Creating Reasons for People to Gather: Lessons From Europe's Food Halls | Michael Motz

Speaker A: M Right, there you go. How are you?

Speaker B: Good, good. How are you? How's everything? How are things?

Speaker A: Very good, very good. It feels like forever ago, but it was only a couple months ago that you were here. So have you been doing a lot of traveling since?

Speaker B: A little bit. We now I'm always looking on new cities to open. So we've been trying to over the last few years expand outside of Poland. So a lot of traveling, sightseeing and seeing what else we can do. So.

Speaker A: Very cool. Everybody was thrilled to have you at the conference and you um, were like a big hit. So I'm really excited about this.

Speaker B: Cool. Glad I could make it happen. But I was. I really enjoyed going so well. It was my first time in M Minneapolis, but in general I really enjoyed the conference and I think one of the questions you have was why make the jump basically across the pond. But yeah, honestly I think it's the first food hall conference specifically for food halls. I know in the UK there have been a few conferences but they're usually also with uh, POS system. But focus on more about that technology and how it can be implemented than the niche that are food halls in itself.

Speaker A: Yeah, that was intentional. We really made uh, an effort to not make it a software pitch because that's not really what people are interested in.

Speaker B: I think it was a great way to basically as you said, by bringing people together, uh, you have the best opportunity anyway to share and uh, you have living, walking, breathing commercials for your.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: Software.

Speaker A: Yeah, no, it was great. And actually that was my first time in Minneapolis too. I'd never been there before and I

Speaker B: can imagine, as I understand it's not that big of a. It's only about 500,000 I think. But I guess the other city connects and. But yeah, I was a little, maybe not disappointed but I saw that there was not much happening in the downtown. As you said, it's very quiet and then you had little pockets of activity on the west and by the school, the university.

Speaker A: So it was interesting.

Speaker B: The downtown is usually a little bit

Speaker A: more livelier and where did you come from? So you had been in the U.S.

Speaker B: yes. So I basically. Well, I flew to Minneapolis and then I took a uh, drive down to Ames, Iowa. Three hour drive down a very straight road through a lot of fields. But I have a uh, workshop that's working on my car there, building a Scott there. So luck should have it, it was within a driving range. I flew in the day before, took the car down and yeah, made sure that they've been Breathing proof that they've been actually completing it. And yeah, I'm actually flying back on the 26th to try 29th to get

Speaker A: it of um, June.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: Tell me about your business and how you got started.

Speaker B: I did a lot of things trying to find my space and what I loved. And even though I know I liked food and drinks, I never felt that I was going to end up in uh, hospitality. So my first real connection with it was when we were looking at retirement homes and getting certified forced me to work a job as a waiter and get to know people and I felt satisfaction of influencing someone's day for the better usually. So that led me to take uh, Dunkin Donuts franchise for Poland. So coffee shops, not, I guess it's full hospitality but not, not as intensive as a full restaurant or larger project. But once we parted ways with Duncan, three, four years later, we're looking at the next big thing. We, we saw that Poland is still in the back of the EU regarding disposable income spent on restaurants and bars. So we knew that's going to grow. Uh, and then we were looking what's the next trend? What's the, what's new? What's happening? We went across the world to a few places. Chelsea Marketing in Manhattan. We were in Asia in a few places. We were in Lisbon, the time out there and that was really the key. And Hoolhall in Amsterdam and then you've got Mercato Metropolitano in London and Kerb and just started maybe not taking off but seeing how everyone's doing food halls to some extent. We knew we wanted to do it as well. So we designed one. And while that was being built in a, uh, that was being restored, we found an opportunity to do one in the north. And that was our pilot project. That's how we got into food halls and yeah fully into the passion. And we spun off a few with bar operations and a few restaurants and we got into the catering business a little bit as well and opened a fine dining restaurant. So trying to collect all the different forms of hospitality to see which ones we, we are most comfortable and the best at.

Speaker A: So currently, so Full house group, how many food halls do you run versus other types of venues?

