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Ellis Winstanley, co-owner of Austin’s El Arroyo and CEO of Axial Shift, turned a quirky restaurant sign into a cultural phenomenon while also building software to solve operators’ biggest headaches.

Watch now to learn about turning a restaurant sign into a media brand, pulling off a statewide April Fool’s prank, and building tech that helps operators stay focused on hospitality.

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Transcript
00:00You don't have a brand like Yeti and you don't have the governor to be able to pull something
00:04like that unless they trust you. The brand has built up a lot of trust. How do you do that?
00:08Most restaurants are involved in their communities, right? Restaurants are actually
00:11at the first place. The communities go, like, sponsor my Little League shirts. Can you donate
00:16a gift card? Restaurants are that glue for communities.
00:20Welcome to Restaurant Influencers presented by Entrepreneur. I'm your host, Sean Walchef.
00:32This is a Cali BBQ Media production in life, in the restaurant business, and in the new creator
00:37economy. We learn through lessons and stories. It is our deep belief that storytelling is a superpower
00:44and our job on this show is to find the best in the game of restaurants, the best in the game
00:50of storytelling. Today, we have a very special guest, Ellis Winstanley. He is the CEO and co-founder
00:57of Axial Shift. He also runs and owns a little brand called El Arroyo, among many other restaurants
01:06in his portfolio. Ellis, it's been a while that I've wanted to have you on this show. I obviously
01:13have learned about your restaurant as many of our viewers and listeners have on the internet.
01:21I think most recently I saw Tim Ferriss, who I am a huge, as a podcaster, somebody that is one of my
01:28silent mentors. I'm a huge fan of the 4-Hour Workweek and obviously how he builds in public and shares
01:35storytelling. But he posted the El Arroyo Book of Signs, some of the best of the best. But welcome to the show.
01:43Thanks for being here, Ellis.
01:45Yeah, thank you for having me. It's exciting to be here. I've been looking forward to this for a while now.
01:51We're going to start with my favorite random question, which where in the world is your favorite
01:54stadium, stage or venue. I mean, being a Texas Longhorn, I guess I'd have to go with the Texas
02:02Longhorn Stadium in Austin, Texas. Beautiful. Texas Longhorn Stadium. We're going to go there,
02:08talk to Toast, who sponsors this show. Thanks. Shout out to Toast for believing in storytelling.
02:13We'll talk to Entrepreneur. We'll get some other brands involved and we'll figure out a way to fill
02:17the entire stadium with hospitality professionals, people that play the game within the game.
02:23We're going to do a new style, TEDx style conference. I'm going to give you the mic on
02:29the 50-yard line. I'm going to say, Ellis, I heard a story that you closed the restaurant deal
02:37while your wife was giving birth to twins. True or not true? Tell us the story.
02:44That's my wife's embellished version of the story. So the final deal points were worked out
02:49from the hospital cafeteria where she was on bed rest with the twins over the worst cup of
02:55pumpkin spice coffee you've ever tasted in your life. And I would back up and I was like,
03:01hey, we got a new deal. And she was like, I'm having babies tomorrow. Tell me about it after.
03:06So, yeah. Shout out to all the wives and husbands. Every business is a family business. I heard,
03:17obviously, I've been following your career, listening to your content. I heard that story. And
03:22I think every restaurant owner, every restaurant leader, we build our restaurants, we build our
03:29businesses while we build our families. And that kind of hit home for me because a lot of our growth
03:36as a media company, as well as as a restaurant has been while my wife was in labor with my son or with
03:44my daughter. And there were certain significant moments in life where, you know, I don't even know
03:49if I'd be here talking to you. I was a restaurant owner. I still am a restaurant owner, but I spent all
03:55of my time being an owner operator. And it wasn't until I had the birth of my son where I started
03:59thinking, maybe I'm not just in the business of restaurants. Maybe I'm also in the business of
04:03storytelling. And that's really when we started building out this Cali barbecue media, telling
04:09entrepreneur stories and marketing and branding stories. And I'm so grateful that I had that moment
04:15because now I get to sit here and talk to you. Can you bring us bring us back to that actual that actual
04:22deal? Yeah. So that was, that was the yellow Royal deal. Um, you know, and we've been chasing
04:28it around for a few, for a few months and it was on, it was off, it was on, it was off, but we just
04:33knew there was something special about it. And that was our, let's see, that would have been our
04:36fourth restaurant, fourth and fifth. There was two of them. We bought it. So there's fourth and fifth,
04:42uh, restaurants. And so, yeah, I mean, it was just, it was super, it was super exciting. It was funny.
