Untitled episode

hello everybody hi everybody Jamie and Marcus here welcome to test of time love passion and hustle in the restaurant business episode number 18. we are here to bring you lots of information from our experiences over the last 20 years um plus um and uh just talk to you about you know all different things and to help you make your business more successful perfect I love how

you said 20 years because you know so you and I just celebrated birthdays I turned the big 5-0 you'll be in will be behind me um we've been open 20 years if you were to look at yourself now 20 years ago what would you tell yourself about the restaurant industry oh boy um well that's a hard one that's a hard question what would I tell myself

about the restaurant business because I knew nothing about the restaurant business 20 years ago and most people don't by the way go open restaurants nothing I mean I think a lot of people open restaurants because they think they're going to make a lot of money and and they have this great chicken recipe and and they think they know how to cook and they think they know

all that kind of stuff so what would I tell myself um 20 years ago well number one I would tell myself to enjoy it um to work hard um I would tell myself that anything can happen at any moment and I would tell myself to build more relationships um I would tell myself I don't know that's a hard one that's a hard question to to say

um maybe enjoy life a little bit more maybe spend more time with our kids I think that is a big one for me um you don't get that time back you never get that time back time does not so you know balance I think balance is probably one of the biggest things is balance um and an instinct you know here's probably something that I I would

love to follow all the time I have very good instincts you do and when I say something emotional or I don't feel something or I don't feel a certain way about doing something um it's you know I I know how I feel and I I can't describe it but I know that some things are just not good um choices and things are just not in a

good situation and I can read people really well um so I think you know instinct is I think I would tell myself to go with my instincts on certain things yeah your your emotional intelligence is really good yeah but don't you develop emotional intelligence as you get smarter well of course so you know I if I if I could tell myself something back then right I

would tell myself all of the experiences that I've had throughout the 20 years ups and downs and those are all really important um but I think going back and telling yourself those things you don't have those experiences so it's hard to go back and tell yourself that because you you don't understand them right like being a mom like you I've done it I've raised two wonderful

kids with you you know but I'm the mom and you know 21 and 23 almost 24 for and you know I know things now with our grandson that I didn't know when I was a mom because I experienced all those things so it's really hard to go back and and tell yourself those things because you don't want to listen right when you're you know 20 years

ago we didn't want to listen to people and so you know and we took all the advice and we took things but we didn't really want to listen to people but I know now that we could do anything I think that's probably one of the other biggest things that you can do anything you set your mind to um and read and and study more and know

more and is there a specific thing about the business specific thing about the business um started out with more money um more money I don't but you know we want to start off with more money rumors but be where we are so we would have we would have spent more money of course because people have a hundred bucks in their pocket they spend 100 bucks they

have 500 bucks in their pocket they spend 500 bucks so whether we had which we only open up fifty thousand dollars by the way um what do we have 50 or 250 we would have found a way to do it right one of the things I would have liked to have done a little differently is The Branding in the beginning yeah branding our restaurant better um

you know if I if I were to look back I mean opening in a a bigger location like a bigger city maybe but you know again if we didn't do that we wouldn't be where we are today so it's really hard to look back and tell yourself one thing that you would do um differently you know I I think for me it would be spend um

more time with the kids um and and maybe I don't know maybe maybe that's what makes us I mean that is what makes us who we are so it's really hard because we made our kids it's made our kids who they because if we if we if we had a big restaurant that was doing three four million dollars a year and you know 200 seats our

kids wouldn't really be running around we do a million dollars when our kids are young we only did four hundred thousand dollars five hundred thousand dollars six hundred thousand dollars as we went up um now we do more sales with less days right before we used to work you know six seven days now or five days we're happy with them we're making just as much money

as we were when we're open seven days which is great so you know when you look at top end numbers sometimes it's a little confusing for us we're perfectly happy our mortgage payment is almost paid off it's super low our ratios are in line so for us there's still only a million dollars only a million dollars goes a long way with us however but in a

small 55 seat restaurant right and being close in a in a small community in a tight-knit community having our kids in the restaurant was good for them growing up their their have great people skills and they learned how to work and they've learned work ethic and they learned work ethic on what not to do to other employers you just don't walk out you you know you

go your voice because they thought happened to us they do right everything that they do makes them who they are in in terms of mine here in the restaurant as well you know and just being you know never giving up on things and working hard to work hard because they saw us doing all those things they saw us struggle they saw us you know so I

