0:00

come back to turning the table. My name

0:02

is Jim Taylor. We're here for another episode today.

0:04

Another weekly shout out for

0:06

Adam Lamb. He is for

0:08

anybody who's wondering he's doing

0:11

well and will be back on the show here with us

0:13

soon. Really excited about the episode that

0:15

we've got today. Excited to join

0:18

our guest and I will introduce her in a

0:20

minute. We're gonna have some good discussion

0:22

about trends in the industry. What

0:24

we're excited about and hopefully a

0:26

good outlook on what the next couple of years look like. Away

0:30

we go. Thanks for joining us.

0:32

Welcome to Turning the Table, the most

0:34

Progressive Weekly podcast for today's food and

0:36

beverage industry, featuring staff centric operating

0:39

solutions. For restaurants in the hashtag

0:42

new hospitality culture, join Jim

0:44

Taylor of Benchmark 60 and Adam Lamb

0:46

as they turn the tables on. The prevailing operating

0:48

assumptions of running a restaurant in favor

0:51

of innovative solutions to our industry's

0:53

most persistent challenges. Thanks for joining

0:55

us, and now on to the show.

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1:23

Hi Kelly.

1:24

Hi Jim. Good to see you. I'm great,

1:26

thanks.

1:27

So for anybody who's watching now or

1:29

listening down the road want

1:31

to formerly introduce Kelly Higginson,

1:34

the newly appointed president of Restaurants

1:36

Canada. So Kelly, there's a

1:38

lot of our listeners are in the US but

1:40

there's also a lot that are in the Canadian market. I

1:43

think what we're gonna talk about today is probably relevant

1:46

north America, wide everywhere. Yeah.

1:49

Beyond, I think. Hospitality

1:51

has really no borders, right? So

1:54

currency and language don't really get too

1:56

much in the way, but excited to have you on the

1:58

show. How are you?

1:59

I'm great, and it's really good to be here, especially

2:02

on day one of my new position

2:05

Good timing, right?

2:06

Yeah, it's great. I

2:08

think I said this to you earlier, but I really appreciate

2:10

that you still were able to make time because

2:13

I'm sure you're, as we were talking about your inboxes,

2:16

Flooded.

2:17

Yes. Jim, as I said to you, like

2:19

the work that you're doing with Benchmark 60

2:22

and the conversations we've had, it's

2:24

so important. And it was such a big part

2:26

of what I was trying to focus on

2:28

as an operator. Not always easy. So

2:30

I love that you have started to make it make

2:33

a little more sense for people to get their head

2:35

around because it's not easy in our industry, but

2:37

we'll talk more about that. And I just think the work

2:39

you're doing is really important. Oh,

2:42

thank you so much. We

2:45

want to I sent you some questions earlier and

2:47

I was thinking about how are we gonna kick

2:49

off this conversation? Sure. And

2:51

so I, as I was going back through them this morning, I

2:54

was thinking, okay, so unfortunately

2:56

our conversation in general as an industry,

2:59

I think sometimes gets dominated by what the last

3:01

couple of years have looked like. It's

3:04

impossible not to talk about it hard. Yeah. So

3:07

I thought maybe we could spin it the other way

3:09

and pick your brain and have some discussion

3:11

about what are we maybe looking forward to

3:13

in the next couple of years, or what do we think the next couple of

3:15

years might some good things that might be coming for

3:17

restaurants.

3:18

Yeah I am, I'm always excited

3:21

about the industry. I I

3:23

think if this industry has shown the

3:26

world and themselves just how resilient they

3:28

are over the last three years this,

3:30

the last couple years has certainly shown

3:33

that. And I'm

3:35

still amazed when I reflect back and we were

3:37

putting the show together, the Restaurants Canada

3:39

show. We, we were having a lot of discussions

3:42

about. What was and the

3:44

shows in the past two years and dealing with the

3:46

pandemic and yeah, it was just a reminder to

3:48

me of what everyone accomplished in

3:50

getting through it. And I think when

3:53

I look at that I

3:56

know that resiliency is gonna continue and

3:58

I think we see it in the recovery

4:00

that a lot of organizations

4:03

and small restaurants are going through right now. I.

