Hey, everybody. Ryan Gromfin here with the Restaurant Boss. We just had lunch at
Jack Allen's. Did I show up? Oh,
it doesn't -- you can't really see the sign anyways. I'm going to walk over here where it's a little quieter. So
we walk into this restaurant. It just opened up. This is their fifth location.
It just opened up here a couple miles from our house.
And people always say to me why don't I do more reaction videos? Well, I honestly don't do more reaction videos because
I'm very seldom -- honestly, I'm just very seldom impressed
enough with places to do a reaction video. But here we are. It's Tuesday.
We came in for lunch at noon, and they're on a 45-minute wait.
Now why is this restaurant on a 45-minute wait at lunch,
fully staffed every table.
And so fortunately Jack Allen, the owner and
namesake of the concept was walking around the restaurant.
So I grabbed him really quick, introduced myself and said,
I hear from a lot of people that they're having a hard time finding staff.
They're struggling right now full-service restaurants. Why are you on a 45-minute
wait on a Tuesday and fully staffed, no help wanted signs or anything.
And he went on and on and on.And we're going to do an interview with him. We scheduled an interview.
But really, again, what I always talk about and
I don't want to keep saying it, I want him to say it's you is
he doesn't have a hard time finding staff because he genuinely treats his staff
the way they deserve to be treated. They get the time off when they need it.
They're trained. He said it starts with training. It starts
with standards for him. He said day one,
they're told to come in with their non-slip shoes and they're given
ordering forms or places they can go get them. And if they show up on day one
without their non-slip shoes, they go home
or they go get them. And that's just it. Those are the standards.The standards are set,
but they back it up with training. He says you get eight days of training no matter what position you're in.
They have an eight-day training program whether you're a server or cook or
whatever it is and they take them through this 8-day training program.
And he talked about
backing up his staff, about always being there for his staff.
If a guest comes in and is giving a host a hard time,
his hosts know that the managers and ownership
have their back. They have asked guests to leave their restaurant.
They have said I don't like the way you're treating my team.
You can leave our restaurant and never come back.
And again, this goes on and on and on, but we just had a great conversation about
systems processes, procedures, standards,
training, accountability but more importantly, just
treating your team, treating your guests the way they deserve to be treated.
He said it over and over again. You may call us an essential business.The government
may have called us an essential business, but there's nothing essential
about what we do. It's a choice. People can choose to come to our restaurant
or not come to our restaurant. And he honors that choice.
He ensures that
when someone chooses to come to his restaurant that they get the experience they deserve,
and those are his standards and they're never going to vary that.
So again I'm surmising a 30-minute conversation in a three-minute video,
but I just really wanted to get this filmed and get this out to you guys as soon as I can
about just really putting your team first. And if your
team knows that they're first, you're not going to have a problem
finding staff, you're not going to have a problem finding guests. Really quick, I'll end it here
our server was great. I could just tell our server was just great.
And so we asked the server we're like, hey, what's your background, I used to manage a restaurant.
He managed a restaurant here in town. He managed a
big resort about an hour away.
And then he said he started working for this company about six months ago.
And I asked why. He said he was just sick and tired of
going to these restaurants and hearing from owners and his co-workers and managers about how
they put employees first, and how great their
cultures and how much they care but then their actions don't show it.
He drives an hour
to come serve at this restaurant every day. He drives an hour
because he said this is the first company, he's worked at that actually
takes care of him the way that he feels he deserves to be taken care of,
honors him as a human being, honors him as an employee,
honors him as a member of the team
rather than just talking the talk but not walking the walk. So I'm going to leave you guys with that.
Ryan Gromfin with the Restaurant boss. Remember systems create freedom, freedom creates value,
value create scale, have an absolutely amazing day. I love every single one of you crazy restaurant people.
Bye-bye.
I have never backed down from a challenge before, but writing this book is absolutely
the hardest thing and one of the things I am most proud of
ever in my professional career.
