WEBVTT - BJ’s CEO on Simplification, Store Development 0:00:00.080 --> 0:00:02.520 Welcome to Chopping It Up. I'm your host, Mike Hallen, 0:00:02.560 --> 0:00:06.520 the senior Restaurant food Service Analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence. Our 0:00:06.559 --> 0:00:09.159 research and that of bi's five hundred analysts around the 0:00:09.160 --> 0:00:12.880 globe can be found exclusively on the Bloomberg terminal. If 0:00:12.880 --> 0:00:15.040 you enjoy the pod, please hook me up and give 0:00:15.120 --> 0:00:18.360 us a five star review on Apple or Spotify. Today 0:00:18.400 --> 0:00:21.760 I'm joined by Lyle Tick, CEO of BJ's Restaurants. 0:00:21.800 --> 0:00:24.959 Welcome to the pod. Lyle, thank you very much. Excited 0:00:24.960 --> 0:00:25.400 to be here. 0:00:25.760 --> 0:00:29.880 Yeah, man, so I haven't yet been to a BJ's 0:00:30.000 --> 0:00:35.360 but Zuki. Yeah, the pazuki looks fantastic, however, especially you 0:00:35.360 --> 0:00:39.040 had that recent butterfinger lt O. Man, that thing looked like, Yes. 0:00:39.840 --> 0:00:42.879 Yeah, man, they are. They are a phenomenon and they 0:00:42.920 --> 0:00:46.879 are cravable. I was actually yesterday at won By my 0:00:46.960 --> 0:00:48.760 house with my kids. We just came out with a 0:00:49.560 --> 0:00:53.360 cookie monster pazuki with blue ice cream, and my kids 0:00:53.400 --> 0:00:55.880 were dining to go get it. So yesterday we had 0:00:55.920 --> 0:00:58.040 a little mid afternoon snack. 0:00:58.760 --> 0:01:02.400 Very nice, I think, you know. And we were talking 0:01:02.640 --> 0:01:05.160 before we started recording. You're from New York, I'm here 0:01:05.160 --> 0:01:08.200 in New Jersey. I think there's one in Is there 0:01:08.200 --> 0:01:09.240 one in Bergen County? 0:01:09.280 --> 0:01:13.120 Maybe there's a name and you wet there's Valley Stream, 0:01:13.240 --> 0:01:16.080 there's Teeterborough, there's a there's a handful around. 0:01:16.520 --> 0:01:18.360 Yeah, all right, call yeah, So that's the one I'm 0:01:18.360 --> 0:01:20.600 going to have to get to. So your career didn't 0:01:20.640 --> 0:01:22.200 start in the restaurant industry. 0:01:22.200 --> 0:01:25.400 What drew you to it? Uh? Well, actually, restaurant industry 0:01:25.600 --> 0:01:30.200 goes back to my childhood. So when I was really 0:01:30.240 --> 0:01:31.920 at my father passed when I was young, when I 0:01:31.920 --> 0:01:36.039 was twelve, but the a couple of years before he passed, 0:01:36.120 --> 0:01:40.680 he became a partner with the ottam and Elli brothers 0:01:40.760 --> 0:01:43.559 who still had butcher shops in New York, and back 0:01:43.560 --> 0:01:47.119 in the day they had little Italian cafes and they 0:01:47.120 --> 0:01:50.040 had a steakhouse. And when I was really young, I 0:01:50.120 --> 0:01:52.560 was doing kind of prep work in the kitchens and 0:01:52.680 --> 0:01:57.080 just around the restaurants. And then you know, through college, 0:01:57.360 --> 0:01:59.600 I've done every job you could do in a restaurant. 0:01:59.680 --> 0:02:03.720 So restaurants and food and beverage, you know, were in 0:02:03.760 --> 0:02:06.760 my blood. Spent part of my professional career at Bacardi. 0:02:07.320 --> 0:02:10.120 So that kind of community of food and drink has 0:02:10.160 --> 0:02:13.120 always been there and now when I had an opportunity 0:02:13.240 --> 0:02:19.600 to go to Inspire Brands and work with Buffalo Wild Wings, 0:02:19.720 --> 0:02:22.359 that kind of brought me into it from a professional 0:02:22.360 --> 0:02:26.359 career point of view directly and haven't looked back since. 0:02:26.760 --> 0:02:28.680 Yeah, well the people are the best man. When I 0:02:28.760 --> 0:02:31.600 was younger, do I am I remembering correctly? Were there 0:02:31.600 --> 0:02:33.200 Automanelli's commercials? 