4:06

I think what we're prob there, there is still struggle

4:08

and there's still a lot to recover from and

4:11

I don't want to minimize that cuz it's

4:13

an important part of what we do at Restaurants Canada to

4:15

make sure that people remember that. But over

4:17

the next couple years, I think we're gonna see

4:19

probably some smaller restaurants.

4:22

I think the reality is that sales

4:25

have come back to pre pandemic

4:27

levels. Now inflation helps with that.

4:30

But 30% of that is now off

4:33

premise. So that's in comparison

4:35

to about 10%. That adds

4:38

some cost challenges. But we've had

4:40

a culture shift and we've

4:42

got a younger generation that have

4:44

an expectation of immediacy. And

4:47

for those of you who are my age and might have

4:50

teenage children, I don't have children, but

4:52

I have friends who they're quite amazed at

4:54

their use of the Ubers and so on.

4:57

But that's just the culture that we're moving into.

5:01

Probably a little less footprint, which

5:03

I think takes some of the commercial rent

5:05

risk away from operators.

5:07

So we've got really cool, inventive

5:10

small restaurants. There's a really

5:12

cool place here called Simple Things in

5:15

Near Parkdale and Toronto. They're

5:18

doing different concept in the morning and

5:20

a different concept at night. In a smaller space.

5:23

Yeah. And it's off the main street.

5:26

So it's lower rent. So

5:28

there's just some really cool, inventive

5:31

ideas out there that I'm seeing across

5:33

the country that I'm

5:35

excited about. And again, that smaller

5:37

footprint, I think, and then smaller

5:39

menus we're definitely going

5:42

to continue to see for a variety of reasons.

5:44

Yeah.

5:45

And from my experience in corporate

5:48

operation I'm sure you remember

5:50

this too, the bigger the space, the

5:52

bigger the overhead. the more pressure

5:54

you just have to have revenue or have to.

5:57

Hundreds of thousands of dollars a week in revenue

5:59

are you're in trouble.

6:00

Yeah. And both you and I come from operations

6:03

that were large restaurants and Absolutely.

6:06

People used to always come into some of our

6:08

restaurants, and I'm sure some of your restaurants is,

6:10

oh my God, you guys must be raking it in. We

6:13

think yeah, this business

6:15

model, we have to have 500 people in

6:17

here. We have to have that many people in

6:19

here to break even. Certainly

6:21

there's gonna be that change. I think we're gonna continue

6:24

with, and we'll talk probably about this in. One

6:26

of your other questions there the,

6:29

a little more people focused. Which

6:31

I think has been a silver lining

6:34

out of the pandemic, and I

6:36

think there was already a lot of that going on. I

6:38

don't wanna say there wasn't, because I know there

6:40

was really good operators going on doing

6:42

great things out there, but there's certainly more people

6:44

focused and I'm excited about as well.

6:47

Yeah. And that small space thing that

6:49

could be really cool, right? In

6:51

the world. You go to

6:53

New York City and it's mostly small,

6:56

intimate boutique type restaurants that

6:58

are totally, it's a different vibe, right? So

7:00

I think our. The Canadian market, I think

7:02

actually could use more of

7:03

that type of stuff. Yes. I think it adds a

7:05

creativity and a vibrancy to the cities

7:07

and communities. Big,

7:09

large, small across the

7:12

country. I think it, and it also again allows

7:14

for maybe a younger entrepreneur. To

7:17

a little less risk. Do

7:19

something fun and cool, and also to be

7:21

able to pivot the business. Okay, maybe

7:24

this is the direction that I thought it was gonna

7:26

go, but people are actually utilizing it in this

7:28

way, so let's push it in

7:30

that direction a little bit more.

7:31

Yeah. So in terms of

7:33

the people side of things, one of the questions

7:36

or topics we were discussing before

7:38

the show was some trends that are coming in

7:41

the industry. Yeah. So let's talk about

7:43

the people trend.

