The Restaurants Grow Podcast · 2026-05-17 · 1h 18m
Key moments - from our scoring
Substance score
37 / 100
Five dimensions, 20 points each
Broadcast live from the 2026 National Restaurant Association Show at McCormick Place in Chicago, this episode features three restaurant technology leaders addressing the industry's most pressing operational challenges. John Lucas (Farmer Boys, VP of Franchise Development and Operations) discusses profitability pressures from six years of inflation and how AI-powered menu boards and kitchen punch screens are balancing dining room and drive-through operations. TechFlix AI's co-founder and CEO present their Netflix-meets-TikTok training platform designed for Gen Z and millennial workers who learn through swiping rather than PDFs - a critical solution given the industry's 14,000-dollar-per-position training cost and 80% quit rate among poorly-trained staff. Christian Wiens (Loman AI) reveals how AI voice agents are capturing the 30% of restaurant revenue still flowing through phones, with his platform answering 100% of calls, increasing order value by 18% and phone revenue by 22%. The conversation reveals AI's transformative role in addressing labor shortages, turnover, and margin compression - though implementation remains fragmented across marketing, training, and operations.
According to TechFlix AI, training one position costs approximately $1,400, and 80% of employees who aren't trained well tend to quit, making training a critical cost driver in the industry.
According to National Restaurant Association 2025 metrics cited by Loman AI, approximately 30% of restaurant revenue still comes through phone orders, including takeout, reservations, catering, and customer inquiries.
Loman AI reports that restaurants using their AI voice agents see phone order revenue increases of 22% and average order value increases of 18% because the AI answers every call without putting customers on hold.
TechFlix AI is an AI-based training platform combining TikTok's swiping format with Netflix's episodic structure to teach Gen Z and millennial workers through short-form video content organized by curriculum, addressing how this generation learns best rather than through traditional PDF manuals.
Farmer Boys identified beverage innovation as significant, noting that consumers are moving away from traditional soda and trending toward "dirty soda" and health-conscious options, with companies like Swig offering customizable drinks with toppings like gummy sharks.
Our reviewer’s read on each dimension, with quotes from the episode.
The episode is a rapid-fire trade show roundtable with 10+ guests, each answering the same 4-5 questions in 5-minute slots. A few segments produce genuinely useful data points (Loman AI's phone revenue stats, Groucho's Deli's CDP-based habituality segmentation), but the majority of airtime is consumed by food-tasting chit-chat, shoe recommendations, electrolyte tips, and near-identical platitudes about labor and AI repeated by successive guests.
we measure habituality with our CDP tool. We use a company called Picky, so we track your journeys with us from visit 1 through 5. We call that onboarding. And then after that, we kind of put you into a bucket of weekly, monthly, quarterly, or irregular.
around 30% of revenue in restaurants still comes through the phone... They're increasing their average order value by using Moments AI phone agents. Uh, like 18%. They're increasing their phone order revenue by 22% because we're answering every single call.
The episode recycles the same three themes - labor is hard, AI is everywhere, operators are overwhelmed - across every guest with almost no first-principles or contrarian framing. Two moments buck the trend: Josh Cobal's 'stop solving problems, 10x the momentum' reframe, and Anthony Presley's observation that much vendor 'AI' is simply relabelled 2010-era machine learning. Everything else is firmly within the standard industry conversation.
restaurants are problem factories. That's all they do is create problems. But if we stop focusing on solving problems... and we just focus on where the momentum is in the business, and we 10x that magic happens.
I think there's a lot of vendor promises being made around AI And I think there's a lot of VC money that's being spent on. Well, we used to have machine learning for our one to one and now it's AI one to one and it's the exact same thing hidden under a new menu item.
The guest list is a genuine mixed bag: two real multi-unit operators (Derek Rosenbaum, 31-unit Groucho's Deli; Amanda Kahaliboy, COO of Officious Biscuit) and two relevant VP-level brand marketers (Lee's Famous Recipe, Buck Barbecue Burritos) sit alongside several AI vendor founders who are essentially pitching their own products, a hospitality media founder, and a podcast host. The operator voices add legitimate practitioner credibility, but they share airtime with thinly-relevant guests.
I am the President CTO of Groucho's Deli, 31 unit chain based out of Columbia, South Carolina. Just celebrated 85 years here.
I'm Amanda Kahaliboy and I am the chief operating officer for Officious Biscuit. We are based in Charleston, South Carolina.
A handful of concrete numbers surface - Loman AI's self-reported 18% AOV lift and 22% phone revenue increase, TechFlix's $1,400 per-unfilled-position training cost and 80% poorly-trained quit rate, Groucho's named CDP vendor (Picky), and a 63% lift on 'feeling good about purchase' from a cited Buyer's Edge presentation - but these are almost entirely vendor-supplied or anecdotal. Many claims go unverified and large portions of the episode contain no quantitative evidence at all.
cost them around fourteen hundred dollars to train. One position that gets unfilled. And then also 80% of the people who are not trained well, they tend to quit.
around 30% of revenue in restaurants still comes through the phone... They're increasing their average order value by using Moments AI phone agents. Uh, like 18%. They're increasing their phone order revenue by 22%
The host asks one genuinely sharp pivot question ('What is the most important data point to you that associates to a guest?') and occasionally presses for expansion ('Is it working?', 'What does digital relevance mean to you?'). However, the structural problem is that every guest receives the same scripted five questions in the same order, vendor performance claims like the 18%/22% Loman AI stats go completely unchallenged, and a significant fraction of total talk time is spent on food consumed, shoes worn, and electrolyte regimens.
What is the most important data point to you that associates to a guest?
Is it working?
Computed from the transcript - who did the talking, and the words that came up most.
Discover more about the annual National Restaurant Association Show, the BIGGEST show in the restaurant business as I interview several top restaurant and technology leaders about what’s happening in the business, what they saw at the show and all the reasons to attend EVERY year!
Transcribed and scored by The B2B Podcast Index.
David Ciancio: Where you get tips, tricks and tactics on how to grow your restaurant business. Today we're broadcasting live from the 2026 National Restaurant association show in Chicago at McCormick Place. This is the show. This is the biggest show in our industry. If it exists in the restaurant business, it is here. Uh, people come here to network, to learn about change, to figure out what to do with their business and to meet awesome people. Like my first guest today. Who are you?
John Lucas: What do you do? My name is John Lucas. I am the vice president of franchise as development and operations at Farmer Boys restaurants based out of Riverside, California.
David Ciancio: Is it weird to like, look at yourself on.
John Lucas: Totally.
David Ciancio: What is the best thing you've eaten at the show so far?
John Lucas: You know, I just had something called a nacho bite.
David Ciancio: What is a nacho bite?
John Lucas: It was, it was basically, um, mashed potatoes with nacho cream sauce and a cornmeal crust and it was crunchy and gooey and it was absolutely amazing.
David Ciancio: Thanks for bringing me one.
John Lucas: Yeah, sorry bud.
David Ciancio: Um, what do you think is the biggest challenge that restaurant operators are trying to solve right now?
John Lucas: I think profitability. I think inflation is really kind of taking a bite of profitability over the last, really five, six years now. And um, I think finding a way to have a great value proposition for your, for your customers, your guests and at the same time drive, you know, profit. That's an acceptable level, uh, that you know, you've been used to historically, Historically it's uh, it's, it's been a constant challenge.
David Ciancio: What's uh, what are you, is there something here you're looking for to help with that or asking friends?
John Lucas: Yeah, I'm asking friends, uh, you know, just looking for ways to drive the business and I think, you know, finding ways to drive transactions and you know, particularly this fall here, looking for some innovative kind of different cuisine that we can, we can make part of the brand, uh, to hopefully drive some new customers towards us.
David Ciancio: Like nacho bites?
John Lucas: Like nacho bites. Yeah. Yeah.
David Ciancio: Uh, what is one practical way that you or any restaurant is using AI right now?
John Lucas: Yeah, so we are starting to use it uh, in our uh, menu boards, on our uh, in our drive through. We're also starting to, you know, ideate around using it for our uh, uh, punch screens in the kitchen.
David Ciancio: So talk to me about how you're
Speaker C: using it in drive thru.
John Lucas: So drive thru. Really looking at how do we, how do we use our system to uh, really kind of help more than anything the cashiers and cooks kind of navigate. Uh, and so um, finding a way to Balance both our dining room load and our drive through load and doing in a way where, you know, both of those sets of guests are happy. Right. But the expectation that the folks that are drive thru are looking to, looking to go through quickly.
Speaker D: Right.
John Lucas: The folks that are there for dining room, it's a little bit of a different experience. And so, yeah, finding, finding a way to, you know, really kind of make that happen. Um, and at the same time simplify the operation, make it a little bit smoother.
David Ciancio: Is it working?
John Lucas: You know, I think, uh, it's, it's a work in progress. Um, it's, it's, uh, you know, something I think we're going to continue working.
David Ciancio: Awesome. You got a drive through near we can go through later? We, we do.
John Lucas: We.
David Ciancio: So no nacho bites?
John Lucas: No nacho bites. And no giant zucchini sticks?
David Ciancio: We do a mozzarella pull in the drive through.
John Lucas: Yeah, we could. Yeah, yeah.
David Ciancio: Uh, what's something you've discovered at the show that you think could be next for restaurants? Have you seen anything really cool?
John Lucas: Kind of, I think beverage innovation huge.
Speaker D: Okay.
John Lucas: I think, I think people are just tired of soda. I think as folks become more health conscious, I think that they'll have a soda if it's indulgent in fun. And I, I, I think the whole kind of dirty soda is, is a trend that I think has some likes. And so I've spent some time with Dr. Beverly, spent some time with Pepsi, taking a look at their product today, kind of thinking through how, um, we can do something that would be, you know, accretive to the brand, that would be a good brand fit for us. I think, I think I found a few things in my life.
David Ciancio: Uh, can we talk about other brands?
John Lucas: We can.
David Ciancio: So have you had the swig experience?
John Lucas: I have had the swing experience.
David Ciancio: My move at the Swig.
John Lucas: Yeah, always.
David Ciancio: Ah, Gummy Sharks.
John Lucas: Gummy Sharks. That's a daring move, man.
David Ciancio: Have you done that there yet? So you can order Gummy Sharks on anything, really. So whatever soda you get, they'll put two gummy sharks on the top.
Speaker E: Top.
John Lucas: I'll be done.
David Ciancio: I'm like, who does. Why would you not get the Gummy Sharks? Like, you're in an indulgent experience. So you're gonna figure out, like, what's your gummy shark?
John Lucas: I, I gotta figure that out, man. Yeah. The nearest to me, I think, is in Phoenix, so.
David Ciancio: Okay, well, now you can go walk the show. Be like, what's my gummy shark?
John Lucas: What's my gummy shark?
David Ciancio: That's gonna Be the big takeaway. What's my gummy shark? Uh, all right, last question. What is your best trade show travel hack? Like, how do you survive these things?
John Lucas: Things?
David Ciancio: What's the John secret?
John Lucas: Yeah. I think for this show, it is being thoughtful and strategic beforehand and thinking about your travel path, because you can zip up and down these aisles all day and put on 20,000 steps. So I try to be thoughtful around. Okay. I want to see this cluster, this group. I'm going to go over there. I'm going to knock all that out, and then I'm going to go over here, knock all that out. So just trying to be awful.
