Welcome to another episode of The Corner Booth, the official podcast of RestaurantOwner.com. Today, the restaurant industry is changing faster than ever. Learn from successful independent restaurant operators and other industry leaders as they share best practices that will help you engage your team, delight your guests, and grow your business. And welcome everyone to another Corner Booth. I'm Chris Tripoli with restaurantowner.com and we love it that you take this time to join with us.
We have been bringing you stories of restaurant concepting, independent restaurant operators, and today I think we're going to share with you one of the best examples of both those worlds. We have a very well-established multi-concept operator who's going to share his story of the creative process and the managing of what I think is well over 20 locations now. I bring you Ford Fry, who is the chef, owner, founder of Rocket Farm Restaurants.
They are based in Georgia with restaurants in Georgia and Texas, I think, right? So Ford, thank you so much for joining us.
Welcome to Corner booth hey thanks for having me glad to be here i think i got that right with your can't keep up actually i think you've got what at least six maybe seven different concepts and well over 20 units now am i correct yeah i think we're at 26 restaurants oh gosh i don't even know how many different concepts super rica is a multi-unit little ray is a multi-unit so optimus we have to so, who knows, eight, nine concepts maybe total.
And they're wonderful. I obviously have not been in all of them, but I have been to some, and it's been very enjoyable. And so, again, we think that our listeners are going to treasure the story you can share. And maybe before we get into your role in concepting and ops stuff, if maybe you could tell people just a little bit about who you are. How did you get started? What created your interest in hospitality to begin with? Yeah, I mean, I grew up in Houston, I would say in the 80s.
And, you know, like a lot of chefs, I was not the best student, probably more of a dreamer, I would say, you know, I would, you know, would during school or whatever, my mind was always thinking of other things and whatever, but definitely not school. My grandparents, my grandfather was a doctor in Houston. He took us traveling a lot. And traveling always incorporated, you know, there was always good food with that.
I mean, nice restaurants, casual restaurants all over the country, all over Europe. So I think that was really the, you know, for the longest time, I really liked food. You know, in high school, you know, in the 80s, being a chef wasn't necessarily the cool thing. like it could be today. So I didn't even think about that. I was more thinking front of the house and I was a horrible bus boy and I was a horrible server. I mean, just the worst. And so then I thought I was kind of lost.
I said, well, maybe I'm not. I really like the restaurant business. I love, you know, dining and eating, but I was such a bad employee. I thought, well, okay, well, I'll just go to college and I'll major in business and move on. And And so I go off to college, you know, join a fraternity, don't really go to class. You know, so about a year and a half in, it was my dad read an article in the Wall Street Journal called Fast Track Careers. And it was the culinary school going to culinary school.
I mean, the biggest lie I've ever heard, fast track career. No way. So I thought, OK, cool. So I pack up and I go off to Vermont to culinary school. And that was it. It just clicked. I'm like, okay, now I get it. I meant to... Into the restaurant business through the back door. So, and from then on, it was just like, I mean, there was no, no turning back.
You know, this was, I, you know, I worked as many hours a week on, off, on, on, on the clock, off the clock that I could, you know, just to kind of grow and learn. And, and that was about 2007. I started my first restaurant and then here we are today.
What was the very first one? first one was called jct abbreviation of junction it's right on a it's in an old meatpacking building in atlanta and right on a railroad line that's where they kind of brought the hides through and the meat and whatever back in the day so it was more of a was back when arm to table movement was was something that you would you would tower you would you would you would use and that's what that was.
So I'd upscale casual at an upstairs bar, secondary bar. So it was funner. That's great. That's great. Okay. So that kind of gets us into now, beginning of the business and your business from 2007 to today has had a story of just continued success and expansion. Could you maybe take a few minutes to walk us through how did that become the vision? Was that your initial vision or how did that start coming about?
