Episode 029 - CJ Ramirez and Raz Mahrouk
Jen Kern: [00:00:00] Hello everyone and welcome back to Restaurants Reinvented. I'm Jen Kern your hostess here at Qu and today I'm joined with two guests, not one, but two, both from absolute brands, otherwise known as one of the brands, DogHaus, which I happened to be eating today. And so let me go ahead and introduce CJ Ramirez, the CMO at Absolute Brands.
[00:00:47] Hi CJ.
[00:00:48] CJ Ramirez: [00:00:48] How are you? Thanks for having us, Jennifer. This is really a special treat. We've been on a lot of podcasts and a lot of interviews and stuff. And just in the warmup this has gotta be the most fun so far.
[00:00:59] Jen Kern: [00:00:59] Oh, we 're going to have fun. We're going to have fun. And your colleague Raz Maroukh who is the executive VP of operations. Hi, Raz.
[00:01:09] Raz Mahrouk: [00:01:09] Very well done with the last name, by the way. Nailed it
[00:01:13] CJ Ramirez: [00:01:13] Not everyone can say that. Not everyone can say that name.
[00:01:18] Jen Kern: [00:01:18] In one of my lives, previous lives, I was an international studies major. I spoke eight different languages and I did learn, I don't know if it's Arabic, but I did study Arabic at one point in time in my life.
[00:01:28] Raz Mahrouk: [00:01:28] Yeah, definitely is a middle Eastern, last name there. again, excited to be here. So thank you for choosing us to be on this podcast today. Yeah.
[00:01:36] Jen Kern: [00:01:36] Well, Thank you both for joining. Your brand is an absolute blast. I mean, it's so well known in the industry for being sort of a darling. And I know you've been rapidly growing even through the pandemic. and CJ, I listened to your recent podcast with Zach Oates over at Ovation.
[00:01:53] And.
[00:01:53] CJ Ramirez: [00:01:53] He's such a cool dude. Yeah, He's so much fun and gosh, he kind of gets it. You know, he's really thinking forward. Like we do here at Dog Haus. And I was saying in the warmup, we love working with organizations. Partners really is what we call them. Right. Raz. I mean, we don't even like to call the word vendors.
[00:02:10] That's not a good word for us. I mean, people that partner with our mission to disrupt and chart new territory, that's what we're looking for and Zach is one of those individuals such as yourself, Jennifer, and the product you offer.
[00:02:25] Jen Kern: [00:02:25] I want to hear about you guys. I want to hear about what you're doing over there with your, as you said with Zach, the Markerations team, which is your definition of marketing and operation working. Tight fisted, hand and glove is what I'm assuming it's going to be.
[00:02:39] So I'm excited to hear about that today and how you and Raz are working together. And the fact that you don't even have a technology, a formal technology team in the company is quite disruptive. So we're going to talk about that, but before we jump in how about both of you just give us a quick background, a little bit about yourselves and how you found your way over to Absolute Brands and Dog Haus.
[00:03:01] CJ Ramirez: [00:03:01] Well, I'm going to let Raz go first because he's not going to say all the wonderful things that, I think he should say. So I'm going to fill in the gaps Raz, so have at it, and I'm going to
[00:03:10] Raz Mahrouk: [00:03:10] not
[00:03:11] CJ Ramirez: [00:03:11] add what you leave out.
[00:03:12] Raz Mahrouk: [00:03:12] However, Yeah I've been with the company for almost 10 years now, since it started. As a tiny little location in Pasadena, California, worked my way through, by, you know, working in the restaurant, obviously moving up to corporate, always part of the operations team. I have a history and a whole life in restaurants.
[00:03:31] so it was quite easy to make that transition here eventually to director of operations. So again, tight knit family, just like CJ has been part of my family now for many, many years with the company, but we are really friends and family in this company. And that allows us to do the things that we do and, Excel at times that, you know, some people go, how did you guys do that?
[00:03:55] But we're able to do that because we work hard for each other. so that's a little quick history of being Dog Haus.
[00:04:01] CJ Ramirez: [00:04:01] Well, Listen, I can't tell you how happy I am that Raz is on the corporate team. I'm employee number six on the corporate team. At least that's the number that I'm going to stick with. And sometimes it gets a little sticky and people fight for those single digits. But, if I was going to fight for a number, I'd want to be below five, but I'll take six.
[00:04:19] When I was on the corporate team, you know, coming on board and I was thinking like, I love this company. I want to help, do everything I can to help it grow. tell this story about Raz. I know Raz before he was on corporate team and I know Raz before I was even on the Dog Haus corporate team.
[00:04:36] So that means that when I would ask my daughter where she would want to go for dinner here in Old Town, she was tiny Raz. I mean, How old was she? Like four or five? I don't even know. You know, where would you like to go tonight? And she'd say, I'm going to go have dinner with Raz.
[00:04:50] Cause he, you almost spilled your water out of your cup, saw that the people that are hearing more about be able to see that, but that was awesome. So my daughter would go, we'd go to Dog Haus because my daughter would say, I want to have dinner with Raz. And that was amazing because she literally connected to. The hospitality of the restaurant, which was Dog Haus, Old Pasadena on Green Street. And that's where she wanted to enjoy her night.
[00:05:18] And so at the corporate level, when I was thinking about how we were going to expand and what we needed to do, to make sure that we would be the highest likelihood of success, I thought we must clone Raz. So for me, having Raz on the corporate team is really secret sauce, his, energy, and what he brings to our corporate organization through the operations, is I don't know who can match it.
[00:05:42] So that was really something special. for me, when I joined the corporate team, about me,
[00:05:48] Jen Kern: [00:05:48] what Let me ask you, what is it about him that you want to clone?
[00:05:51] CJ Ramirez: [00:05:51] Well, Gosh, I mean, if you haven't heard his infectious laugh already, but it's really his care for his fellow man. It's care for people to have an amazing experience inside of our four walls for them to remember us after they were inside our four walls, for them to be able to prefer us in a very crowded space.
[00:06:09] We all know restaurants are crowded. It's a crowded space. we'd like to call our space, the craft casual space. Every one of our items is handmade to order and we fire it up, obviously the moment that you order it. So it's a very special type of experience, the quality that we offer, but we could talk about our food all day long, but it's really the people that bring it back, right?
[00:06:31] It's if you have a positive experience with the staff, then that's, what's going to bring you back. And Raz is really the founder of our training program. And that's why you can go to any one of our 50 plus locations and experience a little bit of Raz. That's what it's all about.
[00:06:47] Raz Mahrouk: [00:06:47] CJ those are very kind of, yeah. Words. I appreciate it. I mean, the partners are really what gave us to channel for us to give, let our personalities out and that was easy for us to do. We had a great concept of great food. those four walls were our home and after that, the other part was easy getting to be, with guests every day, making those friendships that I still walked in the restaurant and I still see those regulars from eight years ago.
[00:07:16] So walking into those doors, it's definitely a great feeling. So, but thank you, CJ. Those are too many nice words there.
