We have the Stan Hayes, who is the co founder of Operation Barbecue Relief, which is a disaster relief nonprofit.
Speaker B:They've served approximately 13 million meals.
Speaker B: e pitmaster and he was also a: Speaker B:He's the man and his operation, the great team that he has with him, they are helping communities through crisis and they're doing it with the power of barbecue.
Speaker B:I just want to welcome Stan to the program.
Speaker E:Thank you.
Speaker E:I appreciate it.
Speaker B:I also know that you're chomping at the bit.
Speaker B:You wanted to jump in on the refurbished equipment?
Speaker E:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker B:Go ahead, baby.
Speaker B:What do you got?
Speaker E:You know, look, I, I think when we.
Speaker E:Well, first of all, when I started out, we, we didn't have the, the funds to go for, you know, new equipment.
Speaker E:Especially when you're talking about equipment like tilt skillets.
Speaker E:And things like that.
Speaker E:You know, they're very expensive.
Speaker E:Hobart, you know, Buffalo choppers, things like that.
Speaker E:We, We.
Speaker E:We couldn't buy new, so we bought a lot of refurbished.
Speaker E:You know, we got stuff donated, and we still have to today because there's times that we need more equipment, and because of the lead times, because of the tariffs right now, everything that's going on, like, you know, if there's a major disaster or in, you know, last year's case, to back to back across, you know, multiple states that we're working in.
Speaker E:I was trying to buy smokers.
Speaker E:I was trying to buy tilt skillets.
Speaker E:I was trying to buy, like, I literally changed direction when, you know, heading to the Carolinas to stop in St. Louis to wait for a store to open up to see a tilt skillet that they had advertised on Facebook Marketplace, because I could not find them.
Speaker E:And so there's a time and a place, I think, for all of them.
Speaker E:But there's certain pieces of equipment, like Ryan said that, hey, you should look at, you know, and Hobart's got a lot of them.
Speaker E:But, you know, I mean, when it comes to a tilt skillet, yeah, it's there.
Speaker E:There can be a game changer for you.
Speaker D:So what I'd like to do for you then is give you my personal cell phone number so you don't have to wait for the store to open up.
Speaker D:Just call me anytime, and I'll go open the door, and we'll get you the tilt skillet.
Speaker D:No problem.
Speaker E:No, absolutely.
Speaker E:Look, I really think that one, this is how communities are built.
Speaker E:This is how making these connections are a huge part of what I do.
Speaker E:And finding somebody that can do something quickly sometimes isn't easy.
Speaker D:And to be honest, tilt skills is another one of those items.
Speaker D:I talked about mixers and deck ovens, but tilt skills, too high price points, very simple pieces of equipment.
Speaker D:We refurbish them.
Speaker D:And the cost of ownership, generally after.
Speaker D:After you own it, is not very high.
Speaker D:So if you have any post issues that they tend to last a long time.
Speaker D:So if that's an important item for you, love to help you out in any capacity.
Speaker B:Let's talk storytelling and visibility in the commercial equipment space.
Speaker B:Can you give me some reasons why it's important?
Speaker D:Storytelling?
Speaker D:I always think telling a story is important, you know, especially when you're trying to relate to a customer that you don't necessarily agree with the decision they're making.
Speaker D:And let's say it's buying, let's say it's a critical piece for them.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker D:And you can't unless everyone tell someone they're wrong and you just know better.
Speaker D:Just tell them the story and they can relate to that.
Speaker D:I use that quite often like let me tell you a story about how this happened there.
Speaker D:For some reason, they take that information much better than I just know more than you.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker D:They want to hear from other owners and operators and referrals that can share in their experience.
Speaker D:I don't know why human psychology works that way, but that's.
Speaker D:It is extremely impactful.
Speaker B:We're living in a time where everyone has access to everyone that's good and bad equally because we're inundated with, you know, the plastic, fake, dare I say, influencer types, which there's a place for, but that's the majority.
Speaker B:So when you're talking about real storytelling and real empowerment or real emotion or real life occurrences, for me, that's what we do here at Walk and Talk.
Speaker B:We're storytelling.
Speaker B:This is the Walk and Talk podcast.