7:44

For sure the people trend. Yeah we

7:47

are we've always had some

7:50

people offering benefits and I know it sometimes

7:52

sounds like a boring conversation, but benefits,

7:55

as we all know, just offer so much

7:57

security to people in their day-to-day. And we've

7:59

got more operators offering benefits

8:01

than ever before. So

8:05

that's, that is something I am so

8:08

excited about to see because that.

8:11

Brings a whole level of, it turns into

8:13

it's being available to be a career for people. They're

8:16

able to really think about

8:18

this as something that they can do into their future.

8:21

And double down on it. It

8:23

adds that level of security. And I

8:25

just think that overall it gives the industry

8:29

what we really need. Yeah.

8:31

And I think too, on the benefit side of things, there's

8:34

traditional benefits. But

8:36

I think there's some really interesting, and

8:38

I've experienced this firsthand with some. Some

8:41

of the restaurant groups that we spend time with. Really

8:43

cool outside the box ideas on how to do

8:45

things differently in terms of benefits. Yes. Did

8:48

I tell you about the cleaning and laundry

8:50

service?

8:52

Yes. But let's talk about that again, because I

8:54

still talk about that. Really? Yeah.

8:56

Yeah. I still talk about it to so many people. It

8:58

just, but that's the kind of thinking

9:00

that people were being forced as

9:03

we are being forced to this. Human

9:05

work and we're human. I know

9:08

is really quite a trend and also a great company.

9:10

But it's

9:12

that kind of thinking that is going to differentiate

9:15

the operators, that's gonna be important.

9:17

But yeah. Tell that story.

9:19

Yeah. For anyone who's listening, this is just one of the

9:21

best outside the box ideas that I've heard

9:24

of in terms of. How

9:26

to take better care of people, how to also impact

9:28

their outside of work life. And the

9:31

really interesting byproduct of this

9:33

benefit that this restaurant group did was

9:35

it actually became a really strong

9:37

recruiting tool for them. Anyway,

9:39

the story goes executive.

9:44

Of a small multi-unit, restaurant group,

9:46

privately owned group walks into

9:48

one of the restaurants in the morning and there's an employee

9:50

opening the bar, and this employee

9:52

is looking a little bit disheveled shirts

9:56

wrinkled. There's some stains on it it's from,

9:58

basically from the shift before.

10:00

Never seen that before. Jim Yeah.

10:04

And so the executive walks over to him and he

10:06

goes, Are you like, is everything okay?

10:09

You jokingly, I think he said something

10:11

like, you look like he slept behind the bar. And

10:14

the kid kid I should I'm making myself

10:16

sound, but he's early twenties kind

10:18

of thing. He goes basically

10:21

listen, I'm doing everything I can. We're

10:23

really short-staffed. I closed last night. I

10:26

opened this morning. I only have one

10:28

work shirt. I didn't have time to do laundry, but

10:30

I'm here. I'm here. What do you, what more

10:32

do you want from me? Type of thing, right? And

10:35

this. This senior executive

10:37

sort of just said, you're right thank

10:39

you. And went about, went on

10:41

about his day. But the next step was

10:43

that he went into the board meeting that he was

10:45

having that day or the team meeting that he was having that day and said, we

10:47

need to look at doing things differently. And

10:49

his idea, and what eventually ended up

10:51

happening was at home cleaning

10:53

and laundry service. One day a week for every

10:56

employee in the company, we will send somebody

10:58

to your home for two hours of.

11:00

One day a week to clean your house and do your laundry

11:03

for you. Because, and the way he worded

11:05

it was, if we can help to positively impact

11:07

their at home life, they're gonna be better at

11:09

work.

11:11

Hallelujah. I

11:14

get goosebumps. Can you tell that? First

11:17

of all, I'm so appreciative of that executive

11:19

in his approach wasn't.

11:22

You're doing something wrong. His approach was,

11:24

is everything okay? Thinking the

11:27

best of that employee, like there must be something

11:29

wrong. If somebody's choosing to come in like

11:31

that, let's talk about it. And

11:33

that's another thing that I'm really excited

11:36

about. I'm excited that these conversations

11:38

are happening now as opposed to that. Controlling

11:41

command kind of environment. We

11:44

actually are able to be, thankfully for Brene

11:47

Brown, I thank her every day, but we can be vulnerable.

