Qu - Restaurants Reinvented - Peter Wiley - Transcript
[00:00:00] Jenifer Kern: Hello everyone, and thanks so much for stopping by another episode of Restaurants Reinvented. This is Jen, and today's episode is a little different than others I've done in the past because it's actually a continuation of a previous episode. Specifically, it's a continuation of episode five of our season two, and it was titled One Lean Mean Restaurant Machine.
[00:00:26] So on that episode we featured Peter Wiley. He's the co-founder of both Rapid Fired Pizza & Hot Head Burritos, two chains with over a hundred locations. But Peter is also a really super innovative restaurant operator and marketer. Hopefully you got that from listening to that previous episode. The reason why we're continuing here is because Peter is so ahead of his time when it comes to how he views the role of technology and how technology can really power the future of restaurants and restaurant operations today.
[00:01:02] So on this episode, we focus solely on how restaurant tours can better embrace and leverage technology versus having it be an obstacle and something they have to struggle with and grapple with on a daily basis. I hope this episode and all the amazing content that Peter provides will help you see a more manageable future and the vision of a better, more copacetic relationship between restaurants and their technology stack.
[00:01:33] Enjoy the show.
[00:01:35] Start recording.
[00:01:37] Hi, Peter. Thanks for doing this part two. So, we'll cut that part out guys. So Justin, Tristan we just hit record. I'm going to ask Peter three other things that we wanted to cover in our, our episode yesterday. So the first one, Peter, is, we've talked a lot about the changing industry and technology obviously has a big role there. I'd like to know in your opinion in your very humble opinion, how you believe restaurant operators need to really change how they view technology? And, you know, obviously everyone's like talking about digital transformation, it's sort of a buzzword, and it ends up being meaningless at the end of the day,
[00:02:17] but how do you, you know, as being a very innovative operator that you are, how do you really believe operators need to change how they view, approach, leverage and use technology?
[00:02:28] Peter Wiley: Yeah, it's a, it's definitely a big question, and one I wrestle with personally on probably a daily basis. I'll go back to, you know, my brother was in Subway for 25 years and we, as the technology is crept into the restaurant industry, you know, he was telling me he had, his tech budget was $125 a year.
[00:02:48] Right. I mean, all you had was a basic POS. You didn't have to worry about online ordering. You didn't have to worry about third party. You didn't have to worry about, you know, internet, you know, you just had a cash register and maybe a POS that you then faxed in your sales reports to your franchise or type thing.
[00:03:06] So there was no tech, and now it's just part of life. And getting people who have been in the industry a long time to accept that is, can be a little bit of a challenge and getting new people in they're coming in like you're not just a restaurant operator anymore. You have to have either you do, or you have to hire somebody who has the understanding because we rely heavily on the internet now, you know, from online ordering to third party, all of those play on the internet. And, you know, we just rolled out the a 100, a basically 120 locations on Qu. And part of that was revamping the tech stack, if you will, all the way to your internet provider. You know, a lot of people think just get internet. Like, well, you need internet, okay, but what happens if the internet goes down?
[00:03:48] You know, that was a major point with Qu is what happens when the internet goes down. One of the things we did with Sean is yanked the internet out from underneath the POS while we were running an order and see what happens. So you have to be able to know when what's going to happen when you don't have internet versus when you do.
[00:04:04] So, you know, I have an internet provider. Is it stable? Is it fast enough? With Punchh we're using for loyalty on how-to inside it relies on internet. If you don't have internet, you don't have Punchh, because there's real-time data transfer between Qu looking up the customer information from the back.
[00:04:19] So, we have to make sure you're not only have internet, but do you have an internet backup? Because if you don't, you got challenges. My Qu will run completely without the internet, which is awesome. Again, one of the main points we, we did it processes credit cards offline and stuff. And that's a major question to ask if you're looking for new POS. But I still need internet.
[00:04:39] Right. And I still need myself back up because if my internet goes out and I don't have a cellular backup, which thankfully the internet providers are, most around the country, are now offering at a reasonable rate, 20 bucks a month or something. Then it keeps all my third parties going, right. 'Cause some of them, Uber Eats and Grubhub and DoorDash runs itself.