04:48We didn't even realize the power of the sign when we bought it. It was kind of like a,
04:51what are we going to do with this thing? Like it had the messaging, it drifted a little bit and it
04:56was, it was kind of like a, you know, almost like a distraction versus something that was really,
05:03uh, really a centerpiece of it. So, but yeah, my, uh, how did it, how did it bring us, bring it? Yeah.
05:12Bring us into this, the, to the process. Like when, when did you realize, like, when did you realize
05:17the true value of the sign? So, you know, we had, um, I think we took over, so we actually had an
05:24arrangement where, where the person we bought the sign from was managing it for the first,
05:29it was going to be like the first six months and about three and a half months we, and we took
05:33over managing it. And we started to experiment with like making it more connective and more authentic
05:38and more like less, less funny, mean or funny, gross and more funny. Like we're laughing together
05:44about this or it's connective or it's something like strikes a memory, a positive memory in the
05:48past, or it could be a, you know, self-deprecating memory or whatever, but it's just something that
05:53people would really connect with. Um, and it just started to go and you'd see every day you get like
05:58a few more, a few more likes and followers. And then, and then, uh, my wife and I back then,
06:04you know, with Facebook, you had less than a hundred thousand followers. Um, you could invite
06:09people who liked your post to like your page. And so up to 500 people a day per user. And so
06:16I remember Paige and I like, like lay in bed at night inviting people who'd liked whatever the
06:21sign was that day to like the page until we hit, eventually we got to where we were hitting 500 people
06:26each. And of course they don't only accept your invite, but we did this from like 3000 followers to
06:3160,000 followers. And along the way, it's somewhere around like 25,000. We were like, all right, this is
06:37starting to be like a thing. Like, I think this has got legs. Um, at 60,000 followers, we realized you
06:42could buy an $18 JavaScript app that would just do that for you. And so, uh, that, that took it to
06:49a hundred thousand. And then we, and then Instagram started to really take over Facebook. And, um,
06:54but yeah, I mean, that was, it was kind of a, it just kind of needed to be recentered. It was like
07:00there in front of us the whole time. We just didn't realize how, how special it could be.
07:04And so it took us, you know, a couple of years to really dial it in, but
07:07I mean, right now you have 717,000 followers on Instagram, 291,000 followers just on Facebook. I mean,
07:16that's over a million just on those two platforms. Um, I mean, you're basically in the publishing
07:22business. Yeah, we are too. We are actually, we have a company called Cozumel publishing company,
07:27actually. So, um, so in 20, fast forward to like 2017, we started in like 2015 thinking we wanted
07:33to make a book of these signs. Um, so we go around, we talked to all these publishers and
07:37nobody would publish. Everybody's like, it's too niche. Nobody's going to buy this. We're going to
07:41get stuck with inventory. It's like, Oh, that's cool. We'll self-publish it. If you go to self-publish it
07:45and they're like, well, your cost of the book is more than you can retail it for. Um, and so, so
07:50Paige, Paige is like, well, we'll just form, uh, we'll form Cozumel publishing company down to
07:55secretary of state for like 315 bucks and then go around to some printers and be like, Hey, I
08:01represent, you know, I'm a publisher and I represent, we've got this El Arroyo book. Give me
08:05your price to print it first, first round. We expect second round, third round. We really didn't
08:09know what to expect, you know, but anyway, we got a deal. We got a printing deal that we could,
08:13you know, that the margins worked on and then, and then launched it and, um, ended up with,
08:18ended up selling out of them twice that winter on, on Econ. And then Paige put the balance of the
08:24books from the third run after we filled out the back orders. She put the balance of the books in
08:29the trunk of her car and, uh, drove them around the Texas triangle, you know, Houston, Dallas,
08:34San Antonio through Austin and like hawking them out of the trunk of her car ended up with 20
08:39something retail stores. And so that was kind of the birth of Cozumel publishing company.
08:43That's amazing. And where has it come? Like, how far has it gone? Like, where are you now?
08:51So she's got, uh, she's got 340 SKUs of products now that they sell to retailers in 48 States,
08:58nine countries and cruise, a bunch of cruise ships, like 20 cruise ships. And so, uh, the high seas,
09:05I guess she's got, um, yeah, she's got retailers everywhere now. Sells a lot online and, and, uh,
09:11it's a, it's a pretty good size. Yeah. It's all products based on the sign. Yeah. So now there's
09:18designs that have kind of spun out of it. And there's, there's a t-shirt line that's about to
09:23launch, a hat line's about to launch. And there's, there's products that are just, uh, patterned,
09:27right. With sayings on them. It's not even just, you know, first it was like the sign,
09:31like a literal representation sign. That was like a graphical kind of representation. And now
09:36there's just like, just the sayings are on things. Thank you. Second guy, Harvey shirt or something
09:40like that. That's incredible. Did you know that toast powers over 140,000 restaurants across the
09:48United States, Canada and UK? It's an incredible company. I'm on the toast customer advisory board.