11:49

We can be people at work and talk

11:51

to each other. And whether you're a manager or you're

11:54

a support staff or the dishwasher,

11:57

everyone has something important to contribute. So being

11:59

able to have those open conversations allows

12:02

something. is brilliant. Is

12:04

that idea. Yeah.

12:06

And the cool byproduct in continuing

12:08

to talk and Cody Hall just commented,

12:10

that's pretty cool. I agree. I wish someone

12:12

would come to my house and clean it and do my needed.

12:16

Yeah. But the really interesting

12:18

byproduct that I don't think that they expected was

12:21

all of a sudden they've got this. Young

12:23

generation of people working in their restaurant,

12:25

telling all their friends that my company pays

12:27

for somebody to come and do my laundry for me. Yeah.

12:30

And you should come

12:31

work here. Yeah. That's, and

12:33

that's another thing. And that word

12:35

of mouth is always been the

12:37

best way to attract staff. For

12:40

sure. Especially in a people business. And

12:42

that was I think back to my

12:44

foundation with a large

12:47

restaurant group that's been around for a number of

12:49

years. And

12:52

the foundation there was always about the people

12:54

and the word gets out and that

12:56

is the best way to attract people.

12:59

You can put up as many K Gigi ads, you

13:01

can put balloons out front. You can have all

13:03

of the hiring days that you

13:05

want. But if you've got employees out there championing

13:08

working for you, that's brilliant.

13:11

So yeah. Totally agree. One

13:14

other question on the people side of things. The,

13:17

I keep hearing some pretty crazy stats

13:20

around. The number or

13:22

the percentage of people that are applying in restaurants that have

13:24

never worked in restaurants before, that it's the

13:26

high majority. And I think you and I talked a little bit about this

13:28

restaurants Canada, but do

13:31

you have any recent insight on

13:33

that or any trend on what type

13:35

of people are applying for

13:37

restaurant jobs? I don't have any stats

13:39

at my fingertips, so I didn't want to, but

13:42

what I can guarantee is that a lot

13:45

of the. staff

13:47

out there green and a lot

13:49

of operators now I

13:51

always like to preface that with we

13:53

are, I believe it's. 58%

13:57

of youth's first time job. We are

13:59

the employer, we're the fourth largest employer

14:01

in the country. I always like to, to champion

14:03

that because it's huge. This is an impactful

14:06

industry. And

14:09

the majority of youth have

14:11

their first job with a restaurant, and

14:13

so therefore, those. restaurants

14:15

are really setting those people up

14:17

and how to be an employee in the work world.

14:20

They are they're teaching them

14:22

how to be an employee. So

14:25

with that comes quite a

14:27

bit of responsibility and investment.

14:30

So yeah it's a time

14:33

of. Great transition. It

14:36

is one of the things that we talk about from

14:38

an advocacy standpoint of recognition

14:40

with government is the

14:42

understanding of the importance of us in

14:44

the industry. Just from that

14:46

aspect of the youth first, first

14:48

job. And it does

14:50

take more training money

14:54

and time for sure. And so now

14:57

we are in this transition of, we have a lot

14:59

of green staff out there, so we're

15:01

gonna back into that. Yeah. Yeah.

15:04

It was my first job.

15:05

Yeah. Yeah, me too. Scooping

15:08

ice cream down in Horseshoe Bay, that

15:11

was a bus boy. Yeah.

15:12

Yeah. Yep. So combination

15:14

of bus boy and dishwasher, depending

15:17

on the day and where they were. Yes.

15:19

Yeah, it's, those were the days yeah,

15:21

for sure. Yeah. Yeah.

15:23

Yeah. Interesting. And so what do you

15:25

think the a little bit more short term, what do you think the

15:27

summer's gonna look like for restaurants?

