- yesterday
These leaders are reshaping how restaurants grow. Brendan Sweeney and Tony Roy co-founded Popmenu to give operators smarter tools, connect with guests, and scale. Tunji Junard, now Chief Marketing Officer of Steam Boys, saw the impact firsthand and brought Popmenu into the brand, helping grow it to nine locations.
Watch now to learn about restaurant growth, the power of partnership, and replacing guesswork with good data.
Sponsored by:
• TOAST - All-In-1 Restaurant POS: https://bit.ly/3vpeVsc
Watch now to learn about restaurant growth, the power of partnership, and replacing guesswork with good data.
Sponsored by:
• TOAST - All-In-1 Restaurant POS: https://bit.ly/3vpeVsc
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NewsTranscript
00:00We are building a playbook for growth. At least you're getting some pieces of a playbook to say
00:06if I'm going to sustain this in a very competitive market or I'm going to grow to another revenue
00:10level, these are steps I can take. I just love how that's unfolding and I love us being a part of that.
00:23Welcome to Restaurant Influencers presented by Entrepreneur. I'm your host, Sean Walchef.
00:27This is a Cali BBQ Media production. We are coming to you live from the National Restaurant Show.
00:3255,000 people, 12 football fields. This is an incredible event. It's an important event.
00:38If you're watching this, if you haven't been to the show and you run restaurants,
00:41please figure out a way to get out of your restaurant. It took me 14 years to get out of
00:45my restaurant. In life, in the restaurant business and in the new creator economy,
00:49we learn through lessons and stories. We have the opportunity to always come and visit our
00:55friends at PopMenu because they are on the cutting edge of technology. Today, we have a special
01:00episode because we actually have a customer for the first time, so I don't feel outnumbered anymore.
01:06Gentlemen, welcome to the show. Brendan Sweeney, co-founder. Tony Roy, co-founder.
01:12There you go, baby.
01:12And Tunji Junard, chief marketing officer and co-founder, Steamboat Boys.
01:18Steam Boys.
01:21Steam Boys.
01:21We got it. You nailed it.
01:23It's been a long, it's third day. We're going to power our way through it.
01:26Let's do it.
01:26Steam Boys.
01:28Let's start with you, Tunji.
01:29Yes, sir.
01:30Tell us about your, give us your elevator pitch.
01:33My elevator pitch. Wow. Okay, let's go. Steam Boys is basically what we're doing. We are
01:38defining and refining Chinese comfort food for people in the Southeast United States.
01:45So, it's a lot of bao, dumplings, noodles. This place, this food has a home in the South
01:52and all over the world. We've grown to about, we've grown to nine stores.
01:58Congratulations.
01:59Thank you. Thank you.
02:00When did you open? When did you start?
02:01We started in 2018.
02:02Wow.
02:03The first store opened in 2019. 2020 was fun.
02:08Fun for all of us.
02:09And since then, I mean, the, the growth has been incredible. The, the response has been
02:14incredible. Now, if we can just get people to, uh, understand it is pronounced, uh, bow,
02:18not bail.
02:21Uh, tell me why do you come to the show?
02:24Well, my good friends here invited me and it was an opportunity for me to just, like you
02:30said, get out of the restaurant, get out of the kitchen and really learn, man. Like I,
02:35you know, when you're on that day to day, standing in front of a stove, sometimes you
02:40feel like, um, you feel like you're not making forward progress, right? And you can kind of
02:46feel a little stuck. Well, I mean, I've been here since Wednesday and I feel like I've grown
02:53leaps and bounds, like light years, literally. And it's all thanks to my friends at Pot Menu.
02:58Yeah. I think for me as a restaurant owner, I couldn't do it if I didn't have my team at
03:02home. And there's so many people that obviously figure out a way to get to Chicago to come
03:06to these shows. But what I, what gets me really excited is when the technology companies that
03:12are helping power our restaurants invest in us, that they build next to us, not building
03:17for us, but literally side by side. Can you guys share a little bit about the philosophy?
03:22Why do you invest so much in your customers? Why do you spend so much time with them in their
03:26restaurants? So you can build the things that we need to actually drive revenue.