Speaker B:It's not the Carl Fiadini podcast.
Speaker B:It's not about me.
Speaker B:It's about you guys, gals, whoever comes on the show.
Speaker B:Let's talk Middleby and how you leverage their innovation kitchens.
Speaker D:Middleby is a large company with a lot of resources.
Speaker D:They're publicly traded, so they have the ability for large R and D budgets.
Speaker D:And I don't know if you guys are familiar with something called the mic.
Speaker D:The MC out in Texas is their whole innovation kitchen really trying to think forward about what human consumption looks like in terms of how we'll execute menus as labor costs rise.
Speaker D:Looking for more automation in kitchens.
Speaker D:And you're seeing a lot of very futuristic things happen that are not, you know, you're.
Speaker D:The chains are starting to really test them.
Speaker D:I think it'll be a while before, you know, Chef and his country club line has a robot taking out fries for you.
Speaker D:But, you know, at some point it's going to be a very logical decision to make rather than, you know, paying someone to do it.
Speaker D:And you know, they're just on the front.
Speaker D:They have the R and D budgets and the capacity to do it, you know, and everything from operators expenses too.
Speaker D:You want to look at energy efficiency, the cost of tonal ownership of it.
Speaker D:So it's been a great resource for us, you know, also along with well built companies and the marketplace.
Speaker D:But we've been a big partner with them.
Speaker D:If you're in South Florida, they have test kitchens in both Clearwater and Fort Lauderdale.
Speaker D:If you're, you know, we'll plug ourselves later.
Speaker D:If you're interested in testing equipment, feel free to reach out to me and I can get you in front of the equipment before you buy it.
Speaker D:You know, before you make that decision.
Speaker B:At the Napham show, I actually saw the robot fry thing.
Speaker B:Chef Russell over at, at Middleby, he, he was nice enough to give us a tour.
Speaker B:Cool cat, great company.
Speaker B:The equipment is going to come around.
Speaker B:Yeah, I mean it's basically at your fast food stops already.
Speaker B:Be careful, chef.
Speaker C:Hey, somebody's got to push that button.
Speaker B:You know, that's me.
Speaker D:And I view it as just a further automation.
Speaker D:You know, humans used to, we used to wash dishes by our hands, right.
Speaker D:And then we got a dishwasher that we pressed a button and just further, you know, innovation within the place in the marketplace to make things more efficient.
Speaker B:How are you using media when it comes to showrooms or a sales strategy?
Speaker D:To be honest, that's something that we, I don't feel like we're doing a good job at.
Speaker D:We have two showrooms, we have lots of inventory, probably a couple million dollars worth of inventory.
Speaker D:And you know, we're trying to.
Speaker D:The company we just acquired just does Facebook marketplace offerup, ebay and they get tremendous foot traffic.
Speaker D:Over 60 invoices a week.
Speaker D:You know, transactions take place within the store.
Speaker D:And it's very basic and it's very, you know, from the perspective of everything you do, Carl, you do incredible work, very poor quality.
Speaker D:And that's something that we're going to focus on.
Speaker D:We've brought on a new director of sales and revenue that is, you know, very forward thinking.
Speaker D:He's actually the founder of Hurricane Grill and Wings.
Speaker D:He built it to 35 stores and sold it to Fab Brands.
Speaker D:So, you know, for the first time in a long time, I feel like I have someone really strong to rely on that I can really build out more robust customer facing experiences to get them in the store.
Speaker D:And to poke a little bit of fun at my industry too.
Speaker D:It, the industry is a little bit, you know, there's a lot of secession planning going on, we'll say.
Speaker D:And you know, there's.
Speaker D:That's one reason why I was excited to get into it.
Speaker D:Someone had to sell this stuff.
Speaker D:It does feel under competitive to be honest.
Speaker D:At times sometimes I think I'm really good, but I just also think that our market's a little bit behind.
Speaker D:You know, maybe I'm not as good as I think I am.
Speaker B:Are you making sales?
Speaker D:We're doing all right.
Speaker B:Then you're doing good?
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:I mean that, that's the barometer.
Speaker B:There is, you know, green, black, where are you?
Speaker C:You know, man, not for nothing the.
Speaker C:And off topic, the.