09:54They are proud sponsors of this show, restaurant influencers. We couldn't do it without their
09:59support. They power our barbecue restaurants in San Diego. If you have questions about toast,
10:04if you're thinking about bringing toast on to be your primary technology partner at your
10:09restaurants, please reach out to me. I'm happy to get a local toast representative to take care of
10:14you. You can reach me at Sean P. Welchef on Instagram. Once again, thank you to toast for
10:20believing in the power of technology, the power of storytelling, the power of hospitality. Back to the
10:26show. Uh, I would love to talk about brand deals because you've done some awesome brand deals,
10:32but one in particular caught my attention. The, the, the Yeti deal. Can you share the story of the,
10:38the Yeti brand deal? Yeah. So we ended up, uh, so we got the, we, we decided we were going to do a
10:45co-branded Yeti tumbler. And so we decided how we wanted to launch the product. And we'd previously
10:51had, uh, well, we like started doing margaritas to go at El Arroyo during COVID. It was like kind
10:58of legal. And then we helped work on making it all the way legal and then helped work to explain
11:02the other States, how we got it all the way legal. Um, but we, um, we ended up with, uh, working with
11:10the governor's office, someone that, so I called the governor's office and I said, Hey, listen,
11:13we want to do an El Arroyo, uh, Yeti collab. And, and the theme is going to be April Fool's day.
11:20We're going to steal the sign. And we want the governor to deploy the Texas department of public
11:24safety to find it. And so we did. So we went and we left, we put up a drone at kind of an angle
11:30where security camera would be. And we got our maintenance guys out there and building like
11:33grinding on it. There's sparks flying everywhere. And we put like security footage tags on the video.
11:37So it looked like a, like an old eighties era security camera. Um, and then we just left
11:43some like bolts and stuff on the ground, put on the trailer, took it down to the Yeti,
11:46the Yeti store. Um, and we hit it down there. And then the next morning, of course, the news
11:53stations were like, we're like, Oh, the El Arroyo, we just posted like a blank picture on
11:57the Instagram page. The sign's gone. And then we didn't say anything. And the news stations
12:02for like a few hours, we're trying to sweat out whether this is a really an El Arroyo. I mean,
12:06uh, April fool's joke or not. And then eventually they're like, we got to run the story. So run
12:10the story, like El Arroyo sign gone. And then, and then the governor's, the governor does this
12:14like thing with the giant DPS officer behind him. And he's like, and he's like, we got to find that
12:19sign. And then it was like clips to like footage of like cops screaming into a parking lot and like
12:24a helicopter. And then, and then it clips to the Yeti store and they unveil it. And, and then we gave
12:29away like free, uh, free, like three or 400 free ones with like a token for a free Margarita or
12:34something. And, uh, yeah, it was just, it was, it was a lot of fun.
12:38How, I mean, there's so many moving parts to a brand activation like that, but I think the,
12:45the biggest lesson is you don't have a brand like Yeti and you don't have the governor
12:51and April's fools to be able to pull something like that, unless they trust you.
12:55So you've built up a lot of trust. The brand has built up a lot of trust in order to execute
13:03something like that. How do you do that?
13:06One foot in front of the next. I mean, just trying to like, trying to connect with people
13:10every day and do, and take opportunities to do, to do good when you can. I mean, I think
13:15we use the sign a lot of the times to do things that are positive for the community to help,
13:19you know, we used it one year, I think whenever those got, whenever the, um, the second round
13:26of like stimulus was supposed to come like right before Christmas and then it didn't happen.