[00:04:56] But you lose all of that capability. You lose all of your online ordering which in some restaurants right now, especially because of COVID could be 70 to 90% of their business. You know, some restaurants just closed their dining rooms during COVID because they had to. And so if you lost internet and you didn't have a backup, you were done for the day, right.
[00:05:15] You didn't have any in store. So, you know, thinking through the internet, thinking it through then down to your firewall, what kind of firewall are you using to protect yourself? If you're not using a firewall, you're just asking for trouble and you're not PCI compliant, which is. Hold on the discussion, but it's part of the reality, you know, how difficult is it to use?
[00:05:33] How difficult is it to set up? Lots of things need Wi-Fi in the store now. And I don't mean public Wi-Fi. I mean, like to run your restaurant, we use Jolt in a number of restaurants and number of franchisees do, and there's other software like that, that relies on Wi-Fi in the store to do checklists, temperature logs, you know, scheduling shift management. All those things rely on Wi-Fi and we haven't even gotten to making food. We're just talking about how do I, how do I operate the restaurant and how give my crew the tools they need to do their jobs to the best of their ability and make life easy for them. So if you've got your self-backup you got your internet provider, you got your firewall, and then now you're going to get down to the POS that's got to run. Again, kind of mentioned that, but you gotta be able to run and take credit cards, and not rely a 100% on the internet because if is it blips for a minute, it still got to function. So it's no longer just a piece or something you have to deal with.
[00:06:29] It is an integral part of running a restaurant nowadays, from the marketing all the way to the apps. Right. Because our apps, a lot of our apps pages are online now. We use Google drive heavily in our brands and other, other companies, different things. So if you don't have, you can't look something up, what do I do if I can't, you know, check my email, get the latest information, what do I do?
[00:06:51] So it, it is just so key. I think of Domino's a few years ago said we're no longer a pizza company we are a tech company. You know, they have some of the most sophisticated tech in the industry, the way they track everything, which is super cool. And Chipotle came out with an article two or three days ago all about. They didn't.
[00:07:05] It was emphasis, was about their loyalty system, which is a lot of what we're putting together with Punchh's but it all relies on tech. It relies on somebody to analyze data, put together campaigns, you know, have knowledge and understanding of click-through track rates. You know, what happens if I run an ad on Facebook, I want to know that I'm getting a click-through to that sale.
[00:07:26] And that's something we're working on with Qu. So it is not optional. It's a reality. You have to embrace it. If you don't embrace it I think you're just going to struggle. If you do embrace it, it, yes, it, it chips away. It's another line item on your bottom line, but hopefully the returns are there to justify it because it's not going away.
[00:07:46] Jenifer Kern: Yeah, well, so it sounds like you're saying operators need to pretty much change everything then about how they view and use some leverage technology.
[00:07:54] Peter Wiley: You know, we're, we look at everything that way. I've always been a tech guy from audio industry to video, and then in the restaurants. So, I always look at how can I leverage tech. Right. How can I leverage it to make life better for myself, my crew, you know, as simple as something as simple as using online QuickBooks, it, to me makes it easier.
[00:08:15] Right. It leverages everybody, all my ownership team and my stores can see the data. You know, there's integrations, we're working with MarketMan, testing that out in several stores to do inventory integration, to make it easier for the crew to have my food costs be more accurate. There's, Jolteon 7shifts on scheduling, and all these things have on expense, but if you do them right, they can pay for themselves.
[00:08:38] If I, if my scheduling gets better by 1%, well, my labor gets better by even half a percent or a quarter of a percent, I'm paying for some of these scheduling tools and it makes it way better for us as ownership. Second, look down and see the schedules. My managers can see the schedules. My crews can see the schedules I mean instead of spending three hours making a schedule on paper and trying to figure it all out, or even in a spreadsheet, some of these tools, you can do it in 15 minutes.
