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We talk a lot about metaverse high tech stuff. Sometimes we talk low tech, and we talk mac and cheese.
And why not. They're all good. They are all good, and they can sometimes take you unexpected places. Can you build a dream on mac and cheese? I was trying to think of what the European equivalent is to mac and cheese. Such a big mac and cheese we do, but it's not quite the same. It can be good. I have asked people to bring me back boxes of it from the US before. Yeah. Look, this is what
our next guest has done. She's made mac and cheese part of her brand, part of her business idea, and something that she's built a new career on and we're thrilled to talk more about it as well. The book that she's written is Mac and Cheese Millionaire, Building a Better Business by Thinking outside the box, and that's out there. Aaron Waite joins us now from Oakland, California. Aaron, welcome, great to talk to you. And you went from restaurants
to law I'm back to restaurants. Talk us through that process and how you ended up becoming you know, the Queen of mac and cheese.
Sure, So you know, I began my career with a huge passion for food and had you know, cooked in restaurants, but found that it was a really dead end job. You know, the pay is low, the treatment is not great. So I just did not see a future for myself. So I decided to go to law school and do what you know, generations of lost people with no direction you have done and become a lawyer. But I didn't.
I didn't love it, so I actually got fired. Turns out you're you're not good at what you don't like doing. And I decided I wanted to create the restaurant that I wish that I could have worked at. So not was it a love of family, my family recipe of mac and cheese and wanting to bring that to the market, because I just didn't see that being filled anywhere. You know, there's like pizza restaurants, barbecue, but not mac and cheese.
But I really want to focus on how do I create the kind of workplace that I wish, the kind of restaurant that I could have worked in and what do I need to do to do that?
So what in particular did you want in terms of making it the place that you wanted to work at. What was it that needed to be different?
You know? You know, my book is filled with a lot of trial and error. I think the truth is I didn't know. I knew what I didn't want to do right, but sometimes it's harder when you haven't had the example set of what you do want to do. So I found that it really came down to three things, which was you know, communication, collaboration, and collective success and having to give you examples of you know, ways that we did all those three things. But that I found
was really the secret to our success. And you know, not only in an industry where the average tenure is you know, less than ninety days. Our average tenure is two and a half years, but our profitability was in the top one percent of restaurants. So I'm really proud of what we achieved.
Yeah, because looks it's a difficult business to get into, and I think if you know, if you're going to make a leap of faith into something new, you didn't perhaps pick the clearest or the easiest path to do that. Talk us about getting getting the first the first home room started.
You know, statistics about restaurants that most fail in their first year. I mean it's daunting, but anyway, go ahead, because it's tough.
No, they do, and I mean I think that's why. Actually it makes for such a great business book, because you know, if we were using these techniques successfully, I mean, it is the hardest industry to make it, so, you know, I really think they can these ideas can work anywhere. But yeah, I mean it's it's crazy. I mean, banks won't even give you loans because it's considered you know, your your odds are better and less Vegas than investing
in a restaurant. But I do think that with sort of you know, by using these techniques, I think people in all kinds of businesses can can beat the odds.
Took us through the first few months of that business, though, at what point did you know that you hot you around to something and that you that was going to take off into something that of course it became a cultish hit.
Yeah, you know, luckily we're packed from you know, day one, and I really credit it to frankly, just having an exceptionally good quality product. So you know, at most restaurants, if they have mac and cheese at all, it is a side dish. It's something that is not paid very much attention to. And for us, this is really the main thing. So you know, we made each one to order,
We used my family recipe. We put nearly a quarter pound of cheese in each portion, so you know, it's incredibly cheesy, it's fresh, it's it's made with love and care, and you know, and that makes a huge difference versus sitting in a vat somewhere. So I think people were very very us with the products from day one. But frankly, I think also what we did is like created tremendous
value surrounding the experience. Because I had worked a lot in fine dining, but something that I thought was really lacking in a more casual setting is like, you know, great design and great service. Those things don't need to
cost more, they just need someone to care more. And so, you know, I think that people's perception of value of getting to sit in this really beautifully designed space, getting you know, some of the best service that they've had in a restaurant while eating, you know, the best version of mac and cheese they've ever had. It's just a winning combo.
I have to say, there's a restaurant in our neighborhood, a local, one family run, and they have an incredible mac and cheese and we will go there just for the mac and cheese. And it used to be a place downtown. I don't even know if it exists, but that's all it did. And great, you know, cast iron skillets and any kind of like varieties of mac and cheese. It is like just that food that we just love.