03:30Yeah. Yeah, for sure. I mean, from, from day one, I mean, my background is product, uh,
03:35other co-founders besides Tony background product. Tony is now product as well.
03:39No, I'm kind of product. Let's give him some more responsibilities.
03:41I mean, like the layman's perspective, you know what I mean? We need that.
03:44Yeah. We all need that.
03:45Like I was, um, I, I, I learned some product, like it's not really a formal practice, right?
03:52It is now there's Stanford D school, stuff like that.
03:55What's Stanford D school?
03:56It's, it's basically like digital product, um, education. So you can actually go and
04:01get a formal education in the kind of product we do now, not like Procter and Gamble, making
04:06typers and stuff like that. Um, Marty Kagan, who I think is an incredible digital product
04:11leader. Uh, I got to go through a few sessions with him and it was just all about spend time
04:17with the users and buyers of your product. Not to understand, like at the time, uh, a decade
04:23and a half ago, a lot of it was about, well, what's usable and let's focus on usability and
04:27UX was hot and all that. He was like, what's valuable. What do people want to buy? What
04:32do people want to use? What makes a difference in their lives? Yeah. I can't find that out
04:36just sitting behind a computer. I have to find that out by seeing your whole world. I also
04:41can't find it out by asking you, you know, that's true.
04:44What do you want me to build? Uh, you don't know, you know, and I think, um, our, our whole,
04:50uh, core and our whole essence and who we are came from spending time with restaurants
04:55and hearing their challenges. And then, you know, not necessarily having restaurants prescribed
05:01to us what we, what, what should we build, but it's like, where are your struggle points?
05:04You know, where are your challenges and can we see it in the whole of on-prem or, you know,
05:09some other way of seeing it holistically. So it's not just, uh, let's look at pixels on
05:13a, on a computer. So I don't know how to do product without spending time with, with
05:18customers. Um, I mean, we have people on our team who do nothing but schedule and
05:23organize and track and measure, um, customer conversations when we're showing them
05:28prototypes or showing them new products, getting feedback. Hey, does this work for you?
05:32Is this confusing, et cetera. We still have a long way to go. I mean, it's, it's, it's hard
05:37to build technology that's simple enough to use, but powerful enough that it makes a difference.
05:41But you can't do that without, without sitting with your users, sitting with your client and
05:45living kind of their, their struggles. Tony, what do you spend most of your time
05:49doing these days? Uh, meeting with meeting with restaurant owners. Yeah. It feels like
05:54I feel like on a plane. Yeah. I was like in Toronto, Miami, San Francisco, Atlanta, back to San
06:01Francisco, now in Chicago. So no, meeting with restaurants. Like, what are you hearing from them?
06:05Well, I think, I think you keep seeing like, um, you know, restaurant owners,
06:09like now you've got AI and all these other things that you remember, you know, as you know,
06:12you didn't get into that business first and foremost, because you love technology and want
06:15to write code, uh, and technology has become more abundant in many people's perspective,
06:21more complex. And so I think where we've always strived for is how do you simplify that
06:26so that they understand it? Um, so I hear a lot about like, how can I be more efficient?
06:31How can I use technology to offset some of my labor challenges, fluctuating cost of goods,
06:36like all that kind of stuff. Um, and so it's like, we're talking a lot about AI,
06:40we're presenting on some things later today. And it's like, um, you know, for a smaller
06:44restaurant owner, you know, Tunji is actually mid-sized now, you know, like they don't have the
06:52big leagues. They don't have a 20 push. Yeah. They don't have a 20 person marketing team.
06:55Correct. Yeah. You're actually at a very challenge. That's a challenge. So how, how can you scale and,
07:00uh, you know, you need to leverage technology to be able to produce like five times the amount of
07:04content and, you know, half the time and a third of the cost. And so, uh, I think that's what we
07:09hear a lot is how can we continue to be more efficient? It continues to be a challenge after
07:13challenge in the restaurant space, you know, so it's the same, same day, different challenge,
07:18but you know, so that's, that's what we hear a lot about. How can you simplify things for me and make it
07:22more efficient? And Tunji, how did you learn about pop menu and how do you see pop menu working in
07:27your entire tech stack? So learning about pop menu was really interesting. I don't think I've ever
07:32told you guys this, but, uh, I was doing, um, the marketing for one of my restaurant friends and,
07:39um, basically he dumped me for you guys. I lost the client. I like him. I was like a good dude.