[00:09:03] So now you're saving labor on that way, the crew is happier, and you can cut it tick through a bunch of those different data points, even getting sales into QuickBooks. There's an integration called Shogo I believe in that doing sales pitch. But to me it was cool 'cause I've never really done that part of it.
[00:09:19] Like Qu provided that opportunity that we can take all our sales data, just dump it right into QuickBooks. So it saves hours of data entry. And you're like, "Wow". It's like 15 bucks a month. Again, not a sales pitch, but if I have to pay somebody to enter that data, or I can just have it connected, I just saved that time. Monotonous thing of having to be done all the time it just goes away, and now they can do something that only they can do not, you know, if the computer can do this, great. Let's let the computer do it. That's that. It's a long rabbit trail for me.
[00:09:52] Jenifer Kern: Yeah, no, that's great. I mean, you're obviously very tech-savvy. I mean, I know your background, originally was at a market as a marketer, but this is, this is how the space is changing now. Right? Marketers are becoming more tech- savvy, restaurants are becoming more tech- savvy. I mean, I sometimes take issue with the Domino's brand saying, you know, we're a tech company because you know. I go to them for pizza, but I get the sentiment, I get where they're going with that
[00:10:16] Peter Wiley: Yeah, you got, you got two sides, so...
[00:10:19] Jenifer Kern: Right.
[00:10:19] Peter Wiley: You have to have the awesome customer service. You have to have the awesome food. But the customers and the crew are expecting tech now. They expect it to be super simple to order online. They expect it to be super simple to get their rewards. They expect it to get pertinent relevant marketing information, not spam that hits everybody. So that all comes from tech.
[00:10:40] Jenifer Kern: And one of the reasons Qu started and why we're so passionate about what we do is because we do see the Domino's of the world as the gold star. And we want to make that attainable for brands your size. Right? That's our, that's our mission is to, to make that attainable for other brands, because there are very few brands that can invest the billions of dollars Domino's has invested in their technology infrastructure to get to where they are.
[00:11:05] So it's sort of like, Niko Papadimitriou. He calls it the democ, democratization of POS.
[00:11:12] Peter Wiley: Yeah.
[00:11:13] Jenifer Kern: And it's like democratizing it.
[00:11:14] Peter Wiley: To look at you. You're trying to bring everything that's available down to a level that's affordable.
[00:11:20] Jenifer Kern: Yeah.
[00:11:20] And attainable by, by folks like you. And, and so, you know, you really got to the heart of talking about a lot of integrations and unification, which is, as you know, our, our brand promise is, is unification and driving those healthy connections. How has that translated into efficiency for you and your team?
[00:11:38] Peter Wiley: It's way more efficient dealing with on probably two or three levels. One, just the crew, a third-party order. Currently we're integrated with DoorDash and Uber Eats on Qu. I'm still waiting on GrubHub, but it's just an online order to the crew. It's, it tells them it's third-party
[00:11:55] , they know it's third-party but they don't have to go look at a tablet. They don't have to really do anything different. It's just more online orders. So it makes their life much simpler from an IT side. We're managing the menu all inside Qu. We used to have to go to, we were using Charlie's and integration, and they were a great team to work with, just didn't have the in-depth integration that Qu does or, hosted if you will. And we'd have to change the price in the POS.
[00:12:22] Then we have to go to DoorDash and I got an Uber Eats. Then we had to go to Charlie, make sure the product IDs right everywhere. And if you screwed it up, then it broke, and the order didn't go through and, you know. Trying to synchronize changes across four platforms so that one product could go live was just a nightmare.
[00:12:41] And some, sometimes we just didn't even do it. It's it's, it's not going to, it's not worth the effort. And now in Qu we just simply turn it on. I mean, it's, you know, it sinks every night and if we have a new LTO, we add it. And then the next day it shows up on Uber Eats and on DoorDash and in Qu, and online.
[00:12:59] And we can make adjustments. What's really cool is we can make adjustments if I can say for differences in how DoorDash handles it, how Uber Eats handles it. We can run separate pricing for DoorDash and Uber Eats versus in store. So, T side, makes it very easy. And then from an ownership or an accounting standpoint, all the sales are right there.