We just love.
What's one of the biggest I don't know what was one of the biggest moments in this process. I feel like everybody who started a business, especially in the restaurant industry, we've all seen.
The bear and loved it.
But I do wonder where you were. I don't know. It was either just a huge learning experience, whether from your team, from your workers, I don't know, tell.
Us, you know. I have to say we used a lot of like really interesting techniques to engage people in the business. For instance, we're an open book company and so share financials and teach financial literacy. And I think that was a huge aha, right, It like really unlocks people's like potential and power to understand business in a deep way and to feel like they're part of something that's bigger than themselves versus just showing up every day to cook. So, you know, I'd say that's one moment
that I'm incredibly proud of. But you know, another is that we used all these techniques of you know, we had a lot of different tools to be communicating, collaborating, and we actually came up with a solution to sexual harassment which our staff was experiencing. And it I wrote a viral piece in Washington Post about it, it got adopted by the EEO CEO went to Washington to go testify about it, and it's now used by restaurants and
bars all around the world. So, you know, I think that also, frankly, when you tap into the power of a workforce. You know, we were just a small restaurant but made a difference on a global scale, and I think, you know, I'm incredibly proud of that.
But talk to us a little bit more about that, like how you came to realize it's something needed to be done. Differently, I think it's safe to say that most women have had some degree of sexual harassment, some that is quote unquote harmless. I don't even know that I should use that word that I'm probably gonna be spacked ss No, I know, but I guess we're we grow up and just are like, Okay, I got to get through because I love my job. I want to
keep going that kind of thing. And then there's ones that, Nope, you're going to court because somebody has to pay for something. But tell us about how you approached it and you knew you had to kind of maybe change it or have some kind of impact and why.
Yeah, you know, honestly, well, I was approached by a number of female servers at the restaurant who all were complaining, and honestly, they said they'd worked at a ton of places and this had happened everywhere. This was just the first time that they thought maybe someone would actually do something about it. And so I did what I usually did when someone brings up a problem, which is include them in the solution to it. So, you know, we came up with a system that our entire staff that
want to participate did participate in creating it. And I think the reason it's so effective is that honestly, it really sort of honors people wherever they are. It's like basically a color coded system, and when someone experiences something with that color, they just report the color and an action is taken. So you know, for instance, a yellow is just you get a bad vibe at a table. You just say hey, I've got a yellow at table two, and a manager will take it over for you. And
an orange is you have a bad feeling. Plus let's say an ambiguous comment something like I like your shirt. You know, depending on who says that to you and how they say it to you, it might feel totally benign or aggressive. And so same deal. Someone just goes to a manager and says, hey, I've got an orange
at table too, and the manager takes it over. And with a red, that's someone saying something overtly sexual or touching a staff member, and in that case, again the staff member just says the color and then the manager's required to kick the person out. And you know, I think what's so cool about the system is that you know, guests honestly don't know is being used on them, So
it's very customer friendly. It. You know, staff members are going to have all kinds of different experiences, and some people are going to find certain things threatening and other ones won't, and so it allows us to meet staff where they are and take action. And it's really easy for managers to use. And what we found is amazing.
As we thought it would just be a way of coping with harassment and just giving us a way to deal with it, but actually what it did is it really nearly eliminated the worst forms of it, because very few people walk into a restaurant and like stick their hand of someone's shirt, but you know, they will usually start with lower level things like checking them out or making little level comments, and then once things are tolerated,
they escalate their behavior. So it just really sort of stopped the problem from happening, and in a way that I think is really respectful to people, you know, no matter if their customer, staff manager.
And I got to go on record because I'm going to get my sisters, my daughter and rightfully, so none of it is harmless. I guess just when you grow up in a world where I think women still feel like sometimes you've just got to kind of bite your tongue to kind of get through, and I just want to put it out that any form of sexual harassment, whether it's yellow, whatever color, it's all bad, it's all harmful.
I think what I find really interesting about this Color Code of Conduct is you're giving people language to be able to talk about how they feel and how they feel affected by it. And it's a model. It's been taken up by businesses elsewhere as well. Talk to us a little bit about how you're seeing. You know, what you've heard about how the Color Code of conducts being used outside of your business.
Yeah, I mean I've gotten like from just fabulous feedback. And actually, you know, one of the most fun parts is there's plenty of people that use it that I'll never know. But I'll walk into a bar and I'll find like one of our posters on the wall. Or I went to speak at a conference and it was like all these you know, bar owners from like across America and the globe. And I was so surprised because at the end of my session, I didn't, you know, I wasn't getting a ton of questions, and I was like,
what's happening here? And then I asked people to raise their hand if they had known of the system or if they use it in their bar and like everyone raised their hand and it's like okay, cool. So I wonder doesn't help people.