Yeah. So, you know, I didn't know, I knew the vision, I knew I wouldn't just want to do one out of the gate. Did not know what that would look like or how I would even get that done. It was me and my sister's husband who is my financial partner, main financial partner at the time. And We started a restaurant. It was 2007. 2008, obviously, was the somewhat recession, I would call it. For us, it really wasn't. We just kept going. And I remember about a year in...
A guy at the bar, his name is Phil Hickey. I don't know if you know that name, but he was one of the founders of Capitol Grill and has done very well. And he introduced himself and I just, I was just antsy. I'm like, I'm ready to do more. I'm ready to do. And he looked at me and he just said, Hey, you know, what are you doing in sales? And I said, well, oh, we're doing, we did two and a half million the first year, you know, we were crushing it.
And he just looked at me and said, Hey, can I gave me a piece of advice I said sure and then thinking to myself I'm not going to take it but you can give it to me so he gave he said hey wait until you get to five million then start thinking about more and I said okay so I I didn't necessarily take his advice but because of the recession scared my brother-in-law as far as investing in more he's like no let's just wait and let's see what happens you know it really
took about four years and then we were by By that time, we were about at six, six and a half million anyway. So it was turned for, OK, let's do restaurant, too, because this one obviously worked. This one's paying back the investors. We're making money. And at that point, it was more about, all right, how do we he is a brilliant businessman. He's an oil and gas. He understands law, big, big things, you know, unlike me.
And so he said, well, what if, and he had a younger brother who was in a finance world and said, well, why don't I bring him on as a, he was job transitioning. And he said, well, I bring him on as a CFO and let's, let's grow something. And the goal was at the time was to let's create, I said, well, let's just create five, I call them credibility restaurants. OK, like five chef driven restaurants. And then and then from there, we'll spin off scalable versions of those and blow those up.
And that was really the goal until. So we pretty much did that. We did that pretty quickly. At least we grew the five credibility restaurants pretty quickly, but pretty much recognize that. All right. We need to kind of focus on something to scale. And that's where Super Rica came into play. It's our kind of Austin, Texas, Tex-Mex thing. And then we started thinking, all right, let's, let's, let's blow this up.
You know, I think the Southeast was really lacking in the kind of the food that, that I grew up eating in Houston. So it was, it was something I was passionate about. It was, it wasn't like, Hey, I'm doing this. Cause I think it's like good margins and all this. It's not really the case.
I mean, I would say, you know, Tex-Mex is about the same as everything else, but it's not like cheap mexican so so that's what we did so we're in nashville we're in houston we're in the carolinas we're down in florida, And it hasn't been without challenge, but it's been a very learning road. So that's where we're at. And then Little Ray was kind of a spinoff of that in a way, like a smaller box, more counter service.
But I love tacos and I love the beautiful wood. So that was just so long and short. I'm kind of this. I'm still this dreamer that I was back in the 80s making a one nine GPA. But I'm still I'm always dreaming and I'm always wanting to do something fun. So that's where the CFO kind of comes into play. He kind of keeps me corralled and said, well, yeah, there's so many great points there that I hope listeners you're making note of. I love that balance.
You've said a couple of times the importance of the business balance. You're obviously well established with what you're talking about, following the dream. You've got the creative side. I like also that each one of these concepts was really led more from an interest and from a passion. Not so much from we're doing this because we appreciate a margin and we think we're going to have a huge bottom line. I think it's a good thing to make note of. Obviously, those things are needed.
That earlier point of paying more attention to what you've already done, give it time, build revenue, increase profitability before you let those creative juices go to do the next store. Boy, was that valuable because. It really was. Yeah. I mean, really, you could have had a completely different program if you were, say, in year two and without that, you know, just chance meeting with Phil Hickey and thought, we're going to start doing our credibility restaurants now.
I would imagine that by giving it those few years, you got so much more, not just because of revenue and margin, but probably so much in operational experience and structure development too. Am I right? Yeah, I think also it's building that culture or that DNA that kind of travels with you when you open a new restaurant. So if you're really new and you don't have time to really cultivate and grow that culture, you can't replicate it.