Speaker C:It's a situation where you have a 60 day warranty off of your refurbished equipment.
Speaker C:That's awesome.
Speaker C:Because if you've only got 15, 20 grand and you're, you don't know where to put it.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker C:Or you don't know if you should really buy that tilt skillet because you don't know where it's coming from.
Speaker C:A marketplace.
Speaker C:But if you can back that up and that just.
Speaker B:I think that's amazing.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker D:Seriously, you kill your reputation if customers just rolling the dice on a piece, you got to make sure it works.
Speaker D:And you know, for that.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:For restaurants and people like me and you know you're going to be able to sell more because of that.
Speaker C:Because not only are you being able to back it, but you're giving more of a personal.
Speaker C:The part of it where we want to give you those chances.
Speaker C:But at the same time they're like, I don't know if it's going to break it to me and you know, next week or something like that.
Speaker C:So I think that's a good move.
Speaker D:And not stay off topic.
Speaker D:But if, you know what I have found is you just got to warn them up front because if the unit, they buy a used unit and it does have an issue in the first or second week, they're going to be like, oh, you sold me a lemon.
Speaker D:They often will buy used equipment with new expectations.
Speaker D:I'm like, no, I'm going to pay for it.
Speaker D:It's going to be okay.
Speaker D:Like, you know, so that's, that's part of the, you know, you just really try to get in front of it.
Speaker D:Like tell them like the best thing is the price.
Speaker D:And I got here for 60 days and kind of you just got to present it correctly.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker D:You set customers expectations appropriately.
Speaker B:Other than robots and french fries, where do you see the next innovation or disruption happening in the equipment field?
Speaker D:What we're working on right now is to get more vertically integrated on service.
Speaker D:So right now we don't, we refurbish our own equipment and sell it, but we don't go out in the field and fix it ourselves.
Speaker D:So I think what we're working on is internally AI agents.
Speaker D:The labor pool for technicians is not very strong.
Speaker D:Not a lot of people, you know, the trades in schools and colleges are people are going doing different majors that are not getting their hands dirty.
Speaker D:So what we're trying to do is invest in a robust AI system that can help technicians, younger ones, go through a system protocol and speak to an agent in AI software to learn how to fix it.
Speaker D:So that's something that we feel like customer experience, maybe chef can share.
Speaker D:It's not always the best experience getting that equipment fixed, and it's not always as fast as you need.
Speaker D:And just the labor pool is really challenging.
Speaker D:And that's where we see the next big move coming for our company.
Speaker B:If somebody listening wants to explore a work opportunity with you, where do they go for that?
Speaker D:It depends on what department they're looking for.
Speaker D:They can reach out to me with my information.
Speaker D:I can put them in the right direction.
Speaker D:So we have a sales operation.
Speaker D:So if they want to do some of the sales and marketing, Chris oversees that department.
Speaker D:We also have operations department that is really operation services.
Speaker D:So if they want to do technical, it's our director of services, Spencer Mullins.
Speaker D:And then if they want to work in finance, our director of finance is my partner, Maria Alberto.
Speaker D:That's how she would we let the three department heads do their hiring.
Speaker B:Sam, you're in Tampa Bay.
Speaker B:You're a good dude.
Speaker B:You're helping a friend on a move.
Speaker B:And the timing was right for you to be here in studio today.
Speaker E:Yeah.
Speaker B:Putting that aside.
Speaker B:And I'm glad you made it.
Speaker B:And I'm glad actually everyone here got to kind of experience what we do in studio.
Speaker B:But you got something cool coming up here in a few weeks.
Speaker E:Yeah.
Speaker B:Can you.
Speaker B:Can you kind of share what this event is about?
Speaker E:Yeah.
Speaker E:So the event is Salute to American Heroes, and it's going to be at the OCC Roadhouse in Clearwater, Florida.
Speaker E:And it's really to celebrate our heroes.
Speaker E:You know, those, those first responders, those veterans, the people that are always out there giving to their communities.
Speaker E:It's time for us to celebrate them.
Speaker E:And so it's going to be, I mean, a huge day you got.
Speaker E:Paul Senior is going to be there on site unveiling a new motorcycle that he's designed for a veteran.