15:31

I'm excited about the summer because

15:34

I think there is still some of that,

15:36

I don't like to say pent up because

15:39

but I think there's just an appreciation of being able

15:41

to get out. In Canada, regardless,

15:43

it's summer is exciting for us So

15:46

I am excited about that aspect of

15:49

it, but it is still gonna be a struggle.

15:51

For restaurants to have enough staff, we're

15:53

still gonna see some of that strain. We still have

15:55

restaurants operating. Our

15:57

last stat was just over 80%

16:00

of their occupancy and operating

16:03

hours. So that, again, makes

16:05

it more difficult for them to get

16:07

to full recovery because of staffing

16:09

levels. But I also

16:11

am starting to sense that we,

16:14

there's a little bit more stability

16:17

in that. Not quite as many

16:19

staff are green. But

16:21

there's still a labor challenge and that's

16:23

been going on since before the pandemic. There seems to

16:25

be this mis misnomer that

16:28

this is all dealt because of the pandemic.

16:31

And we had all these people leave the industry because it's

16:33

not a great industry and that's just. that's just

16:35

not true. Less

16:37

people are having children. We have more

16:39

people than ever eating out, whether it's

16:41

grabbing their coffee and their morning

16:44

breakfast out. And

16:47

we have less demographic

16:50

to pull from for employees, and that's

16:53

been in, in happening for about

16:55

10 years. So a

16:57

lot of these things are exasperated by the pandemic and

17:00

so we're just trying to manage through

17:02

that. Yeah, there's, I've

17:04

made a comment a few times to some people that it has

17:07

landed. sometimes a little bit

17:09

controversially around that. This has

17:11

been happening for 10 years. Yeah. Firstly,

17:13

the, I'd to put it that it's

17:15

not actually a labor shortage. Yeah. In our retention

17:18

shortage.

17:19

Yeah. I think there's a bit of both. There is

17:21

less pool for us to pull from for

17:23

sure. But I do

17:25

think that there is, there, there

17:28

was more of a retention issue for sure. So

17:30

I think going back to that silver lining and

17:32

focus on people and higher

17:35

level of people offering benefits and all

17:37

of these really great practices

17:40

that, that help with retention. Yeah,

17:42

totally.

17:43

Yeah. So you commented

17:45

and so did I earlier about that we both

17:47

have a lot of our career operations

17:50

experience with in bigger, more corporate

17:52

sort of restaurant environments. Yeah. I

17:57

want to talk a little bit about, or pick your brain on what's

18:00

some things that smaller restaurant operators

18:03

or smaller independents or even

18:05

small multi-unit groups can do to keep

18:07

up with some of the big, because the

18:09

Canadian market is really dominated by only

18:12

a few big companies when it comes to the corporate side

18:14

of the restaurant industry. What

18:16

do you know on the, on our show every week,

18:18

I mentioned this to you earlier, we wanna give people. What

18:21

are we, what can we do this weekend? What, it's Thursday. What

18:23

can we do, moon? Yeah.

18:24

Yeah. Something

18:27

that, that was great at the restaurants, Candace

18:30

show. I was on a panel. It might have been the panel and was on with

18:32

you. It was great that it resonated,

18:34

but it was also a little sad to me that so

18:36

many people who are employees and restaurants came

18:38

up after and said, thank you for saying that. Was

18:43

details like the staff washroom. make

18:45

sure it's stocked with fresh paper towel,

18:47

fresh toilet paper. There was

18:49

always this really bad

18:52

habit that we got into of putting all

18:55

the small half used rolls from

18:57

this the public

18:59

washrooms into the staff washrooms. So then

19:01

there was all these like little tiny rolls for them

19:03

and they were running outta toilet paper halfway through

19:05

their shifts and they didn't have soap and they didn't have

19:11

it doesn't take a lot for us to. To

19:14

s stock, the staff washroom with a full roll of

19:16

toilet paper and a full roll of paper

19:18

towel. Those are just things that

19:20

let them know that we care about them and it

19:22

gives them a nicer environment. And it sounds

19:24

so simple and easy, but I

19:27

can't tell you how many people that resonated with.