This is an industry where there's a huge staff turnover, right, I wonder how much that's helped towards staff retention at a time. You know, we talk so much about the tight labor markets, and we know that hospitality is one sector really affected by that. Has it helped you to keep people good people on your style?
Oh my god, one hundred percent. I mean to my point about sort of all the tools in the book, right, if we can use them, then anyone can, because I think you know, something really missing from the conversation right now about the labor market and what to do is that, in my experience, the most meaningful things actually don't cost money. They just take time and care. Right, Like, we are constrained.
There's only so much we can pay people when we're charging folks ten dollars for mac and cheese, right, Like, it's just that's just true. It's not going to be the most highly paid job of someone's life, probably, but you know, there's so much you can do that makes work an enjoyable place to come to and meaningful and purposeful and I think those are the things, honestly that you know, make life worth living.
Are there any of your original teams still with you in homeroom?
Oh?
Yeah, a bunch, so they stayed on. I mean, it proves that it works, right. One of the things that I really liked about your book and your own story as well as You're talking about wanting to fall in love with work, and do you think that we need to be in love with what we do in order to succeed.
I mean, in my experience, yes, I mean, you know, I'm really smart, and I was working as a lawyer and I got fired. And I don't think it's an accident. I found it very hard to be good at something that I didn't like doing, you know, versus something I'm passionate about. You know, my my worst days as an entrepreneur have been better than my best days as a lawyer. But you know, I think, I think it's a real gift, you know, to wake up and enjoy going to work.
And it's one I didn't, you know, previous to starting my own restaurant think was possible. So I guess I just wanted to communicate people to people that I do think it's possible, and I try to give them tips and tools for you know, how to find that passion within yourself, how to pursue it, how to create spaces where other people can't to because I think honestly, we spend more of our lives at work than in almost anything else, and we don't enjoy it. Like what are we doing here?
I would certainly say yes. It's one of the pieces of advice my dad gave to me growing up, like, fine, something you love to do. And I remember my first job in journalism. I had to be in it like the wee hours made maybe fourteen fifteen thousand dollars, had to borrow money from my father and mother to buy a car, use car for four thousand dollars, or I can get into New York City because there was no
mass transportation. But it was I knew it's what I wanted to do, and it's amazing, Like right, when you find something you want to do. Having said that, you also write. To create anything new of value, you always have to be willing to fail upward, to make mistakes
and get a little better every time. This philosophy had worked for you for me, you with everything from adding new menu items to refining management philosophies, but something about experimenting with people's safety at work felt too important to fail upward.
That's important, Yeah, I mean most of the book is sort of ridiculous stories about you know, what are the ways that we failed before we found systems that worked, And I was pretty terrified of doing that with our harassment system. But the truth is, there is no other way to create something that doesn't yet exist. So we did. And I tried to put in our mistakes so that other people don't need to make them too.
I really, I really enjoyed how honest you were about this, because, you know, having when you have a non linear career path, you've moving out of things, it can be difficult to be honest about the stuff that doesn't work. You know, when you've invested, for example, a lot of money and going to law school, you know that's got to hurt, right, And I wonder do you take things from your legal
career into what you're doing now? Are there elements of what you learned in law school and maybe what you learned from from working in the industry as well, that are relevant to your job now?
You know, actually, one of the most helpful things that I took from my legal career into being an entrepreneur was actually how we deal with discipline. I had been really interested in this question because I feel like it's pretty ineffective in most workplaces. And I had worked all through law school at a district attorney's office, actually Kama Hair's office when she was d of San Francisco. But so I was very interested in, like, what are different,
you know, ways that we approach punishment. And we ended up at my restaurant, Homeroom adopting a system that I had seen used in the criminal justice system called restorative justice. So, you know, most stuff at work, when someone screws up, you just get punished. You maybe get a write up, you maybe get doc shifts, you know, things like that. And with restorative justice, the idea is actually it's not
to punish people, but to make it right. And so we started shifting from like punishing people when they screwed up to you know, walking them through this restorative model of figuring out how to make it right with staff, you know, like how to you know, apologize like do nice things, fix it with the customer, you know, help your manager, like really make it right. With all the people affected by their behavior, and it was a real sea change for us. You know, it was really helpful.
