00:00Because it's not failure until you give up, until you say I'm done, until you go home,
00:04until you sell your, until whatever. It's not failure. It's all right, I learned from that.
00:08So you take the hit, you move forward.
00:17Welcome to Restaurant Influencers presented by Entrepreneur. I'm your host, Sean Walchef.
00:21This is a Cali BBQ Media production. We are coming to you from the International Pizza Expo.
00:27When we started this show, my goal was to find the greatest storytellers in restaurants and to bring them on
00:33the show.
00:33I have the legend. This guy literally cannot walk down the hallways without getting stopped.
00:39Mike Bosch, Andolini's Pizza. Welcome to the show.
00:43Thank you. Great to see you again. Thank you for having me.
00:46Great to see you.
00:46This is dope. First day of Pizza Expo, which I would argue is more special than the average show.
00:52Burger Con, not nearly as stoked as the people of Pizza Expo. It's a very dedicated, all-in community.
01:00How long have you been coming to Pizza Expo?
01:01This is my 20th year.
01:0320th year?
01:04Yeah. 22 years of business. I was 23, scared as all hell when I first came here.
01:10It was a deluge of information, and now I'm happy I can give people the proper information to take back
01:16to their stores.
01:17Do you remember what inspired you to get out of your pizza restaurant to come to the Pizza Expo?
01:22It's hard. It's hard.
01:23I didn't even know it existed.
01:25So then when I heard, I was like, oh, word, that's a thing? I should go to that.
01:29Yes.
01:30And I remember staying on the floor of a friend's condo far away.
01:34That's about how much I could afford.
01:37And took the monorail.
01:39Just every poor kid thing you could do to be able to come to the first expo I was at.
01:45Can you give us high level? How many restaurants do you have? How many employees you're working with?
01:49So currently today, Andolini's Pizzeria is now Andolini's Worldwide.
01:53It is 12 different things.
01:55Five pizzerias, two food hall locations, two food trucks.
02:00One's a trailer, one's a full truck.
02:02Additionally, a fine dining restaurant, Prostimo Estorante, named best new restaurant in Tulsa.
02:07My pizza restaurant, Top 10 Pizzeria in America by TripAdvisor, along with our catering company,
02:12our location at the Tulsa and Aaron International Airport.
02:15And two new locations this year.
02:18One will be a French restaurant, and one is a NDA location in a very cool spot.
02:24I'm very much looking forward to it.
02:25We're not breaking any news here?
02:25I would love to, but I know this is going to go out to the masses.
02:28Trying to ask the tough questions.
02:31You speak at this show.
02:33What is the thing that makes people nod their heads and they go, oh shit, I got to line up
02:38and ask Mike about afterwards?
02:39Well, people are always asking, you know, people are so obsessed with the tech stack.
02:42And that's righteous.
02:43I think it matters.
02:44But it's not going to save you.
02:46It's certainly.
02:47You got to make good pizza?
02:48You got to make a great product.
02:49You got to lean in on people.
02:50You got to have ingenuity abound.
02:53Yeah.
02:54Ingenuity abound.
02:55And have a radical self-reliance approach.
02:57If you're like, well, I don't know how to do that.
03:00This is not your business.
03:01Like, figure it out.
03:02But if you're like, what's the best way to do that?
03:05That's where the show comes in.
03:07Because a lot of people are like, oh, I have GPT.
03:09What's a smart way to use it?
03:10Yes.
03:11And all things, again, whether or not you're on toast or whatever POS, knowing that you
03:16should have one, great.
03:17Best way to use it.
03:18You'll find some people at these shows that will help with that.
03:21When did you learn about growing a personal brand?
03:25You know, I didn't at first want to.
03:28And then I was like, oh, crap.
03:30Oh, shit.
03:30I can't afford someone to.
03:34I couldn't buy someone.
03:35Yeah.
03:36And then when I was like, well, I'm not the best looking.
03:39I'm not the best on camera.
03:41And all the voices of a seventh grader in your head.
03:44Let's say I'm going to be.
03:45I thought of my patron saint of restauranting, Dave Thomas.
03:50Yes.