0:02:33.560 --> 0:02:35.760 I don't believe so. I mean, there was a butcher 0:02:35.800 --> 0:02:38.680 shop on eighty second in York. There was a steakhouse 0:02:38.760 --> 0:02:41.760 right connected to it, and then over time they started 0:02:41.800 --> 0:02:44.120 to open up these like small Italian cafes, and I 0:02:44.160 --> 0:02:47.359 think they're back down to just the butcher shop. I think. 0:02:47.400 --> 0:02:49.440 I'm not sure the Upper East Side won't exist anymore. 0:02:49.480 --> 0:02:52.200 There's one in Soho now. But yeah, it was a 0:02:52.200 --> 0:02:54.000 good old school Italian butcher shop. 0:02:54.400 --> 0:02:58.560 Yeah, the name's definitely ringing a bell. So what attracted 0:02:58.560 --> 0:02:59.359 you to BJS? 0:02:59.720 --> 0:03:02.320 Yeah, you know, it's funny. When I was at b Dubs, 0:03:02.400 --> 0:03:05.080 BJ's actually wasn't hugely on my radar, so I wasn't 0:03:05.160 --> 0:03:09.040 wildly familiar with it until the board reached out and 0:03:09.560 --> 0:03:13.160 I started to visit BJS, and I felt like going 0:03:13.200 --> 0:03:16.720 into BJS that this was a concept that had all 0:03:16.760 --> 0:03:20.680 the ingredients to be really successful and be a better alternative, 0:03:21.200 --> 0:03:25.520 you know, in its category. It has facilities that in 0:03:25.639 --> 0:03:28.480 general are differentiating. You know, you come in, you have 0:03:28.520 --> 0:03:35.000 the high ceilings, the bar, the energy, it's got really 0:03:35.040 --> 0:03:39.560 good quality food. It's got a nice selection that allows 0:03:40.240 --> 0:03:43.640 kind of broad occasionality. And one of the things I 0:03:43.680 --> 0:03:46.280 found most fascinating when I walked into a BJS was 0:03:46.680 --> 0:03:49.840 if you look around at BJ's, you will see everything 0:03:49.960 --> 0:03:56.040 from like a high school baseball team to a happy hour, 0:03:56.840 --> 0:04:01.040 to a girls group hanging out, to your parents having dinner, 0:04:01.600 --> 0:04:05.240 to families hanging out. I mean, it is this incredible 0:04:05.240 --> 0:04:10.280 cross section of people that somehow coexists, right, and it's 0:04:10.320 --> 0:04:12.720 all good whether you're having happy hour at the bar, 0:04:12.960 --> 0:04:16.440 you're a family having dinner. And I found that to 0:04:16.520 --> 0:04:19.720 be really fascinating and compelling because I feel like there's 0:04:19.800 --> 0:04:24.560 not that many spaces and places that can do that, 0:04:25.240 --> 0:04:28.919 particularly these days, and I found it really cool that 0:04:28.960 --> 0:04:31.400 BJ's was able to do that. So on the products side, 0:04:31.400 --> 0:04:33.479 I was like, Wow, there's a lot of things to 0:04:33.560 --> 0:04:36.479 work with here. And then on the board side, we 0:04:36.520 --> 0:04:39.640 had a board who has a big ambition for what 0:04:39.680 --> 0:04:43.960 the next chapter of BJ's can be and how we 0:04:44.000 --> 0:04:46.640 can realize the full potential of the brand, And that 0:04:46.720 --> 0:04:49.200 was very exciting to me to have kind of the 0:04:49.360 --> 0:04:52.440 ingredients to work with and a board that was very ambitious, 0:04:52.480 --> 0:04:57.240 and so it's been a great partnership since. Cool. 0:04:57.400 --> 0:05:00.360 Can you talk a little bit about the company's culture 0:05:00.480 --> 0:05:02.280 and how you aim to influence it? 0:05:02.720 --> 0:05:04.880 Yeah, I mean one of the really cool things about 0:05:04.920 --> 0:05:08.039 BJS is you got a lot of people here who 0:05:08.040 --> 0:05:10.480 have been on the Bjay's journey for a long time. 0:05:11.120 --> 0:05:14.320 So if I look at you know, everybody from you know, 0:05:14.440 --> 0:05:17.920 my chief operating officer who has been here twenty plus years, 0:05:17.960 --> 0:05:22.320 to his vPOS, to the doos, even in my GM levels, like, 0:05:22.360 --> 0:05:23.720 you got a lot of people who have been here 0:05:23.760 --> 0:05:27.880 for a long time. And what underpins that is a 0:05:28.040 --> 0:05:31.880 real care for BJS and an energy for BJS and 0:05:31.920 --> 0:05:35.280 a desire for BJS to be successful. And so you 0:05:35.360 --> 0:05:38.919 got people in this business that you know, are in 0:05:39.000 --> 0:05:41.960 it for their career and are in it to make 0:05:42.040 --> 0:05:44.640 BJS great and care about the brand and care about 0:05:44.680 --> 0:05:48.440 each other. And that foundation is kind of, you know, 0:05:48.560 --> 0:05:51.360 the most amazing thing to be able to build from, 0:05:51.360 --> 0:05:55.120 because you can't you can't just create that right that exists. 