07:47He's a good dude. He's a good dude because ultimately he said, Hey, you know what?
07:51You should check these guys out. And I was begrudgingly. I was like, you know what I mean?
07:55But then I, you know, I actually did, uh, you know, I got on the phone with you guys and I looked
08:01at the product and I was like, well, actually this is solving big problems for us and little problems
08:07at the same time. Um, sorry, what was that? How does it fit into your entire tech stack? How does pop menu
08:12fit in your, I mean, it's like 90% of it. It's like 90% of my tech stack is it's, uh, I mean,
08:19it, it, it really has streamlined the way that I'm reaching out to customers and put all of that,
08:25all of those tools in one place for me, as opposed to when I was like doing, you know,
08:29trying to email over here and I'll do text messaging over here. And then I would, you know,
08:34I would try and find ways to reach out to customers with all these small tools.
08:39And then at the end of the day, I wouldn't know actually, well, did any of that actually
08:43touch the revenue? Like I wouldn't know, I would just be guessing. And I, I was a good guesser,
08:48but it's good to see the numbers, you know? So that's the best, that's one of the best parts
08:52for me. How does pop menu help us get more customers into our restaurants? I, you know,
08:57and you're asking Tony, like what, what are you hearing from people? The most amazing,
09:01most consistent question we've heard, whether it was before COVID, whether it's during lockdowns,
09:06whether it's through the supply chain and inflation and all that stuff, the number one
09:10question has still been, how can I grow? Yeah. And how do I grow there? There's not a playbook,
09:16right? And, and it is when people ask, I think it is a very, very sincere thing. Like, no, really,
09:22like show me the way. And I think, um, we've been doing it long enough and we've, um, been increasing the
09:32amount of, of impressions we generate for our clients over and over and over. And we just had
09:37our biggest quarter ever for increasing impressions. Um, and look, it just, it's starting to play out
09:44where we can share kind of a playbook, you know, and we can now see, Hey, if you're between one and
09:48a half and 2 million in top line revenue, this is generally what it looks like in terms of list size,
09:53you know, how many people are in there and how many times are you touching them with email and how many
09:56times are you touching them with texts and how many times are you touching them with social posts
10:00and a real clear pattern emerges. And then you go to three to 4 million. Then you go to five to seven,
10:05you go seven to 10. All of those things are going up into the right. It's not a, it's not less.
10:11They're not doing it less. A hundred percent. Quantity, speed, consistency.
10:15Yes. Right. Quantity, speed, consistency. You just got to get more people to give you the right to
10:19contact. Yes. And you got to touch them more. Now, the best thing is if you can touch them in a more
10:24personalized way as you go, then it becomes less and less about bulk. And I think, um,
10:30yeah, I just, I love that we're now in a place and the talk we're sharing at, at, at, uh, the
10:34restaurant show today, it shares some of these numbers, the actual numbers that I don't have
10:39memorized or I'd say them right now, but it's just a clear pattern. And so I think something even as
10:44simple as, Hey, if you want to sustain a $3 million top line, or you want to grow to four,
10:49here are some targets to go after. Like, here's how many people you should have in your database.
10:53And here's how often you should be in front of them. And, and then, yeah, the AI helps you
10:57personalize it and make sure it's consistent and things like that. But I just love seeing that
11:02what you don't see is like someone doing seven to 10 million in top line and hardly having a database
11:07and hardly messaging them. It just doesn't happen. And this is, you know, it's not perfectly scientific.
11:12It's not a, a, a giant sample size, but it's over a thousand clients, thousands of them. And so it's
11:19pretty good directionally. And so I love, I love the past few years, especially, you know,
11:24every time we meet, it's like, what are we gonna talk about Sean? And it's like, what I see is
11:29the market is getting educated. There's a lot of noise. It's great. There are more tools. There are
11:34more options. It's hard to always know what's real. It's hard to always know what works.