19:29

So just, let's just give them their

19:31

own roll of toilet paper. So

19:34

that is an easy one. The

19:36

other one is don't skip the staff

19:39

meal. I know over Covid

19:41

we all had to make changes, like probably not

19:43

doing staff meal because we couldn't,

19:45

we weren't allowed to do that. And

19:48

some places didn't bring them back in. And then

19:50

there's a cost aspect, which I fully

19:52

respect. But I think if

19:55

we can get some. Chili made or

19:57

some vegetarian lasagnas

20:00

made up and freeze them and puts them out for staff

20:02

meal. That time for the staff to gather together

20:05

magic happens at that time, and you can

20:07

have a really cool pre-shift 15

20:10

minutes. You can have a supplier come in

20:12

and taste some wines with you or do something

20:14

really interesting. Suppliers are dying to

20:17

do that. It makes such a difference. But

20:19

just have that time of interaction. I, those

20:22

have been my favorite memories in my.

20:24

Very long career in

20:27

restaurants. And so I really would

20:30

say that is, is one key easy

20:33

that you can implement. So

20:38

those are two that I really think are important.

20:40

I the last one that's always

20:43

if any of my former managers

20:46

listen to this, they're going to laugh that I say

20:48

this, but this sounds so simple,

20:50

but just have an opening checklist. It

20:53

sounds so simple, but it actually makes

20:55

the manager's job so much easier

20:57

when they can and for reference,

21:00

this idea came from, it's actually

21:02

surgeons who use. Checklist

21:05

when they go into an operating room and

21:07

it cut down on mistakes by 30 some

21:09

percent. And it's simple as

21:11

asking the patient what their name is, asking

21:13

them what, which leg I'm operating

21:16

on. Little things like this. And it's

21:18

no different for us in print

21:20

off the reservations and go

21:22

through this and stock the bathroom

21:25

and do the whiteboard. And

21:27

as much as managers might

21:29

say, I know all this. It gives

21:31

them, it just gives their mind they

21:34

can rest their mind set the music and

21:36

just follow your checklist. And I,

21:39

I really value that practice and

21:41

think it's important for operations.

21:44

Yeah. I'm having flashbacks, different

21:46

things. I know. First

21:48

one being the checklist thing is,

21:50

so then you only have to remember one thing. You have

21:52

to remember checklist. Yeah. I remember when

21:55

I was there's a specific. Scenario

21:57

that I'm remembering right now when I was a night manager

22:00

a long time ago. Yeah. And

22:02

three nights in a row, I closed and

22:04

forgot my keys in the restaurant. Oh,

22:07

I got to my car. It's two o'clock in the morning. I had to go

22:09

back into the restaurant and turn off the alarm. Go

22:12

through the, get my keys. So I added, do

22:14

you have your car keys to the closing checklist? There

22:16

you go. Forget my car keys. Yeah,

22:19

the other one. That just you're

22:21

making me think about is that staff meal concept

22:24

stuck to a restaurant operator the other day. That

22:27

was they're trying to do things to help protect

22:29

health and wellbeing of their team, and

22:32

so they actually implemented a policy

22:34

in their business that if

22:38

you would like a staff

22:40

meal, it's free, but

22:43

we decide what it is and it's healthy.

22:45

It's, yeah. Salmon and some

22:48

salad and some whatever it might be. If

22:51

you would like a burger, you're welcome to

22:53

have a burger. It's full price.

22:54

Yeah.

22:56

Interesting. So they're doing things, they're

22:58

their own way, but to encourage their

23:00

staff to eat health a healthy meal before their

23:02

shift so that they're. In

23:04

a maybe better position.

23:07

I

23:07

love that. Yeah,

23:09

I love that. I thought it was interesting that I

23:11

think in a lot of scenarios, and I probably

23:13

would've thought about this when I was in operations, if

23:15

I told the staff they had to pay full price for something, I

23:18

probably would be worried that I was gonna upset

23:20

them. This might frustrate our people and

23:22

they might go work next door where they get 50%

23:24

off. Yeah. But his way of doing that, where

23:26

he said, Hey, you can have the healthy meal for free.