[00:13:16] It shows up in your report line item. Does Uber Eats and DoorDash you know, when you go to do your reconciliation and go look at DoorDash and say, DoorDash says I have $2,100 in sales and Qu says I have $2,150. Well maybe then you can figure out, okay, well, there was a refund on the DoorDash side", or whatever the discrepancy is, you can figure it out.
[00:13:38] And the Qu team has been great as we've worked through these integrations and providing feedback. 'Cause you're kind of, it's a little bit of a moving target for you guys, 'cause you're working, Uber Eats has an API DoorDash has an API GrubHub as an API. So it's been, really from my end, pretty seamless as you guys have to sort that out.
[00:13:54] I don't, I just need to put an item into Qu and tell it to go to Uber Eats and DoorDash in our case.
[00:14:00] Jenifer Kern: Right. So making your internal teams as, as you call them your crew more efficient. Right. Which is very important right now when we're in the middle of terrible labor shortage. Yeah.
[00:14:10] I also would think it would help with total cost of ownership. Right. I mean, or at least technical debt. Right. Not having as many systems. I mean, we work with Charlie, we, you know, they're our friends over there, but, you know, having one system versus two to manage, and then you add the other, you know, third parties on there and you're like you said, you were at four or five. I would think that is some sort of efficiencies, total cost of ownership and some savings in there as well.
[00:14:34] Peter Wiley: Correct. 'Cause I'm no longer paying that additional service or the additional fee per-transaction type.
[00:14:39] Jenifer Kern: Right, right. Fantastic. Well, that's part of our goal is to get you guys get your costs down and get your profit, profit margins up and your revenues up. So that's great. Well, thank you so much Peter. I mean, I know like, as we rap here and we've been rapping for a while, but we'll keep rapping I'd love to know what's your moonshot.
[00:14:56] What's the one thing, I mean, listen, you are such an innovator when it comes to restaurant entrepreneurship. I mean, all the people we've worked with, I mean, you, you always come to the top of, top of our mind as someone who's super innovative. So I'd love for you to share with the audience, what are some of your innovative strategies, what you would consider your moonshot?
[00:15:14] Peter Wiley: I first, I appreciate that. I don't know how I can live up to it, but I'll do my best. Yeah. One of the things we got really excited about was, I'm a big craft beer guy. So I'll get to the point here. BrewDog is a company that recently came to the US, actually in Columbus, kind of, not too far away from our hometown in Dayton, Ohio.
[00:15:31] And they had this whole platform about people buying an ownership. Actually purchasing shares into the restaurant or into their brewery. Man. How cool would it be to have restaurants where people who love the food love, you know, love coming to their local Hot Head franchise or local Rapid Fired Pizza franchise, could actually invest in that restaurant.
[00:15:55] And so, as crazy as it sounds, my brother Chris and I, independent of the franchise or so I have to disclaim that very carefully. Like, this is not part of Hot Head franchisee, this is not part of rapid Fired pizza franchisee. This is part of an entity. We call Tasty Equity. And Chris and I put this together and he said, "Man, how cool would this be, if you showed up and you owned a part of that restaurant." And so we have, right now, we have four restaurants that are part of the regulation A offering, which is the technical term for a government regulation. And we have a lot of owners who have bought shares into the restaurants. And you know, now they're, they're part of the team. As we build more restaurants, they will be part of those more restaurants that Tasty Equity builds. You know, it was an adventure launching it during COVID was probably not the best timing, but so, it's still a bit of a moonshot for us, but it's something we're super excited about.
[00:16:50] We think it, it can really revolutionize community support, help actually get people into restaurants. You know, our goal is to provide some backing as a, as a possibility. Somebody has to be a franchisee. We can come alongside them. Their community is effectively coming alongside them to help them get a restaurant in that area.
[00:17:06] So it's still a big goal. It's just getting started, but it's something we're definitely excited about. I think it can, it will be something revolutionary in the industry, I think, as it continues to grow and it takes on legs.