Aaron, you dropped something like an elephant in the living room. We have to ask you, So you worked with Kamala Harris or it sounds like you have some experience what what would you what do you think some our audience in your experience with with working with her or dealing with her or talking with her that you think is worth sharing.
Oh gosh, I mean I do think you know, she was. I mean I had worked for her because I was really drawn to she was doing stuff that at the time was considered pretty out there, and you know, so, yeah, I have tremendous, tremendous respect for her, and you know, fun that she's running for president right now, So I yeah, I guess I just say, I think I really respect that she has tried things that other people weren't willing
to do. Frankly, at the time, I don't think she gets much credit for that, but she's an innovative prosecutor and she's good at what she did.
Well, be sure to keep us up to date on what you do with homeroom, especially if you expanded out and grow and we love talking to certainly small business owners, but your path has really been an interesting one and thanks for sharing it. Aaron Wade, chef and entrepreneur, I guess I can say also a lawyer or former lawyer. Her book is The MC and Tee's Millionaire Building a Better Business By Thinking Outside the Box. Joining us from Oakland, California.
All right, we're going to get back to a topic that is something Billy, thank you, a topic that we've talked about a lot in the last twenty four hours. It being Climate Week here in New York City. We have the U in General Assembly underway, but climate was a big topic of discussion at our Bloomberg event yesterday, the Global Business Form and also the earth Shot Prize Innovation Summit. And we're going to continue that conversation because there's a new study out from Deloitte.
Yeah right, this is the twenty twenty four AMXO Sustainability Report from Deloitte, and we've got Deloitte's Global Sustainability and Climate Practice leader, Jennifer's Simon here with us in studio. Great to see you, Jennifer. Thanks very much for coming in to talk to us. This is an interesting time to be thinking about how c suite executives are thinking about the sustainability, not only because we're looking ahead towards the US election, but also we're in this kind of
a very interesting moment economically as well. I mean, what's the kind of top line out of your report? Is this an issue as prominently being considered at that level as it has been in read years?
Absolutely, it's such an interesting study. Third year running, twenty one hundred cxos surveyed across twenty seven countries, and given the backdrop of what we're facing currently was it would be interesting to look at the trend over three years, and what we're seeing is that this is still a top of mind priority for cxos. What are cxos so sea level individuals be a CEO? Great questions? Throw a little bit of jargon there, I don't even guess.
I'm like, what are we talking about?
Okay?
So what's interesting is we talk about this all the time, that when certain things get to the c suite level, whether it's technology, whether it's we talk about the CFO. Now it's not just about earnings reports. The CFO is very involved in strategy. How do we spend money at a company working with the CEO, So you're saying, you know, or whether it's you know, personnel issues, whether it's equality, diversity. We've seen the ramp up, we've seen the dial down
on that. What about sustainability do we you know, has it been consistent or do we see it kind of waivers sometimes depending on the priorities of what the C suite's all about.
Over the last three years, it's been a top three area of priority, which is really interesting. So we see it flip flopping a little bit, but always in the top three. And this year only there are two areas that we're head economic outlook, which makes sense, and then also technology and read into that AI and data some of the topics you've been covering before this, and so those things are integrated but really high priority. And then the spending at we ask the question, how much are
you going to spend on this? Are you going to increase spending this year? Up from seventy percent saying they were going to spend more, we're now at eighty five percent of the C suite saying they're going to spend more on.
This topic, and that speaks very clearly to what sort of motivation these C suite executives have in being interested in subtainability as well. I mean, is that because they're worried about the impact on their businesses? Is this a reputational issue? What's motivating that increased investment?
There certainly has been that kind of concern from a traditional perspective, but this year, for the first time, we're starting to see a shift. So risk management very important, thinking about the doing good part of the equation very important. Compliance is another topic with the regulatory environment globally continuing
to kind of continue to scale up. But for the first time, what we're seeing as people are starting to see an economic upside, so they're starting to integrate this more deeply into their strategies core to the business, not of what I call a side order of sustainability, but how do we make money doing this?
This is also a question of the you know, the chief sustainability officer often somebody not in the inner circle of decision making and businesses as well. The range of people that you're surveying is this kind of getting to everyone up to CEO level.
Absolutely, we looked at the entire c suite, so across many all industries, effectively all geographies a large scan. So this is absolutely something that's becoming more of a c suite conversation, more of a boardroom conversation as well, and you start to see CFOs taking much more interest because as we start to look at the regulatory environment, we'll start to see a shift into having to do more around non financial disclosures as well as financial dis Well.