23:29

Yeah. That's great. It's an interesting

23:31

sort of way to approach it,

23:33

and I think that's so important for us to recognize,

23:35

like this is, it's a hard job physically

23:38

and mentally. It's hard, it's stimulating,

23:40

it's dynamic, it's fulfilling.

23:42

There's all these wonderful things about it. But

23:45

taking care of ourselves is when

23:47

I was reading through your questions and you said one thing

23:50

that you could do tomorrow, get one more hour of sleep,

23:53

when I think about how much better

23:56

I am at reacting to a situation, after

23:59

seven hours sleep as opposed to five. And

24:02

I know in this industry it is tough to

24:04

sometimes get that I'm actually a morning person.

24:07

My parents were morning people. So when I was in

24:09

the industry, it was tough for me to actually

24:11

get that full seven hours just naturally waking

24:13

up. But do what you can to

24:15

protect your sleep and have

24:18

some of those non-negotiables

24:21

with yourself. I don't be rigid. Don't

24:25

be too rigid and hard on yourself, but some non-negotiables,

24:28

whether it's a five minute meditation that's

24:30

in my life my

24:32

goal is 10 minutes a day, but if

24:34

I don't have that, it has to be five. It

24:37

has to be five. So think about some

24:40

of those things that as a manager

24:42

or as

24:44

a team member in a restaurant that really make

24:46

you be able to have a little bit

24:49

more resiliency and healthy

24:51

practices.

24:53

So can I throw you And this one shouldn't be, I don't

24:55

think it'll be hard to answer, but Can I throw you a curve ball

24:57

that I didn't send you the question? Yeah, do

24:59

it. What, you've

25:01

been in this industry for most of your adult

25:03

life, right? Yeah, a little bit. All

25:05

of it. What

25:08

is it about restaurants that you love so much?

25:10

Oh, it's the people

25:13

you know. I actually still well up. Just

25:17

so many great memories of creating.

25:20

really special moments for whether

25:22

it's for some of our teammates or

25:25

for some of our guests, but it's

25:27

that collective ener energy, that

25:29

synergy that we that

25:32

we get working together that just is

25:34

so infectious. So I think

25:36

that's been a big part of it. So the

25:38

people's side of it, whether it's the guest, I

25:40

mean it's the people business and and

25:42

then creating it, I was. Very lucky, like

25:45

I was a very lucky person that I worked

25:47

for somebody who culture and

25:50

creating an environment that people want to come

25:52

to was a priority for him.

25:54

So I didn't have to fight for that. And

25:57

being able to create an environment that people want

26:00

to come to and being able to

26:02

work together with them to create these

26:04

memorable experiences. For whatever

26:06

it is a quick bite before the game

26:09

is celebrating a wedding, like all sorts

26:11

of different things, but to be able to

26:13

work together towards that and

26:15

just seeing the creativity. I

26:18

think back my favorite memory post

26:20

covid after the first longest lockdown,

26:23

and I'm in Ontario, so it was longer

26:25

than a lot of places. Was

26:28

hearing the kitchen staff come back. They came

26:30

back first for the first couple days to get prep

26:32

and everything built up, and I was walking down this

26:34

long hall we have at one of the restaurants

26:37

and hearing that collaboration happen

26:40

again, and just the, yeah,

26:42

the back and forth and the joking around

26:45

and the energy, it just is so

26:47

magical. So

26:49

that really is a big part of it for me.

26:52

Amazing.

26:53

And I think that your.

26:56

Recommendations for people running restaurants

26:58

for this weekend. I have to tell you,

27:00

they're completely different than

27:03

anyone has, what

27:05

anyone has brought up before. Cause typically we'll

27:08

try to wow a guest or it's cover

27:10

that shift for an employee that's having a tough day or

27:12

it's do something to try to build sales or do

27:14

something to try to be more profitable and,

27:17

A good staff meal and just clean

27:19

the staff bathroom. Yeah.

27:22

set them up to win man. Set them up to

27:24

win. They, the first thing when they walk in the door is

27:26

they go have to go to the bathroom and change so

27:28

let's make that first 15 minutes enjoyable.