11:39You have to evaluate it. You have to put time in, you know, you have to, you know, like, like
11:43Tunji did say, well, someone told me about this. Let me look and see if it's real. And so that can
11:48be a distraction. It can be a time suck, all that stuff. But ultimately it's, it's leading the
11:51industry forward. And so I love that that's now evolving into, we are building a playbook for
11:57growth, at least something that people can say, all right, I got to add more people to my list and
12:02I got to find ways to do it. Or I have to, you know, send more emails or more texts or more social posts.
12:08At least you're getting some pieces of a playbook to say, okay, if I'm, if I'm going to sustain this
12:14in a very competitive market, or I'm going to grow to another revenue level, these are steps I can
12:19take. I just love how that's unfolding. I love us being a part of that. Did you know that Toast powers
12:25over 140,000 restaurants across the United States, Canada and UK? It's an incredible company. I'm on the
12:33Toast customer advisory board. They are proud sponsors of this show, restaurant influencers.
12:37We couldn't do it without their support. They power our barbecue restaurants in San Diego.
12:43If you have questions about Toast, if you're thinking about bringing Toast on to be your primary
12:48technology partner at your restaurants, please reach out to me. I'm happy to get a local Toast
12:53representative to take care of you. You can reach me at Sean P. Welchef on Instagram. Once again,
12:59thank you to Toast for believing in the power of technology, the power of storytelling,
13:03the power of hospitality. Back to the show. Tony, when you, for me, you know,
13:09we have another show called Digital Hospitality, which you guys have been on before, but Digital
13:13Hospitality is the essence of why we created this media company, why we come here, why we're,
13:17why we're so excited to share this with anybody that will listen to this. We'll watch this.
13:21Building a team. To your point, things are competitive. There are new vendors that pop
13:28up all the time. One of the things that I care mostly about is leadership, humans at the top,
13:33and how you build your teams. For me, watching PopMenu grow just in the last four years of the
13:39first time that we came to the show and we, you know, did a video together and, you know, we hung
13:43out and we did some content. Not only are you continuing to grow, but you keep showing up.
13:48Yeah. Why is it so important for leadership from all levels? I mean, everyone that's down below us,
13:53you have an incredible team that's there engaging, asking questions, not just selling,
13:58but you're also listening and you're also supporting. Yeah. Why, why?
14:03I don't know, man. That's a deep question. Let me, let me give me, let me get back in the zone.
14:08You know, I think when Brendan and I and our other co-founders started talking about the business,
14:12like I always tell people in our, in our former life, we bought like four companies
14:17and, um, we bought more than that, five or six companies and, uh, most all, but one of them
14:23were owner operators. And I remember always walking out of that saying, wow, you know,
14:27I really admire that they had the gumption to go out and take a chance. Yeah.
14:31Cause it's hard. Even when it's good. My wife's like, why are you stressed? Everything's good.
14:36I'm like, it's still hard. It's still stressful. Like, you know, every day there's like 10 reasons
14:40why you're like, I'm done. Yeah. Um, the second thought I always had was, man, I, I feel like
14:45I'm as good as that person. Yeah. Uh, just, I think I'm competitive. You know, I played athletics
14:51growing up and through college. And so I just always felt like that. But then when Brendan
14:54and I started talking about it, you know, he and I came from pretty humble beginnings, I think,
14:59you know? Yeah. And, uh, I, you know, in this world where you're dealing with Silicon Valley
15:03and all, you know, everyone goes to Stanford, everyone goes to Harvard, blah, blah, blah.
15:07Uh, I don't mean that in a bad way. I don't mean that in a bad way. I wish I would've gone there,
15:10to be honest. Yeah.
15:11But I think, I think there became this thing where like, you know, you don't have, you can still be
15:18a good, a good dude. Uh, you know, you, you don't have to come from a certain background to be
15:23successful. And I think, at least for me, I don't want to speak for Brendan, but I think there's
15:26probably some, some similarity there is we want to show people that you can, no matter where you
15:30come from, no matter what your background is, if you care about what you're trying to do and you
15:34care about the people that you're working with, you, you can be successful. And so we've proven that.