13:30So we gave away a 5,000, like, uh, family meals for 5,000 people. Um, you know, like we'll
13:37do, well, it's, it's fun because like most restaurants are involved in their communities,
13:40right? Restaurants are actually at the first place the communities go like sponsor my little
13:45league shirts. Can you, can you donate a gift card? You know what I mean? Like restaurants
13:49are that, that glue for communities. And so, um, you know, we're fortunate to have the sign
13:56that we can use to make it really to, to, to, to accelerate some of the things we're doing
14:01during COVID whenever, um, we had this idea. So we, when we were involved with the restaurant
14:06association for the margarita thing, um, in Texas, we had this idea, they were kicking
14:10off the Texas restaurant relief fund and nobody, people weren't really donating to it. At that
14:15point, people were like, I need to figure out how I'm going to like survive this. And so
14:18of course there are big companies with capital. So one of our, one of our teammates got Robert
14:23Earl Keene. He's like a real famous Texas country music singer. If you ever heard like
14:28Gringo honeymoon or, you know, so got Robert Earl Keene to play the first live stream concert
14:33from the Yellow Royal sign. And he's in his garage studio. We introduced, and he's like,
14:39how can we get my buddies to play too? So we got like 20 of his 15, 20 of his friends and
14:43they're all doing sets. And like, we're using the sign to introduce each act. And we ended up
14:48raising $27,000, um, which kicked off the fund. And then of course the restaurant association went
14:53around all these larger potential donors. It was like, Hey, look, fellow rogue and raised
14:5727 grand, get out your checkbook. You know, it ended up, it was like a $3.2 million raise
15:02when it was all said and done. So we just, we try to use the leverage, um, that we, that we have
15:09to do good when we can. And I think that, you know, I think that what goes around comes around.
15:15When did you fall in love with the business of restaurants?
15:19So I started bartending when I was 18 years old. I moved out as I can't, the day after I graduated
15:25high school, I moved to the, I moved to the university of Texas. And at that point you could
15:30go to summer school early and, uh, like get in. So there's a ton of kids there. I, I, I had barely,
15:36I barely gotten in. And so I, I went and I took one psychology class and I was bored one day. So
15:42I saw on the daily text and newspaper and ad for bartending school. And it was like the strip center
15:46chain smoking, learn how to make drinks from the early eighties, you know, kind of, kind of
15:53bartending school and it was 600 bucks. And so I got, I got a payout plan to pay my $600 tuition over
15:59six months. I made it like working after I graduated the bartending school and I was working at this bar on
16:05Sixth street and this place was wild. And I mean, like I learned everything not to do if you want
16:09to stay in business. Um, like that bad behavior was celebrated. Um, but we were putting a lot of
16:16money in the registers and the guy that was an operating partner was spending it faster than we
16:21could shove it in there. And so I didn't pay the taxes. So I could buy, I could buy this bar for
16:26paying the $19,000 tax bill, right? Which I did not have $19,000 for it. And so I went home and I was
16:32like, ask my folks, is there any way you can like sign on loan with me or lend me the money
16:37or just something? I want to buy this bar. They're like, no, go to college. And so I was
16:42like, all right, fuck. All right. So pardon my language. And so anyway, so I, so I didn't buy
16:47that bar. And then I started going to the Naval Recruiter's office, um, underneath Dobie
16:53Mall, which is a building at UT. And after several months of going there, um, you know, I wanted
16:59to go to officer candidate school without a college degree, which was something you had
17:02to like test into. And then I had to, I want to go to a different program that a bunch of,
17:05uh, other, you know, people were going to Annapolis wanted to go to. So it was hard to get into.
17:10And so I was like, Hey, I want to, I want to do these things. And they're like, no, I was like,
17:15all right, see you later. And so they're like, wait, wait, wait, come, come sign up. I'm like,
17:18no, no, no, I'll see you later. And so like, I might go back every few weeks and I do this
17:21at the recruiter's office. And eventually they were like, all right, well you can, if you sign up,
17:26you can go test into these things, but if you don't test in, you're just, you're like on a
17:29ship somewhere. And I was like, all right, it's fine. And so I was like, I'll, uh, I'll try it.
17:34And so I went home and I told my folks, all right, I'm dropping out of college. I'm going to the Navy.
17:38And they're like, we will co-sign alone if you don't do that. So I bought a diner.
17:41No way. Yeah. Really? Yeah. So I bought a diner.
17:47Uh, and tell me about the diner. It's a 24 hour punk rock diner. It's been in Austin since 1977.
17:53You still own it? No, I sold it in 2018 and now it's gone. They're widening the highway and it's
17:59got torn down. It's called star seeds cafe. It was wild, man. There's a guy named, there's a guy
18:03named, uh, Doug. I remember Doug was the dishwasher. Super nice guy. Doug lived. I'm pretty sure he lived
18:10on the bridge out front of the restaurant. He had like a trash bag poncho on fantastic, super, super
18:16like protective, loyal, hardworking dude. Like good dude. It was like, there was, that was new to me. Um,
18:21and so, um, yeah, it was a mess. It was the youngest person there by a long shot and went
18:27to work, working on hell of a bit of help and got it, had it been going and then got
18:31the, uh, campus bar, bought the campus bar the next, uh, summer. So I graduated from
18:36college. I had turned around, uh, two distressed restaurant. Well, the 24 Diner and the campus
18:41bar, which had food. It was called Cane and Ables. So still have Cane and Ables.
