Week 3

Over the last 2 weeks Eric and myself have continued to enrich ourselves with the way of business and employment in the restaurant industry. Eric and I were joined by Willie and David so we had some company in working construction among other things. We haven't done much different stuff, just more of the same in different ways from our previous post. We have learned many more things about the restaurant industry over the past few weeks.

For example, last week our sponsor and his colleague had a business trip to Las Vegas which they told us all about. I literally had no idea of this part of business until we became involved with Mr. Doody and BBRG. Basically, they went to a large "shopping center" convention. All of the nation's largest and most prestigious developers such as Simon were in attendance. At the convention Mr. Doody, along with both regional real estate heads (One Western US, one Eastern US) had meetings every 30 minutes with potential sites for a new Brio or Bravo. These sites would be prospective for as late as 2015 or early as late 2013. That is another thing I was amazed by, how far ahead they work. Anyway, when they came back we went over the entire list of who went to what meetings and such. Mr. Doody would go to the big developer because he had personal relationships and makes stuff happen. 

A point that also came up that is important is in these meetings, you must be as professional as possible. Cheesecake Factory and Brio/Bravo are two of the best restaurants in the industry and are the best run. This means that instead of Mr. Doody selling themselves to a new site, developer WANT them to be in their site, essentially they get to pick between 10-15 sites that they think will be best out of 50-100 offers they receive. 

On the professional note, Mr. Doody for example may walk around with a little "swagger" because he can. He'll throw on a white linen suit for the convention so he looks good. 

We learned this lesson that you must be professional, act professional, and dress the part to be successful first hand in a previous meeting that week.

We got to sit in on a meeting with Mr. Doody and the owner's of Paladar. Many up and coming founders and presidents look to Mr. Doody and the BBRG organization and way of business for guidance when working on their own projects. Anyway, they came off as a bit too confident and one of them was walking around wearing a t-shirt and jeans. We learned that was the same outfit he wore to the shopping center convention the year before and it he simply looked ridiculous and unprofessional. 

Sitting in on meetings like that one we learned a lot as we just stood by and listened to them talk about projections, site prospects, things like that. Another great lesson was learned in the process. We learned to always expect less and be surprised by more rather than expect more and be disappointed by less, if that makes sense. For example you would rather expect 3.8 and get 4.2, than expect 4.8 and be disappointed with 4.2.  

Another meeting we sat in on that week was with the founder and president of Melt. That was especially interesting because he was doing a lot of things right and Mr. Doody let him know that. We went through almost everything that he was doing right and the stuff that Mr. Doody was questioning he took note of. The owner of Melt really learned from Mr. Doody because he knew that he could, the guys from Paladar weren't trying to learn as much I thought. 

Along with working in the office during the afternoon, many times during the week we were working construction in the morning. We really got into the dirty work during week 3 because the plumbers began to come in. To be continued.