David Ciancio: And at which day do you get across the. Across the skyway? Is that like, last day?
John Lucas: That's last day.
David Ciancio: Yeah. I haven't even walked over there.
John Lucas: Yeah, yeah, it always is. It's like, oh, they have all that over there, too. Yeah.
David Ciancio: So my move is, I do the same thing. I know who I want to see. I know what I'm going to see. I know where they are. I have a note in my phone. But the first day, I walk in, and it's all South Hall. So that's the day I'm like, where am I going to eat? What am I going to have? That's all the snacking, like, okay, I'm full. There's no more calories going in. Then it's coming over here. Seeing all my friends, walking over to the Boo. Seeing what's going on. Awesome. John, man, thanks for being in the show. Can't leave. You can't leave till we get a selfie, though. So live selfies. Here we go. If my phone ever works. All right, bud. See you. Are you. Yeah, I'll see you there, buddy. God bless. Thank you. Come on in, guys.
Speaker C: Come on in.
Speaker F: Come in.
David Ciancio: Show's live.
Speaker G: We're hot.
David Ciancio: Grab a seat. Get in there, get in there, get in there. Yeah, come stand in here. Whatever you want, buddy.
Speaker H: You're good.
David Ciancio: We're live, so it's all. It's all live, all the time. You may want to hold it because we. They could barely hear.
Guest: So I'll bring it closer.
Speaker D: Yeah, yeah, just bring it.
Christian Wiens: Okay.
David Ciancio: Yeah, I'm gonna grab it like this. Well, you guys are good. You guys are gonna slide in because we are broadcasting live so I can move over a little. And, uh, you have to talk into this one, because this is the one that's recording, but that's the one for them, so. Welcome to the live show. Recording. We are at the National Restaurant association show. This is The Restaurants Grow podcast. Who are you guys?
Speaker G: What do you do?
Guest: So I'm the CEO and the co founder, founder of a, uh, program technology called TechFlix. TechFlix AI, which is the first ever AI based training platform for food services and restaurant industry.
David Ciancio: Okay, cool. How does that work?
Guest: So the concept is that uh, in new generation, as you see more and more Gen Z and late millennials are coming to workforce and they don't learn training or they don't learn by reading PDF or manuals and documents. Right. So how they learn, learn by swiping. And that's how this generation is consuming content. And they're also. That's the format of learning. So we decided to bring that format of learning also in the food services industry as well. And then we realized that, well, the way they learn is from TikTok and Reels, but then Reels and TikTok are extremely noise. Right. There's no curriculum patterns of training in there. So then we brought Netflix because Netflix has seasons and episodes and episode. So we combined the TikTok and Netflix together and built Techflix.
David Ciancio: Oh, there you go. It's very smart.
Speaker F: And who are you?
Emily Snyder: My name is Emily Snyder. I'm the chief marketing officer of techflix.
David Ciancio: Awesome. Okay, so a couple questions. What's the best thing you've eaten at the show?
Guest: Palermo Pizza.
David Ciancio: Where's that? Right behind you.
Speaker F: Okay.
Emily Snyder: Um, an acai bowl that was banana flavored. It was over in the south hall.
David Ciancio: Amazing. Um, what is the biggest challenge that restaurant operators are facing right now? What's the thing they're trying to solve today?
Guest: Uh, from our segment of interest, um, the training piece is extremely, extremely important. Uh, because the challenge is that there's a very high turnover in this industry and when they lose people, it gets very difficult to find, find the right people, train them, cost them around fourteen hundred dollars to train. One position that gets, uh, unfilled. And then also 80% of the people who are not trained well, they tend to quit. So that's the biggest problem in hr, in employment, uh, resources in the industry today.
David Ciancio: Okay, uh, what is a practical way that restaurants are using AI right now,
Guest: while restaurants are using AI in some degree, from marketing standpoint, SEO optimization and paid marketing, all that stuff, but they have not yet implemented AI towards training and they don't know how to do it. So that's where we bring the value to them, uh, educating them and training them to get there.
David Ciancio: Amazing. God bless. Do you have any other, any thoughts on the AI, how it's being used Right now.
Emily Snyder: Yeah, No, I think we definitely covered a lot. The training is a big part of where AI can be going and should be going. Uh, there's so many ways that we can implement AI into training, and techflix does a great job of doing that. To be able to really teach their employees on a way that they learn and the way that they engage with and retain the knowledge, which is a
Speaker H: big part of it as well.
David Ciancio: Very cool. What's, uh, something that you've discovered walking the show floor that, uh, you think is next for restaurants? Can't say your own thing. No, absolutely.
Guest: I think what we found from our. There are a lot of things going on.
David Ciancio: What.
Guest: Would you like to talk about it?
Emily Snyder: Um, yeah, I think a big thing is the. The robots are really cool.
Speaker D: Ah.
Emily Snyder: They're everywhere. I don't know if that's going to be how that's going to be implemented or how well that's going to be implemented, but there's a lot of robots running around.
John Lucas: Yeah.
Emily Snyder: With their little carts and their little buses.
Guest: Now, I remember one cool thing. I saw a robot cooking.
David Ciancio: Okay.
Guest: So that'll be interesting to see that. How these robots come in a restaurant
David Ciancio: and start cooking and how that food ends up being.
Guest: So that'll be interesting.
David Ciancio: So cool. The only ones I don't like is the robots. That's just the little serving tray that runs around the dining room. I just feel like it's always in the way.
Guest: Right.
David Ciancio: And those big eyes scare me. And I'm like, stay away from me. Y. I'll bring my tray to the counter. You just call my name. I don't need that. Um, okay, what is your best trade show survival hack? Like, how do you get through a show like this?
Guest: Stay focused, stay hydrated. Uh, a little bit of stretching and workout. Just because you're standing a lot, you're roaming around. And, uh, and also just network, network crazy. Uh, because your net worth is your network. So build that network and meet people.
David Ciancio: You got a trade show survival hack.
Speaker G: Comfy shoes.
Emily Snyder: My favorite are from Quince.
Speaker F: Okay.
Emily Snyder: The loafers. They have really great loafers.
David Ciancio: I'm not gonna pretend like I know what those are, but I appreciate you sharing. I. I can only wear Saucony's, uh, because I have a broken, permanently broken ankle.
John Lucas: So that's. Okay.
David Ciancio: So my. My trade show survival hack in this moment is don't permanently break your ankle.
Speaker L: So.
Emily Snyder: Okay.
Speaker H: Well, that's a good one.
David Ciancio: Thank you guys for coming. Thank you so much. Yeah, you gotta do the, uh, the selfie Here before you walk out.
Emily Snyder: Yeah.
David Ciancio: So there we go. Appreciate it. God bless. Come on in here, buddy. Come on and say hi.
Speaker F: Come in.
David Ciancio: Don't trip on any wires.
Speaker L: Whatever.
Christian Wiens: I'm not a pro. Sort of.
David Ciancio: Hi, buddy.
Christian Wiens: How are you?
Speaker H: Good.
Christian Wiens: How are you? How's it going?
David Ciancio: Rev, this is your mic for the broadcast, Christian. I just said your name is Christian. Do you know that? Who are you?
Speaker C: What do you do?
Christian Wiens: Um, someone that puts on a mic. I'm also Christian Wiens. I'm the CEO and founder of Loman AI. We built the number one voice agent for restaurants. AI voice agent for restaurants in the industry today. So happy to be here.
David Ciancio: Awesome, man. Did you just get in?
Christian Wiens: I did. I. I came from Austin. I Woke up at 3:10am I was taking care of my baby, though. She, uh, had a rough night of sleep, so I was up until 1:30 and so I got about two hours of sleep. So I kind of time traveled though. I slept all the way here on the plane. It was great.
David Ciancio: Uh, there are probably some of your colleagues here that were also up at 3:10 in the morning or close to
Christian Wiens: it for different reasons.
Speaker D: Exactly.
David Ciancio: I believe the redhead was very active last night. Uh, all right, so you, you're just kind of fresh here. Have you eaten anything good yet? Anything interesting?
Christian Wiens: Oh, my God.
Speaker F: You know what?
Christian Wiens: I've not eaten that much. But the one thing that I've eaten that everybody has to try, there's a smash burger over by our booth 84. Well, uh, you know, a smash burger.
David Ciancio: Okay.
Christian Wiens: But this guy. I don't know what they do. I think they're selling like, microwaves or something. Literally that. It's one of the best smash burgers I've ever eaten. I swear to God, it's so good.
David Ciancio: Was it made in a microwave?
Christian Wiens: No, no, they're actually made on a flat top.
Speaker D: But okay.
Christian Wiens: It was incredible.
David Ciancio: Okay, where's your booth? Because I need to remember you.
John Lucas: Really?
Christian Wiens: Yeah. 8426 is the Lowman booth. It's, I don't know, five booths closer to the entrance, so you'd see it when you go by. I can't remember the name of it, but the Smashburgers are. I've got like three of them already.
Speaker D: Well, three quarters.
David Ciancio: Okay. I. I keep ending up at the Olympia booth because it's easy. And like, I know they have all the gyros. I was like, just grab one.
Christian Wiens: Oh, I. I really haven't walked around and got a lot of food, but that's. The Smashburger is complex.
David Ciancio: Smashburger. All right, uh, what is the biggest challenge that you think restaurant operators are trying to solve right now?
Speaker D: Oh, man.
Christian Wiens: I mean, I think what we're seeing anyway, uh, with the operators that we talk to, it's a labor. A labor issue. Right. Labor shortage. It's really hard to find good people to work in the restaurant. Front of house, back of house. And there's a bunch of different variables that go into that. One of those is minimum wages rising. You know, have a restaurant in California, Boston, or I guess Massachusetts, New York.
Speaker D: Right.
Christian Wiens: Any of the states where minimum rate, minimum wage is, you know, ballooning. Very hard to find good people that will work for a wage that makes sense for your business's margins.
Speaker D: Right.
Christian Wiens: And then, number two, you have to hire. I mean, I was, my first job ever was in a restaurant when I was in sixth grade, going into seventh grade, before I was legally allowed to work.
David Ciancio: I was early.
Christian Wiens: Yeah, I was washing dishes in the back. Barbecue restaurant. I worked in that restaurant to get money for my surfboard and, you know, just get, you know, cool money to go to the movies and stuff like that. Until I left for college, um, I probably wasn't the most model employee. I mean, I think labor is such a difficult thing for restaurants in general. Um, and in 2026, it's even harder than ever. So any ways that you can solve all of the issues around labor? We're talking training, uh, cost, obviously, uh, you know, turnover. Right. It's a big issue for restaurants that
David Ciancio: in my opinion, I've heard that many times. My, um, first job was busboy, but I think it was 15 or 14 or maybe something like that. And I just remember being wet. I remember, like going home every night wet. Yeah, Like, I had fun, but I was wet.
Christian Wiens: That sounds about right.
Speaker G: Yeah.
Christian Wiens: Ah, barbecue restaurant. I was wet. And there it was. All kinds of different consistencies like barbecue sauce and ranch and water in you. Don't take me back there.
David Ciancio: You were wet in different levels of viscosity.
Christian Wiens: That's right, exactly.
