come back to turning the table. My name is Jim Taylor. We're here for another episode today. Another weekly shout out for Adam Lamb. He is for anybody who's wondering he's doing well and will be back on the show here with us soon. Really excited about the episode that we've got today. Excited to join our guest and I will introduce her in a minute. We're gonna have some good discussion about trends in the industry.
What we're excited about and hopefully a good outlook on what the next couple of years look like. Away we go. Thanks for joining us.
Welcome to Turning the Table, the most Progressive Weekly podcast for today's food and beverage industry, featuring staff centric operating solutions. For restaurants in the hashtag new hospitality culture, join Jim Taylor of Benchmark 60 and Adam Lamb as they turn the tables on. The prevailing operating assumptions of running a restaurant in favor of innovative solutions to our industry's most persistent challenges. Thanks for joining us, and now on to the show.
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Hi Kelly.
Hi Jim. Good to see you. I'm great, thanks.
So for anybody who's watching now or listening down the road want to formerly introduce Kelly Higginson, the newly appointed president of Restaurants Canada. So Kelly, there's a lot of our listeners are in the US but there's also a lot that are in the Canadian market. I think what we're gonna talk about today is probably relevant north America, wide everywhere. Yeah. Beyond, I think. Hospitality has really no borders, right?
So currency and language don't really get too much in the way, but excited to have you on the show. How are you?
I'm great, and it's really good to be here, especially on day one of my new position Good timing, right?
Yeah, it's great. I think I said this to you earlier, but I really appreciate that you still were able to make time because I'm sure you're, as we were talking about your inboxes, Flooded.
Yes. Jim, as I said to you, like the work that you're doing with Benchmark 60 and the conversations we've had, it's so important. And it was such a big part of what I was trying to focus on as an operator. Not always easy. So I love that you have started to make it make a little more sense for people to get their head around because it's not easy in our industry, but we'll talk more about that. And I just think the work you're doing is really important. Oh,
thank you so much. We want to I sent you some questions earlier and I was thinking about how are we gonna kick off this conversation? Sure. And so I, as I was going back through them this morning, I was thinking, okay, so unfortunately our conversation in general as an industry, I think sometimes gets dominated by what the last couple of years have looked like. It's impossible not to talk about it hard.
Yeah. So I thought maybe we could spin it the other way and pick your brain and have some discussion about what are we maybe looking forward to in the next couple of years, or what do we think the next couple of years might some good things that might be coming for restaurants.
Yeah I am, I'm always excited about the industry. I I think if this industry has shown the world and themselves just how resilient they are over the last three years this, the last couple years has certainly shown that. And I'm still amazed when I reflect back and we were putting the show together, the Restaurants Canada show. We, we were having a lot of discussions about.
What was and the shows in the past two years and dealing with the pandemic and yeah, it was just a reminder to me of what everyone accomplished in getting through it. And I think when I look at that I know that resiliency is gonna continue and I think we see it in the recovery that a lot of organizations and small restaurants are going through right now.
I. I think what we're prob there, there is still struggle and there's still a lot to recover from and I don't want to minimize that cuz it's an important part of what we do at Restaurants Canada to make sure that people remember that. But over the next couple years, I think we're gonna see probably some smaller restaurants. I think the reality is that sales have come back to pre pandemic levels. Now inflation helps with that. But 30% of that is now off premise.
So that's in comparison to about 10%. That adds some cost challenges. But we've had a culture shift and we've got a younger generation that have an expectation of immediacy. And for those of you who are my age and might have teenage children, I don't have children, but I have friends who they're quite amazed at their use of the Ubers and so on. But that's just the culture that we're moving into.
Probably a little less footprint, which I think takes some of the commercial rent risk away from operators. So we've got really cool, inventive small restaurants. There's a really cool place here called Simple Things in Near Parkdale and Toronto. They're doing different concept in the morning and a different concept at night. In a smaller space. Yeah. And it's off the main street. So it's lower rent.
So there's just some really cool, inventive ideas out there that I'm seeing across the country that I'm excited about. And again, that smaller footprint, I think, and then smaller menus we're definitely going to continue to see for a variety of reasons. Yeah.
And from my experience in corporate operation I'm sure you remember this too, the bigger the space, the bigger the overhead. the more pressure you just have to have revenue or have to. Hundreds of thousands of dollars a week in revenue are you're in trouble.
Yeah. And both you and I come from operations that were large restaurants and Absolutely. People used to always come into some of our restaurants, and I'm sure some of your restaurants is, oh my God, you guys must be raking it in. We think yeah, this business model, we have to have 500 people in here. We have to have that many people in here to break even. Certainly there's gonna be that change. I think we're gonna continue with, and we'll talk probably about this in.