0:05:55.160 --> 0:05:58.240 And then you know, I think coming in it was 0:05:59.120 --> 0:06:02.839 about making sure that we were really clear on what 0:06:02.960 --> 0:06:05.359 we were doing and why. And so we did a 0:06:05.360 --> 0:06:08.880 lot of strategy work together right on brand positioning and 0:06:08.920 --> 0:06:12.280 all that stuff, understanding where we had opportunities to better 0:06:12.440 --> 0:06:15.760 understanding where we did really well. And that work was 0:06:15.839 --> 0:06:19.560 done purposely, cross functionally and down a few levels so 0:06:19.600 --> 0:06:22.560 that everyone in the company is no more than a 0:06:22.600 --> 0:06:25.400 couple of degrees of separation away from somebody who was 0:06:25.440 --> 0:06:29.080 in the room defining the strategy and having real ownership 0:06:29.120 --> 0:06:33.200 and skin in it, right, And so you know that 0:06:33.279 --> 0:06:36.080 for me, gets everybody aligned and rown in the same direction. 0:06:36.240 --> 0:06:40.960 And then it's about you know, driving down accountability and 0:06:41.000 --> 0:06:43.200 making sure that people are clear on what we're doing, 0:06:43.279 --> 0:06:46.120 why we're doing it, and we're holding each other accountable 0:06:46.120 --> 0:06:49.719 for it, and having fun along the way. And of course, 0:06:49.760 --> 0:06:53.200 you know, as the business improves, that last part gets 0:06:53.200 --> 0:06:53.880 a lot easier. 0:06:54.160 --> 0:06:58.200 Yeah, hey man, Transparency, accountability, and fun and those are 0:06:58.279 --> 0:07:04.080 three very important to an organization, you know, something that 0:07:04.160 --> 0:07:05.760 all organizations can use. 0:07:05.839 --> 0:07:06.359 For sure. 0:07:07.400 --> 0:07:10.480 Talk to me a little bit about the simplification efforts 0:07:10.520 --> 0:07:11.480 that you've spearheaded. 0:07:11.960 --> 0:07:15.280 Yeah, I mean at a high level, right, there's kind 0:07:15.280 --> 0:07:19.200 of two questions I ask everybody to think about, maybe 0:07:19.240 --> 0:07:22.680 a little bit oversimplified, but is what we're doing going 0:07:22.720 --> 0:07:24.960 to make things better or easier for a team member 0:07:25.040 --> 0:07:27.840 and or better and easier for a guest. Because I 0:07:27.880 --> 0:07:31.120 think if we can keep those two things central, and 0:07:32.320 --> 0:07:35.640 what we're doing is true to that, there's a virtuous 0:07:35.680 --> 0:07:39.040 circle in that because it's generally going to make people 0:07:39.080 --> 0:07:42.480 more happy and return more, but it's also generally going 0:07:42.560 --> 0:07:45.760 to make you more efficient, right, And so part of 0:07:45.840 --> 0:07:48.240 what we did along the way at the beginning, when 0:07:48.280 --> 0:07:52.000 we were just dissecting the business, for example, is we 0:07:52.000 --> 0:07:54.760 were looking at you know, our gross to neet and 0:07:54.800 --> 0:07:58.240 we were looking at our comps, and we saw that 0:07:58.320 --> 0:08:02.200 our comp food and beverage was pretty high and that 0:08:02.320 --> 0:08:05.240 a full third of those were rung in wrong and 0:08:05.280 --> 0:08:08.000 prepared wrong. Well, I can tell you that not one 0:08:08.040 --> 0:08:11.760 of my team members is coming in trying to wring 0:08:11.840 --> 0:08:15.120 something in a prepared wrong. She got asked yourself, why 0:08:15.200 --> 0:08:17.080 is that happening? Right? And you go and you talk 0:08:17.120 --> 0:08:19.280 