Untitled episode

hello everybody hi everybody Jamie and Marcus here welcome to test of Time episode number 16. excellent love love fashion and hustle in the restaurant business our love passion and our hustle uh so we've done for the last 20 years at our restaurant um unique situation where a couple preneur and we love working together and um we've been up and down everywhere success failure um you know

failures are important right failures are really important because it makes you push harder to want to do better and to more into and and just to excel um so I think you know I think people that fail I think it helps make them a better rounded person right failure is part of the successful learning process in everything and not only in in sports um in you

know in in life in general right if you have a failing marriage you're going to figure out how to do it better the next time or or change or change things while you're in the marriage I think people you know in my opinion I think people give up way too easily instead of trying to change things so I do too in all aspects of life I

think it's really really important you're never going to I've said this to you for years we're never going to see eye to eye on everything we're not the same person we're never going to see eye to eye and there are going to be things that we disagree upon there's going to be things that we fight about there's things that you know I think we've gotten much

better over the many years about fighting but I think that you know you fight for what you believe in sometimes and I think that you know things that are super important to either of us are things that we argue about or you know we feel very uh strong and opinionated about you know we are two Aries so we definitely we definitely um you know our opinionated

people so yeah but anyway back to you know we were talking about failures a little bit and about passion and stuff like that of course there is a way to learn from other people's failures absolutely but there's nothing like learning from your own as well but there are you know there's books there's mentors there's coaches uh all kinds of things people you can look up to

that you can actually learn and take shortcuts which is which is really recommended to take these shortcuts but sometimes you will experience failure but taking shortcuts sometimes isn't always the right answer because you have to learn by doing right so when you talk about shortcuts you're talking about things that have other people have failed upon right and you're taking a shortcut to get there because like

you're taking learning lessons from other people's failures exactly you're not taking shortcuts to like you know think like I think you're gonna right not not a bad shortcut these are good shortcuts right you take a shortcut through a river and you have to Wade through the water that wasn't quite a shortcut even though it got you there 15 minutes faster so you know yeah and now

you're soaking right now you're soaking wet and you have no clothes exactly right so so when we talk about shortcuts you know and taking things from other people we're talking about learning from other people's mistakes and and trying not to make them yourself so so what are we talking about today what did we say we were going to talk about um creating something unique yes and

having a passion for something which you know always comes up in our conversations because we we have a passion uh we have a passion for helping people we have a passion for our restaurant we have a passion for building culture uh with our staff we have a huge passion in all of those things that that we do um so sorry about building something unique excellent so

so how do you how does that happen you know when we talk to a lot of restaurateurs they're just fine just doing the basic thing all the time they buy from Cisco they buy from big big companies big companies U.S foods they buy from big companies and they're okay with that big wine companies big liquor companies so my my biggest problem is is when we go

to we go away a lot we travel a lot and when you go into a town like this just happened in Upstate New York to us we went to a town a small town where Washington play baseball and we go from one restaurant to another restaurant two different restaurants and they both have this the same wine same wine list the same wine list same back of

the bar and it was just like wow that's boring I know there's certain standard things that every bar or restaurant wine situation is going to have to have like like you're gonna have Pinot Grigio but why I'll have Echo Damani why all have Santa Margarita right these are things you go into a liquor store for and you find floor stacked and the big poster in the

window that it's on sale and when you walk into a restaurant I think those things are a bit devalued because you can find them anywhere a long long time ago there's a there's a great beer store here in the Hudson Valley and um have it's called halftime and he's been around for a long long time he's the first like big Beer Store I was talking to

him years ago um he said to me he goes Marcus it's nice to have the the Duval it's nice to have those those Brands but he goes when you look down this road he showed me all these beers he goes because this is all blind priced he goes nobody else has these beers nobody knows what they should be going for nobody knows what I paid for

them unless you do some research he goes so I have blind pricing in here I can basically charge extra and it's extra for the work that I've done in researching to get the beer here and my knowledge which isn't much if you're into it it's your passion I said wow that makes sense right so now when you walk into a a a restaurant and I gotta

tell you most restaurants have Santa Margarita most Russian Chef Santa Mark Santa Margarita peanut gratio it's just a standard a standard one by the glass I have no idea how much it sells for and that would be something really cool to look up and I think we can find that out while we're sitting here talking I don't have that website open however um let's say let's

say the prices are paying 20 bucks so which might be 20 bucks in a margarita a bottle there's Pinot Grigio that is far better for five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve dollars a bottle that you will make far more margin and there won't be so much thicker shock and let's face it if you're buying if if you're going to walk to the store and