[00:17:19] Jenifer Kern: That's so cool.
[00:17:20] And can anyone invest?
[00:17:23] Peter Wiley: Yes. Yeah. It's open to shares started a minimum of 20 shares at 5 bucks for a $100. So.
[00:17:30] Jenifer Kern: That's awesome.
[00:17:31] Peter Wiley: Yeah, you just go to tasty or investintastyequity.com or tastyequity.com and check it out. So a bit of a sales pitch, I admit it, but.
[00:17:39] Jenifer Kern: it tastyequity.com folks, tastyequity.com. It's hard to forget that word, that name.
[00:17:44] Peter Wiley: It's pretty cool. And, again, I'll give some credit to the BrewDog guys. They provided some inspiration and, from a marketing aspect, I think they do some awesome stuff. I used to watch their TV show and things. So we've, we've been inspired by, you know, really grassroots, reaching out to people, style marketing and working hard to try to get that into our brands as we go. So...
[00:18:04] Jenifer Kern: That's fantastic.
[00:18:06] Peter Wiley: Appreciate that opportunity.
[00:18:08] Jenifer Kern: Yeah. And I think you had one other innovation.
[00:18:11] Peter Wiley: Yeah. Yeah, we've got one more we're working hard on. If I pivot just a little bit, you can see the Bitcoin art behind me.
[00:18:16] Jenifer Kern: Oh, is that what that is? I've been
[00:18:18] Peter Wiley: Yeah.
[00:18:18] Jenifer Kern: you about that.
[00:18:19] Peter Wiley: There's Ethereum one on, on the other wall. But, we're, we're big, crypto proponents, again, separate from this or kind of a personal venture, but we would love to see it get into restaurants.
[00:18:30] And we're actually had several conversations with Amir about it, actively looking into it. We know our credit card processor middleman supports it. So yeah, we, we look at it as it's on, credit cards are unavoidable kind of like tap, right. It's an expense that didn't use to be there years and years ago is heavily cash. Right? And now credit cards take anywhere between 2.70 and 2.75, probably on average, maybe 2.5 if you're really big brand, all the way up to 3.5% of every transaction. And, we're like, "Man". Crypto provides a way to do that. And at least gives us an alternative and an opportunity. Is everybody going to switch over and not use credit cards? No. That's like, yeah, it's not quite going to happen. I mean, Visa, and MasterCard already have crypto-type credit cards going. So. But to be able to accept that online ordering, which there's a lot of sites that accept online crypto payments, and then in-store crypto payments, you can do through some third parties, but having it really seamless, it's something, we're very excited about offering hopefully in the next, within the next year.
[00:19:34] Potentially even straight through Qu if I can keep a richer than a Mirror on my side. I just like, "You guys want to be innovative?" We want to be innovative. What's more innovative than crypto right now.
[00:19:46] Jenifer Kern: Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's get it done. I mean, crypto is super high. I, I we've talked about this 'cause my husband is very bullish with crypto, and helping some companies get lodged. He's doing using mostly Ethereum, am I saying that right?
[00:20:00] Peter Wiley: Ethereum.
[00:20:00] Jenifer Kern: Thank you.
[00:20:01] Peter Wiley: Yup.
[00:20:02] Jenifer Kern: Close. So yeah.
[00:20:04] I mean, it's definitely hot and wow. That you're right. I mean, that's a huge innovation. Can we get restaurants, you know, using crypto and as payment? I mean, that would be fantastic. Again, you would be, you would be a trailblazer amongst all of our customers. If we could get, get that going. So. Yeah, yeah. yeah.
[00:20:21] So that's awesome. So, well, thank you so much for sharing all those insights and innovations with us audience here at Restaurants.
[00:20:28] Peter Wiley: Thanks for the opportunity.
[00:20:29] Jenifer Kern: Yeah. Thanks Peter.
[00:20:31] Peter Wiley: All right. Have a good day.
[00:20:32] Jenifer Kern: You too.