18:45How many restaurants have you been a part of now?
18:50Let's see. So I had eight with one under construction. As far as the number we owned
18:55at the peak, um, we did a, there was a group called Trudy's in Austin that I did. So because
19:01I, cause I cut my teeth doing restructuring stuff, I've been pulled into some restructuring
19:05stuff over the years. And so that was one where we actually came in. They were, um, they
19:10got an overextended and we came in and we provided the, the debt it's called dip financing
19:14when you're in bankruptcy court, it's called debtor and possession financing. And so myself
19:18and a, and a partner of mine who's a bankruptcy attorney, we came in and we, uh, for the debt
19:22financing. And then we, um, it, it acted as advisors, put in a, put in a new manager.
19:28And that was in, that was in December of 2020 and then COVID hit. And so, uh, we saw that
19:34through, we've got it sold out of the bankruptcy court or got sold out of the bankruptcy court.
19:38Um, and the fellow we brought in to run it had actually been in running, uh, Matt's all
19:43rancho. I don't know if you know, Matt's all ranches, famous restaurant in Austin. It's
19:47like super high volume, really cool story about that. By the way, we got an old guy named Matt,
19:51this developer was trying to buy his restaurant to put, uh, to put a high rise hotel there.
19:58And that was an old boxer. And Matt says, um, and Matt was gonna sell it to him for 2 million
20:03bucks. And they come to the closing table. Matt can't talk anymore. His voice, his vocal cords
20:06are gone. And, and, uh, they're at the table. And, and as the story goes, it, Matt looks
20:12at them right when they, they sign, they pass them papers. He goes, not, not enough. Like
20:16it says not enough, but like, you know, and, uh, they all get up and they leave the room.
20:20They're all like flustered. They get up and apparently they gave him another million bucks.
20:24And then they also built him a giant restaurant down on South, South, uh, no, you know, and I
20:31think, I think it was one of those deals where like, you probably like, they're like, maybe
20:35y'all sell it to you. And they got them all the way to the closing table on a, maybe.
20:38And then, you know, um, that's amazing, but yeah, it's the highest, it's the highest volume
20:42restaurant in Austin. It's a great place. Uh, that's incredible. But yeah, so he's got,
20:47they've got a giant, but yeah, so I, I heard that today had gone from like being a few million
20:51to like 20 and we hired the, um, the GM had, he had been the GM there for a long time to come
20:57in and help do the restructuring of Trudy. So that was one, that was, that was four restaurants
21:00we were involved in that we didn't actually own. So about 12. And then we ended up with Axial over
21:05the years as we rolled Axial shift out. Um, you know, I had a, I had a, our first customer
21:12was a, what was a real estate investor that got thrown into being the restaurateur. And
21:19so I got pretty involved in that one just cause I would get a lot of phone calls on what do
21:23I do now? And, uh, so I've been in a lot of advisory type capacities.
21:27So is it more difficult building a rest or fixing a restaurant build a company or starting
21:35a software company?
21:37Oh, they're super different. I mean, they're just hard in different ways. You know, I think
21:41anytime you're trying to do something really different than what's already, what's pervasive
21:44in the market, it's hard. Right. Cause you're really, it's more than your point about story,
21:49Tommy, you're not, it's not just executing a certain task and fitting into a mold that already
21:54says, you've got to make the mold. You've got to persuade people that this is the way
21:57should be.
22:02How, how do you, how do you learn? What's your process for learning for staying curious?
22:07Uh, I've never had a problem staying curious. I, my, my problems, I learned things the hard
22:12way. You know, there's a lot of people, I think they're smarter than me and they just
22:15get it. Do I look better? I'm like, no, I'm just going to do it wrong a couple of times.
22:18And eventually I'm going to get there for sheer persistence outweighs smarts any day
22:24of the week. Where did you learn persistence from? Is that DNA? Probably, probably my poor
22:32parents. Yeah. They probably, uh, yeah, man, I was, yeah, just head down and keep on going
22:41until it works. You know, tell me about the work you do at the Texas restaurant association.
22:48So I'm the, I'm the vice chair of the board this year, which is like being the vice president
22:53of anything. You're a, it's a cool title. You don't, you don't do a whole lot. I'll be
22:57the chair next year and, uh, and I'll have more responsibilities, but you know, I got involved
23:03in 2020 again from the margarita thing. So, um, we, um, but yeah, I mean, I've, I've, I've
23:11just tried to find ways to contribute over the years, wherever I could to whatever initiatives
23:14and fortunately the Texas restaurant association is fantastic. And these guys are like,
23:18it's really unbelievable. I mean, every time you turn around, they're, they're leveling
23:21it up and they're digging into a, digging into something that like most people wouldn't
23:26even attempt. So it's, it's quite an impressive organization. It's fun to be a part of.