[00:07:23] CJ Ramirez: [00:07:23] Well, Jennifer, a little bit about myself. I come from the advertising world, marketing, like everybody else. I think that's been in our business. We started off in the early days. and I'm talking a long time ago, we started off by like really working strategy, right? Slow growth with, intercept strategies and research and stuff like that, and adapted to digital and just kind of moved away from like, okay, data is king.
[00:07:47] So let's figure out how to really become strategic and in the world today. I think that really is marketing well. Advertising is a key component. Don't get me wrong. I love advertising a good campaign is for sure going to make you remember it and preferred, but you'd most definitely have to have some good intel behind that.
[00:08:03] So the advertising campaign can be most highly successful today. So marketing is really the thing that I love the most. And, I come to this company after being out of, many different, agencies along the way that have just prepared me to be ready to embrace, the social components, the digital while that's digital, but all the aspects that make up marketing today and having the love for, emerging technology, emerging markets, emerging brands, I feel like it's just a good fit for me.
[00:08:31] And again, to echo what Raz has said, were very fortunate. He and I, because our three founding partners, you know, Hagop Giragossian, Quasim Riaz and, Andre Venner are, they are truly visionaries and they are guys that just hustle. And that pace permeates throughout our entire company. And I think that's why, Raz and I are great fits for partnering with them, because we're able to execute, motivate and, analyze, correct, reimplement, etcetera, the natural cycle of marketing and advertising and what we now call Markerations
[00:09:06] Jen Kern: [00:09:06] Yeah. Yeah. That's great. That's great. Well, thanks for the background guys. I mean, it really comes through your familial, connection there and that's a big part of your brand and it's so important today. I mean, it's always important, right? It's always important, but, I fear that sometimes it gets lost in the, what you were talking about, like the ones and the twos and the numbers and the counting.
[00:09:30] Like, I don't care where I eat. I still want to be cared for like, I'm the most important customer that I'm in, that I'm there that day, right? Whether I'm getting it home or I'm going onsite or whatever it is. And so I think that in that middle section between the QSR and the fine dining like that, what was first called fast casual, what you're calling craft casual.
[00:09:50] I'd love that. And I know I talked to Torchy's last week and they're using that moniker to, I don't know who came up with it. We're not going to get
[00:09:56] CJ Ramirez: [00:09:56] Whoa, Whoa. For the record and everybody out there, it was the three founding partners. and our national PR firm that threw a brainstorm, we threw it out there and we pitched and pitched and pitched that word and one day it was in QSR magazine and we were so stoked because it was an article about us and it said craft casual, but then immediately following.
[00:10:26] That term, it said fast casual 2.0, and we've never read craft casual again, in QSR it's now referred to as fast casual 2.0.
[00:10:38] Jen Kern: [00:10:38] Okay. Well, there's other brands out there that are saying they're craft casual,
[00:10:42] CJ Ramirez: [00:10:42] I think that they are, I think that they are, because I think the industry is shifting, right. The industry is shifting away from a product that is not very good. And that would be a high profit or a high, what Raz would call, you know, low food costs, to the actual retail price. And understands that the customer is looking for a high quality product.
[00:11:01] And I think we at Dog Haus, we're one of the first, I wouldn't say we were on, be absolute first on this one, but we were one of the first that were able to really work with chefs. Everything that we do is chef driven. Everything we do from a sauce to a final build is chef driven. And that's our chef collaboration series.
[00:11:20] That's our Adam Gertler, who's our verse mocker who works as our culinary director. we're just very lucky that we have such high quality products, that high level chefs I'm talking Michelin star chef I'm talking, top chef award winning, Chefs come to us and say like, they really want to play in our sandbox.
[00:11:40] Cause we've got ingredients and then they know that they can make something that's incredibly delicious. And why wouldn't they want to do that? They want to satisfy our customer base. I think it's just fantastic.
[00:11:51] Jen Kern: [00:11:51] Yeah.
[00:11:52] Raz Mahrouk: [00:11:52] Some big to their childhood to come to a concept that those hotdogs and hamburgers, after they've been doing fine dining for so long, it's kind of a joy to come back. But we also give them the ingredients that we use, which are quality ingredients. it allows them to come back and create an item and have pride in it, as opposed to just a regular hot dog concept or regular Hotdoggers simple burgers. So there's definitely more to it. And I think that's why we get that reach of those chefs coming to join us for those collaborations.
[00:12:23] Jen Kern: [00:12:23] Yeah. And I would think for them, it's like fun. Like it's nostalgic in a way it's, child's play. Right. When you think about hamburgers, hotdogs, tater tots,
[00:12:34] CJ Ramirez: [00:12:34] 100%, 100%. Yeah.
[00:12:37] Jen Kern: [00:12:37] That's awesome. That is so awesome. Well, I want to talk about some of your brands and I'd love for, one of you to walk me through that.
[00:12:43] Like, How did you get started? I think it was, you started as doghouse and then had this plan, around Absolute Brands and some virtual brands and ghost inspired brands. Can you walk me through that journey and how that really started accelerating through the pandemic?
[00:12:58] Raz Mahrouk: [00:12:58] Yeah, I can, take a jab at that. Dog Haus was the primary concept was, and has been the baby for eight years. But in 2019, again, our partners, because they're ahead. thinking ahead, wanting to always move ahead. we were introduced to the concept of virtual kitchens and, we definitely want to see where that could take us, how we can expand the business.
[00:13:22] not only for ourselves, for all the franchisees. And I've bought in as well. So, CJ, I think it was 2019, early, 2019. We're already, you're working on, coming up with a couple of brands, putting the blueprints down for a menu, a concept, the idea behind it. trying to utilize everything we already have in our kitchens and to be prepared to move into is what we thought was a future of restaurants or to go or delivery, obviously all pre COVID.
[00:13:52] And then March came and COVID hit and we were nowhere ready, to do what we did, but all that,
[00:13:59] CJ Ramirez: [00:13:59] I think that's really important Raz. I mean, I I think that's really important, where 34, 35 weeks into COVID right. And the way that the restaurant world we are measuring it, you're a Dog Haus and we were nowhere near ready. Yet we decided to really rip the bandaid and just go for it.
[00:14:20] and it was again, Raz continued to tell the story how, like marketing said, Oh, we've got to send everybody home. And then in the next breath, we're like, well, we should do this with the ops of the brands. And then Raz is okay, I got to deploy that. And so keep on telling that story.
[00:14:38] Raz Mahrouk: [00:14:38] It was fun. Well, you know, it was a couple of months of intensity. but you know, when that first week, when the realization of we're no longer going to be in the office, we're shutting down restaurants. Happened. It didn't take us more than, a few minutes to be in that, meeting room with the partners and decide here's what we got to do.
