¶ Introduction to Restaurant Leadership Podcast
Welcome to the Restaurant Leadership Podcast , the show where restaurant leaders learn tools , tactics and habits from the world's greatest operators . I'm your host , kristen Marvin , with Solutions by Kristen .
I've spent the last two decades in the restaurant industry and now partner with restaurant owners to develop their leaders and scale their businesses through powerful one-on-one coaching , group coaching and leadership workshops . This show is complete with episodes around coaching , leadership development and interviews with powerful industry leaders .
You can now engage with me on the show and share topics you'd like to hear about , leadership lessons you want to learn and any feedback you have . Simply click the link at the top of the show notes and I will give you a shout out on a future episode . Thanks so much for listening and I look forward to connecting .
¶ Neiman Popoff and Rogan Art Bakery
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All right , hi everybody , we are going to get started . For those of you that are here at the National Restaurant Show standing in line at Starbucks , we're going to give you a little bit of content to listen to today while you're waiting in line . This is the Restaurant Leadership Podcast .
I'm your host , kristen Marvin , and I am joined today by Neiman Popoff from Rogan Art European Bakery and Cafe . Welcome , neiman .
It's great to be here .
So happy to have you today , thank you . We have met briefly on LinkedIn and had a couple of conversations over the phone , and now we're here in person , which is just magical , so really appreciate your time .
Loving it .
Tell us a little bit about Rogan Art and give people kind of an understanding that are here of what it's all about , and then we'll kind of dive into the story a little bit about where the brand came from .
It is a European bakery , beach-run cafe headquartered in Maryland , and we have 10 locations . It is focusing on freshly crafted pastries from scratch , and everything that we do is from scratch , made in small batches throughout the day , so that we guarantee maximum freshness and great taste .
And basically , the mission is not only to delight the customers , but also to create an experience that comes to life for anybody who walks in , and also to be a part of the community , to provide content to the community and for the local people to have where to meet and hang out and enjoy great food . So it's about actually discovering life .
I love that discovering life that's beautiful . So you have a very interesting background that's not necessarily rooted in food and beverage . How did this concept come to be for you ?
The trouble with trouble
¶ From Corporate Career to Restaurant Owner
is that it starts as fun . I was a corporate guy that was looking for a hobby . Everybody thinks restaurants are easy when you're not in the industry and then you start it , but then you simultaneously fall in love with it . It's a strange relationship of love and hate . And then I ended up making it my full-time thing I love it .
And when was that ? What year was that ? That started in 2016 , okay , and did you when you opened your first one ? Were there some challenges that you were ? Did you ever think like I'm maybe I'm going to walk away from this ? Or you just knew like this is what I want to do for the rest of my life ? For ?
about , I think , good , three years every . There was not even a day that passed by that I didn't think , okay , I'm walking away , I really didn't need this . Wow , this is , this is not for me . Yeah , and that was unfortunate . I learned or fortunately I learned through a lot of mistakes .
So when I say I have experience in the industry , the experience came from me walking through the wall headfirst . So even the first location that we opened , the lease that we signed was bad . The setup was bad , so many mistakes . So we ended up actually walking out of that lease after three years Wow . And then opened another location mistake .
So we ended up actually walking out of that lease after three years , wow . And then open another location . And then it took good , let's say all together , from the first location four years until we opened the second one . And opening the second one , the complexity of running two versus running one was , to my surprise , times five , not not times two .
And this is when , actually , you know , the true learning started happening . You know how do you actually build a restaurant business ? And I was doing all of that from my . I was financing the entire expansion myself and still am . We do not have any equity or capital partners in the business .
And right now it's easier and it's more fun once you scale to a point that you can put together a team that can actually help you on that journey , and then it becomes more about the team than about the owner . And the other day I was talking to somebody and they asked me so what do you actually do in your own business ?
And a lot of owners say , hey , I'm the visionary , I am Thanks .
A round of applause for the visionaries out there .
But , you know , I think every owner is actually
¶ Perseverance Through Early Challenges
the soul of the business , and my job right now is more taking care of the people who run the business . I'm still involved day to day . However , most of my engagement is market-facing activities .
When you were going through those first three years and the challenges were just so present for you every single day , what kept you going ?
Perseverance , and I think it's part of the character , that desire that you have to find a way to make it work and just not willing to give up , and the constant idea there is thousands and thousands of people who made it work . I have to make it work . And this is also when the growth and learning process started .