One of your other questions there the, a little more people focused. Which I think has been a silver lining out of the pandemic, and I think there was already a lot of that going on. I don't wanna say there wasn't, because I know there was really good operators going on doing great things out there, but there's certainly more people focused and I'm excited about as well.
Yeah. And that small space thing that could be really cool, right? In the world. You go to New York City and it's mostly small, intimate boutique type restaurants that are totally, it's a different vibe, right? So I think our. The Canadian market, I think actually could use more of
that type of stuff. Yes. I think it adds a creativity and a vibrancy to the cities and communities. Big, large, small across the country. I think it, and it also again allows for maybe a younger entrepreneur. To a little less risk. Do something fun and cool, and also to be able to pivot the business. Okay, maybe this is the direction that I thought it was gonna go, but people are actually utilizing it in this way, so let's push it in that direction a little bit more.
Yeah. So in terms of the people side of things, one of the questions or topics we were discussing before the show was some trends that are coming in the industry. Yeah. So let's talk about the people trend.
For sure the people trend. Yeah we are we've always had some people offering benefits and I know it sometimes sounds like a boring conversation, but benefits, as we all know, just offer so much security to people in their day-to-day. And we've got more operators offering benefits than ever before. So that's, that is something I am so excited about to see because that. Brings a whole level of, it turns into it's being available to be a career for people.
They're able to really think about this as something that they can do into their future. And double down on it. It adds that level of security. And I just think that overall it gives the industry what we really need. Yeah.
And I think too, on the benefit side of things, there's traditional benefits. But I think there's some really interesting, and I've experienced this firsthand with some. Some of the restaurant groups that we spend time with. Really cool outside the box ideas on how to do things differently in terms of benefits. Yes. Did I tell you about the cleaning and laundry service?
Yes. But let's talk about that again, because I still talk about that. Really? Yeah. Yeah. I still talk about it to so many people. It just, but that's the kind of thinking that people were being forced as we are being forced to this. Human work and we're human. I know is really quite a trend and also a great company. But it's that kind of thinking that is going to differentiate the operators, that's gonna be important. But yeah. Tell that story.
Yeah. For anyone who's listening, this is just one of the best outside the box ideas that I've heard of in terms of. How to take better care of people, how to also impact their outside of work life. And the really interesting byproduct of this benefit that this restaurant group did was it actually became a really strong recruiting tool for them. Anyway, the story goes executive.
Of a small multi-unit, restaurant group, privately owned group walks into one of the restaurants in the morning and there's an employee opening the bar, and this employee is looking a little bit disheveled shirts wrinkled. There's some stains on it it's from, basically from the shift before.
Never seen that before. Jim Yeah.
And so the executive walks over to him and he goes, Are you like, is everything okay? You jokingly, I think he said something like, you look like he slept behind the bar. And the kid kid I should I'm making myself sound, but he's early twenties kind of thing. He goes basically listen, I'm doing everything I can. We're really short-staffed. I closed last night. I opened this morning. I only have one work shirt. I didn't have time to do laundry, but I'm here. I'm here.
What do you, what more do you want from me? Type of thing, right? And this. This senior executive sort of just said, you're right thank you. And went about, went on about his day. But the next step was that he went into the board meeting that he was having that day or the team meeting that he was having that day and said, we need to look at doing things differently. And his idea, and what eventually ended up happening was at home cleaning and laundry service.
One day a week for every employee in the company, we will send somebody to your home for two hours of. One day a week to clean your house and do your laundry for you. Because, and the way he worded it was, if we can help to positively impact their at home life, they're gonna be better at work.
Hallelujah. I get goosebumps. Can you tell that? First of all, I'm so appreciative of that executive in his approach wasn't. You're doing something wrong. His approach was, is everything okay? Thinking the best of that employee, like there must be something wrong. If somebody's choosing to come in like that, let's talk about it. And that's another thing that I'm really excited about. I'm excited that these conversations are happening now as opposed to that.
Controlling command kind of environment. We actually are able to be, thankfully for Brene Brown, I thank her every day, but we can be vulnerable. We can be people at work and talk to each other. And whether you're a manager or you're a support staff or the dishwasher, everyone has something important to contribute. So being able to have those open conversations allows something. is brilliant. Is that idea. Yeah.