15:37And I think like truth is we give away more equity, I think than probably any startup that
15:42I'm familiar with. Uh, and that's more, that's more from Brendan. Cause I probably wouldn't give
15:46as much as he did. Uh, I have tried to stop him. Uh, but I think our, our philosophy was,
15:52Hey, if everybody's an owner, you know, if everybody has a piece, uh, in, in the game,
15:59then they're going to care a little bit more. And so I think first and foremost, it starts with that
16:02is we felt like, Hey, if everybody has, you know, some equity in this, then they're going to be that
16:07much more committed. And I think that, I think it starts with that. Um, and then I think it's like,
16:11Hey, we try and foster people, give them forms to share feedback or challenge things. And frankly,
16:17we wish people challenged us more because it's hard when you're a leader. Uh, no one wants to come
16:22with you and say, Hey, Tony or Brendan, like, I don't think this is any good. Um, but you really need
16:27that if you want to drive the business forward. So anyway, it's a rambling answer to the question,
16:31but I think like we started with an idea that we thought our idea would help a lot of people
16:35and obviously want to make money. Yep. But I think I also started to say, well, Hey,
16:39if we want to achieve what we think is possible, we have to be like-minded with, with the people
16:45that we hire. And so you have to give them equity, you have to give them opportunities. And so I think
16:49that's been helpful. I think it's helped us a lot more than it's hurt us. You know?
16:52Yeah. I think like, why do we have people here who are non sales? Like we have, we have a big chunk of
16:57our product team here. We have CX here. We have obviously sales, we have marketing. Um, we are not
17:04separate from our clients. We are not separate from the industry. It's all of a piece to us.
17:09And it's like, how can you ask product to be of a piece? I mean, they're meeting clients all the
17:13time, but this is different because you can feel it. It's tangible. I'm so tired of being in Slack.
17:18I'm so tired of being in zoom, right? I'm tired of being a max headroom on zoom. And it's like,
17:23this gives them all that feeling, you know, of like, this is a big industry. There's a lot going on.
17:30There's a lot of moving parts, a lot of partners and other players. And it's just great to be able
17:35to have that mix of conversations. And you just come out with a more holistic view of what should
17:40we be doing and how are we doing in all of that? So my grandfather, he taught me to stay curious,
17:47to get involved and to ask for help. And I share it on stage. I share it on podcasts. I say it as a
17:52reminder to myself, curious people come to the show, curious people, listen to a podcast,
17:57read a book, come to a keynote. Getting involved is another thing. You actually have to do something
18:02with that curiosity. But the hardest one for me is asking for help. And like Tunji, the fact that
18:07you're a marketer, chief marketing officer, and like you asked for help from pop menu says a lot.
18:13And it inspires me because I too need help and we all need help. And we have to have the courage to go,
18:19Hey, I can't do all of these things. How did you learn how to ask for help?
18:23Oh man. Besides getting fired. Yeah. I mean, that'll, that'll do it. That'll center you real quick.
18:34I, you know, I don't, I don't really know the best answer to that question because
18:39for me, it's always just been a drive to, to get better. Right. Like I literally wake up in the
18:46morning and I'm like, all right, what can I do today that can get me 1% better when my, my best
18:53friend, Andy, who I grew up with and was the one that, uh, introduced me to the steam boys concept
19:00when him and Brandon, our, our, uh, CEO were, were drawing it up. It was a couple of years ago where
19:06me and Andy were sitting in the kitchen and we were just, we were just thinking, man, like,
19:10I think we were about at the third store at that point. And he was like, I was just thinking,
19:15I'm like, man, there's nobody in this, in this restaurant right now. Like, I don't even know
19:19what to do. And he said to me, um, dude, at this point, this is actually great because at this point
19:27is when we can sit and figure out the, the little things that make us 1% better every day. And if you
19:33get 1% better every day at the end of the year, you're 365% better. So for me, it was always just
19:40figuring out like, okay, well, even if it's not looking so great right now,
19:46asking for help opening, that's probably my, one of my biggest flaws is, is being humble enough to
19:53say, Hey man, I don't know it all. I don't, I, you know, I don't know it all, but, and I, but I won't
19:59look dumb if I admit that and I go to somebody who does know more than I know in the, in the area,
20:05or even they might know less, they still might know something different. So I guess, I mean,
20:10especially this year, one of the biggest things I'm learning is talk to everybody that comes in
20:15your path, figure out what you can learn from them. And if, and if you can give something to them,
20:20yeah, that's, that's even better. You know what I'm saying? But for me, it's, it's, it's just,
20:23uh, I guess to be more concise to your question, learning to ask for help has to become a habit.