23:34Yeah. It's most, what advice do you have to restaurant owners that are considering joining
23:39their local or national or state level association? Why, why, why should they do it?
23:45So the way I think about, the way I think about business is there's like, there's a few
23:49decisions every year that really matter, right? Like two or three decisions in a year that
23:54actually matter. Everything else is just like nose to the grindstone, you know, disciplined
24:00execution, you know, incremental progress. But like there's, there's those two or three
24:06things are the, the ground shifters, you know, the things that really level an organization
24:10up or, or expose you to an opportunity to, to really grow. And so if you're into, if you
24:19want to grow, if it's, if it's more than like, I want to execute this one restaurant, there's
24:24nothing wrong with that, by the way. That's what somebody wants to do. I still think there's
24:26a lot of value there, but particularly if you want to go, you know, grow fast. I think that
24:31being around people who are asking questions is the way you identify with those two or three
24:37really important things are. I mean, a lot of times I don't know. I, I'd like to think
24:41our best menu items and our best operating choices and our best business ideas came from
24:46being around the people who were in our organization, just listening to them, hearing, hearing the
24:53way they're seeing the world, you know? So the more of that you can do, you're talking about
24:58a relatively low cost. Normally there's some kind of insurance product or other partnerships
25:04with, with tech companies or insurers, whatever, um, training providers, whatever that end up
25:11more than covering the cost of it. So I can know in Texas, it's an absolute no brainer. And I think
25:15it's that way in, in most of the States. What have you learned about the restaurant technology
25:22landscape now that you're building out axial shift? Um, you know, I think the restaurant, I think
25:30restaurant technology is, is stuck in a world of it's, it's going to be hard to execute. Right. And
25:36so, you know, the way I got into software was I, we bought, we did the rest, did the restaurant
25:42projects and then ended up like turning around a concrete company and a women's game day apparel
25:48company. And then like a printing and promotional company that had its own factory. And the software
25:53for that factory was terrible. It was really, really old. And so we ended up renting a little house
25:58in the West campus of UT and had an intern to hire program where kids could walk over between class
26:03and write code. And that ended up leading, we hired the best ones and we ended up building this really
26:07expansive software platform. And then we went and bought five more restaurants real quick and looked
26:12up and was like, man, this is hard. Everything's hard. And it's always pulling the manager into the
26:18office. And I don't want the manager in the office. I want the manager on the floor where the
26:22action's happening. I want them like learning guest names and helping new employees understand
26:30a little bit how they can improve the way they're working their section or the way they're
26:35expoing the window or the way they're cooking, whatever. Like there's so many opportunities
26:38to share information and they can't do it if they're stuck in the office. And so that is what
26:42led us into getting into restaurant software in the first place is I want people doing what their,
26:48their core passion is. And at the same time, I want to be able to help them understand,
26:54use the information we have that we're collecting through the POS or whatever,
26:58help them understand how they can improve. And I don't think my perspective on that's changed at
27:02all from that point. I mean, that was in 2014 when we realized that we tried for a couple of years
27:07to get some other software companies to actually build what Axial is. And then we built, we just,
27:11I finally got tired of waiting around and we moved some guys from the other team and we built it
27:14ourself. Um, and then slowly went to market. I think, I think like every project, you know,
27:23I have, I have a tendency to underestimate things, which is probably why I take on so many things,
27:27right? If you like realize how hard it was going to be. It's the gift and the curse at the same time.
27:33Persistence plus absolute underestimation of how hard things are. Um, and so, you know, I think,
27:40I think the restaurant world really is stuck though in this idea that like everything's a big,
27:44every tech decision is a big decision. Every tech implementation is supposed to be hard. It's
27:48supposed to be time consuming. It's supposed to be disruptive. And I really don't think it should
27:52be that way. You look at like e-com, right? So Shopify is a very pervasive system at this point.
27:57And it's become, it got traction because I had a better checkout experience. It's become pervasive
28:02because it's easy to extend. It's easy to implement apps. If I want to go test a new inventory app,
28:08I can install five of them in less than five minutes and I can test them all and I can just
28:13uninstall the ones I don't like and run with the one I do like. And when my needs change four months
28:18from now, I can just uninstall it and change in the restaurant. I think the restaurant world needs
28:22that kind of flexibility. I think in 2025, things are moving so fast that you need to have the ability
28:28unencumbered to get better every single day. And the idea that like all the different tech
28:33providers are kind of like hanging people up with different, you know, and, and that's not a
28:39function of, I don't think it's a function of, by the way, I think we're actually really lucky in
28:42the restaurant space to have so many people that are absolutely passionate about building cool tech
28:47that will help people normally industries that came out of. I just think it's a function of the
28:51finance markets and everything else where people are going, not tie them up on a contract.