03:51I was like, Dave's the first influencer.
03:53Dave Thomas is like, hi, I'm Dave Thomas, and I hope you'll enjoy Wendy's with our never
03:59frozen patties.
04:01Monotone is all hell.
04:02Yes.
04:03Morbidly obese.
04:04And he still was the best thing to ever have in that brand.
04:07I would argue with all the tweets that Wendy's kills it on tweets.
04:14Crushes it.
04:14But their market share is down because they're not speaking to their product and their base
04:20and the vision of a face in charge.
04:22Yeah.
04:22And all the owners, you have that.
04:24You're not like the Verizon guy who's going to say, you know, one week with Verizon and
04:29then switch it and go to Sprint.
04:31That's not your problem because you don't have a board of directors.
04:34You get to be the brand.
04:36And if you're afraid of that, get out of your own way because everyone wants you to win.
04:40You just got to let them.
04:41The first time I had you on our digital hospitality show, we had a great conversation.
04:45I remember talking about Mamba mentality and being obsessed with constant iteration of
04:51improvement.
04:52Yes.
04:53One of the things that separates the successful brands here, anywhere else in the world, the
04:58people that watch this show, is that they're unwilling to quit.
05:02Yeah.
05:03Always willing to get knocked down but get back up, especially in the restaurant business.
05:08You have to.
05:09Because it's not failure until you give up, until you say I'm done, until you go home,
05:13until you sell your, until whatever.
05:14However, it's not failure.
05:16It's all right.
05:17I learned from that.
05:18So you take the hit, you move forward.
05:19And the notion that you're not going to fall down, that's insane.
05:24Like, you're going to be like, oh, I want to be Tony Hawk and do a 900 in the air,
05:28but
05:28I don't want to fall off the skateboard.
05:30Yeah.
05:30You're going to fall off the skateboard.
05:32That's part of the game.
05:33And that's okay.
05:35As long as you always say, okay, great.
05:37I got punched in the face.
05:38Now I know how that feels.
05:39Now I can do something with it.
05:41Did you know that Toast powers over 140,000 restaurants across the United States, Canada,
05:47and UK?
05:49It's an incredible company.
05:50I'm on the Toast Customer Advisory Board.
05:52They are proud sponsors of this show, Restaurant Influencers.
05:55We couldn't do it without their support.
05:57They power our barbecue restaurants in San Diego.
06:00If you have questions about Toast, if you're thinking about bringing Toast on to be your
06:05primary technology partner at your restaurants, please reach out to me.
06:09I'm happy to get a local Toast representative to take care of you.
06:12You can reach me at Sean P. Welchef on Instagram.
06:16Once again, thank you to Toast for believing in the power of technology, the power of storytelling,
06:21the power of hospitality.
06:23Back to the show.
06:24Tell me about your educational platform.
06:26I know you started doing a lot more content on YouTube, which we appreciate.
06:29We're going to put links because you're crushing it on YouTube.
06:32I love the content that you put in.
06:33It's the number one TV channel in the world globally.
06:36I mean, come on.
06:36It's the OG of social media.
06:38The fact that I'm waking up.
06:41I'm hiring people on my team to go more all in on YouTube.
06:44Yeah.
06:44You share more about YouTube.
06:45So, for us, YouTube is YouTube.
06:49The beautiful thing about YouTube video is it's dedicated.
06:54I am taking this in content.
06:56It's the most premium of content as opposed to toilet content.
07:00Like, oh, I can just watch this while I'm the crapper.
07:02Like, it's like, no, no, I'm going to answer this question.
07:06So, if you could kill it there, you could pretty much kill it anywhere.
07:10Now, Instagram and TikTok and shorts are lesser forms that could lead into the bigger.
07:16And then in the restaurant game, it's always about the, how do I use this as a funnel to the
07:22restaurant?
07:22For what I do with Unsliced, so I wrote a book called Unsliced.
07:26With everything I was doing, people hitting me up at Pizza Expo.
07:29And it's called Unsliced.
07:30It has nothing to do with pizza.
07:32It's all business, restaurant ops, and even restaurant thing is probably 20% of it.