And the cool byproduct in continuing to talk and Cody Hall just commented, that's pretty cool. I agree. I wish someone would come to my house and clean it and do my needed. Yeah. But the really interesting byproduct that I don't think that they expected was all of a sudden they've got this. Young generation of people working in their restaurant, telling all their friends that my company pays for somebody to come and do my laundry for me. Yeah. And you should come
work here. Yeah. That's, and that's another thing. And that word of mouth is always been the best way to attract staff. For sure. Especially in a people business. And that was I think back to my foundation with a large restaurant group that's been around for a number of years. And the foundation there was always about the people and the word gets out and that is the best way to attract people. You can put up as many K Gigi ads, you can put balloons out front.
You can have all of the hiring days that you want. But if you've got employees out there championing working for you, that's brilliant.
So yeah. Totally agree. One other question on the people side of things. The, I keep hearing some pretty crazy stats around. The number or the percentage of people that are applying in restaurants that have never worked in restaurants before, that it's the high majority. And I think you and I talked a little bit about this restaurants Canada, but do you have any recent insight on that or any trend on what type of people are applying for
restaurant jobs? I don't have any stats at my fingertips, so I didn't want to, but what I can guarantee is that a lot of the. staff out there green and a lot of operators now I always like to preface that with we are, I believe it's. 58% of youth's first time job. We are the employer, we're the fourth largest employer in the country. I always like to, to champion that because it's huge. This is an impactful industry.
And the majority of youth have their first job with a restaurant, and so therefore, those. restaurants are really setting those people up and how to be an employee in the work world. They are they're teaching them how to be an employee. So with that comes quite a bit of responsibility and investment. So yeah it's a time of. Great transition.
It is one of the things that we talk about from an advocacy standpoint of recognition with government is the understanding of the importance of us in the industry. Just from that aspect of the youth first, first job. And it does take more training money and time for sure. And so now we are in this transition of, we have a lot of green staff out there, so we're gonna back into that. Yeah. Yeah.
It was my first job.
Yeah. Yeah, me too. Scooping ice cream down in Horseshoe Bay, that was a bus boy. Yeah.
Yeah. Yep. So combination of bus boy and dishwasher, depending on the day and where they were. Yes.
Yeah, it's, those were the days yeah, for sure. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Interesting. And so what do you think the a little bit more short term, what do you think the summer's gonna look like for restaurants?
I'm excited about the summer because I think there is still some of that, I don't like to say pent up because but I think there's just an appreciation of being able to get out. In Canada, regardless, it's summer is exciting for us So I am excited about that aspect of it, but it is still gonna be a struggle. For restaurants to have enough staff, we're still gonna see some of that strain. We still have restaurants operating. Our last stat was just over 80% of their occupancy and operating hours.
So that, again, makes it more difficult for them to get to full recovery because of staffing levels. But I also am starting to sense that we, there's a little bit more stability in that. Not quite as many staff are green. But there's still a labor challenge and that's been going on since before the pandemic. There seems to be this mis misnomer that this is all dealt because of the pandemic. And we had all these people leave the industry because it's not a great industry and that's just.
that's just not true. Less people are having children. We have more people than ever eating out, whether it's grabbing their coffee and their morning breakfast out. And we have less demographic to pull from for employees, and that's been in, in happening for about 10 years. So a lot of these things are exasperated by the pandemic and so we're just trying to manage through
that. Yeah, there's, I've made a comment a few times to some people that it has landed. sometimes a little bit controversially around that. This has been happening for 10 years. Yeah. Firstly, the, I'd to put it that it's not actually a labor shortage. Yeah. In our retention shortage.
Yeah. I think there's a bit of both. There is less pool for us to pull from for sure. But I do think that there is, there, there was more of a retention issue for sure. So I think going back to that silver lining and focus on people and higher level of people offering benefits and all of these really great practices that, that help with retention. Yeah, totally.
Yeah. So you commented and so did I earlier about that we both have a lot of our career operations experience with in bigger, more corporate sort of restaurant environments.
Yeah. I want to talk a little bit about, or pick your brain on what's some things that smaller restaurant operators or smaller independents or even small multi-unit groups can do to keep up with some of the big, because the Canadian market is really dominated by only a few big companies when it comes to the corporate side of the restaurant industry. What do you know on the, on our show every week, I mentioned this to you earlier, we wanna give people. What are we, what can we do this weekend?
What, it's Thursday. What can we do, moon? Yeah.
Yeah. Something that, that was great at the restaurants, Candace show. I was on a panel. It might have been the panel and was on with you. It was great that it resonated, but it was also a little sad to me that so many people who are employees and restaurants came up after and said, thank you for saying that. Was details like the staff washroom. make sure it's stocked with fresh paper towel, fresh toilet paper.