27:31

I. I ended up in

27:34

this industry years ago. My

27:36

first trip to New York, I was in my

27:38

twenties. I was just bartending

27:40

post university, gonna be a transient

27:44

position for me. And I ended up

27:46

going to Union Square Cafe and I was. So

27:49

emotionally touched by this restaurant by

27:51

Danny Meyer in New York. And

27:55

one thing that jumps out at me was I'm

27:58

a little older, so back in the day

28:00

in some of these higher end restaurants, there weren't a

28:02

lot of female servers. We

28:04

were often relegated to the lounge,

28:06

and there was all these really

28:09

bright well-dressed

28:12

female dining room servers and these beautiful

28:15

starched shirts.

28:18

And I was really taken with this experience.

28:20

So then I got a little more into the Danny Meyer

28:22

piece of it and something he said

28:25

in setting the table, and I'm sure you remember this,

28:27

is to treat your team as you want

28:29

them to treat your guest. And

28:32

that it just all made sense to me. And

28:35

I again was lucky enough to work in an environment

28:37

where they followed a very similar philosophy.

28:41

We could have fun with each other, we

28:43

could have fun with the step, with the guest. We

28:45

could really have make it the best experience

28:48

that we needed to. But

28:50

that's always stuck out to me as is to treat

28:52

your team as you want them to treat the

28:54

guests. So we have nice, clean bathrooms.

28:57

We put a lot of energy into that front of

28:59

house. So let's really do the same for the

29:01

back of house.

29:02

Amazing. And is

29:05

there anything based on what

29:07

we've talked about around washrooms

29:09

and staff meal and take care of people and

29:11

summertime coming anything

29:15

in closing for people that are listening that you,

29:17

do you have any sort of closing statements or thoughts or

29:19

anything about where we're at?

29:21

Yeah. Make sure you, I,

29:24

this again sounds so silly, but

29:26

one thing I really noticed when I was at a

29:28

couple of our restaurants that had really large patios

29:30

and heat waves were coming, the staff would

29:32

never be drinking enough water. They're, it's just such a

29:35

go go business and they're running around

29:37

and they're getting hot. Make

29:39

sure they're h hydrating because

29:42

that, it makes such a difference for

29:45

their experience and therefore, again,

29:47

for their guests. So hydrating

29:49

and making sure that they have the right uniforms

29:52

to, and the right shoes and everything is

29:55

comfortable for them so

29:57

that they can focus on the

29:59

guest experience. So yeah, I

30:01

would say that

30:03

I think a great message that what I'm hearing

30:05

loud and clear from you is just. Let's

30:07

just take care of the people that work in our industry. Yeah.

30:10

It's close to home for me too, so that's

30:12

great. Kelly, I appreciate you

30:14

making some time. I know you're a

30:16

very busy person right now, especially with some of the transition

30:19

and new role for you. And congratulations

30:21

on your promotion or thank you title.

30:25

I'm never too busy for these kind of conversations,

30:27

Tim and the work that you do. We didn't get into

30:29

it, but the work you do on workload is really

30:32

important. And I hope that more

30:34

people understand that putting, setting

30:36

realistic workload on our. On

30:38

our people setting priorities.

30:41

It's just, it's will make all the

30:43

difference.

30:44

Thanks. So maybe we'll have you back and we can talk more about

30:46

that

30:47

next time. I'd love to, yeah. We can dig

30:48

into that again, maybe six months

30:50

from now. Once we're in a different season

30:52

in the hospitality industry in Canada. Yeah, I'll

30:55

be back and have another good discussion. But thank you

30:57

again so much. Thank you. In

30:59

touch. We'll talk to you soon.

31:00

Yeah, have a great weekend. Thanks, Jim. Take

31:03

care.

31:06

Thanks for joining us on this episode of

31:09

Turning the Table with me, Adam Lamb

31:11

and Jim Taylor. We're on a mission to change

31:13

the food and beverage industry for the better by

31:15

focusing on staff mental health, physical

31:17

and emotional wellbeing, by proactively

31:19

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