07:37It's about business and how to be the best owner possible.
07:40And how to streamline your systems and streamline your ops.
07:43So many people wanted me to fly out to their restaurant and help them out that I created a holistic
07:47program for any owner to maximize their restaurant.
07:51Any independent owner from zero to ten units called the Unsliced Restaurant System.
07:56Where I walk them through every week, their vision, their ops, their financials, their marketing, their team acquisition, team retention,
08:05vendor negotiation.
08:07And then last but not least, how to systemize it so you can actually have a life with all this.
08:12And I have like 32 AI tools.
08:14I have no shortage of things to make it.
08:16But it's not about the tools.
08:17It's about enhancing the owner.
08:19I do not fix restaurants.
08:20I make owners enhanced to the point that they can own the restaurant on their terms and get the revenue
08:26they deserve.
08:27So one thing I have to talk to you about, both of us are on the Toast Customer Advisory Board.
08:31I wouldn't have this show if Toast didn't believe in storytelling, believe in technology.
08:35Can you talk about how you choose your tech partners?
08:38I have to have them as a partner.
08:40Yes.
08:41A partner, not a pariah.
08:43Like ones that let you take over their booth.
08:45They paid a lot of money to be at this station.
08:47Ovation is a partner.
08:49Now, what is a partner?
08:50A partner is like, hey, I want you to win because when you win, we win.
08:53Yeah.
08:53That's a partner.
08:54If someone's ever doing something where it's like, well, they're going to close in three years.
08:57So get as much money as we can from them.
08:59That's a pariah.
09:00Yes.
09:00I want to only deal with partners.
09:02Sometimes you have a partner that you don't know if they're a partner or not, and you've
09:05got to readjust them and make them feel like partners and give before you take.
09:10But I do not live in the world of non-partnerships, whether it's Toast, Ovation, DoorDash.
09:17I've got to make them a partner, give them some wins, some Ws, and then I'm like, when it
09:23comes to negotiation time, it's not even a negotiation.
09:26It's like, well, this is in both of our best interests.
09:28And I believe Toast, look at how Toast conducted themselves during the pandemic.
09:33They acted like a partner and they were like, hey, we're going to make sure you guys are,
09:38we need you to be open.
09:39And that's why I still rock with them today.
09:42They're always iterating on the platform.
09:44And there's going to be people like, oh, I can't stand this and this and this.
09:46That's what happens when you're at the top of the hill.
09:49Toast, you can't argue it's best in class.
09:51It's just inarguable for the robust features they have.
09:55And also the AI and the holistic setup.
09:58That's what I dig.
10:00And that's why I still am with them.
10:02If somebody's watching this, listening to this, what do they need to know about Oklahoma?
10:07Well, it's not what you think.
10:09It's not like we're still dealing with cowboy hats.
10:12They're like, Tulsa King is not filled in Tulsa.
10:15There he is, Jeff Smokovic.
10:16The lowdown, the lowdown's pretty good.
10:19We have a Whole Foods.
10:21You got a Whole Foods?
10:22There you go.
10:23Tulsa is essentially Austin with less douchebags.
10:28Okay.
10:28And less traffic.
10:30That's Tulsa.
10:31Oklahoma?
10:32There's cuts of Oklahoma I don't really want to go visit.
10:35Tulsa in of itself is all killer, no filler.
10:39Number one pizza-reviewed city in America is New York on Google.
10:44Number one best pizza-reviewed city in America is New York.
10:47Number two is Tulsa.
10:48Wow.
10:48And we're the best-reviewed pizza city or pizzeria in Tulsa.
10:52So great pizza, great concerts, great people.
10:56I love it.
10:57I grew up in New York, New Jersey, and San Francisco.
11:00I love all those places, but I wouldn't want to live anywhere else in America than Tulsa.
11:04How do you get more reviews?
11:06Well, you can talk to your boys at Ovation.
11:09You want more reviews, more customers, customers that are excited about it.
11:14You say, hey, here's the way to get there.
11:16I'm the best review because of Ovation.
11:18And then, if they don't love you, this is why this is the greatest.