David Ciancio: Uh, what is one practical way that restaurants are successfully using AI right now?
Christian Wiens: I mean, okay, that's funny. I gotta talk my own book.
David Ciancio: I, uh, want to be clear. I'm asking this question to everybody.
Christian Wiens: Yeah.
David Ciancio: I fig have a very different view.
Christian Wiens: Luckily, I can talk my own book on this one. Uh, we help over 1500 restaurants use AI to answer their phones. We, we build a best in class voice AI phone agent for restaurants. So what that means is we build an AI that restaurants can put on their phones. It answers 100% of their calls. They can take their orders for them, integrate directly to their point of sale, like toast or square clover. Spot on. Integrate with their open table to take reservations. It removes the need, uh, for the restaurant's front of house staff to answer the phones. Right. And so when you remove that. I talked about labor and how hard it is to line good people to do these jobs. When you remove one extra thing that your staff in the front of house needs to do with phones, phones don't. If you look at the, the, uh, metrics from the national restaurant association in 2025, around 30% of revenue in restaurants
Speaker D: still comes through the phone.
Christian Wiens: That doesn't matter if it's a takeout. That doesn't matter if it's a reservation.
Speaker G: Right.
Christian Wiens: Somebody asking a question, catering, whatever it is, it's about 30% of your revenue. It's not all coming from online. Um, so that means, like, you have to solve the problem. Um, it's a, it's a no brainer for most of our customers. They're increasing their average order value by using Moments AI phone agents. Uh, like 18%. They're increasing their phone order revenue by 22% because we're answering every single call.
David Ciancio: We don't, we don't put anybody on hold.
Christian Wiens: Right. We can answer multiple calls at once. Right. That's kind of the, the gist.
Guest: We're live, but.
Speaker D: Okay, good.
David Ciancio: I think about it this way. If somebody is calling a restaurant, there's buyer's intent, whatever it is.
Speaker D: Yeah.
David Ciancio: Are you open? Can I place an order? Is that the, it's about, they're in a moment, they're ready to pull their wallet off or something.
Speaker C: Right.
Christian Wiens: So, yeah, and like a lot of times the, like somebody will call with just a question about whether you have a gluten free pizza on your menu or you have, you show the NFL games on Sunday. Uh, even if there's not a buyer intent, I mean that is buyer intent in general. Either way, they want to come in and spend money at your restaurant. Um, the problem is it pulls people away from the people that are actually in the restaurant. So the hospital hospitality level, uh, goes down and, and when we can take the phones away from you, uh, from, from your front of house staff and answer them and even more effective way than your staff can. I mean, it's a no brainer kind of for the restaurant. I mean, that's why we've seen such amazing growth over the past couple years. Restaurants love us. Um, and I think we're solving a real problem. For these guys, that's the way I would say. Obviously people are using AI at my
David Ciancio: restaurant, we just unplug the phone. Like I literally just. I don't even want. I'd rather go unanswered than pull my guests or my team away from my guests. Uh, I know you just got here, but, uh, is there anything you've seen at the show yet that you think is what. What's next for restaurants?
Christian Wiens: Oh man. I mean, look, I haven't. No, I can't give you that exact answer, but from. I'm not going to talk my own book here, but I will talk about A.I. uh, if you just look around in general, it doesn't matter what industry you are in, but definitely in restaurants, right? AI restaurants run on the thinnest margins of almost any business, you know, large TAM business in the world. Right. Uh, AI is uh, increasing those margins and compressing the amount of work you can do do with one piece of software infin in infinitely right now. So what that means is that you can not only like you can do more jobs with less people. That's at the most simple way to look at the. At how AI can help you. It can help you increase your revenue and do more with less. Right? So every. There's a million AI companies here. Voice AI uh, review AI uh, you know, email marketing. AI right. Like it almost seems overwhelming sometimes, I would say for restaurant owners and anybody and me, I mean even me just as like a CEO getting emails.
Speaker C: It's overwhelming.
Christian Wiens: But it's truly the biggest shift. It's a fundamental shift in the way that people work. It doesn't matter if you're in a restaurant or working at a software company or working at a grocery store, AI is going to change the way that your job happens and how the business runs. Uh, so if you are somebody that is maybe, and I see this all the time, if you're somebody that pushes away on it because there's too much of it or it's scary or whatever, you need to start embracing AI or you will fall behind. It's just an unfortunate fact of life. Um, so that's probably what's interesting here. I haven't seen a ton of it, but it's everywhere. I've seen a ton of it. Sorry, I haven't looked into a ton of it yet.
David Ciancio: Um, what is your best trade show survival hack? Like, how do you get through this?
Christian Wiens: You know what? I'm gonna use yours. I asked you this the other. When we were on the phone the other day. I was like, how do you stay so fresh? You're going to all these shows. You were like, melatonin, get to sleep on time, uh, and, like, drink, uh, electrolytes. Electrolytes is probably my biggest one. I mean, like, every morning, I drink a packet of electrolytes sugar free because
David Ciancio: there's too much sugar. Same, same.
Speaker H: Yeah.
Christian Wiens: Uh, sugar free electrolytes in a bottle of water. That's the first thing I do when I wake up. And that saves me here. Yeah. And take vitamin C. Yep, I do.
David Ciancio: So before bed, I slam a coconut water, I take 1 milligram of melatonin, but then when I get up, sugar free electrolytes. And then I also take a zinc.
Christian Wiens: Yeah, the zinc is the move. I think people don't realize how much that helps get with getting sick. Yeah.
Speaker D: Awesome.
David Ciancio: Um, Christian, thank you.
Christian Wiens: Thanks for having me.
David Ciancio: Yeah.
John Lucas: Hold on.
David Ciancio: You got to do this out for you.
Christian Wiens: Of course, of course.
David Ciancio: Live selfie on air. There we go. Awesome, man. Hey, good to see you.
Speaker F: Good night.
David Ciancio: The microphone, please.
Speaker D: Yes.
David Ciancio: Josh, Come on in here, buddy. We'll catch you around.
Christian Wiens: Sounds good.
David Ciancio: Tapping in.
Emily Snyder: How are you?
David Ciancio: I'm amazing. Here's the microphone for you.
Speaker F: Oh, my goodness.
David Ciancio: Thank you so much. Have you ever had such great concierge service? Somebody hands you a microphone, really jump in the pilot seat here. All right. Who are you? What do you do?
Speaker F: Oh, my God. I'm not even yet. Good to see you.
Speaker L: Hey, buddy.
David Ciancio: Oh, hi. Oh, good to see you.
Speaker F: Is this live?
David Ciancio: We are live. We are live.
Speaker F: Embarrassing.
Speaker H: Hello.
David Ciancio: You know how to talk to people.
Speaker F: I do, I do, I do. I'm I'm ready.
David Ciancio: Tell people who you are, what you do.
Speaker F: Oh, I'm Josh Cobal, and I'm a restaurateur and marketing expert.
David Ciancio: God bless. I've seen you, I think, a hundred times on the floor just like, from across the way.
Speaker F: Oh, dude, I'm do. I'm doing the whole thing. Shaking the baby, shaking the hands, doing the whole night.
David Ciancio: Uh, what is the best thing you've eaten at the show so far?
Speaker F: Dude, it's that Euro place we ate at last year.
David Ciancio: Oh, yeah, the best. The Olympia one.
Speaker F: But that. The Olympia one's really good. But you also took me to the one.
David Ciancio: Oh, yeah, yeah.
Speaker F: All the way.
David Ciancio: I gotta get over there, dude.
Speaker F: So good. So good. And I got there right before they closed yesterday, and they were like, do you want all of this? I'm like, yes, yes, I do.
David Ciancio: Mine was. I went to the, uh, Fiero group booth, the, uh, Italian pizza oven, and I was with Zeno, Carl, wherever Zeno is. And they were making, um, Basically they were taking almost like a Pinza, like a Neapolitan dough, and doing like, a steak sandwich and a big liquor pizza. It was ridiculous.
Speaker F: Ask me what my biggest disappointment in the show has been.
David Ciancio: What is your biggest disappointment?
Speaker F: My biggest disappointment in the show is there was an ice cream sandwich company last year from, like, South Dakota. The best ice cream sandwiches I've ever had in my life. They're not here this year. I probably put them out of business last year. With how many ice cream sandwiches?
David Ciancio: I love that you're upset about ice cream sandwiches. I think everybody else is angry. There's no hot dogs. Um, what do you think is the biggest challenge that restaurant operators are facing right now? Focus that I'm going to high five that answer. Say more things.
Speaker F: Uh, so I, I think this. I think that everyone's looking at all the AI. Um, everyone's looking at all the AI solutions and everything that's going on in their business, in their life. Um, I just have a very different perspective than everyone else. Um, I think that every restaurant owner on the planet only has one issue, and it's money. And once you solve that, everything else seems to work itself out because you can throw that money at the solutions. And so everybody's trying to optimize for this and for that. And, like, I'm just here to make money.
David Ciancio: I have. I keep on my desk a little tiny wooden mallet, like, because I get on a phone call with a restaurant, and I'm like, all right, we are. We are playing Whack a Mole right now. It's my, like, visual signal that we got to stop playing Whack a Molecule.
John Lucas: Dude.
Speaker F: It is restaurants, all businesses, but restaurants are problem factories. That's all they do is create problems. But if we stop focusing on solving problems, which I know is like, a scary thing to say out loud, and we just focus on where the momentum is in the business, and we 10x that magic happens.
David Ciancio: God bless. I'm going to call you next week.
Speaker F: Do it. I am available to you the Focus Program.
David Ciancio: Um, what is one practical way that restaurants are using AI right right now?
Speaker F: So I, I can tell you one of the ways that, that we teach and it's really effective is to diversify revenue streams.
David Ciancio: Okay?
Speaker F: So what we're doing is, is we're using it to not only build out best in class private event packs, best in class catering, uh, packs, but then we're also using AI and AI agents to scrape data to find prospects and to automate personalized emails to those individuals as well as automate the nurture.
David Ciancio: Like to. Again, like a one to one email
Speaker F: to a guest, not to a guest. Oh, uh, right. Because I'm not interested in that. Right. It is to businesses.
David Ciancio: Oh, for like catering.
Emily Snyder: B2B.
David Ciancio: Yeah.
Speaker F: Yes. Okay, sure.
David Ciancio: Do you have a playbook for this? We can.
Speaker F: I did get online.
David Ciancio: I knew you would. I knew you would.
Speaker H: Of course.
David Ciancio: Um, okay. Um, uh, what is one thing you've discovered? The show I've seen here for two days and everyone. What's something you've seen that you're like, oh, that's cool. I think this is where we're going. Has anything been sort of eye opening, thought pattern provoking?
Speaker F: So here's what I would say. I would say that I see a lot of the same. Yes, right. Like so many voice AI tools, so many, uh, you know, uh, labor maximization tools and all of that.
David Ciancio: So many aprons, knives.
Speaker F: It's all the same. I mean, the good news, good news for the people listening is this, um, it's all becoming commoditized.
David Ciancio: Right.
Speaker F: So everything is going to be so much cheaper in the near term because the technology has just made it all so much more available. So everything you see now, that's $300 a month. They're not standalone products. They're ultimately going to be features that are provided. Look at Anthropic. Anthropic just released an update. It has a skill for back office bookkeeping and accounting, and it's just included in your membership. So it's just very exciting time. So, like, I go through the show and I see all of these things and I think this is great. Can't wait till it's a dollar.