Speaker B: So we run two food halls, quite larger ones. The food town which is uh, our one in the capital is 3500 uh, square meters. So like 35,000 square feet. And the second one in Gdask is 26,7000 square feet. Okay so a little bit smaller but still quite on the larger side. And Then compared to that, we run about 22 bars, nine of which are within the food halls. But as we grew we really expanded that expertise and I have an amazing team running it. So we basically were asked to participate in other projects. To run their bars. Yeah, to elevate their operations. However, we have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Five restaurants under management. Three are ours, but we also, we also operate two more for investors. We have um, two live music cocktail clubs, one in Warsaw, one in Prague in the Czech Republic, reopened in January. And then we have one catering operation and we run a boutique cinema as well with a coffee bar. So it's become quite, quite a group. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We just opened one bar restaurant kind of concept, but street, uh, food kind of style concept in May. Forgot about that one.

Speaker A: Oh my goodness. One of the questions that I had was like what, what are the, the key trends that you're seeing here in the US we spend a lot of time talking about guest experience trends and how important it is to create experiences versus just serving people food and beverage. What are your thoughts running all these different venue types? What's, what are the key trends you care about?

Speaker B: I think experience is the number one thing nowadays, especially trends that we are seeing. Cost of everything is going up for the operator, but also for our guests. Unfortunately that's causing it to become less accessible or not limits how many times you can go. Regarding trends, we also see the obviously the slowdown in alcohol sales which has an influence on the margin because as an operator for a food hall that we subsidize live music every day in Warsaw and we do I think three or four nights in gdask, but we do a bunch of events and marketing around everything. So we subsidize that from the alcohol sales which are dropping. But we are seeing non alcoholic elements rising steadily I think. Uh, let me get into it. But I think that has consequences in itself and I think that we are looking at a very dangerous or worse moment where people stopped socializing. And alcohol was always like a social lubricant I think. And it gave you courage and it gave you usually a good time. So I think that will influence in a big part how society functions, especially with all this remote work and being behind all the time and people having less courage to meet other people. So that's uh, on a social level trend that I am particularly interested in, but also a little afraid of the consequences. Although I think everything goes up and down. So we'll see when things turn around, when people are uh, enough being healthy or over healthy. But I think back to day to day operations, I think given an experience and nowadays just giving good food and good drinks is not enough. I think that's something that we've been doing for the last few years and I think we're ahead of the curve in, in that regard because we have live music every single day. It's different on each day. It has its own, each day has its own cycle and different artists. And we supplemented with different other programming methods with, from cocktail workshops to quizzes to charity events, all these, all these things just to have our guests have a reason to come back to us and experience us in a new light. And what I particularly love about food halls is that it's a concept for everyone in the sense that you can position them, of course, more mainstream, cheaper, more expensive. But in the end you can come alone, you can come with a friend, you can come with 20 friends, you can come with your family, your relatives, your partners, your uh, parents, and just a show and just have a meal together or a drink. And anyone can bring any food they want, any drink they want. They can listen to the music or they can be farther away from the music. So it's, it's very complimentary to the social aspect and I think that's one of the beauties behind it.

Speaker A: Yeah. So it's interesting. I'll take a step back where you're talking about alcohol as a social lubricant. I don't know if you spent any time with our, uh, CEO Tim, because that's something that he's talked a lot about. I don't know if that came up in your conversation.

Speaker B: I quite enjoyed that.

Speaker A: Yeah. No, I think the point that you're making, which I actually hadn't connected, is when you remove that social lubricant, you need to create some other mechanism to get people to feel comfortable, to connect with one another.

Speaker B: Yes. And it's not easy to find. I did talk to Tim a bit, a little bit about it because I focused on honesty, uh, between cards and how it's getting closed the day still and all that. But I think it's not easy to find replaces for it. You have these morning raves happening and then, and okay, that's fun to some extent for some sort of people. But not everyone wants to get up early in the morning and listen to techno.

Speaker A: Yeah, I think that I didn't.

Speaker B: Coffee or the matcha really new to me. So. Yeah. So I think we're find, we're trying to find other ways to do it. Like Having date nights or how do you call those social meetups? Uh, let's say in different forms where either your friend introduces something, it's a wingman night, and you know, girls and boys bring their friends and basically sell the perks of that friend to, to others in the. In the event and. Or just giving, just doing uno uno night and bingo and other places that you can activate and loosen them up a little bit. Even without alcohol, then alcohol doesn't have to be a must, but it definitely needs to be even more interesting or fun or somehow active. And there's so many different ways to do it. So it's interesting to see which would work. And I'm guessing each community has maybe a different thing that may work.