It's hard to maintain that. So you'll go on to restaurant number two, but you won't have any foundation there of a culture and of what you stand for and what's important. So that's kind of how we've been able to grow all the restaurants is that where it's kind of like, you know, someone, if you're a baker, you like the sourdough mother. You know, the mother is the starter.
And the goal is to kind of use, you know, that mother has to find itself into each restaurant so that you've got this, this, this culture DNA that travels with you and carries on a lot. A lot of that's also through empowerment and empowering people to do a great job because you're only as strong as your people. So it was good. You know, that was, that was great advice that I was, that I ended up taking, I mean, inadvertently. but yeah,
It's super, super important, especially for chefs. We are creatives. We want to keep doing more. We need to be kind of corralled sometimes. So I can accept that. Sure, sure, sure, sure. And it's smart that you do. We've had that established in other conversations, too, where people immediately go to the successes obviously shared because restaurants are a team effort. And so I'm imagining that have you grown now with multiple concepts and geographically you're scattered.
You've really had to rely on that team. Maybe you could share with us, how are you structured with multiple concepts and obviously multiple locations? Do you now have a structure from unit to supervision? What kind of support is required for people when they do this kind of growth? Yeah, so we have, I would say we're kind of split.
Our company is split in kind of two we have the one the chef driven credibility restaurants and then we have the multi-unit restaurants so the chef driven one is is where is structured where we have we call vps vice presidents who oversee specific things really due to their their their strength like a Wong VP. I call him the VP of experience, basically. He is amazing at all these experience and seeing things. And then we have VPs who are really great in sales building and financial.
You know, all that arena, you know, because no one has everything, you know, very few people have it all. So, so we have a COO, then we have vice presidents.
We also have, I would call them regionals a few regionals who over those the regionals pretty much land in the multi the super eco world or the multi-unit world because they're responsible for say two three to four restaurants each and then we've got store level so and then we do have a corporate office that has accounting hr a little bit of engineering we've kind of shrunk that a little bit we're trying to streamline
that our corporate office just we keep saying we're not going to grow it But we keep growing it. But this past year, we've kind of made a stance to actually reduce it, which has been well. It's been great. Excellent. Well, it sounds like those are all the support items. You've got your people program with the jar, you're watching your numbers, you do your in-house accounting.
These are, again, some things that some of our listeners are not necessarily yet of size to be doing, but I think they can kind of take in some of the examples that you're given that if they're maybe outsourcing some things that you can do in-house now, like accounting and marketing, and if they've got maybe smaller amounts of units. But I like the idea of how you engage the key people so that it's not doesn't sound like it's an awful big hierarchy.
It sounds like it's a little bit more horizontal rather than vertical build. And so, yeah. So if I'm assuming correctly, see, so then that means you're putting the emphasis where it belongs in the field closer to the customer. Yeah. Yes. I mean, a lot of that this year, you know, we've gone from we've waved from everything in the restaurants to ownership in the restaurants.
To, hey, we can't trust the restaurant, so we're going to pull it all to the corporate office and we're going to control it all. And then you lose ownership in a restaurant level. So it's like, okay, wait a minute. We got to get back to the restaurant level, owning their business. And us as a servant leadership team, we're here to train. We're here to teach. How do you run a restaurant? How do you cultivate a cult?
How do you how do you treat your staff, you know, and and that's been the best the best way. And that and that enables you to keep a smaller corporate office. Like if I, you know, honestly, I mean, if anyone thinks they want they want to grow like like I look back upon it, we're at 26 restaurants. Part of me is thinking I may have just been just as fine with three restaurants and not having a massive corporate office. I mean, you really, really have to.
You know, you have to set, you have to make that, just make that decision. Hey, if I'm going to grow big, okay, I'm going to create a corporate structure. If you're not complaining on really going big, you know, then really question whether you really want to do that or not. So there's two ways that, I mean, I'm sure there's pluses and minuses. So we'll see when time comes, you know, because restaurants kind of have their little lifespan too.