David Ciancio: Uh, you know, even New York City pizza slices are now A$50. So we got to get, we got
Speaker F: to get that back down for sure. All right.
David Ciancio: What is your best trade show survival hack? How do you get through this?
Speaker F: I don't drink alcohol.
David Ciancio: That is probably a very good. I don't do. I do.
Speaker F: Right, but you also do all of the other things. Like, I know your process. Yeah, that's, uh, it. So you're able to bounce back really quick.
David Ciancio: That's why I have the fridge cigarette.
Speaker F: You know, for sure my get up and go. Got up and win. I can have half a glass of wine and then I'm just punished for a week.
David Ciancio: Really, I do okay.
Speaker F: It's not that I don't like alcohol. It said it doesn't like me. Jack Daniels betrayed me when I turned 40.
David Ciancio: Wow, you're still drinking Jack at age 40?
Speaker F: Yeah, dude, I'm from Bad Ridge, Louisiana. I'm still representing.
David Ciancio: Jack, for me, was like, a 20s thing, and then I was like, I'm. I. I can graduate from this.
Speaker F: I can't.
David Ciancio: Okay.
Christian Wiens: All right.
Speaker F: I can't.
Speaker C: I know.
David Ciancio: You're just done now.
Speaker F: I'm just done.
Speaker E: Awesome.
David Ciancio: Well, buddy, really great to see you. Thank you for stopping by. You got to do. Got to do the selfie here. Let's do it on air. Selfie.
Speaker E: Awesome.
David Ciancio: What do you got for the rest of the day?
Speaker F: Shake a baby.
David Ciancio: I will find you later.
Speaker F: Do it.
David Ciancio: God bless.
Speaker F: Thank you, Josh. Appreciate it.
David Ciancio: Who's next?
Speaker F: Who's one?
David Ciancio: Amanda, do you want to come in? Derek, Jeremy? Anybody who's listening to me? Anybody who wants to come in? Yes, come on in. This kid. You can't hear this. You can't. You're supposed to be hearing this. You can't hear this out there. Oh, okay. Hi. Hi. Hi. You guys want to come in next? You want to be in here?
Speaker F: Yeah.
David Ciancio: Okay.
Speaker F: Hi.
David Ciancio: This is your microphone. Hi, microphone. Let's see if we move this. Maybe it's a little. Okay. Hi. Who are you? What do you do?
Speaker C: I'm Derek Rosenbaum. I am the, uh, President CTO of, uh, Groucho's Deli, 31 unit chain based out of Columbia, South Carolina. Just celebrated 85 years here.
David Ciancio: Uh, move m this one to the middle there. Uh, and you're hanging with the tribe, but not that tribe, correct? This tribe.
Speaker C: This tribe.
David Ciancio: This tribe. Uh, what is the best thing you've eaten at the show so far?
Speaker C: Oh, there's a little lamb kofta over at the, uh, Chronos.
John Lucas: It's pretty good.
Speaker C: And I had a Spam m dog, and I'm not gonna lie, it was pretty amazing.
David Ciancio: I did the Spam Dog. It's right here. Yeah, I had the Spam Dog. I was supposed to. I was at an Arizona Diamondbacks game a couple weeks ago, and the chef there, they, you know, they change all their specialty hot dogs to the different home stand or whatever.
Speaker C: Right.
David Ciancio: And he had one that essentially was like, a Euro dog. So it had, like, all the Euro stuff on it. Yeah, I was like, oh, it's cool. What do you call it? I was. He's like, the Kronos Dog. I was. Are you from Chicago? Like, who else would name this, like, Kronos Dog?
Speaker C: Nice.
David Ciancio: Um, what do you think the biggest challenge that restaurant operators are trying to solve right Now,
Speaker C: I mean, I think it's a combination of labor and, uh, you know, how to compete with your digital relevance and stay relevant in the market that we're in. And there's just so much noise.
David Ciancio: What does digital relevance mean to you?
Speaker C: What does I mean, it's not one thing. It's a collection of all the things. So, you know, how do you rank? How do you. How do consumers think about you when you're. When someone's online with intent to purchase? You know, where do you show, um, how does your brand represent itself? I mean, with the way you respond to your reviews and the knowledge of your brand that you're putting out there. And, you know, it's no one thing. It's just a collection of all of
David Ciancio: the things I have not. So I'm asking the same questions to everybody. But you're getting a special question. What is the most important data point to you that, uh, associates to a guest?
Speaker C: Habituality.
David Ciancio: Okay. How do you measure that?
Speaker C: We measure, uh, habituality with our CDP tool. We use a company called Picky, so we, uh, we track your journeys with us, uh, from visit 1 through 5. We call that onboarding. Um, and then after that, we kind of put you into a bucket of, uh, weekly, monthly, quarterly, or irregular. And then we build all sorts of marketing automations around all of these things.
Speaker L: And then you can layer in PMIX
Speaker C: and retention around pmix. And, you know, if you ordered this on your first visit, what's your likelihood of coming in for the second visit? So, yeah, we actually just. We're in the middle of re. Optimizing all of those onboarding journeys.
David Ciancio: Um, I measure a lot of things as a cmo, but one of my favorite things to measure is, uh, length of time, average time to onboarding.
Speaker D: Right.
David Ciancio: Quarter over quarter over quarter. And so I'm gonna humble brag for half a second, but since I've come to Salad House in the CMO position, we've reduced it by one to two days every quarter.
Speaker L: Nice.
David Ciancio: But we also use fancy tools like Mickey, but it's awesome. Uh, okay, what is one practical way that restaurants are successfully using AI right now?
Speaker C: I mean, I can only really answer that for my brand.
David Ciancio: Um, you're here as somebody who knows some stuff, so, yeah, I mean, I
Speaker C: mean, for us, it's synthesizing our tribal and institutional knowledge and making it readily available at anyone's fingertips at any given moment.
David Ciancio: Uh, so you're talking about deploying intelligence across the team, right?
Speaker C: Correct.
John Lucas: Okay.
David Ciancio: Yeah. So it's not just, uh, that's the way we've always done it. Here's the way we do it right now.
Speaker C: Right, right, right. We just finished rebuilding actually our entire knowledge base to make it optimized for, uh, agentic tools to interact with that. So any team member can ask any question, like they need a product ingredient or they need to know how to make a recipe or someone's new and they don't know how to make a specific sandwich or salad with, you know, one, One quick text query. You know, they'll get a written statement, an image and a video.
David Ciancio: Oh, so they text on their phone.
Speaker C: Yeah, we built a widget into, like, our iPads.
David Ciancio: That's awesome. Somebody's gonna have to do a show
John Lucas: with you on that.
David Ciancio: Um, what's something that you've discovered at the show that you think is next for restaurants? You've walked around for two days now.
Speaker D: What do you.
David Ciancio: What did you see that? You're like, oh, okay. This is either bigger than I thought. I didn't even think this was coming till now.
Speaker C: I mean, I, I think two things. I think drone delivery is coming quicker than we thought.
David Ciancio: Yeah, yeah, I agree. And I saw that presentation.
Speaker C: Yeah. I mean, they're here too. Wayne's here too. And then secondly, it's not something I saw, but it was around a conversation I had, and that is agentic ordering, ordering within these LLM platforms. And, you know, how do we get away? I mean, I, I see a future, a very near future, where people don't really. Their whole lives are interacted in a cloud or a Gemini or what, whatever your LLM of choice is.
Speaker L: So it knows your calendar, it knows
Speaker C: your schedule, it knows, it knows if you've scheduled lunch, it knows where you've eaten. And, you know, you can theoretically order directly from your own first party with a nice solid API.
David Ciancio: Yeah, that makes sense. I mean, there is for sure a growing segment of people that are going into AI and going, um, I'm looking for a restaurant. I'm going to Chicago on Saturday. They need to take reservations. I got a table of four, I got a friend that's gluten free, uh, they need a handicap entrance and blah, blah, like that. But I also think, like, uh, you know, I'm moving to this new town, I'm looking at this thing, thing, uh, and then I have to leave to go place the order. I have to leave. You're saying I'm still gonna. Now I'm just gonna stay in the chat and correct, like.
Speaker C: And it integrates directly into your first party Native ordering.
David Ciancio: That makes sense. And then next I'm just going to talk to my glasses.
Speaker C: Correct.
David Ciancio: Or my hat.
Speaker C: 100.
David Ciancio: I mean, AI, my bills.
Speaker C: I mean, I, I, you know, I think there's a general consensus amongst all of us that that are technologists. You know, we're going to be full voice within a decade or less.
David Ciancio: Oh. I mean, I, I have Google home. I mean, I have a two floor apartment with two bedrooms and one bathroom. There are homes all like, Google Assistant is all over my apartment and I'm constantly talking to it.
Speaker C: Absolutely.
David Ciancio: And I'm like, why can't you do more? I think the two most popular requests of my assistant are what's the weather? And can you play Pandora on shuffle?
Speaker C: I mean, mine are very similar, but
David Ciancio: I would love it if we did other things. Um, all right. You go to a lot of shows. You go to definitely a lot of shows. What's your biggest trade show? Survival hack.
Speaker C: Electrolytes.
David Ciancio: That is the second time that has come up.
Speaker C: Electrolytes. They're clutch before bed, in the morning, throughout the day.
David Ciancio: Oh, so you're like multiple ingestions. Oh, I didn't even think about that. I made coconut water before bed. Electrolytes in the morning.
Speaker C: Big fan.
Speaker L: Okay.
Speaker C: And symbiotics. So a little combination of probiotic and prebiotic.
David Ciancio: What is a symbiotic?
Speaker C: A combination of pro and pre.
Guest: Bot.
David Ciancio: I thought it was like a clone human. No, no, we're not doing that. Awesome.
Speaker C: Not on deck for that.
David Ciancio: Derek, you got to do a quick se. Uh, here. Yep. Actually two. So it's just to help me. All right, Have a great rest of your show, please. Amen.
Speaker G: Amanda.
David Ciancio: Amanda, you, uh, want to come be on the show? Jeremy, you're next.
Christian Wiens: Hi. Hi.
Speaker F: Hi.
David Ciancio: How are you? We are live. We are live. Big hug.
Speaker H: Great to see you.
Speaker F: Hi.
Speaker H: Likewise you.
David Ciancio: Tonight you will see movies and shakers.
Speaker D: Yeah.
Speaker L: Okay.
David Ciancio: That's the third time that's come up on the show. So we are live.
Speaker H: Sorry it's so hard to hear you out here.
John Lucas: Really?
David Ciancio: Yeah, it's crazy. Can you guys hear me if I talk directly into the microphone? All right, well, God bless.
Speaker C: Do our best.
David Ciancio: I'm not gonna do that. It looks weird on the camera.
Speaker C: Uh, who are you?
David Ciancio: What do you do?
Speaker H: I'm Amanda Kahaliboy and I am the chief operating officer for Officious Biscuit. We are based in Charleston, South Carolina.
David Ciancio: Let's say that, uh, ten times a day you speak to somebody who's never met you before. What is the average percentage of people who get your, uh, last name pronunciation correct.