buy Santa Margarita firm 20 or 30 bucks in the store they don't want to pay 50 60 bucks in a restaurant they're gonna be like man I'm getting ripped off there's a restaurant sell to me for 60 bucks I can go on the store and get it for 22 bucks 23 bucks they're ripping me off but if you're gonna find a Pinot Grigio that nobody else

can find in a liquor store very hard to find the liquor store there's no price comparison there's blind pricing so now what the restaurant tour the owner operators do is be a little more creative and I gotta tell you this is the theme the last food show I don't think you went to the New York food show with me because I ran in and out that

one day right there was a guy there doing consulting on wine lists he goes I'm trying to get all these big Brands out of restaurants and have them show restaurant tours they need to be more profitable or how to be more profitable since that I've heard several people say the same exact thing yesterday with a wine broker and she was like it's amazing how a lot

of these restaurants just do the same there's no thought process there's no thinking they just do invoke the same thing and they devalue their list drastically are they still going to sell Santa Margarita they are are they still going to sell Josh Cabernet they are but why when you don't when you can make more money other things so this is I think the part about being

unique that unique factor of your restaurant which takes a little bit of of energy to do some work thought thought energy you know just thinking about it a little bit more um is really important if there's one thing that you can take home from this you know today this podcast is think about where you're gonna have the best margins on your wine list and your wines

and your beers and those are the unique wines that are out there that nobody knows about because honestly when when we're a little different because we we have a lot of um invested interest in wine we have wine knowledge we have wine knowledge and you know we're a little bit different when we go out to eat but we want to see something different on a wine

list and really people are just going to order a Pinot Grigio they're not really going to care which Pinot Grigio it is they're not going to care which sauvignon blanc it is but if you can get a better price uh on a better wine that's not mass produced reduced or it's not all over the place where you see it every restaurant every wine and liquor store

then buy that one right buy that one buy that one dude so now a lot of restaurant tours are going to say well I don't know about wine it's it's true some restaurant owners don't even drink wine know nothing about wine or nothing about know nothing about it so that's when you have to then go to your system for your sales people say listen like the

first thing I ask a lot of places and a guy came to sell some bacchanore yesterday and I was a little upset that they went on a local on on a local other place to sell some I was like because that doesn't I was actually surprised that you got any I was actually quite surprised that you ordered as much as you did the owner was here

knowing that but it's a great brand and I mean it is it's a good brand the product is good the value was good I never came to see us you know and the owner came to see us at home so that's and I got up and I got that and I asked twice I said down at the restaurant bought that much because I know the restaurant

doesn't buy stuff like that and like so I want to differentiate myself and I'm like like I'm my this most most sales people we do business with know that hey um if you're coming to our town just sell me something don't go I appreciate you don't go anywhere else and we can't stop other other people from ordering it but if you're gonna walk in with the

owner or with the sales and sampling it you're encouraging other people there's twenty like 6 000 registered Wines in New York state 26 000 registered labels with the state wow that's a lot of wine five thousand six thousands that's a ton of wine it's an insane amount of wine like I know like let's say San Juan Puerto Rico right you go there and everyone's got the

same wine list you can't get yeah because it's a small island there's only so much available and it's like wow but I'm sure there's other things that people aren't using in there that that could be used and that's the thing but if you're in a normal State you just contact your liquor rep and you'll say listen I don't want stuff that's in the stores I don't

want this floor stack I want stuff that comes from a smaller production people don't know much about it this is and most sales people can help guide you in that direction but a lot of restaurant tours a lot of um well I guess restaurants they're just there to make money and quick and easy so they don't want to take the time to go and research and

make as high of margins on barefoot no you know why because here's what restaurants are because you can go into the store and buy a bottle for six bucks right yeah and why would I pay twelve dollars for a glass of barefoot in a restaurant when I see barefoot in a in a restaurant I know they put zero zero effort into why zero effort zero so

Barefoot true you can walk into the store even though Barefoot is dirt cheap the margins are going to be much lower and Barefoot because you can't there's no blind pricing so I won't charge eight dollars I want people to understand that buying cheaper products isn't the answer buying a product that isn't distributed as much at a better value is the answer right which takes a little

more research yes now sometimes sales people don't even know we have one sales person where where I said I want to order this wine he goes we don't have that we don't have that anymore I had to email I had to on message the old owner of the vineyard and she was Furious she was like Marcus they have my wine I can't believe this or tell

me she was Furious she's like who's your salesperson I can't believe this and like I had to go back into the Importer and another company and so I was like oh I didn't I didn't know we had it like do you misspelling it or what were you doing like you didn't know you had it so sometimes the sales people here's the problem with the sales people