You know, Some of them will just kind of peter off and some of them will keep going for, you know, we're, gosh, I mean, coming close to 15 years now being in this business. So life spans are tough. Well, let's talk a little bit about that. I really appreciate how you gave us some really good input on growth and proper way to structure. I like that job number one really is to teach. Teach, job number two,
to send support the field. And you're right, I think, in thinking that you can probably do that in a more simplified manner. But if you could walk people through these two steps, because you just mentioned lifespan. So how about concepting at the start? Would you have, I guess, just the energy, the idea? How do you walk through concept to make it a reality? Because I know everyone's assuming so many steps. Of course, there's the idea. But then, of course, there's the location.
Oh, my God, we need the money. We're nothing without the menu. You usually have a tremendous pattern that you've gone through. Maybe we could talk a little bit about that. Yeah. I mean, it really started, I was working a job before, before I even started my first restaurant, I had a concept in mind and that was like a quick service taco, taqueria basically is what I was thinking about. And I needed 3000 square feet, a lot of parking and a big patio.
Okay. So, and I just couldn't find it. No one knew me. I couldn't find that, that, you know, perfect spot. So it changed the way we thought about things just because I had all kinds of ideas. I love cooking. I love cooking. I loved all kind of experiences, restaurant experiences. I changed the mindset is let, let the location determine what that restaurant is. And that's what we did. Each location determined what the concept was now.
And that was about, all right, what is the neighborhood? Is it a, is it a high, you know, is it a high dollar neighborhood? Is it a middle dollar or low dollar? But who was the consumer in that neighborhood and what were they really wanting and what was not around there? So it was really about, hey, what does the consumer really want? And what do we think they need? And what are we passionate about cooking? So it had to meet all of those things. It had to meet what are we passionate
about? Because we don't want to just do something that we think this neighborhood wants. We want to do what we want to do, plus what they want. So it's kind of a combination thing. So then once once that was determined, then it's it's kind of like a like a film producer. You you you create a, you know, a script basically. What is the story? What is the story of this restaurant? And what does that look like? So it's basically a pitch pitch book with photos, sample menu with price points on it.
You know, it's basically a visual, a visual business plan, I would call it. Yes you know and because who because I remember you know who wants to write this thick book with all these demographic stuff and all this stuff I never enjoyed that this was more about like. Hey, this is what I'm going to give you. And then it's bringing all the people together, bringing the designer, bringing a graphic designer, bringing, all right, who is the chef?
Am I a chef or am I bringing someone in as the chef and what's their skill set? And bringing people in who are better than you are to do all those little tasks. And then it all just kind of comes together.
So your job as the visionary is to really communicate a clear vision of, all right this is what this is and then you just manage that process and then once it unveils it's one of the most rewarding experiences you will go through because you will have created something and it's like and especially if you mail you know if people say hey this is what i want it to be like like jct our first restaurant i said i want it to be nice
enough for a date night but also not too nice that people won't come once a week. And when you hear the customer say, tell someone about the restaurant, and they basically repeat that verbatim without me telling them, they're like, hey, you should go to JCT. It's perfect to take a date, and it's perfect to go. I'm like, all right, that was a success. So success is your vision interpreted the way you want it to.
And obviously, it's got to match what's your rant. and what are all the business sides of things too? I mean, you got your check average and table turns and how many seats, all those things. It's just a big puzzle, but it's fun. It's a fun puzzle. Yeah, that's great. That's great. No, and I just love the way that's explained. It really is. It's a puzzle with about 100 different moving pieces, but if they all fit, then bingo.
And I have heard that description before that just is so exciting that if you manage the process correctly and then you get to that point and it opens. What a tremendous, tremendous feeling. I've had it described before as like maybe the closest that men would ever feel like to giving birth because some parts of the process are painful. Those last couple of weeks, big push, a lot of labor, but then, you know, you created something that before wasn't there.