Speaker H: 0. There is not a single person on this planet who has ever pronounced my last name correctly.
David Ciancio: Mine is cio, and I think it's very awesome. But it's a part of the reason I just go by Rev. Like, I've had it botched so many times, like Revolution.
Speaker H: My maiden name is no better.
David Ciancio: What was it?
Speaker H: It was Santa Croce.
David Ciancio: Oh, okay. All right. God bless.
Speaker H: And then I decided to hyphenate it, so my full name is Santa Croce.
David Ciancio: So you wanted to complicate it for people. Okay, God bless.
Speaker H: So it's just ak. That's what everybody calls me.
David Ciancio: Okay. I mean, that's your email address. So, uh, I was actually in a, uh, cafe the other day, and they're like, hey, what's the order for your name? I'm like, rev. And they came back like, eve, your copy is ready. I'm like, how did we get. Like, how did that one get robbed? All right, anyway, we're rambling. What's, uh, the best thing you've eaten at the show so far?
Speaker H: The Spam dog.
David Ciancio: Oh, yeah.
John Lucas: Literally right here.
David Ciancio: If you're watching us, it's right there.
Speaker H: It was actually Olive Brothers. That was my lunch.
David Ciancio: Oh, really?
Speaker H: Oh, my gosh. It's phenomenal. They have wagyu and they have Wagyu Spam. No.
David Ciancio: Oh,
Speaker H: I just had cheese, bacon, Wagyu, Australian Wagyu. Go over there and have lunch.
David Ciancio: I like cows. I like cows a lot. Um, what is the biggest challenge that you think restaurant operators are facing right now?
Speaker H: I'm going to say something different than everyone else.
David Ciancio: Okay, I want to hear it.
Speaker H: I think it's being nimble with AI.
David Ciancio: Okay.
Speaker H: I know everybody has labor. We all have it. It's a challenge in the business. But, uh, so many folks that I'm talking to here and just the applications and just being nearly harassed by every AI vendor out there, I think that is starting to overwhelm a lot of folks, and they just don't know how to operationalize it. So they're having AI thrown at them by all of these platforms, all of their existing vendors, and they just don't know how to use it or operationalize it, and it's becoming overwhelming noise for a lot of.
Speaker L: Yeah.
David Ciancio: I mean, even me, as somebody who I think I'm. I see myself as an adopter. Like, I'll figure out something. I'll deploy it to my team or my clients or whatever, and then 10 days later, it's almost obsolete. I'm like, I can't even keep up with it. Like, but you're right. Like we kind of have to out
Speaker D: figure, figure that uh, out.
Speaker G: We do.
Speaker H: And I'm a massive adapter of AI. It's not that I'm not, but I've kept it more within the corporate realm rather than the application downstream right now within the four walls. But that's what we're looking to behavioralize. But I think that's the challenge is everybody's just trying to do something with AI and they think it's solving a solution. And I think it's creating a little bit of complexity right now with a lot of folks because they don't have one source of truth. They're getting AI input and output from all of their technology vendors. And how do you, how do you pull all that together to actually make an effective change and application?
David Ciancio: Somebody just maybe m. Somebody needs to build, needs to build like the AI integrator. So all my AIs just talk to each other and I just log into the AI dashboard. It pulls in all the AIs business wonder. I'm not, I'm not a builder. I'm not a builder. I'm a marketer. Um, okay, well that's really going to dtail. The next question is what is a practical way that restaurants are successfully using AI right now?
Speaker H: I think there's two ways they can successfully use it. Number one is obviously guest behavior. AI can now look at all of our analytics within the business so much quicker than we ever were before. So I think AI, what it does fundamentally is it's given me time back. I now have more of an abundance of time than I've ever had before because the things that I used to do as a manual processor, you know, would have to have my team perform and then I would have to look at it. Now I have the output with within 5, 10 minutes. And so it allows us to have more time, more accuracy. I think we can look and ask more questions than we ever have before and get answers out of those. And um, then I think that a really strong way that restaurants, uh, will be able to use it is scheduling. I think that's my big takeaway from this show. And I've seen a lot of iterations of different ways that schedulers can use AI. But when you think about the fundamental challenge of labor and skilled labor in particular, particular finding, you know, restaurant GMs or assistant managers, especially depending on what space you're in, that's sometimes the most complex part of the business. It's something that's penciled up the most. It's something that they don't spend a lot of time on successfully. And it's ultimately what is have significance cost savings there. So I think if we can find a way to really operationalize the scheduling AI, that's going to be the most practical application for wall operations in the next.
David Ciancio: You literally skipped into the next question, which. No, no, that's amazing.
John Lucas: I just.
David Ciancio: You love me to say, uh, what's the thing you've seen in the show that you think is next?
Speaker H: So, yeah, I've been really impressed with some of the, the scheduling A.I. uh, that's out there and I don't know which one I'm going to operationalize at this point. I obviously already have vendors, but just seeing how quickly my team will not have to, you know, spend time writing a schedule. The way that it ingests all of the availability. It's looking at your, your product mix and your prior year, prior weeks, your forecasting, all of those things that operators, most of them aren't that skilled, especially depending on the business that you're in. A fast, casual one shift brunch. It's just not something that they're skilled in that kind of business analysis. So having that tool and then having that application and then even just the workflow that your district managers can look at it, I just think there's such efficiency to be had there and I think there's a lot of cost savings that are going to be there. So I've been really impressed. I think there's still a long way to go for some of them. I think it's something that. And I spoke to actually restaurant365, because I'm on their platform and they said that's their challenge right now is having their dev teams keep up with all of the changes. And now you have the agent of AI, so they're moving. It's outpacing us a little bit right now.
David Ciancio: Uh, our CFO Frank at Salthouse, he's like the best CFO I've ever. He's amazing. His number one question comes out of his mouth all the time. What are we about doing about cost of goods and labor? Like we have.
Speaker C: There's tools.
David Ciancio: We can just go get the tools.
Emily Snyder: Yeah.
Speaker H: So I look, I've been looking at those. There's a lot of great AI tools too around just part levels and prepping. So I think that's another way.
Emily Snyder: And that'll.
Speaker H: That basically solves your two main issues. If your prime cost is Good labor. So that's what I've been looking at here. That's why they send me here.
David Ciancio: That's why you're here.
Speaker D: Okay.
David Ciancio: God bless. Can, uh, I give you what my big favorite use for AI is? I've not shared my thoughts yet. I'm just.
John Lucas: That's.
David Ciancio: But now I'm going to share. Uh, I'm cmo, so I care about that kind of stuff. But I've had a theory for a long time that we have the wrong focus on the customer journey. We're all like, oh, well, 70, 80% of our guests are only one timer. How do we solve that problem? That's a macro human habit. Like I can't change macro humans because I offered you fries and stuff. That attainder to us.
Speaker H: Correct.
David Ciancio: Uh, we with AI and I've done this with most of the brands I'm working. We're going and examining the very exact patterns and habits of guests who are 10 plus and looking what a guest who's only been five times does and what's the difference in there? And then three to five and then trying to figure out the patterns to get them down. It's been crazy powerful.
Speaker H: And that's what we're doing with it as well with ours. Because yeah, it's the behavior. Because again, you're right. I can't do anything about the Fs. And it doesn't return or, you know, in some of our markets, it's just seasonality. You just. They're just throw. They're just coming through the market and we might not see them for another couple years. But how do you keep. How do you keep, you know, retaining the ones that you do have, but also what brought them in? Because I think you can look at it a lot that way too. Is. Is it a particular product that you can hook them with that they come in, what are they. What are their spending habits? What are their frequency habits? And now you have all of that so quickly and so officially. And you. I think that's what I love about it from a marketing. And I know I'm not supposed to be here. My m. My VP of marketing was supposed to be here at my place. And she would talk a little bit about that is that's our best opportunities. We can now be so nimble with marketing. You can be changing it in real time. So a lot of that forecasting, you know, your annual calendars. Yes. Around LTOs and so forth matter. But you can truly change your marketing at the hands of. Especially if you're nimble. Enough at the hands of the data that you have.
David Ciancio: Yeah, it's out. I was like, let's test this. It worked. Okay, do it again.
Speaker G: Yep.
David Ciancio: Okay, do it again. Just change this one thing.
Speaker H: Change this one correct.
David Ciancio: It's amazing. All right, what is your best trade show survival hack? How do you get through this? I. I can't do that.
Speaker H: Oh, uh, gosh. Uh, you know, I'm just not very good at it, quite frankly.
David Ciancio: The sleeping thing or the survival?
Emily Snyder: All of it.
Speaker H: The surviving. Um, I think you do have to give yourself a little bit of downtime at some point. Point. So whether it's just an hour before that walk the show, I try to always leave it at 3 or 4 o', clock, give myself a good hour, an hour and a half before the evening events, and that helps me just
David Ciancio: unwind a little bit. I'll give you my, my very specific. I have lots. But as it relates to that, I also leave the show just a little earlier than everybody else, but then I walk several blocks away and then I call an Uber. So not only is it easier for me to get the Uber, but I've given myself, like, 30 minutes of performance brain space. Like, I go for the walk, decompress, catch up on some emails, and then it's easier to get the Uber.
Speaker H: You don't want to stay on the taxi line?
David Ciancio: No, absolutely not. But I'm saying that's my moment of, like, disconnection. Like, it's like I'm disconnecting, but I'm also walking over there, not standing in line.
Speaker H: I just did it yesterday, and I caught a taxi in the middle of an intersection. So I did stop a lot of traffic. And people in Chicago probably hate my gods at rush hour, but it did happen.
David Ciancio: I love it. Amanda, thank you for coming on. We got to do the, uh, podcast selfie here.
Speaker E: Awesome.
David Ciancio: Thank you.
Speaker H: Thank you, everyone.
David Ciancio: I'll see you later today. Okay. Can I microphone back? Uh, where's Jeremy? Jeremy, can I get you. You good? Alex, you're next. Okay. Uh, well, thank you. We are here at the national restaurant, uh, show at McCormick Place in Chicago. We have open door policy here. Jeremy, this is your microphone jumping in the hot seat here.
Speaker C: Hi, buddy.
David Ciancio: Good to see you.
Speaker D: See you as well.
Speaker C: How are you?
David Ciancio: Get in there, get in there.
Speaker C: All right.
David Ciancio: Who are you? What do you do?
Speaker D: I am, ah, my name is Jeremy Julian. I'm the, uh, uh, co founder of CBS North Star and the founder of the restaurant Technology guys podcast.
David Ciancio: God bless. Are you doing a podcast? Are you podcast?
Speaker D: I have I'm going to be doing in booth, like I'm going to stop by some people's booths that I've got pre scheduled to, uh, to go do. And so today's day one for me though, so I'm trying to get a lay of the land before I go jump into, to go in and doing interviews. But I got at least seven or eight. Then I'm gonna go stop by people's booths and just kind of do them in the booth.
Guest: That's awesome.
Speaker D: I'm not cool enough to get a, a, uh, hamster cage, uh, worth of a podcast booth.
David Ciancio: I got an email and I said, yes, I'll sit the last booth.
Speaker D: I should have done that.
David Ciancio: Amen. Uh, you just get in now, are you?
Speaker D: I got in last, uh, night, uh, 9:00'.
Speaker F: Clock.