[00:15:00] We got immediately switched to all delivery platforms. We have to, get everyone onboarded if they're not with the so-called big DSP partners. And at the same time, we're like, And let's launch these virtual brands. We're not ready, but let's launch them anyway. Let's just give our guys, let's give our partners, their franchisees, a fighting chance to survive and how by, quickly putting that menu together.
[00:15:29] Getting through the blueprints down, sending it out to the DSPs, having them create our menus for us. And you can imagine at that point, how backed up they were, talk about everyone rushing to go to, online menus and mobile venues and delivery. So it took a little bit and we told our partners, relax, wait, we're working on it.
[00:15:50] As soon as it's ready, this thing's going to be amazing. So, with marketing. and operations. Together, we all worked so hard from home for those first three months and the fact that we were able to launch three virtual concepts, within our brick and mortars, and in a couple of other virtual kitchens, that were just not.
[00:16:10] They're just Dog Hauses They weren't there yet. So I don't know how we did it. I, the back and I go, I don't know how we accomplish that. I'm happy we did. It definitely has been a blessing. For all of our locations, it's helped us survive. you know, there's a lot more to that story. And then the hard work that went into it from all of our team members here in the office, but, uh, it definitely was the pivot we needed to make that launched us into to an area of, you know, I had to say success during such a difficult time, but our stores actually were successful and they're able to survive and today we're, we're thriving and we're all happy about it and now the possibilities are endless.
[00:16:49] CJ Ramirez: [00:16:49] That's absolutely true one thing I think that helped us to, align, two departments, if you will, from a visionary perspective, was that Markerations already existed rather than I had already been working together. Gosh, maybe six, seven months under this new moniker, which we called , which is a combination obviously, of marketing and operations.
[00:17:12] And when we were together and we looked at each other and just thought, we trust each other to pull this through, you know, we can make it happen. and with the, like we mentioned before, the adventurous, innovative, disruptive spirit of our three founding partners, they're like, for sure let's do this and that's when we went after it, Raz as being rather polite and nice to not talk about our franchisees, earnings, but I have to tell you, we are ahead of last year. If you go year over year, we're up. if you look at sales, if you look at the brands, if you look at service, if you look at even rankings in, what would you call reputation management were up.
[00:17:53] So throw it all the way back to the story of, I want to have dinner with Raz. Why do we need to clone Raz is because now the experience is outside of the four walls while it is in some locations it's limited capacity, right? You still have to deal with the individual whose maybe not fully connected to the, the limitations that the pandemic brings forward.
[00:18:15] So you don't have to have someone that's able to deal with the customer and let them know, Hey, sorry, we can't accommodate you right now. Here's what we can do for you. Customer service is huge. It's very important for us to also know that when someone is just ordering for take-out, it's caused us to become closer to the, you know, the big DSPs, right?
[00:18:33] The, our delivery partners that helped us to understand. Where is the handoff and what does the customer know about the handoffs? So we've increased our communication to our customers through our social media. So they understand the delivery chain, if you will, really for us to appreciate our customer and for us to continue to want to talk to them in a way that, they need to be spoken to, right, because We committed to being transparent. We committed to letting everybody know when we didn't know how to launch the brands. We agreed on one thing, and that was all cards on the table, full transparency. And as long as we're authentic to who we are, as individuals as a brand, everyone will begin, right. If they don't already trust us, which is what a brand needs to do, you need to build that trust with your customer.
[00:19:23] They need to feel who you are inside their body. It's not how you taste. It's not how you sound. It's really how it resonates inside of them when they think about you. And so for us, we had to embrace all of the different platforms, if you will, right. Not to be locked into the technology term of platform, but all of the ways that we can speak to our customers, however I say, speak.
[00:19:47] But it's really also how we can listen to them. I think what we've done really well prior to, COVID crisis is, we've been good listeners, right? And we've been always committed to reputation management. We've always been committed to what the GM has to share with us. We meet with our locations regularly so that we're able to hear what the boots on the ground have to say about our brand, because at the end of the day, we can think we're a national brand.
[00:20:12] But we really take more pride in when Raz and I go to a Dog Haus somewhere out in, our great nation. And they look at us in the face, they, and the customer and says, I didn't know, there was another Dog Haus and we're like, right on. That's awesome. We want that hometown, small town hyper-local connection at every single location.
[00:20:32] So that's really the heart and soul of Dog Haus. And I think that's what today, people are looking for. And I don't mean just the customers. You know, I have to say our franchise phone has been ringing pretty steadily, which is awesome because people are looking for what's next and then how, and what's different and they're connecting to doghouse, which is nice.
[00:20:54] And then of course we have the added story of the Absolute Brands and what we've done there.
[00:20:58] Jen Kern: [00:20:58] Yeah. Well, just the fact that you are up, that you can say your franchisees are up this year, over last year, when we're in the middle of a pandemic, I'd like to drill into that a little more. I mean, How are you doing that? I mean, Clearly it's working that this translating the heart and soul of of your ethos and your brand is working, but how are you driving that revenue?
[00:21:19] CJ Ramirez: [00:21:19] Well, I have a point of view, right? Mine is that, which I think was part of our initial spark in the very beginning. we all love Dog Haus, but you can't eat it every single day right. So why don't we transfer our core values of Dog Haus, right? High quality product to build everything that we make and extend it.
[00:21:40] So Raz can talk about the details and how we do that, because I think, that's truly an operational mastermind feat that they were able to pull off in the very beginning of how to best go after, the virtual kitchen space that goes kitchen space. Like how would we be able to do that in, the footprint of those locations is actually very small.
[00:22:01] And from what I see when I go into our partner locations, most of the time it's one kitchen producing one brand. Raz has figured out a way to pump out four to five brands inside of one virtual kitchen space. So
[00:22:17] Jen Kern: [00:22:17] Oh, let's hear about that.
[00:22:18] CJ Ramirez: [00:22:18] yeah, Yeah. Go for that Raz.
[00:22:19] Raz Mahrouk: [00:22:19] We're working on it and hoping to perfect it. Uh, but yeah, the idea was exactly what CJ alluded to is the, you can't eat Dog Haus every day, but guess what we do have as a restaurant full of quality ingredients, and, you know, by bringing in one or two additional items, we're able to create these other menus.
[00:22:39] We were able to expand in an item. We might've already served in the restaurant and took that and made a whole concept out of it. Like our chicken sandwich, the Bad Mutha Clucka became its own brand with, chicken tenders and wings and Nashville style, which we know there's a craze around the world, or at least in California and the nation for Nashville style chicken.
[00:22:59] So. What have we decided in the beginning is that we cannot upset the flow of the current kitchen. We can not, just ignore the fact that we had built in spent money on these restaurants, the Dog Hauses. We cannot take away from the feel of a Dog Haus, whether you're dining in or getting food to go delivery.
[00:23:21] So we had to think about how we can induce items and how it works. With our current flow and so what we did is, pretty simple. Actually, we just created those items with the quality ingredients of things that we already did at the Dog Haus menu. We can do different burgers. However, we already cook a burger in our store, everything flows one way.