20:31Um, and if you, if it becomes a habit, well then at the end of the day, you're,
20:35you're going to end up in a better spot, even if you have to end up getting fired or look dumb along
20:40the way, you know? Have you seen the new Vince Vaughn movie,
20:44Nona's on Netflix? I watched it. My wife started watching some of that. You did start watching some of
20:48it. The reason why I bring it up is like, it hit me like a ton of bricks because it's a movie
20:52about a guy quitting his job, asking for money from his best friend, opening up a restaurant,
20:57having, you know, because of his mom, because of his grandmother getting, you know, these Nona's to
21:02become the kitchen and he's opens it up. And it's just like every other restaurant or like empty
21:07restaurant, like no one's coming. And like, he has no money and he has to leverage his house.
21:12And like, he's got to go through this insane journey where he's, you know, pitching PR companies
21:17to come in and like, please come review my restaurant. I want to talk about artificial intelligence.
21:23How can artificial intelligence help those struggling restaurant owners that are opening
21:27up a new restaurant or have nine restaurants or, or have a hundred restaurants start to use tools
21:32like AI as a publicist, as a digital marketer to help to do some of that stuff that, you know, frankly,
21:39we've all had to just figure it out along the way. Yeah. Yeah. I mean,
21:45I love that we were, we were doing AI before, you know, the chat GPT moment. And, and so we got to see what
21:51it was like before. And then we were in good position to take advantage of it when the generative
21:54tools were available. The thing we've seen over and over is, uh, consistency and personalization
22:01are, are just so much easier with AI and they're so important. And, and I can show you client after
22:10client, after client, after client, after client, the, they turn on our AI tools or now, I mean,
22:16we've, we're expressing AI. Thank you. They liked your response. We're expressing AI a lot of
22:23different ways now. So two years ago we met with you and we had launched a product that was a month
22:28of, of communications created by our unique data set, bounced off chat GPT. And then we made a whole
22:34month of communications. Um, last year we talked about, Hey, we're seeing real results from this.
22:39Now we're seeing results in scale. And so all these patterns are coming out and the pattern I can tell
22:44you is impressions correlate with sales. And for us, we, we have a narrow definition of impressions just to
22:51keep it, uh, really focused. And that's like an opened email, a text sent, a social post sent through the
22:57platform. And I can, I can go to client after client and see they turn on an AI tool, uh, one of our AI
23:04products or, or, or they, we, we don't force it. We give you, we say, Hey, we're going to start generating
23:10content for you and we're going to auto approve it unless you come in and change it. Cause a lot of people just
23:14don't have time. And, and, and so waiting for them to approve, you know, that, that, that was holding us back.
23:19Now we're sending like, we sent 75 million emails last month. Like, and that's, it's, it's wow.
23:25Significantly. 75 million emails. Yeah. Amazing. And, uh, I mean, we sent 500 million last year, so
23:30it's growing like crazy. And that's just emails. Um, but what you see is we have these beautiful graphs
23:36built into our platform, uh, and they show impressions go up and then sales driven by those impressions go up.
23:44And we only have, you know, visibility into a certain percentage of them, but it's over and over and over and over.
23:48And so that is as simple as it gets is impressions generate sales. AI is the easiest way to do it.
23:57But in general, like there's no, um, there's no way to generate more impressions and pop menu, uh,
24:04with less time, less money. It's just, it's an impression factory. And so I would also tell Vince
24:10Vaughn to put his no-no's in the, in the emails, you know, like that's a story.
24:14Is Vince Vaughn's watching?
24:15That's a story I don't know.
24:16It should be yours from Chicago, right? I was thinking, oh, this is the perfect time.
24:20Yeah, it would be.