How about now moving a little bit ahead? Okay. Now years down the road, how do you know when and if the concept might need refreshing, reconcepting? What are the signs? And then how do you go about that? Yeah, that's, that's right where we are. We are, for the most part, we have a rule of thumb. It's like, you know, at five years you're, you do just a minor cleanup or some sort of spend, this is assuming the business is going well.
Well, 10 years, it is a, I would call it a fairly substantial refresh, probably not even a return on investment that you can even quantify like we're like we it's just the cost of doing business it you can either let that business you know run itself into the ground and run its course if you're okay with that or if you want to keep going and make sure it's got like another another run i mean another another run i'd say like for instance we have the optimist optimist was our third restaurant.
And it came out of the gate just, I mean, it just really struck a chord in the city. We had national awards and everything. And we're about 12 years in right now. And it's just time. It is time. Like I found like sales, you know, are still strong, but they do somewhat plateau because there's, I mean, it's plateaued in a good spot. But I like to see constantly, I like to see getting better every day and how are we going to be better.
And so we had this oyster bar that was attached to it that was originally intended to be a kind of a secondary thing. We had a wood burning oven, the raw bar in there. It was kind of like a secondary rough thought. Well, the consumer never, I mean, our guests never, never used it that way. You know, we we ended up just seeding people overflow from the restaurant into the oyster bar. But it wasn't a it wasn't a nice. It was a way more casual experience.
So now we've just totally redone oyster bar. It's very bougie, nice, very dim. It's like, oh, I want to eat. I want to eat in there now. You know, so basically we just kind of listen to what we do the consumer want. So we get three start seats or our check average is way, way higher in there. But because it was used as like a little waiting room. So we just kind of listened. Freshened it up, keeping it clean over time. I mean, 10 years on a busy restaurant takes it takes it eating.
So just bank that in at least. I mean, 10 years is the max. And then and I, you know, obviously I learned that from my first lease signing where the landlord was brilliant. He's very creative. And he made sure that in the lease that we had a refresh and a dollar amount attached to that that we would do at year, maybe it was year five and year 10. So he knew that. So I learned. Interesting. Yeah, he obviously has, he's obviously had more than just a few restaurant tenants.
Yeah, that's brilliant thinking. I mean, I have heard that from, say, investment partners where they have asked for the business to maybe have a small set aside for, say, capital improvements so that at year five, seven. But until today, I had not heard that coming from a landlord. That is a name.
Yeah. he is very very unusual i mean he's he's very very creative very successful but he was he was small it was just they had bought that one building but they just curated it really well, and maybe he's seen it before i don't know where he learned that from but it was smart that's the only that's the only lease that we have where that's in there i can tell you that but it is true you know it's the thing to do it's,
That makes sense. Well, there's a couple of real important parts that I heard there. Not only the fact that it might be more than once to keep the concept on the top of the game could be at year five, a more major redo update modification, so to speak, at year 10. But that I also really wanted to emphasize is this is for successful restaurants. This is for when things are going well.
I think that shows some really good planning. I hope everyone's making note of, because what we never really want to do is just accept status quo. It sounds like you're far from that because you've mentioned two or three times, you know, you're driving, always thinking and dreaming and improving. Because sometimes we just stumble onto that. Because something is successful, we say, let's just leave it the heck alone. Then we wake up one day and we realize guest habits have changed.
Customers' expectations are a little different. And all of a sudden we're dipping and we don't know why.
So so this is for when things are going well you plan on jumping in yeah and updating and refreshing excellent we've done it's funny it's funny you said that because you we're we've gone through a little bit of a refresh and super rica super rica's hit 10 years and you change something, from 10 years and it just blows me away at how many people get and they make these comments i One comment that I hate is, if it ain't broke, why fix it?