[00:23:43] We just make sure operationally that we did not introduce any procedures that would put a clog in the system, slow us down, and really just take a step back and realize that. Sure, we could go and bring 30-50 more SKEWS. We can create an entirely different menu, but that wasn't going to help us and that actually would just slow us down.
[00:24:05] So again, going back to what I said, we knew we had a great list of ingredients, quality of product, hormone-antibiotic free beef chicken, our sausages as well, pork, all produced for us. So, All we have to do is take those and be creative and not upset the flow that the kitchen currently has. So that bar was actually pretty easy.
[00:24:28] It's what CJ and his team did, during the pandemic and how they push the brands, how they let everybody know out there. Again, full transparency powered by Dog Haus was our, I think original message. We've now gone past that where now the Absolute Brands, Dog Haus falling underneath that umbrella.
[00:24:47] But it's really getting the word out at a time when, even now where people can't actually come to your location, to put that message out in social media and, marketing, did a tremendous job and all they had to do is get the food and send it. So,
[00:25:03] CJ Ramirez: [00:25:03] Jennifer we were listening. We were listening to what the customers wanted. We were listening to our ghost kitchen, virtual kitchen partners, right. We talked about data in the beginning of this conversation. And we were told people are searching for fill in the blank. Right. We were told that, Hey, this day part is missing options and if you were to produce this during this day part, then, you know, you might have a higher likelihood of success during that day part, and so, again, us being very innovative, us being very responsive, us being very tight from internal relationship perspective, we were able to pivot very quickly with not only, you know, Hagop Giragossian, and who oversees all culinary, but with Adam Gertler, who's our, you know, culinary director.
[00:25:53] And all of the chefs we've collaborated with in the past. It just seemed like it was all hands on deck. Everyone wanted to do the right thing to deliver, to really feed people who needed to be fed. we were focused on making sure that we were available. We were sure to offer the highest quality product for someone and not get them kinda like, exhausted on just Dog Haus. So that's where we went chicken and we went burritos and now we're doing breakfast and we're doing things we're going to corporates on late night.
[00:26:25] Jen Kern: [00:26:25] Can you give me the names of the brands?
[00:26:28] CJ Ramirez: [00:26:28] Yeah. Raz you rattle them off. You're dealing with them every single day and
[00:26:31] Raz Mahrouk: [00:26:31] Oh Chicken concept, I mentioned earlier, Bad Mutha Clucka
[00:26:35] Jen Kern: [00:26:35] Love it
[00:26:36] Yeah. And we call it our one BMC, right? Yeah.
[00:26:40] Raz Mahrouk: [00:26:40] BMC are short for it. Bad Mutha Clucka is just a bad sandwich. Right? Awesome Monstrosity when you get it, we're actually working on improving it, believe it or not. it's just going to be so much better, soon here in a couple of weeks. we'll get that update later on, maybe on another podcast, but that breakfast burritos, right Crushing it, by the way, I mean, look, we once did breakfast burritos down by a USC and we were like, Hey, they really, maybe they, we could have done better after talking to the USC students that let us know, well, we don't wake up until noon. And we're like, Oh, no wonder that wasn't such a success right.
[00:27:14] So we understood that. And then we retooled it and figured it out with you know, our partners here in Pasadena. it's just doing so well, Bad-ass breakfast burritos. Not only are they delicious. Not only are they huge, but they offer the highest level ingredients that we can offer on all of our food and, little, exclusive to you right now that we probably haven't announced out there very much, but we're also partnering with, impossible foods.
[00:27:42] To make some impossible, breakfast burritos as well. So they've got this breakfast sausage that we're going to use in these impossible burritos. So look forward to them at a bad-ass burritos. Yeah, for sure.
[00:27:54] Bad Ass Burritos for everybody, right? And, uh, so another concept we had to plan B, which is our plant-based vegetarian kind of option we kind of did a spinoff of things that we use in our restaurant and created that concept for out there. And I would say right now we're currently working on four other two are being tested already in.
[00:28:18] A couple of our virtual locations. the other two should go into testing. We're hoping by December 15th. And, soon after we will decide whether they stay or go and we will be launched across all the other locations, but it's interesting CJ and Jen you did during the pandemic. We actually extended hours where everyone else started shortening up their days, closing early opening later.
[00:28:42] We launched these brands and as a concept that opened at 11:00 AM. Majority of our stores now started opening at 8:00 AM because now we started getting breakfast burrito business. Then people started ordering Dog Haus even earlier, and they started ordering chicken sandwiches at 9:00 AM, which I never thought would be a thing, but apparently there's a market for chicken sandwiches at 9:00 AM in the morning.
[00:29:03] so we figured out something there and stay open later and feed everybody because when you at home or when you don't have the ability to go to a restaurant, All you're doing is on your phone, looking for what's out there when you can eat and to be available when most restaurants are not, I believe was another part of our success, you know?
[00:29:24] Jen Kern: [00:29:24] That's fantastic. That's really interesting chicken sandwiches in the morning. I mean, I guess I'm not surprised. I mean, the thing with the food, I just want to talk about, I want to geek out on your food a little bit because your food is amazing. And I'm sitting here smelling this bratwurst that I ordered for lunch.
[00:29:38] I'm
[00:29:38] CJ Ramirez: [00:29:38] Oh, that's a good one. Yeah, that's a good
[00:29:40] Jen Kern: [00:29:40] I'm blessed to be near one of your, flagship locations, I believe in Bethesda here and with the Beer Garden. like the aroma of the spicy mustard and the sauerkraut is wafting over me as you're talking. So I wanna talk about the food a little bit because the chicken category is so hot.
[00:29:57] Right? And there's this whole keto craze. That's. Started awhile ago. I think it's going to be around for awhile, all over the place. You know, protein have people want protein, heavy meals and you guys hitting every day part with the protein. That's, it's really not surprising to me. but just the playfulness of the food and the way that you're dressing it up with some of these, chef inspired, Michelin, you know, inspired ingredients that you're talking about is fantastic.
[00:30:24] So. I love
[00:30:26] It
[00:30:26] CJ Ramirez: [00:30:26] starts with our foundation product, right? It starts with, and we love saying this. It starts with our Wiener,
[00:30:36] Raz Mahrouk: [00:30:36] Sorry.
[00:30:38] CJ Ramirez: [00:30:38] and no one has a better Wiener than we do. It's literally our proprietary blend of yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, 100% Angus. Raz, talk about that recipe just on its own. it's really the best damn weiner you can ever put in your mouth.
[00:30:58] Raz Mahrouk: [00:30:58] Hormone and antibiotic free Creekstone beef is what we use, not only for our burgers, but that same beef is used to actually make our dogs, which are all beef, all natural ingredients, our spices and our mixes and our sausages, by the way, all kinds of concocted by Adam Gertler our chef or culinary director.