24:21But, but so it, what I love and I love Tunji's use of our platform is so great because it's like,
24:28there's a certain level of blocking and tackling that should be just happening without you even
24:33touching it. I equate it. I do everything in analogies. I may have even said it here before,
24:37but it's like, if I had to think every time I needed to blink or I needed my lungs to, you know,
24:42fill, take oxygen, let it out and everything, I wouldn't be able to do anything like play
24:45basketball or play guitar or whatever. If you have to try that hard just to put a picture of food or
24:51an event or a offer in front of all of your people, whether that's email, text, you know,
24:58it has to be omnichannel, you know, social, this and that. Like there's a lot that has to be done
25:03to make sure there's a base of impressions. Tunji uses all that. And then he goes above and beyond
25:08and does awesome little creative, you know, reels and stories and stuff like that. And I think that's
25:14a perfect use where it's like AI lets him not have to spend so much time on the stuff that's like,
25:19look, just putting food pictures in front of people works, right? Just putting events in front
25:23of people works, just putting, you know, offers in front of people works, but then you can add on
25:27your, your, who are you and your story and, and, and the known as thing, or, I mean, I looked,
25:35Tunji told us a story. We had him in a leadership meeting is how we first spent time with him to tell
25:40us like, what's wrong with the platform. What do you like? What do you not like all this stuff?
25:43And he told us about a partner that they brought in from China to teach them how to make,
25:47Speaker 3 Oh man. Yeah. The Zha Long Bao soup dumplings.
25:52Speaker 3 Soup dumplings. And that whole story, I was like, I want a soup dumpling right now.
25:58And also, I just now believe that you have the best soup dumplings in Nashville because no one
26:03else did that. Speaker 3 I hope so, man.
26:04Speaker 3 And so it's like, you can use AI to, to form the base of your outreach, the base of your
26:10impression generation can be there, then special stuff, storytelling, then you have time for it. And then
26:15that becomes things that you catch people based on who you are. And so, um, that's what I think is
26:21it enables you to kind of be free from some of the stuff that doesn't really make use of your human
26:26intelligence and your, you know, hospitality mindset and your story. Then you can go tell that story.
26:31Speaker 3 Amazing. So we recently launched a restaurant technology sub stack series. So you can go to
26:37sub stack search restaurant technology, please subscribe to it. We're doing really deep work. I believe as a
26:42restaurant owner, show me, don't tell me. So we've been going inside restaurants,
26:47showing the technology at work, having real stories. I'm going to come to Nashville. We're
26:51going to do this in real life, but today we're also going to be filming with pop menu to talk and show
26:57off some of the really cool things that they've been building, that they've been working on. So
27:01check out that episode, uh, real quick. What's a reason why someone needs to get out of their
27:06restaurant and come to Chicago, go for it. The food, the food, Chicago's got bomb food,
27:12but you, you get out of the restaurant. Um, like me, I was, I was stuck in the restaurant
27:18and not being able to see past the next day, past the next week, past the next, the next month.
27:24Obviously now that I'm here, I'm, I'm looking into literally, okay, this is what I want to be in the
27:30next two years, three years, five, 10, you know, and I, I always knew that I, I needed to think
27:36about that stuff, but now I'm being forced to see it and I'm being forced to see it in the most
27:40productive way. Yeah. So yeah. He's killing us. He's making us terrible. He's phenomenal.
27:47Tony, what's the, what's the reason why someone should get out of their restaurant and come to
27:51Chicago? You guys are talking about AI. I was going to jump in, but, um, I think the bigger question
27:56for restaurant tours when it comes to things like AI is, can you afford to be the only one
28:00that's not at least learning about it? Because the truth is it levels the playing field. If you're
28:05a smaller operator, it allows you to produce content and consistency that a 20 location that
28:11you're competing with it has a lot more resources. So I think, I think it's important that you have to
28:15start learning and dabbling in that. Hey, if you're, if you're unsure, you know, maybe you don't do
28:19everything in AI, but you should say, well, how can I improve my, you know, email or how can I produce
28:24more social content using AI? So I think it's learning, you know, first by far for us as a
28:30company, it's like, Hey, we, we get to hear feedback from our, from clients and prospects.