David Ciancio: Oh, you went to the show?
Speaker D: You walked the show? I walked, I walked kind of a little bit that way and that's about it.
David Ciancio: Okay, what's the best thing you've eaten so far?
Speaker D: The best thing I've eaten there is a bagel, uh, a bagel donut hole filled with cream cheese.
David Ciancio: Oh, that sounds good.
Speaker D: Uh, everything bagel filled with cream cheese. Nice and warm. It was great breakfast this morning.
David Ciancio: Uh, do you know what the number one answer on the board is? Spam.
Speaker D: They're out.
David Ciancio: They're out.
Speaker D: They're out today. They're out yesterday and they're out today. Um, I was just talking to Anthony and Derek and they went over there in the middle of the conversation with Amanda and, uh, they were out.
David Ciancio: That's because we're broadcasting live and everybody heard it on LinkedIn and ran over. I got a couple questions for you. Uh, what is the biggest challenge that restaurant operators are trying to solve right now?
Speaker D: Trying to understand where to invest their time to keep their time and money to continue to keep their lifestyle where they are. Uh, you and I've been talking about it. Traffic is down. So trying to understand, do I need to take price? Do I need to figure out who my customer is? How do I get more incidents? So I think more and more people are trying to figure out where do they invest their time and energy to drive that same type of traffic? Because traffic is down. So is it marketing? Is it price? Is it third party? What is it?
David Ciancio: Uh, it's interesting. We sat through a, uh, presentation at Meg from the Buyer's Edge, uh, and they said that the value segment has officially exploded. Exploded. I'm taking liberty in that. Uh, and that now people associate like three and four dollar price tags as actually being bad food and bad for you. And so now the experience of, uh, either something that makes me feel good, either in the experience, or the food that I ate is actually trending up. There's like a 63 lift on people feeling good about their purchase.
Speaker D: So I like it.
David Ciancio: That's crazy.
Speaker D: That's kind of cool. But I think that that goes to show that it's needed. You have to have. I mean, you have to deliver value in some way, shape or form to get people to keep coming back.
David Ciancio: But what they're saying is value, uh, is intrinsic. Yeah, right. Yeah.
Speaker D: So not just a low price, it's what do I get for the money that I spent?
David Ciancio: Am I happy that I spent? Totally. Uh, what is one practical way that restaurants are successfully using AI today?
Speaker D: Data analytics. It's 100% data analytics. If I have clean data, being able to get to that data to be able to make better business decisions is the way that I see it. Um, I would say there's a lot of other AI out there that's not driving value, but I think the analytics and the speed to be able to make a decision. Used to have a marketing program that would take six weeks. You'd send it in, you do a bunch of analysis that's getting down to a week. And I think being able to understand what is going on the menu, what price point do I need to charge for it? How quickly can I get it out? That's where I'm seeing AI move the needle faster than I thought it would.
David Ciancio: Uh, it is interesting. Um, you know, at the burger shop, we do an LTO every month, right? And so now, like, it's usually use me. Just usually, like, being creative. Like, oh, what's a fun idea? What if we did an upside down burnt pineapple would be like, now, literally, I just go into Gemini that has all of my information, and I'm like, create me four burgers that are on brand. Like, because we're a little weird using the SKUs I already have in my kitchen. And it's got to be themed towards the World Cup. Here's 10 burgers. And like, amazing. Like, like, it's such a simple use case, but it's like, okay, now, which three of these are our guests most likely to buy based on other hacks based on history. Now it's not even which one I thought was cool, right?
Speaker D: But I think that that used to take a slew of analysts. And so you do it based on your gut in the past. Now you can actually use the data to be able to make better just business decisions, which has always been my argument all along, is the data, without being able to help it make the business better for both the guests and for the restaurant is useless.
David Ciancio: Totally agree. M. You've walked around for a minute. Um, what is. What have you seen at the show or what have you just discovered here in your travels lately that you think is really truly the next thing? Like where what's happening right now that we all have to adopt and think about?
Speaker D: Uh, I think back to the same point that you just talked about for AI I think figuring out a way to. To get into the guests mindset to be able to make them make the friction reduce for them to be able to order. I think across the board. I'm going to go to my cloud, I'm going to go to my Gemini. I'm going to go soon to a place where I go into that and say I'm feeling like something healthy today. And it knows that I love Cobb salads with no egg, no avocado, extra, you know, whatever with this kind of dressing. And it's going to know that and it's going to say based on what I know you want to do, here's three places you can order from. You should order from here today.
David Ciancio: Yeah, that's what Derek was saying. That we won't leave AI to place the order.
Speaker D: Nope. And right now you have to. It can tell you what what burger. But even in your case, now I want to launch that new burger that you said have it go program your pos as a restaurant owner. Have it go program your online ordering. I think the opposite is going to happen for the consumer. You're going to say, I really want a salad today. Go find me a salad that meets my calorie demands and all of that. And I do think that that's a way that I'm hearing people talk about it, whether it's actually there to the level that people want it to be. Yet I think they all think that it knows everything. It knows so much more about you than we've ever even given Google or Facebook that they can do that. Um, I think, and I do see it moving the needle from a tech perspective.
David Ciancio: You've met my kid. Uh, my kid has very hyper specific tastes that are very fast food oriented. Uh, which is fine, but I don't want to eat that way all the time. So I actually had ChatGPT go and take like the top 30 QSRs in that are in my area that we kind of rel you know, go to enough times and say, build me 800 calorie menu options. So if my, if Jack is like, dad, I want to go to Sonic, I'd be like, chat gbt. What's my, uh, what's my sonic? 800 calorie just pops right up.
Speaker D: I, I need that. Uh, funny enough, I just was driving into town with my son who eats like a six year old even though he's 20. Um, and you've met my son and that son, um, he wanted raising Canes and I wanted Portillo's when I was coming into town. So he found a place that had both of them in the same parking lot and was like, okay, he's gonna go to Canes. I'm gonna go to Portillo's before I come before I got to the hotel last night.
David Ciancio: So I love it. I did have a 1:30am Al's Italian Beef. Del the video. Just saying that was mine.
Speaker D: Nobody, nobody should judge you for that. That's, that is a worthwhile.
David Ciancio: Committed it to thousands of people. So, um, what is your best trade show survival hack?
Christian Wiens: Silly.
Speaker D: Go to the bathroom when you can.
David Ciancio: That's not silly.
Speaker D: I, it is so true. I got stuck for an hour. Plus I was like, I, I, I need to go. And I didn't. I had five minutes. I should have just gone. An hour and a half later, I was still talking and I hadn't gone. I'm like, you know, but I do think that, that that's one. And then I, I also say, plan your day. I actually wrote this up a couple years ago on LinkedIn. Plan your day. What are the five things you have to do? I knew I had to be here. So I planned my day around making sure that I was here to be able to do this interview. Um, because I think without gets away from you and you don't get accomplished what you need. There's so much to see. There's so much to do. I've been in the industry for a while, so you get stopped at every. I have five things that I need to do and come up with a game plan. Figure out where they're at. We actually did it on our own on, um, our LinkedIn profile for CBS North Star. Here's the five places that you should go and this is the way you should track the trade show. And I think just that preparation goes a long way to getting accomplished what you really want to have happen.
David Ciancio: I have a. Were you a boy Scout?
Speaker D: I was not.
David Ciancio: Okay.
Speaker D: Uh, but, but I, but I was raised by my Father that talked about, you can almost never over prepare. Before I go into a sales presentation, I will prepare. So if I have a 2 hour presentation, I'll prepare for anywhere between 6 and 12 hours for that 12 hour presentation. The amount of time I prepare to make sure that I'm going to be successful.
David Ciancio: And it shows, in my opinion, revenue guy, marketing guy. Like, I'll do a podcast and they'd be like, uh, let's do a prep.
Speaker E: Come.
David Ciancio: Like, I don't need one. Just turn the mic on. I'm good. Like, I don't need prep.
Speaker D: I love it. Well, you're also. You're also. You've got. You're really successful at it.
David Ciancio: Thank you. So awesome. Jeremy, good to see you, buddy.
Christian Wiens: Good to see you, man.
Speaker D: Thank you.
Speaker E: All right.
Speaker D: Before you enjoy Chicago.
John Lucas: Yeah, thank you.
Speaker D: Hold on.
David Ciancio: We got to do, uh, a nussi here. This is the bus. Awesome. Can I have my microphone, please? Alex, Dan, you guys want to come in together? You guys want to. Yeah, come on in.
Speaker D: Come on in.
Speaker F: Get in here.
David Ciancio: Don't forget your water. Is that your water?
Speaker D: That's not my water.
David Ciancio: Okay, well, then, somebody water.
Speaker D: But it's not my water.
Guest: Somebody.
Speaker C: We'll share.
David Ciancio: We'll get. We'll get both you guys in here.
Speaker G: All right, cool.
David Ciancio: God bless. You're gonna have to share the microphone, though, so you have to pass the microphone back and forth. So, Dan, hop in there. What's happening? Hi, Alex.
Speaker G: How are you?
Speaker C: All right, make sure you're on screen.
David Ciancio: So you want to maybe scoot in a little? We can scoot it back. All right, God bless. Uh, who are you? What do you do?
Speaker G: Hi, I'm Alex Jano. I'm VP of marketing for Buck Barbecues Burritos.
Speaker M: And I'm Dan Sokolik, VP of marketing for Lee's Famous Recipe Chicken.
David Ciancio: All right, Dan, you go first. What's the best thing you've eaten at the show?
Speaker M: Oh, my gosh. I had, uh, the Omarosa's Italian Bakery, the cheesesteaks.
David Ciancio: Have you had an Omarosa roll before?
Speaker M: Uh, yeah.
David Ciancio: Oh, so you know. Okay. All right. I got the same tradition.
Speaker M: That's the first place I go when I walk in.
David Ciancio: You're East Coast. You know what an omarosa roll is, right?
Speaker G: Yes, I do.
Speaker F: Okay.
David Ciancio: Do you guys know what an Omarosa roll is? What's the best thing you've eaten at the show?
Speaker G: Uh, birthday cake churros. It's very on brand. I mean, we're barbecues, burritos, but churro innovation is delicious.
David Ciancio: Do you have a churro innovation specialist in the brand or somebody that wears the churro innovation hat?
Speaker G: Well, that's me.
David Ciancio: Okay.
Speaker L: It's you.
Speaker F: Okay.
David Ciancio: We'll have to do a show just about churro innovation. What's missing in churro innovation?
Speaker G: There's a lot of opportunity. Honestly, I don't know. I don't know.
David Ciancio: What can I tell you about. Can I tell you about the best churro I've ever eaten?
Speaker G: Please do.
David Ciancio: It was from Umi Kitchen in Texas. They had a goat's milk chocolate, uh, stuffed churro.
Speaker G: Okay.
David Ciancio: So it was, uh, like a mini churro, like one of the little ones, and inside was chocolate, but it was made with goat's milk.
Speaker G: Interesting.
David Ciancio: But, like, my mind was fried. Like, I didn't know we could achieve that level of, of excitement from Auro. So maybe that's your thing.
Speaker G: Okay.
David Ciancio: God bless.
Speaker G: We turn it.
David Ciancio: Um, what is the biggest challenge that restaurant operators are facing right now? Um, and you can speak from your perspective like this.