they're getting commit they're getting higher um what I want to say bonuses they're getting bonuses if they're getting Kendall Jackson places only places so let's say Jack Daniels comes out the new flavored whiskey or Cuervo comes out with something new or it's a new Bacardi rum these guys gals yeah have to get so much new placement every month so they walk in through all month long

they're like I need to place this in 20 new 20 new placements this month that's all they're focusing on that month is doing those 20 placements of you know Bacardi Dragon Fruit whatever it is but you know what we need to change the way that these companies are working and it we are not going to be able to do it alone we need other restaurants out

there doing the same thing that we're doing and they need to stop them from doing this kind of stuff and they need to explain to these sales rep we need a relationship we don't want to just buy something because you're walking in the door with it right and so I think the biggest fear for most restaurants is not having something that other restaurants have so I

think I think that if you're a restaurateur I tell me if this is true if you don't have the Santa Margarita you're afraid because people are going to drink Santa Margarita somewhere else they're not going to come to you because you don't have Santa Margarita if you're a tequila bar if you have nice if you're doing Tequilas they're not going to come to you if you

don't have Patron so you put Patron there and you put those other celebrity Brands Casa Amigos and the Clase Azul even though you know they aren't that good and they're overpriced but you know if you don't have Costa Azul people aren't going to come to you if you don't have Patrol people are going to come to you is that true is the my is that mindset

true I'm sure there is a bit of that mindset exactly is that the reality no I think people if you tell somebody well listen look at us 20 years ago we did not have Heineken we did not have Bud Light we didn't have budweis we had none of that in the restaurant we decided from the beginning we were not having that at our restaurant I mean

that was kind of our start and you know what people walked in we didn't have it they walked out certain times they did certain times not all the time now forget it if you if someone says I'll have a Coors Light or whatever and you don't have it but let me taste you on this it takes training to be able to train people to think a

different way and it's taken us a while but it's easy to do if you are willing to put in the effort and the time to do it I mean that is the bottom line bottom line is the whole Theory theme of everything we do is training training training training train your staff and train your guests and train yourself to want to be better at what you

do so I just heard last night Courtney our daughter safe somebody came in and asked for a Hennessy did you hear this no I didn't hear this I was in there so somebody came in a friend of a friend they came and they asked for a Hennessy and Courtney our daughter said we don't have fantasy but I have cognac he goes well what's cognac they don't

even know what it is he's drinking Hennessy has no to no idea no idea no idea and I guarantee you somebody like that could work in a restaurant and it's going to give a stupid answer to a guest well when we don't have cognac I mean the Hennessy is sitting right on uh on on the bar right you think about why people order like an absolute

and tonic they don't even know what like they know absolute is a vodka but they don't it doesn't matter it's like a Kleenex and a tissue right Kleenex is the brand of a tissue so when we were in high school when we were in high school this one kid goes oh yeah we were drinking absolute and we were drinking vodka they were like dude that's the

same thing right so so right they they don't they just don't know because they haven't been educated and it's our job to educate and that is what what we are restaurant owners right so now there was a restaurant here in the in our area 10-15 minutes away from here at one point where I would hear the one rep say that the owner the chef owner doesn't

drink so he doesn't know what to buy he doesn't drink and and a lot of these stores in our area our liquor stores in the area are owned by Indians and they typically don't drink so when you walk into not all of them because our One Good Friend does drink who's Indian who owns a store but there's a lot of Indian stores in our own that

they don't drink and you walk in and you at they have no clue what you're taught they have no clue because they can't tell you they're going all by the Shelf talkers the labels on the shelf and the rating so the bottle needs to put the rating 89 points 91 points 88 points whatever best value but there's a lot of situations like that and that carries

right over into the restaurants that mentality carries and folks if you own if this is your business if you're on a liquor store wine shop if you own a restaurant it is your job to know this if you have a liquor license I'm sorry I hate to break it to you but it is I agree I mean that's what you're there for your job see the

back of my back shelf here if you're watching the audio these are books books educate you I have tons of books we have tons of audible books you can literally take Kevin's rallies windows in the world book and read it through in a very easy read and even the first couple additions you can read then they're small books and you can know the basics if you

do not know the basics on wine or Liquors or things like that you get a sales person and you say please come in and teach my staff and myself Chardonnay when I openly opened I knew a little bit about wine I knew more let's put it this way when we opened in 2003 I knew more about wine than most restaurant tours which compared to what I

know now is nothing yeah I knew nothing back in 2003 but it was more than most restaurants yours this is part of my professionals part of my career so if you own a restaurant it's your job to know this you're gonna now have to say like if you just got your liquor license and you've been in business a decade you just got your liquor license or

two years whatever it's now your job to to learn and teach and drive the ship forward with this um same thing when it comes to tequila and all this I think people are afraid to not have the patron but here's the interesting interesting fact when people come in and they go where you know Tequila and I started talking tequila with them well I don't know these