See, before I wrote this book about seven years ago,
I wrote my first book. It never got published because
I'm not an author, I'm a chef. I can't spell.
I use commas wrong. I start every sentence with but.
I ramble on. I break every rule in the English language possible.
I'm just not trained for this. But I wanted to write a book. And I sat down, and I wrote a book
back in 2014.
And I was really proud of it. And when I sent it off to the people that were going to publish it,
they all but laughed. They couldn't even put it in an email.
They called me and said there's absolutely no way we could publish this.
The amount of editing and the amount of work it's going to take
are just too big of a task. Good luck. And that was it. Now
I got that phone call on my birthday.
And I had dinner plans my wife that night. And I was really sad.
And then about halfway through the dinner we turned it around. And we said you know what there's good
content in there and what are you good at Ryan, you're good at talking, right. I talk a lot.
So we turned that book into an audio course.
And while it may not have made a great book,
the information was incredible that became our first audio course.
It really launched the restaurant boss website and online presence.
And that book had sold thousands of copies all around the world as an audio course.
And then I've still wanted to write a book and get one published,
but I just kept saying I was too busy.
But in reality, I think I was just a little too afraid to sit down and do it again.
But last year, we set the goal to do it. And then when COVID hit,
it really motivated me because
the world needs the information this book,
you need the information in this book
and I wanted it in a way that it was accessible to everyone,
where cost wasn't a barrier, where technology wasn't a barrier.
Anyone can read this book. We also didn't want to write a big book.
It's only 124 pages, look at it. It's big font.
There are pictures. It's small. That's why we call it make it happen.
A tiny book for building a big restaurant business
because we want this book to be easy to consume
by you and your team and anyone else who's either
thinking about opening up a restaurant, is in the restaurant business and wants to grow,
has a restaurant and wants to enjoy more money and more
freedom or maybe you want to scale, maybe you want to open up 2, 5, 10
or 100 restaurants. It's all in here.
But I do want to issue a little bit of a warning.
I'm a very honest person if you haven't noticed from my YouTube videos.
And this book is no different. What's in this book are
proven strategies. What's not in this book is fluff.
What's not in this book is hyperbole
or pie in the sky or wishful thinking strategies or just
do this because it's so easy when in reality it's not easy.
It's going to be hard
to build a big restaurant business. It's going to be hard if you're
a chef and you want to get
promoted to executive chef. It's going to be hard
if you're a chef and you want to open up your own restaurant one day and I don't sugarcoat that.
So part of reading this book might really affect you, it might really hit a nerve with you.
But I promise you what's in here are only proven strategies,
proven strategies that I've learned
from working with clients, proven strategies that I learned from my days operating restaurants,
proven strategies that I've studied from
other restaurant tours during interviews and just studying their brands.
And I think we put together -- I know
we put together an absolutely incredible book called Make It Happen.
If you're thinking of opening a restaurant
if you own a restaurant, if you want to own more restaurants,
if you want to make more money, if you want to operate with more freedom,
then this book is for you.
Now we're giving away this book completely for free because
I don't want there to be any excuses.
Yes, we have to charge a couple dollars to ship it because we're not giving away
the PDF version,
the e-book. This is a real book. This is printed.
It's on paper. We're going to ship this book to you.
The book is absolutely free.
Just ask you to pay a couple dollars in shipping so that way
you can have this book forever on your bookshelf in your collection.
You can give it to others
in your business, you can give it to co-workers, and you can enjoy this forever.
So thank you for coming along on the journey with me.
I am so excited about it.
Make It Happen, a tiny book for building a big restaurant business.
Go ahead and click the link. Somewhere on this page, there's a button.
Grab your copy of this book completely for free today.
And remember, systems create freedom, freedom creates value, value creates scale.
I love every single one of you crazy restaurant people and I hope
you have an absolutely amazing day. Bye.