Speaker G: Yeah, yeah. I think it's a challenging, you know, economic environment. I probably not the first person to have this great insight of this big challenge. But, uh, we also are competing not just with restaurants anymore, and that continues to show up and evolve. But c store, you know, fast options, more people are selling food, people want food different ways. Um, so just, you know, understanding and adapting and. And figuring out how you can entice people to come and visit you more often.
David Ciancio: And I think we all sat through the same Buyer's Edge, uh, presentation with Meg the other day. I was kind of like, oh, groceries winning. Like, this is not okay.
Speaker G: Yeah, yeah,
Speaker M: I would agree with all of that. And then I would add on, the, uh, labor challenge is always real, never goes away. Just being able to find and retain quality employees.
David Ciancio: Always a challenge. This is not the first time that answer has been given to this booth, so that seems to be the one. All right, Dan, we'll stay with you on this one. Um, what is a practical way that restaurants are using AI right now? Like, practical, successful way.
Speaker M: We use AI in the drive thru. We're piloting it in a handful of stores. Um, uh, it's great success.
Speaker F: How.
David Ciancio: What do you like on menu boards? Like a voice agent?
Speaker M: Voice agent. AI order tank. Yeah.
David Ciancio: When does it. When does it know to switch over to the human?
Speaker M: Um, the human monitors it at all times, as a human can step in whenever they need to. So it's not as much the AI tool kicking it to the human as much as the human stepping in.
David Ciancio: So, like, the Manual override button.
Speaker M: Yeah, but it allows our, it allows our crews to focus more on the important things. Food prep, uh, packing, service at the register instead of services to take in the order.
David Ciancio: Has it reduced drive thru times slightly.
Speaker D: Okay.
David Ciancio: Because I know like, I'm angry when I'm like, uh, oh, what are you opening a bank account? Just order the donut.
Speaker M: Like, no, I mean every, there's the uh, this concern that it's all about saving labor and that's, that's part of it, but not as much as having the labor that you still have. Be better focused on the things that are important.
David Ciancio: Alex. Practical and successful way restaurants are using AI right now.
Speaker G: Yeah, I think we have been set up over the past several years from a tech stack perspective that we've been collecting all of this rich customer data on the digital front, first party, third party loyalty, like all the places. And now AI can help us, uh, be super personalized to our guests and almost anticipate, I mean we can anticipate the next time you want to order a burrito. Like I already know you may have just incepted it, but being able to personalize, uh, and really strengthen our loyalty program. So I think we're just getting started, honestly. But I do believe loyalty is the key to growth, especially where we're at right now. And AI and data is going to help us do that. Uh, even better.
David Ciancio: Uh, what's your favorite, uh, personalization marketing hack you're using right now?
Speaker G: Uh, I mean we're going in on flavor protein selection. So like we're marketing based on what people have tried and what they haven't tried. And I think that's really fun to do in food. Like it's just knowing what somebody likes and then being able to show them that instead of something they don't like. I mean, it's got to be, I don't know the number, but it's got to be a 10x return when you're showing somebody something that they love.
David Ciancio: Okay, well if you ever have an octopus burrito, don't send me that because I won't eat it.
Speaker G: Okay. I do love octopus.
David Ciancio: I was speaking with a much larger brand than all of our locations combined the other day and they said that when they send out like an email blast, they have up to 7,000 variations. And I was like, my brain ate itself for a minute and I was
Speaker C: like, what do you mean?
David Ciancio: They're like, okay, let's say we want to promote chicken wings and we know that Dan likes Nashville Hot and you like garlic Caramel. I like mild. It's still going to send each of us a chicken wings email, but we'll have a different image based on order behavior. And I was like, how do I do that?
Speaker G: That is only possible because of AI like that there's no way that would ever be possible. But now it is.
David Ciancio: What is your what do you have a hot wing that you have flavor?
Speaker D: What do you.
Speaker M: What favorite hot wing flavor? Just as spicy as I can get. Like.
Speaker E: Yeah.
David Ciancio: Are you like Dave's hot chicken reaper level?
Speaker E: Yeah.
Speaker G: You want it to hurt?
Speaker E: Yeah.
Speaker G: Yeah.
David Ciancio: I had a bad, bad bout with a Nashville hot the other day and I can eat it really hot. But it was so bad that I'm. We put that to bed. I'm not returning. I had to seven now ginger ale. Like it was not. It was not good. Um, Dan, you've been here for a minute. What's one thing you've discovered, ah, that you think is next for restaurants by walking around the show?
Speaker M: Um, that's a tough question. Um, because most of what we're seeing, we've already. I haven't seen anything earth shatteringly brand new.
David Ciancio: Um, you know
Speaker M: there's. And we were on the forefront of AI order, taking in the drive through. But there, that seems to be growing like wildfire. There's like twice as many, um, groups here offering that as there were last year. So I guess I'd come to that.
Christian Wiens: Okay.
David Ciancio: Alex?
Speaker G: Yeah. Uh, I don't want to say AI anymore but there's so many uh, applications of AI and I've had the exposure to the more of the marketing stuff. But I think being here, seeing how it's transforming everything from supply chain and inventory management to labor management to uh, all the back of house, all of the ordering like front of house. And also how everybody's product is just slightly different but they're moving so fast that it's crazy to see. Or you ask a question, do you do this? No, but it's coming in a release in like two days and it's very hard to keep up with all of this and who does it what but it's a great place to see it all come together and who's going to integrate and who's getting there faster. It's definitely a race.
David Ciancio: Yeah. I feel like I need an AI agent for all my AI agents. Like they all just need to go over there then tell me what to do next.
Speaker M: And I do think everyone's trying to consolidate which we all want. Like if One Stop Shop is great, but there's it seems like there's always something missing from the consolidation. That trend is, like, do everything I need except for this one thing that
David Ciancio: I'm still going to need somebody else to do. Now you have, like, all these tools that overlap because this does the one thing and that one does not. Yes. Are you listening, vendors?
Speaker G: Yes.
David Ciancio: Uh, okay. Uh, Dan, what is your best trade show survival hack?
Speaker M: Uh, my. My hoka shoes. You got to have the most comfortable shoes you own when you walk in this building or done for.
David Ciancio: Do you, uh, do you have, like, a new pair of shoes for X amount of shows or do you, like, how do you.
Speaker M: No, but the hokas are next level cushion.
Guest: Okay.
David Ciancio: What is the frequency that you're getting new shoes? Shows or not shows?
Speaker M: One or two a year maybe.
John Lucas: Really?
David Ciancio: I'm down to 60 days. Every 60 days, a new pair of saucony. All right, Alex, what is your best trade show survival hack?
Speaker G: Charge that social battery. Like, honestly, you know, I also never. Yeah, never miss a conversation. Make all the conversations, even when you're tired. But, like, yeah, I feed off of other people's energy. So it's a, uh. You walk into this place and you're like, here we go.
David Ciancio: Me too. And then in between, espresso. So, yeah, I've mapped out where all the closest espressos are to places I have to be so I can, like,
Speaker G: yeah, zip to get the espresso. Lots of beverages to be had. All energy.
Speaker D: Yeah.
David Ciancio: Awesome. Well, thank you guys for being on the show. I appreciate it. Can we take a quick, Quick selfie here? I'll take that. Awesome. Oh, my phone doesn't want to work. Awesome. I'll see you guys in the show. You fast casual? No, no, no.
Speaker H: Yeah, yeah, yeah, we'll be there.
David Ciancio: Oh, are you going to Movers and Shakers?
Speaker D: Yes.
David Ciancio: Okay, I'll see you both there. I'll see you.
Speaker M: Restaurant marketing workshop.
David Ciancio: Oh, yeah. Well, yeah, well, that's coming. We'll talk about that in a different show, but yes.
Speaker F: Awesome.
David Ciancio: Uh, I think Anthony, uh, was next,
Speaker F: but I don't know.
David Ciancio: You want to come in and. Oh, are you ready? Anthony, Come on in.
Speaker F: Hi.
David Ciancio: What's happening? How are you? What's going on?
Speaker F: Hi.
David Ciancio: We are live, so.
Speaker D: Okay.
Speaker C: Huh?
David Ciancio: Okay, okay, okay. Let me get Anthony first and then jump in.
Christian Wiens: I wanted to make sure.
David Ciancio: Amen. Yeah. Anthony, jump over here.
Speaker D: Come over. Get in here.
David Ciancio: Take your mic, friend.
Speaker D: One mic.
David Ciancio: Hi, buddy.
Speaker D: How are you?
Speaker L: I'm fantastic.
Guest: How are you?
David Ciancio: I'm outstanding. Thank you for asking. Fantastic. Uh, who are you? What do you do?
Speaker L: My name is Anthony Presley, as you know.
David Ciancio: I like that you said that to me like I've never met.
Speaker L: Yes.
Christian Wiens: It's so great to meet you here
Speaker L: at this show where we all are. Um, so, yeah, what do I do? Uh, I do two things. I uh, own and operate a company called Time Forge, which is a labor management product that, uh, built a long time ago, sold it, bought it back, and uh, I also happen to work
Speaker H: with Jeremy Julian and the team at
Speaker L: CBS where I get to run the tech and product team.
David Ciancio: That's awesome. Uh, there is a question I'm about to ask you that the other people's answer was a lot of labor. Uh, what do you think is the biggest challenge that operators are facing right
Speaker L: now, this exact moment in time? Do I only get to choose one
David Ciancio: because it's a rough market right now. The number one answer on the board today has been labor.
Christian Wiens: So, oh yeah, I, I, I, I
Speaker L: spent this morning interviewing podcast, um, quite a few people and that's been, that's been the thing. So turns out labor is really, really hard. But it's an evergreen thing, right? It's, if you asked me 10 years
David Ciancio: ago, it's probably was labor.
Christian Wiens: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker L: In 2007 when we launched the company, it was labor.
David Ciancio: Yeah.
Speaker L: It's different though. It's different things about the labor.
David Ciancio: But what is different about it right now?
Speaker L: This exact moment in time. The problem is, is that your hourly workers have lots of options, including signing up for, uh, gig work from like an Amazon or an Uber and getting paid, paid at that same time. As soon as they clock out, they get paid. Uh, so that's a problem. Uh, the other problem we have is managers and how long they've been in the, in the business. So they don't have the tenure, they don't have the gut feeling for, for how to operate. And then when you're bringing those new managers in because they only last about two and a half years, it turns out that you've got to, you know, managers have to do a lot. They're running a business, multi million dollar business, and they have to learn their tech tools and they also have to be experts in bookkeeping and inventory and ordering and all the things. And they also need to know about parking lots and HR laws and you know, it's crazy, right? It's absolutely crazy what we ask managers to do.
David Ciancio: Uh, it's almost like that they need that scene in the Matrix when the Trinity needs to learn how to fly a helicopter. They just download it into Our brain.
Speaker L: Yeah, all of it comes right in.
Christian Wiens: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker L: And since you can't microwave knowledge, it takes time to make it that in.
Speaker D: That's.
David Ciancio: We gotta, we gotta figure out where to use that. Here's how to microwave knowledge. I'm gonna, I'm gonna hold on to that one. What is one practical way that restaurants are successfully using A.I. right now?