[00:31:18] he's been with us. For years now and he already had in his head an idea of the sausage company, and we actually met at the perfect time because we're able to say, forget about that. Just join us and make sausages for us. And it turned out great. But again, we care about the quality. Even if it means it's going to be a little more expensive of a hot dog or a little more expensive burger, but you know, that's our battle.
[00:31:44] We want quality and we want to keep the price affordable for everybody. But we will, we will give way to inferior product. So we do the, get the hormone antibiotic free beef and free chicken, obviously the pork as well. so from top to bottom, all our meats that we produce, we produce for ourselves, are all quality meats.
[00:32:06] Jen Kern: [00:32:06] And delicious and absolutely delicious. the branding too, I mean the Bad Mutha Clucka, who can not want to try that. I mean, that's just awesome. And I, I have to ask you, do you have food trucks with that on the side of it? I saw one up in Niagara falls.
[00:32:20] CJ Ramirez: [00:32:20] No. So we, just launched a food truck out in the Dallas Fortworth area. That truck is in high demand because as you can imagine, first of all, Dallas Fort worth huge area. Right. But. and they're open, the restaurants are open and limited capacity, but you know, there's nothing like when it comes to you, right?
[00:32:39] So they're doing a great job out there with our food truck. They've partnered a lot with us and how to create the awareness for it. But that is a franchisee that's 100% bought into our brand and is just like, Here's the opportunity and we're like, we'll support you in how you want to go after it. that's the other part about our brand.
[00:32:58] I need to let you know that, in my past, when I worked on, for on the agency side with franchise operations, there was a binder and you'd flip to a page and you'd have to execute exactly what it said on that binder. boring. Absolutely boring. And so one of the things that we decided early on when Dog Haus wanted to start franchising was we need partnerships.
[00:33:18] We need people who understand what the opportunity is in their local area. And we need to listen to them and we need to then, support them. We need to be able to give them what they need to be successful. And, our Dallas Fort worth franchisee is, is a great example of that and you did mention our Bethesda location.
[00:33:37] And I have to tell you that our franchisee, Adam Bethesda is amazing, totally tied into technology, totally aware of how, the, his traffic patterns, if you will, coming in and out of his two different locations and is constantly working on not only incentivizing his staff to produce the best possible product and overall experience, but also ways to maximize efficiency, in the delivery world, which we all know is a constant struggle, with the current structure, right?
[00:34:09] I mean, everyone has to survive in however, is that they need to do it. But, there is no doubt that delivery is still very expensive for any restaurant that's out there.
[00:34:17] Jen Kern: [00:34:17] Yeah. and I'm really curious. I think our listeners would benefit from knowing this. And I want to hear the answer from. I almost want to say, like, what have you put earplugs in while the other one answers, but for each of your perspectives, if you were to point to the one thing, and I know it's hard to point to the one thing that has helped you be successful and profitable in the pandemic, what would it be?
[00:34:38] CJ Ramirez: [00:34:38] Well, I have the answer off the top of my head because this is a very challenging question and everyone is always searching for the silver bullet. And, in most cases, you know, When I've been on a podcast or on a webinar or on a panel of some sort, because this question is similar to others and therefore I, that's why I can answer so quickly.
[00:35:01] it's adaptability. It's not a marketing tactic. It's the way that you think and approach your day. Our team here is highly adaptive. That's it. If you're not adapting, you're dying. anyone who says, when we go back to pre COVID you're missing the boat. There is no backwards. There is only forward.
[00:35:23] And if you don't see the light at the end of the tunnel run faster, that's all I got to say, Adaptability
[00:35:29] Raz Mahrouk: [00:35:29] Yeah, you, you hit right on CJ. My answer was going to be the pivot. it was not waiting to get something to be perfect. We knew our brands were not done. We knew they were not ready, but we didn't sit back and wait and try to perfect them. We said. We're launching and that decision-making right off the bat in the beginning, a lot us to be successful because we didn't waste time.
[00:35:56] And we just did it with no clear idea of what would have happened and we didn't know what's going to happen. but I think adapting and making that quick decision and just going with it, which is our company does a lot that, like CJ said, we're not very scripted here. for years we didn't have anything on paper.
[00:36:17] we've learned that it's necessary, but, uh, it took us a while to get there. But again, we still keep that motto. Let's just do it and see what happens. And that was
[00:36:28] CJ Ramirez: [00:36:28] One of the things that I think is super important that we didn't say on this podcast is Markerations meets three times a week. while Raz might say that things aren't in stone, they're in our memory. They're, forged every day, every moment, we communicate through, you know, texting, we communicate through email, we communicate through phone where we're constantly connecting, with, you know, senior management.
[00:36:50] So we're all connected, we're connected to our CFO. We're connected to, you know, real estate we're connected to everything and nothing is done in a vacuum here. we're collaborative in everything that we do, and that extends into our franchisees, that extends into, our vendors in this case, just to be very clear, like it's all collaborative, everyone understands Dog Haus, there's a very unique process of, when a potential franchisee decides to come on board, it's literally a relationship it's like, do you fit. Right. And that question is being asked by the prospective franchisee. And that's been asked by us the franchisor because to be highly adaptive, requires a whole lot of trust.
[00:37:34] One thing that we have here at Dog Haus, you know, the Absolute Brands is immense trust in one another. And that is, as we all know, I mean, come on. We're corporate people, right? We're execs. we've run the gauntlet. You're always looking behind your back, what's happening next? What don't I know that is not a fear that I have ever had here at Dog Haus in nearly 10 years.
[00:37:59] That's amazing.
[00:38:00] Jen Kern: [00:38:00] That's wonderful. That's wonderful. How comforting is that? it's very comforting, right? good stuff guys.
[00:38:08] CJ Ramirez: [00:38:08] It's priceless. It's priceless. literally like, you know, when I mean, Come on, we've all done this as well. Right? we all have younger staff members and they're all coming in with, you know, how they think a business should be run. Right. I mean, come on but that's a whole separate conversation and everybody's voice should be heard.
[00:38:23] No doubt about it. Everyone has a contribution, but one thing I can clearly say when I look at my younger staff or the staff, that's joining us for the first time where people that have been with us and they're at their crossroads of like, Hey, what do I do next in my career? And I'm like, I've never said this to anyone before, but you're in a pretty nice spot, And I would absorb as much of this as you can, before you choose to move on. I don't expect for everyone to be with us forever. I don't. Right. we all say that there isn't that 30 year gold watch that anyone's going to get any more at wherever they work. But gosh, darn it. When you're in a good spot and you're young, it's often likely that you're unaware of how good it is.
[00:39:03] Jen Kern: [00:39:03] Yeah.
[00:39:03] CJ Ramirez: [00:39:03] But I do feel comfortable with sharing with people here at Dog Haus about the family aspect that Raz started, the entire conversation we're here for each other. We trust each other.
[00:39:15] Jen Kern: [00:39:15] Yeah, Yeah. It's fantastic. Well, it sounds like a great place to work, and I'm glad that we're going to get to share that with you as well. I mean, we have part of our brand pillars. Family is one of our brand pillars as well. And, we want that feeling to emanate, not just inside the company, but outside.