This is where I wanted to go because you said top priority, it's an action item or it's top priority. There's lots of conversations, So there's conversations how much money that was really being spent towards it. I'm just curious where that stacks up when it comes to the expense line on a balance sheet, because I know when we break down earnings of a publicly held companies, I'm not like, hey,
look look what they spend on sustainability initiatives. That's going to make investors say, oh, I want to own that stock. So help me out here and understand where kind of the rubber hits the road on this.
Yeah, it's a great question because we do see there's an uptick, right everyone plans on spending more, but I think you have and.
It says they're going to spend more, but it feels kind of hazy and a lot of gray out there.
We need to combine that with things because if you look at other priorities, So one lipnus tests is are where you want to spend more of that money, and it's going more towards operational issues, which which which means we're getting into the company's supply chain and how are we doing things, how are we working, how are we
being more effective? Didn't really hear conversations around effectiveness a couple of years ago, So now they're seeing a potential for being more effective and makes you more comfortable spending money because you think there's going to be a return on that investment in the other areas technology. So a lot of the problems that need to be solved come
through technology integration. And so you combine the innovation and technology language that we're hearing from the CXOS to the increase here and it's often running.
How much is regulation playing a part in this? Because you know you have the new Corporate Sustainable Ability Reporting Directive in the EU for example, we know that a lot of EU rules are you know, the Brussels effect, These things spread around the world as well as standards are set. Is this that kind of is the character or the stick motivating the change and attitude that you're seeing.
I think it's both. And when you start to look at the regulatory environment, it's quite a bit and it's a lot for companies to adopt. I was sitting at a breakfast with a lot of CSOs and there are fourteen different regulations that I need to comply with now. But part of it is collecting that information so that we can have better transparency and then when you have that data and information, you can do more with it.
Well, okay, so a couple things. Sorry I'm playing like Devil's advocate here. But sustainability, I mean, we keep talking about conversations with AI and how it's going to replace workers. Sustainability of a workforce? Is that coming up among individuals? And then also everybody's spending on AI ramping up their data centers. That has a huge environmental impact, right, the energy needed to do so how is that being worked into these conversations?
And you can see from the topic it's ever expansive. So the greening of AI is required, and then we also need AI to green so we're going to have to look at those things together. And there's a lot of work that needs to be done as we continue to increase energy consumption around that area. But most organizations are trying to tackle these problems one at a time, and it's really a systemic view that you need to get it done. And that's part of it with the
regulatory question. What about for workers though? If we're for workers absolutely who.
May not have a job because technology. You know, we just talked about what junior lawyers right are looking at contracts and different things. We had a segment was it last week?
Were you here?
It was here? And it was this week? It was Monday. It's Wednesday, Carol.
This is the kind of week it's been, right, But I do wonder about worker sustainability, and it has to.
Be included when you think about the broad definition of sustainability. Workers included. In the study we looked at workers as well. We also have another study where we looked at the job impact of the transition, and we need to look at that collectively because jobs are on the line, not just for technology but sustainability as we look at it.
But there's optimism too, because there's so many new jobs being created with a new sustainable economy, and you start to think about not just what are those jobs, but how do you do a just transition so that as many people can have access to those opportunities as possible.
That's the optimism. How much fear is there among c SWEDE executives about what changing climate and everything that's coming with it is going to affect their businesses.
Well, it's interesting because we've seen optimism go up, and I actually think if you look around New York this week, there's so many more businesses involved. Every year it ramps up, so we're having a lot of conversations around the business side. Business is taking action. So when we looked at the study, there's ninety plus percent optimism around we can have a positive impact and also generate revenue which leads to jobs.
Twenty seconds left. Doesn't matter who's in the White House with all of this.
No, this train has left the station. Most organizations have decided to do this, and not just in the United States but globally.
Well, this is what I think is important. You mentioned like I feel the US is taking cues from what's going on in Europe in a big way. When it comes to sustainability and greener initiatives, and then if you're a global company, you've got you have to be.
Able to operate. It's a massive market. You need to need to buy theirals. Jennifers, so great to have you with me. Thank you for taking us through the details. Jennifer steinmon there, who is Deloitte's global Sustainability and Climate Practice leader. Really interesting to dig into. It's Climate Week, we're talking about sustainable This is again coming back to the business case has been made? Is everyone seeing it? Is it feeding through two invests?
Yeah? Absolutely, And you do feel like it's not just a case of doing well doing good if you think about it in terms of choices made by executives, but it's really just the business case being that it just makes sense in terms of where the world is going.