Being in the corporate world and actually being quite high up in the corporate world makes you a little bit arrogant in terms of that . You think you know something , and then becoming an entrepreneur is a very humbling experience is when you actually it makes you a little bit arrogant in terms of that .
You think you know something , and then becoming an entrepreneur is a very humbling experience is when you actually realize how little do you know , and it is almost like equivalent to relearning how to walk , but at the same time , a rewarding experience , that rush of joy when you did something well or things started picking up .
It is just an incredible feeling , and it might not be for everybody , but for people who enjoy adventure and for people who are really driven , who are eager to grow , who work on themselves , it's the right move .
How did you develop that perseverance ?
I don't know if I did anything in particular to develop it . I sort of always had it in me . I think that that mindset that you grow up with and the mindset , the narrative that you create for your own self in your head , is the key element , and that is like the continuous growth is what you do every day to grow yourself .
Growth is what you do every day to grow yourself . That's that a little bit Kaizen mentality , because I was always sort of competing with myself from yesterday . Okay , and if I can be better than myself , I never lost a lot of time comparing myself to others or envying others or wanting to be like others .
I just wanted to be a better version of myself every day . And I'm actually still working on that every day and I think that learning and that personal growth never stops .
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¶ Building a Growth-Focused Culture
. Have you taken that mindset and translated it to the business as well , in terms of thinking on how we can be better every single day , every single shift ? Absolutely . How is that showing up in your culture today ?
It is showing up with a high level of engagement , and the idea is to create a team and to have team members who are really interested in growing themselves , because this is what I think a person that does not work on their own growth , they're not going to grow anybody else's business .
So you try to surround yourself with good people who have similar mentality and a similar personality . The old famous , you know higher personality . Train the skill and then take good care of your people .
How are you identifying those personalities and that growth mindset during the interview process at all of your locations ?
I think this is actually the toughest part interview process at all of your locations . I think this is actually the toughest part . We've tried with different types of testing , we've tried with several levels of interviews . It's still . I can't say that I think that I have the recipe of how to get the right candidate every time .
We still make a mistake almost daily , daily in now , in the meantime , in in 10 stores .
Uh , we truly do not have a high turnover of of people , but still , you know , mistakes are always going to happen did you know when you started robin art that you wanted to open a certain number of locations , or are you kind of just waiting to see what happens with the business ?
Well , I always had a vision , and the vision is to actually create a national brand , and the main motivation is not in the money , it's just again being the best version of yourself and growing and focusing on being great and awesome at what you do . I think success , and everything that comes with success , is a consequence and you cannot work on it .
You can work on your own personal growth and growth of the business and learning from your mistakes , and then you scale as much as you want to scale . I'm not putting a cap or a bottom to ambition . I'm a firm believer . You cap or a bottom to a bishop . You know , I'm a firm believer .
You either have it or you don't , and as long as you have it , you just keep on going .
I love that . I love that . How are you developing yourself as a leader today ?
A lot of reading , a lot of learning from other people . I . I think being surrounded by great people , from , uh , from from who you can learn , is very important . I try to be in interesting room , not necessarily influential rooms , but interesting rooms where you meet , uh , great people who are inspired and who are ambitious and who are growing learning .
That's pretty much it . And I read a lot of books . I think I go through five , six , seven books every day because I'm genuinely interested .
I'm trying to be the best version of myself , and that best version of myself should actually pull the entire , all the team members , to be the best version of myself , and that best version of myself should actually pull the entire , all the team members , to be the best versions of themselves , which then pull the business .
What are you reading right now that you love ?
Right now I'm actually reading several books , so I go through books in phases . Right now , I'm actually reading Fyodor Dostoe . Right now , I'm actually reading Fyodor Dostoevsky . I'm actually reading Brothers Karamazov , which is just wild and insane . That was like a mental break from all the , let's say , CEO books .
The most recent one that I actually read was from Bob Iger about the Disney . I can't remember . I think I don't know what it is
¶ Finding Balance and Personal Success
um . And the next book that I'm going to read is from the owner . I'm horrible with names yes okay , uh , it's the container store owner , okay , who wrote a book .
It's about , you know , it's about conscious growth of the company , where he kept it in family , and that container store was voted best employer in the US for many , many years in a row and the guy is an inspiring leader . Despite that , I forgot his name .