I'm like, well, it ain't broke yet, so we're going to fix it before it does break. But you're not the expert here. You just need here. We're the expert here. So, you know, you have to just kind of have that feel, I would say. Good point. That's a very good point because, and I had it told to me by a wise restaurateur once that I was working for, my early mentor. He said it a little bit differently. He said that the word change is really tough for our industry.
Customers don't like to hear that change. Why did you change this? Because for some reason, I think change means they must have to accept that maybe there was something wrong because they liked it. Oh, you changed the color or you changed this or whatever. So he said that really, restaurateurs don't wait for something to break and then they have to fix it. Instead, they just use the word we're continually modifying.
We're improving. We didn't mean to change something. It's just part of our improvement to kind of keep us going and keep you interested. Maybe it's just a play on words, but boy, it sure does work because you want that steady customer, obviously, to return and return. and always be happy. But at the same token, you've got a, you're torn with the fact that it's been five to seven years, the customer dynamics changing, maybe there's new faces moving into the neighborhood.
How do I stay current, so to speak? Didn't you just do something like this in Houston at the State of Grace? Yes, we did. You know, it's interesting. Yeah, it's a good point. Because State of Grace was a, I'd call it a neighborhood restaurant. It's in River Oak, So I call it a nice neighborhood restaurant where, you know, we it was very nice setting. You could get a burger. You could get oysters. You can kind of get whatever. But what I was feeling was I just felt like it
was kind of losing an identity. It was getting all over the place for me. And as I'm growing older and watching trends change, I'm seeing there's more simple. there's more simplicity, less is more kind of thing. And I've been like loving, you know. The classics, I would say. So, and people are loving, you know, elevating a certain level of service. The State of Grace kind of took a notch, basically.
We kind of went back to this calling of the old continental cuisine days where there's an elevated level of service. There's table side elements, you know. We're not trying to be innovate for the sake of innovation. We're trying to bring just solid.
Because I think a restaurant, once it hits its pop and it's not new, it's not the first thing anymore, then it just it just needs to be solid because you're not going to get the press that you always, were get you were getting the first couple years you were open it's just kind of a it's just a restaurant that's there and no one talks about so unless you do something really special then they're not going to talk about it so we have to kind of generate your own press by doing something special
and what is that that's like really sort of and because it's in a nice neighborhood we have the ability to, okay, we can raise, we can, we can serve, you know, a little bit higher end too. Some people are, some people don't like it. Some people are like, yeah, it's too expensive now. Well, yeah, I get it. I get it. We're going to lose some people, but we're gaining others in the, you know, so we did, we just did that. So.
Well, good, good. And you just flowed right into the next topic that I wanted to get you to talk on because you're so in tune with multiple concepts, multiple locations, to today's guest. You've got the counter service, full service, different ethnic restaurants, high end. So it might be good if you could tell us, how are you reading the tea leaves now? The dining out, sort of the conflict, so to speak, with things being more expensive.
Also, there's the driving force of post-COVID, we fell in love, convenience. You know, I want my restaurant, but I want it curbside. I want it delivered. You know, I want it now kind of a thing. But then the point that you just made, though, sort of that return to what's been missing, which is the hospitality side, table side stuff. So we've got a lot of things going on. How do you read it? What are these next few years going to be like?
It's interesting. I mean, I feel like, you know, COVID was rough and then all of a sudden we were coming back on COVID and we were all excited. All right, we're going to blow up. And then the labor was really rough. So it's been a huge reset. And I think we are back to sea level, I would say, but it's, it's the, maybe the quality is not where it was. The passion, there was, There's a few years where the restaurant business was the evil, you know, person, the devil.
And it's like, it's like, I almost saddened me because I'm like, I love this business. I think, I don't know why, you know, but I've heard, I was asking questions. We were losing people. I asked some of my friends to ask some people who've left the industry. Why did you go? And they said, well, it's just not fun anymore. I'm like, oh, okay. So I took that kind of to heart. It's like, all right, what do we do? You know, as a restaurant group, we have to be fun.