to the team members, you spend time at the managers, 0:08:19.880 --> 0:08:24.000 and you understand that the way they're having to enter 0:08:24.120 --> 0:08:27.360 things in are potentially making things difficult. The way things 0:08:27.360 --> 0:08:31.080 are showing up and being sequenced on the KDS is 0:08:31.160 --> 0:08:34.319 making things difficult for a cook. And so one of 0:08:34.400 --> 0:08:37.040 the things we've done is gone through a series of 0:08:37.800 --> 0:08:42.960 kind of simplifications just understanding Margarita. Simplifications like how all 0:08:43.000 --> 0:08:47.600 the modifiers were coming in reduced Margarita's by like twenty percent. 0:08:48.600 --> 0:08:51.559 You know, burgers like eighty percent of our modifications, or 0:08:51.600 --> 0:08:54.840 four types of cheese. Yet there's like seventy modifications that 0:08:54.920 --> 0:08:57.560 somebody has to delve into to find, you know, the 0:08:57.640 --> 0:09:00.800 top couple. So how do we raise those up? You know, 0:09:01.520 --> 0:09:04.439 we talked to our cooks and the way checks were 0:09:04.480 --> 0:09:07.679 showing up on the KDS and being organized and sequenced 0:09:08.200 --> 0:09:11.200 weren't helping them keep tracks. So stuff was going in 0:09:11.240 --> 0:09:14.080 the window and waiting for something else right, And so 0:09:14.800 --> 0:09:17.600 it's a lot of those kind of little things, you know, 0:09:17.679 --> 0:09:20.680 that we find ourselves today with comp food and beverage 0:09:20.760 --> 0:09:24.120 down double digits. Now, the reason for me that's important is, 0:09:24.880 --> 0:09:27.480 I mean there's the commercial side of it, which is 0:09:27.480 --> 0:09:31.280 that flows obviously straight through to profit, but the bigger 0:09:31.320 --> 0:09:34.560 thing is it's one less uncomfortable conversation with a guest. 0:09:35.440 --> 0:09:40.360 It's a quicker table turn, it's one less uncomfortable situation 0:09:40.559 --> 0:09:42.760 for a team member, right, And so there's kind of 0:09:42.800 --> 0:09:46.280 a virtuous circle to it. And so it's things like 0:09:46.320 --> 0:09:48.319 that where you know, we talk to our team members, 0:09:48.360 --> 0:09:51.560 they're like, look, everybody's coming into the restaurant today, you know, 0:09:51.679 --> 0:09:54.200 young people, and they're not they're not a wallet. They 0:09:54.200 --> 0:09:57.040 want a tap to pay, And we had kind of 0:09:57.120 --> 0:09:59.640 inconvenient tap to pay solutions. You kind of had to 0:09:59.640 --> 0:10:02.560 go to take out or had to go to the 0:10:02.600 --> 0:10:05.280 bar to tap to pay, right, And so now we're 0:10:05.280 --> 0:10:08.840 looking at how we integrating that into the kind of 0:10:08.920 --> 0:10:12.280 digital checkout at the table. We started just last year 0:10:12.280 --> 0:10:14.120 we didn't have Apple Pay. We integrated Apple Pay, and 0:10:14.200 --> 0:10:16.760 usage of Apple Pay has gone up. So, you know, 0:10:16.800 --> 0:10:19.720 it's a lot of little things that come from listening 0:10:19.720 --> 0:10:22.360 to the people that are operating the business every day. 0:10:23.559 --> 0:10:27.480 And then there's the broader like menu work, right, and 0:10:28.120 --> 0:10:32.280 that menu work happens over time, but like there's a 0:10:32.280 --> 0:10:34.440 lot of day to day stuff you can do to 0:10:34.480 --> 0:10:36.600 make things easier for guests and team members. 0:10:37.000 --> 0:10:39.040 Yeah, and listen to all those little things add up 0:10:39.040 --> 0:10:39.760 to big things. 0:10:39.880 --> 0:10:40.760 So that's right. 0:10:41.600 --> 0:10:45.200 I think it's a great place to focus. I know 0:10:45.240 --> 0:10:48.200 it's still early on, but how are customers reacting to 0:10:48.240 --> 0:10:50.439 the pizza refresh. 