[00:39:31] And like you said, like, We don't like the word vendor. We don't want to talk about that. We want to talk about being partners and being human and just humanizing the brand, what you're doing, but such great advice around, adapting, moving quickly. We also can quickly, turn into perfectionist and you just gotta keep moving.
[00:39:48] You gotta keep moving. So really good advice from both of you. I also wanted to ask you now, as we kind of transition to talking about digital and technology, Ross, what would you say is one thing that marketing your marketing cohorts are need to understand or know better about on the operation side?
[00:40:07] And then I'm going to ask the same question on the flip side to CJ.
[00:40:10] Raz Mahrouk: [00:40:10] This is a good question because CJ and I, while we get along very well as to what's sticking, but marketing can always move faster than operations. at least that's what it seems like to me. the ideas there, they're ready to go. They're ready to market it. It will be all over the social tomorrow.
[00:40:28] And we haven't had a chance to. You know, write down a build sheet for it or walk through the process yet with our team members. But which is, again, one of the great things about our company, because we go and CJ is always there, always ready to drive, always ready to put that messaging up for our guests, for our partners to hear.
[00:40:47] And you know, usually I just say, I just need more time. You can give me two more days just to, let me be ready before we say that. So, That's it. And otherwise it works pretty well, at least for us here, because we understand that everything we do is really marketing. The food we put out service we give in the restaurant, all we're really doing is marketing or concept marketing or business for people to come back.
[00:41:13] So that's why Markerations for us made so much sense is because you operate to put a product out that's really just marketing. cause someone's going to go and tell their friend that they had a great hot dog or a great sausage. again, it all comes to marketing. All of it. We operate to create this marketing awareness and, it just seems to work.
[00:41:34] It just takes time sometimes.
[00:41:35] Jen Kern: [00:41:35] Marketing DNA. I can see it. I can hear it. So, CJ, what would you say operations may need to understand a little bit better about marketing that they might not quite get.
[00:41:46] CJ Ramirez: [00:41:46] I honestly can, 100% say our operations team gets it. I can say that what I challenged them with all the time, is delivering on our brand promise. Right? I mean, it's easy for marketing to set tempo but it's difficult to keep up with it because I don't know that a party of 30 just walked through the door.
[00:42:11] I don't know. That real estate agent just ordered 80 bad-ass breakfast burritos that he needs by a certain time in the day. I don't know that these things are coming in. And when I see a drop-off in, you know, maybe, reputation management, I'm like, what the heck happened here? And like, well, we got crushed, we got 80, and you're just like, Oh, okay, well, how can we get crushed and still provide the highest level of experience?
[00:42:33] but from a data perspective, right? The data perspective is I just want to understand what we're doing, faster. Faster. I want to know how much did that location do today because they had a snow storm. I want to know what that virtual kitchen did today because, for whatever reason, we fell off a DSP.
[00:42:54] And what was that hit to us? in the bottom line, it's data, it's a data about. The brand, it's the data about the item? I'd love to know how items are partnered. If you will, like someone ordered the Das Brat and they ordered the Holy Aioli and believe it or not, that's an interesting combination that people order often.
[00:43:14] Well then is that something that we can offer to our, fans, by the way we call our customers fans? if we can offer that to our fans in a way that acknowledges them, right? We're not about like, Loyalty. We're not collecting how many dollars did that person spend? That's not important to us from a loyalty perspective, right?
[00:43:32] It's not like I got to get Jennifer to move up to the next level. Let's get her to spend more money. No everything for us is lifetime. Everything for us is, if you come to our location and you love it, Then you're going to come back. Right? So delivering on the brand promise, but for us, it's, for me in the data world, it's understanding what's actually happening in those, niches.
[00:43:53] one thing that we committed to pre COVID 2020 was this was no longer the year of feelings, right? We've all been in the business for so long part of, understanding the growth trajectory of Dog Haus but we all had our own point of view. So it was based on our feelings and we were like, we need to focus on the data.
[00:44:14] What is the data telling us? Well, anybody who's out there listening to the podcast right now knows that you'll find data in that corner, underneath the couch, over there in your car. maybe you're like, you know, vacation, favorite vacation spot. It is so hard to aggregate all the data, DSP data, restaurant data, POS data, credit card, data, app data.
[00:44:43] Like I can go on right. Open rates in your email partner and SMS conversions. And it's just so difficult. And so say that again, Raz?
[00:44:55] Raz Mahrouk: [00:44:55] And what does it all mean to get all that information and to have it is great, the decipher, and to be able to use it, to make decisions and move forward? I think that's the part we really adapted to as well. CJ did say that.
[00:45:09] CJ Ramirez: [00:45:09] 100%. I said, look, here's the data now let's use it. Right. And so, we have, we have two actual, additional Markeration team members that we've added to the, you know, to, that department, if you will and they're the aggregators of data and then they send a spreadsheet over to rather than myself.
[00:45:30] And we're like, Okay, great. You just live this for the entire week for the, all of the locations, but what does it mean? What trends do you see? Give us an indicator of what's more likely than something else. And, so we're, breathing life into that, team, if you will. So that we're able to do really what everybody has been doing for the longest time.
[00:45:47] But when you start small, like us and you're focused on growth and you just focus on what's working, what's working, what's working I don't know if it takes 10 years, maybe we should've done it sooner, but now we look and say, what is it that isn't working that we can do better to help our franchisees be more successful?
[00:46:05] And that is I think, what initiated the pivot to launch the Absolute Brands sooner than later and open, our hearts to our franchisees. We basically said, we're in it with you. Let's figure this out. Let's meet every single week on a week to week basis of what's working, what's not working.
[00:46:25] Tell us what you're doing. And we basically started a franchisee mastermind with every single franchisee. We didn't qualify who may attend and who may not attend everybody's on board. Tell us what your challenges this week and Raz operationally went to work on how he would solve that with his team.
[00:46:41] And I went to work with the marketing team to figure out how do we need to change the hyper-local message so that that audience can understand what it is that we do and what we offer. We did a week to week, day to day in the social world, but. It was reacting from what we would learn on a week to week basis.
[00:46:58] So it's data for sure, is what we want and what type of data is a user experience data. And I think if I may segue, that's why we're super stoked about working with QBR because all of that data now is going to be much easier for us to pull from one location. Then, basically be on an Easter egg hunt for our own data.
[00:47:18] Jen Kern: [00:47:18] right, right. It's It's tough. Right? I mean, there are so many silos of data out there and I, can hear, you know, the process that you have now, it sounds a little manual. Right. And that's what a lot of people are doing because it's in so many, like you said, it's the Easter egg hunt. It's in so many places
[00:47:35] CJ Ramirez: [00:47:35] You have to embrace the fact that. That it takes work. Right. For me, the next thing is this is a long road. The next thing is it's out of work. I mean, one of the other things that we aligned with, early in, like just in the early stages of COVID was, you know, the ability that when you're busy, it doesn't circumvent any expectation to deliver the deliverable.