That's okay .
But it is , and I can't wait to read his book .
I love it . What does success look like for you as you grow ? Rogan art .
Success looks like happiness , you know , and I think it's it's balancing sort of three aspects of your life . You know it's it's it's being emotionally fulfilled and and everything that comes emotionally and spiritually .
Number two , being physically happy , being healthy and making sure that your body that carries you and your soul and whoever you are on the inside is healthy . And then also being professionally fulfilled and then also being professionally fulfilled .
So balancing those three and being aware and mindful about the equilibrium of these three intelligences however you want to call it , that sort of reside within your body that are the same you but are a little bit different . Balancing them .
Do you have a recipe to balance those three ?
no , I think that is that that is super individual . Yeah , you know , it just depends on so many uh things . So I define the character per person as a loose confederation focus on the word confederation of inclinations , habits and circumstances .
Right , so think about what defines you and what defines that actual balance is actually the circumstances that you're in , your inclinations as mean as as in terms of your nature and , uh , your habits . That's why I think , like creating and working on on great habits is is one of the mandatory things for everybody .
Yeah . What are some of the great habits that you've been able to build that have helped you be successful ?
Discipline , hard work , wisdom , kindness , and that's pretty much it . Kindness . When I say kindness , it's respectfulness and that's pretty much it . Kindness . When I say kindness , it's respectfulness , it's gratitude , it's just trying to be a good human being that is benevolent to the entire community and everything that he or she touches .
Discipline , I think you know it , is the motivation , gets you started . Discipline gets you to that finish line . So I think that is when you have mornings where you don't feel like going to work or you're going to be having tough conversations , that despite that , you push yourself through it . In the end you are going to be satisfied and happy with yourself .
I love it when you were growing from one to 10 , and you just opened number 10 , right Are we ?
this week . Actually , yeah , we just opened up the second store in Chicago this Saturday . It was a very soft opening . Learn it the hard way when you're small do not do . Do not do hard openings , you know you're in . It turns into a crisis management more than a celebratory event .
Yeah , tell everybody that's standing in line where the two locations in Chicago is , so they can go check it out .
The two locations in Chicago . One is in Lincoln Park on Deversy and the other one is on Halstead in Boys Town .
Okay , love it . When you were planning this expansion from one to 10 , what was your strategy in terms of the leadership team that you wanted to surround yourself with ?
When you're small , it is tougher because everybody's looking for good people , smaller companies . It's more like recognizing a hidden talent or giving an opportunity to somebody who might just have it in them . What was the most crucial thing ? I think it is trying to look for the right personality , trying to look for the right team .
What does that look like for you ?
For me that looks like defining what type of a person would I like to have as a team member and then trying to on interviews to figure out . Is that the person that I'm actually looking for ? And just asking from the behaviors and experiences from the past , because I think you know , the behaviors from the past will impact the behaviors in the future .
So , basically , how somebody has handled the past is a good indicator how they will behave and what they will do in the future . So , asking about things you know , like when is the last time when they
¶ Strategic Leadership and Expansion
have set a goal and that they have achieved it and what did they do to achieve it Right . Asking things , okay , last time when they have set a goal and that they have achieved it , and what did they do to achieve it right . Um , asking things , okay , give me an example when you messed up and how you handle it .
You know , with that a little bit of I don't want to say hidden agenda , but with the idea that that you want to figure out how does somebody own their responsibility ? How is somebody going to own that accountability in the business ?
Because I think accountability is one of the most important parts of the structure in any business , because you usually get what you tolerate .
Yeah , do you feel like you have a strong sense of understanding and knowing and identifying when somebody is actually being honest and open about those challenges , or when they haven't , when they've , when they've set a goal for themselves but they haven't met the goal , or how they've overcome some challenges in their life ?
You know , I've missed it so many times that I don't know if I can brag . I keep on trying , but it's always a little bit of a hit and miss . It's hard to read people , but it's also hard for anybody to hide their true personality and work ethic and everything for an extended period of time .
I think within three months you will figure out who is what type of profile and I think you know the moment that you realize , the moment that one of the big mistakes that I was making is I was getting too upset with some people around me , with my expectations , and one of the biggest reliefs in my life came when I made a simple decision that I will either
accept that person the way it is or I will do something about it . And every time I got upset and still , if I get upset at work , it is you know I'm either going to do something about it or I'm going to accept it . If I'm going to accept it , I'm truly am going to accept it and work with it .