I don't really love that question um but I I understand the question but it really makes you think and look back and say wow like what have we done in 20 years right and so is there there's not really one specific thing that I would say that I would really change I mean I would tell myself different things um maybe but I don't know yeah I

don't know it's been a whole progression of learning experience I didn't know nearly as much as I did on wine when we opened the doors right I didn't know nearly as much as anything when we opened the doors I was I was 30 years old when we opened I was 31 years old when we opened the doors here there was 30. I was 29. yeah so

yeah so I think I think that's a really hard that's a hard question and I think if you if you're watching this or listening to this or um think about it yourselves and and even step yourself back five years ago what would we do differently yeah yeah even five years even a year ago what would we do differently I think that's why setting goals every year

is really important because you know what you've done in the past and now you know where you want to go in the future so we always ask our staff would you learn tonight right after the meal like what did you learn tonight did you learn you know something new did you learn something and that that's a question I was asked today on my coaching call this

morning with my coaching buddy my month and Buddy um which will call them on several days a week what did I learn last week what was the lessons from last week what'd you learn I think it's very important to reflect these learnings that's a better maybe that's a better question not 20 years ago but what did you learn what did you learn yesterday what was one

thing you learned yesterday right that will progress you to go forward right are you asking me yeah or you're asking me yeah what's one thing one thing yesterday so yesterday was a good day because we spent a lot of time with friends um wow we're out of a scotch that I didn't order out of so we need to do better inventory oh I didn't know that

yeah we're out of we're out of a scotch and the staff was looking for it and I'm just thinking the staff can't find it and um I started looking for them like oh we're out of this and so we need the positive in it is we have lots of other Scots we're watching other scotches right oh right but we don't we don't have a great inventory

system we have we have a system it doesn't really calculate the best inventory and we have to work on that so that's one thing that we can take responsibility for but the right thing right now it's not really broken so why fix it but what's a real lesson I learned yesterday you know I went on a bike ride first bike ride of the year which it's

already in May and that that's I usually Remember by March but it has not been a very the year before I was out riding my bike in February very very good riding conditions it's been cold or rainy I wrote it I wrote In the Fall until it was I wrote my morning when it was 29 degrees out I rode and I wasn't properly dressed I had

to you something about well you you know you could have been doing this and not working and um I really meant you could have been doing this and it really didn't come out the right way so I think I have to really think about how I say things sometimes to people because I forgot the words sometimes sometimes I just forget the word that I'm trying to

say I got upset because I was in the office where on a Sunday working working working till noon for a week we were gone for a week so I was in the office working working working working and then I went for my bike ride right and then we came back we did a little plan for some flowers then we had a friend come and we hung

out and then all of a sudden we went to record a podcast episode episode and Rise the dog and knocked over the tripod with the ring light pulled the cord out broke the whole thing up basically I just ordered a new one um and then you got finished I got frustrated because and then my desk is messy and I'm like and you said to me well

if you were in here working instead of what I took is hanging out with friends but I'm like are you kidding me as if we would have if you would have cleaned your desk earlier then we wouldn't be at the predicament we're in now and so it didn't come out properly and it didn't come out okay but I took it as of course yeah as as

why were you out hanging out with friends when you should have been doing this and I'm like well if you would have taken five minutes to clean your desk we wouldn't be aggravated right now and it wouldn't have led into what it led into so you know for me that's a learning I think we should do more podcast episodes more aggravated each other I think they're