0:10:49.760 --> 0:10:52.520 So as far as we can tell, really well, right, 0:10:52.600 --> 0:10:55.720 So we like what we're seeing in MPs. We like 0:10:55.800 --> 0:10:58.480 what we're seeing an incident s which is up almost 0:10:58.520 --> 0:11:01.760 double digits, you know, check and margin is what we 0:11:01.760 --> 0:11:03.520 thought it would be. So it's operating a lot like 0:11:03.600 --> 0:11:06.080 it did in the test restaurants. So all of that 0:11:06.200 --> 0:11:08.120 is really really good, you know. I think in our 0:11:08.200 --> 0:11:11.760 business full service, when you think about like the amount 0:11:11.800 --> 0:11:14.520 of frequency you had per year, so it's you know, 0:11:14.520 --> 0:11:16.440 a couple of times a year on average, and you 0:11:16.480 --> 0:11:19.320 get up to four plus for loyalty. But it's not 0:11:19.360 --> 0:11:24.480 like QSR. So to ultimately definitively say that we're driving 0:11:24.520 --> 0:11:28.240 more frequency off of it, we would I'd want a 0:11:28.280 --> 0:11:30.120 little longer to say that, you know, and I take 0:11:30.160 --> 0:11:33.479 the full eighteen months i've been here, I can definitively 0:11:33.520 --> 0:11:36.840 say that what we've done has improved frequency, But to 0:11:37.080 --> 0:11:39.400 isolate it to pizza, I'll want a little more time. 0:11:39.480 --> 0:11:42.240 But all the early indicators we're happy with. 0:11:42.880 --> 0:11:45.280 Yeah, that's fair, and can talk maybe about what you 0:11:45.400 --> 0:11:49.240 expected to do to check and then also the margin 0:11:49.280 --> 0:11:50.319 profile of the product. 0:11:50.440 --> 0:11:53.080 Yeah, I mean, look, pizza checks tend to have a 0:11:53.160 --> 0:11:57.840 slightly advantageous percentage margin to your average check, right, so 0:11:58.280 --> 0:12:00.480 as you grow those that should be help full from 0:12:00.520 --> 0:12:03.840 a cost of sales point of view. The pizza checks 0:12:04.280 --> 0:12:07.640 tend to look a lot like other checks, but they 0:12:07.640 --> 0:12:10.280 have different composition to them, right, So I'm talking about 0:12:10.280 --> 0:12:12.800 in terms of size of check, but they have a 0:12:12.800 --> 0:12:15.920 different composition to them. You see kind of more people 0:12:15.960 --> 0:12:18.760 at the table often because it's shaable. You'll see more 0:12:18.800 --> 0:12:22.440 appetizers and drinks hung off of those checks. So the 0:12:22.480 --> 0:12:26.400 composition of them is different. But you know, ultimately from 0:12:26.440 --> 0:12:29.800 a size of check per person, they look quite similar. 0:12:30.120 --> 0:12:33.360 Okay, Yeah, beer and pizza go together like peanut butter 0:12:33.400 --> 0:12:34.520 and jelly in my books. 0:12:34.559 --> 0:12:37.120 So there you go. There you go, all right? Cool? 0:12:37.200 --> 0:12:39.280 What else are you leaning into to drive sales and 0:12:39.320 --> 0:12:42.240 traffic growth here in twenty six Yeah? 0:12:42.280 --> 0:12:44.640 I mean, you know, when I look at the work 0:12:44.679 --> 0:12:47.120 we've done and I think about it, it's not you know, 0:12:47.480 --> 0:12:49.960 I'm a big believer, it's not any one thing that 0:12:50.000 --> 0:12:55.479 we've done, right, Like, for me, it starts with addressing 0:12:55.520 --> 0:12:59.280 what we called the table stakes operations and improving the 0:12:59.320 --> 0:13:02.400 basics of operating great restaurants and making people feel good 0:13:03.080 --> 0:13:07.240 and seeing those NPS scores increase and seeing our team 0:13:07.240 --> 0:13:11.680 member retention increase, which has a straight correlation to sales 0:13:11.720 --> 0:13:14.319 and profit of restaurants. And then you kind of build 0:13:14.360 --> 0:13:16.640 on top of that the value layer with the Pazuki 0:13:16.720 --> 0:13:18.920 meal deal. And then at the end of last year, 0:13:19.000 --> 0:13:21.680 we just got into some of those kind of product 0:13:21.720 --> 0:13:24.719 and experience growth drivers as we got into seasonal pazukis 0:13:24.760 --> 0:13:27.600 and pizza. So you know, really what I see us 0:13:27.640 --> 0:13:31.000 doing is continuing to build off