Tequilas they always say to me Marcus I don't know these Tequilas you're showing me they must be expensive I'm like 45 retail fifty dollars retail 55 retail sixty dollars retail they're like what do you mean why are they so cheap casamigos is 70. Clase Azul is 150 224 whatever it is they go why are these Tequilas so cheap I said because they're not celebrity Tequilas there's

no big million dollar ad campaigns in it this is a real family producing real products and every single person I've ever tasted on our tequila when they've asked the big Brands I've always wanted to where can I buy this bottle where can I buy this bottle where can I buy this bottle and guess what places don't have those tequilas the majority of other restaurants and and

liquor stores and liquor stores liquor stores so they have to come back to us now people come back to us because they can't get the stuff anywhere else the artisanal stuff all these cool things we have they can't get it at the liquor store they come to us to consume it and that's what you know this is working yep that's a unique part when you know

this is working I'm not expecting every restaurant tour to be a wine expert and this and that but please put some more but have thought and and educate yourself a little bit more when I walk in and I see Barefoot Josh and Santa Margarita I know they've done zero thought and they're just buying it and they and I know they're just stacking it in the the

room in their back storage room bringing it out and they know nothing about wine so now quickly before before we end this so we're going to 20 minutes to try to we try we try to keep these 20 minutes I just heard recently that one restaurant had a great a large wine list a large wine list but then one of the importers said yeah but a

lot of those wines are crop wines so it doesn't matter how large it is it's the Quan the quality over quantity that make a difference and I think a lot of restaurants restaurant owners restaurant doors operators get caught with the numbers I need 100 beers on my list I need 100 Wines right and then almost like having 100 tap beers right when you look behind the

bar and you're like what kind of tap beer do you have so now I have a confession to make uh-oh I've been guilty of that in the past of what wow just to fill in buying say okay you know what let's just fill some titles in let's just you know just buy stuff because I don't have this not tasting of that understanding it without knowing if

it's even good or not just filling and you are definitely guilty of that I've been not I've been alone of bringing in things because we need to up that category but not crap not crap not crap but you've you've been known to do that but in the past I would bring in just because I didn't know any better right I think oh I'm going to bring

in more of this I'll have more money you learned and you made changes I think the majority of Mexican restaurants fall in that category Mexican wine by they feel they fill you have these places the place has the same if you go to a Mexican restaurant they all have the same tequila they all have the same Mezcal and it's boring and it's no fun right we

love tequila we love margaritas and we can go to Mexican restaurant and not even drink because of because of that yep so all right yeah all right so thank you for joining us today you build it they will come right I think so and be patient with be patient be patient with it and don't give up this is folks this is your job this is totally

your job so Marcus what if they want to get in touch with us for some help um yeah in terms of of consulting or helping them because that is our mission in life is to help other restaurateurs be more successful so how can uh folks reach out to us and 50mistakes.com excellent 15 mistakes.com Will Roll you into restaurantgirlssecretsuniversity.com and we have a restaurant in Ellenville um

uh 90 miles north of New York City called enrollment time Bistro we've written a couple of books which are back here so you can still get 50 mistakes for free in fact we have to send some out we have some orders that came in thank you um 50 mistakes that business owners make um I was talking to somebody the other day and they're like you know

what Marcus I was it was the guy who used to pick up our our compost because you won't believe what happened Marcus because I was I was talking to a lady and she was all right you would really enjoy this book and she handed some copy this book oh my gosh he goes I know him and she was like really yeah so somebody gave somebody and

and they came in for their birthday and and they had a good time last Saturday or whatever day it was Sunday so you can get this book for free you just pay a few bucks for shipping and handling and we'll ship it all over the world I think we have one going out to British Columbia British Columbia we just shipped them to Australia Australia in Australia

we just shipped one too yeah this has been over probably 50 countries now this one is in 50 countries five zero mistakes.com I'm gonna make myself a note actually yeah to ship some more books out so I think we need to order more too yeah um so yeah then get a hold of us there okay restaurant group secretsuniversity.com or five zero mistakes.com you can even call

us and we'd try to help you send us an email yep go there send us an email help at 50mistakes.com and there's tons of learning stuff there but our big thing is is teaching restaurant tours how to train their team how to train your team is key and that that's what we're focusing on a lot of absolutely we focus on a lot of everything when it

comes to restaurant operations so all right that's it folks thank you for watching test of time love passion and hustle in the restaurant business industry industry whatever in the restaurant world