Speaker A: Yeah, I think it's interesting that you bring up something that I, over the years understood about breweries. For, for example, they probably. They think of themselves as people that make beer, but really they're the best marketers out there because if you think about it, their product is almost indistinguishable for somebody who's not like a beer enthusiast. But it's the brand and that. What connection that they create with the community. And so, uh, it just occurs to me that you spend a lot of time thinking about your customers and what it's going to, you know, outside of your venue, what it's going to take to get them to come.

Speaker B: Yeah, and I think that's a question everyone has to be asking themselves just because one, there's more and more, uh, competition or similar concepts or they're hap. Maybe they're not directly competing with you. But for example, as you guys mentioned at the conference, there's more and more food halls and other concepts opening up in secondary and third markets. So that means that those people that would usually would go into, let's say the center of the city are not getting there anymore because they to some extent have an option that is equal to less or better than yours, but without the drive or the tv. I think that for. Especially in the States where you have larger distances or everyone's used to driving cars and it's a little easier in Europe, which is just more compact and. But, uh, we're seeing that as well happening not to the level of food halls opening because they just need a little bit more traffic. But restaurants and places that are opening up in like side suburbs and whatnot, it's definitely a trend and we'll see if that kind of comes around or it's to stay. Yeah, we'll see.

Speaker A: The other thing I'm surprised to hear because I obviously, uh, I live in the US so we think the world revolves around us and I understand that. But I didn't realize that the trend in people drinking less alcohol was universal. Is it, have you seen it across the countries that you really.

Speaker B: It's happening, uh, across the whole world, basically. No, I take that back a little bit because I read a study recently that India is completely head over heels into gin now and Whiskey. They're like 10 years or so behind everyone in the sense that the middle class is getting actually a lot more wealthier. The whole country's getting much wealthier and they're starting to be able to afford, let's say, some of these pleasures and luxuries. There are uh, obviously other markets where everything's going down, but I think the west is basically having this issue. Everyone's getting more health conscious. Uh, alcohol is getting scrutinized. However, in my opinion there are other substances that are being used. Marijuana that's getting legally everywhere, legal everywhere, where reduces the consumption quite strongly. Okay, food maybe gets up a little bit higher, but it's another form, it's another drug. If you use it too much, just like alcohol, you're gonna have effects of it, maybe less so and maybe not uh, so extreme as with other substances. But I think that's uh, recreational drugs that's also heavily overused at, uh, times.

Speaker A: Yeah, that's so interesting and to your point. I've been around for quite a while and I see the trends and things do come and go and it's just a matter of thinking about how do you position yourself to be instead of being reactive to be proactive about whatever trends are uh, coming or going. So as you think about your visit here and your conversation with the food hall operators here, was there anything that you found to be surprising or that you could take back and use at home?

Speaker B: I think there is an approach to, let's say effortless or contactless or that aspect where you have QR codes or other forms of ordering food that doesn't necessary require a human being. I think that is a trend that I am hesitant to accept in the sense that hospitality is always about that interaction. You could always upsell something or you can have you just make someone else stay much nicer as of course it's human based so you don't always get the best experience of it. And I know there's statistics in the States and in the UK that QR code, for example, ordering or one general order ordering application with runners that Bring you food and whatnot increases revenue, but I think it also takes away a little bit of the experience. However, I think a uh, hybrid system which you can use it if you want or some maybe you'll do your first order in person and then when you're sitting there you're like, oh, I'll order another drink. I think that that makes it work a lot better, especially at peak times when you don't want to leave your space because someone's going to take it or you don't have friends around to safeguard it, or you're just caught up in the conversation and you just want another drink but you don't want to lose out. So open up the app. Okay, you order. And I think that that is the best aspect of that solution. So in Poland it's not a very popular thing so we're going to be testing it. But I know 90% of the UK is working on those things so it's coming. So as well get used to it.