of those foundations as 0:13:31.040 --> 0:13:33.800 we go forward. So you'll continue to see us lean 0:13:33.840 --> 0:13:36.880 into how we can improve operation and guest experience. You'll 0:13:36.920 --> 0:13:39.840 continue to see us lean into the seasonal pazukis, and 0:13:39.920 --> 0:13:44.319 we'll start moving beyond the pizza category into other categories 0:13:44.360 --> 0:13:47.520 of the menu as we continue to look for opportunities 0:13:47.559 --> 0:13:52.840 to refresh and simplify where appropriate while protecting the turf coverage, 0:13:52.840 --> 0:13:55.280 which is critical to those occasions that we talked about 0:13:55.320 --> 0:13:55.880 at the beginning. 0:13:56.240 --> 0:13:59.719 Okay, great, and you know, the stock has basically been 0:14:00.080 --> 0:14:03.440 had money for a couple of years now, since twenty 0:14:03.480 --> 0:14:07.960 three looking into the results. You know, I don't cover BJS, 0:14:08.000 --> 0:14:10.599 but you know, i'd have to imagine margins are a 0:14:11.160 --> 0:14:16.000 pretty big issue there. So outside of driving traffic, outside 0:14:16.040 --> 0:14:20.080 of selling more pizzas which are very margin friendly, are 0:14:20.120 --> 0:14:22.680 what's in your plans to help expand margins this year? 0:14:22.960 --> 0:14:26.720 Yeah? Look, if you look at us, you know last year, 0:14:26.800 --> 0:14:29.640 I mean we expanded margin last year over one hundred 0:14:29.680 --> 0:14:32.440 basis points, right, I mean we I think we're on 0:14:32.480 --> 0:14:35.400 a good trajectory. We have more sales coming into the 0:14:35.400 --> 0:14:38.000 business and more profit dollars coming out of the business 0:14:38.440 --> 0:14:41.080 than ever before. And you know, ultimately I take profit 0:14:41.160 --> 0:14:48.200 dollars to the bank. We see again headroom off of 0:14:48.240 --> 0:14:50.960 the things that we've been doing. So I mean obviously 0:14:51.000 --> 0:14:53.320 sales and traffic. Right, if you don't have sales and traffic, 0:14:53.480 --> 0:14:56.440 you know, that's a key to the leverage all of 0:14:56.480 --> 0:14:59.320 the simplification work that we've been doing, and focus on 0:14:59.400 --> 0:15:03.240 operating BET restaurants that has headroom, like we haven't rung 0:15:03.320 --> 0:15:06.960 the towel dry on those things. And then as we 0:15:07.080 --> 0:15:10.040 continue to look ahead a little further out, we're starting 0:15:10.080 --> 0:15:13.840 to get into how we can leverage technology more effectively 0:15:13.920 --> 0:15:16.520 to help us be more efficient and effective. So you 0:15:16.560 --> 0:15:18.560 may have heard me talk a little bit about the 0:15:18.640 --> 0:15:22.320 activity based labor model, which is based off of AI forecasting. 0:15:22.880 --> 0:15:25.520 That's at about thirty percent of our restaurants right now. 0:15:26.440 --> 0:15:31.160 The real KPIs for that for me are about guess satisfaction, Right, 0:15:31.200 --> 0:15:32.720 do I have the right people in the right place 0:15:32.720 --> 0:15:35.720 at the right time to drive a better experience? And 0:15:36.080 --> 0:15:38.600 you know, I'm seeing encouraging results across those with the 0:15:38.640 --> 0:15:40.960 biggest one in pace, which is where I'd want to 0:15:41.000 --> 0:15:44.680 see it. It does suggest we can save a few 0:15:44.720 --> 0:15:48.520 hours collectively, it says we need more hours in our 0:15:48.560 --> 0:15:51.240 peak times and less hours and kind of the shoulders 0:15:51.280 --> 0:15:54.480 and beyond. So we see expanding that over the course 0:15:54.520 --> 0:15:56.680 of the year. And then you start to think about 0:15:56.720 --> 0:16:00.640 the other use cases. Right, So, coming off of labor scheduling, 0:16:00.680 --> 0:16:03.600 once that's embedded, you start to think about how can 0:16:03.800 --> 0:16:06.640 great forecasting help you with prep which helps again with 0:16:06.720 --> 0:16:09.440 waste and cost of sales, and how does that then 0:16:09.520 --> 0:16:12.320 help you order? So I see this as kind of 0:16:12.360 --> 0:16:17.040 a multi year project on helping to tune kind of 0:16:17.080 --> 0:16:20.520 the engine of the business more effectively inefficient. 