There was always this really bad habit that we got into of putting all the small half used rolls from this the public washrooms into the staff washrooms. So then there was all these like little tiny rolls for them and they were running outta toilet paper halfway through their shifts and they didn't have soap and they didn't have it doesn't take a lot for us to. To s stock, the staff washroom with a full roll of toilet paper and a full roll of paper towel.
Those are just things that let them know that we care about them and it gives them a nicer environment. And it sounds so simple and easy, but I can't tell you how many people that resonated with. So just, let's just give them their own roll of toilet paper. So that is an easy one. The other one is don't skip the staff meal. I know over Covid we all had to make changes, like probably not doing staff meal because we couldn't, we weren't allowed to do that.
And some places didn't bring them back in. And then there's a cost aspect, which I fully respect. But I think if we can get some. Chili made or some vegetarian lasagnas made up and freeze them and puts them out for staff meal. That time for the staff to gather together magic happens at that time, and you can have a really cool pre-shift 15 minutes. You can have a supplier come in and taste some wines with you or do something really interesting. Suppliers are dying to do that.
It makes such a difference. But just have that time of interaction. I, those have been my favorite memories in my. Very long career in restaurants. And so I really would say that is, is one key easy that you can implement. So those are two that I really think are important. I the last one that's always if any of my former managers listen to this, they're going to laugh that I say this, but this sounds so simple, but just have an opening checklist.
It sounds so simple, but it actually makes the manager's job so much easier when they can and for reference, this idea came from, it's actually surgeons who use. Checklist when they go into an operating room and it cut down on mistakes by 30 some percent. And it's simple as asking the patient what their name is, asking them what, which leg I'm operating on. Little things like this.
And it's no different for us in print off the reservations and go through this and stock the bathroom and do the whiteboard. And as much as managers might say, I know all this. It gives them, it just gives their mind they can rest their mind set the music and just follow your checklist. And I, I really value that practice and think it's important for operations.
Yeah. I'm having flashbacks, different things. I know. First one being the checklist thing is, so then you only have to remember one thing. You have to remember checklist. Yeah. I remember when I was there's a specific. Scenario that I'm remembering right now when I was a night manager a long time ago. Yeah. And three nights in a row, I closed and forgot my keys in the restaurant. Oh, I got to my car. It's two o'clock in the morning. I had to go back into the restaurant and turn off the alarm.
Go through the, get my keys. So I added, do you have your car keys to the closing checklist? There you go. Forget my car keys. Yeah, the other one. That just you're making me think about is that staff meal concept stuck to a restaurant operator the other day. That was they're trying to do things to help protect health and wellbeing of their team, and so they actually implemented a policy in their business that if you would like a staff meal, it's free, but we decide what it is and it's healthy.
It's, yeah. Salmon and some salad and some whatever it might be. If you would like a burger, you're welcome to have a burger. It's full price.
Yeah.
Interesting. So they're doing things, they're their own way, but to encourage their staff to eat health a healthy meal before their shift so that they're. In a maybe better position.
I
love that. Yeah,
I love that. I thought it was interesting that I think in a lot of scenarios, and I probably would've thought about this when I was in operations, if I told the staff they had to pay full price for something, I probably would be worried that I was gonna upset them. This might frustrate our people and they might go work next door where they get 50% off. Yeah. But his way of doing that, where he said, Hey, you can have the healthy meal for free. Yeah. That's great.
It's an interesting sort of way to approach it,
and I think that's so important for us to recognize, like this is, it's a hard job physically and mentally. It's hard, it's stimulating, it's dynamic, it's fulfilling. There's all these wonderful things about it. But taking care of ourselves is when I was reading through your questions and you said one thing that you could do tomorrow, get one more hour of sleep, when I think about how much better I am at reacting to a situation, after seven hours sleep as opposed to five.
And I know in this industry it is tough to sometimes get that I'm actually a morning person. My parents were morning people. So when I was in the industry, it was tough for me to actually get that full seven hours just naturally waking up. But do what you can to protect your sleep and have some of those non-negotiables with yourself. I don't be rigid.
Don't be too rigid and hard on yourself, but some non-negotiables, whether it's a five minute meditation that's in my life my goal is 10 minutes a day, but if I don't have that, it has to be five. It has to be five. So think about some of those things that as a manager or as a team member in a restaurant that really make you be able to have a little bit more resiliency and healthy practices.
So can I throw you And this one shouldn't be, I don't think it'll be hard to answer, but Can I throw you a curve ball that I didn't send you the question? Yeah, do it. What, you've been in this industry for most of your adult life, right? Yeah, a little bit. All of it. What is it about restaurants that you love so much?