Speaker A: So then let's talk about the flip side of that. So operating where you do and having the experiences that you had and you came here and you saw the way and listened to the way we think about it. What can the US Food hall operators learn from what's being done in Europe?

Speaker B: I think the programming and um, live music. I think we have to maybe not fight, but I think we have to convince and get our guests to come a little bit more. It's a little less natural. It's also been less in the market as a trend. Less people don't know that yet. I think that's something that they should see. On the other hand, we've been very strong with the cocktail beverages and I think I also heard at the conference that not everyone's bar program is that high end. I know there's a lot of self poor the self pouring beer walls, we have one and it's great. But it's with the um, bureau ambassadors that everyone's saying that they have and I think that's great because I think we, we were debating about hosts and how to get people that are okay making sure that no miner is going to be drinking beer, have an extra um, way of enticing the guests to have a good time or just to chat them up and elevate their experience. I think that's something that we can take from you guys. On the other hand, just elevating that whole aspect. The food has to be obviously good. On the other hand, the bar offer should be great and it should also Include the non alcoholics obviously now and, but apart from that I think it's really the live music. It's not one one day of the week. It should be relatively as often as you can just so that you're open to new groups of people and ah, as they're community based more and more you're starting to be the YMCA of you know, the area. So why not program to have a space that you can use for other things for example or be open to having uh, book readings during the day for kids or whatnot. And uh, kids also are a good pool for the weekends so that we have to be open to all those

Speaker A: aspects so it sounds okay. So if you have a different act every day, how many acts do you have per year? Like if you had to estimate, oh

Speaker B: probably at least three sixty.

Speaker A: Oh my goodness.

Speaker B: I think we close, I think we close maybe three days a week, a year, something like that.

Speaker A: How do you program that? Who does that for you?

Speaker B: It was a little hit and miss at the very beginning but uh, we recruited D.J. that was very much more inspired to, to manage and, and find new talent. So also with a calling a little bit. So we have basically through trial and error created these different types of music in general for each day. So for example Monday, no Wednesday we have jam session. But it's a curated jam session in the sense that the drummer is always the same but it's also his extended network. And it also you start out at a certain level and because of that you know you don't get a lot of beginners. It's usually people that already have some skill and take that advantage to promote within their peers because a lot of people come for it and it's free. A lot of artists and even famous ones have uh, potential have come and been able to join these jam sessions just because no one expects you know, publicity from it or anything like that. So I think that opens up and gives kids and musicians and anyone that really has some music um, flair to participate. But we've had, we, we signed up with a label actually to promote on Tuesdays new rising stars that they have in their portfolio. They help us with extra marketing that they do on the side. On the other hand we, we give them stage and access to our guests and that is a funnel aspect and a way to approach that as well. We've done things with other sponsors like Bacardi, our alcohol sponsor where we did different hip hop tournaments to try and find who's the best musician and rappers and all the Oswell and On blues, um, night we have a uh, tap dancing guy that joins in and we try it with some live music as well. Surprise elements every once in a while.

Speaker A: I have to say I think this is probably the best idea I've heard all year because it solves a lot of problems. One of them which is why would I show up? And how do you get somebody like my. I'll have. I'll give you an example. My daughter is 32. She goes out by herself. She'll just go out downtown. So club and go out by herself. She's probably the only 32 year old in our cause. People don't usually want to do that. But she was an only child for a very long time. So she knows how to be alone. A lot of people don't know how to be alone. But uh, give them a reason to show up. I think that's brilliant.

Speaker B: Thank you.

Speaker A: It's a great. And it also builds community which is another big part of um, people.

Speaker B: And you'd be surprised how many. The different age gaps. It's. So we kind of position ourselves, let's say 25 plus. But depending on the night. You can get people that are around their 30s, but you can get people that are closer to 50 and still. And um, sometimes they. Both of them overtaking and having the same fun time. So it's, it's interesting how music has no age biased. Yeah. Which is amazing as well.

Speaker A: It's a brilliant idea. And that I think is a really good kind of thing to think. What would that look like in the US because some venues do that. They do music. But I don't know of one venue that does music every day of the year. That's huge.