0:16:20.480 --> 0:16:24.040 All right, Great, is your new unit prototype ready for primetime? 0:16:24.280 --> 0:16:26.640 Well, yeah, I'm super excited about the design and I'm 0:16:26.680 --> 0:16:30.480 super excited about the way we've we've constructed it. Because 0:16:31.040 --> 0:16:33.880 we've constructed it as I feel like we're really clear 0:16:34.000 --> 0:16:38.280 on what are kind of our brand anchors and standards 0:16:38.360 --> 0:16:40.960 and how we want to BJ's to look and feel, 0:16:41.480 --> 0:16:44.240 and we've been really conscious about saying, can we apply 0:16:44.400 --> 0:16:50.080 that kind of flexibly to different formats, different sizes, different 0:16:50.080 --> 0:16:53.880 shapes to open up our ability to do everything from 0:16:54.360 --> 0:16:57.560 you know, a traditional ground up prototype, you know, to 0:16:57.680 --> 0:17:01.680 a conversion to potentially unit that isn't as big as 0:17:01.680 --> 0:17:04.600 a traditional BJS but still has all the same feeling 0:17:05.760 --> 0:17:08.280 if the market is appropriate for that. So, you know, 0:17:08.320 --> 0:17:11.200 our first two will be in market at the end 0:17:11.200 --> 0:17:13.879 of this year. But really excited about obviously what I've 0:17:13.920 --> 0:17:16.000 seen on paper and what we're working with in architects 0:17:16.080 --> 0:17:19.200 and what we're seeing. But you know that proof will 0:17:19.200 --> 0:17:21.040 be in market towards the end of this year and 0:17:21.080 --> 0:17:26.119 then continuing to be piloted and kind of tweaked and 0:17:27.160 --> 0:17:29.000 refined into twenty twenty seven. 0:17:29.680 --> 0:17:32.800 Great, and do you have any targeted unit economics that 0:17:32.840 --> 0:17:33.919 you're willing to share. 0:17:34.359 --> 0:17:38.200 I don't think I have talked about that publicly outside 0:17:38.240 --> 0:17:40.400 of the fact that you know, as we're thinking about 0:17:40.960 --> 0:17:44.879 kind of our IRR right, we obviously want that to 0:17:45.320 --> 0:17:49.120 outpace our cost of capital, and so you know, we're 0:17:49.160 --> 0:17:52.760 targeting mid to upper teams as we get into market 0:17:52.800 --> 0:17:54.119 and continue to improve that. 0:17:54.600 --> 0:17:58.920 Fair enough, what's the alcohol mix and have you seen 0:17:58.960 --> 0:18:03.800 any change? You know, a lot of your competitors obviously 0:18:03.840 --> 0:18:07.320 are moving into mocktails and things of that nature. So 0:18:07.400 --> 0:18:09.159 if you could just talk about, you know, where the 0:18:09.200 --> 0:18:11.800 mix is now and I guess maybe where it's come 0:18:11.840 --> 0:18:13.240 from in the last couple of years. 0:18:13.720 --> 0:18:17.679 Yeah, I mean it's a fascinating you know, part of 0:18:17.720 --> 0:18:22.080 the business and just generally in society, how the idea 0:18:22.080 --> 0:18:25.880 of social drinking has evolved and what people are drinking 0:18:25.920 --> 0:18:29.360 when they hang out, and that's evolving off and on premise. 0:18:29.840 --> 0:18:34.200 From our business, we have seen a bit of contraction 0:18:34.400 --> 0:18:37.920 there when we look at our mix. Our mix is 0:18:37.960 --> 0:18:41.440 in like the mid teens when you take beer, alcohol 0:18:41.600 --> 0:18:44.840 and wine together. I think the interesting part about it, 0:18:44.920 --> 0:18:47.159 that's sales mix, right. The interesting part about it is 0:18:47.200 --> 0:18:50.240 when you look at the amount of checks that it's 0:18:50.240 --> 0:18:52.840 attached to is you get check mix, right, and we 0:18:52.920 --> 0:18:56.280 have alcoholic beverages attached to a little over fifty percent 0:18:56.280 --> 0:18:59.639 of our checks. So what that tells me, right, is 0:18:59.680 --> 0:19:04.040 