Oh, it's the people you know. I actually still well up. Just so many great memories of creating. really special moments for whether it's for some of our teammates or for some of our guests, but it's that collective ener energy, that synergy that we that we get working together that just is so infectious. So I think that's been a big part of it. So the people's side of it, whether it's the guest, I mean it's the people business and and then creating it, I was.
Very lucky, like I was a very lucky person that I worked for somebody who culture and creating an environment that people want to come to was a priority for him. So I didn't have to fight for that. And being able to create an environment that people want to come to and being able to work together with them to create these memorable experiences.
For whatever it is a quick bite before the game is celebrating a wedding, like all sorts of different things, but to be able to work together towards that and just seeing the creativity. I think back my favorite memory post covid after the first longest lockdown, and I'm in Ontario, so it was longer than a lot of places. Was hearing the kitchen staff come back.
They came back first for the first couple days to get prep and everything built up, and I was walking down this long hall we have at one of the restaurants and hearing that collaboration happen again, and just the, yeah, the back and forth and the joking around and the energy, it just is so magical. So that really is a big part of it for me. Amazing.
And I think that your. Recommendations for people running restaurants for this weekend. I have to tell you, they're completely different than anyone has, what anyone has brought up before. Cause typically we'll try to wow a guest or it's cover that shift for an employee that's having a tough day or it's do something to try to build sales or do something to try to be more profitable and, A good staff meal and just clean the staff bathroom. Yeah.
set them up to win man. Set them up to win. They, the first thing when they walk in the door is they go have to go to the bathroom and change so let's make that first 15 minutes enjoyable. I. I ended up in this industry years ago. My first trip to New York, I was in my twenties. I was just bartending post university, gonna be a transient position for me. And I ended up going to Union Square Cafe and I was. So emotionally touched by this restaurant by Danny Meyer in New York.
And one thing that jumps out at me was I'm a little older, so back in the day in some of these higher end restaurants, there weren't a lot of female servers. We were often relegated to the lounge, and there was all these really bright well-dressed female dining room servers and these beautiful starched shirts. And I was really taken with this experience.
So then I got a little more into the Danny Meyer piece of it and something he said in setting the table, and I'm sure you remember this, is to treat your team as you want them to treat your guest. And that it just all made sense to me. And I again was lucky enough to work in an environment where they followed a very similar philosophy. We could have fun with each other, we could have fun with the step, with the guest. We could really have make it the best experience that we needed to.
But that's always stuck out to me as is to treat your team as you want them to treat the guests. So we have nice, clean bathrooms. We put a lot of energy into that front of house. So let's really do the same for the back of house.
Amazing. And is there anything based on what we've talked about around washrooms and staff meal and take care of people and summertime coming anything in closing for people that are listening that you, do you have any sort of closing statements or thoughts or anything about where we're at?
Yeah. Make sure you, I, this again sounds so silly, but one thing I really noticed when I was at a couple of our restaurants that had really large patios and heat waves were coming, the staff would never be drinking enough water. They're, it's just such a go go business and they're running around and they're getting hot. Make sure they're h hydrating because that, it makes such a difference for their experience and therefore, again, for their guests.
So hydrating and making sure that they have the right uniforms to, and the right shoes and everything is comfortable for them so that they can focus on the guest experience. So yeah, I would say that
I think a great message that what I'm hearing loud and clear from you is just. Let's just take care of the people that work in our industry. Yeah. It's close to home for me too, so that's great. Kelly, I appreciate you making some time. I know you're a very busy person right now, especially with some of the transition and new role for you. And congratulations on your promotion or thank you title.
I'm never too busy for these kind of conversations, Tim and the work that you do. We didn't get into it, but the work you do on workload is really important. And I hope that more people understand that putting, setting realistic workload on our. On our people setting priorities. It's just, it's will make all the difference.
Thanks. So maybe we'll have you back and we can talk more about that
next time. I'd love to, yeah. We can dig
into that again, maybe six months from now. Once we're in a different season in the hospitality industry in Canada. Yeah, I'll be back and have another good discussion. But thank you again so much. Thank you. In touch. We'll talk to you soon.
Yeah, have a great weekend. Thanks, Jim. Take care.
Thanks for joining us on this episode of Turning the Table with me, Adam Lamb and Jim Taylor. We're on a mission to change the food and beverage industry for the better by focusing on staff mental health, physical and emotional wellbeing, by proactively measuring and managing staff workloads. Join other hospitality professionals co-creating the hashtag new hospitality culture by subscribing to our weekly newsletter at ww dot. Turning the table podcast.com/news.
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