Speaker L: Um, are restaurants successfully using A.I.
David Ciancio: i don't know. You deal with A.I. all day, you tell me.
Speaker L: All day, every day. So look, A.I. um, I think is being very helpful right now for I'll uh, call them routine team tasks. Automating minutia that then amplifies and allows hospitality folks to be hospitable. Uh, and so that, that sounds like a lot of platitudes, but it could be. And everybody here at the show has a chat bot. Um, I, by the way, I think that's like version point one where this is gonna go. Uh, is the chat bot. But like, uh, in 2010, IBM M invented PR prescriptive analytics, which meant if your sales are this, you should do this. If your labor is this, you should do this.
Christian Wiens: Right.
Speaker L: Um, and that's all been a.
Christian Wiens: Hey, grab all my data, put it
Speaker L: in one big data lake and uh, and then be able to do things on it. And um, and that's been around for 17 plus years. Um, and so I think right now we're seeing a lot of AI uses for the minutia stuff that you don't have to put on a sticky note, you don't have to remember this thing. Thing. And there's a Mets game in town and so we're going to be busy or whatever the things are. And um, and I think AI Is
David Ciancio: doing great with that.
Speaker L: Um, and that means that the manager or the employee or whoever can now go do other things. And you and I were both at the Google influencer thing, right? So like that means that I don't need to know that there's 14 clicks to change the Google my business thing and what needs to be in there because it'll help me with that. Uh, so I think that's being where it's being very successful.
David Ciancio: Yeah, I'm seeing a lot of, uh, I think a lot of operators are successful in asking questions to AI Right. But they might not be getting the answers they want. That's right. There's lots of questions.
Christian Wiens: That's right, yeah.
Speaker D: Yeah.
Speaker L: The, the opposite of that though, I
David Ciancio: think is that there's a lot of
Speaker L: vendor promises being made around AI And I think there's a lot of VC money that's being spent on. Well, we used to have machine learning for our one to one and now it's AI one to one and it's the exact same thing hidden under a new menu item. And it doesn't do anything different than it did in 2024. And I think there's a lot of fatigue where everybody's like, uh, yeah, that, that doesn't work. It doesn't do the thing I wanted to do.
Speaker G: Yeah.
David Ciancio: Uh, Alex and Dan who were just in here, we were saying that we almost need like an AI agent to manage our AI agents.
Speaker F: Right.
David Ciancio: And there's so much overlap in the AI agents. But like this thing does this one thing that this one doesn't do, then this thing does this one. And so there's like this AI maelstrom happening, right? Yeah, yeah.
Speaker L: A manager of the agents.
David Ciancio: Exactly.
Speaker L: We'd probably have to pay them an overtime token.
Speaker C: That was a good.
David Ciancio: That was a good tech joke. It was a good tech joke. Um, what's the thing that you've discovered while walking around the show that you think is next for restaurants?
Speaker L: I have to think about that for a.
David Ciancio: And Spam Dog is an okay answer. But then I'm going to ask you to give me something else.
Speaker L: I went to the Spam Dog deal and they are out for the day
David Ciancio: because we've talked about it on the show. We're live and so people are watching us.
Speaker M: Yeah.
Speaker L: The LTO that they were doing here, they didn't properly predict the inventory. We're wondering how that happened.
David Ciancio: They should have called you. You should have called me. I could have helped with that.
Speaker L: Um, the one thing, the one thing, I think, uh, I'm gonna go away from labor because everybody will go knows I'm going to talk about labor. So let's talk a little bit about, uh, the other side of that, which is first party ordering. And I think the habits that consumers have and are ingraining whether or not that's in. Uh, a friend of mine runs a store director for, for Kendra Scott stores, 170 stores. And I asked him, I said what's you're paying for this Claude Enterprise thing and what's the number one thing your users use? Claude4 and he's like, they do Google searches.
Speaker D: Right.
Speaker L: So they're typing it. It's the most expensive Google search you can do by the way, is to type that in a cloud.
Speaker F: And.
John Lucas: But.
Speaker L: But they are. 95% of his corporate users use that to do Google searches.
David Ciancio: Like, where should I Go for lunch.
Speaker L: And so they're using tools that, as a technologist, makes me want to claw my eyes out. But as a user habit, you start thinking about, like, where are the users at? And even if it only draws 5% away from some other channel and 5% away from the catering and 5%, like, I think we need to be mindful of that and where consumers are going so that we can be there to meet their need.
David Ciancio: That makes sense. Ah, side joke. I definitely the person in the history that somebody would ask me a question that they could have just Googled, and I go to the. Let me Google that for you and send it to them. Yeah, but now we actually do that. Like, we have chatgpt Googling it for us. We've officially become the joke.
Speaker C: That's right.
David Ciancio: Uh, what is your best trade show survival hack? You go to a lot of shows. How do you get through it?
Speaker L: Um, I think the. The first thing is don't, uh, don't get caught up in the peer pressure. There are certain people in this particular industry who will, at every bar, go, one more. One more.
David Ciancio: Are you, like, having an intervention? Is that what you're doing right now?
Speaker L: One more. And at some point in time, like, you do need to get the sleep, you need to keep reasonably in your routine. Um, or one week after food on demand, you end up at nra and you're like, I am absolutely exhausted. And it makes no sense to come to these things and then be exhausted
David Ciancio: because you don't learn anything and don't do Mallord shots.
Christian Wiens: Yes.
David Ciancio: That's just totally out. Yeah. None of that. Awesome.
Christian Wiens: None of that.
David Ciancio: Andy, thank you for being on the show. We really appreciate it. Let's do a, uh, quick usy here.
Speaker L: And also new season of that coming out.
John Lucas: There we go.
David Ciancio: New season of what? Oh, Ted Lasso. Amen.
Christian Wiens: All righty.
David Ciancio: Can I have my microphone, please?
Christian Wiens: You can.
David Ciancio: All right, buddy. Good to see you. She back on the floor. Like, uh, I think I have one more guest out here. You want to come on in? Thank you. Yeah, we're wrapping up. We got about four minutes left to broadcast. Two minutes. Two minutes.
Speaker C: All right.
David Ciancio: God. Jump in here.
Speaker C: Hi.
Speaker G: How are you?
David Ciancio: Here's your microphone.
Christian Wiens: Jump in.
David Ciancio: Get in the hot seat.
Speaker F: All right.
David Ciancio: I'm Rev.
Speaker D: Carl.
David Ciancio: Who are you?
John Lucas: What do you do?
Speaker E: Founder, Walk and Talk Media.
David Ciancio: What is Walk and Talk Media?
Speaker E: Walk and Talk Media. We are a hospitality platform consisting, uh, of film, podcast, and photography.
David Ciancio: Now, uh, we just met right now live on the show, but I met your partner yesterday. In a very interesting way. I was doing a selfie video and he came up and he goes, you look like you're pretty good at that. And I was like, yeah, kinda.
Christian Wiens: All right.
David Ciancio: He's like, yeah, we got the show. And I was like, come be on mine. Come be on mine. So that's fine. Uh, what's the best thing you've eaten at the show?
Speaker E: Fiero's pizza.
David Ciancio: Oh, uh, in the, in the, the booth. I went there yesterday, had a steak sandwich that was phenomenal.
Speaker E: He's a Viking. So you gotta, you gotta just go in there and enjoy it.
David Ciancio: Yeah, I totally agree. Um, what is the biggest challenge that restaurant operators are facing right now?
Speaker E: How to deal with social media.
David Ciancio: Okay.
Speaker E: What to do with it, how it works, uh, the quality of it, the storytelling that, uh, I definitely. I'm saying that because, yeah, everybody has a food cost, and yes, everybody has, you know, employee challenges, and it's hard to. It's hard to hire, and that's always there. That might be getting worse. But the truth is we live in a digital age, and if you're not taking it seriously, you're losing.
David Ciancio: I totally agree. Storytelling is super important. What is one practical way that restaurants are successfully using AI right now?
Speaker E: Resi.
David Ciancio: Say more things, say more things, expand.
Speaker E: I mean, so AI is an awesome tool when it comes to AI at large. Uh, I don't think the average person wants to see anything where there's creativity, um, completed through AI. I think everyone should use AI as a tool because it's fabulous. Um, so when you're talking about calling, uh, up, using, uh, AI in a restaurant scenario, uh, you call up and you want to make your reservation. You call up, you want to find out if, you know, there's a, uh, you know, non dairy or, you know, whatever. That's perfect success there.
David Ciancio: Okay, uh, what is something that you've discovered walking the show floor that you think is next for restaurants?
Speaker E: It's next for restaurants. I mean, they've been pushing robots now for two years.
David Ciancio: There's a lot of them here.
Speaker E: I don't know that, um, I don't know. Again, how much of the human can you remove from society before society just says, like, we done with this?
David Ciancio: I mean, I don't know. I'm usually in a rush at the coffee shop, so I don't necessarily need to speak to someone. And I do want the perfect cream, um, on my espresso. So, like, and I don't care. It's gonna be the good espresso.
Speaker E: It's gonna it's gonna be, uh, it's
David Ciancio: gonna be a wrestling match, I think we will see. But there is definitely more robots here than I've ever seen the show before. I'm actually surprised we haven't seen one, like, walk by yet. Uh, we've been here for an hour and a half.
Christian Wiens: Right.
David Ciancio: That'll be next year. Read at the Door by robots.
Speaker E: Yeah, they're gonna take over the podcast.
John Lucas: Great.
David Ciancio: That means I don't have to sit here for an hour and a half. I just listen to the conversations. All right, last questions. What is your best trade show survival hack?
Speaker E: Shoes, man.
David Ciancio: Get the right shoes, what do you.
John Lucas: What do you rock?
Speaker E: Not, uh, the right shoes.
David Ciancio: Oh, okay, right.
Speaker E: But, uh, I got some Adidas on. But, um, sometimes I choose style over comfort, and, uh, that's the wrong. Don't. Don't. Don't be me.
David Ciancio: Don't do, like, uh, I am. I replace my shoes every 60 days. So it's not even just the trade shows, but I'm, like, rocking through pairs.
Speaker E: We're not kids.
David Ciancio: No.
Speaker E: Right. So we have to have the good footwear or else we're out of commission. That's it. They put us to put us to pasture.
John Lucas: You know what I mean?
David Ciancio: Oh, yeah. Awesome. Well, thank you for coming on the show today. Can we do a quick selfie here before I wrap it up? Awesome. Amazing.
Emily Snyder: Cool.
David Ciancio: Can I have that microphone, please, sir?
Speaker D: No.
David Ciancio: Okay.
Speaker E: You know how many of these I lose?
David Ciancio: Uh, yeah, well, I'm trying to not be that guy. Awesome. Well, thank you for being on the show, ladies and gentlemen. That is it with another successful live broadcast from the National Restaurant association show at McCormick Place in Chicago. This is where restaurants come to, you know, meet new people, see new things, and really to make change happen in their business. So we appreciate you paying attention to the show today. If you listen to this, uh, and wherever you listen to it, if you're on LinkedIn, YouTube, if you're getting it on Spotify, if you're a direct subscriber, make sure you're sharing this with your friends and follow the podcast more. And, guys, make it a great tasty day. Thank you, and thanks to the National Restaurant association show for allowing us to be in the podcast booth today.
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