11:21No BS.
11:22This is my like this.
11:24I said, I want no money for this.
11:27If you're listening to the podcast, please go to YouTube and follow it on YouTube because it's so much better
11:33in person.
11:33I have two mics.
11:35I'm surrounded by mics.
11:36I said, I want no money from you for this.
11:38I want no money.
11:40Use my face because I love your product so much.
11:42That's how good Ovation is.
11:44That's how it is.
11:46For the restaurant owner that's out there, that's listening to this, talk to them about not putting out.
11:53So, we say be the show, not the commercial.
11:55Yeah.
11:55No one goes to social media to watch a commercial about your restaurant, but they want a story and they
12:00want to be entertained.
12:01How can you teach them how to do more storytelling?
12:05Start with the did you knows.
12:08Did you know is a good way to say it.
12:09What is your did you knows?
12:10Come up with a list.
12:12In fact, let's make this stupid easy.
12:14Go to your phone.
12:15Pull it out.
12:16Go to your voice recorder.
12:17And just talk your happy ass off about all the did you knows.
12:22Like, well, we started this here.
12:23We cold ferment our dough.
12:24We do this.
12:25We buy this organically.
12:26We go to this, blah, blah, blah.
12:27And we also do this.
12:29And then take the transcript, put it through Claude, and say, come up with as many did you know social
12:35media concept ideas from this list.
12:38And then make those in email, in story posts, in social media posts, and then just tell that story.
12:46Because experiential dining is the path.
12:50Discounting is not.
12:52Experiential dining, like, oh, my God, they do this.
12:54They do this.
12:55It's so cool.
12:55They do this and this and this.
12:56The discount path is not the win.
12:58If you need to give a freebie to get someone's email, give it completely free.
13:03Be a crack dealer.
13:05Give them a hit.
13:06Gotcha, bitch.
13:07That's it.
13:08You don't want to live in a world of 20% off or else you will be Bed, Bath &
13:12Beyond giving the big-ass blue coupon on your slow path to death.
13:17It's like, well, I'm not going to Bed, Bath & Beyond.
13:18I don't have a 20% off coupon.
13:21Yes.
13:21That's not where we win.
13:22We win in experience.
13:25Oh, my God, I got to go there.
13:26You got to come in there because if it's not impressive, by default, it's unimpressive.
13:30It sucks.
13:31It's mid.
13:32And I don't want to go back.
13:33What equipment impresses you at this show?
13:36Oh, my God.
13:37So much.
13:38Well, equipment, whether it's Rotoflex, is from an oven perspective.
13:43I love Rotoflex.
13:43Okay.
13:44From a pizza box perspective, if you have the established brand, pizza bib, full color.
13:50Other equipment, I want to make things as like I'm all for a shredder that can cut things super fast,
13:57like a vertical chopping mixer.
13:59But then in the tech side of things, Ovation takes the cake.
14:03Toast, I don't usually like to have too many apps to integrate unless I really, really know they work.
14:09Because if it screws up revenue, you're paying money to lose money.
14:13Toast, Ovation always makes money.
14:15Toast, solid app.
14:16DoorDash integrates very well.
14:18I like DoorDash.
14:19But again, you always have to gain the relationship and be the best partner possible.
14:24Trying to dance with 40 partners and barely know any of them, you're going to be the one taking advantage
14:29of.
14:29And if you ever want to really have a preeminent source and to know that you're going somewhere forward, we're
14:35on CAB for toast.
14:37Because I would rather have a seat at the table than be on the menu.
14:40100%.
14:41Because customer advisory board, reach out to your partners because the best tech companies, the best partners in the restaurant
14:46space, they build with you.
14:48They don't build for you and say, hey, here's a product that I built.
14:52What do you think?
14:52No, they go, what are you working on and how can we build something great together?
14:56Exactly.
14:56Exactly.
14:58If you guys are watching this, if you're listening to this, you can reach out to me.
15:00I'm weirdly available at Sean P. Walchef on Instagram or on LinkedIn.
15:05Before I let you go, Mike, I need to know about your personal tech stack, iPhone or Android?
15:09iPhone, of course.