28:55And the reality is like sometimes what people need today isn't going to be what they need six
28:58months from now. So I think, I think it's a huge, um, I think it's a huge gap and a huge
29:03opportunity. When you look back at your restaurant career, is there a particular failure or story
29:10that you look back at and that you've tried, you've, you've obviously learned from, I mean,
29:16I think the toughest thing is there's so many that we forget. And we, you know, I, I know personally
29:21until we started doing a lot more content on YouTube where I was actually, instead of just
29:26interviewing somebody like we do for most of our shows, I started telling stories and I'm like,
29:31Oh my God, I forgot about all of these things, all of these scars that I have as a restaurant tour.
29:37Are there any ones in particular that you can share with us?
29:39Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. Uh, the biggest one by a long shot is hiring the wrong, like we try
29:46to grow real fast. We, we hired the wrong, uh, leader to run our restaurant group. And then we gave
29:52them way too much control, way too quick. And it was a disaster. I mean, cultural disaster of the worst
29:58kind, right. It took a long time to recover from, it was a very, very, very painful lesson that I
30:05just wish I had learned through somebody else's storytelling and not through my own experiences.
30:11Um, you know, but I mean, ultimately it made a, it made us, you know, learn lessons the hard way.
30:18Sometimes that was an exceptionally hard, hard lesson. Uh, and I think it's, I think there's a,
30:27you know, we, it totally changed our perspective after we got through it, but it took years to get
30:31through it. Um, to the point where even at, and that's what led us to Costa Rica in the first place
30:36was like a, uh, uh, you know, an intense focus on culture. Um, because it was, you know, such a hard
30:44learned lesson the other direction. So. It's awesome. Uh, if you guys are watching this,
30:49listening to this, we just launched a restaurant technology sub stack newsletter. Uh, if you want
30:54to link to that, it's a free newsletter. It's a chance for us to, to share some of the deep work
30:59that we're doing, you can text me or DM me on Instagram at Sean P Welch, F S H A W N P W A L C H E F.
31:07Uh, Ellis, before I let you go, I need to ask you about your personal tech stack. Are you an iPhone or Android?
31:14iPhone. Which version?
31:18Whatever the latest is the hardware itself is a 15, I think, but the, whatever the latest OS version is.
31:25Perfect. And what, when do you decide to upgrade your phone?
31:27Whenever the battery can't handle it anymore, which doesn't take long the way I use this thing.
31:33What's the first app you check in the morning?
31:37Um, that's a good one. I normally look at my notifications and then decide which app to check.
31:43Which do you do notification zeros or do you have notifications on the apps that you use the most?
31:49I have notifications on the apps I use the most. Normally I end up checking axial first. Um,
31:54and then, uh, probably email. Uh, how many emails do you get a day?
32:01Uh, hundreds, hundreds, hundreds, uh, probably four or five, 600, maybe depends on the day.
32:07How many do you enjoy reading?
32:08Uh, a handful of them. The ones that, uh, the ones, the ones that tell me, uh, you know, we've always got a lot of projects that sales are good.
32:21Yeah. The ones that tell me sales were good. And the ones that are, you know, Hey, we closed this deal or Hey, the, this is moving in the right direction.
32:28You know, we've, we've always got lots of moving parts. So what's activity to keep up with?
32:31How many hours a day do you spend on your phone?
32:35Oh man. My kids are busting me for this the other day. I think it's, I think it's too many.
32:41I think it's probably about a dozen, a dozen hours. Uh, do you spend more time on your phone,
32:47on a laptop or on a desktop where do you do your best work?
32:51Probably phone phone.
32:53Um, you prefer phone calls or text messages?
32:59Probably text, but it depends. Yeah. It depends on the subject matter.
33:04And then your team, your executive team, how do you guys communicate?
33:09Text, Slack, Slack, text, WhatsApp.
33:13Uh, Oh, you use WhatsApp to international, right?
33:17Yeah. Because we have people all over the world. Yep.
33:20Uh, are you, do you use zoom?
33:22Google meets or teams?
33:25Definitely not teams zoom and Google anything, but teams, anything, but teams, uh, zoom and Google
33:33meet, uh, zoom teams use zoom because most, you know, more people for that, but internally
33:39we use Google meet.
33:40How do you listen to music?