Speaker E:You're going to have a music artist named Jesse G. Who's written a song for a gold star mom after learning her story about her loss of her son.
Speaker E:So there's going to be probably some tears that go along with this, but a lot of patriotic people that will be coming out to help celebrate our heroes.
Speaker E:And it's going to end with Paul Sr.
Speaker E:Senator Jay Collins and others that are going to be there to give this lifetime achievement award to a guy who is a true patriot.
Speaker E:Not only Served as Special Forces.
Speaker E:But then after Special forces became a first responder 9 11, he was on site and he started a non profit called Greybull.
Speaker E:And the man, you know, I want to say single handedly, but it wasn't.
Speaker E:There was a lot of hard work from others, but the vision to go over during this recent crisis in Israel to bring back, you know, Jewish Americans who had no way to come back because the airspace was closed down.
Speaker E:You know, they were taking people out of Israel to Jordan and other, you know, to fly back to the States.
Speaker E:And this is his vision to do that.
Speaker E:So we're going to be awarding gentleman's name is Brian Stern.
Speaker E:We're going to be awarding him this lifetime achievement award because it isn't about being a celebrity or anything else.
Speaker E:It's about being a patriot and being a hero in so many people's eyes.
Speaker E:And so this day is going to be full of things like that.
Speaker E:We're going to have other speakers that are coming out that are decorated military and first responders to show that this community is much bigger than a lot of the rhetoric sometimes out there and hate that you hear.
Speaker B:Number one, this is terrific.
Speaker B:Appreciate you coming on the show to talk about it and to share that this event is coming up.
Speaker B:How do people find out about the event though?
Speaker E:It is salute to american heroes.com you can buy tickets there, you can buy tables.
Speaker E:Companies want to get involved.
Speaker E:There's opportunity there to have a little booth where you can talk about what you do.
Speaker E:Myself and five other nonprofits are part of this because we all have programs that celebrate our heroes.
Speaker E:And so we've come together to really try to make this a big event.
Speaker C:Yeah, man.
Speaker C:So you said August 17, right?
Speaker E:Yep.
Speaker C:To 5pm I plan on being there and I'm looking forward to it.
Speaker C:And to meet a real American badass.
Speaker E:You know, there's going to be several of them there.
Speaker E:Yeah.
Speaker E:So yeah, no, it'll be a great event and it's a great venue.
Speaker E:Those see Roadhouse is a great place and so it'll be a great day.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:And I'm, I really admire what you're doing and I look forward to, I mean we met today and I already look forward to doing something with you.
Speaker E:Awesome.
Speaker C:Seriously.
Speaker B:General question.
Speaker B:Ryan, you first.
Speaker B:You're in distribution and support and you work with teams.
Speaker B:What's the key to getting buy in from these people on your role?
Speaker D:To do the right work for any other organization.
Speaker D:And I even bring this to my son's baseball team, which I coach as well.
Speaker D:Establishing company core values.
Speaker D:Something that, it's incredible when you, when you put out what you expect in behavior and what you find tolerable and what you will praise and what you will fire over.
Speaker D:If core values, like there could be issues with performance, but if you're not embodying company with core values, there's no chance for you.
Speaker D:So briefly, everyone in our company needs to pursue progress.
Speaker D:They need to have extreme accountability.
Speaker D:They have each other's back and they have, have a desire to do the right thing.
Speaker D:If you do those four things, you have a great thing going and also just helps everyone kind of police themselves.
Speaker D:And they'll, they'll praise others when they do those things for them and they'll call those out accordingly.
Speaker D:And as now we now employ a decent amount of people, it really has allowed the healthy culture to permeate throughout, and I believe it's one of our biggest growth engines.
Speaker B:Servant leadership is a thing that should be embraced and cultivated inside of an organization.
Speaker B:Chef, how are you getting buy in from, say, a line cook and a hostess up in the front?
Speaker B:What are you doing inside the restaurant?
Speaker C:Mainly, and two things is trust and accountability.
Speaker C:You know, trusting, number one, that they're going to do the job that we ask them to do.
Speaker C:We're giving the tools and show them.
Speaker C:But the other part is too, is much like Ryan said, is accountability.
Speaker C:You know, they find a way to manage themselves.