We have to provide our employees with good wages. So we're trying to figure out, all right, how come we can enable this? So, I mean, there's all kinds of tit pool things that we talk about. There's a lot of creative things going out there in the restaurant world. If you look at Birdie's in Austin, you know, it is, you know, it is. Those people are so happy to be working there. It is counter service, but it's kind of fine dining, if that makes sense.
And it works. Yeah, it does. You know, and but so we've that really intrigued me. So a lot of it is just trying to think about, all right, we we got to we got to kind of things have changed. We just have to move with the change. And then sometimes like you, there's a lot of articles about just over. Yeah. What's the word for it? You know, like too much technology, you know, where we're losing.
So whenever I see things that are, that the world goes towards, like so much technology and order from your phone or whatever, I kind of buck that system a little bit. And I kind of go back towards, you know what, eating out as an experience, eating out as a time to be is hospitality. And that's where I try to just, I try to elevate, I try to double down on that hospitality stuff.
All right how do we elevate this stuff so that we stand out and we are not that cold hey you know because there's plenty of great places that don't have any experience to it that have great too you know we are in the business of great food plus great experience so we've kind of kind of kind of got to do it all you know and there's so much i call it a good friend of mine was a professional drummer and he talks about the music industry and he says how much he said there's
so much content out there. Everything is just so diluted. And then the restaurant business, there is so much content. There's so many restaurants. So how are you going to, how are you going to be better than everyone else? Because those are the ones that are going to survive. So to me, it's like, how do you take care of the guests and how do you take care of your staff? And those are two, those are two really key components that we really, this is the era we really need to be looking at that.
Boy, no kidding. No, I don't think that could have been put any better. And I do. I hope everyone is making a note of that, that, yeah, how can you make a difference? What is the point of difference? Well, if the point of difference seems to include the two things you just mentioned, your guests and staff, yeah, then you're improving. I really like that point, too, that, you know, you're right. We do need to be technologically astute. It does help us save time, efficiency.
But I have heard that from people before that, you know, a lot of that is back of the house. A lot of that helps with things like systems, inventory control, staff communication, labor models. Got it. Improve profitability. But that's all back of the house. Out in the front of the house, it still has to be keep hospitality and hospitality. We can't lose that or be robotic.
Most of your concepts, of course, are full service. And so that means you are impressing upon the staff the service principles. Do you find that that kind of training is getting more difficult? The staff that you're hiring, is initial training different today than maybe it was 10, 15 years ago? Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, for us, I think the store level upper leadership, you know, the GMs, okay, has been a really tough, that's been a really tough one to find and to fill because I think we've had a sea of really good GMs move into more multi-unit. And even a lot of GMs who are pretty good GMs even feel that they are multi-unit level. So that's what they all want. So it's really hard. So what we've had to rely on is, all right, our VPs or our multi-level really have to engage.
You know, sometimes you sit in these meetings in your office and you talk about all this stuff philosophically and all this, but if it doesn't make its way into the restaurant and you are training a, you know, maybe an AGM level who's in a GM role, we're kind of having to resort to some of that kind of stuff.
And that's very dangerous, you know, unless you, unless you're, but part of it's good because it's taking someone with attitude and we've had it with a good attitude that we're having a, we're grooming to really backfill that whole position, which there's a pretty big void of that in, in the industry, which, which I'm seeing. So it is tough, but you have to be passionate. You've got to, you know, cause I, I said one time, I said, we, we've elevated all our great GMs into the corporate office.
Right. And then we were like, what's happened to the restaurants, you know? So... It's a tough one, you know what I mean? But that just reminds me of the point that you made a little bit earlier, where the goal here is to take our home office talent, simplify things, so that it may be a little bit more supporting the units. That is not at all unusual when we, you know, talk with people who have, say, success, but they're structured geographically.