And once you have that mental clarity , I think that that sort of helps guiding you in your decision-making process when it comes to team selection .
Is there something recently that you've accepted that has made a positive impact in the business ?
Yes , I have accepted some of the team members for what they actually are , and for some of the team members I've decided to take some action against it . And these are , let's say , some of the leadership roles in the business .
What were some of those key leadership positions that you knew that you needed to get from , let's say , one to five locations ?
It is basically , I think , the organizational structure and scaling is super important . It's mapping out how the future looks like and how you're going to develop all of those positions .
Because it's a small restaurant , you actually do not have the resources to , you know , identify the process , plug in and have the owner of every process , but you have to have people who wear many hats , but then you sort of create a map forward . What do you do ?
You know , once business , or actually the operation , scales to such a point that you have to get on another person and what the priorities are . So , for example , for us it was obviously the store operations department .
You know , from one person running multiple stores for that person to get some functional support in terms of , let's say , quality , in terms of service , in terms of general services , because , you know , last year I had a feeling that that there was that we were spending so much time and just fixing and troubleshooting items like maintenance , like roof is leaking or
, you know , like we have to step up the pest control . There is always something physical to be done in the , in the store . Yeah , right , so this was the first department that we started staffing with , with , let's say , middle management . That was the , the operations , and probably the the .
The next one is going to be marketing Cause I think you know marketing is such an important part of the part of the business because it's the perception that brings in the customers . When I opened the first door , panera was almost like across the street and Panera is an amazing company and everything . But I thought we are small artisan .
We have a similar footprint . It was a smaller Panera . We have a similar footprint . We should be outperforming them . People are going to see Panera and they're going to see something new and this is going to be a nicer ambience . It's going to be a pretty similar portfolio to what they have , but this is just going to be a little bit better .
It didn't happen . Panera was times three or times four of the sales that we had .
Then you realize what the power of the brand actually means , because all the restaurants and all the food places are fighting for that share of stomach , right , and the share of stomach comes from the top of mind and I think , once you pass a certain point , there has to be a very strong focus on marketing .
So you started in Maryland and then Virginia .
¶ Risk-Taking and Chicago Expansion
Yes , that's the DMV area . That's like North Virginia , dc and Maryland , it's pretty much all one area .
And then , what made you decide to try out Chicago as the next city ?
The idea was okay . If you really want to scale , can you build a parallel concept in a different region and make it actually work ? Number two Chicago is a foodie place and it's oversaturated with competition and you have to be really good at what you're doing in order to make it .
Here in Chicago and this was a great challenge for the organization Are we really ready and what challenges we are going to encounter when expanding ? And I think it's .
I thought it was better to do it early on , because if you scale enough and you make a blunder when you're already known , that hurts much more than making a blunder when you're small and unknown , because you're forgiven much easier . You know , I think a customer will forgive a brand that is just new , or like mom and pop shop that just opened .
They're like oh yeah , they're still working their way up . You see a big company . You see a Starbucks open . They won . You want it to be like on top of every process . They got to get it flawlessly .
But small stores they're like hey , like on top of every process , they got to get it flawlessly , yeah , but small stores they're like , hey , that's part of the charm . That's the concept . That's a Japanese concept . It's called wabi-sabi . It's learning to enjoy the imperfections small imperfections , right .
Because if you wait for something to be perfect , you know , and if you're just going to enjoy perfection , you're never actually going to enjoy life yeah you know and I'm trying to apply that concept you know you open a story , you're going to get it wrong sometimes , but actually the beauty becomes that imperfection that's risky .
To go into a market that's so far away , that's so saturated , that's risky , my friend extremely how have you developed the skill of managing risk in your career ?
Cool . I don't know if I'm managing the risk or the risk is managing me , but it's a weird relationship between me and risk . I view it as adventure and I was ready to make mistakes .
I tried to apply all the knowledge and experience to minimize those mistakes and I tried to learn from all the mistakes that I've done in the past and I am very satisfied with how we launched it in Chicago .
Yeah , how did the first location do ?
I think it's actually doing pretty well . That's awesome .
Was your team on board like your leadership team on board with opening in Chicago , or did you get some pushback ?