Speaker C:Most of the time there's, there's plenty of times that I'm doing this or I'm in Greenville and one of the other clubs now, and one of the best things is that that club still runs the way it's supposed to.
Speaker C:And it does.
Speaker C:It takes the hostess, it takes the busters, runners, the stewards, and my team back there in the kitchen, the chefs, all synergizing and making it happen every night to the point where I get text messages and phone calls from my members that are saying, hey, we love the new menu or we love the raviolis and things that we did that lobster raviolis.
Speaker C:And I'm not even there doing it.
Speaker C:And I'm so proud to be able to, to text them back or let them know on the, on the phone, hey, I'm not even there right now.
Speaker C:And that's.
Speaker C:That to me is the win.
Speaker B:Stan.
Speaker B:So you're doing this same scenario, but on the macro level, because you're doing this in multiple states, you're doing this with multiple organizations, you're doing this with, you know, multiple potential, you know, donators, people who are going to, you Know, try to work with you to kind of see the common goal when it comes to crisis.
Speaker B:Master, how does this fit with you?
Speaker E:Well, I think it goes back to first, what you said.
Speaker E:Servant leadership is huge because I've got 30 employees, but I got thousands of volunteers.
Speaker E:The best way to put it, I guess, is you got to show them what you expect, get their buy in.
Speaker E:But part of the way to do that is I expect my team to be there.
Speaker E:And if I expect my team to do it, you know, to show the volunteers, that means I expect myself to do it.
Speaker E:You know, I'm one that doesn't lead from, you know, a tower.
Speaker E:I lead.
Speaker E:I lead from the front, you know, so I'm not afraid to go do any.
Speaker E:Anything out there.
Speaker E:Do I like to do everything out there?
Speaker E:Hell, no.
Speaker E:You know, I don't want to be in the dish pit after, after the day, you know, when you're, you're sitting there and the smokers haven't been cleaned for two days, and they've been running for 24, you know, hours a day for two days.
Speaker E:I mean, but it has to happen.
Speaker E:And, you know, so I think that, you know, being leading from the front and showing that you're not afraid to do it, to show the volunteers, to show your team, it helps get that buy in.
Speaker E:You know, it helps create the culture that you want in the organization to know that, hey, he's going to go do it, or if we ask him, he'll go do it.
Speaker E:I may not do it all the time anymore, but I'm not afraid to do it just because you've got to show that.
Speaker E:So I think there is a lot of synergy across what everybody's saying here, and it's still people, and people is the main thing here.
Speaker E:Yeah, we talked about automation and all of these other things, and it'll make it easy in some ways when there's automation because that person won't think.
Speaker E:Think about whether they want to do it or not, do it or not do it timely or, hey, am I going to look at my phone to see what happened on social and get behind, Call out sick or call out sick.
Speaker E:But my unique challenge, though, sometimes is that volunteer, because volunteers, things happen in their life and they may not show up that day because something happened to them.
Speaker E:And let's face it, I, you know, we get volunteers from the area that have been impacted, so something may happen that keeps them from coming back, even though you were relying on.
Speaker E:So you also have to be able to be nimble.
Speaker B:There's healing for people who have gone through whatever that disaster is, that crisis.
Speaker B:The healing comes from them participating in whatever effort, corrective effort, a fix or whatever rescue, whatever it may be.
Speaker B:They need that.
Speaker E:Yeah, no, we've had many volunteers that maybe we've taken care of in a disaster who pay it forward to another community, too, because they weren't able to get out there at that time, but they remember that meal that they received.
Speaker E:You know, we call it the healing power of barbecue because of that.
Speaker E:Right.
Speaker E:We, you know, we call it the one hot meal that matters.
Speaker E:We don't talk about the millions of meals that we serve.
Speaker E:We talk about that one hot meal because that one hot meal compounds every time.
Speaker B:That's incredibly powerful.
Speaker E:People ask me, you know, many questions, and I will tell you the one thing that I find that happens to almost every volunteer and employee is the thing called, you know, what's your why?
Speaker E:And I tell people what you're going to find, your why.
Speaker E:Someday while you're out there volunteering, you know, it's going to be, you know, my why.