Speaker B: That's. I think that's something that I listened and I heard that they've got maybe music on Thursday or on Friday. They do maybe something for kids on Sunday. But what about the rest of the week? How are you activating all those? I think the states have a huge opportunity because there's a lot of music talent and it's just a huge population as well. And it's just, it's been ingrained in the population for so long. Um, either if you go down to New Orleans or you go down to Nashville, you know, New York, all these. Chicago, all these places have their own music. How do you say it's like a,

Speaker A: uh, their own culture or their own kind of music vibe. They have, uh, their own kind of vibe. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker B: Exactly. And they basically bring people into that area and you can always. And live Music in bars and everything is very popular. It's a big pool. And I think getting the right sound system set, uh, all the little, some lighting and whatnot, it's not. You could do it within a budget and still be able to have a quality experience for your guests and just use the local talent. I think that's the beauty of it. And if you can swing it or find sponsoring stuff to see if you can get some a little more known ones as well. And if people understand that that venue supports musicians, then they'll start coming by themselves.

Speaker A: Yeah. And do you see any trends in number of return visitors? Can you track how many of your visitors are coming back?

Speaker B: Not yet. In the sense that from a visual point of view, I can. I see regulars. We don't, we do have like, um, traffic flow counters, so we know how many people go through the Food hall and whatnot, but we don't have a system that registers returners. However, we are working on a loyalty app that would allow us to do that. And, and yeah, just from a visual, we see how many people. All our bartenders have regulars. We see a lot of people coming through. But it is very nice to see when someone does come back and they like and enjoy it. I actually had a meeting earlier today with a couple and they were saying that they love coming to Foodtown because, uh, their two kids, just the moment they enter, just disappear and reappear with their own little beepers and whatnot and everyone has something else to eat and they're super happy because the kids do it themselves and.

Speaker A: Yeah, that's awesome. All right, we're about to wrap up. I want to let you know we are planning next year's Food hall conference. It's going to be in Colorado. Date, it's close to Denver. Okay, I'm going to get the details. I am working out the contract now, but it'll be in March in Colorado. Everybody here wanted to go to Colorado because of the skiing, probably.

Speaker B: Oh yeah. All right. I'm bringing my skis then.

Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. And we would love, we would love to have you back and we'll, we could build a whole panel around you. I think you've got so many insights.

Speaker B: I've been doing food halls for about seven years now. So we just had our, uh, seven year reunion anniversary in the northern one in gdask. But yeah, with the tracking, everything, probably eight or nine. So not shy from the start of the whole movement. And I think, sure, I'm happy to give insights on what we're doing over Here and I'm happy to host if anyone decides. I think Warsaw's great in that regard to see and we have three or four food halls so in a two million, two and a half million population city. So it's. There's a few. Either way, I'm super happy and count me in. I'm definitely gonna fly over. So happy to.

Speaker A: Oh, we would love that so much. So Michael, thank you so much. Before we close up, is there anything you want? Like where can people reach you, what you've got planned next? Do you wanna share?

Speaker B: Sure. In either WhatsApp, which is the easiest way and to catch me, but email as well. I have a LinkedIn but I have to say that I am not the best at updating that or being on it. I think it's the new Facebook for our generations and I haven't had the courage to quite get dragged into that. Uh, but I'm there. It's easy to find me through that. What we're doing now, we opened the Music Life club, live music club in Prague and that's a little bit of our focus to try and get that up and running to the standard that we have here. But we're also looking for a new place for food hall. So we have a few conversations open regarding a place in Berlin. Looked at a few things in Vienna. So always keeping an eye. Maybe something in the scandics. We'll see.

Speaker A: I'm so grateful for your time. Thank you so much. It's been really a pleasure talking to you.

Speaker B: No, uh, it's great. It was great to catch up and I really appreciate what you guys have been doing. I think you've been a fantastic job and I think the conference was great. I really enjoyed it. I think there's so much material that we could probably spend another day or two. So maybe a two day one next year would be a fun, fun way to tie everything in.

Speaker A: Yeah, I love it. Thank you so much. I guess I'll let you know as soon as it goes live and I uh, really appreciate it.

Speaker B: No problem. If you need anything Patricia, let me know.

Speaker A: All right, I will. All right. Okay, take care.

Speaker B: Thank you. Take care. Ciao. Bye. Bye Sam.