15:10What version?
15:11The newest.
15:12The newest always?
15:13Always.
15:14Okay.
15:15How many photos and videos do you have on your phone?
15:19Of business?
15:20I mean, every single week I'm recording 20 videos.
15:23They're all on my phone.
15:25I'm using teleprompter.
15:26Okay.
15:26I'm making scripts.
15:28I'm giving myself the, I don't like read it verbatim, but I go teleprompter.
15:31And then I load it into Drive where someone then edits it down.
15:35And then I post it on either Pali.
15:37And I'm looking at Sochi now.
15:38I'm liking that.
15:40And that's my workflow there.
15:43I have a full, whole different approach for YouTube because it's so methodical.
15:47And that works great for us.
15:51Another techie thing, like I love Claude with Raystack.
15:56Raystack is an automation.
15:57So now I can highlight a whole email, hit command E, and it comes up with my response that I
16:03can just put it in there.
16:05Evaluate it before I post.
16:06You're not, you're going to get me, but I can help it along because I put so much hours, so
16:11many hours into Claude that it knows what I would want to say anyway.
16:13So Claude over ChatGPT?
16:15For writing, yes.
16:16For writing, yes.
16:17Of course, Claude on that.
16:19Phone calls or text messages?
16:22I, if it's quick answer and I know them, text.
16:25If it needs any level of nuance, voice memo.
16:28Voice memo.
16:29Voice memo for any level of nuance.
16:32That way we can speak asynchronously while still getting the move.
16:36Okay.
16:37Yeah.
16:38Do you leave voice mails?
16:39If they are older people, yes.
16:42For my, for my dad, I'll leave a voicemail.
16:44How many emails do you get a day?
16:46Uh, I get over a thousand emails a day, probably 250 I need to act upon.
16:51How many of the 250 do you enjoy reading?
16:5530.
16:5530, that's 30 is pretty good.
16:57Yeah.
16:58What's your notification management?
16:59Are you inbox zero?
17:00Do you have, if we looked at your phone right now, I mean, obviously Pizza Expo is a different, but
17:04like on a normal day, do you have a shit ton?
17:07I have clean email.
17:08I have a VA that if I really need to, I can say, take care of this and this and
17:11this, or I'll go in personally.
17:13I go to inbox zero every day.
17:16And, uh.
17:17How long have you had a VA?
17:20A year and a half.
17:21What are your tips for restaurant, multi-unit restaurant owners for virtual assistants?
17:26Very good question.
17:26So, if you're multi-unit, you should get, first off, to find the VA, hire someone on Fiverr that says
17:32they're a VA, have them do three small tasks.
17:34If they do those well, say, hey, baby, let's go off Fiverr.
17:37And then, then you need a sauna, A-S-A-N-A, and then you're going to do your tasks
17:43that you want them to do.
17:44Do it all on a loom, L-O-O-M.
17:47Take the transcript of that loom, of you describing everything, put that in GPT, say, give me an SOP of
17:53this task.
17:55Then assign that to the VA at the cadence you want them to do it, whether it's weekly, on every
18:00Tuesday, do this, on this, and boom.
18:03And then you're just having them do it on your behalf, and you're checking in on the task being done.
18:07That's how I'm able to have 12 going on 14 restaurants.
18:09That is amazing.
18:12Teams, Google Meets or Zoom?
18:15Zoom.
18:15Zoom won.
18:16Get out of my space with that Google garbage.
18:19Team Meets don't.
18:19Why are you paying Zoom?
18:20Google's free.
18:21Because it's Zoom.
18:22Because it's Zoom.
18:23We just all as a society agree that it's Zoom.
18:27Kleenex won.
18:28Is it Apple Maps or Google Maps?
18:30I'm actually, I rock with my boy Steve Jobs in Death and Priant.
18:34I'm going to go Apple Maps.
18:35Apple Maps.
18:36Okay.
18:37I trust in Apple.
18:39So no Gemini.
18:41No, Gemini's not my guy.
18:42I got Claudio and Stevie Jobs.
18:45How do you listen to music?
18:47What platform?