28:35And so you, if you visit with a thousand people and, you know, 890 of them tell you these two
28:40things, the most important, you can start to say, okay, well this is maybe we go back to the product
28:44team and say, Hey, let's focus on these couple, these couple of things. And I think it's also like
28:48we learn what our, what's important to our partners. You know, like we have a lot of great partnerships.
28:52Square is a good example of one of our partnerships in the POS side, deep relationship.
28:56We learn what's important to them. We learn how they're talking to sellers and how they're helping
29:00sellers. They send sellers to us and vice versa. So I think, I think it's all about learning. You
29:06know, you have to restaurant business hard. I've never owned a restaurant, but I waited tables when
29:10I was young and I would tell you, like, I think everybody should do it. I'm making my kids do it.
29:15And I think it's a hard business, but I think it's a fun business. Like what I love most is,
29:20uh, I don't know about Brandon because he's a product guy, but before pop menu,
29:25I wore a suit and tie like every day for 16 years. And I remember when I started this business,
29:29like, uh, I got thousands of dollars of stuff in my closet. I'm never going to use again.
29:33Yeah. Um, so, but, but I love the fact that every day is different. And I think, uh,
29:39the challenges today are different than the challenges of a year ago. They're going to be
29:42different a year from now. So I think you have to be constantly learning. Doesn't mean you have to change
29:47everything, do a wholesale, um, transformation, but it's like every year you should be iterating
29:53on something. So I think this is like the perfect forum because you meet prospects,
29:57you meet customers, you meet tech providers. I think it's a great opportunity. It's, it's,
30:01I think it's the best shot. And we've been to a lot of shows in various careers,
30:04but this is by far the best show, not even close, not even close. Wrap it up, take it home.
30:09I mean, a little bit of both of theirs is like, uh, had an old, uh, an old CEO who was, who was like,
30:16you're just, you're chopping wood every day. You're chopping and chopping and chopping.
30:20Yeah. And if you're not stopping and sharpening your acts, you're getting less and less effective
30:26every day. I hate, I hate having to give him credit for that. I was always like, stop,
30:31stop with your old man, whatever it is. There's a reason it's a truism. It's true. You gotta stop and say,
30:38my tool is less efficient now and I'm working harder and harder and getting less done.
30:42Yeah. Uh, this is sharpening your ax, you know? And I don't think it's just get out of the
30:46restaurant. I think it's get out of your cubicle, get out of your home office, get out of your
30:50whatever, because, um, you can't learn that much really, really by yourself at home. Like you can
30:58watch some YouTube, you can read stuff, whatever. Interacting with humans is how you actually learn.
31:02And so there's a ton of them here and they're all thinking about the same things you are.
31:07And so that's it. Sharpen your ax. Yeah. You're not alone. If you're watching this,
31:11if you're reading this, if you're listening to this, come out to the show. Thank you to Informa.
31:15Thank you to the National Restaurant Show for allowing us to be here. Thank you to Toast for
31:19believing in this show, for believing in storytelling. Thank you to Pop Menu for the hospitality.
31:24As always, stay curious, get involved, ask for help. We'll put links to everyone up here so that you can
31:30connect with them on social, find them on the website and I'm weirdly available. And we look
31:35forward to next episode.
31:39Thank you for watching. Thank you for listening. If you've made it this long,
31:43you are part of the community. You're part of the tribe. We can't do this alone. We started,
31:47no one was listening. Now we have a community of digital hospitality leaders all over the globe.
31:52Please check out our new series called Restaurant Technology Substack. It's a Substack newsletter.
31:58It's free. It's some of our deep work on the best technology for restaurants. Also go to YouTube
32:03and subscribe to Cali BBQ Media. Cali BBQ Media on YouTube. We've been putting out a lot of new
32:09original content. Hopefully you guys like that content. If you want to work with us, go to
32:14BeTheShow.media. We show up all over the United States, some international countries. We would love to
32:19work with you and your growing brand on digital storytelling. You can reach out to me anytime
32:24at Sean P. Welchef on Instagram. I'm weirdly available. Stay curious, get involved. Don't
32:29be afraid to ask for help. We'll catch you next episode.
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