33:43AirPods, Apple, which, which platform stream, uh, Apple maps or Google maps.
33:50It depends on where I am. Uh, if you're in Costa Rica, both of those will take you through
33:54the middle of someone's farm. So it's ways. If I'm in the U S it's Google, Google maps.
34:00It's ways, ways in Costa Rica, but Google maps in the U S.
34:04Got it. Uh, what's your, what's your favorite restaurant tech? That is an axial.
34:09My favorite restaurant toast, probably say toast toast. Yeah. We actually just got toast in
34:15place at a river at a tubing business. We own where, you know, where you like give us
34:19somebody a rubber tube. They grab a beer and float down the river, pick them up in the school
34:23bus. Yeah. We're like 40, 40 handhelds. Cause like we looked up and we're like, man, we just
34:27need throughput. Like the industry specific software was slow. And I was like, you know,
34:31it's fast. Toast is fast. And you know, it's a good checkout experience. Shopify. So we're
34:36actually building our own Shopify to toast integration right now. Um, in a week, 40
34:44handhelds at the tubing place. Yeah. Yeah. We put like thousands of people a day in the
34:49water, like moving them through there. That's amazing. Uh, do you have F and B also you have
34:54food and beverage? Yeah. That's amazing. Any more businesses like that on the horizon?
35:03We're looking to buy more of those. I mean, we're building more yellow rows. We're buying
35:05more of those. And then, um, but yeah, that's, that's kind of our growth stuff, right? It was
35:10Axial, uh, El Arroyo. We'll, we'll, we'll do smart positions of the tubing businesses. Like
35:15I said, and then, um, we've got a branded products company, the factory we bought back in 05,
35:20that got us in the software business. So we'll, we'll expand that as well.
35:25What advice would you have to a restaurant owner, a restaurant leader that's, uh,
35:30right now running their restaurant, obviously they found this content, which we're grateful
35:36for. Um, but what, what kind of advice would you give to them for the long run?
35:40I think, I think restaurants are about how people feel, right? So, I mean, how, how the
35:44customers feel, which is how basically reflection of the employees feel. And so I think, I think
35:50there's like a handful of things that really matter in a restaurant sales, law sales, labor
35:54purchases are kind of four things a manager can actually do something about. Um, and I think so much
36:00of it is, is, I think there are so many distractions. So to me coming up through, through restructuring
36:06is what I learned was it's success is a lot more about what you stop doing than what you
36:11start doing. And so to put more time focused on the most important things, I think is,
36:17is, is, is the clearest path to success as far as great advice. Definitely. I used to be a yes
36:25man and I'm learning more and more how to say no, saying, saying, saying no actually
36:29helps me, uh, focus on the things that I have said yes to and have committed to. So,
36:34uh, Ellis, what's the best way for people to keep in touch with you? Um, your brands, LinkedIn.
36:40Yeah. LinkedIn probably. Okay. We'll put links down there or email. Um, yeah, I'll give you
36:45my email as well. My ellis at axial shift.com. Awesome. Well, Ellis, uh, thank you so much.
36:52I've really enjoyed this time. I can't wait to, uh, come and spend some time in
36:56Austin and come check out, um, not just El Royo, but definitely, uh, the, the tubing
37:02place sounds, what's it called? What's the tubing spot? It's called the Rocket R sound
37:06in New Braunfels, Texas. The Rocket R. The Rocket R, an hour south of Austin. Yeah.
37:10The Rocket R. Well, uh, sounds like a trip is in my future. And if you ever make it to San
37:15Diego, I can't wait to give you some Cali barbecue and spend some time. I look forward
37:21to that. Uh, as always guys, thank you. Thank you so much. Stay curious, get involved and
37:25don't be afraid to ask for help. We'll catch you next week.
37:30Thank you for watching. Thank you for listening. If you've made it this long,
37:34you are part of the community. You're part of the tribe. We can't do this alone. We started,
37:38no one was listening. Now we have a community of digital hospitality leaders all over the globe.
37:43Please check out our new series called restaurant technology, sub stack. It's a sub stack newsletter.
37:49It's free. It's some of our deep work on the best technology for restaurants. Also go to YouTube
37:54and subscribe to Cali barbecue media, Cali BBQ media on YouTube. We've been putting out a lot
38:00of new original content. Hopefully you guys like that content. If you want to work with us,
38:04go to be the show dot media. We show up all over the United States, some international countries.
38:10We would love to work with you and your growing brand on digital storytelling. You can reach out
38:14to me anytime at Sean P. Well, chef on Instagram. I'm weirdly available. Stay curious, get involved.
38:20Don't be afraid to ask for help. We'll catch you next episode.
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