18:47I'm on Apple.
18:48I'm on Apple.
18:49I'm on Apple.
18:51And if my son has some, it's because the audio is better on Apple, on AirPods.
18:56Okay.
18:57You cannot, if I want to hear a song, I'm going to hear it better.
19:00Well, is Spotify a better platform?
19:01Yes.
19:02Can I find more random songs?
19:03Yes.
19:03If I want to love music because I'm an audiophile, I'm listening to it specifically on Apple.
19:08Is there an app that you use that you don't think people know about that they need to
19:12know about?
19:13That's a great question.
19:13Let's go right there.
19:14Let's go check.
19:15Let's see.
19:16TikTok?
19:16Is that new?
19:20Asana.
19:21What's your favorite social app that you enjoy?
19:24Oh, I'm on TikTok.
19:24You're on TikTok.
19:25TikTok all night.
19:26TikTok knows you too well?
19:27Yeah.
19:28Yeah, it does.
19:32I think also on the Asana thing, get a LastPass account and then have your VA have access to
19:40all your passwords without having access to any of them.
19:43I think they're like, how would I give them my passwords?
19:45Do that.
19:46And then even on site, here's my best example.
19:49Don't go to Sam's Club.
19:51I love going to Sam's Club, but it's a waste of two hours of my day.
19:55I could go and do a surprise and delight at a school, film that, and get more because
20:00my job as an owner is to create revenue.
20:02It's not to be the junk drawer of my business.
20:05Thank God, yes.
20:05And if you are the junk drawer, well, I'll do it.
20:07No one else will.
20:08You're failing.
20:09So don't be the junk drawer.
20:12Delegate a task and get more revenue.
20:14It's a negotiation, it's training, it's loving the time spent with your people.
20:19And if you find yourself being the junk drawer, you got to pause and say no.
20:23And when you do that, you'll make more money and you'll have a better life.
20:25I love that you talked about VA.
20:27I just hired one.
20:28I used a firm called Athena.
20:30Phenomenal firm.
20:31You can reach out to me, talk to them.
20:32I love Mike's advice, but I am very bullish on restaurant owners.
20:36Stop doing so much bullshit.
20:39You do too much bullshit.
20:40And as you become multi-unit, there are virtual assistants out there that are highly qualified
20:44to take low leverage tasks off of our plate.
20:47Exactly.
20:48What is the best platform for people to keep in touch with you?
20:51If you want to talk to me direct, go to Instagram at Mikey Bausch and check out Get Unsliced.
20:57Watch a video of mine.
20:59And if that's where you're an independent owner, I have never had someone do my program and ask
21:02for a refund.
21:03I don't suck and I don't half-ass anything.
21:06Full ass all day.
21:08You heard it.
21:08You heard it in the details.
21:09You heard it in the passion.
21:11That's why this guy can't walk down the halls.
21:13Grateful for the time.
21:14As always, stay curious.
21:16Get involved.
21:18Get to the Pizza Expo.
21:19Get out of your restaurant.
21:20And don't be afraid to ask for help.
21:22We'll catch you guys next episode.
21:27Thank you for listening.
21:28If you've made it this long, you are part of the community.
21:30You're part of the tribe.
21:31We can't do this alone.
21:33We started.
21:33No one was listening.
21:34Now we have a community of digital hospitality leaders all over the globe.
21:38Please check out our new series called Restaurant Technology Substack.
21:43It's a Substack newsletter.
21:44It's free.
21:45It's some of our deep work on the best technology for restaurants.
21:48Also, go to YouTube and subscribe to Kali Barbecue Media.
21:52Kali Barbecue Media on YouTube.
21:54We've been putting out a lot of new original content.
21:56Hopefully, you guys like that content.
21:58If you want to work with us, go to BeTheShow.media.
22:01We show up all over the United States, some international countries.
22:05We would love to work with you and your growing brand on digital storytelling.
22:09You can reach out to me anytime at Sean P. Welchef on Instagram.
22:12I'm weirdly available.
22:14Stay curious.
22:15Get involved.
22:15Don't be afraid to ask for help.
22:17We'll catch you next episode.
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