They have success. And of course, it's multiple units. You seem to promote the best and the brightest, but now what happens is you become a conference room type of setting, and you want to get those guys back in the field to make the decisions, you know, close to the restaurants. I have the feeling you'll be able to make that simplification pretty well. I do.
I think that because you're so passionate about the experience at the store level, you'll find a way of getting those best and brightest, the VPs, the multi-unit guys in the store. The office sort of becomes the corner booth instead of a conference room, you know, admin. Yeah. I mean, I love quality of life and all. I love that, you know, our VPs and corporate people, you know, are, we're elevating their life. But when you lose focus on what we are here to do, then you kind of go wrong.
So that's kind of our goal these days. So you probably don't have one with all the things that are going on, but I want to ask you Anyway, once you get to that point where you're keeping the dream alive, your brain is passionate, you've got the creativity going, but you've also got 26 units set up into like two categories, as you mentioned, operating. What is a Ford Fry average day like?
Gosh i get you know because getting my creative is juices flowing again because we're not the cost of development is so high right now now it's like all right slow down on development but what we are doing is what we talked about earlier is just so many refreshes so that's where my that's where i'm at i'm i'm at refreshing everything some of them are you know a half million dollar refreshes and And some of them are $10,000 refreshes.
So that's what's keeping me. Because my job is like, all right, I have to keep these things moving in the right direction, moving forward. So that's what excites me. I mean, I definitely work with my brain a lot more than with my hands. But that's exactly what I want to do. And really, I really enjoy. So it's kind of assessing, you know, what the needs are, where we need to be, and then, you know, just keeping all the balls spinning or all the plates spinning for that sake.
Well, this has been wonderful. Before I let you go, I want to ask maybe if a listener was out there and they identified with you at the beginning and they were just latching on to the industry now and they're just getting started. What type of advice, if they were sitting with you, would you give them so that maybe, who knows, years in the future, they might say the same kind of thing that you're saying now about the conversation that you had with Phil?
You know, what kind of impression would you want to make on them? Yeah, it's funny because when I have people come to me and they say, hey, I want to go, I'm going to leave. I'm leaving because I'm going to start my own business. I am in good conscience. I cannot say, oh, you don't want to do that because good conscience. I'm like, absolutely. This is exactly what you want to do because I would not have it any other way. So so my advice is to go.
Do not let anybody hold you back. But what I learned, and I, you know, again, as I'm a student that I am, I think I listened to this book, but it was a book called The E-Myth, The Entrepreneurial Myth, okay? And what I took from that was a story of a woman who made really great pies. And all her friends told her, you need to open your own business. So then she opened her business. She made great pies, but she was a slave to her business.
And a chef in New York City told me one time, because he told me he was off on the weekend. I'm like, how are you off on a weekend? And he said, if I can give you any devices, make sure your business is big enough so that you are not a slave to your business. And this is the e-myth philosophy as well, that you can manage your business from above. Now, yes, your first year is going to be hands-on. You're involved in everything.
You know everything. You're going to have a plan for you floating to the cloud and managing and fine-tuning your business. And that is so key to your quality of life and to your success and your business. So if anything, that has been what has been my, I mean, I couldn't ever do it any other way. Wonderful. Thanks so much for sharing. Say advice from one who's mastering that art.
So everybody You've just been listening to Tips and stories And how to's From a master of the trade This has been Ford Fry Founder, chef, chief cook Head bottle washer of a company now In five or six states With a ton of different units Learn from him Go to the website Check out these concepts If you happen to live in those areas Where you can run to see a little ray Or eat at Super Rica Or go to State of Grace Please do experience the results of his efforts.
And Ford, I want to say thanks again. Wish you continued success. And we're going to sign off now. Everybody, I hope you have a wonderful shift. Go out, make it a great day. And let's meet up soon on another Corner Booth. Thank you for joining us on the Corner Booth. We'll be back next Tuesday with more inspiration, insights, and industry best practices to help you engage your team, delight your guests, and grow your business. you.