[00:48:02] Right. I was busy. So what? Everybody's busy, you know what I mean? It's like, you gotta be that marathon runner, that's running that last mile. We ran everything until that last mile. But that last mile is how you finish is what matters the most right. Look forward. so thanks to our teams here at Dog Haus because they buy in, right?
[00:48:23] Again, they trust. They trust. And they're like, okay, I got to do this. I got to do that. And it's actually pretty interesting because as we're approaching, Thanksgiving and the holiday season, vacation requests are coming in for the first time. No one requested a vacation during COVID. As a matter of fact was the opposite.
[00:48:43] People were going to would say like, Hey, I'm going to attend this thing. I'll be off grid for two hours, but I'll be back on. We're finally seeing vacation requests come in because it's this commitment that they've had to be a part of the team and run the distance for so long. And we're like, wow.
[00:48:59] Okay. this is cool. We've got a rhythm. We understand how to cover each other. And the data helps us.
[00:49:05] Jen Kern: [00:49:05] Committed. Yeah. I love that. Having them all in all the time. I'd love to know from a technology perspective, because you mentioned how you don't have like a formal, technology leader, CTO, CIO. How do you make those decisions?
[00:49:20] CJ Ramirez: [00:49:20] That's a secret, that's another exclusive, just kidding.
[00:49:28] Jen Kern: [00:49:28] Edit anything out, but anyway, how do you make that assistance? How do you prioritize on the technology side? Because we are in a digital forward age now. So who between the two of you? I mean, I have sure you're talking about that and your three times a week meetings and
[00:49:45] Raz Mahrouk: [00:49:45] a lot of back and forth. Yes. you know, a lot of things come our way. We're always looking to improve and see what the next best thing is. you know, if you know CJ by now, he wants to do things that no one's even thought of yet and we're always trying to stay ahead of that game. what we've found a lot, like you said earlier is we start talking to companies, you know, for tech stacks or, ordering and we'll find that they can't quite do what we want yet.
[00:50:15] And the funny part is that there was a lot of them, like aggregators and POS companies and all this stuff you want to talk about. They're all trying to get to that same place and right now I would say you could pick one that's a little bit ahead of the other guys, but you don't know that in six months, the guy that was you left behind and didn't choose is going to come and catapult past them.
[00:50:39] So it's, it's really difficult, especially right now when everyone is trying to get to that seamless touchless, kind of point all these orders coming through and the man hours, it takes to take it from a tablet and entered in a POS. I mean, the winners are going to be those who get there faster, and those are the companies that we want to be with.
[00:50:59] So we're always looking to see who's moved the most. Who's grown the fastest to can actually tell us that they have planned for growth and a plan for these upgrades in their Q3, Q4, whatever plans that may be. Those are the kinds of things that'll help us make decisions. And of course, for CJ, how we can market it, how you can use that information for marketing and get more information out to our fans and obviously to our franchisees.
[00:51:26] So I now let CJ talk more about that side of it, but we're always looking to see what's out there. What's next. What's new.
[00:51:33] CJ Ramirez: [00:51:33] Well, look, I mean, I think you always want to have the competitive advantage and it always begins with knowledge or awareness and so we're constantly listening. Many of the listeners, probably to this podcast has seen my name on one of their webinars as I'm passively listening. Why would I listen to music when I can listen to what's going on in our industry?
[00:51:53] You know, so it's always on and, and Dog Haus is always listening and if it's not me, then it's someone on our team that I said, Hey, I can't make this meeting or this. You know, this webinar or this podcast, whatever it sounds interesting. Please listen to it and send some notes our way. So our ears always to the ground, but why, why do we do that?
[00:52:13] we're here for our franchisees, our franchisees, without them. We don't exist. And so if we're not working as hard as we can for them, then we're not doing our job. If we're not looking at their budgets as if it was as if their dollars were our dollars, we're not doing our job. So for me, it's super important to be a good listener for me.
[00:52:35] It's super important to reach out to what might be an opportunity. It's not uncommon for us to speak to a vendor. Right because they're cold calling or we're reaching out to them for the first time and they're pitching and during that meeting, we might say most of the time we do, we're like, okay, we really don't see a fit for us right now, but let me tell you something.
[00:53:00] I think what you're onto is pretty interesting and here's where, what you're doing. Maybe helpful down the road because no one is doing this in that space. And then they start calling us and saying, Hey, can we get like on a whiteboard session to kind of talk about a little product development of what you guys see that's going to be next we're on development committees or white board committees with people that we don't even work with because they're interested in what's happening next and how we might think about it. How down the road, what'd you say, Raz?
[00:53:32] Raz Mahrouk: [00:53:32] And they don't pay us either
[00:53:35] CJ Ramirez: [00:53:35] No, Well look at, I mean, that's because we're all in this together, you know, we're all in this together and if we can make it better, why wouldn't we want to do that? Why would we want to be in our own little silo and keep it all to ourselves and not share the information?
[00:53:54] I mean, I think
[00:53:55] Jen Kern: [00:53:55] No more exclusive, no more exclusive CJ.
[00:53:58] CJ Ramirez: [00:53:58] Yeah, I'll drop here. They'll all drop here.
[00:54:03] Raz Mahrouk: [00:54:03] The truth is that we're not going to sit here and, you know, create a platform, a tech stack where we're not that company. We need someone to do it for us. So the more we can share with them to help them get to the point where we think is what we need. then that's honestly what we want to do. and there's a lot of partners we have who are always asking, like CJ said, What do you guys think about this?
[00:54:27] What kind of reporting do you want to see? what kind of, um, integration do you want? and those kinds of information, that kind of partnership is what obviously we look for. And like, because it helps us grow as well as them and we can grow together and succeed. Yeah. Well, cause Yeah and you guys are looking forward, like you said, you're not looking back. It's not like what's going to happen, you know, in the new normal, whatever. You're looking forward to creating, what's going to happen in the future and you're helping to pioneer that so I can see why people would want to, you should have them pay you actually, right.
[00:55:02] Jen Kern: [00:55:02] Let's wait for it.
[00:55:04] CJ Ramirez: [00:55:04] No. I think that it's important to say that the reason we think that way is because the three founding partners think that way. Hagop Giragossian and one of the three founding partners said to me, when I came on board a long time ago, he said, I don't want you to do a competitive analysis with other restaurants.
[00:55:25] I want you to do your competitive analysis with other brands that are doing what we believe in. And I thought that was very insightful. And all my advertising days, when, when you do a competitive analysis, you're always going to include the leader in your space. You're always going to just as an awareness perspective.
[00:55:44] Right. But he's like, I'm going to intentionally ask you to not do that. And I'm like, you're the boss and we'll go after it that way and that's the core guiding principle through, I think. Our thought process, which is what is best for us. We're not restaurant guys. Like we don't come from years and years and years.