more real but but it's in this is life we're humans you're never going to be happy every moment in every relationship at all times I mean you're having some other issues going on too with some other people in your life in terms of not you in particular but how do you work through these these situations can be very tricky and you know we all have emotions

built up inside our body is that that make us make these choices and how we speak to people or how we talk to people or how we um you know we all have emotions built up and sometimes you know your emotions um what's what I'm looking for go go further than really what the issue is and so emotions take over a lot and I think that's

important when you're talking to your staff too you know emotions are really important and they have emotions and it can lead to somebody leaving and quitting on you or jumping out the door I mean we had an experience happen when we were away last week with one of our staff members who you know she was late coming into work and we had just had a conversation

about being late and this we can leave this for another another notification but you know I you were like she just walked out on her shift I mean she worked yeah yeah and I said you need to call her and find out we weren't here you need to call her and find out what happened and you know you called her and you know she's got a

lot going on in her life too and and it just everything just added up and she ended up coming back that night an hour later she didn't want to quit and but we don't realize that that emotions kind of take over sometimes and they proceed proceed precede see the word how we're really feeling and so you're trying to communicate a little bit better so you're saying

the one thing you've done differently 20 years ago is be a better communicator in a nutshell I'm not sure and you too probably yeah yeah I would say that yeah because you only learned that through experience yeah again it comes down to experience and if you talk to your partners your friends your staff your love we're gonna do we're gonna do an episode soon on staff

on because Staffing is a huge thing we can do episode after episode and staff but there's We're Not Gonna maybe the next episode after next we'll do one on staff and really like you know it's not their fault that that they're that they're what have a different priority I don't want to say lazy different priority because they have more options than we did when we were

our age oh that's I think that's kind of what we wanted to talk about yeah yeah we'll save another episode because a lot a lot a lot on the psychology of hiring people and keeping them happy and all this kind of stuff that we're not experts on it but we've got a formula that works that's been working we're always trying to improve it doesn't sometimes it

doesn't work and I think you know so I think that question that we started this episode with is is an interesting question um a lot of people would say oh what would I have done differently I wouldn't have gotten married I wouldn't have done this I wouldn't have done that but you know you wouldn't be where you are today without all of those experiences and I

think that's really important so I think if you can question what you did yesterday and what you would change yesterday to make tomorrow better that's a better I like it I like that answer and so I think I don't know I think so I should have asked what's the best advice for people interviewing restaurant business well the last 20 years episodes are on that's what our

podcast is about yeah and so [Music] that which is why we've read books why we do a podcast why we do all those things and listen everyone we're not we're not perfect there's things that we can always improve upon um and so we always love you know suggestions ideas and you know to to make us grow as better people and I think that's really important so

so speaking of our books go to 50mistakes.com Five zeramistakes.com you can click the link to get a free copy of 50 mistakes that business owners make AKA restaurant owners make uh lots of cool stuff in there absolutely free you pay a few bucks for shipping and handling and we'll get out to you right away new books are on their way they'll be here in a couple

of days so if you've ordered any books from us you haven't got them yet that's because they're out of stock um if you'd like to check out our restaurant around the time be sure it's 90 miles north of New York City in Ellenville New York um we'd love to have you and please tell us that you've watched our podcast that you've listened to us that you've

read our books uh we'd love to uh to hear from you that'd be great yep and what about traveling if you are we didn't really talk about traveling in this episode but um we do a lot of traveling we like to take guests with us uh VIP wineryvacations.com if you would love to travel with us and experience what we experience when we go to wineries um

and the food and the atmosphere and the relationships that we're building um check out yeah we never really talk about that on the show no I guess we probably no we talked our love and passion is traveling yeah we talk about that more on on our Wine Time live which we got to get some episodes on that but yeah plug that business and traveling with us

to places like this right um VIP Winery vacations.com yep all right everybody have a great day thank you for restaurantgirlssecretsuniversity.com check us out send us a message and we'd love to help out or hear from you in general have a great day thank you