Speaker E:Happened in a parking lot in Joplin, Missouri.
Speaker E:Our very first disaster.
Speaker E:About three days in, watched a car pull in the parking lot.
Speaker E:Beaktail.
Speaker E:You know, it was in the storm, and all I could see was this little lady sitting in this car was stuff piled up all around her.
Speaker E:And all I could think of is, that's probably everything she has left in her life piled into that car.
Speaker E:She got out of her car and started walking, and she just sort of standing in the middle of the parking lot, and I was like, oh, I'll see if she needs something.
Speaker E:So I walked over and said, can I help you?
Speaker E:And she's like, I heard I could get a meal here.
Speaker E:And I ushered her over to where the food service line was and, you know, talked to her for a minute and everything and went on to do something else.
Speaker E:And I turned back, and there she is in the same place now with Neil, but now she's crying.
Speaker E:I'm like, oh, my God, what happened?
Speaker E:And to me, you know, as I walk over there and I'm trying to make sure everything's okay, she was like, I just need to know who to thank.
Speaker E:I was like, man, it's just a pulled pork sandwich.
Speaker E:And she said, it has nothing to do with the sandwich.
Speaker E:It has to do with the fact that we weren't forgotten that people like you came to our community.
Speaker E:You showed us love, you showed us that, yeah, there's a sandwich in here, but there's so much more to your actions.
Speaker E:And it blew me away.
Speaker E:There's many times I think about that little old lady in that parking lot.
Speaker E:And the reason I'm doing what I do.
Speaker B:That little old lady is somebody's mother, grandmother, sister.
Speaker B:Yep, aunt.
Speaker E:One of the wisest things I've ever heard is from a lady.
Speaker E:I don't know her name.
Speaker B:Stan, you're doing the good work.
Speaker B:I know that everybody here at the table in whatever capacities that they can.
Speaker B:I'm pretty sure you made, you know, four friends today.
Speaker B:You know that.
Speaker B:That are going to put, well, three, because we already knew each other that are going to tote the line.
Speaker B:So, Chef, what's the hospitality industry missing right now?
Speaker C:100%.
Speaker C:I really think that it's right back to.
Speaker C:It's a 100 hospitality.
Speaker C:That's what's missing is just making sure that we didn't forget the mission.
Speaker C:And the mission is, is that we serve.
Speaker B:Stan.
Speaker E:I think it's a cultural thing where, you know, a lot of people think that that job is not for them.
Speaker E:You know, we've gotten away from.
Speaker E:We talked about getting away from the trades and getting away from that part of it that I think people are looking past this as an opportunity for them.
Speaker B:Brian.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker D:Adding to that, and I talked about it earlier, is looking.
Speaker D:So we are hiring for service technicians in the field.
Speaker D:If you think you're capable of doing it, we'll come in and train you.
Speaker D:We definitely know it's a buoy in the market that we are hoping to solve, but it's definitely missing the hospitality industry to make sure we have proper support to keep restaurants up and running quickly and efficiently.
Speaker B:Every answer was the correct one.
Speaker B:Look, you guys, sincerely, the three of you, coming out today was really amazing, and you each brought something special to a content production today.
Speaker B:To the podcast, to the cooking, just the overall vibe and camaraderie of the place.
Speaker B:How do we find you all?
Speaker C:Look me up.
Speaker C:Thomas Manzig at indeed.
Speaker C:Everything else, The Tampa Club.
Speaker D:Ryan Giffen on LinkedIn.
Speaker B:And yep, that's Giffen.
Speaker B:G. I. Yeah.
Speaker B:No, not Griffin.
Speaker B:Giffen.
Speaker D:Scottish.
Speaker D:Not Irish.
Speaker E:Operation Barbecue Relief.org is a website, and all of our socials are OP BBQ Relief.
Speaker E:Or you can search us on LinkedIn at Operation BBQ Relief.
Speaker B:Awesome.
Speaker B:Again, Chef Ryan, Stan, John, I don't have anything nice to say to you.
Speaker B:All right?
Speaker B:You don't want to open your mind?
Speaker B:You don't want to talk, man.
Speaker B:You don't want to say anything, man.
Speaker B:I love you, baby.
Speaker B:All right, we are out.