They all thought that I was nuts yeah , opening in Chicago . Thought I was nuts , yeah , opening in Chicago . But you know , after , everybody who comes and visits Chicago falls in love . Oh it's .
And then it became a race .
Who is going to be the next one coming to Chicago ? Okay , Right . So I think team members also enjoyed and for the first month we had three team members from Maryland here in Chicago making sure to set it up right .
Awesome , awesome , that's great .
Still made a lot of mistakes , but that's the fun of it . Yeah , I think , if you realize that nobody's perfect , that the mistakes are going to be there , that you have to enjoy the process , that it's not about the destination , it's about about the destination . It's it's about you know that's . That's an eternal question .
You know , a pursuit of happiness or the happiness of the pursuit . You have two different types of personalities . I enjoy the pursuit . I enjoy , I enjoy building something that is , that is an adventure . It is , you know , working in a fast paced , environmentpaced environment and creating something fun and memorable .
What does the next five years look like for you ?
Well , right
¶ Future Growth and Finding Happiness
now , since we've scaled , this year we're going to open one more store in Maryland and the idea would be to complete and build all the systems that are still not in place , because even though there is 10 or 11 locations , I still consider ourselves to be a small company and there is still organizational things that we want to structure and significantly improve .
And then the idea is to grow at a steady pace . It's hard to say how many stores , because when you're small , you basically follow more the opportunity and a lot of times the opportunity doesn't come in screaming , it comes in whispering .
One of the things , how we were able to open so many stores is go for the second generation stores , which we coined the term , which were , let's say , roganert compatible . The Roganert compatible means we can convert it easily into our concept and that significantly makes the initial investment less expensive .
Okay , what kind of square footage like what are you looking for in terms of new spaces ?
We're looking between 2,000 and 2,500 . Okay , and we operate in every region . We have a central commissary because we make our own things , and that's a little bit of the difference , because most of the restaurants you buy items and then you prepare food .
Here we have a central commissary that buys basic things like flour and yeast and then you craft and then you create art out of it . So I think that was one of the biggest challenges in Chicago is training the baking team and being able to replicate the quality that we have . That is one of the parts of the project that I'm most satisfied with .
Nice . So you're going to have a commissary in every new market . Get that set up before the first location opens .
That's the idea , okay .
That's awesome .
However , you know you do commissary in phases . So the first one is within the first store and it can probably cover three or four stores . Then you have to scale and then you have to determine the next size of the commissary .
Are you going to be aiming to cover 15 stores or are you going to go big and ambitious and create a commissary that can cover 50 or 100 stores ? Something tells me it sounds like you're going to go big and ambitious and create a commissary that can cover 50 or 100 stores .
Something tells me it sounds like you're going to go big and ambitious .
Not yet .
There was a twinkle in your eye when you leaned into that a little bit .
Yeah , I like ambitious , but one step at a time . I may not forget to live , because that's an important part . Yeah , you do all of this . All of this , what you do is you do to be happy and you know to be satisfied in life . When you make it your purpose of life , you sort of lose yourself a little bit .
I love it . What are you most excited about over the next five years ?
I'm excited about in business . I'm excited about the growth that really you know when , when I think about it . Yeah , there's going to be , you know , new markets , there's going to be new stores , we're going to be expanding the team . I like that idea because I am also personally very involved .
Still a small company , I'm spearheading most of that growth and advance myself . I just find enjoyment in it . I'll probably always be a part of it . I wouldn't like to be eventually the CEO of my company , but I would always like to be in that business development and expansion plans because that's for me , that's part of the happiness .
Love it . I love it . Neiman , thank you so much for coming on and sharing your story . Let's , for those new people in the Starbucks line here , let's again shout out where your locations are so they can go visit you .
Locations are in Lincoln Park , on Diversea , corner of Diversea and Broadway , and on Halstead in Boys Town Awesome .
So again , neiman Popoff with Rogan Art European Bakery and Cafe , cannot wait to come check out the location this afternoon and take a peek behind the curtain with you . Really excited about that , absolutely .
Awesome . Thank you for having me here .
All right , absolutely . Thanks for joining us . Again we're at the National Restaurant Association show in Chicago and we've got a couple more episodes coming up for you today . Thank you so much , everybody , for attending the show and for listening to us .
For those of you listening at home , if you find this episode valuable , please share this episode and the podcast with anybody that you know in the industry that can benefit , and we'll talk to you soon .