that the you know, alcoholic beverage is still critical and 0:19:04.080 --> 0:19:07.240 it's a critical component to that social kind of splurge 0:19:07.240 --> 0:19:12.000 occasion that we've positioned ourselves in now. The components of 0:19:12.080 --> 0:19:14.480 the table if it's a group of four maybe in 0:19:14.520 --> 0:19:17.720 the past where three people are having a drink, maybe 0:19:17.760 --> 0:19:20.120 two people are having an alcoholic drink, and two people 0:19:20.160 --> 0:19:23.800 are having a non out. Maybe somebody's having less than 0:19:23.800 --> 0:19:27.040 they used to have. So you know, this dynamic of 0:19:27.080 --> 0:19:31.320 how total beverage grows is really what we're thinking about, right, 0:19:31.359 --> 0:19:34.639 How do we drive total beverage versus kind of just 0:19:34.680 --> 0:19:38.359 thinking about ALC and NA beverage is two separate things. 0:19:38.359 --> 0:19:41.080 We're trying to think about it as social drinking and 0:19:41.119 --> 0:19:42.040 how do we enable that. 0:19:42.480 --> 0:19:46.720 Yeah, it's really interesting man, the impact of the younger 0:19:46.760 --> 0:19:49.560 generations and GLP ones. And if you told me five 0:19:49.640 --> 0:19:53.120 years ago that Texas Roadhouse was going to start selling mocktails, 0:19:53.240 --> 0:19:54.880 I would have looked at you funny, you know. 0:19:55.440 --> 0:19:59.080 Yeah, yeah, I mean we're all looking at it these days. 0:19:59.119 --> 0:20:01.679 And you know we have we have mocktails, we have 0:20:01.840 --> 0:20:06.560 na beverages. You know, it's interesting to see what translates 0:20:06.600 --> 0:20:08.760 from off to on, you know what I mean. Like 0:20:09.560 --> 0:20:14.280 for years in the alcohol industry, right, like hard seltzers 0:20:14.320 --> 0:20:17.400 were driving all of the growth in off premise, those 0:20:17.520 --> 0:20:21.760 never effectively translated into on premise, right. So you know, 0:20:21.960 --> 0:20:25.680 as you continue to experiment and kind of test and learn, 0:20:26.080 --> 0:20:29.879 what of those trends translate and what are people looking 0:20:29.920 --> 0:20:32.480 for in an on premise social experience? 0:20:32.800 --> 0:20:36.080 For sure? How confident are you in the company site 0:20:36.080 --> 0:20:37.040 selection process? 0:20:37.720 --> 0:20:39.680 I feel really good about it. I mean what we 0:20:39.720 --> 0:20:42.600 did when we came in obviously we paused, you know, 0:20:43.400 --> 0:20:45.680 unit growth for a minute, and we kind of did 0:20:45.840 --> 0:20:48.359 two pieces of work. The first piece of work was 0:20:49.000 --> 0:20:51.280 in analysis on our remodels, and we were looking at 0:20:51.320 --> 0:20:54.800 our remodel program and said, are we comfortable that we're 0:20:54.920 --> 0:20:58.800 clear on what makes a difference in our remodels And 0:20:58.920 --> 0:21:01.520 we felt comfortable that, and as you've seen, we've leaned 0:21:01.520 --> 0:21:04.719 into the remodel program and we feel good about that. 0:21:05.280 --> 0:21:07.520 On the back end of that, what we did is 0:21:07.560 --> 0:21:11.720 we said, okay, let's look at our new unit growth 0:21:11.760 --> 0:21:14.879 and our nros and say how do we feel about 0:21:14.920 --> 0:21:18.439 that and where we're putting them, and getting confident with 0:21:18.480 --> 0:21:21.320 that as we go back to build pipeline. And to 0:21:21.359 --> 0:21:24.560 be honest, I think the biggest thing for us is, 0:21:25.960 --> 0:21:30.040 in my opinion, about geographical selection, right. I think the 0:21:30.119 --> 0:21:34.080 company had spent a fair bit of time in recent 0:21:34.240 --> 0:21:38.840 years greenfield, and I think it was in the process 0:21:38.840 --> 0:21:41.920 of saying, Okay, BJ's works everywhere. Well, I think we're 0:21:41.960 --> 0:21:45.480 clear BJS can work everywhere, and so now what I'm 0:21:45.520 --> 0:21:49.800 looking at is how do I fill in where we 0:21:50.320 --> 0:21:53.680