[00:56:05] My first job, I was a dishwasher, but that's not the point. The point is that we don't come from years and years and years of, this work, that this brand. So we're bringing it here, this work, right? We're not, an amalgamation of a bunch of different restaurants, success stories. we're an amalgamation of what we believe in our gut.
[00:56:23] And what's going to provide the best experience for our fans, for our franchisees and move forward authentically. And that is what served us, I think extremely well for this past 10 years.
[00:56:37] Jen Kern: [00:56:37] That's so great. I feel like I didn't even need to talk in this podcast. I just should have let you guys go the whole time, so much interesting stuff, but as we wind down here and, get ready to close, I would like both of you to share with our listeners, what would be your advice? For working better with each other, whether it's, you know, marketing and ops getting that real tight alignment that you two clearly have, like you're singing from the exact same song sheet.
[00:57:04] What advice would you have for your colleagues that may not be enjoying that sort of relationship today?
[00:57:12] CJ Ramirez: [00:57:12] Gosh, I can't, you know, again, all of the listeners can't see, Raz and I smiling, so, so big. I'm getting a little choked up. it's such a special place here. you have to love the people that you work with, or you have to be open to get to know them and really, it's a partnership, it's a partnership you have to.
[00:57:33] You have to put it out on the table. I mean, I love Raz I can't do what I do without him. He's amazing.
[00:57:40] Jen Kern: [00:57:40] Raz, go get my tissue.
[00:57:46] CJ Ramirez: [00:57:46] I think that's it like, honestly, Raz and I, we, we work together, we hang out together. we play tennis together. we skateboard together and it's in those in-between moments. That we ideate, that we bond, that we can come back to, you know, the three founding partners who say like, Hey, I noticed you guys were out today.
[00:58:10] And we're like, yeah, we were working, you know, and here's what we came back with and they crack up, it's not even, and they don't really mean it by the way. it's our banter, here internally at the senior level of like, This is what we were doing, and this is how it goes down.
[00:58:23] And for me, I'd say you really need to connect, right. Whatever that is. I mean, Obviously you can tell by this entire podcast and anything else that we've ever talked about spoken on, you know, from interviews, et cetera, is that we're not a corporate company. We're not that company where people punch in, punch out people, you know, it's different here.
[00:58:44] It's completely different here. And that is why we say, do you fit? And everybody that is here fits and everybody feels the very same way. I feel, not only about Raz, but about every single other employee that's here.
[00:59:04] Jen Kern: [00:59:04] Raz, you get the last word.
[00:59:06] Raz Mahrouk: [00:59:06] Oh, great. Yeah. just to say it back, I love you to CJ. to be the
[00:59:10] only one.
[00:59:10] CJ Ramirez: [00:59:10] Aww, Thanks! Bro hug.
[00:59:12] Raz Mahrouk: [00:59:12] Yeah, that is absolutely truth. Uh, we're just so lucky and fortunate to be in this kind of environment, for us to really work towards something great and we all do it because we want to, and we love our job. I will say in the beginning days when I was in the restaurant, you know, managing one of our locations, I didn't like marketing very much, but, you know, cause it just comes down virtually, but I get it, Hey, we're selling this item tomorrow.
[00:59:42] We just created over pushing this promo. And that just meant, for me as a GM or the staff is more work, more things we need to do and you know, but at some point you grow up and things clicked. And you understand the importance of it and why you need that relationship. So I think for anyone out there, that's the thing they need to get to whether or not they're marketing or operations.
[01:00:06] I think soon everyone will realize that you really need each other to be successful. And, if you don't communicate and you don't work together, I'm going to say that you'll chances are you're not going to succeed, but if you get that nice harmony between the two sides of the company, Which we no longer have we have one Markerations is the way to go.
[01:00:27] Markerations is the future and it's a key to success.
[01:00:31] CJ Ramirez: [01:00:31] And the success is transferring the knowledge, Jennifer, I think that's, you know, Raz as was speaking about his experience in restaurant, and the tie back into technology as just a last breath here, we've really embraced knowledge transfer, culture transfer, and technology has helped us do that. We use a product called One Huddle.
[01:00:55] And it's phenomenal. It has helped us reach beyond the GM all the way to the back, back of house. And it allows for us to measure who is playing the games and how many times they're playing the games and which location has the most players and gosh, darn it. The answer to those three questions, results with a top performing restaurant.
[01:01:23] So now as we grow, because the number one question that any prospective franchisee would ask me is, well, how are you going to scale it? and I used to say, I don't know, but when the time comes forward, we'll make the right decision. And if you're on board, you'll be part of that decision-making process.
[01:01:39] And then now solution for us is this tool. One Huddle. It gamifies the learning experience allows for you to extend it through, into the culture and I know mean to plug this for them, but it is technology that's making the difference. You do have to make the right choices of what's going to work for your organization.
[01:02:00] And gosh, darn it. Just because it works for somebody else doesn't mean it's going to work for you. The implementation, the customization, the populating of the data that needs to go out to get the data in is specific for every single individual organization. And,
[01:02:19] Jen Kern: [01:02:19] That was like a training sort of a training platform.
[01:02:23] CJ Ramirez: [01:02:23] Yeah, we use it for training. We use it for, even onboarding, you know, the latest game that we're developing by the way is a marketing game. So that's only the reason I know about it, but Raz has a ton of games out there, but I've decided okay. If I might just talk for like a minute. Longer. If you work in the DSP, if you work with DSPs, there's one thing that's happening specifically, right?
[01:02:47] Your contact person is churning today. They're your partner tomorrow they've got promoted or they move somewhere els and I find myself having to explain the uniqueness of Dog Haus every single time someone churns and I thought to myself in the nice people at one huddle, I said, what if we did a game where people can learn about us and if they have to play the game.
[01:03:06] And if they get better than 90%, then we'll talk to them because it's like, repeat, repeat, repeat. and honestly, we don't have the time to reeducate, reeducate, reeducate, which is why this game exists. So we're now wanting to use it with our vendors so that they can come. The ones that are coming on board, right.
[01:03:22] That are saying like, Hey, I want to learn about you. There's nothing more aggravating right now in today's day and age with technology when someone gets your time and they say so tell me about Dog Haus. Well, what specifically do you want to know that you haven't been able to learn by doing your research to court us to be right for your company?
[01:03:42] Right. But it's not one sided. It's our job as well to transfer that and give a good nugget for people to be able to digest. And we're using one huddle for that as well. From the marketing side. Yes.
[01:03:51] Jen Kern: [01:03:51] Oh, fantastic. Well, I appreciate you both joining today and I appreciate you both for joining today and sharing all of your knowledge and your insights and your love, that deep love that I can see you have for each other. And that, the great advice to just, you know, get out and build those relationships, connect and communicate, go skateboarding together, whatever it might be marketing and operations need each other, like never before. So thank you so much. CJ and Raz for joining Restaurants Reinvented today. Have an awesome day.
[01:04:21] Thanks Jennifer, this was great!